Shifts

Shifts

I just found an old note from a book I'd read in the 1980s (Niels Lund Prak, 1968. The languages of architecture. Mouton, The Hague): architecture symbolises ideal worlds, what people should aspire to culturally as well as materially. Both Classicism and Modernism represent a harmonious system that may contrast with the real world. It is no accident that both stress 'pure' and simple forms from which the rest evolves.

How different the world seems now! Firstly, the dipoles: it used to be Classicism versus Modernism, capitalism versus socialism - always two opposites fighting for a clear prize. Nowadays it's more about pluralism, about all kinds of variations that can coexist (although the latest populist tendencies may put an end to that).

Secondly, the cultural aspirations: architecture has always been about aspiration but for a long time now it has been mostly about the material side. Associations with ideologies, including aesthetic ones, have been weakening rapidly, with lifestyle taking their place, not as a means to improvement (social and cultural) but as a goal by itself. More recently, cultural issues have been promising a comeback, as one can see in the environmental awareness of young people. I wonder how this will turn out.

Thirdly, the 'pure' and simple forms: these no longer constitute the basis of architectural composition and morphology, as one can see in digital architecture. Instead, we are more into complexity, both in form and in the processes that produce form.

Taking all three together, I can't say if the world has improved; it has certainly become less predictable.