The CIVITAS Chronicles

Like Somali pirates marauding on the high seas, architecture critics have captured the word “modern.” They reserve its use to honor architects who design in styles approved by the architectural establishment. This egregious use of “modern” has now been insinuated into Wikipedia. Enter the term “Modern Architecture” into Google and the first listing is Wikipedia’s entry that describes a simplified form of design without ornament – and illustrates “modern architecture” with the 1958 Seagram Building!

It’s time for New Traditionalists to rise up and take back the word. According to the first dictionary definition, “modern” merely means “of or relating to recent times or the present.” It’s a time-dependent word; no style or value judgment is attached. Thus, any new building by definition is modern architecture. However, architecture critics have deliberately – and erroneously - conflated “modern” and “Modernist.” As a result, only a radical-looking new building is called “modern architecture” – with the clear implication that it’s also “good.”

However, a new building in traditional style will never be called “modern” by the critics, even though it is of our present time. Critics reserve terms like “pastiche,” “bland,” “Disneyesque,” “derivative,” “old fashioned,” “nostalgic,” etc. for traditionally inspired new buildings. Critics would rather donate a kidney than concede that Allan Greenberg, David M. Schwarz, Marc Appleton and hundreds of other similarly inspired architects create “modern architecture.”

Inside-the-box thinking exhibited by architecture critics is rooted in the historical determinism that is a central tenet of Modernist ideology. This dogma asserts that Modernism is the inevitable, inexorable result of “progress.” Anything that looks back in time for guidance or inspiration is therefore retrograde, decadent and contrary to the dictates of history. Thus, it couldn’t be “modern.”

Rather than dispute that philosophic point here, on purely semantic grounds I challenge the Modernists’ seizure of the adjective “modern” for their exclusive use. Their expropriation is quite ironical, because Modernism is now almost 100 years old – and qualifies as a historical style. The current renewed interest in Modernism can be called a historical revival, just like the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and Classical Revival.

A new building by Rem Koolhaas is modern architecture. But so is a new building by Robert A.M. Stern. When it comes to use of the word “modern,” contemporary traditional architects have the right to demand equal time!

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It’s obvious that trustees of most museums and other cultural institutions are bedazzled by the idea of “starchitecture.” When commissioning new buildings, they don’t merely want a structure to house the functions of their institutions. Their primary desire is for a sculptural edifice that will attract acclaim from architecture critics and “buzz” in the popular press.

What these institutional trustees don’t realize is that many of these “cutting edge” buildings by brand-name architects come with major unanticipated costs. The latest example is in Denver, where Daniel Libeskind’s radically designed new pavilion for the Denver Art Museum is undergoing a major re-roofing because of leaks it’s had ever since it opened in 2006. The building’s official construction cost was $110 million – but that doesn’t include the price of replacing much of the leaky roof. No one is saying how much the massive roof repairs will cost – nor who is going to pay for them.

Another well-publicized example is the lawsuit MIT filed against architect Frank Gehry and the building contractor for MIT’s new Stata Center, which is full of dizzying angles. The suit alleges that deficient design services and drawings caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, drainage to back up and falling ice and debris to block emergency exits.

And at Harvard, modernist Otto Hall, opened just 19 years ago, is slated for demolition because its exterior walls have deteriorated so badly that Harvard says it’s cheaper to tear it down and start over.

The question here is not who is going to pay to correct these building defects? Rather, the real question is: Why is anyone surprised these buildings have problems? Institutional clients have set themselves up to incur these extra costs by becoming mesmerized by what former Boston University president John Silber has called “the architecture of the absurd.” Problems with radically designed “absurd” buildings are common enough that it has given rise to the aphorism: “All prize-awarded buildings have multiple defects.” Yet despite this track record, clients profess to be shocked and irate when their “cutting edge” buildings require extensive, expensive repairs.

Advocates of traditional architecture have always pointed out that traditional design is more likely to produce successful outcomes because it is based on generations of experience about what actually works. The more iconoclastic a design becomes, the more the architect has to invent untested building details. As the designer piles on convoluted geometry, new materials of construction, innovative mechanical systems, custom-fabricated components, etc., the chances of unanticipated consequences increase exponentially.

Paradoxically, computer design seems to have compounded the problem. Sophisticated software now gives architects the confidence they can design anything. A building with convoluted twists, turns and angles works just fine inside a computer. However, it doesn’t rain inside computers.

The moral for institutional clients is clear: If you want your starchitect to produce a never-seen-before extreme design, just make sure your trustees and donors have extra-deep pockets. Because you’ll have to pay to erect the building – and then pay to fix it afterwards.

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The collapse of a development project for New London’s Fort Trumbull area, combined with Pfizer’s plans to skip town, has provided a fitting climax to a landmark eminent domain case that caused dismay across the U.S. And it may have taught New London’s power brokers to be wary of developers bearing promises.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed in a 5-4 decision that the city of New London, CT, should be allowed to seize the homes of Susette Kelo and 89 other homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood to make way for a private development project. The developer promised a $75 million complex including a hotel, office buildings, retail shops and restaurants. The developer also pledged 3,000 jobs and $1.2 million per year in tax revenues. The economic benefits promised were sufficient, the majority of the justices declared, to qualify the private development as a “public good” – and thus justified the taking of individuals’ homes.

The project was to be part of New London’s efforts to spruce up the area for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had agreed to construct a $300 million research operation adjacent to Fort Trumbull. In return for building the new facility, Pfizer was granted an 80% real estate tax abatement for 10 years.

After winning its eminent domain case, the city of New London speedily bulldozed the 90 homes, creating a huge vacant tract. Then the city waited for the developer to start fulfilling his promises. They waited . . . and waited.

In the meantime, people of all political persuasions – conservative and liberal – were outraged at the Supreme Court’s “Kelo” decision, allowing a governmental body to seize private property to benefit a private developer. As a result, since the “Kelo” decision, 43 states have passed laws placing limits on the use of eminent domain for private economic development.

However, a few states – like New York – have welcomed the ability to harness the awesome power of eminent domain to foster private development projects. New York is currently attempting to use the same stratagem for the Atlantic Yards and Willets Point projects.

Ironically, the city of New London won in court but lost on the ground. The private developer never did get his project financed. And with the bursting of the real estate bubble, it is unlikely the project will be revived anytime soon. Adding insult to injury, Pfizer recently announced that it’s shutting down its New London research center and moving 1,400 jobs out of town – just as the tax abatement runs out.

So all that New London has to show for its years of effort and expenditure of taxpayers’ money is a vast wasteland: No housing, no jobs, no taxes, no neighborhood – just vacant lots and weeds.

But maybe all is not lost for New London. Having invested great sums on legal fees to win its infamous “Kelo” judgment, perhaps New London can now collect royalties from other governmental bodies that want to use that dubious precedent to seize private property to benefit smooth-talking developers peddling pipe dreams!

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On Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus in New York City, a building is nearing completion that only Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will love. Salazar will love it because he has to: The new building conforms to his Rehabilitation Standard #9, which decrees that “new work shall be differentiated from the old.” Everyone will agree this building is “clearly differentiated” from its neighbors. But that’s where agreement ends.

The building in question is Columbia’s new $200 million interdisciplinary science building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Spanish starchitect José Rafael Moneo. But it’s a building few people will love. The structure is likely to disappoint Modernist proponents, who are always looking for ever-more-radical designs. And it certainly has already incensed traditionalists like me who believe new construction in historic settings should be harmonious with existing urban fabric.

Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, had three objectives for this new science building, declaring: “This had to be great architecture in itself.” He also added: “I wanted it to be daring, and I wanted it to be by a major architect.” Well, he’s batting .333 on these criteria: It’s not great architecture, it’s not daring but it is by a brand-name architect.

Modernist architecture critics will surely find the building boring. There is little “daring” about it. If the building were dropped into midtown Manhattan it would be quite unremarkable; it shares architectural DNA with hundreds of similar glass-and-aluminum towers erected since 1960. Ironically, if Moneo’s new building was sited amongst the tall office buildings of New York, it would be in a compatible context and would arouse no complaints from traditional urbanists.

However, Moneo’s new Columbia building is flanked by older, classically informed masonry structures designed by McKim, Mead & White. Moneo’s design assumes an adversarial attitude toward the surrounding buildings, and the otherwise bland new facility derives its impact only from its glaring contrast in materials, scale and lack of character-defining ornament compared to its classical neighbors. The building comes off as “daring” only by thumbing its nose at the nearby McKim buildings.

Moneo’s structure is simply a bad neighbor. The dignity and gravitas of McKim’s earlier construction established the tone for the surrounding campus. Moneo’s new design is like a rude stranger who moves in next door and plays loud rap music 24 hours a day on a boom box. Rudeness does garner attention, but it undermines civility.

Steven Semes’ new book, The Future of the Past, lays bare the fallacy of “clear differentiation” and makes a persuasive case for maintaining design coherence in historic urban fabric. One wishes Lee Bollinger and José Rafael Moneo had read Semes’s book before setting out on this ill-conceived project.

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Because I’ve gotten a reputation for being extremely cranky about contemporary design, it’s delightful to find a modern building I can actually rave about.

Kroon Hall, the new home for Yale University’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, is an all-too-rare combination of state-of-the-art sustainable design with good architectural citizenship. Designed by the British firm Hopkins Architects with Centerbrook Architects and Planners, Centerbrook, CT, the building is intended to be a showcase of green features that minimize its carbon footprint and also to provide a real-world demonstration of lessons being taught at the school.

But while achieving this primary goal, the architects kept in mind the people who use and pass by the building every day. As a result, Kroon Hall is attracting as much attention for its aesthetics and human-friendly elements as for its green technology. Faculty and students enthuse about how attractive and welcoming the place is for both work and study.

The building’s advanced technology includes solar photovoltaic panels, geothermal wells for heating and cooling, displacement air systems, a green roof, a rainwater harvesting system and cleansing pond and recycled and sustainable building materials. The building also incorporates a lot of traditional – but often neglected – energy-saving features such as generous use of natural daylight and ventilation, stone and concrete masses to help regulate and retain heat and wooden sun screens.

The architects expect Kroon will be responsible for 62% less greenhouse gases than an equivalent conventional building. The school will buy offsets to cover the rest and make the building effectively carbon-neutral. Yale is seeking a LEED Platinum Rating for the building from the U. S. Green Building Council.

Great care was taken to integrate the building with its surroundings – both natural and man made. Kroon Hall forms two new courtyards, reintroducing Yale’s historic collegiate urban fabric to Science Hill. The bottom floor has classrooms and a library that lead out to the lower courtyard. Loading docks previously on the site were reorganized underground, beneath a courtyard, and a walkway that formerly led nowhere now takes pedestrians through the courtyard and up Science Hill.

The designers of Kroon Hall were sufficiently self assured so they didn’t feel the need to create a starchitect-style “sculpture as building” or to flaunt the building’s technology. The architects designed a new facility that is people friendly as well as earth friendly. Wouldn’t it be nice if all new “sustainable design” were similarly humane?

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Looking at the new Cooper Union building for its school of engineering (photo) made me realize one reason why the U.S. is losing its position as world technology leader. Engineers should be rational, analytical and, above all, clear thinkers. In other words, left-brainers. The new Cooper Union building was definitely made by and for right-brainers.

The concept of right-brain and left-brain thinking developed from research in the late 1960s by American Nobel Prize-winning psychobiologist Roger W Sperry. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. One (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive way, looking first at the whole picture then filling in details. The other (the left brain) processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces, then putting them together to get the whole. The archetypical creative artist is a right-brainer.

It strikes me that the right-brain/left-brain model is an interesting way to look at architectural design. New traditionalism (left brain) takes historic precedent as a starting point and adapts and evolves new forms from there. Neo-Modernism (right brain) involves a never-ending intuitive quest for visual novelty, rejecting all precedent. The most damning thing an architectural critic can say of a neo-Modernist building is: “I’ve seen that before.”

The new Cooper Union building was designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis, and the structure fits very nicely into the “sculpture as building” category that characterizes much of today’s starchitecture. Frank Gehry also designed a sculpture-building for Case Western Reserve’s Management School (photo). But if we grant Winston Churchill’s proposition–“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us”–then I fear these two buildings will be turning out some pretty weird-thinking engineers and managers.

Of course, some people are delighted by these sculpture-buildings. One of the Case Western management professors praised the Gehry building because it will teach students “to strive for a kind of design that has no final goals beyond that of leaving more possibilities open to future generations than we ourselves have inherited.” To me, such a pronouncement is an inchoate assemblage of buzz words, lacking clarity and precision, thus providing intellectual cover for a wide range of sloppy thinking. It’s just the kind of fuzzy reasoning that one fears buildings like this will engender.

The left-brain/right-brain model of design methodology goes beyond mere issues of style and highlights instead how a designer thinks and approaches problem solving. Where functionality, durability, cost and life-safety issues are dominant, I personally want a left-brainer heading the project. And I certainly don’t want to fly in any airplanes designed by a Cooper Union engineer!

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A recent news item made me realize that the Holy Grail for many of today’s “starchitects” is to design a building so convoluted that no one can possibly build it. And we’re getting closer to realizing that “impossible dream.”

Raves in the architectural press are already starting to appear for Rome’s new National Museum of the XXI Century Arts (called MAXXI for short). Designed by architect Zaha Hadid, the structure is everything you’d expect a contemporary art museum to be: monumental sculpture pretending to be a building.

Architectural writer Cathryn Drake (who likes the building) describes it this way in Metropolis magazine: “It is massive in scale and has drunken, fragmented spaces: slanted walls, dizzying elevations, unevenly staggered staircases, steep skateboard-worthy ramps, and extreme cantilevers with precipitous views.” Imagine what the people who don’t like the building are saying!

What struck me even more was the quote in the same article from Federico Croci, head of the firm that had to build MAXXI: “It took us months just to understand the shape. What you see is not what it seems. It looks like all one piece, but there are joints everywhere, structures tilting out, and you don’t understand what is supporting what. It behaves more like a bridge than a building.”

After reading the above, would anyone be surprised to learn that the building (scheduled now to open early in 2010) is already four years behind schedule and $28 million over budget?

But wait – there’s more. Some of us are naïve enough to believe that an art museum should serve the needs of the museum’s curators and its collections. But apparently I have it backwards. Here’s a statement from architect Paolo Colombo, who oversaw the MAXII project until 2007, in dismissing criticism that the building makes it too hard to display art: “As a curator, you have to design the show according to the space you have and build the collection to suit the space.” In other words, curators are now expected to be servants to the building.

Cynics might say this project is just another case of architectural hubris. Designing a building that is deliberately a puzzle for both the people who build it and the people who use it is especially ironic when it occurs in Vitruvius’s hometown. Rome’s tastemakers have declared that the Vitruvian virtues of firmitas, utilitas, venustas are now dead. Buildings such as MAXXI are not the product of logical left-brain rational analysis, but rather a right-brain creative hallucination. Irrational processes can create imaginative sculptures, but should such processes also be applied to building design?

On second thought, perhaps this irrational building is the perfect symbol for our time. We live in an irrational era, a time when opinion carries as much weight as fact and fervently held beliefs substitute for reason. And the starchitects’ ludicrous buildings certainly please the architectural critics who are consumed by a never-ending lust for novelty.

However, when the ultimate goal is achieved, and a designer finally comes up with a building that is too contorted to build, will the critics blame the architect – or instead seek to repeal the laws of physics?

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Add Prince Charles to the list of those who’ve been bushwhacked by “of our time” ideologues. The Prince has resigned from Britain’s venerable Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings after a blowup involving restoration of historic architecture.

Trouble began when the Society, which was founded by William Morris in 1877, decided to publish a handbook on restoration of old houses. The Society asked its longtime royal patron, the Prince of Wales, to write a foreword. And so he did.

However, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings – despite its title – is committed to employing Modernist design in restoration projects. Consequently, its new handbook advocates using “modern” design and materials – especially in additions. But the Prince of Wales, true to his beliefs, turned in a foreword that contained a paragraph with his view that it’s preferable to restore and add onto old buildings in the original style.

The Society’s leadership had a royal cow when they read what the Prince had written! They asked for the offending paragraph to be changed, but Charles said they could use the piece as written, or refuse it entirely. The Society chose to reject the piece – an unprecedented insult to a royal patron. The Prince, in response to being censored, terminated his connection to the society.

Three cheers for Prince Charles! He believes the injunction to use “modern” design and materials is all too often used to justify totally insensitive additions to old buildings. A lot of us in the U.S. believe the same.

Many American architects have had additions to historic buildings rejected by preservation commissions if the addition too closely resembles the style of the original structure. That’s because many commissions narrowly apply the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, which urges that new additions be “clearly differentiated” from the original building. To be safe, many commissions insist that additions be Modernist in style to make sure the new work is “clearly differentiated” and “of our time.”

The philosophical fallacy behind the “of our time” standard was exposed most recently by Steven Semes in Traditional Building, Feb. 2009. Semes – and others – have shown that the prejudice for Modernist additions has its intellectual roots in the Venice Charter of 1964 – which was written by Modernist-trained architects. The Charter declared that additions to historic monuments “must be distinct from the architectural composition and must bear a contemporary stamp.” And, of course, Modernist-trained architects interpret “contemporary” to mean “Modernist.”

Most design review boards and preservation commissions have adopted this fallacious assumption as holy writ. The unfortunate result has been many ludicrous additions to old buildings across the country – a triumph of ideology over aesthetics.

Sentiment is growing to revise the Secretary of Interior’s Standards with respect to additions to old buildings. In the meantime, The Prince Of Wales Foundation should sponsor a Steve Semes lecture on the “of our time” fallacy at the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings!

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Modernist architects once again are trying to sell hard-edged houses to the American public. A new home plan service called Hometta has been set up to offer “modern homes for the masses.” Hometta is a collaboration of several architectural studios whose goal is to provide “small, sleek, sustainable, affordable house plans for middle-class buyers.” Few would quibble with the goals of “small” or “affordable” or “sustainable.” Whether the market will applaud their version of “sleek” and “modern” remains to be seen.

Hometta is reacting to what they see as an appalling lack of quality in today’s off-the-shelf house plans. Many will agree (including me) that the average mail-order home plan is overly large and dreadfully designed. While clumsily executed, however, most of today’s home plans offer traditional details like gables, bays and porches – because experience has shown that’s what buyers want.

The Hometta architects, however, assert that their hard-edged Modernist home plans offer greater design sophistication and will improve the look of the American built environment. I beg to differ. The Modernist plans being offered by Hometta come from a world view that worships technology and the machine (see Binary House photo). The sharp edges of this type of house make it look literally like Le Corbusier’s ideal “machine for living in.”

Up to now, the vast majority of Americans have shown they don’t want to live in machines. They regard their homes as a symbol of what they value and how they feel about their surroundings. And most of us want houses that provide the emotional comfort of a visible connection to tradition and the hand of the craftsman.

Ironically, the Katrina Cottage designed by Steve Mouzon (see photo) offers the emotional reassurance of traditional architecture — but is actually the product of technology and the machine. The cottage is a low-cost modular house designed to be “small, affordable and sustainable.” But rather than an in-your-face declaration of machine-love like the Binary House, the Katrina Cottage offers the softer outlines of traditional architecture and conveys the aura of hand-built houses.

There certainly will be buyers who will choose Modernist Hometta designs precisely because they look different from the traditional architecture that most people desire. But given a choice, I prefer the gentle embrace of Katrina Cottage!

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There are two possible explanations when you see dragons flying through the air. Either you’ve imbibed too many gin-and-tonics, or you’ve been strolling in the Brooklyn Museum’s architectural sculpture garden. (Mine was the latter case – I swear!) On the day in question, the flying dragon was one of the pieces of architectural sculpture being relocated as part of a museum renovation project.

The museum’s architectural sculpture garden always thrills me because it’s a physical reminder of a wonderful – but now vanished — tradition. The elements, which range from small terra-cotta moldings to monumental carved stone figures, are the legacy of a forgotten army of skilled craftsmen who labored more than 100 years ago. These nameless carvers and sculptors fulfilled John Ruskin’s dream of architectural work that displayed “the hand of the craftsman.” Though extremely skilled, these anonymous artisans didn’t have the hubris to declare themselves “artists,” yet their work demonstrates a level of technical accomplishment that most of today’s sculptor/artists can only envy.

Brooklyn’s architectural sculpture garden got its start during the 1960s, when there was wholesale demolition of “old-fashioned” buildings in favor of sleek Modernist towers. A small group of dedicated preservationists, led by Ivan Karp, started the informal Anonymous Arts Recovery Society (AARS), which visited demolition sites (mostly at night) and hauled off especially fine examples of architectural ornament before it could be consigned to a landfill. Many of the pieces collected by AARS were eventually donated to the Brooklyn Museum and became the foundation of its architectural sculpture garden. Brooklyn was the first museum to install a garden of architectural sculpture, and the collection remains today the preeminent assemblage of salvaged terra cotta, stone and metal architectural ornament.

The pieces in the sculpture garden are the ghostly remains of the ornamental tradition that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ornament, and especially sculpture, were considered integral components of building design – a refinement that turned mere construction into architecture. The ornamental tradition waned in the 20th century as industrial processes and Modernism dictated the design and construction of stripped-down edifices. The griffins, lions, horses, sibyls, grape clusters, oak leaves, cornucopias, cherubs, masks and other carved and cast ornament live on in the sculpture garden to remind us of a time when there was literally art in “the building arts.”

You can read more about the flying dragon on the Brooklyn Museum blog, for May 27, where Jakki Godfrey of the museum’s Conservation Department describes some of the work currently being done with the architectural sculpture collection.

To me, the architectural sculpture garden is a well-deserved memorial to the artisans who toiled in obscurity to enrich a bygone era that truly valued beauty.

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