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| | No trailer, but a tour de force
Sunday, Sep 19, 2004 By John Brummett Newsweek magazine said last week that the Clinton presidential library is an architectural tour de force that introduces the Midsouth to a structure more significant than anything it's ever seen. The article described the building as "stunningly evocative" of the bridge to the 21st Century that Bill Clinton envisioned. It called the structure "bold and dramatic" and "larger than life" and said it "campaigns hard for your vote of 'wow.'" Among other presidential libraries, only JFK's, an I.M. Pei design on Boston's waterfront, compares, Newsweek said. Clinton's is special, according to the article, because of its urban location and ambitious symbolism. This lavish tribute to the main architect, James Polshek of New York, and to Clinton's hands-on tweaking curtly dismissed the criticism of locals who have likened the elongated structure to, as the article put it, "the world's largest doublewide." I do not wish to be overly sensitive or at all egocentric. But I in fact have referred in a column or two to how this structure protruding via cantilever northward to the very edge of the Arkansas River, this architectural expression of a presidential vision, somehow puts me in mind of a mobile home. The only reference to a doublewide that I can recall is my own suggestion that should Wes Clark get elected president, we could save local heartache and tax money simply by turning Clinton's library into a doublewide. We could boast, I wrote, of the world's largest presidential trailer park. Some other local people have said the structure looks like a rail car. About the funniest thing I've read was an April Fool's piece by Bob Lancaster of the Arkansas Times in which he suggested that the structure had been mistakenly erected according to specifications for Boxcar Willie's, not Slick Willie's, library. Now comes Newsweek to say that such remarks lack context in that they fail to consider the symbolism and come from people who, hailing as they do from the architecturally bereft Midsouth, lack the sophistication to comprehend what they are looking upon and talking about. This part of the country hasn't seen modern architecture like this, Newsweek lamented. I readily acknowledge the possibility in my own case. And I dialed up a friendly and soft-spoken Little Rock architect, Tommy Polk, who had nothing to do with the design, to seek his impressions. "Oh, I think it's an elegant piece of work," Polk told me. "To see the president's vision expressed in steel, to see the embodiment of the idea of the bridge - it's just very special. And the level of detailing is extraordinary, beyond what you normally see around here." Yes, I countered, but from the vantage point of the Interstate 30 bridge, to the average columnist or cross-country trucker, didn't it kind of look like a trailer? "I think you need to get down there on site and inside the structure, and then you'll understand," Polk said. The most extraordinary element of all, the thing that most likely will transform the east side of downtown Little Rock, is the forthcoming landscaping for the presidential park, Polk said. "They have literally re-sculpted that land," he said. All right, then. Let's call this column a correction. And a resolution to work on one's architectural appreciation. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
