Everyday Architectural Criticism

Everyday Architectural Criticism MSc. Arch. Cristina Dreifuss‐Serrano

Just for the record, The weather today is slightly sarcastic with a good chance of: A. Indifference or B. Disinterest in what the critics say Panic at the Disco – “London beckoned songs about money written by machines”

Intro To whom are we writing? Why do we have architectural criticism? Is it just for us, architects, artists, art historians, as well as other academics that might have an interest on the matter?

Shouldn’t architectural criticism be meant for the common citizen, the one who dwells, lives and dreams inside architecture?

If we are to agree that architectural criticism is written just for a relatively small group of professionals and academics, then I’m afraid there is hardly anything to add to the matter. We can assume then that we are members of a guild of sorts, an élite group that had managed to monopolize both knowledge about good and wrong and the right to judge accordingly.

If this is the case, we can carry on with our usual debates.

If, as I hope, we sustain that architectural criticism – as architecture itself – is meant to serve people, then we are forced to see there is an ever growing gap between it and its intended public.

What is actually happening is that when most people think about architecture, they picture two

shopping malls, museums, architecture with capital A. On the other side, and as if it were something entirely non‐related, their own everyday architecture, the houses they live in, the shops they go into and their places of work and leisure.

I am going to talk about my own hometown, Lima (Perú) as an example of the gap existing between “great” architecture – made by a few known architects ‐ and everyday architecture –

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very different things: on one side, those great buildings, made by recognised architects, banks,

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mostly made by the common citizen without professional help. That very same gap can be found between building environment and written architecture, between centre and periphery, between formal and informal.

In our particular case, it is absolutely necessary, though, to take this gap into consideration since more than 70% of the city of Lima has been made by the citizen itself, without intervention of the institutions whatsoever.

Lima The official date of birth of Lima is January 18th 1535, when the Spaniard conquerors came in and named it. The fact is, that it had been there for a while then, as an Inca administrative centre on route to Pachacamac, the all‐Peruvian Oracle.

The conquerors imported a very popular urban pattern then, the damero. A grid of parallel and perpendicular streets that marked 100 meters long blocks. On the centre of it, exactly were the old Inca centre had been, the Spaniards located the main square, the Cathedral and the government building.

Lima grew slowly and following that pattern during the first two centuries of her Spaniard foundation. It won’t be until many years after the independence, at the end of the 19th century, that the city will outgrow its walls and develop according to different patterns. Meanwhile, peripheral settlements such a Miraflores or the port El Callao were growing as well until in the 50s the city reached its actual condition. Lima Metropolitana is one big city that unifies all those settlements.

In the 40s full‐scale internal migration began. Both the construction of roads all over the territory and the development of communications triggered waves of immigration from cities and towns everywhere in the country. People that, in its search for a better future, became dazzled – as it

that modern place, where everybody had a chance, where it wouldn’t be so difficult to succeed.

The first groups arriving to Lima started occupying the centre of the city, while the traditional wealthier families moved out to new peripheral districts. When the further subdivision of old houses became impossible, the city started growing at an alarming pace, with peripheries made by

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happened in so many places worldwide – by the stories told about the city, that fantastic place,

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this new population of immigrants, who took over abusively any land, private or public and started building neighbourhoods in them.

Initially there were very poor houses, made of wood or hay, in sand hills, with no water, electricity or any public service whatsoever. Today, there are neighbourhoods, fully consolidated, with public spaces, housing, institutions and a very important economic growth. The government, unable to provide urban plans as fast as it was needed according to the growth of new urban areas, started acknowledging them as part of the city and providing, little by little, with what was needed in terms of services – water, electricity – and public transportation.

Lima is a city that has been made by its own inhabitants.

And what about architecture?

While there are many studies approaching this phenomena from a urban or a social perspective, there are very few that focus on architecture itself.

What is the architectonic response to such difficult conditions, both geographical and social? And what is the “official” response to that?

Two cities, many cities.

We can point out, then, the existence of two cities. The “official” one, growing according to city plans, to both public and private investment, whose market is the wealthiest families that traditionally were also the more educated ones. This city is made by urban planers and architects, in response to what these families ask for them. It’s the architecture linked to the faculties, to fashion, to the international and national publications and to our very modest debate.

The second city, as previously described, grows, without the intervention of architects, professionals or the state.

beautiful face” as Peruvian novelist Bryce Echenique would put it. Periphery was something that just happened outside “our” city and it had little to do with academia, architecture publications and debate.

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Some years ago, the traditional classes could still pretend it didn’t exist: “an ugly mark in the most

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Nowadays the “weight” of the new areas cannot be ignored any longer. With the decades, the new families had achieved an economic status that allows them to access both education and work posts that no long ago were mostly held by the traditional classes.

The contrast has became evident almost instantly. Architecture schools don’t get the same students they used to some years ago, students that read the same magazines as their teachers did, that came from the same neighbourhoods, that had travelled to the same places. Now schools get a far richer, plural population of students coming from everywhere in the city and in the country. Disagreements between teachers and students had became evident.

Most teachers, though, chose to ignore this new creative force and aim to “normalise” new students. They teach that Frank Lloyd Wright is good, while my house isn’t. That a white box with a long window is right, while a colourful multi‐story one with 5 different types of windows is something laughable. That Frank Gehry is entitled put together vey different cheap materials in its own house and it is all right, but you, Juan Pérez, are not.

I think this is a symptom of what architectural criticism has became, not only inside our schools but everywhere.

So, now we have our situation, or problem as critics. THE question: What do people like?

It is amazing how, even in the most precarious of circumstances, ornament, beauty attempts, aesthetic value appears, even before more – apparently – primary needs are solved.

After the basics are solved – roof, walls, and maybe not even floor – ornament appears.

And now?

1. What if architectural criticism begins with the problems that this specific building is trying

2. What if it uses the very language of the population it is aiming for? (For critic must aim towards a specific population).

3. What if it uses the media the communities are used to read, i.e. communal blackboards, bulletins, graffiti?

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to resolve?

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What if architectural criticism begins with the problems that that specific building is trying to resolve?

According to Montaner, in architecture, critical judgement is based on confirming to what extent did the building achieve their aims: functionality both in distribution and in its social aspects, beauty and the expression of symbols and meanings, adequate use of constructive materials and techniques, relation with the urban context, the place and the environment (Montaner 2002) However, when confronted to extreme situations of material poverty and difficult in accessing education or cultural sources, architectural criticism should understand that it is not possible to achieve it all. Some aspects of the ideal “good” architecture must be left behind in order to actually do something.

Furthermore, concepts such as beauty or expression of symbols are not universal and rarely shared between people with different backgrounds or stories.

Each architectural project is the answer to a group of specific questions. Architectural criticism should begin with knowing them in reference to the building they are aiming to analyse.

Before starting to speak, even before starting to build an opinion in his mind, the critic has to listen.

What if it uses the very language of the population it is aiming for? (For critic must aim towards a specific population, right?).

We can agree that when talking about architectural criticism we are referring to a vast universe of types of writing. It is not the same to write about a building if we are going to get published in an academic journal, in an architectural magazine, in a short article inside a newspaper; or if we are going to make a public speech in a symposium, a lecture in a classroom or talk among fellow

So, if we are to agree that there is a specific population to which critic aims, we should also try and use a language that reaches that population. From the words we use to the examples we pose, sometimes it seems that architectural critics purposely try to scare away their intended readers.

Tectonics, hermeneutic approach, poetics of shape, achieving of innovative structural solutions, spatiality.

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colleagues.

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What are we talking about? Why should the “normal” inhabitant, the one with the small coloured house made of bricks care about that kind of criticism in which he does not recognise himself?

I am not talking about reducing or simplifying or work as critics. What we could do is take our job further, make it reach more people by talking their language and considering the subjects they are interested in. Not in a patronising way, but by establishing a dialogue between what there is, what we know and what there could be.

What if it uses the media the communities are used to read, i.e. communal blackboards, bulletins, graffiti?

We could also consider that, besides official publications, nice reviews and books, that just a small fraction of the population reads, there is – or there should be – media supports for everything else.

How do people find out about the happenings inside a community? How do they get to agree on some debate? How does the spirit of a community grow?

By means of communication, of media, of using whatever there is in order to get the message to reach as many individuals as possible. We are talking about television, of course, but also about radio, Internet, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, bulletins, blackboards, advertisement, graffiti, and, why not, public transportation.

As somebody said today, architectural criticism has to be “popular” in a good way. It has to aim for the common citizen and it has to reach it.

There is architecture that we architects are not aware of and while it is unquestionable the role of criticism when it is applied to those great creations, we have yet to focus our efforts on a

It should stop worrying about taste ‐ ‘it’s all a matter of taste’(Scruton, 1979) – pure aesthetic beauty or judgement. Architectural criticism should be, ultimately, a bridge between architects and clients, between built environment and theory. Between life and dreams.

Cristina Dreifuss‐Serrano

responsible critic of that every‐day architecture, that is also friendly to the public.

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