What Architecture Wants

Architecture is not a business producing answers. Answers are cheap. Google delivers answers from the World Wide Web in milliseconds. For architecture to remain a relevant profession in the age of information, a radical shift must be made from production of cheap answers to generation of quality questions. Manifestos and mission-statements are counterproductive in a world defined by massive change in technology, globalization, political permeation and media saturation. Alternatively a mission-question may allow architectural practice and education to contend with a rapidly changing world: What Does Architecture Want?

This question considers architecture as a system with a synergetic relationship to practitioners and participants, similar to technology in relation with computer engineers and tech consumers. Buckminster Fuller defined synergy (1975) as the “behavior of whole systems unpredicted by their parts taken separately”. From this viewpoint architecture exhibits tendencies and desires of its own. Under this model, theory and application become complementary elements of a unified whole. Form no longer competes with function, complexity no longer necessitates contradiction.

Contemporary global realities including globalization necessitate asking good questions, but to do so, the underlying assumptions in architectural practice and education must first be revealed and challenged. These inherited presumptions are defined and examined in a historical context in Part One: Inheritance, and techniques for the inversion of assumptions and proactive processes are detailed in Part Two: Inversion. Despite the domination of media and information overload in the still young 21st century, tremendous opportunity exists for both architectural practitioners and educators. However, success will no longer be determined primarily by production of limited solutions, but through comprehensive questions.

Part One: Inheritance

Contemporary architecture suffers from a number of genetic disorders; traits inherited from the Western philosophical tradition and evolution of the Modern theoretical position. Particularly problematic for architecture has been the assumption of the a priori dichotomy, a pervasive attribute of the Western meta-narrative. Plato’s dualism, dividing the intellect from the senses, and the Hebraic separation of creator from created, are the fundamental ingredients of Western culture (Barrett 1956). In a hierarchical system of thought, separation of dialectic pairs (black/white, good/evil, form/function, etc.) assumes not only a disparity between elements, but the primacy of one over the other. Dominance is understood to be inherent within the cultural framework, but value is only assigned based on a subjective moral position. Modern architects of the early 20th century claimed a break with the subjective history of Renaissance Humanism, proposing a new architecture based on the objectivity of the scientific process and the promise of technological progress. This positivism and belief in industrialization informed Louis Sullivan’s famous Modernist dictum: “Form ever follows function”. No longer would architectural appearance (form) be governed by historic precedent. Function defined as programmatic use assumed dominance, and the Western dialectic tradition continued fundamentally unchanged (Eisenman 1984).

Mies van der Rohe attempted to explain the Functionalist paradigm with the poetic assertion: “Less is more.” Unfortunately this phrase viewed through the dialectic lens as a dualism was largely misunderstood as a reductivist design directive and thus associated with the alienating international style and the failure of late Modernism. As Robert Venturi (1966) famously responded during the Postmodern critique, “Less is a bore.”

Rather than confronting the dichotomies permeating the Modern position, Postmodern theorists merely perpetrated the problem. Venturi (1972) offered the choice of “Duck” or “Decorated shed”; formalistic representational architecture verses a humble container communicating function through signage. Furthermore, Venturi (1966) proposed "Complexity and Contradiction" as strategic opposition to the stripped down purity of Modernism, leading to a contrived and eclectic ‘style’ of Historicism. New dichotomies replaced earlier assertions, and architecture continued to suffer from the same inherited schizophrenia.

Architecture is still playing catch-up as a field that adopts technology and techniques from other fields, theory from other sources. At the dawn of the 21st century, the relationship between architecture and the fields of science and technology remain largely same as in early 20th century; translating breakthroughs in material and technological development to the built environment. How can a tradition with dualistic tendencies exist in a globalized and thus unified world?

Part Two: Inversion

Inversion and ultimately the collapse of assumptions long held as natural is the imperative of contemporary architectural theory and education. Emergence of an updated and comprehensive definition of architecture relating to the broader socio-political and economic environment in which it both exists and informs requires a reconsideration of the relationship between architecture and theory. If theory is largely seen as an “impediment to innovation” within architectural education as Michael Speaks (2005) posits in a recent Architectural Record article, perhaps the very definition of theory needs to be reexamined.

Architects have approached the issue of theory in various ways during the last century; through critical publication in journals as well as the adoption and application of new technology and techniques in architecture. Frank Gehry’s adaptation of Dassault Systmem’s aerospace CATIA software allowed the possibility of new built forms as well as integration of the design and fabrication process, eliminating the need for separate construction drawings. Process becomes product with the use of CAM (Computer Aided Machining) and rapid prototyping technology, theory and practice are unified.

InFORMation contains the word form, despite being itself invisible. At the onset of the 21st century, the Seattle Central Library (Rem Koolhaas/OMA/LMN Architects) represents the most comprehensive integration of information, form and function: the first truly Modern architecture. The entire design process is available as built artifact; the conceptual framework is inseparable from the physical object. Informational necessity reunites form and function. Process becomes product.

Theoretical generation of this pivotal architecture can be traced to the poststructural perspective explored by Bernard Tschumi and Peter Eisenman in the 1980’s, during the later portion of the Postmodern reconsideration. Deconstruction as a method borrowed from Derrida’s linguistic theory allowed these architects to challenge the fictions (Eisenman 1984) and assumptions held by architecture. This was the first attempt in Western architecture to explore the tenuous relationship of meaning between the dialectic pairs of signifier and signified, the basic elements of language. Architectural meaning was revealed to be culturally based and subjective, and deconstruction as a tool for relevant architecture was established.

Koolhaas’ use of the deconstructionist method in production of the Seattle Central Library affirms the necessity of the question in architecture. The very definition of library was reconsidered while exploring what a library should be at the beginning of the 21st century. Koolhaas asserted libraries had become fortresses, threatened by new media and therefore would have to be designed to preserve book-space while accommodating new forms of media and technology. A meticulous reconsideration of every operational element lead to a diagram separating and accommodating all needs, which literally became the building form. Form was not applied as a separate element, but was generated directly from functional information. Even book storage was reconsidered, leading to the book spiral, essentially a parking-garage form allowing different sections of books to expand and contract over time, avoiding fragmented to separate floors as occurs in typical libraries.

Assumptions of structure were similarly deconstructed, allowing the diagram to become the radical crystalline structure that has generated unprecedented controversy and interest in architecture throughout the world. This reinterpretation of archetypical library represents the current fusion of technology, economics and design. Theory is not a disparate element, but integral with the framework of design.

Conclusion: Question Architecture

Bruce Mau's (2004) Massive Change project demands consideration of the question: “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?” This extension of Buckminster Fuller’s (1969) Utopia or Oblivion requires a big-picture analysis of humanity’s simultaneous capacity for survival as well as destruction. Fear of terrorism has replaced Cold-war era anxiety in the West, leading to political and cultural connotations architecture must engage and respond to. Commodification of architecture, driven by economic development will persist despite a lack of response by educational institutions or the profession in general. Where architecture does not engage with other systems it becomes subservient, a tool fulfilling the wants of whomever takes control.

The very term “practice” used to describe the architectural profession infers a state of transformation and exploration to gain competence at the practiced task. In this sense the line between education and practice demands to be blurred. The distinction is demonstrated during Eva Meyer’s interview with Jacques Derrida for the Italian publication Domus (1986) when Derrida responds, “The way is not a method, that must be clear. The method is a technique, a procedure to gain control of the way, in order to make it viable…(Martin) Heidegger says that odos, the way, is not methodos”. Through recent integration of design, research, and production, the dichotomy between education and practice, method and the way are made increasingly ambiguous.

Global design requires a re-examination of cultural assumptions and biases, the acknowledgment of the fictitious nature of history, and the acceptance of change as the only constant. There is no opportunity to break from history or ignore alternative cultural perspectives in the New Modern age. This architectural continuum must recognize the trends and behaviors of whole systems to avoid once again losing touch with the society it presumes to serve.

Architecture of the early 20th century existed firmly in the Modern zeitgeist, informed by technology and a collective consciousness. The informational revolution of the 21st century enables a new connective consciousness in architecture, exploding the limits and assumptions of the past. In the contemporary condition of abundant answers, overwhelming information and rapidly changing technologies and political territories, the necessity for good questions is apparent. Given the transitory nature of meaning and the rapid change of technology, a prescriptive architectural manifesto for the 21st century becomes by definition obsolete. What Architecture Wants is a flexible method for the continual production and examination of quality design. This question should be considered a catalyst for the integration of education and practice, theory and application. What Architecture Wants will not simply produce solutions, but further and better questions.

References:

William Barrett: Zen Buddhism, 1956

Peter Eisenman: The End of the Classical, 1984

Buckminster Fuller: Synergetics, 1975

Buckminster Fuller: Utopia or Oblivion, 1969

Bruce Mau: Massive Change, 2004

Eva Meyer and Jacques Derrida: Architecture Where Desire Can Live, 1986

Robert Venturi: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Learning from Las Vegas, 1972