We're going to come right out balls out and ensure that we never eat lunch in this town again. We didn't really like Peter Eisenman when we had him in school. We thought we were going to learn about architecture, capital-A, even, but we mostly ended up nursing our hangovers (which we hadn't planned on but something had to distract us) while listening to endless rounds of Of Grammatology with a little Thousand Plateaus thrown in. You wanted disclosure? We give you full.

So we'll confess that our instinctual reaction was a swift "heh heh" as soon as we found this article about the "soup-to-nuts" redo of the Columbus Wexner Center. We remember looking at pictures of the building before and thinking that while some of his stuff is conceptually interesting (House VI, obvs) the Wexner Center was an example of theory gone horribly built-ly awry. Seems lots of other people agreed. From this weekend's NYT story (this one's still free):

In bestowing its 1993 National Honor Award on the center, the American Institute of Architects' jury called it "the Lenny Bruce of architecture - bold and brilliant to some and to others irritating and resistant." The jury added: "It screams at the artists who exhibit and perform within it, pushing them to experiment with their work. It shrieks at visitors, challenging basic assumptions of what architecture should be."

In reviewing the center's first show, "Art in Europe and America: The 1950's and 1960's," Michael Kimmelman in The Times called the Wexner "a spectacular failure as a place to see paintings and sculptures."

He added: "A visitor must constantly decide where displays begin and end, what is the preferred route from one section of the exhibition to another, and where to stand for a decent look at a given work. It would not be a surprise if the building inspired a longing for the logic of a Beaux-Arts plan and its predictable progression of spaces." Bill Horrigan, the center's media arts curator, acknowledged that his first experience of the building was disorienting. "I was afraid to walk down the stairs," he said. "I thought I would fall off."

"Could I have been a better father?" he responded. "Could I have been a better husband, friend, son, brother? These are the things I could have regrets about. But for a building? I don't think so."

So at least he'll take responsibility for his personal failures, if not his professional ones. Something we have to have grudging respect for, having never taken responsibility for anything in our short little lives.

"Architects expect buildings to have faults, like children" Mr. Eisenman mused.

"All in all," he joked, "I think the Wexner has fewer deficiencies than I do. That's pretty good."

Maybe. But it'd be nice to have a higher bar.

We'll be crashing some unidentified event at the Hotel QT tonight. Fred Bernstein already wrote about it for the Times and we, back in the early days, mentioned it -- and the architect, Lindy Roy. Who taught us our first little sophomoric studio ever. To be honest, we never understood what she was talking about. Then again, there were probably about ten minutes of that entire two-year blackout that we really got. Post-structuralism R not us (although we do love us some semantics). So we'll see what she's come up with -- we're curious. Cameraphone pictures and high-profile architectural criticism tomorrow.

First THOR, now Blue. We always thought the LES was kinda edgy -- that's why we technically hang our hand in the EV, but now Tschumi's getting involved? Doing a residential structure? Hasn't he never, um, done a building to live in? No, no he hasn't. As the Times points out today,

He has a portfolio of high-profile buildings to his credit, but Bernard Tschumi, the internationally known architect and former dean of the Columbia University architecture school, had never designed a residential structure.

Only Tschumi we're closely acquainted with is Parc de la Villette which he has talked about in every single public speech we have ever seen him give (from intimate school settings to enormous League events). It's cool to have your favorite, we understand, but we're going to go on the record here and say we're a little skeptical about this building.

Curbed's got a nice press release that they somehow managed to wrangle out of those coy kids, along with an image that shows exactly how cough well the structure's going to fit into the LES-scape.

Tschumi, via Times:

"I had always heard that doing it was a formula requiring no real architecture..."

Um, yeah. That's bold. At least it's not like any of his peers have done really high-profile residential buildings in New York. Because that would be awkward.

Thanks to our boyz at Curbed for this, the micro compact home--a modern modular mobile minimal (alliteration is the new obscurity) housing unit. We want one.

Anyone? Corporate?

Last night we made our way over to one of seemingly-everywhere Sasha Petrasky's places, Pegu, the new bar/small plates place improbably on West Broadway and Houston St. NYU dead zone, yes, but surprisingly well-appointed. Highlight is the bar, a Masa-esque blonde wood slab. As far as the eye can see and the gullet can drink. Carpented by John Houshmand. Who makes "urban organic furniture." Sounds granola, but don't be fooled. It's stylin'. Yes, even on that corner.

We're absolutely shocked that we missed this, mired as we were in mundane household replacements, but it seems that something of great urban import occurred today in New York. Downtown. Where these towers used to be and then some people flew into them and then for the last four years there's been a whole lot of discussion and Town Meetings and Pataki and Danny and lawsuits and all sorts of other extremely exciting stuff. During which Calatrava's just been drawing flying birds and children and turning them into a stegosaurus train station. Which started getting built today. You think we're joking about the birds. We're not. From NY1.

Spanish designer Santiago Calatrava designed the building in the shape of a bird in flight. Calatrava was on hand today to help release two doves into the sky as a symbolic gesture.

Because nothing says PATH train like a really confused dove.

We really don't know where we'd be without the sharp social insights the House& Home section brings every week. Today, we're getting a little bit nostalgic with their article on new college dorms, and how they force kids to be--or at least make--friends. Gone are the concerns that they're not studying enough, replaced with concerns that they're not drinking enough beer. We had a blast at school. But we're not sure it was because of where we lived, except that we were obviously in the best residential college ever, duh. Turns out that dorm design is something even lofty administrators think about. The basic points, as written by Bradford McKee: single entrances, inaccessible elevators, open hallways, shared bathrooms, big common spaces.

Can't really argue with that. Too bad it's too late.

Carol Willis, iconic founder and director of the downtown Skyscraper Museum, asked a hundred of her friends and acquaintances to go through a list of twenty-five New York City skyscrapers and pick the ten they liked the best. Choices included the Chrysler Building (90 votes!) and the Flatiron (70 votes), and the Park Row building (1 vote). Critics included real estate developer Aby Rosen, former NYT public editor Dan Okrent, Architectural League director Rosalie Genevro, writer Karrie Jacobs, and F.O.U. Philip Nobel. David Dunlap discusses the selection process in today's Gray Lady, and a surprisingly interesting chart of building and looker is up at the Museum's site. That was all just very service-tastic of us.

Archinect, oh archinect, what happened? You swervelessly stopped pimpin', starting making more connected, and now you've got features that even we, who are in some way nominally paid to read, can only skim the introductions of:

UpStarts is a series of features on the foundations of contemporary practice. It will have a global reach in which practices from Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond will be asked to address the work behind getting the work, and the effect of cultural contexts. The focus will be on how a practice is initiated and maintained. In many ways, the critical years of a fledgling design partnership is within the initial five years, after the haze and daze of getting it off the ground. UpStarts will survey the first years of practice as a tool for tracking the tactics of the rapidly evolving methods for sustaining a practice.

Don't. Stop.

Can't. Stop.

The interview, with Studio Sputnik, is actually interesting. Mostly the snooze hypothesis. Which looks cute and cartoony but is actually, like, in terms of the theoretical history of architecture thought, quite, well, adventurous in a way. Which is so typically cute and Dutch and Rem-y.

Then again, if Venturi's your only counterpoint...

We cut a wide swath through the global culturescape here, and today is no different. We started out solipsistic and microcosmic, but it's time to get a little bigger. To look outside the LES, the OC, the USA. Kids, there's a world out there. And that world has buildings. Sometimes, buildings that we love. And sometimes, buildings that we haven't seen but that others--who correspond with us--have. A friend, high-profile, just wrote us from Denmark, purging his Pattern Recognition-esque reaction to Zaha's latest, the Ordrupgaard museum expansion.

sucked so suckily: sloppy, ill-conceived, derivative of danny in osnabruck, and--as if i needed an and--just plain creepy and sinister. it's good to know my cayce pollard organ is intact: it made me physically sick how bad it was; i literally had to leave the building before i puked.

Subtle. Just how we like it.