In The End: Architecture

After having founded and directed the Architekturzentrum Wien for over 20 years, Dietmar Steiner steps down with an exhibition, a conference and a publication covering the most important stages in the career of this internationally acclaimed architect, researcher, critic, publicist and curator, who for 60 years has been a key player in the field.

- Yehuda E. Safran

It goes without saying that architecture and language are basically incomparable, with the consequence that analogies between the two realms cannot be easily drawn. Yet, there is no architecture without a dependence on language of some sort, the age-old conversation between generations and the architects of each generation. As Sir John Summerson said of Christopher Wren: “his English was Latinized”, and this explained his capacity to digest European classicism and the latest innovations of the Baroque, such as those of Bernini, as did no other architect of his generation. One may extrapolate a little and observe that the gathering in Vienna that occurred early this year gave the international community of architects and critics an occasion to indulge in exactly such exchanges.