The Concrete Oasis
“The problems of “art” as architectural aspiration comes down to these:
Art is proudly non-functional and impractical.
Art reveres the new and despises the conventional.
Architectural art sells at a distance.
Architect Peter Calthorpe maintains that many of the follies of his profession would vanish if architects simply decided that what they do is cr
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Do monuments or buildings have revolutionary potential? How? My sense is that architecture is not a driver of culture, but a lagging reflection. At one point, architects could move the cultural needle, but I think that reality, if it ever actually existed beyond romanticism, is long gone, since probably before the 20th century. Architecture is uniq
... See moreWhat if we understood that, much like a world would cease to be a world without ongoing preservation, a bridge would cease to be a bridge if we allowed it to crumble and fall instead of actively reinforcing it? Would we spend our resources differently? What if we saw conservation not just as a matter of routine but as existentially creative? Perhap... See more