ARCHITECTURE EXPLAINED, IN 6 QUESTIONS.
There are always more questions than answers. An answer to one question leads to another question, which leads to another answer, and so on, in a chicken-and-egg endless chain. This is a good thing because it fuels progress, and without it, there would be no science, no art and certainly no architecture. Asking questions is the basic tool of architecture.
INTRODUCTION
Most people can’t say what architects actually do, so this series starts from the premise that asking the right questions is the architect’s most basic tool.
QUESTION No. 1:
Question one of six: what the old lightbulb joke reveals about architects, who answer a simple question by asking a deeper one.
QUESTION No. 2:
What does it mean to call yourself an architect? From ‘a way of thinking about life’ to ‘the art of how to waste space’, eight famous architects offer their answers.
QUESTION No. 3:
What kind of life partners do architects make? A tongue-in-cheek advice column consults TV architects, movie architects, Louis Kahn’s three families, and two architects married to each other.
QUESTION No. 4: (Part 1)
Architects act as if excitement were unprofessional, then wonder why nobody cares: on why architects should write about their own work, with feeling.
QUESTION No. 4: (Part 2)
Shouldn’t architecture be more exciting? A tour of the profession’s perils, from Stanford White’s murder to Gaudi’s tram, suggests the excitement is the wrong kind.