The finest piece of writing I read in all of 2008 was, without a doubt, Zaha Hadid Architects’ parametricism manifesto, released during the Venice Architecture Biennial in September:

That the parametric paradigm is becoming pervasive in contemporary architecture and design is evident. There has been talk about versioning, iteration and mass customisation for quite a while within the architectural avant-garde discourse, formulated at the beginning of the 1990s with the slogan of ‘continuous differentiation.’ Since then, there has been both a widespread, even hegemonic, dissemination of this tendency, as well as a cumulative build-up of virtuosity, resolution and refinement within it.

I think that basically says it all. But what, I’m not sure. What I do know is that this would make for some super snazzy fiction. So, I’ve taken a crack at the beginning of a novel:

Chapter One.

She iterated on the couch, optomizing her version of reality. Outdoors his car idled, a cumulative dissemination of all that was gravitating towards its natural culmination. She looked up. A question versioned. But there was no differentiating these events. Even a hegemonic dissemination of this tendency could neither resolve nor refine their inevitable swagger towards catastrophe.

Feel free to submit Chapter Two below. There’s no better way to start the year than by taking a dump on architectural pretension.

The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd.

P. 67: “Bliss is putting a lit match to every fart of Art Dogma this gassy century has seen fit to squeak out.”

Posted by C-Monster.