“We need less Gehrys, less Hadids, less bloated egotecture.”
June 7, 2016 1:15 PM Subscribe
Design for the One Percent by Alex Cocotas [Jacobin Mag] Contemporary architecture is more interested in mega projects for elites than improving ordinary people’s lives.
“Not so long ago, the world’s leading architects debated how architecture could be used to transform society by providing housing for workers, improving public health, and fostering social solidarity. Today, global architecture is peopled with “starchitects” like [Zaha] Hadid who specialize in mega projects for the global elite. Some of the starchitects’ projects are beautiful, to be sure. But they also often waste public money, facilitate corrupt and exploitative practices, and strengthen a planning model that excludes the populace from decision-making. Many architectural creations are poorly constructed, requiring exorbitant maintenance costs (invariably following massive budget overruns) and lacking consideration for the people who actually live in the built environment. Consider one of Hadid’s first buildings, a fire station. While aesthetically attractive, it was impractical for firefighters and was later converted into a museum.”
LionIndex, this is true. But there should also be some kind of civic and/or social responsibility when it comes to urban planning.
posted by Fizz at 1:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 1:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
Seriously- hey, people who are not footing the bill? NO ONE DOES SHIT FOR YOU. And they generally don't care whether you like that or not.Even if it's a public thing- they don't care about anything except the reflected glory.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 1:27 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 1:27 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oops. Stepped into the Ayn Rand section.
posted by No Robots at 1:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [69 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 1:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [69 favorites]
Contemporary architecture is more interested in mega projects for elites than improving ordinary people’s lives.
Contemporary?
posted by mstokes650 at 1:32 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
Contemporary?
posted by mstokes650 at 1:32 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
This context is overwhelmingly shaped by elite prerogatives. For example, Hadid’s $450 million Dongdaenum Design Plaza in Seoul was the pet project of former mayor Oh Se-hoon, who resigned after opposing a free school lunch program. Its construction displaced more than nine hundred merchants in local markets and occasioned the destruction of a historic baseball stadium still used by the community.
Oh my god, I'm rolling my eyes as hard as I can at this. There are still many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small-scale merchants within a 10-minute walk of DDP, and I'm not counting the like 4 high-rise malls that are within that radius. Dongdaemun is still absolutely a textile market neighborhood and that was not at all destroyed by the construction of the design plaza. As for the stadium, I hear it had become kind of a dump. It was built for the 1988 olympics and since then Seoul has gotten at least two new much nicer baseball stadiums. Whereas the design plaza is gorgeous, internationally renowned, and highly used - and not just by tourists.
It's frankly offensive to draw a straight line from that to the world cup project in Qatar, which is literally grinding up construction workers and tossing them out, which is a matter of total disregard for worker safety that has nothing to do with the architecture of the place.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:34 PM on June 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
Oh my god, I'm rolling my eyes as hard as I can at this. There are still many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small-scale merchants within a 10-minute walk of DDP, and I'm not counting the like 4 high-rise malls that are within that radius. Dongdaemun is still absolutely a textile market neighborhood and that was not at all destroyed by the construction of the design plaza. As for the stadium, I hear it had become kind of a dump. It was built for the 1988 olympics and since then Seoul has gotten at least two new much nicer baseball stadiums. Whereas the design plaza is gorgeous, internationally renowned, and highly used - and not just by tourists.
It's frankly offensive to draw a straight line from that to the world cup project in Qatar, which is literally grinding up construction workers and tossing them out, which is a matter of total disregard for worker safety that has nothing to do with the architecture of the place.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:34 PM on June 7, 2016 [10 favorites]
my favorite architect is a simple man named Lincoln Logs.
posted by beerperson at 1:38 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by beerperson at 1:38 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure the writer really knows who he's angry with, or why:
A few years ago, Frank Gehry blew off a Spanish journalist who questioned the utility of his buildings by telling him, “In the world we live in, 98 percent of what gets built and designed today is pure shit.”
That pure shit is where roughly 98 percent of us are fated to live our lives. Gehry and Hadid and other starchitects create architecture for the other two percent.
That’s who gets to live in the multi-million dollar apartments; that’s who gets to see the inside of the opera house; that’s who gets to experience the office suites of elite institutions, or jet set to the next global cultural hot-spot in search of architectural thrills.
We need less Gehrys, less Hadids, less bloated egotecture. We need more shit, more beautiful shit for the rest of us.
So, because 98% is shit, we need less of the 2% which isn't? Without something to lead the way and set an example, why would that 98% budge at all? And are some of the projects he cites -- Bilbao, Hadid's plaza, Calatrava's new station -- really that exclusionary of the masses?
And I'm not sure I buy into the 'bloated egotecture' premise in the first place...
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
A few years ago, Frank Gehry blew off a Spanish journalist who questioned the utility of his buildings by telling him, “In the world we live in, 98 percent of what gets built and designed today is pure shit.”
That pure shit is where roughly 98 percent of us are fated to live our lives. Gehry and Hadid and other starchitects create architecture for the other two percent.
That’s who gets to live in the multi-million dollar apartments; that’s who gets to see the inside of the opera house; that’s who gets to experience the office suites of elite institutions, or jet set to the next global cultural hot-spot in search of architectural thrills.
We need less Gehrys, less Hadids, less bloated egotecture. We need more shit, more beautiful shit for the rest of us.
So, because 98% is shit, we need less of the 2% which isn't? Without something to lead the way and set an example, why would that 98% budge at all? And are some of the projects he cites -- Bilbao, Hadid's plaza, Calatrava's new station -- really that exclusionary of the masses?
And I'm not sure I buy into the 'bloated egotecture' premise in the first place...
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:39 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
“Not so long ago, the world’s leading architects debated how architecture could be used to transform society by providing housing for workers, improving public health, and fostering social solidarity." I would like to have a fist full of names for this assertion.
The author notes that literature and music do not impact neighborhoods where people live but that buildings do. Always nice to learn something new.
posted by Postroad at 1:40 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
The author notes that literature and music do not impact neighborhoods where people live but that buildings do. Always nice to learn something new.
posted by Postroad at 1:40 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
I find it...odd that this article decides to harp so much on Hadid. And yet, I'm not at all surprised that this article's demand to architect the way the author wants is made of one of the few prominent women architects in the field, when she is no longer around to defend her work.
We need MORE Hadids, not "less" [sic]. We need MORE kudos to go to architects who do this work discussed in the article, because they do exist. We need MORE architects of all sorts of backgrounds, to help diversify the very whitebread, moneyed field. What we don't need is an article telling the late great Hadid that she didn't do her life right.
posted by sallybrown at 1:40 PM on June 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
We need MORE Hadids, not "less" [sic]. We need MORE kudos to go to architects who do this work discussed in the article, because they do exist. We need MORE architects of all sorts of backgrounds, to help diversify the very whitebread, moneyed field. What we don't need is an article telling the late great Hadid that she didn't do her life right.
posted by sallybrown at 1:40 PM on June 7, 2016 [11 favorites]
LionIndex, this is true. But there should also be some kind of civic and/or social responsibility when it comes to urban planning.
Unlike, say, doctors (free clinics) or lawyers (legal aid), architects are apparently completely mercenary and feel no professional obligation to serve their community unless it makes them money. At least, that was the impression that I was given the last time this came up here.
posted by indubitable at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Unlike, say, doctors (free clinics) or lawyers (legal aid), architects are apparently completely mercenary and feel no professional obligation to serve their community unless it makes them money. At least, that was the impression that I was given the last time this came up here.
posted by indubitable at 1:41 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Good design for the masses or the civic responsibility of designers was one of those 20th century fads we won't be seeing anymore of, like social mobility and antibiotics.
posted by The Whelk at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2016 [49 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2016 [49 favorites]
beerperson: "my favorite architect is a simple man named Lincoln Logs."
Fun fact, Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son John Lloyd Wright.
posted by octothorpe at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2016 [22 favorites]
Fun fact, Lincoln Logs were invented by Frank Lloyd Wright's son John Lloyd Wright.
posted by octothorpe at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2016 [22 favorites]
Well, architects can go and spend their time designing buildings that will magically solve all the world's problems, but unless someone with a bunch of cash steps up, it's not going to actually get built regardless of whether the architect gets paid for doing the drawings or not. Why not ask why builders don't go around building stuff for free?
posted by LionIndex at 1:48 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 1:48 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's interesting to think about C. Alexander in this light, because he's basically crazy (read the introduction to his The Luminous Ground bitching about his colleagues at UC Berkeley sometimes, it's amazing) but it's undoubtedly the case that he (or rather his legacy once he dies) will become more important, because he's basically the only link that's in any way fundamental between build-things architecture and software architecture and other technology things.
"Some avant-garde architects may look at the images in this gallery and say, as Peter Eisenman effectively did in his remarkable 1982 debate with Alexander, 'that's touching, you're making people comfortable in a vernacular sort of way. But the world isn't all right. So why do you make this sentimental art that suggests it is?'
They miss the point entirely."
posted by hleehowon at 1:53 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
"Some avant-garde architects may look at the images in this gallery and say, as Peter Eisenman effectively did in his remarkable 1982 debate with Alexander, 'that's touching, you're making people comfortable in a vernacular sort of way. But the world isn't all right. So why do you make this sentimental art that suggests it is?'
They miss the point entirely."
posted by hleehowon at 1:53 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
why can't we have both useful architecture and the cool ass shit too.
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
“Not so long ago, the world’s leading architects debated how architecture could be used to transform society by providing housing for workers, improving public health, and fostering social solidarity.'
But wasn't it that very "debate" that led to things like Le Corbusier's "Unité d'habitation" which is now considered a terrible model for public housing?
posted by dnash at 1:58 PM on June 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
But wasn't it that very "debate" that led to things like Le Corbusier's "Unité d'habitation" which is now considered a terrible model for public housing?
posted by dnash at 1:58 PM on June 7, 2016 [9 favorites]
I've been looking at a lot of modern/contemporary house design books recently and the overwhelming majority of projects showcased are for the 1% and beyond (including a space ship looking house designed by Hadid for a Russian oligarch). Sure the stuff looks great/interesting but it is even hard to find useful ideas for your own house because it is all so removed from reality. Where is the Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry designed house that boasted its LEED/passivhaus credentials or low cost of construction/maintenance? (I'm seriously asking, send links if you have them). I'm sure there are lots of well-designed, sustainable houses and buildings out there being made by more regular architects, but for whatever reason they don't get celebrated to anywhere near the same degree as these massive projects.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:00 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:00 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I think this article gets at some stuff but not very clearly:
1. What responsibility do architects have in terms of labor, land theft, etc? How much excuse is there for someone who designs a beautiful building for a really, really shitty person or purpose, or who designs a beautiful building on land that is emphatically, obviously stolen, or who designs a beautiful building that is certain to be built by slave- or virtually-slave labor?
2. We're obviously in a time which privileges tourism and starchitecture over older-style public works and noblesse oblige-building. How has this come about? What is its impact? Up to a point, tourism/starchitecture works and therefore creates jobs and benefits the commonality, but not every city can be a tourist hot spot and in general these big, fancy projects are built in bad ways and engender a lot of corruption.
3. Olympics, games, international stuff - these seem to be pretty uniformly horrible and the building for them seems to be especially abusive and awful, while being covered up by a lot of pomp and hornblowing about sports fandom.
4. Buildings that look contemporary and slick in one age are reviled in another (and then fashionable again). Like, that sports stadium at the top - OMG, it's like a light-up bike helmet, so ugly and obvious (to me at least). But Marxists all stan for brutalism. (I love brutalism and am lucky enough to live and work near a number of fine examples.) Is the futurism of brutalism really more moral than the futurism of the stadium? They have different ideological underpinnings, but they both depend on sweeping away lots and lots of little stuff, overriding the concerns of the people who live and work in a place, etc. Lots of sixties/seventies urban renewal, civic building and in particular academic expansion was pretty dire for ordinary folks.
I think the underlying idea - that large building projects frequently are incredibly disruptive and undemocratic and that this is a problem - is a sound one. Even in utopia, how would one balance the need for, like, new stuff against the inevitable displacement.? It's not like the hero-architects of the 20th century did this very well anywhere. When the great make, the small suffer wherever it happens.
posted by Frowner at 2:01 PM on June 7, 2016 [26 favorites]
1. What responsibility do architects have in terms of labor, land theft, etc? How much excuse is there for someone who designs a beautiful building for a really, really shitty person or purpose, or who designs a beautiful building on land that is emphatically, obviously stolen, or who designs a beautiful building that is certain to be built by slave- or virtually-slave labor?
2. We're obviously in a time which privileges tourism and starchitecture over older-style public works and noblesse oblige-building. How has this come about? What is its impact? Up to a point, tourism/starchitecture works and therefore creates jobs and benefits the commonality, but not every city can be a tourist hot spot and in general these big, fancy projects are built in bad ways and engender a lot of corruption.
3. Olympics, games, international stuff - these seem to be pretty uniformly horrible and the building for them seems to be especially abusive and awful, while being covered up by a lot of pomp and hornblowing about sports fandom.
4. Buildings that look contemporary and slick in one age are reviled in another (and then fashionable again). Like, that sports stadium at the top - OMG, it's like a light-up bike helmet, so ugly and obvious (to me at least). But Marxists all stan for brutalism. (I love brutalism and am lucky enough to live and work near a number of fine examples.) Is the futurism of brutalism really more moral than the futurism of the stadium? They have different ideological underpinnings, but they both depend on sweeping away lots and lots of little stuff, overriding the concerns of the people who live and work in a place, etc. Lots of sixties/seventies urban renewal, civic building and in particular academic expansion was pretty dire for ordinary folks.
I think the underlying idea - that large building projects frequently are incredibly disruptive and undemocratic and that this is a problem - is a sound one. Even in utopia, how would one balance the need for, like, new stuff against the inevitable displacement.? It's not like the hero-architects of the 20th century did this very well anywhere. When the great make, the small suffer wherever it happens.
posted by Frowner at 2:01 PM on June 7, 2016 [26 favorites]
But wasn't it that very "debate" that led to things like Le Corbusier's "Unité d'habitation" which is now considered a terrible model for public housing?
To say nothing of the Plan Voisin, which pretty much was the model for public housing and tearing down urban fabric.
posted by LionIndex at 2:03 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
To say nothing of the Plan Voisin, which pretty much was the model for public housing and tearing down urban fabric.
posted by LionIndex at 2:03 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
" lacking consideration for the people who actually live in the built environment."
This drives me crazy. I go visit friends in newly-built "architect-designed" McMansions that were obviously designed by someone who HATES PEOPLE. I mean they also hate the environment, thermostats, etc etc etc, but the utter disdain for the people who have to live in the houses boggles my mind. To the point where I suspect alien architects who have never lived in Earth houses before.
It was interesting when I was on the building committee for the school board, working with the architects who were building or resdesigning or expanding our schools. Some of them were very thoughtful about how the building was going to be used by the kids, and creating an energy-efficient and comfortable interior; others created a cool-looking shell that they sometimes flat-out bragged would win them awards, and then kinda shoved in oddly-shaped and inconvenient school functions inside, with the utility stuff expensive and all over the place.
Unfortunately it was true that the schools that were really well-built for the purpose of being schools, that are a pleasure to be inside and work well for the students and save on energy costs, were not the ones that won the awards from architecture juries. The ones whose hallways are such a fucking nightmare you get nervous during fire drills, or where you end up having to expensively retrofit ADA accommodations because it turns out the wheelchair users can't actually GET to that elevator, those are the ones that got awards for innovation.
(Whereas if you want to win an award from an early childhood education organization, use cool tiles in the hallway that creates ribbons of different colors so you can tell the kids "stand on the green line." ECE groups LOOOOOOOOOVE that. Especially if different wings of the building are color-coded and you can use that color tile to go to that part of the building. Even four year olds can follow a yellow line. ECE groups also love individual classroom exits with little covered porches so they can get fresh air when it's raining and/or keep classroom plants out there.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:05 PM on June 7, 2016 [40 favorites]
This drives me crazy. I go visit friends in newly-built "architect-designed" McMansions that were obviously designed by someone who HATES PEOPLE. I mean they also hate the environment, thermostats, etc etc etc, but the utter disdain for the people who have to live in the houses boggles my mind. To the point where I suspect alien architects who have never lived in Earth houses before.
It was interesting when I was on the building committee for the school board, working with the architects who were building or resdesigning or expanding our schools. Some of them were very thoughtful about how the building was going to be used by the kids, and creating an energy-efficient and comfortable interior; others created a cool-looking shell that they sometimes flat-out bragged would win them awards, and then kinda shoved in oddly-shaped and inconvenient school functions inside, with the utility stuff expensive and all over the place.
Unfortunately it was true that the schools that were really well-built for the purpose of being schools, that are a pleasure to be inside and work well for the students and save on energy costs, were not the ones that won the awards from architecture juries. The ones whose hallways are such a fucking nightmare you get nervous during fire drills, or where you end up having to expensively retrofit ADA accommodations because it turns out the wheelchair users can't actually GET to that elevator, those are the ones that got awards for innovation.
(Whereas if you want to win an award from an early childhood education organization, use cool tiles in the hallway that creates ribbons of different colors so you can tell the kids "stand on the green line." ECE groups LOOOOOOOOOVE that. Especially if different wings of the building are color-coded and you can use that color tile to go to that part of the building. Even four year olds can follow a yellow line. ECE groups also love individual classroom exits with little covered porches so they can get fresh air when it's raining and/or keep classroom plants out there.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:05 PM on June 7, 2016 [40 favorites]
dnash, so sure, Le Corbusier was wrong. But are his successors even trying to solve these issues? Public housing is still getting built, so where are the starchitects putting thought into how to do it right? Or perhaps Le Corbusier wasn't wrong and it is less the design that failed residences than everything else did (which was touched on in the article with respect to Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis).
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:06 PM on June 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:06 PM on June 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
"Sure the stuff looks great/interesting but it is even hard to find useful ideas for your own house because it is all so removed from reality. "
Absolute pet peeve in rich-people house plan books -- the master bedroom is in a different wing than the children's rooms, for "quiet and privacy," but backs up to the wall of the kitchen with the dishwasher and the dish cabinets, because DEFINITELY quiet and privacy is achieved by listening to your children bang the fucking dishes around every morning at 5:30 a.m. for the rest of your life.
The other way you see it all the time is the big blank wall intended for the huge-screen TV in the family room backs up to the big blank wall in the master bedroom where the bed is intended to go, so you can listen to your children play Halo until 3 a.m. for the rest of your life.
(Related pet peeve ... separating the master bedroom from the kids' rooms can be really suboptimal for a lot of parents who need to keep an ear on the children, but it is almost uniformly done in house plans these day and hard to find plans that DON'T do that.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:10 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Absolute pet peeve in rich-people house plan books -- the master bedroom is in a different wing than the children's rooms, for "quiet and privacy," but backs up to the wall of the kitchen with the dishwasher and the dish cabinets, because DEFINITELY quiet and privacy is achieved by listening to your children bang the fucking dishes around every morning at 5:30 a.m. for the rest of your life.
The other way you see it all the time is the big blank wall intended for the huge-screen TV in the family room backs up to the big blank wall in the master bedroom where the bed is intended to go, so you can listen to your children play Halo until 3 a.m. for the rest of your life.
(Related pet peeve ... separating the master bedroom from the kids' rooms can be really suboptimal for a lot of parents who need to keep an ear on the children, but it is almost uniformly done in house plans these day and hard to find plans that DON'T do that.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:10 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
McMansions: not necessarily built by architects, but by developers who basically toss together a mess of building components shown to he highly marketable to maximize their ROI. But sometimes architects don't do much better.
posted by LionIndex at 2:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 2:11 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Annika Cicada: Why can't we have both useful architecture and the cool ass shit too.
Alain de Botton has the answer. (Warning: many mefites consider him a total shitball.)
posted by No Robots at 2:16 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Alain de Botton has the answer. (Warning: many mefites consider him a total shitball.)
posted by No Robots at 2:16 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the tension is that for big, famous architects, building is philosophy - which is why people use "vernacular" to condemn things, and why it's possible to say "the world is terrible, why are you making cozy buildings?" and not get laughed out of the room. And why it was possible for the brutalist architects to design buildings that people often just fucking hated.
So, philosophy for them but life for the rest of us. (This is leaving out the common or garden architects who design the many ordinary buildings - good and bad - around us.)
~~~~~
In re utopian architecture and failure: I work in and around some brutalist buildings and I have a friend who used to live in the Riverside Plaza, so I've been in and around it a bit.
1. Ralph Rapson, the Riverside Plaza architect, is famous for having wanted to cover the entire neighborhood with more Riverside Plazas. There was a protest about this that basically turned into a riot, or so it's told around here.
2. Riverside Plaza was obviously built by someone who wasn't poor and didn't understand this kind of apartment living very well, also someone who wasn't really thinking of how kids experience the world even though a lot of kids were going to be living there.
Some of the apartments are pretty nice and the shadowy concrete canyons around the buildings stay cool in summer. However! There are very few elevators in these extremely tall and densely populated buildings, and you can wait up to 15 minutes for one. It's echo-y inside and a weird combination of grungy and sterile-feeling because of all the concrete and the purposeful avoidance of ornament. Also, the shadowy concrete canyons actually feel kind of creepy at times - you don't have good sight-lines to where you're going, there's a lot of concrete walls around you, it's dark at all times of day, it tends to be damp, etc. I've walked around there a lot - it's actually populated by families and pretty safe, but it doesn't feel that way.
Also, the concrete/shadowy areas are not welcoming to kids and families, even though there are these etiolated little semi-playgrounds spotted around.
Basically, I feel like the design could have benefited tremendously from being less stark and graphic and more vernacular/cozy.
3. The brutalist buildings where I work are pretty uniformly hated, except by me. I love them because they are weird and shadowy and science fictional, but they are also poorly designed for academic purposes and are so designed so that most of the offices and labs are windowless. The terrifyingly steep and yawning lecture hall pits are particularly gloomy and intimidating for guest speakers while also being isolating for students, and there are other buildings on campus that have large lecture halls that are better. (Years ago I applied for a job here that I did not take - and that job posting specified that you had to be able to handle long hours in a windowless room. People had upped and quit because of the room.)
The buildings where I work are also famously confusing - we've had forty years of trying to hack the signage so that patients and new students don't get lost, and no really good method has been found because the buildings are designed with a lot of weird low tunnel-ish turnings and bad use of sight-lines. Again, I love the cave-like nature and eccentricity of these buildings and mourn whenever modernizations are made, but I have been here a while and the buildings are NOT good for patients and students.
Basically, my experience has been that around here brutalist/modernist buildings look really cool but are far less well-designed for the people they serve than comparable local non-brutalist/non-modernist buildings.
posted by Frowner at 2:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
So, philosophy for them but life for the rest of us. (This is leaving out the common or garden architects who design the many ordinary buildings - good and bad - around us.)
~~~~~
In re utopian architecture and failure: I work in and around some brutalist buildings and I have a friend who used to live in the Riverside Plaza, so I've been in and around it a bit.
1. Ralph Rapson, the Riverside Plaza architect, is famous for having wanted to cover the entire neighborhood with more Riverside Plazas. There was a protest about this that basically turned into a riot, or so it's told around here.
2. Riverside Plaza was obviously built by someone who wasn't poor and didn't understand this kind of apartment living very well, also someone who wasn't really thinking of how kids experience the world even though a lot of kids were going to be living there.
Some of the apartments are pretty nice and the shadowy concrete canyons around the buildings stay cool in summer. However! There are very few elevators in these extremely tall and densely populated buildings, and you can wait up to 15 minutes for one. It's echo-y inside and a weird combination of grungy and sterile-feeling because of all the concrete and the purposeful avoidance of ornament. Also, the shadowy concrete canyons actually feel kind of creepy at times - you don't have good sight-lines to where you're going, there's a lot of concrete walls around you, it's dark at all times of day, it tends to be damp, etc. I've walked around there a lot - it's actually populated by families and pretty safe, but it doesn't feel that way.
Also, the concrete/shadowy areas are not welcoming to kids and families, even though there are these etiolated little semi-playgrounds spotted around.
Basically, I feel like the design could have benefited tremendously from being less stark and graphic and more vernacular/cozy.
3. The brutalist buildings where I work are pretty uniformly hated, except by me. I love them because they are weird and shadowy and science fictional, but they are also poorly designed for academic purposes and are so designed so that most of the offices and labs are windowless. The terrifyingly steep and yawning lecture hall pits are particularly gloomy and intimidating for guest speakers while also being isolating for students, and there are other buildings on campus that have large lecture halls that are better. (Years ago I applied for a job here that I did not take - and that job posting specified that you had to be able to handle long hours in a windowless room. People had upped and quit because of the room.)
The buildings where I work are also famously confusing - we've had forty years of trying to hack the signage so that patients and new students don't get lost, and no really good method has been found because the buildings are designed with a lot of weird low tunnel-ish turnings and bad use of sight-lines. Again, I love the cave-like nature and eccentricity of these buildings and mourn whenever modernizations are made, but I have been here a while and the buildings are NOT good for patients and students.
Basically, my experience has been that around here brutalist/modernist buildings look really cool but are far less well-designed for the people they serve than comparable local non-brutalist/non-modernist buildings.
posted by Frowner at 2:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
A few times now on MeFi, I've heard the sentiment expressed that architects just design whatever they're paid to design, and that people shouldn't complain if they don't have the money to pay them to design something else. I feel like that's kind of a crappy sentiment, though. Why is there not a professional code of ethics for architecture that would push practitioners away from designing harmful projects? Lots of professions have codes of ethics. Why not architecture?
Being a ruthlessly mercenary, amoral, designer-for-hire is not actually a moral defense, it's more an indictment of the field in general.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:24 PM on June 7, 2016 [20 favorites]
Being a ruthlessly mercenary, amoral, designer-for-hire is not actually a moral defense, it's more an indictment of the field in general.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:24 PM on June 7, 2016 [20 favorites]
“Not so long ago, the world’s leading architects debated how architecture could be used to transform society by providing housing for workers, improving public health, and fostering social solidarity." I would like to have a fist full of names for this assertion.
Well, I think Bauhaus architecture, specifically Mies van der Rohe, fits under that. Having had a chance to walking in the White City left me an impression:
Tel Aviv has the largest number of buildings in this style of any city in the world. In 2003, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed Tel Aviv's White City a World Cultural Heritage site, as "an outstanding example of new town planning and architecture in the early 20th century."[38]—Wikipedia
I remember a MoMA exhibit showing a famous American architect's interest in city planning. I think it was from the 70's, and there were all these drafts of "futuristic" structures/buildings at very large scales, covering tracts of land and greenery, meant for entire communities to inhabit. If you've seen an image of the Apple Campus his drawings are reminiscent of that, but of course the intent (anti-capitalist, pro-public good) and design methodology (hand drawn) was very different. I don't remember the architect, but as I recall this was part of a specific architectural movement that eventually fell by the wayside.
posted by polymodus at 2:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, I think Bauhaus architecture, specifically Mies van der Rohe, fits under that. Having had a chance to walking in the White City left me an impression:
Tel Aviv has the largest number of buildings in this style of any city in the world. In 2003, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed Tel Aviv's White City a World Cultural Heritage site, as "an outstanding example of new town planning and architecture in the early 20th century."[38]—Wikipedia
I remember a MoMA exhibit showing a famous American architect's interest in city planning. I think it was from the 70's, and there were all these drafts of "futuristic" structures/buildings at very large scales, covering tracts of land and greenery, meant for entire communities to inhabit. If you've seen an image of the Apple Campus his drawings are reminiscent of that, but of course the intent (anti-capitalist, pro-public good) and design methodology (hand drawn) was very different. I don't remember the architect, but as I recall this was part of a specific architectural movement that eventually fell by the wayside.
posted by polymodus at 2:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Are we talking about buildings that are actively evil or are we talking about Frank Gehry doing a museum in Bilbao? How should the architect know the hiring practices of the construction workers when they start designing a building years before construction starts?
posted by LionIndex at 2:28 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 2:28 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
How should the architect know the hiring practices of the construction workers when they start designing a building years before construction starts?
Well, as Chomsky says, it has to occur to them to ask. That's the first step.
posted by polymodus at 2:30 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
Well, as Chomsky says, it has to occur to them to ask. That's the first step.
posted by polymodus at 2:30 PM on June 7, 2016 [8 favorites]
there were all these drafts of "futuristic" structures/buildings at very large scales, covering tracts of land and greenery, meant for entire communities to inhabit
Arcologies? Paolo Soleri? Arcosanti is well worth a visit, even though it's definitely a place out of a dead future.
posted by Frowner at 2:30 PM on June 7, 2016
Arcologies? Paolo Soleri? Arcosanti is well worth a visit, even though it's definitely a place out of a dead future.
posted by Frowner at 2:30 PM on June 7, 2016
Okay, here are some actual architects who are doing interesting things for social good:
Alejandro Aravena, Lacaton and Vassal, David Adjaye, Via Verda project in NYC, Shigeru Ban, etc.
any portmanteau in a storm: "Public housing is still getting built, so where are the starchitects putting thought into how to do it right?"
Where is public housing getting built, at least in the US? There is no true public housing being currently built. Most forms of affordable housing take the form of tax credits, loans, or FAR (air rights) bonuses in exchange for including a percentage of affordable housing unites, or including amenities, etc.
posted by suedehead at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Alejandro Aravena, Lacaton and Vassal, David Adjaye, Via Verda project in NYC, Shigeru Ban, etc.
any portmanteau in a storm: "Public housing is still getting built, so where are the starchitects putting thought into how to do it right?"
Where is public housing getting built, at least in the US? There is no true public housing being currently built. Most forms of affordable housing take the form of tax credits, loans, or FAR (air rights) bonuses in exchange for including a percentage of affordable housing unites, or including amenities, etc.
posted by suedehead at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [12 favorites]
Arcologies? Paolo Soleri? Arcosanti is well worth a visit, even though it's definitely a place out of a dead future.
No, I'm pretty sure it was an American architect. And it wasn't arcologies the way they are monolithic; the sketches had different large and small structures distributed over land, so it looks like a community or futuristic modular city—from a 70's looking perspective.
posted by polymodus at 2:35 PM on June 7, 2016
No, I'm pretty sure it was an American architect. And it wasn't arcologies the way they are monolithic; the sketches had different large and small structures distributed over land, so it looks like a community or futuristic modular city—from a 70's looking perspective.
posted by polymodus at 2:35 PM on June 7, 2016
Was it Howard Roark?
posted by dersins at 2:38 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by dersins at 2:38 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Was it Howard Roark?
No, sillyhead, unless he was part of a MoMA exhibit…
posted by polymodus at 2:40 PM on June 7, 2016
No, sillyhead, unless he was part of a MoMA exhibit…
posted by polymodus at 2:40 PM on June 7, 2016
Before some white Western Marxist fuck living in Berlin judges the revival and transformation of a once drab, poisoned industrial city of some other nation into an capital and international destination that's a source of pride for its people, maybe he should actually understand more of the context.
Uh, in turn, what lets you speak for all Koreans and say that it's a "source of pride for its people"?
There was/is a lot of Korean discussion and criticism about why a non-Korean architect was selected, why any notion of historical research or relevance was completely jettisoned in favor for an attempt at the Bilbao-effect, why the budget become so overblown (at 8x the original budget, it became 3% of the city's annual budget, and the most expensive building ever built).
posted by suedehead at 2:59 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
Uh, in turn, what lets you speak for all Koreans and say that it's a "source of pride for its people"?
There was/is a lot of Korean discussion and criticism about why a non-Korean architect was selected, why any notion of historical research or relevance was completely jettisoned in favor for an attempt at the Bilbao-effect, why the budget become so overblown (at 8x the original budget, it became 3% of the city's annual budget, and the most expensive building ever built).
posted by suedehead at 2:59 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
suedehead: The Hajj Mosque is the most expensive building ever built, because it has to contain 2 million people and the Saudis have more money than God. Here's the Wiki article.
posted by hleehowon at 3:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by hleehowon at 3:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Here's an interview with Alejandro Aravena in dezeen magazine, which speaks to many of these issues.
posted by nikoniko at 3:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by nikoniko at 3:26 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Glad to see Architecture and Architects are holding on to their top-10 ranking in the Big List of Things Metafilter Doesn't Do Well.
There's a meta-analysis to be made about why otherwise educated, polite people feel the need to pour out this white-hot scorn for Architects.
For what it's worth, there are millions of architects, they're not all famous, and most spend their days designing fairly anonymous houses, schools, parks and cities. Many of them try to make the world a better place. It's what we're generally taught in architecture schools.
Hardly anybody studies architecture because they want to be rich, most get into it out of passion, and many out of altruism.
posted by signal at 3:35 PM on June 7, 2016 [19 favorites]
There's a meta-analysis to be made about why otherwise educated, polite people feel the need to pour out this white-hot scorn for Architects.
For what it's worth, there are millions of architects, they're not all famous, and most spend their days designing fairly anonymous houses, schools, parks and cities. Many of them try to make the world a better place. It's what we're generally taught in architecture schools.
Hardly anybody studies architecture because they want to be rich, most get into it out of passion, and many out of altruism.
posted by signal at 3:35 PM on June 7, 2016 [19 favorites]
LionIndex started off on the wrong foot by posting: Oh, yet another person who doesn't understand that architects are hired by people to design what those people want.Oh, yet another person who doesn't understand that architects are hired by people to design what those people want.
The people who hire starchitects most often have no clue what they want - only that they want something crapped out by a starchitect. Functionality doesn't enter into the picture.
posted by JJ86 at 3:44 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
The people who hire starchitects most often have no clue what they want - only that they want something crapped out by a starchitect. Functionality doesn't enter into the picture.
posted by JJ86 at 3:44 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
My problem with architecture is with Architecture-As-Challenging-Art. Buildings have many more constraints on them than art installations do, and more important ones at that. Sure, buildings should be beautiful to look at, and being in or near a beautiful space has utilitarian effects, but there are (as Eyebrows comments above, about schools) other reasons than beauty for a building to have - or not have - particular features. I want to live in a place that comforts me, not one that challenges me; my work is difficult enough as it is without my environment getting in my way. If there's art in the architecture of the spaces I live in, it should be the art of inducing a smile, a sense of peace, a relaxing of tense shoulders. It shouldn't be the art of a furrowed brow and a black turtleneck.
posted by Fraxas at 3:56 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Fraxas at 3:56 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
Who are Alejandro Aravena's fellow travelers in America and what are the closest analog American projects? Those Chilean row houses look awesome.
posted by bukvich at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bukvich at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
"but there are (as Eyebrows comments above, about schools) other reasons than beauty for a building to have - or not have - particular features."
And I should say, the architects who did some of the buildings we really LIKED made some very cool spaces! They just started from "who is using this space and for what?" and worked around that constraint, rather than starting with a cool-looking idea and trying to fit the necessary spaces within the limits of the idea. It was just really interesting, working with a variety of architects across a variety of similar projects, to see how differently they approached it. There was a HUGE difference between architects who actually went to schools while in session and talked to the kids and teachers about the buildings, vs. the ones who created the building based on just code requirements.
The ones that worked better as schools tended to look more like schools, though -- even with cool architectural features, they were still pretty visually identifiable as "oh, that's a grade school." We routinely supported the entry of our architects into the various competitions they entered their designs into, and it was pretty clear that the architecture-as-architecture awards were very uninterested in schools that looked like schools; they were much more intrigued by the ones that looked different, and those tended to be the ones that functioned less-well. Architects who were happy to build schools and similar buildings for the rest of their careers didn't mind being relegated to "public school architect" status, but the ones who were strivers and wanted to be recognized artistically aimed to create more "architecty" buildings that would get noticed and rewarded. And I felt like that was kinda sad and problematic, that the guys doing the BEST work for us were not being recognized by their peers because there are only so many ways to design a school building that's safe during a fire drill, and there's so much more prestige in, well, prestige buildings.
So I'm somewhat sympathetic to the original article in that I wish the profession of architecture (and professional architecture critics) did more to recognize architects doing "everyday" work like schools and regular-people houses and office buildings and so on. I like a good "skyline" building as much as anybody (well, anybody raised reading Blair Kamin and consequently developing strong opinions on skyscrapers) or a gorgeous showplace museum, but those rare prestige projects shouldn't drive the whole of the profession, and there should be more professional plaudits for the architects doing really great work on everyday, regular-people buildings, even if that work involves more "fiddling at the margins" and less "creating huge and glorious skyline-defining volumes of space" and more "creating reasonably-priced, relatively repeatable buildings" and less "unique in the world, high-cost showpiece venues."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:27 PM on June 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
And I should say, the architects who did some of the buildings we really LIKED made some very cool spaces! They just started from "who is using this space and for what?" and worked around that constraint, rather than starting with a cool-looking idea and trying to fit the necessary spaces within the limits of the idea. It was just really interesting, working with a variety of architects across a variety of similar projects, to see how differently they approached it. There was a HUGE difference between architects who actually went to schools while in session and talked to the kids and teachers about the buildings, vs. the ones who created the building based on just code requirements.
The ones that worked better as schools tended to look more like schools, though -- even with cool architectural features, they were still pretty visually identifiable as "oh, that's a grade school." We routinely supported the entry of our architects into the various competitions they entered their designs into, and it was pretty clear that the architecture-as-architecture awards were very uninterested in schools that looked like schools; they were much more intrigued by the ones that looked different, and those tended to be the ones that functioned less-well. Architects who were happy to build schools and similar buildings for the rest of their careers didn't mind being relegated to "public school architect" status, but the ones who were strivers and wanted to be recognized artistically aimed to create more "architecty" buildings that would get noticed and rewarded. And I felt like that was kinda sad and problematic, that the guys doing the BEST work for us were not being recognized by their peers because there are only so many ways to design a school building that's safe during a fire drill, and there's so much more prestige in, well, prestige buildings.
So I'm somewhat sympathetic to the original article in that I wish the profession of architecture (and professional architecture critics) did more to recognize architects doing "everyday" work like schools and regular-people houses and office buildings and so on. I like a good "skyline" building as much as anybody (well, anybody raised reading Blair Kamin and consequently developing strong opinions on skyscrapers) or a gorgeous showplace museum, but those rare prestige projects shouldn't drive the whole of the profession, and there should be more professional plaudits for the architects doing really great work on everyday, regular-people buildings, even if that work involves more "fiddling at the margins" and less "creating huge and glorious skyline-defining volumes of space" and more "creating reasonably-priced, relatively repeatable buildings" and less "unique in the world, high-cost showpiece venues."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:27 PM on June 7, 2016 [15 favorites]
Where is public housing getting built, at least in the US? There is no true public housing being currently built.
Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has embarked on an ambitious plan to reshape the neighborhood of Sharswood which includes building public housing. There is some fear that this will be another ill fated attempt at urban renewal that will leave the neighborhood no better off (or worse!) than it is today but it is an attempt about rectifying some of the past mistakes.
posted by nolnacs at 4:53 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has embarked on an ambitious plan to reshape the neighborhood of Sharswood which includes building public housing. There is some fear that this will be another ill fated attempt at urban renewal that will leave the neighborhood no better off (or worse!) than it is today but it is an attempt about rectifying some of the past mistakes.
posted by nolnacs at 4:53 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
What makes a starchitect a starchtect? Should we be criticizing Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry for building striking but useless fripperies? Or the popular culture for deciding that it is their work that best encapsulates modern architecture?
It seems to me that the reason these people are the starchitects of our era is that they are the people who build what the culture-elite establishment of the moment demands. Le Corbusier built public housing and was admired for it because that is what his era demanded of him.
We live now in a world and global popular culture that worships elite wealth and deprecates working-class life, so the designated starchitects of our era are those who build egotechture...
Personally I agree that a lot of the celebrated big projects of our era are cool looking but often sacrifice function and liveability for form. Which is ridiculous.
posted by jackbrown at 5:03 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
It seems to me that the reason these people are the starchitects of our era is that they are the people who build what the culture-elite establishment of the moment demands. Le Corbusier built public housing and was admired for it because that is what his era demanded of him.
We live now in a world and global popular culture that worships elite wealth and deprecates working-class life, so the designated starchitects of our era are those who build egotechture...
Personally I agree that a lot of the celebrated big projects of our era are cool looking but often sacrifice function and liveability for form. Which is ridiculous.
posted by jackbrown at 5:03 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I realize that Jacobin is going to Jacobin, but I actually think that public buildings serve an important purpose, and it's good to have a beautiful and/or interesting streetscape even if not every building is accessible to every person. I used to ride my bike past a Gehry building every day, and it was cool, even though I never once went inside. I live in the built environment, and I think I'm a happier camper in a nice built environment than an ugly or monotonous one.
I also am particularly interested in architecture and urban planning that is neither public housing nor luxury buildings for the 1%. I'm really curious about who is creating interesting apartment buildings that are accessible to middle-income people like me. It feels like planning discussions in my city create a sort of stark debate between proponents of single-family homes and proponents of luxury condos, and I want to know what the options are for human-scale, interesting, varied, relatively-high-density urban architecture that isn't only shiny luxury towers for the rich.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:05 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
I also am particularly interested in architecture and urban planning that is neither public housing nor luxury buildings for the 1%. I'm really curious about who is creating interesting apartment buildings that are accessible to middle-income people like me. It feels like planning discussions in my city create a sort of stark debate between proponents of single-family homes and proponents of luxury condos, and I want to know what the options are for human-scale, interesting, varied, relatively-high-density urban architecture that isn't only shiny luxury towers for the rich.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:05 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
Please keep in mind that using the term 'starchitect' in a conversation about architecture is the exact analog of using 'micro$oft' in one about computers: it doesn't exactly make you sound smart or informed.
posted by signal at 6:28 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:28 PM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
" It feels like planning discussions in my city create a sort of stark debate between proponents of single-family homes and proponents of luxury condos, and I want to know what the options are for human-scale, interesting, varied, relatively-high-density urban architecture that isn't only shiny luxury towers for the rich."
I've been cataloging the architecture of a streetcar neighborhood in my city dating to the 1920s and 1930s, precisely because I love that kind of house and nobody else had done it. The local historical society is more focused on the gorgeous whiskey mansions (and I don't fault them, those houses and neighborhoods are spectacular and need preservation). The newer houses are for the very, very wealthy if architect-designed, and are otherwise builder-designed. The architecture society focuses on buildings with a historic designation or historic importance. And I was like, "Man, we have all this absolutely gorgeous middle-class housing stock that's beautifully representative of its era, with some locally-unique features, and nobody's even noticing because the neighborhoods got run down and we talk about urban planning and nobody's talking about these super-vibrant, high-occupancy, totally walkable neighborhoods with fantastic little houses. Somebody should record it!" And then it eventually dawned on me that I had a camera and access to instagram, same as anybody else, and if nobody professional and well-educated in architecture was going to do it, well, at least I could take the pictures and comment on the very salient features and then they'd be there later when someone better-informed than I was wanted to look at the neighborhood, and when we had urban planning discussions in town at least that neighborhood would be part of the discussion because someone had taken the trouble to catalog it.
It's slowly introducing me to blogs and websites where people promote and highlight current middle-class housing architecture, although I don't have a great list put together, more a bunch of one-offs that have been interesting or valuable to me. (Especially since I spend more time on the historic stuff.) There has been a lot of good stuff related to rebuilding in New Orleans after Katrina, where architects have either designed low-income housing on a mass scale (often green and/or modular that can be made on a large scale and brought in to lots), or middle class houses for individual homeowners who are rebuilding.
I also think that's behind some of the popularity of tiny house blogs/websites -- they self-consciously focus on a more affordable section of the market, but tend to be very design-obsessed. Obviously not everyone wants to live in 148 square feet, but when that's what's looking at good design and interesting architecture on a not-crazy-rich-person scale, that's where people will go.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:14 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
I've been cataloging the architecture of a streetcar neighborhood in my city dating to the 1920s and 1930s, precisely because I love that kind of house and nobody else had done it. The local historical society is more focused on the gorgeous whiskey mansions (and I don't fault them, those houses and neighborhoods are spectacular and need preservation). The newer houses are for the very, very wealthy if architect-designed, and are otherwise builder-designed. The architecture society focuses on buildings with a historic designation or historic importance. And I was like, "Man, we have all this absolutely gorgeous middle-class housing stock that's beautifully representative of its era, with some locally-unique features, and nobody's even noticing because the neighborhoods got run down and we talk about urban planning and nobody's talking about these super-vibrant, high-occupancy, totally walkable neighborhoods with fantastic little houses. Somebody should record it!" And then it eventually dawned on me that I had a camera and access to instagram, same as anybody else, and if nobody professional and well-educated in architecture was going to do it, well, at least I could take the pictures and comment on the very salient features and then they'd be there later when someone better-informed than I was wanted to look at the neighborhood, and when we had urban planning discussions in town at least that neighborhood would be part of the discussion because someone had taken the trouble to catalog it.
It's slowly introducing me to blogs and websites where people promote and highlight current middle-class housing architecture, although I don't have a great list put together, more a bunch of one-offs that have been interesting or valuable to me. (Especially since I spend more time on the historic stuff.) There has been a lot of good stuff related to rebuilding in New Orleans after Katrina, where architects have either designed low-income housing on a mass scale (often green and/or modular that can be made on a large scale and brought in to lots), or middle class houses for individual homeowners who are rebuilding.
I also think that's behind some of the popularity of tiny house blogs/websites -- they self-consciously focus on a more affordable section of the market, but tend to be very design-obsessed. Obviously not everyone wants to live in 148 square feet, but when that's what's looking at good design and interesting architecture on a not-crazy-rich-person scale, that's where people will go.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:14 PM on June 7, 2016 [7 favorites]
Unlike, say, doctors (free clinics) or lawyers (legal aid), architects are apparently completely mercenary and feel no professional obligation to serve their community unless it makes them money. At least, that was the impression that I was given the last time this came up here.
For a while a friend and I attempted to run a local chapter of Architecture for Humanity in Philadelphia. We mostly failed because we're architects, not non-profit startup people. There was absolutely no shortage of volunteers, but a huge shortage of funding for building projects. When Architecture for Humanity collapsed due to central management issues, the international network of chapters reformed as the Open Architecture Collaborative. The Community Design Collaborative in Philly has a more limited scope and only does initial design, but also has more volunteers than they can handle. It's not lack of interest in design for social good.
Philadelphia does build public housing. I won't comment on the Sharswood thing, but the first Passiv Haus in Pennsylvania was a group of affordable rowhouses.
I have tons of issues with the architecture establishment. Could rant for days about that. And I think anyone who chooses to design projects with known bad effects does bear responsibility for that. But architects rarely are the ones deciding what gets built - there are more architects interested in sustainable development than developers willing to hire them or buyers willing to pay for more insulation / better light / good design /etc instead of granite counters and a "bonus room". It takes a lot of time to design something well, and not many clients want to pay for that. And I say that as someone who hires architects for clients. I got into architecture from an interest in improving "average" buildings, and have maintained that interest, but not found a lot of ways to make it happen.
posted by sepviva at 7:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
For a while a friend and I attempted to run a local chapter of Architecture for Humanity in Philadelphia. We mostly failed because we're architects, not non-profit startup people. There was absolutely no shortage of volunteers, but a huge shortage of funding for building projects. When Architecture for Humanity collapsed due to central management issues, the international network of chapters reformed as the Open Architecture Collaborative. The Community Design Collaborative in Philly has a more limited scope and only does initial design, but also has more volunteers than they can handle. It's not lack of interest in design for social good.
Philadelphia does build public housing. I won't comment on the Sharswood thing, but the first Passiv Haus in Pennsylvania was a group of affordable rowhouses.
I have tons of issues with the architecture establishment. Could rant for days about that. And I think anyone who chooses to design projects with known bad effects does bear responsibility for that. But architects rarely are the ones deciding what gets built - there are more architects interested in sustainable development than developers willing to hire them or buyers willing to pay for more insulation / better light / good design /etc instead of granite counters and a "bonus room". It takes a lot of time to design something well, and not many clients want to pay for that. And I say that as someone who hires architects for clients. I got into architecture from an interest in improving "average" buildings, and have maintained that interest, but not found a lot of ways to make it happen.
posted by sepviva at 7:20 PM on June 7, 2016 [6 favorites]
I think the Coin Street Community neighborhoods are fascinating, having heard of them partly because the community, when consulted about housing styles, apparently said they would like a lot of fairly Georgian terraces, please, or plain roomy rectangular apartment blocks, and also garden plots. This was annoying to one class of architect/funder but the results look fine to me. Anyone live near there? How are they as a neighborhood?
posted by clew at 7:20 PM on June 7, 2016
posted by clew at 7:20 PM on June 7, 2016
whoops, meant to say "the most expensive building ever built by the Seoul city government
So I'm somewhat sympathetic to the original article in that I wish the profession of architecture (and professional architecture critics) did more to recognize architects doing "everyday" work like schools and regular-people houses and office buildings and so on.
But they do! Apologies if I'm exasperated, and no offense personally, but the tone of the article and this discussion sounds like: "I've only heard of Zaha and Gehry. Why do people only know about Zaha Hadid and Gehry? Shouldn't architects know about non-stararchitects also?"
Consider the Architecture Lobby, or Teddy Cruz. Aravena curated this year's Venice Architecture Biennial, for goodness's sake. There's MAS Design Group, there's the architects I mentioned above. Architects are the first to self-critique and think about the ethics of the profession.
Perhaps architecture has a PR problem. Scratch that - Architecture has a PR problem, because somehow the world thinks about Howard Roark and Gehry, and somehow thinks architecture are about the images of buildings, which is like thinking "A programmer like Bill Gates", or "Artists are crazy wild romantic unstable people" or "Any company is a soul-sucking entity" or "Lawyers are evil" or some ill-defined trope.
My theory behind this is that architecture is often the tangible, visible manifestation of resources and power -- power that is complex and usually immensely difficult to easily comprehend.
Take a multinational megabank, for example -- how do we (how do I) begin to comprehend how it works? But an enormous, massive building that seems different than anything around it and different in scale and makes me feel differently when I step inside? That's graspable. Even for me, the metonymy collapses, and the building isn't just a vessel that holds the bank, or a piece of infrastructure that the bank uses.
Instead, the architecture 'becomes' the bank, the bank becomes the architecture. And the most noticeable forms of architecture, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're the most well-designed forms of architecture, becomes etched into everyone's understanding as being archetypes or icons of architecture. The Gugghenheim New York, the Sydney Opera House, etc.
Those projects borne out of especially massive amounts of resources have the most material or political freedom, allowing designs that were not possible due to cost or zoning/code restrictions to arise; a tower with floor plates that are all unique (One Beekman, or Studio Gang's tower in Chicago), or a mega skyscraper for the rich borne by a developer methodically and unethically negotiating tax exemptions, and purchasing and stacking air rights from nearby lots. (See: 426 Park Ave by Vinoly) As a result, the more visibly/optically prominent buildings are those borne from a client with more resources and power.
So - in general, the more prominent the building, the more powerful the client probably is. The more powerful/resourceful the client, the larger the distance between the client and the user -- that is, the client is a developer, while the user/inhabitant is not. The larger this distance, the more alienating of an experience the average user has, thanks to less attention paid onto the user.
Obviously this is a simplification. But that doesn't stop it from being any less true. See also: http://buellcenter.org/research-programs/house-housing/art-inequality-architecture-housing-and-real-estate-%E2%80%94-provisional-re
TLDR: if you think you don't like capital-a Architecture it's because the buildings you notice because they're shiny are built for profit, not for you.
posted by suedehead at 7:29 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
So I'm somewhat sympathetic to the original article in that I wish the profession of architecture (and professional architecture critics) did more to recognize architects doing "everyday" work like schools and regular-people houses and office buildings and so on.
But they do! Apologies if I'm exasperated, and no offense personally, but the tone of the article and this discussion sounds like: "I've only heard of Zaha and Gehry. Why do people only know about Zaha Hadid and Gehry? Shouldn't architects know about non-stararchitects also?"
Consider the Architecture Lobby, or Teddy Cruz. Aravena curated this year's Venice Architecture Biennial, for goodness's sake. There's MAS Design Group, there's the architects I mentioned above. Architects are the first to self-critique and think about the ethics of the profession.
Perhaps architecture has a PR problem. Scratch that - Architecture has a PR problem, because somehow the world thinks about Howard Roark and Gehry, and somehow thinks architecture are about the images of buildings, which is like thinking "A programmer like Bill Gates", or "Artists are crazy wild romantic unstable people" or "Any company is a soul-sucking entity" or "Lawyers are evil" or some ill-defined trope.
My theory behind this is that architecture is often the tangible, visible manifestation of resources and power -- power that is complex and usually immensely difficult to easily comprehend.
Take a multinational megabank, for example -- how do we (how do I) begin to comprehend how it works? But an enormous, massive building that seems different than anything around it and different in scale and makes me feel differently when I step inside? That's graspable. Even for me, the metonymy collapses, and the building isn't just a vessel that holds the bank, or a piece of infrastructure that the bank uses.
Instead, the architecture 'becomes' the bank, the bank becomes the architecture. And the most noticeable forms of architecture, which doesn't necessarily mean that they're the most well-designed forms of architecture, becomes etched into everyone's understanding as being archetypes or icons of architecture. The Gugghenheim New York, the Sydney Opera House, etc.
Those projects borne out of especially massive amounts of resources have the most material or political freedom, allowing designs that were not possible due to cost or zoning/code restrictions to arise; a tower with floor plates that are all unique (One Beekman, or Studio Gang's tower in Chicago), or a mega skyscraper for the rich borne by a developer methodically and unethically negotiating tax exemptions, and purchasing and stacking air rights from nearby lots. (See: 426 Park Ave by Vinoly) As a result, the more visibly/optically prominent buildings are those borne from a client with more resources and power.
So - in general, the more prominent the building, the more powerful the client probably is. The more powerful/resourceful the client, the larger the distance between the client and the user -- that is, the client is a developer, while the user/inhabitant is not. The larger this distance, the more alienating of an experience the average user has, thanks to less attention paid onto the user.
Obviously this is a simplification. But that doesn't stop it from being any less true. See also: http://buellcenter.org/research-programs/house-housing/art-inequality-architecture-housing-and-real-estate-%E2%80%94-provisional-re
TLDR: if you think you don't like capital-a Architecture it's because the buildings you notice because they're shiny are built for profit, not for you.
posted by suedehead at 7:29 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
want to know what the options are for human-scale, interesting, varied, relatively-high-density urban architecture that isn't only shiny luxury towers for the rich."The truth is, new construction is goddamn expensive, and there is a ton of older housing stock (or class B office, or strip retail, or empty warehouse that can be re-purposed) and that is what most people should live in, work in, shop at, maintain and re-use. As we learn from mistakes of the past (energy waste, mold, lead, asbestos, seismic) we improve the stock of existing buildings at far lower economic and environmental cost than new buildings. And yes, architects work on those projects, too. So part of the tension here is a false idea that the average person even has a reasonable expectation for new architecture that is also affordable. Designers do love to tinker with tiny homes and prefab but even then the cost is generally prohibitive.
posted by Chris4d at 7:56 PM on June 7, 2016
I live in a county that saw 10% population growth between 2010 and 2015. There really isn't tons of empty older housing stock, and the issue is not whether we'll build new housing but how and where and what kind.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:05 PM on June 7, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:05 PM on June 7, 2016
A few times now on MeFi, I've heard the sentiment expressed that architects just design whatever they're paid to design, and that people shouldn't complain if they don't have the money to pay them to design something else. I feel like that's kind of a crappy sentiment, though.
Well, then capitalism is a crappy system and shame on architects for having gotten used to eating.
I make that point quite a bit, usually in response to the same opinions expressed in the article that seem to assume that architects are the prime movers behind getting things built. It's a ridiculously common misconception because they're typically not, despite the assertion of the article. Architects can certainly have crappy ideas, they can design buildings for purposes that can be considered evil by a lot of people, they can come up with a horrible idea and convince someone to pay for it to be built, but it's almost always someone else footing the bill and it's just really odd to focus so much animus on a profession that accounts for 5% of overall construction costs, not counting land. An architect can shout from the rooftops that they want to do socially conscious projects and have the designs all ready to go, done completely for free (note: this would take something like 800 hours of work, conservatively, depending on the project - it's not like a doctor performing surgeries on their time off), but unless someone buys the land and hires a contractor nothing's going to happen.
Why is there not a professional code of ethics for architecture that would push practitioners away from designing harmful projects? Lots of professions have codes of ethics. Why not architecture?
What do you think this would consist of? What would this code of ethics govern? Hiring practices for construction laborers are not in the architect's scope, they're in the contractors - so why not have a code of ethics for them? What kinds of buildings can be built and where? That already exists in most places as zoning. Energy efficiency? Already covered in most places by the building code? Whether a building is ugly or not? Who decides that? The building department? The planning commission? Just about everything you'd put in the code of ethics is handled by government regulations in a developed country, which is why Hadid made the comments that she did, but unfortunately Qatar is pretty fucked up. Does having a state bar association governing the ethics of lawyers mean that everyone thinks lawyers are paragons of humanity?
The people who hire starchitects most often have no clue what they want - only that they want something crapped out by a starchitect. Functionality doesn't enter into the picture.
This is absolutely true and does not contradict my point at all. Gehry's built 20 buildings just like the Guggenheim because that's what he gets hired to do. Some entity wants a prestige building to advertise themselves, so they hire a big name. Usually, clients like this are universities and artistic institutions.
But, as signal points out, starchitects are not anywhere near representative of the profession as a whole - they're a tiny, tiny minority. The article is basically calling out the 1% for building for the 1%, which, I guess is a problem somehow? It's just a giant strawman takedown that can't even get its facts straight or be consistent, a total mental fart with some wikipedia-level research that takes its impetus from the anti-intellectual zeitgeist, possibly in hopes of gaining clicks. The Vitra fire station that couldn't be used as a fire station? It's in the factory campus of a high-design furniture company and has no obligation to serve the public. Shame on Hadid for not making it functional (but I wonder if that's a matter of changing apparatus that wouldn't fit in the bays of the old station), but that building is exactly what Vitra wanted.
This whole concept that architects are the big guns deciding what gets built is just idiotic and needs to die in a fire, and that's why it comes up every time someone posts an article complaining about some building. Architects can play a significant role in how a building gets built, but they're not going to decide what or where stuff gets built unless they're also acting in the developer role. It would be great if architects could do design work pro bono, but it doesn't seem like anyone realizes how much time it takes to actually design and document a building. I'm working on a warehouse right now, I've been working on it for 8 months, and I'm leading a team of 4 people that are pretty much working on it full time, and that's not even counting the 3 construction managers and my boss. It's a fucking warehouse.
posted by LionIndex at 8:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Well, then capitalism is a crappy system and shame on architects for having gotten used to eating.
I make that point quite a bit, usually in response to the same opinions expressed in the article that seem to assume that architects are the prime movers behind getting things built. It's a ridiculously common misconception because they're typically not, despite the assertion of the article. Architects can certainly have crappy ideas, they can design buildings for purposes that can be considered evil by a lot of people, they can come up with a horrible idea and convince someone to pay for it to be built, but it's almost always someone else footing the bill and it's just really odd to focus so much animus on a profession that accounts for 5% of overall construction costs, not counting land. An architect can shout from the rooftops that they want to do socially conscious projects and have the designs all ready to go, done completely for free (note: this would take something like 800 hours of work, conservatively, depending on the project - it's not like a doctor performing surgeries on their time off), but unless someone buys the land and hires a contractor nothing's going to happen.
Why is there not a professional code of ethics for architecture that would push practitioners away from designing harmful projects? Lots of professions have codes of ethics. Why not architecture?
What do you think this would consist of? What would this code of ethics govern? Hiring practices for construction laborers are not in the architect's scope, they're in the contractors - so why not have a code of ethics for them? What kinds of buildings can be built and where? That already exists in most places as zoning. Energy efficiency? Already covered in most places by the building code? Whether a building is ugly or not? Who decides that? The building department? The planning commission? Just about everything you'd put in the code of ethics is handled by government regulations in a developed country, which is why Hadid made the comments that she did, but unfortunately Qatar is pretty fucked up. Does having a state bar association governing the ethics of lawyers mean that everyone thinks lawyers are paragons of humanity?
The people who hire starchitects most often have no clue what they want - only that they want something crapped out by a starchitect. Functionality doesn't enter into the picture.
This is absolutely true and does not contradict my point at all. Gehry's built 20 buildings just like the Guggenheim because that's what he gets hired to do. Some entity wants a prestige building to advertise themselves, so they hire a big name. Usually, clients like this are universities and artistic institutions.
But, as signal points out, starchitects are not anywhere near representative of the profession as a whole - they're a tiny, tiny minority. The article is basically calling out the 1% for building for the 1%, which, I guess is a problem somehow? It's just a giant strawman takedown that can't even get its facts straight or be consistent, a total mental fart with some wikipedia-level research that takes its impetus from the anti-intellectual zeitgeist, possibly in hopes of gaining clicks. The Vitra fire station that couldn't be used as a fire station? It's in the factory campus of a high-design furniture company and has no obligation to serve the public. Shame on Hadid for not making it functional (but I wonder if that's a matter of changing apparatus that wouldn't fit in the bays of the old station), but that building is exactly what Vitra wanted.
This whole concept that architects are the big guns deciding what gets built is just idiotic and needs to die in a fire, and that's why it comes up every time someone posts an article complaining about some building. Architects can play a significant role in how a building gets built, but they're not going to decide what or where stuff gets built unless they're also acting in the developer role. It would be great if architects could do design work pro bono, but it doesn't seem like anyone realizes how much time it takes to actually design and document a building. I'm working on a warehouse right now, I've been working on it for 8 months, and I'm leading a team of 4 people that are pretty much working on it full time, and that's not even counting the 3 construction managers and my boss. It's a fucking warehouse.
posted by LionIndex at 8:31 PM on June 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
LionIndex, this is true. But there should also be some kind of civic and/or social responsibility when it comes to urban planning.
There is a code of ethics for urban planning, but (most) architects are not planners.
posted by threeants at 8:41 PM on June 7, 2016
There is a code of ethics for urban planning, but (most) architects are not planners.
posted by threeants at 8:41 PM on June 7, 2016
Complaining about architects is like dancing about economic reform.
posted by chaz at 10:00 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by chaz at 10:00 PM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
Please keep in mind that using the term 'starchitect' in a conversation about architecture is the exact analog of using 'micro$oft' in one about computers: it doesn't exactly make you sound smart or informed.
This conversation is about the article linked to in the post, which uses the term 'starchitect' throughout.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:21 PM on June 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
This conversation is about the article linked to in the post, which uses the term 'starchitect' throughout.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:21 PM on June 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Regarding the Ayn Rand references: Wasn't the star architect in The Fountainhead engaged in building decent, affordable housing for working class families? And proud of it? I hazily remember it being one of the redeeming features of that book.
posted by Harald74 at 11:42 PM on June 7, 2016
posted by Harald74 at 11:42 PM on June 7, 2016
Architectural arrogance is not a new thing.
My second cousin was Edgar Kaufmann's secretary during the building of Fallingwater and fielded many arguments between her boss and the Wright camp, and later recalled frustration over requests Kaufmann made which Wright ignored or outright denied, even though he was ostensibly taking money to do the Kaufmann's bidding.
I've never understood the thinking that it's okay for a building to be ugly and/or hard to live in and with because "ooh great design!"
During a visit to Florida I toured the Wright-designed Florida Southern College campus. A dominant feature of the design is long covered walkways linking many of the buildings. The roofs of those walkways have perhaps 6' clearance. I noticed many places where worn paths showed students had been forced to walk alongside, rather than under, those roofs. The effect is absurd and claustrophobic.
Many of the structures on the campus were missing chunks of concrete, or the plaster was stained or falling away, and there was plenty to suggest that serious structural problems were being remedied on a priority basis. I waited an absurd amount of time to view the famous fountain by the library (only turned on at specific times), noting virtually nothing in the surrounding space to encourage humans to even be there at all--no seating was in evidence anywhere near the thing, and when it did turn on, the effect was strangely cold and underwhelming.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:12 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
My second cousin was Edgar Kaufmann's secretary during the building of Fallingwater and fielded many arguments between her boss and the Wright camp, and later recalled frustration over requests Kaufmann made which Wright ignored or outright denied, even though he was ostensibly taking money to do the Kaufmann's bidding.
I've never understood the thinking that it's okay for a building to be ugly and/or hard to live in and with because "ooh great design!"
During a visit to Florida I toured the Wright-designed Florida Southern College campus. A dominant feature of the design is long covered walkways linking many of the buildings. The roofs of those walkways have perhaps 6' clearance. I noticed many places where worn paths showed students had been forced to walk alongside, rather than under, those roofs. The effect is absurd and claustrophobic.
Many of the structures on the campus were missing chunks of concrete, or the plaster was stained or falling away, and there was plenty to suggest that serious structural problems were being remedied on a priority basis. I waited an absurd amount of time to view the famous fountain by the library (only turned on at specific times), noting virtually nothing in the surrounding space to encourage humans to even be there at all--no seating was in evidence anywhere near the thing, and when it did turn on, the effect was strangely cold and underwhelming.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:12 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
One of the things mentioned in the article is the high running costs of these badly designed buildings 'for the 2%'. I don't care how striking the buildings look, if they suck at such a basic level then they are badly designed. If they run over budget then the architect has a good share of responsibility for that unless they were given no limit on the cost of construction. The building technologists that take over the task of converting the design into reality are provided with a list of the required materials by the architect, AFAIK.
As regards the argument that they are designing for people who don't know what they want, does this not present a great opportunity to be subversive, try out interesting ideas and create inclusive spaces rather than simply going over the top with flamboyant exuberance that is devoid of functional value? A sense of humour and humanity rather than vanity would be nice. Form without function in architecture is folly. Hadid's Fire Station looks amazing, but it doesn't function as a fire station. Ignoring the physical environment, the local architectural environment and the social environment is a failure of imagination, unless the building improves some of these factors (in which case it is clearly taking them into consideration).
The lines of these grandiose vanity projects can look fantastic against a blue sky, but they don't look fantastic against reality. I can be awed by the visual appeal of some of these buildings, but their beauty is only skin deep and leaves me wanting.
I agree with the posters above who point out that there are plenty of architects who are concentrating on working for the good of the majority rather than the extravagance of the few. The fact that they don't necessarily get the architecture prizes or plaudits illustrates the vacuity of the current dominant mainstream ethos.
posted by asok at 4:28 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
As regards the argument that they are designing for people who don't know what they want, does this not present a great opportunity to be subversive, try out interesting ideas and create inclusive spaces rather than simply going over the top with flamboyant exuberance that is devoid of functional value? A sense of humour and humanity rather than vanity would be nice. Form without function in architecture is folly. Hadid's Fire Station looks amazing, but it doesn't function as a fire station. Ignoring the physical environment, the local architectural environment and the social environment is a failure of imagination, unless the building improves some of these factors (in which case it is clearly taking them into consideration).
The lines of these grandiose vanity projects can look fantastic against a blue sky, but they don't look fantastic against reality. I can be awed by the visual appeal of some of these buildings, but their beauty is only skin deep and leaves me wanting.
I agree with the posters above who point out that there are plenty of architects who are concentrating on working for the good of the majority rather than the extravagance of the few. The fact that they don't necessarily get the architecture prizes or plaudits illustrates the vacuity of the current dominant mainstream ethos.
posted by asok at 4:28 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
University Hospital, Mirebalais, Haiti. Built since the 2010 earthquake. How's that for a counterexample?
posted by homerica at 5:12 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by homerica at 5:12 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
ActingTheGoat: " This conversation is about the article linked to in the post, which uses the term 'starchitect' throughout."
Which tells you all you need to know about the depth and insight of the article.
posted by signal at 5:15 AM on June 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Which tells you all you need to know about the depth and insight of the article.
posted by signal at 5:15 AM on June 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Unlike, say, doctors (free clinics) or lawyers (legal aid), architects are apparently completely mercenary and feel no professional obligation to serve their community unless it makes them money. At least, that was the impression that I was given the last time this came up here.
Actually, as sepviva elaborates above, community outreach exists in many cities. Richmond's Storefront for Community Design works at several scales in the community, including private individuals, development and planning, and design students. Do we need more Rural Studios in the world? Certainly. But note that most doctors don't work at free clinics, nor do most lawyers practice in legal aid. Community design outreach is something that design professionals do because it's a good thing for the community they live and practice in.
Not to mention that the margins on architecture and design are not what they seem to be for medicine and legal, and it can be enough of a challenge to bill enough hours to keep the lights on in the studio. You earn a million dollars in architecture by starting with ten million*, to bastardize an epigram.
*and not printing your draft sets full-size on the nice paper
posted by a halcyon day at 3:04 PM on June 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Actually, as sepviva elaborates above, community outreach exists in many cities. Richmond's Storefront for Community Design works at several scales in the community, including private individuals, development and planning, and design students. Do we need more Rural Studios in the world? Certainly. But note that most doctors don't work at free clinics, nor do most lawyers practice in legal aid. Community design outreach is something that design professionals do because it's a good thing for the community they live and practice in.
Not to mention that the margins on architecture and design are not what they seem to be for medicine and legal, and it can be enough of a challenge to bill enough hours to keep the lights on in the studio. You earn a million dollars in architecture by starting with ten million*, to bastardize an epigram.
*and not printing your draft sets full-size on the nice paper
posted by a halcyon day at 3:04 PM on June 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
A friend of mine was fond of pointing out that architecture of every era has consisted, for the most part, of simple boxes for putting people in, and that the only reason architecture of X era seems nicer than architecture of X different era is that people tend to preserve the more attractive stuff and tear down the rest.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:55 AM on June 9, 2016
posted by aspersioncast at 8:55 AM on June 9, 2016
It's mostly true, especially for pre-industrial buildings, but there's also some initial intent behind that. A lot of buildings designed for commercial purposes aren't meant to last for the ages anyway.
posted by LionIndex at 11:06 AM on June 9, 2016
posted by LionIndex at 11:06 AM on June 9, 2016
I should add that that semi-disposability is something the sustainable design movement is trying to address by intentionally designing buildings so that they can be easily adapted to other uses once their original purpose is no longer needed.
posted by LionIndex at 11:09 AM on June 9, 2016
posted by LionIndex at 11:09 AM on June 9, 2016
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posted by LionIndex at 1:23 PM on June 7, 2016 [11 favorites]