21 Aphorisms for the Occasional Student

of a Consumerist Architecture, or...

The last waltz by the passengers of the titanic
© Os va ldo Valde s, 19 79 © F Ma ga zin e , SCI A rc, 19 88

1. An ever present danger: at any minute the whole thing can turn into real estate.

2. Less is more cheap.

3. Expressive architecture is like money in the bank.

4. Contrar y to appearance all buildings are aesthetic statements.

5. If we cannot be convinced architecture is spiritual, surely we can agree it is

valuable.

6. Small budgets modif y ideology.

7. Architecture as a topic of inspiration defies wor ds.

8. Radical architecture is al wa ys a socially sanctioned event.

9. In architecture rationalization is the price of aesthetics.

10. Politics is the root of aesthetics.

11. Order is easier to market than disorder.

12. It is questionable if mechanization has improved the look of architecture.

13. There is no architecture, architecture is.

14. The monumental if not obsolete is expensive.

15. In architecture logic is peripheral.

16. Buildings of space, buildings in space: that's the whole of it.

17. There are those who maintain: "...deconstruction is not a style."

18. W hile contradictions in design validate criticism, transgressions of taste are

theoretical suicide.

19. In the realm of the personal there is no architecture, only taste.

20. Architectural criticism is a blend of rational thought and voodoo.

21. To embody the highest expression of capitalism, architecture adapts.