The Ultimate goal of the Architects is to create a paradise. Every house, every product of Architecture should be a fruit of our endeavor to build an Earthy Paradise for people. -Alvar Alto
“Justice is fundamental to our notions of
societal order, that is, to the order sustained between ourselves without
recourse to force. There is an increasingly strong assumption that justice is
something to which we, as humans, have a universal right.”
The main purpose of this Article is to
highlight the necessity of adopting a righteous approach in architectural
thinking and practice in order to achieve justice through the process of
production of space and the built environment. The Article focus on the
affinity between justice and human rights. I am trying to display the
interactions between architecture and rights and to explain the role of
architecture in fulfillment and protection of humans and environment. Looking at the etymological meanings of
“justice” and “right” in different languages, their ways of use and their
philosophical conceptualization will show us the interrelations between these
two concepts.
Now two crucial questions can be
asked:
1. How Justice may architecture deal
with...??
2. How Justice can be fulfilled
through architecture...??
Architecture
has an important role in the empowerment and achievement of the rights of
people to desirable work, right to rest and leisure, right to “standard of
living adequate”, right to education, and right to participate in the cultural
life of community, which are mentioned in the articles 23 to 27 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The
role of architecture in fulfillment and protection of Justice can be considered twofold.
On the one hand architecture is responsible for maintaining the accessibility
of all human beings to facilities which constitute the minimum standards of
human rights. For example, each and every human being should have access to
shelter, education and work and should have the possibility of participating in
the economical, politic, cultural and social life of his/her society. As its
first obligation, architecture should facilitate these accessibility especially for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups such as women, people with
disabilities, minority groups, people in the conditions of poverty, homeless
people, refugees, migrants and nomads.
On
the other hand architecture should improve the conditions of these facilities
in order to strengthen the minimum standards of basic individual rights. This
is the second responsibility of architecture, that is to say, developing the
conditions of housing, education, health, work, and economic, politic, social
and cultural life of the society. This means produci
We can observe that, especially in the
so-called post-modern era, studies about the first duty of architecture, which
includes empowering the accessibilities of all human beings to basic
facilities, have been insufficient. Whereas the second task of architecture,
which is recovering the conditions of space, has been focal point of many
architectural practices, studies and researches. As a result, while the
majority of people are living deprived of their basic rights. Architecture is
working on improving the living conditions of a small amount of privileged
people consistently.
But in most of the cases architectural
education and profession are nearly ignoring the needs of underprivileged
people when their main focus is designing “brilliant” and luxurious buildings
and environments. While, none of us, as architects, have never been thought
about how architecture can provide shelter for homeless people or developing
the conditions of urban poor, we learnt all of the “glittering” buildings of star
architects like Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid or Baron Norman Foster. As
a consequence, in terms of living conditions, the gap between prosperous part
of society and distressed part is getting deep. I think architects are
accomplices in this process and I have to agree all critics which condemn
architecture to render service to power and capital. For taking a step toward
realization of justice in architecture, I think that architects should focus on
their first obligation, which is obtaining accessibility to all people and
planning different programmes which aim to answer the needs of vulnerable and
disadvantaged groups. Putting human rights in the centre should take place as
the main goal of architectural education and profession.
Throughout
the history we remember the great examples of iconic structures all over the
world like the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian Pyramids or the Taj Mahal. But
the facts, the dark realities and the sacrifices that were made during the
construction process or after that are forgotten in front of the grandeur of
the massive structures.
The
'awe' of China has followed the history and continued till the date. China's
new leadership abandoned breakneck growth pursued by its predecessors and moved
to address the consequences of severe environmental degradation, unbalanced
regional growth and social 'Injustice'. A variety of concerns over the Games,
or China's hosting of the Games, had been expressed by various entities,
including allegations that China violated its pledge to allow open media
access, air pollution in both the city of Beijing and in neighbouring areas.
The Beijing Olympic have been a spectacular sporting event but they took place
against the backdrop of human and environmental laws violation and a great deal
of 'Architecture' is 'responsible' for this degradation of not
only the society, but also killing the
moral values of the people present in the locale and the high end dignitaries
of China as well.
"Chinese
people did support the Olympics, but they also need reasonable compensation. The
government shouldn't have used the Olympics as a big hat to put on their heads",
says "Gao Lin" Chinese Architect and Socialist.
The
government always blamed outsiders for politicizing the Olympics, but domestically
they made the Olympics a political issue. They don't believe that their houses
were torn down for the Olympics. The real purpose was/is moneymaking. Beijing
officials defended their relocation of nearly 15,000 people as part of the
massive construction projects that transformed the capital into a 31-venue
showcase for this summer's Olympic Games. The exploitation of the locales is
continued till the date after 5 years of past Beijing Olympics.
Good
design is not about form following function. It is function with cultural
content. By adding "cultural content" to the concept of "form
follows function," objects cease to be finite or predictable. Maybe the
right way to interpret the dictum is to first acknowledge that the function needs
to be clearly understood before the form is considered. Architecture arises out of
our need to shelter the human animal in a spatial environment and to enclose
the social animal in a group space. In this sense architecture serves our
institutions and expresses the values of our culture. The practice of architecture is the most delightful of all
pursuits. Also, next to agriculture, it is the most necessary to man. One must
eat, one must have shelter. Next to religious worship itself, it is the
spiritual handmaiden of our deepest convictions.
We
must opt for the Sustainable development for architectural growth and less
exploitation of the people. Proper spaces must be allocated to the massive
projects such as in Beijing and we must go for the cost effective ways of
housing.
Cost effective houses are not just for poor,
they are for everyone. The equation that a cost effective house is the house
for the poor, implying a bad looking house, can definitely be proved wrong.
This entire classification is wrong.
Life Demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignorable civilization and therefore imminent downfall. -Frank Lloyd Wright
