I’m the Designer. My Client’s the Autocrat.

By designing high-profile buildings that bolster the profile of a powerful client, do architects implicitly sanction the client’s actions or collaborate in symbolic mythmaking?
Or in the long run does architecture transcend politics and ideology? If the architect’s own vision is progressive, can architecture be a vehicle for positive change?

Jacques Herzog, um dos arquitectos da equipa que projectou o estádio olímpico de Pequim, diz o seguinte:
“Engagement is the best way of moving in the right direction,”

A mim parece-me melhor do que voltar as costas. Pode a arquitectura proteger a democracia?

“I suppose there was a kind of sense of disillusionment that architecture was about building better societies,” Mr. Sudjic said. “Now architects are careful about making emotional political stands about anything. That can seem like sophistication, or it can seem like evasion.”

The New York Times, via Conscientious.