Customer Reviews:
What a honeymoon.......2003-04-03
My wife and I used this book on our Honeymoon and in 3 days did 3 of the four walks, it made the trip absolutely unforgettable, romantic and beautiful. I remember detail of Florence that I will never forget thanks to this book.
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- Harry Hoxsey was NOT A QUACK!!!!!
- SHOCKING!!
- Bilking the Credulous
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Quacks and Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey
Eric S. Juhnke
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
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ASIN: 0700612033 |
Book Description
One promoted goat gland transplants as a remedy for lost virility or infertility. Another blamed aluminum cooking utensils for causing cancer. The third was targeted by the Food and Drug Administration as "public enemy number one" for his worthless cures.
John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey were the ultimate snake oil salesmen of the twentieth century. With backgrounds in lowbrow performance—-carnivals, vaudeville, night clubs—-each of these charismatic con men used the emerging power of radio to hawk alternative cures in the Midwest beginning in the roaring twenties, through the Depression era, and into the 1950s. All scorned the medical establishment for avarice while amassing considerable fortunes of their own; and although the American Medical Association castigated them for preying on the ignorant, this book shows that the case against them wasn't all that simple.
Quacks and Crusaders is an entertaining and revealing look at the connections between fraudulent medicine and populist rhetoric in middle America. Eric Juhnke examines the careers of these three personalities to paint a vision of medicine that championed average Americans, denounced elitism, and affirmed rustic values. All appealed to the common man, winning audiences and patrons in rural America by casting their pitches in everyday language, and their messages proved more potent than their medicines in treating the fears, insecurities, and failing health of their numerous supporters.
Juhnke first examines the career of each man, revealing their flair as businessmen and propagandists-—with such success that Brinkley and Baker ran for governor of their states and Hoxsey had thousands of supporters protest his "persecution" by the FDA. Juhnke then investigates the identity, motives, and willingness to believe of their many patients and followers. He shows how all three men used populist rhetoric-—evangelical, anti-Communist, anti-intellectual—-to attract their clients, and then how their particular brand of populism sometimes mutated to anti-Semitism and other sentiments of the radical right.
By treating the incurable, Brinkley, Baker, and Hoxsey took on the mantles of common folk crusaders. Brinkley was idolized for his goat gland cures until his death, and Hoxsey's former head nurse continued his work from Tijuana until her death in 1999. In considering who visits quacks and why, Juhnke has shed new light not only on the ongoing battle between alternative and organized medicine, but also on the persistence of quackery-—and gullibility—-in American culture.
Customer Reviews:
Harry Hoxsey was NOT A QUACK!!!!!.......2006-04-12
I didn't read the book and I don't know about the "fabulous careers" of Norman Baker and JOhn Brinkley, but I do know quite a bit about Harry Hoxsey. HE WAS NOT A QUACK! I resent that he was included in this book. Harry Hoxsey had a legitimate cure for cancer and to call him a quack is to be as narrow-minded as Dr. Fishbein, head of the AMA back in Harry's day, who was the one responsible for persecuting him at every opportunity because he (Fishbein) was afraid that Harry would put all oncologists out of business due to the fact that his cancer treatment actually worked. He had a cure rate of 80-90% depending on whether the cancer was internal (80%) or external (90%) provided that his patients had not already received the debilitating "conventional treatments" of the day which include radium therapy and x-ray exposure. These treatments actually weakened the patient and caused them to be sicker than ever, so by the time they got to Harry's clinic they had less of a fighting chance. Harry's "cure" is actually a collection of herbs/plants that have been scientically proven to have anti-cancer, immune-building, and restorative properties. This treatment absolutely, positively DOES WORK!!! The clinic is located in Tijuana, Mexico because money-grubbing physicians were so worried about its success that the clinic was forced out of the country so that it would not destroy their multi-billion dollar hospitals and clinics (paid for by multi-billion dollar drug and chemical companies, by the way) because the "conventional" treatments they have to offer simply do not work. Harry Hoxsey was a brave American who was not afraid to fight for LIFE and the right of each American to choose their own health care treatments, not what some politician or doctor tells them to do. He was a HERO, not a quack, and the author of this book should be ashamed of himself for not investigating the authenticity of his treatment further before making such an outdated and unfounded claim.
SHOCKING!!.......2003-02-04
This book is all the more shocking when you realize that RIGHT NOW the taxpayer, thanks to credulous politicians like Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Dan Burton and others, is being made to pay for "medical care" that is every bit as crazy as the things in this book. Someday someone will write a book like this but it will be about *present-day* nonsense, including a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (the only center in the NIH oriented around the needs of practitioners - CAM practitioners in this case - as opposed to the needs of patients) that pays for psychic power therapy, a White House Commission on CAM headed by a former devotee of the Bhagwan guru whose group launched a biological attack in Oregon, and on and on ...
Bilking the Credulous.......2003-01-14
We have had a boom in interest in "alternative health care" recently, but that interest has been with us ever since there has been a medical establishment to which there could be "alternatives." In the American Midwest in the 1930s three alternative healers began a rise to financial, social, and political power. _Quacks & Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey_ (University Press of Kansas) by Eric S. Juhnke documents the rise and fall of all three medical conmen, and gives a lesson in the dangers of credulousness.
John Brinkley was a licensed doctor, having graduated from a diploma mill. He latched on to the "gland transplant" experiments done on animals, and believed that transplanting animal glands into humans was a key for rejuvenation. "A man is as old as his glands, and his glands are as old as his sex glands," he proclaimed. Male goats were the randiest animals, so they were the tissue donors, but they turned out to be just the thing to boost female fertility and development of the bust, too. He compared himself to Jesus, gave sermons, and demonized the American Medical Association. Norman Baker specialized in cancer cures. He worked as a machinist and in vaudeville before settling down in Muscatine, Iowa. He persuaded city officials to let him start a radio station that would present honest-to-goodness down home programs as opposed to the high-brow fare coming from the cities. Baker called Morris Fishbein, the head of the AMA, the "Jewish dominator of the medical trust of America," and insisted that his clinic was a bastion for personal freedom and against the evils of urban industrialism. Harry Hoxsey proved to have the most staying power. He specialized in herbal cancer cures as well. Not a physician, he was able to enroll renegade physicians into his service, and he was bankrolled by an evangelist minister. In Dallas, he enjoyed poker, nightclubs, and womanizing, and his diatribes against interference by the AMA and the government won him friends from the political right wing.
Juhnke's tales of these colorful characters are great fun to read, even though the rascals bilked many of their patients of money and sometimes their lives. The eventual success of the AMA against them is not a pure victory; the shortcomings of the AMA at the time are examined here, too. Few people remember these quacks now. The towns that boosted them because they brought in business now view them as an embarrassing part of their histories. It is important that Juhnke has brought them again to our attention. We may no longer have such manifestations as goat gland transplants, but anyone who watches television knows that herbal cures, homeopathy, and healing magnets are still taking money from the gullible. There is still a large group of potential patients who view organized medicine (and governmental regulation of medical treatment) as some sort of conspiracy, and of course there are plenty of faith healers who are glad to have their flocks doubting the efficacy of regular medical treatment. People are finding it harder to pay for physicians, and drug costs are up. Brinkley, Baker, and Hoxsey may have eventually lost their power and their millions, but Juhnke's useful study reminds us that there are always healers ready to take their place.
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Dog Tales: A Photo Diary
Susan W. Kelley
Manufacturer: Brandylane
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0977162400 |
Book Description
Spiral-bound to lie flat, and handsomely packaged with a rigid fabric cover and plastic band to hold sketches and notes, this information-packed technique source book is on every professional metalworker's must-have list. Filled with drawings and charts, it goes into incredible depth on every crucial topic: materials, tools, shaping, surfaces, joining, color, finishing, casting, stones and stonesetting, chains and clasps, and findings and mechanisms. Need details on bench accessories? Find out about bench pins and how to use them, squares, knives, scrapers, sanding boards, pliers racks, and more. Want to know about gems? A Gem Summary Chart gives the name, colors, cuts, hardness, and heat sensitivity of the top 50-and that's just the beginning. It's practically required reading for professionals!
Customer Reviews:
If you are only buying one metalworking book............2007-09-09
There are a lot of great books on the market for metalsmiths and jewelry makers but this is one of the best. If you are going to buy one book, make this the one. Even if you are going to buy a bunch of books, this is the perfect first one.
The Complete Metalsmith by Tim McCreight is the bible for metalworking. It is written as a technical reference book covering physical properties of different metals, basic instructions for almost every jewelry making technique imaginable, and even great extras like basic plans for a jeweler's bench that can easily be modified to fit your space and needs. Just about every tool and piece of equipment imaginable is covered with a good description of basic use and an illustrations. Issues of safety are also thoroughly covered.
This is not a pretty book full of full color glossy photos. It is not a detailed project book. But it is a great reference book for your bench. If you need simple basic instructions on any technique or tool, it's a great place to look. Tim McCreight is one of the leading authorities on metalsmithing and jewelry making in the country (maybe in the world), so his instructions are accurate and easy to follow.
This book is designed to be used at the bench. The hard cover is covered in a very durable canvas-like material. It has a heavy spiral binding enabling it to lay flat on the work bench.
This is definitely the best first book for your collection if you are just learning metal working and jewelry making. Even if you have been at it for a while, it is a great book to have in your collection for when you want to expand into a new technique.
Definitely a must have!
Review of Complete Metalsmith book.......2007-09-08
Excellent book, great information, etc. I bought this used and I am very satisfied.
Complete metalsmithing.......2007-09-01
A must have reference for everyone interested in making jewelry or working with metals. Very thorough!
Complete Metalsmith, Professional Edition.......2007-08-15
This is a great book, just like everyone has said, however you need to know some of the basics to truely understand the information. I am a newbie to metalsmithing and eager to learn, but this book is way over my head right now. In the future it will be a great reference book.
bound to fall apart.......2007-05-19
Informative book, design makes the functionality not so great. The spiral binding routinely releases the pages from its binding. Frustrating....I do like the rubber band that attempts to counter act this problem.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent! My favorite gardening book........2002-04-03
I have purchased many landscape design books and found that none of their canned plans would work for my yard or taste. Then I found this one and was off and running! Although I was looking for a book that would tell me exactly what and where to plant, this author taught me a few design principles involving height, placement and neutral areas as backdrops that work with the plants I like. His plant profiles and recommendations were invaluable. I would buy it even if I didn't live in Southern California. Why is it out of print?? Find a copy!
Book Description
Renowned and respected family psychologist John Rosemond blames child-centered parenting books from recent decades for creating a generation of dependent, often defiant children. He sets the record straight in The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children, an updated version of his highly successful book published more than fifteen years ago.
Booms in technology and mass media have created significant changes in society in the last two decades. The text in this revised book has been thoroughly updated to reflect today's society, yet the foundation of Rosemond's timeless and effective approach remains constant. He encourages families to return to tried-and-true, fundamental parenting truths that people did naturally before the "new science of parenting":
Parents aren't their children's friends; they are their leaders. Parents are at the center of a family-not kids. Your marriage must come before your children.Each chapter includes easy-to-relate-to questions from parents, which Rosemond answers with both common sense and a sense of humor. For families feeling overwhelmed by competing advice about parenting, this book will ground them with logical, proven approaches to the most significant challenges parents face today. From issues such as self-esteem and discipline to television and chores, this straightforward guidance will facilitate a return to parent-centered families where children are raised into responsible adults.
Customer Reviews:
This parent loved it.......2007-09-04
As a mother about to embark upon the 2nd year of my child's life and wanting to avoid the cliched "terrible" aspect of it, I found Rosemond's book. I enjoy his column in our paper and found this book to be full of helpful advice. His sarcasm fits with my own sense of humor, and I don't believe in the path so many are taking in securing their child's self-esteem and happiness above the good of the family/your spouse, so this book was a good fit with my personal style. He really gave good, sound advice that will help me adapt my parenting with my child's development and behavior.
On another note to "A Reader" regarding day care facilities and his recommendation of the 1 to 5 ratio, I work in a licensed child care facility, and there is a state mandated ratio of 1 to 5. Child care facilities are not money-making ventures. In a perfect world it would be a 1:1 ratio, but that just can't happen. But, in most child care centers worth their stuff that one caregiver gives excellent care and attention to those 5 children. Yes, the best thing is for them to be cared for at home by a parent, but if that can't happen then we can find a wonderful child care provider who will take the best care of your child that they can. And as parents looking for child care facilities, we can heed his advice and make sure the minimum licensing requirements are met. Better yet, call your local licensing agency and find out what those are!
Excellent - back to basics.......2006-12-29
I was thrilled with this book and agreed with 95% of his advice. John Rosemond removes guilt, babying, whininess, and overstimulation from the parenting equation. It freed me, as a pregnant woman, to parent in the way I instinctively would. His theories make complete sense and seem to align with a child's natural development (i.e. how can a 2 year old be reasoned with, or why should we ask a child to "please" do something, therefore giving him/her the option). There are WAY too many overly indulged children in America now - all parents, regardless of philosophy, should read this book.
Tough Love.......2006-11-11
I did enjoy the book. It is very hard line and teaches parents to help their children to grow by letting them have opportunities of play without adult supervision, while making children responsible for their actions through consequences. It made me think and I highly recommend it.
Great book.......2006-10-05
This is a new and longer version of Rosemond's original 6 point plan book. Rosemond is "old fashioned" in his pareting advice. He thinks good parenting is based on the use of common sense, and not learned from studying parenting theories and applying them to analyze your children. He thinks responsibility, resourcefulness and respect are the 3 most important things to instill in your children-and this book will tell you how to do that.
This book has a lot of Q & A, some of which will not apply to you. You can skim those parts and pick and choose to read the questions that are relevant for you. I would also HIGHLY recommend you read A Family of Value. That is the single BEST parenting book I have ever read. While I believe Rosemond's style of parenting is "out" right now, I think there are a lot more parents going back to basics and hopefully his ideas will hit the mainstream. Reading this book will make you no longer fit in with the "parenting is the hardest job in the world" crowd anymore. Instead, you will be in control and confident in your parenting.
I did dock a star and here is why:
1) It seems as if in Rosemond's world breastfeeding doesn't exist. In reality, it's becoming more popular and is a MAJOR part of the first year of life for many new parents. He needs to at least mention it in his discussions of kids in the bed and daycare, for example.
2) While Rosemond does say home care is ideal for children under 3, he still acts like daycare is no big deal for young children. He says to make sure there are no more than FIVE babies to ONE caregiver. Read that again....I can tell you there is no way ONE person can give even BASIC care to FIVE babies!! It is just not humanly possible.
3) He underestimates the impact of divorce. I am 31 and grew up to see about 50% of my friends' parents divorce. These were not bad parents. Some divorced on amiable terms. Most of these kids, including my best friend, suffered lasting damage from the divorce. Some still struggle with relationship issues today. Even if the divorce is best for everyone, it can and often does have a huge negative impact on children. It is no small issue.
All in all, excellent parenting advice. I would highly recommend anyone read this book, and read it when you are pregnant if possible. You will save yourself a lot of headaches.
Good old fashioned parenting.......2006-09-23
I read this book after reading "positive" parenting books that weren't helping my three year old (i.e. timeouts, logically talking through it, etc.). After reading this book, I realized that my boy needed to know who really was in charge and to expect consistent consequences that meant something to him. Rosemond's book is really good about describing how a child becomes "insufferable" and gives detailed examples on how to make sure you keep your child from becoming that way. I think he's a bit cynical and sarcastic, sometimes in a good and sometimes in a bad way, but overall really gives specific examples of how to help your child grow to be a responsible, well-mannered, ENJOYABLE child. He says well-behaved children are happier themselves, and it's up to us as parents to help them get that way. I think every American parent needs to read this. There's something in it for all of us to learn. I don't agree with everything he says, but the overall message is priceless for parents at their wits end with their kids. It is already working better for our three year old after one week.
Customer Reviews:
down to earth, no-nonsense parenting tips.......2007-02-15
Dr. Rosemond is a true expert. Not only has he clearly studied the area of child development, but he's lived it with his own children. In the day and age where 'feel good' parenting is running rampent, I found Dr. Rosemond's book to be a breath of fresh air and an excellent resource in raising my first child.
The Missing Parenting Manual.......2006-06-09
Every parent should be issued a copy of this at the hospital after the birth of their child. Just a lot of good sense boiled down to six easy rules.
I make it a habit to give this as a baby gift to all my friends.
John Rosemond outshines the rest.......2006-02-25
Having heard the man in person, parents and grandparents can't go wrong with his books.
Fine, Behavioristic-Flavored Text.......2006-02-05
If you cling to a behavioristic idea of discipline and raising a child, then Rosemond's book will give you "plain folk" explanations on how to put it efficiently in your family.
Parents preferring a much more logic/natural consequence-based discipline philosophy/system may find some of his ideas head-nodding, but others will leave them raising a pondering eyebrow accompanied by thoughtful head scratching.
Check it out. It's a good, informative read on discipline.
As the father of two boys, I regret not reading this sooner.......2005-11-30
This is a straight-forward, easily understandable quick read that makes perfect sense. I noticed the difference in my boys ages 6 & 4 immediately. It was like "lord of the flies" at my house before this. My boys were pretty good kids before, but now are markedly happier, calmer and smarter -- and so are we. The author does not give advice to a parent that requires unrealistic measures. This is basic stuff that we should all know. I challenge anyone to give it a try. I have never written a review before but feel that every parent in the US should read this book.
Amazon.com
In the (anti-)tradition of Rem Koolhaas's and Bruce Mau's S,M,L,XL, this volume is less a photographic tour through the edifices of maverick architect Daniel Libeskind than a fractured, sometimes frustrating and always compelling spin through a giant edifice of ideas. Though he has been a been a leading architectural professor and theoretician for some 20 years (Philip Johnson calls him "Quirky, maddening, but brilliant..."), Libeskind only showed up on the international radar as a practitioner a few years ago when his jarring, norm-busting Jewish Museum Berlin earned him a Pritzker nomination--and such high-profile new commissions as the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England; the Jewish Museum San Francisco (JMSF); an extension to the Denver Art Museum; and, most sensationally, an addition to London's beloved Victoria and Albert Museum. This last is a giant tiled geometric phenomenon that spirals right up out of the sober nineteenth-century pile's courtyard into the sky. Nicknamed just that--"The Spiral"--it elicited a public furor in which no one in the monument-fetishizing U.K. hasn't had an opinion.
All told, though, Libeskind hasn't had that many commissions, and most of them weren't even completed at the time of the book's production--which perhaps accounts for why this nouveau monograph is really about seventy-five percent text, all of it set in various funky juxtaposed types and comprising a vast selection of Libeskind's speeches, lectures, interviews, project texts, and the like. (Libeskind has also attained considerable recognition for his quasi-experimental architectural models and illustrations, many of which are featured here.) Much of this text (almost all of which, save a few Dadaist forays, is vastly more linear and transparent than Libeskind's fascinating, challenging postindustrial architecture) pertains to his built or in-progress work, photographs or drawings of which are also included here--though never keyed to the same page as the text in which they are discussed. If that seems annoying, it sometimes is--though it's rather clear that Libeskind and the book's editor and designer did it intentionally to disrupt the conventional way we consume an architectural monograph, flipping through from A to Z, oohing and aahing over the color-soaked pictures, and grazing over their pert corresponding captions.
If you try to experience The Space of Encounter in that fashion, you'll get frustrated. Better to approach it the way Libeskind apparently wants people to experience his architecture--from many points in time, space, and human experience, in seemingly random, dissociated bits and pieces. Just like his signature windows, which look as though they were blasted onto walls by a not-very-good shot with a futuristic laser gun, they will, once you get close enough, afford a dazzling, if not wholly unified, vista out onto a new world of forms, language, and ideas. --Timothy Murphy
Book Description
For more than twenty years Daniel Libeskind has been regarded as one of the world's leading architectural theoreticians and educators. Since 1973, he has taught at more than forty institutions, maintaining such distinguished positions as head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art's School of Architecture in Bloomfield, Michigan, founder and director of Architecture Intermundium in Milan, Italy, the Sir Bannister Fletcher Architecture Professor at the University of London in London, England, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles' School of Architecture and Urban Planning in Los Angeles, California, and the First Louis Kahn Professorship at Yale University.
Throughout Libeskind's career, his approach to the profession of architecture and the development of the world's built environment has defied convention. He is one of the last heroes of the architecture world's avant-garde. And while he is the recipient of numerous awards and citations for his designs, Libeskind's architectural output has largely consisted of models, drawings, poetry, and ephemera. For years, Studio Libeskind sustained itself as a laboratory for the testing of his boundary-breaking ideas.
In 1989 Libeskind competed for the commission to design what would become the Jewish Museum Berlin. He won. Since then, he relocated his office from Milan to Berlin, was nominated for the Pritzker prize for Architecture, and was commissioned to design the Felix Nussbaum Haus, a museum for the city of Osnabrück, Germany, which opened to critical acclaim in 1998. In 1999, he was awarded the Deutsche Architektur Preis (German Architecture Prize) for his Jewish Museum Berlin, a structure that received over 250,000 visitors before it contained even a single work of art.
Now, because he has been commissioned to design the extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England, the Jewish Museum in San Francisco, California, the JVC University in Guadalajara, Mexico, and, most recently, the extension to the Denver Art Museum in Denved, Colorado, the world is encountering in built form the riveting design concepts of Daniel Libeskind.
the first book to get inside Libeskind's extraordinary world, The Space of Encounter eschews the traditional monograph format as it tracks the architect's life's work, pulling the reader back to the 1980s and guiding him through an often mesmerizing array of ideas and projects extending into the year 2005. By revealing for the first time in book form his project proposal texts, excerpts from lauded speeches and lectures, interviews conducted with international newspapers and periodicals, in addition to his poems and correspondence, this book captures Libeskind at a major turning point in his career. Here, we learn of Libeskind's experience of being a radical educator to becoming a high profile, convincing and inspiring architect. Complementing his brilliantly insightful textual material are his forceful drawings and full-color images of his project models, finished projects, and projects in progress.
Customer Reviews:
Why Bother ???.......2006-03-18
Impressionable, wannabe architects seem unable to distinguish between wholly pretentious writing and genuine architectural investigation. The black-clad, thick-glasses-wearing set fool themselves into believing that the most incomprehensible writing must therefore be the most important architectural writing. Such is the case of Daniel Libeskind, architecture's most pretentious poseur, who continues to dance pussy-like on the patch of self-delusion preferring fashionable balderdash to real intellectual inquiry.
`The Space of Encounter' is one of those annoying books that present oodles of jarring typefaces, contrived references to classical literature and obscure poets, among other ploys used by the author to imply erudition. Of course it is nothing of the sort. Unable to distinguish between name-dropping and the architectural design process, little of merit emerges. It is a simple gimmick that Libeskind exploits to confuse impressionable and gullible students, but only amuses the more capable, inquiring architect.
And more importantly, if Libeskind had to hire another architect to design his own home, (as he did!!), how seriously can he be taking himself anyway?
An American Architect???.......2005-10-26
The thing about Liebeskind, that is even more true in his followup book, is that as much as Liebeskind tries to pass himself off as an American, a refugee seeking the American Dream, he is yet another European fool. Full of his own absurd 'concepts' of architecture and devoid of the human experience, he is always singing his own praises, even if no one else is listening. If his perverbial tree fell in the forest, he would be the only one to hear it.
Architectural Merit.......2004-08-21
The above critic has a deep seeded grudge against Libeskind and his work and has obviously not visited Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin. The museum offers some of the most dynamic and moving spaces in the contemporary architectural scene.
A Well Designed Ego.......2004-06-20
It's very unfortunate that you cannot give a book zero stars or, better yet, minus 5 stars. The only interesting design that Daniel Libeskind has ever come up with is his own ego. That is truly a work of art! The book is a hollow attempt to be clever, the way a teenager (or adolescent) who thinks he knows it all would try to be clever. I was actually embarrassed for him after reading it. Now, tell me again, how did someone of such little consequnce and talent "win" the the LMDC competition to redesign Ground Zero?
Million Dollar Genius.......2004-06-01
They say that `Real artists don't know they are artists". Usually, the corollary is also true: those arrogant enough to make the claim of greatness for themselves are typically judged otherwise by history. Not willing to allow posterity the final judgement, Daniel Libeskind and wife/partner Nina recently demanded (under threat of lawsuit) an additional $1 million dollar `Genius Fee' from Ground Zero Developer Larry Silverstein, who replaced the pouting designer with another firm. Add to this that Daniel and Nina hypocritically sub-contracted the design of their New York City apartment to another architect (evidently they weren't able to do it themselves, or - more interestingly - to let anyone in their office handle it), and you can see why they are the laughingstock of the architectural profession. Libeskind's meritless fame owes more to outrageous and clownish antics, than designing buildings of long-term merit. A dab hand at slick images, his few built works already have the depressing aesthetics of run down bunkers. Understandably, he would not to want to live in one himself.
Great cities, (Paris, Rome, Barcelona come to mind) are marked by a consistency of character, the architect's inventiveness displaying itself in subtleties and refinements to the dominant harmonious qualities. Streets in particular benefit from commonality of scale and materials that develop a strong sense of place. The skillful designer learns to be spectacular while not destroying what is already in place. (Think of Carlo Scarpa's work in historical centers, and you'll see what I mean.) - Not so for Libeskind, who offers disharmony, disjunction, destabilization, crass geometry and historical ignorance as though it were a way forward for the urban problems we face today. A disrespect for context and regional character marks the diagrammatic formalism of his lumpen and unsophisticated modeling.
This tedious volume chronicles in amusing and nonsensical prose, the unverifiable suppositions that underpin Libeskind's anti-urban, anti-architecture, anti-human designs. It is dressed up in fanciful, glossy graphics of course, but these are the gimmicks that impress (as magpies are attracted to any bright and shiny thing), juvenile, but unrefined minds. If the Libeskinds deserve a `Genius Fee', it should be for the PR exercise that enabled them to promote this aesthetically illiterate foolishness for financial gain, (now marketed at $1 Million Dollars). But this latest cocky arrogance draws attention to them for the skilled commercial opportunists they are. In Europe, Daniel and Nina managed to fool some of the people for some of the time. Thankfully, more savvy Americans were not so easily deceived by the Libeskinds' entertaining but ultimately laughable circus act. If you must see this show, please remember to throw some peanuts to the monkeys.
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James Hogan: Revolutionary, Historian and Political Scientist (Cork Studies in History and Culture, 1)
Manufacturer: Four Courts Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1851825207 |
Books:
- Manual of Bacterial Plant Pathogens
- Maya Textiles from Guatemala
- Mesquite, its biology in two desert scrub ecosystems (US/IBP synthesis series)
- Methylotrophs: Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Genetics
- Mushrooms, A Separate Kingdom
- Mysterious Beauty: Desert Plants and Cacti of the Americas
- Native Orchids of North America North of Mexico
- New England's Mountain Flowers: A High Country Heritage
- North Dakota Department of Transportation roadside research project: Wildflower inventory
- Nutritional Food Values: Natural Vitamins and Minerals (of) Tropical Fruits, Herbs & Spices, Etc.
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- Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation
- Work and Personal Life: Managing the Issues
- Three Generations of Warriors: The Argonne Trenches, The Flying Tigers and the Skies of Vietnam
