On the move
Architecture goes on in spite of the crisis! This is what Dominique Tessier said in the headlines of the Moniteur in January. President of the Ile de France Order of Architects, he lambasted this buzz word which now means anything that can’t be resolved with normal methods. And he wanted to investigate this crisis which might be a salutary shock and a big challenge. He went on to say that the architect's profession is closely linked to the practicalities of the project. It is a place for anticipation, conception of the future, and we can see that the real question is not to submit but to get the conviction of the players who have everything to gain by sharing an architectural culture rooted in centuries of know how.” And what is the position of architects in this debate? The collaborators of the LAN architects agency we are presenting this month attempt to respond in a book (You Can Be Young) revealing some things that you never read in works on architecture. On the basis of a sort of illustrated agenda recounting mistakes not to make and the different episodes of their journey (or that of other young agencies), we find how much the profession is changing. The new tools and technologies are a help, young architecture agencies have become small businesses with an acute awareness of the laws of the market, with an immediately recognisable image. “We were trained to use words like beautiful, poetic or simply functional, but now we are starting to say High performance. This worrying and seductive unique situation makes us different from our predecessors. To find a place in this change is a real challenge for the future. “Architects' Energy versus Global Crises”, in the same spirit, will be the theme defined by the Council of the International Union of Architects for the Day of Architecture 2009, on 5 November. Food for thought...
The Archi-Europe team |
The Monthly European Architectural Newsletter
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