Fancy renderings of fanciful ideas might make for "internet catnip," but they don't push the built environment toward healthier and more prosperous outcomes. Where have all the good ideas gone?
"Like everything, architectural history and theory have been radically realigned by the internet and digital culture," writes Matt Shaw in a provocative editorial for The Architect's Newspaper. "The result is that bad ideas can come to be front and center in the architectural discussion very easily due to metrics and algorithms."
"What passes for 'radical,' 'idea,' 'theory,' and 'concept' today is becoming eroded as quickly as our political discourse," Shaw adds.
Shaw isn't afraid to call out specific examples—taking not only the designers to task, but the journalists who gave prominent coverage to ideas like a skyscraper hanging upside down from an asteroid. Each one is a "pointless exercise in mediocre conceptual architecture that looks good on the internet and keeps content producers busy," writes Shaw.
FULL STORY: Does architecture have a crisis of ideas?
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City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Tufts University, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
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