hi cheryl, i am still going to response to your earlier
post (thank you) regarding the WTC once i finish out
this recent idea (another post to follow), the reason
it is so drawn out is i doubt all share a similar view
or knowledge so it was needed to create a basis for
sharing the architectural ideas, both complex & simple.
some thoughts about art-architecture-law perspectives...
first, one thing i find of interest in considering these
recent ideas in relation to origins of science and of
philosophy was that, basically, most of it is related
to philosophy: moral, legal, political, physical, etc.
as is the architecture, really, a kind of philosophy.
likewise with mathematics, logic, psychology, language.
that seems to be the common realm of ideas themselves,
not necessarily particular to one, a generalist sense.
maybe it is simply a reality itself, that's my guess.
(and the part shared now is a section of a larger thesis,
this part once named: towards an architecture of reality).
in any case, one thing about the relationship between
art and architecture, art and law, law and architecture
is that there may be a type of ecological flow between
these as a dynamic. for instance, art can become 'lead'
in investigation certain questions of architecture, in
its dynamic, yet it is limited by its own conceptions
of doing other things. architecture can functionally
consider some realms of art, yet is bounded by its own
conceptions/definitions, to explore them more fully,
without disregarding some of the dimensions that make
it fully architecture. for instance, safety. or energy
efficiency. or habitability. much theoretical 'artists'
who are 'architectural artists' have built buildings
based on ideas, that turn out to be uninhabitable. it
is unlivable. yet is considered to be architecture,
by the modernist value system, because architects are
designing and building their artistic ideas. Eisenman
is one, there are many others. Gehry and Libeskind are
others, most of the glorified and overrated architects
of the 90s are of the same ilk, where the 'art' is to be
considered equivalent to substantive architectural ideas,
works of genius rendered in buildings. it is a type of
ideal of the current (retrograde) model of education
centered around 'architectural design' as the ultimate
value, thus style, of meaning, purpose, value, form.
aesthetics trumps ethics, advertising trumps ideas.
what 'good' architecture would be judged by, fitness
of building, looking out for health, safety, innovation
in environments, questioning certain design assumptions,
integrating approaches across the field into integrative
building designs, -- is subsumed to the ideology of the
architect-as-artist. what is lost is the substance of
architectural value, for, say, limiting energy use in
buildings. instead, buildings are judged successful
based on their look & feel to a bevy of insiders eyes.
the conceit often used is how 'radical' it is to be
so decadent as to be ignoring all social and cultural
issues, and to have this as the institutional and the
established and professional view, regardless of what
they spin their pitiful efforts at making up for it.
style has replaced architectural substance. the good
thing is that most architecture has the potential to
upgrade, across the board, yet it is being held back
by the ideology of architecture as applied art, and
all that frees architecture from responsibility of
having to address (say, 85% energy loss in buildings)
so that the new magazines can get a new cover-model.
the purpose of architecture, as far as i am concerned,
is architecture, not art. and this is the split today,
seen in the glorification of what amounts to stupidity
of buildings such as Gehry's Brooklyn 9/11 bombblast,
considered by default of greatness, A Great Urbanplan.
that new critic is losing ground, really really fast.
that's because the illusion is starting to fade away,
and there is no truth in judgment, it becomes hollow,
stylized, attitude, as if architecture is... class.
ahh, the bogosity of such an aristocratic evaluation.
the ecological aspect: art <--> architecture
may have law between it as a dividing line of not
just legality but also morality and ethics, which
the architects are sworn to protect inhabitants
(if one forgets of most egregious loopholes of this
by the artist-architects in the starchitect cabaret).
the law is also a purpose, say, building democratic
ideas through design, something Gehry believes is
inconsequential to design (at least to his artforms).
if architecture is art, that's fine, it has no other
responsibility as an idea to serve or protect anything
other than its pure expression- if architecture it is
to set a bad example of what architecture is, as it
separates its form from its purpose as a building
as an idea to be inhabited, as a society to build.
instead, ideas become one-offs, brands, to be sold,
as commodities, as architects as their architecture,
a Gehry, a Libeskind, an Arad (now that's humorous).
what became of the great questions of architecture,
passed down the millennia, is now centered on the
work of a select group of 'master architects' or
'master builders' who've conquered time and space
to gift the world with their genius, compared to
those of earlier mythic modernists crowned supreme,
yet lacking in substance such that it is more to-
ward a baroque or rococo embellishing of what is
already around, the sculptural evolution and of
secular cathedral building at the expense of a
greater truth, freedom, understanding, action.
i.e., a baroque, rococo, mannerist modernism
with cultural values of an automated machine.
that is, humanism replaced by what is inhuman.
that's my assessment. not all of it is bad yet
it is highly overrated for the praise it receives.
architectural priorities could be much better placed
than in the celebrity egos of artistic vacuousness.
i.e. 18th c. 'modern beaux arts' master-apprentice.