Stan Allen - Project vs. Practice
To discuss the relationship between Project, as a constant template to compare an architecture to, and Practice, as a measure of performance and behavior, makes evident a tension between designers and architects over which of the two should take precedent. Stan Allen’s reading makes clear that the only distinction between the two can be traced to the idea that “differences that make a difference” (XX). As mentioned with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim example and de Certeau’s writing about the walker in the city, it is seemingly dangerous to generalize the results of one architectural effect/ outcome/ experiment as a project, or template, that future architects and designers can reference and use reliably to reproduce the same effects. This produces a flaw, perhaps, in the pedagogy in architectural curriculum today with a heavy focus on its theory. Nonetheless, I believe what is more important, as Allen also agrees, is to practice architecture and figure out the different ways architecture can shape the experience of the user (XXI) other than blindly sticking to theory. Knowledge of theory itself should be able to, in an ideal world, take variables into account and not be as rigid as it seems to be now. The impact of just theoretical knowledge and defined techniques is indirect (XX), making it important the acknowledge that “theory itself is a practice” and has flexibility if it is to be applied and used properly for the improvement and advancement of architecture. The very acceptance that theory itself can become a practice agrees with the nature of practice being one that is influenced by action, agency, and the culture around it that shapes it day to day.
Allen’s juxtaposition of theory and the architectural practice reveals interesting aspects about the field of architecture as a whole. As something that does not have consistency between written theory and materialized practice, architecture proves that it is futile to argue for one’s authority over the other. Even knowledge of certain architectural materials and construction technique need to be known, but not worshipped in the process of making a design come to life; Frank Lloyd Wright’s construction compromise in the building of the Guggenheim museum ramps with columns instead of without (20), serves as an example of this.
While I agree with Allen’s mode of thought for arguing for architecture heterogeneity (15), I do not yet see the foresight that architecture as a practice will begin to adopt theory as it begins to address complicated reality itself (17). For now, theory and architecture, to me, function separately but in a parallel fashion. While hyper-predictable machines and construction techniques and programs are used to develop and construct a design, hypo-predictable reality never allows for there to be an accurate and literal translation from design on paper and in the head of the architect, to real life buildings and structures. This in and of itself, does not merit the merging of theory and practice in an ideal way that Allen describes it to occur. Instead, it seems that theory becomes more of a distant entity from practice the more practice proves itself to be faced with the “messy and inconsistent” reality (14), as it acknowledges that it cannot be solved with the hard written, yet seemingly abstract, ideas of architectural theory. Therefore, these moments in which the designer acknowledges that theory and practice can not be translated perfectly from one to the other, serve as a justification to distance the two things from influencing one another and from working in tandem with one another.
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