The resistant virtues of the structure that we make depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable and not because of an awkward accumulation of materials. There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this; resistance through form.
Dieste's unique and innovative method of design, a melding of architecture and engineering, elevated these often humble buildings to masterworks of art.
There are deep moral/practical reasons for our search which give form to our work: with the form we create we can adjust to the laws of matter with all reverence, forming a dialogue with reality and its mysteries in essential communion... For architecture to be truly constructed, the materials must be used with profound respect for their essence and possibilities; only thus can 'cosmic economy' be achieved... in agreement with the profound order of the world; only then can have that authority that so astounds us in the great works of the past.
That our diplomat’s first impulse is to resort to a self-defeating meme speaks to a broader problem—the sort of cultural problem instinctual reactions to crisis make most clear. This is a problem of an entire generation—my generation. We are a people that retweets when we could be reading. The minds of best and our brightest have been poisoned by ratios, “god tweets,” and memes. We came of age on Twitter, Tumblr, and 4chan, and still see the world through their frames. We find it harder and harder to distinguish the actual from the image; we struggle to disentangle perception management from problem management. This is what it looks like when the terminally online ascend to positions of real responsibility. Welcome to the age of shitpost diplomacy.