ABSTRACT
The term “criticality” is key to understanding the modern era. It has a strange, magical power that has long intrigued the author. Architects consider it high praise to be told their work is critical in character. They much prefer to have criticality than beauty ascribed to their work. In Europe, emphasis was placed on mass public housing; in the United States, a system of housing loans was instituted, enabling middle class to acquire detached houses in the suburbs. Out of fear of communism, the United States deliberately and unequivocally rejected the public-housing alternative. More to the point, they did away with that ambiguous thing called space that had been the theme of early modernism and instead produced objects. Their lucid, independent forms were surprisingly similar to Colonial-style houses, which were then best-selling suburban houses in United States. Ideally, criticism is set in motion and continues to operate so as to affect a displacement of the central desire of the times.
