morality (& mercy) in architecture (was: Check out...)

[JL]

david m:
>Even though architects are hirelings, working for the Yankee dollar, those 
>promoting the "cutting edge" of theory don't give a damn about what 
>"everybody wants."  Just ask Frank Lloyd Wright.

Excellent explanation of why Everybody holds architects in such regard.
No profession in my experience holds the concept of Preterite & Elect
so close to its soul.  I'd rather save this discussion for the explicit
references in GRGR(14), but in the meantime ...

malignd:
> [...]  Lacking clients, architects can 
>build little wooden models and the like, but not buildings.

The Little Wooden Model is a good analogue to the Novel, I'd say.
You're better off comparing real building to works of non-fiction.
As to Style Wars, it's only natural rhetoric for proponents of one 
school to pick on poor examples of the other.  Trouble is, there 
are at least as many mediocre architects as mediocre authors, and
the prerequisite sheer investment of Other Folks' Confidence (not
just Money) causes most of them to pin their flags to one trend or 
another to get that backing.  Inevitably, buildings tend to be easier 
to pigeonhole than books and genuine examples of personal self-expression 
are somewhat rarer.
Pastiche ain't the problem, piss-poor plagiarism often is.

Meanwhile, happily, nobody has to live or work in a Novel.  

JL, still planting vines.
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 feng shui my arse    [ - jim royle ]  
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