MID SEMESTER BREAK: The Death of Architecture

Through the use of technology and innovative products such as the Apple products, there is a greater emphasis of minimalism or de-materialism. Ruby (1998, 181) implies that that this dematerialization goes parallel to deterritorialization and decorporation. This is true in the real world with greater awareness of open sourcing and networking to stimulate greater development. However, with architecture on the hand there is slow sense of dematerialisation with technology allowing greater use and knowledge of equilibrium, materials and structure. This is not really breaking any new territory either with such work as the Glass House by Philip Johnson in 1949.

Glass House - http://rap361.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/philip_johnson_glasshouse.jpg

However today there is greater awareness of a third building dimension. Previous it was thought that mass and energy were simply the two dimensions. Today a third dimension: information. The great growth of technology in this age of information can questions the practicality of adding architecture for the sake it.

This can only question is this leading to the death of architecture.  Human activity is no longer restricted to physical encounters. The virtual age question the actuality or scope of architecture? Or does it imply a paradox, where the augmentation between both domains: virtual and real architecture coexist. This implies that virtual worlds as an architectural tool to overcome the constraints of physical construction with the architecture being subjected to electronics and electro-magnetic waves.

Along with the evolution of entities through time, architecture will evolve. Like pop-culutral fads architectural will bear a simple resounding idea of previous aesthetics and ideas. Of course it will continue to exist, but it will literally be in a different state of disappearance.

Ruby, A. 1998. “Architecture in the age of it’s virtual Disappearance” The Virtual Dimension: Architecture, REpresentation and Crash Culture. Edited by John Beckmann. p. 178 - 187. New York: Princeton Architectural Press