It was my first night in Brooklyn and Suzi was defending her choice of concentrating on a fine art (sculpture) and stepping out of the study of architecture. She intoned that she actually wanted to build things, to keep the intent pure and found the act of architectural creation mired in the 'magic' of cost projection and marketing archaic, a feeling that I can well understand.
I had traveled to New York City to see Suzi's MFA and to visit another TOIcollaborator whom I had also worked with in Cleveland. We had all met while in the employ of what was considered (and still may be, these things take time to evolve) an 'up and coming' young firm. A firm building a considerable portfolio and hungry to prove their creative merit. There were however the growing pains of a small firm trapped in a local community tentative about flexing design muscle that sent those two to New York while I attempted to find an office closer (physically) to home.
Regardless, the question of architecture as either and art or a science reveals a difficult determination. While 'good' architecture requires a creative flair with the spatial understanding of an artist the act of construction and building itself lends more to the scientific arena of understanding materiality and the phasing of assembly.
So how then would one define architecture or at least its many facets? At one time architects were master builders or craftsmen who would idealize the form and shape the construction to meet the ideal. It was required to depend on the skill and the eye of the builder to help realize the dream as well as the patience and confidence (arrogance?) to convince the patron the path the project was taking was indeed the correct one. Many great projects of old would take unreasonable amounts of time to complete by modern standards. Where great cathedrals would require generations of builders to complete nowadays it is not uncommon to require a project to go from dream to realization in less then 2 years.
It has become almost too easy to stray from the path of understanding not only what is being built but a more complete understanding of what it is being built with. Where architecture is devolving to little more than a study in form without any sense of grasping the science of construction or the intonation of function or even interactivity which in the end is what is killing the field. While educational programs remove the students from the actual art of building and the schism continues to divide developer and designer the general public (or client pool) only sees edifices to ego being constructed in the most bizarre and unsustainable fashions further mystifying the role of the designer and in the end relegating architects to the role of decorating boxes designed for the lowest common denominator and documented with the intent of being constructed in a vacuum by the lowest bidder.
As I sit here in Toronto, in a house that was built in the 1850's, listening to the few others at the B&B walk around and check in without the telltale creaky floors and squeaky stairs I wonder if in our quest for cheaper construction we are truly cheating ourselves by requiring more materials for shoddily built and overly quickly design product that incur huge maintenance and operating costs later. What ever happened to the love of constructing something that we can be proud of, that we plan to hand down to our children, that we know will stand testament to our existence and our community? How do we expect those with a passion for beauty and grace to continue to want to practice in a field where taking the time to understand how to build things correctly is typically excused from the project's time line as an extraneous cost?
Not that I want to make excuses or that I am blameless from 'the process' that has befallen so many architects in their quest to eventually build things they can be proud of. Part of me wonders why it is so difficult to draw a line in the sand. To state in a non-argumentative manner that good product and good craft is going to cost more and take more time to accomplish. Not that this is an excuse for wasting time or money, just the opposite, that if projects are considered to include the lifespan of the building and it's efficiency and craft then care must be required up front in order to plan and design the proper solution as well as the assemblage for it to last long enough to capitalize on the initial costs. Otherwise similar mistakes will perpetuate. Buildings will leak, walls will lean and everything will look similar enough to dull the eye.
Part of me, a good part of me, is jealous of Suzi for having the strength and the wherewithal so realize her happiness lies in sculpture more than architecture. I can see the allure. Part of me is frustrated with the status quo and am growing eternally bored of the conflict of science and art being bypassed for a buck. Most of me yearns to return to the exploration of craft that attracted me in the first place.
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