Magazine Article

Starchitectural reviews

Hatton, Brian

2012

Overview

Review of Davide Ponzini and Michele Nastasi, 'Starchitecture: Scenes, Actors and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities'. This new book on the cult of architecture is all about \"procurement\". It examines how, in a range of costly projects in Bilbao, Abu Dhabi, Paris, New York and the Vitra \"campus\", buildings were envisioned, commissioned and \"produced\" - in the Hollywood sense of financial, industrial and distributive accomplishment. More important than \"starchitects\" are the procurement agents and the procedures that engage them, procedures that frequently result in banal, dysfunctional and paradoxical consequences as cities try to distinguish themselves by commissioning \"icons\" to \"brand\" projects that are often either misconceived or merely generic. Some of these delusions are replicated in a global trail of \"mis-icons\". Rational thought is shown to have informed some projects, and it is demonstrated that procurement arose through varying processes in differing contexts. Michele Nastasi's photography aids understanding of this. This review mainly pursues Davide Ponzini's answers to the important question: how do major architectural works get commissioned and procured? And how come they turn out to be not just so poor, but abysmally so? (Quotes from original text)

• Publisher: Emap Limited
• Subject: Architecture / Nastasi, Michele / Nonfiction / Ponzini, Davide / Urban planning