As the architect finds his way through the 21st century, he should have the ability do combine the thinking and execution of both real and imaginary realms. While Ben Van Berkel, Caroline Bos and Rem Koolhaas all agree on the fact that the “new architect” should have the unique ability of accomplishing several tasks, from both the real and the imaginary, Van Berkel and Bos claim that the future architect should have an unbiased view while playing with ideas in the real and imaginary realms, whereas Koolhaas asserts that the architect should focus on the abstract realm over the physical realm (see Fig. 1).
Ben Van Berkel and Caroline Bos, in an attempt to indicate the responsibilities of the architect as they enter into the 21st century, describe what they believe “the new architect” should do. By “dressing the future, anticipating coming events and holding up a mirror to the world”[1], they demonstrate how the architect should be both a designer and a scientist. While a scientist performs experiments based on facts in the physical world, a designer has to focus on the abstract idea that then blends in with the physical, creating what they claim is the architect’s practice: “a limitless virtual studio”[2]. By blending the imaginary with the real, the architect would be potentially fusing the two worlds providing the administration in “an endless seamless system”[3].
Rem Koolhaas, on the other hand, was impressed by the fact that modernists, like Frank Lloyd Wright, had the aptitude to pull off a sense of perfection, simplicity and completeness in their work. However, he believed in the fact that the architect of the future should focus on contemporary forms, rather than being a modernist. According to Koolhaas, in the past 15 years, the cities that have been created or pictured have “been conceived in a sort of unconscious utopia”[4]that concealed the full abilities of the contemporary architect. Koolhaas remarks that it is impossible to focus on the ideal in the contemporary world of the 21st century, as the incongruity shown by both the architect’s ideas and the complexities of daily life. Rather than portraying the physical and abstract realms, Koolhaas symbolically uses the idea of the form as the real and the void as the imaginary. He states that by voids are “the principle lines of combat”[5] and should be focused on more, over the real and actual, simply because it would be easier to control void rather than controlling form. More so, there are numerous opportunities one can seek and achieve when interacting and designing abstractly using the void. By being a contemporary architect, as Koolhaas says, one must have the ability to work in both physical and virtual domains, but must focus on the virtual more than the physical. Koolhaas himself divulges the fact that he, as time goes by, tries “more and more not to be modern, but to be contemporary”[6].
Although the three visionaries – Van Berkel, Bos and Koolhaas – all emphasized the idea that the “new architect” should balance the dexterity of adapting to both the substantial and intangible, their opinions compelled them to take alternate paths. While Van Berkel and Bos considered that the architect should have an unbiased view of both the real and imaginary, in order to cause a seamless blend of the two, Koolhaas believed that the imaginary would lead the architect into the future, compared to the real. Even though their concerns on the dexterity of the “architect of the future” greatly differed, they managed to pave the way for the up and coming contemporary architects in the future.
[1] Ben Van Berkel and Caroline Bos, “The new concept of the architect”, Architectural Theory V.2., Mallgrave ed., p.581
[2] Berkel and Bos, “concept”, Architectural Theory, 581.
[3] Berkel and Bos, “concept”, Architectural Theory, 581.
[4] Rem Koolhaas,”Toward the Contemporary City”, Design Book Review 17 (Winter 1989): 15
[5] Koolhaas, “City”, Design Book Review, 16
[6] Koolhaas, “City”, Design Book Review, 16
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