Essay reprint:Architecture and Building: The reconstruction of a collective language as demonstrated in the project for the Quartier de la Villette

摘要

19th Century architectural thinking has effectively CONSUMED a few thousand years of previous cultures in a matter of hundred years. We are now paying the price for this wasteful and oniriqne festival. In its glutinous greed for power and culture, the bourgeoisie did not only erode the complex codes of high culture but for the first time in modern history, popular culture and intelligence have been destroyed almost beyond the point of redemption. In the 19th Century architectural production, STYLES became the ideological system to bridge the alienation of intellectual and manual labour. Modern functionalism presented a radicalisation in this quick consumptive process. For Le Cobusier the giving up of styles was more of a moral upsurge against the previous excesses whereas for the building industry, it was a welcome step to get rid of a by then unnecessary cultural facade.