The most recent volume of Praxis is titled 11 architects, 12 conversations. You have to love a good conversation!
A few key comments struck me as very telling of the interests of the designer being interviewed as well as other members of their “generation.”
The designer explains: “The way I frame our generation is around the idea of practice and an engagement in the real world, usually through fabrication, construction, performance, or program.”
A little later on the interviewer asks the designer a question to the extent of “who is your audience?” Their answer is:
“Students, maybe. Our peers and friends. The people in our office. And our colleagues. And academics. Not just practicing architects, but theorists.”
The interviewer follows up by explaining: “we are all involved in academia, so we have at least two audiences. One is the students and the academics that belong to the discipline and the other is much broader and is achieved through practice. When dealing with gravel or thatch or hairy things, they produce certain effects and sensations that people register in a particular way. You can own those effects, or not, but they happen.”
What struck me about these two statements was that on one hand the designer (representing a sub-set of the profession, academics who also operate small practices) claims that their generation is defined by their ability to work in the "real world."
On the other hand, when asked about their audience they jumped straight to students and other academics. They totally glaze over people like their clients, city agencies, or the general public. Why aren’t their clients their audience?
Strangely enough, their students may actually be their clients.
Although I’m sure this doesn’t hold true for all academics, the salary they receive from teaching seems to be a large reason they can spend time and capital on these very abstract projects. Universities (and students by default) pay the salaries of this type of practitioner, leaving the practitioner compelled to deliver the type of work that keeps their clients interested.
At the end of the day, this type of work leaves something to be desired. Their work lacks the same sense of urgency or purpose as that of other more socially engaged practitioners. At the end of the day there is very little at steak with these types of projects. It seems like they are focusing on a few of the “real world” criteria that others have to deal with on a daily basis, mainly gravity, but are very selective about which design criteria they allow to affect their work. Why not finance, landmarks regulations or housing for the urban poor? Probably because that stuff is too messy.
