2010 continues a movement only the 21st Century could usher in: the harmonious merging of Art and Architecture, not by gesture or tradition, but through design integration. Modern Architecture, as itself a sculptural art form defining spaces, responding to culture, economies, environments and politics, can envelope the pedestrian experience in structurally artistic ways. Technologies everywhere await their utilization in architecture as fine art building components. Where we focused on program in artful ways, we now have a voice in integrating fine art as programmatic response.

New Media is a wide scope of experimental art forms, and has existed for many years in studios, galleries and performances. The line drawn between New Media art and Architecture is fading. Electronic visual art captured in building components such as glass, metals, lighting, textiles, etc., gives us an opportunity to explore true 21st Century decorative arts, but as the physical building blocks of our three-dimentional responses to "need." Where we for so long have designed buildings without art, where our works became, if I may use Le Corbusier's phrase, "machines for living", and art was the response by end users to humanize, personalize and tactify such spaces, we have given away perhaps one of the most important elements of architecture.

Public projects, private projects, both types offer the architect challenges and opportunities for invention and genius. Designing with artful building blocks as a building's DNA infuses "life" into our glorious but otherwise empty spaces. Seek out those programmatic opportunities and define not by purist or elitist means, but by harmonious celebration and embracing of humanities fundamental need for art, as humanity has informed us since Lascaux.

Tags: architecture, art, wall coverings, design