Twisted Sisters Prize of 2015

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M.C. Escher (l.) and isometric dream structures of UsTwo. (Curbed)

Architecture Here and There awards its first annual Twisted Sisters prize to critics Mark Lamster of the Dallas Morning News and Alexandra Lange of Curbed for their pairing off to produce “Architecture in Review 2015: The Good, the Bad and the Potato Chips” in Curbed.

An “M.C. Escher Award” was won, for example, by UsTwo for its “isometric dream structures,” whatever they are. Art? Architecture? The Tantrum Cup was handed off by Frank “Flipper” Gehry to Jean Nouvel for his boycotting the opening of his own Paris Opera House. The Eff You Award was won by ISIS for its work in Palmyra.

I’ve been hard on Lamster, whose taste is execrable but his prose is charming, if not gracious. And I’ve not yet got around to reading Lange’s 2012 book on architecture criticism, Writing About Architecture (I intend to, really!). But they have assembled a set of 37 mock year-end architecture awards with considerable wit and verve – though being an architecture insider is a requirement to grok the wit of many prize titles (I’m not inside enough to “get” a lot of them). But the best thing is the profusion of links posted to articles, mostly depressing, about what they choose to razz or razzle.

Click it and weep.

About David Brussat

This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred. History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book. My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally. I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002. I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato. If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457. Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I would have written." - Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.
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