Thursday, November 10, 2011

A short post about the absurdity of architecture

It’s been said before, but Architecture is a narrative of interesting buildings, the ones we remember and debate, the ones we build stories around, the ones we dissect and recycle. Architecture is not a discipline, it’s a book club. It’s a book club where the illustrations are usually more important than the texts. Architecture is a sequestered jury. It’s a cultural bracket under intense pressure trying to produce diamonds out of dirt. And if it could have any autonomy it wouldn’t be formal or technical, it would be social; but it’s all temporary, I suppose. I know we’ll both forget this, but in the meantime, it’s comforting that we oddballs have each other for a little while to discuss and project possibilities, to try to convince each other (and the others) to see the world as it could be.
This is quite absurd and very true. It is from an essay by Michael Meredith of MOS; you can find it in Log 22, which he edited, or you can download it here.







Look Blue Go Purple:


2 comments:

Stephen Stratford said...

I am editing some writing about architecture. A sense of absurdity helps.

Paul said...

Are you in a position to reveal the content of said writing?