Protest
Have I miscalculated the paradox of life but is their any weight in comparing the likes of the current climate protest by Extinction / Rebellion in 2019 and the protest events in 1981 at RAF Greenham Common.? This is when the undercurrent need to force a discussion with The British Government. It could easily be misconstrued by gender politics but the matter of their fact is that people are making a stand about ‘Life on Earth’ and the media wants to represent it; whether for the quirkiness of the peace loving martyrs this country has produced or to parody the trappings of a normal middle class life.
I can not be certain but I assume all the protestors have lived in or have a home; they have experience of architecture; the notion of its security both familial and institutional but obviously not enough in balance.
When the Planet is in a crisis I can assure you too so is architecture. Not just empty homes or over full prisons but the notion that our culture is at the threshold of announcing another discovery. The time lapse between Greenham and now will adequately show what has been in the attention of the architectural mind and in turn models this crisis. I want to draw our viewpoint towards The Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany; designed by the British firm James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates and constructed between 1979 and 1984 and by my own circumstance the Golden Years led by Alvin Boyarsky at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square, London, while his tenure as director was from 1971 to 1990.
It is plain to say that there has been a fascination in the war of historicism and none more than in architecture. It’s timing mars these moments of political hiatus, so we can say something is going on. This is not just about the global onset of computing as a drawing tool, nor is it reasoning with its antithetical argument. It is about the recognition of the system of change; a kind of awakening to the aspects of power and authority that are governed by the institution of architecture that has already announced its decision before we could attempt to speak. Sure we have climate and yes we are concerned but do you make it your business? Are you a farmer that requires the sun and rain for crops to grow; do you supply your own solar electricity to the grid? Do you have a real Christmas tree every year? The answer has already been worked out for us and it is not for us to change it; perhaps surreptitiously influence, but not to protest because that will lead to extinction and rebellion. The method towards this path has been well documented by an architecture of both buildings and drawings and while our attentions might wane at the flippancy and irony that gave justice for the work we must know that the notion of planetary crisis is the byword for the architectural pursuit - CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
