Now that we inhabit the hangover of neoliberal capitalism and globalisation, and everybody is looking to the political leaders for redemption, it may be an ideal opportunity to consider what the real transformative capacities for architecture are and could be in the 21st century. Looking with some perplexity at the incredible burst of urban development that capped several decades of uninterrupted expansion of global capitalism, and at the scale with which those bland and sanitised projects took shape all over the world, one wonders if the qualities of what was produced fit within what we generally understand as a city, as a locus of collective and democratic life? However, as much as the phenomenon of rampant urbanisation may inspire doubts about the possibility for a truly democratic life in these new communities, there is nonetheless something liberating about them; hyper-urbanisation is making available to an ever-increasing population access to what is arguably the most desirable commodity on the planet: urban life and the choices it avails.
展开▼
