~ rest in peace, philip johnson! you were a rich nazi hack who forced hideous skylines upon us, but at least you hooked up the guys who are responsible for the nearly modern world in which billions of us live.

~ we now sink to writing more bullshit about new york; today we read that eric owen moss has been kicked off the queens museum project:

There will be no competition for Mr. Moss’s successor; an architect will be chosen by the museum and the city from a preapproved list of eight architects compiled by the Department of Design and Construction for projects of $5 million or more. They are Fox & Fowle Architects, a finalist the first time; Mr. Viñoly; Polshek Partnership Architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Arquitectonica; 1100 Architects; the team of Ammann & Whitney and Grimshaw Architects; and Gluckman Mayner Architects. -nytimes

we admit that, except for the kodak building and maybe that stealth thing, moss’s work is foolish, but if the fucking “Department of Design and Construction” is going to pick between SOM and fox & fowle, why not just throw a dart at a catalog titled ‘substandard, pedestrian fare’. if you are so insistent upon keeping your city four decades behind the pacific rim you fucking fossils.

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