Architectural Intermezzo #1
Myth-building and residential design
(Tailor’s voice, scandalized)
“But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look―
(disdainful gesture, disgustedly)
―at the world―
(pause)
and look―
(loving gesture, proudly)
―at my TROUSERS!”
Samuel Beckett, Endgame (1957)
They say you only regret the things you don’t do, and I regret not having studied mythology professionally. I am an architect by training, and despite the cosmogenic exaltations that some may associate to this career1, the creative liberty inherent to its practice can be quite disappointing. Architecture is a service industry and, as such, the act of creation is usually accompanied by negotiation. Design students entranced by the promise that prestige is attained through uncompromised auteurship will soon run into the reality that collaboration –not individualism– is at the heart of the profession.
There are exceptions. I find that some architectural projects, the urban landmarks, are meant to stand out through the singular vision of their designers; the more eccentric, the better. (Think of Frank Gehry’s 1997 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which almost singlehandedly revitalized the city as a tourist attraction). These buildings are, however, the overwhelming exception. Most projects, and the single-family residence in particular, call for a very different approach.
If an architect can afford to be self-referential when designing an urban landmark (Gehry’s forms are inspired in his personal erotic/neurotic rapport with fish, and the success of this facile narrative led him to self-plagiarize over the next decades); when designing a residence, the solipsism is harder to justify. While a museum’s occupants are anonymous, the house will have actual users with whom architects can interact, and for whom they must design. Not factoring this in will result in a project that is appealing to the architect, but thinly connected to the people who will ultimately inhabit the building. And while it’s not uncommon to find clients so devoid of personality they have no qualms with living in the by-product of architectural masturbation, I would like to imagine most home-owners would prefer their costly houses to be personalized, made to enrich their lives and not just their architect’s portfolio.
To put it differently, while an architect should behave as a fashion designer for an urban landmark project –be eccentric, knock yourself out–; a residential project calls for the temperance of a tailor.
Back to mythology
The ideas covered earlier in our 3-part Alternative Reading of Myths and their structural breakdown into tropes of Desire, Plan, Means and Deed, date back to mid-2006, when I was working as a junior architect for a design firm specialized in such haute-couture projects, and fantasizing about the design potential of the tailor’s approach on my lunch breaks. While waiting for the right moment to become an independent architect with with my soon-to-be wife, a chance to design a residence would soon manifest, allowing me to put those thoughts into practice.
By then, I already considered residential architecture as one of the most demanding types of architectural commission. Having already designed a couple of houses, I had found that my enjoyment of the experience had always been proportionate to the eccentricity of the clients. My favorite project to date was one for a man obsessed with forms and protocols who asked me to widen all of his doorways dramatically so that his casket could some day be carried out comfortably by the pallbearers after his wake. Contrariwise, my dullest clients would be satisfied with handing me a simple list of generic spaces –a living room, a large kitchen, three bedrooms, etc.–, a magazine with Post-Its marking pages with the houses they liked, and instructions to call them back when the plans were ready.
Though the latter might seem like a dream scenario to showcase one’s creative prowess, I consider it a nightmare. There are countless ways in which that list of generic spaces can be arranged on a site and, with no further input from a client, it becomes almost impossible to produce a customized design without filling in the blanks oneself, like Gehry with his fish. If designing a house is akin to the work of a tailor, then this would be equivalent to sewing a suit for someone with only one or two measurements. The resulting suit, and house, will be ill-fitted, but the client will accept them because they’re already built beyond correction, or for a lack of imagination on how much better the fit could’ve been.
However, under the tailor’s approach, how would an architect go about measuring a client to design a well-fitted house? This is where mythology comes in.
The first step, I found, was to identify the client’s underlying Desire. To be clear: I’m not talking about an obvious desire that any normal person would want –to have a place to bond with my family, to create fond memories, etc.– but rather one capable of tapping into a ritual or mythological depth. This turned out to be a first filter for me: Basic clients can only produce basic desires, leading to basic outputs. Such clients, I suggest, should be cut loose.
To extract that Desire, a number of techniques borrowed from psychology, ethnology, and so forth can be applied: we devised a way of interviewing married couples separately, for example, that proved notably useful. It is no less important to spend at least two full days living with and observing the client family; a technique that few clients will accept, but that ensures good chemistry with those who do. This method was a commonality I found with Paul Virilio when I met him as a student at the École Spéciale d’Architecture à Paris in 2001.
Once a Desire is formulated, the next step is to draw out the arrangement of spaces that would lead to its fulfillment through a Plan. This is quite literally the same Plan I would later translate into a mythological trope. Likewise, the next narrative component, the Means, is born from the urge to create an extraordinary feature in the house, a resource that is unique and essential to the Desire’s successful attainment.
Finally, what we’ve referred to previously as the mythical Deed is not spatial, but episodic. It is the point in time in which the client’s Desire is met, and effortlessly so, because the house’s Plan (its blueprints) and Means (its unique features) are directly conducive to that moment of high performance.
In this regard, I’ve always sustained that the subject matter of architecture is not space –a rearrangement of molecules, if you will– but time: how to craft an event that, in the case of a house, is designed to be enacted by the owner, in a way that satisfies their Desire.
Let’s make this more clear with an example:
A family comprised of a husband, a wife and three daughters commissions a house2. It turns out that the husband, an old-fashioned chap, is quite protective of his daughters, whom he doesn’t want out past their curfew. We located a Desire: the father’s desire to control his children’s nocturnal escapades. Remember: it is not the designer’s job to judge or to moralize on a Desire, no matter how strange, but to provide an adequate space in which to host the strangeness. The Plan: to arrange the daughters’ bedrooms in such a way that it is impossible for them to enter or exit without first having to pass through a hallway that is visible from the parents’ bedroom. The Means: imagine a 45 degree mirror that reflects the lengthy hallway into the bedroom, or an automated dimmer switch that makes the lights turn on when the hallway is crossed; something that would not make any sense if it were not articulated to this script. The Deed: “I told you to be back by midnight, young ladies” or, to go full Panopticon, the daughters feeling supervised, regardless of whether the father is awake or not.
Here are some examples of this design approach as applied to my design practice: a balcony in a country home positioned so the house around it disappeared; a kitchen with a garage door to allow the entire car in for the family to unload; a beach house with a flagpole used to summon the kids in when they’re out to sea; a hidden storage room by the house’s entrance to quickly hide the gifts a frequent flier father would bring. Perhaps my favorite is the Parricidal House, another country home designed to test the mettle of eventual intruders that was never built but which made the pages of Etiqueta Negra3, and which I’ll leave for a future Architectural Intermezzo.
On rare occasions, a family will be so attuned to its own ceremonies and desires that the design will flow naturally. Such was the case of the K***** residence, whose front lawn was landscaped with meter-marks specifically drawn to measure the distance flown by the family’s routine paper-airplane weekend competitions. A tailored house that is acknowledged by its client as a perfect fit is truly one of the profession’s greater satisfactions.
This is the origin story of the Desire-Plan-Means-Deed backbone I will develop in Applied Mythology, so thank you for accepting this brief digression before we jump into the analysis of myths over the next few entries.
Coming up next. I’ll start dissecting myths and connecting them to current events in our first paywall article themed on Theseus, vigilantism and Kyle Rittenhouse. Let’s get controversial.
…and a Fun Fact. My favorite mythological house is –hands down– Baba Yaga’s cabin in the woods. The Russian witch’s home is described as having no windows or doors, and standing on chicken legs that allow it to change location, dance and pursue.
Feel free to share your favorite mythic residence in the comments (be it a home, a castle, a den, etc.) and I’ll be sure to comment on it.
G.·.A.·.O.·.T.·.U.·.
The (over)protective father and protagonist of this example, all too common in Latin America, may seem chauvinistic, but consider that a house is meant to fulfill both the husband and the wife’s Desires, not the children’s, who must first emancipate themselves before setting the rules of their own homes.
Etiqueta Negra 97. Oct 1, 2011
“ It is no less important to spend at least two full days living with and observing the client family; a technique that few clients will accept, but that ensures good chemistry with those who do.”
I like this approach. It’s truly designing from the inside out
“To put it differently (…) a residential project calls for the temperance of a tailor.”
Exactly. Exactly. I knew we’d get along! I can’t wait to see the work.