Monday, my boss randomly asked why I had never combined music and Architecture. “I can’t believe, as much as you write about it that you haven’t incorporated music into your designs.” I don’t recall what I said exactly, but I’m pretty sure it was a stupid answer. I’ve thought about it since and I’m still not sure how to respond.
There are multiple obvious reasons.
Architects unfortunately exist in a business environment. They always have but more so now than probably ever before. The pressures we feel now are different than even at the beginning of my short career. The budget rules the day followed closely behind by the schedule (invariably driven by the budget). How would my clients feel if at the kick-off meeting I began to wax eloquent about my views on the confluence of music and design? If I let them know that I was going to spend an extra few weeks exploring that relationship? Interpreting the unspoken beauty of the Ramones through the vehicle of their building? I’d be broke in a week. However sad that is, it’s a fact.
More and more often we are asked to produce more with less in smaller and smaller windows of time. We are almost always burdened with an unreasonable client who doesn’t even really understand why we are there, what it is that we do and certainly not what we have to offer to the project. As architects that is partly our fault. We’ve been telling each other for years that unless we start “adding value” to the project our profession will suffer. So what did we do? We made you all start saying the word “green”. Congratulations! We’ve taken a design concept that should be second nature if we are true to our craft and made it irrelevant, a catch phrase. The USGBC is one of the most dangerous organizations in Architecture today. I’m a member, you have to be, but the USGBC and moreover the whole shell game that is LEED will not save us. One should not get a blue ribbon because he didn’t trip the retarded kid on the way to the bus, and architects should not get a feather in their cap because they designed a “sustainable” building. We’re supposed to do that. There is no extra credit for doing the right thing. We have a cultural, moral obligation to be more. The “green” movement isn’t all bad by any stretch of even my uber-fatalistic imagination – I just doubt the motivation behind it.
It really starts with educating our clients. That’s a hard sell, I know. We’ve taken the power that we should wield like a bloody, fiery sword and surrendered it to the developer, the code official, the budget, the GC, the holding company. The fear of losing the deal has us all by the throat. We can’t afford to let that be an excuse any longer.
Architects take the whims and fantasy of the client’s desire and transform them into reality. That can only happen with an open dialogue that has become less and less common in this “market”. Too often, we give them what they want – not what they need. In every construction project, the architect should lead the team. More often than not, we are simply a player and that is unacceptable. There’s absolutely zero arrogance in what I’m saying. We are not smarter than anybody. But we do, or at least we should, bring a certain amount of measured skill and precision understanding to the table.
I don’t take backseats.
I’m not a role player.
I score touchdowns.
I demand that I occupy my rightful place at the head of the table.
Though obvious, these “reasons” are part of why architects are becoming more and more marginalized and why architecture as a whole continues to lose favor with the general public. Capital “A” Architecture certainly exists. Fewer and fewer of us practice it though. That’s not actually entirely a bad thing. The “feeling” my designs give the user may never be published in Architectural Record. That doesn’t make me less of an architect. If anything that makes me more of an architect. Our profession is based in the knowledge that we are charged with affecting the quality of human life. I don’t need to be recognized to recognize that I’ve done my job well.
The last 700 words have nothing to do with what I started talking about. (Maybe I shouldn’t be at the head of the table after all!)
Music re-purposed as architecture: Daniel Libeskind speaks to this concept in his work at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. He sees that design as the completion of an Arnold Schoenberg opera, the unfinished 3rd act. I’ve never experienced this incredibly interesting design first-hand so I can’t say that he got it right. I have heard him lecture on the theoretical underpinnings of his design process. It’s fascinating to hear him talk about it but at least from the hundreds of images I’ve seen it remains just that, a theoretical expression. Maybe that’s okay. Who really knows what he’s even talking about anyway? It’s imperative that we have rock-star architects but that’s not everyman. That’s not Tuesday. What would my father think of that space, of that façade, of that texture? Would he even notice? Does anyone who isn’t an architect actually recognize the character of the space they inhabit?
I do agree with Libeskind in that all buildings are, at least in some respects musical instruments. A building, a space has an inherent resonance based on volume and form and materiality and a hundred other qualities. As an architect, it certainly is my duty to corral or at the very least influence how those characteristics of space are perceived, experienced and remembered by the inhabitant. That in of itself is one hell of a directive, no? Why would I complicate what is already a near impossible task by adding the musical variable? There are certainly elements of music that translate. Rhythm is a necessary quality of the work I do – to a lesser, but as vital degree tone. That doesn’t make it musical though. Architecture is its own beautiful music.
So to answer your question AP, there is no way to answer your question. Music and Architecture exist in equal standing on the same level playing field and never the ‘tween shall meet. One, for me, can’t be placed above the other and to combine the two devalues them both. If I don’t keep them separate, I may never become the master of either. It’s an interesting concept but one that finds a more appropriate home in academia – not the real world. Good design stands on its own legs and not only doesn’t need a partner but invariably falls apart if it has one. I would be foolish to say that music doesn’t influence my Architecture and vice versa but that should be the end of the sentence. I need them both. Separately.
In college I was fond of saying “Don’t sell your soul to fill your belly.” I lost that creative subversive fire for a while and it pisses me off.
I can feel the heat of that fire again.
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