Citizen Architect – Form out of Time
This post is part of a coalition of architects posting on a single topic, each interpreting it in their own way, known as Architalks. This month the topic is your “Citizen Architect”
The AIA has staunchly promoted the constructed notion of a Citizen Architect a sort of paragon within the profession who, by their definition, “…uses his/her insights, talents, training, and experience to contribute meaningfully, beyond self, to the improvement of the community and human condition.” I’m generally not a fan of this distinction, as I feel every architect should conduct their practice in this way. To elevate a certain constituency simply because they sit on local boards or get elected to office I think misses the point of the profession. The value of the architect isn’t as a legislative tool or a cocktail party fundraiser, the value of the architect is in their power to see what the world can be, and help craft that world from the trenches, not atop an ivory tower.
Architects help humanity in so many ways, from very practical local ways like the Rural Studio and Studio 804, to very ambitious worldwide organizations like Architecture for Humanity (unfortunately now closed), but what I’d like to focus on are the cataclysmic…the earth shattering. Here are 15 (in no particular order) of my favorite architectural interventions that have either directly, or by extension and influence, forced the betterment of the human condition.
1. Cedric Price – Fun Palace
2. Walt Disney – Epcot Center
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3. Lebbeus Wood – Scab Architecture
4. Wes Jones – Cargo Container Architecture
5. Antonio Sant’Elia – Futurist Architecture
6. Paul Rudolph – Lower Manhattan Expressway
7. Archigram – A Walking City
8. Rem Koolhaas – City of the Captive Globe
9. Iakov Chernikhov – Futurist Fantasies
10. Ron Herron – Suburban Sets [Suburban Illusionism]
11. Paolo Soleri – Archology
12. Fritz Lang – Metropolis
13. Lionel Feininger – Crystal Cathedral
14. Arata Isozaki – Clusters in the Air
15. Christopher Alexander – A Pattern Language
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