Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

"So much bad stuff was being built"


Is it Wednesday already? I'm still catching up on reading from last week, such as this terrific Q-and-A with renowned architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable in the Sunday Times. The 87-year-old has a new book coming out called "On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change." She's interviewed in the Times by Phillip Lopate. Here's a smidgen of the Q-and-A:

Lopate: From my perspective, there’s been a healthy shift from seeing cities as basically dying to essentially buoyant, yet still requiring help.

Huxtable: We’ve seen a reversal. Years ago there was white flight to the suburbs, the inner cities were crime-ridden, there was a lot of poverty. We still have poverty, but people started moving back to the cities.

Lopate: There’s also been a shift in attitude regarding density.

Huxtable: Yes, urban renewal tried to get rid of density. It was viewed as concentrating poverty and disease. Now there’s the awareness that density is more energy-efficient and less destructive of the environment than urban sprawl.

Lopate: I take it you’re for density but not for overbuilding.

Huxtable: How can I be against density? I’m a New Yorker! I grew up with density. Still, in a way I’m glad for this downturn in the economy. Because so much bad stuff was being built. This will give us a chance to think, to take stock. I am so weary of these stupid alliances between developers and cultural institutions in which the cultural institution is given a block of space and the developers overbuild the rest and make an enormous profit.
The Museum of Modern Art has become a real estate operation. I admit a certain amount of nostalgia: I remember a street that was once one of the best streets in New York, 53rd Street. Watching it change over the years, I can’t help but view their new Nouvel tower as the last destructive nail.


[Image via pantufla on Flickr]