It may be a terrible message for our profession. Unknowingly to most people, facades have always defined our environment. And facades mainly have been defined by other factors than architecture. Architects however maintain the opposite. They believe they are creating the facades. The contrary however is all around us.

Some years ago a colleague asked after a lecture about cepezed architecture whether it would be possible to imagine a city made of steel and glass. It was answered by returning the question: "Could mediaeval man imagine a city of brick?" Time and other factors define the answer, not the material. To understand the future of the envelope it is essential to understand its past. Where it came from, where it stands. Facades are, in principle, very simple means of creating shelter. Identical to roofs, but the roof has miraculously resisted all specialists and retained its simplicity. And facades have gone wild and unintelligibly complicated. Why?