Which Architecture for Central Asia?: Satrapia

Architecture and Globalization

In postcolonial times, architecture and urbanism have continued to play an important role in the enforcement of political control, often under the guise of national styles. In other cases, architecture has served emergent economies to express their fascination for symbols of economic development and national progress in a context of inflationary globalization, international economic competition, and more or less covert instances of neocolonialism. In the first half of the 1990s several countries in Asia invested much effort and ingenuity in the construction of skyscrapers which not only challenged the legendary supremacy of the American high-rise, but were also meant to represent these countries’ new role on the international stage.

On the other hand, the challenge of designing an architecture of place, beyond the “universalism” of the modernist movement and of corporate hubris, is being encouraged by certain constituencies such as the Aga Khan Award.

International architectural firms, mostly based in the United States and Western Europe, have found an expanding and profitable market in the former colonies. Their transnational practices place their designs within the more general framework of globalization and post-modernist architecture, but in some cases these categories overlap with the reality of late colonialism in ways that throw a strong light on the continued dominance of the Western canon. In the case of Sir Norman Foster’s Hong Kong and Shangai Bank headquarters (Hong Kong, 1979-85), a high-tech office building integrated Chinese geomancy principles, but it was also a monument to corporate and technological power erected in one of the last colonies of the former British Empire. As such, it qualifies as late colonial architecture, although it is seldom so interpreted in the specialized literature.

New Urbanism

The International Modern Movement produced, for the most part, buildings that were free-standing and unrelated to their contexts. The bits of urban space left by the rigidities of Modernist architecture could never be made into urban spaces that meant anything or had any qualities except an ability to dismay those who experienced them. Five thousand years of urban history demonstrate that the complex relationships of streets, squares, parks, monuments, buildings, etc., not only form means of communication, but help identification and orientation, giving the urban fabric a sense of character and place. Traditional urban blocks, mixed uses, and a coherent, literate, architectural language were promoted by the New Urbanists as an antidote to the unpleasant, inhumane, and incoherent environments that were the direct result of the work of devotees of the Athens Charter, CIAM, Le Corbusier, etc. Among the promoters of New Urbanism the Krier Brothers, Duany & Plater-Zyberk, John Simpson, Rossi, and Porphyrios, among others, may be cited.

Durability

To the question “Will Elizabeth II leave a worthy built legacy?”, Francis Terry Partner at Quinlan & Francis Terry answers “NO”:

If you buy a flat-pack chest of drawers, it will last a few years. You could take the same money and buy a 19^th century equivalent and you would have a piece of furniture that would last you your whole lifetime.

The same can be said for architecture. Most buildings constructed during the past 60 years were designed in a way that gives them little chance of lasting more than a few decades. From the moment of their incarnation, their ultimate destiny was a landfill site because they were created with obsolescence built in. This means that, by the end of this century, most of the architecture of the second Elizabethan period will be virtually non-existent.

This should be an uplifting thought when one considers the skyline of the city of London, which only recently looked like a Canaletto, but now resembles a half-baked Shanghai. It would be wonderful to think that all those towers – Canary Wharf, the Gherkin and the Shard to name just a few – that dominate the skyline will soon be gone. But unfortunately, the current ones will only be replaced by newer, larger structures, further dwarfing St Paul’s, the only permanent building among them.

The legacy of British architecture since 1952 will, like the buildings themselves, probably fade into the shadows within a relatively short period of time.

We should not be too despondent about this; historically most architecture is temporary and forgotten. Most buildings are knocked down within a fairly short time of their construction as their sites pass into other hands and other uses.

Like flat-pack furniture, they serve a certain purpose at a certain time. It’s just not the sort that will be inherited and cherished by future generations.