Architecture, another Mirror

We tend to see architecture as if its on the forefront of what is going on in the world. However, I tend to think its always catching up, slow to react with society's epiphanies. Not in a good or bad way, its just how it is. It reflects societies' main concerns ten years late, a building standing for 50 years shows us what was considered high tech 75 years ago. Ellen Dunham-Jones says, 

Koolhaas rejects the proposition that architecture can aspire to lead society toward a better future; he insists that at best architecture can mirror the flux of the larger world in unprecedented designs and processes intended to defy predictable societal relationships. His architecture holds out the possibility that new, social configurations might emerge - but also that they won't.

I would have to agree with her interpretation of Koolhaas. Not just in architecture, but art as a whole. Architecture as a part of the creative process. The creative processes seem to move in a distinct order, probably having to do more with cost of production than anything. When we encounter a problem with society, first we write. Then we produce music, then art in the form of drawing, then painting. Then the problem gets transformed into sculpture or furniture. The sculpture, now a form taking up space, might be placed in a room. Then, finally, the most costly of the endeavors, the house, the architecture. This transformation happens over many years, 50 years or longer and it still lingers.

One of the great examples of one of these linear creative movements is modernism. Most of the commercial architecture around us can trace its lineage through this line, for better or worse. It can be linked to the ideas of Mies van der Rohe who was inspired by the furniture of Gerrit Rietveld who was taken by the paintings Piet Mondriaan who was inspired to paint his linear paintings by the rhythms of jazz music. Additionally, each of these works represent a reflection of the political and social environments at the time they were designed. 

https://www.interactiongreen.com/minimalist-and-zen/

While these artists might have seen the future of their ideas, I don't think any could have predicted their work would have direct links to the "modern" office buildings floating around cities today. Their vision for the future, a new way to see the world and architecture, painted onto these buildings. Some might say that's successful. Koolhaas might call it "Junkspace", whatever that means. But maybe its just the result of 100 years of "progress" or just the modernist movement finally running out of steam and this is what is left of it. However, I like to think its just the mirror to our society telling us commercialism has run out of steam, we can finally move on to the next great movement.