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Newness

Newness

‘Newness’ is something you cannot avoid as an architect. Whether you design a new building, extend an existing one or renovate an old structure; the creation of something new cannot be avoided.

I have to declare a discomfort with ‘Newness’.

Newness is not just something physically new or the latest stylistic idea. A discomfort with newness is not a disliking of Modern Architecture, nor is it a yearning for a classical style. It is a feeling or impression. Newness deals with the experiential qualities of a space or place. It is best expressed in a newly completed house. We all share a notion of home, it is a place characterised by memory and experience. Le Corbusier said, “The home should be the treasure chest of living”. These recollections and shared responses are not reflected in this feeling of newness.

When I think of newness I think of glossy pictures of a new house in a magazine, I think of the smell of new paint on the walls of a room or the echo of footsteps walking in a space yet to be inhabited. These responses don’t speak of the quality of the spaces, how inspiring the architecture is or how much a building is loved.

When architects talk of buildings it is usually when they are at there newest, fresh out of the box and on the cover of the journals, “Have you seen that new building by …Frank Lloyd Wright in…(insert the name of your preferred architectural magazine)…?”

The glossy magazine shots depict this shiny new building but they somehow feel staged. The spaces look like a set and everyday objects are placed ‘just so’. The images suggest newness but leave me cold. I imagine the couch breathing out a sigh of relief when the photographer leaves and scattering its cushions, or everyday objects like books, toys and coffee mugs creeping out from behind the curtain and dispersing themselves loosely around the room. The spaces in the images lack any joy, they are clinical in their newness; it appears as if there is no life behind the glossy veneer of the photograph.

This feeling of newness is not confined to magazine pictures. It is present when walking through a new home. The background echo of voices and footsteps that occur when walking through a space that is uninhabited. The building may be finished, painted, carpeted and even furnished; but it doesn’t feel complete. The echo of an empty home can make it feel lifeless and hollow. A building like this may appear crisp and sharp in all its newly completed glory but it has an atmosphere that is uncomfortable and cold. Newness makes it appear unloved. Walking through it can feel like you are trespassing, as if it is waiting for somebody to come and breathe life into it.

Newness lacks the inherent qualities found in a space or building that is well used and loved, spaces that have a history and richness. These qualities can’t be designed, they are ingrained over time. The architecture is in providing an environment for these qualities to flourish. There is a comfort in the known, these things that have a history to them, a familiarity; such as a pair of old shoes or a comfy chair. Newness feels like a polished white box when the architecture should be a space of shared recollection, which brings comfort and new ideas in equal measure.

These new spaces do not have the richness and layers of history which is built up over time; they lack the character and a human element. People have left their mark. Newness doesn’t have this connection to our collective memory, it is untouched and pristine. Newness is the stark white gallery space waiting for the opening night, a shiny new pair of shoes waiting to be scuffed up, it is a freshly painted wall waiting for a dirty finger mark and it is a newly built house waiting to be filled with familiar old furniture.

Phillip Johnson said, “All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of a space that contains, cuddles, exalts or stimulates the person in that space”. Architecture is to be used, to be lived in and worked in; this is when it is at its most influential.