Trust me, you'll love the wrong size.
I don't really have any coy or clever way of expressing a viewpoint this week based off the readings. Instead, I just want to sort of talk about how in depth they were. It really is apparent that architecture, especially according to the De Carlo article, is a profession that has throughout all of history only been available to those of affluence.
"Credibility disappeared when modern architecture chose the same public as academic or business architecture; that is when it took an elite position on the side of the client rather than on the side of the user.”
When did this displacement of the need of the user slip away from us? Maybe it started when $$$ was the key factor. Of course it did. The article states how much we need to re-knit this relationship with those who buildings are built for in the first place. Alejandro Aravena clearly stated that, "Design's power of synthesis is just an attempt to put at the innermost core of architecture, the force of life."
When cities started regulating housing for those in the bottom part of the economic food chain, they did it in a way that only accounted for the cheapest possible situation. God forbid some people have access to space and light ? They can't afford it!!
Alejandro also goes onto to say how when the inevitable happens... the mass migration of people into the city... we as a society need to plan for that. He only sees it as a way of using the power of the sum whole to solve that issue. It is expected, according to Alejandro, that two of the five billion people in the year 2030, that move to cities (40%), will be considered below the poverty line.
That's staggering.
It really gets me thinking about why this great sepearation of society. Is money really the dividing factor always? The de facto for the world's issues? Positive and negative?
True architecture can only compete in a space that it is afforded by, but if affording something becomes archaic, then architecture could and should take the opportunity of serving the whole, as was the original intention.
This seems clearly in line with all the other issues in the 20th century and modernism as a whole. the separation from the human condition sought by functionalism was only possible with corporate funding. Essentially, if we wanted to look at it through a lense of optimism maybe we can say that the last 100-years was like a bad research project where we got sick of all the work we did in prior and tried something completely new. With modern technology and financial wealth in economies like the US, this seemed a perfect occasion. However, allot of research tends to result in failure, in this case the failure wasn't just in some of the ideas around the final object itself but around the human, economic and environmental impacts surrounding its creation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick, looking at the last century as an experiment rather than a definitive outcome increases our comprehension of what took place rather than saying this is they way it will always be. As architects continue to experiment (research), there will continue to be failures, money will continue to be spent, and the human condition will hang in the balance. While capitalism is currently on trial for being an ineffective system, the scientific method is not. It stands as the only tool for generating research and as such the human condition will perpetually hang in the balance as architects continue working.
ReplyDeleteIan I really like the title of your post. In regards to Nicks comment, I think we are operating like everything is an experiment but specifically at the expense of the every day 'user'. Soon, an overwhelming amount of people will be suffering physically from the effects of capitalism on architecture. Proof of this is in the 'Dormzilla' at UC Santa Barbara; how did a billion dollar student housing building get approved with no windows in the living areas? Answer: The donor had an insane amount of money and required his vision to be realized. All it took for them to not consider the 'user' was $200 million USD from one single person
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