James Shay

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  1. Sure, but I like Cotán, and I don't mind seeing an artist's personal variations on another's compositions. Yeah, I think it's interesting that Objectivish critics (like Lee Sandstead, for example), as well as average Objectivist viewers, are likely to interpret Cotán's paintings, since they are so similar to Mann's, as having the same Objectivish themes or meanings -- "orderly universe," etc. -- as hers are stated to have, that they are about having a proper, clear psycho-epistemology which declares "These are concretes as I see them!" and are about how the sensuous beauty of such clear concretes contribute to human happiness, where non-Objectivist art critics and historians would likely see both Mann's and Cotán's paintings as images of simplicity, sparseness, moderation and abstinence, and perhaps as reclusive expressions of the virtue of being a very modest servant of God. Unlike Mann's work, Cotán's was not mostly abstract -- the objects he chose were not devoid of symbolic content. I think the settings of his most famous still lifes, for example, would most accurately be called humble, monastic niches used as larders. In borrowing his style and settings, while eliminating the context and focusing on composition, I think that Mann, and those who rave about the flow, motion, textures, harmonies and other abstract qualities of her work, are well on their way to becoming hardcore advocates of non-objective art, despite not realizing it. Thanks, Jim. It's good to hear from you. I wish you'd post more often. J Jonathan, I read the critique you mentioned. I don't know about other objectivist critics, but I think that Sandstead is appreciating the art on an abstract level, and not really literally, as you mention with regard to Mann. I think that's partly philosophical (ojbectivist "concreteness" and all that) and partly based on the meaninglessness of the objects in the paintings. As subjects, they have pretty much been thoroughly beaten to death. Why doesn't she paint a toaster and a waffle iron instead of some antique chalice? The description you think of as being written by nonobjectivist art critics is quite good and more to the point of the original 17th Century works. It would be interesting to read what objectivist critics (if they are in the same vein as Sandstead) have to say when they get beyond the obvious in the paintings, which they seem to like, and confront the underlying religious symbolism and meaning in many of the paintings. Are the works essentially "evil"? I'd like to know why paintings of objects that are nearly completely dead to us with regard to meaning are so likeable to many objectivists. The argument that they represent clear vision is off-base - it's the vision of a 17th Century Spaniard that we see, reworked by but not added to by a 21st Century artist. Jim
  2. Correction: I don't have a copy of Six Degrees of Separation, but I've been told that I misquoted (or perhaps Valliantquoated®) Louisa's line, which I'm told is "Chaos, control, chaos, control." J Jonathan, I agree with your statements about abstraction and like how you wrapped them into the comments of Linda Mann. The music argument - about its abstraction - is, as you say, a cliche, but compelling. I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century. If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century. And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century. Excellent posting! Jim Shay sixteen hundreds, seventeenth century! Jim
  3. Correction: I don't have a copy of Six Degrees of Separation, but I've been told that I misquoted (or perhaps Valliantquoated®) Louisa's line, which I'm told is "Chaos, control, chaos, control." J Jonathan, I agree with your statements about abstraction and like how you wrapped them into the comments of Linda Mann. The music argument - about its abstraction - is, as you say, a cliche, but compelling. I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century. If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century. And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century. Excellent posting! Jim Shay
  4. Here are some better examples created by some of the artists that I listed: They're not the specific images that I originally had in mind, but they're good representations of the styles that I was thinking of. Some of them are quite similar to your use of color variation and saturation, some are a little more subtle, others are a little more abrupt or intense. After I image-searched by artists' names, I also searched by time period. Still no luck with finding the specific images from 30 years ago, but I found a hell of a lot of older illustrations which were quite chromatic. I had forgotten that J. C. Leyendecker's work from the early 20th century was occasionally very colorful, as seen below at left. The three other images below are from travel and cigarette ads that appeared in Esquire in the mid to late fifties. While viewing a lot of commercial art from the past, I began to suspect that artists might intentionally avoid the type of color usage that we're talking about because they don't want their fine art to come anywhere near looking like magazine ads, sci-fi book covers or blacklight fantasy posters. I think that would be called artistic license. It's funny that the color usage in that image nags at you, but the size discrepancies in the image directly above it go without comment ("Sean Connery and John Rhys-Davies aren't that much smaller than Harrison Ford! Gosh, what a terrible visual contradiction!"). J Those later examples from the 50's are great. Thanks for taking the time to find them. They do show the French Impressionist color theory with realism in the genre of illustration. I wonder...the skill level is really high, at that time period the shift toward postmodernism was so overwhelming, I wonder how many of them would have carved out a fine art career if it had been otherwise. We'll never know. Michael, My understanding is that postmodernism in painting, sculpture and architecture arose in the 70's, after their philosophic underpinnings were constructed in the 60's. You've written about pomo on your website, and here you say that the shift toward it was "overwhelming" in the period of the illustrations put up by Jonathan, which is apparently the 50's. So, you must know something I don't. Are you talking about early undercurrents? If so, what were they? The illustrations make apparent a problem I have with your Venus. To me, she looks too much like a modern and transient vision of female beauty located very much within the last 2 decades or so, in the same way that the illustrations you remarked on look like the 50's. Venus' body is similar in shape, proportion, and muscle tone to those portrayed in contemporary fitness and skin magazines. This may not bother many others, who may not see her the same way I do, or may not care whether or not she's so apparently from a specific time, but it does me. When the great sculptor Frederick Hart's frieze in the National Cathedral was unveiled, as magnificent as it is, it was criticized for the over-perfection of the human figures, which are based in contemporary notions of beauty. They seem to be out of modern, fashionable magazines. I feel the same way about Venus. Unfortunately, Hart's wonderful art wasn't weird, angsty, or tortured enough for the blinkered art critics of the time to think of as extraordinary fine art, regardless of the figures. Venus is a mixed bag to me. She's a fine achievement in figure painting, but I don't share the same strong admiration expressed by others on OL. I think the power of putting her chest in the compositional center of the work, and the right breast and nipple almost dead center, detracts from the rest of her, because it is so unsubtle. There's more to eroticism than breasts. Although they aren't Playboy magazine-size, they seem too important here. She's a bit too "pin-up" for me. Perhaps that's why the comment about the illustrator Frank Frazetta, who paints "Shena of the Jungle" women with very obvious, pneumatic breasts, was made. You're a much finer artist than him. The tones, shadows and torque of the upper half of Venus are masterful, but not the bottom half of her figure below the ribs. Her upper body seems to have skin made of flesh and blood, while the lower part seems covered in a body stocking. The gorgeous tones on her chest and arms are much better than the awkward looking abdominal shadowing. Her hands, arms and chest are spectacular. If she's meant to convey ecstatic surrender or something else in the same vein she doesn't quite hit it for me. Her head and body seem to be focused too strongly in opposing directions. She looks overposed, and thus unalluring. But, clearly from others' responses, it's a personal thing. In your article on michaelnewberry.com, Pandora's Box #3, you illustrate a figure composed around an "S" curve. That seems what you're doing here, but it's too overdone. Venus' wide-eyed look to the side doesn't heighten her eroticism. An erotic Venus needs erotic eyes. I don't think they need to be looking at the viewer - they can closed, or downcast - but they don't work for me here. As the cliche goes, they really are the most erotic parts of our body. Back to postmodernism. At least as far as standard art history goes, isn't the 50's the decade of pop art and the shift away from abstract expressionism? I remember an interview with Robert Rauschenberg in which he said that the pop artists were, in part, poking fun at the serious pretentions of the abstract expressionists. Wit and irony are componants of postmodernism, so perhaps the 50's artists such as Rauschenberg and Johns, by your definition were postmodernists? I don't see it. Jim Shay
  5. Thanks for the reply, Jonathan. I'm glad you responded to the heart of what I wrote. I think the jazz analogy is a good one to help describe the compositional sense of the Weisman Center, although I have not yet visited the building. By the way, I think someday Gehry's best work, as odd as it is, will be regarded somewhat similarly to how we appreciate the great, but strange Spanish architect, Gaudi. His work is somewhat freakish, certainly far away from whatever the so-called "Gestalt" of the time is in architecture, and much more personal than most other architects' work. But, the buildings have a strange and profound beauty that evokes strong feeling and thought in the same way that other great architecture and art does. Sherri Tracinski's overriding response to the building is objectivist contempt. She sneers at it (her writing would go nowhere fast among architects and others looking for a good discussion of the building's values and shortcomings). And while she does write well about how buildings project values and how they can affirm our own beliefs, many of her criticisms seem to be not well thought out at all. I previously mentioned her misunderstanding of the construction and finishes of Fallingwater's great decks and her ignoring of the large deflections in the living room balcony. As another example of what I think is jumbled architectural thought, when she writes about the Weisman Center, she recoils from the nontraditional dispersal of forms on the exterior, and laments the "non-legibility" of the floor levels from the building's exterior. She wants the window openings to uniformly tell us where the floors occur, and is especially upset about a window on the front facade that seems to be located to harmonize with the exterior, rather than to have a strong relation to the interior space behind it. This criticism, like some of the others in her article, is one that I have a hard time believing she'd take to heart as an architect if she really gave the building some non-ideologically inflamed thought and didn't let her scorn carry her away. Many fine buildings don't have legible floor levels from the exterior. Even her beloved FLlW's Guggenheim is in part a great visual mystery with regard to floor arrangement, until the viewer begins to work out the relationship between the spiralling form and the art museum within. And often some of the most important work of the great Bruce Goff (much cared for by many objectivist fans of great architecture) in Oklahoma provides no clue to the interior floor platforms. As in jazz, the rhythms and syncopation are coming from somewhere other than classical composition, a place far beyond the very rudimentary stacking of floors upon each other. I didn't know that Tracinski is one of ARI's commentators. I think she should tighten up her scholarship, jettison the contempt and get rid of what seems like very excessive adulation for Wright and Rand. She has things of value to say. It's unfortunate the the ARI people put forth speakers and commentators who are heavy on what seems like sanctified wisdom and sometimes short on knowledge of a specific field. I'm wary of those who take an ideological leap when writing or talking about aesthetics. Occasionally, I have met architects and architectural students (some from Taliesin) who have a strange light shining out of their eyes and an odd set to their jaws, and who, in their own desires to bring some kind of moral certainty to architectural philosophy, have swallowed Wright, and sometimes Rand, hook, line and sinker. They have sold themselves very short and not found out who they really are. Thanks again for your reply. Jim
  6. Interesting info. You're right about the living room in the Barnsdall House, although I've only seen it from the interior garden court through the loggia - when the house was closed to the public in the 60's I, as a "well-meaning" and "fundamentally harmless" student, snuck over the roof into the courtyard to see what I could. Because Wright took some big chances on the house it remains one of my favorites of his work. Also, I was nearly lunch for 2 dobermans at his Ennnis House, when, again meaning well, I went over the parapet near the swimming pool to look through windows. Fortunately, a friend's warning saved me in the nick of time. I went back over the parapet as fast as possible and fell into the street below. To get into Sam Freeman's house from time to time I learned to show up with a nice young lady or two, and Sam would happily show us the place. He offered to rent me the Schindler-designed apartment under the garage, but it was a bit of a cave. Thank's for the tour invitation. Jim Jim
  7. I think Rand did have Fallingwater in mind as a partial model for the Wynand House. I like Brant's idea that it could have been the house in Anthem. What an image. Had Rand bought the Mayan Revival Storer House I wonder what the affect on her would have been. Perhaps she would have had more to say about the affect of the past on us? Living in that house would have profoundly affected her. It was purchased by a maker of mediocre movies who paid to have it beautifully renovated. (somewhat like the Wynand/Roard connection). It was sold again, recently. It's the most static of the LA block houses. The Millard House in Pasadena is the best of the series. The Ennis is the weirdest and the Freeman the most unassuming. The Von Sternberg House was one of Neutra's best, hands down. Very unfortunately, it has gone the way of the wrecking ball, as you probably know. The Lovell House looked great in LA Confidential - beautifully photographed.
  8. Yes, I was thinking of the difference between M. and Bernini--both awesome sculptors but M would be more of purist and Bernini made choices to maximum visual effect...The Guggenheim vs. Bilbao. Agreed Bilbao is quite beautiful. Michael Michael, I'll take Bernini, especially Saint Whatever Her Name Is in ecstacy. I also like M's Slaves, but am not crazy about David. And I'll take Bernini's paintings, too. But, what an architect M was. You know, I've enjoyed these exchanges about architecture and art, but my intention was not to start something in which I came across as some kind of pro with interesting details and anecdotes about architecture. What I hoped was that someone might pick up on what I wrote about objectivist writing on architecture and the necessity to think carefully when reading it. Fallingwater and Frank Gehry were within the writing I was looking at. The ghost of Howard Roard seems to be always present in the background of objectivist blogs, where Ayn Rand has inspired an interest in architecture in many who otherwise might not look at it. But, the so-called architecture specialists on those sites come from a very mixed bag. Alas, the subject may be too arcane and/or boring. Jim
  9. Jim This is all extremely interesting. I went through Fallingwater in 1974. Reading about its construction I was struck by how little time Wright seemed to have spent on site. Aesthetically to me it is the greatest private residence ever. In regard to the work he did for Ayn Rand, I do not like it very much. I thought it was generic, second-rate Wright, with too much massonry relative to glass and too damn big for two people. I also didn't like the way he did the casement windows, hung from the top seemingly from the top of the ceiling. If he had done more work on this design he would have greatly improved it. Wright, however, was an architect to his last day. Rand stopped being a novelist in 1957. Wright frequently indulged in magalomania. He proposed a mile-high skyscapper ("The Illinois") for Chicago and a beautiful bridge never built. (The George Washington bridge spanning the Hudson was built instead. Wright called the GW bridge "that agonized extravaganza," which it surely is.) Anyone who visits the Metropolitan Museum of art in NYC should visit that Wright living room interior there (I forget from which house he did). I have always been overwhelmingly impressed with his interior aesthethics, craftmanship and what-have-you. His best interiors were not Fallingwater, btw, which is great too. In a few years I intend to travel the country and see as much Wright as I can. Personally I prefer Richard Neutra to Wright. I think he used glass much better overall, but Wright's use of glass in Fallingwater is just outstanding. --Brant Brant, I have not studied the Rand Residence is the detail you have given it, but will look at it again. I remember the perspective. The house did seem quite large. With regard to what you call its generic quality, he had a few "in-house styles" that his staff knew how to put together after his conceptual studies. Generally they turned out quite well, though. I think the "Illinois" skyscraper will get built someday with appropriate structural modifications. As it's designed, building it would keep concrete plants on site and in 3 surrounding states busy for quite awhile. It's beautiful, but will benefit from the enormous progress in highrise construction of the last 20 years. The Petronas Towers in Indonesia are concrete and over 1,000 feet high - not nearly the mile Wright proposed. I think everything above that has been steel frame. I read somewhere that the drawing of the Illinois at the scale Wright chose is something like 15 feet long. I like very much how he integrated the landscaping into the highrise, as he did with the tower in Oklahoma. I mentioned the uncanny sense of wonder I felt in the Freeman House living room in LA. I sensed that in the living room that is in the Met, as well. Being restricted in the floor area you can actually visit compromises the experience, but I imagine it's necessary to preserve what's there. Although Wright was not actively on site, he did have a "clerk of the works", as he called him, on site at Fallingwater. He gets blamed for sagging cantilevers, too, like some of the others we have mentioned earlier. He put the construction shack out on the tip of the living room deck soon after it was poured, and some think doing so contributed to the sag, because the concrete had not satisfactorily cured. Do you know the Kaufmann House by Neutra in California, near or in Palm Springs? It's a great building, for the same client. Neutra was a great architect, but I like Wright's handling of space better than his and that's my bottom line. I'll have to look at his handling of glass. I like Schindler more than Neutra, because his buildings don't feel quite so "skinny" to me. But, one of the most beautiful buildings, in the manner of the above architects, of the Twentieth Century is the Barcelona Pavilion, by Mies van der Rohe. It is stunning, and he uses statuary to interact with it exactly right. It was one of my "first loves" in architecture. Jim
  10. Michael, At Fallingwater there is the slightly confusing array of stairs - which way to go? - and at the same time that great sense of being between sky and water. I think you were very fortunate to go through the Disney Hall during construction. It's a cliche to say buildings are at their most exciting during construction, but very true. That's been the case for me. I love being on construction sites. You are right about the interior/exterior disconnect, and that is a major knock against the Disney and Bilbao, along with their lack of interesting detailing in the building componants. The construction photos I have seen of each depict the walls constructed of enormous triangular truss stood on end, with one curve for the exterior shell and one for interior spaces. I have heard modernist architects who believe the structure, finish and shape of the space are one plane, whether curved or straight, denigrate the buildings because of their method of construction. If I understand you correctly about Michelangelo, what you say about finding something within that is the direct result of it's method of forming ( and I think he also implied seeking the shape out as if it were imprisoned within the stone) is interesting compared to the shape/form disconnect, and that for some is the problem with the Gehry buildings. If they were cast in concrete, as are the shells of the Sydney Opera House, for example, they would seem more to have been found within the material, rather than somewhat contorted out of steel (am I making sense?). I believe I read that Bilbao has something like 400,000 different sizes of structural steel. Impossible to do without computers, for sure. Bilbao still is extraordinarily beautiful. But, another way to look at the material issue would be to say that stone lends itself to mass, making the carving analogy appropriate in the sense that stone buildings sometimes convey a sense of having been carved. And steel and titanium might be said to lend themselves to trusses with shell-like covers. And then there is Wright, who said architecture is what isn't there, formed by what is. I like that the best! Jim
  11. I think you may be right, if the dates work. The scene when the couple discovers the house in Anthem is one of my favorites in her writing. I remember Rand writes something about the sun sparkling off the glass in the distance. Wright's Ennis House shows up a lot in films. Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner is in the house, although not in a very good looking area. Steve Martin's character in Grand Canyon lives in the Ennis House, and the film contains a beautiful shot of the living room. Jim
  12. I didn't know that the Barnsdall House had been restored. When I saw it the plaster wasn't in good shape. That house and the others in LA are such an interesting diversion from Wright's much more modern work. It's been written that they represent his response to the Spanish Colonial work popular in California during his years in the area. He wanted an earlier precedent for a revival style. Wright's work in LA and some of his early work goes distinctly against the grain of any connection with Ayn Rand. In The Fountainhead I remember that Roark lectured a client who wanted a revivalist house about the importance of building a modern home. Rand put her money where her convictions were and bought a beautiful and important Richard Neutra house in the San Fernando Valley. Roark's client exemplifies part of what many people want when they buy or construct a home, which is a lot of memories and associations with the past. In his own extraordinary way Wright was reaching for connections in California with the earliest level of significant North American architecture. I like revivalist buildings, when they're well done and have designed a few. I don't think that liking them or living in one is forsaking modernity. It would be interesting to read something well written about that by an objectivist.
  13. Brant, Both of the things you state are in the realm of myth with regard to Fallingwater, propogated by Wrightians to shift the blame onto the contractor and owner. In Fallingwater Rising, a recent book about the building, the author, who's name escapes me, lays out in detail what, it seems, really went wrong. As the author and others have stated, Wright pushed concrete into "the realm of folly". The decks are a combination of concrete beams hidden within the depth of the decks, all tied together on the bottom by a single concrete plane. They are enormously heavy. He later expressed regrets that he used such enormous amounts of concrete and did not design the side parapets of the decks as cantilevered trusses, which would have greatly reduced the deck's weight. I suppose there's enough blame to go around, but on this one it really wasn't the contractor or the owner. I believe the reinforcing steel was upped from 7/8 inch round to 1 inch square, and that wouldn't greatly affect the weight, although the number of bars may have been greatly increased, as well. Wright's own engineer later believed he might have forgotten some of the steel necessary to resist the deflection, although some people discount what he says. With regard to the flex of the cantilevers, the contractor apparently did not, as you say, set the formwork as he should have to allow for deflection. However, this anticipated deflection in concrete is normally no more than 3/4's of an inch, not 7 inches. In addition to the weight factor, there is also a misdesigned beam within the lower deck which Wright bent to go around the opening for the stair to the creek below. It does not function well, and is in part the reason for the sag. You mention the Barnsdall House in LA. I actually like it and the other LA houses quite a bit. The Barnsdall House and the Ennis House, which recently started heading downhill as well, are really ususual, no doubt, but I like their Mayan references, as odd as they are. What do you dislike about it? I spent a fair amount of time in the Freeman House in Hollywood, and it's interior was absolutely magical. Jim
  14. The result is, on the level of the microcosm, the impression of a world that is “rationally ordered, harmoniously integrated, and seamlessly joined with nature. It tells us that the world makes sense. . . . The theme of Fallingwater is rational order and its consequence: man’s harmony with this world” (22). In other words, Tracinski suggests, Fallingwater presents the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by obeying it. Gehry’s museum, on the other hand, presents instead the image of a world in which a certain kind of man seeks to command nature by asserting whim. Roger, Recently, while reading through your paper,"Art as Microcosm", I came across a statement about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which says that it's theme is "rational thought and its consequences: man's harmony with this world." You quote this from an article in the Intellectual Activist entitled "Architecture and Sense of Life" by architect and historian Sherri Tracinski. When I read it alarm bells went off for me, as they always do when Wright and Rand are wed. So, as an architect, I decided to briefly write a few thoughts about the work of objectivist writers on architecture, the Wright/Rand nexus, and the Fallingwater statement. I don't intend this as any kind of "mini-paper" and perhaps this isn't the best place to post my thoughts, because some of them aren't directly related to your paper. Michael and Kat might relocate what I have to say somewhere else on OL. Nevertheless, your article was a jumping-off place for me. The first three following paragraphs are about the character of the writing in Tracinski's article. These are followed by four paragraphs about her use of Fallingwater as an example of rational thought in architecture, followed by a few general comments about some objectivist writing on architecture. Tracinski extensively quotes Rand in her opening five paragraphs. She writes, "Anyone who has ever read The Fountainhead has been captivated by the moving eloquence of Ayn Rand's descriptions of Howard Roark's buildings.[Anyone?] At the same time, however, most of those who admire Ayn Rands' novels do not have a clear knowledge of how to evaluate buildings or judge the works of architecture they see around them. This is not surprising as it may seem. The Fountainhead provides little in the way of an explicit or detailed theory of architecture." I read and reread this because it seemed so odd to me. I wasn't surprised that Rand did not include a "detailed theory of architecture". Architecture wasn't an area of expertise for her. Tracinski, who at the time of writing her article described herself as a licensed architect and graduate student, writes, "most of the buildings built today are, like their architect's philosophy, such a hodgepodge of different elements that they convey little or no meaning." This contemptuous Randian/Wrightian nonsense is dumb and alienating, and implies an unusually great intellectual perceptiveness and a special kind of all-encompassing visual accuity possessed by the writer. Since she cannot have seen "most of the buildings built today" or interviewed most of today's architects (over 100,000 in America alone) to discover and analyze their particular philosophies, how did she arrive at her judgement? Did she look at representative samples and, if so, where? Illinois? Rio de Janeiro? Kuala Lumpur? How did she extrapolate the results to her conclusion? And what were her criteria for a hodgepodge-like philosophy? Wondering if Tracinski, as an actual architect, might have completed buildings which would provide clarity to her statements, I searched Google's 112 responses to her name for examples of her work in built architecture without success. (Said less politely, some architects I know might ask her to "put up or shut up".) Fallingwater is incomparably beautiful (at thirteen I decided to become an architect after reading Wright's The Natural House and the Living City. To say that I was astonished at the beauty of his work in the photographs and drawings of buildinigs within the text is an understatement.) But it's not an especially good example of rational thought. The weight of the enormous, poorly conceived and badly engineered decks was slowly tearing apart the building and dragging it into Bear Run Creek until massive structural corrections a few years ago. It has cost over eleven million dollars to save this relatively small house. Structural calculations are rational. As often happens when objectivists talk and write about architecture, Wright has been misappropriated to make the author's point, that Fallingwater represents the "consequences of rational thought: man's harmony with this world." More importantly and in addition to the structural weakness within its bones, Fallingwater does not visually exemplify rationality. Viewed from below the second waterfall past the house the cross-cantilevered deck off the living room appears to be headed into the water below the house because of its pronounced and unfortunate seven-inch-plus sag. Tracinski distorts Wright's intent and uses the finishes on the building's great decks to make her case that Fallingwater is a "natural" building. She praises them as "tan concrete" (they're actually gray concrete with an an applied pale apricot/yellow ochre finish), but that's not at all what he intended. He wanted gold leaf (hardly a "natural finish"). Can you imagine? Thank god Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner, refused to pay the incredible cost! In her article Tracinski is very off-putting when comparing Fallingwater to Frank Gehry's Wiseman Center, which she describes as "the architectural equivalent of an epileptic seizure, tin-can castle," and "a madman's fantasy world." The building conveys a sense of "unintelligible chaos" with its "absurb shapes" and has a "stage set effect." On entering the building you "are slapped in the face with a peacefully calm, simple lobby."(?) She has absolutely nothing good whatsoever to say about Gehry's building and nothing negative at all to say about Fallingwater. Tracinski has important things to say to those beyond the objectivist world who love architecture and who she might reach if she quit insulting them. She writes eloquently about what she regards as the relationship between The Enlightenment and architecture, and closes her article with a brief but excellent paragraph about the value of living in buildings that reflect our beliefs. She does a terrific, instructive job of walking readers through the evaluation of a building, although she inexplicably omits a discussion of architectural space, which Wright and many others think is the foundation of fine architecture. Unfortunately, though, many nonobjectivist readers run when they hear Rand and Wright so enmeshed. Most knowledgeable readers of architectural writing are aware of the dogma contained in Wright's books and articles, in which he sometimes says or implies that he is the Way, the Truth and the Light. I wish she had picked a different building by Wright to use in her paper, perhaps the Robie House near Chicago or Taliesin West, outside Phoenix. Neither of them have obvious structural defects that I'm aware of. More than that I wish she and Peter Cresswell, another objectivist writer on architecture who has a presence on SOLO, would more often use someone other than Wright to stand for all that's good in architecture. Since 1968, when I began to read Rand's work and that of others related to objectivism, I have encountered within the writing Frank Lloyd Wright's name literally thousands of times, and rarely if ever the names of other great architects used in a positive sense. By my admittedly somewhat arbitrary and hard to substantiate calculations at least two-hundred-thousand people, at the very least, have practiced architecture, since 1900, when Wright's independent career more or less really got going. Surely there are other extraordinary architects with whom objectivists can illustrate their points. Using him again and again becomes stale, boring and sometimes comes across as lightweight scholarship. And pairing Wright and Rand, two heavy duty moralizers, has a distinct whiff of "true believerism." Cresswell wrote an article, What is Architecture," which begins with an informative explanation of his beliefs illustrated with diagrams and photographs. He even includes a delightful excursion into Minoan palaces and Egyptian mortuary temples. But he then goes on to four or five pages of theory as it relates to contemporary buildings in which he extensively quotes Frank Lloyd Wright and almost no other twentieth century architect. In his article he talks of the "Gehry School of Post Modern Masturbation" and describes the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, which I like a lot, by Gehry as "egregiously incoherent." He describes those who write favorably about the building as "posturing fools." He goes after the fine contemporary architect, Zaha Hadid, when he writes of a recent design, "This mess, designed for the poor fools at the Cincinatti Art Centre, was budgeted at $34.1 million dollars. The fools were a lot poorer after paying for it." He says we live in an "Age of Crap". Actually, since at least the nineties we have lived in a spectacular age of architecture with regard to large structures. Course, sarcastic and sometimes inadequately researched writing doesn't uphold the spirit of rational discussion. Objectivists and others should read carefully when they encounter Rand and Wright used together.