The Muses Are Not Amused

From what i understood from this reading, I can say that Silvetti insists on form-making to be prioritized as the full intent of the project scope for the designer.  He starts by delineating architectures, which are the causes of a progressive neglect in form-making, as 1. Programism, 2. Thematization, 3. Blobs, 4. Literalism.  

Programism is an automation of form-making, which requires no creativity or real architectural competence, and is one of the main reasons why our abilities as designers are overlooked.  The act of compiling a schema from graphical implications of programmatic aspects would only get you as far as solving programmatic issues.  

Thematization is for entertainment.  However, it does more damage by imposing a way of life within the environment.  It is a marketing tool that dumbs down the architecture by objectifying it as a spectacle, although the rhetoric itself is intangible.

Blobs, or "blobitecture" is the intimidating, but unmerited method of form-making based on a nostalgia for the future.  It is a hysteria that is ultimately formless and is later refined with abstract statistical data that attempts to dignify the out-of-context form.  It is naive.  

Literalism is described as the act of architectural jargon (adaptability, flexibility, flow, indeterminacy, process, malleability, etc.) linked to form-less buildings by way of creating physical metaphors.  The refusal to use any pre-existing vernaculars is a failed attempt to have any urban context.  

He concludes by simply stating that contemporary form finding should not have a real place in the practice, because it serves to be the scapegoat for the architect after the building is subjected to criticism.  He further analyses contemporary forms by comparing their roles as architecture to the roles of Baroque architecture, in that Baroque also uses rhetoric and physical metaphors to communicate.  He goes on comparing the art world and the art of architecture and its relationship on the grounds of Art as the Big Idea, not bound by medium.  He then says if Architecture is allowed to be merited as a free medium, it would not work.

I enjoyed this reading, because he doesn't go on with a prescriptive process of form-making, rather debunks the methods highly used today.  It got me thinking about how the future of this field will evolve, leading me to conclude that theorizing about the future are mere speculations in this day.  Technology serves as a catalyst for an exponential rise in forum and no real code will emerge until our advances reach some sort of apex.  Popular culture will reign supreme, so we will have to tread lightly with artistic agendas.  As far as "Art as Architecture", I don't believe will be coined, we simply won't allow it, as in the Art world, people are considered Artists for nothing that involves the discipline of Art.  Writers aren't architects, musicians aren't architects, doctors aren't architects, etc.  The only Architects in this world are, and will always be, motherfucking Architects.  I only say that, because I adore all the ego and phallocentric controversy in architecture!