checking the pulse of the architecture industry

If any architects are reading this blog, here's a survey for you: Checking the Pulse of the Architecture Industry [1] from Archinect. I'll be interested to read the results in a future Archinect newsletter.

While away in rural New Hampshire for a bit I caught up on some long overdue reading. I read James Howard Kunstler [2]'s [3]The Geography of Nowhere [3]:The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape (1993). He slams modernism hard. I don't, but I now see why traditional architects hold their noses when I wax on about the beauty of some modernist buildings. I wonder if Kunstler has a view on the wholesale destruction of modern buildings - maybe, maybe not. So I have cracked his work The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century [4] (2005). Already in chapter one with a heading that reads "Adios Global Economy", I feel that we are doomed. You think Cleveland is in the dumps? Yes, Cleveland is a canary.

My friend says I may be so depressed I will not be able to rise from the bed each day. I'll counter with a short poem by Dorothy Parker - “Razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live.” I've added the KunstlerCasts [5] to my to do list. (Thank you Daryl Davis!)

In any case, seeing the light of day can be difficult, but it is certainly better than living in a fantasy in some mall somewhere. "NO", I said to my sister with whom I was visiting, "buying a pair of shoes will NOT make me feel better."

What shall we build, what shall we reuse, how shall we reuse it, for whom and to what purpose... architects, I would surmise, must attempt to answer this question daily. Maybe not. Maybe they just hunker down to their CAD drawings and plod along.