Posted by Kevin Matthews on February 28, 2003 at 13:26:55:In Reply to: Largest handcut stone building where? posted by Joy Stalnaker on February 28, 2003 at 11:52:35:
With all due respect - and not denying that you have a project to accomplish, nor wishing you ill of accomplishing it - I am moved to comment that these quests for quantitative uniqueness in architecture are, on the whole, rather silly.
I can hardly believe how often the submissions to ArchitectureWeek claim something as the first, biggest, smallest, newest, etc. Rarely are these claims backed up by anything remotely like proof. Often they are so narrowly qualified as to be laughable, or so broadly general as to be preposterous.
Sometimes such claims of vacuous superlative seem to be wishful reaching to connect some significance to a mundane construction.
Sometimes such claims of vacuous superlative seem to be merely lazy or unimaginatively conventional thinking by the writer of the submission. Often in this category there is some real significance to the building in question - after all, a well-designed and constructed beautiful building elegantly suited to its inner and outer conditions is inherently significant - and we find that clearing away pointless superlativization is regularly an essential step toward finding the real center of the architectural story waiting to be told.
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