Letters to the Editor
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It is about culture not energy
Andrew wrote "What I find odd is seeing a culture war break out in the middle of an energy crisis."
But the current peak oil phenomena has little to do with energy and much more to do with culture. The phrase 'death of suburbia' is more goal than prediction, and Kunstler more Jim Jones then anything rational.
Thanks James, but I'll skip your kool-aid.
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Chicken Little Charlatans
During any transition period, where the unknowns exceed the knowns, the ‘Chicken Little’ types come out in droves to warn us of our immanent mortal future. As came the shameless Y2K fear mongers, so comes Kunstler.
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The trend is downward
Kunstler at his best is perceptive, convincing, and highly entertaining. At his best, he wrote Home From Nowhere, which broke New Urbanism out of its cult status among planners and helped bring its ideas into the mainstream. He has sounded the alarm passionately about the end of cheap oil, the transportation crisis on this continent, the crying need for cities and buildings that people care about. Unfortunately, Kunstler is not consistent, and at his worst he is a curmudgeonly, arbitrary doomsayer. At his worst he ruins his own credibility by overstating his case and revealing how deeply he despises the culture that he wishes to influence.
It's been a while since I've read any of Kunstler at his best. He seldom helps me understand how the world works any more. Time to move on to more articulate voices.
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hating urban spaces
Kunstler very likely hates urban spaces and would wither and die if forced to live in one. Can't say I blame him. I haven't been impressed with any of the so-called livable urban spaces I've been to. They're dirty, noisy, crowded. However I'm betting the urban population density will be cured by a plague or two starting in the slums. Don't know what will cure the dirty and noisy part however.
Kunstler's railing against ego driven, pseudo-human focused architecture is also quite understandable as it contributes to the ugliness of urban space.
On the other hand, the agrarian fantasy is unlikely to work because it'll take a massive human population die off (starvation?) and deforestation of most of the east coast to create enough farmland for food. In many ways it's no big deal because this will be the third deforestation for New England.
so without a nice, portable, high density energy source, the future does look "unpleasant".
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Apocalypse architecture
Those buildings suck. Kunstler is right. Modern architecture has become so masturbatory it is sickening. Architects care nothing for the places that will have to live with their buildings and only getting their names out or getting noticed. Today's architects are no better than today's pop artists who are all gimmick, no talent. Yet it is us citizens who have to deal with their ugly ego-trips. The only virtue of a building today is if it manages to get itself noticed, all other valuations no longer exist. We are in the Paris Hilton era of architecture.
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AC
Sky scrapers have one big problem. They must be 100% climate controlled. So yeah, unless we switch to Nuclear we really won't be able to maintain these sealed glass boxes. On the other hand, the suburbs will be fine. Despite the talk of sprawl, fact is many modern suburbs - at least the denser ones - could adapt to public transportation very quickly if they really had to.
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Shanghai
That skyline of Pu Dong is bloody atrocious. The Pearl Tower looks like it was designed by a ten-year-old boy. At least in that photo you can actually see it from the Bund; when I was there the smog was so awful you couldn't see the Jin Mao building at all from Puxi and could barely see the ground from the observation floor. The entire district is a jumble of ugly crap buildings flung up with cheap materials and backbreaking labor with new ones surrounded by flimsy bamboo scaffolding from which many workers fall to their deaths.
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Architects Don't Make Cities
Phew! What animated discussion we have here. If only our cities had the same. It is this animation (lack of) that is the center of Kunstler's rant against modern architecture. He's right that, today, the buildings and spaces around them are no longer of a scale and interest amenable to human enjoyment. (Ask the folks who have to deal with the glare and relected heat from the gleaming silver Music Hall (Gehry)in LA.)
Aesthetics aside, many modern buildings are not comfortable to approach (Just where is the entrance?), or move around (too much light; not enough light), or efficiently maintain. Good architecture is more than just appearance. Good architecture explores space, light, volume, scale, color, AND is recognizable to it's users. It understands the context of it's setting and improves the lives and experience of those who live in and around it.
The stuff that Kunstler rants about is more urban sculpture than good architecture.
Cheers.
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Indirect Benefits
I agree with AL on this one, both aesthetically and with regard to the energy crunch. CAD/engineering programs not only allow us to make useful spaces in fantastic shapes, they save money, material, and energy. Besides all of the 'green building' technology included in todays modern 'Scrapers, new alloys and computer generated designs allow for more outrageous designs using less steel. The 'diagrid' design used in the new Hearst Tower in NYC used roughly 21% less steel than a normal building its size. It is also a really cool looking building that was constructed on top of a historic 6-story landmark, preserving the exterior of the building.
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The problem with Rem
Kunstler happens to be right about Rem Koolhaas. Koolhaas is a very smart guy, but his theory of architecture is that modern life is too complicated and fragmented to understand, and that buildings should reflect that truth. The result? Buildings that don't make any sense - on purpose. I'm not sure why he has rejected the idea that since modern life is so complicated and fragmented, a few beautiful, coherent and meaningful buildings would be really nice, but I wish he would think it over.
P.S. As a resident of Shanghai, I can say that bamboo scaffolding works just fine, workers do not plummet to their deaths daily, and the smog is much better, thank you - about LA level now I guess. And even the Pearl of the Orient grows on you after a while - remember that nineteenth-century Parisians hated the Eiffel Tower.