Contents
Introduction Subcultures Bullshit-ism Fashion & Feeling Conclusion Bibliography & References
O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive 1 ~ Sir Walter Scott
01 | Introduction In this critical text analysis I will look at the deceiving archetypes that Diane Ghirardo puts forward in her "the architecture of deceit" essay. I will break down the main points she has established within the essay, looking at various approaches to architecture such as fashion, feeling, art and how this is perceived by critics. These aspects of architecture can be combined into three abstracts; Subcultures I will highlight how the urban landscape can create a deception between the architectonics and sociopolitical issues by looking at the cityscape of Manchester. I will look at the interactions that arise when dealing with natural and artificial models of urban design. Bullshit-ism I will combine design with the value of architecture that critics diminish and the lack of importance this has on the reality of the situation and how little will change regardless of a critical opinion. I will also look at how architecture can be an evasive mechanism and how architects avoid confrontation of real issues and sometimes choose the safer option. I will also look at the flipside of this and show examples of architecture that directly relates to issues within its surroundings. Fashion & Feeling I will also look at fashion within the architectural world and how matters of taste can develop and change considerably but also how some masterpieces become timeless. I will show how this relates to looking at architecture as an art. Through experience I will look at the feelings of spaces and how this harmonious effect translates into an evasive fashion and how this phenomenological approach to architecture is the current bases of philosophy that stands today. 01
Aids plagued our Urban streets Our poverty-stricken young ladies giving birth to Crack Babies Then America's media went completely crazy The upper-class blaming it on the Child Abuse Domestic Violence The Heroine use 2 ~ Christina Sanford
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02 | Subcultures It is apparent that Ghirardo feels that the class system has created social divides within the urban environment in a literal and metaphoric way, as mentioned in the introduction to her essay "working class districts are most sharply separated from the parts of the city reserved for the middle classes." 3. Using Manchester as an example she describes how the experience of walking through the city can differ depending on the reason for being there; whether that may be for work or for leisure, "one confines himself to his business affairs" 4. She also introduces the idea that "Manchester's aristocracy can travel from their luxury residences to their places of business in the centre of town by the shortest route , running through all the working class districts, without even noticing how close they are to the most squalid misery that lies immediately around them on both sides of the main streets, which exchange in all directions almost uninterruptedly by shops." 5. David Gosling and Barry Maitland debate along a similar line that the city is an extremely complex phenomenon whose problems interact in complex ways; there is often a fundamental disagreement about the nature of these problems and the whole picture is continually undergoing changes. 6 The interaction of the middle classes within Manchester occurred almost by accident, this is due to the fact that by and large the workers lived near and around their workplace, and the wealthy lived a few miles outside the city in their garden suburbs. Houses were "jerry" built, without control or regulation of any kind. Builders, usually the employer, would build so as to cram as many houses as possible into the space available. There was no water or services, and no attempt to provide privacy of any kind. 7
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02 | Subcultures This "slap-dash" approach to housing for the working class masses combined with the rationalised districts of the wealthy gave birth to the complex geometries and interactions we can see today in Manchester as well as other aristocratic cities in the United Kingdom. It is apparent that within working class societies distinctive activities and focal concerns of groups can breed identifiable cultures through territorial spaces which differentiate them from the wider culture. These "sub-sets" form a coherent identity and structure, usually these tightly-defined groups are distinguished by age and generations (youth cultures). Youth subcultures form the terrain of social and cultural life. The peculiar dress style, focal concerns of the teddy boy, the mod, the rocker or the skinhead set them off as distinctive groupings, both from the diffused patterns exhibited by the "ordinary" working class. Through dress, activities, leisure pursuits and life-style, they may project a different cultural response or "solution" to the problems posed for them by their material and social class position. 8 (Clarke, pp.100) The subcultures I have mentioned are social answers to the underlying political issues, this is due to the way in which the city of Manchester has been sculptured. It is clear that the working and middle classes were designed with two different models in mind these are commonly described as artificial and natural models, words such as "new" and "modern" are often associated with the former even though these models have been established for hundreds of years. The interaction of these urban models is where the character of Manchester and other cities is derived. It is the combination of these systems that produce a harmonious effect , a balance between working as a technician and artist, it is illustrating qualities of enclosure, grouping and effective composition. 05
02 | Subcultures Principle routes could be established between these points and finally intervening areas set out with worthwhile irregularities in the street pattern which are needed to overcome the banal and all-pervasive symmetry of the drawing board. Subcultures by definition, cannot break out of the contradiction derived from the parent culture, it merely transcribes its terms of a micro social level and inscribes them on an imaginary set of relations. 9 It is by no accident then that a social network plan (metaphoric membrane) could mirror that of the civilised urban plan (physical world) as shown in the following images. Architecture and urban design is not only essential for understanding the political and cultural development of Manchester, but it has played a critical role in shaping the cities society, culture and politics.
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"I'm all in favour of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." 10 ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
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03 | Bullshit-ism Criticism in any field, whether it be architecture, art, theatre, film, music, dance, television or whatever, is written for the consumers, not the practitioners, of that field. The relationship of architecture criticism in the media to the architecture profession itself, the people who walk past buildings in the city, the politicians and the people who figure out how to finance things and the people who yearn to have things - they are all the audience, not the architects themselves. It is not written for them, that they are not the audience. How much does criticism matter? That's the question underlying everything, of course, the one most people, or at least most architecture critics, tend to be afraid to confront directly, for fear that the answer is going to be, not very much. It doesn't change the world; it doesn't heal the sick, or feed the hungry. It doesn't even change the nature of architecture all that much. If the theatre critic of The New York Times doesn't like a Broadway show, it may well close. Nobody tears down a building if the architecture critic doesn't like it. Architectural critic Trevor Broddy points out that "Architectural criticism that calls itself “theory� is carried on only in universities and art galleries, rarely affecting the actual design of buildings or the physical evolution of cities." 11 As Diane Ghirardo mentions in the sub category "the critic's complicity" "critics diminish interest in anything else...and turns architecture into harmless but ultimately and consumable artefact." 12 Ghirardo also raises some provocative questions. For Kate Nesbitt, Ghirardo sees architecture's role as art or service, she believes Ghirardo says it's the latter and adopts a critical position demanding political and social responsibility. Nesbitt also suggests that architects need to question the politics of building: who builds what, where, for whom and for what price, to not question authority for Ghirardo is to be 09
03 | Bullshit-ism complicit with the status quo. 13 In the sub category "architecture and evasive maneuverability" it is apparent that Ghirardo feels that architects are almost forced to avoid real issues by the power structures of politics and other moneyed interests. As Ghirardo points out "to do otherwise might entail opening a Pandora's box of far more complicated issues" 14. One of the issues Ghirardo points out "racism, and white flight" is one that politicians and architects alike hide from. In Switzerland just over a year ago there were some controversial issues regarding the building of minarets for mosques, minarets are distinctive architectural features of Islamic mosques- generally tall spires with onion-shaped or conical crowns, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure; the basic form includes a base, shaft, and gallery. They help identify a mosque and also serve as a spot where a religious leader can call the faithful to daily prayers. 15 The Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) adopted a referendum banning the construction of minarets, seen by some on the far right as a sign of encroaching Islamism. The SVP say the minarets are political symbols and therefore go against the country's constitution. 16 They designed fliers that feature a veiled woman against a background of a Swiss flag pierced by several minarets resembling missiles, as shown on the next page 17. amazingly 57% of voters had cast ballots in favour of the ban.
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03 | Bullshit-ism Politics dictating architecture is nothing new; as Ghirardo points out in the sub category "architecture as art", "modernists who associated their architecture with radical opposition to existing political and social systems; at the same time they lament the fate of the modern movement under the totalitarian pressures of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany." 18 These unrealistic utopian aspirations of the early European modernists, were seen at the time as solutions to shaping the social realities, you would have to be naive to believe that a world like "a Walt Disney movie: soothing in the promise of happy endings, simplified with clear-cut villains and heroes" 19 exists, as Ghirardo points out "nowhere is this more grotesquely apparent than in the tenements of the South Bronx in New York." 20 Ghirardo highlights how this area of the Bronx is dealt with saying that " socially troubled, abandoned and physically scarred public housing projects by spending thousands of dollars to replace broken and boarded up windows" 21. A similar technique of disguising the true problems underlying in the community has been adopted in my home town of Liverpool, where the houses on both sides of the main route into Liverpool have been boarded up with cultural images representing Liverpool's history and the future brought by the capital of culture status.
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Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. 22 ~ Oscar Wilde
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04 | Fashion & Feeling Ghirardo approaches the post-war period from two architectural positions; contemporary architecture and the attitude adopted by radical architects. During a time when the UK and America were recovering from the economic down turn of WWii, also known as the post-war period, architects attempted to build brave new worlds worthy of our journey into the space age and towards the new millennium "dreaming up new worlds to replace the old one" 23. Architecture of the 50s and 60s has long been despised. However, such architects; Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius are among few architects who attempted to reformulate the architecture's role in society. During the 70s in the United States architects turned to drawings - increasingly abstract renderings of their of own creativity. As Ghirardo says "these aesthetic indulgences simply masquerade as architecture. They reveal architects in full retreat from any involvement with the actual world of buildings." 24 Ghirardo argues that contemporary architecture has lost its feeling and suggests that another approach is necessary to "evade the trap of taste and fashion" 25 she puts forward Christopher Alexander's point that "the core of architecture is about feeling" he states that "natural and simple" designs evoke the more authentic emotional response and experience from users. Alexander also suggests that his ideal design would be "a harmonious work that feels absolutely comfortable - physically, emotionally, practically." 26 However, who are architects to decide what the users feel to be absolutely comfortable? Ghirardo agrees that "this group arrogates to itself the power to decide what you and I will find "authentic", "integrated", "natural" and "comfortable" this is almost a paradoxical discourse of contemporary fashion and as Ghirardo suggests " thus fashions the discipline's own neutron bomb" 27 015
04 | Fashion & Feeling A point which Peter St John (Caruso St John Architects) agrees with stating that "This seems both hopeless and pathetic. We prefer characteristic ugliness to calculated perfection." 28 For john to get away from an abstract or a diagrammatic architecture, and to get towards an architecture that is richly associative is a progression in the "right" direction. It is interesting then that this philosophical approach to architecture is the basis for the new pragmatist movement, of which is seen to be the progression of postmodernism, bringing us to our current "fashion". Pragmatism brings together elements that Christopher Alexander suggests but applying a more emotive action to the process of experience otherwise called phenomenology. This approach to architecture is moving away from the contemporary ideas which Ghirardo believe will leave nothing but the vacant buildings intact - empty bric-a-brac landscape in both style and substance. 29
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05 | Conclusion I conclude, that within the three interrelated topics that I have discussed in this essay that Ghirardo's view on architecture as a harmonious relationship between art, feeling and fashion is mired by a power structure of the critics and politicians as well as an architect's own resistance to create architecture of substance. I believe that the underlying argument that Ghirardo discusses is whether or not architecture of substance can truly exist in balance. I agree with Ghirardo in that "Only when architects, critics and historians accept the responsibility for building - in all of its ramifications - will we approach an architecture of substance" 30. I believe it is also true that architecture that surpasses a balance of social, political and ideological issues can and does become timeless. For example, the works achieved by some of the most famous architects of recent history Frank Ghery, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier all of which have different philosophical approaches to architecture but, to reiterate Ghirardo, have managed to transcend not only political, social and ideological contingencies, but their own time as well 31 It is also apparent that Ghirardo believes that critics play a vastly over-rated role in the realm of architecture in terms of what power they have politically and socially. However, a view which I agree on, is that essentially the difference between good and bad architecture boil down to merely matters of taste. A view which I personally find intriguing as there is no answer to.
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06 | Bibliography & References Books/journals/essays Clarke John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts, 'Subcultures, cultures and class', Routledge, 2005, pp.100-111 Cohen Phil, 'Subcultural Conflict and Working-class Community', Routledge, 2005 Ghirardo Diane, 'Chapter 2: The Architecture of Deceit'. In 'What is Architecture?', ed. A. Ballantyne, Oxon: Routledge, 2002, pp.63-71 Gosling David & Barry Maitland, 'Concepts of Urban Design', Academy Editions/St. Martin's press, 1984 Nesbitt Kate, 'Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995', Princeton Architectural Press, 1996 John Peter St, 'Shaping Earth' , the University of Wolverhampton, 2000, pp.78–81 Saad Gad, 'The evolutionary bases of consumption', Routledge, 2007 Sinclair Camaron, 'Architectural 'Intolerance' in Switzerland', [29.9.2009] Sir Walter Scott, ' Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field' (Canto vi, stanza xvii), J. Ballantyne and Co, 1808
06 | Bibliography & References Online
http://www.arcadejournal.com http://www.cs.virginia.edu http://www.etymonline.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com http://www.manchester2002-uk.com http://www.poemhunter.com http://www.spiegel.de
06 | Bibliography & References
1
Sir Walter Scott,' Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field' (Canto vi, stanza xvii), Edinburgh, Printed by J. Ballantyne and Co. For Archibald Constable and Company, 1808
2
Sanford Christina, 'The Hip-Hop Movement', http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hip-hop-movement/, 27.02.2007
3
Ghirardo Diane, 'Chapter 2: The Architecture of Deceit'. In 'What is Architecture?', ed. A. Ballantyne, Oxon: Routledge, 2002, p.63
4
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.63
5
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.63
6
Gosling David & Barry Maitland, 'Concepts of Urban Design', Academy Editions/St. Martin's press, 1984, p.9
7
John Moss, Work, Health, Housing and Working People in the City of Manchester, http://www.manchester2002-uk.com, [15.04.2009]
8
Clarke John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts. 'Subcultures, cultures and class', in 'The Subcultures Reader' ed. Ken Gelder & Sarah Thornton, [Routledge, 2005], p. 101
9
Cohen Phil, ' Subcultural Conflict and Working-class Community', in 'The Subcultures Reader' ed. Ken Gelder & Sarah Thornton, Routledge, 2005, pp. 90-99
06 | Bibliography & References
10
Robins Gabriel, http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/quotes.html, 1994
11
Broddy Trevor, 'The Conundrums of Architectural Critism', http://www.arcadejournal.com/public/IssueArticle.aspx?Volume=27&Issue=3&Article=294, 2004 12
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.63
13
Nesbitt Kate, 'Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995', Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, p.61
14
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.70
15
Harper Douglas, 'Online Etymology Dictionary', http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=minaret, 21.4. 2009
16
Sinclair Camaron, 'Architectural 'Intolerance' in Switzerland', http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cameron-sinclair/architectural-racismin-s_b_378766.html, 29.9.2009 17
'A Move to Ban Minarets in Europe'. http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-53250-3.html, 26.3.2009
18
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.66
06 | Bibliography & References
19
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.70
20
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.70
21
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.70
22
Saad Gad, 'The evolutionary bases of consumption', Routledge, 2007
23
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.66
24
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.67
25
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.68
26
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.68
27
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.68
28
John Peter St, 'Shaping Earth' , the University of Wolverhampton, 2000, p.78
29
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.68
06 | Bibliography & References
30
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.71
31
Ghirardo Diane, 'The Architecture of Deceit', p.64