‘The Art Behind the Architect’

Is Santiago Calatrava (the subject of a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) “a sculptor who designs buildings, an architect who makes sculptures, or an engineer who excels at both”? In James Gardner’s view [“The Art Behind the Architect,” Page 1, October 18, 2005], it is not clear – “impossible to say,” in fact.

Since there is no dispute over the meaning of the terms “building” or “architect,” of course, all will agree that Mr. Calatrava is an architect who designs buildings. There is, however, a great deal of controversy over what “sculpture” is. That ordinary people tend to reject the notion that abstractions such as Mr. Calatrava’s “purely sculptural works” (whether “organic,” “kinetic,” or “constructed”) qualify as art has long been known.

At the press preview for the Guggenheim’s 1996 exhibition, “Abstraction in the Twentieth Century: Total Risk, Freedom, Discipline,” for example, art historian Mark Rosenthal acknowledged in a brief conversation with Michelle Kamhi and me that abstraction still met with “a certain amount of skepticism,” though he declined to speculate why this was so.

In his catalog for the exhibition, Mr. Rosenthal emphasizes the close kinship between architecture and abstraction. Both, he observes, are “nonreferential … unencumbered by narrative concerns.” Both, in other words, are detached from life.

Mr. Gardner seems aware of this issue. At one point he says that Mr. Calatrava’s architecture is similar in some respects to that of Richard Meier, whose work “does not – perhaps it cannot – evoke much beyond formal beauty and lustrous competence.” For most people, that is not enough.

Art must do more. That is why neither architecture nor abstract “sculpture,” such as Mr. Calatrava’s pretentiously titled “Mother and Child” (pictured with Mr. Gardner’s review), can be considered art. (Readers can search for this work at Google by entering its title, followed by the architect’s last name.)

Just before he concludes his review, Mr. Gardner compares Mr. Calatrava’s architecture to that of Frank Gehry. What Mr. Gehry makes, is – are you ready? – “sculpture that presumes to the status of architecture.” That makes as much sense as Goethe’s comparison of architecture to “frozen music,” which is to say no sense at all.

LOUIS TORRES
Manhattan
Mr.Torres is co-editor of Aristos (www.aristos.org), an online review of the arts.

‘Redford’s Poison’

Bravo to The New York Sun for having the courage to print Andrea Levin’s article on the Sundance Channel’s distorted documentaries “Redford’s Poison” [Opinion, October 14, 2005].

Thank you for revealing what many of us know. It is a great way to begin the Jewish New Year of 5677.

HOPE A. BERMAN
Manhattan

On Quotations

Your entire paper is well done and worth reading. But none better than those short quotes which grace your pages.

ROBERT L. DILENSCHNEIDER
Manhattan
Mr. Dilenschneider is chairman and founder of The Dilenschneider Group.

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