How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Architect

     

     I'm not exactly a design expert, engineer, or architect, but I am a self-proclaimed tree-hugger and lover of aesthetically pleasing architecture.  I ran across this article recently that got my excited, instead of  depressed, about the future.  I always joke with my brother about wanting to live deep in the woods away from much of civilization but with a lightening-fast internet connection.  After living in L.A. for 7 years, the polluted, industrial, purchase-driven milieu starts to wear on you.  You end up fantasizing about "roughing it" in the wilderness, living off the land, or some similar romantic visage of the way we never were.  Truth is, there is a temptation to want to go back and capture something that was lost before the industrial revolution...a mystery or holiness ascribed to nature and the elements.  The forest, the desert, the sea - they all occupy iconic places in classical literature as places of magic, spirits, and the gods.  Before the modern era, they were untouchable and sacrosanct...wholly beyond our ability to understand or change.  And yet today they're something to be pitied...a monument to our failure to live in the garden without eating the fruit, cutting down the tree, and using the wood to refinish our souls.

     And yet, in the midst of my melodrama, there is hope to be found from a variety of sources.  A wise man once said to me "The way forward is not in the past," and I think I finally understand what he means.  We can't go back to a sun-energy alone society...for one that would require exterminating roughly 5 billion people.  And most people (including this writer) would be loathe to forego their Iphones, Youtube, and Wii's.  On a separate note, when will start with the "3rd person" devices like the She-max, He-flix, or It-pad?  Where was I?  Oh right, "the way forward is not the past;" don't take me to say that we have nothing to learn from the past, or that the great minds that have shaped our culture are lacking a goldmine of wisdom.  What I mean is that we need forward-thinkers, exploring new ways to integrate what it means to be human in the 21st century with our environment and our future.  Connecting our buildings to the land, using sustainable products, and approaching the field of design with a mind to simplicity and function are central concepts in this day and age.  And knowing there are those out there doing this and more excites me.