Peter Eisenman set out his thoughts on architecture at RIAS 2008
Point one: Architecture in a media culture
Media has invaded every aspect of our lives. It is difficult to walk out on the street or stand in a crowded elevator without encountering people speaking into cellular phones at the top of their voices as if no one else was around. People leave their homes and workplaces and within seconds are checking their Blackberries. Their iPhones provide instant messaging email, news, telephone and music—it’s as if they were attached to a computer.
Less and less people are able to be in the real physical world without the support of the virtual world. This has brought about a situation in which people have lost the capacity to focus on something for any length of time. This is partly because media configures time in discrete segments.
Focus is conditioned by how long one can watch something before there is an advertisement. In newspapers stories keep getting shorter, the condensed version is available on the internet. This leads today to a corruption of what we think of as communication, with a lessening of the capacity to read or write correct sentences. While irrelevant information multiplies, communication diminishes. If architecture is a form of media it is a weak one. To combat the hegemony of the media, architecture has had to resort to more and more spectacular imaging. Shapes generated through digital processes become both built icons that have no meaning but also only refer to their own internal processes. Just think of any architectural magazine today devoted, supposedly, to the environment, and instead one finds media.
Point two: Students have become passive
The corollary to the prevalent media culture is that the viewing subject has become increasingly passive. In this state of passivity people demand more and more images, more visual and aural information and in a state of passivity people demand things that are easily consumed.
The more passive people become the more they are presented by the media with supposed opportunities to exercise choice. Vote for this, vote for whatever stories you want to hear, vote for what popular song you want to hear, vote for what commercial you want to see. This voting gives the appearance of active participation, but it is merely another form of sedation because the voting is irrelevant It is part of the attempt to make people believe they are participating when in fact they are becoming more and more passive.
Students also have become passive. More passive than students in the past. This is not a condemnation but a fact. To move students to act or to protest for or against anything today is impossible. Rather they have a sense of entitlement. The generations that remember 1968 feel that those kinds of student protests are almost impossible today. For the last seven years we have had in the US one of the most problematic governments in our history. Probably the most problematic since the mid-19th century and president Millard Fillmore. Our reputation in Europe, our dollar, our economy, the spirit of our people, has been weakened. In such a state of ennui people feel they can do little to bring about change. With the war in Iraq draining our economy there is still the possibility that the political party responsible for today’s conditions will be re-elected.
Will this have consequences for architecture?
Point three: Computers make design standards poorer
This passivity is related to architecture. Architecture today relies on one of passivity’s most insidious forms—the computer.
Architects used to draw volumes, using shading and selecting a perspective. In learning how to draw one began to understand not only what it was like to draw like Palladio or Le Corbusier but also the extent of the differences in their work. A wall section of Palladio felt different to the hand than one of Le Corbusier’s. It is important to understand such differences because they convey ideas. One learned to make a plan. Now, with a computer, one does not have to draw. By clicking a mouse from point to point, one can connect dots that make plans, one can change colours, materials and light. Photoshop is a fantastic tool for those who do not have to think.
The problem is as follows. “So what?” my students say, “Why draw Palladio? How will it help me get a job?” The implication is this: “If it’s not going to help me get a job, I don’t want to do it.” In this sense, architecture does not matter. In a liberal capital society, getting a job matters, and my students are in school precisely for this reason.
Yet education does not help you get a job. In fact, the better you are at Photoshop the more attractive you are to an office, the better you will work in that office.
If I ask a student to make a diagram or a plan that shows the ideas of a building, they cannot do it. They are so used to connecting dots on a computer that they cannot produce an idea of a building in a plan or a diagram. This is certain to affect not only their future, but the future of our profession.
Point four: Today’s buildings lack meaning or reference
The computer is able to produce the most incredible imagery which become the iconic images of magazines and competitions. To win a competition today one has to produce shapes and icons by computer.
But these are icons with little meaning or relationship to things in the real world. According to the American pragmatist philosopher C S Peirce there were three categories of signs: icons, symbols, and indices. The icon had a visual likeness to an object.
Robert Venturi’s famous dictum categorised buildings as either “a duck or a decorated shed”; the difference between an icon and symbol in architectural terms.
A “duck” is a building that looks like its object—a hotdog stand in the form of a giant hotdog or, in Venturi’s terms, a place that sells ducks taking the very same shape as a duck. This visual similitude produces what Peirce calls an icon which can be understood at first glance.
Venturi’s other term, the “decorated shed”, describes a public facade for what amounts to a generic box like building. The decorated shed is more a symbol, in Peirce’s terms, which has an agreed upon, or conventional meaning. A classical facade symbolises a public building, whether it is a bank a library or school.
Today the shape of buildings become icons which have none of these external references. They may not necessarily look like anything or they may only resemble the processes that made them. In this case they do not relate outwardly but refer inwardly. These are icons that have little cultural meaning or reference. There is no reason to ask our more famous architects: “Why does it look like this?”
There is no answer to this question because “Why?” is the wrong question.
Why? Because the computer can produce it. One could ask these architects: “Why is this one better than that one?” Or “Which one of the crumpled paper buildings is better?” Or “Which one is the best and why?”
There is no answer again to these questions. Why? Because there is no value system in place for judging, and there is no relationship to be able to judge between the image produced and its meaning as an icon.
These icons are made from algorithmic processes that have nothing to do with architectural thinking.
Point five: We are in a period of late style
Edward Said in his book On Late Style describes lateness as a moment in time when there are no new paradigms or ideological, cultural, political conditions that cause significant change. Lateness can be understood as a historical moment which may contain the possibilities of a new future paradigm.
For example there were reasons in the late 19th century for architecture to change. These included changes in psychology introduced by Freud; in physics by Einstein; in mathematics with Heisenberg; and in flight with the Wright brothers. These changes caused a reaction against the Victorian and imperial styles of the period and articulated a new paradigm: modernism.
With each new paradigm, whether it is the French revolution or the Renaissance, there is an early phase, which in modernism was from 1914-1939; a high phase, which in modernism occurred 1954-1968 when it was consumed by liberal capital after the war; and a period of opposition. The year 1968 saw an internal, implosive revolution, one that reacted against institutions representing the cultural past of many of the western societies. This was followed by post modernism’s eclectic return to a language that seemed to have meaning. The Deconstructivist exhibition at the MoMA in 1988 put an end to this cliché and kitsch style.
Today I say we are in a period of late style. A period in which there is no new paradigm. Computation and the visual may produce a shift from the notational but this in itself is not a new paradigm. It is merely a tool. The question remains: What happens when one reaches the end of a historical cycle? On Late Style by Edward Said describes such a moment in culture before a shift to a new paradigm. A moment not of fate or hopelessness but one that contains a possibility of looking at a great style for the possibility of the new and the transformative. He uses as an example Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, written at the end of Beethoven’s career. This was the composer’s response to the seeming impossibility of innovation. Instead Beethoven wrote a piece that was difficult, even anarchic, that could not be easily understood and was outside of his characteristic and known style. Beethoven’s later work is an example of the complexity ambivalence, and the “undecidability” that characterises a late style.
Point six: To be an architect is a social act
This last point deals with architecture and its unique autonomy. Since the Renaissance in Italy when Brunelleschi, Alberti and Bramanti established what can be called the persistencies of architecture—subject-object relationships—these persistencies have remained operative to this day. Alberti’s dictum that “a house is a small city and a city is a large house”, remains with us in all works that we see. In other words the relationship between the part and the whole: the figure and the ground, the house to its site, the site to the street, the street to its neighbourhood and the neighbourhood to the city.
These issues constitute the basis of what would be called the dialectical synthesis as an aspect of the ongoing metaphysical project. Thus one of the things that must be investigated is the problematic part-to-whole relationship—which is part of a Hegelian dialectical idea of thesis and anti-thesis forming a new whole or synthesis—and the relationship of building to ground.
Architecture has traditionally been concerned with these dialectical categories, whether it is inside/outside, figure/ground, subject/object. For me today, it is necessary to look within architecture to see if it is possible to break up this synthetic project from within. This attempt is what post-structuralism would consider the displacement of the metaphysics of presence.
If we continue to think that what is presented is necessarily truthful or what we see is truthful and also beautiful then we will continue to subscribe to the myth that architecture is the wonder of the metaphysics of presence. It may become possible with such an awareness to move away from what I call the hegemony of the image.
People always say formalism is the project of architecture’s autonomists. For me it is precisely this autonomy which is architecture’s delay of engaging with society. If it is architecture’s activity and its own discourse which in fact impacts society, then to be an architect is a social act.
This does not mean social in the form of making people feel better or happy. Or building houses for the poor or shopping malls for the rich or garages for Mercedes. I am talking about understanding those conditions of autonomy that are architectural, that make for an engagement with society in the sense of operating against the existing hegemonic social and political structures of our time. That is what architecture has always been.
re-posted by Isaac Smith
original source:
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3113560&c=2&encCode=00000000014ce484
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
And Now for a Non Sequitur
Hello freinds and bloggers. I am posting again for the first time since starting this blog, and I apologize for my absence - crit week plus end of semester assignments have been paralyzing. This paper I'm posting now is a bit of a non sequitur following our discussion of sustainability... I wrote it for Kai Mah's class on Space in Architectural History, and have found myself thinking obsessively about the topic. So here is my book review of Steven Holl's essays in the A+U edition titled "Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture." The paper:
On Architecture, Phenomenology, and Poetry:
a Few Remarks about Questions of Perception by Steven Holl
The later proponents of phenomenological theory, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, pursue phenomenology as a means to understand our experience as human beings. The questions raised by these inquirers of sensory experience are those that pure third-person science cannot address; questions of how we relate to our environment emotionally and spiritually, even poetically. Unlike most dogmatic cosmologies, which start with faith or myth and consider physicality almost as an afterthought, phenomenology as a philosophical method uses sensory perception – being in the world – as the starting point of inquiry. The goal is not to find hidden truths (esoterica) so much as it is to better understand ourselves as world-bound human beings.
Steven Holl, both in his work and his words, testifies to the spatial, temporal, and personal nature of sensory experience. Beyond buildings, Holl brings to architecture ideas of rhythm and process; his work addresses impressions, shadows, tactile moments, the stuff of being and perceiving in space. In his collection of essays in Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, Holl writes of the built environment like a true phenomenologist, constructing a unified understanding of space through a collection of partial and collaged perspectives. To quote Holl:
Our experience of the city can only be, however, perspectival, fragmented, incomplete. This experience – unlike a static image – consists of partial views through urban settings, which offer a different kind of involvement or investigation than the bird’s eye view, which is typically used by architects and planners (48).
This is the city seen from the street, a “re-assertion of the human body as the locus of experience” (116), rhythmanalysis in action.
While he writes like a phenomenologist, however, Holl’s essays have an intent that suggests a difference between phenomenology as philosophical discipline and phenomenology for architecture and design; the former studies phenomena and experience for the purpose of understanding, the latter seeks to become a provocateur. The series of mini essays in Questions of Perception are referred to on the title page as “Phenomenal Zones” and bear such headers as “of Color” and “of Sound.” They read at times as exegesis of Holl’s work, at times as manifesto and manual for the phenomenally - minded architect. Phenomena and how they impress upon our senses is something studied by Holl with the intent to create a deployable architectural vocabulary.
Running beneath this stream of information and poetically rendered observations is a purpose revealed in Holl’s title essay by a quote from Rilke: “The attempt to convey heightened awareness is, in Rilke’s words, ‘a matter of becoming as fully conscious as possible of our existence’” (40). Rilke, a turn-of-the-century German poet, was regarded as a transitional figure between traditionalism and modernism. His work has been described as focusing on “the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety” (Wikipedia, Rilke). Later in his title essay, Holl writes:
“… born into this world of things, are we able to experience fully the phenomena of their interrelation, to derive joy from our perceptions? … To advance toward these hidden experiences, we must penetrate the omnipresent veil of mass media. We must fortify our defenses to resist the calculated distractions, which can deplete both psyche and spirit… Only by forcefully and passionately asserting our existence can we access what Mallarme termed the ‘force of the negative… that which removes the reality of things and delivers us from their weight.” (41)
Phenomena are ubiquitous, the experience of phenomena happens without question, without intention, but what emerges about Holl’s work from these quotes is his attempt to provoke a heightened awareness of phenomena and, by extension, ourselves. It is an attempt that seeks to provide some remedy and self-reflection in the face of rapidly proliferating distractions and anxieties in a technological and media saturated society.
In trying to sort out the particulars of this remedy, Holl appears closer to the pursuit of poetry than science. To follow his argument, it is necessary to put on the table one taboo word that even Holl omits from his essays (but not his work) - beauty. Take Holl’s NYU Department of Philosophy Renovation as a case in point: what makes that stark white stairwell stand out, with its shifting rainbows of prismatic light? Clearly, it surprises us because of its unexpected beauty, pure and simple. In the middle of Manhattan, in a building like many others around it, on our way from A to B, we come across a moment of beauty, so quietly accomplished, subtle but striking. Stop a minute. Look out the window. Sit on the sill. Then remember your watch, your appointments, and head off again, into the fray. Such moments of repose are indeed a remedy, and often few and far between. They are important, they alter the quality of our lives. To quote Holl:
Architecture holds the power to inspire and transform our day-to-day experience. The everyday act of pressing a door handle and opening into a light-washed room can become profound when experienced through sensitized consciousness. To see, to feel these physicalities is to become the subject of the senses. (40)
The beauty that Holl brings to his work, however, is not an iconic beauty, it’s natural beauty, filtered into form through studied acts of intention. This is where phenomenology really becomes architecture. The source behind the shifting rainbows is the shifting sunlight, and the simple and elegant intervention of prismatic windowpanes is the generator that draws awareness to the source, to the sun outside, and to our position inside. This is where the remedy takes shape, in countering the artificiality of our media-bombarded experience with a little kick towards the sun. Holl is a bit like Carlos Casteneda at such moments, without the drugs and surreality – Stop. Look. Listen. Forget who you are, so you can remember who you are, if only for a moment. Of course, he expresses it much more elegantly: “One of the tragedies of modern urban life is that the complex of urban constructions often puts us out of touch with the poetry and unpredictability of the everyday change in the weather” (83).
Take as comparison a recent work by Rem Koolhaus, the MTCC Student Center at IIT in Chicago. Here is a piece of architecture that seems to take as its premise the media saturation of today’s youth culture. What does Rem do with this idea? He piles on the saturation, he layers his space with more media than you can shake a stick at, creates pathways that converge and diverge like confusing intercontinental flights, slaps a tv monitor at every corner and slathers walls with hip imagery. Spending time in there is like spending time in a pinball machine, ADD’R’US. This building is a paean to the fray, to the inevitability of over-stimulation. There is certainly an intoxicating excitement about this space, but it also fails to offer even one moment of relief. There is no quiet corner, no place to escape, except outside. Leaving provides the only relief; crisp lawns and staid modernist glass boxes sit quietly there, perhaps never so well appreciated as in comparison.
Rem is the opposite of Holl. Rilke would have hated him. The punk-rock impulse can find a sort of methed-out truth in the building, but the architectural impulse feels like it just ate a pound of White Castle sliders. The point? Saturation shouldn’t necessary beget more saturation. The need to step away, regather, remember ourselves and check the weather outside (not on your Blackberry), will always be necessary in the face of excess.
Returning to the question of phenomenology, perhaps the work of architects like Steven Holl can help reinvigorate our discussion of the transformative power of architecture in daily life. The subtleties of space, light and form, the qualities of materials and the role they play in defining architecture are subjects now chalked up to nostalgic modernism. ‘Been there, done that,’ say the pundits. It is obvious, however, that the sensory experience of architecture will never be irrelevant, if we are indeed interested in the people who occupy the spaces we design. There is nothing hi-blown about this, it is a question of a fundamental interest in architecture, which is different from an interest in theory, fashion, even art. Don’t mistake Holl for a less-than-conceptual architect; the idea behind a project is as much a part of his picture of architecture as the phenomena he so engagingly writes about: “to fuse site, circumstance, and a multiplicity of phenomena, an organizing idea… a driving concept… is required. The unity of the whole emerges from the thread that runs through the variety of parts; whether it be one discrete idea or the interrelation of several concepts” (119). Steven Holl’s architecture straddles a boundary between highly conceptual contemporary work and traditional concerns for form, proportion, experience, poetry, beauty. In this way he transcends the containers of ideas – modernist, post-modernist, etc – into a place where architecture has all the richness of its conceptual potential without falling short of being good architecture.
Cara Ellis
M.ARCH Candidate, 2nd year
May 8th, 2008
On Architecture, Phenomenology, and Poetry:
a Few Remarks about Questions of Perception by Steven Holl
The later proponents of phenomenological theory, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, pursue phenomenology as a means to understand our experience as human beings. The questions raised by these inquirers of sensory experience are those that pure third-person science cannot address; questions of how we relate to our environment emotionally and spiritually, even poetically. Unlike most dogmatic cosmologies, which start with faith or myth and consider physicality almost as an afterthought, phenomenology as a philosophical method uses sensory perception – being in the world – as the starting point of inquiry. The goal is not to find hidden truths (esoterica) so much as it is to better understand ourselves as world-bound human beings.
Steven Holl, both in his work and his words, testifies to the spatial, temporal, and personal nature of sensory experience. Beyond buildings, Holl brings to architecture ideas of rhythm and process; his work addresses impressions, shadows, tactile moments, the stuff of being and perceiving in space. In his collection of essays in Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, Holl writes of the built environment like a true phenomenologist, constructing a unified understanding of space through a collection of partial and collaged perspectives. To quote Holl:
Our experience of the city can only be, however, perspectival, fragmented, incomplete. This experience – unlike a static image – consists of partial views through urban settings, which offer a different kind of involvement or investigation than the bird’s eye view, which is typically used by architects and planners (48).
This is the city seen from the street, a “re-assertion of the human body as the locus of experience” (116), rhythmanalysis in action.
While he writes like a phenomenologist, however, Holl’s essays have an intent that suggests a difference between phenomenology as philosophical discipline and phenomenology for architecture and design; the former studies phenomena and experience for the purpose of understanding, the latter seeks to become a provocateur. The series of mini essays in Questions of Perception are referred to on the title page as “Phenomenal Zones” and bear such headers as “of Color” and “of Sound.” They read at times as exegesis of Holl’s work, at times as manifesto and manual for the phenomenally - minded architect. Phenomena and how they impress upon our senses is something studied by Holl with the intent to create a deployable architectural vocabulary.
Running beneath this stream of information and poetically rendered observations is a purpose revealed in Holl’s title essay by a quote from Rilke: “The attempt to convey heightened awareness is, in Rilke’s words, ‘a matter of becoming as fully conscious as possible of our existence’” (40). Rilke, a turn-of-the-century German poet, was regarded as a transitional figure between traditionalism and modernism. His work has been described as focusing on “the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety” (Wikipedia, Rilke). Later in his title essay, Holl writes:
“… born into this world of things, are we able to experience fully the phenomena of their interrelation, to derive joy from our perceptions? … To advance toward these hidden experiences, we must penetrate the omnipresent veil of mass media. We must fortify our defenses to resist the calculated distractions, which can deplete both psyche and spirit… Only by forcefully and passionately asserting our existence can we access what Mallarme termed the ‘force of the negative… that which removes the reality of things and delivers us from their weight.” (41)
Phenomena are ubiquitous, the experience of phenomena happens without question, without intention, but what emerges about Holl’s work from these quotes is his attempt to provoke a heightened awareness of phenomena and, by extension, ourselves. It is an attempt that seeks to provide some remedy and self-reflection in the face of rapidly proliferating distractions and anxieties in a technological and media saturated society.
In trying to sort out the particulars of this remedy, Holl appears closer to the pursuit of poetry than science. To follow his argument, it is necessary to put on the table one taboo word that even Holl omits from his essays (but not his work) - beauty. Take Holl’s NYU Department of Philosophy Renovation as a case in point: what makes that stark white stairwell stand out, with its shifting rainbows of prismatic light? Clearly, it surprises us because of its unexpected beauty, pure and simple. In the middle of Manhattan, in a building like many others around it, on our way from A to B, we come across a moment of beauty, so quietly accomplished, subtle but striking. Stop a minute. Look out the window. Sit on the sill. Then remember your watch, your appointments, and head off again, into the fray. Such moments of repose are indeed a remedy, and often few and far between. They are important, they alter the quality of our lives. To quote Holl:
Architecture holds the power to inspire and transform our day-to-day experience. The everyday act of pressing a door handle and opening into a light-washed room can become profound when experienced through sensitized consciousness. To see, to feel these physicalities is to become the subject of the senses. (40)
The beauty that Holl brings to his work, however, is not an iconic beauty, it’s natural beauty, filtered into form through studied acts of intention. This is where phenomenology really becomes architecture. The source behind the shifting rainbows is the shifting sunlight, and the simple and elegant intervention of prismatic windowpanes is the generator that draws awareness to the source, to the sun outside, and to our position inside. This is where the remedy takes shape, in countering the artificiality of our media-bombarded experience with a little kick towards the sun. Holl is a bit like Carlos Casteneda at such moments, without the drugs and surreality – Stop. Look. Listen. Forget who you are, so you can remember who you are, if only for a moment. Of course, he expresses it much more elegantly: “One of the tragedies of modern urban life is that the complex of urban constructions often puts us out of touch with the poetry and unpredictability of the everyday change in the weather” (83).
Take as comparison a recent work by Rem Koolhaus, the MTCC Student Center at IIT in Chicago. Here is a piece of architecture that seems to take as its premise the media saturation of today’s youth culture. What does Rem do with this idea? He piles on the saturation, he layers his space with more media than you can shake a stick at, creates pathways that converge and diverge like confusing intercontinental flights, slaps a tv monitor at every corner and slathers walls with hip imagery. Spending time in there is like spending time in a pinball machine, ADD’R’US. This building is a paean to the fray, to the inevitability of over-stimulation. There is certainly an intoxicating excitement about this space, but it also fails to offer even one moment of relief. There is no quiet corner, no place to escape, except outside. Leaving provides the only relief; crisp lawns and staid modernist glass boxes sit quietly there, perhaps never so well appreciated as in comparison.
Rem is the opposite of Holl. Rilke would have hated him. The punk-rock impulse can find a sort of methed-out truth in the building, but the architectural impulse feels like it just ate a pound of White Castle sliders. The point? Saturation shouldn’t necessary beget more saturation. The need to step away, regather, remember ourselves and check the weather outside (not on your Blackberry), will always be necessary in the face of excess.
Returning to the question of phenomenology, perhaps the work of architects like Steven Holl can help reinvigorate our discussion of the transformative power of architecture in daily life. The subtleties of space, light and form, the qualities of materials and the role they play in defining architecture are subjects now chalked up to nostalgic modernism. ‘Been there, done that,’ say the pundits. It is obvious, however, that the sensory experience of architecture will never be irrelevant, if we are indeed interested in the people who occupy the spaces we design. There is nothing hi-blown about this, it is a question of a fundamental interest in architecture, which is different from an interest in theory, fashion, even art. Don’t mistake Holl for a less-than-conceptual architect; the idea behind a project is as much a part of his picture of architecture as the phenomena he so engagingly writes about: “to fuse site, circumstance, and a multiplicity of phenomena, an organizing idea… a driving concept… is required. The unity of the whole emerges from the thread that runs through the variety of parts; whether it be one discrete idea or the interrelation of several concepts” (119). Steven Holl’s architecture straddles a boundary between highly conceptual contemporary work and traditional concerns for form, proportion, experience, poetry, beauty. In this way he transcends the containers of ideas – modernist, post-modernist, etc – into a place where architecture has all the richness of its conceptual potential without falling short of being good architecture.
Cara Ellis
M.ARCH Candidate, 2nd year
May 8th, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Questions, and thing quite possibly better left unsaid.
Well I have to admit, first and formost, I am glad that there is some form of discussion, between the staff and the students about the school and design in general.
Second,Ben Nicholson,I would like to shake your hand. I have not had the pleasure of participating in your classes yet but look forward to doing so.
Green is a dead topic of discussion. We should be sustainable and efficient. End of story.
The point is pushing the inclusion of "green design" further. Yes that stretched hummer with the hot tub moves more people then fifteen prius's (prii?) But wouldn't it be nice if it was driven by four electric motors?
My point is...green is nice it is also here to stay so lets make work well and by all means look good.
My other point is somewhat related. We are a conceptual school right? So maybe we should be pushing the boundaries. Maybe projects should not be based on what the teacher wants to seeor what the teacher thinks is cool but on what the student sees as interesting. Than if the project sucks they fail. End of dscussion.
Maybe bridge designs in computer classes should not be based on specific organic flower parts. Maybe it should be based of intricate sections of objects or structures that the student finds facinating. That this should be modeled and then developed.
Let us remember who concieved of organic design as an idea. Where did he get that idea. Louis Sullivan, pushed an idea for emotional architechture.
Emotions. Huh. So not what just looks cool and fitting but what fits well and hits a deep emotional core.
I remember this part in Dogma where Chris Rock explains that the fall of the catholic church happened when people started to believe. To belive is to follow to have an Idea is to lead.
Maybe we should push for conceptual Ideas. Take those Ideas and suck the marrow out of them. Formulate them and model them. Create models that would be classified as sculpture. Fitting for display.
Those Ideas that fail those models and concepts that do not deserve to be displayed at the highest level should be cut.
Go big or go home.
I was horrified to find that the fashion department lets sophmores display designs at the final fashion show.
Not because they are sophmores but because we do not allow that kind of acceptance and Honor in our own department.
We should strive to be the best and produce the best. Todo this at all times we should be finding boundaries and we should be running into them at full speed.
My father was a track and field and cross country coach on the High school level. He sent massive ammounts of kids to the state finals and national championships. He worked in Illinois against Joe Newton the creator of the big green line. This guy made a military precision run group at york high school he wrote best selling books on how to run like a robot. He entered fifteen runners in every cross country event and they would make a line and cut the pack to peices. My father once had this kid who moved like stink. He loved this kid. He once said he was the best ever. He ran like Prefontaine. If you told him to run in to a wall he would ask how many peices you wanted it in. And ran he did. Beat york's fastest kid by a minute over three miles. He collapsed at the end.
How many peices do you want at the end?
We should be concieving the ideas that lay waste to concepts.
Go big or go home.
I guess that is aimed at you Mr. Director, sir.
Only after we have worked long enough and deserved a voice can you use it. Is that what you ment.
Should not the classes in your department fuel the process where in those Ideas are formed and stated?
We have proved that we have the voice that we want to speak. THat some of us sound the horn that shake the walls of Jericho. THere are a few of us that want to go big. This is the only way for us to speak. Maybe we don't have any other opportunities to voice our Ideas. Maybe we should have those opportunities. A design show during the school year perhaps. One that is open to all years that is advertised all over the Chicagoland architectural and design network.
Maybe we have decided to go big. Maybe you havent.
Maybe we have decided to go big. I know that I have. I might fail. If I do at least the failure will be amazing.
I am reminded by my father about water on the stove. At 212 degrees you have boiling water and steam you have volatile seperation and huge energy. At 211 degrees you just have hot water.
It is only one extra push we need to give ourselves. Both students and faculty.
Michael Genge
BFA arch
Sophmore
Second,Ben Nicholson,I would like to shake your hand. I have not had the pleasure of participating in your classes yet but look forward to doing so.
Green is a dead topic of discussion. We should be sustainable and efficient. End of story.
The point is pushing the inclusion of "green design" further. Yes that stretched hummer with the hot tub moves more people then fifteen prius's (prii?) But wouldn't it be nice if it was driven by four electric motors?
My point is...green is nice it is also here to stay so lets make work well and by all means look good.
My other point is somewhat related. We are a conceptual school right? So maybe we should be pushing the boundaries. Maybe projects should not be based on what the teacher wants to seeor what the teacher thinks is cool but on what the student sees as interesting. Than if the project sucks they fail. End of dscussion.
Maybe bridge designs in computer classes should not be based on specific organic flower parts. Maybe it should be based of intricate sections of objects or structures that the student finds facinating. That this should be modeled and then developed.
Let us remember who concieved of organic design as an idea. Where did he get that idea. Louis Sullivan, pushed an idea for emotional architechture.
Emotions. Huh. So not what just looks cool and fitting but what fits well and hits a deep emotional core.
I remember this part in Dogma where Chris Rock explains that the fall of the catholic church happened when people started to believe. To belive is to follow to have an Idea is to lead.
Maybe we should push for conceptual Ideas. Take those Ideas and suck the marrow out of them. Formulate them and model them. Create models that would be classified as sculpture. Fitting for display.
Those Ideas that fail those models and concepts that do not deserve to be displayed at the highest level should be cut.
Go big or go home.
I was horrified to find that the fashion department lets sophmores display designs at the final fashion show.
Not because they are sophmores but because we do not allow that kind of acceptance and Honor in our own department.
We should strive to be the best and produce the best. Todo this at all times we should be finding boundaries and we should be running into them at full speed.
My father was a track and field and cross country coach on the High school level. He sent massive ammounts of kids to the state finals and national championships. He worked in Illinois against Joe Newton the creator of the big green line. This guy made a military precision run group at york high school he wrote best selling books on how to run like a robot. He entered fifteen runners in every cross country event and they would make a line and cut the pack to peices. My father once had this kid who moved like stink. He loved this kid. He once said he was the best ever. He ran like Prefontaine. If you told him to run in to a wall he would ask how many peices you wanted it in. And ran he did. Beat york's fastest kid by a minute over three miles. He collapsed at the end.
How many peices do you want at the end?
We should be concieving the ideas that lay waste to concepts.
Go big or go home.
I guess that is aimed at you Mr. Director, sir.
Only after we have worked long enough and deserved a voice can you use it. Is that what you ment.
Should not the classes in your department fuel the process where in those Ideas are formed and stated?
We have proved that we have the voice that we want to speak. THat some of us sound the horn that shake the walls of Jericho. THere are a few of us that want to go big. This is the only way for us to speak. Maybe we don't have any other opportunities to voice our Ideas. Maybe we should have those opportunities. A design show during the school year perhaps. One that is open to all years that is advertised all over the Chicagoland architectural and design network.
Maybe we have decided to go big. Maybe you havent.
Maybe we have decided to go big. I know that I have. I might fail. If I do at least the failure will be amazing.
I am reminded by my father about water on the stove. At 212 degrees you have boiling water and steam you have volatile seperation and huge energy. At 211 degrees you just have hot water.
It is only one extra push we need to give ourselves. Both students and faculty.
Michael Genge
BFA arch
Sophmore
Failure is an option
I had the privilege, at one point in my life, of being part of a team of individuals who managed all of the faculty evaluations for the nearly 1200 professors at a particular university in the area. We had a psychometrician who crafted the surveys each year to answer, not only how the courses were performing, and what students thought about the material, but also how changes in the curriculum were affecting an individual professor's performance. Our educational demographer could pinpoint which faculty needed extra support. I fed the ongoing data into a performance model to help individual faculty make a strong case for tenure.
The one thing we never asked was how students felt about their professors.
Reading student course evaluations is one of the most disheartening things a professor can do. Even when a class goes particularly well, there is at least one curmudgeon who can't resist calling you "boring," or saying that this area of study is, "stupid." In most terms, there are one or two students who will rate a professor at the bottom in every category as a means of expressing their anger or angst. If there are one or two such evaluations, you throw them out as outlying non-significant data; if there are several, it is time to intervene with that professor.
For good or for ill, the course evaluation process at the art institute is about as poorly put together as it possibly could be. I became aware of this early on: like the good little sociologist I am, I spent an afternoon in the summer of 06 in the advising office making them pull piles of evaluations from sculpture, painting, and art and tech. There is really only one god part of the evaluation – it asks clearly if there was a syllabus to the class (typically, no), how much you spent on materials (varies from about $20 to $1,000), and a few other clear measurables. Then, the second half of the evaluation makes it clear that you are engaged in a popularity contest, and asks question after question about why you liked your professor, or, in most cases, why not.
I say in most cases because, if a professor is doing much teaching, they are trying to push students into becoming something more than they could on their own. And if you are really happy with a person who has pushed you into doing something that you wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do, then you have a degree of moral flexibility that I, personally, find uncomfortable.
By stark contrast however, there are individuals who, no matter how many ways you try to help, they cannot be helped. No matter what you put in their path, they stay precisely where they are. Oh, and not infrequently, they don't show up to class, or complete their work on time, or participate clearly in discussion, or reflect on their own performance.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that virtue is habitual. That is, " the condition of being virtuous is in the formation and keeping of virtuous habits, not in the individual acts themselves." Professional success is the result more of your daily habits than any single accomplishment.
Chuck Close said it a little more clearly, " Amateurs worry about inspiration. The rest of us show up and get to work."
In the conditioning necessary to practice Japanese sword fighting, one starts by repeating the same 10,000 sword cuts every morning for a year in precisely the same manner as every other swordsperson. The muscles have to learn that that odd turn which you are leaving in you’re ankle will exhaust you just a little more quickly – not so you can fight for longer (the average samurai duel lasts less than three seconds), but rather because that odd position makes you 10% weaker, and probably means that your shoulder is 10% exposed. And by the time you realize that, you are dead.
Morihei Ueshiba O'Sensei said that such a failure is not an error, it is the universe showing us all the way. We work, we train, and hopefully we even teach, with the humility to recognize that such death, while immanent, reveals our destiny, it does not control it.
We do not "finish" our documentation for fear of dropping dead at the drawing table, we do so to reveal to the universe that we have the means to practice. This is the real difference between an architecture that is pessimistic, and one that is optimistic – a pessimist worries and is afraid, an optimist practices, and in so doing, reveals.
And as long as we do so, it is hard to imagine conditions under which we might fail. But then again, failure is always an option.
Karl Hakken
MArch Candidate
May 2, 2008
The one thing we never asked was how students felt about their professors.
Reading student course evaluations is one of the most disheartening things a professor can do. Even when a class goes particularly well, there is at least one curmudgeon who can't resist calling you "boring," or saying that this area of study is, "stupid." In most terms, there are one or two students who will rate a professor at the bottom in every category as a means of expressing their anger or angst. If there are one or two such evaluations, you throw them out as outlying non-significant data; if there are several, it is time to intervene with that professor.
For good or for ill, the course evaluation process at the art institute is about as poorly put together as it possibly could be. I became aware of this early on: like the good little sociologist I am, I spent an afternoon in the summer of 06 in the advising office making them pull piles of evaluations from sculpture, painting, and art and tech. There is really only one god part of the evaluation – it asks clearly if there was a syllabus to the class (typically, no), how much you spent on materials (varies from about $20 to $1,000), and a few other clear measurables. Then, the second half of the evaluation makes it clear that you are engaged in a popularity contest, and asks question after question about why you liked your professor, or, in most cases, why not.
I say in most cases because, if a professor is doing much teaching, they are trying to push students into becoming something more than they could on their own. And if you are really happy with a person who has pushed you into doing something that you wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do, then you have a degree of moral flexibility that I, personally, find uncomfortable.
By stark contrast however, there are individuals who, no matter how many ways you try to help, they cannot be helped. No matter what you put in their path, they stay precisely where they are. Oh, and not infrequently, they don't show up to class, or complete their work on time, or participate clearly in discussion, or reflect on their own performance.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that virtue is habitual. That is, " the condition of being virtuous is in the formation and keeping of virtuous habits, not in the individual acts themselves." Professional success is the result more of your daily habits than any single accomplishment.
Chuck Close said it a little more clearly, " Amateurs worry about inspiration. The rest of us show up and get to work."
In the conditioning necessary to practice Japanese sword fighting, one starts by repeating the same 10,000 sword cuts every morning for a year in precisely the same manner as every other swordsperson. The muscles have to learn that that odd turn which you are leaving in you’re ankle will exhaust you just a little more quickly – not so you can fight for longer (the average samurai duel lasts less than three seconds), but rather because that odd position makes you 10% weaker, and probably means that your shoulder is 10% exposed. And by the time you realize that, you are dead.
Morihei Ueshiba O'Sensei said that such a failure is not an error, it is the universe showing us all the way. We work, we train, and hopefully we even teach, with the humility to recognize that such death, while immanent, reveals our destiny, it does not control it.
We do not "finish" our documentation for fear of dropping dead at the drawing table, we do so to reveal to the universe that we have the means to practice. This is the real difference between an architecture that is pessimistic, and one that is optimistic – a pessimist worries and is afraid, an optimist practices, and in so doing, reveals.
And as long as we do so, it is hard to imagine conditions under which we might fail. But then again, failure is always an option.
Karl Hakken
MArch Candidate
May 2, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Comment for Peter
I don't have any faith in the comments section of blogs. Also, I couldn't comment and sign my name; so I just did this post instead:
I really don't like this trend of calling for the resignation of professors without real reasons. My initial thought was to just post "this is dumb" and walk away; but then I'd be a victim of the blog format as well.
Peter, first off, what happened that made you so furious? You have plenty of space, there's no word limit on the blog; but you still seemed to only hint at a reason for your dissatisfaction with Linda; but then not explain it. I think that's unsatisfactory then you're calling for the resignation of faculty.
Two, I'm more interested in the last half of your post--your own distinctions between sculptural and habitable. I think that this blog is the perfect location for a discussion like this; but you still have to try and make a civil argument given at least the fact that people are going to read your words.
Lets all try to make something nice out of this blog rather than the slander-box that it could become. If you are really unhappy with a professor, maybe I suppose you could call for their resignation; but c'mon, be reasonable and also C'mon let's have fun not blood.
That said, I'd like to throw a word or two into the ring of habitability and sculptural quality...I am certainly wary of a space in a home that cannot be touched or that is too cool for the inhabitants of the home. I say cool specifically because I think that as designers we all have a kind of fetish for the cool of design that needs to be checked every so often. I'm worried about cool since it is a style-based word that has really been losing it's meaning by the minute since the 60's. I think it would be dangerous to make living spaces full of "cool" surfaces cool being mainly a cold exterior surface with no intrinsic meaning. I think there should be a desire to facilitate a range of human emotions within a home and that desire would require a range of materials and spaces that go beyond the distance required for the simply sculptural.
I'd really like there to be more discussion of what types of feelings we as designers should imbue different spaces with; i.e. if there's not a lot of room for cool at home, where can we put it? This kind of talk could be really great.
-Isaac Smith
4th year
I really don't like this trend of calling for the resignation of professors without real reasons. My initial thought was to just post "this is dumb" and walk away; but then I'd be a victim of the blog format as well.
Peter, first off, what happened that made you so furious? You have plenty of space, there's no word limit on the blog; but you still seemed to only hint at a reason for your dissatisfaction with Linda; but then not explain it. I think that's unsatisfactory then you're calling for the resignation of faculty.
Two, I'm more interested in the last half of your post--your own distinctions between sculptural and habitable. I think that this blog is the perfect location for a discussion like this; but you still have to try and make a civil argument given at least the fact that people are going to read your words.
Lets all try to make something nice out of this blog rather than the slander-box that it could become. If you are really unhappy with a professor, maybe I suppose you could call for their resignation; but c'mon, be reasonable and also C'mon let's have fun not blood.
That said, I'd like to throw a word or two into the ring of habitability and sculptural quality...I am certainly wary of a space in a home that cannot be touched or that is too cool for the inhabitants of the home. I say cool specifically because I think that as designers we all have a kind of fetish for the cool of design that needs to be checked every so often. I'm worried about cool since it is a style-based word that has really been losing it's meaning by the minute since the 60's. I think it would be dangerous to make living spaces full of "cool" surfaces cool being mainly a cold exterior surface with no intrinsic meaning. I think there should be a desire to facilitate a range of human emotions within a home and that desire would require a range of materials and spaces that go beyond the distance required for the simply sculptural.
I'd really like there to be more discussion of what types of feelings we as designers should imbue different spaces with; i.e. if there's not a lot of room for cool at home, where can we put it? This kind of talk could be really great.
-Isaac Smith
4th year
last night a very important question was asked; but it is far from being answered.
I was privileged enough to attend a casual talk at Archeworks last night. The talk was intended to be a celebration of their 5th and final book in a series about ethics and design. Bruce Mau had an essay in the publication and was supposed to attend. He wasn’t there last night and his absence was noted. Nobody mentioned why he wasn’t there; but I would say that it might have to do with the remarks on his essay made by Stanley Tigerman in the afterward of the book which were critical of Mau’s recycled prose—but only to keep in the new tradition at our school of saying snarky things about Bruce Mau.
The real interesting thing that happened tonight was only obliquely related to Mr. Mau and his objectives, namely that they’ve been met. The idea of “green Design” has become common knowledge as it has been christened by design, architecture, and finally, and most successfully, branding. I’m not trying to say that sustainable initiatives have been met and we are now living in the green new world. What I would rather posit is that sustainable design has made two important transitions in the past 5-10 years.
1. “Green Design” has become marketable. (**See comments**) Flipping through the Reader, or looking for apartments in Dallas, or seeing car ads on TV. (How ironic I know) is enough to show that even ad execs have been able to note sustainability as a desirable characteristic. Sure, there is a little “green-washing” going on; but hey, there’s also an energy crisis going on, I’m sure they’ll even each other out soon enough. What’s important to note is that sustainability is in the public consciousness. The fight for green design is over, the tide has turned, things are going the right way for real change, (well, not real-real change; but things will at least be made more efficiently). Why?
2. The ideas of “green design” have moved out of the socio-political sphere and into the realm of science and engineering. That’s not to say that there aren’t a bunch of Hollywood lefties driving hydrogen-powered beemers and that there still aren’t smelly aging hippies wearing Birkenstocks and doing their own gardening; but those people have begun not to define green design. Terms like “embodied energy”, “efficiency”, and “long-term costs” have begun to embody what green design really is: not a life changing movement (although lives do need changing) but a set of serious considerations given our energy production timeline. That and the hybrid Chevy Tahoe, green technology has caught up to design and aesthetics. A green home doesn’t have to look like a hippie shack from the 70’s but can now, in all of its technological glory, look like the nice glass and steel boxes from the 50’s and will soon most likely be found in the McMansion mould. All kidding aside, sustainable design has arrived, and it’s here with its own bushel of problems and qualifications; but I would confidently say that sustainability has made its way out of theoretical conversation and into mainstream conversation. And the question posed by a member of the audience at Archeworks tonight had to do with this transition.
This guy asked: “Now that Green Design has made its way into mainstream thought, what do we need to do in order to get other social issues into the same realm?” one should be careful not to conflate scientific and social issues (which the questioner did); but there was a real and interesting understanding of sustainability underneath the naïve rhetoric of the question. Let me re-state the question: if green design has now made the transition out of the realm of theory and discourse, what can we do with the space it was taking up? Or, more simply, if fighting for sustainability is no longer important, what is worth fighting for? Or, again, and as it has been said before, Now that we can do anything, what will we do?
There were responses from the panel; they were varied and roundabout; but the questions above slowly began to reveal themselves as the underlying theme of the conversation. Another question from the audience, aimed towards the educators on the group (Hennie Reynders, Chair AIADO, SAIC, Bob Somol, director of architecture, UIC, and Martin Felson, Co-director of Archeworks—basically every avenue for high level architectural education in Chicago with one obvious exception) was, and forgive me for re-phrasing a bit but: “why can’t architecture schools just teach green technology as technology and call it a day for “green” which would leave more room in discourse and conversation for other issues in architecture like, space, form, and the like?
The responses to that question specifically were interesting. There were two people involved in that response Hennie, and Martin (see above) Martin made a point of saying that he doesn’t remember much of the technological training he got in school because it didn’t mean anything to him at the time compared to other topics in design. He said that he learned about tech stuff on the job when the applications were more specific and immediate. He could have been saying one of two things either that
building technology is meaningless in the face of larger design issues; or that
relegating “green” design to the realm of technology wouldn’t be able to imbue green initiatives with as much meaning as they were entitled to.
Meaning is the key word here. The first statement could then be understood as saying “green design is meaningless in the face of larger issues (right on!!)…. Maybe. I was there, I felt like that’s what Martin meant; but you can’t say something like that in Chicago can you? Anyway, you could respond to the first statement, or you could respond to the idea that green is too important to be only technology. That’s what Hennie did. His response was accented and very soft-spoken; but went something like: yeah green design is too important to lump in with all other building technologies and its import can be made by combining green technology issues with other issues and subjects. OK, fine. That’s scary that our school is going to be raising green design to the level of more important and complicated issues in design; but I suppose that just now is a little late to lament that.
What is really scary is that nobody had a eureka moment. Nobody, after students and practitioners batted around the idea that engineering (aka good green design) might be irrelevant and that they’d be willing to concentrate on something else, maybe something more important, nobody said HELL YEAH, NOW THAT THAT’S OVER, WE CAN GET TO WORK ON SOMETHING GREAT! And who wouldn’t have been excited to say something like that and even more to be able to act on it? The real question is, as has already been stated, what would we all run out of the building to do? What wild ideas would we be furiously sketching out in hopes to flesh out that inkling idea? What’s the threat here? Maybe the threat is that there are no inkling ideas left after the green movement. That it is too comfortable to couch yourself on a supposed ethical issue in design and ignore the rest. To me, that is the very threat of sustainability as a primary motive for design: that a preoccupation with the how would eclipse the why—and that is a scary idea. I would really love to see for the next few posts on this blog to be about something relevant in design not related to the how but to the why.
Isaac Smith
BFA, AIADO
SAIC
The real interesting thing that happened tonight was only obliquely related to Mr. Mau and his objectives, namely that they’ve been met. The idea of “green Design” has become common knowledge as it has been christened by design, architecture, and finally, and most successfully, branding. I’m not trying to say that sustainable initiatives have been met and we are now living in the green new world. What I would rather posit is that sustainable design has made two important transitions in the past 5-10 years.
1. “Green Design” has become marketable. (**See comments**) Flipping through the Reader, or looking for apartments in Dallas, or seeing car ads on TV. (How ironic I know) is enough to show that even ad execs have been able to note sustainability as a desirable characteristic. Sure, there is a little “green-washing” going on; but hey, there’s also an energy crisis going on, I’m sure they’ll even each other out soon enough. What’s important to note is that sustainability is in the public consciousness. The fight for green design is over, the tide has turned, things are going the right way for real change, (well, not real-real change; but things will at least be made more efficiently). Why?
2. The ideas of “green design” have moved out of the socio-political sphere and into the realm of science and engineering. That’s not to say that there aren’t a bunch of Hollywood lefties driving hydrogen-powered beemers and that there still aren’t smelly aging hippies wearing Birkenstocks and doing their own gardening; but those people have begun not to define green design. Terms like “embodied energy”, “efficiency”, and “long-term costs” have begun to embody what green design really is: not a life changing movement (although lives do need changing) but a set of serious considerations given our energy production timeline. That and the hybrid Chevy Tahoe, green technology has caught up to design and aesthetics. A green home doesn’t have to look like a hippie shack from the 70’s but can now, in all of its technological glory, look like the nice glass and steel boxes from the 50’s and will soon most likely be found in the McMansion mould. All kidding aside, sustainable design has arrived, and it’s here with its own bushel of problems and qualifications; but I would confidently say that sustainability has made its way out of theoretical conversation and into mainstream conversation. And the question posed by a member of the audience at Archeworks tonight had to do with this transition.
This guy asked: “Now that Green Design has made its way into mainstream thought, what do we need to do in order to get other social issues into the same realm?” one should be careful not to conflate scientific and social issues (which the questioner did); but there was a real and interesting understanding of sustainability underneath the naïve rhetoric of the question. Let me re-state the question: if green design has now made the transition out of the realm of theory and discourse, what can we do with the space it was taking up? Or, more simply, if fighting for sustainability is no longer important, what is worth fighting for? Or, again, and as it has been said before, Now that we can do anything, what will we do?
There were responses from the panel; they were varied and roundabout; but the questions above slowly began to reveal themselves as the underlying theme of the conversation. Another question from the audience, aimed towards the educators on the group (Hennie Reynders, Chair AIADO, SAIC, Bob Somol, director of architecture, UIC, and Martin Felson, Co-director of Archeworks—basically every avenue for high level architectural education in Chicago with one obvious exception) was, and forgive me for re-phrasing a bit but: “why can’t architecture schools just teach green technology as technology and call it a day for “green” which would leave more room in discourse and conversation for other issues in architecture like, space, form, and the like?
The responses to that question specifically were interesting. There were two people involved in that response Hennie, and Martin (see above) Martin made a point of saying that he doesn’t remember much of the technological training he got in school because it didn’t mean anything to him at the time compared to other topics in design. He said that he learned about tech stuff on the job when the applications were more specific and immediate. He could have been saying one of two things either that
building technology is meaningless in the face of larger design issues; or that
relegating “green” design to the realm of technology wouldn’t be able to imbue green initiatives with as much meaning as they were entitled to.
Meaning is the key word here. The first statement could then be understood as saying “green design is meaningless in the face of larger issues (right on!!)…. Maybe. I was there, I felt like that’s what Martin meant; but you can’t say something like that in Chicago can you? Anyway, you could respond to the first statement, or you could respond to the idea that green is too important to be only technology. That’s what Hennie did. His response was accented and very soft-spoken; but went something like: yeah green design is too important to lump in with all other building technologies and its import can be made by combining green technology issues with other issues and subjects. OK, fine. That’s scary that our school is going to be raising green design to the level of more important and complicated issues in design; but I suppose that just now is a little late to lament that.
What is really scary is that nobody had a eureka moment. Nobody, after students and practitioners batted around the idea that engineering (aka good green design) might be irrelevant and that they’d be willing to concentrate on something else, maybe something more important, nobody said HELL YEAH, NOW THAT THAT’S OVER, WE CAN GET TO WORK ON SOMETHING GREAT! And who wouldn’t have been excited to say something like that and even more to be able to act on it? The real question is, as has already been stated, what would we all run out of the building to do? What wild ideas would we be furiously sketching out in hopes to flesh out that inkling idea? What’s the threat here? Maybe the threat is that there are no inkling ideas left after the green movement. That it is too comfortable to couch yourself on a supposed ethical issue in design and ignore the rest. To me, that is the very threat of sustainability as a primary motive for design: that a preoccupation with the how would eclipse the why—and that is a scary idea. I would really love to see for the next few posts on this blog to be about something relevant in design not related to the how but to the why.
Isaac Smith
BFA, AIADO
SAIC
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Higher education, once the exclusive province of social elites, has become something of a general commodity. By the end of this decade, close to 36% of the work-age population of the United States will have some form of college degree. And while as a general state of affairs this is a good thing, for those few of us who are attempting to truly distinguish ourselves, whether within the academy, or through the academy into public life, the overwhelming flow of educated individuals makes each of us less visible, and makes the truly unique individual harder to identify.
It is in the domain of those who wish to practice beyond narrow academic confines that the vocabulary of "Public Intellectualism" and "Interdisciplinarity" comes to the fore – describing individuals who are willing to be both vocal and visible beyond the narrow confines of their own discipline, and oriented to a dialogue with a larger public. These individuals are not mere marginal participants in their chosen area, but are, in fact, participants in multiple identity roles, simultaneously.
In order to do so, such individuals have first to establish competency in those multiple roles on their own terms. I mean this in two senses; they have to both be able to demonstrate to relevant disciplinarians a commitment to the projects of that discipline through a body of work, but they must also produce that body of work in a manner that remains true to the convictions they have already established through their previous education and experience.
This form of identity construction is without a doubt the kid of experience sociologists call a synthetic experience – it is deliberate and measured in it's manufacture. As such, it is fundamentally different than the "disciplining" that constitutes normal education, especially in the arts, at a minimum; it requires clear justification along the way.
In general, the study of identity construction itself has been something of a preoccupation for social scientists, looking for bedrock on which to lay claims about how the social world functions. One might describe it as the equivalent of a love for Legos in an architect: a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for entry into the mysteries of the role.
For myself, this preoccupation moves beyond the fascination requisite to maintain a professional identity as a Sociologist. Yet for particular reasons, I believe that the modes of knowing in the social sciences can assist the labors of designers in architecture and the associated arts. So, following what appears at a glance to be a clear path, I have made a foray into the realm of the interdisciplinary.
The connections in the design disciplines however remain somewhat obscured by a variety of technical practices in which proficiency must be acquired first. In an attempt to master one technical area that particularly suits my temperament, I have stumbled upon cast metal sculpture as a means to express some of the deeper problems of identity construction more immediately than may yet be accomplished through architectural design.
For the duration of critique week, I have placed some of this work on display in the hallway, and invite each and every one of you to consider both the work, and the nature of the interdisciplinary message it suggests. I will admit here that it risks, because of the history of cast metal, to be read as acting in the same manner as Jessie's suggestion below that we use a legal framework to evaluate the environmental – a move that Andrew Abbott calls "bringing it back in," adding to a discourse some past element of dialogue lest we forget where the dialogue has been.
First, to address Jessie's comment: yes, a legal framework would insist on tight definitions of environmental, et al, and establish precedents on which we might act to defend the environment from degradation. Legal processes are lengthy, and require a fundamentally different education that that of design. More to the point however, we have relied on the law to protect the environment and public interest for a century, an it has proved to be a blunt tool indeed.
Lawrence Lessig has observed that technical infrastructures can be put in place or in the path of law to short circuit the longe dureé of life on the bench. And indeed this is the innovation that Bruce Mao added at an apropos moment to the public dialogue of both sustainability and design. We should all keep in mind, when discussing his contribution, this significant move.
Notice however that, when addressing designers, he becomes preoccupied with the agenda of sustainability. Having observed his work twice now in non-design contexts, I can add that in those contexts, he is quite careful to construct a narrative of and about design. It seems wondrously strange to me that he wouldn't reverse this – if he wishes ongoing legitimacy as a designer, he has to continue to contribute to the profession, and, at a moment when sustainability has enough celebrity to win the Nobel Peace Prize, his message likely needs to be refreshed in that community as well.
I'll add that if he wishes to actually retire into the more private confines of the ivory tower for an extended stay, then he does need to prove his bona fides in that realm as well: publish, teach, administer. It seems unlikely that a person in his role would return to school long enough to have the credentials to do so however; and by extension the assumption of the anonymous poster who provoked us all begins to appear dubious as well.
The opportunity to have a window on Mao's re-gathering of strength before once more pushing to become public should prove instructive to any of us who wish to try to be public voices, whether in the dialogues of art and design or elsewhere, whether Mao succeeds or no.
In fact, if that anonymous poster does prove true in the long run, if Mao does prove to be a one-trick pony, he may be an even better participant in our experimental community as an object lesson of what not to do. For that to work as an educational experience however a critical dialogue must surround our reception of the Mao experience in our midst.
To that point, I will agree with Hennie that individuals who criticize without substantiation should only do so after a sustained contribution to a discipline. They should know the body of work spanning back a generation or two, the substantive debates and issues, why they were significant and be dismissive precisely because the issues in question have been dealt with.
When teaching, to encourage the participation of less mature voices, they should explain such a history. When being talked at by a professor, a student who happens to be aware of a substantial criticism presented by a reputable scholar in print should suggest that the professor engage that criticism before presenting the material again. After all, that ought to be why the person wants to be part of academe – because they are earnestly interested in the ideas.
Issac is also correct – criticism is serious work. It requires a well-structured framework for both what constitutes appropriate knowledge, and what fair debate means. It is an expression of earnest good faith that the ideas under consideration are worthy of our time. It requires the diligence to follow up on the substance of every criticism, no matter how minor it seems. And it requires the fair-mindedness to cite the work of others appropriately.
Thee two opinions are not at odds; they are ships passing in the night. Criticism with substantiation is not merely the work of disciplinary specialists in critical studies; it is the province of every individual in an educated society, especially those who happen to find themselves within the academy.
We should be particularly careful to distinguish criticism from critique. Criticism is dialogic inquiry into a set of ideas to establish their efficacy or veracity. Critique is ad hoc commentary on the work of others, hopefully with the intent of improving the quality of that work. My sense is that the reason we are having this debate is that of the two, critique has been valorized as perhaps the only appropriate mechanism for the transmission of knowledge from on high, whereas criticism has been largely ignored.
Under such circumstances, the material technology of idea transmission becomes a relevant vocabulary. I just happened to hear, this very moment, a critique panelist ask a student why (s)he had, "eschewed the standard technology of plan, section, and elevation." They are, of course, conventional technologies for idea communication, just as well as they are mechanisms that seem no longer fully relevant.
The same critique has certainly been voiced of narrative figurative sculpture cast in bronze at more than one point in the last century. It represents a way of thinking about sculpture that has become passé. Like the plan and section, like Mao, they are old news.
In our relentless search for the hot, the new is sometimes fetishised, and to our collective detriment. There is a wonderful shop in the basement of 112 where the art and technology department has collect dead technology for use in new projects. Historical precedents need not always be dismissed – they can be appropriated, or even embraced.
Subtle critical thought requires the discipline of an anxious education in the subject to excel at. The culture that celebrates garbage so much that it elevates it to art, and indeed refuses to accept that any other thing could be worthy of consideration or use would seem incapable of that sustained engagement. That culture will misquote the arguments of more subtle minds to justify its lazy ways.
Curiously, we have simultaneously reached a moment in time at which the cost of producing cast metal has become so comparatively safe and affordable that it need no longer be the exclusive province of high culture. For those ideas that we deem worthy of consideration by future minds, we can form and pour them into the kind of historical-philosophical-aesthetic tradition that the Greeks sold, the Romans stole, the Germans misappropriated and some few archeologists can eventually discover – in a Spielberg film.
Karl Hakken
MArch Candidate
April 29th, 2008
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