| Collaboration
in Stone
We were delighted
to open your issue and see the photo of the stone installation
piece of the new “Masonry Variations” exhibition
at the National Building Museum (ENR 10/20 p. 10). It is quite
breathtaking, if we do say so ourselves.
While you got one of the
exhibition’s two points right—pushing classic materials
in two directions—there was an equally important second
point, that of collaboration. While crediting architect Jeanne
Gang and the engineers who helped make the stone curtain wall
work the way it was intended, there was one other person without
whom the whole project would remain a dream, or at best, a
sketch. That person is master stone mason and International
Masonry Institute instructor Matthew Redabaugh.
Ms. Gang would be the first
to tell you that Matt was her equal in design, problem solving
and construction. It is this lesson of true collaboration
between designers and craftworkers that can have the most
lasting legacy of this exhibit.
The Eye of the Beholder
Matthew Smith’s
letter on the “inhumanity” of the new Disney Concert
Hall indicates that he resides in another state where he does
not have to confront a building that is offensive to him and
therefore, by extension, offensive to our civilization in
general (ENR 9/22 p. 5). Those of us who actually live in
Los Angeles think it is a fantastic building and the initial
concerts are sold out at ticket prices far in excess of $1,000,
mostly just because people want to be among the first to see
the inside of the building.
Gehry’s design for the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao with a similar exterior has put
that town on the tourist map. For people with delicate aesthetic
sensibilities who come to L.A., we also have a very nice “humanistic”
theater to appeal to Mr. Smith—the Theatricum Botanicum
in Topanga, where you can sit on rocks in an oak forest. It
is possible to like both types of theaters.
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