Reviews for Accounting, Vol. 12

The average rating for Accounting, Vol. 12 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-31 00:00:00 Ciro Matarazzo III This is a peculiar hybrid between a glossy coffee table book and a cautious architectural critique of Boston’s conspicuous development during the go-go 80s. Written at the dawn of the early nineties recession, one can sense an anticipated malaise that the architecture world is yet again painfully familiar with. Fortunately for Boston circa 1990, I imagine that architects could look at an increasingly ill-formed/ill-informed, post-1975 skyline as some justification for an extended period of reflection. Obviously not everything in this portfolio is “bad.” Striking is the juxtaposition of such elegant towers as Henry Cobb’s Hancock and Hugh Stubbins’ Federal Reserve Bank with various glitzified works by KPF, Graham Gund, and, of course, the ubiquitous old guy in Corb spectacles. Urns, gold leaf, and sundry doodads riddle the surfaces of corporate megastructures throughout the urban center. This is the real juxtaposition still in evidence as one moves through downtown and the Back Bay, but what I find a bit depressing is the fact that the former represent (again, my opinion) two of the most sophisticated skycrapers in the world, yet any lessons these may have yielded were soon scrapped in favor of wrapping often oddball massings with décor that you’d see at some High School prom. I acknowledge that one could position this reaction during the eighties as less a critique of my two examples and more the “sign of the times” response to the other hideous, quasi-modernist late-1970s structures also included here. Even Stubbins’ firm segued into a reactionary (if you will, PoMo) mode. Don’t even get me started on the latter works of Gropius’ old firm… In regards to the book itself, I found the introductory “Looking Backward” essays to be a great inclusion for those who may not be familiar with Boston’s historical development from the first white guys on, and don’t wish to read Walter Muir Whitehill’s lengthy (though highly recommended) account. The tone generally, as mentioned, was a bit circumspect in regards to taking certain firms to task for clearly – even in 1990 – producing lousy buildings. The opinions are there, and occasionally explicitly so. However, as all these gals/guys were obviously still alive, the diatribes are more often than not subtly integrated into more seemingly objective statements. I think the primary failing is the photo essay nature of this. There is a reasonable amount of text for each project, but the format – something inevitably flipped through while sitting in one’s divorce attorney's lobby – precluded the possibility to include much beyond the biggest stuff (and, as in the case of Gund’s carriage house and ICA, the exceptions are usually high profile and centrally located). So for those laypeople who prefer heavily veined, 1/8” thick faux marble cladding shot 600 feet into the air, then this is a swell picture book mostly uninterrupted by counter examples. For us architects, it’s a bit less enthralling (I would have to assume even twenty years back). At the very least, reading through this has made me pay more attention to a group of buildings that, despite their overbearing presence, I’ve always managed to blank out of my historical/architectural consciousness. Confronted, I would always mentally squint to enable a reading of just another large box casting a shadow on all the smaller guys. I now sort of have the urge to venture into neo-Grecian/Roman/Assyrian/Egyptian/Deco lobbies, glance at mythologically inspired, dubiously executed sculptures, and use my new-found knowledge to explain to incredulous colleagues that indeed such and such tower was designed by a once-respected (or even, now well-regarded) office.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-29 00:00:00 Ben Buttery "Není pochyb, že lidská rasa je vrcholným dílem přírody a že dospěla do své vrcholné, možno říci klasické formy." - v ten moment mi došlo, že se panem Krierem rozcházím názorově na fundamentální úrovni chápání světa. A i když dokáži pochopit a souhlasit s některými body kritiky modernistické architektury, celkový obraz názoru na architekturu je namalován naprosto rozdílnou paletou barev, než kterou používám. Navíc jsou některé argumenty proti modernistické architektuře a stavitelství již liché, jelikož se technologie od roku 1997, kdy byla kniha napsána, posunula do naprosto jiné roviny.