Frank Lloyd Wright said that architecture was the highest form of art and perhaps it was from the point of view, that unlike the other arts, architecture was a permanent fixture on the landscape. If your are in its environs, like it or not, there it is.
A high form of art speaks to us at the archetypal level. It stops us: a sense of gratitude, appreciation and perhaps even wonder can ripple though us. We feel It. We don’t need to think about it. It doesn’t matter what the art form is, if it is great, it will touch us this way. If it is a big building perhaps large numbers of people feel its salubrious effect daily, and this in some way inspires them in their field of endeavor. We see this principle very much in industrial design now. Take Apple’s products for example. The hardware is simply exquisite both to look at and to feel.
Wright was a genius and a mystic. He would wait, so I have been told, until the design was complete in his mind as if being transmitted from a higher source in a complete package before it appeared on the drawing board.
The latest buildings of Frank Gehry seem to have this same quality, but perhaps for different reasons. I was in Bilbao, Spain not long ago. The Guggenheim Museum( pictured above) is an architectural wonder and has transformed the town. In the museum there is a interview with Gehry on a continuous loop that provides an insight Gehry co-creates with collaborating architects in his firm. In this regard the effort is a joint creation with Gehry assessing the contributions to the evolving design as either a yeah or nay. His role is to recognize the appropriateness of each design idea as it makes its contribution to the overall project. It seems like the ultimate expression of the group mind, as we move into the age of cooperation and away from the era of competion. It seems that we are finding out that the “group mind, ” when available, can make better decisions than the individual and people like Gehry are showing the way.
