| Architecture Australia - May/June 2004 - LETTERS LETTERS 
| MORE ON CRITICISM |
Naomi Stead’s thoughtful piece on
architectural criticism generalizes three
longstanding complaints about the practice,
one of which is that criticism is not sufficiently
objective, a complaint she thinks at best
misguided. Stead believes that objectivity is
dubious or unachievable. She recommends
instead that critics be “reflexive”, able to say
where they are coming from. I agree with
this recommendation, but that’s because I
value objectivity. The extent to which a critic
can say where she is coming from enables
all concerned to better understand or judge
her assertions and is one measure of her
objectivity.
Stead is basically right about the idea
of objectivity she rejects, and though it may
be the common view of objectivity it is not
one that would find many advocates. She
rejects the idea of absolute objectivity but
does not consider the possibility that one
belief or attitude may nonetheless be more
objective than another. “To acquire a more
objective understanding of some aspect of life
or the world,” the philosopher Thomas Nagel
remarks, “we step back from our initial view
of it and form a new conception which has
that view and its relation to the world as its
object. In other words, we place ourselves in
the world that is to be understood.” The
person who can recognize that a friend is
“in denial” about some situation, for example,
has a more objective view of that situation
than does her friend. In any case, what
would be the point of a critic understanding
or indicating her position unless there were
matters at stake beyond whatever interest
anyone, herself included, might have just in
how things seem to her? Critical
disagreements risk being reduced to mere
differences of opinion in Stead’s account,
and while holding court to a variety of
critical positions may excite us, nothing
would turn on it. It may come as a surprise
but how things are from my position is
consistent with how things are from your
position, however they are from your position
and however they are in fact. Unless we allow
the possibility, albeit limited or constrained,
that we can transcend such positions, as
Nagel suggests, there is little hope for
criticism, and for much more besides.
Stead’s retreat from objectivity leads
her to make the common mistake of
speaking loosely about whatever constitutes
our positions as our biases or prejudices. So
what of the tutor who marks students down
for obesity compared with the tutor who
ignores body size? Neither tutor avoids
having a position from which to assess the
work, but only the position of the former is
biased in this regard. Stead is thus much
more relaxed than is desirable about our
various allegiances, interests, obligations,
constraints and biases. In architecture, as in
society in general, however, it is necessary
to construct and maintain institutions which
in certain important respects ensure the
independence of their members to act.
Think the separation of powers, cash for
comment, weapons of mass destruction …
DR GREG BAMFORD
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| DEVELOPMENT PROCESS |
I note with interest your recent articles
regarding the development approval process.
Enclosed for your hopeful publication is a
cartoon which I wrote and my son drew. It
may helpfully lower the tone of the glossy
publication. RUSSELL HALL
|
| ZOOMORPHIC |
Thank you for rekindling the debate on
architectural bio-mimicry with Colin Martin’s
enjoyable piece (Architecture Australia vol 93
no 1, Jan/Feb 2004). His final two sentences
were an eloquent summary of this transient
“movement”. My interest in this discourse is
long, and I believe that a “complete” understanding of an organism’s structure,
systems and behaviour is essential for a
comprehensive response. This challenge
extends beyond the clumsiness of
mainstream “sustainable” design.
Architects and architectural thinkers
have been looking to zoology and botany for
years, to re-create or redirect a “pure” system – Deleuze and Guattari’s “Rhizome
Theory” springs to mind. But in nature, a form
is derived from a complex order and disorder
of conditions. If a context is a system of
environmental conditions, then sure, today’s
computer software will help us to model a
workable and practical response. And if
we’re happy to operate behind a screen of
rose-coloured glass, then “Zoomorphic” architecture is here. I have no doubt that
something truly exciting will happen, but as
in nature, it will evolve and purposefully exist
to define environments for human life.
The word is “system”. The community
or city, as a collective arrangement of various
human activities, must exist as an ecosystem.
The Zoomorphic exhibition is a sidestep along
a very long journey to this reality.
SAM AUKLAND
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| THE MISSING DETAILS |
My father had architectural journals piled up
in the garage at home. In the 1950s and
60s they were not ephemera but a semipermanent
reference library of building
details. As a boy I would often dip into the
pile to see what I could find, and for me the
magazines were fantastic. A set of wondrous
delights for a young constructivist in the
days between Meccano and Lego.
The old black-and-white photographs
and the printing quality often dulled the
magic of the architecture. However, the
readable text and the building details
explained the whole. Ink on paper detailing
survived reproduction with clarity and the
drafting techniques were creative, rational
and cleverly brief.
The journals were packed with useful
information for the profession. Development
associations representing material suppliers
would provide articles about the science of
timber, aluminium, steel, copper and brass.
These usually included useful charts,
graphs, dimensional information, fixing
details and finishing techniques.
It was a time when sharing
knowledge between the different arms of
the building industry seemed to be of
greater importance than just competing.
Like the vast majority in the
profession, I don’t think I’ll become the
next Adolf Loos. My work is building
documentation. When I thumb through the
seductive images of journals today, I miss
the details – the bones, the muscles, the
sinews and the reticulated services that keep
my heart pumping.
HOWARD STYLES
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