ever
e vane o
(Cover image) at the peak
of German hyperinflation
in 1923, the Mark was
declared valueless,
shaking the building
blocks of capitalism.
Today, as we speed into
the abyss of a climate
crisis, catapulted by our
insatiable hunger for
financial growth, the
armature of our economic
system lies in tatters
once more.
Image: Photo^12 I Alamy
nfone~T regulateS hO\V \\T e live and haS done SO SinCe it \VaS invented
n1illennia ago, originally as physical grains of barley, later on as gold
coins and banknotes and today, increasingly so, as virtual capital.
It n1ight be in1aginary·, a htuuan construct reliant on trust, but its effects
on the " Torld are very real. Yet architects' relationship \vith n1oney
is rarely straightfor\vard aud the source of internal contradictions.
Claire Zh11merman recounts in this issue that the absence of cost as
a. concern is problematic and a determining factor in the shaping of
n1·chitectural histories, \V hen it Hhould be 'an index of analysis against
\vhich to calibrate measure of building use, structural fitness and beauty'.
The production ofbuilclingH is so1netimes disassociated fron1 the
resotu·ces used to build then1 and the ftulcls required to iiuance thenL
Concepts of money and value arc confused, amalgan1ated, and
interchanged - Oscar ,~Vilde defined a cynic as someone w11o kno,vs
'the price of everything and the value of nothing'. Once con1plctecl,
the Yalues buildings represent and the profits they generate also
becorne an essential p<n·t of thcn1. Richard Seifert \voulcl kuo\v.
Considered as a critical failure, this \Vorkaholic " ?as also an astounding
connnercial success, thought. to have changed London's ::-:;kylino 1nore
than anyone since Christophcr 'Vren.
l\ioney is stored as architecture, and cities become dense
acctunulations of capital that. in turn produce interests, po\vcr an cl
opportunities. 'Like gold bars, bitcoin and certain \Vorks of art,
investn1ent properties exist not as useful con1n1oditics but aH a fonn
or gcncral-ptu·pose lllOUcy' \\^7 Cll'll 1\'laria Srnith and Phincas Ilarper in
the keynote cssa~r. The problcn1 is that 'a.rchitccturc aR gencrn.l-purposc
1noncy is liquid but drear~r, \Vithout icliosy11cras~r or generosity'.
'Vhether \Ye like it or not, architects arc part of a broader suppl~r
chain, adding value to clients' invcstincnts and involving exchanges
of 1noncr and risk bet \vcen building purverors and end-nscrt\ -
and everyone , else in bct,,vccn. 'roclay • ' like our cnlTcncv .r ' the thino·s o \VC
value arc also 1norc innnatcrial, ast;ignecl to 'experiences' and abstract
notions of 'w·cll-bcing'. 1\..rchitecture bcconleH the sites of these
experiences, and a.rebit.ccts, as the 1nasters of constructing and
selling in1ages of a. happy life, arc the visionaries that 1nould then1.
Fron1 cxclnsiYc holiclav • hon1es to the continuous reinvcntion of
shopping mails, architecture is packaged for easy consun1ption,
a tool ab~orbed by 1narkcting ca.n1paigns and splatte1·ecl on social
channel~ a~ proof of a fulfilled life.
There are a lot of questions in this issue. Quite a lot of 'perhaps'.
The " ·ord 'degro\Yth' n1akes nnlltiple apperances. Our cconon1y as
\VC kno\v it is profoundly ineo1npatiblc with our ecolog~·. For nloRt of
historr, the econon1~T stayed ,·cry·1nuch the same sihe, but in the last fc\Y
lnmdred years it has spiralled out of control, and perpetual gro\vth has
become the ulthnatc 1notor, the definer ofprogTess. 'rhc planet cannot
physically acconnnoclate everyone's di·eams of gro\\rth, putting into
question Aclam Sn1ith's revolutionary ideas on capital fro In the 18th
centtu·y. The econon1ic theories and models shaping our \vorld have
been incapable of incorporating into their calculations the finite
resources they are dependent on.^1 \..s they unearth the forgotten Yalues
of idleness, Michael Chiefl'alo and Julia Smachylo ask us \Yhether
a 'design culture that secs itself as inextricabl~~ linked to gro\vth'
can maintain its anal~Tticallcns on value production that exists outside
the capitalist structures that constrain it. M anon Mallard