Customize: IN-EX 02 Review of Peripheral Architecture

There is an alternative to the monotony of serial production - a subversive, reactionary movement named customisation! Everywhere we see evidence of standardisation, the serial production of goods and services, uniformity across the globe, and people are beginning to react against this trend. The wish to alter, modify, improve, and distort the standard model is becoming increasingly apparent, and it applies as much to products, building components or plans for town development, as to cultural commonplaces and rituals. This publication provides fascinating reports on some of the rebellious strategies which have been discovered in towns such as Paris, Wuppertal, Seoul and London. Interviews with architects in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, France and the USA reveal a subversive attitude which is no longer prepared to accept uniform standards and globalisation to the detriment of individuality and idiosyncracy.