Reply To: Alsop and Schwartz debate

So, if we go back to the video… and listen to what was actually said by Will that generated this whole debate…

“No LAs should EVER get a hold of ANY of these commissions (landscape commissions), because they have completely institutionalized the idea of public space. LAs should learn what lives and what dies… you walk around the city with them and ask them to identify a tree, they can’t tell you… “

Perhaps this has been HIS experience in dealing with LAs? Or, his obviously limited observation of our work? This may indeed be true of some LAs… but not all.

To me though… this is a completely ill-informed blanket statement meant to define ALL LAs in a very narrow and unflattering light. So, naturally when you say things like that… LAs will object.

There were some good points to his argument, and we should take them to heart. He did say that “Architects try to interfere with the spaces around buildings, so that they have some relationship to the buildings and how they fall on that particular place.” So the argument made here that ALL architects ignore the ground plane… again, may be based on a particular experience, but is also a blanket statement that is indeed narrow and unflattering. This may be true of some architects, but not all.

The thing is… it becomes difficult to weed out constructive criticism when the critique is presented as an all or nothing argument. When mentalities are cemented in the thought process of black or white, good or bad, right or wrong… us vs them… ‘a battle mentality’… they will usually remain at war with something or someone. And when we make the mistake of using all encompassing qualifies like… ALL, EVER, NEVER, etc… there will usually be someone itching to step up to the plate with examples to bust those arguments wide open.

To me at least, this is what Martha was trying to do by redefining the profession in a broader scale.