Erin
I apologize for the length and the length of time to respond but this
has turned into a mini history of architecture from Modern to PostModern
from my PoV.
> I was joking around when I brought up the absolutist architect(trying to
> get Platt to get in touch with his inner postmodernist).
You may have been joking around when you brought up "absolutist
architect" but the term cuts to the core of the of the point Platt has
been trying to make on postmodernism in this thread, it also ties in
with his responses to the Trade Center statue in another, and his past
comments on art in general.
The dominant "myth" about architects, particularly in Western cultures,
is that architecture is created by rugged idiosyncratic individuals in
the mode of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead character who it has been said was
modeled on Frank Lloyd Wright. And FLW exemplified this myth. He was a
"absolutist modern architect" as opposed to a "relative or nonabsolutist
postmodernist architect." Either you built the W"right" way or wrong
way. Stories abound that Wright would go into his clients houses after
they were living there and rearrange the furniture to his liking, or
take pictures off the wall because they did not fit his aesthic, or that
he stomped off job sites never to return because a client decided to
paint his house a color other than the one that Wright selected. These
are the stuff the myth is built from. I use the term "myth" in the
sense that Joesph Campbell does. A myth, while not literally true,
carries with it an underlying message of truth or insight into the
truth. So the myth of architects as rugged idiosyncratic individuals who
single handedly create building art, while most cases is not literally
true (as it can be in many of the other fields of art) still carries an
insight into the general nature of many architects and certainly the
general public's perception of them.
The most obvious counter to this myth is to point to PreModern
architecture like that of early Greece, or early Christian churches, or
Mayan cities. In these cultures individual buildings and complexes were
built over spans of time that exceeded the lifespan of one individual
yet they appear as if "designed" by a single individual. The typical
Gothic church, for instance, took several hundred years to build while
the average life span of an individual at that time was probably 40 to
50 years. So clearly something else was going on other than complete
control by a single designer. But during the Modern era this myth grew
to the point of being gospel.
Many associate the Modern era of architecture with "glass boxes" of
American skyscrapers but its roots are actually much older paralleling
that of the Industrial Revolution. As the Industrial Revolution
progressed it caused radical changes in the way whole societies of
people worked and lived and the means and methods by which they did
this. These changes in turn caused a need for a radical shift in the way
the built environment was designed and constructed. Just as importantly
it changed who the sponsors or clients for these changes were. Prior to
the industrial revolution, "Architecture per se" was by and large done
under the auspices of a society's elite, kings, religious leaders, and
wealthy individuals associated with them. What they built were
primarily military or governmental buildings, religious structures, and
palatial estates or palaces for themselves and their families.
Architects, by and large, were also members of that elite. During and
after the Industrial Revolution there was a transition to the point that
any building could qualify as "Architecture", irreguardless of its use,
if it had a sufficient level of Quality. (of that undefined type or
Quality without a name.) Now the sponsors were not limited to kings and
queens or necessarily just by wealth, although that has always helped.
As the Modern Era got into full swing in the late 1800's and early
1900's architects were also no longer exclusively from the elite either,
but could advance from any social class by either formal education
(still primarily in Europe) or apprenceship.
The familar "glass box" image of Modern architecture was born primarily
in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. This movement aesthically
proposed rational utilitarianism, later captured in Sullivan's quip
"form follow function", and "honest" use of materials exemplified by
little or no added decoration, but in addition it proposed a radical
social aggenda. Many were and are not aware of this aggenda which
closely paralleled or was rooted in the worldwide communist movements of
the time. Their first radicial proposal was that the skills of
architects should not be exclusively for the elite, the rich and
powerful, but that they should be available for "everyman", "the
worker". Their second tenant was that the aesthics of rational
utilitarianism was universally applicable, it would be valid anywhere,
anytime reguardless of culture.
During the First and Second World Wars many of the proponents of these
theories immigrated to the United States and were invited to teach or
start architectural education programs. The rest ,as they say, is
history. The need for buildings to support war efforts, the rebuilding
of Europe after the wars, and the huge increase of building to handle
the worldwide "Baby Boom" after WWII was done in a large part by
architects trained in schools modeled on and the theories of these
Modernist immigrants.
This Modernist social aggenda moved forward primarily through
large scale urban utopian projects like Brazilia, the new capital for
Brazil built in the 50's and eventually led to large scale urban
planning, "new cities" and urban renewal projects in countries
worldwide. These projects were primarily conceived and built by
Modernist trained "absolutist" architects with a 'vision' of how life
should be and governmental bodies from the national to local level. But
this aggenda was also moved forward possibly to a larger degree by
implementation of planning, zoning, building codes, and the requirements
for formal
education and licensing of architects to protect the "health and
welfare" of "the people", "the workers", "everyman". But by and large
"everyman" still had very little input into this process.
Without going into the details of the transition from Modern to
PostModern, which happened over the last fifty years or so, it is enough
to remember that patterns of value evolve, grow, and are built upon the
patterns that came before. You can't have Post Modernism without
Modernism, and the seeds of postmodernism are rooted in that old
radicial social aggenda of modernism, abet with a new twist.
What PostModernism said was; wait a minute Modernists, How can you
pretend to be working for "the people" if few or any "real people" are
directly involved in the process? And how is it up until the Modern era
architecture alway differed from culture to culture? After these
questions were asked and acted upon it quickly became apparent that if
asked "the people" usually each had a different point of view and what
individually they wanted was something that reflected their culture,
(often a culture of one, or one group, or various groups). To make a
long story longer what happened is that architecture deevolved into
various different schools such a regionalist, deconstructionist, ad
nausium, all claiming to be the true voice of the many pluralist voices
clamoring to be heard. But what has emerged in general is one school,
the largest, which is basically "design by committee" or "design by
group" where the architect in a mediator of these many disparate voices.
Or a relative nonabsolutist postmodern architect and the results of
their work you can find in any place you can find a McDonald's or a
Walmart, or a Target, or a Home Depot, or a subdivision of new homes.
But the paradox of this development is that while this group is used the
most, it is valued the least. By valued I mean it is paid the least and
praised the least by society. In fact their work is most often derided
and scorned if it's paid any attention at all. And who's work does
society value? Why the modernist who have stayed the absolutist course,
and the postmodernists who adopted the name but still continued to
produce their own idiosyncratic individual vision of what the world
should be.
The End
3WD
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