miss representation

A recent post over at Polis called to mind an occasional discussion that creeps up as exhaustion from real estate vampirism sets in: the pervasiveness of luxury. Well, not luxury per se, but the presumption of, the claim of, the advertising of luxury. A luxury that is often not actually evident in the subsequent viewings, but in a town that never fails to develop new ways to adjectivize a 300 square foot space with a sliver jutting out into a ‘one-bedroom’, the marker at which a space is converted into luxury is a slippery one: a four burner stove? A functional door separating where you sleep from where you don’t? Hot water? A $2,000 studio? The list is endless.

The yardsticks one might conventionally use are hard to apply; real estate valuations are so out of whack that spending $2,500 a month for a walk up one bedroom may still be more economical than the mortgage that same space would require. Try telling someone that you spend $30 large on a one bedroom — they will start looking at you like a luxury fellow no doubt.

No, the luxury appellation is particularly grating because it is both a logical fallacy and an insult to the discriminating attitude of a town full of people who sneer at a $3,000 suit because it is still off the rack. Is every new apartment in New York luxurious? It’s like the old Steven Wright joke: somewhere out there is the worst doctor in the world — and someone has an appointment with them today (I try to be more diplomatic — I’ve always wanted to go into a meeting and announce that half the people in the room were the stupid people, and the meeting would be far more successful if they stayed quiet). Somewhere in this town is an apartment that isn’t ‘luxury’ — and I’m probably in it.

Beyond that, the particulars of luxury smack of the most inane of marketing gambits. Since we are all only a half-step from some version of the professional services monster (lawyer, consultant, broker, etc.), we are far too used to looking askance at the mindless repetition of phrases of ‘best of breed’, ‘mission critical’ and ‘taking things off-line.’  So not only are the pronouncements from brokers deceitful, but we are insulted by their simplistic construction.

It’s a style problem. How many brokers have you met that didn’t make you think that the only job qualification one needs is a certain oiliness? A willingness to lie relentlessly and untrammeled greed seem to be their only skills. Given that this, absent any other details, would describe most of the people living on Manhattan, what grinds is our belief that even if we are all just that, we’re at least smarter and better dressed than the hordes of greedy urbanites that gather in Dallas or Phoenix.

No, the most galling thing about luxury housing is the fact that we think it reflects badly on our own discretion. I don’t want anyone thinking I walked knowingly into some hack rehab or Costas Kondylis kit job because I believed it was somehow superior to the rest of the apartments listed, but rather, find myself again squoze by the mutiple vertices of time, available funds and expediency. I don’t even care so much that I can’t afford what might actually qualify as superior. Well, okay, I mind a little, but considering the time and effort I’ve put into attaining discernment and aesthetic superiority, this democratizing of design is not distressing because the presumption that everyone can have it, but that it can be had through simple effort of declaration.

So what out there would qualify? That’s the worst part. Tropolism is still building out a short list of what might qualify. It is woefully small, relative to any measure: other cities, number of new buildings going up. And they are, at the very least, qualifying of the unctuous luxury descriptor, at least on price. Step down the scale, it becomes a barren place.

Rather than sing the praises of these buildings, the majority of which could be far better, I’m just going to issue a very short list, some speculative, some assumed, of what might truly break into the territory pissy New Yorkers (like me) might acknowledge:

Leading the list, oddly, since very few people actually know what it looks like, is the 40 Bond Street project, from Herzog & de Meuron, picked solely for the most recent description, which sounds like exactly what you expect: a fascinating interrogation of materials based on the historical precedents in the immediate context.

And there’s Meier, who, aside from stealing views (hey, you want to insure your view, buy on the beach), turned out some of the best buildings of his career (You didn’t realize you couldn’t relocate the bathroom? What did you think would was possible with those poured concrete floors?), turning out an almost academic (in the best possible sense) exercise in type and plan resolution. And using every ounce of his reputation to force his vision on a developer (it may have been more collaborative, but I suspect ill of the entire lot).

After that, it turns into a lot of some of this versus some of that. One Kenmare Square has its moments, contrary to my original opinion (the best of which is the seam on the north facade that breaks the brick and introduces a color shift). The Dubbeldam project (is that building occupied yet — going on what, five years of construction?) on Greenwich is interesting if only because is it seems to the have the highest aspirations (and the most compliant developer) in terms of interior and exterior design.

But if you aren’t willing to wait three years for luxury, or don’t happen to have a few spare millions sloshing around, what does this city have for you? Design-wise, well, it’s tenements and Targets for most. Over the past couple months I’ve visited a handful of projects. My delinquency in writing anything has made it convenient to collect these observations into a mini feature. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing in-depth discussions of housing for the rest of us. That ‘rest’ may scale up towards a slightly higher end, depending on where I end up between now and when I’m through with this exercise, which will address over several days neighborhood, context, even construction details. Soup to nuts. More than you probably wanted to know. Enjoy.

In hopes of finding new ways to be of use to those of you who find the time to read this, and because I can’t write every day about the stupidity that pervades the WTC planning, I’m casting about for some new ‘features’, particularly some that might, um, write themselves a little bit. One of the motivations for starting this was a consistent frustration that there weren’t places where you could find detailed discussions about the minutiae of what designers and planners do and why these things might be of interest to the layperson — to both inspire them to be more active in voicing their opinions in ways that might improve their community, and encourage investment in the services these people offer.

Because there is enough of a professional community here, one can live pretty comfortably inside it (though I don’t). Out in the sticks, well, it’s a different story. When all the ‘interesting’ architects can fit in the same cab (if your town even has them), it means by default you find your way into the wider world. But here, things can get cloistered, and even though it may be edifying at time, it can also be stultifying.

Nonetheless, some of these people were my heroes back in school, and now I live just around the corner from many of them. I think it would be interesting to meet Steven Holl or Richard Gluckman. Anyone having done what they do would make for interesting conversation. And there are people in this town who live just to meet people like that — well perhaps they don’t live for it, but such encounters make for some kind of rationalization or justification for other slights or compromises that make the banal and challenging days that we traverse most times seem more worthwhile. Sure, this town lives off name-checking and dropping, but I don’t need it myself.

I wanted to, want to, meet people like these because, well, I like thinking about buildings: how they are conceived, how they get made, and who (clients, staff and consultants) does it. This last characteristic is the most ephemeral, and often what elevates those fortunate enough to make to the upper echelon.

But it’s a real challenge to actually do any of this once you become a Steven Holl, or, worse, Richard Meier (once, I called SCI-ARC hoping to speak to Mike Davis — Mike Davis! — for five minutes; the secretary told me he got 4 or 5 calls a day from, say, Australia, students asking for the same thing). It’s all meetings, PR, teaching and networking. Whether you are cagey (after all, who wants to give up the details on their contacts?) or simply frustrated, no one really wants to talk in detail about that aspect of practice. Even though it is interesting to practitioners, I operate in the limited hope that people who aren’t read this site occasionally. And stories of how buildings get made and used are what make the idea of architecture relevant to everyone else. Architects aren’t needed to get a building made in many instances, but often are essential to make one good (regardless of how I mean I am to them most of the time).

So this is an open call for three things:

1 — Small firms. Start ups, either splinters from larger firms, or people just going at it cold. I’ve always been frustrated that professional journals do a poor job of publicizing the work of younger firms, often because it’�s not as sexy, but I don’t have any pressure to print glossy photos here. I want to publish sketches, plans, unrealized ideas, anything that’s an argument, concept or obsession (the mechanics of this as still unresolved, so I’m not promising a polished portfolio). It can be much more than that as well. This blog is supposed to revolutionary and all, so let’s revolutionize how small firms get noticed.

2 — The small names at big firms. I don’t mean to insult with that appellation (the exigencies of needing a clever turn of a phrase). I know that there are many talented people inside the larger nameplate firms with Associate, Junior or Senior Partner titles, of whatever nomenclature is used to keep their name off the door. These are the people who have a substantial role in shaping both individual projects and the style we come to associate with a particular firm. Being a relative outsider, I don’t even know the names, though they are likley better known in the professional community. I’�d like to profile people and projects (so if you can’�t talk about being in that role, but can showcase a particular project, that’s still of interest here) from larger firms, but I’m not looking for PR from the marketing department. I’d like to actually hear from the people doing it.

3 — Owners, Clients, Patrons. Easy enough to figure out. Have you ever though about or actually given money to an architect: for work, for fun, because you thought building a house just wasn’t hard enough without an architect giving you grief? Did it go great? Bad? Can you talk about specific points where the process absolutely made a difference in where you now live or work?

The only ground rules for the above is location, location, location. Since I write primarily about New York, my preference would be both people and projects that are regional. But if one element relates to the city in some fashion (small firm does project elsewhere? check) do contact me (there’s an email link there to the right). Even if you don’t think the story qualifies, send it anyway. I’m happy to pimp for anyone who does something I admire. But, by now, this forewarning shouldn’t be necessary: I don’t get excited that often. But I’m working on being nicer. Honest.

Ground Zero is spiraling every deeper into a Derridean nightmare, a farce that manages to interweave Seinfeld-esque concentric circles of absurd nothingness with every tautly argued theory of postmodern regression. Oh, wait, those are the same thing. Can we go home yet?

No, we learned abruptly that morning four years ago, yet are still reminded regularly every time the preznit wants to distract from his abysmal efforts to ape leadership or hand a pile of money to a crony — for him, the same thing — and no, we can’t. Not having produced any commentary in a timely fashion means I keep tearing up (a nice anachronism, no?) copy as a fresh absurdity is delivered. So a quick recap:

ACT I. Braying of the Families reaches the usually tone deaf ears of the governor. New boundaries of sacredness are established, and institutions with names like ‘Freedom’ are thusly banned. People resign, everyone looks askance, embarrassed by this charade of public review, but quiet sighs are released, figuring the worst elements will now be silent.

ACT II. The Families pull a fast one, decrying the previously heralded PATH station as likewise invalid. Apparently commuting is as morally repugnant as a photo of MLK, a coincidence which begs for an ironic Rosa Parks comment.

The source of this new friction is not the just-add-water tour de force of Calatrava’s glassine hat, but instead with the location of the train tunnels proper. The PATH station is a loop that encompasses most of the 16 acre parcel of the WTC site, and a portion of tunnels cut beneath the Sacred Footprints (TM pending, I expect) and the Memorial Quadrant (likewise), a fact that was discussed in a cursory way at the outset of the site planning, but there was a quiet, if ugly, tacit agreement that, well, there’s sacred, and then there’s sacred, and no one really wanted to put a price tag on that… until now.

[Interlude] One does admire the dogged and argumentatively rigorous stance of the Families. I had drafted and discarded posts in the past about the hypocrisy of attacking the various cultural program elements but remaining silent about the incursion of the train lines. But rather than simply rest on their ludicrous laurels, they began what might be a whisper campaign against the performing arts building — which is clearly outside the Sacred Quadrant (and cheek and jowl with the Freedom Tower), not to mention quite a ways from any practical realization — meaning we now should now perhaps start saying the Memorial Irregular Polygon.

ACT III. Last week, however, the stakes were upped considerably, when the PANYNJ brought out the BFG: Shopping. Every two-bit wingnut ideologue can take a piece out of a art-based non-profit, but Shopping, well, we’re in the cornerstone of American identity territory (one would have argued Freedom was similarly one, but Curious George dispelled that misconception several weeks ago). Renderings of the Calatrava vitrine enrobed in some of New York’s finest brand logos were released last week, carefully qualified by the promise that ‘no’ retail would be permitted within the Quadrant. Perhaps the PANYNJ wasn’t cc’d about the new Boundary of Sacredness. And Kenneth Ringler, the authority’s executive director, apparently hasn’t looked at a master plan lately — the last one I saw was the proverbial spaghetti mess of services and interconnections that stray throughout the quadrant. It should be an interesting experience; perhaps they will have a large line painted on the concourse to denote the sacred and the profane. Watch out Metro hawkers! The Families have yet to pass judgment on this, but I imagine it’s because there isn’t anything to attack yet — the renderings were entirely speculative, lacking any committed tenants.

ACT IV. Speaking of large blocks of untenanted space, Mike Bloomberg stopped his campaign finance printing press long enough to intone that perhaps, Larry, It Is Time To Go. Perhaps this is Bloomberg’s legacy gambit, as some have suggested even before his power play. It should be noted that Silverstein has about four billion good reasons why he thinks he will still have a say.

And though I agree wholeheartedly with the mayor, the dim spot in his technocratic, delegation-is-hott mayoralty has been to reach out to developers and planners who subscribe whole-heatedly to the soul-crushing bland corporatism championed by the Maestro of Mediocrity, David Childs. What’s he going to do, replace Silverstein with Boston Properties? Ratner? Brookfield? Vornado? The list is as dull as it is long.

There is no real coda to this tale; all we can expect is Dan Doctoroff to burst through the door like Kramer, to lusty cheers and inexplicable laughter.