This essay is a work in progress.
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​Human beings, in the broadest sense, make two kinds of things: tools and art. What sets art apart from its quotidian counterpart is the fact it has intellectual content. Art can thus be understood as form which expresses an idea. Conversely, form without idea is called craft. This latter type of utilitarian object may be created artfully, with great skill, perhaps so elaborately decorated that they become impractical, but they are still in their essence a kind of tool.

​These categories are simplistic but satisfactory for our purposes. One type of object has meaning, the other has utility.** The question at hand is what kind of thing is architecture — art or craft? It clearly falls into the category of a useful object, insofar as the medium of architecture is the building and the building is a dwelling, a shelter, a tool. Yet this is where many architects tend to recoil.*** Architecture is not mere building ... it is more, they say, for this would be to mistake the paint for the painting. Architecture is something above and beyond the mere building. It has meaning, ideas, symbols; it participates in an historical linneage, makes references and allusions, it can signifiy the identity of a culture, and all of this elevates it to an art.

Yet the mistake here is to assume that architecture needs to be elevated at all. This is a prejudice that pervades (in the 'west') as the vestige of aristocratic values that celebrate the life of the mind over the work of the hand. Consider a Stradavarius, the stuff of legend. It is just an instrument. Must one add to it ideas entwined in theory, and interweave impressive concepts borrowed from music and maths, anatomy and psychology, to understand its worth? No. These instruments are valued because of what they do, and because they do it best. One could write volumes about one such violin, but that would be nothing compared to hearing it with the right ear; and having heard it, one needs no explanation. The violin is an extraordinary thing in its own right. So too is the building.

And to continue with the analogy, is it possible to say that one is more important, among the instrument, the composer, and the musician? No. Each has a crucial role to play, none are exempt from the final product.

Architecture is no different. It requires all three elements of the performance: the idea (musical composition), the instruments (buildings) and the musicians (building trades). Beautiful architecture must be played on beautiful buildings — and who but architects will design them? A good building cannot be assumed. The more architects focus exclusively on the composition, in the same measure do they lose the skill and ability to affect the medium of the building itself. That is someone else's problem, they say; Those are practical matters. We are in the idea business.

Ironically, this process reinforces itself. The more buildings become generic, placeless, and disposable, the more architects think they need to elevate the basic building to something more significant. They are not wrong when they assess tI contend, however, that it is not the idea which is missing from this equation. Rather, it is the gradual abandonment of quality building practice that . It is only because the craft has been stripped out of making them that modern buildings seem so empty.****

Consider the Met Cloisters (pictured), which provides another rare example of tool-qua-tool being celebrated by the 'art establishment.' Shown is a recreation of a medieval cloister using original, spoliated material. Immediately upon arrival the effect is profound: light, proportion, texture, scale, the sounds of running water, the humus fragrance of earth. This space is just like music; the instrument on which it is played is the building. The two are intricately entwined, neither architecture nor experience less important than its counterpart.

The obsession with elevating architecture to an art by focusing on its idea ignores the nuance between instrument and performance and effectively overwhelms the experience entirely. The instrument has now become the performance: architecture is a static object commanding the attention of a captive audience. These sculptures that adorn the modern city may be creative, wild, preposterous, unique, novel, and spectacular things, but they drown out the music of life.

No. If we want to make places again, if we want to restore the fabric of communities, we must make good buildings first. Given the monumental tasks civilization is faced with — social, ecological, and economic — the world needs them more than ever. Architects should design them. The way to make good buildings is to focus on their necessary qualities which are intimately tied to questions of use: for whom are they designed, and how well are they serving these people? 

It doesn't matter what a building says, or worse yet, what an architect wants it to say. It only matters what it does. It doesn't need to win awards or look interesting or even attract attention at all. More often than not, a good building goes without notice, operating in shadows of consciousness, quietly supportive — a balance to the chaos and shock of modern life. Whatever beauty or drama is added to this baseline is warranted only insofar as it serves this basic mission: to enable those who visit, live, and work therein to thrive. 




EXCERPTED MATERIAL:

Good buildings will make a human future possible in light of the serious challenges we face. I believe they are one of the essential conditions of civilization, like agriculture, politics and medicine. Sadly, I also fear contemporary architecture, especially as it is taught in schools, has strayed far from this calling.

No amount of intellectual content which you could add through symbolic interpretation can make this space any better. That is not to say meaning does not exist but only to say it is not necessary. Stripped of an apparatus for intellectual apprehension this space loses nothing. Buildings, like all tools, succeed without this layer of interpretation. When it comes to buildings, meaning is auxiliary, a gloss, a trifle, a curiosity, the basis of arguments which give purpose to a cadre of connoisseurs, a thing for books that are read in rooms far away from the actual room in question. 

There are two reasons for this. First, and quite bizarrely, the value of these architectural "ideas" themselves goes untested, so the arguments are tautological. In other words, a work is judged to be good simply if it demonstrates the student's intent. Bizarre, but true. Shouldn't we really be asking if the intent itself is any good? A student may chose a concept out of the proverbial hat, and as long as the work demonstrates this chosen concept it is considered successful. This is only a test of accuracy. What we need is way to measure integrity. 

Second, the way design awards are structured and the way feedback is given, in general, disproportionately reward designers who impress professional architects instead of actual users. This applies to schools as well as professional organizations who confer awards (of which there are a silly amount). Architecture, to architects, is essentially a form of entertainment to be "enjoyed" (or criticized, which is a sick form of enjoyment). But architecture is not enterntainment. This does not mean it cannot be done with artistry and skill, but to treat it as such inverts the real value of a building, placing its most superficial, photographic, spectacular and fleeting qualities at the forefront and neglecting the parts which matter most (e.g. cost, durability, and other quotidian realities spread across decades) to the people who rely on these buildings every day for their livelihood and security.

And the bottom line is that 99% of buildings have more important things to do than express ideas that matter to architects. 

Is UTSOA “practicing what it preaches?” Certainly, there are indications—more evident in the history and planning curricula—but I worry that the dominant model of architectural instruction is still poorly suited to address the types of complex problems indicated in UTSOA’s mission. The issue seems to be that a studio culture which is still centered around the “crit” tends to value appearances over substance, and conjecture over rigorous inquiry. The structure of a crit incentivizes work that will quickly impress a coterie of academic architects who know little about the project, which, intentionally or not, teaches students to value slick images, technical proficiency, internal coherence, and salesmanship.

While these skills are not meaningless in the profession, I believe the school would serve its students better by teaching them how to discover and deliver real value rather than how to sell the appearance of it. Not only does a primarily graphic approach presume that a visual relationship with the built environment is what matters, but more worryingly, I believe it is an inadequate method of investigation, especially into the type of complex, global problems discussed above.

Students often talk about affordable housing, for example, without being able to specify whether this is market-rate or subsidized, or with only a vague understanding of how the monetary policy of subsidization is put in effect. This is not their fault; this information is strangely difficult to come by in the halls of Goldsmith. Furthermore, even if it were available, affordable housing is designed in a spreadsheet, not on a drawing board. It is my belief that the kind of “design thinking” which is taught at UT is, at best, a poor way to achieve these ambitious, socially sensitive ends, and at worse, counterproductive — because it is either unable or unwilling to find value.. But if affordability is to be considered an architectural problem, then spreadsheets must be considered an architectural design tool, and an important one, too.

If we we want to leverage architecture as a tool to solve complex problems and to genuinely serve the public good, we need to look beyond the studio. The future is daunting — unprecedented immigration flows, rising inequity, and increasingly severe climatic events — but architecture can have a real impact, especially if it has the courage to sacrifice its preoccupation with appearances. 

Vanity is untenable. ​What starts here should change the world. Is it?
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Walter Gropius’ legacy as the originator of the Bauhaus is fundamental to the narrative of any Modern Architecture survey. Curiously, at least at the University of Texas School of Architecture, his involvement outside of the Bauhaus is little discussed and does not feature in the curriculum. The fact that he has fallen from favor is corroborated by the fact his late-life retrospective, Total Scope of Architecture, was last published in English in 1974. None of this would be worth mentioning if his ideas did not matter anymore, but the opposite seems to be true. Take, for example, his campaign against the automobile, which he began in earnest in the 1940s, or his insistence that the education of architects should align closely with professional practice. Both are still pressing issues today, in 2019. This paper will argue that there is reason to reintroduce Gropius’ thought, at least in part—as conveyed through the Total Scope of Architecture—into the canonical history of Architectural discourse. 

My inquiry centers around an exploration of themes in Gropius writing. The purpose is twofold. On the one hand, simply to re-evaluate what I find to be relevant observations, and on the other, to suggest possible reasons why these observations seem to have fallen from favor. The line of inquiry I take is roughly keyed to the following questions. I suspect the answer hangs in the balance. 

The questions Gropius asks are no longer relevant.
The answers Gropius presents to these questions are no longer valid.
The discipline is no longer interested in these kinds of questions. 

Gropius’ involvement with CIAM is revealing. The prevailing narrative suggests that Gropius was cast aside with the Modern Movement, but on closer investigation this is unconvincing. First of all, Gropius arguments are nuanced enough that they persist despite a number of flaws evident in retrospect. Moreover, if anyone were to be discarded with the Modern Movement it should be Corbusier—the founder of CIAM and its self-appointed spokesman. This has not happened. Instead, Corbusier has enjoyed continuous popularity (evidenced both in UTSOA curricula and in publishing data), which implies that the issue with Gropius had less to do with his stature as a Modernist — which would have affected Corbusier’s appeal as well — but more to do with the kind of architectural thinking that predominated after the Modernist faith was undermined.

When we associate his later work only with a bygone era of utopian dreams, à la Ville Radieuse, or to remember him only as the progenitor of the Bauhaus, we do a disservice to ourselves and to future generations of architects as we risk losing a powerful voice and a rigorous thinker who tackled the dilemma of architecture in a rapidly industrializing society head-on, with commendable courage ... ​read the entire paper here. ​