Three things in one blog post:
1. Julie Taymor and the producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” have settled their lawsuits. As you might expect, “terms of the settlement were not released”. However, according to the NYT:
Ms. Taymor, who filed the lawsuit in 2011 after being fired by the producers, will receive a “significant” monetary settlement that could amount to millions of dollars if “Spider-Man” goes on to wide popularity, according to one person close to her. The producers, meanwhile, no longer need Ms. Taymor’s approval of future tours and versions of “Spider-Man” — especially any that involve altering the show’s script, which she helped write, or her staging. (The show’s music is by Bono and the Edge of U2.)
The paper of record goes on to suggest that the producers will use their new-found artistic freedom to transform the show into “an arena-style special-effects extravaganza that might fit well in Las Vegas, one of the places that the producers are considering for a future ‘Spider-Man’ run”. In addition, there’s some discussion about “reductions and adjustments in royalties and payments that are factored into the weekly expenses”, which the producers hope will reduce those expenses and allow the show to – eventually – make a profit.
The show costs between $1.1 million and $1.2 million a week to run, the highest expenses on Broadway, because of its aerial stunts and technical complexity, and a problematic amount now that ticket sales are fluctuating between $1 million and $1.5 million during most weeks. With those expenses and box-office grosses, the musical is only inching toward recouping its $75 million capitalization.
2. In 2001, the American Museum of Folk Art opened a new building near the Museum of Modern Art.
“Its heart is in the right time as well as the right place,” Herbert Muschamp wrote in his architecture review in The New York Times, calling the museum’s sculptural bronze facade “already a Midtown icon.”
But things did not quite go as planned.
The folk art museum, which had once envisioned the building as a stimulus for its growth, ended up selling the property, at 45 West 53d Street, to pay off the $32 million it had borrowed to finance an expansion. It now operates at a smaller site on Lincoln Square, at West 66th Street.
MoMA bought the building. Now they plan to demolish it and put up a new building that better fits the MoMA aesthetic. (Also, “The former folk museum is also set back farther than MoMA’s other properties, and the floors would not line up.”)
“It’s very rare that a building that recent comes down, especially a building that was such a major design and that got so much publicity when it opened for its design — mostly very positive,” said Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of Columbia University’s historic preservation program. “The building is so solid looking on the street, and then it becomes a disposable artifact. It’s unusual and it’s tragic because it’s a notable work of 21st century architecture by noteworthy architects who haven’t done that much work in the city, and it’s a beautiful work with the look of a handcrafted facade.”
3. Architect Paolo Soleri has passed away.
A onetime apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West compound on the edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Soleri founded his own desert settlement, called Arcosanti, in 1970 at a site roughly 70 miles north of downtown Phoenix.
…In a series of feverishly detailed drawings, Soleri instead proposed denser, vertical settlements that would leave more land untouched at ground level. He called this approach “arcology,” a term combining architecture and ecology.
Arcosanti never got larger than about 100 permanent residents, according to the LAT, which also asserts Soleri’s work has been influential in the “green architecture” movement. Personally, I think this
is the best thing to come out of Soleri’s work, but that’s just me.