17 Replies to “Howard Roark Is Dead”

  2. I described the building in the Alberta Report as “a Swarovski crystal hedgehog sodomizing a stick of butter.”
    I see this poster has picked up on the rape-y imagery too.

  3. Is the following a reference to the “bit of tissue” cited? It’s in franglais; hard to decipher.
    Oops, sorry. This was also a crystal-clear fraud by another noted architect. See his catalogue/rap sheet/portfolio.
    …-
    “1- Le contrat de la soi-disant vente des parts de golf de Chrétien à Jonas Prince, de Toronto sur une “napkin”.”
    (blogues.lactualite)

  4. Although buildings like the ROM addition initially remind one of the “Emperor without Clothes” fable, I believe today’s decadence actually reverses the fable’s narrative. Unlike the emperor, at lease some modern “artists” are very much aware of what they lack, even to the point of desperately celebrating their mediocrity. (Terrence Koe, with his frank pursuit of the infantile, comes to mind.) Rather, it is the thousands of very ordinary people who have drifted through our universities and dutifully absorbed its approved canons who haven’t a clue. The more prominent among them sit on the boards of museums and write so-called “art criticism”. They, indeed all of us, need to acknowledge that transcendence is truly rare, and that it cannot be manufactured in fine-arts programs or bought with money. It, like true education, can never be an industry.

  5. And, not only is it
    A. Offensively ugly
    B. Dangerous to passers by
    C. Very expensive
    D. A maintenance sink as water runs off all it’s surfaces and the whole think depends on polymers and other short duration materials for integrity
    BUT, the it provides less useful interior volume/sq footage than (at least inoffensive) temp structures it replaced AND it distracts from the exhibits.
    Wait until you hear the opinion of curators and museum professionals about Gehry’s MOMA “toilet bowl” in NYC, on of the earlier disasters of that type.

  6. RSP…I too sensed the Emperors New Clothes theme.
    Because in Toronto if the Emperors have anything to do with ‘it’…then ‘it’ is wonderful!
    Emperors being of the ‘University’ clique,or or the ‘Arts’ or the CBC, of course Darling.
    And the wannabees smile and nod, and ooh and ahhh.

  7. It is not the role of the philistines among us to object or criticize these works of modern architecture. Nay, our role is to pay for them.

  8. I’m hoping my scathing comments about “Mars Attacks” at the ROM (aka the Michael Lee Chin Crystal) gets out of the filter soon! I took a direct quote from Edward Michael George, where HE says F*** U–and I got caught in the filter! LOL!

  9. What a coincidence, I happen to be re-reading The Fountainhead for the first time in many years. It is astounding how some of the characters, like Toohey and his chums, resemble some of today’s public figures.

  11. Are you sure this is the completed building is supposed to look like? I think it resembles a building being blown up. Maybe its building design by O bib Laden.

  12. Some people fold their tissue neatly before wiping, and some scrunch it up in a ball. I think the architect is a scruncher, who flattened out his tissue instead of dropping it into the toilet, and thought that the resultant stain was facinating. So no, don’t bid on this used bit of toilet paper.

  13. I think it looks pretty good.
    Screw all this form follows function crap. I hate it when idiots listen to some twits (Sullivan and Greenbough) and take their self serving platitudes as gospel.
    The best stuff is when you squeeze the function into the cool form because it requires something called innovation. Sticking a box over a hockey rink is so mundane – but figuring out how to stick massive functionality into an iPhone form factor is ultra cool.
    I haven’t been inside the finished ROM but I was there almost a year ago when most of the construction was still going on and those areas were still off limits. I saw the Korean, Chinese and Japanese exhibits and noticed how they had opened up the long closed windows at the back – changing the entire lighting effect – which looked pretty good.
    I also visited the ‘bat cave’ and a bunch of other areas and noticed that it was the same stuff that I saw 30 years ago as a kid on the school outing from Hamilton. I hope they modernize these old displays to bring the whole museum up to date with these new architectural changes. Little kids coming in on the school buses from far away are in for some shock and awe as they enter the place – I hope they will be in for some shock and awe inside as they view and learn – and maybe inspired – by the past.

  14. Bravo, Edward Michael George! I’ll be reading him more often.
    I go by the abomination known as the Michael Lee Chin Crystal (sic) a few times a week and it never fails to raise my hackles and blood pressure.
    The once fair and pleasant city of Toronto has been turned into a crazy cartoon, which does not cater to real people. As EMG so succinctly puts it “Indeed, it seems to me that Libeskind should have been very much more successful…if he had just stacked a bunch of cubed units to spell out LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK down the Bloor streetscape. Or, simply, F*** U.”
    I see the Crystal as sitting astride the ROM like a shrugging, middle-finger-in-the-air, Colossus, and can discern no redeeming features about it.
    The triumph of mediocrity. The Bible has something to say about this level of achievement: “Be either hot or cold or I will spew you out of my mouth”: the Michael Lee Chin Crystal spewed out of God’s mouth.

  15. Who ever designed the DENVER AIRPORT must be drunk on romulan ale and suarian brandy

  17. It looks like they ran out of money and slapped up the cheapest vinyl siding they could find at the local Home Depot, just to seal er up before the snow flies.
    It looks, in that respect, Canadian.

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