Arthur Drexler

"There are different ways of discussing architecture," he explained. "There is the chore of the journalist, the task of the academic historian or critic; people expect different things." There were also multiple institutional prerogatives for a curator which "Transformations" "refuses to gratify": "The first is that father or mother will tell you what to do.: the missionary role" Second was the expectation that the museum will validate great achievement" by presenting only the best recent work. Third was the role of reappraisal, a role he believed more easily accomplished for work of 1920s than of the present. Distancing his position, he proclaimed: "The missionary role is expressly disavowed; the validating role is disavowed. The reappraisal role is not entirely disavowed. It does occur in the manner in which the material is presented, in the juxtapositions and the quality which do result in a reappraisal."

Arthur Drexler "Response",6.
In: Felicitty D.Scott Architecture or Techno-Utopia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980)