This is my American essay, though I am staying clear of politics according to my rules for the Electron. It's about something which every literary and artistic person without exception, has contempt for, but I don't. I'm not talking about flag pins on lapels. It's about Ayn Rand and her books, which have inspired me ever since I was in high school.

Every few years I return to Rand's two big works, THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. This year I have been re-reading parts of FOUNTAINHEAD. I do this periodically not only to re-connect with what inspired me in the past, but to see what new things I can find in myself and in the text. I have also been doing a lot of web explorations about architecture in general, and looking at the way architects (or, as the clever term has it, "starchitects") design, work, and advertise their achievements.

Any architect will tell you that Rand's book totally misrepresents the profession and process of architecture. And at the same time, architects in America are constantly teased by Rand's popular portrayal of what an architect is like. The standard behavior is to dismiss Rand's architect as a romanticized absurdity, a world away from the busy group process of real architecture, which leaves no room for "rock stars" with big egos. Current architecture (other than superstars like Frank Gehry or Rem Koolhaas) also has no room for individual vision and achievement, which seems to be, from what I have gathered, no longer possible.

OK, architects (no architect is reading this, never mind), I know that for you guys Rand is a campy embarrassment that you wish you never heard about again. But for me, sitting here in my studio, she's a reason to go on working and making art. Rand herself was more concerned with what she often called the "sense of life" evoked by a literary work, rather than realistic details or characters. And what she wants for her sense is, for me, quintessentially American.

Rand came to this country from Communist Russia, re-named herself with a "strong" name, and went about doing what people do best in America: invent and re-invent themselves. She worked in the movies, which were the most powerful engine of imagination in the pre-Internet twentieth century. She brought her stylized cinematic devices to her written texts, creating "camera angles" and posing her characters with words, not pictures. In a way, Rand's work for me is more of a "graphic novel" without pictures, rather than a "literary" book. If it weren't for very severe copyright restrictions, I would have already attempted to adapt some of Rand to a graphic novel format.

And that's the way I look at the Architect Hero. Standing there in the sunlight, wind blowing through his carrot-top hair (she gave her architect hero Howard Roark the requisite heroic red hair) looking proudly at the gleaming skyscraper rising into the air, the building he designed. Ignore the campy or phallic references. Take it seriously for once. If you are an artist of any kind, are you condemned by the modern world of mediocrity to turn out nice pretty little things which customers like? Or are you condemned by the modern world of all irony all the time to turn out nasty little things which are designed to disturb, shock, but ultimately entertain your circle of jaded urban hipsters?

What if you wanted to create something which wasn't ironic, which was about freedom, individuality, standing up for yourself, making a better world? What if you wanted to create what Rand admired in the music of Tschaikowsky and Rachmaninoff, (and, in my mind, Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland as well) a grand gesture as bright and visible and lofty as a firework burst, something that said not only "Here I am," but "Here is what I stand for!" And even, sometimes, "This is my country at its best." This sentimental desire is considered childish and vulgar, just as Rand's writing is. But what if there were something to it? Do I need to feel guilty if I wished that I could make that grand gesture, or at least try for it? There are skyscrapers made of electrons and photons, waiting for me in Photoshop.

Posted at 4:31 am | link