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.
In our multiverse of everything, even criticism has atrophied under the deadbeat argument of a synthetically calming “everyone-has-their-opinion-everyone-is-somewhat-right”-faux-democracy. Faced with this forced homogenization through saturation, the critic “heroically” leaps forward, putting herself in the crosshairs of emotionally charged rebuttals and reciprocal criticism.
Rewarded and now comfortably nestled in an elevated space and time of polemic exercise, critics then too often succumb to the amenities of a “cultured” resistance to their environment of performative opinion. Sadly, this self-proclaimed privilege of decadent critic-ism, the agency of the critic in an artificially enhanced bubble of judge-mentality, has mutated into an apathetic affair for contemporary architectural discourse.
Three decades after Manfredo Tafuri declared “there is no criticism, only history,” arguing for an operative criticism of design whose “critical act will consist of a recomposition of the fragments once they are historicized: in their remontage,” the critical subject battling with the uncritical object(s) is a formula that might want to be inverted.
The discipline, in academia and practice, is too often witness to lazy regurgitations and baseless, obscure fabrications squirting from the muscular silver tongues of critics. Apart from the occasional resistance to certain points of contention, meaning the subject of criticism defends its position, critical discussions peter out in the face of the critics’ unchallenged gravity of judgment.
Let’s unpack a fundamental error in architectural criticism brought about by this lackadaisical state: the confusion between criticism and critique. Critique entails a critical examination that provides careful (!) judgement of the positive and negative aspects of the object of critique, the act of criticism, however, entails the “mere” expression of discontent or condemnation. I leave it to you to project this definition into the memory of your last studio crit(ique), presentation, or review. Which one is/was it?
Three decades after Manfredo Tafuri declared “there is no criticism, only history,” arguing for an operative criticism of design whose “critical act will consist of a recomposition of the fragments once they are historicized: in their remontage,” the critical subject battling with the uncritical object(s) is a formula that might want to be inverted. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, different explorations of a postmodernization of North American architecture saw this drive of transversal flare up, but this flame now seems smoldering at best.
The problem with criticism is that there is not enough criticism of criticism. There is just not enough resistance! And who is to blame? The next (easier) fight that might bring a role-inversion is just around the corner, putting the criticized in the retaliating (and empowering) role of repaying the metaphorical debt. Tell me there is no itch being scratched in your next judgement! B-U-L-L-S-H-I-I-I-I-E-E-E-T!
Tell me there is no itch being scratched in your next judgement! B-U-L-L-S-H-I-I-I-I-E-E-E-T!
Critics still predominantly operate from a position of superiority, from a space of criticality that enables them to criticize in the first place. Nothing has changed since Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault criticized criticism (albeit literary) in the 1950s for its communication skills, the (higher) class-related “purity” of language that had “both its intelligence and sensibility […] closed against innovation”. Echoing Barthes’ self-realization that “language is a skin”—“I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words”—it is high time we get our fingers dirty again!
Nevertheless, the problematic of criticism is far too complex to discuss satisfyingly in 500 words or less, and as such, I have to—disconcertingly but maybe symptomatically of the topic—murmur “b-u-l-l-s-h-i-i-i-i-e-e-e-t!” to this premature thought ejaculation itself. Leaving a porous membrane of critic-ability, this meta-criticism tries to escape the pseudo-authoritarian conclusions which brought the vicious cycle of critic(sch)ism about in the first place.
Critique this, you can wash your hands later!
Clemens Finkelstein is a historian and theorist of art and architecture. He is a doctoral student in the History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University, a graduate of the History and Philosophy of Design program at Harvard University, and has worked extensively as a writer ...
7 Comments
Clemens' last sentence...
"Leaving a porous membrane of critic-ability, this
meta-criticism tries to escape the pseudo-authoritarian conclusions
which brought the vicious cycle of critic(sch)ism about in the first
place."
As post modern as it gets.....Clem,enough with the relativism.
It's not smart. Architects need to be smart.
Exactly what I was thinking.
...I’ll bite...for the sake of argument...since this is a perfect example of what I am critiquing through the text, an inattentive criticism that is non-reflective and—by all means—non-sensical. Please explain to me, being supposedly non-smart, and also not an architect by the way, what this final opening gambit, to incite discussion in the shape of (informed) criticability, has to do with relativism or a postmodernist argumentative line. No really, I’m curious.
"pseudo-authoritarian conclusions" is relativist and post modern. It means nothing. I didn't mean to imply you weren't smart ( you are much smarter than I young man). Sorry that wasn't my intention.
Yeah, I also wasn’t saying that you weren’t smart...the post is very well written...just agreeing with the post modern comment.
It’s a stretch to equate the expert with the authoritarian. Goodnight science.
Let’s unpack a fundamental error in architectural criticism brought about by this lackadaisical state: the confusion between criticism and critique. Critique entails a critical examination that provides careful (!) judgement of the positive and negative aspects of the object of critique, the act of criticism, however, entails the “mere” expression of discontent or condemnation. I leave it to you to project this definition into the memory of your last studio crit(ique), presentation, or review. Which one is/was it?
Very agreeable. But I also think about everyday expressions of a praising and compliant society, "if you don't have anything good to say, don't say it."
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