Have the values of architecture changed much over the ages? Not just in terms of technological influence but some kind of objective truth-- why design, why build. Is it for you or for others, for the world or a specific community. Are you an agent of society or a separate entity.
In the past year, I've worked on a project that has seriously changed me and my outlook on architecture.
In school, it was the ability to add. To create something of use in this world. To be a part of our civilization.
Now, the scope of architecture has rapidly grown in terms or ethics. This particular project has gone so poorly, and we are in such a compromised position, that the role of architect as a protector of interests for clients, users, and society is really at the front of my mind.
Also, the ability of architecture to change and influence has been diminished. Architecture, to me today, is less a catalyst and more a response. Perhaps that's just cause of where I'm at right now, but really, the forces at play make me feel so small.
And to add to that, the bold sculptures that are being erected by artists further divide our profession. I'm not really interested in building icons, branded buildings, or the like. It has never been why I got into architecture, to produce a piece of art. But if the client didn't program or pay for an icon, everyone doesn't really care about our aesthetic opinion? or furthermore, disregards it as if we're all looney, that nothing we do or say has any objective basis or positive outcome... they think we're all selfish narcissist who crave making our mark upon the world... okay, i'm losin it... that is definately not what you're talkin' bout... but...
No it is, I'm interested in what you said about artists dividing the profession, are there any artists in particular you feel are stealing this capacity from Architecture? What about architect/artists a 'la blurred boundaries and definitions?
No, I imagine he/she is either referring to iconic sculptors like Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, or the relational aesthetic bunch, Rikrit, Hirschorn, who make cool architecture moments that are fun to talk about and experience, also add gordon matta clark
I believe Art and Architecture are two very different things.
Symbolically, architecture is a codification of socially acceptable ideas/norms. High dollars and politics are involved in any significant building. Architecture that pushes social norms is still on some edge of what is already nearly acceptable. Art challenges social norms and introduces new ideas at a different level of conflict. Therefore, edgy architecture lags behind edgy art.
That's all a bit manifestoey in tone, but here's to discussion! I'm sure there are many projects that blur these lines, still is this an inherent difference? Doesn't it seem like many of the daring forms of contemporary architecture are kinda like the daring forms of sculptors like 50 years back?
Art has moved firmly in a conceptual direction since Duchamp. The most well known artists since the 1970s have dealt with issues of human perception and our phenomenological engagement with the world.
But much architecture is still rooted in a pre-Duchampian idea of the aesthetic, i.e. building as shape-making. Too little architecture engages in a critical, discursive, or didactic practice. At least in the US, we seem to have an entrenched system where either style governs, or economy does.
I'm going to have to disagree with you regarding the latent modernist tendencies of architecture as limiting it strictly to formalism, and with your suggestion that art since 1970 is concerned primarily with phenomenology.
While some contemporary architecture may appear to be dealing with formal issues, these are most often the reflections of some deeper examination, be it semiotic or post-structural. Some architects (diller scofidio + renfro) work at a similar pace as the "art" world by ignoring the boundaries in definition btw art / architecture and making pieces that are less functional in the traditional sense of architecture but hold some merit around gallery circles.
Contemporary "art", well that's a whole other bag of potatoes, my friend.
But back to the topic at hand, what are the "reasons for doing" among these different kinds of practices. Do we see artists as being purely self-centered heroes and architects as cruciform marxists?
I'm not sure why everything always needs to be so dramatic and divisive in architecture. Does the building as a common, functional object have no meaning? The profession seems so at odds with itself, in fact it seems to even disrespect, reject or disregard the very idea of being a profession. Of course that isn't all architects, but it does seem to be the credo of many of the most outspoken ones I find here and in other sources.
The whole tortured artist obsession does the profession a serious disservice. If an architect wants to reject functionality, construct ability, economy and their client's desires all for the sake of their own aesthetic or political statement oriented agenda, he/she will have successfully created the very situation so many are rallying against. If you complain of your efforts not being taken seriously, you must in your own right, act seriously, lest your complaints ring hollow. If you complain of losing your relevance in the building process, you should not shrug off your responsibilities in the process, you must embrace them, claim, and fight when others encroach on them. Do not allow all the technical aspects of the building process to slip onto the shoulders of others.
In direct answer to the question, you build buildings because they are needed. Which is not something new, it is the way it has always been.
Your role in the process is not solely to dictate the aesthetic qualities of the building, it is to provide the connective tissue between many conflicting parties and conflicting goals. Yes you should assist the owner in seeing their project through, help them create their vision, but at all times , remember it is their vision, their building. That is not to suggest that you act merely as a mindless automaton, but simply that you maintain a proper perspective. Provide guidance and clarity to the owner, not directives and primma donna artistic demands.
It's for fun and for use... building is dwelling... I mean clients and designers and builders, the whole entities involved...
We, people, make places not just physically through the construction industry, but everybody embeds their environment with meaning through their mental maps and also physically in their day to day activities and just rearranging their furniture in their houses, finding a roof over their heads, taking ownership of a space...
So... No, fundamentally we're still in it for the same reasons. We won't get away from that, it's fundamental to what we are as organisms... Well it's also it's cultural, things cetainly change, but fundamentally, we are human beings... The game changes, the scale of it, the technology of it, the economy of it, and the virtuality of it, but the goal always remains the same...
This question can only be answered personally about personal motivations: I see my architectural work as being two fold: I am a consultant and a white-collar whore. I agree with farwest1 that, at least in Eagle Country USA, you either have enough money to saturate a project in style or enough money to exert only the most meager of funds to the absolute bottom line of code. Things that happen in balance are FAR more rare and are usually not a source of income for anyone, so they rarely happen.
Design is the accomodation of preference, and architecture the preferences of inhabitation. These preferences occur in 3 ways: sheltering, living and dwelling. Shelter is the primeval architectural act, and as such is always there - though to what degree depends solely upon the idiosyncrasies of the individual in the act of sheltering. Living is what determines one culture from another - this is where a culture begins to show what it will and will not do with how it first shelters itself, and then how it organizes further preferences within. Dwelling systems are further a refining of the previous choices - shelter providing a stable ground for living, living providing a stable ground for dwelling, which is ultimately the sumptuous condition of programme vivified.
But resources (time, money, quality) are limited - context becomes the determinate for the way in which these networks are loaded to produce works of architecture. Take Dubai - the insane wealth there has created sheltering systems of incredibly density for living systems which are hoped to finance the dwelling systems of the developers when their oil runs out. Sheltering systems are first and foremost given that geography - but nothing new is being built there. Its the same old stacked floor plates from hell like that Las Vegas monstrosity recently featured on the Archinect front page.
Architecture is first a job, second for others because (re: white collar whore) I provide a service to a paying client who bears almost no responsibility for the result except to enjoy getting what they payed for (though this might be specific to my current occupational context), and probably not at all for the world - which will in no way have any great realizations based on the things I help get built in this world.
Re: Dubai... Actually I take back part of what I said, that fundamentally architecture always serves human dwelling.
Maybe there are such things as "non-places", that do not situate or locate anybody anywhere. I'm not saying that all of Dubai is a "non-place', but what I mean is:
Building purely as an expression of investment speculation is something different. Essentially, buildings *say condos* that are built and essentially left empty, never lived in, in order for foreign investors (who don't even live in the city or country) and have absolutely *no intention* of ever living in the property that they purchase, or even to rent them out, but rather leaving the property vacant so that it remeains pristine and new, only to watch property values get inflated larger and larger until they are ready to sell off the brand new condo at a hugely inflated value... Essentially, the property exists as part of an inflated bubble... The value may not be real.
In fact, nobody occupies the space... It's building that's become something different... *Building as a vessel of wealth generation.* They can be used, but their value is not equivalent to their use value... And in fact, their value may not even reflect actual demand by real consumers...
IMHO, that's the probem with these markets and it is essentially one of the major problems behind the sub-prime lending crisis, housing bubbles, home foreclosures due to the sub-prime loans taken up by regular people, but which were originally basically devices invented to accelerate foreign investment, and inflate home values, leading to even more investor demand, more and more wreckless building, etc...
i work with artist friend on his installations, which are architectural. sometimes we collaborate on proposals when the work gets landscape-y or otherwise scale becomes important. it is much like architecture and also very different. i also run a firm as architect in which case the work is entirely different. art is about communication. architecture is about inhabitation, even if it is in dubai. so i don't see any conflict between the two.
i don't tend to philoshophise over the why of architecture. i do spend lots of time thinking about how or what. but if i were to consider the former the most honest answer is simply that it is interesting and challenging and maybe because what i do might make some parts of the world a little bit nicer. but if i really really wanted to change society i would become a politician. that is where the power really lays. architecture is many things but it is not a source of power.
most people do things to stay busy. this allows them to lead a nonreflective life. it protects them from thoughts of emptiness, meaninglessness and death. time to vacuum.
Visited the Kimbell Gallery in Fort Worth recently - that building really epitomized for me what on earth I do this liability stricken job for...to create a building which transcends the function it was intended for. No one there seemed particularly surprised I spend more time examining the details between the art that hung on the walls than the art itself.
Perhaps laboring over the "why do we do this?" would be energy better spent just "doing." Some of the most surprising and gratifying situations I've been in as an architect have been when a team has just knuckled down, solved a problem, and the built result turned out better than we had all hoped it would. It is easier to continue the line of questioning and conjecture on architecture when there isn't a physical commitment (e.g. built work) to define a position.
Reasons for doing
Have the values of architecture changed much over the ages? Not just in terms of technological influence but some kind of objective truth-- why design, why build. Is it for you or for others, for the world or a specific community. Are you an agent of society or a separate entity.
because there is a universal intrinsic need for shelter.
This is sorta related:
In the past year, I've worked on a project that has seriously changed me and my outlook on architecture.
In school, it was the ability to add. To create something of use in this world. To be a part of our civilization.
Now, the scope of architecture has rapidly grown in terms or ethics. This particular project has gone so poorly, and we are in such a compromised position, that the role of architect as a protector of interests for clients, users, and society is really at the front of my mind.
Also, the ability of architecture to change and influence has been diminished. Architecture, to me today, is less a catalyst and more a response. Perhaps that's just cause of where I'm at right now, but really, the forces at play make me feel so small.
And to add to that, the bold sculptures that are being erected by artists further divide our profession. I'm not really interested in building icons, branded buildings, or the like. It has never been why I got into architecture, to produce a piece of art. But if the client didn't program or pay for an icon, everyone doesn't really care about our aesthetic opinion? or furthermore, disregards it as if we're all looney, that nothing we do or say has any objective basis or positive outcome... they think we're all selfish narcissist who crave making our mark upon the world... okay, i'm losin it... that is definately not what you're talkin' bout... but...
No it is, I'm interested in what you said about artists dividing the profession, are there any artists in particular you feel are stealing this capacity from Architecture? What about architect/artists a 'la blurred boundaries and definitions?
maybe thomas hirschorn, pierre huyghe, et. al?
"And to add to that, the bold sculptures that are being erected by artists further divide our profession."
Is he perhaps using the word artist to describe starchitect? So as to differentiate them from architects?
No, I imagine he/she is either referring to iconic sculptors like Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, or the relational aesthetic bunch, Rikrit, Hirschorn, who make cool architecture moments that are fun to talk about and experience, also add gordon matta clark
james turrell?
yeah that guy too
robert smithson!
I believe Art and Architecture are two very different things.
Symbolically, architecture is a codification of socially acceptable ideas/norms. High dollars and politics are involved in any significant building. Architecture that pushes social norms is still on some edge of what is already nearly acceptable. Art challenges social norms and introduces new ideas at a different level of conflict. Therefore, edgy architecture lags behind edgy art.
That's all a bit manifestoey in tone, but here's to discussion! I'm sure there are many projects that blur these lines, still is this an inherent difference? Doesn't it seem like many of the daring forms of contemporary architecture are kinda like the daring forms of sculptors like 50 years back?
Art has moved firmly in a conceptual direction since Duchamp. The most well known artists since the 1970s have dealt with issues of human perception and our phenomenological engagement with the world.
But much architecture is still rooted in a pre-Duchampian idea of the aesthetic, i.e. building as shape-making. Too little architecture engages in a critical, discursive, or didactic practice. At least in the US, we seem to have an entrenched system where either style governs, or economy does.
farwest1,
I'm going to have to disagree with you regarding the latent modernist tendencies of architecture as limiting it strictly to formalism, and with your suggestion that art since 1970 is concerned primarily with phenomenology.
While some contemporary architecture may appear to be dealing with formal issues, these are most often the reflections of some deeper examination, be it semiotic or post-structural. Some architects (diller scofidio + renfro) work at a similar pace as the "art" world by ignoring the boundaries in definition btw art / architecture and making pieces that are less functional in the traditional sense of architecture but hold some merit around gallery circles.
Contemporary "art", well that's a whole other bag of potatoes, my friend.
But back to the topic at hand, what are the "reasons for doing" among these different kinds of practices. Do we see artists as being purely self-centered heroes and architects as cruciform marxists?
I'm not sure why everything always needs to be so dramatic and divisive in architecture. Does the building as a common, functional object have no meaning? The profession seems so at odds with itself, in fact it seems to even disrespect, reject or disregard the very idea of being a profession. Of course that isn't all architects, but it does seem to be the credo of many of the most outspoken ones I find here and in other sources.
The whole tortured artist obsession does the profession a serious disservice. If an architect wants to reject functionality, construct ability, economy and their client's desires all for the sake of their own aesthetic or political statement oriented agenda, he/she will have successfully created the very situation so many are rallying against. If you complain of your efforts not being taken seriously, you must in your own right, act seriously, lest your complaints ring hollow. If you complain of losing your relevance in the building process, you should not shrug off your responsibilities in the process, you must embrace them, claim, and fight when others encroach on them. Do not allow all the technical aspects of the building process to slip onto the shoulders of others.
In direct answer to the question, you build buildings because they are needed. Which is not something new, it is the way it has always been.
Your role in the process is not solely to dictate the aesthetic qualities of the building, it is to provide the connective tissue between many conflicting parties and conflicting goals. Yes you should assist the owner in seeing their project through, help them create their vision, but at all times , remember it is their vision, their building. That is not to suggest that you act merely as a mindless automaton, but simply that you maintain a proper perspective. Provide guidance and clarity to the owner, not directives and primma donna artistic demands.
It's for fun and for use... building is dwelling... I mean clients and designers and builders, the whole entities involved...
We, people, make places not just physically through the construction industry, but everybody embeds their environment with meaning through their mental maps and also physically in their day to day activities and just rearranging their furniture in their houses, finding a roof over their heads, taking ownership of a space...
So... No, fundamentally we're still in it for the same reasons. We won't get away from that, it's fundamental to what we are as organisms... Well it's also it's cultural, things cetainly change, but fundamentally, we are human beings... The game changes, the scale of it, the technology of it, the economy of it, and the virtuality of it, but the goal always remains the same...
Doesn't it? Maybe...
This question can only be answered personally about personal motivations: I see my architectural work as being two fold: I am a consultant and a white-collar whore. I agree with farwest1 that, at least in Eagle Country USA, you either have enough money to saturate a project in style or enough money to exert only the most meager of funds to the absolute bottom line of code. Things that happen in balance are FAR more rare and are usually not a source of income for anyone, so they rarely happen.
Design is the accomodation of preference, and architecture the preferences of inhabitation. These preferences occur in 3 ways: sheltering, living and dwelling. Shelter is the primeval architectural act, and as such is always there - though to what degree depends solely upon the idiosyncrasies of the individual in the act of sheltering. Living is what determines one culture from another - this is where a culture begins to show what it will and will not do with how it first shelters itself, and then how it organizes further preferences within. Dwelling systems are further a refining of the previous choices - shelter providing a stable ground for living, living providing a stable ground for dwelling, which is ultimately the sumptuous condition of programme vivified.
But resources (time, money, quality) are limited - context becomes the determinate for the way in which these networks are loaded to produce works of architecture. Take Dubai - the insane wealth there has created sheltering systems of incredibly density for living systems which are hoped to finance the dwelling systems of the developers when their oil runs out. Sheltering systems are first and foremost given that geography - but nothing new is being built there. Its the same old stacked floor plates from hell like that Las Vegas monstrosity recently featured on the Archinect front page.
Architecture is first a job, second for others because (re: white collar whore) I provide a service to a paying client who bears almost no responsibility for the result except to enjoy getting what they payed for (though this might be specific to my current occupational context), and probably not at all for the world - which will in no way have any great realizations based on the things I help get built in this world.
Re: Dubai... Actually I take back part of what I said, that fundamentally architecture always serves human dwelling.
Maybe there are such things as "non-places", that do not situate or locate anybody anywhere. I'm not saying that all of Dubai is a "non-place', but what I mean is:
Building purely as an expression of investment speculation is something different. Essentially, buildings *say condos* that are built and essentially left empty, never lived in, in order for foreign investors (who don't even live in the city or country) and have absolutely *no intention* of ever living in the property that they purchase, or even to rent them out, but rather leaving the property vacant so that it remeains pristine and new, only to watch property values get inflated larger and larger until they are ready to sell off the brand new condo at a hugely inflated value... Essentially, the property exists as part of an inflated bubble... The value may not be real.
In fact, nobody occupies the space... It's building that's become something different... *Building as a vessel of wealth generation.* They can be used, but their value is not equivalent to their use value... And in fact, their value may not even reflect actual demand by real consumers...
IMHO, that's the probem with these markets and it is essentially one of the major problems behind the sub-prime lending crisis, housing bubbles, home foreclosures due to the sub-prime loans taken up by regular people, but which were originally basically devices invented to accelerate foreign investment, and inflate home values, leading to even more investor demand, more and more wreckless building, etc...
i work with artist friend on his installations, which are architectural. sometimes we collaborate on proposals when the work gets landscape-y or otherwise scale becomes important. it is much like architecture and also very different. i also run a firm as architect in which case the work is entirely different. art is about communication. architecture is about inhabitation, even if it is in dubai. so i don't see any conflict between the two.
i don't tend to philoshophise over the why of architecture. i do spend lots of time thinking about how or what. but if i were to consider the former the most honest answer is simply that it is interesting and challenging and maybe because what i do might make some parts of the world a little bit nicer. but if i really really wanted to change society i would become a politician. that is where the power really lays. architecture is many things but it is not a source of power.
most people do things to stay busy. this allows them to lead a nonreflective life. it protects them from thoughts of emptiness, meaninglessness and death. time to vacuum.
Ha that is an excellent post Vado. I'd love to stay and chat about it, but I'm off to organize my sock drawer.
Visited the Kimbell Gallery in Fort Worth recently - that building really epitomized for me what on earth I do this liability stricken job for...to create a building which transcends the function it was intended for. No one there seemed particularly surprised I spend more time examining the details between the art that hung on the walls than the art itself.
Perhaps laboring over the "why do we do this?" would be energy better spent just "doing." Some of the most surprising and gratifying situations I've been in as an architect have been when a team has just knuckled down, solved a problem, and the built result turned out better than we had all hoped it would. It is easier to continue the line of questioning and conjecture on architecture when there isn't a physical commitment (e.g. built work) to define a position.
physical commitment usually compromises the position. it's blago!
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