From: pm3w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Paul M Mcelwee)
Newsgroups: alt.architecture
Subject: Re: Mass Hallucination?
Date: 10 Nov 92 05:33:13 GMT
Organization: Sophomore, Architecture, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Hmm, lots of stuff here.

Let me state first off, that I am an optimist in general, as well as an
architect, and that I am still sane.

First off, Ray Chung writes:

>I've heard it said over and over again that architecture represents a
>culture's mores, etc, and I've never accepted it.  If anything,
>architecture represents an architect's values and fits a client's function.

I find this somewhat disturbing, to finish off:

>How is it justifiable to inflate the practice of architecture to such a
>heroic, important scale?  Sure, building involves many people from all
>different areas of society (construction, community, business, government,
>et al.) but ultimately, this mass of people is nothing more than a handful
>of individuals arguing in a bubble.  Do such individuals automatically
>represent a culture?  I think they more represent the state of architecture

What is proposed in the first quote is the architect stroking his genius
to please the client.  What results is the product of two individual's
(or whoever is involoved in the construction) architectural
conciousness.  What is produced is many of the buildings that we see
today, buildings; that as Ray also laments, are incomprehensible to the
public at large:

>I have found that many people today when they see a new building go up do
>not feel that they are in a position to judge the architecture, for they
>feel uneducated in the language of building.  So they accept it as
>architecture, an esoteric, highly intellectual issue left to architects and
>their clients.  Out here in our art school world, how can we even pretend

Perhaps, this is WHY buildings are incomperhensible.  If buildings are
designed according to the architects' and clients' whim, they are doomed
to be incomprehensible.  
    But maybye not.  DANTE claims.

> Basically, "establishing a symbol-system" need only be as hard
>as making a building that YOU would like to build, and demanding that it be
>built.  We are all in symbol-systems that will be easy to see in a few years;
>the systems that we are unable to percieve are our symbol-systems, our only
>"modern problem" is that we mass-hallucinate that we move laterally to s.s.'s,

    As individual architects, WE are a part of "culture" at large. 
Perhaps, then, making buildings fit into a cultural context is as easy
as tapping into our own architectural instincts.  Questions arise, then,
what "culture" is.  Ray claims that it is merely a collection of
individuals, unrelated on the whole.  This is exactly what capitalism
is.  Capitalism destroys the mass conciousness (traditions, religion,
community) of society (culture), and replaces it by media (confusing
proliferation of conflicting symbols and images).  The "culture" of
today's society relies to a great degree on the individual.
   In this sense, Ray is exactly correct.  Capitalism praises the
indiviual, yet is totally separatist.  There is a feeling of mass
lonliness and lack of "culture".  From where are we to draw cultural
symbols?

DANTE:   Problem...capitalism...

Perhaps it is time for a social revolution, but this cannot occur
without the elimination of capitalism....will this happen anytime soon? 
Will the environment be able to sustain capitalism forever?

Perhaps....

The architects must plan ahead for the death of capitalism. 

Fightin' words,

PAUL
Newsgroups: alt.architecture