Forefront vs. Background

“To restore our self-worth we must say out loud what we have suspected for some time: that we are part of everyday environment and depend on it, and that the everyday environment shapes us before we can help shape it,…..and that we must find ways to contribute to it to the best of our abilities.”

Architecture has become a two-sided profession. On the one hand, starchitects create iconic buildings using new design strategies that they see becoming the new definition of great architecture. On the other side, there are architects that the design the same building over and over again, using the same techniques, design strategies, details, etc. With each of these at the end of the spectrum, there isn’t much architecture that comes in the middle; that blends these two ideologies together to create a resulting architecture.

But what is the right way to design the best architecture? Is there even a correct answer? These “background” buildings are cookie cut and placed all over the country, and as designers we tend to throw shade at them. Others criticize starchitects architecture for being too flashy or not contextual. Buildings have heavily been controlled by the money that the owner has to spend on their projects, thus allowing some forms of architecture to lose an aesthetic individuality that architects seem to want in their designs. While we think that these buildings are ugly, would they really work in society and the environment if they were all unique? Is it actually good to the environment to have cookie cutter buildings spread the majority of a city fabric?