This is my review of the title of the upcoming conference, Black Box: Articulating Architecture's Core in the Post-Digital Era. The conference did not take place yet, so I don't know what its content will be. My concern is the title:
Black
Architecture is not a “secret profession”, as Reyner Banham described it. Architectural projects stand in the open for everyone to see. Unlike art, that often hides in museums, architecture stands on public streets. In fact, architects are known to expose structural and mechanical elements of their buildings in order to be more honest and forthcoming. Not even the meaning of architecture is a mystery. Look towards the skyline of any major city. Who owns and occupies the tallest, shiniest, and most expensive towers? Those buildings are shouting their meanings to anyone who takes a second to listen.
Don’t look to understand architecture in a dark alley. Nothing will reveal itself from the blackness. With architecture, all you need to know is out in the ’open’.
Box
Architecture is not a box, nor is it inside a box. Boxes have finite dimensions. Without opening a box, you can know exactly how much space / stuff it holds. Weighing a box will easily reveal the amount of matter it is comprised of. Boxes can be numbered, stacked, lined, organized, stored, and shipped. They are static and boring, while architecture is neither.
Architecture is similar to a ‘field’. Whether that is a field of study, a field to cross, or a field for play can be determined with each time we utter the word ‘architecture’. It extends over the terrain, undulating with the landscape, and overlapping other fields. The boundaries of a field are often messy and organic. They seep and bleed. Changing those boundaries is more a mental chore than a physical one. It takes an internal moment of imagination, and an external process of negotiation.
Articulating
‘Articulating’ means defining hard boundaries. Stressful decisions have to be made. What is inside the boundary and what is outside? Disagreements will arise. “You are outside the boundary” someone will say. “No, you are outside the boundary” another will replay. “You are both outside the boundary” a third will interject. Articulation is exclusive.
Yet, in times of stability, articulation can be done with minimal violence, and even produce some positive effects. Here, articulation is used for the practical purposes of organization. “This is your job, and this is my job”. It is not an ideological issue, but a prosaic one. To determine if this is presently appropriate, though, we should ask ourselves: are we living in times of stability? The answer is a resounding “No”. Major social, political, and technological changes have become the norm. In times of instability, such as ours, articulation is counterproductive. If we articulate architecture today, then any development that takes over the world (e.g. a revolutionary technological invention) will have to be separated from architecture. It will not be allowed to exert any influence on our field, nor will we be able to take advantage of what it offers. Once articulated, architecture becomes outdated. The only way to avoid this situation would be to immediately disown our previous act of articulation, and rearticulate architecture according to what has recently developed. In times of fast change and instability, this process will be repetitive and exhausting, a waste of time and energy.
Instead of articulating, I propose we start ‘accumulating’. We should explore other fields and pick all that is useful, bringing back as much as we can carry. Only the deluded believe that they know what the future will bring the field of architecture. The existential challenges that we will have to face are both imminent and unknown. A fence will be useless. A stockpile might help.
Architecture
Has there been a more unproductively posed question as: What is architecture? There have been innumerable answers: certain structures, a method of design, a mode of thought, a profession… etc. Although sometimes enlightening and inspiring, attempts to define architecture cannot be more than partially relevant at any given moment. Because architecture is similar to a field and not a box, it has different significances for different peoples, places, and times. Certain structures, a method of design, a mode of thought, and a profession are all architecture, and even more than that.
I suggest we shift our attention from architecture to the ‘architectural’. Let us not ask whether a structure is architecture or building. Instead, let us ask: what is architectural about it and what is not. The ‘architectural’ allows us to see the world in its complexities and contradictions. Out the window goes absolutism. The world is seen through its wholes and parts, through its distinctions and relationships, through its concentrations and gradients. The ‘architectural’ is always only part of the story, incomplete, and ephemeral. To last, it would have to be periodically reaffirmed by its constituents in an ongoing collective process.
Core
To assign a core is also to assign a periphery. A hierarchy of importance is established. The core is the main thing, and the periphery is its shadow. Predictable flow patterns are bound to emerge. Those in the periphery move towards the core, creating congestion. In the other direction flows media: information, ideologies, and instructions.
In the open field of architecture, there is no core. Instead, ‘narratives’ are woven into kites and flown over the field, their strings passing from hand to hand. Narratives can even come from other fields, fly high and low, get tangled with others, and then move on. The wind, the land, and the guiding hand, things that are in themselves not intrinsic to the field, determine to a large degree the kind of stories the kites will tell. This is how narratives are. They can rise from anywhere. Their paths are determined by their shapes, but also by their surroundings. They are consolidated but not isolated.
In
To be ‘in’ is a position of subordination. The smaller is in the larger. The part is in the whole. To say that something is ‘in’ would not suggest that it has any external influence or internal preference. It is a passive posture. A rock can sit in a field of battle, unmoving, uninterested, and unaware. Solders’ feet rush past it in vengeful assault or frantic retreat. The rock is in the middle of it all, but it takes no part. It does not even know that it is a rock until a solder picks it up and throws it with all her might.
Let us be ‘for’ instead of ‘in’. To be ‘for’ establishes two properties: a current position and an intended trajectory. This makes the act of being ‘for’ a critical one. It is in fact the most basic of critical acts. Architecture is an instrumental field. It is a field of action and happening. But nothing happens without first starting from a ‘for’ position. The architectural act is the three-dimensional line that is produced when the course of the intended trajectory is traced over the uneven terrain of the architectural field.
The
The English language’s only definite article, ‘the’, is used when referring to that which is specific, known, and at hand. For example, Le Corbusier could correctly point and say, “This is the city of tomorrow”. Today, the architectural field cannot seem to pull together enough conviction to justify the use of the definite article. Instead, we should contend ourselves with the indefinite, ‘a’ or ‘an’. For example, practices such as OMA or SANAA build dozens of models showing different options for a project. From these imperfect models, ‘an’ option is selected and executed. No one pretends that what is selected is the best or only possibility for the project, but a choice has to be made, and so it is.
Post-Digital
Defining our present moment in the architectural field by the most recent developments in digital tools would not have been considered had there been a dominant intellectual position that the majority of contemporary architects supported. Since such a project does not currently exist, we have resorted to labeling ourselves post-digital, but we should always remember that that was a due to necessity and not choice. This is not to say that there are no intellectual positions currently in the field. There are many. Some architects have embraced their capital-creating position in the capitalist economy, some are determined to build more sustainably from an ethical standpoint, others are committed to help underserved communities (e.g. informal settlements and refugees), and yes, some have decided to exploit digital imaging and fabrication tools to serve architectural purposes, but it is unreasonable to consider their practices as defining of our present times.
I see the proliferation of intellectual positions, only some of which I have just mentioned, in addition to a pervasive skepticism in architecture’s ability to operate on the world with agency as being a dominant and widespread condition in our times. Multiplicity and doubt, this is what we have in common. Therefore, I would describe our present moment as being ‘agnostic’. An agnostic is not confident enough to take a position, yet is still interested in further investigation of the subject. In other words, the agnostic still cares. Isn’t this where we are today? We are caught between the evidence not supporting the ideals that we wished were true, yet we cannot escape the seductive allure of an idea such as utopia.
Era
Eras are established in hindsight. They are the bookmarks of historians. Those who live within a certain era cannot contest the label with which their times have been stamped; they are all long dead. Today, we do not live in an era. Rather, we simply live in the ‘present’, with all the possibilities of vigorous action and literally instantaneous change the word comes with.
The present, of course, is always crawling forwards. As long as none of us approaches the speed of light, time for all of us will have a constant speed: one second per second. We are all moving at that leisurely pace. All of us together, crawling forwards in a movement coordinated with the utmost congruency. No one is out of step. It is perfectly choreographed. That sense of absolute consensus in time is what we call the ‘present’. This unity is what makes agreement in all other things possible.
A Scientific Alternative
Based on the above, I am proposing an alternative title to the conference, Open Field: Accumulating Architectural Narratives for an Agnostic Present. Just like the original title of the conference, my title has its own biases and assumptions. It is a project that can and should be critiqued. Yet, since it is the result of a process of deliberation and analysis I, inspired by Aldo Rossi, call it scientific. A similar process conducted by other people will result in a different arrangement of words and meanings. That is both expected and encouraged.
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