FROM THE PUBLISHER The Architectural Counter-Revolution

THE LOCAL ARCH1-teclural establishment has worked itself into a predictable tizzy. The Dallas chapter of the American Institute of Architects warns that “the quality of our urban environment is at risk.” Critic David Dillon bemoans a “lick-and-stick architecture” that promises nothing more than “kitsch.”

At the center of this little storm is David Schwarz, architect of The Ballpark at Arlington and the Bass Performance Hall. His selection as designer of the new arena has thrown our local art mandarins into a fit of priggishness,

Back when the five finalists in the Arena design competition were announced, Dillon was delighted. He waxed especially enthusiastic over the Murphy/Jahn and Kohn Pederson Fox designs, calling them “transparent, kinetic and theatrical, with flashes of Las Vegas and Times Square coupled to brash structural expressiveness.” For citizens who might not like to recreate a kinetic Las Vegas, Dillon warned about “nostalgic complaints” and lectured News readers that they should “think Blade Runner and RoboCop, not Hester Street.’”

Nothing could be more revealing about the stateness of the modernist idea than when one of its faithful acolytes struggles for a metaphor-and comes up with RoboCop. And is serious.

Schwarz represents something entirely new. He’s not afraid of ideas older than Walter Gropius. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the architectural establishment detests him. Put yourself in their place. You study, you train, you apprentice, you work hard-all the time steeping yourself in a vocabulary of expression which becomes part of your very being. And along comes a guy who not only doesn’t speak it, but resolutely ignores it. And, what’s worse, he gets the job.

Worse than that, he may represent a counter-revolution in architecture so profound as to alter fundamentally the way cities will be built for the next century.

This counter-revolution began, improbably enough, with a speech by Prince Charles in 1984 on the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of Architects. In remarks that were uncharacteristically blunt, Charles stunned his audience and sent shock waves through architectural schools worldwide. Before the assembled Brahmins of architecture, the Prince denounced modernism. In his most famous line, he compared a planned modernist extension to the face of the classical National Gallery to “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend.” He debunked the establishment’s pretensions, upbraiding them for decades of ugly urban design and for deliberately making the public feel “guilty or ignorant if their natural preference is for the more ’traditional designs1 – for a small garden, for courtyards, arches, and porches.” In other words, if their preference was not for RoboCop. Most critics sneered, but a surprised and vocal minority sprang to the Prince’s defense. The battle was joined.

The Prince has not backed down. He has not only published a book arguing his case with cogency and passion, but enlisted Luxembourg architect Leon Krier, one of his many supporters, to build an entirely new town along traditional principles in his Duchy of Cornwall. The new town is already a popular and – gasp! – critical success. The architectural establishment, at least in England, is beginning to get the message.

Not so in Dallas. Schwarz’s Ballpark at Arlington is regarded by the local establishment as “cardboard classicism” (according to Dillon). They are fools. The Ballpark’s grandeur, utility. detail, and beauty have made it the most significant new sports facility of the decade-even surpassing my beloved Camden Yards in Baltimore. Schwarz’s Bass Performance Hall (“a 19th century opera house,” sputtered Dillon) is the strongest and most handsome statement of urban renewal in our region. Schwarz demonstrably designs for people, not for other architects. His use of scale, and his understanding of the human response to aesthetic appeal, make me hopeful that the era of monument building is over. We have enough monuments in this city. I.M. Pei’s Meyerson is a functional wonder, and his City Hall is imposing, and I have high regard, if little love, for them both. But neither building interacts with or contributes to the street life of the city around them. They sit there, waiting to be admired, like ancient pyramids in a man-made desert.

I, for one, am tired of bare concrete, I’m tired of tensiled steel, I’m tired of glazed glass, I’m tired of empty plazas. I’m tired of monuments to architects, and I’m tired of the tired jargon of modernism. Give us instead something human, and approachable, and beautiful, something to inspire and something to give respite to the eye and nourishment to the soul. Give us something to enjoy instead of something to be gazed upon.

David Schwarz, go to it. Build us your arena.