John Bentley Mays, the Globe and Mail's former arts critic, offers a blistering review of the new memoir, Breaking Ground, by current architectural wunderkind, Daniel Libeskind (co-written by Sarah Crichton). Although Libeskind, says Mays, is "famous everywhere" and is currently "designing substantial projects" in North America, Europe and Asia, Mays objects to his book for a number of reasons.
First, Libeskind has the audacity to attack the Gods of Architecture--no Mies, please--continued to be reverenced by mainstream devotees like Mays. The critic has no patience for those who refuse to be frozen in genuflection for van der Rohe, Gropius and their ilk.
Then, Libeskind evinces excessive awe at the site of Ground Zero, a big no-no in Mays's book. For Mays, this is one of far too many "episodes of rapture, enchantment, apocalypse and so forth" in the book. It soon becomes clear, however, that what Mays is objecting to is not Libeskind's book, but to his positive reaction to the immigrant experience. Born amidst the ashes of the Holocaust in 1946 Poland, Libeskind left soon after with with his family, first to the nascent Jewish state and then to America. As an emigrant, he is so grateful to America for the life and freedom it afforded him that he still "gets teary when he hears The Star-Spangled Banner" . Such "sappy Americanism" disgusts the wised-up Mr. Mays, himself a former American: How can anyone react to America like that, especially these days, with Dubya and his loathesome cronies ensconced in the White House for another four years?
But let's let the eloquent Mays speak for himself:
"As an American whose ancestors came to this continent from Europe 400 years ago, I cannot know what the United States seems like to someone who arrived, as Libeskind did, from the tormented Europe of the mid-20th century. I am prepared to believe that the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from the deck of an incoming passanger ship might be exhilarating. But in view of the recent takeover of traditional American symbols and sentiments by hard-right, bare-fanged political thugs and fundamentalists, I think it's fair to expect every thoughful American, even a new one, to beware of patriotism of the sobbing-and-cheering variety."
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