Continued from Fallacy of Form - Economics of Creativity I

The second trend is a direct manifestation of the hailed celebrities of the design community – the starchitects. Ostentatious and utterly solipsistic, the typical form that envelope their visions is an abject extension of a pregnant ego reflective of these self-imposed and self-professed visionaries. They have made a whole industry out of asserting a supposed avant garde-ness to their work, churning out a defined proclivity towards the iconic and shocking. Subscribing to the tenet of object rather than fabric architecture, their work is usually so stylized and esthetically-specific to warrant a whole demographic of clientele – those who have the money and a bloated ego, and those whose primary objective is to make a statement. Art for art’s sake; if indeed architecture is purely an artistic expression (which, consequently, it isn’t).

resume rubbored reading...

With the global consciousness becoming more and more homogenized by the horror vacui of information peddling, the struggle to remain distinct and individual, unique if you may, becomes a matter of life and dread. Regressing from the craftsmanship of lost artisan forms and disciplines, we are faced with an experience of modernity consigned to the production line. Profit being a function of supply and demand, the conveyor belt/ fordist paradigm seemed like the most appropriate method of minimizing cost on the manufacturer while indirectly ensuring quality, or uniformity at least. Obfuscating the spirit of a designed product or space, we are left with standardized variations of the same tired translations, punctuated with slight interjections of difference every once in a while, but essentially and holistically retaining the standardized vision of a manufactured reality.

resume rubbored reading...

“Well, to me God is just a word for what I do when I talk to the best possible version of things: perfection. Or maybe God is the best possible version of myself. Maybe when I say this prayer, I’m appealing to a future, possible and perfect chair.” 

I throw the word chair in there to check her listening skills. But she hasn’t heard the last bit of my sentence. She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “It’s not God it’s just all about you.” 

“It’s not God if it isn’t me. It can’t be God without me thinking of God,” I say. 

resume rubbored reading...

Beloved Lady Rust,

You perplex me. How your beauty is defined with your chocolate-colored pelt of crusty, flaky, aged quality, and how patches peel to unfold the tarnished element beneath. How the strongest fall prey and succumb to the creeping, contemplating, patient caress of your prowess, slowly by age and tenderly by weather. How you disregard my sheath of robust sheen, and crack it open in your own time.

resume rubbored reading...