First published: Caliper 03, Power Edition, June 2018

Our curiosity about what is radical is rooted in the contemporary account of global shifts of significance. Health care, learning, social conventions, productivity, and leisure are all mutating right before our eyes. These transformations bring with them the urgency not only to foster opposing trends but to make what has been idle effective. What is radical is, in fact, what is necessary – the creation of more concepts to combat the diminishing energy available to individuals.

Historically, what has been thought of as ‘Queer’ has been entrenched in radical resistance – against all space, all language, and all movements of power. It possesses an unavowable virtuosity. Identifying something or someone as Queer is always a provisional designation as its emergence is a product of improvisation.  Improvisation involves making do with whatever you have at hand; it is never fit for purpose. This constant demand for performance implies that the Queer movement maintains its own discipline, characterised by unceasing improvisations. Any exploration of the thresholds – spatial, social, cultural, and economic – that define Queer production within and beyond the quiddity of its domain flirts with this contingency.

So, what is implied when creative disciplines are called upon to account for the Queer? How can we advance ongoing discussions without coining new frugalities such as Queer Architecture, Queer Arts, or Queer Music? What does the proposal of a distinct Queer discipline signify for the practices of others? And how can we do this without binding ourselves to the paralysing insistence of an equitable life and behaviour?

These questions are particularly pertinent within the realm of Architecture (with a capital A), the creative field in which I operate. The context is not a simple binary of presence or absence. The desire to animate matter, imbuing it with content and meaning, positions architecture as a vital and tangible conduit to move concepts into the world. The profession’s brilliance does not lie in solving problems, and despite assumptions, architects cannot be held solely accountable for the insolvency of Capital that burdens the majority, the marginal, and the marginalised. I don’t deny that the material aspects of the city, its buildings, and its streets influence individuals who identify as LGBTQIA (et al.). However, the belief that the immediacy of safety can create a Queer domain reflects the misdirected power of improvisation and reduces its potency to what is feasible and not desirous.  Instead, I believe that the inertia of matter is tied not to Queerness but to a fundamental benevolence intrinsic to the discipline. Architecture is what can set us adrift. It makes accessible an eidetic charge.

If Queerness can be practiced, characterised entirely by improvisation, then the conceptual instruments used in its production must also elucidate its domain. The rhetoric of space, over which the architectural discipline exerts a kind of dominion, is a menacing impulse for too many architects. I have, instead, sought alternative methods to manifest a Queer discipline in my role as a full-time architectural educator at RMIT. This is a personal endeavour, but one that touches the practice of architecture. It is a practice defined by the deliberate alignment of things, negotiating scales that approximate at once the molecular, the mesopotanic and the muscular. It involves iterative exploration, the negotiation of the archaeological, and the embracing of anything and everything that contributes to our insatiable joy and boundless hope. The indeterminate nature of these propositions carries a sense of malevolence, accompanied by a conscious refusal to tether them to the polity of identification. They resist easy pathways towards architectural realisation, in part because they are presented to emancipate and sustain a state of being – improvisation – which signifies a Queer life. The profession may find the destiny of a life (and a few students of architecture) a somewhat misplaced prowess, but in the design studio, the question isn’t about Queerness; it’s about the profession’s capacity to support it.

For instance, the winning architectural proposal for the Victorian Pride Centre will not be the most remarkable case due to its novelty. There is no suggestion that the programs and services they offer inherently achieve an allegiance with the Queerness I have described above – nor should they. The fiscally suggestive and diminished grace of the competition infrastructure through which it was procured remains problematic at almost every level of the discipline, not to mention the project itself.   The winning design is not impoverished formally: it presents a robust elegance that suits the program, scale, and budget.  The architects behind the project, Grant Amon (Grant Amon Architects), James Beardsley & Steve Whitford (Brearley Architects + Urbanists), have not claimed to intentionally create, or consciously pursue,  an architecture that was ‘Queer’ or ‘queered’ in any sense. A building cannot become the reason the existence of LGBTQIA people is irrefutable.  The fact that the building contributes to broader social and economic growth for the struggling  Fitzroy Street area does not compromise the agenda of the Centre or its architectural potential. It’s reasonable that any new infrastructure could make a considered contribution to the experience and lives of others.

Reflecting on the architects’ presentation at ‘Process’, (an informal monthly architecture and design event at Loop Bar in the Melbourne CBD), whether the combination of ‘abstract machines’ and ‘conceptual tubes’ with the elusive quality of ‘St Kildaness’ and the respectful deference to the ‘clients’ presents a compelling formula for encapsulating a spectrum of LGBTQIA expectations, is yet to be seen. Achieving this will likely demand an extravagant conceptual contortion – a bold venture that gives ruse to unyielding improvisations.

But is this not the radical venture that we should perceive, embrace, and devoutly pursue? The practice of architecture is transfigured by the radiance and awe of Queer life. The grace-deprived made graceful.