What is work?

The last month or so has been a busy phase at work. Work, work, work. After every few weeks in this mode, I begin to wonder, what am I really doing? This is only natural. Being in such a 'creative' discipline, there's always a suspicion that one is either oblivious to an underlying motivation behind every stroke or line, or that one overexaggerates the cerebral aspect of it.

Just how much thought can go to a craft is in itself a rhetorical question. And if there's any good to rhetoric, it is that it often blankets the builder with either a sense of purpose or a post justification to impress others by our accidental 'artistry'.

There is but one recurrent nightmare that seems to haunt me time and time again. It concerns the sempiternal and ubiquitous reliance on the image. There are some architectural figures who believe that architects rely too much on published imagery as a point of reference for their designs. My question is, is this really a bad thing? Frankly speaking I don't have the answers for myself either.

Surely, surely one must start from somewhere. We all start from images and end up with even more permutations of them. I just wonder if the "no coffee table books please" idea will actually make us better creators. That there should be a reasonable extent to how much one should plagiarise a very effective piece of architecture on gloss is unquestionable. But, I wonder, if architects, especially the young-lings are persuaded to narrow their vision of architectural precedence to their cerebral deposits, since their memory banks has yet to mature, would not this be a gross negation of experience in itself?

I grant that we (as professionals) often take the 'easy' way out of creativity by choosing the most immediate path - total and indiscriminate plagiarism. It's easy to find them. The advent of Google Image search and the abounding volumes of architectural reproduction via glossy periodicals makes every copy-cat's dream peanuts. On the other hand, how are professionals going to convince and elaborate to their clients on the possibilites of design work if not through the documentation of built works, which honestly magazines can rightfully claim all laud and honour for? After all, they are mere spring boards, from which more context relevant designs can be conceived from.

Experience is a very wide word. In the case of an architect, it would be simply too simplistic to overlook the good 'and' bad influences that magazines and other coffee table paraphernalia 'can' offer. In fact, is it necessarily a poor reflection of an architect if he is inspired by what he sees on a page out of sheer immediacy instead of being extremely motivated to outdo the wheel? Like I said, it has to start somewhere, and if a good magazine is the place, then how can we make premature judgements when all of us have been conditioned by extremeties from esteem to disgust at what we see as 'contemporary' architecture according to 'Vogue' magazine?

Ultimately, it is the creation of good architecture that matters. And with the effects of time and the maturity that it brings, the deposit of experience gets richer with each passing second. In a way, it is only through our seeing-through the lies of brilliant photography, that we can arrive at the 'believing' of one's own creative genius, which goes beyond what gloss can give. It is only then, like our great old friend Peter Zumthor, we can say with confidence that things are designed with the 'magic of the real' - places which seem to reside and reincarnate from our memories once more, sites which remind us not just of thoughts but feelings that relate to our bodies; a vessel for us to experience the greatness of creation.

A few minutes to spare, on a late, or shall I say an early Tuesday morning.