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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Ruined Architecture
Now that we are seriously thinking about building a new house I have been paying attention to architecture a bit more than I used to.
I work in Cambridge Massachusetts which is known for its "interesting" architecture... witness the Stata Center at MIT. Here is a link.
The word "weird" comes to mind.
But that is not the subject of this entry. Today I was walking down the street past the Whitehead Institute on Main Street, and I noticed something. The Whitehead Institute is a nicely designed building with a faux stone and tile facade and a nice brick courtyard out front. On one of the handrails leading up to the courtyard is a small oval sign made of metal. The sign is copper colored, and cast into it is the message:
"BICYCLES ATTACHED TO RAILINGS WILL BE REMOVED"
in all caps... just like that.
Once I had seen it, I could not make it go away. It draws the eye to it like a defect in a perfect piece of furniture. This ugly bit of urban discipline is the pimple on the cheek of the debutante. It is the flyspeck on the wedding cake that, although tiny, ruins the whole affair. This is the cough in the quiet part of your favorite musical performance.
The architect designed and worried, and the investors invested, and the craftsmen took pains to erect the building to perfection... and then they bolted a blight to it. Somebody had to decide that it was a good idea, have it manufactured, and then bolt it to railing and walk away.
It makes me wonder, "What were they thinking"?