large ones in color. No talk just as Mozart and Phil And and uh and kites.
Okay, thank you. Mhm, mm hmm.
I'm Ronald Gourlay. I'm an architect from Tucson
and I'm going to start this panel. We don't have a chairman in each of the
other. Panel members will just introduce themselves.
I'm not much of a word, man. Words seemed to me pretty much after the fact
or act and seldom adequate for conveying the sense of a human life
experience to others.
The tent to further confusion. And in today's world we certainly don't
need any more of that.
But I guess we have to use them in order to have any form of communication
with each other at all.
And the words for today for this panel are excellence and commitment.
Excellence is the quality of being excellent.
An excellent means very good of its kind, eminently good or first class.
And that doesn't tell us very much commitment
is defined as an agreement or pledged to do something in the future,
something pledged or the state of being obligated rather than commitment.
I would suggest dedication. Mhm. Self sacrificing devotion,
devotion, being the act of devoting or quality of being devoted and in the
verb form to center the attention or activities of oneself, applying
chiefly to personal activity and suggesting motives as impelling as a
vowel.
So I prefer excellence and dedication as the words these words are of a
very general nature.
one is a quality, the other is a human characteristic or ability,
but they are units of measure
and therefore they need relating to something specific.
And I guess our task is to relate them to art in the environment or to the
environment itself. As an architect, I'm very interested in the built
environment.
Environment means to surround the environment, being surroundings
or the complex of climatic
and traffic and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological
community and eventually determine its form and survival.
Plus the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influenced the
life of an individual or community.
Environment is a matter of measure
and can be considered in many ways and many scales
we seek a context, We have options. Environment can be considered natural
or artificial, private or public a quality or an entity, individual or
group. Microcosm or macrocosm, random were ordered, controlled or
uncontrolled, static or dynamic, timely or timeless, finite or infinite.
Ad Infinitum.
In today's world, astronomers and astrophysicists concern is the red limit
the edge of the universe. Coming now. Within radio telescopic view, they
discussed the creation as Big bang or steady state.
The world of the very large.
In the words of Carl Sagan, they have accumulated not speculation, but
reasonably hard evidence on the extent shape, age, contents and ultimate
fate of the entire universe.
Their interest is in the largest unit of measure.
Well listening to the stimulating opening discussions today, I couldn't
help but ask myself whether the person speaking was Big Bang or steady
state
because all of us are certainly a part of that.
Other physicists are concerned with atomic study and quantum mechanics,
infinitesimal particles and energies. The world of the very small.
Their interest is in the smallest unit of measure
geologists. Concern is the formation and structure of the earth.
Geographers. Concern is the surface of the earth. Climatologists, concern
is the prevailing natural conditions on earth, sunshine, temperature, wind
, precipitation,
chemists concern is for the composition, structure and substance of earth
as a group. Their interest is in this planet as the site in its structure
and its materials and in its conditioning. The earth is their unit of
measure.
Botanists. Concern is plant life zoologists, animal life biologists,
living organisms. Ecologists, there are inter relationships of organisms
and their environment.
Their group interest is in harmonious existence and coexistence of life
forms. As a unit of measure,
anthropologist concern is homo sapiens. Sociologist concern is society's
social institutions and social relationships,
psychologists, concern is mental and behavioral characteristics.
Their group interest in general is humans is a unit of measure.
My point is excellence of performance
and the dedication of many people in many scientific disciplines using
many units of measure over many years time have built a very large body of
knowledge about earth and vicinity. It's given conditions and its life
forms,
the natural context.
Environment
has been rather clearly defined
Now, what about homo sapiens? What has he she done to this wondrous of
fear with all this knowledge.
Modern version. Hope. Oh, simians
Homo sapiens has for the most part almost completely failed to understand
that this knowledge must be used as the generator for any harmonious
modification of earth for human purpose.
Without mass dedication to this thesis, there will be little excellence in
the design of the built environment.
The fact of the matter is that most of the built environment is not even
designed at all, or if so not seriously, it happens
because material gain is the prime motivator and the unit of measure
in the main professionals. And I speak primarily of professionals in my
own field, which is architecture who professed concern and have
opportunity and ability
to actually do something seemed to be preoccupied with style as an end in
itself,
it's an international disease.
These people play highly esoteric games among themselves, sacrificing
concern for an organic and cohesive whole.
They sacrificed this for very private ego, images,
there is a real preoccupation with it in our current society.
An imagery will never be a substitute for vision.
one must ask if most professionals are really seriously seeking as
individuals
that inner balance so necessary to a person. To selfishly search for a
human environment.
Excellence doesn't seem to be the goal and dedication is not the stance,
the ego is in the way
it has become the unit of measure
and as I see it, it is quite insufficient to cope with the larger forces
at work in the environment,
sadly enough. That small percentage for whom the human his unit of measure
has deeper meaning and who have the wisdom and ability to shape a human
environment seldom or never have that opportunity.
They may struggle responsibly and relentlessly with dedication
to the excellence of the vision of a higher level of human consciousness
and a human environment
in sympathy with such a desire as a real objective. But there's a well
nigh impossible task.
However, pessimism is not the order of the day, nor is it the tone of my
thoughts at a festival. Optimism in the sense of joy should prevail
what I have been saying really is in the past or at most present, there is
the future and with it in my mind comes hope and hope lies in the young
in recent years. One senses a new maturity in youth. Some basic change has
occurred.
The human brain
and mine has evolved to that point where intelligent young people have
become aware that a more inclusive and more comprehensive approach to
dealing with the environmental issues that are crystallized by anyone's
interface with both the natural order and his her fellow beings is
necessary.
It is requisite that has individuals
their cognitive of and order in their own minds. The complexity of
measuring units now in use in society,
then they must simplify
they possess the ability to do so in increasingly large numbers
and we must strive to assure that their behavior will be responsible,
that they will know and respect their earth and the dedication to
excellence in achieving a human environment
can only be developed in harmony and communion with the natural order.
And we must try to influence them in making this choice. Thank you.
Mhm.
I think some of you are being blinded by the sun. Would you like to move
over to one side or the other? Just I'll face this way or that way.
Okay. Um
My name is Peter Blake and I'm chairman of the School of Architecture, the
boston Architectural Center and I'm an architect as well. Um I thought
that I'd I'd like to talk about these two concepts. Excellence and
commitment. Bye. Reading short part of a an article that appeared in the
boston globe about a week ago and it said Dateline Washington. The
Department of Housing and Urban Development is shutting down its New towns
program, putting an end to a sad that's unquote, sad, painful and
expensive effort unquote to build innovative new communities throughout
the nation. The new community's effort is one of the best publicized
failures of all federal urban programs. One official declining to be
identified said its reputation was so low. That quote, we didn't want to
tarnish the urban policy unquote the new towns initiative losses in the
eight year new communities program now total $149 million. And the Office
of Management and budget has refused to release planning funds to revive
the program then goes on to say after a lot of blah blah blah. Uh the
department will try to sell off most of the seven projects it's
liquidating. These projects are in Jonathan Minnesota, perhaps the best
known of the new towns as well as park forest south in Chicago, cedar
riverside in Minneapolis flower mound near Dallas texas, riverton and gin
, and a near Rochester new york and new fields near Dayton Ohio. Now. Um
I think that we who are sitting in one of the most interesting you towns
in the world today or in the beginnings of one should uh comment on this
announcement, which frankly I um welcome. I think perhaps new towns do not
have been built, should not have been planned by the feds to to start with.
But in any case the failure has now been recognized and losses are being
liquidated and if any of you want to buy a used new town um you have to
write to MS. Patricia Harris, who is the Secretary of Housing and Urban
development in the in Washington, D. C. Um
There are, I think there are two
examples perhaps of
what of the issue of excellence in architecture and urban design and the
issue of excellence and the issue of commitment,
but to most of us who are architects, the person who has been most
influential In the formulation of ideas and so on in the past 1015 years.
It's been a man called Robert, Venturi in philadelphia and mr venturi
whose books are very well known buildings are quite well known to is um of
course famous for his statement that uh Main Street U. S. A. Is almost all
right. Um he is famous for having an effect. Said that the way to uh
deal with the urban problem in America is to join mid cult America to join
middle America to join Main Street and to emulate in fact what Main Street
and the strip in las Vegas and Levittown new york and other communities of
that sort have done his he himself happens to be an extremely
sophisticated person, very scholarly man, very excellent architect. And it
seems to me, although I'm very fond of him and I admire his intellect. It
seems to me that it is an incredibly condescending attitude for an
intellectual and a person who might very well in another time have been
committed to excellence, to say to the rest of the population, uh let them
eat bread if that's what they want. You know, let's give it to them, let's
give them Main street, let's give them storefronts, let's give them the
back of the A and P. That's what they want, that's what they'll get. Um
that it seems to me is not a commitment to excellence of the kind that
architects in the past of head that most of us, I think I still believe in.
It seems to me to be a commitment to the kind of middle american. Uh, the
streetscape, the kind of middle american mentality that
the Nixon administration was so very much in tune with that other recent
administrations have been in tune with. It does not to me seem to be a
very
valid, very respectful way of treating your fellow men and fellow women.
That is one, however, one enormously powerful point of view today point of
view that is gaining adherence everywhere. That is saying in effect, we
can't do anything with american cities anyway, in american suburbs,
they're uniformly awful or worse. So let's just try to fit in and do the
best we can under the circumstances. The other kind of
um commitment. The other kind of dedication is I think, exemplified in
this place here. I've known power for about 25 years or more. And the last
time I was here was about five years ago in the Place was had a few
foundation walls and one or 2 of the arches. It has what you've seen, what
you see here today was built with incredible selflessness, incredibly hard
work and a number of part of a great many people with tremendous
dedication, with a tremendous commitment to an ideal and I think there is
nothing in my mind other than total admiration for what has been achieved
here and what I'm sure will be achieved in the years to come.
I received a statement which I think Carlo read in part earlier this
morning. I received it a few days ago and in it is a sentence in which he
points out that
it should be the declared intentional determinant pursuit. It should be
the declared intentional policy, I guess, of uh public authorities To uh
faster to support the determined pursuit of exotic ideas which offer the
opportunity of testing, verifying and assessing notions, systems and
situations now which may well become run of the mill in the next century,
20 years or so away. He makes the point that in a, in today's uh America,
there are no alternative lifestyles being developed in terms of new towns
in terms of new communities and this, this may very well be the only one I
happen to disagree with him slightly. I also think that there's one other
new town in America that I find interesting, that's Disney world in
Orlando, but perhaps that isn't a completely relevant case in point.
However, having said all kinds of things and really deep admiration about
this place. I want to bring up the one issue which obviously is being made
by uh, everyone who knows uh Asadi, everyone who's been here, everyone who
will be here. And that is, is this in fact an answer to the problems of
urban design, city planning of survival of cities in America or is this an
escapist uh solution, a way of getting away from it all. A way of escaping
all the nasty unpleasant of other problems that all of our cities face.
I've never lived in this kind of environment before. I've always lived in
cities like new york and now in boston I find it very difficult to relate
the kind of thing that I see here to anything other than perhaps a very,
very beautiful shangri la, a very beautiful place. Far removed from the
real problems of the real world, The racial problems, the economic
problems, the terrible problems of pollution, the terrible problems of uh
mechanisms of functional organisms that no longer work.
I raised this really as a question because it is a question that is being
asked of everyone and Pablo and I have talked about in the past. I'm sure
that all of you brought it up at one time or another, I raised it simply
because I think that's what we ought to be talking about, one of the
things that we ought to be talking. So I think at this point I'm stopping
pass microphone too, Jeff cook, keep this root separate. Uh huh. Yes, we
have a rather unbalanced panel with three architects and a sculptor. I'm
Jeff Cook from the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and
of course it's very easy for us to look at the surroundings that we're in
at the moment as a kind of model, as a kind of test of whatever the issues
are that we think are troubling the world and we hope to find if goodness
is expressed in terms such as excellence and commitment, then potentially
we hope to find those things here, I guess I find that a little bit
troublesome, I'm not ready or willing to pass judgment on this place and
one sense or another. In fact, I'm sort of amused that professionals often
speak about the thing that they do, we're in a living as practice. And I
tend to think that that's what this is, this is practice, that this is the
first stroke, that it's a sketch. And I think personally that it would be
very wrong for us to look on this as having any finality in terms of
suggesting solutions or conclusions, two urbanity or to the built
environment.
Um
I uh I was going to play the Devil's Advocate, but I think I've already
been
sort of upstaged. I was I was going to at one stage sort of proposed that
we should talk about the opposite of excellence and commitment, that we
should talk about mediocrity. Uh and that we should talk about the second
class. Ron girly told us that excellence was first class and I think that
really is an important issue to raise though, is what sort of culture do
we live in and is excellence prized um is commitment respected the times
and places that we live in. I'm not sure that those goody goody goals have
much significance, that they have much weight with the ordinary person and
I've heard it alluded to more than once today, the kind of comment that
smacked of ego trips and elitism and this is really difficult because
professionals by definition ought to be able to do something better than
somebody else and thereby they set themselves apart and there we get this
excellence and commitment. Incidentally, I think I tend to think that the
commitment ought to come before the excellence.
Well, um, uh, against these kinds of thought, I've wondered what kind of a
proposal I might make uh,
with respect to the issue of art and the environment and the opportunity
to be able to speak together. And it seemed to me that it might be better
to suggest not an architectural or sculptural or musical solution. Um, but
rather to suggest a more personal kind of a direction and maybe it's not
so much a solution as a kind of resolution of the frustrations of our time.
Um, I wonder whether the pursuit of excellence and the question of oh,
planning for the future shouldn't begin with ourselves with some kind of,
as Ron girly mentioned to return to the natural order, whether it
shouldn't be directed toward a re examination of ourselves and our
personal lives. Um, I happen to be involved very heavily in solar energy
and the issues of energy applications to buildings and the rest of our
built environment. And I, I really get turned off by the many
professionals who make a lot of noise in those many fields and then they
go out and jump in there, big car and of go home to a life which seems to
be so completely at odds to their daily commitment. And I I sent that kind
of fracturing, that lack of integrity um is evident in more professions
than those people who were involved in solar.
And so I would prefer to avoid looking at the aesthetic uh, as an as an
isolated issue. I wonder whether we couldn't move all of us. Um, both you
toward some sort of
concept of life itself is an art form. Um, the idea that first of all, one
must get his own house in order his own personal life. Uh and then
secondly, obviously uh this hopefully can be expanded to become a kind of
communal responsibility.
So this double barreled responsibility first to self and then communal,
communal has to do with both maintenance and enhancement.
Um, in terms of maintenance, we all do all this stuff all the time. You
know, we get up in the morning and that in itself is sometimes an
incredible act. Uh it's not very often an artistic act. Um, and the, the
little acts of grooming and I suppose actor maybe a good word to use. Um
can these not be the basis for just a little bit of sublimation.
Then there's the business of fueling ourselves of energizing ourselves
with food. Do we, do we feed or do we dime?
There's the daily maintenance of our mind and its expansion and
stimulation.
There's the parallel for our bodies uh the business of maintaining and
hopefully enhancing the resilience of the physical thing that sort of
carries the rest of us around the current popularity with jogging. Of
course this is a kind of
very popular attempt to roll all of that into one particular discipline.
Uh
and then these are just ways of looking itself.
The art of living though really has to do with sharing. It has to do with
the enhancement and the incremental improvement of the time that we live
in and here is where service and where sharing with others becomes a much
larger kind of fulfillment.
Well, that's the kind of what it's uh it's an idea that maybe all of us
ought to be more artists, all of us ought to have more integrated lives.
There are other issues which are perhaps a lot easier to face. The where
all of us are someplace. And one of the observations I would make about
the 20th century is the kind of nomadic civilization that we live in. One
of the things about industrialization is that it is nomadic, that it is
totally universal in its availability and even cultural attributes
increasingly have a kind of instant replay potential. Well, this then
gives us a special kind of
frame of reference
because in effect we need to develop disciplines of integrity uh that can
travel uh that can survive and can
persevere in a materialistic and nomadic setting traditionally because
cultures that had integrity, um we're very locally based, they had a place
, they had a focus and I think that certainly is one of the fracturing
aspects of the life we have now. We sell them, it seems we sell them
settle in one spot long enough to get our act together.
Uh And lastly one might examine the house of this kind of program uh And
again, I'm afraid I have a very modest kind of suggestion. Uh It seems to
me that it not only takes the sort of dedication and commitment that's
already been described, but again, it takes a particular focus of
particular direction, it takes concentration, it takes specialization if I
could use an architectural analogy. Um The Parthenon, which has often been
acclaimed, was really built three times. Uh And obviously the third time
was better than the second, and the second time was better than the first
, but the concept of a greek temple, which is epitomized in the kind of
approach to perfection that the Parthenon represents uh was not a new
invention with that building, that was a building type that had been
practiced. And here we come back again to some of my earlier words, the
use of the word practice uh for a series of centuries. Uh So that with
that kind of continuous dedication to a certain theme, there was an
approach to perfection. Um so those are a few thoughts which I would very
much appreciate some interaction on.
Mhm Okay, uh my name is Chris Robinson, I'm a sculptor from south Carolina
and
I came in here on very short notice and I spent most of my time here being
involved with that commitment of finishing the work that I came here to do.
In fact every time I glance out the window and see the sun setting, I
keep getting this feeling that I should be outside working. Yeah, so in
spending my time or my commitment on my work, I came somewhat ill prepared
for this panel and I've been sitting here and joked with the panelists at
first that I'd listen and hopefully go last and hopefully find something
that offended me sufficiently to get my dander up and have something to
talk about for a while. Well, I listened and listened and listened and
listened to these panels before
and I was disappointed that nothing came about that really offended me, we
could try again. Okay, I'm I'm hoping now that I'm setting you up, but
then I turned to the next alternative, I tried to think of something that
I could use to sufficiently offend the other panelists and what strikes me
as somewhat even santa is I couldn't even come up with that. Oh,
I really feel in some ways like the odd man out, I tried to figure the
similarities, the idea of dealing with space and I tried to figure the
differences and I kept coming up with stagnant old things like form and
function, things like that.
Um what?
Yeah,
just
Uh huh,
that's, that's what I was just gonna say essentially that I can sit here
and try and give you some description of why I'm here, but I don't think
that's really fair for the panel and there'll be an opportunity for that
tomorrow. But after setting up all these suggestions and having high hopes
and not really any answers perhaps as was suggested earlier, the best
thing is unless there are some other immediate comments to turn to you and
hope that one of you can sufficiently offend me or us into some more
stimulating discussions. Okay.
Mhm.
Whoa, this is progressive, john was mentioning about communities. Yeah.
Quality selection,
Yeah, yeah.
What accumulates. Yes, they
said, I'm wondering what your architects commitment is,
community are
you stay too young? However pierce to himself as a professional
businessman as ours as work,
just go beyond building. Ask
the sculpture as the water.
Mhm Well, let me let me answer this as honestly as I can. I think that
architects in a capitalist society and in very bad trouble because most of
the time the person who hires them for whom they work or the authority or
the people who hire them are not the users and yet the dialogue that
architects want to engage in should be. And is I mean architects want to
engage in a dialogue with the users for the future users or close
facsimile thereof. And yet the people they seem to be responsible too are
people who may never use any of the structures of cities and communities
at all. I think that this is a very very serious dilemma. It has been for
architects for many generations and any a society which is not in effect a
socialist society and how it might work whether it might work differently
in a
uh in a an ideal socialist society I don't know. But in recent years as
you know the it has been very difficult for clients to impose their
buildings on the users and so the pressure from user groups from beginning
with the people that drain Jacobs organized and so on, you know um has
been sufficiently great so that architects have been able to work with the
users of their buildings rather than with the clients, the people who pay
the bills. And I think by and large this is improved the end product
immeasurably. But I think the preference on the part of most architects is
to work with the users of the communities that they been to serve.
I wouldn't means in my mind
one of my favorite people I never really met him but was about to just
before he died was you have schumacher and I know you're familiar with his
small is beautiful philosophy,
the conditions in the the world of uh huh building the environment today
are such that since the all mighty dollar is the standard of measure, very
large machines which turn out plans for buildings for corporations
in a very impersonal kind of way or the order of the day. And uh huh one
can see in cities like boston or even in some of the european cities now,
which used to be dignified by church towers as the prime visual element
are now dignified by banks and insurance companies. And profit money
making material gain is the motivation which is shaping today's
environment. And that kind of idealistic, wonderful kind of relationship
that we want to think of between architect and client doesn't exist. And
it will not exist until these great machines are destroyed, until the
society itself rises. And says that if we want to have a fine environment
, we are going to have to break down and many people working on small
scale things
will make of fine built environment. But under the conditions that we have
today, there will be no such thing if we could pursue this question a
little bit. Because while we approach the subject of mediocrity with
tongue in cheek, uh I think we've already had two readings from two
eminent educators that the, that the marketplace is not interested in
excellence that architects are indeed looked on as a service personnel for
business aspirations. And I wonder if there is anything we have to say
about what turns, let's say the commitment of prospective architects,
young students who enter architectural schools and the kind of
transformation as they gradually realize the kind of real world that they
must face as a prospective professional.
Would you like me to? Yes, I sure. Um,
I'm not quite sure. I agree with your interpretation of what I said, but
the you're quite right in saying that in the world as it is now in this
country, architects are considered service personnel to a client who may
very well be uh, a Rockefeller or whatever. I mean the most grotesque a
example of building for a client rather than the users is the Albany mall
in upstate new york and Albany new york where the client was nelson
Rockefeller. Period one man, he got the money for it and he was the one
who had to be satisfied, his ego had to be satisfied. The tens of
thousands of people who are working there now, we're never considered,
never asked, never interviewed, never pulled. Neither were the tens of
thousands of people who were displaced when that fascist construction took
place. It's quite true that architects are considered service personnel
today in this country, but I think that at the same time, the two things
that are happening. First thing that I mentioned already that the
community groups are beginning to feel their strength, their beginning to
resist and they're beginning to um insist on being consulted. The second
thing is that my point was not that architects, that people, I didn't want
excellence. That may be true or it may not be true. Uh, my point is that
architects who think that they do have a sense of quality, of what
buildings should be like should
try to set examples of excellence. I mean, if if I were if I overheard a
couple of doctors say, uh, my God, give him junk food, you know, it'll
probably kill him. But that's what he wants. I would not have very much
confidence in those doctors and that is the kind of talk that goes on
among good many architects, you know, who say Main street is almost all
right. Let's blog Main Street. So that was my point. My point is not that
we should abdicate from trying to set examples. I'm sorry, I've talked
much to you have any thoughts? Well, it's a, I think the young people and
that I really have confidence in them to do something about this. And one
of the points I was trying very much to make was that they should not be
spending their time working with the ego, images of some people who happen
to be successful practicing architects today.
They really should be going after the basics and they really should be
finding out about their earth and what the life on it really is. And how
from that kind of a basis, an architecture of meaning and the built
environment can come that will be something different than we have now. To
me that's the exciting thing about being in the world of building an
architecture that everything still lies ahead because to this point
practically nothing has been done that has substance or will remain.
They ask us very frequently, uh huh. I'm the dean of the College of
Architecture at the University of Arizona. They asked me why are you
training so many architects? The market is overloaded already. We don't
need them. But who is saying that the practitioners who run big plant
mills are saying that man is by nature of building animal and uh
to him falls the responsibility of modifying and altering the earth's
surface. And that is an awesome responsibility in my mind.
And large numbers of young people need to grow up understanding what these
real issues are about environment and not be misled and drawn away by
flashy images and superficial uh huh catchy kinds of things.
That's why I talked about the preoccupation with style. This is nonsense.
This is not going to lead us to an architecture or an environment or a
community
of any quality of any kind where excellence and dedication or issues
be here who wanted to something else
you have alluded to individuals
means
your friend and yet we do our interests are the architects that you were
encouraged individuals rather than the large corporations, The community's
really begin with individuals. And I think our facility that's
particularly
a community of individual. No, that way
are you
from architects
for individual excellence. Mm hmm. Well, the group is made up of
individuals and each of us is born an individual and will always be an
individual. And each of us has to face the issue of measuring him or
herself against the natural order and against fellow human beings and
fellow human beings, measuring themselves against each other create scenes
very frequently, but
a sack. A self sacrifice of some kind. A rising above the superficial ego.
To the point of getting in touch with one's real deep ego is it's an
issue for everyone in society today. Not not just architects and these
kinds of things happen not in a short period of time, but people like Carl
Sagan once again are dealing with the evolution of the human brain that
understanding the sense of a new level of consciousness developing in
which some of the kinds of things that we're talking about, I think have a
much better chance of occurring.
But the individual human being is the real unit of measure in life, the
degree to which individual beings come together because of their desire
for things like excellence because of their dedication to things will
evolve into the possibility of a finer environment for us that
maybe I could reply in a different way of speaking about the profession.
Um, I think I would agree with the observation that architects, at least
in this country seem not to be terribly responsive to the public at large
, nor potentially to issues of excellence. Um and maybe that's one of the
reasons why we're here to do something about it. I would make an
observation that that the architectural profession doesn't behave the same
way everywhere. And in particular um in England, where I've had some
experience over the last generation or so, the architectural profession
has made itself um more or less indispensable to society. It is made
society and in that case, that mostly has to do with collective
governmental agencies, believe that architects are really necessary to the
society. And this is in England, I'm speaking about Britain. Um and
thereby uh there is a great deal more interaction and inter
responsibilities between the profession and the public at large. I don't
know whether I could say that the built environment, um it is discernibly
better yet, but it seems to me that that at least is one situation which
may have some promise. If I were to make excuse for american architects
who would be that they do after all have to live in the same, a kind of
value system that everyone else lives in and they can very easily starve
themselves if they don't match the needs of the society and there goes the
excellence right out the window.
They are controlled by the people who pay the tune.
I wonder what our sculptor has to say about this kind of dilemma. How'd
you get your bread?
Mhm. Well, it's, it's interesting to me that you suggest that
let the people take over and control the shape of architecture. Mhm. I as
somebody else in the audience mentioned, think that would be an
interesting idea to pursue. But if it's such a good idea, why isn't it
done? The potential certainly exists to do it.
Yeah. This also begins to address the question of and I haven't found out
who is for and who's against yet. But the question of elitists versus
looking at whole societies. Um, looking at set pieces of art versus
looking at whole environments.
Yeah. Mm hmm. Some other day. Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry. Whether objects should as the kind of work products and you want to
do. I know. Yeah. Some believe that the company produced requirements
would not have the food here, responsibility, bodies 10. I promise to be
reported. You can't see the war. Could you
conceded four o'clock. Whoa. Oh, this
You are welcome.
They don't need few problems. Maybe not tomorrow in the uh, yourself into
the work. We need soul expression or not. Oh yes. Do you love through the
bars. Last occupations are going to be the requirements remain the sense
of responsibility because people really love recreation business with
violent. The Lord gave this world, we're across the board meeting every
last amendments this year. You know the job. You were creative and he
wasn't much better.
The whole society one million definitely envision marinate schools,
universities, different magazines. Whoa. Most inference direction and you
don't even have to know. Mhm. No
on the best
is I think it was really clear role. You better start people at the one
just change your schools. Let's change the this activity world has become
experiences. If you really believe that we are not candies on the
bottom, you must share Metropolitan.
We talk to ourselves. We must start now
position different issue. You must be right for the right sort of the way
we just got this arrangement about someone who say what you know what they
want first talk about. You should be the ways the most like to communicate
with you. You can see you couldn't go through letters and argue. I don't
use the wonderful incentive to want to go out to the moment the design
specifications. Yeah. I think it's about time for us to say whether maybe
as soon as our responsibility and we are, he's just wonderful. That's a
lot of people work for crosses the countries that you want. You want to
have potential of break about us. We're not creating.
They are always happy. Yeah. Happy instances. I don't think that one
should get the idea that we're completely pessimistic that there are many
sizable occasions where architect client or community have really made
very good contributions.
There's another question back there.
Yeah, for as much our past working users, Okay, we'll do that in a single
house. You might be able to do it by the 16 department house. Uh, you
might be able to do a small sort of mostly used uh go home americans as
part of their what bars, okay,
control his name full of direction. Uh,
let me try to answer and I think after that we probably have to quit this
room. I was, I was using that term working with the user in some
metaphorical sense. For example, many times take a dormitory, student
dormitory at the university. Obviously you're not going to be able to talk
to the people who are going to be there in five years from now 10 years.
But there is a great difference between working with the buildings and
grounds department of the university which is staffed by a bunch of idiots
most of the time who paint everything green and number every door, you
know, which is the only interest and working and really talking to
students and finding out how students like to live now in, in boston where
Ron used to live and I still do Um there is a dormitory as many of you
know by all to which was done in 1948 in which almost every room, every
student room is slightly different from every other room. Now that was an
incredibly radical idea and extremely sensitive perception on the part of
alta because he realized that students don't want to be treated like
numbers at the same time. Before then. And since then thousands of student
dormitory rooms in the greater boston area have been built. But people who
have never talked to anyone have been designed by architects have never
talked to anyone except the buildings and grounds people at Harvard and
MIT and so on. So I think it's a, I was using the term user and
metaphorical sense. You know, if you talk to the people, the kinds of
people are going to be using it, the kinds of people as widely as possible
rather than to your clients. I think that's anyway, I think we have to
leave. Thank you very much.
Can I think you say, yeah,
I think you can find in old traditional societies that
what we call doctors, medical man are not really isolated practitioners
that look only after
the body. In most traditional societies. You have the conception of the
medicine men, the healer who is much more than than the men who is
trying to repair part of your body when it is worn up. He is a man who is
trying to see how you have got out of the equilibrium of things. What is
the relation of the human being to his entire future forces and how this
whole system got out of balance.
So the role of culture in this processes to promote continuous integration
is to promote and enhance process of harmony
and this has been so in all traditional societies in our society. I think
culture does it symbolically by trying to invent various codes and various
interactive messages whereby by symbolic relationship we get into harmony
with ourselves and with with the rest of the union. This in terms of
physical processes, we have all the quantitative measures whereby a body
is kept in equilibrium. But on the social and cultural level there are
those more subtle symbolic interactions which culture takes care of
sometimes marvelously well and without much awareness of what
of our awareness what it is doing. Instead of rumbling. I'll just
Try to read one or 2 paragraphs which summarize my positions,
which is to say that the idea of cultures healer designates a process
whereby the individual is psychically and spiritually renewed by it when
at the same time he positively contributes to it. Culture is healer that
works in two ways by transmitting to us the invisible psychic energy which
makes us feel to belong at home at one with ourselves and at one with
other human beings. And I think this environment that has been created
here is as good example as any of certain building forms that have more
than physical shapes to them that have certain symbolic significance. The
forms that work on us and the forms that we find conducive and enhancing.
I think my case really addressed on your experience of this environment
and your realization whether and in what sense this is a healing
environment, whether in what sense man does not live bye bread and butter
alone, but those subtle spiritual interactions, What is it in the nature
of those environments which are rich, spiritual and cultural that makes us
feel good? That makes us feel somehow healed and mandate. What is it in
this environment that makes us feel good? And I think the introspection of
this process of experience would reveal that there is a peculiar kind of
healing process where by many of the processes of disintegration of us is
cultural beings have been somehow mended. So I'll finish reading this bit
by suggesting that secondly, by challenging us to contribute to it
and by engaging and absorbing us into its own life. Both processes have a
healing power for without them, the individual becomes tomorrow's the rain
schizophrenic. In short, we are a part of the life of culture and culture
is an intrinsic part of our life put otherwise, culture shapes the
individual, who in turn contributes to the ethos of the culture. So we are
aware that we are complex and fragile systems, vulnerable all the time to
the processes of entropy, both physical and psychic our body that is the
live process and life processes in our body combat this tendency to
entropy by continuously reintegrating what entropy wants to dissolve our
minds and our psychic life are subject with ceaseless entropy as well.
Culture and the process is it generates our power. Excellence, integrity
. I think this is one of the most characteristic of culture from my point
of view, this integrity from the psychological
cultural and psychic level,
they are constantly rebuilding what entropy wants to dissolve in. Yet
another formulation. Culture is healer signifies the anti dropping
qualities of culture which keeps constantly rebuilding the structures are
a psychic and spiritual life. When men's spiritual life is gone, the human
being is, in a significant sense, dead as you may be aware, the old
fashioned expression that culture is quote, the nourishment of the soul on
this definition is not far from the truth. If my soul, we mean the variety
of psychic energy that men transact with his culture and other human
beings, then the expression is exactly right.
Well, if such is the case, let us look very briefly historically it and
contemporary scene and see where we are and what has gone wrong, as you
are aware in this remarkable book than in the art of motorcycle
maintenance robert person claims that our ages somehow defunct and
crippled because it lacks of quality. In my opinion, it is because it
lacks of spirituality or my second thesis is that it is the spiritual
substance of culture that keeps it nourishing in the life and it's because
we have somehow perched ourselves of spiritual content during the last two
centuries that we find our culture not nourishing the process really
started in the pasta renaissance times, but really in a big way with the
evolution of the mechanistic worldview, with the idea of the cosmos as a
clock like mechanism. In perfecting this metaphor of the universe is a
clock like mechanism we have continually, that is during the last
centuries,
try to eliminate all the elements of the universe that somehow didn't
belong to the mechanistic metaphor, that we're not express a bill through
physical laws. As the result, we have perched all non physical elements,
first from Physics, then from chemistry, then from physiology, then in the
19th century from psychology. And then at the end of the 19th century, in
the 20th century, from culture and from art in particular, from for the
pursuit of uh secularism meant chasing out all the gods and by the same
token, all the spiritual and transcendental forces from it. It has been an
unfortunate
coincidence or a mistake of the
pursuit of the mechanistic worldview, that while trying to liberate
ourselves from the constraining aspects of religion, we attributed to
religion, not only those defunct aspects of it, but also all spiritual and
transcendental functions. So we have eliminated not only the tyranny of
religion, but also a great deal of transcendental and spiritual content
that have gone with Yeah, the practice and then then the worship of
religion as the result, particularly in the second half of the 19th
century, we have increasingly impoverished our art and our culture
From the standpoint of the history of art we receive from 19th century On
the late 19th century on the progressive
liberation of the artist from form, first from classical form in music, in
painting and sculpture, and then from All forms. So that in the 20th
century anything goes, anything goes. But at the same time, one has to
realize that while liberating ourselves from the constraints of
traditional culture, we have liberated art from what it was always
renowned for from being a carrier of spiritual substance, spiritual
message. And I think the plight of modern art, particularly the second
half of the 20th century art, the plight of the avant garde is really
exactly in proportion to its abandoning its role as a carrier of spiritual
substance, as the conveyor of cultural values which have maintained, I
would sanity and our well being for such a long time and no wonder that
there is almost universal revulsion to modern art for modern artists,
particularly on the healing if we are really acting against it. I think it
is for good reason for our instinct tells her that it is not art that
somehow integrates that is wholesome for modern art somehow, on purpose
assaults us and disintegrates us. In my opinion, If we are going to
survive as integrated human beings, there must be some symbolic modes that
do it for us out in this Second half of the 20th century somehow somehow
relegated to renounce its role as he there and so far nothing has emerged
in its place
to rephrase the point through the words of Gaeta who once said that to
treat men as he is, is to debase him to treat men as he ought to be, is to
embrace him. Traditional religions and traditional art treated men as he
ought to be. Philosophers from the renaissance on and particularly from
the 18th century on, particularly in the 19th and the 20th century, and
inspired by Marxist by positivism by secularism, increasingly treated man
as his and increasingly debased him. So our agenda now is to again,
treatment is he ought to be and to re fuse culture with spiritual, some
substance which it has lost. And what I feel as exciting and what I feel
is happening here is that somehow, in spite of the seeming impossibility
of doing so, we have been able to again re select this old fashioned
concept of men who is made not only of clay but of stars and our pursuit
here is the pursuit of excellence in the term of treating men as he ought
to be and therefore embracing him. And this has been always the most
important aspect of culture and this is why culture has been healer and
this is why I insisted unless we are somehow able to recapture
the symbolic significance of healing process of culture, we are going to
do, be in trouble and we are in trouble As you know, during the last 15
years, the number of mentally ill patients that, that that has increased
in the United States 400%. And I'm told that half of the beds are occupied
by mentally deranged persons. And I think if we really look at large as
very perturbed
mental scene of our times, so many people being at a loose end, in my
opinion, it is the result of the culture that has been unable to somehow
group people spiritually. That has been able to provide the nourishment
which maybe not quantifiable, not empirical, not physical, but yet all
important. So we are sick people because we have a sick culture somehow
deprived of and spirituality and this is few comments I want to share with
you.
Mhm.
Say that the cells in our body. Okay,
well actually plato was already of this opinion that our
and yet although they are all new uh function in the same kind of
universal way that your nose is for sneezing your eye for seeing. And also
it is recognizable your nose and your eyes. Well, I mean, whatever they
say granted that they say it what follows from it. Yeah,
I think that I don't know and I think that we don't know and I think that
whatever arguments have been provided so far are clearly unsatisfactory. I
think that I can provide one significant clue by pointing out that
many people have suddenly die after retirement
when they retired in full strength and suddenly they found that they have
, they had nothing significant to do and the whole spirit has with it also
that the number of deaths of spouses after one of the spouses died during
the first six months is phenomenal. So one can die of grief, which means
again that it is not only the nourishment, the physical aspect, but all
other symbolic aspects of our interaction with other human beings that are
important. Beyond that. I think I can speculate as well as you can, but I
think that certain coherence and meaning to life is very necessary to go
on. And again, another example how much examples can prove, I don't know,
there was a famous case of the man who was blind from birth and gained
Side after an operation at the age of 40 and he was fantastically thrilled
and really excited at first sure enough, sometimes he would have to touch
objects in order to see them. However, after six months he found that this
was not so exciting. After nine months he found that he was getting
increasingly board And after 15 months without any reason he died.
I know that those examples do not answer your question and yet in a kind
of anyway, they made,
if you had a question now that
well Look at the stars 1st and and at your navel next while most of the
time we just do it all the way around and indeed sometimes and often we
never see the stars. I think that the problem is really deep one because I
do not particularly blame this culture of this generation for what is
happening in the States at present is a result of a long process. It was a
progressive mechanization of the cosmos. Progressive instrumental ization
of of the universe through instruments of power whereby we were supposed
to gain domination of it all and become rational. And therefore we didn't
need any spirit strapping on religion and art for rationality. Science and
technology was going to do it all for us. And this pursuit of power of
control of manipulation has been really intoxicating for the european mind
for at least two centuries. And then we found that there is a limit to it
and indeed that there is a kind of dialectical limit to it. That after we
have saturated our world with certain instruments of power, they are big
firing and the dream of happiness and dream of fulfillment by share power
of manipulation isn't really turning into a nightmare and therefore the
processes to or rethink it de novo to rethink what are myths, what our
underlying assumptions with our ideas and you will have to to to realize
that it is because we have emptied our cosmos of what all other cultures
assumed to be the case as Marshal Selene says in his book,
culture is a practical,
whatever it is,
practical and practical reason, we are the only people who think that they
descended from the beast, all others think they descended from gods.
I think there is a significant point to be taken for all other people
think that the universe, the nature is endowed with the spire beyond
beyond physical that it somehow reverberates with spiritual transcendental
power. And we have to re sacrifice in a sense, the cosmos around us in
order to find our destiny
for ourselves. And in order to feel that we are reunited with the stars
again. And then I think we will have much less difficulties of finding
particular goals uh for for ourselves. For we find those girls so very
difficult because our universe is so very close and and and and and and
and and really uh we are trapped when we open our universe. There'll be so
many causes and and our destiny will be united with so many other forces
that you will never really ask those kinds of questions
you wanted to continue, huh?
To treat men and women as she ought to be and beyond what he or she is.
Because treating ourselves as we are, is really
treating us wrongly not giving enough scope for for for what we may become.
If we really try to reach the stance
we have just started, we are just doing.
Mhm. Mhm
Tomorrow morning before I worry about my problem with my students, with my
Dean's with my girlfriends or whatever look and the beauty of this
canyon. And we remarked myself how incredible it is to be able to see how
incredible it is to interact with those elements are incredible. It is to
to perceive and somehow transform creatively environment. This is on the
personal level to really realize the utter uniqueness of our being in this
universe and to realize that we are repository of fantastic endowment of
life and fantastic endowment of human genius through generations and
millennia, which we are often squandering by changing it into into those
disposable goods. And then really by maintaining the dialogue with other
human beings, not on the level, out of our biological and economic being,
but on the level of our transcendental being and on yet another level by
trying to reformulate all those dogmas and assumptions which we make about
developing ourselves often under the auspices of philosophies that serve
tried to serve men as his As you know, for quite a while, particularly the
60s. There was a number of theories justifying our greed, our selfishness
by alleged aggressive nature of men. And there were many of such books.
Now suddenly anthropologists turn around and say, well, this is really a
superficial reading reading Leakey, who is really one of the greatest of
anthropologists by examining the remnants of those home avoids some two
million years ago Came to the conclusion and suggested strongly that the
our ancestor of two million 2 million years ago. It was a very gentle and
cooperative creature.
And this theories of aggression is somehow uh kind of manipulated outcome
of trying to justify the practice of our society. And this is one of the
rethinking. And then we don't have to apologize for wanting to be
altruistic, for wanting to be compassionate, for wanting to embrace each
other, for wanting to reach the stars. And this way of thinking will be
very important and really tremendously important. So that we find new
premises and new philosophies that will justify among other things, what
we are doing here and what we are doing in weak moments. And those things
have to go on simultaneously. Chris has a point.
I think the facts are what they have already trying to sketch. We
try to suppress our noble impulses by thinking that we are foolish and
romantic and at the same time trying to somehow develop, which is really
very much encouraged by schools and the whole structure of society. Those
aggressive and competitive instincts. And by this token, we polarize the
whole scene. I concede among my students In the late 60s, early 70s, the
whole thing somehow loosened up and they started to evolve into
Alternative modes. After the economic crunch came they are again
struggling with each other really hard to raise their great by one decimal
point and they are really inflicting pain on themselves. They're really
perpetuating the wrong myth, that it is all a matter of objective
attainment, it's all a matter of raising a great by the simple point, it's
all a matter of outdoing each other, all a matter of knifing really each
other by saying that I am better than you are and therefore I cannot do it.
I think this is the kind of competitive ladder which capitalist system
wants to to perpetuate for. It is based on the assumption that, you know,
it is a jungle and therefore either you or I without realizing that this
medium has proved bankrupt for the system itself and consequently our
justification of new philosophies which put a new light on men and our
behavior which tried to justify that it's alright to be gentle. It's
alright to be loving. It is all right to be carrying. It's alright to be
compassionate to each other. That this is really not something that, that
only Sissies who cannot make it in the other world are indulging it. But
this is in the nature of things that it is congruent with the order of
things. It may be congruent with larger evolution of man, I think
rethinking those propositions and rewiring our mind. Our assumptions are
these positions are behavior is tremendously important for so much so we
feel so many of us so good here because we do not have to be on the
defensive, We do not have to fight. We do not have to compete. However,
once we leave here we put the chute on and struggle again and I think that
this schizophrenic spirit doesn't have to be that what we're trying to do
here and in other communities is much more universal. Then this skin
competitive uh aggressive behavior which is really an invention of the
last year's, the invention of free uh
capitalist economic, free free enterprise system which can be traced not
to any loss of nature but specific pieces of legislation. Within 18th and
19th century England, we have historically invented certain institutions
which we have imposed on society and then try to evolve various ideologies
and philosophies justify them and then subverted the entire system of
education and subverted and somehow brainwashed all our students ourselves
, including your professors because they are there chief villains and main
enemies. They have really screwed up your education and then you're
thinking in your perception and then we are complaining that things are
not working and then we have to redo the whole thing and then start with
the assumptions. Again, I'm not giving you an easy road to truth or normal
stars. Road to truth is always thorny and a road to studies impossible.
But you have to follow it or to summarize what I'm really saying by words
of world. Uh huh.
No
what has been? Uh Yeah. Do you want?
Mhm.
Well this cosmos is so vast because we have evolved the whole system of
education supporting wrong mitts and I've spent a number of years being
educated or being brainwashed by philosophers and I can see how philosophy
departments operate the best ones are the worst in a sense, because they
really carry on this, this, this gospel of objectivity, of analytical
detachment, of cutting all propositions to the extreme and to to be really
best in their trade, is to forget that you are, you have a heart, you have
feelings, you have guts, you are an abstract brain and your great
achievement is to be able to, I'll do your masters in analyzing
propositions with ever you scrutiny and as a result, there is a very
curious kind of mind that comes and this kind of mind will go to educate
other kinds of minds, it is really kind of ruthless analytical scrutiny
which impinges on the entire being of persons and this is you know, only
in the field I know best, but the same kind of scrutiny goes all the time.
So we should not think that the
reversal will be easy for, for we are up against the whole system of
education which is the entire culture that has brainwash itself and now
wants to perpetuate itself for no institution really relinquish is its
power, even if it knows that it is bankrupt without trying to drag
everything with it, fortunately enough, there is enough alternative and
craves, but the battle is really in your minds and your hearts and I think
that uh by this token uh tension, it is right, that is a revolutionary.
But there is no way that you can really have a ready made alternative
world for you. For as I was starting to say, walt Whitman No, I nor anyone
else can travel that road for you. You must travel it yourself. However,
if there is enough of us that want to travel this alternative road by the
courage and determination will be able to get others because the other
other paradigm is rolling on with great force, but people are not happy in
being in it. I think that this is one of the remarkable sign of our times
that although we are the most affluent of all societies, we are one of the
most miserable and unhappy of all societies, for we have proved beyond any
reasonable now that affluence doesn't provide happiness, that the
consumption of energy is not a quality of life and consequently people,
even even in a nice suburbia, are looking for for alternatives and it will
be up to you to to show them how to live an alternative life and with it
evolve. Alternative assumptions. My bit is to try to underlies for you and
others and myself how really
contingent that is not necessary. How really coincidental are the
assumptions on which our civilization and culture rests all the invention
of men of genius, Admittedly of the 17th 18th and 19th century. They have
resolved the whole universe. We thought at first for for good for for
benefit of us all actually the dreams were too narrow and they are big
firing. But they show that the whole heritage of a culture can be written
because the heritage of medieval culture was really great and they turn it
around by their genius. But we now know that that it was really share kind
of imagination power that they they imposed on us and now it is up to our
share imagination power, engineers to turn around again the scene and
again as I said, treat start treating ourselves as we ought to be. Not as
we are, let's go and gaze at the stars.
Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that master salary was here. Otherwise I would
not have finished without asking him to say the final word. We're busy.
Okay. The syndrome of the decade, civilization being busy.