Above: Escalator of Seattle Public Library by OMA/REX. Image copyright 2014 Alexandre Kinney

2 May 2020

A concept that has often troubled me is the idea of critical architecture. It seems to me that many of the firms producing architecture that looks exciting in pictures (and more importantly also feels stimulating in real life) are associated with the idea of critical architecture. The problem I have with the idea of critical architecture is my perception that being critical means being negative. For some time, I have felt that I want to promote what I think is good rather than to tear down what I think is bad. This is one of the reasons why after my master’s degree I felt it important to gain experience in the practice of making buildings rather than to continue with scholarly research – it seemed to me that far too much of what I would be required to do in academia is criticize the work of others without proposing, and better yet, enacting, alternatives.

However, I very much like landscape architect James Corner’s early-1990s summary of what critical theory is, which I recently read in his essays “Critical Theory and Landscape Architecture” and “Sounding the Depths – Origins, Theory, and Representation.” If I understood Corner correctly, to be critical is simply to be aware of what is being done and why, and to then be able to choose to do it that way, or to choose to do it another way. [1]  I seemed to have forgotten something I wrote already during my undergraduate thesis: all architecture inherently embodies ideas and perpetuates certain conditions – the only difference is whether an architect is or is not consciously aware of what ideas and conditions his architecture is promoting. With that awareness, I can choose to positively promote what I think is best through the architecture I produce.

I recently heard an interesting comment by Wim Hof, the extreme athlete who teaches breathing techniques aimed at expanding the limits of human performance. He said animals don’t consciously choose to hold their breath, one of the techniques he uses to boost the immune system.[2] Animals breathe in and breathe out without thinking, and they cannot consciously choose to do otherwise. However, Wim Hof claims there are great benefits to holding your breath intentionally, something which might seem unnatural and probably would not occur to most people. For me, this resonates with the idea of critical architecture: to be aware and thus to consciously choose is what makes us human, whether it’s about how we breathe or how we construct our environment.

Could we extend this argument to the experience of simply moving through a building? For example, the hallways, elevators, escalators and staircases of most buildings are not particularly noteworthy, and thus I move through them without taking much notice of my experience. The buildings I love awakened and energized me as I moved through them: the uncomfortable yet fascinating experience of being conveyed between the layers of OMA/REX’s Seattle Public Library on a strangely long and narrow, neon yellow escalator; the dynamic sensation of fragmented planes and colors constantly expanding and compressing space in Charles Rose’s Michael S. Currier Center, beckoning me down multiple possible pathways simultaneously…  Could it be that what I loved about these experiences was that I was suddenly aware of my movement through a building? Perhaps this is the value of Walter Benjamin’s “shock to the senses:” a work of art, and indeed a work of architecture, which can awaken me from my automatic way of doing things, is valuable simply because it makes me conscious of what I usually take for granted. The more conscious I am, the more I can choose what I wish to do and promote in the world, and the more human I become.

[1] Corner, James and Alison Bick Hirsch, ed. The Landscape Imagination. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014

[2] “Corona Survival Guide with Wim Hof: Full Length Podcast.” YouTube, accessed 29 April 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfAgSusi6t0