Get to Know Your Professors: Shannon Starkey, Architecture
Shannon Starkey is a new assistant professor in the Department of Art, Architecture and Art History at USD. He is an architect, curator, and architectural historian. He teaches history/theory seminars and design studios. USD News Center asked him some questions to give the community a chance to learn more about him.
Q: You are an architectural historian. What does that mean exactly?
In much the same way that art historians write the history and theory of art, architectural historians write the history and theory of architecture. In fact, the architectural historian as a figure is a relatively recent creation, and initially spun out of art history. The disciplines remain closely tied in certain ways. For example, while I was trained as an architectural historian, my PhD advisor was trained as an art historian. The interesting and exciting thing about architecture is its internal, ideological split between architecture and “mere” building, maintained in various ways throughout history. This split parallels an ideological division in architectural production between research and design, the former typically ceded to the historian and the latter to the practitioner. This false distinction is revealed by the fact that most architectural historians, including myself, are also licensed architects, bridging conventional understandings of research and design.
Q: What drew you to architecture? And to USD’s architecture department?
I was turned onto architecture at a very young age. It started after learning that my older cousin had designed my aunt and uncle’s house — a far more unique and interesting piece of architecture than our 1970s tract house. With pencil and graph paper, I drafted rational yet fantastical houses, many with floating rooms. This speculative practice was complemented with the near constant reconfiguration of my bedroom as soon as I was big enough to move the furniture myself. After studying architecture in college, I discovered that conventional practice design played a very small role compared to political and economic factors. While I was fascinated by the power of capital to shape the built environment, I didn’t enjoy being subject to it. An opportunity to pursue architectural history came when I was laid off during the financial crisis (along with nearly 20 percent of the field). As an historian and practitioner, the first thing that attracted me to USD was the program’s focus on both research and design, using each to inform the other. USD is also unique in housing architecture within the same department as visual arts and art history, yielding a productive cross-pollination of knowledge and practices. Finally, as a relatively new major unburdened by long-standing or antiquated approaches, it's an exciting time to experiment with new and alternative histories, teaching methods, and design tools.
Q: Your position is the result of the new and growing architecture major at USD. What are the possibilities for students after graduation?
I like to think of architectural education as less about learning certain types of knowledge or skills and instead about learning a particular way of thinking and approaching the world. Architecture is a monumental undertaking and the architect is responsible for orchestrating hundreds of professions, thousands of design components, and potentially millions of dollars. As such, my approach to the classroom is fundamentally about teaching ways of dealing with this complexity and thinking wholistically. In that way, our students are trained to move into a number of different design fields, either directly or through graduate programs, from architecture to animation, exhibition design to aerospace design.
Q: You have a new book coming out, House of the Future. Can you give us a preview? What do our future homes look like?
House of the Future speculates on the near-future of domesticity through an examination of the history and transformation of the house over the course of the 20th century. If we define the domestic realm as the private and controllable site of comfort and familiarity, where once it was confined to the house, today it can be found or created almost anywhere. This decisive shift was theorized in 1965 by Reyner Banham, who boldly claimed that the “home” was no longer synonymous with the house. Technology and new media had replaced architecture in defining our environment. Today, Facebook ensures that your friends are never out of reach; the “Google office” lets you live at work; Lyft provides a ride from a “friend;” Nest and Fitbit manage environmental conditions and the body alike. The ephemeral, multi-locational nature of domesticity puts new strain on architecture that has been historically stable, heavy, and permanent. New concepts that take advantage of emerging technologies and global networks are required to shape the built environment for an increasingly fluid society. The book aims to articulate potential avenues for the future of the house.
Q: When you’re not in the classroom or writing, what do you enjoy doing for fun?
As a first-year faculty member, I find little time for fun. However, I enjoy running and hiking with my dog, watching whatever is on HBO, and exploring the desert. One of the most appealing things about living in San Diego is the proximity to places like Joshua Tree and the Salton Sea. The desert is a magical place, capturing the attention of historical figures from Frederick Jackson Turner to Jean Baudrillard. Its endless expanse encourages and absorbs all sorts of speculation. Lastly, I enjoy making things. Currently, I’m recreating a series of straight-back wood chairs initially designed by Donald Judd in the 1970s.
Q: In architectural terms, what city most fascinates you?
Los Angeles will probably always be the most fascinating city for me, both as an historian and a practitioner. The quintessential post-modern city, it includes a diverse collection of architectural landmarks: the Bradbury Building, Schindler House, Eames House, Gehry Residence, Bonaventure Hotel, and the new Broad Museum. It has been the site of the most interesting architectural production for the past 20 years in large part because of connections with the entertainment industry, and will continue to be for the next 20 years because of the burgeoning aerospace industry. As Banham theorized in the early 1970s, Los Angeles is a city of many different ecologies, from the desert to the beach, the hills to the highways; it has something for everyone.