The birth, rise, and death (?) of the star system

After reading Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle I found myself thinking a little different about how the star system affects society.  I had thought of the how iconic architecture is craved by some people in the world because they want some thing new: fresh; a "spectacle" that represents what they want the model of life to be, not how it currently is.
And although I knew that star architecture becomes incorporated in the life of the society surrounding it (because as humans we adapt to our surroundings), I had not quite thought of it the way Debord did when he stated:
  real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it...Each of these seemingly fixed concepts has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real.
He seems to have been able to put into better words what I had already been thinking.  But then, as I think more on my interpretation of what Debord was saying the fact remains that the majority of the people in this world probably don't care about having the tallest building or the newest architectural and engineering feat in their country. 
I am biased.  I don't like star architecture.  I can't stand it.  And I would be a stubborn old mule if someone tried to get me to like the star system.  I realize this is not being object and unfair to those who may actually have decent arguements for the system.
However, I feel that star architecture is part of the globalization that is destroying so many different cultures in this world.  We can't have that.  Our built environment is part of the physical manifestation of our cultures - the souls of our peoples.  I may sound like Maxim Gorky when I say this, but if we allow the thousands of unique cultures in our world to fade out, to be destroyed violently in wars fought over economics and basic necessities, then we all might as well be dead.

Team 10 and Aldo van Eyck

Team 10 was seeking to solve social and form problems. As time passed, their thoughts changed and this quest for solutions made them start to loose their vigor.

One of the members of Team 10 was Aldo van Eyck. I have come to deeply respect van Eyck for his activist movements.

As Aldo van Eyck put it in his essay The Interior of Time “each case is a special case and can only be understood in its own terms.” He also makes the point that “each culture constitutes a very special case. That surely is a wonderful thing – wonderful in a different way for each different case!”

The people and place make a culture. Aldo van Eyck put it best in his collective thoughts titled Place and Occasion when he said ‘city implies “the people that live there” – not population.’ The best way to make real architecture is by letting a building evolve out of the place and culture. The design of buildings could be like the Dogon Basket in the sense that they are functional and satisfying the initial need of the structure but then go on to tell the story where the person or group was in the past, who they are now, and their ideas and goals; where they are going.

I love learning about different cultures and I fear that globalization is diminishing the diversity of cultures around the world. Although I will admit that the integration of the culture of an area fused with modernity can produce very interesting buildings so long as the structure is functional, like Mr. Willoughby mentioned in class Tuesday “art can be absurd, but architecture can’t.”

All of these images are homes in the Philippines.  I think they begin to show the change between the traditional nepa hut to the "modern design" and then the beginning of a sort of fusion between the traditional and "modern."

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

I find it interesting that Alan Colquhoun mentions in his essay entitled Postmodernism and Structuralism: A Retrospective Glace, states that the ainti-modernist reaction was a reaction against a movement that emphasized conservativism, professionalism, and an arrogance that had developed in the profession of architecture.  Although this argument could possibly be used to agitate disapprovement of the present 'starchitect' system it is interesting that these ideas were on the minds of the structuralist generation of architects. 

The structuralist became enamoured by theorist Roland Barthes and an anthropologist named Claude Levi-Strauss.  They began to look at the relationship between things or their function, rather than the objects themselves. 

 http://www.designkink.co.za/

The post-structionalists, however, felt that the architect was no longer responsible to the audience and viewed architecture to be individualistic and an exception to any rules.


Do some architects still cling to a post-structionalist view today?

Concept, Diagram, and Parti

Concept

The definition of concept, in my opinion, is that it is the philosophical, psychological, and symbolic meaning that the architect wants to portray through his or her building.  These ideals come from the architect's world-view, the program, and the client's goals, history, or character.

Diagram and Parti

I have always sort of seen a diagram and parti to basically be the same thing - as a broken down basic geometery behind the building.  Diagrams can then show functions and progressions ect.

The past puts the present into perspective.

In the introduction of “The New Architecture and the Avant-Garde” it is stated that the new “Tendenza” of architecture is to create autonomy. To create an architecture divorced from its functional and economic context and instead to create a sense of disciplinary autonomy against the capitalist driven society.

The “Tendenza” has the view that architecture is a cognitive process that then materializes into a physical embodiment of the process it took to create it. This image of the mental process is not in the pursuit or immersion of political, economic, social, or technological changes. The metaphysical embodiment of this mental exercise is also not a representation of the vernacular.

Architectural Evolution of Trinity College Dublin: 1592-1800

http://www.ucd.ie/arch/

Evolution of Masonry Construction

http://ocw.nd.edu/architecture/nature-and-the-built-environment/lecture-3/lecture-3

 The study of architectural history is important and the cognitive process of architecture should not feel repressed by its study. Ernest Nathan Rogers makes the point that time is a steady continuity in which the present is eternally related to the past though it is made up of periods of slow evolution and also relatively short moments of bombastic revolutions.

The past puts the present into perspective.

LABELS: ARCHITECTURE, FRAGMENT, M, SPAIN, URBAN - HTTP://ORCHESTRATEDINKBLOTS.BLOGSPOT.COM/

Knowledge influences memory and then architecture.

The importance of the evolution of architecture is entrusted to each architect to be unique and to contribute to the evolution. It is in this individualism that an analysis of a structure as a work of art, as Rossi argues in his “The Architecture of the City,” can be made. The city that exhibits architectural evolution is an anthology of individual snapshots showing the progression of architectural and cultural developments, demonstrating perceptions of the past, how people have perceived their spaces, and is, in essence, a living artifact of the anthropological study of the peoples.

http://artect.net/index.php?s=architectural

Monumentality

Louis Kahn makes the comment in his essay entitled "Monumentality" that it "cannot be intentionally created". After considering the reasoning he presented following that statement I cannot help but agree. Would you say that in the studio you see students who try to make their projects this grand ideal that if it were constucted then it would stand for all time, evoke extreme emotion, and become a precident to be followed for centuries to come? Or do you find your work and those around you to be something that tries to be a structure that is the embodiment of the passions, dreams, history, and culture of those who will use the structure?

Beginnings/Order/Proportion

In Juhani Pallasmaa's "The Geometry of Feeling: A Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture" he makes several comments that I find quite interesting. He says that if a building doesn't fulfill the expectation to phenomenologically symbolize the human existence it is "unable to influence the emotional feelings linked in our souls with the images a building creates." He also discusses what he calls the "Architecture of Memory" stating that "architecture of the mind emerging out of feelings and memory images is built on different principles from the architecture develped out of professional approaches."
Tell a memory of architecture that is dear to you. According to Pallasmaa's theory what would have been the phenomenon influencing your emotions to the point that it caused you to remember this particular experience so vividly? Do you agree with Pallasmaa on the idea that professional designs are based on different principles than your architectural memories? Or do you disagree, by disagreeing I mean would you say that you use memories often to approach projects in school?