Grand plans for Seattle Center evoke hovering "Jelly Beans," "dematerialized urbanism," and "catalyzing atmospheres." That's just what Seattle needs: more gobbledygook. — crosscut.com
Knute Berger, of Seattle-based Crosscut, opines on the long-pondered use of "gobbledygook" in archispeak, in reference to the architect's project descriptions from the recently announced results in the Urban Intervention Design Ideas Competition.
13 Comments
Certainly theres a time and place for paragraphs of dense architecture jargon (lectures, studio crits, etc.) I see no harm in presenting it to a jury base that is used to hearing the kinds of grandiose descriptions that architects like to write about their projects. But its not a necessity to be successful in a design competition, nor in presenting your firm and your work to the design community.
I'm sure some commenters have strong feelings on Bjarke Ingles, but I can't deny he's a hell of a salesman and can deliver a dynamic pitch about his firm and his work, without isolating or distancing himself from anyone. Many of my friends in unrelated fields think he makes architecture much more interesting to understand. I'd offer up an example of the Firm Introductions for the Kimball Art Center in Park City. Listen to his, and then contrast it to someone Will Bruder.
I saw Ingels speak at a design conference in Copenhagen last year. His talk was super engaging, and, well... inspiring. In a time when many of the avant-garde are producing work that is nihilistic and challenging to the point of alienation, described in language that's crafted intentionally to be obscure, his approach is like a breath of fresh air. Although I have trouble with some of the the formal aspects of his buildings, his work is profoundly optimistic and humanistic. It is steeped in that very Danish tradition of innovative design serving the most important of goals: making people's lives better. I really admire him for that.
Bjarke also goes on rather lustily about architectural "reproduction." hey - sex sells, I guess... What won me over with him is that he's not above visiting and speaking at second and third tier architectural programs.
I think the big problem is that most of the confusing language in architecture is unintended. Architectural practice is full of strange conceptual leaps that either work or don't. Explaining them is a challenge that seems to be beyond most architects, IMHO, but I think a lot of the pie-in-the-sky terminology and bizarre obfuscations comes from a truly optimistic spirit that springs eternal in the profession's younger ranks. On the flip side, someone like Ingels is in danger of slipping into cynicism, 'protecting' his audience from the actual thought process by giving it a neat pitch where every issue is resolved, every question has an answer. I don't know which is better: incoherent optimism or oversimplified cynicism.
Ideally, we would learn to write and think clearly at some point in our higher educations, and have the time to hone our words before finalizing competition boards! Also, if we were presenting in English, we would ask a native English speaker to edit the text ... at least one of the examples in that article was clearly written by a French person who just didn't write English well. It seems to me that a lot of the irritating concept catch-phrases like 're-territorialization" have lost their original meaning and become a kind of universal archi-speak binder/goo simply because of bad (published!) English translations of foreign theorists (in that case Deleuze/Guattari, I think?).
I'm sure that behind the scenes, Bjarke's work has other rationales that would probably need to be described in "archi-speak". But the difference is that his work also connects on other levels of meaning. When he's explaining his work to non-practitioners, he is able to talk about how he and his team were presented with challenging problems, and they solved them in interesting ways, ways that result in deep, tangible improvements to the lives of people. That's very powerful. If all you've got is archi-speak, and you can only make a case for your work to other architects, then what's the point?
When you're able to communicate your opinion on diverse and complex concepts, such as sustainability, using examples and strategies that everyone can relate to, you've become a much more effective influence on common thought. George certainly brings up a good point that giving it a neat pitch certainly doesn't cover every inch of ground on the issue. But ultimately, when you can sell design as a worthwhile investment to the general public, it does the profession a better justice for building businesses, rather than isolating and confusing people with too much architecture jargon
I definitely agree that having some really slick communicators (like Bjarke and perhaps Joshua Prince-Ramus) is good for the profession. A general journey towards the middle ground would be even better, though. Mark Wigley put it this way during some lecture at Columbia several years ago (might have been the commencement ceremony, in fact): architects should find ways to communicate our *doubt* to those outside the profession, in order to draw them into a deeper conversation and concern for the built environment. I think his concern about the slick communicators was that they package architecture too neatly, and in so doing reduce it to a product. Of course in some ways this gives them great power (they get to build a lot).
I would like to learn more about Bjarke, though - I'm probably putting him in an inappropriately narrow box.
bjarke is most honest of them all. the guy doesn't hide where he stands and use this music in his lectures.
@Orhan the title of that track you linked to is "Hess is More" seems like an architectural inside joke, no if that is what Bjarke uses...
It's very hard work to clearly communicate complicated ideas to a broad audience. It's much easier to use obscure jargon, and hope to impress.
As someone coming into architecture as an outsider in the past, the archispeak can hit you like an overwhelming force. You have no idea what you were just told and are mentally exhausted from trying to figure it out as quickly as the architect is feeding it to you. With experience it is easier to understand, but architects don't sell buildings to other architects. Unfortunately, the jargon is almost the accepted way of presentation
The success of archispeak really depends on overwhelming the listener so they are not allowed to dissect each detail of what is being said. When analyzed closely, the meaning often falls apart. There was a presentation by an instructor at an ivy-league graduate program last year based around Proprioception (http:/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception), except the instructor spelled and pronounced it as "Prioperception" and used the entirely wrong meaning, using the word when she should have been using Exteroception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exteroception). It was presented as if everyone should know exactly what it meant with no explanation, and everyone just nodded intently as if they knew exactly what she was saying. Discussing the presentation afterwards, everyone in the room had sipped the koolaid and knew nothing of the mistakes. If I hadn't looked up the word myself a few days later, I would have been tricked as well.
..stopped reading when Rick Santorum came up at the beginning of the article, no surprise there
ohfischal, not to snipe, but did YOU listen to Will Bruder's talk in the link you posted? Bruder is one of the most plain-spoken architects out there. His speech is as straightforward as his work is. He's not as adorably humorous as Bjarke, true. But saying "I'm looking for the poetic in the pragmatic" appeals to pretty much every member of any audience, no?
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