RSS Feed:
Anti-Social, Despotic, Architecture
Released: Feb. 26, 2009.
A listener asks James Howard Kunstler to react to the Feb. 9 fire that destroyed a Beijing building by Dutch starchitect Rem Koolhaas. Kunstler believes many famous architects, including Koolhaas, often strive to confound people in order to appear supernaturally brilliant. It’s all in the service of grandiosity and narcissism, though. Rather than attempting to disturb our expectations, architects should strive to give us buildings that are neurologically comprehensible and that satisfy our need for cultural orientation. Kunstler also takes shots at a proposed skyscraper in Boston and the Southern Poverty Law Center. **Tim Halber, managing editor of Planetizen, responds in a listener comment to Duncan’s recent comments about the failures of new urbanism.
Direct Download:
KunstlerCast_53.mp3
( 29 MB | 31:34 mins.)
Rem Koolhaas CCTV building in Beijing,
photo by Iamdavidtheking.
BUY NOW: The KunstlerCast Book
Book Cover: The KunstlerCast, by Duncan Crary (New Society Publishers, 2011) Paperback – 320 pages 6 Inches × 6 Inches (w × h) Weight: 261 Grams ISBN: 9780865716933
Available at Amazon
Or Shop Indie Bookstores (price varies)
For Canada, Buy Here
For all else, check online.
If books were made out of Cheez Doodles this is what they would look like: bright orange, bite size, leaves a tasty residue on those who touch it.
REVIEWS
“This book is indeed great fun. … However, Crary’s superior volume has the guts to truly grapple with the harsh realities shaping our times—realities that few dare discuss out in the open.”
“KunstlerCast is an easy read that you can dip into and out of at will”
— Peter Bane, Permaculture Activist Magazine (.pdf), February 2012
“For those of you wanting a good overview of Kunstler’s thinking and for those of you that want to share JHK with others but may fear being embarrassed by the sometimes ‘salty’ language he can use, this book is a great tool. The format is, by design, conversational. You can digest it in small bites or in large pieces. And the Kunstler world through Duncan’s eyes is not necessarily sanitized, but it is communicated in a way that I think will reach a broader audience.”
“The 320-page New Society Publishers offering was just released in paperback and is based on four years of weekly Kunstler riffs recorded by podcasting journalist Duncan Crary. In his introduction to the book, Crary professes to be merely a host, and sometimes a Kunstler foil, but the two upstate New Yorkers really are kindred intellects.”
—Ready to despair? ‘Doomer’ exhorts us to ‘grow up’, Jon Rutter Lancaster Sunday News, Nov. 12, 2011