The following paragraphs will seek to shed some light on the anthropological drivers of this behavior and the role it plays in architecture.

One of the effects of this trend seems to be the artificial creation of inaccessibility; a divide between architects and the public, particularly in academia. Architects build for people and the public, generally speaking, but use language as a social tool to elevate themselves above those they build for. Why might this be?

In regards to communications between architects and the general public, the use of language may be a costly display to advertise their own knowledge and intelligence, to inspire, and to concretize their place as a trusted builder. On the level of the profession, jargon may serve to establish the profession as a social group with its own social norms and traits. Similar to how different dialects are one defining element of different peoples and cultures, language used by architects may set them apart from other professions and peoples.

If we assume the profession of architecture can be classified as a social group, several other social and selective factors come into play that may contribute to the prevalence of jargon and superfluous language.

The first that comes to mind is conforming to social norms. According to the article “The Evolution of Ethnic Markers” (see Conforming to Social Norms),  adapting to marker traits, such as dialects, increases one’s own reproductive success and helps to ensure one’s place in a given social group. In the profession of architecture, adapting this marker trait may help architects to be more socially accepted and respected by their peers and support the success of their careers. If the profession as a group has certain social traits that define it, conforming to these norms will benefit all members according to anthropological theory.

Further, architecture is a very competitive profession and as with any group, status is of utmost importance. Language may be used as a tool, or costly display, to advertise intelligence, ideas and education in an attempt to elevate one’s own status and increase one’s own success.

As I mentioned earlier, I observe this behavior more in academia than anywhere else.

Academia, for the most part, places far more emphasis on theory than on practice. Theory, both spoken and written, relies more on language than the physical practice of architecture. With nothing physical to see, occupy, or touch, words become far more important to convey ideas and establish validity and status. As a result, jargon may be far more valuable among academic theorists to establish and define themselves among their peers.

Of course there are exceptions to this trend. In the fall of 2007 I saw Cecil Balmond of ARUP lecture at the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen. He was a clearly brilliant man but was able to deftly and beautifully present his ideas and projects in a manner, and with language, that was accessible to all. This made such an impression upon me that I have remembered it ever since. In my opinion, this did not detract from his brilliance, respectability or status in any way. If anything, it was impressive that he was able to communicate such complicated ideas in a simple way.

So where does this leave architecture? This trend surely affects the social aspect and habits of the profession, but does it also affect what is actually built and the public’s opinion of the profession and built work? This seems plausible. As far is what is actually built and current direction of trends in the profession and academic realms, language and status could play large roles. Architects and theorists who can effectively use jargon and language to convey their ideas and elevate their status may become quite influential. Once their status reaches a certain point, others may copy or emulate their behavior in hopes of increasing their own status and success. Therefore, language and communicative skills may be more important than ideas and more indicative of the direction and trends of the profession, and thereby the built environment. “Good” ideas presented poorly will fail while “bad” ideas presented brilliantly may thrive. Similarly, ideas and communication strategies that are accepted and rewarded in the social environment of architecture will become more successful, common, and popular.

Taken as a whole, language seems to have the power to play a huge role in architecture and the built environment, and jargon may be an adaptive trait to establish a social group, conform to social norms and increase status.

I am very curious about this behavior and the reasons for it, and welcome any thoughts and ideas you may have.

Related articles:

• Communication skills (slideshare.net)
• Helvetica (ryanopaz.com)
• Cut the Jargon! (copychemist.com)
• Grooming and the Human House of Language (slog.thestranger.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Articles with positive themes were emailed far more often than negative or downer articles. After noticing that science articles received a surprisingly high rate of email shares, researchers concluded that articles that inspired awe were the most popular and most likely to be shared.

“More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed, the researchers found, and positive articles were shared more than negative ones…They used two criteria for an awe-inspiring story: Its scale is large, and it requires ‘mental accommodation’ by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way.”

Determining the root of this behavioral trend was somewhat trickier. Ideas of reciprocal altruism came up, meaning offering something of value and counting on a return favor in the future, as well as the possibility of status and competition, trying to elevate or maintain social status by portraying oneself and well informed. However, researchers concluded that people were actually seeking “emotional communion”

“Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion. If I’ve just read this story and that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to other about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.”

– Dr. Jonah Berger

Can this research indicate anything about how architectural projects or ideas are valued and shared? I imagine that sharing awe-inspiring experiences or knowledge holds true for architecture. There are many projects – modern, classic and ancient – that we hold in our collective consciousness as being awe-inspiring. The Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, The Acropolis, Therme Vals, The Alhambra, The City of Arts and Sciences, etc, etc. These are projects that, whether we have seen them or not, we understand to be awe-inspiring and value them accordingly.

What makes us want to tell others about architecture we have seen or (preferably) visited? From personal experience I only share projects that seem to hold a connection to the land, people and environmental forces in creative ways. Others, while I may find them interesting, radical, good or absurd, I do not often find them worth passing on. Of the projects and cities that I remember best and tell people the most about that I have visited, it is always ones that carefully, brilliantly or perhaps subtly addressed the human.

Does the potential for people sharing and spreading the word on architectural projects influence the projects? For example consider the Burj Khalifa and the never ending race for the world’s tallest building.  Its seems that the power of awe is being used in a big way; it is difficult to imagine a building reaching half of a mile into the sky. Is it possible that awe is created but also used as a mechanism to ensure that everyone tells everyone and thereby validates the existence of the tower and concretizes Dubai’s prominence? I am also reminded of the building boom in Beijing prior to the 2008 Olympic Games. The projects were, in their own right, revolutionary, a testament to the building boom and the times, and successfully generated a lot of attention. Now, however, many of the projects and planning schemes are facing criticism for being empty, and for not considering their use and value after the Olympics. These two articles, one by The Architects Newspaper and one by the New York Times, look further into this issue and compare Beijing and Vancouver Olympic construction.

Awe is powerful and probably often overlooked, but research shows that we connect strongly to it and that it influences us to share the experience in order to connect to one another. What types of stories do you share? What architectural projects generate the most awe?

Related articles:

• Will You Tweet This Post? Study of 7,500 NYT Stories Finds Long, Happy Pieces Most E-Mailed (trueslant.com)
• So You Want to Get on The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List? [Visualizations] (gawker.com)
• Please Email This Article; Researchers Say You’ll Feel Better (marketingpilgrim.com)
• O Canada! Considering the Impact of Hosting the Olympics (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Shock and Awe: Viral News Is Good News (wired.com)
• Deconstructing Dubai: Considering Questions Posed By the New World’s Tallest Building (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)

Cover via Amazon

Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain, views American politics from the following perspective. Politicians on the Left generally rely on facts and what they deem to be sound arguments to attract voters. Politicians on the Right rely on the trend that voters do not like things explained to them and do not like politicians who portray themselves as know the right answers or knowing what is best for the populace. It is not a matter of which side is right or wrong, it is a difference of strategy. While politicians on the Left continue to struggle using facts to attract voters, politicians on the Right have found success with storytelling. By creating a convincing story that appeals to emotion rather than reason, opposing candidates can easily fall out of favor with the voters, even if the stories hold little or no truth. Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter with Kansas, believes that the modern voter prefers emotional argument over reasonable argument.

“For Mr. Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win”

“As Mr. Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.”

Another example that is relevant is the campaign slogans that John McCain and Barack Obama used during the 2008 election. The McCain campaign used the image of a Maverick to endorse the candidate, while the Obama campaign used the slogan Change We Can Believe In. Both candidates wanted to cast themselves as a departure from the status quo, as something new in Washington. However, to be successful in Washington it is unlikely that one can be too different. But the reality does not matter, because voters, in addition to favoring policy, will emotionally identify with the image and story of the candidate they prefer.

So what does any of this have to do with the built environment?

Imagine an election that will determine city taxes, future developments, zoning issues or transportation options. The result of the election could lead to policy, or a budget, that could significantly alter the built environment, for better or for worse.

A concrete example of this is a November 2009 election in Colorado Springs, CO. Facing a severely tight budget, the city was looking for ways to save money. The leading proposal was to cut fire fighter jobs and stop maintenance on city parks, close public swimming pools and cut youth sports. Not great options for most citizens of the city. As an alternative, a tax was proposed to alleviate the financial strain and avert a reduction of city services. The tax would have cost families approximately $120 per year over 10 years. However, facts were quickly overwhelmed by contradicting stories that passing the measure would increase taxes by 300%, as well as stories that citizens should not have to pay more taxes and outrage at the failure of the city counsel (not necessarily unjustified).

As background, Colorado Springs has some of the lowest property taxes in the state and nation, and the population largely supports small-government and anti-tax politics.

Despite facts supporting passage of the bill with tangible urban benefits at stake, stories appealing to the emotions of voters won out. The measure was defeated by nearly 2 to 1. As a result, unless private money comes through, or some other unforeseen solution develops, many of the more than 140 parks throughout the city will go without water or maintenance during the summer. No public swimming pools will open and many youth sports programs will be eliminated, and community centers closed. In addition, 1/3 of the cities streetlights will be turned off in an effort to save more money. It seems as though the city, backed by the voters, have chosen to generate their own urban blight and reduce the value of cities and neighborhoods. This decision does not seem to be in anyone’s best interest, and yet the voters were sold on the stories.

To recap, in elections and politics, facts and tangibles can be outweighed by stories, no matter if they are true or false. If the political decisions impact city resources, or civic and transportation projects, then these stories can impact the built environment. As voters and designers, we need to be aware of how stories can influence our decision making, as well as how stories can lay the groundwork for amazing and positive urban and architectural developments.

Related articles:

• Make me poorer (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Is Obama trying to please everyone? (cnn.com)
• Drew Westen: The State of the Union Is… It Depends on How You See It (huffingtonpost.com)

Smith goes on to reference a post by Clive Thompson that questions the power of self-fulfilling prophecies in pop culture. Sociologist Robert Merton wrote an essay in 1949 on “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.” The thesis was that “it was indeed possible to convince people of a false proposition merely by telling them that lots of other folks believe it to be true.” Merton’s own definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy was:

“a false definition of the situation evoking new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.”

I think it is very interesting to consider how self-fulfilling prophecy can influence culture, including cultural views on surveillance. Given the power of storytelling in cultural transmission and well as several anthropology studies on social influence and conforming to social norms, it seem entirely possible that these mechanism could promote the popularity of surveillance, despite solid evidence against their effectiveness.

A previous post, Storytelling and the Kingdom of Fear, was about the power of stories and media to influence people’s perception of the risk of crime or murder. Since the boom in media coverage of crime, the public’s fear of crime has consistently been higher than the actual risk. The post also referenced a New York Times article about the fable vs. reality of crime in New Orleans following Hurrican Katrina. In one part, the paper interviewed dozens people including police officers, medical workers and city officials to piece together an idea of the crime. What they found was that:

“Though many provided concrete, firsthand accounts, other passed along secondhand information or rumor that after multiple tellings had ossified into what became accepted as fact.”

What is more interesting is that the rumors-turned-fact influenced the emergency response; evoked a new behavior taking for truth what had been false. Back to the surveillance debate, enough rumors and secondhand information floating around describing their success, and people will begin to believe it.

An anthropological study is relevant to this discussion. The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence, was performed by researchers to determine how task difficulty and importance could influence decisions. They found that subjects would conform more to common answers when difficulty and importance was high. This held true when confederates were used in the study to agree on inaccurate answers. When they agreed on the inaccurate answers, the other subjects were more likely to conform as well.

Surveillance and safety are very important and difficult issues. Given the evidence from these sources, it seems likely that the behavior and stories of others could influence what the popular consensus is. Despite evidence, false stories about the effectiveness of surveillance cameras can change the behavior of officials and the public.

Related articles:

• How Groupthink Rules What We Like (wired.com)

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Going back to the fundamental base of Human Behavioral Ecology, all decisions are made to try to increase one’s own reproductive success. Status is of the utmost importance in the realm of sexual competition, as is social intelligence, risk and being a part of a group and following social norms. To continue with the example of Dubai, they took advantage of the opportunity presented in an economic bubble to build an unprecedented urban/coastal landscape that has elevated their status to world class, one-of-a-kind.

So what are the large-scale benefits of this building boom? Economics and status. It seems that evolved behaviors to gain status and wealth translates into similar competition between empires, nations, and metropolises.

I am also reminded of the amazing scale of construction completed in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. With such rapidly increasing media coverage for the Games over the last decade, the Olympics have quickly become a forum for newer, bigger, (better?), and possibly more absurd architectural projects with little to no thought given for the long term. The opportunity is seized for an instant status boost, but, strangely, the status remains long after the project has been forgotten or failed.

Social intelligence seems to play a role in this as well as group identity and social norms. To sell the idea for the next architectural wonder requires a great deal of social intelligence; perhaps in the art of storytelling, convincing the audience that yours is the best, as well as for coalition building to assemble a team that can actually pull the project off. Further, it you want to identify yourself with a certain group, you must conform to their norms. If your particular group of desire is an elite, progressive and architecturally challenging metropolis or society like Dubai, Beijing, New York and others, you’ve got to follow the lead and continue to push the envelope. With the latest burst of the bubble, it will be interesting to see how this trend adapts.

Bottom Line? Decisions in architecture and urbanism are not always made in the interest of good design and wise decisions, but in the interest of short-term status gains.

Related articles:

• World’s tallest skyscraper opens in Dubai (cbc.ca)
• Dubai Opening World’s Tallest Building Amid Crisis (abcnews.go.com)
• How Would Dubai Look In the Future? [Architecture] (gizmodo.com)
• Of Burj and Babel (online.wsj.com)
• Generate cityscapes with City Engine (makezine.com)
• Annette Griffus: Kitsap Swimmers Making Waves Around the World Is Sports Story of the Decade (kitsapsun.com)

“This presentation will explore how sound can be used creatively in film to expressively tell the story. One of the main themes of the presentation is that by applying an understanding of the principles of psycho-acoustics and human perception to the sound design process we will not only create better sounding films but also films that are more expressive and engaging.”

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Exploring the importance of sound and storytelling reminds me of Juhani Pallasmaa’s book The Eyes of the Skin. Examining architecture and the five senses, the book disusses the devaluation of the five senses and we have become an increasingly ocular-centric culture. One part deals with architecture and hearing/sound and she points out that sound reinforces and enriches the visual experiences and that space is understood as much through its echo as it is visually.

In Atmospheres, by Peter Zumthor, one section of the lecture is entitled The Sound of a Space:

“Listen! Interiors are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere. That has to do with the shape peculiar to each room and with the surfaces of the materials they contain, and the way those materials have been applied”

The film project and writings described pose interesting opportunities of enriching architecture through sound and storytelling. Further, one can cite the close tie of sound and storytelling as for several millennia cultural transmission and storytelling were performed largely through auditory means. With such an evolutionary and historical bias towards hearing, there is a wealth of opportunity to be tapped.

Related articles:

• the acoustics of a mushroom cloud (3quarksdaily.com)
• A Serious Man and His Music (blogs.suntimes.com)
• FDR Fireside Chats Mash Up (netnewmusic.net)
• The Work of the Moving Image in the Age of its Digital Corruptibility (3quarksdaily.com)

Hunter S. Thompson —”Extreme Behavior in Aspen,” February 3, 2003

In similar veins of exploration to previous posts on storytelling and surveillance, this post will seek to examine how the stories told in our 24-hour media culture affect our vision of the world; our perceived reality. As previously discussed, storytelling plays a large part in cultural transmission and learning. So what affects are seen when we embed ourselves in an environment of stories about disaster, disease, death and terrorism?

According to a Gallup Poll done is 2007, 7 out of 10 Americans thought that crime was worse than it was in the previous year. This, in fact, was quite of out sync with reality. Data collected by the FBI and Department of Justice Bureau and Justice Statistics reported violent and property crime to be at historic lows.

In 1998, Florida State University School of Criminology and Justice completed a study correlating perceived fear of crime to television coverage of crime. The report cited Gallup polls that showed that about 3%-6% of people considered crime to be a major societal problem, a figure that held steady for decades. However, the number began to creep up in the 1990s, and jumped from 9% to 54% between 1993 and 1994, correlating with a 400% increase in the amount of time television networks dedicated to covering crime. Further, the study showed that people who watched the news 7 or more times a week had a fear rate that was double those who did not watch so much coverage of crime.

An article published by the New York Times in 2005 revealed that many tales of legions of armed looters, people shooting at helicopters and gangs of rapists terrorizing shelters were wildly exaggerated, if not entirely false. Of course, there were problems with looting and crime, but not to the degree was reported. What is more interesting is that these tales and rumors, after they head spread two or three degrees away from the source, were accepted as fact. Further, the rumors-turned-fact changed the responses from authorities. Some medical evacuation efforts were delayed in fear of volatile and hostile streets, and some police officers quit on the spot after hearing rumors of hundreds of armed looters approaching.

“Anytime you put 25,000 people under one roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories get told.”

­––Lt. David Benelli, NOPD

Dr. Mark Warr, a criminologist and professor of sociology, asserts that research conducted over the last three decades shows that the mass media is an amplifying mechanism that can lead to great misconceptions about the reality of crime.

“People are bombarded with information about crime from the media, which makes them believe the world is a much more dangerous place than it really is.”

–– Dr. Mark Warr

Storytelling has the power not only to pass on cultural knowledge and make up a good portion of social learning, but also to augment the perceived reality we live in.

Related articles:

• New York marks fewest murders ever (cnn.com)
• New York City Murders Will be Fewest on Record (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
• FBI says property crime is down nationwide, but on the rise in Seattle (queenanneview.com)

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By looking at how the urban fabric can be uniquely tied to a place, for example the Moorish neighborhoods of Granada as compared to the courtyard patterns of Northern Africa, it is clear that there are cultural rules, preferences and traditions. But are these traditions linked in any way to an oral or written tradition of stories or folktales? Given how much learning is tied to storytelling, it would be an interesting experiment to see if design responses based on different folktales would differ noticeably.
Check back for more in depth research into vernacular architecture and folklore, as well as experiments involving invented folktales and corresponding design charettes.

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Image by paalia via Flickr

What is also interesting is cultural transmission through storytelling. Proverbs, fables and folklore pass on common cultural knowledge that will help people fit into and share in cultural identity. Each culture has a set of stories that nearly every child hears as they grow up. Many of them include lessons about acceptable behaviors and other social rules and constructs.

I also find it fascinating that works of fiction to capture cultural conditions or become indicators of future cultural changes. The Great Gatsby captured the promise and nostalgia of a fading American Dream that diminished at the end of the roaring 20s. Catch-22 outlined the schizophrenia of war and hinted at the looming military-industrial complex. 1984 imagined a level of surveillance and paranoia that is closer to a reality than it was when the book was penned. The military has also taken inspiration from science fiction in developing new technologies for communication and war.

So where does that leave architecture? Could any cultural stories explain architecture and urbanism as we see it today? Further, if a set of architectural folktales were developed and embraced by the culture, would architecture begin to change with the generations? I think that these are interesting question to consider and open many avenues for exploration and experimentation.

Related articles:

• Theories of Culture Guides to Theological Inquiry by Kathryn Tanner – 5 Star Review.pdf (slideshare.net)
• A New Literary History of America (newstatesman.com)
• Looking Ahead: The New and Eternal as a Decade Commences (nytimes.com)
• Inspiration: It Starts With One Story (familyfamine.blogspot.com)

Image by thorinside via Flickr

“I think that no one individual can look at truth.  It blinds you.  You look at it and you see one phase of it.  Someone else looks at it and sees a slightly awry phase of it.  But taken all together, the truth is in what they saw though nobody saw the truth intact.”

-       William Faulkner

It seems that a fictional construct can be used to frame certain events or cultural phenomena in such a way as to make these “truths” self-apparent. Many of Thompson’s writings seem to succeed at this. While the story centers on a real event, the Kentucky Derby for example, he intertwines enough fiction and absurdity to make his point: “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” Fiction is used as a tool to illuminate the truth he sees in the event, the strangeness of it all, the bizarre people and culture.

This idea is not a stranger to the architectural world either. Columbia Univeristy’s C-Lab, in conjunction with Archis and AMO published Volume 20: Storytelling. According to the brief,

“Volume 20 is dedicated to the art of storytelling. It presents the storylines of current events and architecture to show that while the truth is important, so is the ability of fiction to elevate fact. Perhaps the best way to eventually understand our era is through narratives that distort, pervert and animate reality?”

In addition The Architecture and Urbanism Design Collaborative (AUDC) published a book called Blue Monday: Stories of Absurd Realities and Natural Philosophies. In it, they attempt to use the tools of architecture to perform speculative research from the periphery. They use three specific stories of modern culture to “offer glimpses into our increasingly perverse relationship to architecture, cities, and objects.”

Storytelling, whether fictional or not, has proven to be a valuable tool frame certain truths.

Related articles:

• Blue Monday – Breakfast of Champions (wmljshewbridge.blogspot.com)
• The Perils of Fiction (themillions.com)
• You: A leap into the unknown (guardian.co.uk)