A Plea for Crazy in Architecture

The architect John Beckmann, of the firm Axis Mundi, is promoting an alternative to the Jean Nouvel tower MoMA has commissioned as a part of its continuing expansion. I don’t see the folks at the museum, or their development partner, jettisoning Nouvel’s plan, nor should they, especially for what is—let’s face it—a rather half-baked amalgam of several projects by the Dutch firm MVRDV and any number of Archigram-era visions. (MoMA, for what it’s worth, has actually built its own wonderfully hirsute bit of crazy at PS1.) So fine, Beckmann’s scheme is nuts. Nevertheless, I find it irresistible. How can you not love it? Hanging gardens. Stairwells in the sky. A giant jigsaw of a building. Weirdness. Who would not want to explore this cartoon structure? Modernism (and that Vader-like Nouvel building in particular), is all too often impersonal and intimidating, but one suspects even Jacques Tati would be happy in this place. Certainly it’s better than the banality that is Rafael Vinoly’s latest addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art. A few more pics after the jump.