It was a surprise birthday party for a friend at a great restaurant, LUSO in Smithtown, NY. Having previously been there and knowing the food is always exceptional, (food and building review below) I was looking forward to this event. Now you may be thinking, how nice but where is this going? Is this yet another boring story in the sea of boring stories found among the millions and millions of people who profess stories of importance? Maybe, but aren't you use to this sort of thing? Don't you visit your FaceBook page (what, you don't have one? Bravo for you-I do commend you) where you will find levels of insignificance made into an art form? Unsolicited anecdotes, countless inspirational messages, pictures that only a mother, aunt, BFF would find amusing? I digress. That's all fine and well but at least I get some gratification from social media after all it's about me, some friends and family that I care about; who the hell are you? Bravo, very well put. I offer possibly more, possibly less, better yet share me on FaceBook, let's continue.....
So there I was sitting with a bunch a people I never met or hardly knew except for the birthday girl, a tall blond whom (who?) I had the pleasure of sitting across from. Next to her was a lovely young lady who I came to find out is studying architecture. Naturally, I was interested in speaking with her, so I initiated some conversation. After the getting to know you small talk, I asked her who her favorite architect was, past or present and to my surprise she said.........wait for it....Le Corbusier. Really? I could not believe it. I thought for sure she would have said Gehry, Koolhaus, Hadid etc. I was astounded (yes I'm easily amused) because most people, including me, only want what's currently in fashion, hip, and new, it's human nature really. There is a common belief, especially in the USA that the architecture of the past has no place in our progressive society. In Europe we know this is not the case where buildings a few hundred years old are common, loved and preserved. In the USA, a building a few hundred years old is demolition material. OK don't get so uptight we value some of our historic architecture (the stuff that's protected) but in the name of progress (cough, cough profit) we do destroy a large portion of it, more so than anyone else in the world (we fought hard for the Pam Am World Port). However, I think we can agree there are buildings and architects that transcend time, fades, and fashion-I was pleased to hear that Corbu is still standing the test of time... It hasn't been that long , I know...So this got me thinking why isn't she into the whimsical, sweeping, swooping, multicolored architecture that seems to prevail today? Could it be her professors or her school of architecture does not promote that sort of style? Maybe. Could it be her personal choice? No that's not it, schools of architecture don't give that choice unless you want to fail miserably. Was it because she studied abroad, as is the popular thing to do now and influenced in that way? Here at Architect Denied we go to the extreme to find answers to these baffling questions; Why does she not like Blobbular, Swooping, Twisting and turning architecture? (why not just ask her directly?)
I will give my opinion and ignore hers for now (hers is in alignment with mine I did gather) as to why BST architecture is a fad with no staying power. First, architecture is about order. Rectilinear (as well as curved) architecture has a mathematical precision and order to it. A Blobbing Cook or swooping Hadid, crumbled paper Gehry look really cool and dynamic but are rather random in form. Why something curves in one direction or another for how long, where it should begin or stop is not based on mathematical order, function or even program but purely on a "coolness" factor. Making a building look like a crumbling piece of paper or an amoeba can be fun but it has a high level of superfluousness not helping the program. Second, practicality. It must be extremely complicated to build and design multi directional curved surfaces and the sub-structures that support them. Mapping out all those points from design to construction surely must be a time consuming task of the first order. Fabricating "one off" materials and parts as opposed to repeating identical parts makes for extreme inefficiencies on all levels: design, work load, economic, sourcing and so on and on. In the west you will never see "Blobbular" or crumbled architecture built in mass, unless its geodesic which eliminates the problems I illuminated. Lastly this type of architecture sacrifices function for form, the biggest crime in my opinion. No it doesn't it! Yes it does! No you're wrong! How dare you call architecture Beasty, no, I said BST, you're wrong on everything and here is the proof (comments please) The debate rages on....
Luso restaurant review: To eat food any tastier or fresher than this is impossible - it's a BBQ place so you must like meat and you must try the "Rodisio" What is that? They come to your table an endless amount of times or until you are full and slice from a just cooked flaming spicy piece of meat on a spit to your plate-along with things like turkey wrapped bacon, etc, etc. Those of you that are vegetarians my apologies, I am in spirit with you.
Architecture and decor: The outside was previously an old Pizza Hut with that stupid Pizza Hut Roof, it's as bad as architecture gets. They have modified it somewhat, and the place looks clean, unfortunately if you look closely you can still see the crappy Pizza Hut architecture. Inside is a different story. The atmosphere is definitely pleasing old world European and the decor charming.
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