Architecture and what it reflects from the current culture,
What we build can be metaphorical, often intentionally, and sometimes subconsciously.
But architecture is rarely the deliberate suspension of architects crafting symbolism;
Many times it is a direct reflection of its time and the culture that made it.
Architectural customization boomed in the twentieth century
Completed realities in mid-century Manhattan included Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building,
The Empire State Building, the Chippendale skyscraper built by Philip Johnson,
and the Citicorp building, among many others.
These buildings were proud of their identities, dominating their immediate localities.
They were unique, and a reflection of the personality of the architects and developers involved:
Philip Johnson, Harry Hemsley, John D. Rockefeller.
Our era has witnessed the deterioration of the built environment, and the Amazonization of architecture.
The same visitor to Manhattan now sees square, blunt, faceless towers,
Dozens of them celebrate without an engineer, builder, or image.
And like Amazon’s profit-based disinfectant system for responding to needs,
The available profit prompts ill-conceived action: hoarding space equals money.
They sprawled across the cityscape and up to the building confines, with no personality, and very few full-time tenants,
There is no meaning beyond maximizing returns, and no aesthetic beyond the often unknown greed of wealth.
And even infamous. Their anonymity and pettiness, which serve no higher purpose than profit,
reminds me of how the Internet evolved.
It is easy to criticize these rude responses that increase the value of expensive land.
The sight of brain-dead, tough stalagmites that amount to nothing but vainglory,
Facing nothing but each other, it looks miserable.
Hamilton Nolan in The Guardian describes it as “the billionaire capitalist’s extreme fantasy”.
John Massengill has observed that pencil towers give New Yorkers the finger.
Building is a mirror of appreciation
For a century, the houses have been a projection of the future of architecture:
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Wonders articulated an American vision of linear cultural expansion;
Corbusier’s abstract art pieces demonstrated abstract aesthetic ideas in buildings.
Venturi Scott Brown’s collection of architectural expression pieces saw current culture as a springboard for creativity.
And not a disappointing result for him. As Venturi puts it: “In the 1960s, the use of history as a reference was exciting and novel.
History was called “nonsense” by Göring and “irrelevant” by the modernists whose motto was “We begin again!”.
We weren’t starting over, we were evolving. But because modernity became old revolution,
we were revolutionaries in being evolutionists.
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