QUID AMABO NISI QUOD AENIGMA EST? According to an old italian designer, the life of an architect is an adventure, and only those who are brave enough to face it as such can truly love it! In a society in which the formal, functional, and aesthetic features of buildings are entrusted to architects, while aspects such as feasibility and safety are chiefly the responsibility of engineers, it seems a
heresy to speak of adventure. However, our profession, just like our daily lives, is a journey constantly striving to balance out well-established truths, expressed needs, creative stimuli, and acquired responsibilities. Someone, while addressing a large crowd, has recently defined this as a “balance over folly”; someone else in a more distant past and learned perspective spoke “in praise of folly”, the latter meaning not so much irrationality or thoughtlessness as a natural and necessary inclination towards continuous learning and cultural and intellectual growth. In particular, engineers must learn how to unravel these topics and learn to make judgments over building engineering and safety. However, the indiscriminate recourse to ready-made architectural solutions and well-established archetypes often totally stifle creativity and the imagination, undisputed virtues in all personal developments. On the other hand, a rash approach to new topics in the absence of intellectual and professional expertise is the source of mistakes and serious social risks. I think that an engineer must possess the right amount of expertise, master the technical appurtenances of his art, and based on this knowledge look for solution to the problems submitted to his attention, which he must help solve, not cause. Likewise, a good pianist, without paying attention to the movement of his own hands, will concentrate on a composition and on the harmonious sound it produces.
“Techné” is a precondition for and necessary to all creative activities, and engineers must be well endowed with it; on the other hand, creativity is a personal gift which only one’s will and perseverance may improve, turning it into tall. At MEW all this is our daily bread, and this spirit of adventure is shared by one and all, in a constant quest for growth and for rising up to the challenges of the solutions which customers and architects look for.
