Need for a disciplinary definition trips up most histories and theories of architecture. Three approaches predominate: a tight boundary is proposed which conforms self-fulfillingly with the author’s theoretical agenda; a broad definition is applied that includes all constructions intended for human inhabitation or use, and in which unintentional habitats such as caves and trees are conceived as forms of proto-architecture; or no definition is proffered due in large part, I suspect, to an assumption that the qualitative differences between architecture and mere buildings are self-evident. The heterodox histories of architectural history and theory provide clear evidence that none of these are self-evident, or even satisfactory.
This fact is not merely amusing. It is frustrating. And some clarity is needed before I proceed.
Like every other historical or theoretical axiom, architectural meaning is an extraordinary (third) experience constructed from a human projection of place within or against an architectural setting demands a reasonable distinction between works of architecture and mere buildings in order to serve any purpose. Arguably, there are two radical perspectives available – call these two experiential readings. One is external, drawing on sets of socially agreed upon qualities or measures appropriate to the context of the classification. The other is internal to experience, and asks the question, “does this building serve to further a story?” – whether my story, the story of some group or of place, or some combination. Constructions that meet some social standard or serve to record or convey a narrative are recognized as architecture. These two readings – external/objective/social and internal/subjective/individual – are, ostensibly, essential categories and, as such, are understood to divide definitions of architecture in nearly mutually exclusive camps.
As with most dualisms, this one isn’t quite right – especially if one perspective or the other is understood as telling us something truer about architecture’s identity than the other.
The properties a thing possesses are, at least in part, determined by the methods used to measure it and, more broadly, the paradigms through which it is observed. This is one possible interpretation of the fable of the blind men and an elephant. Touching its trunk, a tusk, an ear, a leg, a flank or its tail each reveals some characteristics and elides a host of others. None of the resulting observations are wrong despite how incompatible the descriptions might seem. In the physical sciences, physics in particular, this is explained by the principle of complementarity. Light’s behavior as a wave in some experiments and a particle in others is a famous example. To study light as a wave reveals some of its characteristics, to study it as a particle reveals others. Neither perspective is assumed to be true nor the other discarded as false. Full simultaneous perception of both sets of characteristics – that is seeing light’s behavior as a wave and a particle at the same time – is impossible. This is neither a failing of theory or paradigm nor a latent schizoid quality in the phenomena observed. Both perspectives are simply incomplete descriptions of an entity that exists independently of any theory or perspective and to which theories or definitions can be applied but never with the breadth or degree of necessity that the entity exhibits by its mere presence.
It is facile to compare the external/social and internal/personal perspectives on architecture to the particle and wave theories of light. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the two readings of architecture are merely incomplete interpretations of an independent phenomena that has no necessary or fixed relation to those readings. In other words, theories attach to architecture in ways similar to how theories attach to phenomena described by physics. Architectural description, in short, is subject to complementarity.[i]
Let’s take an example. It is possible to account for some net-zero/carbon-neutral buildings being recognized as works of sustainable architecture while others are not in at least two ways. The determination can be external to the individual’s appraisal of the building by utilizing any number of performance metrics or by taking into account social conventions in addition to performance such as conformance to community design guidelines, conventions of taste, etc. that – though not embraced by the individual, are understood as matters of shared value. The determination also can be internal. It is possible for an individual or cohort to deem a poor performing building a serious work of sustainable architecture due to the way in which it conveys a story of sustainability or reinforces a narrative that the individual or target audience embraces. Contradictions in observation or description or both can and do occur. However, in cases both of an individual declaring something a work of sustainable architecture while the community at large does not and the inverse, where the community confers the status of sustainable architecture on a building that leaves some individuals cold and confused, the contradictions are rooted in perspective, theory or paradigm. The entity remains untouched and is free of contradiction.[ii]
[i] For an excellent introduction to complementarity as understood by physicists, see Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War, (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2008), 242-244.
[ii] Susskind likely would dismiss the dualisms populating architectural discourse as “discrepanc[ies] between two mental pictures” instead of genuine contradictions. “Mental pictures have more to do with limitations imposed by our evolutionary past than with the actual realities that we are trying to understand. A genuine contradiction,” according to Susskind, “occurs only when experiments lead to contradictory results.” Susskind, The Black Hole War, 242
Architecture is Fiction 