ARCHITECTURE

Creating space in the 21st century will require a reassessment of modern ideals, and a commitment to the expansion of traditional architectural and design processes. The idealism spawned by the industrial revolution has not been realized and in it's worst failures has left cities deteriorating in sprawl, workers with the repetition of the assembly line, skies blackened with pollution, and landscapes devastated by high tech weaponry.  The optimism with which the modernists entered the 20th Century has led us to corporate high-rise instead of shelter for the masses, and Target teakettles instead of sustenance.  We have faced this reality, only to be misled by the promises of the information revolution.

In order to avoid the mistakes of the past, new directions will need to be determined while avoiding the imposition of a rigid structure.  Manifestos have led to inflexible positions on architecture, and when confronted with change are forced to move aside.  A new architectural framework will begin to take advantage of the promises that the current context offers, while allowing for the freedom to advance and test new ideas and theories.  However, the rigidity that encapsulates contemporary architecture is embedded in a history of prototypes and formal specificity and is not easily shed.

Identification of the issues that define our current cultural, technological and political contexts will provide the framework for development of an idea for architecture that can best fit within those fluctuating environments.  It is not a manifesto, but an exploration of how to progress without one.  Unfortunately to date the rejection of the manifesto has led to building without thought or conscience.  Architecture without dogma need not be a passive reflection of societal values.  To the contrary, a new conception of architecture can address issues of formal inflexibility, spatial homogenization, sprawl and congestion, rampant waste, blind consumption of natural resources, and the general chaos that characterizes the modern world.