The role of Archinect’s new series Cross-Talk is to bring forward the positive aspects of the polemic and allow for the resulting conflict to bring to life an otherwise still and comfortable climate of creativity—if there can be one. Cross-Talk attempts—if to only say that it did—to allow text the freedom that the image has accepted and embraced. Cross-Talk attempts to force the no, to contradict itself, to anger, to please and then anger again, if only to force a stance, to pull out the position of the self, of the discipline and of the hour as a means to begin and maintain conversations moving forward. 

Any remnants of borders, regions, coasts, continents, time zones and any other iteration of subdivision in our views of the world have been drastically altered, if not, destroyed in recent years. With the proliferation of social media and all its never-ending manifestations, the ability for any one system to exist outside of it would seem to be impossible. Access to any region is a click away, and access to the variations of culture, identity, traditions, and histories is only a "hey Siri" or "Alexa" away from access.

When usernames replace given names and when the number of posts produces relevancy...

While the divisions of coasts, continents and any variation thereof have been used as a ground for the East versus West debate in architecture, we are at a crossroads where such divides are becoming more self-imposed than actual. When usernames replace given names and when the number of posts produces relevancy and disciplinary duration, we find that, any separation between historically in-the-dark themes, motifs and histories is dissipating and collisions take place before they are even understood.

In an era where geographical hindrance conceptually distanced eastern and western philosophies, many institutions, movements, and trends found relevance and strength in their geographic and/or conceptual isolation within the discipline, how are these ideologies to move forward when these strict divisions have faded? Long gone are the days of shadowed appropriation of underrepresented -isms, creative successes and intellectual threads by the discipline as building blocks for the ivory towers of the East Coast. Long gone are the self-implied 'rebellious' West Coast visual explorations, which have only led to empty visual sameness with lackluster direction, impact or longevity. When East and West merely become taggable locations, momentary glimpses on a swipe through streams of media, how are we to quantify and consciously create realistic, if not at least, non-tone deaf mental notes of what is what and where is where?

Long gone are the days of shadowed appropriation of underrepresented -isms, creative successes and intellectual threads by the discipline as building blocks for the ivory towers of the East Coast.

This dropping of the guard has brought on an unprecedented era of historical convergence, collection, intellectual hoarding, and creative freedom fostering a state comfort, repercussion-less experimentation and endless hand-over-hand debating, a disciplinary 'chasing of the dragon'. This is a resurgence and integration of architectural theories, positions, and histories from across such boundaries, renewed by an injection of source material and intellectual positions. Eastern and Western philosophies are slowly intertwining, as individuals access and meld their traditions, lessons, and mistakes. With this accumulation of content, how and in what manner do we move forward, or potentially stay still? What is the role of East vs West today? On what scale are we to understand such a separation?

Are visual projects becoming legitimized by the intellectual appropriation of jargon and words, while intellectual projects are billboarded by empty visuals used as vessels for cultural relevance?

Is it to be the East Coast versus West Coast, where there was once a tendency to imply and magnify the self-proclaimed Intellectual Project versus a Visual One? Are visual projects becoming legitimized by the intellectual appropriation of jargon and words, while intellectual projects are billboarded by empty visuals used as vessels for cultural relevance? We have begun to see the images of West Coast exuberance adopted by East Coast jargon hoping for even the slightest contemporary validation, even if its lateness to the party is evident. Are we to accept that the East Coast philosophies and rigorous historical discoveries are in need of fancy packaging to make them digestible in the era of heart likes and repostings. Where is the new line of division to be formed?

Or, do we zoom out and see the divide on a global scale, as Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere, becoming one round sphere with points all equally distant to the center of the discipline with our primitive hut being one of many and primitive of none —a return to Babel. Do we rebuild the Classical Orders to be inclusive of the plethora of eastern masterpieces which have gone unrecognized and or disregarded?  We find ourselves in a nexus of wanting to rewrite history, make new histories, forget histories or give history a new perspective but in reality, history, as an image, has been left incomplete and we are only beginning to fill in the missing pixels, dot by dot. Can we grant ourselves the ability to dissolve coastal ambitions or insecurities, develop the cultural indexes, and begin to connect the dots on an accurate and complete disciplinary map?

The lowering of the fence has allowed other safe zones of architectural contradiction and positioning...

It is no surprise that as an ocean of community approaches a once severed discipline other iterations of separation erupt onto the scene as if we are in a constant need for a classical manifestation of Hegelian dialectic. The lowering of the fence has allowed other safe zones of architectural contradiction and positioning, with anti-humanistic theories, object-oriented ontologies and every variation thereof, to sprout in hopes of taking advantage of the lowered guard and yet, they may find themselves unaware of where they have spawned and unaware if such a location is a viable location for growth.