tonight i went to this lecture by Karim Rashid called Shaping our Physical World.
It was very interesting. I'm so glad to see that there are contemporary thinkers out there..breeding, producing...etc.. He talked about a very interesting subject for me..this concept of a transitory world. Our society, civilization, and cuture seems trapped in a grip of nostalgia. We refuse to live beyond the present. Designers at most design for the present..and most people live within the boundaries of the past. NO one is willing to hurdle into future thinking. He said that if you try to live your life within a 5 year frame, you'll find out just how deeply rooted in the past we are. Transgressing is a contemporary thought. it's the idea that we use technology to foster new creations, not just apply technology to known methods. this is something architecture has yet to grasp. It's as if we fear death so we opt not to live. He talked about not confining ourselves to boundaries of knowledge, professions, and passions. He was very open to the idea of humans evovling into social beings of multi-disciplinary professions. This reminded me of a lot...because he's always talking about pursuing his multitude of interests in the job field.

At the end of the lecture, one of our deans asked him a final question...something along the lines of "we have many fields of disciplines here tonight..blah blah blah..something something architecture. i was wondering if you could offer a comment about how this applies to architecture..etc"

The guy replied: "you see, i don't like the way you phrased that question. it's suggesting again these boundaries i was talking about. these things apply to all fields and all forms of thought. and you're question was bountiful of boundaries."

at this point, a lot of people started cheering. i started laughing. i did feel sorry for the dean..but this is the kind of thing that's out there. you have all this rhetoric about progression and advancement..but at the end of the day, the put down their thoughts and do what "you're supposed to do".. it's like a frame of mind you can't fast forward out of.. it was good to see that the speaker wasn't afraid to point that out.

WWW.KARIMRASHID.COM