NEWNESS, TRADITION, AND IDENTITY

An interest in the significance of tradition is today usually seen as nostalgia and conservatism; in our age, obsessed with progress, our eyes are exclusively fixated on the present and future. During the past few decades, uniqueness and newness have become the prevailing criteria of quality in architecture, design, and art. Artistic uniqueness and formal invention have, in fact, replaced the quest for existential meaning and emotive impact, to say nothing of the desire for a spiritual dimension or beauty. Cultural identity, a sense of rootedness and belonging are an irreplaceable ground of our very humanity. The primary task of architecture continues to be to defend and strengthen the wholeness and dignity of human life, and to provide us with an existential foothold in the world. The fascination with newness is characteristic of modernism at large, but this obsession has never been as unquestioned as in our age of mass consumption and surreal materialism.