On Sep 18, 2011, at 1:19 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> And from what I've seen of post-modern architecture, there is a great deal of stylistic commentary, but no substance.
It'd be great to understand a bit more about what you mean by "substantial." What are some of buildings you place in that category?
> Now I get it that the whole mannerist aspect of po-mo is to argue against substance, and I am pointing to that as the sign of a culture in decline.
I think it's a mistake to equate all of neo-liberal high culture with mannerism, irony and decline. While there still isn't a modernist insistence on being intellectually difficult, a lot of recent work isn't so bound up in Pomo's spiritual ancestry in Pop Art.
Although likely an obscure reference for those outside NYC, I visited Eataly <http://eatalyny.com/> on Saturday, and was struck (aside from feeling that Dorling-Kindersley had done their interior graphics) that a supermarket-restaurant of this type owes a big debt to Paul Pressler's innovations at Disney Retail and Resorts in the late 1990s. Lose the mouse, and you've got that same air of approachable sophistication; a completely un-snide "Italian Food for Dummies."
But if interior retail design isn't high art enough for you, how about Steven Holl's pretty straightforward channeling of Le Corbusier in his addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum?
<http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=19>
And perhaps in keeping with bolstering the economy with much-needed jobs, David Koch is busy funding major renovations at Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum!
Best, Charles