Responding to msg by "carr0023@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<carr0023@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> () on
> That is a solid link, boarded house and Gehry
>construction
>
> the ethics would be interesting interpret..
After 27 years of parallel work with poor and rich NYC
architecture I ask that you pursue this very fruitful lead here
-- the schools and practice fear to, in my view.
Back and forth from Harlem to the Upper East Side, one for free
the other for fat fees, teaches me a bit about who is doing
what to whom.
What I've found is that unsafe buildings are becoming more
common in all walks of life. More and more, as real estate
mongers -- bankers, attorneys, contractors, unions, engineers,
vaporware architects, the kaboodle of property predators --
dominate urban management, the quality of the environment --
beauty, safety, health -- is declining. This is not news, in
one sense, but in another way it's news to me about how
carefully planned it is.
If I had not been working with highpowered legal and financial
firms associated with wealthy clients, I would probably still
be thinking along right-left, capitalism-socialism, ideological
lines.
My experience is that few powerful people care about the
physical detritus of their economic and professional pursuits,
mostly because the key advisors (ncluding techies) are
document-oriented and know very little about how to assess the
physical environment -- especially as a whole.
For six years I was consulting architect to The Pierre, a swank
apartment hotel here. During that time I worked on
long-standing violation-removals, coupled with adjustments in
legal-financial definitions of the property to take advantage
of tax and zoning revisions. What I learned was that this
process had been going on for over 50 years, from the time the
building was built. One law firm -- Stroock, Stroock & Lavan
-- had survived several changes of management and continued to
stretch out the compliance process, year after year.
We surveyed the entire building twice, cellar to roof, a review
not done since 1931. What we found scared the shit out of us:
40-story high, grease-coated kitchen-exhaust ducts, open in
several places, improperly dampered, a terrific fire hazard;
loose asbesto scattered about and wafting down main elevator
shafts; illegal kitchenettes in million-dollar flats; unsafe
entrance doors; makeshift toilet exhaust systems spewing fumes
into marbeled settings; and so on in this lovingly maintained
and theft-secured pile. (All reported by us in writing to the
owner and the Building, Health and Fire Departments.)
The Owner, 795 Fifth Avenue Corporation, responded, "Let's let
the attorneys take care of this." That is, if the lawyers
could protect them it was unnecessary to correct physical
hazards. It turned out that this was The Pierre's 50-year
policy revealed in Building Department records. My predecessor
architects seemed to like the steady income so they joined the
churning. (I'll name the Name architects involved in another
post.)
By reflection of this common legalistic approach, I was able to
understand physical neglect in poor neighborhoods, where a
similar approach it used: until public enforcement officials
discover hazards and force compliance, owners feel free to put
people in harm's way to protect their wallet. Hazardous slums
are not accidental, just common business ethics protected by
variably enforced law.
Other safety experts I talked to: insurance investigators,
fire marshals, building safety officers agree: until a
disaster kicks public officials into corrective action, owners
will not get rid of hazards. The various hotel, nursing home
and other "housing" fires in the last few years bear this out.
Think on this little known fact: buildings kill more people
than guns. But the RICO-attractive real estate industry does
not want this publicized. (I ran ads in NYT about this.)
Let me say, as I've come to know municipal codes better, it's
painful to recognize that none of the hundreds of buildings of
my work are safe as defined by law -- a set of documents
subject to final interpretation by lawyers, not "unrealistic"
technical professionals. And most technies kowtow to esquirish
threats.
At times I've accused attorneys of practising architecture in
advising neglect of hazards, but they invariably say its okay
to abide with conventional wisdom -- do what others do. I
strongly disagree. Architects and engineers are licensed to
"protect the safety of persons and property", the same language
used in Building Codes. The NY State Board of Architecture
supports me on this, and has taken action on my reports of
malpractice (note that the board's attorneys can whack me).
Folks here say we don't challenge convention due to fear of
"professional suicide", liability or the stigma of being weird.
I've lost sleazy business misbehaving, including The Pierre,
but work in frightening slums is scarier -- they are much
worse 27 years later -- and code enforcement is still being
reduced, thanks Rudy.
Planned, intentional urban neglect and decline, along with the
future business of urban renewal, has a long history in NYC --
the province I know best -- and this lucrative philosophy is
internationally exported by hotshot architects and the media
fig-leafing for the thugs world-wide. The Bonnie Prince knocks
Pelli on this but he's guilty of imperial-scale slums.
But, for me, knowing all this, it's time-wasting to blame
others for architectural failures in decrepit -- and swank --
urban environments. Seems to me that if we lowly
artiste-technicians meet our duty to fight environmental
hazards we might desrve the chance to design beautiful places
and replacements, then win an Apple Premorium Prize, maybe even
sleep at night.
How about some discussion on how to do this?
John
<carr0023@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> () on
> That is a solid link, boarded house and Gehry
>construction
>
> the ethics would be interesting interpret..
After 27 years of parallel work with poor and rich NYC
architecture I ask that you pursue this very fruitful lead here
-- the schools and practice fear to, in my view.
Back and forth from Harlem to the Upper East Side, one for free
the other for fat fees, teaches me a bit about who is doing
what to whom.
What I've found is that unsafe buildings are becoming more
common in all walks of life. More and more, as real estate
mongers -- bankers, attorneys, contractors, unions, engineers,
vaporware architects, the kaboodle of property predators --
dominate urban management, the quality of the environment --
beauty, safety, health -- is declining. This is not news, in
one sense, but in another way it's news to me about how
carefully planned it is.
If I had not been working with highpowered legal and financial
firms associated with wealthy clients, I would probably still
be thinking along right-left, capitalism-socialism, ideological
lines.
My experience is that few powerful people care about the
physical detritus of their economic and professional pursuits,
mostly because the key advisors (ncluding techies) are
document-oriented and know very little about how to assess the
physical environment -- especially as a whole.
For six years I was consulting architect to The Pierre, a swank
apartment hotel here. During that time I worked on
long-standing violation-removals, coupled with adjustments in
legal-financial definitions of the property to take advantage
of tax and zoning revisions. What I learned was that this
process had been going on for over 50 years, from the time the
building was built. One law firm -- Stroock, Stroock & Lavan
-- had survived several changes of management and continued to
stretch out the compliance process, year after year.
We surveyed the entire building twice, cellar to roof, a review
not done since 1931. What we found scared the shit out of us:
40-story high, grease-coated kitchen-exhaust ducts, open in
several places, improperly dampered, a terrific fire hazard;
loose asbesto scattered about and wafting down main elevator
shafts; illegal kitchenettes in million-dollar flats; unsafe
entrance doors; makeshift toilet exhaust systems spewing fumes
into marbeled settings; and so on in this lovingly maintained
and theft-secured pile. (All reported by us in writing to the
owner and the Building, Health and Fire Departments.)
The Owner, 795 Fifth Avenue Corporation, responded, "Let's let
the attorneys take care of this." That is, if the lawyers
could protect them it was unnecessary to correct physical
hazards. It turned out that this was The Pierre's 50-year
policy revealed in Building Department records. My predecessor
architects seemed to like the steady income so they joined the
churning. (I'll name the Name architects involved in another
post.)
By reflection of this common legalistic approach, I was able to
understand physical neglect in poor neighborhoods, where a
similar approach it used: until public enforcement officials
discover hazards and force compliance, owners feel free to put
people in harm's way to protect their wallet. Hazardous slums
are not accidental, just common business ethics protected by
variably enforced law.
Other safety experts I talked to: insurance investigators,
fire marshals, building safety officers agree: until a
disaster kicks public officials into corrective action, owners
will not get rid of hazards. The various hotel, nursing home
and other "housing" fires in the last few years bear this out.
Think on this little known fact: buildings kill more people
than guns. But the RICO-attractive real estate industry does
not want this publicized. (I ran ads in NYT about this.)
Let me say, as I've come to know municipal codes better, it's
painful to recognize that none of the hundreds of buildings of
my work are safe as defined by law -- a set of documents
subject to final interpretation by lawyers, not "unrealistic"
technical professionals. And most technies kowtow to esquirish
threats.
At times I've accused attorneys of practising architecture in
advising neglect of hazards, but they invariably say its okay
to abide with conventional wisdom -- do what others do. I
strongly disagree. Architects and engineers are licensed to
"protect the safety of persons and property", the same language
used in Building Codes. The NY State Board of Architecture
supports me on this, and has taken action on my reports of
malpractice (note that the board's attorneys can whack me).
Folks here say we don't challenge convention due to fear of
"professional suicide", liability or the stigma of being weird.
I've lost sleazy business misbehaving, including The Pierre,
but work in frightening slums is scarier -- they are much
worse 27 years later -- and code enforcement is still being
reduced, thanks Rudy.
Planned, intentional urban neglect and decline, along with the
future business of urban renewal, has a long history in NYC --
the province I know best -- and this lucrative philosophy is
internationally exported by hotshot architects and the media
fig-leafing for the thugs world-wide. The Bonnie Prince knocks
Pelli on this but he's guilty of imperial-scale slums.
But, for me, knowing all this, it's time-wasting to blame
others for architectural failures in decrepit -- and swank --
urban environments. Seems to me that if we lowly
artiste-technicians meet our duty to fight environmental
hazards we might desrve the chance to design beautiful places
and replacements, then win an Apple Premorium Prize, maybe even
sleep at night.
How about some discussion on how to do this?
John