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David Harvey­_An Enquiry into the Origins of Social Change

In his concluding arguments, Harvey identifies postmodernism as a historical-geographical condition. From this intellectual position, Harvey pens the following:

from this critical basis, it becomes possible to launch a counter-attack of narrative against the image, of ethics against aesthetics, of a project of Becoming rather than Being, and to search for unity within difference, albeit in a context where the power of the image and of aesthetics, the problems of time-space compression, and the significance of geopolitics and otherness are clearly understood.

Such a statement leads one to many questions. For instance, what is the ethical/moral responsibility of architecture? Does architecture today not continue to discard its ethical responsibilities in favor of aesthetics and the image? Does our culture not dictate such an approach? Furthermore, does architecture still remain, much as it was at the time of Harvey’s writing, lost in a state of being, rather than becoming? Are we not still in a search for an architectural present which is “valid only by virtue of the potentialities of its future…as a permanent spiritual revolution?” Most of my being believes that we are indeed still lost in such a quest. Problems such as the power of the image, of aesthetics over ethics, and of time-space compression are more prevalent in contemporary culture than ever before (thanks primarily it seems to major technological advancements, i.e.: the World Wide Web). However, perhaps there is hope for the future. Consider, for example, from a moral/ethical point of view architecture’s recent interest in and desire for environmental sustainability (and perhaps more generally, sustainability of all types). Does this not in some way signal a return to morality and the ethical practice of architecture? Perhaps we are finally beginning to recognize the necessity for architecture which is becoming?