Design in Balance

Speech for receiving the American Prize for Architecture 2017

We asked ourselves:

When did the world become so grey ……..?
When did the public fall out of love, with the built environment?
When did our profession polarize so deeply between the pragmatic and the self-indulgent?
When did we begin to neglect the people we pledged to care for?

We could
debate the causal merits of Modernism in this disconnection,
the difficulty in translating a minimalist approach
to a wider culture
have we exhausted the conceit yet
“that the public just needs to catch up ….”

Modernism, technology and science
have given us an abundance
of wondrous gifts
that have progressed humankind
to ever greater heights
with so much more
to yet discover in the future

But
we have seemed to have lost
the Human Spirit
the joy,
of simple poetry
the quirky, subjective arbitrariness
that gives life its meaning

Architecture has the power to inspire us
to celebrate the human condition
in imaginatively assertive ways.
When clarity of form
pairs with emotional meaning,
place-making follows,
communities form,
relationships deepen,
people become engaged with their environments.

Given this dynamic
of our current Zeitgeist,
one might ask,
how would our work react to this?

For me,
personally,
and, if you indulge me here a bit
artistically

I marvel at the range
of manifestations of Nature,
the possibilities of the organic
captivate.

Drawn toward the curvilinear,
the serpentine,
the sinuous arc
that beckons
a vision
towards a future architectural fabric.

The curve embodies the flow of vitality
finding its way into the physical world.
Flow is the common denominator
in both the ease of use
and the lyricism of form.

for
goods,
services,
people all flow.

A curve is not the only way
to express this dynamic,
but when expressed with clarity,
this formal relationship can create a cohesiveness
between a wide variety of uses and needs,
unattainable with the rigidity of the straight line.

This may all sound a bit dramatic,
seeming to lean towards a myopic formalism?

Let’s critically examine
“form for form’s sake”,
and as a result
perhaps we might favor
instead
a thoughtful balance
of the rational
and the artistic

In the belief that navigating
the creative tension between these two dynamics
is where exceptional architecture is born.

For us …..

The Rational:
Is a mixture of Environmental Psychology,
technology in all its latest forms,
first principles in Sustainability,
an adapted Silicon Valley version of collaboration:
creative listening
to both the material aspects of the site
and
the aspiration of the social / client world
surrounding the architecture to be.

The Artistic:
Inner priorities for activism in design.
Architecture is a poetic act
impacting the spirit,
especially when coming from a point of view
with a narrative.
I defend the appropriateness of the sometimes arbitrary,
the subjective,
the self expressive vs. self indulgent
it distinguishes me from the machine I use to design

I want to reach deeply to the emotions of users through the lyricism of dynamic form,
to unleash their excitement about city living,
about participating in vibrant communities,
aspiring to create an architecture that straddles
the iconic
and the humane
in one design.

In closing,
I would like to advocate for
a greater sense of balance in the practice of architecture
a both/and approach
instead of
either/or

I would like to advocate for
a reintroduction of a sense of the poetic
in balance with the rational

with the hope that this
will invite the public
to fall in love
with architecture

once again.
Thank you

John Marx
Design Principal
Form4 Architecture