NORDISK ARKITEKTURFORSKNING 1994:4

Physical Spaces and Public Life

by Sharon Irish

Buildings exist in time and may be reclaimed fornew purposes. In claiming architectural spaces, we expand the meanings of the original designs, possibly strengthen community bonds and broaden architects' roles. Sharon Irish University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA settings further dialogue among citizens and Tema RUM FÖR KULTUR lead not only to better understandings of civic HAEDRUS, in Paul Valéry's Eupalinos, or issues but also to new appreciations for contem• the Architect (1924), asks if one notices, porary or historic designs. The examples I offer Pwhile walking in the city among buildings, of temporary installations in public sites in the that some of the buildings "are mute, others suggest some ways designers might speak and others, finally - and they are most rare increase positive interactions among us all. - sing!"1 In this essay I would like to explore The installations with which I am concerned how some citizens have used public or semi- are intentional constructions that temporarily public spaces to promote dialogues among peo• appropriate space to make a point or accomplish ple while also reinterpreting architectural voi• a goal.2 My selections are not buildings, though ces, be they silent, spoken, or choral. I have se• each relates to an architect-designed building. I lected examples from the United States with use the word "public" loosely. Certainly in the which I am familiar personally, although the last several decades in urban areas, zoning vari• activities are not unique to this country. ances and public amenities within private spa• How do people interact with the literal and ces have redefined the meaning of public space. figurative openings in a public building? Are I use public to mean an area where large num• there ways that the general public can use physi• bers of people congregate and/or to which they cal spaces to increase communication among have access: malls, parks, government buildings, themselves? In certain instances architectural skyscraper atria, and streets and sidewalks.

25 Figure 1. Streams of Conscience in Bowling Green Park, , a performance by Donna Henes, June 1984, in front of the New York Custom House, 1899-1907, Cass Gilbert, architect, with sculpture of "America" by D. C. French to the left of central arch. Photo courtesy of Donna Henes. The three examples I present challenge each of Brooklyn-based performance artistDonna Henes us to think about and discuss contemporary reminds us: problems in America. Most of the installations [A]tthis very moment we're on a planet, we're arose from concerns shared by small groups or a walking upside down, we're revolving and particular individual; all spotlight their ideas in spinning through space at the same moment... a forum of public architectural space. I believe How often does this enter your conscious• that the architectural settings selected increase ness? We don't notice it, let alone notice the the impact of those "claiming space" because of first day of the season, longest or shortest day the contrast between the temporary and the per• of the year... So I guess that's my job, to point manent, the challengers and the status quo. In that out to us in the city and to create ways we each case, the "space claimers" were local, re• can celebrate that are ... meaningful to us in sponding to local versions of global problems. modern times. Because the only thing that's When projects find a way to affirm or build a going to save the planet is to start thinking of connection to common values in a locality and ourselves as a planet...4 establish a dialogue, the result is a deepened group identity; enhanced self-respect; stronger In front of New York City's U.S. Custom House, public skills; and support for the values of co• self-styled urban shaman Donna Henes organ• operation and citizen responsibility. These cri• ized a ritual for peace at the summer solstice in teria form what Sara Evans and Harry Boy te 1984. "Streams of Conscience" was performed label "free spaces;" they consider these spaces at the Bowling Green, a spot in lower Manhat• sources for democratic change in America.3 tan that is filled with people in business suits

26 SHARON IRISH Figure 2. New York Custom House at Bowling Green, New York, from I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Icono• graphy of Manhattan Islandv. 3: pi. 165 (1915). with packed agendas. The site is round with a foreign policy, then and now.6 For "America," round fountain. Henes said: French composed three figures into a pyramid, I filled it with little circular mirrors to absorb with the kneeling figure of Labor holding a positive images... For 17 hours people chanted wheel of Progress and an Indian gazing over a for peace. Wall Street workers came by and powerful woman's shoulder. This sculpture is joined us. People thought it was unusual - but visible in Fig. 2, to the left of the central arched what's more unusual is that something in our entry. The woman, the personification of Amer• 5 ica, has a sheaf of corn in her lap. As a backdrop culture forces people to act in alienating ways. for Henes' banners that were offerings for peace I find Henes's projects all the more powerful be• in many languages, the Custom House stands as cause of the settings she chooses. Cass Gilbert, a reminder that government choices indeed af• the architect of the 1907 Custom House at New fect us all. Here is a sculptural group marking the York's Bowling Green, in 1903 invited the re• main facade that sings the praises of national nowned sculptor Daniel Chester French to carve commercial power and importation of resources four statues representing the "Continents" - Asia, forindustrial growth. While French's "America" America, and Africa. Completed and in• carries a torch and appears alert to future op• stalled in 1907, French's work reflects the impe• portunity, "Europe" sits calmly amid symbols of rial designs and hierarchical construction of U.S. the past, "Asia" meditates and "Africa" sleeps.

PHYSICAL SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE 27 The Custom House is traditional, in the sense ting all of us about specific histories, designers that it was built to fit in, to be complicit with a also can alert users to the "covert power," in dominant aesthetic that would meet the clients' Walter Benjamin's words, that architecture ex• expectations.7 How can we insert new mean• erts. Designer Andrea Kahn points out that this ings into structures that seem ideologically and power "is embodied ... in the presentational ele• stylistically outmoded? Diana Agrest advocates ments of architecture, each of which constitutes this approach: "To design is not to reclose but to an apparatus of control: walls erect barriers to affect the openings and be affected by them, to free movement; windows, in framing given play an intersection between two subjects...".8 views, determine the scope of vision; thresh• Celebrations like "Streams of Conscience" do olds tell us where to go."12 affect the openings, among people and, figura• As an architectural historian, my interest is tively, among spaces. The New York Custom in how existing buildings might be rewoven into House bears witness to the values of the power• the urban fabric, how their walls, windows and ful at the time it was built. But Mary McLeod thresholds can be reclaimed for more of us to has pointed out that the "ever-quickening cycle use. If citizens can view extant buildings as part of consumption... seems to cause political mea• of a legacy that can be transformed, perpetually nings to change with increasing rapidity...".9 rediscovered, to paraphrase Dana Cuff, rather What once seemed timeless and universal, to than demolished, the built environment usually those who designed the building at least, now will be richer for the diversity.13 Often retrofitting seems timebound and related to a particular class or re-use makes financial sense as well. Ob• of people. Still, buildings have interstices, spaces viously, buildings constructed now will involve that we can use to reopen dialogues about our similar issues as cities change in the future. past and present. To do so does not mean buil• Perhaps if designers can be aware of "how ding more structures that relate visually to the buildings learn," as Stewart Brand has titled context of older buildings, though that is some• his recent book, future buildings can "learn" times appropriate, but rather to reclaim the spa• more effectively.14 In addition to reclaiming ces that already exist in the built environment existing spaces, it is vital that we build new and invert them, subvert them, reuse them and spaces that adapt through time. reinvent them on an ongoing basis. Architect Anne Vernez-Moudon asserts: Many buildings and open spaces, both exist• We cannot afford to internalize and privatize ing and in the design stages, do not invite user our cities. Downtowns and commercial areas participation, but some actually discourage it. are some of the few remaining refuges in our William Whyte notes in C¿fy: "Given a fine cities where people of mixed backgrounds can location, it is difficult to design a space that will come in contact with each other; preserving not attract people. What is remarkable is how this mix and reinforcing life in the public realm often this has been accomplished."10 What can we users do to reclaim space that we inhabit but go hand in hand." have had no say in how it looks or functions? Artists and activists who have used public sites Architectural historian Dolores Hayden has used in major urban centers to call for peace and the power of places in Los Angeles to teach justice sometimes spark the mix and revitalize history and culture. "[Mjany of these sites... spaces where people can argue, object, chal• could be designed to help everyone recall and re• lenge and rethink their own and the nation's member. The sum of all the sites could be a net• priorities. To institutionalize or professionalize work of new public places designed for the pre• these settings could narrow the vision by set• servation and interpretation of Los Angeles' ting it in stone or steel, literally and figuratively. unique social history."11 In addition to educa• But, when new spaces do seem necessary, a rich-

28 SHARON IRISH Figure 3. Crystal Court ofthelDSCenter,1968- 73, Philip Johnson, John Burgee with Edward F. Baker, Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Whis• per Project perform• ance in May 1987, or• ganized by Suzanne Lacy, with contribu• tions by Susan Stone and Miriam Schapiro, among others. Photo by Peter Latner. ness of interchange can be built in by thinking cago. In both projects, Suzanne Lacy was the of space as a matrix: providing for multiple uses catalyst, organizing local groups already dedi• with flexibility, complexity, and connected• cated to improving women's lives, and coordi• ness.16 nating their participation in these ambitious per• One way to design public or publicly acces• formance pieces. While she holds the flame, so sible work that enhances flexibility, complexity to speak, of the artistic ideas, she is able to join and connectedness is to think of the space in with others and allow a collective work to de• terms of its theatrical possibilities. I have found velop. recent performance art in America instructive. The Whisper Project was a two-year orga• The linkages between theater and architecture nizing effort to draw attention to the contribu• are not new, and the possible directions are tions and concerns of older women in the state of numerous. William Whyte has studied streets at Minnesota. Lacy, in residence at the time at the length: "Good performers and good audiences. Minneapolis College of Art and Design, worked These are the stuff of a good street life. Its vigor with an institute of public affairs at the Uni• is a test of the vigor of the city itself."17 In the versity of Minnesota, the Young Women's Chris• performances discussed here, existing build• tian Association (YMCA), non-profit groups de• ings provide the stage settings. dicated to alleviating the problems of the elder• Two recent projects of the performance artist ly, and individual women all over the state, to Suzanne Lacy rely on public spaces for the per• exhibit a "living quilt" in the faceted eight-story formers and the audiences. The first work, pro• glass atrium of the IDS Tower, a space dubbed duced by the Whisper Minnesota Project, culmi• the Crystal Court. The 51-story IDS building nated in a public performance in May of 1987 was the tallest building by far in Minneapolis for in Philip Johnson, John Burgee and Edward F. nearly a decade, notable both for its grand scale Baker's IDS Center (1973) in Minneapolis, Min• and its functions as corporate headquarters, of• nesota.18 The second work, called Full Circle, fices, hotel, retail shops and parking garage. The was completed in September of 1993 in Chi• Whisper Project event, held on Mother's Day,

PHYSICAL SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE 29 Figure 4. Monuments to Women of the Full Circle Project, organized by Suzanne Lacy and a coalition of Chicago women, May 1993, City-County Building, 1909-11, Holabird and Roche, architects, Chicago, Illinois. Photo by George Philosophus involved 430 older women (women over 55) policy. A taped collage of Native American and from all over the state of Minnesota who came Hmong songs, sounds of birds and thunder, and together in the atrium at tables arranged in a quilt prerecorded conversations by some of the parti• pattern. The performance was multi-layered: cipants had been arranged by Susan Stone; the conversations were going on among the audi• quilt design was by artist Miriam Schapiro. ence on the balconies and the floor, among the Several thousand people were in the audience, participants at the tables and on a pre-recorded and public television taped the performance. soundtrack. Lacy used a found space, a skyscraper space, At the appointed time, the participants, clothed to culminate her organizing work. The tradi• in black, entered the usually bustling atrium of tions represented by the multiple stories of glass this downtown financial center and unfolded and steel and the business hustle of downtown black tablecloths to show yellow and red on the corporate offices were at once sidelined and re• reverse sides. Then, seated at over 100 square interpreted, temporarily, by these women. tables in groups of four, the women slowly In Chicago, Illinois, the downtown business moved their hands in unison across the table• district, outlined by elevated train tracks since cloths while talking amongst themselves about 1897, is known as the Loop, after the route of the issues important to them, ranging from the fu• cable car system dating from the 1880s. In the ture to health care, from intimacy to public same decade that cable cars replaced horse cars

30 SHARON IRISH ! Figure 5. Monuments to Women of Full Circle Project, Daley Plaza in front of Daley Center, 1963-65, C. F. Murphy Associates, Chicago, Illinois. Photo by George Philosophus around the central commercial district of Chi• (1909-11, Holabird and Roche).20 These "Mon• cago, and Ellen Gates Starr foun• uments to Women" were the first part of the ded a settlement house on the near-west side of Full Circle project, an effort to recognize the the city in 1889, to be known as Hull House. Hull achievements and contributions of women from House served the large immigrant communities the past and in the present in Chicago. Each rock surrounding it and brought together people of was the site for an "opening" for the honorees various classes to exchange ideas. Jane Addams on May 22,1993; the monuments stayed in place (1860-1935) was a tireless reformer, calling for through the summer.21 The second and final justice in housing, education and working con• part of Full Circle was an international dinner ditions, locally and globally.19 party at Hull House in September 1993 for 14 To honor the service and compassion of wo• well-known women leaders who discussed their men like Jane Addams, Suzanne Lacy, together visions of the future.22 with the Sculpture Chicago program and a di• The Monuments to Women claimed space, verse volunteer group, placed 100 large boulders adding a new perspective to downtown build• inscribed with individual women's names in ings in Chicago.23 In Fig. 5, the boulders are Chicago's Loop in May of 1993. Fig. 4 shows visible on the plaza in front of Daley Center, the one of the monuments placed in front of Chi• 1965 response by C. F. Murphy Associates to the cago's City Hall and Cook County Courthouse City-County Building just across the street.24

PHYSICAL SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE 31 The plaza is dominated by a monumental sculp• ances, depending on the public spaces along ture (1966) by Pablo Picasso. Some boulders the way. In shopping malls or hotel atria, ob• were placed at locations that have particular jects as small as a mailbox, a lamp post or a resonance for women's history in the Loop, boulder can provide enough room for a conver• others were put where women have been no• sation. tably absent or excluded. While the Monuments Implicit to multiuse spaces is that more than were in place, they acted as gathering spots, one thing is happening at once. Architects and seats, points at which people paused, con• others can design "in the openings" of existing versed, and/or changed directions. The Loop, a single-use buildings to enhance the interactions circle of sorts inscribed by the elevated train among users, passersby and the site. In new pro• tracks, was redrawn by "Full Circle" in rocks jects, designers can provide for flexibility, com• placed within its perimeter. Then ceremonies plexity and connectedness by culling lessons honoring women moved out from the Circle to from the past about "how buildings learn". strengthen and enlarge upon the traditions of What if, instead of specializing further, of Chicago women. Lacy's work belongs to the narrowing one's expertise to fill a market niche, best art that takes the tensions and disparities we broadened the role of the architect when in life as we know it and constructs a temporal possible? What if the architect were an environ• and spatial matrix that can transform the in• mental educator? A political organizer? A com• dividual and perhaps some institutions. munity liaison between the history of the built Spatial matrices make interaction, conver• environment and the inhabitants?25 Given the sation or at least encounters hard to avoid. These dearth of new architectural jobs and the sorry encounters do not necessarily have to be with state of many cities, these broader roles could strangers that threaten or crowds that over• benefit many. The significance of place and the whelm. Given the appropriate scale and fre• power of space is enhanced by a conscious ac• quency of complex, interconnected spaces, one knowledgement of the theatrical qualities of could enjoy a neighborhood or a block with architectural designs. People act on and in the citizens becoming friends. Doing errands with spaces we create. Let us design for interactions children, for example, could turn into an outing that will promote civic life and democratic with fountains, obstacle courses and perform- change.

Notes 1. Paul Valéry, "Four Fragments from Eupa- arts in order to build bridges among people. linos or the Architect" in Selected Writings, 2. Perla Korosec-Serfaty, ed., Appropriation translated by William McC. Stewart (New of Space: Proceedings of the 3rd Interna• York: New Directions, 1950): 175. Valéry's tional Architectural Psychology Conference ideas often are inconsistent. For example, he (Strasbourg, 1976): 7. Korosec-Serfaty defines sees the author, the work of art, and the reader space appropriation as "the various modes as independent of each other; direct commu• and degrees of possession of or mastery over nication between author and reader is not the space...". goal of art for him. However, the extreme 3. Sara M. Evans and Harry C. Boyte, Free Spa• form of this idea would result in incompre• ces: The Sources of Democratic Change in hensible works of art. See Rene Wellek, Four America (New York: Harper and Row, 1986). Critics: Croce Valéry Lukacs Ingarden (Se4•. Annie Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic? attle: University of Washington Press, 1981): The Second Coming of the 60s Generation 20-21. In contrast to Valéry, I am interested in (New York: Times Books, 1987): 351. enhancing the communicative powers of the 5. Howard Kissel, "Donna Henes's art: Of eggs

32 SHARON IRISH and knots and community rites," Women's view," Advances in Tall Buildings, edited by Wear Daily (August 28, 1984): 20. Lynn S. Beedle for the Council on Tall 6. Sharon Irish, "Cass Gilbert's New York Cus• Buildings and Urban Habitat (New York: tom House, Bowling Green," M. A. thesis Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986): 3. (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern Univer• 16. Karen A. Franck, "A Feminist Approach to sity, 1982); Michael Richman, Daniel Ches• Architecture: Acknowledging Women's Ways ter French: An American Sculptor (Wash• of Knowing," in Ellen Perry Berkeley and ington^.C.,PreservationPress, 1976): 103— Matilda McQuaid, Architecture: A Place for 111. Women (Washington, D. C: Smithsonian In• 7. William Hubbard, Complicity and Convic• stitution Press, 1989): 203. Complexity is tion: Steps toward an Architecture of Con• central to the designs of Lucien Kroll as well. vention (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1980). His Composants, published in Belgium in Hubbard labeled the architecture designed 1983, was translated into English as The with Cass Gilbert's approach, "scénogra• Architecture of Complexity by Peter Blun- phie." Scénographie designs, according to dell Jones in 1986 (London: B. T. Batsford). Hubbard, effectively gained an audience and, 17. Whyte, p. 55. See n. 10 above. for a time, the audience was complicit in the 18. Moira Roth, "Suzanne Lacy: Social Reform• illusion the architecture created. The monu• er and Witch," in Art in the Public Interest, ments looked the way a certain segment of edited by Arlene Raven (Ann Arbor: UMI the population thought they ought to look. Research Press, 1989): 158-62. 8. Diana Agrest, "Architecture from Without: 19. SeeJaneAddams, Twenty Years at Hull House Body, Logic, and Sex," Assemblage 1 (Oc• (New York: New American Library [1910], tober 1988): 37. 1960). 9. Mary McLeod, "Architecture and Politics 20. For details on Chicago's City-County Buil• in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to ding, see Robert Bruegmann's Holabird and Deconstructivism," Assemblage 8 (February Roche/Holabird and Root (New York: Gar• 1989): 23. land Publishing, 1991). 10. William H. Whyte, City: Rediscovering the 21. As of this writing (October 1994), the Pub• Center (New York: Doubleday, 1988): 109. lic Art Group of the City of Chicago is at• 11. Founded in 1983, The Power of Place is a tempting to find a permanent site for the non-profit corporation that promotes new boulders. approaches to urban design, public art and 22. Some of the women who attended the inter• historic preservation. See Dolores Hayden, national dinner party included: Polish sculp• Gail Dubrow and Carolyn Flynn, The Power tor Magdalena Abakanowicz; Korean femi• of Place: Los Angeles (Los Angeles: The nist theologian Hyun-Kyung Chung; John- Power of Place, 198-): n. p. netta Cole, president of Spelman College in 12. Andrea Kahn, "The Invisible Mask," in Atlanta, Georgia; feminist activist and nov• Drawing/Building/Text: Essays in Architec• elist Nawal El-Saadawi; journalist Susan tural Theory, edited by Andrea Kahn (New Faludi; law professor Anita Hill; farm labor York: Princeton University Press, 1991): 86. activist Dolores Huerta; Indian economist 13. Dana Cuff, Architecture: The Story of Prac• and advisor to the Center for tice (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1991): 94. Women and Development, Devaki Jain; and 14. Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Wilma Mankiller, former chief of the Chero• Happens After They're Built (New York: kee Nation. A catalogue published by Bay Viking Penguin, 1994). Press documenting Lacy's project as well 15. Anne Vernez-Moudon, "Introductory Re• as other "Culture in Action" programs, with

PHYSICAL SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE 33 essays by Mary Jane Jacob and Michael 25. Michael S. Owen, associate professor of Brenson, will be available in early 1995 from architecture at Washington State University Sculpture Chicago, 20 North Michigan in Pullman, Washington, has used his stu• Avenue, Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60602. dio classes as opportunities to organize for 23. For a helpful guide to Chicago women and change in nearby communities. He and his history, see Marilyn A. Domer, et al., Walk• students presented their work in October ing With Women Through Chicago History 1993 in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the "Crossing (Chicago: Salsedo Press, 1981). Boundaries" conference mentioned below. 24. On Chicago's Daley Center (formerly the Together with community leaders in Top- Civic Center) see Carl W. Condit, Chicago penish, Washington, they have worked to 1930-70: Building, Planning and Urban improve housing and living conditions for Technology (Chicago: University of Chica• migrant workers. go Press, 1974): 134-141.

A version of this paper was presented at "Crossing Boundaries in Practice," a conference in Cincin• Sharon Irish is a Visiting Assistant Professor in nati, Ohio, in October of 1993 jointly sponsored by Art History, School of Art and Design, and a the Forum on Built Form and Culture Research and Graduate College Scholar in the School of Archi• the Center for the Study of the Practice of Architec• tecture, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, ture. The author thanks David Saile, one of the con• Illinois, USA. ference organizers, for his support. Partial funding for the research came from the Research Board and the School of Architecture at the University of Illi• nois, Urbana-Champaign.

34 SHARON IRISH