New Design Site Launched

I'm pleased to announce the launch of my new design business website.

www.bootsma-design.com

I offer architectural renderings, architectural design consulting, liturgical and urban design as well as graphic design. Please take a look and feel free to comment.

East Wing of National Gallery Crumbling After Only 30 Years

In this week's Wall Street Journal, Catesby Leigh writes about the ongoing problems popping up at the I.M. Pei-designed National Gallery East Wing. The WSJ article explains that the facade of the building, constructed using an experimental curtain wall system that the architect described as "a technological breakthrough for the construction of masonry walls," has become unstable. While the article delves into the technological reasons for the failures, it begs the question of why. Why would the architect make a conscious decision to ignore established precedents for the construction in favor of a new, unsustainable system. The answer has more to do with ideological constraints as much as a technological ones.

East Wing of the National Gallery (photo by Iainr, via Flickr)

The facade of the East Wing is constructed of a series of 2'-by-5', 438-pound marble panels that are held in place on a structure of steel hangers attached to a concrete frame. With the use of new rubberized gaskets to seal the joints between the stones and allow for movement to occur, the walls were supposed to last for a half-century or more before needing even minor maintenance. Pei described them as "a technological breakthrough for the construction of masonry walls." It is this system that the WSJ piece describes as the very reason why the facade failed.

But the bigger question is why the building employed such technology in the first place. The following line explains the why:

The [use of the new experimental] gaskets also would spare the East Building the need for wide, visually disruptive expansion joints—a standard feature of curtain wall veneer, running horizontally and vertically at regular intervals to accommodate thermal movement.

The clean lines and solid geometrical forms of the building's design simply could not be interrupted with unsightly expansion joints. I.M. Pei quite simply was shackled to his own modern design, constrained to have large uninterrupted geometries of stone, a technological solution was an absolute necessity. The earlier Main Building, designed by John Russell Pope, had no such constraints.

Expansion joints are hidden behind the pilasters. (photo by Boots)

What most people, even architects don't realize is that the Pope building, like the East Wing, is similarly constructed using a marble veneer over a structural core. What is different, however, is the extensive use of a well established conventions construction and the use of expansion joints. These expansion joints on the facade of the Main Building are cleverly hidden behind clusters of classical pilasters on corners of the facade. Pope, not being constrained by the ideology of modern architecture, was able to find a solution that was at once attractive and still working marvelously almost 60 years after completion.

The essential difference between these buildings is clearly the technology used, but that technology is a direct reflection of the architectural philosophies of each architect. In the former case the architect believed that new materials would provide a "technological breakthrough" to allow him to create the clean lines of modern architecture. Ignoring traditional solutions and the nature of the materials he was working with, it ultimately resulted in structural failure. The latter architect however worked using established precedents of construction that took into consideration natural forces such as expansion and contraction and gravity, and combined this with a sleight of hand possible through classical architecture, created a building that has stood over twice as long with no major failures.

The question of modern versus traditional when it comes to building technology has become more than just a question of style, but that of sustainability. The cladding of the entire East Wing will now have to be removed and restored at the cost of $85 million to the taxpayer. This works out to about 17% of the inflation adjusted cost of the original building ($500 million). Add to the financial cost the immense amount of fuel, energy, and building material waste produced by such a project, the justification for such buildings is becoming more and more difficult. Structural and facade failure in an iconic Modernist building is not without a number of precedents, begging the question of why architects insist upon continuing to build such unsustainable architecture in our enlightened times, again the answer is ideology.

On one hand, architects wisely are beginning to embrace sustainability, but with the other hand cast aside traditional detailing and traditional architecture because of a ideological bias against such architecture. We need to use architecture, all of its lessons to create a better and more sustainable future, here at GGW it seems most everyone looks to tradition when it comes to urbanism, so too we should embrace it in architecture. For architecture to truly be sustainable it must not only welcome back into its repertoire the lessons that traditional and classical architecture have to offer when it comes to construction, but also must be willing to embrace them.

Bicycling in the Eternal City

When people here in the US think of cities with a strong bike culture in Europe, the places that come to mind are Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Paris, but Rome is rarely on that list. The picture that most Americans have when they think of the Eternal City is riding a motorino around the Colosseum, or as Eddie Izzard puts it most Italians riding around saying 'ciao' like in Roman Holiday. But thanks to a new bike sharing program started last year, that culture is beginning to change.

Bicycling in Paris

This past week I visited Paris, Venice and Rome, and while in Paris I had planned to check out the Velib system for this post. Paris is as many folks have reported becoming an increasingly bike friendly city, and despite the rash of vandalism lately, the Velib system still remains convienient and widely used by commuters and tourists alike. I was pleasantly shocked however to see that Rome has begun its transformation into a bike city much like Paris or Copenhagen or Amsterdam.

Launched in July of last year, the system is being run by ATAC, the transit agency that runs the buses and metro in Rome, and its its fare system works much like the Velib system, being free to subscribers for the first half hour then charging 1 Euro for 30 mins after. Stations are mostly clustered in the Centro Storico (Historic Center) of Rome, though there are a few around La Sapienza University and in Ostia Antica along the coast. On the Google map for the stations, you can even click on each station to see how many bikes are available at any given time.

The new bike sharing system in Rome

The bikes are of a more sturdy and conventional design like most Dutch bikes as opposed to the aerodynamic Velib. Each has a rack in back and a basket in front, making them pretty convenient to take a few items. However this stolid design isn't dissuading the ever fashionable Italians from riding them or riding bikes of their own. The bikes I saw Rome, most of them very new, were ridden by ordinary looking Romans, dressed in street clothes or women in their necessary high heels. It seems the culture of bicycling is being seen to be just a normal part of life, even for the Romans.

System map of the bike share in the Centro Storico

Two years ago when I lived in Rome, I would not have dared ridden a bike in this city, so the transformation, albeit still very small, is remarkable. Judging by the experience of so many cities such as in Paris, New York and Copenhagen, where bicycling had for so long been seen as ridiculous or dangerous concept, but is now embraced proudly as part of the city's life, I think it's an encouraging sign to see such growth in such a short time.

When a Survey Shows Britons Prefer Classicism, Architects Attack!

A short time ago, Robert Adam Architects commissioned a study along with The Traditional Architecture Group in the UK asking ordinary people which sort of building they preferred when they were shown this image.

The YouGov survey asked 1042 respondents to select a preferred building from a choice of four, in answer to the question; ”Please imagine a new building is planned to be built near where you live. Four different designs are proposed. Please look at the designs below. Which one would you most like to be built near you?” The illustrations show new buildings of a similar height, size and orientation to the street.

Much to the surprise of the architectural establishment (but neither to Adam, nor myself) the public preferred the traditional schemes by a three to one ratio. Predictably though the architectural press and heads of the prestigious architecture organizations in Great Britain used the survey as a launchpad for their invective against traditional architecture and ultimately on the public at large.

Having all the characteristics of a drunkard confronted with his addiction, the press and architects first deny the charge then move to attack their antagonists. Johnathan Glancey of the Guardian's response to the poll is fairly indicative when he questions the poll's accuracy.

Even if 77% of those who took part in the TAG survey preferred the superficial look of the two “traditional” office blocks, I wonder what they would have said if they had visited all four buildings?

Glancey would like to make us think that the public is somehow hoodwinked by just showing the facades of these buildings, and that the modernist buildings insides are really a lot better than the exteriors show. "You see, the public is just being fooled by only showing the exteriors, really they would love the place if they just got to know it. " Of course this just introduces an assumption that interiors of the traditional buildings are mediocre at best. Which is exactly Glancey's sentiment when he derisively dismisses the classical design:

"You can dress up an everyday office block in any facade you like, yet nothing will ever hide its matter-of-fact nature. Not only do floor heights give the game away — where are the piani nobili in the two “traditional” designs? — but you also know instinctively that behind those weakly expressed entrances lie ordinary speculatively built offices."

Margarine he says, assuming that the classical building is nowhere near the quality of the renaissance palazzo and therefore not as good as his modernist office block. Traditional architecture, according to Glancey, is incompatible with modern uses and is completely unable to adapt to the exigencies of "our modern times."

The two with “traditional” facades, however, are the least traditional of the quartet because the heyday of neo-classicism offered little precedent for the design of 21st century office blocks.

Such forgetfulness is par for the course for the adherents of modernism such as Glancey, conveniently forgetting that the pioneering architects of office blocks in Chicago were committed classicists such as Daniel Burnham, John Holabird and Cass Gilbert, again, living in denial. I suppose it's not too surprising to see such statements when the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Ruth Reed, dismissing this same survey slammed classical architecture because the buildings shown are “frequently very expensive and often use unsustainable materials.”

To which Robert Adam replies with characteristic wit:

“I don't know what planet Ruth Reed is on if she thinks that the glass, steel and concrete favoured by modernist architects are more sustainable or cheaper than the natural materials like brick, stone and stucco used by traditionalists"

As I believe I've shown again and again before, the ridiculous canard of modernism being the sine qua non of sustainability holds as much water as the roofs of these same modern buildings.

But probably most offensive of all is the downright disdain they have for the opinion of the public at large. Glancey is again typical in his Glass-tower elitism when he condescendingly calls those who prefer the traditional designs stupid.

Once upon a time, seven out of 10 people claimed they couldn’t tell the difference between a heavily marketed margarine and dairy butter. How dumb were those people who couldn’t pick up on a difference that must have been as great as the gulf between modern movement and neo-classical architecture?

So if you prefer traditional architecture, you just like margarine because you are too dumb to know the difference. Glancey seems to say: "If you were as intelligent and educated as I am, you'd know the difference." But Glancey either has as Robert Adam claims such "lamentable ignorance of classical architecture" or he is simply not telling the whole truth. I'd prefer not to call someone stupid, as he would, so I think he just lies. Such are the ways of this drunken establishment, drunk from the excess of its power over the built environment for so long that it can only deny the plain truth in front of their eyes, attack traditional architecture and denigrate the very public they claim to be enriching.

I'd be happy to see the architectural press launches such attacks if I were Robert Adam and the classicists in Britain. They are only indicative that classical movement is beginning to resonate with the people, and the modernist establishment is losing its privileged status the sole arbiters of architectural orthodoxy.

I hope that someday the state of affairs on this side the pond will change and the architects and promoters of modernism will be forced to have a debate with tradition on its merits. Sadly however, without champions such as Robert Adam over here, the modernists still remain snug in their glass-tower elitism.

Could developing large parking lots help suburban churches fund improvements? Grenfell Architecture has designed this plan to help a parish create a more beautiful church using solid New Urbanist principles and traditional Virginia architecture.

The church occupies typically sprawling suburban lot, surrounded by seas of asphalt and low-rise buildings. However while I was working at Grenfell Architecture we tried to look at this project in a radical way. We came up with a plan to fix the disorganized sprawl of parking lots and low-rise buildings to create a new neighborhood and to truly make this church the center of a community.

The primary focus was to design a new church that better reflected the liturgical reforms of the past few years within the Catholic church. Since many parishes have only limited resources, we explored how a phased development could help turn this parish from asphalt-dominated auto-centric sprawl into to a walkable mixed-use neighborhood.

Both parishioners and priests alike have given this plan almost universally positive reviews. The pastor of this church has seen the plans and is amenable to the idea, but it does not represent any actual plans to construct this project.


1. This is the current site condition. The area is disorganized and chaotic, dominated by parking there is little in terms of good outdoor space, and the buildings do not create any ensemble in any way.

2. The first step is to create a system of streets. This begins to organize the area into a block structure. The streets are designed for on-street parking, amazingly providing an equal number of parking spots diffused about the site.


Note too that the connections are created to allow for this neighborhood to become a center to adjoining neighborhoods.


3. Parking now not being at a premium, the large parking lot facing the street is replaced by a section of shop-front commercial with apartments above. The corner would be anchored by a neighborhood size grocery store, and other small shops such as florists, coffee shops, or service businesses could occupy the rest. The apartments above see their first residents in anywhere from 10 to 20 apartments. These apartments would be ideal for elderly or younger couples who might not be able to afford larger homes.


4. The first set of 20 townhouses are built upon empty parking lots. The townhouses feature alleys behind with one or two car garages. These are geared towards families with children who might attend the local school.


5. The parish school which would be now after sales or lease of properties, be able to afford to build a new three story school. The school would have the same area of classes, but having a taller profile provides a more compact footprint.


Note: up to this point the only demolition that has occured is of parking lots. Already the campus has been improved tremendously.

6. Now having built a new school, the old school could be the first demolition, allowing for the construction of 28 new townhouses and another small section of commercial storefronts and apartments. The townhouses each feature the same rear facing garages and small yards behind.


7. Now the school could complete the reconstruction of the school by completing a rear wing with gymnasium that would create a pleasant interior courtyard. The courtyard also allows for light to reach all classrooms of the school.


8. Having completed all of the residential components, the parish could now use the funding that has been generated from the residential sales and commercial rents, to help build a new church. The new church here might incorporate a small historic chapel as part of the complex of the church, sacristy and rectory for the parish. The existing rectory would be removed, but the pastor could reside in an apartment or one of the townhomes while the new rectory is being built.


9. Now that the parish has a new church and chapel, the old church is demolished to complete the plan. A new set of storefront buildings would be finished in such a way as to create an orderly town square. The town square would be activated by having stores, coffee shops and both school and church functions on its green.


Between this commercial block a parking lot would be created to serve the commercial as well as the apartments built above. Using the topography, a parking structure could also be built behind, doubling the parking.


However, one would hope that since this neighborhood center would be home to almost 75 families, that the need for parking would be reduced significantly. The appeal of being able to be close to school, church and shopping, as well as possibly work, along with a local bus line running to Metro along the main road would encourage less auto use by residents.

The key though is the church as the center of the community. This principle is easily applied to followers of any faith, allowing for their own faith to be shared by their neighbors, and to provide visible witness to neighbors as well. Making the church not just a place where people go on Sundays but a visible and active part of their lives, giving residents something shared that brings them together as a real community.
All Images Copyright Grenfell Architecture PLLC.

Update: This post has been reposted on Greater Greater Washington, please go to this link to see the discussion there.

Return to sanity and blogging

After a few months of intense work on a number of projects, including a new website (which is still under construction) and the launch of my new design business, I'm back to a more regular schedule and a more regular blogging schedule.

I plan to have about two posts a week, though perhaps more when the mood strikes me.
Thanks for your patience.

The Importance of Beauty to the Catholic Church

A new column by Art Lohsen entitled "The Importance of Beauty to the Catholic Church"

Bike Lanes in Portland

I've been busy working on a few projects so posting continues to be light. However I thought I might share a few images of the newest bike improvements going up in the bike heaven of Portland that I saw on my trip home this past week. I don't usually post much about transit and bikes here on this blog, as I prefer this to be a more philosophical blog about architecture, but I found these of interest.


A lot of folks are familiar now with Portlands "Bike Box" outlined to protect bikers in the street as can be seen here.


An interesting little element here is the tucking of a bike lane BEHIND a stop for the new street car lines. As someone who commutes by bike in Arlington, I'd love to see the bus stops do something like this, rather than the buses pulling over INTO the bike lane and forcing me to A. stop, or B. dart out into traffic.


This sort of ingenuity is great.



What is great however is that Portland has just in the past few weeks established a new "Cycle Track."


The Cycle track is simply a inversion of the standard bike lane in the street to a separated bike lane between the sidewalk and the parking lane of the street.


Notice that there is a little 2 foot space there between the parking and the bike lane to allow for a door to open.



Here we see how this helps to deal with the big trucks that invariably block a standard bike lane. Here you can see there's still room to get by!

All of this was done in the past few weeks with just some striping changes. No new concrete or asphalt was laid here. Its great that PDX has taken a little initiative where others haven't and tried something that works in Europe just fine. Wouldn't it be great if DC and Arlington would do the same?

Novelty vs. Beauty

Following is the text of my article published on Catholic News Agency's website.

I'm also being interviewed on EWTN radio's Son Rise Morning show tomorrow (Sept 3) in the 8am hour about this article.

Here follows:

When I tell Catholics I meet that I’m an architect, invariably they ask me, “Why doesn’t the church I attend look like a church? Why don’t they build nice churches like the old ones we love?” Sometimes I come up with a complicated answer or theory, but most of the time I answer, “architects.”

In the United States, we have a fairly good tradition of building beautiful churches in which one can feel a true sense of reverence. One would be hard pressed to find a church built before World War II that wasn’t beautiful and beloved by its parishioners. It would be an even more difficult task to find such a church built after the World War that comes close to the beauty found in an average 1920s church and a Herculean task to find one built since the 1960s.

How is it that even within the Catholic Church, where we affirm and believe in the importance of tradition, that a deep and profound architectural heritage came to be abandoned? Again the answer is that architects, like so many other artists, have become obsessed with the idea of novelty. Most artists have been trained to believe by their mentors in 20th century art culture that only novel or “revolutionary” creations are worthy of being called art.

Today, I would venture to guess that most architects labor under this idea in one form or another. Some are truly dedicated revolutionaries, trying to undo centuries of tradition and casting aspersions towards traditional architects as backwards monarchists, luddites, or purveyors of kitsch. Most, however, are simply trying to be creative in the best way they can, some even maintaining an innate affection for the traditional, but still holding it at an arm’s length.

But in terms of high profile architecture, the revolutionary architects have been the ones that have caused the most egregious damage to the beauty of the Church, creating bunkers that one barely recognizes as a church, let alone a Catholic one. The Jubilee Church in Rome by Richard Meier, Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles by Rafael Moneo and the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland by Craig Hartman of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, to name just a few, are examples of the tremendous ugliness foisted upon the Church by these revolutionary modernists. Coincidentally, or perhaps quite logically, all of these architects are atheist or at least agnostic spiritualists. However, most churches we see daily in our communities are built by skilled, but uninspired, architects. A great many of them are committed and practicing Catholics, who nonetheless labor under the philosophical sway of the revolutionaries.

Now, most architects don’t want to rock the boat and become bomb throwing revolutionaries; they are content to go with the flow, while not realizing the philosophy they casually subscribe to contradicts the basic philosophy of their very own Church. Most believe, as do a great many Catholics, that progress is a good thing and so too even in the Church. A great many indeed believe, given the changes of the Mass and the art of the church that the Church during Vatican II embraced the idea of novelty writ large.

But this philosophy of novelty is contradictory to the teachings of the Church because it rests upon a fundamental belief of the modern movement: the absence of objective truth. A philosopher friend of mine explained to me that the one unifying strain of thought in modern philosophy is the belief that truth itself is not something to be discovered by man, but rather something that man creates. The classical philosopher, on the other hand, believes that truth is eternal, that we are by our nature made to seek and know the truth. To the modernist, however, there simply is not such a thing as objective, knowable, eternal truth. This belief in the absence of real truth is what is at the very root of this insatiable thirst for novelty.

The ancients believed that art was one of many ways that one could come to understand the truth, as was succinctly explained by Aristotle who wrote that “art imitates nature.” Now the Philosopher did not mean that art is just the drawing of what we call natural, such as bunnies or mountains or trees, but that art imitates the true nature of things, such as when we refer to our human nature. Art, therefore, is concerned with the truth about the nature of things: it imitates nature in order to teach us to know and love the truth. Aristotle states that human beings delight in knowing, and what in art is not concerned with delight?

What then is left for the artist to imitate if truth does not exist? If there is nothing of nature that is truly knowable then there is nothing to be learned from beauty, and art has little value over the enjoyment taken in its consumption. When there is no truth, only the new and different and shocking are the things in art that can be enjoyed.

But this enjoyment lasts only for a short time, because since there is nothing to be learned from these works of art, they lack the depth and weight to be a truly satisfying meal for the soul. If one looks at what passes for art today, it has become very thin gruel indeed. The insatiable desire of novelty has led to such abandonment of traditional forms and ideas of art that a pile of cigarette butts or the preserved corpse of a shark is considered the height of art. That such art is highly prized because it is “of its time” only shows how much art has devolved from valuing beauty, order and truth to merely a fashion or fad.

Previous generations of artists always relied upon the wisdom of their forbearers, building upon their techniques and their brilliance to find ever new ways to make beauty. Progress for architects in the past always was a fuller understanding of their craft, looking at precedent to create more beautiful buildings than the generations before. But today progress has little to do with precedent, discovering a fuller understanding of the truth and principles and working towards the end of wisdom. But again because modernists posit that those principles cannot be known, real progress towards wisdom is impossible, leaving behind only an insatiable lust for that new. Instead, the modern artist sees progress itself as the end, and calls novelty true architecture and dismisses all architecture based on tradition as worthless kitsch.

The philosophy of the classical mind stands in stark contrast with the modernist, believing that truth is real and it is a knowable thing. The classical architect embraces this idea and believes that truth is made manifest through beauty, for it is in beauty that we can come to know God. St. Thomas Aquinas says this in part when he says we know God through the order of the universe.

In architecture we only need to look to the examples of the past before the middle of the 20th century to see this beauty. By studying the great architecture of the past, especially the work of the Church, we can come to better understand the principles of beauty: order, proportion and magnitude. The more we study it the better we come to understand our own world and God’s ordering of it. Indeed, this is the true purpose of all art, to shed light on the reality of being through the beautiful, to make radiant the truth. Now to best understand these truths, such as the truths of the faith, we must look to the lessons of the past and emulate them. Not simply copy or parrot the works of past masters, but by practice learn the true principles of the art.

Understanding and emulating the beauty to be found in traditional architecture is key to the creation of true Catholic art. Through the principles of proportion and order, an architect can create sacred architecture that is entirely grounded in the principles of beauty that is found in tradition and that sheds new light on truth, and especially the truths of the faith. This is the amazing property of a beautiful church, it is at once ancient and new, just as beautiful today as it always has been, still speaking with clarity of the truth through beauty it possesses.

This is why the Second Vatican Council declared “the church has not adopted any particular style of art as her own,” because throughout the centuries of Catholic architecture, the lessons and principles of sacred architecture cannot be irrelevant in our or any other time, but are infinite, because they are from God. Indeed, our architecture should reflect the faith that God is the infinite and eternal principle of all things. Just as our theology teaches us, the truths of God are not exhausted or made irrelevant in any time, but have become better understood; our fuller understanding of the truth has made our past discoveries even more radiant.

So too the styles of architecture change, not by massive revolutions or by wholesale rejection of the past (such as how Walter Gropius famously threw all of Harvard’s architectural history books on the trash heap when he became Dean of the architecture school in the 1930s) but by slow degrees corresponding to the revelation of the truth through philosophy and art and the work of centuries of artists.

This is the future of a true Catholic architecture, one that embraces our human capacity to know and to experience the truth, both through our intellect and through the beauty of art. That we can create such beauty and that we ought to create this is evident from the teachings of the Church. We, however, must in many ways undo the damage done to the classical world by the march of modernism, both as a philosophy and in the practice of art and architecture. Philosophy and architecture need each other when it comes to this, for philosophy to define and defend the idea that there is truth and beauty, and for architecture to create beautiful works of art, informed by truth.

There have been signs of progress towards this ideal, where new developments in architecture are striving towards a fuller understanding of truth through the beautiful, such as at my own alma mater, Thomas Aquinas College. Here where the Great Books are studied not for their historic value, but as books that are critical to understanding ourselves, the world around us and God himself, a grand new chapel has been built to the glory of God. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity is not simply a replica of a Church, but a lesson in brick and stone of how ancient principles of beauty come to life in new and creative ways.

Inspired by both the high renaissance churches of Palladio in Italy and the local vernacular Mission churches of California, the chapel shows perfectly how this growth of wisdom happens. By blending together these different styles without an inordinate desire for novelty, a truly original piece of art is created. Here the architect Duncan Stroik rejected the notion that one must pursue the novel and embraced the beautiful forms that will endure for generations. This is the choice that all architects must make to create a true Catholic architecture.

When it comes to a choice between novelty for novelty’s sake and the beautiful, in our Catholic churches the beautiful and the true must always be chosen. We can create something new, a new way to see the beautiful, but not create a new beauty according to our own image. In this way we can create what is both ancient and new. Truth is as infinite as God is, to seek after it in our architecture is to create something worthy of God and our Church.

This resource is provided in collaboration with The Foundation for Sacred Arts.

Column on Sacred Architecture

I'm on the road talking to potential clients about some new chapel and monastery projects that I hope to finish in the coming months and post here. In the meantime, this past week Catholic News Agency has published my column on the state of Catholic architecture in a column titled Novelty vs. Beauty.

If Only France still had a Royal Family

Louis Le Vau's Hotel Lambert in Paris.

The Qatari Royal family is moving full steam ahead to modernize the historic Hotel Lambert in Paris. Just wondering if Parisians wish they had some Royal connections to the Qataris to prevent such madness. A well I guess its better to be free.

On Temporary Hiatus

I'm on temporary hiatus from blogging for the next couple of weeks. I'm setting up a website now for a new business venture that I'm starting on. I am starting a business providing architectural design and graphic design. Given the architecture market as it stands now, I feel that expecting full time employment would be unwise so have decided to take matters into my own hands and promote my skills and work for myself.

Please stay tuned as blogging will resume when my free time resumes. I will howeverffrom time to time post small links such as to my forthcoming article on sacred architecture at Catholic News Agency.

Quite Literal Vertical Cul-De-Sac Rises in Manhattan

Leon Krier has in times past called the skyscraper a "vertical cul-de-sac," and a developer in New York is taking the idea to the next logical step, bringing cars right up to your door in a skyscraper. According to an article in Architectural Record the "new residential building, designed by Selldorf Architects, takes the privacy and parking ease of a gated community from the burbs to the "urbs" and turns it on end."

Cross section of a new "Sky" Garage in New York's 200 Eleventh Avenue.

I struggle to find the words to describe how bafflingly stupid and absurd this development is, but Krier quite correctly notes that skyscrapers carves out a vertical, rather than horizontal space separate from the street network below. It then seems only natural, that the inclination to have the car be the measure of all things, follow from the horizontal suburban gated enclaves or "burbclaves" to vertical "urbclaves."

A suburban garage in a vertical format where one need not see anyone till safely home.

In Detroit I remember seeing an old theatre in a historic tower turned into a parking lot so that the office workers would never have to exit their secure vehicles until they could safely exit into the building. This apartment tower with its so called "Sky" Garages simply pushes that idea to the logical extreme that one finds in the suburbs, where one is locked in the car from door to door, eliminating all unwanted human contact.

The Michigan Theater parking lot, victim of suburban paranoia.

It is a truly sad development that now in the city, where one is accustomed to deal with people, where one ought to find community interaction, one need not interact with anyone they do not wish. The auto-centric mindset is not one that is promoting cars as transit, but as vehicles to pursue an anti-communitarian ideal of security fed by a paranoia towards interacting with anyone, even to the level of the ubiquitous New York doorman.

Nominees for Britain's Worst New Building Announced

Merseyside terminal by Hamilton Architects at Liverpool Pier Head

It's been far too long since I have posted, but I know I do not write on a topic that moves at breakneck speeds, so I think my tardiness somewhat acceptable. Nevertheless, I shall try in the coming weeks to post more often, and next week there will be an exciting announcement.

This week however, BD Online, the British architecture journal, has announced the nominees for the 2009 Carbuncle Cup, the "prize" for the worst new building in the UK. Taking a cue from HRH Prince Charles' infamous "Carbuncle" speech in 1984, the competition is a popular one, given the number of truly awful new buildings in the UK.

The poorly detailed Poundbury Fire House

The list is filled with inappropriate, unsympathetic and simply ugly buildings. I take slight objection to the inclusion of the Poundbury Fire House, not because its beautiful, its quite bad, but because it is a straw man of the worst sort. Criticism of the station has become a proxy war launched upon classicists, despite not being designed by a classical architect. The poorly detailed faux classicism this building explains in stone how ignorance of good detail and composition, common among the great mass of architects untrained in classicism, can lead to a very poor building indeed.

Classicism has rules that if broken result in a very bad building to the eye. Had these rules been been followed here, I sincerely doubt the vultures of modernism would have found much to criticize. Modernism on the other hand, without rules, creates little of real beauty, and we see how the Carbuncle Cup remains dominated by this style.

Classical Architect Memorialized with Sterile Modernism

Architectural Record reports this week that the firm David Woodhouse Architects has won a competition to design the memorial to Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Surprising to no one, the sponsor of the competition, AIA Chicago (American Institute of Architects), has chosen to memorialize one of the strongest proponents of classical architecture in the United states with yet another banal and derivative modernist memorial. It hardly surprises me because the AIA, champion of the modernist architectural establishment, constantly seeks to promote modernism as the only possible form of architecture acceptable in our "modern" times. Using the a memorial to one of the greatest proponents of classical architecture, barely seems cynical, but given the sophistry of most architects it is hardly astounding that they would make such a bold claim.

The AIA find this fitting memorial to Daniel Burnham.

The focus of the competition should have given one pause, as the competition stated that the memorial's objective was:

To build a lasting and notable memorial that will inspire and educate the public, and honor the memory and importance of Daniel Burnham and his Plan of Chicago

The competition did not think it prudent to focus on his contributions to classical architecture as a whole, the Chicago Exposition of 1893, and the numerous grand classical places he created, from the Museum of ScienceChicago, to the National Mall and Union Station in Washington DC. and Industry in Instead, the jury exhibited an ignorance of these contributions and chose a memorial that supports only a vision of Burnham as proto-modernist.

The city of Chicago reflected on a blank wall.

DWA’s winning design central feature is a barren granite wall, ala Maya Lin’s Vietnam memorial, a move that was hailed by the press as daring in the 1980’s but remains as sterile now as it was then, but has since become such a ridiculously overused cliché. In the walls facing the lake and the Field Museum is traced the Plan of Chicago in “ribbons of burnished stainless steel” with sledgehammer subtlety. A life-size statue of Burnham stands next to the walls, unadorned and without pedestal, standing like a shabby professor before the blackboard.

The highly polished wall reflects the skyscrapers of the Michigan Avenue street wall and the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago proclaiming that this was the work of Burnham. This of course is false.

The architect’s own website describes that this wall “directs attention outwards towards the city – showcasing Burham’s vision by connecting us to its vibrant, unfolding reality.” The problem is the vista of downtown Chicago has little or nothing to do with Burnham. Chicago’s downtown, replete with what is now Grant Park, skyscrapers and the gridiron, was long in place before his 1909 plan.

Burnham's vision of "Paris on the Lake" is far from realized.

Burhnam’s plan, little of which has been executed, instead focused on creating grand public places like he created at the World’s Fair. Tree lined avenues lined with appropriately scaled and detailed buildings linked these places, from Lake Michigan to a civic center with a magnificent city hall fit for an imperial capital as Chicago saw itself (there is now a massive highway interchange at this very spot). The vision that Burnham saw was one of a Paris on the Lakefront, but again, the design ignores this and instead celebrates a vision that was not Burham’s.

Further proof of this motive is in the architects description of the memorial. Woodhouse claims that the

“Memorial's design is rooted in classical precedent (the Athenian Acropolis itself has a diagonal approach up an incline past an off-center cubic volume to a central pedimented portico)”

Such foolishness abounds in modernism, claiming that a ridiculously stripped down, asymmetrical and random plan is classical simply because one can find such things in ancient places. It is a one of the great logical errors to take accidents (things that are not essential) to be essential principles. Certainly a certain asymmetry was to be found in classical architecture, is found where other circumstances warrant. The example given forgets the Old Parthenon, destroyed by the Persians in the first invasion, was on center, but Pericles respecting this sacred place, left this ground clear.

This is classical scheme?

But this is only a continuation of the narrative, that modernism is classical or at least grew as a natural consequence of the classical, claiming Burnham as your own is a good way to. Holding that modernism grew naturally out of classical architecture is a useful argument when confronting the common man who rejects such monstrosities, but is highly cynical considering that the basis of modernism is the rejection of classical tradition. It takes another kind of mendacity to simply ignore the facts for the furtherance of such a dogmatic view of architecture. It is a sad testament that a memorial to a classical architect, its winner and most of the entries serve to reinforce the commonly held theme of the inevitable advancement of modernism, co-opt classical architecture to the service of modernism.

A further insult is that there were a few good classical designs actually appropriate to the content of this memorial. It is a shame that the Richard Driehaus put up the money to sponsor this competition, given his support of the Driehaus prize for classical architecture, but it is an added shame that two classical schemes got the short shrift.

I leave you with images from those schemes, who were among the 20 finalists, either of which would have enhanced and beautified the city. The firm Hammond, Beeby, Rupert and Ainge, submitted the first scheme which evokes both Burham’s civic center in spirit both in design as well as in the rendering. The last submitted by James McCrery Architects who worked with noted sculptor Alexander Stoddart, this design would have graced Chicago with some of the best sculpture in the world since Daniel Chester French’s Standing Lincoln in Lincoln Park.

Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge's design evoking the rendering of Burnham's civic center.

The memorial evokes the architectural language of the Beaux Arts.

James McCrery's Scheme focuses on beautiful statuary placed prominent in he park.

Streetcars: Made in the USA?

I don't normally post on transportation issues, our good friends over at GGW do such a good job on the issues. However once in a while something great comes up I have to share especially when it involves my home state of Oregon. There has been a lot of talk about streetcars and how American cities can emulate the good lessons of Europe's streetcar renaissance, one question has been who's going to build them. DC has some (long delayed) plans to install a single streetcar line, but the cars and technology come from the Czech republic. I was delighted to see however that Portland's new streetcars they have installed are home grown, built by Oregon Iron Works right there in the great Northwest.

An American, Oregonian made Streetcar rolls off the line.

The company was motivated by the good experience with Portland's streetcars, but a little irked that there were no US manufacturers, so they decided just to build their own. I have to say, the cars look just as attractive and convienient as any found in Europe, and doubtless delivering such trams across town has to be cheaper and faster than delivering them half a world away. Such ingenuity and entrepeneurship ought to be applauded and rewarded, perhaps the next streetcar DC buys could be "Made in Oregon?"

Trams are a key component in building a beautiful city in my opinion, they make for safe, clean and quiet transit, quite opposed to the armada's of SUVs and fleets of rumbling buses and trucks*. A city can have proper public spaces only when people, not cars, dominate the public realm, and having effective and attractive ways to get people there is key to that. I'm happy that an American, and specifically Oregonian, company is helping lead the way.


*Trucks need not be part of the city either. Dresden began using street cars to keep trucks from cluttering up their beautiful city, by creating special "freight streetcars" to deliver parts to their new VW plant.

One of Dresden's windowless freight hauling streetcars.

Westminster Abbey Competition for the Design of a New "Corona"

The London Times reports on a (possibly) exciting competion to complete Westminster Abbey's long unfinished crossing spire. The Abbey, site of coronations and royal weddings for nearly a millenia, has over time been added upon and improved by the likes of Sir Chrisopher Wren and George Gilbert Scott. However, the spires and towers proposed by numerous architects for the crossing have never been built. The crossing now is to be surmounted by a "corona" to mark the 75th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and likely to celebrate the crowning of the Prince of Wales as King Charles III.

The Corona would replace the small pyrimidial crossing cap seen today.

Now since Prince Charles is likely to be at least personally interested in this project, one has to wonder who will be chosen to submit the design and what will the design be like? Will the Royal Institute of British Architects reign supreme over this project and demand a modernist scheme? Will the nonsensical preservationist criteria of designing in a markedly different style (meaning exclusively modern) be trotted out?

Or will sanity be preserved and the design be classical/gothic and be more sympathetic to the historic church? Given the amount of vitriol and venom recently spewed in the direction of the Prince for his offering of an opinion on the Chelsea Barracks plan, one is likely to see the level of attack on classical architecture and Prince himself to reach a fevered pitch. If a classical scheme by Quinlan Terry is even part of the discussion, the charges of royal interference in the benighted practice of architecture (as if patrons don't have a choice), and how Prince Charles is singlehandedly trying to destroy architecture.

Could a design such as this top the famous royal church?

However I think HRH will yet again appeal to the common sense of beauty and tradition in the face of such barbs, and will yet again be backed not by the popularity of the architectural elite, but of his people. The Abbey has yet to unveil the designs for the corona, so there is still reason to hope that a classical design will be chosen, far better hope than we might have here in the US in a similar situation. The tide is changing in England, and as I've said before, it is in no small part due to the Prince's good opinion and taste for the traditional and classical beauty found still in Britain.

National Civic Arts Society Unviels "Building Our Nation's Capital"

Last night in Georgetown, the National Civic Art Society premiered its new documentary film "The Vision of the Nation's Capital," to great acclaim. The video, documenting the great classical vision of the Capital envisioned by L'Enfant and George Washington, was warmly received by the attendees. This vision, reborn in the McMillan Commission in 1901, subsequently sullied by tasteless and ill planned modernist buildings throughout city, is the focus of the NCAS' mission.

The event was just the beginning of a movement toward reinvigorating and restoring this vision, that all can appreciate. Of note was the attendance and support of Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee and the former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole.

Congressman Cooper expressed his gratitude for being invited to the event and had some short remarks after the video's premiere. He lamented the cold and heartless office buildings so many people work in throughout the city and expressed too his admiration for the classical buildings pointed out in the video as "places people like to work."

Certainly I hope that this is just the beginning of a larger movement to realizing that the classical vision of Washington can and should be built, and that Americans at large will find a city more beautiful than ever before.

Some Reasonable Words about Prince Charles

With so much venom and anger being vented at Prince Charles for daring to enter into a debate about style, Simon Jenkins, writing for the Guardian(UK) gets it right about Prince Charles and the modernist/classicist debate. Some interesting arguments about preservation are also raised that may be apropos to the 3rd Church debate.

I can't improve on it by commenting, so I link to it here. I'll just point out my favorite line, answering the charge of HRH being "undemocratic"

The debate has never died. It is kicking dust down at the old barracks site in Chelsea, where a proposed cluster of towers in a park by Lord Rogers, in the style of postwar Roehampton, is pitted against a terrace by Quinlan Terry in the even older style of Wren. In support of the latter, the "unelected" prince has written to the unelected owner of the site, the Qatari royal family, while the unelected architects have written to the unelected press. Never has the concept of franchise been so abused.

Preservationism Stands in the Way of Transit Options

Preservationists on Chicago's South Side are calling for local officials to stop the demolition of a small building standing in the way of a planned Metra Commuter train stop because the building was designed by Mies van der Rohe.

The "Test Cell" Building stands in the way of a proposed Metra Stop

This insignificant tiny bland box was designed by the German Modernist architect van der Rohe during his tenure as the architect of the Illinois Institute of Design and should be saved. According to one silly preservationist, this brutish little eyesore is akin to doodle by Rembrandt. One has to wonder when the hijacking of the preservation movement by ideologically driven modernists will come to an end and common sense will begin to prevail?

It seems to me that this building logically fails in almost all criteria that a building should have to mandate preservation.

1. The building is great - Lets face it, the building is like the Tribune says "a clunky brick box" only an idiot would think this building is intrinsically great.

2. The building is a significant example of its style - Go to any college campus in this country and you'll find a dozen of these miserable boxes cluttering up the landscape. As for an argument that it's the hand of a master, I doubt that Mies personally even drew the plans, like the Third Church of Christ Scientist, the architect didn't design this, his underlings probably did. If he personally laid the brick on this building maybe I could see it, but that isn't the case either.

3. The building is irreplaceable - Some buildings, like Penn Station were masterpieces that when they were torn down are lost forever. One could theoretically rebuild it, but the costs and the circumstances of today effectively render this impossible. This bunker could be built to the original plans in probably two or three days virtually anywhere, but what would the point be?

Some would claim that that would be "dishonest" but then I don't understand the obsession of modernist preservationists with "original materials." Architect drew the plans, the form is the important part, that's what makes it architecture, the hundreds of buildings reconstructed in Europe over the past 60 years after World War II are testament to this, they ARE great buildings, built to the designs of architects great and small, that they are new materials is irrelevant. One wonders if some sort of 60s new age thought got into preservationism? It's as if the stone and brick itself were somehow sacred by being arranged by the master, or the workers infused the brick with its zeitgeist of its particular time.

The real shame is that this miserable little junky building is standing in the way of real progress, a train station that will help revitalize the area. As the Tribune article says, hundreds of cars will be taken off the freeway adjacent to the school, and to stop genuine improvement for an ugly banal minor work by an architect that SOME people claim a master, is not simply stupid, it's the most irresponsible sort of architectural hubris imaginable.

Lecture tonight on Sacred Architecture

Tonight at the CIC, architect Art Lohsen of Franck & Lohsen Architects, will be giving a lecture entitled, Transcendent Beauty, the Importance of Catholic Architecture.

The lecture will be tonight, May 13 at 7pm at the Catholic Information Center, 1501 K Street NW, and is hosted by the Foundation for Sacred Arts.

I have attended this series thus far and have been impressed by the quality of the speakers and the topics as well. I encourage anyone interested in Catholic architecture to attend. I have another function I'm committed to, otherwise I would be there tonight.

Great Buildings of the Past Century: The National Gallery of Art

It seems to me that a great bulk of my critical writing here is often profoundly negative towards the practice of architecture. Frankly a lot of the blogosphere tends to be that way, and its human nature to complain and in architecture particularly there tends to be a lot less good news going on than bad. I've therefore decided to be a bit more positive and seet out buildings that are really great and give some good reasons why. I've decided to limit myself to building from the last century or so, roughly from 1900 on, I think it might be interesting to see how many great buildings I can find from this era.

The National Gallery of Art - 1941 - John Russell Pope

The National Gallery of Art was one of the last built works of the great classical architect John Russell Pope. Derided by his critics in during the rising tide of modernism as "the last of the Romans" Pope was a master of a sedate and serene classicism that one could adequately call modern.

This modern classicism is typified by Pope's use of the more robust classical orders such as the Doric, and greater ratio of wall to openings than other more Beaux-arts architects. His use of articulations tends to be more subtle, preferring slight changes in plane rather than deep bays and openings like one might find at Burnham's Union Station. Ornament, while not absent, is less used, but only at points of emphasis, and in proportionate manner, and like so much ornament of the interwar years, tends to be more planar and more spartan.

Corcoran gallery

Comparing his National Archives to Ernest Flagg's victorian 1897 Corcoran Gallery, the Archives appears lighter, with broader expanses of stone, widely spaced and small widely spaced acroteria and a shallow simple cornice. The Corcoran's use of deep recesses, heavily sculpted and staccato use of acroteria and festoons on the cornice and particularly the rusticated base give this smaller building a very heavy presence.The National Gallery continues Pope's style to its logical end. No figurative ornamentation is found on the exterior of the building, and only small wreaths in the frieze and small leaf patterns ornament the doors. This points to the idea that Pope saw this building not like another work of art on display, but rather as the frame.

Exterior ornament is limited to architectural detail.

The parti or plan of the building is remarkably clear and orderly. The central rotunda clearly modeled on the Pantheon flanked by block wings, each with long corridors ending at light courts is both pleasing and easily understandable. Comparing this to the often confusing layouts of so many museums its not hard to see why it's considered the best museum in the world. Other details make this building a remarkably wonderful place to view art. Diffuse light streams from above in the galleries, courtesy of the double layer of skylights brilliantly designed to bring in light but not cast shadows or cause glare.

The Pantheon-like central hall.

The building is despite it's appearance also extremely modern in a technological sense. The museum was one of the first buildings designed to be entirely air conditioned. The brilliance is found in that the air vents are placed above the cornices of the interior doorways, concealing this unattractive detail from the viewers standing on the floor below. The returns are tasteful grilles placed behind benches that sit in the halls.

The Pantheon oculus motif, giving beautiful diffuse light.

There is one final amazingly brilliant detail that no one sees, and probably only a very few people even know about is the use of expansion joints on the facade. Most buildings built today need expansion joints, this is due to the different materials that go into a modern building, usually a steel frame with stone as durable exterior material. The problem is when the building heats up the steel and the stone expand at different rates, necessitating some sort of joint to allow the expansion to be absorbed. Without this the stone would crack and fail.

Expansion joints are hid behind changes in plane.

Normally when a building has a long expanse of wall, like at the National Gallery, these expansion joints are simply run right down the front of the building. Pope however, just like he does with the skylights, and the AC vents, conceals this. Here it is concealed behind the places on the facade where the planes slip behind each other. The joint runs from top to bottom of the facade, but BEHIND the folds of the building. Simply brilliant. Without the flexibility of the classical language, this detail would be difficult, if not impossible to pull off, leaving the usual nasty looking line of plastic grout.

The National Gallery is a great example of how to build a truly modern building, with all of the conveniences necessary to its operation and construction, but yet maintain the dignity and beauty of the classical language.

Even Security Guards know its Ugly

Today my boss was out and about taking photographs for a presentation on the architecture of Washington DC, and like so many other photographers in DC and the country, was accosted by a security guard for his trouble.

Now for those of us in DC who have a fondness for architecture, this troubling intrusion on our civil liberties is no new news really. A while back some innocent tourists were confronted by private security guards about taking photos of Union Station, a DC landmark.

The Forrestal Building

My boss was taking photos of the monstrous Forrestal building in southwest DC, which you can see is a pretty ugly building. While taking his photos he was flagged down by a security officer and asked for usual sorts of questions and detained while the guard got his supervisor. My boss found the whole incident rather ridiculous, especially when the guard asked to see the photos, to which my anacronistic mentor explained he was taking slides photos, the guard was incredulous.

My good employer raised an interesting question telling his tale to me. Was he being accosted because he was taking photos of a modernist building? Now before you jump all over me for saying I'm accusing the Hegemony of some sort of plot, let me explain.

Consider this: my boss was out all afternoon taking pictures of other Federal buildings in DC, from the Capitol to the Federal Triangle. All of these buildings are "sensitive" to the same sort of degree that the Forrestall building is, they are all Federal office buildings. But one wonders why he, and every other tourist in town takes pictures (for the most part) unmolested till the cows come home. But the second that he begins taking pictures of a massively ugly Brutalist building he's questioned by security?

Maybe its that the security guards know that nobody takes pictures of such ugly buildings and they think that someone who does is a nut of some sort? I know that a lot of security is overzealous to a rediculous degree, but one has to wonder if even they understand how unpopular Modernism really is?

Foundation for Sacred Art Lecture Series

The Foundation for Sacred Arts has been sponsoring a bi-weekly lecture series on the Sacred Arts here in DC for the past month. This Wednesday, April 29th at 7pm Dr. Jem Sullivan will be giving a talk on "St. Paul in Art, the Beauty in Holiness" at the Catholic Information Center on K Street NW.

The Foundation is a new organization (five years old or so) dedicated to seeing a renewal of traditional art and architecture within the Catholic Church. As they are committed to seeing beauty and symbolism in art, it almost goes without saying they reject most all of the Modernist schlock that passes for religious art these days.

I must admit I've been remiss in not posting about this before, but I give my mea culpa and I hope that anyone interested in traditional art and architecture, and religious art to please attend.

A Comparision of Houses

This last weekend, I took a pleasant spring day to explore some of the great architecture that is found in the Greater Washington Area. Just down the road in the southern part of Alexandria, amongst the sprawl that has grown about George Washington's plantation of Mt. Vernon, is the little known gem of Woodlawn.

The garden front of Woodlawn Plantation by William Thornton

Built for Major Lawrence Lewis and Nelly Custis, the adopted granddaughter of George Washington, the house is little known outside the area other than to architecture and history buffs. The house was built by William Thornton, the architect responsible for the original design for the Capitol of the United States. Finished in 1805, the house is a prime example of Georgian design in the United States, and in my opinion, one of the most beautiful houses in the DC area.

Now just down the hill, a more striking comparison is not likely to be found anywhere, with an icon of Modernism sitting nearby. One of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Usonian" homes, the Pope-Leighey house sits in a wooded glade, deigning to be equal claimant to the mantle of architecture. Built in 1939 in Falls church, the house moved to the plantation by the National Trust for Historic Preservation when in the 1960s highway construction threatened its destruction.

The contrast between these houses makes for an excellent lesson in the failures of modernism and the sucesses of traditional construction. Now some might argue that comparing a two hundred year old plantation manor to a seventy year old modest suburban house is unfair, but I'll take a shot. The details of each house show fairly well the widely different philosophies of their designers. Woodlawn shows an attention to and understanding of natural forces and how to deal with them. The Wright house shows how the modernist ignores the nature of his materials and forces in favor of a ideological design aesthetic. I think that despite their budgetary differences, the two houses are fairly emblematic of each designer and their architectural philosophy.

Frank Lloyd Wright's "Usonian" Pope-Leighey House

After all, many of the architectural details to be found in Woodlawn were commonly found in traditional houses built by architects well into the 1920s from manors on down to even the most modest bungalows. The principles that Wright exhibits in the Pope Leighey house are fairly consistent with the design mentality of his other houses as well, so I think the comparison is fair at the level of detail.

Woodlawn itself has had some bad times over the 200 years of its existence. The foundation stones are showing a bit of wear, the brick moulds have dried out a little bit, so the shutters have had to be removed, but all and all, for its age the house is in good shape. It was hit in 1896 by a hurricane, but I doubt much of the slate roof has had to be replaced, and the cornices look like they may have had a few coats of paint and maybe gotten replaced here and there. But the structure of the house looks to be intact. (I'm not exactly sure about the history, but I'm just guessing this based on inspection.)

The slate roof of Woodlawn looks great even after 200 years.

The Pope Leighey house on the other hand looks haggard in comparison. The unpainted wood siding is starting to dry out and look rough. The "cornices of flat unpainted boards look to be literally falling apart. Other than the brickwork, which looks decent, and likely was rebuilt entirely when the house was moved in the 1960s, the house's exterior is in rough shape. One detail in particular as you'll see is striking. Frank Lloyd Wright's trademark cantilevered roofs, found here as anywhere, are failing.

The inherent problems of the cantilever, the sag is apparent and problematic.

Looking at this photo, you can see how the cantilever has sagged so far as to separate it from the wall it is next to. Elsewhere you can see how over time, the wood of these cantilevers has succumbed to the trials of time and begun to sag. When snow falls on this flat roof, and has no where to go, the stresses on this roof must be tremendous, and thus the roof begins to fail.

This one detail alone illustrates how the ideology of the cantilever, the flat roof is hardly a good thing. And this house was meant for the working class! (Wright however was never able to make his Usonian houses as cheaply as he promised.) Now all buildings need maintenance, but to unnecessarily compound problems of snow, water and wind are in this case not just stupid, but criminal. This is the sort of architecture that is being held up as the ideal. Thanks Frank. Thanks for giving us a house that after seventy years is falling apart.

Cornices of the Pope-Leighey House are falling apart.

I would be willing to bet any amount that per square foot, per year, the costs of maintenance for Frank Lloyd Wrights house are not only greater but likely outstrip the costs at Woodlawn by a fair stretch. I'd also wager that a house built contemporary to Wright, and of wood and of similar modest budget with traditional details is unlikely to be suffering such calamitous problems.

The side pavilions of Woodlawn could easily be a modest home.

We do a tremendous disservice to our future generations by ignoring the very real problems with modern architecture and its inherent failings and unsustainability. When architects overlook them because of the ideology that everything must be new or innovative is a profound mendacity. Until we expose the falsehoods of the Modernists who say that their architecture is just as sustainable and good as traditional architecture, we will continue to have an intellectual and financial millstone tied about our necks.

Prince Charles: A Champion for Classicism

On March 25, His Royal Highness Prince Charles spoke out against a proposal by architect Richard Rogers to build a massive modernist apartment block in a historic district of London. The Chelsea Barracks scheme calls for superblock of glass and steel apartment buildings standing in a rambling anti-urban park setting, ala Corbusier, directly adjacent to the historic and beautiful Royal Navy Hospital built by Christopher Wren.


The Rogers design had a great deal of local opposition, and during an event at the Wren Hospital, Prince Charles weighed in and backed the opposition and also wrote to the chief financial backer of the scheme, the Emir of Qatar, urging him to reconsider the design. Predictably, the modernist establishment went apoplectic. Some accused Charles of "high-handed arrogance" and one architect said that his opinions were a return to the "era of the divine right of Kings."
In one "news" article the Terry design was described as "a classical pastiche," an overused cliche if there has ever been one.


Now I'm not going to comment so much on the designs themselves, I think readers of this blog will be able to predict my sentiments fairly well. (Feel free however to debate in the comments the merits or demerits of either scheme, I'll save my comments on the designs for then.) What I really want to comment on is the vital role that Prince Charles takes in the debates in the UK about architecture.

Prince Charles is no stranger to debates about architecture. Back in 1984, a modernist scheme had been proposed to the Sainsbury Wing for the National Gallery in London, and in an address to the Royal Institute of British Architects, described the proposed addition "like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend." The speech hit the architectural establishment like a sledgehammer, and did more than sink the design, it turned the entire architectural establishment on its head and allowed the door to open just enough to let classicism return to life.

Classicism by the 1980s was left for dead and for all intents and purposes, was dead. The number of architects who practiced architecture with a mind to tradition and beauty probably numbered only a dozen or so in the whole world. From this speech by Charles and further comments and speeches that followed over the years, he raised doubts about modernist architecture and its inevitable march, he raised the question, why not beauty?


Before Prince Charles gave his carbuncle speech, modernist architecture reigned supreme, triumphant and defiant. The few who would question the modernist establishment would have a difficult time even making it through university, and none would be able to rise to a level of authority to be a critic of the hegemony. But in the Prince of Wales, by virtue of his royal birth, classicism had for the first time in half a century a champion who would be listened to. Charles was a real voice for those who before had been dismissed as "nostalgic" and "backwards-looking." Certainly the architectural establishment still sneered at him for his traditional and classical leanings, but to the public at large he could not be ignored.

In the UK today modernism still reigns as the dominant force in architecture, but it has lost its monopoly hold on the culture. Today the work of classical architects such as Quinlan Terry and Robert Adam are routinely seen in the architectural press. Now reviews of classical work are dismissive and downright mean, they are not ignored in the way they are in the architectural press in the United States. To architects working in London, Robert Adam is as recognizable name as Lord Foster, whereas here in the US, classicists still labor in anonymity. I would venture that few architects outside the classical community even know of Allan Greenberg or John Blatteau, let alone recognize any of their work.

Prince Charles' criticism of modernism and patronage of classical architecture has opened architecture up for debate. That debate has been rancorous and uncharitable more often than not, but at least classicism is no longer ignored. I only wish that here in the US, good classical architects be taken as seriously as they are across the pond and not simply dismissed.

Gehry Memorial also to include nod to Eisenhower

Ok, so that's not the headline that the Post used to announce this morning the winner of the "competition" to design a national memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower. But given Frank Gehry's "signature" style and propensity to attract attention to himself via his buildings, it might well have been. Today the Eisenhower Memorial commision solidified its previous decision to embrace fashionable names in architecture over beautiful architecture that would be properly deferential to it's subject and not to its builder.

Frank Gehry (Kathy Willens - AP)

The architecture of Frank Gehry is the singular and personal style of Gehry, and as his "signature" or "trademark" it exalts him the architect. Anywhere you go that there is a building by him, people exclaim "we have a Gehry," like it were any other work of art, like Picasso or a Michelangelo.

Many places, especially in Europe, are quite proud however of older buildings by famous architects like Michelangelo and others. These buildings might be fantastically beautiful and new, but even after seeing them as different and wonderful, they still fit in with the towns they are in. In fact many "signature" buildings by great architects in history have to be pointed out to you. This is because as part of a city, architecture has to be a "good neighbor" and not draw too much attention to itself.

Michelangelo and the "starchitects" of his day may be just as well known as the Frank Gehry's of our day, but today "starchitects" build with little deference to the city around them. Today's stars build objects such that their building is a solitary work of art, of genius incarnate. One could as Leon Krier said this week, put all the great Modernist architecture in a park somewhere, and in this park the buildings would make just as much sense as they do in their own environs. A Bernini or Michelangelo building put on a tabula raza would make no sense, as each of them is designed as part of a harmony in a city.

A memorial is however a little different as it's harmony is not just with the city, but also with the subject to be memorialized. The architect in some sense takes a back seat to the memorial. Lets put it this way, nobody comes to see "a Bacon" or "a Daniel Chester French" when we go to see the Lincoln Memorial, but we go to see and remember a great President. A proper memorial gives deference to its subject. Sadly, modernist architects cannot do this, neither by the means of their art nor by their own character. The modernist needs to express novelty and newness and personal artistic genius far too much to be able to defer to his subject.
An Eisenhower Memorial to Gehry will likely be so overbearingly Gehry, that history will likely forget the man memorialized before the man who built it.

A Modest Proposal
Now, I criticize a lot here on this blog, but now it is time for action. I propose a true competition for a counter proposal for this memorial. I am now working to raise money for a CASH prize for the best design for a counter proposal for this memorial. I propose that it be open to young artists and architects under 40 from anywhere in the country. The prize would be small, likely $400 - $500 but the subject is small and would take little time to produce.

I would propose that the design not necessarily be classical, but certainly I feel that classical would be best to express the necessary gravitas and reverence necessary for a memorial. All designs will be considered rationally from all designers.

What do you think? Would you be willing to contribute a design? I will be formulating a program for this competition so your feedback will be taken into account.

Leon Krier on the True Sustainability: Tradition

Many many apologies for the long hiatus yet again in posting. A few big projects came down the pipe these past few weeks so blogging has fallen to a lower priority rung. However these next few weeks should be much more sane.

Tonight I attended a lecture by architect, theorist and urban planner Leon Krier at Catholic University of America right here in DC. For those of you in the DC/Maryland Area, Mr. Krier will be speaking this Wednesday at University of Maryland on the same topic, the Architecture of Community.

Leon Krier (taken with cell, sorry for quality)

Tonight Krier spoke mainly on traditional urbanism, which makes up the bulk of his scholarship, but in light of our increasing awareness of environmental concerns and energy concerns. He gave a very good argument as he usually does for both traditional urbanism which centers planning around the 10 minute walk, ie, according to human scale and nature, but also on traditional architecture itself.

In previous posts I have made the argument that traditional architecture not only looks better, but that it is more sustainable. I have given a number of arguments showing how traditional construction details, and traditional materials are more adept at dealing with natural forces of wind and weather than experimental modernism. I have tried to show how tradition is not just an aesthetic choice, but is an actual functional part of a building. Tonight Krier was able to sum this up with just one statement, one that I think ought to be declared an axiom of architecture:

"Tradition is not about style, it's about technology."

Krier made the argument that traditional details, traditional construction is not about a style, not about aesthetics, but is entirely about technology. Not about experimental technology in the modern sense, but technology that works. Criticisms were raised in the questions after the talk about traditional architecture simply historicism. Krier gave the brilliant response that technology that works, such as the wheel or other discoveries, are not simply historic events, but are truths, and as such are outside of time.

We use wheels all the time, but don't worry about when they were invented, but that we simply recognize their utility and incorporate them into our lives. So too would the case be for construction technology, we simply don't need to reinvent the wheel.

So if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Photos from the Dedication at Thomas Aquinas College

Cardinal Mahony greets President Tom Dillon and Vice President Peter DeLuca before the Dedication.

Architect Duncan Stroik speaks at the Dedication Ceremony.


College Chaplain, Fr. Cornelius Buckley SJ opens the doors.

Cardinal Mahony Processes into the Chapel, ahead of him is Bishop Cordelione of San Diego.

The founding professors of the college, followed by alumni priests, process in.

Cardinal Mahony speaks about the Chapel.

The Congregation gathered for the Dedication.

Cardinal Mahony presents a blessing to the President.


Cardinal Mahony presides over the Mass of Dedication.

President Dillon delivers an address.

Cardinal Roger Mahony Sprinkles Holy Water on the Congregation.


All photos courtesy of Thomas Aquinas College

New Chapel at Thomas Aquinas Finished

This weekend I was fortunate to have been on the campus of Thomas Aquinas College (my alma mater, undergraduate) to celebrate the dedication of the brand new Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. The chapel only seats about 600, even with overflow, so I wasn't enough of a VIP to attend the actual dedication itself, but the college has posted up photos from the event, which I will attach to the next post.

I was able to however attend the first Mass the day after the dedication, a Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the head of the Fraternity of St. Peter, Fr. Berg, a graduate of TAC in 1993. As an interesting liturgical aside, there seems to have been zero problems having the Traditional Latin Mass in the new church, as well as the Ordinary form, or Novus Ordo Mass as well. Blogger, and prolific Matt Alderman has written an excellent piece in First Things about preparing new Catholic churches for the use of both forms of the Mass, and it's great to see a new church functional for both.


One commentator here thought the church was renovated or was in Italy, but no, it's BRAND NEW. This church is in my opinion the best church built in America in the last 40 to 50 years. I'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful church built since World War II anywhere else in the world. There are a few others which are fine churches, though as I said, very few, and certainly none that have been built in my lifetime even come close. If someone can find one I'd love to see it.

We are, it should be said, in just the opening stages of a renaissance with New Classicism and the church's few minor quirks are only to be expected. When one can honestly say that 30 years ago there were probably just a handful of Classical architects working in the world, and nothing like this was being built anywhere. The few practitioners there were out there were only able to preserve so much knowledge. Today we can see how far we've come in such a short time, but also knowing that this is only the beginning, and much is yet to be discovered and learned anew.


TAC's chapel isn't perfect, and though it is hard to believe today, but new and BETTER churches will be built. This church is the sign that we can do it. It is a sign to architects everywhere to what is possible. It is sign to the all churches of what a sacred place can be, and how beauty can exist.

Dedication weekend at Thomas Aquinas College

I leave this evening to fly to Los Angeles enroute to the dedication of the new chapel at my Alma Mater, Thomas Aquinas College. After ten years of planning and construction - I recall fondly the drawings for the three proposals - the dreams of many alumni and faculty and staff are coming true. Here is a little article explaining a little of the history of the Chapel and all of the events that will going on this weekend.

Photo by EventH on Flickr

I will be taking photos of the chapel in all its new glory, which I shall post Monday or Tuesday upon my return to Washington. I leave you with some recent photos of the interior, and with this thought: This chapel cost $23 million to complete, whereas Our Lady of the Angels, the Catholic Cathedral of Los Angeles, cost $190 million.

Photo by EventH on Flickr

I will do some work on factoring the different sizes and other cost adjustments, but I suspect that the TAC chapel still comes in at least equal, if not less than the Cathedral. Some may say "we just can't build this way any more," but borrowing from the President's campaign slogan, yes we can, and yes we did.

Mod buildings are NOT Sustainable

I came across this little article about the District's desire to raze and redevelop Bruce Monroe Elementary School on Georgia Avenue in Northwest DC. I found it a particularly good touchstone to refer to in an ongoing debate about the sustainability of Modern (contemporary) and modern Classical buildings. The debate began about the Mt. Pleasant Library over at Greater Greater Washington and I posted about it here last week.

Bruce Monroe Elementary School (Georgia Ave NW)

One point that was brought up about the Mt. Pleasant library was that after 84 years, the building is in need of repairs and serious renovation to update it for current needs. The Bruce Monroe School, on the other hand is only 36 years old, but is instead being demolished. This difference is striking, that a building that is barely a third of the age of the older building is about to be demolished.

I'm sure there are a number of factors, chief of which is the building is ugly. More importantly, the school is completely falling apart and would cost much more to repair and refit than to build an entirely new building. Why is this so? Well a difference in philosophy to begin with.

The Modernist experiment with architecture took buildings like this school and tried its best to create something "innovative" and "expressive." The architects apparently took this experiment so seriously such that they ignored literally centuries of building traditions that keep many old buildings still standing.

The importance of such mundane details as cornices and eaves that shed water, roofs and dormers that keep snow and ice from building up and windows that allow for natural light and air cannot be overemphasized. The builders of the Mt. Pleasant library would have acknowledged that such physical restraints needed to be addressed, not ignored. These considerations have all been consistently ignored in architecture since the Second World War, and the consequences are predictable, and I leave you with a little story to illustrate

My boss was at a conference at Yale a few years back had a conversation with a building maintenance supervisor there. He asked about the old buildings and how they held up. This supervisor told him of Yale's 30 year old buildings were now coming up in the schedule for major maintenance projects. This might not be surprising but what he also said was, the 90 year old buildings - the buildings like Mt. Pleasant Library - were also up for maintenance and that they often required much less work.

Someone please tell me how are buildings that are in need of major repairs in a third of the time, or in need of replacement more sustainable or more "Green" than a traditional building?

CFA Denies Inharmonious Addition to Library, Post Writer Denounces CFA

Proposed addition to Mt. Pleasant Public Library in DC by CORE Design

Last week the US Commission of Fine Arts denied a plan by DC Public Libraries to add the above addition to its historic 1920's Mt. Pleasant branch. Marc Fisher of the Washington Post called the move "stomping on innovation and the faint whispers of home rule." Fisher couldn't be further from the mark, both in terms of architecture, but moreover why the CFA is justified as a Federal Commission to do such a thing.

First of all let me say before I get accused of politics, I don't intend to use this article as a springboard for ANY discussion about Home Rule, Statehood, or DC Voting rights. I only intend to respond to Fisher's and others' attacks on the CFA's authority as arbiter of architecture within the Capital independent of whatever political definition it has. I believe my arguments would stand (or fall) equally well for any Capital, be it DC or Berlin or Tokyo.

Fisher tries to net the CFA with the claim that it "serves mainly to prevent the city from evolving over time as any living place must." He says because the Library had three community meetings and "responded to neighbors' complaints" the CFA overstepped its bounds by denying the approval of this addition. Now these may be a fine and justified reasons in any normal city would respond merely to its own citizens. However, Washington DC has a special standard of aesthetics to uphold, by virtue of it being not just any ordinary city but our nation's Capital.

To see DC as "Our Nation's Capital," is to see it as not just for those who live there, but indeed everyone's home. Indeed the "neighbors" who need to be consulted are not just those who live nearby, but also those who live from Maryland, Virginia and indeed from sea to shining sea.

To understand DC as a home for the whole nation is to know it as a work of art, and as such has a symbolic end first and foremost. DC as a Capital ought to tell something to us about us, and it can do this by being more than just a collection of parts, but as one great piece of art in the form of its architecture and its urbanism. That architecture can tell a story, and like any story told anywhere in all of human history, needs to be whole, unified and cohesive to tell its story to us.
This is how L'Enfant saw the city, built apart from any of the already existing cities, a new work of art, symbolizing the new Nation formed by the Constitution. Indeed the city is itself the bond between the states, a seal of confirmation pressed in stone, stating that we were then and are now One Nation.

DC symbolizes this best where the McMillan Commission - the predecessor to the current CFA - did its finest work creating the Mall as we know it today. The Mall as the scene of all of our greatest aspirations and dreams as Americans is the great stage that politicians use to arouse our passions, that leaders of all kinds call to our patriotism to think of the common good of our whole nation.

But it could not do this without a unity of form that the McMillan Commission created. A unity of form that resonates in a particular way with the idea that here no one man or woman's interests are to be placed over the interests of the nation. Monuments are erected only to those who, rather than placing themselves above the people, gavethemselves for the greater good of all. The McMillan Commissions genius shows clearly where, despite monumental buildings and memorials being built, the dome of the Capitol - the Hall of the People - still dominates over all other monuments and buildings of the city, reinforcing that it is to the people all deference is to be given.

The symbolism of our Constitutional City is what the CFA is charged with defending. In DC the symbolism of the city ought to apply to every neighborhood, not just the core of the Federal area. The architecture of our nation's Capital ought be harmonious and beautiful, mixing with its immediate neighbors but also with the city as a whole. From the monumental core to the smallest street, DC ought to be a symbol of harmony and a well ordered city like it ought to be, even if it falls well short of those aspirations.

The CFA is right in rejecting this and other buildings like it because rather than being harmonious with a work of art that the city, they point to themselves and say "look at me!" Folks like Marc Fisher know that when they say designs like this are "striking and inviting mix of old and new" and want architects to "push the decrepit system into a new era," they are pushing their own agenda, not the ordered harmony of L'Enfant and the McMillan Commission but disharmony and discord.

This addition proposed is not something that defers to the city and its order, but it rather pushes itself as "innovation" and "evolution." It is, frankly neither innovative or an evolution, but rather another bland glass box calling attention to itself like so many others. The architects of this building are like a mischevious trumpeter in the midst of a symphony who begins to play his own tune, trying to focus the the attention of on himself, rather than on creating together a work of true beauty.