"We need to talk about TED" — I guess

I've never been to a TED and listened to only a very few. So my initial impression had been favorable to Bratton's critique — We need to talk about TED —  as in "I love Chinese food but I am always hungry an hour later."

But then Bratton said, disparagingly, "We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century."

Well, since I think I know the kind of houses he disparages — "McMansions" — and I happen to think that a well-done McMansion (and there in fact well-done McMansions, whether people like to admit it, and I suspect that they really haven't seen very many) can be a great place to live. Very comfortable. Very homey. To me, it seems awfully middle-brow to critique comfort.

 

So I get really suspicious when someone knocks "architecture copied from the 18th century." Is Bratton talking just about domestic architecture? Large single-family houses? Or is he against, more broadly, urban form as shown (ideally) in New Urbanism?

 

I am curious to know what's wrong with "architecture copied from the 18th century". (I discount the word "kitch" because by definition "kitch" is bad so "kitch 21st cool design" would also be bad.)

 

UPDATE: After some private conversation with Bratton, trying to find out what he is really trying to say, it seems that in fact what he is saying boils down to exactly what he first wrote:

We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. We'll have Google Glass, but still also business casual. (emphasis added)

That's good rhetoric for a TED talk but no so smart for thinking about the world.

 

Put aside the non-existent statement that "The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same." No one actually says such a stupidity except obvious retrograde Republicans (and we don't pay much attention to them anyway.) 

 

But consider: we use iPads. (21st Century). So why should should not simultaneously read Swift on iPad? Or enjoy 18th Century landscape design? Or enjoy living in a townhouse inspired by 18th Centur design? Why not pick and choose? Discard the old that we dislike and keep those thins we value? What is wrong with that?

 

It seems to me that only middle-brow intellectual "consistency" suggests that if we use an iPhone we have to be wholly modern in every aspect of our lives and must reject any non-modern elements of life. Such a perspective is not only silly but also destructive.

Comments

[Brian Miller]

Give me an 18th century brick townhouse, on urbanism grounds as well as design, over most modernist design any day.

[David Sucher]

Yup. The odd thing about Bratton's rap is that it made no sense. It wasn't that I disagreed -- I just couldn't figure out what he was saying. I asked him and he got PO'd and refused to answer in any detail.

Why would I bother posting?
The guy is important:
1. He is invited to TED.
2. He is a (tenured?) university professor.

He is not a nobody like me. So I expect a certain rigor in discourse.