Dear Editor

...Dear Editor Plea Bargaining This is a fan letter to thank you for Richard H Kuh's article How to Make Plea Bargaining Work (NL January 7) I hope you can get Kuh to continue with further articles on the same subject Imagine what justice we would have if all our penal Marines were without leeway, so that every jaywalker or mugger had to receive the same punishment irrespective of his antisocial or proper background Unfortunately, our mass media have dirtied up this entire situation and I hope that your gazette or Kuh can even change the name of the honorable process which encourages the courts and all parties before the judges to discuss and debate the most fitting punishment for each and every culprit New York City MORRIS L. ERNST Architecture Howard Darmstadter attacks my book Modem Movements in Architectuie ("Theo nes Without Foundations," NL November 26), in a willful and erroneous way So often does he misrepresent or misread what I have written that I am led to speculate on the real cause of his pique—since the stated ones appear false First and most reasonably, he chides me for not developing the theoretical aspects of one of my own ideas, "multivalence"—the notion that a good work of architecture is nch in the linkage between its levels of meaning The problem is of course, that I wrote a history of modern architecture and not another book on semiotics, linguistics and systems theory—the kind of disciplines which, if brought together, would constitute a whole volume in themselves But I have sketched out the four basic qualities involved in multivalence and applied them to particular buildings (the reasonable approach in a historical rather than theoretical work) Next Darmstadter reduces one example of multivalence, a seat-table by Le Corbusier, to just two of its meanings, when I point out eight contexts for it to work in Why ignore the other six and concentrate only on those he considers most inappropriate7 To make his attack consistent since he cannot make it true7 The third misreading performs a double sleight of hand First my concept of architectural meaning is reduced to two metaphors that I find in Le Ccrbusier's Ronchamp chapel and these are termed "whimsical " If Darmstadter had looked at the photographs and read the captions, he would have found both metaphors plausible In fact the priests who take visitors around Ronchamp point out the first ''whimsical" metaphor, the towers which remind them of children and the painting by Le Corbusier, which I reproduce next to the model of Ronchamp shows the second The muscular curves of the body in the painting are exactly those of the back-to-back curves at the entrance to the building Darmstadter does not look for the evidence The same is true w-hen he suggests that I classify architects by their political ideology alone, or attack Mies van der Rohe only for his structural symbolism In both cases, selective quotation makes it appear that I hold positions the reverse of those stated elsewhere Of course politics can't explain an architect's work—why do I introduce the concept of muLtivaleace in the beginning7?but it can be connected with some of Us aspects occasionally, the choice of a style, , at other times the kind of meanings expressed Lastly, I do not say that 'excellence is held to depend on the architect's faith in his profession's social function,' but rather point out that the best fonnal architecture today is built for banal functions such as candle shops World Fairs, boutiques, and whiskey monopolies and that as long as this is true it will limit architecture's excellence The above tasks are mostly trivial, thus reducing the meanings and expression of architecture whereas music and poetry for instance are not so limited Would Darmstadter deny this...

...Perhaps so and perhaps this is why he finds my book so unpalatable He appears to find participatory democracy "lamentable' too, yet maybe this confusion in his prose merely mirrors his distortion of my book London CHARLES JENKS Howard Darmtadter replies That Le Corbusier's desk chair holds six interpretations that I did not mention is not surprising The chief flaw jn Jencks' multivalence theory is its lack of limits on interpretation—his remarks on Ronchamp were perhaps the best example—and theories are usually judged by the excesses they are prone to Spelling out the notion of multivalence might have led Jencks to a book length treatment, more hopefully it might have produced a fuller appreciation of the problems of esthetic theory Jencks alleges that I have, by selective quotation, misrepresented him 1 do not feel that is so but I do not know how to prove this to your readers except by asking them to read the book, a course I am afraid I cannot in good conscience recommend As to my darker motivations, at which Jencks hints, I must confess myself ignorant as to what they might be 50th Anniversary Thank you for printing "The Moral Vision of The New Leader'" (NL, December 24) Although I am a regular reader of the magazine I could not attend the 50th anniversary banquet But Daniel Bell's good-humored and enlightening after-dinner remarks gave me an excellent idea of how pleasurable the evening must have been for everyone there Hartford SIDNEY CHASE...