Good Buildings

A Consensus

Fortunately, architecture has a consensus like in other fields. The idea that there's no consensus is said politely to acknowledge that things change, but it's not taken literally. In architecture and everything else, there's a system of self-referencing that connects back through history and has additional checks to provide us with only what's most useful. It's what we find in universities, libraries, and museums. The consensus allows us to measure our own relevance to society. If we don't feel good about a Monet painting, it means that we have more work to do. With better science, value is discussed objectively and we know what's good. It's not easy to make definitive statements about value. Our views change often, which keeps us modest and open-minded.

Our Modern System of Building

Most buildings prior to 1930 are considered good. Before the Renaissance, there wasn’t even the possibility that a building could be bad because it was so naturally part of life. So the question of quality started with modern architects, who first had to deal with the post-war system of production which leads to the possibility of doing bad work. The situation is difficult, so modern architects should be given a handicap. It's almost as unlikely to find a good modern building as it is to find a bad medieval building. The objective is the same, but because of our modern system of production, everything has to be finalized ahead of time, which makes good architecture difficult to achieve.

Why Define Architecture?

The question of quality is complicated by the different types of architecture practiced today. Starchitecture, or pop architecture, is similar to pop music or pop art. It's not a basis for study in architecture because it serves a different purpose and requires a different set of skills. Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry admit that their work is interesting and not typical for architecture. It overrepresents architectural discourse because the relevant material is difficult to do in our modern system of building, and it isn’t discussed much. We see crazy buildings and think of that as architecture, when it's only tangentially related. In many cases, it is bad as architecture, but that's not its goal. But, if it's classified as architecture, and we know that it's bad as architecture, we might be confused by its popularity and doubt that value judgments are objective, since we differ from the consensus. The consensus is correct, but it's a different goal. The goal of starchitecture is to be interesting. It's a technical and sculptural success at getting attention. The best starchitecture is “good” as starchitecture, and starchitecture is “good” for a select few buildings, but it's not concerned with most of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are part of the tradition because they concerned themselves with the whole of architecture.

Related Fields

It's important to define questions of value correctly so we're comparing apples to apples. We distinguish architects from engineers, artists, and urbanists. For example, Michelangelo and Buckminster Fuller are impressive people, but they were not great architects. In Michelangelo’s case, he was more an artist, and in Buckminster Fuller’s case, he was more a scientist. This was said by Frank Lloyd Wright, but it's not a controversial statement. Often, the criteria should be made by leaders in the field who are familiar with the work, and have proven their own ability. They head organizations and competitions, like Richard Morris Hunt, who founded the AIA, or Daniel Burnham, who headed the Chicago World’s Fair. They're able to evaluate others because they've achieved it themselves and they know what it is and what it means. That is the basis for the self-referencing system and why it predicts and fits the consensus well. Even though some special architects might be the best at some particular method of construction in some particular part of the world, they're not a part of the architectural curriculum because the set of skills that are common to architecture overlaps enough to where common interests should be satisfied before niche material is introduced.

Specific Building Uses

Most buildings fall under the category of normal buildings. They're not too crazy or too technical. Crazy buildings usually have specific uses like an airport or stadium. Specific uses can still employ basic architecture rules, like the early 20th century skyscrapers, train stations, airports, theaters, etc. Very few uses justify a total break from building rules—perhaps fun houses and certain museum exhibitions, which have the purpose of disorienting people, as well as shopping malls and casinos, which numb visitors so they stay there as long as possible to spend money. These environments are usually bad in terms of architecture. Most functions don't require different building types, which is the basis for architecture. A school can have the same building as a house, restaurant, or office without changing much. Partly, that flexibility confirms that it's better architecture. It's also better urbanism since uses have to change as towns develop.

Modernists vs. Traditionalists

The consensus in architecture forms a common curriculum. The content is similar, and the teaching methods are similar across America and the rest of the world. Variation comes from individuals who are particularly good or bad. Certain movements coalesce around individuals as a group. They develop a reputation and specialize in specific areas. The important distinctions are in terms of value. Good modernists have more in common with good traditionalists than they do with bad modernists. It depends on how much we know. If neither a modernist nor a traditionalist knows very much, then they're actually the same as far as they matter. This isn't only true in architecture. In any meaningful sense, an average Republican is closer to an average Democrat than they are with a Republican senator. It's a whole different world with senators because they know policy and write laws. They study the same subjects, they go to the same schools, they know the same people, and they are friends with each other. They self-reference each other. Value distinctions measure ability or meaning. At the highest levels of understanding, disagreements are minor and nuanced because we're basically at the truth. We know what's valuable from all of architecture.

Nominal distinctions point to common paths of study, but they don't reveal how much we know. That requires value distinctions. Groups tend to form around value distinctions because all paths lead to the same truth.

Good Architecture is Self-Referencing

Self-referencing systems rank architects based on their evaluation of each other. This happens in every field. The whole population votes on each other and those with more votes have more weight behind their votes. Le Corbusier, Mies, and Gropius make the list, but they don't connect back to architects before them. Lutyens and Wright, on the other hand, value the past correctly, so they have more weight. Frank Lloyd Wright has a lot of references while Albert Kahn does not. But because Wright complimented Kahn’s work, Wright’s one reference has the backing of his many references and it's almost equivalent. It depends on what exactly was said, in what context, how many times, etc.