#3 The myth that Modernism needs.
The Goal in Architecture PART.I Goal — 1. Part 2. The Useless, the Wasteful and the Necessary
Part 2
The myth that Modernism needs.
If we exist according to Nature’s principles, as far as life until death goes, the choices that waste, destroy, and even to choose futility, must ultimately have a purpose within Nature. It may seem subtle, but when people choose and it is ‘wrong’, that is granted us in our role. That role may be then concealed within that ‘wrongness’, whatever action or thought it may be, but it will necessarily be developed. This is a powerful factor of being human.
As long as our action is based on values selected according to vectors of power and conflict, these select values are only place holders for good, bad, or right and wrong. Harm and sensible affects, even of death and mutilation, are in reality different from whatever appearances each of our perception may give. Accepting this awareness is a step toward spirituality. There is enough evidence to at least assume that there is nothing in Nature that is not infinitely inter-connected. If the intricate interdependent life of every last atom were taken as true, how could we go on as we are, even if we are not able to understand it? But a powerful force is at play that seemingly defies logic, good will, and basic self preservation, as well as thousands of years of progress. The effects of disrupting human and not–human interconnections in Nature are not fully perceptible for anyone, so they may not seem ‘real’ or they may be given low value, while the grand spectrum of subjective views comes into being. Our brothers and sisters feel free to take, and to discard, as well as to give and to hold back.
A mis–connection with Nature — which must include human nature — has hardened and widened through the quantum and macro cosmic scales, in philosophy, science and technology. A simple defining concept that we use to facilitate our silos of knowledge and extractive processes is that there is a component called ‘garbage’. This is a defining myth of our time. There is no such thing as garbage in Nature. It is a cultural idea. As a myth this belongs to our story of life and wellbeing.
That we are now better on the whole can be successfully argued with familiar scenarios. But in terms of the environment and resources, including the work that we can do as human beings, we remain colonialist. The is in spite of understanding the transgressions of Christopher Columbus and those explorer–conquerors, improvement from the ignorant so-called exploration of the ‘new’ world seems to be continuing toward other worlds and moons. For example, although we have not yet ventured far beyond the earth, a similar lack of respect for what could exist on other worlds is already evident. Crashing devices on the surface of the moon to see what might happen,1 or expediently crashing the landers for Curiosity and Perseverence on Mars. Landing on Venus and Titan2 are all examples of ongoing colonialist blindness against the unseen, the unperceived and what we willfully conceal. The time for taking that as incidental is of course long past. We persist though with chosen social forces in renewed forms justifying entitlement to the power we can generate within our claim to Nature’s life, and justifying its use based on its possession. Architecture is mainly defined through the use of terrain and resources too. So this is a really important aspect for practice. Colonialist materialism is still woven throughout our culture and reflected in architecture. The way that this works is through the concept that there things that have no active role and others that we create that we call garbage.
A weakened profession.
In contemporary societies, architecture is in a weakened position as practice and as profession. It can be argued that architecture was historically applied to only a small selection of high value built environments by an elite. A proliferation of architectural work has come of those commonly accepted positive values. The factors that come into play to consider that architecture is not only for the elite has allowed us to make architecture more available to an increasing proportion of people for a greater section of programs. Those factors are determined in ways that are part of our social and cultural conditions, with the intents and means of the architectural profession getting extended accordingly.
Simultaneous with this increase, ‘watering down’ or erosion of architecture has gotten underway. The scope of architectural practice and the field of professional influence has not increased at the rate that humanity is expanding and increasing its capacity to extract and store power. Moreover, the immediate concern for material improvements according to advancements in science and technology has not served the architectural profession particularly well. Decades of effort to integrate the construction industry,
commerce and the politics of associated markets are not considered to be positive by enough of the architectural community so that polarity between education and much of the working profession is increased. Architects are near the bottom of high earning professions, despite long years of education and years of experience before the licensing exam can be taken, and a great deal of sincere effort of research in education. There is a steady erosion of the scope of work and project numbers relative to the growth of the built world. This feels perplexing enough that even theoretical posturing is taken hopefully as sufficient. Fear of change and rigidity in the face of the immense importance of architecture has taken hold.
There must be a process, a direction that Nature offers in life, which is not being engaged. If so, its form is paradigmatically different than in the past. Unity with technology, through systems and the construction and allied industries, seems to affect architecture negatively, perhaps in a relationship to how it affects Earth's environment. The negative effect of these forces in humanity effect the presence of architecture in our world negatively. It may be that architecture is more in sync with Nature than with technology.
Architects may be allied with whatever concealed purpose lies within the spectrum of our doings, including our convoluted approach to Nature. Architecture as it presences for us includes garbage, even as building produces it. Whatever available paths there may be, the potential based upon the certainty that we are always in Nature and that a great deal remains unknown is of foremost importance. This intensive relationship with the full spectrum of humanity and all life is essential to architects in practice.
As we may read in John Ruskin's work, as well as in much of architectural writing, teaching and history, all the way back to Virtuvius and the Mānasāra, architects have nominally got a lofty reputation through the need to comprehend a wide field that includes art, philosophy, music, nature and beauty, and so on, with a special character of wisdom and good character. The reality of the business–like form of most of the profession now reduces this to a conceit so that if a student architect takes it on too soon they might not make it to graduation, depending on the school, and limit their work prospects.
The disharmony with Nature of our societies is awkward for the architectural professional from a number of facets. It demands some kind of adjustment that is not found in the activities of sustainability or other schemes for mitigation of harm. The professionals of architecture have embraced ecological and environmentalist concerns for decades, pushing clients more than they are being driven to it by their clients. Yet, the profession's relatively proactive response to climate change has not been a significant growth factor to architecture, even as it becomes mainstream. Do we need to consider that our approach needs to change fundamentally since there are harms that we clearly need to mitigate?
Architecture that expresses disharmony brilliantly has often been criticized and ridiculed, while bland insipid building is overlooked and accepted even as it is also expressive of disharmony. The professional output of great buildings is a small percentage of what is actually built, and far less again if the actual presence of architecture is honestly experienced. Questioning what and where architecture is present is not commonly addressed. Architecture truly remains rare. What seemed to be elitism of the past can also be seen as the points at which enough humane capacity and power was gathered to facilitate the knowledge and the means that achieve the condition of architecture. This includes the 'wealth' of a harmonious community. Perhaps the bar to attain architecture remains high, even though the formal parameters have changed paradigmatically and spreading it betteracross social strata is intended by the professional.
There is awareness of these conflicts, but also passivity and lack of engagement for answering questions that have, nevertheless, been astutely asked in the profession now for decades, so much so that those questions are themselves now proposed as programs. The profession and its education often propose questioning as renewal itself. It’s better than nothing of course.
This questioning is preparing for changes to the presencing of architecture in a way that far supersedes today’s profession; it will eventually either usurp the name/ concept/ professional body of architecture, or it will do so from within the profession. This is an important proposition for G¡a. Beyond the details of our doings, wrought large by their intensity, power and nearness that block our view of them, the way that we engage our place in Nature is deeply fraught.
Questioning in the profession.
There are processes and progress that are available to all as a birthright of human birth in Nature. These processes are aligned with Nature and include our willfulness and flawedness. They demand the refinement of perception, awareness and response through experience. Precisely the potential to destroy, to choose worthlessness, or to be ignorant forms the basis for human excellence and its transcendence. Destruction is a painful effect. Our freedom of choice and the responsibility that goes with it is salient. Intention, will and the freedom to take action is the ground of aspiration in life: It is what we as individuals and humankind all of us together can do to use our life to its greatest fulfillment.
There is a scarcity of examples, and the few people who attain higher evolved knowledge often have no interest in its expression in cultural spaces of mediation and propagation. Real humility makes us better at being quiet, at acceptance and at integrating locally. The expression of truth in a technicist context requires objective definition of ‘knowledge’ as facts. We need proof, which conceals what cannot be proven. Through much of our culture we do not know how to accept people with greater attainments than ourselves. Being rich in money and assets is one of a few mainstream signs of attainment, also fame; these are measurable and verifiable in data. It is not surprising that the need to verify objectively creates efforts to refute attainments in evolutionary aspiration. It also develops movement against an overarching goal of life.
This is further complicated by personal freedom and our egos that we all need to handle. The value given to the discoveries of science and the resulting technology are influenced by undisciplined willful and subjective action that imbibe material definitions of success. Giant institutions and gatherings of wealth function as authority due to their power. These operate with such egotistical force that whole lives are absorbed in giving them their value. All of them support the myth of garbage since our current system of production depends on it.
Seekers of growth and transformative evolution are provided with a wide variety of practices for seeking such advancement. Their validity is affirmed, however, only in each one of us, no one else can judge their value while only each one of us can accept their influence as personal experience. The expectations that ‘exact’ scientific method and powerful method supports us is generally not satisfied this way, but the heart is.
Rising up out of a lesser condition: What are the highest applications of it? Wealth, cultural status, power and control, health and body image? These are manifestations of the powerful urge in all of us to attain betterment. But such physical sight are jewels, like diamond teardrops; shiny bobbles that must eventually leave us craving something more. Aspiration for something better may enter a realm that is unmeasurable, and a goal to rise above ourselves can be still set and be given the form of one's life.
A goal for life is activated by yearning, one’s own personal yearning, to know ever more subtle aspects of being, loving, of nearness to the truth that is ever more subtle, and cannot be lost.
We try for security during our lives, but a life must end. Is there transcendent security? What is a yearning to gain ground on what will supersede all other possibilities? What is our Natural place in the world? How does that inform the role of architects and architectural practice?
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) was “successfully” targeted into the surface of the moon to study the impact’s effects. "There’s nothing gentle about impact at these speeds [about 5800 kmh] – it’s just a question of whether LADEE made a localized craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area. It will be interesting to see what kind of feature LADEE has created." (from NASA) ... Are these demonstrations of colonialist thought and expressions of the myth of garbage? LADEE was aimed at the moon like a chunk of trash. The justification is gaining data.
Huygens landed on Titan in 2005 and the Soviet's Venera 8 through 14 from 1970 to 1981, Vega 1 and 2 in 1984. We are more familiar with the recent landings on the Moon and Mars and the proposals to inhabit Mars and the Moon. These all assume that there is nothing there to experience the presence of alien craft and beings, and we take no measures for that possibility. Although scientists seek 'life' they mean only life as defined in Earth's biosphere. If we found such life, would we respect it?