Essay question: What is Quality in Architecture?
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By far the best two essay were by Zharina Sunthbocus and Carolina Canna. They are both thoughtful and exhaustive.
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Quality in Architecture
by Zharina Sunthbocus
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To begin with, quality in architecture seems to be something subjective. Most of the time, we do not agree about what is beautiful or not. Nevertheless, some people, like Christopher Alexander, don’t adhere to this thesis. In fact, in “The Timeless way of building" from this author we can see several references to Taoism; Taoism which is also well described in "the Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff.
In his book, Christopher Alexander talks about “Quality without a name”, something that every good and beautiful thing has in common. This “quality”, actually can't be named because there is not only one word to define what it is. Besides, Christopher Alexander tries to surround it with existing concepts or words like "alive", ”whole”, "free", "comfortable" etc.
In my opinion, this is not surprising because when you ask someone why he likes or dislikes something, most of the time, he can't explain it clearly and put a word on that "thing" which makes him find that this is good. For example, in our last seminar, students had to choose a building which best defines "quality in architecture" and when the teacher asked them why they chose that building in particular, they couldn't answer obviously.
According to Alexander, a building, a town or a city has this nameless quality when they resolve our inner forces. Some places can resolve inner forces whereas others constrain them. He takes the example of a courtyard and a window. A courtyard needs to have one way out, a private outdoor space, somewhere to sit under the sky but if this place is too tightly enclosed, if you have no view out to a larger space, you feel uncomfortable, not "alive". The same phenomenon occurs in a place where there is a window. It needs an alcove, a bay window or a window place that invites you to sit and come to life. On the contrary, if you are in a place where windows are just "holes" one force pulls you where the window is and another force pulls you towards the natural "place" in the room and this sort of conflict can only generate stress. But here, anyhow, the situation just developed is not an absolute principle, because our character and humour at a given time are elements which must be taken into account.
Instinctively, we know how to make a place, a building, “alive” but we are afraid of that power. And here we can find one of the principles of Taoism the "Wu-Wei" which involves knowing when to act or not. That is to say knowing when to let things go on and to let Nature take its course.
Generally speaking, people always want to explain everything and as it is written in the "Tao of Pooh" this is a waste of time. To corroborate this, we can take the example of this “quality that cannot be named”. Alexander tries to explain it but finally he reaches the conclusion that it is impossible.
In "The Timeless way of building" it is also said that when buildings have the nameless quality, in a way, they have the character of nature but this doesn't mean they have to look like trees or something else; they just need to have their inner forces reconciled. But still, in any place where human creations try to recall us nature, it can’t be true unless there is that sensation of sadness and this arises from the fact that we know it’s going to pass.
This leads us one more time, to Taoism and what Lao Tse said : "the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance.” Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet.
To conclude, we can say that quality in architecture is something that you can only reach when you are in harmony with yourself and close to Nature. In my opinion, it's not only something subjective, and I would rather agree with Alexander about how he presents things using Taoism. But on the other hand, I think that how something resolves our inner forces differs from one person to another. As regards Taoism and after hearing about "the Tao of Pooh" I have the feeling that it is much more a philosophy than a religion. In” the Tao of Pooh” it is said that we must turn our weakness into strength and this is something I agree with.
I think these books are pushing us to see everything in a different way from what we normally do but we should be careful not to overreact to this new approach.
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Quality in Architecture
by Carolina Canna
The art of creating living-spaces is called Architecture. Culture and civilization are printed on the face and organization of buildings, making Architecture one of the important aspects of human development. Quality in architecture is therefore not only a necessity of modern living, but the cultural status of a developed society. It therefore goes beyond the basic human needs and includes art in its own definition. This makes it all the more important to analyze what constitutes quality in modern architecture.
Quality in architecture requires more than complying with all relevant technical standards. First of all, quality in architecture means, give solutions to the needs of its users, needs such as the desire for comfort, of a place that feels like home and where he wants to be, the sense of feeling of well-being. A fine construction is one that not only adapts in harmony with its surroundings but also promotes life, creativity and happiness. On the contrary an unsuitable one is self destructive and generates misery. This reminds us the tragic incident that we saw during a presentation with Toyo Ito’s niece who committed suicide because she was felling depressed in the house that her uncle had designed for her and her family.
Sometimes we architects are obsessed to create building that are impressive and different and we forget the essential that is to create places that suit us and where we want to be. I believe that this is a good example, even if it is an extravagant one, which shows us the impact that has the place we live in has in our lives and in our motions.
Our goal as architects should be to create buildings and spaces that are functional, beautiful in which we feel at home and that are alive in the same time. In order to achieve that we must trust our inner Nature, our instincts and use our real life experiences. The advantage in this science is that everyday experiences in the space, are lessons to us that needed to be learned either to reproduce either to avoid.
In “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hess the hero realise that the enlightenment is not something that somebody can teach him but it is something he attained by his own experiences in life.
In the same way, Benjamin Hoff in the Tao of Pooh insists that the world is a teacher of valuable lessons that needed to be learned directly rather that learn indirectly by books.
It does not exist a magic recipe for quality in architecture. Quality is the essence of nature itself and nature order emerges spontaneously. Benjamin Hoff claims that we must not force or interfere with things; we just have to let them work in their own way to produce result naturally.
The problem in now days is that we are all “Bisy Backson”, that means that we are too busy trying too hard to achieve something new and as a result we are not able to see the solution that is in front of us. We are always competing against others and we end up losing our selves and forget our needs.
In conclusion, to attain quality in our architecture means being able to understand our limits and being able to enjoy the whole process. Sometimes it takes us time to recognize our own value. We simply need to believe in ourselves, trust our instincts and experiences in life and not being afraid to try and fail. We have to relax and enjoy what we are doing, after all the anticipation and the awareness for the result often means much more than the reached goal.
