Saturday, January 17, 2015

Architecture & Fetichism




Jean Nouvel. Philharmonie de Paris.




From >The Charnel-House. Étienne-Louis Boullée.
Reimagined "Cénotaphe à Newton" (1795), Interior.




Source: >The Wall Street Journal
When Form Was (Still) Following Function...

In these times when Amalgam and Confusion are 'required', Architecture is no exception.

Contemporary values seems to be:
Form, more than Content.
Concept, more than Space.
Diagram, more than Function.
Complexity and Vacuity.
Tallness and Emptiness.

2015
We are heading towards the/an Apotheosis.
Apotheosis of what?
Something deep.
Such as a deep new (dis)order?

20xx
Pyramids, Spheres and Cubes?
False guarantors of the ultimate Purity.
Guitars, Pianos and Rings?
Bullshit Metaphors.
We will more and more 'Pretext', and Pretend to, Intelligence by (second rate) Mixing Genres.
Intermixing Volumes. Forcing Structures.
We will desperately 'Use and Abuse' of Technology. All this, in an useless entanglement of True/Bad ideas.

Finally,
The Superstars will rub shoulders, fatally,
with mediocrity. Meanwhile, the (seem to be) Mediocre will still aspire indefinitely to Celebrity.
A Vicious/Virtuous Circle where all are involved: Famous Schools, Great Clients, Influential Critics, Powerful Politics, Ordinary Citizens,... All, except us.
Architects.

Ultimately,
We Are All in this matter, at once,
(Such as this popular sentence nowadays?)
Victims, Executioners, Charlatans and Sufferers, in a kind of an Ambiguous even Sadomasochistic logic.

I think we are defnitely running into
a Critical New Era.