Making a Case for the Value of Architecture October 14, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in books, career, change, employment, optimism, possibility, pragmatism, survival, the economy, transition.Tags: a case for architecture, Architecture for Humanity, Down Detour Road, Eric J Cesal
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I’d like to share with you a personal letter from the author of Down Detour Road: An Architect in Search of Practice, featured here in a previous post. Eric Cesal’s words are eloquent, earnest and heartfelt. And his approach to architecture and life inspires and for me represents hope and salvation so many architects today are in search of. Thank you Eric. Eric writes:
Thank you so much for your very kind and generous review. It is a great thrill to know that my small book is resonating with at least a few people. It began as a series of disjointed thoughts on architecture, and through the support and prodding of many, evolved into what it is.
I’m still in Port au Prince, if you’re curious. We have an office of about 15 people and are working hard at school reconstruction, among other things. I’ve been here 8 months now, with only a few days off sputtered here and there. Its been a surreal thing to watch the book come out and gain traction while I’m here entrenched in Haiti’s recovery. The book and its course seem very distant to me now. I haven’t written much about my experiences here, owing to an inability to get appropriate space from the situation. I don’t know how you write without reflection, and I don’t know how you reflect at the heart of a disaster. We’re all here with our whole heart and its tough to imagine stepping away enough to write anything meaningful.
I did want to elaborate on something you mentioned in your review, specifically on your suggestion that my work in Haiti is somehow a detour from a normal course of practice. I’m referring specifically to the line “Architects who are considering doing a tour of duty helping the world in some selfless way while they wait out the Great Wake.” I’m not sure if you were exactly implying that that’s what I am doing, but truthfully I’m not really waiting out anything anymore, because I’m exactly where I need to be.
The title as metaphor, was really meant to suggest that unemployment was a detour – from the normal expected life of architects. That may seem strange, in that many architects have come to expect long bouts of unemployment as a necessary fact of life. But I was also, at some level, trying to argue that we shouldn’t expect such things. That we should treat unemployment, wage suppression, and general professional dissatisfaction as aberrations in what should be the life of an architect. If we really believe in what we’re doing, we should believe in its value and treat it as such.
I view my move to Haiti, and the work that I’m doing here, as the high expression of the ideals espoused in the book. I believe that I am here making a case for the value of architecture and its relevance on the planet as it exists today. I don’t believe that someone would need to move to Haiti to do so, but I had a certain flexibility in my life that the book’s publishing made possible, so I moved forward with the decision. Similarly, my work on the Katrina reconstruction was not a detour or a distraction, but an attempt to find for myself where architecture’s value lies. In no small way, I believe that the work that Architecture for Humanity is doing in Haiti (and everywhere else, for that matter), makes the case for the small practitioner doing residential work in rural middle America. It identifies architects as responsible citizens, adept problem solvers, and true professionals.
In that sense, I’m not waiting out anything. I have already moved past the Great Wake at a personal level. I have a job, a mission and a family of truly wonderful architects that I work with.
My editor and I went back and forth many times about the sub-title. “In Search of Work” “In Search of Meaning” “In Search of a Job” were all considered. Ultimately, “Practice” won out because that was really what I was searching for and that is ultimately what I found in the end. At the story’s close, I hadn’t found a job, the earthquake hadn’t happened, and I was still, in some literal way, sitting around. But I had found something: a way to practice. A way to understand what architecture was and how to do it. Not in some external, universal way, but in a way that worked for me, a way that allowed me to sleep at night and not feel like I had wasted the last ten years of my life.
Barring some unforeseen event (and to be honest, Haiti can give you plenty of those) I don’t plan on coming back to the U.S. anytime soon, or practicing anything within the conventional world of architecture. Even if the architecture job market were to recover tomorrow, I don’t think that I would feel any draw to come back. My architecture is here, among the survivors. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks again,
Eric
Architects 2Zebras 
Thanks for the post Randy. Words to live by indeed. It appears many of us are experiencing a moment of reflection, evaluation and assessment. Eric articulates the thoughts of many of us in a poetic and heartfelt manner. My post of yesterday is a crude effort at addressing this issue from the view point of 30 years of experience.
Thanks Ted. I’m looking forward to reading your post! http://bit.ly/dh0ABX
I picked the book up after reading your post and have been enjoying what I can of it, in between studying for exams.
What Eric writes really resonates with me – there is a real sense of clarity and cutting thru the ego in the book… it points to what-to-me are the fundamental values worthy of pursuit by anyone passionate about doing what they love to the fullest
its helped me calibrate the macro expectations i have of my own practice and so far aided me in stepping back and taking a critical view of how i perceive the mammoth task at hand of both developing my own need to work & design and the expectations everyone else involved in the domino of relationships relative to this profession may have…
…and i particularly like the very direct way Eric attacked consumption and the idea of value.. by way of giving respect to the different systems of thinking (i.e. finance) about the world around us.
in short the book i think…its kinda a gem, certainly something I see students reading in a professional practice course =)
Eric is an amazing person and I was fortunate to have dinner with him at the AIA convention. He was very thoughtful in providing Architecture for Humanity Chicago insight into our Haiti school reconstruction. Can’t wait for a free moment to read the book.
Thanks Katherine for visiting and sharing. I discovered the book moments after running into you downtown last month. I certainly had you in mind with this and the previous post. With your hands full as they are – don’t wait until you have a free moment to read the book. That day may noot come for some time! When you do find time, I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did. Be well, Randy