Do countries that demolish their past also demolish their future?
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/02/01/marcel-breuer-demolition-comments-update/
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/01/28/marcel-breuer-geller-house-demolished/
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/02/04/marcel-breuers-geller-i-demolition-opinion/
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/02/01/la-fregate-cafe-will-alsops-demolition-jersey/
This cluster of news reports stimulated the thought: are we in the ‘new’1960’s when demolition meant progress? Is 'moving forward' today's cry that promotes an urgency with no direction, only an uncontrolled ambition? Is there any managing strategy for ideas? Has theory any role in design, or is anything possible? Are we demolishing our future as the punchline headline suggests: "Countries that demolish their past also demolish their future."
First there was the news of the proposed demolition of the Australian Environmental Sciences building at Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane. Why might an environmental sciences building at a university become landfill or road base? Surely everything is wrong with this concept. One expects universities to be exemplars, to be the source of innovation and creativity for the community; so to have such a poor environmental outcome with a building that should be accommodating researchers at the forefront of matters involving environmental approaches and solutions, is simply astonishing. Can the university think of nothing better to do with this building than turn it to crusher dust? Is one now encouraged to see universities simply as places of commerce, making business decisions to maximise only profits, and do nothing about the benefits of research and learning? Alas, it seems so.
Then one read about the demolition of one of Marcel Breuer’s first houses built in the USA – it went overnight so as to make room for a tennis court, as if someone knew that this history was important. It is not as though there was any absolute necessity for it to go; just the desire, so it seems, for personal recreational space. What have we lost?
Next was the report that Will Alsop’s ‘boat’ cafe was planned to go to make way for ‘redevelopment.’ (As an aside, see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2013/03/skaw-boat-house.html ). The interesting parallel to note here is the way in which the intentions to demolish were being fought. As with the John Andrews’ Griffith University building, those seeking to keep the Alsop building have applied to have it listed on the heritage schedules, and protected by this listing. Sadly, in Australia, the history of buildings listed, and their protection, is not good. If a building is finally deemed to be of sufficient standing to be listed, which is a real challenge in itself, it is this listing that ironically seems to stimulate clandestine destruction. The result is rarely a demand to rebuild the place, but rather a mediocre fine that really makes it all worth while for the developer. ‘Accidental’ fires are also reasonably common too, and are useful because of the possibility of an insurance claim.
Then there was the astonishing report on the Bezos yacht. Had no one even thought of how the yacht might get out into the open water? Truly? Surely this is the first thing a boat builder looks at given the cliché jokes on matters like these. Did the boat builders originally plan to demolish and reconstruct the bridge; perhaps hopefully just demolish it? One gets a glimpse of the thought processes that went into this design when one reads the last sentence of the report:
The boat’s tall masts would present a hazard to helicopters, so the former Amazon CEO commissioned a support yacht with a helipad to follow in its wake, the outlet said.
It seems that one does whatever one wants in a design and then worries about the implications afterwards, because one can always demolish/reconstruct a bridge or order another yacht or two, or do whatever is needed as a solution if one has the inclination and the money. This is all a far cry from Sullivan’s modest innocence expressed as the form follows function/ function follows form relationship in the making of things, and any idea of necessity in design matters, (let alone Kandinsky’s inner necessity), where things have to be and are accepted a limitations on decisions and actions, and play a significant part in the design resolution. Grillo has presented this position clearly in his What is design? The new do what you like approach makes a farce out of the craftsman of old, of whom it is recorded, having concentrated, he set to work, with the idea being that the whole design was shaped in the mind, completed well before the work was started. Carrying out the work was merely a matter of re-enacting what had been completed in the ‘concentration.’ Now the process seems totally contrary to this concept: do what you like and overcome all problems on the way, whenever, however; let nothing and nobody stand in your way! Brute force is involved here rather than any responsive elegance.
One turns one’s thoughts to how decisions on demolitions and designs are made; and on how the exotic extremes in our architecture are achieved. Is it all about whatever it takes to achieve a vision in spite of anything and everything: is the task simply to make forms fit? Will the cry, "Countries that demolish their past also demolish their future" have any impact in this context? It appears that the answer is “No, none at all,” as it seems that the effort involved in the achievement of the vision becomes the most critical and only matter of importance, nothing else is of meaning or value; it will not be allowed to intervene. There is very little that is rational in these matters that can stimulate one to stand back and see anything as a problem when the ambition is to have a smart, new building; a tennis court; homes, shops, and cafes; or a huge yacht – or whatever, irrespective of impacts: maybe a crunched building, a hollow one, or a swirling one is desired? Nike’s Just do it! seems to have caught on as a general idea: bugger the world!
Is this today’s concern: that we have the tools to allow us to do whatever we want so easily; and, in some cases, have the money too? Here one recalls the child who is told that he/she/it can do anything, “Yes,” who then begs for limits with the puzzled response: “Truly, anything at all?” This ‘childish’ circumstance reveals more wisdom than we see exercised today when we go willy-nilly into things just for the delight of doing whatever we like – just because we want to and can, maybe just for self-expression; maybe for adulation. Frank Lloyd Wright has been depicted as being arrogant when he told a client to shift the antique table if he was worried about the leak over it – which seems to be sound advice. What does one make of Bezos who appears to be saying: shift the bridge for my yacht, even though the bridge was there well before anyone had thought about his nautical desires?
Gone are the references to nature in these design strategies, with their recognition of rigour, coherence, and integrity: We see into the life of things - Wordsworth; gone are the references to the contemplation of the wonder of man: What a piece of work is man – Shakespeare. Now all we see is genius ME; or project for hero ME, with thoughts racing on away into other wonders that indulge ME, for ME alone, to allow others to admire ME; to envy ME.
There are serious ramifications in this situation that need to be realised; but again, we have a circumstance where understanding is perverted by singular, blind and deaf ambition- ME.
How one can generate any intimate interest in matters subtle and meaningful remains a serious puzzle; a real challenge. One has to get others listening and thinking of things beyond any indulgent self-interest. This involves the awareness of others in a world engaged in social media – selfies: the core being ME, ME, ME.
Might the poet engage such interests? Whatever it takes, contentment and humility, and care and responsibility are involved, emotions that are rooted in an awareness of others and the human predicament, rather than turning inwards purely for narcissistic delights - ME.
Louis Sullivan, like William Wordsworth, found wonder and direction in seeing the world; studying the flower; the cloud: All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other - Sullivan. Maybe this might be the best beginning? Maybe Wordsworth?
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Wordsworth Daffodils
The poet of old asked the question clearly:
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Pssalm 8:3-4 KJV
We need to consider more than any material self with a self-centred selfishness; we need to become engaged in the wonder of our being, entwined with the enchantment of the world, rather than being indulged with entertaining distractions that all centre on ME.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
. . .
Wordsworth Tintern Abbey
One wonders if anything like this experience, a sense sublime, might modify decisions to act in particular ways; stimulate responsibility; change beginnings to give different endings, because what we do today, how we experience matters and respond to them, does inevitably change the future, be this by demolition or by just doing what we want to irrespective of anything else: changing the present will change the future, just as doing nothing will shape it too, and embody the stark void of self-interest. One has to remember that demolishing the past refers not only to building fabric, but to the world of thought and ideas too. What is being discarded today in favour of nothing in particular but ME?
We need to try to answer Grillo’s question again - What is design? - not with the “anything one wants it to be” reply, or the “anything different and interesting” approach, but with a desire to understand that quality Sullivan spoke about, the form, an outward semblance, that tells us what things are, that distinguishes them; as we seek out how to design a proper building that grows naturally, logically, and poetically out of all its conditions, giving rise to that sense sublime that Wordsworth experienced at Tintern Abbey.
Sullivan’s comment that our architecture reflects truly as a mirror seems to explain more about our designs today than we know about them ourselves.
EMAILS
These two Emails relating to the above reports were the original stimulus for this text.
. . . .
We are not alone.
Not only is it Griffith with John's building, but we had the Breuer that went overnight for a tennis court, and now the Alsop. The method to try to save the latter is the same as that in progress for John's work.
One is left wondering if we are not in the 'new' 60's when demolition meant progress - 'moving forward' is today's cry that promotes an urgency with no direction.
S.
. . . .
You might have seen this article and asked the obvious question; but it was the sentence at the end of the report that floored me.
Is this the world's new design philosophy?
Is this the thinking that gives us the astonishment of the new extremes in ‘Architecture’ - forget about the rigour of form and function, and any idea of necessity, just do whatever you like and force the solution?
The sentence reads:
The boat’s tall masts would present a hazard to helicopters, so the former Amazon CEO commissioned a support yacht with a helipad to follow in its wake, the outlet said.
What can one say when the solution is to dismantle the historic bridge to let the masts through, and to commission another yacht so that the helicopter will not crash into these masts?
Let's hope that there is not any other issue that might need solving with a support- support yacht!
S.
8 FEB 2022
And so it goes on:
and
https://dutchreview.com/news/jeff-bezos-asks-for-dismantling-historic-bridge/
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