from The New York Times
A Building Is an Eyesore and Must Go? Grade it X
go to article

An interesting idea which seeks to identify buildings so hated and vilified that they must be destroyed, in order to preserve the urban fabric from aesthetic ruin. These buildings will be accorded a Grade X to differentiate them from those listed for preservation.

"What makes [the] proposal timely is that it also offers food for thought to cities, above all in Asia, that are engaged in wild construction booms, accompanied at times by the destruction of traditional neighborhoods. The skyline of the future is being drawn now. So will skyscrapers heralded today deserve an X rating tomorrow? Will today's daring designs look dated tomorrow?"

What's laudable in such a proposal is that it puts the issue of preservation squarely back into the value-ridden realm of selection and meaning-making, instead of an exercise which claim to operate outside the sphere of subjective values.