Two Houses: the different modern yet traditional approaches between house and nature

In spite of the building type's relatively small size, the house is often the most challenging building type for even the most masterful of architects. In part it is because of the personal and complicated nature of the client relationship, but also it is due to the tension between a flexible yet individualized program and a freedom for the architect to demonstrate their concept of the meaning of home. Some of history's best architects built their reputations in a series of one-of-a-kind houses, while producing few large-scale institutional or commercial buildings. At the other end, world-reknowned designers known for their striking museums, academic buildings or stadiums often produce forgettable houses. Many of the latter will only choose commissions that allow them almost unbridled freedom, where they are expected to reimagine dwellings beyond our familiar notions. Such houses are not only unique due to the uniqueness of their client, they are also special in that they embody functions beyond simple domestic living.


This liberal adding of functions was evident in recent tours of a couple of homes designed by genuine "starchitects" in Dallas. In both instances, the houses contained traditional living spaces such as bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms, but were then supplemented by spacious exhibtion spaces for their private art collection. There were vast areas designed for entertaining, as these houses are known to hold frequent fundraisers, meetings and art shows. The first house I toured, the Rachofsky residence by Richard Meier, can be described as 10,000 square foot one bedroom/one bath home. The living spaces are tucked to the far corners of the house, with kitchen squeezed at the bottom floor, the small bedroom and bathrooms perched on the third floor, and the rest of the large volume given over to exhibition space for the owner's private (and frequently changing) contemporary art collection. The Rachofsky house is the very embodiment of the house as museum. Add to that the precision, whiteness and mild austerity that is Richard Meier's signature style, and it becomes clear that the architect (and client) were less interested in designing a modest home than in wedding his previous museum prototypes to the scale of and in minor deference to someone's private bachelor pad.


The second house, Antoine Predock's house at Turtle Creek, is different in that the residential functions are a bit more prominent and are actually lived in (the owner of the Rachofsky house no longer lives there, as it became to difficult to live within a museum, or in other words, too many art lovers wanted visit). The bedroom and master bath are larger, the kitchen is packed with food, and the formal dining room is celebrated by being perched on the upper level, connected by stairs, bridges and an elevator (which allows it to be serviced by the kitchen below). The living room is really an extension of the house's gallery, dotted with sculpture pieces that are so "contemporary" that it isn't hard to mistake some of them for everyday objects. But the gallery spaces are nothing compared to the sprawling roof terrace wich consists of gentle ramps and walkways spanning the entire length and breadth of the house, not to mention a small amphitheatre. However, the singular feature of the Rose house is its birdwatching bridge, which allows one to walk from upper level to a small steel platform nestled on top of the shady tree canopy. From the platform she not only can look at birds but also look down at the rocky creek that circumscribes the site. Unlike Meier's house, with its almost baroque relationship to the site in that it sits on an artificially flat site at the end of an axis facing a major street fronted by monumentally modern gate, Predock's house virtually hides itself, integrating itself to the sloped and shady site, with nary a true public facade but instead incorporates a series of massive planted terraces as its long front wall. The backyard is laced with footpaths leading to the creek and is framed by a large curtain wall, with one portion covered by a large curved surface of mirror-polished stainless steel, concealing the house even more by reflecting the thick tree canopies opposite to it.

From the two houses' contrasting relationships to the surroundings reveal contrasting heritages in the modern domestic design. The first of these is to have the building dominate the landscape, with all landscape features arranged to emphasize the house so as to make it monumental. This is in keeping with a tradition that date from at least the ancient classical era, and was a standard site planning practice since the Renaissance. It is intended to enhance the symbolic function of the building, drawing to either the building's owner or the institution that is represented by it. The second heritage is of merging the building to the original contours of the landscape, deliberately minimizing its monumental presence in favor of achieving harmony with the natural surroundings. This relates to the picturesque tendency in landscape design, The winding steets of medieval towns and the organic agglomerations of medieval monestaries. Harmonizing with the land explains the dramatic effects of works by Arts and Craft masters and the dazzling works of Frank Lloyd Wright.


Maintaining a more traditionally monumental heritage, Richard Meier's personal style can be described as a kind of "Corbusier revival". More specifically he adopts of the vocabulary of the old master's series of white villas during the 1920's. In both the opaque treatment of the front of the house and glassy and open terrace treatment on the back side, The Rachofsky house shares an almost literal resemblance to Le Corbusier's design for Gertrude Stein's villa outside Paris. Beyond their shared lack of color on the outside, both Meier and Le Corbusier separate the wall from structure, exploit the idea of the free facade with openings and reinforce the free plan with a continuation of volume in between floor levels. Meier expands Le Corbusier's concepts even further by overlaying an orthogonal grid on both the exterior treatment as well as in organizing the interior spaces. In an almost quintessentially baroque move, Meier expands this grid onto the surrounding landscape, creating in essence a "tabula rasa", a perfectly blank slate on which the house sits, so as to avoid having to confront the randomness of nature. Implementing this grid in so many dimensions requires a great deal of precision, which is exhibited in the quality of the architectural details. Whereas Le Corbusier has never been able to execute detail with much skill, Meier's buildings demonstrate a perfectionism of detailing to a point that they almost lose their human touch in favor of a kind machine-like quality that has always eluded the man who saw houses as "machines for living". There is, nonetheless, a genuine playfulness within the Rachofsky house's careful composition as Meier subdivides the cube to modulate transparency and opacity to reflect function, to carve outside terraces and emphasize stairways. And although the house subjugates the land around it, nature is brought inside as copious glazed surfaces frame detailed views of the outside. Natural light permeates almost all spaces within the house, and the intricate pattern of the window mullions reinforce an awareness of the passage of time when they project changing shadows onto the surfaces.




Predock's house engages with its natural surroundings in a more metaphorical way. The house introvertedly addresses the steet, with no windows facing out and built-in vegetation helping minimize its actual large size. The site itself is covered with trees and tall shrubs, offering less abundant natural light to the interior of the house. Add that to the massive concrete walls that run throughout the house, and there is an overall cavernous feel to the spaces. This is balanced by the positioning spaces to capture specific directional views to the outside, with curved walls bowing to the outside to maximize the panoramic views. When one studies the actual plan of the house, the bold geometry of the circle combined with the circle stands out, and instantly seems to reference Frank Lloyd Wright's habit of creatively incorporating sacred shapes. There is a linear axis that organizes the gallery spaces and the main stair and roof terrace, from which the circle and triangle extend outward from the axis. This is countered by a more diminutive axis that articulates a path directly to a light steel bridge outside that terminates at the birdwatching platform. The whole house seems to take the cue of the owner's fondness for birdwatching, in which the wide variety of floor levels and steps and its exansive roof garden under the tree canopies gives recalls a tree with branches at multiple heights, offering distinctive views depending on where one is perched.



Both houses reveal the different approaches and in how geometric devices organize form and generate particular effects. In spite of its appearance as a rigid rectangular prism, Meier's house is an ode to the grid and hidden regulating lines and its resultant flexibility and freedom (much like Le Corbusier had preached). Predock distills abstract geometic shapes derived from conditions of the site and then proceeds to fit the program within the strict spatial parameters of these shapes. Such bold geometric gestures (and a rich palette of materials) lend the visitor's attention instantly to the architecture and seems to minimize the presence of the outside. Wedge-shaped rooms and curved glass walls make each space unique yet all-consuming. In contrast, the minimal whiteness and strict orthogonal character of Meier's house allows the architecture inside to dissolve and accentuates the outside environment more intensely. There is however an inverse effect when seen from the outside: the very orthogonality and whiteness brings much more attention to the building than to its natural environment. The cool grays and beiges from Predock's use of concrete and stone has the opposite effect, and its axial and sharp geometries slightly mimick the contours of the land.


Which house more appropriately addresses the surrounding context? Both do, but they respond to different kinds of places. Meier's Rachofsky house is situated at Preston Hollow, an up-scale neighborhood defined by the relatively flat land and generous suburban tracts. Predock's Rose house is situated along Turtle Creek in a neighborhood that was landscaped by a master of the picturesque style made popular in the U.S. by Frederic Law Olmstead. Neither seem to cry out for attention even as their neighbors in the form of McMansions do by coming close to the street and assuming as tall a profile as possible. The Rachofsky house sits near the rear of the site, preceded by a giant front lawn and a minimalist wall with gate facing the street. The Rose house atually frames a private drive with its planter walls, but it almost appears as if it had been there for a long time like an ancient Mayan ruin. From any other side, the house becomes invisible, even from across the creek veiled by lush vegetation and minimal landscaping. The Rose house is indeed quite the private refuge, while the Rachofsky house is more of late 1990s chateaux which has become more institutional in function as it has embraced a role as a public art gallery of sorts.



And now for the more interesting question: which do I like better? Judging from my pen-name, it would appear that I would be partisan to Meier, as he carries the torch of Le Corbusier's stylistic innovations. Meier's work has had a subtle influence on my personal design style even if I would never impose such a limited palette of color and material as he does. Predock is a precocious form-maker that gives his buildings symbolic value, using materials that often harmonize well to the outside context. Yet his sense of scale and proportion are somewhat lacking judging from the few buildings of his I've actually visited. Predock's details, while clean, are a bit dull when observed more closely, something that often occurs with architects who pay too much attention to the shapes of building volumes. Meier's house doesn't seem to fall into the same trap as he exhibits graceful proportion and exquisite detailing. Nothing is left to arbitrariness and each of the most minor of elements are carefully considered. There are many little coves and hidden spaces to maintain a visitor's interest even within the simple cubic volume. Daylight strikes the surfaces and exposes a rich variety of forms, profiles and the play of shadows in the passage of time. Predock seems less concerned for the architecture to reveal itself than to dissolve itself as part of a natural setting. The birdwatching bridge and platform are symbolic of this, its thin and lightweight steel structure tries to remove attention to itself in favor the tree canopies, while the vast areas of the house devoted to the roof garden diminishes the importance of the interior spaces. Such a focus on the outdoor experience seems to be undercut by the lack of warm surface materials, with monotonous grey concrete (or stucco?), grey painted concrete roof deck and colorless conrete pavers on the grounds make for an unstimulating impression. Even Meier with his strict material and color palette manages to make his exterior spaces more alive with use of water from the reflecting pool than brings the blueness of the sky to the groundplane. The contemporary sculpture pieces also benefit from the austerity of the landscape, some of which punctuate one's view with bright and bold colors.


It is important to understand that what makes these houses such a treasure for any city to have is not in their practical quality. Neither of the houses are models of functionality or performance. Both houses are inefficiently planned, and both contain spaces that are much larger than most people would need, while others are a bit smaller or less easily accessible. Their value isn't determined by how well their systems work, whether it is necessarily wise that Meier's house has a huge West-facing glass wall that overheats the house, or whether there may be possible leaks from so large a roof terrace. Such points of criticism are all too common when arguing about what's wrong with a work of architecture, as they concentrate on issues have little to do with a design's overarching concepts.


As much as the practice of architecture entails the technical with the artistic, it must be remembered that it is the latter that is the privilege and the domain of the architect with regard to a building. They produce the main concept to which all elements are organized, to which the client must buy into and to which the contractor must realize in a finished state. Meier and Predock were chosen for their conceptual prowess and were expected to liberally wield their influence in all aspects of project. Under their care, a project's success is due to its capacity to express its concept in multiple dimensions and at various scales. The quality of expression in both houses is exceptional and a real pleasure for lovers of architecture, from the precision and subtle playfulness of Meier to the bold geometries and creative response to the site by Predock. The level of execution in both houses is extraordinary, but even more important is the degree to which they convey the mind of their designers in as personal a design vehicle as the house.

Beauty and Waste: More Thoughts on Space and Worship

While watching a television show the other day about bread, I learned of a simple, but beautiful custom of Jewish bread bakers. While preparing the traditional Jewish bread Chullah, the baker will tear off a portion and bake it by itself, or simply throw it away. Traditionally, this was for the temple priests, offered as a tithe. But the tradition continues today to act as a sort of sacrifice, a reminder that God provides all that is needed, and this portion of the bread can, in essence, be wasted. This expresses very well what is at the core worship…that a component of waste is helpful in understanding what it’s really about, that it’s not a business, and that indulgence is, in a tangible way, a wonderful reminder of all that we have been given.

But in a conservative and efficient culture, waste has come to be seen as an altogether negative concept. In a culture where the “bottom line” dictates our thinking and where energy is to be prized, to waste at all is almost a sign of weakness, or failure. Certainly no church with a “green” conscious would want to be wasteful. But I’m not talking about turning up the thermostat or using plastic plates instead of Styrofoam, but substantial choices about space and aesthetics. We see, for example, the elevation of the “big box church”, where, even when churches have money, thoughts of beauty and waste are rarely afforded the architect. Instead, any space, be it a movie theatre, basketball arena, or shopping mall, can be converted into a place of worship, even if terribly tacky and not suited very well to the task. I can hear the head pastor saying, “Hey, they offered a free six month’s rent and it’ll seat 3,500! Perfect!”

But how can you convince someone that it might be worth creating a space that’s less than efficient, and that might take years to complete, not months? I could certainly quote scripture, where Jesus defends a woman who cleans his feet with costly nard. Surely this text allows the Church to be “wasteful” when it comes to adoring Christ. And it’s hard to argue that beautiful spaces help us do such adoring. Yet, this idea is foreign to many Protestants, who give little regard to aesthetics in lieu of practicalities like financing, efficiency and multi-use space.

Instead of offering beauty and mystery to its congregants, it replaces those needs with an emotional experience and preaching that promises certainty. The spaces used is often more corporate and functional than beautiful. Indeed, one has to wonder looking at the stage lighting and drum set surrounded by Plexiglas if beauty ever entered their minds. In other words, the space need not communicate; we’ll do all the talking. And talk they do. And talk, and talk, and talk…

But true worship, and its space, I would argue, may best be understood from the paradigm of waste. Yes, waste, as in, a sacrifice. After all, we agree we’ll only be here for a short time. So let’s enjoy it, and let’s splurge on our place of worship. Let Wal-Mart keep costs down by erecting ugly buildings. Let’s tack on another 5 years of a mortgage for stained glass, stone, flexible spaces and flowing fonts. Let our buildings speak volumes about our faith, let them say something when our words cannot. Let our worship be influenced by natural, not artificial light, and let the space be good for one thing and one thing only: worship.

Of course, there is a dark side to this way of thinking, and as always, we must find a “happy medium.” I think of Soren Kierkegaard’s critique of opulent, but spiritually dead churches. I found this quote here:

“Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher-theologian, once described how he went into the great cathedral in Copenhagen and sat in a cushioned seat and watched as sunlight streamed through stained glass windows. He saw the pastor, dressed in a velvet robe, take his place behind the mahogany pulpit, open a gilded Bible, mark it with a silk marker and read, 'Jesus said, "If any man be my disciple he must deny himself, sell whatsoever he has, give to the poor and take up his cross and follow me."' Kierkegaard said, 'As I looked around the room I was amazed that nobody was laughing.’

Here, in very few words is the perfect critique of waste for all the wrong reasons. When visual beauty takes the place of serving one’s neighbor, the issue has gotten away from us.

But the other extreme offers us problems as well. I’m reminded of a college friend critiquing the church, saying it was wasteful to even build a church. God could be worshipped out in the fields just as well. Wasn’t God in nature? But what about all that wasted nard? This story tells me that if we waste our treasure correctly, then it’s okay to waste it.

Or in other words, there are ways in which we worship beyond our feelings and our words; prayers in stone matter, too. Indeed they stand apart from a world that is looking more and more monolithic, where big box churches, malls and retail stores blend together all too seamlessly. Funny that when the architecture blends together, so too does the music, theology, and driving motivations for even existing.

Podcast #4

Relievedebtor and corbusier discuss all things green as they relate to architecture, design and morality. Are green changes in design really good for the earth? What are the costs? And who can afford them? Check out Episode #4 here.

The Green Mark-Up: Who pays for environmentally friendly design?

As I seem to be inundated with new information, advertisements or appeals to make buildings green-friendly, I find it more and more difficult to ignore the aspect of money in evaluating it all. Somehow I fail to suppress my sneaking suspicion that there's more than just simply wanting to use resources more efficiently or to limit a building's carbon footprint-- that in reality, the green movement in the industry of architecture is eyeing for potential new sources of fees and income. I admit it's a cynical posture, but in so many places one looks, money is an important consideration when practicing the green way of life, especially when it comes to who is expected to pay for the extra expenditure.

Recently the leaders of the large multi-national firm I work for decided to make a concerted effort to practice what they preach when it comes to promoting eco-friendly design. The first baby-step towards that end was to recycle more and dump less, which is no small matter given the massive amounts of paper architecture firms use to deliver services. In addition to buying new recycling waste bins for each desk, it was decided that we needed to abandon styrofoam cups in the breakroom and use recyclable paper cups instead. The first major delivery of paper cups, while smaller and more costly than the styrofoam cups, proved to be inadequately rigid only a few minutes after pouring coffee into them. Sturdier cups are now on their way, but it is already contemplated that reusable ceramic cups will be made available to everyone who never got one on the first day on the job. Who will pay for all of these mugs? Will my pay-raise be affected somehow?

During a sector-wide meeting, the vice president in charge responded to a question posed that inquired on what the potential for green design would be in future projects. Prospects for LEED-certified projects were very good, but not necessarily because developers had change of heart regarding the environment, nor were they completely converted to the mantra of reduced life-cycle costs. Rather, a LEED-certified building could be marketed to tenants or buyers for a higher price, thus enhancing a project's profitability. That means they are hoping to attract high-paying tenants, who in turn will need to lure in high-paying customers who live in high-rent districts and neighborhoods with high property values. Someone will have to pay for this more conscientious quality of construction and design, and initially, it won't be those who live in the lower- to middle-class sections of the city. Walmart's recent efforts notwithstanding, environmentally friendly retail design thrives mostly in an upscale market, where the producers will gladly mark up the price of their goods and consumers will gladly pony up additional dollars for it for reasons too intangible for economists to make sense out of. It's the "Whole-Foodization" of retail landscape, which is the result of, and is sustained by, the rising affluence of consumers and the emergence of a broader upperclass demographic that has been taking place in the last couple of decades.

Although many people involved won't proclaim it openly, there is more professional income to be made by all design-related consultants practicing green architecture, particularly when the client desires that their project is certified by an official body like the U.S. Green Building Council. As a LEED accredited professional myself, I'm required to become quite familiar with most of the materials and methods that will earn a building project points towards certification, with a substantial portion favoring the use of additional professional consultants. To best comply it is often advisable to retain landscape consultants for water irrigation and site drainage, commissioning consultants who analyze mechanical systems throughout the design and construction phases, environmental consultants for proper disposal of waste, and other specialists that promote proprietary technologies. Since a a large part of green design involves the proper selection of buiding systems, MEP consultants (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) will require more time to research products and methods to maximize building efficiency, which in turn drives up the fee charged to the architect, who must in turn demand a higher fee from the client in order to ensure green certification and cover additional costs born from green compliance.

With such numerous consultants usually needed to implement a complex green design, architects must be in charge of an ever more complicated web of coordination between all the specialists. This added level of coordination can be listed as an additional service to the client, and can be a new source of billable fees. Some architects find it more profitable to branch off as independent LEED consultants, who along with code consultants and accessibility consultants, seem to owe their existence from the exponential growth of regulation affecting all facets of building design. One can only imagine that as municipalities throughout the country implement a vast body of eco-friendly design, zoning, and building code guidelines, so will the number of specialists that thrive from these new rules. I wouldn't be all that surprised to see some architecture firms morphing into environmental guideline consultants, while other firms may see their fees shrink after having ceded more design responsibilies to independent environmental compliance consultants.

Architectural designers love green design not necessarily because they love nature, but rather because they don't have to defend the products they specifiy on purely economic terms. Instead they get to qualify them as part of the desired green solution. Since they don't bear the cost of their design, and since the client will only be willing to make a project green as long as they can defray the extra cost on someone else (either through a higher sell/rent price or a tax cut/subsidy), all can tap themselves on the back for having done the right thing for the planet.

Governing authorities naturally play a crucial role in adding a premium to the cost of living green. Watching the local news one evening, I happened to catch a report about how the city of Frisco (northern exurb of Dallas) has been enhancing their local building and zoning codes in order to require home builders to specify more green-friendly products and mechanical systems. The city officials claimed that the new regulations added an average of about 10 to 20 percent to the selling price of the finished home. What went unstated was that Frisco prides itself as a slightly more upscale exurb than the rest of the region, and is fully aware that the slightest green-friendly codes encourage the 'right' kind of people to move there by virtue of the fact that they are glad to pay extra. With Dallas itself having just adopted a more green-friendly code, I can only imagine that as the city makes gradual strides towards greater liveability, it will result in making it more exclusive as well. The link between good green design and higher property values seems always to have been evident, and it presents challenges to households who are in no position to pay the added property tax or rent price. To partake into a sophisticated green lifestyle requires some extra green in one's wallet, which real-estate developers are only too happy exploit. It is no coincidence that the first couple of environmentally sensitive residential subdivisions in Dallas consist of homes that start from a million dollars and up.

In our times it is obvious that environmental friendliness adds value to any commodity that embodies it, for as long as this quality is desireable. There is an added cost in producing such commodities (eg. organic produce), but it is matched and often surpassed by demand that is only possible in an affluent population. In a purely market context, buying green can be seen as a luxury. So long as there is the kind of high-end demand for green products and services persists, those who are outside of the potential consumer base are not negatively affected. Indeed, they benefit from an even greater variety of choices and eventually benefit from the economies of scale that make green products affordable to all. In this context, there an ironic conclusion arises: the kind of sustainable standard of living most people desire depends on sustaining wealth creation. It is no coincidence that the cleanest countries tend to be the wealthiest ones, even if they use the most energy and resources. They have minimized the negative externalities of resource consumption (eg. pollution) and have innovated dramatic ways in making the most efficient use of all natural resources. These wealthy countries also enforce environmental regulations the most, which can only follow economic prosperity and not the other way around.

As the practice of an environmentally friendly lifestyle depends on continued economic growth, it is important not to put the cart in front of the horse. Environmental regulations will only be as effective and popular as long as there are lots of people who are more than happy to pick up the tab. I fear the temptation is too great for governments and particular lobbies to enact legislation that rations resources and restricts free choice before there is the necessary cushion of prosperity to absorb radical changes. Europe is a good example of how too much environmental regulation compromises the economic potential of its people. Instead having a large upper class to adapt and popularise the choice of green-friendly lifestyle while leaving the middle to lower classes to enjoy cheap consumer prices, minor taxation and unencumbering regulation, all Europeans pay for their relatively green lifestyle. They pay in the form of higher fuel and utility prices, less disposable income and a increasingly tempered economic growth that relatively high levels of structural unemployment. It is not a matter of whether Europeans are more enlightened when it comes to enviromental consciousness, but whether they have known any other way of life outside one of static prosperity and ubiquitous state intervention and regulation.

I get the sense that Americans have been so used to being relatively free that any add0 regulation over their lives will be seen as unnecessary and oppressive. Their willingness to submit themselves to more pervasive regulation will depend on the credibility of arguments that portray a state of crisis so significant that economic growth and freedom are trivial. Global warming, which has become in recent years the rationale for crisis in order to expand controls on economic activity paradoxically suffers from the fact that its negative effects will be so far off in the future that there seems relatively little popular momentum to promptly engage it in the present. Especially because there are so many unknowns when trying to calculate what the climate will be like in 100 years (or what the weather will be in 24 hours), there is a reactionary tendency to construct as presumably certain an argument for impending crisis.

As in any call for reform and broad changes in the way things are done, there are those who stand to benefit and those who stand to lose even more. The group that belongs to former tends to be the already powerful and wealthy, since they possess the valuable resources to weather any change coming their way, and are often those who craft reforms that favor their interests and ideals over others. The losers tend to be the poor, those who wield no considerable political nor economic power and who are expected to conform to new rules and restrictions crafted by their generally wealthier counterparts. Whether it be the people who dwell in the neighborhoods who are highly vulnerable to high energy prices resulting from reforms designed to increase "efficiency", or the destitute masses who work in the heavily polluting industries in throughout the Third World whose meager upward mobility risks being harmed by a more equitable Kyoto treaty, the deep sense of crisis that captivates the wealthy classes or countries neglects the potentially adverse social effects of their thinking. Replacing fossil fuels by the dubious practice of turning food into fuel is music to the ears to some committed environmentalists and agriculture lobbies, but it makes them completely deaf to the overall rapid rise of food prices that harm the starving.

As a privileged consumer who sometimes gladly pays the premium for high quality goods, I cherish the freedom choice in either indulging myself or making efficiencies. I choose to be stingy on quite a few things, and in certain cases I wonder if I should be earning some brownie points for not using too high a carbon footprint relative to others. My stinginess should never be coerced on anyone else since it restricts the freedom of choice to my standards, which is only as unique as there are individuals on this planet. It is imperative to maintain limitless choices especially for those who rely on them to raise their own standard of living and discover self-fulfilling purpose.

Living the green lifestyle in my view is more virtuous when

it is an exercise of free choice. A market-driven shift to more environmentally friendly practices will result in better quality goods and services and ever greater efficiencies. By contrast, a state-driven program in enacting controls and restrictions on economic activity for the sake of sustainability will result in goods of compromised performance (e.g. mandating electric cars with heavy lead batteries, or bite-sized micro-cars in Europe) and lower output (e.g. organic farmings's lower yield per-acre vs. convential farming's much higher yield). Although I personally find much of the pro-ecological banter spouted by the privileged inhabitants that grace the magazine pages of Dwell as pretty smug, I have no problem in permitting them to practice what they preach--so long as it's their money and not mine (or yours).

Is Forgiveness of Sins the Crux of Christianity?

What is it exactly that is at the heart of Christianity? What is the one issue that defines this faith above all others, that makes its adherents believe it to be so true and full of good news? As a pastor, I wonder often what those in the pews need to hear the most. Do they need to hear that their sins are forgiven? Do they need to hear about the Kingdom of God? Should I focus on their context – affluent America? Or maybe how to become a better person, one curtained bad habit at a time, is what they need to hear. One issue, for sure, has come to be seen as the crux of Christianity more than all others: the forgiveness of sins. This act of love, made possible by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, is, for many Christians the central, and almost the only focus of the faith. It was central to Jesus’ teaching, and is even part of the succinct teachings of the Lord’s Prayer and the Words of Institution. But once convinced of this fact, where do we go from there?

There’s a number of reasons that this prominent theme of the faith could use some vetting. For starters, this is an intellectual fact for the believer. You know your sins are forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is in your mind, and hopefully, it finds a place to reside in your heart as well. But once one generally comes to understand the concept of sacrifice, of the way Jesus takes our place because he, as a sinless man, is the only person who can stand before God on our behalf, most people pretty much accept that. While this is the core message for the Billy Grahams of the world (or preachers without a congregation), for most pastors and congregations this is Christianity 101.

But what does the forgiveness of sins actually look like? This is the bigger question that must be answered, especially given the somewhat awkward reality that before the concept can be preached, you must first convince someone they are a sinner. And there are two cultural norms that make this difficult.

1. To tell someone they are a sinner is not exactly the best way to hit it off with a non-believer. But if forgiveness of sins is the crux of the faith, then that’s where one must start. I wouldn’t be particularly attracted to a faith that first had to convince me of my guilt, only to offer the solution. This is a business-like equation – “you have a problem, I have a solution” – I find lacking in the real life-giving power of the gospel.

2. In a postmodern context, sin is relative, and it may actually be quite hard to convince someone that they are truly a sinner, much less, that they need to be relieved of it.

Essentially, if this is only what Christian faith is about, it relies on this beginning block: to preach this word, you must convince them of their sin first. Certainly, we are all sinners, and to live in denial of that fact is tragic. But making it the banner headline of faith will likely be Greek to people who aren’t aware they sin to begin with. I can just imagine missionaries traveling the globe, or Christians speaking to a neighbor, and making this the beginning point of their evangelism. There’s certainly nothing theologically wrong with it. It just strikes me as rather unappealing.

In other words, how many of us go to church with this question on our minds: “How do I get these sins of mine forgiven?” I would say very few. The question is likely more like this, if I had to guess: “In my mind, I know my sins are forgiven. But why don’t I live like it? What difference does it make?”

Forgiveness itself is a rather esoteric concept. The idea that a man (and a divine man at that) took punishment and experienced death in my place must be a foreign idea to many. The idea that we are not justified by good works is clearly counterintuitive, even to many Christian Protestants, who live as though our salvation does not depend on “alien righteousness” as much as good behavior. (This is one of the truly delicious ironies of the Reformation’s aftermath; it is many Protestants who give lip service to, but reject in daily life, the concept of justification by grace through faith.)

In addition to forgiveness, there are other major themes of Jesus’ teaching and preaching that can be lifted up. The Kingdom of God/Heaven, for example, is a constant theme of the New Testament. Yet, I rarely hear pastors, myself included, really talk about what this means today for us, especially given that we live in a free democracy, not a kingdom. Or joy as a part of life in the Spirit…this was one of Jesus’ main thrusts in the Gospel of John. The theme of reversal is heavily present as well, as in the beatitudes (Matthew 5), or in many of the parables about the Samaritans, among others.

Let me be clear. Cheap grace is the most abhorrent theological tenet the liberal mainline churches face. And at the heart of it, Jesus preached about, and died for the forgiveness of our sins. But the goal of the church, I don’t think, is to dwell on this fact, at least as a mere fact. While it should never be ignored, the church must take the question further, to push the congregation to ask, “So what? So what if my sins are forgiven? What difference does that make?” When the answers start to flow, the real preaching has begun.

Tunnels and Skybridges: Street-killers or an Enhancement to City Life?

Dallas can be often insecure about itself. Many people in my home city seem to feel that their city gets no national respect nor is it the recipient of much aprobation from outsiders. Maybe I get this impression from hanging out with my own kind too much, such as other architects who love to bloviate more about the problems of cities than about the art of building. Admittedly, many architects are stimulated by idealized images in their minds of the perfect place to be in. Some are so confident as to what makes a great place that they are often willing eliminate essential means of transport (cars) and modes of building to achieve their goal. As you can imagine, bring up the topic of Dallas to a bunch of designer and urban planning types it will almost always be met with groans. For these people, Dallas can do nothing right and is guilty for having ignored all the valuable lessons of sound city planning.

For young designers fresh out of school, Dallas is an unattractive place to begin one's career. Its image embodies little of the urban values they were taught at school. As I have recently learned from my experience trying to recruit new graduates from architecture school, Dallas does not have a desirable 'cache'; it is not 'hip' and the only major reasons a person would consider moving there are mostly pragmatic (its low cost of living and affordable real estate, its abundant job opportunities and good wages, etc.) Although they offer scarcer jobs, inflated housing costs, and even fewer parking spots, cities such as Boston, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle adhere to the principles that, to them, makes great places to live in. They also presume that such cities are much more hospitable to progressive (i.e. not exclusively functional) design.

In contrast to those much older and beloved cities, Dallas is distinctly twentieth century. Except for the historic core which spans several blocks, most of that city's fabric was developed after the main-streamed use of the car. Its structure and scale is reflective of an anti-pedestrian auto-dependent approach to city planning. There are many neighborhoods with no sidewalks and driving on its seven-lane boulevards criscrossing the city ensures swift point-to-point travel. It has experimented and applied many of the innovative urban planning ideas that emerged in the early twentieth century, ones that endorsed the Modernist notion of breaking away from historical tradition. Urban spaces would be scaled for the automobile, from the abundant freeways and wide traffic arteries, to large half-acre residential lots beginning not far from the city center and even larger more minimal iconic office towers. Classic notions of the street from the point of view of the pedestrian, such as the proportions of buildings to sidewalk, the engagement of storefronts, more welcoming hardscape and landscaping and the placement of residential units within downtown blocks were almost completely neglected for a span of about fifty years.

More interesting are the kind of distinctly twentieth century urban fads that Dallas did embrace. Downtown Dallas features an extensive underground city, with labyrinthine tunnels connecting many of the major office towers as a subterranean network of pediestrian 'streets'. There are also numerous skybridges that especially tie together all of the major office and hotel towers in the eastern half of downtown. Together they enable a person to walk through a great swath of downtown without ever going outside. They represented less a complete rejection of the traditional street than an supplementation of it beyond its normal spatial limits of a ground plane framed by buildings on both sides. A remnant of piecemeal efforts from local building owners to maximize leasable area add thru-traffic at the base of their properties, sympathizers of the tunnel argue that it was a practical response to the long hot summer days where temperatures average above 90 degrees for about 6 months out of the year, since no one seems to want to go out in the heat in their business suits.

In spite of the ignorance of most Dallas residents who do not work in the central business district, thanks to deliberate efforts by city officials to never mention they exist, the tunnel and skyway network is the lifeblood to convenient life downtown. All kinds of retail and restaurants are located in the tunnels, including large food courts catering to every taste as well as shops that sell opticware, office supplies, tax consulting, pharmacies, haircuts and even massages. National chain tenants are more likely to be found underground than on the street, which is defined mostly of independent family-owned delis that are often run-down and struggle to fill their tables. Unlike the stampede of office workers that pack the downtown sidewalks at lunch hour, Dallas at the street level is by comparison nearly a ghost town. A quick ride on the lobby escalator going to the basement level reveals where all the people went, as long queues of people form outside many of the eateries, and packs of working women put on their sneakers to do their walking exercises during the lunch break. This is not a 24-hour city by any means, since everything closes at 6 in the evening, but it is quite efficient, since the businesses open only for the predictable rush of foot traffic and close as soon it ceases for the day. For new workers in the central business district, the tunnels and skybridges are a revelation and quickly take advantage of the convenience, even though few explore the extent of the tunnels beyond their building. Not having to deal with the elements and not having to look out for cars and wait for red lights makes the tunnels an attractive option when trying to meet some simple needs quickly.

But they also suck the life out of the street. After many years of standing by and observing the continued commercial success of the tunnels, city leaders are determined to restore to prominence the relatively vacant street storefronts. Lovers of cities such as the planners and concerned architects encourage a policy of either ignoring the tunnels or outright demolishing them. It is hoped that the rapid growth of residential living in downtown (where it has become common to convert long-vacant office buildings into apartments) will help revitalize street-level businesses and achieve the ideal of a 24-hour neighborhood. The city government actually subsidizes a grocery store to ensure that this crucial amenity will attract more downtown residents. It seems obvious that the tunnels make it twice as difficult for street-level businesses to succeed. With the fundamental unit of the urban experience (the street) having been euthanized by an invisible network of secret tunnels, the disgruntlement of urban planners and architects is justifiable.

Dallas at the beginning of the twenty-first century finds itself trying to catch up on some belated classic urbanism after having permitted a few of the more modern alternatives to thrive. An urban renaissance of sorts is indeed currently taking place with numerous constructions cranes dotting the skyline. Pockets of open-air walkable districts have recently been built or are on the drawing boards. It has allocated tremendous resources into establishing a fairly extensive light-rail sytem in the hope of generating tranportation oriented development (TOD). Urban parks are being planned (including one to span over a major freeway underpass) with its overlooked drainage ditch of its central waterway, the Trinity River, being due for a major transormation into a supposedly world-class park system. Most Dallasites welcome these changes, even as the inevitable improvements in liveability will only continue to gentrify the city as a whole at the expense of the middle and lower-middle class.

In trying to ensure that these plans succeed, it is still important to consider why the extra-urban systems like tunnels and skybridges seem to work well and remain popular to local downtown workers and even residents. In particular when, even though tranditional urban life is trending in the positive direction, it is still struggling to establish itself. Apartments and condominiums continue to sell slowly, with some proposed new towers being put on the shelf due to a lack of committed tenants. Convenience is important in attracting downtown dwellers, especially when it fosters an advantagious ease of mobililty. It's hard to beat a pedestrian pathway that is air-conditioned year round and that transcends the sometimes frustrating coexistence with car traffic and urban noise. Since they are private, they bypass much of the urban riff-raff and no obstacles such as construction fences, litter or tripping hazards. It very much is reminiscent of the early Modernist obsession of the separation of uses, of eliminating the unpleasantness city life, of isolating pedestrians form car traffic. Visionaries like Le Corbusier (the interior street in the sky), Sant'Elia and the filmmaker Fritz Lang all envisioned a future where people would perform many of their pedestrian functions in enclosed paths and spaces in multi-functional giant buildings while leaving the rest of the car/ship traffic to physical or virtual super-highway systems.

The dynamics of the 'unpleasantness' of the city has indeed changed, as contemporary cities are now much cleaner now that the traditional nuissances are more regulated. Street-life has become sanitized to such a degree so as to become appealing to many people. It's obviously a benefit to city dwellers to be able to enjoy the street. But it is in my view an additional benefit to make use of tunnels and skybridges, in that they add an additional dimension to urban life with regard to innovative ways of circulating and connecting blocks together. They provide an important additional choice in how one moves throughout a dense area and the degree to which convenience and time becomes a priority. They also supplement new perspectives, allowing the pedestrian to view the kind of things that are visible only from a bridge as compared to a sidewalk, or to explore and discover a secret world below ground. To better enhance this choice, I would favor that the tunnel systems and the street complement each other rather than compete as they currently do. By expanding the choice of mobility and experiences, it will distinguish Dallas from other cities that rely on streets. It is this very complexity of paths that make life in the big city rich in experiences but also liberating in their ease of mobility.

Mr. Obama's Neighborhood: An Inside Look at Hyde Park, Chicago

Now that we have ample time to consider exactly who Barack Obama is, I’ve been compelled to revisit my old stomping grounds: Hyde Park, Chicago. Known for being home to controversial figures like Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson and institutions like the University of Chicago, Hyde Park is also the most dense center for theological education this side of Rome. The prestigious University dominates the neighborhood economically, culturally and politically, having essentially taken the neighborhood over since the 1960s and housing thousands of students, professors and staff. And Hyde Park can boast to being one of Chicago’s truly unique cul-de-sacs, a mixture of history, beauty and eclecticism, an attempted safe haven surrounded by the seedier parts of Chicago’s South Side. But at its heart, Hyde Park is a paradoxical neighborhood, promising intellectual rigor and diversity on the exterior, but still falling prey to a tired ideology born in the 1960s on the interior. I couldn’t define Obama’s politics any better.

I recently lived in Hyde Park for 3 years while attending seminary, and generally enjoyed my time there. I taught guitar lessons at the University’s private school, I tutored professor’s students, and I studied theology with students from a host of schools. I got to know the neighborhood, and through work, many of its residents as well. To say the least, it is a very liberal neighborhood, standing out even in a liberal city like Chicago. There was certainly no shortage of visible support for prominent Democrats like Barack Obama, as when he ran against a hapless Alan Keyes in 2004. It was not uncommon to see pictures of Hyde Park residents posing with him at University or neighborhood events. And as I mentioned before, several African-American activists and politicians grace the neighborhood within blocks of each other, notably Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and Carol Moseley Braun, who ran for president in 2004.

To me, this can offer wonderful clues about the neighborhood. Though the University did its best to polish Hyde Park’s image, I found the neighborhood to be heavy and defensive, a place of constant and unspoken tension, especially among the races. My wife, a friend, and my roommate all experienced this tension separately as eggs were thrown, guns were drawn, and bottles were hurled. There were frequent urgings not to walk along 53rd Street alone as gangs were choosing random white males to beat, presumably as part of a gang initiation ritual.

Suffice to say, the neighborhood was not a safe one. And who should have expected it to be? While million-dollar homes and condos were the norm in Hyde Park, poverty of the worst sort surrounded it on every side, save for Lake Michigan. This irony was what many conservatives have come to expect: the liberalism so often championed by professors, politicians and theologians within the street boundaries of Hyde Park and practiced by Chicago’s politicians did nothing to alleviate the real suffering around it. Consequently, the violence and tension spilled out into Hyde Park’s tree-lined streets. Even Carol Moseley Braun was not immune; she was mugged at her home before a University students ran off her attacker in 2006.

The predominant theology in this heavily theological neighborhood was liberation theologies of various stripes. (If you’re not familiar with the term, liberation theology is a highly political and social view of Jesus Christ and his redemption. It is championed by the poor and by minorities who hold poverty and oppression as virtues, for which Jesus had special appreciation). In Hyde Park, it was black liberation theology that was the norm, although queer (this is the politically correct term), Hispanic, feminist, and womanist theologies demanded attention as well. But the black liberation theology gives us the most real insight into Hyde Park’s most famous resident, Barack Obama. It is this theology that defined the culture of Hyde Park in the 1960s, a decade Hyde Park has had trouble leaving. And it is this theology that dominates his own church, several miles south of Hyde Park on 95th street. (Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, received his Doctorate from my seminary.)

To put it simply, Hyde Park is a racially-driven neighborhood. It prides itself as a neighborhood that fights white authority and prestige. Whites are seen as a great impediment to black improvement and the cause to the problems to begin with. It is whites who have invaded the neighborhood and populated its university, usually with presumed snobs who have the money to afford the U of C to begin with. Ironically, the academics that do this (as a professor, Obama would have be considered a part of this) do so with the financing and intellectual protection of the largely white university system.

And I believe this defines Obama as well. While he has shrewdly and masterfully run a campaign that transcends his race and plays into white guilt, he is at heart as racially-driven as his neighborhood of choice. His wife’s thesis demonstrated this, Obama’s controversial church demonstrates this, and if he is anything like Hyde Park and the general culture of the University, there’s no denying that race is one of his most notable motivators. You would think a neighborhood that was home to Milton Friedman for 30 years would have learned to think more objectively; in fact, Obama and company in Hyde Park are predictably and ideologically leftist.

The War against Mobility: in defense of car-based urbanism

In a recent post I tried to describe how many serious designer-oriented architects long for almost unlimited political power in order to achieve their goals for a better world. It was not intended to be an accusation against people who openly choose dictatorship but instead was an observation that the kinds of policies and changes in the status quo that currently dominate professional discourse have the effect of favoring centralized political power and the abandonment of democratic participation. From the dream of building a brand-new carbon neutral city dotted with grand starchitect-designed monuments to the unceasing calls by many designers to regulate how people should live--from being eco-friendly to promoting a contrived 'sense of place' to zoning that favors mixed-use density--they all require more concentrated powers to a government entity while usurping the freedoms of citizens.

The transfer of freedom from individuals to the state (or royal family) is really the transfer of who gets to make choices. It is from the ability to make choices that freedom becomes valuable, and one of the most fundamental choices is how one will get from one place to another. Mobility is crucial to exercising freedom and thus anything that promotes the free movement of individuals contributes the health of a free society. Walking is the most natural way we choose to move, and, unlike pack or herd animals, we humans cherish the ability to move at our own pace, in groups or by ourselves creating our own paths and being free to wander without fear. It is one of the reasons why the automobile has had as great a revolutionary effect on the pattern of human settlement as the beginning of agriculture. The movement of one's self, or 'auto-mobile' is as equally valid when a person walks with his legs as when that same person encloses himself in a steel cage with four wheels and an engine to drive. Scale and speed marks the difference between the two, and it also explains the fundamental change experienced by cities in the last century, evolving from mostly walkable cities to ones that have become mostly about driving from place to place. Given the mostly innate human desire to freely move, be it in a more natural mode such as walking or a more man-made mode such as driving, it follows then that car-based cities are a consistently logical development in the evolution of human habitation.

It is from this reasoning that I believe people will never willingly leave their cars en masse to walk exclusively. Despite all the added problems imposed by car use and the strains on the massive amount of required infrastructure, the enhancements cars have made average people's daily life have been dramatic as the fast-growing rate of car ownership throughout the world can attest. In addition to being able to travel greater distances in less time, the personal car, like walking, is infinitely multi-directional. Mass transit systems are by contrast linear in direction and often confine related human activity close to the line and more importantly along the nodes in where pedestrians stops (or stations) are located. They also limit an a person's perception of the city to sequence of nodes along the transit line in which the areas just beyond are almost insignificant. As an example, going out on drives through the Chicago affected my mental picture of the city in a vastly different way than what my car-less friends understood of their city. Whatever existed more than a quarter mile from the red line or blue line did not exist in their mental picture, and even they had to go to a location within such unfamiliar areas, they opted to become passengers in a taxi, which oftens prevented them from understanding where they were in relation to the train stop.

Driving allows the city to unfold itself as planar major nodes acting as coordinates, revealing the dynamic and complex relationship between remote urban concentrations. It greatly enlarges the geographic footprint that encompasses individual patterns of living and transforms locations once too far be of any use to people into a highly inter-connected node within an economically dynamic region. Whether the suburban sprawl that results is desireable should not be evaluated uniquely on an aesthetic or even spiritual basis but also on an understanding on how economic transactions take place over a geographic area. William T. Bogarts' recent book elucidates this latter aspect about sprawl, describing contemporary metropolitan areas as polycentric agglomerations consisting of a swath of competitive trading places. Critics against sprawl rely on a monocentric view of the city, which consists of the more traditional layout of a commercial downtown as the major employment center surrounded by residential zones just outside, often linked by major transit routes in a radial pattern. Bogart argues that the monocentric view no longer applies to the reality imposed by the automobile, and suggests that rather than to urge a strict return to the traditional monocentric city, we should try to better understand and improve the dynamic nature of our contemporary polycentric cities. It would allow us who hope to make positive changes to cities to do so with the goal of ensuring that metropolitan areas cultivate a wide diversity of experiences and lifestyles and to forge an environment for citizens to freely seek opportunities in infinite directions. There is no defined form or image of what such a city would look like, since it is important to acknowledge that cities transform over time and often are rarely the same place from one decade to the next.

Such an open-ended perspective allows for both new architectural and urban typologies to evolve and adapt, to solve certain conceptual and functional flaws and to generate new unintended problems. There is little doubt that automobile use has been the biggest instigator in the generation of new typologies, especially in regards to parking. The need to park our cars has transformed the way buildings relate to the street and in turn how they relate to people in terms of scale and speed. From retail storefronts lining sidewalks directly adjacent to the street to expansive gulfs of concrete and asphalt prefacing big boxes with eye-catching signage to catch the driver's eye while traveling at 60 miles per hour, new building types have been invented and new ways of approaching them have resulted. To many, auto-centric urban development has yielded dismal changes that have prompted a call for a return to pedestrian-centric development, with little interest to more skillfully integrate parking infrasture as part of a desired solution. They do not intend to improve the experience or the practicality of parking, they wish rather to eliminate it entirely. For them, the best cities are those that marginalize parking to the extremes, that promote lots of walking, and concentrate long-distance trips to linear mass transit systems.

I came across an example of this attitude against car-centric infrastructure in an article that describes the evolution of the parking garage througout the years. Philip Kennicot of the Washington Post wrote a review of presentation given by garage building historian Shannon Sanders McDonald who has recently written a history of the recent building type and how it has changed with the city the around it. Kennicot describes some rather interesting tidbits about parking garage design and how perfecting ramp systems overwhelmed any other efforts to making the parking garage fit better with the existing urban fabric. MacDonald documents this history to encourage the further innovation and improvement to make them less jarring. For Kennicot such a pursuit is futile, and thus his article quickly becomes his private tirade against the irreperable damage cars have made to the urban experience in general.

Thanks to the new-found use of reinforced concrete after the turn of the twentieth century, ramps were perceived at the time as an innovative device in the design of vertical circulation and became instrumental in portraying a new architecture that unified motion, space and time. Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright were enchanted by them as ramps could provide creative solutions to age-old as well completely new design problems. For Kennicot, though, the parking ramp helped sever the connection of a person to the ground and to the building being entered. By measuring its merits based on sound principles of pedestrian-friendly buildings, the author unfairly, in my view, indicts a building intended for the efficient storage of cars. While parking garages could be designed to enhance the experience of the pedestrian a little bit, the car-based life requires that this building type may not be able to function well if it were it designed with the kind of standards that apply to the walkable lifestyle. With this reasoning, Kennicot argues that since traditional standards don't apply, parking garages are doomed to be ugly and harmful to cities and he thus entertains the thought of simply eliminating the car-based lifestyle for good, especially since he questions whether cars are even that "fundamental to the American right to mobility in an urbanized world." He goes on to argue for the end of the parking garage and forcing people to walk or used a shared mass transit:

...Or should we work toward their obsolescence and elimination (retained only for shared cars, buses, electric vehicles, etc.)? That is a trenchant, hard-nosed but ultimately more rational choice than the blithe acceptance of them as necessary evils that just need a little tweaking. Banishing the garage would force some social engineering on a population that desperately needs to wean itself from a planet-killing addiction to the automobile. When a neighborhood becomes a parking nightmare, one of two things must happen: People stop going there, or they get there on foot, bicycle, train or bus. Residents of crowded Georgetown might well consider both options entirely positive.

Denying people the freedom to drive where they would like to go on their own terms doesn't appear to me to be the rational choice. Such freedom has been the foundation of our contemporary economy and has empowered us in ways unimaginable to those living in urban areas before the car. Something had to replace the horse and cart of not too long ago, and linear mass transit systems were the premier way of getting around until a new kind of personal vehicle could operate faster with less restrictions.

Kennicot also reveals the latent tendency by those who admonish cars to abridge the precious freedoms afforded by the automobile. Practicing such freedom like that of self-movement by technological means is now supposedly harmful to the planet (even though modern cities have never been cleaner and would be more so once cars run on eletric or fue cells), and forcing society to give up driving so much will make life better for all us, even while each individual is disempowered. For all of its drawbacks, the car is a symbolic enabler of self-reliance that provides an independence from collective life. It ensures that a city's citizenry will balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the community, and that one can leave an undesirable situation if it arises to go elsewhere, an undefined other place beyond the reach of walkers and mass transit passengers. Like the above author, there are many urban thinkers who believe in a city devoid of the unlimited mobility afforded by cars, who think there is little real benefit to car use. Somehow it is better to rely on a public transit system run by unions that are prone to strike, that cannot guarantee adequate personal security, or runs on an impractical daily schedule wasting lots of one's time (yes, even more than the occasional traffic jam).

Like Shannon Sanders MacDonald, I accept having imperfect-looking parking garages in exchange for the level of mobility they offer to all city dwellers. I believe that each new building type presents an opportunity for refinement and innovation and can only enrich and diversify the urban experience at a point in the long history of any city. The parkage garage is a very recent and immature building type, and who is to know what it will become in the next century? Instead of trying to return the city to an assumed golden era in the past where it was almost exclusively pedestrian-centered, I favor cities to offer multiple experiences, whether from the point of view of the walking passerby to the person driving on a viaduct at 60 miles per hour. I also favor a diversity of environments and ambiance, from both a sense of proximity as well as remoteness. And I favor all modes of getting around in an urban area, providing as many options as possible regarding the kind of speed (legs, bicycle, car, train) and the level individual control one wishes (driver/passenger/promenading). A city should always serve its traditional role as a cauldron of opportunity, but it can only prosper for as long as it enables its citizen to exercise choice in where they live and how they move.

The zero-sum mantra influences much of the thinking when it comes to how a city should develop in the future. It provides a pretext for planners and city governments to aquire more control over the lives of citizens by championing the needs of the so-called "community" over the needs of individuals. Restrictive zoning policies and ordinances follow which champion the will of a the majority (or the local city power elite) and punishes the minority, who then move out of the city and leave behing a place a bit less diverse than it once was.

A city that encourages all forms of urestricted mobility is one where everthing seems to possible with something for everyone. It suggests solutions that are not confined to 'either/or' but instead to 'both/and'.

Forget Three Parties, the Next Jump Will Be to Four

For as long as I have been politically aware, there has been steady clamoring for a third party presidential candidate, an independent rogue who could unite a big enough minority to pull off an upset. Ross Perot gave it his best shot, possibly helping Bill Clinton with sub-majority margins. Ralph Nader also tried, only to de-rail Al Gore in the tight 2000 race. And if the rumors are true, Barack Obama is prepared to do the same if he doesn't win the nomination. This must make the RNC happy, because they have to be doubting that John McCain will win over the conservative base needed for victory in November. I'm doubtful Obama would ever go for it, and would more likely wait his turn, get some experience, and improve his political acumen. He should be wise enough to know that he's too far to the left for middle America's taste in a 3-person race and doesn't currently appeal to "moderates" like McCain can.

But it raises an interesting possibility and it underscores that both parties are in desperate straights at the moment. While Republicans have boasted since 1994 they were a party with all the momentum, and that even when they lost elections it was because of the unity or purity in the conservative movement, that boast can no longer be made. The Republican party is without question divided in the same way the dreaded Democrats are, by trying to appeal to niche voting blocs like evangelicals and one-issue voters, with the one issue usually being abortion. Consequently, the libertarian influence vs. the "compassionate conservative" influence are butting ideological heads, with McCain ending up somewhere in the middle, the last man standing with little support among the purists.

That's not to say the Democratic Party also doesn't have serious problems, notably allegiance to voting blocs of their own. So, if the conservatives are unhappy with their prospective nominee, and if Obama bolts to run an independent campaign, who says this won't turn into a four-horse race? Maybe this is the time for ideological purists to fight it out on both sides, to lay it out on the table, to force America to embrace ideas over a party, especially if that party has failed them, which both sides seem to be saying.

This, of course, isn't likely, and America doesn't seem possible of embracing a German-style government, where minority parties maintain substantial clout, even in the face of no majority win. But there might be a temptation to open up the floodgates if Obama breaks rank with the DNC. After all, presumably, the winner would only need a higher percentage than the other three candidates to be president, as Bill Clinton showed in 1992 and 1996, and it wouldn't necessarily dictate that the congressional elections would need to follow suit as they do in Germany, or other European nations. Perhaps a third candidate on the left would open up the path for a fourth candidate on the right, perhaps someone who conservatives view as electable and ideologically pure, maybe a Fred Thompson/Duncan Hunter ticket.

I'd be amazed if we ever left the two-party system in any branch of government. Too much of our government, and even our culture, is built around a basic understanding of majority rule. In that sense, we more accurately represent a republic than a democracy, or a mobocracy. The loudest or largest minority of many minorities does not the law-maker make. Only the one who has the ability to sell himself and/or his ideas to a majority of the public can claim such a mantle. But there is the possibility that in a one-person office like the presidency, in a year where there are no clear front-runners, four candidates would emerge just as soon as three.

God, the Grammy's, and Drugs

I admit to having the dangerous combination of an education and an opinion, which makes me a "snob," at least in the eyes of my wife. But I find the Grammy's weird. Or rather, I find our reaction to them weird. Granted, their ratings were dreadful, but that really any of us care about them at all anymore is puzzling. I realize that such award shows do not appeal to me, as I cannot help but view music in light of history, which forces me to eschew much of what is modern. Even more, I find little innovation in modern pop, and spend far more time listening to podcasts than FM radio. What struck me in particular, though, was the response to Amy Winehouse's victories for best song ("Rehab") and best pop vocal album ("Back to Black"). 

Judging from my wife, it was a moral victory, a win for the underdog, the girl just struggling with an addiction. Now, perhaps my wife is alone in that sentiment, but judging by the audience's reaction, everyone seemed to agree. It really didn't matter how good her album was, only that she was trying to get her life back together...after the threat of prison, of course. I'm not sure any of the albums were particularly worthy of many awards and, being largely unfamiliar with the music scene these days, wouldn't know the difference. I can boast that Natalie Cole agrees with me, but still I find Winehouse's music uninspiring to say the least. I understand that she has successfully made lounge music from the 50's cool again, but is that really worth heaping praise on? (Which reminds me, is her music even good, or has she just run into a sympathetic Postmodern crowd, anxious to crown the latest "old" thing the next "in" thing. I remember Norah Jones riding a similar wave on better-than-average music, only to join the ranks of the musically "good, but not compelling" category quickly thereafter.)

While I didn't watch the whole show, I can only say that my general sentiment was one of emptiness. Not to sound like a college radio DJ, but do we really believe these shows are driven by much more than the music industry picking who they would want to win, who should win? Winehouse was apparently a great pick, as no one was going to deny an addict struggling to recover. But at the end of the day, the show was just a trip down memory lane, hoping to tap into some rock nostalgia, and a display of the latest and greatest, who rarely seem able to develop an interesting chordal progression, presumably because it doesn't sell well.

This reminded me of a seminal reality as it concerns art, morality and religion. Ultimately, my main objection to most modern art, be it oil on canvas, Amy Winehouse, or independent films, is that they are trying to cull from a rather shallow well: themselves. While occasionally brilliant pieces of artwork is produced using the inside-out method (I still enjoy Radiohead's Grammy-winning "OK Computer", and Warhol, while overrated, made some interesting observations about popular and celebrity 

culture), I would not be surprised at all if one-hit wonders are a by-product of this method more than anything else. Simply put, we're capable of producing fine art on our own, but inspiration that's lasting is hard to come by in secular circles. Beyond shock and anger, the staples of the modern artist, what else can the world give you?

What's the alternative? Well, I'll call it the outside-in method, the process of devoting your art to God, at the risk of sounding like a pietist. In other words, it is a fool's paradise to assume art is its own reward, or that it can stand on its own for long. (I highly differ from Ayn Rand in this regard.) Eventually, inspiration for the artist will be limited if their own minds and souls are the sole source. But the beauty found in religion, God, or scripture, or any combination of the three, is a treasure trove of inspiration for the modern artist, if they will only bother to look. 

Consider the amazing (stunning, really) output that the Church has produced. 2,000 years worth of sermons based on a pretty small number of ancient texts, and the artform is still evolving. The invention of western music from Josquin des Prez, to Palestrina, to Bach, to wonderful largely anonymous composers who are still producing beautiful poetry. Or the cathedrals that still stand as prayer in stone, even after architecture said those styles were outdated. Again, label me a snob, I just find songs about rehab boring, and worse, depressing. Only when we engage in such Postmodern irony do we chuckle at such a song, and feel so, well, nothing about it.

Further Reading...

Recently I've found a couple of interesting on-line reads that I would like to share about topics outside the usual realm of architecture. I figured that I could give some of my readers a rest and maybe provoke interest regarding other subjects. Below are a few reads well worth one's time:

• As of today, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party is John McCain. When his candidacy was on the rise following his win in New Hampshire, I happened to read an article that at first seemed to be an invitation to support McCain but that ended up actually being a persuasive reminder on what should truly matter in all politics beyond either party's dominant ideology: a creed stating what one believes about human nature and how virtue should play a part in the affairs of individuals. It isn't a question of philosophical purity or consistency but rather a question of whether it is the right thing to do. It is fundamentally better for a political leader to adhere to timeless virtues than to repeat all the right talking points. Benjamin and Jenna Storey make to my mind a convincing point, stating:

" ...they (ideologues) will lose an important -- indeed the most central and precious -- aspect of their creed: the faith in the virtue of individuals to make a good society for themselves, rather than the faith in an ideology to make a good society for us. "

Their article takes libertarians to task and reminds me why I gradually moved away from the libertarianism I subscribed to during my youth. It may seem naive to those who are generally cynical, but I believe it is imperative to preserve virtues that undergird a free and good society.

• Last month Louisiana inaugurated the first the Indian-American governor ever in the U.S. Considering it was a little more than 16 years ago that David Duke was riding high in the Pelican State, the overwelming electoral victory of Bobby Jindal appears to be evidence that voters were finally willing to give a young ambitious man who lacked the traditional Louisiana political pedigree to solve seemingly intractable problems. In a post I wrote on another web site on the night of Jindal's election, I reflect on where the new governor came from, as he and I are fellow alumni at the same high school Baton Rouge. It was a truly unique place, filled with brilliant and talented young minds that stood out from the stiffling malaise that was life in Louisiana during the last few decades. I admit to often being cynical to who politicians are and what they can deliver, but his unique background and proven character makes me more hopeful about that state than ever before.

• Is the ultimate goal of an education is achieving tolerance? From my perspective tolerance is just one of the many means useful to enhancing a person's education, spurring an insatiable curiosity and a desire to continue asking questions about anything. However, to many others, the job of education is not to instill a life-long skill for knowledge or foster employable skills, nor even to familiarize the young to notions of productive achievement. Instead they would like to socialize individuals to accept difference, to doubt any notion of objective intelligence or genuine academic achievement and to scapegoat those who choose to not become part of the group. Scott Walker writes in an understandably bitter tone about the fallacy of the doctrine of inclusion that dominates pedagogy in our public schools. When a school system forces students of various learning ability in the same class, the quality of instruction and achievement declines overall. Be sure to read the accompanying comment thread, as it reveals an orthodox perspective from those who promote the doctrine of inclusion. For these people, the problems with our public schools is not the lack of academic achievement but rather a lack of money for this or that program and that it isn't inclusive enough. How can one be hopeful for any productive reforms from within the school system with such a mentality?

• A particular preoccupation that many women my age seem to have is trying to explain the lack of men wanting to get married. Apparently "commito-phobes" are a problem to many young women, and naturally the men get the blame. If there is one thing I am certain about, it is that the scapegoating of men for all sorts of things that sometimes are really the fault of women only leads to a greater faultline in the expectations of what men and women actually want. In trying to explain why more and more men are delaying or downright shunning marriage, there are two complementary articles I recommend. The first is Kay Hymowitz's exhaustive account describing men's natural state of immaturity and the need for civilized society to channel their energy in productive ways. To put it more simply, young men of today won't grow up because society don't expect them to, which may explain why men don't aspire to marry. The second article is a forum hosted by Dr. Helen at Pajamas Media that focuses on how contemporary society has made marriage a increasingly losing proposition for men, from biased divorce laws to a rejection of letting men be men within marriage. The discussion thread features an endless series of comments from disgruntled men, which in my view are illuminating in spite of their bitterness.
  
  
• For some dazzling and imaginative examples of computer-generated architectural modeling, rendering and graphic, be sure to visit the Slovene Igor Mitric's blog. It's a genuine craft, and doing this kind of work as part of my job makes me that much more appreciative of those who do it with such incredible sophistication.