The war on patina

[imomus]

Yesterday I really fell in love with Berlin again. I saw the Berlin Biennial, an event I thought I'd missed (it's been extended until June 5th). The art was pretty good, but in a sense it was upstaged by the city itself, and by patina. Curators Cattelan, Gioni and Subotnick found all sorts of spaces up and down Mitte's Auguststrasse; a cargo

Comments

[onthemoon]

Here in the states, as you likely noticed while in NY (as it is probably one of the main staging grounds), there seems to be a real re-birth of the notion that newer is better; cold and characterless high-rise condomium buildings are making a comeback and considered far preferable to the city's many old and character-full brick and brownstone buildings, which for awhile were really winning folks over, especially in the backlash to our postwar urban renewal. It sometimes amazes me how easy of a sale it is to convince people that they need the cold clean look of glass and steel, greys and blues, sterile and sane

[imomus]

Agreed. It is worth saying, though, that glass has at least the potential to complement the landscape, either by reflecting it back or by letting the eye pass directly through the building to what's beyond. Of course, it's rarely used that self-effacingly; a new building tends to want to be a focal point, not a window.

[onthemoon]

True. All materials have a lot of great potential, be they natural or manufactured, old or new. Sadly, though, as you point out, so few architects or developers seem interested in working with the existing landscape. It would be laughable, were it not so disheartening, reading Frank Gehry talk about he and Ratner's plans for the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, and how he "carefully considered the existing landscape." Of course it all boils down to ease and ego. Working with the existing landscape, and all the patina it has to offer, means looking outward and actually thinking about the world that will exist beyond their shiny new plot. And of course blending in with, or even complimenting the existing landscape would mean less attention for the new. It would be lovely to see some contemporary architecture focusing on sharing the landscape with the past (it does exist, but, perhaps for reasons just noted, is hard to find

[nato_dakke]

sanitiert, isn'a?

[imomus]

[nina_blomquist]

i don't know if "sanized" is any better than "sanitized."

[anonymous]

everything old was new once.
Get into too much patina and you end up distressing denim in search of some bogus authenticity nad character.

[imomus]

True... one of things I love about Tokyo is the total disregard for preservation, respect for the past, etc. Or do I love the retro-80s patina that covers so much of the city? The 80s was the time Tokyo developed most, and it's going to preserve a fading version of 1980s architecture (those raked blocky apartment buildings, for instance, or pomo follies) for quite some time yet.

[wickedanima]

I've always been particularly fond of 'patina' and 'character' myself. I find it disgusting for the most part that the whole 'Modern' mindset has always run over the old for the new. All the more disturbing because of the fact that my tastes run to excitement oppositely of the clean minimal factors, to the complex textures of history, dirt, cobwebs, and general character.

[imomus]

Absolutely. I must say that when I first saw the Whitney Biennial my heart sank a bit. It wasn't the art, it was the building. It just isn't the Arsenale, is it?

[imomus]

I think the neutrality of the white cube is a Modernist anomaly. Most of the time art has had a context, stuff around it, often very gilded and ornate stuff. Of course, the white cube (seen as a Modernist anomaly) is also a context. The question then is, why should post-Modernist art be seen in a Modernist context (like Breuer's Whitney, for instance)? And when the Whitney has been made over by Renzo Piano (2008, I hear), will pomo art fit better in a pomo space?