One of the things that I have learned over the years from sitting on panel discussions about city building is that, if I talk about the challenges and economic realities of development, I will be less popular than if I just tell feel-good stories about urbanism and architecture. The latter is often what people want to hear. It's more exciting.

But to ignore the economic realities of the world is to ignore real solutions. And this, as I have talked about before, is one of the main qualms that I had with architecture school. Money, economics, and real estate matters were tertiary, if not entirely taboo. Just focus on the purity of design and everything else will resolve itself.

Now don't get me wrong, I love design. It is fundamental. But so are a bunch of other things, which is why I think this article, by Benjamin Schneider, hits the nail on the head. It is specifically a review of a MoMA exhibit called New York, New Publics, but really the overarching message is this one here: "Enough with the feel-good architecture."

To tell a feel-good story within this framework, urban development projects must be edited and curated to cleanse them of these associations. Favored projects must somehow appear to transcend capitalism, NIMBYism, an anti-urban federal government, and the compromises inherent in the transformation of the built environment. Because this is impossible—except in the case of marginal beautification projects—the public is left with false expectations about how cities get built, making the hard stuff even harder to pull off.

City building always involves compromises. But the more we're upfront about what they are, the sooner we'll get to more optimal solutions.

Hudson Yards officially opened today on the west side of Manhattan. More specifically, the eastern half of Hudson Yards opened. There's a second phase to come on the western yards. And the highly anticipated observation deck at 30 Hudson Yards -- the highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere -- is also not quite ready. It is expected to open in early 2020.

Considered the largest mixed-use private real estate project in American history by square footage, Hudson Yards has been in the works for many decades and was previously part of New York's (failed) bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Dan Doctoroff, who is now the CEO of Sidewalk Labs, led the bid under the Bloomberg administration.

So today is a bit of a big deal.

To commemorate the opening, the architecture critic for the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman, published this searing, but highly visual, piece about the project. I think it is fairly safe to assume that he isn't a huge fan (he doesn't seem to love developers either).

Here's an excerpt talking about Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel:

Purportedly inspired by ancient Indian stepwells (it’s about as much like them as Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure is like Chichen Itza) the object — I hesitate to call this a sculpture — is a 150-foot-high, $200 million, latticed, waste-basket-shaped stairway to nowhere, sheathed in a gaudy, copper-cladded steel.

It preens along the critical axis between the High Line and the newish No. 7 subway station at Hudson Yards, hoping to drum up Instagram views and foot traffic for the mall, casting egregious shadows over what passes for public open space, ruinously manspreading beside the Shed, the most novel work of architecture on site, and the only building the private developers didn’t build.

If any of you have formulated your own opinions about Hudson Yards, I would love to hear from you in the comments below. I'm looking forward to exploring the neighborhood in person sometime soon. If you're interested in learning more about the project, Curbed also just published, The ultimate guide to Hudson Yards.

Photo by Sandy Ching on Unsplash

I must have been sick for this lesson in architecture school, because I just discovered, through Curbed, that there is a subset of mid-century modern architecture known as Googie. It originated in Southern California in the 1940s and was all about the future, car culture, the Space Age, and the many other things that dominated the postwar years. Think starbursts, curvaceous geometric shapes, and bright colors. We all know the architecture. But did you know it was called, Googie?

Supposedly the Googie movement was given its label by architecture critic Douglas Haskell, who used it in a derogatory way to describe criticize the architectural fashion at the time. Googie was the name of an actual coffee shop in West Hollywood designed by John Lautner. And that’s something that is noteworthy about Googie. It was a form of architecture for average buildings: coffee shops, gas stations, motels, and those sorts of things.

There will always be critics who eschew that which is fashionable at the time. I suppose one could argue that if you’re being fashionable, then you’re not being timeless. Because fashion is about what’s current. And good architecture should be timeless, right? But there’s something so fascinating about a kind of built form that perfectly captures a particular time and place. Middle of the 20th century. Car-oriented Southern California. 

Sometimes good architecture and design also needs a bit of time and distance in order to fully appreciate it. What was once garish may one day become treasured. Just give it a generation or two.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash