Stephen Gerard Dietemann Design

Ask almost anyone to define architecture and chances are they will talk about materials, design, style. Given a little more prompting and they may mention mass, volume, texture, context. But few will mention perhaps the most important quality: space. This may be because we are used to thinking about the tangible, the visible, the obviously valuable, the quantifiable. We are far less inclined to think about that which exists between the materials, viewing it as the ‘left over’ regions of the built world. If you want to see how this residual ‘stuff’ looks in a more familiar material form check out the work of English artist Sarah Whitbread. She creates sculpture from that intangible stuff, the ‘air’, and the effect is eerie, even disconcerting. Casting the area between the walls and ceiling of (for instance) a stair tower or an old townhouse, we confront in tangible form the place we actually live within, move through, exist. The invisible is suddenly and unavoidably present.

The same is true of the space created between structures. Space is created naturally – the cover of a tree or the walls of a canyon for instance – and by the work of men. Every structure creates space around itself and any two contiguous structures share and define the space between. This is clear in a city like New York, where massive skyscrapers create man-made canyons, austere and daunting. This space – sidewalks, roads, parks - is the ‘agora’, the place where we meet, travel, eat, trade, and work, or need to do each of these things. Here, too, in the vast man-made outdoor rooms of the world we gather to express the critical issues of the day, often in numbers only possible in such a grand space. In my lifetime I have seen this space used to gather thousands in an effort to express outrage and hope, unacknowledged need and frustrated dreams. The list is a collection of all the critical issues of my lifetime, the vital issues and debates that defines our age: Vietnam - both those supporting our involvement and those against, civil rights and racism – those who would change a privileged order and those who sought to maintain their privilege, abortion – those in favor of the right to choose abortion and those who would not permit it, to name only a few.

Both sides of these issues have taken to the streets to say what they needed to say, each acknowledging the critical role this space provides for anyone, any group who feels they must be heard and on a scale impossible in any other forum. In this ‘Architecture of Democracy’ we have seen the great issues resolved as the numbers swell on one side and fade on the other. It is the essence of democracy because often it supercedes the power of even the elected to control the debate, or, minimally, helps them understand clearly just what their constituents want.

It is not a neat space. It is a place of passion as often as reason, yet seldom violent. Often those in power resist, using the power they control to discourage those who would gather to express opinions they do not share. Vivid images of civil rights protestors assaulted by dogs or fire hoses, truncheons or thugs hangs heavy in our group consciousness, or the equally disturbing image of the dead at Kent State. Elsewhere, the images of Tianiman Square remind us of how a totalitarian state like China deals with protest at odds with the wishes of the state.

Less obvious, but equally disturbing is the way the protests of our day are increasingly being handled by the powerful. They are too savvy to do as China might do; instead they impugne the motives, even the patriotism, of those with whom they disagree and who take to the streets to express their opinions. I was deeply troubled to see a Fox News (‘we report, you decide”) presentation with the unavoidable contention that those protesting the United States preemptory attack on Iraq were forcing municipalities to allocate precious resources keeping the mob in check, resources that they selfishly squander in their protest. The undeniable implication is that those who would protest are selfish at best and unpatriotic at worst, rather than the very essence of selflessness and democracy.

The Architecture of Democracy takes place literally and metaphorically in the prime space of our cultural, collective existence. Sometimes it is messy, occasionally disruptive and often loud, but always critical if we are to remain a democratic nation.