Why History? Why Bother

I am a junior faculty member now teaching graphic design but I began my studies in architecture. Today, working towards my tenure requirements at a large university, I am asked to provide some biographical information whenever a piece of my writing finds the light of day in a publication, however infrequently that may be. This request always makes me uneasy because I am aware of the contrast between how this information is written for architecture and graphic design audiences.

Architects list accomplishments in their biographies: the names of building projects, completed and uncompleted; competitions entered, winning or nonwinning entries. Graphic designers provide client lists.

When I try to recall the credentials of a number of respected architects, I could not tell you the name of more than five clients of canonical buildings, perhaps the obvious ones: Mies: the Farnsworth House, the Seagram Building; Le Corbusier: the Salvation Army Building; Gehry: Disney Concert Hall Hadid: the Vitra Fire Station. But of course, I am still identifying these clients with their respective buildings. What comes to mind at the mention of “Farnsworth House” is not Dr. Edith Farnsworth, but the image of a sleek, glass box on stilts set in a pristine wooded area west of Chicago. Mies’ accomplishment was to create a living space set apart from but transparent to its natural surroundings, the seasons and the weather. Dr. Farnsworth was important to the project, but the Farnsworth House was part of a formal exploration already well underway within Mies’ architectural oeuvre.

Architects are revered for their accomplishments. Graphic designers are revered for whom they have serviced. What does that say about the respective professions? More telling, what does it say about the respective disciplines?

In any profession, a practitioner operates according to certain expectations and obligations of conduct; in any discipline, the expectations and obligations of professional practice are contained within its limits but also exceeded by creative invention. A discipline tolerates a practitioner’s explorations to expand the limits of the field beyond the obligations of client responsibility. Returning to the observation that sparked this essay, the difference in respect garnered by “accomplishment” and “service” is a reflection of the difference between how the professions of architecture and graphic design are practiced. However, when we consider the elastic potential of a discipline, if practitioners cannot see beyond the limits of their own profession, their disciplinary vision is short-sighted, or worse, stagnant. Graphic designers provide client lists because these corporate names implicitly reflect the scale of budget, and in the corporate world responsibility is often measured by the size of the budget that an individual controls. Architects list buildings in their biographies because they are measured by the success of their work: whether the control of space, the use of materials, the resolution of the detailing, and even the sensitivity to its site — to name just a few of the architect’s concerns — are innovative, provide pleasure, and serve their intended purpose well.

As someone who was first educated in architecture, I consider the practice of making to be a dialogue with those who have preceded me. I see history as a source of precedent and repository for meaning. For example, when one works in the vein of Modernism, one is drawing upon the beliefs and optimism that was first explored so well by Mies, Le Corbusier, Wright, Taut, et al. But these explorations are still ongoing. These dialogues with the social problems of increased urbanization, the rationalization of living, and the debasement of the spirit are still with us today.

For instance, when Steven Holl designs a building, he is concerned with the visceral response of our body’s experience to the qualities of light, the tactile exposure to materiality, the orchestrated movement of bodies through space. These preoccupations serve to combat the pressures of contemporary society by demonstrating that architecture isn’t purely about providing clients with a “proper” corporate face. Holl’s work is original, but it is also in a dialogue with the work of architects from Carlo Scarpa to Hans Scharoun to Adolf Loos.

Architects use historical precedent to advance their own thoughts and explorations with many of the same social, cultural and philosophical issues that have plagued society for a very long time. This on-going, long-term preoccupation of architects whose lines of inquiry are greater than those which can be answered in a single building, helps explain why the work of someone like Holl, always looks like a building designed by Holl, even though the programs of different buildings (the needs of a residence, versus a casino, versus a museum, versus an office building…) are each radically different.

But graphic designers prefer client recognition over accomplishments. They locate themselves within the ethereal and diffuse terrain of corporate branding, and the effect is to foster disciplinary amnesia whether by intent or not. Is it little wonder, then, that graphic design students take little interest in their own place among the accomplishments of their design predecessors? To students (and then, after graduation, to the profession), history is academic — “history” is a required school subject that has minimal relevance then or later. (Note to self: Maybe I should rework the syllabus of my “History of Typography” class into a “History of Clients”?)

When a graphic designer sees a piece of design and says, “Oh, that looks so ’70s,” or “That looks like what [insert name here] did in the 1960s,” it is an attempt to place the work relative to his or her own frame of reference. The effect, however, is to dismiss an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with history. I really don’t care if a piece of design looks like something that someone else did. I am concerned with whether this new interpretation says anything about the human condition now. I want to know whether new work can tell me about how we see ourselves today.

But the human condition is vast, greater than what history can tell us. Architects understand this. That’s why they take courses in philosophy, women’s studies, gender studies, comparative literature, African-American studies, and more, throughout their education. They are able to make connections between what they do and other repositories of knowledge, other disciplines. When we cross architecture with disciplines external to it, we are presented with the opportunity to reexamine old knowledge and assumptions. This reassessment allows us to question tradition and create new practices. Loos didn’t have access to courses in African-American studies. But what if he did today? Just imagine what wonderful architecture he could dream up now. A dialogue with history allows us to build upon accomplishments and ultimately, by contributing something new to the discipline, to contribute something positive to the human condition.

When, as graphic designers, our world is limited to solely to a strict diet of graphic design assignments and corporate formalities, our vision of practice is limited to “That looks so ’70s,” and neither of us — not the designer nor the designer’s audience — has learned anything about themselves.

David Cabianca teaches graphic design at York University in Toronto, Canada. He received masters degrees from The University of Reading UK, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Princeton University.