Organic architecture

[tillian]

I come to this forum with a fundamental dilemma. I hope there are some practicing architects out there who are real artists.
The act of creating structures traditionally involves translating and transposing lines drawn by an architect/designer. Architects, sculptors and painters develop ideas through the process of sketching. Sketches are refined into scale drawings to facilitate duplication as accurate 3D form. Therefore a building is a contemporary manifestation of a distant idea.
As an artist I don’t really like to work that way. The present, the fluid act of making, the dynamic play of actual realisation is all-important. For me building ideally allows the flexibility of continued innovation. We learn by doing. Many beautiful buildings are conceived in and realised through drawings. I have designed many successful structures this way. But the ultimate participation occurs when the architect is dynamically involved in the genesis of a design right on through the construction process. “Organic architecture” accepts this premise of design that “grows out of the site”. So my dilemma, dear fellow artists, so obvious in this age of pre-submitted, pre-determined outcomes, is: how does the hands-on architect free him/herself from the constraints of all the standard protocols – such as satisfying local councils that what is submitted for approval is identical to what is being constructed? Organic architecture becomes pretence if denied the flexibility it derives from and I am facing this contradiction of granite hard legislation and a very real personal (spiritual, physical, social) requirement for intelligent freedom. Any-one out there?

[lekizz]

You have highlighted one of the fundamental differences between 'art' and 'architecture' i.e. the physical, legal, financial constraints that architects have to consider. Architecture ultimately is not just a plaything of your 'intelligent' freedom' but has a widespread fundamental responsibility, to the needs of the client/end user, health and safety of its end user, affect on its environment/neighbourhood etc.

And I disagree fairly fundamentally with your second paragraph. Some architects devise a concept through sketching, or sscribbling (gehry is a famous example). I would think that diagrams, drawings and possibly physical models or objects are more common starting points. A 'hands on' architect would follow his/her idea through to completion, accommodating all the pragmatic considerations of the project with the original core idea.

And in my experience, legislation is not always inflexible, though it can be considerably more difficult to argue an exception to the rule. Architects can consult experts in planning laws, fire regulations, engineering and so on, to help them make their best case to the authorities. If that doesn't work, maybe bribery is the next step

[Madimel]

There's no bribery in the US, we call them "expediters".