good ol' boring architecture

New and exciting is great, and boring and old is bad. Right? maybe?

Let me preface this by saying that I haven't done much research on the subject, but I have made a lot of my own assumptions. Of course, this completely qualifies me to shoot my mouth off about it.
Some buildings are just good at doing what they do. The architect knew the job the building had to do, and desigined accordingly. Usually with these buildings, they have nice moments, and the inhabitants generally enjoy living/ working/ playing/ eating/ whatevering inside them without taking much notice of how their built environment is assisting their enjoyment. Is it such a terrible thing to strive for making these sort of buildings?

Sort of. An architect's primary responsibility should be to make space that considers its users and effectively engages its program and, if possible, future programs that may present themselves. If you're building achieves this through a standard procedure, in ways that have been done thousands of times, well then great. You still probably have an idea of why these methods work and why fix something that's not broken. Congratulations your building works.

Taking larger risks can mean larger rewards, sometimes. It's always interesting when architects question the fundamentals. Why do we have to do it this way? What does it mean to eat, or sleep or view, or rest? These questions can lead to some absolutely terrible buildings. They also can lead to buildings that are beautiful physical representations of an idea about living, but don't seem to work on a realistic, day-to-day basis. It seems like our history books are full of buildings like this.

The problem is that as an architect it's difficult enough to balance the clients needs and expectations, with your own ideas about architecture. Adding the risk of trying to answer too many questions and the job seems nearly impossible. Unless, of course, you've established yourself enough to gain rich clients that want you to make big clear moves in your architecture, even at the expense of smaller, basic details and programtic requirements. Starchitecture is often it's own worst enemy, ask Frank Gehry.

Maybe it's simply about finding a balance between fresh hot, and functional. The idea of building something that "looks nice" on the street and achieves success through the rigorous employment of standards and precedence set by others is somewhat dull. However, designing a flashy building that only works in one way isn't all that appealing either. Focused questioning can lead to some beautiful and unique solutions, and standard solutions can fill in the blanks. This allows a building to have an identity with out losing it's practicality.