This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Regional and Urban Design Committee and Committee on Design .
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Mr. Ytterberg's comments have given me pause since he is a professor of architecture and urban history, theory and design at the University of Pennsylvania. As such his comments are influential and they've stayed with me.
He makes two points that I didn't address in my first response:
- That architecture is a "value-added" profession.
- That: "There are many designers of the environment - that is not the privileged realm of the architect."
These comments are stunning because I believe architecture is a strategy to achieve a goal. I believe the goal is to shelter growing populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life. Shelter is essential to survival but it can sprawl to consume this source of life.
Sprawl grows one project at a time. A project is the realm of an architect. The goal is the realm of the organization. I believe the goal I've mentioned is essential to the public interest because we can't survive without shelter, but it has an impact on the environment and our source of life. For instance, we could solve climate change and still consume the planet with sprawl.
The tools, concepts and knowledge required to address the goal I've mentioned can place architecture in a leadership position that requires its correlation skills, if it accepts the challenge. In other words, repositioning begins with an examination of the organizational goal in my opinion. We need shelter to survive and we cannot survive without symbiotic solutions. A foolish parasite consumes its host. Other parasites evolve to establish symbiotic relationships.
At the present time architectural goals are primarily dictated by special interest. Strategy is based on intuition and anticipation that is always influenced by emotion, but depends on intelligence and knowledge. Knowledge is accumulated from research referred to as intelligence by the military. As knowledge increases, strategy improves but contribution depends on the scope of the goal. As long as the architectural goal is limited to special interest, the population will consider the benefit marginal. Professional requests to introduce a public mandate for architectural leadership will be considered self-serving.
If architectural education is focused on bringing emotion and appearance to the need for shelter, then I believe full disclosure is long overdue; because the name of the education is entirely misleading. The fact that architecture is not considered part of environmental design is another stunner. The "privileged realm of the architect" also indicates a disconnection with the public interest.
It appears that the definition of architecture deserves further consideration as a first step in the effort to reposition the profession. Vitruvius offered a definition of excellent architecture to Augustus, but the definition of architecture has been ambiguous. If you say that architecture is shelter designed by an architect the public may agree, but this will not improve their respect for the effort. This will require a sustainable, environmental focus; not justification based on value-added emotion, appearance and privilege. This is a contention that appears "out of touch with the mainstream of society". I've borrowed this phrase from Mr. Ytterberg's criticism of the current re-positioning discussion.
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Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
Dublin OH
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