The L.A. Times goes on and on in a 'no real news'
piece on L.A.'s "mega developments". I was just thinking today that L.A. may be lucking out by not joining in the mega city rush to replace all of its building stock with fractal-inspired, transparent cubes covered in ceramic rods/concrete beams/
jingoistic meta-narratives. In the age of the starchitect, every building has to be spectacular, born of formalistic concerns and totally unlivable. By comparison, the Staples Center, Universal City and Grand Ave. seem downright quaint in their desire to revitalize existing neighborhoods, as opposed to, you know, transforming the area into a George Lucas set. So before bemoaning the bland and banal mega projects coming soon to our fair metropolis, let's take a quick tour of what we could be saddled with:
Dubai
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's only level 80 of the
Burj Dubai, which is going to be
really really tall, but how tall, only the Emir of the UAE knows. Guesses right now are about 195 floors-- all the better vantage to look down at the artificial islands shaped like
palm trees,
the world and
verses from the Koran. Oy Vey!
Beijing
The problem with computer renderings is that they totally lie. It's the architectural equivelent of the McDonald's ad with dew clinging to the fresh tomato slice. Case in point: the Beijing Olympic Stadium. Herzog and deMeuron's rendering showed the 'bird's nest' as a voluminous glowing orb of metaphorical fortune for Asia's fastest growing city. Turns out that giant arcs of criss-crossing concrete look more like "hellish alien landscape" once built. Ack!
New York
The New York Times Building, by LACMA architect Renzo Piano was also marketed as 'voluminous', using an ingenious system of ceramic rods to block out/let in the light. In reality, the building looks like a federal prison. Run!
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's only level 80 of the Burj Dubai, which is going to be really really tall, but how tall, only the Emir of the UAE knows. Guesses right now are about 195 floors-- all the better vantage to look down at the artificial islands shaped like palm trees, the world and verses from the Koran. Oy Vey!
The New York Times Building, by LACMA architect Renzo Piano was also marketed as 'voluminous', using an ingenious system of ceramic rods to block out/let in the light. In reality, the building looks like a federal prison. Run!
