Architecture and politics have a long and sordid relationship. It has been said that all architecture is political. Typically architecture serves a subservient role in this relationship by merely representing the politics of the building’s patron—what Deyan Sudjic has described as the Edifice Complex. Nevertheless, at times throughout history architects themselves take on a political agenda and use their projects as rhetorical devices for the elucidation of these views.
by o d b
Rarely, though, do architects take it upon themselves to become actively involved in politics (Maurice Cox is one notable exception). It seems, however, that we are experiencing a sea change and you can now witness a growing interest in political advocacy amongst architects. The question still remains as to how we should get involved. The AIA suggests a ‘grassroots strategy’ that involves fundraising, contacting legislators, and ‘staying informed.’ This is all well and good but I believe we can do better. As architects, urban designers, and landscape architects we are trained to design a better world, offer suggestions and produce visions for how tomorrow can be better than today. On top of that our professions have developed exceptional skills and techniques for communicating these visions to a broader public. From Boullée to Superstudio to Lebbeus Woods, one common thread has connected all great political architecture – powerful images that evoke the political ideals of the designer; too often though these images remain within the confines of our discipline. I would argue that considering the current push for political advocacy we need to develop strategies to make our images more public. Taking into account the current political and financial milieu there is no greater time than now for designers to unite behind a collective set of issues, create more provocative images, and present them to the public for inspection and debate.
There already exist some precedents for this. Current media darlings MAD and BIG, the Shirley Temples of today’s design community, seem to have developed highly effective formulas for media engagement. Under the leadership of Ma Yansong (MAD) and Bjarke Ingels (BIG) both firms have demonstrated skills at making use of architectural media and the media at large; successfully igniting public discussion on important issues and even picking up a commission or two along the way. Through unsolicited design proposals MAD and BIG are able to put forth their personal agenda—for Ma it is the concept of a ‘high-density nature’ and achieving greater harmony between nature and urbanity, and for Bjarke Ingels it is the concept of an ‘ecolomical’ approach to design (economy + ecology). Additionally, through a grassroots approach, BIG have voluntarily proposed alterations to their native Copenhagen that have since gotten the attention of some important city officials and are discussing possible implementation. What is the key to their success? In my opinion it is an ability to create salient images that galvanize a fragmented collection of publics behind compelling visions.
I recently had a chance to meet with Ma Yansong from MAD when this topic unintentionally came up (which actually triggered the idea for this diatribe). I have to say I was struck by a project I had not previously given much thought to: MAD’s vision for Beijing in the year (2050). Their vision features three proposals: a giant cloud-like building which would hover over the CBD, the modernization of Beijing’s hutongs through blobby infrastructural interventions, and the forestation of Tiananmen Square, what we would now call ‘re-wilding’.
From a traditional architectural viewpoint the first two proposals might look the most ‘radical’ because they push the boundaries of formal experimentation. But in the Chinese context it turns out that transforming Tiananmen Square into a lush green space is actually the most politically subversive proposal. Why? Because it questions China’s unprecedented growth at the expense of the environment, it undermines the state’s apparatus of control through unimpeded surveillance, and it challenges the most fundamental ideology of the state itself – communism – by atomizing the collective space of the ‘citizens’ plaza into smaller chunks better suited for individuals and small groups. Ma claims that “it was important for encouraging normal people to talk about all these possibilities. …I think many people see it, and somehow it changed their minds...” Discussion about the project did indeed occur—so much so that the project is now banned from state sponsored media and exhibitions. But eventually Ma & co. would be redeemed. Two years later a mayor from a southern Chinese city approached MAD to build a new city hall and did not balk when they proposed a similar strategy, that the city hall be embedded into a heavily forested ‘landscape’, the antithesis of the standard Chinese strategy of using architecture as a representation of state power.
Before it was adopted by Walt Disney, imagineering was a term invented during World War II by combining the words imagination and engineering. It was originally defined as “the fine art of deciding where we go from here.” To me this is a beautiful mandate for designers and I believe we should adopt it as our own. I recently modified this portmanteau and coined the phrase ‘imaginUrbanism.” At first I used it as a satirical take on the privatization of public infrastructure, but in the context of this essay I see it transformed into a charge for all of us to keep imagining brighter futures and to work together to take our collective agendas out of inner-disciplinary debates and put them in front of the public at large—and rescue the public image of architecture.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
11 Comments
nice.
nice and right on target timing wise. 2 other paths of architecture & politics: jaime lerner [literally involved] and eyal weizman.
Ed Mazria seems to have gotten Obama's attention. the [url=http://www.architecture2030.org/2030 challenge[/url] seems to have become a cornerstone of the transition's energy policy. You can't get more political then that.
we've got a few in seattle...
william polk
peter steinbrueck
and a lot of architects serve on city boards
others:
Jeff Kagermeier, Mankato, MN
Fernando Belaunde Terry, peru
Dick Swett
Ted Mack, australia
Harvey Gantt
I think many architects are attempting to influence political structures more or less invisibly: I'm talking about the many, many practitioners who do things like volunteer time to neighborhood design charettes and visioning sessions for improving local urban design.
The challenge then is to figure out how to get the results of this volunteerism in front of the right eyes - the eyes of people with influence.
aristotle says that man is a living animal with the additional capacity for political existence, and foucault retorts that modern man is an animal whose politics calls his existence as a living being into question. i would not dare to claim that i understand what these sentences mean philosophically, but it seems to me that architectural discourses have been influenced by these ideas through our investigations of form. i guess what we call representation can be termed in-formal in a sense that what is represented in a built form is a product of disparity, of being realist, in other words is impure while secretly in our crazy mind, we dream about a form which is pure and abstract because form in its purest state is irreducible and inhumanistic. in any case, i am very fond of those projects which successfully incorporated feedbacks from the community i.e. niigata performing arts center, but i am skeptical about grassroots approach with architecture. in-formally, i think our urban environments can be better if fundamental architectural/urban considerations i.e. what happens in the street level could be debated with whoever is in power in spite of economic reasons. corbu used a ramp in the carpenter center as a means to connect. while i was in school, there was a field trip to see the project, and at the time, it was nothing amazing. however, i understand why that is a good architecture.
In recognition of the fact that architectural is political, Architects for Peace (www.architectsforpeace.org) was born as an organisation (Jan, 2003). It started before the bombing of Iraq, when most of the architectural professional organisations and institutions remained silent at the prospect of the destruction of cities, civilization, heritage, architecture, ecology... and more importantly people's lives. The work continues because we believe that any decision affecting our cities--from urban sprawl, to public transport and housing policy, is political.
odb,
I tend to think that the lack of architect's public image might have something to do with the Anglophone educational tradition (specialisation, separation, focus on architecture as art, lack of involvement in social/civic discussion and policy). The reason I would argue this point is because if we look at the role of the architect in places like Spain, Germany, or in America (non Anglo), the role of the architect is much more connected with society. Architects are also responsible for the city (most have been educated as urbanists). It is not unusual to see the architect involved in public advocacy, designing the street (including street furniture ad paving) as well as buildings. Also, in these countries all buildings have to be designed (or signed off) by architects. From the top of my mind about 90% are--which does not ensure quality of course, but involvement. These figures are much lower in the US (I think about 15%) and Australia, even lower (8-12%?).
I meant to say that Spain, Germany and America (majority non Anglo) have an European architectural education tradition..
Further to the discussion of a European architectural tradition, it is the use of protest architecture (by land rights activists in Australia for example) to challenge this view of architecture and establishment (imperialism?) which poignantly helps to redefine architecture as agency rather than as edification and fortification.
see http://www.spacehijackers.co.uk/html/ideas/writing/tentembassy.html - also http://blackdogonline.com/architecture/informal-architectures.html
Ideally the polis should be defined by its construction by its users-owners-citizens. It seems from my brief recent experience in the Latin American system that the involvement of architects / urbanists in public space advocacy might ultimately be better promoted through the effectiveness of their agency in engaging communities, rather than through protective bureaucracies or what Chileans call 'syndicates'.
http://gregorycowan.blogspot.com/
Hum..., I am not sure that is due to one single aspect, whether syndicates (unions), 'protest architecture' or other. It may be the mix of all of them immerse in a cultural attitude. The notion of protest architecture tends to remain an outsider. It stands out, and because of this it is not fully absorbed by architects. While I am part of it, I doubt its individual capacity for generating real change. In a way I think it highlight the cultural split I mentioned before and in this way I think that it is more important in an Anglophone context where the split between politics/society and architecture is noticeable. This is why I lean towards education, but again, it needs a receptive context of many other actions for it to work. While a lot of architectural works in Chile is also detached and elitist, much is still engaged with society (by the way architects work also in government agencies, municipalities etc). The notion of social responsibility is built-in and inseparable from the aims of the university studies (available on the internet).
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