But gender bias is not the most dangerous consequence of the lone-wolf image: It is the unspoken permission to abuse that should worry us. For the privilege of working alongside this aggressive and uncompromising genius, we are asked to tolerate his erratic, harsh, and selfish behavior. [...] To fight sexual abuse and abusers, we must first let go of this simplistic and fictitious image of the lone wolf. — Esther Sperber on Architect Magazine
In this short opinion piece, Studio ST Architects founder Esther Sperber argues that, in light of the ongoing #MeToo movement, rejecting the prevalent “lone wolf”/creative genius myth and emphasizing a collaborative culture instead are important steps to stopping abuse in architecture.
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I would love if we could completely let go of the "heroic solitary genius" myth in architecture.
When I won a local Women of INfluence award here in Indy, I heard something that really resonated with me. One of the speakers, who I have, very appropriately I guess, forgotten the name of, said that one of the reasons she always sought women to collaborate and mentor/mentee with in her long career was that women tend to "not be overly concerned about who gets the credit" - that women wanted the endeavor to be good overall, not just use it as a path to accolades.
I also saved a quote from when Eva Franch i Gilaberti was announced as director of the AA that struck me: "I did apply to the director's job with a sense of duty, and on behalf if you want, of all of those who care about architecture and how it relates to the world we live in." She's saying that her acceptance of a hugely important position is not just for herself, but for everyone.
More of this in architecture, please. IMO opinion architecture is *defined by* having a client, and being constructed. At the very least there are three people involved in every project, and all of us who have done quality control reviews of 100-sheet drawing sets know that there's more than one person's wisdom involved.
More of this EVERYWHERE please. We are social animals and we work best in small groups.
The ‘lone wolf’ isn’t a hero, he’s an antisocial misfit. Every person who is extremely gifted in one area is correspondingly incompetent in another. This is called ‘balance’ and is a fundamental law of nature.
Totally agree, Miles.
++
When do adults forget about all of the lessons we learned about sharing and community during childhood?
when Chad arrives to senior year in his brand new range rover.
The idea of the lone wolf artist should have died when Jackson Pollock rolled his Oldsmobile back in '56. That said, when William Faulkner's daughter asked him to stop drinking, his reply was "Who the fuck ever heard of Shakespeare's daughter."
Is there such a thing as a collective artist? I guess I can only think of examples in music/bands. I can’t imagine a collective painting being worth shit. Pollack was an asshole, but can’t you be great at something and also an asshole? Can’t we judge those things separately anymore? Seems like we now judge the value of an artist/artwork by the persona of the maker which is really doing the same thing being criticized above from another angle - elevating the makers character to levels of importance that surpass the objective importance of the work itself. As I’ve said before, this is all relative to time. No one cares the atrocities that the Mayans or Romans committed. We all just oww and ahhh
at their creations.
He was bullied by MKUltra
like most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, every creation is a manifestation of many hands, but it takes a visionary to initiate and guide the whole thing. Intelligence is not equally distributed. That’s a fact. A group of average Mexican architects never would have created what Barragan did. A group of average computer geeks never would have created Apple without a Steve Jobs. A bunch of cameramen, editors, writers, never would have created the collection of amazing Spielberg films. Creative genius is a real thing, being an asshole who doesn’t recognize the contribution of the many craftsman and specialists that make the vision become a reality is also a real problem. Let’s not throw the baby away with the bath water.
Has there ever been a great novel written by committee?
Same number as great pieces of architecture built entirely by the labor and genius of a single architect
again with this myth of the solitary genius. you're tongue is so far up Rand's ass, it makes Nixon giggle. fuck off.
oh, genius is a myth? Drop the Marxist bs. There are people who are more competent, talented, and intelligent. They either lead innovation or organize companies that do. Most people work for them, and most people eat. This is a productive model...why do the lefties want to disassemble a system that has brought more prosperity to more people than any other in history? Why is the obvious becoming controversial?
The
Listen you insufferable ass. The very fact, yes fact, that we all have to expend our labor to educate you on the fallacy of the solitary genius, is a demonstration of the myth that we "do it alone". Do you live in hole? Are you married? Do you have a
firm?
Are you illiterate? I understand that we don’t “do it alone”. Said that above. The idea that the solitary genius is a myth is false. The truth is more like, solitary genius exists, but it takes a village sometimes/often to realize their work, especially in the case of large scale projects and architecture. We all know Lou Kahn or Barragan didn’t work alone. The article however implies that They were equally as crucial as the many many skilled workers that helped execute the projects...like in their absence they would have done the same...because everyone is exactly the same and we want complete equity or something...Then it goes on to suggest that design by collaboration is the only legitimate way to design...in the case of art, I can’t think of many artworks that were designed by collaboration. Was just listening to some Coltrane...or should I say random equally skilled and dedicated musician...
If it clearly happens in music and painting and literature and physics...what makes you think it doesn’t happen in architecture? Where is the evidence to the contrary? Can’t make claims like this without providing some kind of evidence to support the argument.
The fact that some high achievers are also assholes is a separate issue. If you don’t appreciate the people who lay the bricks, and celebrate their craft and handwork, and treat them as equal humans, then the architect is probably not very good. That however doesn’t delegitamize the fact that a sole visionary also often plays a very crucial role. These all of nothing articles don’t scratch the surface on reality. It’s hyperbole and very false to view someone like Tadao Ando as an oppressor. Just saying we can separate bad behavior from creative genius...they are not synonymous as the article suggests.
Has there ever been a great novel written by committee? Yes, the Bible, I heard it was #1 best seller in 1675.
SBC, my bad.
So glad to see this conversation taking place. I love when people agree with me but a good debate about these issues is important for our field.
My take: Individuals taking outsized credit for the work of teams engenders a culture where abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) at the hands of these people is excused because of the prevailing idea that without them the firm will not survive. We tolerate their abusive tendencies because their "genius" is considered more of a benefit than their abuse is considered a detriment. But it's all a lie. If we admit that it's a lie, and that their presence is actually a net-detriment, maybe the professional blind-spots concerning the abusive culture of architecture will also fade.
I'm not sure how one get's dickhead behavior out of architecture any more than other fields. Starting with the Renaissance recognition of the individual (Michelangelo Il Divino), the genius thing took off in the Romantic period when people like Kant elevated the genius artist above the rabble. In part because the decline of religion or religiosity left room at the top, if you will. Bring architecture back down to earth, treat it like a craft which is responsive to the public and you will get some accountability back, but that won't happen anytime soon. It's a status thing I'm afraid, and no one gives up status willingly, at least in private.
erratic, harsh, and selfish behavior
Manifests itself in many forms, not just sexual abuse. Our society tends to reward these behaviors and by doing so amplifies them.
Equality starts with a level playing field.
The seriousness of craft.
Speak not of gifts, or innate talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. But they acquired greatness, became "geniuses" (as we say) through qualities about whose lack no man aware of them likes to speak; all of them had that diligent seriousness of a craftsman, learning first to form the parts perfectly before daring to make a great whole. They took time for it, because they had more pleasure in making well something little or less important, than in the effect of a dazzling whole. For example, it is easy to prescribe how to become a good short story writer, but to do it presumes qualities which are habitually overlooked when one says, "I don't have enough talent." Let a person make a hundred or more drafts of short stories, none longer than two pages, yet each of a clarity such that each word in it is necessary; let him write down anecdotes each day until he learns how to find their most concise, effective form; let him be inexhaustible in collecting and depicting human types and characters; let him above all tell tales as often as possible, and listen to tales, with a sharp eye and ear for the effect on the audience; let him travel like a landscape painter and costume designer; let him excerpt from the various sciences everything that has an artistic effect if well portrayed; finally, let him contemplate the motives for human behavior, and disdain no hint of information about them, and be a collector of such things day and night. In this diverse exercise, let some ten years pass: and then what is created in the workshop may also be brought before the public eye.
But how do most people do it? They begin not with the part but with the whole. Perhaps they once make a good choice, excite notice, and thereafter make ever worse choices for good, natural reasons.
Sometimes when reason and character are lacking to plan this kind of artistic life, fate and necessity take over their function, and lead the future master step by step through all the requisites of his craft.
Danger and benefit of worshipping the genius.
The belief in great, superior, fertile minds is not necessarily, yet very often connected to the religious or half-religious superstition that those minds are of superhuman origin and possess certain miraculous capabilities, which enable them to acquire their knowledge in a way quite different from that of other men. They are credited with a direct view into the essence of the world, as through a hole in the cloak of appearance, and thought able, without the toil or rigor of science, thanks to this miraculous seer's glance, to communicate something ultimate and decisive about man and the world. As long as anyone still believes in miracles in the realm of knowledge, one can admit perhaps that the believers themselves gain an advantage thereby, in that by unconditionally subordinating themselves to great minds, they provide the best discipline and schooling for their own mind during its development. On the other hand, it is at least questionable whether, when it takes root in him, superstition about the genius, about his privileges and special capabilities, is advantageous to the genius himself. At any rate, it is a dangerous sign when a man is overtaken by awe of himself, be it the famous awe of Caesar, or (as in this case) awe of the genius, when the aroma of a sacrifice, which by rights is offered only to a god, penetrates the genius's brain, so that he begins to waver, and to take himself for something superhuman.
The eventual results are a feeling of irresponsibility, of exceptional rights, the belief that he blesses merely through his company, and mad rage at the attempt to compare him to others, or, indeed, to judge him lower and reveal what is unsuccessful in his work. By ceasing to criticize himself, the pinions finally begin, one after the other, to fall out of his plumage; superstition digs at the roots of his strength and may even make him a hypocrite after his strength has left him. It is probably more useful for great minds to gain insight into their power and its origin, to grasp what purely human traits have flowed together in them, what fortunate circumstances played a part: persistent energy first of all, resolute attention to particular goals, great personal courage; and then the good fortune of an education that early on offered the best teachers, models, methods. To be sure, if their goal is to have the greatest possible effect, then vagueness about themselves, and an added gift of a semi-madness have always helped a lot, for they have at all times been admired and envied for their very power to make men weak-willed, and to sway them to the delusion that they were being led by supernatural guides. Indeed, it uplifts and inspires men to believe someone in possession of supernatural powers; to that extent, madness, as Plato says, has brought the greatest blessings upon men.
In isolated, rare cases this portion of madness may well have been the means which held such an excessively scattered nature firmly together: in the lives of individuals, too, delusions often have the value of curatives, which are actually poisons. Yet in the case of every "genius" who believes in his divinity, the poison at last becomes apparent, to the degree that the "genius" grows old. One may recall Napoleon, for example: surely through that very belief in himself and his star, and through a scorn for men that flowed from him, his nature coalesced into the mighty unity that distinguishes him from all modern men, until finally this same belief turned into an almost mad fatalism, robbed him of his quick, penetrating eye, and became the cause of his downfall.
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both of the above from Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human
Ooh, almost forgot this one, probably the most common in architectural circles:
Worshipping the genius out of vanity
Because we think well of ourselves, but in no way expect that we could ever make the sketch to a painting by Raphael or a scene like one in a play by Shakespeare, we convince ourselves that the ability to do so is quite excessively wonderful, a quite uncommon accident, or, if we still have a religious sensibility, a grace from above. Thus our vanity, our self-love, furthers the worship of the genius, for it does not hurt only if we think of it as very remote from ourselves, as a miracle (even Goethe, who was without envy, called Shakespeare his star of the farthest height, recalling to us that line, "Die Sterne, die begehrt man nicht"—one does not covet the stars).
But those insinuations of our vanity aside, the activity of the genius seems in no way fundamentally different from the activity of a mechanical inventor, a scholar of astronomy or history, a master tactician. All these activities are explained when one imagines men whose thinking is active in one particular direction; who use everything to that end; who always observe eagerly their inner life and that of other people; who see models, stimulation everywhere; who do not tire of rearranging their material. The genius, too, does nothing other than first learn to place stones, then to build, always seeking material, always forming and reforming it. Every human activity is amazingly complicated, not only that of the genius: but none is a "miracle."
From where, then, the belief that there is genius only in the artist, orator, or philosopher? That only they have "intuition" (thus attributing to them a kind of magical eye glass, by which they can see directly into "being")?
It is evident that men speak of genius only where they find the effects of the great intellect most agreeable and, on the other hand, where they do not want to feel envy. To call someone "divine" means "Here we do not have to compete." Furthermore, everything that is complete and perfect is admired; everything evolving is underestimated. Now, no one can see in an artist's work how it evolved: that is its advantage, for wherever we can see the evolution, we grow somewhat cooler. The complete art of representation wards off all thought of its evolution; it tyrannizes as present perfection. Therefore representative artists especially are credited with genius, but not scientific men. In truth, to esteem the former and underestimate the latter is only a childish use of reason.
This is more of a cultural issue. It is actually called the celebrity worshiping and widely accepted norm in our society. Look at the political scenery. In architecture, the lone wolf structure can be attributed to anything from marketing of real estate to corporate survival of schools. It is an old capitalist model of business to sell things. Let's not slide the discussion to who is real genius kind of irrelevancy on sexual and other types of abuse. Get Ayn Rand's ghost out of your heads and start discussing abuse of power relationships which is the problem.
Btw, a lot of celebrities, starchitects if you will, are not necessarily geniuses but business savvy people with talent in architecture like many who practice it. Business rigor is a must in that world.
100%
Hierarchical society results in the attitude of entitlement and the abuse of power. The greater the "success" the higher the tendency to assume that it is due to one's own genius (and nothing else).
Aren’t “creative geniuses” fundamental to the design profession? Who else is going to pave the way? Although no individual is better or worse than another at design,, by nature, we should celebrate the talents of these lone wolves. One can be humble whilst holding the title of a creative genius despite their inherent power. A task that one may be talented at might be another one’s weakness, vise versa. In a less-harsh manner than jla-x has stated above, I believe the truth falls somewhere in the middle; design is better conducted through collaboration, but we should not mask the visions of a talented individual. Why spend weeks on a task that talent can solve in hours? This only minimizes production. Everyone is talented in their own ways, why conceal that of the creative genius?
I do see that the problem seems to be rather in the power of the lone wolf. Talent is real. Everyone has it. When the creative genius abuses the power they receive from their talent is when it gets messy.
Your p[aragraph disagrees with its own premise many times.
This is gibberish.
It absolutely is, haha. I realized that well into the middle of the first portion but didn’t want to delete it. Now i’m wishing I did.
"you're Howard Roark" well, this isn't 1948
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