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Judging
Architectural Value, edited by William
S. Saunders.
This fourth issue in the Harvard
Design Magazine Readers series concerns itself with "what
people value in architecture and how changing values influence
opinions about it." It comes at a time when aesthetic
and technological concerns have displaced social ones when
it comes to creating architecture, though no architect would
deny that that course is in the process of reversing.
Featuring twelve essays and one interview
culled from the pages of Harvard
Design Magazine, this issue is framed by Michael Benedikt's
lengthy introduction, grounded by his typically matter-of-fact
writing. By asking the questions that the following essays
could not possibly address adequately (by what criteria
should honor be bestowed on architects and their buildings?
who shall do the judging? who cares?), Benedikt extends
the critiques of the essays beyond their specific subjects.
In other words, the issues are far from being answered in
this Reader. As Benedikt acknowledges, the only norm is
flux, the ever-evolving values applied to architecture,
hopefully fairly and objectively.
Many of the essays come from two
volumes of the magazine: Number
7 from 1999, with the theme "Conflicting Values"
(including an essay
by Benedikt that appears to parallel his introduction
here), and Number
14 from 2001 with the theme "What Makes a Work
Canonical?" The essays from the latter are packed into
the front of this Reader, making one think that issues of
judgment are only approached by architects via the notions
of icon and canon. Of course this isn't the case, but these
issues are still important, even (or especially) at a time
when apparently non-repeatable buildings like the Guggenheim
in Bilbao have had such a strong impact on the profession,
the public, and the media.
Gehry receives scant treatment in
these pages, most notably eschewed in favor of architecture
that lacks the image appeal of a Bilbao, but intelligently
respond to the concerns architecture must deal with. Tim
Culvahouse and Lisa Findley reacquaint readers with Sea
Ranch, the 40-year old condominiums overlooking the Pacific
Ocean by Charles Moore et. al. The authors ask why appreciation
of the building -- embraced by architects at its inception
and given a 25-year award by the AIA -- has dried up. Why
didn't Sea Ranch's reworked Northern California vernacular
become a canonical work? Diane Ghirardo asks a different
question: why do quality buildings get passed over by the
architectural media? She presents the Knickerbocker Residence
in Brooklyn by Architrope, a muted, Rossi-esque design that
only found mention in the New York Times Real Estate
Section.
Ghirardo's essay is a fitting close
to this Reader, one that touches on something most architects
know: the architectural media is driven by projects that
photograph well and that will sell magazines. Architectural
Record is trying to address the gap between what most
readers do and what they read, by allowing their readers
to submit projects online (under the appealing "Community"
moniker), though this is merely an extension of the predilection
to base judgment on a couple images, making those images
as (or more) important than the building itself. If the
reader accepts Benedikt's assertion that value judgments
must be fair, be objective, and incorporate the public,
then this is a good place to start dealing about those issues.
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