Witold Rybczynski goes to MoMA

Witold Rybczynski filed a slideshow report from MoMA's Home Delivery show. In his usually candid style, he gives his impressions of the show, inside and out:

Prefabricated houses have remained an elusive goal for architects, and the MoMA show is a stylish litany of second-place finishers, also-rans, if-onlys, and downright losers.

I'd dare to say that just being included in the MoMA show makes each of the featured projects a first-place, upright winner, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, back to Witold:

After considering some 500 firms, the museum chose younger, lesser-known architects, and the range of solutions demonstrates both a sense of enthusiasm and a variety of novel prefabrication technologies.

He shares his thoughts on the BURST*008:

The rather crudely built structure looks out of place here—or, I suspect, anywhere.

The System3:

most people's idea of contemporary prefabrication: It's elegant, stylish, and rather austere.

Larry Sass's Instant House:

an ingenious and very complicated answer to the wrong question. ... The laser-cut decorative fretwork on the porch is nice, though.

The m-ch:

Nothing revolutionary here, but a very nicely designed package.

(Though he suggests buying an Airstream trailer instead.)

And the Cellophane House:

The design, fabrication, and construction are seamlessly integrated, and the various pieces are automatically ordered from the fabricator to suit the design as it is entered into the architect's computer. If there is a Next Big Idea in prefabrication, this may be it.

For the rest of Rybczynski's thoughts and some great photos, check out the whole slideshow at Slate.