EDITORIAL
I MMVII

 
End of the Year Thoughts: Selling Out?

Modesty, propriety can lead to notoriety
You could end up as the only one
Gentleness, sobriety are rare in this society
At night a candle's brighter than the sun
--Sting, “Englishman in New York”

The Humanist Art Review is dedicated to a rebirth of the principles of art and architecture that generated those most compelling examples of human achievement that we call the Renaissance, and as such its editors are, by definition, optimists. We are not naive, however, and one would have to be so not to be troubled (saddened, frustrated, angry?) by the juggernaut of a reborn modernism in evidence in city and country around the globe. From Richard Meier’s urbanistically oblivious Ara Pacis Museum in Rome, to cynical examples of “green” projects in Paris (Thom Mayne http://news.bbc.co.uk) or Miami (Aquitectonica! http://inhabitat.com), to monstrous megalopolises rising around the Pacific rim, an architecture that is at once aggressive, a-cultural, and hyper-commercial documents the flattening of the planet’s urban landscape to one continuous, jagged, mechanistic moonscape. The problem is not ego per se (much of the great work of the Renaissance trumpeted the egos of patrons and architects), nor ambition, but rather a language of architecture at its root incapable of being humane, urbane, or beautiful. Somehow, the modernist mentality sustains the fantasy that, despite all evidence yet to the contrary, it can generate culturally, urbanistically, and environmentally sensitive buildings for human beings to use and love. Classicists have to date been hapless at positing any kind of alternative that does anything but provide a frumpy retreat from fun and challenge. With modernism clearly allied to the global market (product-driven, industrial, short-term focused) and celebrity culture (Brad Pitt), it is hard to imagine any town wanting to “put itself on the map” embracing the principles of humanist architecture.

And yet, that same global market, this time in the case of tourism, is mainly driven by destinations modernist architecture seems bent on eradicating: Tuscany or Umbria, Rome or Venice, old London or Paris, these are the places on the posters and websites, guidebooks and cookbooks that people (not by any means just Americans) flock to by the multi-millions to see and consume. Why is it that these two forms of desire--building and visiting—have not been aligned in the public consciousness? Probably because they seem to operate at cross-purposes: the new way of building satisfies images of progress and dynamism, the old retreat and peaceful stasis. But, if there is anything this site is dedicated to, it is the belief that the humanist approach is a dynamic, alive, and (can it be seriously said?) fun way of thinking about the arts and architecture. It is our hope, therefore, that this new edition of the HAR will continue to offer hope for a future as bright as the past--and in the meantime, we’ll shine even at night.

The point is that a consumers’ society cannot possibly know how to take care of a world and the things which belong exclusively to the space of worldly appearances, because its central attitude toward all objects, the attitude of consumption, spells ruin to everything it touches.
           —Hannah Arendt, “The Crisis in Culture,” Between Past and Future, Penguin Books, 1993, p. 211

David Mayernik, 1 January 2007

 
Publishing Note:

Dear David,
I thoroughly enjoyed putting your Renaissance Précis page together. It looks like we are unabashedly putting our true 'manifesto' forward. I don't think I've read ever before such a concise yet comprehensive explanation on the art of using the classical language of architecture. Bravo!
Taeho

 
 
"Humanism is a stream into which flow all the waters of the past, mingling the most diverse forms and ideas, fusing Christian allegory with the ancient symbols of the barbarian religions."
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 121