Creativity: Blogs & Balance

I just listened to an interview of a journalist who began his career covering the freedom marches that were a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960's.  His anecdotes were fascinating, but as he talked about his work in the 40 years since then, I realized that he saw everything through a 1960's lens.  The world was black and white - not racially, but in terms of good and evil.  This made me wonder how much of our lives and worldview are set in our 20's never to be changed or even questioned.  The reporter was obviously smart and well educated, but he seemed to have lost his curiosity and creativity 45 years ago.  Or perhaps he had simply limited his curiosity and creativity to non-journalistic parts of his life.

This line of thought led me to consider the creative people I have known.  The pattern I see in my "artsy" friends is that they are very creative and adventurous in one part of their lives, but very settled and staid in other parts.  Several excellent artists I know have developed a "style" which is a constant in an otherwise scattered life.  Most architects have a style of design and drawing which is consistent, but is developed in a number of ways, like variations on a theme.  Imagine the bureaucrat that "swings" on the weekend, or the rock star who has a traditional home life.  It's all a balance.

I found the interview noted above on the internet.  And, since this blog and a large portion of the stuff I browse through each day is on the internet, this seems a good place to make an observation on creativity and blogs.  I remember reading a blog comment stating that "an essay was like a painting, but a blog was like a mosaic."  Now many blogs are simply electronic essays, but it is true that most have the granularity of a mosaic's field of different stones.  Each post is often a world of its own, but taken together, a blog of a hundred posts reveals a pattern that reflects the author's view of the world.  An essay perhaps starts with a worldview, while a blog ends with a worldview.  Or said another way, the essayist begins with a clear idea of the point he wants to make, while the blogger is daily groping around for an elusive theme which becomes more clear as the blog develops.

So, which approach is right?  Which is more useful?  It seems to me that it depends on what kind of world you are living in.  A world that is confidently coherent is an essay world, but a world that is redefining itself is a blog world.  And in the same vein, a person confident in their understanding of their world will tend to write in an essay-like way with arguments and bold statements.  A person trying to make sense of a new and uncomfortable situation will write in a scattered and questioning way, which will mature and develop over time.

And what about creativity?

I would say that creativity is more likely to develop in an uncomfortable, searching, blogger format, but will eventually be expressed in its highest form via the essay.

Aliens and Aphrodite

Two articles caught my eye recently. Both address the problem of design and beauty, which is central to my book.

Michael Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros: The Architect Has No Clothes, in Guernica, an on-line magazine of art & politics, analyses the alienation of designers and the society that they serve...

Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY (wikimedia commons)

"Have you ever looked at a bizarre building design and wondered, “What were the architects thinking?” Have you looked at a supposedly “ecological” industrial-looking building, and questioned how it could be truly ecological? Or have you simply felt frustrated by a building that made you uncomfortable, or felt anger when a beautiful old building was razed and replaced with a contemporary eyesore? You might be forgiven for thinking “these architects must be blind!” New research shows that in a real sense, you might actually be right."

The authors go on to cite a number of studies that show that architects see the world differently than ordinary people (they call it 'Architectural Myopia'). To any second year architectural student this is obvious (and the parents of said student are seen as kindly but boorish). To any "ordinary" person who has dealt with an architect, it is equally obvious that said architect is interesting and perhaps brilliant, but has a curiously inhuman view of reality.

This is one of those times when "nurture", or the education of a person, makes a profound change that can overwhelm the natural human inclinations. It is also important to note that the most "out there" architects are below the age of 30. Older architects seem to settle back into a design attitude that takes into account the need for architecture to accommodate real people, while keeping an "architectural" sense.

The authors go on to date this Architectural Myopia to the early 1900's, driven by the industrial revolution and the breakdown of the traditional order. "Peter Behrens, the father of corporate branding, was given the challenge of developing the first architectural “branding” for the buildings of the German Electrical Equipment Firm AEG. He did so by using elementary industrial geometries, formed into a romantic and iconic expressive shape. The building itself was now a kind of billboard for the company—an attention-getting new product design in its own right. It was not a coincidence that three of his young colleagues went on to profoundly shape architecture in the 20th Century: Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius."

I am not sold on their solutions to this problem (community involvement, etc.), but the article certainly nails the problem. Read the whole thing.

Old New York State Capitol Building, Albany, NY (wikimedia Commons)

Beauty Now in the Eye of the Algorithm - New image recognition technology judges photographic aesthetics looks at a new computerized way of recognizing "beauty"...



"New technology from Xerox can sort photos not just by their content but also according to their aesthetic qualities, such as which portraits are close-in and well-lit, or which wildlife shots are least cluttered."

This lead paragraph covers the strengths and the limitations of such a program. "Close-in", "well-lit", and "uncluttered" are all good rules to follow in getting a pleasing image. And I'm sure that an algorithm can be created that covers a dozen other rules. This computerized system is especially useful in portraits, where the focus is on a familiar thing, but the "beauty" is in studying the variation in detail.

What is missing here is that humans are drawn to more then a set of rules. Once the rules are established and applied regularly, someone will do the exact opposite, just to stand out. Eventually lots of people will be "rebelling", and you will find a new "style" that is surrounded by its own rules. The new style gets established, new rebels go to work, and the cycle keeps going. The Style magazines of the New York Times are a constant reminder of this never ending rebirth.

As much as I like new technology, I doubt that computers will ever "settle" the definition of beauty. However, using new programs to explore the question sounds like fun.

War and Architecture

I ran across an Eisenhower quote: "Plans are nothing: planning is everything."  Being into military history it reminded me of the very old maxim, "no plan survives contact with the enemy," which goes back at least to Clausewitz, and was restated recently by Colin Powell.

It states the reality of almost every complex, real world problem: that every move you make to "solve" a problem reconfigures the situation so that you have to rethink your solution.  The enemy always has a say in the direction things are going to proceed.  Indeed, the whole world tends to reconfigure with every step we take.  No wonder the future is such a strange place, even though humans haven't changed much in the whole of recorded history.

Helmuth von Moltke, the military counterpart to Bismarck's political genius, was a master at planning, and re-planning, as a military campaign developed.  His successes against Austria (1866) and France (1870) paved the way for German unity, and led tangentially to the world wars.  His genius was the ability to plan in detail the movements of large armies (feeding, clothing, arming, transporting, organizing, etc.), without letting the massive plans control his sense of purpose.  When the plan didn't produce the exact result he expected, he re-planned using the new set of facts.

Anyone who has worked as an architect can see the similarities.  A large building is a complex thing involving materials from around the world, and a wide range of skills.  There are multiple "clients", and often a host of "enemies" who want to change or stop the project.

A good architect serves as a field marshal who coordinates the various specialists and generals, keeping the movement going toward an ultimate goal.  It might take time, effort, negotiation and detours, but the ultimate goal must be kept in mind.  Any one design cannot become the goal.  The best architects tend to be good at negotiating and coordinating: they could easily have made a name in diplomacy.

I don't think I could have made a good architect.  I have always been impatient of changes and talk.  If I have a vision in my head I want to get it down on paper immediately.  My aunt would understand: "talk is cheap", and "get it done right, do it yourself."  It is the ethic of the frontier, not the diplomat, but humans need both skills.

My aunt has made it into her 80's with a certain impatience, so it can't be such a bad approach.

Why Blog?

Having lived through the computer revolution and felt its impact on architecture, I thought I should post my thoughts on the subject.  Modeling a design, and rendering that model has become so cheap and easy that nearly any architect can do it.  Making a rendering stand out from the crowd however, is not so easy.  This blog will point out ways to get a design noticed, and built.  And getting your work built has always been the goal for architects.

I expect to comment on architecture in general, also history, art and anything that catches my eye.  Also, anything I might be working on at the time.  I'm not a writer, but rather an architect/artist, so expect more pretty pictures than words.  Unless otherwise noted any drawing or painting is my own (it is my blog after all).