Autocratic leaders have always sought to preserve a legacy in architecture, from Louis XIV’s lavish palace in Versailles to monumental fascist cities.
Contemporary authoritarians build with equal flair, whether it’s the gravity-defying Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, or the oval tangle of Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. These projects are often designed by “starchitects” like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Sir Norman Foster or Rem Koolhaas.
But in lending their names to regimes accused of human rights abuses, starchitects have faced criticism. Shouldn’t the designers, observers ask, be taking some ethical responsibility for their creations?
The issue flared up again recently when Ms. Hadid filed a libel lawsuit against Martin Filler, who had criticized the architect in The New York Review of Books while writing about the book “Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture” by Rowan Moore. A sentence referred to Ms. Hadid’s statements on labor conditions in Qatar, where she is designing a stadium for the 2022 World Cup. According to The Guardian, when asked about the laborers in February, Ms. Hadid said, “I have nothing to do with the workers,” and added, “It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it.”
Mr. Filler stated in the article that Ms. Hadid had “unashamedly disavowed any responsibility, let alone concern, for the estimated one thousand laborers who have perished while constructing her project thus far.” In fact, construction on the project has not yet begun — Ms. Hadid was referring to the conditions in the country in general.
Mr. Filler later apologized in a letter published by The New York Review of Books, where he retracted the statement and said that he regretted the error.
Yet, Paul Goldberger at Vanity Fair writes, “Hadid may be technically correct in saying that architects cannot fix this problem themselves, but her remark is utterly disingenuous because her fame alone can bring enormous attention to the problem.”
Mr. Goldberger writes that Ms. Hadid’s lawsuit is counterproductive and brings back the criticism she faced after her initial remarks.
Most large architecture, engineering and construction firms around the world have projects in countries “where labor mistreatment is widespread,” the architecture critic James Russell writes. A number of other starchitects, including Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster, have taken up projects in the Persian Gulf. The museum complex that includes their designs for the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim and Louvre has come under fire for exploiting migrant workers.
Naturally, Aaron Betsky writes for Architect Magazine, the designers can’t be blamed directly for the labor conditions. But “should they work on projects they know or suspect might not be constructed in a way that ensures the health, well-being, and safety of those building it as the highest priority?”
The architects designing in authoritarian countries face another problem: How, if at all, does one justify building monuments to thuggish leaders?
Owen Hatherley at Dezeen Magazine says of Ms. Hadid’s building in Azerbaijan that it “immortalizes in its name a brutal and principle-free politician who exploited economic collapse and war to guide the country from being one of the most developed republics of the USSR to becoming a hugely unequal and dynastic oil state.”
Many of the designers take a neutral approach to the client and the design.
“Architects collectively claim a special cultural status as politically disinterested professionals who create public art that inspires, symbolizes cultural values, and creates more livable places,” Mr. Russell writes.
Some architects say that by designing in non-democratic countries they can introduce disruptive ideas. Co.Design interviewed a number of designers from international studios about where they draw the moral line. The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels told the site that his company tried to build a national library in Kazakhstan, a country notorious for human rights violations.
“My thinking was, by making a library for the citizens of Kazakhstan we could reimagine a public institution there,” Mr. Ingels said. “We were willing to give it a shot because we believed we could improve things.”
The architect Liz Diller said that the architect’s responsibility was to “use architecture as an instrument of positive change”: A questionable project “may be camouflaging radical, progressive ideas.”
She gave two examples of her firm employing the tactic. In one, while designing a park in front of Red Square in Moscow, the firm wanted to avoid “celebrating authority,” and instead celebrated the right to public assembly. They created an unstructured park where visitors could wander freely. It stood “in stark contrast to the regimented grandeur of Red Square.”
Another project was a factory town in China for 5,000 workers. “The client is a humanitarian who, by integrating cultural and educational programming, aims to convert blue-collar workers into the white-collar work force within three years.” Ms. Diller said. “The architecture is a big part of the solution.”
Many commentators writing about the ethics of “starchitecture” agree with such a solution-driven attitude.
“Architects should not be singled out as moral enforcers in a world of labor horrors, but they are not powerless precisely because they are widely appreciated for the idealistic aspiration to make the world a better place,” Mr. Russell writes.
The answer should be, Mr. Betsky says, “constructive engagement,” which he defines as “trying to change the politics of the place by working through the existing structures.”