voussoirs: WHY HAVE PLANNERS?

Wednesday, 23 March 2022

WHY HAVE PLANNERS?

For years the personal cry has been for the planning profession to be abolished if it cannot reform itself. The world has more planners than ever before in the history of time, but cities, towns, villages, and the countryside are getting into a total mess; a true, uncontrolled shambles of whatever, wherever, all while being managed and supervised by our planners.

Now, for the first time, we see voices from the planning community crying out for change. Unfortunately it has not been rational argument and reasoned expositions that have stimulated this new approach, but the recent record floods in Queensland and New South Wales – some say one in a thousand years, such was their severity. Areas never before flooded were inundated. Experience in dealing with planners over the years when reviewing and objecting to development proposals, has highlighted the situation described in this article in The Guardian, headlined: Queensland floods raise questions about the ‘ethical obligation of planners’, industry figures say - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/20/queensland-floods-raise-questions-about-the-ethical-obligation-of-planners-industry-figures-say?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

At last, a call for ethical planning; it cannot come soon enough. For years, we have discovered the process for development applications to be:

developer generates an idea;
developer speaks to the approving Council through the planner or the local Councillor, who arranges a meeting with the three bodies – the developer; the approving planner; the Councillor – to discuss the best way to ‘go forward’ with the idea;
this discussion involves negotiations on the scope of the scheme and the available options, and the perceived ‘difficulties’ with the approval process;
the planner might even recommend a planning firm that would be of ‘assistance’ in the preparation of the formal planning application; we have seen cases where the approving planner becomes involved with the recommended planning firm as a consultant;
once there has been agreement between the three parties on the scheme and the approval strategy that may involve various trade-offs and silent nods as the project is developed in detail, the scheme is then ‘informally’ approved, with internal Council approval processes set in motion to ensure there is no delay in issuing the formal approval;
after this private activity, the project is advertised for community assessment and comment, that may involve objections;
in this public consultation period, we have seen the approving planner and the Councillor become involved in the community to ‘manage’ the response; this involves getting a feel for the community reaction to the proposal;
if there is a sense of strong objection to the scheme, the planner or Councillor will use community contacts to generate submissions that support the proposal;
the assessment of the application then becomes a mathematical game rather than any thorough review of the qualities or compliance of the submission, or the details in the objections: ‘x’ for; ‘y’ against – the ‘y’s have it, giving the ideal outcome that confirms the prior ‘informal’ approval – full speed ahead;
the argument for these prior approvals has been given to us by Council representatives as Council being useful, helpful, making sure that everybody’s time is not wasted by either party, with planners seeing their role as being facilitators as well as assessors, with the very last thing wanted is for a scheme to be rejected, with the developer taking Council to court: we have been told that Council would rather negotiate outcomes than leave the city burdened with a decision made by a judge who knows nothing about planning;
when the objections might outnumber those in favour, and in order to control matters of appeal even when those in favour ‘win,’ the planner sits down and goes through the objections in detail, and establishes a precise set of responses to these issues of concern that have been raised, so that they can be ‘annulled’ in the approval as special conditions to structure the required compliance, allowing the Council to argue that all the objections have been addressed, dismissed, or accommodated;
these unique conditions for a project can take various forms, with some responding specifically to the situation as required actions and/or defined numbers; but when matters get difficult, words like “To the engineer’s approval” are included so that the nod is postponed to a circumstance during construction, well after the project has started;
once all the approval conditions have done the job, and done away with all potential appeals – why bother when everything has been so carefully ‘managed’? - the developer presses on with the project doing whatever is wanted;
when the developer hits a hurdle, say, because it cannot accommodate a particular condition, or because more or different is wanted for the project, the Council reps and the developer get together and quietly modify the conditions of approval to suit the requirement or predicament, a process that does not have to go back to the public for review; it may be that these modified conditions directly contravene details of the formal plan;
even without changing conditions formally, the developer might brazenly press on doing what was always wanted, with the public becoming aware of the breaches only on completion; here Council simply takes steps to formalise the non-compliance as is needed to manage things, or simply ignores the situation, using time and the authority of the planner as the brick wall;
occasionally conditions that have been ignored might generate a response from Council that could seek to enforce the approval, but developers have options of appeal – e.g. natural justice - to ensure that their non-compliance is finally accepted; developers argue, maybe that it is totally unfair to impose such a financial burden on them, with final decisions being made by those who know nothing of the project or the plan: the other option is for Councils to just walk away, leaving things to be resolved by leaving them unresolved, blocked by the inertia of the planner’s power, and the process.

There is little wonder that the call for ethical planning has now been made. Planning has become adulterated. One of the very first calls that has to be made to allow for ethical decisions and processes, is for the plans themselves to be written far more clearly and precisely so that they do define a precise plan, a predetermined outcome, rather than merely stumbling around with muddled motherhood statements that allow for any negotiated compromise that might be desired or preferred. We have seen rules on setbacks in plans that say:

the setback shall be 1500mm;

the setback may be 1000mmm;

the setback can be as agreed with the approving officer;

or wording to that effect. Plans are riddled with such ambiguous language that facilitates negotiations and discussions to allow various outcomes never intended by anyone other than the developer. There are numerous built examples just in one nearby street that show what can happen even when even simple, basic rules only appear to be clear and enforceable, but are left open to some ‘flexibility,’ or the approving body’s carelessness. Decks go to front boundaries when setbacks are defined as 6 metres; fences are 4m high when the limit is 1.8 meters; building colours ignore the plan and include white, black, and purple, etc., when soft beige is defined as the requirement; fences are built out metres into the footpath to claim more land instead of defining the property boundary; building heights go to over 13 meters when the limit is 9.5meters; and more – and, when one points out the circumstances to Council, all of this is said to be ‘approved’: one is told to go away, “The rules are different now,” with a smug arrogance that defies any challenge and demands that one has to comply precisely with every rule that has been broken. Little wonder that one gets exasperated with planners.

We have been told that our seventeen-page objection, that had been delivered by hand and E-mailed to Council, had never been received by Council; and one can do nothing about this: we have been told that a 4 metre deep carport nearby has been formally approved by Council, even when it is clear that, with this dimension, most vehicles will have to protrude out into the footpath, as they do. No one cares; the only important matter is to make sure the complainant goes away. Nothing changes; no action is taken; but Council still feels it has the right to enforce the trimming of a few twigs that it claims are blocking the footpath opposite the undersized carport that ensures a footpath blockage will occur.

When a plan clearly defines three as the maximum number of storeys in a zone, and a seven storey building with a penthouse – eight storeys! – gets approved, there is a problem. This project involved protracted legal games, highlighting the fact that plans need strength and rigour to be enforceable. After all, a ‘plan,’ by definition, is supposed to define an achievable, measurable outcome. Without such a document, anything can be argued, and is. Trade-offs like public access are somehow measured against a few extra storeys that might be counter to public interest and the planning requirements, but the court seems to see things more materially. This is why plans need rigour. Plans that can be negotiated are simply not plans, but guidelines that allow for a shambles, an ad hoc clutter of developers’ ambitions.

One cannot be blamed for arguing that current planning practices are corrupt; perhaps one might say that they have been corrupted. The cry from one in the profession for ethical behavior is refreshing, but very late. The text is so important that it has been reproduced in full below. It is a true shame that this call has to be stimulated by historic floods. Good planning would never have allowed any development of the flood plains – and yet even this continues, complete with ‘scientific’ proof that it can be done successfully. Specialist advisors have a lot to answer for in the planning industry; it seems that there will always be some expert willing to swear to any outcome, at any time, as required by any developer.

One Council CEO was fired because he argued that flood plains should not be developed: one developer threatened to sue him. The same Council later approved the development of a flood plain with the astonishing condition that the project provide a boat to allow people to get out during floods, as well as having a stockpile of food and water to supply those who might get stranded. These astonishing conditions take the ‘approve anything subject to . . .’ to the extreme, highlighting the problem that exists with planning today when special conditions can overcome any problem: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2015/11/developing-flood-plains.html

Planning must take significant steps to be rigorous, rational, and thorough if it is even going to get close to being considered ethical. Without this, one can only again repeat the refrain that has been expressed for years: the planning profession must be abolished if it will not change; it seems that the world would be no worse off without it.

As for flooding, and solutions for building in these areas, one is now seeing solutions to accommodate the frequent inundations that are becoming silly: Queensland government proposes third wave of funding for flood victims worth three-quarters of a billion dollars

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-19/queensland-floods-funding-victims-houses-applications/100923718; while others are asking questions: Flooding across eastern Australia prompts property investors to ask 'pertinent' questions

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/flooding-prompts-new-investor-questions/100891930

There are many pertinent questions that come out of this mess, the basic one being: why have planners when we get the behaviour and outcomes like those that we have seen in the past?

THE ARTICLE

Queensland floods raise questions about the ‘ethical obligation of planners’, industry figures say

In the wake of the floods, some planners are advocating for a shakeup of the planning system

Brisbane suburbs inundated by flooding earlier this month. Planners say reform is needed to lower the risk of flooded residential areas. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Sally Dillon

Sun 20 Mar 2022 06.00 AEDT

Planners are calling for a shake-up of their industry and the planning system in the wake of the devastating floods across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

As flood waters rose across Brisbane, Brent O'Neill, the director of design at Wolter Consulting, logged on to his computer and asked: "As development professionals, what is our responsibility to ensure we do not put people's lives and property at risk?

“I cannot help but reflect on the numerous times that as professional planners and engineers we continually push councils on the development footprint and boundaries, proposing engineered solutions to significant hydrological issues, ultimately rewarded by our developer clients when we achieve higher densities, or development in flood prone areas,” O’Neill wrote on LinkedIn.

O’Neill told the Guardian that the aftermath of the floods was an ideal time to question “the ethical obligation of planners and the development industry”.

“Ultimately, we’re there to represent community needs and values and if we’re not doing this, we need to do better,” he says.

The planner and academic Dr Laurel Johnson says the planning industry needs to return to its roots.

“The health of individuals and communities is at the heart of modern planning practice, which grew from a response to the dreadful health outcomes in post–Industrial Revolution European cities,” Johnson says. “But we’ve moved from that really clear mission of planning in the public interest to become facilitators and enablers of development.”

Johnson says the planning industry needs to “pause and recalibrate”, given the dire warnings contained in last month’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

The IPCC says unchecked climate change will dramatically increase the frequency of deadly flooding to several times a year and will cause sea levels rise to the point where, in some coastal areas, retreat is the only option.

Johnson says if her industry does not advocate for the public interest, communities will lose the chance to decide their future. “What’s happening now is that insurance companies are determining this because there are some areas where it’s not feasible to rebuild.”

Broader planning problems

O’Neill and Johnson say the planning issues that have manifested after the recent floods are reflective of broader problems within the system.

Johnson says the planning system is overly complex.

“There’s even a Planning Institute of Australia award called the Hard Won Victory, as if beating the planning system is to be awarded,” she says.

O’Neill says while the adversarial system could “produce excellent innovation, we do have to be cautious if that it is creating bad outcomes”.

“An example is where you have two technical arguments, where one says the site will flood, and another says it won’t. We end up with two experts arguing about flood modelling, which might not produce an ideal outcome.”

He says Brisbane city council planning rules introduced after the 2011 floods required development applicants to provide technical reports to show their proposed project won’t flood.

However, O’Neill says Queensland’s performance-based Planning Act means developments on flood-prone sites can still be approved with some risk.

The Brisbane councillor Jonathan Sri says the significant impact of the floods on his neighbourhood shows the system is flawed.

“Since 2011 developers have been saying, ‘We know what we are doing: we’ve got a good flood-management plan, we’ve designed according to the flood levels, trust us, it will be fine’.

“It turns out they were completely wrong in many cases.”

Building on flood plains

O’Neill says the increasing impact of climate change means decision-makers have a “moral and professional obligation to play a much stronger role in planning for change … to push back a bit” and to “pause and ask if we’re doing the right thing”.

However, he says state and local governments need to rethink laws around building on flood plains, as planners alone cannot be moral gatekeepers.

The Queensland deputy premier and planning minister, Steven Miles, said at a media conference this month he planned to talk to councils about how they could change their planning schemes to cope with the projections for more frequent and more severe natural disasters: “I have visited flooded areas … that, frankly, should not have been built upon.”

Miles said the government and councils needed to work together to “mitigate flooding risks ... but also ensure that going forward we’re not building new homes on locations that are prone to flooding .”

Sri says the impact of the floods on the low-lying suburb of Rocklea, where the city’s produce markets were inundated and a major garbage-truck depot was isolated by flood waters, shows council needs to rethink zoning laws .

“We’ve got impacts to power, to sewerage, to school facilities, to waste disposal, to the food supply chains,” he says.

Sri says governments have to take responsibility for the impact of the floods.

A Brisbane city council spokesperson says: “An independent review into Brisbane’s preparedness for floods is being undertaken by former governor Paul de Jersey. We will publish the report and respond to its recommendations once it is finalised.”

Sri says new rules need to look “at the cumulative impact of just how much development there has been, not just in low-lying flood areas but in areas higher on the hill”.

“We don’t just need to be talking about the amount of development within creek catchments and within creek flood plains, but we actually need to be talking about the amount of development up the hills where the proliferation of concrete and hard-stand surfaces means that water hits those sites and then runs straight down,” Sri says.

Buy back flood-prone land

Sri, Johnson and O’Neill agree governments need to buy back flood-prone land.

Sri says: “In suburbs such as Rocklea and Fairfield, the western side of West End, and the low-lying parts of Milton and Auchenflower, the government needs to offer optional buybacks to all residents in low-lying areas around creeks and the river and preserve that as green space or sports fields or other land uses that aren’t as severely affected by flooding.”

He says: “The government should also be compulsorily acquiring any sites in these areas where developers are proposing to develop new residential, industrial or commercial buildings.”

By promoting development on flood-prone land, O’Neill says governments are increasing the likely risks of flooding, ultimately placing the ongoing costs “back to the private sector, both owners and developers”.

He says it is time for the industry to engage with all levels of government to have a hard discussion about priorities.

“It’s about saying we’re a river city and we are facing a $1bn bill to rectify the recent damages.”

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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, 23 March 2022

WHY HAVE PLANNERS?

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