more on iceberg architecture

Despite the frequent use of "natural" forms in architecture, buildings from every era express the designer's efforts to suppress nature, elevate human ideals and signal social functions that deliberately subvert ecology. Terms like "organic architecture" are particularly misleading, and can be dangerously distracting.

I fell into this trap when I commented favorably on how an iceberg could look like some contemporary buildings. An architect who used an iceberg as inspiration, or sought to create a structure that visually resembled an iceberg would end up creating something that looked noticeably different and probably stupid. Natural objects rarely conform to human needs and the recent trends in architecture towards more complex building geometry reflects a media bias rather than a statistically significant phenomenon.