We went to a speech by an ASU architecture lecturer from England last saturday night. It was hosted by a local artistic group. I think, but I am not certain, it was the Spirit of the Senses. The speech was on Architecture and Art and it was very interesting. The speaker was an English architect who had traveled across the US with his wife performing displays on architecture to keep himself afloat and through that journey he came to understand the European romanticism of the landscape and architecture as well as the American delight and demand in the mundane and suburban - the American romance of its own.

Probably his strongest point was on architectural indifference. He would travel to the far flung suburbs of the edges of the cities and photograph architecturally ugly phenomena that were a result of indifference. For instance a push out on the outside of the house to accomodate a fireplace inside. Another good example was the house design the removed the corridor, at the expense of the toilet being a walk through.

I used to live in North Virginia. It is entirely suburbia and newly suburban at that. The absurdities in Ashburn and Leesburg were well known. For instance two curls of houses in Ashburn ended up with these large houses - 4,000 sq ft - being within eight feet of each others back wall. Another was that sliding doors on the second floor where there was supposed to be a deck would have a small fence over it, to stop people walking, and falling out. It was indifferent aesthetics, but who knows, those people probably could not afford a deck.

Apparently only one percent of houses in the US are architecturally designed to custom build. But seriously, who can afford it? Holland has forty percent of houses designed by an architect, but that is government mandated. Developers have made house ownership relatively affordable.

There is also the issue of the HOA [Home Owners Association] which helps make houses uniform in upkeep. Because a house is such a large investment people do not want it depreciating and use the HOA to keep their major asset at least level and not have the crazy guy next door who thinks a broken down car in long grass is beautiful.

So there are a lot of elements that contribute to modern American suburbia and some of its absurdities. However, I don't think an elitist attitude, denying the realities of economics, or mandating architecturally designed houses is a solution. Houses remain expensive. In the speakers defense, he went out of his way in this area not be condascending.

The speech covered the speakers art and architectural projects as well, including some bus stops he designed in Sioux City. Each artist has their tech gimmick and his was CNC cutting where it was all one contiguous line. As a consequence he 'drew' the environment on the building as a transparent design or scribble. Which was quite cool. I did not understand the purpose or reason behind his art project in the Californian desert, but other than that it was an interesting speech, with the architectural indifference being the strongest part.

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