“Not everyone is an artist but everyone is a fucking critic.”
― Marcel Duchamp
Sheri Olson and the Death of Criticism in Seattle:
Twenty years ago, award-winning architecture critic, Sheri Olson, left the Seattle Post-Intelligencer due to backlash from her biting review of a recently completed apartment building. The message was clear: architects’ welcome neutral or praiseworthy criticism; if you don't have anything nice to say, prepare for litigation. In "P-I Critic Quits After Flap Over Negative Article," written by Erica C. Barnett, dated August 5th 2004, Seattle’s The Stranger unveiled what happened to this critic and subsequently questioned the state of architectural criticism itself.
The outcome of this type of pressure is what The Stranger called “softball architectural critiques, [such as those from] The Seattle Times, which never met a flashy mixed-use project it didn't praise to its rafters.” i.e architectural criticism that is merely descriptive and lists each technical aspect of a building project with high acclaim is nothing more than thinly veiled advertising - and not architectural criticism at all. In other words: griping about how a new apartment tower will block views and affect parking does not qualify as architectural criticism.
700 Broadway was at the crux of the scandal, a then-recently completed 4-story apartment in Capitol Hill that replaced a vacant gas station. Ironically, it looks like pretty much every other apartment building from the early 2000s. And yet, Olson had a lot to say about it, unleashing endlessly quotable witty quips:
“The best thing that can be said about 700 Broadway is that it's better than an empty lot,"
“Cacophony of shapes, details and cheap materials.”
“hodge-podge of protrusions and recesses.”
“prime example of how mediocre architecture can drain Seattle's vitality and saps our souls.”
“looks as if it were designed as a floor plan
“a case of cut-and-paste architecture with standardized apartment layouts squeezed onto a site and then extruded upward to the zoning height limit.”
“Blindly mimics but does not grasp the lessons of the past.”
“A misguided attempt to add Old World charm”
The apartment failed to adequately acknowledge the surrounding architectural context of nearby Loveless Building and Anhalt’s 1005 and 1014 E Roy St Apartments and the 4-story arches of thin brick were likened to frosting on a cake and wallpaper. Olson’s biting critique could easily be applied to the majority of 3-over-1 and 5-over-1 apartments across Seattle and the nation from Y2K until the Great Recession. Sure, commenting on this as a general trend would have been the easier path and would have ruffled fewer feathers, but circumvential critiques can be rather commonplace and will seldom prompt changes in design. When taking the direct approach, the critic should select a project and unleash pent-up frustrations with the general against the specific. It may seem unfair to pick on one example among hundreds of guilty parties, but someone must pay the price. In this case, the selection of 700 Broadway may not have been entirely random, as this was a relatively high-profile project because of its iconic siting and earlier but ill-fated negotiations to incorporate a branch library in the base.
Weber + Thompson Architects did not take kindly to Olson’s review, promptly threatening a lawsuit in a letter to the P-I. It was clear that W+T agreed with much of Olson’s analysis, however, their gripe was that the P-I article insinuated that W+T was solely responsible for its appearance. But if you can’t blame an architect for a building’s appearance, who can you point the finger at?! Apparently, W+T was removed from the project after construction began and outside interests altered the project's final appearance. The P-I refused to rescind the article, W+T threatened lawsuit, and the P-I refused to protect Olson from potential litigation. So she left.
Olson’s critique pointed directly to signatures of W+T which they used in many other projects - unraveling the argument that they were not to blame for the aesthetics applied to the building. Olson attacked not only a single lackluster apartment design, but also aspects of their comprehensive design philosophy; she struck a nerve and it got personal.
Because of this, Sheri Olson left architectural criticism and started a career as a Passive House certified residential architect. The Seattle P-I went on, without an architectural critic. Weber + Thompson continued with an untarnished reputation and has enjoyed a successful few decades with a near monopoly on new residential high-rise design. They have developed a new trove of tropes and recognizable elements - making their Seattle towers distinguishable as quintessentially their own. Look for the use of spandrel glass panels, typically white, arranged in a staccato rhythm of stripes and squares overlaid on a staggered fenestration grid.
Critiquing 700 Broadway Today:
20 years have elapsed since Olson’s critique of 700 Broadway and the subsequent scandal. The Neo Traditional style is seldom used these days; times have changed, we have changed, the building may or may not have changed, our values have changed…nothing has changed regarding my opinion on 700 Broadway. Sometime after 2015 the brown stucco was repainted navy blue and gray, but it only makes the building stand out more. The passage of time has done nothing but dilute the bitterness over what could have been built instead. 700 Broadway elicits a jaded nostalgia: “it isn’t great, but it is far better than the Hardie Board and shipping container boxes that are being built today!” One pervasive style supplants the previous pervasive style, and general ire is now focused on the new. Grading on a curve makes for bad architectural criticism; buildings of yesterday should be capable of holding their own today.
There is a 50-year rule of thumb until buildings are eligible for consideration as historic landmarks at the local level, state level, or most prestigiously, under the National Register of Historic Places. It is a key factor why Brutalism is having a moment – once a nearly universally detested style, numerous eligible projects are now getting NRHP recognition. 30 years from now, the best and most significant examples of 2000s architecture will likewise have their chance at recognition. Will 700 Broadway be one of those lucky winners? While 700 Broadway may need a few more decades until the recency bias for and against it is smoothed over for a future architectural critic / historian to have the “final” say, you don’t have to be a prescient architectural critic to speculate that the possibility is rather doubtful.
British Architecture Critic Bemoans Death of Architectural Criticism:
The Strange Death of Architectural Criticism: Martin Pawley Collected Writings, Martin Pawley.
The title refers to 1 of the 100 essays contained within the book and alludes to recent evaporation of architecture critics. Pawley was one of the most prolific critics of the late 20th century; he was especially known for not holding back in sharing his controversial opinions. In the eponymous 1998 essay, Pawley bemoaned gradual degradation of withering take-no-prisoners architectural criticism into a state of cloyingly polite back-patting.
I must admit that I strongly disagree with almost all Pawley’s ideologies. He is a staunch Modernist who dogmatically believes that functionalism and technology is the only way forward while dismissing the “unqualified” critics who question its shortcomings. He naturally scoffs at Postmodernism and historicism, but he also ridicules those who appreciate pre-WWI architecture and suggests preservationists and conservationists are a bane to Modern progress... Despite our widely differing philosophies, I thoroughly enjoyed his diverse writing styles, wit, divergent tangents, and fearlessness in sharing what he felt. I endorse this collection of writings to those who are curious of what sharp architectural criticism could look like and are looking for inspiration.
If Pawley questioned the downfall of architectural criticism, perhaps the recent Broadway brouhaha provides the answer. Just maybe it is not the critics who should be faulted for becoming polite, but rather it is the architects who are becoming less receptive to criticism. Even so, it is only a matter of time before an iron-willed critic rises to the challenge and architectural criticism will become… interesting again.
