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Breaking All the Rules With New York’s Public-Building Design

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Breaking All the Rules With New York’s Public-Building Design

| architecture, architecture critic, modern architecture, modern buildings | May 13, 2009

By ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE

Brooklyn, N.Y.
May 13, 2009

Now that the age of irrational exuberance and outrageous excess is apparently over, can we please talk about real architecture again? It has been fun seeing just how far talent can stretch itself before achieving irrelevancy, but there are diminishing returns in watching more become less in an escalating game of real-estate toys for the superrich. It has been less fun to see how easily, and paradoxically, in a time of extreme affluence, the social contract that is an essential part of the art of architecture has been abrogated. Or at least driven under the radar by the kind of showy construction where creativity and cost are terminally confused. You do begin to wonder what happened to the art that could build with genuine grandeur and still serve and elevate ordinary lives. 

The Saratoga Avenue Community Center's exterior with its references to earlier styles.

The Saratoga Avenue Community Center's exterior with its references to earlier styles.

As the hype and the construction stop, there is much soul-searching talk by born-again architects about modesty, sustainability and social and environmental responsibility. But I find it hard to believe that those operating in the stratosphere of pricey self-indulgence in an undimmed celebrity culture really get it, or that they are having even a tiny epiphany. Architecture has always been the enabler of excess, for better or worse, and architects will succumb again to the same seductive pieties about cutting-edge design and a trickle-down theory that simply doesn’t work.  Full article

Cross posted from WSJ

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About the author

After working at various design practices on a full-time and freelance basis and starting his design firm, David McFadden saw a gap in the industry. In 1984, he created an expansive hub for architects and hiring firms to sync up, complete projects, and mutually benefit. That hub was Consulting For Architects Inc., which enabled architects to find meaningful design work while freeing hiring firms from tedious hiring-firing cycles. This departure from the traditional, more rigid style of employer-employee relations was just what the industry needed – flexibility and adaption to current work circumstances. David has successfully advised his clients and staff through the trials and tribulations of four recessions – the early ’80s, early ’90s, early 2000s, the Great Recession, and the pandemic.

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