Local Legos = Global

l“The important term here is networks, which suggests a set of negotiations between the extremes. This is different from the now commonplace term the “glocal” which implies an uncritical and inevitable hybridization of the tow. The rallying call of the glocal (“think global, act local” is in the end despairing in its ordering of its terms, in which the intellectual and social conditions of the global overwhelm the simple action of the local”

I think architecture should be local and should react to its local culture and place. How do we strive to be more local and less global when all the products we are given are global products? We are basically given building blocks to work with – 4’ x 8’ plywood, 3 5/8” x 7 5’8” brick, 7 5/8” x 15 5/8” CMU wood stud, metal stud, etc

“It is to argue that our aesthetic and technical twiddlings – whilst the world burns – are accorded a reverence, and association with resistance, that they simply do not deserve. Holding to the hope of redemption through tectonics is only tenable under a belief system that posits the “autonomy of architecture”.

We all get caught up detailing beautiful drawings—and there is nothing wrong with that—but in reality, we are all given a lot of the same parts and pieces to reassemble. We are all crafting and diligently exquisite details with minuscule criticism when the “normal” people never notice 90% of what we all get excited about. Yet we slave away over these details?! (and let’s be honest, after complaining and working overnight, we all secretly love it when we finally get it right!) But most of what we do, truly does go unnoticed. Perhaps Till is correct when he says, “It is a challenge to architects to open up their radar to a wider set of issues than merely the aesthetic and tectonic, and instead follow the Ariadne’s thread through the urban register with all its social, political and physical connotations. Only then can we possibly invoke the work ‘critical’ that Frampton introduces but never fulfills.”

So how do we break this strange question of global and local – can something truly be both at the same time or are we playing ourselves? Should architecture be less tectonics and more social and politics or is it a perfect balance between everything that we will struggle to find the answer to until we retire?