Friday, February 4, 2011
The Manifesto
What is the importance of a manifesto? What do manifestoes contribute to the design community? In addition to defining principles, it is intended to evoke emotion. This emotion is meant to spark action. Manifestos innately are tactile, or more than just words, they find a form to provide a message to a community. Architects as well are striving to find a form that evokes an emotional response and provides a message to a community. Successful architecture exists within a specific place and time, are manifestoes intended to exist only within a specific space and time, or are they eternal?
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The manifesto seems to connect to the immediacy of a political, social, or design climate. The message is fundamental and there is an urgency of communicating it "Right Now!" While we may be able to relate to a manifesto written years, or even decades, ago it is very much a text of a specific time. The relevancy of the text may remain, but it is forever tied to the time and place in which it was first disseminated.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with Erika. I think that manifestoes are not eternal and that they are linked to a specific place and time. We may like to think that a manifesto can transpire across time. When reading some manifestoes, they seem to make no sense as to why someone would be going on about that subject, but when looked at in the context of the time it was written, it becomes understandable. This is why they are so important.
ReplyDeleteIf manifestoes are not read at the current time of them being written, the message will lose meaning and will no longer be relevant. Hence the communicating the sense of “Right Now!” as Erika pointed out.
@ Jim & Erika,
ReplyDeleteI agree that many of the manifestoes we read are absolutely dated. However, I don't think you can generalize by saying the relevancy is always tied to the time and place it was written. The subject written about may still be quite relevant as evidenced by several of the manifestoes issued as class reading Specifically,a call for honesty of material usage in Henry deVelde's 1907 Credo. I argue that this is still true today, over 100 years later. If you head out to the suburbs, you'll still find sticky-stone slapped on facades of banks over plywood covering balloon or light gauge steel walls. I also see intentionally exposed non-structural beams of both wood and steel for aesthetics quite frequently. DeVelde's writing style in this piece is deeply set in Old English, and dated in that sense, but the message is still valid.
I think there are other examples of a more timeless message in manifesto, such as a social or political calls to action. Many writings of the Vietnam era, seem to ring true in our current climate of endless war. Take for example this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from a 1967 manifesto- like speech: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
I feel like this still applies almost perfectly today. Here in architecture school we have the opportunity to learn more about homeless issues and the great need for additional services or what kind of budget issues the schools deal with annually and the compromises they make in unhealthy, unsustainable portable classrooms.
Then we look at our nation budget in which we run an annual deficit spending billions on the so called 'war on terror' but can't find the funds to help the homeless or fund our schools domestically. Top that off with an apathetic public and we're pretty damn close to spiritual death in my eyes.
It takes the kind of passion I wrote this with to make a compelling manifesto but nothing transcends apathy like action.
But Ryan, I think you are missing the point: The message of a manifesto may carry on, but it inherently belongs to a specific time and place. We discussed the notion of dissemination and the manifesto. Much of the message is in the urgency and format in which it was produced. Just because you can read the manifesto years later and the message rings true, doesn't mean it holds the same power. Think about if you woke up and it were pasted to your door. It's the "slap in the face" that stops you in your tracks that is powerful. This is so different than reading in calmly in a book. They are not the same.
ReplyDeleteMy humble apologies, I am almost positive I was (at least initially) directly addressing the comments made above by you and Jim but to be sure I will again try and catch the 'point' you suggest I'm 'missing':
ReplyDeleteYou state a manifesto "inherently belongs to a specific time and place." What if the action called for has not yet happened and the message is still relevant? What if a manifesto written 50 years ago (unbeknownst to you) was posted on your door when you woke up and the message makes perfect sense in the context of today?
To say a manifesto inherently belongs to a specific time and place suggests they inseparable. You then also suggest that after words are said, speeches given, and writings published, their value immediately diminishes. Can a message conveyed through language not transcend time? Aren't writings and speeches from the past just as compelling to read now to inform us of how things have or have not changed?
I would argue when you read something from 50 or 100 years ago in which the message still rings true, it is perhaps even more of a wake up call (wow, someone was saying this that long ago and it still hasn't happened yet?) It makes their message all the more powerful.
Does not all this also relate to the notion that successful architecture is timeless: as inspirational and functional a space on day 1 as day 100,000?
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ReplyDeleteThe argument of whether a manifesto written fifty to a hundred years is relevant to the context of today seems true only because ‘history repeats itself.’ Manifestos are intended and written for the context of the location in time they were written. It is part of what they are and what they are intended to do. To say a manifesto from fifty years ago is still relevant is only helpful when a full understanding of the contextual history is examined. The ideas and theory behind it may be the same, but society will constantly create news paths and ways to reach it.
ReplyDeleteOlder manifestos also can become relevant to today just as we assume history books are significant. Ideals from one century to another may overlap, but the underlying reasoning for those principles may constantly change because of the social and political context during that time.
Ryan, so yes a historical manifesto may seem to have the same goals and intentions as current ones, but the rational reasons on how they came to that conclusion will differ because our thoughts and actions are always emerging and changing based on the situations of the present day.
Toni got it! Above the phrased was used that MLK’s speech applies ‘almost’ perfectly today as it did the day it was given. If a manifesto or speech does not apply ‘perfectly’ to a situation, or it is not a derivative of the current conditions of its making, therefore needing an interpretation of its relevancy- then it HAS lost a bit of its gusto, or at least the same gusto that it had then. To reinterpret something from years before and find that it still rings true today will have a profound effect, but not the same intended reaction based within the current context of the thoughts making. With that said, I do believe that manifestos are eternal. As a building block for the current generation from the previous, they allow the scrutinization of thoughts and movements of the past to help inform the future. Building blocks for the understanding of architecture in our context.
ReplyDeleteThe manifestos are also proclamations of formed ideas or offerings to society aimed to enhance the conversation and help shape the understanding of, in our case, architecture. Writings to spark heated debate among colleagues..... provocations.
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ReplyDeleteI disagree that if a manifesto is not read at the time of it being written, that it loses meaning. Ryan provided plenty specific examples. A manifesto is a text of a specific time (obviously something triggered someone to write a response/manifesto to the existing conditions) BUT if it can be applicable later on, it is just as relevant. I think manifestos are intended to be everlasting.
ReplyDeleteI think Jim brought up a good point saying that maybe some manifestos no longer make sense and only when looking at the context of the time it was written, does the message become clear. I guess my opinion on that is that manifestos could be outdated or they can “expire”. That however, could be a sign of a good manifesto because it helped change the way things used to be. It may not be applicable because things have become so different, but it’s a reminder of how things used to be and how not to do something. One can say it’s a learning tool reminding us of what not to do.
Just the fact that it is written makes it an artifact. An artifact has time attached to its physical and theoretical profile. The context of the reader is really the only person that give the manifesto any meaning after it is written. The reader will recreate the manifesto in their understanding. If the manifesto is controlled by the interpretation of the reader it has the potential to be timeless. It also has the potential to be just another document on a shelf that simply does not apply to the reader. This is one of those fine examples of the needs of the reader/user defining an artifact's use.
ReplyDeleteafter writing my "manifesto" this morning at 2am, i think that i realize now, more than ever, the importance of having a manifesto. you might be "into" architecture, but if you don't know why you're doing it then you aren't going to get very far. even though i know why i am doing this, i discovered just how badly i need to work on my own manifesto. what is architecture to me? thats what i intend to find out!
ReplyDeleteout in the real world of architecture, the importance of the manifesto expands more into a way to communicate your ideas and thougths with others in your field. without this communication and the experiences you gain learning from others, architecture would not be the crazy and hectic and awesome field that it is,
I think it is important for us to differentiate between those manifestoes, or elements of a manifesto, that are time-sensitive and those that are eternal and will transcend the moment and time in which it was written. In other words, some manifestoes were created for a particular time and will lose at least some relevance if studied without the context in mind. Of most of those manifestoes, I would argue, certain aspects are interesting and applicable to what we are doing today. That is why a manifesto that had some relevance at some point in time is still worth studying. With that being said, some manifestoes certainly were created that are entirely, or at least mostly, relevant today. Ryan gave some pretty good examples and description of what has relevance today. The other thing to keep in mind is that just because we are at a different place and the context seems so much different does not mean that the past is irrelevant. This is no more true of architecture than it is of world history. I think it's important to know where we came from. We cannot assume that all manifestoes are irrelevant and not applicable if removed from the time and place in which they were written. Another reason why we need to acknowledge and study the manifestoes of others is simply so that we remain relevant; if we don't know what others before us have said, we may not be saying anything new. A final thought on this is that I believe most of those who have written manifestoes did so with the intention that it would remain relevant years, decades, and maybe even centuries later. Certainly, the time and context in which it was written would be important to notice for the manifesto to be worthwhile and interesting and, of course, there were certain factors they could not have predicted happening (e.g. environmental or construction developments) in the future, but the general intention of the manifesto is generally still relevant.
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