Ambitious Architecture

AMBITIOUS ARCHITECTURE

Margarida M, Konig dos Santos > 786869 13 May 2013

Theoretical assignment Celebrating the Fringe: Designing the Exception 2013-2014

Juliette Bekkering & Sjef van Hoof 1

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4.1. AMBITIOUS ARCHITECTURE Margarida Konig dos Santos

Ambition is a trait present in all three books, The Craftsman by Richard Sennett, A Scientific Autobiography by Aldo Rossi and Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas. A common trait in these books is an understanding of what makes ambitious architecture. The understanding begins with the Architect and Ambition, then What Makes an Ambitious Architect, concluding with What is Ambitious Architecture employing the skyscraper as a concrete example. Through this essay, an interpretation of what it takes to succeed in this profession is gained and can subsequently be put to practice.

What is the difference between ambitious architecture and regular architecture?

Is ambition if not the origin of innovation? It leads us to reach the unreachable and strive to not only improve the world but also to achieve success.

ARCHITECT AND AMBITION Richard Sennett mentions the consequences of ambition in his book The Craftsman. It can drive us to seek the results we are looking for, without considering the impact it could have on the future. As an example he refers the creation of the atomic bomb by Oppenheimer, which resulted in the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps the impact of ambition in architecture is less destructive, but it nonetheless profoundly affects our society. Ambition creates risk, and yet there is no innovation without risk. “(...) motivation matters more than talent, and for a particular reason. The craftsman’s desire for quality poses a motivational danger: the obsession with getting things perfectly right may deform the work itself. We are more likely to fail as craftsman, I argue, due to our inability to organize obsession than because of our lack of ability.”

Richard Sennett, 2009, p.11.

Sennett differentiates the craftsman from a regular worker with the dedication the craftsman employs on his work. That can definitely be applied to the architect as well, is it not the architect that dedicates himself to good work instead of fast money the one with most chance of producing ambitious architecture? Obviously, for there to be ambitious architecture, there has to be a dedicated architect behind it.

A good building depends not only on the dedication of the architect, but also on the motivation of all the workers involved in its creation. Unmotivated, sloppy workers will not pay attention to the small details that often make the difference between a regular and an exceptional building.

Further more there are also the skills which play an important role on the quality of an object.

As an architect, the design process deeply affects the stability of the outcome. In his book, 2

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Richard Sennett cites architect Renzo Piano as an example of this process.

“You start by sketching, then you do a drawing, then you make a model, an then you go to reality - you go to the site - and then you go back to drawing. You build up a kind of circularity between drawing and making, and then back again.”

Renzo Piano cited in Richard Sennett, 2009, p.40.

As mentioned above, with the capitalism, there is a constant deadline on production, arousing the need to constantly juggle quality of an object with the time given for its creation. This situation is reinforced by Sennett, “The conflict between doing something right and getting it done has today an institutional setting (...)” (Richard Sennett, 2009, p.46.) after all, time is money and if someone is unable to perform in the allotted time schedule, there is always someone else who is. Although, this situation makes that it becomes even more difficult to earn money and doing something right, it does create a ‘natural selection’ of sorts. If you wish to become an architect renowned for good and innovative work, you can never stay idle, instead a constant curiosity about the profession is necessary. As seen by Renzo Piano, work that you love is not work but your life.

WHAT MAKES AN AMBITIOUS ARCHITECT “(...) architecture becomes the vehicle for an event we desire, whether or not it actually occurs; and in our desiring it, the event becomes something ‘progressive’ in the Hegelian sense. (...) it is for this reason that the dimensions of a table or a house are very important - not, as the functionalists thought, because they carry out a determined function, but because they permit other functions” Aldo Rossi, 1981, p.3.

Just as Aldo Rossi defends, there is never a ‘the end’ to great architecture, instead it arouses more questions, more interests, more possibilities. In our progress through architecture school, there are several buildings we continuously study through history, and even though millions of people study and discuss them, we are still intrigued by them. Is it then that great buildings elicit questions instead of answering them? Or perhaps it both elicits and answers questions?

It seems that there were many buildings which had this effect in Rossi.

“I linger in these places, trying to grasp the possibilities of the architecture, measuring the spaces, noting the placement of the atrium, the stairs, the stages, which become modified in the various expansions or compressions of the distances between the parts.

Scarcely do we experience a sense of largeness than we realize the deception of the proportions, just as we comprehend that the different elements in the work are woven strangely together, illuminating one another. Perhaps the magic of the theatre especially resides in the mixture of suggestion and reality.”

Aldo Rossi, 1981, p.30, 33.

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In Rossi’s book A Scientific Autobiography he mentions how his memories from childhood and his travels through the south of Europe influenced his own designs. He also includes everything an architect does, all the choices in life, experiences and reactions affect how he/she will respond to the challenges of the design process. Does every architect have the possibility to create ambitious architecture?

“Today if I were to talk about architecture, I would say that it is a ritual rather than a creative process. I say this fully understanding the bitterness and the comfort of the ritual.

Rituals give us the comfort of continuity, of repetition, compelling us to an oblique forgetfulness, allowing us to live with every change which, because of its inability to evolve, constitutes a destruction.”

Aldo Rossi, 1981, p.37.

The way Rossi talks about architecture as a ritual brings to mind Sennett’s mentioning of the ten thousand hours of experience to master a skill. They both realize that a certain routine to craftsmanship is necessary for creativity. When an architect has reached a working method, as in mastered a sketching style, the software and techniques necessary for both technical drawing and visualization and the communication skills to sell his ideas, then he/she reaches the possibility of new concepts and innovation. However it isn’t just the creative and technical skills that a great architect has to master, there has to be a constant awareness of social and political situations. Thus, only the eternally curious and studious architect has a chance at creating ambitious architecture.

After all, that is how we are educated, our profession has such an impact on society that a mindfulness of the outside world is required.

“Architects and designers are trained in school to be creative and critical thinkers. We are shaped and moulded into being the purveyors of ideas that can have a positive influence not only on the built environment, but society in general. By the very skills and talents which architects and designers possess, we are inherent problem solvers.”

Doug Wingall. In: ArchDaily, 2013.

Knowledge of the past, awareness of the present and curiosity of the future come together when creating ambitious architecture. Merging our education and our experiences is a key element. Some buildings may last a decade, while others may last a century or more.

Therefore, the architect should not be selfish or self-centered. He builds for the community and with it transmits at that moment, consciously or not, messages and ideals which will have consequences.

“We have to be in these two orders of reality: we have to confront what we’ve lost and anticipate what’s ahead of us; that’s our brand of fatality... But it’s hard to understand because the idea of modernity is for all that the idea of a continuous dimension where 4

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it’s clear that the past and the future coexist... We ourselves may no longer be in that world - if we ever were! - for it may be no more a kind of apparition.”

Jean Baudrillard, Architecture: between nostalgia and anticipation. In: Francesco Proto, 2003, p.28-29.

WHAT IS AMBITIOUS ARCHITECTURE In the process of reaching ambitious architecture there is always the theoretical and experimental phase before the execution. An example of this phenomenon is the skyscraper in Manhattan.

Rem Koolhaas suggests that the development of Manhattan was a sort of architectural cannibalism in which the blocks evolve from nature, to farm, to buildings, to skyscrapers. There was such a frenzy with this new typology of the skyscraper, that you could see both architects and construction companies mindlessly building more and more tall buildings. The taller the better, as if in a race of whom could reach the sky first. This new concept to accommodate the exponential growth of urban population was such an innovation that it became a very sought after architectural monument. There was the evolution of the creation of wonder-like amusement parks in coney island in the beginning of the 20th century, to the fascination of a city sized attraction with monumental new buildings. Europe possesses historical remarkable cities like Venice, Rome, Paris, etc. and the New World possesses the skyscraper grid of Manhattan.

“In Manhattan’s Culture of Congestion, destruction is another word for preservation” Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.151.

There is the Waldorf-Astoria which went from a block divided in two mansions to a colossal ‘house’ to a massive new hotel typology. It became one of the skyscrapers. Besides it’s impact on the built environment (by becoming an example of the Culture of Congestion) it changed the habits of New York’s high society. “In such a hotel, ‘patrons, whether permanent or transient, could avail themselves not only of the usual living facilities in an ultramodern hotel but, in addition, of services that might readily enable them to expand and supplement their own living quarters, and so arrange for the occasional entertainment of their friends on an elaborate scale...’” (Lucius Boomer, cited in Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.144). New York’s crème de la crème did not require their urban and countryside mansions, but could all congest in this luxurious hotel where the rules of high society began their metamorphosis.

This evolution of the built environment and the urban use of Manhattan from theoretical concepts to successfully executed projects can be either acknowledged by the architect who develops the project as per the people who will study said project. Such is the nature of ambitious architecture, it is connected with nothing and everything.

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“All accept the skyscraper as something which serves human needs, but judge it differently as to the value of this service. All know that it has become the dominant feature of the structural composition of large American cities. But it is also to be the dominant feature in the social organization of all urban life in America?... If we attempt to answer this question we would have had to go deeper than we have dared to go in the Regional Survey and Plan...”

Hugh Ferris, The Building of the City, cited in Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.119.

The circumstances which created this possibility for new architectural typologies in Manhattan started not only due to the fact that it was a colony (therefore virgin terrain which could be planned according to the new urban typologies) but also due to the method they employed to divide the urban plots. In a way, the fact that a grid was employed from scratch forced a pre-division of building plots as an attempt of preventing urban chaos. Although this grid provided a sort of uniform plan, it also yielded a chance for architectural individualism.

Eventually, restrictions were created which made the use of familiar forms and styles impossible. Architects and constructors alike had to adapt to a new evolving typology, encountering simultaneously the impact of one block on the remaining urban grid. This leads to the possibility of exploring new vertical architectural possibilities.

“From 1904 Luna Park is a breeding ground for Towers, discovering in the clash of Towers the source of architectural drama. (...)

In 50 years the Tower has accumulated the meanings of: catalyst of consciousness, symbol of technological progress, maker of pleasure zones, subversive short-circuiter of convention and finally self-contained universe. Towers now indicate acute breaks in the homogeneous pattern of every-day life, marking the scattered outposts of a new culture.”

Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.93.

It is safe to say that in Koolhaas’s point of view the tower gave birth to the skyscraper concept.

If throughout history the tower has been used as beacon for a wide arrange of activities and motives, why not use it as an embodied reality of living desire. It created new possibilities and complications in modern city life. There was the chance of living and working in a new and improved reality above the overpowering present, and joining a darker side of the improved metropolis by ending ones life jumping from a beaconing monument.

But besides the typological inspiration, the culminating aspect of the creation of the skyscraper was the invention of the elevator by Elisha Otis.

“Manhattan is an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen.”

Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p. 27.

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The risks of these inventions were alarming, and yet without them there would be no extreme change in architecture. With the structural and vertical transportation resolved, other problems appeared such as outdoor spaces at high altitudes, thermal interior conditions, materials, sustainability, etc. “We will have to accept the skyscraper as inevitable and proceed to consider how it can be made healthy and beautiful...” (Hugh Ferris, The Building of the City, cited in Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.119.) These are problems for which architects are still researching solutions. Architecture is a never ending road of solutions resulting in more questions, and its ambition is in endeavouring to create more problems.

“Architecture is Manhattan’s new religion.”

Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.21.

With the creation of the skyscraper came a whole new city landscape. This happened due to ambitious architects, engineers, and constructors who came together to develop a new world and a new future. Ambition gives way to brighter future, without it we wouldn’t be where we are today. Meanwhile architecture plays a very important role in the future, especially as seen by Koolhaas. Manhattan is almost solely characterized by its buildings.

The following is another example of the part of architecture in the future of the city of New York.

“We see a city of sidewalks, arcaded within the building lines, and one story above the present street grade. We see bridges at all corners, the width of the arcades and with solid railings. We see the smaller parks of the city (of which we trust there will be many more than present) raised to this same side-walk arcade level... and the whole aspect becomes that of a very modernized Venice, a city of arcades, plazas and bridges, with canals for streets, only the canals will not be filled with real water but with freely flowing motor traffic, the sun glistening on the black tops of the cars and the buildings reflecting in this waving flood of rapidly rolling vehicles.”

Harvey Wiley Corbet, 1931, cited in Rem Koolhaas, 1994, p.123.

Reading this concept for Manhattan by Corbet, reminds the recent urban project, the High Line Park in Chelsea, New York. An attempt at providing with a green pedestrian route distanced from the unyielding constant city traffic. The concept was already there in the beginning of the 20th century, but was only developed in the early 21st century. It is considered a very successful and innovative project. This concept of separating pedestrians from traffic originated from this project.

So what is ambition in architecture? Are the skyscraper and the High Line Park generally considered ambitious undertakings?

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AMBITIOUS ARCHITECTURE VS REGULAR ARCHITECTURE AMBITION - the constant need to achieve greatness while remaining mindful of its impact in reality Ambitious architecture is not in a style or in a shape, it’s in the desire from the creator to its creation.

To achieve greatness the architect has to strive for it. Great architecture is a fruit of an ambitious architect. The future holds all the possibilities, we just have to ask the right questions without being afraid of the challenge in the answers. The risk is worth it due, not only to the achieved results, but also to the problems found in the creation and the inspiration to go further. As in the example of the Skyscraper and the High Line Park. The first being still nowadays an invention which continuously arises problems therefore providing innovative solutions to be applied in more than in architecture. And the second serves as a new structure to bring nature in the metropolis in a smart way by distancing from the traffic without taking away construction land, which has been a continuous problem in highly urbanized cities. The architect’s strive for solving society’s problems through the built environment is the ambition of the true architect, That is the difference between ambitious architecture and regular architecture, one can only be achieved by great minds and through a lot of hard work, while the other is a product of conformation in the existing reality.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS Sennett, R., 2009,The Craftsman, London: Penguin Books.

Rossi, A., 1981,A Scientific Autobiography, London: MIT Press.

Koolhaas, R., 1994,The Craftsman, USA: The Monacelli Press.

Proto, F., ed., 2003, Mass. Identity. Architecture.: Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard, England: Wiley-Academy.

WEBSITES ArchDaily, 2013, Where are the Architect Heroes? [online] Available at: < http://www.archdaily. com/364874> [Accessed 03 May 2013]

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