This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Residential Knowledge Community and Committee on Design .
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I am amazed at all of the negative feedback that Mr. Hosack has been getting in this forum. His detractors seem uniformly uninquisitive and ill informed. The choice I have seen discussed over the past few weeks has dwelled on the allure of an ever just out of reach rationality (Mr. Hosack), and the emphasis on the internal rigor
of an inherently subjective artistic process (everyone else), frequently reinforced with inspiring yet vacuous quotes from some famous architect (ie, "less is more," "less is a bore," "what does the brick want to be," etc.
What I find missing from this discussion is any reference to clients/users and what they may think. This returns the discussion to a question posed some weeks ago, that is what kind of knowledge can the Design Committee be responsible for advancing. It is the pompous nature of architects to assume that they know how people should live better than people themselves (Frank Lloyd Wright, are you out there?), that architecture is about artistic/objective issues that, if only we could educate people, they would see how much we have to offer them (and they would give up their hopelessly redartaire homes on unsustainably large lots in the suburbs).
The rest of the design professions have no such delusions. I am talking about interior designers, industrial designers, product designers, etc. There was a very nice article in the Atlantic Monthly recently that laid out just what was the point of design research. It is available at this link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/the-art-of-design-research-and-why-it-matters/239561/
To quote the author, "If we don't study the world, we don't always know how or what to create."
In the modern world, what people want matters. It is the nature of our society's dedication to the freedom of the individual as the highest value. Buildings and the environment of which they are a part are the largest products which society creates, but they are not inherently different from any other object in terms of the
key attributes on which a consumer bases a purchase: functionality, price, aesthetics, and meaning (which really includes aesthetics). Can anyone who has ever seen a car commercial doubt this? A recent article in USA Today on the re-entry of Fiat into the American market brought it all into focus for me. They are betting on the success of the Fiat 500, which is small, cheap, cute, and, predictably, retro. A young buyer was quoted a saying "she couldn't find anything else with the Fiat's blend of fuel efficiency and charming looks," and "I love driving it. If I were a car, this is what I'd be." Any Fiat executive who read that must have died and gone to heaven. But what do architects care about the desires of the citizens who use their products? And we dare to compare ourselves to doctors and lawyers who actually offer services that people know they need?
Wake up architects! Worry less about what the brick wants and concentrate on what people want. It might take some study. Isn't this obvious?
Or could I say that Architecture only approaches an art (which it is not) when it ceases to think of itself as an art?
Michael Ytterberg AIA
Principal
BLT Architects
Philadelphia PA
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