Vulnerability and Architecture
The Humane Architecture Workshop's position on Architecture
 

In its early days Modern Architecture was seen as a solution to the problems of 19th century cities which were often inhumane environments for many of their inhabitants. New technology was to play a large part in modern architecture but by the 1960's this technology had become almost an end in itself. Human values seemed to be subserviant to technological expertise.

Today at the beginning of the twenty first century we need to redefine modernism using appropriate technology to enhance the human condition. We believe that genuine creativity grows out of ordinary needs and perhaps transforms those needs to become something special.

We see ourselves as standing within the 'Tradition of the Modern Movement in Architecture', but that tradition has now reached a very pluralist phase and has several threads and branches. The position that we take is most closely aligned with the tradition that aknowleges what we would call the vulnerability of the human condition.

The potential ecological crisis that we face stands as a stark reminder of the huge consequences of continuing to live within the reductive modernist worldview and this crisis, in a very overt sense, marks our vulnerability. The role that architecture can play within the ecological debate is significant and there are many now addressing these issues in architecture, including the Humane Architecture Workshop. However we would like to examine the idea of vulnerability more thoroughly, hence we would like to introduce five related and overlapping ideas that define what we mean by vulnerability in architecture.
Ordinaryness
 

As a concept ordinariness is difficult to talk about as it is so obvious that it is sometimes difficult to see it, rather like trying to look at your own eye. It is about accepting life as we find it, and working with it. If we can get inside Louis Kahn's idea that we should 'let a building be what it wants to be', then we are getting close to this idea of ordinariness. It is of course to do with function and use, but also to do with listening to the context and site and seeking reciprocity between the two sets of conditions. Ordinaryness, when well considered, actually generates the most fruitful architecture because it is rooted in the ground of reality. If architecture is to live, it must grow from there.

By way of example we can cite the work of Van Gogh, who dedicated his life to celebrating the ordinariness of peasant workers. His work displays great compassion for the workers, but almost imperceptibly it also shows similar respect and care for the objects that they use and wear. This can be a great lesson for us, because the table and cupboard are not too far removed from our own discipline, and perhaps Van Gogh's love and care for these artefacts shows us a way into architecture. The 'Arts and Crafts' movement in England was contemporary with Van Gogh's work on the continent, and similarily shows us a way of caring for the ordinary well crafted object, such that the ordinary become the extra-ordinary.
Good Gestalt and Geometry
  Vulnerability can also be displayed in the architectural forms we choose. Certain architectural languages can be very assertive and unforgiving. They speak of certainty, sometimes even of indifference and unconcern. The Cartesian grid has been one of the dominant symbols of the modern era. The very character of the grid is one that fixes and controls the terrain that it covers, giving no hint of the vulnerability of the human condition. As a concept it is also infinite, extending potentially to the horizons in each direction and to the heavens vertically. Such geometries speak of an ideal and unobtainable world and the geometry itself speaks of only perfect form. Geometries are of course comfortable to work with, in that they lend themselves to the coherent organised wholes. In the early decades of the twentieth century a group of perceptual psychologists working in Austria and southern Germany identified a perceptual phenomenon which they called "Good Gestalt". Their work helped us to realise that a grid does not need to be perfectly regular to have organising power, objects do not have to be identical to set up relationships with each other, a form does not have to be perfectly circular to generate the gathering function of a circle, nor does it even need to be complete, and a line does not have to be straight to create a coherent link between two objects or places. Good Gestalt therefore includes the forms of pure geometry, but they also include the more relaxed forms that we find in nature, and in our view give us a way of expressing more easily the vulnerability of the human condition.
Being Centred: Endings and Beginnings
  This third point is about being precisely where you are. It is related to the concept of ordinariness discussed earlier in that it is about accepting the given circumstance. It is about having a place and being centred there. It is not therefore only about describing that centre but also the thresholds between that centre and the surrounding environs. Those thresholds mark the beginnings and endings to a scheme and thus locate it in its context. Such a position contrasts with the endless Cartesian Grid discussed earlier that conceptually promotes buildings that are like extrusions extending conceptually forever.
Experiential and Sensual Architecture
  The fourth aspect of what we are calling a vulnerable architecture is concerned with the acceptance and celebration of the experiential and sensual dimension of architecture. It is the materiality of the building that defines the building's character and mood, and accepting its materiality grounds the building in reality. This position stands in contradistinction to architecture that remains almost totally within the conceptual realm, in which surfaces are conceptual planes defined for their cerebral qualities, rather than in terms of the materials that comprise them. Celebrating the sensual dimension of architecture brings the building towards the user, calling on them to use all their senses and not just the sense of sight that has so dominated recent decades.
Human Error and Human Perfection
  In one sense as humans we must be perfect in that we are part of the created world. Having said that, if we are perfect, part of that perfection is our ability to err. These may sound contradictory; however the human being simply needs error to function perfectly. In this sense we are not very different from the rest of the natural world. Nature reveals constant variety and variability within an ordered framework. In the natural world and within humanity we do not find perfectly replicable components, so in what way does such a component based architecture represent the human condition? In giving expression to the human condition in our work as architects it seems to us that it is important to try to symbolise this contradictory condition. What we have seen in the examples already cited is that some of the dominant trends in the modern movement have focussed on symbolising only half of that polarity. The perfect grid, the tower block, perfect geometries and perfect conceptual surfaces seem to seek to represent only the infinite and perfect dimension of humanity. Although we agree with and wish to celebrate that infinite dimension of our humanity too, we also believe that to truly represent humanity at the beginning of the twenty first century, we have also to symbolise our erring and less than perfect side. In other words we have to try to symbolise the contradiction and that, we believe, calls for us architects to accept our vulnerability.
Vulnerability in Architecture
 

The two adjacent images show two girls in very different situations. The girl locked in the grid seems superficially the least vulnerable. The grid protects her, but obviously also controls her. In contrast the other girl seems much more vulnerable; she is obviously delighted with her skates, but although her knees are not yet grazed we perhaps suspect that it will not be long before there are and tears roll down those smiling cheeks. Yet if we were that age again which of us would choose to swap places with the girl in the grid? We suspect none of us, and why? Because we recognise that living life on the edge with a degree of vulnerability is how we want to live our lives. Ironically, we also perhaps realise that the girl in the grid, if brought up continually in such a fashion, would probably find herself in adult life to be much more vulnerable than the girl on the skates.

So does this suggest that accepting our vulnerability is good for our general health? To be vulnerable means that one may be wounded, that we are susceptible to injury, that we are pregnable, penetrable and assailable. It means that we are willing to reveal our weak spots our soft underbelly or our Achilles heel. These qualities do not seem to belong to the main stream of Modernity, but they certainly are part of our humanity. It is our belief that the modern world generally speaking denies us the right to be vulnerable, and in making this denial limits and diminishes our humanity. So long as we cannot be weak, we cannot be completely ourselves, we cannot be whole and healthy, we cannot be loved and we consequently cannot be fully human. So in our view creating an architecture that represents the wounded, whilst simultaneously retaining the full dignity of the human condition, becomes one of our goals.

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