20th century design

20 th

Century Designs

Through new and advance built technology, architects and designers are competing against each other through their design work aiming to be the next starchitects. Starchitects are architects that are known through their architectural designs and innovation that are commonly big and extravagant. Their buildings are normally becomes the landmark of a city or a place and commonly designed with the focus of its style, aesthetic, function and extravagantness (Sklair, 2010). This has become the current fashion in architecture and design. Buildings that are output through a mind-set of starchitects might result in unsustainable buildings. Without considering sustainability aspect through architectural design process and focuses only on making something big lead architects to unsustainable building that has lost its sense of humanity. Buildings and cities are no longer built and shaped by the people, the buildings and cities have shaped us (Senosiain, 2003). Cities that are no longer built for and by the people and community will never be able to be ‘successful’ cities. Cities that were built by the understanding and focus on capitalism, business, economy and profit can never be a place that enhances interaction in the community. Only through interaction between the people and community, a city can grow to be a successful and sustainable city.

The image of a successful city really depends on the focus of the city’s designer. If stakeholders, architects and urban planner focus on profit and capitalism, the image of the successful city is seen from its economic value. As Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1978) said the ‘jungle of straight lines’ (Senosiain, 2003) is the status quo of a successful city. This division has become a norm of the high-status symbol of a modern system that the western societies are aiming for. As Lewis Mumford said ‘the city has become a no man’s land’ (Aalto, 1978) city no longer a place for people and community, it simply a place for things.

The beginning of in-humane and unsustainable architecture design can be seen from the pattern in modernist buildings. In the nineteenth century, moralists such as William Morris, John Ruskin and A.W.N Pugin views on modernism is that mechanization became the cause of the fall in all aspects of life, preliminary at the smallest and largest scale of design (Curtis, 1996). Modernists have never involved genuine culture of these mass productions. This is the starting point of buildings that are built purely based on the focus of gaining the most profit with the least cost. Essentially the trait of the Industrial Revolution, the start of modernism.

Followed from modernism, moving towards the 21st Century, these have unprecedented ‘successful’ image of well-polished cities has become the current fashion in urban planning. Cities and buildings here are no longer considering their environmental and social impact towards the local community from their designs. This trend has led architects to climate change and humanitarian crisis and poorer quality of life to the people in the community.

A well-known city that was built in modernism era, the rise of mass production and the fall of the sense of community is the New York City. Precisely Manhattan’s office skyscrapers and urban plan that were an outcome of the modernist and industrial revolution. One case study as an example is the Seagram (Fig. 4 & 5) office building that was designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. This office glass building was built in 1958 and was considered as one of New York City’s landmark (Perez, 2010). This building was built with the most advanced technology of its time it was claimed as the most suitable modern building. Now, with the change in the climate and the demand for better and sustainable designs, Seagram no longer fit in 21st Century design needs. Seagram was rated as low as 3% (Mehaffy and Salingaros, 2013) in the LEED’s building performance rating system with above 50% grade means that a building’s performance towards sustainability is better than similar building designs nationwide. To be rated 3% Seagram’s performance has no longer seen as fit, and those viewpoints are;