Was it when the conceptual deconstructivists of the 1980s became the starchitects of the 2000s? Was it the moment their ex-assistants caught their 40th flight to propose yet another hyper-expensive hyper-building commissioned by a questionable regime? Was it when their collective army of unpaid interns clocked their thousandth hour of CAD-monkey slavery? Was it when they completed their tenth ill-conceived hyper-housing–complex that neither you nor I would ever be able to afford? Or was it when their supposedly eco-friendly, hyper-expensive, green façades dissolved to tumbleweeds rolling on the pavement? Maybe it was when they resorted back to their hyper-busy patriarchal powertop masc 4 masc personas to get that one more hyper-commission.

Or maybe architecture became irrelevant when it became clear that they (architecture shall remain genderless) cared about no one's problems but their own. They care about profit, they care about growth, they care about the power they can project and the hyper-money they can make.

Never mind.

As I am writing this in the summer of 2019, the Amazon rainforest is burning. Perhaps it will still be when this text is published, perhaps even when you finally read it. Or maybe the Amazon rainforest will have entirely burned down by then. [1] C’est la vie. Could architecture ever propose something useful in this “end of the world as we know it” scenario? Would the mostly US and Canadian corporations eager to hyper-invest in Brazil’s authoritarian regime and the newly burned ex-rainforest land be pleased? Aren’t those hyper-corporations potential hyper-architecture clients? Would they be happy to see their potential architects protesting their business? Aren’t those architects equally invested in growing their own hyper-business? Why would they be against the fact that XYZ corporation wants to grow their own, even at the cost of a rainforest or two? The fact is that architecture depends on the exact same economic model that is burning the rainforest. Architecture [believes that it] needs to keep producing instantly Instagrammable and hyper-sellable buildings in order to keep up with the growth and development that drives commissions. And burns the rainforest.

If only instead of their office, their staff, their clientele, and their profile, architecture would grow a rainforest.

Never mind.