The two meanings of 'facility'
An arts facility isn't just a place, it's a process.
“A thing is a monotonous event; an event is an unstable thing.”
—Nelson Goodman, from The Structure of Appearance
When working together on a major arts building project years ago, my consulting colleague Steven A. Wolff reminded me that the word “facility” has two essential meanings. From the Oxford English Dictionary, “facility” can mean:
the physical means or equipment required for doing something; or,
the quality, fact, or condition of being easy or easily performed; freedom from difficulty or impediment, ease.
The first definition is about the physical object as tool or technology, as a product. The second is about the quality or condition we hope that object affords – the process it renders easier.
And yet, it is a common arts management surprise that a fresh, new facility is the opposite of “freedom from difficulty and impediment.” Rather, it proves itself to be a large, costly, complex, and durable difficulty and impediment to the stated mission. New arts buildings can amplify risk-aversion, undercut financial resilience, and narrow the audiences that feel seen and safe within them.
Why is this such a common surprise for so many well-intentioned cultural construction projects? Because early and often in development, the building becomes the end rather than the means. The lure of the visual and the physical product pulls focus from the invisible and intangible process.
Some of that pulled focus is for good reason. Cultural construction projects are vastly complex, requiring relentless attention to a billion details. And the motivations of the major players – arts organizations, donors, architects, public officials – are as complex and conflicted as the construction plans.
What’s needed is a persistent, consistent, and empowered voice advocating for the future thriving of the fragile mission. An arts facility is more than just a place. It is a process that continually unfolds long after it is fully constructed. A wise arts manager names and navigates both definitions and both realities at once.
From the ArtsManaged Field Guide
Function of the Week: Spaces & Systems
Spaces & Systems involves selecting, securing, stewarding, and harnessing the built environment and technological infrastructure.
Framework of the Week: Requisite Variety
W. Ross Ashby suggested that any control system must be at least as complex as the system it seeks to control – it must have a range of responses that is at least as varied as the range of disturbances it might encounter. Since arts facilities seek to focus and amplify creative human expression and experience, they are necessarily complex critters themselves.
Thanks Andrew for your thoughts on how we view an Arts Facility. At ArtSpring we look at it similarly.
Though instead of “process”, we lean into the “idea” of the facility. We say, ArtSpring is not a place it is an idea. The idea is that it is what our community thinks of when they refer to ArtSpring. It is where they gather, connect, learn, engage and come together.