First on the list is National Center for Atmospheric Research, which we walked around just a few weeks ago. Here's a photograph of it that I took in 2014.
The NYT has a close up photo of the building, but I liked the distant view, which showed how it fit with the rocks in the landscape in Boulder, Colorado.
Fifth on the list is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here's my photograph of that, taken in 2009. Again the NYT photo is more close up, and I like to show the setting to see how the object fits the place. In this case, it's Cleveland, right on the shore of Lake Erie:
The other buildings on the NYT list are the Everson Museum of Art (in Syracuse, NY), the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (in Washington, D.C.), the Museum of Islamic Art (in Doha, Qatar), and, of course, that glass pyramid that's part of the Louvre in Paris and about which Pei said — presumably because of all the criticism — "If there’s one thing I know I didn’t do wrong, it’s the Louvre."
And here's the NYT obituary. Excerpt:
And all of his work — from his commercial skyscrapers to his art museums — represented a careful balance of the cutting edge and the conservative.
Mr. Pei remained a committed modernist, and while none of his buildings could ever be called old-fashioned or traditional, his particular brand of modernism — clean, reserved, sharp-edged and unapologetic in its use of simple geometries and its aspirations to monumentality — sometimes seemed to be a throwback, at least when compared with the latest architectural trends.
This hardly bothered him. What he valued most in architecture, he said, was that it “stand the test of time.”
He maintained that he wanted not just to solve problems but also to produce “an architecture of ideas.” He worried, he added, “that ideas and professional practice do not intersect enough.”
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NCAR's Mesa Lab is a nightmare for upkeep however. Lots of places where water can (and does) penetrate. Of course, it's an old building and the window technology way back when was not great. I can't recall how much was spent replacing them. It was a lot though.
It looks great though.
For all his talent, the Louve Pyramid is an ugly monstrosity. It completely does not fit.
I disagree about the Louvre Pyramid being ugly. The contrast with the Louvre is what makes that piece work so well.
If you want ugly monstrosity in Paris, walk over the Pompidou Center!
Neither example of "fits" fits in my opinion. The IMPei-eror has no clothes.
Government Center in Boston could be improved only by a MOAB or a handful of other guided munitions. The MOABis probably better as it might be able to reach Harbor Towers...I kinda like the Louvre. Fine as renovations go. If his goal was to engage people in design he certainly succeeded.
The glass pyramid is dull, as is the rest of his work. His ideas were lame.
They all suck.
Can we tear down his hideous buildings now?
"If there’s one thing I know I didn’t do wrong, it’s the Louvre."
I would have thought he would have thought the opposite.
Glass pyramid at the Louvre. Glass pyramid at the Rock N Roll hall of fame.
The guy phoned it in.
It's all crap. Modernist, postmodernist, international style, crap. And the people who pretend otherwise are full of crap. Architecture as an industry has drawn in very disturbed people who hate much of humanity and history and beauty.
The Pyramid sucks. The description of his style in that article could have fit Albert Speer you know. The arrogance too.
Notably missing is Boston's Hancock Tower. Apparently Pei didn't do his homework when designing that building; it caused settling in the ground and almost did fatal damage to nearby Trinity Church. The building had a tendency to blow out windows during construction, which covered over with plywood gave the building is not too complimentary nickname the "Plywood Palace." Not that anyone's career is free of grievous mistakes, is there anything Pei designed that could be considered beautiful. If one thinks Bauhaus architecture is beautiful, perhaps. The Louvre Pyramid, in its setting, seems to show maybe that's not the case.
As a troglodyte I'm free to think of I.P. Freely.
"Lots of places where water can (and does) penetrate. Of course, it's an old building and the window technology way back when was not great."
That's really the problem isn't it? It's crap design. It failed at two if not all three of the primary purposes of architecture.
It's old? The didn't have good window technology. Please. There are buildings much, much older that don't leak and have their original windows. It's crappy architecture that ignores thousands of years of human experience with building to make social justice statements or to just stick it to the world.
David Docetad opines: Architecture as an industry has drawn in very disturbed people who hate much of humanity and history and beauty.
A bit like fashion designers.
Style, (perceived style) over functionality. Hearing about the water problems at NCAR is interesting. Building a structure that refuses to admit the climate it 'weathers' in, seems to ignore the 1st rule of design. FL Wright, designed buildings specifically to be in sync with the climate they existed in. Designing in features that captured sun in the winter, and shaded it out in the summer.
FL Wright, designed buildings specifically to be in sync with the climate they existed in. Designing in features that captured sun in the winter, and shaded it out in the summer.
Yes. Not without his flaws but he not only designed with sun and shade in mind but also the surroundings to create a structure that looked at home with its environment. My father was a great admirer of Wright and used similar considerations in his designs.
Why Modern Architecture SUCKS
This video by Paul Joseph Watson lays out the foundation of "crimes against beauty" post WWII architecture.
Well done. Must see.
Google "Why beauty matters" for another informative video.
Great write-up of the controversy here.
Is there anybody alive (other than in the profession) who admits loving modernist architecture? It seems pretty close to universally loathed.
I finally made it to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year. What a paean to Boomer nostalgia. Hard Rock Cafe without the burgers.
Most locals, including me, are fond of NCAR.
I love modern architecture.
I would love to buy and live in a modern house. They're very hard to find! There's also this hideous design instead.
I like his work, by the way.
Interesting how art (creation?) can cause strong feelings in people.
One way I like to explain pro-life feelings is to imagine that some millionaire buys a Monet. But instead of treating it like a treasure, the millionaire puts his foot through the work. He burns it and pees on it.
That would infuriate me. Even though I have no "right" to the Monet. It's not my painting. But the destruction of something beautiful and amazing would upset me.
And the creation of a human baby is more amazing and beautiful than any oil on a canvas, or glass and steel building. It's not even close.
Lived in a Pei dorm (Spelman) my last year at Princeton. Concrete slabs. At least it wasn't designed by Frank Gehry...
If you think the addition to the Louvre should have matched the old architecture, are you really picturing the monstrosity that would have been put there.
The glass pyramid is great because it looks like a sculpture in the museum plaza. Then, all this stuff that needed to be added is below ground and the pyramid works as a skylight for that area, so it doesn't feel like a dark basement.
I think it's great, and I agree with Pei that it's right and not wrong.
(I've been there a few times, so I'm speaking of an in-person impression.)
“NCAR's Mesa Lab is a nightmare for upkeep however. Lots of places where water can (and does) penetrate. Of course, it's an old building and the window technology way back when was not great. I can't recall how much was spent replacing them. It was a lot though.”
I visited many decades ago (I had gone to college with the son of the guy running it at the time), and my kid did too, when they were working on their PhD in nearby Boulder, and they concur with your view of the place.
I know a couple who met as architects working for Pei. He left to found his own firm, but his wife was still there last I knew. His father, one of my father’s best friends, had the lead name in the top firm in Denver that built that sort of buildings. The architectural battle was apparently epic, when the elder couple built their retirement house several decades ago, with five architects in the family.
Ann, I found the house for you. Your search is over.
OK - perhaps not. The walk-ability score is poor. Car dependent to the max.
(when I was young, I used to say I'd like to live in an office building. This is it!)
Check out the view. Killer!
@Ann Althouse:
I would love to buy and live in a modern house. They're very hard to find! There's also this hideous design instead.
Okay, modernist homes excepted. It does seem to work on a smaller scale. Especially considering my own home is semi-modern. And while I do appreciate clean lines and miminalism, to a degree, I still have a love for ornamentation. Perhaps handed down from my mother's love of tchotchkes. But so many modernist buildings just look like giant parking garages to me.
The East Building of the National Gallery of Art (in Washington, D.C.) looks nice, and it fits comfortably into an odd-shaped corner of he Mall, but it is a failure at its most basic job. It is a terrible place to try to hang art, and an even worse place to view art.
This video by Paul Joseph Watson ...
is dumb, fascist bullshit. Sad the guy has a following. Some people get so snowed by sarcasm and a sneering tone.
If you want to see mediocre, look at the intellectual pedigree of these theories that art has recently become degenerate. Entartete Kunst!
Of course, you can't get smart just by being reverse stupid; a lot of modern art & architecture does suck. But gross nostalgia, especially when paired with the idea that you are a member of great lost superior culture, just never leads anywhere good.
"This video by Paul Joseph Watson lays out the foundation of "crimes against beauty" post WWII architecture."
Thanks for the link. That pretty much sums it up.
The link to totalitarianism is important.
To say "I love modern architecture" is to say I love totalitarianism, or to be ignorant of what it is and what it is about.
Sorry, to see the passing of Mr. Pei.
The cathedral at Notre Dame is safe from interpretation.
"Designed by renowned architect I. M. Pei, the museum design includes a striking exterior that conceals one of the finest collections of Islamic arts in the world."
Yay!
Lots of places where water can (and does) penetrate.
"GCP’s Blue360sm Design Advantage Team was deeply involved in the museum design project, and recommended Preprufe® 300R waterproofing membrane be applied below the slab to prevent water migration around the substructure."
"I would love to buy and live in a modern house. They're very hard to find! There's also this hideous design instead."
And yet you don't, you live in a traditional neighborhood, in a traditional home. Why is that? It's not really because you can't find a modern house. It's that a modernist house is an "object of art" and may only exist in splendid isolation. It is not possible to have a neighborhood of modernist houses, where you can walk the dog, chat with a neighbor, all the things you want. There is no endless variation of the glass box form that can make up a neighborhood. The best you can do is the stultifying uniformity of a glass tower. You could live in that, but you don't.
I finally made it to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year.
Wow, congratulations, Farmer! I didn't even know you were a musician. ;-D
I was at Indiana University when the I.M. Pei building was crammed in at Showalter Plaza next to the IU Auditorium, the Lilly Library, and Woodburn Hall. It is triangle based, apparently influenced by his Louvre project. It is every bit as ugly, even uglier since instead of glass it is made of concrete. The "East Bloc" architecture jarringly clashes with the other buildings in the area.
I. M. Pei was one example of what Tom Wolfe discussed in his book "From Bauhaus to Our House": Architects who kept applying the International Style for applications or in locales where it just wasn't appropriate.
These architects populated the whole world with glorified glass or concrete boxes. Even for Christian churches.
BleachBit-and-Hammers"
Ann, I found the house for you. Your search is over.
That house looks like an energy sieve. I would not like to pay its heating bills.
Some of his stuff seems like it might be considered brutalist.
@mockturtle:
Wow, congratulations, Farmer! I didn't even know you were a musician. ;-D
Haha. Even worse. I'm an abject music lover with about as little musical talent as is humanly possible.
It failed at two if not all three of the primary purposes of architecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings ALL Leaked.
You know how you can tell that the Johnson and Johnson building was designed by Wright?
People kept buckets on their desks to catch the rain water
When people complained about the fact that his houses were unlivable, he'd say something like:
Livability is Not the function of a building; its function is to look good
I can't begin to say how much that is a load of crap! IF you're a GOOD Architect, you can design something that is livable AND looks good. (see Louis Sullivan)
the distant view, which showed how it fit with the rocks in the landscape in Boulder, Colorado....
Blends in even better from another mile or two away...
Some of his work is attractive, some intriguing, some (much) hideous. Opinion, obviously.
But Frank Lloyd Wright has a MUCH better batting average.
FWIW , Woody Allen cast NCAR as the location of the Evil Empire in his movie “Sleeper”.
I.M. Pei's designs lacked not only function but form, as well. Having grown up in a modern house, I can't say that I dislike modern architecture. Lots of glass and vaulted ceilings don't feel cozy but in the Pacific NW, where temperatures don't plunge too low, they are not impractical and they look at home in the wooded setting.
I should be clear that my comment at 9:20 describes the East Building of the National Gallery of Art as built. Wife and I have not been back since the building was renovated — and some of its worst faults fixed, per comments in various web sites — a couple years ago.
@SDaly:
Althouse recently said that for a home, she would prefer a glass box. I agree that that would be optimal (depending on family size and children's ages), but they only work in limited settings.
And good luck keeping that clean.
re:"Pyramids at the Louvre" syndrome
often the architectural/aesthetic version of changing the subject when you cant win an argument.
"At least it wasn't designed by Frank Gehry..."
"(Hello, Frank Henry.)"
A couple of people beat me to it.
Do a Google search for "Gehry Case Western." He plopped a modernist building right in the middle of a beautiful section of a college campus. Like an alien invasion. I walked inside once - it was clever in an artistic way, but felt ice cold, like it was designed to intimidate humans. The University had to warn people that it was dangerous to stand in certain areas in the building's vicinity outside because snow and ice would all of a sudden slide off the roof and collapse on them.
The chief of design on Pei's National Gallery of Art East Wing and the Grand Louvre Project was Yann Weymouth, an architect now based out of St. Petersburg, just across the bay from Tampa. He was the designer of the new Salvador Dali Museum in 2008, where the collection moved from an older location also in St. Pete. It was yet another glass and concrete behemoth.
I first visited the Dali as a young kid in the late 80s, a few years after it first opened, and again on a high school field trip in the late 90s. The Tampa Bay Area has a dearth of good museums; the Dali and the Wringling Brothers (45 minutes away in Sarasota) are about it. And the Dali did need a better home than the refurbished marine warehouse it occupied. But while the derringers spent so much time on surrealizing the building with its glass atrium and spiral staircase, they appeared to forget about one thing: the artwork.
In the old gallery space, a collection of Dali's large works (e.g. Hallucinogenic Toreador, Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus) were housed together in a huge room with high ceilings. In the new space, they are spread throughout the gallery in rooms with ceilings just large enough to accommodate them. I was heartbroken when I saw it.
Pei did get one thing right. If you look at the photo of the Museum of Islamic Art in the NYT article, the building has a frown on its face. Literally.
Blogger etbass said...
For all his talent, the Louve Pyramid is an ugly monstrosity. It completely does not fit.
I think most of his designs were damned ugly. I am sorry he died, but it is no great loss to the world of architecture in my mind.
Pei created the plan for Oklahoma City's urban redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s. The Myriad Botanical Gardens and the Myriad convention center, his designs, were among the buildings that I had personal exposure to as a child. Grew up in a neighborhood not too far from downtown Oklahoma City. His full vision was never realized and was pretty much abandoned by the 80s. There was another, different urban redevelopment starting in the mid/late? 90s, I think. It was quite cool to take a boat ride in the middle of the downtown area.
Did you know there are shops underground in downtown Oklahoma City?
the Louve Pyramid is an ugly monstrosity. It completely does not fit.
I kind of disagree. It covers a huge underground entrance complex that works pretty well. The first time I entered the Louvre, it was through a side door, and the whole thing was not well laid out. That was before the "Pyramid" and the whole entry complex. The pyramid just provides some natural light for the complex below. It is just a roof.
The Society Hill towers and surrounding townhouses in Philadelphia aren't so bad and are pretty exclusive addresses now.
Every Gehry ever built essentially looks like a giant heartless robot squatted down and took a huge dump.
Wasn't there a Gehry building in Cleveland that had sheets of ice falling over the entrance? It's like he wanted to recreate "The Omen" every winter.
I'd love to hear Althouse talk about how the R&R hall of fame building fits the site, seriously. I can't see how it does.
Looking again at the R&R hall of fame building in Google Images, I can see some connections. I didn't realize it was on the edge of downtown, so there are buildings in the area that are harmonious to it. The pyramid shape becomes more dominating when see head-on, which tries to evoke an Egyptian timeless vibe to it (for R&R?). The "Long Live Rock n Roll" statue (too big to be a sign) makes the site look more like a mausoleum to the genre, which in fact it is.
Still can't make anything of the weird protrusions. It looks like an unfinished artists' model.
Also, all I can think of is Dave Barry's comment that the museum should be loud and obnoxious, and that the neighboring buildings should be calling the police on it to turn the volume down.
Why is that?
You ask Althouse, but I'll answer as I live near by.
Convenience. I like to walk to work.
"Ann, I found the house for you. Your search is over."
That's pretty horrible. Many horrible designs are done in some goofball perversion of modernism. They can be amusing to laugh at sometimes. But the kind of modern house I like is distinguished by very clean lines, great windows, alignment to the landscape, and a near-perfect functional design. Don't junk up anything. Make it as simple as possible with nothing to offend my eyes and let me look out on nice views.
For a house I would buy, it must be situated so as to have what I call walk-out interestingness. I have that where I live now and I don't want to move anywhere with less walk-out interestingness. It mean I want to walk out my door and immediately be in a place where I can walk and enjoy walking in many different directions.
a
"For a house I would buy, it must be situated so as to have what I call walk-out interestingness. I have that where I live now and I don't want to move anywhere with less walk-out interestingness. It mean I want to walk out my door and immediately be in a place where I can walk and enjoy walking in many different directions."
Does there exist a photograph or artists rendering of what such a house and it's surroundings would look like?
"But the kind of modern house I like is distinguished by very clean lines, great windows"
No scornament and huge plate-glass windows.
"For a house I would buy, it must be situated so as to have what I call walk-out interestingness."
Exactly, and unless you are talking about a completely remote house in the middle of nature, that means being in a traditional built environment. It is traditional architecture that makes "interestingness".
It's interesting that modernist architecture is related to socialism in so many ways. To the extent that socialism can ever provide anything, it is only because it is surrounded by capitalism. Aside from the fact that the Soviet Union had to import grain to survive, more importantly it had to make use of prices from capitalist countries to do five year plans, which are not possible without knowing the relative value of anything, which is not possible without freedom and prices.
Similarly, to the extent that modernism can provide anything useful to look at (let alone live or work in) it is only because it is surrounded by traditional architecture. By definition, modern architecture rejects and repels its surroundings.
"Many horrible designs are done in some goofball perversion of modernism."
Is that just post-modernism?
Or is modernism like socialism and communism-- all the actual implementations are perversions of the mythical utopia.
I always thought the Louvre Pyramid was beautiful. . . .just not there. Sticks out like a sore thumb. It hasn't grown on me at that location one bit. He's the type that would have put a solar-paneled roof on Notre Dame, fer sure.
I think perhaps the Pompidou is the grossest turd of modern architecture ever to have been dumped on a city. Gehry's EMP in Seattle is right up there, too.
The I. M. Pei story I remember comes, I believe, from an article on him in The New Yorker in the late 60s or early 70s. The author, having looked at the I. M. Pei building in Midtown New York, discovered what he found to be a fascinating effect of all the glass facades. The glass sides would reflect the building on the other side of the street but in a distorted fashion because of the flexing of the glass. This produced for the author new and interesting patterns. He mentioned that he was impressed by this effect to I. M. Pei and that the architect had produced this interesting work of art. I. M. Pei's response what that it did not do that, denying that the phenomenon even existed. Unplanned was nonexistant.
@Bill Peschel,
Yes, that was the building I mentioned earlier. It's the Peter B. Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University. (I used to live in Cleveland.) They had to barricade some of the sidewalks so people didn't have a buildup of snow and ice suddenly fall on them. Just look at the damn roof! Maybe that kind of thing works in Spain, but this is Cleveland. We have a phenomena called "lake effect snow."
I found an NYT article about it here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/us/cleveland-snow-tests-architectural-marvel-look-out-below.html
Just read an article elsewhere that author Herman Wouk had died at the age of 103. These things happen in threes, so we should have another famous centenarian go at any time.
Agreed, Ann. 100%. The inside of that house is beyond horrible. It is one of a kind!
The ramp in there feels like "house on the rock" eee.
But consider this, Ann: If you live in a glass house, your stone-throwing days are over!
@BleachBit, $1.125M for a house without an elevator? Sheesh!
Location location location!
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Dystopia-Survival-Architectural-Barbarism/dp/0198753691?tag=firstthings20-20
This excellent book on modern architecture is favorably reviewed by Theodore Dalrymple in First Things. Modern architecture is not beautiful nor meant to lift the spirit. Generally crap.
There is a modern house in my neighborhood. I have never once seen a person sitting in the spare precious living room in the uncomfortable art chairs. I expect there is a room in the back with chintz and overstuffed chairs and bookshelves cluttered with volumes and pictures of their grand kids.
Where do you put your shit in thes ever so clean glass and steel places? You never see a personal item displayed. Ever.
Where do you put your shit in thes ever so clean glass and steel places? You never see a personal item displayed. Ever.
When I was in high school a portion of our home's living room was photographed for a weekend insert for the newspaper. One of my classmates remarked, "I'll bet that was the only cleaned up part of your house". I laughed, as I assumed he was joking. But you make a good point. At some point in the early 60's, my mother became enamoured of Danish Modern furniture in which comfort was all but impossible. It was not somewhere to hang out.
The Islamoart museum looks like it has a Crusader in a big steel pot helmet peeking out on top. Must be spooky for the Mohammedans.
Destroyer of urban America. Dr. Will Kennicott enthusiastically approved however. Early purveyors of clown shoes and wigs.
One of his very first projects was L'Enfant Plaza in DC, which he designed in 1958 but wasn't completed until 1968. I worked there for three years. The flat roof was constantly leaking, and the dyed-brown, pitted concrete walls (which were made, on purpose, to hold the swirls and grain of the wooden forms that they were poured into) are the ugliest damn things in the world. I don't know what kind of hideous brownstone slums were torn down to build it, but they couldn't have been any worse.
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