What’s at stake?

Is beauty what we are looking for? Is beauty really beautiful? Who told us that using the alibi of efficiency to validate a project is really valid? When did we start to wish for architecture that adapts to society instead of forcing into the scene an architecture that coerces society to change and adapt to it? When did we agree to comply with everything, to be accomplices, and to keep our mouths shut? When did we lose all our power?

The scope of what’s at stake within this unit is twofold: on the one hand it tries to make an ironic comment towards the homogenization of architectural production, what Theodor Adorno would call: “pseudo-individualization and the always-the-same” and on the other; mirrored hand it tries to make an ironic comment towards the process of social homogenization: precisely through commoditized “once-cultural” items such as Architecture, as Guy Debord would say.

In today’s world of commoditized Architecture words like Elegance, Efficiency and Adaptable seem to be heard again and again within the discourse. Which doesn’t come as a surprise given that this adjectives bestow projects with an aura of un-complication, political correctness and ease of digestion, in other words, these adjectives make projects easy to sell. But let’s take the word Adaptable for example. When one is contrasting the term Adaptable (as in Adaptable architecture) against the hope for critical architecture the first thought that comes to mind is that something with a high degree of adaptability would have no engagement with another entity whatsoever, and would therefore cause no change on that other entity, there would basically be no friction. Alas, one immediately realizes one’s mistake. There are conditions in which the interaction of an object with another extremely adaptable entity does cause change and friction. Let’s take for example water running down a stream and rocks deposited along the bed of that stream. Water is extremely adaptable, yet, as it passes relentlessly amongst the rocks, it erodes them and transforms them into round, smooth, homogenous pebbles. This analogy only confirms Adorno’s and Debord’s suspicions that the narcotic powers of commodities only serve the purpose of keeping us all homogeneously sedated. So, not only our adaptable architecture lacks the ability or will to be critical, it is actually an accomplice of the current state of affairs

What’s at stake within this unit is the questioning of the future meaning of Architecture academically and professionally…Is it time to acknowledge that Architecture will never come back from being a cosmetic endeavor? And should we therefore come up with another term for producing projects that make us think differently? Because perhaps it’s too late for architecture to make a difference, perhaps in a time when not only architecture but also architectural education has been commoditized the term critical architecture is an oxymoron.