THE GOOD BUILDING

Introduction by Kevin Alter

What is a good building? How do ordinary people value their buildings? How, and for what, should architects be rewarded? And by whom? It is tempting for architects to define a good building as one that possesses every conceivable architectural virtue - social, economic, ecological, aesthetic, tectonic, etc. However, not only are the virtues of buildings hard to pin down case by case, but there are trade-offs to be made and priorities to be set. . . .

PRESSING STYLES

Introduction by Kevin Alter

Architects have long had a love/hate relationship with style. In our efforts to design buildings with a sense of integrity and to produce timeless artifacts, concerns of stylishness are often pushed aside. Perhaps our ambiguous feelings in this regard come as a consequence of the modernist reaction against art and architectural history typically taught as a succession of period types. . . .

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