Image of Architecture

Architecture Manifesto

What Architecture Is

Architecture is the manipulation of the world around us to create spaces that not only accommodate our needs, but also affect us psychologically. Architecture is a composition of spaces that strikes a nerve in the observer or occupant when it is experienced. It has an impact on a person’s state of mind that goes beyond whether he or she just likes the way it looks.

The most common product of an architect is referred to as a building, but not every building is architecture. An architect designing a building does not automatically qualify it as architecture either. There are buildings that are not architecture, but still could not have been built without the work of an architect, since his or her required responsibilities have little to do with what architecture truly is.

One of the most important tasks of an architect on any job is to devise ways to put buildings together and have them function properly after an arrangement of spaces has been determined. Yes, they may have formulated a way to provide a shelter and controlled environment for whoever is to occupy the building, but it takes more consideration than that to make a building have an effect on someone’s state of mind.

Warehouse-style department stores that litter our landscape are prime examples of buildings that architects work on but are not architecture. They are usually designed without any thought to human psychological response and are just as distant to being architecture as all the single family houses in our society that are only thought of and built by every day carpenters.

A building does not have to be liked or admired to be considered architecture. That is impossible considering that not everyone is going to be fond of a given project. Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at M.I.T., for example, is architecture, and I personally do not like it. When I experienced the complex, I felt like I was in a chaotic environment and found it hard to relax when sitting or standing outside it. My feeling of agitation was brought on by the hectic forms and loud colors that I experienced visually. There were no other factors to make me feel this way, and I had not felt that way prior to arriving there. The building itself had struck a nerve.

On the other hand, a work of architecture I did admire while I experienced it was the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. As I approached its east entrance on the steps a sense of importance took over me, and was still with me inside the dome while I gazed around at the incredible detail and vastness all around me. Entering this building did not change anything about who I was, but I felt like my existence was more important inside and around it than it was before I had arrived there.

In relation to context, architecture will make even the casual observer notice its relationship to its surrounding. While in Quebec City with my father one time, he noticed the mixture of modern buildings and classic ones from centuries before. He has no education in architecture, but he was still able to tell what was new and what was old from the various styles that were used. He was very interested in this as he continued to point this out to me everywhere we went. The architects who designed the modern buildings that we saw gave great consideration to identifying them with their time, while blending it in with the old, knowing that the public would respond to them.

Buildings exist for many reasons, primarily to serve a function, but that is not enough for one to be considered architecture. Architecture provides efficient functional spaces, but triggers psychological responses and opinions at the same time. Architects and builders are not required to achieve all this, but if their projects are to truly be considered architecture, they must.

9 sentences

I. A building or designed space is architecture only if it strikes a nerve.

1. Architecture triggers an emotional response.

a. When experiencing architecture, you will be in a different state of mind then you were before you got there.

b. Architecture can determine how you feel.

c. Architecture makes you want to stay or leave.

2. Architecture provokes thoughts.

a. Architecture causes people to make observations.

b. Architecture makes you think about the significance of where you are.

c. Architecture makes you wonder how.

3. A building being liked, admired, or enjoyed is not enough to qualify it as architecture.

a. Not every single person will like or dislike a particular building so the classification of being architecture must go beyond this.

b. I like the house I live in and think it is attractive, but it is not a work of architecture.

c. A building designed with the intention of making people uncomfortable is architecture