« Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough | Main | Nets arena groundbreaking set for next week after court ruling »
March 3, 2010
In a takedown of critic Ouroussoff, Atlantic Yards is front and center
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, I've written frequently about New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, including a June 2006 critique of his first major piece on Atlantic Yards. Now, when the critic comes in for a drubbing by a peer, AY is front and center.
In a Design Observer essay headlined Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough, Alexandra Lange writes:
Should Ouroussoff turn out to be the last architecture critic, that makes it even more imperative to say: He is not good enough. He is not winning hearts or minds. He is not making a case for keeping the breed.
...Near the end of the essay, Lange fixes on something very important:
It is our city the New York Times architecture critic should be trying to save, not the gargantuan works of Frank Gehry or Jean Nouvel (or Philip Johnson). They can parachute in and out, but we (and ideally the Times itself) remain to live with the consequences.
Indeed, Ouroussoff's reflex--remember his public defense of Gehry when the architect was grilled about AY?--is to identify more with the architect than the city.
Related coverage...
Curbed, Architecture Critic Ouroussoff Called Out in Epic Takedown
Is there anything juicier than a savage attack on one critic penned by another? How about when the evidence cited includes meaty topics like Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Atlantic Yards, preservationists and other matters of big-time architecture in the Big Apple? Kaboom!
...Calling him "the perfect critic for the boom years," Lange echoes the oft-repeated Ouroussoff criticism that the dude is too in love with starchitects: "Yes to Gehry, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel; no to people you haven't already heard of."
Posted by eric at March 3, 2010 12:28 PM