Response to "Is ZAHA HADID part of the “dead era of delirious architecture” as proclaimed by Nicolai Ourousoff? "

Working backwards, I think one of your most striking points is to call out the conceit of Ouroussoff who reads like a fashion major rather than (presumably) someone with an academic background. As a result any valid points in his earlier commentary, It was fun till the money ran out, are rendered mute. Ouroussoff’s “critique” is the kind that amplifies the sense that architecture is like fashion. It highlights the commodified characteristics that validates branding and perpetuates the self-referential predisposition of this profession. We like to tell ourselves how and why we’re valid in a social sense by rationalizing the fixed impression of built form. Ouroussoff tactic is not unlike TV and radio personalities who vie for the attention of over-stimulated idiots in a competitive market by using hyperbole. It’s a cheap move to count on readers’ poor short-term memory so that you can play the other side when it’s convenient. More to the point, Ouroussoff’s claim that we have reached the end of an era of delirious architecture, is the kind of tedious droll that tells us nothing about how we prompt, participate in and ultimately deny cycles of predictable behavior. In the case of architectural practice, it is modernist thinking –not to be confused with the modernist movement or related styles that it transcends. Modernist thought is positivist and unable to recognize context whether spatial or temporal. Highlighting the moment makes us hungry for the next, and with respect to this economic hiccup in a larger timeline, one has to ask whether anything has really changed. When the global economy turns around, it may take a few years, but fresh egos and established icons alike will seek to brand themselves at the expense of social responsibility, which seems little more than a euphemism for sobering economic times. Invariably we become preoccupied by superficial arguments about aesthetics versus function, which distract us from more disturbing questions about the existential crisis of the profession.

I agree that Cameron Sinclair seems to use the flamboyance of Hadid to gain face-time for his more ethical approach to architecture, but nonetheless his article does outline basic qualities for an architecture that is program driven from a more infrastructural perspective, which is to say that architecture shifts from being an expression to an embedded service, and from the singular to the multifarious. In this way its identity recedes into the background as a larger system-level strategy is manifested. This reinforces Sinclair’s statement that, “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.” Sinclair’s oversight was to not better distinguish himself from the buffoonery of the NY Times critic who he references as a prompt for his own thoughts.

The Trojan horse in your commentary, “Are projects that are excessive and artful and not aimed at remedying of a social injustice unworthy of societies praise?” speaks pointedly, if not perhaps unconsciously to the open-ended question of where this firm stands on such matters. I’m not suggesting we’re ethically conceited, but we’re not winning any awards for socially-conscious work either. I would be the first to admit to Ad hominem tu quoque, but I’m determined not to be passive. We’re in a country where we could have a richer and more productive professional experience, beyond replicating our laurels from NY. While we may depend on such job types for stable revenue, we are open to many lateral areas of discovery and opportunity here.