Questions

the Architect astride his creation

Another lecture tonight, this one by architect Stephen Kieran, also very well attended by the architecture community of St.Louis, so far as AIA continuing education credits goes.

I've browsed Kieran's book Refabricating Architecture, which includes the themes Kieran talked about in his lecture tonight. It's a very rational and process-based approach, which could be understood as a continuation of Modernism, but more encompassing and holistic in its approach. It's a methdology of understanding architecture as product, with the underlying question of "why hasn't the production of architecture kept pace with the production of almost everything else in the industrial economy."

It is kind of an interesting, if not dry, question, and that kind of flavored the night. Kieran presented a raft of projects, talked generally about them, and seemed bored to tears the entire time he was lecturing. There was a distinct lack of passion, and at times it almost felt like he was pitching his firm to business clients. The architecture is very tight, very bright, squeaky clean precise- a kind of corporate architecture meticulously pushed to the verge of art. I did really like their Yale project, however. The interplay with the Saarinen building and the spaces and textures and movement was very nice. Restrained and poetic with board-formed concrete.

He did have some interesting things to say about architectural education. He said that its far too product based, that the finished product is far too lauded and used as a basis of credit. He thought that the real value of architecture school should be in the questions that are proposed. That a great product is designed, but then it should raise five new questions.

This tied in nicely with a line of thought from the previous monday's lecture by Neil Denari, who was talking about the nature of problems- that really, we define our own problems. The world is not filled with problems- the world is filled with people who have particular views and values which may or may not conflict with one another. Global warming is only a problem because I have urbanistic and humane concerns about the billions of people who will be displaced or killed because of it.

We define our problems in the same way we define our questions. The nature of this studio I'm working on has the implicit questions of "how can one build density with quality of life" and "how does an urban insertion affect the fabric of the city?" Problems and questions are the same thing, simply framed differently.

Anyway, it was our studio's turn to have dinner with the visiting architect. I'm so tired, I didn't even make an effort to chat with the guy. I got my plate of free Mexican food, a small cup of wine, and sat on the couch and ate. The free food was nice. Two students sat at the Big Boys table which included Kieran and the various professors who crowded around.