Architecture is inherently public. Our work as architects necessarily engages with the concerns of the world around us. We do not (and cannot) work in isolation; rather, through our actions, we enter into an exchange with the interests and welfare of the common good.
Any act of architecture—building, drawing, idea—is a public proclamation about the world as we would like it to be. Each act, as a reasoned declaration, engages with an ongoing, collective set of political, social, and cultural conversations. The forms of architecture’s public exchanges are broad and robust, difficult and complex; the world is a messy place, after all. How does architecture effectively enter into this public dialogue? What role does architecture play in setting an agenda for such discussions? How do the disciplinary concerns of architecture converse with the diverse motives of culture at large?
