From the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to the Sydney Opera House, the world's most recognizable landmarks display the character of the people who created them, but can individuality in architecture stand up to increasing pressure from developers to deliver universally popular designs?
...Daniel Libeskind warns that his profession is currently battling against commoditization and a "design by committee" approach that devalues the architect's role.
— CNN
CNN Style has made Daniel Libeskind a guest editor for a series of articles around the theme, "Architecture and Emotion." In this article, Alyn Griffiths takes a look at "individuality" in architecture, with a general presumption that it's under attack.
While beginning with the caveat that every building is the product of "many minds and hands," the article is primarily oriented around Libeskind's belief that buildings best "engage people's emotions... when the architect's own vision and feelings are expressed through the design."
It's a bit unclear how much Libeskind was involved with the article itself, although he's quoted early on in the piece. "Individual expression is what makes people different from other animals," claims Libeskind. "It's what defines us as a species and yet, increasingly, individuality is a dirty word in architecture."
These are strong biological and sociological claims – with little backing offered. But assumptions aside, is their some validity to concerns that architecture could, and is, losing the capacity to express the ideas of an individual because of pressures from developers who prefer genericity?
It's a difficult question and undeniably layered. On the one hand, there's a lot to be said about the relative modernity of individualist values, particularly – but not exclusively – in regards to architecture. Generally speaking, individualism is a value that emerged concurrently with modern capitalism, accelerating in importance with neoliberalism. Ironically enough, not one of the buildings in the photo gallery that accompanies the article is the product of an individual architect.
The great Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe bear no signatures, instead built over hundreds of years through the collaborative efforts of hundreds of people. Even Sagrada Familia, referenced in the article as exemplar of the individualized expression of Antoni Gaudi, is the product of countless other individuals; an entire façade of the Barcelona cathedral is, after all, the work of a the modernist sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs. In fact, Gaudi himself considered the work a sublimation of his own being for the exultation of divinity – and the design as a mere translation of nature. "Originality consists of returning to the origin," Gaudi is quoted as saying; and elsewhere, "Everything comes from the great book of nature." His insistence of deferring authorship extends to those currently engaged with finishing the cathedral.
In fact, one could argue that Libeskind is a member of a uniquely individualist generation of architects, a group who privileged the development of a "signature" over perhaps any other criteria. Even the preceding generations of towering figures like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe were, in part, committed to the collectivizing spirit of manifestos, international conferences, and the development of iterable styles and practices. There is perhaps a correlation between the (perhaps unjust or at least overly-abundant) critiques of 'starchitecture' and a sense of exhaustion regarding this era of "individual expression" in architecture.
But, issues of historicity aside, the article raises a question that undoubtedly resonates with many architects' experiences today: do pressures from developers engender safe choices and therefore banal results?
This, in turn, seems to demand a slew of other questions, both big and small: Does individual expression in architecture necessarily mean a more costly project, therefore less-friendly for developers? Is this a new phenomenon or a perennial one? Is it fundamentally cultural, economic, or both? And, perhaps most vital, is individual 'expression' such an important value in a field that is fundamentally social, constructing relations between and through many bodies?
4 Comments
Libeskind has done more to devalue architecture than any committee that didn't hire him.
no he hasnt.
Individual expression is a fairly boring and banal thing. Ride the subway and tell me how many truly memorable people you meet. Everyone's got their specific features - that doesn't make them interesting or important to you. Special as an expressive quality is uncommon, unwilled, and very much dependent on context and the relation to the observer.
There is a role for identifying architecture with a creator which is in no way novel (it seems to date back to the renaissance: see Palladio, Michelangelo, etc) , but it doesn't apply to all of architecture, as the article notes, and ironically illustrates with the photos.
Commercial development, being something built speculatively for an unknown bunch of individuals has always been fairly conservative and generic. It's not a mere coincidence that many of the most famous buildings of modern capitalism are somewhat anonymous in provenance. The Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, former Sears Tower, Rockefeller Center: all great commercial architecture recognized by the public and professionals - but designed by less-known architects within big firms. These buildings are identified with the socio-economic periods of their construction more than as expressions of an individual will.
The kind of willful expression Libeskind conceives is very much appreciated by the public, but ironically is most preferred by the committees who form museum boards and public works bureaus. This point seems stupidly obvious: why does the writing ignore all the museums and public infrastructure designed by DL, Zaha, Gehry, Calatrava et al?
More intriguingly, the committees that tend to select these architects are ones who aren't themselves responsible for funding. It's easier to buy great art with other people's money: always will be.
DL comes off as naïve to suppose otherwise. That, mainly, is probably why he gets few plum commissions from developers.
In the end, all of it has art value of some kind. Whether expressions of an individual will or a collective tendency, good architecture shows something interesting about the way people think.
there was a time when "individual expression" was to smash your neighbor skull with a femur to take his wife and his cave, then paint such cave with thy neighbor 's blood.
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