Are there no more stars in architecture? Is this true, and if so, where did they go and what will we do without them?

We should stipulate that Robert AM Stern, Dean of American Architecture, can safely be presumed to be correct about everything. And in that sense, he has the last word.

Yet perhaps there are no stars in American architecture because there never really were stars in American architecture? To be sure, there are famous American architects. By which I mean Canadian architects. And there’s Wright, greatest architect of the Nineteenth Century, during which period there was Barnumesque notoriety, Lincolnesque divinity, and a surprisingly furious adoration for singers of Opera, actors of Shakespeare, and the Marquis de Lafayette. But in which there was not perhaps stardom as we now construe it. That phenomenon–that performed persona whose purpose is to entertain by embodying collective sensibilities–was perhaps innovated by Mark Twain. Who, as has been observed, was in his era what we would now call a stand-up comedian: combining Operatic elocution, Shakespearean edification, and the personification of America’s sometimes-requited romance with a Dream of itself.

If you are now a star, you know it because there is a star on the door of your trailer. You are a product of a star system. You are part of a projected firmament, emanating from hot and cool mass visual media of all kinds, in which your medium is your own physical body and its sound and image. You might be an athlete or an academic, both of which are, among other things, ways to be an actor. You are (literally or metaphorically) part of Hollywood, or you are part of what is uncharitably called Hollywood for Ugly People, Washington DC. (Not coincidentally, there isn’t much Architecture to speak of in either place.) One of the many gifts of Philip Johnson to American Architecture was, perhaps, to densely weave together enough of the theatrical and political in his role as an essential cultural curator, to sprinkle a little stardust on architects. To, despite their servile and utile work, recollect them as Artists. This may have been easier in his era, in which the Establishment of culture was a more singular edifice, more easily occupied than our current gorgeously fractured system of mass customization in taste, fandom, and aspiration.

Architects are not stars for this unpleasant reason: Nobody cares. And those who care, don’t really know what they are caring about. Unless they are architects, in which case their caring doesn’t count. Talking about stars in American architecture is like talking about stars in American accounting, American dentistry, or American competitive bass-fishing. They exist within their tiny constellations, but appear beyond them only sporadically and in distorted and delayed form. Architecture is, of course, the most important cultural practice, in that it is the art within which we live our lives. But for this very reason, it works best when its patrons and clients and subjects don’t know this, don’t see how hard we are working, don’t see the lack of inevitability, don’t see the machina that lowers the deus. Thus the man, the wizard, the would-be star, remains behind the curtain.

Perhaps we are interested in starchitects because we are afraid of both stars, and architects. Stars are scary for the scintillating yet unstable trajectories of their apparent fame, power, and glory, which (exemplified by those of, say, Tom Cruise and Sarah Palin) seem both awesome and, in their caprice and relentlessness, awful. Architects are scary because they because they labor idealistically and hermetically behind the scenes of life, creating the scenery for it; and because it takes them until they are about seventy until they get somewhere and build something good; and because life is short. Perhaps, in our dread and hope at all this, we therefore want stars to be more like architects, and architects to be more like stars.

Sunday, February 20 at 11:27pm

The phenomena of architectural or other type of star appears inextricably linked to the commoditization of what they offer. To the Hollywood actor, it’s their box-office value that either makes them a “star” or not; to the musician, it’s album sales; the author, book sales. The list of commodities and their respective “authors” goes on and on. One could argue that the notion of stararchitect” is recent, in that, the speculative nature of real estate and development is what has spurned the term. By contrast, there have been very few architects practicing in the public realm, for example, that have received the label. In no way should their contributions be overlooked, however, to consumer culture they are often disregarded.

One could infer, as a result of the decline of rapid development, that the sheer number of high profile architects producing high profile private projects will fall off. If this means that so-called star architects will focus their talent on work for the public good and not be labeled, all the better for society.

Tuesday, February 22 at 12:16pm

I’ll take the side that this is a false statement – as I do not believe that “there are no more stars in architecture,” it’s just that the nature of architectural stardom in changing. The influence that Philip Johnson had on star-making, and fostering new talent in art and architecture seems somewhat different from how “stars” are made today and will be going into the future (though I would say that institutions bearing Johnson’s influence, such as MoMA and the Pritzker Architecture Prize will continue to remain highly influential for generations to come).

A major point of difference I see in younger generations of architects is the valuation of work for the social good, and/or open source or collaborative work, versus the valuation of the individual as championed by the Pritzker Prize, or the myths of Ayn Rand.

Today (like everything else) there are more channels by which to access information about architects and the projects that they are working on than ever before, and a desire from the public to read about, see and experience architecture – consider the popularity of design/architecture journalism, or architectural tourism. With the explosion of the web, and a myriad of small and large scale exhibitions and competitions there are endless opportunities for emerging architects to have their 15 minutes and continue on in the spotlight if they are persistent.

There will always be stars, but it’s the public’s evolving values and influence, as well as access to architecture, criticism and media that is changing the nature of that stardom.

Friday, February 25 at 10:38am

Identity is critical in the dissemination of vision. People hire designers because they either like what they do – or because they are buying a commodity. To the degree that architects consider themselves stars is variable. But if stars no longer exist why do students flock to them to be bathed in the dust that anoints them with the magic powers of success.

Architecture shuns fashion but stardom is so clearly related.To borrow from Cintra Wilson’s piece in the Times yesterday “Fashion is about glamor, which is about seduction, which is about intrigue, which is about suggestion” Isn’t is a whole lot more fun to embrace these ideas and accept the power of creating a persona?

Friday, February 25 at 11:57am

Greetings, all. And thanks for playing along.

To answer Liz’s questions, a little more reporting: A couple weeks ago I was up at Yale for the first time in a long time. To keep everything nice and clubby, because this public conversation is so deeply private in tone and intent, I should mention that I was there for Tomas’ lecture on the psychology and effect of embarrassment in architecture. Stern was presiding and I spoke with him for a second. In his warm way, with his particular sparkle, he asked me what I’d been up to and said, referring I imagine to The Gutter (RIP), something like, “I hope you’re not still writing that architecture gossip.” I said no, haven’t been writing about architecture very much at all for several years. Then I added my usual explanation of the critical mission of that deceased blog (at odds perhaps with others’): that its task and tone were a direct response to what I (not alone) felt were the excesses of the star system in architecture culture in that now distant moment half a decade ago. “Every star culture deserves its own tabloid coverage,” I said, as I’ve said before. Stern said (flatly, Liz, without sadness or relief), “But of course now there are no more stars.” Then, yeah, we hugged it out.

It might have been the familiar dodge–the star denying his or her light–but I didn’t hear it that way at all. What caught me off guard, made me think (why I chose to pivot this conversation off the moment) was the evident truth in Stern’s pronouncement. Not taking him for much of a twitterer or browser of any type, I knew which stars he meant: the old ones.

Things really are very different now than they were the last time I cared enough about architecture culture (vs. architecture elle meme) to pay close attention. Sure, on the morning of that very same day, the Times had given Frank Gehry pages of old-fashioned sub-critical starchitect adulation for his new Beekman Tower in Lower Manhattan (a cynical, nakedly appalling building, bt; as enormous a shark-jump as can be imagined). Sure, press releases about Libeskind’s self-celebratory globe-trotting in the service of mediocre designs still arrive and go unread. Sure, somewhere out there, Rem and Zaha are making something and somewhere someone thinks it important. But the rest of us can get along now without having whatever that is shoved down our throats. In a way that was impossible as recently as 2005, say, we can each dial up a subculture more agreeable to our tastes and temperaments. Who still watches network TV?

As Emily points out so well, the Archinects and BLDGBLOGs and Architizers of our new world have made a difference. They’ve smashed icons. They’ve taken a bite out of crime. They’ve changed the game–not through any particular point of content or singular editorial bent, but by their existence. Collectively, the increased bandwidth of chatter has allowed us to see (and so, in the logic of all media, it has created) architecture’s own long tail. And, “gorgeously fractured” as it may be, it is not an awful sight.

Is there peril here? In the fracture? Certainly there was some good in the star culture that Philip Johnson established, enabled and promoted so effectively in the decades after the war I still reflexively think of, because I’m old now, as The War. Whether it was Paul Rudolph, Minoru Yamasaki or Johnson himself on the cover of Time, the existence of a star-class was a necessary interface between the little world of architecture and the big world of the world. So few could pass through the narrow media pipes of the Cronkite era. But any art or practice unable to produce those few (accountants! dentists!) would have been invisible. Irrelevant. And their anonymous toiling brethren too.

Time will tell I suppose if the old model of stardom is maladapted to the present (Susannah’s point about student taste and choice is crucial, children being the future and whatnot). Perhaps the rump of old media will sustain the forms it requires? In amber? Under aspic? But the recent success–media success–of other types of architects suggests at least the existence of one other parallel world. Liz Diller, Ric Scofidio and Charles Renfro are certainly on a press-fueled roll. But because they are multiple, they can’t be consumed in the same way that we consume even minor singleton celebrities (though the final determination of that rests with the Pritzker jury, who has done pairs but never triplets). The National Design Awards have gone as far as premiating quintuplets. But SHoP has very different problems/advantages: a practice that resists reduction into the traditional easy-sell broadcast or broadsheet memes. Is it thriving nonetheless because those memes are dying? Is Rem the last Roark? The apparent still-non-star status of his heir Prince-Ramus might decide the issue. Or is he, for example, a star to some, somewhere, in another media galaxy I have yet to visit (and need not seek out)?

I’ll side with the “not no stars, but more stars” camp. The Siruses and Betelgeuses might burn out (or implode) and not be replaced, but we’re not going to be looking at a dark night sky. In other words, echoing Tomas’ lede–and at reduced risk of apparent toadying in our demonstrably post-starchitect world–Bob Stern, that product of the grand Philip Johnson enterprise, is a deep file.

Friday, February 25 at 3:20pm