First Published in
Forming and being formed
As the way I experience and respond to the world matures, so I amend both how and what I design. This growth occurs within the parameters of universal principles. My individual creations continually evolve, whereas universal laws are eternal. In my view, great architecture relies on individual expression that is guided by the universal.
In the case of all designers, their inner world becomes the outer world of others. My human warmth, clarity, inner mobility, originality and liveliness will potentially become someone else's habitat. In this sense architecture is the externalised physiognomy of the designer's inner reality.
This creative influence implicit in the design of a building continues long after the building is completed. Once finished, a building will start to shape its inhabitants from within. We cannot avoid our built environment - unlike permitted colouring E122 and bad music.
Architecture both mirrors and influences our mental, emotional and physical state of being. For example, a six-year research project in Germany used infrared photography to show that our body temperatures increase in building environments that please us and decrease in ones that offend us. This research also revealed that our heart pulse rate, breathing and the size of our eye pupils are also immediately affected by the aesthetic quality of our architectural surroundings.
Buildings affect our health and sense of wellbeing whenever we are near them. They also influence cultural development through stimulating our imagination and refining our artistic sensibilities. This enduring influence originates in whatever - intentionally and unconsciously - inspires the owners, architects and builders; and is embodied in the very fabric and forms of the buildings. When seen in this way, architecture begins and ends within the human being.
The finished and ongoing artwork
Completing a building is the end-product of one creative process and the start of the next. The first process sets up the objective outer structure, which then becomes the medium for the second, our individual inner development. This is the awakening and transforming of our awareness as evolving human beings. The first process reshapes physical substance into something fixed and visible - the building - and the second nurtures the development of something living and invisible - our inner life. Through the influence of the building, not as a symbol or metaphor for something else, but as direct and immediate experience, insights and feelings can surface to consciousness. This process nourishes and supports personal growth. In this sense a building can be seen as both a finished work of art and as a medium for transforming consciousness. Our enduring relationship with buildings kindles this ongoing inner artwork.
The inner path
After realising that designs express both our conscious and unconscious worlds, I naturally feel the need to initiate dialogue between these states of consciousness. And conversely, when I become sensitive to how buildings support self-development, I begin to grasp how healthy self-reflection and inner work are vital to architectural and cultural progress. Understood in this context, architectural practice will include cultivating introspective self-development in tandem with design skills and technical understanding. With architectural progress and personal growth being reciprocally interrelated, we need to nurture both equally.
This leaves us to the question of how can we foster such inner development. One way is by recognising the need for femininity in architecture.
The need for femininity in architecture
We can start by observing how our masculinity and femininity are expressed, and not expressed, in architecture today. Men and women obviously embody both masculine and feminine tendencies in varying degrees and strengths; nevertheless there are innate gender differences.
It's primarily my femininity, which gives me access to my feelings, to the matters of my heart, to that which helps me integrate my inner and outer life. Our femininity nurtures intimacy, togetherness and mutual support. Its awareness is inwardly focussed and outwardly more dispersed, so outer spatial orientation is more challenging than locating intuitions and feelings. This strengthens our conviction that personal intuitions and feelings are a reliable measure of reality. Our femininity gives us courage to speak our inner truth, to face the reality of emotional difficulties and pain.
In contrast, the archetypal masculine tendency is to change the external world. To think clearly and act with resolve, producing tangible results. Our masculinity competes socially and strives for independence and self-sufficiency. Its awareness is outwardly focussed and inwardly less so, consequently physical spatial orientation is less challenging than issues like 'listening to my intuition and what I must change to feel right.' It leads us with single-minded thinking and consequent actions. This separates us from ourselves, hereby helping us to connect objectively to the outer world. It gives us courage to take risks, to conquer worldly difficulties and challenges.
We currently live in masculine-dominated surroundings. Industrialisation is mainly a masculine-directed activity that involves machinery, assembly lines, emotionally-sterile production methods... The founders of modern architecture, all men, envisaged their functional buildings as the standard global uniform of the future. Their influence has been widespread - rectilinear forms, utilitarian materials, straight roads lined with regimented apartment blocks and steely cold offices abound. Their dictum was: designs should be logical, rational and pragmatic, with no trace of sentimentality or whimsical romanticism here.
On the upside, this attitude has brought a crisp cleanliness to architecture, a clear-headed quality, and a sharpened sense of self-determination. The price tag for acquiring these qualities includes experiencing buildings that are disconnected from past value systems as well as their surroundings. Modernist houses are conceived of as machines for living, constructed in concrete, steel and glass. The result is no gentleness, no homeliness, no warmth and no perky frivolity. This is serious men's business. Sadly, most female architects and planners emulate their male counterparts, adding little of their feminine uniqueness to the design process.
So what is an example of a feminine quality, accessible to both men and women, which if initiated into architectural practice would radically alter our built environment? This is more than a question of what women can do in architecture that men cannot, it's also the issue of what men can do that they have never done before.
The dynamic balance
Integrating our feelings into the design process will radically change how and what we design. Feelings touch us when our rational thoughts are placed in the background. Equally, rational thinking is only effective when feelings are marginalised. Despite the fact that thinking and feeling are different in nature, they both have their own implicit consistency and ordered coherence. However, they have not enjoyed equal respect in the world of science and architecture.
To grasp the world objectively, the classical scientists strive to eliminate any subjective influences arising from their feelings. In a similar way the Modernist architect also strives for a measure of logical objectivity. The success of this rational methodology is only partially achieved in educational institutes because it is at variance with human nature.
A rational imperative does not consciously precede our normal way of living. Falling in love, for instance, lacks 'intentional design considerations'. When students and architects are asked to explain the reasons for their designs it's often a case of post-analyses posing as prior insight. To imagine only our conscious mind is active while living and designing is naïve.
The many-sided nature of our being is neither nourished nor expressed through this one-sided rational methodology, and will at some point seek expression. Living reality cannot be expressed through thoughts alone. The opposite tendency in isolation is also problematic. Unbridled spontaneity and emotional expressiveness lacks inherent cohesion, and can veer off into an isolated world of eccentric personal idiosyncrasies with little relevance to cultural development as a whole.
Aesthetic perception
Ideally when designing, if my creativity is sourced from a dynamic relationship between my thinking and feeling, then this integration will, via the building as medium, be stimulated in the occupants. Expressed differently, when my enlivened thinking functions in concert with my most delicately nuanced and refined feelings, the result will be a vibrant and integrated creative work.
In everyday design practice, when we have understood the design requirements of a project, there arises through our femininity the intuitive need to discontinue just forming thoughts, and to move on to artistic creativity. Ideas are allowed to progress to a certain point and are then followed with an artistic sensibility, before I return to practical construction considerations. This process involves transfiguring reality into something beautiful, as different from merely manifesting a concept.
When matter is simply used to embody a concept, we produce abstractions or kitsch. Here, rational thinking has suppressed artistic imagination. When the initial design process terminates with rational thinking, then the warmth, astuteness and inspiration of the heart are foregone.
Through our femininity, the scope of our artistic expression can be expanded beyond what's possible with our intellect alone. Architecture is not only a science, it's also an art: with the science of aesthetics as the higher synthesis of these apparently irreconcilable disciplines.
The fundamental question for me is: how do I objectify my subjective experiences so that they do not lose their inner vitality and individuality, and yet become a reliable source of insight and creativity? This requires transforming my intimate personal experiences into an empirical instrument; that is, purifying and refining my feelings, my most subjective inner sensibilities, into an organ of aesthetic perception. A prerequisite for advancing this process is the ongoing inner marriage between my conscious and unconscious worlds, between my thinking and feeling, and between my own masculine and feminine qualities.
- Four-part manifesto
- My furniture manifesto: Haldane Martin
- My lights manifesto: Heath Nash
- My architecture manifesto: Keith Struthers
- Our products manifesto: Kommetjie Environmental Awareness Group
Forming and being formed
As the way I experience and respond to the world matures, so I amend both how and what I design. This growth occurs within the parameters of universal principles. My individual creations continually evolve, whereas universal laws are eternal. In my view, great architecture relies on individual expression that is guided by the universal.
In the case of all designers, their inner world becomes the outer world of others. My human warmth, clarity, inner mobility, originality and liveliness will potentially become someone else's habitat. In this sense architecture is the externalised physiognomy of the designer's inner reality.
This creative influence implicit in the design of a building continues long after the building is completed. Once finished, a building will start to shape its inhabitants from within. We cannot avoid our built environment - unlike permitted colouring E122 and bad music.
Architecture both mirrors and influences our mental, emotional and physical state of being. For example, a six-year research project in Germany used infrared photography to show that our body temperatures increase in building environments that please us and decrease in ones that offend us. This research also revealed that our heart pulse rate, breathing and the size of our eye pupils are also immediately affected by the aesthetic quality of our architectural surroundings.
Buildings affect our health and sense of wellbeing whenever we are near them. They also influence cultural development through stimulating our imagination and refining our artistic sensibilities. This enduring influence originates in whatever - intentionally and unconsciously - inspires the owners, architects and builders; and is embodied in the very fabric and forms of the buildings. When seen in this way, architecture begins and ends within the human being.
The finished and ongoing artwork
Completing a building is the end-product of one creative process and the start of the next. The first process sets up the objective outer structure, which then becomes the medium for the second, our individual inner development. This is the awakening and transforming of our awareness as evolving human beings. The first process reshapes physical substance into something fixed and visible - the building - and the second nurtures the development of something living and invisible - our inner life. Through the influence of the building, not as a symbol or metaphor for something else, but as direct and immediate experience, insights and feelings can surface to consciousness. This process nourishes and supports personal growth. In this sense a building can be seen as both a finished work of art and as a medium for transforming consciousness. Our enduring relationship with buildings kindles this ongoing inner artwork.
The inner path
After realising that designs express both our conscious and unconscious worlds, I naturally feel the need to initiate dialogue between these states of consciousness. And conversely, when I become sensitive to how buildings support self-development, I begin to grasp how healthy self-reflection and inner work are vital to architectural and cultural progress. Understood in this context, architectural practice will include cultivating introspective self-development in tandem with design skills and technical understanding. With architectural progress and personal growth being reciprocally interrelated, we need to nurture both equally.
This leaves us to the question of how can we foster such inner development. One way is by recognising the need for femininity in architecture.
The need for femininity in architecture
We can start by observing how our masculinity and femininity are expressed, and not expressed, in architecture today. Men and women obviously embody both masculine and feminine tendencies in varying degrees and strengths; nevertheless there are innate gender differences.
It's primarily my femininity, which gives me access to my feelings, to the matters of my heart, to that which helps me integrate my inner and outer life. Our femininity nurtures intimacy, togetherness and mutual support. Its awareness is inwardly focussed and outwardly more dispersed, so outer spatial orientation is more challenging than locating intuitions and feelings. This strengthens our conviction that personal intuitions and feelings are a reliable measure of reality. Our femininity gives us courage to speak our inner truth, to face the reality of emotional difficulties and pain.
In contrast, the archetypal masculine tendency is to change the external world. To think clearly and act with resolve, producing tangible results. Our masculinity competes socially and strives for independence and self-sufficiency. Its awareness is outwardly focussed and inwardly less so, consequently physical spatial orientation is less challenging than issues like 'listening to my intuition and what I must change to feel right.' It leads us with single-minded thinking and consequent actions. This separates us from ourselves, hereby helping us to connect objectively to the outer world. It gives us courage to take risks, to conquer worldly difficulties and challenges.
We currently live in masculine-dominated surroundings. Industrialisation is mainly a masculine-directed activity that involves machinery, assembly lines, emotionally-sterile production methods... The founders of modern architecture, all men, envisaged their functional buildings as the standard global uniform of the future. Their influence has been widespread - rectilinear forms, utilitarian materials, straight roads lined with regimented apartment blocks and steely cold offices abound. Their dictum was: designs should be logical, rational and pragmatic, with no trace of sentimentality or whimsical romanticism here.
On the upside, this attitude has brought a crisp cleanliness to architecture, a clear-headed quality, and a sharpened sense of self-determination. The price tag for acquiring these qualities includes experiencing buildings that are disconnected from past value systems as well as their surroundings. Modernist houses are conceived of as machines for living, constructed in concrete, steel and glass. The result is no gentleness, no homeliness, no warmth and no perky frivolity. This is serious men's business. Sadly, most female architects and planners emulate their male counterparts, adding little of their feminine uniqueness to the design process.
So what is an example of a feminine quality, accessible to both men and women, which if initiated into architectural practice would radically alter our built environment? This is more than a question of what women can do in architecture that men cannot, it's also the issue of what men can do that they have never done before.
The dynamic balance
Integrating our feelings into the design process will radically change how and what we design. Feelings touch us when our rational thoughts are placed in the background. Equally, rational thinking is only effective when feelings are marginalised. Despite the fact that thinking and feeling are different in nature, they both have their own implicit consistency and ordered coherence. However, they have not enjoyed equal respect in the world of science and architecture.
To grasp the world objectively, the classical scientists strive to eliminate any subjective influences arising from their feelings. In a similar way the Modernist architect also strives for a measure of logical objectivity. The success of this rational methodology is only partially achieved in educational institutes because it is at variance with human nature.
A rational imperative does not consciously precede our normal way of living. Falling in love, for instance, lacks 'intentional design considerations'. When students and architects are asked to explain the reasons for their designs it's often a case of post-analyses posing as prior insight. To imagine only our conscious mind is active while living and designing is naïve.
The many-sided nature of our being is neither nourished nor expressed through this one-sided rational methodology, and will at some point seek expression. Living reality cannot be expressed through thoughts alone. The opposite tendency in isolation is also problematic. Unbridled spontaneity and emotional expressiveness lacks inherent cohesion, and can veer off into an isolated world of eccentric personal idiosyncrasies with little relevance to cultural development as a whole.
Aesthetic perception
Ideally when designing, if my creativity is sourced from a dynamic relationship between my thinking and feeling, then this integration will, via the building as medium, be stimulated in the occupants. Expressed differently, when my enlivened thinking functions in concert with my most delicately nuanced and refined feelings, the result will be a vibrant and integrated creative work.
In everyday design practice, when we have understood the design requirements of a project, there arises through our femininity the intuitive need to discontinue just forming thoughts, and to move on to artistic creativity. Ideas are allowed to progress to a certain point and are then followed with an artistic sensibility, before I return to practical construction considerations. This process involves transfiguring reality into something beautiful, as different from merely manifesting a concept.
When matter is simply used to embody a concept, we produce abstractions or kitsch. Here, rational thinking has suppressed artistic imagination. When the initial design process terminates with rational thinking, then the warmth, astuteness and inspiration of the heart are foregone.
Through our femininity, the scope of our artistic expression can be expanded beyond what's possible with our intellect alone. Architecture is not only a science, it's also an art: with the science of aesthetics as the higher synthesis of these apparently irreconcilable disciplines.
The fundamental question for me is: how do I objectify my subjective experiences so that they do not lose their inner vitality and individuality, and yet become a reliable source of insight and creativity? This requires transforming my intimate personal experiences into an empirical instrument; that is, purifying and refining my feelings, my most subjective inner sensibilities, into an organ of aesthetic perception. A prerequisite for advancing this process is the ongoing inner marriage between my conscious and unconscious worlds, between my thinking and feeling, and between my own masculine and feminine qualities.
