{"id":283,"date":"2005-02-07T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/?p=283"},"modified":"2005-02-07T00:05:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-07T07:05:00","slug":"theres-only-room-for-one-moss-in-this-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":"There’s only room for one Moss in this town."},"content":{"rendered":"

No one else seemed to have picked this up (trans:<\/em> an eight-second Google search turned up nothing), but last week, the Architect\u2019s Newspaper<\/a><\/em> 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<\/em> you’re dating someone else.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\nConcerns that this might sully the introduction of the city\u2019s 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>, a firm that hasn\u2019t had an original idea since Miami Vice<\/em> went off the air (and even then, they were questionable ideas), a creative bankruptcy that has saddled the city with the Times Square Westin<\/a> and Avalon Chrystie Place<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe 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\u2019s contribution. If one was prone to unfounded speculation, and I\u2019m very much about that, I\u2019d say the unveiling of MoMA, as well as the plans being floated for both MAD and the Whitney, make the lil\u2019 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\u2019s braggadocio in demanding even more money so that he could make the architecture disappear (too bad he couldn\u2019t make the drywall contractor disappear, but that\u2019s a story for another day).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m perhaps a little bit of a sucker for that too, so I don\u2019t feel so bad they sent Moss packing. Let\u2019s hope that Gluckman Mayner<\/a>, the town bike for the Whitney board, gets a crack at this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one else seemed to have picked this up (trans: an eight-second Google search turned up nothing), but last week, the Architect\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missrepresentation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}