Land+Living ponders Has Dwell jumped the shark?. my opinion? most def.
No real numbers on architecture costs, material costs, construction costs etc… and if there are, they are certainly not honest numbers. This is the single most problematic thing about Dwell, in my opinion. Dwell used to be more then just another arch.mag. There was always a utilitarian, common-man thread in the mag. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of this spirit like the David and Im Shafer’s One Space apartment piece (inspired). The articles, architecture and photos are always top-notch, I love Dwell. They feature projects that no one else is covering. Reading Dwell is always a treat, but there’s something missing. Could you afford any of the houses in this mag? probably not.
Dwell doesn’t ask the tough questions, like: why does prefab still cost more then building your own custom house, why does most well-designed green tech cost 3 times more then conventional (green tax?). Why does that featured kitchen cost 300k but the article even attempts to mention the word ‘affordable’ (Poggenpohl - with no price mentioned)? There are a million other questions that go unanswered.
The ads are relentless, current issues are 2 and almost 3 times the size of issues from 5 years ago (i call this the “wired” syndrome). I’d love to do the “Noam Chomsky New York Times ad cutout experiment” on Dwell. And ads for Hummers, who exactly is the target market?
What happened? i’d say it’s the money.
I’m heated about Dwell, because I like it so much. It’s hard to let it go. And the editors have expressed these same sentiments in brief glimpses. Dwell is on a trajectory, like it or not. How long you stay with the current incarnation of the mag, is most likely inversely related to how strongly you felt about it back when you first started reading Dwell. It’s still a great architecture and design showcase, but without real facts accompanying the articles, they just end up being semi-matte puff pieces. If you’re fine with that, then great, enjoy the luxury eye-candy. I do. But… where’s the teeth? My definition of ‘Nice Modernism’ isn’t contrary to ‘Luxury’ but it has a slightly tenuous relationship with it. It keeps a watchful eye over ‘Luxury’, occasionally has fun with it. But in the end “Nice Modernism” is a movement and doesn’t get caught up in the insular, narcissistic world that Luxury often creates.
Let’s Hope that Dwell’s editors keep her “Nice”.
