Urbanization over the past several decades has created a number of challenges in both urban planning and social contexts. According to official UN projections, by 2050 approximately 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. Contemporary urban planning and architectural trends are facing new challenges related to the dynamics of urbanization, as well as the resulting human needs and the interrelationships between people and their surrounding environment. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the role of contemporary building envelopes as an important component of architectural design and their impact on the lives of urban inhabitants.
Contemporary architecture is in crisis. The text examines the transformations taking place in the field of architectural creation. Transformations resulting from commercialization, the pressure for quick financial profit, the loss of identity and historical memory, the advent of digitalization, and the new AI world. The philosophy of the “permanent present” – architecture, trivialized and mass-produced for the “here” and “now” – is losing its spatial and temporal bearings. Are there any possible alternatives? The approach taken in creating the project “Museum Complex ‘The First Factory – The First Ten’” illustrates possible alternatives in the choice between copy-paste architecture and architecture that provokes the layering of spaces, the integration of meanings and memory over time – architecture that opens doors to new interpretations in the future.
Architecture is the most profoundly human of disciplines, for it leaves a lasting imprint on the way we live, relate to one another, and perceive the world. Beyond technical requirements and economic imperatives, it entails a moral and political responsibility. A building is never simply an arrangement of materials; it possesses a form of “soul,” can nurture well-being or generate exclusion, and embodies a particular vision of the common good. In this sense, architecture is nothing less than a philosophy of life.
Barcelona was the world capital of architecture in 1996 and thirty years later it is again… the first city in the world to achieve this for the second time. This essay attempts to trace the path of these years, analyzing the legal, economic, demographic, social frameworks and environmental context to understand the changes and new trends that are emerging.
