Is Tschumi's design any good?

I don't know. This post --- Salingaros on Tschumi -- is provocative and worth reading but not yet totally convincing in its current phrasing.

My comments as I left them at Blowhards.

I tend to agree with Nikos on a lot of issues and I might very end up agreeing with him on the merits of Tschumi's design, but his post doesn't really explain or show how or why Tschumi's work is so terrible. Whether Tschumi's design disrespects its context and/or is a silly bit of froth etc etc etc is impossible to judge from the data presented.

Moreover the post seems to associate to some degree (and correct me if I am wrong) "traditional" architecture with "conservative" thought (and vice verse) which I simply don't think stands up to analysis. Traditional city designs are neither particularly favored by political/cultural conservatives nor inculcate conservative values in their user-citizens. The two issues are simply on very different planes and I think that to try to force them together lacks rigor and conviction.

I've seen the attempt to link traditional townscapes to political conservatism elsewhere and that dog don't hunt. In fact it's been made recently on other blogs -- one even given very great bandwidth here at the Blowhards -- and it is, I believe, an unconvincing perspective.

I'd actually go a bit further and suggest that if anything, traditional townscapes are as much or more associated with touchy-feely communitarian leftism than with conservatism. Most politics in the USA ignores the built environment; there is simply not clear left-right split except when it comes to property rights. And when it comes to property rights, the irony --- which some cultural conservatives seem determined to disingenuously ignore --- is that it is those who favor who intense market intervention in the built environment do so with the express purpose of create traditional urban spaces. At least that's the general drift. The whole "Smart Growth" business, and New Urbanism in particular, is about creating walkable cities, which of course is the core determinant and characterization of the "traditional townscape." (Note: Using columns does not create a traditional townscape. There is a bit more depth to the issue.) And "Smart Growth" is very much about regulation, which conservatives generally hate.

That certain cultural conservatives turn things around, I find very odd; their natural allies in the effort to create traditional townscapes are the very liberals and even left-wingers they pretend to hate.

UPDATE: Jim Kalb also posts and I leave my comment as follows:

I am in some sympathy with your philosophical comments but I do not understand what they have to do with Tschumi's design...i.e. your post does not appear to connect the design itself to the larger philosophical points. How does Tschumi's design disorient, for example? The only characterization of the building which you offer --- "asymmetrical building, all endless straight lines, angles, and glass wall" --- is insufficient for anyone to form an opinion as such a building might form the basis for a very traditional street.

UPDATE: Nick Kallen weighs in very intelligently. unfolio comments here.

Comments

[John Massengale]

New Urbanism, which is traditional urbanism for the 21st century (and tradition always evolves), cuts across political lines. American Enterprise magazine supports it, and so does the Utne Reader. Not to mention Bill Clinton's HUD, which put a major effort behind it, since discontinued by Dubya's HUD.

Traditional architects in the Congress for the New Urbanism TEND to be progressive, but there are plenty of exceptions. And traditional and Classical architects who have come to the field through private houses for the rich TEND to be more culturally and politically conservative.

Last but not least, many of the cultural issues around New Urbanism and Classical architecture today have been seized by the Conservatives. But I think this will all change in the next few years. Very few people DON'T think contemporary Liberalism has reached a dead end. Democrats who want to win at the national level have to avoid the word like the plague.

[David Sucher]

Dead? Liberalism? Hardly.

Activist government --- one of the core values of liberalism -- has been adopted by conservatives, though of course with different ways to spend the public's money. But that core value --- activisit government --- should not be overlooked as a "triumph" (maybe) of liberalism.

And the fact that the word "liberal" is avoided does not mean that everyone and their brother is not out there looking for a government "program" for their pet project.

But I think that by and large we are agreeing that NU is essentially a-political in the sense that neither conservatives nor liberals can really grab hold of it as their own. And that is a very good thing.

[nick kallen]

David, I've elaborated my comments on this issue here.

[Michael Blowhard]

I'll suggest that touchy-feely leftism and conservatism have a lot in common, and I'll point to this discussion to illustrate my point. And then I'll slip out the door before the tomatoes and cabbage heads hit me.