I wonder, sometimes, are we ever going to build anything other than “cube buildings”? I recently saw a slide of a sculpture of Emperor Constantine. I remember seeing it many years ago as an Art History student, and this certainly brought back memories of fresh appreciation of art and architecture. The head of the Emperor Constantine is over 8 feet tall, just the head! Despite the fact what kind of emperor Constantine was (let’s face it, he was not Mr. Nice Guy), a feeling of awe and wonder arose in me. I saw harmony in both form and function. But as quickly as the feeling of awe rose, it evaporated just as quickly. This was certainly not because of the sculpture I was staring at. The past has spoken to me and uplifted me. It was the present which made me utterly disenchanted with not only artistic expression but also architecture and building. What is happening? Where have we gone wrong?
Perhaps the answer lies in one phenomenon: disconnect. The world of technology is moving quickly and furiously, whether in personal gadgets or technologies which might affect our humanism (genetic engineering, stem cell research, etc). We seem to know what we are doing. But are we sacrificing the most important thing of all for the perceived scientific advancement: our souls?
We are continuing to be more and more disconnected from the source of art. It was bad enough when Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe (to name just two “White Gods” as Tom Wolfe called them) started designing cubes and rectangles and uncomfortable and small spaces for people. But in the last few decades, architects have ceased to be architects. They are endlessly and phenomenologically repeating the works of “White Gods” and posing the designs as newly invented concepts. In the end, the buildings are not buildings: they are concepts, which have no intention of showing reverence, harmony, or God forbid that awful, almost profane word in the Post-modern circles: symmetry.
Human spirit wants to soar. Human spirit does not wish to be diminished into a space that looks like a factory. Human spirit does not want to wax philosophical about Heidegger. Even those people who do not possess artistic and architectural language in order to explain what they want in a building, they do possess an intuitive knowledge of what they would like to experience. And “brutalism” in the manifestation of concrete, uninspired cube is not what people wish to experience.
Architects of today are not architects, but rather theoreticians who can moderately use the CAD machine and draw a few lines. The biggest disconnect is in the fact that architects are not master builders. We cannot go back to the medieval age and the guild system. However, we can be inspired by the past. Let us move away from Heidegger and “White Gods” and learn how to build first. Let us ask a question: what makes us human? Why do we wish to build? What are we inspired by?
Perhaps there should be a revolt: we are revolting against your Godless, despairing, Sartrian spaces! We are revolting against your forced digitization of human heart! We are revolting against your theoretical claptrap and your architectural affectations of personality and the complications of your useless theoretical & antagonistic complaints! Down with the bleak house!
6 comments:
I am not sure what problem you have with square buildings or factories, as noted in your statement "Human spirit does not wish to be diminished into a space that looks like a factory." Factories are places of creation and as some like Ayn Rand believe, the engines of the human spirit. In fact your very blog is likely hosted at some factory-like server farm in the hills of South California.
You seem to confuse squares and rectangles with small spaces, when they are not correlated or causally related. Most artists like to work in large rectangular lofts with big square windows, but who cares; you do, it seems your assault on certain shapes verges on the demented.
History may wear the face of Constantine but the future has the face of a tall rectangular skyscraper--not even a face, but a long arm and a fist raised to the sky.
Ayn Rand also praised selfishness as a highest form of virtue. Factories are places of utter crush on the human spirit: working 2 shifts in a row, on the line, repating the same motion, dealing with no sleep, and with angry foreman or manager who does not respect you as a human being. I highly doubt that Ayn Rand ever set a foot in a factory, like for example Marx or Le Corbusier.
You have misunderstood my message: the field of architecture has ceased to deal with architecture a long time ago, and it's continuing to do so. I am arguing against ideologies in architecture.
But I am glad that you are very concrete and set in your beliefs/position, despite the fact that I disagree with them. Thank you for reading my essay. Perhaps next time you can leave a name.
If you are arguing against ideologies in architecture, what are you for? a feeling? a reverence? how does one create such a feeling if not through ideologies of what creates that awe? it seems that you are against some ideologies in architecture, and for others.
What was the function of the Constantine sculpture? A factory has many functions and they are almost always designed to merge form with function. Does a sculpture have a function? is a sculpture even architecture? isn't it rather, art?
Einstein once said "science without religion is blind and religion without science is lame". It holds true in every argument you have presented here. We can't keep on making buildings and call it a progress. It is actually the time to do some introspection and think offbeat.
In reply to Anonymous: great work (whether in art or architecture) comes from our dialogue with God. It comes from our respect for truth and holiness. Ideology is a coercion of truth and it can only take us so far before it crumbles and collapses before our eyes. This is mainly because ideology will inevitably turn to a political manifesto, and those will always let our humanity down.
Cynthia, thank you for reading my essay. I completely agree with your quote from Einstein. Faith and Reason always must remain in dialogue and one cannot live without the other.
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