A Global Financial Architecture?

TOWARDS CREATIVE ADAPTIVE REUSE

Can the word "architecture" be used legitimately to describe the workings of globalization, that inexorable march of capitalism? In a technical sense, it fits--as in this generic definition of architecture: "The act of organizing a series of complex systems within a coherent structure so that the result is functional, comprehensible and elegant if not beautiful." Consider a Bach partita, with its elaborated dance-forms gracefully integrated into a larger conceptual framework, as an example of architecture in this sense.

"Global Financial Architecture" (GFA) describes the present interrelationship between a number of complex financial instruments--World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO))--originally devised by United Nations-sponsored planners in 1944-1948. They were intended to rebuild a northern-based financial system shattered by the Second World War in a way that might benefit everyone. As such, its design drew upon the UN Charter and other expressions of a need to reconstruct the human community, especially to repair economic chaos in war-torn areas.

Eventually the needs of peoples freed from colonial domination became the focus of attention but, it is fair to say, in this case the original concept has been utterly perverted, especially by the IMF: "structural adjustment" seems all along to have been about reconstituting and reapplying colonial methods of resource and wealth extraction. Furthermore, as GFA has developed over a half-century, United Nations control of the resulting behemoth has weakened immensely. GFA now represents a force far more powerful than its parent. In the interests of capital, it is capable of nullifying any and all UN efforts to serve the needs of a vast majority (80 per cent) of the planet's human population which now struggles to survive on less than 15 per cent of global resources.

Four comparisons of "architecture" to GFA follow. Decide for yourself how well the two coincide. In the end, however, it cannot be denied that the philosophical basis of GFA, as presently construed, fails to serve the positive purposes for which the word "architecture" is normally reserved. So until GFA is greatly reformed, it is a misnomer. Since nothing as unjust or environmentally destructive as GFA could ever be called "beautiful," please don't call it "architecture" either.

Architecture's relationship to culture (history, politics, economics, literature, etc.) is as an expression of its highest strivings, often religious values that imply harmony, equality and community, as in the ancient temple complexes and cathedrals all over the world that are so greatly cherished today.

GFA grows out of a 250-year-old pattern of political economy, loosely called "the industrial revolution", and based upon philosophical concepts originated during the Renaissance. As such, it reflects the dominance in western culture of capitalist values since then: competition, materialism, striving for individual wealth and power, self-interest as the supreme virtue. Thus the culture of GFA is essentially at odds with past human progress or, more precisely stated, with human social development up to now.

Architecture, in its highest form, is utterly subject to environmental laws: response to the site's ecology; efficient use of energy in all of its aspects; specification of environmentally-sound materials and methods of construction; planning for compact and optimally self-sufficient communities; utilization of appropriate technology; minimization of pollution and toxic waste; discriminating employment of non-renewable resources; in short, the balancing of human desires and undertakings with the long-term health of the planet-"sustainable design".

GFA has no comparable constraint, except insofar as a diminishing supply of raw materials sometimes calls for self-imposed restrictions by a cartel. For instance, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' periodic decisions to tighten production are intended to keep prices high. Otherwise, environmental limitations are irrelevant to global capital deployment.

Architecture today requires integration of many pre-manufactured elements into the constructed framework. This is the most rigorous aspect of an architect's job: to make sure that highly sophisticated equipment, and electronic and other systems can be readily installed into the structure and then effectively operated. Incredible engineering effort goes into achieving this state of what might be called "mechanical collaboration".

GFA is now only loosely integrated into an overall matrix. Therefore as "architecture" it is somewhat problematic. In terms of how the World Bank, the IMF and GATT have developed individually since their creation 50 years ago, capitalist influence has greatly molded them each to its advantage, causing them to nest somewhat more compactly than they might otherwise, but that is not the same as having them fit together effectively, either functionally or in the public interest. Thus the 1995 impulse to create WTO out of GATT tries to remedy that shortcoming. It attempts to totally deregulate trade and in the bargaln, through the incorporation of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, to loosen all constraints against global financial flows as well. In other words, the intention of WTO is to provide a structure which, by its utter flexibility, facilitates untrammeled capitalist activity everywhere, except in the few nations which have been able to build self-serving conditions into it. So far, that dream has b een thwarted, but tremendous "engineering effort" is currently focused upon its ultimate achievement.

Architecture's revitalization over decades, as needs change and buildings age, can be handled in two ways: either as it was in the early 1980s by total destruction of the huge Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis, Missouri (due to flawed basic design), followed by new construction; or through "adaptive re-use", where sturdy, versatile old buildings with open interior space-loft-style structures such as warehouses-are redeveloped for purposes never imagined by the original builders.

GFA is based upon an institutional framework, due to generous, hopeful, "post-war" attitudes prevalent at Bretton Woods, that allows for redesign of its functions without the need to implode it and begin again with only rubble to build with. While it is an appealing notion to "start over again" with brand new instruments for global financial operation, the likely chaos consequent to destruction of the Bretton Woods Institutions (bearing primarily upon the poorest humans) is simply unacceptable. "Adaptive re-use", therefore, appears to be our only practical course. The bottom line, however, is that this adaptation process must itself be designed to bring these institutions back under firm control of the United Nations, albeit a much stronger and more independent United Nations than the one we know today.

Jim Morgan Is co-chairperson of the ARC*PEA CE, International Architects Designers Planners for Social Responsibility, and Adjunct Professor of Urban and Architecture Studies, New York University.