His future is our present. It's a time when the computer is altering patterns of daily life, even the shape of the buildings that shape our lives. Aided by the computer, seeking to express the frenzied state of modern life, architects like Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman are designing buildings that twist and bend and warp. But this is by no means an easy transition. Many of the new structures, like Eisenman's Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati, look better on the computer screen than they do in real life.
Process is more entrancing than product.
Virtual reality tops built reality. The legendary settlement house was a Chicago center of William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement, whose adherents viewed the mass-production techniques of factories and other machines as a dehumanizing force. He meant, of course, his own art. Fortunately, the UIC architecture professor who read Wright's speech, Sidney Robinson, did not attire himself in a flowing cape or a porkpie hat, Wright's costume of choice in his later years. Robinson smiled and arched his eyebrows as he read Wright's words, which remain so incredibly self-serving that they easily induced laughter.