In other news, the Kansas State University Wind Erosion Laboratory was blown away by a tornado in a sort of punctuated-equilibrium moment in architectural evolution.
Here in Seattle, we had a bit of sun, actually. All sorts of poppies are out. They look a lot better with sun on them. More real, really, more like flowers and less like Georgia O'Keefe is going to spring out from behind one and harm me with her eyebrows.
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Friday, June 13, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Architectural Indigestion
The last two Sundays, when I turned on NPR after church in the evening, the story I tuned into was on both occasions relevant to things I had been contemplating that day. This is not a blog about religion, but the topic does come up every now and then - if, I freely confess, primarily to blame the Calvinists for everything I can't blame on the Beats.
Today just before leaving, I was preoccupied with the topic of sacred architecture and, to a lesser extent, religious art, ornamentation, and sacramentals within a church building: in other words, the totality of the physical presence of a constructed sacred space. There are as many schools of thought on this as there are believers, non-believers, architects and art-haters. But there are two traditional purposes sacred architecture strives to fill: to present an invitation to the faithful and to the stranger, and to provide a physical, lisible symbolic representation of the individual's journey from the profane to the sacred. Now, NPR's story when I was driving back was about reconceiving and refashioning the newsroom not the chapel, but what it illustrates is that architecture is important, it can serve or hinder its putative goals, and that we, the victims or beneficiaries of an architect's design, do notice and are affected by the space.
What got me on to it first was writing about some of the perhaps surprisingly numerous shared beliefs of the Friends and Catholics. While every Christian church has some genetic resemblance to all others, there is not only serious doctrinal difference to address in comparing them, but also the subtler distinctions in emphasis among all the various ideas they still share. In other words, it's not just huge things like 'faith v. works' or literalness v. historicity, but how much stress is put on certain tenets at the expense of which other ones.
Now, the anti-clerical Friends may seem to be the furthest from the hugely organized Catholic Church - and yet in reality they both place tremendous emphasis on the need for individual discernment. Encyclicals and other writings, with increased vigor after Vatican II, insist over and over on the importance of an informed, passionate, and active laity, the need to question and to search for answers, and the importance of being an activist when convinced of the appropriateness of that course. Both churches, as well, lay tremendous stress on justice, including social justice, which is conceived in both traditions as emanating from and being necessitated by the fact of utter, radical equality among all people. The language is different, but the message is the same.
As fascinating as all that is (to me), one place there is a huge difference is in how meeting spaces are viewed by the two groups, which makes sense as they are meant to do different things. And I have no intention of going into that in any depth. But a Quaker meeting-house does not strive to invite, as do churches of most other Protestant and Catholic traditions, nor does it attempt to lay out a narrative or an argument, except of simplicity and the concept of the inner light within all present and all without. Friends would say we glorify God through our actions, and too many, or too-richly-decorated, things around distract us from the real issue, which is 'what are we going to do/ what does God want us to do?' Friends likewise assert that, rightly lived, life is worship, and if simplicity is integral to one's life, this value should of course carry over into meeting halls and the worship meetings within them.
I haven't given much of an explanation there, but it makes sense in a Quaker context. It does not make sense in the context of regular Protestantism, or in Catholic or Orthodox traditions, where the physical church is meant to inspire awe, create an atmosphere of reverence and solemnity, and lead us to contemplate the glory of God, a glory which exceeds that of the gilt and the plainchant, but which can be symbolized by them - by things we can apprehend through our senses and intellect. This, too, has an elegant and coherent logic, to which I'm also giving short shrift.
Additionally, in their beauty, churches, temples, mosques, and cathedrals are meant to invite the sinner in, that he might be led through beauty to Beauty. Again, part of the logic is that the place one worships God should celebrate His wonder through the highest efforts of human labor, and that being drawn to beauty is a noble and God-given trait - but since it is also true that humans like sparkly things, offering them a few in the place of worship is one way to help them keep coming back, in the hope that eventually more substantive things and a more mature understanding of the fullness of the religion will serve the same purpose.
However, even if you are not a beginner, there is something to be said for a holy space that looks like a holy space (unless you belong to a faith like the Friends within which this would make no sense). And I don't care if you believe in God or not, if you enter the Blue Mosque or the Hagia Sophia, a Thai temple or a Zen garden, the results of the care taken to evoke the majesty of the unknowable and the ineffable makes you believe in something. We were given our senses in the same package as we were given our minds, and unless you follow Mani or Mr. Calvin, I fail to see why punishing those senses in worship is necessary.
And that is my main point: the 1960s were regrettable. The 1960s were painful. The 1960s should have stuck to social reform and left style and design alone. That era is my proof that reincarnation does not happen, as I can attest that had I lived before, I would have done so much good in my life that not only would I not have been born when I would have had to witness the horrific legacy the decade wrought in the arts - but I would have taken every prophylactic precaution possible to ensure that my karma be so great that none of it would even have been perpetuated! So, since I'm here now, I wasn't here then, and the best I can do is to try to avoid imagining those puffy ladies' hats, those square ladies' suits, the clunky low heeled parsons' pumps with squared-off toes and ridiculous buckles, and the hideous architecture that evoked not so much the Great American Century as the Supreme Soviet. If I want to worship, I don't want to do it in a place that looks like the People's Recreation Hall and Refectory at Reeducation Center 29! There is a fairly crappy YMCA up the road, and a disastrous, menacing Albertsons a bit further on; I can always go to one of those if I need to savor a bit of Stalinist-gymnasium ambiance. I don't need to do it at church.
Today just before leaving, I was preoccupied with the topic of sacred architecture and, to a lesser extent, religious art, ornamentation, and sacramentals within a church building: in other words, the totality of the physical presence of a constructed sacred space. There are as many schools of thought on this as there are believers, non-believers, architects and art-haters. But there are two traditional purposes sacred architecture strives to fill: to present an invitation to the faithful and to the stranger, and to provide a physical, lisible symbolic representation of the individual's journey from the profane to the sacred. Now, NPR's story when I was driving back was about reconceiving and refashioning the newsroom not the chapel, but what it illustrates is that architecture is important, it can serve or hinder its putative goals, and that we, the victims or beneficiaries of an architect's design, do notice and are affected by the space.
What got me on to it first was writing about some of the perhaps surprisingly numerous shared beliefs of the Friends and Catholics. While every Christian church has some genetic resemblance to all others, there is not only serious doctrinal difference to address in comparing them, but also the subtler distinctions in emphasis among all the various ideas they still share. In other words, it's not just huge things like 'faith v. works' or literalness v. historicity, but how much stress is put on certain tenets at the expense of which other ones.
Now, the anti-clerical Friends may seem to be the furthest from the hugely organized Catholic Church - and yet in reality they both place tremendous emphasis on the need for individual discernment. Encyclicals and other writings, with increased vigor after Vatican II, insist over and over on the importance of an informed, passionate, and active laity, the need to question and to search for answers, and the importance of being an activist when convinced of the appropriateness of that course. Both churches, as well, lay tremendous stress on justice, including social justice, which is conceived in both traditions as emanating from and being necessitated by the fact of utter, radical equality among all people. The language is different, but the message is the same.
As fascinating as all that is (to me), one place there is a huge difference is in how meeting spaces are viewed by the two groups, which makes sense as they are meant to do different things. And I have no intention of going into that in any depth. But a Quaker meeting-house does not strive to invite, as do churches of most other Protestant and Catholic traditions, nor does it attempt to lay out a narrative or an argument, except of simplicity and the concept of the inner light within all present and all without. Friends would say we glorify God through our actions, and too many, or too-richly-decorated, things around distract us from the real issue, which is 'what are we going to do/ what does God want us to do?' Friends likewise assert that, rightly lived, life is worship, and if simplicity is integral to one's life, this value should of course carry over into meeting halls and the worship meetings within them.
I haven't given much of an explanation there, but it makes sense in a Quaker context. It does not make sense in the context of regular Protestantism, or in Catholic or Orthodox traditions, where the physical church is meant to inspire awe, create an atmosphere of reverence and solemnity, and lead us to contemplate the glory of God, a glory which exceeds that of the gilt and the plainchant, but which can be symbolized by them - by things we can apprehend through our senses and intellect. This, too, has an elegant and coherent logic, to which I'm also giving short shrift.
Additionally, in their beauty, churches, temples, mosques, and cathedrals are meant to invite the sinner in, that he might be led through beauty to Beauty. Again, part of the logic is that the place one worships God should celebrate His wonder through the highest efforts of human labor, and that being drawn to beauty is a noble and God-given trait - but since it is also true that humans like sparkly things, offering them a few in the place of worship is one way to help them keep coming back, in the hope that eventually more substantive things and a more mature understanding of the fullness of the religion will serve the same purpose.
However, even if you are not a beginner, there is something to be said for a holy space that looks like a holy space (unless you belong to a faith like the Friends within which this would make no sense). And I don't care if you believe in God or not, if you enter the Blue Mosque or the Hagia Sophia, a Thai temple or a Zen garden, the results of the care taken to evoke the majesty of the unknowable and the ineffable makes you believe in something. We were given our senses in the same package as we were given our minds, and unless you follow Mani or Mr. Calvin, I fail to see why punishing those senses in worship is necessary.
And that is my main point: the 1960s were regrettable. The 1960s were painful. The 1960s should have stuck to social reform and left style and design alone. That era is my proof that reincarnation does not happen, as I can attest that had I lived before, I would have done so much good in my life that not only would I not have been born when I would have had to witness the horrific legacy the decade wrought in the arts - but I would have taken every prophylactic precaution possible to ensure that my karma be so great that none of it would even have been perpetuated! So, since I'm here now, I wasn't here then, and the best I can do is to try to avoid imagining those puffy ladies' hats, those square ladies' suits, the clunky low heeled parsons' pumps with squared-off toes and ridiculous buckles, and the hideous architecture that evoked not so much the Great American Century as the Supreme Soviet. If I want to worship, I don't want to do it in a place that looks like the People's Recreation Hall and Refectory at Reeducation Center 29! There is a fairly crappy YMCA up the road, and a disastrous, menacing Albertsons a bit further on; I can always go to one of those if I need to savor a bit of Stalinist-gymnasium ambiance. I don't need to do it at church.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
'Joy Is Not in Things; It Is in Us,'
said Richard Wagner and perhaps, in his staunch Teutonicity, dying in Venice sufficed and he never regretted not having built a 'sun-drenched Tuscan villa' in Bayreuth. It doesn't matter; it isn't 'Tuscany' that is the problem. The houses, and their bathrooms, and their greatrooms, their wall treatments, thematic toilet-brush holders, disguised three-car garages, incongruous media centers and 'authentic details' could all equally well be replaced by 'Hobbit' or 'Siheyuan' or 'Iroquois Longhouse' style with the principle remaining the same. Part of the problem, as I mentioned before, is the lack of hope these buildings signify, but there are other disturbing aspects.
Yes, in a perverse sense, these homes are all about hope, or American optimism, at least in its basest form. They are a testament to material success, to the fulfillment, in all caps, of The American Dream of home ownership. But what appears to me bleak in this reading is the notion that anyone's American Dream reaches its dramatic finale in a tract home rather than an alpaca farm in the mountains or a high-tech ultra-green penthouse condo or a craftsman bungalow with a beautifully, lovingly, tended garden. Your visitors will know you have money -- but will they suspect you have a soul?
A more troubling aspect for me is that the 'Tuscan' home and all its necessary 'Tuscan' appurtenances represent the recent widespread conflation of 'lifestyle' with Life, which then gave rise to the current tendency to disprivilege or ignore the latter in favor of the more comprehensible and convenient former. The problem with Life, I suspect, is that invariably it must be lived. We fall into it sodden with drool and incontinence, often leave it in much the same manner, and in between --
Well, in between we stammer at countless beginnings, stare at the creeping minute hand through lots of tedious middles and cry to ourselves over unfortunate endings; we get punched, sacked, ridiculed, betrayed, lied to, and cut off mid-sentence just before brilliant ripostes. We give our hearts away, we sing babies to sleep, we take up astronomy, then Jung, then Uilleann pipes; we take photographs lest we forget it really was just that beautiful, once. We have one too many, we don't get the promotion, we sit on the edge of the dance floor waiting; we practice kissing with a pillow and proposing with a mirror, we sometimes get the girl and we sometimes get the grippe.
None of that can be purchased. Much of it wouldn't be a very good deal, anyway, at any price, and I suppose that is the point: better to try to ignore it, and then perhaps the breathtaking crescendo of life, what all those clogged sinuses and broken heels and soothing kisses have been leading up to - death, in other words - might get distracted and not disturb us, after all. Life can be boring, painful, taxing, and too long or too short. And it always ends poorly.
Lifestyle, by contrast, is a narrative the user can control. It begins and ends as you wish, and you can leave out any of the parts that don't suit your desired image. Lifestyle, moreover, is nothing but a commodity, and an imaginary one at that. It consists in the things a consumer buys to convey to others and to himself the persona he wishes to inhabit. It is cosmetic surgery for your life, and just as there is a code of conduct regarding what should and should not be said to the obviously pulled, pleated, and plumped, so, too, will your posture as suburbia-dwelling daimyo, pasha, doge, or Indian Chief remain unquestioned by your neighbors. After all, you didn't neglect to include thematic outlet covers.
I suppose part of the problem for me is that it's just all so rickety. They are in the main not nice houses, just expensive ones. The majority tend to have a distinctly Disney feel, as though around the next cul-de-sac our little boat will sail past Olde Siam. There is an attempt at wholesale replication on the one hand, and a jarring failure in execution on the other. Neither is appealing; both together are horrifying. All art incorporates older elements, some art cross-cultural references; nothing man-made can ever be wholly new. That fact notwithstanding, history, geography, and culture along with form give a work its content, its meaning. The meaning of these tract homes is simply 'Tuscan sells.'
Why is that more troubling than an older neighborhood filled with bungalows or ranch-style homes? Are not all houses, since the dawn of modern real estate, designed to sell, to appeal to the buying public? And what's more, was not the Atomic Age as executed in the American home a perfectly articulated lifestyle, as detailed and complete as the 'Tuscan' variety, down to its Saturn-shaped lamps, spiky, Sputnik table legs, and galactic-design curtain fabrics?
Okay, yes, in theory, but in the case of the 1950s, few people kitted out their entire house in space-age furnishings, and there were plenty of other 1950s looks that mixed with the outright futuristic ones harmoniously. One could have an up-to-the-minute television lamp atop a table from 1947 with no grave sensation of aesthetic malaise nor expectation of scorn from the neighbors. Additionally, the house would not come with an actual satellite in the front yard, which is as good an equivalent as I can imagine for faux-cracked walls, faux-aged fake beams, faux-ruined paint jobs, and murals in the toilet of someplace you are not but which the entire house contrives to make you believe you are. And, yes, too, houses and minimalls and BP stations reflect the aesthetics of the time, but there is the additional problem that the aesthetics of earlier times demanded better craftsmanship and genuine materials. Moreover, people bought furniture differently decades ago, as companies realized they could sell more over time if they offered 'sets' that could be acquired slowly as finances allowed: even the counterparts of today's neo-Tuscans would not have bought a whole new household worth of thematically-congruent furniture, appliances, and accessories when they moved up in the world and bought a better house.
Lastly, 1950s style didn't seem thematic in the 1950s, because it wasn't thematic. It was simply up-to-date. Muddled, forced and fauxed tract-home half-iterations of a Tuscan fantasy lifestyle seem tragic to me because they hold out a series of promises they can never keep. The garish, kooky exuberance of Atomic Age decor cohabited in its enthusiasts' hearts with the very real fear of nuclear annihilation. Gratitude for the end of the War was balanced with the grim knowledge of how the War ended and what that could portend for future conflicts. Satellite table lamp and cars shaped like rockets were symbols not only of the power of technology, but of the hope that with proper stewardship it would lead humanity to more good than ill. It hurts my soul to contemplate the hopes these McMansions encapsulate.
Yes, in a perverse sense, these homes are all about hope, or American optimism, at least in its basest form. They are a testament to material success, to the fulfillment, in all caps, of The American Dream of home ownership. But what appears to me bleak in this reading is the notion that anyone's American Dream reaches its dramatic finale in a tract home rather than an alpaca farm in the mountains or a high-tech ultra-green penthouse condo or a craftsman bungalow with a beautifully, lovingly, tended garden. Your visitors will know you have money -- but will they suspect you have a soul?
A more troubling aspect for me is that the 'Tuscan' home and all its necessary 'Tuscan' appurtenances represent the recent widespread conflation of 'lifestyle' with Life, which then gave rise to the current tendency to disprivilege or ignore the latter in favor of the more comprehensible and convenient former. The problem with Life, I suspect, is that invariably it must be lived. We fall into it sodden with drool and incontinence, often leave it in much the same manner, and in between --
Well, in between we stammer at countless beginnings, stare at the creeping minute hand through lots of tedious middles and cry to ourselves over unfortunate endings; we get punched, sacked, ridiculed, betrayed, lied to, and cut off mid-sentence just before brilliant ripostes. We give our hearts away, we sing babies to sleep, we take up astronomy, then Jung, then Uilleann pipes; we take photographs lest we forget it really was just that beautiful, once. We have one too many, we don't get the promotion, we sit on the edge of the dance floor waiting; we practice kissing with a pillow and proposing with a mirror, we sometimes get the girl and we sometimes get the grippe.
None of that can be purchased. Much of it wouldn't be a very good deal, anyway, at any price, and I suppose that is the point: better to try to ignore it, and then perhaps the breathtaking crescendo of life, what all those clogged sinuses and broken heels and soothing kisses have been leading up to - death, in other words - might get distracted and not disturb us, after all. Life can be boring, painful, taxing, and too long or too short. And it always ends poorly.
Lifestyle, by contrast, is a narrative the user can control. It begins and ends as you wish, and you can leave out any of the parts that don't suit your desired image. Lifestyle, moreover, is nothing but a commodity, and an imaginary one at that. It consists in the things a consumer buys to convey to others and to himself the persona he wishes to inhabit. It is cosmetic surgery for your life, and just as there is a code of conduct regarding what should and should not be said to the obviously pulled, pleated, and plumped, so, too, will your posture as suburbia-dwelling daimyo, pasha, doge, or Indian Chief remain unquestioned by your neighbors. After all, you didn't neglect to include thematic outlet covers.
I suppose part of the problem for me is that it's just all so rickety. They are in the main not nice houses, just expensive ones. The majority tend to have a distinctly Disney feel, as though around the next cul-de-sac our little boat will sail past Olde Siam. There is an attempt at wholesale replication on the one hand, and a jarring failure in execution on the other. Neither is appealing; both together are horrifying. All art incorporates older elements, some art cross-cultural references; nothing man-made can ever be wholly new. That fact notwithstanding, history, geography, and culture along with form give a work its content, its meaning. The meaning of these tract homes is simply 'Tuscan sells.'
Why is that more troubling than an older neighborhood filled with bungalows or ranch-style homes? Are not all houses, since the dawn of modern real estate, designed to sell, to appeal to the buying public? And what's more, was not the Atomic Age as executed in the American home a perfectly articulated lifestyle, as detailed and complete as the 'Tuscan' variety, down to its Saturn-shaped lamps, spiky, Sputnik table legs, and galactic-design curtain fabrics?
Okay, yes, in theory, but in the case of the 1950s, few people kitted out their entire house in space-age furnishings, and there were plenty of other 1950s looks that mixed with the outright futuristic ones harmoniously. One could have an up-to-the-minute television lamp atop a table from 1947 with no grave sensation of aesthetic malaise nor expectation of scorn from the neighbors. Additionally, the house would not come with an actual satellite in the front yard, which is as good an equivalent as I can imagine for faux-cracked walls, faux-aged fake beams, faux-ruined paint jobs, and murals in the toilet of someplace you are not but which the entire house contrives to make you believe you are. And, yes, too, houses and minimalls and BP stations reflect the aesthetics of the time, but there is the additional problem that the aesthetics of earlier times demanded better craftsmanship and genuine materials. Moreover, people bought furniture differently decades ago, as companies realized they could sell more over time if they offered 'sets' that could be acquired slowly as finances allowed: even the counterparts of today's neo-Tuscans would not have bought a whole new household worth of thematically-congruent furniture, appliances, and accessories when they moved up in the world and bought a better house.
Lastly, 1950s style didn't seem thematic in the 1950s, because it wasn't thematic. It was simply up-to-date. Muddled, forced and fauxed tract-home half-iterations of a Tuscan fantasy lifestyle seem tragic to me because they hold out a series of promises they can never keep. The garish, kooky exuberance of Atomic Age decor cohabited in its enthusiasts' hearts with the very real fear of nuclear annihilation. Gratitude for the end of the War was balanced with the grim knowledge of how the War ended and what that could portend for future conflicts. Satellite table lamp and cars shaped like rockets were symbols not only of the power of technology, but of the hope that with proper stewardship it would lead humanity to more good than ill. It hurts my soul to contemplate the hopes these McMansions encapsulate.
Coming Soon: 'The Birth of Venus' on Your Toilet Seat!
Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, dear, dear. It is not as though it is inconceivable. No, indeed; not in the slightest. Absolutely to be expected, in fact. And, had I troubled myself to think about it, I should definitely both have conceived and expected it. No questions asked, no surprises whatever. One would not be far off to call it ineluctable.
But the fact is that, as with so many other distasteful and frightening things, I rightly - righteously! - keep my delicate soul from straying into such foul places when possible. It is a great stretch to say I am blissfully ignorant of the ills plaguing this world; it is rather the case that I must cultivate what ignorance I can in order merely to sustain the crudest emotional equilibrium, in order not to plunge a 'French Provincial' rooster-shaped carving knife into my jaded heart, or attempt futilely, yet again, to impale myself on a 'shabby chic/Paris apartment' Eiffel-Tower-motif pepper grinder.
But here (and I swear I was looking for something else; you must believe me; I am not a masochist, nor do I enjoy inflicting this sort of thing on you!) on Design Observer I couldn't help but read every last letter, and linger over every last plaintive semi-colon, of a heart-rending account of those Tuscan varlets' invasion of solid, stolid - and hitherto predictably 'Spanish'/neo-rancho in its design choices for suburban subdevelopments - Orange County, California. Tuscany already has the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Dante, da Vinci, Botticelli, Brunello, Vino Nobile, and Chianti. It doesn't need to annex the whole bloody United States (not to mention parts of China, too!).
Look, I understand if postmodernism scared off a few people, looked a bit jarring, felt a bit dislocating. And I for one don't ever need to see another purportedly postmodern BP station, I assure you. However, at least postmodernism was inquisitive. At least it involved thought. At least it was, well, not inherently dishonest, not an impoverished, anemic, false, wheezy new version of a distinctive, geographically specific older thing.
You can object that 'thought' and 'inquisitiveness' are not exactly what most people are looking for in a bedroom or latrine, but I fail to see the superlative soothing powers of pseudo-Tuscan kitsch. Granted, I am not the sort who wishes to stay in the 'Jungle Room' or 'Circus Room,' either, or indeed find myself in the sort of hotel that has such things, but as Ms. Wild correctly points out,
'Perhaps it is not so much styles per se, and "Tuscan" in particular, that I am whining about, but the transformation of styles generated from the heart and the brain that actually contained meaning, to lifestyles generated by highly paid marketers and branders that are deliberately emptied out of meaning.'
It could even be argued that the Jungle Rooms of this world, coming from the (admittedly kitsch-riddled) heart as they do, do contain meaning, because they are an expression of someone's honest desire. The only desire the faux Tuscan McMansions of the world express is the vulgarian's desire to seem cultured, rich, and stylish: Nabokov's poshlust, in other words:
'Russians have, or had, a special name for smug philistinism—poshlust. Poshlism is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. To apply the deadly label of poshlism to something is not only an aesthetic judgment but also a moral indictment. The genuine, the guileless, the good is never poshlust. It is possible to maintain that a simple, uncivilized man is seldom if ever a poshlust since poshlism presupposes the veneer of civilization. A peasant has to become a townsman in order to become vulgar. A painted necktie has to hide the honest Adam's apple in order to produce poshlism.'
I would also concur with Ms. Wild that the variety of anachronisms and other discontinuities that inhere in such endeavors as tracts of 'Tuscan' homes irritate rather than soothe in my case:
'The appearance of this faux Italianate style (tile roofs, stucco walls, shuttered windows and crenellated corners) is not all that different from the "Spanish" but it seems a world away from the coherency of the rancho house. This is not helped by the fact that the new construction in this style is generally too big and proportioned poorly, and made of materials that are veneers, blatantly more contemporary than the image that they are constructing. Real Tuscan villas possess a sort of laconic elegance from their relatively unornamented rustic style: the rough hewn here is more of the Home Depot "I forgot" variety. And the houses sport "great rooms" and "master bedroom suites" and beveled or stained glass windows and brass fixtures that no Tuscan house ever witnessed.'
I need to be more careful in my browsing, more judicious in my reading. Heaven knows the sort of permanent damage that could befall my psyche should I continue to encounter such troubling stories.
But the fact is that, as with so many other distasteful and frightening things, I rightly - righteously! - keep my delicate soul from straying into such foul places when possible. It is a great stretch to say I am blissfully ignorant of the ills plaguing this world; it is rather the case that I must cultivate what ignorance I can in order merely to sustain the crudest emotional equilibrium, in order not to plunge a 'French Provincial' rooster-shaped carving knife into my jaded heart, or attempt futilely, yet again, to impale myself on a 'shabby chic/Paris apartment' Eiffel-Tower-motif pepper grinder.
But here (and I swear I was looking for something else; you must believe me; I am not a masochist, nor do I enjoy inflicting this sort of thing on you!) on Design Observer I couldn't help but read every last letter, and linger over every last plaintive semi-colon, of a heart-rending account of those Tuscan varlets' invasion of solid, stolid - and hitherto predictably 'Spanish'/neo-rancho in its design choices for suburban subdevelopments - Orange County, California. Tuscany already has the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Dante, da Vinci, Botticelli, Brunello, Vino Nobile, and Chianti. It doesn't need to annex the whole bloody United States (not to mention parts of China, too!).
Look, I understand if postmodernism scared off a few people, looked a bit jarring, felt a bit dislocating. And I for one don't ever need to see another purportedly postmodern BP station, I assure you. However, at least postmodernism was inquisitive. At least it involved thought. At least it was, well, not inherently dishonest, not an impoverished, anemic, false, wheezy new version of a distinctive, geographically specific older thing.
You can object that 'thought' and 'inquisitiveness' are not exactly what most people are looking for in a bedroom or latrine, but I fail to see the superlative soothing powers of pseudo-Tuscan kitsch. Granted, I am not the sort who wishes to stay in the 'Jungle Room' or 'Circus Room,' either, or indeed find myself in the sort of hotel that has such things, but as Ms. Wild correctly points out,
'Perhaps it is not so much styles per se, and "Tuscan" in particular, that I am whining about, but the transformation of styles generated from the heart and the brain that actually contained meaning, to lifestyles generated by highly paid marketers and branders that are deliberately emptied out of meaning.'
It could even be argued that the Jungle Rooms of this world, coming from the (admittedly kitsch-riddled) heart as they do, do contain meaning, because they are an expression of someone's honest desire. The only desire the faux Tuscan McMansions of the world express is the vulgarian's desire to seem cultured, rich, and stylish: Nabokov's poshlust, in other words:
'Russians have, or had, a special name for smug philistinism—poshlust. Poshlism is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. To apply the deadly label of poshlism to something is not only an aesthetic judgment but also a moral indictment. The genuine, the guileless, the good is never poshlust. It is possible to maintain that a simple, uncivilized man is seldom if ever a poshlust since poshlism presupposes the veneer of civilization. A peasant has to become a townsman in order to become vulgar. A painted necktie has to hide the honest Adam's apple in order to produce poshlism.'
I would also concur with Ms. Wild that the variety of anachronisms and other discontinuities that inhere in such endeavors as tracts of 'Tuscan' homes irritate rather than soothe in my case:
'The appearance of this faux Italianate style (tile roofs, stucco walls, shuttered windows and crenellated corners) is not all that different from the "Spanish" but it seems a world away from the coherency of the rancho house. This is not helped by the fact that the new construction in this style is generally too big and proportioned poorly, and made of materials that are veneers, blatantly more contemporary than the image that they are constructing. Real Tuscan villas possess a sort of laconic elegance from their relatively unornamented rustic style: the rough hewn here is more of the Home Depot "I forgot" variety. And the houses sport "great rooms" and "master bedroom suites" and beveled or stained glass windows and brass fixtures that no Tuscan house ever witnessed.'
I need to be more careful in my browsing, more judicious in my reading. Heaven knows the sort of permanent damage that could befall my psyche should I continue to encounter such troubling stories.
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