Contemporary Design for Changing Times

摘要

With each passing month of living and working in entirely new ways due to the COVID-19 pandemic, architects, designers, and the public at large are introduced to new solutions promising to solve nearly every problem. While many of these innovations are credible and critical to the way we pivot and continue to thrive as a society, the best ones are often rooted in modernist principles from nearly a century ago. "Much of modernist architecture can be understood as a consequence of the fear of disease, a desire to eradicate dark rooms and dusty corners where bacteria lurk," says Kyle Chayka, author of "The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism" and contributing writer for The New Yorker. He goes on to draw a comparison with what people seek in buildings today: "In recent months, we have arrived at a new juncture of disease and architecture, where fear of contamination again controls what kind of spaces we want to be in. As tuberculosis shaped modernism, so has COVID-19 and our collective experience of staying inside for months on end will influence architecture's near future."