Saturday, November 21, 2009

Going Green Or Green Smoke


Blogroll Me!
One of my favorite monthly entertainments is seeing James Howard Kunstler's Eyesore of the month. This is a "green" building on Skidmore College Campus. And here is what Jim has to say about it.
"As a bonus here's another project underway on the same Skidmore College campus. They're painting the old field house (now dance department) green! Notice how it fades from dark green on the left to light green on the right. "We're Green!" the building declares -- meaning, I suppose, that it is a morally upright building on a morally correct campus run by right-thinking people. We do stupid things like this because we have no faith in our ability to produce truly beautiful buildings -- so we engage in semiotic stunts instead.
America, you are blowing green smoke up your own ass!
Tragically, we're only fooling ourselves."

1 comment:

Wayne A. Shingler said...

I just happened to stumble upon this site a few days ago when a friend mentioned it. I didn't like the general tone of the blog, so I didn't get too far in it, but when I saw the remarks about this building, it reminded me of some of Kunstler's criticisms of modern buildings and urban planning. Here's a link to his talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html