High-profile architects are creating innovative design and sustainable strategies which are changing the ways US cities look and operate. Last month I went to a lecture given by Moshe Safdie at the downtown library. 350 people filled the main hall to hear him speak about The Kauffman Center – a performing arts center he is creating in Kansas City. 
"Beauty connotes humanity. We call a natural object beautiful because we see that its form expresses fitness, the perfect fulfillment of function." Safdie said quoting the morphologist Theodore Andrea Cook who uttered these words in 1917. The term "beauty" does not mean pretty, but an expression of fitness. "Fitness for Purpose," was the slogan for many modern architects early in the 20th century. Beauty is a form generated by growth -- a nautilus shell, spider wed, a changing tree throughout the seasons. Design gets closer to fitness as we get closer to beauty, Safdie pointed out. 
For the Kauffman Center, Safdie's aim was to associate the building with music. His concept is based on the violin. The lobby will have cabled structures that will be anchored to the auditorium and conjure feelings of a stringed instrument. The back of the structure will swing in slight rotation, Safdie said, and provide a sense of musical progression. 
The following day, I attended a meeting at JE Dunn, the construction company, and got to see the models of the structures. What an incredible program he has planned for us. And it is in the midst of construction scheduled to open in the Spring of 2009. Before attending, I did a little research on his other structures. Safdie has an incredible way of marrying his buildings with the landscape. Browse his site, you'll see. Below is the new addition to the Peabody Essex Museum.
“Let the building be its defined purpose.” Safdie stated in the lecture. He believes design should be rooted to a place. Architects should consider the relationship of the site to the form of the building. It is the job of the architect to question whether the building belongs to its site in a way that is unique to that place. His works relate to the surrounding environment, weather playing off the land or in some instances incorporated part of the land with the structure. He relates the scale of his creations to the surrounding structures.But Mr Safdie also designed this structure. And I think it is an eye-sore.
What the hell happened here?
The West Edge, it is called. 203,000 square feet of office space, a 103-room boutique hotel, a restaurant, an Advertising Icon Museum, a 300-seat auditorium and retail shops. There will also be and underground parking for 920 cars. I have to look at this thing every day. I read somewhere that this monstrosity was developed in response to the surrounding neighborhood. On the left is an apartment building which is very much in harmony with all the other buildings on the Plaza.
Safdie’s exterior panels are sparkly. And it casts a shadow over one of my favorite watering holes. Presently, the initial construction company has walked off the job. The building has been left hollow with a security guard puttering about shooing away any vandals or people interested in making a temporary home for themselves. A second construction company has been hired to finish structure. I am not sure when they will finish. Is there an ethos to architecture? If "ethos" is defined as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture, then I am frightened by this physical manifestation. Am I missing something here?Photos taken from Kauffman Performing Arts Center website, Architecture Weekly, The Kansas City Star, and my overpriced, not that great cell phone.