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“overrated/underrated”: The Readers Speak

March 2024
1min read

Your article Overrated/Underrated (October 2003) was informative and entertaining. After reading it I still wondered about one thing: Why did the editors of American Heritage pick Ms. Clinton to weigh in as the “expert” for architecture? Not only does she mistake good old American egotism for a detracting quality, she also misses the point that Frank Lloyd Wright, who forged his own cosmology, pushed architecture forward exponentially. One cannot disagree that Willis Polk was indeed a genius in his own right and apparently a self-effacing character, but one of the reasons we haven’t heard of him is exactly why Wright is still a driving force behind modern architecture and Polk is not. Polk lacked Wright’s sheer will and force of character.

But still—why Ms. Clinton to represent architecture? Looking at her credentials, one notes her extensive knowledge of political and women’s history but not one architectural credit or association. But who am I to criticize? I am also not an architectural expert but rather an instructor of manufacturing quality sciences and a day-to-day industrial practitioner. May I be considered your expert next year for, let’s say, women’s history?

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