February 28, 2008

Neo-Brutalism: the wave of the future

This is a call for all mochitects to join the Neo-Brutalist Party immediately. Denounce those bandwagon starchitect fans riding the "green" wave. In 10 years they will all be ridiculed for designing trendy, outdated junk buildings. Neo-Brutalism will emerge as a "timeless" design style. This is why:

A peace group called International Alert is saying that a “Climate War” threatens billions of people and will cause “100 countries to go face political chaos and mass migration.” An article about this can be found here.

While the United States is at war in the Middle East, a much larger conflict is building up. A war not between countries, religions, or terrorists. Rather, the battlefield is developing on an unprecedented global scale: between man and nature. As mainstream awareness of environmental problems emerges in society today, increased emphasis on energy efficient design strategies naturally occur (i.e. natural daylight, natural ventilation, and solar power). This begins to suggest an architecture which is one with nature, coexisting in an eco-friendly environment by taking only what is needed from abundant and predicable atmospheric weather conditions. However, scientists studying global warming suggest regardless of our actions in attempting to reverse the effects of global warming, the damage has already been done. The effects of industrialization and pollution are irreversible. Global Warming is here and its effects are something out of a sci-fi story: unprecedented temperature extremes, increasingly massive storms, and the destruction of entire species and ecosystems. Perhaps in fifty years we will all be living in space bubbles deep inside Boston's City Hall (image above) hiding from some freak blizzard or hurricane.

Rather than coexisting peacefully with nature, we must learn to adapt and conquer changing environmental patterns which are most definitely life-threatening. Thus, the purpose of a contemporary and progressive architecture should be thought of as fortification against this brutal enemy who has turned so quickly on us. Hoo-ray for the resurrgence of brutalism in architecture. Hoo-ray for Neo-Brutalism.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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