Construction Corner

Seeking imagination in a homogenous world

By Josh Johnson

Josh Johnson is an architect at The Renschler Company Inc. in Madison and president of the Southwest Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

It seems that as a society we long for what we see as the purity of the past.

The problem is that we seem to fare well in Norman Rockwell prints but less so in history books. Nostalgia for the obsolete has always lent itself to a gauzy view of the past, and yet, traditionally, this country has been more enamored with what the future might hold.

I'll always believe that Coney Island filled with Edison's light bulbs is much more wonderful than a Disney World with a perfect and fictitious Main Street. Coney Island's magic was in its foreshadowing of what could be. Disney World can recreate the scene, but the magic is gone.

Yet once we're on that fake Main Street, we can imagine. We come as close as possible to the real-life experience. And experience, real or imagined, sells.

Much has been written about the "experience economy" in the United States. The prevailing developer logic is that a blend of nostalgia and spectacle is required for the success of almost any project.

But it goes even deeper than that. We offer the nostalgia, create the experience and then assume that everyone wants the same thing. In explaining the new invention of the telegraph, Henry David Thoreau was told that someone in Maine could instantly send a message to someone in Texas. He reportedly replied, "What would they have to say to each other?"

With an ever-diminishing idea of "place," the people in Maine and Texas are not only sending messages, they're sending their cultures minus any context. Eventually, the world is rebuilt as stage sets. Red Lobster is Maine, and Famous Dave's is the South.

Several years ago, the Texas Rangers baseball team held a limited competition for a new stadium. The winning entry was a design emulating Camden Yards, the baseball stadium for the Baltimore Orioles. Whereas the red brick facade in Baltimore related to several adjacent structures, the masonry facade in Texas apparently qualified because a large company in Fort Worth sells bricks. This resulting Rangers' stadium is a contextual park without a context or a history.

Today, the term "United States of Generica" has been coined in an effort to describe the developing sameness of communities. It is a jarring concept because diversity is one of this country's greatest traits.

Being visually oriented people, architects tend to be more adept at pointing than explaining. In this case, the image is sufficient for the recognition of a trend of condensing our culture and restricting our imagination.

But I see possibilities. I think that we could create a new architecture through the use of technological advances. I'm not talking about simple structures of quiet clarity or nostalgic details but complicated and beautiful solutions to complex programs. I think that construction and architecture might just combine to make something particularly American. Something singular.