voussoirs: WHAT’S THE POINT? - ON REGISTRATION RENEWAL

Wednesday 20 February 2019

WHAT’S THE POINT? - ON REGISTRATION RENEWAL

Much has been written on CPD points that architects in Queensland are required to collect in order to be re-registered: see -

https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2018/12/educating-profession-cpd-occasion-exam.html

https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2018/12/on-cpd-points-whats-point.html

https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-does-non-practising-architect-do.html

https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/05/who-or-what-is-architect.html

Nothing happens, nothing changes; no one appears concerned with the childish games, complete with ‘show bags,’ and the put-down of professionals who are asked to attend un-audited, un-accredited sessions to accrue critical points, and respond to a set of written questions, as tests or exams, at the end of these occasions in order to prove that adequate attention has been paid to the presenters. These forms are then to be filed away as evidence, so that, if the Board of Architects of Queensland wants to audit an architect, all of the documentation can be presented to ‘prove’ the claim that the points, 10 formal and 10 informal, have been properly and responsibly gained; that the architect has not cheated. It sounds a little like the classification of third world coffee: ‘ethically produced.’

That architects are treated as primary school children might be, is apparently of no general concern to the profession that acts as an agent for the client. This position of agency in itself should be sufficient to ensure that the responsibility of the architect is to quiz and test sales reps on behalf of the client, to ensure performances and quality, rather than having the salesmen act as teachers, promoting their blurb, with the authority to issue points to the professional attendees, who may include practitioners with over forty year’s experience; perhaps more. Apparently, for the BOAQ, this involvement is irrelevant. The mature architect is treated in the same manner as the recent graduate with no experience at all. Knowledge and understanding mean nothing. Even the quality of the presentation means nothing.* The only critical things seem to be the signed attendance forms and the ticks on the exam questions.

It is truly an appalling situation that needs immediate change so that both quality and respect can be brought back into the profession. It is not as though the Board’s hands are tied. The Act allows experience to be recognised. It is just that the Board chooses to limit the rules it wants to apply for re-registration. The current situation needs review. The Board should revise its requirements and start taking on the responsibility for recognising maturity, and offering quality sessions for architects rather than letting things go on willy-nilly. Such an approach might gain the Board some respect too, instead of the current mockery that even compliant architects show towards the system and those who enforce it.

“Hey, could this drinks session with colleagues be used for points?”

“Yes, points and pints!”

“That’s the best way to do it!”

“Yes, you get ‘Board stiff’ at the talk sessions.”

“That’s a good one, and its true. The Board is pretty rigid.”

While one might refuse to engage in these ‘sales’ sessions, even for seven free points over two days – WOW! Yes, the rules have created a business - the chat in the profession spreads the word.

“Where’s my show bag?” was the question of one colleague to his wife.

“It’s by your drawing board.”

This colleague still actually draws with a T-square!

“A show bag?” I asked.

“Yes, we all got one at the talks I went to, and seven points!”

And out it came; a brown paper bag with black casf text on it and string handles appeared.

“This is it,” was the declaration as the bland bag was held high with a mocking grin emphasizing its insignificance.

“Have a look inside.”

My hand reached in and pulled out a bundle of papers and publications.

“They loved it. There were some left over, and when asked if they would like to take one for friends, the architects rushed out to get more.”

“It sounds like the Ekka, but not as interesting.”

“No lollies!”

“Gosh, I remember sales reps who put on lunches for those who might attend, not only to encourage attendance, but also to thank the architects for using their products: bless them.”

“Those were the days.”

As the contents of the bag were transferred to my lap for perusal, two small publications fell out. I looked at these first. They were brightly coloured with quirky titles: SAY WATT, Lighting Companion, Volume 5: Greenery lighting. It had a green cover. On opening the booklet, one was confronted with cartoonish illustrations, one per page, with strange ‘educational’ titles. The publication looked like a children’s colouring-in book.

“Did you get any coloured pencils?”

The cynicism was obvious and shared, accompanied by a snort and a smirk.

“They handed these out. The others loved them.”

“But what has this to do with architectural practice and competence?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Three other books were a part of this set. All books were likewise childishly punny. They were an embarrassment to a profession committed to rigour and knowledge in architecture and in graphics. One could argue that the Board, with its own poor graphic logo, probably couldn’t care less: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/04/normal-0-is-asquality-in-graphics-that.html

More lighting brochures tumbled out. These were more classy in their presentation, playing with the name ambience, with the catchphrase, MAKING LIGHT WORK – clever! But do these slogans really do anything but keep the creator feeling smug and smart? The folded sheet illustrated various models of light fittings available. There is a limit to variations; eventually all selections of light fittings start looking the same. Maybe that is why the word games are used – to make a difference?

Another folder was opened: artificial, (well ‘synthetic,’ it sounds better), grass - (unfortunately the name sounds like SIN GRASS: might it be a sin to use it?) - in all of its various glories: Summer Cool; Classic; Comfort Elite; Fresh Cut; Nouveau; Court Turf; Coolplay; Royal Green. Who knew there were so many variations? Maybe there were more varieties than real grass? The title on the cover was yet another promotional pun: GREEN WITH ENVY. Who thinks these things up? Do they realise how grating these conceits are? One cringed, not only at the words, but the product that seriously sought to be used everywhere in a world that, ironically, is being encouraged to be greener, to avoid and manage the increasing use of plastic. No doubt the product has its uses, but just where leaves one pondering. The marvel was that various lengths and textures of this fake grass were available. Might one play with this imagery somehow? Still, the attitude was:

“It was worth a point to listen. One just had to grin and bear it: next.”

An exam

Another thicker tome was perused: artificial stone – more synthetics. This publication turned out to be interesting as it illustrated new developments with this product that one knew only as a flat sheet. One might consider using it, possibly more than artificial grass, but not that much more. That this material could be moulded, maybe overseas, and sculpted, and used as a building cladding both inside and out, gave the product some timely importance considering the mess with flammable claddings throughout the world. One might think that the options could be limited by budgets – it is not cheap - but the information was something that one would put aside to retrieve when appropriate. This one point seemed more worthwhile, but the questionnaire? This is embarrassing, because my colleague said that the sessions finished with the presenter reading out all of the answers for everyone to tick off in the multiple choice sets: “Idiot architects,” seemed to be the suggestion. What on earth was the point of this farce other than the point? Situations like this make the BOAQ’s rules just silly, making professionals spend two days out of their working time to attend sessions that are given mainly for ticks. Might anyone go to these presentations if there were no ticks to be given?

“How many actually went?”

“Oh, there were about thirty. The room was not full.”

“Only thirty!”

“Yes, one talk would be given, then there would be a five-minute break when everyone raced out for a free Golden Roast instant coffee and an Arnotts biscuit.”

“It’s all a bit cliché.”

“They had nearly every variety of Arnotts biscuit you could think of.”

Somehow the conversation had been downgraded from critiques of sessions into the quality and quantity of coffee and bikkies.

“It sounds like a government morning tea.”

“Yep! Exactly.”

“What else were the talks about?”

“There was an extra one on re-cladding buildings with flammable sheeting on them.”

“Isn’t that pretty straightforward?”

“No, it gets tricky with insurance companies getting involved.”

“Maybe insurance companies might help sort out our planning issues too, since planners don’t seem to care. Perhaps the response should be: we refuse to insure properties developed on low areas prone to flooding.”

“Yes, that might be one way to stop silly decisions that only give us grief. Look at Townsville’s recent flooding; 12,000 homes under! - and Brisbane’s too. In Brisbane, brand new apartment complexes went under. Why were they ever allowed to be developed in flood plains?”

“Planners have a lot to answer for.”

“It’s difficult. Some years ago, the CEO of the City of Gold Coast got fired because he argued that the flood plains around Mudgeeraba should never be developed.”

“Wasn’t the local Robina State School built in a flood area, on a huge mound of fill?”

“Yes. It’s hardly a good example.”

“So how would you sum up your two days?”

“Seven free formal points! Only three to go.”

The need for change is obvious if the profession is not to be belittled by its own managing body. While architects struggle for public respect, the sales reps must go home laughing at architects after days like these. It could be argued that the Board is doing more damage to the profession than good. Ironically, its mandate is otherwise, to protect the public from charlatans; to ensure quality in the profession. Everything seems to be going otherwise with the public being encouraged to treat architects as ignorant fools, and architects being forced to gain useless points in the name of improvement by being charlatans as students themselves, just to prove the point for the BOAQ inspectors.

It seems that the argument for the abolition of the BOAQ could be made if this farce continues.

NOTE

26 FEBRUARY 2019

In a recent E-mail the Board of Architects Queensland made it clear that it did not accredit any CPD provider:

CPD Provider Ideas

Practising architects must take all reasonable steps to maintain competency in the practice of architecture (Section 16 of the Architects Act 2002). As a way of demonstrating this, the Board requires architects to undertake a minimum of 20 hours of CPD activities each year, and to report annually on CPD undertaken as part registration renewal CPD reporting year is from 1 April to 31 March. Following is reference information for various CPD offerings available to Queensland architects, provided for guidance only.

Please note:

The Board does not accredit CPD providers.

This information is provided as guidance only, and should not be taken as Board recommendations.
Architects are encouraged to plan their individual CPD program each year to include learning and development activities suited to their particular needs.

6 MARCH 2019

Formal certificates have been distributed for this event, seven of them, one for each point, ready to be printed off and framed, or maybe just filed as proof: see below (name deleted). When might the profession protest against being treated as school children?

One does wonder why the subjects have been so fragmented - is it really just to be able to issue more points? Subjects 1, 5, and 7 appear to be connected.

But what does it mean to have 'successfully completed a Formal CPD presentation'? The notion makes little sense. Perhaps it is merely attempting to confirm attendance in flash, 'academic' speak; or is it acknowledging the stamina of the individual to have put up with the talk?

The note at the bottom of the certificate is a puzzle when the BOAQ acknowledges that it does not accredit any CPD providers.

9 MARCH 2019

THE E-MAILS

I sent an E-mail to my colleague who had attended the sessions, pointing out the silliness in his certificates:

Did you notice that your certificates say that you have 'successfully completed a Formal CPD presentation'?
What on earth does that mean?
Does it mean that you had the stamina to put up with it for the duration?
S.

The response was clear in its concern and detail:


HI ..... YES I THOUGHT THAT WAS VERY BIG OF THEM .... WHOEVER  "THEY" ARE

......... OFFICE STAFF ?

AS I KEEP MENTIONING, I NOW FEEL VERY CONFIDENT OF PASSING, IN ALL THE

LECTURES ....... SINCE THE LAST ITEM OF EACH SESSION IS A METHODICAL RUN

THROUGH THE ANSWERS .......... USUALLY TAKES 10 / 15 MINS.

HOWEVER THAT MUST SAVE THE PRESENTER HOURS OF POST LECTURE TIME,

CORRECTING / MARKING / POSTING PAPERS TO "STUDENTS" ......... IF

SUBMITTED FOR CORRECTION SUBSEQUENT TO THE LECTURE..

I VAGUELY RECALL THAT PREVIOUS CPD QUESTION SHEETS WERE COLLECTED AFTER

THE LECTURE ......... I UNDERSTOOD THAT WAS THE PROOF OF ATTENDANCE.????????

THE SYSTEM APPEARS TO BE STRUCTURED SO THAT ...... "STUDENTS" PAYING DUE
ATTENTION TO THE SPEAKER, RECOGNISE HIS / HER REFERENCE TO THE
MATTERS LISTED IN THE QUESTION HANDOUT ......... AND THE MULTIPLE
CHOICE OPTION IS SELECTED  AT THAT TIME.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO REMEMBER THE SPEAKER EVER MENTIONING THE F..KING

TOPIC ADDRESSED IN THE QUESTION .......... SO I SUPPORT THE CURRENT SYSTEM
WHICH REWARDS ONE WITH 100 PERCENT RESULT.

DESPITE MY HEARING LOSS MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN A VERBAL

....... [a] ...... [b] ... or .. [c] I have been tempted to ask the speaker

to repeat the correct answer and ask

if anyone has a rubber......... K*

YES ...... YOUR LAST QUESTION IS SPOT ON ...... IT CANT MEAN ANYTHING ELSE.

All I could think of was K as in Kafka's novel The Trial.

NOTE
22 MARCH 2019

An article in The Guardian tells of a tattooist being jailed for undertaking surgery on his customers: see - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/21/tattooist-dr-evil-jailed-for-performing-ear-and-nipple-removals

“Whilst I’m sure Mr McCarthy considers himself an artist, providing a service removing and cutting people’s body parts without adequate medical training from unsuitable retail premises, presents a risk to the public that we are not prepared to accept,” Evans said.

One wonders what 'risk' the Board is protecting the public from with its registration of architects.

* EXTRACT FROM THE ACT

Section 3 Main objects of Act

(a) to protect the public

(b) to maintain public confidence

(c) to uphold standards
The point is, (no pun intended): is this dodgy CPD arrangement the best way to do whatever is supposed to be being achieved?

No comments:

ON GARDENING

I am strongly of the opinion that the possession of a quantity of plants, however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their number, does not make a garden; it only makes a collection. Having got the plants, the great thing is to use them with careful selection and definite intention. Merely having them, or having them planted unassorted in garden spaces, is only like having a box of paints from the best colourman, or, to go one step further, it is like having portions of these paints set out upon a palette. This does not constitute a picture; and it seems to me that the duty we owe our gardens and to our own bettering in our gardens is so to use plants that they shall form beautiful pictures; that, while delighting our eyes, they should be always training those eyes to a more exulted criticism; to a state of mind and artistic conscience that will not tolerate bad or careless combination or any sort of misuse of plants, but in which it becomes a point of honour to be always striving for the best. Gertrude Jekyll Colour in the Flower Garden Mitchell Beazley London 1998 – Introduction (first published 1908)

MORE IS LESS

Significantly, in the era of the ‘information revolution’, the same process is now affecting disinformation: whereas in the past it was lack of information and censorship which characterized the denial of democracy by the totalitarian state, the opposite is now the case. Disinformation is achieved by flooding TV viewers with information, with apparently contradictory data. The truth of the facts is censured by over-information, as we have seen from the press and television discussing the Balkans. The globalitarian state, built out of economic-strategic alliances, is no longer old ‘Anastasia’ with her scissors: it is Babel. Now more is less. And in some cases, less than nothing. Deliberate manipulation and unintentional accidents have become indistinguishable.

Paul Virilio Strategy of Deception Verso 2007 p.48

(first published Editions Galilee 1999)

‘That which precedes the event is not necessarily its cause,’ claims the wisdom of the ancients. p.76

As Negroponte has rightly remarked, with the ‘liberation of information’ on the Web, what is most lacking is meaning or, in other words, a context into which Internet users could put the facts and hence distinguish truth from falsehood. On the Web, where, as everyone knows, the terrorist temptation is constant and where depredations of hackers are committed with impunity in a strange state of legal indeterminacy, the difference between (true) information and (false) deception fades a little more each day. In entering the looking-glass worlds of television and home computers, we are in the end left in the position of Kinglake’s old ‘English soldiery’. As they saw it,

insofar as the battlefield presented itself to the bare eyesight of men, it had no entirety, no length, no breadth, no size, no shape and was made up of nothing . . . In such conditions, each separate gathering . . . went on fighting its own little battle in happy and advantageous ignorance of the general state of the action; nay, even very often in ignorance of the fact that any great conflict was raging.

As Albert Camus asserted: ‘When we are all guilty, that will be true democracy.’ p.78

ENCOUNTERING CONRAD

Ryszard Kapuściński The Other Verso London 2018, p. 92

At the end of his book, Kapuściński asks whether, in our encounters with others in the future:

Will we jointly wish to refer to what – as Conrad puts it - ‘speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation – and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts: to the solidarity of dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity – the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.’?*

* J. Conrad, Preface to The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’: A Tale of the Sea, New York: W.W.Norton, 1979.

Architecture stands in between of all of these circumstances of encounter, but how does it explain itself beyond being a bespoke ‘grand design’ of a potential genius?

ON THE CULTURE OF OTHERS

Herodotus . . . wanted to know them because he understood that to know ourselves we have to know Others, who act as a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected; he knew that to understand ourselves better we have to understand Others, to compare ourselves with them, to measure ourselves against them. As a citizen of the world, he did not believe that we should isolate ourselves from Others, or slam the gates in their faces. Xenophobia, Herodotus implied, is a sickness of people who are scared, suffering an inferiority complex, terrified by the prospect of seeing themselves in the mirror of the culture of Others.

Ryszard Kapuściński The Other Verso London 2018, p. 19

CLEVER PEOPLE SELF-DOUBT

I last met him when Philomena came out back in 2013. Back then, Coogan was a bracing, combative interviewee. He saw every question as a potential ambush and moved to thwart any perceived journalistic angle. Today, though, he seems more comfortable with the process, more at ease with himself. It used to be that he felt he always had to have his guard up. Now he accepts that he can sometimes afford to let it drop. He’s middle aged and a mass of insecurity and contradictions. He suspects that, on balance, that’s not such a terrible thing to be.

“And actually I think acknowledging your own fallibility makes you a better artist and a better person,” he says in a rush. “It’s fairly obvious to me that the real wisdom lies in seeing people’s failings and trying to understand them. Because the alternative is that very childlike, Donald Trump thing of believing that admitting any weakness is fatal. What was it Bukowski said? All the clever people are full of self-doubt and all the stupid people are very confident. That’s the era we’re living in now. That’s the era I don’t want to be a part of. So all you can do is try to go about things differently. Do interesting work and don’t be a cunt.”

Coogan gulps for breath. His eyes widen and then he rocks with laughter. “There you go, that’s my big artistic statement,” he says. “Do interesting work and don’t be a cunt. Took me the best part of an hour. Got there in the end.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/04/steve-coogan-interview-stan-and-ollie

HILLS

The hills bespeak a healing power and closeness to unseen help now lost in the security of modern welfare. Those who befriend the silent peaks in a lifetime's work know well their embracing strength. (p.91)

For only once is it given to man to lie in the arms of the eternal forces which give all matter form. (p.98)

Iain R Thomson Isolation Shepherd Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2007

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

Psalm 121 King James Version (KJV)

SPAN

17 August 2012

This blog began as a co-operative concept. While the idea and the stimulus was generated through discussion, the blog has turned out to be an individual enterprise. SPAN stands for ‘Spence and’ in the context of others. As a word, it fitted in nicely with the idea of voussoirs - parts and pieces, complete with keystones, that could ‘span’ the gaps in understanding and communication. The word SPAN also allowed for a shared input into a blog.

Spence Jamieson is an architect and the author of these articles. The blogs show the scope of his interests.

THE IDEA

chapters and verses as architectural commentary:

the wedge to isolate, array and shape ideas; the keystone to highlight core, supporting issues. voussoirs is a concept to start an architectural discussion to span the large gap in the debate on things architectural; a bridging of the void in architectural issues by exploring considered bits and pieces. The state of the profession today is highlighted by silence and self. It is introvert and protective. Educational centres remain isolated within their own constructs, being run primarily as businesses. They put very little back into the community. They indulge themselves in their own interests and exclude contrary and different ideas and ideals. They constantly avoid any challenge on concepts or strategies that might change the plotted course. Rarely does comment ever come from this academic world into the public or any arena. Very few publications help direct the public interest. Rarely do newspapers grasp the issues and explore them. One aspect may be given space in the popular press, but architectural debates and concerns are rarely given attention. The professional institutes are doing much the same as the educational institutions. Private practice is doing likewise, offering, if anything, only its own pushy propaganda to the public. Yet there is a discussion and debate in these silences that needs a larger and more open platform. Discussion is alive and well amongst a few in at least one curry house, but the debate needs to be a broadened. voussoirs is the place for this discussion. It is a site for ideas, comment, articles, and critiques on things architectural and associated issues. It is here that matters can be aired and ideas discussed and debated without fear of the neglect and disdain that institutions and private groups and publishers give to open speaking and differing ideas.

There can be no true understanding of any idea if discussion and debate are curtailed in favour of a preferred position.

ON COMMUNICATION

. . . there has been a growing feeling of concern to solve what is now commonly called “the problem of communication.” But if one observes efforts to solve this problem, he will notice that different groups who are trying to do this are not actually able to listen to each other. As a result, the very attempt to improve communication leads frequently to yet more confusion, and the consequent sense of frustration inclines people ever further toward aggression and violence, rather than toward mutual understanding and trust.

David Bohm On Dialogue Routledge, Oxon, 1996 (2004) p.2

ON ART & METHOD

Even in relationships with inanimate objects and with nature in general, something very like communication is involved. Consider, for example, the work of an artist. Can it be properly said that the artist is expressing himself, i.e., literally “pushing outward” something that is already formed inside him? Such a description is not in fact generally accurate or adequate. Rather, what usually happens is that the first thing the artist does is only similar in certain ways to what he may have in mind. As in a conversation between two people, he sees the similarity and the difference, and from this perception something further emerges in his next action. Thus, something new is continually created that is common to the artist and the material on which he is working.

David Bohm On Dialogue Routledge, Oxon, 1996 (2004) p.4

THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE

The early 50's and 60's is a period that is gaining interest in architectural ideas. Perhaps this is why Princeton chose to republish The Tao of Architecture. It is a beautiful little book that discusses the implications of traditional wisdom in architecture. Given the astonishing lack of direction in current architectural theory, the publication is very timely.

Amos Ih Tiao Chang, The Tao of Architecture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1956, reprinted 2017.

p.26

Laotzu's idea of formation is heavily concerned with emptiness or non-existence. To him who regards nothing as persistent, what is essentially important in things is the possibility of becoming something, not the opportunity of remaining as something confronting deterioration. Consequently, meaningful incompletion is taken as the most desirable state of tangible being.

p.22

. . . the full meaning of existence is beyond the power of any manifestation. What appears tangible, architectural or natural, is only a means to suggest that which is lacking in appearance and existing in man's intangible understanding and aesthetic feeling.

LIVING IN IMPERMANENCE

Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts – serious, sad thoughts – and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space

see: THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE in the sidebar

THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY

I prefer, by far, real islands to imaginary islands, just as I prefer prime documents to novelistic remakes. That's because the real is richer than the imagination. The real demands investigation and is an invitation to sensitive knowledge, whereas the imaginary is more often than not just a collection of stereotypes, a soup of clichés offering an infantile kind of satisfaction. Then, a relationship to the real and its resistance requires changes in thought, in ways of being, in ways of saying, it leads to a transformation of the self. Whereas imagination is nothing but compensation. There's even something horribly autistic about sitting in one spot and spinning out invention by the yard. How much more interesting an open and poetic process involving contemplation, study, movement, meditation and composition.

Kenneth White Across The Territories Travels from Orkney to Rangiroa Polygon Edinburgh 2004 p.86

VISION, CIVILIZATION & SPIRIT

The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and time - - - is he who shall create poems in stone.

When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit.

Louis Sullivan

AN UNCHANGING PROFESSION

ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

. . . no one can relieve (the architect) from the need to rely on his own discretion, for that discretion is linked to a responsibility which belongs to no one but (the architect). It is the exercise of discretion hampered by considerations of cost, of risk, of exact justice, of conflicting interests, of uncertainty as to facts, of misunderstandings and of diverse individualities and dishonest or incapable agents, which is the chief care and preoccupation of architectural practice. To design a building, to draw and specify every part of it, and to direct its construction and see it completed with no other anxieties and dilemmas than belong to the exercise of those duties, is unknown.

H.B.Creswell The Honeywood Settlement Faber and Faber Limited London 1967 (fourth edition: first edition 1930 Architectural Press) p.128

MENDING WALL

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Robert Frost

CATHEDRALS and SYMBOLISM

Everything is the symbolical representation of an idea. p.28

The same artists, who had to follow a strict rule when treating the history of God, could use all of their imagination when treating the ornamental: whence the blossoming of the grotesque and the original. p.38

In those days religion, drama, and art had the same aim and sought to provoke the same thoughts. They did not pretend to amuse the people; they endeavoured to teach them. p.51

This way of thinking and reasoning takes sometimes a very subtle turn. p.53

Hélène Fouré The French Cathedrals Their Symbolic Significance Bruce Humphries Inc. Publishers, Boston, 1931

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 2

ON DEMOLISHING BUILDINGS

Nothing appears to me much more wonderful, than the remorseless way in which the educated ignorance, even of the present day, will sweep away an ancient monument, if its preservation be not absolutely consistent with immediate convenience or economy. Putting aside all antiquarian considerations, and all artistical ones, I wish that people would only consider the steps, and the weight of the following very simple argument. You allow that it is wrong to waste time, that is, your own time; but then it must be still more wrong to waste other people’s; for you have some right to your own time, but none to their’s. Well, then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be still more wrong to waste the time of the dead; for the living can redeem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you; for those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for immortality.

John Ruskin Lectures on Architecture George Routledge & Sons Limited, London p.109

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 1

How to avoid insult

But how much of nature have you in your Greek buildings? I will show you, taking for an example the best you have lately built; and, in doing so, I trust that nothing that I say will be thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect of the building in question will forgive me; for it is just because it is a good example of the style that I think it more fair to use it for an example. If the building were a bad one of the kind, it would not be a fair instance; and I hope, therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the mound, just in progress, I shall be understood as meaning rather a compliment to its architect than otherwise. It is not his fault that we force him to build in the Greek manner.

John Ruskin Lectures on Architecture and Painting George Routledge & Sons Limited; New York: F.P.Dutton & CO - p.64-65

ON EDUCATION

'. . those who are responsible for giving instruction in the theory of architecture should be practising architects. The warning is necessary because, strange though it may seem, English schools of architecture to-day tend to be run by men who either do not practise at all, or whose practices are for them a very subsidiary spare-time occupation. Often a teaching appointment is a means by which a clever student avoids the humiliation of entering an office as a junior assistant, thus depriving himself of the only opportunity he will ever have of learning something of the practical side of his profession from the bottom upwards. There can be no doubt whatever that the teaching of theory has suffered severely as a result of this habit: and this leads me to the conclusion that no man should be permitted to teach until he is recognized by his Faculty as a Master of Theory and Practice. In other words, he should be not only a practising architect but also, what is unfortunately a much rarer specimen, a good architect.'

W.A. Eden, The Process of Architectural Tradition, Macmillian & Co. Ltd, London, 1942, p.p. 86-87

ETHICS

Thus Pugin laid the foundation stones of that strange system which dominates the nineteenth-century art criticism and is immortalised in the Seven Lamps of Architecture: the value of a building depends on the moral worth of its creator; and a building has a moral value independent of, and more important than, its esthetic value. We must not consider this emphasis on morality peculiarly Victorian. Whenever esthetic standards are lost, ethical standards rush in to fill the vacuum; for the interest in esthetics dwindles and vanishes, but the interest in ethics is eternal.

Kenneth Clark The Gothic Revival - An Essay in the History of Taste, (1^st edition Constable 1928); third edition John Murray 1962, reprinted 1974, p.149.

MODERNITY

The everyday is covered by a surface: that of modernity. News stories and the turbulent affectations of art, fashion, and event veil without ever eradicating the everyday blahs. Images, the cinema and television divert the everyday by at times offering up to its own spectacle, or sometimes the spectacle of the distinctly noneveryday; violence, death, catastrophe, the lives of kings and stars – those who we are led to believe defy everydayness. Modernity and everydayness constitute a deep structure that a critical analysis can work to uncover.

Henri Lefebvre, The Everyday and Everydayness, in Stephen Harris and Deborah Berke, Architecture of the Everyday, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997, p.37.

NAMING

The simplest act of substitution is to put the name of a maker in the place of his or her work, which amounts to a paraphrase in itself. . . . All paraphrase sets aside the original: To put the name in place of the painting is to remove it from immediate consciousness; to narrate the life of an individual is an act profoundly different from looking into a painting and one that cannot be conducted simultaneously with it. To substitute a temporal narrative, already present in a name, for the physical work of art is to give up those features of the thing that were transient and unrepeatable, bound to a moment that is irrevocably ended; the unique insistence is, for the moment at least, sacrificed on the altar of continuity.

Thomas Crow, The Intelligence of Art, The University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p.1.

ON BRANDING

Branding is now the art of getting people to think what something might be rather than what it necessarily is. It's about the manipulation of the virtual reality in which so many live. The manipulators include anyone with an interest in what we might think of them - not just big companies with products to sell but political parties with votes to win, design gurus with clients to attract - anyone, in other words, acting in some kind of market. They all have an interest in controlling their appearance to make us believe it is the reality.

John Humphrys Beyond Words How Language Reveals The Way We Live Now Hodder and Stoughton. Great Britain 2006, p. 86-87

see:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/faking-provenance-misuse-of-meaning.html

PRECONCEPTION

Leone Huntsman Sand in Our Souls The Beach in Australian History Melbourne University Press 2001, p.16:

Thus first impressions were filtered through existing preconceptions, starkly revealed in Sir Joseph Banks's description of the people seen from Captain James Cook's Endeavour when it first touched on the Australian continent in 1770:

In the morn we . . . [discerned] 5 people who appeared through our glasses to be enormously black: so far did the prejudices which we had built on Dampier's account influence us that we fancied we could see their Colour when we could scarce distinguish whether or not they were men.

Here Banks refers to William Dampier's unfavourable accounts of the West Australian aboriginal people in published accounts of his landings in 1688 and 1699, and reveals his own awareness of the extent to which perception was influenced by expectation.

see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/seeing-what-we-believe-idyllic-visions.html

THE MUSE - GETTING IT RIGHT

"It can be in the morning, any old time, I wake up with an idea and it starts following you around.

"You go, 'Ah that's good' because you know when it's going to work, it's going to be fruitful.

"Other times you'll get the edge of an idea and maybe it fades away or there's just no way it can be made to serve, you know?

"Then you just, it takes its time and you work on it and if necessary you work on it more than once. I'm known to work on it two or three times before you get it right."

Les Murray

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-02/les-murray-latest-volume-reflects-on-bunyah/6816714

http://www.lesmurray.org/

JARGON

The world seems to find it necessary to use more and more jargon in general reporting and conversation. It is especially noticed in accounts and discussions on the arts. The ABC TV arts programme presented on 7 January 2017 at 6:15pm had more jargon than usual; indeed, had more unusual expressions than previously encountered, ones that had not been heard before:

"unpicking the tapestry" of one's life;

and

looking at "the fan deck of what you do."

These reminded one of other popular fashionable expressions:

“to unpack an issue,” meaning to analyse it in some detail;

and

“to segue,” meaning to shift to a new topic or activity.

This last term is a favourite of radio announcers. The Italian word is often misspelt as ‘segway’ because of the similar phonetic sounding that is more commonly understood as Segway, the brand of a human transporter.

The parallel is interesting, as the idea of being ‘transported’ is common to both words, but it seems to hold little interest to the radio voices that appear just too cleverly happy with the use of this different, interesting expression.

Wednesday 20 February 2019

WHAT’S THE POINT? - ON REGISTRATION RENEWAL

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