Monograph – the architect’s speaking area

“Mies is a master, but Corbu communicates.“ (Smithsons)

Architects not only build, they also talk. There are even architects who talk in order to build and others who build to be allowed to talk. Yes, architects talk, they even talk a lot. They talk to set their designs or constructed projects into a context and to give them the appearance of convincing constructs. So, above all, they are not builders of objects, but of discourses (on their objects). At presentations of their works this becomes very clear: With an enormous expenditure of time, architects are occupied with affiliating words with pictures in order to establish as much as possible a coherent narrative. Here the architect assumes the role of a compositor whose difficult task it is to hold together the association between the built discourse and the object. The goal is to convince clients, a jury or political decision-makers and let them believe that the planned or built object talks for itself. This performance of the architect appears best developed in publications – especially in a self-written or authorized monograph. Text and pictures relate to each other like a dancing couple whose composition and expressiveness finally determines the persuasiveness of the constructed discourses around the opus. Due to the fact that the arrangement as well as the synchronization of text and pictures do not have to follow any layout guidelines, like magazines have to, but is left entirely to the author's judgment, monographs provide a lot of information about their authors – the architects. Therefore, a monograph is the most tangible and comprehensible speaking area of an architect.