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Laurie Virr wrote:
Some government offices are equipped with gymnasiums, built at public expense, to which employees have free access.
It sounds as though you think this is not a good idea! Shouldn't all workers be entitled to these things, and isn't that a model for what a normal workplace could be? In the U.S., our tax dollars go to fighting wars, and paying off our national debt...
And architects could be the vanguard, designing the places which benefit people.
I am all for gymnasiums, and attend one at least twice each week. If they are to be provided for public servants with tax payers money, why not the same conditions for the rest of the population?
The public service has become the pace setter for working conditions here in Aus. More than generous salaries and travel expenses, lavish working environments, technology continuously updated, 4 weeks annual leave, sick leave, long service leave, in house canteens. Until recently, if public servants traveled by air on government business, the frequent flyer points accrued to them personally. Most of those in the lower and middle ranks have no idea of what constitutes a good day's work.
I have heard such types boasting that their salaries are more than adequate, and that they are not required to do much work.
Give me a break. I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I consider that those collected could be much better spent than they are.
So...private or home schooling, sell existing school buildings to be converted into condos, private toll roads and highways, abolish social security and medicare, privatize or sell to the highest bidder the national parks, state parks, and city parks, each homeowner to be responsible for his own sewer line and sewage treatment, private militias patrolling the borders, private police militias and volunteer fire departments, no N.E.A. funding, etc., etc...
Not to be too flip about it, and I don't want to debate the moral issue here on an architectural forum, but I think since the topic was raised, that it is important that people at least recognize that there is not universal support for the initiation of governmental force being used to achieve ANY end, not just the ones that you mention. And taxes are extracted from the taxpayer through the initiation of force. If people see value in the various goods and services that you list, then they should be willing to voluntarily pay for them, while those who do not see sufficient value, may chose not to do so.
Of course, one's views on this will ultimately hinge upon whether they view each person as a sovereign individual, with the right to determine the purpose and course of their life, or instead see some collective grouping (society, community, the church, the state, etc.) as the essential unit embodied with rights, and individuals as merely a resource to be directed by the appointed leaders for the group's higher purpose.
I come down firmly on the side of the individual having the freedom to act independently, while always accepting responsibility for their actions. I am very sympathetic to Laurie's problems of having to meet the arbitrary requirements of the local building department. Architects (just like any other professional) should be allowed to pursue their career without interference from outside agencies. It is our responsibility to make sure that we perform our task competently, and are aware of the consequences if we fail. Your reputation for performing successfully is the calling card for others to be willing to voluntarily engage one's services. This is what freedom means. Anything less is some variation of enslavement.
Oh good; first we have to deal with a sociopathic Wright homeowner, and now a libertarian of unknown provenance. . .! What's next -- the NRA ?
Speaking of which, one member of that organization was heard to say, during the most recent event involving gun owners' rights, "The men with guns get to make the rules." God help our beautiful land. . .
As long as we are on politics: Have you noticed how often Broadacre City is talked about lately- yet totally superficially? Broadacre City seems synonymous with the car. The car was indeed a Wright fancy/indulgence but cars did not define unrealized Broadacre City. In present criticism Wright’s imagined environment mutates into what we have- suburbs, gas guzzling commutes and no sidewalks. Critics ignore the produce markets, stores, schools, industries and natural park lands all webbed together that created a Broadacre community. Sounds like a sustainable community to me. Some recent critic on NPR (sorry I was listening in the studio and missed his name) lumped Wright and Ford together as the boogeymen to blame for our national oil addiction. He didn’t know Ford designed the Model T to run on ethanol not oil or recognize the struggle of progressive independent farmers and the victory of oil and gas developers, of course. (p.s. Ford made money, Wright’s idea didn’t.)
How much revisionist history do you need to avoid changing life now?
Any comprehensive list of villains would have to include Lewis Quincy Mumford, who seems to have taught the idea of suburbanism to Wright and to a generation of legislators and land-use planners from the 30s on. The Wright-Mumford letters have been published as a book.
Not to get away from the original subject, but a word for Broadacre City. It is not a suburb in any form, but just rambles across the country, self-sufficient and independent, the city dissolving into it.
There may be traces of it in some of rural America, where we are allowed to build without building permits and inspectors, expected to comply with state regulations on our own. If you don't design or build good buildings, word travels fast.
Please; this forum is supposed to be about FLLW; not another of your complaints against government employees.
Your comment:
"...I am used to such encounters degenerating into a shouting match across the counter..."
says a lot more about you than any government employee.
It seems you need a shrink more than an FLLW forum.
As an architect licensed in 2 U.S. states for many years, a g.c. licensed in 2 U.S. states, with many, many code certifications, 9 years as a Building Official, past president of the ICC Los Angeles Basin Chapter, still active as a part-time practicing architect throughout the SoCal area; I think it's safe to say no plans submitted to any jurisdiction in the U.S w/o dimensions on the "ground plan" or any other kind of plan will be properly rejected.
Designing to modules is great; you still have to comply with industry standards and your drawings have to have dimensions! (Duh!)
There are plenty of unreasonable difficulties in applying to building departments in the U.S.; resistance to supplying dimensions isn't one of them.
Also Ms. Virr; a note on human relations; your comment:
"A written appeal to the Ombudsman resulted in senior officials responding in a more positive manner, and the offender received a severe reprimand, a process that has probably stymied his career, if he ever had one."
In dealing with any fellow human being one of the best ways to alienate that person (for life) is to go over their head to their supervisor or whatever w/o giving the person an opportunity to explain their position or revise their position.
You approach is NOT the best way to deal w/ fellow human beings.
Please; no more personal attacks on government employees or any other group; please stick to the topic: FLLW!
I think we all realize why we have gravitated to this forum. That of course being Frank Lloyd Wright and his life's work. Fortunately it encompasses many more things than Architecture and a Building. His writings and his life was one that could never take place given today's rules, big government, codes and all. Let alone the current politics of the day. If so, he would suffer the same as he did in his time.
Please know that Mr. Laurie Virr is and continues to be from my research, a fine and an accomplished Architect and Builder in the same thought towards the organic.
Ms. Virr is Mister Laurie Virr.
I don't think Mr. Virr is attacking anyone, but addressing issues that are as real today as they where when Mr. Wright struggled to get things done in his way, not someone dictating what should be. Please note that Mr. Virr works and lives half-way across the globe. Things are different there, some similar, but we all have to bear in mind that we all live on the same round surface called the earth.
I for one respect and look forward to what Mr. Virr has to say and contribute here. I also look forward to meeting him in person when he travels to my locale on way to Oklahoma.
What on earth would an Australian travel to Oklahoma? Architecture!
I respect the difference of opinions, but embrace the similarities.
We have 5 wild acres in that ex-surb space that was once (40 years ago) farmland. Last year "codes" told our neighbors they could build their gigantic tin horse barn right in front of our passive solar house facade. It was the appropriate number of feet away so it was OK - despite the fact that there were 20 other acres to build upon. WWWD? What would Wright have done? Site a beautiful structure at the line of the barest minimum code requirement or consider the 30 year old earth sheltered structure next door?
Mr (or Miss ?) Craig's sentence which contains this phrase
"no plans submitted to any jurisdiction in the U.S w/o dimensions on the "ground plan" or any other kind of plan will be properly rejected. "
is a delightful mishmash of conflicting negatives, leaving me in the dark as to the writer's intended meaning.
I take it the poster is sticking up for public servants everywhere ? Perhaps he (she ?) doesn't believe that Mr Virr experienced the vexation he describes -- or that no satisfaction was to be had without going to a senior bureaucrat -- which is certainly the correct procedure, in my book. After all, who is an errant and impertinent underling going to take (re)direction from: a lowly "customer," or his own boss ?