“Unlike architecture, which requires solidity to provide shelter over time regardless of style, landscaped gardens are ephemeral by nature. They may possess a degree of flamboyancy and fantasy expressive of the philosophical tone of their times and their creators without concerns for function. This is particularly true among the rolling hills of southwest Scotland, where… Charles Jencks… and his late wife, Maggie Keswick, created a 30-acre garden on a family estate that engages both the mind and the senses.”*

Dear Editor:
 
I feel compelled to comment on behalf of the word “function” and its function thereof. Upon reading the opening sentences for the July 2009 article “machine in the garden: Charles Jencks’s Garden of Scottish Worthies” I was disturbed. And I am not a landscape architect.
 
The first sentence is mostly fine: architecture is required to provide lasting shelter, whereas landscape architecture is not. The part that is not so fine is the part that says “regardless of style.” Why do we talk about anything created by humans using the phrase “regardless of style” as if something can be created by a human without style? All we can do is clearly avoid another particular style, but we as designers can no more claim there is no style to our buildings than we as people who get dressed in the morning can claim our outfit has no style (albeit an ugly or frumpy or plain one… even “style-less” is a style).
 
However, I digress. The more troublesome sentence is the second, followed by the third. First, the author implies that only landscape architecture can ”possess a degree of flamboyancy and fantasy expressive of the philosophical tone of their times and their creators…”. Since when is this an exclusive right of landscape architecture?
 
Second, since when does landscape architecture not have a function (”…without concerns for function.”)? The author clearly states in the next sentence that it does: “…30-acre garden…engages both the mind and the senses.”
 
I have often heard and been a part of debates about “function” as it relates to art, design and craft, and I am aware of the tendency to assume a certain definition for the word which is usually about utility as it relates to our perceived basic needs and activities in life (eating, sleeping, protecting, containing, etc.). But, as designers, does this assumption help us any? Don’t we often find it hard to sell a design move that is not obvious to the client to be what they assume is “functional” or “necessary”?
 
Two of the definitions at Dictionary.com for “function” are: the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.
 
More than getting kicks out of being “semantical,” I simply hope to see more accurate writing in Architectural Record. And as someone who has created art, design and craft—some of which was crap and some kind of lovely—I don’t ever want to embark on making something thinking it is doomed to a functionless existence no matter how much it engages the mind or senses.
 
Thank you,
 
Molly Kunselman

*Machine in the garden: Charles Jencks’s Garden of Scottish Worthies by Paula Deitz appeared in Architectural Review on pages 50 – 54, in the July 2009 issue.

The task of communicating my “design philosophy” on this website has caused me to consider the purpose of architecture. I do love the visceral pleasures of fine building materials, the juxtaposition of planed and rough-hewed wood on the same surface, and subtle colors. However, it is the profundity of architecture—its purpose—that tethers me to the profession like romantic mystery adds glue to many of our marriages.

Why do buildings exist? We know we need shelter from the elements and defined places to conduct the routines of our lives (sleeping, eating, selling, learning, etc.). Why are houses, and churches, and classrooms, and marketplaces often more than human-scaled, environment controlled, structurally sound boxes?

Identity. It may be a modern luxury (or a curse of modernity depending on one’s view), but the pursuit of finding or creating one’s identity is something we all hope to do before we die. Who am I? What do I value? What makes me happy? How can I feel fulfilled and necessary? These are the questions that all of us, at some point, ask ourselves. The pursuit of the answers becomes our life.

Architecture is about asking these questions, too. The design-and-build process is the physical manifestation of our individual and collective identities. We can look at a building or space, new or ancient, and find clear answers to questions of values, priorities, and beliefs of the people who built and inhabit them.

Currently I am reading The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. Mr. de Botton states:

“Belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or for worse, different people in different places—and the conviction that it is architecture’s task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be.”
[pg 13]

This perspective adds a level to the “identity” theory of architecture by suggesting that what is built should be more than mere reflection. Mr. de Botton suggests we are not only manifesting our identities but creating them by incorporating our ideals in the design.

Naturally, beauty must be considered. I believe that beauty is truth exemplified, goodness made physical, hope entombed in matter. “Beauty,” Mr. de Botton says, “is the promise of happiness.” [pg 98] We can make ugly backsides to strip malls and destroy or cover over an existing, beautiful feature during a renovation project—and in doing so we will have communicated the values, priorities and beliefs of the people involved—but have we rendered an ideal? Have we taken architecture to its ultimate level of effectiveness?

As a designer and a facilitator in this pursuit of identity, ideals and beauty, my goal is to be a partner in creation with my client and my society. Architecture is the pursuit of these questions: “what ideals of life can I express and even promise? What do I, you or we hope to be?” and, “what is beautiful?” With this approach the design process is an adventure giving those of us involved the opportunity to discover a deeper understanding, a more universal and more intimate knowledge of ideal human life.

Molly A. Kunselman
Spring 2007

Recommended reading: The Architecture of Happiness, By Alain de Botton, Copyright 2006. Published in the US by Pantheon Books.