Credible Architecture

When architects elevate themselves to an elitist position within the design process and neglect the user, we have lost our credibility. Giancarlo De Carlo in Architecture’s Public emphasizes that modern architecture has lost its credibility, catering to the client instead of the user. This has led to cheap, degraded architecture, one focused on the bottom line. Credible Architecture would provide safe, comfortable dwellings regardless of the circumstance. 

We fail as architects when we exercise exclusion throughout the design process. When a select few make decisions about what “good architecture” is, we fail to account for architecture’s public. If architecture’s public is in fact all the people who use architecture, should we not include them in the design process? How do we even attempt to define “good architecture” without the voice of the people that use it every day?

As Giancarlo De Carlo expressed, there is a need for cultural renewal in architecture. How will we address the need, now that we can reflect on the negative impacts of architecture that has been made solely by the architect?