ABSTRACT
There is a kind of ‘architectural’ fixation that people have about history. They like to recognize singular landmarks inside what may only be a boundless flow of shapeless events in time. Deplorably, very often we find that these landmarks are what the French historian George Duby called, ‘historical mirages’, ‘powerfully seductive’ fabrications of imagination. Once in a while, however, special time markers like this turn of a millennium coincide with a significant historical crucial period of change. The accumulation of major technological, social, geopolitical and cultural developments today show that a New Environ - ment has come about characterized by new needs and new opportunities. These new needs and new opportunities invite creative thinking and action transforming traditional practices of many major professions. One of these is architecture.
