There Is Only One Lesson Of Red Vienna

Two things are true about me: I hate rich people and I love architecture. These days, that presents a terrible contradiction because only the extremely rich are able to finance the perpetuation of architectural production, whether in the form of new and interesting houses or in the financing of skyscrapers and grand, expensive public-facing private projects like museums or concert halls. Meanwhile, places like schools or libraries are cash poor, public resources like parks or housing are privatized, and much of what remains of the political infrastructure that ushered in the 20th century’s great social programs is as decrepit as some of the buildings, bridges, and roads they’ve left behind. For about two or three years now, it’s become increasingly difficult to know what to say about architecture, honestly, even though writing about it is my very privileged job. It’s one thing to write “we need an architecture that serves the people, not one that’s a mere bauble for the ruling class” over and over, but as the years roll on, my belief that such a thing is possible is beginning to wear quite thin. This is for a number of reasons, the least of which is the deteriorating political situation in the United States writ large, but perhaps the main one is that the ideological dynamism of the 2010s within architecture (and without) has largely stalled. What has taken its place is either the continued perpetuation of the digital tech-brained “floating cities will solve climate change” way of thinking, whose origins begin in the ’90s and have never stopped (as evidenced by the immediate embrace of AI), or a kind of resignation to the status quo—a pretty building every once and a while, a small library by Jeanne Gang or whatever, and then mostly faceless skyscrapers, luxury apartments, whatever pays the bills or makes an interesting shape that distinguishes itself from all the other interesting-shape buildings. As you can see, I am very depressed. Recently, I was in Europe hoping to catch those familiar whiffs of a world that is still mostly bad but slightly better than the one we have here. I hold no delusions about some kind of EUtopia; I was simply hoping to encounter buses that run on time, generally pro-social features like public bathrooms, and good bread. Mostly this turned out badly for me. In Berlin, AfD signs littered flagposts (it is election season) and half of the museums were closed for renovations that will take seven years because the city has no money.

Read it at Defector ↗

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