10) What’s architecture?

There is no single and exhaustive definition of architecture, nor is there a delineation of its scope that commands universal acceptance. The word architecture is used with great flexibility; this is an advantage, but it also creates confusion when it comes to practical application. Whether architecture can be defined at all has long been a matter of controversy.

And to make things worse, the definition of architecture is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Moreover, the philosophical usefulness of a definition of architecture has also been debated. Contemporary definitions are of two main sorts. One distinctively modern, conventionalist, sort of definition focuses on architecture’s building features, emphasizing the way architecture changes over time, how modern buildings appear to break radically with traditional architecture, and how the relational properties of an architect’s projects depend on their works’ relations to architectural history, style, etc. The less conventionalist sort of contemporary definition makes use of a broader, less traditional concept of aesthetic properties and includes more social-relational ones. This focuses on pan-cultural and the trans-historical characteristics of shaping social space and solving problems with buildings.

In the final analysis, architecture is any creative act which will transform a place into a somewhere human beings live. Without architecture, I fear I should not be able to find my way across the world; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any area of life. There is no enterprise that connects us to each other, moves us to action, and strengthens our ability to make collective choices more than architecture. There is no approach that breaks barriers, connects across cultural differences, and engages our shared values more than architecture and human rights.

Architecture is about disclosing relations through the alteration of space.

Such an approach would transform both the relationship between human beings and between humans and the planet. That’s what climate change does. It limits the Earth’s capacity, to the point where there’s not enough capacity to support its population. That’s what negative social change does. With no human rights, it makes all of us victims of global injustice. The true test of architecture is the degree to which it delivers on the promise of human rights; civic, cultural, economic, political, and social. Architecture will ultimately not be judged by technology and design, we will judge it by how it treats people. That is when we’ll understand all the truly profound aspects of being an architect.

Architecture holds that just as there are reliable ways of finding out how the physical world works, or what makes buildings sturdy and durable, there are also ways of finding out what individuals may justifiably demand of architecture. Mainly because space alteration can deeply transform the relationship between the poor and the rich.

In a way, I feel like this is the choice that faces us today. If we dismiss these tasks as unacceptable or impossible or none of our business, we might as well just pave them over. Now it would be easy for us to dismiss architecture as excessive, as unnecessary, a waste of money and resources when compared with the destitution, ills, and social injustices ever-present around the world. If we do this, we would be missing the point of architecture. Architecture is the dominant strategy by which humanity’s landscapes are shaped for social life. It is our interface with the earth and the space through which we interact with each other and organize and are organized by larger systems of political, legal, and economic class structuring. And in a world where everything is changing, we need to be very smart about how we define architecture.

And so, I believe that architecture is not just those buildings and spaces that are designed by architects, by women or men. I think that architecture is anywhere that life thrives, anywhere that there are communities, people, and other species together, anywhere that’s under a blue sky, filled with life and growth. So where does this put human rights? What counts as human rights in a world where everything is influenced by architecture? Architecture is the beginning of something.