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ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE
Constructing Culture: A Political Perspective Hans Teerds Hans Teerds, Chair of Methods & Analysis, Faculty of Architecture and the Built % of Technology.
[email protected] and www.tudelft-architecture.nl/ chairs/methods-and-analysis Keywords: architecture, culture, politics, Hannah Arendt, judgment Volume 2/Issue 2 July 2014 pp213–224 DOI: 10.2752/ 205078214X14030008752542 Reprints available directly from the publishers. Photocopying permitted by licence only. ©Bloomsbury 2014
ABSTRACT
Architecture is generally understood ambiguously: as the balance between “mere” building on the one hand and “artistic” practice on the other. This ambiguity questions the relevance of the cultural aspects of architecture today. This essay develops a cultural perspective upon the field of architecture through a study of the work of the German-American philosopher, Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s writings on works of art and other cultural objects serve to politically challenge both architecture’s artistic practices and “mere” building production. By its inherent durability and contribution to the sensus communis, architecture establishes a stable world in which political life can unfold.
To put architecture forward as a cultural practice is to state the obvious. Nevertheless, such a statement often lacks depth and understanding,
the distinctive aspect between architectural culture, on the one hand, and “mere” building on the other, between “artistic” and “full-service” approaches. This > limits culture to the arts and thus suggests that architecture is only a cultural phenomenon when it reaches beyond the everyday practices
is fueled by a focus on buildings, models, drawings, oeuvres and so on that are shown and discussed in museums, galleries, magazines and websites. To be published or made public seems to be culturally valid. This might be an exaggeration but the ambivalent understanding of architecture by architects and the public is generally accepted. )
balancing act between functionality and service on the one hand and artistic, cultural and innovative ambitions on the other. As Kenneth Frampton remarks in his article “The Status of Man and the Status of His Objects,” even the Oxford English Dictionary and process of building.”[1] Intuitively, the former is understood as the cultural perspective linked to the inherent knowledge and history of the
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# { the art of construction, in which, strictly spoken, architects are not necessary. It is embedded in (local) traditions and approaches. Both ] { = '
architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, who built the dome of Florence cathedral. Brunelleschi saw himself as the designer, distinct from the craftsman “on the ground.” He expected craftsmen to only execute and develop what was already known. This would allow him, as architect, to be able to challenge and develop new ideas.[2] The second moment Frampton " =# # which crystallizes in the different schools of architecture that were constituted during this period. At the various royal academies for the arts and the sciences graduates studied “architecture,” which meant that they “were to dedicate themselves solely to the ‘what,’ that is #
#( “engineering” graduates, on the other hand, studying at, for instance, the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, “were to concern themselves largely to [with] the ‘how.’”[3] Both moments fueled the Romantic idea of the architect as a “genius”: a sole person gifted with imagination and creativity, distinct from the masses. One of the reasons for the artistic profession comes about because of the growth of cities and the increasing complexity of building tasks and contexts throughout modernity. However, this argument is too programmatic and too pragmatic for developing a more profound and convincing understanding of architectural practice as a cultural praxis. As Frampton challenges: Whether architecture, as opposed to building, will ever be able to return to the representation of collective value is a moot point. At
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all events its representative role would have to be contingent on the establishment of a public realm in the political sense.[4] Art is regularly the starting point for investigating the phenomenon of culture. The artwork itself is only a small part of a wider range of cultural objects. It is important to emphasize this wider context in order to understand even the everyday constructions as cultural objects. Architecture is a cultural praxis that intertwines # most modest constructions are important culturally. As Hannah Arendt (Figure 1) develops in her well-known 1958 book The Human Condition,
with respect to her understanding of politics, everyday objects convey # [5] From such a reading of cultural objects, we can also develop a perspective toward the artistic aspects and aims of the profession, a perspective that will reveal political importance.
Figure 1 Hannah Arendt just prior to her death in 1975. Courtesy of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust and Jerome Kohn, Trustee.
At Work It is too easy to put Frampton’s pessimistic question aside as being nostalgic. On the contrary, the intriguing combination of collective value, representation, public realm and politics urges investigation of Frampton’s perspective. This pessimism seems to be roused by the distinction between “mere” building and architecture. Frampton parallels the distinction with another discrepancy that Arendt highlighted in The Human Condition. In the book, Arendt distinguishes between # ># = corresponds to biological life: the human body, growth and decay. It is linked to the effort “to stay alive.” Work, on the other hand, is connected = # of things” within which human life can develop. Action depends upon human plurality: since human beings are plural, action (and speech) is needed. Action is the basis of political life.[6] It seems obvious and follows on from Frampton’s assumption of understanding building as the need for a shelter, and thus as a mere biological requirement, related to the category of labor. However, this interpretation overlooks what is actually distinctive in Arendt’s categorization: the durability of the product. The product of labor is the consumer good that has a very short lifespan. Bread, for instance, needs to be consumed quickly, otherwise it will grow moldy within a few days. Action has no permanence of its own, although re-action and inter-action can have enormous impact. Action takes place directly among humans, without the intercession of things or matter. It needs to be heard and seen by others, and therefore is bound to the public realm. Action doesn’t produce tangible results itself unless it is "
= # # of the products that are produced by “work” is their inherent durability. They outlive the producer.[7] # from the bicycle shed to the dominant cathedral and from the very premature development of ideas by a commissioner to the formal design of representative buildings, belongs to the category of work – architects produce objects that last. Of course, the threefold distinction that Arendt emphasizes in everyday life is exaggerated, since architecture surely cannot be limited to only one perspective. It addresses aspects that belong to the categories of labor and action as well. This category of “work” helps to bring the artistic aspects of the profession and the “mere building” perspective together in a cultural perspective, that in turn challenges them politically. The Challenge of Culture: World-making The distinctive aspect of the category of work is thus the “durability” of its products, which for Arendt is a prerequisite of political action. Human life, according to Arendt, is only possible through the transformation
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of the “earth” into a world, which is what the products of work do: establishing a world (of things). She builds this idea from the work of the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, whose lectures she followed during her studies in Marburg. One of the main assumptions of Heidegger’s philosophy is the human being as a being “thrown” into a world of objects, relationships, function networks and facts.[8] According to Heidegger, over time, the human being becomes submerged into these circumstances, if not even loses oneself. Only through withdrawal from this world of facticity, claims, affects and immediate urgencies, only in solitude, can being reach authenticity.[9] It is precisely at this point that Arendt counters Heidegger. She rejects the withdrawal from the world, a movement she even renders impossible. “No human life,” she writes, “not even the life of the hermit in nature’s wilderness, is possible without human beings.”[10] Arendt, in turn, values the world positively as the space in which we appear to our peers as acting and speaking human beings amongst others, where we can be seen and be heard through action and speech. Unlike Heidegger’s instrumental approach to the world, for Arendt action and speech is always inter-action with the world and our peers. It is the world that brings us together, not only with our contemporaries but also with our predecessors and forebears. It is in respect of the transformation of the earth into a durable world that Arendt comes up with the notion of culture.[11] “The earthly home,” she writes, “becomes a world only when objects as a whole are produced and organized in such a way that they may withstand the consumptive life-process of human beings living among them – and may outlive human beings, who are mortal. We speak of culture only where this outliving is assured.”[12] For Arendt, all culture starts with “world-making.”[13] The word culture actually stems from the Roman word colere: “to cultivate, to dwell, to take care, to tend, and preserve.”[14] This somehow suggests an attitude of loving care for the things that surround us, both in regards to the natural environment as well as to the cultural artifacts from the past. Arendt is quick to bring the Greek position to the fore. The Greeks were themselves mostly aligned with the production of artifacts, a production that inherently meant the application of power and knowledge in order to disturb, violate and even tear down natural processes.[15] Both perspectives belong together: turning the earth into a world needs the Greek power coupled with the Romans’ care for what is already there. Culture is production and preservation. It is what is already there and what we add to this world of things. It embraces the existing and aims for innovation and improvement. Both aspects of culture come together in the human being, as Arendt writes, “insofar as he is not only a producing but also a political being.”[16] In politics, preservation and action, tenderness and the capacity to initiate come together. Arendt continues this perspective startling:
As such, he needs to be able to depend on production, so that it may provide lasting shelter for acting and speaking in their transience – and for the perishability of mortal life in its perishability. Politics is thus in need of culture, and acting is in need of production for the purpose of stability.[17] In other words, since political action is characterized by frailty, the world needs to be stable in order to give room to the instability and unpredictability of human interactions. Although this challenge of culture, providing stability in order to create room for political life, is bound to all worldly objects, the artwork makes a difference. Although worldly objects somehow resist the consuming life processes, and therefore outlast their creator, in the end they are use-objects, means to another end, and thus will wear out over time, will change slightly in appearance and quality. Artworks, on the contrary, are an end in themselves and therefore are potentially immortal.[18] The Challenge of Culture: Common Sense Besides its potential “immortality,” the artistic and aesthetic aspects of the artwork challenge everyday objects as cultural objects in a political perspective too. Like politics, artworks depend upon public spaces. Works of art and political actions need to be seen and heard in order to achieve their reality and gain recognition. This can only be achieved in a shared culture, a common world, in which public space is not an amalgam of Double Dutch voices. In agreement with the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, Arendt presupposes the existence of a common sense rooted in the human community – in Latin the sensus communis, literally the sense that is commonly owned or “community sense.”[19] This sensus communis appears through the development of what Kant calls taste: the knowledge beyond the human capacity to judge or to differentiate between good and less good. “Taste decides among qualities,” Arendt writes, “and can fully develop only where a sense of quality – the ability to discern evidence of the beautiful – is generally present. Once that is the case, it is solely up to taste, with its ever-active judgment of things in the world, to establish boundaries and provide a human meaning for the cultural realm.”[20] Whereas Kant introduces taste with respect to aesthetical judgment, Arendt understands this as political judgment, not depending upon the knowledge of truth but upon the capacity to convince. Taste depends upon the ability to judge from different perspectives, which is only possible on the basis of a sensus communis. The capacity to judge can only exist and is fed in the public sphere, where people appear to each other and where things can be seen and understood from different perspectives.[21] The close relationship between political and aesthetic judgment urges the evoking aspects of the works of art. Losing “taste” as a shared capacity in society means a decreasing ability to judge aesthetically and politically. Art, in other words, educates the
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human being to be a citizen. The Greek approach to culture actually emphasizes this educative aspect. It provokes the Roman approach of tenderness. Art transcends and incites the established and known societal structures and constructions and explores the thresholds of " ^= $ and unmask, stimulate, inspire and imagine, open up new perspectives, without losing the ability to communicate with the public. Art educates the public to look from different viewpoints.[22] The crucial perspective on the arts and culture that the Greeks offer us is this aim of evocation, communication and education of the human being into a citizen. Culture # us to make a difference between the good and the less good, helps us to think from different perspectives and molds our capacity to judge, which is not only important with respect to the valuation of the artwork but is also a crucial political capacity. The Capacity of Architecture " Arendt studies cultural objects and artworks, she does not discuss architecture’s capacity to literally construct this world of things. She focuses solely on aspects of durability with respect to cultural objects or to the presumed aim of beauty beyond works of art – and in both lines of thought architecture of course does not differ from other cultural objects. In her work Arendt thus puts forward works of art as the ultimate cultural objects. That might be true because of their potential immortality, but these works of art need to be protected carefully while simultaneously being enjoyed by the public. They are stored in public by “sacred places”: churches, city halls, museums and so on. In order to see and experience them, one needs to go there. Architecture’s capacity is that it is all around us. Architecture is the context of daily life from which we cannot withdraw. Therefore, we might conclude that architecture has the distinctive capacity to connect both aspects in an immediate and sensuous way. No other work, not even the artwork, places us so directly and so experientially in a relationship with fellow human beings, the generations of the past and those that follow us. In this respect the city is the most prominent and permanent product of the production of things: streets, squares, parks, landscapes, buildings, interiors and so on, survive ages, even give room to change in use and context and are able to transform within their own limits. And, further, there is no other cultural # $ human and their particular experiences and therewith also the cultural and moral horizon of a community. One might conclude that the political challenge of architecture is establishing everyday spaces that enable political life, setting up a world that is characterized by a longue durée. That seems obvious, since this longue durée is an inherent aspect of architecture. But as Arendt already describes in her writings produced toward the end of the
1950s, the consumer society is a serious threat, affecting the lifespan of cultural objects and therefore also the capacity to create a common world.[23] Frampton’s questioning as to whether architecture “[will] ever be able to return to the representation of collective value” in order to set up a shared public realm echoes here, since architecture evidently has been affected by consumerism as well, at least since it becomes # are disseminated to the public. Architectural consumption is fueled by the emergence of a range of websites and social media that need to publish new projects, shiny renderings and diagrams, not just day by day, but even hour by hour, to attract visitors and advertising. This # architecture. In other words, architecture has turned into entertainment – that is, it creates objects of consumption but denies the establishment of a new political realm. The aim of consumption and the emphasis on # another end in the short term, beyond functional and programmatic issues. Most clear is the eagerness to understand architecture as part of the “creative industries” that, through the writings of the economist Richard Florida and others,[24] # (
lifecycle of buildings and designs and also affects contemporary architectural design approaches. The increasing impact of the consumer society upon architecture seems to deepen the gap between “artistic” aspects of architecture and everyday practices. The demands of the consumer society also enhance aspects of originality and creativity as means in processes of distinction and branding. Immediate resistance to the affects of a consumerist society can be traced in the renewed interest in craftsmanship, as comes to the fore in the writings of a former student of Arendt, Richard Sennett. Sennett’s The Craftsman reveals glimpses of new developments in contemporary architecture that emphasize the
$ [25] Instead of focusing on Arendt’s category of action, which is the proper category of political life, it is through the activity of work that the political relevance of architecture as a cultural practice comes to the fore. The cultural challenge of the between the artistic and the “mere building” approaches. An overly harsh distinction blurs the understanding of the everyday built environment # building does form spaces that enable political life through enhancing the sensus communis. The importance of this comes to the fore even more with the realization that Arendt does not emphasize this as a # # key to sensus communis.[26] The world, this commonly owned world, is not a matter of the objects and relationships that surround us, but is a matter of sensuous and immediate experience through which “reality”
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reveals itself. The sensus communis, she writes, “alone deserves credit # | * # # | share and evaluate together with others.”[27] We might add that no other # # $ continuously as architecture. This, surely, is not only the capacity of that somehow bind together human communities, but is also the task and capacity of every building and construction, since they create the everyday environment. Architecture as a cultural praxis is politically # are addressed simultaneously. Returning to Frampton, architecture, in other words, will only “be able to return to the representation of collective value” when it embraces this sensuous character of building, since only through this enhanced experience will architecture contribute to the permanence of the world and to the education of the citizen. Arendt’s notion of “work” helps to reveal how architecture as a cultural practice enables political life through its durability and the spatial, aesthetic and sensuous experience it affords. The main task of architecture as a cultural practice, therefore, is to understand every construction in the light of society and culture, in which purely functional and economic considerations are relevant but not decisive.[28] “Without, however, the beauty of cultural things and without the radiant splendor in which a politically articulated permanence and a potential imperishability of the world manifest themselves, the political as a whole could not last.”[29] Acknowledgments " `
` developed a great deal of these perspectives through encouraging talks
# ` = ' Berkowitz, the Director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College,
institute; Prof. Jerome Kohn, the Director of the Arendt Center at the New School for Social Research, for the challenging email conversations that we have; Prof.dr.ir. Tom Avermaete, who became an inspiring discussion partner over the years as daily supervisor at the Delft %
