The Millrace

A Portfolio of Probabilities, Syd Mead for US Steel, 1961

It is time for architects to think about the future; I mean REALLY think about the future, not try to “look like the future,” or contemplate next week, but consider the way-out-there tomorrows, say 30, 50, or 100 years ahead.  And not what it will be like, but what it SHOULD be like.  In this post I will tackle why today’s future has gotten so dark (compared with yesterday’s future).  In subsequent entries, I will opine on the world our grandchildren will inherit with the assumption that it can be brighter than contemporary cynics believe.

Looking back (always a good thing when you are about to look forward), we enjoyed periods where the deep future inspired expectant awe rather than constant apprehension.  I recall my childhood in the 1950’s when the likes of Buck Rogers zoomed across our TV screens, followed by the Jetsons not long after.  Those visions portended progress; the future would be better than today.  GE declared ‘Progress is our most important product.”  But the optimism faded, perhaps trumped by the lingering horrors of wars (hot and cold), genocide, and the A-bomb.  Or perhaps after we reached the moon, we realized that not much had changed in our lives.  We still had war, poverty, discrimination, and miseries and some of our apparent advancements turned out to be horrors, like thalidomide, or the fouling of the planet by energy generation.

In architecture, the promise of modernism also got stale in mid-century with corporate concrete and glass boxes, suburban sprawl and highways blanding up the landscape.  Postmodernism rose as a reaction, but today we see modernism rising again.  This time around, however, it seems to be a faux futurism, eager to be “not yesterday” rather than looking into the real future.  Certainly it has its joyous moments, in the spirited whimsy of Frank Gehry, say, but much recent work seems to evince decadent cynicism.  The hippest architects make their buildings artful by making them cold or foreboding.  You can see this on recent covers of Architectural Record, where we find buildings that have generic-looking cores of simple gridded structures, or plain-Jane boxes which have then been slashed and gouged, as if the architect is screaming “not this!”  If we believe Stendahl when he declared that “Beauty is the promise of happiness,” then these structures are looking for beauty simply by denying the past.  Their point seems to be that the future is not the past.  Of course it isn’t.

The case that I’ve heard from some of these architects is that our art should reflect our times; ergo, a world full of terrorism and repression should be reflected in dark buildings.  I suppose they believe another old saw, that truth is beauty.  I maintain that this is a form of cultural whining.  If things aren’t great, let’s make them better.

Klaus Bürgle, 1968

Let’s get optimistic and think about what might be!  Or better yet, what should be.  If we don’t have a destination, we’ll just run in circles, chasing our tails.  For all the cynicism out there, I submit that we have made progress, technically and culturally.  People are healthier and safer and live longer worldwide.  Our technology, science, and medicine are better.  Our means of communication have improved.  Our politics are better.  Believe it or not, there are more democracies around the world than ever, more openness.  We have a black president, something that was unimaginable until it happened.  We have made progress.  Let’s believe in it, and build on it.

What do we want?  Of course I imagine a world where humans figure out how to share resources to eradicate poverty, and manage to improve our lives using fewer resources, leaving the world better for the following generations.  We have all heard (if not shouted) the need to be greener.  Buildings are estimated to account for 40 percent of all greenhouse gases, so it’s no surprise to hear all fifty U.S. Governors call for buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030.

But what do we want beyond that?  How can we make our places BETTER?  What will make us all safe, sound, happy, satisfied?  What will make our world uplifting and sustaining in 2060.  Let’s think that way when we start our next design.  I will.  Stay tuned.  I plan to imagine possibilities in greater detail, in future posts.