The perils of introversion

The perils of introversion

For some time now I've been coordinating and compiling a research proposal concerning some extension of traditional architectural activities - let's leave it as cryptic as that. The first hing that struck me was that there was no reason why this extension hadn't been realised yet; in many respects, it's just an additional service architects could offer, a simple extra application of stuff they do anyway.

The second thing was the number of unsolicited telephone calls and emails I received from people from other disciplines who insisted they should join the project. They were not exactly offering their capacities and asking whether we could use them, they were actually quite insistent they should be included, often on the basis of an earlier, fuzzy acquaintance or some unhappy past collaboration. Their key argument was that we needed them, that the project would not succeed without their contribution.

I tried to be polite and explain that it would be a primarily architectural project, implying that their own discipline was outside its scope, but soon realised that they felt strangely at home in the architectural domain. They saw proposing what architecture should do within their remit - not as clients or users of the built environment but as experts with some authority.

This prompted a question in mind but did not ask it: would they behave in the same manner towards someone with a proverbially high skill or high knowledge level, like a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist? I doubt that. Architecture is one of those areas where almost everyone feels at home, usually for the wrong reasons and with wrong intentions. That everyone knows buildings as a user, that many can arrange furniture in a room, that some can build or even plaster a wall doesn't mean that they all know architecture, that they may dictate its scope and direction.

Regrettably, architects may be at least partially to blame for that. If other architects remain the main audience of architects if architects do not know more than the rest about the schools, hospitals, offices and other types of buildings they design, if they don't care to demonstrate their mastery of not just form and style but also use and utility, people may assume that there isn't much in this architecture lark and other scientists may believe that architecture has little knowledge of its own to offer on matters they may know themselves or just be interested in from their own perspective.

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko is a prime example of what can go wrong in science when it becomes entangled in politics. As the developer of a biology for the Soviet ideology that denounced bourgeois, capitalist falsehoods, he is considered responsible not only for scientific backwardness (including through persecution, imprisonment and execution of scientific opponents) but also widespread famine in the Soviet Union.

Lombroso did not flourish under a totalitarian regime but became quite instrumental in the oppression of people by giving police and the judiciary "scientific" reasons for considering someone a criminal on the basis of their appearance. Interestingly, this is not what Soviet scientists would denounce as bourgeois falsehoods.

Lamarck was by comparison just wrong in believing that acquired characteristics are inherited, although this is nowadays under partial reconsideration: there may be some scope for soft inheritance, after all. In any case, his other contributions to science have retained their validity. For example, he is credited with recognising the difference between insects and arachnids (and for recognising that spiders have eight legs rather than six, as it was believed by those who had read Aristotle apparently wrongly).

What connects the three "L"s for me is their fall from grace as scientific authorities, as well as their easy connection to societal priorities, either political or ideological. Authorities are troublesome because quite often everything they claim is taken for granted, even if it's a mere opinion. However, more than authorities what scares me is the ease with which we promote societal priorities to unassailable truths. In politics this is often a problem we gloss over but in science we don't even talk about it. On the contrary, we tailor research to match such arbitrariness and change without a moment's thought when new opportunities arise.

Hypotheses and speculation

Hypotheses and speculation 

One of the constant irritations a researcher faces is the necessity to check what others are doing. The value of knowing what one's peers do and publish is undeniable. There's a lot to be learned from literature reviews in terms of broadening one's knowledge  (especially with complementary viewpoints) and deepening one's understanding about the potential of some approach and the nature of problems to be solved.

However, when I'm asked to see what people have been doing in practice, I worry that I'm just waisting my time. In areas like architectural computerisation we're not talking about industrial giants with tradition in and resources for R&D. In most cases, all I get to see is what one or another reseller or consultant makes on the basis of arbitrary opportunities and usually poor knowledge of theory. Rather that working hard to develop a plausible hypothesis, such people just form an opinion, assuming a lot they don't know and then embark on an adventure, convinced of the value of what they do even before they produce anything. They just speculate and claim.

I fear that this is the difference between science and architectural design, too: instead of hypotheses, architecture offers speculation; instead of validation and verification, artistic license and arrogance. Too many believe they can make something better than the other without any really valid reasons. This is often because they believe they have a better opinion but even more often because they are better - in their own opinion. They're so good, they have to brag about it.

Observation and theory

Observation and theory 

One reads mostly observations; theories are thin on the ground and often thin in content, too. Scientists appear rather reluctant to dare or to deviate from a grey average. They're even reluctant to write in the first person; it's always "one". Who's that one? Anyone? Everyone? I don't care. I should be able to voice my own opinion, to try and work out the significance of even small things I do and enrich the frameworks within which I'm working, not just apply, observe and report.

Interestingly, in design and the arts (and possibly also economics and politics), people are too quick to theorise and generalise. The tiniest hypothesis can be turned into an unassailable belief or even truth. In this respect, the sciences and the arts may be drifting even further apart. The former observe and the latter make, the former with little room to develop thoughts that appeal and inspire, the latter with little reflection in order to make their products truly relevant.

My own position is probably the trickiest.  need the validated theories of scientists to make sense of what happens in my own area but as soon as I apply them, I realise how partial or underdeveloped most are: laboratory results with many limitations and restrictions, sufficient for one or another aspect but not for all. At the same time, in my area people just want easy solutions, prescriptive or proscriptive ways to innovate and impress.

Art or science

Art or science 

Is architecture (or design, in general) an art or a science? I've had the feeling that this was a rather unproductive debate long before I came across the suggestion that both art and science are just two facets of the same human intellectual attempt at improvement, exploration and understanding (e.g. in Lisa Jardine's work) or unifying approaches to human cognition through viewpoints like information processing or problem solving (e.g. by Herbert Simon). My key problem with such lofty debates is that they are exactly sidetracking us from fundamental issues in our cognition and history towards superficial demarcations that simply confine our thinking within conventions and arbitrary goals. I'd rather spend my time trying to unravel the former issues than servicing supportive silos. One doesn't get thanks for doing so but the satisfaction that comes from even minor revelations can be great.