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RESTRUCTURING 21ST-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE THROUGH HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
Nikos A. Salingaros & Kenneth G. Masden II
Abstract This paper introduces a compelling new way of Keywords thinking about, teaching, and practicing architecture. Architecture, adaptivity, intelligence, tradition, Founded on the basis of how the human mind authenticity. perceives and interacts with the built environment, we call this new design process “intelligent architecture”. Perhaps surprisingly, scientifically-conceived rules for Introduction architectural design and building can lead to a more For too long now, the circumstances of a global human architecture, one with a renewed respect for economy have directed the ebb and flow of traditional methods of architectural design. This new intellectual and cultural exchange throughout process can also be extended by implementing new the world. Skewed by the influence of media- technologies. By applying the most recent scientific driven societies, the architectural stage has advances to architectural thinking, we can better been rigidly set by concepts and imagery that appreciate the architectural heritage of the past, are irrelevant not only to their users, but equally giving scientific insight into its origins and manner to other cultures. As we look around the world, of conception. This development also reverses an it is becoming more and more evident that unfortunate misunderstanding that required the we are not the masters of our own profession. future to erase the past rather than to learn from it. Architecture has become the exclusive domain of the so-called “Star Architect” (starchitect in common usage), no longer operating as a conveyance, but as a usurper of culture and identity.
The distinguished Pakistani architect Hammad Husain expressed a widespread frustration with this phenomenon when he asked in 2003: “What makes an architect famous? Is being famous directly proportional to being good?
Copyright © 2007 Archnet-IJAR, Volume 1 - Issue 1 - March 2007 - (36-52)
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If yes, then does it mean in the whole of Asia have been attempted in the past, most and Africa there are no architects good notably by Christopher Alexander (Alexander enough to be world-famous?” (Husain, 2003). et. al., 1977) and by Ashraf Salama (1995; Not many architects from China, India, Russia, 2005). The proposals aroused more opposition South America — i.e. the vast bulk of humanity than interest in the architectural community. — ever make it into the glossy architectural Even after trenchant criticism of the present magazines. system of architectural education as being mostly irrelevant (Bothwell et. al., 2004; Boyer How can anyone believe that a “Dutch Design & Mitgang, 1996), no reforms have ever been Demigod” could know more about a place successfully implemented. than the very people who were born and raised there? How can these starchitects espouse to We now know with certainty that the human know what is best for the rest of the world? More mind readily recognizes and seeks out importantly, how do we combat the aesthetic coherent information in our surroundings (the authority that such individuals now exert over material world). Meaning extracted from our place in the world? raw information from the built environment helps to tell us whether a place is healthy and The antithesis to this abstract aesthetization of nourishing, or deleterious and dangerous, etc. the world is the concrete actualization and Information, and the intelligence that processes
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II restructuring of how the built environment is this information to make it meaningful, provides conceived. This requires a blending of one’s an integral link between humans and the intimate knowledge of culturally-specific values physical reality that we perceive. This is crucial and beliefs with a 21st-Century understanding because this is how we establish our sense of how human intelligence affects the artifacts of wellbeing, making decisions such as fight- — i.e. buildings and places — that we create. or-flight responses. We are sentient beings, Such knowledge comes through science and neurologically wired to look for certain kinds the scientific approach to understanding of structure in the complex informational fields the world. Uncovering the foundations of the that surround us. architectural experience through science leads us to the processes of human cognition and Innate intelligence represents the deepest intelligence. Through this discipline the seeds type of information processing, common to all of a new, intelligent architecture have been people, and thus is not the exclusive domain of discovered. architects. An engagement with the material world generates meaning and awareness for Accepting human intelligence as a unifying everyday human beings, but it takes training, principle for the architectural design process practice, and discipline to understand the enables us to fundamentally restructure process by which this interaction occurs. This architectural education and practice, in a knowledge is essential for architects if we are manner that leaves little room for idiosyncratic to conceive the built environment in a way that or ideological expressions. Efforts in this direction connects to humans on this level. Architects
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can employ this process to re-create built support for Biophilic Design, Classical and environments that utilize patterns, spaces, Traditional Western Architecture, Traditional and textures in an effective manner to nourish World Architectures, New Urbanism, Sustainable human existence. Architecture and Urbanism, and User-built Social Housing throughout the world. Each of these Taking as a point of departure the mind’s disciplines is finding that scientific evidence compulsion to establish a connection with helps to structure and validate its methods. A our environment, natural and human-made brief summary of several decades of scientific patterns serve as the principal conveyance research is impossible. In the context of this of meaning about the world around us. The record, we can only give the reader an idea symbiotic relationship between ideas, images, of how these techniques are applied to design texts, and biological forms helps to explain how in a real world, explained in a straightforward human culture, consisting of created objects as language. Note the sequence of design steps: information, essentially extends our biological the overall form of the building arises out of bodies into our environment. Traditional basic human concerns, and becomes clear architecture carries with it the same intrinsic only towards the end of the design process. structural order that underlies all physical and Starting with a pre-conceived form is working biological entities (Alexander, 2002-2005). from a conditioned response, not an intelligent response.
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II A Methodology for Architectural Design Intelligent architecture is not prescriptive: it 1. VISION. We start with no preconceptions of does not tell you to build transparent glass form, but instead generate a physiologically- boxes; nor opaque white cubes with horizontal nourishing vision of the building from the slit windows; nor buildings with curved shiny viewpoint of the user. Whereas studio courses titanium surfaces. All such formal prescriptions teach architects to see initially and primarily are ultimately expressions of a visual ideology what the building looks like from the outside, encapsulated in the architectural mantras of we design as seen from the inside. We modernity as pseudo-religious belief, which conceive an organized whole whose interior has come to replace true religious beliefs and exterior are revealed simultaneously. This (Salingaros, 2004). Intelligent architecture, on vision should include portions of the building the other hand, represents evidence-based at different scales, including very small details. results found in the work of several individuals We sketch (on paper and on a computer) and groups (Alexander, 2002-2005; Heerwagen, different aspects of this vision, growing out of 2005; Kellert, 2005; Kellert & Heerwagen, 2005; the question: “What is the most wonderful/real/ Krier, 1998; Salingaros, 2005; 2006; Wilson, 2007). authentic building/shape/texture/space that I can imagine to house this activity?”. The science behind intelligent architecture underpins and ties together distinct new 2. TRADITION. Any thoughtful and sensitive developing architectural movements and architect will (or should) possess a treasure- practices. It provides a common theoretical store of mental references of the most glorious
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examples of buildings from their culture’s to achieve this task? Please describe the traditional practice. Those must be allowed to approach, entry, working area, light, trees, exert their influence, enriching without imposing recreation area, etc. of this building as you any specific form on the present project. As the would ideally like to experience.” Collect these design works its way through the mind of the surveys, and give them priority in the design architect, it becomes inevitable that the final process over and above any formal concerns, design will assume some characteristics of and even the architect’s initial ideas. traditional buildings specific to that locality. 6. MATERIALS. We try to use indigenous 3. ORNAMENT. Architecture and ornament materials. Usually, the most appropriate (ordered detail) are one and the same materials are local vernacular materials, as thing, ornament being simply architecture they help to extend the mental parameters of on the smaller human scales of 1mm-1m. The the structure in the immediate setting. Structural appropriate ornament supports the forms on the decisions must first and foremost arise out of larger scales. Numerous sketches of the project concerns of adaptivity to local climate and must be made on all different scales, from social customs. Towards that end, one can ask the size of the entire building, to intermediate how contemporary technology can contribute scales, down to details on the human scales. to the overall tectonic goal. There is no need to We make full-size mock-ups of different portions exclude high-tech materials, just as there is no of the building to judge relationships among need to exclude local materials. Technology NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II the components. alone should not dictate the form or expression of a building, since its conception establishes a 4. TRANSITIONS. The form arises out of individual distance between humans and the world. elements from the user’s optical perspective and physical movement. We design entry- 7. URBAN. Attach the building design to the points, circulation, transitions, path-connectivity, existing urban fabric as intricately as possible. and working spaces from the inside. Every If there is none in place, then carefully design decision comes from a mental extrapolation of urban fabric that encourages maximal the experience of inhabiting those spaces. This pedestrian connectivity around the building. approach subordinates formal spatial concerns Blend in trees, natural forms, and water as to the connectivity of lived spaces. It is essential much as possible, not as decoration or formal that structures built primarily to help connections appliqué. Give priority to human scale and are just as accommodating to human sensibilities nature rather than to cars. Consider approach as the spatial nodes themselves. and transportation that will reinforce adjoining patterns of space and circulation. The new 5. PARTICIPATION. We devote energy and building should blend seamlessly into the time to conducting in-depth question sessions existing complexity of nature, built form, and with the actual eventual users of the building, human activity in the immediate region. from the people who will be using it full-time, to occasional future users. Ask them: “What 8. FORM. A final decision must be made as is your VISION of the most wonderful building to the overall form of the building. We usually
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leave the form unspecified as long as possible, might have. That is a misleading concept. though it may have occurred in the architect’s Creativity is intelligent only when we have initial vision. Even if the architect had some general working principles to build upon. clear vision of the building’s form, all the above Unguided design only leads to frustration, which design considerations should have invariably in turn forces designers to copy something adapted that form to accommodate human already realized. Architects are nowadays needs, as outlined here. Thus, no form can psychologically conditioned to turn away from survive unchanged during an adaptive design traditional-looking solutions, yet are not given process without negating the human dimension, the design tools to create human environments. and the architect must recognize this. What is left is to copy what the currently fashionable starchitects are designing. With While this series of design steps might seem, at first such a frustrated mind, you inevitably resort glance, to outline methods familiar to practicing to copying what is assumed to be originality in architects, the sequence is intended to redirect others. Thus, the quest for originality has turned the design process away from any preconceived into mindless conformity. or prematurely-conceived expression. That would negate the mind’s ability to establish the There is more at stake here than architecture needed neurological connections. alone. The very fabric of culture and society depends on how human beings view their We are using this eight-fold method to design NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II fellow citizens, and how they manage the new buildings and to repair older buildings so built environment. Critics who wish to dismiss they become more humanly adaptive. This our program do so as a defensive gesture. In is precisely how architects used to construct our effort to help construct/conceive a better buildings in all cultures. Those are the buildings world we have exposed the vested power and that are most valued today by everyday interests of an elite minority. It is unfortunate that people the world over. It is through intelligent those individuals, whether knowingly or not, awareness that these structures speak to us participated in a process that has been slowly and seem to be touching our soul. We don’t eroding humankind’s architectural conscience. however advocate a gratuitous return to Worst of all, generations of architects the world traditional design methods, since the values, over have been misled to do the same thing. beliefs, and physical context for the underlying Many of those students from the traditional elements of design are always changing. world have returned to their countries as Our method relies on recent scientific results. unwitting agents of a destructive western form Perhaps surprisingly, these investigations have of aesthetic hegemony. led to an increased understanding of the intrinsic value of religion and traditional culture for humankind’s development. Criteria for an Intelligent Architecture Intelligent architecture is responsive to human During the second part of the twentieth century, needs and sensibilities through adaptation to people were told that creativity depended existing buildings and nature. This is a new way upon throwing off any preconceptions one of viewing the world a way of connecting to
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it, and to ourselves — yet it is very much the “DOES THE OVERALL LIFE OF THE BUILDING same as the most ancient ways of connecting DIMINISH IF I COULD MOVE THIS PIECE OR (Alexander, 2002-2005). It provides a way of CHANGE IT IN ANY WAY; OR EVEN REMOVE IT judging whether a building or piece of urban ALTOGETHER?” environment is good or bad for our emotional In a good building the answer is yes, for each health. Yes, a building can be either good or piece, regardless of size. Every piece belongs bad, to different degrees (Salingaros, 2006). exactly in its place, and has exactly the right People don’t need experts to tell them whether shape and materials to reinforce the overall a building is good or bad — they are fully coherence of the whole. It contributes to unity capable of judging for themselves. Here’s the and adaptivity. In a lesser building, on the other method — just ask yourself the question: hand, pieces are irrelevant and hardly belong to the whole. They have become decoration “DOES THIS BUILDING MAKE ME FEEL MORE (i.e., structure that has no meaning or purpose, ALIVE, OR LESS ALIVE?” and is added solely for fashion). Removing them Note the specific nature of the question. It does or drastically changing them does not alter the not ask: “Do you like this building?” or: “Does this overall coherence, since it is nonexistent. Why, building make you feel excited?” since those then, are they included? Style is not a good answers lead to ambiguous conclusions. Likes justification; it is so superficial and trivial a reason and dislikes are due to individual preferences as to be meaningless. If you as the user can
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II overlaid with educational conditioning. It envision a portion of a building improved — so is hard to distinguish what is influencing our as to make it more adaptive in its use and in its decision. In a similar way, emotional excitement direct physiological impact on you — then the could be due to either pleasure or alarm, and architect has not done his or her job of seeking again, it is often difficult to distinguish between coherence, but has instead imposed arbitrary these two physiologically opposite responses. forms or a formal compositional bias. The question instead digs deep into the subconscious networks that constitute human The brain, being capable of highly- intelligence, and seeks to identify a building sophisticated computations, instantly evaluates with our own living structure. We use the neural the geometrical coherence of any structure. circuits already evolved to connect us to our The output is through emotion (sensation) environment. linked to a physiological state (either alarm, or calm). These are the physiological precursors to A second question examines the coherence any conscious system of values. To profit from of a building. This is a very easy method for this mechanism, however, we need to break judging the coherence of highly complex visual out of the modern paradigm and the myopic structures. Pick any identifiable subunit of the vision of others. For example, contrary to what building, some obvious component (such as a some starchitects claim, our technology does wall, column, doorway, window, cornice, etc.), not dictate any particular architectural style. and ask yourself: If we look beyond the signs and symbolism of the traditional architectures of the world we
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can discover, through their physical presence, as opposed to the abstraction of forms driven an informational content that speaks to us towards a singular expression. on a human level. Empirically, traditional architecture had scaling, materiality, and a At the top of the evolutionary ladder lies the sensibility towards construction, proportion, and complex neuronal system that makes human human nature. It is this quality that characterizes intelligence possible. In addition to storing timeless architecture. knowledge in their brains’ neural circuits, human beings also habitually use their built environment as an extension of biological Clues from Biology memory. Books, artifacts, song, ornament, To better understand how humans interface and social patterns represent the “collective with architecture, we must go directly to memory” of a particular culture. Represented the underlying constituents of architecture, memory encoded in traditional buildings has the basic building blocks as it were. These been guiding architecture for millennia. This pre-stylized, pre-cultural, unaffected, yet powerful repository of what we already know essential expressions are now identifiable and about our responses to environmental structure quantifiable through science. We have found can be as apparently trivial as a particular genetic algorithms, Darwinian processes, ornament, a color, a space of certain emergence, capillarity, fractal structure, proportions, or the texture of a wall. It is through membrane interfaces, information compression,
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II intelligence that architecture reveals itself to us small-world networks, inverse power-law in form, texture, color, and scale. scaling, etc. playing a central role in how the built environment functions. We now offer these Socio-geometrical patterns embedded in concepts in an architectural language that traditional architecture and urbanism complement practitioners might use to improve their work the inherited knowledge encoded in texts and (Alexander, 2002-2005; Salingaros, 2005; 2006). oral literary traditions throughout the world. These externalizations of brain functions encode Knowledge from biology, robotics, and artificial information derived from experience over the intelligence can be applied to design so as to entire course of human evolution (Salingaros, extend the human experience, but not in an 2005; 2006). Collective memory thus provides the iconic, superficial manner (Salingaros & Masden, foundation of culture and civilization. It is only 2006; 2007). The key to a new architectural form recently that the patterns observed in traditional resides in the knowledge of how physical/ cultures, coming from innate human preferences, biological structure evolves and holds together; were found to have a genetic basis (Heerwagen, knowledge of complex interacting systems; 2005; Kellert, 2005; Kellert & Heerwagen, 2007; knowledge of the adaptivity of forms to forces Wilson, 2007). and changing conditions; and knowledge of how our intelligence binds us with the physical Built knowledge (represented in the built world. These processes allow us to understand environment) is both complex and irreducible the evolution of increasingly complex forms, — i.e., it is very difficult to simplify and transfer
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into written text. Christopher Alexander made a than just seeking to provide basic shelter, first attempt to do that in his Pattern Language architecture throughout the ages has found (Alexander et. al., 1977). Vilified by the expression in the application of these life- architectural establishment, this classification affirming urges through human intelligence. has nevertheless won support from the computer The same intelligence produces all cultural science community for its visionary results now elements: dance, music, song, sculpture, and used to organize software complexity. When we painting. Trying to separate artifacts from begin to see the traditional built environment as the greater context of culture — defined by an extension (an external repository) of human religion, mythology, and social patterns — goes memory, we realize just how intricately biology against the nature of humanity. Complex forms is linked with architecture. This explains why created by human beings are part of a larger, humanist architects are sensitive to feedback all-encompassing matrix extending human from their design, and respectful to tradition from intelligence. which they can profit. Separation nevertheless does occur, leading The clearest statements of architectural theory to the fragmentation and loss of intelligence have always drawn upon epistemology, being stored in the artifacts of a culture. This is exactly concerned with language and logic (although what happened during the past several much of contemporary theory wanders off into decades, with the propagation of western meaningless directions). Even so, the enterprise NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II 20th-Century architectural forms around the of epistemology is generally detached from world. The problem with this occurrence is that evolved human thought, since the latter involves any cultural element separated from its human emotion and physiological processes. Sensations connection becomes vulnerable to loss of and biological states are essential to knowledge, meaning and relevance. Once removed from and pattern recognition helps to generate our its cultural context, there is no real (that is, an identity. Truth and reality have biological and obviously practical) reason for its survival, or social origins. A state of mental understanding is even for its existence as an isolated entity. In this inseparable from the neurobiology of emotions condition of “not belonging”, the anchor points and complex bodily responses. Brain-based of human culture seem out-of-place, and are reality is thus emotional; a marked difference from all too often replaced by meaningless images its impersonal philosophically-based counterpart. of industrial consumption.
Culture as a Manifestation of Human Creativity, driven by human intelligence, has Intelligence been the source of the incredible richness Human beings are unique in that they merge of cultures throughout history. Human beings their physical and psychological needs. This is ceaselessly strive to give form to their advancing accomplished through culturally-conceived intelligence in the complexity and organization expressions that stem from innate urges to of their greatest cultural expressions. However, make objects ranging from hand-held artifacts in the last century of human development and ornament, to buildings and cities. More social, political, and economic dynamics have
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begun to erode both culture and identity. In only to justify their own insensitivity (Salingaros, the struggle to demystify the world around 2004). Those among us who see a tragic loss for us, nature and all that it offers through direct civilization, and try to reverse it, are branded as engagement has been supplanted by human romantics and conservatives. But far from being ignorance/arrogance. Industrialization may either romantic or conservative, people who lead to advancement in a society, but it value human qualities embedded in cultural does not advance the culture. The fact that artifacts are in fact exhibiting a greater sense of cultural expression satisfies deep inner needs intelligent awareness. (biological, physical, and mental) has been overlooked in the past few decades, in an Circumventing the illogical but self-sustaining effort to clear away supposedly useless relics nature of non-humanist practices requires of the past. People continue to mindlessly a complete restructuring of architecture, its throw out some of humankind’s most valuable education and application (Alexander, 2002- artifacts, buildings, and traditions as if they were 2005; Salama, 1995; 2005). So pervasive are cleaning out accumulated junk. the expressions of this soulless contemporary condition, however, that no logical argument Nowadays, sadly enough, human intelligence can hope to redirect its maddening forms. To is often applied as a negation of itself and of date, architecture students and practicing humanity. Some people reject the natural, the architects throughout the world have had to
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II simple, and the unaffected as belonging to the concede to the dictates of this globalized show past (and thus, to a certain way of thinking, of architectural force. Despite the efforts of a inappropriate for our times). They reject the growing minority, the confusing proposals of 20th- traditional sources of basic human pleasures Century architectural theory continue to lead us upon which many cultural traditions grew. down the wrong road (Salingaros, 2004). And yet, those simple pleasures are the result of an incredibly complex set of interactions. Multiple Solutions and Adaptive Design This turning away from nature and humanity’s relation to the physical world is a regression to An intelligent system is able to solve problems. an overly simplistic (unintelligent) conception of It finds different relationships that lead to the world. a solution, each solution being a network of connections. There is no SINGLE solution to a Cynics observe destruction of the built complex problem, but instead a fairly broad environment (coupled with a breaking down set of related solutions. Systems usually have of human values) with detachment, by available many alternative pathways, leading not getting emotionally involved. They see to alternative but equally valid configurations. a turning away from complex inherited values Biology is marked not by rigid conformity, but as an inevitable simplification of contemporary by adapting a complex template to changing humanity. The more intellectual among them conditions. Consider the genetic coding for an come up with arguments involving “novelty”, organism. Siblings of more complex animals, “progress”, and “expressiveness”, which serve which share genetic information, turn out to
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have somewhat different characteristics. It is only Adaptivity is impossible without intelligence. The in the lowest levels of design complexity that we system has to respond to a multitude of forces in find genuine organismic modularity: for example, the environment (for buildings these are human the same virus in a billion identical copies. needs and sensibilities, surrounding buildings, natural features, etc.). It must compute a set of This variability is an important component of valid solutions that satisfy those forces, otherwise adaptive architecture. A building designed it will perish. The extra-adaptive constraints in an intelligent manner can replace some imposed on the problem (such as budget, of its components without reducing the availability of materials, building regulations) effectiveness of the whole. It is not “unique”. choose from among the possible good solutions. It can change itself, just as an organism All of these decisions are based upon interactivity continually replaces most of its cells as they and reasoned choice from among many age, wear out, or die. It can evolve to adapt to alternatives, each of which has to be evaluated changing circumstances without mutating into a using criteria of adaptivity. totally distinct (identifiably different) typological entity. A similar intelligent solution is certainly Formal designs, by contrast, are far more possible, so that parts of the building could be restrictive. The opposite of an intelligent process changed to shift the overall design to one of is to impose a preconceived solution based on its many close equivalents. Historical buildings some formal criteria (such as a fixed compositional
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II have been adapted to changing needs over method of simple geometries). Formality and the centuries, and they retain a high level of adaptivity are incompatible. In a formal, iconic intelligence (Brand, 1995). building, each component has to conform to a fixed abstraction, so it may be impossible to A reader might get the wrong impression of change or substitute a single piece (but this a “perfect” building in which nothing can is the opposite reason from why one cannot be changed. In an intelligent building, each change a component that contributes to overall component supports overall coherence by system coherence). An iconic building usually making an observable contribution to the cannot adapt to changing circumstances. It whole. The building can be changed, sometimes was non-adaptive to existing forces when it was drastically, by replacing components, as long as conceived and built, and remains non-adaptive they continue to support the overall coherence to all new forces developing in the future. (analogous to the wholeness of an organism). It is this systemic connectivity that is important — the Intelligence as a Model for Architecture end result of an intelligent process of solution — and not any individual piece (although Nature has evolved an enormously complex some pieces are more crucial than others). Any neuronal system that enables the formation successful adaptation to changing circumstances of thoughts, and couples it to our body, which and uses preserves a high degree of internal then executes the results of the intelligence relationships that characterize coherence. mechanism. Input to the human intelligence system comes both from our sensory system
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(connecting us to the external world) and from than symbols of this intellectualized condition. internal memory. When the neuronal system is active (which is all of the time, even in sleep), Architecture still remains a mystery to most connections are made, patterns formed, and people, just the way rational thought was new links and conclusions emerge. This system a mystery during the Dark Ages of human has enabled us to successfully lead our lives existence. This lack of an intelligent relationship over millions of years, adjusting remarkably to between people and architecture has for too changing circumstances and habitats. Human long been the terrain on which starchitects adaptability is one of the marvels of nature, operate. Human beings today are smarter and it is due primarily to human intelligence. than our species has ever been; therefore, it is unacceptable that architecture continues People build traditionally according to what their to be rendered in a semi-mystical fashion. mind tells them consciously and subconsciously, Architects are still necessary to guide and unless they are copying an explicit image. The mediate the design process to help the client, brain guides the hand and eye in an intelligent, but non-architects need to re-assert their right self-correcting process. Emergent forms, to access the body of architectural knowledge. spaces, structural elements, ornamentation, When they do so, they will demand a far etc. are just as much a reflection of the greater clarity of understanding than architects human mind as they are products of utilitarian themselves accept today.
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II functions. That, at least, was the case until the twentieth century, when iconic formalism was Thus far, the powers that lead society have substituted for physical and emotional needs. not been very intelligent about creating the By dismissing the expression of innate patterns contemporary built environment. By stubbornly in the mind, an iconic architecture detaches sticking to a narrow set of images, they itself from human intelligence. perpetuate the same “dumb” typologies that architects have been following ever since Let’s not confuse intelligence with the 1920s. Even more astonishing is how vast intellectualization. Intelligent architecture seeks technological power is now applied to continue to give unaffected form to what the human mind producing these “dumb” typologies in an ever- needs to allow it to engage with the material narrowing spectrum of variations. Here, surely, is world. Once constructed in these terms, the a misapplication of technology to support an mind transfers ordered information to a mental obsolete stylistic “look” instead of generating an extrapolation of this experience. If instead this infinite variety of new adaptive possibilities. But becomes an intellectualized conception, then then, technology has periodically been misused the experience is illusory (fictitious). America because it lacks an innate mechanism for can pride itself in creating some of the most selection. Whoever applies the technology can intellectual and thus inhuman spaces ever either use it for progress or to arrest progress. conceived, but to what avail? Since these places are so unsettling that no one wishes to Extremely expensive high-tech buildings are occupy them, they have become nothing more erected, which turn out to be perfectly “dumb”
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as far as providing an intelligent and sensual greatness of the architect. The “star” system of treat to the user. Their form and surface offer design makes a building the achievement of no surprise, no contained information, no a single individual based on his/her personal anticipation of discovery, and no variation from preference or whim. The public might still seem certain expected stereotypes. Contemporary to admire such a building, but only because buildings still follow the minimalist typology some “expert” declares it to be a great work in some way or another. They are either of architecture. This manufactured admiration unrepentantly and intentionally boring, or does not arise internally. Personal whims and they try to distinguish themselves with an stylized expressions serve only to distance initial shock. We receive a thrill (a surge of the user from the architecture, because they adrenaline) from an unexpected, shiny, negate the greater spectrum of neurological exaggerated, or unbalanced form. After this connections. first statement of defiance to the dull modernist Science has been co-opted and utilized in only a aesthetic, however, there is nothing further to superficial manner, to generate non-adaptive communicate. The architectural shock is empty iconic expressions (Salingaros, 2004). Young of meaning, just as much as the message from architects live with great disappointment, competing minimalist structures. finding themselves in a career that places a greater value on imageability than upon inherent human qualities. While pretending
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II Iconic Versus Human Architecture Building in a way that utilizes scientific ideas and to uncover new architectural principles, knowledge can once again make architecture charismatic starchitects instead cultivate media a great HUMAN achievement. A new attention and political connections, court building constructed according to intelligent the influential critics, and assume an aura of methodology benefits all its users in a direct, aesthetic refinement. This is how they continue nourishing, and visceral manner. If they wish, to garner the most significant architectural architects can now utilize this knowledge to fix commissions of our time; it is not from any real their designs positively to human physiology. concern for civilization. The public loves a great building (be it a historic building, or a new building that exhibits this The global business-industrial complex has intelligence) when they feel in harmony with it, identified itself with a narrow architectural style. and when it reinforces their place in the world. Ensnared in the western paradigm where the It is a joy to look at, and everyone engages with perception of architectural novelty is mistaken it as an equal participant, since it establishes a for progress, many countries have fallen victims fundamental parity between user and architect. to this image-based architecture, further encouraging the commodification of its form. By contrast, an architect seeking only to The official media imply that it is somehow garner public attention hopes that everyone better than what is deemed non-modern. will revere his/her building for iconic reasons, As each new architectural frenzy fades, its as spectacle, with the user subjugated to the telling marks will be forever imprinted on those
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who have to live and work in the shadow of expressions. So-called modern forms counteract its products. If we look more closely at the the basic principle of connecting an individual phenomenon of “signature” architecture we to the universe — hence to God — through a will see that, contrary to its claims of giving more traditional incorporation of color, sculpture, greater significance to “place”, it actually and calligraphy, in effect denying sensory works to subvert a true sense of place through connections. Temples, mosques, and churches a loss of identity. When considering cities with conveying meaning via polychrome sculptures, “signature” buildings in the developing world, tile work, reliefs, frescoes, and mosaics have no what comes to mind first are those buildings’ place in this sterile and “industrial” world order. images, not the people and places that constitute the real culture of these localities. Governments that seek international recognition by way of hiring starchitects must be made In our times, the effects of the global economy to see that they themselves are complicit in are undoing the magnificent expressions of negating the inherent values and knowledge 5,000-year-old cultures in the rest of the world. of their own citizens. Architecture as a “will to Western interventions negate the identity form” was never concerned with engaging the and values of people, in effect cutting them user in a positive manner. It is an architecture of from their sense of belonging in the world. spectacle, purged of its need for meaning and Human architecture is informed by its material context, which has been allowed to construct
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II presence, not by image, yet our technological its own reality. Its realization negates other forms resources are focused on replacing civilization of sensory perception necessary for the human by images. Larger economic interests are dimension of lived experience. using starchitects as part of their drive to profit from the rest of the world, displacing cultural For several decades, modernist architects have and ideological values in the process. Rather turned away from traditional forms of tectonic than helping civilization toward the ultimate expression. And yet, it has been found that the expression of our own time and place, this underlying relationship that people have with application of advanced technology serves the physical presence of architecture comes only their own interest. from the material and phenomenological dimensions of such work. It cannot be denied Everyday people intuitively perceive that in the past, superficial decoration departed contemporary architecture and urbanism to be from empirical evidence of physicality, but that disconnected from and opposed to traditional was more a product of an aesthetic impulse human values that they hold sacred. Many unchecked by the limited science of the times. see the destructive process of 20th-Century Today we have the scientific knowledge to architecture as a combative gesture towards head off such deviating forms, not because of all traditional cultures, their values, and beliefs style, but because of their lack of perceptual (Salingaros, 2006). Such practices present coherence (Salingaros, 2006). an affront to many religions and cultures, by negating the forms of their architectural In this era of globalization, advanced knowledge
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that only contemporary science can provide Since early European modernism, the western is readily available to everyone. The new expression of architecture has been on a paradigm in architecture links traditional models roller coaster. Minimalist modernism reduced and typologies with the biological structure expressions to a single typology, severely of human beings, and the physical structure reducing freedom of architectural expression of the universe (Salingaros, 2004). Developing — a statement that can be mathematically countries, in an effort to maintain their place in proven! (Salingaros, 2006). The point where the world, will instead find the source of their we find ourselves nowadays is different, but new architecture within arm’s reach: in the not much better. Everyone is caught up by materials and practices of their region. Through the western phenomenon wherein starchitects this record they will understand the underlying promise a new architecture hyped by the principles that govern the manner in which the global media. physical world reveals itself. Hopefully, they will recognize at once its capacity for new honest The legitimization of form over content, expression. Honest and authentic generative however, seen in pedagogical positions going devices evolve with an uncanny similarity to the back to the Bauhaus, serves only to validate an rich vernaculars of their local traditions. architecture of appearances. Detached from the world of lived experience, architecture as image reveals itself as nothing more than
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II Expectations of Perpetual Novelty a fashionable commodity. As such, it is subject How does one distinguish between to the rules of constant change characteristic contemporary architects who will likely have a of the fashion marketplace. This type of positive or negative effect on the environment? architecture cannot respect the physiological Who is egotistical/iconic, and who is humanistic/ needs of human beings. Looking around us adaptive? All architects claim to be genuinely verifies that these recent architectural practices interested in humanity, so what they say cannot have effectively erased the design and building be used to judge either their intentions or their traditions of the past, and with them the vital products. Ashraf Salama made a perceptive web of urban culture in society. Introducing comment about this: “I wish I could see famous such abstractions during the twentieth century architects able to solve a housing problem in had catastrophic consequences for our cities’ a village or in a dense urban region, or able urban fabrics, and for the human qualities of to introduce change in a poor community, or individual buildings (Salingaros, 2005). With a squatter settlement. While famous architects each structure removed to make way for the are immersing themselves in exploring new modern world there was a loss of intelligence innovations to foster their fame, two-thirds of embedded in the built environment. the world’s population lacks shelter or lives in substandard houses.” (Salama, 2003). Champions Left unchallenged, this phenomenon of adaptive architecture are actively involved in continues to perpetuate itself by way of its designing urban settlements and social housing, global imageability. Following closely in its whereas starchitects are conspicuously absent. wake is the endless and empty rhetoric of
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contemporary architectural theorists. Looking a starchitect. outside architecture as a means to garner Ideas of style have a stranglehold on greater validity, their speculations have run the contemporary architecture. The pursuit of the full gamut from misunderstood mathematics, “theoretical”, which has obsessively driven the to the poorly-conceived postulates of French architectural world since early modernism, has philosophers, to the loosely-construed intimation given us little that strengthens the human lived of linguistics into the domain of architectural experience via the built environment. Despite design. Each new “theory” offered yet another all the rhetoric declaring that this architecture invented way to conceptualize architecture in was responding to profound social, political, the absence of an intelligent basis, and thus and scientific discoveries, it in fact was driven failed to provide everyday architects with any by a rather narrow agenda. Over time, the intelligent tools for architectural innovation. In imposition of an identifiable (signature) style a market driven by the architectural media, became the road to recognition and power. starchitects have set unattainable standards This has nothing to do with human needs and (because those rely on unrealistic expectations). sensibilities, but everything to do with successful Practicing architects, expecting this work to marketing. Its phenomenal success is due to the elevate our profession, are beginning to sense continuous mutation of the original industrial that it only serves to propel the starchitects. And style so as to keep its practitioners comfortably in the process, it has made the job of real-world in control of both architectural practice and NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II architects working with real budgets and real education. clients impossible.
It is incredible that teachers of architecture Conclusion give their students incomprehensible texts A creative revolution is now possible, one written by starchitects (and by architectural that will transform the built environment in academics who wish to bask in the fame wonderfully human ways. A new intelligent of those starchitects) as something useful to architecture can impart a greater sense of study. In a frenzy that idolizes anyone promising humanity to the city and to the world. It is up “new” forms, students are compelled to read to world architects to set into motion some of this stuff. One prominent starchitect today uses the greatest scientific ideas of our times, and pornography to sell his otherwise nonsensical make architecture once again our highest books. Yet he, and other individuals like him, are cultural expression. Architecture that emerges continually rewarded by lucrative commissions, out of an intelligent process of interactive choice administrative and faculty appointments thinking naturally develops towards a design at our most prestigious universities, gold medals, adaptive to human beings. It is better fit for and major architectural prizes. That visible human habitation because, coming from what success naturally justifies students reading is human, it nourishes our sensory needs and such intermittently salacious texts with great sensibilities. attention. The students get the message: copy these tactics and you too can become To survive globalization, our civilization must be
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grounded in an intelligent understanding of References “place”. The powers that shape our countries Alexander, C. (2002-2005). The Nature of Order, have a responsibility to not allow international Books 1-4, Center for Environmental Structure, designers a free hand to make a spectacle of a Berkeley, California. region’s place in the world. This is not to say that collaboration should not occur. Tremendous Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, knowledge can be gained through cross- M., Fiksdahl-King I. & Angel S. (1977). A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press, New York. cultural collaboration with those who have an understanding of intelligent architecture. They Bothwell, S., Duany, A., Hetzel, P., Hurtt, S. & Thadani, can help local architects create new adaptive D. (2004). Windsor Forum on Design Education, New forms that re-establish a vernacular specific to Urban Press, Miami, Florida. their own culture; i.e., an architectural language Boyer, E. & Mitgang, L. (1996). Building Community: A that speaks to the citizens of each country. New Future for Architecture Education and Practice, Restructuring architecture to resonate from Carnegie Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey within the rich history of human societies will
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS & KENNETH G. MASDEN II of institutions (organizations, governments) of Space, Whole Building Design Guide validating non-humanist architecture. Seduced
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Salama, A. (2003). Why are Famous Architects Famous?, ArchNet Discussion Forum
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