On the scale from Accountant to Artist, I'm an Architect.
One of the most compelling sections of the readings was the discussion of the "Generic City." How many neighborhoods, towns, cities essentially want the same thing? They approach Architects with words like "activate" and "community" and "flexible" for public space. Architects throw together some sort of dynamic, urban-rural, small town, main-street landscape-fountain-amphitheater for them and call it a day. I grew up in the Atlanta-Metro-Area. Nobody actually lives in Atlanta because Atlanta-proper is a rather small, comparatively, boundary. There are actually 149 cities in the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area. I mention all this because 1) Atlanta is specifically mentioned in the "Generic City" category, 2) I'm from there, and 3) I swear that every single one of those 149 cities has a landscape-fountain-amphitheater that looks like it was designed by the same breed of "accountant architect." Why accountants? Accountants are the generic generics. Every single one of them does the exact same job in the exact same way. But we need them and we pay them for that capitalistic demand. There's also a demand for the generic architecture. But I don't want to be an accountant.
I'm not an artist either. I scoff at the idea of artistic expression in the form of a building that is post rationalized into "architecture." So I want to be somewhere on the scale in-between accountants and artists, find the middle ground. Take something generic, like a brick, then layer-on empathy. Empathy for culture, materials, people, context. And then let people move the tables.
I'm not an artist either. I scoff at the idea of artistic expression in the form of a building that is post rationalized into "architecture." So I want to be somewhere on the scale in-between accountants and artists, find the middle ground. Take something generic, like a brick, then layer-on empathy. Empathy for culture, materials, people, context. And then let people move the tables.
I understand your position. But what if "empathy for culture, materials, people, context" lead you to the position of an "accountant"? Do architects create culture or vice versa - and even our millennialish attitude toward being an "accountant" is just another "product"
ReplyDeleteI think if those main-street landscape-fountain-amphitheaters are not successful as public spaces, it doesn't ignore the intention behind them. There might be some deficiencies in context analysis. And about your position on architecture, I agree that we all need to find the middle-ground.
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