I feel it is important to ask the question, is this a necessary worry for society or are we over thinking a not-fully-understood and patchy notion that our surrounding built environment has a bigger impact on society, as whole, than we imagine?
From my reading, I can gather that there is a huge emphasis and concern with how our built environment makes us think and act. I can gather and understand how ‘matter’ in a cityscape is seen as where the place and nature of ‘materials’ in society are used to figure out what is happening in the world that surrounds. I can even appreciate how Raymond Williams’ term ‘cultural materialist’ has made us realize how material cultures situate cultural materials that narrate a society. But I can not gather how it is acceptable for certain buildings to be a representation of the interests and power held by those with the power to build. Of course buildings should, and do, frame places, but not to the point where it becomes a competition to see who can build the biggest and most lavish building with pointless tassels and statues with marble this and teak that.
This ‘power builds power’ type of attitude is a typical aspect of urban architecture which resonates strongly with developments in modernity. All major World cities today are packed with daunting, colossal, powerful skyscrapers. Even today, with globalization, we see power exhibited everywhere in a similar ‘international style’. Monolithic in appearance, glass, steel, and concrete mega-structures dominate our cityscapes. Power in cities can be said to have it’s own global style. We are so comfortable with the idea that power builds power and poverty builds nothing. I feel that this is not right or fair, however, we live in a largely capitalist world and this will be an aspect of urban architecture that, I feel, will be here forever.
References:
“Material Culture”, D.P. Tolia Kelly, International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Pg 500-504
“Urban Architecture”, P. Kraftl, International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Pg 24-31
Historical Geographies of the City 