Your turn: The architecture you despise…
By Lee BeyYour turn: The architecture you despise…
By Lee Bey(photo by Lee Bey)
One of my favorite tunes from 2007 is a track by the Winnipeg band The Paperbacks. It’s called “The Architecture You Despise.” Dang, that is a great title. The lyrics—an ode to the potentially soul-killing nature of bad architecture—are written with a flaneur’s eye:
On a bus under a soft wash of dusk
You inspect your new community
Its dull lines cry out to be vandalized
Its muted tones clean and corruptible
And just when you’ve made peace with your new anonymity
You’re suddenly hemorrhaging almost everything that you believe
As the architecture you despise
Branches out
Multiplies… Well, OK. It rocks when you listen to it.
But the song got me to thinking: What’s the architecture you despise? And why? Comment below and let’s get a discussion going.
Meanwhile, The Paperbacks also have a song called “Skinny Sidewalks”:
Skinny sidewalks taper off to small ellipses and unclear stops
A hidden city comes to light on skinny sidewalks
The final strains of light that creep through broken blinds make patterns on your face..
Lacks the lyrical punch of, say, the GS Boyz’ “Stanky Legg,” but it’ll do.