Abstract

The architect has always been subservient to the client; in the modern world, there are few clients with the agenda of communicating an idea outside of functionality, or few clients in whose interest it would be to hire an architect to express an idea outside of functionality. Ironically, the condition of the modern world, with the highest standard of living in the history of the world, and a relative enjoyment of peace and prosperity, seems to necessitate only one agenda—economic advancement. Literature, philosophy, art and architecture, have been cast aside as subservient to the expression of the “mute universal process embodying the values of technology”. Architecture needs to reawaken in itself the potential to communicate ideas about human identity and existence, and it needs to reestablish a relationship with cultural identity, not in a hegemonic or ideological way, but in a way which celebrates culture, human activity, rather than enslaving it to technology.