fallacy of form - economics of creativity I

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.

There are two major trends in the landscape of the design industry, distillations of a polar paradigm shift that spells the imminence of our emergent urban experience. Extreme and antithetical, these two approaches inform a disparity that is apparent in the social structure of the built environment, that the practice of architectural and environmental design is a tectonic translation of the ego and error of its designers; creating a tableau of farcical scale that can only be evaluated by the efficacy of each, from the lines that define spaces, to the expanses that provide volume, from the planes that offer textures to the details that decorate the sensual aspect.

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The first trend is rooted in the essence of the International Style, an axiom in which any building, when designed in this method and execution, could theoretically be located anywhere in the world, without gravely diminishing the relevance of its form nor the emotional effect on the user. What this approach postulates is that stylistically neutral architecture could be made relevant despite of culture and social setting. What it achieves in doing, though, is oversimplifying the discipline of design into minute and quantifiable decisions that could be applied with no regard whatsoever to climate, locale, vernacular and culture, an output devoid of context and spirit, a barren utilitarian extant of what could possibly have been a more inspired outcome. This is not to discredit the merits of the style, but the contemporary interpretation of this can be summarized by two umbrella concepts – prefab construction and modular design.

International Style and Modernism

By various architects, at various locations

The translation of this approach usually is disrespectful to the nuances that make a site (culture, user, space, context and climate) unique and singular. Disregarding these aspects make for a design that although in terms of construction and buildability is efficient and optimal, falls epic when it comes to usability and the value of experience. It treats users as homogenous statistics with an objective of plane functionality. But that is rarely the case; unless of course the space in question is one that is purely functional and utilitarian say a plant or a factory, but even so, the users have behavioral idiosyncrasies that requisite a humane prodding to exact optimal effectiveness on the part of the end-user.

This cookie-cutter approach to design, pre-fabrication coupled with modularized components, is neither inherently sustainable nor automatically and conclusively efficient. Despite the swift production of the components chosen from a catalogue book of elements akin to a menu, the site itself would pose the question of whether this methodology lends easily to its location, whether transferring and assembling this jigsaw puzzle is even doable or logical or logistically plausible upon the intended situation of the building. What of accessibility and mobility? How about the necessity of the user to emotionally identify with the space?

Original image of header is from here.

Other images, from various sources online.

The first Fallacy of Form is here.

Fallacy of Form - Verdant Voice is here.

Fallacy of Form - Esthetica is here.