“Saint Brad” by Andrew Blum (Metropolis Magazine) Annotated
tags: andrew_blum, architecture, brad_pitt, make_it_right_project, metropolis_magazine, new_orleans, rebuilding, urbanplanning
As I don’t follow celebrity news, I had no idea that Brad Pitt is a “design junkie” or a pivotal mover-and-shaker in the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. (I barely know that Pitt and another actress — Angelina Jolie? — are linked/married/ or something… d’oh… )
Andrew Blum’s article shines a good light (good as in “kind” and “illuminating”) on Pitt’s efforts, as embodied in the non-profit he started called “Make It Right” (MIR). And it does an excellent job educating me on the bizarre, yet potentially wonderful, nexus of pop culture/ money/ starchitecture momentum that Pitt has engineered.
The list of star architects makes my jaw drop; Blum discusses their efforts, and doesn’t hesitate to poiint out where some of them go wrong (and others get it right). As Blum puts it, “If Pitt can pull this off, he will have transformed a swath of the Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood symbolic of everything rotten in America, into one of the world’s most design-intensive sustainable communities.”
The article is well-illustrated (Blum’s blog doesn’t have the illustrations, but this link to Metropolis Magazine does).