Things have been extremely slow for the architect's profession in the last few years, almost everywhere on the planet. Many people are questioning the future validity of our labor, and most architects I meet are uncertain. The attention the starchitects get from the media either misleads or hides this reality. Most published projects are those that have been built with huge budgets, and in times of worldwide economic crisis, not counting the Arab countries, one wonders where the money comes from. Even in economies that are not doing very well, like China's, distinctive and massive constructions surge at an incomprehensible rate. There'll always be money for some things, but architecture is much more than a monument-spilling machine. Humble architecture doesn't get noticed because.... well... its makers are too humble.
Everybody's predicting that with the Artificial Intelligence boom, architecture will become a mere hobby. Algorithms are expected to become much more efficient in creating buildings that would satisfy their users' practical needs and, at the same time, meet budget constraints. In the future, individual expression and passion will be of no consequence. Architecture –good architecture– is supposed to be art. But the gap between ego-driven-form giving-obscenely-costly buildings and what most architects can produce in real life has become unsurmountable. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it has always been that way. Maybe Hemiunu would disagree with me. However, when we, baby boomers and older generations of architects, watch some software generate a myriad of shapes as if by magic in a small amount of time, a fear of obsolescence short circuits quite a few synapses. Are we designing as consciously as we had all along? In its broadest sense, we could argue that it loses meaning when Architecture disconnects some human intimacy fibers.
Since almost nobody knows anymore what art really is — which, ironically, nobody ever really knew anyway— the need for a definition has reached an all-time low. Art was a thing of faith; as such, we thought we knew what it was even though we also knew it was indescribable. It is still a mystery justified by thousands of interpretations, and most of them end up in the same colossal cul-de-sac. Art has become a commodity more than ever before, and the confusion seems to have been created by design. If the general public can't assess quality, somebody has to tell us what's good and what's bad, but they'll fall into the same trap. I'm afraid the people who profit from it will suffer the same consequences because, most probably, AI will also establish the price of art.
As a medium, technology is an unstoppable wonderful marvel. As a creator, old-fashioned me has serious doubts. Who are and will be the AI programmers for these kinds of creative endeavors? How are and will the parameters be collected and assembled?
And, most importantly, once freed and on its own, How will AI decide what's beautiful and what's not? Worse still, will it matter? How can we cram passion —another quite elusive word— in the machines if it's already not so easy right now to do it in our own hearts, brains, and bones? Again, will we live in a world where the machines will also have artificial ghosts with the conflictive and passionate emotions that usually fuel creativity? Remember, above all that passion, as Graham Parker said, "is no ordinary word".
Still, we can't lay down our arms and succumb to the apparently inevitable. And if it's inevitable indeed, then let's enjoy the time left. We still have time to shake the shock and ride the rough. So, while we still can, let's not allow, with all its faults, Architecture not to be Architecture.
Damn the torpedoes and godspeed...