Storytelling: Communicating through architecture in the post-Gutenberg world
This week I was doing some work in the office on the London Cultural Hub project, and after going through some of the raw data from our most recent pop-up event, I noticed that many of the canvas cards completed by members of the community related to storytelling. This got me thinking about some of the changes which took place over the centuries and how those determined us to interact differently with architecture and in turn, for buildings to interact differently with us.
It is my view that architecture is not based on hard materials but wonder, on our ideas and thoughts, on how we direct our thinking towards creating something that has never existed. For a long time, I have been a firm believer in telling stories through every piece of work I produce. They are ever-changing stories which even when complete, find no peace or stagnation. These stories are being written through the process of designing, influenced by people and changed by nature. The final product is nothing more than the paperback version of a tale with dragons (planners), ogres (clients), fair maidens (collaborates/ engineers) and maybe a John Snow or Khaleesi.
Through the advances in technology and printing, stories, which were once oral, began to settle. They became less subjected to one's way of talking and enabled everyone to start understanding the storyline similarly. Gutenberg's printing press and the advance in hot metal typesetting which became a standard by 1883 allowed books to be easily produced, distributed and understood. In his work, 'Notre Dame de Paris' (1832) Victor Hugo announces that 'This will kill that'. The print will destroy the cathedral.
Hugo saw the history of architecture as being closely intertwined with the history of narration. Before the printing press, people told stories through architecture. From the ziggurat to the stupa and from the rock formations at Stonehenge to the columns of ancient temples, the stones were used as words and buildings as sentences. This lead one style to giving way to another based on the articulation of the story which required enunciating. However, what Hugo insists is that the Gothic style was the climax of architecture and through the printing press which made books accessible and economical to make, the building would run out of things to say. In his opinion, this is what gave birth to the period of neo-isms following the Gothic. Gone are the days when only the few could write through buildings, and only the privileged could understand their meaning. Hugo suggests that it is at this point that people moved from the decree of architecture to the discourse, discussion and debate of the printed book. However, need there be a dominant style in architecture for ‘IT’ to have a voice?
In more recent years, storytelling has been reduced to an activity restricted to children. Its values have fallen into decay due to our enslavement to hard, cold facts. Even so, storytelling has found a way of adapting to the day and age. We are not talking anymore about ‘amazing’ castles and ‘terrible’ creatures, but instead, we are discussing ‘amazing’ facts which are an exaggeration of reality and ‘terrible’ situations which are a generalisation of singular events.
The ‘exchange’ that Benjamin Walter is talking about in his 1969 book ‘The Storyteller’ is what makes stories compelling, their ability to evolve at the same rate as us. What is understood by one generation can be completely disregarded by another and reinterpreted through the amount of knowledge - or lack of - accumulated. The story lives on forever. The way in which building relate to time enables them to portray a history of its occupiers through the language of the designer. Paradoxically, architecture is continuously enriched through its permanence and adaptability. Unlike a canvas, a building accommodates alterations which suit the inhabitants. In his article on participatory design ‘Architects without Imperatives’ Sytse de Maat points out that people are more likely to take responsibility for a place once they changed it enough to make it their own. This is why individuals in a rented house never seem to be settled in.
As Edward Hollis writes in ‘The Secret Lives of Buildings’: 'For stories and buildings alike, incremental change has been the paradoxical mechanism of their preservation.'
However, the meaning is what engages people and words are but 'the means to meaning, and the enunciation of the truth' as V confidently remarks in the movie ‘V for Vendetta’. Regularly including it, some stories such as those written by Romanian author I.L. Caragiale, have a way of touching on the obvious through satire. His portraits of an entire social group through extravagant characters allows the reader to see the truth hiding in plain sight. Unlike novels, architecture cannot fully determine the way in which people engage with space. Authors focus the reader’s attention on different aspects of the storyline. This linearity, two-dimensional view, constrains the possibility of exploration and allows the creator some degree of control over the imagination of the reader.
Films such as Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) allow architecture to change reality, similar to the author, in ways which otherwise would be impossible, to guide the viewer's experience. At the same time, the movie highlights how architects create a narrative for others to inhabit. They are storytellers through their work, and they create an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ effect. They define spaces but allow people to populate them as they see fit. When considering storytelling, it is easy to understand that it is fundamentally a cognitive process. Our ability as a species to see into the unknown and to contemplate what could be is the same ability which allows us to design. When we look at the pyramids of Egypt, temples in India, great Gothic cathedrals, we see leaps of faith, we see time. We understand that those monuments were not designed in a day and not built in one. Generation after generation has participated to the narrative while keeping the story the same. One of the best example and one which we are part of is the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain, with its story being continuously enriched but never losing focus.
When carefully analysing the effect of architecture on storytelling and on the day to day activates, try considering the last trip you undertook. What do you tell people after coming back from a voyage to France, Italy, Spain, Tokyo or Jakarta? How much of what you reveal is related to architecture, bearing in mind that architecture is not merely bricks and mortar?
Looking at the answers provided by a small sample of people which were interviewed randomly for this exercise, 8 out of 10 described a trip that they undertook by talking about architecture without being aware of it. 9 out of 10 mentioned at least one major building or monument. The remaining one person was on a business trip and did not get to visit any other structure except the office building and a restaurant, architecture still. Through this, the emphasis falls on the fact that architecture is part of our day to day life in one way or another and is not just us changing buildings but buildings changing the way in which we express our life story.
In respect to Hugo’s criticism, I believe that although dominant styles in architecture have disappeared, this process was assisted by books but determined by people. We can argue that architecture has passed the point of a mere bystander, built by the one for the benefit of the few. The time of the one-off space with its hidden meaning has indeed passed and what took its place is the notion of the medium, the city changer. Vitruvius defined architecture as having to be ‘strong, functional and beautiful’. A building should be stimulating to the senses in a way which allows imagination to run free to be truly sustainable. Like an author, architects need to make sure that their ‘writing’ has the write words - that each ‘novel’ starts in a manner which does not push ‘readers’ away but includes them in the storey. I do not see the book of architecture disappearing from the shelves of society; the only criticism might be that those days we stumble upon one too many nuddy mags.
P.S. Hey everybody, thank you for reading! This is a post which came together over a longer period of time. I kept adding to it for a while now and I felt that it reached the point of completion this week after some work I did in the office so I though that it would be time to share it.
In September I will be having a post relating to the London Open House event which I will attend with a friend. We'll have a go at reaching a few places and on the back of that I'll have a go at a post, we'll see how it goes. If you did not get your ticket for the Open House, the event takes place on the 16th and 17th September at multiple locations in and around London. Hope to see you there.
