Q: Should perhaps architects just get on with doing architecture, whatever that entails, and let the community (that complex entity that ranges from scholars to occupants, and includes the builders, the media, the maintenance people and people passing on the sidewalk) incorporate the building, or the urban project, or the landscape, into the mental map of their environment? Do they really need to be massaged into ‘right thinking’ by people with a vested interest in promotion, reputation and various axes that need grinding? Part of the original call for articles for this issue asked ‘at what point in the political process of building the city (largely conducted in wars of words in the media) should architects intervene with a project proposal, not more words’. That is what we do. We design things. HA: I think that the less scrutiny that architects have means more chances to propose non-architecture. I was reading Spacing (fall 2013), and an article that praises George Baird legacy is called ‘Teaching architects to see the space around buildings’. Well, in academia he has his space because of Meaning in Architecture , but for those who just want to be practitioners Baird’s writings are of no interest, and reading them does not help at all to go through the internship process. As Wright explained in the thirties, North American architects have decided to step away from the debate and just do business. In many cases, the usual talk about the fluidity of space and the integration with the public realm will continue to be popular because it cannot be measured (proven), and it sounds very nice, even if the architect cannot design a plaza without calling a landscape architect or urban designer, or pay attention to ‘the space between buildings’. This is the model that has been implemented and won’t change. And unless the public gets informed enough to read these points, it will continue to be more concerned with sustainability and looks. Still, civil society depends on knowledgeable experts (not necessary technocrats), such as the local newspaper architectural critic; we listen to them when they talk about planning and urban issues that are difficult to cover and explain. In architecture should be the same. If the concept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder was true we wouldn’t need curators at the museums, but we have to remember that beauty is not just looks, beauty is the splendour of truth (Plato) .
‘While some buildings might seem to speak for themselves, even the best ones may need some help to be fully appreciated’, begins the conclusion of Wiseman’s Writing Architecture . 7 In Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles , a short pop film aired by the BBC in 1972, Banham explains Los Angeles to us, as “it needs some explaining because it’s normally regarded as an inexplicable sprawling maze.” 8 These architects and critics pulled architectural debate back from academia, giving it instead a popular voice that reverberates in hallways, blogs and short-run magazines. As Colomina reflects, we should start thinking of architecture as media, accepting that is not a matter exclusive to architects, but a high artistic practice that sits in opposition to mass culture. In current secular times the feeble relationship of practicing architects with architectural theory has been reduced to the design philosophy printed in a corporate brochure and in the project brief submitted to a city’s Design Panel, part of a submission that can be hundreds of sheets long and that still leave us empty. The architecture we produce is not particularly high anymore. After all the architecture we produced in the past, we haven’t done enough to challenge this current practice. Here is a reflection irrelevant for the developer but appealing to the young professional and urban activists: we need to re-learn how to read a building, an urban plan and a developer’s rendering to see where critique might make a difference to the city, and then communicate this critique to the reader and the writer, the citizen and the critic. Images can be compelling but critique is best conveyed through the written word to those with fragile visual training. To give an example, let’s travel with the pen of Wright in ‘In the Cause of Architecture’, one of his first collaborations for Architectural Record . He says, ‘As for the future – the work shall grow more truly simple: more expressive with fewer lines, fewer forms; more articulate with less labour, more plastic; more fluent, although more coherent, more organic. (…) but shall further find whatever is lovely or of good repute in method or process, and idealise it with the cleanest, most virile stroke I can imagine.’ 9 The work associated with this statement has lost importance, we don’t really need it to visualise the arresting power of architectural writing when it encompass good architecture. Writing takes over what drawings are not able to fully express, ‘especially when it comes to urbanism’ said Le Corbusier. And let’s not forget that he referred to himself as homme de lettres , his listed profession in his French identity card. At some point in his career he found himself in the position of a narrator over, or supplementary to, his role of an architect. f
7 Wiseman p207 8 Cooper, J, director. ’Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles’ One pair of Eyes series, BBC, 1972 9 Wright, F L. ‘In the Cause of Architecture.’ [March 1908] in Pfeiffer, B B editor. Frank Lloyd Wright collected writings . Vol 1. (pp. 84-100). New York: Rizzoli, 1992
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Spazio & Società (April 1978), published until 2001 under the directorship of Giarcarlo di Carlo. Collection of the Architecture and Fine Arts Library – USC.
Hector Abarca
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