ArchiTeam PaperNews

The announce of the publication of Oren Safdie’s play, THE BILBAO EFFECT

date added: 20.12.2010

Dramatists Play Service Inc. and the Center for Architecture announce the publication of Oren Safdie’s controversial and timely play, THE BILBAO EFFECT. The play was originally produced last summer by the Center for Architecture in New York.

Paul Goldberger of The New Yorker proclaimed: “A hilarious send-up of idiotic architectspeak, and a reminder of the gap between the public’s demand that buildings be ever more exciting entertaining, and their need to fulfill certain practical functions.”

Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Both funny and cruelly smart in its portrayal of the lunatic excesses of the more extreme varieties of starchitecture … Perhaps the shrewdest of Mr. Safdie’s touches is the way in which he conceives of the debate over such architecture as a class war.”

Jason Zinoman of The New York Times declared: “Ambitious … a farce of ideas … dueling arguments about the profession’s social and ethical responsibilities.”

“The Bilbao Effect” became a popular term after Frank Gehry built the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, transforming the poor industrial port city of Bilbao into a must-see tourist destination. Its success spurred other cities into hiring famous architects and giving them carte blanche to design even more spectacular buildings in hopes that the formula could be repeated. In Mr. Safdie’s play THE BILBAO EFFECT — the second in a trilogy focusing on contemporary architecture — a world famous architect faces censure by the American Institute of Architects, following accusations that his urban redevelopment project for Staten Island has led to a woman’s suicide. The play explores whether architecture has become more of an art than a profession, and at what point the ethics of one field violate the principles of the other.

THE BILBAO EFFECT ($7.50) can be ordered directly from Dramatists Play Service Inc. (www.dramatists.com) or other popular online bookstores such as Amazon.com.

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