ABSTRACT
This chapter explains contemporary architecture culture has become obsessed with the notion of novelty. This fixation compounded by staggering technological advances and infinite access to data, has resulted in a gross surfeit of architectural approaches. Paradoxically, this proliferation of supposedly differentiated tactics has led to precisely the opposite of its intended effect; the more these ostensible innovations strive to be dissimilar. Vittorio Gregotti aptly referred to this phenomenon as "the process of homogenization set in motion by diversity turned into pure ideology". As these boundless options are proliferated and promoted as a naturalized state, a critical capacity for judgment becomes all the more important in discerning between the valuable and ephemeral. Yet, this indispensable faculty has been largely supplanted by a blind sense of acceptance of various architectural ideas, irrespective of their material importance. Without an essential ability to judge architecture based on distinguishing performative characteristics, architecture has the potential to blend into an inconsequential environment of similitude.
