Global Minimalism
Posted on September 9th, 2008 by Toms Price Home.
With the Olympics over, China must be hugely relieved. For two weeks the country lived under a microscope, with every performance and venue scrutinized by an outside world whose respect and grudging approval was not easy to win. A window was opened into an ancient and exotic culture so different from our own. Or was it?
Visually, it would be hard to tell. Not one of the facilities built for the games betrayed any reference to China’s rich cultural past. Neither did Beijing itself, with its seemingly feverish push to overlay the ancient city with as many steel and glass skyscrapers as possible.
Perhaps this has become the new international standard of success, a common vernacular of high-tech minimalism that everyone understands. Perhaps it is the outward evidence of bridges being built between cultures and economies across the globe. If so, it could spell the disappearance of the indigenous and the unique. What a shame.
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