The Globe and Mail

Some have called it "starchitecture." Now it goes by the smoother marketing handle of "iconic architecture." Like an aesthetic flu shot, some think this just the boost our town now needs to get out of its architectural sick bed. Not me. Simple recourse to brand name designers and their mock-sculptural, often ill-functioning buildings is the refuge of fools and Torontonians - those who need to purchase validated reputations in the same way some of us select designer shirts. Starchitects create icons for the media's eyes when critical standards fail, public debate wanes, and when insecurities need to be soothed with the thick salve of credentialism. In an over-mediated world, it is easier to buy a reputation than earn one. Why invent anew or think it out wholesale - say the starchitects and their middlebrow marketers to potential clients like the Vancouver Art Gallery - when you can buy a proven pretty package retail? Neurotic burgs like Seattle, Denver and Toronto give their flashest arts and academic building commissions to any Euro with a monograph or monocle, while more self-assured cities like Portland, Montreal and Vancouver try to create their own design heroes, not import them.