Thus, parallels between the characteristics of historical periods and the architecture they produced can be traced in every age of human development, including our own. As a final example, consider your own high school or college building. It is probably a prominent structure in your community. It is built of materials readily available in your time and your area; it accommodates academic, athletic, and cultural activities that your community believes are important to your way of life; it incorporates contemporary structural techniques devised for enclosing the spaces required to house these activities. The architectural style of your school is a reflection of your time, your town, your beliefs, and your capabilities; its architect was a recorder of time, writing in the most appropriate materials available.
ARCHITECTURE-FUTURE CHALLENGE
Your lifetime already includes interplanetary exploration and, perhaps, may include colonization. Here on Earth, undersea communities are foreseen. You can be sure that the styles of architecture developed during your lifetime will reflect these activities, for our nearly unlimited technical capacity to match dreams with reality is restricted only by the growing need for more intelligent conservation of our ever-scarcer environmental resources.
In thinking about the future, we should not undervalue the need for conservation of those resources. Intelligent concern for conservation will require increasing discipline from those who are responsible for advising society on the use of our limited resources. Fortunately, technological advancements-particularly in communications-make a much more refined use of our scarce resources possible. Moreover, improvements in communications and in the manipulation of basic data should give us earlier and more extensive information on the availability of scarce resources, therefore providing us with increasingly frequent cautions on the use of those resources.
If we regard this discipline as positive, we can see that our scientific development must take us toward the time when we will be able to synchronize our human needs with those of the other animals and occupants of our planet. We are preparing to build mini-environments in space and under the sea. These developments in the control of our climate and life resources will have vast effects upon our physical environment and the architecture accommodating that environment. The architects of your generation must respond to this challenge. If, in their response, they develop an architecture that is truly appropriate to its time, its place, and its function, they will have created architecture as valid and important as was the Greek, Gothic, or any other historical style.
We best remember each past civilization at its moment of greatest achievement; that moment in history when the cultural elements of the civilization-its social, moral, ethical, political, and technical achievements-all seemed to be in balance. We also know that each civilization waned when these elements got out of balance. The architecture of a civilization is a reflection of this balance or imbalance.
The years since the end of World War II have seen immense changes in the way we look at our physical environment and in the manner in which we attempt to manipulate it for our own enjoyment and convenience. In the late 1940s through early 1960s, we sensed there was scarcely any technical challenge that we could not overcome given the seemingly limitless technical expertise and natural resources available to us. Indeed, that remarkable period of innovation and growth produced a number of new building types intimately reflective of our feelings about the security of the present and the promise of the future. The interstate expressway system, the regional shopping center, the totally new suburban community, the international airport, the integrated petrochemical complex, the fantasy-land family recreation complex, the urban renewal project that completely rebuilt large chunks of our older cities, and the mixed-use urban developments are all examples of the remarkable vigor and energy so typical of those years. The architecture of these projects reflected the time. Structural systems, mechanical systems, enclosure systems, graphics and signage systems, materials, and furnishings all became increasingly simplified and stripped down to their essentials in an effort to match productive capacities to the demands of a market that required buildings to accommodate increasingly large, complex functions. Mass production became an end in itself, and much of our physical environment seemed to take on a sameness or commonality: one housing area seemed to look like all the rest, one could perceive little difference between the newer office buildings; each airport terminal was nearly indistinguishable from another. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, architecture's modern movement had reached a point where it seemed that its further refinement would produce little or no true advancement in the art and science of architecture.
A modern movement had become institutionalized as a direct reflection of what had happened to our society in general. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, society reacted, sometimes violently, seeking to change our institutions by giving greater recognition to the value of diversity and worth of the individual. Concurrently, we discovered that our resources were limited and that money and technology alone could not solve all our contemporary problems. The conservation movement, the equal rights movement, the citizen participation movement, and a host of other societal concerns regarding criminal justice, health planning, the elderly, the handicapped, and community and family history all are products of this fervor. These phenomena have had their effect on architecture.
One of the most notable effects has been the growth in the rehabilitation and restoration of existing structures. The tremendous growth in our economy following World War II promoted an almost universal attitude that new was better than old, and a basic assumption that growth could only be accommodated in new, fresh structures placed upon previously undeveloped land. "Technological obsolescence" in building materials and systems were seen as the prime criteria for abandoning or demolishing the old and replacing it with the latest and most advanced material or device developed by our technological capacities. The thirst for newness became a cult, a throwaway economy replaced a concern for tradition and respect for heritage; individualism was replaced by the "man in the grey flannel suit." But society is resilient. And in the later 1970s and early 1980s, individualism returned, bringing with it nostalgia for the old, increased perception of historical values, and an appreciation of the contribution of the individual.
In the 1980s, a sophisticated experimentation with classical symbols and decoration was known popularly as Postmodernism. It was a period of unusual freedom of choice for the architect. Certainly, a principal goal of the Postmodernist movement was to join with society in general in the search for institutions that provided a better balance between technology, resources, and the rights and responsibilities of the individual. Part of the increased formal variety was made possible by computer technology in the design process and in industry. Our global economy also has increased access to products and craftsmanship. The Internet has transformed communication as well as the business world.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, technical achievements have tended to develop more rapidly than other cultural concepts; society has constantly sought a better balance between technology and popular culture. Now that society is demanding a better balance and our computerized work world promises us more time to devote to social, moral, ethical, and political pursuits, we may be approaching the time when achievements in nontechnical concepts will match technical achievements. If so, the level of architectural taste demanded by our contemporary culture will be at once gratifying and challenging to the architectural profession. The promise of such balance is closer to achievement than it has been for generations. Your generation may see it accomplished.
