No one else seemed to have picked this up (trans: an eight-second Google search turned up nothing), but last week, the Architect’s Newspaper reported that Eric Owen Moss had been dismissed as designer of the Queens Museum expansion. Moss was pretty vituperative in his response, saying, in part, that Tom Finkelpearl, the executive director of the QMA, was a hypocrite. When a high profile architect is dismissed, the tendency to close ranks (particularly in professional journals) is strong, and this is the case in the write-up, though perhaps this is because of the rather tepid statement from Finkelpearl that “things weren’t working out.” Dude, just tell him you’re dating someone else.
The lack of detail makes it difficult to conclude if it was a high-handed rising star being too difficult, or a bitter leader from the poor relations of the museum scene in New York trying to rule with an iron fist. As glib as that might be, it would be instructive to find out exactly why everything soured, since client relations are the real grease upon which any successful design turns. Big-name designers use intimidation and reputation, and those on the rise strive to be conciliatory, albeit tactically. But knowing how to do both with grace makes all the difference, and no one ever teaches that.Concerns that this might sully the introduction of the city’s Design Excellence program (of which this was the first major project) are likely overstated. After all, the prequalified firms in the program include Arquitectonica, a firm that hasn’t had an original idea since Miami Vice went off the air (and even then, they were questionable ideas), a creative bankruptcy that has saddled the city with the Times Square Westin and Avalon Chrystie Place.
The QMA is cagey about the future of the approved Moss concept. Well, not really — Finkelpearl thinks keeping the schematic plan of an atrium would be respecting Moss’s contribution. If one was prone to unfounded speculation, and I’m very much about that, I’d say the unveiling of MoMA, as well as the plans being floated for both MAD and the Whitney, make the lil’ QMA a bit jealous of all that hard-edged Late Modernism. And even though Moss presented a veritable zoo of undulating glazing, it would never produce the frisson of Tanaguchi’s braggadocio in demanding even more money so that he could make the architecture disappear (too bad he couldn’t make the drywall contractor disappear, but that’s a story for another day).
I’m perhaps a little bit of a sucker for that too, so I don’t feel so bad they sent Moss packing. Let’s hope that Gluckman Mayner, the town bike for the Whitney board, gets a crack at this.
Time to see if R.W. Johnson has the natural benefit his prodigious name implies (well, it worked for Don and LBJ).
They’ve got balls. Sticking it to Robert Wood Johnson. A fight to the death between the big swinging dicks of New York. Making Gargano their bitch. Pick your favorite homoerotic symbolism and lube yourself up with it (K-Y would be an appropriate aid), ‘cause we finally have ourselves a fight. We all know the ladies in skimpy outfits are simply distraction and sublimation: the main event will be a bunch of unattractive, ultra-rich New Yorkers getting good and sweaty in the quest to control a hole in the ground, the end result of which will be one massive screw job to Joe Q. Public. But in the latest chapter of the real estate soap opera (As the West Side Turns? Mike’s Hope? Subsidies of our Lives?) on the West Side, it looks like we might at least get the benefit of a reach-around.
Late last week, the Dolans, in the form of their minor media fiefdom, Cablevision, offered six times what Robert Wood Johnson is willing to pony up (and a third of what the MTA is asking) for the rights to build over the Hudson Yards site (Johnson apparently wants to build a stadium or something). It’s rumored (in my head at least) that the offer sheet had a little sketch of a Rockette planting her heel in Bloomie’s bloomies. The city was blindsided by this development, perhaps because the Dolans offered to focus on housing, which, even as it is a craven ploy to exploit the superheated Manhattan real estate market, still would provide the nominal benefit of increasing housing stock, which means that somewhere down the line, even though at considerable personal cost, a human being would benefit from the actions of a Dolan, which is probably the most disturbing and unreal aspect of the absurd theater that has developed since the MTA finally showed a little spine when presenting their internal assessment.
The mayor sputtered a response, but given the thematic organization of this post, the best imagery we can conjure would be Bloomberg taking a bat to some unfortunate, random Dolan’s car, screaming, “This is what you get when you fuck a stranger in the ass!”
Even the most cynical critic of the Dolans’ ineptitude in managing their various monopolies has to admire the timing of this move. It will take several weeks to sort out how binding their offer is; it will forestall the arbitration the city was about to push for; and it will continue to cast doubt on the city’s Olympic bid (already being spoken of in some quarters as hopeless, particularly since the recent speculation that London was more or less being written off). With the decision only four months off, the Dolans need only keep up their charade for another two months, and after that can count on any number of public figures who are in a position to trade their influence for pet projects to make noises about waiting another month or two — after all, why act in haste, when a specific answer is only a few weeks hence? They can then let due diligence take its course: when the city realizes the Dolans haven’t done a thing in this city without a handout, the future of this proposal will look understandably dim. Or they can simply withdraw the offer, chortling, and go back to basking in their massive tax deferral subsidy.
But, in the meantime, we can look forward to a good twelve rounds of old-school, hard-knocks New York one-upmanship. If it lasts long enough, people might even be fooled into thinking the ensconced power brokers in this town actually pay for the privilege, and that a real estate development will move forward with an actual risk component. Hopefully the MTA will be able to cash out before they all come to their senses, and reach into our pockets for the funding.