Sun (And) Architecture. Editorial ERA21 #02/2024

Ladislav Jackson

In 1991, when architectural historian Vincent J. Scully, once declared the greatest teacher of architecture of all time by Philip Johnson, was retiring after teaching his course on contextualizing architecture at Yale for fifty three years, the newspapers reported on his skeptical views of the newest trends in mass construction. In class, Scully passionately criticized a new solar-paneled development in a Paris suburb, calling the client arrogant for giving up everything that makes architecture, architecture. Of course he wasn’t denouncing solar energy use, but rather the thoughtless act of sticking ungainly collectors onto every inch of the roof and walls of a building, and “destroying its presence in its environment”.

This nearly thirty-five year old anecdote teaches us that we have to act responsibly and thoughtfully in order to succeed in harnessing solar power, or counteracting the impacts of climate change; we cannot rely on individualism and we have to seek coherent and collective solutions. In this issue of ERA21, dedicated to the Sun, the various impacts of the Sun’s radiation and architectural response to those impacts, the question we ask is not “Should we use solar power?” but instead, “What are smart and effective ways of using solar power?” The authors featured in this issue and the editors of ERA21 selected different texts to help us learn about solutions, ideas and studies from recent history or from other places on the planet, which could serve as inspiration for using, or even taming, the mighty power of the Sun.