Utopia is Dead
"Design within everyday space must start with an understanding and acceptance of the life that takes place there."
"Everyday urbanism seeks to release the powers of creativity and imagination already present within daily life as the means of transforming urban experience and the city."
Modernism is dead and so should be the ideals that reigned from its time. Modernists looked to create a utopian environment in which every detail was defined and formatted for the way the architect imagined the inhabitant to live their life. We tend to be guilty of that in school, from time to time, when we create an artificial environment based on our own subjectivity. This imagination is good and helps define us to who we are, but we should not neglect the social, political, and cultural context in the places that we design. Acceptance is the first step in defining a legitimate solution. If we come into a context with a predetermined solution, it tends to fail. When we have a preconceived image in mind, or a beautiful render we want to create, we tend to neglect the problem itself. We should first aim to solve the problem, but in a beautiful way. From here the rest will follow. Everyday urbanism, requires the creativity of the architect, mixed with the ambiguity of the inhabitant. These unique human interactions can help solve social problems themselves within the spaces that we design. Spaces will transform into places that we did not even imagine. This is the exiting part of what we do. When allow people to live their lives the way they do, and not the way we think they should, beautiful things can happen. We should accept this fact, and design for it.
"Everyday urbanism seeks to release the powers of creativity and imagination already present within daily life as the means of transforming urban experience and the city."
Modernism is dead and so should be the ideals that reigned from its time. Modernists looked to create a utopian environment in which every detail was defined and formatted for the way the architect imagined the inhabitant to live their life. We tend to be guilty of that in school, from time to time, when we create an artificial environment based on our own subjectivity. This imagination is good and helps define us to who we are, but we should not neglect the social, political, and cultural context in the places that we design. Acceptance is the first step in defining a legitimate solution. If we come into a context with a predetermined solution, it tends to fail. When we have a preconceived image in mind, or a beautiful render we want to create, we tend to neglect the problem itself. We should first aim to solve the problem, but in a beautiful way. From here the rest will follow. Everyday urbanism, requires the creativity of the architect, mixed with the ambiguity of the inhabitant. These unique human interactions can help solve social problems themselves within the spaces that we design. Spaces will transform into places that we did not even imagine. This is the exiting part of what we do. When allow people to live their lives the way they do, and not the way we think they should, beautiful things can happen. We should accept this fact, and design for it.
While I agree with you about the notion that we should not try to design utopian environments and embrace the user in our designs; how can we do that in this day and age? The world is a commercial world that functions on people selling and telling other people what they should buy and have. People naturally conform to wanting the same thing; the newest smart phone, nicest car, fanciest clothes, etc. even if we try not to. How do we create places that are unique to the people inhabiting them when society is telling them what they want?
ReplyDeleteIt is a commercial world. It seems people are all seeking for same things, but that's not the whole truth. People still have love, dreams, literature and art. It is not proper to define products as guilty things. People can still pursue spiritual life when using their commercial products. That's why we have free sunday museums in a commercial world. If I don' t play my favorite music, I don't want to drive my car everyday. There should be some way to balance design with the society and make it work.
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