EVER WONDER...THE DIFFERENE BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION AND CREATION

A city starts as nothing but land, just a flat surface that stretches onward. Then buildings are built and they are small at first, but gradually turn into massive complexes and skyscrapers; yet, this isn’t what truly makes up a city. New York isn’t just a bunch of buildings, but a gathering of people and personalities; it is a network of relationships interwoven between buildings. The city may have been constructed from blueprints and steel beams, but the people create the city and give it life.

To create and to construct are both processes of building, but one fulfills an organized need and the other fulfills an innate desire for expression. We construct to fill a specific purpose, such as a lack of housing or bumpy roads. It’s to fix something that is broken or to make something that is needed; a bridge is constructed so that it is easier to go from point A to point B, and road signs are constructed to create order.

Creating, dissimilar to construction, does not have a concrete purpose. Instead, it is a form of communication and expression; an architect, for example, may have an idea to build a housing complex, but not just any housing complex. The architect is an artist, and therefore would use his or her creativity to not only make the building functional but also visually stunning. The need for the building to be beautiful comes from the architect’s desire for expression and the ability to influence the culture of the community. Unlike the rationale of construction, things aren’t created only to be useful; creation happens to make connections between people, things, and ideas.

The architects blue print, and its connection to society and culture, helps to define the line between creation and construction. While the buildings preliminary form is created out of the mind of the architect, the actual building is constructed, and this is because construction is a process of assembly. The building is put together piece-by-piece using the diagrams and measurements given. There is one way to complete the tasks set forth and that is the way it’s written in the manual. This is the downfall of construction, that it is confined to the original design.

Creativity, on the other hand, flourishes with improvisation and development. The nuances of buildings come from flashes of creative genius that dare to go beyond the bounds of normal structures. When the designer decides that a building will have a unique attribute, he or she is subjecting it to creativity. Often, creative genius is an experiment and may not work out the way that the designer had planned, so he or she would have to remove it from the concept.

While a mistake in creativity is a learning process, construction is more concrete and a mistake could be devastating; a screw out of place could ruin the whole structure. This stress around construction makes the end result doubly satisfactory. Few people are enamored by the process of a building being erected, and the cranes that sprout up over the skyline aren’t aesthetically pleasing. It’s hard to appreciate the rough steel beams, but the final glistening building is truly a sight to behold. We have rituals for the completion of construction projects like the ribbon cutting ceremony. Once everything is completed and the construction is done, the ribbon is cut, and the world moves on.

These buildings that are constructed to form the backbone of a city give room for the creation of neighborhoods and communities. These neighborhoods develop on there own, and gain recognition for having flower shops, galleries, or particularly good pastries. These specialties grow from the citizen’s freedom of expression; they create a neighborhood atmosphere by deciding to share their passions. Chelsea, the gallery center of Manhattan, didn’t become famous over night. As rent skyrocketed in Greenwich Village, the poor artists and gallery owners moved lower on the island. Now Chelsea is almost completely galleries and art installations, which reflects the people that moved into the area so many years before. This is the benefit of creation; there is hardly an ugly moment in the process, and some would argue that it never truly ends. As long as the creation is still conveying the original message, its story continues.

Charles Dickens once wrote that “The whole difference between construction and creation is this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.” In a concrete world, construction is supreme. It follows patterns and guidelines, which make it predictable and unimaginative. Creativity happens because the world is not concrete, but fluid. We have emotions and fickle whims that cannot be met by order and structure. Instead, we change, our lives change, and our cities change with us.