Communicating Architecture - A Personal Perspective, Ciarán Cuffe

First Published in Building Material, the Journal of the Architectural Association of Ireland, Issue eleven, Spring 2004

We intimidate. We talk amongst ourselves, speaking a language that is often impenetrable to others. We learnt this language carefully through five years of College. Often we travelled to study regional dialects, and we incorporate subtleties, expressions and constructs from Catalonia or The Hague into our work. Communication can be as important as construction. Professions intimidate. Their members often spend too much time together, and nod sagely in agreement on issues of shared concern. Perhaps we should go back to school. We could start by learning how to speak with words that people use in everyday conversation. ‘Space’ is my pet hate. When I was a city councillor I used to dread the word. It came up at meetings when the architect attempted to explain their scheme to a crowded hall. Once the ‘S’ word was used it tended to be repeated. The eyes of the audience glazed over with each alliteration. They would frown and begin to stir. You could tell that people were upset with a discussion full of terminology that they were not familiar with.

Architects learn a language over the five years of study. It is important that we learn how to translate that language back into words that non-architects can understand. Instead we should talk about rooms, about walls or windows, even talk about the light, but treat the word space with caution. It is intimidating to those who haven’t studied the concept. We’re not unique in this. Doctors can be as bad; Lawyers even worse. We need to learn again how to communicate as well as build. Gerry Cahill has a story about the voice from the back of the hall that shouts out ‘we don’t know what you’re proposing but we’re against it!” This should make all architects pause for thought and contemplate how best to communicate their ideas.

A recent Irish Times sketch featured Donnchadha the up-and-coming architect. Riding a wonky bicycle and wearing a Paul Smith jacket he advises his client to install ‘floor-to-ceiling toughened glass pivoted doors’ in the garden room. Some years ago in an early issue of the UCD publication ‘Annexe’, Professor Dermot O’Connell illustrated a piece[i] about the profession with similar aloofness. It depicted the architect in a drafting smock looking over his spectacles at two older frumpily dressed clients, whilst precariously balanced on a tubular Bauhaus stool and addressing them: “Did I really understand you, Miss Wilson, to use the expression ‘a cosy little nook’ in connection with the house you wish me to design for you?” The profession appears to have had a long history of failing to connect with those who commission and use their buildings.

The legal profession’s reputation suffers from the excessive fees charged by a minority of their members. With architects a single poorly designed building can contribute greatly to public disapproval for the profession. Perhaps we should be shouting louder about the successes. Heneghan Peng’s recent commission for an Egyptian Museum should have received more acclaim, as should Grafton Architects for their Bocconi Building in Milan. The architectural profession should persuade the media to celebrate architectural successes more loudly.

Architects are learning that good design alone will not make the world employ more architects. We must spread the world, not just through building, but also by talking about architecture, and by making sure that buildings are talked about. Buildings may speak for themselves, but they often speak faintly, and require amplification and public discussion if they are to influence debate and the shape of the future. Churchill stated: ‘we shape our buildings: thereafter they shape us’, however our experience of memorable buildings is often dominated by the way we were treated there, rather than by the place itself. The public concourse[ii] in Michael Scott’s Busarus comes to mind. It is a magnificent room within an astounding building, but is rarely commented on favourably by the public.

Getting the discussion into the public domain is important. Articles in the property supplements and Sunday papers can contribute significantly to this debate. TV shows have a huge role to play. People want to know that a makeover for a home can be achieved for €1000, €10,000 or €100,000. Perhaps we should talk about significant public buildings in the same chat-show style. A suitable first programme could feature Dublin’s Civic Offices before and after the atriumed extension was added. Dolan and Donnelly’ new office block at the corner of Townsend Street could be contrasted with the old Liffey House that housed Dublin Corporation’s Fire Control Section.

We need to sell our wares. Eason’s sell several books containing sets of house plans at an affordable price. The house plans come complete with 3D perspectives including the ’04 car in the drive and the Leylandii hedge. We ignore that sector of the market at our peril. Pattern books have a long and honourable history in architecture, and should be part of the marketing process for architecture today. ‘The New Housing[iii]’ produced by the RIAI goes some way towards meeting this need, but if anything it shows the absence of support for good architecture in Ireland.

We should also ensure that those well placed to commission architects are familiar with what we can provide. The Coopers & Lybrand Report[iv] on the Employment and Economic Significance of the Cultural Industries in Ireland put facts and figures on the value of Culture in Ireland. Cultural industries in Ireland give employment to 33,800 people. The value of the cultural industries amounts to €560 million per year. Perhaps we need a similar study on the added value that architecture gives to the economy. Such a study could encourage more commissioning, and could help convince unenthusiastic County Managers of the value of engaging an architect. The Geoghegans’ work on building in the landscape[v] has reached a wider audience than architects traditionally engage with. The full implementation of the Government’s Policy on Architecture[vi] could also assist in spreading the word.

People are nervous of change. The 1990’s will be remembered as a decade of explosive transformation in Ireland. Such sudden change is intimidating. In tumultuous times people often take refuge in nostalgia. That appears to be why pastiche was allowed in certain quarters. The twelve pane neo-Georgian windows of Ha’penny Bridge House on Ormond Quay typify this. Perhaps the false chimneystacks on the Bachelors’ Walk apartments by Zoe Developments represent the worst of this vacuous sentimentality. Architects should lead change, but they must also educate. The discussion of sustainability can be clearly focussed by using buildings as case studies. A discussion of what constitutes good design can bring the level of debate onto a more productive level. The recent rash of trophy buildings such as Gehry museums and Calatrava bridges doesn’t help. It reeks of a ‘must have’ shopping list rather than a serious commitment to quality. There’s a lot to learn from the advertising industry. People are attracted by tangible images that make them feel good. Although the purity of a hard line plan is admired within the profession it can be impenetrable to the general public. There is a need to flesh out our visions with colour and 3D modelling if our vision is to be understood by the general public. There is not enough good modern architecture out there for the buildings alone to sell themselves and the profession. Architecture does have an image problem and we need to position the profession for the challenges of a world where products practically scream ‘buy me’ from the supermarket shelves. As branding and advertising compete with design for the attention of the consumer, architects must reflect more on how others see them. 

I am privileged to have an office located in a well-designed example of contemporary Irish Architecture. This building ironically is inaccessible to the general public, and is hidden behind the National Library, a Victorian building of mediocre value. It is troubling that few of my work colleagues comment on the quality of its design, however I am optimistic that the building’s architecture will exert some benign influence over my peers during this Governments term of office.

David Mackay in the prologue to ‘Fiaschi[vii]’ (Failures) states that architects must also address urban design issues. In recent years in Dublin the Spire, Liffey Boardwalk and Millennium Bridge provide reassurance that architects can engage in, and contribute significantly to the image and substance of the city. These projects give me hope that architecture can play centre-stage in the debate about improving the quality of people’s lives. I fell that it is perhaps at the urban scale, and by engaging at the level of the neighbourhood, that architects can improve their public standing. The perception of architecture in Ireland can be improved through providing buildings that work well, but also by speaking about architecture in accessible language and by using the media to sell our wares to a wider audience. Vitruvius’s principles of commodity, firmness and delight are still with us, but a changing world demands that we take extra steps to ensure that architecture is on everyone’s agenda.

Ciarán Cuffe is an architect and town planner, and is a Green Party TD representing the Dún Laoghaire constituency in the 29^th Dáil.

NOTE S