Mr. Patrick Schumacher recently wrote an article in Architectural Review that attacks a certain type of architecture being championed in British schools (but could be applied anywhere really). He says:

I believe that architecture co-evolves with other subsystems of society like the economy, politics, the mass media, science etc. In this co-evolution innovative architecture can be as much a catalyst for progress as innovations in science, the mass media, or in the political system. However, I doubt if the invention of other worlds as arenas for imaginative design is the way to achieve this. I also doubt that architecture could be a site of radical political activism. 

Architects are called upon to develop urban and architectural forms that are congenial to contemporary economic and political life. They are neither legitimised, nor competent to argue for a different politics or to ‘disagree with the consensus of global politics’ (as David Gloster suggests). ‘Critical architecture’ commits the fallacy of trying to substitute itself for the political process proper. The result might be a provocation at best, but often ends up as nothing but naive (if not pompous) posturing. Success in the world is not to be expected from such pursuits.

The realism I mean is of a more subtle order. It calls for an optimistic probing of our contemporary world with respect to the opportunities it offers and considers the vogue of otherworldly narratives as counterproductive.

 ‘Critical architecture’ commits the fallacy of trying to substitute itself for the political process proper. The result might be a provocation at best, but often ends up as nothing but naive (if not pompous) posturing.

He is the pragmatic, perhaps logical, side of my brain if we were to take him out of context. But alas, he is a parametricist, so in saying that architecture should stay in the realm of the real, he is being more than a slight hypocrite. I, too, struggle with the thought of what architecture can and cannot do “for the masses”. Studying architecture and “doing” architecture has obviously made me more biased in favor of the “healing” power of architecture to transform and change and whatever architectural theory has tried to brainwash (?) us into. But when i step outside of that bias and put myself in my dad’s shoes (a businessman, extremely rational, supply and demand, supply and demand), architecture just seems like a “bunch of baloney” (his exact words on the matter). What agency do we have in the larger system of things, really? None. And this is what fundamentally separates theory from practice.

Meanwhile, Lambert, from The Funambulist has written what he calls a response (but its more like a retort) to Schumacher. He says:

 …architecture needs to be thought as being much more part of the problem of this polis than the solution. Architecture directs, oppress, hurts our bodies whether it has been conceived as such or not. You believe that architecture cannot be a site of radical political activism; I would argue, on the contrary, that each architecture is actually a site of radical political activism. Most of them are indeed a radical embodiment and a violent implementation of the dominant power. However, some of them manage to transgress the rules of this same power, not by liberating themselves from the system, but rather,  by operating and creating in the folds of matter of this very same system. Architecture is indeed a political weapon and it is never as effective as such -in favor for the established relationships of power- as when it is not thought as such.

My other brain just laughed with glee and jumped for joy. The problem is that architecture is often the problem, and the solution, but it is never looked as as such because it is often too ordinary to notice (your home, your school, your mall), or too spectacular to think of for anything other than visual pleasure (things that Starchitects make). The dominate systems that control our lives (the government, the economy) do not recognize us, despite the fact that we do exist, that we do make a big (literally!) impact. And what hurts us the most is that we are so intimately connected, as a profession directly unrelated to the two, more than any other profession, to both politics and economy. So architects have to navigate a confusing field of theory and practice - an internal recognition of their value and their relevance, but an external devaluation of their skills and what they can bring to the economic table.

You can try to be a true starchitect, make a ZahaGehryCallatrava structure that will bring you fame, if you have the luck and the talent. You can be a doctor, doing architecture for the humanity in disaster relief work, make a practical, and relevant, difference. You can do what most architects do, which is simply work for clients and get annoyed at everything.

And the problem is that I don’t see myself doing any of that, because I want changes but I’m not fundamentally willing to fight for the greater recognition of the relevance of architecture. I detest starchitecture. I can’t see myself working in a grassroots movement kind of organization because I doubt the power of bottom-up activism in creating long-term structural changes. And I cringe at the thought of working for clients.

But when I say I’m not willing to fight for “it”, I suppose I should clarify that I am not willing to fight from the losing side. And the losing side is the architect’s side, because they do not have the upper hand in any kind of transaction. I am, however, willing to fight for it from the inside. It makes more sense. If you cant beat em, join em. If you want the mainstream to recognize you, then you have to learn their ways, learn how they operate, and learn what they value. Then you manipulate to your advantage (I’m talking about YOU, real estate developers). Of course, you will always be prone to becoming one of the “bad guys” in this strategy. But at least I’m not a loser (financially, that is)!