Discussion 7: Decline and Fall

‘Professor Silenus, known only for the “rejected design for a chewing-gum factory”, declares against man: “The only perfect building must be the factory, because that is built to house machines, not men […] All ill comes from man”. Silenus sympathizes with factories and machines rather than humans, and he advocates a mechanized modernity that threatens humanity.’

‘Decline and Fall suggests that repression of personal, cultural, and religious liberty is laudable.’

‘Decline and Fall is not a book of “faithless optimism, confident and aggressive”, but rather a carnivalesque dirge for the “restraint of traditional culture”.’

It would appear that this piece of writing is embedded with a social structure that is simply old fashioned where people are trying to adapt to a new world where society is knocking down their country houses to built modern building that are ‘Clean and Square.’ The downfall to taking their step to modernity as the machine would have it, is the fear of pieces of heritage being lost. This process is based on the whole idea of the modernity machine deeply in homed with humanity as architecture will always change and shape what the generation requires at the time.

Le Corbusier interest lay in humanity set opposed to something called nature and he was trying to drag it back. With this in mind Le Corbusier obsession with maths, correctness, organisation and technology offered him the equipment to rebuild his interests. As the machine has progressed and technology had greatened I believe this tool is now at our disposal. With the technologies of today and the attitudes of our past one could do perhaps anything. I enjoyed this discussion as I believe vernacular architecture holds a great significance in the world we live in today. It would appear to me that modernity is even taking a step to the vernacular in the next step of its methodology to greater its technology. The secret to the next step is to understand the history of architecture on a timeline and the history of humanity to a greater standard.