There is a generation of young architects and critics that is righteously indignant at the "architecture of excess" (by this they mean the sculptural buildings built over the last 10-15 years by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and fellow "starchitects"). This group is thrilled that the economic crash has seemingly brought this era to a standstill, paving the way for a glorious new age of architecture that serves humanity. Cameron Sinclair's essay in Huffpost encapsulates this view. But this reductive and ahistorical view implies the two are mutually exclusive, when there is more than enough room for architecture that inspires awe and wonder, yes, with its excess, and for architecture that modestly serves human needs.
Without an architecture of excess, we wouldn't have Versailles, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, Bilbao, and many other monuments to mankind's capacity for egomaniacal yet wondrous feats of imagination. Without the concomitant human capacity to use architecture to better serve humanity, we would not have had the arts and crafts and garden city movements, the Bauhaus, decades of efforts by enlightened architects to provide housing solutions for the poor, and, today, Sinclair's Architecture for Humanity.
Sinclair claims that until the recent crash, the "voice of the architecture profession has mainly been drowned out by computer generated sky-piercing towers of luxury." In fact, his efforts and that of his fellow humanitarians have grown in tandem with the "computer-generated" experiments of the last decade, and he has become a "starchitect for humanity," every bit as sought out for public attention by the media and schools and museum curators as the zany artist-builders he abhors. Furthermore, it is precisely this same tool -- the computer -- that has permitted him to harness 40,000 architects worldwide and to develop innovative refugee housing designs, while it has permitted architects like Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid to push the boundaries of built form to extraordinary (if at times impractical and, to some eyes, absurd) limits.
Lastly, his viewpoint implies that on one side exist self-serving, arrogant architects and on the other, humble, well-intentioned ones. That picture precludes the fact that while building a Bilbao on the one hand, Gehry has given his time to design projects that serve humanity like his modest but life-affirming Maggie's Cancer Center in Dundee, Scotland; or that Rem Koolhaas may design excessive buildings for "ethically dubious" clients (like the CCTV building in Beijing) but his ongoing urban studies have, in their own way, drawn attention to the squalor experienced by millions worldwide that inspires Sinclair's efforts. And there is likely many a "humanitarian" architect who would want to design an "excessive" personal statement, if given the chance.
By setting up an "excess" versus "relevance" dichotomy, Sinclair and others have created an irrelevant conflict that ignores the full scope of architecture and its role as built manifestation of all our human tendencies.
Personally, I find the ornate and fanciful to be almost sickening endorsements of regressive, "toxic" thinking. The kind of thinking that gave us the Cold War, Reaganism, "keeping up with the Joneses," and ultimately the destruction of both the environment and the economy.
Expensive real estate, if it takes the form of high-rise condos, for instance, is probably more sustainable than its single-family counterparts, so if that model were beginning to substitute for the old middle-class ideal, it would be a modest improvement. There's also a public benefit to investment in cities as such, in terms of services being supported by the revenue, as well as the jobs created for architects, builders, suppliers, etc.
Concern for the aesthetic quality also contributes to public space. That could include things like green roofs and passive solar orientation and recycled materials. It could include using inclusionary zoning and mixed-income development to encourage social aims. At what point should it be called excess? Mostly when it's badly realized I think. I like Frances' argument because she's rejecting a philistinism that says, 'now we're all going to be good p.c. architects and stop being imaginative and just use bricks and orthogonal lines and talk about how we hate pvc and love sedum,' which I would find extraordinarily boring and doubt would create a pleasant urban environment.
I think that Foster's "dome" in Astana Kazahkstan is an example of where architecture is headed and we will be seeing the future of architecture expressed more and more as an integration of large scale engineering of cities offering controlled environment for entire communities and a wide range of human activities. I hope the architects however get through this current phase of personal vision and recognize instead that humans have an instinctive aesthetic which is rewarded when our built environments emulate them. Rather than another shiney awkward modern confabulaton a la Gehrey or Liebestad, I hope that we see more in the way of work such as Group Jean Gang's recent Chicago building "Aqua"...all it needs to really make this kind of work foundational to new design would be futher expansion of the natural aesthetics of the exterior to include a network of small parks and interconnectied pathways and waterfeatures on the structure's outside, giving the city another outlet to appreciate real beauty and not have it blocked by another monument to some architect's computer programming capability.
I hear the Chinese are currently building a "green" city. It will be vaster than any of our extant architectural wonders, and will answer the necessity of improving the lives of people and the other species they still co-exist with. What could be more wondrous than a large urban center that is a functioning part of a larger ecosystem, that has zero waste, can feed itself, and can power itself without gutting the planet?
The architecture of excess cannot be separated from a certain narcissism, a point of view that exalts the "me" over the "we." Any made thing reflects the soul of its maker. The opulent, glassy office towers that sprout up incessantly during "good times" make me uncomfortable, because they are expressions of a collective soul that cares about material objects, and the power inherent in them, rather than relationships. For me, they manifest an aesthetic of domination and egocentrism which is unattractive at its core, regardless of the allure of the surfaces it generates..
Architects can certainly help in the evolution beyond excess and narcissism. We don't necessarily want architecture to "manifest all of our human tendencies" but rather to point to a sustainable future.
Speaking of sustainability, the LEED "gold" standard should be the norm and not the rare and touted exception. Sleek, modern styling and green building standards are what I hope to see more of - especially in the stubbornly old-fashioned US residential architecture.
Plus, looking over your post again, I realize that I certainly wouldn't want an architecture that was grimly efficient, a sort of puritanical, do-gooder architecture, the builders' equivalent of what a Mother Hubbard dress was to 19th century fashion.
I can see that the exuberance (or did you put it as egomania?) mentioned in your post should not be thrown out in the name of a 21st century version of "moral improvement," since that exuberance is an expression of the creative human spirit. Maybe there is a way to honor both the lavish, Venusian elements of our collective being and awareness of current "spaceship Earth" realities.
Also there is a nice followup by Francis Anderton who suggests this debate is irrelevant. However the idea that this is a black and white matter is simply not the case. Certainly, as she clearly points out, many 'big name' architects have done socially responsible work - although far less than the sort of requirements laid out in the medical or legal profession. The debate is not about replacing one ism with another, it is about investigating what happens in the vacuum left with a global downturn in the economy. Will architects retrench to just super-rich clients or become more theoretical while we ride out the recession OR is there a role to play for the expanding the profession into realms that are more relevant to the current climate.
The argument was never about starachitect vs. non-starachitect but how we adapt and change as a group of professionals that is dedicated to improving the physical environments that we call life. There is no 'architecture with a big A' there is only architecture and how we practice it matters not just for the state of the world but the survival of the practice.
We should also be careful not to lump all architects into the same group. There is a huge difference between a high profile, innovative designer vs. a image focused celebrity. See you LA soon.