Not So Smart Buildings (Part 1)?

Many have railed against the "dumbing-down" of America. In popular versions of the argument, educational reform, narrow casting, and poppycock mysticism are faulted, while the built environment garners little mention. Yet we increasingly occupy, emulate, and sanction buildings with little complexity or singularity, and our renovation culture often obliterates delicacy and nuance. But are those buildings and tendencies "dumb-ing," or rather minimal and pragmatic, a justified expression of time and place? Am I equating simplicity with stupidity, and is this the snotty bias of my inner critic?

For starters, great, form challenging, expressive works are still executed (such as Gehry's Disney Hall). A few of the ultra wealthy commission residences of great ambition, and here and there, low-budget whimsies charm (see the Swiss Cheese apartments). Nor is this an attack on the International Style and the expulsion of detail. But in my opinion, the track house de jour among others is a sorry hand me down from yesteryear's creative clutch.

The defenders of the neo-bland will cite the democratization of building (or some such claprap), the cost impracticality of quality materials and specialized labor, as well as different programming demands (like the attached garage).

Certainly the lens of time better allows us to assess buildings. That historical diaphragm may now enable us to view less prejudicially the 1970's: the skyscrapingest skyscrapers, late brutalist works, the shed aesthetic, dingbats; and, recognize lots of wonderful stuff....and lots of dreck. Lots of dreck that we're likely stuck with, littering our sightlines, thoroughly un enlivening architecture (that sadly often displaced more idiosyncratic structures), like blank canvases at a gallery. And things didn't get better in the 1980's, or '90's.

Maybe I'm still recovering from grad school at CalArts (in Valencia), surrounded by miles of neo Mediterranean eclectics, monuments to mass building efficiencies, and developer profit rather than design thoughtfulness, with elements crudely applied--not as post-modern kitsch, or even deliberately false historicism; but, rather as a degenerate set of mannerisms.

End of Part One