Ed
18th January 2004, 06:38 AM
From the times, today:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/arts/design/18BERN.html
Seems the Greeks are still laboring under an Uzo induced delusion that the Elgin Marbles are coming back. To gain the sympathy vote they constructed the architectural strawman depicted below.
Evidentially the culture that created the marbles could not conjure up a Greek architect (telling point, no?) so they used:
"Bernard Tschumi, the celebrated New York architect".
This "celebrated NY Architect" came up with something that looks like a damn Charthouse Resturant:
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/18/arts/bern.articlespan.jpg
Fitting, no?
But the Greeks, who are acting as though they are potentially responsible custodians find themselves in this pickle:
"But the structure intended to settle a controversy has become an object of controversy itself. The design clashes with the setting, some critics say. It jeopardizes an archaeological site, others claim. And perhaps most dispiritingly, the Olympic deadline is hopelessly out of reach. Like an athlete who trains for a lifetime and then sprains her ankle the week before the games, the New Acropolis Museum may have missed its best chance to make an impression. When the Olympic torch is lighted on Aug. 13, the museum will look like something that Athens already has plenty of: a giant excavation."
Bwahahahahahaha.
"The museum will have room for hundreds of antiquities, but its true reason for being is the glass-walled gallery on the upper floor, where the marbles would reside"
Hahahaaaaaaa. Ain't gonna happen. Pathetic, actually.
Oh, listen to this drivel from the "Noted NY Architect":
"To some Athenians, the site deserved a truly classical building. Mr. Tschumi says an engineer working on the building's seismic protections wanted the museum to be symmetrical, like the Parthenon itself. "But how can you compete with a building that has reached a state of perfection?" Mr. Tschumi asked."
How indeed, Mr. Sushi Architect, how indeed. Answer: Don't ***** try, make a resturant instead. Ha! And catch that reference to something seismically stable. Why be "seismically stable" when you can have a Restaurant? Responsible custodians indeed! Maybe that is a giveaway: Knowing that they are never going to get the Marbles, they design a Resturant from the gitgo. That would be smart planning.
So, we have a responsible engineer and a Sushi Architect hell bent on imposing California Modern on the Greeks (who are too alchohol addeled to be following anyway). What happens?
" "We had a fight," the soft-spoken architect recalled, and eventually he had the engineer fired. "It became too unpleasant." "
THEY ***** FIRED THE ENGINEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good move Stravos!!! Ain't a problem if nobody brings it up.
Of course the Greeks are in love with their past, right? Wrong, not when it comes to a new Gyro joint:
"A more significant challenge came from a faction of Greek archaeologists, who viewed the building not as cementing Greece's heritage — but as cementing over it. The museum's site contains ruins of a seventh-century A.D. village that, according to Ismini Trianti, the Acropolis's chief archaeologist, "could shed light on the dark ages of Athens's late antiquity."
But the Greeks do not live in the past, do they? I mean, the welfare of today's Greeks must be recognized. Right?
"The building's prospective neighbors had their own concerns. The site is in the Makryianni district, full of drab 70's apartment buildings whose inhabitants didn't like the idea of a 200,000-square-foot building going up in their midst. They complained on the conservation and restoration council's Web site that "for the price of a ticket visitors will be able to peer into" their homes. "
Right.
Big project needs a lot of management, right? The "Noted NY Architect agrees:
"He vows to fly to Athens every six weeks for as many years as it takes to get the museum built."
He "VOWS". Like he went to a Cathedral in front of a bunch of Cardinals and "VOWED". Pardon me if I take this"Vow" with a grain of salt. Take a gander at the projects that this guy has going on:
http://www.tschumi.com/tsch_hold.asp
Every six weeks? My ass. He is cut into more pieces than a Sashimi Codfish. My guess is that he just want a little R 'n R on Mikinos every now and then.
Note also that EVERY DESIGN IS THE SAME! Guess he picked it up when he was waiting tables at a Charthouse Resturant when he was in Grad School.
But the overarching rationale for this whole mess?
"And diplomats have argued that the statues are so important to the culture that created them — "the essence of Greece," in the words of Melina Mercouri, that nation's former minister of culture — that they constitute a special case, distinct from any other debates about art and ownership."
The essence of Greece is alcohol and buggery. And grape leaves stuffed with stuff. The culture that created them has been gone since antiquity.
What a disaster. Stay tuned.
Seems the Greeks are still laboring under an Uzo induced delusion that the Elgin Marbles are coming back. To gain the sympathy vote they constructed the architectural strawman depicted below.
Evidentially the culture that created the marbles could not conjure up a Greek architect (telling point, no?) so they used:
"Bernard Tschumi, the celebrated New York architect".
This "celebrated NY Architect" came up with something that looks like a damn Charthouse Resturant:
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/18/arts/bern.articlespan.jpg
Fitting, no?
But the Greeks, who are acting as though they are potentially responsible custodians find themselves in this pickle:
"But the structure intended to settle a controversy has become an object of controversy itself. The design clashes with the setting, some critics say. It jeopardizes an archaeological site, others claim. And perhaps most dispiritingly, the Olympic deadline is hopelessly out of reach. Like an athlete who trains for a lifetime and then sprains her ankle the week before the games, the New Acropolis Museum may have missed its best chance to make an impression. When the Olympic torch is lighted on Aug. 13, the museum will look like something that Athens already has plenty of: a giant excavation."
Bwahahahahahaha.
"The museum will have room for hundreds of antiquities, but its true reason for being is the glass-walled gallery on the upper floor, where the marbles would reside"
Hahahaaaaaaa. Ain't gonna happen. Pathetic, actually.
Oh, listen to this drivel from the "Noted NY Architect":
"To some Athenians, the site deserved a truly classical building. Mr. Tschumi says an engineer working on the building's seismic protections wanted the museum to be symmetrical, like the Parthenon itself. "But how can you compete with a building that has reached a state of perfection?" Mr. Tschumi asked."
How indeed, Mr. Sushi Architect, how indeed. Answer: Don't ***** try, make a resturant instead. Ha! And catch that reference to something seismically stable. Why be "seismically stable" when you can have a Restaurant? Responsible custodians indeed! Maybe that is a giveaway: Knowing that they are never going to get the Marbles, they design a Resturant from the gitgo. That would be smart planning.
So, we have a responsible engineer and a Sushi Architect hell bent on imposing California Modern on the Greeks (who are too alchohol addeled to be following anyway). What happens?
" "We had a fight," the soft-spoken architect recalled, and eventually he had the engineer fired. "It became too unpleasant." "
THEY ***** FIRED THE ENGINEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good move Stravos!!! Ain't a problem if nobody brings it up.
Of course the Greeks are in love with their past, right? Wrong, not when it comes to a new Gyro joint:
"A more significant challenge came from a faction of Greek archaeologists, who viewed the building not as cementing Greece's heritage — but as cementing over it. The museum's site contains ruins of a seventh-century A.D. village that, according to Ismini Trianti, the Acropolis's chief archaeologist, "could shed light on the dark ages of Athens's late antiquity."
But the Greeks do not live in the past, do they? I mean, the welfare of today's Greeks must be recognized. Right?
"The building's prospective neighbors had their own concerns. The site is in the Makryianni district, full of drab 70's apartment buildings whose inhabitants didn't like the idea of a 200,000-square-foot building going up in their midst. They complained on the conservation and restoration council's Web site that "for the price of a ticket visitors will be able to peer into" their homes. "
Right.
Big project needs a lot of management, right? The "Noted NY Architect agrees:
"He vows to fly to Athens every six weeks for as many years as it takes to get the museum built."
He "VOWS". Like he went to a Cathedral in front of a bunch of Cardinals and "VOWED". Pardon me if I take this"Vow" with a grain of salt. Take a gander at the projects that this guy has going on:
http://www.tschumi.com/tsch_hold.asp
Every six weeks? My ass. He is cut into more pieces than a Sashimi Codfish. My guess is that he just want a little R 'n R on Mikinos every now and then.
Note also that EVERY DESIGN IS THE SAME! Guess he picked it up when he was waiting tables at a Charthouse Resturant when he was in Grad School.
But the overarching rationale for this whole mess?
"And diplomats have argued that the statues are so important to the culture that created them — "the essence of Greece," in the words of Melina Mercouri, that nation's former minister of culture — that they constitute a special case, distinct from any other debates about art and ownership."
The essence of Greece is alcohol and buggery. And grape leaves stuffed with stuff. The culture that created them has been gone since antiquity.
What a disaster. Stay tuned.