What A Tangled Web We Weave | Architects and The Law
Pre-Conceptions About Practice (Part II)
The following series is extracted from journal entries made during my studies in Professional Practice, in part completion of course requirements for the degree Masters of Architecture in 2014. This series examines both the preconceptions and social conception of what an 'architect' is and the actual challenges faced by architects as professional practitioners.
“I foresee all kinds of unforeseeable problems. If I could foresee them, then they wouldn’t be unforeseen!”
The classic 1980s British Television sitcom Yes, Prime Minister, serves as the commencement of my intrigue into the architect’s legal role and obligation. As complex and profoundly absurd the quote about deception is, it does for me represent the relationship between the architect and the law: that underneath a guise of complexity are a set of very simple driving principles. In poetic terms, I believe Saunders successfully summarises the relationship of architecture as both physical (as a building) and contractual (as a program and agreement, as well as a philosophical undertaking):
“Paper and building are inseparable, for even the canon that distils the tacit rules of a discipline and its system of justification depends in architecture on built exemplars. Thus the canon, though it is autonomously constructed by practitioners and theorists of architecture, tacitly acknowledges the heteronomous conditions of architecture’s existence.” (Saunders, 1996, p. 132)
The Client Architect Agreement for example sets out the basic legal obligations between the key parties involved in design. At the same time however, the client is no longer the quiet patron of the architect, today he or she “plays an active role with the practitioner, giving constraints, advice, and approval throughout the process, without which the appropriateness of the services is threatened.” (Cuff, 1992, p. 171) In many ways therefore, good architecture, as I have already seen in previous weeks, stems from good politics. This, I think is because the definition of ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ is always a subjective matter and thus, the only way ‘good’ can be defined in project terms, is by a contract which essentially lists out tasks and programs which both parties agree on.
We need to make the architectural language understandable, for example they may not recognise the complex terms we adopt in our vocabulary during education, terms such as tectonics, phenomenological, are not terms we would use to ‘sell’ our ideas to clients necessarily. But perhaps alternatives might be ‘evocative structures’, ‘special sense of place’, ‘unique conditions’ – the rhetoric of architecture is different to the rhetoric of marketing, so it is another dynamic interchange. Indeed as Cuff yet again recognises, “...[good architects] are principled individuals who remain flexible, embracing the inherent dynamics of the design process.” (Cuff, 1992, p. 175)
In fact, I have already begun to see that there are actually many contradictory forces at work that frame the development of building and Cuff summarises seven key points:
Quality Demands
Simplicity Within Complexity
Stereovision
Open Boundaries
Flexibility with Integrity
Teamwork with Independence
Exceeding the Limits
Historically, the legal relationship between the architect and the client has been anything but joyful and merry. Some of what architectural education tells me are the most important houses
of the 20th Century for example have all been subject to lawsuits and problems in construction. Whilst the Modernists were caught up in a revolutionary world of “A new elite with money to spend... a new self-confident vision of the world marked [by] the birth of Western architects as artists” (Saunders, 1996, p. 134), we are reminded that the actual truth was scandalous to say the least.
Revered - but appropriately so?
Does the Edith Farnsworth house represent the best in architecture, or the worst of planning and management? (Curtesy: Wikipedia)
A Leaky Villa, The Villa Savoye, yet another key building of the 20th Century suffered greatly according to its subsequent inhabitants. (Curtesy: Wikipedia)
The story of Mies Van Der Rohe and Dr. Edith Farnsworth highlights this. An ‘architectural masterpiece’ which the client subsequently sued for being ‘unliveable’. Similarly, the Savoye family, of Le Corbusier’s revered Villa Savoye complained of leaks and inefficiencies in the residence’s ‘revolutionary’ representation of the architect’s five points of architecture.
Overall therefore, I think that there is in fact a serious social issue in reflecting on architects and their role in the contractual world. We have often idealised buildings which, whilst ‘beautiful’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘timeless’, were actually projects which caused all kinds of problems, delays and pains for their clients. Whilst it could be argued that without experimentation, architecture would not be dynamic, I also feel that complete ignorance of the construction process and the legal frameworks which govern successful design cannot lead to good architecture. There is therefore an ongoing theme which I believe the lecture and seminars will struggle and grapple with, how can balance be achieved between pushing for ‘the new’ whilst also ensuring the architect upholds the best standards of practice and fulfils his contractual obligations.