DISMAY OVER THE DISFIGUREMENT of an artist’s training by pretenses to metaphysical depth and invented meanings—call it skywriting—sent me to the library. What for? Not exactly sure. Anything to clear the palette, really. A good mystery would have done the job. But I had to pass down the architecture aisle to get to pulp fiction. John Silber’s Architecture of the Absurd caught my eye. So did its delicious subtitle: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art. It is a contentious book that earned Silber the title of Architecture Crank in 2007, the year it went to press. Continue Reading