"If Everyone's Super, No One Will Be"
Odd
comparison, I know, but this idea of ordinary, "background" architecture makes me think of
the quote from the Disney movie 'The Incredibles'..."if everyone's super,
no one will be". If all architects
strived for extraordinary, landmark type buildings, they would slowly begin to
not stand out anymore - they themselves would start to become the new
ordinary. The ordinary is what makes the
extraordinary possible. It is just as important.
Which
is why I particularly loved the “would you rather” question in the debate today about building “background
buildings” that benefit the people that use them daily, or “starchitect-type”
buildings that most people may only visit once or twice in their lives. It
seems to, again, parallel this idea of designing for the architect, vs designing
for the people. My immediate reaction to
this question was “of course I’d want to design the cool architectural piece, that’s
what I’m getting this degree to be able to do”.
But then when I thought about it a little more, I realized, the challenge
in this profession lies not in the ability to design these landmark destination
pieces, but rather to be able to take the mundane, everyday architecture and
transform it into something much more than that – something that is FOR the
people and that can be adapted BY the people throughout their everyday use. I think in many ways this is much more
difficult to accomplish, and is where the skills of the architect can really be
put to good use.
Okay, I love that comparison. Genius. And so true. I loved posing that question in the debate Thursday because honestly, I had the same first reaction too, and felt like people were being dishonest saying otherwise. But these posts and responses have really helped me see that standing out and creating crazy buildings is really so much less important than helping people during their everyday lives. And isn't reaching more people and improving their daily lives what's really special, anyway?
ReplyDeleteOh My God...Great Quote from a great movie!
ReplyDeleteI give a strong endorsement of your idea and quote. It is why in the class, I proposed that special architecture had an additional responsibility to articulate its relationship with backgrounds. Background architecture largely fulfills the roles of itself. Special architecture, in addition to that, should be able to elaborate in different ways its connections with contexts, either functionally, aesthetically, culturally, or else. In this sense, special architecture is special in the sense that it can also retreat and become background architecture.
ReplyDelete