filed a manifesto with Varnelis [feature] on the state of "whatever" and all kinds of "post-critical" positions in architecture. So his suggestion? Read
he's right, of course. i wish this 'position piece' was a little more fleshed out and rigorous. maybe mr jarzombek is just testing the waters, looking for some reaction before he follows these ideas further.
i think he's not just speculating about a possible future, he's in some ways diagnosing current phenomena. 'whatever' is certainly widespread, and strangely potent. why? because 'whatever', without the burden of having to stand up to tough criticism, can feed directly into production more quickly and efficiently: 'whatever' fits perfectly with the demands of an economy which values production over conception/intelligence.
my only beef with this piece: mr jarzombek's writing is a little lazy, maybe. a case of 'whatever'?
i agree completely your comment regarding the pressures of production. I think this point is exacerbated by the production of academic work as its own sort of capital within the educational system (student work created for the sake of magazine publication, for example).
regarding his writing, its not so much laziness i would guess, as much as it is the expulsion of an idea at about 4 am - the way the piece is written is basically the way he talks when he gets really excited about "whatever" tangent gets brought up in class.
Lot’s of different direction I can take to these great comments but first let me start with this:
In 15 years, architecture schools as we currently know them will not exist (Administrators and faculty beware.)
The academic system that we currently have is basically a child of the postmodern era which envisioned architecture as allied with discourses of cultural context, history, and theory. Sociology defined the political left, phenomenology the political right and critical theory somewhere in between. The new blurring of disciplinary boundaries between design, technology, and ecology, with urbanism thrown in there as well, will alter if not overwhelm the postmodern paradigm of architectural education and the streams of argumentation that developed out of it. Architecture will become more expertise-oriented (one of the consequences of Sustainability) and simultaneously more ‘design’-oriented. It is only a matter of time before the conventional “professional practice” course will have a big section of ‘managing.’ And because technology is not particularly deep on questions of its history and theory, the ‘critical climate’ of architectural schools will be reduced. On the architecture front, the reaction against the new aesthetics of neo-(design)modernism has traditionally come from the ‘body’ people of the last decade, who have tried to articulate a type of anti-professional, anti-technology discourse, loosely associated with ‘theory.’ But the body ethos and its associated theorizations are limited by its ambiguity to science, by its admiration for subjectivity, and, above all, by the fact that technology and computation have already begun to incorporated ‘the body’ into its operations, thus de-legitimizing the body as a kind of site of authentic activity. Feminism, which has barely dented the architectural academic aedifice (unlike in the arts), will be even (sadly) further marginalized. The emerging mainstream movement will thus remain on the neo-Modernist side of things. This new mainstream, in which the avant-garde has become ‘style’ threatens the intellectual contribution that architecture can make if it is not associated with disciplinary self-reflection. That was, I guess, what I w as worried about with the ‘whatever’ comment.
Nov 24, 07 4:27 pm ·
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he's right, of course. i wish this 'position piece' was a little more fleshed out and rigorous. maybe mr jarzombek is just testing the waters, looking for some reaction before he follows these ideas further.
i think he's not just speculating about a possible future, he's in some ways diagnosing current phenomena. 'whatever' is certainly widespread, and strangely potent. why? because 'whatever', without the burden of having to stand up to tough criticism, can feed directly into production more quickly and efficiently: 'whatever' fits perfectly with the demands of an economy which values production over conception/intelligence.
my only beef with this piece: mr jarzombek's writing is a little lazy, maybe. a case of 'whatever'?
@ Steven
Hmmm....
I found this depressing
" This generation will take over the mantel of the “avant-garde,” and demand that it vacuate itself of purpose and thought."
Is whatever simply a result or reaction to the economics of now?
steven,
i agree completely your comment regarding the pressures of production. I think this point is exacerbated by the production of academic work as its own sort of capital within the educational system (student work created for the sake of magazine publication, for example).
regarding his writing, its not so much laziness i would guess, as much as it is the expulsion of an idea at about 4 am - the way the piece is written is basically the way he talks when he gets really excited about "whatever" tangent gets brought up in class.
i hope he takes this further, makes it meatier.
Lot’s of different direction I can take to these great comments but first let me start with this:
In 15 years, architecture schools as we currently know them will not exist (Administrators and faculty beware.)
The academic system that we currently have is basically a child of the postmodern era which envisioned architecture as allied with discourses of cultural context, history, and theory. Sociology defined the political left, phenomenology the political right and critical theory somewhere in between. The new blurring of disciplinary boundaries between design, technology, and ecology, with urbanism thrown in there as well, will alter if not overwhelm the postmodern paradigm of architectural education and the streams of argumentation that developed out of it. Architecture will become more expertise-oriented (one of the consequences of Sustainability) and simultaneously more ‘design’-oriented. It is only a matter of time before the conventional “professional practice” course will have a big section of ‘managing.’ And because technology is not particularly deep on questions of its history and theory, the ‘critical climate’ of architectural schools will be reduced. On the architecture front, the reaction against the new aesthetics of neo-(design)modernism has traditionally come from the ‘body’ people of the last decade, who have tried to articulate a type of anti-professional, anti-technology discourse, loosely associated with ‘theory.’ But the body ethos and its associated theorizations are limited by its ambiguity to science, by its admiration for subjectivity, and, above all, by the fact that technology and computation have already begun to incorporated ‘the body’ into its operations, thus de-legitimizing the body as a kind of site of authentic activity. Feminism, which has barely dented the architectural academic aedifice (unlike in the arts), will be even (sadly) further marginalized. The emerging mainstream movement will thus remain on the neo-Modernist side of things. This new mainstream, in which the avant-garde has become ‘style’ threatens the intellectual contribution that architecture can make if it is not associated with disciplinary self-reflection. That was, I guess, what I w as worried about with the ‘whatever’ comment.
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