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KunstlerCast #53: Incomprehensible Buildings

KunstlerCast #53: Incomprehensible Buildings

FromKunstlerCast - Suburban Sprawl: A Tragic Comedy


KunstlerCast #53: Incomprehensible Buildings

FromKunstlerCast - Suburban Sprawl: A Tragic Comedy

ratings:
Length:
32 minutes
Released:
Feb 26, 2009
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

A listener asks James Howard Kunstler to react to the Feb. 9 fire that destroyed a Beijing building by Dutch starchitect Rem Koolhaas. Kunstler believes many famous architects, including Koolhaas, often strive to confound people in order to appear supernaturally brilliant. It's all in the service of grandiosity and narcissism, though. Rather than attempting to disturb our expectations, architects should strive to give us buildings that are neurologically comprehensible and that satisfy our need for cultural orientation. Kunstler also takes shots at a proposed skyscraper in Boston and the Southern Poverty Law Center. **Tim Halber, managing editor of Planetizen, responds in a listener comment to Duncan's recent comments about the failures of new urbanism.
Released:
Feb 26, 2009
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and World Made By Hand, takes on suburban sprawl, disposable architecture and the end of the cheap oil era each week with program host Duncan Crary.