Exquisite Corpse: Writing on Buildings

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Sorkin, a practicing architect and Yale professor who for 10 years was the Village Voice 's architecture critic, is a formidable opponent of the banal, the ugly, the stupid and the vapidly posturing which, he argues, are all around us. In these 56 fearless, salubrious essays, reviews, diatribes and encomiums from the Voice , the Nation , Architectural Rec ord and elsewhere, he finds much contemporary architecture preoccupied with empty style and only dimly awakening from its ``Reaganoid snooze.'' Philip Johnson is dismissed as a trendy tastemaker and condemned for his alleged pro-Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitism during the 1930s. He calls Donald Trump ``arrogant apostle of the indefensible'' and lambastes New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger as ``embodiment of the aesthetics of yuppification.'' Sorkin's tastes run to Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright, urban visionary Lebbeus Woods and the Italian Carlo Scarpa. Sidetrips to Los Angeles and Las Vegas round out a punchy, provocative collection. Photos. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Sorkin is one of the most intelligent writers on architecture today. His leftist orientation, Jewish ``schtick'' style, and New York City locale insure him a small but devoted readership. Now his thoughtful and sometimes acerbic writings are available to a wider audience. In this group of essays, which are republished from The Village Voice and a few other journals, Sorkin addresses most of the important issues, figures, and events in the architectural culture of New York City from the last decade: Philip Johnson, Deconstruction, Donald Trump, Postmodernism, etc. Some of the book is sheer filler (amusing definitions of architectural terms), but most of the writing is impassioned and clever, fulfilling a prescription for architectural criticism that is sorely needed in this country.-- Peter Kaufman, Boston Coll.