This month, I had the pleasure of guest crit-ing some final year degree students…

I say ‘pleasure’ advisedly as the experience can sometimes tend more to a mild pain of disappointment and frustration accompanied by a twinge of doubt of your own critical faculties of the is-this-work-really-that-bad-or-have-I-just-learnt-a-lot? kind.  So it was with the pleasure of relief as well as stimulation I found I was filled more with questions of ‘how did you do that?’ than ‘why did you do that?’ and left with a sense of my own technological inadequacy coupled with the thrill of incentive to explore and draw more like a student again.

I am always struck by the difference in language at crits.  It’s a world of ‘my building’ in which boundaries blur between object and subject, animate and inanimate as if the proposals are pets, all groomed and preened (or not as the case may be) for the show after which they will go back home with their loving owners; faithful companions – or loveable rogues – that know their place. I used to put it down to maturity but wonder if it’s not more a consequence of singular activity as opposed to teamwork.  In our weekly meetings at the practice we share 10 minute presentations of current work. It is normally the project leader or architect who takes the stage but this week the whole team pitched in, covering different aspects of the scheme without a hint of ‘my’, not even from the year out student.

Could it be this ‘my’ culture that feels so alluring yet alien on return to the student world? The siren call to retreat from the demands and needs of others and indulge in the narcissistic fantasy of ‘my building’? But delicious and convenient as it first seems (‘everyone else’ is after all a great get-out for any dashed hopes of architectural endeavour), such escapism carries risks. Temporary withdrawal as a means to rejuvenate for re-engagement is enhancing, but persistent withdrawal amounting to denial is most certainly diminishing.

There is an inherent lack of empathy in narcissism; it is exclusive. Which is a problem to be wary of, as good architecture always engages. I read that ‘subclinical narcissists’ are happy, like SUV drivers, living in a kind of blissful ignorance, unaware of their impact on others. So perhaps we should pursue ‘my’ architectural happiness with caution.

Gillian Horn is a partner at Penoyre & Prasad