Pre-Retroactive Manifestos?

 

I found the topic of retroactive manifestos this week very interesting. Learning how buildings, building complexes, and downtown strips that developed seemingly at random and with no architectural intelligence or thought can become the subject of deep study and philosophical debate when analyzed in retrospect makes me wonder: will the spaces that we design simply because they fill a need someday be put on a pedestal and analyzed with the same depth as the examples in class? It seems to me that the architects who designed the examples either truly felt that their idea would be successful and would benefit society if it were implemented (in the case of le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin) or that they laid out their structures where there was space, adding flashy touches and signs where possible to draw customers in (in the case of much of the Los Vegas Strip). Either way, the design work, whether intentional or not, went unappreciated for a long time until someone started analyzing them on a deeper level. Will our work someday follow the same path?