THE PATHETIC STATE OF ARCHITECTURAL COMMENTARY

Time was, the arrival of a copy of the print magazine Architectural Record, was a big deal.  The subscription was expensive.  It’s contents were mysterious.  Times have changed.  Now it shows up in our mailbox for free.  I fully realize that there is vast change afoot in the print media.  I understand the forces that are applying this pressure.

Yet, thumb thru the magazine I do when it comes.  And I can’t help but comment on Joseph Giovannini’s review of the 2018 Venice Architectural Biennale:  some of the themes of their review strike close to the heart of our interests in these pages.    Abstract:  the article was written by an old white architect for other old white architects.

The theme of this year’s Biennale was “Freespace” which the curators, both women, defined as “the generosity of spirit and sense of humanity a the core of architecture’s agenda.”  The architects for the Biennale were selected, per Giovannini’s description, based on

“the more humble, under-acknowledged, architects who design buildings you simply want to touch:  eye over mind, matter over concept.”

Sounds interesting, right?  Yet in reading Giovannini’s review, there is this inescapable tongue in cheek tolerance to what has been included in the show, in which he, more or less, complains about the following:
-globalized starchitects were not represented
-many of the architects hail from developing countries
-half of the architects in the show are women
-many of the projects were built by local craftsmen with local materials
-the computer was minimized

There is a palpable grudging acceptance of what is called the fundamentalism of the works on display.    The fundamentalism of craft.  The fundamentalism of the haptic.  The fundamentalism of day to day excellence.  I don’t know about anyone else, but trying to be as good an architect that I can on a daily basis happens to be my worldview.

The most glaring comment in the article was this. “The show overlooks the extraordinary capacity of the computer to free space…”  While what he means by this statement is anyone’s guess, what he most likely means is that the computer is the best tool we have to understand, and free, space.

He goes on to criticize Zumthor’s contributions, all of which were hand crafted scale models.  No computer was used.  And Giovanni had a problem with this lack of the use of the computer:  somehow Zumthor’s banishing of the computer relegated his efforts to mere exploration of surface.

And then this is a direct quote from the article”

“The Chinese architect and Pritzker laureate Wang Shu piously noted, ‘Pencils, not computers, are guardians of place and atmosphere.'”

I was so impressed by the above statement by Wang Shu, that I looked it up.  And it turns out that this is not exactly what they said.  From the architect’s written description in this regard, this is the actual passage:

“Amateur Architecture Studio brings Chinese landscape paintings to life and into life; they are enriched by them, observing that these paintings invite you to come in, to enter them spatially. Using pencils, not computers, they are guardians of place and atmosphere.”  Link.

So Giovannini could not even get the quote right.  Wang Shu was talking about Chinese landscape paintings and how the pencil was the defender of place and atmosphere.  Yet Giovannini implies that Wang Shu was applying this pencil statement to all of architecture.  The quote in the article, quite simply, and quite sadly, was taken out of context.  And how about that use of the word pious!

I think you will know by now where I come down on all of this.  Why couldn’t this review have been a celebration of all of these facets of our profession?  These pages do believe that the pencil is indeed our last line of defense.  These pages do believe that the day to day excellence of non famous buildings can be used to teach architectural excellence.  These pages do believe in the maker, the making, the hand crafted, and the haptic.  These pages do not want to have anything to do with the computer.  Why couldn’t they have expressed something like happiness that, indeed, half the architects were women in a profession that remains dominated by men?

The reason that I use pathetic in the title of this page, is that, for the reasons stated in the above paragraph, I find Giovanni’s review pathetic.  I find it sloppy.  Bottom line, there is not one mention of the human, the user, the perciever.  It is truly a pathetic meditation which, unfortunately, is the norm of our profession.  Just another old white guy talking to like minded old white guys.

1.  Giovannini, Joseph. “The Venice Architecture Biennale 2018.” Architectural Record. July, 2018. Print. pp 47-48.