Effects of Art and Architecture on Society
The art class was fascinating. It was a spring day after lunch in the early 1980’s. Our two-week class was taking place in a large studio on the fifth floor of an older renovated brick building. The building was on the perimeter of the downtown area in a large Texas City. It was one of the few older buildings that had not yet been torn down. The generous studio windows covered two walls. They reached to the ceiling and provided us a panoramic view of the main downtown skyline and beyond. Off to the far right we could see the long string of skinny, tall, glass kaleidoscope buildings that stood like dominoes along the miles and miles of the newest and fastest freeway.
The professor was from Greece and was giving a discourse about the visual effects and impact art and architecture not only has on the individual but society as a whole. The question; were we aware of the affects that various shapes subconsciously or consciously have on individual psyches? And a reminder that it is the individuals that make up a society.
“For example”, he said, “Look, look at your erectile buildings they are rectangular like your paper money and some are phallic shaped! Insinuating masculine dominance. Many are in the sharpened shape of knives and swords… weapons, don’t you see? They are pointed and angular at the top and some are literally emphasized by being built very narrow in depth. The same shapes as iron forged medieval swords used by the armies of the Aristocracy and Bishops. Your architecture reveals where your heart resides.” He paused so we could discern and absorb the solemn pronouncements he was speaking.
“Those glass facade buildings glare back in your face just like the mirror reflections of a Knight’s battle armor. The sharp building edges allow no place for the mind to wander. To enjoy respite and slow down to rest! The mind slides and just zips right off the edge…somewhat of a suicide maneuver off a cliff…no place to go, nothing to hold on to!” he emphasized. “Just trying to survive, isn’t that how some people feel today? Just trying to survive.”
All of the class was gazing through the studio’s spacious windows at the landscape of projectiles formed of metal and cement that made me think of graveyards where giants were buried by a society of long ago. The professor summed up with this statement. “A severe architecture breeds a savage society!”
What do you think of this observation? What effects does architecture have on you? Do you think seeing a knife shape erected in the sky stirs up fight or flight instincts? Are men more prone to primal urgings to attack or defend than women? Have the crime rates decreased or increased in your community or in our country? We have all the latest in autos, electronic gadgets, appliances and the list goes on. But have we developed an existence that allows work, love, play, and eating, socializing, family duties and time to think and develop our interests? Are we really taking time to create and build a positive
reality for humankind?
Val Jean