[ardecila]

Buildings are about way more than the narrow architectural concerns that Bob Stern brought up. Mies designed in an era when steel was the material of the future, the material that won WW2, and was made just a few miles away in Gary and South Chicago. Likewise with glass. Mies’ aesthetic was for a civilization that had no limitations.

Today we realize that we absolutely DO still have limitations. Energy is expensive, increased carbon output is ruining our planet, and the macroeconomic shifts in construction wages and material prices vs. average wages are making space more and more unaffordable.


The zeitgeist building of today definitely isn’t a Miesian box, though. Maybe it’s a new timber high rise in Portland or London, or maybe it’s a Passive House in Germany. Maybe the ever-increasing costs of construction will lead to more co-living that will create whole new architectural forms.