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Eavesdrop Issue 16_10.05.2005

Eavesdrop Issue 16_10.05.2005

THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS
As MoMA prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of its redesign and expansion, some of its neighbors are in no mood to celebrate. Frustrated members of the West 54th and 55th Street Block Association have barraged us with complaints about the asphalt-covered vacant lot adjacent to the museum. MoMA owns the land and currently uses it to corral its long lines of visitors and, occasionally, for storage as well. “What MoMA’s got up there are these hideous red barricades,” one disgruntled resident describes. “It’s a slap in the face to the people who live on this street and an embarrassment for our city,” he continues, recalling one German tourist who was taking snapshots of the offending lot because “it’s so ugly he told me he had to show it to his friends back in Hamburg.” (It seems not much is going on in Hamburg these days.) He also tells us that, at the earlier suggestion of the project manager for MoMA’s renovation, the Block Association has drawn up an inexpensive plan for trees and benches that would spruce things up until the museum decides what to do with the land. However, “We’ve repeatedly requested the opportunity to show our ideas to someone who is empowered to make decisions,” he says, “but the museum has refused.” In a written statement, a MoMA rep tells us that it “does not have any current long-term plans for the property” and “will continue to have a dialogue with the neighbors [and] keep them informed of new developments.” The neighbors’ likely response? To the barricades!

 

NAME-CALLING
Last month, we attended a lunch at Parsons for the groundbreaking of its new campus center, which will better combine its main buildings, and came to two conclusions. One, we love Lyn Rice’s design for the project. Two, we hate Parsons’s new name. If you haven’t heard, Parsons School of Design is now “Parsons The New School for Design.” And no, that last part is not meant as a tagline. It is the official name, as in, “Hi, I’m Paul Goldberger, the dean of Parsons The New School for Design.” But don’t blame Goldberger; he’s just a victim. The new name was handed down from The New School, of which Parsons is a part. And we here at Eavesdrop The Gossip Column of Architecture think it sounds really stupid…

REAL CELEBRITY ARCHITECTS
Adam Sandler and David Hasselhoff are headed for the covers of Architectural Record and Oculus-at least in Click, a forthcoming movie in which Sandler plays an overworked young architect in a big New York firm, led by Hasselhoff. Sources tell us that the movie’s producers, inspired by the offices of Morphosis, wanted to replicate Thom Mayne’s wall of fame, and asked the magazines’ editors for permission to create mock issues that feature the fictional starchitects. In addition, we’re told the AIA national office provided Call for Entries posters, awards certificates, member pins, and other paraphernalia-all for authenticity’s sake. However, rumors persist that Sandler and Hasselhoff’s characters will have a sense of humor…Meanwhile, Architectural Record also supplied back issues to prop a film called Super Ex-Girlfriend, starring Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson, in which Wilson plays an architect who breaks it off with Thurman, who happens to be a superhero. “Apparently, there’s nothing so vicious as a superhero who gets dumped,” says Record’s managing editor Ingrid Spencer. Architects, on the other hand, are used to it.

LET SLIP:achen@archpaper.com


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