Technological advancement has been intertwined in the social and cultural fabrics throughout our history. Taylor’s analysis shows us how grids hold on society in various levels has always triggered a reaction for networks to immerge. While the sole purposes of grids are to sanction, the merging properties of networks pull us ever closer to complexity or as Taylor says ‘the edge of chaos’. In order for a society to evolve simultaneously with technology, the society has to adapt its cultural standards and shift away from the norm of the past.
On a more architectural level, the grid represents modernism and the works of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe while the complex network represents Venturi’s theories in architecture and Frank Ghery’s designs. The straight line, pure geometric forms, and grid mapped utopian cities of Le Corbusier is exactly what stops architecture, and on a more significant level, society and its culture from evolving and adjusting with technology. Mies’s grip on traditional modernistic architecture and his constant need to create order out of complexity also hinders society’s advancement. Ghery through his designs on the other hand proves how he has managed to create complexity.
As Andrea Branzi said, cities are starting to become portals for service and loosing there involvement in cultural and social levels. Complexity is precisely what merges the ever growing, ever seeking society into architecture. Instead of trying to control evolution, we should always benefit from it to create a complex form of living bordering between the extremes of order and chaos.
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