The Fountainhead: Machines for Living – Patheos (blog)

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 11

As the construction of his house proceeds, Austen Heller finds that hes becoming fast friends with Howard Roark:

Within a week, Heller knew that he had found the best friend he would ever have; and he knew that the friendship came from Roarks fundamental indifference. In the deeper reality of Roarks existence there was no consciousness of Heller, no need for Heller, no appeal, no demand.

That is not what friendship means.

If youre indifferent to someones presence or absence, dont need them, dont care about them, and in fact arent even really conscious of their existence, then whatever you are to them, youre not their friend. Friendship and indifference are antonyms, however much this book might insist otherwise.

Were told that Heller appreciates it when Roark praises one of his articles the strangely clean joy of a sanction that was neither a bribe nor alms but thats not friendship, that just means that they agree on some aspects of their political ideology. Friendship means that you enjoy a persons company and desire to spend time with them.

Granted, Rand was fuzzy on the difference. She assumed that people who have one thing in common would automatically and naturally agree about everything else too. Because Heller and Roark have the same sense of aesthetics that made Heller prefer Roarks modernist design, it was inevitable that he and Roark would also have the same political leanings. The flip side of this is how all the evil socialists and conformists in the novel like Greek and Roman-inspired houses.

We saw this facet of Rands worldview more jarringly, in Atlas Shrugged, in the secret valley of Galts Gulch. Its populated by the fiercest individualists and most ruthless take-no-prisoners businessmen in the world all of whom, once theyre living in the same place, start behaving with the instinctive unanimity of a school of fish.

Heller asks Roark what it is about this house that makes him like it so much:

A house can have integrity, just like a person, said Roark, and just as seldom.

In what way?

Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the house needs it and for no other reason. You see it from here as it is inside. The rooms in which youll live made the shape. The relation of masses was determined by the distribution of space within Your own eyes go through a structural process when you look at the house, you can follow each step, you see it rise, you know what made it and why it stands. But youve seen buildings with columns that support nothing, with purposeless cornices, with pilasters, moldings, false arches, false windows. Youve seen buildings that look as if they contained a single large hall, they have solid columns and single, solid windows six floors high. But you enter and find six stories inside Do you understand the difference? Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the need to impress. The determining motive of your house is in the house. The determining motive of the others is in the audience.

Granted, I share Roarks distaste for houses that are built as a boast. But the distinction between my houses, which have integrity and those other guys houses, which were made to impress the yokels isnt as sharp as he thinks.

Its not as if a house that doesnt have fake columns cant also be braggy. There can be an implied attempt to impress in the sheer size of the house, or if its in a highly desirable location, or if rare and expensive materials are used to build it. And Roark aspires to build skyscrapers; isnt that an inherently boastful type of structure, regardless of how much ornamentation it has?

And, incidentally, thank you for all the thought you seem to have taken about my comfort. There are so many things I notice that had never occurred to me before, but youve planned them as if you knew all my needs. For instance, my study is the room Ill need most and youve given it the dominant spot and, incidentally, I see where youve made it the dominant mass from the outside, too. And then the way it connects with the library, and the living room well out of my way, and the guest rooms where I wont hear too much of them and all that. You were very considerate of me.

Although The Fountainhead is meant to be a work of dramatic realism, with none of the crazy super-science shenanigans of Atlas Shrugged, this is the part where my suspension of disbelief ran aground on the rocks and sank. Even by Ayn Rand standards, I just flatly refuse to believe this.

Howard Roark is good at architecture, but bad at understanding people. He knows that about himself; he says in chapter 13 that he cant handle dealing with people, that he was born without the sense that makes it possible for him to understand others.

But this bears directly on his ability to build houses! Houses, after all, are for people. If you dont understand what people want and why, how could you possibly design a house that meets their needs?

For example, Roark made Hellers study the dominant room because Heller is an author who spends most of his time there. But how would you know that unless you knew something about Heller as a person unless you could picture his typical day?

The list goes on. To know whether a house should have big open spaces and tall picture windows, youd need to know whether its owner enjoys the world and wants to feel connected to nature, or whether they appreciate privacy and a sense of coziness. To know whether a house should have narrow spiral stairways or broad ramps, youd want to know whether the owner had mobility problems. To know whether a row of townhouses need more sound baffles and insulation in the shared walls, you have to understand peoples concerns about noise.

You may have heard of a manifesto written by a bigoted Google engineer who questioned the necessity of employing women (because men like writing code and building stuff, which is what really matters, whereas women have a stronger interest in people rather than things).

Yonatan Zungers response is dead-on, and its relevant here too. Swap houses for devices, and you see the problem with what Rand is claiming:

Engineering is not the art of building devices; its the art of fixing problems. Devices are a means, not an end. Fixing problems means first of all understanding them and since the whole purpose of the things we do is to fix problems in the outside world, problems involving people, that means that understanding people, and the ways in which they will interact with your system, is fundamental to every step of building a system.

The architect Le Corbusier called houses machines for living in. To build a house that solves peoples problems (or answers their needs, if you prefer), you need to know what those problems are; and to understand peoples problems, you need to understand people. Theres just no getting around this.

An architect who doesnt understand people and their needs is likely to build white-elephant houses that might look impressive, but are uncomfortable, drafty, make poor use of space, or are otherwise unpleasant to live in. But not in this novel. In Ayn Rands imagination, you just have to sit and think about the house, and a design emerges thats magically perfect, somehow, for the person who intends to live there.

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The Fountainhead: Machines for Living - Patheos (blog)