Page Title

WHAT'S NEW AT PLA:

I have added a selection of classic modern furniture to the web site, because it offers clients and visitors to the site the opportunity to purchase classic modern furniture at greatly discount reduced prices.

The furniture is manufactured in Italy and Turkey. New Membership: I joined the ALA (Association of Licensed Architects) at the beginning of 2002. The are a young organization mainly centered in the Mid-West at this time, but look like they have a lot of promise. They have a very active continuing education program which is very comprehensive.

NEWS NOW:

The main news, and most important event regarding Architecture seems to be the design for the World Trade Center Site. At this time it is bogged down, with a number of Architects displeased with the designs which have been presented to date. Some are calling for an International Competition. So far much more emphasis seems to be on the commercial side of the project, with the establishment and siting of the new office towers and the amount of square footage to include, and less emphasis on the monument to the victims who perished. No overall plan has been established which integrates all aspects of the project into one unified whole. The latest group of entries are more interesting, but a group of known as the Phoenix Project is trying to secure support of a world wide competition to open the design of WTC buildings and memorial as an integrated entity.

AN EDITORIAL:

Where are We Headed in Domestic Architecture:

Take a look around you in the new residential areas and even the existing desirable suburbs where the old is being torn down and replaced with McMANSIONS. These are the 3,000 to 5,000 square foot residences with their psuedo romanesque or french chataeu looks or a town like Celebration, Florida with its turn of the century look and front porches which are mostly an unused novelty brought to us by Disney. Whats going on? What seems to have happened is that we are more caught up with fantasy than in reality. Where Modern Architecture was distancing itself from the self indulgent, the dishonest and with flights of fancy and was developing a rational approach to the design of our dwellings which was more in keeping with our life styles and technology and modern techniques in building, in recent years our nostalgia and perhaps fear of this "BRAVE NEW WORLD" has pushed into a fetal position with a longing for something more familiar and something we understood from our ancestoral past even though it has no relevance to today. What brought all of this on? Like it or not, we are still feeling the after effects of the cold war and McCarthyism. During the early 1960's architecture came under scrutiny by reactionary forces within and on the periphery of the government that began to view Urban planning, Urban renewal and Modern Architecture as leftist in nature. All of a sudden Mies van Der Rohe, Walter Gropius and others who had come to the United States to escape Nazism were being attacked again for there progressive views and all sorts of social ills were laid at the feet of modern planning and modern architecture. Everthing including the use of drugs and promiscuity somehow became associated with it. Modern became a BAD word. If the critiques looked deeper however, they would realize that the entire industrial revolution was what really brought us to this point. The Industrial Revolution was NOT spawned by the aristocracy which was in power at the time, but by a desire by the merchant, manufacturer and the average person to better their standard of living and quality of life. It was brought about by progressive ideas and the desire for social change. Many of these merchants and manufacturers became very wealthy and spawned a new aristocracy which became complacent. The average person however maintained these views of progress and consistently strives for betterment and improvement. During the cold war these ideals became mistakenly confused with communism and anyone who held these progressive notions was labled by McCarthism as such. Today we are seeing the result of that confusion by shunning that which is MODERN or seems too PROGRESSIVE or Liberal. Thus, without realizing it, we are turning our backs on many of the qualities which made us the envy of the world. The most visible result is in our choice of Architecture with its backward view. Until we begin to realize this and rid ourselves of this self imposed, self concious manner in which we have arrived at our current position we will fall behind those in Europe and in Asia who do not have this lingering aftershock of the cold war and McCarthyism to hold them back from modernising and becoming more progressive. This can be seen in the Architecture now being produced in Europe and Asia which never got caught up in Post-Modernism and the reaction to Modern Architecture to the extent that the United States has. When we rediscover the roots of our modernism, perhaps we can come to an aacceptance of modern architecture for our residences.