“Why do architects want to be artists?” — An alternate view

I recently stumbled across a 2017 article by Donald Richardson with the intriguing title “Why do architects want to be artists?” As a key part of my day job has a focus on public art administration, where architects and artists are both key agents, I naturally read on with some interest.

Richardson takes the position that there is a “principled difference” between design (inclusive of architecture) and art, and that that difference rests upon functionality. So long as architecture performs a useful function and that usefulness exerts influence upon architects, architects can never be artists — except as practitioners in parallel, as Richardson is careful to point out some examples of architects who were also competent painters or sculptors. Furthermore Richardson considers it ludicrous that architects should wish to be considered artists, and that someone of the calibre of Frank Gehry should be discontent with his reputation as a “starchitect” and the undeniably creative work that he produces within his field.

I am not convinced by this argument. I think that Richardson’s titular question requires a rather more nuanced explanation than can be delivered by retracing and fortifying territorial distinctions between art, design and craft and emphasising art’s impenetrable uselessness, and corresponding unassailable intrinsic value.

Richardson cites and refutes Vasari’s claim that painting, sculpture and architecture are all arts of equal value. Yet we have the example of Michelangelo, and other near contemporaries of Vasari, who practiced all three arts, and designed buildings within which paintings and sculptures were integral to the experience and function of those spaces. For much of history buildings were designed with painting and sculpture in mind, and painting and sculpture existed more or less exclusively in alignment with requirements for interiors and public edifices, and other public and civic spaces.

In the early twentieth century, architectural theorists and practitioners such as Loos and Le Corbusier sought to divest architectural design of ornament and embellishment, emphasising the materiality and function of buildings. These were key moments for the rise of design as an independent creative practice, and the separation from other prior creative practices that were considered to perform a superfluous decorative function. As I understand it, the intent of architects such as Le Corbusier, designers associated with the Bauhaus, and artists like Mondrian was to promote a new aesthetic within which function and structural essentialism had a beauty of its own. In this new world, functional objects and spaces would not require dressing up, because the elegant synthesis of form, function and materiality would deliver a total and immersive environment. It is interesting that demarcations between design, art and craft have become part of the legacy of these innovators, when they aspired to achieve an optimal and cohesive fusion of the three.

Developments in painting and sculpture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are an equally important part of this story. But I do not think it is because artists actively sought to pursue uselessness. The innovations in visual art over this period have as much to do with changing social, cultural and economic circumstances that allowed some innovative artists to practice independently of long standing and domineering institutions (such as the Parisian academy) and reliance on aristocratic patronage. The new system of independent dealers, critics and middle class collectors that arose at this time provided new opportunities to create and show new kinds of works, and there was an appetite for the new and the progressive.

As art’s traditional didactic and documentary functions waned, artists looked for new truths in new sciences — such as physics and psychology — and felt at liberty to engage with the contemporary and modern world as observers, interpreters and bricoleurs. Perhaps Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades are the archetypal example of art’s uselessness — rendering the mundane and functional object useless through transposition and re-presentation as art. But is it really their uselessness that makes the resulting objects works of art? Is this more significant than the social, cultural and economic contexts that define how art is to be presented, contemplated, possessed and discussed?

Painting and sculpture have had an interesting relationship with purpose and functionality. There can be little doubt that art has historically performed documentary, didactic and political functions, and has consistently been a conspicuous marker for power and wealth. I would argue that art continues to perform these functions today, though some things have certainly things have shifted. Where art’s role was formerly to portray truth through beauty, its role is now to combat deceit through criticality. Where art was previously used to reinforce orthodoxy, combat dissent and bolster the status of the powerful, the pluralism of western modern and contemporary art has long been presented as important evidence of the unfettered cultural, political and economic superiority of the democratic and capitalist west.

I do not think that art has ever been, or can ever be, without function or purpose. Simultaneously those functions and purposes exert influence upon those who make art — in the same manner that the utility or other purpose of any designed object plays a decisive role in determining how it is created. So I don’t believe that an architect can be excluded from being considered an artist on the grounds that architects design functional buildings and spaces, while art is by definition useless.

Moving away from “principled differences”, the question remains why an architect may wish to be thought of as an artist. Richardson rightly objects to the notion that “it is all art anyway”. But whilst it is not true that everything is art, it is true in the contemporary world that pretty much anything can be art. Since the Cubists, the Futurists, the Dadaists and Duchamp, artists are no longer limited to working in certain media or even to making objects. Equally, galleries and exhibitions are no longer the only sites and occasions for the presentation and publication of works of art — though they remain important in many ways.

In both contemporary public art and studio practices, artists have been creatively exploring the new opportunities that exist by taking a holistic approach to art making in which the art is integrated into its site, and the site is considered an integral part of the artwork. Installation art, socially engaged art and site-specific and integrated works of public art are all examples. All of these practices are working to initiate creative transformations using materials, social and regulatory contexts, and spaces that architects also work with.

So if an artist can legitimately design an artwork to be integrated into building or for integration into the public realm, what distinguishes these works from other similar interventions that are architect-designed, which are not considered art? Fundamentally, I think these distinctions have very little to do with observable and essential differences between works of contemporary art and architecture.

Richardson talks about the notion of the titles of Artist and Architect being “honorific” and I think he is closer to the mark with this observation. What is at issue are lines of professional demarcation and recognition. To be an architect, one must qualify through completing an accredited course, and to be a credible practitioner one must also register with the relevant professional body — e.g. the Australian Institute of Architects. There is no such clear-cut process for becoming a professional artist, and anyone is free to call themselves an artist and to pursue an art practice. But gaining recognition and legitimacy as a professional artist is a different thing.

In the realm of public art, legitimacy is usually determined on the basis of eligibility criteria that are in turn informed by the goals of an institutional policy. For instance, if the stated aim of a percent for public art policy is to provide opportunity and income for artists in association with building and other development projects then implicitly (or sometimes explicitly) it is assumed that the “artists” who need these opportunities are not the professionals who are already involved in these projects — i.e. architects, engineers, builders etc. So it is that architects are not often eligible to create works using funds that have been designated for public art.

But this is not to say that the works that they design and create are any less artistic than the work that is commissioned from an eligible professional artist using the public art budget. Indeed the most prominent sculptural features at the new development at Mends Street jetty in South Perth are not public art commissions, but shade structures that take the form of large-scale origami-inspired animals designed by Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects. And across the road at the new Echelon apartment building the awning over the footpath is subtly enhanced by a wrap-around treatment designed by artist Stuart Green. At the end of the day, the status of artist and art can sometimes be decided on the basis of which budget paid for the works in alignment with one policy or another— and may be largely irrelevant to the audiences who experience the work on site.

I can see why an architect, as a creative, may wish to explore practices that are professionally associated with “art” in the same way that artists have been able to engage in practices that encroach on the areas of professional practice for which architects have qualified to operate. I empathise with the frustrations of architects who are not allowed to creatively address the public art requirements themselves in association with architectural projects over which they otherwise have creative control. I am not convinced that Jeff Koons’ “Puppy” is any bit as innovative as Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, as Richardson suggests, or that this somehow helps us to decide whether architects such as Gehry can be artists or not.

In my view art and architecture are properly intertwined arts and should always work in concert, as they did for centuries until the twentieth century. The goal should be to create better buildings and public spaces inclusive of art and I am not sure that insisting upon “principled differences” between art and design make a positive contribution to that.