Production

摘要

The great differences in the culture of building that are to be found even within such relatively compact regions as central and south-east Europe can hardly be presented more dramatically than was done recently by the Viennese architecture festival "Turn-On": first Stefano Boeri from Milan who heftily deplored the way in which conceptions of building culture held by architects, the power elite and the general population are radically diverging. Upon completion his congress centre on the island of La Maddalena, built especially for a G8 summit, was not even put into operation as Berlusconi, the prime minister at the time, found it not sufficiently representative and without further ado had the meeting moved to L'Aquila. Boeri calls for an "Academy of Failure" as a kind of sanatorium for a deeply divided, disintegrating society. Immediately after his talk came the contrasting programme: the ambitious Viennese developer IC Projektentwicklung together with Graz architect Thomas Pucher presented a residential and office project in which intelligent design, also of public and green spaces, is the decisive sales argument. Success seems almost programmed. The market and society call for advanced sustainable building solutions instead of empty gestures. In all building types: what some politicians so happily distribute to secure their power must first be hard earned in our businesses. First we must invest in buildings in which then - as in the examples on the following pages - machines are built, electricity generated, waste materials collected or metal goods produced. In a globally competitive, responsible and sustainable way -both with regard to the staff as well as the environment and society as a whole. The unbeatable advantage: what is responsibly planned by prudent building clients and qualified architects is guaranteed to function and also looks good. Sound simple perhaps, but this requires an educated and considerate society. Hopefully eventually this culture will be able to establish itself by providing convincing examples of a higher quality of life and through internal EU redistribution regulations. In the European moral and economic rehabilitation project both staying power and optimism are equally needed.