Museum of Modern Art, New York
Through July 30
The American suburbs are in desperate need of a rethink, said Justin Davidson in New York. While suburbanites have long been suspicious of the fixes architects might propose, this “small but magnificently ambitious new show” at MoMA makes an “overwhelming” case that now would be an ideal time for subdivision denizens everywhere to get past such suspicions. Household budgets are being racked by escalating fuel costs. Families are tripling up in 1920s bungalows. Foreclosures are draining life from once-solid neighborhoods. To cultivate possible solutions, the museum commissioned five architectural firms to address particular challenges in five representative towns. The resulting proposals are provocative, if not always pragmatic. “You wonder how much enthusiasm residents of Keizer, Ore., could muster for living atop the smelly compost-to-methane-fuel plant” that one firm proposed. Or how introducing African elephants would slow foreclosures in Rialto, Calif.
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Still, there are plenty of useful ideas here, said Fred A. Bernstein in Architectural​Record.com. One brilliant project, from Chicago architect Jeanne Gang, would repurpose the abandoned factories of Cicero, Ill., by inserting gardens, shops, and modular housing in the buildings’ steel-framed shells. Not only has Gang devised a way that each residence could grow or shrink as family sizes change; the plans look “practically shovel-ready.” Even the Keizer proposal makes good sense upon close inspection. As shown in the model created by the firm WorkAC, the fuel plant would actually sit at the center of the community within “a gorgeous dome-shaped structure.” A viewer can easily imagine a developer seeing the “gently futuristic suburb” that surrounds it and “wanting to break ground tomorrow.”
Good luck with that, said Guy Horton in Archinect.com. There are definitely “some valuable ideas” here, but the proposals skirt so close to science fiction that they make architecture look like a profession that’s simply out of touch with reality. After all, architecture “privileges the heroic,” while America’s suburbs are an expression of many individuals making their own building choices, “house by house, lot by lot.” MoMA tried to keep the work grounded in the possible by forcing each team to collaborate with lawyers, economists, and other specialists, but few actual community members were asked to weigh in. The whole project can be justified as an attempt to get architects to talk among themselves about how they can address the challenges of a new century in a new way. But when the profession loses the public’s trust in the process, that’s “not good for marketing.”
