Letters.LIMITS OF ARCHITECTS SIR: Fabian Faltin (AR Letters, March p33) is being a little sweeping when he talks about your 'wish to reverse the development the leisure industry and contemporary life has taken' and 'your responsibility to think through the alternatives, and persuade us that, all things considered All Things Considered (ATC) is a news radio program in the United States, broadcast on the National Public Radio network. It was the first news program on the network, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets. , they are more desirable'. Doubtless, the Editor of the AR should think harder (so perhaps should most of us). Doubtless, a language that we want to share should be sought. And 'hopeful foundations' should be established. But to suggest that you can 'reverse' general cultural developments is surely expecting a very great deal from what is, after all, a magazine with a comparatively small circulation, going out to a specialized sector of the community. If you were to write with the combined skills of Milton, Marx and Marshall Macluhan, you would scarcely expect to have such an impact. One of the problems architects have faced ever since they were constituted into a profession has been the assumption that they have an affinity with the Zeitgeist, which they are uniquely qualified to interpret for the benefit of the rest of society. The decay (literal and metaphorical) of Modernism has shown how arrogant such a proposition is. It is scarcely for you, Sir, to attempt to establish the foundations of culture. Understandably, your efforts (like those of the profession in general) are more modest, and more confused. But that is not to say that you, or we, should give up because you cannot lay foundations that will support the whole edifice. Yours etc JAMES MARTIN James Martin or Jim Martin may refer to: Politicians:
Glasgow, Scotland WRITING ON THE WALL? SIR: Your hospitals issue (March) showed how it is possible to produce decent health buildings which have a proper regard for both patients and staff, and are a real extension of the public realm. The Styrian government is clearly a great deal more enlightened than those of much of the rest of Europe, where various systems of public and private finance partnership (like the dreaded British PFI PFI Pay for Inclusion (web search engines) PFI Private Finance Initiative PFI Private Finance Initiative (UK) PFI Prison Fellowship International PFI Port Fuel Injection (engines) ) are imposed in which the temptation to corruption is systematically inbuilt in·built adj. Built-in; inherent. inbuilt Adjective (of a quality or feeling) present from the beginning: an inbuilt prejudice Adj. 1. , and which have about as much hope of producing decent architecture as most of us do of skiing down Everest. But is the writing on the wall, even in Graz? Apparently the politicians have turned against the excellent housing produced by the Grazerschule architects in favour of banal pseudo-vernacular rubbish from the volume house developers. How soon will the hospital programme suffer the same fate? Yours etc WILFRED BOSANQUET Birmingham, England BARCELONA GRAFFITI SIR: One thing your Catalan correspondent got right regarding the Parque de los Colores in Mollet del Valles, Barcelona, by Miralles y Tagliabue was the analogy of this work to graffiti (AR January, p84) Like graffiti, these marching monsters of concrete and metal hit you between the psychic horns; scream at you that your little world is no damn good and by the way don't try to climb on them, and don't expect useful shade from them in this hot Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate is a climate that resembles the climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin. Outside the Mediterranean, this climate covers relatively small areas of the Earth, and generally occurs on the western coasts of continental landmasses, roughly between . But unlike graffiti they give no brief catharsis catharsis Purging or purification of emotions through art. The term is derived from the Greek katharsis (“purgation,” “cleansing”), a medical term used by Aristotle as a metaphor to describe the effects of dramatic tragedy on the spectator: by from the poverty and frustration of the common working man's life--just a sneering sneer n. 1. A scornful facial expression characterized by a slight raising of one corner of the upper lip. 2. A contemptuous facial expression, sound, or statement. v. elitist e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism n. 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. comment. These grating, alien objects clash with the existing mature trees and totally dominate the pathetic newly planted saplings. The new trees. Anyone who has actually worked with trees in a public urban environment knows that these scrawny 1 1/2 to 2in calliper specimens unprotected and unloved will not last. Budget cuts indeed! Odd to include this project in an issue of the AR dedicated to 'Ecological Propriety' as it squanders quantities of environmentally expensive building materials Building materials used in the construction industry to create . These categories of materials and products are used by and construction project managers to specify the materials and methods used for . . Sculptural this 'landscape' surely is, but costly and irrelevant to a fault. In (we are told) this neglected, deprived, featureless suburb of Barcelona, nature and humanity have been shoved aside and the architect's ego has triumphed. Yours etc MONA HEPPNER Vancouver, Canada STRAW POLL straw poll or vote Noun an unofficial poll or vote taken to find out the opinion of a group or the public on some issue Noun 1. SIR: I want to take exception to Shona Mordak's attack on the Wigglesworth and Till house in your January issue. The house is indeed a show, and is intended to be so -- and be an inspiration to other architects and the general public. For instance, both the straw bales and the sacks of cement have been used to provide insulation, thermal and acoustic, cheaply and simply. I quite agree about jokes in architecture (don't build 'em), but the house is clearly enjoyable to build and live in. And it shows that British architecture is more than tight-arsed High Tech, Will Alsop's splurges and prissy Cambridge Moderne mo·derne adj. Striving to be modern in appearance or style but lacking taste or refinement; pretentious. [French, modern, from Old French; see modern.] Adj. 1. . Yours etc HENRY BRANDLYS Sydney, Australia DECADENT WASTAGE wastage a loss of product or productivity; in terms of animal production includes losses due to deaths of animals, lowered production from survivors, including reproduction, and lost opportunity income. wastage Fetal wastage, see there SIR: Although I'm unconvinced of its place in January's 'Ecological Propriety' issue (p64), I find Wigglesworth's Stock Orchard Street The name Orchard Street can refer to the following roads:
n. pl. rai·sons d'être Reason or justification for existing. [French : raison, reason + de, of, for + être, to be. negated by concrete columns, they become mere cosmetic veneers -- a waste of wire and perfectly good building rubble. In any case, putting a building on pilotis (of anything) is an expensive way of sheltering a garden path. This house uses lowly materials on a less-than-perfect site to articulate the traditional subtext sub·text n. 1. The implicit meaning or theme of a literary text. 2. The underlying personality of a dramatic character as implied or indicated by a script or text and interpreted by an actor in performance. of upmarket up·mar·ket adj. Appealing to or designed for high-income consumers; upscale: "He turned up in well-cut clothes . . . and upmarket felt hats" New Yorker. residential architecture. If your correspondent insists that only buildings flaunting expensive materials and value-adding processes can qualify as architecture, then she risks living in her very own house of straw. Yours etc GRAHAM MCKAY London, England grahammckay@mac.com STYLE OFFENSIVE SIR: I'm sorry Lucien Style is offended (AR March). Actually I'm not particularly. What concerned me in a world riven rive v. rived, riv·en also rived, riv·ing, rives v.tr. 1. To rend or tear apart. 2. To break into pieces, as by a blow; cleave or split asunder. 3. by religion-related hatred was that his site seemed to claim some kind of divine/clerical authority for the architecture of the extreme and reactionary. Now that Style has given me a new name I can come out of hiding. Yours etc SUTHERLAND LYALL London, England AR 1966-1972 SIR: Were these years the nadir of architecture? Certainly there are schemes and buildings we would regard with horror and amusement today. I've got 70 back issues covering the period -- anyone interested, I'd hate to chuck them? Yours etc MARTIN CULLINGFORD Hastings, England martin@mcpvision.tvs |
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