Art in Architecture - TrustNews August 1988
In his Mansion House speech at the end of last year, Prince Charles said:
"I'd like to see architects working with artists and craftsmen, showing that pleasure and delight are indeed returning to architecture after their long exile."
As is so often the case, the Prince's words voiced a groundswell of feeling: people have grown bored and disheartened by the faceless environments foisted upon them over the past half-century or so by well-meaning but unimaginative architects, planners and developers; they long for an architecture with a human face, one which acknowledges their need for beauty, for fun, colour, sense of place - and an element of randomness.
There is a tendency to blame our bland and featureless buildings on the great architects of the Modern Movement such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. These architects, however, did not design dreary buildings: the blame for what has happened to architecture must lie with the grey armies of imitators, who lacked the imagination and understanding to do anything but spew out half-digested versions of the masters' work. The world is full of undistinguished architects, and they are more than balanced by hordes of mediocre artists and craftsmen.
This is a problem that will be thrown into ever-sharper relief as increasing numbers of local authorities consider the introduction of a percentage for art policy - a system whereby a percentage (usually 1%) of building costs is devoted to the commissioning of art works. A positive aspect of such a scheme is that it can result in the successful integration of art into new buildings; the negative side is that it can encourage the second rate, in that commissions may be given to those artists and craftsmen who are good at promoting themselves, not necessarily those who are the most gifted or the best at working in an architectural context.
True architectonic art is an organic part of a building; it 'grows' out of the architecture. It is a million miles away from what Norman Foster has called 'the lipstick on the gorilla' - an artwork stuck onto an ugly building in an attempt to mitigate its gracelessness. Art in architecture is not an apology: it is not a cosmetic operation or a public relations exercise. If it is to have any real worth and meaning it must be the fruit of a mutually inspiring collaboration between artist and architect.