Fountainheads

With hindsight I think that in my blogs I have too often overlooked the figure of the architect within the literature that I have read. I have thought about theory in terms of what I take from it; loosely the figure of the architect is considered as I am penning a response, however with the exception of Professor Silenus in Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall’ I have not explicitly considered how the architect is portrayed. There is an article that I read a couple of years ago which muses about how it is the architect that will be the first one dismissed from the island as they serve no real purpose – they look good and wear funky glasses however they cannot save lives, or souls for that matter – best lose them.

Whilst watching ‘The Fountainheads’ I thought of this article, I thought of the portrayal of the architect, and being a woman I thought of the differences in attitudes towards male and female architects. ‘Fountainhead’ is a book written by Ayn Rand in the early 1940s; it was made into a film a few years later and this is how I approached the work. I enjoyed the film immensely; it tells of one man’s struggle to hold true to his ideals and another man’s struggle to prevent these ideals from flourishing. The central protagonist is an architect, Howard Roark, a thinly disguised Frank Lloyd Wright, who is desperately trying to forge a career which is based on building projects according to his personal vision. Unfortunately for Roark his design for anything is based on a practical, modern way of thinking which does not sit comfortably with the established mock Greek and Roman order of the day. In many ways it is a challenging film for an architect to watch, one which made me question how far would I take my own architectural ideals? – Howard Roark was willing to sacrifice emotional and financial opportunities – would I? Or would I sell out? It was interesting to see the manifestation of the architect who gives their life to their art, compared with the masses of architects who seemingly sell out – including the education facilities who despite operating under a veil of radicalism are actually portrayed as draped in the established order. Whilst doing my Part One at a northern institution my contemporaries and I were instructed to not think of any proposed schemes as personal; there is sense in this advice however it also means that work can become throwaway – you become a sell out. Howard Roark took what he did personally – and for that reason he did not become or create disposable, bland architecture.

In many ways Roark is also a revolutionary - challenging the grain, changing the order fighting for what he believes in and at the end of the film it is he who is put on the plinth, on top of the world – victorious. It is interesting to consider whether the film has relevance today, - I think that it does, and furthermore whether what is shown is an all encompassing view of architecture. I wonder if Howard Roark had been Helen Roark whether the message of the film would get obscured? Fountainhead is more a commentary on the human condition than a film purely about the struggle of an architect, the point is to hold firm to your integrity and you will eventually succeed; regrettably I feel that this is a naive view, or maybe a hopeful view of the way the world works. I wish that it really was this simple.