Venice Architecture Biennale 2021: The Mystery of the Disappearing Buildings

Abstract

Architecturein the last century has been along a rollercoaster journey of reputation andpublic esteem. And like most such journeys, it had its start in the centurybefore. By the 1870’s many European architects felt their disciplinary spacewas subject to two incursions: firstly, as the German theorist Gottfried Semperput it, they had become mere specialists in ‘dressing’, covering with ornamentstructures exclusively designed by engineers; secondly, there was an increasingsense that such a vocabulary of ornament had, disappointingly, become mere historicalpastiche, and the past century of unprecedented technological progress had yetto produce its own style.