In New York City, where restaurants last an average of two years and seldom more than seven, a dining establishment that survives for half a century might seem a culinary Methuselah.
Curating Wright The Wright show disappoints in other ways, too. There’s no sense of a governing critical intelligence. The exhibition is simply a haphazard attic of Wrightiana, certainly fascinating for Wright buffs, but lacking a clear point of view. The title is the giveaway: Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. The idea is that Wright designed his buildings by first planning the interior spaces, and only then shaping the exterior appearance around them. Well, sure he did, but so what? This is a tired cliché, not a stirring theme for a new exhibition. It’s an idea for an old-fashioned show
The idea that inspired Lincoln Center began during the Roaring 20s, when John D. Rockefeller, Jr. — pious and penitent son of the rascally robber baron — hoovered up blocks of Midtown Manhattan for a state-of-the-art Metropolitan Opera House.
Not long ago, a small midblock building was demolished not far from my office in SoHo. The excision was a revelation. Because of a sequence of low buildings in succeeding blocks, it was suddenly possible to look through a remarkable cut in the city that reconfigured the backs of buildings with their principal facades on the avenues into a long series of fronts. The space is like none other in New York in its proportions and architectonic character, the elegant austerity of the backs of buildings with ornamented facades making a place both lyrical and tough. Looking at it, it’s
The end state of this project will be seriously constrained by its failure to “capitalize” on the spatial possibilities opened up by its strong relationship to transportation and its rare anything-possible beginning state. And although all the actors involved diligently tithe the idea of a mixed-use, green, and design-intensive neighborhood, they all claim to be powerless to achieve anything beyond the alleged market constraints and planning default. Nevertheless, the D.C. planning department—which now has unusually enlightened leadership—continues to struggle to retrofit the unbuilt project with decent streetscapes and a set of secondary uses beyond mere retail. Stay tuned. Renderings Courtesy
There are a number of Campbell’s Laws of Architecture; they tend to take the form of paradoxes. Campbell’s First Law, for example, states: “The faster the means of transportation in any society, the larger will be the portion of the average citizen’s life that is spent in getting from one place to another.” Photo ' Bettmann/Corbis The Moors built the Alhambra in Granada as they were losing control of Spain to the Christians. Peasant’s walk to the fields? Twenty minutes. Commute from the suburbs? Fifty minutes. Plane to the coast? Six hours. Rocket to the moon? Four days. As the
The Third Law isn’t nearly as universal as the first two, but it does suggest some possibilities. One thinks, for example, of the magnificent railroad stations that were built as late as the 1930s in far-flung American cities like Buffalo and Cincinnati, just as rail was, you’d think predictably, about to give way to the car and the plane. Or think of the imperial architecture of Britain, in London and New Delhi, as the Empire began to weaken in the early years of the 20th century. Photo ' Jeff Goldberg/Esto Polshek's Newseum opened as newspapers face threats to their survival.
I’m baffled by people who dismiss whole categories of things. Two decades ago, I was summoned to the office of House & Garden’s new editor in chief, Anna Wintour, and saw my dumbfounded expression reflected in her sunglasses as she declared, “I don’t like adjectives. You use too many adjectives. That’s all.” How can you eliminate a major part of speech, I wondered? Did she realize that her ultimate accolade — “It’s so modern” — is one-third adjective? But now I confess complete antipathy to an entire building type: the visitor center. Photos ' Paul Warchol The Capitol Visitor Center
My misgivings about “interpretive” interventions in historic precincts grew during a 2003 trip to see a trio of additions at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Liberty Bell Center; Kallmann, McKinnel & Wood’s Independence Visitor Center; and Pei Cobb Freed’s National Constitution Center. I’ve admired work by each of those partnerships elsewhere, but at Independence Mall, all three seemed badly miscast, particularly Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Perhaps they were intimidated by the setting’s gravitas, or were persuaded to abandon their woodsy post-and-beam manner for a less congenial mix of masonry and metal. Whatever the reason, inside their new shelter
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