When the Secret Service closed off Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House last year, rollerbladers immediately claimed the abandoned roadway as their own. Entirely predictable — roaches do the same thing to vacant apartments. Now two Washington architects, Doug Michels and James Allegro, have come up with a better idea: the National Sofa.
“This is serious,” says a spokesman for the Sofa. And it is. The architects hope to talk the National Park Service into accepting their design of a curved, 300-foot marble sofa in Lafayette Park, which is separated from the White House by Pennsylvania Avenue. The sofa would seat 100, and a “jumbotron” TV screen would be built for their “viewing pleasure. Interactive, of course: Cameras would be placed around the White House, so that the First Family, when they wish, could talk to the tourists crack addicts, flashers, and anti- nuclear head cases Who frequent the park. The spokesman tells us: “If Chelsea is making a peanut butter sandwich down in the kitchen at 3 a.m. and she wants to switch on the TV and talk to the American people, she can.” She’s a lucky girl.
Architect Michels has experience in persuading bureaucrats to let him do crazy things. He’s the designer of Cadillac Ranch, an “auto-monument” along Route 66, in which the backsides of upended old Cadillacs rise up from the barren earth. A big sofa and a big TV reflect the same pointless creativity. If he adds a big can of beer, he’ll probably pull this thing off.
