The SF Chron’s architecture writer has a problem with Daniel Libeskind. The name may or may not be familiar to you - but his face, and those glasses, should ring a bell with those who’ve driven around the site for his Capitol Mall-situated Aura Condos:

But in the architectural game of who’s hot and who’s not, Libeskind is like the rock band that loses street cred once it sells out arenas. His crystalline drama is being rolled out for a casino in Singapore, condo towers in Sacramento and St. Louis and a shopping center for the Las Vegas strip. Instead of revelations, his once-startling moves bring a sense of deja vu.

Wait, were we just subtly slammed by “the city’s” paper? Hmm . . . . Either way, it’s still interesting to read a bit more about the man behind the glasses, er, building that’s going to part of a new downtown Sacramento. It’s also worthwhile to consider the article’s main point: lightening fast trends are especially dangerous in the world of high-profile construction, where it usually takes much longer to construct the cutting edge - so long, in fact, that edge is kinda blunt by opening day.