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An Iconoclastic Icon by André Glucksmann, City Journal 8 July 2008

Tags: Betancourt, Glucksmann, libertad on 2008-07-10 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Sam Kitonyi 8Expand

Cities for Living by Roger Scruton, City Journal Spring 2008

Tags: architecture, culture, modernism, design, city, urbanplanning on 2008-06-16 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Modernist vandals like Richard Rogers and Norman Foster—between them, responsible for some of the worst acts of destruction in our European cities—live in elegant old houses in charming locations, where artisanal styles, traditional materials, and humane scales dictate the architectural ambience.
“Humanity lives by trial and error, sometimes committing errors of a monumental scale. Architectural and urbanist modernism belong—like communism—to a class of errors from which there is little or nothing to learn or gain. . . . Modernism’s fundamental error, however, is to propose itself as a universal (i.e., unavoidable and necessary) phenomenon, legitimately replacing and excluding traditional solutions.”
Krier identifies the leading error of modernism as that introduced by Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: separating load-bearing and outward-facing parts. Once buildings become curtains hung on invisible frames, all of the understood ways of creating and conveying meanings lose out. Even if the curtain is shaped like a classical facade, it is a pretend facade, with only a blank expression.
Moreover, such buildings use no architectural vocabulary, so that one cannot “read” them as one does classical buildings. The passerby experiences this as a kind of rudeness. Modernist buildings exclude dialogue, and the void that they create around themselves is not a public space but a desertification.
There are no chords in modernist architecture, only lines—lines that may come to an end but that achieve no closure.
The lack of vocabulary explains the alienating effect of a modern airport, such as Newark or Heathrow. Unlike the classical railway station, which guides the traveler securely and reassuringly to the ticket office, to the platform, and to the public concourse, the typical airport is a mass of written signs, all competing for attention, all amplifying the sense of urgency, yet nowhere offering a point of visual repose.
Krier’s solution is to replace the “downtown plus suburbs” system with that of the polycentric settlement. If people move out, then let it be to new urban centers, with their own public spaces, public buildings, and places of work and leisure: let the new settlements grow, as Poundbury has grown next to Dorchester, not as suburbs but as towns. For then they will recapture the true goal of settlement, which is the human community in a place that is “ours” rather than individual plots scattered over a place that is no one’s.
Where God is at home, so, too, are we; the real meaning of the modernist forms is that there is no God and that Big Brother is now in charge. Krier is inclined to agree with me; but the problem, he says, is to find ways of building that will enable people to rediscover truth for themselves. To try to impose a comprehensive vision against the instincts and the plans of ordinary people is simply to repeat the error of the modernists.

liveinfreedom . 7Expand

The Real Iraq by Michael J. Totten, City Journal 16 May 2008

A descriptoin of a book written by Michael Yon says it like it is in Iraq.

Tags: yon, totten, war, baquba, surge, petraeus on 2008-05-21 -All Annotations (0) -About

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JimC Rast

May 1968: 40 Years Later by Christopher Hitchens, Kay S. Hymowitz, Stefan Kanfer, Guy Sorman, Harry Stein, Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 2008

Tags: 1968, anti-war, Hayden, Chicago on 2008-05-06 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Yule Heibel 3Expand

New Urbanists Point the Way Forward by Catesby Leigh, City Journal 18 April 2008

"The New Urbanism and suburban sprawl have something in common: they’re uncool. New Urbanism is uncool because it is basically traditional; modernism is still the thing in architecture, notes Andrés Duany, the most influential New Urbanist." For some reason, City Journal is impossible to annotate (neither highlights and consequently "stickies" work), which is too bad. Some good ideas in this article, but I can't mark it up.

Tags: urbanism, new_urbanism, suburbia, sprawl, smartgrowth, density, modernism, architecture, style, city_journal on 2008-04-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Ognjen Strpić

An Anatomy of Surrender by Bruce Bawer, City Journal Spring 2008

Westerners have begun to internalize the strictures of sharia. Call it a cultural surrender.

Tags: religion, politics on 2008-04-29 and saved by4 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Robert Luke

No, the Cops Didn’t Murder Sean Bell by Heather Mac Donald

New York’s anti-cop forces have roared back to life, thanks to a fatal police shooting of an unarmed man a week ago.

Tags: racism, police, politics on 2008-05-08 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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M. Anderson

Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them? by James Q. Wilson, City Journal Winter 2008

Tags: Religious, literature on 2008-07-01 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Jem Fleming

Modern Manhood by Roger Scruton, City Journal Autumn 1999

Tags: freeworld, materialist, health, christian on 2007-08-14 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Meryn Stol

False Prophet by Sol Stern, City Journal Autumn 2007

Contrary to Kozol’s impression, testing hardly registers as a reason for leaving. One factor that does turn up, however, is the lack of adequate training that teachers get from education schools.

Tags: bookreview, education, kozol on 2008-02-19 -All Annotations (0) -About

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