I don't think I could live in Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
First, there's no roof. Secondly, well, everything else. I need rooms, heating, windows, lots of things in my home. Maya Lin's memorial offers none of these amenities.
But it sure is a powerful, beautiful, even necessary artistic statement. Though I was 5 years old when the Vietnam war ended, and none of my family served there, when I watched a vet stare at the wall, his red eyes brimming with tears, I nearly cried with him. I felt the named gash in the earth with him.
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Now consider the intellectual idea that
The application of individual artistic approaches and goals
are the means by which
the built environment can become better.
Isn't this essentially right? Don't you agree?
What? You don't like this pretentious, awkward, and-yet-precise academic-speak? Then let's rephrase it in a more intuitive manner:
Building + Art = Better Building
Right?
Yes for monuments and other places we merely visit. No for every type of building that we live in. Art is for visiting. Craft is for living.
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If the last 150 years of modernist architectural design, with its cacophony of schools, practitioners, movements, reactions, anti-reactions, and theory has any single thread, it is that great architecture comes from great artists who can articulate an idea. Craft is lower on the hierarchy, a question of details. The Beaux-art undercurrent, or the continuation of the forms of the past, offer some respite, but these new-old buildings are consciously designed reinterpretations of less-consciously designed originals, and their inherent dissipation is the motive for the modern movement.
In my albeit limited reading in general histories of architecture, I have not found a single voice within the profession to take this equation to task and ask, why is a habitable structure better if it is an original work of art? Why is craft a secondary consideration? If anyone is asking this, they are restricted to the kiddie's table and not important to the history of great modern architecture.
For without art, what would we have? Without the visionary architect, what would we be living in? Bricks piled haphazardly on bricks for mere economic or practical ends? Living in the past? This would be soulless living, no?
In part, possibly yes.
But--
-- by abandoning the pursuit of art in our dwellings, we could create so much more beauty in our lives -- this is the idea I've explored earlier, from Soetsu Yanagi, that the greatest beauty and usefulness are an unconscious byproduct of the mastery of craftsmanship. This is th spirit, I believe, that also fueled the creation of the greatest ancient architecture, what has endured from the past from the Pyramids to the Taj Mahal. If we try and name the artist or architect responsible, the answer is diffuse, and in short, we can't.
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How architecture, of one of the most practical of all human fields--concerned with protecting us from the elements and wild beasts, helping us work better, store things better, socialize more easily, and even think better--wiggled its way into the realms of "pure" art such as painting and sculpture and music, boggles my mind. Architecture concerns the buildings and environments in which we work and live, sleep, socialize and worship. The practical considerations should be no less important than they are in transportation -- architectural practice should dwell in the same realm as car, bicycle and airplane manufacturing -- the tools by which we move from place to place, whereas architecture is the tool of abiding in one place.
Of course, the NHTSA and the IBC both do pretty good jobs of setting practical and safety standards for their respective industries. But when it comes to comfort and use, even the cheapest cars are far more adapted to serving human needs than most buildings. Transportation seems to have the customer in mind, whereas architecture has the aesthetic critic in mind.
Even cheap cars have heaters and air vents, windows that roll down, door seals that keep the rain out, trunks to carry things, windshield wipers so you can see outside while driving. More expensive cars have far more of these features, and they are a priority in the design. How many tall buildings have I lived in with windows that don't open? (I was once told it was to cut down on suicide attempts). Rooms with no closets? heating systems that make the ceilings above my head hot and the floors I'm standing on cold. How many HVAC systems bring smells from one part of the house to all the others? What basements in wet climates do not flood? In rocky areas that do not fill with radon gas? The flat roof in a wet climate creates leaks by design.
Consider how advanced today's cars and airplanes are compared to ones built 100 years ago. Consider our current flush toilets are pretty much the same as they were 150 years ago. We really can't do better?
Why is our architecture so blindingly incompetent to the basic functions of a building and human living? We would never stand the same levels of practical deign incompetence in our cars or airplanes.
I argue that most luxury homes are nowhere near as comfortable or useful or beautiful as they could be, if we prioritized their design towards living, not art. The design focus has been elsewhere, on statement and expression, on the purity of the line and resolution and rationale. Practical considerations are treated as minor and somewhat inconsequential add-ons -- leave the material of the countertops to the interior designer, and the drawer sizes to the cabinetmaker.
The successful built environment, for me, is a place we want to live, not just visit.
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For a truly successful built environment, let's ask a different set of questions, and pose a different set of ideas.
What is the realm of Art, and what does it give us?
Art is of the special, the unique and individual.
What is the realm of Craft, and what does it give us?
Craft is of the everyday, of the common and of community.
Art is aesthetic and beautiful. Craft is purposeful and useful.
Craft is for living. Art is for visiting.
These realms overlap, almost entirely, and are better thought of as a continuum from a near pure art at one extreme and near pure craft at the other. No man-made object is either purely useful, or purely artistic, but some of each.
Art is the application of skill to subjects of taste, the perfection of workmanship, the perfection of execution as an object in itself (thank you OED). I will add that all art is an aesthetic exploration of how the human soul and mind engages the experience of reality.
The value and meaning of art is mediated by a caste of intellectual critics, without which there is only expression. We all can say something and claim it is valuable and meaningful, but it is not art unless an audience agrees. The role of the critic is to learn the skills necessary to understanding art better than the rest of us (who are not paying as much attention), then point us to what is good, and perhaps help us understand and appreciate it. That modern critics mostly talk among themselves is a tragedy.
Art at its most pure extreme is deeply engaging, exhilarating, and therefore exhausting. We should come away from the experience of art deeply moved, perhaps changed.
We all have art in our lives, and while we enjoy it, the more powerful it is, the smaller the dose we can take at any given time. This is often simple enough, for we can look at the painting on our wall, or not. We can listen to a symphony, or shut it off. We can get up from our seat in the movie theater and leave.
We visit art the way we visit memorials, for the experience of a moment.
At the opposite end of this continuum is Craft.
Again turning to the OED, craft is simply a branch of skilled work; ingenuity in constructing; and a trade or profession. Craft is the work that goes into everyday objects, the products of the full range of trades that create the tools of our living. We build and make these objects primarily with usefulness in mind, from forks and knives to cars and space rockets. I will add that craft is the practical exploration of how the human soul and body engages the experience of reality, and shapes it to our needs, thereby integrating us with the world.
Tainted by its lowly status association with the common, everyday, and usefulness, the meaning and power of craft is not mediated by intellectual critics. Tradesmen and craftsmen, you could say, are not artists, because the products of craft are not "subjects of taste", e.g. music, poetry, sculpture, painting, and other objects created as objects-in-themselves, not with any particular "use" other than existing for our contemplation and pleasure. Craft is instead mediated by the markets: its value and success based in what people will pay for it, based on what they get out of it, without any special training or guidance to understand it better. It appeals to something untrained and universally human.
We engage with craft differently than with art. In well-made craft, there is no sublimity, no mental exhilaration and no exhaustion of the mind. There is simply pleasure in the use. The well-made fork gets food to our mouth, the well-made car gets us to our destination. Successfully crafted items all have some art, but it never interferes with or distracts from the object's function. Because craft is integral with our everyday, we do not really have the option to look away. We must get back into that car to go somewhere. We must return to our house.
But designer forks? I recall trying unsuccessfully to balance peas on a $300 designer fork, and giving up. Cool-looking fork, however. It has its place -- in a frame on a wall, in a critic's book of "Best Design", just not next to my dinner plate or in my hand.
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How much art is too much art in the buildings we spend our lives in?
The trouble is: I know what I like, but not what you like.
Posed as a question of degree, and depending on the opinions of some imaginary "people", we create a horrible seesaw, in which Mrs. Farnsworth loves the glass house she alternately sweats and freezes in, while another person is appalled that a modern building can be less comfortable than a Neanderthal cave. Who is the architect supposed to please? The client of today? The client of tomorrow?
The vast majority of architects would rightly claim to be perfectly "sensitive" and "responsive" to client "needs", that they design with human comforts and amenities in mind, and that this division between art and craft is artificial. I would in turn argue that the majority of components in modern homes are strongly influenced by the artist-architects past and present, and their comforts and discomforts simply taken for granted. We simply don't ask how much more comfortable, or useful a building can be, because it doesn't seem to be a pressing question. We don't lose our jobs if we fail to consider it.
If an architect has ambition today, it is likely towards making an artistic statement, and not questioning why we have the elements we have, from flat walls to rectangular box rooms, rectangular flat windows, utilities hidden in walls, and so on. Questioning these things is crazy. They're just the best solutions we have today, so let's work with them....
This question of how much art is best in architecture becomes less slippery, though, when we pose it an entirely different way.
Provided we desire architecture that accomplishes all we want of a building-- accommodating all levels of Maslow's pyramid -- and thereby reflecting all that's good in our hearts and spirits, and not forcing us to accommodate the building, what can we change in the current process that would lead to this outcome.
In the 1920's, Walter Gropius wondered if craftsmen couldn't be "initiated into the needs and means of the modern era", couldn't then manage on their own, without the oversight of "self-conscious designers", produce honest buildings reflective of the age. This is similar to Yanagi's concept of the unknown craftsman who attains beautiful production largely because he is un-selfconscious. But a tea bowl is not the same as a skyscraper, and many hands must somehow be coordinated at some level towards some common goal. The approach sounds an awful lot like herding blindfolded cats.
What if we redefine the job of building, NOT to represent any age, NOT to be all things or anything, but as true craft -- no "initiating" craftsmen into the burden of understanding the age, but just let them be a part of their age, which they already are.
Give a craftsman the tools, they'll finish the job. Or more often, give the craftsman a job, and they'll finish the tools. They will still want guidance. Whaddya want? Craftsmen can make a lot of different things. Is it the client's desire? Maybe they don't know what they want until they see and live it. The answer is in the process, to avoid conscious design guidance. If this is unsatisfactory as an answer, it is because I intend to ask questions, and make statements that lead to questions.
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All architecture should be thought of as building for someone -- creating a tool for them to accomplish specific tasks. Making tools for other people to work with. The built environment is a tool for the business of living.
Maya Lin created the greatest of war memorials in Washington. I thank her for it. The craftsmanship was perfectly good as well. The walkway to the memorial is flat and does not cause tripping. The names on the wall are legible. However, I would not want to live in something of equal power and artistic representation. I would spend all my days crying. I have work to do. I need a quiet space with even lighting, not too cold or hot. Then I can focus on things other than the architecture I'm in.
I don't want my buildings to capture anyone's imagination, but to allow it.
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