Is Architecture Making You Less Human? (Week 6 Throwback Edition)
While I was reading Margaret Crawford’s Everyday Urbanism, I was intrigued with this notion of the architect becoming more connected with the everyday aspects of life. I found this almost funny because architecture has consumed most of my life the past six years and my imagination is picturing this as the “the architecture ghost” haunting me because I should have spent more time engaged with non-architecture related activities to have a more diverse perspective.
I can only speak for myself, but I think about how
architecture has even consumed a lot of our social time and relationships as
well. I know that my undergraduate years went from hanging out with a diverse
group of majors freshman year, to strictly talking about studio over beers with
only architecture peers senior year. And God help any non-architecture student
that joined the conversation because 90 percent of it revolved around
architecture in some degree. I know this sounds off topic, but it is a really
important point that I am sure many of you experienced as well.
Getting back to Margaret Crawford, I really like the idea of architects (cautiously) bridging the gap from the profession to the public, but at the same point I would challenge professionals to consider how their everyday life and experiences are different than the 99.99% of people who are not architects. Crawford makes a great example when she writes, “A shopping cart means very different things to a busy mother in a supermarket and a homeless person on the sidewalk”. The architecture community should acknowledge their unique perspective on urbanism, but always be looking to participate in the intersections of other communities and backgrounds to help strengthen the design of those social exchanges later.
As designers the greatest skill is to be able to experience spaces as a “typical” member or the public, but also be analyzing with your architect hat the traits that make it successful or not. In my head the best buildings are the ones who can be appreciated from a macro perspective by the mass and can be an inspiration at the micro perspective by architects and designers. Well-rounded design stems from well-rounded designers.
I couldn't agree more that architects need to get out of that 'bubble' in order to truly relate to their clients, the users, and everyone else that we must relate to in order to have a successful project. I have always hated that bubble and really think it's a disadvantage to studio culture.
ReplyDeleteGreat points, I liked when you said "God help any non-architecture student that joined the conversation" it reminds me of when your roommate nick hangs with us and is sometimes does not talk because we went off on some random tangent about class. We as architects have to be able to see the different perspectives of the people around the area to be able to create successful buildings. The ability to do this is easier the more the architect interacts with different type of people.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it does. But again architects can do it all, we don't have to box ourselves, and considering everything that we know, why not use it to serve others. I believe it is not about "Is architecture making us less human?" but more about "Do we care about what architecture is?" I like to say it, architecture and life have the same course and architecture doesn't have a tangible definition neither does life, but it has a purpose that we all understand, "serve the public?". So I think the problem here isn't architecture, but it is us architects, we don't know what architecture is still, and that doesn't mean we should stop asking that question, NOT AT ALL. We need to keep asking how can we make architecture reflect us in order to understand what architecture really is.
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