QUESTION No. 4: (Part 2)
SHOULDN’T ARCHITECTURE BE (MORE) EXCITING? Part II
STANFORD WHITE, Architect, 1853–1906
Photog. Unknown, 1895. Wikipedia
Architectural practice, it seems, can be far more exciting than most people imagine …
… But in architecture as in life, the wrong kind of excitement can be perilous.
– from the introduction to the Claims Stories podcasts by Pro-Demnity Inc.
When David Croft FRAIC started writing his Claims Stories, 30 years ago, his intent was to help architects learn from the errors of others. Appropriately, he opened with the quotation “There but for the grace of God go I.” In narrative form, he related the kinds of problems that architects might get themselves into – and consequently need their professional liability insurance to get them out of. The list is long and, sadly, repetitive.
Sure. in many cases, the architect is exonerated. But architectural culpability, however slight, makes for more interesting reading.
Architectural perils presented in the stories include everything from poor documentation, to financial loss, to moisture infiltration, to construction delays, and in rare cases, personal injury and death. This, despite the fact that priority number one for architects is protecting the public interest, which includes public safety.
Architects Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. A.26
Principal object
(2) The principal object of the Association is to regulate the practice of architecture … in order that the public interest may be served and protected. R.S.O. 1990, c. A.26, s. 2 (2).
Even so, Claims Stories being about professional risk, are filled with examples of cases where members of the public have suffered – or believe they have suffered – due to the negligence of architects. To reinforce the mandate that architects protect the public from harm, they are subject to laws, bylaws, zoning regulations, building standards, fire codes, ethical criteria, moral imperatives, rules of conduct … and common sense.
There are many participants involved in building design and construction, and each participant, brings new opportunities for things to go wrong. Fortunately, architects are not often the cause of public harm.
But what about the safety of architects themselves?
WAIT. ARCHITECTURE IS DANGEROUS?
Architect killed by falling debris from building in New York
NYC architect killed by falling debris in Midtown should have known sidewalks are dangerous: city attorneys – Headline in the New York Daily News, Oct. 15, 2020
The city attempted to avoid liability by claiming that “the city streets are known to be dangerous, so people on sidewalks should be prepared for the worst.” Architects and planners normally encourage pedestrian activity. Add sidewalk danger to the list of urban perils.
This feels like a one-off situation. A fluke. After all, the architect had placed herself in no more danger than the millions of other people trudging along the sidewalks of the Big Apple. And the adhesion failure of the building ornament can scarcely be blamed on the original architect (long gone), and more likely a maintenance failure or a quirk of nature.
Then there’s the excitement of seeing your visions realized. When he accepted his OAA Order of da Vinci medal in 2009, Jerry Markson came to the podium with a prop: a wooden scale model of Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter, with wings that actually flapped. Jerry explained that in order to operate the machine, the pilot was meant to drag it to the edge of a high cliff, strap himself in, stare into the void, and then jump. This, he quipped, is how he feels every Monday morning when he comes into the office. Jerry was speaking metaphorically.
PARKOUR: THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AS A THRILL RIDE
Shooting some random kids in the city doing their stuff
Jeffery Wong from Vancouver, Canada Wikipedia
Architect dies after falling from NYC skyscraper
The Associated Press, Sat., Sept. 17, 2016
Police said Travalja fell after apparently getting dizzy. But his wife, Alexis Travalja, said the firm’s staff said he had misstepped and tripped. She said he had taken his harness off because he was done after taking some measurements.
Then, there’s the rare occasion when architects have the opportunity to work with enlightened and important people. This sort of work should guarantee an elevated architectural status, but didn’t I read somewhere that “a haughty spirit cometh before a fall”?
Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation sues architect over ‘defective’ New Orleans homes
By Katie Scott, Global News, Posted September 21, 2018 10:46 am
Pitt’s foundation says Williams was responsible for several failures to adequately waterproof the structures, including insufficiently sloped roofs.
At other times, it’s the architect’s own special experience and vision that elevate their status among friends and neighbours, so much so that the admirers pester the architect to help them realize their own dreams.
Architect who landscaped friend's £5m mansion garden for FREE is ordered to pay them £265,000 after they sued her because they didn't like the result
Joseph Curtis for Mailonline, Daily Mail, Published: 06:58 EDT, 10 April 2017
This one is both cautionary and heartbreaking. It seems that the architect’s neighbours found a “litany of defects” and high costs. The architect vigorously argued the decision, but Court of Appeal ruled she owed them a “duty of care.”
What could be more exhilarating than gaining the broader admiration of the public we serve?
“FRITTERING AWAY OF GENIUS”
Author unknown. Wikipedia
Harry Thaw Kills Stanford White on Roof Garden
Shoots Architect in Back as He Sits Talking to Woman
New York American, June 26, 1906
While White was a highly acclaimed and respected architect and partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, his life, according to The Nation, illustrated “the frittering away of genius,” ending in his murder on June 25, 1906.
(www.villagepreservation.org/2019/06/25)
Or getting paid huge fees.
Anthony Gaspipe Casso, the House and the Architect
By Amanda, Gangland Gazette, November 9, 2019
Casso hired architect Anthony Fava to help design and construct his dream 7,000-square-foot home. Upon completion however, when Fava presented the bill, Casso decided he wasn’t going to pay. Anthony Fava was murdered in September, 1991
Or mentoring young professionals. …
Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Murder of Architect
By Laura McVicker, Published July 8, 2014 www.nbcsandiego.com
Calling it “one of the most senseless killings the court has ever seen,” a San Diego judge sentenced a man to 15 years in prison for beating to death a well-known architect [Graham Downes] at the victim's Bankers Hill home.
[Higinio] Salgado went on to describe his victim as a mentor. "I truly admired Graham and saw him as a mentor and friend," he said. "I had no reason whatsoever to wish him harm."
Or being admired by the tradespeople under your command.
Victoria architect’s murder still stumps some to this day
Justine Hunter, Victoria, Published January 2, 2014, www.theglobeandmail.com
The accomplished architect [Francis Rattenbury] was murdered in 1935, his head caved in by the force of multiple blows from a carpenter's mallet. His wife's teenaged lover, George Stoner, was convicted of the crime.
On the other hand, there’s the appeal of international fame and recognition, which isn’t inherently dangerous, but if you rely on it too much, it may betray you in your hour of need. As Emily Dickinson wrote shortly before her own death, “Fame is a fickle food.”
[IMAGE 5 – THE FUNERAL OF ANTONI GAUDI]
Photographer unknown, 12 June 1926
Wikipedia
THE FUNERAL OF ANTONI GAUDI
Photographer unknown, 12 June 1926. Wikipedia
Antoni Gaudi Ha Mort (Antoni Gaudi has died)
Periodico La Publicitat, 11 de Juny, 1926
Gaudi had been rundown between six and seven in the evening in Calle de Los Cortes by Number 30 tram, which then passed through the center of the avenue…. No one knew him. The famous architect was nothing more than an anonymous old man whom many passers-by regarded with indifference, until one who was moved by compassion attended him. Several taxi drivers refused to help.
Gaudí: his life, his theories, his work. Cesar Martinelli, — Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1975.
Louis I. Kahn Dies; Architect was 73
By Paul Goldberger, New York Times, March 20, 1974
Louis I. Kahn, whose strong forms of brick and concrete influenced a generation of architects and made him, in the opinion of most architectural scholars, America's foremost living architect, died Sunday evening, apparently of a heart attack, in Pennsylvania Station. He was 73 years old. His body was picked up by the police and taken to the City Morgue. Identification was made on a tentative basis through his passport …. but, the architect's wife, the former Esther Virginia Israeli, was never notified.
It's often said that truth is stranger than fiction. The reason, as Mark Twain explained, is “because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” Louis Kahn’s life could certainly be characterized as exploring new possibilities. And while his way of life wasn’t inherently dangerous, nor did it involve dramatic criminality, TV storywriters found a way of making it so by constructing a storyline for a 2003 episode of Law & Order Criminal Intent, where an architect modelled after Kahn is bludgeoned to death by an infatuated acolyte, eerily portending elements of the Graham Downes murder, a true-life event that was still 11 years in the future.
Crossing the street can be dangerous for anyone, and Antoni Gaudi’s death seemed at first to be just another anonymous traffic fatality – a statistic. But however undistinguished Gaudi’s death may have been, his life and work were not. His funeral was well attended, and today, as his phenomenal Sagrada Familia cathedral nears completion in Barcelona, an official petition has been started to have him declared a saint.
In reality, architecture is probably no more dangerous than any other profession, maybe even less so. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a few more movies, or TV shows, or even mystery novels where architects are shown actually living and working on the edge: enduring all-nighters, confronting impossible deadlines, placating indignant citizens groups, trying to reason with clients and intransigent city planners, solving impossible design problems – and still creating a better built environment?
SALK INSTITUTE, BY LOUIS KAHN, SAN DIEGO, CA, COMPL. 1965
Louis Kahn – Salk Institute
Author: TheNose. Wikipedia