PREFACE
W here T hings are G oing Most readers of this book have probably experienced situations when someone enthusiastically talks nonsense to them, with great selfconfidence, and also expects appreciation, or even admiration, for what is being said. (Having worked in architectural academia for a quarter of a century, I can testify how pervasive these situations can be). When one points out that what has been said is false, self-contradictory, maybe even unethical or stands for evil political views, the person smiles stupidly and responds by saying: “Yes, but that is where things are going.” The response—one can hardly fail to notice—constitutes a clear admission of the lack of personal and intellectual integrity. By saying it, the person admits that his or her views, decisions, and actions are not his or her own, but result from an effort to be in line with “where things are going.” It becomes hard to avoid the impression that this chatty conversationalist would have supported the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917, Nazis in Germany in 1933 and would have been a vehement advocate of McCarthyism in the USA in the early 1950s. Arguably, someone who yields to social trends in a modern democratic society would be even more likely to do so in a system dominated by strong political pressures. In such conversations, my experience tells me, it helps little to point out that what is good or bad, true or false, has nothing to do with “where things are going.” Attempts to explain this are typically met with more stupid smiles and polite evasion in the form of the statement “I am more interested to hear what you think about it.” A change of the topic of conversation quickly follows. This same lack of integrity, I argue in this book, stands behind the greatest predicament of architecture of our time. Architecture as a profession, and the architectural academia that trains architects, can hardly be said to enjoy much respect today. In fact, it is hard to think of an era when they were less valued. Prize-winning architectural works are often appreciated only by other architects. The general public ignores them or occasionally reacts against them with hostility. The widespread impression is that architects and architecture academics
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