In a world engaged in a muitidecade war between tribalism and globalism, the traditional aspiration of architects to be sole practitioners wielding singular visions on blank yellow trace has reached a new apex of irrelevance. It can be argued that the irrelevance is appropriate - why should architecture, so often characterised as a rarified art best practised by prodigies, bear any burden in this, a global political conflict? Yet this is a war in which the urban battlefields are the icons of modernity produced by architects; this is a war in which architecture will be asked to bridge gaps in our national security; this is a war that threatens the very notion of metropolitan density as corporations decamp and decentralise; this is a war in which rebuilding from the aftermath of destruction carries immeasurable symbolic and socioeconomic ramifications; and this is a war in which the outcome will determine whether we as a civil secular society can continue to build global cities with vast skylines, iconic architecture, teeming physical and electronic infrastructure, self-sufficient energy technology and secure public space.
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