The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 15)

p>Felix and Susan Williams should be lauded not condemned. The Modernist style was the ultimate fad in architecture that was interesting for about a year. It is not a style to last the ages and is getting the fate it deserves. br> -- Donald Parnell br> London, United Kingdom /p> p> Welcome to America! Land of Freedom. You own it, you do what you want with it, unless the larger community finds an overriding reason to stop you, i.e., public purpose as in Amendment V. The fact that some crackpot pseudo-journalist thinks the house should be preserved because his favorite architect designed does not constitute a public purpose in the mind of anyone who is rational. Why you publish this drivel is quite beyond me. br> -- C. R. Melton br> Arlington, Virginia /p>

I read Christopher Orlet's recent piece on the loss of "great" architecture to soulless McMansions. While there is a part of me that can share his lament at the loss of these "significant" architectural examples (it is true that many of these homes are beautiful), as I read the piece I had to remind myself that I was reading the Spectator and not some leftist rag. While there is value in preserving these homes as living and functioning pieces of architectural art, I am afraid that Mr. Orlet has taken the preservationist mindset to its leftist extremes. It was as if I were reading National Geographic or some such where the only acceptable position on just about anything is "How much we are preserving?" "How much of the forest is protected?" "How many of old ways of doing things are we saving?" "How many of history's artifacts are protected?"

Unfortunately we cannot freeze the world in a particular state or era. Societies develop and change. Old ways of doing things are replaced by new ways of doing things. Old artifacts are swept aside for new ones. Some things will be saved. Most will be eventually be lost. Sometimes some of the things that were lost should have been saved. Sometimes the old way of doing things was better. It is all part of the process of the growth and development of a society.

Although I have post-secondary training in the arts as well as post graduate degrees in the humanities, I take umbrage at those folks like Mr. Orlet who believe they have attained some level cultural sophistication and "taste" and now presume to tell the rest of us how we should live, the homes we should find beautiful, the art we should appreciate, the music we should listen to, the books we should read, the movies we should see and the television we shouldn't be watching. At its most basic, this impulse is snooty, pretentious and elitist. Typical leftist characteristics. The arts are on the leading edge of breaking down every barrier and prohibition established in creation by God. The arts are on the forefront of the movement to tear down any and all remnants of a Christian mooring in our society.

In addition, much of that impulse among the cultural "elites" flows out of the reconstructions of an atheist left that replaced Christian faith with adoration for the arts. Art, music and yes architecture become the medium that generates feelings akin to genuine spirituality. Much of those feelings and impulses are virulently anti-Christian. So it should not be surprising when someone who has bought into "the arts" decries the loss of such "significant" works. Significant to whom? Christopher Orlet and his kind are losing their scriptures, their gods. But the person who has just bought this very valuable piece of land sees a run down house that is too small for his unrefined and bourgeois tastes. The choice is obvious when that tiny, outdated and run down house is not an object of worship.

p>The result is that our society and its artifacts evolve. The perspective that Christopher Orlet embraces and the cultural snootiness it evidences is nothing new. A while back there was a new style of furniture that was produced to satisfy the sensibilities of an emerging middle class with their bourgeois tastes. At the time neo-classical pieces were looked down upon by the elites. Today they are collected. Go figure.

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