Method Architects

 

I don't know whether to look at him or to read him.

In "Notes Around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism," by Sarah Whiting and Robert Somol, the authors compare the critical project architecture to method acting. This type of acting sees an actor study for weeks on end before the performance, researching every possible detail of this fictitious character and giving this character a favorite color, a childhood imaginary friend, an embarrassing first kiss and everything in between. And yet, when it comes time for performance, the audience hears none of these invented facts. They experience the performance. And the caliber of that performance is still determined by atmosphere, emotion, the context.

Critical architecture makes the bold assertion that a calculated, indexical and disciplined approach to a building's design will yield a successful built work, and perhaps in glossy pictures it will. But to the audience, or in this case, the users, the experience will be nuanced regardless of the original intent. While it is true that the playwright can never predict how the audience will react, and even so each night the reaction can be different, to disregard the audience wholly seems a major oversight. Whiting and Somol describe the Doppler effect as not purely optical, not a reading strategy but an atmospheric interaction, and I think that this is a much better place to start when beginning to design.