Real What? By Andrew Zago

Andrew Zago
Real What?
Few terms are as studiously avoided in progressive architectural discourse as authenticity. Loaded with
conservative baggage and smacking of self-righteousness it runscounter to the pervasive instinct for ironic
detachment. This avoidance, while historically justified, has the unfortunate consequence of suppressing
some of architecture’s most potent capabilities.What’s needed today is a post-ironic authenticity; an
approach that is mindful of the pitfalls of authenticity yet is willing to risk them in a new formulation.
There are those of us architects who liketo believe that the careful development of architectural projects
through technique and rigor is sufficient to ensure they achieve a measure of authenticity. Independent of
its traditionalassociations, authenticity can be seen as a state in which the nature of a project’s existence
goes beyond being merely adequate to carry an appended intention and becomes, in itself, in concert with
andexplicative of the nature of things. Authenticity, in this sense, suggests a comprehensive handling of
geometry and materials that permeates the tectonic expression of a building and raises it to thelevel of art.
It suggests, too, a quality that transcends individual proclivities and stylistic trends. While few architects
would assert that projects emerge independently from their historicalmoment, there is sometimes the
possibility that timeliness can be engendered without explicit intention. Rather, that it comes about as a
byproduct of the integrity of one’s working method; an osmosis inwhich technique functions, in part, as a
conduit for the Zeitgeist.
Experience gives credence to this belief. In architecture, technique - the manner in which one manipulates
material conditions –develops as a form of intuitive intelligence that subsumes a range of conditions and
goals without articulating them explicitly. Both a project’s authenticity and its contemporary relevance are,...