The stamp of the definitive is avoided. No situation seems
intended forever, no figure asserts its "thus and not otherwise."
This is how architecture, the most binding part of communal
rhythm, comes into being....
Walter Benjamin
Architecture is a mirror to humanity. More specifically, over time,
buildings move from reflecting their environment and an architectural
"vision," to revealing their inhabitants and activities. Human
patterns of building, occupying, using, abandoning, and then often
reclaiming, all have a marked affect on how structures -- and
ultimately we ourselves -- are perceived.
Based on rules and parameters, architecture is premised on the
creation of boundaries. But time and usage have the ability to strip
intent and function from a building, revealing its inhabitants'
successes and failures. Surfaces, stained and battered, become
porous, transparent. Evidence of beginnings, middles, and ends
are clear. We are told "don't judge a book by it's cover," but we
cannot help but use our environment to make economic and social
judgments every day.
Most cities are built on top of forgotten and temporal places. City
planners quickly tear down and replace the old, turning a blind eye to
the truths these buildings reveal, constructing gleaming towers in
their stead. Examining a city's overlooked buildings, its back alleys
and loading bays, darkened street-ways and abandoned factories,
reveals as many truths about its citizens and spectators as it does
their own actual functions and inhabitants.