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"Hello, my name is John. I'm a recovering architect."

I like all sorts of towns, cities and buildings, but what I design are Classical buildings and Traditional towns and cities. You can see some of them at www.massengale.com.

With Robert A.M. Stern I wrote a history of architecture and urbanism in the Progressive Era, New York 1900, Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915 (Rizzoli, 1983) as well as an introduction to the history of suburbia before sprawl, The Anglo–American Suburb (St. Martin's Press, 1981). With Victor Dover, I am writing Street Design, The Art & Practice of Making Complete Streets (J. Wiley & Sons, 2013).

I'm a Board Member of the Congress for New Urbanism, the former Chair of CNU New York and a former Director of the Institute of Classical Art & Architecture and Federated Conservationists of Westchester County.

A co-founder of the New Urban and Traditional Architecture Councils.I was also a co-founder of the pro-urb list, a forum on the internet for an advanced discussion of New Urbanism. And in this blog you will find some postings from that list, along with other writings and clippings on architecture, urbanism, Classicism, Tradition, metaphysics and culture.


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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ugly Is As Ugly Does

Nissan1

THERE IS NO NEED for New York City's taxi of the future to be SO ugly. Before we have thousands, or tens of thousands, of these driving around the city, New York should send Nissan back to the drawing board for the $1 billion plus contract.

  • The stubby nose with the little grille above the swollen bumper is ugly.
  • The wide lower grill goes badly with the tall swollen bumper.
  • The headlights are ugly.
  • The pseudo-biomorphic nose and the half-circle wheel wells with outlines are a bad combination.
  • The wheels are small for the size of the taxi.
  • The front side windows are ugly, and their shape goes badly with the door shape.
  • The front and back halves look like they were designed for different vehicles. The windows are a particularly bad combination, but the boxy front and the "sculpted" front also go badly together.
  • The black rear quarter already looks like dated graphics.
  • This looks like a body designed by committee. There is no harmony.

Pictured below is an outgoing Ford hybrid. It's probably not as good inside as the new taxi, but design is about solving problems, not settling for an unbalanced solution.

FordHybrid

BTW, that ungainly, unbecoming view on top is an official Nissan / NYC photo.

And here are some previous thoughts:

V&V: A Sense of Well Being
V&V & WSJ: Building For Beauty
V&V: Truth & Beauty

Donald A. Norman, Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

June 22, 2011 in Architecture, Current Affairs, New York, Urbanism | Permalink

Comments

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It certainly is ugly. But I am glad it has sliding rear doors...better for cyclists trying to avoid a door in the face.

Posted by: taylor at Jun 22, 2011 6:22:16 PM

Of course, the Ford SUV thing is butt-ugly too, just in a different way -- and the SUV looks far less functional/nice as a taxi (in terms of ease-of-boarding, room, etc). Nobody in their right mind would use an SUV-wannabe as a taxi.

To be honest what the Nissan needs is less "design" -- it suffers from the sort of stupid-chrome-plated-gee-gaw-and-random-pointless-sculpting syndrome that seems to be a huge problem with modern vehicle design... [I presume this is due to the increased use of powerful CAD systems that give endless freedom to people without the taste to use it well.]

Posted by: snogglethorpe at Jun 25, 2011 3:37:42 AM

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