Modern architecture is making us sick. Penguins in the London zoo developed foot disease because of an awkward ramp that looked aesthetically pleasing, but left their feet so sore that they eventually started plunging to their death. To make matters worse, male penguins were spotted raping dead penguins in the pool that lay below.
While it may dazzle the eye, modern architecture poisons the soul. As you sit in your glass house and skyscraper office, you may feel a twinge of emptiness. You have, after all, done away with the embellishment and shadows, and embraced what the Japanese call ma. Death is not far off. The void mistaken for meditative stillness swirls, and you think you are Steve Jobs because your computer is built into the wall and has no wires. Cool.
Modernism stands for the negative: the absence of clutter, so as to leave one unencumbered by the uber Zen simplicity. So shocking in its vacuum-like grandeur, the impression that these great works leave us with is similar to the penguins fate: a plunge from great heights, and then, the unthinkable. Ravaged by the architect who saved coin on building materials as you removed all embellishments, only to be overcharged on the uncomfortable IG-sexy furniture. If we continue to fixate on the style that is effectively a golf tee for a screen that shows us everything, please remember the penguins.
It is convenient to think that by killing the head of the snake with fire and fury, the gophers will leave the garden alone. Recent history in the Middle East has shown that scenario to not only be false, but instead, the gophers reemerge more emboldened and there are holes everywhere in the garden.
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