Is Architecture Dead … in Toronto? Part 3 – Beauty vs Necessity.

Let me apologize in advance … YES and NO!!

In my opinion there are 4 types of design in architecture:

1)    Architecture of Survival

2)    Architecture of Necessity

3)    Architecture of Comfort

4)    Architecture of Luxury, i.e., idiosyncratic design

So we will live under trees, in caves and caverns, covered parking garages, stairwells,  under tarps, under fallen rocks, sleep under warm skies and the like. Architecture of Survival (point 1) is alive, not dead.

So we live and work in apartment buildings, houses, barracks, schools, institutions, factories, office buildings etc. – 99.9% are unremarkable by any measure and could be classed as utilitarian. Architecture of Necessity (point 2) is alive, not dead. The architecture of experiment is in this category. Deliberate prototypes developed to enable future work and processes that may or may not be unique.

So 0.01% of most people live or work in the Architecture of Comfort. Something that was consciously developed by an individual or collective according to a comprehensive vision that in a word makes people’s lives safer, comfortable, less stressful while at the same time promoting mental, physical, emotional or spiritual well being. I’m not talking about city or village design. I’m talking about a building; an element of a building or series of connected spaces that involve human integration and re-integration on the ‘natural’ or artificial landscape that is commissioned to be a ‘design’. So the Architecture of Comfort (point 3) is, for all intents and purposes, dead or dying here.

Furthermore, even those who can afford the Architecture of Comfort in Toronto (the 0.01%, are hard pressed to find people or firms that even they can. Moreover, if those firms have managed to retain capable and talented people who might have survived long enough and still have the enormous energy it now takes to be creative in this field in this town.

Lastly, 0.001% of most people live or work in the Architecture of Luxury. This is the manifestation of a building, space or element of that space or building whose reason for being comes from the client’s totally idiosyncratic needs and desires as well as their willingness to afford both the process and the outcome. This often takes place in the form of a small thing such as a bathtub, table chair or in some cases a room and all it’s contents. Remember I’m talking about Toronto, Ontario and not Dubai. So few can are aware of the possible and even if they are aware of the possible are so loath to work with those who can make it possible for various and sundry reasons. So the Architecture of Luxury (point 4) is, for all intents and purposes, dead here too. (The attached sketch/ design I call House on the Wind, [cottage really] to example Architecture of Luxury)

Next week … How might we bring elements of comfort and luxury back to the architecture of survival and necessity? In other words, how might we raise the level of conscious art/process into the seemingly mundane world of necessity inhabited by the majority? Should we? Could we?

I remember an adage I adopted from one of my literature and iconography profs many years ago; it says … ‘if something is beautiful people will find a way to keep it, work with it and be with it. If on the other hand something is ugly, it better have a necessity and at the end of its necessity we will find a way to get rid of it.’ … And that is the problem with the architecture of survival and necessity by itself.