The art of designing abstract

By Brian Kernan

What if the White House were to be designed today? In January of 2008, the Storefront for Art and Architecture and Control Group announced a competition that asked this question. This month, the winners of the contest were announced. J. P. Maruszczak and Roger Connah took first place with a concept titled "Revenge of the Lawn." This entry featured bizarre images of grass and insects.

The runners-up included "White House 2.0," which envisioned the White House as a central server, and "White House Paradise," in which the White House was transformed into a theme-park style "experience machine." "An Architecture of Possible Collectives" described itself as 'a "tattoo" or "appliqué," secondary to the collective within.'

When I studied this contest, the term self-indulgent immediately came to mind. To be fair, this was a creative exercise not judged on the basis of architectural merit, but by how abstract the contestant could make the White House. We shouldn't expect the entries to be realistic or practical. The contest wasn't even limited to architects, thus turning the competition into an abstract philosophical discourse. Judging it by practicality would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Contests like this, however, speak to wider trends in the architectural profession. We live in an age in which architecture is becoming increasingly abstract. This likely started when Le Corbusier began envisioning houses as machines, and is perpetuated today by post-modernists like Rem Koolhaas. Structures like the Koolhaas-designed Seattle Central Library are built to serve abstract ideals over community purpose.

In 1993, Jorge Silvetti, former chairman of Harvard's architecture program, addressed what he saw as a general malaise in architecture when he said, "We (architects) are becoming more and more like alchemists or magicians -- every project becoming a private and arcane search for a secret formula for bliss, or a voodoo act of magical empowerment."

So why does this matter to us? While there's no one thing that's led architects to cherish the abstract, it is clear where this is leading. If it continues, we can all look forward to living in cities overcrowded by alienating glass behemoths competing for our attention rather than communities built to serve our needs.

Brian Kernan is a senior economics and history double major and the opinion editor for The Santa Clara.