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aiaVT,
March 2003
Donald Maurice Kreis
There
was so much of excellence to feast upon this winter at the annual
awards ceremonies of both the Vermont and New Hampshire chapters
of the AIA!
That’s
right – the food was terrific, at both banquets. And you can count
on this assessment, since it is based not on reviewing photographs
of the food that was served, but on the actual consumption of it,
in situ.
As
for the awards themselves – well, that’s a more complicated question.
There was certainly good architecture amidst the projects singled
out for recognition – the deftly executed resurrection of a historic
industrial building in Manchester, a set of truly welcoming interstate
highway rest stops near Burlington, and, as always, much in the
way of well-executed residential design that testifies quite eloquently
to what money can buy in the early 21 st Century. But was there
excellence, as advertised?
Before
one who is a mere critic, and neither trained in architecture nor
experienced in the profession, can approach such a question, a firmly
stated disclaimer is a necessity. You don’t have to be an architect
to understand that in our era, the completion of any architect-designed
building is a victory of sorts. We are consigned to times in which
tax-cutting fervor has decimated the public realm, land-use regulations
inhibit innovation and public taste runs toward gaudy McMansions.
Every project entered in either state’s competition is, in this
sense, a triumph of the human spirit over the forces of entropy,
medicrity and evil. Thanks to all, for so much honest and good
work.
Nor
does the non-architect do a disservice to his friends in the profession
by reporting to them on the extent to which the emperor was, at
best, semi-clothed during the awards banquets in question. It
is all the more so because no less a personage than Edward Frenette,
the Cambridge-based architect who co-chairs the Design Committee
of the Boston Society of Architects, issued a polite but firm call
in the latest issue of ArchitectureBoston for reform of the chapter-based
AIA awards process.
Had
Frenette focused on the recent Vermont and New Hampshire programs,
here are some questions he might have asked:
Did
the New York architects who juried the Vermont awards help the
cause of architectural progress in the Green Mountain State by
arbitrarily deciding (as confirmed by one of the jurors) that
at least one project singled out for recognition should invoke
or reflect the New Yorkers’ preconceived notions of traditional
Vermont building forms? (This had much to do with honoring the
I-89 rest stops, which were designed to resemble barns.)
Were
the Vermont architects who juried the New Hampshire competition
bedazzled by a very effective rehabilitation of a historic waterfront
building in Manchester that they ignored the architects’ arguably
awkward attempt to mimic the Industrial Revolution aesthetic of
the original buildings in the part of the project that comprised
new construction?
Is it responsible, year after year, for both awards programs to
heap honors on high-end residential projects that are obviously
second-homes or retirement homes that were designed with little
or no effort to limit square footage or energy consumption?
Do
the official juror comments, comprised of platitudes like “elegant
solution to a very challenging problem,” offer any meaningful
commentary about what separated the excellent from the merely
acceptable or the pleasingly competent?
What
accounts for the fact that in both states, the public and the
media largely ignored the design awards, at a time when most educated
people who read newspapers are capable of discussing at some length
whether they preferred the Daniel Liebeskind vision for the World
Trade Center or that of Shigeru Ban, Rafael Vinoly and the rest
of the THINK team?
Is
it essentially impossible for a great project such as the renovation
of the historic public library in Woodstock (passed over two years
ago) to win recognition for excellence when the project’s chief
virtues would be invisible to jurors whose sole scrutiny of the
design involves looking at photographs?
As
suggested by Frenette, and the fellow members of the BSA Design
quoted in his article, certain reforms in the awards process are
in order, however they might shake up the comfortable universe of
awards banquets. The most obvious is to require some actual interaction
with a work itself, as opposed to its photographs, before the project
can be honored for excellence. It would obviously be impractical
to expect jurors to visit every competition entry, but it borders
on the irresponsible to heap laurels upon a project that no juror
or even a representative of a juror has actually visited.
A
second and equally pressing reform would involve opening up the
jurying process. As MIT professor Wellington Reiter told the BSA,
“Can you imagine how different the process of preparing a submission
would be if you had to get a statement from the client – or from
a neighbor?” At very least, it is time to have at least one non-architect
on every awards jury. The region is awash in art professors, retired
politicians or executives (with experience as clients of big public
commissions), newspaper editors, affordable housing advocates, engineers,
sculptors, historic preservationists and others with considerable
background in the business of living and/or working in buildings.
They are unlikely to be content with assessments like “nicely
crafted as an object. Well done within the Vermont re-interpretive
vernacular.”
Lastly,
as Maine goes, so should go its northern New England neighbors.
The Maine awards program happens only once every two years – and,
as a result, Maine perpetuates the illusion that its architects
(at least the ones honored with awards) are doing more interesting
work than their counterparts in Vermont and New Hampshire. Biannual
awards programs would also have the salutary effect of opening up
every other annual banquet of the two chapters to something truly
intriguing. Who wouldn’t pay $45 to hear Rafael Vinoly give an
insider’s look at the THINK team – especially if the food is as
good as it was at this winter’s dinners in Montpelier and Manchester?
Illustration:
PSNH Energy Park in Manchester, by Lavallee/Brensinger
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