Picture what you think of what someone mentions modern architecture. It doesn't matter if it's a real place you've seen, just think of a building that you'd consider modern, on the cutting edge of design, an aesthetic that's not outdated in the least. Chances are you think of glass and metal on the outside, white walls and big spaces inside, mostly very straight lines but maybe some controlled curves. Truthfully, contemporary architecture looks more ways than we could even talk about. But there is definitely a recognizable aesthetic trend for architecture of the present and the recent past. This 'look' is born from the ways technology and industry have transformed the way people build, and from the evolution and reconfiguration of twentieth century ideas about architecture.
Clean
The "Modern" architectural style is nearly a century old at this point. What most people would colloquially call "modern" is what architects are more likely to call "contemporary." Modernism isn't the architecture of the present anymore, but its name suggests an ever-presence, a timelessness that it doesn't actually possess. But Modernism and related styles represented a departure from older perspectives on architecture, the perspectives that produced the places that look historic now. It has had a lasting influence on architecture, and when most people refer to what's new as looking "modern," they're probably referring to how contemporary and non-historic it looks, using words like "open," "streamlined," and "clean" that have come out of twentieth century changes in how people think about architecture.
Modernism is as valid as any other architectural style, and style isn't really what I'm wondering about. I wonder why "modern" and "clean" is so often synonymous with the whiteness, blankness, and straight-edgedness of minimalism. Why, in the most eventful time in human history, is architecture considered to be at its most highly evolved and progressive only when it is made of fewer, smoother lines; of fewer, larger spaces, and filled with as little color as possible?
In nature, when shapes simplify and consolidate in this way it's symptomatic of the end stages of a process. Raindrops running together become a stream, bubbles burst in the foam of ocean tides and become larger bubbles before disappearing. A strange thing about time is that at every time, no matter how you dream, certain things seem timeless though they transform constantly; everything was new once. So I question whether the streamlined and "clean" ideal aesthetic of much contemporary architecture is as timeless, as inevitable, as it currently manages to seem. Like the way we build now is the best possible form of architecture, when truly it's just the latest product of the latest time. To be sure, there's still incredible variation in architectural trends throughout the world, so I'm speaking pretty generally here. But we're in the most globally interconnected time in history, and the explosion of technology and efficiency is a relatively global phenomenon; architecture is reflecting that.
More is More
A key goal of modernist architects that continues to manifest today is the elimination of "ornament," or elements that are just there to be pretty, so that the "form" of the architecture can come strictly from the function. In other words, the goal is simple beauty derived from functional elegance. Personally, I believe the aesthetic attributes of architecture should be completely complementary to functional elegance, and a place should never look cool at the expense of sense and soundness. But why should minimalism be the key to designing a holistically beautiful place? And what does it indicate when minimalist, "clean" architecture is considered the cutting edge of design, representative of the present time?
Color, more color -- richness and roughness, cracks and pools, are very ancient. There have been rich surfaces and wild places for all of nature's history. If blank white walls mean that a place is very modern and on the cutting edge of aesthetics, that suggests that in our time, the color is draining out, less and less as time goes on. But nature doesn't listen to that. It goes on blooming and shaking and giving birth, and it doesn't hear this idea that the present time is about simplicity. Why would elegance be restrained to exist wherever there was nothing that could be considered excessive? Why is true beauty and excellence expected to wait only stripped-down places? There's so much in nature that is simple and understated, but whether it's a simple sunbeam or a wild cliffside, there is a need for a certain excess that makes it really transcendent.
I don't think architecture is arriving. We're not reaching the peak of how great it can be, just because we're at the height of where technology has taken us. By minimizing ornament and excess, we get architecture that maximizes a sense of control and mastery of the environment, a place so distinct and different from nature that it constitutes an escape from it. A totally built place. Then we realize how miserable places like this actually make us feel, so we start to bring plants inside and make big windows with good views, because we can't live without it. As much as we want to think we transcend nature by differentiating ourselves from it, the truth is that we never can.
Architecture is derivative because we are derivative; we make everything from something, and we build it in a shape we've seen before somewhere. Architecture is inspired because we are inspired, inbreathed; we make everything using the mind, the soul, the divine spark, and we build places that are different from anything else in nature. It's our dwelling and our mark upon the environment, our intervention in it, and it's a good thing for it to be both derivative and breathed-into like we are. That's where it gets that certain undefinable quality that we call "transcendent" or "elevated," an exuberant elegance that might be elaborate or simple or silly or refined or whatever else it needs to be, because it transcends the mandates of any particular style or perspective. We don't survive well in sterile containers that provide maximum separation from nature, any more than we survive well in temporary shelters exposed to the elements; the elimination of excess is an unsuccessful attempt to achieve transcendence, maybe not that different from no attempt at all. Good architecture needs to incorporate both parts of what we are.
Dirty
So why insist on designing upstream? We can be vulnerable to the uncontrollable beauty of a climbing vine or an outrageously bright flower bush. There can be a different kind of sense in incorporating nonsensible elements that are harder to measure, so that it's a little different if you try to build it again somewhere else, or maybe it changes over time!
We need moldings that bring the ornate composure of trees into our homes, and masonry that's been carved with the festive liveliness of a flowery garland, and we won't be regressing if we bring these kinds of things back into our lives. Colorful glass and glamorous stone. We aren't trying to go back to the past, but we can keep the things we love so much about the architecture that looks historic to us now that we're on this side of the millennium. We take the contemporary with us into every new present moment. Architecture evolves with culture and technology.
I'm not sure if it's what I hope for or what I anticipate, but I look forward to contemporary architecture becoming richer. Places drawn with less dependence on a ruler, say, freehand dwellings drawn with expert artistic technique. Not exactly a return to nature, but I do think we could gain a lot from re-embracing the truly organic. Right now "organic" is essentially a synonym for lots of curves. I'm sitting in a garden right now, and I see curves among a lot else: rhythmic syncopation, repetition, variations on themes, colors that just make you happy, smells that make you healthy, and dirt.
Call it ornamental or excessive if you must, but this is something we need. I think this is the future of architectural aesthetic, right here in this rosemary bush, and over there under the ferns. It's not as though they aren't efficient, they just also manage to be wonderful. I hope that as technology continues to make the world more efficient and streamlined, the global trend in architecture will pass the point of manifesting efficiency through simplicity, and begin manifesting it through richness. Healthier, lovelier built environments for human life to happen in.
Comments