View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE

provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Frontiers of Architectural Research (2014) 3, 331–333

HOSTED BY Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/foar

COLUMN Creativity real and imagined in architectural education

Alexander Tzonis

Department of Architecture, University of Technology Delft, Delft 2611 CE, The Netherlands

Received 24 July 2014; accepted 5 August 2014

Of all aspects of architecture what mystifies most the century Italian architect and sculptor Cavalier Bernini designing layman is the power of architects as ‘creators’, their in public, supposed to be following divine instructions. apparent capability to invent, conceive and construct ‘out The creed was carried on up into our days, not only in the of nothing’ unprecedented daring forms. West but also globally, though it was deprived if its In the West, the idea of ‘creators’,defined as those who theological ramifications. The contemporary belief stresses can ‘make things out of nothing’, is very old. It had and has even more the ingenious abilities of, what came to be far reaching influences, not always benign, that are still felt known since the 1980s, the ‘star’ architect as ‘creator’. today in many disciplines related to the production of the While the medieval belief had the ‘architect creator’ human-made environment including architecture and archi- creating communicating directly with God, the modern tectural education. In the broad sense of the term, (that ‘man in the street’ is under the impression that the comprised poets but also the makers of machines), the architect acts autonomously, invents, brings out into his definition of ‘creator’, one who ‘makes something out of work his, not yet seen before, private imaginations. nothing’, goes at least as far back as Plato's Symposium However, the contemporary scientific view contrasts with (II,201,c), while the specific idea of the architect as this view of the layman. For scientists today, the general idea ‘creator’, emerged later, during the late Middle Ages and of creativity as the ability to ‘make something new out of the Renaissance, when the architect was called demi-god, nothing’ as well as the specificnotionofthequasi-god ‘come semidei’–to quote Cesare Cesariano, the Renais- ‘creative’ architect are considered superstitions, confusing, sance military architect and theoretician of architecture – and potentially, even harmful, as many superstitions are. They “ Wittkower, R., 1962. Architectural Principles in the Age areseenasmisdirectingtheunderstandingofthenatureof of Humanism, London Lefaivre, Liane and Alexande Tzonis, human creativity, a most important cognitive quality of human 2004, Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary beings,andintheparticularcaseofarchitecture,obscuring ” History, from 1000 to 1800, London and his gift to give the comprehension by non-experts of how architects work in birth to new forms was claimed to be miraculous. reality, their epistemological, ideological, and moral presup- Accordingly,thebeliefinthewondrous nature of architects positions, and how they influence the social and physical ‘creating’‘out of nothing’‘microcosms’ was so strong that quality of the environment and of everyday life. people gathered to watch the famous ‘inspired’ seventeenth Oddly enough, contemporary press, not only the popular but also the professional one, tends to prolong the enduring myth of imaginary, mystical creativity. E-mail address: [email protected] “However, in China newspapers such as China Daily and Peer review under responsibility of Southeast University. People's Daily have occasionally published articles critical of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2014.08.001 2095-2635/& 2014. Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. 332 A. Tzonis the recent architectural practices that architectural editors sector and the state in designing, planning, and producing the have been often been silent about. human-made environment is shrinking all over the world, the Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis, ‘Region Making’, ‘semi-god’ architect translated as ‘star-architect’,helpto Journal of New Arts, 2013, China Academy of Art, legitimizing the rights of private development to promote Hangzhou”. unreal needs and sustain the rightfulness of fabricated values Paradoxically, so does architectural education in many dictated by the market economy inciting consumption, and to places of the world. And the results are not so positive conceive and construct buildings and even parts of cities, neither for the accountability of the profession nor for beyond public scrutiny. society. It does not take much to show that as the archaic semi-god Even more puzzling is the fact that little attention was creative architect did not deal with the social and environ- paid by the architectural press and by architectural educa- mental quality of his environment (not to be blamed since it tors to studies carried out by historians and anthropologists would have been absurdly anachronistic if he did so) so the who, since the beginning of the twentieth century, investi- contemporary ‘star-creative-architect’ suppresses such issues. gated, wrote, and demystified the political function of the Thus, even the recent cognitive science studies that architect as ‘creator semi-god’ in archaic and later in focused empirically on the phenomenon of human creativity absolutist societies which they identified having been to a looking into the way mathematicians and engineers, chess great extend the legitimization of the supposed God-given players and other ‘miraculous’ champions ‘create’ new rights of the despotic ruler to rule. Why did this happen? solutions to tackle unprecedented hard problems were “Lefaivre, Liane and Alexande Tzonis, 2004, ibid”. ignored. The studies demonstrated that creation is far from Why this long term apparent continuity between the making something out of nothing a privilege of elite ‘semi- archaic belief in a creator ‘semi-god’ architect and the gods’. It is a human faculty that involves cognitive processes one in the ‘creative star’ architect of our time? In both – visual thinking and visual analogy a very important cases, the traditional religious and the current secular, component of these processes – mobilizing memory, experi- creativity was perceived as something arcane, beyond ence, and rules derived out of practice, recruiting, and rational scrutiny, demanding veneration by the public and recombining precedent cases, reinterpreting and reusing denying public inquiry and analysis. Accordingly, a popular previous findings. Last but not least analyzing the con- contemporary view, expressed even in Hollywood films, has straints, potentials, and unique characteristics of a given it that to enable creativity be expressed, the creator, being situation, matching them to knowledge constructed in time. any producer of the human-made world including the Our own research on creative design and the role of architect, has to be ‘free’. Any restriction, any outside precedents using archival material investigated two cases of interference with the creative impulses of the designer most important designers in history: Leonardo da Vinci and results in obstruction and destruction of the birth of the his invention of the triangular bastion, possibly, the most new. Corollary of this view is that the educator of archi- significant innovation in military architecture. Leonardo tecture has to liberate the student from outside or self- made extensive use of precedent theories of vision and imposed shackles, unleash his creative force of inspiration methods of shadow drawing which he recombined into a to express itself. Thus the student who succeeds to demon- new system of representation of ballistic orbits optimizing strate his ‘freedom’, that is the one who without any set defenses. Ironically, while Leonardo constructed a new objective to satisfy produces forms, several times computer method to confront a new problem by relying on empirical generated, that appear new, uninhibited, and arcane, is the evidence and by analogy to preexisting theories bringing one rewarded and not the one who responded, perhaps together different domains of knowledge, he was been very tediously, cautiously, and silently, to real conditions, wants, often referred to in popular writings as an emblematic and aspirations of a given context and region. designer-semi-god making new things out of nothing. Why this archaic way of thinking continues to exist in our “Tzonis, Alexander, co-author L. Lefaivre, “Il bastione time within a very different way of life, a different society comme mentalità”, La Città el mura, C. de Seta and J. Le and economy, and a different kind of architecture? Why Goff, (Eds.), Rome, 1989. present architectural journalism and architectural educa- Tzonis, Alexander, ‘Lines of Vision, Lines of Fire. The Role tion has so often adopted this anachronistic worship of of Analogy and Image Cognition in Designing the Renaissance creativity as ‘making something out of nothing’, while not Bastion’. Das Bauwerk und die Stadt. W. Boehm, (Ed.), only snubbing historical, anthropological, and sociological Vienna, 1994” studies that ‘deconstructed’ such arcane views about crea- Another celebrated case we investigated is that of Le tivity but also overlooking recent cognitive science research Corbusier, the most important ‘creative mind’ in architecture on human creativity? of our time. Although most writings about him stress the Perhaps, the key to understand this puzzle is not so much inspirational, irrational, elite side of his design, in reality Le by inquiring into the mentality of architectural journalists, Corbusier's implied hard conscious intellectual work, what he critics, and educators but by looking into the recent events called, ‘patient research’, compiling a memory thesaurus of that shaped and shape the way our human made world precedents from a very early age and developing a skill to evolves. recruit and recombine them if and when needed to confront Perhaps, the apparent continuity of the archaic beliefs the challenges of an evolving increasingly dynamic and about creativity and the mystical and flattering identity of the perilous world. architect as ‘semi-god’, that helped in the past legitimize the “Alexander Tzonis Le Corbusier (Rizolli, Universe, New York, claim of the despotic ruler to rule, making his ruling appear 2001, Thames & Hudson, London, Architecture and Building God-given, today, as the financial and legal role of the public Press, Beijing, 2004)” Creativity real and imagined in architectural education 333

Taking into consideration such studies could have helped He has contributed over 300 articles on architectural theory, improve the capability of students to be really creative, that history and design methods. is, like experts, proceed systematically, analyze context and Other books by Alexander Tzonis: Architecture in Europe since situations, objects and regions, detect real constraints and 1968, Between Memory and Invention (Thames and Hudson, Fall, explore actual potentials, investigate alternatives, recall and 1992 (GB), Rizolli (US) and Campus (Germany)) was written with L. Lefaivre, the first comprehensive presentation of two and a mine precedents, and in this way find answers to questions half decades of architectural production, received an American that had not been answered before. Clearly recalling pre- Institute of Architects Award (1994). In collaboration with Ian ‘ cedents in this sense has nothing to do with sterile design by White, is Automation Based Creative Design (Elsevier, 1994). rote’ chained to the past formulas and stereotypes that many Architecture in North America since 1960 (Thames and Hudson, freedom promoters educators are so much afraid, and Little, Brown, 1995) in collaboration with L. Lefaivre and R. correctly so. On the contrary it invites the making of new Diamond, and Movement and Structure, the Work of Santiago things critically, out of the thesaurus of experience which is Calatrava (Birkhauser, 1995). Also with L. Lefaivre, SantiagoCa- how culture constructed and bloomed through history. latrava, The Poetics of Movement (Universe, Thames and Hudson, By contrast, the current cult of creativity as an elite 1999), Aldo van Eyck, Humanist Rebel (010, 1999) also with L. process in architecture has been obstructing real creativity Lefaivre. , The Creative Process (Birkhauser, 2001), Tropical Architecture, A Global Regionalism co-edited discouraging many students of architecture to reflect and ‘ with LianeLefaivre, with a preface by H.R.H. Prince Claus of the rationally for the fear that they will damage their creative Netherlands, (Wiley, 2001) and Critical Regionalism, Architec- ’ instinct . Even worse, they were often encouraged to drop ture and Identity in a Globalised World (Prestel, 2003, and out of the study of architecture if they failed to produce Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History, from early results demonstrating their ability to ‘create’ forms 1000 to 1800 (Routledge, 2004), both co-authored with LianeLe- spontaneously ‘out of nothing’, whereas patient instruction faivre. Tzonis also authored Le Corbusier (Universe (USA), would have helped them overcome fears, uncertainties, and Thames and Hudson (UK), Rizolli (IT) Hazan(Fr), 2001), Santiago hesitations that inhibit in many people critical thinking, Calatrava, Complete Works Rizzoli 2004 (translated in Italian, while the same time releasing the student's real creative Spanish, and Chinese) and with P Giannisi, Classical Greek promise available in every human being. Architecture, the Construction of the Modern,Flammarion 2004 (French, English, and German editions). Also published by What architectural education needs under the present Rizzoli, Santiago Calatrava’s Bridges and Santiago Calatrava’s circumstances of unparalleled, ecological and socioeconomic, the Olympics both, 2005. Also co-authored with LianeLe- environmental crisis is not boost of freewheeling narcissistic faivre, Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization, ‘freedom’ from constraints faking newness, but real creativity, Peaks and Valleys in the Flat World, Routledge, London, 2011 capturing and embracing ecological and human reality through (Brazilian edition 2013). method, knowledge, and public responsibility. Prof. Tzonis has been General Editor of the Penguin Books [The references to the state of architectural education in series The Man-made Environment,andoftheGarland Architec- many schools around the world (but certainly not all) used tural Archives, one of the biggest architectural publications, material from observations made during the last almost fifty which has published the complete archives: of Le Corbusier (32 years of my academic life. However, a most important volumes), L. Kahn (7 volumes), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book, Mies van der Rohe (18 volumes), W. Gropius (4 volumes), source for this article has been following the case of a Schindler (4 volumes), H. Sauvage (2 volumes). American Insti- recent master's diploma at TU Delft. I am deeply indebted tute of Architects Book Award, Alvar Aalto (12 volumes). to the generous contribution by the student supplying In 1975 he has been Director of the research project Systèm- information and critical comments.] esconceptuels de l’Architecture en France de 1650 à 1800,the Genesis of Contemporary Conceptual Systems in Architecture, Alexander Tzonis is professor emeritus at between 1650 and 1800, sponsored by C.O.R.D.A.– C.N.R.S./ the University of Technology Delft where France, and . he was Director of Design Knowledge Sys- Earlyinhiscareer,heworkedinthetheatreandthemovies tems, a multi-disciplinary research centre and was art director of the film Never on Sunday. In 1990 he on Architectural Cognition. published his first novel, a murder story about problem solving, He was educated at and computation and morality, Hermes and the Golden Thinking taught at Harvard University between Machine (MIT/Bradford Press). 1967 and 1981. He has held visiting pro- He has headed the organisation of several major international fessorships at: (1974– conferences among them: The German Werkbund, 12 April 1980 1975), the Universities of Montreal (1970– (Harvard Univesrity), Automation Based Creative Design Educa- 1971), Technion, Israel (1985), MIT (1996), Singapore (2006, tion, May 1992 (a 150th Anniversary of TU Delft Conference). 2007), Tongji University (2008), and (2009– Value Learning in a Changing World (1993, 27–29 October) and 2011). In 2002 he was visiting professor at the College de France. The Spiritual in Architecture, a Symposium dedicated to the Among his publications are: The Shape of Community (Penguin, Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, April 12, 2000, both hosted by Her 1972) with Serge Chermayeff and Towards a Non-oppressive Majesty Queen Beatrix at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, under Environment (MIT Press, 1972, published in six languages includ- the auspices of the Royal Palace Foundation. The Mediterranean ing Japanese). Classical Architecture (MIT Press, 1986; fifth Landscape, Representation, Designs and Identity (Van Leer printing 1990, published in eight languages including Japanese, Foundation, MishkenotSha’ananim), December 1997, Jerusalem, Korean, and Chinese) and The Roots of Modern Architecture (SUN, The Mediterranean City (MishkenotSha’ananim), May 2002, 1984; second edition, 1990) co-authored with LianeLefaivre. Jerusalem.