LETTERS
Ugly, ugly, ugly

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If a building doesn't provoke emotion, it's just construction," says architect Ricardo Legoretta about the negative comments received about his hideous neon blocks ("Lifestyles of the Young and Studious," February/02) which have ruined (ruined!) the University's integrity. Is that all he has to say for himself?

Does this mean that if I throw up in Legoretta's lap while viewing his ridiculous postmodern monstrosities that he will rejoice in my critique? It's the last refuge of charlatanism to blithely proclaim that your work is meant to "provoke emotion," while not giving us a sustained argument in defense of his wretched aesthetic. Mr. Legoretta has proven himself inept, made the University decision makers with respect to these structure look like fools, and ruined the landscape's character of my alma mater. In the interests of not throwing good money after bad, my husband and I, after viewing the new "construction," are from now on withholding further contributions from an institution I've long cherished. Whom do we turn to to complain? Who else is responsible for these abortions, which have made 56th Street into a cavern and obliterated the view toward the Quadrangle and 57th Street from the north? There's something desperately gone wrong on a campus that would allow such shoddy work to stand.

And I repeat: No more money from us, until these buildings come down.

Elaine L. Larson Wickstrom, AM'89
Kalamazoo, Michigan

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