Session 8 - 20.11.09 All that's solid melts into air

With a day to spare I can write my blog...

So my thoughts on "All that's solid melts into air"...

It is clear that the story of Faust is still very apt today. The developer phase of the story can be seen all around, we as humans are constantly building and destroying our way through time, we can’t afford to slow down or stop building as it is the basis for our livelihoods in the construction industry, it is the basis on which the economy of nations continue to grow, the only reason for the growth of our world is for wealth and money, destroying anything, including nature, that gets in our way, just when will the tragic end to our development/society occur? Looking back in time we can see the patterns of great civilisations that have grown and grown only to destroy themselves, for example the city of Babylon. A great modern example of the tragedy of development is that of Dubai. Like the devil in the story of Faust the reason behind the development of this area is purely for the purpose of money and wealth. The projects being constructed are not being built for good but for greed. The story of the developer in Faust can't afford to slow down, nor has Dubai over the last few years.

We as architecture students can relate to the problems faced in the first phase of the story, “the dreamer”, withdrawn from the outside world, feeling there are bigger challenges, on our road to our ultimate goals we have to do the bad, the car park layouts, the many hours of study, we have already turned to the devil for knowledge, in our case this devil is the machine.