Letters

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2003

PROGENY OF CYBER ANORAKS?

SIR: Your January issue contained two buildings that seem to be 'all the rage': the Yokohama Port Terminal by Foreign Office Architects, and the Imperial War Museum of the North (what a dreadful name) by Daniel Libeskind.

Both of these are fashionable -- but why? The Terminal (which can be used but rarely) appears to be little more than a series of wandering rather gloomy ramps, and, outside, you are not even allowed to walk on the grass, an unlikely material which has been installed with such vast expense in the middle of the sea.

The museum is supposed to be a representation of shards of an earth shattered by war but brought together by the healing powers of the mighty Libeskind. I cannot believe that anyone can understand that message unless they have read the script beforehand. Did Ictinus and Callicrates or Palladio require people to read a textbook before visiting their work?

Can it be that both these buildings, which have been created with amazing care by extensive use of computing power, are modern examples of Emperor's clothing, cut today not by tailors but cyber anoraks?

Yours etc

JOHNJAQUES

Sydney, Australia

LIBESKIND: GO TO THE SUPERMARKET

SIR: Does Libeskind expect too much of architecture? At hisJewish Museum in Berlin (AR April 1999), the jagged, seemingly wilful lines of the fenestration strips are supposed to represent relationships between the homes of distinguished Jewish citizens, as perceived in plan. Once they were elevated, they lost whatever small relationship to history and myth they may have had. (The dates at which individuals lived in the different terminations of the lines were widely different.) Looking through the slits, you surely cannot usually see the places that they are intended to link. Can even Libeskind remember what each line is supposed to represent?

In his Imperial War Museum at Salford (AR January), he again uses a mythic proposal: this time of the broken globe, whose shards have been brought together in atonement for war and violence. If he had not written such ideas down, none of us would get within miles of guessing them.

While buildings such as the great temples and cathedrals of the past could, and did, present myths in three dimensions, such achievements were possible only because the myths were accepted by virtually the whole of society. Individual architects cannot possibly impose myths on the rest of culture through their own buildings, however glamorous and attractive.

In Western Europe at least there are no consensual myths, apart perhaps from that of meretricious plenty and absurd media celebrity. Perhaps to get in touch with popular imagination, Libeskind should have a go at a supermarket or television studio.

Yours etc

ABRAHAM GRAVES

Berlin, Germany

FRY RESCUED

SIR: On behalf of the architects responsible for rescuing the Maxwell Fry house at Coombe Hill, may I respectfully point out that the correspondent in your January issue is mistaken on all counts. 'Developers' have not 'recently acquired' the property. It was bought over 18 months ago by a private owner for his family and own occupation. 'Plastic windows' have not 'already gone in'. On the contrary, virtually all the original steel windows had already been replaced by unsympathetic aluminium substitutions (including the ones shown in your illustration) and have now been returned to the original fenestration pattern with steel windows. The house is not being drastically gutted'. It was derelict and uninhabitable after severe damage by flooding, having been substantially and unsympathetically altered by previous owners. These illiterate alterations are being removed or corrected and the few surviving and salvageable features are being restored. Lastly, the grounds are not 'being swamped with a number of grotesq ue new houses'. Perhaps your correspondent assumes the contractor's site huts are permanent? Accordingly your title was also incorrect.

I am rather surprised that a journal of the AR's standing would print such a letter without checking the facts. I trust therefore you will feel obliged to correct this misinformation.

Yours etc

JOHN ALLAN

London, England

OPEN PLAN

SIR: Edward Robbins (AR November 2002, p20) rightly castigates the architectural profession for gathering round the corpse of the World Trade Center like hyenas, and the uncritical assumptions made about the necessity of rebuilding. He fails to spell out the possibility that the proper response to the situation would be to leave the site as an open space.

Yours etc

ALAN KENNEDY

London SW12, England