Carbon Confessions
The architectural profession has recently discovered a new genre: the public apology. Not an apology in the sense of actually changing behavior, of course. That would be excessive. Rather, the more sophisticated version: exhibitions, panel discussions, manifestos, and reflective statements about the profession’s carbon footprint. One such exhibition currently on display in Rotterdam is titled Carbon Confessions. The name is unintentionally brilliant. Architecture, it seems, has entered the confessional booth.
“Forgive us,” the profession whispers softly, “for we have emitted.”
Visitors are invited to contemplate the environmental sins of architecture while surrounded by beautifully designed exhibition panels explaining how complicated the problem is. And then everyone returns to the office to design the next landmark.
The Landmark for Not Building Landmarks
Around the same time, Rotterdam is hosting an international competition for a €240-million project called the Shift Landmark, promoted as a future “world wonder” dedicated to climate awareness.
More on the competition can be found here. Results can be seen here.
The concept is elegant in its simplicity. Architecture contributes massively to global carbon emissions. Therefore the obvious response is to build an enormous new building explaining that architecture contributes massively to global carbon emissions.
Visitors will circulate through immersive spaces where they can learn about sustainability while standing inside several thousand tonnes of steel and concrete. The building will inspire behavioral change. Perhaps someone will even look out of a panoramic viewing deck and think, briefly, that maybe humanity should build less. Then they will exit through the gift shop.
The Green Icon
What we are witnessing here is the maturation of a new architectural typology: the green icon. In earlier decades, architects produced spectacular buildings to celebrate technological progress or artistic expression. Today they produce spectacular buildings to celebrate sustainability.
The visual language is already familiar. Towers sprouting vegetation. Cultural institutions wrapped in ecological narratives. Buildings that claim to be carbon neutral, carbon negative, carbon positive, or occasionally just carbon “aware.”
The renderings are magnificent. Lush vegetation cascades down terraces. Happy citizens wander through landscapes suspended in mid-air. The city below glows with the promise of a sustainable future.
Meanwhile the structure holding up this botanical paradise is, inevitably, a heroic amount of reinforced concrete disguised by something green, woody or muddy. But the plants look great in the renderings.
Sustainability as Marketing
The real genius of the green icon lies in its rhetorical power.
Cities today compete globally for attention. Political leaders want legacy projects. Developers want buildings that attract investment. Architects want images that circulate through magazines and lectures. What better justification for monumental construction than saving the planet?
A museum about climate change sounds responsible. A landmark dedicated to sustainability sounds visionary. A tower covered in trees sounds practically altruistic. The building is no longer just a building. It is a conversation starter, an awareness cataly st, an educational journey.
The fact that it requires enormous material resources to construct is, conveniently, part of the conversation.
The Comfort of Talking About It
The architectural profession is now extremely good at talking about climate change.There are conferences about climate change. Books about climate change. Exhibitions about climate change. Entire architectural biennales about climate change. And, increasingly, buildings about climate change.
What is less visible is any serious enthusiasm for the obvious implication of all this discussion: building dramatically less.
That idea has a tendency to make competitions awkward. Imagine announcing an international design competition titled The Great Urban Retrofit: Please Reuse What Already Exists. Imagine inviting architects to submit proposals that involve demolishing nothing, constructing almost nothing, and simply repairing the city as it stands. The renderings would be catastrophic.
The Profession’s Favorite Fantasy
Underlying the entire spectacle is a comforting belief: that the climate crisis persists because humanity lacks inspiration.
If people could only experience the right building—walk through the right immersive exhibition, climb the right spiraling ramp, admire the right carbon-neutral facade—they might suddenly understand the urgency of environmental responsibility. This is, naturally, a very attractive theory for architects.
It places architecture at the center of the solution. The world is not overheating because of fossil fuel systems, industrial production, or global consumption patterns. It is overheating because people have not yet visited the right museum. Preferably one with a spectacular viewing platform.
Confession as Strategy
Which brings us back to Carbon Confessions. The title perfectly captures the current strategy of the profession. Architecture has discovered that the most elegant response to criticism is not denial but confession. Yes, construction produces enormous emissions. Yes, the profession bears responsibility. Yes, we must rethink how we build.
Thank you for attending the exhibition.Now please enjoy this rendering of our new climate-awareness landmark.
Confession, it turns out, is much easier than restraint. It allows the profession to acknowledge its contradictions while continuing exactly as before. The sins are admitted, the panels are printed, the lectures are delivered. And somewhere in the background another competition brief is being written for the next spectacular building that will finally explain, once and for all, why humanity must learn to live with less.
Preferably in a building that costs a few hundred million euros.
My own Confession
As evert architect, I am struggling with this problem as well. As architects we should stop pretending that architecture is a good thing for the planet and it’s fauna and flora – with the exception of our own species. Building is – by sheer definition – the destruction of nature. Covering natural ground and using materials made from natural resources ultimately destroys nature. We are guilty and no carbon confession (cheap) or carbon offset scheme (more expensive and still doubtful) can change that. As a consequence each architect should make a decision: either abandon the profession all together or accept the responsibility this comes with and avoid being involved buildings that pretend to solve the very problem they are creating.
I personally try to avoid crafting these narratives that pretend architecture is a solution to any climate change problem. It always is the problem and as architects we have some influence on the severity of the problem.
How long can and will a building (and it’s parts) be usable? What can it be used for? Do we need a new one in the first place or can we repurpose one we already have? Can we think about re-use in more radical ways? Can we use materials that are less carbon intensive? We must work towards regulatory frameworks that enforce these things and to keep our impact to a minimum – seriously and not as lip service.
I am aware that all of this is not a forgiveness of sins, but at least a more responsible framework to keep that weapon of mass destruction we command in check.
P.S.: the last paragraphs have been added for greater clarity.
