Plans for Mechanic Theatre site stir controversy

[marcszar]

Well, to put the passionate debate over the fate of the Mechanic in context, here's an interesting scandal over a similarly-baleful dump in Madrid. A politician over there actually said the architects should be "killed." Extreme reaction, obviously, but her outburst still raised some uncomfortable truths ("their [starchitects'] crimes last longer than their own lives"). I guess people take their urbanism pretty seriously!

At least Baltimore, by and large, no longer engages in these absurd "statement making" stunts (it's preoccupied with getting rid of the rotting, failing old ones). Let's be glad it's not Amsterdam, which recently installed a bathtub downtown:


This thing makes the Mechanic look like a treasured heirloom. You can begin to see why public passions would be inflamed over such eyesores, even to the point of calling for the removal of the nihilistic charlatans who design these boondoggles.

[scando]

Originally Posted by marcszar

....Let's be glad it's not Amsterdam, which recently installed a bathtub downtown:


This thing makes the Mechanic look like a treasured heirloom. You can begin to see why public passions would be inflamed over such eyesores, even to the point of calling for the removal of the nihilistic charlatans who design these boondoggles.

Really? My god, what were they thinking? That building isn't just ugly...it's just plain bizarre. Everybody involved in designing it should be drug tested.

[micrip]

Originally Posted by scando

Really? My god, what were they thinking? That building isn't just ugly...it's just plain bizarre. Everybody involved in designing it should be drug tested.

Well, it is Amsterdam What the heck is it used for, I wonder?

[Infoman]

Originally Posted by micrip

Well, it is Amsterdam What the heck is it used for, I wonder?

Good Point! haha

[marcszar]

Originally Posted by micrip

Well, it is Amsterdam What the heck is it used for, I wonder?

It's an addition to their Stedelijk Art Museum. I guess it does a good job showing just how far the starchitecture and art worlds have their heads up their butts, but unfortunately it's just another small cut in the quality of Amsterdam's urbanism/streetscape. Luckily Amsterdam still has a ton of good urbanism left, so it's not that big a deal, but once you get too many "cuts" - too many baleful blank surfaces or too many desolate "sculpture in the round" setbacks - you kill the street. (Jacobs taught us that we need texture and continuity, not sleekness and disruptions, on a city street.) Baltimore, like many other US cities, has far too many examples of dead streets where the architecture-as-blank-sleekness effect was taken too far. I suppose you could call it the "Lever House Effect."

The weird thing is how so many cities that should know better by now continue to cough up public money for these stunts, hoping to get a little piece of "Bilbao Effect" action. Never mind that virtually every rust belt city now has at least one of these arts facility-sculptures, and they haven't done a damn thing to turn those cities around (big surprise!). Frank Gehry himself called the Bilbao Effect bull****.

[scando]

Originally Posted by micrip

Well, it is Amsterdam What the heck is it used for, I wonder?

It looks like the stationary tub I have in the basement to catch washing machine water. Nobody on Pot would come up with something like that....has to be some other drug...may be the tub analogy would bring up bath salts?