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 Good Pop, Bad Pop From Ned Cramer, senior editor, Architecture, New York: I wish the author of "Venturing a Better Way," (May 2001), Lawrence Weschler, had analyzed Richard Hamilton's painting of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, instead of simply taking the artist at his word. In digitally reworking a photo of the galleries to look like a whitewashed Protestant church interior by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Pieter Saenredam (and then duplicating the result, pointlessly, in oils on canvas), Hamilton has managed to edit out all the idiosyncrasies that make the Sainsbury Wing such a marvelous setting for the National Gallery's old masters. The building's aligned archways aren't "a cheat, and a fairly cheap one at that," as Hamilton claims, for getting progressively smaller from room to room and for incorporating segments of columns only visible from one direction. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the architects of the Sainsbury, are consciously spoofing a centuries-old architectural motif: forced perspective, a favorite of Baroque impresarios Bernini and Borromini. Hamilton should know better. After all, he and Venturi and Scott Brown are equally agents of the Pop Art movement, with its layered, ironic sensibility. Yet Hamilton's understanding of the Sainsbury Wing is crashingly literal, not to mention embarrassingly ignorant of architectural history. What would Hamilton think if Venturi and Scott Brown reworked his landmark 1956 collage, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, replacing the body builder and his famously suggestive lollipop with an enthusiastic nude from the pages of Playgirl? Lessons from Madison, Wisconsin From Roberta Brandes Gratz, author of Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown, New York: In regard to Hal Cohen's story "Cesar's Palace," (The Metropolis Observed, June 2001): How shocking! A city can be one of "the most livable" in the country without being on the "architectural map." Madison seems to have something to teach the rest of urban America.
From Mark Melonas, via e-mail: Thank you for an interesting article about the graphics aftermath of the presidential election ("You've Got Spam," June 2001). I too was swept away with the need to protest, and I did. Although I was hoping to make a million dollars selling bumper stickers, I quickly realized that it was much more fun to send the attached image to all of my friends. Enjoy. Beyond George Nelson From Jack Lenor Larsen, New York: I'm delighted to see my friend Irving Harper on the cover of your 200th issue (June 2001). With this said, I hope we will before too long be shown the mature Harper. After Nelson & Miller he set out on his own, then was joined by Bill George to form Harper & George and create new decades of advanced designs for a whole host of crusading firms, including Braniff airlines. Our firm was one of his very first accounts, but it was not very long before we were too small for Harper & George--instead they became our largest client. This is another history, an extremely exciting and colorful one that most of your readers do not know. Corrections In our announcement of the winners of the 2001 Metropolis Designing Worlds Student Competition (Dialogue, May 2001), we mistakenly listed Richard Wesley as third-prize-winner Joyce Cheng's faculty advisor. Her faculty advisor was Marion Weiss. Thanks to Weiss/Manfredi Architects for bringing this mistake to our attention. |
