Thought i'd try to continue the panel discussion from last night's AIA event at Sci-Arc. Here is a quippy summary of the panel responses to the question: "Who says what architecture is?" (quotations are not verbatim)
Wolf Prix - "The architect, no compromise."
Thom Mayne - "It's 50/50. it's a negotiation."
Bill Fain - "The city."
Eric Owen Moss - "I do because I have the mic."
Jeffrey Inaba - "The person in love with both design and Architecture does. p.s. the term "user" is a vast generalization."
Peter Cook - (I was in the bathroom)
Frances Anderton - "The press in a sense. Much of how architecture is perceived is determined through photographic presentation."
I have my thoughts, but would like to first open it to discussion. So who says what architecure is?
architecture is defined not as a series over bloated words, it is defined by the experience of it. the play of shadow and light, the ephemeral and permanent...i could continue on, on how we define the experience but it really is defined differently by all that experience it. so "who says what architecture is?" everyone, we as the architects and designers hope to strive for great spaces for the experience, but it really is defined by it's users, passers by, students that are looking for it (because someone else says its good), media, other architects and so on...we all "experience" it as architecture.
i remember the argument we had in school of “if it’s not built is it still architecture?†new thread?
I saw a good definition once. Forget who said it "Architecture is the art and science of being neither." I think Philip Johnson said "Architecture is the art of wasting space"
Who says what architecture is? Power, then Money. Why is this a question? The forum sounded a bit like Charlie Brown listening to his teacher... whaa whaa whua waa waa. Too many people, poor audio. A shame. Why wasn't this broadcast as SCI-Arc LIVE over the internet?
I did like Peter Cook's comment about "liking ideas with rough edges".
seems like there is a consensus here and even amongst the panelist that architects are powerless to say what architecture is.
I was dissapointed that none of the panelist offered a remedy or even an anecdote about how to empower the profession even though the conversation veered that way. they seemed more interested in debating one another about trivial facts.
as for me, i think the question is about taste, what is good/bad, not about what gets built/not built.
or is the public so fragmented and uninformed that it should be left to our profession to make the decisions?
i agree that architects are not creators since there are such large political and economic (developer) forces that determine the genetics of a building before it is "born" or given to an architect. however, there is a distinction between the innovation of the architect and the role of the community/environment he/she is innovating for.
meta, necessity may be "the mother of invention" from an evolutionary standpoint, but it seems throughout history that the most "innovative" architecture has been built way beyond necessity e.g. cathedrals, bilbao, etc.
nope, being the president performing his dutiful executive functions does not necessarily mean what the president can do. Present status quo, case in point.
I believe the California Architect's Board has absolute authority when it comes to saying what is architecture. Apparently detached garages and agricultural buildings are never architecture.
Architecture Deliver.
The new jobs, the new manufactoring ,innovation creativity, new technikes new way's to put things together, visions and tallent , whole new skills and detail quality ------- you architects just forgot becaurse you are so deep into the old limits, the old materials the old visions about the future promises , you even forget that there are generations of skilled young architects just wanting to create a new architecture ; you forgot what side effects architecture allway's responded , new jobs, new production and positive visions about our digital future where a house only cost a third and acturly work as a structure.
Well --- if you want to build expensive, without the obvious efficiency of new methods, if you don't want houses at a third the cost , new jobs new building technikes, innovation and a mountain of money , then why shuld I try stop you, I don't need to , it will end in the useal dead-end where everything been re-invented several times before and even the words seem vorn out.
"who says what architecture is?" is the question really valid enough? and on what context when architecture is a subject which touches every form of life.
on the other hand, dot-cathedrals, bilbao etc came out from the concept of need (can do with or without). necessity is more metaphysical and much greater in value,quite impossible to be without otherwise. 'architecture' is more a necessity (from an architect's view) than a need. so, bilbao (at a micro level becomes a need within architecture) architecture. in the broader context necessity, the people, city, press, culture, lifestyle, super creator-the architect say what architecture is. sorry about my previous offhand post.
meta, nah i don't think the question is invalid. perhaps not specific enough, but not invalid. i think i see the point you are trying to make, and i understand the broader context, but i am trying to recgonize who/what drives the innovation? who is the giver and who is the receiver? << vado, get your head out of the gutter.
bRink,
Of course even if a president cannot 'do', he is still a president. The label of president is there unshaken in spite of qualifiers like competent or incompetent. That's why we have competent presidents, as well as moronic ones.
I don't understand what you mean by "be" as more than a label. Are you driving at a Heideggerian notion of 'being' here?
maybe, although i'm not sure i can be sure what that means... well what is architecture? is that not also asking what does architecture?
a bridge is a bridge because of what it does... ditto for an arch, a roof, a wall, a porch... and maybe a facade, a plaza, a hall, a room, etc. i guess would heidegger say that it is what it is in relation to how we occupy and live in it?
If and only if your 'is' entails 'does'. I am not convinced that something 'is' if it 'does' something. That would mean that friendship is friendship if and only if it does some function of friendship. Seeing friendship as purely pragmatic is problematic for me. Unless you constrained your analysis to (1) pure pragmatism, and (2) architectural functionalism, I don't see a way out of this one.
I am not a Heidegger scholar but going by what Rorty wrote, the early Heidegger would say that X is X in relation to our how we occupy and live in it (i.e. our practice) but the later Heidegger might not agree with any explicable essentialist position.
I agree about the president. However, just because something 'is' or 'does' doesn't mean that something and its comprised actions/effects MEAN anything to anyone. I'd like to think that part of what architects do is to introduce a certain kind of meaning into things.
To do this, the architect may operate under the dictum of 'no compromise' or '50/50' depending on her/his agenda. However, everything quoted from the SciArc panel could be applied to many fields- writing, medicine, law, advertising. So how is architecture unique in its realm of meanings? This is too vague a question to elicit a monotone response.
You said that meaning is contingent and perhaps even impossible, then you said that what architects do is to introduce a certain kind of meaning into things, which I take to be at least temporally certain. It sounds like a contradiction to me, no?
People say all kinds of things all the time. Besides, architecture as a profession with its daily grind of politics and dreariness is not unlike other professions or occupations you have quoted, so all the quotidian should still apply. Perhaps architecture is not as unique as you have assumed. Perhaps it is as monotonous as anything else. Perhaps it is easier to live in a fantasy where architecture is vivid and colorful and has a special purpose or meaning to be fulfilled?
Like big sausages, we can pack our buildings chock full of meaning... but will the meaning be seen as we intend?
This depends on the source of our 'meaning' and the degree to which we tap into a common symbolic language. Suggesting further that the expert become a funnel for the voice of the populace. If we are not tapping into this voice, are we just making nonsense noises? Burp blop blip blob!
Or in a more sinister light, if we are using obscure or cryptic symbols, aren't we furthering a culture of exclusion and aristocracy? We get it... they can all eat cake!
Architecture seems to me to be a codification of otherwise fluid collective movement. We take a snapshot, and if our lens is blurry the building is never fully validated.
A birdhouse becomes a birdhouse only after the birds start making nests.
why in all panel discussions about architecture do people ask questions like "who defines architecture" or "is architecture art" ""why are architects better than other people?"
It seems like Eric Owen Moss was the only one who got how ridiculous the question was. it presupposes that there is this group of people who is more qualified to define something than others... so, really, any answer is valid - the people, the government, the press, big bird, pat roberts, my 3-yo nephew...
Who says what Architecture is?
Thought i'd try to continue the panel discussion from last night's AIA event at Sci-Arc. Here is a quippy summary of the panel responses to the question: "Who says what architecture is?" (quotations are not verbatim)
Wolf Prix - "The architect, no compromise."
Thom Mayne - "It's 50/50. it's a negotiation."
Bill Fain - "The city."
Eric Owen Moss - "I do because I have the mic."
Jeffrey Inaba - "The person in love with both design and Architecture does. p.s. the term "user" is a vast generalization."
Peter Cook - (I was in the bathroom)
Frances Anderton - "The press in a sense. Much of how architecture is perceived is determined through photographic presentation."
I have my thoughts, but would like to first open it to discussion. So who says what architecure is?
necessity
I think Peter Cook said it quite well.
but seriously: I do *\meaning that the person relating to it, whatever the position is.
gravity
..and who says what necessity is, meta?
"Who says what architecture is?"
The architect, but no one listens.
architecture is defined not as a series over bloated words, it is defined by the experience of it. the play of shadow and light, the ephemeral and permanent...i could continue on, on how we define the experience but it really is defined differently by all that experience it. so "who says what architecture is?" everyone, we as the architects and designers hope to strive for great spaces for the experience, but it really is defined by it's users, passers by, students that are looking for it (because someone else says its good), media, other architects and so on...we all "experience" it as architecture.
i remember the argument we had in school of “if it’s not built is it still architecture?†new thread?
it's defined by how much dough is floating around our economy
sounds like one hell of a great forum...(insert sarcasm emoticon here)
I saw a good definition once. Forget who said it "Architecture is the art and science of being neither." I think Philip Johnson said "Architecture is the art of wasting space"
money talks and the architect walks...
It's a lot like obscenity, "I know it when I see it"
Who says what architecture is? Power, then Money. Why is this a question? The forum sounded a bit like Charlie Brown listening to his teacher... whaa whaa whua waa waa. Too many people, poor audio. A shame. Why wasn't this broadcast as SCI-Arc LIVE over the internet?
I did like Peter Cook's comment about "liking ideas with rough edges".
seems like there is a consensus here and even amongst the panelist that architects are powerless to say what architecture is.
I was dissapointed that none of the panelist offered a remedy or even an anecdote about how to empower the profession even though the conversation veered that way. they seemed more interested in debating one another about trivial facts.
as for me, i think the question is about taste, what is good/bad, not about what gets built/not built.
Architecture is Everything and Everything is Architecture.
Registration (for those of you who haven't yet achieved it) confers entry into the Pantheon of the Gods. We are the Creators.
Remember you heard it here.
It's one of our profession's best kept secrets.
Why care what architecture is when we can talk about what architecture can do?
isn't being something doing something?
Steven wins.
Game over.
But is the Architect a Creator?
No, Never.
More a catalyt - of what people say architecture is*.
*see the entrys from above.
some questions raised during the discussion:
should the architect be a servant to the public?
or is the public so fragmented and uninformed that it should be left to our profession to make the decisions?
i agree that architects are not creators since there are such large political and economic (developer) forces that determine the genetics of a building before it is "born" or given to an architect. however, there is a distinction between the innovation of the architect and the role of the community/environment he/she is innovating for.
meta, necessity may be "the mother of invention" from an evolutionary standpoint, but it seems throughout history that the most "innovative" architecture has been built way beyond necessity e.g. cathedrals, bilbao, etc.
nope, being the president performing his dutiful executive functions does not necessarily mean what the president can do. Present status quo, case in point.
I believe the California Architect's Board has absolute authority when it comes to saying what is architecture. Apparently detached garages and agricultural buildings are never architecture.
Hmm
Architecture is Potrzebie
The Materials.
our local council has decided that if it has anything other than a gabbled roof then it must be architecture and therefore will never get approval.
'this is a friendly town and a local shop and we don't want any trouble here'.
BE:
sure, but if the president cannot do, is the he a president? isn't be about more than a label?
I am what I am …
I bang my own drum ,
Some call it noise,
I call it pretty.
Architecture Deliver.
The new jobs, the new manufactoring ,innovation creativity, new technikes new way's to put things together, visions and tallent , whole new skills and detail quality ------- you architects just forgot becaurse you are so deep into the old limits, the old materials the old visions about the future promises , you even forget that there are generations of skilled young architects just wanting to create a new architecture ; you forgot what side effects architecture allway's responded , new jobs, new production and positive visions about our digital future where a house only cost a third and acturly work as a structure.
really ?
Vindpust..we are kreators, we kan do whatever we want..try and stop us !..BuAHaHaHa Ha !
Well --- if you want to build expensive, without the obvious efficiency of new methods, if you don't want houses at a third the cost , new jobs new building technikes, innovation and a mountain of money , then why shuld I try stop you, I don't need to , it will end in the useal dead-end where everything been re-invented several times before and even the words seem vorn out.
nice, but your time will come ...
vindpust..we zont wanz efficienzy..we wanz to extractz ze most money ouz of ze client at three timez ze cost of ze project...
we wanz mountainz,mountainz and more everest mountainz of money
AND we wonz stop till we have reinvented ze wheel of archizeczure.
( Sorry If Im being an asshole ,vindpust...but you're a gem..a rare gem )
"who says what architecture is?" is the question really valid enough? and on what context when architecture is a subject which touches every form of life.
architecture. in the broader context necessity, the people, city, press, culture, lifestyle, super creator-the architect say what architecture is. sorry about my previous offhand post.
on the other hand, dot-cathedrals, bilbao etc came out from the concept of need (can do with or without). necessity is more metaphysical and much greater in value,quite impossible to be without otherwise. 'architecture' is more a necessity (from an architect's view) than a need. so, bilbao (at a micro level becomes a need within architecture)
Who knows better:
The masses?
or
The experts?
(this might be a trick question)
I do.
theres a time to be generic and a time to be specific. turn turn turn
meta, nah i don't think the question is invalid. perhaps not specific enough, but not invalid. i think i see the point you are trying to make, and i understand the broader context, but i am trying to recgonize who/what drives the innovation? who is the giver and who is the receiver? << vado, get your head out of the gutter.
architecture is any made environment
Architecture Is Foo
bRink,
Of course even if a president cannot 'do', he is still a president. The label of president is there unshaken in spite of qualifiers like competent or incompetent. That's why we have competent presidents, as well as moronic ones.
I don't understand what you mean by "be" as more than a label. Are you driving at a Heideggerian notion of 'being' here?
maybe, although i'm not sure i can be sure what that means... well what is architecture? is that not also asking what does architecture?
a bridge is a bridge because of what it does... ditto for an arch, a roof, a wall, a porch... and maybe a facade, a plaza, a hall, a room, etc. i guess would heidegger say that it is what it is in relation to how we occupy and live in it?
If and only if your 'is' entails 'does'. I am not convinced that something 'is' if it 'does' something. That would mean that friendship is friendship if and only if it does some function of friendship. Seeing friendship as purely pragmatic is problematic for me. Unless you constrained your analysis to (1) pure pragmatism, and (2) architectural functionalism, I don't see a way out of this one.
I am not a Heidegger scholar but going by what Rorty wrote, the early Heidegger would say that X is X in relation to our how we occupy and live in it (i.e. our practice) but the later Heidegger might not agree with any explicable essentialist position.
To BE et al...
I agree about the president. However, just because something 'is' or 'does' doesn't mean that something and its comprised actions/effects MEAN anything to anyone. I'd like to think that part of what architects do is to introduce a certain kind of meaning into things.
To do this, the architect may operate under the dictum of 'no compromise' or '50/50' depending on her/his agenda. However, everything quoted from the SciArc panel could be applied to many fields- writing, medicine, law, advertising. So how is architecture unique in its realm of meanings? This is too vague a question to elicit a monotone response.
mikilee
You said that meaning is contingent and perhaps even impossible, then you said that what architects do is to introduce a certain kind of meaning into things, which I take to be at least temporally certain. It sounds like a contradiction to me, no?
People say all kinds of things all the time. Besides, architecture as a profession with its daily grind of politics and dreariness is not unlike other professions or occupations you have quoted, so all the quotidian should still apply. Perhaps architecture is not as unique as you have assumed. Perhaps it is as monotonous as anything else. Perhaps it is easier to live in a fantasy where architecture is vivid and colorful and has a special purpose or meaning to be fulfilled?
urge
'shelter'
Like big sausages, we can pack our buildings chock full of meaning... but will the meaning be seen as we intend?
This depends on the source of our 'meaning' and the degree to which we tap into a common symbolic language. Suggesting further that the expert become a funnel for the voice of the populace. If we are not tapping into this voice, are we just making nonsense noises? Burp blop blip blob!
Or in a more sinister light, if we are using obscure or cryptic symbols, aren't we furthering a culture of exclusion and aristocracy? We get it... they can all eat cake!
Architecture seems to me to be a codification of otherwise fluid collective movement. We take a snapshot, and if our lens is blurry the building is never fully validated.
A birdhouse becomes a birdhouse only after the birds start making nests.
why in all panel discussions about architecture do people ask questions like "who defines architecture" or "is architecture art" ""why are architects better than other people?"
It seems like Eric Owen Moss was the only one who got how ridiculous the question was. it presupposes that there is this group of people who is more qualified to define something than others... so, really, any answer is valid - the people, the government, the press, big bird, pat roberts, my 3-yo nephew...
-to
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