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2016
אוגוסט
106
אדריכלות ישראלית
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קבועים ומשתנים
23
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Here it is possible (even recommended) to
raise the question of personal style versus a
nauseatingly repetitive product.
An applied art, architecture must be effective
by producing repeatable reconstructible
elements for industrialization.
This is why a building can be identified,
whether it was built thousands of years
ago with low-tec technology, or today with
super-advanced hi-tec intelligence. The
reason is that any structural archetype is
made of constant components - walls, floor,
and ceiling, without which a structure is not
a building - and not necessarily recognized
by variable elements such as color or roof
shape.
One may deduce from this that when
the amount of variable components in
digital architecture exceeds the number of
constant components, it is difficult to identify
the building as one that effectively serves a
defined purpose.
In 1949, the Luxury Tax Law was passed in
Israel. The intention was to reduce the use
of un-necessary products for basic living
(and to make a few pennies on the way). It
was during the days of rationing, something
parallel to the Veblen Tax, named in 1929
for its inventor - American-Norwegian
economist, Torsten Bunde Veblen. As a
Marxist, Veblen held fierce and critical
views of capitalist society, protesting the
waste of what he called the “conspicuous
consumption” by the rich who buy products
just to show they can afford it. Protesting
against this autonomous economy, he
maintained that it is not logical to base it
upon independent individuals’ behavior.
One doesn’t need much imagination to
understand the concept of conspicuous
architecture by prize-hungry architects who
produce one-off products only because
someone in their office knows how to
operate an expensive computer program,
and an intelligent GPS robot manages to
assemble its parts on site.
A balanced relationship between existential
and decorative – between what you need
and what you want – has always been a
sign of proper architecture, just like the story
of the Chinese peasant who planted a rose
at the edges of his rice paddies, so he would
have a reason to live for, not only something
to live off.
And in an era in which the struggle for
survival is becoming increasingly prevalent,
there is no way that most of the world’s
population will live in amorphous buildings
in the course of the next fifty years, if only
because they cannot be put together like
conventional buildings.
What can be done to enable architects to
establish a personal style and satisfy their
own and the user’s creative aspirations, and
yet contribute to the benefit of society?
Assaid, oneof themost important parameters
in design in general, and in architecture in
particular, is efficiency. That is, to achieve
maximum targets with minimum effort. As
Vitruvius pointed out when noting efficiency
among the three principles of architecture,
alongside beauty and durability (Firmitas,
Utilititas, Venustas). In view of the fact that
gaining the knowledge has already cost a
fee, it would only be sensible to orient it in
the right places, which is, in fact, the basic
principle of sustainability, as defined long
before it became the fashion.
If we go back to the definition of constant
versus variable components existing in
every process, we could simplify it and say