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by David Wang
photography by George Bedirian
The city of Spokane's newest motto is "Near Nature, Near
Perfect." This can be paired with another oft-repeated description
of the city as "the second largest city between Minneapolis and
Tokyo." These two descriptors betray a tug-of-war of ideas, one a
respect for the city's natural surroundings, the other a desire for
the cosmopolitan sophistication that only large cities can
offer.
The juxtaposition of these ideas reflects complex communal
desires that go some way towards informing attitudes about
architecture in Spokane. It makes teaching architecture in Spokane
engaging as well as challenging. This is because a work of
architecture never comes to fruition just because some designer
"likes" a particular arrangement of patterns drawn on paper. A work
of architecture emerges, because a culture permits it to
emerge-because, ultimately, a work of architecture always reflects
what a community thinks of itself. Throughout history, buildings
and built environments have served as mirrors of a culture's
worldview. And the greatness of those architects who design
exemplary buildings in this sense lies not only in their ability to
discern what a culture is looking for, but also in their ability to
educate a culture on what it ought to be looking for. Teaching
architecture in Spokane offers abundant opportunities to train
students to think and act in these ways.
One way to make connections between what the community is
thinking and desiring with architectural theory and design is to
consider the current marketing slogans, along with what the popular
media are saying about the city. This information can then be
paired with current issues being discussed in the discipline,
perhaps at a more academic level. Take a current challenge to
Spokane's built environment: the proliferation of five-acre
residential plots expanding outward from the city's core. "Near
Nature, Near Perfect" takes on complicated overtones when applied
to this particular issue. On the one hand, the city's public
agencies want to limit this "urban sprawl." Their understanding of
"Near Nature, Near Perfect" is translated into regulations defining
urban growth boundaries, so that the natural beauty of the lands
surrounding Spokane can be maintained. But to many private
citizens, the same slogan implicitly means getting away from the
urban center and moving out towards nature, as it were, by owning a
homestead with lots of land. It comes from deep within the American
"ideology of space," as commentator Leo Marx* has framed it. The
wild and primitive expanse of the American continent is to be tamed
and, in the name of progress, "pastoralized" by the lawn-maybe even
five acres of lawn. It is a uniquely American desire to be "near
nature," even at the expense, possibly, of preserving that nature
for the community as a whole by agreeing to live in more densely
packed residential neighborhoods closer to town.
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Continued
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. . . a work
of architecture always reflects what a community thinks of
itself.
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