There’s
no accounting for taste. How true this is in the world of architecture!
Read two reviews and it may be difficult to tell that the two are even
about the same building or project.
There is increasing debate over public places and who determines what
should exist in them. Is a public building created through democratic
process? If so, will this not ultimately stifle creativity? What about
the owner or developer – what is the economics involved? Where
is the compromise and should there be a compromise?
Our most public example of this debate lately of course is the rebuilding
of the WTC site in Manhattan. Who actually should have control - The ‘public’,
the developers, the chosen designer, the government, those who lost
loved ones (and each of these groups can be broken down into even more
groups)? Everyone has a valid claim to a stake in the process but the
politics of how it all plays out is an amazing process.
Less universally public, more local versions of similar debates are
raging in cities and communities across the country. Proponents and
opponents of more (or less) government control, and of more (or less)
public input are flinging verbal arrows back and forth at each other.
A recent case study by Shannon Mattern, published in the Journal of
Architectural Education, documents the process of the building of Seattle’s
new Public Library, designed by Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas. While
many public meetings were held, most people who attended them felt
strongly that they were not heard.
In an article in the Washington Post in November, Roger K. Lewis,
an architect and University of Maryland Professor, states “Aspiring
to a singular, visionary design by a creative architect inevitably
conflicts with the desire for democratically generated design by public
consensus, a public with diverse wishes and tastes.”
Lewis also points out that the days when architects “could design
and build projects needing little more than the blessings and funds
of their clients” are gone. “Involving the public in the
design process has become a necessity. The challenge is to find a meaningful
and appropriate way to ensure such involvement without compromising
the integrity of a compelling and perhaps controversial architectural
concept.”
He continues, “One may justifiably criticize Koolhaas and the
Seattle library officials for their aggressive architectural vision,
and perhaps for being disingenuous in how they responded to public
opinion. But to have designed a building by referendum would have been
a much greater sin. “ Mattern quotes James Bush writing in a
local Seattle paper: “ Hiring Koolhaas and getting angry over
his conceptual model is a bit like hiring McDonald’s to cater
your party and being annoyed when they serve hamburgers.”
One thing about aesthetics is that tastes certainly do change over
time. Some of our most loved artists barely eeked out a living and
only became famous posthumously. In architecture, one critic called
the Golden Gate Bridge an ‘eye-sore’ when it was first
built. Maupassant called the Eiffel tower ‘useless and monstrous.’ Time
will ultimately tell.
Our diversity of opinions may be both our blessing and our bane, but
we our fortunate that we have the freedom to express them and to debate
with whosoever might disagree. Perhaps we can take heart that interesting
architecture is once more in the forefront of public consciousness.
Whatever the ultimate result, we all have a front row seat at the evolving
developments in lower Manhattan.
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