I was interviewed recently by Gil Roth for his literary-cultural podcast, The Virtual Memories Show. At one point he asked me what I thought about the future of architecture. No one had ever posed that question directly to me before, and when I answered I realized—much to my surprise—that I was not sanguine about the prospect. It seems to me that several factors have come together to produce a perfect storm (sorry), upending this ancient art.
Education, always a difficult undertaking in any creative field, has become divorced from practice. The lingering effect of so-called history-theory has not helped, nor has the technology of the Digital Age. The study of history was for long the foundation of learning to be an architect. Because architecture is not a science, there is no “theory of architecture” undergirding practice. Rather, there is the canon of built works, which provides continued inspiration—inspiration, not models. Turning away from the past today’s architects risk stranding themselves in the present—or worse, in the future. As for digital technology: ever since the Renaissance, architects used sketching, drawing, and model-making to explore architectural ideas, evolving a language of scales and graphic conventions to communicate their ideas—to themselves, and their clients. This language is in the process of disappearing. The result: we are making it up as we go along.
The effect of globalization on architectural practice cannot be understated. In the past, architectural fame was regional, in small countries it might be national; now it is worldwide. This raises the stakes considerably. “Getting the next job,” as H. H. Richardson observed, was always the architect’s greatest challenge. With globalization, the next job may come from anywhere in the world. Who could resist that? Of course, that has taken architects far afield, building in places and for people with whom they have no intimate connection. This does not necessarily produce better buildings.
An important side effect of globalization is the supremacy of the architect’s brand. Le Corbusier and Mies were well-known, but Renzo and Zaha are global brands. If you are an Azerbajani, say, and you have commissioned (at extra cost) a brand-name architect from halfway around the world, you expect a brand-name building. A splash. An event. This produces a troubling result. What used to distinguish buildings from other artifacts was that they were built to last hundreds of years. This resulted in a certain conservatism, less concern with the latest fashion (that was left to interior decorators) and more awareness of the long haul. Brand-name buildings are unveiled as if they were the latest models of cars, or dresses, or music videos. They are there to be immediately enjoyed, and by implication, will be disposed of when fashions change. What happens when buildings become as temporary as smart phones? The architect as a large-scale product designer is not a happy thought.