Reflecting on glass
By Nick Sargent. This article first appeared in the Press on 5 December 2016
Nick Sargent is a graduate architect and teacher who works in Christchurch and Sydney.
The architecture of the rebuild shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a passing style. Instead its materials and spaces speak of a particular politics. I think most people intuitively understand this and I suspect it’s why the city’s new glass boxes receive ongoing criticism.
But glass is easily cleaned; greasy thumbprints have little effect. For this reason we need Christchurch’s architects — people trained to understand cities and buildings — to overcome their famous caution and speak openly about politics.
A building’s appearance matters. Its surfaces tell us about design decisions, and provide clues about its intended purpose. Through colour, texture and form, appearances also set a mood, perhaps inviting us to relax and spend time, or hurry and move on. In this way, appearance and function are hard to separate.
And if a building survives and its materials are allowed to age then it may also tell us its history. Without applying decoration — although this can be done too — a building’s appearance tells a story. So what do Christchurch’s new glass boxes have to say?
To rebuild a broken city in glass might seem like giving the rolling ground a middle finger, but glass is a practical material. It is hard, durable and lets in light. Glass facades, being extremely thin, enlarge leasable floor area and thus rental income. They maintain visual openness while controlling access and noise.
The environmental friendliness of glass is debated, but new technology is continually improving its performance. And as we’re told (as though we hadn’t noticed), it is transparent; visually, obviously, but also politically. Glass buildings tell us the institutions and corporations who use them have nothing to hide.
However, glass is more interesting than this simple story admits. First, it isn’t always transparent. Reflections obscure views and in certain light create mirrors, often giving both passers by and occupants a feeling they are watched.
With added dark tints or permanent mirrors to control heat gain and loss, many glass buildings also have a visually heavy and sinister presence, even reflecting sunshine and making nearby spaces unpleasant.
Further, because methods of glass facade construction are big and simple, it can be difficult for designers to include detail, variety, or even windows so that occupants might control their own environment.
Importantly, glass also resists culture; it doesn’t accept the dirt, marks or refurbishments that allow other materials, like brick or concrete or wood, to record history and take on a local character. Glass, with an amply and aptly neurotic investment in cleaning, stays young forever.
At its worst, much of Christchurch’s new architecture is big, blank and boring; it rejects the physical and social context in which it sits, instead protecting the interests of powerful individuals and organisations. Its designers claim transparency and sociability, while deceptively creating hard, uninhabitable boundaries to defend private, profit-making space.
This should not be ignored. Locally, many still fight for house repairs or a voice in political decisions, whilst globally, climate change and wealth inequality escalate dangerously. To address these issues we need to discuss the politics of how we design our buildings and cities, and against this backdrop many of the new glass boxes look detached and insensitive.
This makes it important for the public — the users of architecture — to feel encouraged in expressing their opinions. It is an important conversation that the architectural profession is well-qualified to join but seem reluctant to support.
There are, of course, promising conversations happening. They’re about preserving history, reducing the city’s carbon footprint, reinstating native wetlands, supplying affordable housing, creating more active social spaces, innovating with alternative construction financing and so on. While these political projects are exciting, their values are not clearly supported by most of the city’s new architecture.
How buildings look matters and don’t let the practically minded tell you otherwise. While the difficulty of design and construction often goes unappreciated, our political problems are too urgent to ignore. Planners, developers, architects and even politicians could approach these issues in open conversation.
Glass will be involved and, far from dull, lets hope it’s sharp and well directed.
