Pondering Purpose in “La Crisis”
Introducing a new aspect to our Archiculture Director’s Blog, GUEST BLOGGERS! This first one is from new team member David Kuykendall with more coming in the near future. Enjoy!
As I sit around waiting for a reply to the over 100 resumes I’ve sent out in the past week, I find myself becoming cynical. The study of architecture instilled a degree of cynicism within me, but it replaced that loss of innocence with a great appreciation for detail and process. Lately, however, I feel that this downward economy has cast an ugly, unflattering light on the profession. Understandably, architecture is not a “recession-proof” profession, but the current times have reinforced in my mind just how the rest of the world sees us, fat to be trimmed, and lately, I’m starting to identify with them.
I graduated from architecture school last May planning on going where the wind took me. I breezed on in to New York, not desperate to find a job, because I knew one would come to me. Initially, I wasn’t desperate to find a job because nothing really inspired me architecturally, and I was more than satisfied playing NYC for a while. Did I want to work for a huge firm that would pay well where I could be done by 6:00pm, but be bored to death, or did I want to work for the starving idealist that would pay me scraps and over work me, but be left with a sense that my creative “itch” was being scratched? At the time, none of these seemed acceptable, but I look back now at these questions as decadent and luxurious. Now I’m begging the firms pumping out mini-malls to take me on for a free trial period, or what the lady on Good Morning America describes as “externships,” according to the link my mother sent me.
Why am I not inspired? Despite my current state of rambling, I’m generally very easily impressed, and I have an almost annoying sense of optimism. I think, with the exception of very few, I am just bored with buildings. Ideas on architecture always got me going, but no one seems to build very many of those anymore. So what else is there? Architecture is supposedly the last great “generalist” profession, but the skill set I graduated with has been tailored to the design office. There are many fields I would love to branch out into that would indeed build on my current skills and training such as television, film, and writing, but holy crap! You though architects had it bad!
Architecture isn’t recession-proof because: 1. buildings are “effing” expensive, and 2. nobody likes us (nobody that has to deal with us professionally anyways). Therefore you have to be clear on exactly what it is you’re selling and how this benefits whoever it is that is buying it. Businesses generally are concerned as to their appearance in the city and their impact in it; however, developers could give a rat’s ass as to the long term investment of a project. It has to look nice long enough for them to turn it around. That doesn’t provide a lot of room for the architect’s responsibility to the public and to the city. Why am I going into this? I have no idea, but buried in there somewhere is the problem I have with our built environment. I think it’s with how money is the starting point in the design process. I had the opportunity to hear Olivero Toscani speak at the International Design Forum in Dubai in 2007, and he made this point very clear, “Creativity comes from freedom, but design comes from money.”
So, what is there to get excited about? Well, being a freelance architect (unemployed), I have had the opportunity to drift about in seemingly luxurious ways of wasting time, namely art. Not making my own, mind you, but looking at other people’s seemingly luxurious wastes of time. Okay, that’s not fair, but you know what I mean. I have made the most out of my MoMA membership, going 8 or 9 times in the past year, and recently I made it around to several of the galleries around Chelsea. I was shocked! One of the galleries, I swear, was larger than the Whitney. I found myself getting more excited about the spaces rather than the art. I enjoy video installations, but in no way admit to providing meaningful insight into any of them. I suspect half the reason is due to the quality of art itself, but to be honest, I have a genuine attraction to shiny, flashing things. Anyways, most of the spaces were very simple warehouses, but transformed somehow in their vastness by placing these objects within them. One gallery in particular stands out in my mind. Each floor was completely open, all the windows were blacked out, and the only light came from the reflected images on the screen. It was beautiful. It felt timeless and simple within each space and each person viewing the pieces became another composition of frozen objects within the space. People became dark silhouettes frozen against the large moving images, spread apart throughout the space then shift from one screen to the next, one at a time. None of this gets me any closer to finding employment, but at least I can start to remember why I love architecture so much.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:39 am
I’m currently working on a research paper based on architects, and this is JUST what I wanted to read. There’s sort of a notion of architect life-style as being this very loose, inspiration hunting process involving freelancing under a very competitive environent, but you just don’t see this kind of text anywhere.
I’m actually an aspiring architect, and I will begin my academic career this upcoming Fall; however, I gotta admit I hardly know what architecture is all about. I’ve been subscribed to Architectural Digest since I was a kid, always read small things about architecture and design in other magazines such as Men’s Vogue, but I have a very vague image of what architecture really is and how to excel at it.
Though you seem to point out major aspects of architect life bluntly, this is definitely an insight. I myself really admire spaces and, like you, I can be standing at an art gallery in admiration due to space I’m in rather than being struck with awe by the exhibited pieces of art.
In any case, very nice read!