I got an email request the other day. The sender had asked ChatGPT “What are the best articles about architecture written since 1990?” and the third recommendation, after two essays by Koolhaas, was “The End of Architecture?” by Witold Rybczynski. According to the bot, “In this provocative article published in 1996, Rybczynski reflects on the state of architecture at the end of the 20th century and questions whether the discipline has reached its limits or if new directions are emerging.” Stirring stuff. Could I send a link to the article, my correspondent asked? He had been unable to find it online, he explained.
No wonder he had trouble finding it—this article doesn’t exist. I never wrote “The End of Architecture?” but perhaps I should have. When I look at the new buildings going up in my neighborhood, the results don’t really qualify as Architecture. In a chapter titled “The Fundamental Principles of Architecture,” Vitruvius wrote: “Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy [beauty], Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy.” I search in vain for these qualities. By economy, Vitruvius did not mean cheapness—there’s plenty of that—but rather suitability, that is, how a building is appropriate to its station in life. I look in vain for a sense of private decorum in a row of chic houses, or a sense of public sobriety in a whimsical legal office building. Was ChatGPT just “halucinating,” or was it sending a message?
