Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [85]
Some critics think of this as pandering, and suggest that we are playing to the lowest common denominator. For them, we are absolutely forthright in affirming that, when necessary, we are prepared to sacrifice architecture on the altar of urbanism, because all architecture is meaningless in the absence of good urban design. Behind six acres of parking, a true cantilever is no more ethical than a fake arch.
Other critics condemn the use of style codes, which they consider to be autocratic restrictions on the creativity of the individual architects.dh These critics make two false assumptions. The first is that every individual building should have the opportunity to be—and indeed, bears the responsibility of being—a work of art, a singular, dramatic manifestation of the spirit of the age and the skill of the artist. Most great cities do indeed contain such unique, expressive public buildings, but they are inevitably surrounded by repetitive and undistinguished private buildings. If every building were to croon at once, nothing could be discerned from the cacophony. The second false assumption is that, in the absence of architectural restrictions, what would emerge would be a harmonious landscape of structures that looked as if they had been designed by Richard Meier or Frank Gehry. Somehow, from the perspective of the schools and the magazines, the default setting for unrestricted architecture appears to be modernism. If only this were the case! The default setting for architecture in America is not modernism but vulgarity. To confirm this assertion, the architecture magazines need only look at the advertisements that fill the pages between the masterpieces they display.
That said, there is absolutely no incompatibility between traditional urbanism and modernist architecture—far from it: modernist architecture looks and works its best when lining the sidewalks of traditional cities. Some truly great places—Miami’s South Beach, Rome’s EUR District, Tel Aviv—consist largely of modernist architecture laid out in a traditional street network. These places do not suffer in any way from their modernist vocabulary, and neither do neighborhoods that combine many different eras of architecture in a true urban fabric. Such is the power of the traditional street.
South Beach: modern architecture flourishing in a traditional urban framework
We look forward to the time when American designers can address the problems associated with sprawl as effectively in a modernist building vocabulary as in a traditional one—something that is already happening in Europe. Until then, we hope that those architects who would rather fight the style wars than take on larger social issues will eventually recognize that our current urban crisis makes their concerns irrelevant.
A NOTE FOR ARCHITECTS
If an obsession over style were the only problem troubling the architectural profession, we could all rest easier. Unfortunately, many of the smartest architects suffer from an additional malaise that is no less threatening to the quality of the built environment. It could perhaps be called Intentional Alienation Syndrome.
The last fifty years have witnessed a decline in the relevance and influence of the architectural profession in America. While architects used to lead the design team on most large projects, they are now more likely to be one of many subconsultants to a general contractor, often providing no more than the decoration for someone else’s concept. More and more projects are being completed with hardly any architects involved at all, especially in the suburbs.
In response to their growing sense of