Arthur Erickson-Speech to McGill University School of Architecture

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Speech to McGillUniversity School of

ArchitectureMcGill University, Montreal, Quebec,CanadaOctober 21, 2000

My mentor, Frank Lloyd stimulated,through exhibitions of his early work inEurope, the nascent germination of

modernism. At the same time, throughthe conuence of the new space/timetheories of Einstein and the discovery ofAfrican primitive art, the Cubistmovement was inspired to deconstructtheir subjects. In the analytical anddisective approach of science, theyinterpreted space and form as thesimultaneity of the space/timecontinuum. The expression of space/timeinto its four dimensions became theaesthetic thrust of modernism, the mostprofound revolution in the observation ofobjects since the Renaissance and thediscovery of perspective.

The simultaneity of perception wasdepicted by cubists in the multifacetedportrayal of an object's signicantaspects, both inside and out. All criticalinformation was compacted to a atplane in two-dimensions as in primitiveart.

The x-ray vision of art had a similarconsequence in architecture. Wright,then Mies and Le Corbusier led thecampaign to burst apart traditional

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because it sells. It lingers with the newlyrich and the establishment who need toconsolidate social standing with classaccepted standards. It lingers in everyshopping centre, multiplex, restaurant,Vegas casino where illusion is needed to

disguise the emptiness within.The tragedy is that these forays intowonderland are transgressions of history,couched in the past, in denial of thepresent. They are false, delusionary andworse, not imaginative at all.Make-believe is taking over the builtenvironment as the inuence ofDisnication spreads to our urban cores.

Even worse, design is seen asentertainment and "entertainment" isbecoming the goal of too much of ourdesign, our museums and shoppingcentres. The problem is that the delusionof entertainment lacks a purpose otherthen to enchant and is devoid ofmeaning. It may amuse us for a bit, butafter the initial hit we are left with thedark feeling of desolation.

The Achilles Heel of the Americas wasthe lack of cultural condence typical ofnew settlers everywhere. Although theinnovative spirit was America's strongestattribute, transforming everything into abrave new world, there lingered aninsecurity about the arts. Therefore, itwas easier to revert to old-world visionsand the presumed suitability of historicstyles from the beginning. This fosteredthe make-believe world - architecture asfancy dress which lived alongside thatfresh innovative innocence. No wonderthe lm industry started in the desert inCalifornia where, like all desert dwellers,they dream their buildings, rather thandesign them. The great dream merchant


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Disney was a success becausemake-believe was what everyoneseemed to need in a spiritually emptyland. From the time of the IndustrialBarons, historicism was an Americanphenomena - a fantasy later adopted by

the aspiring middle class and eventuallyexported to the emerging third world tothe new culturally unsure like China,abandoning their values to seek those ofthe commercially triumphant America.

We settled this continent without art. Soit was easy for us to give it up, or to treatit as an imported luxury, not a necessity.Our culture, our civilization is the

outcome of practicality, which meant tothe settler, working hard to overcome thetemptations of pleasure - good Quakervalues. The rational mercantileapproach, dealing with shortcuts tomaterialistic gain supported the inventivespirit but avoided the creative one whichcould divert the simple goal of gain. Thatsuspicion of the arts is so entrenchedthat there is great difculty in gainingacceptance of the cost of the irrational,intuitive world of the arts.

Rationalism is the enemy of art thoughnecessary as a basis for architecture.But the heart, not the head, must be theguide. The obsession with performanceleft no room for the development of theintuitive or spiritual impact of space andform other than the aesthetic of themachine itself. North AmericanPuritanism, characteristic of NewEngland settler values, could be blamedfor this minimalizing for utilitarianpurposes alone. Practicality, theelimination of the "non essentials" beganthe long descent of art and architectureinto bottom line management.


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Materialism has never been so ominousas now in North America asmanagement and not the artist takesover.

There is no end to mechanization's

ability to completely substitute the unrealfor the real - "virtual" reality for reality -the robot pet for the live one. There is nolimit to the prediction of Hollywoodproductions which ominously presage afuture that is a manifestation of whatsubconsciously we desire. Does anarchitecture to assuage the spirit have aplace in all this? Unfortunately we are nolonger the interpreters of our culture's

myths but the followers of that dubiousclient, the developer, who has littlepatience with the art of architecture, thene detail and obscure promise, whichcan upset his nancial activity. Are wenot the whores of big business, sellingour product for their commercial lust?Today's developer is a poor substitute forthe committed entrepreneur of the lastcentury for whom the work ofarchitecture represented a chance tocelebrate the worth of his enterprise.Prot and bottom line, the contemporarymantra of business, eliminates thecritical detail, the very source ofarchitectural expression. Having beenexposed to the post-modernist disdainfor authentic techniques, thedeveloper/builder is accustomed to stageset methods. Dryvit can simulateanything.

In the Po Mo period, a change thatsignaled the questionable new directionto architecture was the shift from themodernist concern with space to thepreoccupation with surface. Space is andhas always been the spiritual dimension


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of architecture. It is not the physicalstatement of the structure so much aswhat it contains that moves us.Modernism released us from theconstraints of everything that had gonebefore with a euphoric sense of freedom.

Post- Modernism reverted to surface, theface of the container, the palette for thedecorator. After 1980, you never heardreference to space again. Surface, themost convincing evidence of the descentinto materialism became the focus ofdesign, space the essence ofarchitectural expression at its highestlevel, disappeared.

With production alone as the goal,industry in North America was dominatedby the assembly line, standardization formass consumption. Industry rejectsisolated and unique demands for theirproduct. Thus, compared to industry inEurope or Japan, where industry wasbased on a craft tradition, we are sadlybehind. There, industry is organized torelate intimately to professional demand.Vignoly told me that after his TokyoForum experience, he was spoilt forbuilding in the Western Hemisphere.

Specialization was another consequenceof our misplaced rational approach.Nowhere has specialization penetratedso deeply into the building professionsas North America. Fostered by ourunfortunate university systems, ourengineering studies for structural,mechanical, plumbing, electrical, lightingand acoustics foster independentspecialists, each in a world of his own. Inthose countries with centuries of a crafttradition behind their building methodsthe relationships behind all skills isparamount. Building is seen as a craft,


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and techniques tightly coordinated underthe direction of the architect.

Nearly all of the advances in structuraland aesthetic innovation is coming fromabroad. The new architecture of

transparency and lightness comes fromJapan and Europe. Industry and buildingcodes - curtail that same approach here.Besides the inexibility of industry, weare stymied by regulations, limitedchoice and the threat of litigation. Neitherprofessional consultants nor industryitself provide the research whichencourage those innovative techniqueswhich takes architecture forward in

Europe and Japan. There is no greaterpleasure than working with a rm likeArup or Coop Himmenblau whoamalgamate all the professional skillswith an in-house research arm and arelargely responsible for the abundance ofremarkable buildings arising outside thiscontinent. "God is in the details", Miessaid meaning that the details are thevery source of expression in architecture.But we are caught in a vice between artand the bottom line.

Whenever we witness art in a building,we are aware of an energy contained byit. The intensity of that energy reectsthe intensity of the creative act, thedegree of devotion invested in the work,that is communicated immediately to theviewer. Creation is the bestower of life.Vitality is radiated from exceptional artand architecture. Beauty - a word muchavoided in this late mechanistic era,conveys an inexplicable sense ofharmony and wholeness. A thing ofBeauty is not pretty, nor perfect, norashy - but restrained, often odd, tough,indenable - it touches a higher sense


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than the emotions alone. Out of the mostordinary circumstance a transcendentalexperience is distilled. Though lacking incerebral challenge, since it is beyond thelimits of the brain it gives its viewers asense of highest fulllment.

How do we deal with such a quality - onethat is indescribable. It can't be a goal,for that requires a tactic, a plan andprocedure - all mental processes. Onecannot strive for it. Only when inspired togo beyond consciousness by someextraordinary insight does it manifestunexpectedly. Nor looking back can youtell how or why it happened. This is the

moment in all art when reason isabandoned and reverie and inspirationassert themselves. Inspiration in Sciencemay have to do with ideas but not in Art.In art it is in the senses that areinstinctively responsive to the medium ofexpression. No amount of thought canever reveal what comes unexpectedly.Picasso said "I don't seek - I nd."Archimedes also found it in the "Eureka"experience in his bath, the basis of"specic gravity". It is the mystery of thecreative act that something other thanour conscious self takes over. The artisthimself is loath to acknowledge it for helikes to seem totally responsible for hiswork. Often to cover himself he begins toexplain it, after the fact, to make itappear as if it were a reasonableprocess.

Architecture doesn't come from theory.You don't think your way through abuilding. There is entirely too much cantclogging the communication ofarchitectural criticism. You have to see abuilding to comprehend it. Photographscannot convey the experience, nor lm.


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What we are seeing in magazines aretoo often surface intellectual argumentsin steel or concrete - not architecture.

We seem today to have lost sight of theoriginal goal of architecture that is - to

ennoble the place and the people whouse it. It is a gift we have as architects tobe able to do that. Architecture, today isonly tentatively expressive of the humanspirit, having been tempted from itsmission by the love of mechanization -the obsession with the machine aestheticin Europe, or the inuence in America ofDisney through the reduction ofarchitecture to entertainment.

Great buildings that move the spirit havealways been rare. In every case they areunique, poetic, products of the heart, ofsensibility and with a freshness of view,which shows us the way and reminds usof our mission to inspire. They arehonest, simple and stirring. Theyreinforce the way of architecture - thequiet voice that underlies it and hasguided it from the beginning.

copyright 2000 arthur erickson


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Arthur Erickson-Speech to McGill University School of Architecture