post-modernism: Daniel Libeskind and the oligarchitects

Despite being plagued with a social conscience and a reflex desire to 
rush off to disaster zones and build designer emergency housing, the Mr 
Hyde in architects just can't help being tempted by unlimited power, 
riches and gold taps. Can't think why.

The late American architect Philip Johnson was famous for many things 
but morality was not one of them. “I'm out to work for the Devil himself 
if he's building,” he quipped, though the closest he got was designing a 
mirror-glass facsimile of the Houses of Parliament for Kuwaiti oil 
interests on the South Bank in London (mercifully unbuilt). Asked in the 
1990s whether he would have built for Adolf Hitler in 1936, he replied, 
“Who's to say? That would have tempted anyone.”

Last week, though, Daniel Libeskind went and spoilt everything. He did a 
Spielberg. Speaking in Belfast, the Polish-born architect of Berlin's 
Jewish Museum attacked architects working in China: “I won't work for 
totalitarian regimes,” he thundered. “Architects should take a more 
ethical stance.” That would be a first. Before Libeskind came along with 
his pinko views, Western architects had been making a perfectly decent 
killing building monuments for regimes that you definitely wouldn't want 
to bring home to meet the folks.


cont'd....
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article3439582.ece