File Under Architecture: Herbert Muschamp

Back in NY its hard to see the skyline behind the gray sheets of rain coming down. But it is the perfect backdrop for reading the elegy of former NY Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp . It was published in The Times on October 3rd, written by Nicolai Ouroussoff and this is the section that moved me most.

His criticism stood out for the way he wove together
seemingly unrelated themes in an arch,
self-deprecating tone, a signature style that helped
break down the image of the critic as an all-knowing
figure who wrote from atop a pedestal.

In a typically sprawling review, of Mr. Gehry’s newly
opened, titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,
Spain, in 1997, Mr. Muschamp evoked the ghost of
Marilyn Monroe:

“After my first visit to the building, I went back to
the hotel to write notes. It was early evening and
starting to rain. I took a break to look out the
window and saw a woman standing alone outside a bar
across the street. She was wearing a long, white dress
with matching white pumps, and she carried a
pearlescent handbag. Was her date late? Had she been
stood up?

“When I looked back a bit later, she was gone. And I
asked myself, Why can’t a building capture a moment
like that? Then I realized that the reason I’d had
that thought was that I’d just come from such a
building. And that the building I’d just come from was
the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.”

He went on: “What twins the actress and the building
in my memory is that both of them stand for an
American style of freedom. That style is voluptuous,
emotional, intuitive and exhibitionist. It is mobile,
fluid, material, mercurial, fearless, radiant and as
fragile as a newborn child. It can’t resist doing a
dance with all the voices that say ‘No.’ It wants to
take up a lot of space. And when the impulse strikes,
it likes to let its dress fly up in the air.”

What a great legacy of language he left behind! I'm not ashamed to say his style and strategy is a huge influence at TI. His debut tome "File Under Architecture" is one of those great great collectibles! Here's hoping a collection of his Times articles will one day emerge.