Chelsea Barracks Apartments (rendering)/Images: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Though Tuned In has upped its politics-and-news content as the election gets closer, I haven't covered campaign ads much. That's partly because we have the rest of the political blog world for that, but also because I hardly ever see campaign ads, except online and on cable news. As a TV critic with Tivo and screeners, I don't see many ads, period. And also, I live in New York, whose electoral status is
not much of a cliffhanger.
I am curious, though, and lucky me, I have an audience of far-flung TV watchers. So tell me:
Where do you live, and what kind of campaign ads are you seeing? What sort of issues are they targeting where you live? Are they positive or negative? And are there any you've actually liked?
Britain’s Prince Charles, the sworn enemy of modern architecture, has gone on the offensive again. Earlier this week he attacked a plan for a large but mostly low-rise apartment development project. Designed by Richard Rogers’ firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, it would be built on a site in west London across from Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital. The site is being developed by a firm owned by the royal family of Qatar. Charles wrote to the head of the firm and to the Prime Minster of Qatar urging them to drop Rogers as architect for the project.
The Prince meanwhile is promoting an alternative scheme by Quinlan Terry, an historicizing architect who’s a favorite of his, which of course turns out to be a historical pastiche of the kind Terry is known for. (Among other things, he renovated the interiors of 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher.)
I’m always strongly in favor of historical preservation, but the idea that historic buildings can only be surrounded by faux historic new construction is a huge mistake. It almost always leads to faux historic mediocrity. The real problem with the Rogers proposal for the Chelsea Barracks project, as it’s called, is that it’s never looked particularly interesting in any of the images I’ve seen of it.
Proposed Chelsea Barracks Project (aerial view)
Reports The Hollywood Reporter,
Barack Obama has
purchased a half-hour of primetime on CBS on Wednesday, Oct. 29. Obama is close to a deal with NBC as well, it says, and may strike one with Fox, depending on a possible baseball conflict.
Smart idea or waste of money? I guess it depends what you do with it. If you're not roadblocking every network, you may just be driving ratings up for whatever network isn't carrying your mega-ad—unless you offer something that stokes genuine curiosity. (Hey, maybe he could get Sarah Palin to show up!) If you do roadblock every network—well, people are going to get ticked off that you roadblocked every network, aren't they? It will be interesting to see what he does with the time, anyway.
Obama's airtime purchase, at 8 p.m. E.T., will knock Gary Unmarried off the air for the night. That's change we can believe in!
The Qataris probably thought they were assuring themselves an easy ride in the approval process for their project by signing up one the Big Two of British architecture. (Norman Foster of course being the other name.) But the banality of the proposal from Rogers’ firm opened the way for the Prince to step in with a banal proposal all his own.
Proposed Chelsea Barracks project
Barack Obama has finished a deal to air his half-hour campaign pitch on NBC as well Oct. 29,
James Hibberd reports. In the process, he will do what Pushing Daisies could not: knock Knight Rider off the air.
Hibberd further wonders whether other networks will air Obama's spot for free, as news coverage, given public interest in the election and lack of interest in pretty much everything else the networks have put on this fall. One question would be how non-paid coverage of the spot would fall under equal-time rules. For the paid spots, the networks are obligated to offer John McCain similar time and prices, but it's unclear whether the McCain campaign would be interested or could afford the unspecified price tag.
I say, let's take it further: if no one is watching fall TV shows to begin with, let's make it into a sitcom! There's already a cast: his crazy, gaffe-making business partner; the cranky old guy next door; and the folksy, wise-cracking hockey mom. It sells itself!
Anyone have a title for it? "Oh, 'Bama!"? "According to Barack"?
Exterior stairways are a Rogers signature, and the transparent exterior stairwell in the drawing at left is a nice touch, but if you’re going to go up against Christopher Wren, you need to do better.
You can find the Guardian’s story about the whole fracas here.
