Modern architecture, despite breaking with the past stylistically, nonetheless maintains this image of the gifted architect as a lone autonomous genius who overcomes gravity and prevails over his client [...]
Rather than an inner activity done in solitude, it has been found that people often discover their thoughts and ideas through interactions with others [...]
The centrality of collaboration in architecture is often overlooked in a culture celebrating and branding “starchitects.”
— Lilith
Referring to recent statistics concerning women in architectural practice and the Denise Scott Brown Pritzker controversy, architect Esther Sperber calls for an overhaul of how we think about creativity and authorship in architecture. Her piece for Lilith, "Revising Our Ideas about Collective Inspiration", argues that what is perceived as "creative genius" relies on cultural and social affirmation, and is therefore a necessarily collective act.
Endorsing D.S.B.'s demand that the architecture community "salute the notion of joint creativity", Sperber's piece recognizes issues of gender inequality within the practice, but is more concerned with the whole notion of individual intellectual ownership -- creativity just doesn't work this way, and prestigious awards shouldn't either.
As creative industries adapt "orchestrated serendipity" strategies to capitalize on collaborative processes, the presumption that intellectual production belongs to any one individual dissolves. Sperber's piece leaves us with questions of whether this could extend to intellectual property law, and its basis in a capitalist economy.
For now though, let's reform the Pritzker.
4 Comments
I listen to a science podcast regularly (The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe). This week's show discussed the current Nobel Prize science winners, and a big part of the discussion was that within the science community they are having this same discussion: that prizes like the Nobel tend to recognize individual genius, but more and more those important discoveries, and confirmation of them, relies on collaborative efforts of many people. So it's not just architects worrying about this.
Why does it have to be an either/or? Experience tells us individual creativity does matter, but that so does teamwork and collaboration. It's the same republican/democrat debate projected onto architecture. The yin-yang balance is what works (until recently).
Perhaps this is why my mom is a democrat and my dad is republican, and yet they somehow manage to live together. Maybe women are more about communication and teamwork while men are more individualized. I hate labeling entire sexes, but it seems to be popular these days to be bigoted and to use generalized, branded terms (Brutalism is meaningless. There are only individual buildings and individual people). Perhaps this conversation is too one-sided, New York Liberally?
Apart from the crazy methods of current Republicans, you need a counter, yin-yang to come closer to the truth.
Just want to say I know personally what it's like to pour oneself into a project for 9 months, to give up nearly all of one's own standards and methods in order to foster a feeling of participation from one's collaborators - quelling suspicions that you're the only one giving up your individuality (your partners contributions to the work increasingly began to look like their individual stuff they did prior to this collaboration, just as you've erased the last hope of bringing some of your own tricks to the table) - and then to watch as an entire city praises just one of the three main creators (a dozen of us throughout the process) - simply because he's already got a fan base and name recognition.
So yeah, DSB FTW!
so youre saying that its dsb's partner to blame, threadkilla?
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