Listen to the original recording:
A lecture/symposium presentation by architect Ralph Erskine critiquing "organic architecture" as escapist and irrelevant to the real needs of the world's underprivileged. Erskine argues for an architecture grounded in human rights, social justice, user participation, and practical problem-solving rather than aesthetic movements or academic cults.
Erskine's checklist for evaluating whether architecture serves its purpose:
(Note: Erskine lists these somewhat inconsistently in the recording - some overlap/renumbering)
"I have a profound disbelief in and antipathy to attempts to give generality to most of that which is usually associated with [organic architecture]."
"How can a new aesthetic help to solve the problems of a world which suffers from alienation, conflict and war, economy and politics in unbalance, and starvation paired with opulent waste?"
"Architecture [...] is Brotkunst, the art of that which is useful."
"The pressing and permanent problem of the underprivileged is their lack of privilege. It is therefore this that must be changed."
"When will we recognize the inspired expression of our dreams of true liberty, equality, and fraternity?"
"In the land of the somewhat blind, the one-eyed zeitgeist could be king."
Three major changes forcing new architectural thinking in Sweden:
Lucian (fellow symposium speaker), Gaudí (as gifted eccentric), John Habraken, John F.C. Turner, Christopher Alexander (likely "Fichter"?), Lucien Kroll, Jan Gehl, Jane Jacobs, Oscar Neumann, Edward T. Hall, Bonaro Overstreet, John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul and Percival Goodman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier
An invitation to come here, if you didn't need me. And I was told the symposium was about organic architecture. I was also told that I was considered to represent, to be one of the representatives, I'll do as another, and one to others, of the organic movement in Scandinavia. And then this, all I got information for this evening, was politics and participation. And now I wonder why. However, I started writing a thing, a thing I've never done before. I've written a thing on the impact of reading the program and what was suggested. I'm now going to read it out to you. This will take, according to my program, about 20 minutes. 20 minutes of philosophy, that's pretty tough going. After which, we'll look at some pictures, as many as we manage to get through. In the general Olympics of this operation, everybody has to do it in an hour. Lucian did it. Congratulations, Lucian. I feel you're a better architect than I. Despite all the technical faults, you did it in one hour and five minutes. So, off we go. You can shut down the pictures. I'll see if I can find a way of getting the light on this. Right. Well now, this business of organic architecture. I've written a bit about it. It was my spontaneous reaction, as I say, to reading through the Letter of Invitation program and so on. You know, I don't really know what you're up to here in the Bartlett and the AA. I know there are certain tendencies around the world, and this was my reaction for it. I call this participation politics and organic architecture. The academic tradition has always been an important factor in isolating artists and architects from the users of the built environment. Deeply involved in labyrinths of abstruse dialogue within a limited circle of true believers, architects and critics become members of a cult which has its own high priests and proselytes and uses its own secret language, a language which arouses the admiration of the initiated and excludes outsiders. Such cults and languages usually express concern for the common good, and in fact give rise to an isolated and exclusive society for mutual admiration. They strengthen the feeling of superiority of the believers by excluding and thereby establishing the inferiority of all others. Thank you. A regrettable consequence is that architects become involved in their own exotic salvation, wrongly imagine it to be of great importance for others, and lose interest for the real needs of the real people outside their circle. They plead the mysticism of the human soul and decry attempts to seek attainable precision in knowledge of the human and physical needs. This being one of the trends of our time, and since some have wished to make me representative of the organic tradition in Scandinavia, I would therefore wish to commence by making it abundantly clear that I have a profound disbelief in and antipathy to attempts to give generality to most of that which is usually associated with it. The qualification of usually and must I must put in, since the term organic is so imprecise that it becomes a concept which can cover a very wide range of different phenomena. Phenomena which usually suffer from the same lack of precision as the term itself. Organic design I feel to be a fringe movement which can be entertaining, but is irrelevant to most of that which I consider important for a true modern architecture for this troublesome world. A world we all know about, but many find it most comforting to forget. As limited movements, organic architecture, new rationalism, nostalgic architecture and other entertaining follies can be both acceptable and pleasurable frivolities. In the hands of a few gifted eccentrics such as Gaudet and his clients, they can be a true delight. In this lies their great danger. Their beauty can be seen, but less discriminating proselytes do not realize the limited role which must be given to such an exotic spice in the menu of a needy world. Therefore, in times of disorientation and disillusionment, organic form grows to a movement of some influence, and as at the time of the Art Nouveau occupies the minds of many people who are endeavouring to escape from an undesired reality, and who seek their escape in a new aesthetic, a naive and hopeless hope. How can a new aesthetic help to solve the problems of a world which suffers from alienation, conflict and war, economy and politics in unbalance, and starvation paired with opulent waste? The efforts of architects and planners may be marginal, but they are not without import. What relevance then has the organic growth of plants to the so different disciplines of the growth of buildings, or the dwelling for an immover to a home for the families of complex and sophisticated human animals? For many ages ago, this human animal discovered that the usefulness of a tree for his varied and unexpected needs was unbelievably wide, if with axe and saw he transformed tree into the parallel epipade of timber. Later he discovered crushed rock and cement to be open to more sophisticated and varied use than stone. Can it therefore be of great import if jaded sophisticates, dallying in their ivory towers, use timber, iron or plastic to create columns which cleverly simulate trees, or concrete to imitate rocks and hills? Architecture, or the shaft of an axe, must beautifully and precisely symbolise their own good reasons for their necessary existence. For what good reason should I, or this coming generation of architects, spend the invaluable resources of time and intellectual and emotional energy in involving ourselves in battles over the cults and isms of a disorientated age, in the irrationality of the new rationalism, or nostalgic escapism, or wasteful glasshouse heroism and palace building for a world where the majority of humanity is energy starved, or just plain starved? Why should we interest ourselves for the present-day masters of monumentalism, those great dinosaurs who have not realised that for satisfying the real needs of the real world they are ill-adapted, but who may regrettably survive since the power of the age so often ignores the needs? I look through the titles of the symposium and talks, and here I may be unjust, I haven't been able to follow, unfortunately, the whole symposium, but I look through the titles of the symposium and talks and think of the slum-dwellers of Newcastle-on-Tyne, or of my friends in Biker, and wonder in what terms should they be able to understand the academic jargon they would comment or conceivably feel themselves served by organic architecture, art nouveau, biological architecture, geometry or rhetorical space, as in their slum they suffer from overcrowding, alienation, unhygienic, ill-equipped and inconsiderate architecture, unemployment and underprivilege. I fail to see any need or any relevance in Calcutta for transcendental or anthropomorphic design from America or Europe. The slum-dwellers would doubtless use their own strong terms to explain to us that architecture is the skilful art which most influences the lives of human beings, that unlike design or pure art it is Brotkunst, the art of that which is useful. As many others, they might establish that seemingly it is only architects who do not understand or correctly evaluate this so important art. In my work I have sometimes been accused of organic architecture, an accusation which for me is a matter of some, though not exaggerated, concern. Should organic tendencies be discerned in my design, they are not to be looked upon as important or as a proof of success or failure. It would lead me yet again to realize that the very precise and concrete art of architecture is paired with great uncertainty on the part of architects in interpreting the language of its aesthetics, and that it is therefore imperative that I endeavor with written and spoken language to clarify the objectives of myself and the group with which I work, and to give my own evaluation of the degree of our failure and success in our efforts. Here then are we, the bits of the architectural establishment, flying in from the centers of culture of America and Europe, or from the forested backwoods of Scandinavia, peddling to students our glossy salvations for your fervor, confusion, or rejection, so that you later may further the future of our art. I wonder, and I am sure that you students should consider profoundly, whether we are involved in a great occasion or merely an academic big deal. So, if you may better judge my role, I will now tell you of some of my evaluations of what I consider to be the most essential elements of architecture. I will further attempt to give you my own analysis of certain of our works. Since humanity in the 18th century discarded the medieval realm of mysticism and developed a science and system for studying the physical world, the results have been sensational. Humanity has more recently commenced the careful and systematic study of us, the human beings. This continuous and careful search and painstaking checking of results will, with time, lead to equally sensational realizations, results which will be of vital importance for architecture and community planning. In the meanwhile, we architects must seek such knowledge wherever it is to be found, use it, and first then use our intuition, sensibilities, and experience of people, to imbue our fulfilling of very real and often prosaic needs with a poetry which illuminates these important realities with which we work, which tells of the dreams of justice and equality of which we often speak. And as citizens we must work for the better political, economic, and administrative instruments which can ease our task in making reality of these dreams. In this we must clearly realize that our hope is for relevant change, and our allegiance therefore with radical rather than conservative philosophies and politics, with the very real needs of the needy and underprivileged rather than with the profitable commissions and dubious needs of those who are powerful and rich. As a community planner who is convinced that the social consequences of planning are far the most important of architectural factors in a modern society, it has been of fundamental importance for me, for any success of our endeavor, that all the countries in which we work have subscribed to the chart of human rights. Whilst considerable injustices still exist, each country has made advances towards realizing their goal, and the principle of equality of rights and opportunities for all people, irrespective of origin, race, culture, or religional class, is at least a declared ideal. True community plans become more possible to realize. Those who could wish to oppose them, because they hope to maintain exclusive privilege, inequality, and injustice, and who therefore support forces of oppression, receive neither official, legal, nor widespread informal support as declared policy, though they are de facto strong, these forces. In this situation, the interests, beliefs, and actions of architects can be very important. This brings me to the true dilemma which is built into the subject of any discussion of a low-cost environment, which in fact nearly always means housing for the underprivileged or even oppressed. After many years of work in very different communities, it is abundantly clear to me that the pressing and permanent problem of the underprivileged is their lack of privilege. It is therefore this that must be changed. Then, with time, other problems may also be solved. In most situations, at least partial successes can be achieved as this fact is realized, but when it is ignored, failure is certain. The greater the inequality, the more important this realization becomes. But too often the architect is by background, interest, and tradition associated with their forces of oppression. Oppression bearing an intensity in different cultures. Housing for the underprivileged can be very welcome as easing immediate worries, but the mere provision of physical planning and housing has proved to be only palliative action. A symptom has been treated, but the basic ill of underprivileged remains and soon rises to the surface in new forms. The architect can then observe how his housing becomes a run-down and unhappy place. His best dreams seem irrelevant and unreal, and all in bold may become disillusioned or cynical. Where lack of understanding and incompetence is too great, it may even, as has happened in America, be necessary to dynamite new buildings because of their disastrous social consequences. And I have seen many such instant slums which call for this instant action. Can we then find some way to serve the whole of our task and not merely chosen parts as so often happens? With the usual and distressing consequence that what is built is experienced with dissatisfaction and almost daily is cited as poor environment for living. An architect would endeavour to define what must be achieved should a place for living be experienced as good, and thereupon make a checklist for all those who will partake in its creation. Whilst involved in his work, and when standing before the final result, he could well ask inhabitants of himself:
These are the many parts of our task and all influence one another. No part is meaningful except in relationship to all others and together they constitute that whole which is the purpose of our endeavour. Can we not, in honesty, answer yes to all these questions? We must acknowledge that we have not succeeded. We can plead insufficiency but cannot expect to be freed from responsibility. During all the labours of creation a client, be it an individual, organisation or future residence, as well as officials, technicians, economists, human scientists, builders and architects, must largely be able to answer yes to all these twelve questions. It is a common responsibility where that of the architecture is perhaps the greatest, but none goes free. To plan a good community is a demanding task. With understanding, intelligence and maturity and enthusiasm it is difficult enough. Without these it becomes almost impossible. To build a house, a school or a factory is insufficient. Analysis of a community leads to the realisation that it consists of dwellings and shops, of places for work, education, meeting and recreation, of systems for communication and for a multitude of other human needs. Such analysis has often been made but in the interest of rationalisation the analysis has been built without transforming it into a meaningful whole. Each function has commonly received its special solution but the very rationalisation of the particular task has often isolated it and given it limited value for its primary role of contributing to the building of a good community. Dwelling areas and houses have become places where one merely lives. The transport apparatus can move us and our goods quickly and sometimes in comfort, with so much negative effects on the surrounding environment that it must be isolated as far as possible from the rest of the community. Commerce has progressively rationalised the handling of goods but has lost its vital role of giving rise to stimulating human contacts and ceremonies. It has become isolated in large anonymous shopping centres where the loss of social communication within the premises has become aggravated as the sterile and motorised deserts of our physical communication have built barriers between the life of our homes and families and the joy of the marketplace. School and universities have become bigger and bigger ghettos for a single age group and industrial rationalisation has largely concentrated itself on the production process and lost the experience of meaningful work and that direct contact between wife, man, children and neighbours which existed when we were active in older communities. It has been suggested that in many industries the transport of items of production to people in their home environment could be as or more rational than the present transport of large numbers of people to factories. Were it so that the stimulating human contacts of pre-industrial communities were one of the important aims of processes of production and work then their beloved techniques could be of great interest and buildings and plans would change. What consequences would human-orientated objectives have for housing, for the construction of communication lines, for schools and universities, for trade and recreation for the size of our townships? It would seem to me that in the intimate interplay and confrontation of different insights, interests, generations, sub-cultures, activities and situations of limited size there are essential values which are commonly lost in our modern communities. Therefore, instead of housing or working areas it would be important to create places for living which offer varied lifestyles. Parts of towns where dwelling, work, study and recreation take place in a close contact with one another as is possible. This is equally important should we be involved in an individual building or in a community plan. Poetry and art are essential experiences for all people be they sophisticated or primitive who are not merely struggling to survive. The fundamental characteristic of all art is that whether we realize it or not it communicates concepts and beliefs, comments on our present and future life and it can communicate very precisely. Architecture is in no way an exception to this rule. It is therefore unfortunate to observe that too often formally beautiful buildings, buildings which are presented with attractive argumentation, drawings and photography in the architectural and weekly press demonstrate little understanding of the insufficiencies of most human situations, of our hopes for essential change. Indeed many indicate little or no interest in other of the twelve questions than the tenth to be creative art. And in their search for formal or informal beauty seem to look upon architecture as pure art rather than as brute force, the art of that which is useful. It is also a regrettable tendency that as human values and social involvement arouse greater interest they run the risk of becoming in-talk and it can already be observed that some aesthetically orientated architects are in form and words creating the semblance of an involved architecture without its reality. Equally it is pleasurable to observe that others with genuine interest for all the human and social qualities of architecture and for the special poetry which can arise out of them, partly of intrinsic interest, partly prodded by the increasingly sophisticated requirements of loan giving and other government institutions, architecture becomes involved in basic human needs, in furnishable rooms, useful kitchens, and improved work environments, in better places for the creative indoor and outdoor activities of adults and small children, and in sociable public furniture in the sun. In the rights of the underprivileged and minorities, such as the handicapped, and in economy and the use of energy and other resources. It is a very different architecture which arises from such considerations. I find here the important dividing line between on the one hand the smooth sterility of production line architecture or the eclecticism of the baroque modern, the organic or nostalgic trends, and on the other hand a truly modern architecture for the troublesome realities of the troubling world in which we live. Great is the need for inspired artistic invention, which stems from a deep feeling for such modern insights and humanistic hopes, of humble and masterly and compassionate creations, which is moving as those which sprang from the inspired faiths and dreams of other times. Many are the historic masterpieces created for the glorification of the proud and opulent institutions of religious or temporal power. And the most masterly architecture of modern times, work of the great and lesser masters of the modern music, movement, have largely glorified the powerful and wealthy institutions of this corporate age. When will we recognize the inspired expression of our dreams of true liberty, equality, and fraternity? What's standing before our completed works would be the answers we could give. Whilst we have, for many, we, myself, and the other people in our group, have for many years been increasingly conscious of the importance of all the questions, all the twelve questions, and have endeavored to answer them well, I would certainly plead insufficiency and find little real satisfaction should the insufficiency of others be greater. For whilst there is a certain pleasure in being given the mantle of a zeitgeist, it is sobering to reflect that it could be that of the travesty of the olden age. In the land of the somewhat blind, the one-eyed zeitgeist could be king. The intoxication of being one-eyed participationists, climatologists, social conscionists, and preservationists can soon dissipate as one longs for the deep perspective which comes with two eyes. Well then, I've got a bit that I've written here, which I call Towards a New Architecture in Sweden. In Sweden, a new architecture is in the throes of being born, and presumably in other countries. For many architects, this is a painful process. It is not the philosophies of our profession which the agents of this change, but the insights of other people, of scientists and technicians, of political theorists, economists and sociologists, of authors, pressure groups, and others. And the change happens when governments formalize these insights in new building and other laws. The following are three important insights which makes the old architecture largely irrelevant for us. One, that energy is a scarce, polluting, and progressively more expensive resource. An understanding to which the old shapes have contributed. But not the architects. The effect. Insulation enormously increases. Unnecessary articulation of buildings must be avoided. Thermal bridges eliminated. And window areas drastically reduced to eliminate heat loss, despite triple glazing for us. Or to reduce unwanted solar gain. Balanced ventilation with heat exchangers are introduced even in one-family houses. The aesthetic. A sub-arctic architecture, as I have called it. A sub-arctic aesthetic becomes imperative. Enclosed simple buildings. Separated outdoor functions. My reaction. I heartily approve and seek the new poetry of this insight. The second factor. Handicapped minorities must always be accommodated. This applies for us. The effect. Unessential changes of level must be avoided. Ramps or lifts introduced at all essential change points. This costs money. Corridors widen. Toilets become bigger, etc. The aesthetic. Extensive horizontal floors, ramps and wide doorways. My reaction. I regret the romance of split level, but accept with enthusiasm the ideal, and seek the special poetry which arises from it. Also, I suddenly see invalids everywhere in the new buildings, which are designed in this way. And wonder where they were before. But what about other, less articulate, hidden minorities? One can ask. Three. User and employee participation is becoming usual and mandatory. The effect. The client changes character. And with this, the planning and architectural bias. Architects must totally change their old authoritarian character and loyalties. Can they not achieve this? They will rightly be supplanted by other, more suitable consultants. Interest shifts to new sources of wisdom, and conventional wisdom, quotation from Galbraith, is rejected. Harbracken, Turner and Fichter, Kroll, Jan Gehl, Jane Jacobs, Neumann, E.T. Hall, Overstreet, Galbraith, the Goodman brothers and others, Sir Plantwright, Goudie, Mies, Corbusier, and other old masters, or more contemporary prophets in Britain and abroad. My attitude. I heartily approve in every way. Find the change meaningful, and impatiently await the birth of a truly modern architecture without dogma. Should I in some small degree help to midwife its birth here and in my work, it would give me great satisfaction. This then is my world. It is one which is pragmatically humanistic, but which respects attainable knowledge. I'm indoctrinated, and I like it, despite its many faults. Now in the time remaining, I'll endeavour to analyse certain of our works. And then I wrote, perhaps wrongly, that since I imagine that whatever you may pretend to the contrary, you are here due to your interests in aesthetics, I will give an aesthetic bias to my talk. And now we can go over onto the slides. I think that was half an hour.
Transcription ends here - the remainder of the lecture appears to have been a visual presentation with slides.