Are flexible buildings recognizable? Flexible architecture symbolizes more than adaptability and it often possesses a form and aesthetic of its own.

Flexibility is the fever dream of architects. A fever is the result of a struggle. Whoever aims for flexibility is trying to get a grip on what is unpredictable. In that sense, it is an intensification of the project-like character specific to every design. This is what Alan Colquhoun wrote about it in 1977, in a text about the Centre Pompidou: ‘The philosophy behind the notion of flexibility is that the requirements of modern life are so complex and changeable that any attempt on the part of the designer to anticipate them results in a building which is unsuited to its function, and represents, as it were, a “false consciousness” of the society in which he operated.’