{"id":2455,"date":"2008-09-14T17:44:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-14T21:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2008-09-14T17:44:04","modified_gmt":"2008-09-14T21:44:04","slug":"new-orleans-beijing-same-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans-beijing-same-difference","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans, Beijing: Same Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicolai Ouroussoff: still here, still batshit-crazy<\/a>. He asks why, if China could make a major architectural statement out of Beijing, the U.S. won’t do the same in . . . New Orleans. No, really.<\/p>\n

Somehow, he misses the points that<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Beijing is the capital of a burgeoning world power, while New Orleans’ economy is driven almost entirely by drunken tourists,<\/li>\n
  2. New Orleans, we now understand, faces destruction by flood every hurricane season, thanks to its georgraphy, a series of incredibly short-sighted development decisions, and the admitted incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineers,<\/li>\n
  3. “New Orleans” and “coherent vision” don’t belong in the same article.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Maybe he’ll propose Frank Gehry to design new curved levees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Nicolai Ouroussoff: still here, still batshit-crazy. He asks why, if China could make a major architectural statement out of Beijing, the U.S. won’t do the same in . . . New Orleans. No, really. Somehow, he misses the points that Beijing is the capital of a burgeoning world power, while New Orleans’ economy is driven … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “New Orleans, Beijing: Same Difference”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,17,19],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-2455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-orleans","category-politics-explicit","category-urban-issues","tag-nicolai-ouroussoff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-DB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2133,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/thats-one-fierce-embrace-you-got-there","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":0},"title":"That’s one fierce embrace you got there…","author":"Gil","date":"July 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, I goofed on NYTimes writer Nicolai Ouroussoff's starchitecture rimjob about planned cities. I contrasted it with a second NYTimes article that discussed the moral quandary of taking commissions from dictatorships. In yesterday's NYTimes, Ouroussoff managed to top himself, going gaga over the starchitecture in Beijing, conflating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2337,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-29-2008","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 29, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Long weekend, dear American readers! Better fill it up with lots of oddball links! Just click more! How do you really feel, about Jay Mariotti's departure, Mr. Ebert? * * * Rupert Murdoch cares not for your silly books! (seriously, book publishing is such a minuscule contributor to News Corp.'s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"J.M.W. Turner\"","block_context":{"text":"J.M.W. Turner","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/jmw-turner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5082,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-march-12-2010","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: March 12, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"March 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Unrequired Reading time! You know you wanna check out this week's load o' links! London: the past ain't what it used to be. * * * The hidden thread of Martin Scorsese. * * * I've written before about how NYTimes architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff sucks. Here's a designer's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307273539","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3214,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/writing-on-buildings","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":3},"title":"Writing on Buildings","author":"Gil","date":"January 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just because the NYTimes' architecture critic lives on another planet (lemme tell you, Nicolai: the problem with starchitecture is not that it failed to focus on public housing), that doesn't mean there isn't good writing about architecture in other newspapers. Dwell's blog offers up a bunch of them!","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3773,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/building-perspective","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":4},"title":"Building Perspective","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicolai Ouroussoff seems to be celebrating restraint in his review of the Standard, a new hotel on 13th St. in NYC: These are simple but powerful moves. And they are a reminder that enveloping a structure in a flamboyant wrapper is not always the most effective way to create lasting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2110,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/towering-folly","url_meta":{"origin":2455,"position":5},"title":"Towering! Folly?","author":"Gil","date":"June 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, the NYTimes published a magazine supplement about architecture or something. It included this meandering ramble about building cities that have no history. Written by the paper's starchitecture critic, Nicholas Ouroussoff, it glowingly describes the miraculous super-projects to be designed by Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0452273331","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}