Brolin:Originality

Originality

Brolin

If the guide lings for the building’s appearance are to be set more strictly by its visual context or the social value of its iconography, our understanding of “originality” must change. Originality or creativity, has become synonymous with “new” and “different”, and designing to fit in rather than stand out seems a terrifying sacrifice of the designer’s ego. It is not. It only presents a change in the ground rules: the prevailing aesthetic of the place is substituted for the architect’s aesthetic. Instead of being guided by his own narrowly defined “Modern” ideas of what is visually pleasing, the architect substitutes another, probably equally narrow set of visual guidelings; he designs to fit in with the existing visual context or to respect the preferences of the clients who are to use the building.

 This does not mean that architect should necessarily produce facsimiles of historical relics, although the average traditional building in traditional context often looks better than an average modern building in the same traditional context. Some modern buildings do fit in with their surroundings without sacrificing their modernity. The Yale dormitories of Ero Saarinen are reasonably successful in capturing the feeling of their academic Gothic neighbors without copying them. The Torre Valasca in Milan shows that even a modern building of different scale than its surroundings can grace a traditional cityscape. Other less well publicized examples are all around us, but unfortunately these are exceptions. Only occasionally does a modern building accept the fact of  its context rather than try to shock by its modernity.