From De Drager: A Film About John Habraken, one of my favorite parts was where habraken compares architecture to jazz music. He described how at different points in jazz, different musicians come in, change the music and the music is beautiful because of its composition as a whole of multiple different musicians. If you’ve ever seen live jazz, it’s incredibly informal and spontaneous. The musicians know and expect another musician to come in at any moment, change the tempo and their ability to adapt quickly is what makes them good musicians.
Jazz and dance night at Dizzy's Club in NYC
Architects, are and want to be the Beethovens of the world. Every piece, a masterpiece. A work of art, beautiful in every way, expected to last forever and be untouched by others. But, as habraken says, “the built environment resembles an organism more than an artifact”. It’s impossible to expect our buildings to stand the test of time without someone else intervening. But, maybe if we saw our role in the built environment more like that of a jazz musician; us coming in at different parts, the non-architects at their part and future architects at theirs; we could redefine what the built environment is and what exactly makes it beautiful. That being a messy composition with many moving pieces is actually more beautifully complex than a standalone masterpiece. Just a thought.
Gran Vía in Madrid, a composition of new, old,
adapted and reused buildings
I completely agree, architecture should not contribute to a static life rather it should encourage and evolve through the every changing life in the city and a new building should complement this and enhance it
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting point, and gets to Habraken's point of permanence where we need to allow room for those that come after us. It's interesting how architecture would start to change if it wasn't so fixed. I don't know what that would look like or how we will get to it, but I think it is important for architecture to move in that direction.
ReplyDeleteYour tagline 'Architecture Should be More Like Jazz Music' should be used as the AIA's slogan to press against Trump's executive order mandating that all federal buildings to be of the classical style.
ReplyDeleteI like this post a lot. I think treating architecture like Jazz would do a lot for the celebration of individuality in architecture. It would create much richer diversity in the forms of cities and embrace the multitudes of styles and cultures that make them up.
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