3 In 1926 Adolf Loos arrived in Paris already a famous architect – not because of his built work, that still remained humble, but for his writings. Beatriz Colomina reminds us that for Loos, only when it has been de-intellectualised can the printed word give back the language to culture. Bruno Zevi shared the same awareness declining to ‘subject buildings to rigorous ideological scrutiny’. Robert Campbell, architect and architectural critic of The Boston Globe , collects ‘gems of pretentious illiteracy’, or overly-elaborated intellectual architectural rants; ArchiSpeak, he calls them. 4 Should we pay attention to Campbell’s wordsmithing mastery? Carter Wiseman, author and professor of architectural writing and criticism at Yale, echoes Campbell when he notes that with the advancement of technology and the increasing complexity of actual projects, clear written communication has declined, even among the best-educated professionals. 5 At first he thought it might be that current times have left little time for reading and writing, but then Campbell hazards that ‘architects, especially academics, may feel they’re so smart they don’t need to master the technology of writing’.
4 Since the 1980s we have gradually elevated
architecture to the level of art it was in Baroque times. It is debatable how it started – was it with Mitterrand’s grand travaux , or the Barcelona 1992 Summer Olympic games? Was it with the British high-tech architecture of the Second Machine Age, as Martin Pawley, long-time columnist of The Architect’s Journal , called it, paraphrasing Rayner Banham’s 1960 Theory and Design in the First Machine Age ? The Guggenheim in Bilbao was the work that changed public understanding of architecture. Perhaps not since the times of Fillippo Brunelleschi, has any other building received such copious media attention and, like the Florence Duomo, it dominates Bilbao’s skyline: architecture as an unmistakable phenomenon. From connoisseurs to day-trippers, from academic papers to tourist guides, everyone is writing about the handful of architects behind every other city’s reprise attempt of the Bilbao effect that would bring crowds to a city core, downloading the smartphone application to find the right spot to take the best selfie with a curvaceous landmark, and then writing about it, in a blog, social media or a journal. Alexandra Lange, design critic, author and Loeb Fellow, rejects the idea that architectural criticism is constrained to talk about specific new buildings that actually only have impact on a handful of people. 6 In ‘Writing about Architecture’ she points out that there is enough talk about architecture, but often it is focussed on real estate, investments and commodities – design is merely an accessory element of the equation. What we actually need are more critics – citizen critics – equipped with the desire and vocabulary to remake the city. Lange’s call is for public service, the critic as a mediator between the city and the individual, to break the mould of the traditional newspaper critic.
4 Campbell, R. ‘Having trouble understanding what the architectural cognoscenti are saying? You’re not alone’. Architectural Record 189 (10), October 2001, p 79 5 Wiseman C. Writing Architecture, a practical guide to clear communication about the built environment . San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2014 p2 6 Lange, A. Writing About Architecture: mastering the language of buildings and cities . New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012
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El Arquitecto Peruano journal, (October 1937). Directed by the influential Latin American architect Fernando Belaunde between 1937 and 1963. Collection of the Charles E. Young Research Library – UCLA.
Architectural Design (April 1970) covering the PREVI Experimental Housing International competition. In the 1960’s AD counted with the collaboration of Theo Crosby, Kenneth Frampton and particularly John F C Turner, who shifted focus to the global south, raising issues of informal settlements and the urban poor. Collection of the Vancouver Public Library
Hector Abarca
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