Faust is still here

“Money as an extension of man, as his power over men and circumstances”.

Marshall Berman has quoted Lukacs in the book “Faust” to show evidence that capitalism is one of the essential forces in Faust’s development.

In fact, Marshall Berman has compared the Goethe’s Faust to explain the tragedy of phenomenon the desire for development, which is an impulse generated by a dynamism that is the vital force of Goethe’s Faust.  Nevertheless, this emotion was the real drama of the main character represented by the evil presence of Mephisto.

Nowadays, we have the same feeling in Architecture, where the desire for development is the only reason to explore new technology and new scenarios for building.  On the other hand, this phenomenon becomes a proper drama for everybody will live and use that Architecture, because all these buildings do not have a soul and a meaning.  The article of J. Meades on Zaha Hadid proves exactly the same drama when Mrs. Hadid cannot explain any of her project.  It is obvious that money is the only meaning of her project and the only reason those buildings exist.  As Faust’s evil Mephisto, money is also the drama and the tragedy of development.

In conclusion, we could say that contemporary Architecture is often without a soul and without a meaning, because the idea of development to create new architectural incons brings these buildings to be only objects of design and products but not Architecture.  Unfortunately, Goethe’s Faust is still a contemporary and negative character.

Pop-Culture

“In the old days, rock music was a distraction from your studies; now it may well be what you are studyng”.

“Students once wrote uncritical, reverential essays on Flaubert, but all that has been transformed.  Nowadays they write uncritical, reverential essays on Friends”

These quotes from Terry Eagleton’s book “After Theory”, are very representive for the author’s  opinion on contemporary cultural theory: it is poor.

Nowadays, studying pop culture is very common in every University, it is not difficult find a PhD on contemporary music or TV shows.  Terry Eagleton seems shocked about this phenomenon and he tries to remind us that many years ago you could study a philosopher only if he was dead.  Moreover, Terry Eagleton is quite sarcastic about the contemporary studies, in particular about the middle class student:

“Quietly-spoken middle-class students huddle diligently in libraries, at work on sensationalist subjects like vampirism and eye gouging, cyborg and porno movies”.

First of all, I found this comment very poor, because he reduces all pop culture to few puerile subjects.  In fact popular  culture is also what is around us and luckily we can now study it.  This is principally a good example of freedom and it is also a demonstration of the researchers that are now living in a contemporary world rather their predecessors.

Finally, I can consider the possibility of studying contemporary subjects is a great opportunity to have much more awareness about our life and culture.  However, all this freedom could push students to study other puerile topics, as Terry Eagleton has said.  Every time we have the possibility to do what we want to do, we should be responsible in judging what is useful and what is not.  Otherwise Terry Eagleton is right. 

At home in Disneyland

“If there was no Burj Dubai, no Palm, no World, would anyone be speaking of Dubai today?”

In this concept the Financial Times has explained the meaning of Dubai.  This city exists thanks to its CEO Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum, who said that he would become the number one in the world and, for this purpose, he is trying to create a proper Disneyland for rich people.  

In fact, seen from Google Earth, Dubai looks like a theme park: the World and the Palm are ridiculously suggestive.  This sensation is well shown in “Evil Paradise” where Mike Davis describes what he saw during his landing in Dubai: “As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers soars a new Tower of Babel”. He is talking about the Burj Dubai, the 2600 feet height tower: the icon of Dubai, the icon of a new world.

In fact, Dubai is a decadent “toy” built to show the power and the richness as demonstration of the social status.  All social classes are well distinct in Dubai and there is not better city to show it and, at the same time, the difference between the higher and the lower class is extremely big, in the city where the rights are proportional with money.  More money you own and more rights you will have.

Dubai has taken the throne of the U.S.A. as icon of the capitalism. 

However, can we call Dubai a city?  Can anyone feel at home here?  The Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum has created a theme park, but can he create a “real city”?

Maybe.

If we take as example the most artificial city, Las Vegas, we could find even there people that feel at home.  Dave Hickey in his book “Air Guitar” shows how it is possible to have that sensation even in Las Vegas.  Moreover, Las Vegas has been define by D. Hickey as a democratic city where everyone is at the same level: “If Bruce Willis and Shanney Doherty just want to get their feet wet, they shoot dice with the rest of us”.  Nevertheless, D.Hickey said that in that city “money is just money” and everybody can ascend from “Food to Cocktail”.  

Maybe it will be the same in Dubai in the future.

Money has created Las Vegas and it could generate a new proper city: Dubai.

As we have seen, I could feel at home in Disneyland too.

¥€$

Nowadays, we are living in a world where the system of media has transformed famous artists, business man and architects into “stars”.  People like Zaha Hadid and many others, have been conseidered contemporary myths of Architecture and magazines like “Intelligent Life” in which we can find the article  of Jonathan Meades that pushes the general opinion in that direction.

Moreover, like film-stars, those Architects enjoy this status and they continue to play this role.  The British Architect Zaha Hadid iso ne of the easiest examples of this phenomenon and, as we have readed in J. Meades’s article, Z. Hadid is a “starchitect”.

She does not care about the context because it is synonymous of compromise.  She said that computers are not just tools, exactly the opposit of the general opinion: she wants to be different. In fact, she wants to be an actress in any occasion, different from everybody else: this is her role.

In my opinion, Zaha Hadid is following the “theory of the ¥€$” (¥en, €uro and $ Dollar) in which money is the only inspiration and the way to design. As a result, Architecture loses its soul, and represents only a promotion of the politician or of the rich man who wants to show his power through the spectacular building and nothing else.

Those Architects create “colossal building” like “colossal film” in the cinema industry, without soul, without the Genius Loci and who lives these edifices will never enjoy them. These constructions are not Architecture, they are U.F.O. landed in the middle of cities.