The artificiality of architecture

The artificiality of architecture 

It so happened that I've been reading two contrasting texts. The first was a linguistic research proposal on the use of words like "with" in various languages and how children learn them. The other was a critique of architectural education and practice. The difference was depressing. On the one hand, there was a detail of a fundamental human capacity. The more I read about it, the more fascinating in seemed. The research promised valuable insights and useful results. As a lay reader I was learning and getting to believe more and more in the value of the science and the particular research.

On the other hand, there was the production of a major human achievement - not as fundamental as language but really close. But the text wasn't about how societies use it, it was about what architects cared. In architecture there's still too much emphasis on how professionals create, not on what people actually make out of environments either designed on not. That's why stairs still cause too many accidents, buildings are energy inefficient, doors open in ways that annoy etc. The closed system imposed on the production of architecture makes its true performance of its products less relevant than insiders' opinions on them.

It's like imposing artificial languages on people: they'll mostly manage, despite the imposition, but having something imposed on them doesn't help. Last year there was enough about the words Shakespeare had coined, not to mention the phrases we keep on quoting. That's different: it's about providing people with building blocks, powerful symbols and images through which they can express themselves. It's a striking contrast with architectural environments that have to be kept pristine, as the architects want them, or photographs of buildings without people. Languages are more of an invention than buildings, yet buildings remain significantly more artificial than languages.