'Architecture Is Public Art'

Great Interview with architect Daniel Libeskind via Spiegel:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You don't agree with critics like Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times, who called CityCenter "one final echo of the boom years"?

Libeskind: Great visions that transform cities are not going to disappear. We won't lose heart and start building smaller houses now. Of course this is a difficult time for many. But it's also a good time to rethink architecture, to rethink what it is we're doing here.

I've been hearing a lot about how the recession will put the breaks on suburban sprawl and gear development to focus on downtown, urban projects. I can only hope so. I dream of a time when America will embrace urbanity. Real urbanism. Urbanism that promotes diviersity and interaction, that provides places of quiet and places of gathering, places for commerce and for community. This is what cities should be like. We need to stop the messy expansion of dead, soulless places.