What does it mean for design to disappear? Absence, often seen as the result of a destructive force, may in fact be productive. While presence implies creation, absence promises possibilities.
Architecture, despite being closely associated with ‘creation’, in fact oscillates between the construction of the ever new and the destruction of the same ones as time, new trends, and advances in technology render them obsolete. The line between nostalgic monumentalization and the inevitable reality of demolition is drawn to establish the life cycle of any building. In today’s design culture that is as impatient as it is impermanent, we talk more about the actions of subtraction, erasure, and reduction. In such urban reality, presence and absence both make architecture.
