by Eugene C. Hopkins, FAIA

Like a number of the AIA’s larger components, AIA/DC publishes a magazine. And, like all of these publications, Architecture DC provides a forum or chat room where the community’s appetite for design and the architect’s imagination intersect. At a time when good news does not often make the headlines, these publications offer an inspirational message written in language refreshingly free of jargon that engages the public. It’s a message that begs to be heard.

Take, for example, the spring issue of Architecture DC devoted to “Architecture Ahead.” The editor identifies 21 projects on the boards that are re-imagining some aspect of the face of our nation’s capital. Each of the 21 stories contained between the magazine’s covers is illustrated with a photo of the site as it is today and what it will look like on some not-too-distant tomorrow.

These are not imaginary designs. They are not flights of “what if.” They are works in various stages of being fully realized. With few exceptions—and these only for the right reasons—the individual projects are not attention-grabbing, one-of-a-kind designs. Instead, thanks to the vision of enlightened clients, these projects fill an empty lot here, restore a neglected building there, reuse for new purposes a familiar landmark, or remedy a longstanding urban design problem. Collectively, they add up to a hopeful exercise in place making that is bringing jobs, urban amenities, and new life to Washington.

This in a city still suffering from poor schools, random violence, AIDS, corruption, and poverty—all of which are graphically broadcast on the local nightly news. Architecture DC interrupts the litany of despair. Instead, the spring issue strongly suggests that today’s snapshots of decay and hopelessness do not have to be tomorrow’s news. There is a healing force powerfully at work, a force that is informed and in some cases led by architects in creative partnership with concerned community leaders.

• Are our schools run-down and ill-equipped to respond to changing community needs? New schools and revitalized older ones are being designed to be anchors of neighborhoods.
• Are our downtowns bereft of life once the sun goes down? Architects are recycling old and designing new buildings that bring back housing to the urban core while at the same time designing the infrastructure of services—from theaters and galleries to restaurants and supermarkets—that sustain the growing number of urban homesteaders.
• Has the city’s traditional role as an economic powerhouse been irrevocably lost to the suburbs? New projects are sparking investment in long-neglected neighborhoods.
• Is the pollution and congestion of the morning commute an unalterable fact of modern life? Architects are working with government to design projects integrated with modern high-speed and low-polluting mass transit.
• Is part of the future of America’s older cities to become centers for the arts? Architects are leading the way by designing innovative facilities to accommodate the human spirit’s capacity for wonder.
• Are the poor being squeezed out by gentrification? Working with government officials, neighborhood leaders, and enlightened public agencies, architects are designing quality affordable housing that preserves the diversity essential to fulfill the historic role of great cities as engines of social and economic opportunity.

It’s been said the world is divided into dreamers and doers. If so, I would have to say that the truly wonderful thing about our profession—perhaps the source of its attraction to architects and the public alike—is the fact that we get to do both.

Something else. What separates us, as dreamers and doers, from the naysayers is a quality of character that won’t let us be content with or make excuses for an imperfect status quo. That, finally, is the implicit message underlying all the hope-inspiring projects showcased in the spring issue of Architecture DC. Or, as George Bernard Shaw put it: “You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?”

Copyright 2004 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. Home Page