Cristina Neagu
April 6, 2006
Originality,
the quality of that which is inventive and unprecedented. Standing out. Sending
a strong, clear signal, one of individuality from an anonymous mass. When
multiplied thousand-fold, the result is a cacophony in which the individual
message again gets lost, this time in a whirl of equally striking statements
rather than the dullness of mass conformity. Both are just as bad. In the first
instance, just like in the second, personal action fails to have any
significant consequence other than contributing to the general noise. In the
context of nearly unmanageable flow of information, the search of that which
can capture attention for more than a split second has become an aim, if not an
obsession, in almost every discipline, including architecture. The fact that architecture is not, or
should not be, purely a signal, in the way an advertisement would be, makes
such a preoccupation problematic and brings into question the very relevance of
originality in architectural design.
The role of
originality in architecture has always been related to its importance within a
specific social context. Progress
and innovation imply advancement, and thus have always taken place in history
but only recently have they become an aim rather than a means. At the same
time, originality is directly proportional to architecture’s self-referential
character, very much a 20th century notion. As long as architecture
was conceived of as a representation of man and his beliefs, be they religious
or philosophical, originality for the sake of originality was naturally
irrelevant. Even more, it was frowned upon, and any architecture attempting to
depart from set canons was considered inappropriate if not outrageous.
Nineteenth
century Britain saw the emergence of a concern with originality, as an entirely
visual, formal concept. Architecture was fighting its way to the status of fine
art but its constant reference to past forms, particularly Greek architecture,
rendered it undeserving of the name:
“The
perfection of the arts of painting, sculpture, or music, is inimitable. There
has not been a second Raphael, nor an Angelo, nor a Handel; but it would be
within the limits of an architectural achievement to erect another Athens...
thus its claims as fine art can only be of moderate importance…the practice of
it may be reduced almost to a system of imitation from precedents.”[1]
Architecture was
therefore reduced to a purely visual medium, with no concern for convenience
and the functions contained within. There was no such thing as the experience
of architecture; the question of originality addressed exclusively the notion
of style. The architect who informed his practice from precedents, as one
naturally learns from the past, was almost coerced into imitation by a
performance anxiety of sorts:
“…the tables and shelves of
architects are loaded and encumbered with drawings of all the buildings Greece
or Italy possess. They accumulate there till native taste is terrified at the
contemplation…till original talent is frightened into servile imitation.”[2]
Architecture’s concern with originality was but a small part of the
general obsession with the “burden of the past” which weighed on the
intellectual circles at the time, particularly in literature where “the
pressure to be original, the felt necessity to establish a difference with past
art without ignoring it, was the greatest single concern of the English poets
throughout the eighteenth century.” By the early nineteenth century, the concept of originality
had spread to other disciplines, among them architecture, and while Harold
Bloom’s “Anxiety of Influence” is subtitled “A Theory of Poetry”, its ideas are
highly relevant to architecture:
“Weaker
talents idealize; figures of capable imagination appropriate for themselves.
But nothing is got for nothing, and self-appropriation involves the immense
anxieties of indebtness, for what strong maker desires the realization that he
has failed to create himself.”[3]
The book analyses the role of influence in the creative process, but
does not place it in opposition to originality. On the contrary, “…influence
need not make poets less original; as often it makes them more original, though
not therefore necessarily better.” Such a remark brings one to question the
very definition of originality as well as its relevance as a criterion for good
architecture. Originality and influence are in no way mutually exclusive and in
turn original architecture is not synonymous with better architecture.
Originality
does not imply ignoring the past and ignoring the past does not guarantee
originality. To be convinced, one has only to travel back less than a century.
Although the modern movement attempted a radical rupture with history, it also
aimed to in a way dominate the discipline, to impose a universal language, to
achieve what Derrida calls “absolute objectivation”[4].
Paradoxically, such a context makes diversity and therefore originality almost
impossible.
The importance of influence in the process of design in general and
learning in particular is undeniable. Precedents are most often the sole source
of learning for the student grappling with architectural design. How then to
negotiate the constant pressure of being original, of standing out, of catching
the critics’ interest, with the need to learn from examples. How can one look
at the past and develop an understanding of what constitutes good architecture
without falling into the traps of intimidation and imitation? Is originality
still relevant today, in a society where everything has been done before,
where, ironically, originality has become a norm?
There
is a displacement of the concept of originality to the point where the term
itself becomes irrelevant, especially when one ceases to look at architecture
as a predominantly visual medium. Architecture has an unavoidable visual
presence, which is why every movement so far has ultimately revolved around
aesthetics and form. Despite the social agenda and the concern with function
– though not program – of the early modern movement, form and style
became once again, by the 1930s, the main driving force of late modern and
subsequently of postmodern architecture; two architectural movements, both
attempting to revolutionize what had become a stagnant discipline, yet both
deeply formal. Program had become so marginal that “there was no necessary
causal relationship between function and a subsequent form, or between a given
building type and a given use.”[5]
At the same time such an
omnipresent visual backdrop as architecture is runs the risk of becoming
invisible in time and this is where striking, so called original designs may
have the merit of being eye catching for a while. But buildings are not
paintings, nor can they be equated with music, literature, advertisement
billboards. They are meant to be lived in, they are the mediums of human
activity and buildings that are better viewed from afar rather than experienced
from within have most likely failed in this role. As long as buildings are
designed from a primarily formal standpoint, the riddle of originality will not
be solved.
Perhaps then, the answer would be a look at program, the purpose of the
building and its users as the generators of form rather than a pretext for
form. Originality would then be best replaced by experimentation, not in terms
of novelty of form but as an exploration of the relationship between existing
typologies, typologies which have at their origin the specifics human behaviour
and which seem to potentially provide relief from the anxiety of being original
without falling into the trap of historicism. Architecture then becomes a question of handling such
typologies, of allowing program to become “part of form rather than a subject
or content”[6], of
experimenting with programmatic relationships, of creating events which reflect
the inhabitants’ desires or allow them to be experienced differently –
“architecture as a human activity.”[7]
[1] Kindler, Roger A. “Periodical Criticism 1815-40:
Originality in Architecture” Architectural History 17 (1974): 22-37. 27.
[2] Kindler, Roger A. “Periodical Criticism 1815-40:
Originality in Architecture” Architectural History 17 (1974): 22-37. 25.
[3] Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A
Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997
[4] Derrida, Jacques.
“Architecture Where Desire Can Live”. Domus April 1986: 17-24. Rpt. in Theorizing a New Agenda for
Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.
147.
[5] Tschumi, Bernard.
“Architecture and Limits III” ArtForum 20 September 1981: 40. Rpt. in
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996. 165.
[6] Tschumi, Bernard. “Architecture and Limits III”
ArtForum 20 September 1981: 40. Rpt. in Theorizing a New Agenda for
Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.
165.
[7] Tschumi, Bernard. “Architecture and Limits III”
ArtForum 20 September 1981: 40. Rpt. in Theorizing a New Agenda for
Architecture. Ed. Kate Nesbitt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.
163.