Antoine Predock Lecture

Architectural Motivations

Antoine Predock gave a lecture on February 15, 2011. On February 14th he was in the hospital with eight broken ribs and a broken scapula in Los Angeles from a motorcycle accident. He spoke about his life leading up to speaking about the architecture because understanding what Antoine has experienced, can explain what drives his buildings. He told the students at the school to find out what it is inside themselves that drives them and use it to create architecture. He added that he was not suggesting everyone go out and hurt themselves doing dangerous things, but that he could not stop participating in high-risk physical activities because the thing in him that made him do that, made him do architecture.

Inherent in Antoine’s architecture is narrative, which implies motion. It is no wonder that skiing, scuba diving, dance, and riding motorcycles are inspiring to him. The circulation of his buildings inspire journeys that are fantastical, haunting, spiritual and beautiful.

New Mexico is an apt choice for someone to live who is interested in the phenomenal aspects of life. Antoine‘s home and primary office are located in Albuquerque, a place he has chosen to live for most of his life.. His first project was La Luz, a housing development that was ahead of its time in terms of its application of ideas such as critical regionalism and sustainable design. Embedded in La Luz are the spirit of places Antoine visited in his life, such as Spain and Chaco Canyon.

I worked for Antoine Predock and participated in his poetic design process. I helped to create a collage one of my first days on the job. All conceivable contexts surrounding a site are researched and visual imagery representing them are rendered by multiple members of the design team. Antoine orchestrates a painting process where the images are added and subtracted until a narrative of place emerges. This collage is a starting point for discussion with clients and is hung in the office, so the design team will never forget who they are designing for and what they are designing.

Later in my employment, I researched potential materials to present to a client for a building. The building had a client who shared Antoine’s interest in poetry but also had other motivations. I found stone for the building which fulfilled the artistic and physical intentions of Antoine and the client but felt uncomfortable, when one of my bosses told me that the client would not use the stone if it was quarried by, shipped by, or the transaction was otherwise profited off of in any way by a specific religious group. I researched the stone company and found the concern to be a non-issue. I never had to decide whether or not to be so directly complicit in contributing to the economic disenfranchisement of a religious group.

When projects become large and expensive, separate interests converge in the realm of architecture. When combined they can contribute to a building which is truly a work of art, however, sorting out the other implications of your actions becomes more difficult.

Response to the Environment Critique

New Mexico’s political debates about environmental issues are usually rooted in conflicting ideologies where economic growth is pitted against concern for the environment. Decisions take time to be made and more time is needed for laws to pass. When a new party comes into power, the decisions are readdressed and repealed in some cases. Some New Mexican industries and citizens need more urgent support. Expanding Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford and Cradle to Cradle, by McDonough and Braungart offer ideas for designers who are interested in helping in the context of industry and in the streets.

Expanding Architecture and Cradle to Cradle were preceded by The Brundtland Report, written by a United Nations sponsored commission called the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The Brundtland Report, named after the chairperson of the commission, acknowledges that, “today’s environmental challenges arise both from the lack of development and from the unintended consequences of some forms of economic growth” (WCED 340). Many affluent peoples demand a limited amount of resources and generate more waste as they consume more goods. Those who are poor and hungry will destroy their immediate environment in order to survive in the short-term. The Brundtland Report defines the problem and suggests generic guidelines. For example, the Brundtland Report states:

Raw materials and the energy of production processes are only partly converted to useful products. The rest comes out as wastes. Sustainable development requires that the adverse impacts on the quality of air, water, and other natural elements are minimized so as to sustain the ecosystem’s overall integrity. (WCED 341)

Environmentalists who were contemporary with the report thought “sustainable development” was an oxymoron that could be used by developers to make capitalism sound environmentally friendly. Industrialists of the time saw the report as a call for regulatory measures that would threaten their financial success.

Cradle to Cradle suggests the idea that environmentalism and capitalism need not be mutually exclusive goals. When seeing through this new environmental paradigm, industry produces nutrients that can be reused, just as nature does. When we have a project, regardless of the project, we can be conscious of the materials we put into our buildings and create a cradle to cradle mentality. The use of a material becomes cyclic, rather than the linear cradle to grave mentality.

New Mexico’s current political debates still center around the issues of regulation versus job creation. For example, New Mexico’s current political discussions regarding the environment include issues such as cap and trade agreements to limit greenhouse gases from large industries, Pit Rule 17 which suggests treatments of oil pits to reduce ground contamination, and the reduction of water pollution by the dairy industry. Ex-Governor Bill Richardson and his supporters initiated these proposals, some of which were signed into law, and our new Governor Susana Martinez and her supporters are questioning them and trying to repeal them. Governor Martinez and her supporters fear the proposals are not based on sound science and will prevent New Mexico from being a competitive state to operate a business in. Legislation can be a slow process.

Expanding Architecture offers an alternative to the top-down control of development. The book offers examples of clever and pragmatic design solutions that are relatively inexpensive address the problems of those people most in need first. When people find that they have no space to act because of political and economic constraints, peoples imaginations can find solutions. For example, a Life Straw is a straw designed to filter polluted water and allow poverty-stricken people in Africa to enjoy clean water without the inefficiency of traveling long distances. The people who use the straws can enjoy water without becoming sick and the straws are much less expensive than healthcare or infrastructure to transport clean water to people in poverty. Expanding Architecture challenges architects to use their drive to be innovative in service of a greater good.

Architects, by definition, are practitioners and therein leys their value and a major difference between themselves and legislators. Debate allows more than one viewpoint to be had and new sources of information to be revealed to a wider audience. Unfortunately, debate can also take us around in circles, and action is never taken. Architecture is not always successful, but it is a laboratory, and includes many people with good intentions. Most often they build because a project comes to them with funding. In this way they act within a top-down system. I agree with the ideas in Expanding Architecture to an extent. Architects should expand the population they serve and actively seeking diverse solutions, even when they have not been commissioned. In doing so they help people and expand their services. Architects need to make a living too though and a balance needs to be struck between paying commissions and pre-bono or speculative design work. Cradle to Cradle offers an optimistic view of both industry and the environment that architects should always keep in mind as they chose and combine materials. How long will the building last? Will it melt back into the earth like some of New Mexico’s earthen architecture? Will it be built of plastics that can be recycled into other industrial processes when the building is no longer needed? These are questions that architects can answer and put into practice to effect the political debates regarding environmental issues.

Works Cited

Bell and Wakeford, eds. Expanding Architecture. New York: Metropolis Books,

2008.

Bruntland Commission. Toward Sustainable Development. 1987.

McDonough and Braungart. Cradle to Cradle. New York: North Point Press, 2002.