Counterpoint: Daniel Libeskind in Conversation with Paul Goldberger

Lame Collection of Bad Cad Drawings & Photos

I was shocked that Monacelli, known for their fine imprint, was involved in this shoddy book. Counterpoint is not really a monograph. It is more like a cheap glossy catalogue. There's plenty of archibabble trying to generate the illusion of intellectual relevance where none really exists. The underlying problem seems to be the glaring paucity of architectural or intellectual ideas informing the current work of Studio Daniel Libeskind. Most of the projects are just gaudy "shape-ism" used as an excuse for attention. Give this a miss.

Like Totally Awesome Architecture for Pothead Dudes, Maann!

If you are 13 years old and like your buildings to be loud, brash and garish, then Daniel Libeskind is your type of guy.

This loud, brash and garish collection of cheaply rendered CAD models, and its loud, brash and garish commentary by the equally loud, brash and garish architect will satisfy for every need to be awesomely amazed by shiny, pointy, glitzy stuff with other stuff and bits added for no good reason, and other stuff chopped out to ramp up the loudness, brashness and garishness of these things.

If, however, your IQ is in the double or triple digits, or even if you are only vaguely interested in art, history, aesthetics or sophisticated design, then you may want to shield yourself from this one. It may be the most senseless book on design available today.

A Collection of Superficial Ideas About Design

There's nothing critical or analytical in this very superficial book. It's almost as if Libeskind promised Monacelli a manuscript and tricked them into paying for the cost of publishing his office brochure.

There's plenty of slick graphics, glossy pictures and some complimentary words by Daniel Libeskind about his own work. Goldberger prompts with some light questioning, but there's no depth to the conversations. But then there's not much depth to Libeskind's work either. His is a simplistic assumption that architecture is an exercise in graphics only. Hence, he does little more than deform plans and add some slit windows applied chaotically to the exterior. Counterpoint, showing his oeuvre as a whole, only serves to to emphasize that Libeskind was never a very good architect. He's earned some notoriety for attention-getting formalism, but it's not serious architecture.

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