excerpt
Editorial
Philippe Chiambaretta
(p. 10)
The Stream review juxtaposes distinct
visions of our contemporary world in an
attempt to sketch out and understand
the complex mutations that define our
era and which conjure notions of fluid
modernity, hypertextual reality, and
knowledge economy. Architecture forms a
prism through which to observe the world
in transition and a laboratory to test out
resolutions for the numerous conflicts
between the reality of an economic
globalization and the imperative for a
sustainable development to ensure the
future of the planet.
The first edition of Stream was dedicated
to the concept of Exploration. Exploration
(scientific, artistic, economic) has become
the backbone for knowledge capitalism.
Contemporary creation in a large sense
becomes one of the major actors, a catalyst
and value-producer of the economy. This
trend of an economy of creation questions
the place of art in contemporary society.
The general exploitation of the image of
art in a society seeking to appropriate its
virtues of invention, audacity, and creative
genius drives a domestication imperiling
its true political and critical function. What
is the nature of reform which must inhabit
the project of architecture at the risk of
becoming at best a building, at worst a
spectacle?
Within the context of this reflection,
Stream 02 raises questions about the
evolution of working conditions, which
have been profoundly altered. Economic
globalization, the permanence of
the communication and information
technology revolution, the now quasiuniversal
environmental fears, and finally,
the financial crisis shaking up the world
economy are all factors which can serve
to enlighten our discourse on work and
the conception of the spaces which it
consecrates. Western businesses reconsider
their management style to face the
growing impossibility of foresight and
planning. Constant upheaval becomes
the ordinary as the apparition of a
knowledge-based capitalism put into
question former organizational models.
The dematerialization of work thanks
to information and communication
technologies and an increasing value
on the autonomy and independence of
agents on one part, the global carbon
footprint standing prohibitive of business
centers on another, compel us to
question the continued relevancy of the
traditional office building and the form
of the modern city so oriented around it.
But a profit-driven real estate industry,
concerned solely on questions of finance,
impels a global chain of actors to
continue to produce standardized office
buildings. Are these millions of square
meters, the product of Taylorism and
an economy of scale, actually suited for
the work needs of tomorrow? Could the
office building participate in a vision of a
more sustainable city?
Will the office towers and business
districts, which continue to proliferate
in the American context and define
skylines of cities throughout the world,
continue to be the model for urbanism
and architecture in the 21st century?
Will the shift to a knowledge-based
economy transform the business district
into a tertiary wasteland among the
brownfields, shuttered factories, and
pollution that marked the passing of the
Industrial era for the Capitalist regime?
Will there come to be an After-Office
world?
