{"id":3773,"date":"2009-04-09T05:59:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T09:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2009-04-09T05:59:11","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T09:59:11","slug":"building-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/building-perspective","title":{"rendered":"Building Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicolai Ouroussoff seems to be celebrating restraint in his review of the Standard<\/a>, a new hotel on 13th St. in NYC:<\/p>\n

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 architecture. In the wrong hands, too much creative freedom can be outright dangerous.<\/p>\n

With the Standard Hotel, Polshek Partnership joins a handful of other midlevel firms that are beginning to find the right balance between innovation and restraint.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a pleasant change from his past rambles (here’s<\/a> a good one), so maybe the New Austerity is having an impact on his work.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, this writer for this Reuters article on the MGM CityCenter project in Las Vegas<\/a> must have had a hard time not chortling when he recorded this passage —<\/p>\n

“The events of the last six months have been our Pearl Harbor, economically,” said Bill Thompson, gaming expert and professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “CityCenter might be too big to fail. If it opens, it’s a dramatic gesture that says we’re winning, we’re not defeated, we’re on the way back.”<\/p>\n

“If it fails, it would be like a second Pearl Harbor.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— about a 67-acre condo\/hotel\/casino\/shopping mall complex. I think it’s very funny that a professor of public administration at UNLV is referred to first as a “gaming expert,” because it implies (to me) that he’s a compulsive gambler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 architecture. In the wrong hands, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Building Perspective”<\/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":[25],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-3773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","tag-nicolai-ouroussoff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-YR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5082,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-march-12-2010","url_meta":{"origin":3773,"position":0},"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":3773,"position":1},"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":2455,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans-beijing-same-difference","url_meta":{"origin":3773,"position":2},"title":"New Orleans, Beijing: Same Difference","author":"Gil","date":"September 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2578,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-oct-3-2008","url_meta":{"origin":3773,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Oct. 3, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"October 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Are you ready for some linkage? I put in some hefty ones, to make up for last week's hiatus (woop-woop-woop!). Also, because my brain was going to shut off if I listened to any more of the VP debate. Just click more! Make your blog more like The Wire! (Seriously,\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":4050,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/city-of-glass-shards","url_meta":{"origin":3773,"position":4},"title":"City of Glass Shards","author":"Gil","date":"June 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In our last Unrequired Reading, I noted that Frank \"curved metal surfaces\" Gehry had been bounced as the architect of the Atlantic Yards (AY) arena project for the Nets, in favor of a design that will shave $150-$200 million from construction costs. At the time, I laughed over the depiction\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":3773,"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\/3773","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=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3775,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}