D MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1998 -- LETTERS
THE ARCHITECTURAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION
Your article, "The Architectural Counter-Revolution," takes a correct and morally courageous stand. I lived in Dallas in 1992-1993 and am glad that, finally, a step is being taken to resurrect the dying city. Modernism has destroyed both architecture and urbanism in Dallas, by reversing hierarchies of connectivity. In common with many other cities worldwide, organized structure and differentiation on the human scales have been removed. At the same time, connective paths in the human range have been eliminated. The end result displays an artificial, mechanical movement as services are forced to the over-concentrated downtown office nodes. This is not a matter of taste: my assertions have a mathematical basis. Human beings need both structures and paths on the human scale -- an obvious biological fact that has escaped modernists.
Further, as in an ecological system, if certain levels of life are missing, they are occupied by organisms moving in from nearby strata -- this has led to downtown being occupied after-hours by homeless persons and criminals. It is not their fault; there are just no socially healthier elements willing to occupy that hostile niche.
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS
University of Texas at San Antonio