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Old Posted Dec 24, 2006, 7:09 AM
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Cirrus Cirrus is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 18,344
Quote:
people are generally stupid, and it's up to architects to force the ignorant masses into liking what is good
And that is why architects are far less important to the process of building than they used to be.

Architects were once the master builders of society. Now, due not wholly but in no small part to that type of feeling, architects are increasingly relegated to the sidelines - told to come in and make pretty after all the important decisions have already been made… and then forced to sit back and take it while civic review boards rewrite their designs. Save for in a handful of glamour projects going mostly to starchitects that are more about sculpture than “real” building, architects today have far less power, prestige or influence than they used to. And if you don’t think a big part of that is due to the disconnect between what artist-wannabe architects want and what everyone else wants, I have a bridge to sell you.

The really ironic thing is that maybe if architects disconnected their collective heads and asses, we might see some new contemporary styles with details that could compete with historic designs and that people actually like. Instead, the architecture world continues to plug along trying to force essentially the same geometric sculpturalism (different shapes perhaps, but the same basic game) that they’ve been pushing for at least 50 years, and which the public has soundly rejected (and for good reason - architecture isn't just art; we have to live in it).
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