an architecture of optimism

On the Archinect.com boards, there was a post by a guy studying to be a graphic designer but considering changing his career to architecture and was looking for advice. The replies were mostly supportive, but there was one architect who wrote:

You're going to be frustrated no matter what path you choose.  I say choose the cheapest easiest path.  There really are no rewards, it's a zero-sum-game.  And you get to work with douchebags in either industry, unless you get lucky and find some nice people to work with.  Happiness is not going to come from any degree or working in Architecture or Graphic Design. 

Ouch. I followed his comment with my own.

As for finding meaning, I can sympathize with ---------- frustrations- if you are lucky, you will get to make interesting buildings with nice people. If you are unlucky, well, there are a lot, a lot of architects whose idealism and zeal has turned to bitterness. From my own experience, the act of designing is a joy into itself, and if you can find a way to do it, regardless of the outcome, it can be rewarding.

 Of course, my feelings on architecture tend to be highly schizophrenic- a week or so ago (and late at night) I wrote:

Sometimes I think before an architect begins his or her education, they should be given a card which reads:

"WARNING: If you discover your calling here, you will become a design junkie. If you are lucky, you will get to design pretty things for wealthy people and organizations. If you are unlucky, you will design buildings to extract money from the public. Often, you will be asked to design things which you know to be poorly designed. If you are successful, you will propagate and promote the established order. The best you can hope for is a modicum of personal satisfaction, a middling salary, and a career which allows you some moments to satisfy your desire to learn, explore, and create."

Plus, you can get away without wearing a tie and architecture is one of those professions people think is kind of cool without really knowing much about it.

I do actually love being an architect. For me, the self-involvement, the selfish search for knowledge and meaning, the indulgence of creation, these block ALL the dopamine receivers. Eyes which destroy and create simultaneously- seeing the world as it is, and as it could be.

I love the monkey on my back.

Ouch. A kind of dystopic megalomania lurks below the surface. It's also highly exaggerated, and only true if you stay as a desk jockey within a comfortable corporate firm. There are other routes. For example, one can start their own firm. Or just avoid corporate work and be forever haunted by the spectre of poverty and joblessness.

Architecture and design is neither inherently optimistic nor pessimistic. The best definition of design I've heard is the transformation of an existing situation into a desired situation. In other words:

• Pessimist - the glass is half empty
• Optimist - the glass is half full
• Designer - the glass has potential to be full or empty

A designer must understand what is the desired situation, therefore, he or she must see flaws in what is existing, which is pessimistic. You have to see the cracks to patch the wall. But the act of creation is optimistic because it is full of hope that the situation can be improved through creation and change. The counterpoint is the architect who creates with the belief it will degrade the situation, typically unwillingly. While this is a source of much bitterness and frustration (behind every cynic is an idealist), I still think that architects are originally motivated through optimism and faith in both themselves and the ability of architecture to change the world, or at least to improve it in small ways.

Personally, I'm very much of an existentialist and romantic who comes across as a pessimist. I don't think the world is coming to a catastrophic end- humanity is much too resilient to simply give up and die. However, I do think that our natural environment is degrading to the point where architecture is becoming moot apart from rainwater collection and protection from the elements.

As an existentialist, I want to throw up my hands, and say it's simply a part of humanity, that the history of our species is wild swings between excess, brilliance, and exuberance, and darkness, war, famine, and disease. We're neither rabbits nor robots, and the swings generate meaning in a meaningless universe. What does it mean to 'save humanity' anyway?

To save the human race is simple enough. It can be, in fact, a design problem. Perpetual incarceration with rigidly structured diets and exercise regimes. Carefully controlled population numbers. Throw in enough sunlight, challenges, entertainment, and interpersonal interaction to stave off suicidal depression, and we're golden until the sun explodes. This was the classic Modern architecture approach. The only problem is 'humankind' and 'human race' is not 'humanity,' which is something I think more profound and inherent to who vs what we are.

As a designer, whose basic task is improve things, it's also fundamentally wrong to sit back and watch the world burn, regardless of the fact that it bathes in gasoline and delights in playing with matches. Questions of autonomy disturb me. Do people have a right to dumb themselves to death? People eat themselves to death all the time. In the US, you are practically guaranteed the right to do really stupid things that will result in horrible, harmful personal injury. Should cities have the right to make decisions that will ultimately destroy them? As painful as it is, I think you have to allow people, cities, societies, humanity, at least the right to unwittingly set itself on fire. But if you see with your wide view, you have a responsibility to warn, dissuade, or at least make things less flammable. 

What is required is an architecture of optimism. The idealism and faith and confidence of the great Modernists tempered with humanity, the understanding of humankind as being composed of humans.