Much like a furniture piece in a home, or a specific artist for a museum, celebrity architects (or "starchitects" as some like to say) have become little more than collectible goods for cities. Architectural criticism has become a joke when referencing many of these architects' works, with the deference and boosterism approaching that of an amateur art enthusiast fawning over Hirst or Koons.
In fact, their branding and appeal is similar to that of a well-known living artist selling to a museum:
If you can afford it, and you buy a Hirst (I'm not sure why you would, but bear with me), you will be talked and written about for your purchase. You can overpay or get a great deal, it doesn't really matter. You will find validation and you may (who knows?) find a good return on your investment
If, on the other hand, you find an artist that speaks to you, whose work you adore, you will need to have a much higher degree of confidence in yourself and in your own taste. You probably won't be wirtten about and you probably won't be validated. In fact, there's a good chance that others might not like your new painting at all. Worse, they might see another piece by the same artist that they dislike, and therefore think your purchase was silly.
That's not to say that others will like your Hirst. But if they don't, it won't matter because the art world has pronounced it "good," and you don't need to think further than that. Your personal purchase from a talented and sophisticated up-and-coming artist won't have that same pronouncement, no matter how good it makes you feel whenever you pass by it or linger in front of it.
In this way, the celebrity architect's work is almost exactly like Hirst's. It has been pre-approved and you can promote it as an example of your sophistication. Odds are fairly high that it won't make you feel good (improve your city's urbanism in any way), although it still might (Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim has that reputation, for example, despite the city's resurgence coming primarily from improved train service). But your new building will stand out like mad, and you can rest assured that visitors will notice it and talk about.
The unknown, or lesser-known, artist whose work speaks to you personally, who is talented and hard-working, but known mainly in professional circles, is much like the skilled architect that focuses on making your city better. You will be happier on a daily basis with the results, but the local arts society members aren't likely to celebrate your choice. You won't be written about in flashy magazines, even if the local artist community (or urbanist and pedestrian group) respects your decision.
Ironically, these radical projects promote a global homogeneity and an inability to find anything specifically surprising about a place. It's exciting to learn about George Ohr in Biloxi, Mississippi, and his reliance on the local clays and culture. Frank Gehry's twisted metal forms are ultimately much less compelling, or at least compelling in a wholly different way that is unrelated to the mad potter himself.
In this same regard, we see cities building expensive art museums that deliberately look just like the shopping malls, holocaust museums, church additions or other art museums in other cities, with different post-design justifications for their required appearance.
What we're witnessing is a global flattening of culture that extends outward from our museum collections and into our built world. Perhaps this isn't new, but it's easy, because if viewers can be just a little bit informed, they can feel smart without ever being challenged.
In fact, their branding and appeal is similar to that of a well-known living artist selling to a museum:
Get one now, you need to have one to be current, to be world-class! Visitors will see you as having sophisitication and intelligence! Let the world know that your cultural organizations are on par with those found in the major gateway cities! Don't fall behind the high-society curve!It doesn't really matter if the city is collecting a Gehry, a Zaha, a Koolhaas, a Calatrava, a Libeskind or one of the others, but there are several key considerations:
- They must collect from the right list of designers. This is no different than going to a city's art museum to see a painting from each of the pre-approved masters that people have read about. People feel smart, and they feel cultured when they see the requisite Picasso, Warhol and Monet, and if they don't they're disappointed. I'm sorry cities, but a Lake/Flato, a Bing Thom or a Kieran Timberlake just isn't going to cut it, no matter how acclaimed and lasting those architects' designs may be, and no matter how much good they do for the neighborhood-- they're not on the weird/cool list.
- Try to look a tiny bit original. Just as most city museums normally don't invest all their money in one artist, a city needs to pick a new celebrity architect from the list each time. Visitors want to build familiarity with the same architects on different trips in order to feel smart, but they will want to see different ones in the same town.
- The project must appear bizarre, and shouldn't improve the city's sidewalks or livability. Ideally, it will appear as if it were 3-D printed, with no trace of the workmen that built it, and preferably will not look like a building at all. It might go unnoticed by the casual observer if not, and that would defeat the whole purpose.
- It must look like other work from that architect. There's really no point of hiring a celebrity architect if visitors don't recognize their work, and the moderately informed dilletante won't be able to if they don't repeat the same formula over and over again. The arguable exception to this is Koolhaas, but he is almost in a league of his own in this regard, since the primary requirement for his projects is the lack of any sort of human scale on the exterior and a jarring, brutal appearance.
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| Hirst in London |
If, on the other hand, you find an artist that speaks to you, whose work you adore, you will need to have a much higher degree of confidence in yourself and in your own taste. You probably won't be wirtten about and you probably won't be validated. In fact, there's a good chance that others might not like your new painting at all. Worse, they might see another piece by the same artist that they dislike, and therefore think your purchase was silly.
That's not to say that others will like your Hirst. But if they don't, it won't matter because the art world has pronounced it "good," and you don't need to think further than that. Your personal purchase from a talented and sophisticated up-and-coming artist won't have that same pronouncement, no matter how good it makes you feel whenever you pass by it or linger in front of it.
In this way, the celebrity architect's work is almost exactly like Hirst's. It has been pre-approved and you can promote it as an example of your sophistication. Odds are fairly high that it won't make you feel good (improve your city's urbanism in any way), although it still might (Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim has that reputation, for example, despite the city's resurgence coming primarily from improved train service). But your new building will stand out like mad, and you can rest assured that visitors will notice it and talk about.
The unknown, or lesser-known, artist whose work speaks to you personally, who is talented and hard-working, but known mainly in professional circles, is much like the skilled architect that focuses on making your city better. You will be happier on a daily basis with the results, but the local arts society members aren't likely to celebrate your choice. You won't be written about in flashy magazines, even if the local artist community (or urbanist and pedestrian group) respects your decision.
 |
| Gehry in Biloxi |
In this same regard, we see cities building expensive art museums that deliberately look just like the shopping malls, holocaust museums, church additions or other art museums in other cities, with different post-design justifications for their required appearance.
What we're witnessing is a global flattening of culture that extends outward from our museum collections and into our built world. Perhaps this isn't new, but it's easy, because if viewers can be just a little bit informed, they can feel smart without ever being challenged.
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