Complexity & Contradiction in Philip Johnson

Given the subject matter of my previous post (MoMA, not Shackleton), I thought I would mention Philip Johnson's death today at the age of 98.

During Johnson's long life he continually reinvented himself -- so much so, in fact, that one might call him both the father of modern architecture in America and the father of postmodern architecture, more generally. He also took an interest in the work of Frank O. Gehry during the final years of his life.

As the curator of MoMA's first architecture exhibition, 1931's "International Style," Johnson identified, named, and popularized the work of Le Corbusier, Mies van de Rohe, and other European architects. He remained a central figure in MoMA's architecture gallery (it was later named after him) for much of the museum's history. He also designed the first two expansions of the original building, including the sculpture garden.

But out of all of his achievements, what stands out most in Johnson's career is its ever-changing emphasis. The only consistent theme was his insistence that architecture be seen as art; in terms of "style" (that word hated most by architects), he was a high modernist, a postmodernist and, in the twilight of his life, a deconstructivist who emphasized form, pure and simple. In the 1930s he was reportedly a Nazi-sympathizer, yet he lived his life as a homosexual.

To those for whom the above "-isms" bear little meaning, I suggest a brief perusal of Johnson's work, either online or in any one of the numerous books in which it appears. It is often easy to ridicule architects -- particularly those who are rigidly committed to a particular ideology or aesthetic -- but any criticism of Johnson requires more qualification, more disclaimers. He was able to achieve a degree of notoriety few architects have ever been afforded in this country, and yet his 70-year career must be divided into distinct periods in order to be understood.

Perhaps, as he said, he was just a "whore."

"I thought, dear, that you would rather have a live ass than a dead lion."

From my my vantage point, the greater NY metropolitan area appears to be underneath about 14 inches of the white stuff. This situation leaves me more or less confined to my home for the foreseeable future, so I thought I would take the opportunity to waste some of your time with fireside tales.

In other news, fans will now find my occaisional contribution over at Halfzie's Rodomontade.

Also: I didn't comment at the time, considering that this page had not yet been started, but I was able to attend one of the less fashionable parties celebrating the reopening of MoMA back in November. Perhaps now that the critical excitement has died down a bit (and I have returned for a visit myself during daylight hours), I might offer my own response to Yoshio Taniguchi's first major American commission.

First off, I should take a moment to dismiss this kind of nonsense. Many critics, in fact, have pointed out that the new design's most striking feature is its dogmatic modernism, as though this alone would render it anachronistic. While Taniguchi does adhere to orthodox modernist restraint in designing his details, the greatest drawback of the new building arrives only when it is viewed in larger pieces.

During construction, it was noted by some that Japanese architects are accustomed to a higher standard of precision than their American and even European counterparts. Sure enough, imperfection greets the eye at every turn in the new MoMA building. This is less true, surprisingly enough, for small detail pieces than for entire swaths of the building, like the 100-foot-tall white wall that forms the east side of the new central room. Viewed at nearly any angle, a grid pattern of irregular, bulging seams can clearly be seen. In other places, misaligned panels and areas that were never cleaned after construction call to mind a high-end mall in London, not a museum built to last for centuries.

But as tempting as it is to jump on the modernist-bashing bandwagon (as so many have done in the discourse of architecture since at least the 1960s), there is simply no denying that Taniguchi has succeeded in producing an excellent museum space. The lack of detail does a great service to much of the art, and for all of the construction problems, most visitors will scarcely notice anything amiss.

The building's most iconic feature is, of course, the renovated sculpture garden, which introduces both flexible symmetry and a coherent facade to what had been a hodgepodge of additions and older galleries. Staring at one another across the garden are the nearly identical modern (which is to say columnless) porticos of the institutional wing and the new gallery space to the east. Cut out of the 54th Street side of each, on the exterior of the glass curtain walls, a square hole provides glimpses of the ornate townhouses across the way. It is a coy, if contrived, means of branding the museum in a way that is at once graphic and spatial. (The invitation to the opening party also exhibited a square hole, punched into a corner.)

There is nothing wrong with the standard criticisms of early-twentieth-century modernism: it was indeed at times inflexible, unsustainable, impractical, aggressively masculine, and so on. However, Taniguchi is not some one-trick pony cribbing from Le Corbusier. His museum work (Nine Museums) will be on display through January 31.

Anyone who takes the time to look closely at Taniguchi's other museum work will begin to understand that he cannot be dismissed as simply "another modern architect." His designs are contextual, narrative, and varied in a way most early modernists were not. Aside from its sloppy construction (and, if you like, its cloying non-details like the square cutouts), Taniguchi's new building holds up extremely well alongside the very best contemporary museum architecture.

Beers of the Northwestern United States

Here will follow a rundown of the 17 beers I sampled during my six-day trip. I have offered a Top 5 list of favorites, an additional 5 also worth a mention, and then a brief list of also-rans.

1. Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale



While Rogue’s excellent international reputation owes more to the Chocolate Stout, Morimoto's signature series now also includes both a Black Obi version of the Soba Ale and an Imperial Pilsner. Still, both Morimoto (Iron Chef) and Rogue are great favorites; Sebbie Buhler, who appears on the Chocolate Stout bottle, introduced the brewery to me and a number of my friends through a guest lecture series at a certain Central NJ club.

2. Pike Naughty Nellie’s Ale



Although some naysayers would no doubt challenge the assertion, Pike is a serious brewery that offers a range of English- and Scottish-style ales. While some of its aptly named “session beers” are a little on the sweet side, Naughty Nellie’s is a more interesting place to begin your session -- which should always begin, and not end, with a hint of bitterness.

3. Saint Rogue Red



Though far from the best Rogue has to offer, the Red goes very well with the Kobe beef burger (available at the Public House and Distillery in Portland). I wouldn’t recommend the optional blue cheese version, which despite being the excellent product of Rogue’s own creamery doesn’t allow the quality meat to speak for itself. The “Distillery” part of the pub’s title, a detail over which you are surely wondering, refers to a white rum-making operation that is visible from the bar below.

4. Big Time Meerkat IPA



Of the three IPAs currently offered by the Big Time Brewery at its University District pub and restaurant, the Meerkat is the most bitter. But though I generally prefer milder IPAs, this one has a pleasant grapefruit underbrush and a robust hops nose. It was perfectly suited to the evening’s fare: a very respectable fresh-ingredient pizza.

5. Pike Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale



A notch or two above the other Ales in terms of both alcohol content and heft, the Scotch Ale is more balanced than the Imperial Brown (see below), with equal parts delicate sweetness and steady, hops-built foundation. As far as the food is concerned, you’d probably be better off at the Athenian (also located in the Pike Place Market, with an excellent seafood menu, a solid list of local beers, and views across the bay to the mountains). For the more adventurous traveler, the fish stands adjoining the restaurant offer King and Dungeness Crab at prices near five dollars a pound, and will ship whole Salmon and Trout anywhere you wish.


6. McMenamins Crystal Ale (available at Olympic Club, Centralia, WA)
7. Pike Bootleg Brown Ale
8. Rogue Honey Cream Ale
9. Elysian Zephyrus Pilsner (available at Tangletown in Green Lake, Seattle, and Henry’s Tavern in Portland)
10. Pike Pale Ale

Others:
11. Maritime Pacific Jolly Roger Christmas Ale
12. Pyramid Pale Ale
13. Fat Tire (not local, but a favorite nonetheless)
14. Alaskan Amber
15. Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale
16. Pabst Blue Ribbon (on draft, no less!)
17. Foster’s (available at “Edges,” N terminal, SeaTac airport, the worst bar on the planet)

OT Redux: States Nos. 31 and 32 on the Mister Sketchee National Tour

Centralia, Washington, in its heyday

Some readers may have been perplexed by my previous post, coming as it did entirely without context. By way of explanation, I might add some additional notes from my weeklong excursion to the Pacific Northwest.

The main purpose of the trip was to visit various extended family, leaving little time for a more complete exploration of either state. Wherever I was able to find older bits of the cities, however, I kept thinking about a fixture of my youth -- Oregon Trail.

Now, granted the illustration I provided the other day was surely an additional source of confusion for some of you. The image was indeed the cover of a children's book and unrelated to the video game, but the fact that the book's artist is a person named Holly Barry and its title "Roughing it on the Oregon Trail," made it simply too strange an item to pass up.

The way I remember the game, your family was plagued at random by a specific set of unfortunate circumstances: starvation, disease, drowning, Indian attack, and so on. A player's ability to avoid these events depended solely on his decisions, which extended to such tasks as choosing provisions for the journey, navigating, fending off Indians and thieves, and, perhaps most important of all, hunting.

This last part, where virtually unlimited quantities of food could be obtained for the family, was by far most fun aspect of the game. The rest of it was grueling, arduous, and depressing, much like the original journey must have been. As I embarked on my own travels last week, I constantly heard familiar phrases in my head: "Ma has dysentery," "Jebedaiah has died," or "Your raft has capsized. You lose 50 lbs. hard tack." Ultimately, only losing one's supplies to a river or an attacking tribe was bad news; each time a family member was killed by some miscellaneous, invisible malice, the food began to last longer. By the time I completed the game, reaching Oregon safely, I was without a single relative. Instead, I had 800 lbs. of Buffalo meat all to myself.

Luckily, no significant accidents befell any of my relatives on my trip. Nor was I traveling by covered wagon across wild country. But for those of you who have not visited Washington or Oregon, the pioneer spirit is still palpable among the tall pines and crystalline harbors of the region. It is as though those first heady wagoneers came to the end of the continent and immediately began learning to cook fish and building a civilized settlement. One senses a collective impulse among the citizens to fend for one another and to commit themselves to improving upon the communities around them.

I found this to be the case principally in smaller towns, including those such as Ballard, Washington, (a fishing community now considered part of Seattle) and the Hawthorne district of Portland. The juxtaposition of history and modernity is perhaps more subtle in other areas, like Centralia, Washington, where no neighboring larger city has yet engulfed the town. The only hints of a tension between old and new in Centralia is found along its main street (Tower Ave.), where buildings of the early 20th-century main street are periodically interrupted by 1960s vinyl and aluminum siding and signage.

No such accident of history can be found in the town's foremost public house, the Olympic Club. The O.C. includes billiards hall, saloon, restaurant, hotel and cinema. Like most such establishments in the region, the beer is excellent and micro brewed (though, in this case, offsite). The menu also boasts a delicious marionberry pie -- an item that is especially difficult to find these days in the other Washington (D.C.)

I just arrived back in the BK this morning on the redeye from SeaTac. I fully intend to post reviews of each of the brew pubs I visited this past week: the Olympic Club (Centralia, WA), Pike Brewing Co. (Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA), Henry's (Portland, OR), Tangletown (Green Lake, Seattle), Big Time Brewery & Alehouse (University District, Seattle) and the Rogue Public House and Distillery (Pearl District, Portland).

These six should keep me busy for days -- you are well advised to keep abreast. Which beer was best (of the two dozen or so sampled), and which the best place to visit? You'll have to wait to find out. J. Halfz is doubly advised to stay tuned, especially should he wish to publish some of my findings on his site.

Pacific Northwest, Ho!

Well, dear readers, luck would find me on the Oregon Trail, so to speak. Consider it bonus on-the-scene correspondence. There is lots to tell, but I will keep it brief for sanity's sake.

Tonight found me at the District Lounge, cached beneath the Best Western University Tower hotel in Seattle.

Had I posted at 11 pm, a more detailed description might have followed. Suffice it to say that entertainment in said locale consisted of an Indian (Gandhi, not Squaw) pianist, a hippy-ish lead guitar, and an Argentinean pan-piper. The fourth member of this posse (also on guitar) was a local brute . . . more to follow on that.

Three Jack Daniels and two Alaskan Ales were my drinks; one would have thought that the music would have provided ample sustenance beyond that. But no such luck -- the fourth troubadour had trouble when the pianist began playing (and singing, poorly) the opening track from Buena Vista Social Club. Ordinarily, this sort of Snafu would have been little more than a minor problem. For this quartet, however, it proved a major stumbling block.

All would have been lost, if not for the tiny gentleman who arrived, mid-set, with his 15-year-old son. For all appearances, this man seemed to be the manager of the troupe, dressed as he was in a linen suit, hawaiian shirt, and straw hat. A well-trained ear, however, belied his true profession: he was the owner, it turned out, of a chain of auto body repair shops.

(Editor’s note, 10.16.04: Another likely candidate for band manager -- a balding European man who was similarly vying for the band’s attention between songs and brusquely working the crowd was clad head to toe in a black velvet suit. I cannot remember what I heard him say he did professionally, but it was something I found equally bizarre for a person of his appearance to do.)

Before any more could be gleaned, however, the group disbanded in a dissonant haze. I ended up at the only bar I knew in the vicinity, struggling to avert the baser notions of how to comport myself, having witnessed such a puzzling spectacle.

Please forgive the occaissional typo or out-and-out misspelling; it has truly been a memorable night, and one that will shortly find me in bed.

More news of Oregon and Washington (state) to follow...

Come no?

I never thought I would see this happen. When I lived in Florence in 2002, the best way to assure decent service in a restaurant was to smoke -- heavily -- both before, during, and after a meal. This was true in virtually any caliber of place. Even if the staff could tell you were an American, a sky blue pack of Camel Lights worked better than a 10 euro note in winning them over.

Judging from anecdotal evidence, it is hard to believe that only 18 million Italians smoke out of a population of 58 million. In the garage that was next to the back entrance of the school I was attending in Florence, an ancient man spent his days on a stool filling plastic bottles with pills. By my estimation, he smoked about 30 cigarettes during each 8-hour period he spent there. Even social smokers, like my professors, insisted that a diet of seven cigarettes a day was sufficiently modest to eliminate any risk of lung cancer.

As for the fly-by-night apothecary in the driveway, I discovered about 3 months into my stay that the apartment building above the garage was marked as a hospital on older maps. You can imagine my surprise one day when a door inside the vestibule had been left open and a doctor in a blue sanitary uniform was bustling down a corridor. Considering that this hospital had no apparent flow of patients (I knew, because I smoked my seven cigarettes in the driveway and did not once see a vehicle other than the one my decrepit friend arrived in each morning), one wondered what kind of hospital this was. General sketchiness aside, it seemed quite likely that the pill-bottle operation in the garage was the result not of impropriety, but of genuine regard for the health of others. Even if amputations were regularly performed behind that mysterious door, without anesthetic and for the benefit of the mafia, the fact that my smoking friend was sequestered in the driveway was reassuring.

My only other experience with Italian hospital workers was less so. Granted it was 3 am (I had come to retrieve a friend), but I was somewhat shocked to find doctors smoking casually in the hallways. They weren't huddled in some corner or out-of-the-way place, but calmly going about their rounds, circulating from room to room and filling the waiting areas and hallways with the aroma of stale tobacco -- just what you want in an emergency room.

At any rate, it is very clear that a smoking ban in Italy will be less like anti-smoking laws in the U.S. and more like a recent local law passed in Mexico that forbids residents from going nude inside their own houses. If bars and restaurants are asked to police this rule themselves, nothing will change. There was also a law in Florence against any business being open more than six days a week. The Chinese restaurant I visited each evening avoided suspicion by opening late in the afternoon on Sunday and leaving its gate partially closed into the evening. Then there were the ticket-inspectors on the bus, who approached only American students speaking English to one another to demand fares, and Malpensa airport in Milan, where the foodcourt (like all other areas) was supposed to be smoke-free, but every single table had at least one person casually smoking a cigarette kept out of view under the table.

Italy is in for a lot more of the latter and, if people aren't careful, the principal effect of this legislation will be a few burnt tablecloths.

You, Sir, are a Captain of Industry

Another year, another donut. And if you think you would enjoy making donuts, albeit virtual ones, you might want to check out JoWood's Industry Giant 2, a game as large as its name implies. Set up factories, distribution networks, and stores, and don't let the competition get there first. But be warned: if you sit down to play for an hour, you will almost definitely spend 8 or 9, and quite possibly ruin your life. To make matters worse, there is no way to efficiently manage your truck fleets. The lesson in supply-chain management is amply clear (that is, you have to adjust your factory output to keep production going smoothly), but having to micro-manage a fleet of 300 trucks simply to change a few routes or to eliminate those trucks assigned to carry whiskey doesn't seem terribly realistic. I could go on and on about this game, explaining its minutiae in excrutiating detail, but my readership would surely plummet as a result. Suffice it to say that IG2 is a flawed but extremely entertaining diversion, and suitable for children due to its "educational" content.