“What’s the use if we can get to any point in the world faster and faster, but find the same uniform mixture of consumer, sleeping, tourism and fast-food architecture everywhere?” asks Günther Moewes in his book.
(Photo: IMAGO/Arnulf Hettrich)
Berlin Aristotle once explained the relationship between body and soul with a parable. Accordingly, a living being is not characterized by its appearance, but by its effect on its environment. The same should also apply to architecture and the reality of our lives – at least that is the claim that Günther Moewes represents in his book “Neither Huts nor Palaces”.
The work, which the publisher calls a “cult book for ecological architecture”, was first published in 1995. After it had been out of print for a long time, the Frankfurt-based Nomen Verlag reissued it in autumn. Luckily, one might think. Because its content seems more up-to-date today than ever.
Moewes’ “Marriage Paper” calls for a new architectural awareness. Specifically, it reads like this: “Better architecture, more intact cities and landscapes do not come about through aesthetic studies, environmental impact assessments or pilot projects, no matter how intelligent, but only when the way of doing business has changed, when we have separated the right to exist from work.” The emeritus professor to accuse of not arguing fundamentally enough is downright absurd. Piecemeal is not his thing.
The key concept of Moewes’ theory is entropy. It is based on the second law of thermodynamics, according to which all processes in a closed system only take place in one direction: from higher to lower order states.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In such systems, however, which includes the earth, a target energy or matter arises only through simultaneous, unintended entropy elsewhere. An example from industrial society: The power of a steam engine can only be generated through a disproportionately higher production of senseless waste heat.
The author is an architect and economist. In his book, he criticizes both architecture and contemporary society.
(Photo: Günther Moewes)
Since our entire economy works like this – and only like this – we are obviously facing a serious problem. This is exactly what Moewes wants to drastically demonstrate. At the same time, he calls for people to finally change course. The author is not concerned with the architecture alone. Rather, he wants a fundamental change of course.
He criticizes the growth paradigm and the “employment state” and believes that functionalism is a sick tooth in society. Referring back to the architecture: This means that urban planning is thought of “like cutting out Christmas cookies”: the buildings as “the intended stars, hearts and moons”, the space in between as “the leftover, random, (…) quasi the Waste”.
Günther Moewes: Neither huts nor palaces. Architecture and ecology in the working society
noun publisher
Frankfurt 2021
264 pages
20 Euros
Rhetorical questions skilfully put the reader on the right track: “What’s the use if we can get to any point in the world faster and faster, but find the same uniform mixture of consumer, sleeping, tourism and fast-food architecture everywhere? ”
Turning it around couldn’t be that difficult. Especially since the “rational, scientifically based knowledge of what ecological architecture should look like” has long been available: “Real ecological building” is “more similar to the ‘conventional’ building of the early 20th century than to today’s opinion architecture”. What is successful today as sustainable architecture, on the other hand, only tries to give the impression of being environmentally friendly – by mixing with greenery and nature.
More on the subject:
What appeals to Moewes is by no means new, but it is seen in an unfamiliar context. His sometimes refreshing polemics give some insight more emphasis. One or the other demand may sometimes overshoot the mark: that, for example, the conurbations should be divided into “manageable units about the size of the old Renaissance cities, in which the surrounding landscape could be reached from every point on foot or by bike”. That seems a bit nostalgic.
Nonetheless, the book is highly recommended. It may have come across as a fundamental opposition at the time of its first edition: the controversial pamphlet has now become a veritable memorandum. Because the developments of the last quarter century drastically prove the author right.
More: Population decline: Instead of unemployment, we are now threatened with unemployment