MIT Chapel, Cambridge MA. Eero Saarinen, 1955
There is something profoundly moving about this show; an inescapable nostalgia pervades it for that elusive American Century. The faith in the future, the belief that science and technology would bring us a better world, is part of a more innocent era. Seeing how one architect expressed its hopes and aspirations helps us to recapture the moment and value the maker on his own terms, in his own times, and in the context of what we have become.
Ada Louise Huxtable in the Wall Street Journal, from a review of the exhibit, “Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future,” currently on view at the Museum of the City of New York.
This passage from the inimitable Ada Louise made me stop and reflect on what has been lost, what didn’t traveled with us into this new century. Reading her review was closely coupled with an evening of extraordinary jazz by two legendary greats, Bucky Pizzarelli (who turned 84 on January 9th) and Carol Sloane, 73. Alert, engaged and gifted, they were still in their bliss. Listening to them brought me to that same reflective place of thinking about what they know and we can only imagine.
Agreed.
I read the same article and now, looking at that image again puts me in the most contemplative place, a place where I wish the world would stop and stay for however long it takes to understand.