Architectural Record News | AIA, Harris Interactive Poll: Empire State Building Tops the List of Beloved U.S. Buildings

Architectural Record News | AIA, Harris Interactive Poll: Empire State Building Tops the List of Beloved U.S. Buildings Yet another example of how surveys have all sorts of in-built biases. One might at first glance be tempted to rate this list as demonstrating that old is better in the eyes of the average punter. Top 10 includes a bridge and three sculpture / memorials. But recognition factor and exposure might be more telling here. The USA being so large that people from the East will often never have travelled all the way out west and may even take great pride in the fact... Nationally known monumental buildings become the only possibility at this point.

If one wanted to get really disappointed, one might look at the Las Vegas Bellagio appearing at number 22 as being a much more disappointing result. My reaction to that building when I walked through it last December was: fun fountain; great Christmas decorations; facarditecture was even more anonymous than expected. In this case instead of gilding the lily we seem to have the designers (one hesitates to call them architects) gilding a thorn bush.

To return to the theme: that Taliesin West and the Robie house by Frank Lloyd Wright appear after the San Francisco International Airport seems to me to highlight the recall factor and the status and experience of the people who voted, more than the genuine worth of the buildings listed in the eyes of the voters.

People talk about chart junk invading graphs and destroying our understanding of the underlying data by decorating the graphs rather than contributing to understanding. This to me is much worse: pseudo-systematic 'surveys' of a group of people whose characteristics and preferences are unknown and representing their vaguely gathered opinions as a genuine viewpoint...