CREJ - Building Dialogue - September 2016
As many of you know, Philip Johnson's iconic Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan closed July 16. As I devoured every article I could find on the restaurant's history and design that week, I was struck by something Jason Farago said in his piece, “A Man for Four Seasons: My goodbye to New York’s modernist cathedral” in The Guardian, July 13. He wrote, “The wine was overpriced, the service was doddering. But it didn’t matter: The beaded curtains glistered like Titian’s shower of gold, and all around us was the soft, reliable murmur of contentment. My word, it was beautiful. I stayed until midnight, when all the other diners had picked apart the cotton candy and headed home. No doubt the martinis helped here, but it was my last ever night in the Four Seasons, and so I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers, and then, after all those years, I jumped into Philip Johnson’s marble pool. I waded around, dragged my hand through the water, and looked at the loveliest room in New York from its very nucleus, from a vantage point I had never seen before. Then I walked out of the Four Seasons for the last time, dripping, and the history of modernism evaporated from my sodden trousers into the New York summer night.” Farago's description took my breath away. It was as if I were there next to him, taking it all in that evening. In another piece in Wallpaper, this quote caught my attention as well: “ ‘The architecture will come first,’ stresses (Four Seasons co-owner Julian) Niccolini, almost conceding that the food has always been beside the point. ‘People don’t go to restaurants just to eat; it’s a place for magic, tremendous architecture and Beauty. We could never recreate this, but we will do something special.’ ” I share these quotes not only because they touch on a topic that is rarely included in conversation today, but also because the writing is beautiful. Sadly, the very mention of the word “beauty” can conjure up raised eyebrows and rolled eyes in some circles. In his Jan. 15 New York Times piece, “When Beauty Strikes,” David Brooks writes: “These days we all like beautiful things. Everybody approves of art. But the culture does not attach as much emotional, intellectual or spiritual weight to beauty. We live, as Leon Wieseltier wrote in an essay for The Times Book Review, in a post-humanist moment. That which can be measured with data is valorized. Economists are experts on happiness. The world is understood primarily as the product of impersonal forces; the nonmaterial dimensions of life explained by the material ones.” He continued, “Over the past century, artists have had suspicious and varied attitudes toward beauty. Some regard all that aesthetics-can-save-your-soul mumbo jumbo as sentimental claptrap. They want something grittier and more confrontational.” Beauty as Counterpoint Most would agree that we’re living in a time filled with extraordinary strife. Harsh words, anger and even rage are a part of our society’s lexicon today. Our daily lives are now infused with tension fed by the media (social and otherwise), events on our streets and within the omnipresent political dialogue. And in the Denver metro area, the many changes happening as a result of rapid, uncontrolled growth and the constant push for increased density are creating subliminal pressure all its own. We all feel it. And we are all in need of some respite. Fortunately, beauty offers a counterpoint – a place for repose and contemplation; a way to transport us to another state of mind that elicits relief, gratitude and a sense of peace. While many head off to Colorado's majestic mountains, the tranquility of the Denver Botanic Gardens or one of our beautiful Front Range parks for a much-needed reprieve, shouldn’t our neighborhoods and buildings contribute to our beauty quotient as well? An Excess of Ugly Rather than introducing more beauty in our lives, many developments in our city are actually increasing the “ugly” instead. Over the last year, the neighborhood I live in has added a new memory care center in a residential neighborhood. While its architecture raises the bar on the usual fare in that sector, the colors of the exterior brick, paint and other finishes clash, making one wince when passing by. In the other direction, a huge, new 8,000-square-foot house spanning two full lots was just completed. It sits between two tiny 800-square-foot, one-story homes on either side. Three-story pop-tops are dotting our once-humble neighborhoods citywide, creating a messy hodgepodge of heights, proportions and styles that are anything but contextual or inviting. As I stroll the same streets each evening, I can’t help but wonder where all the beauty I enjoyed for so many years has gone. Monstrous homes now block our once-cherished views, beautiful old trees are being mowed down in the name of greater real estate value, character is being systematically destroyed in the name of density, and rows of poorly designed stucco boxes are rapidly replacing harmonious housing in our beloved, quaint post-World War II enclaves. These are neighborhoods many of us chose to live in because of their unique beauty that is now being destroyed. So our cities are not only adding very little new beauty to our lives, but also they are removing the historic charm and character longtime residents have cherished and worked hard to sustain. Some 150 years ago in the book “The Stones of Venice,” Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin was quoted as saying that architecture has two missions: “to provide shelter, on the one hand, and to glorify on the other. Buildings not only speak to who we are, but to who we hope to be.” To Ruskin's point, are our Front Range communities speaking to who we are, or who we hope to be? I’m not so sure. Beauty & Architecture The bottom line is that the beauty of our buildings and spaces is important in our lives, and our pursuit of it matters. “Buildings have always embodied an aspiration,” declared British philosopher Alain de Botton. "They were intended as a goad to virtue. They were a kind of propaganda … a building can exhort the user to imitate and participate in the qualities implicit in its form. It makes us see that every consciously created object is trying to tell us something. … [buildings] represent attempts to lend dignity to our surroundings, and that – assuming the ceiling doesn't cave in – may be one of the most serious and traditional functions of architecture.” Brooks explained, “The shift to post-humanism has left the world beauty-poor and meaning-deprived … we accidentally abandoned a worldview that showed how art can be used to cultivate the fullest inner life. We left behind an ethos that reminded people of the links between the beautiful, the true and the good – the way pleasure and love can lead to nobility.” But, Irish poet John O’Donohue best captured why beauty is so critical in our lives in his book, “Beauty: The Invisible Embrace.” He writes, “Some of our most wonderful memories are beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul … Without beauty, the search for truth, the desire for goodness and the love of order and unity would be sterile exploits. Beauty brings warmth, elegance and grandeur.” Is it time to make beauty a part of our daily design dialogue again?