Earlier this week, I was reading a brief for an exhibition at a well-known school of architecture and something stood out to me, something that seems to be a typical case in academic circles. I read this prompt, which was probably about 500 words. At the end, I had no idea what the exhibition was about. I read it a couple more times and finally got a general sense of what they were trying to say.
The primary premise of the event could have been communicated in a clearer way, but because of the obscure word choice, bizarre passages, and melodramatic jargon, the purpose of this writing, which was to communicate the intent of the exhibition, became overwhelmingly lost.
Once, David Goodstein, a colleague of the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, said to the Nobel Prize recipient, "Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics." Feynman looked at Goodstein and said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." The physicist went away to compose his lesson, but a few days later came back to his colleague, "I couldn't do it," Feynman said, "I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don't really understand it."
Feynman was known for his uncanny teaching ability and prowess in explaining scientific matters simply. In his response to Goodstein, he believed he did not truly understand the concept in question because he could not explain it in a simple way, it is a perfect example of a highly intelligent person realizing the power in communicating clearly. So many of the theoretical thinkers in architecture seem to elude this idea. Obscurity and cryptography sometimes appear to be the aim.
Feynman explaining how fire works.
Now, some things are just complicated. Forty-four years before Feynman, Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics. He has a similar adage attributed to him, but with a small caveat: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." It echoes Occam's razor, a popular principle, specifically in regards to the scientific method and problem-solving. "The simplest solution is most likely the right one," is a common paraphrasing of the original statement, "entities should not be multiplied without necessity," and "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer."
I hear this a lot among professionals. It's funny, they've spent a lot of time honing their skills communicating complex concepts to clients who don't "talk" architecture, and become consequentially better for it. I remember, a while back, I was at an event with an architect I used to work with. We were listening to a dean who was on a panel for an Ivy-League school of architecture. He was talking about architecture's role in society. My colleague turned to me and said, "what the hell is this guy talking about? I'm lost." I was lost too.
At the end of the panel, the moderator asked if any of us had questions for the dean. You could look around the room and see faces of other professionals eager to engage, but we were all at a loss of what to ask. This guy was just way over our heads. Maybe he was too smart for us, but then I just think of Feynman and Einstein, two Nobel Prize winners, and how they talked about their work — true masters of communicating the complex (there's also Neil Degrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan...maybe we can learn from these scientists).
The thing is that this colleague of mine was a master communicator himself. He had presented countless projects to clients, organizations, and communities of people, the same as many other professional practitioners. And the result of that communication was that groups of people bought in to realizing our firm's projects for real, not just the idea of them.
When it comes to communication, isn't clarity most important?
Clarity is always the most important thing unless selling a bill of goods or hiding something. This is one of the most difficult aspects of education today. Not so much in practice because it's easy to laugh off, but for the student that's trying to understand this profession. I've seen it lead to apathy and cynicism, when one realizes they've been swindled. (see our politics)That said, what Einstein said is true. "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
this is a fallacy in itself though at the same time, you do not have to be able to explain everything you know simply. some things are complex, and we do have to discover unprecedented ways to explain them. truth is, there is an academic milieu that fetishizes complex language at the expanse of meaning to make it look as if what's being said must be important because it's inscrutable. reverse is also wrong though - it's a gross reduction to say "you do not know what you can't explain simply" - it stands against employing abstraction as a creative and expressive force. i think the antidote is honesty/sincerity
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Clarity is always the most important thing unless selling a bill of goods or hiding something. This is one of the most difficult aspects of education today. Not so much in practice because it's easy to laugh off, but for the student that's trying to understand this profession. I've seen it lead to apathy and cynicism, when one realizes they've been swindled. (see our politics)That said, what Einstein said is true. "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Patrik Shumacher intentionally uses this kind of obfuscation in an attempt to appear smart. Sadly, there are quite a few who lap it up like a kitten at a saucer of milk.
This article falls squarely into that category: An Error has an Aura- Reading Boym's "Nostalgic Technology: Notes for an Off-Modern Manifesto"
I dozed off just reading the title.
Try wading through the commentaries in this video from MOS:
https://vimeo.com/371841103
this is a fallacy in itself though at the same time, you do not have to be able to explain everything you know simply. some things are complex, and we do have to discover unprecedented ways to explain them. truth is, there is an academic milieu that fetishizes complex language at the expanse of meaning to make it look as if what's being said must be important because it's inscrutable. reverse is also wrong though - it's a gross reduction to say "you do not know what you can't explain simply" - it stands against employing abstraction as a creative and expressive force. i think the antidote is honesty/sincerity
Exactly. "..as simple as possible, but not simpler." Sometimes the simplest possible explanation is still complex. Sometimes complexity is used to paper over bullshit. A good skeptic can sniff out the shit.
In this era of starchitects and egos in architecture this is sad but not surprising. Projects are hyped and inflated with verbose language and many don't notice or ignore that the emperor is wearing no clothes. This should be called out and seen for what it is. As a high school teacher of engineering and architecture, I enjoy the challenge of trying to make complicated concepts comprehensible to students. There is beauty in the explanation that fits just right and is not overly complex or simplistic.
Science fiction writer (and technical writer) Ted Chiang finds beauty in clarity: "I've always been drawn to clear explanations. A good explanation is not just useful. It can also be beautiful." See article below.
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/11/501202681/arrival-authors-approach-to-science-fiction-slow-steady-and-successful
Behind the simplicity of the physicists is a pretty powerful and complicated math, none of which is particularly accessible. Feynman's comments are about his own comfort with not knowing a subject as much as he thinks he needs to, rather than a comment about what is true.
Which is an interesting point to think on. Simplicity of expression does not always mean correctness, or a measurement of reality. Einstein was after all completely incorrect about quantum theory and it drove him crazy that Feynman's squiggles could be a better explanation of uncertainty than all of the more "elegant" explanations he was looking into.
Political discourse today is a kind of proof of that. The simple narrative is constantly winning out over the truth; out of human nature, an overabundance of trust, laziness, or just a lack of time. The trick is to be more like both Einstein and Feynman and search for better ideas, constantly. A very hard thing to do. We are all trained to stop at the surface, which is not enough for anyone and especially not for architecture.
There is also an implicit critique of erudition that needs to be separated from the critique of purposeless over-complication. Sometimes we simply need to engage in messy complication and imperfect explanations.
Which is not the same thing as architects being cartoonishly verbose and all that jazz.
Maybe the best conclusion is that even if we have a lot of complicated things going on we should refrain from expressing too much of it in polite company or risk being lumped in with the actual dross....
Could be that was Feynman's own barometer for good ideas. Cool, if so.
I failed archibabble 101, I have to use a dictionary to read some of this heady stuff by REM and other "eggheads" to quote Trump when complaining about Libeskind
Many years ago as a college freshman, I read "Politics and the English Language", an essay by George Orwell in which he essentially said "say what you mean simply, with as few words as you need". It was tremendously influential for me and has been one of the tenets in my professional life as an architect. It just doesn't seem that that difficult to do!
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