Hans Hollein: Everything is Architecture (1967)

The limited definition of the term and traditional definitions of architecture and its tools have today largely lost their validity. Our efforts relate to the environment as a whole and to all the means that define it. To television as an artificial climate, to transportation as clothing, to the telephone as housing. The expansion of human possibilities and the tools that define the surrounding world extend far beyond construction purposes. Today, in a certain way, everything is becoming architecture. "Architecture" is one of these means. Among the various means that today determine our behavior and environment, architecture is a means of possibilities.
Humans artificially create states. This is architecture. Humans physically and psychologically replicate, transform, and expand their physical and psychological competencies, determining the "environment" in the broadest sense of the word.
According to their needs and desires, they use tools to satisfy their needs and fulfill their wishes. They expand themselves and their bodies. They pass it on.
Architecture is a means of communication.
Human beings are both – self-centered individuals and parts of society. Society determines their behavior. From primitive beings, humans have developed through various means, and they have systematically expanded these means themselves.
Humans have brains. Their senses are the basis for perceiving the environment. The means of definition and determination (of the environment always desired) rest on the "extension" of these senses.
These are the means of architecture.
Architecture in the broadest sense of the word.

More precisely, one can formulate the following roles and definitions for the term architecture:
Architecture is cultic; it is a monument, a symbol, a sign, an expression.
Architecture is control of body temperature - protective housing.
Architecture is determination - creation - of space, environment.
Architecture is preparation of psychological state.

For centuries, there has been an artificial change and shaping of environments, as well as protection against the adversities of climate and weather, primarily through building, and construction has been the most significant manifestation and expression. Building was understood as the creation of a three-dimensional entity that met the requirements of spatial definition, protective shell, as a device and tool, as a psychological medium and symbol. The development of science and technology, society, its needs and requirements confronted us with new circumstances. Other new means of shaping the environment have emerged.

Initially, only technological improvements of common principles and expansion of physical building materials through new materials and methods were developed, but subsequently, intangible means of space shaping were also discovered. A number of tasks and problems are still solved today through traditional means via building, through "architecture." However, is the answer to many questions still "architecture," as it is commonly understood, or do we have inappropriate means available?

Architects could learn from the development of strategy in this regard. If it were conditioned by the same clumsiness as architecture and its consumers, walls and towers would still be built today. Strategy, however, has long since abandoned connections to construction work and has accepted new possibilities to manage its tasks and requirements.
Clearly, no one would even think of building waste channels or creating astronomical instruments from stone (Jaipur). However, the consequences brought by new means of communication (be it telephone, radio, television, etc.) are far more profound, and a concept like school building might altogether disappear and be replaced by these tools. Architects must stop thinking in buildings.

It should also be mentioned that there has been a shift of emphasis from meaning to effect. Architecture has an "effect." Therefore, the manner of appropriation and use of the object in the broadest sense of the word is also important. A building can be all information; its message can only be experienced through informational media (print, television, etc.). It really is almost irrelevant whether the Acropolis or the Pyramids physically exist, because the public acknowledges them nonetheless not through their own experience but through other media, and their role rests on informational effect.
Thus, a building could be simulated.

From the first examples of the extension of architecture through communication media, there are telephone booths – buildings of minimal size that are directly connected to the global environment. Such an environment, in an even closer relationship to the body and in an even more concentrated form, is represented by, for example, jet pilots' helmets, which through their telecommunications connections extend the senses and sensory organs, and also relate them directly to distant areas. The extreme formulation of today's "architecture" leads to the development of spatial capsules, especially space suits. A "habitat" has been created that is much more sophisticated than any "building." Additionally, it offers full control of body temperature, control of food supply and processing of waste, good health, etc., under the most extreme conditions combined with maximum mobility.

These extended physical possibilities lead to a focus on the psychological possibilities of artificial environments, because with the removal of the necessity for built environments (as protective shells, protection against climate and spatial definitions), unprecedented new freedoms open up. Humans become the true center and starting point for defining their surrounding environment, because the limitations imposed by a negligible number of predetermined possibilities will no longer apply. The expansion of architecture's means beyond tectonic building and derived activities began with attempts, primarily in the constructions of trains. The desire to change our "environment" as quickly and easily as possible according to our wishes and to transport this has allowed for the first time a perspective across a wide range of materials and possibilities to means that have long been partially applied in other fields. Thus, today there is stitched architecture, just as there is inflatable architecture. These are all tools of architecture, which are essentially still "building" materials.

However, there have been few attempts to influence our environments and shape space through other physical means (light, temperature, smells). While there is extensive expansion of possibilities in this field for conventional methods, the possibilities of lasers (holography) are difficult to predict. And finally, practically no attempts have been made to use chemicals and drugs deliberately to control body temperature and bodily functions, as well as to artificially create an environment. Architects must stop thinking in materials.

Constructed and physical architecture will be able to focus on spatial qualities and the satisfaction of human physical and psychological needs because it now has access to a large number of tools compared to the small number of limited tools of previous epochs, and will assume a different relationship to the process of "building." Spaces will therefore be consciously shaped by new optical and haptic qualities, will contain informational effects, and will also be able to directly respond to emotional needs.

True architecture today is therefore capable of redefining itself as a means, as well as expanding its tools. Many fields beyond construction affect "architecture," just as architecture and "architects" encompass broad areas.
Everyone is an architect. Everything is architecture.