The Sky is Falling

Rem Koolhaas, along with many of us, seem to be under the impression that the sky is falling, that the apocalypse of architecture is upon us.  We must repent of the sin of building shopping malls and big box stores and save the world from itself.  People don’t know what they want, we must educate them, inform them about what is good and what is junk.  

Does Koolhaas really think that “junkspace” is a modern creation?  His glorification of ancient architecture is derived from nothing more than nostalgia.  Is something better just because it lasts a long time?  Do we really believe that the romantic paintings of Roman cities accurately depict the conditions of that time?  Of course there was “junkspace” back then too.  His definition of “junkspace” seems to be any place where the common person has access to or enjoys being.  Too many people begin inhabiting an environment and suddenly it is defiled, relegated to “junkspace.”  He is the ultimate architecture hipster – it’s only cool before it goes mainstream.

A drive to improve and better society is critical to architecture or any profession.  The problem comes in when we become nothing more than critics who stand on the sideline and point out everything that we see as “junk.”  We’ve got to get down out of our ivory tower and start thinking about how people really live.  Is architecture even relevant anymore?  What are we even talking about?  Wal-mart is “bad” because it doesn’t have enough windows?  Because you can’t walk to it?  If people want to go to a big box store to buy everything on their shopping list in one place, who are we to tell them that they shouldn’t? 

Ironically, we live in a political and social time which praises tolerance – do whatever you want to do, be yourself, don’t conform, don’t judge people, be politically correct – oh, but don’t go to shopping malls or big box stores.  And don’t live in the suburbs.  Even though we all do.

Come on, Koolhaas, what world are you living in?  I say the emperor has no clothes.