Disturbing Design
John Silber addresses the architecture of the absurd
Click here to watch John Silber on BUniverse.
John Silber, president emeritus of Boston University, discusses his new book, Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art. Silber takes many of today’s best-known architects, such as Frank Gehry, to task for designing buildings that emphasize form over function. He uses images of some of Gehry’s work, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Stata Center at MIT inCambridge, Mass., as examples of impractical construction, but he alsoincludes images of buildings that he considers both whimsical andpractical, such as Antonio Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona and Jorn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House. Silber also discusses several projects built or renovated under his supervision at Boston University, including Metcalf Hall in the George Sherman Union.
Silberimplicates the businesses and individuals that hire “starchitects,” ashe calls them, as well, saying that clients have a responsibility tohire architects that take a practical approach to design. “Architectureof the absurd is flourishing because of the debasement, inexperience,and supine gullibility of the clients,” Silber says. “The cure is toread Hans Christian Andersen’s insightful fairy tale ‘The Emperor’s NewClothes.’ The client, not the architect is the emperor, for it is hewho is mocked when architects forget their function: as practicalartists in partnership with clients whose views are worthy of respectand whose economic resources are not to be exceeded.”
December 4, 7 p.m.
Barnes and Noble at BU
About the speaker:
John Silber(Hon.’95) was the seventh president of Boston University, serving from 1971until 1996; from 1996 to 2003 he was chancellor of BU. He is a UniversityProfessor, a College of Arts and Sciences professor of philosophyand international relations, and a School of Law professor of law. An expert in the work of Immanuel Kant, Silber holds adoctorate from Yale University. He is the author of Straight Shooting: What’s Wrong with America and How to Fix It and has published in the Philosophical Quarterly, Kant-Studien, the Philosophical Review, and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
Duringhis tenure as president of BU, Silber oversaw a building program thatgenerated 13.7 million square feet of new or renovated space. In 2002,he was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects.
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