ARROGANCE ISN'T ALWAYS CONGESTION
How many professions have such a high accumulation of know-it-all's? The people who claim they have it right, and about everything. Those that have the missing ingredient, and those that tell you what you thought you already knew.
Architects.
Art.
Sometimes they manifest in the nature of congestion or a grouping rather than a sole source.
The enormity of luck for humanity to birth a starchitect are slim-to-none. Trust me I know... it-all. That sometimes does seem to happen more frequently when the artistic vision is met with contextual happenings and work ethic.
A prime example of this is Rem Koolhaus's Downtown Athletic Club.This is a project that encompassed all the elements of its time in what could be realized in a building: social patterning in the metropolis, advancements in materiality and machinery, and visions of the utopian vertical nest of comfort. With the lack of thought around meaning of this bigness of architecture, the next best thing is to stitch in the metropolis experience with things liked horizontal elevators, and climate controlled atmospheres in every room. A collage of niche synthetic functions all packaged nicely and for your convenience.
Does this make it correct architecture? A form without meaning?
Or is the meaning coming from the congestive nature of the metropolis itself? Can the arrogance of the architect sit the bench on this one, and watch the city play it out?
Da-Me Architecture (no good architecture) is in fact no-good, but those who defined it are subjective probably on the side of the arrogant architect. The authors of the article Made in Tokyo describe discovering, "a narrow spaghetti shop wrenched into [a] space under a baseball batting centre hanging from a steep incline." How efficient and terrible! They go on to state that these types of buildings are, "constructed in a practical manner by the possible elements of that place. They don't respond to cultural context and history. Their highly economically efficient answers are guided by minimum effort," and therefore they must not be real architecture.
I think that I have very recently given more energy and attention to how vernacular architecture plays the role in whats designed going forward. The type of architecture that really comes from a need, and therefore can't afford to get it wrong. And then I think about how one such person could never truly have all the right answers no? The arrogance of the architect pushes a wedge into accepting the possibility that the congestion of the city could very well be a vernacular of a larger scale. The cant-get-it-wrong version in the metropolis. I think the people as a whole get it right in some ways. Noodle shop + batting cage may not be very elegant, and very may well be tacky as hell, but it is right in some way. I think we need to pay more attention to this delirious
congestion as we approach the bigness of architecture, because arrogance is not the answer.
I really love your thoughts here... arrogance is not the answer. As architects and as architecture students, we are taught to think about all these big "issues" and design "one" optimum solution to them all... yet that solution is merely OUR solution. In an academic setting this is a necessary exercise as we try to increase our capacity to learn about a better architecture. But when it comes to our future practices, we will be tasked with creating architecture that comes from a "need" likely outside of our own need to get it all right. There are times when being a humble steward of the needs put before us are more important than being the architect that gets it "right".
ReplyDeleteIan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the points that you brought up in your post, and after reading your comment on my post, I think that your thoughts and some of what I posted go together. I think that arrogance is very prominent in our field, whether it be the contractors, engineers, or architects everyone has an opinion and most people seem to think that they know it all and everything that they do is right. I feel that there is a point where people need to be humble and learn something new that will ultimately make the project better. There is always room for improvement.
Ian,
ReplyDeleteYou're making some important points here, but what is really exciting is your suggestion that the hyper programmatic architecture of Koolhaas, or the fragile architecture in the nooks of Tokyo, stand to be just as important as vernacular architecture one might find in the harshest of climates. The city can be a challenging place, if not sometimes more challenging than being in nature itself. With this reality, the people of the city, the urbanites, can't afford to not carve as much space as they can for themselves in the congestion. And I mean can't afford in a direct link to capital. The city is expensive, and the only way someone can find a place that is obtainable is through adopting an architecture that works within the infrastructure.
First of all, I love the image you chose...I had a good laugh over it. You are absolutely right when it comes to arrogance in architecture. There is a fine line between sharing our expertise in the field and stepping back to listen to the needs of the client. Architecture should definitely arise from a need and it is obviously important for us to learn from past examples of even the most simple and humble of architecture. I think for us to evolve as architects, we don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel, we just have to steer it in a new direction while staying on the same path forward.
ReplyDeleteI believe there is something to be said for the accidental and chaotic programatic mixtures that occur in the midst of congestion. As was conveyed in "Made In Tokyo"..."Living space is constituted by connections between various environmental conditions, rather than by any single building." In other words, the people will make what the people need to allow those spaces to thrive. As tacky as some of those mixtures may be, they serve a function that needs to be served, and the purity of that intention has merit in its own right. Thus, it's almost humorous that certain architects think they are even doing something novel by creating these jarring mixtures of program when it clearly happens so naturally on its own.
ReplyDelete