23 Martin Filler Quotes for You to Enjoy

Martin Filler

American Critic

Born: Sep 17, 1948

Architectural Architecture Art Building Design First

Related authors: George Steiner Henry Louis Gates James Wolcott Kimberly Guilfoyle Margaret Fuller Pauline Kael Roger Ebert bell hooks

Before the professionalization of architecture in the nineteenth century, it was standard for an aspiring mason or carpenter to begin his apprenticeship at fourteen and to become a master builder by his early twenties. Martin Filler

Architecture Master Become Before Apprenticeship Nineteenth Nineteenth Century Carpenter Mason Builder His Begin Century Standard Aspiring Twenties Fourteen Early

The magnificent lobby of the Chrysler Building - faced with rare marbles, aglitter with decorative metalwork, and surmounted by a ceiling painted with a totemic image of the tower itself - leads to elevator cabs inlaid with exotic woods in fanciful patterns. The entire route from street to office is invested with ceremony, dignity, and delight. Martin Filler

Dignity Rare Building Lobby Chrysler Entire Faced Magnificent Delight Invested Leads Tower Ceiling Exotic Itself Office Woods Fanciful Patterns Ceremony Decorative Painted Marbles Route Street Elevator Image

The skyscraper style first advocated by Louis Sullivan - a tower of strongly vertical character with clear definitions among base, shaft, and crown - has remained remarkably consistent throughout the history of this building type. Martin Filler

Character History First Building Style Sullivan Type Consistent Definitions Shaft Strongly Remained Crown Throughout Remarkably Clear Tower Vertical Louis The History Of Skyscraper Base Among

High among the unpredictable variables that endanger the survival of worthy buildings are the vagaries of taste. Martin Filler

Survival High Worthy Unpredictable Variables Buildings Endanger Taste Among

The first half of the 1960s was the apogee of what might be termed the Age of Cool - as defined by that quality of being simultaneously with-it and disengaged, in control but nonchalant, knowing but ironically self-aware, and above all inscrutably undemonstrative. Martin Filler

Age Quality First Half Control Defined Above Simultaneously Termed Knowing Ironically Disengaged Being Might Cool

Although prefabrication has a long history - the ancient Romans shipped pre-cut stone columns, pediments, and other architectural elements to their colonies in North Africa, where the numbered parts were reassembled into temples - the idea took on a new impetus with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. Martin Filler

History Long Revolution Other Took Ancient Temples Architectural Colonies Long History Impetus Advances Columns Idea New Industrial Industrial Revolution Although Parts Were Shipped North North Africa Stone Africa Where Romans Elements Technological Numbered

Before World War II, Modernist architects sometimes had to resort to custom fabrication or outright fakery to achieve the machine imagery advocated by the Bauhaus after its initial, Expressionist, phase. Stucco masqueraded as reinforced concrete; rivets were used for decoration. Martin Filler

War World Sometimes Achieve Before Resort Machine Fabrication Architects Outright Had Concrete Were After Modernist Custom Decoration Used Initial Expressionist Reinforced Imagery Phase World War World War II

Winning the Pritzker assures a flood of work in one's seventies and eighties, jobs necessarily carried out by assistants as the demands of modern-day cultural stardom and the inevitable waning of physical capacities prevent many architects from attaining the transcendent final phase more easily achieved by artists in other mediums. Martin Filler

Work Inevitable Other Mediums Final Seventies Easily Carried Out Jobs Physical Architects More Prevent Winning Attaining Demands Cultural Achieved Artists Transcendent Eighties Modern-Day Capacities Many Flood Stardom Necessarily Phase Assistants

After Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the belief in decent housing as a political right or social obligation was supplanted in the U.S. by the notion that suitable shelter should be an act of charity. Martin Filler

Great Charity Obligation Political Society Suitable Lyndon Johnson Great Society Housing Shelter Decent After Social Should Act Notion Belief Right

Picasso's superhuman gift for draftsmanship might have made him lazy about pursuing the full potential of color. It was not unusual for him to build a composition by first outlining figures and objects in black and then filling the interstices in a perfunctory manner that can put one in mind of a museum-shop coloring book. Martin Filler

Book Gift Mind Black Made First Build Composition About Superhuman Objects Outlining Potential Color Pursuing Coloring Lazy Picasso Put Him Unusual Might Then Manner Full Full Potential Figures Filling

A turning point in the public's perception of the building art came with the publication of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'An Autobiography' of 1932, a picaresque narrative that captivated many who hadn't the slightest inkling of what architects actually did. Martin Filler

The financial benefits of prefabrication have never been as large as its advocates predicted, for although some labor costs can be reduced by machine manufacturing, on-site assembly of any building still depends to some extent on the handwork of skilled craftsmen. Martin Filler

Architectural kitsch is most common in the commercial pop vernacular - typified by the Big Duck of 1931 in Flanders, New York, a Long Island roadside poultry stand resembling a duck, which Venturi and Scott Brown made a cult object through their writings. Martin Filler

Made Long Big Object Brown Architectural Long Island Kitsch Poultry Through Writings Roadside New Most Island Duck Cult Vernacular Scott Commercial York Common New York Which Pop Stand Resembling

Cost overruns are not uncommon in architecture, particularly for designs that depart from structural or technological norms, or demand a finer quality of execution than commercial schemes - conditions typical of buildings for cultural institutions. Budgets are exceeded for many reasons, not all of them within an architect's control. Martin Filler

Quality Architecture Control Typical Finer Cost Architect Structural Exceeded Uncommon Schemes Demand Institutions Budgets Particularly Execution Within Buildings Cultural Conditions Commercial Than Norms Depart Them Reasons Many Technological Designs

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers's Centre Georges Pompidou of 1971-1977 - the true prototype of the modern museum as popular architectural spectacle - wound up costing so much more than planned that the French government solved the shortfall by cutting support for several regional museums. Martin Filler

Government Several Wound Solved Architectural Costing More Piano Support True French Prototype Up Rogers Than Modern Regional Centre Richard Cutting Much Planned Popular Spectacle Museum Museums

One of the most persistent images in American urbanism is that of the proverbial city on a hill, as first envisioned on these shores by the Puritan John Winthrop, via the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Martin Filler

First City John Puritan Envisioned Most Hill Gospel Saint Proverbial According Matthew Persistent American Via Shores Images

The danger for any artist whose work is both recognizable and critically acclaimed is complacent repetition - the temptation to churn out easily identifiable, eagerly welcomed, and readily salable designs. Martin Filler

Work Complacent Danger Easily Recognizable Out Critically Temptation Both Welcomed Readily Repetition Any Artist Whose Eagerly Designs

During the modern period, the vanguard architect has usually relied on small residential jobs both to supply a steady income and to serve as 'sketches' for ideas that are often later translated to the larger scale of public commissions. Martin Filler

The tall building, concentrating man in one place more densely than ever before, similarly concentrates the dilemma of our public architecture at the end of the twentieth century: whether the new forms made possible by technology are doomed by the low calculations of modern patrons and their architects. Martin Filler

Technology Man Architecture Made Building Before Our Dilemma Possible Architects Similarly More New Calculations Concentrating Tall New Forms End Than Modern Doomed Whether Place Forms Public Low Century Twentieth Twentieth Century Ever

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