Monday, September 29, 2008

Architectural Eyesores

James Howard Kunstler posts comments about an architectural eyesore each month. I encourage you to click through all of them. Then you should have a licensed psychiatric professional with you because you will want to kill yourself. His commentary is as insightful as it is biting, with enough obvious truth to it that your vision will darken momentarily.

This one is from January 2008, it is an addition to the Akron Art Museum. There are many more that are just like this or worse.

2 comments:

Paul Smith Jr. said...

Wouldn't you think an art museum of all places would avoid being an eyesore?

Richard said...

Paul, at the risk of sounding like an old modernist fuddy duddy, I have often ranted that postmodernism and relativism will be the death of civilization. I "understand" what these folks are trying to do - breaking the rules and conventions to reveal that there are rules and conventions. I even agree that we need to be introspective enough to question these hidden assumptions that are in our lives. I even like a lot of postmodern artwork (and have purchased some) and occasional postmodern architecture when it is attractive and used sparingly.

But I agree with you, why does it have to be so ugly and inane? And why are our most public buildings and structures, art museums that should house beautiful art, for instance, the most ugly?