Poor Vitruvius would be shocked by the state of things today. I sometimes wonder if his time was not the true peak of architecture. I don't know of any other time period that impresses me more as far as architecture is concerned. Roman architectural environments reached a level of relative modernism that may never be matched again.
I don't believe there is any debate over styles in architecture, at least not among serious architects. Style is a word used by art historians, and perhaps by unlearned architects who don't understand how to design. It's also a word used by clients, which in turn, sometimes convinces some architects to dumb down their own vocabulary. But I don't recall any serious professor or student of architecture ever using 'style' as a design basis, even back in my college days of the 1980's, when post-modernism was in full force, and architecture was busy going backwards. Any real modernist today is trying to design from principles, discovery and invention, while trying to bring out their own personal point of view in the process. It's been as clear as anything Adolf Loos ever talked about a century ago when he wrote that brilliant piece 'Ornament and Crime.'
I'm not convinced architecture has become a fine art, as you put it, when I look out my window. The fine art of architecture is by far the exception to the rule, which is why it is so extraordinary when we are lucky enough to see it actually done that way. The education of fine art has deteriorated in our culture to a point where it is getting harder for others to even understand its real function anymore. Ruskin was probably one of the first to see this coming, as the industrial revolution ramped up the deterioration of real craft.
I believe architecture has become captive to short term economic priorities, probably most damaged by that evil degree called the MBA - the degree of the almighty dollar. I'm not so sure the world is a better place since the emergence of the MBA. Looking back over the past 30 years, we have witnessed talent being developed to study and polish the excesses of procurement, and less real knowledge of how to actually make anything. They often make the same mistakes with buildings that they have made with investments, manufacturing, military planning, banking, and countless other well documented errors of the 'bean counter' - one with too little real world knowledge of real things to make a real decision of real value.
Today, we now have law firms setting up fake companies to buy up patents, so they can go sue people who actually invent things. Incompetent institutions are being bailed out with money taken from the competent. Corporations are trying to blanket the patent system with thousands of claims, as if they were playing some sort of monopoly game over human knowledge. There are super computers out there trying to make money off split second trading, trying to beat the competition by simply slapping down a dollar quicker than others. We have drug companies wanting to 'treat' a disease rather than 'cure' it, because treating makes more money. It is pathetic how many people out there make a living off of gaming the system instead of making an honest living.
Since the USA has thrown away most of ability to produce real things, it should be little wonder that the buildings we produce are typically not the leading edge anymore. Many of our newest building systems originate in Europe or Asia. I've heard leading doctors tell me the same thing of their profession. The state of architecture is a great reflector of the state of our manufacturing base and the state of our "excellence."
I would argue that architecture, like so many other professions, is suffering from specialization. Ortega spells this out well in a brilliant chapter he once wrote nearly a century ago called 'The Ignorance of Specialization.' Our corporate and political structures have become prisoners to the weaknesses produced by specialized knowledge. By isolating knowledge into pockets, we create a kind of world where everybody is ignorant about everything except their own tiny world of study, which they think gives them credibility. To quote Ortega, 'a specialist is an educated ignoramus.' This is very convenient to power structures, because they can thrive on that ignorance in a more corrupt way, while pretending to be 'advancing.' It allows them the excuse they need to keep a blind eye to the big picture of what they do. You see it all the time in healthcare, where you get that pill to help your heart, "but oh, we didn't realize that would destroy your urinary track. Oops!" We have so many doctors who study just one organ; is there anybody left to study the entire body, or how these organs work with each other? Answer: 'There's no profit in that.'
The only real thing being advanced by hyper-specialization is the private pocketbooks of those business structures that monopolize these gaps and weaknesses, where the primary focus of institutions is to actually prevent change and protect turf. Job positions of people are placed via specialized resumes, where everything is judged on how often you did only one particular thing. Broad knowledge falls through the cracks at most institutions where your knowledge has to fit a mold they set, approved, and regulated a whole decade in advance. The Renaissance man is dead, and our education systems reinforce the death by playing in to this false promise of specialized knowledge. "Just study more math and science and we can compete with rest of the world again." These are the words of the specialized ignoramuses who see no value in anything else beyond their bean counting machine.
The results we get from hyper-specialization are giant food & farming systems that are not sustainable to the planet, medical systems that are not sustainable, peer review science panels that are often rigged, and energy systems and water systems that are not sustainable. We have vastly overpaid CEO's working on short 5 year cycles, while all kinds of excesses, both scientific and economic, now being paid back in spades (just read the news this week to see it).
If you look carefully, many of our best thinkers and inventors, who can truly solve real problems, are people who have broadened their education to multiple specialties. A chemist goes to dental school, and then by combining that knowledge, invents a multitude of things for the mouth due to his broad knowledge of both teeth and materials science. A doctor gets a masters degree in nutrition, which completely alters what he is willing to prescribe for patients as he starts to see the body more holistically. An architect studies philosophy and art, and suddenly finds that creativity is not near as challenging as so many others seem to believe it is. There are literally thousands of examples where people fix what is broken, by bypassing normal learning divisions set up by institutionalized systems. The infinite combinations that can be found from real life experience are where real knowledge has always lived - amongst our diversity.
Ironically, I see our best hope to beating back the damage of hyper-specialization coming from the internet, where knowledge is being blown open like a never before. Very large power structures are collapsing every year, as knowledge is being quickly democratized and diversified, breaking down power structures that have lost beneficial function. It's hopefully getting harder for the corrupt to hold on, although they are making a mighty last gasp costly effort to do so. The web might be the best hope to break the monopoly game that is holding us back from our full, modern potential.
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Rich Farris AIA
Architect
Dallas TX
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-09-2011 11:17
From: Walter Hosack
Subject: Vitruvius Today
This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Regional and Urban Design Committee and Committee on Design .
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Vitruvius felt that architecture should exhibit firmitas, utilitas and venustas to be excellent; but this gives us very little to go on, even when solid, useful and beautiful becomes commodity, firmness and delight. Today it could mean structurally sound, physically accommodating and visually appealing, but the guidance becomes entirely dependent on personal reaction when period style and proportion are not assumed elements of the Vitruvian definition. Deconstruction is a perfect example of solid and useful producing a style that Vitruvius could not have imagined.
Vitruvius (c.75 - c.15 BCE) focused on the building rather than the profession in the first century BCE as he attempted to explain excellent architecture to Augustus. Alberti (1404-1472 CE) followed suit after a 1,500 year pause. Five hundred years later we are still asking the question from Augustus: What is excellent architecture? If the focus remains on the building, the answer will continue to be a variation of the Vitruvian response that excellent architecture is a stable, habitable work of art. Architects will have to decide if this continues to be a satisfactory answer when our sustainable future depends on the shelter pattern and intensity constructed for growing populations. It is certainly a potential answer of limited scope; but it might help to begin by asking for a definition of the architectural profession. A collection of artists is a response that does not do justice to the skill set required after 2,000 years of invention.
I'd like to suggest that the architectural profession combines the inspiration of art, the logic of philosophy and the knowledge of accumulated research. In fact, this definition applies to all modern professions. Architecture, however, has used the logic of philosophy to extend its emphasis on the inspiration of art while ignoring the accumulation of independent knowledge. I agree that it has become a fine art, but wonder if this is the preferred emphasis given its continued search for a definition of excellence.
My guess is that architecture is searching for a body of knowledge it can call its own, for a measurement system to define a foundation for excellence and for a cataloguing system that can record success for refinement with logic over succeeding generations.
The city design of urban form involves a mathematical pattern language capable of measuring, forecasting, evaluating and improving our physical, social, psychological and economic quality of life. It only defines the intensity of urban design options, however. It must be completed with sustainable building systems that contribute to stable, habitable and potential works of art in the shelter division of symbiotic cities. It represents a potential platform for the accumulation of knowledge that is needed to expand the Vitruvian definition of excellent architecture and its contribution to humanity. Architecture is not ready to redefine excellence, but it is ready to begin the work.
Progress has always begun with inspiration referred to as art by those who grasp the mystery involved. Logic has converted inspiration to knowledge that could be memorized across generations. Language and writing simply made it easier. In other words, talent cannot be memorized but inspiration can be used to build knowledge with logic when the goal is perceived.
At the present time, architecture is about art and logic. It borrows knowledge from specialties focused on building technology. This has caused architecture to remain focused on definitions similar to Vitruvius and Alberti; while the problem has expanded with sprawl to indicate that shelter must be guided by more than stable, habitable and artistic objectives. So it's a question of how logic will use inspiration to lead the profession toward knowledge that increases its public benefit. The answer will represent the profession's aspiration to excellence in a far more complicated world.
Vitruvius and Alberti are wonderful historic references, but it's time to move on to the city design of urban form as a new pattern language for architectural contribution and public value. It requires information that doesn't exist, knowledge that must be distilled and a skill set that must be expanded before we can improve on the ancient prescription for architectural excellence, and it can only begin with a new vision of the goal required.
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Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
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