If this were real...

If this were real...That’s how I begin criticism when I’m at my students’ desks coaching them as they work to become architects. If this were real...It’s an invitation, a hand extended, to enter a possible world without ever leaving this one.  It cradles the comments to follow, and offers information that the student should know—indeed will need to know in the real world--but may not have to deploy at this point, because it’s not real…yet.

Emma’s project had a courtyard sunken about 6’ below sidewalk level. An awkward dimension if you imagine yourself either above or below, but it served many purposes in her project:  gave access to a Metro station, conveyed an archaeological narrative, and gave light and air to the lower levels of her museum.  She imagined that it would be a protected and quiet space in the city. I looked at her model and in an instant a series of scenarios passed in front of my eyes, just as if I were looking at a real place.  If this were real, I said to her, I would be concerned about the eddy of space at the Metro entrance; it feels unsafe, unsurveilled, in perpetual shadow, and hidden. I’m trying to get her to see what I see, to flash forward to an unintended future architectural failure:  abandoned space, closed cafe, vandalized concrete walls, vortices of trash and dry leaves in the dark, mildewed corners, flying in contradiction to everything that Emma fervidly wishes for her world.

She hasn't learned yet how to see the spectrum of possible worlds play out from a single arrangement of fictional walls, floors, and air, to bounce these possibilities, to reflect and referee them, off a mental archive of good and bad precedents, a taxonomy of  realistic assessments of human nature, municipal budgets, and the meager staffing capacities of non-profits. I see all that in the cardboard corner of a sunken cardboard space in a cardboard city. If this were real, Emma, you would be making a place doomed to a future completely counter to what you imagine.

Writers of fiction often talk about their characters as if they’re alive and not completely under the author’s control.  They say and do things the writer didn't completely intend; they steer the story off the well-planned course and wreck deadlines.  These characters remain safely within the book though, only as real as words. When an architect’s characters—the places, elements, and material—become real, develop agendas, and take a bad turn, they do these things in our world.

Design is as fiction, until it’s not.  That is an extremely difficult concept to grasp, whether you’re a student, an architect, or a future inhabitant of a place.  A lot can happen on the way to reality. Fiction allows the author to create worlds that could or could not, should or should not, exist.  But it’s rarely her intention to execute any of these speculations; a novel is not a set of instructions for making a world.

it could have been otherwise...

If this were real…That’s a subjunctive phrase.  The tip-off is, of course, the “were.” You’ll certainly hear people—not me, mind you--say “if this was real” because we English-speakers have become grammatically casual.  We don’t attend to how we choose our words, particularly in speech.  I stick to the subjunctive structure because I've been writing (but not yet publishing) about it as a mode of architectural drawing.  I've become quite partial to it; as an architect I appreciate the snug fit of the right construction to convey the sense of the sentiment. I’m a subjunkie.

If this were real…if I were you…If this were due tomorrow…These expressions liberate architectural criticism from the dull blade of the imperative.  Simply ordering my students to do or not do certain things-- don’t ever put a door there; never make entrances like that--is no way to cultivate learning or imagination.  And don’t even start with the future indicative…That won’t work.