Will the Past Dictate the Aesthetics of the Future?

Will the Past Dictate the Aesthetics of the Future?

The current architectural production faces several paradigms and one of them is aesthetic. In a scenario of constant uncertainty, buildings with projections, holograms, or completely automatic ones that science fiction has shown so much, seem more and more distant from reality. Nowadays, the search for greater identification with the built space has been amplified instead of idealizing the new for the new. Therefore, looking at the past has presented different perspectives and it is in this scope that perhaps we can imagine a new futuristic aesthetic.

In the book Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction: The Triumph of Nihilism, mathematician Nikos A. Salingaros analyzes the roots of how modernism evolved into deconstructionism. From mathematical diagnoses and arguments that pass through philosophy and psychology, the author demonstrates how contemporary architecture has been broken into fragments that no longer match its own spirit, so that the disoriented point of view that we see today in its production directly affects our emotions and notions of belonging.

By criticizing the voids given by the order of minimalism or the fractal spaces of deconstruction, Salingaros also takes the opportunity to highlight the monumentality of buildings from ancient civilizations, the simple ornamentation and decorative details of vernacular architectures as ways of creative expression of the human being through spatiality, in which the search for an identity passes through what was built.

If their arguments seek to prove their points of view scientifically, what we see today is a trend in search of elements and symbols from the past to compose the space in which we live. According to Pinterest, there is a significant increase in searches for terms such as “Greek statue”, “Aesthetics of Ancient Greece” “Corinthian column”, demonstrating the interest of Gen Z – the first born in a completely digital environment – for the classical orders and how to incorporate them in the decoration of their spaces.

In addition, other aesthetic matrices that clash with the sense of beauty placed by an eurocentric vision have gained more and more relevance and are no longer seen within the myopic scope of something “primitive”, “rustic” or “wild”, adjectives that create a false analysis and generate an imbalance in the face of hegemonic notions of what is aesthetically accepted. Resorting to ancestral cultures of different peoples and ethnicities has been a genuine and necessary alternative for many of those who want to connect with their roots, to understand the past and work even more on one’s identity in contemporary times.

Therefore, ornament may not even be necessary from a functional point of view, but it is far from a crime, and as Salingaros claims, it is “necessary to define a living architecture”. An architecture that tells stories, goes back to the past and can point to other futures, in which the understanding of the symbols that shaped us as a society and individuals is part of our daily life through space, and does not remain erased from our history.

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Aesthetics, proudly presented by Vitrocsa the original minimalist windows since 1992. The aim of Vitrocsa is to merge the interior and exterior with creativity.

Vitrocsa designed the original minimalist window systems, a unique range of solutions, dedicated to the frameless window boasting the narrowest sightline barriers in the world: “Manufactured in line with the renowned Swiss Made tradition for 30 years, our systems are the product of unrivaled expertise and a constant quest for innovation, enabling us to meet the most ambitious architectural visions.”