Wednesday, March 24, 2010

post-louis kahn architecture


as i've said elsewhere, architecture, which is more vulnerable, is gone for now. art is next. there are certainly architects that i don't know of, but the ones i know of internationally are almost all terrible, except perhaps tadao ando of whom i know little. mario botta has recently designed an art museum for san francisco which establishes him solidly among the terrible. art museums are the best form of fake architecture since neither the clients nor the architects take art seriously. and then many artists obligingly add fakes to those made by ignorance. the art museum becomes exquisitely pointless, a fake for fakes, a double fake, the inner sanctum of a fake society. of course hans hollein is good at this. he and the guggenheim museum of new york plan a negative and fake guggenheim for salzburg, a hole in the ground. what is the public and what are students supposed to think of the horrifying design of frank gehry's museum of design for vitra? these buildings make a joke of architecture, of art, of culture, of the community, and of the whole society.

donald judd from nie wieder krieg found in the book donald judd: architecture - hatje cantz - 1991
(all i can say after reading this and looking at his wonderful architecture in marfa, and his truly stunning library is : to quote charles mingus : solid)
((image - judd's "classics" library - from the sagas of the icelanders to franco borsi's leon battista alberti [harper and row - 1977] to the complete loeb classical library, meaning : he didn't fuck around))

1 comment:

the art of memory said...

many wonderful books there which, from what i understand, will be posted on the judd foundation website soon. an admirable undertaking. curious about the sagas book, a nice older 3 volume set. the alberti is one i own, a hell of a great book. wish i could have photographed more of what he had. really wonderful.