The tower was accused of being "an offence against French good taste." A newspaper diatribe signed by Alexandre Dumas, Guy de Maupassant and others dismissed it as "the baroque, mercantile imaginings of a machine builder." Though it attracted Parisians and tourists in the thousands, the cultural elite was not amused. More recently, when Gustave Eiffel built his tower for the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, response was mixed. Like their contemporary counterparts, they opposed such lavish expenditure of public funds on something as frilly as beauty and culture. Not surprisingly, Pericles' most vociferous opponents were the conservative factions of Athens. We may view it as the most important, and certainly the most admired and influential, building in the Western canon, but to many Athenians at the time, it was a symbol of the city's profligacy and a monument to civic hubris. Way back when Pericles was the "first citizen" of Athens during its Golden Age, 2,500 years ago, the construction of the Parthenon was greeted with less than universal approval. This has been the reaction to new architecture since time immemorial. You can see it now, the shaking of heads, rolling of eyeballs, wringing of hands, the frothing, spluttering and snorting.īut if they know as much about history as they should, Libeskind and his clients at the ROM will be thrilled. Never will people have beheld a building so ugly, architecture so appalling, design so bad – or such cheap-looking aluminium cladding this side of a post-war Scarborough semi. Shock and outrage will spew from the pages of newspapers, radio talkshows and blogs. Next Saturday, when Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, finally opens, a wave of anger and contempt will wash over Toronto.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |