|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
Architorture
millennium club
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1376
|
 Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:24 pm Post subject: the ethical architect? |
    |
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/arts/design/22pogr.html?_r=2&ref=design&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
| Quote: |
FOUR months ago the architect Daniel Libeskind declared publicly that architects should think long and hard before working in China, adding, “I won’t work for totalitarian regimes.” His remarks raised hackles in his profession, with some architects accusing him of hypocrisy because his own firm had recently broken ground on a project in Hong Kong.
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Architecture and Global PoliticsSlide Show
Architecture and Global Politics
Since then, however, Mr. Libeskind’s speech, delivered at a real estate and planning event in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has reanimated a decades-old debate among architects over the ethics of working in countries with repressive leaders or shaky records on human rights.
With a growing number of prominent architects designing buildings in places like China, Iran, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where development has exploded as civic freedoms or exploitation of migrant labor have come under greater scrutiny, the issue has inched back into the spotlight.
Debate abounds on architecture blogs, and human rights groups are pressing architects to be mindful of a government’s politics and labor conditions in accepting commissions.
The ideological issue is as old as architecture itself. By designing high-profile buildings that bolster the profile of a powerful client, do architects implicitly sanction the client’s actions or collaborate in symbolic mythmaking?
Or in the long run does architecture transcend politics and ideology? If the architect’s own vision is progressive, can architecture be a vehicle for positive change?
For the most part, the issue is not a concrete one for the field’s top practitioners; no architect interviewed for this article except Mr. Libeskind has publicly rejected the notion of working for hot-button countries. Yet the debate underscores the complex decisions that go into designing architecture — from the basic financial imperatives, to public access, to the larger message that a building sends — and is prodding architects to reflect on their priorities.
“It’s complicated,” said Thom Mayne, the Los Angeles architect, whose projects include a corporate headquarters in Shanghai. “Architecture is a negotiated art and it’s highly political, and if you want to make buildings there is diplomacy required.”
“I’ve always been interested in an architecture of resistance — architecture that has some power over the way we live,” added Mr. Mayne, who said he had recently been interviewed for projects in Abu Dhabi, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Middle East and Indonesia. “Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you’re offering alternatives. Still there are situations that make you ask the questions: ‘Do I want to be a part of this?’ “
There is little question that this is a highly charged global moment for the profession: a building boom in Asia and the Middle East, combined with a hunger for designs by name brands, has created unparalleled opportunities for architects to make their mark. Every city wants its own Bilbao, the saying goes, a reference to the explosion of excitement over Frank Gehry’s 1997 Guggenheim museum there, and every architect craves the recognition that comes with a high-profile commission.
One lightning rod in the debate is Rem Koolhaas’s mammoth headquarters for China’s state broadcast authority, CCTV, a minicity in itself in a capital where cranes dot the skylines and nearly every famous foreign architect has a project on the boards. Mr. Koolhaas suggested at the outset of the project, which he was assigned in 2002, that by the time his tower — a hulking hollowed-out trapezoid — was completed, China’s censorship of the airwaves might well have changed. (The building is almost finished.)
Mr. Koolhaas is known for arguing that market forces have in any case supplanted ideology. Some interpret that stance as a way of avoiding the harder questions and a not-so-subtle reminder that money drives the most ambitious projects in the West.
“I have often found Rem Koolhaas’s provocatively ideological neutral stance problematic,” said Barry Bergdoll, the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. “I want to hear architects try to think that through. I want to know that they’ve grappled with it.”
Mr. Koolhaas declined to be interviewed for this article.
Architects face ethical dilemmas in the West too. Some refuse to design prisons; others eschew churches. Robert A. M. Stern, who is also Yale’s architecture dean, drew some criticism last year when he accepted an assignment to design a planned George W. Bush Library in Dallas.
Mr. Stern shrugged off the sniping. “I’m an architect,” he said. “I’m not a politician.".............. |
thoughts? i feel a little guilty for the 4 guard houses i've done in dubai now....slightly more than 100 sf of personal shame[/url] |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 767
Location: Montana, USA
|
| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"And up from the ground come the bubbling crude, oil that is, black gold, Texas tea".
That's a wealth of information. I'm frazzeled as to where to start.
_________________
n/a |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
where to start is firstly with what is to be designed.
if the work involves directly causing harm (as with Moishe Safdie designing a city in Israel which he knew was mostly to be built on land from which the inhabitants were to be driven out.)
in other words, a project which is not merely for a regime with which one does not agree, but which will in itself cause suffering (as with the KBR cages-for-humans at Guantanamo).
the other part is the morality of the regime (client). The anti-China hysteria is a fraud. Sorry, but it is really a bit much to hear countries like Britain and America pretend that they give a damn about Chinese politics.
anybody got anything to say about the 'morality' of the British now using thermobaric bombs on Afghanis ?
perhaps architects should think carefully about working for the RAF - perhaps some are already concerned.
the ethical conscience in architecture is - in my experience - far stronger than in many other professions.
some years ago when the French National Front gained control of local government in some French cities, Jean Nouvel and a group of several hundred other architects refused to work in those cities while the Front retained control.
as I have mentioned in the past, after the Nazis defeated France and introduced the Numerus Clausus laws restricting the right of Jews to work in the professions, it was the French association of architects in Paris which refused and held out for two years in the middle of the war.
against the Neo-Con version which many see as being so similar to Fascism, how have the RIBA and AIA been doing ?
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 1865
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
I think that has to be a personal decision.
_________________
Chris Stewart
Modern Texas Home Project |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
indeed it is a personal decision - and now suppose that the US Government implements a Numerus Clausus law against Muslim architects.
and what would happen in Britain ?
do we really need to be told what would happen ?
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Architorture
millennium club
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1376
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| i think the jean nouvel example is interesting in that it was also mentioned in the article... it seems difficult to understand that you would be against a party in your own country enough to not work for them but are willing to work in places that have as many issues as dubai and abu dhabi right now... i doubt anything was happening in france at the time that was comparable to the conditions many immigrant workers face in the shadows of dubais skyscrapers... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mx2
millennium club
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 1968
Location: Miami, Florida
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
like religion...I don't know if Architecture and politics ought to mix, even though historically it has...especially as an EXPRESSION of political philosophies. But the question is being asked about the ethics of it...I suppose we should act in good faith and to the benefit of the commuity at large. SOME may say that is what communism does, some would want to hang me just for writing that...whether I belive it or not. McArthyism all over again?
mx2.5
_________________
*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 1865
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hopefully the McCarthy days are mostly behind us.
_________________
Chris Stewart
Modern Texas Home Project |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Landy
Joined: 15 Dec 2005
Posts: 445
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
what?
didn't we all agree at some point that architecture is a whore? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ARC1TEC
Joined: 27 Jun 2008
Posts: 14
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:45 pm Post subject: is any form of government the right form |
|
|
Should I not buy chinese goods? Should I stop socialising with chinese people? Should I be allowed to design temples of capitalism in china? Should we go to war so that I can build once all wrongs have been righted?
Or should I remain content being a theoretical architect until someone tells me I can stop doing that now and go and build good projects in hk?
I don't seriously think these questions will/should be answered but really behave. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Architorture
millennium club
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1376
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| arc1tec...do you have one of those little red books next to your bed? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mx2
millennium club
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 1968
Location: Miami, Florida
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Some things transcend politics...shelter being one of them.
mx2.5
_________________
*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ArchiMotion
Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 315
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| mx2 wrote: | Some things transcend politics...shelter being one of them.
mx2.5 |
Exactly. Why should some self-righteous architects go around floundering their knowledge of history and politics as a means to make a political statement, or worse, a statement of bigotry against religion or any type of views they abhor ? Does this not create a greater divide among men then is needed, given the tension we see in the clash of ideologies between the East and the West? Thus, if architects were to go on a campaign against China, Korea, Russia, Dubai, Cuba, what would be the result? If the AIA or RIBA were to act as advocates of political ideas, what would be of these organizations but puppets of opposing political views? This is preposterous.
Now, as far as the tyrannical governments - when these compromise the security of citizens, infringe upon the rights of practicing the profession, or seize control of the architecture as a means to propel themselves further into a situation of power that could compromise an entire region and create instability, such as when the French National Front gained control of local government in some French cities, perhaps it could make sense. Particularly since Jean Novel was French himself, and national security was involved. But for architects to extend themselves in a sort of blanket refusal to operate in communist countries or the like is preposterous. It is spreading bigotry, hatred, and anti-governmental propaganda that only fosters further aggressive behavior and antagonism. The people who are preaching such aggressive political attitudes on the part of architects are exactly the ones who have demonstrated themselves, in other discussions, to demonstrate disdain for the groups they would so exclude from serving. Thus, this personal attitude leads to pre-conceived ideas, prejudice, false classifying of people and groups into behaviors that may not be representative of all members associated in some way to such groups. They are the ones to make categorical statements that discriminate, judge, bar others from using reason, fairness and accurate distribution of justice. These architects and people who have this type of attitude will not get very far, as their folly is clear for all to see.
Now, architects, just as lawyers, should be expected to act in an impartial manner, not either favoring or opposing their clients, but rather, the utmost priority is to act with professionalism and to attend all clients with the same distribution of impartiality, fairness, and equal application of justice, so rare around these regions of cyberspace as well. Architects thus should not go out on political campaigns against governments, political systems, or religious groups, as a means to "make a statement". Each group of people, country, nation has it's own history, reasons for adopting particular views and these should be respected, principally by architects. If some wish to despise others, let them do it in the comfort of their own home, but away from the uniform of the architect. I have seen enough bigotry, hatred, lack of respect and lack of tolerance around me, and these who come here to act in such a manner as well should be well advised to re-think their world views. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
Motion
the distinction between how one acts in one's own country and in respect to the politics or actions in other countries is one that I agree with.
Nouvel's action was against what he perceived as a peril to cities in his own land, as you say. If there were tyrannical actions in Britain, then the RIBA is, I believe, obliged to speak out or to become complicit. This is the basis of the Numerus Clausus law example. One of the biggest problems for those under the Vichy Regime in France was that these were the laws of the land - imposed by their own government. Not an easy situation, and the actions of the French association of architects will have been viewed by many as illegal.
when the problem relates to how another country is run or behaves itself, then I would agree that it is a personal decision. Many architects do indeed take a stand against what they perceive as injustice, but they do so as individuals or specific groups.
similarly there are types of building which are harmful - where the designing of them would be viewed by many as an abuse of professional training. Example: the design of a torture chamber, knowing that it is a torture chamber. However there are many other examples which individuals or groups of architects refuse to be involved in designing - in Britain, for example, many architects refuse to design facilities for experimentation on animals. It is their decision and their right to do so.
such compromises do exist - and, to me, the "but it's what the client wanted" response is inadequate.
does it "transcend politics" ? frequently politics makes sure that it does not - and we all know it.
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1137
Location: Nice, France
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
there is an example that I mentioned on this forum some years ago.
this is from about thirty years ago. A British architect told me that he he had experience of working in the Middle East. The experience that he described was of designing a prison - the cells in the prison (as he described it) were too short for a prisoner to be able to lie down, and too low for them to be able to stand up properly. I was amazed and asked him if he didn't think it was a bit ... (I was stuck for a better word) "tasteless".
he told me that it was what the client had wanted.
_________________
Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
blogger
del.icio.us
digg
slashdot
