28 April 2010

Characters in an Urban Society

This is one time I do not feel guilty shamelessly plugging another website's entry. This deals directly with the current exhibit at SUPERFRONT, a contemporary architecture collaborative located in Brooklyn, New York, of which I have recently become involved.

SUPERFRONT Gallery - Jimenez Lai

Jimenez's drawings accomplish the remarkable task of compiling perhaps the most complex issues surrounding urban structures and architectural language and streamlining his own thoughts on these matters into coherent trails of visual communication. As one progresses through this series of drawings, an attachment develops not only with the human characters featured, but also with the built structures beginning to form. A thought that resonates with me in the above video is when Jimenez refers to 'architecture as characters'. I believe it important as an architect and designer to acknowledge the fact that buildings are not passive structures, placed in the background of our everyday urban lives, but rather active players in an ever-changing scene. The push and pull of urban topographical advancement plays a vital role in public interaction. In contemplating the future of society as a whole, one must take into account the decay, resurrection, and creation of built form. For as the world's population tips toward a dominant modern city culture, we all become integral characters in the tale of urban evolution.

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