“The architect is an innovator, an inventor, a creative artist, an engineer and a conductor at the same time. He is constantly striving to create better and more special things, to push the known boundaries, while he does this not with his own money, but he also has to win over the other actors involved in the creation. , without whom his work could not have been completed.” How does the non-professional reading of the role of the architect differ? What are the reasons for this and what is the possible way out? In his writing, Ákos Szák-Kocsis compares the self-image of architects and the way they are judged by laymen, with which he aims to point out the possible reasons for the gap in opinion.
One of the most complex professions is that of architects. It is a profession that has existed since ancient times, as soon as people moved out of the caves and started building, it was needed. At first, he designed smaller dwellings and homes – then, after villages and towns appeared, he was the designer of their system. Later, he became an important figure in the ancient empires, an indispensable person who could dream big for the glory of leaders. In this period, several architects are already mentioned by name, such as the Greek Metagenes or the Roman Vituvius, which can be said of few representatives of other professions. By this time, the architect is also a polymath, he carves the decorations of his building, draws and writes, and philosophizes, while shaping the environment surrounding humanity for centuries, even millennia.
The architect is an innovator, inventor, creative artist, engineer and conductor at the same time. He constantly strives to create something better and more special, to push the known boundaries, while not doing it with his own money, moreover, he has to win over the other actors involved in the creation, without whom his work could not be completed. He mediates between the money giver and the money user, so it is essential that he also has good political sense. So would this be the architect? According to professionals, definitely.
On the other hand, what does the average person think about the architect in domestic conditions?
The first statement is that everyone can plan. If someone has already lived somewhere, visited public institutions or a sacred place, then they can tell you what their needs are, how they like to use the space, what surrounds them, and above all, what they absolutely do not want. The architect’s most important task is to draw the perfect blueprint that he dreamed of and coordinate it with the authorities. His task is also to investigate how to build what another architect (i.e. the chief architect) does not want to see, and his duty is to keep in touch with the contractor on technical issues. Because the architect is the necessary evil, who must be paid, because the law requires this, even though the builder, i.e. the contractor, who is responsible for the real, tangible result, knows everything anyway.
On the other hand, if there is a project that creates a larger environment, a design competition, which is selected by a professional jury (cf. an expert eye), then again the architect is the one who does not respect his environment, squanders public money, and the result is tasteless. After all, society entrusts the architect with the conductor’s baton of environmental design because he is the one who studied and practiced it. There is little trust in designers in our small country. This was partly brought about by the architectural society itself by judging what is good for the public in an often arrogant way – presenting itself as different. On the other hand, public education itself is lazy because it puts visual culture education and the teaching of art history in the background. As a counter-example, it can be mentioned that in France, teachers take children and schoolchildren to museums from a very young age, and even art itself is accessible to students free of charge. Thanks to this, art is not a closed club with little thumbs up in the mind of the average person, they can relate to it and can comment on it. Because architecture is also an art form.
Last but not least, the socialist regime’s approach to architecture also caused great damage. The social realism (classicizing “imperial” architecture) that spread in the 1950s, and then, from the 1960s, the form world of the Kádár cubes, which overthrew the rural street scene, where the state said what was possible and what was not, did not leave much freedom for the designer, and this The quality of construction and the lack of raw materials left their mark on our country’s architecture, and the visceral hatred of concrete factory buildings merged with the oppressive system.
Today’s architect has already moved away from the polyhistor discussed in the introduction. On the one hand, his technical knowledge is limited to his specialized field (residential, public building, industrial building designer, insulation engineer, etc.), on the other hand, he is more tied to the drawing board, and his practical knowledge is narrowed. While his predecessors experienced the tricks and obstacles of construction with their own hands, today’s architectural engineer relies much more on his theoretical knowledge. This makes communication with the contractor difficult and undermines the builder’s trust in him, who prefers to side with the determined contractor, who, one way or another, always has a simplifying idea that promises savings in the short term.
Another challenge for today’s architect is that through mass education, the master-student relationship that is so important in the arts does not develop. However, this profession cannot be mastered only on a theoretical basis, it is necessary to see the master’s handiwork in order to be able to see into a complex creative process, which a beginner only knows and learns in parts. When the beginning architect receives his diploma 3 or even 10 years after university admission, he will most likely end up in a design office with a smaller or larger staff, where he will be assigned to perform partial tasks. With a bit of luck, you can later gain an insight into several phases of the creative process, but you can easily get lost in this reality, which in some cases can even lead to abandoning your career. In addition, there is a danger that with the spread of artificial intelligence, less labor will be enough to complete the sub-areas (documentation, consignment, detailed drawings, etc.).
In the age of digitalization, the architectural profession is also undergoing continuous change. While in the past the designer arrived at the final result during a long thinking process, after completing a lot of sketches and mass models, nowadays machine drawing guides the designer’s hand. The program “enchants” the roof, the stairs and many other building elements. Ink drawings have been replaced by pin-point printed drawings, which can no longer withstand any poetic exaggeration or benign rounding of numbers. Moreover, a digital copy of the finished building is also built in the model, where the the designer’s resources are tied up in the development (construction of the most detailed model) instead of the creation. The positive thing is, of course, that the time for documentation, duplication and correction is reduced to a minimum, and even coordination with the authorities takes place in the digital space, which also shortens the time of administration. Artificial intelligence will also radically change the creativity that is increasingly relegated to the background, which is in the interests of the investor, but the user will actually be the one who takes advantage of the individual rules and construction parameters , so-called functionalist buildings that reflect minimally on their surroundings will be able to be built. However, the beautiful thing about architecture is that the person, i.e. the user, creates the space, who brings his experience and emotions into his work, while the machine will only develop copies and prototypes to polish it to perfection. If the trend continues, fewer architects will be needed, and those who remain will be programmers with more construction-technical knowledge.
The profession does not yet have an established position, the topic is still in its infancy, but the conditions around architecture are also changing explosively. Through regulation, artificial intelligence could be channeled in such a way that it helps and speeds up the work, but in no way takes away the freedom of creation, because exclusive reliance on it would set architecture in the direction of mass production and erode the prestige of the profession even more. The protection of unique works has already started in several branches of art, which prevents the machine from being able to copy a well-defined individual style or a unique work of art, and more and more methodologies are appearing that filter out the end product that has no human added value.
How could a bridge be built between the two different images of architects discussed in the introduction?
We would need a “modest” architecture that does not prioritize luxury, but captures the spirit of the place and combines it with the needs of the users, paying attention to sustainability, which is now much talked about. This also includes the fact that the architect sometimes has to take on the confrontation. with his client. Although the architect makes a living from his builders, it is not his job to slavishly copy an idea on checkered paper, saying that if it does not contradict the regulations, let the one who pays dictate it. This kind of “getting away” design greatly poisons the architectural society, because as long as there is someone who cannot resist, a mass of strange, unimaginative houses will be born.
On the other hand, the feelings of the end user should not be ignored either. It’s easy to fall into the extreme that only self-expression and impression are important. The world of stars has also crept into architecture. There are many designers blessed with great talent working on the market who deserve to be followed, but even less talented creators who have become unavoidable with the tailwind of the media have been able to ride the waves of fashion. For this reason, the star architects who lack humility create miracle houses for huge sums of money, which are then exalted to the heavens, and all this causes a great clash among the laymen. However, their nimbus soon wears off due to the cruel arrival of moral obsolescence.
If the architect is able to learn to death, develop with the technology that helps him and can react to environmental changes, but does not give up his belief in the freedom of creation and insists on his right to shape the environment, then he can remain what he was in the beginning. Architects will be needed in the future as well, but the social assessment of the value of the profession and their work will depend on themselves.
Ákos Szák-Kocsis
The author has been a practicing architect for 10 years.
Editor: Júlia Böröndy
Tags: long architects
