Design Imprint

I don't think I fully understand this question; if I viewed the 'architecture school' program as a constraint, why would I be pursuing it? With that in mind, what would I do if I had to do something other than architecture school? There are elements of architecture which interest me, but which need not be exclusive to architecture. I'd like to explore these, even if in a different realm.

I think I would be an artist. Not a painter or even a sculptor, but something I could only describe as an architectural-artist. Perhaps the closest concept would be land artist, or experiential artist. One of the most intriguing elements of architecture to me is also one of the most elusive, the way in which architecture can cause an instinctive emotional response. If practicing architecture is not in my future, I think that I would still like to explore this element of built forms in another way. Do monumental forms have an inherent emotional impact? Is the contrast of light and shadow necessarily poetic? Does wood or stone really have an implicit relation to the natural world? These are the questions that I'm interested in, and architecture is not the only realm in which to address them.

This is in essence the artistic aspect of architecture, and I think it is possible to separate it completely so that it exists solely as art. The emotional impact of forms is an interest the architect and the sculptor share — take the minimalist sculptors, such as Richard Serra. His "Snake," is simply an arrangement of curved metal walls in a space; it addresses the issue of how the shaping of space affects the viewer, even when there is no underlaying purpose to the arrangement. "Program" is a necessary component of architecture, but structures without program still face these issues. Advancing "architecture without program" as an art-form is something which intrigues me — and I don't think I even need to wait to be kicked out of architecture school to explore it.

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"When blimp photographs are taken of giant stadia packed full of rock-concert or football fans, we get an idea of what 100,000 people look like. We all think of Hiroshima as the worst single killing of humans by humans. That was about a 75,000-capacity-coliseum-full. Each day of each year, year after year, a 75,000-capacity-stadiumfull of around-the-world humans perish from starvation or its side effects, despite an annual average 5-percent world food-production overage of the amount of food adequate for the total world's population. This daily kill of innocents dwarfs the awful Auschwitz killing." -Buckminster Fuller

"The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done" -Buckminster Fuller

The environmental aspect of the Millennium Development Goals is probably the most interesting to me, largely because it is one aspect where it seems real success can be achieved simply by coming up with new ways to solve problems, whereas my understanding of the rest of these problems is mainly that the solution is simple, but the people with the means of solving it have no desire to. It seems that Buckminster Fuller is one of my personal heroes, and while his ideas were at times far-fetched and impractical, I think he is nonetheless one of the most important thinkers of our time. He cared passionately about the problem of bringing a minimum standard of living to all people on earth, and most importantly, he recognized that it is entirely possible to leverage the benefits of modern technologies to actually achieve this. the most important thing he did was to look at the problem in a different way — in this project, which is dealing with problems which have existed for generations yet have not yet been solved, I think this is a valuable approach.

Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map, which visualized the world in a way which highlights the interconnectedness of all land on it.

As for the music aspect of this prompt, I tend to avoid music which has an overt connection to social issues, but I think (pessimistic as it may be) the overarching sense of dread created in the instrumental music of Godspeed You Black Emperor! (as used to great effect in the film "28 Days Later", if you are familiar with it) is appropriate for what I see as the deplorable state of affairs in much of the world today, and the daunting task of trying to fix it.

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Abandoned buildings are something dear to me. My curious passions have led me to explore many of these forgotten places, in my hometown, in Minneapolis, and in many other places across the Midwest. In the process I have come to appreciate these relics as a noble and deserving part of the landscape. These spaces are generally seen as material manifestations of failure — economic, and societal. The common approach to abandoned structures is to destroy any evidence of the failure; either by re-appropriating or demolishing. As long as the building has no outstanding cultural or historical significance, these solutions are seen as equally successful. I argue that the abandoned building should be left alone; it serves an important and necessary role in the fabric of human infrastructure and the cycle of urban life.

The ruin is, quite literally, an architectural corpse. It is the skeleton left behind when the life it once contained is gone. Our culture is one which largely denies death; the dead are removed from site as soon as possible; they are buried in the ground in wooden boxes. Though theatrical depiction of the act of murder is commonplace, the murdered body still just-barely remains as a television taboo. This same attitude is evident in our treatment of buildings; if a building dies, it is seen as an eyesore, and a draw for vermin. But to deny death is unhealthy. Death is unavoidable; it is an integral component in the cycle of life. Why not give our buildings a sky burial, as practiced traditionally by Zoroastrians: the body is left on a tower to be consumed by birds; thus returning to the ecosystem.

The title of my post is taken from J.B. Jackson’s essay by the same name; he largely argues a different issue entirely, but there is one passage which I feel applies:

But there has to be that interval of neglect, there has to be discontinuity; it is religiously and artistically essential. …[R]uins provide the incentive for restoration, and for a return to origins. There has to be … an interim of death or rejection before there can be a born-again landscape.

Allowing disused buildings to decay is not only natural, but, as Jackson highlights, is necessary to generate renewal. But I do not just believe urban ruins should exist as a stage between original glory and renewal; while this is all well and good on an individual scale, it is right and proper that there should everywhere be ruin, at all times. Though each structure may sing its phoenix-song ad infinitum (or, eventually, gasp a final word), there must always be a backdrop of ruin. Urban ruins are the civilized man’s jungle; the physical embodiment of the “seedy under-belly� of society. The anarchists and the vandals and the crack-heads and the hobos gather in these places; and why should they not be willingly offered up for them to gather in? The reality of any society is that it includes fringe elements, it is only proper that the architectural landscape should cater to them. To deny their existence is to no benefit of anyone. At best, denying these places to the unseemly elements only forces them into the parts of the landscape where they are even less wanted; in any case, denying them a place of their own is an insult to their humanity. The ruin is a natural stage in the cycle of architectural life; it also caters to a natural element of society, unseemly as it may be. Both of these realities are denied in are death-phobic culture, but the ruin is as necessary to a city as any thriving building is.

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A city is basically, above all else, a setting for flows. All the flows in the city are flows of people, but abstracted to different levels: literal flows of people, on the streets or in the buildings (or in the skyways, in our particular case); flows of people in cars on the roads and highways; flows of information, which are really flows of people's minds, being interconnected; flows of resources which support the human flows (electricity, water, sewage, shipping). The relevant part of all this is that people move in flows — not necessarily all the same way, but not all different ways either. People follow statistical patterns, and a good city — and a good building — should be reactive to these patterns of movement.

Utilities

A map of the internet

A relevant concept here is Michel de Certeau's concept of Space and Place, which I've recently been exposed to in another class. He says that a space is simply a physical setting for people's movements; it is the actions and movements of the people who use this physical space that transform it into a Place, and thereby defining it. Just as Andrew Goldsworthy reacts to the flows he perceives in nature in the creation of his ephemeral art pieces, architecture is inescapably defined by the use of its occupants, so it needs to be reactive to this.All too often architecture is designed without keeping this in mind — architecture simply cannot force people to use it in whatever way it sees fit. People will define a space however it is useful for them, and if it prevents this necessary definition they will revolt against it. Ignoring the flows of people in architecture is no different than the environmental harm we do when ignoring nature's natural flows.

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