‘In a lot of the post-colonial world, so much of what really drives us is suppressed’ · Global Voices
Ghanaian born, South Africa-based architect, novelist and educator <PERSON>, during her visit to Trinidad, June 2018. Photo by <PERSON>, used with permission.
This is the second instalment in our interview series with Professor <PERSON>, head of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. You can read the first post here.
When you think of the role of an architect in society, you might think about the importance of creating a physical environment that's a snapshot of human civilisation. Or about organising space based on needs, aspirations and hopes of a particular culture.
But in societies like the Caribbean, not everyone uses an architect's services — often to their detriment. Why? <PERSON>, an architect and writer who recently visited Trinidad and Tobago on the invitation of the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Architects and Bocas Lit Fest, has an idea.
She thinks this might have something to do with how people perceive the purpose of an architect. Many people do not realise that purpose extends way beyond design and plans — it is connected to a great many other things, including technology and human relationships.
Global Voices (GV): So what is the role of an architect in modern-day society?
<PERSON> (LL): I’m always drawn to Spain as a model because I believe it takes in more architecture students per capita than any other country. However, although record numbers of people study architecture there, Spain graduates the smallest number — in relation to the number that its schools take in — who go on to work as practising architects. So architecture is seen as a really interesting, fundamental degree, and even if people go through the full five years, they often go into many other fields that may have something to do with the built environment but not necessarily architecture or design. The mayor of a small village, for instance, might have studied architecture and therefore understands the power and value of a really good piece of civic architecture — so big cities like Madrid and Barcelona are not the only places where projects are happening. Spain is quite democratic in the way in which good architecture or civic space is commissioned.
In the post-colonial world, there's an insecurity around our relationship with education and training that’s just part and parcel of our thinking — so, the attitude generally is, if you start studying architecture, by God you’re going to finish, and then work for a big practice, earn a good living and so on, which perpetuates the idea that architecture is a professional discipline for those who can afford it. I think that’s the complete wrong way to think about it. I run an architecture school now in Johannesburg. 216
It’s the biggest postgraduate school in South Africa, we are now into our third cycle of graduates, and it’s been quite a radical curriculum change. We’ve got graduates now who go off into multimedia, theatre design, web design…things that are sort of spatial, alternative forms of practice. Architecture is a much more lateral, broader, much more diffuse discipline than the way it has conventionally been taught. To make the point more clearly, unlike medical students, for example, who practice on the body of a patient; unlike lawyers, who train with language and rhetoric, students of architecture never build buildings — only representations of them.
Students of Johannesburg's Graduate School of Architecture during the school's 2017 Summer Show. Photo courtesy <PERSON>, used with permission.
<PERSON> (LL): Representation, in effect, is almost its own discipline. It’s their language, whether that’s in film, multimedia, photography, collage, montage — the range of visual tools available to students today is almost endless. The historical tools — plans, sections, and elevations — are absolutely vital in terms of instructing someone how to build. But they’re not the only means by which a project can be drawn or represented. To add to the complexity, modern construction methods are their own speciality. If you were to look at the façade of a building today, even as an architect at the top of your game, you’d be hard-pressed to explain how it ‘works’. But just because something is new or modern doesn’t mean it’s without complications and challenges.
Where new means of communication have been very successful — and it goes back to this issue of social media — is in disguising themselves in the language of the old. Facebook uses terms like “Like” and “Friend” — but you are not my friend in the conventional sense of the word. Young people today have less and less sense of the conventional or traditional meaning of words and as a result, their understanding of the world has shifted. 216