RIDING THE GENERIC WAVE
In The Irrational Exuberance of Rem Koolhaas, Ellen
Dunham-Jones expresses Koolhaas’s disbelief that architecture can lead society
toward a better future. Instead, architecture should do nothing more than ride
the wave of society’s status quo. While I appreciate Koolhaas’s avant-garde approach
to “scanning the horizon” for what is next, it means nothing if architecture does
not attempt to challenge past and current societal conditions.
Koolhaas was surely exposed to the situationist ideals of
questioning and challenging capitalist society being that he was educated at
the Architectural Association in London.
Koolhaas understands that context is a driver of design, but
instead of searching for opportunities to establish new contextual trends with
a community, he accepts the existing spectacle that capitalism produces. Where
he may have been able to navigate this to produce interesting design, much of
the architecture that follows consumerist demands blindly contributes to the
generic city. Below are 3 different cities, 3 different regions, and 1 generic
style.
Hey Michael! I agree with your statements that its important to challenge society through the opportunities to establish new contextual trends however, I can see why this would be difficult to achieve. Throughout history designs that "challenged society" have often been seen as a disgrace and abomination to design at the time of their construction. Therefore its very difficult to push the limits of design without some form of backing from society.
ReplyDeleteBrooke, I totally see where you're coming from. While I do agree that Koolhaas takes the easy route of "going with the flow" I don't agree that architecture means nothing if it does not attempt to challenge past and current societal conditions. The fabric of a city and the culture of a society is based on hundreds of years of buildings, event, and people. I'm not sure if a building that rejected these existing and historic conditions would succeed. Maybe that's what happened with Victor Gruen's utopian vision of the shopping center.
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