When will the debunkers (e.g. Alan Sokal, Dennis Dutton) get hip to the nonsensical language of the architecture world?

It appears that the Pritzker folks are unleasing another drenching of nonsense upon us; when will someone of prestige speak up? For example: Martyr for the avant garde joins the elite at last

Her designs are distinguished by sharp angles, flowing lines and dramatic juxtapositions. Her buildings cannot be understood in simple terms of floors, walls and roof but form flowing planes that wrap round space.

Ugh. I want to vomit.

This debunking task -- I guess i could call it fisking -- needs to be done by someone of serious academic and/or critical standing and someone who also has an astute understanding of how cities work and how buildings are put together, as pieces of matter, politically and economically. It's no good attacking the airy, fairy generalities of Starchi-babble with our own airy, fairy generalities. Simple nouns and verbs, folks. Above all, what is required is common sense and a feel for the language.

Ideally this person would not be overly-dentified with the right wing, which would unfortunately eliminate a fellow like Kimball and much of The New Criterion crowd, even thoush some of them might be qualified; for me, even when I agree with them, their views are tainted by their rigid ideology; and just as Muschamp torturously (and humorously) tries to make starchitecture 'progressive,' they would make urbane architecture 'conservative;' they would both be wrong and a pox on both houses. (Where are you now, Lewis Mumford, when we need you.)

One of the serious impediments to the advancement of city planning in our era is that the language used by Muschamp, Koolhaas etc etc, goes almost unchallenged as serious intellectual discourse and is even furthered by well-meaning but naive camp-followers like the Pritzkers. The mass audience now believes (and is brow-beaten into accepting that it is their own flaw for not understanding) that an architect like Hadid actually has anything of serious intellectual content to offer. This is a mis-direction of attention of which any Three Card Monte huckster on the sidewalks would be proud.

Comments

[Matthew Amster-Burton]

That quote would be more accurate if the reporter had omitted "in simple terms of floors, walls and roof but form flowing planes that wrap round space".