In Defense of...Cecil Rhodes?!

My response email to Roger K. Lewis, the author of this article:

"Why classical architecture makes little sense for today’s Washington"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/why-classical-architecture-makes-little-sense-for-todays-washington/2012/05/17/gIQAfbL7YU_story.html


My response:

To the good Professor Emeritus:

I would humbly like to point out some possible errors in judgment on your part in response to your article in the Washington Post titled “Why classical architecture makes little sense for today’s Washington”.  I would appreciate it if you read through my email and responded to my points.

Below are some of your quotations and my responses to them.

“But it has been especially condemned by those who assert that classicism is the only appropriate design language for creating a national memorial or monument in Washington.”

Let's not lie to ourselves. Modernism has taken over the earth like a cancer. I would be surprised if 5% of the built environment in the world is comprised of any traditional-style architecture – Western or not. 99.99(99)% of the time, people who love classicism just shut up and take it. We think to ourselves, “Well, who would expect a nice building here, anyway.” In most places – in most cities of the world – a classical building would look out of place, surrounded by a bland boxy environment which would take away the charm of any view, making a nice building look almost sad and lonely, were one built.

They are not being built. Almost no large classical buildings are being built. Their only bastion is in housing in the U.S. which takes some design cues from Classicism, because that is the only democratically-elected architecture. People vote with their money, and they buy what looks good. Most of the people living in Modernist housing blocks are the people who can't afford anything better. But a classical building the size of the proposed Eisenhower Memorial? Unfathomable anywhere outside of Washington D.C.

Yet the usually docile populace can only take so much. Washington D.C. is perhaps the only city where we think there is a sliver of a chance for good design. Instead of doing Minimal work for Maximal profit, we expect that perhaps, for a former president, we can toss away the profit concerns of elsewhere and perhaps get a good dignified form. The last bastion of even the hope of Classicism.

But no. Even Washington. Even a Memorial to a president must be Modernist in form. The Modernists have won 99% of the building contracts over the past 80 years. And they must win 100% and completely annihilate the mere shred of a possibility that any Classical structure will ever be built again. When people who love Classicism put up a defense of the last un-trashed city, a defense of one building, that is too much for the Modernists.

The funny yet sad thing is that when a Classical building is constructed in a city known for Classicism, it's considered uneducated copying of past designs. When a yet another boxy Modernist building is set in the midst of other similar boxes, it is a masterpiece and a novel expression of the human condition.

“Dismissing much modern architecture, they believe that new buildings, particularly in Washington, should be clones or derivations of Greek, Roman and Renaissance antecedents.”

It irks me to no end to read ignoramuses talk about how Classical architecture is nothing but a clone of Greek and Roman architecture...like we shouldn't build in that style because we're copying foreign ideas. This completely forgets that there are far more Classical buildings outside of Greece and Italy than within them. Classicism was the first monumental architecture of the United States, and of many countries today. Did the Classical style spread to America? You bet. Did every other style spread to America, too, including Modernism? You bet.

I bet the artists and thinkers who brought about the Renaissance were bullied for taking stuff that was “old” and not leaving it in that era. But the vast, vast majority of Classical structures today are not from ancient times, but rather from times much closer to our own, when they decided to make “clones and derivations” of Ancient works. Yep, probably 99% of all the beautiful Classical architecture you see today is a clone and derivation. And for you, this is a slight against them. Maybe the Capitol Building in Washington should have been a plain box. Or even better – a sideways box on top of a regular box. Or best, a regular box on top of a sideways box. I've never heard of a plain box being called a clone, never mind the fact that plain boxes in the world outnumber Greek-style buildings by a factor of at least 100(000) to 1. I might start to take Modernists seriously when they decry the next plain rectangular prism off the assembly line as often as they decry the rare splendor of a new traditionally-styled edifice.

If Classical buildings are all clones from Greece, then Modernist buildings are all clones from Weimar Germany. That's only fair.

Let's first get a few things straight. You may remember Ancient Greece as the birthplace of Democracy, if imperfect. And you may remember Weimar Germany as the democracy which elected Adolf Hitler in a plurality. Just keep that in mind, will you. Of course, I'm not the one arguing that architecture originating in one certain time and place is better than architecture originating in another time and place. You are.

If it is the case that time and place matter, then we should remember that “Modernism” is modern insofar as the radio is modern. Both gained widespread acceptance at about the same time.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe got in his groove in Weimar Germany, during a time when zealots ranging from Fascists to Communists to Anarchists were battling each other to win the title of craziest radical. What they all shared was a desire to bring about a cleansed future, with the past completely wiped away. Mies van der Rohe was just another one of them.

Then, there was Walter Gropius and the others of Bauhaus, which grew up at the same time and in the same place – battle-scarred Weimar Germany which was being increasingly eaten up by radical “future-creators”.

Finally, add Le Corbusier, who was born in Switzerland, was invited to give lectures by Benito Mussolini, and volunteered to work for the Fascist Vichy France regime during World War II, in order to impose his will on the cities. Instead of being able to knock down a good potion of Paris to build rectangular apartment blocks and highways, and construct rectangles in Fascist French colonies in North Africa, he was fired by the Fascists (much to his dismay) and decided that he'd have to play the victim in the victorious countries.

Thus, we have the Trinity of Modernist idols.

Now, what they have to do with America and Washington D.C., I have no idea. But you, Roger K. Lewis, would have us believe that somehow, Classicism is foreign and Modernism is domestic.

You write, “Americans admired and emulated European culture and architecture.” We obviously still do. Just a less-appealing form of it.

I think that whenever a Modernist reminds someone of where Classical Architecture came from – Ancient Greece, they should be reminded where Modern Architecture came from – Weimar Germany. If they don't bring it up, then fair enough. We'll judge the architecture on its own merits, not the time period when it first gained notoriety.

“In the 20th century, architecture underwent dramatic transformation. Innovative materials, machines and construction methods appeared. Unprecedented functional needs and building types emerged.”

And all of those innovations and technologies were incorporated into buildings with a traditional look to them. Take the Flatiron Building or Woolworth Building in New York City. These are just two examples of buildings using the technology of today, but with artistic ornament added. The are steel-framed. And let's take concrete. The dome of the Pantheon in Rome (completed in 126 AD) has a concrete dome which is admired for its beauty.

I hope that those rational people out there don't ever make the same mistake you made and let the Modernists fool them into thinking that new technologies mean that we have to put up with soul-less buildings. In fact, the Great Depression saw the largest LOSS of technology in building design ever (at least since the Fall of Rome). Many skills that previously existed were lost. It's like going from the internet of today to a black screen with green letters on it, and a C:\ prompt. Pretty much all of the technologies we use now were in place by the early 20th century. Only one Skyscraper in the world (the Burj Khalifa, 2010) is more than double the height of the Empire State Building, which was completed in 1931. And the Empire State Building remained the tallest through the “golden age” of the Modernist Era, until in 1973, the Sears Tower topped it by only a little. It stayed in number three place until the (well-designed) Petronas Towers were built in 1998. Actually meaningful building technology was pretty much at a stand-still since the 1920s. The technological development came decades before Modernism was even a force to be reckoned with.

“This is why so-called modernism encompasses so many styles, and why formulaic, one-size-fits-all classicism makes little sense and has less meaning today.”

95% of the Modernism I see is just boxes. Sometimes a lump of boxes. Sometimes a sideways box. Almost always a box. The non-box buildings are often just as bad, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (brought to us by none other than Frank Gehry.

You claim to be a scholar, but lump the Parthenon, Philadelphia City Hall, the U.S. Capitol, the American Museum of Natural History, the British Columbia Parliament Buildings, Villa Capra (La Rotunda), Arc de Triomphe, and Opéra Garnier together (please check them out), while praising the Seagram Building, Citigroup Center, Trump World Tower, Water Tower Place, One Chase Manhattan Plaza, Hancock Place, and One Penn Plaza (look them up, too!) as being gloriously creative innovations.

Bottom line – Some people actually care about how their cities look. They don't want the Greeks to conquer us (neither do they want the country that voted in Adolf Hitler to conquer us). All they want is A FEW buildings constructed while they're alive that they can respect. Since Classicism appears to be off-limits in any city without a huge assembly of Classical buildings that they can blend in to, and Modernism tries to get its claws in the only beautiful cities left, so it can rip apart the remains of good taste, and cries “victim!” when it meets any opposition, it is understandable that some people might get freaking pissed off.

Can you give us ONE? ONE city that can be ours? You've taken all of the others. Go around the world. You've destroyed every single culture. Not one country still builds primarily in a traditional way. Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian – these are all nearly dead. Besides the occasional Akshardham, Modernism has triumphed everywhere.

The Eisenhower Memorial currently given the go-ahead could have been built in Incheon, Korea; Berlin, Germany; Mumbai, India; Guangzhou, China; Volgograd, Russia; Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Beirut, Lebanon; Osaka, Japan; or Washington, DC. Modernism has taken hold in all of these places, and these idol architects don't care one bit about the history or culture of any place.

You talk about the elitism of Classicists? Elitism is only allowing 40 hand-picked architects from one school of thought (i.e. those who meet your Modernist criteria) to submit designs for an ostensibly democratic monument. Elitism is already excluding all but the biggest names to even be considered. Elitism is claiming to have a special knowledge that the masses do not share, and which cannot be proven to even be right. Elitism is continuing to alienate a populace with undemocratic selection processes by the 1% who are in charge of our government and can pay for respect. That is elitism.

I look forward to hearing back from the ever eminent professor, should you so kindly deem me, a lowly commoner, worthy of your time.

- Odracirys (Someone who is much younger than you and lacks the nostalgic view of Modernism that many old professors these days seem to have. I look forward to the time when we, the younger generation, can push you into the dustbin of history just like you did to your forebears. Karma can be a bitch sometimes.)