EQUALLY GENEROUS: AN EPILOGUE

‘Creative Allies’ is an astute and timely theme for the type of exposition of architectural culture that we see in annual iterations of the MacMag. It s a modest theme, yet both broadly descriptive and gently proscriptive. And that forthright, outspoken tone of those two latter qualities sits in lively and dynamic tension with the quiet determined tone of the former.

The notion of ‘Allies’ itself has had a rebirth for our epoch. Time has shorn it of its mid-20th century associations with the military and geopolitical power (WWII !), and it comes to us now redolent of humane support, the communal, the collaborative, the joint effort, the selfless help and the gift.

And that’s where the modesty comes in. No-one refers to architecture nowadays as ‘The Mother of all the Arts’ – Why would you? Quite apart from that sexist

Thus, the probing, at length in this issue of MacMag, of the ethico-aesthetics of how an architectural education has informed the further successful fine art career of Will Knight; the work in ceramics of Nancy Marrs; and the international interior design trajectory of Marco Emilio di Mario. Coupled with the engagements by year and tutor in questions of sustainability, environment, conservation, performance and social engagement, it all sets out an ad-hoc territory, like the Barras Market, which is improvised, open, incorporated in the everyday urban texture, receptive, humane and ready above all, for regular exchange. It’s only such an ambitious, frank and generous self-reflection on the scope of architecture in its engagements, as we see here, that can reveal strengths and limits, and open up to equally generous, understanding and promising engagements from creative allies. objectification of woman there, the daft idea, in this day of diversity, globalisation, intersectionality and multiculturalism, that architecture could stand as a matriarch, at the peak of some hierarchy, towering over a brood of minors, of less mature arts, is more laughable than despicable.

This year alone I’ve received research projects ranging from designing a space to host the micropolitics of communal eating in a retrofitted community facility, to a spatial study of the evolution of a queer venue on a tough street in the medieval heart of the city. That’s only a snapshot of the welcome broadening of contemporary concerns in the school oeuvre, and with that expansion of concern comes a new texture of sensitivity in the modes and approaches of the art and discipline of architecture, and a plasticity to its reach and receptivity.