Art, design and architecture are cyclical
phenomena. The Greek and Roman classics have been inspired more than once as in
the Romanesque and Neoclassical architecture or in the Elizabethan literature.
Meanwhile, modernism returned under the name of minimalism, taking advantage of
technological advances with which Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe didn’t
count in the 50s and just as the neoclassical was bolted into the variegated
Baroque, characteristic of New Spain, the minimalism evolved into Gehry or Zaha
Hadid deconstructivism, so criticized in the new millennium.
This second decade of the 2000s began with a
new story. We cannot speak of a contemporary style cause each style is
contemporary to its time, neither I would take the term eclectic as it implies to
copy what has been done so far, leaving the art and spatial design to repetition
and not to innovation... surely the great theorists of the future will seek an
appropriate name for what we see now in the world, for me is no better term
that defines it that "egocentrism". The world today is as
personalized as each of the seven billion people we live into the planet;
globalization has broken any physical border and beyond appropriating a region
or a specific area, we are appropriating all that is known.
Eliminating the negative connotations of the
term, architecture now gives us endless possibilities to customize our spaces
and do them completely of our own. Boundaries and rules are gone; designers
must see everywhere for current trends together with our customers to make as
personalized designs as we can. There are still some walls to break down that
will require greater creativity by specialists to achieve increasingly unique
and exclusive works; finally, despite the color palette that has been
determined or the characteristic textures of each year, we have 202 countries to
flip and find what we like.
Along with borders, molds are now gone, too. The
rule of Mexican architecture that have been followed Legorreta and Sordo
Madaleno to the letter for years and still retain the principles of Luis
Barragán, which earned the Pritzker in 1980, is now over. This not means to
eliminate the context but to remove the romanticism; Mexican architecture is
much more than orange or pink walls with symmetrical square repetitions that
can be useful as niches, frames or windows, as American architecture is not
only glass skyscrapers. To make architecture for the site, for the customer and
for the users, does not depend on mathematical models; architects now have the
task to create as independent and personalized worlds as each of our clients are.
The Acapulco chair, a 50s classic during the
explosion of this great tourist destination for national and international ones,
now is used by interior architect Luis García Fraile in Ibiza or Jonas Labbé
and Johannes Schotanus in Copenhagen. When finished borders, a Mexican design
is used as an art object worldwide; and it is not out of its context, in
contrast it joins another wider context in which coexists with all other
elements that architects have created from a need, a taste, a spatial desire.
How to define "egocentrism"? Its best
feature is that there are no features... is the most heterogeneous style that
has worked until today, resulting in proposals as varied and endless as it is
possible; each of us gives a new and different look to it according to what we
want to obtain, so it is ultimately self-centered. But unlike the minimalism
that precedes it, this style is concerned about the world; it promotes
sustainability, the use of apparent local materials despite the variety of
items that can be accessed now favoring local development. It is certainly a
style-conscious; it is not only concerned but occupied to build a better world
as the one we have now. It reflects new
generations that have tied in architecture: the X, Y and Z generations. What is
not worth: to keep using white and "pure" volumes; it's time to
evolve.
JPV
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