Future Archeologies

Build to Fall...

Our contribution to the undigested mass of the earth, our not-yet ruins pedagogical to some future archeology student (as suggested in the cartoon above, most likely named Clavius) may be the ubiquitous curtain wall. As the stone column was once simultaneously ubiquitous and endlessly varied, the aluminum and glass storefronts stand as a fixture of our age and as a fixture yet to be rediscovered. Perhaps they will be classified by universities- not ‘Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian’, but ‘Discount Fashion, Casual Dining, Highway Truckstop’.

There will be exhibits at the Smithsonian titled “When Extruded Aluminum Ruled the Earth” and children will gaze in wonderment as the poor modulus of elasticity of the non-ferrous beasts is demonstrated by an elderly volunteer, complete with a themed café and gift shop.

Whole colleges with specified areas of study will pop up and doctorate students will devote years of their lives writing esoteric discourses with titles like “A Didactic Inquiry into the Tertiary Symbolism in Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits’ Vestibule Systems” and “Serenity Through Thin Brick: A Buddhists’ Analysis of Non- Glazing Infill Solutions.”

Perhaps, in the vein of the early paleontologists or like the Brontosaurus, the curtain walls will be incorrectly reconstructed and impossible stereotomic monsters will be rebuilt in workshops: Homages to a kind of past, as misrepresentational as they are beautiful.

The symbolic capacity of the inane will be explosive with time.