Manufacturing consent in architecture

A little investigation reveals why the situation in architecture is so terribly polarized. Currently, architects go through an educational system that instills conformity to ideology, and which trains young architects in a way of thinking that accepts no revision of certain pre-formed beliefs about their discipline. The professional milieu is no better, as it continues to operate on the basis of never questioning a body of dogma (the “canons” of modernist architecture and urbanism, which are only a century old). Any non-architect can readily verify these conditions by attempting to debate architects about the soundness of their fundamental core beliefs. Since our built environment and the sustainability of our world depend upon constructing buildings and cities according to scientific knowledge that revises prejudices, this narrowness of thought poses a serious obstacle to progress.

A strongly felt essay by Nikos Salingaros on what is holdling back a truly human (-scale), architecture and urbanism:

* Paper: Cognitive Dissonance and Non-adaptive Architecture: Seven Tactics for Denying the Truth. By Nikos A. Salingaros. The University of Texas at San Antonio.

From the Abstract:

“Human physiology can lead people who have acquired false beliefs to stubbornly persist in holding them. Intelligent persons conform to irrational groupthink, employing a stock of tools to fight against any idea that conflicts with those already held. There is in fact a built-in resistance to new ideas that do not conform to accepted practices, even when such practices are demonstrated to be failures. We can understand this resistance to change within the framework of social learning and evolutionary adaptation. “Cognitive dissonance” is a state of physical anxiety to which we instinctively react in a defensive manner. We are programmed to counteract its occurrence. Studies in political science and psychology reveal strong innate mechanisms for preserving misinformation so as to avoid cognitive dissonance. Methods of handling contradictory information within settings requiring urgent action — while obviously appropriate at the evolutionary level of early humans — wreak havoc with our present-day rationality.”

From the conclusion:

“One of the immediate dimensions of the global crisis, which is complicated by the inertia of a group mentality, is a reluctance to let go of the industrial model of consumption and its allied design ideology. The material expectations of our modern society — coupled with the continued desire for new, supposedly better products — aggressively waste energy and natural resources. Designing on the basis of substantive quality rather than quantitative measure could have a positive effect on our environment. Two conditions keep this process from moving forward, however: (i) the unshaken belief in the industrial model to solve the problems it has itself created; and (ii) the methods of practice, reliance upon misinformation, and controlling interest of today’s architectural community. Even if the desires of the world’s citizens were to become more realistic, there is still the effect of contemporary design thinking that would need to be overcome.

While the primary interest here lies with contemporary architecture and urbanism, the mechanisms for maintaining irrational beliefs are universally applicable. This paper reviewed the strategy — here classified as seven tactics for denying the truth — which people habitually employ to maintain their false beliefs against evidence that refutes them. Individuals holding a worldview founded upon misinformation occasionally come to an enlightening breakthrough all by themselves, and then they turn to the available sources of true information to enrich their knowledge base. The literature reveals only little direct success in converting someone who has been following groupthink, however. This pessimistic assessment is borne out by professional psychologists who deprogram members of dangerous cults, where unfortunately a very small percentage of former followers are ever successful in resuming normal life.

A little investigation reveals why the situation in architecture is so terribly polarized. Currently, architects go through an educational system that instills conformity to ideology, and which trains young architects in a way of thinking that accepts no revision of certain pre-formed beliefs about their discipline. The professional milieu is no better, as it continues to operate on the basis of never questioning a body of dogma (the “canons” of modernist architecture and urbanism, which are only a century old). Any non-architect can readily verify these conditions by attempting to debate architects about the soundness of their fundamental core beliefs. Since our built environment and the sustainability of our world depend upon constructing buildings and cities according to scientific knowledge that revises prejudices, this narrowness of thought poses a serious obstacle to progress. “

Excerpt: Some examples from the author’s experience

Nikos Salingaros:

“The innate defensive strategy for maintaining misinformation explains the illogical and sometimes bizarre reactions my friends and I come across when presenting innovative work on architecture and urbanism. In developing a theoretical basis for designing buildings and cities, we have had to fight against a profession that lacks a rigorous logical and rational basis, a curious anomaly indeed. Scientific results inevitably contradict accepted twentieth-century visual typologies and models of what architecture has come to mean (Alexander, 2001-2005; Salingaros, 2005; 2006; 2008). What is considered appropriate in design is now defined in a circular manner by what is currently fashionable, and this illogical model is supported by a group of architects, architecture critics, architectural magazines, architecture prize boards, etc. Arguing against the establishment involves contradicting an organizational structure that has been formed by conforming to accepted images and a group belief system.

Mentioning that some architectural or urban typology is dysfunctional, and that a particular famous architect who applies it has made a serious mistake triggers cognitive dissonance. The student who has been socialized into unquestioningly accepting everything that famous architects do as valid — moreover, as the highest possible example to aspire to — simply does not know what to do in this situation, hence tunes out. The students’ eyes show a frightened look characteristic of a fight-or-flight response: this happens because the students are desperate of losing their worldview. Their body reacts viscerally on a more primitive level than rational conversation. Those students were never prepared for the possibility that something they were taught and now believe to be the truth may in fact be wrong.

We have also experienced Tuning Out with architects, where it takes the form of rudely cutting off the dialogue. With a more senior architect or faculty member, the typical reactions are Displacement, Selective Support, or Irrational Counterarguing. Frequently, practicing architects and architectural academics become hostile and belligerent, applying an extreme case of Source Derogation. This sometimes-violent response is explainable in terms of their emotional unease due to the sudden onset of cognitive dissonance. Architects’ habitual position of authority within their closed society relies upon everyone else around them conforming to the ideology, and thus their whole value system is threatened when someone questions it. The prospect of losing a worldview that has taken a lifetime to build up and having to start all over again can be terrifying.

When the tables are turned, however, there is nothing remotely comparable to risking an architect’s catastrophic loss of identity that provokes irrational hostility. Suppose, for example, that an architect is questioning a scientist about the validity of a well-established scientific phenomenon. Scientists simply dismiss those who debate topics using unscientific arguments as uninformed or ignorant. There is no unprovable dogma at risk here: the basis for science is experiment, which cannot be questioned except by other, more accurate experiments. Indeed, science thrives precisely because each idea is tested and contested until it survives. Science is open to every possibility, but is fiercely selective in what to believe, accepting something only through a trial by peers who apply verifiable and reproducible tests.

In discussing architecture with architects, nothing is ever clarified because they are forced to present irrelevant material. Many deny the very existence of a scientific basis for architectural and urban design, dismissing offhand all the published literature on the topic. This defensive strategy ignores the experimental basis for architecture, by asserting that this discovered body of knowledge is personal preference and thus not rational at all. Those who actually attempt to debate the scientific results behind adaptive architectural design turn to politics and argue around the facts altogether. Using irrational counter-arguments leads architects to talk by going around in circles. But the desired result of protecting their false beliefs from the threat of revision is achieved.

It is true that contemporary architecture willfully eschews rationality in design so as to achieve a shocking brand of visual innovation; therefore this intentionality is not the primary source for the architects’ own cognitive dissonance. What is essential but never stated is the assumption that this practice is just an innocent game without serious consequences. But this is false, because the preferred forms, spaces, and textures used by architectural cult heroes to achieve distinction have a direct psychological and physiological effect on their users. Therefore, the deceit lies not in applying irrationality to design (which is admitted) but in claiming that it is not only valid but also harmless to do so.

The disturbing reaction to questioning global consumerism tied to non-adaptive, dysfunctional, and unsustainable city form approaches religious conviction. Architects are trained to see the world differently than normal people: as a collection of detached objects instead of as contextual relations. Surrounded by the products of an industrial aesthetic paradigm deceptively promoted as necessary for economic progress, common people assume that there MUST be inevitable and logical reasons why these unsustainable practices and non-adaptive built forms are all around us, but cannot articulate them. Surely trusted experts have decided that consumerism and alien-looking buildings are part of the natural evolution of humankind? It is INCONCEIVABLE that all of this could be based on misinformation and misunderstanding, let alone something as shallow as a cult of images. Could it be that philosophical thinking brought a schism to the practice of design? Architects, forced to justify their own profession, are often no better at explaining these contradictions.

The “Chameleon” technique is wonderfully described in a short story by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Solzhenitsyn, 2006: pages 73-84). A high government official goes on a boat ride along a beautiful river that is scheduled to be destroyed by some monstrous and ill-conceived industrial project. He allows himself to be convinced by sound arguments against this folly; but, as Solzhenitsyn concludes, once back in the corridors of power, the official will go along with what was already decided. In our experience, we have talked with architects, politicians, and journalists who understood — or pretended to understand — our arguments for adaptive architecture; who then went on to promote and sponsor non-adaptive projects conforming to the worst that the global consumerist system is promoting. Fashionable images and cult heroes deeply ingrained in their subconscious, as well as the overriding authority of entrenched power, undermined our efforts.

Another recent and disturbing trend concerns architects who have learned the principles of adaptive design on the human scale from our publications and lectures. But instead of implementing them to create biophilic and sustainable buildings and urban fabric, they practice those techniques in a superficial manner to camouflage the old inhuman industrial paradigm! They don’t see the contradiction, or if they do, their allegiance to ideology overrides logic and rationality. Every genuine advance in understanding is applied ideologically, not towards a better built environment, but to continue the existing system. Famous architects have learned how to successfully use the media and promote a phony paradigm shift, supposedly from nonsensical post-modern models to a new “green” architecture.