Kleihues Remembered

Chicago Public Radio features an audio piece on Josef Paul Kleihues, architect of the Museum of Contemporary Art's home, who died recently at the age of 71.

From its August 22 arts show, Hello Beautiful!, host Edward Lifson ends the piece by playing the kid's song "Can We Fix It?", from a Bob The Builder album, with the repeated chorus "Can we build it? Yes we can!" In my opinion a better tune would be Stereolab's "Crest", that has the repeated words, "If there’'s been a way to build it, there’'ll be a way to destroy it." The band is more likely singing metaphorically about political structures, but it comes close to summing up a lot of people's feelings about Kleihues's only Chicago building. But that would be far too negative a commentary on such a sad occasion.

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