Teratology :: Recasting the Die

The avant-garde of world architecture has been promoting the least sustainable form of development clad in perhaps the worst performing systems from an environmental perspective. After decades of global experimentation the high priest himself, Rem Koolhaas, pronounces the era over.

Now, what about architecture? I think what the crisis will mean for us is an end to the ¥€$ regime. For those who didn't recognize it, this is a collection of masterpieces by architects in the last ten years. It's a skyline of icons showing, mercilessly, that an icon may be individually plausible, but that collectively they form an ultimately counterproductive and self-canceling kind of landscape. So that is out.

This is a very interesting way for those complicit in the destruction of the human habitat to shift blame to the financial industry. It was all the bankers fault, evidently. It had nothing whatsoever to do with those attempting to modernize the world through architecture doing everything in their power to win commissions.

It's curious that only economic disaster could bring them back to their senses. This casts serious doubt on their judgement. While many others in the profession saw the perils ahead, and designed accordingly, the supposed best and brightest couldn't see the forest for the trees. The informed analysis of the supposed best and brightest led to disaster for the world economy and the environment. Now that they've been shaken from their slumber, they have new prescriptions to save the world they helped ruin. Considering their legacy of failure it would take a great fool to trust them again.

Enter Nicolas Sarkozy. Not one to learn from the past, even the recent past, Sarkozy envisions a bold new Grand Paris that will look like every other city attempting to claim the mantle of most modern. The utter waste of resources that will be consumed so architects can build monuments to themselves, monuments that will only to meet the wrecking ball later, is indefensible. That this is being done in the name of 'greening' Paris turns it into a farce worthy of France's beloved Jerry Lewis. Further, the employ of misshapen glass megaliths to modernize a city will only serve to remind the world of the failed attempts made by other cities wishing to do the same. These iconic forms have become synonymous with bad judgement.

Perhaps during this recession-induced operational pause in construction there is time for carefully considered designs. Perhaps we'll divine solutions that actually solve problems instead of merely 'asking questions' or 'challenging assumptions'. To coin a phrase, the time for navel gazing debate is over.

Posted via email from Kenneth Hitchens: Architect