A tribute to art-chitecture

Anyone who appreciates Style should appreciate the wit of a "Starchitecture Heights" subdivision.

When you think housing development, you don't think great architecture. McMansions, yes. Taliesins, no. But in Southampton, New York, on the wealthy eastern end of Long Island, developer Coco Brown is creating a modernist art gallery disguised as a subdivision.

The curator - yes, there's a curator - is Richard Meier, the architect best known for the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Meier rounded up some 45 "starchitects," including Zaha Hadid, Michael Graves, Shigeru Ban, and ninetysomething Philip Johnson. Each was asked to come up with a design for the project, dubbed the Houses at Sagaponac, then given a budget of about $200 per square foot. The first home is slated for completion in October; the whole development will be finished by 2008.

I am curious about several things such as is this for real? "40 serious inquiries from young, moneyed aesthetes willing to plunk down $4 million for an architectural statement" sounds like the developer has a good PR staff.

And then if those young aesthetes are for real, what is the market premium for a house which is plumped-up to be the product of a starchitect? And not just the first sale but on resale?

Thank you Michael Jennings who also appreciates it, at least at some level.

Comments

[Michael Jennings]

Thank you Michael Jennings who also appreciates it, at least at some level

Hmmm. I think that sentence means that David hasn't quite figured out how I feel about "starchitecture" in general. Should I continue to remain mysterious, or actually make some sort of statement?The one statement I will make is that living in a housing development with a "curator" sounds utterly ghastly to me.

[Abe]

hmmm, well I don't think I'd take $4 mil to live in a Philip Johnson, but a Shigeru Ban? Well first I'd need to find that spare $4 million I stashed someplace...

[David Sucher]

I think it is important to remember that we are not talking about a mere housing development for the common-person but an opportunity to live inside "art," for which no sacrifice is insufficient. Please try to view the Curator as a person who will help you come to terms with art and your relationship to it. He is there to help you. It is all for your own good.