From the editors
CALLING IT LIKE IT IS Words Christopher Clarkson This is a Bnieuws article, and you are reading it. I wrote this article because I’m being paid to and because I have obligations to the editorial board to do so; because it’s my job. The world is not often discussed in this way, because it’s not usually a very comforting outlook on the world. It can at times, as shown in my opening sentences, bleed the colours out of everything even remotely interesting. This article aims to do exactly this: ‘call architecture like it is’. But is architecture a defined thing- or can it be what you want to make of it?
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We live in a capitalist, consumerist society: people do things for money so they can afford to survive, and spend their money on stuff they think they want. Describing the world in this way is different, for example, to if I opened this article by saying: ‘I’m working for this magazine because I’m passionate about the idea of narration, and putting ideas to words and then words to paper so you can read it’ (which is the real reason why I do this); but I must confess, being paid is a pretty strong incentive on the days where I don’t feel particularly passionate about things. In dreams my designs are being constructed, and I walk through the load bearing construction before the façade has been mounted and anything is installed. Walking next to me is the supervising engineer. As we walk through my design, I - of course- marvel at its spatial qualities, and I’m simply ecstatic to be within a space that I designed. The engineer points to one end of the building and begins to explain that my design lacks stability, and just like that, the whole thing comes crashing down on us. In nightmares my world is in the familiar neutral grey abyss of Rhino 6. I am furiously trying to click points to create lines that make a detail; it seems to be coming together nicely, until I realise a fatal error,
and suddenly Rhino is crashing and my detail isn’t saved. You begin to realise what you’re doing to yourself physically and mentally once you start having nightmares set in Rhino. Am I doomed to be working in CAD programmes till 1am every day for the rest of my waking life, and then continue working in them during my sleep until 7am the next day? ‘What day is it?’ is a question I often find myself asking, and often multiple times in the same day. As I make myself yet another cup of Lipton’s Yellow Label I can’t help but think of J. Alfred Prufrock, measuring his life with coffee spoons… I suppose my life is being measured in teabags. “Have a teariffic day!” the yellow label says to me. What day is it, again? In real life my tutors tell me that “Architects are the prostitutes of the built environment.” And “10% of the work is creative if you’re lucky, 90% is managing, budgeting, following laws, correcting people’s mistakes, arguing, and making sure every line is where it’s supposed to be.” They advise cautiously, “Perhaps you should go into writing, or philosophy.” And I wonder myself sometimes: ‘What made you so sour hm? I will go and find out for myself, thank you very much.’ And I soldier on to my next lecture about climate installations, or to continue wrestling
