9. The Death of the Starchitect – Or the Birth?
Panu Savolainen
Panu Savolainen is an architect and historian, and a professor (tenure track) of architectural history and restoration at Aalto University. He specializes in older architectural heritage and historical theory.
What makes a successful architect and what do we mean by success in architecture? Who is a starchitect? The idea of an individual or team consisting of a handful of designers, landing competition prizes for flashy new buildings lives persistently in the minds of architecture students and those in the early phases of their careers. Architecture has been and largely still is considered to consist mostly of unique, entirely new works of art, in the spirit of the modernist paradigm, with the architect as the shining star. Awards, architectural competition programs, and media attention perpetuate this conventional model.
This powerful personification of the architectural creation into a single human individual is one of the cornerstones of modern architecture. Since the early days of humanity, the design of a building and its implementation has always involved leadership of some sort, but the idea of a building or city being so strongly personified with the designer emerged during the Renaissance and blossomed during the 1900s. As buildings became the artistic masterpieces of an individual, it meant that the supernatural or God, natural resources, and the authorship of the artisan faded into the background.
In the literary sciences, the critique of authorship known since the 1960s as the death of the author (la mort de l’auteur) is a thoroughly critiqued and debated theoretical discourse. The movement did influence architecture already then, being one of the phenomena to increase the appreciation for vernacular architecture. Its impact, however, did not significantly extend to the self-awareness of the architect and to the crowning glory of designership, the gold plating of which has shone brightly to this day.
As a single species is now threatening most of the biosphere with its actions, we must ask ourselves what kind of legacy we wish our time and profession to leave future generations. No other human activity as current construction causes equally irrevocable or non-disposable objects. Whether these objects become cherished cultural heritage, waste, or something in between is a question of values as well as of technical construction. Currently, it seems that the speed at which architecture turns into waste is accelerating. In East Helsinki, for instance, the lifespan of three buildings might fit into that of a human, at worst, and even monuments (sic) are occasionally crushed to fill out roadbeds. The ratio should be the opposite. To the extent that the problem is in the hands of the architect, it is solved by innovations in preservation, through design, but also by writing and discussion.
Advocates for preservation and protection, even within the architectural profession, were considered a strange marginal group only fifty years ago. The pamphlet, Kenen Helsinki (1), [ Whose Helsinki], was considered a demerit in the application process for a professorship at the Department of Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. Critiquing new construction lay with a handful of pioneers. Today, the disapproval of widespread new construction is no longer the babble of a radical student faction, but the stuff of anniversary interviews of older architects. Hence, we need to seek new directions, ideas, and thoughts on what architecture is in a post-humanist and biodiversity-respecting era. The tide is turning within the profession, but other sectors of society still remain largely untouched by it.
In the twilight of the Anthropocene looms the death of a conventional starchitect – or at least he or she must shed the white coat and be reborn. And what clothes will the profession, now forced to redefine architecture, choose to wear?
A classic method for dismantling glorified personality cults is to elevate marginalized voices or those that history forgot. In the 1990s, French historian Alan Corbin published Le monde retrouvé de Louis-François Pinagot, sur les traces d'un inconnu, 1798-1876 (2). The work represents the genre of everyday history, which had already surfaced in previous decades. Corbin, however, took this to the extreme: from local tax records he picked a name at random, about whom to write a biography. His finger chose clog maker Louis-François Pinagot, about whom barely any sources existed. Corbin reconstructed an entire world around Pinagot, elevating one coincidental individual to challenge the history of 19th century France written through the achievements of great men.
The rise of Pinagot, a clog maker forgotten by the world, to global fame is an intentionally ironic but also a humane way to write history. Corbin critiques – sharply, sometimes even snidely, but always between the lines – the writing of history focused on the achievements of great men. Concerning architecture, to elevate the designers of some lonely shack or primitive dwelling to the status of starchitect would be a hopelessly outdated way to go. The death and rebirth of the starchitect may extend to questions that fundamentally upend the concept of architecture and question its relevance. At the very least it will lead to a crumbling of the modernist architecture paradigm.
Examining the origins of architecture and material and energy flows is the most radical way to approach the subject. The strong association between architecture and its designer disregards the many factors, animate and inanimate, to which we in fact owe the comfort and aesthetics we find ourselves surrounded by. Should we adopt a mindset, where we appreciate the natural processes that produce our construction materials, including living organisms such as trees, and give them similar authorship as the designer, a mindset typical to indigenous populations that have a respectful and sustainable relationship to resources? Another relevant question is whether we in fact need architecture. For most of history, humans survived without architecture. Humankind opened Pandora’s box approximately ten thousand years BCE when permanent settlements were formed.
We may experience the end of architecture or at least architecture as we know it today. The “end of history” was foreseen three decades ago, based on the idea that all possible developments of humankind had already occurred. In terms of architecture, this is an interesting thought. Clay plaster, used by humans for millennia, has experienced a resurgence appearing in interior magazines and replacing glulam and plasterboard. Is there anything left to discover and above all why are newness and discovery particularly valuable to architecture? The question itself remains more important than its various answers, which will interest generations yet to be born more than they do us today.
references
1 Helander, Wilhelm; Sundman, Mikael. 1970. Kenen Helsinki. [Whose Helsinki]. WSOY. Helsinki.
2 Corbin, Alain. 1998. Le monde retrouvé de Louis-François Pinagot, sur les traces d'un inconnu, 1798–1876. Flammarion. Paris.
