It stimulates action and therefore it is real. Yet this fantasy has a powerful sting in its tail. It attacks the very architects who are attracted to it. To understand what the target is, we only have to look out any window, walk down any street. Architecture is making a spectacle of itself.
Buildings brazenly flaunt their shimmering bodies, sublime shapes, dazzling skins.
Like eager playmates, they flirt with us in the streets and on the pages of magazines or Web sites. Times Square is an obvious case. Pulsating buildings exuding vast quantities of light, color and information have arisen from the ruins of strip clubs and triple-X cinemas. One form of pornography has replaced another. Every surface clamors for our attention and collaborates in the production of a single spectacular image, a 3-D commercial for the city and some of the most powerful global corporations.