Autocracy vs Democracy: Who has the better architecture?

[BTinSF]

Informed Reader
January 25, 2008; Page B6
DESIGN

Autocracies Free Architecture, if Little Else

• CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER -- FEBRUARY

Some of the most interesting building projects in recent years have emerged in autocratic societies, a trend that might make fans of architecture, and democracy, uneasy.

Dictators and sheiks often give architects carte blanche to pursue extravagant, bold projects. In freer societies, on the other hand, architects have to grapple with all sorts of civic constraints -- historical-preservation groups, environmentalists and legislators who question budgets.

Star architects Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel have effused about the ability to work without restraints on their plans for a cultural center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Shanghai will soon boast the completion of Rem Koolhaas's groundbreaking China Central Television Tower. In New York, meanwhile, Ground Zero's reconstruction has been delayed and aesthetically watered down as factions jockey for position.

As city dwellers in the West observe the creative building boom in the Middle East and Asia, a sense of nostalgia seems to be emerging for the times when architects could build with similar abandon, says critic Christopher Hawthorne. Robert Moses in New York in the 20th century and Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann in Paris in the 19th century once were viewed as villains for their massive urban-renewal projects. Now, their initiatives are celebrated in exhibits and books.

But democratic architecture does have one crucial thing going for it. It allows for the mess and chaos from which the best city neighborhoods around the world draw their energy. Architectural projects developed without public input often lack that energy. Instead, they have the same dreamland quality as Disneyland -- "not a place in which to grapple with the complexities of contemporary cities," says Mr. Hawthorne, "but to leave them behind."

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120123850891716581.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

This kind of sums up my view of places like Dubai very nicely--a view I couldn't quite put into words before. But when I look at photos of such places, they don't look quite like the sort of cities I want to live in--places like New York and London. There are grand avenues and public spaces, devoid of pedestrians for the most part. And the architecture too often does not seem made for human occupation.