Grifting: Daniel Libeskind

After spending quite some time now trying to FIGURE OUT architecture -- and after literally throwing away Rem Koolhaas books -- I've started to direct my attention regarding this matter to my architecture-school-drop-out-turned-semiotician colleague Steven Kado.

Last week I attempted to visit the heralded new wing of the Denver, CO Art Museum designed by Daniel Libeskind.

Here's our SMS conversation (Me=Denver, Steve=Toronto):

12:25:24 PM : AFJ: What can you tell me about Daniel Libeskind?
12:28:12 PM: SK: Would you like to reap the whirlwind?
12:29:23 PM: AFJ: Please. I'm standing outside his new wing at the Denver Art Museum laughing at it.
12:30:17 PM SK: He's a total dildo.
12:30:59 PM AFJ: Dark dildo?
12:31:46 PM SK: Even though he's obnoxious at least Ghery designs around materials. Danno proceeds in total ignorance. Most of his writing is awful. He's a shit humanist of the worst stripe.
12:33:36 PM AFJ: What about his almost total rejection of utility?
12:33:39 PM SK: Being human means being really selfish I suppose. I hate him the most. Seriously. He is numero uno on my hate list of architects.
12:34:35 PM AFJ: Totally selfish but not in an ownership way. Like in an ignorant or non-contextual way.
12:35:17 PM SK: He gained cred for the Holocaust museum on Berlin. He has no feel for program, theory or materials. His work is flashy so popular.
12:37:43 PM SK: Yeah, totally. I am with you. Utility is called program in architecture. Like, we need two bathrooms on every floor . . .
12:40:13 PM: SK: Although program also means 'make it feel sad' or whatever because technical terms have no consistent application in arch. Totally flawed discipline.
12:40:46 PM AFJ: I love/hate this.
12:42:48 PM SK: Yeah you would. I haven't seen the building. He did a major museum in Toronto. His winning proposal was submitted on a napkin. It was insured for $10000.
12:44:26 PM AFJ: The napkin was given worth? Clarify please.
12:45:10 PM SK: His writing reads like Bono on African poverty. But less charismatic.
12:46:01 PM AFJ: Whoa. Pity. . .
12:47:38 PM SK: Yes. His incoherent scribble was seen as very valuable. It is a napkin. I mean, it is offensive. It addresses nothing. It explains nothing.
12:52:51 PM SK: The design he submitted to be built had to be modified because there were all these glass panels hung by psychokinesis. Also, the mummies and shit can't take . . .
12:54:25 PM SK: . . . direct sunlight. There was a picture of him smiling on a construction hoarding that was constantly being vandalized. Very satisfying.
12:54:29 PM AFJ: Like these glass panels will just hang themselves.
12:57:46 PM SK: Yes. They would just stay where his mighty mind would will them to stay. He is objectively bad at his job. He cannot meet the minimum requirements. Yet successful.
1:00:18 PM SK: The building you're actually in is probably more the work of hard working project managers trying to save their jobs than dan the man.
1:47:55 PM SK: Currently assembling a radio transmitter. Best soldering music: replacing Minor Threat: early Stereolab.

Comments (15)

guy,
i think i'm going to see the toronto version of this tonight.

you inspired me.

i haven't been yet. they've still been finishing it up and i didn't want to see it till they were 'done' with it. but fuck that.

the best yet

didn't this guy win the job to design the new 9/11 tower? i guess i could find out via GOOGLE.

SMS put to its most honorable usage

one of my friends in the UVa program is working for Liebskind this summer. I haven't talked to her about it yet, but I assume that it's a similar deal to those I've known who have worked for other "super starchitects": an office full of truly brilliant and talented people who have design/model-making/photoshop skills that are out of this world, but in order to get to work as part of a fantastic team they have to work for this asshole who had a great idea 20 years ago. said asshole pretty much swishes into the office in between speaking engagements and Aspen trips to throw a tantrum, demand more out his 18-hour-a-day worker bees, pronounce a few vague ideas or produce his or her latest napkin masterpiece. but, as I said, I haven't heard the report on Liebskind yet.

oops. totally wrong spelling of Libeskind. gasp, what kind of architecture student am I?

Die Another Day, or "Bad buildings by big names"
I just remembered this article from Metropolis by Philip Nobel. It's from a few months ago, written on ICA in Boston. But he uses the critique of ICA to critique architectural criticism itself and his colleagues within that field. The main question: why are critics bowing to celebrity rather than innovation or at least buildings that don't leak?
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2681
[p.s. for afj, look for his reference to the "transient joys" of Rem. be amused or horrified.]

kate, amazing article: but LBH: EVERY building by a name architect, from FLW/leC/LMvdR on down that i've ever seen leaks. Leaks are fundamental to Arch. Practice. Don't start on the leaks.

Just cause it leaks, doesn't mean it can't do 1,000,000 other things well. In the case of D.Lieb, probably it doesn't do much else well.

Steve, I thought that we already went over this: Truth Be Told is the new Let's Be Honest. Truce?

Did you know that Libeskind used another architect to design his own home? What a hypocrite. But I find it funny that even if he was too busy to do it himself, wasn't anyone in his office able to design a simple apartment? Maybe he didn't want his own place to leak. - But I agree, that he's a complete asshole. He even looks like an asshole. And his wife is even more mannish looking than he is. Ugly buildings by ugly people.

Does anyone else feel abused by the arrogance of this architect. Upon reading Mr Libeskind's autobiography and then seeing the new Jewish Museum "creation" it is apparent that he has run out of ideas and the only creativity arising from his hen scratchings is the overblown rational he fabricates for the same idea: In Denver, the same form was said to be derived from the "jutting" Rockies and movement of the techtonic plates; In Toronto, the same design was said to be derived from the chrystaline forms within the museum; and so on and so on. Will the Earth's "New Modernism" consist of Ghery's flowers and Libeskind's jutting cubes?

Robert G. Billard, MAIBC, AAA, NWTAA, MRAIC, LEED AP
Vancouver, BC

I think people are starting to see Daniel and Nina Libeskind for the self-serving jackasses they both are. They talk all this rubbish about progressive design but they don't want to live in any of Daniel's shit themselves. They hired someone else (i.e. a professional architectural firm), to design their home.

Libeskind is a mediocre,lover of plagiate ( see new wtc and Looyd Wright's "mile tower" and others). A cynical poorly gifted marketing created persona sponsorised by more than doubtful people. His projects are usually pushed by lobbies. An "architect" that simply do not deserve any public attention and has it only by people with no culture of the past and even less of the present. He should be erased.

What an ugly building. I'd be hiding my head under a rock if I worked in the architectural office that produced this drivel!! Do these people know anything about design?

Look at the stupid way the painting had to be hung in the sixth picture. Or the cheap acoustic tile ceilings. It looks like something from a basement cafeteria. Only a total asshole would try to tell themselves that this is architecture.

I just finished watching libkind's Tedtalks jabber and I was do appalled by what came out of his mouth I actually took the time out to see if anyone else sees the ridiculousness of this guy. I am not an architect or student of such studies. I am however in the area of psychology. This guy not only disregards practicality of a building and conservative use of precious material, but what's worse totally diregards human nature! In his talk he basically took what humans find to be comforting, relaxing, and environmentally suitable for living and said he strives to do the opposite in the name of non comformaty. He mentions cold, undecorated, loud spaces. In addition, his buildings are a bunch of sharp randomly aligned edges and to me seems anxiety provoking. Anyone even slightly familiar with basic knowledge of human behavior and inate emotional responses knows this guy is a quack!!! Ps: That's why he had someone else design his living space because his are unoccupiable! Maybe he should consider going into sculpturing and letting only people who like his stuff purchase it because as he said himself building design is public and I am offended by his buildings and hope this dude does not get to put more anxiety provoking crap into my environment.

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