The avant-garde's defense of the mountainous blob that Star Wars creator George Lucas wants to erect on Chicago's lakefront speaks volumes about all that's wrong with architecture today: a celebration of object-making at the expense of public space, plus a shameless coddling of the powerful, provided they serve one's aesthetic agenda.

I've always been partial to architectural mountains—from the Mayans to Bruno Taut—so I was delighted to see the hilly design that Beijing-based MAD Architects has proposed for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago.

Ma Yansong, the 39-year-old founder of MAD Architects, is best known for his Absolute Towers, a pair of curvy condo buildings near Toronto.