Tucker Hungers 4 Architectural Return 2 Humanity

Does European architecture extol the highest virtues in mankind while Chicago’s much copied Mies van der Rohe architecture demeans them? Fox’s Tucker Carlson said so in a recent speech in Hungary. And, having been born and raised in Chicago, I have to (belatedly) agree.

For decades, we’ve been told how great are the modern “smoke & mirror” buildings dotting Chicago’s skyline. The art museums here extol their virtue. Cities everywhere fall over themselves to copy the man’s style. Yet, says Tucker: “Mies van der Rohe architecture was designed to send [a] message not to uplift, but to oppress … We’ve been told … that people don’t matter, that they are less significant than the larger whole, that they are not distinct souls, that they are not unique, that they are not created by God, that they are merely putty in the hands of some larger force that they must obey.” In short, the modern American city is being redesigned to convince us, “What really matters is GDP, get the new microwave, the new car, the new place in Aspen.”

Recently walking the streets of Paris, Rome, Florence & Venice, then, Sweet Home Chicago again … I’d say Tucker is absolutely right. I worked for more than a decade for two international law firms housed in pretty but impersonal van der Rohe buildings here & they DID SHOUT OUT how unimportant I & my co-workers were compared to the law firms & filthy rich clientele they relentlessly kissed a** over. In contrast, Tucker said, classical “Central European architecture [should be a reminder] of how good Americans have it”. He pointed to the “bullet holes” from WWII still marring many of its buildings. (I know having also once walked the streets of Cologne & Koblenz.) Wartime damage should be a “very useful reminder [that] it could be really bad [anywhere] because it’s been really bad [here].”

Davd Soul