Architecture Is for Everyone

In an op-ed published in The Nation, architecture critic Kate Wagner issues a call to her peers to remember that “architecture is for everyone,” not just lofty-minded designers and critics. Moreover, all architecture is interesting in its own way.

I believe that all buildings are interesting simply because they make up the backdrop of everyday life, and in each building, from the most sacred to the most mundane, one can read and interpret the history of a given place and the values of its society, from potent religiosity to drab consumerism.

For Wagner, the “credentialism and gatekeeping” engaged in by many architecture critics and historians is “silly, and also self-defeating.” As Wagner puts it, “Many folks are bird watchers without degrees in biology.”

Wagner illustrates the difference between high-minded design and everyday reality. “An architect, who painstakingly finishes their facade with the idea that all will be unified and made whole from a long distance, is likely to be disappointed with someone growing geraniums in a railing flower box. But it is not a design failure if the building is used in this way—indeed, it is a success.” Because architecture is meant to be used, lived in, and adapted to the changing needs of those inhabiting it.

Architecture can be imposing, awe-inspiring, and innovative. But Wagner’s piece highlights the importance of remembering that it is also—almost always—ordinary, and necessarily so. “Every time you protest rising rents or living conditions, or even just inhabit the commons as a citizen, that’s participating in architecture. Every time you move, rent an apartment, renovate, or decorate, that’s participating in architecture.”