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Klaus Philipsen
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To live is to leave traces (Walter Benjamin, German philosopher)
"If architecture is where most of human existence takes place it cannot fail to be a topic of philosophy" (Graham Harman, American philosopher)
"If architecture is where most of human existence takes place it cannot fail to be a topic of philosophy" (Graham Harman, American philosopher)
Anxiety and Challenges
I recently participated in a luncheon with the local AIA Fellows. The prevailing topic was AI: how it will change architectural practice, if it will replace architects or whether it would make architecture better. The anxiety was palpable, and the prevailing view negative.
Principals of architecture firms worldwide have sleepless nights trying to figure out how they should position their firms for a future full of AI, climate change, global urbanization, and the prospect that new construction in the next 40 years will equal all construction in all of history before. It means, globally, a New York City-sized built area will be added every month. (Architecture 2030). Will American architects be part of this?
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Vitruvian Man
[/td]This poses a number of challenges: the ethical challenge of how so much stuff can be built in an environmentally responsible manner and how it can be resilient in the face of a new climate reality, combined with the social question of growing isolation and alienation that urban residents experience and the esthetic challenge that much of what is currently built is trite, boring, and subpar, leading to widespread frustration with architecture in general.
At the same time, the architect may become an endangered species, potentially replaced by a combination of global multidisciplinary engineering firms, which have been gobbling up the small, local practice for some time, and now artificial intelligence, which promises to produce in seconds what takes architects months or years to do- from ideas to sketches, and from design concepts to construction details and specifications.
It is easy to see that these threats rob not only employers' sleep but also renders young people helpless, who would like to become architects but aren't convinced that the profession can remain relevant.
Why Philosophy?
Doomsday fears are nothing new, but the profession has survived major transformations before- from industrialization, after which architects were no longer also builders, to the increasing specialization that splintered the profession into dozens of fields of practice, the computerization of drafting and modeling, and specifications. The same qualifications that made the architect survive these challenges and remain the coveted profession would likely also provide a guide for the future, but the ever larger focus on technological tools has led many astray from the competencies that really matter.
The competencies that ultimately differentiate the architect not only from AI but also, in a certain way, from an engineer center more around the why than around the how. The how is covered by technology but the why touches on values, a human domain. Questions concerning values, purpose, and reason put things into a larger perspective. The bigger perspective- the questions of meaning and purpose- are the domaine of philosophy. This is how philosophy enters the debate. Philosophy offers critical insights into the relationship between humans and architecture, emphasizing dwelling, beauty, and ethical considerations.
Considering that architecture shapes our lives maybe more than anything else, it is surprising that it has hardly ever been the topic of philosophical inquiry. Equally surprisingly, architects are not known known for asking philosophy for answers to their challenges.
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[/td]Not that philosophy wouldn't address topics that are fundamental to what an architects do, namely through ontology (the study of objects) and phenomenology (how humans perceive objects), but also through ethics. Throughout history, philosophy has queried the relation of mind and object, mind and body, reality and perception. All this matters whether designing buildings or cities. When the technical aspects of architecture can be optimized, automated, and simulated, the existential issues become more central. They can't be easily covered by AI, plus they lie at the root of many of the troubles that plague the built environment today- from lacking sustainability and esthetics to serving mostly interests of power and less the common good.
Before dismissing philosophy as obsolete or just a matter of an intellectual fringe, consider that even the old Plato can still be so explosive that Texas A&M University issued an order to strike certain parts of his teachings from the philosophy curriculum. Philosophy can still provide direction, especially in times of tectonic shifts when the old compass has been lost, society is fractured, and seems to lack meaning. An International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture located in Newcastle, GB is devoted to this notion, but stopped publishing in 2019.
It helps architects that they have always found themselves at the intersection of art and science. Being neither artists nor scientists makes it easier to mine philosophy which historically is also located at the confluence of art, belief, and science. The ambiguity of this position is an incredible asset in the quest of finding the answers of how to manage the future. Less and less even science is mechanistic, absolute, 100% certain or consists of complete, closed systems. We know the uncertainty from quantum physics and climate change predications and the ethics from Oppenheimer's moral inquiries of nuclear science.
Being mired in the daily struggle of solving very practical problems of cost, schedule, and technology, whether one works as an architect in education, private practice, or government, keeps philosophy from coming into focus or being queried in an investigation. Yet, it is precisely this ultimately myopic focus on the nitty-gritty that has contributed to many of our current problems, such as traffic congestion, sick buildings, poor health outcomes, human isolation and a degraded natural environment. The bigger questions why we build and for what purpose are often left aside instead of being central when trying to achieve better results. How people's health is related to how they feel about the spaces architecture creates, whether inside a building or as part of city planning, requires a better understanding of people's perceptions, and the mind-object relationship. Even if we demand to simplify regulations to accelerate housing production or infrastructure, we better understand the ethical and moral implications of relaxing them- aspects philosophy has queried forever. It is upon the architect to create a wider horizon for clients to make better decisions or modify their metrics, steps that ultimately also improves their bottom line.
It is clear, that society isn't satisfied with the status quo and that what gets built doesn't work very well. In that clients, architects, engineers, and users will likely agree. The conditions are especially troublesome in the US: In any kind of “happiness “ or “quality of life” index the US ranks in the bottom half in spite of our superiority in GDP growth or productivity per capita. Life expectancy sinks. Philosophically speaking, the mere focus on the material object in isolation without considering the larger context in which the object sits or interacts with human perception falls short because it is essentially trying to eliminate values, especially those that are not easy to quantify.
Yes, even clients are demanding different and more complex solutions, and that will be even more so in the future. Since new technology can provide them, the expectations rise alongside. Clients won't be happy with a bunch of AI generated pretty sketches if they don't solve real problems, are not based on values, are not flexible to adjust in the future or do not enchant. In other words, increased technical sophistication, won't resolve questions of purpose, nor does it guarantee better results in terms of fitting into an urban setting, user satisfaction, or resiliency, arenas in which clients have to succeed, operate, and compete, even if talk about social impact is temporarily politically inopportune. Moving from how to why is like moving from mere knowledge to cognition, a sphere that includes experience, awareness and intuition.
When it comes to buildings which usually are around for some decades, social impacts are real, long lasting and the more important, the more we build. This moves value and culture to the center of the stage. Technology always carries in it a potential of uses that at the introduction of it were neither intended nor anticipated. The shift from fascination with technology to asking critical questions about values happens with all inventions, especially when they become abundant. Consider cars, nuclear power plants, smart phones, and social media, and AI. In each instance, the initial infatuation with the technology makes room for debate about purpose and hidden impacts.The more we can build with faster technology, the less we can avoid the debate about the why.
Humans do exist in a physical sphere, and architects create much of it. The physicality of a building, a street, or a city goes far beyond the visual. It includes touch, smell and what we hear. In stark contrast to virtual reality, architecture speaks to all our senses. The new popularity of mass timber isn’t just for its sustainability but for the fact that it replaces the skin deep shallowness of the ubiquitous framed drywall and plywood box with solid materiality exuding the warmth of the familiar wood plus durability. Architects in their traditional role as interdisciplinary coordinators are in an excellent position to take up the challenge of designing buildings and places that are satisfying beyond a spreadsheet and do it beyond the eye candy AI can readily produce.
Increasing specialization has infected much of society and resulted in incredible fragmentation. Its negative effect are widely recognized, in medicine, education, and even in science. As noted, architects, straddle engineering, science, sociology, psychology, art, and health, even if they are specialized in categories such as housing, offices, education, hospitality, or health care, to name just a few. Architects can't afford to be one-trick-ponies in any of those fields.
Urban development has turned away from neatly separating uses across cities. Mixed-use is the new formula for cities and even buildings, a return to the historic definition of city. Land use and transportation get connected, so do work and recreation, old and young, or home and entertainment. Interdisciplinary competency is in demand. There is no true sustainability, resilience, or happiness for any building, city, or community without applying knowledge across different uses and without placing buildings properly into a larger system and a lively urban fabric.
The End of Binary Traditional Thinking
This focus on mixed use interdisciplinary competence is not limited to architecture and is part of a tendency to overcome binaries of all kinds: Science or art, residential or commercial, engineering or design, form or function, theory or practice, knowing or doing, idealistic or materialistic, body or mind (Cartesian Dualism) are just a few examples of the binary either-or thinking that has been prevailing for too long in a largely materialistic society. We are quickly moving from either-or to uniting opposites, even if politics have certainly not yet caught up with that.
The binary approach overlooks that most of human history learning came from bridging dualities, sometimes in a dialectic manner. For example learning by doing something with the hands. Greek philosophers derived meaning from doing real experiments, not just thought experiments. Architects were not only designers but also builders that spent their days on construction sites to see their work come to fruition or try out new methods. Theory and practice were linked. Philosophy reflected this with Hegel (idealism) and Marx (materialism) who employed dialectic methods in their quest to resolve whether ideas shape the world or the world shapes ideas. A subset of this different way of interpreting the world is the question whether it leads to error if one views everything from the perspective of the human observer (anthropocentric view) or whether objects should be seen per se (materialism).
The matter of learning by doing, i.e. through physical practice is a central topic in the discussion about the capabilities of AI. Embodiment, the dependence of the human mind on the body is a key differentiator between any human and current AI. So far, AI mostly lacks a body and therefore also physical experience as a learning tool. The mind-body unity and all the senses of humans are not only good for learning but also key to how we process data and perceive reality. By contrast, AI sits in boxes that have no sensory equipment with the exception of a few robot farms where some entrepreneurs experiment with artificial intelligence being derived from physical activity.
In another area, though, AI has the edge. While humans learn as individuals, even if the sit together in a classroom, their minds are not truly networked. AI, however, operates with potentially a multitude of processors and data units when adding or processing data. The breakthrough of AI came when the processors did no longer work on a fixed program anchored in a series of binary yes/no processes but began mimicking neural loops of animal and human brains. This enables them to learn and break out of the constraints of a fixed binary human-made program. This makes what AI can do largely unpredictable. The fact that these neural loop processors can be linked en masse and work 24/7, makes their data base endless and their learning speed extremely fast.
The swarm capability of computers and AI is not entirely to biology or the human mind. Historically, philosophy and even science have looked at the human mostly as an individual who learned from parents, books, teachers and transferred some knowledge but otherwise took it with himself to the grave. This mindset is now shifting, in part because of technology that allows humans to receive and disseminate information rapidly and simultaneously.
Cognitive scientists and philosophers begin not seeing the human mind as singular or as an isolated "entity" that unfolds based on DNA coding, but instead seeing it as the product of "culture" achieved in the connection with others, even without being "wired" to the others. In that way of thinking the brain is constantly evolving in its interaction not only with the object world but also other minds and essentially may have no limits. The unlimited capacity and the ability to grow is an advantage of the brain over processors which so far have clear physical limits regarding how many data can be processed or stored. Computers and even AI are not seen as having a cultural understanding or something like intuition.
This excursion brings us back to the bigger picture and holistic thinking. Where we recently had likened brains to computers when we talked about bandwidth, we now model computers on brains not only through neural loops but also by an increased capacity of simultaneous processing and weighing data especially by employing quantum states in the still experimental quantum computers.
In summary: The plasticity of the brain may be the key to the question of how we will fare in the age of AI and the already ever more rapid changing environment.
Imagining and Shaping the Future with Philosophy
The topic of matter and mind is central to the philosophers who study ontology, the study of existence and how we determine if something exists or not. Is a building still there when it was demolished, even if only in archives, in the reused materials or in our memory? Is a building still preserved if almost all materials have been exchanged for new "look-alikes"? Does a building already exist when it is only an idea or a BIM model or "blueprints"? Or does it exist already in its potentiality, i.e. in the mere question whether it should exist?
Many architects see the essence of their design to tease out what a particular site or project program suggest or what "ought to be". In a similar way how artists see themselves simply as a medium for the creation of what is pressing into existence. In this sense architecture is not just about "making" but also about envisioning and then materialising the future. ("The future is not what will be but what we make it to be", my free interpretation of Ghandi's "The future depends on what we do in the present")
Is a building defined by its function, by its architectural style, its materials or by the systems that constitute it? These questions already concerned Vitruvius 2000 years ago and could still come up in copyright disputes, in historic preservation boards or when it comes to decide which discipline should be in the lead to coordinate a project. More fields of philosophy come into focus if we widen the field to epistemology, the study of knowledge, how we acquire it and what we can know or not know. Buildings really make only sense in the conjunction with human perception and needs. The question whether a tree falling in the forest makes noise if nobody is around to hear it, is a object-mind relation question and whether things can be be objectively described (realism) or only subjectively (relativism). Phenomenology ("study of appearances") finally tries to understand our subjective and lived experiences, whether through direct perception, memory or emotions and maybe the philosophical field that is most relatable to architecture and urban design.
Philosophy also concerns itself with issues of power and how space can express power. This matter is exceptionally architectural, from classical temples to modern corporate headquarters. Just consider how Hitler or other dictators wanted to use architecture as a tool to express power, or how, in the opposite direction, Norman Foster tried to turn the imposing Reichstag building in Berlin into a democratic parliament. A similar approach is underway for the Parliament modification in Capstadt designed by Ntsika Architects' principal Nadia Tromp. The philosophers Foucault and Lefebvre have written extensively about the power of space.
The retrofitting of these two historic parliament buildings are good examples of how beliefs, and with them also buildings, can evolve. Updates based on new evidence is also an embraced scientific method. One way to describe this is the Bayesian mindset, a framework for decision-making under uncertainty that starts with a best guess (prior belief), followed by gathering new evidence, and then updating that belief based on the new data. In this view, the beliefs of "modern man" are no longer held absolutely in terms of dogmas. As we know since Einstein, even time and space (two constituent elements of architecture) are not constant or absolute. Old beliefs get constantly evaluated by being open to new evidence and old ideas get adjusted accordingly. Bayes' Theorem puts this on a mathematical base. Even though the theorem goes back to 1763, it has gained ever more relevance in modern times.
This manner of embracing uncertainty, updating views when evidence demands it, and systematically managing the balance between existing knowledge and new information for better-informed decisions and better understanding the world should be quite familiar to architects and teachers and just about anyone in a responsible position. It must be anyone's method who wants to master or shape the future. Of course, it is also exactly what machine learning does, just faster and without pause.
The absolute certainty of Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture has to cede to a much more flexible way of thinking about design in the same manner as the mechanistic "clockwerk" way of thinking of Newtonion physics was transformed through Einstein's relativity. For architects this means that we have to think in fluid systems instead of static objects, or at least of objects that are part of systems such as cities or nature. The architect Charles Jencks embraced this dynamic idea of architecture in his book The Architecture of the Jumping Universe (1995). The idea that everything is connected to everything lets some contemporary philosophers go as far as speaking about a sapient cosmos in which matter and mind are universally intertwined, an idea not too far removed from the religious belief of a universal god.
To integrate critical theory, metaphysics, and aesthetics directly into the architectural curriculum the always forward leaning California architecture school Sci-Arc employs its own philosopher, Graham Harmon. He appeared on my radar through the series of discussions about Architecture and Philosophy on the website "Digital Futures World" organized by writer and professor Neil Leach who during the most recent International AIA conference in Sri Lanka became personally known to me. The lectures and discussions in the series included Graham Harman of whom I will speak a bit more since he teaches as the architects' philosopher, but they also include many others. In their totality the dozen or so lectures about philosophers dead or alive are a revelation and a wonderful place to deepen the connection between architecture and philosophy.
Object Oriented Ontology
Harman specializes in "triple O", object oriented ontology, ("a new theory of everything") a philosophy standing in the tradition of analytical materialism which is oriented on scientific methods. (Another architecture/design/art oriented philosopher in this materialistic tradition is Manuel DeLanda. Harman argues that all objects, human or non-human, real or fictional are mutually autonomous and equally real. This seems to eliminate human specialness but by allowing fiction and abstraction to be called “real” objects the anthropocentric idea that human perception is the only thing that gives objects meaning enters through the backdoor.it does little to put to rest the philosophical question whether reality exists per se or only through our perception - or, if it exists per se, whether we can perceive it correctly.
Harman aims to move his materialism beyond that of science which, he says, can query objects only by asking "what is it made of" or "what does it do". Neither, he says describes the entirety of the object and its hidden layers based on experience. He frequently refers to Heidegger who would say “a hammer is not what we see but what we do with it”. But Harmon wonders if this fixation on function is "undermining", i.e. missing the essence of a hammer. Thus, physics cannot cover "everything" because it limits itself to the world of objects, it generates knowledge but not cognition, says Harmon and emphasizes that knowledge is only a subset of cognition. For him philosophy is not a branch of knowledge but a human cognitive activity that handles “incommensurabilities and asymmetries”. Science, he says, cannot speak about abstractions such as cartoon characters, jokes or the Dutch East India Company which the philosopher Leibniz called once a "pseudo-object" that is merely a collection of different people and ships.(Harmon's examples). For Harmon those abstractions are just as real as physical objects, a clearly not very materialistic view
This broader, philosophical sense of objects and their relation to ideas and perception is quite relevant to architecture. One can hope that the architect sees the building is not just as the design of an object but puts it in relation to the user, the observer and the context of its site. "Beyond object" lie also issues of style, history, culture and association to name just a few questions beyond what is it made of, and what does it do?) Style goes beyond a singular object and cannot be detected in a singular piece of work. Style creates an umbrella that connects various works, says Harmon. He refers to a philosopher who wrote extensively about style: Maurice Mereau-Ponty, who sees style as an essential, unifying, and open structure of perception, enabling individuals to recognize objects, gestures, and the world itself. (Realize that this definition is much broader than what architects usually associate with the term "style" when they see it as someone's "design handwriting").
As a Sci-Arc professor Harmon connects philosophy to architecture in many other ways, all leading away from a materialistic view when he includes art, metaphor and esthetics as a qualities of objects that go beyond formal object description. It is in this context he also mentions the use of AI but doesn’t really come to a clear conclusion.
Beyond seeing architecture as a static object is also the architect Peter Eisenmann’s view of architecture as a kinetic experience, something that requires movement (i.e. moving around). Beyond the static object or “form follows function” is also Aldo Rossi's writing "against simplistic functionalism" (Architecture of the City). Rossi observes that as buildings serve a city, the city also serves the buildings; this symbiotic functionality has to work over centuries in which specific original functions change on the scale , of the city and the building, however, at different speeds.
Conclusion
Asking more "why" than "how", whether like Harmon in his triple O approach or like any other one of the philosophies developed over millennia, may very well be what architects need to focus on if they want to master the future. The why questions lead into ethics (what is right), human experience (phenomenology), the philosophy of politics and power (who controls space and why?) and the question what something really is (ontology).
Understanding some of these philosophical questions helps with relinquishing dogmas in favor of an open mind and begin inquisitive questioning of old beliefs. "If a client asks for 1+1 and we give him 2, we failed our job, we need to get to 3" is how BIG architects principal Daniel Sundlin puts it. While AI may optimize the solution of a design brief, the creative architect adds the unexpected. It helps architects to position themselves strategically as cultural navigators, influencers of policies and interpreters between all kinds of different disciplines. Doing so will allow them to shape the menu instead of being on it. It also requires that architects change their practice and designs to catch up with where science, technology and philosophy already is. Only very few architects have been willing to begin this journey of innovation in their projects.
If architects won't occupy this increasingly important space in a world that seems to teeter at the brink of a precipice, the technocrats and IT moguls will.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Sources and further reading or listening:
International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture
Philosophy of Architecture (University of Western Australia)
Philosophy of Architecture (Stanford)
What is the relation between philosophy and architecture?
Andrew Benjamin, Architect & Philosopher :Lecture about Third Spaces based on Walter Benjamin)
Anthology edited by Neal Leach Rethinking Architecture.
MIT Journal, Mark Jarzombek, Architecture against Architecture -Disengaging the Metaphysical Alliance
Neil Leach has selected a useful and generally admirable group of texts written by philosophers and cultural critics over the last century, from the well-known “Metropolis and Mental Life,” written by the sociologist Georg Simmel in 1903, to more recent studies of the cultural condition of architecture by Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Gianni Vattimo, and Fredric Jameson. The writings of critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Jürgen Habermas are represented, as are the works of those who comprise the phenomenological and hermeneutic school now respected so much at Cambridge due to the influence of Dalibor Veseley—Martin Heidegger, Gaston Bachelard, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Also included are the semiologists Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco, and the poststructuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jacques Derrida.
See also my related blog articles on Phenomenology, Ethics and Enlightenment.