Can you remember the days, when the whole family gets together, seated around the fireplace, talking to each other, about what happened at school or where to go for the weekend? This ideal has long gone. Fireplace, as the original center of the living space, was taken over by television. We don't talk anymore, instead, we spent days and nights sitting in front of the gleaming screen, no longer using our minds.
Everything is changing. TV time since then has been replaced by the internet entertainment, delivered via iPads and laptops. If we want to talk about any scale of space, such as domestic space, collective space, public space, we can not ignore the invisible cyberspace. Cyberspace rapidly occupied our life both in time and space.
If you had a choice to live in the Palace of Versailles that has no modern system of air conditioning, electricity supply or even running water, or a 3*3*3 cube with no view and no decor, but fitted out with internet access, and satellite TV, which one would you choose? The answer for me depends on the contemporary definition of Architecture. Is it more related to art or is it about functional problem solving? Does form follows function or vice versa?
I prefer the 3*3*3 cube. According to the Moore's Law, the speed of Revolution in technology is much faster than one in Architecture. My understanding of Revolution in Architecture is that it always follows the Revolution in building technologies. Can you imagine modernist architecture without concrete? Without glass BAUHAUS would not exist. Architecture can hardly be the origin of a revolution, it is not as fundamental. Today, the leading technologies are internet, computer science, programming. As always, architecture follows the trend, with parametric design, smart furniture, etc. We first meet the needs of the clients, then we find the solution, and in this process architecture methods are not always efficient. The basic elements of architecture have been redefined by high-tech products: our clients are no longer after better spaces, but rather after stronger WiFi signals.
I believe there's a paradox in architecture: at the same time we, architects, have to propose solutions for contemporary spatial problems, we have to bring new questions that push design — design theory, design technology, design morphology — forward.
ReplyDeleteDesigning a space with great wi-fi signal in every room is very risky once the quality of this space may be questioned a few years later, in case wi-fi turns out to be an obsolete technology. At the same time, by ignoring the fact that wi-fi signal has to be great in every single room, means that we are ignoring a contemporary project condition.
Great example!!!!
DeleteYour "Wi-Fi" theory let me think about the phone booth. I just arrived China, and saw a lot of phone booth in the streets. 10 years ago, you have to buy a mega card to use the phone booth, but the fact is, after 10 years, you can not even get these cards anymore, no shops or markets sell these cards. But the phone booths are still standing in the streets, remained like sculptures. Technology is something you can never get ahead of, anything about physical change contains the risks of been abandoned soon after the new resolution come out.