Our culture

Btw, (in reference to normblog's reverse chiding) by absolutely no means am I hectoring or criticising anyone at all, and certainly not the bloggers to whom I have linked, even if they rarely, alas, talk about the physical world. I enjoy their conversation tremendously. My point is far more global and is an observation about our culture in general.

Decades ago C.P.Snow spoke of "Two Cultures" (The Two Cultures (C.P. Snow)) by which he meant science and the humanities. The two cultures which concern me are the one of people who carefully observe the built environment and the...what do I call it?....rest of our society. I haven't quite figured out how to term it but I know that there is such a lack of knowldge and sophistication as to be quite remarkable. And mind you, this is amongst otherwise very bright people, all of them alive and living inside the built world. Yet, to my ears, they seem blissfully unaware of it or if somewhat interested, then often somewhat lacking in knowledge, compared to what their general knowledge of other aspects of society. At least that's my take. The built world is just a given, part of the background of their lives and over which, perhaps, they have so little control that understanding seems a pointless endeavor. I honestly don't know. But I find it interesting, appalling and a bit confusing.

For example, 2blowhards had a fairly lengthy and illustrated post on Parking Lots and Downtowns. It presented what in some ways is a radical position:

"Cities hoping to score big revitalization points by investing tens of millions in a showpiece from a celeb-ritect such as Calatrava or Koolhaas might do well to give the state of their car parks some attention instead."

How many people commented? One.

I would have thought such a position --- "Forget genius. Consider parking" --- would have roused some discussion. But no. Not even one arts' buff condemning such a bourgeois mentality. Agreement? Acceptance? Criticism of any kind such "that just continues our dependence on cars!?" No. Niente. Nada. Yet people are easily roused to furious fever by a new apartment building in their neighborhood. And they do "ooh" and "aah" over starchitecture. So they do care some. Was the 2blowhards discussion just too mundane to grasp?

I don't really understand it. And it's something I observe everywhere --- for most people the built environment is simply a dead zone, just untouchable background to their lives. This is not so much criticism as observation. Here for example are the the columnists listed on the left-hand column of beloved Arts & Letters Daily:

Columnists
Eric Alterman
Anne Applebaum
Alex Beam
Robert Boynton
Jimmy Breslin
Samuel Brittan
Tina Brown
Art Buchwald
William F. Buckley
Jon Carroll
Noam Chomsky
Alexander Cockburn
Joe Conason
Alistair Cooke
Miranda Devine
E. J. Dionne Jr.
Michael Dirda
Maureen Dowd
Roger Ebert
Robert Fisk
Thomas Friedman
Robert Fulford
Malcolm Gladwell
Ellen Goodman
Nat Hentoff
Jan Herman
Jim Hightower
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Molly Ivins
Jeff Jacoby
Robert Kagan
Tony Karon
Mickey Kaus
Michael Kelly
Michael Kinsley
Joe Klein
Martin Kramer
Morton Kondracke
Chas Krauthammer
Paul Krugman
Howard Kurtz
John Leo
James Lileks
Kevin Maney
Paddy McGuinness
Mark Morford
Robert Novak
Daniel Pipes
Katha Pollitt
Virginia Postrel
William Powers
Dorothy Rabinowitz
Jonathan Rauch
Edward Said
Sam Smith
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
Andrew Sullivan
Tunku Varadarajan
David Warren
Margaret Wente
George Will
Michael Wolff
Jonathan Yardley
J. Peder Zane

Is there a one there who writes about the built world? Yes. But only a few, so far as I have scanned their columns. (Tell me if I am wrong and I will start reading him/her regularly; I do not mean to slight anyone.) Fulford, now and again. Sullivan seems smitten by his Cape Cod shore. No doubt the others care, as sophisticated people all do, about the built and natural environment.

But in terms of their usual rap --- I believe it's a rare sentence that indicates any awareness, much less a sophisticated awareness, of the built world. Notice that neither Paul Goldberger nor Blair Kamin nor Robert Campbell nor Neal Peirce (all writers about cities, with unimpeachable establishment credentials) to name just a few, are listed. Is it because talking about the built environment is something other than what the really important people do? Is it merely a speciality for "design critics?" Are many intellectuals scared of it because it is so vast and complex? Maybe all. And that, if I dare suggest it, is why we have starchitecture running riot: there are far too few intellectual police with the confidence to put such work in its proper place.

Comments

[Gideon Strauss]

I'll have to find ways of reading Goldberger nor Blair Kamin nor Robert Campbell nor Neal Peirce - I guess a google search will make that possible. Fulford, as you say, does cover cities and their design now and then.

A fine screed, this, by the way - I quite agree with you. I mention your screed in a recent post on my blog, where you will find me make reference to a recent essay by my favourite bookstore owner, Byron Borger. I think you'll like what he has to say.

[Gideon Strauss]

Oops. Read "or" for "nor." Lazy cut and paste on my part, that.

[Michael Jennings]

Is there a one there who writes about the built world?

Virginia Postrel certainly does from time to time, and in quite an interesting way. Lately she's been more interested in design more generally, with the build environment being part of this.

[Euphrosyne]

I agree, in a broad sense, with your frustration over the general public's (and representative intellectuals') lack of considered attention toward the constructed world...But the angle of your post is whiny and fails to recognize funtamental human nature.

Why do most people (public intellectuals included) not spend more time analyzing color theory? Advanced physics? Comparative anatomy? These are all arguably relevant topics in our daily lives, but people are concerned with paying the bills, reading the sports page, and their own pet interests.

Rather than "Why isn't everyone interested in what I'm interested in?", a more constructive question might be "Given that most people aren't interested in this topic, what can we do to allow the public's implicit participation in design questions to be more usefully applied?"

But my question here is: by what innate virtue would your "intellectual police" better serve the public than the current system? Do you think that cities don't employ a host of planners, designers, and expert review committees before commisioning a starchitect? It sounds to me less like frustration with the neglect of others, than unhappiness that your chosen team isn't calling the shots at a higher level...

[David Sucher]

Euphrosyne: Your question answers itself, I submit. The absence of a widespread and sophisticated discussion about the built environment allows "planners, designers, and expert review committees" to hire starchitects because there is a conventional belief that
1. we need better urban environments and
2. we need to hire big-name starts to achieve that goal.

The matter is not one of "innate virtue" but simply making a bigger playfield.

[clew]

I had the mild impression, Seattle-based, that we hired Kool-whosis for two kinds of support. His buildings are so odd that the consciously unsophisticated notice them in little pictures and mockups; and the idiots who thought we needed to build something totally unrelated to Seattle to make Seattle a "world-class city" found equal idiocy in him.

I kind of like the way the new central library meets the sidewalk on the uphill side, but I am still worried about its overall pleasure as a library. On the other hand, I haul friends and relatives past the new Capitol Hill library as an example of friendly modernism.

I didn't realize friendly modernism was possible until I visited Amsterdam. I decided there that the effect was partly due to the extraordinary density of building; they apply most of your Three Laws perforce.

[Euphrosyne]

I admit I have no easy answers for the problem, but think that to bring about "widespread and sophisticated discussion" would take foremost an amount of public education that we have no practical means to distribute. I don't really desire a large public discussion on the state of modern cardiology--not because it is an inappropriate topic, but because if the media made it an 'issue' and fostered public discussion, very few people would know what they are talking about. People hire doctors to adjust their physical health because they don't want to take the time to learn it all themselves. People hire planners to adjust their cities. When everyone and their dog thinks they have something to say on a topic, we call it politics, and widespread public blathering in that area obviously achieves very little other than keeping newspapers in business.

However, I am not promoting centralized, expert authority for its sake. Here's my take on Seattle:

-The Koolhaas library was not heavily discussed before the approval stage, other than banal economic expenditure considerations. Some people thought it was worthwhile, others didn't. The public didn't really heavily review the plan's merit.
-City planners, "experts", et al called the shots, and, meeting with less than an outcry of disapproval, went forward.
-My impression is that the library will be a net benefit to the city. It's a interesting deign, although it will look terribly out of place in Seattle. However, that won't stop it from becoming a cultural and economic boon: people will come to look at it, property values will rise, and I expect it to function well, and look great (and function well) *from the inside*. Time will tell.

-Gehry's EMP, on the other hand, can never have enough insults heaped on it. It is an eyesore that belongs in no public place on this planet, and it repels all but the staunchest tourists. In line with the major criticism of Gehry's work, its external form and interior function have no necessary connection, and Paul Allen should wake up every day with the heavy shame of inflicting it on the city.

My point (though tenuous), is that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. What frustrates me is when the very people who supposedly study such things don't learn from the blunders in their field...which is an issue of professional competence rather than public involvement.

So, I say:
1. we need better urban environments
-Yes
2. we need to hire big-name starts to achieve that goal.
-not necessarily, but the two aren't inherently exclusive

The worst thing that could happen is for urban design to be formalized into public camps (think Dems and Republicans), at which point the masses would be fervently promoting one of a very limited few options, none of which would likely serve them best (again, think politics...)

My 2 cents and then some.

[David Sucher]

So many interesting comments, so little time.:)

I am not urging "education" (though that's always a good idea) but simply reflecting on our proclivity (and I'll limit it to Seattleites and you can extend it as you wish) to be oblivious to the built environment. Of course perhaps that simply comes from lack -- I mean this seriously --- of a "built environment" component in high school. (I'd also like to see one which sets forth the essence of our legal system which like Churchill's Democracy appears to me to be "the worst possible except for all the rest."

As to the analogy with medicine or physics --- I think they are not apropos. Marvelous cities and towns were built by our non-specialist expert forbears --- they had no degrees in urban planning! --- but they did well. Something to ponder and I do not -- to give you some foreshadowing --- think that the answer is that that they had no regulations. Nor were they wiser nor more moral. (Hint: they did not have cars.)

Yes, we can build interesting places with any set of aesthetic conventions...please see my earlier post (BAUHAUS in Tel Aviv) which I found quite convincing, even if I did write it!

Now I'd better get downtown and shoot the KoolFolly...oh gee I am letting my prejudice show. :)

[Michael Blowhard]

Thanks for the nice mention of my car-parking post. It is a real mystery why people don't take more note of the built environment they live in. Do they not notice? Do they figure there's nothing to be done anyway, so hurry on home to the TV and barcalounger? I wonder. I allow myself to be a little hopeful, though. If a high-quality food culture can grow in this country from next to nothing to what we have today in a couple of decades, perhaps something similar can happen with buildings and neighborhoods. How'd the food people do it? I think there may be lessons there to be learned.

[clew]

Oo, who's the Alice Waters of urban planning? I should think Jane Jacobs is the Julia Child.