David Byrne on Architecture

Link: David Byrne's Journal

In my opinion there is nothing inherently wrong with tall buildings. A limited number of anything is like genetic diversity; it’s of value to the species as a whole. I can, however, see that these residences are definitely top-down design — there is no room for the evolution and mutation of function, form, use — it’s all planned in advance. The creators all assume the inevitable victory of science, reason and logic over messy instinct, intuition and impulse.

David Byrne is writing about the riots which have been going on in France, and points out part of the problem is that same one that affects doldrum housing projects everywhere. I think the text highlighted above is the heart of his argument, and also the caveat that saves it from being just another blunt critique of Modern architecture: it's not the architecture that's the problem, it's the fact that it's designed as part of an all-encompassing system. Byrne is critical of architects and city planners who think they can see everything that needs to be seen (I'm sure those people would understandably wring their hands andreply that they never thought they could see everything- they just did their best). At the same time, Byrne opens his piece like this:

A quote from Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961):

“To see complex systems of functional order as order, and not as chaos, takes understanding. The leaves dropping from the trees in autumn, the interior of an airplane engine, the entrails of a dissected rabbit, the city desk of a newspaper, all appear to be chaos if they are seen without comprehension. Once they are understood as systems of order, they actually look different.”

I think that the new understanding that informs his suggestions is of the same order. Aren't we potentially trying to plan freedom again by trying to contrive solutions like 'build more heterogenous cities' , or 'implement project xyz to integrate immigrant populations'? Not to cast stones on his suggestions though- they seem- at least in the present time, like good ideas. indeed they seem like needs and principles I wouldn't want to try to run any kind of city without. Isn't there a risk that making the architectural answer something along the lines of 'heterogeneity' is just making the problems and their effects more complex, more heterogenous, and thereby defering and componding their solution? Or, conversely, does it offer a chance to make responses and identities much more fine-grained on the scale of the city, with much smaller solutions happening much more frequently?