OK, a small crisis of identity ...

I met Will Alsop on Tuesday afternoon, in a hazy upstairs office of the Design School, with about 19 other eager but wary students, on officialy the first day of spring. We sat, all quiet, encapsulated at the amount of cigarettes he smoked, and listened intentedly at every word. I was about 1 of 3 that weren't taking notes ... to me it seemed that if you had time to write, then you didn't have time to listen and take it all in.

We went through the usual 'I'm blah and I'm from blah' routine before he reeled off about 7 or 8 completely different strategies for the rejuvination of La Touquet Paris Plage, the coastal town in Northern France which we have been asked to look at. He mentioned his own version of the scheme, with the usual colourful blobs on legs, but also suggested that we look at the demographic and the current reasons for people going there.

It struck me then, that even Alsops artistic endeavours of colour and form, are completely outweighed by his love of people. People in general, from any part of the culture he designs in. This, coupled with the common criticism of Alsops contempory, Lord Foster, who often it seems designs for the aerospace technology and not the people, leaves me somewhat altered in my perspective of what we are supposed to be doing as architects.

Of course with this in mind it doesn't matter what the buildings look like, or how they come together - its purely about 'life' and the people that inhabit them. Architecture is NOTHING without people, as obvious as that sounds. But I do think it is commonly forgotten or passed over, because the emphasis in most designers mind is, you know: light, texture, the forms, the views ... and not, as Will put it - "... being able to just sit somewhere and do nothing ... that is the measure of success of a place ... people like looking at other people". I'd never thought about things like that before ...

Another smack around the face was with another Prof. of Architecture, this time Dr. Kari Jormakka, a Finnish professor of theory and philosophy. One of his units is called 'Practical Reasons for Architecture' and covers angles such as commerce, art-subsidy and public understanding of art. When lecturing on the failings of a sculpture in the US, I immediatley thought of my father, whom, when I accompanied him to the Tate Modern once, just shrugged his shoulders and went 'pnahh!' at a prize Mondrian (even after I explained about the De Stijl and the context of the painting etc...).

There is a test that I would normally fail, I believe, when placing my schemes or ideas in front of the 'lay' person. For the philosophical imperative and ideolgoical impetus would just be shrugged at if the proposal failed register on simple terms. Again - architecture is NOTHING without people.

So this crisis of identity I feel (slightly) is because I'm leaning lessons about the most basic things and hence feel that I should carry this sub-level of enquiry into the reasons why I am studying this subject anyway. Since being here I have not established a routine nor lived in any fashion similar to that of the UK. This finally reminds me of a conversation with one of the tutors in Portsmouth, Greg Bailey, who's footsteps, it appears, I am tracing.

When Greg came to Vienna on Exchange, about 10 years ago, he recalled feeling the same - he kind of warned us before we left. He said that when we would get back to the UK we would argue more with our tutors and question everything put in front of us. I'm not sure if I am looking forward to this - as I think I do too much of this already as it is.

Perhaps I should not pre-empt the position I may hold on return to the UK, and should just continue to enjoy my time here... I'll put up some images of 'first-moves' for the Alsop design unit as soon as they arrive ....