UIA General Assembly, June, 1996, Barcelona
Statement
In their preliminary declaration adopted on 28th of June, 1948, in Lousanne, architect delegates from 27 countries who founded UIA, stated that �they shall thereby be in a position to participate more effectively in the improvement of man�s living conditions by reconstruction of devastated cities and villages, the elimination of slums, the advancement of less developed regions and the raising of housing standards by making their contribution to a better understanding between men and peoples by continually striving for the fulfillment of their aspirations for material and spiritual well-being; in collaboration with other professional and cultural organizations, they are resolved to contribute to the progress of human society and to the strengthening of peace�.
Almost fifty years have passed and against all the struggle and effort shown by the world architects, a very little way has been covered to reach the aims claimed in this declaration. May be the ruins of the Second World War were cleared without delay and, with the extraordinary help of modern architecture, the devastated urban areas had recovered with a mentionable speed. But the problems that the world faces today, is not less worse than that of 1948�s.
We know that much more than one billion of the world population, giving struggle for life under unbelievably bad conditions, are far under the limits of poverty. More to add, the liberalization policies seeking smaller state and privatization bestow further unemployment and poverty on all the peoples of the world. The living standards of people, even in some G7 countries, is in critical declination.
Situation in Southern countries is even, worse. Regional conflicts take the lives of hundreds of people, many of them civilians, every day. People who compulsorily leave their homes because of wars, natural disasters, rural unemployment and forced evictions, crowd the big cities, where they hardly find a job, consenting to very low wages under very bad working conditions. These cities, caught unprepared to this explosion of population, are surrounded by slums where people live in inhuman conditions. People, who lose all their hopes, are trying to find their way out in metaphysical beliefs, racism and radicalism, and are speedily becoming the potentials of social explosions.
One of our colleagues defines our decade as �the age of hopelessness�. If we have not closed our eyes and if we have not plugged our ears to what�s happening in the world today, we have to justify such a metaphor.
I know, that we architects, who have gathered in this fantastic country of Cervantes and in this beautiful city of Miro, Dali and Gaudi, and in these streets where the poems of Lorca echo, see and hear the cries of all the peoples of the world. Because, I know, from my own country, that those parts of the big cities where more than half the urban population live are in much worse conditions than that of cities devastated in the Second World War. Also, architects of many Southern countries, know that their cities face the same, even harder conditions.
But in the fashionable streets of these miserable cities, there we see many glimmering examples of today�s architecture, as if someone had exhibited a painting of Picasso in the midst of a rubbish heap, where misery and illness grows. And I can not believe, still, that there may be architects with ears deaf and eyes closed, insisting on not realizing the realities of the world we meet just when we step out of the halls where we discuss architectural matters like postmodernism and deconstructivism.
We, architects, like to be honored as artists. Does not an artist try to change the world? If one is blind and deaf to the world, how can one change it? Nicanor Parra says in his poem:
If you want to go to the heaven
Of the little bourgeois, you must go
By the road of Art for Art�s sake
Our age has pulled us about through a process where all our values have collapsed to a ruin, where we have rotten out all our human sides and where all concepts of humanity fall into a chaos, just for the sake of globalization of capital. In this era of new mannerism, it is totally natural that we architects be in search of seeking our way out, just like the honorable members of arts and literature do. But, I am very much disturbed by our indifference to what�s happening in the outside world while seeking our way out. It seems to me that we are forgetting the forest while trying to learn to design charming flowerpots in our elite studios. Must not our respectable efforts, start with a cross-examination? Should we not question ourselves first, as members of humanity, and should we not question our profession as architects, and our organizations? Should we not question why the people of Southern countries are condemned to a sustainable poverty, and how come many of the greatest megapoles of the world are in these countries? Should we not question the decisions of central administrations implemented with mechanisms that disable participation of the affected society? Should we not question a world, where the ties between the architect and the user is broken down and the developers and contractors decide instead? And should we not question a world where our living spaces are mass-generated through enormous construction organizations and ironically, a world where computer aided designs for homes in 1.44 mb diskettes are sold in supermarkets?
Neruda asks:
Macchu Picchu did you lift
Stone above stone on a groundwork of rags?
Coal upon coal and, at the bottom, tears?
Fatih S�YLER
President, Chamber of Architects, Turkey