Love at No Sight

Dear readers, the time has come again. Two years ago, in response to the utterly unfounded idea, circulating rather broadly, that I take a negative view of things architectural, I resolved to honor St. Valentine—whoever the hell he was—by devoting my February column to a celebration of love. This year it’s not so easy. As a result of a book I was writing (in stores now—shameless!), I spent the greater part of the year ass-deep, again, in the thoroughgoing mess surrounding the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Though it was fascinating, important, even amusing (despite itself), there was very little there to love, per se. And of course zero love was lost among the players.

Within easy reach—a minute or two from home—the scene was not much brighter. One of New York City’s largest real estate magnates finally completed his major project on the next block; what was once a rather peaceful stretch of vacant lots in Brooklyn is now a thrumming quarter of midsize apartment buildings, faux French and rather hasty in the details. On a nearby corner another new apartment building rose brilliantly then fell from grace. I had watched it go up brick-by-brick and I was planning to write it up as some perfect example of the American building arts. But after the scaffolding came down it went right back up: the brick was spalling and sagging and pulling away—doing pretty much everything you hope a brick wall will never do. Alas, I’ll have to find another poster child for the humble sublime.

I did manage to get up to 53rd Street to see New York City’s most celebrated new building (a full borough away—the subway is a remarkable conveyance). But the new Museum of Modern Art left me…not cold, but neutral. MoMA’s big. It’s white. It’s full of art. What else should it be?

Oh, I know it seems dire. But all is not lost. It was a big year for architectural rollouts, and I haven’t been so lost at the bottom of the pit that I’ve been unable to open the daily digests of international design news that the tireless Kristen Richards, proprietor of Archnewsnow.com, edits and e-mails off each morning. I think I may even have taken a look at a “magazine” or two (useful things). So I feel a great certainty that there were a few new constructions or happenings that I just would have adored to death—had I, you know, actually seen them.

1. Puppet Corbu
On the occasion of some convenient anniversary for Le Corbusier’s only American building, the Carpenter Center at Harvard, the inspired patrons at that university commissioned artist Pierre Huyghe to celebrate the cranky architect and his work. Huyghe responded with a “puppet opera” reenacting scenes from the life of the building, and of course included his own puppet self in the action. Shades of Being John Malkovich. Perfect. I bet.

2. Ginza Chanel
Last month found me making noises in this space about signage and buildings. Had I known of this project, which I saw recently on grainy video in Midtown a week before it opened in Tokyo, it would have all been different. For a new Chanel store in the Ginza—a little skyscraper, really—the celebrated architect Peter Marino covered the entire facade with a dense skin of white LEDs. Marino’s tower, programmed to flash shifting tweed patterns into the night, is destined to be a classic. Those little buggers are poised to make it big in architecture. Apparently, like true love, they last forever.

3. Taipei 101
With Midtown a stretch and Cambridge over the horizon, the chances that I would make it to Taiwan for the ribbon cutting of the newest world’s tallest building were slim. This bouquet nonetheless: Sure, in pictures it looks like a cheap candlestick you found at the finest crafts store in that dying mall two towns over. But, god, that thing is tall. And anything that tall looks great at dusk. (There’s hope for the Freedom Tower.)

4. Venice Biennale
I’m not too sorry that I missed the biennial architecture shows in Venice. The theme this round was Metamorph (yawn), and though the net was cast rather wide, it did seem that Peter Eisenman was given a rather disproportionate amount of airplay, considering his dwindling importance. Still, I regret not going; had I, there’s a chance I could have been on the plane home where Herbert Muschamp, recently deposed from the New York Times, lost his cool in spectacular fashion when he found himself seated near a colleague who was in part responsible for his exit. Reportedly it was quite a scene. I would have loved to have seen that.