I came across an online lecture at a design conference by the British product designer Jasper Morrison recently, and I was struck by one of his statements. “As designers, we are responsible for our environment, and filling it with amazing shapes and forms and surprising expressions of our genius, doesn’t make a very good atmosphere. In fact, to me it’s becoming a kind of visual pollution.” Morrison was talking about housewares, appliances and chairs, but he could have been describing buildings. The pressure on architects to produce new and exciting forms that will attract the attention of the media has had a distorting and negative effect on the field—visual pollution, indeed.
Visual pollution indeed! With some kind of “architecture race” to build the tallest / most visually striking buildings the world over – I live in London so can attest to this – architecture seems to have become something of a “mine’s bigger than yours”. Yes, I’m all for beautiful architecture, but not to the detriment of the harmony and “cleanliness” (as opposed to pollution) of the environment.