Elite Practice
Architecture is still a practice for the elite. Commodity architecture is primarily purchased by companies or the wealthy. Giancarlo Di Carlo alluded to people with money, the bourgeois, employed or deferred to architects expertise to push ideas forward, create new architectural technology, and create spaces with specific identities. Although problematic, capitalism in the modern era is often responsible for the creation of this relationship between Architecture and the elite. People often become upset with how architecture is developed through capitalism but what I find interesting is the people often benefit from the history of things being created and the tools/technology that comes with it. It seems like many of the technologies would not even exist without capitalism because the price to create some things is so incredibly high. If you take mobile phones for example, the capital required to make the and maintain them is quite high. For cell phones, rocket tech, fuel tech, satellite tech, and computer science are all required to simply maintain the system. NASA’s budget from the beginning until today is roughly half a billion dollars since they began as an agency. This does not include all the other required work and capital required for fuel tech, satellite tech, etc. The price could easily go above trillions of dollars. If all the working capital in society was distributed evenly, (communism or some other more “equal” financial system), then the technology could not exist because there would never be enough capital in one place at any given time. Capitalism is definitely asymmetrical but no one is leaves the house without there cell phone. It is a requirement to maintain a job or attend school in this era. I believe the system definitely needs to be reworked but it is quite good for some things. I mentioned earlier that people, without elite status, benefit from the bourgeois creating both architecture and technology. Extending the nasa metaphor, things like battery powered tools, velcro, photovoltaics, the internet, etc all come from “elite” capital expenditure. I understand the systems has some serious downsides.
Tuyen,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you spoke on the way capitalism has changed the way architects work with elite. I also enjoyed how you spoke on the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism. I think those perspectives are grasping an important picture.
This makes a tone of sense. While I attempt to look at architectural discourse, and the greater world, as a series of experiments, there is no doubt in my mind that though things maybe problematic, they definitely have positives. It is so confusing when the discourse around architecture is one that should exist in an “imaginary” context where everything is equal. I certainly think things should be “equitable” but I think it is a enormous error to try and suggest that nothing good comes from a given sociopolitical/financial system. Capitalism, kingdoms, communism, etc all have one thing in common. They all produce problems that cannot be resolve by changing from one system to anything. The responses today are lacking an immense amount and are reductive to the point of irreverence.
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