Architects should “meet us half way” on Building Better Building Beautiful Commission says UK housing minister 英國住房部長表示，建築師應該“建立更美好的建築”
UK minister for housing Kit Malthouse has defended the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, calling on architects to work with him to resist bland, developer-led housing.
Speaking to Dezeen, Malthouse asked for the architectural profession to “meet me halfway” to push developers to “allow beauty into their work”.
He said the point of the government commission chaired by Roger Scruton has been missed by British architects, who have criticised it for attempting to reignite the divide between proponents of traditional and modern architecture.
Malthouse, who was appointed minister of state for housing in July 2018, said that working together architects and the government could collaborate to build houses people want.
“Post the initial volley of attacks upon me, what I urged was for architects to accept that part of the secret of success is to build what the public like,” he said.
“What would be great is to move the conversation away from a confrontation into a collaboration for beauty.”
Communities “need to like what’s being built”
The government commission aims to address the UK housing crisis and the lack of new-build affordable homes.
“If I’m going to build 300,000 houses, I need local communities to accept them. And that means they need to like what’s being built,” said Malthouse, who is the Conservative MP for north west Hampshire.
“We’re putting 45 million quid into the house building industry across the piece. We’re not short of money to get out of the door. But it’s perfectly possible to produce stuff that looks fantastic that satisfies the purists of the architectural profession and local communities at the same time.”
In February 2018 the ministry for housing announced an extra £45 million of funding for community projects that would free up land for local councils to build 7,280 homes.
Architects must join government to “push developers”
Malthouse accepted that mass-housing developers, not architects, have been the real barrier when it comes to building sensitive and high-quality homes.
“Architects get blamed by association. People think the new housing estates have been designed by an architect. And in fact, it hasn’t. It’s been done on a spreadsheet,” he said.
英國住房部長Kit Malthouse為建築更好建築美麗委員會辯護，呼籲建築師與他合作，抵制平淡，開發商主導的住房。
在談到Dezeen時，Malthouse要求建築專業“半途而廢”，以促使開發人員“讓美麗融入他們的工作”。
他說，由羅傑·斯克魯頓擔任主席的政府委員會的觀點已經被英國建築師所忽視，他們批評它試圖重新點燃傳統建築和現代建築的支持者之間的鴻溝。
Malthouse於2018年7月被任命為住房部長，他說，建築師和政府合作可以合作建造人們想要的房屋。
“發布最初的攻擊對我來說，我所敦促的是建築師接受成功秘訣的一部分就是建立公眾喜歡的東西，”他說。
“最棒的是將對話從對抗轉變為美容合作。”
社區“需要喜歡正在建設的東西”
政府委員會旨在解決英國住房危機和缺乏新建的經濟適用房。
“如果我要建造30萬套房屋，我需要當地社區接受它們。這意味著他們需要喜歡正在建造的房屋，”Malthouse說道，他是漢普郡西北部的保守黨議員。
“我們在整個房屋建築行業投入了4500萬美元。我們不缺錢就可以出門。但是完全有可能生產出看起來很棒的東西，滿足建築行業的純粹主義者和當地社區同時。“
2018年2月，住房部宣佈為社區項目額外撥款4500萬英鎊，這些項目將為地方議會騰出土地，建造7,280所房屋。
建築師必須加入政府“推動開發者”
Malthouse認為，在建造敏感和高質量的住宅方面，大眾住房開發商而非建築師一直是真正的障礙。
“建築師受到協會的指責。人們認為新的住宅區是由建築師設計的。事實上，它並沒有。它是在電子表格上完成的，”他說。
Malthouse highlighted the work of Peter Barber Architects as an example of good contemporary housing developments
Malthouse強調Peter Barber Architects的工作是當代住宅發展的一個例子
He acknowledged that many practices are doing brilliant work when given the freedom, citing the playful brick housing developments of Peter Barber Architects as one such example. A commitment to building high-quality homes would, he argued, give architects wider scope for experimentation.
“We want to open the door for architects, rather than fight with them.”
“Here’s the challenge: meet me halfway. I need the architectural profession to join with me and with Roger Scruton to cajole, propel, and push the developers to allow beauty into their work.”
UK housing market “doesn’t function correctly”
Malthouse acknowledged that the UK housing market is not currently providing the kind of new homes that people both want and afford to live in.
“The house-building market doesn’t function correctly. House builders don’t compete in the same way as they would in any other market, they’re not competing on quality and design,” he said.
他承認，許多實踐在獲得自由時做得非常出色，並將Peter Barber Architects的俏皮磚房開發作為一個這樣的例子。 他認為，致力於建造高品質住宅將為建築師提供更廣泛的實驗空間。
“我們希望為建築師打開大門，而不是與他們戰鬥。”
“這就是挑戰：中途遇見我。我需要建築專業與我一起，與Roger Scruton一起哄騙，推動並推動開發人員將美容融入他們的工作中。”
英國住房市場“無法正常運作”
Malthouse承認，英國住房市場目前沒有提供人們想要和負擔得起的新住房。
“房屋建築市場運作不正常。房屋建築商的競爭方式與其他市場不同，他們不會在質量和設計上競爭，”他說。
“In what other industry do 60 per cent of people say they’ll never buy a new product, that they prefer to buy second-hand?”
Rejecting bland mass housing, Malthouse said the commission aims to restore “the different, the interesting, the unusual, the eccentric, the familiar, the personal” to contemporary housing.
Problem with brutalism is “very few people liked it”
Malthouse also addressed concerns that the commission is a thinly disguised attack on contemporary architecture that is rooted in the modernist movement.
“I think a lot of people worry about the foundational phrase of modern architecture, which is that form follows function,” he said. “Great architecture that has wide appeal is about a lot more than just function, it is about delight and aesthetics.”
“在其他行業中，有60％的人表示他們永遠不會購買新產品，他們更願意購買二手產品嗎？”
Malthouse拒絕平淡無奇的住房，他說該委員會旨在為當代住房恢復“不同，有趣，不尋常，古怪，熟悉，個人”。
野蠻主義的問題是“很少有人喜歡它”
Malthouse還解決了這樣一種擔憂，即該委員會是對現代建築的一種極為偽裝的攻擊，其根植於現代主義運動。
“我認為很多人擔心現代建築的基本用語，即形式遵循功能，”他說。 “具有廣泛吸引力的偉大建築不僅僅是功能，而是關於喜悅和美學。”
Robin Hood Gardens is one of the many post war housing estates that have since been torn down
羅賓漢花園是眾多戰後房屋之一，此後被拆除
He suggested that the “battle over brutalism” is the result of architects’ anxiety over their own aesthetic legacies. Over the past decade many post-war housing developments have been demolished, including Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens in London.
“Many of the big debates within the architectural profession have been about the erasure of some of those supposed monuments to the future,” he said.
“There was a sense from that generation of architects that this was our mark, this is what we were leaving, but the problem is very few people liked it.”
“Architects surely want more than adoration of profession”
Architecture that is popular with the public, not just architecture fans, is the key to housing that can last for centuries he said.
“All architects surely want more than just the adoration of their own profession, they want to build something that is seen to be beautiful by the world. Who wouldn’t want to build the next UNESCO World Heritage Site? This is how architects, fundamentally, want to leave a mark for posterity,” said Malthouse.”
“The challenge I’m putting down constantly to everybody is, are you building the conservation areas of the future? Will future generations treasure what you built? Or will they feel the urge to demolish it?”
Main image courtesy of UK Parliament.
他認為，“野蠻鬥爭”是建築師對自己審美遺產的焦慮所致。在過去十年中，許多戰後住房開發項目已被拆除，包括艾莉森和彼得史密森在倫敦的羅賓漢花園。
“建築行業內的許多重大爭論都是關於將來某些紀念碑的擦除，”他說。
“從那一代建築師的角度來看，這是我們的標誌，這就是我們要離開的，但問題是很少有人喜歡它。”
“建築師肯定不僅僅需要崇拜專業”
他說，受公眾歡迎的建築，不僅僅是建築愛好者，是住房的關鍵，可以持續幾個世紀。
“所有的建築師肯定不僅僅想要他們自己的職業崇拜，他們想要建造一個被世界看作美麗的東西。誰不想建造下一個聯合國教科文組織世界遺產？這就是建築師，從根本上，想為後代留下印記，“Malthouse說。”
“我不斷向所有人提出的挑戰是，你們正在建設未來的保護區嗎？後代會珍惜你們建造的東西嗎？或者他們會感受到拆除它的衝動嗎？”
主要形象由英國議會提供。
