Architecture in the Shadow of Catastrophe and Collapse

Abstract

Instead of discourses about specific ends, which Fredric Jameson wrote about in relation to the cultural logic of postmodernism, 
we are increasingly faced with discourses about the ecological catastrophe or civilizational collapse as a comprehensive end. The article raises the question of how this gives rise to a new way of thinking about architecture and the end (or the end of an architectural paradigm). Instead of greenwashing architecture, a stricter, systemic and truly holistic approach is offered, which takes into account, for example, the crisis of access to certain raw materials. With this in mind, the article analyzes the significance of the Colossus and the ruins. Special attention is paid to the role of architecture in discourses about collapse, and in the (neo-)survivalist and collapse-aware movements. Finally, it is pointed out that we tend to think of the end with the help of architectural metaphors (like when Greta Thunberg says “our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire”).