Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Flashback: Addressing The County Commissioners

July 2, 2007
Prepared Remarks:


To the Board of Commissioners, my esteemed colleagues and the citizens at large:

I'm here to talk about history, prudence, practically and reason; on an issue that should be an absolute no-brainer.

No offense to the honorable leadership of the Fulton County commission. But people, let's not make a mockery of ourselves.

We cannot afford this. We cannot afford this. Neither can we afford the financial cost, nor can we afford the cultural implications. Because, hastily cobbling together a last minute amendment to build the largest, most expensive public library the city has ever seen, might be a bit misguided.

We should move forward with the existing Library Master Plan, to first take care of the existing business at hand. Because, when it seems as if we can't even afford to wash the windows of the Central Branch we've already got? Does it make sense to be building a new one? Really, has anyone looked at those windows lately?

So the question should be, why are we neglecting our public institutions, and if we are already showing a pattern of this, what's to say we won't just continue this pattern of neglect once we build something new. More debt, more neglect.

And now a bit of history.

Marcel Breuer, the designer of the current central branch...was nothing short of a genius.

He was the Rosa Parks of industrial design. He was the Ray Charles of architectural engineering

Marcel Breuer was a pioneer of the modern aesthetic and he and his colleagues at the Bauhaus school are almost entirely responsible for laying down the architectural foundation of all the great creative minds since, including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, I.M. Pei, Roberto Piano, David Adjaye, Phillip Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright.

So, let's not commit cultural suicide. And let's not waste hard earned tax dollars.

Let's go back to the original Library Master Plan.

Let’s preserve The Central Branch


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Max Eternity © 2008