Curvy Erksy

Curvy Erksy

A lighthearted Critique of Design Education by Thom Swanson

Gehry Buildings (the new 'Zollhof') in Dusseldorf, by Frank Gehry.

Photo by Author.

Everyone likes curves in architecture. They’re fresh and novel, let you feel properly modern and progressive; truly capture a sensationalism that’s hard pressed to form within the confines of a more conventional architectural vocabulary.

Naturally then, one of the first things we are ingrained with as aspiring architecture students is that curves are bad, evil, WRONG.

Yes, there are the famous notable references, unanimously agreed as exceptions, that fuel the controversy of this covenant. As difficult as it is to manipulate curves properly, you invariably have some Frank Gehry figure come along and do it so exceedingly well that even the non-architectural types are bombarded with enough passing interest to formulate opinions on the matter.

However, as your teachers will so readily remind you, you are most certainly not Frank Gehry: As such, so lacking of his organic genius, when you are inevitably compelled to venture forays into the more wiggly of geometries, the incontrovertible laws of design sensibility you are being taught will undoubtedly prove your intentions so misguided as to negate the pathological purity of the aspirations that led to the investigation in the first place. In short, CURVES ARE WRONG.

So often and vehemently  do we students have this ultimatum repeated to us in the course of our design tutelage, that we quickly learn to accept it as a fact, if only to get our instructors off our backs. While I am generally given to a disposition admitting such submissions to authority as benign, the process is problematic in that it makes it quite easy to begin believing the presumed premise yourself, invariably succumbing to the notion over your own architectural instincts.

Oh, assuredly, the process will be gradual enough at first. We can hardly fault you for self-editing a more indulgent experiment in anticipation of an instructor’s reaction; indeed the, current parameters of the system would encourage you to do so. However, offering your critic even such inoffensive statements as “obviously this needs to be clarified a bit” will open the door to a remarkably slippery slope of self-repression. As you become further entrenched in the aggrandizing ways of the architect, then, you will notice the initially-conciliatory avoidance begin to extend into ever deeper manifestations of your architectural sensitivity, carving out rubber-stamped architectural dispositions as foreign as they are capricious.

For example, supposing you were, at the beginning of your education, one of those youths so woefully uninformed as to actually hold some affinity for Gehry’s work: Once you’ve begun your inevitable progress on this geometric campaign, you will find yourself, when admitting the disposition in the company of other architects, qualifying it with such caveats as “I suppose I do like him, BUT in a guilty pleasures kind of way!”

From there, I’m afraid to say, it is only a matter of time before you will forget to drop the façade entirely, even in the uneducated safety of a layperson’s company, I can only image thoroughly perplexing them when they, upon learning your vocation, unsuspectingly make small talk by way of asking your opinion on that “cool new tower going up,” only to have you reflexively throw on your supercilious-architect-face and lecture them on the various fallacies precluding that “contorted monstrosity” from consideration as architecture.

 It will be somewhere in the stride of some historical tangent on the ensuing rant of the innumerable, unequivocal reasons this is the case, that you will realize your commitment to the argument has surpassed mere parroted conditioning, your own fundamental opinions rather so irrevocably molded to the notion that you genuinely hold contention against the curvy expressions you vaguely recall once offered inspiration leading you to the field in the first place: It is at this point that you fatefully cross into the prestigious ranks of fanfare and pretention that qualify you as an Architect.

You may, at this point, question the grounds behind such a ubiquitous canon. Clearly there must be some artistic merit behind these evocative constructions for them to garner the interest and appraisal of the populous: They would further seem to afford a natural outlet for the innovative spirit the industry is—at least according to our theoretical patrons—in constant pursuit of. Why then, would architects so categorically disown the aesthetic logics driving these curvilinear manifestations as they do?

While I personally am still just shy enough of the architectural transformation to recognize the distinctions here outlined, I would posture that the trend is a manner of evolutionary tactic by some anthropomorphic personification of Architecture, protecting the sanctity of her proprietors. As with any artistic discipline, it is of crucial importance to architects that their mastery over their field makes them inherently better than everyone else, and that the erudition of their profession not be replicable by any baser laypeople who may be overcome by delusions of design faculty.

In this respect, then, curvy antagonism forms a brand of secret handshake within the architectural community, not only providing a litmus test to filter the truly architectural and otherwise define boundaries guarding the integrity of the discipline, but offering the handy double function of reassurance, confirming the architects’ inherent need for preeminence through the mere fact that only insiders could possibly hope to reconstruct such a convoluted rationale to bar what would otherwise seem a perfectly valid manifestation of the art.

It is with some natural hesitance, then, that I breach my parting consideration. As architects, the surly, pompous persona pioneered by our historic role models undoubtedly forms much of the glamor of the profession, and we all have claim to that delightfully ironic pleasure arising with the ever increasing recognition of those characteristic architect traits slowly manifesting in the sleep deprived corners of our minds. I won’t be so hypocritically audacious, then, as to call on you to blatantly push the envelope, but I would challenge you to try rounding its corners a bit: You don’t have to completely subjugate all the education you gleaned against the innocent impressions of your youth, but I might advocate at least revisiting some of the wonder that fueled them. After all, common sense may utterly deny any use for an ovaloid envelope, but until someone is bold enough to find one, there never will be.