Agreed. Architecture must expand its vision to encompass much more than buildings moving forward. We have to consider all the components of our constructed and natural environments to design space that meets humanity’s needs. We need to get back in the business of city making. We have the spatial design capacities, and we need to apply that thinking to land-use policy and broader planning issues which guide and control urbanism. The profession has been too concerned with object form, and has nearly missed the bus as developers and contractors are controlling much of building and design process.
Keller Easterling has a great quote that addresses this pretty spot on:
“Architecture’s relationship to money is symptomatic. The discipline seems not to know how to capitalize projects independently or garner the resources necessary to be a leader in any powerful platform or market, be it social, political, or commercial. In this way architecture is distinct among the intellectual and professional endeavors to which it is usually compared. Architects primarily offer a service to moneyed players and to the powers that be. To avoid the taint of this subservient position, the profession creates a narrative of artistic autonomy, one ironically overlaid with internal hierarchies and ateliers to which the youngest architects are beholden. Even the most powerful and influential player in this hierarchy, the star architect, like a Hollywood star, is still a contract player.
“Meanwhile some of the most significant changes in the globalizing world are being written in the language of architecture and urbanism. Space is potentially a powerful instrument of ingenuity and problem solving in the world. Yet architects are rarely asked to lead in decision making processes of any consequence beyond client relationships. The profession does not encourage an entrepreneurialism that would address the unfortunate and unnecessary fact that it is decoupled from its own relevance in the world.” (Yale Perspecta 47, 2014. p. 228)
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Sam Friesema Assoc. AIA
Urbanist
CSNA Architects
COLORADO SPRINGS CO
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2017 18:17
From: Richard Rosen
Subject: Matter for Discussion
At a time when the entire planet has to deal with settlement patterns, depletion of resources, and half the world's population will shortly have to deal with staying above water, what in heck is one of the world's leading architectural organization doing going off into a tangent about contracting terms and regulatory impact on public works projects? A more relevant subject today might be:
what is the responsibility of central governments in fostering public works projects that have been judged by the consensus of experts to be vital to the survival of settlements (our built environment)? From that, one might wish to study whether the approval process is unnecessarily long.
Richard Rosen, emeritus