An evil or an angel?
Architecture students in the studio are always asked the same question: "How could you preserve the local values while still imposing a new kind of architecture?". Actually the approach of this question is different from person to person and it potentially creates either an evil or an angel.
Many architecture students are still struggling to highlight the local values in their design. On the one hand, the globalization and the international style have enforced the students to come up with rectangle boxes within the large glass facades. They just try to present the modernity in their design without any actual meanings behind. An obviously those designs are completely separated from the local context.
On the other hand, some try to simulate the design of local architectures (could be exterior, interior or both). That is just the "simple-minded attempts to revive the hypothetical forms of a lost vernacular". Actually those designs are not able to survive in the modern society where there are a range of new relations and interactions between designers and users, buildings and users and even public community.
I think that the answer for the question above lie on "the self-conscious synthesis between universal civilization and world culture". It is hard to reject the universal civilization when it provides a super convenient and useful tool as well as the cutting edge technology. They allow to create the new types of architecture which solve the new relations among designer, owners and users and also adapt the changes of environment. World culture could expose on the exterior or interior or even behind the design concept. The cultural values do not need to be a specific form but they could be the feeling or the tactile resilience which we can see in the design of Saynatsalo Town Hall, Alvar Aalto.
Many architecture students are still struggling to highlight the local values in their design. On the one hand, the globalization and the international style have enforced the students to come up with rectangle boxes within the large glass facades. They just try to present the modernity in their design without any actual meanings behind. An obviously those designs are completely separated from the local context.
On the other hand, some try to simulate the design of local architectures (could be exterior, interior or both). That is just the "simple-minded attempts to revive the hypothetical forms of a lost vernacular". Actually those designs are not able to survive in the modern society where there are a range of new relations and interactions between designers and users, buildings and users and even public community.
I think that the answer for the question above lie on "the self-conscious synthesis between universal civilization and world culture". It is hard to reject the universal civilization when it provides a super convenient and useful tool as well as the cutting edge technology. They allow to create the new types of architecture which solve the new relations among designer, owners and users and also adapt the changes of environment. World culture could expose on the exterior or interior or even behind the design concept. The cultural values do not need to be a specific form but they could be the feeling or the tactile resilience which we can see in the design of Saynatsalo Town Hall, Alvar Aalto.
Respect the old but don't be afraid of the new.
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