Life Inside a Fantasy
How do we as architect’s “live
inside a fantasy”, an alternative reality designed and fabricated by man, outside
the vision or control of “official” architecture? I ask myself this thinking
about both the metropolis described in the Rem Koolhaas reading, and also the idea
of “pop culture” from Denise Scott Brown
Koolhaas describes the potential
behind the Metropolis as a sort of utopian mutation, a figment of the imagination
void of all things natural. An irrevocable reality as we now know it. Through
his writing he chooses to look at the endless opportunity of the development of
the Metropolis in an ironic and provoking manner, almost poking the bear, or
the user and their never-ending imagination. Denise Scott Brown, however, takes
a very different stance to society and the contaminations pop culture has on
it. Aware of the consequences of “architecture without architects” she defers
judgement, choosing to neither like pop culture or hate it. Instead waiting for an
architectural response, and reserving judgement until subsequent judgements can
be more sensitively conceived, presented, or accepted.
So, I go back to the original question
I posed, how as architects do we live within a "fantasy" world manifested so much by man? I think we’re called to
respond to the situation and write the manifesto retroactively, when the time
is right. But what do we do in the meantime? Do we provoke the endless
opportunities of the fantasy and human imagination? Or do we stay out of it and
defer judgement until we are called to duty?
I think maybe we spend years in quiet observation, slowly gathering our thoughts, so that when we are called to duty we have a book to publish. People need time to accept a new movement (get used to the idea of changes in the world around them), before they will be willing to not only listen to, but also jump on the bandwagon of new ideas and changes yet again.
ReplyDeleteEndless opportunity indeed, somewhat brilliant diagnosis in my opinion despite it's attempt to resurrect the natural. For example: the blank canvas of levels in a skyscraper. The frame work was designed but the space is the epitome of flexible and open to the human imagination. Free to change of a 50 year span. "If everything is nothing, then nothing is everything."
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