The 2000s generation works behind the scenes Bernardina Borra//Giampiero Sanguigni

The generation of architects that completed their education and training and began their careers in the decade between 2000 and 2010 has come of age in a period that will long be remembered for events related to politics, the economic crisis and religious extremism. Yet in architecture it will not be easy to put to paper the history of what is really happening, for a slow but increasingly widespread change of mentality is taking place behind the scenes. 
More and more architects of this generation are attempting to interpret the period by mirroring it back in positive terms through the practice of their profession. A tacit agreement is being disseminated that promotes modesty as the new koiné and establishes basic standards and conditions for every project. 
Alongside the confirmed egocentrism of today’s star architects who continue to reap the benefits of a more favourable era, a new generation is developing that looks with scepticism on the hyper-capitalistic market and cities built around icons. They are dealing with the current situation in a direct and pragmatic manner.  They have a new sense of commitment that stays clear of empty ideologies that lead to a “suspension of judgement”. 
During the first decade of the new millennium, we have seen a passage from author-driven formalism to a more critical and selective attitude in terms of problems and proposed solutions. Having spent part of their formative years working in the same firms from which they now seem to be keeping their distance, the members of the 2000s generation inherited from their mentors a clearheaded and coherent approach to launching their careers.
We are not dealing with an Oedipus complex, but rather with a congenital condition common to many different fields and many different countries.
The western part of the world – the “first” world, which from the post-war period through the nineties had seen almost constant growth in wealth and opportunities – is now dealing with an inversion of this trend. It is quickly realising that growth is not infinite and that it is not the only parameter on which to base the progress of an entire society.
Many of the architects and firms documented in this volume owe their own success to the success of projects that are limited in size and cost. While it may be true that the current economic conditions are inhibiting the growth of these firms, it is equally obvious that in such a situation, reaction times and the ethics of the design response become more concrete and tied to reality. 
During the nineties and the first half of this decade, the mechanisms of success of an emerging firm were linked to its ability to prevail in terms of personality, seduction and communications. In order to promote their business, architects have been devoting more attention to packaging than to the product itself. Such attitudes have in part survived and are present in this publication as well, but they have clearly become less aggressive and self-referential with respect to previous years. It appears that this is no longer the only modus operandi, and that, if mitigated, can lead to more manageable results. 
In choosing between the two trends, the 2000s generation seems to prefer moving towards more concrete and committed arenas, ones that look at issues in an objective manner, that deal with even small-scale urban transformation, that are willing to grapple with the difficult economic situation, and that recast the relationship between the public and private sectors in all its new meanings – now that the extremes have cancelled each other out. It is a reaction to the fact that over the course of this decade, people’s faith in government systems has gradually diminished, and consequently, their faith in the ability of architecture to interpret and implement the positive aspects of society has also diminished. In Europe there has been a decline in participation in volunteer work, and in general all over the world the gap has widened between wealth and poverty.
The theme of housing, for example, which in the twentieth century had been a tool for public planning, today has become a phenomenon driven mainly by private market interests.  The public housing projects built across the continent in the second half of the last century, conceived as “open” communities because they were built to accommodate inhabitants who identified with a common culture and lifestyle, have become a social stigma for their residents, who now see these collective living arrangements as a forced imposition that conflicts with the prevailing sense of individualism.
In general, this shifting of the management of new building projects from public to private scale – and from the common good to the interests of an individual or an oligarchy – forces designers to rethink new forms of society, placing their work within a mechanism that seeks to balance the quality of architecture with the need for profit (without which there would be no opportunity to design).  This situation becomes paradoxical in the strong emerging market countries, like China, where the architecture that is taking hold seems to respond mainly to a desire for iconic imagery. The new prosperity is being sublimated into a rhetorical aesthetic of marketing and propaganda, rather than helping to meet the real needs of inhabitants. It is a form of self-colonialism, in which the icon imposes itself over the local culture, often cancelling it out. 
The new generation of architects is characterised by a latent heterogeneity, split between a moderate emulation of the leading names and a realistic approach toward new problems. 
Their approach provides us with a chance to launch a debate on the profession regarding this period of change, the aim being to help emerge what is taking place far from the spotlights, and to contribute to the conclusion of a difficult decade, in which hardship has gradually taken the place of the branding and visual rhetoric of the nineties.
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