If you want to comment on globalization and its impact on design, go to the Philip Johnson Glass House web site, August 2-6. As a moderator in the organization's Glass House Conversations, I will pose a question on the international nature of much new architecture, then select a "final word" at the end of the week to encapsulate what has been said. The program's goal is to continue the kind of spirited discussions that Johnson often hosted at his New Canaan, Connecticut, house and expand their reach for the 21st century.
I'm posing the following question:
Herzog & de Meuron in Beijing. Jean Nouvel in Minneapolis. Zaha Hadid in Guangzhou. Is the globalization of design creating a fertile dialogue or erasing local identities?
Feel free to provide your insightful/witty/snide/outraged comments at: http://glasshouseconversations.org/
My question goes up on Monday, August 2. Previous ones have been posted by John Maeda (president of the Rhode Island School of Design), Michael Bierut (partner at Pentagram), Ellen Lupton (curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt museum), Alice Rawsthorn (design critic for the International Herald Tribune), and Alice Twemlow (chair of the design criticism program at the School of the Visual Arts).