#3 The myth that Modernism needs.

The Goal in Architecture PART.I Goal — 1. Part 2. The Useless, the Wasteful and the Necessary

Part 2

The myth that Modernism needs.

If we exist according to Nature’s principles, as far as life until death goes, the choices that waste, destroy, and even to choose futility, must ultimately have a purpose within Nature. It may seem subtle, but when people choose and it is ‘wrong’, that is granted us in our role. That role may be then concealed within that ‘wrongness’, whatever action or thought it may be, but it will necessarily be developed. This is a powerful factor of being human.

As long as our action is based on values selected according to vectors of power and conflict, these select values are only place holders for good, bad, or right and wrong. Harm and sensible affects, even of death and mutilation, are in reality different from whatever appearances each of our perception may give. Accepting this awareness is a step toward spirituality. There is enough evidence to at least assume that there is nothing in Nature that is not infinitely inter-connected. If the intricate interdependent life of every last atom were taken as true, how could we go on as we are, even if we are not able to understand it? But a powerful force is at play that seemingly defies logic, good will, and basic self preservation, as well as thousands of years of progress. The effects of disrupting human and not–human interconnections in Nature are not fully perceptible for anyone, so they may not seem ‘real’ or they may be given low value, while the grand spectrum of subjective views comes into being. Our brothers and sisters feel free to take, and to discard, as well as to give and to hold back.

A mis–connection with Nature — which must include human nature — has hardened and widened through the quantum and macro cosmic scales, in philosophy, science and technology. A simple defining concept that we use to facilitate our silos of knowledge and extractive processes is that there is a component called ‘garbage’. This is a defining myth of our time. There is no such thing as garbage in Nature. It is a cultural idea. As a myth this belongs to our story of life and wellbeing.

That we are now better on the whole can be successfully argued with familiar scenarios. But in terms of the environment and resources, including the work that we can do as human beings, we remain colonialist. The is in spite of understanding the transgressions of Christopher Columbus and those explorer–conquerors, improvement from the ignorant so-called exploration of the ‘new’ world seems to be continuing toward other worlds and moons. For example, although we have not yet ventured far beyond the earth, a similar lack of respect for what could exist on other worlds is already evident. Crashing devices on the surface of the moon to see what might happen,¹ or expediently crashing the landers for Curiosity and Perseverence on Mars. Landing on Venus and Titan² are all examples of ongoing colonialist blindness against the unseen, the unperceived and what we willfully conceal. The time for taking that as incidental is of course long past. We persist though with chosen social forces in renewed forms justifying entitlement to the power we can generate within our claim to Nature’s life, and justifying its use based on its possession. Architecture is mainly defined through the use of terrain and resources too. So this is a really important aspect for practice. Colonialist materialism is still woven throughout our culture and reflected in architecture. The way that this works is through the concept that there things that have no active role and others that we create that we call garbage.

A weakened profession.

In contemporary societies, architecture is in a weakened position as practice and as profession. It can be argued that architecture was historically applied to only a small selection of high value built environments by an elite.  A proliferation of architectural work has come of those commonly accepted positive values. The factors that come into play to consider that architecture is not only for the elite has allowed us to make architecture more available to an increasing proportion of people for a greater section of programs. Those factors are determined in ways that are part of our social and cultural conditions, with the intents and means of the architectural profession getting extended accordingly.