Nicolai Ouroussoff: blinded by ideology

CLICK ON THE PICTURE ABOVE so you can see a larger version of this rendering of a new design for the Lower East Side. Now look at what the New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote about it:

Along with the High Line - which transforms a section of gritty elevated tracks in downtown into a public garden - it represents a clear and much-needed break from the quaint Jane Jacobs-inspired vision of New York that is threatening to transform Manhattan into a theme park version of itself, a place virtually devoid of urban tension. It proves that there are still some in the city who are culturally daring, even if their numbers at times seem to be dwindling.

The "culturally daring" design has earth berms next to a highway, broad, innocuous swaths of grass, and  some sort of Asian trees picturesquely placed -- could it be more suburban?

It's not really bad. It is bland, boring and suburban. Why can't Ouroussoff see that? Because like his predecessor at the Times, who hand-picked him, Ouroussoff is an activist advocate for a small group of Starchitects. For Ouroussoff, ideology trumps experience. The critic who writes for "the nation's newspaper" looks with blinders on.

Ouroussoff would tell us the architects he admires are daring, revolutionary, avant-garde architects. But this is an avant-garde with a sell-by date which expired around 1963, when Richard Rogers was just finishing school.

Since that time, Rogers has received (and accepted) two aristocratic titles from Queen Elizabeth, designed one of the most popular tourist attractions in Paris, become a rich man because of the demand for his buildings, and become the architectural adviser to the Prime Minister of England and Chairman of London's government panel for architecture and urbanism. He is popular at every leading architecture school, and regularly praised by the New York Times. How revolutionary is that?

"Culturally daring" is architecture-speak for "most people won't like this." It is an elitist excuse for promoting very narrow architectural criteria.

It's an excuse for not tearing down the FDR Drive: "Initially they considered lowering parts of the elevated freeway to ground level, but the cost was prohibitive."

But when it comes to our platinum-plated highway system, the most expensive construction project in the history of the world, nothing is too expensive. Massachusetts and the Federal government just spent $15 billion dollars on the Big Dig, a project which buried 7.8 miles of in-city highway. Cities like Milwaukee and San Francisco have recently torn down highways, replacing them with tree-lined boulevards. New York City pulled down the partially-down West Side Highway, and replaced it with the highway engineer's version of a boulevard. Why does the Bloomberg administration, which has strongly promoted large, expensive development visions like this one, lack the political will to do what previous New York administrations have done when it comes to highways?

The decision to keep the elevated highway on the Lower East Side is a bad one. It is noisy and ugly, and flashing flourescent lights under it won't improve that. Compared with the Bronx Market space under the Deegen Expressway (below), it's low and unpleasant. Anyone who wants better public places in New York, rather than simply more work by Starchitects, can see that.

PS: New York has no "tension"? That's like saying Larry David never kvetches. What Ourousoff really means, again, is "people won't like it."

PPS: Shin Pei, who works at PPS, comments here.