I’ve never been a fan of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel’s Whitney Gould, the supposed expert columnist on architecture and design. I find her writing to be snobby, elitist, condescending, uppity, and quite frankly, boring.
Today in her column that I spoke about on WISN, she offered her expertise on “good design,” in a response to a caller:
Why do you care so much about what a building looks like, he wanted to know, and what business do you have criticizing what other people choose to build?
This one's for you, John.
If you go to a concert and the performers are having an off night, the damage is transitory. Same with a bad meal in a restaurant. Sure, you may be disappointed, but you get over it quickly. The Brewers really stank last night? There will always be another game.
A bad building, though, can stink for decades, fouling its surroundings and lowering the bar for everything that comes after. (Think of the old Amtrak station, now undergoing a spectacular makeover.) A good one can stir the soul and challenge other architects and their clients to aim higher. (Think of the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.)
Why is it anyone's business what other people choose to build?
That famous quote attributed to Winston Churchill says it all: "We shape our buildings; thereafter, our buildings shape us." They affect the quality of life in our neighborhoods; they establish the identity of our cities; they color our work days. If we don't make it our business to care about such things, we will deserve the awful results.That was today.
Remember, Whitney knows good design.
Here is what she wrote on June 3, 2007 about the di Suvero sculpture and its juxtaposition to the Calatrava (a subject I blogged about
yesterday):
Even before it was installed 25 years ago at the east end of Wisconsin Ave., people were arguing about "The Calling," Mark di Suvero's bold orange sunburst made of steel I-beams. The debate heated up once again in 2001 after Santiago Calatrava's poetic white addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum spread its wings just behind the sculpture.
The critics groused that the di Suvero was blocking views of the Calatrava and should be moved. They're still grousing, to judge from my never-ending e-mails on this subject.
I've always been dismayed by the complaints. To me, great works of public art and architecture carry on a musical conversation - in this case, di Suvero's exuberant symbol of the muscle that built Milwaukee playing off Calatrava's lyrical transformation of that heritage.
If you want to savor the complexity of urban life - the intersection of past and present, the layering of civic aspirations, the relentless reframing of views - here it is, in one corner of the downtown.
Di Suvero does with steel what Calatrava does with concrete: finds its soul and makes it dance.Translation: Gould believes that orange piece of junk that the vast majority of us pedestrians despise is wonderful. She loves it when most of us want to blow the damn thing up.
That alone brings her credibility into question, a clear illustration she has dubious, questionable tastes.
Sorry, but Whitney Gould should not be the spokeswoman for what is good and not so good about design in Milwaukee.
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