Architecture is a process ... The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain.
Architecture is the most political and practical of the arts. A museum designed by Frank Gehry might well be a self-conscious artwork, writ on a titanic, and titanium-clad, scale, yet, unlike a painting or sculpture, it has to be laced through with plumbing, wiring, heating, ventilation ducts, fire alarm sprinklers and lavatories. Unlike the vast majority of fine artworks, such a building also requires planning permission. And, of course, it has to be commissioned; only rarely do architects get the chance to design purely for themselves. It also needs a big and complex team of people to get it built. Contractors. Structural engineers. Mechanical services specialists. Lighting designers. Builders. Lawyers. Craftsmen. Computer experts. The list goes on ...
I mention all this to make the point that architecture is a process. The critic is a part of that process, too, and always has been. Even if negative, criticism plays its part in the course of architectural thinking. There are critics who love to be an intimate part of the architectural process and who might well be good friends with the architectural profession. Equally, there are those who are largely detached from everyday professional concerns, yet who make architects, and those who experience their buildings, think in ways outside their own approaches and prejudices.
What matters is not the friendship of architects per se, but a love of the subject and an attempt wherever, and however, possible, and whatever the immediate restraints or opportunities, to write with care and understanding of the subject, to bring it to as wide an audience as possible without being cheap or patronising. To write with the mind engaged, but also from the heart. And not to worry too much if architects are upset by one particular article. Because theirs is this all-embracing art demanding full commitment on so many levels, architects inevitably get upset or angry about individual critics when they appear to be undermining them. I remember one distinguished architect getting very shirty when I described one of his office's latest buildings, all £250m of it, as "ugly". But it was, and is, ugly, and I would never say such a thing lightly.
I try not to be too close to the profession, but even though I'm suspicious of prizes and wary of awards and honours, I was proud to be made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; it was nothing I sought, but something from the blue, and from a profession that was somehow interested in and affected by what I've had to say.
I wouldn't, though, serve on a quango, as no critic can and remain their independence when doing so. I have served only very rarely as a judge of architectural competitions for the same reason. But I am happy to join debates and discussions, to give talks, to act as an independent arbiter, and sometimes, of course, as judge. Independence of thought, action and writing is all important to any critic in any field; because, though, architecture is this complex process, with an octopus-like embrace, it's not always easy for everyone writing in the field to stand back far enough from its professional world and those who practice in it.
Although I do, not surprisingly, have some good architect friends, I find it comforting to know that I don't have to agree with their approach to design, nor to write about their work; I just like them as people. Others who I like very much, too, understand that to dislike one of their works is not to decry everything they do or stand for; sometimes a fine architect produces a flop, just as a critic can write a weak piece; later on, the same architect completes a fine new building, and peace is restored, intellectually, between architect and critic.
It's not possible to be wholly detached from architects and to write frequently about the subject. Critics who try too hard to isolate themselves appear to run the risk of somehow damaging themselves. I think of John Ruskin, one of my intellectual heroes, who went quite silently mad in 1889, with 11 years left to live. I think of Ian Nairn, one of my predecessors at the Architectural Review, who later wrote beautifully for the Observer and the Sunday Times, but, depressed, drank himself to an early death. There is, perhaps, a line as fine as any drawn by Palladio between a need for some closeness and much detachment between architect and critic. These, of course, are random thoughts produced quickly for the Guardian's Arts blog debate. I wonder what you think the relationship of the critic to architecture and architects could and might be?
