An Architecture for Our Time Author:Charles Siegel From INTBAU, An Architecture for Our Time — Charles Siegel — Charles Siegel is a writer based in Berkeley, California, and is the director of preservenet — Post-modernist architects congratulate themselves on how cutting-edge and avant-garde their buildings are, but in reality, they are not responding to the needs of our time in the way that the ea... more »rly modernists responded to the needs of the last century.
Modernist architects of the early and mid-twentieth century were politically idealistic and radical. Their architecture expressed their faith that modernisation and progress would bring a better world.
Because this technological optimism has faded, today's post-modernists do not have the social idealism of the early modernists to give their work meaning. They strain to create novel forms, as if novelty were an end in itself. If we look at why avant garde architects have lost their idealism, it can help us understand what sort of architecture is needed in our time.« less