For some time now, titanium has been the material to convey technological edginess. In the hierarchy of credit cards, it apparently trumps silver, gold and even platinum. The metal is used to make fashion statements in products as varied as the original Apple PowerBook, fancy (but dull) knives, high-end watches or cameras like the $20,000 fiftieth anniversary commemorative Leica M7. As an eminently biocompatible material, titanium is also used in implants. I am not entirely immune to the lure of the material, as I recently purchased the iconic titanium spork for travel use.

Titanium has also become the material of choice for extravagant architectural projects, Frank Gehry’s abuse of the stuff in projects like the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao being only the most egregious example. Reportedly Gehry himself tires of the metal, but the tasteless committees that drive much of public architecture worldwide clamor for it, so he is trapped in the style just as surely as less famous architects are trapped in various forms of academism.

That said, there may be a backlash against titanium, and copper may be taking over as the new metal of choice in projects like the new De Young museum in San Francisco. I have also seen it used as a decorative element in a number of new residential buildings in my neighborhood in San Francisco (the picture to the left is from a building on California and Polk). Copper is of course the most beautiful of metals, with a rich hue reminiscent of sunset, and it gets even better with age as it gains its characteristic light green patina.

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