His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
James Lileks ·
December 6, 2012 at 5:29am
Oscar Niemeyer, the architect of Braslia, has died at the age of 104. The BBC obit contains a priceless piece of leftist disconnection:
His style was not to everyone's taste, and for a communist some people say his work was not very people-friendly - focusing more on the architecture's form than on its inhabitants or functionality.
Yes, an odd thing, that; being a communist and not thinking about the actual human inhabitants of his schemes. He was, I’m sure, well-compensated for his work, including the UN in New York. But true to his beliefs! Let’s all sing: Oh I wish I was an Oscar Neimeyer / that’s a red I’d truly like to be / for if I was an Oscar Neimeyer / I’d pay no price for ideology
They never do.
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Comments:
Jan '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
I talked to a woman from Brasilia once, and not knowing too much about the country other than the Portuguese/Treaty of Tordesillas thing, mentioned Brasilia. I had read about it in a Readers' Digest eons ago. I mentioned it was lauded as an ideal of urban planning. She replied quite frankly "that place is a piece of [excrement]".
May '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Keep ranting, James, and I'll keep listening.
Jul '10
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Yeah, I often state that the UN should be moved to Ryugyong.
Nov '10
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Michael J. Totten on Anthony Daniels (Theodore Dalrymple) on Brasilia and totalitarian architects.
Sep '10
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
"for a communist some people say his work was not very people-friendly"
You know, I have heard it suggested that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che, Kim Il Sung, Lenin, and Castro were not overly "people-friendly" either.
Aug '10
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
"People-Friendly?!" What an absurd egoistic term. This term could never come from a truly politically emancipated individual. One must free oneself of egoism and acknowledge one's place within the species-being. It is only through acceptance of the species-form of man that one truly liberates oneself from purely egoistic individualistic illusions.
Niemeyer's architecture is a perfect representation of that form and a rejection of humanism. It is a full acknowledgement of species-being and thus represents the political state in its purist form.
Please refrain from reading radically reactionary media like the BBC. Their focus on phantasms like "friendly" and "individual rights" have no place in an actualized society.
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
More thoughts on the matter of Great Schemes, Dead Cities, and the virtues of classical architecture, at my own site.
Jimmy Carter: it'll be interesting to see the occupancy rates on the ol' Ryugyong. I'd love to think that the day it opens, and they turn on the bugs embedded in every room, the feedback shriek of 105 floors' worth of surveillance devices is sufficient to deafen everyone in the city.
Jun '10
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Nathaniel Wright: "People-Friendly?!" What an absurd egoistic term. This term could never come from a truly politically emancipated individual. One must free oneself of egoism and acknowledge one's place within the species-being. It is only through acceptance of the species-form of man that one truly liberates oneself from purely egoistic individualistic illusions.
Niemeyer's architecture is a perfect representation of that form and a rejection of humanism. It is a full acknowledgement of species-being and thus represents the political state in its purist form.
Please refrain from reading radically reactionary media like the BBC. Their focus on phantasms like "friendly" and "individual rights" have no place in an actualized society. · 1 hour ago
I think you are one of the very few who really understand things like this.
(Also, very funny.)
Mar '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Agreed, James. Neimeyer's work is repulsive and despotic.
Mar '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
It's not just the architects that fall prey to despotism.
The Federal Plaza in NYC was blessed to receive a major work by the artist Richard Serra entitled "Tilted Wall."
It's not a proper Communist wall. As any self-respecting Communist could tell you, it isn't a proper wall at all without a half-pipe of ferroconcrete on the top and a little razor wire as tinsel. It was 12' high, 120' long, and therefore "defined the space," mainly by preventing people from walking across said space.
The wall was removed in 1989 (a bad year for walls, as I recall). It couldn't be moved, as it was "site-specific." At the time, Mr. Serra expressed himself thusly: "I don't think it is the function of art to be pleasing. Art is not democratic. It is not for the people."
So there you go. This art isn't for you, it's for...um...
Mar '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Mea culpa. "Tilted Arc," not "Tilted Wall." I can't imagine how I got that wrong.
Engineers are such philistines.
Mar '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
While Mid-Mod was second only to brutalism in the history of ugly architecture, Oscar Neimeyer was the height of self-indulgent ugliness of that era. Still, I found it funny that an atheistic communist had to design a Catholic cathedral as part of his Brasilia commission. That must have stung, whether he ever admitted it or not.
I'm with Tom Wolfe when it comes to this architecture: it's all soul-sucking ugly, and the world would be better off if every last example was ground into dust.
Mar '11
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
Speaking of the Ryugyong, now that it has recieved it's glass-cladding, does anyone else besides myself see it as the world's largest example of Raygun Gothic? It seems like something Disney would have built in the old Tommorowland before they revamped it into a kind of steampunk theme. After all, this...
...reminds me of this
Apr '12
Re: His Bologna had a first name, it's L-E-F-T-Y
I've always been struck by the fact that progressives who tend to see the importance of the "organic" in nature, such as the ecosystem of the forests, are unable to see the importance of the organic in human society, whether it is in the creation of cities or the functioning of economic systems, believing that such things will work better if carefully planned by experts.