Betsky, Aaron 1958–

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Betsky, Aaron 1958–

PERSONAL: Born in 1958, in Missoula, MT; raised in the Netherlands; married partner, Peter Christian Haberkorn (an artist), June 26, 2004. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1979, M.Arch., 1983.

ADDRESSES: Office—Netherlands Architecture Institute, P.O. Box 237, 3000 AE Rotterdam, Netherlands. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Designer, critic, and writer. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, instructor, 1983–85; Frank Gehry, designer, 1985–87; Hodgetts & Fung Design, designer, 1987; Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, coordinator of special projects and teacher, 1994–2000; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, 1995–2001, began as design coordinator, became curator of architecture and design; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, 2006–. Cofounder of the San Francisco Prize, an annual architectural competition, 1995. Director of Netherlands Architecture Institute and First International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2002. Began his own design practice in 1987; adjunct professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Visiting chair at Columbia University, Rice University, the University of Milwaukee, and the University of Michigan.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Violated Perfection: Architecture and the Fragmentation of the Modern, Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1990.

(With John Chase and Leon Whiteson) Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles, Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1991.

Architecture and Medicine: I.M. Pei Designs the Kirklin Clinic, photographs by Tom Bonner, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 1992.

James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994.

Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture, and the Construction of Sexuality, Morrow (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Michael Benedikt and Ann Jarmusch) Rob Wellington Quigley, Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Julie Eizenberg) Konig Eizenberg: Buildings, Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) Icons: Magnets of Meaning, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 1996.

Drager House: Franklin D. Israel, Phaidon (London, England), 1996.

Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, Morrow (New York, NY), 1997.

Zaha Hadid: The Complete Buildings and Projects, Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Erik Adigard) Architecture Must Burn: Manifesto for an Architecture beyond Building, Gingko Press (Corte Madera, CA), 2000.

Revelatory Landscapes, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, CA), 2001.

Landscrapers: Building with the Land, Thames & Hudson (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Adam Eeuwens) False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good, Phaidon (London, England), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Fabrications, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, CA), 1998, Schwartz/Silver: Arguments for Building, L'Arca (Milan, Italy), 2001, and Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), 2003. Contributor of articles and reviews to architecture journals. Contributing editor to Blueprint, Architectural Record, ID, and Metropolitan Home.

SIDELIGHTS: Aaron Betsky is an architect and author who is known for his intellect and his originality. The author has been widely commended for such publications as James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism, a conventional examination of a very conservative architect of the early twentieth century, as well as Zaha Hadid: The Complete Buildings and Projects, a study of a more radical designer working at the end of the century. In other books, he explores the links between architecture and sexuality.

In his first book, Violated Perfection: Architecture and the Fragmentation of the Modern, Betsky suggests that not only did modernism become the dominant architectural theory of the twentieth century, but it persists as what Architectural Record critic Scott Gutterman called "an abiding riddle whose meanings continue to unfold." Within this notion, so-called successors such as postmodernism and deconstructionism seem to be fragments of the modernist "whole" that enable practitioners to focus on discrete elements of a movement that has grown unwieldy and complex. Gutterman's examples of such elements include the concepts of "truth in building, the integration of technology and modern life, [and] accommodation of a rapidly expanding world." Gutterman found some of Betsky's commentary obscure or overpowering, but overall he expressed fascination with the author's thesis.

The premise of the book Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture, and the Construction of Sexuality is that exterior architecture often suggests a male gender orientation, while interior "architecture," or design, is often perceived as a female domain. He points to the rather domineering, obviously phallic nature of skyscrapers like the Empire State Building or monuments such as the Eiffel Tower as examples of male-oriented structural design. Betsky contrasts these images with the concept of interior design, which shapes an internal, comfortable if confining environment that, for him, recalls the safety of the womb. Library Journal reviewer Mary Hamel-Schwulst acknowledged Betsky's qualifications to write such a book but dismissed the work as "extravagant" and "overgeneralized." Stanley Abercrombie, writing in Interior Design, offered a more positive view: "the book itself is a mix of fact and fantasy, both a serious critique of our designed world and an abstract romance about the world we might someday design." Donna Seaman's Booklist review was even more favorable: "Betsky's fluid and creative interpretations prove to be quite stimulating and enjoyable," providing "a fresh and illuminating perspective" on the world.

In his 1997 book, Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, Betsky focuses on what Abercrombie called in an Interior Design review "a type of space that is esoteric, ambiguous, ephemeral, sometimes … only implied …, and one that arises from a sense of estrangement experienced … by homosexual men in the West in this century." He does not direct his scholarly attention solely to the work of male, homosexual architects, but to the "type of space" such designers might create, a space that he characterizes as liberating and therefore desirable.

Queer Space, like Betsky's earlier works drew a variety of responses from critics. Library Journal contributor Jim Van Buskirk recognized Betsky's sincerity but expressed distaste for "his fatuous prose and unsubstantiated generalizations." Both Van Buskirk and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly commended the subject matter as intriguing and worthy of scholarly research, but the Publishers Weekly reviewer, like Van Buskirk, denigrated the final product as a glib but shallow failure. Abercrombie, on the other hand, recommended Queer Space to all designers as a fresh and unusual argument against "our prejudices and assumptions."

In the book Landscrapers: Building with the Land, Betsky argues for a new architectural paradigm that focuses on low-lying structures. The heavily-illustrated book features many buildings that have very low profiles, or are even built partly underground. These buildings are "great, fascinating, creative, delicious and mostly fairly new," stated Sutherland Lyall in the Architectural Review. Library Journal reviewer David Soltesz found the author's arguments "weakened" by "unsupported assertions," but added that nevertheless, the ideas presented in the book about architecture's role in reading the land like a text is "a diverting exercise."

Betsky examined the special characteristics of Dutch design in False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good. The term "false flat" refers to a unique characteristic of the Dutch landscape, which has been built up over centuries of reclaiming land from the Rhine River and the North Sea. The author believes that contemporary Dutch designers reclaim and reprocess existing design forms, adapting them through the use of new technologies. Over the course of the book, Betsky and his coauthor, Adam Eeuwens, trace the design heritage of the Netherlands. Along the way, they showcase many "outlandish ideas and witty creations," according to Mark Sinclair in Creative Review. Commenting on False Flat in Building Design, Christoph Grafe noted: "This book is saturated with eloquent enthusiasm and reflects the author's intimate day-to-day knowledge of Dutch society and culture."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Architectural Record, July, 1991, Scott Gutterman, review of Violated Perfection: Architecture and the Fragmentation of the Modern, p. 95; May, 2003, Sutherland Lyall, review of Landscrapers: Building with the Land, p. 97.

Art in America, February, 2001, Tom McDonough, review of Architecture Goes Global, p. 41.

Booklist, July, 1995, Donna Seaman, review of Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture, and the Construction of Sexuality, p. 1851.

Building Design, September 3, 2004, Christoph Grafe, review of False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good, p. 25.

Choice, June, 1991, review of Violated Perfection, p. 1628.

Creative Review, September, 2004, Mark Sinclaire, review of False Flat, p. 72.

Interior Design, September, 1995, p. 56; August, 1997, Stanley Abercrombie, review of Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Drive, and H. Ward Jandl, review of Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles, p. 107.

Library Journal, June 1, 1992, p. 120; July, 1995, Mary Hamel-Schwulst, review of Building Sex, p. 76; July, 1997, Jim Van Buskirk, review of Queer Space, p. 80; December, 2002, David Soltesz, review of Landscrapers, p. 115.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 27, 1995, review of Building Sex, pp. 2, 11.

New England Quarterly, March, 1996, Bryant F. Tolles, Jr., review of James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism, pp. 160-163.

Publishers Weekly, March 10, 1997, review of Queer Space, p. 61.

Times Literary Supplement, April 9, 1999, review of Zaha Hadid: The Complete Buildings and Projects, p. 37.