In this episode, we hear about the lack of ideological debate and disagreement within contemporary academic architectural culture. This generation airs their critiques of the performative, chauvinistic, binary debates of the past and argue instead for a pluralistic approach to ideology, where the approaches of varying practitioners can coexist without producing conflict. The merits of this approach remain an open question. This group emphasized how pluralism foregrounds diversity and inclusion, while others saw the ideological attitude as problematically apolitical, aligned with the incentives of social media, unable to push design forward, or complicit with the status quo of the market.
Download“There is a certain reluctance for hard-core ideological debate today. Is it indicative of a situation where the plurality of positions are all legitimate? Does it come from an intense exposure to multiple kinds of trajectories in histories? Does it come from a suspicion of any narrative?”
“Some of it has to do with the harm that has been done in the name of taking strong positions in the past. And the maleness of that.”
“There is no longer a rhetorical landscape through which two figures can debate an idea from two perspectives and have that represent an entire discipline. I think it is a different world that we’re a part of.”
“The lack of a clear ideology for many practices I think is observable and I think it’s even observable in critique panels and in architecture schools. There’s a certain attitude of politeness where disagreement seems to have fallen out of favor.”
“No one wants to be an ideologue if they’re in their right mind right now.”
“We argue strongly for our beliefs in architecture and what our practice is doing and what we are trying to explore as architects. But I think we’re also very quick to not dismiss people who have different passions in architecture or different pursuits in architecture.”
“There is a spirit of ‘everybody eats’ in this generation and I think it has to do with the diffused opportunities for media, the fact that the media power isn’t concentrated as it was before.”
“It’s about accepting multiple ideas simultaneously. Finding ways to sort of reduce a singular authority figure down into a broader expanse that allows new voices, new ideas and new people, new communities, new generations.”
“If we’re looking for architecture to really incorporate more voices and to really become more responsible to its audience, which should be everyone, then we really have to begin to be more tolerant of more ideas.”
“The problem with the multiplicity of ideology, the plurality of ideology, is that right now we don’t have any, or very few, writers who are guiding a conversation that produces better work.”
“When you can do anything, why do anything, is always the crisis.”
“Everybody is shouting to be heard, as a result, and no one’s hearing one another. And you can’t have conflict if no one’s listening to each other.”
“I see architects younger than us – really staking out ideological positions very strongly, I’m sure in opposition to us, in opposition to a generation that they see as not taking the stances.”
Interviewer
Joseph Bedford
Producer and Editor
Tim Cox
Writer
Tim Cox
Narrator
Tim Cox
Interviewees
Curtis Roth, Andrew Holder, Michael Meredith, David Eskenazi, Michael Young, Kyle Reynolds, Kyle Miller, Hans Tursack, Katie Macdonald, Kyle Schumann, Jaffer Kolb, Kelly Bair and Kristy Balliet, Bryony Roberts, Meredith Miller, Anna Neimark, Neyran Turan, Michelle Chang, Ashley Bigham, Erik Herrmann, Jerome Haferd, Clark Thenhaus, Paul Preissner, Stewart Hicks, Brittney Utting, Daniel Jacobs, Mira Henry, Matthew Au, Jimenez Lai, McLain Clutter and Cyrus Peñarroyo, Andrew Kovacs, and Jon Lott.
Senior Editor
Joseph Bedford
Music
Background music Dreamsphere 1 by Sascha Ende has been used under CC BY 4.0.