August 12, 1998

To the Editors
Architecture Magazine

Congratulations on the M.O.M.A debate of the June issue. It is one of the best pieces in a long time. If something like it becomes a regular feature, subscriptions would go up right away.

There is however quite a bit of lame material elsewhere.

Take the report on the Holl Building. Directly underneath four photographs that show dozens of New York style architectural contrivances, critic Roberta Lord writes: "Holl set a quiet new form onto the site. No tricks, no grandiosity, no imperialist posturing." Then go on to Richard Ingersoll's "simple sun-washed forms" describing Todd Williams' and Billie Tsien's astoundingly complicated and textured house.

We can conclude one or several things:

1. That the academic convention that language can mean "whatever" has trickled down to the professional press.

2. That the editors are asleep at the wheel.

3.That Architecture assumes its readers can be fooled some of the time.

4. That the next architectural style is going to be a rappel a l'ordre and the critics just cannot wait for it to appear, so they are practicing. Whatever the reason, it is neither serious nor useful for an architectural periodical to be misleading.

Mind you, I admire the work of these architects, but I am tired of our nemesis, Builder magazine setting the (abysmal) standard for most of what is built just because they know how to report on the real world.

Sincerely,

Andres Duany

P.S. You may notice when visiting Kiasma that Aalto's Finlandia Hall next door is falling apart. Its marble cladding is warped and delaminating.

This building is a candidate for the reporting technique you cooked up for Gehry's Hermann Miller Building mess: to absolve a catastrophic technical failure by presenting it as an opportunity for creative modification.

You should consider this critical method for several other buildings in distress: Holl's building at Seaside, in perennial reconstruction, as the famous gizmos rot off; Phillip Johnson's terminally mildewed underground library at Hendrix College, to be completely deracinated and thrown away; Kahn's Mellon Center at Yale, mysteriously swallowed by scaffolding.

How about concocting a special Apologia Issue to help us understand the marvelous second chance created by such formalist indulgence?