Tomorrow: Architectural "Services"

Following my last post concerning the plagued world of current architecture, I'd also opine that while not the only, the notion that architects provide architectural 'services' is very damaging.

Yes, we do work with aims and objectives, Yes, we ought to keep clients at the least, reasonably happy. But no, (and this is thanks to the commercialized structure of modern relationships) I do not think that we can create something beautiful if we just meet 'your' goals.

The most 'truthful' indicator of the meta-physical and ethical health of society is through the kind of music it listens to. There is no art 'form' that 'strikes a chord' so persistently, persuasively with a magnanimous moral force as music. And by that I honestly mean 'good' music. While we pride ourselves (architects) of being 'producers' of the more responsible art form, I think there is more harm that can be done to the human psyche through bad music than through a horrible building. This tells us a lot about our auditory diet. It is why Holy Mother Church also declares, "The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art". (Art 112, Sacrosanctum Concillium, Second Vatican Council)

As architects we ought to sometimes ponder on the development of acceptable 'norms' now creeping into our profession. It will do us great justice to rid ourselves from a lot of jargon that pervades the entire retail world as it stands today.

We need to think more like musical composers, I feel. A work is commissioned, it isn't requested. A work is not complete until it is so. It should rise above the dictates of 'value for money', customer satisfaction or 'modern contemporary living'. The work that we do ought to be something that is compelling and that which emanates and animates in us the desire of sacrifice for its' sake.

And dare I say, it has to be both conciously and subliminally beautiful, beautiful insofar as it is merely a type of the Divine.