New and Noteworthy Architecture

I’ve been an avid reader for years of James Howard Kunstler’s Monthly Eyesore tab on his website, now part of his Substack. Kunstler first came to my attention because of his 2005 book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (didn’t read it, but I understood it was principally about the moribund concept of peak oil and secondarily about the giant overextension of industrial civilization in the fossil fuel era). His 1994 book The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise And Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (also not read) established his authority with regard to architectural design and criticism, noting that the buildout of the suburbs (U.S. cities, and one supposes, those abroad) following white flight from city centers was the “greatest misallocation of funds” in the history of mankind. That contention might be arguable in light of money directed to creating our own replacements much as peak oil hasn’t manifested on schedule as expected.

CNN (online) ran a techno-narcisist-optimist feature timed for release on the first day of 2026 to run down a list of “projects set to shape the world.” That’s a charitable framing considering the crisis of affordability in housing shaping the world right now — something far more important to priced-out demographic segments than flamboyant architecture. The Olympic Village in Milan, Italy, created to house athletes, is intended to be transformed into student housing after the 2026 Winter Olympics is over, but I would not be surprised if that plan is quietly altered late in the game. None of the other projects is even remotely related to housing except for one ultrarich project in NYC. The rest are grand, eye-catching prestige projects (not including the Obama Presidential Bunker Library, which looks like an oversized pillbox). Which are necessary and which are essentially masturbatory is debatable.

In a former era, it was far easier to be innocently gobsmacked with admiration for super-scale architectural prowess (spires and towers, supertall buildings, stadia, etc.) even though ancient megalithic structures easily put modern construction to shame. Infrastructure projects (primarily transit hubs such as airports and train lines and stations) possess less glamor but greater functionality while serving regular people. Searching online for construction projects in Chicago reveals developments and renovations proceeding in fits and starts, largely due to troublesome financing. For instance, multiple sites are being proposed for new stadia for both the Chicago Bears and the Chicago White Sox even though their current homes are perfectly serviceable, not decrepit. Gotta keep up with other cities, I guess. Work has already begun to refurbish the disastrous Thompson Center and nearby State & Lake “L” Station, both of which have handsome artist’s rendering that probably oversell their appeal. Nice to see that housing is mixed into new Chicago projects, though those garnering the most attention are megaprojects such as 400 Lake Shore Drive (reusing the site of the failed Fordham/Chicago Spire project — nothing approaching affordable there). In fairness, undue attention does not accrue to small projects like single-family homes or condo buildings of four storeys or fewer. Planning for and building a livable future (at smaller scale) vs. living large amongst multibillion-dollar projects is a difficult balance to strike given the developer impulse to go big while that possibility persists for a while longer.

Declinism and Its Proponents

In my nearly nonexistent free time, I revisited some old browser bookmarks and found either no website at the URL or entities basically up to their old tricks. The impermanence of the World Wide Web poses a serious problem for librarians and archivists (even The Wayback Machine), but most chalk up dead links and abandoned websites (lots found in old posts from my backblog) as an artifact of the Web’s dynamism. Just wait for the moment when some sophisticated, misdirected AI starts pumping out bogus sites by the millions to rope in eyeballs and advertising revenue, thus creating an illicit revenue stream for anyone early to the front of the AI arms race. Considering a significant portion of Internet traffic is already computers exchanging info with other computers — no humans needed — I can well foresee one of those dystopian nightmares described in tech articles and science fiction. Who imagined the first story of technology running amok was imagined? Hawthorne?

History is replete with the rise and fall of societies/civilizations, but as I understand them, downfall is usually attributed to ecological factors limited to specific geographical regions rather than, say, imperial overreach or other administrative failures. Indeed, when I first began to investigate in earnest (now 20 years ago) climate change and various other interlocking problems that spell full-on doom for most (or all) species now alive on planet Earth, I had expected that the only way an extinction-level event could occur would be collapse of the biosphere due to either industrial activity (principally despoliation and human overconsumption) or some extraterrestrial event such as a meteor strike or Carrington event. Slowly, I have begun to recognize runaway technology and failure of human institutions as other pathways to self-destruction.

Hindsight analysis of falls, failures, and collapses is easier and more reliable than prognostication, the latter of which is often known as declinism. A long line of declinists (noted here) have prophesied the fall of some regime or civilization; the difference now is that the prospect is global. Some argue that declinism is equivalent to pessimism. I counter that history and architectural ruins prove handily that one need not be a pessimist to recognize in advance that trends point up and down cyclically and that 21st-century trends are pretty dismal.

Aside I: A modern ruin, the Michigan Central Station in Detroit, was at last refurbished — a significant PR coup for the Ford Motor Co. that will nonetheless be insufficient to stem its slide into the dustbin of history for have so badly misjudged and miscalculated (along with others) what consumers can bear to pay for a new vehicle. Chicago has its own collection of modern ruins, some recently refurbished, others standing abandoned for decades (see, for example, here and here and here). However, misguided funds and attention are still going toward this and this.

After a quick postwar (WWII) rise to superpower status and a giant economic expansion from the early 1940s to the middle 70s, it’s arguable that the U.S. is in the process of succumbing to the same effects of imperial overreach that account for the Fall of the Roman Empire 1.5 millennia ago or that of the British Empire somewhat more recently. Call it rank mismanagement, security paranoia, or simple lunacy on the part of U.S. leadership, the squandering of a unique opportunity for better, healthier relationships with others and with nature is a comitragic mistake repeated time and again. Doesn’t help that the U.S. Federal government has overspent its budget and cooked the books to hide its fiscal irresponsibility for decades, in the process racking up sovereign debt so enormous it already overwhelms current revenues and can never be repaid. Also doesn’t help that the U.S. government in its idiotic belligerence has been behind numerous regional wars and genocides (yes, plural both) and is indulging in brinksmanship with nuclear powers that have stated clearly U.S. and NATO aggression are regarded as existential threats that must be opposed. So yeah, one catastrophe or another could quickly put an end to all things, no second chances and recovery in geological time (if at all).

Aside II: Although I get periodic referrals from another doomer site, no one comes to The Spiral Staircase to read me getting my doom on (or for any other reason), which is just fine with me. I write this blog primarily to gather my own thoughts and secondarily to share them. I was probably never an optimist, even early in life, and although I veer toward pessimism, my appraisal of modern predicaments (the polycrisis as some call it) put me squarely in the declinist camp. I don’t offer predictions, timelines, or possible scenarios, but anyone who pays attention can draw their own conclusions and formulate expectations for what seems unavoidable.