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 In treating architecture as art, critics have lost sight of its essential qualities. President & CEO August/September 2001 Although we're celebrating our 20th anniversary throughout 2001, I'm reminded that this issue of the magazine marks the actual date. So I am taking this milestone as an opportunity for refiection. The first draft of this piece provoked the following comment from our editor in chief, Susan Szenasy: "It feels to me a bit like the same old art-versus-architecture debate." My response is, what debate? After two decades of closely following what has been written, I wonder who currently is an advocate for a definition of usefulness and functionality--who really explains the process that a designer/architect goes through? During our first years, an architect would occasionally come up to me and say something like, "Thanks for your coverage, but there is a bigger story that you did not write about." Such remarks used to make me mad, as they do most publishers and editors. But I must admit that I agree with the criticism. Stories about architecture should explain process, discuss function and aesthetics, and describe the designed environment to curious readers. After all, who will do this if not the design press? In response to Susan, I thought of creating some sort of a dialectical debate to get to the root of the problem. But I quickly realized that there is no real dialectic--just confusion about the definitions of architecture and design, marked by a tendency toward writing about them as art or philosophy. What Metropolis set out to do 20 years ago--and is still trying to do--is to put our topic into cultural context: discuss why things look as they do, and fulfill and elevate a wider audience's interest in our subjects. Have we succeeded? I think we have in many ways, but confusion still lingers. Recently I have begun to feel that architecture has become the whipping boy for those who want to make their mark as critics. Their work has validity, but when they divide the work of practitioners into two camps--real artists and the rest--they do more harm than good. Today the list of who we see as creators is a short one. To Herbert Muschamp, of the New York Times, it includes Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas, and very few others. And when such infiuential writers celebrate people who minimize, even ignore, the real work of architects and designers--everyday structures and their effect on the environment as well as on those who live and work in them--they create confusion. I cannot help but think that this kind of writing is terribly confusing to the man on the street who is looking for some understanding of his world and the way it works. I am a strong believer in the Vitruvian definition: firmitas, utilitas, venustas (structure, function, beauty). These characteristics constitute a whole; none can be left out, ignored, or de-emphasized. How do we define a fog bank that people enter as a pavilion at a world's fair? Is it architecture or art? The project, by Diller + Scofidio for the Swiss Expo 2002, provokes this question. After all, art entertains and even transcends normal definitions of usefulness and functionality, whereas architecture is based on practical things that can encompass all that art is but must always serve its masters--the laws of gravity and usefulness. I believe that the creators of the fog bank, as well as many of their critics, see it as architecture. The confusion about the definition of architecture has been raging for too long in our newspapers and magazines. Somehow, somewhere--either on the campuses of the University of Pennsylvania or Yale--the discussion of architecture as a purely artistic enterprise became popular. Perhaps it started during the 1940s and 1950s; perhaps much earlier, resulting from the emergency projects to employ architects during the depression. Was it Bob Venturi or Vince Scully, or was it Fiske Kimball and the architectural historians of the 1930s? For me, it is not important. What is important is reaching a better appreciation of what architecture truly is. Metropolis has tried to show what we believe is a true picture of what an architect/designer does. By examining the design process and the cultural factors that affect it, the magazine has tried to explain why things look the way they do. Our definition has grown to expand the classical one: in addition to being functional and easy to use, our buildings and objects must respect the environment and users of every age and condition. We hope this new unity will result in projects that are aesthetic, arresting, provoking, and signify a different way to see our world. For examples, I look at the work of Renzo Piano and Norman Foster. In this issue we examine the work of William McDonough, whose thinking, process, and advocacy are changing everyone's perceptions of the role of architects. |
