ICA | 100 Northern Ave | Waterfront

[JS38]

Globe interview with Elizabeth of Diller+Scofidio

From this Sunday's Ideas section:

Q&A with Elizabeth Diller

By Harvey Blume | February 18, 2007

Elizabeth Diller, of the architecture firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, is known in Boston for her role in designing the new home of the Institute of Contemporary Art on Boston Harbor. But in keeping with Diller's refusal to sharply divide art from architecture, the building does more than admirably house and showcase contemporary art; it also exemplifies it.

When I met with Diller last week in her office in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, she said that residents of Boston -- "a traditional city, a brick city" -- struck her from the first as "hungry for a piece of contemporary architecture." With its large, cantilevered gallery space, the new ICA delivers handsomely on that score. But Diller wanted to give the building another dimension, encouraging museum-goers "to look a little bit at looking itself."

The ICA accomplishes that with varied, carefully modulated views of Boston Harbor, which make it difficult not to ask where the art ends and the world -- in this case a water world -- begins. And that is exactly the sort of question many artists in the last century have specialized in putting forward.

Diller's blurring of distinctions between art and architecture has occasioned resentment from architects. "Professional jealousy" came to the fore, she told me, when she and her husband Ricardo Scofidio won MacArthur "genius" grants in 1999, the first architects to do so. Colleagues muttered about the couple getting that kind of recognition: Hadn't Diller and Scofidio mostly been involved with installation art, dance pieces, theater, and film, all of which may have explored issues of space and human interaction but couldn't be considered architecture per se?

That question, however, if it was ever plausible, is now moot. The ICA is widely praised, and Elizabeth Diller and company have taken on a number of high profile projects in New York City, including the redesign of Lincoln Center, which is underway, and the transformation of the High Line -- an abandoned, elevated railroad in Chelsea -- into a park.

IDEAS: What's the difference between working in New York and working in Boston?

DILLER: Some of the work we're doing in New York City right now -- Lincoln Center, the High Line -- has historical significance particular to New York. In Boston we were privileged to be on the edge, in a development not yet built. That gave us enormous freedom.

IDEAS: Does being involved in high profile architecture mean you'll be doing less of the kind of art you're known for?

DILLER: Not at all. We have a whole division here for money-losing projects, and someone in charge of it.

We've recently collaborated on a theater piece called "Who's Your Dada?" and finished work with a French filmmaker. It's what we need to do to survive. Our practice is a research practice. Occasionally we get a chance to realize our researches in real life, in public space.

IDEAS: But you have run into some severe criticism, haven't you, from both the art world and architects.

DILLER: There is a kind of disciplinary border control at work here. There are those who think that people like us ought to pick one discipline, architecture or art. When we had a show at the Whitney Museum ["Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller & Scofidio," 2003] some critics were infuriated that architects like us were traveling in the art world. They couldn't imagine us as architects who were interested in space, and in showing how art and architecture can overlap.

IDEAS: But don't you acknowledge a difference between having a show at the Whitney Museum, say, and building the ICA or redesigning Lincoln Center?

DILLER: Of course it's different. Each project, each site has different limitations and a different history. We start every project by exploring the history. For example, we started Lincoln Center by looking at when it was built. What we do will be a bit of a commentary on its history.

IDEAS: It was built under Robert Moses, right?

DILLER: Right, in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Lincoln Center demolished block after block to be built, displacing thousands of families and businesses. It was regarded as almost an enemy of the people, an Acropolian structure elevating the arts and freezing the public out.

IDEAS: New Yorkers don't see it that way now.

DILLER: But that is its history. Lincoln Center pushed the public out, censoring out the public that lived nearby, and inviting only a certain clientele. It has generated all this development around it since, so now you see fancy towers and private condos in that area.

IDEAS: All very elite.

DILLER: Exactly. Lincoln Center produced an expansion of its elitism in the development around it.

But now when you look at Lincoln Center it actually seems a lower scale thing, a sanctuary in the middle of all these huge condos. Our aim is to help democratize it, letting the general public in, and sending a message to the city to that effect.

IDEAS: How will you do it?

DILLER: By eroding its edges. It's built almost like a fortress with a solid base all the way around it. Most of the periphery is about service, either garage entries or loading docks. We're turning it inside out, assisting an historic reversal.

IDEAS: What do you intend to do with the High Line?

DILLER: In a sense, our role as architects is to protect it from architecture.

In the decades since the High Line was used as an industrial railroad, all these ecosystems have grown up on it, evolving from air blown seed, or seeds that had come in on the wheels of trains. Rudolph Giuliani wanted to demolish the High Line. But now that people know it's going to be saved, developers are coming like a pack of wolves. We want to preserve some of the High Line's rawness.

IDEAS: When you started out, people like you and Ricardo Scofidio, with art world backgrounds, didn't actually get to build buildings, did you?

DILLER: Very true. When we began in the early '80s, architects couldn't build because there was a recession. Some interesting architectural thinkers chose to express themselves on paper, either in print or on gallery walls. That was considered paper architecture.

We were different in that we really wanted to realize our work in a public realm, even if it had short duration. Sometimes we stole or borrowed sites. Sometimes we were invited to do work in galleries.

IDEAS: What's changed so that you get backing to actually build?

DILLER: In New York City, there is a really unusual administration -- a pro-active mayor who thinks big, and a progressive set of minds ushering in a lot of interesting projects. As luck would have it, we are the beneficiaries.

IDEAS: And in Boston? How did you get a major new museum off the ground?

DILLER: When Jill Medvedow became director in 1998, the ICA was very close to closing its doors, and not necessarily for lack of good shows. But Jill's an activist by nature. She really knew how to step in, expand the board, and raise money. Boston does not have a huge contemporary art patronage, though there's no shortage of patrons for the ballet or the Museum of Fine Arts. But Jill was able to get enthusiastic younger members on the board who got their friends involved. She was charming and passionate, and able to convince a lot of people.

IDEAS: So leadership counts. Will you be doing more work in Boston?

DILLER: We made a lot of friends in Boston, and hope more work will evolve. And we're forever connected to the ICA at the hip.

Harvey Blume is a writer based in Cambridge. His interviews appear regularly in Ideas. E-mail hblume@world.std.com.

? Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

 

[lexicon506]

Sounds like the ICA is doing well....from today's New York Times:


March 28, 2007
Boston
Big Waves Sighted on the Waterfront
By MILES UNGER

THROUGHOUT its history, Boston?s reputation for intellectual and political progressiveness has been matched by its reputation for cultural stodginess. Natives of the Athens of America have always preferred to have their buildings covered in ivy and their art crusted over with a fine patina. Perhaps the prototypical cultured Bostonian was Bernard Berenson, who demanded that painters be centuries in the grave before he trained his educated eye on their works.

All that changed in December when the Institute of Contemporary Art opened its splashy new home on the Boston waterfront. Despite concerns about the limited money available for building a permanent collection ? an effort that began only six years ago ? and questions as to whether the quality of the exhibitions will match the quality of the architecture, the museum?s arrival has been greeted with wide enthusiasm, even relief, by a community that has seen its share of frustrations.

The building, designed by the experimental firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, not only embodies a renewed commitment to the exhibition of contemporary art in Boston, but does so in a form that is unapologetically forward-looking. With its steel-and-glass facade, light-filled galleries occupying a cantilevered top floor that reaches out aggressively to the harbor, the museum is shaking off the dust of history.

The force behind this turnaround is Jill Medvedow, who became the museum?s director in 1998, taking over a 60-year-old institution that was sliding gently into oblivion. By that year, attendance at the museum, then housed in a Romanesque Revival former police station in Back Bay, had declined to a paltry 15,000, and the dark, cramped galleries placed a heavy burden on curators who struggled to make innovative work come alive.

?I came in to transform the institution,? said Ms. Medvedow, who previously ran the small contemporary art program at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. ?The I.C.A. had a tremendous history of prescience and bravery, but it needed more space, a different kind of space.?

In 1999, plans were announced for the redevelopment of Fan Pier, a spectacular but neglected stretch of waterfront with a three-quarter-acre parcel set aside for civic use. Ms. Medvedow leaped at the opportunity to build a new home for contemporary art there.

But the museum?s inadequacy, which made the move imperative, also made it difficult to persuade donors during an effort to raise $62 million. Philanthropists happy to give to institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts or the Boston Symphony were leery of opening their checkbooks for one that had yet to prove its appeal to a Boston audience.

Somehow, Ms. Medvedow convinced both the civic authorities and donors that an organization with a devoted but tiny following ? one, moreover, ?that had never had a significant capital campaign? ? was ready for the big time. ?We were able to paint a portrait of an institution that would be transformative,? she said. But, she added, ?I think until we broke ground there was more skepticism than belief.?

Envisioning a vital center for contemporary art in Boston required a leap of faith. Nicholas Baume, the museum?s Australian-born chief curator, said: ?For some reason, while comparable American cities had evolved major museums of contemporary art, Boston hadn?t done that. Was it because, as some people said, the people of Boston aren?t interested in contemporary art? That Boston is more about history and not about looking forward?? In the end, Mr. Baume fell back on instinct. In a city as educated and cultured as this one, he insisted, there had to be a huge untapped demand for the vanguard shows he was determined to put on.

Doubts about the viability of the project were widely shared, even among those involved in contemporary arts. ?I think as all the plans were developed and they were raising the money and moving into the new building, a lot of people probably were sort of holding their breath hoping it would work,? said Wendy Baring-Gould, director of the Boston Center for the Arts, which features performing and visual arts.

But like many others, Ms. Baring-Gould has become a convert. She told of a Saturday visit in January when she and more than 300 others waited in line to get into the building ? a scene unthinkable at the old museum.

Yet challenges remain, including answering questions of what it means to be a cultural player in Boston. One complaint often voiced about the old museum was that it seemed disengaged from the local art community.

?I hope they exhibit in a broader way than they have up to now,? said Nina Nielsen, owner of the Nielsen Gallery, a pillar of the commercial art scene here. Building bridges to local artists and galleries, she said, ?doesn?t mean that you?re just provincial; it means you?re in touch with the community.?

Ms. Medvedow has tried to allay concerns that the museum will be just another stop on the international art circuit, with shallow roots in its home turf. ?In addition to bringing forward works from around the world,? she said, ?it?s important to bring forward work from our part of the world and to make sure that our curators are aware of and inside of the local art community, going to the galleries, the openings and to the studios, sharing with curators nationally what?s going on in Boston.?

The inaugural shows in the new building tried to balance the local with the international. While ?Super Vision,? which continues until April 29, has familiar names (Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor, Andreas Gursky, Jeff Koons, etc.), four regional artists were exhibited as finalists for the biennial James and Audrey Foster Prize. Beginning today, ?Bourgeois in Boston? takes another approach by viewing the work of the French-born sculptor Louise Bourgeois through the eyes of local collectors and collections.

Other basic questions, about the scope and quality of the permanent collection, remain. After a long history of staging only temporary exhibitions, the museum is getting a late start, with limited money, in building its collection. Further, the museum?s decision to buy works only from artists included in recent exhibitions, intended to husband scarce resources, will limit its ability to provide historical context for new art, which Mr. Baume says is an essential part of the museum?s mission.

Still, the new museum has produced an almost giddy mood in art circles. Even on weekdays the galleries are bustling, and projected attendance is 233,000 its first year.

Ms. Medvedow seems awed by the achievements. ?I?m both terrified and thrilled,? she said. With the whir of the opening behind her, she took stock of her first month in the new building. ?If I have any regrets, it is that the response has been so overwhelming that we will probably outgrow our space sooner than we had anticipated,? she said. ?It?s a nice problem to have.?

The optimism here is based not only on the new museum but also on other projects that are expected to help turn Boston into a hub for new art. One is an ambitious expansion at the Museum of Fine Arts that, among other things, will triple the space devoted to contemporary art. Harvard, too, has stepped up its commitment, hiring Helen Molesworth as the first full curator of contemporary art and announcing plans for a center on modern and contemporary art in Allston.

Harry Cooper, curator of modern art at Harvard?s Fogg Art Museum, summed up the mood: ?People feel we?re on the brink of a renaissance. Or maybe not a renaissance, because that implies a rebirth. But maybe on the brink of the birth of contemporary art in Boston.?

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

 

[IMAngry]

Ahem ...

I'm withholding judgment on the ICA until I get to see it. So far, it seems that people are more interested in the building than the art.

 

[Lrfox]

IMAngry- my thoughts exactly. I had no interest in the ICA whatsoever until i saw plans for the new building. The only reason i even want to see it is to see the building itself. Soon enough, its novelty will wear off, and it will become just as obscure (if not more so due to it's less accessible location now) as it was in the Back Bay.

 

[singbat]

IMAngry- my thoughts exactly. I had no interest in the ICA whatsoever until i saw plans for the new building. The only reason i even want to see it is to see the building itself. Soon enough, its novelty will wear off, and it will become just as obscure (if not more so due to it's less accessible location now) as it was in the Back Bay.

fwiw, the old ICA was beautiful inside and out. much more welcoming. inside there was a sense of purposeful chaos (from what i remember). and that little corner of the world between the Boston Film-Video Foundation, ICA, Berklee, the Conservatory, Hort Hall, and Symphony, as well as NEU, MassArt and the Museum School seemed like a kind of art district to me.

Emerson's gone a bit further away. ICA's gone east. BFVF finally died. who knows whats at Hort now. would have been nice to grow the eclectic side of the area, rather then having it become just a music ghetto and a bunch of BU students...

and, mho, the new building is no great thing. turns its back on the street, among other things. terrible aesthetics.

 

[Lrfox]

Thanks for the input. Reading your post makes me wish i visited that area more. It also makes it seem like the ICA was better off before. Maybe i'm just tempted to go see the new building because of all the fanfare surrounding it.

 

[ablarc]

and, mho, the new building is no great thing. turns its back on the street, among other things. terrible aesthetics.

Here's someone who agrees with you, singbat:

.

The less glamorous face the building shows to its neighbors

Die Another Day

The cycle of codependence between critics and stars does a disservice to both public and profession alike.

Metropolis Magazine
May 18, 2007

Our Bond couple - Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio - stands before the ICA in Boston

By Philip Nobel



Here we go again.

A celebrated firm, in a cloud of blinding stardust, completes a long anticipated project. In early photos it looks as if it has fallen short of the renderings, published years ago to great acclaim.

The firm has been floating on the power of words and images for longer than anyone cares to remember and it hasn?t built much, so it should be no surprise that the building?s not perfect.

Architecture is hard?they?ll do better next time. Right?



But as the ribbon is cut, everyone agrees it?s a success, possibly a triumph. Paradigms have been rocked, stasis shaken.

For the fortunate city a new day is proclaimed; for its citizens, the building is a gift.



At some point I make my way to see the new paragon, and it?s a mess, even an embarrassment.

Thoughts turn to naked emperors and their court. Again.

What?s going on here? The short answer is: ?Who cares??

Architects with skills unworthy of their hype have been stealing the limelight for so long, and with so little complaint from the press, that we can?t possibly get exercised over another glowing critical response to a so-so building.



The long answer to the question is ?business as usual.? and that business is perpetuation of a destructive cycle of codependence between the critical establishment and the architects we?ve all come to think of as stars.

To dispatch with the obvious, the ICA?s new home is disappointing.

It has been held up as an icon for the city?first by the clients and the architects, now by the critics?and is intended to anchor with culture a new quarter to be constructed on Boston?s long empty Fan Pier.

Where that new zone will eventually be there is a field of parking lots and fences; but even if the city is patched, the direction of approach will remain.

The museum sits on the edge of the water, and reaches toward it with a deep cantilever, but to the land it shows only its back.

It?s clear from the first glance at that poorly detailed, almost accidental rear facade that the experience of tourists on tour boats and the views of residents of gentrifying East Boston on the opposite shore have been privileged over those of future neighbors and those actually entering the thing.

But the grand gesture to the sea looks great in pictures, and that serves architects and critics (and their photo editors) alike.

A big attention-grabbing move is absolutely necessary in an age when, to succeed in mass-market terms, buildings must be reducible to arresting images that can be sold to clients and resold to the consumers of media. That way stardom lies.

But the big move chosen by DS+R (from a series of varied but equally strident early studies) results only in spatial confusion. The cantilever covers a much lauded waterfront plaza with bleacher seating?a stop on a harborside promenade that Elizabeth Diller once referred to as Boston?s only viable civic space?shading it miserably.

The same photo-ready overhang necessitates the placement of the galleries (which take no chances in cleaving to the white-walled and black-boxed norm) way up high. DS+R then solved that problem of its own making with the same big-elevator-and-narrow-stair combination that works so badly at the Whitney.

Circulation is correspondingly poor; details are sloppy throughout.

One room, the Media Center, is cool and earns its raves: it steps down from the trouble-making cantilever to a truly inspired and well-controlled view of the water. If there were equal and consistent experiential payoffs throughout, I?d be the first to say, To hell with the mundane?endure the circulatory games, ignore the material realm, and transcend.

?The firm has been telegraphing for years, in renderings of un-built and forthcoming work, that its finished buildings would take their cues from things we?ve already seen.

The image of a folding plane that becomes floor, wall, and ceiling?only an image, because when built it is always a fake?has been a staple of ?edgy? work for more than a decade.

Neil Denari, who may have been the first to popularize the motif, called his version a ?worldsheet,? but the same empty form has been used by Lindy Roy in a house in the Hamptons and, most famously, by Rem Koolhaas in his Educatorium, in Utrecht.

If spades were called spades, the ICA would be a startlingly ham-fisted homage to OMA?one, moreover, nearly bare of the transient joys that Rem regularly works into his buildings.

It?s all in plain sight, standing alone beside Boston Harbor.



But consider the pressures to write a positive review. Most American architecture critics have built their careers in part by reflexively championing the new. It?s likely they?ve been promoting just this sort of thing for years against a perception of local inertia. When it?s made real, or close enough: two thumbs up.

Critics being people too, there may also be a wish to be on the winning team. Certainly there?s more power in constructing fame than in questioning it.

Or is it that such critics think that star-crafted buildings, even if derivative and poorly realized, are inherently better than the alternative?

Do they fear that by challenging these architects they might discourage innovation?

Do they imagine that promoting innovation?even just the look of innovation?is such a pure good that the defense of all other values must be suspended?

The pattern is real, and its effects are clear. Bad buildings by big names get a regular pass.

Though no connection between high-glamour architects and high-quality buildings is ever demonstrated, the client learns that it pays to gamble on the stars.

Mediocrity goes unchecked. The public gets shafted. The cycle repeats. Architecture lives to die another day.


* * *

The article above appears in http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2681. A bit long and wordy to post entire on this forum, I?ve abridged and reformatted it for easier reading. My apologies to the author.

.

 

[ablarc]

I had no interest in the ICA whatsoever until i saw plans for the new building. The only reason i even want to see it is to see the building itself. Soon enough, its novelty will wear off, and it will become just as obscure (if not more so due to it's less accessible location now) as it was in the Back Bay.

Better curating and exhibits would help. This place's offerings are often dull.

 

[Merper]

...

... aside from the landside of this building completely sucking (all there is on that side is a steel service door) the exterior finishing on that side is also already peeling.

 

[ablarc]

jasonik just posted some pics here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=166157#post166157

 

[Scott]

At some point I make my way to see the new paragon, and it's a mess, even an embarrassment.

Wow! Two big thumbs down from Stank Lloyd Wrong.

Not a single word about art? Of course it hardly matters if some critic had a lousy day at the museum and employs his thesaurus to eloquently express his displeasure in some snotty magazine. A museum is judged by the people of the city who adopt it and support it... or not.

 

[ablarc]

^ It's never been a very good museum, Scott.

 

[briv]

I noticed this rather severe weathering on the ICA's facade recently. This is clearly a sign of water damage. What's the deal? Not even a year old and showing signs of deterioration?

Note the rust streak. This is an indication of water penetrating the facade. Not good. Especially for a brand new building.

Also, has anyone noticed these cornerstones laid out beside the jersey barriers lining the ICA's parking lot? They appear to read "New England Bld'g...Erected 1889".

What building did they belong to and why are they there? Are these from their former home on Boylston Street? Anyone know?

 

[kz1000ps]

I first spotted that weathered patch from Northern Boulevard about a week ago, and it's plainly obvious from that distance.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

This is typical. My father works for an engineering firm and almost all they do is fix water problems, all in new construction too.

 

[kz1000ps]

Another shot of the compromised facade.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Sweet Jesus that is some shotty workmanship.

 

[statler]

A follow-up to the Die Another Day column ablarc had posted:

In My Backyard
Our columnist?s first built work casts a slightly different light on criticism.
By Philip Nobel
Posted July 25, 2007

I?m feeling a little exposed. And not only because so many people have been chattering (pro and con) about my May column on starchitects and critical complicity. There?s more on that below. But first my crisis: exactly 12 years after graduating from architecture school, I?ve finally built something?a real structure, inhabitable, subject to sun and rain, wrestling every minute with wind, rot, and gravity. Oh, how I was kept up at night thinking about overturning and shear! The site was tricky (the preexisting concrete pad not being perfectly flat), and the program was devilishly complex.

I wanted to make a clubhouse for my sons to play their Star Wars games out of earshot and a secluded spot for my girlfriend?a Quaker, no less?to sit and watch our garden grow. To resolve that in-herent conflict, I thought briefly about introducing yet more program?perhaps a bus station as I?d seen a young provocateur do far too recently in a housing studio at Yale?but then it occurred to me that this whole cross-programming thing is so, like, 15 years ago, and anyway I wasn?t sure how to get the B61 into my backyard without discomfiting the neighbors. So I built this kinda tower, about ten feet tall, with an enclosed hideout for the spry up top and a sorta love seat (just in case I was invited) facing out toward the weeds at the base.

It is a triumph, of course. Paradigms have been rocked, stasis shaken, etc., etc.

Then my friends started coming over, beginning with Thomas de Monchaux, a brilliant architecture critic, who said he was impressed by my comfort with angles other than 90 degrees (to my eyes it is perfectly square, except where I really could have used a second pair of hands to help hold things straight). Next came a smart architect; he saw it and was appalled. Somehow not providing access to the tippy top, a choice made to reduce the likelihood of emergency room visits (which is to say in response to my clients? needs), negated the very idea of ?tower? and caused my friend to shake his head with grave and not entirely mock concern. I had planned a plastic bubble skylight for the roof, sourced it on the Web, and even bought a keyhole saw to install it, which would have provided that climax through visual access. But my clients objected. ?We want it dark up there,? the little philistines whined.

Soon a crowd came by for a cookout. Everyone kept referring to my unique architectural response to space and place as a ?lifeguard stand? (has nothing else ever been made out of white-painted 4?4s?), and some, several beers in, went so far as to swing on the delicate yet boldly cantilevered trellis, a gracious statement about infinity and the pitfalls of building with wet wood that in no way can be mistaken for monkey bars (except for the fact that I used grip-width dowels and spaced them just the right distance apart). Keen-eyed Karrie Jacobs, my beloved column colleague, came, observed, and had no comment.

Damn critics! Can?t anyone read the architecture? Or did these doubters just momentarily forget the most important rule of architecture criticism in a free society? People are welcome to do whatever dumb-ass thing they want on their own property, but as soon as a building fronts on a street, as soon as it invites strangers in, as soon as it affects the shape of a city?which is, after all, something we all still share?the work in question must rise to a certain level of quality, the architects should conduct themselves with a certain level of respect and dignity (or at least keep the selfish myth-building mendacity to a minimum), and critics need to weigh the success of the new thing in this light, out of a sense of responsibility to the state of the art and an eye on the public trust.

Which brings us back to that column from two months ago in which I expressed some concern, perhaps even annoyance, at the ongoing and, I believe, irresponsible fluffing of star architects by so many architecture critics. As the latest example of this widespread and persistent phenomenon, I looked at Diller Scofidio + Renfro?s new building for the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), in Boston, which was greeted with all kinds of praise despite being, I and a few others have argued, not quite the thing. There?s a little delay here (ah, for the immediacy of a blog), but I?d like to respond to some of the response to that column.

First, re: general charges of cruelty, I wasn?t being sarcastic when I wrote of DS+R, ?Architec?ture is hard?they?ll do better next time. Right?? That was meant to be earnest sympathy, as well as a suggestion of a more fitting tone than fanfare with which to appraise the work of architects who are in effect still learning how to build. Who is served by pretending an honest spring-training single is a pennant-winning home run?

Many people have also suggested, in private communications and on the busy comments thread at Metropolismag.com, that it was unfair to pick on the ICA alone. Why, more than a few have asked, did I not also mention ?Danny in Denver,? ?Danny in Toronto,? or ?Zaha in Cincinnati?? Only because, I?m ashamed to say, I haven?t visited those buildings. But I have written about overhyped projects comparable to the ICA many times here, arguing, for instance, that Steven Holl?s dorm at MIT, Norman Foster?s Hearst Tower, Frank Gehry?s IAC headquarters, and?the granddaddy of them all?Peter Eisenman?s Wexner Center are as buildings failures in a way you would never know only by reading the fog of praise that obscures them.

This relates to another line of criticism that my housemate, returning from her sanctum out back, describes as the ?jolly good but? school?readers in favor of my conclusions but wishing for a more comprehensive critique. To that I will say that this is a column, part of an ongoing discussion even if entered midstream, and not a series of freestanding essays aspiring to completely encircle a given subject, something that is rarely possible in 1,200 words anyway. I could no more cover all the bases in that May column than I will here in July. But I will also shamelessly refer readers looking for a more thorough discussion of the mechanics of starchitecture, the role of critics, and the effect of the whole circus on the wider profession to my 2005 book on the World Trade Center reconstruction, long stretches of which are concerned with nothing else, and which can now be purchased online for a penny.

On a final note, I do regret not having given a gentlemanly prepublication heads-up to Charles Renfro, whom I?ve known for years and like very much. But I will correct that now by extending to him an invitation to bash my backyard handiwork or to write about anything else that may be on his mind, in this space. It?s only fair.

Link

 

[JimboJones]

ICU, I SUE YOU

Article in this week's Boston Business Journal.

The Institute of Contemporary Art has been open for nearly a year but construction on the $51 million project continues today to repair a cracked floor and improperly installed stucco.

Meanwhile, the former and now-defunct contractor, George B.H. Macomber Co., is suing the ICA for $6.6 million it believes it is owed for "extra work" that was not included in the original $36.5 million contract. The lawsuit, filed July 18 in Suffolk Superior Court, does not detail the extra work Macomber performed.

Source: http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/highlights/2007/10/15/story3.html?ana=e_ph

Unfortunately, subscription required for the full-story.

A little help?

Also, I forget, why is "ICA" under "Existing Developments"?

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

I moved it because it is already built and open, thus any further discussion is about an existing building, even though the building is new. I also moved the thread about Trillogy. It was also a way to save this thread from falling into the abys since there isn't as much activity in this forum as there is in New Development.