Above: Process drawings from my undergraduate thesis, as I developed a drawing system inspired by research into art, philosophy and landscape architecture. Image copyright 2014 Alexandre Kinney.

18 May 2020

While I was studying with him, Alberto Pérez-Gómez often said something like this: modern architectural theory is instrumental – telling architects how to make buildings – whereas premodern architectural theory was reflective and philosophical (meaning what, I wondered?).  Another one of my professors, David Theodore, gave a very succinct explanation of architectural theory: it’s what is created when someone takes ideas from outside of architecture and speculates about how they can be applied to architecture.

I now recall what first drew me to architecture: its ability to relate to everything else. As a child, I used to make lists of all of the subjects I wanted to study, including Egyptology, geology, geography, biology, botany, astronomy and astro-physics (to name just a few). It was my interest in everything that first inspired my mother to suggest, when I was seven or eight years old, that architecture might be a good profession for me. Around the same time, an architect friend of my parents gave me a few copies of Architectural Record, from which I distinctly remember ripping out pages with stunning black and white photographs of Tadao Ando’s Church of Light. My fascination with buildings in themselves had begun. Nonetheless, all through high school I continued to be fascinated by a wide variety of subjects – in fact, it was my broad-ranging interests that led me to pursue architecture rather than acting as a career.

In architecture school, most of my work was inspired by ideas from dance (particularly Rudolf Laban’s movement theories), which I had begun using in high school as a way to bridge between my passions for dance and for architecture. In my second year of architecture school, I was introduced to phenomenology, which together with dance provided the wellspring of conceptual inspiration for the remainder my studies. While all of my projects centered on choreographed, multisensory experiences of movement, some also incorporated ideas from science, such as hydrodynamics and chemistry. However, architecture in itself increasingly became the focus of my studies and of my leisure: they majority of my coursework and of my independent reading was explicitly about architecture, and my primary focus, whether at home or traveling on vacation, was upon the built environment. I rarely danced anymore, and I no longer read a novel, a poem or anything other than architectural history, theory, and criticism.

As a designer at WET working on projects in Asia and the Middle East, my source of inspiration largely shifted to the historical, architectural, and natural context, introducing me to the idea of critical regionalism. The projects for which I had more time to study ideas outside of architecture were the ones that I most enjoyed, and the ones where I felt my designs were most meaningful. However, my personal reading continued to be focused on buildings, and occasionally urban design and landscape architecture – all of which are historically within the domain of architecture.

In my master’s degree, I thought I would find a “unified theory” bringing together all of my diverse interests, telling me how to effectively synthesize them through architecture. I was wrong. What I now understand, almost two years after completing my studies, is how literal Pérez-Gómez was being when he said that the premodern architectural theory is non-instrumental. Vitruvius said it already in the oldest known architectural treatise: the architect must possess a wide range of knowledge, in subjects as diverse as astronomy, music, and medicine. But now I believe that the purpose of this knowledge is not to tell architects how to build. Knowledge of other subjects is a source of inspiration for architecture. Inspiration is not predictable or clear – it is divine, literally “the spirit coming in.” And I believe extraordinary architecture comes from inspiration.

This is not to say that technical knowledge of how to construct buildings and landscapes is unnecessary or of secondary importance. In fact, I am beginning to notice a pattern amongst some architects whose work I find intriguing, such as SelgasCano and John Wardle. They profess a great deal of curiosity about a wide range of subjects outside of architecture – philosophy, science, art – and simultaneously demonstrate a fascination with construction and materials. Their technical know-how gives them the expressive freedom to interpret ideas outside of architecture through the medium of building. In order for architecture to create inspiring experiences, it is important to be open to inspiration from other disciplines, and equally important to be well-versed in the aesthetic, functional and technical building knowledge that is the modern-day expertise of architects.

For me, these realizations are empowering. It means that no matter what project I am working on, there is always the potential for unexpected inspiration arising from my exploration of ideas outside of architecture. I can still look to buildings and to architectural theory for inspiration. But for me, what gives meaning to my designs is the way they express ideas outside of architecture. It does not even matter if I have time during work to research non-architectural topics directly related to the project I am currently assigned to. As long as I am taking time on my own to study and enjoy a wide range of subjects that interest me, I will be enriching my basis of inspiration, from which unexpected connections to architecture can be drawn – regardless of the program of a given project. As a student, it didn’t matter if I was designing an airport, a boathouse, or a spa – ideas from dance inspired my approach to all of those projects. It is time for me to embrace my fascination with an even broader range of topics, and to remember what first drew me to architecture: the fact that it is still the best profession on earth for those aspiring to be a “Renaissance man.”

Copyright 2020 Alexandre Kinney