Greatness = taking risks

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Melissa Worden

Michael Rosenblum is working with New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger about architecture around the world for a new series for Discovery. (Wow. What a gig!)

In doing this project, he’s learning about what makes great architecture — and that to create it means designers have to take risks.

Which has led him to question why TV news broadcasts don’t.

“Here we have something that is far less difficult to assemble than a building. It is far more plastic. It is not cast in stone or steel or concrete. Yet when we design and ‘architect’ television news, we are fearful of being ‘too creative’. We assiduously repeat designs and patterns that have ‘worked’ for us for a generation now. The studio, the anchors, the throw, the weather and sports.

“It is boring.

“The risks in building a Bilbao are enormous. The risks in redesigning a television newscast, really radically redesigning it, are minimal. Yet we don’t go there. The most we are willing to risk is replacing Dan with Katie. Not much of a change, really. More like repainting the front door than anything else.”