“Infrastructural Aggrandizement”

Since I don’t think I will have the opportunity to work for Stalin anytime soon, I decided to look for a more contemporary (translation: not dead) client to focus on for the semester. More to come on that later…

Before leaving the Metro though, a few thoughts. Although the idea of “infrastructural aggrandizement” (as Kazys put it) was an interesting one, the topic of infrastructure seems completely played out in the current architectural discourse.  How many more programmatic mash-ups can we attach to abandonded (or active) roadways, bridges, tunnels, and railways?  What’s frustrating is not a lack of interesting ideas, but the complete fantasy world that these projects invariably occupy.   They are decidedly bold - in order to stand out from the countless other entries to now ubiquitous competitions inspired by the promise of federal stimulus funding.  And their boldness largely guaruntees that they will never be built.  Novel ideas are needed, but they have to exist in a context where they actually have the potential to initiate incremental change.  The Moscow Metro stations, forgetting for a moment that they were the product of an authoritarian regime, were actually the result of architectural competitions.  How many contemporary competitions result in built work, as opposed to fantastic imagemaking? I would posit that very few do.