While doing my annual house cleaning, (no, mother, I do clean my apartment MORE than once a year) I chanced upon this printed document which, upon examination, flooded my mind with visions of Melchor Hall on a rainy afternoon. In 1994, during my pre-thesis year, Prof. Dytoc (I now just call him Bronne, his first name) held an esquisse for our class. An esquisse is, strictly speaking, the French translation for “sketch” or “outline”; but in Architecture university, it is loosely used to describe an exam, drawn or written. This was for a design class where after asking us to read piles and piles of fatally boring readings, he made us write a “pre-manifesto” of what we think Architecture is and should be. This is in preparation for our final “Manifesto of Architecture” that we are supposed to make before graduation. The following was what my 20 year old mind could muster. I enclose in parentheses Bronne’s notational comments for you to get a judgement of how this great man thinks. I got 1.35. Not bad.
The reason for Architecture is this: That when man sees the need to live, he rationalizes the massive factories, supermarkets, restaurants and hospitals. When he began to see the need for protection, he rationalizes houses, palaces, fortresses and towering condominiums; after which he transcends to see the need to belong and to be loved, he justifies his sprawling parks, magnificent cathedrals, and humongous megamalls and convention halls. That when a man sees the need to be respected – by himself and by others, he shall justify his universities, his mile high offices, imposing Eiffel Towers and his Pompidous. And when man sees the interwoven nature of these needs, he takes a closer look and rationalizes the chairs and tables, the columns, windows and walls, the rebars, trusses and cables, the pipes, vents and wires and all the jungle that make whole his structure. These are all artifacts to perform a function or satisfy a need.
The more important part of it comes when man must find a way to express this function to become that one final artifact or creation. Architecture, therefore, is there for man for him to express all these diverse functions in a manner which shall satisfy that highest level of needs which is self actualization and fulfillment. (Maslow’s 7 Levels Pyramid, no?) Expression – I mean not only the satisfaction of the ladder of needs, but more importantly, the imparting of a small aspect of one’s self to that solution to satisfy the need. That part of one’s self should contain everything that is creative and innovative, history and heritage; everything that shall put forth a world forward, and if need be, everything that is shocking.
Technology is the function that attempts to free man from the said needs. Architecture rises to be the expression of this technology. If one will probe deeper though, one will find that Architecture can also be that technology that seeks to satisfy the need, and in fact – it is. Architecture, being both an art and a science should perform as such. But let me go further than dictionaries and worn out old-school thinking for the sake of my own school of thought which presupposes my being an architect; and more – to answer the question: “Why (functional) Architecture?”, which I did above.
Maslow defined the last of the needs as the highest in its order. Self actualization. That when man sees the need for self fulfillment, he ends rationalizing and starts questioning – the reason for all that he rationalized. This is the moment for seeking and searching the ultimate reason. This, I believe, Western Architecture has reached, (don’t believe it) for they can spare time for arguments on what lies beyond the identity of the column and the wall and other nitty gritties that Filipino architects would, for the life of them, can never, ever conceive in their minds. What we talk about are the superficial and skin deep topics on how to keep foreign architects out, when we are virtually inviting them in, and all that stuff.
Philippine Architecture, or the practice of it, unfortunately, hasn’t reached the self actualization stage. We are still lost between the needs for safety and belongingness. Our economy makes this. As Alan Colquhoun says in his essays:
“…society needs an Architecture which expresses its ideals and which provides for human spirit, [but] there is a danger that its economic mechanisms may make such an Architecture impossible.” (HOW DAMN TRUE)
I cannot contain myself to express my horror over the creations of the Yu Brothers(don’t blame them, they don’t have [the] benefit of our readings and slides) that clearly shout the defeat of art and expression over economics. What they created is “sterile functionalism”. Man, in his duty as an architect, should posses the skill to see space problems not only under the light of day but most especially under the “scrutinizing beam of a flash light in the dead of night.” In his capacity as creator, he should create ideas, ways and artifacts to satisfy the problem to the most creative and “economical” end. Being a technician, man should apply or even create the best technology needed to realize the solution. He therefore, should not be allowed to confine himself within his own professions, but must live in full view of the entire scene of life.” I don’t want to be too critical about any architecture but I believe that form should never be made to follow function but rather, both be made to walk astride each other. (Agreed!)
To end, the reader might construe that the idea that I presented here does not pose anything new – to European and American thinking – yes, but in the context of Philippine Architecture practice, I think it says a lot. (OK!)
