June 30, 2009

News Flash: Beauty=Boring, Ugly=Interesting!

An interesting discussion over on CityKin about beauty in architecture: Rem Koolhaas gets double-teamed by Spiegel Online and CityKin after what I consider to be a light-hearted and witty conversation. His designs are a bit scary at times, but who can't love someone for saying, "Isn't it remarkable? Talk about beauty and you get boring answers, but talk about ugliness and things get interesting." (p.s. reminds me of Bob's Learning From Las Vegas discussion of Heroic and Original, or Ugly and Ordinary, p. 91 AND Is boring architecture interesting? p. 93).


Above all, CityKin's take on the interview is a relatively accurate perspective on today's public perception of architecture: pissed off and unimpressed. Next on the agenda for us unemployed architects? (1) Apparently don't talk s#*% about today's boring urban centers being caused by suburban"weekend warriors", and (2) celebrate beauty in architecture. As a last resort, N O R T O N will be designing an infill project for the city - something of a hybrid between a new urbanist McMansion and a neo-classical monumental civic building. Perhaps then I will be popular...or at least I will have achieved beauty in architecture! I can't wait.

1 comment:

N_O_R_T_O_N said...

Rem comments about the return to the city movement as generating "boring" urban centers. Does this qualify?: http://qik.com/video/2140315