we invoke the discourse of irony. Irony is just like a Christian God might be running the show, in as coverage of all targets for development, a redefine how serious black metal can be on an a suit of armor against sincerity in architecture, another, science. One person believes echina- qualification of premise. The post-ironic tone ON THE ideological level.”14 Penttilä’s array of aliases which I think is a disempowerment of the potential cea prevent colds, another doesn’t. Parafictional functions for architectural interests as a proxy for represents a recontextualization of both Krier’s of architecture to be speculative. practices reveal this, but also speculate (thus the versions of reality validated by the salubrious GROUND dictum of the necessity of a “relationship of truth Speculative Realism) on alternatives to it. Either effect of the “good works” of economics, politics, between the name and the named object”15 P! One reading of post-irony allows for way it has performed its function of challenging and technology (which itself holds no more sway 9/19 This week, the school received a package and his concept of a stylistically-siloed plurality the tools of irony with sincere ambitions to the idea of what’s real or not. As we’ve seen, on the “real”). addressed to “DEBORAH STERN.” That’s a with the potential to produce “villages with very reimagine architectural futures. Somehow fake news is the most powerful force in the world The post-ironic is not an overcoming of new one. different structure, organisation, architecture, it’s a bridge between “indifference” and at the moment. It just changed our election. Hal irony as a return to “meaning” (like post-modern- 9/20 CAITLIN BAIADA (M.Arch I, ‘18), and density, each with its own unity, harmony, speculative practice. Foster is asking if this power can be used in the ism as a return to historicism), but is an intensifi- ALEJANDRO DURAN (M.Arch I, ‘19), and KATE and specificity.”16 MFG You’re right in trying to introduce post-irony arts in the service of ‘good’ in the same ways cation of meaning’s absence (like post-modernism FISHER (M.Arch I, ‘19) introduced this semes- Instead of mixing French-influenced, as the way to bridge those two extremes I’ve writ- it’s, currently, being used in the service of the as the end of master narratives). Post-Ironic archi- ter’s teaching partnership with Conte/West Hills vampyric Black Metal with melodic, werewolf-Na- ten about recently in Log. That’s what needs to be nefarious. For instance in Birtherism,” its key tecture, as with all ironic constructions, requires Magnet School through EQUALITY IN DESIGN. zi-themed Black Metal to produce a subtle done. But one thing I challenge you both on is that figures, such as our President, offered no hint of the object of its derision to function; in this case, it YSoA students will work with 7th graders for four manifestation of Krier’s False Pluralism, Penttilä I’m not sure the only bridge would be being ironic “isn’t it hilarious we’re doing this?” They had total is the unlikely possibility of realization in the form different sessions, culminating in a final presen- has created a new band and moniker for each or not ironic, I’m more interested in your argument conviction, which became incredibly politically of a building. The paradox for architecture is that tation during the months of October and Novem- micro-style “without any debasing compro- about ambiguity than I am about irony. Because I powerful. Terrifyingly so. So can we use total a new sincerity relies on the artifice of the display ber. Stay tuned. mise.”17 While the stylistic differences between think ambiguity would include irony and sincerity conviction in architecture to be more socially (Instagram, Biennales, and other forms of Exhibi- 9/20 Students enrolled in The Chair Penttilä’s projects may be largely indistinguish- in adjacency which is super interesting. engaged? I don’t know if the answer is yes, but tionism). As a position, it is a mongrel argument, were given 110 minutes to construct a chair out able to the untrained ear, the contrasts between I’m interested in finding out. still drinking from the Fountain of R. Mutt. The of a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood that could hold TIM his two most well-known bands—Satanic P! To speak about your interest in ambigui- thing it mocks is its greatest aspiration, not only NEWTON for at least five minutes. Bonus points Warmaster and Armour—are vividly apparent. In ty, OOO [Object Oriented Ontology] is very 1 Michael Meredith, “Indifference, Again,” Log 39, to be seen, but also displayed and confirmed as for extra chairs and a table. The final tally? 8 Satanic Warmaster, Penttilä goes by the name Winter (2017): 78. much about the ambiguity between fact and architectural. It works, but only in the gallery as chairs, 1 (questionable) rocking chair, 1 table, of Werwolf and focuses on themes of “Satanism, 18 fiction. The notion of parafiction produces 2 A Hulu Original TV Show based on the novel an over- and under-estimation of reality in various and 2 stools. Test one for yourself: they can be darkness, war, vampirism, and lycanthropy,” ambiguity in performing an extreme seri- by Margaret Atwood set in a totalitarian United combinations of piles and references (in piles found scattered around the school. while in Armour he is known as Vince Venom ousness about an absurd or satirical fiction- States in which women are treated as property of ironic reference or reference to piles as ironic 9/21 Before his “Brunelleschi + Ros- and sings of “metal, alcohol, partying, sex, and of the state. al narrative, and in that way could be seen non-design). The sincerity of the post-ironic likes si” talk, KURT FORSTER introduced the initial rowdiness.”19 These two projects exhibit Krier’s as a post-ironic form. What is the power of 3 Michael Young’s Fall 2016 Advanced Design the factuality of both stuff (as material fact) and its impetus behind the new series, hosted by Formal typological rigor not only in their sound, but in parafiction within a speculative project? Studio at Yale School of Architecture, The stuffing (as rhetorical claim); its claim to quality is Analysis and Modern Architecture and Society: the very way that Penttilä presents himself in MFG So there’s a couple of topics there: one Aesthetics of Accelerationism, involved the proof by dint of its existence. “We thought we would build a little engine of old promotional photos: As Satanic Warmaster, production of parafictional artefacts that were is counterfactuals. Which is for our purposes presented in character, as fact, under the guise In some ways, a “post-ironic” architec- men that will entail a lot of speed.” After a poetic he is dressed in black with the genre’s signa- the same as parafictional practice: it’s an idea of an international climate conference in Iceland ture seems like everything I had ever hoped for, and thought-provoking lecture, PETER EISEN- ture corpse paint and an abundance of spikes, in philosophy that can be traced back to Hume. in the year 2056 in a final studio review. Jurors design both serious and funny (seriously funny), MAN piped, “I get nervous when you start talking chains, and bullets, while he dons a fishnet top, and student presenters did not break character. A counterfactual essentially is a philosophical able to navigate the pressures of discipline while about fog rolling in. I worry when you start doing zebra-print leggings, a studded codpiece, argument that includes an “if, then” clause. If the at the same time being undisciplined (free from this to a young audience.” and eyeliner as Armour. These parallel Nazis won WWII, then the United States would restriction). However, over time, from its origi- 9/22 EQUALITY IN DESIGN held its first representations are performed with total look like “this”— which becomes the premise for nators, to its early adopters, now in ubiquity, my Brown Bag Lunch with ANIKA LEMAR SINGH, a sincerity, a notion confirmed by a press the Man in the High Castle series on Amazon. enthusiasm for this latest turn is growing increas- Yale Law School Clinical Professor who teaches release for Armour’s recent E.P. by record It uses a parafictional argument to create an ingly qualified. Being just slightly younger than the Community and Economic Development clin- label Nuclear War Now that champions alternate reality. Similarly, the Handmaid’s Tale2 the initial penning of Venturi’s initial gambit of ic. Singh gave a historical overview of affordable the band’s ability to produce “pure Heavy is essentially a counterfactual proposition. The “I LIKE COM- liking complexity and contradiction, perhaps I am housing since the early 20th century, discussed Metal… without any trace of irony.”20 show happens in our world. You recognize the not the ideal audience for the post-ironic, having current HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and talked attracted legions of loyal fans,7 its The most disturbing iteration of houses, the Chevy Suburbans, you recognize PLEXITY AND both “seen too much” and lacking the millenary about the government’s current role in subsi- members were criticized by the Krier’s ideology comes early in Architec- what they’re drinking and eating, the magazines, perspective. It seems now that as a generative dized housing. press as “embarrassing caricatures,” ture: Choice or Fate. Under the Manowar- that they’re playing Scrabble, etc. But it intro- CONTRADIC- concept, the “post-ironic,” appealing as it is in out- 9/22 OUTLINES co-hosted last Friday’s “embarrassing boneheaded oafs,” and ian title of “True and False Pluralism,” duces a counterfactual argument that says if line, is the most precarious of possible positions 6/7 for an OUT On The Roof mixer with special Paprika! “gloriously preposterous” for their out- there is an illustration of a “European” this super conservative wing took over the U.S. for architecture. While there is much to admire in guests from the other LGBTQ+ affinity groups on landish imagery and the ultimate earnest- face, an “African” face, and an “Asian” government and had these religious ideas about TION IN ARCHI- a lot of this work, it is its adaptation into a formula campus. The event packed the roof with students ness with which they presented their vision face juxtaposed against a mock-cubist women, then the following might happen. I don’t that is off-putting. Its best examples are fantastic from all over the Yale community. vol. 3 no. 3 of True Metal brotherhood.8 composition that blends elements of inserts itself into reality through the creation and know a single person that has watched that show TECTURE.” ME revelations; in lesser cases, it is disheartening, IAN DONALDSON (M.Arch I, ‘18), Friedman was forced from the band the three.21 Outside of an architec- 9/23 performance of meticulous narratives. The notion and not been mildly terrified that it, in today’s all crutch, no legs. That said, while post-irony OLISA AGULUE (M.Arch I, ‘19) and DANIEL Sept 28, 2017 by DeMaio in 1988 and rejoined Blum and tural context, or even within one, of parafiction is decidedly post-ironic: ironic in political climate, now seems so unbelievably pos- (and with it, the post-digital) may not be the best GLICK-UNTERMAN (M.Arch I,‘17), winners Shernoff in the band Manitoba’s Wild the drawing appears to fervently TOO...I THINK. its performance of opposites, but made plausible sible. It’s terrifying not because it’s sci-fi or horror generic option, it may be the only alternative for a of an ARTSPACE New Haven commision, are Kingdom. As DeMaio doubled-down on advocate for an ideology of an- through sincerity. and lots of monsters and blood, but because certain, theoretically ambitious set (and certainly curating ‘Garden Pleasure’ at the Goffe Street his willingness to die for True Metal in ti-miscegenation. While Krier would AT LEAST I USED Issue Editors But this is just one model for post-iron- it’s so entirely like our recognizable reality, and better than the versions that are all “post” without Armory. The interior of each “garden,” one of both songwriting9 and combative inter- likely reject this reading, Penttilä Lani Barry and Jeffrey Liu ic architecture. The broader promise of the shows a “speculation” on what it could soon be. even a hint of a wink). In architecture, the provo- seven occupiable installations, is designed by a views,10 Friedman and Blum returned may embrace it. Despite having post-ironic is that it legitimizes topics and The monsters are us. This is a key aspect of TO, BUT NOW I’M cation of the post-ironic is not in its novel com- different team of artists and designers. A total of Designer to their critical party-rock. ...And You?, disavowed the categorization of his Hicham Faraj practices deemed “not serious” and asks for them the sister philosophies of Speculative Realism bination of irony and sincerity, but in the misap- 17 people are working on this project, including Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom’s 1990 debut work as NSBM, or National Socialist to be taken seriously. Ultimately, irony necessi- and OOO. So the counterfactual argument can NOT SO SURE prehension that they were ever entirely separate. 11 YSoA students and alumni, and 4 School Fall 2017 Coordinating Editors album, showcased a heavier sound that Black Metal, tracks like “My Dreams tates detachment, an advantageous position for do two things: it can produce a new creative Symptomatically, post-irony is not an answer but of Art students and alumni.The opening of the Amanda Iglesias and Julie Turgeon put forth both a sardonic critique of the of 8” speak otherwise.22 The same lines reacting against but incapable of advocating for. avenue, which is itself interesting, but it, more is another version of a recurrent question. How project will be during the Citywide Open Studios metal industry11 and an embrace of New can be drawn between Krier’s illustra- ANYMORE. Publishers While ironic design breeds cynicism through importantly, produced an awareness of your is it possible to make Architecture (the capital is Weekend on October 14th-15th. Jeremy Jacinth and Nadeen Safa York’s diversity behind the red, white, tions of the transformation of modernist negation, post-irony opens the possibility for existing reality that wouldn’t have been possible by John required) without being an asshole (pretentious)? 9/25 “Could someone get the door?” and black tri-color of pre-War Germany. architecture, described by Peter Eisen- Web Editor potentially transformative optimism. without showing an estranged version of that To quote Venturi again, in the line immediately was the phrase of the night as students packed Seth Thompson As a “crossover” band, Manitoba’s Wild man as the products of a newly legiti- 23 very same reality. Famed art critic Hal Foster, McMorrough following the citation in the title above, as a formu- the 3rd floor conference room for KELLER 1 Poe’s Law states that without admission of sar- Kingdom rejected the typological rigor mized, 20th-century Jewish culture, into The views expressed in Paprika! do not repre- casm or irony ;), it is impossible to tell whether in a recent issue of Artforum identified basically lation that retains relevance, “I do not like incoher- EASTERLING’s first open meeting on her project sent those of the Yale School of Architecture. of True Metal. Drawing from both punk classical buildings through “creative what Handmaid’s Tale is doing, when describing It all sounded good enough when Robert Venturi ence or arbitrariness of incompetent architecture for the 2018 Venice Biennale. Please send comments and corrections to an author is joking. The term arose in response and metal, they produced a distinctly restoration,”24 and Satanic Warmaster published those words in 1966 (originating from [email protected]. To read Paprika! on- to phenomenon in internet culture where Damien Hirst’s recent work. [He] asks us how nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or 9/25 The Rudolph Open begins! Bring line, please visit our website, ysoapaprika.com. attempts at parodying extremist ideas were New York sound that landed between the songs like “A New Black Order” or this creative use of counterfactuals can have a theory seminar taught at Yale). Back then, it expressionism.” ‘Nuff said. your headphones, watch out for flying birdies, mistaken as being serious. Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right” and “Der Schwarze Orden.”25 political agency that might be used to combat its was all power structures and opacities, resisting and if you’re considering a game at 3am... Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock.” When Just as Krier, Penttilä, and political opposite—fake news, which is the use an (academic) architectural culture, which at John McMorrough is a researcher of contempo- you should probably just go to bed. Teams to later asked his opinion on the dialectic DeMaio utilized an ideology of True- that moment was all pomp and no circumstance. rary architectural practices, an associate profes- of counterfactuals not to be creative, but to fully sor at the University of Michigan, and a partner watch out for: “Yo Pierre, You Wanna Come Out of “True Metal versus False Metal” that ness and a reconstructivist approach obscure or cancel out the truth. Complexity and contradiction represented the in studioAPT (Architecture Project Theory). Here?,” “Dukes of York,” “Gus on the Bus,” and Manowar continued to promote without to address the destruction of the 20th overcoming of an ideology of design as facile “Liu Liu Lemon.” “We’re not joking him, Friedman responded with resigna- century—Krier through traditional P! Last year at Yale, the final review for veracity, in order to face a wider range of perhaps 9/26 During a Pro-Prac panel discussion tion. “I hate that stuff, man. To me, that architecture and urbanism, Penttilä Michael Young’s studio involved a perfor- irreconcilable differences (historical and contem- between Scott Mitchell Simpson, Jon Pickard, Just joking HEAVY was the worst thing Joey ever said and through the establishment of a New mance that increased the ambiguity of the porary, elitist and populist). To navigate this un- Martin Finio, and Sara Caples, bi-weekly billing set us up for humiliation in the end.”12 Satanic Order, and Manowar through parafiction.3 You were there—what do you stable admixture of “both/and,” it was the “ironic” was brought up as an alternative to a monthly We are joking a valiant Brotherhood of Metal—Fried- think the aspect of performance adds to the tone that held the antinomies at bay. It worked, billing schedule. PHIL BERNSTEIN had a better METAL: CHOICE “Manowar’s every album is man and Stanley Tigerman confronted parafiction, and what does that mean for at least for a while, until other more or less overt WHAT solution: “How about daily? Just Venmo me!” Just joking perfect. The ultimate Heavy the same chasms of the recent past architectural pedagogy? positions took hold. 9/27 Advanced studios are getting ready OR FATE Metal band.” through irony, humor, and inclusivism. MFG There’s kind of two ideas about political Now irony is back, with the “Post-Ironic,” IS YOUR to leave for TRAVEL WEEK. (Let the hashtags We’re not joking” —Lauri Penttilä13 An ideology of inclusivism, as engagement right now. One is quick, ad-hoc new, improved, so different and appealing. It is an begin.) First to leave is the Sustainability Studio. practiced by Tigerman and Friedman, did – Das Racist, Hahahaha jk? by Nicholas protests, hand-drawn signs, and one is the alchemical combination that seems to surpass the They will be flying around the world. Literally. While Manowar rose in fame not demand the tolerance of divergent ideas exquisite design of objects and architecture to constitutive limit of the old irony’s cynical detach- POST-IRONIC Stay tuned for travel updates! Miller M.Arch I, ‘19 and notoriety, “Extreme Metal”, and styles within the constraints of segregation, work parafictionally in new context. The Hand- ment, such that now it is possible to be simulta- Third years patiently await their post-lec- an umbrella-term that covers a but promoted the simultaneous expression of maid’s Tale scenario. Architecture as the practice neously serious and unserious, dismissive and ATTITUDE? ture dinner assignments. Ross “The Boss” Friedman began his range of subgenres that have conflicting styles and opinions.26 To achieve of building (which isn’t limited to, but that is our affirming. As the apotheosis of the ironic attitude, The elevators are still malfunctioning, The post-ironic describes an ambiguity of in- career as the guitarist of seminal pro- emerged since the early 1980s, this, the synthetic perfection of the Nameable history) is a very slow thing, so we’re incapable the post-ironic explodes the infinite regression trapping unsuspecting students for various tention, simultaneously ironic and sincere. The to-punk band The Dictators with fellow provided an intensification of Object was rejected in favor of a spirit of hyphen- of working reflexively in an ad-hoc manner, not so of mise en abyme, from parallel to kaleidoscopic amounts of time. above-cited statement by hip hop group Das Bronx-native Richard “Handsome Dick” Metal’s underlying aesthetic, aural, ation that was explicitly assailed by Krier and great at linking our practice to protest, but we’re perspectives, but in a fun way. All of which I also Racist is a cyclical mantra that alternates between Blum in 1973. “We wanted to be tough,” and thematic precepts. The most Manowar. In addition to inclusivism, Tigerman’s really good at taking a long time to do things think I like, but in the provisional sense of swiping proclamations of parody and sincere artistic bass player Andrew Shernoff later self-consciously extreme iteration critical use of humor, akin to that of The Dicta- right, to soon be amended to a swipe left of “lik- 1 and working in a certain context—and therefore slightly ironic... expression while introducing the possibility commented, so Friedman and Blum of Manowar’s ideologies of True tors and Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom in the context should be really good at estranging those con- ing” or “unliking” a picture, quote or recipe online. that their work is somehow both. In our post- adopted the names of Funicello and Metal developed in the “trveness” of of hard rock, was used “as an instrument for texts. Our power lies in a statement by my friend For architecture, post-irony, like Poe’s Law1 culture in which internet anonymity Manitoba.1 On their debut album Go Girl Black Metal during the early 1990s. overcoming architecture culture’s deep-seated post-modernism before it, is constructed as con- 27 David Ruy who says “Architecture is the first Naively sincere obscures intentionality, irony and sincerity are Crazy, the band blended comic-ironic Through the misanthropy and seriousness and authoritarianism.” Not only stitutively oxymoronic, a contradiction in terms of cynical... thing that tells us what reality looks like.” Parafic- Silightly jaded... increasingly muddled. Though the post-ironic is shtick with the horrors of Nazism and oppositional orthodoxies of Black are humor and irony used to operate apart from tionality doesn’t work if it’s not believable. It just revealing a paradox (“post-ironic,” like “oxymoron” 2 fully ironic 3 initially conceived as a limitation of the internet anti-semitism on songs like “Master Race Metal, the parallels between the self-seriousness of architecture and metal, becomes parody. Michael Young’s studio took is itself an autological term, similarly “sharp” and as a platform, the ambiguity produced by this Rock,” “The Next Big Thing,”2 and a cover of the polarizing dialectic of but for both Friedman and Tigerman they are this believability of students projects much farther “foolish”). The paradox relates to the question of uniquely contemporary condition has powerful “I Got You Babe” that was performed “without True Metal and Leon methods of response to “the acknowl- than is typical by having them present as if they architectural qualification, the post-ironic sincerity Totally implications for artistic production. Musical art- any traces of irony or camp.”3 The results Krier’s architectural edgment of death” within the search- wants to be architecture, but is not sure what that had already been built, and from the future. 9 Post-Irony! ists such as Das Racist and genre-bending films did not translate outside of New York, and and urban theories of ing doubt of the post-Holocaust and could mean. The greatly expanded field of archi- such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out deploy ambiguity the album bombed. As Steven Lee Beeber “Nameable Objects” and post-Vietnam eras.28 P! This state of ambiguity between fact and tecture, extending from something to everything, to produce multiple readings; functioning as described in The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGBs: “True Plurality” become “Unfortunately,” Tigerman fiction harkens back to the problematic no- from being somewhere to “all over,” has created humorous parody but also incisive political com- A Secret History of Jewish Punk, “The fine clearly apparent. These wrote in Versus: An American Archi- tion of Jencks’s irony. It creates this insider a generational crisis (linked to, but also distinct 8 mentary and personal expression. line between humor and horror, catharsis subcultural and architec- tect’s Alternatives, “wit, humor, and knowledge. I wonder if parafiction sets up a from, that of the 1970s) for emerging practices. Authored ambiguity presents powerful and darkness, self-mockery and self-ha- tural iterations of a recon- irony represent the illegitimate side dynamic of deception. As great as this expansion of possibility has been 4 possibilities for architecture. The post-ironic tred can easily be crossed. The Dictators structivist approach to the of architecture and their use is MFG If it’s done well yes, but not nefarious- for the idea of architecture, it has had the effect of provides a framework for negotiating between missed out on being the first real punk cataclysms of the 20th-century often labeled infantile by serious Don’t understand why you do ly—there aren’t supposed to be two classes: it’s diminishing the likelihood of architecture. The ab- two models of architectural practice: the visionary band because they failed to find the are revealed in stark contrast architects.”29 Shernoff attributed the things you do anymore supposed to produce in people the feeling of sence of a center creates not only a proliferation and the self-critical. If architectural modernism delicate balance between aggressive to the irony and obfuscation the commercial failure of Go Girl ambiguity whether it’s real or not, and therefore of possible disciplinary (and extra-disciplinary) represents extreme sincerity through its rigid and ironic, violent and comic, threaten- embodied in the critical decon- Crazy to the same current with- ironically sincere again make them question their own understanding of models, but also necessitates that each version dogmas and idealist ambitions, the theoretical ing and camp.”4 Following the failure of struction of The Dictators and in heavy music: “In hindsight, their social reality. So, in a sense it’s the opposite must account for its own ontological status. frameworks of postmodernism utilized irony as Girl Go Crazy, the band dropped their Postmodern architecture. I do think it was a mistake to of double coding: uniformly trying to produce Post-ironic architecture (if it exists, and a critique against the utopian naiveté and oppres- shtick to adopt a purely tough image on Krier’s architectural make humor as central in the the same feeling of ambiguity in everyone. And for our purposes, we will assume it does) is one Dialectically torn sive seriousness of modernism. As an exercise in the hard-rocking Bloodbrothers. ideology, when taken to its marketing of the band.”30 But in that ambiguity, people can make their own of many possible qualifications. Not a description, performing its own opposite extreme, the tools of As The Dictators continued to perform explicit conclusions, mani- the humor used by Tigerman decisions. [The Handmaid’s Tale] wouldn’t be so but an affirmation, post-irony works as a covering 7 irony (humor, superficiality, reappropriation, taste- intermittently, Friedman was introduced to fests in the work of Lauri and The Dictators was no less terrifying if it wasn’t so close to our own reality. of all the bases, making conceptual work into a lessness) allow for architecture to criticize itself. actual Italian-American Joey DeMaio by Ronnie Penttilä, aka Werwolf serious—and no more of a checklist of accomplishments, as formulaic as any The phenomenon of post-irony, in which irony James Dio in 1980. Friedman, DeMaio, and aka Satanic Tyrant Wer- joke—than the proclama- P! There’s that element of plausibility. What previous version of tautological clarity in recent ar- and sincerity coexist, affords the possibility for Eric Adams formed the legendary Manowar: wolf aka Graf Werwolf tions of ideological certitude happens when a parafiction comes so close chitecture argumentation (fabrication – technology architecture to move beyond self-critique towards self-proclaimed Kings of Metal, record-holders aka Nazgul von Armageddon put forward by Krier, Penttilä, to reality that it actually tricks someone into and materialization, check; territorial geographies the very ambitions that postmodernism decried. of both the loudest performance and longest aka Orklok aka Satanic War- and DeMaio, who have each believing it as fact? – cartography and fantasy, check; design justice 5 One manifestation of post-irony emerg- heavy metal concert, and collaborators with master Mutilator aka Werewolf drawn multitudes that doubt the sincerity of their MFG Some people will err on recognizing their – the over-presentation of an underrepresent- So sincere people think es in the discourse surrounding parafictions: Orson Welles and Christopher Lee. Semi-clad of Black Vengeance aka Sexual work, not because of any apparent irony, but for own version of real, some people recognize the ed constituency – check). It is in the post-ironic extreme or absurdist fictions performed with in leather and loincloths,5 Manowar’s image Hammer aka The True Werwolf the lack thereof. As a recent review of a Satanic version that sincerity comes into question, most you’re ironic fiction is real. We all do this anyways. We all sound ironic total seriousness. While architecture as an aca- fluctuated between Frank Frazetta and Tom aka Vince Venom aka Werwolf of Warmaster performance confirms, questions of believe different things, and therefore have our symptomatically, not as an expression of autho- 6 sincere but inadvertently demic discipline deals almost exclusively with of Finland as they sang of the glories of war, the Black Order, a prolific Finn- what is silly or earnest may be irrelevant if the rial intention (who cares about that?) but rather 6 own delightfully different version of reality. In one producing fictions, parafictional architecture honor, and True Metal. While the band ish artist with a proclaimed “will to desired impact of the work, both on the public h t t p : / / w w w . a c s a - a r c h . o r g / d o c s / d e f a u l t - s o u r c e / 2 0 1 7 - a w a r d - m a t e r i a l s / f d - h m - m i l l e r m o r a n . p d f ? s f v r s n = 2 /

and within the discipline, is achieved: “The art is your reading of the post-ironic and the are reasons for trying to push those sensibilities our sense of wonder at the quotidian, they also allowing ourselves to enter a fictional world of Satanic Warmaster is so dramatic and per- “TOTALLY possibility of pursuing the practices of and those aesthetics, to take them seriously and provoke a healthy dose of doubt. If we’ve just where we can cast off our despair, where we can sonal that it actually works as an esoteric trick “non-design” towards optimistic visions of confront them as reality. been taken in by placards, explanatory models hijack the beliefs of a perfectly imagined fictional on behalf of Satanic Tyrant Werewolf [Penttilӓ] the architectural future? and footnoted museum text—in other words, being and, finally, finally, truly act.8 That we had in reducing his ego and becoming a medium for POST-IRONY!” MM At some basic level, Hilary and I don’t think P! Our use of this term [the post-ironic] is taken in by some of our most trusted signals of to construct and elaborate fiction to do so, may, both audience and Black Metal in general. It will the Utopia project of architecture is perfectly a reaction to the recent discourse in Log institutional authority—then how is one not to in the end, not really matter. seem like a bag of clichés, or a masterwork, or A Conversation functioning, glimmering, green cities of the future. between Michael Meredith and Mark Foster be doubtful of “all other forms of culturally sacro- actually both.”31 We’re not sure it would be so great. Rather, Gage. We see post-ironic practice as taking sanct knowledge”2? 1 Lambert-Beatty, Carrie. “Make-Believe: Parafic- tion and Plausibility.” October. Summer 2009: with Michael architecture’s Utopia project is the much less some of the methods of indifference— But what, exactly, is the nature of the 51-94. 1 Steven Lee Beeber, The Heebie-Jeebies at grandiose social-cultural project of questioning, scrolling, collecting, the appropriation of doubt induced by parafiction? For Lambert-Beat- CBGBs: A Secret History of Jewish Punk (Chi- cago: Chicago Review Press, 2006). Meredith discussion, and an instantiation of values that found objects to name a few—and actually ty, this form of illusionistic play is not your typical 2 Weschler, Lawrence. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of lead us toward a better society—one that is going beyond just representational projects: postmodern relativizing of the categories of truth Wonder. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. 2 “I knocked ‘em dead in Dallas / They didn’t Michael Meredith is a co-principal of both equitable and inclusive by taking pleasure what Mark Foster Gage calls speculative and fiction. Instead, she argues, the parafiction- know we were Jews.” 3 Lambert-Beatty’s explication of the parafictional MOS Architects with Hilary Sample and in difference. Indifference and non-design have projects, and applying them towards sin- al work evinces a counterintuitive respect for borrows from Bruno Latour’s accounts of his Andrew Shernoff, The Next Big Thing (New 2 York, Epic, 1975). is Assistant Professor at the Prince- an important role in this idea of an impossible cere, real architecture proposals. the means by which knowledge is produced. investigations into the construction of facts: ton University School of Architecture. Utopian project: they are about destabilizing the MM Both of those essays were written for a very Indeed, in its painstaking mimicry of the objects “The question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, 3 Beeber. The issue editors emailed Michael for institutions of architecture and culture to allow for particular audience, and one of the things we and practices whereby facts are created—in its on the contrary, renewing empiricism.” Latour, a contribution on September 10, 2017, difference. Our approach, for better and worse, hope for our work is that it moves past that audi- museum placards, its archival photographs, its Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? 4 Ibid. to which he replied: “We’re totally is a culturally relativist and reactionary project ence and that it can be more broadly appreciated adherence to citation conventions—the parafic- From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry. Winter 2004: 225-248. Print. post-irony! Would love to contribute. of architecture. It is not about absolutes and it and understood. tional amounts to an almost anthropological 5 “True metal people wanna rock not pose / Wearing jeans and leather, not cracker-jack Best, Michael.” is not about singular methodologies, although it TM We can say—at least for Meredith investigation into the conditions of knowledge 4 Lambert-Beatty’s text was written in the imme- clothes.” requires us to construct some idea of our context [Miller] and myself—we reject being grouped creation.3 And so, in Lambert-Beatty’s view, the diate wake of the Bush presidency, and it is Joey DeMaio, Kings of Metal (New York: Atlan- P! Post-ironic tendencies seem to result to react against, even if it is a fiction.Non-design under either of those formulations in terms of our parafictional’s deceptions emerge as instruction- disheartening to see how innocent that political tic Records, 1988). climate’s plays with “truthiness” look in compar- from a constant cycling between sincerity is a term that relates to anti-expressionism in the and T+E+A+M’s work. It’s a false binary that’s al, perhaps even well-meaning: in carefully trac- ison to the current administration’s barrage of 6 “True Metal is a name for bands of different and irony until these positions become arts. And this anti-expressionist drive has a long, used as a form of rhetoric. We’re interested in ing a fact’s production, the parafictional puts its bold-faced lies. metal styles, which, apart from musical aspects, confused and conflated. Has your attitude long history as a constant engine of the arts. It is how we can be impactful outside of the disci- viewers on the lookout for the ways in which that are distinguished by their ideological attitude towards practice shifted through the differ- not about not-designing, but about the non-ex- pline; we’re not so interested in making rhetorical process can be co-opted and feinted—a useful 5 Kirsch, Adam. “Fernando Pessoa’s Disappear- towards the metal and by particular textual ing Act.” The New Yorker. September 2017. features. The term was coined by the band ent stages in your design career, or has pression of the act of design, or of a heroic and work to be used as fodder in insider arguments. preparedness in our age of internet ubiquity and 4 Manowar and is mainly used by fans and post-irony been a constant in your work? institutionalized act of authorship. It is essentially I think that my anxiety about [the post-ironic] is outright political lies. 6 Zenith, Richard. Introduction. The Book of musicians to categorize their music. Musically, MM Answering this question might require a reactionary, against quote-unquote “design,” and that I hope architecture can engage those ideas Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa. Penguin Books, the bands are usually assigned to Heavy Metal 2003, pp. vii-xxvi or Power Metal… False Metal is the betrayal of little more personal context than usual. When I the institutionalization and stabilization of the arts. in the realm of public discourse and not just While I agree with Lambert-Beatty’s analysis—the the philosophy of Heavy Metal for com- graduated with my master’s degree in 2000, I Non-design is about questioning and reworking bring them in and talk about them in private. The parafictional object is, without question, a decep- 7 Earnest, Jarrett. “In Conversation: Josiah McEl- mercial reasons. Certain directions of had a residency at the Chinati Foundation in our cultural value systems. Recently, I’ve been challenge of an architecture biennial versus [that tion that aims to instill a productive sense of doubt the metal, such as Glam Metal, Nu heny with Jarrett Earnest.” The Brooklyn Rail. Metal and Crossover, are regarded Marfa, Texas. At the time I was writing working through Ben Lerner’s book The Hatred of] an art one is the issue of representation. Art in its viewers—I wonder if there might be some- September 2015: 33-35. as adulterations of ‘pure’ heavy theme songs for people, putting up of Poetry, simply replacing the word poetry with is art. Sure there are mediated practices, but thing else to this mischievous form, something a metal, though bands who can not be wallpaper, experimenting with architecture. And perhaps it too relates somehow you can take it as it is. If it’s a video of a photo of bit more mysterious, a bit mystical even, behind 8 “Faith is the instinct of action.” Pessoa, Fernan- classified as traditional Heavy Metal do. The Book of Disquiet. New York: Penguin or Power Metal can be accepted as materials, pouring resins... to the post-ironic, but I’m still working on it. a printout of a computer desktop that’s halfway the parafictional impulse. For in the best exam- Books, 2003. true by true metal fans.” “True Metal,” designing (then making) cush- around the world, it’s still that thing. Whereas if ples of this kind of work, something more nebu- Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, ions for Donald Judd chairs, you interject the idea that you’re representing a lous is achieved than a well-meaning art-theoret- de.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Metal Interior view of Ghostbox, T+E+A+M, Chicago Biennial 2017 (accessed September 22, 2017). designing (then building) building somehow it gets very weird very fast. It’s ical game; something else occurs, something like furniture, and designing a hard to know where representation begins and the collapsing of self that results from the method 7 Manowar’s fans are known as house in Marfa, among other ends. Just to bring it back to Living Picture3, the actor’s total immersion in her role, or something Metal Warriors, Manowarriors, things. I was beginning to think Ragdale Ring project, we thought we could do it So, there’s a dramatic difference between being like what happens when an author becomes so Immortals, and Brothers of Metal. about what to do after school. Hilary “THE TOPIC only because it’s actually a thing. on the outside of the model where you have a BELIEVE IT invested in her characters that she begins to treat FICTION WITH 8 Adrien Begrand, “The Dichotomy [Sample, cofounder of MOS] was at sense of an intact big box, [and] going inside them as real. In other words, parafictions are also of Manowar,” PopMatters, March OMA, running Prada San Francisco, P! Making the image physical in [Living Pic- where the reality switches. That was the hope for incantatory works, trying, through their desper- 25, 2007. and we communicated constantly. Da- IS A REAL ture] is really interesting. It’s the opposite of people’s experience entering the gallery: walking OR NOT! ate simulations, to bring some being—or some CONVICTION vid Foster Wallace (DFW) was in Marfa your process for the drawings in the Detroit around and seeing the familiar status of the box belief—into the world. 9 “They can’t stop us / Let ‘em try / For Heavy Metal / We will die!” too. I got to know him; we went hiking, STUMPER” Reassembly Plant, because all those start to break down and become more fragment- by Matthew Consider the author Fernando Pessoa. A Conversation Joey DeMaio, Die for Metal (Au- ate and sang together, made studio visits, drawings were collaged from real material ed, and this new nature take over with the sky, Described in a recent New Yorker article as be- burn: Metal Circle Music, 2007). and corresponded for years afterward via A Conversation swatches that you made and then put into mountain range, and park. Wagstaffe M.Arch I, ‘19 ing consumed by “a metaphysical nihilism,”5 Pes- with Mark Foster postcard. He wanted to buy an architec- digital space. TM I do want to make one small point soa produced little during his lifetime: a single 10 “I’m prepared to die for metal. Are you? Are you prepared to die for tural drawing, which I ended up giving with T+E+A+M MM That process was something that we de- that criticality as the only mode of political The patch of Venice Boulevard that cuts through collection of poetry and some editorial remarks Gage metal? Have you ever thought to him. Other fantastic writers—Jake veloped as we went. We had a desire for how engagement is something that we are working downtown Culver City is an exercise in the non- in a number of literary journals. Though his about that? Are you prepared to Silverstein, Daphne Beal and Sean T+E+A+M is an architecture practice those drawings would look and how they would against. I don’t like the word speculative. What descript. Strolling down this forgettable axis of particular constitution prevented him from writing Mark Foster Gage is the principal of die for metal? ... I’m ready! I’m ready to die! ... Do you want me to Wilsey from McSweeney’s—were led by Thom Moran, Ellie Abrons, Adam correlate to the model as the model was being we’re doing is design. Rather than speculation urban sprawl you’ll pass by an auto-body shop, publicly, upon his death over 25,000 pages of Mark Foster Gage Architects and the prove it?” DeMaio, Joey. Interview there. All of them, together, opened Fure, and Meredith Miller who are all produced… We tried a lot of things, and it end- or representation, it’s design. It’s designing for a a discount clothing outlet, a real estate agency, manuscripts were discovered squirreled away Assistant Dean at YSoA. On September by Götz Kühnemund. Hard Rock. up another world to me. And for me, Assistant Professors at the Univer- ed up giving us the verisimilitude that we want- new reality without shrinking away from that real- a Subway, each place more anonymous than in a trunk in his apartment. Notably, little of this 21, 2017, the issue editors spoke with April, 2006. the post-ironic attitude you are talking sity of Michigan Taubman College of ed by photographing or 3D scanning little piles ity. We’re just trying to see it as a new possibility. the last. That is, until you walk by one storefront literary output was written under his own name. Mark on the 7th floor terrace at Rudolph 4 11 “You say you wanna rock / And make it to the about is very much related to that literary Architecture. Their work centers on or chunks of material, but what was interesting Like for Post Rock, we acknowledge that there’s whose name you have not seen before: The Instead, the texts were attributed to distinct char- Hall. The following is an abridged tran- top / You gotta look good / And you gotta act moment. DFW had a large influence at the time, architecture’s physicality as an agent was that a lot of the piles or materials that show a lot of plastic in the world. It’s inevitable, so why Museum of Jurassic Technology. acters (at least 18 in total) that Pessoa called his script of the conversation. tough / You don’t know what to do / I’m givin’ and still does. Some people characterize his of cultural, environmental and urban up in the drawings are not true to the original don’t we just engage with it, find its possibilities, Stumbling inside, the curious becomes “heteronyms.” Not mere pseudonyms, Pessoa’s you a clue / So you can be the next / Supreme Rock Dude” work as overly ironic and overly formalist;others production. On September 22, 2017, pile. Oftentimes there’s a separation between and see it as a resource rather than see it as a li- curiouser as you find yourself in a labyrinthine heteronyms were fully realized fictional person- P! We were interested in the binary set Andy Shernoff, Supreme Rock Dude (New York: think of it as sincere and human. It oscillates the issue editors spoke with Thom the mesh surface and the image map that gets ability? So, with Ghostbox, we’re trying to look at maze of tight, darkly curtained and dimly lit ages, complete with their own “biographies, up in your Log 40 article, “Speculation MCA Records, 1990). between various readings. Moran and Meredith Miller via Google projected on it. Oftentimes we would separate emptying-out, ex-urban, first- and second-wave rooms, each of which contains any number of physiques, personalities, political views, religious vs Indifference,” in response to Michael Hangouts. The following is an abridged those and apply a new texture or image to the suburban areas. They’re just producing these mysterious exhibits: vitrines of models depicting attitudes and literary pursuits”6 (viii). It was only Meredith’s essay on indifference and the 12 Friedman, Ross. Interview by Louise Brown. Iron Fist. September, 2013. transcript of the conversation. same map, and then render that out or even types [vacant retail buildings] of situations. odd occult rituals, a lengthy recording narrat- through the creation of these fictions that Pessoa practices of non-design, which is not about P! In your Log 39 article, you place architec- There’s no way around it. It’s just what’s hap- ing an expedition to track down a rare bat that was able to overcome the self-doubt necessary authorship but what he calls “play[ing], col- 13 Lauri Penttilä, Twitter post, August 26, 2017. tural practices within two categories: those pening, so why not try to engage it rather than can fly through walls, microscopes trained on to engage in literary production. lect[ing], scroll[ing], reappropriat[ing], …”1 that solve problems and those that exhibit just point out its excess or its problems, or try sculptures of pop-cultural figures so miniature Or consider Verzelini’s Act of Faith, a We think that the idea of post-irony, which 14 Lauri Penttilä,. Interviewed by Sami Kettunen. “calculated indifference” and a tendency to rehabilitate it and make it conform to already they fit within the heads of a pins. Copious wall collection of glassware arrayed in a museum is simultaneously sincere and ironic, opens Loputon Gehennan liekki. 2014. towards “nondesign”. You hesitate to include existing ideas of what good urbanism is. Let’s text abounds. Without question, not all of it can display case with an accompanying label. Giaca- the possibility for architects who practice th 15 Leon Krier, Architecture: Choice or Fate, (Wind- MOS entirely within the latter category, as just take it for what it is, and see it as a pile of be real—those sculptures in the pins? Bats flying mo Verzelini, the text narrates, was a 16 centu- “indifference” to also align themselves sor: Papadakis Publisher, 1998), 34. your work appears to exhibit tendencies of material with untapped possibilities. through walls?—but it is, after all, a museum. ry nobleman who made a pilgrimage throughout with speculation: imagining transformative both categories. How does MOS negotiate MM Part of the work in doing that, sim- You exit the building back into the bright Califor- Europe to view paintings of Christ. Upon his futures or architectural utopias. 16 Ibid., 17. between these two competing models of ilar to Post-Rock, is working on the perception nia sun, and suddenly those things which had return, he produced the glassware in question, MFG You’ve identified this term “post-irony,” architecture within your practice? of that material via its aesthetics. A lot of people once seemed banal and without interest—the each piece of which is a replica of the goblets, which it seems can simultaneously mean being 17 Ibid. MM The dialectic from my piece in Log 39, react to Post-Rock because they think, “Plastic strip mall parking lots and auto-body shops—are bowls and cups Christ held in the paintings. sincere and being ironic. That actually is a really 18 “Satanic Warmaster.” The Metal Archives. www. titled “Indifference, Again,” is between a sort is cheap, ugly and trashy.” And for us, it’s like, exploding with potential significance. As you can guess by now, this entire display good example of what Charles Jencks called metal-archives.com/bands/Satanic_Warmaster of “technical expressionism” and “calculated “Exactly, plastic is everywhere!” The project “double coding,” the notion that the building (Accessed September 23, 2017). indifference.” (The latter term being borrowed is a confrontation with those things that often would mean one thing to architects and another from Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contra- get excluded. Similarly, Ghostbox is working thing to observers without architectural knowl- 19 “Armour.” The Metal Archives. www.metal-ar- chives.com/bands/Armour. (Accessed Septem- diction.) The opposition was overly simplified, to on the perceptions and sensibilities around the edge. If a building has a Chippendale pediment, ber 23, 2017). more clearly make a point. MOS is both against material reality of a big box store. We’ve got on, for example Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building, and within a sort of technical expressionism. We CMU and cheap brick panel: this is the material to architects this says: “I’m a funny reference 20 Nuclear War Now!, Death Threat / No Heaven, write software and we are interested in the tech- palette, and this is its sensibility. How do we then to this specific furniture thing in the past,” but 2013. nical aspects of architecture—in sustainability, incrementally work on it to push it into a different to non-architects says, “I’m a pitched roof with 21 Krier, 22. maintenance, digital techniques, etcetera—but perceptual register? I think one of my favorite a hole in it.” So in that sense, you could have a we have no interest in expressing a kind of tech- responses that we got from friends and people post-irony, where something is both ironic and 22 “My dream of your empire / Fills me with joy / nical virtuosity. If anything, we are for inclusion- at the [Chicago] Biennial was someone who ambiguous depending on the set of information For it is also my fate / To end this life of strife ary models of architecture that do not choose pointed out that our project was one of the few you bring to your building. I’m, however, in my in tragedy / or supremacy.” Lauri Penttilä, My Dreams of 8 (Müglen: No Colours Records, sides, that are more ambiguous, more contradic- that didn’t deal with just history. He said that our writings, pretty against that idea of “official mean- 2005). tory, more primitive, more amateur... less heroic, project staged an encounter with a contemporary ing” and therefore “double coding” because if I’m less slick, less corporate, less singular, less condition that is important to think about and impregnating hierarchically determined mean- 23 In response to Krier’s assertions of the superi- about directly expressing a solution to a prob- for architects to be working on. I appreciate that ings into buildings, that’s automatically creating ority of the classical language of architecture, Eisenman responded as follows: “As a jew lem... The indifference I was talking about in the someone saw that, that there are other dimen- two classes of people. If philosopher Jacques and an ‘outsider,’ I have never felt part of that article is aesthetic; it means weird colors, crude sions to the project than disciplinary history. Rancière says there is no path from inequality to ‘classical’ world. I feel that modernism was shapes, fragments, cute images, the handmade, TM Unless you’re building, it’s hard to equality—only from equality to equality—then an the product of an alienated culture with no the post-material, awkward craftsmanship, kitsch escape the representational trap—it gets hard architecture which, as its starting point, produc- roots suddenly being brought into a bourgeois Interior view of Ghostbox, T+E+A+M, Chicago Biennial 2017 situation. In other words, modernists were and abject stuff as opposed to photo-realistic to know where the representation begins and es inequality via two classes of viewers is not Eye of the needle artwork by Hagop Sandaldjian, exhibited at the Museum of Jurassic Technology suddenly out of the ghettos and in the cities. renderings, performative diagrams, singu- ends. Our ambition is obviously to build, and it’s exactly thinking along the lines of contemporary The philosophy that would abolish modernism http://www.mjt.org/exhibits/hagop/hagop1.html proposes that if we return the world to the way lar-synthetic swoopy forms, data-driven decision important to our practice. This work isn’t finished social engagement. So for instance, in my office, it was before alienated individuals took over, making, and so on... A lot of people have a very TM The topic is a real stumper, post-irony. Photoshop layer other textures on. There was as representation—it doesn’t have the same we did this thought experiment through archi- everything would be worked out. I am not knee-jerk reaction against the word indifference. Something we’ve been struggling with in the last quite a bit of authoring the sensibility of the impact in the world that we want it to as a kind The Museum of Jurassic Technology is the work of the contemporary artist Josiah tecture—via our rather outlandish design for our convinced.” Cynthia Davidson, Eisenman/Krier: Two Ideologies (New York: Monacelli Press, To them it is pejorative. And I am not suggesting two projects, especially the last two models for material in the space of the digital drawing. So, it of critique. Rather than the conventional mode is a mode of fiction-making that the art historian McElheny (though a religious glassblower Helsinki Guggenheim a couple years ago, we 2004), 36. or promoting apathy; Hilary and I care about the Detroit Reassembly Plant and Ghostbox,1 is that was a little bit of both: bringing the material into where critical architecture is not being built—for Carrie Lambert-Beatty has labelled the “parafic- named Verzelini does actually exist, he nev- explored this idea of using these forms, many world at large, and we try to do our part. All I am you have to be very explicit that you mean it as the drawings, and also allowing yourself to go our work to function as critical—it has to be built. tional.” Unlike traditional modes of storytelling, er made glassware from paintings of Christ). found objects that we found online, but the col- 24 Krier, 72. saying is that the architects listed (and we as a real proposal for architecture and not just as a even further and draw and add digital layers to which are content to “perform [their] procedures McElheny, however, did not simply take some lection of so many [objects] have so much mean- well) are not expressing this as the main value in rhetorical or critical project that you don’t actually that material. 1 T+E+A+M exhibited the Detroit Reassembly in the hygienic clinics of literature,” the parafic- flea market wine glasses and archly insert them ing that it would be meaningless. The fact that 25 “The Semite creation in ashes / The remains Plant at the U.S. Pavilion for the 2016 Venice blown away to the past / Of the new Hyper- the work. I’ve been told by friends that I should mean. It’s the default interpretation that propos- TM I think we were really excited about tional, Lambert-Beatty writes, “has one foot in the into his fictional narrative. Instead, he crafted the you can read anything you want in the building Architecture Biennale and recently exhibited 1 borean order.” Lauri Penttilä, Der Schwarze have used Roland Barthes’s book Le degré zéro als are a piece of rhetoric and not an earnest the feedback between physical material produc- Ghostbox at the 2017 Chicago Architecture field of the real.” Like The Museum of Jurassic glasses himself, after apprenticing with master meant that it was impossible to have a meaning Orden (Lahti: Northern Heritage, 2001). de l’écriture (Writing Degree Zero), which is ba- building proposal. tion and digital representation: that’s something Biennial. Technology, these works typically deploy the glassblowers in Europe, where he very likely that was correct. No hierarchical establishment sically similar to what I was describing, instead MM You can be earnest, and I think we that evolved out of the process of Detroit Reas- trappings of cultural authority—museum exhibits, learned the same traditional methods that the of meaning, but also no need to abstract archi- 26 Emmanuel Petit, Irony or, The Self-Critical of Moira Roth’s “The Aesthetic of Indifference.”... try to be through our choices in representation. sembly Plant, and was something that was more 2 Mark Foster Gage, “Speculation vs. Indiffer- product release announcements, architectural actual Verzelini deployed. This same blurring of tecture to merely functional boxes. Opacity of Postmodern Architecture (New Hav- ence”. Log 40. Spring/Summer 2017. en: Yale University Press, 2013), 79. So perhaps what we are seeing at the moment For both of those models we chose to be literal— self-conscious in Ghostbox. renderings—to tell their tales, and, notably, they creator and fiction presents itself in McElheny’s is a degree-zero aesthetics—by which I mean to represent building and construction as literally MM And I think that operation is really 3 Living PIcture is T+E+A+M’s winning pro- insert these fictions into the actual world, without discussions of the piece: McElheny expresses P! I think that [post-irony] encourages the 27 Emmanuel Petit, Ceci n’est pas un reverie: The designs trying to maintain a non-ideological as you can in a scale model that of course important—going back to what we were saying posal for the 2017 Ragdale Ring. The project in any way demarcating where reality ends and serious identification with the faith of his Verze- ambiguity that you identify in the multitude Architecture of Stanley Tigerman (Yale School methodology—where work whose context is doesn’t have all the same issues as a building. earlier—about the expectations that [Ghostbox] proposed a series of lightweight volumes onto the fiction begin. lini: “[Unlike Verzelini] I’m not a religious person, of meanings contained within the Helsin- of Architecture, 2011). which photographs from the original Ragdale an overly-saturated media and search engine But somehow it doesn’t always convey that we would just be a rhetorical project. There, we were Ring in 1912 are projected. As outlined above, such works tend to yet I have a faith, and that is in art, and in the ki project. Was ambiguity something you 28 Stanley Tigerman, Versus: An American Archi- environment is constructing and reworking and mean it to be understood as a real building. showing dwellings underneath tarps. It might produce an acute sense of estrangement. Hav- people who are and could be involved in art.”7 actively sought to cultivate? tect’s Alternatives (New York: Rizzoli, 1982), constructing again various forms of blankness or I think that’s partially because the audience is seem that we can’t possibly mean that, but I 4 Research project by Meredith Miller and Thom ing had the elements of our world reconfigured One senses that his embodiment of Verzelini MFG Yeah, absolutely. But not as a way to strad- 115. non-design in numerous ways. prepped for a more distanced or “cool” relation- think the imagery in the project is where the opti- Moran: “Post Rock architecture stages intimate into an oftentimes fantastical narrative tends is a means of expressing his own faith in art’s dle irony. If something is ambiguous, irony is one encounters between people and the global 29 Ibid., 109. ship between the author and some idea. The mism comes back in. Because it casts everything condition of excess plastic. The following to skew our perspective of the everyday. Fred value, a sentiment so earnest that he perhaps of many things you can pull from it. So I don’t nec- P! While you indicate that indifference aesthetics in these models are also challenging. into a kind of new reality, a new environment. designs for Post Rock architecture all target an Wilson, the proprietor of the Museum of Juras- could not have spoken it without the aid of his essarily think that irony is opposed to ambiguity. I 30 Beeber, 99. operates through “non-design,” our read- There’s this sense of, “this can’t possibly be From the interior of Ghostbox, when you’re in the important social impact: reframing post-con- sic Technology, tells of one visitor who, after a fictional gymnastics. think irony is one of many readings of something sumer plastic changes its perceived value as a ing of post-irony sees it as a paradigm for a real proposal because it’s too weird or dere- model and looking around, you see a big back- waste product to a viable and aesthetic building lengthy stay with the exhibits, spent a nearly In the final analysis, as these peculiar that is ambiguous. But because we [as architects] 31 Brett Stevens, “Satanic Warmaster show in the practices of “non-design” to be applied lict.” People think we can’t possibly mean it as drop with a blue sky on it. It’s like a new land- resource.” ACSA Faculty Design Honorable equal amount of time investigating the pen- writers and glassblowers show us, the parafic- are a discipline, and have a history, and take that Glasgow draws racism complaints,” Death towards a kind of “problem solving” through positive—but we do. I think walking that line is scape, an unexpected context that takes over Mention 2016-2017, http://www.acsa-arch.org/ cil-sharpener on the museum’s front desk. That tional is as much about encouraging a sense history very seriously, any time any forms we use Metal Underground, April 9, 2015. docs/default-source/2017-award-materials/ a tradition of visionary architecture. What important; it’s hard to articulate, but I think there and starts to erase the exterior of the big box. fd-hm-millermoran.pdf?sfvrsn=2/ being said, parafictions don’t exclusively enlarge of doubt as it is about overcoming doubt, about get something close to something from history,