Glacial Erratic

Architecture persists; it is a fundamental and immutable quality of the structures and environments we build. These objects, spaces, and places often possess a material permanence that extends beyond the functional lifecycle we imagine for them, continuing to exist as artifact, ruin, fragment, or an idea, even long after the more mutable values of culture, technology and politics have moved on. This nebulous territory of existence stretching from obsolescence to renewal is the architectural afterlife, where the original purpose of a place is gone or faded, its functional value in question, or it has witnessed or faces the prospect of abandonment or destruction. Nevertheless in its afterlife, this architecture finds itself reshaped, on an often unexpected road towards a new meaning.

This collection of twelve visual essays is the informal culmination of a research field trip conducted in 2015, across 17 countries and 60 cities over the span of six months. Part travel impressions and part fantastical speculation, these stories represent an oblique meditation on the notion of usefulness, and the struggle between architecture’s timelessness and its timeliness. Each of these case studies explores the unique influences of geopolitics, economics, and industry on the life of a place, and will hopefully become provocations for future projects that think about how places evolve and change, how they persist, or stay the same. Although far from comprehensive, these collected thoughts aim to contribute to a much larger conversation about the relevance of architecture and the nature of its resilience in the changing shape of this world.

SOM Traveling Fellowship - March, 2017

Read the entire report at SOM Foundation