A Building Is an Eyesore and Must Go? Grade it X

The head of the Royal Institute of British Architects, George Ferguson, has shown astonishing courage in proposing that certain buildings be designated as the opposite of 'heritage buildings', in other words, they should be torn down at the earliest opportunity. Of course he's talking about the non-organic design inspired by postwar Modernism, which itself grew out of the Bauhaus and other similar schools' call for plain, square, box-type buildings.

"Of course, some postwar buildings are routinely razed on the peripheries of British and other European cities, but they are usually housing projects that have become vertical ghettos and are destroyed for social reasons. Mr. Ferguson's point is that quality of life is also affected by the aesthetics of one's surroundings: visual harmony can be comforting; a modern block in a medieval or even Victorian neighborhood can be jarring.

And here architects, along with urban planners and developers, have a unique responsibility. If you don't like a movie, you can walk out; if you don't like a song, you can change radio stations; if you dislike a painting, you can even turn it to the wall. But alone among artists, architects can impose their aesthetics on the public. And the public rarely has a say."

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Should concrete be maligned? Is the problem the stuff itself, or the people who use it?

There is an interesting article in the current New York Times about an exhibtion in Washington on new forms of, and uses for, concrete. My only question is, if concrete is so versatile and shapable, why are the shapes made with it always so flat and square?

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