"We prefer synthetic rather than natural materials. Natural products are almost too valuable. Wood is much harder to produce than metal. And metal is recyclable, while wood isn't"
About this Quote
A certain techno-optimist bluntness runs through Jahn's provocation: the “natural” isn’t inherently virtuous, it’s expensive, finite, and (in his framing) misallocated. By flipping the usual hierarchy, he exposes how “natural materials” function as moral branding in design culture, a shorthand for purity that can obscure basic questions of sourcing, labor, and lifecycle.
The line “Natural products are almost too valuable” isn’t reverence; it’s a warning. Wood takes decades, ecosystems, and land to grow. Metal takes mining and energy, but Jahn is arguing from an architect’s calculus of repeatability: industrial materials can be standardized, engineered, and re-enter supply chains at scale. Calling wood “harder to produce than metal” is deliberately counterintuitive, because it treats forests as production systems rather than scenery. That reframing is the subtext: modern building isn’t a craft romance, it’s a logistics problem with ethical consequences.
Context matters. Jahn came of age in late-modernist and high-tech traditions that prized performance, precision, and the expressive honesty of steel and glass. His career unfolded alongside rising environmental consciousness and, later, a “back to nature” wave in architecture. This quote reads like resistance to that aesthetic turn: not anti-ecology, but anti-sentimentality.
The most controversial barb is “metal is recyclable, while wood isn’t.” Technically, wood can be reused or downcycled; it can biodegrade. Jahn’s point is narrower: in real construction markets, contaminated, glued, composite timber rarely circulates cleanly, while metals have mature recycling infrastructure and clear value. He’s making a bet on systems, not symbolism.
The line “Natural products are almost too valuable” isn’t reverence; it’s a warning. Wood takes decades, ecosystems, and land to grow. Metal takes mining and energy, but Jahn is arguing from an architect’s calculus of repeatability: industrial materials can be standardized, engineered, and re-enter supply chains at scale. Calling wood “harder to produce than metal” is deliberately counterintuitive, because it treats forests as production systems rather than scenery. That reframing is the subtext: modern building isn’t a craft romance, it’s a logistics problem with ethical consequences.
Context matters. Jahn came of age in late-modernist and high-tech traditions that prized performance, precision, and the expressive honesty of steel and glass. His career unfolded alongside rising environmental consciousness and, later, a “back to nature” wave in architecture. This quote reads like resistance to that aesthetic turn: not anti-ecology, but anti-sentimentality.
The most controversial barb is “metal is recyclable, while wood isn’t.” Technically, wood can be reused or downcycled; it can biodegrade. Jahn’s point is narrower: in real construction markets, contaminated, glued, composite timber rarely circulates cleanly, while metals have mature recycling infrastructure and clear value. He’s making a bet on systems, not symbolism.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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