Geoff Manaugh is the blog and book writer for BLDGBLOG. In a revealing moment in a recent interview, quoted below, Geoff asks an important question – what do novelists (take that to be writers in general) think about the buildings around them? Well – we would like you to tell us. Since Arvon is all about buildings (writers come and spend a week in our four historic and beautiful writing houses each week), this is a very crucial question for us. This is open to any writer – whether you’ve been to Arvon or not. Reply to this blog post and we’re going to send a copy of the BLDGBLOG book to a randomly selected winner if we get more than 50 posts!
Amazon.com: The wider culture tends to tell stories about architecture (like about everything, I guess) that are organized around the Great Creators: the Gehrys, the Wrights, the Pianos (the Howard Roarks). Your stories, by contrast, are much more impersonal–if there are any heroes they are as much the people who explore their environment–the Michael Cooks. Where do people fit into your designs?
Manaugh: Well, I don’t have that many designs as such–being a writer–but I think the everyday users of buildings are almost always more interesting than the actual creators of those spaces. For instance, what do janitors or security guards or novelists or even housewives–let alone prison guards or elevator-repair personnel–think about the buildings around them? What do suburban teenagers think about contemporary home design, when their own bedrooms are right next door to their parents–or what do teenagers think about urban planning, when they have to drive an hour each way to get to school? These sorts of apparently trivial experiences of the built environment are often far more important to hear about than simply learning–yet again–how a certain architect fits him- or herself into a self-chosen design lineage.
So perhaps we should stop talking to Frank Gehry and start interviewing valet parkers in Los Angeles–or crime novelists, or SWAT team captains. They all have an opinion about the built environment, and about the way that cities function, but no one tends to ask them what those opinion might be.
Many teachers had written this particular student off as being lazy and trucculent. His home life was, certainly, unusual. No mum, little money, a dad who was unconventional but obviously intelligent. I never doubted that this twelve year old boy was exceptionally bright, undaunted by authority, opinionated, very individual & had a unique flair for writing. I spoke to him about his ‘attitude’ and his response was to write to me. The problem was not the teachers, the lessons or the other students. He described how he found the school building completely depressing. It was a ‘modern’ series of boxes, constructed from grey breeze blocks . In many classrooms the walls had not even been painted. They were rough, cold to the touch and miserable grey. He said it felt like he was in prison. Every day he just wanted to break out. I feel sure that he did.