Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan is not even 33 years old, but it seems a relic of some distant age, when vast, impractical artistic hubris could persuade and triumph. Wright was a fabulous caricature of the genius artiste, difficult and grand, and so the Guggenheim was a caricature of 20th century genius architecture -- bizarre, ahistorical, antiurban. These days, there are still plenty of arrogant, solipsistic architects around, but self-confidence -- and talent -- on the scale of Wright's no longer exists.
And so, in this reduced age, people are discombobulated by the prospect of fussing with a masterwork...
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