Our brother-from-another-mother (and -geographical location and -home base and -approach to architecture) Jonathan Glancey takes on, once and for all, the long-simmering “is the recession a) good or b) bad for architecture?” question. We have to admit that we took a while to reel ourselves over to the Guardian in order to read what we imagined might be yet another epic (which isn’t to say unwelcome) tract on how true innovation happens when we’re all starving (debatable: we’re so check-bouncing we can’t see straight) and how this is all a necessary break from a world in which creativity seemed to be about designers out-ludicrousness-ing one another (less debatable: we’re looking forward to objects and architecture helping people love and live), but once we focused our vertiginous energies on Mr. Glancey’s excellent prose, we were hooked. For one, he’s another fan of the one-word sentence. Of the pre-Y2K economic boom-provoked skyscrapers? “Bigger. Faster. Stronger. Shinier.” Of what we can look forward to? “Schools. Hospitals. Colleges. Training Centres.”

Lest that quick one-to-one comparison make the fast reader think that’s all the change is about—from exciting to boring—Glancey’s piece is actually a fascinating condensation of the push-pull of architecture and economics. We’re generally loath to get too into that relationship—we’re sort of purists in that way, interested in architecture itself and how it makes people feel about being inside or near it—but the upswings and downswings and pendulum-swings that Johnny charts suddenly make the entire seemingly nonsensical architectural history of the last few memorable (and earlier, as he gets into Venturi) years entirely sensical. People got rich, buildings got more dramatic, people got poorer, buildings got more conceptual, people got rich again, buildings became gesture, and now people are getting poorer again. Which, Glancey’s guessing, is going to give rise to the kind of architecture we’ve been seeing get attention lately—subtle boxes by SANAA, handmade-and-laid bricks by Roman & Williams—and then, once that’s over (and this is what we’re really waiting for), a Modesty Blaze, created by those out of work now, by the crush of bright young things trading in their assistant-ships for a stab at school. And who’s going to be teaching them? Those very same architects who, just a moment ago, were the bright young things before them. We’re thinking one below the Lindy Roy, Dan Wood, Galia Solomonoff generation. We’re thinking it’ll be curious to see what happens with architects like Chris Lasch, Ben Aranda, Front Studio. Then again.

All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

The architecture of recession [The Guardian]
We Don’t Need No Thought Control: 211 Elizabeth Pondered! [Edificial]