A Womb with a View: an Outline of Interiority Helena Andersson

108 ESSAY A WOMB WITH A VIEW: AN OUTLINE OF INTERIORITY HELENA ANDERSSON

I. field of critical architectural agency within the No longer contained by rivers and moun- contemporary European city. As a parallel narra- tains, by flags and hymns, it extends along tive, a series of literary vignettes written in order tracks and pipes, travels through billowing to reenact moments of the history of Strasbourg, steam, settles its disputes with handshakes serve as interpretive illustrations of the theo- and traces its boundaries in ink. Visionary retical framework in question. Contributing to virtuosi flush society’s bloodstream with disciplinary discourse, the paper comments on scientific agents, dissolving local clogs and a tendency for post-structuralist theory being persistent stains. The Experts outperform the used to depoliticise and dematerialise architec- Magi in manufacturing cosmic connections. ture, either through literal, aestheticised trans- Sinews grip pencils and levers; veins throb lation, or through discouragement of anything like chisels and pistons - a perfectly equili- but minimal, temporary interventions. brated man-machine fuelled by devotion to progress and despise for the idle. Europia’s front porches and shop floors adjoin powerful corridors, flocking together under a parlia- mentary plumage plucked of any odd feather. This is the Homeland to end all wars.1

1 Where: Paris Throughout this essay, the conceptual When: 1814 couples of ‘interiority-exteriority’ and ‘smooth- Who: Claude-Henri de la Saint-Simon ness-striation’ will be combined and contrasted What: “De la réorganisation according to the quadrants of the below matrix, de la société européenne, with the intention of briefly evaluating their ou De la nécessité et des spatial implications as means, measure and moyens de rassembler les peuples de l’Europe en un metaphor. Given that the notions are neither seul corps politique, en mutually exclusive nor ‘belong’ together, the conservant à chacun son operation aims to loosely outline an expanded indépendance nationale”

ESSAY 109 Introduction er, and affirming the both/and rather than the Interiority, and more specifically the inte- either/or. As argued by DeLanda, any notion of rior, lies at the heart of architectural awareness. internal relations presupposes entities with fixed Conceptualised as the opposite of the ‘ultimate’ properties optimally expressed through interac- exteriority of nature, it is the literal and meta- tion in particular configurations, while ignoring phorical womb in which human life, and even- their relative independence, latent dispositions tually an anthropocentric conception of civilisa- and capacity for multiple realisation.9 A reading 2 2 tion, can occur. Architecture originates from the of systems as sets of exterior relationships, where J. Wambacq and van Tuin- need to dwell in a state of sequential enclosure; detachable, irreducible and heterogeneous com- en, S., Interiority in Sloter- to shape protective membranes and carve out ponents wander between assemblages, renders dijk and Deleuze, p. 3. manageable niches in the midst of chaos. Walter futile any attempt of totalising interiority, while

3 Benjamin and Hanna Arendt imagined the inte- paving the way for manipulation, appropriation 3 10 W. Benjamin, The Arcades rior as “the étui of the private individual” and and ‘noncapitalisable’ paradox. 4 Project, p. 9. “the world’s last, purely humane corner” respec- As space negates – escapes – binary con- tively; vital as a physical place of reflection and ceptions, claim Deleuze and Guattari, it be- 4 retreat from the intense publicness of the mod- comes smooth. Limitless and infinitely varied, H. Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 52. ern city. Meanwhile, various spatial theorists and it emerges as free-moving bodies without fixed philosophers consider so called ‘interiorisation’ qualities, trajectories or points of spatio-tempo- 5 to be a devastating condition of our capitalist, ral reference engage with each other by chance P. Sloterdijk, In the World globalised and technologically advanced reality; and desire. Bluntly put, this intensive, dense, Interior of Capital, p. 12. virtually as well as actually. Benjamin’s arcades viscous environment provides a freedom11 of 6 being the earliest and most famous example, movement and expression which is not afforded R. Koolhaas, ‘Junkspace’, Sloterdijk’s reference to the Crystal Palace as by the extensive, granular, striated space that we 2002. ‘hothouse’5 a potentially more poignant one, usually perceive as our habitat. Striation occurs 6 7 and Koolhaas’ notion of ‘junkspace’ the most at the moment of delimitation, predetermina- R. Exo Adams, Invisible polemical, they all constitute attempts to define tion and restriction of flow, when potentialities Machines: Toward a Theory a gradually inflating architectural type, technol- are ‘forced’ into particular actualities, and is thus of Interiorization, para. 3. ogy and mentality conceived to eliminate risk by inevitable within the material reality of any hu- shutting out a the contingency of a perceived ex- man culture or settlement. Despite its connota- 8 Wambaq and van Tuinen, terior. Seen through this lens, architecture-as-in- tions, the smooth space is not utopian – “never p. 3. terior operates not simply as enclosed, private believe that a smooth space will suffice to save or concealed space, but as securitised, homoge- us”12 – nor is striation intrinsically undesirable. 9 neous, meticulously controlled milieu; hyper-re- However, the concepts are metaphorically ca- M. DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: sponsive and tendentious while reproducing pable of indicating architectural intent, and Assemblage Theory and a dubious sense of transparency and ‘organic’ function as a spectrum for understanding spatial Social Complexity p. 4. development. Waving the flags of ‘optimisation’ processes that strive towards heterogeneity or and ‘integration’, it promotes a state of seamless- homogeneity, stabilisation and destabilisation, 10 ness, at once all-encompassing and invisible; an respectively;13 processes which always, since B. Cache, Earth Moves, p. 38. architecture which appears to dematerialise into space is produced and not ‘found’, are deeply a generalised atmosphere, “a silent sky”.7 practical, political and poetic. 11 Notwithstanding, that which remains inte- A. Parr (ed.), The Deleuze riorised can never become part of ‘civil’ society Dictionary, p. 296. – rather, it is through the “double movement” of II. 12 expulsion and enclosure, through what Sloterdi- So be it! One cut, to marry the city’s iron and G. Deleuze and Guattari, jk calls ‘inclusive exclusivity’8, that space is pro- water mouths. F., A Thousand Plateaus, duced and perceived at all. What we consider Let us disembowel the gut cramped since p. 500. to be fundamentally ‘architectural’ gestures – the centuries; release its sickly odour; transplant 13 placement of a wall, a roof or a floor – are always its paupers into peripheral convenience. It DeLanda, p. 12. acts of differentiation; acknowledging the Oth- shall require equal parts brute force, desirable

110 ESSAY displays and subtle rocades. It shall require any transitional bumps, physical as well as men- Haussmannian precision, but none of that tal, which might appear on the fringes of the blatant Frenchness! Today’s boulevard is a centripetal vortex – making the act of ‘exiting’ sober street, a modestly meandering artery à not only difficult to perform but to define, if at l’autrichienne. Tomorrow’s cosmopolites reside all definable. In fact, the more the city resembles in air and light, consume through tantalis- infrastructure, the more it is internalised as part ing vitrines, and owe their soles to electric of the body itself; the interior becomes a second transportation. skin. We partially owe today’s ‘smart’ and even Empire, gentlemen, is staged on the perim- wearable technologies to Modernism’s definition eter.14 of the man-machine assemblage as governing unit of the urbe; an ideal, universal template for non-representational city planning.17 Replacing The Smooth Interior the politically and religiously organised, “sym- On the macro scale, any European urban bolical agreement” of the civitas18, the city-as- setting is governed by at least three spatio-tempo- body or city-as-house are holistic entities made ral conditions, or might one say degrees, of inte- of tissue and arteries, living rooms and corridors riority. Firstly, it is part of a global space defined – no longer acknowledging a presence of Oth- by the relationships between “flows that animate er, entirely self-referential, and requiring full any human habitat”15 – predominantly cycles of coordination and consistency in order not to production and consumption. Secondly, it is collapse. deeply entangled with the European Project; the If not obvious already, one must now rec- founding principle of which is free circulation ognise that while undeniably interior, the space of ideas, goods and people in order to mitigate described is far from smooth. Contemporary 14 potentially harmful friction while overriding urbanity, regardless of its facial fluidity, oper- Where: City Hall, place Broglie, 9 rue Brûlée, local conditions and internalising a notion of ates as a mechanism of capture; a Deleuzeian Strasbourg shared identity. Thirdly, it more than ever relies notion denoting how interiority is produced When: 1907 on logistics and infrastructure not only as means by sovereignty, aiming to constitute a “general Who: Rudolf Schwander, of utilitarian conveyance but as tool for social space of comparison”.19 Rather than an ocean mayor, et. al. integration and economic resilience; as political of boundless motion, the Seamless system ap- What: “Grosser Strassen- durchbruch” – La Grande argument and branding strategy. This “world pears as a “vast potential utopia clogged by its Percée’ – an urban renewal 16 20 interior” is a complex web of transaction and users” ; its deterritorialising forces capable of plan cutting through the circulation: a continuous feedback loop where producing one difference only – that of relative historical city centre. phenomena such as ‘urban nomadism’, business value. Could it be that the perceived smoothness 15 platforms, just-in-time supply chains, and ser- is nothing but a rationalised construct; a pattern P.V. Aureli (ed.), Brussels – vice-oriented consumption promote minimal extracted from vast data sets, tailored to fit a A Manifesto, p. 33. material accumulation in pursuit of supreme causal narrative we want to, or must, believe? smoothness. As things are requalified from as- 16 sets to liabilities, and movement from mere flux Sloterdijk, 2013. to means of value creation, spatial technologies III. 17 adjust accordingly: eliminating large warehouses – Dear colleagues, I believe today our hearts R. Exo Adams, Becoming while increasing truck capacity and self-storage have shifted slightly further to the left! Re- Infrastructural, para. 5. facilities; creatively developing the hotel typolo- member the war, when rails became symbols 18 gy while investing little into long-term housing; of resistance? Aureli, p. 34. replacing designated office cubicles with flexible, – And a river Styx of sorts... portable work ‘environments’, to mention a few. – All the more reason not to negotiate 19 In this strive for seamlessness, sameness be- with the enemy! We worked hard for the Parr, p. 41. comes a necessity, promoted as service, disguised statutory right to transport, but I fear for its 20 as desirable uniqueness. Standardisation of signs, implementation. Contrary to many of our Koolhaas, Junkspace, units, dimensions, setups and protocols flatten colleagues, I do not appreciate executives, p. 180.

ESSAY 111 managers and advisers - whatever titles they a contemporary obsession, but was addressed by sport - expressing their commitment to social 19th century political theorist Claude-Henri de justice through lavish lunches and generous la Saint-Simon, claiming that England owed its ‘gifts’... industrial and political prowess to geographic – Only fools trust these so called partnerships. insularity which enabled it to experiment with I say, beware of the murky waters! The banks independent, pioneering modes of production might already be lost... But not this. and social organisation.25 This is an admitted- – All this talk of market efficiency – we seem ly slightly oversized but still viable example of a to consider the Hexagon, and the Union, clear spatial delimitation becoming a facilitating as one large balance sheet! I might be an environment; providing margin, memory and economist, but the bottom line is always predictability that help synchronising collective peace of mind. interests and individual needs. Although con- – Hear, hear. The system is vital, frail and sidered auxiliary, passive and receptive, lacking must never fail.21 other purpose than that of keeping and holding, container spaces need no manipulation to perform, produce, at maximum capacity. The striat- The Striated Interior ed interior creates a systemic ‘lag’ that allows us When refusing the tropes of the ‘organic’ to evaluate fluctuations, haeccities and tenden- or ‘smart’ city, reconsidering its spatial logic as cies in otherwise hyper-responsive networks. In a carefully crafted system of points and vectors, the intricate web of needs and desires that is the 21 Where: Hôtel Matignon, 57 destinations and blank spots, fills and voids, city, these artifacts for containment and supply, rue de Varenne, Paris one also refuses the possibility of any persistent whether following precise volumetric standards When: 18 February 1983 smoothness. “Where movement becomes syn- or approximating demand, all reveal a back- Who: Pierre Mauroy, prime chronised, it curdles”22 claims Koolhaas, effec- ground dialogue between current norms and minister; Charles Fiter- man, transport minister; tively evoking the moment of striation; where limitations. However, this is not a particularly Jacques Delors, finance matter becomes form. True to the old dogma of effective use of the singular capacity of architec- minister; Laurent Fabius, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, capi- ture – that of producing and projecting future finance minister’s budget talism’s ever-expanding grasp devours ever more contexts, rather than simply micro-managing responsible. – data, networks, consumers, logistics, trade, real-time behaviour. What: The SNCF attaining EPIC (Établissement Public communication, platforms, built matter – and As networks of exponentially increasing Industriel et Commercial) spits out ever less – diversity. Whether it be a synchronisation become both cause and effect, status, thus becoming reaction to such speculative deterritorialisation, necessity and goal, object and representation, completely nationalised or simply a strive for sense in a seemingly sense- they are rendered self-evident and politically for the first time since its creation. less world, one might be attracted to Benjamin’s ‘neutral’. In this environment, architecture tends claim that withdrawing something from circu- to operate mimetically: adopting a correlationist 22 lation entails giving it a stable value – allowing approach in line with the entrenched gospel of Koolhaas, p. 180. for material traces of life to become art.23 Archi- ‘form follows function’. Such claims to optimal- tecture is never a means of embodying ‘essences’ ity, a 1:1 ratio, a perfected use value, undermine 23 Benjamin, p. 9. or genus loci, never an empty vessel waiting to architecture’s capacity to operate as a “critical be filled at a point of presumed completion, but device”.26 In order to turn Koolhaas’ curdling 24 it is is indeed an art of distinction – of defining crowds into swarms of political subjects, archi- Aureli, p. 74. and enacting spatial limits and differences of rel- tecture needs to exteriorise itself; affirming both

25 ative permanence. While something resembling its specificity and its potential of becoming oth- C.H. de la Saint-Simon, our conventional conception of architecture er. De la réorganisation de could well appear as or within a purely smooth la société européenne..., space, it would struggle to outlast the singular p. xiii. event, and thus, to become a materially “active IV. 24 26 agent”. Now Catherine, smugness does not be- Aureli, p. 74. The creative capacity of the incubator is not come you. But 56 for, 34 against... Was

112 ESSAY that a flash of relief across poor Rudloff’s We can no longer withdraw into the inte- face? Fifteen years of inherited opinions, rior – punctured by pervasive technologies and unscrupulous lobbying, endless quarrelling; a fears of missing out, our personal étuis are paper particularly dirty campaign, this. But what thin, leaving us uncomfortably exposed and still to expect from leaders favouring big business suffering from cabin fever. As argued by Viril- and car-hugging suburbanites; considering io, the paradoxial predicament of modernity’s the tramway a passé, plebeian infringement speedy smoothness is that of the inescapable on their civil liberty to park within arm’s meltdown, catastophe – paraphrasing Aristo- length of Galeries Lafayette? Clearly, this tle, “the invention of the ‘substance’ is equally tram transcends standard talk of convenient invention of the ‘accident’.”28 In more or less conveyance and equal opportunity. Ideology benevolent forms, the contingencies of the exte- takes you only so far; address identity and go rior provide the contemporary subject with rare further. While they are still scratching their force majeure moments of repose, respite and bewildered heads at the sight of a socialist at discharge – the bus was late, it was impossible the helm - not to mention a woman - I will to find a parking space, someone stripped the polish the streets of this polluted pothole. I rails of its conductive copper... Transit space in will show them chic and cosmopolitan. I will particular, that which strives to be nothing but give them profit and PR. They do not call me a pleasant blur, somehow becomes the ‘realest’: Czarina for nothing.27 revealing its flaws as the immaculate virtual is violently pulled into the actual, with scaleable effects and a curious intimacy. Its points of ex- The Smooth Exterior change and transition are not simply beeping When attempting, for the purpose of ex- plastic cards, toll stations or real-time adjust- trapolation, to discuss interiority in isolation, ed travel planners, but are inhabited by over- every argument somehow feels unfinished. Ob- whelmingly physical swarms of bodies shuffling, viously, this unease stems from the already stated stumbling and swearing in space. It is sore be- fact that any act of delimitation, withdrawal or hinds and tense thighs; it is damp overcoats and capture also is an act of differentiation. While graffitied billboards; it is platform vomit and metanarratives about Europe, Markets and gum-dotted seats. Although perceived as a lack, Progress appear to be ‘all-inclusive’, every re- an in-between, an anticipation, it could be con- definition of a centre produces new peripheries, sidered far more tangible, far more expressive, feeds desires to be ‘in’, and increases difficul- than the carefully curated simulations of famil- ties to remain ‘out’, regardless of whether these iarity and community which make up the ma- 27 Where: Administrative counteract a seemingly fundamental human jority of urban ‘public’ space today. offices of the Municipal need to ‘belong’. On levels closer to individu- Reintroducing DeLanda’s definition of ex- Council of Greater Stras- al cognition, any mode of networked transport teriority, one needs to adopt a habit of regard- bourg, 1 Parc de l’Étoile represents a collapse and folding of the unsta- ing locally exhibited properties not as essence or When: June 30th 1989 ble categories of interior and exterior: a trav- identity, but as specific material expressions of Who: Catherine Trautmann, newly elected mayor, and eller or object in transit exists in an enveloped theoretically endless capacities. In so doing, the 94 other deputies. state of ‘inside’, moving through the panoramic subjective nature of phenomenological and met- What: Vote in favour of ‘outside’ condition of the street- or landscape, aphorical readings become not constitutive of, installation of tramway viewed from within the physical and adminis- but complementary to, a tentatively ‘objective’ system rather than VAL (underground automatic trative boundaries of the motorway, the train understanding of reality as literal “processes of light rail). tracks, the bus schedule... Similar space-folding assembly.”29 These processes, operating across a occurs in any constructed environment, but is spectrum from homogenisation to heterogeni- 28 intensified in modern types such as the glazed sation – the one side aiming to stabilise assem- P. Virilio, The Original Accident, p. 5. atria of shopping malls, online chatrooms, in- bled Wholes, the other to tear them apart – are dustrialised greenhouses, free trade zones and themselves assemblages, making it impossible 29 airport mini-cities. to outline any type of ‘pure’ intent or causality; DeLanda, p. 3.

ESSAY 113 only gradients and feedback loops. As the two allowed one final sprint before conforming to parallel aspects of exteriority – the material-ex- regularised caution. Fifty-three gazes flutter pressive and the processual – translate into and between dull displays and a pioneering onto architectural practice, they effectively reaf- panorama. Today Paris is far less than 108 firm its disciplinary relevance and singularity as minutes away. But curves appear in a matter a form-finding exercise which both constructs of seconds. and critiques. Furthermore, they facilitate a The earth tilts before it strikes. reading of smoothness as indeed not an absolute The serpent shrieks before it shatters. state or ‘saviour’, but a dynamic configuration Then silence.31 of things that, much like flying dust before it settles, exhibits the most degrees of freedom. In order to maintain the remarkable ca- The Striated Exterior pacity for smoothness immanent to the sheer At the opposite end of the spectrum from amount of amalgamate assemblages flocking to- elusive residuals and contingent crowds, one gether in the contemporary city, it must not be finds territories which are parcelled, named, treated as an entity analogous to the body, but zoned, measured, valued, distributed and ad- as an assembled territory of perpetual otherness. ministrated. Dotted with historical artefacts, When challenging an atomistic world view of riddled with boundaries and appropriated by minimal units and rigid hierarchies, scale shifts rent-extracting enterprises, these relatively simi- are key – much like the action of zooming into a lar environments are constituent of the majority point in order to requalify it as an intersection of of contemporary European cities. Within the vectors, and the action of zooming out in order striated urban exterior, architecture either con- to uncover the vector as a sequence of points. forms to, or struggles to break free from inher- One concrete example of smooth exterior spaces ited assemblages that constitute both backdrop are residuals: ‘left-overs’ and border conditions and stage of a sociopolitical drama with rigid produced when overarching, interiorising nar- roles and precise choreographies. However, al- ratives translate poorly or inefficiently onto the though seemingly homogeneous and conceptu- immediate territory. Those strips of land delin- alised by dominating metanarratives, even the eating the highway, that void under the viaduct, most scripted environment cannot escape its that vacant parking lot – they are all ambiguous; immediate material reality – every spatial inter- escaping formal or material classification; diffi- vention adapts to very specific, local demands, cult to read as objects, sites or fields; perceived as whether it be troublesome topographies, family both presence and lack, singular and same. They feuds, a rare bird species, volatile weather con- appear as “real space edited for smooth transi- ditions, or other. Striation does not necessitate tion in virtual space”30, seemingly bereft of any consensus or eradication of all difference – stable properties beyond mere extension, and yet they relations, whether desirable or not, do not occur both produce and hold the territory; embodying automatically, but procedurally, additively, iter- the noncapitalisable. An architectural fascina- atively. Just like sedimentation, to use a Deleu-

30 tion with such spaces is intrinsically dialectical, zeian analogy, it is a process of layering; subject Koolhaas, p. 189 and entails constantly balancing the degrees to to exterior impact, never really reaching a ‘state’ which these fields of potentiality are expressively but constantly becoming. 31 materialised as novel urban types, or left as abra- Monuments and institutional buildings Where: Eckwersheim, north of Strasbourg sive anomalies, engaged in silent struggle. tend to be the most significant urban exterior- When: November 14th, ities – immediately legible as Other by substan- 2015, 15:04:42 tiating their foreign temporality and abstract Who: SNCF staff, family VI. sovereignty. Despite the relative ephemerality of and friends. 11 deceased, 32 injured. A blurry brushstroke along the horizon; a ‘functions’, the inherent slowness and massive What: Derailment of TGV sleek serpent hugging virgin rails with a presence of architectural form allows for the dis- train 2369 whirring roar. It is the very fastest of its kind, junctive synthesis of multiple voices, bodies and

114 ESSAY timescales, initiating a process of folding which But more is not less, unfortunately is not materially emergent, but metaphorically Invest in people, not in fleets! expressive. Metaphor is a means of exteriorising Watch and learn as we clog up your streets concepts – of casting into the world – not as Thousands of feet causing tires to screech objectification, suggesting the existence of either Under the pavement, the beach! 32 something or nothing, but as one of many potential actualisations of the virtual. In the realm of architecture, form and materiality are often Enter Exteriority read as signs and metaphors. However, while an Whether one entertains the thought of in- analogous reading might uncover artistic intent, teriorisation as a gradual realisation of a ‘global reveal historical processes and hint to latent ca- village’ or a reminder of capitalism’s Chthul- pacities, it says little of actual operability. In or- hu33-esque character; as a technologically driven der to encourage a more performative reading, process of spatial optimisation or as an inflated perhaps one must reverse the interpretation of “meta-architecture”34 turning the world into a the architectural assemblage from thing-as-met- shopping mall, it appears as if architecture has aphor to metaphor-as-thing. Shuttling meta- the greatest potential political agency when op- phor from material assemblage to abstraction erating as an exteriority. This is not simply due to and back again postpones the process of sedi- the fact that architecture is most easily concep- mentation, while the ‘meaningful’ rhetoric of tualised as something which ‘holds’ or ‘critiques’ 32 intent and purpose is overlaid, distorted and the human environment, but to the limited Where: Place Kléber When: October 15th, 2016 redefined by accumulating traces of life. variety of people, things and thoughts that the Who: GCO Non Merci – As an act of spatial distinction, and an at- interior can contain – even when containing the initiative against the Grand tempt to produce a relatively stable assemblage, entire world. Given that the interior performs a Contournement Ouest any architectural intervention entails striation. cultural role of safe haven and ‘second skin’, a – and 50 other affiliated protest groups: a total of However, every new constellation also releases shift in control or definition of its domain has 3000 people. latent capacities for otherness – the relative inte- vast implications – faced with a modern condi- What: Anti-Bypass Protest. riorisation exteriorises that which was previously tion of space-time compression and dissolving only a potentiality; it simultaneously realises a categories of public and private, intimacy and 33 certain preformed intent and actualises poten- integrity, we have begun to wrap ourselves in Chthulu is a monstrous, godlike character appear- tials which until then lacked definition. The blankets made of the very stuff from which we ing for the first time in H.P. European city, in full representative regalia, is initially wanted shelter. A critique of current Lovecraft’s eponymous not ‘done for’ as a contemporary political arena. spatial configurations cannot be fully articulated novel from 1928. In func- However, spatial discourse turns dull when the if relations are considered as solely interior or ex- tion of high-priest of the Old Ones that will annihi- ultimate exterior of urban ‘heritage’, or worse terior; spaces purely smooth or striated. late humanity, Cthulhu was ‘identity’, become overriding images that trans- Whether an inflated void or dense pres- cursed from the surface of pose the exterior into a hermetically sealed, me- ence, archtitecture has “equal capacity to affect the earth, and hibernates ticulously polished interior. and to be affected”.35 Despite any desire for on the bottom of the ‘realist’ alternatives to ‘idealist’ conceptions of ocean until found and awoken by its disciples. the human environment36, we cannot escape VII. subjectivity – any efforts to operate ‘beside one- 34 Non, Merci! self’’, are subjugated to the human condition R. Exo Adams, Interior: Since 2003 of being, in every sense, of the world. What we Twelve Points in the Phenomenology of Empire, We refuse to be part of your scheme need, however, is not a theory of how to produce para. 2. In the name of the European dream ‘exteriority’ or ‘smoothness’, but one of how to This cut will cause our lands to bleed think and practice ‘externally’ and ‘smoothly’ 35 And wipe away the rarest breeds – striving towards spatial configurations which DeLanda, p. 124, citing Deleuze. ‘Congestion’ rhymes too well with ‘greed’ allow for the greatest amount of scenarios, and Pseudo-solutions for pseudo-needs produces a kind of abrasive reality which has 36 From up there it must be hard to see the ability to surprise. One useful conceptual- Delanda, p. 3.

ESSAY 115 isation of architecture evoking complex simul- Arendt, H., The Human Condition, Chicago, University of taneity through simple, precise and sequential Chicago Press, 1998. gestures is afforded by Bernard Cache’s theory Aureli, P.V. (ed.), Brussels – A Manifesto. Towards the Capital 37 of ‘framing’. As an “art of the frame” , archi- of Europe, Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2005. tecture is occupied with selecting and articulating of spatial intervals that produce potentially Beyer, A., ‘Strasbourg, entre France et Allemagne. Structure smooth milieus, without being smooth ‘as such’. urbaine et symboliques de la dualité frontalière’, Revue Geographique de l’Est, vol. 47, 2007, pp.111- 120. The frame, regardless of its orientation, never suggests a three-dimensional, totalising interior, Cache, B., Earth Moves: The Furnishing of Territories, trans. but rather provides focus as a flattened, relative Anne Boyman, Cambridge (MA), The MIT Press, 1995. arbiter between inside and outside. The image Cuillier, F. (ed.), Strasbourg: Chroniques d’Urbanisme, La produced within the frame is one of potential Tour d’Aigues, ADEUS/Éditions de l’Aube, 1994. metaphor, subject to global trade, but the frame itself always operates locally. Removing, shifting DeLanda, M., A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage The- or dissolving a frame is referred to as ‘deframing’ ory and Social Complexity, London, Continuum, 2006. – the act of decoding and disassociating certain Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., A Thousand Plateaus. Capital- intervals, perhaps when they express too great ism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi, London, University a degree of striation. This process, one might of Minnesota Press, 1987. argue, is an example of the metaphor-as-thing: the frame likens the surrounding environment Eberhardt, S., ‘Entre France Et Allemagne, De La Ville Ancienne à La Neustadt De Strasbourg.’ Revue d’Alsace, to an image, appreciated not for its ‘contents’ or vol. 141, 2015, pp. 421–30. http://journals.openedition.org/ ‘subject matter’, but for the fact that that partic- alsace/2388 (Accessed 2018-01-06). ular image has been framed. Life ensues due to the apparent potential for life to happen within Exo Adams, R., ‘Becoming-Infrastructural’, e-flux: Positions, 2017. http://www.e-flux.com/architecture/ that interval – a self-affirming loop, albeit never positions/149606/becoming-infrastructural/ (Accessed self-referential or symbolical. 2017-11-03). Far from resembling a Claude glass – sim- plifying complex material assemblages to some- Exo Adams, R., ‘Twelve Points on the Phenomenology of thing ‘picturesque’ to be looked at in hindsight Empire’, E.R.O.S., issue 7, 2015.

– these architectural images produce not spec- Exo Adams, R., ‘Infinite Circulation’, Volume, vol. 47, 2016, tators, but participants. Instead of retreating pp. 125-129. into a silent, invisible sky, or dotting the urban environment with attention-seeking exclama- Exo Adams, R., ‘Invisible Machines: Toward a Theory of Interi- orization’, Machines of Urbanization [website], 2015, tion marks, an architecture of radical exteriority https://rossexoadams.com/2015/07/14/invisible-ma- could indeed provide our womb with a view. chines-toward-a-theory-of-interiorization/ (Accessed 2017-11-03)

Graham, S. and Marvin, S., Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, London, Routledge, 2001.

Igersheim, F., ‘La fabrication de la ville moderne: Strasbourg (1850-2000), L’Urbanisme à Strasbourg au XXème siècle. Actes des conferences organisées dans le cadre des 100 ans de la cité-jardin du Stockfeld. Ville de Strasbourg, 2010, pp. 126-132.

Koolhaas, R., ‘Junkspace’, October, vol. 100, 2002, pp. 175-190.

37 Parr, A.(ed.), The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Cache, p. 1. University Press, 2005.

116 ESSAY de la Saint-Simon, C-H., De la réorganisation de la société européenne, Paris, Adrien Egron, 1814.

Sloterdijk, P., In the World Interior of Capital. For a Philosophical Theory of Globalization, trans. W. Hoban, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2013.

Virilio, P., The Original Accident, trans. Julie Rose, London, Polity Press, 2006.

Wambacq, J. and van Tuinen, S. ‘Interiority in Sloterdijk and Deleuze’, Palgrave Communications, vol. 3, 2017, https:// www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201772 (Accessed 2017-11-03).

ESSAY 117 I. The Rugged Side of Seamless

1 R. Braidotti, The Posthuman, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013, p. 40.

2 The project seeks to question the self- viewpoints so as to produce an ”expanded R. Braidotti, Nomadic reinforcing ‘pan-humanist’1 logic behind a sensibility” of ”european patriotism”.6 Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in contemporary spatiotemporal condition I Contemporary Feminist decide to name the Seamless Paradigm Naturally, a well-developed mobility Theory, New York: – an urban, capitalist economy founded network is capable of breaking centre- Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 2. on the ethos of smooth, transnational periphery dichotomies, redistributing circulation of bodies, goods and ideals. capital, providing just-in-time, around the 3 Despite being a modus facilitated by and clock goods and services and rendering See K. Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: generative of a typically postmodern, accessible a greater variety of spaces for Quantum Physics and the neoliberal reorganisation of capital2, a greater variety of people – theoretically Entanglement of Meaning this urbanistic dictum is not a late 20th enabling everyone to ‘choose’ their and Matter, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. century phenomenon, but an ever ongoing lifestyle. However, the deterritorialisation material-discursive3 project. It follows the of internal boundaries always entails a 4 steps of the likes of Cerdà, who in 18614 reification of external ones; something of Called Teoría de la Viabilidad Urbana y imagined the substitution of the insular, which, to name an example of particular Reforma de la de Madrid; a ad-hoc medieval European city by the interest to this project, the migration precursor to the later Teorìa globally continuous grid of the urbe, politics of the European Union is a clear General de la Urbanización. structured according to a teleological ideal example. Furthermore, transit space is 5 of vialidad - unlimited circulation5 – and not something to ‘enter’ and ‘exit’ – ”you Ross Exo Adams, Becoming programmed according to very precise are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic” – Infrastructural, lecture at the TU Delft Faculty of calculations of the appropriate urbe-to- and all mobile societies require intense Architecture, 19 Feb 2018. body ratio. A similar stance was formulated synchronisation, monitoring and control – by he French early 19th century Saint- modulation – of bodies and spaces. I argue 6 C-H de la Saint-Simon, Simonians, whose post-revolutionary that we ought to remain aware and weary De la réorganisation de la spiritual entrepreneurialism figured the of the effects of the positive feedback loop société européenne, ou De city, as well as the whole of Europe, as an of interiorising forces and hypermobile la nécessité et des moyens de rassembler les peuples organism permeated by a ‘bloodstream’ ideals, on subjectivity in general, and the de l’Europe en un seul corps of circulating capital, flushing the system built environment in particular. politique, en conservant à clean of sedimented modes of production chacun son indépendance nationale, Paris, Adrien and government, and harmonising Egron, 1814, p. 52. II. Interiority, Exteriority – Making Worlds

8 W. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, p. 9. Architecture originates from the need while reproducing a dubious sense of to dwell in a state of sequential enclosure; transparency and ‘organic’ development. 9 H. Arendt, The Human to shape protective membranes and Waving the flags of ‘optimisation’ and Condition, p. 52. carve out manageable niches in the midst ‘integration’, it promotes a state of of chaos. Walter Benjamin and Hanna seamlessness, at once all-encompassing 10 G. Deleuze, ‘Postscript on Arendt imagined the interior as “the étui and invisible; an architecture which the Societies of Control’, of the private individual”8 and “the world’s appears to dematerialise into a generalised October, Vol. 59, 1992, last, purely humane corner”9 respectively; atmosphere, “a silent sky.”11 pp. 3-7. vital as a physical place of reflection and 11 retreat from the intense publicness of Notwithstanding, it is through the R. Exo Adams, ‘Invisible urban modernity. In a similar vein, whether ‘double movement’ of expulsion and Machines: Toward a Theory of Interiorization’, it be a rare species, a tech startup or a enclosure that space is produced and Machines of Urbanization separatist group, relative isolation has perceived at all. What we consider to be [website], 2015, para. 3. an incubatory, protective and productive fundamentally ‘architectural’ gestures https://rossexoadams. com/2015/07/14/invisible- effect. Nevertheless, one can argue that – the arrangement of walls, roofs and machines-toward-a-theory- so called interiorisation is a problematic floors – are always acts of framing12 and of-interiorization/ (Accessed condition of neoliberal, globalised and differentiation; habitually affirming the 2017-11-03) technologically advanced ”societies of either/or, but surely capable of dealing 12 control”10 – promoting a gradually inflating with the both/and. Manuel DeLanda ‘Framing’ as architectural architectural type, technology and goes to far as to argue that the very practice is discussed by Bernard Cache in Earth mentality conceived to eliminate risk by suggestion of ‘internal’ relations is flawed, Moves: the Furnishing of shutting out the contingency of a perceived as it presupposes entities with fixed Territories (1995). exterior. Such an architecture-as-interior properties optimally expressed through 13 operates not simply as enclosed, private interaction in particular configurations, M. DeLanda, A New or concealed space, but as a securitised, while ignoring their relative independence, Philosophy of Society: meticulously surveyed, homogeneous latent dispositions and capacity for Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, London: 13 milieu; hyper-responsive and tendentious multiple realisation. This view is partially Continuum, p. 4. shared by Karen Barad, who employs deterritorialising force; as a technologically the concept of ‘intra-actions’ in order to driven process of spatial optimisation account for how no property, function and or as an inflated “meta-architecture”16 form precedes the encounter between turning the world into a shopping mall,

14 agencies and objects within the frame of a it appears as if architecture has the See Barad (2007), chapter measuring apparatus.14 Such a reading of greatest critical and operative agency 4: ‘Agential Realism: systems as sets of exterior relationships, when favouring exteriority, from a position How Material-Discursive Practices Matter’. where detachable, irreducible and of the in-between. This claim does not heterogeneous components wander simply mean that architecture affects the 15 between assemblages, renders futile any human environment from the ‘outside in’ – B. Massumi, 99 Theses on the Reevaluation of Value. attempt of totalising interiority. In addition, in fact, I will soon argue for the possibility A Postcapitalist Manifesto, Brian Massumi argues that the ”systemic of a reverse relationship – but points to London, University of environment” of neoliberal capitalism, the limited variety of people, things and Minnesota Press, 2018, para. 10. ‘Framing’ as which quantitatively defines its singularity thoughts that the interior can contain; architectural practice is through interior-exterior relations, cannot even when containing the entire world. discussed by Bernard sustain itself without the ‘immanent Architectural practice that locates itself Cache in Earth Moves: the Furnishing of Territories outside’ – the relatively autonomous within the ‘immanent outside’, devotes (1995). ”processual ecology” consisting of all itself to (re)articulating the ‘peripheral’ factors which affect and are affected by and instrumentalises ‘externality’ as 16 17 R. Exo Adams, R., capitalism without being immediately qualitative change rather than unwanted ‘Twelve Points on the involved in its system.15 consequence, becomes an expressive Phenomenology of Empire’, act of dissent within the disciplinarity, E.R.O.S., issue 7, 2015, para. 2. Thus, regardless if one entertains centrifugality, and purported inevitability the thought of interiorisation as the of the Seamless. 17 benign realisation of a ‘global village’ or Massumi, 99 Theses, para. 10. as a reminder of capitalism’s ruthlessly III: Mobile Bodies, Nomadic Subjects

Given that the interior performs a it, of ”the physical, the symbolic and role of subjective safe haven and ‘second the sociological”20; an assemblage of skin’, a shift in control or definition of this ‘machines’ or ‘micro sites’ of ecological intimate domain has vast implications. exchange. The body is not a singular Thus, when faced with a modern condition subject – a ‘person’ – or a predefined 18 W. Benjamin, The Arcades of space-time compression and dissolving set of properties, but an agency whose Project, p. 9. categories of public and private, intimacy capacity to affect or be affected21 changes and integrity, chances are we begin to with every encounter with another body, 19 R. Exo Adams, lecture at wrap our bodies in blankets made of the every ‘felt’ transition between figurations. the TU Delft, 19 February very stuff from which we initially wanted Contemplating the above critical 2018. shelter – every body is fashioned to fit conceptualisation of the interior, it appears 20 the system, while the system makes itself as if bodily scale and abilities in relation to Braidotti, Nomadic fit. Whether conceptualised as a divine the material configuration its surroundings Subjects, p. 4. replica, a sinful vessel, a productive – its environmenal features22 – are crucial 21 machine, a part of an unruly mass, or to the human capacity to perceive, G. Deleuze and F. – as in contemporary ‘urbanity’ – a free- relate to, and appropriate it; when the Guattari, A Thousand floating ”bio-economic dividual”18 and environment is too ‘large’, abstract Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, New York: site of data-extraction, the body has or distant, it ‘disappears’; becomes University of Minnesota always performed the role of ‘hinge’ ungraspable. However, in order to avoid Press, 1987, foreword. between political structure and spatial an overly phenomenological or localist 22 19 organisation. Most understandings of reading, one ought to define the body A. Chemero, ‘An Outline of the body to date, however, reduce it to a in terms of its affects and affordances. a Theory of Affordances’ , representation of a civilisation, cause, or These are, argues Anthony Chemero, to Ecological Psychology, vol. 15(2), p. 181. truth somehow located ‘elsewhere’. My be understood as relational phenomena project approaches the body as neither between bodily abilities and situational 23 object nor subject of the city, but as an features23 which are perceived to allow Chemero, Outline of a Theory of Affordances, entanglement of, as Rosi Braidotti puts particular activities – conditioning not only p. 191. capacity, but also disposition to act. Given effects, however, is the formation of a that affects are emergently relational, they metanarrative, a ‘supra-niche’ which are always externalities, and although dictates and restrics affordances and ‘countable’, they are fundamentally affects on an unprecedented scale. My qualitative. The combined affordances of project argues that architecture can an animal, human or otherwise, form an operate as an event which transforms 24 Ibid., pp. 191-192. exclusive niche – which one could regard not only the features of a particular as an ‘interior’ – which is constantly subject environment, but induces an ‘internal’ 25 to events24 – predominantly ‘external’, reconfiguration of the subject itself – not Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway, p. 152. environmental occurrences – that alter by ‘triggering’ predetermined behaviours the configuration of said affordances. or sensations, but by shaking the habitual; 26 After pointing out the mistake of regarding by exteriorising, exposing, and thus E. Grosz, Chaos, Territory, Art. Deleuze and the 26 human habitats as ‘organisms’ or intensifying the bodily experience of Framing of the Earth, New representations, the ‘city’ emerges as a being ‘of-the-world’ rather than merely York: Columbia University collection of unstable niches; a multitude ‘in-the-world’. Architectural form can be Press, 2008, p. 24. of phenomena brought about by bodies explored as something which produces 27 intra-acting, simultaneously inside subjectivity from the ”preconscious” Braidotti, Nomadic and outside of themselves, in a mutual and ”prediscursive”27; from lived, Subjects, p. 14. 25 28 articulation of matter and meaning. embodied, ‘molecular’ intensity. 28 A. Lara et. al., ‘Affect and Much like any other political, Yet, although shattering dated Subjectivity’, Subjectivity, vol. 10, 2017, p. 39. economical or social project, the categorisations, maintainting a healthy Seamless Paradigm is produced from a distance to essentialism and determinism, 29 series of events which affect a multitude and presenting affects as afforded L. Blackman, ‘Affect and Automaticity’, Subjectivity, 29 of niches, thus changing concerned intensities which are neither ‘emotional’ vol. 7, 2014, p. 378. organisms’ capacities to act; their nor ‘rational’, one might ask whether this degrees of freedom. The particularities conceptual framework runs the risk of 30 Lara et. al., ‘Affect and 30 of its globally homogenising, interiorising neutralising, depoliticising – ‘flattening’ – Subjectivity’, p. 33. the subject and its environment to the point to homelessness, or to being in a literal of surrendering to an ever relativist status state of motion. To Braidotti, nomadism quo. Indeed, since affect ‘in itself’’ does is a subversive, deeply political mode33 not discriminate, a shift from interiorised of being – a tonality, pattern, temporality consent to exteriorised dissent as well – and the nomad a subject which sheds as the construction of non-normative indentities, trajectories and belongings in collective imaginaries requires a ”re- favour of a roaming reality where minor theorisation of subjectivity”.31 Quoting positions, ”alternative figurations” and Donna Haraway; “it matters which stories destabilisations of ‘self’ are embraced tell stories, which concepts think concepts. and encouraged.34 In such an uprooted

Mathematically, visually, and narratively, it existence, consistency and coherence 31 matters which figures figure figures, which is achieved through recurring rhythms Ibid., p. 34. systems systematize systems”.32 and situated, bodily experiences rather 32 than through hegemonically encoded D. Haraway, ‘Anthropocene, Through the notion of the ‘nomadic’, locations, roles and discourses. However, Capitalocene, Rosi Braidotti outlines one such Braidotti distinguishes the relatively Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin’, potential displacement of the trope of privileged, affirmative state of nomadism Environmental Humanities, the singular, humanist subject – seeking from the superficially similar conditions vol. 6, 2015, p. 160. empowerment in a fragmented, ‘non- of migration and exile, both of which are 33 civilised’ existence. This nomadism has primarily defined by the notion of a missing Braidotti, Nomadic little to do with the Seamless equivalent, ‘home’. For, indeed, in order for subjective Subjects, p. 1. which transforms a willingly itinerant experience to ”make statements of general 34 35 way of life into an obligatory, precarious value” ; to form bonds and connections Ibid., p. 4. condition, seductively packaged and sold and bring about new, transferrable as ‘world citizenship’ and ‘freedom of affects, location matters – subjects need 35 Ibid., (quoting Donna choice’. Neither does it refer to travelling, somewhere to dwell, if ever so briefly. Haraway), p. 37. IV. Ritornello – Constructing Territories

While acknowledging ‘chaos’ as the with the ‘external’ milieu of available primary state of the universe, we can avoid matter, through the ‘intermediate’ nihilist or even apocalyptical rhetorics by milieu of membranic limits.38 Milieus suggesting it be defined as a condition are material assemblages concerned where nothing has a natural place; where with selection and framing – boundary- no thing is already made.36 Chaos is a enactments dealing with directionality soup of pure potentiality, of unfettered and functionality, beginnings and ends; 36 39 becoming; simultaneously a prerequisite raising questions of ‘where’ and ‘what’. A. Kleinherenbrink, for and a threat to ‘life’. In order to grasp However, while explaining the orientation ‘Territory and Ritornello: just how beings still manage to organise and to some degree desires of bodies in Deleuze and Guattari on Thinking Living Beings’, provisional homes, to claim temporary space, little remains known of how milieus Deleuze Studies, vol. 9, turfs in the midst of utter muddle, and affect each other, or how components issue 2, 2015, p. 212. especially how art, architecture and the wander between assemblages: to grasp 37 40 ‘city’ contribute thereto, I will introduce the this in-between , transition, passage Deleuze and Guattari, A Deleuze-Guattarian notion of ritornello as – the ‘how’ and ‘when’ – one needs to Thousand Plateaus, p. 313. analytical concept as well as generative introduce a notion of periodic repetition, 38 tool. pattern, or rhythm. Just like niches Deleuze and Guattari, p. are conditioned by events, milieus are 313. We already understand the niche regulated by rhythms – manifested as 39 as the collected affordances of a being, variations in pure relationality, pure A. Kleinherenbrink, but this accounts for but one part of the intensity, pure becoming, rather than any ‘Territory and Ritornello’, quarternary ”block of space-time”37 that steady, measurable pulse. Yet altough p. 212. constitutes a milieu – the ‘annexed’ one, these intervals distinguish a milieu from 40 meaning the organism-environment chaos, milieus cannot become ‘homes’, or Deleuze and Guattari, system from which the being receives ‘worlds’ until rendered expressive through p. 313 41 energy and overall agential capacity. In an ”artistic and appropriative” act or 41 addition, the ‘internal’ milieu of the body, event – a territory. Subjectivity emerges R. Bogue, Deleuze on such as organs or cognitive processes, alongside the territory, as stylised rhythms Music, Painting and the Arts, London: Routledge, is continuosly exchanging information and qualitative components 2013, p. 19. become signatures or markings of a the world - at all relevant to architectural specific space, recognising the space as practice? First of all, it affords us a tool claimed; possessed. Although there are to crack open what Kleinherenbrink calls no ready-mades, qualities and rhythms ‘universalised assemblages’43 – God, have a machinic, autonomous disposition Market, Nation, Nature, and why not which allows for every artistic, aesthetic Seamlessness – and reorient our gaze expression to be different, assigning towards the ‘plotholes’ in such interiorising, meaning to flows and ritualising behaviours determinist narratives; the radically for the purpose of information and signal. external yet intensly embodied relations This simultaneously de- and recoding, de- between heterogeneous points of view. If and reterritorialising force that constructs the Seamless modulates subjectivity not and regulates territory is the ritornello, by natural law but through the expression which operates by assigning a ”point of of particular motifs and counterpoints, it stability” in the shape of a differentiated means that other ritornellos are possible component; tracing a ”circle of control” or through other expressions; that the volumetric space, and drawing a ”line of line of flight to the immanent exterior 42 Bogue, Deleuze on Music, flight”, opening the territory to other, non- is unbroken; that although one cannot Painting and the Arts, p. 17. territorial, milieus.42 The ritornello thus avoid complicity44, one can stave off expresses the syntactical relationship real subsumption. Secondly, it helps us 43 Kleinherenbrink, ‘Territory between internal and external occurrences understand the crucial difference between and Ritornello’, p. 221. – territorial motifs and counterpoints – as mechanisms of capture and mechanisms a style which should be appreciated as of holding – while both possessive 44 Massumi, 99 Theses, neither ‘final touch’ nor ‘frivolous flair’, and centralising, argues Deleuze, the para. 59. but as the assembly of a specific mode of former attempts to establish conditions being; of subjectivity itself. of causality, hierarchy and entitlement, 45 Deleuze, Postscript on forming sovereign enclosures that function the Societies of Control, Why, then, is this complex philosophy like ”moulds, distinct castings”45, while the p. 4. Capture operates of disassembly and reassembly, decoding latter produce a facilitating environment, on all levels - material, psychological, symbolical, and recoding – in short; territorialisation of controlling not end states but modulations, sociological... like a ”self-deforming cast”.46 of freedom, are capable of satisfying not Mechanisms of capture are instrinsically only needs but desires, and strive towards systemic and quantitative, while holding an urban economy beyond self-interest, mechanisms are processual and we need to promote wiggle-room over qualitative – when affect is captured, perfect fit; favour a certain delay, distance explains Massumi, it mutates into and tension between subjects and matter personalised emotion that clings instead of immediate reaction, adaptation to ”aspirational narratives” of self- or appropriation.48 actualisation47, whereas ‘holding’ affect means condensing and intensifying it, allowing the subject to assemble and express a multitude of ‘personas’, similar to the styles and figurations discussed above, for the purpose of differentiating rather than homogenising the ‘self’’. Thirdly, the notion of ritornello empowers ethico-aesthetic practices, such as architecture, by conceptualising artistically expressive composition of spatiotemporal intervals as the very 46 Ibid., p. 4. foundation of what we habitually call ‘society’, albeit that this agency is more 47 transductive than inductive. As elaborated Massumi, 99 Theses, para. 67. by Claire Colebrook, in order for the city to become a life-affirming territory, if one by 48 life means intensity, producing territories C. Colebrook, Sex and the (Anthropocene) City, which enjoy the greatest possible degrees unpublished, 2017, p. 1 V. Designing with the Immanent Outside

Architecture, as a material-discursive, in density and longevity of material, a aesthetic practice, is always transversal; qualitative difference in composition cutting through milieus, and articulating and modulation of space, and, just like the in-between through these cuts, the ritornello, the manner in which these producing and distributing relatively stable are expressed constitute a ‘style’ of spatial/quantitative as well as temporal/ being, intra-acting, relating. Rather than qualitative intervals. Whereas classical assemling a custom-made solution to notions of strength, utility and beauty, an immediate ‘problem’, I would like to which still seem to prevail as means of consider my architectural intervention both production and ‘evaluation’, capture as a foundation for new rhythms, styles creativity and political agency inside and subjectivities; indeed a question the boundaries of objecthood, a view of rather than a response. Therefore, I aim architecture as ”processual ecology”49 to design with a degree of ‘permanence’; suggests replacing structure with rhythm, with a sense of the irrevocable, allowing function with affects, and appeal with for perceived contingency or ‘threat’ to lived intensities. Effectively, if form and make a lasting imprint. materiality is treated in these terms, we can decode architectural components of certain inherited associations – for example, a transparent surface does not signify openness, but allows us to see through, to enjoy sunlight, and experience multiple spaces at once; a tall wall does not signify occlusion, but blocks or delays a bodily trajectory. When designing for (or preferably with) a population in transit, I find it important to find alternatives to a ‘temporary’ aesthetic. Despite avoiding symbolism, there is an actual difference 49 Massumi, para. 11. Free 1958- Circulation Treaty of Rome

Single PROJECT POLICY PROGRAM Market ! 2013- 1996- ! 1990- SIS: Schengen Trans-European Transport 1958- Schengen Convention 2015 Information System Network (TEN-T) * EUCU: European Refugee Customs Union Crisis Connect European Monetary Controlled European Court Europe Citizenship Union Borders ! of Justice 2010- Directorate-General for Sustainable Maritime European European Mobility and Transport Transport Transport Community Commission Without 1993- Barriers Maastricht Treaty European 2010- Single 2015- Parliament Europe 2020 Competitiveness European Job Creation MOS: Motorways Strategy € Transport Cohesion of the Sea 1999- Area Amsterdam Treaty 2008- 2013- 2013- Air Quality Directive Core Network Horizontal Priorities Corridors Project Tech Projects Techno- Knowledge Economic Economy 2008 Paradigm 2011- 2013- 2013- Financial Crisis Urban Mobility Policy Rhine-Danube ERTMS: European Railway 2009- Smart Freight Corridor Trafﬁc Management System ! Poor Urban Sustainable Lisbon Treaty Air Quality Inclusive ! INTERNATIONAL 1958- 2017-

Decentrali- French State: Ministry for Ecological and sation Fifth Republic Solidary Transition 2016-

2015- 1982- Crit’Air Eco-Vignette: Air Quality Certiﬁcate Loi NOTRe: New Org. of LOTI: Law for Organisation the Territory of the Republic of Internal Transports

1990- 1937- Accessibility Public- VNF: Voies Quality SNCF: Société Nationale des Private Navigables France Relationships Affordability Chemins de Fer Français

1996- 1996- PDU: Urban Loi Sapin: Public Travel Plan Procurement Code 1981- World’s Fastest TGV: High-Speed Train 2007- Railroad LGV Est: Ligne 1966, 1974 2015 LGV, TGV, Grande Vitesse A35, A4: Eckwersheim Location, Taxes National Highway Derailment ! 1925- ! SXB Airport 2010’s- Low Profitability NATIONAL ! 2016- 2010’s- Grand-Est: Region for 1926- Low Territorial Administration Pleasant Profitability Autonomous Port Metropolitan Attractive Status Functional ! 2016- as Brand ‘Hyperstructurant’ Ecological ‘Structurant’ Bas-Rhin: Department for ‘Distribution’ Territorial Administration (67) 2010- 2014 2015- PDU: Strasbourg Mismatch Strasbourg Europmétropole: Train Size Metropolitan Area 1878- ! CTS: Strasbourg 1984- Transport Company TER: Transport A350, A351 Express Regional ‘Service- Oriented’ Plan France’s 6th Most Public ‘EcoCité’ ! Congested City Transport

GCO/A355 1928- 1994- 2010- 2007- Bypass West Bus Tram Vélhop Park n’ Ride 2016- Anti-Bypass ! Demonstrations REGIONAL / LOCAL ??

SEAMLESSNESS AS PROJECT Whether considered as a means of social cohesion or as a tool for market expansion (or both), global mobility enjoys the role as one of few untouchable ‘truths’ in contemporary planning and politics. However, although generally conceived of as an inherently modern, self-evident condition, it is not a ‘fait accompli’ but a an ongoing process – a Project.

Motor Rail 164 (40%) Arguing that the European Union is ultimately nothing more, nothing less than infrastructure IWW 29 (7%) *ERTMS 42 (10%) ATM 16 (4%) – circulation of goods and people – reifying external boundaries while deterritorialising internal Multimodal 31 (8%) Wiring Road 52 (13%) ITS 4 (1%) ones, this map traces the ‘wiring’ of Strasbourg transport systems from latent ideals to manifest Galileo 1 (0.2%) MOS 20 (5%) Switch Airport 11 (3%) interventions. The hightlighted instances of resistance serve to show the fragility of the material Port 26 (6%) RIS 15 (4%) Number of Projects

05 0 100 150 200 dimension of the hypermobile, ‘seamless’ paradigm, yet illustrate the political persistence of its Multiplier Rail 2925 (53%) IWW 599 (11%) ideals. Finding a ‘breaking point’, a potential short circuit, appears impossible; when faced with ERTMS 462 (8%) ATM 407 (7%) Ground Multimodal 249 (4%) friction, the system rewires - in terms of management and money flows - tunes into current needs Road 224 (4%) ITS 210 (4%) Galileo 190 (3%) and trends - such as disincentivising car use - or polishes its rhetorics - from ‘circulation’ to MOS 150 (3%) Resistor Airport 51 (1%) Port 55 (1%) ‘connection’, from ‘market’ to ‘competitiveness’, from ‘technology’ to ‘sustainability’... Yet, these RIS 33 (0.5%) Funding (million €) ! Resistance 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 points of friction serve as ‘plot holes’ which can be used to build other narratives. 1.

E25 A4

A350

A35 2. E25

3. A351 5. 4.

A35 E25

N4 E52

8. 9.

A35 E25

1 Municipal Insertion Camp for Romani migrants ‘La Villette’ (opened Sept. 2017) 2 Illegal Romani migrant camp 3 Former illegal Romani migrant camp (evacuated in 2015) 4 Former illegal Romani migrant camp ‘Petite-Forêt’ (evacuated in 2012) 5 Municipal Insertion Camp for Romani migrants ‘Espace 16’ (opened Aug. 2012) 6 Former illegal Romani migrant camp (evacuated in 2015) 7 Former illegal Romani migrant camp (evacuated in 2015) 8 Illegal Romani migrant camp 9 Illegal Romani migrant ISLANDS IN THE STREAM camp, ‘L’Écluse’ Questioning a conception of the contemporary city as a smooth ‘organism’ of seamless Rhythm/intensity infrastructures, this map identifies places where the scale of the network translates poorly to the

Allotment garden scale of the immediate territory – creating carefully carved islands of ‘useless’ residuals – as well as sites which resist the regular rhythm of ever-circulating bodies and goods. Such a reading Cemetery highlights not only the actual thickness of the multi-modal transportation border that bypasses and

Residual bisects Strasbourg, but rewrites the landscape as an archipelago of disparate, coexisting tempos and spatial intensities. Post-industrial This friction becomes even more tangible at certain points, where local residuals and

Migrant camp heterotopias intersect with the territory of the European Union and its supposedly ‘open borders’ – points appropriated to serve as legal and illegal migrant camps. These precarious settlements, Overpass whose inhabitants are not only travellers by culture but literally required to circulate in order not to

Eurometropolitan area disturb the status quo, become traces of that which is not allowed to leave a trace. TRANSIENCE Expression Supply

Holding Precaution 1. Train Yard 2. Grain Silo 3. Hostel/Hotel 4. Luggage Box ) ’ S G U E T N A E R R A P I 8. Solidary Storage C P 5. Water Tower 6. Surplus Granary 7. Wine Cellar

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10 9 12 7 9 9 BUFFERS The Seamless Paradigm demands flux – goods and people have litte value if not constantly transacted, circulated. Contemporary phenomena such as urban nomadism, business platforms, 13 4 14 4 4 6 just-in-time supply chains, and service-oriented consumption promote minimal material 8 11 accumulation in pursuit of supreme spatiotemporal efficiency. However, today as much as 12 1 5 12 yesterday, we depend on, care about, and struggle with stuff – things with extensive properties 7 2 15 impossible to ignore, and necessary to somehow contain. Container technologies produce a facilitating environment by providing margin, memory and predictability; by synchronising Storage Space individual needs and collective interests. Such spaces are commonly considered auxiliary, Public 12 passive and receptive, lacking other purpose than that of keeping and holding, and yet they need no manipulation to perform, produce, at maximum capacity. Containers create a systemic ‘lag’, Collective Memory 10 which allows us to evaluate fluctuations, haeccities and tendencies in otherwise hyper-responsive Self-Keeping networks. In the network of needs and desires that is the city, storage manifests itself as a vast array of artifacts for containment and supply, all revealing a background dialogue between current Continued Original Use norms and limitations. Discontinued Original Use This map attempts to catalogue the formal, programmatic and discursive logic of select Strasbourg spaces designed to store, for shorter or longer periods of time, that which we value. Holding-Supply Some follow very precise volumetric standards, whereas other approximate current and future Precaution-Expression demands - their configuration effectively determining reuse and iconic potential.

MON TUE WED THU FRI 10 0 0

AMSTERDAM

ROTTERDAM 80 0

BERLIN

DÜSSELDORF

COLOGNE

AMS SXB 60

KOBLENZ 0

FRANKFURT

AMS AMS

BRU

LIL 40 0

Iffezheim

PRG

BRUSSELS SXB

LUXEMBOURG RNS

LIL NTE BRU

PRG

STRASBOURG PARIS 20 0

VIENNA BRATISLAVA

LYS

RNS NTE BUDAPEST

Car Flux Two wheel Collective BASEL 7 days/w

Walk 6 days/w LYS Other 5 days/w BERN Train 0 Boat 4 days/w Car usage <25% 3 days/w 04.00 08.00 10.00 14.00 18.00 22.00 00.00 Car usage 25-50% Car usage >50% Axiomatic structure. Site construction. Marked site. (Porte de Pierre) (Porte Blanche) (Montagne Verte)

P AR IS

A35

A351 HA UTEP IERRE

RT PO AIR E52

K EHL

L M

SITE CONSTRUCTION

LANDSCAPE Contradiction ARCHITECTURE I n v MARKED o l u AXIOMATIC n t

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t o SITES a STRUCTURES CONSTRUCTED SITES ic n Impl Just like Rosalind Krauss believed that ‘sculpture’ was too blunt a word to describe postmodern threedimensional art, ‘site’ and ‘building’ are too vague to portray the existing and potential LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE conditions of the predominantely infrastructural zones of Strasbourg. Krauss’ so called ‘expanded field’ matrix produces new categories by crosspollinating seemingly exclusive conditions through relationships of contradiction, implication and involution. Here, views from the road within and adjacent to large traffic intersections are analysed according to said matrix, affording a more SCULPTURE nuanced reading of a seemingly homogeneous infrastructural landscape. SEDIMENTED DEVIATIONS

Infrastructure space might be perceived as continuous, smooth and highly efficient. However, where the flow meets the materiality of static structures, and the speed and mass of the vehicle any trajectory but the straight and linear, specific anomalies occur. This model, based on three areas around the motorway entrances to the city, traces deviations from the ‘perfect’ flow as ridges and trenches carved into the landscape by the passing vehicles – their movements reshaping the territory like a desert wind. After all, the supposed smoothness of she surface cannot be achieved without this strange topography.