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19.8
Modern city models
 
  All city models can be linked in evolutionary terms according to new ideas and technology enhancements. Modern city models are defined by the alignment of three systems into one- an economic model based on corporate-consumer, a city development model based on corporate-suburbia and a social model based on mass communication culture (TV, radio, print magazines, newspapers) and a transport model based on the motor vehicle.  
  Modular versus uniqueness  
  The idea that a building can and ought to be made of modular units is one of the most pervasive assumptions of 20th Century architecture.  
  Nature is never modular. Nature is full of almost similar units/waves, raindrops, blades of grass- but though the units of one kind are alike in their broad structure- no two are ever alike in detail.  
  The same broad features- keep re-occurring over and over again. In their detailed appearance- these broad features are never twice the same.  
  And any system which is whole must have this character of nature. The morphology of nature, the softness of its lines the almost infinite variety and lack of gaps- all this follows directly from the fact that nature is whole.  
  Mountains, rivers, forests, animals, rocks, flowers all have this character. But they do not have it simply by accident. They have it because they are whole and because all their parts of whole and unique. Any system that is whole must have this character.  
  Some buildings are built out of materials to last forever Others are built out of materials that naturally fade and break down.  
  Some buildings are built with perfection on angles and jons. There is a strong need to be accurate. But the highest is imperfect-perfection- not all columns are exactly the same- the uniqueness of the parts create the perfection of the whole.  
  The different parts are unique because the patterns are the same.  
  The madness of building control  
  Since the natural processes of building towns no longer work, in panic, people look for ways of “controlling” the design of towns and buildings.  
  1.They try to control larger pieces of the environment (this is called urban design)  
  2.They try to control more pieces of the environment (this is called mass- production or systems- building)  
  3.They try to control the environment more firmly by passing laws (this is called planning control)  
  Experts try to make towns and buildings which are adopted to people’s needs, but they are always trivial. They can only deal with general forces which are common to all people and never with the particular forces that make one particular person unique and human.  
  Even when experts make buildings which are “adaptable” to solve this problem, the result is still trivial, because the unique particulars are still subservient to the common generalities. Huge machine- like buildings which allow people to move the walls around so that they can express themselves, still make them subject to the “system”.  
  The central task of architecture should not be design and central planning but the creation of a single, shared, evolving pattern language which everyone contributes to and everyone can use.  
     
 
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