We are far behind the animals. This is just one of the surprising conclusions that come to mind after reading the volume "Architecture and Animals." The theme of the book is fascinating and resonates well with both the environmental crisis and the pandemic, during which we looked at nature more closely.
Don't have much time for reading? That's okay. Just the first short chapter is enough to reach for "Architecture and Animals" by Joanna Gellner and Matthew Boczar. She - a historian and archaeologist. He - a landscape architect. Together they took on a huge and poorly realized subject expressed in the title of the work. A title that accommodates everything, because it's a book about architecture for animals and made by animals. About animals living in architecture and decorating this architecture. Finally - about the complicated relationship of animals with the creator of architecture - man.
So - the first chapter. This is a fascinating story about animal architecture or construction, with which man has nothing to do. Beehives, termites, nests, feeding grounds, intricate burrows - dwellings and structures created instinctively and, perhaps, in the best possible way. Man is far behind the animals. Not everyone knows how to put up a house, even fewer know how to do it right, and an acceptable number of mistakes, attempts and misses are probably only possible because of the economic and organizational surplus that mankind has had since it stopped running through forests and settled down. Meanwhile, animals act automatically, precisely and logically. Sometimes in ways that are still incomprehensible to us. If you want to find out from a book how on earth Australian termites orient their structures on a north-south axis, nothing. Scientists don't know that either.
A stable, a circus and a lamp with a stall
Against the backdrop of these achievements, human creations pale somewhat, especially those that were created with fauna in mind. How did and do we build for animals? This is what the following chapters discuss. From basic rural farm buildings, the authors move on to stables to wander into circuses, zoos and animals. Along the way, they describe extensively the life of animals in cities: from the tame couch menagerie to wild specimens trying to find their way in a completely transformed landscape.
We also learn about structures that architects weren't taught about in college: fancy several-story dovecotes known in antiquity, modern bird towers, special structures or residential bridges for bats, sound amplifiers for sparrows, lanterns with nesting boxes, special structures for pollinators and much more. And, not to be too nice, the authors take us on a dark and long journey through the architecture of oppression and bloody entertainment: from ancient arenas where staged hunts were held, to stationary circuses with animal fights, to still-active tabernacles with corridas.
It's also about theconflict between modern architecture and urban planning and theanimal world, and the ways in which we are rectifying this situation or can do so in the future. There is also a resounding theme of mastery by "wild" nature of buildings and places abandoned by man. A small, somewhat separate chapter shows how images and shapes of animals have been woven as decorations into architecture designed exclusively for humans.
significant lack of
"Architecture and Animals" can be read in sequence and at random. The matter is woven densely. There are plenty of threads, clues and information: many fascinating, quite a few surprising, a few - expanded too much. Some topics, such as stables and studs, the authors treated too detailed or academic (the word "seminatural" does not sound natural). On the other hand, the authors slide over other aspects and leave a slight deficiency. There is also a significant gap.
The biggest absentee of "Architecture and Animals" is modern industrial farms: factories for meat and milk, and at the same time torture to which millions of animals are subjected. We know more and more from the media about the monstrous conditions in these industrial farms, but it would be good to know the history of their development, the rules of construction, logistics, to read the quoted statements of designers and managers. Hear the arguments of those who are creating facilities that are as friendly to animals as people were friendly to concentration camps.
There is also surprisingly little about dogs. Little for the role this specific species plays in the lives of the 48 percent of Poles who live under the same roof with a dog. Yes, the authors describe the interesting history of the development of urban dog runs and the communities that have sprung up around them, remind us of the many thousands of years of common coexistence, interject a few sentences about the grassroots modifications of apartments and houses where dogs or cats live. However, the theme of cramming dogs into small apartments and keeping them in these conditions for most of their lives also needs to be investigated and described. Does any architect take into account the fact that half of the Polish population has an additional animal tenant? The issue of building acoustics also demands evaluation. Anyone who is forced to listen through thin walls to the howling and barking of sad animals in empty apartments knows this.
anger at evolution
Nevertheless, both what the book describes and what it omits is excellent fodder for questions and discussions about the coexistence of humans and animals, as well as the changes the latter are undergoing in the anthropogenic environment. It's also a reason to rethink our role in nature: how much we are an integral part of it, and how much (and if at all) a separate entity. For naturalists, ecologists and architects, many of the theses and quotes cited by the authors can also be a starting point for disputes and polemics.
On the other hand, an ordinary Kowalski can grumble about evolution. If, like the termite, beaver or arborist, man had possessed the instinctive gift of building his own dwellings from saliva, mud and sticks, no one would have heard about the housing crisis and the construction boom. And, in general, about all that architecture, which supposedly - as the name of the series in which the book was published proclaims - is the most important.
Jakub GŁAZ
Joanna Gellner, Mateusz Boczar, "Architecture and Animals," EMG Publishing, Krakow 2021
