Published Architecture NZ No.3 2015
"Any
architect should be radical by nature because it is not enough for him to begin
where others have left off." (Edgar Kaufmann and Ben Raeburn, Frank Lloyd
Wright: Writings and Buildings. New York, Meridian Books, 1974, p. 234)
On a recent excursion to a coastal subdivision North-West of
Auckland I was struck not only by the thickness of the hot summer air, the
smile of the sales lady and the intensity of construction activity but also by
the preponderance of a phrase not often referenced in architectural circles,
‘selling out’
What on earth, I thought, is that red-hot bold faced sign
referring to? The most obvious reference maybe to a supply that demand has
outstripped, but perhaps something deeper was lurking behind the surface of the
brick veneer and home star rated product neatly organized within such a high
amenity landscape.
Of course one can’t ignore the salespersons plea, “it’s
selling out” with the implications there may not be any left if you don’t give
a deposit promptly. Auckland real
estate is a high risk game where a moments indecision may cost dearly. Buy now
for it will sell out.
Wait I thought, it can’t be architecture the sign is
referring to, Architecture is surely not selling out. To sell out implies compromised integrity, morality and or
authenticity for personal or financial gain. This is exactly the time in human
history architecture needs to reach deeply and summon all its strength in order
to stand up to the challenges facing humanity. This is not the time to be
selling out. None of my heroes
sold out. Bat man never made a
deal with the penguin.
So if Auckland’s answer to the housing crisis is selling
out, or placing the consumer under the threat of the imminence of selling out,
while disguising the ugliness of high margin development in a cloak of
sustainability and social good it’s a selling out that’s OK leaning on a crutch
of affordability, lead by developers squeezed by political negotiations, the
shake of a hand, a welcome home loan, a 50 sqm house, affordability based on a
square meter rate dictating shrinkage in scale as a means to maintain margins
in all other calculations. If developers can’t budge on margins and land and
building costs are a given, something has to give, and it’s either going to
have to be size of land, and or building, or both. Higher density product
becomes higher density profit?
In a world where revolutionaries are sold as icons of global
capitalism the Che T-shirt case in point.
Are we so surprised at the commoditization of the basic elements of
human survival? Housing, food, water, air it is all on the table for sale to
the highest bidder. It is all selling out as quick we can stock the shelves.
Consumption is consuming us.
I’m probably just having another midlife crisis and should
take those selling out signs at face value and accept the rush to debt and
smaller more economical better for you homes in a nicer better for you street
where urban design principles are obvious and nature is accessible to all the
milk powder raised babies, I saw it on TV.
In a world where the Ad guys spoon feed us product from our
pharmaceuticals to our homes, where life styles are more often than not only
dreamed of but the goad to upgrade is relentless, where PR and spin is the news
at the end of the day, should we be at all surprised that architecture may have
had a dying request to fulfill, help us sell out, please. The architects are
left questioning once again where their service provision might fit in an
ecosystem driven by celebrity, luxury goods and capital gain. With out the
catalyst of public funding, or conscience, there is no social agenda left in NZ
architecture nee society.
Interestingly a squeeze on the Waitemata harbor may cause
architects to step out on the weekend in anger and assume a political agenda to
save our city from the encroachment of global economics. Too late? Batman is
already having lunch with the Penguin.
A possible scenario develops – the developer donates to the
architects retirement fund and a cultural folly is commissioned on newly
reclaimed land. A Herzog & de Meuron-inspired car park is included in the
vision statement, along with ongoing support of architects’ yacht racing. All
the cranes are painted pink, Champagne corks pop and the previous concerns are
washed down with canapés. Don’t take it all so seriously, it is just
architecture, its only a city. 50
years is a blink of an eye. We'll try and do it better next time around. All
tickets to ports of Auckland inaugural architecture dinner selling out. And so
it goes. Is selling out just par
for the cause ? Salespersonship certainly is, under the hammer, sold to the
highest bidder.
In a culture intent on selling and conversely buying is an
architecture that sells out the greatest endorsement of product and design
catering to what the market wants?
In a culture where housing – the most basic of human needs –
is primarily considered as product, and where scale and form are driven by
developer preconceptions and market forces, the end-product itself becomes an
indictment of society and its own democratic processes. We are what we
build.
Perhaps we should concoct an architecture that in its
brilliance doesn’t sell out, that
is the last bastion of a free market, last man standing, the ugliest
house on the worst street an architecture that doesn’t sell that doesn’t fit
any predetermined spread sheet or idea, that challenges aesthetics, that slowly
ripens and is consumed in the same manner , slowly. An antithetical architecture that leaves real estate agents
confused and developers flummoxed. The number of bedrooms changes daily,
garaging cannot be quantified, there is no media room, all generic descriptions
and methodologies for measuring value are irrelevant. It is driven by a
relentless pursuit of an ideal society not a developers idea of what
sells. Architecture is not
interested in what sells only in what feels authentic and touches us deeply. A
product is grounded in the realities of our place, technological and economic, finding innovation where ever it can. The house that offers shelter as cave,
warmth as fire, security as a hill top.
An architecture driven by creativity and innovation, not market, one that
connects with the primeval and the universal. The house is my country writ small. It is no surprise then that selling out sign is so pervasive.
We are having a garage sale next weekend. Hoping to sell
out. Come grab a bargain.
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