From the Big Mac and Ikea society to the environmental aesthetics, smart cities and storytelling architecture

Open Access

Abstract

Our global society is encountering different challenges of the twenty first century. Our cities are in the process of constant transformation influenced by urbanisation, globalisation, advanced technologies, environmental and ecological changes, social, political and economic crises. While corporative capitalism has flourished, world population is growing and our cities are sprawling, architecture is reaching almost utopian visions and the boundaries of aesthetics are becoming more and more loose and permeable. Today are contemporary society lives and acts aesthetically. From art, architecture, music, religion, politics, communications, technological gadgets, homes, gardens, clothes, cuisine to sport and life couching, everything is a subject to aesthetical consideration. Aesthetical consideration of architecture and urbanism in a constantly changing world demands critical and interactive approaches, that will not only deal with theoretical aesthetic opinions, but also the practical ones. Accordingly, this paper seeks to discuss aesthetical problems of contemporary architecture and urban planning from global, environmental, technological and social points of view. Nature is no longer seen as a paradigmatic object of aesthetic experience, but as our unique collective environment upon which we humans depend. Therefore architecture emerges etic and aesthetic approaches in order to reconsider burden of our cities and possible ways of their future development.