Regardless of city or neighborhood, humanity has a need of design and of unique, interesting, inspiring places and spaces. Design is inspearbale from progress and innovation. Design is not style. Style is borrowirng from the past whereas design is working with contemporary vernacular and criteria. Exteriorly (and interiorly) a building should evolve and push the neighborhood to change and speak of the time in which we live. I dont believe in architecture having to marry or reflect existing surroundings. I do believe it has to contextually work and can take some cues from it’s surroundings. Local Codes tend to that with setbacks, lot line walls, light requirements, etc. But what makes cities beautiful is the collage of periods, growth, and diversity. I think a natural and organic evolution for a city is to be open too, and allow this kind of growth, progress, and human evolution of the built environment. I can say that the beauty of any great city is to see all the periods of growth side by side, a collage of the times of the city. When in London, New York, Sao Paolo, Miami, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo you can walk one street and see buildings from the many centuries past all the way up to the 21st. side by side. That is the richness of the urban fabric. That is the eclecticism of the urban landscape. That is what makes for a great city. And that is how we denote and see the passage of time. If a city or place tries to imitate the surrounding architecture, inevitably we are building kitsch because that specific building will be a cheap replicant or poor derivative of the original. Most buildings that try and accomplish this end up with only few cosmetic superficial details that are never the same. And why and create a fake skin when the original skins echoed a past time and spoke about the culture then and not now. What I am saying is that the originals spoke about the time in which that style of architecture made sense. Those turn of the century buildings were prescient at that time so we should build buildings that are precinct in this time. If the surrounding buildings are 100 years old, 100 years ago we built with brick and wood and small windows, with detailing and ornament that was of that time. Small wood doors, with decorative dormers, and other signs and codes that are not relevant today. Today we have technological capabilities are far more advanced cladding systems with huge choices of materials, colors, textures, we have much more sophisticated and larger spans of glass, not to forget that our new languages and evolved aesthetics that are the zeitgeist of our time. If I buy a car today I expect new beautiful forms, colors, and finishes, the latest technology, highest safety, the best comfort, the greatest efficiency, and a language and sensibility of the time in which I live. The same is true with sports equipment, or a phone, or a camera, and I could go on and on. I would not buy a horse and buggy, play records on a gramophone, and use a dial telephone. I would not sit in a spindle back shaker chair or sleep on a straw mattress with a dangerous wrought iron headboard or have angels and effigies carved into my facade. My apartment should be like a smart watch or like my new shiny orange Tesla. I would not wear spats and wigs, or take a ship across the ocean just for a business meeting in Europe. I would not wax my long curled mustache or ride a horse around the city. The urban landscape must evolve and we must construct buildings and public spaces that change with our new vernaculars, that address our new social behaviors, that embrace our new technologies and hopefully mark the time in which we live now. Globalove, Karim
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:22:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015