Building Recognition; The star system spurred insatiable global demand for serious architecture. Only the next generation can satisfy it now.(Critical essay)(Cover story)

Byline: Cathleen Mcguigan

When the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened "On-Site: New Architecture in Spain" earlier this year, it showcased Spain as the hotbed of cool design. But besides the cutting-edge projects on display by the usual suspects--Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel--the exhibition carried a subtle subtext. Bang up against the schemes of the avant-garde old guard were dozens of provocative designs by up-and-coming Spaniards you've barely heard of.

Take the Woermann complex by Abalos & Herreros (with Casariego/Guerra) in the Canary Islands--an amazing tower with a cantilever at the bottom and a tilt at the top. Or Sancho-Madridejos's starkly beautiful Valleaceron Chapel, a 21st-century take on Le Corbusier's Ronchamp. Upstarts from elsewhere in Europe were on view as well--architects like the arty Berliner Jurgen Mayer H., whose plan to cover an ancient Roman site in Seville with a canopy of gigantic mushroom shapes looks like something Lewis Carroll dreamed up with Salvador Dali. Or Foreign Office Architects of London, whose stunning design for a theater on the Spanish coast--a stone monolith that swoops up from the pavement--seems to defy gravity. The fresh sense of surprise and energy from the next generation is clearly giving the ruling class of global architects a run for their money.

Not that the era of "starchitects" is exactly over. Gehry, 77, is as busy as ever--he just unveiled plans for a $750 million residential and commercial complex in Los Angeles--and is also branching into jewelry and other design objects. His contemporary the Brazilian modernist Paulo Mendes da Rocha just won the Pritzker prize. Nouvel has two major buildings--the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris--opening the same week in June. And architects like Norman Foster--who probably has the biggest "star" firm in the world--still bring unrivaled expertise to global projects (sidebar).

But there are hints of a backlash. The Wall Street Journal has reported market resistance to some of the high-priced designer apartment towers so beloved by U.S. developers in the last few years. And some trustees of cultural institutions are fretting over the complexities and costs of working with big-ticket--and big-ego--architects. "A real shift has occurred in the client base," says one design consultant. "People are saying, 'We don't want to build what everyone else has.' They like being first, being edgy. And the blue-chip architects are no longer edgy." The climate for serious architecture that these stars helped create is now fueling the desire for the next hot thing.

So a new generation of architects is moving into the spotlight--not that they necessarily want to be there. What distinguishes many of them from their elders is not only what their designs look like--they tend to avoid a signature style--but how they work. They frequently collaborate and often blur the lines between architecture and landscape, urban planning and art. They collaborate with ease across cultures, too. Just look at Malaysian-born, London-based Chris Lee, who has partnered with fellow architect Kapil Gupta of Mumbai to design an ultracool shopping mall in Qatar. Or check out MAD, the team of Chinese-born Yansong Ma and Japanese-born Yosuke Hayano, who are based in Ann Arbor, Michigan--but are working in Guangzhou and Mongolia and just won a big competition in Toronto.

"There's a shift away from the role of the heroic master creator," says Terence Riley, curator of MoMA's Spain show. Many younger architects emphasize the process of investigation and design, rather than committing to an idealized form--a strategy some attribute, ironically, to star Rem Koolhaas and his Rotterdam firm OMA. "This generation are perhaps more flexible and pragmatic," says Rosalie Genevro, director of the Architectural League in New York. "They're not worrying so much about the theory and meaning of it all. They have an attitude toward problem solving." For them, the computer is more a quotidian tool than an inspiration, and they naturally absorb environmental or social issues into their work.