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OAA Perspectives
The Journal of the
Ontario Association
of Architects
Volume 20, Number 3
Fall 2012 $5.00
WHY ARE
(SOME)
BUILDINGS
SO UGLY?
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WHY ARE SOME BUILDINGS SO Ugly?
IN ThIS ISSuE
EDITORIAL
“beAut y is iN the e ye of the beholder.”1
This resilient phrase has been around, in one
form or another, for nearly 2300 years. It has
survived for one simple reason: beauty (and its
absence, ugliness) cannot be objectively defined,
much as we might try. To restate it in the
words of those anonymous medieval scholars:
De gustibus non est disputandum (“There must
not be debate concerning tastes”).2 But that
may be about to change.
Recent work in the fields of neuroscience and
behavioural psychology has begun to confirm
that there are indeed means for measuring
beauty, objectively, by studying human responses
and preferences. In other words, beauty may not
lie “in the eye of the beholder,” but rather in
his or her brain.
Now consider, for a moment, a second
interpretation of the proverb: not only do we
make individual judgments about what we find
beautiful, but we also hold within us predetermined criteria that lead each of us to make
decisions that are not as personal as we might
suppose. To a large degree, researchers tell
us, our judgments may be predicted. Factors
influencing these judgments may be as diverse
as cultural predisposition (including, especially,
sub-cultures, such as the architectural profession), prevailing fashions and trends, general
mood (political, economic), education and age
and physical condition (of the beholder and the
beheld). The problem is that so little of this
work is being done, or even followed, by the
architectural community.
Do you find the OAA headquarters building
ugly? The new AGO addition? The Sharp Centre
at OCADU? All of these buildings break traditional moulds and challenge popular norms of
beauty, with the result that many people are
displeased and the word “ugly” enters the discussion. Frequently, the taste-battle line is drawn
between the architecturally astute and the rest
of the world, which encourages the popular view
that architects don’t consider the sensibilities of
the general populace when they design buildings,
especially prominent ones. In this issue’s feature,
we discuss this discrepancy between popular
and architectural tastes and what, if anything,
might be done to bridge the gap.
You may be encouraged to know that, according to an unofficial poll,3 only a tiny minority of
the general populace finds the OAA headquarters
ugly. Architects, as a group, were not polled. ❚
NOTES:
1. “In the eyes of love, that which is not beautiful often seems beautiful.” — Theocritus, c. 308–c. 240 BC —
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28048572/Dictionary-of-Proverbs.
The current form is generally attributed to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who uses the sentence in her novel Molly Bawn,
1878. — http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html
2. A search for the source of this quotation has so far proved fruitless. A Web reference offers a possible explanation: “I
think that the axiom ‘De gustibus non est disputandum,’ which is not a quotation from any Latin author, dates back to
Scholasticism, i.e. ‘the methods and doctrines of the leading academic philosophers and theologians of the late Middle Ages
in Europe,’ simply because, in philosophy such a maxim was coined and used to distinguish discussions of subjective versus
objective truth.” — http://en.allexperts.com/q/Latin-2145/2009/7/de-gustibus.htm
3. The poll was conducted over a period of several years by an OAA staff member. The subjects were a random sampling of the
cab drivers who delivered the staff member to the OAA building.
8
OAA Perspectives is the official
journal of the
Ontario Association
of Architects
Published Spring, Summer,
Fall, Winter ©2012
EDITOR Gordon S. Grice
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w w w. o a a . o n . c a
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Ian Ellingham, Chair
Bill Birdsell, Council Liaison
Herb Klassen, Rick Mateljan,
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Anthony Provenzano, Greg Reuter,
Barbara Ross, Alexander Temporale
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS
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Amanda Fraser, London, UK; Debbie
Friesen, Toronto; Stig Harvor, Toronto;
Errol Hugh, Hong Kong; Evangelo
Kalmantis, Windsor; Tom Leung,
Ottawa; Vivian Lo, Toronto; Lucian
Nan, Toronto; David Parker,
St. Catharines; Natalie Tan, Toronto
15
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06
07
08
22
24
30
PresiDeNt’s MessAGe
OAA President Sheena Sharp considers
ugliness, as it relates to politics and
society.
resPONse
A brief OAA Perspectives update and
synopsis in this, our 26th year of
publication.
feAture
Surprisingly, de gustibus there is
perhaps some disputandum. From
both an objective and a subjective
standpoint, we present a number of
possible answers to our cover question:
Why are some buildings so ugly?
iNterNAtiONAL
Three graduate students present their
own candidates for Ugly Building
status—three buildings that, with any
luck, you will never see.
PrActice
Paul Hastings, a big name in small
practice, presents the first of a twopart series on the joys and sorrows of
sole practice.
ONtAriO PLAces
Heritage—or simply old—windows
are slowly being lost in the name of
efficiency and modernization, replaced
by sterile, institutional and frequently
unattractive newer versions that will
need replacement again in 20 years.
22
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
Anook Commandeur, Brenda
Ezinicki, Candace Dyck, Cheryll
Oland, David S. Evans,
Michelle Dalrymple, Norma
Walchuk, Tracy Goltsman
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Emma Law & Irene Pohoreçka
COVER IMAGE CREDITS
Scratchboard illustration by
David Gillett
Articles from OAA Perspectives may
be reproduced with appropriate
credit and written permission. The
OAA does not verify, endorse or
take responsibility for claims made
by advertisers.
30
The Ontario Association of
Architects is an open and
responsive professional association
of members which regulates,
supports, represents and promotes
the practice and appreciation of
architecture in the interest of all
Ontarians.
The Association was founded
in 1889 and its primary role is
to serve and protect the public
interest through administration of
the Architects Act, and through
leadership of the profession in
Ontario.
For further information, contact
the Administrator, Website
and Communications, Ontario
Association of Architects (OAA)
111 Moatfield Drive
Toronto, Ontario M3B 3L6
Tel: 416.449.6898
Fax: 416.449.5756
e-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.oaa.on.ca
Publication Mail Agreement
#40064978
OCTOBER 2012/OAA-Q0312/6878
5
OAA PersPectives|FALL 2012
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
I have two thoughts on ugly.
T h e f i r s t i s t h at b e au t y is related to meaning. I
once did a study on public hearings and found that people’s
opinions of the beauty of a project almost always coincided
with their opinion of the organization proposing it. Large
industrial companies could do no right and non-profits no
wrong. Unfortunately, true beauty was usually just road kill
on the highway of public opinion.
To the extent that we can divorce the physical from
the political, true beauty is related to more pedestrian
associations: the proportions of vernacular buildings often
seem right to us, occasionally new forms can express the
mood of the populace and, when it is right, most people
recognize it.
And yes, the populace is important because architecture
is a public art, a group effort. We must express the feelings of communities, not of individuals. But instead, we
are teaching our young a vocabulary of outlandishness
that is completely divorced
from any language our fellow
we are teaching our young a
citizens might recognize, and
devoid of aspirational meaning
vocabulary of outlandishness
to their lives. When they are
that is completely divorced
not thrilled with the results, we
imply that they are uneducated
from any language our fellow
and stupid. The truth is we are
citizens might recognize, …
offering nothing.
My second thought on ugly
is that it is a reflection of our society, with its rote following of the rules, its greed and the disconnection of
labour from management, rich from poor, business from
urban design. The environments societies create are always
a reflection of their values, so if our cities are ugly it’s
because we are ugly.
If you agree with me, the situation is not as insurmountable as it seems. Start small. Pay attention to architectural
programming and include your client’s purpose and goals
in your programming requirements. Do not be embarrassed
to give them meaningful aspirational buildings.
And ignore the magazines. ❚
Sheena Sharp, OAA, FRAIC,
President
6
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
response
OAA AROUND THE WORLD
The July issue of Architectural Review features a full-page
OAA Awards ad on page 28. The ad is part of a reciprocal
arrangement between OAA Perspectives and the publishers
AR. A full-page AR ad appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of
our magazine.
For further information and to get an AR subscription,
go to: www.architectural-review.com
X-REF
A QUARTER-CENTURY OF WRITERSHIP
Most magazines communicate in one direction: they write,
you read. OAA Perspectives is a little different.
Since we started out, approximately 300 architects (and
interested others) have written for the magazine. That’s a
lot of volunteer contributions, but we started before e-zines,
blogs and tweets and even before the Internet had been
invented, so we’ve had a head start.
OAA Perspectives, as with all print-based magazines, has
faced continuous change over the past 20 years. Our name
has been modified to differentiate ourselves from a world full
of other Perspectives. Our on-line presence has expanded, so
you can now read 24 years of past issues on the OAA website. And, where most architectural publications talk about
the latest designs, we have carved out our own niche by
looking into seldom-visited corners of the built environment
and exploring what it means to be an architect.
Still, our most significant accomplishment by far is our
“interactive” connection with our writer/readership. Beginning
about 10 years ago, we increased readership participation by
enlisting the OAA e-bulletin and stepping up our personal contacts. Since that time, we have been sometimes overwhelmed
by the enthusiasm of the response. Enough of you submitted
material for our “Drawing” and “Food” issues to fill several
issues, even prompting us to publish a “leftovers” issue.
In this, our 26th year of publication, we thank all of
our contributors, and if you haven’t sent us something yet,
we’re waiting.
www.oaa.on.ca
When Italian architect Nicola Rizzoli goes into the field,
he may be observed by hundreds of millions of people,
as he was on June 17 of this year, when the Netherlands
faced Portugal in the Euro Cup. Rizzoli is a soccer referee
who, for the past ten years, has worked with the Italian
Serie A league. Known for his stern enforcement of the
rules and his steely nerves, Rizzoli is highly respected on
the pitch. But since soccer referees are frequently required
to make decisions that disappoint many people, the various web sites where his name appears divulge very little
about his life off the field, stating simply, “When not refereeing, Rizzoli works as an architect.” ❚
CAPE SPEAR IN
THE MORNING
When visiting
the easternmost
tip of North
America, just
as the summer
solstice sun is
coming up, there
is nothing more
exhilarating than
reading a copy of
OAA Perspectives,
as Barbara Ross
discovers.
PHOTO:
Barbara Ross
7
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
WHY ARE SOME
BUILDINGS
SO
Ugly?
headquarters, memorable and impressive, but
inoffensive is usually de rigeur. But cultural
buildings, as we have seen most recently, don’t
need to be attractive; noticeable, controversial,
challenging, even unsettling, are more useful
qualities, hence, the impressive volume of letters
to the editor and animated sidewalk conversations. Perceived ugliness gets people’s blood up.
For this feature, we decided to approach the
topic of architectural ugliness from two separate
directions, with the possibility of meeting in the
middle: the objective (quantitative) and the
subjective (qualitative). In the following essays,
you will find that these two extremes are not
always easy to separate.
QUANTITATIVE
Therm Bad Blumau/14.08.2009/Bad Blumau, Austria Original 4288x2848
photo: ©Enrico Carcasci Creative Commons
INTRODUCTION
By Gordon S. Grice OAA, FRAIC
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not
some strangeness in the proportion.”
— Francis Bacon, essay “Of Beauty,” 1625
There is a divide between the way an
architect sees the world and the way that other
people see it. This divide is responsible for a lot
of great architecture, since architects see creative
possibilities that others don’t. But it can also lead
to disagreement when an architectural vision
leads to a solution that is incomprehensible to
non-architects. Such solutions sometimes lead
to complex, thought-provoking, challenging,
ground-breaking, perfectly brilliant architectural
forms or, in a term that non-architects like to
use, ugly buildings.
“Ugly” is not a word that architects use to
describe buildings. It’s too un-nuanced. Other
people use it because it’s powerful, immediate
and finite; it demands no further qualification. You will rarely find the word “ugly” in
architectural publications, except in the rare
8
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
circumstance where the writer wishes to suggest that the object of criticism unworthy of
any thoughtful comment.
Is ugly necessarily a bad thing? It’s a purely
subjective word expressing a personal opinion.
Since architects have no obligation or burning
desire to “beautify” the built environment by
trying to appease everybody, there will always
be detractors. And the more brilliant the concept,
the more daring the execution, the more the
likelihood that someone will be deeply offended.
We are not advocating design panels or
aesthetic standards. Our goal is only to remind
architects that public opinion exists and that it
is unremitting, visceral, often thoughtless and,
yet, extremely important.
Do architects have any responsibility at all
to design buildings that the general public will
find attractive? Here’s an easy answer: some of
the time. As it is, there are already plenty of
practitioners who execute commissions that
gain popular approval. Spec buildings—houses,
condos, office towers—all need to find enough
buyers to guarantee sales. And for corporate
What makes people prefer the things they
do? Research into this subject is ongoing,
particularly in the fields of neuroscience and
behavioural psychology. Preferences for shape,
colour, texture, materials and various other
criteria can be tabulated and even ascribed
to human qualities such as age, gender, cultural background and experience. Too little
is known about the quantitative aspects of
human preference, but more knowledge on
the subject continues to be gained every day.
Our profession should be better acquainted
and more involved with this research.
QUALITATIVE
Possibly far too much has been written on this
topic already, by aesthetic philosophers, by
architectural critics, and by the popular press,
where superficial architectural criticism is the
norm. Although most people would concur
that there is no accounting for taste, the topic
manages to provoke constant discussion. Our
goal is not to define beauty, but to try to
discover why ideas of beauty and ugliness so
frequently vary between our profession and
the public we serve.
Gordon S. Grice is editor of OAA Perspectives.
WUNDERKAMMER OF
ARCHITECTURAL CURIOSITIES
By Lucian Nan
… the crayfish is the most admirable architecture that exists, and the form which best goes with it is that
of an onion, and if this form is done in silver and placed next to the crayfish the effect will be excellent, …
— Salvador Dalí, “Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship”
Whisk together plenty of architectural
elements of a minimum of three historic periods
and add various zoomorphic crusts, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Do not over-process:
small pieces of each style should remain easily
recognizable. While all ingredients sauté, spoon
in colour juice to taste. This will thicken to a
consistency similar to that of soft cream cheese.
Serve topped with shiny objects.
This is one of many recipes that might be
used to build houses fit for a Wunderkammer
collection of architectural oddities—a distinctive
category of bizarre architecture. Like everything
else in the collection, the bizarre buildings are
ephemeral. Traces of their daring madness are
left behind in photographs and ironic accounts,
and sometimes their spirit can be recognized in
slogans such as Venturi’s “Viva vulgar, or at least
messy, vitality!” 1
Records of bizarre buildings first appeared
in the legends of Ancient Greece. A structure
shaped by Daedalus in the form of a cow is
said to have been the first fantastic building
ever constructed. The uneven development
of bizarre architecture (if one can call such
random occurrences “development”) reached a
highpoint in late 18th-century France, when the
Enlightenment introduced the architectural folly2
as an expression of eccentric design. Boullée,
Ledoux and, most of all, Jean-Jacques Lequeu
excelled in designs of architectural fantasies
inspired by common objects, animal shapes
and even anatomical parts. To the mix of these
unusual sources of inspiration, the Romantic
period added the unsettled atmosphere of
the tormented soul. Thus the foundations of
the haunted building were laid and, in 1919,
Sigmund Freud categorized un-homely houses
as “uncanny” (Das Unheimliche). The literature of
Victor Hugo, E.T. Hoffmann and Edgar Allen Poe
offers fine examples of such uncanny houses.
Events in the 20th century continued to feed
the imaginative character of bizarre architecture while adding the surrealistic probe of the
unconscious and the randomness of the objet
trouvé. Collectors of discarded objects began to
mass their mundane findings into contortionist
structures, an ad hoc-ism that has little to do with
any theoretical background but sustains its effort
through the desire of building a specific dream.
Today this is the most common construction to
be found among the bizarre building type.
Most bizarre architecture relies for its expression
on gimmicks and consumerist replications. Its main
feature is often simply its unusualness—eccentricity for its own sake.3 Put together as collected
fragments, the bizarre building displays a list of
ill-defined architectural vocabulary. Elements
are deformed and distorted by mixing different
styles and scales, defying (intentionally or not) the
established methods of construction. The result
may have a comic or even caricature appearance4.
Bizarre architecture relies on an emotional
response to a visual representation. Mainly for
this reason, many buildings of this type fall into
the kitsch category—unexpected structures
fuelled by a total lack of restraint. In architecture
the category of the bizarre building may be the
only one in which kitsch and bad design are
accepted. The only restriction is the uniqueness: a
bizarre building has to be a one-of-a-kind building. By replicating its shape, the unique building
becomes ordinary, badly designed architecture
and the effect of surprise and shock is lost.
In a building that is part of a Wunderkammer
collection, all these features are expected and
desired characteristics. Tailored for the realm of
imagination, architectural curiosities deflect rigorous analysis. These buildings are toys reminding
us of childlike drawings. In a joyful play, bizarre
buildings can be chased with the eagerness of
a treasure hunter. Once found, their uniqueness
is tagged and collected in an imaginary cabinet
of curiosities.
Lucian Nan is a writer and intern architect work-
Mathews St., Berkeley, California
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
Webster St., San Francisco, California
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
walden Dr., beverly hills, California
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
ing with NORR Ltd., Architects and Engineers
in Toronto.
NOTES n 1. Robert Venturi in Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Harvard University Press, 2004, p.10 n 2. “The folly acted architecturally as folie acted mentally, to establish a state of calm and undisturbed reason. Thus it took its place beside the madhouse, the zoo, the botanical garden, the physiognomist’s cabinet
of shrunken heads and the phrenologist’s shelf of skulls, as the tactile analogue to nightmare, the monster, the savage, the criminal and the insane.” Anthony Vidler, “History of the Folly” in
Follies, Architecture for the Late-Twentieth-Century Landscape, Rizzoli, New York, 1983 n 3. In his book Bizarre Architecture, Charles Jenks following the construction criteria, divides bizarre
buildings into: Bizarre Juxtaposition, Adhoc Juxtaposition, Fantasy Eclectism, Technological Fantasy, Animalorphic Expressionism and Zoomorphic and Delirious Trademark. Jenks revisits the
subject of bizarre architecture in Daydream Houses of Los Angeles, proposing a looser and more imaginative labelling: Neo-Class, Witches’ Houses, LA Door, ‘Span Miss, etc. n 4. Caricature
implies a polemical view and often denounces moral weakness. Depending on the point of view, bizarre buildings can be interpreted as mocking some of the aspects of architecture.
w w w. o a a . o n . c a
9
O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
LOOKING FOR
UGLY
By Ian Ellingham, M.B.A., PH.D., OAA, FRAIC
You have had this happen. Someone, perhaps at a party, discovers you are an architect
and asks what you think about some building
or other. Such people rarely seem to want to
know your opinion; they just want to express
their own. Not only that, if you do offer some
comment, they will invariably disagree. The
next time this happens to you, respond, “What
do you think about it?” You might hear a pause
and then some comment about the building,
and then a simple statement that they believe
their perceptions, attitudes and preferences
should be universal and the reasons for it are
obvious. But they aren’t.
Architects are often criticized for creating
ugly buildings, but there are few people,
including architects, who would consciously
undertake to build something ugly. So why
are such comments made? It behooves the
architect to attempt to understand what makes
people regard buildings or other bits of the
built environment positively or negatively—
beautiful or ugly. That is the real value of asking
“What do you think about it?” and following
up with “Why do you think that?” In this way,
some valuable, if anecdotal, information can
be gained about public architectural aesthetic
judgment. Architects may do with this information whatever they wish.
Questions about architectural appeal are not
new. It should not be surprising to learn that
the great 17th-century scientist Christopher
Wren wondered about the very fundamentals of architectural appearance. His interests
embraced structural techniques and project
management, as well as the nature of the rings
of Saturn and the functioning of the spleen.
Wren noted the complexities of attitudes
towards buildings and speculated whether
esteem for different designs was established
through absolute and permanent sets of values,
or whether it was a phenomenon based “on
the laws of society and man.” 1 Essentially, is it
epigenetic (resulting from our genetic makeup),
or a manifestation of the contexts in which we
have been brought up and live?
Unfortunately for Wren, and for us, he
could get no further because the knowledge
necessary to explore this complex area had
yet to be developed, so his question was put
to one side. Even after suitable methods had
been developed in statistics, psychology and
market research, it took the development of
10
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
the computer to make complex experiments in
design that, as recently as the early 1950s, took
a roomful of undergraduates a whole summer
of cranking adding machines to complete. They
also allow different approaches for extracting
meaning from the mountains of data that result
from experiments.
Some 300 years later, Wren’s questions
are still valid. What exactly makes a building
attractive—or ugly? Do rules exist that can lead
us to a better architecture? Are they universal,
fixed and permanent, or mutable? Where do
perceptions, interpretations and preferences
come from? And ultimately, how should a
greater understanding inform our designs? If
architects intend to convey something through
their designs, it is surely important that the
meaning is understood as planned. Or is the
meaning intended only for those who know
how to interpret it, much as a phrase in KIingon
is comprehensible only to those eccentrics who
have chosen to learn the language?
UNDERSTANDING
HUMAN RESPONSE
Looking for answers involves looking into the
minds of both transmitter and recipient. In this
quest, we can look back at decades of experiments conducted at the centres of research that
have been established in and around a number
of universities. Their findings point to roads
not taken in the world of architecture. Rather
than examining the apparently endless rhetoric
about architectural intent and meaning, we
can conduct serious experiments to collect the
evidence that can lead to a better architecture.
One ongoing initiative has been to explore
the ways in which people are different from
one another. This has been especially rewarding with respect to the differences between
architects and the wider population. One
landmark study, “A study of meaning and
architecture,” was conducted in the 1960s
by Robert Hershberger2 of the University of
Pennsylvania, who explored responses from a
range of students: pre-architecture, graduating
from architecture, and those studying other
subjects altogether. He used “semantic scales”
to capture opinion, and asked respondents to
use words to describe images of buildings. Is
it simple or complex, interesting or boring,
welcoming or forbidding, tight or loose, gloomy
or cheerful, superficial or profound and, indeed,
beautiful or ugly? The fundamental inquiry
was whether the meaning that architects were
trying to convey was likely to be interpreted
the same way by other population groups. To
fully understand the findings, you will have to
read the paper,3 as well as papers describing
subsequent experiments. The important thing
is that response can be explored and, to some
extent, explained.
The practitioners of market research, in their
eternal quest to sell, have also developed techniques that can be used to explore architecture.
In the marketing world, the attempt is usually
to understand how people choose one thing
over another. Take jam, for example. Is it the
label, the brand, the colour of the jam, the
shape of the bottle, the price, or something the
marketeers have not thought about yet? Such
techniques are particularly useful in assessing
responses to products that have multiple
attributes. And few human creations have as
many attributes as buildings.
There is another new and promising route
of investigation emerging from the area of
neuroscience. It is now possible to peek inside
the brain using such techniques as functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which
measures blood oxygenation levels and blood
flow. Changes in blood flow reflect brain activity and identify elements that are working
hardest, because of the additional oxygen
they demand to support their activity. Some
experiments in this area do indeed ask the
same question as did Wren: how much of
human perception and preference relates to
“nature versus nurture”?
While work in this area is still exploratory,
and often bewildering, interesting findings are
beginning to appear. Some experiments, seeking to understand the “processing of subjective
pleasantness,”4 confirm the existence of a
biological mechanism that processes reactions,
different areas being associated with our positive and negative reactions. Kuhn and Gallinat
(2012) conclude “...subjective pleasantness
judgments are directly related to brain regions
that have been described as part of the reward
circuitry.” The results of other experiments5
have shown that aesthetics share elements of
the brain network with social and moral judgments. One of the OAA Perspectives committee
members commented, “That explains why
when I see a building I don’t like, I feel that
it is not just ugly, but it is somehow wrong.”
In the brain, do beauty and ugliness become
fundamental moral questions? More research
is obviously required, but it may be decades
before we understand how fundamentally the
brain develops and processes attitudes and
preferences about architecture. A neuroscientist
who was contacted suggested that this did not
matter: what architects really need to know
has already been uncovered by psychologists.
ordinary” 20th-century interwar houses,10 and
found that individual evaluations of “unsympathetic” window replacements related closely to
age cohort and social status, and reflected the
conditions under which individuals were brought
up. People brought up in deprivation (depression
and war) put greater weight on functionality,
whereas those brought up in more affluent
circumstances focus more on the social-aesthetic
aspects, such as authenticity.
WHAT HAVE WE FOUND OUT?
Architects’ evaluations can be very different from those of other people.
Perhaps the most important finding is that
repeated experiments have found that architects assess building design very differently
than do other population groups. It would
be surprising if, after their years of education,
this were not the case. This strand of research
tells us that architects should never assume
that the wider population reacts to buildings
in the same way they do.
It is not just that architects prefer different
things, but they consider more things. Think
of the last party you attended. You were probably offered a choice: red or white wine. If you
ask for more information, you may encounter
perplexity. The reason is that almost anyone
can tell if wine is red or white, but more
knowledge is required to tell a merlot from a
shiraz. Ultimately, there are amazing connoisseurs who can discern the subtle nuances of
colour, density and taste. Similar nuances in
building design may be expected to escape
the notice of those who are not architecture
“connoisseurs.” One experiment found that
for the wider user population, most esteem
for small suburban office buildings related to
whether the building had a flat or a pitched
roof.11 Roof pitch is also a simple judgment
that almost anyone can make. Individuals with
more training, such as architects and planners,
used more attributes to form their evaluation,
and took longer to make their assessments.
We now know quite a bit about human
response to building design, but little of this,
it seems, leaks into the world of the architectural practitioner. Some important realizations
include the following.
This is a very complex area.
Why do we have architectural preferences
at all? One possibility outlined by Levitin (2006)
is that evolutionary pressure endowed us with
preferences for factors that lead to our survival
as a species; hence we find food and sex pleasurable (beautiful), but rotten meat disgusting
(ugly). He suggests that music, something we
also subjectively classify on a beautiful/ugly
continuum, is “auditory cheesecake…. It just
happens to tickle several important parts of the
brain in a highly pleasurable way, as cheesecake tickles the palate.” 6 Perhaps a beautiful
building somehow stimulates the same parts
of the brain as a desirable potential mate.7
Experiments have shown that, among many
other things, both males and females have
an inherent preference for symmetrical faces.8
Through human history we have tended to
build symmetrical buildings. Is this why, and
is it possibly one epigenetic factor that is
associated with architectural beauty? Perhaps,
but findings are often enigmatic: successive
overlays of culture obscure any fundamentals.
1
2
People vary in opinion and Individual
backgrounds are important.
One interesting study explored opinion about
what distinguished happy and depressing places,
by surveying people in both Finland and Arizona.
Finns found depressing places to be cold and
dark (think Helsinki in January), factors that
barely registered among the Arizona respondents who presumably don’t think about Nordic
winters.9 Another research initiative explored the
question of window replacements in “old but
w w w. o a a . o n . c a
3
Porumbaru, Bucharest, Romania
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
Indian Institute of Management, by Louis Kahn,
Ahmedabad, India. PHOTO: Mary Ellen Lynch
4
If buildings are not legible, they confuse
people and tend to be seen as ugly.
We learn to read buildings, much as we learn
a language. This has been explored relative to
other stimuli. Children start by preferring simple
music and games, and, as they develop, come
to prefer greater complexity, becoming bored
continued on page 12
Former Post Office, Canal St. and Church St., NYC
PHOTO: Perspectives
11
O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
with what they once found exciting. Few adults play Snakes and Ladders or tic-tac-toe
unless with a child. The games are either too predictable or completely random—things
that intrigue a four-year-old. Research has shown that the fundamental preferences of
most people tend to have formed by their early twenties and thereafter tend to remain
reasonably stable.12 As with verbal languages, the best learning occurs early in life.
5
Buildings need to be interesting—but not too interesting.
Kaplan (1992)13 proposed four variables—coherence, complexity, legibility and
mystery—that “capture the features” that are predictors of preference, and that these
variables are linked with the process of acquiring and processing knowledge. Uniform
and repetitive features have high coherence, so result in immediate understanding; this
can be contrasted on a continuum with mystery or complexity. However, buildings that
are highly ordered can be boring, and those that are too complex can be seen as chaotic, illegible and meaningless. If the building is too complex, special knowledge may
be necessary to understand it.
CONCLUSIONS
For the past half-century, psychologists have been quantitatively exploring perceptions
and preferences within the built environment, and a considerable amount of interesting
and relevant work is available. Neuroimaging is in its infancy, but techniques continue to
advance, and new insights into how brains respond at a fundamental level are appearing.
It is likely that the scientists will eventually develop a comprehensive understanding of
the relationship between human beings and the built environment, including the universals that are intrinsic to our species, the things that we acquire because of the way
we are brought up, how they relate to each other and, ultimately, how we, as architects,
have to respond.
Could this mean the end of architecture as we know it? The future may embrace a
more evidence-based architecture. The environmental psychologists have long lamented
the limited impact of their findings. Now a second discipline has appeared to offer more
understandings—of a very physical sort. How will architects integrate this flow of findings about the nature of architectural meaning (including ugliness)? Will the marketing
people or the neuroscientists increasingly dominate design?
One might postulate that in the near future architects will remain important, and that
the intent that is to be conveyed through design will remain the architect’s decision, but
there has to be a reasonable expectation that the audience will “get it,” and not end up
perceiving the end product as just plain ugly. Research can help us.
Wren would have approved.
ARCHITECTURE AND
THE
GOLDEN
SECTION
By Christopher D. Green, Ph.D.,
York University
The golden section is a numerical expression
that is often said to be the foundation of visual
beauty. It is commonly claimed that objects
incorporating the golden section into their
proportions, such as the façade of a building,
are more beautiful than those bearing other
proportions. What is the golden section?
.62
.38
Originally, it was just the answer to an
obscure geometrical question: “What division
of a line results in the ratio of the shorter segment to the longer segment being the same as
the ratio of the longer segment to the whole
line?” The answer turns out to be an irrational
number near 0.62… (1±√5)/2, if you want to
be picky. That is, if you divide a line so that the
longer segment is 0.62 and the shorter one is
0.38 (1–0.62), the ratio of the shorter to the
longer (0.38/0.62) will also equal 0.62, and the
ratio of the longer to the whole (0.62/1) will,
obviously, be 0.62 as well.
Part of the fascination with the “golden
section” (or “golden ratio,” or “golden number”) is that it seems to pop up in all kinds of
unexpected places. For instance, if you draw
two diagonals inside a regular pentagon,
they will naturally divide each other into the
golden section. Further, if you divide a line
Ian Ellingham is a member of the Cambridge Architectural Research Group in Cambridge, UK and Chair
of the Perspective Editorial Committee.
NOTES n 1. Soo, L.M. (1998). Wren’s ‘Tracts’ on Architecture and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
p. 127. n 2. Hershberger, Robert (1969) A study of Meaning in Architecture pp.86–100 in Sanoff, Henry and Cohn,
Sidney (eds.) EDRA 1: Proceedings of the 1st Annual Environmental Design Research Association Conference. n 3. It can
be found at: http://edra.org/sites/default/files/publications/EDRA01-Hershberger-86-100_0.pdf n 4. Kuhn, Simone and
Gallinat, Jurgen (2012) The neural correlates of subjective pleasantness, NeuroImage, Vol.61, pp.289-294. n 5. Jacobsen,
Thomas; Schubotz, Ricarda I; Hofel, Lea; and V. Cramon, D. Yves (2006) Brain correlates of aesthetic judgment of beauty,
NeuroImage, Vol.29, pp.276–285. n 6. Levitin, Daniel (2006) This is Your Brain on Music, New York: Plume-Penguin. P.
24 n 7. One potential article that stimulated a great debate amongst the OAA Perspectives Editorial Committee dealt
with the Marilyn buildings in Mississauga. That article has not appeared (yet). n 8. Research referenced in: Senior, Carl
(2003) Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder, Neuron, Vol.38, pp.525–528. n 9. Bechtel, R.B., and Korpela K..M. (1995).
Most Happy and Most Depressing Places: A Finnish-U.S. Comparison. In Nasar, J.L., Grannis P., and Hanyu K. (Eds.), EDRA
26 Conference 1995, Oklahoma City, pp.80–86. n 10. Fawcett, William. and Ellingham, Ian (2007) The Modern and the
Perceptions of the Wider Populace, p.55–66 in Algie, Susan, and Ashby, James (eds) Conserving the Modern in Canada:
Buildings, ensembles and sites: 1945–2005. Winnipeg Architecture Foundation. Paper presented at the “Conserving the
Modern in Canada” conference at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, 6–8 May, 2005. n 11. Some of the results
were published as: Fawcett, William; Ellingham, Ian; and Platt, Stephen (2008) Reconciling the Architectural Preferences
of Architects and the Public: The Ordered Preference Model, Environment and Behavior, Vol.40, No. 5. n 12. Schultz
D.P. and Schultz, S.E. (2000) A History of Modern Psychology, Fort Worth: Harcourt, Brace. p.174 n 13. S. Kaplan. (1992)
Environmental preference in a knowledge seeking knowledge using organism. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby
(Eds.) The adaptive mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 535–552.
12
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
.62
.38
into the golden section, and then “fold” the
shorter segment upwards to vertical, and build
a rectangle on that L-shaped base, you will get
a figure called the golden rectangle. If you divide a square off that rectangle, the remaining
figure will be another, smaller golden rectangle,
though in the vertical orientation.
.38
.62
The early 20th-century architect Le Corbusier
thought that the human body is naturally divided into the golden section (if you take the
navel as the dividing point) and this became the
basis of his “Modulor” architectural system. He
believed that he was following in the tradition
of Leonardo Da Vinci who, among his many
great achievements, had illustrated a 1509
book about artistic proportion that was authored by a Renaissance mathematician named
Luca Pacioli. The book was called De Divina
Proportione (Concerning the Divine Proportion)
and its thrust was to promote the use of (what
would only later be called) the golden section
in art. As if he were following Pacioli’s advice,
Leonardo’s famous drawing of the “Vitruvian
Man” appears to be filled with examples of the
golden rectangle, though Leonardo did not
comment on the matter explicitly.
The Renaissance
was, of course, a time
when it was common
to draw on Ancient
Greek and Roman
sources, as well as to dubiously attribute
contemporary ideas to the towering figures of
Classical civilization. Thus began a tradition that
continues on to the present day, of claiming
that the Ancients explicitly incorporated the
golden section into their artworks and into
the designs of their buildings. For instance, it
is frequently said that Pheidias designed the
façade of the Parthenon to the proportions of
the golden rectangle. In the early 20th century,
some especially enthusiastic promoters of the
golden section tried to memorialize this presumed fact by renaming the golden section “o| ”
(phi), after the initial Greek letter of Pheidias’s
name. Some have “found” the golden section
in the designs of Grecian urns. It has even been
claimed that the Ancient Egyptians incorporated the golden section into the design for the
Great Pyramid of Giza.
There is no historical evidence for any of
these claims, though. It is true that Ancient
Greek mathematicians such as Euclid knew
about the golden section (though they called it
the “mean and extreme ratio”), but their interest
w w w. o a a . o n . c a
in it seems to have grown primarily from their
consuming fascination with the problem of
irrational numbers generally (the length of the
hypotenuse, squaring the circle, etc.). There is
nothing in the archival record, however, to
support the notion that the Ancient Greeks,
or any Ancient peoples, connected the golden
section to art or visual beauty. That idea seems
to have been an invention of Renaissance artists
themselves, though to give it extra intellectual
“heft” they often re-imagined it as the legacy
of their Ancient forebears.
After the Renaissance, the connection
between the golden section and art (and the
idea that it might be related to the “ideal” human
body) percolated along, popping up here and
there. But it wasn’t until the 19th century that
the idea really took off. The term “golden section”
(the German goldener Schnitt, more precisely)
was first used in 1835, in the second edition of
a mathematics textbook by Martin Ohm (brother
to the famed electricity researcher, George Ohm).
And then, in the middle of the 19th century, an
author named Adolf Zeising elevated the golden
section to nothing short of cosmic proportions
by declaring it to be:
The universal law in which is contained the
ground-principle of all formative striving for
beauty and completeness in the realms of
both nature and art, and which permeates,
as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures,
forms and proportions, whether cosmic or
individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or
optical; which finds its fullest realization,
however, in the human form.
The appeal of this grand idea was strong in
the era of German Romanticism and Idealism.
It was picked up not only by artists and mathematicians, but also by scientists—particularly
by the men who were, at that very moment
in time, labouring to convert the discipline of
psychology into an experimental science.
Aesthetics was an important strand of psychology in those days and, although the new
psychological laboratories could not do much
to illuminate Zeising’s more exotic claims, they
could explore the narrower question of whether
the golden section was the hidden source of
visual beauty. Some of the earliest and most
influential research on that question was conducted by a Leipzig physicist named Gustav
Fechner. His results indicated that people did
prefer the golden rectangle to other rectangles.
But the evidence afterwards was inconsistent,
and it remains inconsistent to this very day.
“Arbitrary design is ugly.”
“A building design of arbitrary forms and elements in which its architectural purpose and
meaning cannot be understood is ugly.”
— Fernando Lima, B.Arch., OAA
If one simply presents people with a large
number of rectangles and asks directly which
one they prefer, most tend toward simple
ratios, like the square or the rectangle with 2:1
proportions. However, if one goes through a
less abrupt, more gradual procedure, allowing
the aesthetic sensibilities time to come forward, a preference for rectangles around the
golden sometimes re-appears. For instance, in
one such procedure, people are shown more
than a dozen rectangles and asked not which
one they like best but, rather, just to divide
them into two equal groups: those that they
like more, and those that they like less. The
less-liked ones are discarded, and then each
person is asked to divide the rectangles they
liked more into two equal groups: those that
they especially like, and those that are not
especially liked. The procedure continues in
this manner until the person is brought to
select a single rectangle from the final two
as the most liked rectangle. Here, the golden
section regularly re-emerges as the favourite.
But this outcome is not wholly consistent.
It comes and goes—not regular enough to
command assent, but not so infrequently as
to be definitively refuted.
So it seems that if there is an underlying
preference for objects involving the golden
section, it is a weak one that is easily overcome
by other competing factors. There are many
other properties, both obvious and subtle,
that compete for our aesthetic attention. The
golden section may be among these, but if it
is, it remains elusive and tantalizing. And that,
more than the size of its alleged impact, may
be the most fascinating thing about it.
Christopher Green is a Professor of Psychology at
York University and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. His research interests include
History of American experimental psychology (ca.
1880–1930); Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and his
Analytical Engine; Research methods and statistics;
and Development and delivery of electronic research
and educational materials. He is the author of many
articles and has co-authored three books, the most
recent of which is Psychology gets into the game: A
prehistory of sport psychology. Lincoln, NB: University
of Nebraska Press, 2009. [email protected]
13
O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
THOUGHTLESS
WORDS CAN
WOUND
1
By Gordon S. Grice OAA, FRAIC
If our goal is not to define beauty, but to try
to discover why ideas of beauty and ugliness
so frequently vary between our profession and
the public we serve, there are many ways to
examine the impasse. One glaring problem—the
one I would like to consider here—is the part
played by diction: the choice of words that
we—architects and non-architects— use when
we talk about buildings.
Architecture flourishes in a climate of thoughtful discussion. When architects discuss buildings,
they prefer to use words that reflect thoughtfulness rather than raw emotion—the cerebral
rather than the visceral. But while we architects
are busy developing our design skills and
refining our vocabularies, removed from polite
society, behind the walls of drawing studios,
design labs and libraries, non-architects are
pursuing a healthy outdoor lifestyle, observing
and responding to what surrounds them. They
rarely feel any need to develop architectural
vocabularies beyond their immediate response to
the built environment: either they like it or they
don’t. No special vocabulary is needed, since for
them, architecture occupies no unique category.
The same words suffice for people, landscapes,
clothing, paintings and buildings. At one end of
the scale, there is brilliant, awesome, spectacular
(words that indicate unthinking attraction). At
the other end, are hideous, revolting, grotesque,
offensive, disturbing and just plain ugly (words
that indicate repulsion). There are few circumstances in which people feel the need to use
words that are constructive and might lead to
thoughtful changes in the built environment.
One of the most frequently disparaged buildings in recent Ontario history is Toronto’s Michael
“Last week, for the first time in months, my work
responsibilities took me to Bloor St. I walked
along, aghast at the ugly, cheap-looking monstrosity that is the new Royal Ontario Museum.”
— Nicholas Mawer, Toronto, May 5, 2007
www.thestar.com/article/210627
Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum.
The media have been unrelenting in their criticism of the building. Voting it “worst of the
decade,” Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post
(“Best of the decade: Architecture,” December
27, 2009) adds, “Daniel Libeskind’s addition to
the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses
the ugliness of bland functional buildings by
being both ugly and useless.” 2 The website
virtualtourist.com placed the Crystal in the
number eight spot in its annual “World’s Top
10 Ugly Buildings” poll.3
For the most part, the comments come from
the general public, where an uncompromising
vocabulary of disapproval can be expected.
To one observer, it represents an “ugly, cheaplooking monstrosity,” to another, a “new visually
ugly Dagger to the Heart of an old Lady.” 4 But
even columnists, with thesauruses presumably
at the ready, chimed in with “it’s ugly as sin.” 5
It was the verbal mastery of award-winning
(and frequently controversial) columnist Heather
Mallick that coined the phrase that attached
itself to the structure like a barnacle, even before
it was built: “crystal excrescence.” 6
Our traditional architectural education has
taught us, sometimes harshly, that an unconsidered or ill-considered decision will not result
in either good architecture or passing grades.
We architects have developed an elaborate
vocabulary to describe our thoughts, so that
our classmates, instructors and professional
colleagues will understand precisely what we
mean. But without the benefit of this education,
the general public often has no idea what we’re
talking about. “A fecund terrain of engagement”?
“An implied narrative”? The word “fecund”
doesn’t even sound nice. For further obfuscations like this, I urge you to consult Barbara
Ross’s chart “You Architects Talk Funny” and Bill
Birdsell’s parody “The Public RFP Opening,” both
in Perspectives, Winter 2010.7
Jargon is a perfectly appropriate way to
communicate within the profession, but beyond
professional boundaries, it is counterproductive:
not only do non-professionals not understand
the language, they also mistrust it and the
motives behind it. They are compelled to ask
themselves: What important information is
being obscured?
But the danger in using architectural language goes slightly further than merely excluding the public from architectural discussion. It
also sometimes reveals that the very process of
design can be alienating. Take as an example
a building profile that appeared in an on-line
architectural journal.8 In this profile, a building was described as “a vibrant typological
experiment, transforming the intellectual/social
agitator.” The words were intended to point out
the building’s virtues. But without even making
judgments about the building, it’s not difficult
to see where “a vibrant typological experiment”
might put some people off. The building’s lack
of popular appeal is evident in the terms used
by observers to describe it. In fact, the building
has attracted a number of uncomplimentary
comments: “a monstrosity,” 9 “an affront,” 10 a
“wretched building” 11 and, from an architectural critic, who has an immense architectural
vocabulary at her immediate disposal, “an
eyesore.” 12 These terms are emotional, not
thoughtful, words that curtail any appreciation
of the building’s many merits. Fanciful jargon
lies possibly at the root of why architects can
sometimes convince themselves, in an attempt
to cajole others, that what they are producing
is just fine, when in the minds of many people,
it really isn’t.
The real puzzle is not why some buildings are
so “ugly,” but why the word is used at all. There
are much more precise, more productive, more
descriptive words to describe architecture—
words that, even if uncomplimentary, may lead
to discussion and understanding. “Thoughtless
words can wound as deeply as any sword, but”
just as surely, “wisely spoken words can heal.” 13
In the ongoing word-war over the built environment, the battle lines are clearly drawn: words
describing intuitive responses versus words of
imagination, intention and possibility. In this
battle, the victory goes to both sides or neither.
NOTES n 1. Proverbs 12:18 the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. n 2. Philip Kennicott, “Best of the decade: Architecture,” Washington Post
December 27, 2009) n 3. Response, Perspectives, Spring 2010. n 4. http://www.thestar.com/article/210627, May 5, 2007; retrieved 27 June, 2012 n 5. Joey Springer, “It’s okay to think it’s
ugly,” Toronto Star, May 3 2007; retrieved 27 June, 2012 n 6. Heather Mallick, “The unbearable pain of Lilbeskind’s glass shards”, Globe and Mail, March 2, 2002; retrieved 27 June, 2012
n 7. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/OAAQ0410/#/20 n 8. www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11178 n 9. “An architectural
tradition” by David Kechnie Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004, page A24. n 10. Peterborough Examiner article “Design flaw - buildings are an affront to architectural achievement”
Apr. 12, 2004 n 11. “An architectural tradition, by Denis Smith Globe and Mail - Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 page A24) http://z-ourtrent.ken-brown.ca/news/archives/2004/12/many_agree_with.
shtml n 12. Lisa Rochon reflects upon the structures that seduced, excited and angered in 2004. Globe and Mail, Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004 - Page R3 n 13. American Bible Society, op. cit. [253]
14
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
PERSON-CENTRIC
A
APPROACH TO BUILDING AESTHETICS
Lily Bernheimer, B.A., Sarah Hewitt, B.A. and Clara Weber, Dipl.-Ing.
Introduction
Reasoned discussion about the beauty
and ugliness of buildings has not gotten us very
far. A major reason for this is that the traditional
approach has attempted to identify elements of
the buildings themselves that contribute to an
overall impression of ugliness or beauty—an
approach we refer to as “building-centric.” As
an example of such a study, Gifford et al.,1 using
images of office buildings, could not find even
one out of 59 specific building features that
would explain lay people’s visual preference. We
propose that a radically different stance must be
adopted to understand building aesthetics: a
“person-centric” approach, looking at the relationships between buildings and people, architects
and users, and broader social influences. Rather
than focusing on the static idea of a building’s
impact on the viewer, we reframe the question
to examine the flows of influence that lead to
aesthetic judgement and experience. We bring
viewpoints from three different backgrounds
to this discussion—architecture, sociology, and
urban planning advocacy—to explore a personcentric approach to building aesthetics.
The “Ongoing Reality
of Building Use”2
While environmental psychology has often been
studied from an assumption of environmental
determinism (i.e., behaviour being largely determined by physical environment), the transactional
approach looks at the relationship between
people and environments as a dynamic and
reciprocal exchange. Approaching the question
from a transactional perspective, we might ask
if our perception of buildings as ugly has some
connection to how we act in and around them,
and how this relationship takes shape over time.
Perhaps ugliness can be explained through
what Osmond calls “sociofugal” space: buildings that discourage human interaction by
their very design.3 Studying psychiatric wards,
Osmond found that certain layouts tended to
isolate people and orient them away from one
another.4 Further studies of airports, libraries, and
supermarkets revealed that long aisles and large
areas lacking definition reduced communication
and increased alienation.5 Sociofugal buildings
are characterized as cold, institutional, not easily
adapted or personalized and disassociated from
their surroundings.6
w w w. o a a . o n . c a
Sommer extended Osmond’s theory to apply
to material as well as form, coining the term
“hard architecture” to describe buildings created
to be “strong and resistant to human imprint.” 7
Trying to enhance security and prevent vandalism, institutions have mimicked prisons in using
non-absorbent surfaces, fixed furniture, and
minimum permeability—often letting in little
natural light. Hard architecture discourages
interaction not just between people, but also
between people and the buildings themselves.
These theories—which help us understand
the psychological underpinning and impact
of such structures—are complemented by
Alexander’s explanation of “large lump development.” 8 Alexander explains what he perceives
as the overwhelming ugliness of the modern
built environment as a problem with the scale
and pace of building. Much of our world is now
created quickly and in large swathes. This violates
a principle he considers to be key to the beauty
and success of many older environments: the
process of “piecemeal growth.” As he explains:
Eastern Avenue, Toronto
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
Any living system must repair itself constantly
in order to maintain its balance …. All the
good environments that we know have this
in common. They are whole and alive because
they have grown slowly over long periods of
time, piece by piece.9
Many studies have indeed suggested that the
general public prefers older buildings to newer
ones when the effect of building maintenance
is controlled.10
But Alexander and others argue that the problem is the focus on the building as product—the
perfect new building. As Duffy points out, even
the language of architecture defines the work in
terms of the process of building rather than the
“ongoing reality of building use.” 11 In Alexander’s
theory, this mindset (and the economics behind
it) creates ugly buildings by encouraging replacement rather than repair and improvement. The
core structure of a building is now assumed
to last only 50 years in the UK, 35 in the US.12
Developers are said to expect their buildings to
“ugly out” after 15 years.13 Like last season’s high
heels, many buildings quickly look dated (and
fall apart). Like many other products, buildings
are now planned for obsolescence.
continued on page 18
Ha-yarkon St., Tel Aviv, Israel
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
Waldspirale Darmstadt/ 27.06.2008/ Darmstadt,
Germany Original 2900x2087. PHOTO: ©Armin
Kübelbeck Creative Commons
A house in Hillsborough, California
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
15
O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
No building is ever created perfect—the most
adored have usually been improved over time
with modifications made possible only through
use. But as Brand has observed, only some do
improve: “age plus adaptivity” is the key.14 Hard
architecture and lump development create
structures that are not built to age gracefully,
or able to grow. If developers continue to take
a building-centric approach and ignore the
potential for user adaptation, we will continue
to see ugly buildings.
Managing the Perceptual
Divide between Architects
and the Lay Public
We now turn our attention to a consideration
that may be the most fundamental in the
creation of “ugly buildings,” by shifting our
focus from the relationship between buildings
and their users, to the relationship between
architects and laypeople, to consider the perceptual rather than interactional dimension of
the person-centric approach. The denotation
of an “ugly building” might express a nonprofessional‘s disappointment in the difference
between architects‘ perspectives and their own.
This refers, for example, to reactions towards
Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation in Marseille,
France; Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada by Moshe
Safdie; and perhaps to the recent Royal Ontario
Museum addition, which has appeared on a few
“Ugliest Building in the World” lists. Whereas
the difficulty in communicating between two
“worlds” of expertise is a problem,15 at the
same time communication carries the solution
to bridge the gap of mutual understanding.16
The systematic differences in the perception
of built environment between architectural
experts and the lay public is a well documented
phenomenon, but explanations for this difference are rather varied. There is evidence that
a central aspect of differences in perception
lies in the background of experiences gained
through many years of architectural education,
professional experience and its socialization,
which leads to a difference in the cognitive
state.17 This state of mind develops a frame
of reference and leads architects to identify
connections to current, historical, or technical
contexts—to see a building as result of a
design and building process. As the lay public
does not wear these “knowledge goggles,”
they tend not to have this capability and see
a building as a surface of hypothetical use.18
Several studies have supported the existence
of “image banks” 19—a mental database of
buildings. For architects, these banks include
a wide range of past, international and future
architectural projects stored under various
categories20 and are more developed than the
lay public’s image banks, which refer mainly to
their “housing biography.” 21 There is evidence
that the handling of deviation from these object
schemata varies as non-experts tend to prefer
buildings which are similar to their norm and
experiences, whereas experts prefer innovation
and the unusual. This preference for innovation
is significantly linked to a professional need to
participate in cultural development.22 Also a
difference in the dimensions of the connotative
meaning of architecture is evident.23 As recently
shown by Benz & Rambow, the monolithic
sculptural quality of architecture described by
architects as “clear“ and “honest” is perceived
by non-professionals as “naked” and “unfinished”
“heavy block” architecture.
The qualitative difference in perception
between professionals and non-professionals
comes by definition and is natural, but the
difference itself is not the actual problem.24
That distinction belongs to architectural communication. In order to understand how these
perceptions differ, communications must be
reformed, to enhance the understanding of
the public’s needs and preferences, and to
raise understanding of architecture and its
quality.25 Four crucial aspects generate a barrier
to effective communication:26
1
2
Professionals often view architecture as
self-explanatory.
Many architects appear to hold the opinion
that it is impossible to express architectural
quality linguistically.
3
There is a lack of willingness to communicate
beyond professional borders, which includes
adjustments to terminology, as is the case in
many professions.
4
Architects forget or fail to recognize that the
public perceives and understands architecture differently and, lacking the willingness or
ability to articulate these differences, misleadingly label non-professionals as philistines who
are unable to recognize a building’s value.
At present, the profession appears to expend
too little effort in trying to understand nonprofessionals’ lack of awareness of current
architectural thinking and “translating” this
important information for them. Even though
architectural quality is not easy to express and
to explain, an effort should certainly be made to
raise the public’s understanding and valuation of
architecture.27 This current lack of communication and understanding between architects and
laypeople has resulted in a fundamentally ugly
discourse on architecture, and we arguably need
to change the discourse before we can change
the architectural results.
Subjective Aesthetics and
the Context of Taste
Drawing the lens back from this specific divide
in perception, we now consider the relationship
between individual aesthetic judgements and
the social context. When considering the various qualities of a building, some aspects lend
themselves well to objective critique, such as, for
example, the quality of the workmanship, where
judgements may be made on more factual
NOTES n 1.Gifford, R., Hine, D. W., Muller-Clemm, W., Reynolds, D. J., Shaw, J., & Shaw, K. T. (2000). Decoding modern architecture: A lens model approach for understanding the aesthetic
differences of architects and laypersons. Environment and Behavior, 32(2), 163–187. n 2. Duffy, F. Measuring building performance. Facilities, 8(5), 17–20. n 3. Osmond, H. (1957). Function
as the basis of psychiatric ward design. Mental Hospitals, April, 23-29. n 4. Sommer, R. (1967). Sociofugal space. American Journal of Sociology, 72(6), 654–660. n 5. Sommer (1967); Sommer,
R. (1974). Tight spaces: Hard architecture and how to humanize it. Englewood Cliffs; London: Prentice-Hall.; Sommer, R. (1983). Social design: Creating buildings with people in mind. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. n 6. Sommer (1983) n 7. Sommer (1974). p. 2 n 8. Alexander, C., Silverstein, M., Angel, S., Ishikawa, S., & Abrams, D. (1975). The Oregon experiment. New York: Oxford
University Press. p.84 n 9. Alexander (1975). p. 67–68 n 10. Herzog, T. R., & Shier, R. L. (2000). Complexity, age, and building preference. Environment and Behavior, 32(4), 557–575.; Frewald,
D. B. (1989). Preferences for older buildings: A psychological approach to architectural design. Unpublished manuscript. n 11. Duffy (1990). p. 17 n 12. Brand, S. (2007). Shearing layers. In M.
Carmona and S. Tiesdell. (Ed.), Urban design reader (pp. 302–306). Oxford: Architectural Press. n 13. Garreau, J. (1991). Edge city: Life on the new frontier. New York: Doubleday. n 14. Brand
(2007). p. 306 n 15. Benz, I. & Rambow, R. (2011). Sichtbeton in der Architektur: Perspektivenunterschiede zwischen Experten und Laien. Umweltpsychologie, 15(1), 112-129; Rambow, R.
(2000a). Experten-Laien-Kommunikation in der Architektur. Münster: Waxmann; Rambow, R. (2000b). Das Auge des Architekten. Der Architekt (BDA Regional Nordrhein-Westfalen), 1–4; Uzzell,
D.L. & Jones, E. (2000). The development of a process-based methodology for assessing the visual impact of buildings. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 17(4), 330–343. n 16.
Benz & Rambow (2011); Rambow (2000a); Rambow (2000b) n 17. Benz & Rambow (2011); Hershberger, R. G. (1988). A study of meaning and architecture. In J. L. Nasar (Ed.), Environmental
aesthetics: Theory, research, and application (pp. 175–194). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Canter, D., Sanchez-Robles, J. C. & Watts, N. (1974). A scale for cross-cultural evaluation of
houses. In D. Canter & T. Lee (Eds.), Psychology and the built environment (pp. 80–86). London: Architectural Press; Wilson, M. & Canter, D. V. (1991). The development of central concepts during
professional education: An example of a multivariate model of the concept of architectural style. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 32, 159–172; Wilson, M. (1996). The socialization
18
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
evidence, such as leaking roofs or well ventilated
rooms. However, aesthetic qualities pose more
of a problem, as “there is little objective data
about what makes a good-looking building.” 28
To say a building is ugly is an expression of
a personal view that an individual’s aesthetic
code has been violated. Aesthetic judgements
are therefore inextricably linked to education,
religion, exposure to and knowledge of the arts
and social class.29, 30, 31 As such, when considering
comments on a building’s unattractiveness, it
is important to consider who is making such
comments.
Aesthetic evaluations are bound up in social
norms as well as personal ones. Notions of
beauty and ugliness are culturally specific, and
different communities will have different normative views of aesthetics. Moreover, as countries
have industrialized, and consumption and
individuality have become great driving forces
of production, the very nature of society has
changed. The pluralism of western society means
that there is no longer one almost-objective
view of beauty, but many competing and often
opposite views. As Mann argues, “no one group
can claim to have ‘better’ tastes than any other
group” 32 In the light of this, perhaps we should
not be asking why some buildings are so ugly,
but looking instead at how and why different
groups see the same building in opposing terms.
Our concept of beauty itself has also changed
over time, and not simply as it applies to architecture. What is considered to be beautiful and
ugly, whether in relation to the female form, a
piece of music, or a building, differs from one
era to the next. Brutalist buildings of the 1950s,
for example, were greatly admired when they
were first built, since they demonstrated the
uncompromising use of concrete, conveyed
values of honesty and integrity and marked
a clear shift away from bourgeois society and
culture toward a more promising socialist future.
Now, buildings such as the Robin Hood Gardens
in London are commonly described as ugly, as
not only has the concrete weathered poorly,
but, ultimately, the values built into the fabric
of the buildings are no longer at the heart of
society. As “buildings speak … of democracy or
aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or
threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering
for the past,” 33 any consideration of architectural
aesthetics needs to be understood with temporal
context in mind.
Aesthetic judgements are not separate from
personal and social values, nor from the time of
production and consumption, and this makes
it difficult to conclude why some buildings
are so ugly.
Topping Out
Whereas the traditional approach to understanding building aesthetics has worked from the
building outwards, we have proposed a new
approach working from the person outwards.
We have considered the relationship of person
and building, person and architect, and person
and society. We have to take a more humanoriented approach to aesthetic evaluations in
order to understand the concept of ugliness,
and ultimately, to build more beautiful buildings.
To do this, a person-centric approach advocates
that buildings are designed with user behaviour
and adaptation in mind; that the communication
gap between architects and lay people must
be bridged; and that any aesthetic judgements
are understood within personal, cultural, and
social contexts.
The authors are part of the Environmental Psychology
Research Group at the University of Surrey, UK. Contact:
Birgitta Gatersleben, [email protected]
Lily Bernheimer holds a BA from Brown University
and is an MSc candidate in Environmental Psychology
at the University of Surrey. Her thesis research on barriers to change for transit-oriented development was
selected for presentation at this year’s International
Association of People-Environment Studies Congress.
“Design solely from a bird’s eye perspective
creates ugly buildings.”
“Ugly buildings result from a lack of care
for people.”
— Eranga De Zoysa, B.Arch., Sci.
In 2011 she co-directed and produced a documentary about public space, Open to the Public?, with
Paper Tiger TV. She has also worked at the Gotham
Center for New York City History and OpenPlans, a
tech non-profit working for sustainable city design
through open-source development and new media.
[email protected]
Sarah Hewitt graduated in 2010 with First Class
Honours in Sociology from Manchester Metropolitan University, where she was awarded the Prize for Outstanding
Achievement for her dissertation on social and architectural utopian visions. She has worked for the Commission
for Architecture and the Built Environment in London
and an architect’s practice in Cambridge, and is currently
studying for an MSc in Environmental Psychology at the
University of Surrey. She is a member of International
Association for People-Environment Studies, the Buildings and Social Science Network, and the Environmental
Psychology Research Group at the University of Surrey.
[email protected]
Dipl.-Ing. Clara Franziska Maria Weber, graduated 2011 with distinction in Architecture (Dipl.-Ing. is the
equivalent to MSc). She studied at the Technical University Berlin, Germany and at the IUAV Venice, Italy. Her
dissertation, a Post-Occupancy Evaluation of the Unite
d’habitation Berlin was recently published with Ibidem,
Stuttgart. After her architecture studies she worked at
the Office Innovation Center of the Fraunhofer Institute,
Stuttgart – Europe’s biggest applied science institute.
There she worked on the project >>FutureHotel<< and
is co-author of the accompanying publication. Currently
she is studying Environmental Psychology as a second
masters degree and is part of the Environmental Psychology Research Group at the University of Surrey, UK.
[email protected]
of architectural preferences. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 33–44. n 18. Benz & Rambow (2011) n 19. Downing, F. (1992). Image banks. Dialogues between the past and the future.
Environment and Behavior, 24, 441–470. n 20. Rambow (2000b) n 21. Downing, F. (1992); Stamps, A.E. & Nasar, J.L. (1997). Design review and public preferences: Effects of geographical location, public consensus, sensation seeking, and architectural styles. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 17 (1), 11–32.; Uzzell & Jones (2000) n 22. Devlin, K. & Nasar, J. L. (1989). The beauty
and the beast: Some preliminary comparisons of “high“ versus “popular“ residential architecture and public versus architect judgements of the same. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 9,
333–344; Purcell, A. T. (1986). Environmental perception and affect: A schema discrepancy model. Environment and Behavior, 18, 3–30; Purcell, A. T. & Nasar, J. L. (1992). Experiencing other
people’s houses: A model of similarities and differences in environmental experience. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 12, 199–211; Stamps & Nasar (1997); Uzzell & Jones (2000) n 23.
Canter, D. (1969). An intergroup comparison of connotative dimensions in architecture. Environment and Behavior, 1, 37-48; Hershberger (1988); Nasar, J. L. (1989). Symbolic meanings of
house styles. Environment and Behavior, 21, 235–257; Sadalla, E. K. & Sheets, V. L. (1993). Symbolism in building materials: Self-presentational and cognitive components. Environment and
Behavior, 25, 155–180; Uzzell & Jones (2000) n 24. Rambow (2000a) n 25. Benz & Rambow (2011); Nasar, J. L. (1993). Connotative meaning of house styles. In G. Arias (ed.), The Meaning
and Use of Housing: Ethnoscapes (bol.7) (pp. 143–167). Avebury: Gower; Rambow (2000a); Rambow (2000b) n 26. Benz & Rambow (2011); Rambow (2000a); Rambow (2000b); Uzzell & Jones
(2000) n 27. See President’s Message, p. 6 n 28. Fawcett, W., Ellingham, I., & Platt, S. (2008). Reconciling the Architectural Preferences of Architects and the Public: The Ordered Preference
Model. Environment and Behaviour. 40 (5), 599. n 29. Adorno, T. (1984). Aesthetic Theory. London: RKP. n 30. Toffler, A. (1973). The Cultural Consumers. New York: Vintage. n 31. Bourdieu,
P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. n 32. Mann, D. A. (1979). Architecture, Aesthetics, and Pluralism: Theories of Taste as a Determinant for
Architectural Standards. Studies in Art Education. 20(3),15. n 33. De Botton, A. (2006). The Architecture of Happiness. London: Penguin.
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O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
FIRMNESS, COMMODITY
AND DELIGHT (OR LACK THEREOF): A Very Brief
History of Architectural Theory Regarding
the Creation of Beauty By Mary Ellen Lynch, oaa
The oldest profession has always had
high demands for success. At first we relied
on Mother Nature for inspiration, but as time
marched on, society began to develop more
intellectual criteria for beauty. In fact, one
might argue that only a genius could succeed
in architecture. The pursuit of beauty has had
its failures over the centuries, but as we can
see from this list of architectural theories, the
quest continues … and continues to evolve.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio,
De Architectura, ca.15BC
The first to describe “well” building as the
incorporation of “firmitas, utilitas et venustas,”
Vitruvius is the author of the first known
treatise on architecture. His near-divine
description of a competent architect was
a man of intelligence and spirit, who not
only theorized, but also practiced, and who
studied and utilized the principles of geometry, history, philosophy, music, medicine, law,
astronomy and art. Practice of his theories,
including manual labour, bring him closer to
“the holy grounds of architecture,” which in
turn act as stepping stones for the common
man to access the gods.
Leon Battista Alberti, De Re Aedificatoria
(On the Art of Building), 1452
A true Renaissance Man, Alberti modeled
his treatise on architecture after Vitruvius. He
emphasized that the architect should work
only for those in society who would appreciate his art. The best architecture is natural,
simple and should not be overly contrived.
Continual practice (exercise) produces results
that garner lavish praise from society, for skills
of the craftsman were more highly prized than
the wealth of a prince. But if an architect fails
in his work, he experiences the utmost disgrace.
Andrea Palladio, I Quattro Libri
dell’Architettura (The Four Books of
Architecture), 1570
Palladio took cues from the ancients but
pushed them further. Beauty is harmony
and order; like nature, perfect architecture
is in perfect balance—nothing should be
20
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
added or subtracted. He was well known for
his drawings as he developed the mantra of
commodity, firmness and delight in the forms
of Plan, Section and Elevation, respectively.
gardens. Ruskin’s camp fought materialism and
the dishonesty of the machine; they promoted
the virtues of the Gothic Revival style and
the labour of the craftsman.
Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essay on
Architecture, 1753
Laugier found faults in Renaissance architecture
and architects’ use of various elements such as
pilasters. He initiated the idea of the Primitive
Hut using only the necessities. “An architect
overloads his work only because he is not
gifted enough to make it simple.”
Julien Guadet, École Des Beaux Arts, 1894
Look to history not for style but for the principles that could be extracted and utilized
today. He criticized people who criticize
architecture without the knowledge of
constructing a building themselves.
Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Architecture
Considered in Relation to Art, Mores and
Legislation, 1791
Ledoux was accused of being a “terrible”
architect for taking excessive freedoms with
the ancient orders, and was thrown in prison for
providing the French government with facilities
that proved useless. In prison, he wrote that
architects rival the Creator, and by studying
nature they can reach perfection in design;
payment is immorality. Too many commissions
restrain genius in the service of business. Like
the heavenly bodies, though, architecture has
its periods of waxing and waning. The genius’
mind never dies; it just recedes into the inner
regions of the mind as a volcano’s lava recedes
into the core of the earth, always simmering.
Etienne-Louis Boullée, Essay on the Art of
Architecture, ca. 1789, published 1953
A visionary contemporary of Ledoux, Boullée
also believed in the genius and immortality of
the architect, but he believed in working for the
benefit of all of society—a utopian. His maxim
for beauty, “nothing is beautiful if all is not
judicious,” was expressed in pure geometry,
repetition of forms and masterful play of light.
John Ruskin, The Seven lamps of
Architecture, 1849; The Stones of Venice,
1853
In the Victorian era, the Industrial Revolution
was threatening the status quo, and in architectural design one either embraced the new
machines or retreated to the comfort of walled
Louis Sullivan, The Autobiography of an
Idea, 1920
In North America, Sullivan advanced the
development of the skyscraper with extensive
use of steel. “All is function, all is form, but
the fragrance of them is rhythm, the language
of them is rhythm.”
Le Corbusier, Towards An Architecture,
1931
Buildings = Machines for living. “Corb” (he
only needs one name) based his designs on
Vitruvian proportions and mathematics but
used materials such as concrete and glass to
create plasticity. “You employ stone, wood and
concrete, and with these you build houses
and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is
at work. But suddenly you touch my heart,
you do me good… . That is architecture.
Art enters in.”
Moisei Ginzburg, New Methods of
Architectural Thought, 1926
“What is desirable is guided by what is
possible.”
Bernard Tschumi, The Pleasure of
Architecture, 1978
“ … the importance is not the something,
the meaning, or the reality that can never
be reached, but rather the process of
trying to reach it—that gives me pleasure.”
Tschumi’s deconstructivist work has garnered
much criticism, but he enjoys it.
Mary Ellen Lynch is a Toronto architect and regular
contributor to OAA Perspectives.
AESTHETICS IN ART
AND ARCHITECTURE
What is art? Unlike architecture, it has no
utilitarian function to constrain it, so it is purely
aesthetic. It used to be that art represented
truth and beauty, reflecting the culture and
the views of the artist. But since the 1970s
and the growth of Western individualism and
consumerism, the definition of art has changed.
In the postmodern world, art is whatever the
artist can get away with.
The postmodernists believe that there is no
singular truth, no facts, only interpretations.
Reality, whether subjective or objective, is constructed and arbitrary. It rejects beauty in truth.
Beauty is too subjective, entirely fabricated by
culture, and so has no place in art.
Instead, for the postmodern artist, irony
is favoured. To mock and shock is the goal.
Daring to be different at a large scale creates
great impact. The work speaks primarily to our
head, not our heart. The unconventional ideas
are more important than the skill of execution. Mediocrity of the work is not a reason
to reject it as art.
What do you think of Damian Hirst with his
dead sheep in formaldehyde and the wrapping of buildings with fabric by Christo? They
were widely publicized and photographed as
great art.
Architecture also went into the postmodern
period together with art, literature, music,
performing arts, etc. Unlike art, architecture
has two aspects for the architect to consider:
function and aesthetics.
In the modernist era, with the industrial
revolution, truth and beauty prevailed in
architecture where form followed function,
as in nature. There was an implication that if
function were the focus in the design, then
the resulting form would automatically be fine,
By Yimlei Yep, B Arch., M.B.A.
even beautiful. So there was little worry about
the aesthetic value if the building fulfilled its
function well.
Since many mediocre, functional buildings
were created from the inside out, we know now
that usefulness has nothing to do with beauty.
In the 1970s, there was a desire for change.
The austere aesthetics of modern architecture
where “less is more” became “less is a bore.”
Postmodern art influenced postmodern architecture. The shock of the new and incongruous,
daring forms eventually became the norm for
buildings, especially new art museums.
These buildings from “starchitects” are more
art than architecture, in my opinion. The function is only secondary to the sculptural form.
Like pure sculpture, it is unconcerned with the
context or environment in which it sits. These
buildings can be cloned (as in limited editions)
and placed in other cities without regard to the
specifics of the site.
So what makes a building or an artwork
ugly or beautiful to me? I am hoping that in
the next phase (post postmodern), aesthetic
beauty will go back to being a reflection of
culture and being subjective based on what
the artist intends, and what the viewer perceives.
Architects have the challenge of being creative and building beautifully designed places
that have context for ordinary people to live,
work and play.
Molly Yimlei Yep is a Canadian who trained originally
as an architect at McGill. While living in England, she
studied ceramics full-time. She is now a fine artist in
porcelain and painting, working in both eastern and
western styles in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She also teaches
architectural drawing by hand at the Willowbank
School of Restoration Arts in nearby Queenston.
“In 1984, I said . . . that the proposed extension to the
Gallery was like a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of
a much-loved and elegant friend.’ “
— Charles, Prince of Wales,
A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture
(London: Doubleday, 1989), p. 7
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Andre and Bella Meyer Hall of Physics,
Broadway, NYC. PHOTO: Perspectives
Capitol Complex, Le Corbusier, Chandigarh, India
PHOTO: Mary Ellen Lynch
Hundertwasser Haus Vienna/14.07.2010/
Vienna, Austria. Original 4320 x 3240
PHOTO: ©Sarah Ackerman Creative Commons
Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills, California
PHOTO: Lucian Nan
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O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
INTERNATIONAL
Ugliness Abroad
Southwyck House
Brixton, UK
This futuristic fortress was, in fact, built as a living place; it
is a council estate in Brixton, London. The narrow windows
seem almost an afterthought, like the air holes poked in
a cardboard box for a captured lizard. They look like little
natural light is let in. The strange contrast of the form
and material of the center section give off a distinctly
institutional feeling. If shopping malls had watchtowers
they might look like this. And the entrances are raised
up disconnecting the building from the street around it.
Typical of hard architecture, this building seems designed
as a defensive structure, cold and inadaptable to its surroundings and inhabitants. — Lily Bernheimer
Southwyck House
PHOTO: Lily Bernheimer
Sussex Heights
PHOTO: ©Idleformat
Creative Commons
Sussex Heights,
Brighton, UK
Sussex Heights is a residential tower block on the seafront
in Brighton. It is the tallest residential building in the south
of the country, and its imposing outline can be seen from
most areas of the city. Although Brighton’s seafront is a
mix of architectural styles, in varying degrees of repair,
Sussex Heights, in all its concrete glory, really does stick
out like a sore thumb. The insensitivity of the design of
the block is what makes this building ugly.
— Sarah Hewitt
22
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
Sussex Heights/13.02.2006/Original 1024 x 768
PHOTO: ©Idleformat Creative Commons
16 NIXON ROAD.
BOLTON, ON CANADA L7E 1K3
T. �905� 857�3009 | F. �905� 857�6010
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Gruene Zitadelle/ 20.06.2009/Original 3072 x 2304
PHOTO: ©Michael Fielitz, Creative Commons
Gruene Zitadelle in
Magdeburg, Germany
From my personal point of view, I would rate architecture
by Friedensreich Hundertwasser as unaesthetic, which, in
common parlance would be expressed as “ugly.” This rejection is multifaceted since it is framed on the one hand by
a disagreement with my personal understanding of aesthetics and on the other by an inconsistency of the concept
behind it. Hundertwasser was driven by a need to “invent”
a new form of architecture that would meet human needs
better than former “conservative” architectural solutions.
In his various manifestos (“Verschimmelungsmanifest” or
“moulding manifesto,” 1958, for example) he advocated
more rights for inhabitants to design their house or flat as
they wanted—to give them maximum freedom and maximum
rights. Promoting the importance of personalization is, in
my perspective, an honourable idea, but his designs do
not live up to their promises as they make personalization
rather impossible—he left no room for it. In my view,
his architecture dominates its users, is heavily dictatorial
and not neutral enough to allow a wide range of users
to possess the space. It is unclear, overloaded and highly
sculptural. In my understanding he created art— a house
as sculpture to live in—which I think is a false objective,
since architecture must not be art. It is living space. ❚
— Clara Weber
w w w. o a a . o n . c a
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O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
practice
The Sole Practitioner—Part I
Paul Hastings OAA, MRAIC, LEED AP
Introduction
To many sole practitioners who are operating from a home
office, competition and reduced cashflow is a major problem. How do you compete with larger firms to get on a
consultant list? How do you compete with other designers
in Ontario for smaller, simpler, Part 9 buildings? How do
you qualify for business loans for equipment and software
upgrades? How do you find time to market your firm, get
your work done and still maintain your home base? How do
you find and negotiate with consultants in the disciplines
you require? How do you find answers in 10 minutes to
practice and code questions? In short: how do you survive?
Most sole practitioners have to know everything and
have to do everything, all within the 24-hour day. Most
sole practitioners complete one job and have to go looking
for the next—attract a new client and then negotiate an
accounts receivable settlement with an old one. Oftentimes
this old client is the same one who was happy to meet
with you in the beginning and now has to be chased for
payment, so that the amount owed is being reduced by
the time spent in collecting. There has to be a better way.
Value added by Architects
First of all, architects provide added value to projects,
both quantitatively and qualitatively.
An architect adds value by monitoring the contract and
contractor, ensuring quality workmanship, fair credits and
extras, all of which can be quantified to show value added.
Notwithstanding inspections by the city or municipality,
the contract management and payment certification aspect
is very important and architects share heavily in that
responsibility to protect the client. Certifying proportional
payment for work done properly; ensuring that warranty,
maintenance material and commissioning in “wired-homes”
are completed—it is not only the CAD drawing and heat
loss calculations; it is also the contract and construction
review where an architect adds value to projects.
Many people who have undertaken a project without an
architect live to regret it: having to deal with contractor
24
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
deficiencies, schedule changes and ridiculous extras. But
they are convinced that they now know how to handle those
problems on the next project and are even prepared to offer
advice to others. Unfortunately, as architects well know,
the next project will have a different set of problems. No
matter how many house renovations or additions they do,
the contractor has done many more and an unscrupulous
contractor has many tricks to draw on. After all, it has
been said that construction is a continuous process of
concealment.
Building Classification
The non-requirement for an architect in smaller and less
complicated Part 9 buildings seems to stem from the principle that every citizen should be allowed to build a shelter for him- or herself and immediate family and perhaps a
building in which to conduct a business that will provide
for that family. However, as concerns for safety increase,
an architect is needed to assure that these concerns are
not left to the assumed skill and competence of the citizen/builder, even under the oversight of city building
inspectors.
The larger, more complicated Part 3 buildings—churches,
schools, apartments and hotels, for example—require
licensed architects as part of the design team and a professional seal on construction documents for building permit
submission and approval. In cases such as these, architects
are needed to ensure the safety of occupants and to tend
to the complexities of “Firmness, Commodity and Delight.”
Clients and Architects need each other
Clients need design services and architects provide them.
Clients come in various sizes, ranging from the individual
to multinational corporate conglomerates and governmental agencies. Most larger buildings are in the corporate and governmental domain, where a larger architectural
practice with many architects and designers can provide
the resilience, continuity and resources to satisfy the
client. But the reputation for on-time and on-budget
delivery of these larger firms also allows them to attract
smaller Part 9 buildings, putting them in competition with
sole practitioners.
Because the sole practitioner may have more difficulty
than a larger firm in assuring the client that all deliverables will be met, many available projects, even small
ones, remain beyond the grasp of the sole practitioner.
Furthermore, it only takes one unfortunate event to render
the sole practitioner incapacitated, and the client’s risk
tolerance does not favour such odds when large projects
are at stake. This means that the many single practitioners
in Ontario are faced with their own management issue:
how to serve their client’s needs and their own needs at
the same time.
The next step for the sole
home-based practitioner
Sole practitioners are very well trained, resourceful, generalists—and specialist at the same time. The training for
architecture is a lengthy one—holistic, comprehensive
and intense. Architects have a broad knowledge base that
includes building science, history and aesthetics, as well
as general topics that an architect might encounter, which
includes almost everything. They are creative. They are
able to articulate ideas clearly and represent them graphically. They can build consensus, resolve disputes, conduct
research and feasibility studies and provide expert opinions. Architects are “people persons.”
But in the twenty-first century, the sole practitioner
must have the additional skill of extreme adaptability in
order to remain relevant, competitive and profitable. With
all its attendant liabilities, deliverables, risk management
and marketing challenges, sole practice still presents tremendous opportunities. ❚
Paul Hastings is an architect with a background in engineering, environmental design and LEED. He is the 2012 OAA Vice
President, Regulatory Activities, and a strong proponent of a
consortium business model for Sole Practioners.
581516_GRAPHISOFT.indd 1
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OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
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ACOUSTICAL DISTRIBUTORS
OAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ACOUSTICAL ENGINEERS
HGC Engineering Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Valcoustics Canada Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
ALUMINUM DOORS/WINDOWS/
CURTAIN WALLS
Commdoor Aluminum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
ARCHITECTURAL ACOUSTICS
Valcoustics Canada Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
ARCHITECTURAL GLASS
Fenzi North America Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ARCHITECTURAL WOODWORK
Baywood Interiors Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
BRICK MANUFACTURERS/SUPPLIERS
Arriscraft International . . . . Inside Back Cover
Hanson Brick Canada . . . . . . Inside Front Cover
Thames Valley Brick & Tile . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
BUILDING CODE CONSULTANTS
LMDG Building Code Consultants Ltd. . . . . . . 28
CARPET
Tandus Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
CLAY BRICK & MASONRY
Hanson Brick Canada . . . . . . Inside Front Cover
CLAY PAVING BRICKS
Thames Valley Brick & Tile . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
CODE ENFORCEMENT
Ontario Building Officials Association . . . . . . 29
CONSTRUCTION LAW SERVICES
Aird & Berlis, LLP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Blaney McMurtry LLP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
DESIGNATED SUBSTANCES
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Decommissioning Consulting Services Ltd. . . 23
DOUBLE DOORS & REMOVABLE MULLIONS
Post Latch Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
ELEVATOR/ACCESSIBILITY CONTRACTORS
Motion Specialties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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ELEVATORS
Delta Elevator
Company Ltd. . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover
EXTERIOR STONE DESIGN
StoneSelex Inc. . . . . . . . . . . Outside Back Cover
FLOORING
Tandus Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
FLOORING - INFORMATION RESOURCE
Concrete Flooring
Association . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover
GLASS BLOCK & GLASS FLOOR SYSTEMS
Thames Valley Brick & Tile . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
MODULAR BUILDINGS
NRB Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
NATURAL STONE PRODUCTS
Beaver Valley Stone Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
International Logistics and
Stone Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
NOISE & VIBRATION CONTROL
Valcoustics Canada Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
ORNAMENTAL IRON FENCING
Iron Eagle Industries Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
SOFTWARE - BUILDING
INFORMATION MODEL
GRAPHISOFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
STONE DISTRIBUTION
International Logistics and
Stone Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
TESTING SERVICES (LAB & FIELD)
Can-Best . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
TILES
Olympia Tile International Inc. . . . . . . . 16, 17
WHEELCHAIR LIFTS
Delta Elevator
Company Ltd. . . . . . . . . . Inside Back Cover
WINDOWS
All Weather Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Azon U.S.A., Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
WINDOWS & DOORS
Strassburger Windows and Doors . . . . . . . . . 25
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OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
Fire Protection & Life Safety Solutions
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ontario places
continued f rom page 30.
from Edwin to keep its legacy and history
alive. To me this embodies what is beautiful
in buildings.
When one compares Edwin Pass’s shop
to those adjacent, especially the ones
that have been “renovated,” the contrast
resonates immediately. Although the block
contains a number of buildings built in the
same era, the streetscape reveals modern
materials chosen and applied in a random
fashion including a multitude of veneers,
non-operable shutters and plastic disposable
windows. I can appreciate that these buildings have at least been stabilized and are
not falling into disrepair, but I think that
our communities would be better served
if we took a more considered approach to
these valuable cultural artefacts; our historic
buildings, streetscapes and neighbourhoods.
People relate in a remarkable way to the
aesthetics of a historic window, the summer
sun bouncing off its wavy glass. There is a
vague feeling of loss when the originals are
gone. It is really striking when older windows
have been replaced. It is as if a building has
lost some of its character, its soul.
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These intangible things are all part of the
cultural landscape of a building, and the
loss of them contributes to the “ugliness” of
buildings. We might not look at a building
and think immediately of who made it or
what their relationship to their community
was, but knowing these things contributes
enormously to our ability to perceive the
building and its beauty. The architect and
the builder are personified in the building
as long as the mark of their work is there.
Once it is gone, some of the beauty of the
building is lost.
I liken this to how one relates to music.
The joy of movement and change that make
up our experience of music derives from
both the immediate past and the present
being held in the mind together. There is an
anticipation of what notes will come next,
based on our memories and experiences,
and that influences how we experience
the music.
Julian Smith, Executive Director of
Willowbank School of Restoration Arts
remarked, “the reading of the cultural
landscape requires being inside the cultural
imagination. The closer you are to a community, the more likely you are to understand
the cultural landscape. A physical landscape
can be observed, whereas a cultural landscape
has to be experienced.”
Heritage conservation projects are not
necessarily all or nothing, or old versus new.
I am not a purist, although I do love what
heritage embodies. I do recognize that it is
sometimes appropriate to adopt contemporary design in heritage conservation projects.
There is no single definition of beauty.
In a heritage conservation project there
is always much more involved than just a
building. There is a community and a culture
involved and all those who have an interest;
professionals, trades-people, philosophers and
citizens alike should have a say. All are valid
to the discussion because all form part of the
community that will bestow these wonderful
Ontario Places to the future. ❚
Walter Furlan is a conservator of historic
buildings and landscapes, principally trained
by Julian Smith and Craig Sims at Willowbank.
He resides with his loving family in Hamilton.
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12/2/10 9:04:28 AM
O A A P e r s p e c t i v e s | fall 2 0 1 2
O ntario P laces
A Window on Beauty
Above, left to right:
The Pass shop, part
of a historic block
on John St. South,
Hamilton; (top)
restored wood
frame and sash
basement window;
(bottom) vinyl
and aluminum
replacement
window; Historic
oak doors under
repair using
original tools
and methods
Below: Restored
double hung
windows on
second floor of
There is almost no “place” in Ontario that is not
somehow defined or whose origin cannot be traced to what
has gone before it. Our cities continue to be shaped by the
decisions of citizens long past, but whose influence lives on
in ways they could never have imagined. This is the beauty
of cultural history and its cousin, the cultural landscape.
Heritage buildings and their landscapes can be beautiful in
a number of ways. Some appreciate the historical aesthetic,
the patinas, the styles and the settings. For others, the beauty
lies in its relevance to local events, family ties and significant
rituals. Some are just pretty to look at.
What makes a building ugly or beautiful? Perhaps in part it
is the craftsman’s intuitive ability to blend form and function.
An early 20th-century basement window was little more than
a means to provide ventilation. Some are much more than
this, though. The example shown has been purposely crafted
to the golden ratio and its panes are divided again into the
same proportion. Its pleasing nature and the bead and quirk
detail around the frame draw the eye to the window. One
cannot look away.
the Pass shop
PHOTOS: Rick Mateljan
The older neighbourhoods in our cities were once full of
windows such as this but they are slowly being lost in the
name of efficiency and modernization. The replacements are
30
OAA Perspectives|FALL 2012
Walter Furlan
sterile and institutional and will need replacement again in
20 years.
Consider that the restored wood window with properly fitting
weather seals and a storm window offers thermal efficiencies
at least as good as a new PVC window. The wood window
has already lasted 100 years and with maintenance can last
another 100 years, not only providing protection from weather
and allowing in natural light, but also remaining a part of
the historic fabric and record. Beautiful!
Modern PVC windows appear to be a maintenance-free solution but are not entirely problem-free. They have a limited
lifespan as they cannot easily be repaired or recycled. In
addition, the manufacturing process of polyvinyl chloride poses
major hazards in product life, manufacturing and disposal.
Recently I had the privilege of restoring the windows of the
former watchmaker Edwin Pass’s shop—a man whose family
had repaired watches from 1885 until a few years ago. This
is the only building in this historic Hamilton neighbourhood
that still retains almost all of its original fabric, including its
original façade with the storefront, double door and original
wood windows. Having the opportunity to work with material
that was crafted by people who lived in this community
before me is a gratifying experience. The original 125-yearold wood windows with their slim muntin bar detailing are
more pleasing proportionally than anything they could have
been replaced by and the wood is first growth—far superior
to woods available today.
The Pass property has a rich, layered history. It is located
near King Street, now a major road, but historically an
aboriginal trail that existed before European settlement. The
land was once owned by George Hamilton, the city founder.
An original rubble-stone wall still exists and, in it, a wooden
door head still embedded in the original lime mortar. All of
this is important to Robin McKee, who bought the property
cont inued on page 29.
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