WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?
What is architecture? This is a question that a large percentage of society never thinks about, doesn’t care about, or already possesses the answer to in some form.
They say things like: “Oh architecture is that thing that makes buildings pretty. “
They say things like: “Architecture? Well, all I know is that it’s expensive, and quite honestly, I personally don’t need it.”
They say things like: “Yeah, architecture is pretty cool. It’s like making walls look like their going to fall down, right?”
When you go through architecture school, you are blasted with a whales tonnage of images and information. A student is expected to sift through that information and merge concepts into physical form. It is safe to say that most (all) students arrive at architecture school studios with preconceived notions of what architecture is. Most of those notions are very personal and in some (most) cases, centered around visions derived from the human ego that desires a feeling of significance in life.
Students are expected to envision what has yet to exist and bring their ideas to life through drawings and three dimensional models. Professors bombard students with critical information about their projects and much of that critique is subjective and personal to the educator. That is the reason why architecture school is longer and much more intense than many subjects. A student must extrapolate as much information from each instructor so that they may eventually arrive at some level of understanding of what this all means and where they fit within the architecture world.
During my time at the university, I constantly asked “what is architecture?” I spent a great amount of time arriving at various answers, each generating seemingly unnecessary paragraphs of personal discourse. I asked the question to various architects and professors. What I received was long-winded responses as if they too were attempting to simultaneously figure it out while providing me with an explanation. In some cases I thought “wow, it seems that this person has never even considered what it is he/she is actually doing at a deeper level.” Maybe I was just naive and ignorant in ways; maybe I still am.
From those interactions, I was left with the feeling that the definition of a craft so complex should have an answer that was concise. Was that even possible? Obviously, the answer to the question would be like architecture itself: an experiential occurrence subjective to the individual; some simple, some extremely complicated.
Broken down to its simplest form, the position I arrived at is: ARCHITECTURE IS THE REACTION TO A STIMULUS.
Architecture arrives at form through the conduit of a stimulus with the architect being the medium to translate those forces into a physical, graphic and verbal construct. The architect has the capability to analyze the contextual situations and generate various responses to arrive at a desired outcome.
Harnessing and absorbing that radar-like return of contextual information, an architect literally bends space and time through the addition or subtraction of built form. Depending on the skill of the architect, moves can be made to modify space and time to establish sets of reactions and intensities. A master in the craft of architecture can literally command the psychology of space and time, therefore, controlling human actions, interactions and emotions.
At the city and regional level, it is critical that policy makers and urban planners establish frameworks for the built environment that effectively incorporates all the systems required for efficient cities. The product of their work are the lines to which the musical notes inhabit. At the level of the single building or embodiment of space, the architect can draw out a wide range of responses from the public. At the community and city level, the overall built environment takes shape. This realization of physical forms create order and orients society by directing and influencing our navigation through the constructed realm.
The built environment does not move - it moves with us through the constant shifting of perspectives. The built environment is not the instance of time - it is the instrument that encapsulates time so that it can be measured. Architectural form, the collection of responses to the contextual stimulus, is the device that inscribes time with a physical monument whose sole purpose is to delineate a progression in one chronological direction. Essentially, this results is the creation of a history; a physical record that we are able to inhabit and move within.
With that concept in mind, architecture allows us to travel in time without manipulating the realities of chronology. I cannot travel back in time to visit my younger self to avoid or influence an event. I can, however, travel back in time to visit my childhood home or a place of significance utilizing architecture as a historical landmark. If you have ever re-visited a city or place after an extended time and said: “wow, this place has really changed” or, “gosh, this place has not changed one bit”, that is witnessing the progression of architecture in motion. The same can be said about moving through a familiar space or meandering through a new building. That experiential spatial progression creates a time history in society which acts as a gauge of human expansion. In an instant, we are able to see with great accuracy exactly where we are and where we came from. That record allows us to visualize the direction we are heading, chart a course to where we want to go, and most important, where we do not want to go.
The definitions of architecture can shift as we begin to think deeper about its meanings and arrive at infinite conclusions collectively and individually. That interpretive flexibility is the beauty and danger of architecture as it is composed of many contradictory elements. Maybe, similar to life, architecture is something that defies a singular answer. What is architecture? What is time? What is life?
Architecture is a reaction to a stimulus. Architecture is a reaction to a stimulus that culminates in a physical form. Architecture is the reaction to a stimulus that culminates in a physical form that is a chronological record in the built environment. Architecture is amazing. Architecture is ridiculous and unnecessary. Architecture is necessary. Architecture is complex. Architecture is simple. Architecture is life and time. Architecture is.
