Tucked away in a quaint historic town in southern Ontario resides an old silk mill next to a river. It stands out as a proud red brick block along the river’s retaining wall, surrounded by impressive stone houses from the late 19th century and three churches with jutting spires. It is for the incredibly talented, anxious, sleep-deprived people in that old silk mill, buried under mountains of trace paper and sketch models, high off each other’s creative exhaust gasses that I dedicate this series with love.
I realized something on December 19th 2014, between the hours of 8-10pm. Less than four hours after handing in my last exam and officially concluding my 2A term of architecture school, I found myself sleep deprived, malnourished and caffeine addicted, at a Christmas party with my parents in a house full of people who didn’t care about architecture. I spent most of the night talking to a technologist who told me that “Yeah, building ergonomics or whatever is important, but its fireproof ceiling assemblies that make great architecture.” Ergonomics being his word for what we call design. If I’ve learned anything from co-op, it’s that he wasn’t wrong. But more importantly, I realized while we were burning the midnight oil every night, agonizing over this thing called Architecture, we never stopped to ask normal people what they think, or if they even care. So I decided to find out. I asked 99 random people on the streets of Los Angeles the most vague, open-ended question I could think of to see how they responded: What do you think about architecture?
Here are their unedited answers in no particular order.
I don’t know what architecture is. Not surprisingly, having studied it for a year and a half now, but I’m not alone since I don’t think architecture knows what it is anymore either. It seems that there are hundreds of schools of thought as to what architecture should be, each voicing their own opinions in a disorganized chaos. In the midst of all this yelling all we’ve managed to do is go deaf to the voice of the people who ultimately will have to live with what we build. The voices of the 99% of the population who are not architects.
An architect’s individuality is undoubtedly his/her greatest asset and is intrinsically connected to their work, its expression is what helps make architecture so magical. However, I have worked for architects who pursue their own goals from the isolation of an architecture office, never stepping foot on site or listening to their clients demands. Instead they rely solely on the perceived authority and granted to them by their own experiences, commanded through a drafting board or computer, to build for the people who will eventually occupy a space. “I myself am installed in a windowless air-conditioned office, a kind of cell. My visitors are conscious of this fact, which makes them speak concisely and to the point.” – Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier isolated himself while he worked, intentionally cutting himself off from all but the most pressing external stimuli to focus on the production of his ideal city. Do you think he ever asked the people of Parisian suburbs what they thought while he was working on his master plan of their city? Do you think he ever asked anyone what they thought?
A charismatic bald man who’s glasses seemed to constantly migrate around his head, believing that machines have the capacity to feel and respond to the world as we do, once warned of creating something solely for the creators not the audience. It’s possible that the tribal nature of the group could create a circle so tight and insular that it is no longer accessible to the people outside who needed it. I would say that architecture has become exactly that, where architects are designing solely to satisfy other architects.
I recently attended a symposium at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) entitled What’s a Guggenheim? that aimed to explore the typology of the Guggenheim museums around the world and their roles within the changing nature of architecture. After about twenty minutes the discussion degenerated into the nature of architecture competitions, how best to approach winning a competition, whether or not to design something according to the jury panel and previous winning entries, and the significance of parametric designing in winning a competition. It was a highly intelligent and completely shallow discussion between architects on how to best pleasure one another for monetary gain.
As I left the symposium, an earlier response from a Target cashier echoed in my head. “Its all personal, for personal consumption, its not about the public or public consumption.” In many cases he is right, Architecture has become largely exclusive to a small group of those who produce and pay for it. I think as designers we need to broaden our idea of who we are designing for so that Architecture isn’t only something you go and see. Everyone shares the simplest everyday experiences like walking to the store or grabbing a coffee. Making those common experiences meaningful can engage the larger public in a way that is far more impactful than a concert hall or museum.
One day not so far from now we will graduate, eventually becoming lead designers, principal architects and project managers. It will be our projects that will change the world. That’s not sentiment, that’s reality. “Architecture is possibly the largest, most expensive and influential solution to any problem”- Alastair Parvin. It’s our voices that will mobilize change. Instead of sitting behind a screen working in the architectural porn industry, selling images of how a building is supposed to operate, why can’t we listen to the people who will be living in it and design for them? A wise, meek and highly reflective man, completely in tune with his own being, who tries to nurture the design potential of his students said, that every generation of architects’ has their own idea of what architecture should be and searches for its own way to express it. Instead of shouting at each other like the generations who have come before, to be the loudest, most radical or the most provocative, why don’t we let this fantasy idea of Architecture go?
If design is about getting to the core of a problem and finding a solution, then everything along the way is fair game for questioning. And if something crumbles under questioning then it needs to be re-evaluated. I think architecture itself is crumbling under our questions. That’s why it has become disconnected from the people who need it the most. If architecture is our design problem how can we begin to truly re-imagine it in the 21st century? I think it starts by abandoning the word architecture and all the baggage that separates it from the public. We can be the generation that listens to not only people but the world itself to create spaces and urban ecosystems that sythesis the solutions to overpopulation, infrastructure, ecology and food production instead of tackling them separately. Environments that are empathetic to the realities of a changing global society while being locally self-sufficient. The world can’t afford architecture with the disconnected self-centered mindset of the 20th century that lead to many of the problems we now face. We need to go out into the world, get active in any way we can and start the change, because tomorrow is coming up fast.
Everyone is aware of architecture but most people don’t actively think about it because architecture has never done anything to grab their attention. If we want people to care about what we are doing we have to get up, go to them and make them care. Almost everybody I asked was surprised that I was asking them what they thought about architecture, and more importantly that I actually cared what they had to say. You could see their faces light up as they came out of from the shell of their busy city-life, and shared their opinion. Whether or not they thought about it before I asked them, they were thinking about it when I left. By the end of this project I could tell just by looking at someone what type of answer they were going to give me. It was in their eyes, if they had that impossible to describe twinkle of curiosity in their eyes when I asked the question, I knew they would give me a great answer. Can we be the generation that creates buildings and places for those people?
I want to create a world for them, make spaces, buildings and cities that heal and celebrate all that those people are. So I say we forget whatever architecture is, leave it by the roadside and we build a world that fosters the curiosity and hope that I saw in the people I interviewed. I want to be part of the generation of architects who cared enough to put countless strangers first and make the real change that no one else will.
Because, why not. is a series of articles written by Michael Nugent about going out into the world and asking questions about design, architecture, cities and the nature of society. The ideas discussed and positions established reflect Michael’s personal opinions. If you’re interested in sharing your own thoughts about architecture, design and the community, contact us at bridge@waterlooarchitecture.com
