Monday, February 12, 2007

Foreshadowing Regret in Cleveland

BOTC has traversed the halls of the architectural elite and knows which "world-reknown" architects are actually worth their salt. Like other walks of life, some got game, some live on the hype, others are self-aggrandizing hacks.

The poster child for self-aggrandizing hacki-ness is the design architect for the Cleveland Museum of Art, Raphael Vinoly. Any architect or architecture student knows that this architect's work is intellectually vacuous, superficially articulate, and shoddily designed + detailed. It was a mistake to the CMA to hire him and the institution should prepare for many troubles ahead, even though they are experiencing cost overruns currently.

Read this article about RVA's latest calamity in Pittsburgh.

It is amazing to think that Cleveland could have been home to a Sir Norman Foster building instead of the mess of a building that we are going to receive. Foster's work is internationally respected, exerts an intellectual thrust, and pushes the profession and art of building forward. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the architect who wears three pairs of glasses simultaneously.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Who are some of the world renowned architects that you have passed in the halls of the elite and what makes them worth their salt?