The painter Thomas Kinkade died recently, and his passing gives me the opportunity to advertise his work here. For though our bodies wither, we all strive for eternity through our actions and pray for their lasting relevance (at least, the egoists among us strive for this). His work was scorned by intellectuals, but reproductions of his art hang in millions, yea, tens of millions of American Homes.
While reading his obituary, I noticed that he had partnered with a development company to create stock plans, and even entire neighborhoods, based on his picturesque renderings of houses. I was struck by this, because I am all to frequently made aware of the unsettled mix of emotion and logic with which people approach architects. My profession has, with various degrees of futility, tried to invest our service with a framework of science and objectivity. Design, ultimately, resists this effort towards the quantifiable. Despite this tension within the profession, I doubt that an architecture firm fails or succeeds by virtue of its design excellence--both with regard to art and functionality. More significantly, the dependency of the profession on favorable economic climates makes tenure a matter of luck. (This blog continues to make unverified claims--beware, beware, beware)
As far as Kinkade goes, I think his work leans more towards art than true architecture and I suspect that real-world executions of his houses would have been disappointing. He created a world of dreams, blissfully devoid of the dust and compromises of the real and the power of his work lies in their unachievable quality.
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