Do you believe everything you read on a blog?

UPDATE 3: I have temporarily (?) closed comments because I do not intend to have this post become a forum for gossip, inuendo etc. My intention from the outset, and still, was to make sure that neither Vidler nor Krier were unjustly characterized. But I have just received one comment -- innocently intended I am quite sure -- which might be seen as spreading disparaging rumor, hearsay etc. As that comment might have possibly initiated a splendid cascade of story, rumor, invective etc I have taken it down at least for the moment. For the sake of simplicity, my simplicity as I will be travelling away from my home base in the next few days -- and until I receive some response from "The Architect's Newspaper" -- I am closing comments with the knowledge that my action will not stop the discussion, as so many of my friends & commentors have blogs of their own.

UPDATE 2, which I am putting at the top to make sure no one misses it:

Dean Vidler responded to my email and writes

"I did not state that Krier had Nazi sympathies nor did I or would I ever imply such a thing. The issue was entirely architectural and concerned Krier's long held allegiance to classical style, as evidenced by his published monograph on the  classical architecture of Albert Speer."

Frankly, I am not surprised. The idea that a man of Vidler's stature would offer such loose talk -- unless he really had the goods --  seemed improbable. And the reporting offered by The Architect's Newspaper in itself struck me as flimsy and not something on which to rely. What? No followup question after the Dean of a prestigious school accuses someone of Nazi sympathies? In itself cause for caution. I have pursued this for two linked reasons:
1. Nazis and Nazi-symps should be rooted out and exposed;
2. False accusation (and spreading of false accusation) is abhorrent & dishonorable.

As well, I have written to [email protected] to make sure that the Newspaper is aware of the Dean's response.

•••

A few sentences hidden in this Posting by and about Leon Krier were so pregnant and yet so unsourced that it piqued my curiosity and catalyzed this email:

Dear Dean Vidler:
You are referred to (as you no doubt know) here in this Blog Post as follows:
"Recently, Anthony Vidler, the Dean of Architecture at New York's Cooper Union, accused Krier of harboring Nazi sympathies."
I have a blog of my own: City Comforts and will be posting on this issue.
I am curious to know
1. If you indeed did say something to that effect about Krier (about whom btw I know little and care less; my only concern is that there is some level of veracity in the blogosphere.)
2. On what basis you would make such a statement (if indeed you said it.)
Thanks very much,

As I could only write to Dean Vidler indirectly through a general email address at Cooper Union, I have no way of knowing if this email will ever reach him. So if someone out there actually knows the Dean I would appreciate if you would direct his attention to this post. The whole issue -- the general lack of attention paid to Vidler's remark elsewhere, Krier's vague response, the notion of accusing someone of conflating Classicism and Nazism as a way of supporting Classicism -- well the whole thing is curious, weird, odd and I have no idea what of it is accurate.

There seems to be some agenda on the part of the blogger but I am not quite sure I can make it out. The gist of it is to enhance Classicism by insisting that Modernists attack Classicism because of some purported Nazi connections. Since I had never in 30 years of observing the architecture scene actually heard anyone attack Classicism on that basis (i.e. because of Nazi connections) and the post itself offers no such links to corroborate such a view among Modernists (but only claims that they exist) I am a bit befuddled about the efficacy of this line of support for Classicism.

UPDATE: Btw, it's somewhat beside the point and just an aside, but the idea that one could somehow discredit Classicism (either its architectural or its site form) because the Nazis used its vocabulary strikes me as preposterous and so intellectually weak that I am boggled that any serious thinker on the built world would ever present it seriously. It's just not a serious argument and offers many logical and historical flaws. In fact, that is what puzzles me as odd about this whole business --  could anyone be so dense to discredit Doric columns because of Hitler By that same token we should prohibit the reading of Goethe. Or maybe even the speaking of German. It's an idiotic argument from the ground up. Even Modernists aren't so dumb as to make it. No?

Comments

[Michael Blowhard]

I hope people are wary of what they read on blogs! Excellent idea to write Vidler, btw -- here's hoping he responds.

[Friedrich von Blowhard]

Um, speaking of believing everything you read...if good Dean Vidler denies making such an incredibly boneheaded remark, will you believe him?

Perhaps you might contact the people at The Architect's Newspaper to see where they got their information regarding the Dean's remarks. I believe they can be reached via tel: 212-966-0630, fax: 212-966-0633, and email at [email protected]

[David Sucher]

Good suggestion, FvB and I will write to the paper.

But that's another thing which is so odd: the way The Architect's Newspaper handled it, as
1. if somehow everyone might know that the accusation was true and so wasn't worth pursuing and so
2. it wasn't worth it for the reporter to go up to the Dean after the talk and ask for a clarification.

Imagine. A Dean of a very respected school stating, in a public forum, that another noted and respected architect has Nazi sympathies. And the reporter gets no direct quotes from either the Dean or students in the room who heard whatever was indeed said. To me it seems like it would have been a fairly explosive statement. And the paper's offhand way of presenting it means...? Means what? Honest, I am befuddled.

Very bad reporting. Or extremely stupid editing, to be fair to the reporter.

[Michael Blowhard]

As for the Nazi/Classicism progressive/Modernism thing -- good heavens, my entire art/architecture education in the '70s was based on the opposition. Modernism (or whatever it was turning into) was an ideological necessity.

Anyway, from the New Statesman:

"In the postwar period, it did appear to many on the left that classical architecture was indelibly stained by Nazism and political reaction. Most leftists concerned with architecture were modernists."

Amusingly, the author goes on to say:

"The right, on the other hand, certainly after the high-rise debacle of the 1960s, used the supposed links between modernism and socialism to epitomise all that was rotten in the welfare state."

It's a good piece, at least in the sense that the author seems to agree with you, me, Krier, etc -- that styles and politics aren't so easily welded together as some would claim. Modernism has been used by socialists, corporatists, and fascists. Classicism has been used by good guys as well as bad guys.

[David Sucher]

MB,
You can always find someone to vouch for something.

But when the best you can do is find a guy who immediately disowns his own words --

''Classical architecture will never lose its associations with Nazism. They make it eternally unacceptable as a style in which to build." Some years ago, I wrote words to that effect in the New Statesman. I almost immediately regretted them.'

-- then I think you might want to go back and strengthen review your case.

Can you find anyone of any credibility -- in the past 15-20 years -- who attacks Classicism (or even Traditionalism) as tainted by Nazis?

[Michael Blowhard]

David -- The point of the guy's piece was that what he once voiced (and was now renouncing) was a commonplace -- which was that Classicism had been tarred by its association with Naziism. Everybody felt this way; you earned your place in the art-history world by saying things like that.

Anyway, the standard history of Modernism is that it was progressive, it was persecuted by Naziism, and that therefore it was good and ideologically necessary. Realism in painting was attacked for simliar reasons.

I notice that you seem to go into demanding-further-documentation mode when you have a disagreement. Why not cut out the in-between step -- like I say, my entire 1970s art-and-architecture Ivy education was soaked in this point of view, if not actually based on it. Why not cut straight to the disagreement? I can take it.

[clew]

I can understand and forgive post-WWII architecture a lot more easily if I think they were throwing the baby out with some foul bathwater.

The best I can say of some local classics of 1950s wealth (the hydroplane guy's house, for Seattlites) is, well, very unimposing use of the land. (Which I value even though I think the house is hideous.)

[David Sucher]

MB,
You seem to persist in thinking there is a disagreement over substance; there is not.
The only possible disagreement is over backing up one's statements; you make broad and sweeping ones and then, when asked to source them, act as if such a request is just so "uncool."

[Laurence Aurbach]

Here are a few sources to consider, all from the past decade:

Sally Kalson's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column about St. Florian's WWII memorial sparked some controversy. She wrote, "To me, classical architecture will probably always invoke fascism." She found support from the Post-Gazette's architectural critic Pat Lowry, who commented, "The design is based in classicism, and Speer gave classicism a bad name."

Kalson was not the only critic making such comments. USA Today reported that

[St. Florian] can't bear to hear the memorial disparaged as overbearing military triumphalism or as "fascist" or "Nazi" architecture. He is sensitive to these allusions because, though neither he nor his father were Nazis, Austria was on the enemy side in the war. "It's hurtful; it's very difficult to deal with," he says. "Classical architecture is an American tradition, and just because the Nazis perverted it is not a good enough reason to declare it untouchable."

Michael Kaplan, Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, associated classicism and fascism in his article "Revisiting Fascism: Degenerate Art and the New Corporate Style." He wrote, "The neo-Georgian architecture, suggesting familiarity and gentility, can best be described as 'decent,' one of several code-words used by the Nazis to describe what 'degenerate' art was not."

Andrei Codrescu, in Architecture magazine, asserted that the Louisiana State Capitol was an expression of proto-despotism. Codrescu associated the building's style and sculptural elements with the metaphors, and therefore the morality, of Stalinist Russia. (Codrescu's editorial was rebutted by Andres Duany.)

[David Sucher]

Thanks for the links, Laurence. I guess I just lead a sheltered life and instinctively ignore paying attention to things which seem preposterous. But I am afraid that those articles really don't prove too much to me. The ones about the Memorial suggest the obvious: that clumsy Classicism reminds people of Nazis. Kaplan is hardly mainstream and Duany did a good job on Codrescu's association of Classicism with Stalinism.

There is no way to persuade you, I realize, but my perspective is that very, very few people (even those who think about these design matters) really associate Doric columns with Hitler. But for some reason, pro-Classical forces seem to want to bring up this issue when no one else is talking about it.

[Friedrich von Blowhard]

Mr. Sucher:

I see you got your response from the dean, who appears to have disowned the remark as I predicted. Do you believe his denial? Do you really think that somebody who got to be dean of what you describe as a prestigious school is going to publicly admit such a remark? Did you ever hear the word 'damage-control'?

I don't know about you, but although I was born at night, it wasn't last night.

[Friedrich von Blowhard]

Oh, yes, sorry, but I was also keen to know how your approach to the The Architect's Newspaper is going? Surely such an apostle of proof as yourself would want to consult both sides in a conflict before annointing one side as the 'truth' as you have done by posting the dean's remark.

[David Sucher]

FvB.
I wrote to The Architect's Newspaper and await its response.

My posting of the Dean's statement proves nothing except that he is a man who will respond even to a "When did you stop beating your wife?" question, which is honorable on his part.

The burden now is on the Newspaper to come up with some substance to back up its assertion

Just out of curiosity, why do you have a dog in this fight? Why are you so eager to disbelieve the Dean? Is there no end to cynicism?

My own attitude is let the chips fall...

[Laurence Aurbach]

Okay, first you demand proof that any credible source has made these associations within the past 10 or 15 years. Then when I provide proof -- nothing comprehensive, mind you, just what turns up after a brief online search -- you move the goalposts. Now it's a question of how many people make these associations. And if it's a small number, even if they hold positions of authority, they're irrelevant.

I see a pattern emerging on your part:

1. Express skepticism and demand proof.
2. When proof is provided, dismiss it as unconvincing.
3. Change the standards so the furnished proof falls short.

Pro-Classical advocates want to talk about the issue, yes, but only when others bring it up. I can guarantee you they prefer the issue would disappear.

But there's no way to persuade you, I realize.

[Friedrich von Blowhard]

Mr. Sucher:

I seem to remember you began this discussion with the following remark:

Do you believe everything you read on a blog?

It seems a trifle odd to me that, having in this fashion declared yourself an independent thinker and a skeptic, you would then move so quickly to believing an obviously self-serving denial made by a person in a position of some public visibility.

My dog in the fight is simple. I saw behavior very like that (accurately or otherwise) attributed to the Dean on the part of authority figures many, many times during my years in academia and I continue to see its presence quite regularly in the wider world. (To wit, watching people who are supposed to be the most open to new ideas and concepts actually turn around and enforce dogma with the most base kinds of slurs.)I dislike watching people play intellectual bully. It strikes me as a profound betrayal of a teacher's position. Hence, since this sort of thing commonly occurs out of the public eye, I would be delighted if it were exposed.

[David Sucher]

I have no idea if Vidler is accurate in his statement or not, though I am clearly inclined to believe him because the story lacks verisimiltude: such an accusation as Vidler is said to have made is too serious to be made so casually in front of a group of students. Nonetheless, I am open to someone else coming forward and saying "Yes I heard the Dean say..." So FvB your conclusion about my "belief" is simply wrong.

Though -- and this makes the whole thing all the stranger -- Krier's own response on the Blowhard Blog was plain wimpy and not the sort of denial I would expect from someone who has just been accused of being grossly stupid i.e. being a Naz-symp. In fact the odd thing is that it wasn't a denial at all. Krier asked a fair question:

"All criminal totalitarian regimes of the XX C have equally used classical and modernist architecture for their perverse political purposes. Why should classical architecture alone be found guilty in that association?"

But then he goes and conflates the issues:

"...whether a monstrous criminal can be a great architect; conversely, whether a great architect's moral guilt necessarily reduces the quality of his architecture?"

Why get into defending Speer when someone has attacked you as a Nazi sympathizer?

Strange.

•••

As to a larger issue, Yes, I was wrong. Yes, there are cranks out there who claim that all Classicism is tainted because the Nazis used it. And of course they also used other styles as well so it's a pretty weak stream of analysis. Kaplan's attack on New Urbanism struck me as particularly dense. Overall, as I said explictly, the fact that Nazis used Classicism is a preposterous reason to attack Classicism. (A much better reason would be the precious pomposity exuded by so many Classicism-buffs.)

The purpose of my post was to help determine if one guy called another a Nazi symp, which I think is a pretty damaging accusation of intellectual and moral stupidity. M. Blowhard (and another blogger as well, I'd have to add) repeated this story. My own sense of fair play was offended by the lack of sourcing. (I did not -- do not -- believe that Modernist attacks on Classicism on the basis of Nazi ties are so in the air that they do not need a link.) That's what the post was about: fair play for both Vidler and Krier. And I will stand by that one.

[Laurence Aurbach]

The Krier piece on 2Blowhards was an abstract of an essay from a Yale conference held in November 2002. I have already mentioned that in the 2Blowhards comments as a clarification.

I think Krier sent it because he felt his position on Nazi architecture might be misunderstood. The newspaper article certainly made it seem that way.

The only thing Krier wrote after Vidler made his statement was this:

"Tony Vidler, recirculating the old venom, has forgotten that he chose me to replace him at Princeton for his sabbatical in 1977. Wonder how he would explain that to his students. He also introduced "Rational Architecture," a volume I edited for AAM in Bruxelles, etc, etc."

Krier's monograph was originally published almost 25 years ago; the monograph itself is out of print and virtually unknown. If one truly wanted to illustrate Krier's allegiance to classical architecture, there are many books, articles and projects that are better known and more convincing.

I'll tell you what's strange: Some students quoted Krier, and the first thing that pops out of Vidler's mouth is "He wrote a book about Nazis."