STALE ARCHITECTURE

 What is the cause for the architecture to become stale? 

Stale architecture becomes socially harmful, as mentioned in the ‘learning from pop’ article. Architecture becomes stale when the world starts moving too fast and architects start losing the focus that architecture does in fact still needs architects in an artistic way. It is our jobs as architects to not let the world around us form the architecture in a way that it becomes socially harmful. 

There are many social reasons that architecture can become stale, the need for more housing as a city is expanding is one-- and creating something like the photo that is added to this post. Is this housing effective and efficient? yes. Could it have logically been done without an architect? also, yes. Architecture becomes stale when the budgets and time constraints don’t allow for the architect to fully embody what they believe is needed, architecture must differ for different groups, yes, but also hold quality.

Is there a time and place for ‘stale’ architecture? 

Well, is there? lets take the gas station for example.. 

“My own personal test, for what it may be worth, concerns the gasoline service station. This is the most repellent piece of architecture of the past two thousand years. There are far more of them than are needed. Usually they are filthy. Their merchandise is hideously packaged and garishly displayed. They are uncontrollably addicted to great strings of fagged little flags. Protecting them is an ominous coalition of small businessmen and large. The stations should be excluded entirely from most streets and highways.”

I do think that there is an appropriate time for stale architecture and I do think that gas stations are the appropriate time. They get used and abused during every hour they’re open. With this in mind, I think that the field has failed in the planning department on where the appropriate place for them is. They're on every major corner, road, etc., in every major city or town, and they are almost always historically the eye sore. are they convenient? of course they are, and that is exactly what has brought the staleness of architecture to our cities. I do think that gas station architecture is improving with time, I mean, who doesn't love a QT?

Convenience and need are two of the issues that brought us stale architecture. Urban renewal was socially harmful to architecture, it was ‘artistically stale’ because of the urgency within the social situation. I think that the newer generations of architects have taken into account the things that have happened in history and are trying to prevent stale architecture even when there are time, budget and location restraints within the project.