Centre on artistic man: relax - Letters - Letter to the Editor

Architectural Review, The, July, 2003 by Michael Greville

SIR: With my February 2003 issue lost to the local postal system, I have only just seen Charles Jencks' New Paradigm article. There is something new going on, but it is not right to say the new stuff is better than the 'boring incessant repetition' of the old. Just as soon as the world is full of twisty stiff pseudo-nature, the Casa del Fascio will appear and dazzle us like we are apemen. The new work can be placed between partitions, but in the spirit of Chaos theory it all iterates from simple base rules. Architecture is a resolution of reason-rationality and emotion-artistry, in Classicism the rhythm of the Orders versus the material and carving of them, but in the Modernist period the order versus nothing, often. It's not all been bad, but this legacy, the need to rationalize ALL aspects of design, has been a problem. To try to return to making compelling 'artistic' architecture, we have all been burdened by the need to justify it. Some of what's been called 'critical regionalism' does not look too different (eg Pietila) from the current work, but the explanation, necessary for the critics at least, is there in the title applied to the movement.

Fractal geometries may be merely the latest justification for a way to 'decorate' and elaborate our architecture, and if it works and the results are great, then fine. But it is wrong to think that this is different from the post-war morality that said new buildings must be (spiritually) clean and white (where 'nothing' IS something), or, later, should for example reflect a deconstructivist view of the world. Just styles. So we choose, and computers, new materials, new techniques, enable us to build things we could not before. It is wrong to imply that because there is a new scientific story of the world we are inevitably bound to follow it, or that we are duty bound to try to follow it. This is historicism, and sits comfortably in the old modernist 'hegemony' Jencks thinks this is beyond.

Robert May, a pioneer of chaos theory, takes the view that it has no insight for innately complicated systems, just that extremely simple rules can lead to apparently very complex results (though I'm sure Michael Crichton exaggerates the abilities of the self-replicating nanobots in his new novel--if not then buildings will one day be made this way). Buildings are complicated; they have things to do and functions to fulfil. The theory does not apply. But the 'new' scientific view of the world depends on other theories, quantum theory certainly, and games theory. There are lessons here, specifically on the limits of simple logic. In games theory, especially in the famous 'Prisoner's Dilemma', the startling observation was that the only rational choice might not be the right one. The whole environment must be considered, and the long-term involvement in it.

Quantum theory destroyed the notion of simple determinism: if this, then that. In Michael Frayn's play 'Copenhagen' there is a great speech by the Niels Bohr character describing man's position through history, first tiny unknowing figures under God, then the measure of all things in the Renaissance, before being sidelined again by classical mechanistic physics. Then the world is turned inside out by quantum physics, and Man is placed back at the centre of universe--as so much of what is real depends on his point of view. The lesson to be taken from all of this science and theory is that man the creative artist can stand again at the centre; relax, be creative, it's OK. This is what we see now, and if some rely on computer generated patterns, so be it, but it may be a weakness, not a strength. Fractals can help teach us why we find natural materials attractive, but a house is not a tree. It is interesting to consider whether the work of Libeskind, who also relies on 'external' generators, is thereby constrained compared to the freer but traditionally developed designs of Gehry. There is the rational stuff, there is the artistic stuff; the latter can but does not need to lean on the former.

Yours etc

MICHAEL GREVILLE

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia