“the arts are and always have been driven to a large degree by more or less conscious desire of the elite to differentiate itself from the masses. With the industrial and educational revolution in the beginning of the last century, classical art lost its differentiating power, because it became available to the masses. The replacement of principles of harmony and beauty with obscurity and conceptual code was the only mechanism to restore the differentiating function of the arts.”

This is a great statement of a pretty common argument: great because it highlights a contradiction that could be a source of productive insight, if acknowledged.

The contradiction? The classical arts–honoring “principles of harmony and beauty”–are the products of a frankly class-differentiated society, driven by an explicit desire to distinguish the elite from the masses. Do we, therefore, think less of them? Does the will to distinction compromise their beauty?

If you say yes, you are a good democrat: quality is the enemy of equality. You can take your stand with the revolutionaries of 1793 who would have torn down the towers of Notre Dame.

If you say no, what’s your problem with the desire for distinction? Obscurity and conceptual code are symptoms of a desire for distinction in a democratic age, when all judgments of quality are under suspicion of harboring snobbery, being vehicles of elitism. Rampant anti-elitism discounts judgment, avoids serious argument about aesthetics, and paradoxically encourages artists to ignore the public.

So let’s be careful when we claim to speak against elites in the name of the public: aren’t we just preferring one elitism to another? A spurious populism is no substitute for serious argument.

Fact of the matter is that we have an enormous and highly complex set of public policy, legislative and regulatory problems that have created the urban and suburban mess that a couple of hundred million of us are having to live in and with. The effect of our nation swallowing hook line and sinker Detroit’s vision of the American Dream has precipitated a 50 year profits-at-all-costs construction binge by developers and so-called “builders” who have smeared poorly constructed fake Tuscany suburban sprawl across our landscapes with no regard at all to the patterns and needs of people and the natural world that sprawl impacts so directly.

The cultural, social and economic blight that such development have so ably supported is what we are now having to deal with. And its going to take a couple of generations to fix. During that time, our universities and the professions involved in the environments we inhabit (natural and man-made) have got to do a far better job of educating new generations who need to be skilled in depth in many different disciplines. The idea that architects only “do buildings” or geographers only “do cultural landscapes” or urban planners only know how to draw on maps is ridiculous today and will be ever more so in the coming years. Additionally, we have got to move toward a far stronger evidence-basis for design and planning decisions. The social, cultural, economic, and criminal justice implications of design and infrastructure planning decisions (transit, open and public spaces, buildings, retrofits etc.) are significant and are measurable. Consequently, skills in systems thinking and system dynamics will become even more important than they are perceived to be today.

The one benefit of the recession is that it is forcing a wide range of people and disciplines to consider what on earth we were thinking over the past 50 years. I’m also hopng that the bizarre and unproductive days of the “starchitect” are waning as they have generally not been able to demonstrate how their work directly benefits the environments in which they exist. I’ve heard about the “Bilbao Effect” of placing the Guggenheim Museum in what was once a blighted and dangerous docklands area. My sense though is that it took far more than just the building to create the economic effects that Bilbao now enjoys.

My fear, however, is that as celebrity and wannabe celebrity architecture firms scramble to survive by sniffing out and scooping up the public projects, we’ll see more celebrity dictated urban design disasters than Dobbins’ style “citizen guided” urban design successes.

I also suspect that what we are discussing here — the dialectic between the 5% of buildings Gehry deems “architecture” and Dobbins’ “civic environment” which the “architecture” complements or embarrasses — does, for better or worse, have as much to do with personality as economics. or perhaps more aptly said, one’s personal values and practice vis a vis the economy. Some years ago after watching Dobbins interact with a neighborhood group, I described him as “a pencil in the hands of the people.” This takes an architect with a personality vis a vis economics different from one said to design by crumpling a piece of paper and hiring structural engineers to “make it so.”

Context– it is what many architects miss in the focus of the structure itself and what seems to be the inherent need to set one’s SELF apart from other designers. Architectural detail– is what many urban planners fail to convey as important within their socialistic mindsets.

The importance of focusing on the building itself is not in dispute, but the interface and relationships of that building to the humans along side it is more important. The fact that someone can be called a visionary that dismisses what I believe is a critical piece of every project — the architecture of the public space that the (would be) iconic structure sets within is questionable but unimportant in this discussion. The true questions is; how can we, as planners and architects, come together to influence each other that both structure and context are important components of a quality environment. These territorial “markings” that each of our own perspectives is more important than the others has to go (including engineers). The people our work serves is of utmost importance and life so dynamic that it truly takes all of perspectives to make it work!

Join the discussion Mr Gehry and use your influence to help us bridge these divides…

Public space may be viewed as the “sala” or salon where our lives unfold. And as in any living room wall, an accent may add interest to that space, but it can only be part of the larger whole, and never greater than it. Iconic architecture serves basically as “accent” to those spaces where people congregate. No matter how breath taking it may be (as in Gehry’s works for instance), it still must be subservient to some public space – whether it be a plaza mayor, square or sidewalk. The setting lends it its character and importance. The greater the setting, the more important then is its relevance to the community. But in the end it serves only still, as the ever changing backdrop to public and personal events, and not directly as the main space where these may take place.

It’s really impressive to see Ghery’s architecture. I mean, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is definitely a very intricate, impressive, spatially imposing, elegant in its own way, with a very special relationship to the sky and water structure. For Ghery to achieve a balance in the aesthetics of so many forms and combine them in an aesthetically harmonious way is an achievement he is obviously proud of. The same I think regarding the rest of his buildings.

There is an aesthetic Ghery goes for and his deep knowledge of architecture and the deliverance of this aesthetic is definitely pronounced and vividly exhibited in his intricate and unusual sculptural creations of buildings.

Do we need this architectural elaboration as a society? Why not? It’s something not only to admire but also a source of richness and pride in our daily life.

So far so good. There are of course different questions someone can ask about the contributions of such architecture and every question can approach the subject from a different facet. At the same time, every such facet can represent different dimensions an architectural structure could possibly acquire.

I believe Ghery was being asked a simple question: how can his buildings include this other dimension, called ‘a good public space’ or else how can his creations contribute more to the public life in the open spaces around them. Is what’s there enough? Is this new dimension, called ‘effective public space,’ useful for Ghery’s buildings and the city they reside?

Much of the talk in the articles and the blogs I read was about who is arrogant and who is not, who is classy or not or whether Ghery’s ‘hauteur’ fit within his brilliance. Some of the blogs though, focused on the issue, the simple fact that Ghery left the question unanswered.

So with all do respect I will ask Ghery myself: why not incorporate this new dimension into the buildings, or why would you think it is unnecessary if so. Ghery, you are a very exceptional architect and figure of our era and we need your opinion on the issue. Why not elaborate and discuss the importance of creating an effective public space around iconic buildings?

Thanks for asking such an important question, and also for framing the question with enough context for Frank to be able to fully respond. He could have answered the question in any number of ways. It’s too bad that he chose not to engage. It would have made for some interesting discussion later.

Please keep up your excellent work, and for helping to provide this venue for us.

Mark
City Repair

Thanks, Fred, for putting it all in perspective, which was the whole point, wasn’t it?

“Architecture” is historically the name given to those buidlings commissioned by people of great wealth and power to memorialize their importance. Architects court people with enough resources to build “architecture” (Frank Gehry dismisses 95% of buildings as not being “architecture”).

In these times, trophy architects (I find this expression more accurately descriptive), having found compatibility with their patrons, are expressing their clients’ aspirations for immortality through really creative, expressive – and expensive – works, elegies on our present age of excess. Sometimes in breathtaking ways, though as the melted building syndrome proceeds, look for them to pop up in degraded form in shopping malls.

The civic environment, on the other hand, is what we all own and collectively use to get where we need to go and, if we design it right, celebrate our civility. It’s a different kind of design. Rather than “express” the will of the powerful through the will of the trophy architect, civic design “reflects” – or should – the will of the people, we who own this space. It seeks to meet both the functional and the aesthetic, togetherness needs of the many.

This latter kind of design has been in short supply. Most architecture and even landscape architecture schools, which teach how to conceptualize three dimensionally, holistically, and simultaneously, overwhelmeingly extol and promote the patron-architect model as the only way to go for their students to become true architects. This emphasis, naturally enough, leads to a culture that creates self-expressive “iconic” buildings. Though the balance between the two approaches to design is beginning to even up, people trying to teach urban design still often have an uphill struggle with their object designer colleagues.

Buildings and the civic environment together is where we live, and the civic environment part doesn’t get nearly the design attention it should. Trophy architects are not trained in civic design, indeed have chosen a path that extols the individual patron – usually rich – and so tend not to even relate to a position that says the civic realm matters. Thus they rarely contribute to its enhancement, and they more likely debase it with their “look at me” fixations. Mr. Gehry’s response to Mr. Kent’s question says it all.

Fred Kent tries to lift the importance of our shared space in this dialectic. As a result, he has a much deeper understanding and knowledge – indeed more skill – in the design of the civic environment than ttrophy architects. His many successes are tribute to this reality.

(If you want to read more, there’s this new book, “Urban Design and People,” published by Wiley)