Wednesday, February 27, 2008

ARCHITECT LIBESKIND ANNOUNCES HE WON'T WORK FOR TYRANT REGIME LIKE CHINA

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TIMES

Well, I've always questioned Daniel Libeskind's work, brutal and jagged, monumental and impractical - in short it shows the aesthetic of the totalitarian spirit. His horrid Berlin Museum is no exception.

In Toronto, his addition to the Royal Ontario Museum is a disaster - a jumble of gigantic crystals exploding out of a dignified pseudo-Romanesque structure from the early 20th century.

Well into the project, it was discovered they could not use the glass surfaces of the design for various technical reasons. They should have re-started the design competition.

Now the crystals are covered with ugly panels, resembling some material used on industrial sheds with odd-ball windows at various locations. It is ugly and uninviting.

The rooms inside - given the severe slopes of the crystal shape - are literally half unusable space.

I love good contemporary architecture, but I've yet to see any from Libeskind.

The Chinese should count themselves lucky.