Place, Craft And The Ambiguity Of High-Tech

摘要

This paper arose out of a frustration with the recurring tendency in twentiethcentury architectural culture to reduce architecture to a matter of style. FromHitchcock and Johnson's well-known 1932 MOMA exhibition when selectedexamples of modern architecture were presented as "International Style"(Figure 1), to the 1980's publicity of "High-Tech" as a distinct new style(Figure 2) circumstances have significantly changed. However, what is commonto both is a structure of perception that tends to isolate iconography as thedominant feature of architecture and thus, by pulling the discussion to stylisticgrounds, seriously distorts any meaningful analysis of work and ideas. As inHitchcock and Johnson's enterprise to lend credibility and stylistic homogeneityto modern architecture, High-Tech stands today as a catch-word for anythingemploying industrial materials, bright colors and "technological looks" (Figure 3).Those displeased by the stylistic connotations of the term resort to a kind oftechnological determinism emphasizing concepts of efficiency, economy andrationality uncontaminated by aesthetic concerns. For others, it is preciselythis stylistic aspect - this aesthetization and hence, dem justification of technologywhich demands attention and acclaim. Both approaches undoubtedly captureimportant features of the kind of architecture that is embraced by the termHigh-Tech. However, for a characterization of its real possibilities, limits andtheoretical content, both offer extremely inadequate criteria.