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News & ArtsFriday, March 8, 2013
Architecture The Always Ugly Beacon Hill Branch Library: Part IV
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 9:24 AM
Whenever you come across something that's quirky, raise your defenses...
What exactly is wrong with quirkiness? This is wrong with it. See, even a criminal like Rummy can be quirky. It's fun to be quirky because it means nothing to be quirky. It is like the word "excellence," which, as the late literary theorist Bill Readings pointed out, is used by universities and corporations because it really means nothing.
Generally, we hear a lot o f talk from University administrators about excellence, because it has becom e the unifying principle o f the contemporary University. C. P. Snow’s “ Two C ultures” have become “Two Excellences,” the humanistic and the scientific. As an integrating principle, excellence has the singular advantage o f being entirely meaningless, or to put it more precisely, non-referential.Because it is empty, anyone can strive for excellence. Rummy can bomb innocent civilians, be given an award for excellence, and get all quirky at the dinner table. The Beacon Hill Library voids the political with quirkiness.
2
So. Quirkiness is bad because it's meaningless. Except it's bad because one bad person was quirky. Even though lots of good people are quirky.
No, that's a dead end argument that doesn't prove your point. How about we just accept the premise that "quirkiness is meaningless" without support. Just for shits n giggles.
That means that quirkiness in architecture is bad because quirkiness is meaningless. Therefore, architecture is only good when it has meaning.
I don't buy it. Meaninglessness is a neutral quality, not a bad one. So if the architecture of the Beacon Hill Library is meaningless, then it's a structure which should arouse only neutral reactions, like any average forgettable building. If your reactions are not neutral, then the qualities arousing them can not be neutral either. So there must be some other explanation.
No, that's a dead end argument that doesn't prove your point. How about we just accept the premise that "quirkiness is meaningless" without support. Just for shits n giggles.
That means that quirkiness in architecture is bad because quirkiness is meaningless. Therefore, architecture is only good when it has meaning.
I don't buy it. Meaninglessness is a neutral quality, not a bad one. So if the architecture of the Beacon Hill Library is meaningless, then it's a structure which should arouse only neutral reactions, like any average forgettable building. If your reactions are not neutral, then the qualities arousing them can not be neutral either. So there must be some other explanation.
5
Speaking of university excellence, the artist in question, Miles Pepper, is a longtime engineering tech at WSU. He knows how to do things and make things, including kinetic sculptures.
But writing a series of increasingly quirky blog posts? I don't know if he's "excellent" enough to manage such a thing.
But writing a series of increasingly quirky blog posts? I don't know if he's "excellent" enough to manage such a thing.
6
The term that rankles my hackles with its essential meaninglessness (especially in how it's used nowadays) is "freedom(s)."
8
I'm not sure that war crimes and architecture you don't like are the same thing. But maybe you are just quirky that way.
10
I remember now Kundera's last chapter of the Unbearable lightness, and his notion of kitsch. this along with the faux multi culturalism has made me take a second look at the library, but, I still don't fully grasp the ugliness. part 5?
11
Quirky means offbeat or unexpected.
The presence or absence of meaning is not involved in quirkyness in the slightest.
There are completely profound quirks, and completely meaningless ones, just as there are red quirks, quirks made of wood, and quirky flavors in any national cuisine.
In Seattle, particularly, a boat shaped windvane is not quirky in any way shape or form. Boat shaped windvanes are actually traditional, not quirky, particularly in maritime locations.
And the graphic designer, not Rumsfield, put Rummy on the package- which, maybe, could mean the designer was using quirkiness to sell something, but has absolutely nothing to do with bombing, innocence, or politics.
So, in summary- we have a fundamental misunderstanding of a word definition, a misreading of whether the word applies to this particular situation, and an analogy that wont hold water.
Next?
The presence or absence of meaning is not involved in quirkyness in the slightest.
There are completely profound quirks, and completely meaningless ones, just as there are red quirks, quirks made of wood, and quirky flavors in any national cuisine.
In Seattle, particularly, a boat shaped windvane is not quirky in any way shape or form. Boat shaped windvanes are actually traditional, not quirky, particularly in maritime locations.
And the graphic designer, not Rumsfield, put Rummy on the package- which, maybe, could mean the designer was using quirkiness to sell something, but has absolutely nothing to do with bombing, innocence, or politics.
So, in summary- we have a fundamental misunderstanding of a word definition, a misreading of whether the word applies to this particular situation, and an analogy that wont hold water.
Next?
14
fffuuuuuuu. . .
charles sucking on every level, just to be a troll and get comments.
well here's another one.
"Because it is empty, anyone can strive for excellence."
charles, you are empty, but you strive for mediocrity an easy paycheck and pedantry (at best.)
quit, your job and do something useful - like, i don't know maybe work at a fucking library!
charles sucking on every level, just to be a troll and get comments.
well here's another one.
"Because it is empty, anyone can strive for excellence."
charles, you are empty, but you strive for mediocrity an easy paycheck and pedantry (at best.)
quit, your job and do something useful - like, i don't know maybe work at a fucking library!
15
I don't always agree with you, Charles, but this time you've hit the nail on the head. Though this thing is nowhere near the most horrible public art around; let me direct your attention to the Ballard Mushrooms. Or the thingamabobs on the Ballard Bridge. Or, worst of all, the Epicenter Apartments in Fremont, above the PCC, covered with that hideous hammered-aluminum viney crap. What is it with hammered aluminum these days?
Sadly for all concerned, "quirky" (or "whimsical") is the opposite of "creative", no matter how devoutly the quirky ones wish it was the same.
Sadly for all concerned, "quirky" (or "whimsical") is the opposite of "creative", no matter how devoutly the quirky ones wish it was the same.
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