Comment in the AJ - Patrick Lynch
- Published: 18 December 2007 11:05
- Last Updated: 18 December 2007 11:05
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The pseudo-science of the ' starchitects' makes them the real Roundheads, says Patrick Lynch
"The avant-garde is disgusted by the messiness of tradition"
People have been referring to us – the lovers of bricks and fresh air, typology and history, architecture which looks like architecture – as 'the Roundheads'. Which is more than a bit odd, since Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army was a rabidly modern organisation, and the prototype for the Calvinistic celebration of materialism and technical prowess which typified 20th-century business practice.
The Roundheads didn't believe in iconography; they detested theatre and reduced symbolism to information. History and tradition were the objects of their scorn. A total refusal of anything tainted by rhetoric and ornament – and the past – paved the way for industrialisation and the expansion of British influence over the globe. Sounds to me very much like the world of 'starchitecture' – the belief that 'process' (sic), 'methodology' and 'critical theory' can stand in for 'design'.
You see, there are really two ideologies at work here. The first is based on the study of places, cultures, habits and customs – the vernacular, in fact – and the belief that architecture is a discipline with its own history. The second thinks that 'history is bullshit' (to quote Will Alsop). The avantgarde is disgusted by the messiness and unbearable wetness of traditional construction, and their distrust of authority and historical precedents might make them just corrupted Roundheads.
In a similar but more extreme way, Dutch architects place themselves in one of two camps: either you work in historic cities and are a 'conservation architect', or you work on virgin soil and are an 'experimental architect'. The SuperDutch school (ennobled in Bart Lootsma's 2003 book) starts off trying to square individual creativity with pseudo scientific research (the modern conundrum), and ends up with various shades of neon go faster stripes and 'cross-programming' in lieu of site specificity and architectural character.
Reducing architecture to the literal expression of abstract quantities produces a neo-orthodoxy of slightly fast-looking shapes. The current obsession seems based on nothing more than the insistence that using new technology is somehow morally correct and radical. In contrast, the best Belgian architects work in a manner which is deeply sympathetic to the historic fabric of their towns.
Marie-José Van Hee makes modern architecture which is luxuriously referential of architectural memories, and richly suggestive of inhabitation. Her own house in Ghent is arranged around a courtyard garden lined with concrete colonnades. It has a mixture of grand and homely spaces, carefully calibrated for a family. There is a photograph of her dining room (pictured below) with some books laid out on the tablecloth, chairs slightly askew. Light from tall windows streams in. The stage is set for a simple meal or a feast – for contemplation or chatter. An invitation is offered in this architecture, one which I would like to offer too (www.mjvanhee.be).
