I graduated from Eisenhower High School in Yakima, Washington State in 1983. The original 1956 building was recently torn down and replaced. It was interesting to read comments in response to the new building, especially how many loved the old building and would rather it was preserved.
I was not at all sorry to see the building go. Like so many major buildings of the 1950s and '60s, it was ugly, ugly, ugly, and then some more ugly. Only the gymnasium roof offered a little flair. It wasn't just lack of maintenance; it was a determinedly ugly design. The west and east entrances were designed to look like large pieces must have fallen off. On the south side was a gigantic thing sticking out of the middle looking like a big schnozz, or perhaps it represented one of the architect's fingers. It seemed every side of the building was designed to look like the back of a grocery store facing an alley.
Some buildings should be preserved, but others should never have been built, and the community is improved when they are finally torn down. The old Ike firmly anchors the far end of the latter group.
The new building is moderately Deconstructivist, the current architectural fashion. At least it doesn't have the slanted walls (!) of the Deconstructivist elementary school recently built in my neighborhood in Bellevue. The ideal Deconstructivist building looks like random pieces chopped off of random buildings and glued together by a monkey. Thankfully the new Ike is much moderated from the pure ideal.
The architect says that the big curved blue wall represents the Yakima River. That reminded me of a comment made by the architect of the library branch built recently in our neighborhood. The windows there are covered with strange markings that, says the architect, represent brain waves when learning, and are meant to make us learn better when reading there. It's a fair guess that those window markings will never have their intended effect on a single library patron; instead they just look weird and block the view. In all likelihood it will be the same with Ike's Curved Blue Wall -- few students are likely to feel they are drifting lazily down the Yakima River on a gorgeous summer afternoon, beer in one hand, Slim Jim in the other, as they walk past it toward their Algebra II class. Unless a plaque is mounted on it explaining its symbolism to future generations, someday it will probably be painted to match the rest of the school, and students will assume the wall's curvature is just there to be different.
The new Ike is not ugly like the old one, but neither is it beautiful. The architecture of major buildings became ugly after WWII when the architectural community broadly agreed, in an epic example of truth being stranger than fiction, that national differences in architecture had caused WWI and WWII. Bizarre as that may sound (because it is), I am not making it up nor exaggerating; it's absolutely true. Scrambling valiantly to save us all from WWIII, architects made large buildings all look the same by removing traditional architectural forms and ornamentation, leaving only plain boxes, each striving to make their boxes plainer than the others. They called it the "International Style".
But they soon lost interest in the original goal of international homogeneity, leaving only an irrational loathing of traditional forms and ornamentation. For some, traditional forms and ornamentation were elevated to a sort of sentient evil incarnate, apparently all but intent on detaching themselves from buildings and marching off to wage WWIII all on their own. Others tried to maintain a vague sense of causality, painting traditional forms and ornamentation with guilt by association with past totalitarian regimes. Why would you want the architectural style of past fascists, they are quick to say reproachfully, ignoring two very obvious points. First, traditional forms and ornamentation were as much a part of free societies as they were of dictatorships. And second, dictators have hardly stuck with traditional architecture; to the contrary, modernist architecture is as much a part of the unfree world today as of the free. It's as plain as day by now that architectural style neither causes totalitarianism nor is a symptom of it, but don't waste your time trying to explain that to a modernist architect. Others who needed a more logical rationalization for rejecting traditional forms and ornamentation spoke of "form follows function", by which they meant nothing of the kind except in the most shallow and illusory sense.
No matter how they rationalized their hatred of traditional architectural forms and ornamentation, all was going well for Modernists until Postmodernist architects brought traditional forms, and sometimes ornamentation too, back into the game in the 1980s and 90s. There are ugly examples of all styles, and Postmodernism is no exception, but the better examples were more beautiful than a Modernist would ever allow a building to be, on principle. Modernists, shocked to discover that people liked beauty in architecture and were glad to pay for it, were forced to regroup. Their response was brilliant -- they swapped in chaos for bland monotony, making their buildings interesting but not beautiful, and most importantly, still rigorously devoid of traditional forms and ornamentation. They called it "Deconstructivist". I guess calling it "Deconstructionist" would have been too obviously to the point.
With the move to Deconstructivist architecture, the nonsense about "form follows function" had to be dropped because not even a child would believe it, but that was a small price to pay to keep out the evil traditional forms and ornamentation. Instead, Deconstructivist architects' unspoken philosophy appears to be "form working against function while the architect talks about form serving function with cosmic perfection". Strange spaces in Deconstructivist buildings purport to be perfectly suited to their purpose, but in fact are so inflexible that they never serve any purpose well. For example, try using any of the Seattle Public Library's specialized spaces for any purpose at all other than marveling at their dysfunction; surely no library as expensive has ever served its purpose as badly. At least you no longer have to worry about banging your head against the dangerously slanted metal supports, as they've put fences around them to keep people from getting too near.
I had thought such an ugly and dysfunctional style as Deconstructivist architecture would be a short-lived fad but I was so, so wrong. It has routed Postmodernist architecture, which survives mainly in its most conservative flavor, Modern (or Contemporary) Classicism. Modern Classicist architecture soldiers on in a small corner of the market because a few customers will choose a beautiful building if given the chance. To get an idea of what a nice Modern Classicist school building can look like, google "Cambridge Judge Business School". Deconstructivists hate, hate, hate it; one even called it, with unintended irony, "architectural terrorism".
Traditional architectural forms and ornamentation were not invented by warmonger-architects. They became popular because they are at the same time comforting and inspiring. They help us relax while encouraging our loftier thoughts to crowd out our pettier ones. If the loftiest thoughts of a few disturbed individuals are still immoral, violent, and destructive, that doesn’t make the architecture responsible for their crimes. Modernist and Deconstructivist architecture can be impressive and innovative, but they are also deliberately discomforting and, once the novelty wears off, oppressive. Try driving through a canyon of Deconstructivist buildings in a large city, and drive the same street again and again until those buildings' innovative novelty wears off. Notice how it's replaced by a distinct feeling of chaos.
I like to believe, all evidence to the contrary, that someday over the rainbow beautiful buildings will be in fashion once again. If there is any sign of hope, other than the continued survival of Modern Classicism, it is in the philosophy of the best Deconstructivists that Deconstructivism allows the freedom to do anything. Left unsaid is that they really the mean the freedom to do anything not involving any traditional forms nor ornamentation. But if they can someday let go of that last rule, beautiful buildings may one day rise again.
I wonder if I will live to see it. One of two things would have to happen: either Modernist/Deconstructivist architects will have to get over their strange loathing of traditional architectural forms and ornamentation, or customers -- such as the Yakima taxpayers who paid for the new Ike building -- will have to demand beautiful buildings for their money and find architects who are willing to deliver. Which will happen first?
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