I missed this yesterday while on the road and hearing off the layoffs at his paper, the Star, just a quick note for Josh Brodesky. If you find yourself writing this sentence:
Is downtown’s newest building really its ugliest, or is that just columnist hyperbole?
…you’re doing the “columnist” thing wrong.
Maybe the Unisource building isn’t exactly an architectural marvel, but it’s there, and that might be good enough for awhile. Personally, as someone who has lived in Tucson for a long time, I’m just happy something is happening down there. It looks like an office building. Why that’s a surprise or worth writing nearly 700 words about, I have no idea, but that’s apparently the Brodesky way.
Previously in Josh Brodesky news:
“New Tucson Weekly Feature: The Star’s Correction Section”
“Drinking Beer With Jonathan Rothschild”
“I Have No Idea What I’m Supposed to Be Mad About, Josh Brodesky”
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.
What the hey! If the media in general and politicians in particular who know squat about something as important as education are allowed to strut their hour upon the stage, why not let people who have partial knowledge about architecture have a go at it?
Quick quiz, Josh: Who are Walter Gropius, I.M. Pei, Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Roark? Put down the smartphone, Josh, these are the easy questions (O.K., the last one is a trick question, ‘cuz the last two are the same guy), but they don’t send vegetarians to do restaurant reviews of Sullivan’s.
Disclaimer: I like the DeConcini Court House and the Joel Valdez Library and I can explain why. The Unisource building is not great architecture, but it is good architecture – Tucson is not a great city, but it could be a good city. Like Dan said, let’s be happy something is happening downtown.
In writing school they tell us to write about what we know. I guess Josh missed that day.
Interesting that he shows an aerial view of the building. I’ve seen “streetscape” views of what it will look like at the street level when finished and they look great. So, it won’t look great from a helicopter or airplane, but it will look great to folks walking out of Jano’s downtown restaurant across the street and others walking through downtown. That’s fine with me.