Make Background Buildings Great Again

You are special…just like everyone else.

- My Dad

This is what my father likes to say to me when we are joking around and granted when he says it it’s always in jest, I cannot help but think of when we addressed the topic of background buildings in class. Background buildings are just that, something that isn’t special and looks just like all of the other buildings out there. As architects, we naturally want to create something unique that will stand out and not fade into the distance like these background buildings; and there is our dilemma. Someone has to design them. Someone has to create the buildings that we use every day and rely on to complete our everyday tasks. Whether it is a grocery store, a gas station, or a chain restaurant we use these background buildings all the time. Lawrence Anderson said it best when he said,

“Too bad no one wants to do a background building.” 

- Lawrence Anderson

No one wants to be like everyone else. We want our designs to be special. So what can we do? Do we try to be “selfless” and design something that we know will become a background building or do we keep striving to be special? 

I think that this is a question that can be related on a larger scale within the context of the politics of architecture as well. The architectural community is typically a liberal profession, and yet ironically no one wants to design the background building and step aside for someone else. We want to design the best building, get paid a lot of money for doing so, and have everyone praise us for it. Granted, not all architects are like this, but it is the mentality that drives the profession. You would think for such a liberal community we would want to share the love a little bit more. I believe JJ’s blog post from back when we discussed this topic in class suggests an alternative on the matter. She said, 

“Instead of focusing on how our buildings can make an impact on the world of architecture, we should focus instead on how we can make an impact on the users.”

- JJ Nemetz

What if we made our designs about the people that will be actually using them instead of about how we can make a name for ourselves? I think that if we returned to that focus we will once again become the civil servants that our profession started us out as. I know that it is not as self-serving and may require us to actually be the type of people we think we are, using our talents to help the common good through our designs. But if we realize that creating the craziest or flashiest design isn’t going to make us special, like all of the other architects out there, then we can make background buildings great again.