The Architect's Role in Creating Meaningful Modern Spaces

Introduction: Architecture in Crisis

Today's architectural role in society has become increasingly challenging as technology has introduced a growing number of factors that must be taken into consideration during the design process. Overwhelmed by this abundance of variables, architects have begun to lose sight of the long-lasting built environment. The structures designers have created over the last half-century are focused more on cheap functionality than on permanent and impactful construction. According to Juhani Pallasmaa in his essay "Stairways of the Mind," the path architecture has taken is a self-destructive one.

"Our obsessively materialistic and quasi-rational age has turned buildings into purely instrumental constructions, 'machines for living,' serving merely the practicalities of life." (Pallasmaa) While this is a broadly accurate observation, today's architects are learning from the mistakes of the past and trying to recreate the need for a personalized space that invokes emotion and connectivity.

In order to identify what is important in today's architecture, one must question the driving task of architecture and how to achieve it. How does one create an architecture that embodies innovation alongside human interaction? Or an architecture that is functional while evoking emotion within the user? The ideal architecture merges the mind and body with the space, creating a utopian retreat usable in daily life and adaptable for generations. This architecture will speak beyond the cognitive language and embed itself in the subconscious mind, creating a strong emotional, functional, and adaptive space.

There are two principal ways to create these unique spaces, and both are central to today's architectural role in society. The first is the creation of a permanent, functional, yet personalized space that embodies present innovation with tomorrow's potential — a structure capable of withstanding the test of time while encouraging technological growth and human interaction. Through the study of great architecture from the past, one can objectively identify the positives and negatives of each architect's style and approach, and gauge how to apply this knowledge alongside current capabilities to forge a new style of great architecture.

Performative Design and Site Interdependence

As Kate Nesbitt notes, drawing on August Hecksher: "The movement from a view of life as essentially simple and orderly to a view of life as complex and ironic is what every individual passes through in becoming mature… Amid simplicity and order rationalism is born, but rationalism proves inadequate in any period of upheaval. Then equilibrium must be created out of opposites. Such inner peace as men gain must represent a tension among contradictions and uncertainties… a feeling for paradox allows seemingly dissimilar things to exist side by side, their very incongruity suggesting a kind of truth." Edmund W. Sinnott has similarly described complexity in organic evolution: "Evolution has been primarily a process of increase in size and complexity. Natural selection has not put a premium on form as such but rather on the increased differentiation and division of labor that makes an organism more efficient and likely to survive. This process has necessarily resulted in an increased elaboration of form, the laws of matter and energy being what they are." (Nesbitt)

The evolution of architecture begins with performative design — creating not only an alluring, wondrous space, but also a functional building that breathes as a whole and becomes a structural metaphor for the human body. No single piece can survive without the others. When all the pieces work in concert, the spaces invoke a more unique experience and create a harmonious structure built on a focus on form, function, and aesthetics: the basic tools of an architect, enhanced to contemporary standards.

There are several ways to forge a path forward in architecture, but they all begin with research — including analysis of the site and surrounding area, the history of the people, and the possible ways a structure could impact lives both now and in the future.

As Steven Holl writes: "A building has one site. In this one situation, its intentions are collected. Building and site have been interdependent since the beginning of architecture. In the past, this connection was manifest without conscious intention through the use of local materials and craft, and by association with events of history and myth. Today the link between site and architecture must be found in new ways, which are a part of a constructive transformation in modern life." (Holl)

Concept, Form, and Function

One of the essential elements of architecture is the connection between people, location, and structure. This is why the first step in performative design is to create and push that integration to new levels. The process of site interdependence has been lost by many designers, sacrificed to compensate for cost feasibility and a lack of consideration. Over the years, however, new methods of site analysis have emerged to help define the relationship between a structure and its inhabitants. By stepping back and honoring these key principles of design, architects can produce more successful and enduring work that is not diminished by the passage of time.

By invoking the study of site, architects create a sense of authenticity — developing a space with which the community can connect and feel passionate about, even before the design process formally begins. Site is the heartbeat that gives a structure life and sustains it across the years. Appreciating the surroundings and taking the many factors of location into consideration lays the groundwork for a successful modern design.

One of the most fundamental — yet persistently debated — aspects of architecture is form. Does form follow function, or does function follow form? Neither answer is entirely sufficient. The path toward an alluring, sensual design runs through concept. Architects have lost sight of the need for a strong concept to generate a unique form, and to allow that concept to guide both formal and functional development.

As Herman Hertzberger explains: "It is the conditions as they obtain for that particular task that foster the idea for a design and the concept distilled from it. Those conditions dictate that the end-product satisfies that idea and that its special qualities get expressed as 'hallmarks'; this way the idea encapsulates the DNA, so to speak, containing the essence of the project and guiding the design process from start to finish. The concept, then, is the idea translated into space — the space of idea, and bearer of the character traits of the product as these will emerge upon its development." (Hertzberger)

Conclusion: The Architect's Responsibility

While most architects and designers have seemed to distance themselves from the essential purpose of quality design, a few are beginning to find their way back to the standard of care the profession deserves. The examples discussed here illustrate how architects are starting to refocus on design quality and how to achieve it without defaulting to cheap functionality. Using the design skills accumulated over the years and the technology now available, there are viable paths to creating sensual, authentic, and idealized structures. By combining the art of the temporary and the permanent — through both installation practice and concept-driven design — architects can overcome the creative complacency into which the profession has drifted.