May 2009 | Eyesore
Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.
Ready to check into the new Standard Hotel in New York's Lower West Side Meat Packing district? Instant Blade Runner, just add water. The hotel was intended as an accessory to the city's new High Line "park" -- a weed-filled 1.5 mile-long stretch of abandoned elevated railroad right-of-way. We do everything stupidly now in the United States. Stupidity is the new fashion sensation! And the Standard is the new Ground Zero of Fashion! In this project, mistakes are artfully multiplied and layered -- for instance the assumption that New York City doesn't need railroad tracks anymore. Or the notion that buildings don't have to relate to the street-and-block grid. Instead of repairing the discontinuities of recent decades we just celebrate them and make them worse. That's decadence at its purest.
