How many times must we view a collection of white foam primitives and be told that it is a critical project? How many times must the appearance of nothing stand in for the impenetrable arena of verbose jargon and elitist self-congratulatory behavior in regular discussion among groups of same? Architecture today, while prolific in its ability to produce, has little, if no, ability to produce criticism of its production. The token word of critical architecture has not stood up to the slightest of poking.
There is no real criticism in architecture today; it has vacated its own integrity for the sake of visual relevance.
Today's architectural participants lack the toughness to sustain any level of criticism, at least any level that would provide enough traction to produce a conversation that goes beyond skin-deep prodding. While architects profess themselves as provocative, a term that has found its mainstay in our dictionary of boastful phrases, these same architects immediately shake at the slightest sign of provocation from the outside. Has the community, as a whole, been blighted with such a high degree of Impostor Syndrome that we are fearful at even the slightest questioning of our relevance in today's arena? Can just the act of questioning truly be enough to bring down the whole house of cards of any single philosophy, movement or -ism? Are we so scared of our inability to substantiate any claim, that any level of questioning may deem all of our work inconsequential, illegitimate and reveal ourselves as frauds?
Has the community, as a whole, been blighted with such a high degree of Impostor Syndrome that we are fearful at even the slightest questioning of our relevance in today's arena?
Criticism, critical, criticality are all common terms in today's jargon-filled image fueled architectural arena, and just as the boy that cried wolf lost his credibility, so have these terms. All one needs now is the precedent of a White on White square or an Eisenman grid to appear, and any and all translations are implied to be well thought out, unquestionable, and if not understood, they are assumed 'beyond our comprehension'.
The test of any form of criticism and speculation is that it must itself be capable of surviving its own means of speculation, of being turned onto itself. At what point does the calling for constant autonomy, become absolutely autonomous from itself in a constant and endless repetition without recognition?
The destiny of previous forms of criticality in our discipline was to expand the discipline itself, to invite conversation, to invite a rebuttal, to invite a spark of angst, creation, questioning, and positioning. Today's criticality is more commonly used as a tool of escape, dodging, and avoidance of actual criticism. There was a time when the voice, banter, and perseverance of criticism was the grit, friction, and means of progress. Currently, at the slightest nudge, or questioning, any concept, theory, or idea is malleable enough only to survive one more minute of questioning without any repercussion.
The real question is: Does criticism today have a role in architecture at all? At least, does the version of criticism that exists today have a role? The role of criticism used to do just that, produce criticism. Instead, it has shifted into a premeditated, self-imposed clearing of a path that ultimately proves to be lackluster in its achievements. It continuously produces self-declared territories, which no one is challenging. There is no real criticism in architecture today; it has vacated its own integrity for the sake of visual relevance. The appearance of criticism has never been stronger, except in reality it only produces a tautological argument or faux friction.
The real question is: Does criticism today have a role in architecture at all? At least, does the version of criticism that exists today have a role? The role of criticism used to do just that, produce criticism.
In today’s discipline, criticality and substance are determined by a works ability to stand up to the three-second analysis of the social media swipe. When did a thought’s ability to acquire a heart or thumbs up become equal to its relevance in our discipline? If this is today's new means of production of knowledge, then how is that itself being analyzed and critiqued?
Today's architecture attempts to produce criticality through the visual appearance of having it. It tries to pummel our consciousness into not questioning, into not asking out of fear of 'not getting it' when, in fact, there is truly very little to get. Criticism is about producing platforms, about producing positions, friction, conversation and polemics, always aimed in the end at progressing the discipline at large. In today's arena, it seems to be serving the purpose of soapboxing more than progress. In some ways, we are in the postmodern equivalent of critical architecture. While there are things that may have the appearance of criticism, they have become skin deep and traditionally podium-ized, ultimately, existing as premeditated excuses for a stylistic or formal agenda that has little or nothing to do with the critical perspective.
The discipline's historically highly self-conscious existence and its questioning caused the discipline's awareness of its indeterminate identity in its constantly transformed world and framework. An understanding of these fluctuations and transformations is what caused the disciplinary framework of architecture to produce new modus operandi. These can only be created if traditions are questioned, destabilized, undermined or even destroyed.
To move forward in today's realm, we must be able to take a punch, take a hit, if not, throw a couple of punches. Our discipline deserves to be tested, to be toughened and to question itself. We are called to break and assemble and re-break these autonomous borders and edges. We are not to allow them to stand stagnant as norms for research and production. We must constantly reposition ourselves in the middle of and allow each method to be broken and reassembled as a means to understand not the answers of today nor the answers of tomorrow, but to understand the fashion of constructing the questions at hand.
To move forward in today's realm, we must be able to take a punch, take a hit, if not, throw a couple of punches. Our discipline deserves to be tested, to be toughened and to question itself. We are called to break and assemble and re-break these autonomous borders and edges.
Whether it be performed by the critic, the architect, the designer, the academic, the educator, or the student, the role of criticism is to constantly question, not to produce answers and reverse engineer them to self-fulfilling prophecies or empty promises of intellectual rigor and conversation.
The role of Archinect’s series Cross-Talk is to bring forward the positive aspects of the polemic and allow for the resulting conflict to bring to life an otherwise still and comfortable climate of creativity—if there can be one. Cross-Talk attempts—if to only say that it did—to allow text the freedom that the image has accepted and embraced. Cross-Talk attempts to force the no, to contradict itself, to anger, to please and then anger again, if only to force a stance, to pull out the position of the self, of the discipline and of the hour as a means to begin and maintain conversations moving forward.
Anthony Morey is a Los Angeles based designer, curator, educator, and lecturer of experimental methods of art, design and architectural biases. Morey concentrates in the formulation and fostering of new modes of disciplinary engagement, public dissemination, and cultural cultivation. Morey is the ...
33 Comments
Excellent article! Well-written and concise. Sorry- I don’t have criticisms for you.
Anthony, I've been really enjoying the recent Cross-Talk features.
This reminds me of a piece I come back to again and again when I am thinking about my own design work or how to critically engage through writing and exhibition - Lebbeus Woods blog post on Criticism.
"...But who are the critics? Where do they come from? What is the basis of their expertise? Whatever it might be, it is certainly not from being architects. The critics are a separate class. Architects are never critics. And why not? Because architects do not feel comfortable criticizing their colleagues. “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” goes the old Biblical admonition. So everyone judges the critics, and usually not approvingly, but the critics don’t care–they do the dirty work, and have the power to shape opinion and, in effect, write the first page of new history.
There is another reason architects are loathe to criticize other architects. They don’t want to appear jealous, if the work they criticize is more esteemed than their own (“Sour grapes!”), or mean-spirited if it is not. So, what’s to be gained by writing criticism?
Two things, for sure.
Most importantly, the development of critical thinking that can be useful in one’s own work. Analyzing (that’s what writing is, one way or another) exactly what it is we like or dislike about a work of architecture inevitably feeds back into evaluating our own efforts. Self-criticism is a discipline vital to creative work.
Secondly, if one chooses to publish criticism of ideas or works of architecture, it creates discussion among architects about what is important in architecture today. What are the important questions to be asked? Which answers work, which don’t–and why? Which colleagues do we share crucial interests with, opening possibilities of correspondence and cooperation? So much lip service is given to architecture being a collaborative effort, yet architects are so busy competing with each other for commissions that they isolate from one another.
One consequence of that isolation is in the broad sense political: the profession of architecture is weakened in the social scheme of things. Architects are thought of not as principled professionals, but as businesspeople, competing like everyone else in the marketplace. That’s all right, if we think of architecture as the making of commodities, subject only to the vicissitudes of fashion and taste. But it’s a disaster if we think of architecture as a field of knowledge put into practice. The creation of knowledge involves occasional flashes of inspiration, but a lot of slow and steady critical thought between. And it is always a collaborative effort.
I’ll close this post with a comment on making criticism of one’s own or others’ works. There are ways of criticizing that are harsh, brutal, and destructive. These are, needless to say, counterproductive. But also there are ways to criticize that are honest and direct, but emphasize what is valuable in a given work, leaving what is not to simply fall away. Einstein’s critique of the “aether’ concept in his first Relativity theory was in simply not mentioning it at all. Thereafter, no one else did either. Generally, criticism should show the way forward." - LW
A few disconnected thoughts spurred by your introduction.
- Social media has not only flattened the previously rich and varied texture of criticism into one of hearts or likes, it has rendered long-form prose (whether criticism, news, nonfiction, or fiction) increasingly irrelevant and the publishers of these formats increasingly insolvent, uninterested in print, and unable to sustain the rigorous journalistic culture and standards necessary to produce meaningful urban criticism
- Academia has become increasingly non confrontational and protective of students' feelings. Safe spaces stem criticisms before they can even start, and instill in students (who later become practitioners) a certain blandness and uniformity that is utterly at odds with the creative process.
We say on the one hand: Safe spaces stem criticisms before they can even start....
And we say on the other: ...we all know that there is an abusive, horrid culture in architecture that pretends that the only way to succeed is to take part in the abuse first as a receiver and later as one who doles it out. (me, quoted from the Shitty Men in Architecture thread, yes I'm self-quoting but I hear from so many people that they agree with me that arch culture is toxic)
Constructive criticism takes effort. We talk about criticism on the podcast this week: https://archinect.com/news/art...
The most basic part of criticism is to define examples of what you are talking about. Derrida is not an architect or a critic. Maybe I’m missing footnotes, or is this just another straw man anti-architecture rant? Sounds like a dumb NYT narrative.
There are plenty of good critics, but they mostly exist on the niche, work at local universities or critique locally like Kamin, Lamster, Saffron. There’s little pop architecture criticism not because of architects, but because the media doesn’t deem it important.
I’m reminded that Martin Luther King Jr read and quoted Nietzsche, Gandhi and Thoreau, but it didn’t make him a weak communicator but a better one. This retreat into philistine functionalism is a dead end.
"This retreat into philistine functionalism is a dead end" What does this even mean? I read this article to say criticism should be critical, not window dressing for post-rationalization. If philistine functionalism means that something should do what it says it does, we are in big trouble.
It means that all that architecture is can't be summed up into some easily digestible narrative, explained in a one line commodified tweet or diagram. The irony here is that Derrida better explained how logos and narratives don't match the particular realities (which had little to do with Eisenmann's diagrammatic fetish games, though they are an interesting aside).
This is refreshing. Thank you Anthony!
Wonderfully clear and thoughtful. This is the kind of analysis that everyone can understand. Hopefully this can begin to bridge the gap between so many who love architecture without the semantic jungle that passes for criticism robbing them of a voice.
"Today's architecture attempts to produce criticality through the visual appearance of having it. It tries to pummel our consciousness into not questioning, into not asking out of fear of 'not getting it' when, in fact, there is truly very little to get."
I've been to countless studio crits, my own and others where this game takes place. It's the saddest affair, not because some professor is going off on a poor student, but because you can see a total detachment and apathy in many faces. They don't understand the criticism but they dare not point out the obvious, that "there is truly very little to get".
The loss of interest in designing a building others will hopefully admire for its beauty, craftsmanship, and planning begins to disappears as students come to the realization that they must learn this game to advance. They must learn to talk about architecture in such a way their parents won't understand without the same indoctrination in arcane theories and obtuse language they where subjected to.
Whether you like glass cubes or wedding cake architecture, criticism should enable the public to understand what we are trying to achieve and why, because for whom else do we really build? This isn't rocket science.
I have taught at or juried at over 30 schools. From Harvard to state schools. Went to Cooper Arch in 70's where studio was a serious endeavor.
The breakdown of the studio starts in the late 1980's with the hiring of newly minted "lightweight" professors and administrators (mostly female due to the need to balance gender) who couldn't teach studio and had no body of work. Hires usually a sycophant of a school like Columbia, Yale, or Sci Arch or the Starchitect they apprenticed with for a summer . Check most Architecture School faculty sites. A majority have no links to work or if you google image you get 1000 selfies and 2 project images.
Most teach by formula (think decon or parametric) to get product and limit any other method or point of view . Every project is the same parti. Now tenured or almost tenured they refuse to engage who anyone who points out the "Emperor's new Cloths". So only polite criticism !!Usually the criticism is in a group of the other lightweight faculty, friends, or graduates who are visually illiterate.
Most students in studio today produce very little work. Most can't draw readable plans and sections. Or make a study or final model ( Even at Masters Level ) The Juries are considered now a cheering gallery even at schools like Cooper. If you criticize you will be uninvited because the Professor takes your issues as a critique of them. Close the door..... Architectural Education through studio culture is dead.
Now we have a "cult of personality".
Should architecture schools include, as part of the curriculum, making your own revit** template and printing all your drawings from it? **insert students' program of choice here** I assume we aren't trying to get back to hand drafting final drawings, as that would serve no purpose for a young graduate trying to land their first job. A lot of projects struggle with unnecessary complexity. I don't need a student to try and properly render a floor plate elevation built on a complex curve where no stairs are used because all elevation changes are worked out through ADA approved sloped floors, when they haven't even mastered what a floor plan looks like in a regular building.
I’m no surprised that a generic straw man commentary receives a bunch of straw man comments about their resentment of some female professor from Harvard that gave them a bad grade. Please. I’m not a fan of Ivy elitism either, but I know there is a huge difference in pedagogy from Harvard to Yale to Cooper, etc. Then there are state schools, local private schools, etc all over the US that have huge difference between them in regards to curriculum, craft, etc. So ironic that this article uses Derrida. LOL
Derrida broke it. How can a criticism have teeth without an objective truth to orient it to?
derrida was an appalling scholar who decamped himself in obfuscation and gibberish--he barely rises to the level of cultural critic and as far as i can tell the only reason he is referenced in architectural circles is because those making the reference likewise practice poor scholarship and cannot distill their position into a clear, intelligible thought--mistaking complexity for meaning
Objective truth and subjective feeling have always been intertwined. If all you do is deconstruct, you might be able to differentiate between pedagogies, but you miss the patterns that produce harmonious wholes and strip architecture of the pleasure one gets when contemplating a beautiful composition.
Schools embrace the theoretical because it is a closed system that insulates the participants from outside criticism, from having to answer to the very people most likely to experience their built work, regardless of what science can now tell us about how humans interact with their environment.
Don't talk about style, beauty, or anything the average person might be able to understand. You want to get work as an architect, listen to people, you want to teach in an Ivy school, learn to talk jargon.
I am 10 or so years out of school and have been making a concerted effort to bring more proportion, balance, rhythm, and Harmony to my work. Basically reintroducing or layering Beaux-Arts considerations onto my high-falutin education which was, mostly as you described.
the deconstructionist position has been so thoroughly debased over the past thirty odd years that i doubt its original practitioners would recognize its present form as a scaffolding used almost exclusively to support an individuals obsession with a particular type of form, rather than an actual critical practice of thought
archanonymous, that sounds great. To be clear, this criticism shouldn't be interpreted as anti-intellectualism, but rather a call to focus the criticism more to those things which actually affect the user experience, even if indirectly. As for Deconstructivism and Derrida, it's more a stand in for the overly theoretical approach, not that they have much sway today. Just having this debate in a civil manner is progress, if anything to acknowledge there are more ways to practice than most schools would have one believe.
There were tons of conversations like this in early 80's which proves architecture always, at least since, had this deficiency about itself. It is cyclical. Same goes with visual arts.
Am I surprised Derrida and Peter Eisenman still must be referred? No. These are all chatter. Good criticism exists but never says "look at me I am good criticism". That, good criticism, also became chatter like. In my own circles, I ran into good criticism. Some find their way into local publications like various newsletters and blogs but big media doesn't use them since they have little relevance to their agenda or readership. Very few national newspapers have architectural and urban design critics. You can count them with both hands and their work is usually watered down. We are living in -don't offend anybody culture- as if whole society became one big corporation with compliant people horrified to lose their jobs and never be able to find such lucrative positions. Criticism requires some risks and very few are willing to take those. It also requires an open forum. "If you criticize you will be uninvited". You are cut off. This is awful and really oppressive, very fascistic, racist, nimbyist, etc. But, it's an accepted behavior.
How many architects publicly talk about their political point of views, not many. Look at political tip toeing of our guild, AIA, for starters. This is across the board. How many times when you questioned gluttony you were cut off by a fellow architect, saying "well, these are the people pay our bills" ?
I spent a few days with photographer Julius Shulman in his office at his house talking about architects' critical position. I asked him about Gregory Ain who was known for his political views and he was black listed. Shulman said "Greg never had a rich client," then I asked, "did he wanted to have rich clients?" He said, "NO". My respect for Ain was instantly doubled.
Anyway, what I am trying to say here is, look at the conditions of the society, the public, and then ask, "why criticism is dead?" It is not dead, only tuned down or silenced for our daily conveniences.
You must include this part when you are talking about architectural criticism, or any social criticism during these times. Otherwise, it will be a box in a box in a box in a box, each containing nothing.
Good points! What are your thoughts on why it has tuned down?
A++
this article just reminds me of the nonsense that NY media PR people say about architects “not being able to write” so that they can sell their services to everybody. Maybe we should try standing up for ourselves a little more instead of believing the straw man caricature?
Most architecture practice design today lacks any critical thinking or logical foundation behind its creative drive, relying primarily on arbitrary aesthetics, as the article astutely points out. As an architect myself I find it abhorrent that today's design practices are intellectually insignificant by comparison to Greek or Gothic movements, which happened centuries ago, but whose studies on isoptics and structural behavior (extrapolated from a mere Euclid's Elements) transcends. Things designed and built today are ephemeral multi-million whims that age quite badly. Steel, glass and finite element have made us lazy. CAD and 3DMax have made us fantastical liars.And yet, we remain in a diluted profession incapable of taking criticism as there is no logical argument to be produced in defense of our creations.
iluv-binary, The architecture of the past was tethered to some idea of a truth, regardless of whether or not that truth was truth, their pursuit of it manifested in something that connected to a deeper place, and even now, as these once “truths” become myths, the architecture transcends into the mythical maintaining a cultural relevance. So what do we do now that we know about quantum entanglement, the uncertainty principle, and the Higgs boson? We live in a time where the idea of “truth” is so far away from our comprehension that we have accepted the post modern idea that truth simply doesn’t exist. Even when talking about the physical structures, we are able to defy the forces (visually) that dictated/gave meaning to certain past forms. Architecture is more unbound but also consequently disoriented. The modernists toyed with sacred geometry, ergonomics, and material honesty. That was something but....I think we can/should look deeper than that. An architecture that attempts to connect to the universe at a deeper level? An architecture that has a deeper humanist/environmental agenda? An architecture that taps into the universal preferences that we share via evolutionary psychology? No room in the budget for that nonsense, go knock yourself out with the silly facade.
Forget about all the artsy jargon and "meaning of architecture" blah, the method is the important bit. In the past, grandiose architecture was achieved through methodical investigation, be it on material/structural properties or geometric proportions. I very much doubt Callicrates and Ictinus gave any thought about the Parthenon's relationship to "truth". Classical greek orders are mathematical by nature, not philosophical; the same goes for Gothic and Roman (regardless of its close ties to religion). Architecture is not philosophical, or very little to do so, it is a physical manifestation, and as such bound by physical rules. You may argue the ontological position of a building in "reality" but that will produce nothing of value. It is this silly approach to architecture, now so popular, that has yielded endless Koolhaas-like useless analysis. Firms with the capacity to pursue innovation would rather sit around and loft pretty curves in Rhino until something strikes their fancy. I believe that thinking of architecture as a philosophical/psychological element is a blind man's path. Architecture should be approached realistically for what it is, the most efficient solution towards a spatial configuration goal. Setting a difficult goal will yield magnificent results if achieved. Example: Instead of thinking/teaching - Let's try to connect the built environment with nature (the artsy, unfounded and confused goal); go with let's reduce visible wavelength reflection, or let's optimise the embodied carbon to energy savings ratio; or let's produce the greatest internal volume to envelope area ratio, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love philosophy but I don't see the philosophical implications in architecture anymore that I see it in coding with Python.
All of those methods assume truth. Sacred geometry assumes truth that certain geometry is sacred. Classic Greek orders assume underlying truth behind those orders. Even Corbus modulor is backed by an anthropocentric “truth.”
All I’m saying is that criticism is empty without criteria, and criteria is based on some notion of “truth.”
How can nihilism generate criteria?
It's clear there are as many ways of approaching architectural design as there are temperaments. That being said, it depends on how close or far one wants to focus their lens, and furthermore, we aren't the same person from moment to moment, at least not identifiable beyond a caricature. What is consistent is human nature, something that hasn't changed for millenia, evolution being a painfully slow process.
While some approach their work from a philosophical, mathematical, or technological point of view, the constant is the public that will experience the built work, which is why excellent architecture resonates over time and is to be found in a variety of styles and epochs. Our modern, democratic, and pluralistic society should be capable of allowing a wide range of approaches, as long as the user is at the center of the design process. Now we can all disagree on what human nature consists of :)
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