ABSTRACT
The chapters in Part Three examine the contemporary condition and send out tentacles into perceptions of what might be a resultant future. It is cautionary but it offers hope. The themes in these essays focus on lack and loss in contemporary society, given the hegemony of technological positivism and the resulting homogen-ization of architecture. The poetic, the imagination, dreams, love, desire, synthesis, subjectivity, culture, art, philosophy, religion, spirituality, values, ethics, intellectual development, tradition, vernacular culture, local ritual, the sense of belonging in a place or space, and the connection to memory and history, are all named as elements of what architecture traditionally provides for a culture, but which architecture is faced with losing in its increasing commodification and specialization, and its increasing role in global economic production. Architecture as a discipline is on the verge of disappearing, as “culture” (art, philosophy, literature) is on the verge of disappearing as other than a commodity for a consumerist society. The future of the cultural role of architecture is cautionary, and changes need to be made in order for there to be hope for a future for architecture.
