Behold the new addition to San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art by the Norwegian architecture firm, Snøhetta, opening in two weeks. Thanks for yet another mystical genius innovation in building form, lending the institution the look of a collapsed Japanese paper lantern with moth holes. Note that the genius crumpled fiberglass cladding is guaranteed to trap auto emissions in the final decade of Happy Motoring. You can also be sure that the exterior will resist renovation and perhaps even basic maintenance — the sad fate of untested novelties in construction materials. Observe the now utterly clichéd canonical horizontal windows and their arbitrary placement, betraying the fact that buildings are now designed from the inside out, since the public realm has value only for marketing the design firm’s availability for new commissions. The PR bullshit heralding the official debut says that the design scheme is supposed to express “the waters and fog of the San Francisco Bay.” In other words, it’s a force of nature. No it’s not. It’s a force of egomania and techno-narcissism.
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Coming in June
World Made By Hand 4 (and final)
Praise for A History of the Future:
“Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist
My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books…
or Amazon…
Also: Published as an E-book for the first time!
The 20th Anniversary edition
With an entertaining new introduction by the author
Bargain Price $3.99
Amazon Kindle …or … Barnes & Noble Nook …or… Kobo
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The top looks like a ship in fog. The bottom looks like an iceberg. Together, they make The Titanic.
Why do so many new buildings look like bunkers with gun turrets?
I believe your question answers itself.
A sure sign we are completely cracked. Deep-down a great multitude must resent this kind of visual assault.
Agreed.
Looks like a printer.
It looks like a roll of toilet paper that got wet
Kudzu. . .I love Kudzu in its ability to cover over an ‘Whatchamacallit” Art Museum. How sad. . . all that money spent on something that might not even last a hundred years. I wonder if this structure was built on rock ledge or sand fill? Tectonic shifts could do some damage at 8 or 9 intensity.
Ultraviolet light is a very powerful form of radiant energy that will in time degrade the fiberglass exterior gel coat. Although, with the strands of fiberglass exposed does create an ideal surface for the hold-fasts of vines to cling better.
The staff of Yelp has the joy of working in a renovated gracious historic office building. Too bad for them that they have to see this from their windows…. I wonder how they’ll review SFMMA?
Ugh. So many of these most recent Eyesores look like they’ve melted, or collapsed, or a still under construction. When did ugliness become the goal of architecture? Why is beauty obsolete?
Get me outta this century.
I dont know what to call ‘it’, perhaps ‘It’ [remember Cousin It?] is the best name for it.
In looking at it I am reminded of the Guggenheim, another ugly blob.
But this one is not round.
The saggy look of the lower half is very bizarre.
It looks like a hornets nest after somebody tossed an M-80 into it. Take Cover!
This building needs Preparation H stat!
Jackson Pollock threw paint at a canvas, and the greatest fool yet recently purchased it (Number 17A) for $200 million. Apparently, an even greater fool, with even more extracted wealth, partied a little to hard, step on something, stopped, and while wobbling, attempting to focus on the crushed remnants, said “Bwild it mother fuckas. Bwild it! Me wanit. Bwild it.”
Architecture seems appropriate to it’s content.
I, quite literally, had to suppress the urge to vomit. There’s something Lovecraftian about that place as if it were designed to send the viewer’s mind straight into the abyss.
It looks like the covered scaffolding (it rains a lot here) they use in vancouver to repair leaky condo buildings. At least it will still be recognizable when it starts leaking, I guess…