“I’d like to counter the idea that architecture gains credibility, artistic legitimacy or even just interest through its negation…. The discipline itself is constantly defining itself by reference to other things, other discourses, other disciplines. Whether philosophical, artistic, or commercial, it constantly seeks to legitimise itself by referring to other things, which is ironic. James Stirling said: ‘Never talk to your client about architecture.’ Well, I think we may have stopped talking to anybody about it. I would see the current tendency in education especially (but also beyond it) to say that architects should see themselves as politicians, planners, enablers, artists, activists – anything but architects, basically – as just another example of this disciplinary confusion. Personally I find it amazing how little anyone in an architecture crit refers to any actual architecture. Other projects, books, films, ideas, something you had for breakfast that morning, anything but boring old architecture. Maybe, just maybe, we don’t make architecture more interesting or relevant by looking elsewhere.”
— Charles Holland
