What does architecture say about culture?

[John Kasaian]

Watching an unmemorable stucco building come down got me thinking about architecture and culture.

I enjoy photographing buildings, but seldom new ones---the older the better, but why?

Styles of architecture come and go, I suppose a lot of it has to do with economic use of materials and technology as well as the envirement, but I'm thinking that where we're at now in terms of design is kind of pathetic when it comes to being a defininng point of one's culture.

I'm going by my own obeservations from my own corner of the Western U.S. Maybe its part of the culture that the earliest buildings here were really temporary---adobe or board and batten sticks or log on mud sills (or teepees, for that matter. ) In a way, the stucco rubble kind of fits in with that idea, only the early architecture I'm talking about had an element of honesty that new buildings rarely exhibit. Going for a walk in an older community I find that I know what building is the train depot, the school, the library, the firehouse, the church, a tank house, a warehouse, a barn, etc... I'm thinking, why wouldn't you want a fire house to be recognized as a firehouse? Why wouldn't you want a church to look like a church? Or a school to look like a school? People can find them easier. People who work in those places can identify with a place, rather than a company logo (or anal boss.) In my own nieghborhood this is an unlikely event. The precinct house looks more like a barbershop. Churches look like indoor roller rinks, and the firehouse like a condo with a RV size garage. Schools would be mistaken for factories except for the atheletic fields.

Oh, there are examples of pretention too---a department store that resembles an air terminal with no runways, a library that looks like a bus terminal, and hospitals that resemble ....well....something.

My criticism of architecture isn't so much a criticism of architecture as it is an observation of my own culture that I find disturbing. If the architecture is dishonest by hiding It's purpose, and that is accepted and widely imitated as being desireable then what about art? What about entertainment and music? What about beauty and all the other things that define the culture of a community like sports (you listening, Barry Bonds?) and education?

What are your thoughts?

[Frank Petronio]

This happened in Rochester during rush hour. Nobody was hurt because Kodak and Bausch & Lomb laid so many people off beforehand.

I'd just like architecture to work. Buildings have to function first and foremost. I'd like to know where the fricking entrance is half the time.

There is a modern architectural philosophy based around "human scale" and the writings of Christopher Alexander. Schools that are big on this stuff include Yale, Univ of Oregon in Eugene, and Univ of California at Bezerkley. You'd probably like it.

I was visiting Ohio University last week and all of their buildings, except for an unfortunate 1970s era library, were classical, modest, and complimentary to the campus.

So there is "honest" architecture being done.

The overall trend is for pomp and technology - Frank Gehry and whatever they eventually build on Ground Zero in NYC. At least Gehry can build an interesting building - the scary part is all the architects who will try to incorporate Gehry style artifice - on the cheap - in lesser projects.

But even Gehry recogonizes that his buildings need an entrance. What is amazing is that thousands of architects don't!

And that applies to the rest of our society too I guess.

[Jonathan_6488]

Your assessment of 'honesty' in architecture is, IMO, fairly sophisticated and sensitive. It's somewhat unusual for people to pick up on this. As an architect and architectural photographer - I have a thing or two to say on the subject. But - in my opinion - the phenomenon you observe is the result of a confluence between a few different forces. Basically the paradigm for design/construction changed dramatically approximately during the industrial revolution - and the drive towards more buildings, more cheaply began - to house the booming populations that were expanding in number beyond precedent due to new advances in medicine and food distribution nearly impossible before this period. The expansion of the architectural project of housing the western world has been largely an un-self-conscious one and one that happened without any really GOOD reflection as to it's role and the culture living within it.

Now- interestingly - the birth of modernism just before the turn of the century created a drive toward simple, beautiful, platonic forms which were more about precision, technology, line and mass. It was, like any medium exploring it's own modernism, all about the materials and questioning what those are and how they interface with technique. Unfortunately, this work (Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier come to mind as dominant examples) had been pillaged only for it's expedient qualities by greedy landowners and developers and created a cancer of poorly-designed, ugly edifices. And so it continues to today. We've made a real science of it. As it stands now - only a VERY small percentage of buildings are architect-designed - which actually doesn't impact building AESTHETICALLY so much as pragmatically.

Unusable, awkward, useless spaces ABOUND. Just look around you. It's the paradigm. Really. I'm not just throwing that word out there. The way it works now - is that the landlord wants something resembling a building for the lowest cost possible. This precludes something being actually DESIGNED. They want it to match a laundry list of saleable features. It's got to have the square footage, the doors, the utilities - if it looks nice to someone it's because of the cheap-ass crown molding someone stapled to the ceilings and the pseudo grecian plaster columns taped (almost!) to the front entry.

It's kinda sick, IMO. But nonetheless... good architecture is still being built. You just have to look for it. Other countries (western europe mostly) still have a foot in the old paradigm though. Quality construction and design/planning is still appreciated and given it's due. Construction workers (most of them) have to spend five years in university - and have pride in what they do. They know all about concrete chemistry - and why building flashing needs to be electrically grounded to prevent corrosion from happening. That just doesn't happen here. We sold ourselves to the dollar. It was our choice and we have to live with the consequences.

[Ed K.]

At one time, great buildings were made to "last forever" as well as be part of a community. While some of it is a reflection of the fading economic power of the U.S. as a whole, other parts of it represent a shift in values as well as methods. Where once teams of artisans laid out details such as the color scheme for tiles at the Griffith Park Observatory using paper and brains, today, few people could do the complicated drafting for that structure by hand. Sure, the computer gives us precision and cost effectiveness, however as a design tool it tends to encourage a stiff, mechanical feel to things -maybe architecture suffers partly from this.

Where once large banks built monuments to their stability and permanence in the community, today we mix the bank with the coffee house or supermarket. It's all transient.

Materials used to cost so much less, and one could build with few restrictions. Plenty of land in most places, and plenty of skilled moderate to low-priced labor in the past.

It could be generational. The "G.I." generation had some great architects and builders. They cared about building roads, bridges, schools and parks. The current empowered generations don't seem to accomplish great works other than grubbing a few more dollars for that next fancy car or whatever.

I know what you mean about function in architecture too. With huge cost overruns, the Disney Hall in Los Angeles is a pretty amazing piece of sculpture, however the acoustics are so bad that it requires amplifiers for everything, and it still doesn't sound anywhere near as nice as the Dorothy Chandler across the street ( just opinion, you can disagree if you like ). You will find more photographers there - so many, that it is more fun to go photograph people who photograph the building, which I have done from time to time. Frankly, I wish the money had been spent on musicians or something else, however I do toast the team member who came up with the idea to do the fancy cladding on it.

But many an architect often hates function - many, including famous ones such as Philip Johnson have said that architecture is not meant to be practical ( he designed so many beautiful to look at yet impossible to use buildings such as "Glass House" ). Today most firms or individuals simply lack the money or time to commission a work from somebody such as Johnson, or Wright. Wright's Hollyhock house was so impractical to live in that Aline Barnsdall gave it and the surrounding lands up to the city as a monument to Wright's creativity, and also so she could quietly go to live elsewhere in a more comfortable house.

There are ebbs and flows in culture, in fortune and in various arts. While I am no great fan of most current projects because they are cheap and rushed more often than not, there is hope for a new generation of architects who will put things right once again if there is ever money for it.

Architects do have to respond to their tasteless patrons, and also push their own limit and style somehow to make a name. Almost as many people want to be architects as wish to be great photographers. There will be success and failure.

I marvel at how much companies used to spend on their headquarters ( well, they had such a thing too! ). Tour the insides of old funky buildings in Downtown Los Angeles sometime. The Pacific Mutual building next to the Biltmore has a lobby that cost some 21 million dollars to build back in 1914. All hand-carved Italian marble, shipped over from Italy. Some pass by and think of it as an old wreck, but when I first saw it, it took my breath away. Such precision, and no computers or fancy machines to do it. We've lost that sense of craft along with the time, skill and money to make it.

I suspect that you are sentimental, and that part of the beauty is in imagining the history of places. This does give hope. Some marvelous old buildings were never intended to be much of anything, yet with age and the addition of history, they have a soul to them. You may see that soul in a way that speaks louder than the status of the building.

Some of the most interesting buildings were built in the depression. The good news is that if we get another one, there could be some great works once again. The bad news is that well, it won't be a picnic!

Take heart though, as much as it seems that some good old days are gone, these days ARE the good days and whether we like the current style or not, it will find its place too. There are some nice new structures around to photograph too although you might get arrested if you use a tripod or a Sinar P2.

Hmm, why not build a wonderful home, and then invite me over to photograph it? <big grin>

[Frank Petronio]

A couple of years ago I did a big publicity project for the new construction of Frank Lloyd Wright's Blue Sky Mausoleum in Buffalo. I learned more than I ever needed to about FLW and his disciples. Certainly he was a brilliant architect. But I wouldn't live in one of his designs - much less spend eternity in one.

At the site of his largest Buffalo residential design - the Darwin Martin House - they have planned a new modern building to provide museum and admin functions. Hired a famous architect. And she designed it to mirror the Darwin Martin roofline. In reverse. That's right - an inverted, sunken roof. With the lowest point in the center of the structure. IN BUFFALO.

I'm sure they wil spend millions, use painstaking craftsmanship, etc. -- but the form versus function debate comes first doesn't it? As much as I enjoy things like the Lloyds building in London, I wouldn't want to own/maintain the thing.

[Joseph O'Neil]

In addition to shooting 4x5, I'm also chair of the local heritage committee for my city - at least until the end of the year, then somebody else takes thier turn.

One reason I got involved is because so many newer buildings - starting around the 1970s and onwards - are totally deviod of any sense of style, asthetics, beauty, etc. I often use the example of the move "2001: A Space Odyssey" of how a whole generation of architects must of fallen in love witht eh giant black monolith from that movie, because so many office towers and apartment buildings are bascially poured concrete monoliths totaly devoid of any life or inspiration on the outside.

Another telling feature about today's world - one project where I was asking if a contractor could preserve or replace some heritage features on a rebuild of an older building, the architect told me they could "no longer make that moulding". We have thousands of new building materials that architects of 100 years ago could not even dream of, we have CAD programs, we have power machines and power tools (some of those old houses had basements all dug by hand) and yet, we cannot reproduce a moulding that was planed by hand 120 years ago. Maybe this is or is not true, but the point that bothers me is the attitude that it cannot be done.

Another issue I see is the poor quality of some newer building materials used not just today, but starting back int he 1960's. Without exaggeration, i have seen first hand, examples of buildings contructed over 100 years ago in better strutural shape than houses built just 25 or 30 years ago. I am not tlaking about wiring or wall board, but basics like roof trusses, cracks in foundations, etc. Pride in workmanship, pride in quality and beauty of product seems to be a lost art, and laughable attitude amoung modern day thinking.

My point is that 100 years from now, I see very few buildings from our current generation / time period suriving while there will be more buildings from the early 1900 around still. This in itself may be a good or bad thing, but the commentary on our current generation, that we, with all our current technologial advances, cannot produce quality and beauty equal to or better than buildings from 70, 80 or 100 years ago is to me, a very sad commentary on the state of modern society in general.

So yes, when backing in urban settings with my 4x5 feild camera, I find the older residential neighbourhoods - the ones that actually have sidewalks, the ones where the two or three car garage is NOT the most noticeable architectual feature, the ones where even when you have a row of houses all built by the same company around WW One and yet each house still has distinct features and not the "clone" look, yes, I find older buildings still more interesting to photograph.

There are excpetions here, and in every city of modern sites and modern buildings that deserve to be photographed, but that's exactly what they are - exceptions, not the norm.

Keep shooting guys, given the horrific archival quality of most forms of modern media (remember, I am looking at this from the point of view as a historian/preservationist - something that will last 100 or 200 years, not 10-20 years) , your B&W prints and negatives might be the only thing around 100 years from now to remind a people of a lost generation.

joe

[jj_4045]

A book that might interest you:

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built (Paperback)
by Stewart Brand

[Henry Ambrose]

I thought I was about the only one who noticed.

"They want it to match a laundry list of saleable features. It's got to have the square footage, the doors, the utilities - if it looks nice to someone it's because of the cheap-ass crown molding someone stapled to the ceilings and the pseudo grecian plaster columns taped (almost!) to the front entry."

Commercial buildings clad in fake stucco panels are rampant, complete with the stapled on moldings and columns. They just make me want to scream.

The absolute low point for me are false details that echo or try to replicate the look of structural elements - that aren't structural anymore. Fake brackets under a roof overhang or fake ceiling beams for example. Ornamenting is one thing but there's nothing as tacky as a faked up Victorian or Craftsman style house showing what used to be examples of craft or structure but are now molded plastic.

And then there are the ubiquitous power lines strung through the air and transformers positioned on the only good sight line to the building. Anything to save a dollar. I had one job where they put the dumpster enclosure out front in the parking area. Plenty of room around back but noooo.........

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Just a thought,

They took the dollar off the gold standard in 1973, didn't they. Before this a group of investors could pool their money, build the building to last forever, take the tax deductions for the life of the building, then sell it back to themselves for a dollar and still have a building that was worth the original price to rent or sell.

They took the dollar off the gold standard and major building STOPPED in the US in 1973, didn't it. There was noway to know the final cost of the project, the tax benefits or the final sale price with a floating dollar so the investment money stayed invested elsewhere. This forced a new, false economy onto building and architecture. Choices had to be made and it's the bottom line that counts.

Looking at floor plans it is suprising much wasted space and bad traffic flow has ALWAYS been employed in designs. The only excuse for 'strip malls' I can think of would be 'smoke and mirrors' with the financing, no one can actually have ALL their taste in their mouth, can they?

[Michael Alpert]

John,

Some would say that architecture and culture are two sides of the same coin. Your question about form and function has been central to architecture for a long time, as I am sure you know. The specific problem of look-alike buildings has a long and sordid history. There is a book of Louis Kahn's written (and/or spoken) work, entitled "Writings, Lectures, Interviews," in which he addresses this issue with great intelligence. The book is repetitious, reproducing Kahn's words without much editing. With that caveat, Kahn's perspective on architecture and life is well worth reading.