Truth & Style

By Oliver Cassidy

The practise of architecture can be boiled-down to a long series of decisions. At every turn, we make choices. We choose where to place rooms and how to create openings, we choose the width of floor tiles and the colour of paint. No element of a building is created through chance. This decision-making process is influenced by a great number of factors: locality, client, available resources, public opinion and planning to name a few. Every time an architect makes a design decision they reflect these factors as well as their personal philosophies, logics and beliefs. In each decision they make, the architect weighs up all the factors and places value on them as they see fit.

The resulting building will reflect each one of these choices and, as a whole, the architect’s fundamental ideologies. We are then able to judge, both consciously and subconsciously, the motives and priorities of the architect which in turn allows us to determine whether we like the building. Alain de Botton relates the idea to concepts of beauty: “A feeling of beauty is a sign that we have come upon a material articulation of certain of our ideas of a good life.” Our initial reaction to a building is also a judgement we place on the principles on which its design was based.

The same is equally true on a macro level as well as micro. Just as an individual architect’s work allows us to judge their philosophies, a group of buildings of the same style speaks of the creators’ collective conscience (i.e. a modern building embodies modernist principles). These broad stylistic trends are the result of more powerful political and social forces which can shape architecture for decades. This explains our like or dislike of certain styles; the ideals of a style we dislike are normally at odds with our own beliefs.

For this reason, people with socialist leanings will dislike the international style. Its faceless, mirrored-glass homogeneity represents an indifference to its locality. The choice of the designer to show nothing of what happens inside reflects the detachment of the corporations from the viewer of the building. The people feel this and, consequently, dislike it. In this way style transcends aesthetics alone.

Sometimes, however, great architecture can overcome our stylistic leanings and certain buildings can win us over in forms that we would not normally expect. This happens when a building’s logic of design process is so clear that its designer’s motives are easily understood; a building which is so true to the philosophies of its decision-making that its outcome is a pure representation. This is something which can be appreciated by everyone. When every aspect of a building is designed following the same principles there are no contradictions: the creative expression becomes clear, this above all is what we value in architecture.

This may be why the classic works of architecture are so widelyappreciated. Although most of us would never design in the specific style of masters like Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies Van Der Rohe their work is still appreciated for being a pure representation of its’ style; for being a perfect picture of the values they held. In each of theirs works and all the masters’ work there is an unashamed devotion to each of their principles. The devotion is such that we ignore any flaws and focus on sacrifices made for these beliefs.

It seems that truth is the prevailing trait in great architecture. Just as we appreciate integrity as a characteristic in people; we find hypocritical buildings, whose features contradict each other, to be the most offensive. When visions become muddled and unclear a building loses its vigour. It seems that style should be an unconscious decision: in following a philosophy diligently, one is truthful to its values and a building of integrity is created. It will transcend aesthetic style and have universal value as an emblem of truth.

By Zeid Truscott