I think I would name the underlying impulse longing if I had to - part of the attraction of the mythic - whether it takes the form of a ‘Utopia’ or an ‘Arcadia’.

I think this insight is very rich. For the reason that it gives the possibility of exploring experience and vision more fully. [Is it based on something one has experienced or seen or something one would like to experience or see?]

And surprisingly, as with most ideas about beauty (and I suspect in this instance beauty has both a material and spiritual dimension), there is always room for disagreement…as much as there is often an incredible amount of consensus!

Saying that, I wonder whether dreams are more about experience than vision?

Nothing can prepare you for it. Photographs do not adequately capture the experience. I don’t know if you have ever walked into crystal clear water teaming with fish, turtles and platypus, swum in lagoon like waters and sat under a waterfall in a tropical environment?

I also don’t know how to describe the feeling of leaving the office in London when the tubes were just about to start running in the morning, and the streets of London as they rarely are, are desereted. And there is an ‘urban’ freshness to the morning and the sense of anticipation of a great city just about to wake up.

Nor the mad joy, of having to jump onto the pavement while you are enjoying your drink at the local hotel in Soho because the pavements are too narrow to contain all the patrons, so they spill out onto the street regardless of traffic.
http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Practical_Information:/Soho/ec0a/

You are right the future is impossible to predict. However, the past always has moments and places of magic, so I suppose the future will be have too!

I guess I am an optimist because I believe it is possible to share a vision of the future…sometimes it just takes time to appreciate what that vision is…and requires a commitment to work together towards shaping and achieving it.

and people often dont share or appreciate someone elses vision of the future, or even want it. and why should they?

“Joseph Paxton (1801-1865)was a landscape gardener by training, acquiring through experience his skill at building with glass and iron for greenhouses. He revolutionised architecture with the unsolicited design he submitted for a building in Hyde Park, London, to house the first modern world’s fair in 1851.”p441.

The socio-cultural context in which the competition for a greenhouse arose was this (Moffat, Fazio & Wodehouse 2003);

“Iron was most elegantly employed in landscape gardening. Victorian England, prosperous from the wealth of its empire, had a fascination with tropical plants that were brought back from India, Africa, and the Far East. Keeping these specimens alive in the cool, overcast climate of Britain required structures that could reproduce the humid heat of their native countries, so builders and gardeners set about erecting greenhouses large enough to contain palm or banana trees. Unfettered by ancient precedent, the builders turned to lightweight iron framing systems with glass infill panels.”

Similarly, Tadao Ando, is ‘huge’ in architecture. Landscape? Again I quote from the domaindesign website (http://www.domaindesign.com.au/proNews/pronews/30.html);

“With no formal architectural schooling Tadao Ando developed his design sense and style through studying and visiting significant architectural strutures in Japan, United States, Europe and Asia. After flirting with careers as a professional boxer and training as a carpenter, Ando established his own architectural firm Tadao Ando and Associates Architects in Osaka in 1969.”

Ando’s aesthetic is described as;

“..seeking to combine a building with its surrounding environment using natural light, wood and concrete as staple materials…the use of light and space to create a spiritual feeling and connection with nature has also become Ando’s architectural signature.”

Clearly both Paxton and Ando are talented designers. How is it possible to identify ‘talent’ outside the otherwise necessary ‘constraints’ of professionals structures?

Why do I say necessary constraints?

I don’t really know how constraining the architectural profession is in terms of education (I am incredibly grateful for mine), licencing (ditto at best it gives you a professional practice framework, a set of colleaguial relationships and enables public confidence in a minimal degree of knowledge, expertise and professional responsibility) and cartel arrangements (the returns for effort and expense of practice are not so great for the majority of architects.) Booms and busts are a constant feature of practice life.

Service competition has proved to have had a negative effect on the quality and public interest focus of work produced by architects and the self-confidence of the profession. The best simile I can think of here in terms of outcome and consequence is between cosmetic and plastic surgeons.