What is architecture?
Is architecture what architects do, make, think, believe? Boring old question and the answer is obviously not: architecture is possible without architects (whether these are defined by training or inclination). One doesn't even have to be a builder to produce architecture (as in vernacular traditions). It's probably safer to define architecture as a fundamental human tendency and capacity, similarly to poetry, music or technology: we need architecture to add meaning to the environments we construct and inhabit, to move beyond the basic yet critical achievement of shelter and accommodation. Architecture should be considered as a societal and cultural layer that architects service rather than determine. I've been told that only a minority of buildings is designed by architects, yet practically every building has architectural aspirations, for example decoration in a possibly recognisable architectural style.This doesn't make architects superfluous or irrelevant; they remain custodians of architecture, which gives them the opportunity to introduce and interpret, to redirect and safeguard - and they can do it, provide it they manage to avoid hubris: they shouldn't believe they're entitled to do whatever they want, that they are infallible, as was the case with high-rise council flats in post-World War 2 England. These did not develop as social reformers and architects naively believed, bringing much discredit to British modernism, which was ironically following rather interesting directions at the time (late modernism).
