Architecture Depends

The Canadian government recently relaxed measures that heretofore severely limited cross-border travel with the U.S. Even as a fully vaccinated Canadian citizen, prior to July 5 I would have been subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine and strict limitations regarding what I could and could not do while in the country. With the newly enacted changes, I am now exempt from the quarantine requirement, which opened the door for me to visit and help care for my ailing mother and father. As I write this, I am with my parents in Vancouver (the suburb of Burnaby, actually) for a 10-day stay, thankful to spend time with them. Given their rapidly declining health, this may be the last visit we all share together. 

I am connecting remotely with my office and working on projects during my stay, but I am also indulging in some leisure time, for which a good book is the perfect accompaniment. The title I brought with me is Architecture Depends, by Jeremy Till, an architect and Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Arts in London. The book was a Christmas gift to myself, one I deferred reading until I had the opportunity to travel north again. 

Thus far, I’ve only read the first two of eleven chapters. Nevertheless, I’ve read enough to be thoroughly engrossed by Jeremy Till’s engaging, entertaining, and accessible writing style. Described by its publisher (the MIT Press) as “polemics and reflections on how to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be,” Architecture Depends is a timely manifesto, one worth reading by Till’s peers in academia, students, newly minted graduates of architecture schools, and seasoned professionals alike. I say timely because the book serves to remind us of the messy context within which we create architecture today. Our world is far from perfect, and we cannot allow architects to forget that.  

Till’s underlying thesis is architecture is entirely dependent upon things outside itself, no matter how much practitioners proclaimed its autonomy as a discipline through the centuries. Generations of form-givers have promoted utopian visions sharing a common weakness: a simplistic worldview in which faith is placed in the ability of architecture (that is, one reliant upon a self-referential architectural order) to deliver solutions to society’s ills. This is at once a naïve and arrogant. Our complex world is far from obliging.     

I found many online reviews of Architecture Depends that likewise regard Till’s book as a necessary antidote to the architectural profession’s infatuation with an imagined perfection attainable through the mechanism of design. Here is a sampling: 

• Boldly and elegantly, Architecture Depends asserts that architecture is absolutely dependent upon the “contingent,” difficult, and perverse factors that architects have long tried to ignore in an effort to be pure, self-important, and professional . . . What Till's book achieves is to set out with great clarity the territory in which the debate around future action must take place. (Robert Mull – Architects' Journal)
• A provocative declaration of war on utopia, powered by a fuel rich in social justice and sharp humor. Architects, hide it from your clients and your students—it is an unusual and explosive mixture that produces difficult questions like spores. With this book Jeremy Till raises the starting price on all our discussions of architecture. (Paul Shepheard)
• The insights in this book are inspiring and the writing is refreshingly clear and honest. It's especially useful for reminding you that being a student never ends, whether you're working in the "real world" and have left school far behind or whether you're teaching in one . . . Since this book avoids many of the most common pitfalls in architectural discourse, from wayward theoretical abstraction and confused jargon to compulsive obsession with practical or historical detail, those who like getting stuck in these traps may have an especially hard time working through it. Critics with impossible standards or cynical dispositions may also have trouble appreciating its humbling realism and progressive idealism . . . But for those who are willing to work with the contingencies of life and recognize the dependencies of design, this book can help open up a world of possibility. (Amazon review by bookie24)
• Jeremy Till’s work is rich in examples, sources and snippets of his own life as an architect, all these elements serve the main argument of this book which is rather self-evident: architecture depends, as the title suggests. It is contingent and yet, the profession does all that it can to chip away at that contingency, to erase it completely through discourse and ideology, through the construction of firm black lines around white empty spaces, refined narratives and the edification of professional orders designed for the protection of the territory to which architects cling to, their wish of power and authority over the average citizen . . . He is well aware of the position he takes, acknowledging quite often actually, how his comrades may react to such opinions. (GoodReads review by Chloe)

Till and I share in common a belief architects cannot afford to isolate themselves from the context within which they operate. Any autonomy the profession claims for its discipline is an illusion. As Robert Mull mused in his review of the book, architecture is dependent upon the contingent, the difficult, and the perverse. 

I purchased Architecture Depends intrigued by Till’s premise, further confirming upon initial reading that his treatise is consistent with my beliefs (to the extent I’ve examined the book so far). I realized how simpatico Till and I are with each passing page. And therein lies a problem: Too readily, I found myself nodding in agreement and wanting to add notes in the margins alongside the passages I found especially resonant, as if to validate my own prejudices. I had succumbed to confirmation bias. 

To my credit I do recognize my tendency to favor views that support my own beliefs and values, acknowledge that predisposition, and do work to retain a questioning attitude and a healthful measure of skepticism. That said, I did find the early chapters of Architecture Depends entirely convincing. Till’s opening critique of the architectural establishment is unassailably spot on, notwithstanding any doubts I harbor because of my reflexive concurrence with it.   

I expect I’ll finish reading Architecture Depends during the balance of my stay here in Canada. Because I have so much left to read, I do not know yet whether the book will convincingly present a blueprint for that bridge across the gap between what architecture actually is and what we want it to be. Until I do finish Architecture Depends, my review is contingent, and uncertain, just like Jeremy Till argues architecture itself is.