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REVIEWERS_LEARN
March 30, 2012
Glowing reviews of Brand's "How Buildings
Learn" are generally the rule. Digging BUILDINGS_LEARN
around a bit, I found a few more critical
(though not unfavorable) assessments:
http://misspreservation.com/2009/05/23/how-buildings-learn-some-closing-thoughts/
E. L. Malvaney of "Miss Preservation"
worries that Brand's contempt of Modern
architecture may be excessive, and
offers up as a counter-example the
Guggenheim museum.
That's a good pick: whatever
Frank Lloyd Wright's excesses, Wright's Excesses: Consider that the
The Guggenheim-- the original Wright specified "earth tones" for
Guggenheim, without the flushtank that weird, sci-fi spiral -- it
stuck on the side of the bowl-- could very well have ended up as
was a really brilliant art museum, dark as many another design of his.
a really clever piece of design.
If you've never been there:
the Guggenheim is a large open The atrium may be a flaw: a
atrium with the main gallery less open design would have
one long ramp sprialling more display space for art.
around it from top to bottom.
You're intended to take an
elevator up to the top, then
you get to stroll *downhill* That said: if every art
through the exhibit... and the museum in the world
curator has the unique concluded that it needed
opportunity of arranging a to clone the design of
large collection in a linear the NY Guggenheim, I
sequence. would be leading the
charge for a return to
(I always wanted to the freedom to wander as
smuggle in a box of one will through a
superballs and release complex of interconnected
them at the top...) rooms.
The Guggenheim remains
a one-off, rather than
a newly established
"vernacular". If it
was supposed to be an
experiment in new ways
of doing things, then
it would appear to
have been a failure.
David Galbraith, the author of the
"Smashing Telly" on Aug 4, 2008 makes
(I would say) several independant
points: http://smashingtelly.com/2008/08/04/how-buildings-learn-uploaded-by-stewart-brand-himself/
o It's difficult to get everywhere
worth being by evolutionary RE_EVOLVE
increments
o Software does not really have "architects",
i.e. an intermediary that joins what people
want to what people can do.
o There's room in the world for
"flamboyant cultural monuments
rather than purely rational designs" You might wonder why those
Long Now guys are spending
A cathedral would be so much time thinking
easier to heat with about clock design.
low ten foot ceilings, Shouldn't they be in the
and yet... business of building a
bunch of little starter
clocks that people can
adapt how they like, in
hopes that one of them
will eventually mutate
into a 10,000 Year model?
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