The New Architects

If architecture is a river which follows its way along the contours of landscape of human history, we left the broad, turbulent water of Modernity long ago, and today we find ourselves drifting down a stagnant tributary from which there may be no end.

There was once the idea that architects could improve society and create a new and better way of life. These waters were deep and dangerous as the river charted the new course, charged by the floodwater of human progress, which swept away the old ways of the world. But much was destroyed, and many began to think that progress itself was a sham- the river would never run to a future city that was more equitable, healthier, happier, or more just. The flood stage dropped and the architects steered away from its center, vowing to never work so closely to the essence of humanity and society.

The architect abandoned its role of changing society directly, and began to play elaborate games with it instead. In the shadow of failed cities built by faith in human progress, court jesters joked, pricked, and prodded the world. The architect's primary tool of change became the typewriter and the exhibition. After all, if you can't change the world, you can subvert its meaning.

And when the patience of the world ran out for this kind of game shortly thereafter, we found ourselves floating along in another tributary entirely. Form was a new game, one that appealed to architects because it was aesthetic, could make vague associations to meaning, and most importantly, harnessed the power of imagination that the computer could unleash. The river became crammed with a floatilla of speedboats, hovercraft, hydroplanes. A gaudy parade with no idea of where it was going, caught up in the heady whirl of Catila, Rhino, 3Dmax, Maya. Even mere human imagination of form is too limited- parametric software calculates and interprets various irrelevant factors and generates even more irrelevant forms.

But the day grew long and the parade had to end; the organizations who had financed and propelled the float kings were as flimsy and reckless as the parade itself, and if your boat is simply a brand, there's not much to float on when your sponsor goes under.

We have even abandoned the helm; the wheel spins idly, floating where the eddies of commerce push, while we drool happily over our card games on the sun deck. Why have we settled for so little?

To the untrained ear architect is still loaded and mythic- a power to shape the world, a noble responsibility to humankind, a profession from the joy of designing and making, membership in an elite class of designers to whom the masters of the world turn. It is an image easily maintained by a profession that has no visible presence to the masses. No one ever actually sees an architect; the majority of the members of the profession are like any other office worker, working on computers behind tinted glass. One might catch a glimpse of a person in office dress and a hard hat on a construction site, but even this heightens the contrast of the immaculate architect over the mud-splattered construction crew. It's an invisibility that even makes Hollywood uncomfortable- if they want to portray an architect, its invariably to the same stereotypes: either the super-sleek futuristic bond-villain type who independently designs the world, or the bumbling local junior architect (who works for the first type) clutching a small drafting T-square.