{"id":1068,"date":"2009-07-17T09:12:19","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T14:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2009-07-17T09:12:19","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T14:12:19","slug":"a-plea-for-crazy-in-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/?p=1068","title":{"rendered":"A Plea for Crazy in Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/12-view-from-53rd-street.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/12-view-from-53rd-street.jpg\" alt=\"12-view-from-53rd-street\" title=\"12-view-from-53rd-street\" width=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The architect John Beckmann, of the firm Axis Mundi, is promoting an alternative to the <a href=\"http:\/\/have2ask.com\/files\/images\/jean-nouvel-manhattan.jpg\">Jean Nouvel tower<\/a> MoMA has commissioned as a part of its continuing expansion. I don&#8217;t see the folks at the museum, or their development partner, jettisoning Nouvel&#8217;s plan, nor should they, especially for what is\u2014let&#8217;s face it\u2014a rather half-baked amalgam of <a href=\"http:\/\/shrapnelcontemporary.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/mvrdv_dutch-pavilion_lg.jpg\">several<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3066\/3019257817_eb68d9088f_b.jpg\">projects<\/a> by the Dutch firm MVRDV and any number of Archigram-era <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iaacblog.com\/georgiosmachairas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/98378132_f66b66bd71_o.jpg\">visions<\/a>. (MoMA, for what it&#8217;s worth, has actually built its own <a href=\"http:\/\/trendsupdates.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/ps1.jpg\">wonderfully hirsute<\/a> bit of crazy at PS1.) So fine, Beckmann&#8217;s scheme is nuts. Nevertheless, I find it irresistible. How can you not love it? Hanging gardens. Stairwells in the sky. A giant jigsaw of a building. Weirdness. Who would not want to explore this cartoon structure? Modernism (and that Vader-like Nouvel building in particular), is all too often impersonal and intimidating, but one suspects even Jacques Tati would be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6mtluyHcOnk\">happy in this place<\/a>. Certainly it&#8217;s better than the <a href=\"http:\/\/a.abcnews.go.com\/images\/Entertainment\/b09217a8-c2b2-4da8-9f4a-815b91840c66.jpg\">banality<\/a> that is Rafael Vinoly&#8217;s latest addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art. A few more pics after the jump.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/11-tower-midlevel.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/11-tower-midlevel.jpg\" alt=\"11-tower-midlevel\" title=\"11-tower-midlevel\" width=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/09-tower-detail.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.marklamster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/09-tower-detail.jpg\" alt=\"09-tower-detail\" title=\"09-tower-detail\" width=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The architect John Beckmann, of the firm Axis Mundi, is promoting an alternative to the Jean Nouvel tower MoMA has commissioned as a part of its continuing expansion. I don&#8217;t see the folks at the museum, or their development partner, jettisoning Nouvel&#8217;s plan, nor should they, especially for what is\u2014let&#8217;s face it\u2014a rather half-baked amalgam &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/?p=1068\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Plea for Crazy in Architecture<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklamster.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}