SECOND LIFE: A VIRTUAL WORLD OF McMANSIONS

Architects' Journal, The, July, 2007 by Lyall, Sutherland

Virtual Internet world Second Life was billed as a major feature of the recent Architecture Week. I remained loftily uninterested, partly from laziness and fear of having to listen to a lot of self-indulgent rant, and partly from serious early disillusionment.

Getting involved in Second Life requires a total suspension of belief in all you ever believed about design, because, aiming for a global audience, Second Life has gone for a very low quality of detail. It's crude, clunky, early Lara Croft. As it's orthogonal, it's fine for pure Miesians, crap for curvy Zahaists.

Take a peep at the movie 'Mies on Architecture Island' at http://tinyurl. com/2cnlq8). Second Life architecture exactly.