As a
supporter of traditional urban design and a believer in the contemporary
relevance of traditional architecture, I cannot count the number of times I
have heard generally well-meaning, otherwise reasonable people say the words:
“Well, we cannot pretend that we are building in the nineteenth century.”
This statement envelops within its svelte hide a veritable swarm of debatable
assumptions, many of which lie at the heart of global architecture culture’s
current malaise.
I find it
is usually useless to attack these assumptions directly by asking complicated
questions such as “What is it about symmetry or ornament that makes them the
exclusive property of any particular historical period, considering the fact
that they are found almost everywhere, in almost every era?” Instead I
have lately taken to nursing the argument from another, indirect angle — an
approach that has, to my surprise and delight, enjoyed some success in pubs and
classrooms around the world.
It is fun to take this line of questioning further. What
would our dinner tables look like if culinary culture were half as hung up on
the rigid rulebook of progressive aesthetics as architecture culture is? Would we be allowed to eat bread or rice, or would they be forbidden due to
their unspeakable antiquity? Would regional fare using locally harvested
ingredients be celebrated as part of a rich, diverse, interconnected world of
unique traditions, or would it be condemned as provincial nostalgia?
The histories of food and modern architecture have, actually, long been intertwined, on many levels. By the early 20th century, many people in the Western world assumed that no aspect of our lives would go untouched by the rise of industry, including the way we eat. (See adjacent cartoons!)
Prominent architects such as Adolf Loos argued that simplicity in architecture should be matched by simplicity in cuisine, because truly modern people had no need for ostentatious ornaments either on their façades or on their dinner plates. After World War II, Americans in particular were enthusiastic about the cheap and convenient edibles that industry was bringing to the table. TV dinners, synthetic factory foodstuffs like BAC-Os, SPAM and Velveeta, monosodium glutamate and eventually microwave-radiation, push-button cooking were all rolled out as triumphs of the age, tokens of modernity to be embraced alongside automobiles, rockets to the moon and, of course, modern architecture. And then the tide turned.
Many of today’s young progressives — many of whom were raised in the TV
glow of suburbia absorbing luminous, corn syrup-based “fruit snacks” — have
whole-heartedly rejected industrially processed, chemical-infused products in
favor of foods only their great-grandparents would recognize. And
remarkably, such organically produced victuals are not ridiculed as the product
of nostalgic reaction, but lauded as the fuel of cutting-edge progress!
I
believe they should be equally open to traditional architectural ingredients
such as locally sourced natural materials, organic symmetry, humanistic
proportion, craft production and “applied” ornament. As we can see in our
farm fields and pastures, old things are not invalid simply due to their age.
Indeed, many of the modern promises about the future of food have turned out to
be hollow, and one of the chief challenges of our times is figuring out how to
undo some of the damage of industrial agricultural practices.
Aniket Dutta
Msc.Media || PG:1
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