Architecture serves a specific need; usually to a human function.

Architecture serves a specific need; usually to a human function. Architects are, by and large, programmed to make the time humans spend indoors more tolerable and, in most cases, actually pleasant. Buildings are always evolving into better places to spend your time. Better lighting. Better air quality. Better function and an ever-morphing form. To stretch the envelope of expanding technology and to utilize progressive building materials to their fullest should be part of any architect’s natural instincts.

But like all good endeavors it can go too far. Consider edifices like Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum (Spain) and his Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles). The first resembles a shiny ship hull that has been slices to pieces and the latter is so difficult to understand visually that it could be reminiscent of a giant UFO crash site. Modern architecture at its finest!

I can’t help but think that buildings like these (and now so many others) are strictly vanity driven; typically by two people with an overly inflated sense of self. One is obviously the architect and the other is the client. Both have huge egos, and without both the concept would never come to fruition.

Function and form are the underpinning of good architecture; does the building work well within the context for which it was designed AND is it aesthetically pleasing? Does it fit into the subtext of the city, the community, the neighborhood, blah, blah, blah (ad nauseum). Yes, yes, and yes? Good, good, good! But when the form resembles the twisted metal of an airplane crash perhaps we’ve gone a bit too far.

Architects are also trained to be discerning about scale and balance. Trained to understand that even the layman can sense when a building feels right. He may not be able to express in arch-a-speak exactly why, but he knows inherently when a building is good. People become uncomfortable looking at buildings that are skewed, out of balance, out of context, or look like a train wreck. This is not to say that the general public doesn’t like interesting buildings; it’s fun to wonder how the architect concealed support so that an element appears to float. Or how he was able to provide so much glazing with no obvious structure. So many little tricks (skills) that give the illusion of something, while conforming to all the rules that gravity, wind, and seismic activity demand… but I digress.

The fact that technology in methods, materials, and the ability to hyper-analyze the structural integrity (of crumpled metal) has allowed architects to “push the envelope” of design does not necessarily mean they should. I’m not saying it isn’t fantastic. I‘m sure it is complicated and difficult. I know these men have superior talent and vision and that the inner workings (of the building) are beyond reproach. Still, it is kind of like a bad accident . . . you don’t want to look, but you have to.