The Fredösphere

This latest in a long line of denunciations of Le Corbusier, written by my favorite atheistic pessimist, Theodore Dalrymple, is a little too heavy on assertion, I agree. If you already have an opinion of Le Corbu's buildings, words like "monstrous" and "ugly" won't change it. I did find one fresh insight, however, and it's the kind that seems obvious in retrospect—which is to say, it's the best kind:

When one recalls Le Corbusier's remark about reinforced concrete—"my reliable, friendly concrete"—one wonders if he might have been suffering from a degree of Asperger's syndrome: that he knew that people talked, walked, slept, and ate, but had no idea that anything went on in their heads, or what it might be, and consequently treated them as if they were mere things. Also, people with Asperger's syndrome often have an obsession with some ordinary object or substance: reinforced concrete, say.

Of course. The narrow focus, the weirdly selective intelligence, and above all, the yawning ignorance of his fellow human beings. Asperger's. No question.

Labels: Architecture

Julie and I took the kids to New York.  Here's my diary.

Thursday we skirt the city in quest of our hotel on Long Island City. I'd say our location--just a block from a subway stop that will get us to Manhattan in five minutes--is near-perfect. Arriving in NYC around 5:30pm is not so perfect, and the traffic across the George Washington Bridge was coagulatory, but that is expected.  The hotel pleases. The neighborhood  real estate scene is in the process of flipping up and we congratulate ourselves on getting in on the ground floor. Or the 15th floor, actually, where we can see the ESB and, better, the Chrysler Building from our room. We are living La Vida Longislandista! We loose our subway-riding virginity. Few other people are crazy enough to bring children here, but amazingly we will see a few people pushing strollers. The sister-in-lawösphere escorts us to a little greek restaurant. I enjoy lamb and spinach stew:  not a carbohydrate in sight! The sister-in-lawösphere tells about her volunteer work combatting modern-day slavery. Evil people piss me off.

Friday I move my car to a parking garage to avoid weird NY fines for parking on the street on Friday morning. The lot attendant is one of the few genuine rude New Yorkers I encounter. I love it when they reinforce my prejudices! It's raining and this is the day we have tickets for the Statue of Liberty (the Maharincess' chosen destination). This is not a good combination. I even forget my hat. We purchase outerwear for me and the kids on Liberty Island. This means wearing glorified trash bags labeled "ponchos." A street vendor also sells us umbrella hats for the kids. Nothing says "sophisticated New York native" like an umbrella hat. The wifeösphere locates her grandparents' names on the Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. They both came over as young children as part of a group of Wolgadeutsche (Germans living in the Volga River region of Russia). We postpone our trip to the top of the ESB and go to MoMA instead, spotting a subway rat along the way. He lacks the typical New Yorker sense of urgency. In NYC, only the rats can afford an andante. Speaking of music, I do not see either Alex Ross or Terry Teachout no matter how hard I look, but what are the odds? Der Drübermensch goes ga-ga for MoMA; the Easter egg hunt quality of the kid's audio tour plays a big part of the appeal. Smart move there, mister museum curator guy! My fav is Rousseau's Sleeping Gypsy. Our lunch in the museum cafe is easily the best food we eat in NYC. Notice I did not say cheap. Meanwhile, it just keeps raining. We return to the hotel and lie about exhausted for two hours, warm and dry.  The sister-in-lawösphere (hereafter SILöS) takes us to an Italian restuarant in Astoria for pizza.  The owner is gregarious, helpful, teasing, and very very old school. NYC pizza is, admittedly, superb.  Admittedly as good, in its way, as Chicago-style.

Saturday is clear and we spend an hour in four different lines to get to the top of the ESB. (We were too savy to wait in the ticket line.) We are no fools; the King Kong posing for pictures in the lobby is obviously a man in a suit. Seeing the ESB in person, I finally get why its architecture is admired, but I remain loyal to Chrysler, and wish I could crawl around in its metal crown. We meet SILöS and walk to Rockafeller Center and St. Pat's. We eat vendor food. The Maharincess loves chicken in all its forms so Mediterranean spices are not a deal-breaker, but a Philly steak sandwich is the trip's culinary low point for Der Drü's hyper-picky palate. We ride to the Museum of Natural History. Each subway use is a ride of horror-movie logistics; the leap from the platform must be choreographed so No Child is Left Behind. We read Teddy Roosevelt's Deep Thoughts while standing in line in the museum lobby.  ("I want to die in my sleep, like my grandfather; not screaming in terror, like the passengers in his horse-drawn carriage.") I see a skull of an Indricotherium, a house-sized mammal: cool. SILöS is meeting friends tonight, so we dine in at the hotel's restaurant.  What a joke. A very expensive, microwaved joke.

Sunday we search for church. The earliest service at the mega-church two blocks away is 11:00am, so we attend the Catholic church that is next to our hotel.  Or try to.  Its website misinforms us of the service times, and mass is almost over as we walk in.  Say what you will about the mega-church phenomenon; from this vantage point its customer-service orientation looks like old-fashioned courtesy. (This assumes the mega-church's website was better maintained; just an assumption on my part. Still, probably a safe bet.) We enjoy a family devotional in our van, parked three cars down from a Camry with a freshly smashed window. We revise downward our opinion of this neighborhood. At least the parking is free. The SILöS takes us to FAO Schwartz. We see a short little old nun admiring the Lego statue of Harry Potter. She is from central casting. She can't keep her hands off Harry. Both are exactly the same height.  Both are wearing black.  I kick myself for not bringing the camera. Der Drü insists on descending into the Apple Store, it having the most arresting retail entrance I've ever seen. At this shrine, on this Sunday morning, cultists worship God in their own way. It smells like a horse barn. (I grew up on a farm, so I know my barns; when I say horse, I definitely do not mean cow, sheep or pig. We are near the corner of central park, so horse manure tracked into the store is not an impossibility.) We walk around Central Park. The kids play a game in that Chess and Checkers House seen in Searching for Bobby Fisher. A retiree waits for a Godot-like opponent. A yuppie couple play nearby, possibly on a first date. Further up the park we see toy sailboats on a pond and Der Drübermensch plans to become a toy yachtsman. We walk too far north and see the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the trees.  Its walls mock me, as our failure to visit it is my biggest regret. We return to the subway, walking past swanky apartments and a man sleeping on the sidewalk, picking a pizza place at random for lunch. Even random pizza in NYC is excellent. We escape from NY without problem, using my map memory to find the route to the Verrazano Bridge and across Staten Island all the way to Harrisburg, Pa.  Everything in this state looks surprisingly not crowded. I can now relax. Don't get me wrong, NY was a blast--but this was the most nerve-wracking vacation ever.

Monday we eat our free hotel breakfast while watching some infotaining show called Good Morrow or some such. The hosts debate the virtues of crunchberries vs. waffle crisp. You can't parody this stuff, but you can thank it for confirming yet another prejudice! We drive to Fallingwater. At the cafe we pay ten bucks for some turkey and lettuce on two uninspired cantilevers of bread. The house, however, is yummy.  All of Wright's usual virtues and vices are on display, in extreme. The tour guide plays just the right mix of reverent courtier and court jester, and she and I share a laugh over the Wright Attitude. The gift shop's powers are too much for us, and we buy some stuff. The kids claim to enjoy the visit. We drive home. Today is Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday.

Tuesday we take a vacation from vacationing.

Labels: Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wrong, Holiday

Shared torment has the power to bond strangers.  We arrived not early to the herding demonstration pen at the Detroit Kennel Club Dog Show on Sunday, and so with the rest of the overflow crowd we ignored the full bleachers and stood around the fence in the back.  From this position we could not hear the herder's lecture, but so what?  We came to watch the dogs.

Basenji:  A Study in Elegance

Border Collie:  A Study in Focus (the dog, not the snapshot)

It was after about 10 minutes of droning I, my family, and those standing near us became antsy.  A few exasperated words and rueful chuckles later, we realized we stood on common ground.  We few, we happy few, were a band of brothers.  We were one.  Meanwhile, the herder's voice would occasionally change pitch and volume, we would overhear something like, "okay, that's enough about the ducks!" and our hopes would rise . . . only to fall again.  The woman yakked for 20 minutes.  The sense of decorum and the lofty sense of dignity for which I am justifiably famous alone prevented me from shouting, "shut up and play yer border collie!"  Finally, we got to see the dogs in action; ten minutes of marching ducks up a ladder, down a slide and into a kiddie pool.  Okay, I guess it was worth it.

Far greater was our enjoyment of the whole dog show experience.  The DKC show, held annuallyat Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit, is a benched show (which I believe is unusual) which means all dogs are present in the hall for the full time the show is open.  Dog people are remarkably friendly and evangelistic regarding their dogs as a rule, so Der Drübermensch and the Maharincess got to pet their favorite breeds.  I was glad for a chance to see my favorites:  pembroke welsh corgis, schipperkes, and the regal borzois.  All the dogs are model citizens and you rarely hear even a single bark in the huge room, although hundreds of dogs are present.

Our Ford:  A Study in Neglect

Less inspiring was the walk to and from our parking place.  Downtown Detroit always infuriates and depresses me, but this promenade was special because we got to see the dreaded Ford Auditorium up close.  In limbo because it is too ugly and disfunctional for the DSO to use, yet too bound to car company politics and civic impotence (so the story goes) to tear down, the eye-sore (was there ever a time when it wasn't ugly, even when it was brand-new?) deteriorates and false rumors of plans for the site come and go as we all wait for the grim, faceless monster to get a clue and collapse on its own.

Labels: Architecture, Culture

"Those who love their vision of community will destroy it, but those who simply love will create community wherever they go."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Labels: Architecture, Design

By way of Terry Teachout, it's Frank Lloyd Wright appearing on What's My Line:



I have nothing profound to say on the subjects of architecture, the death of the middlebrow (one of Terry's pet subjects) or, surprisingly, megalomania.  Instead, I'd just like to point out those amusing little sequinny-buttony things the producers added as decoration to the perimeter of the female panelists' blindfolds.  A little detail no one would even think to use today.

Labels: Architecture, Culture, VideoClip

I must not be irredeemably evil because, even though I loathe Mies, my first reaction to this news was, "that's terrible."

Labels: Architecture

Got an extra $1.5 million lying around that you can't seem to shake?  Why not spend it on Ann Arbor's only Frank Lloyd Wright house?  It's for sale.  The link has the details (for example, the sellers are the original owners of the 60-year-old home) and a video walk-through.  I, and most residents of Ann Arbor, have never seen the house, since it sits at the end of a dead-end, wooded, semi-private lane in one of those areas of town where the houses ooze smug comfort and trees seem to frown at all people who do not belong.  People like me.

Labels: Architecture

Previously at the Fredösphere we discussed the discrete charm of French science-fiction.  (La Flamme Cosmique!  Métal de Mort!)  While French is an inappropriate language for le futur, Russian seems perfect, especially when spoken in the impatient growl of a Soviet apologist.  Io9 raises the topic; Dark Roasted Blend remains my go-to guy for images (galleries are here, here and here).  It would seem that, in space, all the stars are red.

While researching this post, a few oddities turned up that I cannot turn down:

Turns out there's a literary award for Russian science fiction which, as far as I can tell, is referred to as "Literary Award 'Russian Science Fiction'" (how ... appropriate!) which is interesting only because the trophy they give the winners looks like Howard Roark built a skyscraper model out of chocolate and then left it sitting too close to the radiator.  (Speaking of ill-placed radiators....)

Here's an alt-history novel that until now has flown beneath my radar:  it posits a world where the United States turned communist in 1917, but Russia remained imperial.  It's called Back in the USSA.  Cute.

An expert in ancient engineering techniques reviews some books in his field.  Any fan of the Age of Empires RTS (real-time strategy) game will fall in love with the catapults.  It seems the Romans (and even the Greeks) had some serious firepower at their disposal, including even hand-held weapons that could kill at one hundred yards.

BLDGBLOG has a wonderful collection of fanciful ruins, all from the game Guild Wars.  Don't you just want to eat these up?  I'm tempted to find a city and blow it up, just for the chance to indulge in some spooky/artsy melancholy.  (Memo to the good folks at the Counter-Terrorism Unit:  Just!  Kidding!  Anyway, why would I need a blown-up city when I have one so conveniently located just 45 minutes east of here?)

UPDATE:  Links are fixed now.

Labels: Architecture, Futurism, sci-fi

Gravity Lens comes through again with a Frank Lloyd Wright link.  You simply must watch this CG video of Fallingwater growing before your eyes.  They don't call it organic architecture for nothing.  Dang, people, this is good.

Labels: Architecture, VideoClip

Jeffrey Hart records in the January 2005 New Criterion his fond memories of the 1939 World's Fair in New York.  (I got my copy only a few days ago.  I don't know who screwed up, the publisher or the post office, but getting a magazine mid-month is pretty pathetic.  Come on, guys, I have needs.)  Hart  was a nine year-old with a season ticket and he visited the Fair repeatedly.  Clearly, it made a lasting impression, particularly the centerpiece:

In the sunshine, the first thing you saw as you came down the boardwalk and into the Fair was its dominating symbols, the Trylon and Perisphere [sic; why not Perösphere?  Looks like someone dropped the ball, har-har] the former a triangular spire fifteen stories high, the latter a gigantic globe a city block across....The Trylon and Perisphere remian in our minds today.  They have become something like the archetypes Jung imagined as central to the mind.  We have them in salt-and-pepper shakers, plates, scarves, pencil sharpeners, glasses, rings, ash-trays.  I have a copper penny rolled oblong with the image of the Trylon and Perisphere stamped on it, a souvenir of the Fair.  I wear it on a silver chain as a necklace along with a silver cross....The two gleaming structures were of course male and female symbols.  Inside the female globe, the designers had gestated their vision of the World of Tomorrow.  The called it Democracity, and it was the most popular exhibit at the Fair.

Let's look carefully at this bun in the Perisphere's oven.  Hart describes it as a model of a Corbu-inspired city planned according to rationalist principles, zoned into massive tracks devoted to worker's housing, industry, agriculture, recreation, and commerce, each linked to the others via superhighways.  Much effort was put into designing the Perisphere total spectator experience, with visitors riding revolving balconies while watching a multi-media presentation:

As the crowd watched from the two circular and suspended balconies, the familiar voice of radio announcer H. V. Kaltenborn exmplained how Democracity functioned.  After two minutes, daylight faded under the great dome of the Perisphere, and as dusk slowly deepened toward dark the dome twinkled with stars.  To a musical accompaniment a thousand-voice chorus sounded from the glittering heavens, while at ten locations on the dome you same images of marching men -- farmers in their work clothes, mechanics carrying tools -- and as they came closer you saw that they represented the various ethnic groups that make up the American metropolis, her presented as an image of national unity.

"Ah-ha!"  you cry; you see why the heck this article is quoted at length here at the Fredösphere -- its the juxtaposition of choral music and sci-fi!  Or at least sci-fi's twin, futurology.

What's with the "thousand-voice" chorus?  Clearly its purpose is to signal that the visit to the Perisphere is a religious event.

That's it.  I don't have any more points to make, really.  I saw it, I thought it was cool, I blogged it.  That's the formula.  I could express my horror one more time at the social engineers, but that's getting old.  I'm even getting tired of laughing at these outdated visions of the future, even though their predictions were so bad they failed to predict obvious stuff like this just six years away.

Labels: Architecture, Culture, Futurism

Der Drübermensch wanted to look at houses last night. This is a desire he doesn't express every day, so I wanted to act on it. I concluded the best way to do it and keep the whole family entertained was to take them all to downtown Saline, Michigan, which is about 10 minutes away. We would look at a few houses, then get treats at the Drowsy Parrot, an ice cream parlour on Ann Arbor Street right at the heart of down town.

First thing, we stopped and photographed this landmark on the west side. It and its lawn and outbuildings occupy an entire large block; you simply can't miss it as you drive in on Michigan Ave. It is the one unforgettable building in the whole town.

It must have been at the outer edge of town when it was built. Now it is still near the edge but well within a residential neighborhood. The historical marker says William H. Davenport, a leading merchant built the house in 1875, at a cost of $8500. William Scott was the designer.

Because of the presence of the marker, and because the house is so well maintained, it has the feel of something owned by a historical society. Yet we were shy about walking up the drive for a better view. This sign had a lot to do with it.

Der Drübermensch is nothing if not a relentless quantifier. He asked me how many stories are in the tower. I told him three and a half. That bumping up of the top windows is odd, but a good move to get the proportions of the facade right.

Labels: Architecture

I devoted Saturday afternoon to a walking tour of Ypsilanti with my old friend Alan Young.  We saw lots of restored classic homes, some in grand style.  Sadly, it's possible to live for years and years in this county and not know of the gems that Ypsilanti contains.  The city has always had to fight its reputation  as the poor stepsister to Ann Arbor.

I took lots of pictures and I will be sharing more later, but today I wanted to highlight this Queen Anne mansion on the northeast side.


This picture inadequately conveys just how impressive the house is.  Trees obscure the view from the sidewalk, and I didn't feel like invading the huge lawn to get a better view.  What you see here is only a small part of the whole.

Shelly Byron Hutchinson [Wow.  Shelly Byron.  Whoa.  I think I'll name my next child Pound Yeats if he's a boy, or Plath Dickenson if she's a girl]  made his fortune by inventing trading stamps -- he's the "H" in S and H Green Stamps.  He built this house, then lost everything.  Today, the house is headquarters for the High Scope Foundation.  This information comes courtesy of a book by James Thomas Mann.  It is published by Arcadia, a publisher specializing in regional history.  Thank you, Arcadia.  I have two of Arcadia's books on Ypsi, one on Ann Arbor, and I covet the several volumes on Detroit.

Labels: Architecture