Kool-Aid, Freedom, and Improvisation: What Makes Creative Space?
02.15.23A consistent theme that I have been turning over in my mind this year is understanding my own patterns of creativity - what is it that I need to produce new ideas, to translate my ideas out of my head into different mediums, to tune out unproductive noise in order to reach this space? Understanding my own needs will help me understand the conditions others need as well to be imaginative.
One instance where these questions landed was in class with my advisor, Denise Morado. After a lecture about the neoliberal Brazilian city she said, “We need to learn how to ask new questions about old problems.” Denise’s comment was in direct response to her exasperation about the monotony of the dozens of academic urban planning conferences that she attends. She feels that most people are saying the same things over and over again, thus little change comes about. I sense this too - both as a consumer of academic content as well as a producer of it. It’s easy to slip into patterns of both drinking and reproducing the urban planning Kool-Aid - churning out articles, courses, and lectures that talk about equity and sustainability, but without having your feet on the ground, without impacting any existing structures, without vulnerability, without creativity.
Zooming out, something this Fulbright and subsequent floating in the ether for 6 months has allowed me to do, I’ve found that I orbit around this consistent core question about creativity. I’m curious what the conditions are that are needed to allow space for people to be able to ask new questions, to be creative. My goal is to understand how to look at the same context we’ve been puzzled over for eternity, but with different lenses in order to approach what I see as the fundamental challenge humans face - how to manage the contradictions of our inherent differences. How can we look at this question from angles that might offer more productive paths away from harsh division, exploitation, and patterns of dehumanisation that are actively killing off many species on earth, including our own.
I recently found some answers to this question about the conditions of creative space in a PhD dissertation published by the university here (UFMG), “The Architectural Culture in Minas Gerais in the XVIII Century: Engineers, Masters of Works, and Architects”, by André Guilherme Dornelles Dangelo. This work traces the history of 18th-century architectural history in Minas Gerais. It analyses the various social, economic, and geographic forces that interacted in order to create a territory that was open to “artistic contamination”. The author uses the term “contamination” to describe the new architectural paradigm created in this heartland state of Minas Gerais that was the result of various forces, principally being the intermixing of Portuguese, Black, and Indigenous cultures.
Dangelo frames this history stating that in 18th-century Minas Gerais there was an important departure from existing medieval architecture and, for the first time, an aesthetic emerged that was created for the art of the design itself (DANGELO, 21). The book starts with this observation - something important shifted in the mid-1800s that allowed for architectural creativity to flourish and Dangelo has set out to understand that rupture. The following analysis is comprised of unpacking various notable quotes from the book that speak to this thesis and all translations are my own. To help you understand, I have two translation notes. First, the state, “Minas Gerais”, literally is translated to General Mines, which is the name given to this territory due to its vast gold, diamond, and iron mines. Secondly, “Mineiro”, or “miner”, is the name of a person from Minas Gerais.
Dangelo begins, “We can say that the grand qualitative jump of artistic experience in Minas Gerais emerged from cultural effervescence, directly anchored to the pride of having a sense of social, aesthetic and political independence, and much more flexible that other provinces in Brazil” (21). Here we see the importance of a sense of independence and flexibility in allowing new design cultures to emerge and create “cultural effervescence”. And later, “Among these factors [that created the new culture], we can cite: larger social and religious tolerance, possibility to ascend social classes, large flexibility in State administration, lower regulation of trade corporations (constructors, architects), that permitted, a larger mobility of artists” (31). This feeling of having access to other social classes, paired with a sense of independence and freedom, seems to be important.
Later, Dangelo discusses the importance of breaking from existing paradigms, of stepping into unknown territory. He writes, “Upon distancing themselves [Mineiro artists] from the myopic visions of their time, there emerged the possibility for artistic contamination within the mining community. This was one fundamental reason for the emergence of a hybrid artistic environment and catalyser of diverse influences, which contributed to the emergence of a differentiated creativity” (21). What is notable here is the necessity of the Mineiros distancing themselves from the existing architecture of the time in order to create conditions for this new “artistic contamination”. Expanding this analysis beyond architecture, we can see that new ideas emerge from a necessary breaking from what exists. Here I find company in the restless spirit, in an innate drive to expand my mind and my understanding of the world. Later, we see this sentiment confirmed again, “One of the principal differences between the culture that developed in Minas Gerais verses Portuguese culture was the restless spirit that made Mineiro artists advance in the direction of experimentation” (22). Whereas the Portuguese artists were operating in a culture with centuries of precedent, the Mineiros had more abundant space to experiment and create new paradigms. While many embodied centuries of Indigenous, Afrobrazilian, African, and Portuguese cultures, the intermixing allowed for the emergence of a new culture. It is important to note that much of the intermixing was rooted in racial violence - sexual assault of Black and Indigenous women by white colonizers was backed by a larger political scheme to embranquecer, or whiten, the population. While similar violence existed in the US, it existed in the context of incredible political and social segregation of white and Black, a difference which resulted in two very different racial violences and thus two very different modern-day cultures of race.
Returning to the book, Dangelo continues to situate Mineiro creativity in the political and social context of the era. “Alongside the existence of oppression characteristic of colonial and slavery-based regimes, there exists other conditions fundamental to the sociocultural environment in Minas, which aimed to guarantee greater equilibrium in a society formed, in majority, by mestiço (racially mixed) and working class and poor people” (31). Thus, while colonial oppression still reigned fierce in Minas Gerais, there existed alternative cultural and political threads that worked to undermine the harsh racial and class divisions imported from Portugal. These efforts to “guarantee greater equilibrium” were an important factor in creative fertile ground for creativity.
Another observation offered by the author that provides a different lens on the new Mineiro architectural paradigm was the distance that poorer sectors of society kept from the new styles. Dangelo writes, “Always existing, next to the most creative source of this architectural culture [...] was a traditionalist stream that was never seduced by these ideas. This traditionalism was often accompanied by situations of limitation, primarily economic, that conditioned the activity of the architect or constructor to prefer functional and rational solutions” (43). Thus, while there were efforts for “equilibrium”, existing class differences still had an important role in willingness to experiment new styles. With fewer resources at their disposal, traditionalist builders preferred to use existing methods that had lower risk. However, I think there is a counter-argument to this that views the building techniques of the poorest classes as a different kind of creativity, sometimes even more innovative than the dominant artist classes.
Summarizing the findings, Dangelo discusses the role of improvisation in creativity. He writes, “Analyzing the pillars of architectural culture in Minas, Mineiro architectural culture is already born more free, more connected to improvisation and creativity […], and for this reason it was by nature less inclined to follow preexisting models and regulations of a culture that had little significance within the new environment” (31).
This quote reminded me of reflections I had recently heard from Oakland-based architect Walter Hood. Recorded on the Architectural Lease of New York’s podcast “I Would Prefer Not To”, Hood was asked about the conditions that he needs in order to do his best creative work. He responded saying, “When I am given freedom […] An artist needs freedom to do what they do […] and risk is part of that” (Hood, 2022, 19:00). When then asked how he uses this freedom, he brought up improvisation. Hood says, “I love the term ‘improvisation’. […] I use it as a way to talk about taking something old and familiar and reshaping it into something new and contemporary. That is where research comes in. That is where history is aligned, where the lynchpin is. Taking something so mundane and using it in a different way to get you to someplace else” (Hood, 2022, 21:50). Thus, for Hood, creative space is one that allows the artists freedom to improvise, to engage with the past in order to conceptualise new ideas, and to be trusted to take risks.
Harnessing these two conceptions of creative space - 17th-century Mineiro architectural history and 21st-century American landscape architecture - I reground myself in my own visions for architectural design futures. I think that physical space should be a shell for culture to have freedom to grow and adapt and change and risk. From the macro design of our cities to the micro design of our tiniest bathroom stalls, architecture should purely be an abstract reflection of freedom. Architecture should reduce the noisiness of unproductive moments in our past while amplifying positive cultures passed through generations that teach us how to constructively continue to move through the cycles of life. Architecture should minimise barriers to our ability to improvise, to rework the mundane in order to innovate. The barriers between physical spaces should be permeable, to allow for the movement of energy, ideas, people, and cultures, to allow for creative contamination.
Kool-Aid will always exist, it represents culture that helps us understand our place in the world. It is a reflection of various ideas people have proposed to attend to our innate drive to stay alive. It is a result of boundless creativity, of reworking the past to create something new.
So, the Kool-Aid itself isn’t the issue, the issue is when it gets trapped, when it becomes truth, when it dampens our ability to innovate, when it limits our creative freedom. We can’t invent a new Kool-Aid flavor from scratch, but we can mix various colors together to create a new shade. The important part is to have consciousness that you are indulging the Kool-Aid, to have a critical lens on the substance. Thus, while we are always drinking from some source of Kool-Aid, our internal, personal, mental architecture should let it wash through rather than keeping it trapped, drowning us in red dye 14.
The same can be said for physical architecture - it should be just enough brick, mortar, plumbing and electricity to house our current cultures while also providing ample space for change, for rupture, and most importantly, for connection with ourselves and with others. It will always be a conglomeration of past influences, cultures, and pressures, all with their own challenges and beauties. It is up to us to articulate the future we want in order to build the physical shells that will provide shelter along the way.
Sources:
DANGELO, André Guilherme Dornelles. A cultura arquitetônica em Minas Gerais no século XVIII: engenheiros, mestres de obras e arquitetos. 1. ed. Belo Horizonte: NPGAU; Editora da Escola de Arquitetura da UFMG, 2022. v. 1. 288p .
HOOD, W. (Interviewee) & MILJAČKI, A. (Host). (2022, October). Hood Design Studio (No. 6) [Audio Podcast Episode]. In I Would Prefer Not To. Architectural League of New York. https://archleague.org/article/iwpnt-hood-design-studio/
Post Script:
I provide tangible examples of these spaces in the upcoming blogpost, The Everyday Architecture of Carnaval.”
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