About Perspecta z r

Editors Thanks ro Send editorial correspondence ro: Carol Burns The printing of J. Glynnis Berry, Aaron BetsÞy, Liz Bmns, Perspecta ,{rchitecture is not an isolated or Robert Taylor this journal was made Mary Curtain, Stacy Genuni/1, Bolt Goll¿/, P.O. Box zrzr, autonomous medium; it is actively possible in part by Bi// Grego, Sìanøk Hariri, Richard Hays, New Haven, Connecticut o65zo engaged by the social, intellectual, and genefous gifts from: Design Peter MacKeitlt, and Llnn Ulhalen. visual culture which is outside the Gønnar Birþert¡ Joseþb Gugliettì Send orders and business discipline and which encompasses it. Burgee uitb Special thanks to correspondence to: Jobn Though grounded in the time and place Joseph Bednar Sandra C enterlnooþ Arch i tects of its making, architecture is capable Cloud and Aluin Eisennan The MIT Press Journals Department Robert Taylor Dauid M. Child¡ of reshaping the z8 Carlecon Srreet cultural matrix from Henry Cobb which it rises. A vital architecture The Norfolk projects were aided by a Cambridge, Massachuset ts c2t 'lYaten is one 42 Cox Graphic Production grant from the Graham Foundarion for J, that resonates with that culture. It is Page Rbineiteck Gwathmey Siegel and Assocìates this resonance, not reference Âdvanced Studies in Fine Art. In the Unired Kingdom, conrinenral to some Hehnzt locus left behind or yet Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Jahn to be found, Copy Editor Kohn Pedersen Fox gives Perspecta 2r was designed during send orders and business which architecrure its power. Rutb Hein Herbert McLaughlin 1984 in New Haven, Connecticut. The correspondence to: Charles Moore typeface used throughour is Garamond The MIT Press, Ltd. Perspecta zr is a collection which Staff Cesar Pelli examines how #3 and was ser by G&S Typesetrers, rz6 Buckingham Palace Road architecture is affected by Susan Roberî¡on concerns Baggs Inc., of Austin, Texas. Perspecta zr London swr\t England Jaquelin outside those inherent to 9sD Keain Rocbe Oliuia Enery was printed on S.D. SØarren's 8o pound building. It is based on â premise that Molly Hankwitz LOE Dull by Mercantile Printing Der Scutt architecture is inevitably involved with Dauid Ventari, Rauch fz Scotî Broun Horson Company of \Øorcester, Massachusetts, oo79-o958184 $3.oo * .oo questions more dif6cult rhan rhose A4aya Lìn of form or style; questions in an edition of zooo copies. This code indicates the copyrighr owner's arising in literature, consent that copies may be made for politics, philosophy, Advisors and Perspecta: personal or internal use, or for the painting, sculpture influence the MarÍin Gehner The Yale Architectural Journal personal or internal use of specifrc work of architects in America today. Cesar Pelli is published by the MIT Press, clients. This consent is given, however, Alec Purues The essays Cambridge and London on the condition rhat the copier pay included herein study today's Harold Roth architecture the stated per-copy fee through the in relation to the wider cultural field of our time, and Copyright Clearance Cenrer, Inc., z r also Congress Srreet, Salem, Massachusetts consider how the architecture of the past is or97o, for copying beyond that reconceived and repossessed according permitted by Sections ro7 and ro8 of to the knowledge of our own day. By examining the U.S. Copyright Law. This consenr the unsure ground at the does not extend ro orher kinds of edge of the discipline's established precincts, copying such as copying for general by advancing new theory, or distribution, for adverrising or by re-evaluating importanr work of the past promotional purposes, for creating new according ro new criteria, this journal collective works, or for resale. considers architecture as an arrifact embedded in the cultural matrix of the present. To free the discussion of rc: 56-z8oo5 tssN: o-z6z-7g56-z architecture from entrenched patterns, ISSN: oo79-o958 Perspecta 2 r presenrs an examination of the forms and ideas at hand in America today Copyright o r984 by from which fresh parrerns may Perspecta: The Yale,{rchitectural originate to make archirecture new. Journal, Inc., and the Massachusetrs Carol Burns Institute of Technology, excepr

6 52 roo r44

Gauìn Mact"ae-G ìbson The Continuity Marlt l,'li¡3 On a Redefinition of ù4¿rc H¿cker Notes on a Hal Foster (Post) Modern Polemics of the Modern Public Sculpture Changed NØorld Hal Foster is a critie in Neu York City and Gauin Macrae-Gibson Mary llliss is ø sculptor Marc Hacker ptzctices setior edìtor of "Art in þractices arcbirecture in in Neu York Ci4 and arcbítecrure in Neu Aneriea," He e¿ite¿ tbe New York Citl and is leacbes at Cooþer Union York City and is a collec¡ion "The Antì- assocìate þrofessor of and the Scbool ofVisral tisiting desìgn critic Aestltetic: Essals on arcbítecture øt Yale and Arts in Neu York, al Haraard Unioersity, Postmodern Culttre" C olunbia U niaersi ties. Recent uorks bate been publisbed in r98j fui He is tbe atthor of at the Fogg Museun, Ba1 Press. "Forns andThougbt: tbe lnstitute of IIO Represenlation in Conrenporary Art i?l Anterican Arcbi tecttre " lnndon, arzd lztmeier Diane Gbìr¿rd¡¡ The Architecture r54 to be published iu t985 Sculptare Park in St. b1 MIT Press. Inuìs, of Deceit Peter Eisennan The End of the Classical: the End of the Beginning, Dìane Ghirardo teaches r4 the End ofthe End 7o arcbilecture øt tbe Uniaersíty of Sottbern K. Michael Hays Critical Architecrure Perer Eisenman is a 1+1 The Norfolk Projects Califonüa atzd bas þartner ìn tbe frn of Between Culture and Form publísbed freqrently Fo*r young sculptors EìsenmanlRobertson ou arcbitecture in both and Architects, Neu York K. Michael Hays is an fozr loung Italian and Englíslt. arcbìrects uere C ì ty, t i s i ting profes sor drcb;tect in Boston and Sbe translated tbe commissioned to baìld in arcbitecttre at ar2 ã ssistant þrofessor Americat edìtion of oat¿oor srructures at Haruard Uniaersity, of arcltitecture and Aldo Rossi's "Tbe Norfol6, Connectictt. and founder of the arclt i tec t tra I lt i s tory a t Arcbitechtre of tlte City" Theìr uorh is lnslítilte of Arcbitecttre tbe Rltode Island School þrblisbed in r98z by docamented tltroaglt and Urban Studies. of Design. OPPosition Books, pbotograþbs, drauings, He is editor of Oþþositions ùlagazine an¿ statements . " " r16 and tbe autbor of 3o nHouse X" pablísbed in rg83 by Rizzoli Books. Steuen Holl Teeter-Tofter Principles 8o Peter Pttptrtleuetrìor COming Of Age

The Eclitor¡ Eero Saarinèn and Sreuen Holl is New SØork: ro Architects an Modern American Architecture arcbitect in NeuYork Citl and assistant A selectìon of recent Peter Paþadenetrìot ìs þrojecß by ten Amerìcan þ rofe s s or of a rc b i t ec t u re d þartner in lonnecþer i at Colunbìa Uniærsity, arcbìtects. Pøpademetriot I He is tbe fornder of tbe Waldmøn, Architects, Panpltlet Arcbitecture and associate professor of series, and bas aúhored arcltìtecttre at Rice seaeral of tbe pampltlets. Uniærsity, He is editor of tbe "Jotrul of Arcbìtectaral Education. " Gøain Macrøe-Giltson

So-. critics have claimed that modern There are two ways in which change The Continuity architecture is bankrupt and that we can be experienced. Either one can be have entered a postmodern era. Orhers deprived ofwhat one had, or one can be believe that at presenc we are in a rid of it. ìØhen the modernists of the postfunctional period. Then there rgzos lost their beliefin rhe values of are those who have formulated a the Beaux Arrs, they were not deprived neorationalist position. Still others see of these values; rhey rid themselves of the need for a return to traditional them. They could do so because they classicism. Each of these approaches had an alternative world to rurn ro- attempts to put architecture on a new a world of astonishing new forms, theoretical footing after rhe collapse of materials, politics, processes: in short, long-held beließ. rùØorks of beauty have the modern world. been produced according to the premises of all these theories; yer, none can admit \üØe have no such other world to turn ro as valid work produced according to now. It is the same as it was rhen, if any of the alternative theories. This now suspect in subtle and tragic ways. exclusion renders each ofthem suspect, \We have not rid ourselves of utopia, as and the very diversity of contemporary the first modernists rid themselves of architecture jeopardizes them all. An their supposed baggage; we have been approach is needed that begins with an deprived ofit. It has been taken away acknowledgement of this diversity. I from us by culture itself, by the effect of believe that such a condition can be those very facts which seemed so full of described as a new period of modern promise to the earlier modernists. architecture. It is this sense of deprivation that has \ùØhile has by no led to the reflective character ofour own means come to an end, it has undergone modernism. There is no "other, world profound transformation. NØe no longer to which we can turn; there is only our focus on the revolutionary will to own industrial one, now so familiar to achieve utopia through technology. us. \Øe can have no new and berter Instead we are concerned with the effects architecture of direction, no common of industrial civilization on the human commitment to another, improved spirit. Thus modern architecture has vision of the future. Rather, what is become an architecture of reflection on widely shared is the apprehension rhat the present rather than an architecrure the present can be comprehended, not of direction toward the future. as an indication of the furure, but only as itself. There are as many ways ro of the Modern Now thar rhe rush to condemn the comprehend this present as there are architecture of technological reference minds to comprehend it. Our currenr has lost its novelry, it becomes possible situation in archirecture is distinguished to be more objective in analyzing the first and foremost, therefore, by relation between the earlier and the diversity, the self-contemplating reason present periods. \Øhar connecrs them is of many individuals. There can no the monumental fact of industrial longer be one sensibility that reveals civilization. Flowever, ir is no longer the truth of the age. Insread, many the shared belief in a technological sensibilicies compete ro express our A $'indow in rhr irpses paradise that is rhe unifying force in industrial culture with validiry. of St, Pcter's frr¡nr architectural form; it is now the loss of "T<¡s arcls iì Ne\\' Architecturc,. belief in that paradise which unifres. K. fuIichtkl Hclys

i ¡ I I i \ I I Critical Architecture ( ,i t; I I itirl í ,,ú , ttI I tJt Between Culture and Form li,l, t' /f' I

I Ïu. as activity and { "r.hirecture, ,t knowledge, is fundamentally a I I J a ) cultural enterprise may hardly seem It It t" contentious proposition. And yet \ questions concerning the precise nature of the reciprocal influences between culture and architectural form bring opposing theories of architecture and its interpretation into forceful play.'

In this essay I shall examine a critical architecture, one resistant to the self- confirming, conciliatory operations of a dominant culture and yet irreducible to a purely formal structure disengaged from the contingencies ofplace and time. A reinterpretation of a few projects by Mies van der Rohe will provide examples of a critical architecture that claims for itself a place betueen rhe efficient representation of preexisting cultural values and the wholly detached autonomy of an abstract formal system. The proposition of a critical realm between culture and form is not so much an extension of received views of interpretation as it is a challenge to those views that claim to exhaust architectural meaning in considerations of only one side or the other. It will be helpful, therefore, to begin with a brief review of two prevalent interpretive perspectives that make just such a claim.

Ì\'lics r rrn dcr lìr,he Irri.clrichs tr¿ssc projrcr ch¿rco¿l clr.r* inrl I()I() Arcl-ritectlrre as an Architectlrre as 'I'lic u'orlclli r rc:s:; ' instrurnent of cr-rlture aLrtolìonloLrs forlll of arc.hitcc1.rlrc

The frrst position emphasizes culture The temporai convention of The opposite position begins with che Such an approach has not been Moreover, this formalist position risks The two positions sketched above are as the cause and conrenr of buiit interpretation is, on this view, assumption that the only alternative to a entirely unhealthy for architectural collapsing into an interpretive scientism symptomatic of a pervasive dichotomy form; the task of the interprerer, rhen, rerrospective. Architecture is seen as strict, factual recovery of the originating interpretation. It has done away with not unlike the one it seeks to criticize. in architectural theory and criticism. becomes che study of objects and aheady completed; the critic or historian situation is the renunciation of a single restimonials rhetorically proclaiming a If attempts co recover .history as it One side describes artifacts as environments as signs, symproms, attempts to restore an architectural and advocates a proliferation of work's greatness and humaniscic worth really happened. display a quite overt instruments of the self-justifying, self- and instruments of cultural values. object to its original meaning. interpretations based solely on form. on the basis oF its accurate representation emulation of the positivist methodology perpetuating hegemony of culture; the On this view architecture is essentially Misunderstanding is presumed to arise Interpretations made from this second of the dominant culture. It has of the natural sciences, the formalist other side treats architectural objects in an epiphenomenon, dependent on naturally because of che changes in position are characterized by the developed a specialized vocabulary attitude too often falls unwittingly inco their most disinfected. pristine state, as socioeconomic, political, and architecture, language, and world view comparative absence of historical enabling critics to calk seriously, its own scientism as formal categories containers of a privileged principle of technological processes for its various that have taken place in che time concerns in favor of attention to the rechnically, and precisely about the become more rigidly defrned and internal coherence. An alternative states and transformations. Moreover, separating the architectural object from autonomous architectural object and its architectural objecc as distinct from entrenched. lùØhen priority is ascribed to interpretive position which cuts across as a functional support for human the interpreter; the meaning must formal operations-how its parts have orher kinds of objects. Furthermore, formal categories and operations that this dichotomy would bear not only a institutions and as a reiÊcation ofa therefore be recovered by a disciplined been put together, how it is a wholly so long as we construe architecture claim to be free of history and more robust description of the artifacts, collective volition, architecture ennobles reconstruction of the cultural situacion integrated and equilibrated system that as essentially dependent on or circumsrance, interprecive analysis risks but also the more intricate analysis the culture thac produces it; architecture in which the object originated. Starting can be understood without external representative of something else, we simply reaffirming what its formal demanded by artifacts situated explicitly reconÊrms the hegemony of culture and from the documents, recorded actions, references, and as important, how it cannot see what it does icself; so long as categories predict. The supposed and critically in the taorld-in culture, in helps to assure its continuity. and artifacts which are the base material may be reused, how its consticuent parts we expect to understand architecture in universality of any one kind of formal cheories of culture, in theories of Accordingly, che optimum relationship of the historical world, understanding is and processes may be recombined. terms of some anterior process, we analysis obscures the fact that critical interpretation itself. to be established between culture and seen as essentially a self-transposition or cannot see an architecture that is, methods are formed through form is one of correspondence, the latter imaginative projection backward in The temporal convention of paradoxically, both the end of examination of a necessarily limited set A discussion of a few projects by Mies \When efficiently representing the values of time. this hiscorical method is of interpretation here is that of an ideal represertation and the beginning of of exemplars, and that these paradigms van der Rohe will draw attention to the the former. sufÊcient fidelity, an "objective and moment in a purely conceptual space; something quite its own. emanate from a specific culture-they do fact that an architectural objecc, by true" explanation of che objecc in architectural operations are imagined to not come to us untainted. It also virtue of its situation in the world, is an question results. It is supposed that be spontaneous, internalized-that is, Nevertheless, the absolute autonomy obscures the fact thar the methods of object whose interpretation has already the only alcernative to the stricc outside circumstantial reality-and of form and its superiority over study of these objects are themselves coatnenced llut is neuer contþlete. Historical methodological recovery of the cultural assimilable as pure idea. Architectural historical and material contingencies is part of a Iarger complex ensemble of contingency and circumstantiality, as situation at the time of the objecc's form is understood to be produced in a proclaimed, not by virtue of its power relationships, are contaminated by their well as the artifact's persisting sensuous origin is the denial of any historical parricular time and place, of course, but in the world, but by virtue of its own worldliness, and are legitimized by particularity, must all be considered as objectivity and capitulation to the idea che origin of the object is not allowed to admitted powerlessness. Reduced to some other cultural authority. A perhaps incorporated in the architectural object; that all schemes of interpretation are constrain ics meaning. The intent is pure form, architecture has disarmed unforeseen consequence of this they saturate the very essence of the hopelessly subjective.' precisely to dismiss any of the worldly, itself from the scart, maintaining its idealization of object and method is that work. Each archicectural object places circumstantial, or socially contaminated puricy by acceding to social and political architecture is denied its special status itself in a specifrc situation in the world, content of history, because such subject inefÊcacy. as a cultural object with a causation, so to speak, and its manner of doing matter would necessarily impinge upon presence, and duration of its own. this constrains what can be done with it the intellectual liberty of criticism and in interpretation. The particular works the availability of the formal strategies by Mies to be examined are those I for reuse. Architectural form can be would descril>e as critical. They might read and interpreted, ofcourse, yet also be calIed resistctnt and oþþositional. misreadings and misunderstandings are This is an architecture that cannot understood to occur routinely, and with be reduced either to a conciliatory benefit. In any case, there is a conscious representation of external forces or to a avoidance of any historical or material dogmatic, reproducible formal system. facc other than those of a dislodged If a critical architecture is to be worldly formal system. The way in which a and self-aware simultaneously, its building as a cultural object in time defrnition is in its difference from other is possessed, rejected, or achieved is cultural manifestations and from a priori not addressed.j cate¿¡ories or methods. Kurt Schu itte ¡s Georg (ìrosz vieg r¡f the Mcrtzbarr " F'rieclrichstrassc ' Hanr ¡r'er lithograph r92()-r9ì(r r9rá3

The critical architecture of Mies van der Rohe

Among the principal problems the The problem for the intellectual, then, Th. ,urh.. startling image of the r-922 intellectual faced in the first half of was how to oppose this debilitacing skyscraper project, published in the the twentieth century was the acute dismay, but first how to reveal it-how second issue of G, comPrises two anxiety that derived from the chaotic to provide a cognitive mechanism with architectural propositions. One, a result merropolitan experience. In the essay which to register the in¡ense changes of experiments already begun in Mies's Metropolis and Mental Life," continually experienced in the modern "The Friedrichstrasse project, is a building the sociologist and philosopher Georg city. Many of the century's early arrisric surface qualified no longer by patterns of Simmel described this condition as .rhe experiments, from the woodcuts of shadow on an opaque material but by intensiÊcation of nervous stimulation' Edvard Munch to the novels of Mics van der Rr¡he the reflections and refractions oflight by Friedrichstrasse resulting from the rapid crowding Franz Kafk4 may be seen as artemprs ro "the [<]r'arcl Munc[r glass. The other, a radical departure project, of changing images, the sharp articulate the abject despair of the charcoal - Thc Scre¿r¡n from even the earlier skyscraper studies, discontinuity in the grasp of a single individual caught by impersonal ' drarving r ¡ì95 is a building form conceived not in glance, and the unexpecredness of and incomprehensible forces. The r<) t9 terms oF separate, articulated masses onrushing impressions. These are the re þ I a m ea rcb i teþ t u (adv r er tising related to one another by a geometrically psychological conditions which the architecture) Eric Mendelsohn of and the derived core, but as a complex unitary metropolis creates.)> The typical factories of Hans Poelzig made manifest, volume that does not permit itself to consequence of this neruenleben, as if to pin down and contemplate, the be read in terms of an internal formal according to Simmel, is a blasé dynamism, the contradictions, and logic. \üØith these two related attitude-a blunting of discrimination, the disjunctures in the processes and propositions Mies confronted the an indifference to value, a languid reasoning of commerce and industry. On problem of physically and conceptually collectivity. this phenomenon "In the the other hand Dada's ferocious nihilism relaring the architectural object to the nerves find in the refusal ro reacr ro was an explicit atrempr to demonstrate city. The glass curtain wall-alternately their stimulation the last possibility of the futility of conventional modes of transparent, reflective, or refractive accommodating to the contents and reasoning in the face of the chaotic city. depending on light conditions and forms of metropolitan life. The self- 'ts Jean ,trp put it, "Dada wished to viewing positions-absorbs, mirrors, or preservation of certain personalities is destroy the hoaxes of reason and to distorts the immediate images of city bought at the price ofdevaluating the discover t an unreasoned order." And life. The convex, faceted surfaces are whole objective world, a devaluation Mondrian named the city itself as the perceptually contorted by the invasion which in the end unavoidably drags ultimate form toward which de Stijl of circumstantial images, while the one's own personality down a into tended. genuinely Modern artist reflection each receives 4 "The concavity on feeling of the same worthlessness. > sees the metropolis as Abstract living its surface is that of its own shadow, converted inco form; it is nearer to creating gaps which exacerbare the him than narure.,u ft is against this disarray. metropolitan predicament that the early work of Mies van der Rohe should be seen.

lric Mcndclsohn Schocken f)c¡rirrtnrent St,rrc Sruttgart r<¡26- zt¡ i\|i, . r.rrr ,1,.r 1ì,,1r. ,.ì'l These surface distortions i\l ics r ¿r¡ rle r Iìohe accompany In the skyscraper project of rgzz Mies f'kirrr.rl,.'r ¡,r,,i,,, ,,i ', and accentuate the formal inscrutability Sttrtr.r¡.rrr Ilirnk approached a tadically new conception ltrojccr of che volumetric configurarion. ( ()ll,L,Ìr, In of reciprocity between the corporeality classically derived ¡ r¡rli form, the viewer can of the architectural object and the grasp an antecedent logic of the object, irnages of culture that surround it; deciphering the relationships between þy r9z8-in Projects like the Adam its parrs and connecring every parr ro a Uuitai"g on the Leipzigerstrasse in coherent formal theme; the alternacive Berlin, the bank in Stuttgart, and the ) i.' posited by Mies is an objecr intracrable for the Âlexanderplatz in -.. I competition to decoding @r by formal analysis. It is Berlin-he seems to have diverted his ï,t_ impossible, for example, ro reduce rhe These projects abstain from , efforts. JY'Êd', whole to a number of constituenr parrs any dialogue with the PhYsical related by some internal armarure or parricularities of their contexts; as transformed through some formal peremptorilY demonstrated in the operation; indeed, no such compositional drawings, the glass-walled blocks could relationships exisr. Neither is it possible be reproduced on any site with no to explicate the object as a deflection significant manipulation of their form. from some type; Mies has rejected the Though each building unit has been meanings that such classical design adapted to the shape and size of its own i\1it's r'.rrt clcr Iì,'lr. methods tend to promote. Insread he lot (for example, the Alexanderplatz has invested meaning in the sense of project), the relentless sameness of the r\lt'rancltr'¡rlirtz ¡rrojt.t t r tl:li surface and volume that the building units and their undifferentiated order assumes in a particular rime and place, rend to deny the possibility ofattaching in a contextually qualified momenr. significance to the placement or arrangement of the forms. But the Mies insists that an order is immanenr repudiacion of a priori formal logic as in the surface itself and that the order is the primary locus of meaning is continuous with and dependent upon precisely what is at issue; it is this the world in which the viewer acrually repudiation that links the projects of moves. This sense of surface and r928 to the research of r9zz. Meaning volume, severed from the knowledge is made a function of impersonal ofan internal order or a unifying logic, productive systems rather than of formal is enough to wrench the building operations or of representational devices. from the atemporal, idealized realm of autonomous form and install it in a specific situation in the real world of experienced time, open ro rhe chance and uncertainty of life in the metropolis.t Mies here shares with Dada an antagonism against a priori and I'lit'. r',ur tler lìr,hc reasoned order; he plunges into the .\ lex¡rrclurirl.rtz P¡ojcct chaos of the new city and seeks anorher c o lla.tle order within it through a sysremaric t rt:S use of the unexpecred, the aleatory, the inexplicable.'

This solicitation of experience is intrinsic to rhe meaning of the work; it serves to identify and individuare rhe work itself as an event having sensuous particularity and temporal duration, both of which are infrangible to its capacity for producing and conveying meaning. Nevertheless, Mies's skyscraper project is not conciliatory to the circumstances of its context. It is a critical interpretation of its worldly situation.

Àli,'s r.rn

l,li\ rcÌ.ìp|r Ì)r oìc( ( i lt.,¡rr,.rl tlr.tu ir¡.¡ Both conceptions of the archirectural Mics r'¿rlr der Rohe object-as the efficient embodiment of Gr'rtlr.llì Pavilion a dominant system of values, and as i¡r Iì¡rcclo¡r¿r the uncircumstanced existence of r 9l9 autonomous form-are seriously challenged, if not defeated, by the way in which this silent clearing claims a place in the world. Firsc there is the - recognition of rhe reciprocity between €å- the culturally qualified, empirical ê conditions of building production and the practice of archirecture. Mies's obdurate refusal to manipulate his Here we must take Mies at his word. objects co conform ro any a priori formal Ou, observations can be verified Gertrt¿n Pavilion refuse to recognize problems "SØe of logic has the effect of repudiating against the masterwork of Mies's early in L]¡rcclt¡n¡r form, but only problems of building. internal formal operations as a source career, the r9z9 German Pavilion in in tc r ior Form is not the aim of our work, but of the objects' meaning. Second, Barcelona. \Øith respecr co our analysis only the result. Form by irselfdoes not though Mies succeeds in directing che thus far, this project initially appears exist. Form as an aim is formalism; and architectural meaning to the outside- polemical and self-critical. The Pavilion n that we reject. " As hyporhesized by to what might be called cultural has been widely regarded as rhe mosr Mies, modern building production space-there is the insistence thar immaculate transcription of the modern requires that each building unit be architecture does not "honestly" spatial conception: a synrhesis of complete in itself yet identical to all represent the rechnìcal, social, or SØright's horizonral planes and others, disallowing either hierarchical economic conditions that produced ir. the abstracr compositions of the relationships among unirs or Indeed, Mies's architecture conceals the Suprematist-Elementarists; with predetermined points of focus or "real" origins of its formation by honorifrc nods to the walls of Berlage termination. Rejecting the specifrcations displacing them with a marerial ("let alone from floor to cornicer), the Gcrnrrtrl P¡¡ ilion of the Alexanderplatz comperirion, for substitute-an irreducibly architectural materials of Loos, and the podium and in Il¿rlcelotr¿ instance-which favored a curved, object. It effectively cancels the complex columns of Schinkel; all processed i¡rtcrior peripheral building that would enclose network of colliding forces in which through the spatial conceprions of and cenualize the space of the architecture originates ro presenr us de Stijl. This seems ro claim for the preexisting rraffic circle-Mies's objects with the silent fact of its exisrence. Pavilion a rareÊed sparial order rhar are disposed in such a way rhat no rr open up a clearing of implacable silence the world a culturally informed product, in the chaos of the nervous metropolis; part of whose self-definition includes the The Barcelona Pavilion begins with a this clearing is a radical critique, not implication of discontinaity and dffirence horizontally extended space which is only of the established spatial order of from other cultural acriviries. described by the uninterrupted roof the city and the esrablished logic of slab, its relation ro the columns and classical composition, but also of the Distinguishing architecture from the walls, and the corresponding constancy inhabiting neraenleben.It is the exrreme forces that influence architecture-the of section and volume implied by the depth of silence in this clearing-silence conditions esrablished by the marker floor plane. Space is, quite literally, as an architectural form all its own- and by taste, the personal aspirations of continuous between the Pavilion and the that is the archirectural meaning of its author, irs technical origins, even plaza in front of the Palace Alfonso this project. its purpose as defined by its own XIII. The Pavilion more specifically tradition-became rhe objective of engages its site through rhe careful Mies. To achieve rhis, he placed his contrasr between rhe long rraverrine architecture in a critical posirion walls, the roof slab, and the unbroken between culture as a massive body palace wall. All this solicits the viewer of self-perpecuaring ideas and form to walk through the building, but the supposedly free of circumsrance. limpid harmony of the exterior is confounded in the experience of the spatial succession of the interior. There is no prescribed logic of passage; rVhat should strike us forcibly, then, is the composition is neither a relational that the artifact is nothing less than a hierarchy of component parts nor a winning of reality." Though it exists series of identical units repeated in a to a considerable extent by virtue of its potentially endless chain. \Øhat is own formal structures, it cannot be presented instead is an assemblage of apprehended only formally. Nor does it different parts of disparate materials: simply represent a preexisting reality. the travertine pavement and walls The architectural reality takes its place surrounding the large pool, the marble alongside the real world, explicitly walls facing the court, tinted glass sharing temporal and spatial conditions diaphragms, the onyx slab and light --.-- of that wodd, but obstructing their wall, the chromium columns and absolute authority with an alternative glazing bars. The relationships among of material, technical, and theoretical these parts as ,å, are in constant flux one tr precision. A participant in the world moves through the building. Because t{¡ and yet disjunctive with it, the there is no conceptual center to organize Barcelona Pavilion tears a cleft in the the parts or transcend our perceprion of continuous surface of reality. them, the particular quality of each material is registered as a kind of , absolute; space itself becomes a function q of the specificities of the materials.

The normal system of expectations about materials, however, is quickly %*'*. shattered as marerials begin to contradict their own nature. Supporting columns dissolve in an invasion of light on rheir surfaces; the highly polished green ttl' Tinian marble reflects the highlights of

the chromium glazing bars and seems ro I become transparent, as does the onyx I slab; the green-rinred glass, in turn, .,rt uTs becomes an insuperable mirrored screen; the pool in rhe small court-shielded t', from the wind and lined in black t glass-is a perfect mirror, in which -{lPr stands George Kolbe's La Femme architectural Program was a persistent interest in a critical architecture? How historiography? it roo Têtes (The Hundred Headless rewriting of a few themes. Beginning does one define or demarcate the spatial disseminate information about the \(/oman), a purely merropoliran with a set of arbitrary propositions, or temporal interval that is the focus of monuments of culture? Is it to deliver inspiration comprising a series of Mies rationalized his initial choice of a critical examination of architecture? technical insights and opinions about collages made from scenes gathered from rhemes by demonstrating the range of This discussion of Mies suggests that the capabilities of the architect or the popular nineteenrh-cenrury illustrated their applicability. He reused them in the realm of interest is in the distance form of the building? Or is it, as has books and magazines onto which Ernst changing circumstances; he modifred established between architecture and been suggested here, to concentrate on grafted objects or occupants foreign ro and refined them over time. This sort of that which is other than architecture. the intrinsic conditions through which \What them. results in such collages repetition renders the issue oforigins or architecture is made possible? In order as .Tous les vendredis, les Titans frrst causes unproblematic, one arbitrary No single building-neither the most to know all we can about architecture parcoufront nos buanderie" (Every cantas f.rnili being imitated and repeated distinguished nor the most pedestrian- we must be able to understand each Friday, the Titans will invade our so many times as to lose its primacy. can reflect â preexistent cultural reality instance ofarchitecture, not as a passive laundry) is a laconic display of with perfect Êdelity. To the extent that agent of culture in its dominant two incommensurable experiences Though the beginning of his authorship a work is architecture, it differs ideological, institutional, and historical interlocked across rhe surface of the is arbitrary, repetition demonstrates qualitatively both from a representation forms, nor as a detached, disinfected work. Like Ernst, Mies was able to see the consistency of Mies's authorial of reality and from a reduplication of object. Rather we must understand it his constructions as the place in which motivation; it establishes the other cultural activities. But the as actively and continually occupying the motivated, the planned, and the constancy ofhis intent. A persistently difference carries ideological motivation; a cultural place-as an architectural rational are broughr rogerher with the rearticulated intent accumulates it produces knowledge both about intention with ascertainable political contingent, the unpredicrable, and the knowledge-more specifrc and more culture and about architecture. It should and intellectual consequences. Criticism inexplicable. This vision persisted even precise-of the general architectural be possible to recognize both the means delimits a Êeld of values within which in Mies's later works. The campus of program and allows the growth of that by which architecture maintains its architecture can develop cultural IIT, for example, can be consrrued as a knowledge according to its own special distance from all that is outside knowledge. redistribution of some of the design beginnings and conventions rather architecture and the conditions that strategies of the Alexanderplatz projecr than according to those derived from permit the existence of that distance. Architectural criticism and critical and the Barcelona Pavilion-a subtle some prior authority. Mies does not historiography are activities conrinuous gnfting of an alternative reality onto accept a preexisting frame of The kind of theoretical study suggested with architectural design; both criticism the chaos of Chicago's South Side. reference; he represents neither an here does not assume the prior existence and design are forms of knowledge. If authoritative culture nor an of unchanging principles for critical architectural design is resistant authoritative formal system. interpreting architecture. Instead what and oppositional, then architectural is assumed is a speciñc situation from criticism-as activity and knowledge- Repetition thus demonstrates how which came the decision to make should be openly contentious and architecture can resist, rather than architecture. This means that each oppositional, as well. SØe must seek reflect, an external cultural reality. In architectural object places restraints alternatives to entrenched modes of this way authorship achieves a resi¡îant upon interpretation, not because the operation and canonical forms. N7e must aatbority-an ability to initiate or situation is hidden within the object as strive to invest critical discourse with develop cultural knowledge whose a puzzle, but rather because contingent something more than compensatory, absolute authority is radically nil but and worldly circumstances exist at the appreciative reflections or methods of whose contingent authority is a quite same level of surface particularity as the formal analysis for objects whose persuasive, if transitory, alternative to object itself. Interpretive inquiry lies in cultural meaning is thought to be the dominant culture. Authorship can an irreducibly architectural realm undecidable. It is precisely the resist the authority of culture, stand between those conditions that seem to responsibility of criticism that this against the generality of habit and the generate or enable the architect's cultural meaning be continually particularity of nostalgic memory, and intention to make architecture and those decided. still have a very precise intention. forms in which the intention is transcribed.tl Mies van der Rt¡he Illin¡¡is Institute r¡f Technologl.(IlT) Notes

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Th. of a particular Research in vernacular here excludes ,Ar least four vernacular traditions prevail culture"r.hit.cture depends on the dialectic monumental architecture, public in North American architecture: between historical and contemporary building types, and technologically f forces- between architecture as specialized constructions; it excludes urban vernacular- the contiSuous statement of existing culture and the majority of examples from which recurring building tyPes of urban fabrics; architecture as inventive art. academic texts derive the "basics" of Between an architecture of recurring architecture. Vernacular architecture ) cultural models and architecture as the develops from the characteristics of a rural vernacular-the indigenous "-'fff.|FT- spontaneous result poesis lies an place rather than from the imposition architecture of the carpenter-architect; z of k architecture that is neither antimodern of external meanings. It exhibits 1 nor antihistorical. This argument is for fundamental and unchanging properties: commercial strip vernacular; synthesizing oppositions, not weakening the laws of gravity, the properties of 4 otherwise extreme positions; the aim materials, the interlocking plan-section suburban housing and speculative of6ce is a synthesis that intensifies instead aspects of recurring building types, and vernacular. re of a blend that compromises. A teeter- the physical link between earth and sky, 2., totter diagram illustrates the all of which are essential elements of One aim here is to analyze anonymous discussion: architecture as a cultural architeccure. vernacular architecture to Ênd cultural statement at one end is balanced by models that clarify what is urban and ..lìoutc (r Easth¿rnr architecture as invention at the other; at It is the vernacular which most clearly what is rural. The arguments in favor Ecls'ard Hopper the fulcrum are principles around which expresses the unique in a culture. of this clarification arc many, ranging r94r the ends pivot. Architecture indigenous to a particular from preservation of natural landscape landscape stands as counterpoint to and animal life to concentration of academic historical models. Vernacular human settlements for enriched models-which historians have called social interaction. This investigation the nlower" forms of architecture-are concentrates on the ûrst two vernacular deeply rooted in their sites, cultural t¡aditions. Models have not been sought backgrounds, and materials. Academic in the vernacular of the commercial strip or suburb because their multiplication models-the "higher' forms of history- have been applied cross-culturally in further weakens, rather than reûnes, many places, with the result chat urban and rural distinctions. AR<¡tñecfuRe: ARCH ta€cÍùr28. -: meanings are displaced both from the I uveLtf , oN A C v LTU f¿AL ,TtqrÉñé^rT There local culture and from the culture of the are also subjective reasons for ri concentrating tp t I t T model's origin. Transplanted high on the clearly urban and - I |lr models fail to evoke the history of the purely rural. For example, the poetic I I I I new site, landscape, or culture. Their intensity of Edward Hopper's painted most meaningful existence is in a views-the clapboard-covered cube ofa solitary house by the sea or the detached historical framework. Nor do I ¡ subsequent imitations improve or geometric block of a farmhouse sitting ì 1 I develop a form; what is built instead in golden ripples of long grass-captures t are caricatures. rù7ith a culturally the silent quality of Âmerican rural form. specifrc vernacular model as a point Hopper also selected subjects \ I of departure, a reinterpretation or from purely urban form, with sun transformation of the original in a streaming onto aligned blocks of r -ãårrilà¡lË refrned version can avoid caricature buildings, each with a chisel stair and a chimney box casting long shadows to become a positive recreation. ,. Sundav Morning- on the roof. Sublimity of architectural ÍJds'ard Hoppcr form often depends on its relation r 9lo to surrounding landscape or urban geometry. I ü

Urban aernacu/ar

(,ontigrrorrs 'l'r'¡rical 'lr'pìcal l>locli sizc The contiguous buildings in the *.rlk-up Three srages of evolution of these 'I lpical block sizc [rl,rck sizc gridded city plans of the Philaclelphia (.h r (-in Scattlc first half of .Æ conriguous building types yielded three icagr Nes \irrk I f l()() . the twentieth century exhibit cercain c¡. s() general caregories: rhe contiguous 3r,,1' . {tor,' 2(),1' Iir.' 1()() characteristics ..€ == positive rhar may serve walk-up rypes, plan-excrusion or I to the reassessmenc direct of today's .E letcerlike rypes, and rower rypes. In ilE patterns. urban building A kind of the first group rhe lot size was rhe urban vocabulary, these structures were predominant influence. In the second built according to plan-section parterns group light and air and the shape of the -il- TI that were repeated in many different plan were determinant. In the third 1?= cities. As a result nearly every gridded -+ category the dominating characteristics city in North America has U, E, L, are sectional, determined by increased or H type strucrures. The individual height. These widely varying types buildings form a fabric that is sustained often coexist on a single urban block; and completed by the lines of adjacent order is maintained by the conrinuous buildings. Continuous patterns make wall of the street. Definition of public blocks with clearly formed edges of and privare space is achieved rogerher public streets, avenues, and parks. with variations in individual buildings. Collective deÊnition provided by private structures is often lost in modern detached consrructions.

\Vains'ri¡¡ht (ìtner¿l Ìtl, rto¡s Building Las¡nno Court 'I hc ,\ptfior¡r 'I'he lleln,rr

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Parallel to collecting and making drawings of the plans of twin-tower buildings along Central Park rùØest in New York, we made a proposal in r98r for a vacant block in the city's Chelsea area on Twenty-ninth Street and Tenth Âvenue. The project for an ideal residential block in is based on a central public space. The twin- (,ot¡rn ¿rrl,A..lcìitir¡¡r tower type is recharged; it is doubled 'Ì lre (-e nturv 'l hc NI:rjcstic 'I'he Si¡n Rcr¡rr¡ t and aligned toward a public space at the Ne* \irrk (.in Nes Yr¡rk Cirv Neu, York (li¡ interior of the urban block. A slot of sky Iru i¡r Ch¿rnin lr* in Ch¿urin Emery lìoth between the towers is indicative of the r(.)lr I () l() r (.) Ì() block interior and throws a strip of sun down into it. From the interior public court the east-west view through the gardens is extended to the adjacent skyline through the void between the towers. ,tt the center of the side streets, where the adjacent buildings are lowesr, sunlight is maximized, while building development on the avenues is dense. The areas of the apartment floors in the il row houses would be large enough to I Þ.¡q..j ¡i accommodate families. I l,t ! l¡l I '¡ !.. The project advocates the coexistence of ¡t several building types to form a block- row houses, twin-tower types, and a C þ rype widened at the public open space. ta It advocates the collective assembly of individual buildings to define publicly- held exterior space on the street sides as h --¡ well as in the block's incerior. ()nc llri<Ìge o1- Ilotrscs rorltn hotrsc trt h h ir¡rr ln l)roject Nr Ptt (,r,rrnt1. rr.¡7r.¡- rt¡s: \/irginia I ()th cclltr¡ry

FEl, tl ---1 4 IT tr rl C¡bi¡r (,ap NIrrrtin, Francc R- Le Corhusier Rnra/ aernacular r()51

(,f- I I()uses ,'i--;'. I thorght, as I walþed hrtne along tìritì{¡c NS A reinterpretation of a more unusual .A focus on the simple elements of "And ler, the little path Cap A,Iartiu. hut' pr<,jcct urban vernacular type was proposed in indigenous rural buildings Presents f"ou the Bridge of Houses project of r979- fundamental principles. Vernacular Jtr.lnge t/tat this ¿n'cbìtect t¿,ho had sþent radiant cìties $r r98z for a series of houses to be built merhods of construction are determined a lifetine dreattirtg of for ,nacbines over an abandoned elevated-rail link in by the natural materials used. Identical tholsands of ìnhal:itanx, of the Chelsea area of Manhattan. Ancient building type forms (plan-section for liuittg, for the n*.tses, who thoaght pl\uloas examples of the type can be seen on the schemata) frequentiy recur in different that citìes xaere neuer eaough or bridge at Bad Kreuznach, Germany, and regions but materials vary depending on skyscrapers euer higlt enorgh, how strange the old Pont au Change and the Pont rhose most readily available. For tbat this man cltlt be truly haþpy only ìn the Marie in Paris. Modern examples include example, the basic one-room house solitade of hìs r j-square ilÌetre cabin on a Hugh Feris' proposal for apartments recurs throughout the country, made of lonely clìff abot,e the Medìterr.tnean. > on bridges as well as Raymond Hood's clapboard in New England, stone in residential bridge pro,ect for New York. Utah, brick in Virginia, and sod in Brassai on Le Corblsier Nebraska. The early-twentieth-century The Chelsea scheme proposes nineteen architect's belief in adherence to the .{ncitrrt hor¡scs o¡r ..M¿ình¿ttiur r95(). houses over a continuous public nature of materials (Frank Lloyd thc bridse at project Elements of one promenade \ùØright) adherence to basic building linking the New York or ror¡rn housc IJi¡cl K¡cuznirch R¿u r¡r¡ncl H¡¡rrcl \ùØelborn Convention Center (at present under types Çohn Root) lurks (ìernr;r¡rt' I ()l() construction) and the \West Village hundreds of years earlier in the latent ca. I()5() district. This plan would create a public messages evident in the work of the

': €"P; T:?-!ryÌ' I place ofunique character: covered arcades carpenter-architect. '';- ¡t lined with shop stalls and sitting areas ; alternate with open elevated squares or gardens. The alternating plans and t l sections of che houses reflect their different uses; student housing, luxury I ¡ flats, economy studios, and housing for :t . .l older people would be mixed in a I proportion determined by the eventual financial program of the public agencies involved. )----

The urban and architectural issues house Kivett f¡rrm Iìridge of Houscs addressed in the proposal include iì.rp¡rington house Hr ¡usc M¿rrtin Hou'ard Countl' pr()rect flliI Iou arcl (,ountl' Bor¡nc (,ountt Ar¡clrain C<¡untt' reinforcement of the urban pattern by ,...,] Missouri Misst¡uri ' .:1 maintaining a street wall, advocacy of ÀIissouri N'lissouri I hybrid forms or combined archicectural l types, and the preservation ofspecific site history by building on the foundations of disused structures.

ii r¡:.'. - Telescope ltctase iì lr ¡1. h The forces shaping primary vernacular Yotrn! hot¡sc I)inct house \JØhile designing a residence a long \\/r'ble lcsitletrce in Still ven circumstances models unite the excrinsic and che \'.tncc (.otrn¡r (-;rll,rs.rr (-orr¡rn Pond, Maryland, on Chesapeake 8t o ') Srill [)o¡rcl, Ì\lar¡ larrrl slte (approxirnatelY 3 5 t (-.¡rolirrrr intrinsic, establishing a basic unifred \ortll i\lis.orrri during the winter of r978, we called for divlsl0ns - r.rlS character. The interior organization of t,)tll centL¡¡r r lìlì ¡ encountered numerous examPles of to a mode rn space often gives order ro rhe exrerior. houses of the telescope type. A of the historic tYPe For example, the freely arranged window a house has rhree main characreristics: , a retired couPle' required pattern of the rear and side walls of a roof lines rhar are all about the divisible into three Parts' The rural house responds ro rhe incerior pitch; oucside walls making nearly constitute the basic Year- would . organization of the rooms, while the regular serbacks a progression I in of ouarters. The middle third-a i, symmetrical window arrangement of adjoining volumes; and overall form room and living room- äining I the entry facade provides frontality. descending masses, so rhar rl the smallest Part-bedrooms- d Additions are placed on the freely the sections of the building could be used onlY when there were organized sides, so as nor ro disrupt the collapse nearly inro each orher. In a for most of the year both would simple front. The inherent restraint of telescope type the size of the w off to save on fuel and the indigenous rural house unifres its opening is directly proporrional to In order to have south sun various elements; exterior, plan, and che building mass in which it as a north view to the baY from section are a composirional whole. In Fireplace chimneys are generally , a one-room-wide plan set contrast, the forces determining on the wall of adjoining segmenrs to the water's edge worked commercial-strip vernacular tend to some of the telescope houses the and was consistent with the separate the intrinsic and extrinsic. The section was built Érst, chen added to model. plan-section character of a building is a descending order. In others the often relegated to a dependent position section came first, with the larger the design, golden section behind the extrinsic commercial on. In still ochers all sections were were used to determine signage. It is necessarily an architecture at rhe same time. massing as well as location and ofappearances rather than essences. At J of smaller elements. Though they its most elemental, architecture is mass, .il|; I in many of the built line, plane, and space organized by I tr. collected in the research, adherence to type and geometry. The tl ffi fl massing and plan-section elemental rural house is nor It of the type are decorated t 't developed with a representational facade or orher t ,t with proportional rigor in symbols. Adherence rhe schemara parallel. ro .Yìi (ì of plan-section and geometric form ts unites the entire house as a single representation. I Bargain c cì ì\lr. Áirv County I t\ pc h( \c Iilerne¡rts of the Fl,rrbortr¡n, Vircinia 'L¡ tclcsc{ )l)c h()rrsc !!¡ !Du I lì-1r¡ ]T¡ D!D

flt-r - [] [] tr D

l l- r T !U trtr Dogtrot horse !F tioning regiona/isnt il Ques tl The dogtrot house consisrs of two rooms How is a cultural statemenr made in on either side of an open passage joined a modern building? The question is by a common gable roof. In some ; ,. .. ),; bound up with the impossibility of examples a sleeping loft is added in the fecreating true regionalism. The local roof over the open passage and in others materials and traditional craft of the this cenrral hall passes chrough a rwo- simple rural house have given way to story house. This type was prevalent in industrialized products, and the the South and Southwesr; rhe passage \'¡n Z-rncÌt rc:icltncc carpenter-architect has disappeared functioned as a shady breezeway, where L,'nq i:l.r¡tl as rapid population migracions have meals could also be taken in hot \r'u \,'tlr transformed North America into a vast weather. The dogcrot or possum rror r ()lì ì nonregional mass. Cost-effective mass- was named Lry eaily observers who saw produced items (windows, exterior the purpose of the passage as an animal siding, appliances, mechanical systems, shelter-a place where dogs could run and the like) give local builders in through the house. California, New England, and Florida a similar palette, supplied by a few The dogtrot type was the abstract nationwide companies. analogue for the design of a house on a heavily wooded site near a potato freld It is counterproductive to seek a return on the South Fork ofLong Island. The to preindustrial technique when a more ffi efficient and cheaper building component client's requirements included a "lap pool" (an I8' x 6o' pool for swimming can be made to frt a given design. exercises) as well as a separation between Regardless of the possibilicies and the guesc rooms and the owner's quarters. constraints of industrialized construction, The house and guest house are divided local typological prototypes can inspire by the pool running east-west, while new forms. Infusing current building views from the houses are ro rhe norrh techniques with the essence of and south. This plan provides many traditional building types might strike different views into the rrees and a balance between new forms and maximum privacy for each room. The traditional roots, reestablishing internal second floor living room of the main cultural connections in architecture. house allows for breezes through the SØhether the original type is entirely windows facing norch and south. The transformed or is merely reformed, the kitchen is locared berween rhe winter I Pturn.tl cìr,r1tr'',t \',ur Z.roclL re :icì.nr c attempt is aimed not at regionalism or dining room and a screened ar lli¡rrlt lrlrns style but at cultural reflection. poolside for summer meals. End walls of the houses, aligned with the edge of The mobility characteristic of the the pool, are doubled in the wacer's population of North America today is \'.rn 7-¡ntlt resi(l(-rl(t reflection from either direction of echoed in the mobility of designers and approach. The buildings concain a litrle architects. The natureofourcontemPorary urban place, like a slice of Venice in the culture finds the would-be regionalist forest. with simultaneous commissions on the east coast, on the west coast, and in the \ühen approaching a dogtrot, one sees South. Given the antiregional forces of the landscape beyond rhrough alarge industrialization and mobility, other opening, which establishes an empry ways to preserve local meaninÉis and center of gravity. The Long Island culcural continuity must be sought. House is a transformation of this Illumination of specifrc site history and vernacular model, retaining the idea transformation of culturally rooted types in the central void with the pool. Two are two possible strategies. building elements frame this void which Seven principles for the interpretation of urban and rwral vernacular

3 A traditional vocabulary of culturally Plan and section The principle that detail or ornament be based building types can be transformed The modern interpretation of recurring subordinate to mass is ancient. From the and reinterpreted with invention; but plan-section schemara of building types obelisks of the Fourth Dynasty to the invention needs limirations-principles. is a means of linking architectures (and simple masses of thirteenth-century Distinct from ideology or doctrine, designing cities) regardless ofstyle or Europe, dominating clarity of mass principles form the basis on which technique. The basic potency ofan is never obliterated by detail. This other decisions are made. Rather than architectural form is in plan and principle, evident in the work of many unbendable laws, these are determining which yield internal and exrernal masters, for example Ledoux, Schinkel, characteristics for integrating vernacular relations of mass and space. and Sullivan, is also evident in research with domestic projecrs. vernacular architecture. The cubic form ofa carpenter-architect's house is pierced Pu 6 /,2 the etset^+tal 4 ND ilD PÞ I cat ye_ Geornetry by windows and doors whose surrounding Pøblic and prbate detail is restrained and proportioned to e{< Indigenous constructions consistently Definition of the public space is the 'Frtv adhere to geomeric simplicity in the mass. essence ofurban construction; the line everything from overall mass ro such separating public from private is the elements as , windows, and 7 Axcasry¿t,5{.J ft- Louir Íullvqui J"nl o?t^eaÅ primary edge. Even a rural house has a doors. The geometric relations in Proportion t]*^ * ¡*tr^ilt public and a private side. architecture connecr the simple and The division of a measurable whole into the complex, rhe ancient and the parts - the establishment of mathematical modern. Clear geometry has always relations in a building-was intuitive for Urban form embodied timeless goals, independent the vernacular architect. The refinement + i,f An urban building or building group of fashion. ofarchitecture has depended since has a direct relation to an overall city ancient times on the establishment of plan or grid. ,ts part of the overall harmonic interrelations in a building; 5 W city fabric, a building has three types Id¿a masterpieces have reflected a chain of of walls: the public facade-most Every work of architecture must have a related proportions. Of the various 1-ctb important 1'. as it establishes frontality; concept. ,{rchitecture is intuitively and proportional systems, the role played by blind or party walls, possibly semi- intellectually experienced. Architecture one proportional number in particular- open; and walls internal to a block or adheres to Immanuel r: r.618 (the Gólden Section)-stands Kant's description, + courtyard. Intedocking urban buildings out. Its prevalence in plant and animal "The unity of rule by which a manifold forming the geomerric solids and voids ofcontents are held rogerher and forms brings us closer to nature; the of a city are characrerized by various connected to one another.)> Intuitive spiral of growth in the nautilus shell, relations of these three basic outer faces, passion joins the intellectual spirit when the proportion of joints in the frngers of subordinating them to the larger urban an architectural whole is more than a a human hand, the branching limbs of a pattern. In the modern,{merican collage ofparts. tree or leaves ofa flower, all hinge on city the sheer size of new nonpublic this proportional number. Ke¡ler called constructions which fill out an entire 6 it oa precious gem, one of the two (for block example, developer Ornam¿nt treasures of Geometry. o A proportional skyscrapers) may make them automatic ,{.rchitecture has an emotional life if it order can reâne architecture with an monumenrs. A monumenral building is born from an idea; the purpose of ancient mathematical harmony and standing in contrasr to surrounding ornament is to amplify the idea. The reconcile it with nature. fabric distinguishes itself-all sides are common alternative is to oveday a public facades with civic responsibility. lifeless architecture with arbitrary patterns. Louis Sullivan explained, "rü(/hile rhe mass-composition is the more profound, the decorative ornamentation is the more intense. Yet both must spring from rhe same source of feeling. " Idea and modernity

In continuing the modern pursuit of open vocabulary, expression does not follow directly either from an interpretation of a historical style or from a literal expression of function. Many of the expressive methods of mid- twentieth-century practitioners may be critically examined as a narrowing, rather than an opening up, of Invention and modernity architectural vocabulary. Exit lnrernal opposition as an organizing idea pulled out of a building envelope as a b,c lor Ilr¡¿rcl of -I rade Opposition of forces is an organizing Shaker Meeting Modernity in its most positive sense massing device, or expression of the The uncompromising realizatio¡ of a¡ 1)i¡ ilir¡n Building idea which can yield a dialectical House has been great liberator. In the structural frame or the mechanical intuitively held idea is manifested in the FIcicìi Vcbcr ^ Kansas Citv architectonic form. For example the Nerv l-ehanon twentieth century, literature, art, systems, for example, do not have simplest house of a carpenter-architect, Zurich Missr ¡uri Kansas City Board of Trade building by Nerv Yr¡rk music, and architecture have moved positive meaning in themselves. They for whom there was no difference I-e Corbusier r <¡(r5 Burnham and Root is charged with ca. rlì5o toward freer expression. For North are the results of a single idea about the between intuition and theoretical counterpoint: the two wings of the Âmerican architecture this thrust has an literal exposure of function as a formula thinking. As Ernst Cassirer clearly put type building have differing internal intrinsic link to architectural beginnings; for architectural character. This attitude i¡, intuition is bound uP with H "All arrangement, and the expression of the ignoring convention and relying on is derived from Louis Sullivan's axiom rheoretical thinking." For today's hall atop one wing is in invention was natural to the vitality of follows function," but he was architect the same goal must be trading "form asymmetrical contrast to the other. A the country. Early carpenter-architects never merely literal about it. Sullivan's held conceptually; where numerous counterpoint can be seen in the were essentially eaily moderns in their great contributions were lyrical individuals work as a team to achieve a similar of twin towers in medieval creation of new types and forms. There expressions in form which grew out of construction, a unifled result demands asymmetry cathedrals such as the Trier Cathedral in were few books and no photographs, ideas rather than the physical display of a concePt as well as strategy for ,{mong the clearest modern and because travel was difficult and function. realizatton. A clear architectural idea, Germany. around the idea of slow the early settlers could not study frankly stated, is analogous to the structures organized for Heidi previous architectural models. The It is precisely the realm of ideas-not intuition that marked the path for the counterpoint is the Pavilion 1ùØeber Le in Zutich. ingenuity of carpenter-architects was forms or styles-that presents the most carpenter-architect. by Corbusier soon overshadowed in a society with a promising Iegacy of twentieth-century sense of cultural inferiority. Imported architecture. The twentieth century propels architecture into a world where models fostered the " Style." However, the meanings cannot be completely supplied earliest vernacular forms remain linked by historical languages. Modern life to modern architecture by a liberating brings with it the problem of the sense of invention. meaning of a larger whole. An increase in the physicaL size and programmatic Invention did not always mean the complexity of buildings amplifies the imposition of individuality. The benefit innate tendency of architecture toward of the whole community inspired the abstraction. The tall office building, inventions of the New England Shakers, the urban apartment house, and the for example. This group invented the hybrids of commercial complexes call for circular saw, the metal pen nib, window larger, more open ideas to organize an sash weights, the common clothes pin, architectural work. The organization of I and the flat broom, among other things, overall form depends on a central without crediting any individual. The concept around which other elements architecture expressed a will to invent remain subordinate. A concept unites EE restrained by a wonderful sense of whereas application of an historic style purity; strangely idiosyncratic, it seems fragments. \When a clear idea is the nevertheless to return to universal heart ol architectural expression, it n¡ elements. Invention in architecture need can be individually related to the Il {i not degenerate into a contest of merely circumstance while remaining distinct n¡ formal or stylistic consequences. from a general theory or style. Exampies Balanced with cultural connection, of meaningful form molded by abstract ¡¡ invention must intensifr, enliven, and concept, the idea-based constructions !T give strength to architecture. realized by Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd ! ¡T -ùØright, and Eero Saarinen remain clear ¡u expressive works today. Their meaning does not require a consistent language or style that must be repeated from one project to the next. I I

Extension of ancient conceptr Metaphorical or abstract concept was a l as an ctrganìzing ìdea basis for architecture in many ancient cultures. Ancient Chinese architecture, for example, contained a geometric idea of the universe: heaven was round, earth was square, and the ideal town was quadrilateral with walls pierced by gates corresponding to the twelve monrhs of X the year.

a q The ancient Egyptians organized plans around the concept that east meant rebirth of the sun and life, and A radical departure from a typological The traditional U type plan was used, wesr was the direction of death-another model was taken for a studio-house we wirh the courtyard facing the ravine. metaphorical structure of an ancient designed in the summer of r98o. The The theme of an urban building type, cosmology. Vico observed that even plan type was transformed through the an island in the forest, is carried out the tiny constructions of the mosr internal counterpoint of program. The in all elevations: the front facade is primitive people begin in metaphor and site, a thickly wooded lot on Staten arriculated in integral-color concrete imaginative ideas. They begin in poerry, Island, overlooks a 6o-foot ravine. The block; the side walls are painted black, not in science. o studio-house for a young couple, both like party walls in a city; the courtyard artists, has no conventional living or is painted white for maximum light. In the renovation of an existing dining room, in favor of two larger concrete-block building into a safe- i' ./- studios and a large kitchen. The studios Because of the unique nature of the depository bank which we completed in were intended to respond to the nearly clients' needs, we explored a major r983, the building plan was organized opposite sensibilities ofthe artists. She ß I) transformation of the neutral U type from the most rational and dense at the paints floral landscapes, loves sunlight, by charging each wing with opposite rear (rows of steel safe-deposit boxes) to and keeps cats in her studio. He makes characteristics. The painting studio in the most irrational and thin at the front black concrete sculptures, hates pets, the north wing is lit by a continuous (public lobby). The site, an existing and does nor care for sunlight. The clerestory window under the butterfly commercial strip in Fairlawn, New clients suggested that the best way roof, which acts as a light diffuser. This Jersey, dictated constraints yielding a to respond to suburban surroundings roof also serves as a ftmp leading to a plan with no special qualities other than was to preserve all trees and natural small room ovedooking the ravine, used organization on logarithmic proportions. vegetation and isolate the building at for solitude and study. In the opposite the edge of the ravine. wing the sculpture studio on the lower The elements of the public lobby level opens on a grotto and an outdoor record proportional and cosmological work area. On the upper level of this concepts. The seventeenth-century wing the child's bedroom has a special concept of the harmony of the spheres lr roof to give the feeling of a separate (the ideas that the separate spheres of little house. the cosmos move around the earth at tr different velocities, producing the basic \ùØhile the U is generically a symmetrical musical intervals) together wirh the type, this house explores rhe porenrial ideas on harmony and proportion of of asymmetry conceptually as well as Johannes Kepler (depicted in his formally in the dialectic between light diagram of the ûve regular solids and dark space, open and closed space, inserted into the orbits of the planets) and down and up sections. inspired a planetary frieze circling the top of the lobby wall. Cubic interpretations of the nine planets are l:1l#Lii:=LirE bent by the curvature of the space. ::l::l:l:::l::::':l Ornaments carved into the glass of the vestibule explore similar celestial themes. a I l¡ il Li tr'pe lr,,usc Nlerz Florrsc \,1, 1)u|osiror.r Irrc lrtcl gl.rrs Traditional bank lobbies were once lr pIirns I ,rr : l.¡u n lrtlrltr'r,\l ¡ s Ì, t i tt ttt richly characterized with classical

ì\lctz FIousc cì -t' 1,, (. t1,< ì u Irr,cr tt! D/ ti t þ / i t // /tì allegories recorded in ornament. St¿ten lslancl Iletz I lor¡sc I r);l l Louis Sullivan's midwestern bank ¡ t¡lilan interpretation of his idea of the organic transcendental seed germ. The aim of our project was to suggest that the :!Ej"effiqæffiffi* architectural character of a public space may be based on a modern I History of site as an organizing idea ,T< The history of a particular site can be 'I' Ihe equilibrium between cultural h i s s e lec t ion o.f' rt se,t t c h (using illuminated a modern open connection and modernity in these ¿nd þrojects, dout vocabulary) to communicate local projects leans toward invention in some l¡elueeu t976 tttt/ tt¡51, meanings. This idea was suggested cases and cultural connection tttts in others. þrcsenlert in t 9!i 3 by Rudolf Steiner when he argued in Rather than a thesis-antithesis, these ¿s,t s/iale /ecture tî any site has a physical the rgros that forces coexist in a teeter-totter suspension. .\ot tlttrn Ct I ifotn i,t and we have history of its own that Ifthe heavy side of this seesaw shifts in I il st it utu oJ ttrclsi lect u re, a critical choice whecher or not to a1 response to a particular place, in another d I P ri il.eÍon Ll n i tcrs i t1,, acknowledge it. A physical connection circumstance a tip in the other direction ,tl Ntu 1'otþ (l¡¡it'ersil),, with history is established, for example, --.< I would not be contradictory. This ¿u¡l in t/:c (.¡lLtStl Peru, has in Cuszco, which suffered balance holds clarity as an essential, se¡'it s / t (.'t /q,r r.1,, periodic desuuction by earthquake. mysterious, and marvelous quality of Albertt. I /:ttt tric¡l Í¡t the pattern f Flowever, of the town remains / architecture. F{owever, architecture iDCorpzrdlc i¡tto /bis a testament to its oldest culture because manifests itself beyond our verbal or st,noþs is llte q uc s / iort s the rubble-builr upper portions sic on diagrammatic representation of it; in a dD¿ cr)nrnerlÍs ltont ll¡ose first-floor foundations of giant stones set sense it is outside of anything we have dtr¿itil.es,'l-l¡e nt¿tcri,¿I with razor-gap precision by the Incas. discussed. is roî,t s.yntbesis oJ' ìØhether is the reuse of foundations it ll:eor'¡, dnd þntctitt but forming a composite history of a The ultimate aim of any art does not sitnn¿ri:ts resetrcl¡ site, the transformation of existing occur within it, but elsewhere-in a ( þublished lrz Pamphlet structures, a modern or construction spirirual search. Vhile this quest joins r\rchitccturc 7 trtt,/ <.¡), reflecting something that has long since architecture to that which is beyond the þroþostd þrojctÍs, tn(l tt disappeared, the history ofa site can be purely physical, the requiremenrs of ftu btilt u'orks. the basis for new constructions with physical material connect it to something local historic connections. before its physicality: a material essence. 'I he rtsetrcL, unltr!¿þt¡t u'iÍb grtuts Jn'nt tltc The idea of illuminating che history of Pr¡olhouse Pr roIl¡ ot¡se (ìr¿h¿n Material has "absence, in the positive I)oun¡/¿lion Scarsdale siti a site organized the plan for a small ¡rr,jcction sense that Paul Valery wrote of it in the ,tn¿l lbt N'¡liou,tl sculpture studio-poolhouse addition we Nerv Yr¡rk dialogue Eupalinos. Literal absence is L,n¿1,'u'n¡tnl J'or ll:t ,lrls, made The suburban ¡ t¡13 r in r98r. site in evident in the cavernous void in a fuusaol on rolltcting Scarsdale, New York, dates from the limestone mountain in Indiana which tïnari¡t ¡t bt ilding l1'þes transference ofproperty rights by exists as the testament to a limestone lÌtul conplcÍe Íbe King George in the early eighteenth skyscraper in New York. But rhe essence gelulelr.y of t/:t t_1,pic,tl century. The land is marked by stone of material should not be confused wirh gri./¿'d cit.i, ( iI'l)t walls placed to define boundaries at the the material reality of building. lVhether tllþfubttictl Cítt, ) ¿ud time of the original transference. The stone, sand, wood, or glass, the material tz ct rrí rg ltot st t_1,pts newly constructed walls enclose an ofarchitecture is a link ro rhe narural J)lilt ¿Lross lbt counlrl' existing pool and form a courtyard ar and human. ( -Rrr¿l ¿n¡/ [!rh¿n the center of the site in recollection of ITotst'1.¡,þes i ¡ Norfl¡ the older stone-wall boundary. A large The Chinese painter \Øang rùØei rock found during excavarion was (6gg-lSÐ, painting in words instead CotlLeilît|t1i(rn ,rt upended in the middle of the courtyard ofcolors, connected the natural essence A¡t¡e¡ ic¿r¡ t trtlttcillttI as a marerial microcosm of the history- of physical materials to painting in this oÊthe-site idea. The poolhouse building poem, In tbe Hill¡ ti¡tuusl¿nÍi¿/. I¡t is stretched thin to form the norrh wall, I n¡Ji¿, Cl¡in¿, with an entry portal Pt¡r¡lhouse Por rlhr ¡rr sc ro rhe courryard lVhite pebbles jat fron tbe riuer stream Arslrtlit - itt ,ntY i n Èrisring cut through it. The whole project is tcrior st()¡le $,¿ll i to Stray leauu turn red in tbe cold autann L t/ltilïe -d il t¡tt ttI iott organized in a chain ofproportions that No rain is failing on the nountain path i I I u nt i ¡t¿l¿ loct Ì l:islor.¡' begins in the overall 55-fooc square of Bilt ny clotbes are danp in tltef.ne green air t¿ il/t ¡¡to¿lertt nte¿tts the pool court and descends the c ica I /1' to u'o r ll .7' i l,l Pl:.t's smallesr window openings. lificrenî hul I I R.('- '1 Mary Miss ì i i t .1,' r*, t ¡l t t t T I li' I 1 \, ì / tFP ".8, l . ¡ .I ! t \ On aRedefinition of Public Sculprure I II r'l lt :\ I ¡r ¡ I r-. t I I I u I I \ I I I I ì matn II l { t.i, j}B I I i; ; ì I t I ;1. # I ) ï t, Ì U I t + '.i'r: I ,t'll \ I Ir I I llr, I l¡ il¡ r! k I lrr i,l' I \.. i\,, It t^i 'I I I ,t I I.,t; t I I a i¡ !t ,'ì {il I , 1 I t, i> I 'i ) I t\ '. ¡ I .l 1], I .tt :,1 ¡l; !fi I I I I ! C,,' ' . ;, t' I t :' il Ì 't ' ï/,,,: rl a t, tü t1 ! 't, ¡' Jt ) f rt d? '2. f. + Iü, a I t a" ,t 1 I t t 'tlt 't. ¡l I t !ç + I i ?t I lr I il, ,ú t: -¡ a, Lt a a ) ¡,i *i,t i¿

,l :a i,Iti;.,.- I €+- t t, /, ( , n i ltr^.i. i t Jl I r q ., ì'f n,F .,u lt, I qr ízl':î. ¡ I , t . a' a ¡l t ) .'. -, : t-l I I t "'lt: If un ur.ir, is asked to create a sculpcure The recently complered Vietnam At the beginning of the twentieth Today, the worst of this sculpture in \ùØashington for a community, the public usually Veterans' Memorial in cenrury, sculpture began a rather self- public is "sofcware." Architects love it expects something only slightly less reflects some of these problems. The reflective investigation of form, which because of its strictly unobtrusive, impressive than the Statue of Liberty, guidelines srared very clearly rhar the resulted in the reduction of referential lightweight effect. The best sculpture- or at least a monument reminiscent monument should avoid provoking any content. The so-called avanc-garde David Smith's "Tanktotems> and of the statue of General Kosciuszko of the activities of the Viernam war continually rejected historical roles as it Barnett Newman's "Broken Obelisk, " remembered from childhood outings in protest era. The space should nor sought a new base of operations for the for example-might refer to park. the local "Monumentsr: rhe encourage large garherings ofpeople; it individual artist. Any consideration of monuments of the past, but on the public expects the commemorarive was to be integrated into a discreer the public or its needs was seen to be whole they stand as independent (literally speaking) and, if possible, rhe corner of the Mall in Washington. The antithetical to this view. objects. They are involved in a language majestic. In the meantime sculpture final selection was the most invisible of form and space that has little to do has become "nonobjective' (it cannot sculpture-monumenr. It is cut into the At the same rime, while there were with any pIaza, and they seem only commemorate), and it is always ground to blend totally with rhe grex changes in attitude and in the demeaned and belittled by placement ìn physically less impressive rhan our landscape; the antithesis of the heroic actual forms of cwentieth-century such a context. twentieth-century engineering monument had been requested and sculpture, little consideration was given monuments. received. Naturally, some members of ro the context in which sculptures Many of the concerns of the minimalist Congress and veterans'groups were would be seen. Though the content and and earthwork artists of the r96os have The commemorative function that has rather upset by the conrroversy, and image had altered radically from the informed current work. But there are traditionally been associaced with public they decided to place a statue and a traditional sculpture as monument, the important differences as well. The sculpture poses various difÊculties today. flagpole within the finished work. artist and architect continued the investigations of these artists led to a First, it is difficult to frnd agreemenr on tradition of placing works outdoors, greater concern with establishing an a subject worthy of commemorarion. Ic The artist can also be seen by che public usually in close proximity to buildings. interaction among object, space, and is equally difficult to reach consensus on as a producer of luxury icems- Everyone seemed to presume that, since viewer. This interaction was an how to represenr the chosen subject. commodities for an elite and privileged buildings and sculptures had been seen important point of departure for later Such public commissions raise questions group. In this view art is somethìng together in the past, there was no reason artists interested in contextual concerns concerning aesrheric accessibility. that can be traded almosr like stocks to abandon the practice. Most artiscs felt The context in which minimal art was Demands for figurarive sculpture and and bonds. no need to consider whether a site was made, however, was limited; it was overt symbolism are often imposed on appropriate or how the work might be usually seen within the confines of a the unwilling artisr; conversely, the Then, too, there is the tradition altered for the site. This attitude, which gallery or museum. public frequently feels that personal and whereby art reinforces the values of prevailed in the works that came to be inaccessible art forms have been placed church and state; today that view is seen mosr often in public places, is Minimal artists attempted to undermine where a civic monumenc had been seemingly expressed by government- clearly expressed by the British sculptor and negate the object qualities of expected. sponsored art projecrs. But the public \Øilliam Tucker: "Ifyou have to change sculpture and divesc it of its referential will usually be extremely suspicious of a sculpture for a site there is something content. The forms were often the intrusion of government directives vr'rong with the sculpture. " To monolithic, continuing the tradition of into community projects. (A federal architects, these works were merely sculpture as monolith. The work was agency chat often places such projects is baubles thar served to add a frnal touch authoritarian in nature, forcing the the Government Services Agency, or to the fronts of buildings or ro a plaza. viewer to confront the sculpture and GSÂ; a certain percentage of its The historical alignment of sculpture make sense of it; it was also inaccessible IJ¿rnctt Ne * ¡lran David Smith building budget is allocated ro arr.) But with the church or srare was replaced by to the uninformed viewer. Ilrolic¡r ()bclisli .'f¿nktotem V. such works are not necessarily welcomed a relation wirh business, which used I Iotrston, 'I'exas r<.¡53-56 by the public. In fact, people often find abstracc sculpture as a corporare symbol I ()()), ()7 that the arr rhat appears in their or at least as a touch ofclass. communities has no relation ro rheir daily lives, and they consider these lìro¡r tis projects as examples of wasteful \ùØhat St¿trrc of- \\/illi¿¡rr government spending. shifts of 'Ì cctulsch She rrn¿n the last eighty years are responsible for Gr¿rrrì ¡\rnrr Pl,rz¡ these problems? Ncu Yo¡h (,in ' I)hilip 'Iì.r.ger Iìohert l\'lorris flntitlccl Scattle. Washington r r)7(.) ñ-.

An example of current work in public Earthworks completed in the late r96os spaces that is an extension of this and early r97os began to develop and aesthetic is the work of Richard Serra. respond to the particular qualities of In some ways Serra's piece in site, incorporating that information into Manhattan's Foley Square continues rhe the sculpture. They moved outside the tradition of the monument. rùØhile usual context of the art world, often investigating experiential qualities of into the vast spaces of the West. space, it is a monolithic form that relies Though the images of these works (such lìobcrt Srnitlrsr¡¡r on its overwhelming physical presence. as Spiral -]etti Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty") were often appealing to a larger Grcat Sirlt I-al

Rich:rrcl Se¡¡a ..'I ilted ,4rc. Neç York (-io rgflr Several sculptors have met the public For many architeccs art is in the service Looking at recenc public sculptures in How is art to be integrated into our i head on. Christo's involvement of the of architecture-as a handmaiden: an urban environment, one finds few culture? FIow can ìt be made accessible, media, millions of dollars, and masses of { rhe art chosen by the best architects examples that seem successful. At the appearing outside the rescricted confines people in .,Running Fence,' is one :---- .'1*ø*..*- of our time is so often second-rate or ìØorld Trade Center in lower Manhattan of museums?' Is ic necessary for our example; Mark di Suvero's huge pivoted reactionary comPared to the there is a huge sculpture by Fritz definition of.culture, co be so divided \ùØright pieces incorporate swings, moving ;:::: .1:-.--.:Í¡+Fr' architecture. Frank Lloyd chose Koenig. The plaza itself is a starkly between the offìcial culture of Lincoln chambers, or bells; Claes Oldenburg's rhe sculptor Richard Bock to do works inhuman space, and the work of Koenig Center and the popular culture of Times numerous overscale objects in plazas for his buildings; these sculpcures have is successful only in that it compounds Square or Central Park? \ùØhat role can comment with wit on the public's need not fared well wich the passage of time. that inhumanìty. Ac Lincoln Center the art have in the development of a built for recognizability while posing as It is ironic to see Geor¿¡ Kolbe's works by David Smith, Marc Chagall, environment? Artists in the twentieth traditional monuments. ,,Dancer' placed in the corner of Mies and Henry Moore seem totally century have been working in a racher van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion-a ineffectual and overwhelmed by the isolated situation, responding to certain These artists have captured the public's rather ambivalent image within that setting, which transforms them into developmencs in our society but having attention; sheer spectacle has established building. The artist is seen as a guardians of high culture. Recently very little interaction wirh it. \ùØe an awareness of sculpture as an active decorator in the rradition of the George Segal made a work intended for are specialists working on what has force. In a choice of entertainment medieval craftsman, making addirions the park in Sheridan Square in come to be viewed as an arcane type between art and baseball, however, art to buildings. But unlike decoration of Greenwich Village. Its subject matter of communication assumed to be will come out on the losing side. It the Middle Ages, the images, materials was to reflect the gay community's inappropriate to our society. seems that public sculpture neecls more and scale do not fir-the artwork lacks presence in that neighborhood. The (or integration) to maintain a that total integration of form and residents became outraged at che FIow can we respond to the autocratic "function" (.lrristo truly public place for itself. context. possibility that this sculpture would be architecture in our built environment? lltrnrrirrr¡ I:tncc placed there; the gays were offended Can we provide some sort of physical or 5r,no¡¡r¡ iutcì Il.rrilr because they felt the images represenced psychological relief and create intimate (-, rr¡rrtics. (.¡lilìrlrri¿ stereotypes that did not reflect their spaces that are approachable in such a j r ()_ -(l diversity; others did not wish to have context? Can we introduce alternatives their park identifìed with gays. Once into our culture-reintroduce human again the sculptor confronts the problem scale or time for reflection? of conflicting goals and attitudes within a community.

(-l¿t. ()L.lc¡rbr¡r'l Fritz li, L¡i.r ll.rt (,olLrrirn "Kugcl I .,rr.rricì '$l¡¡rlci (,h ic.r5o 'J ,.rrlt (.errter I Neg \ r,rL (.in. I t97: n Ihink about building structures rhar There are also the gates-folded The potential promised (and given) by can be integrated into this conrext- protectors covering store fronts-that the electronic media is great. Our physically and visually integrated, not have been wildly painted: at night you television-shaped society has the asser of just an afterthought. Alter the conrext see them; during the day they roll up a strong visual orientation, well adapted by introducing transition zones from and disappear. to a multiplicity of signs. But there are street to building (human scale); problems as well. The electronic media construct spaces where slow motion is How to enter this siruation? tl present the artist with a difficult time possible. Give people the luxury of frame: immediate but always connected engagement, not confrontarion. Think There was a "Twilight Zone" story to the future. Advertising and television of spaces/structures that would allow about a man who spent a great deal of offer unlimited possibilities; they are people to be the connectors berween the time trying to Êgure our how to walk always a step ahead, letting us know open space-parks, waterfronts-and through a brick wall. \Øith all his what to do and desire next. Our the dense areas of midtown. Their resources summoned, he stepped expectations are increasingly' without experience of open space might change forward and actually walked into the limits. the character of the dense space. wall-but there was a problem: it was not possible for him to come our on rhe FIow to divert this gaze from a constant Priorities: breathing space, human scale, other side. He remained encased in that focus on a distant view to an immediate firsthand experience, focusing on rhe brick wall. time and space? Is a present tense of strong visual elements of the city. some complexity impossible? ,A.re we ,trtists interested in doing art," (¡ unable to experience anything beyond "public a It seems that these needs are recognized working in the contexr of the builr its sign? St rirojilirr,. (ìr,rirr stora.qt silos and are being addressed by the city's environment, share something of rhe N{iÌ ,,r. It.rlr l llino is fringe culture, its street culture. predicament of this character. As much The importance of actual experience b i interest as they may have, it is very lt, as opposed to reproductions or (-o¡,tr'rrttio¡l sitc 'Ììrb.rrco h.rr¡r A vacant lot in Harlem has been difficult in this culture to find an access il ¡r simulations, a need already recognized SoLrt lrcr n (..rli1ìrlni,r carefully laid out wirh a series of paths, route to public situations. t¡r I-cxinlt¡,rrr. Ñentr¡clir by fringe cultures, is difficult to l,l¡, walkways, a small bridge. Next to this c establish today. These immediate spatial Ål'.rnrl,'ncrl r,cr:; [ìarnr btrilciing is a miniature red house, a pavilion with ,{rt must be experienced directly. The experiences are often found historically (.trircr (.i¡. (.¡lilì¡ni.L It t'n I rrr lit a front porch. People sit on the small public today lives in a world animated in vernacular architecture, old cities, t cl lr porch. They don't live there, jusr visit. by electronic communications (which gardens, and the like. How can we (.<,r perhaps dampen or discourage direct r11.rl lri itlr1r t\ nru..'lrrelrt lr¡rk reintroduce them into our own built ( )lr i,, I-,rni1 Ll.'.ich, (-¡lifìrrni¿ The graffiti arrisrs are working ar srreer experience). Meanwhile the image of environment in a way that is appropriate level. The blank walls abutting the art, as conveyed through the popular l) for today, using the imagery and sidewalk rake on rexrure, pattern, media, remains historical. It is vocabulary of our current surroundings? depth. The dismal space of the subway something to be labeled and put away. is invaded by the fluorescent cars covered with personal signatures. FIow can the current ideas of artists emerge within a media culture? On the wide sidewalk on rhe south side of Fourreenth Street racks of clothes, boxes, stands take up most of che space, offering anorher kind of transition between blank wall and sidewalk. It is impossible not to become engaged physically and visually. Pool" built in Greenwich, .. Peri ntetc¡s/ nsunken _was Connecticut. Only after crossing a Pavil ions/Decoys. ,rr"u^ and walking through brambles Nassau Corrnty viewer come this Museum, I-ong Island and pines did the to provided a very r97B srructure' which still growth. reflectrng pool within the dense The viewer's progression chrough these different areas was an important element of the sculPture. The imagerY of usunken Pool" was taken from the built environment. All of us are affected by the comPlex visual elements of our surroundings; my interest in focusing on U¡rritlcd them took me to construction sites, tl.rttery Prrrk rnines, and power plants as sources of Ncç \irrk imagery. Our visual imPulses (the r()73 decorative impulse, for instance) are as srrong now as they have been in the past, and it does not seem appropriate Th" d.rr.lopmenr of my interest in ro return to such historical forms as public sculpture has been a gradual elaborate plasterwork, carved rosettes, one. earliest works, My done in the or wrought iron. The Present-day mid-r96os, were small consrrucrions environment offers forms of equivalent that depended on skeletal forms and complexity, available for artists' and common materials (screen, canvas, pipe) architects'use. to form a content. The pieces were linear, lightweight, and nonmonolithic, uPerimeters / Pavilions / Decoys > was ,.Perime¡e rs/ using the images of our everyday made for the Nassau County Museum PaviIions /l)ecol's,' environment as references. in Long Island, New York. Three towerlike structures, two earth mounds, The sculptures expanded in scale as and an underground courtyard were built I began to work on ourdoor projecrs. I on a four-acre site. To see the work, the placed them in open fields, on hillsides, viewer had to walk through the whole and in rural settings, avoiding rhe field: rhere were changes of scale in the limited situations usually offered for towers and inaccessible spaces in the sculpture (plazas, concrere pedestals, the underground structure; boundaries and lawn around a building). The pieces perceptions of distance were brought were physically and visually inregrated into question, as were the limits of into their sites, in opposition to the illusion and reality. But it was up to image of sculpture as object or srarue. the viewer to assemble these images, .. Perimerers/ Part of the impulse for this work was draw comparisons, and structure the PaviIions /I)ecovs ,, related to my childhood experience of information. the landscape of rhe '$(/'est, where the freestanding object, the monolith, is NØith "Staged Gates" in Dayton, Ohio, easily overpowered. Miles of fencing or as in the Nassau County proiect, I Êelds of oil rigs appear as modest became more aware of how this work elements against that extended horizon. was received by the public. ìØhen something is set apart and called a In the early r97os I built a piece on sculpture, it is often not accepted if the Battery Park landfill in lower it is unrecognizable as a statue. Manhattan, one of the few large open However, I saw that people would spaces in the city. Approaching the site, approach these works with a great deal ..Staged one could discern Êve equally spaced of interest: climb towers, walk through Gates" wood elements; rhe sculpture underground courtyards, sit on Da¡'ton, Olritr r979 materialized only as the viewer walked Platforms. They became engaged to the front and saw the five concentric with the sculptures. The physical circles descending into rhe ground- involvement, the images, the physical engagement was necessary ro integration of the work with the site see the work, and the viewer's (it looked as if it belonged) provided involvement was emphasized. some level of accessibility. These sites offered me, as an artist, a great

..Sunken Pr¡t¡1, complexity of information-historical, Greens ich, (,onn physical, and cultural. I could extend rt)7+ the formal issues of visual language to a r98r Rotation" was built for "Veiled Landscape" was done in Lake In "Field Placid, New York, for the r98o \ùØinter Governors State University outside Olympics. A viewing platform focused Chicago. The university, a small on the Adirondack mounrain landscape cornplex of buildings, sits in the middle acres of farm land. The in the distance. The whole srructure was of 7oo land is flat prairie an an introduction to that landscape: as one surrounding with continued walking beyond the platfor¡ open skyline in every direction. People down the hillside, the view was blocked arrive and go from their cars straight to by a curtain of posts-the landscape was rhe buildings. To find a way co take behind bars; proceeding, there were them from the parking lot into the further physical and visual bariers. environment, I wanted to furnish a Finally the observer arrived at a reason for entering that environment, gateway, which had appeared very small for focusing on surroundings normally from the platform but which was zo feer taken for granted; and I wanted to I high and 6o feet wide and framed a provide a destination, an area of pathway going into the distance. I intimacy or protection in that vast looked to historical sources for open landscape. The piece changed information in developing this piece- considerably as the viewer moved around The parking gave a view the borrowed landscape of rhe Japanese it. lot garden, the formal procession through of a large mound and a tower in a field I the landscape in Italian paintings and ofposts that had been cut to a perfectly gardens. My concern is to reintroduce level plane to contrast with the slight these historical ideas about space, place, contouring of the land. Approaching the and scale within our own context. top of the mound, one found a sunken Í1 court of irregular shape with ladders for entry. rVithin this area were platform Vcilt rl l-.rnrìst,r¡rt: walkways and a cenrral well with a l-iLì;e l)l.Lcirl. rrt.r,, \-r,r li protruding ladder. The whole srructure I () () acted as a step well. Climbing the tower, one saw that the freld ofposcs formed a parrern of spokes radiating our from the central mound and that the courtyard was a pinwheel.

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ln raI ¡, { I H llr¡ - ¡ lt; i .t úl ,,. i::+ t il TE E8 / tiF iil r. I left the built environmenr ar an early Two recenr remporary incerior pieces Recently I completed a proposal for a point because of rhe limited siruations reflected this investigation of the built 20' x 80' lot on Forty-second Street for sculpture; but rhe ideas thac environmenr in their complex imagery. berrveen Ninth and Tenth Avenues. / \ developed in the sired works have # The austere, classical courtyard of the Trying to reflecr elements within that brought me in a circle. lùØith chese Fogg Museum was the location frrr environment, I arrived ar a ñnaI plan for concerns-the importance of the viewer, .Mirror \Øay. ' The piece s,as like a a se¡ies of walkways, a central circular incegration wirh the site, the use of complex set, its temporary quality structure, and a balcony area at the archicectural sources-I deveioped new contrasting with the stone arches. It rear where one can look down on the attitudes about how sculpture might be could be viewed from the balcony much preceding elements. The piece is made ,a-' integrated into the city. The urban in the way pageanrs or parades were of wire mesh and steel posts. From landscape suggescs many inreresting viewed in medieval rowns. This rhe street one looks into a densely possibilities: building a work ;\ on one of multilayered stairway combines che structured, complex space. At night the blank walls of che city (a three- imagery of the wood framing of the work will be lit rather dramatically; dimensional relief one can enter), rhe building sites, abandoned stage sers, the lighting and balconies relate to the scaffolding or proteccive walkway a of and the stairs of a dream. setting within the theater district. The construction sire, the awning over the materials and density are reminiscent of door of a building, a roofrop garden, or "Study for a Courtyard: Âpproach to ¿r consrruction sites-lascinating spaces in a cemporary celebratory facade a on Stepped Pool" was builr at rhe Instirure the city that one is allowed to observe building. The engagement of the public of Contemporary Art ìn London. Ir was from the sidewalk but never permicced is part of the mocivation. a full-scale study of an enclosed courr to enter. intended lor a builc environmenr. Entering the work was like walking through a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle-turning unexpected corners, being brought up short. The experience was much like walking through the streets ofLondon, layering one experience upon another.

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I r,¡ltt'rt¡lt,r'.Lr r \r t 1 rrrrì f,trctr l'r,,it, t zr-- l.r,rrrl,,n ,t\:¡)tìrIlt(,(! lt' Ï" id"u of large-scale works thac A number of recent projecrs reco¿Ìnize i,rlr \r r¡i.rì.Lri N.rr¡, ' are once again referential is being a more important role for the artist. ll' rl :,L irr,,,L l l,,LL , (-.rtc I I lìl investigated by a number of artists; Several sculptors were asked ro submit I ir, ¡¡¡.¡ l'.rirr, ¡ r¡li : Nancy Holt, Richard Fleischner, Alice proposals for the development of lr Adams, George Trakas, Alice Aycock, Duncan Plaza in , a park Ri, 1,, and Siah Armajani are some of them. ar rhe cenrer of the city governmenr \iiL,' \r, lr l:trl, . 'l Ì, r,, ',1 Few precedents exist for nonÊguracive complex where art is to be the focus. l¡ I lrL' (,,.¡¡r ¡1 I lr, r , referential work that is integrated Cambridge, Massachusetts, four artists ¡,rll,, into context. One person who has have worked in collaboration with ;\ li, , investigated this area is Isamu Noguchi; ltr I. M. Pei and Parrners to develop works 5lr,,r l...Lrr,L¡'.,,'tr, at the UNESCO Park in Paris he i.l that will be an integral part of a new t() I ,( {) l,.L,lL¡r. was responsible for creating a rocal building ac MIT. And three arcisrs were environment-the walls, walkways, recently invited to make proposals for and benches. Mount Royal Center, a culcural cornplex that is part of an urban renewal project These artists are more interesced in ways in Baltimore. che viewer can be involved in the structures than in making objeccs that Art and artists v/ill remain on rhe are merely looked at. These works periphery of our culture until they are are less authoritarian than former allowed to become acrively engaged. In styles of sculpture; they are no longer their work and investigations rhey have monolithic, and their imagery makes attempced to develop a more inte¡¡rated them accessible, calling co mind role. But their efforts musr be bridges, courcyards, or newsscands. The recognized and supporred-by most important difference in attitude developers, architects, arts counciÌs, is that the artists are arcempring a local governments, and the communities dialogue with the public, going ro town chemselves. The visual sensibility of the meetings, sitting down with planning artist can provide insight into our boards, entering into very pragmaric complex environment and possibly help situations. They are making an efforc co to provide a pathway through it. establish an accessible visual language. F{ow successful will che attempt be? The artists' works and intentions laltt tru go only halfway; rhere is no way ro -1 program or predict the response when something ìs placed in public. l|llt It?l \ Th" No.fntk Projects are an experiment The Norfolk Projects are presented here The documentacion of the individual The Norfolk Projecrs to rest the ground that lies between the as a collection of raw material gleaned projects-in photography, drawings, and disciplines of architecture and sculpture. from a controlled setting; the material written statements-should be The aim was to Provide a fertile questions preconceptions concerning the consìdered with reference to the environment for the realization of interaction and coexistence of the two controlled environment of Norfolk. individual projects proposed by four media. .A.rchitects and sculptors have More importantly, however, they should Ï" Xorfulk Projecrs in Architecrure young artists in each of the two fields. It traditionally had a somewhat be used as a sounding board for and Sculpture rry ro probe rhat area - was considered important that the oppositional relationship, primarily questions on the two disciplines: where forms are at once abstract invited participants communicate and because of the common ground claimed \)Øhy do architecture and sculprure ronstructions and organic creaturcs. interacr as within a seminar situation, scr by both groups. In recent years this appear to be converging in certain areas/ shaping environmenrs and populating that similarities and differences between situation has become exacerbated: Can the critical values of one field be them. The tension between architeccure the ts,o disciplines could come to light. sculptors draw freely on architectural brought to bear on the other? and sculprure endo'*'s their relationship references, even using architectural \ùØhen do they undermine their to the narural setting with a peculiar To further this end without making the Ianguage in their work; archicects have respective disciplines by beginning to ambiguity. They cross a frontier undertaking programmatic, only two veered from the limitations of the past merge/ (Artists have helcl fast to the between diflèrent modes of sensation ground rules were set down: that the 30 years and many now accept ideas idea that a work must be nonfunctional, and meaning. They are a prorean installations be within the same locale, from diverse sources, contemporary existing solely on its merit as art, species, and rheir scale is accordingly and that the participants build their sculpture among them. The Norfolk whereas architects consider architecrure stranÉÌe, hard ro pin down, s<¡ that as pieces on site over the same time period Projects mirror the true complexity of to be an art, even though their they lift, or bound, or floar, or sit in the current relationship, for there is no structures serve a functional need.) silence, rhey modify the natural world The Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate in easily discernible division between the Is it possible now-as it has been in thc in startling ways. Norfolk, Connecticut, was chosen built results of the two groups. Rather past-for artists ¿rnd architects to actively because it provided a wide variety of than reflecting on the two disciplines, pursue both disciplinesi' Vìncent Smlly settings-from water sites to small the extreme diffèrences among the \What relationship can the tu,o clearings and broad expanses of open individual pieces testify to the differing disciplines now have with each other?' fieid-all n'irhin a shorr distance, concerns of the incliviclual pnrticipants. while also providing on-sire living One architect, fbr instance, has used V ì I I i an D ìaz-A / Ltert in i accommt,.lation. Eech arrist u'as givcn a hillside, much as a pzrinter u'ould a modcst budget for m¿rteriais. a cirnvas, on q'lrich to positir>n a number of glyphs or calligrapl.ric shapes ,{. tendency when assessing such an comparable to brush strokes. Several of NTffi undertaking is to analyze, categorize, the structures built by sculptors are not and cross-reference constituent parts, habit¿rble or function¿rl, L¡ut hint that seeking specifrc conclusions much as in they could be. a scicntiÊc experiment. This approach runs the risk rhat initial concerns may Prejudice and circumscribe an understanding of the outcome. The original intent of the Norfolk Projects promotes just this procedure; rhere was a strong feeling rhat the exercise should clarìfy certain fundamental questions concerning the relationship between sculpture and architecture. Flowever, art is primarily a questioning process, and the questions are invariably more pertinent and interesting rhan any answers I they may elicit. Thus a diffìculr sttuation is created: the experimenr was proposed in order to frnd answers, but the subject marrer prohibits such rl). ù o c o r o \1 ñ o o ¡ & e x/\ì\ o v ¡-t o o ia ar ô ol ì ù^J o >¡ ,< c? o u LJ J o 86 Xþ\'i_ am di rec tl conce I v rned w th rhose "One tbink¡ lbat one is tracing the outline of artifacts that are the phys cal result tbe thing't natilre luer and oaer agaìn, and human reac lon to and adaptation of one is merely tracìng roand tbe frane through natural en rronmen Spec 6cally I ruhicb tue looþ at it. " w th obtec ts that result from need rather than from prescribed Ludwig \Wittgenstein aestheric intenr. P hi los oþ h ica I I nues t i gat i ons

ì My work tends to take form as Primitive art employed a language of temporary installation, primarily images by which observed phenomena because I feel that the ever-changing were closely related to the unconscious memory of visual experience is morã mind. This once potent language of important than the conrinuing images has been slowly translated into of a piece. I like to rhink of my work the language of arbitrary word signs a trìgger which sets off a series of with so little perceptible relation to the associative analogies wichin rhe object signified that visual language has mind, alrering rhe perceptive process. become essentially indecipherable. also feel that every space allocated a permanent installation becomes The aesthetic object today appears occupied and thus no longer available. immune to criticism based on fixed An ongoing program of cemporary principles. Criticism's role is reduced to works is preferable to "public fluxile interpretation, ever-changing and sculpture,' which too often becomes open to dispute. Examination of merely anorher piece of dormanr primitive genius reveals a model for the furniture, similar to the ubiquitous depiction of the dialogue between bench or fire hydrant. subject and object.

f,fir1¡'-' "Redan X 3' .rs.r the generic billboard This sculpture takes the recourse of a form, an easily recognizable object language reduced to primordial glyphs incorporating rwo elements-facade and in order to observe the viewer's reaction structure. Since the sole purpose of the to gestures evocative of distant signs. It billboard srrucrure is to support the is designed with the perspectival and ,{'¡Fa-å. facade, the two coexist as distincrly temporal bias of the viewer in mind. I a"'' 7 ? 7 t. t'.ç¿+ ^ separate but equal parts. Through a The meaning of the sculpture seems to t. ú/*¿+_ ,l 5- triÊ-4- Í,a' ) r tt,-l 4\_ deliberate process ofgrouping and depend on another system of absent l- --< ) -i posicioning t. az L,ft t\. I have subverted the normal signs, against which those present attain i.l . tr+-¿-+^ purpose t/ of rhe billboard. The blank their signiñcance. The viewer's {L-- A facades are nor focused at rhe viewer, integration with the sculpture is a ,. ti.t Atl to t)¿¿+ ù.. but are used to delineate and enclose process of simultaneous perception/ 'r tirtÉl4- b;-r¡r', . space. ,A.s a resulr, there is no longer any misperception of those signs which are ,è tÈ¿+ tt ¿¡ L/, ¿-tt- reference ) r o ro fronr and back; they read present/absent in the work. , ) é: t¡.¡-¡ -l- i collectively as inside and outside. a tþ¿+ 1.a..+1¿d¡- :l Roy Banis .f '\V a ì/ /ian¿ D iaz-A lbertini '2. tt zll s¡c' a a.,-.-).r\ tt l

A, ,n.y floated down the river, there In -^kl.,g a work of art, the artist acts The material of these objects, their were foutine arguments as co whether it as rhe initial viewer. This relation must subject, placemenr, and burnin¿¡, all would have been betrer to launch che be kept alive and fertile in the piece support the primitive-modern theme. pavilion on a lake instead; or perhaps irself, for it gives the work enduring The literaiity of the objects, affected by they should have said to hell with ir all vitaltty. If this aim is successfully their setting, forces an immediate anyway and taken it to the ocean; or just achieved, a new viewer no longer looks reaction based on assumption; rhis is simply said to hell with it. It had never ar a description of what the artist wants determined by che relations between rhe been clear whether they would be ro see but experiences the focal point of objects, their immediate surroundings, making music for themselves, or for rhe artist's perception. and the viewer's assumptions regarding someone else, or whether they would be these elements. It is important to playing to each other. They reveled in Viewers must make assumptions in question what caused this reaction, why an unarticulated ambivalence that thinly order to understand a work. I wish to the viewer is affected in a specilìc way, masked the presence of an insidiously make the viewer conscious of these and how we attribute a specific concealed intention. assumptions by creating the awareness explanation to this effecr. of other assumptions. This effort ,{t the point where the river widened automatically iimits the original The work only becomes whole as the above the dam they stopped to consider assumptions. viewer takes responsibility for his or her how the pavilion might be brought to own condition. The viewer musr rerhink the other side. The only point of On first encountering my piece at assumptions and rcalize possibilities agreement was co seek shelter from the Norfolk, the viewer is ax'are of a stemming from other perspecrives. To current behind a small rocky peninsula, juxtaposition of primitive and modern acquire a unified understanding, rhe where they found two distressingly elements. Four primirivc srructures are viewer must entertain several contrary foreign objects. The partially submerged placed without systematic alignmenr in assumptions simultaneously. skeleton of a sphere lay on a shelf near a marginal space between woods and the rock. The other object was bright lawned clearing. The wooded area has Cmtis Mitchel/ and conical, poking above the surface been cleaned, the lawn scartered with like a shark's fin. Its bottom could not forest debris. Related through form and be determined, even with their longest material, each structure creates a space pike. analogous to the q'hole: natural indi¿¡enous materials (r<¡ck, dirt, wood, rVhen the presence of the pavilion was leaves) and synthetic materials first reported, only two chairs, a music (linoleum, carper, wood paneling, foam stand, and a bunch of flowers were rubber) with parallel denorations of indicated to be on board. Coordinates function comprise the floor and an arch were set off the rock, the sphere, and respectively; colored fronr and back \ùØhen the cone. we came to investigate, walls complement the floor and arch. the pavilion lay on its side ìn a shallow The fragile sparial definition of each area. This and subsequent investigation t.I structure !]''( is made more renuous by the failed to locate the cone. The sphere had plastic sheeting that softens disrincrions .e ::¡h also disappeared. between inside and outside. At this point the piece is precariousiy deÊned, Joe Chadtaich and formal. Then you norice rhe burned obj ects.

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.ii Ir.n. plastic arrs are to have any should not necessarily be placed on The cl:ì/dren enter ¡tnd /ettt'e t communicable signifrcance, ic must be transiation, but rather on the act of The terrìtorY ltreathes. .:r'. ..,t' through the recognicion that rhe Êxity communication through codes that There are ¡tories /ctsl annttg the trees of the sign as well as the accessibility of contain a pluralistic montage of visual And t/¡olsanc/¡ of uoìces ttnro/l l¡enertth 1/te the code is problematic in ali artistic and verbai grammars. skin of the earth, endeavors. Indeed, the arts are often irrelevant to society at l^rge, NØith issues of the justilication of art from '¿ folktale conscicuting a "private languageo legitimately behind us, and the use of to the myriad possibilities elitist in the claim to privileged common language enabling us to mean Responding ,.i representation, a formal endeavor with what we say, the question can be suggested by a sloping site, chis is an 'j. To arrempt to isolate and intensify physical "special knowledge" loftily implicir. phrased in all earnestness: what is going awareness of walking uphill and down. resist a strictly individual interpretation on? "Qþrry. Enorgh of this plastìc þaltltn," The piece ìs divided three ways: a would involve a rejection of the fabulous utters the theoretical specialist, "Direcl tear in the veil of ideas and the dismissal talþ is naiue proliferation.,, ,,Ort u'it/: longitudinal gap separates a tunnel of idealistic counterparts. In other phìluophic pallrts¡,,, grunts the butcher, enclosed in sheathing and an open truss a lateral gap isolates vertical words, for art to have any meaning "Diff;ult textr are tsaloney." ramp; other than as a utopian fabrication, an towerlike forms on the downhill side; understanding of the capacity of art to \ùØhat does all this talk have ro do wirh rrue horizontal is marked by a datum convey meaning must be reached. the sight before our eyes? In the case of abour which the slope of the hill is this /piece/, method was predetermined reflected. Though the plan is simple, ,\ distinction need be made betq'een rhe and took such precedence that the site the structure juxtaposes the volumetric conventional use oftraditional orders and was considered virtually insigniÊcant. and the planar, the darkness of enclosure the difhcult formulation of a ner',' and And yet an accounc of procedure is and the open view, symmetry and the useful artistic language. Such a neq¡ or unimportant unless it is advantageous to imbalance of up and down. reformed language is not a reformation the investigations of both the butcher *^-¡ in a restorative or amending sense, but and the theorist, offering a language Carol Bmns rather is a re-fbrmation of perpetually that is simultaneously normal and new investigations. It is u'irh rhis abnormal. assumption that arrisric production-in response to the mutations of va¡ious Martba Burgess

social conditions-provides access ro ¿ì dialectical process while avoiding tr standardization thar would result in lrlttil ffillttl I rulil rt¡ cultural canonism. llllilil [trr tlt I llil[ll! lt il lilill ltillI I I il ¡ilil[tlt llllill[il1 This notion of perpetual ädaptation is lnl certainly foreign to normal discourse, t Itt I which entails a splicing of the l¡ttlr established code and the subsequent I ¡lt - lltt¡ arrangement of word points into linear I'-¡t f sentences. This act not only restricts our investigations co those answers possible - within the limits of the code, but also categorizes the arciscic endeavor as primarily aesthetic: an elitist frivolity, separate from che living of life. Thus the concept of a visual language is alien to '4io.. the given means of communication,.and confrontation with art is usually limited to a verbal translacion (which is lqu restrictive by defrnition) or to nostalgia 'ù$¡Ð¡ll@

Ttl. ,..,utt building conrains rs,o I, nu, been my experience that work of rooftop banquettes and a ladder-back rhis nature does not easily lend itself to chair from which a waterfall is revealed documentation by photographs alone. The work must speak for itself, and only The building is experienced not only as a frrst-hand experience of the work can a collection of associative images but be rhe true one. In this instance, also as a series ofspacial, audial, and therefore, I will offer but a brief visual events orienred ro rhe earrh, rhe description of my work and try to stream, and the sky. give some basis for my ideas and rhe existence of the piece entitled entl¡arþ nCranog. " enter sìî focus ascend sit re/ease The word craillg means "small tree, and descend enc/ose exìt is used to describe the fortifred lake deþart dwellings of the early Irish setclers. This reference, though not necessarily The major material is wood which obvious on viewing the work, is of becomes more frnished as the building utmost importance. The work is turns in on itself. comprised of three main parts: a sectioned walkway submerged z inches My thanks to Dick Brown, beneath the surface of the lake, Jason Cadwell, Martin Gehner, extending 4a feet from the bank; an and especially Jane Murphy. island 8 feet in diameter, upon which is a small pool full of blue water; and Miþe Caduell approximately zo fish shapes floating near che walkway and island. The v individual secrions of the walkway are separated l>y a gap of z feer, to make progress along them somewhar precarious.

The work signiÊes a conrrasr between the new and the very old and a personal sffuggle with che rwo-an acceptance of the new and an unwillingness to relinquish rhe pasr.

Ronan Halpìn

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: G. Clarþ Sìted on a uooded blt{f ouerlooking the typical unit plan \r/, Ashley Riuer and it¡ ntanhlands, thi¡ lr ro Architects Charleston, South Carolina project is for an ìnn at Mìddletoun Place, n¡r¡dcl a National Hi¡torìc Landnørþ noted for c Middletown Inn its gardens. Tlte guestroonts are glass pcrspective projections a nasonry uall cl Charlestown, South Carolina þorchlike front. that contains within its thickness entries site plirrr V. G. Clarþ in associatìon tuìth and batltroonts. Interìor tuooden sbutters c C l¡arles t rtn Arch ì tect ura I G rotþ prouide þriaacy. Iuy tuill coaer the nøsonry plan l\4aynard Ba//, a¡sistant Dian Buone, interior design

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t Th. p.*urive influence of the milirary feature in the ,A.merican economic and on the economic and social realms in the political landscape. The effects of the \ùØorld after the Second military in orher realms has been less \ùØar is widely recognized. For example, widely acknowledged. As the United in The Per¡nanent'Var Econony (ry1+) States has become reliant on nuclear Seymour Melman suggested that the defense, the scale, expense, and relentless predatory effects of the technical complexity of the nuclear military economy have steadily eroded program has placed increasing demands industrial productivity; similarly, on the environmenr and technology. Adam Yarmolinsky in a study for the Such demands have radically altered Twentieth Century Fund (r97r) the nature of architecture and the city concluded that the military as well as the relationship between establishment is the largest single humanìty and the objects of its making Notes on a Changed \üØodd

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Tr ro*o ixelf is pætliørly bøih, s0 that In fh, Condition of the \Vorhing Class in history offered by Kenneth Frampton or shn eLne can liae in it for yearc a.nd tra.lel England in t844, Friedrich Engels Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, into and 0f euer on the ideology at the it lr/t it daily witboat exposed the effects ofcapitalism who "emphasized conuing into cnntact u.,ith ø working-class laboring classes. In his analysis of expense of other matters. rr' qa¿trter 0r euen witb uorþers-so long, tbat is Manchester he also offered one of the I t0 say, a,s lne conrtnes ltimself to his basine¡¡ first sustained critiques of the built This critical position-which is by far Ftiedrich Engels afairs or to strolling aboat for phøsare. a environment. Engels discerned a rhe dominant one in America-at most V';tt;,,-¡. R. Curtis Coudition of tl:e blodern Arclti tèct u re "Tlte Tbis conæs aboat nø.irly in the circumstance¡ Architecture of Dece relationship among political intentions, admits only passing reference to any " lY/orking Class in that throzglt an ancnnrcinus, tacit øgreement social realities, and building. Âlthough larger cultural, political, and social Since t9oo. Englanct ir t814. as nzach øs tbroagh clnscinas, explicit he was not the last to perceive the considerations. Instead it involves Neu Jersel r 982 Stattgart t892 intention tbe uorking class districts are nlst nature of this relationship, his approach extended visual analysis, concentrating þþ6-tr,389-92 reþriuted Lloscrnr r<¡7 1 sbarply rcparand from tbe parß of the city to building has had little influence on primarily on a few ..important' þþu1-u6 rauvedfor tl¡e middle cløss. . . . the architecture, construction, and real buildings-the Robie House, the 3 Mancbester's monied aristocracy cdn nuu estate industries in the twentieth Villa Savoye, the Kimball Art Museum. Ctrtis, þ388 traael from tbeir hoases to .tbeir þlaæs of century. Such singular masterpieces transcend basiness in the center of tbe toun by the not only political, social, and ibnrtest roates, ulticb ran rigbt throøgh all Both as a profession and as an academic ideological contingencies, but their own tbe uorking class districts, uitboat euen discipline, architecture prefers not to be time as well. In Curtis'words, "To slot noticing how close tltE are to tbe nost directly associated with the construction them into the modern movement is to I squølid misery ubicb lia immediøtely øboat and real-estate industries. All three deal miss much of their value. ' Set like tbem on botb sid¿s of the road. Th^ h with building and enjoy an enormously jewels into the diadem of architecture, because the ma.in ¡trcets whicb ran from the beneñcial symbiotic relationship, and they become aesthetic objects par Excbange in all directions oat of the city arc all three share an atrophied social excellence and above reproach. occøþied almost aninterraþtedly on both sides conscience. rtrchitecture offers itself as by sbops, wl¡icb are keþt by nzønbers of the different from the other two by virtue of Flowever appealing it may seem, a middle and louer middle classes. In tlteir being an ..art' rather than a trade or a critical position predicated on formal oun intercsts tbese shoþ-kæþers sboald. keeþ business, and to this end contemporary qualities remains problematical. The øp tbeir sboþs in an oatuard aþpearance of practice-through highly refined standards of judgment are reduced to cleanliness ønd ruþectaùility; and in fact mechanisms of dissimulation-conspires categories-.formal resolution, t thq do so. . Those sboþs wbicl¡ are to preserve that precarious Pretense. .integration, r, and .authenticityr- ¡itaated in the commercial quarter or in the concepts which are more opaque than aicinity of tbe nìddle class raidmtial Arcbitectare a¡ art most critics will concede. Except on the districx are îrlre elegant tltan those uhich most general level, none of these sen)e t0 ctatr ilP tlte uorþds griny cottaga. \ùTilliam Curtis articulates a categories denote an objectively Nanrtheless, ann tbese latter ødeqaaæly particularly cogent version of what veri6able criterion, despite an unspoken smte the þarpose of hiding fron tbe Ees of amounts to a traditional art-historical assumption to that effect. Even ie in the wealtby gentlemcn and ladia with strong position inhis Modern Architecture Sìnce best ofcases, there is general agreement a few works, stonacbs ønd weaþ nmtes tlte misery and r9oo. Curtis insists on "a certain to canonize considerao-le sqøalor tbat form tlte conþletìng cnanterþart, focused interest on questions of form disagreement usually attends the the indiuisible conplement, of their riches and meaning. r FIe selects what he decision about the particular works to and laxøry. I know perfealy uell tbat tbi¡ believes to be the masterpieces of be so embalmed. Indeed, the criteria for deæitful ntanntr of bailding is nore or less modern architecture-"I make no selecting one work over another are cnntnznn to øll big cities. . . I haae neuu' apologies for concentrating on buildings often arbitrary precisely because elsattbere seen a concealnt¿nt of søch fine of high visual and intellectual judgments based on formal analyses boil down to nothing more than matters smsibility of arry thing tbat night offend quality"-and sets out to write "a of tbe eya and nmtes of tbe niddle classet. balanced, readable overall view of taste. One critic may find a certain And yet it is þrecisely Manchester that has modern architecture from its beginnings degree of mathematical complexity been bailt less øccording to a plan and less until the recent past.> To Curtis, necessary to make a building great; witltin the limitations of ofuiøl regalations- balance implies exorcizing political, another may focus on the effects of and ind¿ed more tbroagb accident-than any social, and ideological considerations of massing techniques; and yet a third other toutn.t the sort that he finds in the versions of may demand an elegant series of Arcltitecture as feeling T he cri t ic's contp / ic it1

references co or comments upon To be sure, the high aspirations of the Another approach attempts to evade The responsibility for having culrivated buildings of the past. Though there is European early modernists were often the trap of taste and fashion by this hardy bloom belongs at leasr as no denying the interest or significance of unrealistic, as v/ere their exaggerated explicitly serring itself apart from much to critics and historians as ir does any of these aspeccs, it remains clear claims for the role of the architect current postmodefnist discourse. to architects. Because rhey assign that assessing them depends as much in shaping the new societies they Christopher Alexander, an ardenr priority to the unique formal features of upon personal tasce as do preferences for envisioned. Further, many critics have advocate of this view, maintains that individual monumenrs, historians and ,9 (brisloþber i),,¡t,¡¡,,,/, , iì i,t \ it,/ Alettudtr .the core ofarchitecture depends lJ'u'e looÞ .¿t tl)e receilt '1, i, a particular style.r correctly diagnosed an authoritarian on critics diminish interesr in anything iu ¿ltb¿tc t¿ itl¡ Pelcr i,". ,,¡, ,,t 1,,t,,t.,/ strain in the social programs of feeling. " AÌexander ralks about the else. Criticism today borrows the Dhrnu Agrest tncl Eisttltrtt il ,l t,t ,,i: ii,,tt, r;t,i,it, Edoardo Persico remarked on this Le Corbusier and others. Yet the "primitive feeling' evoked by a steeply akeady inadequate tools ofarr history as trlatio O¿n¡lels¡tnts H(iSD Ncr'¡ ,,, !!,t,i' ,¡¡,, situation nearly halfa century ago, extraordinary power of Le Corbusier's pitched roof; he believes thar the traditionally practiced, substirutes huilling in Buenos , r\ldrcb/April rgtl 1 pitched .mosr Aires, extnþle, u,e l ",, i:,tr. l,,i when he surveyed the bitter factional architecture-and indeed, chat of roof may be the narural description for analysis, and turns J'or ., ',tl,l' ¡, ¡i/¡ i/', rivalries in Fascist Italy between Frank Lloyd \Wright-sprang in part þþt2-r7: and simple> thing to build, and he architecture into a harmless bur recogu i:e l/te refercuces A/et¿nder, S¿u ,,, "t11¡¡,,¡¡ 1/' t; classicizing traditionalists and modern from their passionate searches for an contrasts it with the arid forms of ultimately meaningless and consumable tu bisloriarl Jìtrns tbut lsl¡ikuuzt, tud ¡,¡, ',ti,t.. i¡¡/'.,, t movement rationalists. Persico architecture that would confront contemporary archirecrure, which are aftifact. As society's arbirers of rasre, ¿ t,r¡icl ba ¿d I i n i tt t ion, t\lurr¿t, S ilrcrcf ,,itli i,t lti't,,, i,.,1 concluded that, although chey appeared conremporary social realiries. eiu prized precisely because they lack critics also help to distribure society's .t ü./ u'e cd n .tþþrccidte ,,4 Pd Itcnt Lutgtr,tgt: l,,, rt' !/',tl i', to reflect dramatically different feeling. The task of the architect, rewards-prestige and money-ro rhose it ts d l:igbl1, ,'1,',1, i,r \\ i,l, I'ou'ns, Buildiug, Alexander argues, is to produce a i n telligeu t, ¡,,, l,,t 'tt'. positions, the polemics in fact masked Arch i îectlre a s s ls i ott architects who are willing to produce fa (onslrucliou- t,1/,,t. tt" tit 1til/) tt' harmonious work feels .tccon i she¿ s tïilctil re, \ an underlying consensus. Since all sides that "absolurely fresh new fashions destined for elite þl Ncu' l'ork t r.¡77; t 1,, ,,,'. l,, ' ,',¡ ,1,, /,,,¡ ¡¡, took their cues from Fascism, the A telling contrast can be drawn comfortable-physically, emorionally, consumption. u itb a biglt legree of ,,¡ ,/il, itrirt ' :,'t,, stylistic debates that flourished in the between the responses of contemporary practically,> and indeed, not even designs of a different and better acclaimed, complex, and interesting i/.t, ¡ 1¡,,,1 / ,'¡¡ ;11, (informalists) of the r97os for having world, but instead a set of increasingly The contemporary discourse on work such as Giuseppe Terragni's Casa sll l i ì'r,.; .';t r,l it,/' r,l nothing to say about the current state of abstract, pretty (and marketable) architecture thus fashions rhe del Fascio in Como is deeply troubling, .,, i'i/¡,'¡ t l,i,/¡it¡¡¡ American society; and he does this in a renderings of their own or of antique discipline's own neurron bomb, which for its explicit and undeniably political promises to leave 4oo-page text devoted to formalisr works and recycled postclassical nothing but the vacanr matrix cannot successfully be evaded. analysis.6 Other historians Iaboriously picturesque sites. Like much building buildings intact-an empry bric-a-brac |,t,,1"/" t,,r,;,,, landscape in both style and subsrance, a criticize the naive and utopian visions of the decades iust preceding, these Sometimes architecrure lr an explicit l)//)t1,, , .'t,i ,,ti,,, i,. ¡ of early European modernists who aesthetic ìndulgences simply literally empty reminiscence of a bygone political billboard; at other times ir / , t ¡ , 1 , ì / , I I t t ¡ , t associated their architecture with radical masquerade as archirecture. They reveal culture. sets itself in opposition to dominant l),t'itu:\ll tLl;¡ opposition to existing political and architects in full retreat from any class interests; and still elsewhere it social systems; at the same time they involvement with the actual world of constitutes an unconscious-but no less lamenc che fate of the modern buildings. real-expression of political and social (.u¡lì¡, /,t¡, movement under the totalitarian realities and aspirations. Cenainly pressures of Scalinist Russia and aesthetic and formal considerations come into play in any uncìersrandinéÌ of a situation. ,{.t the same time, to suggest building; but the inescapable rrurh is that the worÌd contains an ineluctable that these categories are culturally harmony which an architect need only conditioned, often arbitrary, rrncì only discover in the realm of fo¡ms and two amonél a number of components feeÌings is dangerously naive." An tl'rat dete nnine the \,¿lue of architccturc architecture predicated solely upon such principles finds its objective correlative jt't' \ùØ¿lt Arc/tiÍtcl ttrt ¿t )tt/ tt'rtJ )tÌ./ )tt/u'ct'Lt bì / i l) ìn a Disney movie: soothing in the promise of happy endings, simplified tùØh¿t ¿ccounts firr the architectur¿l u'ìth clear-cut villains and heroes, and r,'mr¡unit)"s |ervirsivc rclusirl t0 seductive in the presentation of a world confront real issues in the ¡ealm of that in so many ways simply does not archirecture and the world that correspond to the one in which we live. circumscribes it? \When so much energy is devoted to maintaining architecture's In none of its manifest¿tions does the privilege and its purity, one has to profession clare question the politics of wonder what is being conceaÌed. building: who builds what, u,here, for whom, and ar what price. ,tlthough Academic politics are so bitter because arguably one of the most importanr the stakes are so small, in a case u'here issues for all architects to consider- stakes are immeasurably larger-as in and for the discipline to emphasize- the politics of building-the apparent it is addressed by few. Certainly as strategy is to place something innocuous professionals, architects do littÌe to at center stage in order to divert gain a voice in these important attention from more important decìsìons-they do not, for example, concerns. Formal elements-style, organize political action committees; by harmony of parts, call them what you default they are left with the trivial will-are su{liciently trivial to be issues of fashion and taste. The anemic awarded top billing in architectural architecture that issues from this discourse. It is also f¿r easier and far ,rcquiesccnce ovcrwhelms our citics. more tidy to persevere in formalist Nowhere is this more ¿¡rotesquely critiques, thereby avoiding the risk of apparent than in the tenements of the antagonizing moneyed interests. In South Bronx in New York. Oflrcials turn, architects choose rhe safer course chose to deal with socially troubled, by designing buildìngs that evade issues abandoned, and physically scarred of substance. public housing projects by spending thousands of dollars to replace broken The position that only formal elements and boarded up windows wirh matter in architecture bespeaks a decorative panels depicting houseplants monumentai refusal to confront serious and window shades, thereby avoicling problems; it avoids a critique o[ the a serious confrontation with the existing power structure, of the ways community's problems. Public oflìcials power is used, and of the identity of in el1èct aped the activities of prominent thr¡se whose interests pou'er serves. To architects u,ho currently undcrtakc the do otherwise might entail openin¡¡ a same kind of window dressing in their Pandora's br¡x of far more complicated own work. issues: racism and white flight, expÌoitation and the manipularion of Only when architects, critics, and land values, prices, resolrrces, building historians accept the responsibiÌity frrr permits, zoning, and taxes on behalf of building in all of its ramifìcations- a small power elite as wcll as larger will we approach an ¿rrchitcctilre Perer Paþadentetriou

Of the leading archirects of rhe r95os Comirg of Ag. Saarinen remains one of the most enigmatic. At the heighr of his career he was characrerized as .the most interesting of the second generation of modern American architects. . it E..o Saarinen's career is commonly seems ro be Saarinen's secret that he, undersrood to represenr about a decade more than most of his contemporaries, of production, from r95o ro r96r. His recognizes that rhe valid approaches to sudden death occurred in rhe midst of modern architecturàl problems are vastly construcrion of ten of his major buildings more varied than any single-minded and at the beginning of a relocation of approach would indicate. " ' the office from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan to Flamden, Connecticur, Saarinen's career resists simple now the home of the successor firm, characterizarion, since ir does not Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and present an identifiable olooko or an .A,ssociates. This move ro the East Coasr easily discernible unity as a body w¿rs to be Saarinen's coming of age, a of work. Ir is as if several archirects step from the industrial Midwest to rhe were ar work within Eero Saarinen, heart of culture and the home of major each pushing the limits of modern corporations. Eero Saarinen did not archirecture in a differenr direction. As suddenly appear as a fully developed Peter Carter observed, osaarinen was architect at the age offorty, however; aware of today's rechnology in its widest his evolution is the story of diverse sense and he used its potential as a directions in design dqrin¿¡ rhe maruring means of achieving a many-faceted years of modernism. archirectural expression within the tradition of rhe modern masrers. To Born in Europe, Eero was an archirect advance the symbolic and environmental whose life paralleled the transformation contenr of rhat tradition he explored of America; an immigrant nation special architectural vernaculars for each rlrtlt,lüú looking back upon its European roors project . . it precluded the possibility became Kennedy's New Frontier, where of a personal style, a fact which set him innovative vitaliry and technological apart from any of his contemporaries.,l prowess characterized every field, especially architecture. His'career spans \ùüith the critique of modernism during the middle years of rwenrierh-cenrury the lare rg6os and inro the r97os, architecture, from the premodernist however, Saarinen's work fell into craft rradirions of his father's arelier to disrepute. As Reyner Banham nored, Eero Saarinen and Modern the questioning of modernism exhibited .Practically everything rhat seemed in his later work. This cririque has been wrong wirh U.S. archirecture was American Architecrure continued and variously practiced by the illustrated by pointing at Eero. . . . His tliird generation of modern architecrs, position raises some embarassing many oFwhom be¿¡an their careers in his questions about the correct stance for an office. architect in a society that has the kind clients we do. o ' Saarinen's work for large This articlc is rhe rcsult t¡f rcse¡rrch untlcrtakcn by corporare and institutional clients the author s ith su1>¡rort presents most clearly the problems farcecl f¡onr rhc rglll r{rnold W. by an architect commirted both to rhe Brunner (ì¡anr of rhc Ncu \irrk Cha¡>rcr, The principles of pragmatic modernism A.mcric¿rn Insritr¡re of clemanded of a large design ¡-rractice, Høl Foster

f,,,.1:'lr,r¡,ìr'o I rrrrl.rl (Post) Modern Polemics t() ()

fn A-..icun cultural politics roday there are ar least two positions on -it f; postmodernism in place: one aligned with neoconservative politics, the other derived from poststructuralisr theory.

I postmodernism is .t "Neoconservativer the more familiar of the two: defined mostly in terms of style, it depends on modernism which, reduced ro its own worst formalist image, is countered with a return to narrative, ornament, and the figure. This position is often one of reaction, but in more ways than the stylistic-for also proclaimed is the return of history (the humanist tradition) and the rerurn of rhe subject (the artist/architecr as autear).

'

'{'

èìtê,-. -'i tí ) .,'f irt Classical: t'-' The End of the o r*- .- .':l , (n- \\'\S {Y\\ ¿. .,,1. ¿ the End of the Beginning, i2 l¡. the End of the End .{, ùúr present has been under the influence -J.tu ll,rrlrillttl, I l¡, Onltt ol \itntl,rrr,t. -¡{r.hi....¡rre from the fifteenth century to the \itD//l,tlionr, .\r¡r )',r¡l (.ilj. \. t¡/i/,1t1Í(L ) of three .fictions. o Notwithstanding the apparent succession of architectural styles, Ilttlrill,rtt/ tlt. ¡t.rio,1 l',3ìtuittg itt ? .ltttt 1nrtrt.1s I t i./.¡, r. tt t ¡ i n¡ u l,tt r¿ : romanticism, modernism, t b. .lì.1 t,, rt t L cL n // r) l)l hr,, I each wirh its own label-classicism, neoclassicism,

I c t ( i rot/ tt c t iott,,t il¿ 5 ì D¡ tt /,t / iot/, I I (' \,/ \ t Í /)'! Í \¡ cril n / 1, ¡t tlt three fictions have persisted in one tlt.lìrst is l,,ts,t/ ,,tt /b. t¿ltrtl ltt "f tul¡t.' posrmodernism, and so on inro the future-these ¡trot¡tl ,,t¡ Ì/¡, ,onurt,i,tl ltu o./ t,tlt, ,tttJ l/t tl¡inl t)il l/)t JÌrttLlxr¿l ltu,,l r,rlt, form or anorher for frve hundred years. They are repretentation, reason, and Ìtistory.' I I h( î(rnt ,l,tssictl i\ oJlLtt (o)tÍ/1s1./ u i//¡ tl¡, iJ,,t Each of the fictions had an underlying purPose: representation was to embody the o.f'th thssic ;ttttl u itl¡ tl.tt st.¡listic ntlltol ol cl,r¡¡ìristn. 'l /t.tl ul¡ic/.¡ is cl¿s¡i,, ,t(.rrli,tq /4 idea of meaning; reason was to codify the idea of truth; history was to recover the .JoiLfh R.t'kuLrl, inrok,s îltt i,/.t r,f ,t¡ttitt¡t 'tutl trLùþlttrt' ttil.1 5//q<.\ts ,tttt/¡otil.l ,till ¿istiilL'îi,tt idea of the timeless from the idea of change. Because of the persistence of these I ..r " i! is t ¡noltl o./'tlttt ìs cxctllttl rir û/'r/)L .þrif ililk ,\lort irttlnrîtntl1, it itn¡'lirs iÍj r,u tt /iil¡.1.!t,tts5. îl)L caregories, ir will be necessary ro consider this period as manifesting a conrinuity iJc,t rlut it is lìrst ntDþ rl.1,tl îinc ('l,t¡si,isttt,,t¡ as oþ./,D\(./ to ¡lx ¡l¿:sictl, uill lt J,/ìn.J lxr,,ts,¡ in architectural thought. This continuous mode of thought can be referred to ntttlnl of'tlltnþii,t! lt, þrulutt ,r ch¡¡ic rrsult h.l tlrltttlìnu 1,, ,t ,l,tssi,,¡l fust. I ltis ,tttonls u iÍ/¡ tltt tbe cla¡¡ica/.' u Jt li t¡ i t i¡,¡t t i t t u lt¡ .\ i r -l ol't 5 tl nt Dtt rsttt, ./ìr /tunt ,l,tssitis¡u is u,'l ¡t nu,/¡ t :t/ o.l'iJcts,t¡tt/ t,t/tt,¡,ts ¡/ ¡.i,¡ stllc. Ht n,tìt[,ti¡¡¡ ilttf tt/¡ilL ntch ul (ìtlhit as ¿rL'hilLLÍt/tL tt,t¡ lustrl ott î/tc ¡,tntt frolnrtiott,tl It was not unril rhe late twentieth century that the classical could be appreciated r,'lttionslti¡s ,ts î/¡, ,ltssictl tnhilt,Íurc n./ lltt Ilt¡¡,tiss't¡trr. ttu unr rot/t/ LaïJi/51,t ('othi. t,tl/tcdntl an absrract system of relarions. Such recognition occurred because the architecture tt il/: ¿ Rtt,tiss,tttL'L þth..o; iÍ sitilþ1.\',/it/ ttot /¡'tt, ¡þ, lanþ rt/ c/,tssi,is¡tt. It Lottlrttst' I),u,tri Ptrþh¡rìos of the early part of the twentieth century itself came to be considered part of t,g/tLs ibttt cldssitiru is ttot ,t sîl/t, Ì¡ul ittstc,tl /¡,ts to t/o u ilb rtÍioil¿lisn: tt\ ttt¡tch ¿\ LIr.l)il(LlttrL is ,t history. Thus it is now possible to see that, although stylistically different from tttîot¡it t/i¡totrsc, i¡ is lry lt.lìtiIiort ìtittt\lt,tttttI lt) rtliontlil¡ thL lt\srtt\ Ìo l¡c It,trutl /oìt1'Jlont previous archirecrures, < architecture exhibits a system of relations similiar (hr\iii!ilt, ÌlttttJbrt. ¿tL tt'1| Íu btjòttl iu L/,ti\itittl t ,ttli'tìt u ri¡¡/ 1,, /'ttt itt ,l't¡ti.itttt': ro rhe classical.r Prior ro rhis time, the .classicalo was taken to be either rdliont/it¡. Porþh¡rios þr¡'ç ¡t,tt.ftsLs tl¿¡sici:nt u itl¡ llx ,l¿ssit¿l ttl tl¡. t'hssic, tluî is, tt it/.t ,t stt o./ synonymous with oarchitecture>> conceived of as a continuous tradition from ttluts pritil'gitt! th( rrtll) (tbtt is, t,rtioutlit¡) oJ' 'l the period ttt ,tn trr)r, L, century, an historicized style. Today lcc/auits tr tt/¡rtss ¿tt¿ .f,tll,tc.l "/ anriquiry or, by the mid-nineteenth lhis tþþoat/t is tlul tl'tssiLi¡nt tclit! ttt¡ !t,t i¿Lt oÍ to employ b i s ¡t,t itt I ton t i n r i r¡' i il l)t tu tì t ì ¡t 1/:t cl¿ ss i ct I : of time dominated by the classical can be seen as an l/ttnfì,r, il c/ots ttt,l þrot/ttt. l/.tt lin¡,lt¡st¡,¡¡ twentieth c/¡,tr,ttItt isIic r,f thL ,l,rssic. I lt ,ltssiL,rl. /,.¡ Foucault's term-a continuous period of knowledge that includes the early inþlit,tliott, l¡,ts ,t t¡¡,'tt ftl,.titL !1,r1//! l/¡¿u Ìl¡L associated with cldssiL: it ,toþrs ¿ //zirle-r-c p.tst, ,r go/t/ttt ,rg, century.4 Despite the proclaimed rupture in both ideology and style stfttrior lo 1/s¡ ¡nolttn lìntt or lbt'ltrcstttî the modern movement, the three Êctions have never been questioned and so Modern archirecrure claimed ro recrify and liberate itself from the Renaissance

intact. This is ro say rhar archirecrure since the mid-Êfteenth cenrury aspired ¡ebea fiction of representation by asserting that it was not necessary for architecture to

paradigm was solely to embody its own of the classic, of that which is tineless, neanin&ft/l, and true.In the sense represent another architecture; architecture function.

that architecrure arremprs ro recover rhat which is classic, it can be called llith rhe deductive conclusion that form follows function, modern architecture

.classical. , t introduced the idea that a building should express-that is, look like-its function,

or like an idea of function (rhat it should manifest the rationality of its processes of

The ..fictionn of representation: production and composition).7 Thus, in its effort to distance itself from the earlier the simulation of meaning representational tradition, modern architecture attempted to strip itself of the

outward trappings of oclassicalo style. This process of reduction was called The first 3 is representarion. Before the Renaissance rhere was a 6 "fictiono abstraction. r{ column without a base and capital was thought to be an abstraction. 'I'l:ings,- ùlicbel Forc¿tlt, "'I'be Or¡ler of Ne¿r Yorþ Frrtnco Brtni. "I¿oue Btttistt Alherli,- ¡¡"¡4 \'ork congruence City, Ranclon House, r<¡7 1. of language and represenration. The meaning of language Lit1. Htrlnr ,ru,l Rou , t g-- was in a .face Thus reduced, form was believed to embody function more *honestly'" Such precisell 'l'l:e It is trlicl¡el Forcdttt's disiinction betu'een Jitcacle oJ' tlt tburcb ûJ'Sdilt' Ailircd in t)Lturtd value> conveyed lbe cl¿ssical utd no¡lern tlut l¡qs net'et been wirhin represenracion; in orher words, the way language produced b.1' Albtrti is ott of tltt./ìrst ¡¡5ç5 aJ l/tt trtusþositiott a column looked more like a real column, the simplest possible load-carrying ddeqLalelJr drticulated iu reldtiousbip to ¿rchitecttre. of tncitttl hrihliug t.¡'Jtcs Ìo tc/:ictc holL ttriJìatliort I12 couIr.tsI l¡t Fotc¿uII's eþistenologicaI meaning could be reprerented uithin langttage. Things laere; ttuLth and meaning and tutltorill,. ll n¿rþs, ds IloNi s,r.¡'s, ltcisit't w.ere element, than one provided with a base and capital bearing arboreal or "t d iJJè ra n t i,t I i o n, d r¿) i I t. 1 l rt /)tt s re r]Ìtt i ile./ ¿t rl turnin.q duzt1,.fr'¡ttil t/r t'crn¿cul,tr .Ìo ll¡t self-evident. unin|erruþrcl uolt oJ'rtþrcscrtfdIiou f ltt The meaning of a romanesque or gorhic cathedral was in Ltliu'." (þ27)) ll is tcttþnhlt in tbt Jrun itself; it was anthropomorphic motifs. JìJleentlt ce|tlny 10 tbe þresent. In ftrct, it u ill he .,r'ct'uttLrl4ï lo rtIitt' llx cl¿ssictl lenþlt Jtnttt defacto' Renaissance seen rbdl u,l:¿t is ¿sstned in qrcbiteclrre lo be buildings, on the other hand-and all buildings after them rhat Itcurtsc lLt Jhtttiott oJ'tltt lcuþlL itt ,rtttir¡tti1.¡ ,tutl chssic¿l is, in Fotcdu/t's terns, ntoderu, and u.b¿¡ is 1lx chtrr'l: iu l/:t.li.f'lccnlb tenturt' utts siuifur, dssuned ir .trcbitectilre to he nodarn is iu rcalit.¡' pretended to be -received their value by represenring is d,trtl)tr ilt.tlî.'r to ,t.'rLt:.' lbt an already This reduction to pure functionality was, in fact, not abstraction; it was an attempt Ll¡tu'tttt', it t¡tile Fotcdull's cl¿ssic¿1, Frtuc¿tlt's listinction is t¡tt u'l¡¿t tenþle fruur titl¡ tl¡t triuuþlttl trclt. (StL is ¿t issae lsere, bat r¿îber tbe crtutintitl, tkrt lsas valued archirecture, by being simulacra (representations of represenrarions) R.IT'ittkou'cr, ,.¡lrcl¡ilcctur¿l Principlts iu îht tlgt ol of ro represenr reality itself. In this sense functional goals merely replaced the orders of persisted iu arcltitecturc fi.on tl¡e classic¿l to tl¡e Httn,tnistu," Ncu York (il\', V'. \l'. itlorlou. rL)7 t, þresenl day,. antique buildings; they were de jure.n The nessage of the past was used ro verify rhe anl ¿lso D. S. Lluubtr:, "Pdlrons tnd Arf isÍs in classical composition as the starting point for architectural design. The moderns' 4 ll¡e lLel,tiss,tltt,' Ltnlon, ¡\l,tc'\lill¿n G (o., tt)to) Frncdult, psxii. lneaning of the presenr. Precisely because of rhis need ro verify, Renaissance It is ds if'Allterti u'ert stliug lbdr u'itl) lltt tntboritl, attempr ro represenr *realism' with an undecorated, funccional object was a fiction ll'/¡ile ll:e turu "tþistette', ts use¡l lyre is siui/¿r oJ'Got/ in questiott, ,ttdtt iltttst ttsot'Í Ío 1l)e s1'ntbols oJ to Fouc¿tlt's use oJ'the tern de.fìniug tr architecrure was rhe first simulation, an unwitting frction of the objecc. bis ou'n Ío rcriJ1 tl¡e cl:urrb.'l'bts lbt ust oJ' it equivalent to the simulacrum of the classical in Renaissance representation. For þou'et cot¿tinuttus perittrl oJ'Þnovledge, it is ,te(ess.ny to tltt ltiuntþl:al trch batrrntts d ttttss.tet on lltt J)rctlt oul llsat tbe tine bere uf Audret r¿ll¡cr lb¿n at cnhodiuttnt ttf ils þoir?r þeriod lefued ds tl:e what made function any more ,c.eaIr, source of imagery than elements chosen from Sunt' classicdl eþistene di/fers fron Fotc¿tlt's clefnitiou. ^ inhercur netniug. Foucaull lrtc¿ttes tu.o ¿lisc¡txlinuities in the By the late eighteenth century historical relativity came ro supersede the face value antiquity? The idea of function, in this case the message of utility as opposed to 7 derclopnent of lY/estent calture: tl¡e c!¿ssicdl ¿td tl¡e -leff Kiþnis, J)'on t seuindr tt tl¡c Gntda¿le Scltool ol' nodern. He identtlies tl¡e cl¿ssical, hegiuring iu tbe of language as represenration, and this view of hisrory prompred a search for Desigu, Hdrtdrd flnit'ersil¡,, :Í) Fehrutr¡' rt¡lìl the message of antiquity, was raised to an originary proposition-a self-evident nid-seueuteeutlt I n t n i centuty, tt,itb tlte priuacy l'the - F onn co u nol fot hnt' J-u rtc irttt t i I Ji ct on intersection oJ'hnguage drul ïeþresentdtir)il: certainry, for origins both historical and logical, for truth and proof, ( bLt rot liilite./ 1o use) l¡¡s eìlet'ge¿l 4s tbe ût/ilc and for goals. srarring point for design analogous to typology or historical quotation. The moderns' including firsl oflatguage,.its meanin¡¡,. slts seeil to be sel: ,t possibilitT' oJ-Jòru. - eL';deilt .1il¿ to ¡'eceit'e its jastifcatiou tt,itbiu Truth was no longer thought to reside in representation but was believed ro exisr attempt to represent realism is, then, a manifescation of the same fiction wherein lauguage; the uzty ltrugtage þrot,iletl neuning coultl be reþresentecl u,itbiu laugtage, On tbe otber l:ancl, outside it, in the processes of history. This shift can be seen in the changing status meaning and value reside outside the world of an architecture

moderns assumed they were transforming rhe field of referential figuration ro thar of represented is no longer valued. A sign begins to replicate or, inJean Baudrillard's non-referential o ¡¡ reality, however, .objectiveo "eþjsç¡¡tity. their forms never left term, .simulate" once the reality it represents is dead.'o !Øhen there is no longer a the classical rradirion. They were simply srripped down crassical forms, or forms distinction between representation and reality, when realiry is only simulation, then

referring ro a new ser of givens (function, technology). Thus, Le corbusier,s houses representation loses its a priori source of significance, and it, too, becomes a that look like modern steamships or biplanes exhibit rhe same referential arrirude simulation. toward represenrarion as a Renaissance or buirding. The points of reference are different, but the implications for the object are the same. The ..fiction' of reason: the simulation of rrurh

The commitmenr ro rerurn modernisr abstraction to history seems Rohttt Veuluri, Dtuisc Stott Brrtu,¡, !¡"r,",, Izenotr, to sum up, for The second .fiction" of postmedieval architecture ls reason. If representation was a . I:rrrning B,rtr/rilhnl Jtont Lts \lcg,ts: lhe forgottcu sl,ntbolisnt rtJ ¡pS, e. our time, the problem of representation. It was given its .post_Moderno u rchittr'ttrtl.l,,r.Dt, r..t, c.¿/., (.¿uhrit/tt.,,\.tss. inversion simulation of the meaning of the presenr through the message of antiquicy, then Iu r,.l,rtitt tt¡ Ìl¡t Jtt¡/.¡,t/ /h, rt,tlìf¡ r,l (ì,,t1, t\II'f Prtss, tr)77 þtìj I),ttJ¡ i//,tr,/ r¡/t r. . nt,Ì,tlth¡sìt,tl J,sl',ri¡ ¡,¡,,,, in Robert Venturi's distinction between the oducko and the *decorated 9 shed.,, reason was a simulation of the meaning of the truth through the message of science. Jtotrt lh, iJ,,t //,.t1 tl¡, i¡¡t,t<,s t,ttt,,,t/,,1 nr,//.titt.q Sc tlte ,tt.tll.,ut,/ rl,.'t lì/u -Btlonl Iitr4tiu: C/:dngiug Aîtitil.lts i,t A duck ¡t,,.,,, tl',1 tt,r, t¡,,t i¡1.t.t,, is a building that looks like its function or rhar allows its internal ¡lt¡¡tric.tl ttrchit¿,c'Ìur1.,, ,\t u, \'orÞ (.it1. order This fiction is strongly manifest in twentieth-century architecture, as it is in that of ht /,rt ltt,r //7' /t rfìcl s i tt l/,r, r,t, t\Í it l¡¿ t' B /¿ p I t & u nq¡l rotl tt t I io tt s, t t1 ti ¡ I] to be displayed on its exterior; a decorated shed is a building that functions as a the four preceding cencuries; irs apogee was in the Enlightenmenr. The quest for Itnnt IJ,tîlist,t .\//¡.rti, t)t¡ P,rirttìttq. .\, ¿¿ //,¡¡.r¡ \',r1, I nitttsit¡ P¡i¡¡, r¡lôô þþ6tj - l billboard, where any kind of imagery (except irs internal function)-retters, origin in architecture is the initial manifestatìon of the aspiration toward a patterns, even architectural elemenrs-conveys a meîJage accessible ro all. In this rational source for design. Before the Renaissance the idea of origin was seen as self-

sense the srripped-down .abstractions, of modernism are still referenrial objects: evident; its meaning and importance

technological rather than typological ducks. a priori universe of values. In the Renaissance, with the loss of a self-evident

universe of values, origins were sought in natural or divine sources or in a

But the Post-Modernists fail to make anorher distinction which is exemplified in cosmological or anthropomorphic geomerry. The reproduction of the image of the venturi's comparison of the Doges' palace in venice, which he calls a decorared vitruvian man is the most renowned example. Not surprisingly, since the origin

shed, and sansovino's library across rhe piazzasanMarco, which he says is a duck., was thought to contain the seeds of the object's purpose and rhus its destination,

This obscures the more significanr distinction between architecrure oas is, and this belief in the existence of an ideal origin led directly to a belief in the exiscence archirecrure as message. The Doges' palace is not a decorated shed because it was ofan ideal end. such a genetic idea ofbeginning/end depended on a beliefin a

not representational ofanother architecture; its significance came directly from universal plan in nature and the cosmos which, through the application of classical

the meaning embodied in the figures themselves; was it an architecture..as is.,, rules of composition concerning hierarchy, order, and closure, would confer a

Sansovino's librury may seem to be a duck, but only because it falls into the history harmony of the whole upon the parts. The perspective of the end thus directed the

oflibrary types. The use ofthe orders on Sansovino's library speaks nor ro the strategy for beginning. Therefore, as Alberti first defined ic in Della Pittura,

function or rype of the library, but rather to the representarion of a previous composition was not an open-ended or neutral process of transformation, but racher architecture. The facades of sansovino's library contain a message, not an inherent a strategy for arriving at a predetermined goal; it was the mechanism by which the

meaning; they are sign boards. venturi's misreading of these buildings seems idea of order, represenred in the orders, was rranslared into a speci6c form." motivated by a preference for the decorated shed. ìØhile the replication of rhe orders had significance in sansovino's time (in that they defined the crassical), the Reacting against the cosmologicar goals of Renaissance composition, Enl Essentially, then, nothing had really changed from the Renaissance idea oforigin. architecture aspired to a rational process ofdesign whose ends were a product of \ùØhether the appeal was to a divine or natural order, as in the fifteenth century, or pure, secular reason rather than of divine order. The Renaissance vision of harmooy to a rational technique and typological function, as in the post-Enlightenment (faith in the divine) red naturaily to the scheme of order that was to reprace it (fai period, it ultimately amounted to the same thing-to the idea that architecture's in reason), which was the rogical determination of form from apriori types. value derived from a source outside itself. Function and type were only value-laden

origins equivalent to divine or natural ones. Durand embodies this moment of the supreme authority of reason. In his treatises

formal orders become type forms, and natural and divine origins are repraced by In this second "fiction" the crisis of belief in reason eventually undermined the power rational solutions to the problems of accommodation and construction. The goal is a of self-evidence. As reason began to turn on itself, to question its own status, its I2 socially trIorris Klinc, orelevanto architecture; it is attained through "Ãl¿îltcn¿tics,'I'fu L¡tss oJ (,trtu iuI7,,,, che rational transformarion of authority to convey truth, its power to prove, began to evaporate. The analysis of Ntu'\7trþ (ity, Oïliul Ililit,crsitl, press, rgtjo þi type forms' Later' in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, function and analysis revealed that logic could not do what reason had claimed for it-reveal the technique replaced the catalogue of type forms as origins. Bur the poinr is that fror¡ self-evident trurh of its origins. \Øhat both the Renaissance and the modern relied Durand on, it was believed thar deductive reason-the same process used in science, on as the basis of truth was found to require, in essence, faith. Analysis was a form

mathematics, and technology-was capable of producing a truthfuÌ (that is, of simulation; knowledge was a new religion. Similarly, it can be seen that

meaningful) architectural object. ,{nd with the success of racìonalism as a scienri'c architecture never embodied reason; it could only state the desire to do so; there method (one could almosr call it a .styleo of rhoughr) in che eighteenrh and early is no architectural image of reason. Architecture presented an aesthetic of the nineteenth centuries, architecture adopted the self-evidenr values conferred by experience of(the persuasiveness ofand desire for) reason. Analysis, and the illusion

rational origins. If an archite cture looþed rational-tha t is, represented rationality- of proof, in a continuous process that recalls Nietzsche's characterization of .truth," was it believed to represen, rrurh. ,{s in logic, at the point where alr deductions is a never-ending series of figures, metaphors, and metonymies. developed from an initial premise corroborate that premise, there is logical closure and, it was believed, certain truth. Moreover, in rhis procedure the primacy of the In a cognitiue enuironment in øhich reason has been reuealed to deþend on a belìef ìn origin remains intact. The rational became the moral and aesthetic basis of modern knowledge, therefore to be irredacibly rnetaþhoric, a classical nrrhitrrtorr-rhat is, an

architecture' And the representational task ofarchitecture in an age ofreason was ro arcltitectøre wltose processes of transfonnation are aalue-lad¿n rtrategies groanded on porrray its own modes of knowing. self-euìdent or a priorì origins-utill altuays be an architecture of ratatement and not of

reþresentation, n0 matter ltow ìngenioasly the origins are selectedfor this transformation, nor

At this poiht in the evolution of consciousness somerhing occurred: reason turned Itotu inuentiue the transformation is. its focus onto itself and thus began the process of its own undoing. euestioning its own status and mode of knowing, reason exposed itself to be a fiction.', The Architectural restatement, replication, is a nostalgia for the security of knowing, a pfocesses for knowing-measurement, logical proof, causality-turned out to be a belief in the continuity of rVestern thought. Once analysis and reason replaced self- network of value-laden arguments, no more rhan effective modes of persuasion. evidence as rhe means by which truth was revealed, the classic or timeless quality of

values were dependenr on another teleology, anorher end fiction, rhat ofrationality. truth ended and the need for verification began. ..fiction, The of history: presumed itself to be a value-free and collective form of intervention, as opposed to the simulation of the timeless the virtuoso individualism and informed connoisseurship personified by the post-

Renaissance architect. Relevance in modern architecture came to lie in embodying a The third .fiction' ofclassical \Øestern architecrure is that ofhistory. Prior to the value other than the natural or divine; the zeitgeist sr'as seen to be contingent and of mid-fifteenth cenrury, time was conceived nondialectically; from antiquity to the rhe present, rather than as absolute and eternal. But the difference in value between middle ages there was no concepr of the,..forward movemento of time. Arr did not presentness and the universal-between the contingent value of the zeitgeist and the seek its justification in terms of the past or furure; it was ineffable and timeless. In eternal value of the classical-only resulted in yet another set (in fact, simply the

ancient Greece the temple and the god were one and the same; architecture was set) of aesthetic preferences. presumedly opposite The neutral spirit of the "epochal divine and natural. For this reason it appeared .classic, to the .classicalo ep6çþ will" supported asymmetry over symmerry, dynamism over stability, absence of

that followed. The classic could not be represented or simulared, ic could only be. hierarchy over hierarchy. In its straightforward asserrion of itself it was nondialectical and timeless.

The imperatives of the "historical momento are always evident in the connection In the mid-fifreenth century the idea of a temporal origin emerged, and with it the between the representation of the function of architecture and its form. Ironically, idea of the past. This interrupted the eternal cycle of time by positing a 6xed poinr modern architecture, by invoking the zeitgeist rather than doing away with history,

of beginning. Flence the loss of the timeless, for the existence of origin required a only continued to act as the

Moreover, the consciousness of time's forward movement came to *explain, a representation of its particular zeirgeist turned out ro be less "modern, than process ofhistorical change. By the nineteenth century this process was seen as originally thought. lVith "dialectical." dialectical time came the idea of the zeitgeist, wirh cause and

effect rooted in presentness-that is, with an aspired-to timelessness of rhe present. One of the questions that may be asked is why the moderns did not see themselves In addition to its aspiration to timelessness, the *spirit of the ageo held that an in this continuity. One answer is that the ideology of the zeitgeist bound them to a priori relationship existed between history and all its manifestarions ar any given their present history with the promise to release them from their past hisrory; tltry moment. It was necessary only ro identify the governing spirit to know what style utere ideologically trapped in the illu¡ion d the eternìty of their own time. of architecture was properly expressive of, and relevant to, the time. Implicit was

the notion thar man should always be .in harmonyo-or at least in a non-disjunctive The late twentieth century, with its retrospective knowledge that modernism has relation-with his time. become history, has inherited nothii-rg less than the recognition of the end of the

ability of a classical or referential architecture to express its own cime as timeless. In its polemical rejection of the history that preceded it, the modern movemenr The illusory timelessness of the present brings with it an awareness of rhe tìmeful attempted to appeal to values for this (harmonic) relationship other than those that nature of past time. It is for this reason that the representation of azeìtgeist always embodied the eternal or universal. In seeing itself as superseding the values of the implies a simulation; it is seen in the classical use of the replication of a past tinte preceding architecture, the modern movemenr substituted a universal idea of to invoke the timeless as the expression of a present tin¿e. Thus, in the zeirgeisr relevance for a universal idea of history, analysis ofprogram for analysis ofhistory. It argument, there will always be this unacknowledged paradox, a simulation of the zeitgeìst history, too, is subject ro a quesrioning its of own authority. How can it be The not-classical: possible, from within history, to determine a timeless truth of its .spirito? Thus architecture as frction

history ceases ro be an objective source of rruth; origins and ends once again lose

their universality (that is, their self-evident value) and, like history, become The necessity of the quotation marks around the term.frction, is now obvious. ,l fictions. If it is no longer possible to pose the problem of archirecture in terms The three fictions just discussed can be seen not as frctions but rather as simulations.

I of a zeitgeist-thar is if architecture q can no longer assert its relevance through a As has been said, fiction becomes simulation when it does not recognize irs consonance with its zeitgeist-then it must turn to some other structure. To escape condition as fiction, when it tries to simulate a condition of reality, rrurh, or

such a dependence on the zeitgeisr-that is, the idea thar the purpose of an non-fiction. The simulation of representation in architecture has led, first of all, to

architectural style is to embody the spirit of its age-it is necessary ro propose an excessive concentration of inventive energies in the representational object.

an alternative idea ofarchitecture, one whereby it is no longer the purpose of SØhen columns are seen as surrogates of trees and windows resemble the portholes of r3 fl rtlarlin Heiclegger, -On tbe Essence of Trttb" ft.ont architecture, but its inevitability, ro express its own time. ships, architectural elements become representational figures carrytng an inordinate "Basic\l/ritings," Neu'\'ork City, Hdrþet ê. Rou, Publislters, r977. burden of meaning. In ocher disciplines representation is not the only purpose of "Errdilcy is tbe essential coLtier-esserrce t.) the prinoxtial essertce oJ'trttl:. Errtncl oþens itsetf Lþ Once the traditional values of classical architecture are understood as not meaningful, figuration. In literature, for example, metaphors and similes havea wider range of as tbe oþeu regiot ftn'etety oþþosite essential trttlt. . . Ernrtclt and the concetling of u,hat is true, and timeless, it must be concluded that these classical values were aluays application-poetic, ironic, and the like-and are nor limited to allegorical or conce¿led beloug to tl:e prinordial essence of tratl:.,

simulations (and are not merely seen to be so in light of a presenr ruprure of history referential functions. Conversely, in architecture only one aspecr of rhe ûgure is or the present disillusionment with the zeirgeist). It becomes clear that the classical traditionally at work: object representation. The archirectural figure always alludes

itself was a simulation that architecture susrained for frve hundred years. Because to-aims at the representation of-some other object, whether architectural,

the classical did not recognize itself as a simulation, it sought ro represenc exrrinsic anthropomorphic, natural, or technological. values (which it could not do) in the guise of its own reality.

Second, the simulation ofreason in architecture has been based on a classical value

The result, then, of seeing classicism and modernism as parr of a single historical given to the idea of truth. But Heidegger has noted chat error has a trajectory continuity is the understanding that there are no longer any self-evident values in parallel to rruth, that error can be the unfolding of truth.'r Thus to proceed from representation, reason, or history ro confer legitimacy on the object. This loss of < or fiction is to counter consciously the tradition of .mis-reading" on which self-evident value allov¡s che timeless to be cur free from the meaningful and the the classical unwittingly depended-not a presumedly logical transformation of truthful. It permits the view that there (a is no one truth timeless truth), or one something a priori, but a deliberare < stated as such, one which presupposes meaning (a timeless meaning), but merely the timeless. Vhen the þossibilìty ìs raised only its own internal truth. Error in this case does not assume the same value as tbat the tineless can be cut adrìft the tirnefut (bìstory), fron r0 t00 can tlte tìnteless be cut truth; it is not simply its dialectical opposite. It is more like a dissitnrlatìon, a autay from uniuersality î0 pru¿lße a tinele¡sness whiclt is not uniaersal . This separacion onot-containing" of the value of trurh. makes it unimportant whether origins are narural or divine or functional; thus, it is no longer necessary to produce a classic-that is, a timeless-architecture by recourse Finally, the simulated ûction of modern movemenr history, unwiccingly inherited to the classical values inherent in reprercntatìon, reason, and l:istoty. from the classical, was thar any presenr-day architecture musr be a reflection of

its zeitgeist; that is, archirecture can simultaneously be about presentness and

universality. But if architecture is inevitably abour the invention of fictions, it should also be possible to propose an architecrure that embodies an lrber fiction, architecture can be given the provisional title of the not-c/a¡sìcal. As dissimulation is one that is not sustained by the values of presentness or universality and, more (t not the inverse, negative, or opposite of simulation, a .nor-classical' architecture is importantly, that does not consider its purpose to reflect these values. This otber not the inverse, negative, or opposite of classical architecrure; it is merely different 6ction/object, then, clearly should eschew the Êctions ofthe classical (representation, from or other than. A "not-classical' architecture is no longer a certification of reason, and history), which are arremprs co *solve,, the problem of architecture experience or a simulation of hiscory, reason, or reality in the present. Instead, it rationally; for strategies and solutions are vestiges ofa goal-oriented view t ofrhe may more appropriately be described as an other manifestation, an architecture as ìs, world. If this is rhe case, the question becomes: \Øhat can be the model for now as a fiction. Ic is a represenrarion of itself, of its own values and internal

architecture when the essence of what was effecrive in rhe classical model-the experience. presumed rational value of structures, representations, methodologies of origins and t1 ends, and deduccive processes-has been shown to be a simulation?, Gillcs Deleuze, .Phto tu¡l tl¡c Sinnl¿crrn," The claim that a onot-classical' architecture is necessary, thar ir is proposed by the t6 ..Octohe,r,' ,/r. 21, (tubrilgt, i\ltss. Baudtillard p5,

trll'I Prtss, tt iutcr t 9li 1. new epoch or the ruprure in the continuity of history, would be another zeitgeist Distirguisbirg betu'eeu sintlation aud ul¡at l¡e calls Deltuze tses t sligltt/1'different Ícrninoloq, Ía is dissinulørirtn, Baadrillard says îl)dt "to dissinuldte It not possible to answer such a question with an alrernative model. Bur a series d.l.lress .t t.er¡' siuihr set oJ-issiles; be disclsses Íl¡c argument. The "not-classical" merely proposes an end to the dominance of classical is to feign not to h¿te u,bat one lsas. To sinulate is to Pl¡tlonic disliuction lrtu'een to lttt'e u'l:¿l rrrc l)dstt't, ,Sontertue u'ltrt nodcl, top1,, ¡72¿l of characterisrics lèigr can be proposed that typify this aporia, chis loss in our capacity to ,.sitnul¿tcntnt', ds d ,iledn! r'f tssigniug utlrc,tn¿! values in order to reveal other values. It proposes, nor a new value or a new JÞigns tn illness c¿t sinþ11, go ¡o he¡l tnct nuke hiertrcbictl positit,t to objects tu¡,1 i¡lets. Ílt cxþ/ains belierc lte is ill. Sotneoue u'ho sinulates an ilhtess conceptualize a new model for architecture. These characreristics, outlined below, tl¡e otert/:rou'of Phtonisn ts tfu susþertsiott oJ'Ílte zeitgeist, but merely another condition-one of reading architecture as a rext. There Prodtces in ltinself sone of tbe s),Dtþtoilts. (L;ttrc), 'fbus a priori tzt/te-l,t.ltn strttus oJ'Íbe Plat4¡iç ¡1tp.1, i¡¡ Jèigning . . is only ntasÞed; u'l:ereas arise from thar which can n,t be; they form a srrucrure of absence¡.'n The purpose in or¡/er to: ,titist uþ sin¡t/rtctrt, tt dsset.l t/xir rigbts is nevertheless no question that this idea of the reading of architecture is initiated sinrLttio¡t tbreatens tbe difference betu,eet ,tt.te, gi¡çg otet icons or colties.'1'bc þrohhnt ur, lotget (.t)rctt.tts proposing dnd,false,' lte1ueen .rcal, d¡d,inagiuar¡,,. rhem is nor ro reconsrirute what has jusr been dismissed, a model for a i s lbe produces ,trte, llte d I i nct iou Esse ncc lAþpeu r,r nce r,r trlodtl I (.op.1,. by a zeitgeist argument: that today the classical signs are no longer significant and sinulator st,iltþtons, is be ill or 'I'bis u,l¡ole clistinctiou oþeïdtes;il tlx uotld rj' tot?" A¡¿q¡¿li¡g to B¿udrilldrd, sintrLttion is tbe theory of architecrure-for all such models are ulcimately futile. Rather whar is reþrcseut.ttioil, . Tl:e siiltil/.tL.riltil is tot clegtdded have become no more than replications. A .not-classical, architecrure is, therefore, genenrtion b1 nodels oJ'a realitl tt'itltout origin: coþy, ratber it c¡tnt¿ins t þositire þoutt u'bich it no lotger b¿s to be r¿tion¿|, since it is uo being proposed is an expansion beyond the limitations presented by the classical neg.ltes l)trrh original and copt,, both nt<¡clel irnd not unresponsive to the realization ofthe closure inherent in the world; rather, it is langer neasured agd;ilst soile ideal or negatite repr

difference between real and ìmaginary, dissimulacion leaves untouched the difference not possible to go back ro rhe earlier, prehisroric stare ofgrace, che Eden of

between reality and illusion. The relationship between dissimulation and reality is timelessness before origins and ends were valued. \Øe must begin in the present-

similar to the signification embodied in the mask: the sign of pretending roL,e not without necessarily giving a value to presentness. The arrempr ro reconstrucr rhe

what one is-that is, a sign which seems not to signify anything besides irself (the timeless today must be a fiction which recognizes the fictionality of irs own sign of a sign, or rhe negarion of whar is behind it). such a dissimuration in task-that is, it should nor atrempr to simulate a timeless reality. As has been srrggesred above, larenr in the classical appear to origins is the more Motivation takes something arbitrary-that is, something in its artificial state which general problem of cause and effect. This formula, part of the fictions of reason and is not obedient to an exrernal srrucrure ofvalues-and implies an action and a

history, reduces architecture to an .added ..inessentialo to,, or object by making it movement concerning an internal structure which has an inherent order and an

simply an effect of certain causes understood as origins. This problem is inherent in internal logic. This raises rhe question of the motivarion or purpose from an

all of classical architecture, including its modernisr aspecr. The idea of architecture arbitrary origin. FIow can something be arbitrary and non-goal oriented but srill be

as something ro> rarher rhan I "added something with its own being-as adjectival internally mocivated? Every state, it can be argued, has a motivation toward its own rather than nominal or ontological-leads to the perception of archirecrure as a being-a motion rather than a direction. Just because architecrure cannot porrray or

practical device. ,ts long as architecture is primarily a device designated for use and enact reas7n as a value does not mean that it cannot argue systematically or

for shelter-that is, as long as it has origins in programmatic functions-it will reasonably. In all processes there musr necessarily be some beginning point; but the I7 always constitute an effect. value in an arl>itrary or intentionally IY'/:ttt is,tt isstt in ttn trtifìritl origin is rtot fictive architecture is found in rhe intrinsic jntt,tþosed in silcb t u'ttl, .ts l() cttdtt ,ilot'etncilt, n¡olittttion (ds ()þþose¿ t¡t ¿n tsscnti¿l rtr origindrT, .1il./ nature of its action rather than che tbe lecousttaction (graft¡ is idettiJùblt in terns of ctlust, tls itt ,rn origin oJ tbt chssictl) but rtt/¡er tbt in direction of its course. Since any process musr iclu of sell:¿¡'i¡/¿¡ct. tln f n¡¡t t i ut t iou.'I'b i s þa þe r, u'h icl¡ c¡t¡t ce n I r¿ te s It¡ dtltctit,e lo.qit ¡g.¿;r, But once this characteristic of architecture is dismissed and necessarily have a beginning and a movemenr, o,t lt,t,tsfuriil.< lb.s, i,l,as t ,ru,rl¡tit h¿ckuttrl intt itthll, ltrriltces sdJ:eùdtncc. flancc "self-evidento however, the fictional origin must Jir,rn þtt, to ¿ (¡rogrun ur)rþ, is t¡¡tre couttrnel l/te autl_ytic þrottss oJ'tbe t/¿ssic¿l ur¡uld tlu.,t:.,s Jntnteu'ork fitt architecture is seen as having no a priori origins-whether functional, divine, or be considered as having at least a methodological u itlt u'lt¿¡ l)dþþtns iil Íl)t þï()c(ss oJ cousciously' prodtce u self:cridctl origin, l-at ,l¡trc trt u¡t value-a value concerned with ntkìn¡¡ gr,tJls tl:au Jìnding tl¡ost tlt¡t ttt.¡, ltate bttn a þritri leU-et'i./tut þrocedtrts u,biclt cotld gire ouc narural-alternative fictions for the can origin be proposed: for example, one that generating the internal relations of the process irself. But if the is þhcel rncousciotsll, irt t text. .\ince a gu./i h1' origitt au.y, ùtlte ot'cr tn.y rtthtr, It ctn ht þruþostt/ in beginning in fact le./ìritiou is,t oJ nrr.liJìcttiott, it is tnliktl.T' ./ n()t-cliìssic¿ìl ¿rc/¡irecltre t/ttt uu1, initi¿/ Jttvcess con¿lition is arbitrary, one that has no external value derived from meaning, rrurh, or arbittaty, there can be no direction toward closure llut one tould Jìwl a st.ttic oï nnltrclopetl uontcut oJ' cdu þroduct se(itilent þrocedtrcs Ílt¿t lure ¿n or end, because the motivation for inltru¿l n0lit\tî;til, gùú't iil dn ¿rtl¡itccttr¿l text: nilt u'¡tultl lry nnrt timelessness. It is possible to imagine a beginning internally (ìruft ¡,9 consisrenr but not change of state (that is, the inherent instability of the beginning) can never lead to a likelt,to tertd oill_|, iÍs rcsrlts. is usel berc itt ,t ttzr1, tbat clostll' resentbles (ul/er's aud/1'sis oJ' 'fbt idt¿ oJ arbitrtr.y ¡)r dúilicidl in tl¡is st¡¡se conditioned by or contingenr on historic origins with supposedly self-evident state of no change (that is, an end). Thus, in their freedom from rhe Derri¡la's uetbol for olecot¿strtttiott oJ'oþþositiaD; ,,7 o nust be littingtislrd Jìtn thc chssicul iled oJ universal values .ttc/)itelttlte ./ecotslruct dn oþþo!ition is uol to lcslrol ds trti./ìcidl tuturt rr Jl.on tbc ided oJ' values. Thus, while '' classical origins were thought to have their source a of both historic and it.,, . To.ltc.rrtslr'tct.ttt oþþositit'tt is to un¡lo tl¡a trhitr¿riutss rl'tbr sigrt iu hngr,rgc. Árl>itrtr¡, in divine origin directional process, motivations can lead to end¡ different tnd lisplace it, 10 sittldte it di-[Jcrcntl1,. (þI iu lltis coilÌcxt D¿edrts bdt ittK il, 5o) ,tdlilrtl/ Lut¡il.,c1iril. or natural order and 'l modern origins were held to derìve their value from those of the previous cotceutr¿tirtn ot Íltt dþþdftntl.t, DurlaiDd/ be iusigbt tltai origins dre 4 c.riltirgtnctt of from deductive value-Iaden end. "'l'bis þu!s tbe logic of suþþleneuftt'it1, 1r, ttorf ut u, ldilgriw is hase¡l ou tn tþþt,r/ to tcttlinp: lbe otigit feason, origins can be strictly arbitrary, simply starting points, ;,tlerþreîit'e slrdle!),: u'lut Ìt¿s betn relegttcl to l/tt c.ut /)e drbitrdrJ' htc,tuse it is coulingcul r)il d ïctt¿/il1 "not-classical" rlul btitigs nurgius or set ¿tsi.fu h¡, þret'ions iuîtrþrtttrs ntuT'he its ott u strtteg¡, u it/t it. without value. They can be artificial and relarive, as opposed lnþortant lbosc rcisun\ !bdt ltd to bt rr) ro narural, divine, or The end of the end þrecisel_7, Jrtr it sel tsi¿lt.- (þrqrr) Dtrrila en¡tbtsizts gral't as u ., o nt t bu n ( t I ler, 0 l)tcrt n s I t ¡ J il ril i o il :' l' he()rt, d,t.l universal.'t Such artifr,cially determined (riticisn beginnings can be free of universal values n o t¡- ¿/ il let t i c c o n d i I i r' u /t' oþþos i I ; on : t l) i s þd lrer t.f'ter Strtcturtlisn, " I th¿c¿, (ornell stresses tl)t þrccesstul dsþtcts u'hicb entergt tbe Ll tiyersit), Prcss, r from 9Íì:. because they are merely a*sitrary 'flte 'l'his points in time, when the architecturar process Along with the end of the origin, the second basic characteristic *not- ùonteilt oJ'gntJ't. udjor clilJtrences drc of is fusicall.7'sinil¿r Ío.f,rcr¡tt.s Dtrridt's usc of' of a tern i nologl, .t n.1 e nþl)d s i s. (rrt./'î iil lifcrdr.l' t/ct¡tnstructitu. Llt lisctrssts graJ'f ts commences' One example of an artificial origin is a graft, as in rhe genetic insertion classical" architecture, therefore, 2(' ruÌ t/eutilt u'/tic/¡ t¿u ht liscr,t'trc¿/ iu a tttt tbrotgb is its freedom from a priori goals or ends-the end (rller p99. i .lc4nstrilctit,t rctlin¡4: . Jt,toilstrttLÍiou is, tuon14 of an alien body into a hosr to provide a new resulr.'e As opposed to a collage or a of the end. The end of the classical also means arhi¡rdr)' narure of tlte sign tnl tlte s.l,stuu tcitlt otlttr tbings, dn dttctrtþt to ileutiJ't,gttfts it tbe the end of rhe myth of rhe end as a "7'be to lerus gires ts tbe ptradoxic,tl uotion oJ' lesls iî tuall'ses: u'brrt.n,e fltr oJ'juncttrc þosilit'e þoittls aul montage' which lives within a conrexr and alludes to an origin, a grafr is an value-laden effect of the progress or direction dn ,iilstitute.l lft/ce,' d sl/L.tutc of in/ìnin rtlttrtl strcss u,l¡ert ¡tnt scirrn rtr /ine or ¿rgutneni lus heen of history. By logically leading to a in u,ltic/¡ lb.re tre on11, inrces trdces to dn.r' splictd uith anotl¡er? I:ocusirtg þrirr . rtn tbtse invented site, which does nor so much have object characteristics as those of potential closure of thought, the entitl, rtf u,l:iclt they night he îlte truct." ,Dotilenls, t/tcoustt uction cltci¿h¡ts tl¡e btfuroee¡ttit,l fictibns of the classical awakened a desire to '1'bis (þr5o) 'I'lse lesctiptiott of "iDstitute¿ t,itk" rcldtcs clostll, to f'tbt tuxt.,. rl¡rtc deJìuing qutlitias of process. A graft is not in itselfgenetically arbivary. Its arbirrariness is in its confront, display, and even transcend the end of history. This desire was manifesr tÌte idet of motit,zttion as puî Jorflt in tÌ:is þtþer. gruJi,ts it is u¡ad in tbis fuþtr are: ( r ) gtdJt begins in Litrt I )crri,l¿'s . iut¡ittf,,/ ntutir¿!io,l u,itL tlte urhitrarl' thtt.. drttl ortiJìcfu! rottjunciiou of (z) freedom from a value system of non-arbitrariness (that is, the classicar). It is the modern idea of utopia, a time beyond c/cscriltes .t sltsletil u'l¡ich is inrerntlll' cousisîet¡1, btî t¿to disliuct cl¡¿r¿ctcristits u'l¡icl¡ tre iu fheit iliti¿l history. It was thought that objects trbitrt4, in tlttt it lus no hcgirtrtirtg or cul tnl no ruslabtL.. It is tl:is iustahilitT, Jirn ubith proritles arbitrary in its provision of a choice of reading which brings no exrernal value to the imbued with value because of their relationship to a self-evidently meaningful ,ìecess.tt)i or r¿lued o/irtctiou, It rcDt.tits tt sltslttn (J' ll¡t tuttlit¡ttioil (tb(,til¿Dtl't tu htilt,t 1,,, st,thilit.t) diJft'rences, conþrehensihle oul7,iu terus oJ tltt sþtces tn¿l ¿lso allou's nodiJitzttirtn ro tuke ( l) In tl¡t þhte. process. But further, in its artificial and relative 'l'hts, narr¡re a graft is not in itself origin could somehow transcend the present in moving toward a timeless furure, betu'ect clenenls or ,il.tnents of'tbc þrrtctss, incision tlxrt unst bc sontelbing u'hich tllou.s fìtr au ntolitztlion Lcre is sinihr to Dtrrid¿'s lescription oJ' tutrg.l, lo he set ofJ-lt1' tbe conitg togttber of the tu,o necessarily an achievable resulr, but merely a site thar contains motiuaîion for a utopia. This idea of progress gave false value to the present; uropia, diflerence il is tlt Jìnce u itJ¡in tbc oltject tlut d:¿ructerislics, Ct/ler's disclssion f' dtconstructit,e a form of tztttsts il to be dyntnic tt et'ery þoiill of d contitttoils sîtitltgy tontdi,ts tll oJ tlte aleneuts l'guft: it hegits action-rhat is the beginning of a process.ro lnrnsJbrnalion. Iulernctl ntotitzttion ¡leter¡nines the h¡, ant/1,sis of tc\t to rct tal oþþositirtls. T'bcst ¿re -.,,.,-,, .,t' .,,-.,t:Ê,-..,:-.., t).- tL., ,.L:..-t --.-l :- ,.^..-t.,.. -J fantasizing about an <) and limitless end, forestalled the norion of closure. with the qualities generated between buildings or berween buildings and spaces;

Thus the modern crisis of closure marked the end of the process of moving roward rather, it has to do with the idea that the internal process itselfcan generare a kind the end' Such crises (or ruPtures) perception in our of the continuity of hisrory arìse ofnon-representarional figuration in the object. This is an appeal, nor ro rhe

not so much out of a change in our idea of origins or ends rhan our of the failure of classical aesthetic ofthe object, but to the potential poetic of an architectural text.

the present (and its objects) to sustain expecrarions our of the future. Ând once the The problem, then, is to distinguish texts from represenrarions, ro convey the idea continuity ofhistory is broken in perception, our any represenrarion ofrhe classical, that what one is seeing, the material object, is a text rarher than a series of image

any can be seen only as a belief. At this poinr, where our received references to other objects or values. values are the end ofthe end raises rhe possibility ofthe invention and

realization ofa blatantly fictional future (which is therefore non-rhrearening ìn ics This suggests the idea of architecture as "writing> as opposed to archirecrure as value) as opposed ro a simulared or idealized one. \ù7hat image. is being nwritten, is nor the object itself-its mass and volume-bur 22 .t,)U r,,, r,,. ¡t rchi iet î r rt. L, bor ¡t¡r, - ^, Tbe conceþt of trace in arcbitectare as tupublishtd pdptr, r <181. þut foruard of massing. the act This idea gives a metaphoric body to che act of architecture. It bere is sinilar to Derrida's idea in tlta t it suggests iloliJìcdtion is r'ne dsþect oJ'etttusiott u.hicl: is \ùØith thdt tbere can be neither ¡t reþresentational object nor cle/lued h,¡' KiþDis ds tt .(,rìtþttuent of lecrtmþo:itiou. the end of the end, what was formerry rhe process of composition or rhen signals its reading through an other sysrem ofsigns, called traces." Traces are reþresenfable "realit!. " Arcbilecture becoîres tert lY l¡ilt ¿.th usi,,n is,tnl rììt,t.n¡trtl JrhDt ,tu htìein ttt ralber tbat object u,hen it is co¿ceiaed and þteserted ¿n iulti¿/ conditirnt), ntoclifcttirtu is a sþecifcfornt transformation ceases to be a causal straregy, a process ofaddition or subrracrion not to be read literally, since they have no other value than ro signal the idea that there 4s a slstent of differences of ratber tba¡t as an inage extensiott conceruel u'itb þrtstrt ittg the tt,it./encL. oJ or an isolated pt'esetce. Tntce is the tisaal initi¿l couclitions (for etanþle, tLrotgb uo ¿t/¡/ition from an origin' Instead, the process becomes one of ntodifcation-rhe invention of a a is reading event and that reading should take place; trace signals the idea to nanifesîation of this slsten of dffirences, d record of or subtùtct;oil oJ'naterlalitl,). Ot rl¡t r,tl¡cr Ltu¡1, n2tueî2ent (u,ithort direction) catsing us to read rhe s.¡ul/:esis is tn txtmþ/t rtJ c.xÍtttsirttt u,Lich t/ots uot non-dialectical, non-directional, non-goal orienced process.rì The .inventedo read.21 Thus a trace is p^rtia'l or fragmenrary sign; it has no objecthood. It present object as a tlsten of relationships to other d1f(ilþI to nt¿iui,tiu t.t icltntL oJ'itititI contlitiorts ^ þrior and sabsecfr.eilt nouenterzts, Trace is to be hut r¿tbcr dilenþts to tr.e.tte d ,rcu,u,/to/r, origins from which this process receives its motivation differ from the accepted, signifies an action that is in process. In this sense a trace is not a simulation of distingaished fi on Jacques Derrida's tse oJ' the tern, for Derrida direclþ relates tlte idea of "differeilce. to mythic origins of the classicists by beìng arbitrarl, reìnvenred for each circumsrance, a reality; it is dissimulation because it reveals itself as distinct from its former thefuct tbat it is inpossible to isolate -pteserrce- ds an entitl. is conceitable adopted "Tbe þreseuce oJ-nntiott only for the moment and not forever. The process of modification can be seen as reality. It does not simulate the real, but represents and records rhe action inherenr insofar as euery itrstdrtt is already narked uitl¡ the an open-ended tactic rarher traces of the þdsl and ftture , . the þresevt irzstartt rhan a goal-orienred straregy. A scrategy is a process in a former or future reality, which has a value no more less or real than the trace is ,zot tbe þast ard futnre , . tbe presettî instant is nol sontething giaen but d that is determined and value-laden þrodtct of tl:e relations before ir begins; ir is directed. Since the arbitrary itself. That is, trace is unconcerned wirh forming an image which is the belueert þatt and future, lf notion is to be þresent, þresence nzrst already be narked by difereuce a¡td origin cannor be known in advance (in a cognitive sense), it does nor depend on representation ofa previous architecture or ofsocial customs and usages; rarher, it is deferral," (Culler þ97) Tbe idea tltdt presence is tercr a sinþle absolute ,'urts coilr,ter to all oJ'otr knowledge derived from the classical tradition and thus cannot engender a srraregy. concerned with the marking-literally the frguration-of its own internal processes. intaitirc conuictions. lf there can he no inberently neaningllll presence u,Ìsicl: is not itself a rysten of Thus the trace is the record of motivation, rhe record of an action, nor an image of cÌilferences tben there cøn be no ualue-ltden rn' a þriori origirt, In this context architectural form is revealed as a

oþþosed to irt terþre ta t iott, proposes a new reader distanced from any external value system (particularly an

Preaiousllt, lbere u,as assurted to be at a The end of the end also concerns the þriori end of object represenrarion as the only architectural-historical system). Such a reader brings no a priori comperence ro rhe hrguage of t,alue, d þoetry, existittg uitbit metaphoric subject arcltitecture. Nou, ue are saying that architecture is in architecture. In rhe past rhe metaphor in architecture was act of reading other than an as a identity reader. That is, such a reader has no rnerely language, We read u'hetber u'e þnou u,hat langaage u'e are reading or not. We can rcad French used to convey such forces as tension, compression, extension, and elongation; these preconceived knowledge of what architecture should be (in terms of irs proporrions, utitbout understanding Frencb. lYe cøt Ãnou' were qualities rhar could sonteone is speaking norzsense or noise, Before ue be sèen, if nor literally in the objects rhemselves, then in textures, scale, and the like); nor does a architecture aspire to make "not-classical" are conqetertt to read and understarrd þoetry u,e the relationship can knou sonething to be langaage. Reading h tbis berween objecrs. The idea of the metaphor here has nothing to do itself understandable through these preconceptions.rl corttert it nol coucet'ned u,itb decoding for neating ot' The ctlmpetcnce of the rcacler (oiarchirccrtrre) mal.bc.lefìnerl;rs the cap¡¡i¡y ¡1¡

distinguish t)f .r tLilJL tilt)u'ìtt,4.fi,,nt L/ .Çt)t\t rtf Lc/ìtt,ìtt;. At a¡1,r¡ivcn ti'c thc

conditions firr..knou'leclgc,, arc ...1cc1.¡¡,, rh¡n ¡hil9s6l-hic c¡¡cliri6ns; in fìrct, tlrc1, proviclc the ¡rossibility of .lisringuishing l.hilos¡l.h),fr¡¡t lircriLturc, sricncc fì..'t

m,tgir. irrtd rcligi,,rr lior¡1 ¡1.¡¡ ¡lr. 'l lrr. ({,¡rllì(,tr¡r(, ,ì(.\\. 1(,Jìì(,s lr¡r¡¡ ¡l¡., (.rlì:r( it}. r(, reild per se, to knou, hou,to re¿cl, ¿n.l rlore in-ll¡ortrrntly, to kngç, Itrxt,t, re¿cl (l¡Lrt

not necessilrily clccodc) ¿rchitccttlre ¿s l text. Thus tl'rc nc*, .,object,, n-lLlst h¿ì\¡c thc capacity ttl rcvcrrl itselffìrst of¿ll ¿s ¿ rcxt, as a rcacling cvenr. Thc ¿rrchirecrlrrirl

fiction proposcd here cliffèrs frorn tl.re classic¿l ficrion in its 1.ri¡.¡¡1¡y conclirion rrs ¿

text and in the t'ay it is re¿d: the ncrr,rca.ler is no longer l.resurnccl to knorv thc

nirtLlrc of truth ir-r thc objecc, cithcr rìs a rclrrcscntxti()rì ()l-rr r¿tional (,rillill ()r as

¿ m¿nifèstatirtrr of-:r univcrsirl scc of rulcs {ovcrnrrrg l)1.()1)()l.ti()n, ItiLr.rlor.tl,, irnrl

tlrclering. But firrther, knorving hou'to cleco.lc is no longcr im¡rortirnt; si'r¡rly, ianguage in this context is no longer ¿ cocle ro assisn mcanings (that lóu.r rreans

t/t,tl). The acrivitl, of rc¿clins is first :rncl fìrrcmosr in rhc rccosnirion of.s()nlcrhins ¿rs

a langr'rage (th¿t l¡ ¡'). Rcatling, in this scnsc, m¿kcs avrrilablc ¿ lcvel oi iu,/ìc,t¡ì,,¡t

riLtllt'r (llltu.r lt.r'r.l r,l lttt'irni¡r,q (¡r r\lìt.(.SSi()tì.

Therefìrrc, to thc cncl o1-the ircr¡rnrìrns:¡ltl l)rolrose rþc cn.l ¡itÌre en.l is t() lrl.r)lr()su

the end oibcginnings ¿nd encls of r,¿lue ro prol)()se ¡n,tÍ/¡tt..,rimcless,, s1.¿ce of invcntion' It is ir "tìrleless, sp¿rce in the prcscnt without ¿ clctc¡mrning rclirti.n t. an ideal future or ro an icjealizecì prrsr. Arclìirccru¡e in rlle |¡e5s¡¡ is scen as rr

Process of inventing an artificial past ¿r ancl fircurclcss lrìrcsenr. lr ¡c¡e¡rbers ¿ no-longer fLrurc.

T/:ìs paper ìs /,,tstt/ r,tt Í/.tt'tt ttrttt-t'triJitr/;/t ,t.r:.r/rltþlirtnr t)1. t't/l//L.t. li¡¡¡t/t.ç.¡ (rtrì,;itt/tts. tt¡¿//t.ç.ç)

¿rL'hìlr:cl//t"L.