From Frank Ducote:
Now for something completely different: Starchitects, the new oppressed group. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
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… the conservative pearl-clutching over starchitects is performed. It’s registered in bad faith. It’s at root an allergy to program, funding, public works, or intangibles that have nothing to do with the built environment. The objection to starchitects is dressed up in Culture Wars theatrics, meant to elicit partisan alignment around political identity in the face of difficult design questions. …
This all-too-convenient form of prosecution distorts a debate that society should be having over design. Which architects working in the private sector should we entrust with works in the public realm, and how do we make that decision? Conservative voices are welcome and needed in this conversation. But be wary of a coded term meant to cut the debate short: starchitect.
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/towers/towers.htmlhttp://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/towers/towers.html
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/towers/towers.html
Sometimes whether a “starchitect” is involved with important public projects or not is secondary to fostering constructive public discourse and analysis amongst professionals on a project, and honing the art of professional design competitions. Otherwise we end up with projects like the Vancouver Public Library which won an unprofessional public survey in a mall tour with the models (“Luv that coliseum!!!”; “Feed politicians to the lions, not Christians!”) while at least one of the other two designs presented a higher level of maturity, and the latest VAG stack-o-boxes proposal that was unveiled to the public only after a long secretive design process, as though the gallery is a private instituition.
Throwing nullifying terms like “starchitect” around just adds to the collective lowering of standards.