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The topic of this issue of SPEECH is the future. On the one hand, we get
a clear picture of the future from numerous visualizations created by
architects using modern 3D computer software. This is a scintillating
virtual future which is much easier to imagine being inhabited by heroes
from computer games or sci-fi novels than by real mortals. However, it
is precisely this futuristic computer aesthetic that has a considerable
influence on the way modern architecture looks, and for many people this
is the quintessence of ideas about the architecture of the future.
On the other hand, by designating the theme of this issue as ‘for the
future’ we have deliberately switched the emphasis to the present day.
We wish to focus on processes that are occurring right now, before our
very eyes, but will shape the way in which architecture will develop in
the near future. One of the most relevant of today’s future-oriented
strategies is the paradigm of ‘sustainability’ – a paradigm which involves
the creation of an architecture and an urban environment that are
not only comfortable to live in, but also do not disturb the ecological
balance during the construction, use, or recycling of buildings. In this
context special significance is attached not just to the development
and inculcation of progressive concepts of energy use as well as
‘green’ materials and technologies, but also to the rational use of the
material resources that we already possess – through redevelopment
and conversion of existing buildings, even if the latter are functionally
obsolete. Issues related to the longevity of buildings and the materials
used in them are also directly bound up with energy conservation and
concern for the future.
Today, living in the 21st century, we are in a good position to evaluate
the extent to which contemporary life conforms to the ideas of the future
that existed 20, 30, or 50 years ago. This ability to look behind us and
to understand which predictions have indeed been fulfilled, which ideas
have turned out to be justified, and which mistakes we have inherited
makes it possible to take a more realistic view in our strategies for the
future. Life still has a place for dreams and visions, but today the future
is no longer guessed at. It can be predicted – and then modelled, on the
basis of these predictions.
Irina Chipova
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subject
Irina Chipova, Nina Frolova
Tomorrow starts today
history
Bernhard Schulz
The Future that was
pro & contra
Robert Kaltenbrunner
A green Future?
Architecture: between aesthetics and sustainability
object
Nina Frolova
An experiment in eco-education
Norman Foster. The Langley Academy. Slough, UK
Vladimir Belogolovskyky
The world’s greenest bank
Cook+Fox architects. Bank of America tower. New York
David Cohn
The greenhouse effect
Irisarri & Pinera. COAG Building. Vigo, Spain
Anna Martovitskaya
Echoes of the Cold War
Albert France-Lanord. Pionen – White Mountain.
Stockholm
Jan Skuratowski
The bank which won’t be going up in
smoke
Ingenhoven Architects. The European Investment
Bank Headquarters. Luxembourg
Vladimir Belogolovskiy
A post-industrial path
Diller Scofdio + Renfro. High Line park. New York
Anna Martovitskaya
A legal paradigm
3XN. Horten headquarters. Copenhagen
environment
Kurt C.Reinhardt
The kaleidoscope of Zollverein
Denis Bocquet
Grand Paris
portrait
Irina Chipova
A humane high-tech
Interview with Werner Sobek
David Cohn
Thermodynamic aesthetics 101: the formal dimensions of controlled
energy exchange
Interview with Inaki Abalos
Vladimir Belogolovsky
Ken Yeang’s “deep green”
gallery
Irina Chipova
The Great Utopia 2
Photographs of buildings in the Soviet Modernist style
of the 1960s to 1970s
Authors of this issue
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