Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

One of the things that complicates architecture is that it can be significant to us in a variety of different ways. For example, the building I live in, which I think of as my home, carries a special feeling for me that it does not carry for people who don’t live in it. I understand that and don’t expect them to feel the same way as I do about my home, though I might expect them to feel about their home the way I do about mine (and sometimes I would be wrong, because in fact not everyone does feel the same). Other buildings seem especially beautiful, or spectacular in some way. If I am impressed with them, then I might expect that others will be similarly impressed (again, I might be wrong in individual instances, but I would feel that it was worth asking). And there are other buildings that are famous works of architecture that everybody knows are good. If I don’t feel that a building of this sort is wonderful, then I might feel that I should keep quiet about the fact, because everyone seems to know for a fact that it is excellent, and if I don’t agree then perhaps people will think that my judgement is faulty. These ‘canonic’ works are discussed in Chapter 3. Chapter 2 looks at the way in which buildings are made to look like one another, so that they carry the right sorts of messages to those ‘in the know’ in a particular culture. Chapter 1, this chapter, mainly looks at how buildings are involved with our sense of who we are.

Buildings are constructed so as to solve practical problems, but they often do more than that, and when they do then we feel inclined to call them ‘architecture’, because they have a cultural dimension. Of course any building at all can have a cultural dimension if we choose to pay attention to it, but often we feel disinclined to do that. For example, when I fill my car up with fuel, I don’t necessarily think of the petrol station as ‘architecture’, just as a reasonably serviceable place. But I can start to think of it as architecture if I consider that petrol stations are culturally significant buildings, and that their design is worth looking at for what it can teach us about our attitudes to the car and the importance we attach to it.

Added value, cultural value

What architects do is to design buildings with an eye not only to their practical utility, but also with an eye to their cultural value, trying to give them a shape that is in some way appropriate. What it is that makes a building appropriate will be different in different circumstances, depending on what the surrounding buildings are like, what method of construction can be used, and what role a building plays. What seems right in the suburbs might be strange in a city centre. The same shape of building might be simple and direct if it is built in timber, but downright odd if cast in concrete. A building that makes a good swimming pool does not necessarily make a good library — even if it can be made to work, the building’s appearance could feel misleading. The things that follow on from the different sets of decisions feel like forces pulling the building in different directions. If the building’s materials are what most govern the building’s shape then it will go one way, but if the primary concern is to make it the best possible image of its use, then it will go another. All these forces can act independently of one another, at the same time on the same building, so that taking care of one of them might disrupt one of the others. The issue is further complicated by the fact that some ways of doing things have a higher status than others. For example, take something smaller than a building, which is more often bought: furniture.

Furniture belongs in buildings, and can have the kinds of overtones that make it seem like small portable architectural works. Some architects design furniture. The things that we choose to have around us when we furnish our houses and apartments tell us something about the sort of people we are. Everybody knows this. Film-makers and novelists especially make use of the fact by telling us about the places their characters inhabit in order to let us know what kinds of people they are. The bleak interior described as the dwelling place of James Joyce’s character in ‘A Painful Case’ acts as an indication of that character’s habits of mind, which lead him to turn away from affection when — fleetingly — it is offered: