Imitation and the ‘Creative Genius’ Lucien Steil
London, Spitalfields area (photo by Lucien Steil)
Architects and builders were not more creative in the past than in modern times, nor more intelligent, but they seem to have been smarter in some ways, and some time in many ways .. . The main, very essential difference though is that they did not try, or feel they had to be ‘creative geniuses’. They were not under pressure to be exciting and innovative at every moment of their career. Today on the other hand everyone seems obliged to be striking or ‘innovative’ and compulsively ‘unique’ and many like to be
considered as genial, inventive, special, with an unequaled and mesmerizing personality, stunning charisma and creativity. The unprecedented claim for an infinite realm of personal ego worth of ‘stardom’ and a limitless ambition of inventiveness, creativity and subjective self-expression is not only tragic, frustrating, sad, but utterly pathetic. It is a definite set-up for failure, anxiety and unhappiness and above all a recipe for systematic cultural imposture. It favors a cultish ‘hubris’ of the super-creator as much as it mistakes schools for incubators of competition, creativity and talent rather than places of learning.. What is usually celebrated is arbitrary, transgressive, or boringly minimalist and conceptual, and more often than not meaningless architecturally, often nonsense. It seems almost we have all become part of a neverending ‘reality show’ distracting all of us from the ‘normality’ and ‘normative’, and exacerbating the ‘iconoclastic’ and ‘iconic’. Professionals and students alike suffer however from a contingency of imagination and a strangled use of visual memory. They have to cope with the trauma of a bottomless, uninspired, undefined and openend creativity culture, and they cope poorly with it! The mind thus turns naturally to hysteria and panic, depression and megalomania and often ends in the combined interaction of all of these mental states resulting in one of the saddest and ugliest culture of building ever experienced in mankind’s history! Strangely enough the full steam on genius and high winds on unchained self- expression and ‘new subjectivity’ have killed off imagination and poetry, feeling and sensuality, as well as reason and purpose, almost simultaneously alas, on the great battlefield of ‘modernity and contemporaneity’.
At many schools of architecture students are coached, challenged, fired up, terrorized and mystified, but not taught, and they are rushed into inventing and experimenting as if they were all without exception extraordinary and exceptional geniuses with innate divine capacities of vision, imagination and creation or as if just by random or arbitrary ‘bricolage’ the algorithm of ‘newness’, the gravity equation of ‘novelty’ and of so-called ‘originality’ were to be infallibly guaranteed. . This dysfunctional and naive pedagogy obviously ignores the true ‘genius’ of many centuries of great craftsmanship, architecture and urbanism: It is beyond doubt that good cities and good architecture were mostly always produced with rigorous, rational and good education in humanities and building trades, geometry, drawing, studies of precedent, classical proportions and traditional building technologies and tectonics, apprenticeship and
training, etc. They were invented, developed and built by generations of wonderfully anonymous craftsmen, ‘Baumeister’ , architects, ‘dilettantes’ and engineers. They relied on copy, imitation and emulation based on the best and most excellent, time-tested and successful precedents, models and types available in literature, building documents and more often built in local or regional context.
Luxembourg City, Promenade de la Corniche (photo by Lucien Steil)
Now our modernist colleagues have no interest in ‘precedent’ and the study of successful exemplars of architecture and urbanism in history and present, preferring the gaze into the future hoping the unused potentials of massive contemporary genius will prevail and improvisation will randomly lead to emulation and excellence, if not eternal truth.. The clean slate, the “Tabula Rasa” and the obsessiveness of ‘novelty’ and of ‘transgression’ remain the dominant imperatives of contemporary architectural creation. For the modernist architects nothing is more valuable than their own personal
fixation on the drama of self-expression, the torments of ‘creativity’ and the tragic quest for modernity. Dressed up in their black and austere outfits modernist architects and artists have forgotten about the sweetness of the ‘Muses’ and have given up on the ‘Citta Felice’ as much as on harmonious, beautiful and comfortable architecture to serve, elevate and delight human communities.
The whole world seems but a battlefield of competitive and often bitter creativity and experimentation for the sake of experimentation, always seen from a narrow perspective of a tyrannical and frivolous ‘Zeitgeist’, compulsive novelty, purposeless innovation and individual genius ! Now how do the infinite legions of contemporary geniuses account for an apparent lack of convincing evidence of success and popularity in their design and rebuilding of the modern world? Where is the ‘piazza San Marco’ of modernism, where is the St. Peter’s of ‘Deconstructivism’, and did Modernism ever produce even a happy small town as the adorable little Pienza? How do modernist activists then morally cope with their failure to build desirable, sustainable and beautiful buildings and cities? How do they explain their indifference to beauty, happiness and true citizenship? Do they care at all?
What others do, think and love is not important to the fervent missionaries and zealots of architectural modernism. The task they consider most important is a mission of radical and constant change, of transgression and of challenge enhancing and encompassing the ruthless speed of change, sacrifices and transfiguration of modernism. - They certainly cannot spend time wondering about nostalgia and of the resilience of romantic images of the past, as do a majority of people forced to live in their buildings and spaces! Thrown into the patterns of industrial modernism, functional and social disruption, aesthetical anarchy and cultural deconstruction their lives cannot but gravitate to hopes of redemption from modernism. Modernist architects, planners and urbanists continue however to imagine, design and build sad and depressing environments where nobody wants to live, and where nobody deserves to live. Their combination of a ‘creative’ banality-mediocrity, of ugly ‘originality’, of deconstruction, of minimalist misery, and of ‘parametricist’ non-sense have created pathologies and architectural monsters difficult to explain or to understand. The overall rejection of ‘imitative’ strategies based on time-tested precedents have made real
excellence and meaningful ‘wholeness’ impossible. How could any type of enduring, sophisticated and civilized culture start from what seems an utterly absurd, fragmented and unhappy legacy?
What's wrong with ‘modern’ architects? They possess skills, intelligence, culture
(probably as much as designers and builders
of the past), have idealism, sensitivity, dedication and can access huge databanks of scientific, technical and artistic knowledge (more than any generation of artists in history). Yet really what more can they achieve after almost 100 years of trials and errors, and above all what else do they want to achieve? They often put all their efforts to ruin the very art they claim to serve, ignoring the aspirations of people, and even repressing their own feelings towards home, community and place. They often gave up on many of their historic professional skills and seem to be torn apart by conflicting ideologies* and aspirations.
They seem unwilling or incompetent to compose culturally, organically, ecologically, architecturally, etc., with existing communities, landscapes, cities and buildings…Their suffering is terrible but self-inflicted and unnecessary, -they keep trying, persisting aloofly, and yet they continue to fail because they are no longer concerned with the realm of architecture, nor interested to build durable, successful and popular places and buildings.. They feel entitled to be the heralds of modernity and the heroes of a tortured and tormented modern world, compelled to celebrate and brood upon unpopular doctrines and experimentations of built forms and spaces. Rather than offering the healing expertise and artistic emulation of the architect, they become a driving force of the dissolution, deconstruction dissociation and fragmentation of our built and natural environment. They have come to fight the very core values of architecture itself, the substantial principles of ‘Firmitas, Commoditas, Venustas’ as outlined by Roman architect Vitruvius and contributed ultimately not to a better architecture but to the ‘absence of architecture’ in large parts of the contemporary world.
Modern architects are trapped in a ferocious dilemma: they act as “artistes maudits”, unwilling to deal with conventions, public taste and common sense, which they regard as petty bourgeois, kitsch or dishonest. On the other side, they claim social and
democratic principles to rationalize, standardize and/ or trivialize and fragment the human environment with a widely unpopular aesthetic of industrialized and synthetic products, unsustainable and unhealthy building materials and methods, and disruptive incomprehensible scales, types and forms of construction . They refer to the artistic and cultural freedom and autonomy of the modern architect, to the genius of the creator and artist, but do not hesitate to confine the cultural diversity, ingenuity and freedom of citizens in a despotic way! They blame traditional architecture to have served authoritarian politics and repressive regimes in history but do not feel any scruples in serving all contemporary dictatorships and undemocratic regimes throughout the whole world with modernist icons designed by a handful of ‘star-architects’, and participate uncritically to a vast production system of a most depressing, destructive and unsustainable global suburbia. Their work often empowers corporations, big institutions and obscure political regimes and disempowers local citizens, inhabitants, neighbourhood associations, etc.
With no or little respect for historical conventions and cultural traditions, the modern architect imposes a built environment claiming the legitimacy of a historical mission. Rejecting the value of historical culture and precedent and criticizing classicists to ‘turn back the wheel of history’ he has come to suggest to embodying the spirit of history himself. Not having learnt from history he believes that history has to learn from him!
Endeavouring integration and harmony is considered to be a treason; the learning from the existing communities, places and buildings as well as the analysis of principles of historic cities and architecture are regarded as a matter of irrelevant amateurism! Even if today’s modernist architects were as skilled, competent and able as architects from the past centuries they seem to unfortunately insist to demonstrate the contrary. They do refuse, often arrogantly, to engage with urban and architectural issues sensitive to social and urban contexts, they refuse the time-tested traditions of urbanism and contextual architecture and they often ignore even the best achievements of the ‘modern tradition’ (and its social and cultural ideals) and contemporary precedents, a culture of modernity to which they pretend to belong.
Luxembourg, Pole Nord Building: because the demolished historical building at this location was called ‘Pole Nord’ the architects thought that making their building look like a piece of ice was a stroke of genius.(photo by Lucien Steil)
Looking at the designs of modernist colleagues, I don’t envy them for their fame and commissions and often feel compassion when I see their grim faces and sad expressions. I wonder whether they know the joys of ‘disegno’, or ‘inventio’ and the delight to interact with empowered communities and happy citizens to share a vision, to craft buildings and places where people can find meaning, identity and continuity, and above all pride of place.! It always surprises me how distant the many joyless, depressing plans and uninspiring visions and projects are from true human concerns, desires and needs, and how artificially moralistic, puritan and abstract the philosophical and theoretical views really are.. and how brutal above all when they get built. - Why, should we continue to ask, why have they have forgotten or abandoned the principles of ‘the good life’ and the virtues of citizenship?
It seems to me that architects from the past were happier and so were their patrons, and all people pleased and inspired with their work. They regarded themselves as
modern, organically ‘contemporary’, without necessarily thinking of modernity as a quality in itself. In fact, is modernity not simply the consciousness and positive acknowledgment of a present historical situation and its specific sensitivity and character? Is it not rather, the positive feeling, intuition and expression of a single and unique present which every great culture experiences in its moments of intense cultural and artistic creativity? We should hence avoid granting an absolute and universal value to modernity: aesthetically, morally, stylistically, politically and culturally. Modernity is not the sole privilege of the 20th century avant-garde or of any vanguard or cultural and historical ‘rear-guard’. Every culture owns its modernity in moments where it is most in unison with both its time and with the universe according to Hassan Fathy.
Luxembourg City, View towards the Faubourg du Grund (photo by Lucien Steil)
Why have the most beautiful cities in history been built, rebuilt, transformed and enlarged in such a fine way over many centuries? Why has architecture been so comfortable, pleasing and acclaimed? Why have architecture and city-building been so much integral parts of a large popular culture while today they are being occulted as an elitist and esoteric ‘cult’ and ignored or shoulder shrugged upon by the general population? -There were certainly many reasons, but it seems to me that the happy,
harmonious and complex continuity and inventive development of cities and architecture was made possible by: -
1) The use of imitation as a creative method (Imitation of Nature) 2) The recognition of tradition as a living process that connects past, present and future. 3) The consciousness of humility of the individual in the cosmos and her/his acceptance of limitations (recognition of the sacred and the profane).
Imitation encompasses following aspects: -
Respect of the built environment and un-built heritage: this is the ‘nature of architecture’. The acknowledgement of the traditional city as an enrichment of nature and as the natural habitat of mankind The translation of physical and moral characteristics of places and buildings and the phenomena of tectonics in a conventional architectural invention. The articulation of the sensual, moral and abstract principles of nature , through constructions and materials in an ecological, logical, consistent and significant building that adapts harmoniously to a specific context.
Imitation is not codified as a building regulation but as a poetical and artistic sum of principles. It has a lot of trust in the individual designer providing him with a wide field for imagination, invention and experimentation within a system of natural laws. Innovation is possible within imitation and occurs when necessary and useful. It proves to be almost out of reach within both the rigid and authoritarian architectural, urban, construction and technical codes, and the anarchic, arbitrary and iconoclastic design wilderness of academy; innovation would then become a mere matter of stylistic appearance and of symbolic gesticulation. Originality It does not ask for the absolute newness and contradiction, or a fanciful, weird and strange, mostly superficial innovative form or content of a creation. It is the sound creation from the essence of the original. Hence the issue is not the sensational feeling of the unprecedented, but the quest for, - essential values and their meaning, - unprejudiced creation that depends on an understanding of the original, and ultimately the essence, the nature of a thing. According to Mircea Eliade, every
creation is a reproduction of the ‘original creation’. Martin Heidegger also perfectly states that the nature of a thing can be found in its origin. If only originality was understood this way, modern architecture would be much more exciting and acceptable, for it would be part of a universal creation which is understood and sensed as a harmonious unity of nature and culture, and of sacred and profane. Pastiche/ copy/ imitation Architecture that refers to traditions and that is committed to contextual issues and integration is often regarded as pastiche. It is true that many an attempt to recreate an architectural integration based on traditional precedents may become trivial and superficial, and even ‘kitsch’, but this is equally true for the many ‘faux’ modernist replicas and interpretations. The ‘culture of fake’ is a deeply rooted disease in our modern building production and it is due obviously to the phenomena of mass production and industrialized building materials and technologies. It is due in large part to changing design paradigms in architecture from ‘The Imitation of Nature’ to ‘The Imitation of the Machine’ Definition of a copy A copy is a consistent, complete and precise reproduction of something. Definition of pastiche It is a superficial and approximate interpretation of something; it is an impressionistic reflection of a copy. Definition of imitation An invention of something new, based on the principles of ‘Imitation of Nature’, and of selected precedents from a historical urban and architectural culture and its memory of built and unbuilt legacy. *On one hand an interest in ‘sustainable’ human cultures and ecological and environmental concerns, urban cultures, political pluralism and tolerance, and refined living, but on the other one no compassion for architectural and artistic pluralism, traditional art and architecture and popular feelings. Modernists have no problem to openly admit that they prefer classical music but consider classical architecture outdated, if not politically inacceptable. They like vernacular architecture in exotic countries or as a style for their own country houses but reject local vernacular architecture as a reference for contemporary creation and other people’s country homes.