multitude

The era of technology… or the death of architecture

In that unbear­able, unor­ga­nized, but dra­mat­i­cally beau­ti­ful city, that is Venice, a lib­er­tine spirit hov­ers in the squares and aisles! Peo­ple feel free­dom before the claus­tro­pho­bia takes over. Par­ties, fancy dresses, some show­ing off, inaudi­ble speeches, unreach­able drinks, inac­ces­si­ble pavilions…

What is clear to me after this Bien­nale, is just one aspect! The end of architecture!

The Cen­tral Pavil­ion, show­ing the ele­ments of archi­tec­ture, is so redun­dant and over­whelm­ing, that dis­trib­utes an appar­ently acrit­i­cal con­tent, which is, in real­ity, the most crit­i­cal of all. It says: “we are done!” Tech­nol­ogy, com­fort, secu­rity, engi­neer­ing, sus­tain­abil­ity, all these top­ics are tak­ing over. Archi­tec­ture is a dis­ci­pline that has always strug­gled in defin­ing itself, prob­a­bly as much as phi­los­o­phy did in the past; nowa­days, archi­tec­ture is oblit­er­ated by an infi­nite array of tech­ni­cal sub­jects. Nowa­days, we are liv­ing in the time of “plas­ter­board architecture!”

So, what all those peo­ple in Venice were really doing?! Are they con­scious of how much endan­gered is such a dis­ci­pline and pro­fes­sion?! Archi­tec­ture is no longer a rel­e­vant social mat­ter any­more; gov­ern­ments are not par­tic­i­pa­tory as in the 60s.
600 years ago, fam­i­lies such as the Medici were using archi­tec­ture and art to express their power. Once more, right now, archi­tec­ture is becom­ing the play tool of few rich peo­ple, since all the rest that con­cerns build­ings and city plan­ning is a mere tech­ni­cal issue.
This is what hap­pens when the curve of moder­nity starts to go downward.

…yes, I have been quite cynical!