Portrait of the Architect as an Artist

Every artist, designer or architect aspires for creative fulfillment. The realization of an idea is the ultimate goal; to have the image that sprung up in your mind put on canvas or expressed through an object. The architect, more than the others, has to endure a longer time between the conception of the idea and its full realization. A cartoonist can draw a strip in an hour; a comic book artist can render a page in a day; a painter may be able to complete a painting in a month. The architect can design plans within similar time frames, but he has to wait for months, even years, for that plan to materialize in a building.

There are stages along the design process, however, that may give architects the opportunity for instant creative gratification. Getting the idea itself is a thrill. When the idea is drawn and expressed, it is taken one step further towards realization. An architect can experience a high in seeing a fully rendered perspective, or a 3d walkthrough. Thus, for the designer, the translation of an idea is a crucial stage -- the more accurately it is represented, the better. Before, pen and paper were enough, but now new technology enables the designer not just to express, but to ‘simulate’ the result of an idea.

First, he has to get the idea, to form a clear picture of it in his mind. A sculptor might see a graceful twisting of bodies; a writer could imagine a character that could start a novel. The architect may start by forming his philosophy – the ‘bed’ where the seed of an idea can grow. In reality, though, it is not just his seed that gets thrown into the pot – there will also be the client’s idea, his boss’ idea, the engineer’s idea. If his own idea wasn’t so clear in the first place, then it could easily be overrun by all the others. His concern then goes beyond the expression of the idea, to negotiating and campaigning for it. In the end, he must learn to share ownership.

This idea, by necessity, must also fit a container -- the framework for what a ‘proper building’ should be. It must fit into the lot, the budget, the law, the needs and requirements. It could get pounded and squeezed and manipulated until it is hardly recognizable from the original idea. The architect, however, can start with the container, instead of the seed. When he knows that what he’s holding is a flower pot, he won’t put a tree in it. But what if only flower pots come his way? What if he has a lot of tree ideas? As an artist, he continually seeks for the right soil where his ideas can grow.

The final execution of the idea lies in the hands of other people; rare is an architect nowadays that will build a house with his own hands. When it is finally built, however, the architect realizes that he has power – here now, is the concrete monument to his idea, an object that may surpass his lifetime, a place that may influence more people than he can directly. At this point, he also realizes that the idea is out of his hands, like a child who has left its parents and asserted its independence. He is no longer as intimate with it as when he first started. He learns to let go. The cycle begins again, and he stares, once more, at a blank page.

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Picture credits: barn painting taken from www.williston.k12.vt.us