I have been thinking about the limitations of architecture a lot lately. That i am doing so rather than thinking about the possibilities it presents is probably instructive of where my thinking is going. As a profession we have never been less valued, either in esteem or fee value yet many architects still believe they have the skills and power to make an appreciable positive impact in the way we live. But do they? I am increasingly less sure. At the same time i have also started to question the extent to which architecture itself matters.
This situation is not particularly new. We have been sliding inexorably in this direction since the eighties. The abolition of the fee scale and opening up of competition in the profession had an undoubted impact. At the same time procurement changed radically. With design and build the architect was no longer central to the process. He certainly wasn't getting paid as if he was either. Our customers don't seem to need us and they don't want to pay us. Can we really say that we are giving them good value?
As much as i would like it to be, our ills are not all down to Thatcher and the greed-is-good culture of the eighties. We sowed our own seeds of destruction long before that by failing to change and to really understand where technology was taking us. We have clung to notions that we are somehow gentleman artists. Polymaths. Renaissance men who can turn their hand to most any design task, from tea spoon to city plan. We dislike justifying design decisions as if that casts aspersions on our judgement. Heaven forfend that we might try to base our choices on some sort of evidence base! That sounds awfully like engineering, we are artists. We believe in our highly developed sense of taste and aesthetics but this leaves us arguing for designs on the basis that they might "look better". How trivial this sounds. Is that the best we can do? A little voice crying in the philistine aesthetic wilderness for something which looks just a little bit better than the poor quality product that our clients/contractors/engineers/QSs (or indeed whoever it is we are blaming for our irrelevance this week) has proposed?
We don't even have any ammunition in this battle of taste. Architectural theory has long since disappeared up its own firmament. Reading such texts is an exercise in alienation and frustration written as they are in an obtuse, self-referential internal language. Where are the polemicists today? Le Corbusier may have been wrong but he had a view of architecture that engaged with the world. Now we have silly debates about silly shapes and the software we use to make them. We debate, on a bi-annual basis it seems, the relative merits of modernism vs classicism. And that's just about it. That seems to be the level of debate around architectural theory at the moment. Inspiring isn't it?
I sort of blame Frank Gehry. We are all living with the fall-out from the Bilbao Effect. This is the fallacy that urban regeneration can be driven by crazy architectural gestures. The Bilbao Effect is the thinking architect's 'wow factor'. It is the evidence we crave that architecture matters. Not just architecture though ARCHITECTURE!!!!!! Architecture that needs 50ft high flashing neon letters never mind a surfeit of punctuation on order to express it's importance. This gave us icons. In the past we were happy with attractive functional buildings that did what their users required and contributed in a positive way to the streetscape. Sometimes we fretted a bit about form and style but that was about it. Now everything has to be 'iconic'. It doesn't matter if it is an art gallery, a school, a waste processing plant or a morgue, if the brief doesn't ask for something innovative (what does that even mean architecturally?) it is wanting something iconic for whatever locale it is going to raise from mediocrity.
But steady on folks, is it really possible for *everything* to be an icon? What happened to good manners? To an understanding of the spaces in between the buildings? Where did we lose any conception of civic hierarchy?
What happened to the things which *really* give a sense of place?
Lets look at an example. Florence say. Florence has its share of icons, there is no doubt about that. The Duomo is about as iconic as they come, at least in the old sense which didn't involve swoopy silver blobs copulating in a windswept plaza next to a shopping mall packed with the same stuff that is packed into all the other shopping malls. The Duomo is allowed to be iconic though. It was the key civic and cultural institution of its time. Something which is shared by everyone can stand out. It can shout for attention because it deserves it. The Dumo gives Florence structure. It stands physically higher than its surroundings and acts as a navigational device from many parts of the city.
Any visitor to Florence will surely be impressed by the architecture of the Duomo. They might also find Santa Croce memorable. They may be awed by the scale of the Palazzo Pitti and the Palazzo Vecchio. You can be certain that while they will linger in the Piazza della Signoria they wont take any notice of the vast majority of the buildings surrounding it. They are unremarkable for the most part but that doesn't matter, the space in between them is the thing. These hypothetical tourists will enjoy strolling the streets and alleys of the Centro Storico. They will remember the charming shops and the picturesque streetscape. They will think very little of the buildings that line these passageways.
"The mother art is architecture" said Frank Lloyd Wright but that sort of thinking is dangerous. Cities are more important than buildings. Buildings are nothing but the Lego bricks that come together to make cities. Indeed they aren't even all the bricks. We have little control of street furniture, infrastructure, paving surfaces, economics, demographics, culture. Architecture is a minor player when you really consider the multitude of influences that make a place what it is.
Rather than pompously wiffling on about being the "mother art" i rather wish architects could have adopted a version of the hippocratic oath and vow to firstly do no harm. Architecture in isolation is demonstrably more likely to damage the qualities of a place than to enhance it. Looking out of my office window here i can only see one or two buildings which are positive influences on the urban environment. That's pretty atrocious. Our manifesto should be to conserve, maintain, repair where necessary and to improve where possible but to do it with humility. Most importantly though we need to start with the understanding that the space left over around our buildings are more important than the buildings themselves. Lets get back to thinking about people and how they interact with the urban environment.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Japan
A break from running chat. I failed to get myself to the Lochaber start line. Various issues got in the way not least of which was being away in Japan. Running goals are being reassessed but in the meantime, an intermission...
It has been a while now since we got back from Japan and to be honest even after a number of days i don't entirely feel like i have properly processed the trip. It is of course naive to think that 10 days is enough to grasp a culture as complex and different as Japan's. I am still left wondering, "what was all that about??".
There are lots of trite things you can say about Japan though. It would be easy to glibly summarise it as a 'nation of contrasts'. It is of course a place with deep traditions that run alongside a mania for progress. This often results in some clanging juxtapositions that really jar our western sense of heritage and history.
Historic sites abound in the main cities. You are never far from a pretty Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple but these sit cheek by jowl with the seemingly out of control modern urban environment. Where we would impose a po-faced heritage exclusion zone around our major religious sites, with key views ruthlessly protected and good manners imposed, Japan takes a more matter of fact approach. The past, the present and future all seem to be treated as much the same thing. This is where i think the assumption that this is an enigmatic nation of contrasts is wrong. The ancient temples and the modern office buildings are all part of the same continuum. Every point in time is treated equally. At the same time, change is not just embraced, it is absolutely fundamental to the culture and the environment.
In many ways Japan is a difficult place for man to have settled. The forces of nature are felt very profoundly here with very real threats from earthquake and tsunami. There seems to be an acceptance that nothing is permanent. Everything can very quickly be swept away and renewal is in a sense more important than preservation. Unlike our culture of heavy masonry buildings that stand for hundreds or indeed thousands of years, Japan has a tradition of building in timber. This is much less permanent but that is not an issue. You will find that most temples or shrines have been rebuilt at some point due to fire, flood or earthquake. The beams and posts may be physically different but the connection to the past remains. Renewal and rebirth.
But this is of course fundamental to the mindset in may other ways. The religions of the area value a connection to nature and while this may seem curious when in so many urban centres you feel like nature couldn't be further away, it retains an obvious presence in daily life. This is evident not least in the universal delight that the cherry blossom season seems to bring.
There is no doubt that cherry blossom is A BIG THING in Japan. Round the main sites it is hard to move for Japanese tourists taking pictures of it or standing in front of it getting their pictures taken. To my mind, its nice but the extent to which it is an event there seems out of proportion but it is really about the coming of spring. Our seasons tend to all meld into one so we don't really celebrate their changing much. All lot of those sort of festivities are also tied up with religion in the west as well. Shinto is very much focused on the nature so the coming of spring looms large in the Japanese psyche.
The cities though seem terribly disconnected from nature. Private suburban houses don't seem to have much in the way of gardens. The city centres are largely bereft of parks. What parks there are are imperial or former imperial sites. It seems like contact with nature is something only for the very privileged. The parks are largely amazing though. While we would balk at having to pay admission it seems to allow a high level of maintenance. Of course everything is also beautifully laid out in that typically Japanese manner which seems to us terribly picturesque but which clearly leaves very little to chance.
Unlike our parks too there is no sign of litter despite there being almost no bins available. The respect that is ingrained in Japanese culture extends to the immediate environment. Leaving rubbish or mess seems unthinkable. I don't know whether this cultural attitude came first or later but it seems to me that it is absolutely key to understanding how Japanese cities work and how they have developed. Without this inbuilt respect for others and your surroundings somewhere like Tokyo just couldn't work. So dense, so sprawling and so confined is the city that with an "I'm alright Jack" attitude of the sort you find in London the place would be a powder keg. Because everyone respects each other the infrastructural failings of the city are somehow mitigated. Busy subways work because people queue at carriage entrances. Massive intersections like Shibuya Crossing don't descend into chaos because people wait patiently to cross and then proceed at a leisurely pace when permitted to do so.
But it does seem to me like the cities lack a true civic heart and that has to have an impact on society. Tokyo though seems have developed numerous sub-communities. Being so big and dispersed has tended to make different functions or businesses converge together for convenience. Thus there is a sporting goods quarter, a kitchenware area and also Akihabara, Electric Town. Formerly the place to go for cheap electronics this place is now the seedy underbelly of the Japanese pop-culture that we are more and more familiar with in the west. Essentially a mono-culture of manga, anime, maid cafes and the preferences of the sort of chap who refuses to grow up, Aki is an example of what happens when a culture becomes insular and self-sustaining. It happens all the time on the internet where negative behaviours become reinforced till they are the norm because there are no dissenting voices to challenge them. In Aki Japan's issues with sexual politics become obvious and clear. The crossover between sexualised images and very young characters or pop idols is queasy to our western eyes. Alongside this is a particularly joyless trade in vintage toys. The whole thing seems like a very distorted version of childhood.
So at the end of the day, do i like Japan? That is a trickier question to answer than i anticipated before i went out. I cant claim to have felt comfortable like i do every time i visit Italy or to have fallen for Tokyo so profoundly as i did for New York. I am more than glad to have gone. It was fascinating and fun but there is so much about the place and the way of life that i just don't connect with. Aspects of the culture, food, craftsmanship and architecture were massively engaging but ultimately i think it is probably too different and too challenging for me to really connect with it.
It has been a while now since we got back from Japan and to be honest even after a number of days i don't entirely feel like i have properly processed the trip. It is of course naive to think that 10 days is enough to grasp a culture as complex and different as Japan's. I am still left wondering, "what was all that about??".
There are lots of trite things you can say about Japan though. It would be easy to glibly summarise it as a 'nation of contrasts'. It is of course a place with deep traditions that run alongside a mania for progress. This often results in some clanging juxtapositions that really jar our western sense of heritage and history.
Historic sites abound in the main cities. You are never far from a pretty Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple but these sit cheek by jowl with the seemingly out of control modern urban environment. Where we would impose a po-faced heritage exclusion zone around our major religious sites, with key views ruthlessly protected and good manners imposed, Japan takes a more matter of fact approach. The past, the present and future all seem to be treated as much the same thing. This is where i think the assumption that this is an enigmatic nation of contrasts is wrong. The ancient temples and the modern office buildings are all part of the same continuum. Every point in time is treated equally. At the same time, change is not just embraced, it is absolutely fundamental to the culture and the environment.
In many ways Japan is a difficult place for man to have settled. The forces of nature are felt very profoundly here with very real threats from earthquake and tsunami. There seems to be an acceptance that nothing is permanent. Everything can very quickly be swept away and renewal is in a sense more important than preservation. Unlike our culture of heavy masonry buildings that stand for hundreds or indeed thousands of years, Japan has a tradition of building in timber. This is much less permanent but that is not an issue. You will find that most temples or shrines have been rebuilt at some point due to fire, flood or earthquake. The beams and posts may be physically different but the connection to the past remains. Renewal and rebirth.
But this is of course fundamental to the mindset in may other ways. The religions of the area value a connection to nature and while this may seem curious when in so many urban centres you feel like nature couldn't be further away, it retains an obvious presence in daily life. This is evident not least in the universal delight that the cherry blossom season seems to bring.
There is no doubt that cherry blossom is A BIG THING in Japan. Round the main sites it is hard to move for Japanese tourists taking pictures of it or standing in front of it getting their pictures taken. To my mind, its nice but the extent to which it is an event there seems out of proportion but it is really about the coming of spring. Our seasons tend to all meld into one so we don't really celebrate their changing much. All lot of those sort of festivities are also tied up with religion in the west as well. Shinto is very much focused on the nature so the coming of spring looms large in the Japanese psyche.
The cities though seem terribly disconnected from nature. Private suburban houses don't seem to have much in the way of gardens. The city centres are largely bereft of parks. What parks there are are imperial or former imperial sites. It seems like contact with nature is something only for the very privileged. The parks are largely amazing though. While we would balk at having to pay admission it seems to allow a high level of maintenance. Of course everything is also beautifully laid out in that typically Japanese manner which seems to us terribly picturesque but which clearly leaves very little to chance.
Unlike our parks too there is no sign of litter despite there being almost no bins available. The respect that is ingrained in Japanese culture extends to the immediate environment. Leaving rubbish or mess seems unthinkable. I don't know whether this cultural attitude came first or later but it seems to me that it is absolutely key to understanding how Japanese cities work and how they have developed. Without this inbuilt respect for others and your surroundings somewhere like Tokyo just couldn't work. So dense, so sprawling and so confined is the city that with an "I'm alright Jack" attitude of the sort you find in London the place would be a powder keg. Because everyone respects each other the infrastructural failings of the city are somehow mitigated. Busy subways work because people queue at carriage entrances. Massive intersections like Shibuya Crossing don't descend into chaos because people wait patiently to cross and then proceed at a leisurely pace when permitted to do so.
But it does seem to me like the cities lack a true civic heart and that has to have an impact on society. Tokyo though seems have developed numerous sub-communities. Being so big and dispersed has tended to make different functions or businesses converge together for convenience. Thus there is a sporting goods quarter, a kitchenware area and also Akihabara, Electric Town. Formerly the place to go for cheap electronics this place is now the seedy underbelly of the Japanese pop-culture that we are more and more familiar with in the west. Essentially a mono-culture of manga, anime, maid cafes and the preferences of the sort of chap who refuses to grow up, Aki is an example of what happens when a culture becomes insular and self-sustaining. It happens all the time on the internet where negative behaviours become reinforced till they are the norm because there are no dissenting voices to challenge them. In Aki Japan's issues with sexual politics become obvious and clear. The crossover between sexualised images and very young characters or pop idols is queasy to our western eyes. Alongside this is a particularly joyless trade in vintage toys. The whole thing seems like a very distorted version of childhood.
So at the end of the day, do i like Japan? That is a trickier question to answer than i anticipated before i went out. I cant claim to have felt comfortable like i do every time i visit Italy or to have fallen for Tokyo so profoundly as i did for New York. I am more than glad to have gone. It was fascinating and fun but there is so much about the place and the way of life that i just don't connect with. Aspects of the culture, food, craftsmanship and architecture were massively engaging but ultimately i think it is probably too different and too challenging for me to really connect with it.
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