A Critique of the Creative Class

William Lim, architect, theorist and writer, came to class today and said something often missed in our tacit or explicit pursuit of the telos of creativity.

He said, 'creativity is the beginning and not the end.' With this declaration he devastated Florida's thesis; and with these few words, a massive intellectual edifice of platitudes--'teaching to be creative', 'creativity', 'the creative city'; you name it, its all there--was toppled.

If creativity is the beginning and not the end, then what is the end, the telos, or purpose of our practical actions? Implicit in Lim's declaration is the idea that creativity is only a means to some end: what we are actually striving for is not creativity, but creativity is merely a vehicle towards that goal. I have to wonder aloud with so much investment pouring into ventures building our creative capacities, what would we actually do once we find ourselves there?

'Palindrome' from Ed Soja

Today I heard Ed Soja lectured for the first time. It was truly a splendid experience to have finally heard the writer himself rather than through his books.

He said something that after some thinking, I thought is rather indicative of the state of affairs today.

His quote reads, 'from crisis-generated restructuring to restructuring-generated crises today'. By this, Soja was referring to the changes in the urban form as a result of the tumultuous social and political events of the 1960s and 70s--when multiple crises prompted a change in how we plan and design cities ('cities': Soja thinks the city is passe; I disagree because barring an objective definition, the city is also a psychological category that can never quite disappear at any scale of reference). These urban forms are however again changing rapidly today due to the many unanticipated volatilities in the larger environment resulting in never-seen-before crises in planning and design.

It has taken me a painful one paragraph to recapture and explain that one particular line. While we can all debate on the validity of his proposition, this proposition does encapsulate an economy of thought that warrants a record on this blog and perhaps, further review.

On the criterion of beauty in architecture

A statement by Alvar Aalto quoted by Kenneth Frampton:
"The structures which were means to create a new architecture have been wrested from us and turned into commercialized decorative ends in themselves with no inner value. There was a time when a miscontrued, lifeless traditionalism was the chief enemy of good architecture. Today its worst enemy is the superficial decorative misuse of the means acquired during the breakthrough...The contrast between deep social responsibility and decorative "surface effects" is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most topical issue in the debate on architecture. Please do not think that I wish to disparage beauty in rejecting decorativeness. Architecture must have charm; it is a factor of beauty in society. But real beauty is not a conception of form which can be taught, it is the result of harmony between several intrinsic factors, not least the social."

Cited from, 'Questions of Value: An Interview with Kenneth Frampton', by W.S. Saunders and N. Levinson (2007).

Luxe, calme, et volupte

image: Dezeen

This interpretation of the traditional Japanese teahouse says it all: "luxe, calme, et volupte".

Imageability without Legibility

The way we build cities today with many signature architecture, along with the criticism of such an approach, is truly indebted to Kevin Lynch's general idea of imageability--the need for a coherent visual order in man's urban environment. This idea of imageability has unfortunately led to a commodification of architecture and its images, which in turn reinforced the specious need to create even more signature work for imagined prestige rather than human concerns. Consequentially, what is achieved is in fact imageability without legibility.

Loss, Continuity and Renewal

Early in the morning today in my bathroom, I heard the birds sing. These were likely the same songs I heard when I was 15; and possibly when I was 25; and always around this time in the morning. Then I suddenly realized that though the song was the same, it could not have been the same bird singing when I was 15, then 25, and now at 35 years old. It would seem that while I was oblivious to the relatively slow passage of my mortality, many generations of birds have passed. The children of the birds I heard when I was 15 were carrying on the same song.

Upon reflection, the sense of continuity for the birds is startling when compared to our much more protracted, profound and complex--though also much threatened--version in human societies.

Spanish Proverb

Lo que separa la civilizacion de la anarquia son solo siete comidas.

(Civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart)

-From Julian Cribb's The Coming Famine (2010)