Competing Design Philosophies

Thinking back to when I was in graduate school at Columbia University in 1980-83, there were two competing ideological camps. There was the camp of heroic modernism... Architecture as political force and intellectual discipline. This camp was championed by the historian Kenneth Frampton. And across the divide was the eclectic, "historicism is okay" camp, championed and best exemplified by Robert A. M. Stern. As I recall, design critiques where both of these professors were present could get pretty heated. But the professor I respected most was Steven Holl- an Architect who has an unquestionable talent for creating beautiful buildings. And over the course of the years that has become the essence of Architectural practice for me. When the dialectic ends, when the debate is over- I believe Architecture is really about making beautiful places that work for the people who use them.