The New Mix: Culturally Dynamic Architecture (Architectural Design)

We are at a new moment in architecture, one when many cultures arecontributing to the unfolding of modernism. This enrichinginfluence is broadening the mix, extending the range available toarchitecture, of materials and colours, of evocative forms, ofcultural references and of social thinking. In an era of boredom with monocultures and orthodoxies, there isthe almost universal expectation that the metroculture, be it inLondon or Beijing, will provide broadened cultural experiences infood, performance, dress and sound. The new ethnically diverse cityis a place of zesty daily encounters/collisions/cohabitationbetween cultures, a place of mixed signals, contradictions,delightful confusions. Franco-Japanese cuisine, eliteschoolchildren wearing doo-rags, jazz performed ongamelans—no matter what one’s mother culture -we’re all getting addicted to varied rhythms, differentemotional emphases, ‘other’ ideas of beauty.This change is visible in schools of architecture, at least inthe range of students, typically from many ethnicities, none ofthem constituting a majority. No wonder, then, that there isincreased interest in ways that architecture can incorporate alarger compass of riches.A rising group of practitioners is meeting the challenge of thisbroadening cultural landscape in pursuing strategies of quickswitching, layering, reframing.  These new architecturalexpressions of multiple cultures represent an enrichment thatultimately might help create a more robust modernism, helping torescue it from a ‘potato blight’ of too muchsameness.