blog of the week: architecture for humanity
Architecture for Humanity Originally uploaded by Brian Kroeker (non-commissioned design proposal for AfH)
“For the past twenty years the voice of the architecture profession has mainly been drowned out by the computer generated sky-piercing towers of luxury.”
Thus begins a recent blog post in the Huffington Post by Architecture for Humanity founder, Cameron Sinclair. In the post, Cameron ponders the recent developments in architecture, and is looking forward to a ‘Mexican standdown’ with avantgarde architect extraordinaire, Zaha Hadid, at a gathering in London.
Cameron continues:
“Year after year the biggest names in architecture tried to out do each other in what is technically feasible with oddly named styles of ‘deconstruction’, ‘blobitecture’ and ‘ribbon architecture’. This constant craving to create jewels of desire in the urban fabric left the general public wondering what on earth we do. Now, with the global economy in tailspin, these exercises in object making have come to a crashing halt. For many of us, we couldn’t be more thankful.
An architecture of excess vs. an architecture of relevance
In December 2008 New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff began his weekly column exclaiming ‘Who knew a year ago that we were nearing the end of one of the most delirious eras in modern architectural history?’ For the vast majority of design and construction professionals this era ended long ago. It’s as though the New York Times were the last to offer a eulogy at a funeral that long since took place.
The fact is, there has been a split forming in the profession for quite sometime. While some in the industry pushed the boundaries of how to build, a new younger group of professionals began to question why we build and who to build for. This week Architecture for Humanity turned ten and we were stunned to realize we had over 40,000 professionals as part of our network – most of whom are part of this later group. We’ve hit a point where the architecture of excess and the architecture of relevance are set to collide. Given the global crises around us, I know which side I’m rooting for.
Why? Let’s take a step back. On a global level 1:7 people live in unplanned settlements, favelas, refugee camps or internally displaced camps. Close to 5 billion people live in inadequate living conditions and have little access to education, health care and adequate sanitation. Almost none of these communities utilize the services of design professionals. For those of us that work in this arena we are being swamped with requests for help from the camps in the eastern Congo to the hoovervilles in southern California. The desire for well built, sustainable structures is immense and young professionals seeking meaning are finding themselves drawn to providing their expertise to these communities. There is immense opportunity for architects to work in the service of humanity rather awkwardly trying to define it or worse impose a solution on it.”
Watch Cameron Sinclair on TED Talks:
Foreman is cut and the fight is postponed
This evening (April 11) I was set to debate Zaha Hadid on ethics in architecture at the Barbican in London. I had flown in specially and in the run-up to tonights’ debate I imagined it to be a sort of Ali vs. Foreman fight over the role of the architect within the built environment and how we, as a profession, can act and react to the current economic downtown.
In the circles of the cultural elite I know I’m stepping on very thin ice. Given that she is the first female Pritzker Prize winner I’ve been told more than once that ‘one cannot criticize her’. While Ms. Hadid has certainly made a lasting impact in the architectural discourse, the physical structures created have been on occasion environmentally unsound, exclusive in nature and at times ethically dubious. They fight for attention, piercing the fabric of the city instead of weaving it into a stronger and more interconnected environment.
As for our debate tonight sure enough, as is her reputation, she pulled out and sent an understudy. So much like the scenario that played out in the Ali/Foreman duel, our one on one debate is currently postponed.”
…
“The argument was never about starachitect vs. non-starachitect but how we adapt and change as a group of professionals that is dedicated to improving the physical environments that we call life.”
There is no ‘architecture with a big A’ there is only architecture and how we practice it matters not just for the state of the world but the survival of the practice.
Read more about Architecture for Humanity.
