John Bentley Mays disagrees
JBM's column today is on the same topic, but not surprisingly, he takes a different approach.
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A new puritanism
Revisionist breast-beating laments design excesses of years past, but good things came of the boom
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
Globe and Mail, March 26, 2009
Is there a silver lining for architecture in the dark economic clouds hovering over us?
Despite the downsizing and layoffs sweeping the worlds of design and construction, despite projects being put on hold indefinitely or cancelled outright, some influential voices in the realm of architecture are saying yes.
I don't agree with them for a minute.
But for the sake of argument, listen to what Zvi Hecker has to say. Mr. Hecker, a respected Israeli architect with offices in Tel Aviv and Berlin, takes up the banner of the bring-on-the-crisis camp in the current (and, as things have turned out, last) issue of London-based Blueprint magazine.
"The continuous unfolding of the global economic crisis … will inevitably create radical shifts in our aesthetic sensibility," he writes. "Taken unguarded by the collapse of the world stock markets and the demise of financial institutions, we should not be surprised by the deepening of the moral-ethical breakdown that generated this economic crisis in the first place. This breakdown, caused by the decline of personal responsibility and institutionalized social inequality, could be more destructive than a military force."
The slump, then, can be seen as a positive development, a moral wake-up call after a long, money-drugged sleep.
"For more than a decade, architecture sucked in cheap and abstract money that has been channelled to fuel an excess of building construction, resulting in the infamous subprime mortgage meltdown. Abstract projects solidified into architectural form and, sponsored by oil and stock market wealth, were 'grounded' in the most socially unjust locations and environmentally wasteful ways … The more obscure and environmentally irresponsible were the financial investments, the more excessive became the architectural form. … Unconcerned with ethics, architecture preferred to glorify the zeal and the leverage of financial wizardry. Draped in layers of ornate garments, glamorous and ornamental, it carefully disguised its narcissism."
That "narcissism" was at the core of the "widespread decadence" Mr. Hecker sees pervading the architectural scene over the past decade. Whatever hardship it brings, he argues, the present economic travail offers an opportunity for architects to stop, repent, rethink their moral and ethical priorities, and get ready to provide more chastened, humane leadership when the economy is righted.
Of course, there is much to enjoy in Mr. Hecker's biblical thunderings at the architecture of the boom years. Some of it was flash and trash. But much of it wasn't, and some of it — I am thinking of the best work by Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Thom Mayne, Norman Foster, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron — injected remarkable vitality into the world's cities and encouraged emerging architects to imagine forms and design strategies never before dreamed of. Nor was ethics so thoroughly abandoned in architectural circles as Mr. Hecker supposes. His critique is well-meaning, but finally reckless.
A very different — but no less spirited — assessment of architecture's present circumstances is offered in the same issue of Blueprint by Kevin McCullagh, a London-based consultant.
"With echoes of the early nineties," Mr. McCullagh writes, "designers are again beating themselves up over their supposed excess. Back then, they regretted the superficiality of eighties' postmodernism and the matte black and chrome-trimmed yuppie lifestyle." Today, "outlandish architecture" and "empty extravagance" are the causes of lamentation.
Nothing good will come of this breast-beating.
"Recessions are marked by bankruptcies, mass unemployment, house repossessions and general misery, not by moral renewal. A mean-spirited puritanism lies behind those beckoning recession. … Anti-growth is a deep-seated sentiment. Here, economic growth is held to be destructive, wasteful and 'unsustainable.' … Cutting back, it's felt, would clear the mind. … Then there are the 'less is more' aesthetes, who reject the visual experimentation of the past few years as 'fluff' and tasteless excess."
Today's puritans — he likely has Mr. Hecker in mind — even believe that hard times somehow create good architecture. But the avant-garde European architects who transfigured the international landscape after the Second World War kept their modernist flame alive despite depression and war, not because of these dire events.
Anyway, "why should fewer buildings necessarily be better buildings?" he continues. "Quality is far more dependent on ideas, ambition and funding — all of which look like being in short supply. A cursory glance around our urban landscapes can surely only lead to the demand for better and more architecture."
Ideas, ambition and funding: These, surely, are the necessary ingredients of any architecture that matters. I disagree with Mr. McCullagh on one point — that ideas and ambition are in "short supply" these days — though he is right, of course, about funding. And without investment by the private and public sectors, the great creative experiment we've witnessed over the past dozen years in architecture cannot go on. That's why I can't see a silver lining anywhere in the stormy skies over our heads.
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I agree that modernism has been a resilient style, and that a minimalist aesthetic has an endless appeal. But there is always a pendulum swing between the decorative and the minimalist, and I doubt that pendulum has stopped. The only constant is change. I don't see a strong or sudden break with modernism occurring, but a gradual evolution of forms until we discover that we've adopted some kind of paradigm that is not modernism, perhaps with terminology applied to it retroactively (as so often happens) of which we may be entirely unaware. I certainly think that projects like 60 Richmond or Integral House are not modernism, though exactly what they are, is hard to say at this point. Though some have clear definitions in their heads about big-hair this vs. modernist that, I think there is a continuum that makes everything messier and more interesting that dichotomies will allow.
Don't get me wrong - I love modernist buildings and spend lots of energy on my bike just to see them in the right light. I just don't see things sitting still very long, and depending on how large our current state of disequilibrium becomes, I wonder what it will bring.
As for the JBM piece, he makes some good points. We may laugh now at some aspects of 80's architecture that seem overblown (but, believe me, that will pass, and we will come to admire the same things later, just as sixties flourishes passed from style and then were elevated and adored), but the 90's were a really difficult time for buildings in Toronto. Not many got built, and design standards fell quite low. When I look at things like the Penrose and the Conservatory tower, for instance, I greatly fear the return of projects like that, and I think JBM makes a valid point about not crowing too much about asceticism when what we might end up with is really just cheap and vile.
Just curious, where would the AGO fit in all of this? Is it a big-hair project, or modernist, or what, in your opinions. To me, it has elements of everything, and I can't really decide.
