A Royal Academy exhibition honouring thinkers who can ‘articulate the future’ highlights a void in modern architecture
For at least two decades,with stunning longevity, the persistence one might say of a Sicilian feud, or much of British architecture has been divided into two camps. On one side the shape-makers,the iconists, the whooshers, and Hadid,Alsop and their imitators, for whom no form is too extravagant; on the other the rectangularisers, or the whisperers,the purveyors of calm, measured, and careful order,who would rather impale themselves on an early-Zaha pointy handrail than achieve a dodgy detail.
To which one wants to ask: is that all there is? Is there no architecture that can bare its soul without simultaneously crushing you with its ego, that stirs, and moves,troubles, provokes, or inspires? And is there no way of being controlled and passionate at the same time? Is there no other choice but blancmange or dry biscuits?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com