Saturday, February 9, 2013

Counting the Lavender

 A description of Steven Holl's plans to enlarge Washington, DC's Kennedy Center, which ran in Salon on January 29, talks about a Memorial Garden:

"It could include 46 Gingko trees to note the number of years Kennedy lived, 35 lavender rows for the 35th president..."

"It could include a reflecting pool the exact length of the PT-109 boat that Lt. John Kennedy commanded during World War II. Holl envisions a deck along the pool made from the same mahogany wood as the boat. It could also include inscriptions of Kennedy’s words."


Daniel Libeskind made a perfect ass of himself with his Ground Zero plan and Freedom Tower, 1776 feet high, which is just about the only feature of his design that survives. And now Steven Holl has caught the bug.

What is it with egghead architects and highly-visible public memorials? Do they think this number game is some kind of conceptual art? Are they being bamboozled by K Street public relations goons?

They seem to have overdosed on Patriotism, while at the same time find themselves incapable of covering up its naked, stupid vacuity with anything resembling intelligent thought.

All they can hope to accomplish is to give inane tour guides some nonsense to prattle away about as the tour bus slows down for a photo opp.

And what about the lame, repetitive prose of this quote, which most likely comes straight from the press release? Where is the independent critical judgement of the Fourth Estate? Do they think they have to faithfully repeat this stuff or be accused of being unpatriotic? Or of hurting someone's feelings?

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