Handcuffed (A Beautiful Thing)

A recent commission in the office has me scratching my head.  How does one satisfy a client that employs catch phrases?  Cutting edge.  Sleek.  Smart.  Really?  I can design almost anything that would meet these criteria.  That’s not direction.  It’s the opposite of what I’m used to and herein lies the problem.  Without a defined set of parameters, I’m apparently dead in the water.  I’ve sketched (100) + ideas – I’ve contemplated about (1,000) more.  When there is nothing to measure success against how do I know when I’ve solved the problem: especially a design problem?  I can’t infiltrate the client’s head and comprehend what they are thinking.  Moreover, I can’t crack open their boss’s head (figuratively of course) – whose aspirations and expectations they (and by extension, we) are attempting to bring to fruition.  I can’t see his wheels spin.  I’m more convinced daily that I should have taken additional courses on interpersonal psychology at Dear Ole State.  Add that to the list of possessions you won’t attain from higher education.

Effectively this deal has no parameters.  On the surface it seems like the dream gig, right?  Whatever you’ve done in the past, we want more than that.  Push the limits.  What?  That’s nonsense to me.  I hear what they are saying but I’ve been programmed not to listen to a single word.  I’ve been in this business long enough to know that even if I do achieve this design nirvana we all envision they will value engineer my balls off and kill my intent.  We want something new. You can’t be serious...sometimes being an architect is like dating a stripper – there is nothing you can do that hasn’t been done before – you’re not going to impress her.  There is nothing NEW!  It’s all been done.  Who am I to think I can create new, whatever the hell that even means?  Has my cynicism regarding this profession finally smacked its apex?  Have I at last caught up with my own incomprehensible design arrogance?  It’s hard for me to believe that I have allowed myself to be oppressed by the absence of rule, but I have.  I’ve questioned and doubted authority since Jesus was a child, it’s one of my core values.  And without authority, I feel blind?  Have I really forgotten how to be amazing on my own terms?  Maybe I have, but maybe not.  Either way this deal has me handcuffed and it sucks. 

It’s not going to disappear, so I have to figure it out.  After all, I would like to take a good nights’ sleep at some point in the not too distant future. 

My “aha” moment came to me while resting peacefully mindless in bumper-to-bumper on the connector this evening.  Just do something beautiful.  It really is that simple.  It’s primary in why I chose this path.  It’s what I tell anyone who will listen, that’s what they should be doing.  How many times have I asked someone showing me their work in studio “is it beautiful and amazing?”  That’s what I do.  That’s what we are supposed to do.  We strip away all of the bullshit and make something that possibly shouldn't be beautiful, beautiful.  I didn’t become an architect to protect the health, safety and welfare of the populous; I became an architect to create a more beautiful thing.  I’m not sure how many are conscious of the fact that everything in the built world is designed.  Wherever you are right now, you are surrounded by someone’s architectural idea.  Chances are better than average that you are not surrounded by good architecture.  We are it seems encircled by shit design, but I can change that – one line at a time.

If I am an architect and I do not daily endeavor to create a more beautiful thing then I have failed my profession and more importantly, I’ve failed myself.  If you are not an architect and you do not endeavor daily to create a more beautiful thing, no matter what that thing is for you – your yard, your kids, your life, whatever – then you have failed yourself too.  If we don’t all believe that we each individually can have the utmost profound and lasting effect on this world and that we are possibly the only ones who can change it then it will never change, no matter what it is.  If we don’t believe that and we expect or assume someone else will do it, “I’m not that creative”…”Those aren’t the kinds of buildings I do”…”I’m not sure what I should say…”  IF we collectively feel that way, we will eventually truly be surrounded by shit more so than we are today in more ways than one.   

If this little ramble has taken on the tones of a taut Sunday sermon, I apologize.  It’s intended for my own ears as much if not more than it is yours.  I’m casting dispersions on no one.  I get caught up in the business of this business sometimes and forget why I jumped in in the first place.  The truth is that this small struggle of mine over the last few days is part of the game.  It is the game actually; it’s the struggle that makes us better.  It's the struggle that makes me want to play at all.  Being handcuffed in this sense is an exceptionally beautiful thing.  I don’t know what I would be without it really.  This rare thing makes my heart beat faster, you know?  No problem I can’t solve, no task I can’t master, no client I can’t satisfy.  Maybe it’s only rare insomuch as I rarely see it, but today I feel more alive because of it.

I boil all of the nonsense I’ve said tonight down to this:  A beautiful thing is a beautiful thing.   A beautiful thing only knows that it is beautiful.  It exists on its own terms.  It doesn’t have to be a part of a whole, in fact the category or family or genome to which a beautiful thing belongs has, should have no bearing on its possession of beauty.  Tomorrow, I will create a beautiful thing for my client, but more importantly for myself.  Knowing that makes this day and the next a hell yes day and that is a beautiful thing unto itself.

That said tonight I’d rather throw some paint at a canvas or a wall than think about anything other.  Hey, maybe I will make that canvas or wall beautiful, maybe I won’t. 

Either way, I won’t be handcuffed and it will be a beautiful thing.