Abstract

The first decade of the 21st century will be remembered for a series of losses, failures and catastrophes. The potentially infinite postponement of Calatrava’s Chicago Spire, amongst other unbuilt icons, should be considered a cautionary tale, which serves as an allegorical frame for the discipline of Architecture and its position within the larger cultural milieu of our time. What is left for Architecture in a period of absent possibilities–symbolized by the negation of this iconographic spire? Should architecture now look toward the time in which it will celebrate the gap, the void and the absence of its own presence as its new dominant mode of operation? Can the void itself now represent a positive future? When confronted with the possibility of the void, we are faced with a sense of anxiety for the potential death of architecture; its limitations pronounced by gaping foundation holes and abandoned construction cranes. From this gap we might look instead toward the positive aspects of the void, considering loss as a productive strategy that embraces the possibility of design over the mind-numbing pragmatism and neo- conservatism that is often born of crisis.

How to Cite:

Tilder, L., (2011) “The Lost Decade?”, field 4(1), 123–134.