The Morality of Specificity and the Tragedy of Architecture

     A student postulated that it was the student's purpose, through delineation, to evoke the imagination of spaces with ambiguity, and not make an attempt at portraying something that would indicate specificity. In light of this position, it struck me that this was contrary to the whole existential enterprise, which was predicated on 'standing out' (ex sistare in Latin: the figure) presumably against 'the other' (the ground). Individuation and specificity characterize the moral dimension of life. Making choices, and being responsible for choices, form the backbone of morality. The tragedy of architecture is that you have to build something specific. The environment that we live in, the environment that we learn from, and the environment that we perceive, are all the result of very specific decisions or processes. The people who made these decisions have the moral obligation for the consequences of the decisions. Wanting to abdicate specificity for ambiguity, is an abandonment of the moral life. It is easy to create architectural drawings that evoke the experience of ambiguous spaces. It is unforgiving to attempt to portray specificity in an architectural delineation or rendering. Often the exquisite pain in portraying an exacting specificity is passed up with an ambiguous compromise. It is moral to try to be specific. It is not easy to be moral.