Modern vs. Contemporary: Language in the Church

Architects, designers, and social critics often use words that carry a great deal of weight to their craft. Modern, Post-Modern, Classical: these are words that convey entire philosophical systems, entire schools of thought regarding aesthetics, design, and man's interaction with space. Ideological wars have been fought over these words as competing factions wanted to own them, disparage them, or combine them. Every profession has its "inside" language, words that mean a great deal to those familiar with it, but little to those on the outside. The church struggles with words of its own, mainly Traditional and Contemporary. Not to mention Father and Son, which has come under a great deal of critique from feminists who demand gender-neutrality in all things liturgical.

The most grassroots culture wars are fought over "Contemporary" and "Traditional," however, as only inner-city and academic institutions quibble with ridding of Father and Son language. Just consider the vast different aesthetics between your typical Joel Osteen service and a liturgical service with incense, and you get an idea of the wide range of discrepancies in worship. Both of these words are heavily weighted, but equally meaningless in their own way. "Contemporary" Christians may embrace rock music in their worship, dramatic lighting, and "inspiring sermons" that deal with "daily life." But they can't escape all tradition or form, and you will find proponents of contemporary christianity as dogmatic as any "Traditionalist," just with different taste. The traditionalists, meanwhile, hold on to the "way things have always been done," which certainly has its limitations. But is the gospel any less contemporary now than it has ever been? Isn't the church, though 2,000 years old, as young and vital as it ever was? And isn't the liturgy, that by and large, has retained central pieces for 2,000 years continually contemporary?

So just as designers may struggle with how to label their style, so too does the clergy, especially as it seeks to reach an "un-churched" or "de-churched" world. Perhaps what we need is a change of vocabulary. Instead of mislabeling traditionalists as opposed to innovation and contemporaries as tradition-loathers, perhaps we could use the terminology of Modern and Classical. Classical seems to imply not a lifeless adherence to all things old, but instead adherence to those values that need not changing. Classical, for better or worse, seems to imply a better way of doing things, a harkening to a time when things were done right, when straight was straight and crooked was crooked. Modern, meanwhile, implies a break with the past, without casting judgment on the past. It's just the way things are done now, not that its an improvement per se over the way things used to be, but that its the natural evolution.

But is that any improvement? And is the church stuck in time? Can the Church "modernize?" No, yes, and no. Visions of what life together can be like certainly evolve, though, and that can indeed be reflected in its art, music, and architecture. But I am dubious of many attempts to "modernize" the church, to make it more "relevant" by speaking the vernacular of rock music and inspirational jargon. Indeed, there should be no "Traditional," "Contemporary," "Modern," Or "Classical" in an ideal world. There should just be orthodoxy, right praise and right teaching.

What continually strikes me as incredibly interesting about the Bible is that, while I am no scholar by any means, it truly still speaks to our current situation. The same thing cannot be said of a 2,000 year old medical guidebook or a 2,000 architecture journal. The human condition, and consequently God's interaction with that condition, never changes. The Church can speak to that un-changing nature by simply lifting up those things that remain changeless, letting them take center-court, and get out of the way as fast as possible. But that's not to say aesthetics don't have an enormous role in how that happens, or that minimalism is the answer.

Indeed, in many ways, the Church is stuck in time, but at the same moment, it transcends it. So great designers do have something new to bring to religious life, even if most new theologies do not. Tours of a Modernist chapel and Notre Dame reveal the way values have indeed changed, and it strikes me that architecture should reflect that. What once was about facing the same direction has come to be more about intimacy, and facing one another. What once served people in a utilitarian sense but served clergy only in a liturgical sense, now serves worshippers as the masters of ceremony. What once kept the focus squarely on what was both straight ahead and above, there is more interest in what is beside.




So worship may be more in the round than in a rectangle. The altar may be in the middle of the worship space, not just at the front. The pulpit may be at the same level as the hearers, not far away and towering above as in days of old, which was mostly for auditory improvement. Natural light, and being at the mercy of creation, may create a more "alive" atmosphere than canned music and artificial lighting. These are just a few architectural/aesthetic changes that can be made to reflect our evolution, but minimize our need to become "contemporary." I hope we can grow in maturity as we come to appreciate the role of aesthetics in religious life.

Overscaled and Underpeopled- The Continuing Legacy of Le Corbusier in the 21st Century

A true pleasure of our profession is browsing the architectural publications. Each month, magazines and websites feature beautiful photographs of recently completed buildings with their sleek high-tech construction details. In addition one finds copious artistic renderings of future projects accompanied by articles that serve mostly as public relations for the associated designers and affirms the latest theoretical trend. The content is nothing but positive, with renderings showing an ideal reality where the sky is always blue and the people on the street are plentiful. That's to be expected, as the renderings are often commissioned by the client to sell the project to investors. One is not going to buy into the idea if one doesn't imagine the enchanting future portrayed by the picture.



The problem with far too many ambitious designers, in my opinion, is that they often fall for the reality portrayed by the seductive rendering. This is hardly a new observation, as architects throughout much of their recent history have been the object of endless scorn in confusing the ideal reality found in their drawings for the imperfect and unpredictable nature that defines the real world.


The heroic architects of the twentieth century were in particular guilty of such a temptation, the most notorious example being Le Corbusier and his urban schemes and masterplans. Le Corbusier presented a romantic image of the modern industrial city laced with monumental highways, airstrips and monumental towers surrounded by parks. As difficult it is to imagine with today's hindsight, Le Corbusier's pictures appealed to many young idealists who found this totally new urban landscape exciting and inspired, as they yearned to break free from the accumulation of civilizational detritus of their own cities during the 1920s (I know...what were they thinking?). As I have written earlier, Le Corbusier cannot be accused of directly overseeing massive unpopular urban interventions, nor of actually realizing any of his numerous masterplans for cities as far as Stockholm, Paris, Algiers and Rio. Rather, he is guilty for having imagined and illustrated a theory for a new kind of city so persuasively so as to become highly influential.

As we begin another century, there are many talented contemporary architects that indulge in whishful idealizations of reality via their computer models and photoshop software. They embrace a gigantic scale when conceiving a public space and organizing various programs in similar manner to the Swiss master himself. The heirs to the Modern movement continue to view architecture more as sculptural forms upon a neutral landscape, completely cut-off from surrounding urban context or the prevailing planning patterns of traditional settlements in the locale. Though at time quite beautiful and boldly poetic, these major developments are the result of a tremendous scope of control, where the parts that make up the whole are all defined by a central author in the form of a singular designer and their semi-governmental client. They are the opposite of the organic growth that characterizes most of our traditional settlements, where each lot is developed in fits and starts according to the ability of the community to sustain them at the time.


These ideas came to mind when I came across this article posted on the Archpaper website. It describes a speculative project developed by the Malaysian government near the city of Penang which will include a whole host of new buildings and various functions in the hope of raising the country's international profile as a center of business and industry. The New York firm Asymptote, which has built a reputation for its ultra-futuristic design, was awarded the job to design the entire project, which includes a luxury hotel, condos, offices and shopping. The first thing that jumped out when looking at these elegant images was the vast sense of scale: large open-ended plazas, endless expanses of glazed curtain walls and the tiny dot-like figures people that are almost undetectable.

The Penang project appears to be an example of a precinct, an assembly of similarly functioning buildings isolated in a clearly demarcated area, planned in isolation of the surroundings. Such precincts often have the drawback of lacking pedestrians, especially during periods when there is no programmed event taking place. I predict that upon its completion, the place will feel like a ghost town of mirror and glass, its urban effect deriving more from the soaring and twisting towers crowning the landscape from afar than from any kind of chance encounters or colorful everyday crowds up close. The stark ambience suggested in the rendering remind me of my experiences visiting a similar kind of development in France. Conceived a half-century before, the cutting-edge commercial precinct of La Defense in Paris shares much in common with current boom in overscaled modern business complexes sprouting throughout the developing world, with its vast public spaces, its sculptural buildings, and an utter lack of street life regardless of how many high-profile entertainment spectacles are produced to prop up pedestrian activity. In spite of a decent indoor shopping street and a one-of-a kind monumen in the Grand Arche, the only silhouettes to be seen outside are the contemporary sculptures.

Asympote will obviously provide a visible and inspiring landmark to Malaysians deperately wanting to appropriate the qualities of economic success and technological progress. However, it will likely contribute little to any kind of enriched urban experience from the point of view of pedestrians. Such a tradeoff has always been inherent in the development of large-scale Modernist masterplans, since the first World War. With the consolidation of state and bureaucratic power during the twentieth century, it has become only easier to emphasize an urbanism of increasing scale, abstract symbolism combined with a highly detailed and complicated functional program. Under such plans, communities are seen one-dimensionally, since they are somehow expected to emerge as a logical product of a well-conceived plan. The notion that a community consists of unseen exchanges between individuals (with their own irrational preferences) at all sorts levels is completely alien to these grand planners.

Current state governments who employ massive building policies as part of the national interest have almost never succeeded in creating successful urban spaces that people enjoy. It's the nature of a bureaucracy, an entity dictated by fulfilling the needs of their constituent population. A sense of community and urbanity is something people must want and choose to have, something best left to the people of an area and manifested by the trading of private property and goods. I fear that the developing world is much too focused on "catching up" with industrialized nations and thus willingly forgo the establishment of socially rich urban experiences within their expanding cities. In spite of the impressive feats of engineering in many of these projects (Asymptote envisions their design to be "carbon neutral") I am none too enthusiastic about them overall, since none of them seem to exhibit any real authenticity or sense of place.



It is not unusual for leading influential designers to seek work designing large complexes of buildings in the middle of nowhere in undeveloped areas. What it does reveal, however, is the tendency for many elite architects to prefer to work for big and powerful clients at the cost of diminishing the authentically unique character of local communities.


For these designers, nothing must come in the way of realizing their gleaming "towers in the park". For me, that isn't good enough.

Where Are All the People? Why New Urbanism still succeeds

In my previous post, I discussed at length one of the numerous contradictions within New Urbanism and the contemporary economic and cultural context. Among the other unmentioned shortcomings of this influential urban movement is their frequent failure to facilitate enough street life as depicted in many of their glowing colored renderings. These new town centers would be immaculate, and the businesses would be there, but overall there are few people to be seen. Such was my experience when visiting this Duany-Plater-Zyberk designed development just outside Dallas on supposedly the busiest shopping day of Saturday. The massing of the buildings along the main shopping street was very similar to a European town, and the stores consisted of high-end boutiques, restaurants and even an art-house theatre. And yet there was almost no one on the street.

Ueber blogger James Lileks of the Star Tribune makes a similar observation on a video he made of a New Urbanist town center in Minneapolis (thanks, Ed Driscoll). His observations are spot on, and he makes cogent criticisms on major philosophical assumptions among architects. View the video here...

Apeman over at Etherealland has written a very insightful response to my essay that is well worth pondering over. He points out to other flawed assumptions fundamental to New Urbanism that are real, but I don't agree the writer's indictment of the movement as suggested in his headline: "Why New Urbanism is doomed to Failure".

Although I've expressed skepticism on some of the results promised by proponents of New Urbanism, I would still declare it successful precisely because it is a market-driven movement led by developers and financial institutions rather than by an academic elite with their allies in government bureaucracy. The arguments against New Urbanist developments are compelling, since I share many of them myself, but other major alternative paradigms in urban planning are not nearly as appealing to those who take the risk in building with their own private funds. Add to that the preferences of average people on the street and in city councils with regards to urban spaces and New Urbanism promises more potential to expand and evolve into a more sophisticated strategy in the future. There is an organic quality to it that is compatible to an American culture that celebrates private real-estate, community participation (among private property owners) and an overall modesty in building scale. In spite of New Urbanism's resemblance to the Modernist CIAM movement in its high level of organization and mobility in advocating ideas, there is an appealing anti-elitism that the latter uses as the starting point of their philosophy that harmonizes well with the ingrained skepticism of intellectuals and the academy shared by many Americans (it might go a long way in explaining the relative retrograde character of new construction in the U.S. compared to the aggressive Modernism more easily embraced by the rest of the world).

Just because a movement's ideas are popular does not mean that its theory is a success. I have pointed to a couple of defficiencies of New Urbanist principles that might be easy to refute, and I have observed discrepancies between what is promised and what actually happens, but rarely if ever does a sophisticated theory of any kind pan out predictably according to its dictates. What distinguishes New Urbanism from its more Modernist rivals is the degree to which its ideas result in opposite outcomes. Though the streets may seem empty and the architecture appear a bit too contrived and artificial, developers are not losing their shirts, yuppies are snapping up the units and voters gladly support private-public partnerships in building town-centers in the New Urbanist mold. In contrast, contemporary European-style urban design has resulted in often desolate overscaled public spaces, forced segregation or centrally planned integration of renters which stimulates crime, social alienation and a low level of public participation and governance. The buildings may be slick, the architectural and urban concepts forward-thinking but there is no love for such things from residents nor a demand to privately develop more of these kind of projects (which explains the high level of government involvement).

Certain aspects common in New Urbanist project do indeed make me cringe, but it would benefit those of us who would like to popularize a tasteful Modernist aesthetic to study its success and respect the strength of its doctrine.

Religion: Is it Worth It?

In a world often described as “Post-Christian”, it strikes me that Christianity is in need of a good defense these days. “Post-Christian” references the fact that the Christian religion no longer shapes the dominant culture in the way that it did from Constantine through feudalism, from the Enlightenment through American discovery and settlement. It seems to imply, as well, that the Christian church is not only less relevant in shaping lives and cultures, but it is deservedly less so. Christianity, either through action or silence has condoned slavery, protected pedophiles, and killed millions through inquisitions and holy wars, among other various crimes. Consequently, in this Post-Christian age, religion, churches, order, and even structure need to explain themselves more than in the past, because their very existence has come to be seen by many as more of a problem than a solution, a reason to dread the future rather than a reason to be hopeful.

Notice please that I did not ask if morality or virtue were “worth it.” I asked if religion was worth it. Isn’t this the perennial question of the atheist? Or because true self-described atheists are harder to find, isn’t this the question of the secular relativist, the person who distrusts authority and belief systems to the point where they can be equally followed or ignored? Even an atheist, or an anarchist would almost certainly agree that virtue is not a bad thing, that it is quite a worthy goal. But it is the institution of religion that has caused so many problems, that has paraded in the light of perfection while sweeping its own sins under the rug. Indeed, even Martin Luther could be accused of a similar critique, as he blamed the Romanists of engaging in demonic activity while assuming the role of Forgiver-in-Chief.

So the question of the value of religion is truly nothing new. The Peace of Westphalia, the truce that ended the Thirty Years War, was not the result of Lutherans and Catholics working out their differences peacefully, much less convincing one another. Instead, it was the result of this question: Is religion worth it? Are petty differences over church polity worth the lives of our children, the degradation of our land, the sin of committing murder? And since that introduction to the secular state, which I would argue can be traced to 1648, that question hasn’t fully gone away. Now, the question may begin to extend beyond Christianity, which, as it turns out, isn’t the only religion that commits abominable acts. Indeed, with the rise of Islamic extremism coupled with the power of a nuclear state, the question posed above may be more relevant now than ever. It we consider the worst-case scenario, a religion-driven Iran with a nuclear weapon aimed at Israel, or any state for that matter, wouldn’t the alternative of no religion be better? Shouldn’t we, as many secularists would either vocally argue, or passively support, just abandon religion because nothing much good comes from it?

It is here, at this crux of history, that I will try to say yes, religion is worth it. And I hope that my generation of self-serving secularists in particular hears it. I don’t know that the question is “Where has religion gotten us, and where is it leading us?” as much as, “Where would we be without it?” The atheist state has been tried, and it makes the worst Christian theocracy look pretty good. The abysmal failure of Communism and the utter lack of regard for human life on a scale as massive as Nazism demonstrate the inevitable ending place of discarding religion and the virtues they defend. While religion, especially the Christian religion, failed to effectively confront or defeat either of those forces of evil by itself, it was, I would argue, an understanding of morality bred from and promoted through religion that gave anyone a point of reference for defeating such evil. In other words, if one is not convinced of the rightness of their cause, then why bother sacrificing for it? Clearly, the sacrifices and successes made in WWII and the Cold War stem from a place of morality, which is simply impossible without religion.

What makes religion and the virtues they tend to promote so hard to appreciate is that its work, if done correctly, often goes unnoticed. By its very nature, it demands humility. While it is easy to criticize what doesn’t work in society, and to ascribe blame to the dominant cultural shaper (Christianity in America, for example), we can be pretty sure that the situation would be far worse without the moral compass to begin with. A 13-year-old confirmation student recently expressed frustration that his friends at school accused Christians of being hypocrites. I told him to embrace the label, that it’s better to be a hypocrite standing for virtue and failing rather than standing for nothing.

Of course, I am a Christian apologist, and I deeply lament the sins of my own religion and the sins of others. But I also hold out the hope that we are, as a religion, progressing to a healthier way of being. The assumption is never that religion leads to utopia, but that it teaches us how to live together in harmony, how to struggle together. Certainly Christianity promotes loving our neighbor, valuing private property, among other civil virtues. And while there are very real dangers proposed by “religious” leaders on the global stage, I shudder to think of a world devoid of religion altogether. Got that, Gen X?

What Makes a Community: The Problem of Property Ownership and New Urbanism

On a recent day I was reminded about how we young architects often make assumptions based on the way things ought to be rather than the way things are in reality. I am currently involved in mixed-use town center project in the Rockies that follows a masterplan realized by the highly exalted prophets of New Urbanism, the firm of Duany, Plater-Zyberk (DPZ). Although New Urbanism is a more flexible guide to urban and community than many of its critics are willing credit, the masterplan in question was predictably consistent with the traditional New Urbanist aesthetic: dense blocks with street-level retail and several stories of housing above, traditional typologies that that define the various program along with modest building proportions that reflect visual hierarchies from the street. The feel of the DPZ renderings evoke an unmistakably European character, reminding one more of and idyllic Salzurg than a growing city in mountainous American west. There is a steeple-like clock tower, a piazza with grand stairs cascading into it, and stately cinema that looks more like a Parisian opera house than your average suburban multiplex.

And naturally there are blocks and blocks of housing on top of street-level retail, much like traditional townscapes anywhere outside post-war suburbia, but with a distinctively twenty-first century twist: almost all the units will be condominiums instead for-rent apartments. My more experienced colleague had objections with that particular part of the program, declaring that all sorts of problems emerge when people own and live in dwellings above retail stores. Noises, smells, and the coming and going of service vehicles are often too much for condo boards, which have been the institutional vanguard of NIMBYism. I can image nothing more unpleasant than squabbles between the hundreds of residential owners, the handful of retail tenants and the commercial landlord. Apartments are a better fit, since such distractions are tolerable on a temporary basis, and a renter understands that they will have no input on the management of their building. Remember that government (in the abstract) is set up to protect property. Therefore the property-less, such as renters, do not participate while the property owners like condo residents must participate and are fully entitled to defend their interests as much as possible.



Then why not turn all the residential development above retail into apartments, as is traditional in many old towns and cities? I suspect that there are particular financial limits that affect large-scale developments such as instant town-centers which favor for sale residences over just rental types. Funds for other phases of a project can be procured a lot faster by selling units before construction than waiting for rents to pay off the remaining balance over many years. Condominiums have thus become lucrative, especially in a world in which equity plays an increasing role in the raising of capital. As I've written in a previous post, condominiums are becoming one of the most powerful drivers of urban development and renewal, and many real-estate intensive industries such as hospitality are looking for ways of offloading major portions of their properties with for-sale units and timeshares.

Add to this the distinctive American proclivity in owning a home, and enjoying a God-given right to profiting from one's own real-estate and the notion renting or making easy money off rentals seems downright unappealing. Apartments have an important place in the housing situation of in the U.S., but it they are perceived as having temporary value and are not the foundation on which established communities are built. From the beginning of its history Americans of the most modest of means have enjoyed the enviable privilege of owning their own property, as the abundance of land that made it affordable and created new towns out of wilderness and yet made them promptly democratic in governance. Self-defense through gun ownership became a means of ensuring stability of the newly propertied masses along the frontier and had strangely equalizing effect on who wielded political power. In this new paradigm of the American frontier town, renters would become secondary citizens, the people who were not as financially invested in the affairs of the town as the property owners.

To this day, it is understood that renting is temporary and just a transitional stage to eventual home ownership. Sad to say, In most American cities those who permanently rent are seen as destitute or just plain eccentric. When discussions arise between parents regarding what school district to move to, the presence of "apartment" kids is seen as something to be avoided. Apartment complexes are not known for their close-knit sense of community and the low-rent variety are often used as canvases for the portrayal of social breakdown in the community. In addition to the expected shabbiness of un-owned residential units, crime is more likely in among renters who have no real power to monitor various activities. In the recent mayoral election in my home city of Dallas, one of the candidates made it part of his campaign pitch that he would push for the demolition of numerous apartment complexes throughout the city as a way rooting out crime (it makes me wonder what his political party stands for these days).

The disadvantages endemic to apartment life pose quite a bit of a challenge to one of the basic tenets of New Urbanism. To live in greater density and to mix uses vertically in a block may be admirable, but how does that square with the reality that those who chose to live in the blocks aren't committed to it in the long term? How does one create strong and permanent communities where everyone is a renter? It is sensible to desire the restoration of town planning principles that have served us all well until the beginning of the twentieth century. But it should be remembered that there was significantly different dynamic regarding the proportion of the few who owned property over the many who did not. Renting was a normal and long-term way of life, as it still is in older cities that have distorted the supply of housing through rent control. Since then the ownership of property has become more democratically distributed (not necessarily equally) to the point that it makes little sense to avoid owning anything in the long term. Traditionally in history, towns were built building by building, lot by lot, where owners would live in a portion of the building and rent other floors to residential tenants and businesses. New Urbanism collapses the time it takes to create an organic cumulative streetscape that takes decades to build into a matter of months.

This invites criticism about the lack of authenticity from such an accelerated process, but it points more significantly to the New Urbanism's ignoring of how communities in the past were based on a structure of ownership and rental quite different from today. The slow pace of development also ensured an ecclectic mix of people and various levels of ownership from level to within one structure, often with the business at ground level being associated to residential tenants in the building. That kind of connection is lost when there are tenants with separate and unrelated purposes: a chain store inhabits the bottom level, and the apartment residents do their own thing for a few years, neither of which has any stake to what they contribute to each other the surrounding community at large. This is compounded today when developers from outside community have no interest in maintaining ownership of what they have built and would rather choose to let the tenants of the building (none of whom are owners) manage their own affairs yet do not have the financial stake in putting changes into effect.

With condominium complexes, the desired mix of diverse kinds of people and uses are discouraged to the point of championing sameness and complacent behavior, suppressing colorful characters and spontaneous activities within the condo community. At least with renters, there is no pervasive pressure to conform to the strictures of a condo board, and a certain amount of freedom is tolerated from unit to unit. The only drawback there, is that while a diverse population is present, no one within it can make much of a ong-term impact in the establishment of a solid community. Condo owners can in this latter respect, but their predisposition towards oppressive rule making and discipline only leads to one-dimensional communities that prefer carefully staging an appearance of an authentic community over hosting an unpredictable and lively street theatre.

Holy Communion as a Wholly Impersonal Meal

Holy Communion has all the trappings of a sentimental, personal meal. The bread and wine are given to you, and you are reminded that the bread was broken for you, and the blood was shed for you. You know that you receive Communion for the forgiveness of your sins, and to be in communion with other believers. Aesthetically, the music is often familiar, maybe even soft, almost like a lullaby. The mood around you is serious, and to receive communion can be seen as an opportunity to grow in your faith, to be close to God, to experience that concept of grace up close and personal. And then there’s the fact that often, when people commune, it’s at sentimental times of the year, like Christmas and Easter. Communion for you, in its familiarity, can help it to feel more and more personal.

So if it’s a personal meal, a meal that offers the personal forgiveness of sins, shouldn’t I, as a pastor, say everyone’s name as I offer them the bread and/or wine? If this is a meaningful event in the life of the recipient, shouldn’t I highlight that moment by adding a personalized touch, making sure they know that Jesus’ body was broken specifically for them? Not only them, to be sure, but to them as much as anyone else? Logic would say yes, if we accept the premise the Holy Communion is a personal meal.

But I say no. To personalize communion, to name the recipient is to cheapen the moment, to play into all the sentimentality the ritual seems to offer, but doesn’t. And please see this only as a small example of a much larger issue as it relates to worship in general: there is a certain danger when community rituals get so familiar we think of them in personal terms. At baptism, we says some very heavy things, and parents make enormous promises. Yet, it seems at times that the sentimentality of the adorable baby in her white baptismal linens overshadow the theological significance of the moment for the whole community. I’m no fan of private baptisms because they overemphasize the personal nature as opposed to the corporate significance of the moment.

Perhaps the most gaudy example of this corruption of corporate ritual is in the modern wedding. While there has always been some cognitive dissonance about whether marriage is a sacred or a secular event, the use of sacred space and sacred trappings for a marriage that has wholly secular intentions strikes me as drastic misuse of space. Not to say that the holiest of marriages don’t have their problems as well; they most certainly do! But the point here is that in personalizing corporate rituals, we begin a process of becoming selfish, legalistic, or self-righteous.

To take it a step further, I see this as a more common problem in Protestant worship than Catholic worship. One of the reasons I have always felt very comfortable in Roman Catholic worship (besides the liturgy), even as a Lutheran, is because of the sense of anonymity. Now, there are drawbacks to this, to be sure. There isn’t as much of an emphasis on evangelism, church members may have little interaction, and church life can become institutionalized instead of inspired. But Catholics seem to understand corporate ritual in a much healthier way. The emphasis isn’t so much on changing, but on simply being. It’s like the old adage: “90% of success is just showing up.” I’m not sure who to attribute that to; it’s probably anonymous.

But Protestants tend to demand more than being; they want change. Admittedly, some Protestants demand more change than others. And there is something good in hoping for change, aiming for and achieving an emotional response. Jesus made it pretty clear that repentance (literally “turning around”) was a major part of his message. But how do we know when enough change is enough? And when does this start to veer down the path of works righteousness? And finally, if an emotional response isn’t achieved, what does that say about the efficacy of the ritual? Catholics seem to appreciate communal rituals to the point where they have a power on their own terms.

So Communion as a personal meal seemed to sum this whole discussion up rather tidily. For a Catholic to attend mass and receive Communion, it’s like a way of life. I feel Protestants stress the importance of the moment more, in a more personal way. Which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. I just prefer to think of these corporate rituals in terms of who has gone before me and who will come after me in addition to who is there at the moment. The beauty of Holy Communion is not just that I am emotionally settled that my sins are forgiven; it’s that I’m in communion with the community of saints that has preceded me for millennia. There’s something to be said for the stoic nature of impersonality in ritual. From my point of view, it doesn’t diminish it all; if anything, it speaks to its true power. It works over and against our sentiment, emotion, and fickle natures. They are timeless in their impersonality, consistent in their repetition. Of all the changes parishioners regularly reflect on taking place in the world, I can take great comfort in detailing all the things that haven’t change in the ritual life of the Church. If these rituals were mere exercises in personal sentiment, I couldn’t take the same comfort.

Give Me Your Poor, Tired and...Unschooled

In the past week, I've come across of a few articles that describe well the nature of poor people and how the current public education system keeps them that way. Beyond the obvious flaws in the philosophy that dominate pedagogical thinking in our schools, some blame can go towards the oppressive design of the school buildings. Fellow blogger Scott Walker describes the schools he works in as prisons, a surprisingly accurate description of spaces organized for maximum visual control and security. This a particular quality of mediocre urban schools, where more attention is given to keeping track of kids and their whereabouts than actually teaching them anything. There is a reason that many public schools, particularly at the high-school level, are not planned like those leafy college campuses we all remember fondly. One recalls how attendance was rarely recorded, students often slept in, no one cared what you did in between courses and somehow at the end of four years, you learned a lot more than four years at the public high school.

I had the misfortune of attending a public high school that was quickly degenerating into another mediocre urban school. It had become clear to me that the authorities were more concerned about enforcing rules and security policy than celebrating academic achievement of any kind. Although I was among the top 5 in my entire class, I was sent to in-school detention twice for forgetting to wear my ID badge that I left at home. "In-House", as it was called, was a classroom where these supposedly terrible transgressors were prevented from attending class throughout the day so that a clueless and bored "teacher" would monitor you to make sure that you couldn't do the things that students are supposed to do. Worse, they treated in-house inmates as chain-gangs working to clean up the cafeteria after the last lunch period. Couple that humiliating experience with random pat-downs and metal detector screenings and it became clear that I had to get out of that school as soon as possible. I finished high-school one year early and treated myself to an exchange year abroad in Germany, attending the "gymnasium" (elite level high school over there), where the academic content was college level, the students wandered freely in and out to town and some even smoked like chimneys confidently in front of everyone on school grounds.

My old high school would abandon the ID badge policy a year later, citing its ineffectiveness in preventing strangers from infiltrating the campus.

It seems that things haven't improved at all if this post is any indication. Overcrowding has become a big issue in my old school district, and more an more resources are being diverted to effectively control the crowds and make schools an effective detention facility. This of course favors ever-expanding bureaucratization and thus prevents any meaningful educational reform. As an alumnus of such urban schools, such a progression towards high-security over useful learning was anticipated. Apparently, that has become the default state of affairs in suburban public schools as well. Paul Graham, a venture capitalist and computer start-up expert, recounts his experiences attending his local suburban public school from the point of view of a nerd. In initially trying to explain why nerds aren't popular, he goes further into identifying pathological problems of public schools in the modern era. It's one those few essays I've read that truly turned on a switch in understanding the experiences I had in public schools that I'd rather forget. Graham provides some hints as to how to improve secondary education, and correctly notes that many of the problems that afflict adolescents should not be passively accepted. His essay is definitely a must-read, and I recommend checking out his other insightful essays.

Still, I find that Graham writes from a perspective of relatively privileged upbringing and doesn't take into account enough the baggage students from poor families bring with them. All sorts of debilitating character traits afflict the poor and handicap their ability to be minimally schooled. The lack of character also seems to make them terrible agents for any kind of business transaction as well. Michael Lewis, a professional in the financial sector, sarcastically remarks how the media coverage of the current sub-prime lending crisis focuses almost exclusively on the careless wrongdoing of the lenders but ignores the responsibility of the poor engaging in reckless borrowing (hattip: instapundit). Before accusing him and myself on 'beating up on the poor', I would contend that much of the intractability of poverty comes from our unwillingness to do precisely that. For as long as we all frame the image of the poor as mere victims, no significant improvement of their lot can be expected. The transfer of government wealth in alleviating poverty seems to have the opposite effect, since all it does is infantilizes an an entire class of people. Employers who manage poor workers often find that they have to treat them like children, looking over their shoulder on every assigned task and taking out extra time to go over their work and frequently re-doing it. A very close friend of mine works with many workers coming from the lower class, and is constantly frustrated in trying to hand them any modicum of responsibility. She has been told that one tried and true method in getting these people to successfully complete tasks is to complement in them in the same exact that she complements her two-year old son. So far, it apparently works, but it is quite a sad indictment on the poverty of character among the poor.

Other than not having much money, there seems to be little that likens the protagonists of the "Grapes of Wrath" to the masses of illiterates that populate today's urban schools. Poverty has become institutionalized, and rather than excusing it as a by-product of an inherently unjust capitalist system, we now are guilty of excusing the cultural rot and the lack of character that accounts for much of poverty today.

KROB 2007: A Call for Entries

The 33rd annual Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation competition awaits new entries. KROB recognizes mastery in hand delineation as well as digital rendering techniques rather than the merit of the building rendered. The winning entries from exhibit characteristics often left out in everyday architectural drafting, such as conveying moods or other-wordly landscapes, and most importantly, they inexplicably move the viewer. Such aspects are not exclusive to the special effects brought about by computer software but also with graphite pencil and watercolor, as these traditional hand techniques give a picture a particular richness and liveliness.

The Ken Roberts Competition is the longest-running architectural illustration of its kind in the United States, awarding cash prizes in categories for both students and professionals and in both hand drawing and digital media. Submissions are to be received by October 31, 2007, and multiple entries per person can be entered. Finalists will have their work exhibited at the office of the competition's sponsor, the American Institute of Architects' chapter in Dallas. The winning entries will be announced and presented at a reception at the Magnolia Theater in Dallas on November 15th, where selected jurors will discuss the qualities of the selected works.

The competition is open to individuals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Entries can be submitted electronically at the competition's website or by mail. All competition details, including entry forms, fees, and background to the competition can be found on http://www.krobarch.com/. If you have any questions on the competition, you can leave a comment under the blog posting or email the competition administrator at the address infoRequest@krobarch.com.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for those who have produced veritable works of art in the process of completing building projects for school or for private clients. Unlike most architectural competitions that demand countless hours of unrenumerated work for a project that is often hypothetical in nature, the KROB rewards work that has already been realized for no other purpose than to artfully to describe an architectural concept. The result can be impressive and inspiring.

Meet the President's New Architect...

The George W. Bush Presidential Library has finally chosen its architect, the renowned Robert A. M. Stern from New York. My first impression was of mild disappointment, but that quickly faded to an overall lack of surprise. After all, the library is slated to occupy the eastern edge of the SMU campus, a college whose reputation is deeply tied to culturally conservative elite that dominates the political and social scene of Dallas. The president and his library's planning committee made its intention clear to have the new complex blend with the campus' neo-Georgian architecture, and Mr. Stern has definitely been capable of doing that with his firm's many previous projects on university campuses throughout the country. It was clear just by looking over the shortlist released a few months ago of architects considered by the committee that there was no desire to insert a flashy piece of "starchitecture" in the heart of Dallas (actually, it will within the independent municipality of University Park, which along with high-end Highland Park, form an area called "the bubble".) Rather the list consisted of firms that had reputations as large and successful not for their cutting-edge design as they are for providing consistent satisfaction to their clients. The two other finalists for the library, Overland Partners and Page Southerland Page have solid reputations in Texas, having incorporated a handsomely modern regional vernacular in their large public projects. Neither of those firms could be characterized as part of the contemporary design forefront.


That is not to say the Robert Stern lacks the talent to produce avant-garde projects. In actuality, his incorporation of classical styles and planning principals made him one of the leaders in generating and popularizing the versatile Post-modern style during seventies and eighties. Along with his contemporaries Charles Moore, Michael Graves, Philip Johnson and Robert Venturi, Stern recognized a deep desire in the American marketplace for a return to an intelligible style influenced by past historical vocabularies. After beginning his career working for Richard Meier, Stern formed his own practice and pursued a style that responded to the inherent deficiencies of Modernism by restoring tradition and thus calling it "modern traditionalism". Because traditional modes of architecture developed sophisticated rules of composition and scale appropriate to important institutional buildings, Stern's style was embraced by many civic and institutional clients that desired gentle austerity and symmetry wich would relate to the surrounding context yet exhibit a dignified significance.

Stern's embrace of classicism was a particularly defiant stance to take within the architectural context of the seventies. Complementing the surrounding environment by almost literarily imitating stylistic elements and refusing to celebrate technological sophistication of the times were not the hallmarks of the modern architect. Such a subtle approach was at first courageous, but became the default position of an overwhelming majority commercial and civic clients in the following decades. In 2007, Stern has long ago ceased to be relevant in the ongoing evolution of architectural trends. With exception to school of architecture at Yale, in which Stern is the dean, few architectural schools study his work seriously as they did in the eighties during the heyday of the post-modern experimentation. Although he has demonstrated an ability to wield the Modernist vocabulary in some of his projects, many of my contemporaries consider his work a bit retrograde and cite his commercial success as proof of his disinterest in forging new paths in design theory (this is a common irony inherent within the architect subculture). With a staff of more than three hundred people, it is clear he is no "boutique" architect that offers a specialized solution, but he does manage to provide a high quality design, revealing a respectable academic rigor that enhances what can easily become a lazy historicist pastiche.

Such sober characteristics not only shed light on the overall look the future library but it also reveals a little bit the president's own self regard in the urban realm. In recent decades, presidential libraries have become the contemporary version of an emperor's triumphal arch, a monument to a major leader and a repository of all that leader's accomplishments while in office. Only a few have taken noticeably monumental character, in particular John F Kennedy's by I.M. Pei, Lyndon B. Johnson's by SOM and Bill Clinton's by Polshek & Partners. The LBJ library at the University of Texas at Austin impacts significantly the surrounding cityscape. The overall footprint of the library and the attached school of public administration occupies a sizeable area at the corner of the campus. Clinton's library in Little Rock makes a bold gesture in Little Rock, Arkansas, puncturing the city's waterfront with a cantlivering shiny and sleek box of glass and steel. It's apparent that the Clinton library was intended to become a unique landmark to the city and a focal point of local regeneration of the surrounding neighborhood. But because of its bold character, I can't help but think that somehow Mr. Clinton wants as much attention drawn to himself as possible.

President Bush seems to have made it clear that in trying to complement the existing campus architecture of SMU, his library will probably appear inconspicuous. It will refuse to dominate its surroundings with the contrived visual rupture common in much contemporary civic architecture, and instead will likely opt for a relatively modest facade and a gently monumental scale. Although the library will bel nestled within a campus, its edge location near a regenerating district north of downtown Dallas will engage the urban fabric of the city, drawing parallels with Clinton's library. I suspect that the selection of SMU as the library's location had much to do with the library's potential as an urban catalyst, since the president may have learned from his father's missed opportunity in situating his library on the remote and rural Texas A&M campus in College Station. The Bush library will be an attraction among many in Dallas, not THE attraction had it been located in Waco, Midland, or in Irving, a Dallas suburb. It will strengthen the connection between SMU and the city at large by complementing its impressive Meadows Art Museum, its only other major public draw. Since it is relatively small campus SMU will doubtlessly be affected greatly by the Bush Library, forever changing its somewhat insular character and forcing it to become more open to to the public.

With such ideas in mind, maybe the anticipated classicism that Stern effectively provides is the appropriate tact in such sensitive project. It will lend the library a dignified presence, temper the transition between the larger post-industrial city and the quiet neo-georgian college campus by not punctuated end in itself, which is often the ultimate result in large Modernist civic buildings. It follows, then, that George W. Bush has not intent to make the building a special monument to his personality either. Rather, as Mr. Stern has suggested, the architecture will serve as subdued backdrop to what the ideas and themes the President has championed during the last eight years:

"The president, if he were here, he'd say, 'Eventually people will not be so interested in George W. Bush but they will be interested in the ideas, the forums and debates and things that can occur,' " Mr. Stern said. "So I think he and I are on the absolute same wavelength in that respect."

It seems the president would rather emphasize library's diverse program, which include archives, a learning center and a think-tank, rather than merely generate a uniquely moving impression of grandeur and power. It's quite consistent with aspects of his ranch in Crawford, and says quite a lot about his self-deprecating personality.

The Lives of Others: Why a Movie About Communism Still Matters

Spoiler alert: While I tried very hard to not give the plot away, you may want to view the movie first before reading these thoughts.

Having heard nothing but rave reviews for The Lives of Others, I was delighted that NetFlix managed to get it into my home the day of its release, last Tuesday. Set in mid-1980s East Berlin, it is the story of a playwright who must decide what to do with his art, and the secret police who are trying to decide if he is a threat. The story focuses on one particularly devout member of the secret service, Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, played with great restraint by Ulrich Mühe, who sadly died last month of stomach cancer. Wiesler is known as one of the greatest interrogators available to East Germany, such is his skill at getting confessions, we presume mostly from innocent people. Still, I was struck as to why this movie would have much relevance. Hadn’t the Berlin Wall fallen? Hadn’t most of the world come to rid of Communism? What benefit would follow this film, especially in the West?

Well, besides the fact that there remain many state sympathizers and out-and-out communists, even in Berlin, the movie works on a more complex personal level. Ultimately, it is about moral choices the characters are faced with. The background of a state-controlled society certainly serves to make their choices and consequences to follow more pronounced, and often puts the characters in irresolvable moral dilemmas. But the characters are endearing because of their potential for change, and they’re interesting because of their potential for evil. Wiesler, the spy who must decide if his personal liking for the author he is spying on will infringe on his job performance, is in a conundrum where he must decide if he will be true to himself or true to the state, no small decision in Eastern Germany. The author’s live-in girlfriend must decide if she will confess to the state police what she knows, or risk losing her high-profile acting career. It was with (perhaps) morbid fascination that I watched them struggle to make these decisions, knowing the no-win positions their moral courage, or lack thereof, has put them in.

But for those who are still convinced state-run societies are our best option, the movie explores the subtle ways obedience to the state is all-encompassing. To make a joke about your superiors is to risk severe consequences. For a woman to resist the advances of a party official could be career suicide. For an author to write anything that hints of disloyalty risks a loss to all privacy, and certainly his art. Yet the image we often get of Communism is less subtle, and probably, in that sense, less helpful. I often think, and rightfully so, of the Gulags in Siberia, of deserted farms in the Soviet Union, of mass murder, or the sheer brutality of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mau. The Lives of Others explores the way socialism in the west was mentally brutal, emotionally brutal, spiritually brutal far before it is ever physically brutal. It explores the way it forces people to turn on each other, to perform inhumanely selfish acts, the very acts Communism was supposed to rid society of. In fact, if nothing else, the movie should make clear that a socialist state encourages more greed, more hunger for power, and less cooperation than any free and virtuous society.

Much of its message transcends its era. In a society devoid of choices, a man makes a choice that goes against his training, against his profession, against his previous loyalty. And it is a powerful thing watching him make this choice, and quite a sympathetic moment. To watch his character evolve to the point where he understands right and wrong, on his own terms, shaped by his own value system, is to be reminded that our freedom of choice is not to be taken for granted. Communism, more than economic control even, is about killing the ability to think for oneself, to enact groupthink on a mass scale. Money, or the market, is merely the conduit by which we express our free thoughts; the GDR seemed hell-bent on never letting those thoughts occur.

A final thought on rebellion. The movie’s hero is an artist, an artist who must decide if he will, like his friends and mentor, use his art to speak against the inhumanity in his country. As I compared his moral struggle with artists of today, I had to wonder why it is that artists so often call rebellion art. Certainly, I was sympathetic to his cause, as he would use his art not to navel-gaze and advertise his personal philosophy, but instead show the devaluing nature of his state. But many of today’s artists strike me as rebelling against all the wrong things. And I am not merely overreacting to Piss Christ…I am talking about most of the modern art I see in film, music, or museums. What is “popular”, at least from what I have seen, is rarely a defense of virtue, of nobility, of honor. It is much more about deconstruction, about “speaking truth to power”, and championing Post-modern cynicism. It was immensely rewarding for me not only to cheer on the artist who made this film and brought new awareness to the dangers of Statism, but also its hero, who is an artist who takes his art beyond himself, a rarity in his profession.

Charitable Choice: Should We Help Via the Marketplace or Via the Church?

Someone came to me with an interesting proposal recently: for my church to sponsor an African native in the U.S. while he gets Information Technology training for two years. The man whose idea this is has a great heart and a mature understanding of charity, so I listened carefully. There are several unique pieces to this proposal. First, we would sponsor someone who is a Christian, but not someone who is officially engaged in the life of the church in Sierra Leone, where he’s from. In other words, he’s not a seminarian, missionary or pastor. Second, that we would not only give some money to help someone in need, but we would full-scale sponsor a person with only the hope that he would proclaim the gospel in Africa through his business. And this is no small proposal; the total would be at least $50,000 for the two-year program.

What makes the proposal even more risky is that we would be sponsoring someone to get Information Technology training, only to go back to a country that has minimal infrastructure for such a position. That he could get employment is no guarantee; in fact, we might need to rely on his entrepreneurship skills to start a business rather than work for someone else. But we are trying to look beyond that, to see what could take place in Sierra Leone in the years to come, and to consider the role technology will have there. I have to admit, it is a bit of a daring proposal, but it comes as frustration mounts with bad charity, government aid that seldom seems to help, and seeing our brothers and sisters suffer while we know there is more we could do.

It should be noted that a majority of charitable propositions related to Africa seem to revolve around a few cornerstones: its people are poor so they need money, they are hungry so they need food, they are thirsty so they need water. Most of which is true, and some charities have become more innovative to provide lasting solutions, like digging water wells instead of shipping food, or donating money for an entire calf instead of a little money that gets spread around to varying food distribution charities. This way, the food and water are self-perpetuating, and the building blocks are there for ensuring health.

Still, perhaps the most popular “charity” to emerge for Africa is Bread for the World, through the One Campaign. (one.org) I’ve written more about them here. Essentially, this is less of a charity and more of a lobby, an effort to redistribute American wealth to a country that has very little. The fact that we have been doing this for decades and the problems still persist there seem to phase them not even a little. Worse, I find this star-studded approach (their website chronicles the many celebrities who champion the cause) to charity pandering and un-thoughtful. Apparently none of these celebrities (who quite probably did not finish high school) bother to consider if their proposal would actually work. Perhaps helping with such causes helps them assuage some guilt.

So let me iterate again how unusual the proposal I’m considering is compared to so many others I’ve seen. This charity would full-scale (instead of piecemeal) sponsor someone who will spend the majority of his employment in the marketplace. The church would have no way of ensuring a good “return on investment”; we would only trust he would be a faithful witness after he has received his training here, mostly on our dime. But the more I thought about it, the more biblical the proposal was. Consider these biblical figures who only spent part of their lives with their ministry: Jesus, Paul, Peter, and pretty much every disciple who ever had a day job. In fact, few Biblical characters were full-time prophets or spiritual leaders, including Abraham, Moses, Luke (he was a physician). It is true that the major prophets like Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist seemed not to have day jobs, but to spread the gospel without it being a full-time occupation is an entirely biblical principle.

The basic problem is the same temptation towards big government; it is easier to trust a large, anonymous institution than to take the risk of personal involvement. It would be easier for my church to write a check. It would be easier to trust another institution whose heart seems to be in the right place. But that doesn’t seem like enough anymore. In my economic philosophy, I trust the marketplace. Why not with regards to evangelism as well?

Recommended for Further Reading...

Below are a few links that may interest you:

• Like many other people, I believe that how the young are educated determines how societies adapt to future challenges that will play a part in daily life. My own life-long experience attending public schools in below-average districts contributes much to my skepticism to standard solutions in improving our education system. However, I refrain from prescribing reforms since I've never known what it's like to be a teacher in these mediocre schools. One blogger who is very close to me, "Scott Walker", has made a commitment to become a teacher in the large and mismanaged Dallas Independent School District. Walker is fresh out of college and naturally full of ambition, and has an exceptional mastery of the humanities and literature of the great Western cannon. Walker has numerous stories to tell from his days working as a substitute teacher at all grade levels around various public school districts in the area. His blog"The English Teacher" features keen insights complemented by a highly literate writing style. It's definitely worth a gander.
• One of the joys of writing about architecture on a blog is the connection made with other young designers who understand the blog as useful promotional medium for their work. "Emiliano", a seemingly talented Italian architect, shows off one of his projects. I cannot completely understand Italian, but the images of his cultural center in Brescia reveals a sophisticated understanding of structural and cladding systems. There are thousands of young talents like Emiliano, so don't hesitate to remind me to link to your blog to promote your projects.
• Want to find out what a self-described anarcho-syndicalist structural engineer thinks of Le Corbusier? It's a new blog full of opinions on everything, from a solidly left perspective. What has life been like After Corbu?
• As a catholic, I have some major reservations on the effects that the second Vatican council had on the Church. Dr. Philip Blosser writes from a similar perspective in his blog, "The Pertinacious Papist", a superbly written site on all things catholic. For those you who are annoyed by much of the post-Vatican 2 repertoir of worshisp music, browse this particular post if you are familiar with some of the listed songs.
• Apeman wrote a thoughtful response to my observations while traveling to Mexico City a few months back. To answer his main question: the blog's name "Architecture and Morality" is not really a literal description of the content of the blog posts on this site. Rather, for those who have searched the blog's title on the internet, the title comes from an album recorded in 1981 by the English synth-pop group OMD. As soon as I was considering establishing a blog, that album title seemed to perfectly encapsulate the nebulous intentions of what I wanted to write about. Sure I would want to write about architecture, but I am also interested in thinking about other broader but related topics that most architecture writers would never care to tie in. It's kind of a coincidence that my co-blogger and I tend to write on our areas of expertise, he on religion and morality and me on architecture. Other than that, I have no intention to produce content consistent to the blog's namesake. With that being said, Ape Man makes some interesting points about how architecture can reflect a society's moral values.
• I don't know if Andrew Yen is still writing, but his short-lived blog, "The Suburban Bourgeois" contains some nice litte posts about life in the suburbs and skepticism about the advantages of a more dense and 'urban' lifestyle promoted by the architecture and planning orthodoxy. I admire the fact that he writes from the perspective of a non-expert on matters of urbanism, and refuses to defer his opinion to so-called "experts".

The Panopticon of Celebrity: The Image of the City in the Age of Luxury Condominium Towers

At some point in my theoretical education in architecture school the French philosopher Michel Foucault's ideas were introduced. One of the concepts that I learned was about Michel Foucault's description of the Panopticon. From my brief exposure to Foucault's philosophy, it seemed to have centered significantly around power relationships. All forms of cultural expression were subtle manifestations of power of an elite group of people and ideas over everything else. As an example, the language with which we speak is structured in such a way as to assume particular notions of hierarchy and influence that favored a point of view, particular a patriarchal and rationalist one. Many of today's academics apply Foucault's kernel of ideas in order to give meaning to their deconstructive pursuits. By supposedly revealing the inherent bias in power in all that we communicate and even think, it becomes possible to cast doubt on any knowledge we've inherited. This logic has been a driving force in dismantling the influence of centuries of accumulated wisdom, from the Judeo-Christian tradition all the way past the enlightenment up to post-structuralism.

My opinion is that Foucault's ideas have had a destructive impact, canceling many times over any gains in the freedom to rethink knowledge on a different set of power relationships. His separation of truth from knowledge ironically did not lead him to doubt the integrity of all ideas. In fact, Foucault was an avowed Marxist, and many of those influenced by him have used his ideas to reinstate socialist ideology as the base of power for a new body of knowledge (which accounts for much of what passes as scholarship in the humanities these days.)

One of his more architectural concepts was that of the Panopticon, an opaque tower at the center of a circular array of prison cells from which the prison guard can watch the inmates without being seen. This image of a prison represented the broader realization of a pervasive yet unseen power that governs much of daily life, where one will not transgress because of a fear that we are being secretly watched. It is ironic that Foucault wrote about the Panopticon as a way of defending the rights of the imprisoned and the insane but was personally in favor of a political system (socialist tyranny) that used it with brutal efficiency. I was interested in the idea that power over others could be polar, in which one person or thing could command the attention of all those around it. The Panopticon is not only a means of exercising oppressive power but also one of attracting attention in order to exert influence. In an age where much of what we call "news" consists of reporting the whereabouts of an unaccomplished celebrity, the public at large sometimes is compelled to lend its focus on people who by what they are subtly influence what is important in the world.

The emergence of celebrity is relatively recent, the product of mass media that needed to provide images that captivated and stimulated many people to imagine another imaginary world in vivid detail. Whereas not too long ago, a celebrity would express regret of having their privacy invaded, now we can find ambitious individuals aggressively seek as much attention as possible and willingly expose all aspects of their life simply to become the center of a celebrity-based panopticon. Reality television is nothing more than an attempt by talentless people seeking to wield the power of celebrity for their own personal gain. It seems to be the aspiration of more an more people to be seen or at least to celebrate ourselves publicly, often by showing off their possessions. Conspicuous consumption represents a natural human impulse to attract attention through the ownership of special objects from a wide range of scales, from fashionable clothes, cars, private planes and ultimately private buildings. Flaunting one's personal trophies is nothing new, but the way it can become so unavoidably visible to so many is.

From the earliest of times, buildings have probably been the most effective way to wield a "panoptical" power over others due to the way that they permanently occupy and dominate a landscape. Monarchs often would situate their palaces on visually prominent sites while wealthy and politically influential families built their sprawling family compound in the middle of the town to remind subjects or average citizens who was in control. With the rise of large-scale commerce, especially beginning from the Industrial revolution onwards, wealthy tycoons would build that most visible and most literal of panopticons, the high-rise office tower. In the capitalist city, business enterprises become a king of sorts, employing many people within the community, brokering deals with city leaders and lobbying with national politicians. Despite some popular paranoid perceptions, corporations are not watching individuals from their opaque glass towers. Instead, they sear into the memories of citizens a constructed communal identity of which the corporation is a primary element. How many Detroit residents could imagine their city without their monument to their dominant Automobile companies, the Renaissance center? In my home city, where many of its citizens lament the lack of a traditional communal life, could never imagine itself with the seventy-two story Bank of America tower. The unspoken message given by these gleaming towers is: You fellow citizens should not attempt to push any policy that would harm the interests of our business, since the community as you know it would cease to exist without us being part of your cherished urban landscape.

The past couple of decades have seen a change to this commercially-based panopticon. After the real-estate bust that followed the overbuilding of downtown commercial office buildings throughout many cities in the U.S during the 1980s, many large companies decided it wasn't necessary to locate at the center of a big city in a vertically hierarchical tower. They preferred to build more horizontal corporate campuses on cheap land in the suburbs. Efficiency gains from computers and networks shrank the size of corporate staff dramatically, leaving vacant many floors of space that once was alloted to an extensive administrative bureaucracy once required by large companies. Corporate tenants come and go in these office towers, with most citizens unaware of who occupies them at the moment, just that some sort of business is going in there. Municipal governments value the presence of a major corporation in forging a distinct communal identity for the city, and therefore they continue to offer enticements to companies to move downtown with generous tax rebates.

Such incentives indicate a desperation to stall the shift away from commerce occupying the role as the icon of authority in a cityscape. Beginning in the 1990s and expanding rapidly in our current decade, construction residential towers have become the most prominent urban event taking place in our downtowns. Vacant office buildings are rapidly being converted into residential units, and city skylines are being changed by new towers with smaller floorplates and highly articulated walls punched by private widows and balconies. They avoid monotonous glass curtain facades and lobbies engulfing entire city blocks. Many of these towers are surrounded by more pedestrian low-rise mixed use buildings with ground level retail. These residential highrises almost exclusively house the city's elite, and cater the natural desire to enjoy dramatic views of the surrounding city. The structures also accomplish for those who dwell in them a sense of importance shared with monarchs and wealthy families of long ago: a reminder who is important, who stands above the rest of average society.

And yet there are differences from that earlier time help explain the particular nature of panoptical power in our time. The most obvious is that this power is much more democratically distributed. Instead of one large palace for one family, there are now hundreds of luxury units attached to a tall vertical structure for all to be reminded who's important. Another difference is that today's mini-palaces in the sky are not literal political symbols like their ancient predessors. Whereas political leaders used their grand residence as a projection of their power over others, luxury condo towers serve as monuments to the occupants' apparent success and their association with an elite leisure class. Many among us aspire to become part of that leisure class due to their seemingly boundless sense of freedom and financial security. Yet the lifestyle of leisured elites resembles that of celebrities, who seem to make news simply by attending some leisurely event like movie premiers, awards shows and parties.

Buying property to upgrade one's social status happens frequently at the private level. But the times we live in are quite unique in that climbing for personal prestige is becoming our most significant built legacy. Only a few weeks ago, it was declared that tallest building in the world is now in Dubai. The 160 story tower contains mostly condominium units and an Armani brand hotel. In Chicago, there are plans to build an extremely tall spire on the most prominant waterfront site in the city, containg luxurious condominiums spiralling to the top. Currently the first ninety-plus story building in decades is underway under the Trump brand on the Chicago river, featuring condos and hotel sharing personal concierge services. Flying over Miami recently, speculative condo towers seem to have be growing like weeds, utterly changing the landscape of that city forever. The magazines on the airplanes were full of ads promoting spectacular towers in a place that not too long ago was briefly occupied American troops-Panama.

What particularly made me realize the significance of the rise of the residential tower in cities was when it was announced not too long ago that the first major addition to my home city's skyline would be a forty-two story condominium tower in the Dallas Arts district. The units in the tower are selling for no lower than a million dollars each. A stone's throw away, the most significant downtown development since the 1980s is going up. Called "Victory", it consists of a series of condo-hotels and upscale retail catering specifically to the leisured elite. The project's "cherry on top" could be represented by the private helipad roof sitting atop the tallest unit above the W hotel, belonging to none other than the Victory primary developer himself.

What does this say about the contemporary big city? The rise of corporate commercial towers often conveyed the general economic prosperity of the city, giving it regional and national prestige. A newcomer arriving to a major city would view the skyline on the horizon and say to himself "this is where important business is conducted...this a city on the move!" As condo skyscrapers begin to dominate the skyline of important cities, can one necessarily say the same thing? My first impression upon seeing these new skylines would be that there are a lot of wealthy people who live there that want to enjoy views. They say little of that city's overall economic health, or what life might be like for the majority of people who can't afford to live in these vertical mini-palaces. Gleaming downtown office towers connote opportunities for work and advancement. Glitzy condo towers symbolize the opportunities already taken, a city reserved for those who have already made it. They do not produce marketable commodities and ideas like their commercial counterparts, but merely display the byproduct of those successful producers themselves in a memorable and highly monumental form (the high-rise). One critic of the condo boom in American cities notes that many of those who own units in these towers are not even residents of the city in which they are located. Like the office towers that preceded them, many of the towers are pure speculation, built to no compelling overall civic need.

Imagining how future urban historians will regard the developments at the turn-of-the millennium American city (and a few international centers like Dubai), it seems to me evident that the story will involve the rise of luxurious high-density living anchoring the revival of old downtowns as well as the establishment of new satellite city centers. As the nineeteenth century turned into the twentieth, the story of American cities was their exuberant commercial growth, the development of the high-rise as a response to speculation as well as the creation of a new class of workers--the office worker. New architectural vocabularies (Gothic revival, art deco, Chicago style) responded to the overwhelming drive to build vertically in order to accomodate an army of office workers helping produce the massive quanities of goods and services for the industrial age. Nowadays the need for towers comes from a fast-growing upper class benefitting from the opportunities made possible by the post-industrial information age. Business has opted for low-rise suburban campuses or spec-office parks while the new rich's growing desire to show off becomes one of the only remaining reasons to build higher and higher.

A Right to the Land: Who Has it, and Why

My mom recalled an interesting airport conversation to me recently. Held over in Dallas, she was making small talk with a woman from Oklahoma when she mentioned she was from Louisiana. This naturally led the conversation to discussing Katrina, its aftershock, what should be done to rebuild the city, etc. My mom is of the opinion that it is rather non-sensical to try to recreate New Orleans just as it was, i.e., put people back in harm’s way. After all, the city is still sinking, the levies can hardly be trusted, and the Mississippi River is still washing away valuable sediment it had deposited for centuries during flood season before the Corps of Engineers put in dams. But this opinion was met with a rather harsh rebuttal. The claim from the conversation partner was that those who were displaced had a right to the land, that the 9th ward, for example, should be rebuilt as it was, and those who had moved out should be moved back in.

Undoubtedly these are the two poles that encompass the thinking about rebuilding New Orleans. This has brought up several philosophical questions for me. Who has a right to any land? How did they get such a right? Are there times in which cultural forces trump traditional understandings of private property, land allocation, etc.? My view tends to be that if New Orleans is to be rebuilt, several things need to happen first.
1. The coast needs to be replenished with soil; let the Mississippi naturally flood the region to provide some barrier for future hurricanes. Yes, this will take many decades, but the sooner we start, the better.
2. Get rid of incentives that encourage systemic poverty and reliance on government bailouts. We saw what happens when passive reliance on government meets inept and uncaring government agencies.
3. Be corporate friendly. Louisiana notoriously has an out-migration problem and only 1 Fortune 500 company in the state. Follow the lead of other southern cities and become manufacturing/technologically friendly. There are loads of auto-manufacturers along I-20 and Austin has become a mini-Silicon Valley. New Orleans has decided to rely on its history and sleaziness alone for tourism dollars. It’s time to be forward thinking and let the great historical/cultural background be just that, the background.

So what to do with all the displaced? Don’t they have a right to return home? The argument heard by my mom was as follows: Because most of the folks in the 9th ward were displaced to begin with (brought from Africa as slaves), they deserved to be resettled (at government expense) to the land that was taken from them. There was no property claims as such, as much as cultural pleas. Because cultural ties to the land were all these people had (their music, food and community) they had the right, even a moral foundation for resettling the land.

But who is to say anyone had a right to that land, even if their culture was alive and well there? While no one enjoys being displaced, what exactly in the course of history tells us that any ethnic group has a right to any land? With the rare exception of the Jews (who, according to scripture, were promised land by God, and historically did, in fact, settle the land, through conquest or slow agricultural/social hegemony), I can think of virtually no clan of people who didn’t move, or weren’t threatened with the prospect of moving because of natural/military forces. Even Native Americans, whose suffering was real and well-documented, were overcome, rightly or wrongly, by superior military forces, disease and political deception. But as wrong as this was, we would be remiss if we thought of it as new in the history of human colonization. It’s as old as the land itself. So whereas the Jews seem to have an unusual claim on the Land, especially post-WWII, I can think of no other group that has such protection.

Our only real claim to land then is as individuals, and it is only protected in the historically rare combination of effective rule of law and the protection of private property. I haven’t written an article in many weeks because I have been in the middle of move. My wife and I purchased our first home, and I have to say, cliché as it may be, I’ve never loved America so much. The idea that financial institutions were competing to help me own a piece of the world that basically no one can take from me was surreal. I hope I never take the ability to own private property for granted. (Of course I know that these financial institutions will make a mint off of me, but hey, it’s a tax write-off, and they’re taking an enormous risk giving me a lot of money.)

And ultimately, I think this has instructed me on what to think of re-building New Orleans. Let the market decide if it is worth re-building, not faux moral imperatives that dictate past residents there have the right to resettle there. Businesses and corporations are in better places to discern if New Orleans will be profitable city with a high standard of living because they stand to profit from it. The land shouldn’t be re-settled by past inhabitants just to try to “make things right.” It might make us feel good, but there is not necessarily a moral imperative to do so, and if it is economically infeasible, why make the same mistake twice?

For a wonderfully comprehensive take on the rebuilding of New Orleans, go here.