Doghouse Aesthetics
Almost two years ago, I launched a new application to help highlight the problem of property dereliction & vacancy in Ireland - I called it Doghouse.
This is the first essay in a series exploring various aspects of property dereliction. We start at the tip of the iceberg - Aesthetics - on why it is far more important than you may think, and how a little known Austrian architect gives us a new lens to view it with.
First, a quick introduction to the word. Perhaps its best to come at it from its opposite - the commonly used Anaesthetic.
Anaesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical purposes.
so…
Aesthetics : things perceptible by the senses.
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“Suí síos agus inis scéal dom” / “Sit down and tell me a story”
“Jesus! These buildings are ugly”.
If I’m honest, this was the only reason I ever began to think about dereliction. Local activists shared enough soul-destroying imagery into my Twitter feed that I was annoyed into action. It was only later, with more time and thought, that I began to look under the surface to the economic and historic aspects, which will complete this three-part series.
There Goes The Neighbourhood
We can see from human behaviour that the built environment really does influence our actions in real life - and this directly relates to aesthetics.
Most are familiar with the Broken Window Theory, devised by social scientists in the 1980’s:
“visible signs of crime, anti-social behaviour and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.”
or simply
“a broken window causes more anti-social behaviour which causes more broken windows”
So one ugly broken window really did inspire those little terrors to fuck up the neighbourhood ? If a window can do this, what could a street of haunted houses achieve? With this in mind, dereliction of property could be slotted neatly into the anti-social behaviour category of the above definition.
We could even tweak and extend the definition to make our own Broken Building Theory - dereliction causes vacancy which causes dereliction.
There are numerous more empirical studies showing how derelict/abandoned properties measurably decrease the value of nearby properties, increase neighbourhood crime, & lead to a downward spiral of urban decay . These effects are easier to quantify, to discuss rationally, and present neatly in an academic paper or report, but they are not the only ones. The problem also profoundly effects us at the individual level, at the core of our human experience, this side is harder to acknowledge or to even name.
No Name, New Lens
In his seminal work “The Timeless Way of Building”, the great iconoclast-architect Christopher Alexander theorised how buildings and even people have A Quality Without A Name. He tries to capture this quality with a word; aliveness, wholeness, order, egolessness, eternalness - but they all somehow manage to miss the mark. In the end, he concedes that it cannot be named, but your gut feeling often indicates its presence.
“There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.”
“Hold on! This all sounds a bit woo-woo!“
This is the radical perspective that Alexander puts forward in his vision of the world in which he does not solely worship and regard the “mechanistic mindset” - the prevailing mindset today. A mindset so pervasive that it is not even admissible to look at things any other way.
This is the world of the experts - statisticians, economists, number crunchers, all high priests of rationality and science.
He argues that we have become lost in this mechanist-rationalist mindset and need to to acknowledge there are other aspects to the world.
In The Nature of Order The Phenomenon of Life he puts forward this vision, uniting various perspectives of the world; the rational materialistic-scientific one dominant today; the common-sense human perspective of gut instincts; and his aesthetic theory of design.
But what’s this got to do with derelict and vacant properties? Alexander gives us a new lens to view things, formally recognising our inner feeling - simple human experience. Walk through any town or city in Ireland for long enough and you will encounter derelict and abandoned properties. The societal, economic, and moral failures of this problem are acknowledged and discussed openly, but even before thinking about all of that, perhaps our gut feeling is right - its wrong.
“Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.” -Albert Camus
For more on aesthetics, design, architecture, and building see the primary inspiration for this essay - Christopher Alexander. His works have touched thousands of people (I include myself amongst them), and although his name is relatively unheard of, time may reveal them as a touchstone in designing the built environment for the human experience. I also drew inspiration and ideas from the books listed below.
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References
https://wrathofgnon.substack.com/p/the-alluring-city
The Tweet (1) & The Thread (1-n)
- Building aesthetics are far more important than many may think. They have a profound effect on how we as humans live. Derelict properties throughout the country are destroying main streets, towns, and cities simply by how they look.
- This is not an original idea and many have talked about it before e.g. the popular Broken Window Theory - “a broken window causes more anti-social behaviour which causes more broken windows”. This spreads like a virus. We can extend the idea to the dereliction of buildings.
- The idea does not stop at the social effects of the built environments aesthetics. The great Christopher Alexander theorised how spaces & places really do influence how we feel at the human level - inspired & productive or alienated & demoralised.
- *There are streets we avoid and take the long way round, and towns we’d rather by-pass. Some places attract people like moths to a flame, while others alienate us - millions travel to see Rome annually, almost nobody feels the same way about an Irish city. *
- Some streets and places feel alive in an indescribable way - Alexander identifies this objective quality in his book “The Timeless Way of Building”. In it, he shares design patterns which create this effect. His premise is clear, most think aesthetics are just an added bonus, a luxury.
- However, in combination with the local people, they are vital. Locals work hard to decorate and maintain their homes & shop fronts, characters chat at a corner, a busker plays in the street. All contribute to the life and value of the local area
- In their midst, derelict & vacant buildings diminish their contribution to the living space, demoralise them subtly, and slowly drain the life they give to the town or city. It’s insidious and almost impossible to quantify materially, but your gut feeling is right - it’s wrong.