As a collection of his architectural commentary is published, Robert Adam considers the purpose and pleasures of writing on building
I like to design buildings. Buildings bring together function, construction and ideas and it is the ideas that make buildings into architecture. However, to build you need to have a client and a project. The right commissions don’t always turn up and ideas are rarely fully realised through the exigencies of function and construction. With writing and drawing I can go anywhere and explore anything. Drawings can take me into the world of fantasy but to put down an argument in writing I have to be coherent and logical. It’s like having a debate with yourself.
Architecture is awash with theories and statements put over with great conviction. A lot of the time, these are little more than platitudes picked up in education or just the orthodoxies that are knocking around. The people who put them over often don’t think them through and simply rely on their currency to give them authority.
Occasionally, opportunities come up where these can be argued out properly, but this is rare. With writing, you are free to take on a point, examine it forensically, go into depth, deal with each issue in turn, and come to a rational conclusion. The very act of putting something down in print gives an argument structure.
When writing for a publication the word length must be precise (there is nothing more irritating than gratuitous editing)”
When you take up a new subject, another world comes into view. It’s like opening a door to a room full of treasures. You find that other people have been there before you and left surprising gifts for you to discover. As you look around, the unexpected often turns up and can challenge preconceptions. As you go deeper in, you begin to see that other doors are left ajar inviting you to go to places that offer even more riches of a kind you had never anticipated. This great adventure, the literature and the people, the ideas and the insights, can be wonderfully stimulating and challenging. But it’s also hard work.
Then there’s the process of writing. As with any creative act, this is a pleasure on its own. The choice of words, the allusion, the turn of phrase, the movement to a conclusion, and the reading and re-reading all require careful consideration. The audience must be identified and an appropriate vocabulary used and the reader must be neither patronised nor confused. When writing for a publication the word length must be precise (there is nothing more irritating than gratuitous editing).
Most architects – and most people – don’t read much and certainly don’t read closely-argued papers.”
Perhaps the greatest challenge is to make the complex point clear and avoid prevarication. Clear writing is the same as clear thinking. The English language is so rich in synonyms that there is never an excuse for obfuscation and brevity is a merit.
Of course, as you’re reading this you may think I’m not practicing what I preach. But if so, I am at least pleased that you’re reading it. I have found two hard and related challenges to the pleasure and sense of achievement in writing: getting it published and getting it read. The former does not necessarily lead to the latter. Most architects – and most people – don’t read much and certainly don’t read closely-argued papers. Points I think I have dealt with logically and once and for all come up time and time again. I have long realised that most people think with slogans and have opinions that can’t be shifted with rational debate. I have to be content with the pleasure of writing and the hope that some future strangers will read what I have written, perhaps agree with me but, most important of all, might enjoy it.
