Choosing Santiago Calatrava to design the tranport hub under the World Trade Center site is both “obvious and more than a little risky,” writes Christopher Hawthorne. “Why obvious? Because no architect in the world can match Calatrava’s talent for investing complex transportation projects, which are often pretty bland architecturally, with the kind of eye-catching, high-design appeal the public is expecting at Ground Zero. His buildings are rigorously conceived and meticulously executed but also playful, airy, and imaginative—a perfect combination of right and left brain. Why risky? Because Calatrava’s work has a personality—a pristine, sometimes aloof perfectionism—that seems an odd fit for the constricted and politically charged Ground Zero site.”
Tag: 08.25.03
The Greatest Rock Guitarists Of All Time?
Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman have been named to the top a Rolling Stone list of the top 100 guitarists of all time. “B.B. King, who turns 78 next month, came in at No. 3. ‘His string-bending and vibrato made his famous guitar, Lucille, weep like a woman,’ the magazine said.”
Demise Of The Record Store Clerk
“Like their counterparts at book and video stores, record clerks shape our experience of culture as decidedly as any critic, curator or culture-industry executive. They’re street-level tastemakers, part of a breed that’s entered pop mythology. But despite these glamorous associations, serious clerks have become an endangered species. The Internet, with outfits like book and CD merchant Amazon and DVD service Netflix, is put- ting stores, which offer the joy of browsing, serendipity and human contact, out of business.”
Euro-Meltdown At Euro Disney
“Europe’s ‘cultural Chernobyl’, as one French critic called Disneyland Paris, is in meltdown again. Falling attendance, overspending on a new movie-themed park and those cursed terrorists are to blame. This month, it announced it would have trouble repaying its banks and the doomsayers are predicting bankruptcy.”