UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

______, 20 _____

I,______, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of:

______in: ______It is entitled: ______

Approved by: ______

HERMENEUTICS OF ARCHITECTURAL INTERPRETATION: THE WORK IN THE BARCELONA PAVILION

A thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies

of the University of Cincinnati

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

In the Department of Architecture and Interior Design

of the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning

2002

By

Maroun Ghassan Kassab

B Arch, Lebanese American University Jbeil, Lebanon 1999

Committee: Professor John E. Hancock (Chair) James Bradford, Adj. Instructor Aarati Kanekar, Assistant Professor

ABSTRACT

Architectural interpretation has always been infiltrated by the metaphysics of Presence. This is due to the interpreter’s own background that uses the vocabulary of metaphysics, and due to the predetermined set of presuppositions the interpreter inherited from the metaphysical tradition itself. As a consequence what is to be interpreted has constantly been taken as an “object” present-at-hand. Through this objectification, the architectural work has always been missed in the process of interpretation, and has never been allowed to “work” in the sense opened up by Martin Heidegger.

This thesis questions the traditional methodologies of architectural interpretation, first through revealing the discourse’s general dependence on the presuppositions at the heart of the metaphysical tradition, and second by adopting a hermeneutic approach towards interpretation. Hermeneutics is the only approach that questions the structure of its own operation, does not utilize the vocabulary of metaphysics, and is aware of its inherited presuppositions.

Taking the Barcelona Pavilion as a case study, this thesis reviews the principal interpretive writings on the building, in order to uncover the presuppositions upon which they depend. Terminology and procedures adopted from Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art” with complementary essays from Jacques Derrida, are employed to analyze and critique these texts, and to suggest a reading of the Pavilion beyond “form” and “matter”, “function” or “Presence”. These allow the “working” of the “work” to come forth, as in the fields of phenomenological hermeneutics.

Through this re-situating of the Pavilion, as a “work” of architecture, the metaphysics of Presence is challenged. The Barcelona Pavilion offers a particularly strong opportunity for such an investigation because of two main characteristics: The first is that the Pavilion was built, dismantled, and after 35 years rebuilt. The second characteristic is that it didn’t have a proper function. These two features challenge the physicality of the architectural object and its functionality, both essential for the metaphysics of Presence.

i

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like first and foremost to thank my family for their support and help; this thesis wouldn’t have been realized without them. I also would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Elie Haddad, whose guidance initiated my care for theory, and whose direction steered me towards the University of Cincinnati. My thanks to my committee members, Professor John E. Hancock for his advice and careful chiseling that helped shape my understanding, Professor James Bradford for opening up the wonderful discourse of Hermeneutics and guiding me through it, and for Professor Aarati Kanekar for her helpful advice and constructive criticism.

ii

A beginning always contains the undisclosed abundance of the awesome. Martin Heidegger

iii Table of Contents 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents 1

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 2

Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 10

1:1 Bigraphy of Mies van der Rohe Till 1929 10 1:2 Mies and the Pavilion 35 1:3 The Writings of Mies Before 1929 40

Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 48

2:1 Juan Pablo Bonta 48 2:2 Robin Evans 57 2:3 Jose Quetglas 66

Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 77

3:1 Etymology of Hermeneutics 77 3:2 Tradition and the Interpretive Methods 83 3:3 The Anticipatory Fore-Structures 89

Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 93

4:1 Robin Evans’ Paradoxical Symmetries 93 4:2 The Anatomy of Bonta’s Interpretation 104 4:3 The Theater of Cruelty 112

Chapter 5: Closure!!! 120

Bibliography 132

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 2

Introduction: The Re/Moved Object

It seems that architectural interpretation requires an interpretation. The curious

circularity of this statement seems to suggest a flaw in its structure. Surely here we have

anticipated the meaning and the mode of operation of interpretation. The sense of

interpretation was predetermined as a vehicle for communication, for translation from

one medium into another. This means that there was already something guiding our

understanding, something that we were presupposing, yet it remained hidden,

undisclosed. So it is with all interpretation. Adding to the process a locus for

interpretation, such as “architecture”, adds complexity to an already intricate situation.

This problem of interpreting interpretation remains one that is rooted in the past, and is

intensified by its persistent continuity. Interpretation, on one hand, has been articulated

by a problematic tradition, and architecture on the other, by confusion. Any attempt to

bring the whole situation to a closure, whether by bringing a resolution or by ending the

confusion, is merely a myth. But isn’t already what has been said, a way to

interpretation? In the search for a beginning, we have already begun, and our

anticipations and presuppositions came forward, ahead of us. Since we already began,

then let us continue.

The adherence of the basic understanding of architecture to the weight of the history of

metaphysics is evident throughout. The archē, or the origin always appears and reappears when summoned, and it is always anticipated in the form of “Presence”. It is

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 3

embedded within the etymological structure of “architecture”, and comes to the fore

whenever the word is pronounced, or even renounced. Since any act of architectural

interpretation supposes or specifies a locus for interpretation, we are bound to think in a

manner that anticipates the existence of an architectural artifact, a building, or an

architectural object to interpret. This means that there must be an architectural object

that we can direct interpretation towards. Through this objectification we already

presupposed Presence, since the presence of the object becomes necessary for

interpretation. This has always been the case in architectural theory and interpretation.

It seems that throughout the history of architecture, architectural interpretation moved

side by side with the inexhaustible tendency of architecture to define and redefine itself,

always reshaping its basic understanding, what it is, or perhaps what it ought to be.

This tendency describes the history of architectural interpretation and the destruction of

the history of architectural interpretation. It traces the manner through which the

consecutive approaches towards architecture through history destroyed the previous

ones and were destroyed by succeeding views. Yet this loop of destruction remains

unified within the metaphysical domain of Presence. The task nevertheless, as

paradoxical as it might seem, is to introduce a mode of interpretation that eludes the

endless loop of redefinition and destruction. This attempt will be made by way of

interpretation. In Heideggerian terms, this is neither a makeshift nor a defect.1

1 Martin Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, from Basic Writing (New York: Harper and Row, 1993), p. 144.

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 4

The road leading to architectural interpretation requires that the architectural object be

re/moved. This re/moval is not merely a physical attempt. On one hand, it challenges

the presence of a physical entity, or the physicality of an entity to denote the entity itself.

On the other hand it opens a space for investigation, shaking the metaphysics of

“Presence”, not by referring to the architectural object as being “absent”, since this would

directly bring its powerful “Presence” to the fore, but rather by dislocating it. Dislocation does not sustain absence, as does Presence, but it sustains re/moval. The idea of dislocation implies that something has been moved from its “proper place”, moved away from “home”. As we know, “home” and “hearth” in Greek mean ousia, the word for Being as Presence. This issue of metaphysical Presence, and its dialectical counterpart absence, has not appeared throughout architectural theory except in some fragmented pieces of thought, especially in the recent work of Peter Eisenman, and in his published correspondance with Jacques Derrida.

Peter Eisenman realizes the importance of dislocation as opening a way for architecture to revitalize its purpose through challenging its own metaphysic.2 Eisenman’s strategy

for challenging the metaphysics of presence in architecture and to dislocate it, was to

introduce the concept of “absence” against “presence”, and to “work on and within the

contradictory terms of the discourse”.3 Using this strategy, Eisenman reaches an

unavoidable paradox in architecture, where he concludes that architecture “is an activity

2 Peter Eisenman, Houses of Cards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 167. 3 Ibid. p. 185.

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 5

that is highly resistant to dislocation and de-centering, because of the unavoidable

imperative of presence in it.”4

It is difficult to challenge the metaphysics of “presence” in any discourse, but it is

nevertheless obvious that Peter Eisenman’s strategy in challenging this discourse simply

falls back in the realm of the metaphysics of Presence, and instead of challenging it,

powerfully reaffirms it. This consequently leads to a paradox. Since the dialectical

opposition of terms does not lead to deconstruction nor dislocation, the strategy

contains a major flaw. Absence, as mentioned before, suggests the absence of a

presence, and thus the presence of something else, which is absence. It’s merely a trap

of metaphysics, hidden in the form of a loophole. In a letter to Eisenman, Jacques

Derrida raises the same question about the validity of such a tactic. Derrida clearly sets

the question about the “presence of an absence” in Eisenman’s work:

This discourse on absence, or the presence of an absence, perplexes me, not only because it bypasses so many tricks, complications, traps that the “philosopher”, especially if he is a bit of a dialectician, knows only too well and fears to find you caught up in again, but also because it has authorized many religious interpretations…5

Indeed, Derrida points at the heart of the issue. The determination of absence is a

reaffirmation of the metaphysics of Presence. Yet Eisenman’s discourse is not merely a dialectic opposition as he replies in his letter to Derrida, it is based on the acceptance of the presence of a metaphysical dimension of presence in architecture:

4 Ibid. 5 Jaques Derrida, Letter to Peter Eisenman: Critical Architecture and Contemporary Culture, ed. William J. Lillyman, Marilyn F. Moriarty, David J. Neuman (New York: Oxford University Press 1994), p. 21.

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 6

Yes, I am preoccupied by absence, but not in terms of this simple presence/absence dialect, as you might think. For me as an architect each concept, as well as each object, has all that is not inscribed within it as traces. I am preoccupied with absence, not voids or glass, because architecture, unlike language, is dominated by presence, by the real existence of the signified.6

This later statement of Eisenman seems to attempt to avoid, or rather reconcile the two terms presence and absence, since he declares the unavoidable presence of the architectural object. His earlier claim takes this supposition as a paradigm, and draws a very important separation between language and architecture. “In language, signs are not objects, but the indications of the absence of an object”.7 This conclusion seems to evoke the structuralist views about the nature of a sign: “signs represent the present in its absence.”8 This misleading proclamation or assumption led Eisenman to suppose the following: “Unlike language, architecture is both object, a presence, and sign, an absence.”9

In his attempt to break free from the loop, and in order to provide an answer to

Derrida’s questioning in his letter, Eisenman introduces a new term onto the field of terms presupposed to be already in play:

It is not that there is no possibility of deconstruction in architecture, but it cannot simply take issue with what you have called the metaphysics of presence. In my view, your deconstruction of the presence/absence dialect is inadequate for architecture because architecture is not a two term but a three term system. In architecture, there is another condition, which I call presentness--that is, neither absence nor presence, form nor function, but rather an excessive condition between sign and being. As long as there is a strong bond between form and

6 Peter Eisenman, Post/El Cards: A Reply to Jacques Derrida, form Critical Architecture and Contemporary Culture, ed. William J. Lillyman, Marilyn F. Moriarty, David J. Neuman, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 40. 7 Peter Eisenman, Houses of Cards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 185. 8 Jacques Derrida, Differance, from “Speech and Phenomena”, (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 138. 9 Peter Eisenman, Houses of Cards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 185.

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 7

function, sign and being, the excess that contains the possibility of presentness will be repressed.10

This third condition for Eisenman acts as the saving grace of the architectural situation,

since in his words “architecture can neither merely return to a dialect of the metaphysics

of presence nor return to a nihilism which denies presence.” So, Presentness becomes an

alternative term that does not force a choice between the two conditions, presence and

Nihilism. 11 It becomes that sort of a third something, a third genealogy, genus, some sort of a khōra that defies the dialectic opposition, and oscillates between the logic of

exclusion and participation.12

I shall not elaborate here on the implications of this third term that Eisenman introduces, since it obviously follows the already established track that adheres to the metaphysics of Presence. The presence of the presentness as a third condition does not rule out the force of Presence in Eisenman’s discourse but rather reinforces it. And yet, neither does it open up a space for dislocation specifically because of its continued adherence to the metaphysics of Presence. In his attempt to reconcile a paradoxical situation, Eisenman is forced to create a new term for understanding, one that attempts to escape the controversies of an already established discourse, one that he himself introduced.

But ultimately, the work of architecture is present. This presenceing though does not follow the same lines of operations as that of the metaphysical Presence. This

10 Peter Eisenman, Post/El Cards: A Reply to Jacques Derrida, form Critical Architecture and Contemporary Culture, ed. William J. Lillyman, Marilyn F. Moriarty, David J. Neuman, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 40-41. 11 Peter Eisenman, Presentness and the “Being-Only-Once” of Architecture, from Deconstruction is/in America. Ed. Anselm Haverkamp (New York and London: New York University Press, 1995), p. 144-145. 12 Jacques Derrida, On the Name (Sanford: Sanford University Press, 1993), p. 89.

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 8 presencing rather, opens up the space for the work of architecture to be a work, and consequently to work. But unfortunately, Eisenman’s term of presentness does not do this specific work. Even though he realizes that there is a peculiar way of being in the architectural work, he nevertheless is not capable of grasping it because he falls victim to his presuppositions. The excessive condition that Eisenman senses in the architectural work already points in this direction. The work opens up something beyond the mere object. But this peculiar mode of presencing cannot be grasped through the mere introduction of a third term. Once the architectural object is re/moved, the condition of being present-only-once of architecture is challenged, as well as the objective Presence of the architectural object.

I would like to bring forth here an insight concerning the implications of the term dislocation, and the already problematic discourse that rotates around it. The term dislocation has been used by Eisenman within a specific discourse, and it already takes a specific meaning within that domain. On the other hand, dislocation suggests the existence of a locus that is already defined, centered, and located within given parameters. Instead, I offer to use the term “re/moval”, in a sense that suggests the already dynamic state of being, of motion, of movement, and consequently, of re- movement. This term incorporates the play that is always already at play, and which points towards it through a movement.

Eisenman’s effort to remain within the discourse of presence/absence/presentness is based on his supposition of a reality that cannot be ignored, which is the physical

“presence” of the architectural object: “the physical aspect requires that architecture be

Introduction: The Re-Moved Object 9

constructed, be a material reality. This situates architecture inescapably as a condition of

presence.”13 To break out of the loop becomes a necessity. Not by resorting to a term that defies the dialectic opposition between presence and absence, since the issue here is not an investigation within the realm of opposites, but rather by attempting to bypass the weight of the metaphysical presence. Presence and absence both participate in one and the same thing, which is the reaffirmation of the metaphysical Presence. The intension becomes one of re/moving/removing the architectural object to dislocate the metaphysical condition from its proper, its home, its ousia. This re/moval would not be then a mere reaffirmation of the metaphysics of Presence, but rather will contest the

“proper” which is understood as Being-as Presence.

It seems that by way of luck and necessity, the Barcelona Pavilion offers an opportunity to investigate simply because of its presence, and then the absence of its physical presence, and again, its presence: its physical removal, and re/moval. This opportunity offers a reading of the Pavilion that stretches beyond the confines of the metaphysics of

Presence. This re/moval challenges the traditional form/matter concepts of the thing, because it re/moves it from its “proper” zone. But here a precaution is also necessary: we should not confuse the physicality, and consequently the condition of the physical presence/absence/presence-again, as being a way to interpretation, as much as this condition challenges the physicality of the being-only-once of architecture. It is this condition which is essential to the theory of Eisenman, and consequently constitutes the heart of his discourse leading to the condition of presentness.

13 Peter Eisenman, Houses of Cards (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 182.

Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 10

Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion

1:1 Biography of Mies van der Rohe Till 1929

Many authors have looked at the life of Mies van der Rohe, critically and otherwise, notably Philip Johnson who was his friend, and Franz Schulze his biographer, whose book is inclusive. But rather than giving merely an account or an overview of his life, I shall attempt to present a biography that focuses on the events that are vital to my thesis. And since my architectural concern is focused on the Barcelona Pavilion, I shall narrow down the biography to investigate the events before Mies designed the Pavilion, and look for clues that prove critical to my investigation, concentrating on the ones that helped shape Mies’s architectural theory.

Born in 1886, the son of a stonemason, Mies was introduced to the profession of building through his father. Yet, his education in the architectural field was self acquired:

“My father was a stone mason, so it was natural that I would either continue his work or turn to building. I had no conventional architectural education. I worked under a few good architects; I read a few good books – and that’s about it.”14

As a young boy, he attended the Cathedral School in Aachen, and as Philip Johnson points out, he was always conscious of his heritage, and his work was influenced by the medieval concept of order expressed in the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas

14 Catherine Koh, “Mies van der Rohe, Modern Classicist.” Saturday Review, (23 January 1965), p. 61. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 11

Aquinas.15 Franz Schulze however points out that Monsignor Erich Stephany, the

archivist of the Aachen Cathedral, has noted that it is highly improbable that Mies had

any encounter with these concepts at Aachen, simply because he was too young at that

time.16 In an interview with his daughter Georgia in 1979, Mies recalls an important incident that occurred to him while he was still at the Aachen school. Once, while he was cleaning out the drawer of a drafting table in the office of the Aachen architect

Albert Schneider, he found an issue of the magazine Die Zunkunft, or “The Future”. This magazine as Mies recalls was published by Maximilian Harden. In that issue there was an article by Harden and also another article about one of Laplace’s theories. As Mies read the magazine, he was challenged by the complexity of its material, and couldn’t fully grasp its content. But this encounter awakened his curiosity.

“I read both of them, and both of them went over my head. But I couldn’t help being interested. So every week thereafter, I got hold of Die Zunkunft and read it as carefully as I could. That’s when I think I started paying attention to spiritual things. Philosophy. And culture.”17

Since then, he became a regular reader of this magazine, which played a critical role in

shaping his perspective on architecture.18 But one cannot suppose that at that time Mies

was capable of understanding the complexity of the issues in prospect; nevertheless, he

was intrigued, and this became an incentive for further investigation.

15 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 9. 16 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 13. 17 Ibid. p. 17-18 18 Fritz Neumeyer, “Mies as Self Educator”, in Mies van der Rohe, Architect as Educator, ed. Rolph Achilles, Kevin Harrington and Charlotte Myhrum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 27. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 12

Another incident that Mies recalls while he was still in Aachen was a conversation

between his brother Ewald and his father. Ewald was proposing the production of

certain architectural ornaments without paying a lot of attention to the details, especially

if that ornament was to be placed up high on a building façade where no one can look

closely at it. Mies remembers his father answering: “You’re none of you stone masons

anymore! You know the finial at the top of the spire of the Cathedral in Cologne? Well,

you can’t crawl up there and get a good look at it, but it was carved as if you could. It

was made for God.”19 This incident definitely addresses the notion of truth in design.

From that point on, we see the concept of truth beginning to take a more articulate form in the thought of Mies.

In Aachen, Mies worked for a couple of firms as a draftsman, and developed proficiency in the use of brick, stone and mortar, along with his stone carving abilities that he developed at home working with his father. Mies was proficient in the traditional elements of building, but when he moved to Berlin for a job, he was assigned some work with wood. He mentioned that he did not have the proper understanding of this material for he never learned how to handle it, neither at school, nor during his apprentice year in Aachen. The importance of material qualities will surface again in the work of Mies, and will acquire a crucial position in shaping his approach to building.

Because of this lack, Mies began an apprenticeship under the best cabinet designer in

Germany at that time, Bruno Paul. The time that he spent in Paul’s office gave him the

19 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 13. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 13 understanding he was seeking of the properties of wood and definitely developed his interest in furniture design. In 1907, at the age of 21, and while he was still working at the office of Bruno Paul, Mies got his first commission, the Riehl house. Before allowing the design work to proceed, Dr. Riehl, a philosopher, sent Mies to Italy for three months.

Mies was impressed by what he saw in Italy. He described the Palazo Pitti as “a huge stone wall with windows cut out of it, and that is that. You see with how few means you can make architecture-and what an architecture.” He also described the Roman ruins “where no ‘architecture’ was left, but only the structure”. And about the Roman aqueducts he commented: “The aqueducts were all the same character; the form changed only to suit the geographical situation, there was no regionalism involved.” 20

In 1908, and after a recommendation from Paul Thiersch, a friend of Bruno Paul, Mies entered the office of the renowned architect Peter Behrens where he came in contact with many leading architectural figures of that period. He was 22 years old then. Walter

Gropius and Adolph Meyer were already working at the office of Behrens when Mies came in. Gropius and Meyer left the office after more than a year. Shortly after they left,

Charles Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) came in and stayed for about half a year.

Mies’s contact with Peter Behrens was the trigger for him to begin developing his architectural theory. He was affected by Peter Behrens and his architectural theories, especially the concept of the Zeitgeist. In his recollections Mies mentions that Peter

Behrens had a great sense of form, and that form was his main interest. He also

20 Peter Carter, Mies van der Rohe at Work (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), p. 174. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 14 mentions that he at that time certainly understood and learned from Behrens.21 But Mies also describes a sense contradiction in the work of Peter Behrens, as in the work of most of his contemporaries. At that time, the architects were designing modern space in traditional forms, even though all of them had a strong sense of change. Mies mentions that they found it natural to build factories in a modern way, but all their representative buildings were in the classical expression. Schulze quotes Mies saying: “I think it must be very hard to break a tradition like that; it is a slow process.”22

During that period, the tendency in design was directed towards what was called the

Sachlichkeit. This term corresponded to a combination of matter-of factness, objectivity and sobriety. It was a reaction against self conscious aestheticism and dreamy symbolist subjectivity. It derived its basic concepts from the ancient Greek culture whose formal aspects were simpler, non-curvilinear and hard. Peter Behrens himself was a follower of the Sachlichkeit’s order of functionality.

In the beginning of his career with Behrens, Mies mentions that he started asking himself questions about the task of architecture:

It then became clear to me that it was not the task of architecture to invent form. I tried to understand what that task was. I asked Peter Behrens, but he could not give me an answer. He did not ask that question. The others said, “what we build is architecture,” but we weren’t satisfied with this answer. Maybe they didn’t understand the question. We tried to find out. We searched in the quarries of ancient and medieval philosophy. Since we knew that it was a question of truth, we tried to find what truth really was. We were very delighted to find a definition of truth by St. Thomas Aquinas: Adequatio intellectus et rei, or as a modern philosopher expresses it in the language of today” “Truth is the

21 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 43. 22 Ibid. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 15

significance of fact.” I never forgot this. It was very helpful, and has been a guiding light. To find out what architecture really is took me fifty years--half a century.23

This statement seems to describe one of the most crucial developments in Mies’s understanding concerning the nature of architecture. It marks the first shift into theoretical and philosophical thinking that helped shape and define his conception of architectural theory. The question of truth came into play, the same question that is at the basis of western thought, especially Greek thought. Here, Mies seems to hit bedrock in terms of defining a basis for his architectural understanding, and the question of truth seems to occupy the corner stone in shaping his architectural theory, if we can call it a theory.

During the years 1910- 1911, Mies met Hugo Perls, and was commissioned to build him a house. Mies and Perls met on common ground through their mutual admiration of the

German architect Karl Frederick Schinkel. Perls recalls that Mies had strong convictions.

“He wanted nothing to do with hand-me-down forms, though this didn’t keep him from an appreciation of history and tradition in architecture.”24 Mies’s rejection of classical formalism was not anti-classical in nature, but rather anti-formal, and Perls’ recollection affirms that.

In the meantime, in the studio of Behrens there was already some tension growing between the two architects. On one occasion Mies expressed his admiration for the

23 Richard Padovan, “Machines a Mediter” in Mies van der Rohe, Architect as Educator ed. ed. Rolph Achilles, Kevin Harrington and Charlotte Myhrum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 17. 24 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 54. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 16

Dutch architect H.P.Berlage, and it lead to an argument between him and Behrens.

Berlage was one of the first Europeans to subscribe to the Sachlichkeit as a creative

attitude. Opposed to Behrens, Berlage approached architecture from the direction of

structure, while Behrens from the direction of form.25 But even though Mies preferred

Berlage’s clarity and consistency over Behrens ideals and historical ambiguity, Behrens’ commitment to the concept of the Zeitgeist would be Mies’s valuable inheritance that helped shape his world view.26

In 1913, Mies got married to Ada Bruhn. After his marriage his work wasn’t moving at a

constant pace; but in these years, he developed certain connections with other figures

within the architectural and artistic society. In 1915 he became acquainted with the

sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Wilhelm’s son Manfred recollects that Mies frequently

came to their house and conversed with his father on various issues. “Often they

discussed philosophical issues.”27

Between the years 1919 until 1925, very little is known about Mies’s architectural and philosophical development (Most of his files were destroyed during World War II). But in that period, change was beginning to take shape with the rise of Dadaism, Bruno

Taut’s crystal shapes, the Glass Chain, and the re-opining of the Bauhaus under the directorship of Walter Gropius in 1919. In this period of change we see Mies distancing himself from all the expressionist aesthetics of the postwar generation. Schulze sumerizes: “Ludwig Mies, stonecutter’s son, assistant of Bruno Paul and Peter Behrens,

25 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 16. 26 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 68. 27 Ibid. p. 81. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 17 disciple of Schinkel and admirer of Hendrik Berlage, was by training and temperament ill-suited to either expressionism or Dada.”28 Mies’s friendship with the artist Hans

Richter, later the publisher of the magazine G and a member of De Stijl, provided an opportunity for synthesis with other major architectural groups namely De Stijl and

Russian Constructivism. By 1920, Theo van Doesberg was in Berlin, and shortly thereafter, El Lissitzky followed, and the atelier of Richter provided the meeting grounds. This circle not only included Mies, but also a variety of figures from the various leading art and architectural movements at that period. Among these were

Hans Arp, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Naum Gabo, Man Ray, Walter Benjamin and others.

Mies was in the midst of the company that would define the face of the modern movement of the early 20th century.

Shortly afterward, Mies wrote that “Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space; living, changing, new. Not yesterday, not tomorrow but only today can be given form.”29 This statement reflects the legacy of Peter Behrens and the concept that Mies embraced: the Zeitgeist. In an interview with Arthur Drexler in 1960, Mies was asked if he was acquainted with the theories of the philosopher Oswald Spengler, and he denied it. Spengler was inspired by the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, and his most important piece of work is probably The Decline of the West. But even though Mies denied that he ever read Spengler, in his library there was a copy of The Decline of the West, and in it he had made a lot of marginal markings, indicating that he read most, if not all of it.30 This requires an investigation to clarify the distinction between the theories of Spengler and

28 Ibid. p. 89. 29 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 188. 30 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 91. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 18

those of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Spengler was concerned with the material world; but

for Saint Thomas Aquinas, divine order transcended the material world to the spiritual

realm where a higher truth resides, and which is to be conveyed by the artist. Thus, if

Mies was reading both theories, then he must have faced this clash in ideology. As

Schulze mentions, Mies was reading Aquinas as early as 1920, and his readings revealed

to him a sign of a system that he could make his own.31

In 1921 a competition was held for a tall office building on a triangular site on the

Freidrichstrasse in downtown Berlin. This competition was the first indication of Mies’s

unique style. His design for the skyscraper rose from the ground without a base,

without a middle, without an end. It had a steel skeleton and concrete slabs covered by

a skin of glass. It was the ultimate reductive building. In 1922, Mies wrote that the

structural system of the skyscrapers is at the basis of all artistic design, and that

skyscrapers could surely be more than mere examples of our technical ability.32

According to Schulze, Mies was occupied at that time with structure and form,

fascinated by the strictly aesthetic possibilities of glass.33 But even though Mies was interested in the intrinsic characteristics of glass as a material, what he wrote in 1923 in the first issue of “G” does not support Schulze’s theory: “We reject all aesthetic

speculation, all doctrine, all formalism.”34 This seems to eliminates two important possibilities, aesthetics and formalism, leaving only one concept in the light: “structure”.

31 Ibid. p. 93. 32 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 187. 33 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 101. 34 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 188. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 19

When Mies wrote about his design for the skyscrapers in 1922, he affirmed that the structural system of traditional high rise buildings is hidden under meaningless and trivial forms, forms that do not answer the age’s necessities. He suggested that instead of trying to solve the new problems of construction with traditional forms, we should develop the new forms from the very nature of the new problems.35 Mies’s attack on traditional forms was merely to allow the possibility for new forms to emerge based on the new technology. Mies mentions in one of his articles that in skyscrapers, the important thing in using glass was not the effect of light and shadow as in ordinary buildings, but rather the play of reflections, since the medium of its operation has changed. This reflects a contextual understanding of material properties. Among the various potential properties inherent in the material, a certain property is brought to light depending on the contextual and temporal framework through which it is utilized.

During that period, Mies developed connections with the Dada circle, and he also joined the Novembergruppe, through which his project for the 1922 glass skyscraper project was first displayed. The Novembergruppe was then functioning as an exhibition agency.

Afterwards, he was appointed director of the architectural department for the

Novembergruppe exhibitions. Meanwhile, El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg started publishing the Russian periodical “Vesche” in Berlin to promote Constructivist art and ideals. Laszlo Moholy Nagy arrived in Berlin, and started promoting Constructivism as the socialism of wisdom.36 In Paris on the other hand, Le Corbusier published his book

35 Ibid. p. 187. 36 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 105. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 20

“Vers une Architecture”, establishing the most significant modernist statement at the

time.

In the midst of the ideological wars during the 1920’s, Mies joined the debate through

the Magazine “G”. G stood for Gestalt, and its ideology was directed against romance

and subjectivity in art, and its driving force was constructivist materialism. As a

consequence, the Bauhaus took the greatest pressure, since it was regarded as a crafts-

expressionist school. It was severely attacked by the constructivists and by other groups

as well, and when Moholy Nagy joined the Bauhaus, he became the chief promoter of

the constructivist ideals from within. But to accuse Mies of constructivism is definitely

misleading. Even though Mies’s arguments in the magazine “G” were harsh attacks

upon aesthetics and formalism, they do not promote a positive attitude towards

constructivism, or any other socio-political concept for that matter. His arguments are

against, but not pro. It seems that when everybody was imposing a socio-political

ideology upon architecture, Mies was trying to restore it to what he thought it should

essentially be: building. He wrote in the second issue of G: “Essentially our task is to

free the practice of building from the control of aesthetic speculators and restore it to

what it should exclusively be: Building.”37

What is also peculiar is Mies’s attitude towards the word architecture itself. He was always reluctant to use the term “architecture”. Instead he used the term “Baukunst”, bau meaning building or construction, and kunst=art but in s sense of skill and artistry

37 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 189. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 21 and meaning the refinement of these.38 So the terms’ meaning could be understood as the “refinement of building”.

During 1923-1924, Europe was passing through the worst of its economic recession, and

Mies’s efforts took several turns, in projects and writings. In 1923, Mies designed a concrete office building that remained on paper, but which reflected the reductive approach of his work. He also designed two other projects, a concrete country house in

1923, and a brick country house early in 1924. He also financed the third and the last issue of “G” which contained one of his articles addressing the problem of the industrialization of building methods, which he promoted. What is atypical in the brick country house is not its plan, which resembled one of van Doesberg’s paintings, but rather its material: Brick was considered by the modern movement as a classical element to be avoided whenever possible. Here is an insight at Mies’s mode of thinking.

The material itself is not under attack, but rather the mode of its deployment within the technological framework of the time. This shows that he wasn’t afraid to explore the capabilities of classical material in a modern manner. The brick country house, ironically, was the first design by Mies to deploy freestanding walls, allowing the spaces between them to flow. Although unquestionably familiar with the recent German

Publications of the early houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies’s design was an unprecedented generalized open plan, which would play an important role in defining the relation between structure and space in his later work. Opposite to Wright’s plan which was defined by its peripheral walls, Mies’s plan was defined by its two horizontal planes, the floor and the ceiling.

38 Peter Carter, Mies van der Rohe at Work (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), p. 96. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 22

During 1924, the ideological frenzy was shifting to and fro, creating allies and enemies,

and consuming nearly every “modern” architect. Mies’s closest ally was perhaps van

Doesberg, although he was also making connections with old enemies, such as the

director of the Bauhaus Walter Gropius, who invited him to participate in a show there.

He also presented a model of his skyscraper in a De Stijl exhibition following an

invitation from van Doesburg. Nevertheless, there was still a split between the

ideological development and the career advertisement, whereby he would promote his

built projects to clients on one hand, which were more traditional than modern, and

would promote his un-built modern projects on the other hand in exhibitions and

magazines.

By the end of 1924, the economical situation in Germany began to improve, and modern

building was being funded by the German government. The building industry paid

special attention to the housing shortage in Berlin. Realizing the opportunity, the

architects were willing to pick the fruit of reconstruction. The modern cause was being

heavily publicized, and Mies, now fully committed to the modern movement, was one

of its recognized figures. From the beginning of 1924 and through 1926, he actively

engaged in debates, conferences and exhibitions, and also promoted and juried

competitions. He exhibited his new projects, the Glass Skyscrapers, the Office Building,

The Concrete Country House, and the Brick Country House.

In April 1924, Mies and other architects from the BdA (Bund deutcher Architekten), the

German Architecture Association, formed a subgroup of their own called the “Ring”. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 23

The “Ring” was a key shift in Mies’s life. After the resignation of Ludwig Hoffman,

Berlin’s building commissioner, the “Ring” quickly began pressuring the government for reforms in the commissioner’s office, which created a lot of controversy among the architects in the BdA. After several months, the government was not able to find a replacement for Hoffman, and the pressure from the “Ring” was growing stronger.

Then, in late November of the same year, Martin Wagner which was a founding member of the “Ring” was appointed building commissioner of Berlin.

By the end of 1924, Mies was heavily engaged with the BdA, the “Ring”, and also accepted an invitation to join the Deutscher Werkbund. In the Werkbund, Mies came in contact with many other leading figures in the building industry, since it was the most influential architectural organization in Berlin at that time. He lectured to the Werkbund in 1924, along with the sculptor Paul Henning on elementarist construction (Elemantere

Gestaltung), which was one of Henning’s main concepts. Mies’s influence and stature in the Werkbund grew bigger each year, and by 1926, it was clear that he had become the primary figure within the Werkbund. He was appointed the First Vice President. It is also important to mention that the Sachlichkeit was the driving force and the underlying concept of the Deutscher Werkbund.

It seems though that during the time when Mies was preaching modernity, his designs shifted back to a more traditional style. Not until 1925 did he attempt to break free from the traditional forms to a more modernist approach towards building. But this could be easily understood. His previous commissions were mainly small, and were all private houses. There wasn’t enough capital to attempt such a design, and at that period, a Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 24

modern attempt would not have easily found favor with traditional clients. But in 1925

Mies got a bigger commission, a private house for Erich Wolf. The house took two years

to complete, and cost more than his other projects.. The house, though destroyed during

the war, was constructed from brick, and spread out horizontally in a manner

reminiscent of Wright. This was one of two projects that comprised modern elements.

The other project was a strange combination of paradoxical elements, which as Schulze

suggests, “emerged from an implausible mixture of capitalist wealth, Marxist

communist ambitions, the intent of the old arts, and the manner of the new.”39 In 1926,

Eduard Fuchs, a rich bourgeois and at the same time a high ranking member of the

German Communist Party, purchased the house that Mies had built for Hugo Perls in

1911. Mies saw an opportunity for a new client, and he made contact with Fuchs in the hopes that he would design for him a house in the new manner. But it turned out that

Fuchs was not interested in a house, but rather in an addition to his old one. It is worth mentioning here that Mies, during the same year, joined the Society of Friends of the

New Russia, seemingly in hopes that he would get the commission. Mies eventually designed an addition to the house, but his design was never realized. But another project did result from his connections with Fuchs: a monument for Karl Liebknecht and

Rosa Luxemburg, two martyrs of the social revolution. Fuchs showed Mies “an elaborate neoclassical creation with Doric columns and medallions of Liebknecht and

Luxemburg.”40 Mies laughed at the idea and called it capitalist. But Fuchs called Mies

the next day and asked him for his opinion, Mies replied: “As most of these people were

39 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 124. 40 Ibid. p. 125. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 25

shot in front of a wall, a brick wall would be what I would build.”41 The monument was

built to Mies’s designs, a huge brick wall, with protruding rectangular geometrical

forms. It was demolished by the Nazis in 1933.

During 1926 Mies undertook a low cost housing project on the Afrikanischestrasse in

Berlin, which was commissioned by the municipal authorities. Though Mies’s interest

wasn’t directed towards housing projects, a year later it would be exactly a housing

project that would elevate his reputation to an international level.

Mies’s last writing for journals for several years was an article addressing Architecture

and the Times, published in Der Querschnitt in 1924. This article is a true statement of

the Zeitgeist, and it contains his most vivid quotation of the subject: “Architecture is the

will of the epoch translated into space.”42 Here again, the question about the nature of architecture is brought forward, “as it is of decisive importance”.

Not until 1927 did Mies write and publish again in a journal. And on the level of public relations, it seemed that his relationship with Walter Gropius was growing friendlier, and that he was withdrawing from the harsh position of describing the Bauhaus ideology as “formal”.

In 1925 the Werkbund was already planning a new exhibition, with the intention of turning it into the most architectural exhibition of the decade. This gave birth to the

41 Ibid. 42 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 191. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 26

Weissenhofsiedlung exhibition which was opened in 1927. Stuttgart was chosen as the site, and the outlining theme was the modern home. The exhibition was to include designers from all over Europe to design a colony of houses. Peter Burkman, the president of the Werkbund wrote:

“Only those architects who work in the spirit of a progressive artistic style [form] suited for today’s conditions, and who are familiar with the appropriate technical equipment for house construction, will be invited.”43

Mies was appointed the artistic director of the exhibition. He was responsible for outlining the parameters that would guide the design process, for designing the overall plan of the exhibition as well as a selected building in it, and for selecting the contributing architects. The exhibition was flexible in terms of the freedom of design, with the sole exception of adhering to flat roofs and white exteriors. The exhibition promoted a sense of encouragement for experimentation in construction techniques. As for the selection of architects, Mies assembled a group of designers that included 16 of the most renowned modernists from around Europe.

Mies’s design of the overall plan was the most controversial in the process, and perhaps the most revolutionary in terms of Urban Design. The first plan for the exhibition consisted of interconnected units that occupied a hill overlooking Stuttgart. His plan was criticized by many other architectural figures at that time, such as Paul Bonatz and

Paul Schmitthenner, who addressed it as being formal and romantic. Even some of

Mies’s own colleagues commented upon the plan’s validity in a less harsh tone. Mies’s

43 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 132. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 27 response though shows the conscious act that he was undertaking in terms of realizing such a design:

”The model… Let me make it clear, was meant to provide a representation of a general idea, not to indicate [actual] house sizes and the like…I didn’t receive the final space specifications until the middle of May [1926] anyway… [and] do you really believe I would design rooms without light and air?...You seem to understand a plan only in the old sense, as so many separate building parcels…I think it is necessary at Weissenhof to strike a new course. I believe that the new dwelling must have an effect beyond its four walls.”44

Eventually, the units had to be separated for reasons of economy. The city wanted to sell the units after the exhibition was over. But, though altered, Mies’s plan still followed the curving streets, and maintained a sense of unity. The Weissenhofseidlung was a mark in the history of modernity, and its style would be identified for years to come as the International Style. Mies’s three story building, which was the largest complex in the exhibition, was finally designed and realized in the manner that he was pursuing for years, and now had a chance of being achieved.

In the forward to the Weissenhofseidlung catalog Mies wrote:

“The problem of the modern dwelling is primarily architectural, in spite of its technical and economic aspects. It is a complex problem of planning and can therefore be solved only by creative minds, not by calculation and organization. Therefore, I felt it imperative, in spite of current talk about ‘rationalization’ and ‘standardization’ to keep the project at Stuttgart from being one-sided or doctrinaire.”45

But here also the use of the word architecture is not “architecture” per se, since the word

Mies used in German is “Baukunstlerisches”. This meaning falls back into addressing

44 Ibid. p. 134. 45 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 193. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 28

architecture as the “art” of building, where art here, as it was mentioned, is not the usual

modern meaning but rather in the sense of the skillful refinement of something.

Schulze theorized that Mies’s retreat from a functional concept to include a direction

towards art was influenced by Le Corbusier, who held that the functional aspect of a

building lies within the domain of the engineer, while the architect, respecting the

province of the functional, has to raise his own efforts to the level of art.46

But opposite to what Schulze has proposed, the “creative” powers that Mies mentions here could hardly be equated with Le Corbusier’s notion of art in architecture. Though

Schulze recognizes a conflict here he nevertheless reconciles it by saying that Mies’s adherence to the Sachlichkeit’s emphasis on fact could be explained by regarding fact as a form of reality dependant upon and derivable from a higher truth than outward appearance. He bases his argument of one of Mies’s statements that appeared in Die

Form in 1927:

“The leaders of the modern movement must recognize and come to terms with the spiritual and material forces of our time and, without prejudice, draw the necessary conclusions from them. For only when architecture derives from the material forces of a time can it activate its spiritual decisions.”47

Schulze’s interpretation could hardly gain approval, especially since Mies uses the term

“spiritual forces,” which Schulze himself recognizes to be a connection with Saint

Thomas Aquinas. Yet Schulze interprets the term as being merely a replacement for

46 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 137. 47 Ibid. p. 137-138. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 29

“architectural,” mentioning that Mies now called the problem of “Baukunst” spiritual

[geistig] rather than architectural.48 He nevertheless mentions that the Weissenhof was less a triumph of the Sachlichkeit and functionalism than of “the image of modernism.”

His stand is that Mies’s term for this image was the “spirit”.49

So here we are faced with multiple terms which, if not discerned properly, would lead to confusion. The first is “Baukunst” translated by both Franz Schulze and Philip Johnson as “architecture”. The second is “spiritual” which Schulze equates with Le Corbusier’s notion of art in architecture, and afterwards calls it “the image of modernism”. To make things clearer, though, we must first recognize that Mies did not use the term

“architecture” at all, nor did he use the word “art” or “image” to denote the spiritual dimension of “baukunst,” even though the term “kunst” in German could be translated as

“art”. The differentiation lies in the fact that Mies refused to adhere to an aesthetic dimension, which was understood by the moderns to mean “artistic”, and he attacked it as an inadequate approach to understand building. Instead, Mies used the term “the material forces” which, in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, would mean the

“material characteristics” that could guide us to the “truth”. Only in this line of thought could the statement of Mies make sense without being contradictory or merely referential to another line of thought such as Le Corbusier’s.

It seems that the year 1925 was a year full of events for Mies. The developments that occurred in his life during that year had long-term implications from that time onward.

48 Ibid. p. 137. 49 Ibid. p. 138. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 30

As mentioned, Mies’s personal relations were taking a new direction. Along with his developing friendship with Walter Gropius, another personal relation which would be more influential in his life and work was also developing. During that year, Mies met

Lilly Reich. Seemingly, they met through their mutual work on the Weissenhofsiedlung as well as from the Werkbund, where she had been a member at least since 1915. She was a designer of textiles and women’s apparel, and was appointed to the Weissenhof project to organize and install an exhibition of the latest articles of furnishings and appliances.

Lilly would be the only woman with whom Mies developed a close relation after his separation from his wife, whom he had not been seeing for at least a year by then. (She was in Switzerland and after that in Austria, and he was in Berlin).

Another development that occurred during that year was the resurfacing of Mies’s interest in furniture design. He redesigned a cantilever chair, mainly known as the MR chair, after a model from the Dutch architect Mart Stam, who was also a participant in the Weissenhof project. But even though the MR chair was a refined version that earned him a patent in 1927, he also designed other furniture pieces that were exhibited in his three story apartment building at the Weissenhof. Schulze describes Mies’s furniture designs as being sensitive to material more than being loyal to technology, drawing back to his days in the workshop of Bruno Paul.

The exhibition that was organized by Lilly Reich at Weissenhof was displayed in a hall that Mies divided into three areas: living room, dining room and working room. The space was continuous with free standing walls acting as separations, continuing the concepts that Mies had been experimenting with in his Brick Country House design. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 31

Since the room was designed to act mainly as a show piece for the German glass industries that financed it, its walls were entirely made out of glass, supporting nothing but a fabric roof; and the glass walls provided the only source of light. Schulze describes the glass room as being “theoretically important in its unification of two established ways of rationalizing architecture in glass, expressionist romance and constructivist elementarism.” But Schulze, in his analysis, also marries these aspects to “Mies’s own unique determination to elevate material fact to the level of immaterial aesthetic truth.”50

This claim calls for further attention, especially since it combines opposing concepts.

But what exactly is meant here by “material fact” and by “immaterial aesthetic truth”?

Schulze seems to be trying to reconcile the Neue Sachlichkeit, which is basically a later version of the Sachlichkeit, with Mies’s attention to materials’ characteristics as a way of revealing the truth of construction. Yet it remains an unsuccessful paradox. First, Mies was not preoccupied with upper class ideology of building, and the concept of the

Sachlichkeit is fairly an architectural upper class concept. If there is a way to describe

Mies’s attitude towards building, it could be said that it was one that recycled ideas according to situations as is his manner of recycling the possibilities of the materials he used such as brick and marble. This seems to be the manner through which Mies understood the Sachlichkeit.

It is true that Schulze is trying to prove that Mies worked within the concepts of the

Sachlichkeit. But on the other hand, many events are pointing in another direction. On one hand, Mies never mentioned the Sachlichkeit in any of his writings. In fact he has been accused more than once by Paul Bonatz and Richard Döcker of being un-Sachlich,

50Ibid. p. 142. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 32 especially on his overall design for the Weissenhofsiedlung.51 But if we begin to look at things from another perspective, the parts that seemed to overlap between Sachlichkeit and St. Thomas Aquinas become clearer. The Sachlichkeit’s simplicity of form is an emphasis on form, while Aquinas’ simplicity is reductive to a material property that reveals truth. In other words, the Sachlichkeit takes form as its starting point, Aquinas’ theory takes the intellect as appropriating form and matter.

Meanwhile, right wing German nationalism was growing headed by the rising Nazi party, and the negative attitude towards the new architecture from their side was mounting fast. The Nazi’s associated it with un-German cultures, and saw its origins in the roots of Bolshevism. Thus, modern architecture was under severe attack, and with the Nazi’s growing power in the government, the modern movement was not able to build as many buildings as it would have hoped to. Mies’s own projects during that period were restricted as well. Up until that point he had built only six projects in the new manner. After the Weissenhof project, there had been The Silk and Velvet Café done in collaboration with Lilly Reich for the fashion exhibition “Exposition de la Mode” in

Berlin where his stress on vivid material effects was again evident.

In 1927, Mies got two commissions, houses for Joseph Esters and for Hermann Lange both the managing directors of the Verseidag, the silk weaving mills. Again, both houses were executed in brick, their compositions reminiscent of the ideas undertaken in the Brick Country House. One would think that after the Weissenhof’s white exteriors that were stucco plastered, Mies would not have returned to brick; but he did. This

51 Ibid. p. 134. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 33

again shows that for Mies the material itself is not the paradigm of modernity, but rather

what one does with it. Brick too is a modern material if employed in a modern usage:

Faultless execution of brick construction, in a modern composition that relates to the age

is a clear message that there is no “modern” material, but rather, a modern attitude

towards material.

During the years of 1928-1929, Mies also designed four buildings that were never

realized, all of them large urban projects. The first was the Adam Building, a proposal

for a department store in downtown Berlin. This was his first design of a rectangular

building with a glass curtain wall. One of his two earlier glass skyscraper designs for

the Freidrichstrasse had been triangular, and the other had an amoeboid form. His

design for the Adam Building was rectangular in plan with a metal frame structure. His

second project, the Stuttgart Bank Building, was also a curtain wall on a rectangular

prism. These two buildings are the forerunners of his American high rise buildings.

The third project was a competition for the Alexanderplatz for a design that would

accommodate heavy traffic. The competition was intended as an opportunity to

promote ideas rather than to build the project. Mies’s design was one of six designs to

be accepted for the competition, even though it resembled Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse

in its devastating effect of the city center. Nevertheless, Ludwig Hilbersimer, Berlin’s

city planner and by then a good friend of Mies, was the only one who defended him in

the press, describing his design as the only one that broke through the rigid system,

while the other designs retained the effect of classicism.52 The fourth project was also a competition that was organized by the Traffic Stock Holding Company. The location

52 Ibid. p. 150-151. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 34 was a familiar site on the Freidrichstrasse, the same triangular plot for which he had designed the 1921 competition, and the stated objectives were practically the same.

Here, Mies’s design again stood out from the rest of the designs in its clarity and regularity. Three curved buildings of steel and glass were arranged around a central space. All four of the projects, despite their not having been build, are very important in terms of Mies’s conception of large scale buildings, which reached a mature form later in his American years, where it had a chance to be realized.

In 1928, Mies was invited to discuss the possibility of building a house for two young

Czech couple, Fritz and Grete Tugendhat. In September of that year, he went to inspect the site where the house would be built. And by December, he had a preliminary plan for the Tugendhats. Yet, and at the same time he was taking up his work on this extraordinary design, the German government had appointed him to supervise the design and installation of all the German exhibits at the Barcelona Fair in Spain. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 35

1:2 Mies and the Pavilion

The Barcelona Pavilion opened its doors to King Alfonso of Spain on the 26th of May

1929. But before that was a series of events that lead to this culmination which we must examine. In July 1928 Mies was appointed by the German government to supervise and design all the German exhibits in Barcelona. The Weimar Republic at that time was trying to reflect an image of peace and transparency in its relations. “Clarity, simplicity and integrity” were the broad outline of its policy. 53 Mies made the designs for the

Barcelona fair in a matter of three months. His main assistant, Lilly Reich, took care of organizing and outfitting the exhibition halls, while he worked freely on the Barcelona

Pavilion. The Pavilion was referred to as the repräsentationsraum roughly meaning “the representation room.”54

Initially, Mies had a choice between two sites for his project. The first was located on the

main thoroughfare, and the other was located at the end of a long plaza, which in turn is

located at the end of a lateral axis, branching from the “Plaza d’Espanya”. Mies chose the

second site. On its south stood the Castle of Alfonso the XIII, and on the other side

across the main axis was the Palace of Victoria Eugenia. The specificity of this site lies in

the presence of a screen of Ionic columns in front and a flight of steps behind. Measured

against the high symmetrical buildings around it, Mies’s Pavilion was a low

53 Juan Pablo Bonta, An Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 60. 54 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 153. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 36

nonsymmetrical structure. According to Robin Evans, the symmetry of the plaza is

canceled by the asymmetry of the Pavilion, meaning that the Pavilion is related to its

context by being at odds with it.55 The site that Mies selected allowed for the transverse

passage of visitors from a terrace-like avenue bordering the exhibition palaces to the

other attractions; it also offered at the same time a fine view of the exposition grounds

and of the city of Barcelona.

The main approach to the Pavilion was along its major axis. It was situated on a low

travertine marble platform; in other words, it was slightly raised from the ground. Eight

steps separated the platform from the ground. Eight ionic columns stood in front of the

Pavilion. Eight cruciform columns held the main ceiling and eight marble and glass

walls constituted the vertical elements of the Pavilion. Once on the top of the stairs, the

visitor was faced with a pool of water enclosed by a wall. On the far right, an onyx

marble wall extended with a small room behind it. Along this wall stretched a long

marble seat, sitting on eight bases. The Pavilion’s interior space required a full turn, and

once under the roofed area, the space flowed freely. Once pulled into the space by the

onyx wall, the visitors were confronted with one of the chrome plated cruciform pillars

in the middle of the space, distinct from its brothers who are located all near walls.

The overall composition could be summarized as a slab roof resting on eight cruciform

chrome plated steel columns, and on onyx marble walls, placed asymmetrically in a

manner that allows the person wandering through the space an uninterrupted flow of

55 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (Cambridge: MIT press, 1997). p. 235. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 37

motion. The columns nevertheless follow an organizing grid, distancing them equally

distances from one another between the roof slab and the travertine podium. This

arrangement channels the spaces horizontally in between in a fluid manner. The visitor

could walk endlessly without being stopped inside any cubical volume. Once inside,

the visitor faced a glass wall that separated the roofed area from the far end of the

Pavilion, where another pool is enclosed by a high onyx wall. Once in the enclosed

outside area, Kolbe’s statue “Sunrise” faces the visitors, a figure of the woman shielding

herself from the light. Light is intensified by the reflective properties of the materials

that surround the space, polished onyx, water and glass. Kolbe’s statue was mistakenly

called “The Dancer” for a period of time. Schulze mistakably called it “Evening”.56 As

Caroline Constant perceives it, the statue, axially aligned with the innermost court,

dominates a space denied to human occupation. 57 Sculptures in the work of Mies occupy a very specific meaning. In his own words:

Artistic expression is a manifestation of the unity of design and materials. This once again underlines the necessity of incorporating the works of sculpture (or painting) creatively into the interior setting from the outset. In the great epochs of cultural history this was done by architects as a matter of course and, no doubt, without conscious reflection.58

No doubt, the material qualities in the Pavilion are its most dominant character. Their

reflective properties constitute a labyrinth of reflections that stretch space infinitely.

Within this infinite space, we find ourselves in a vantage position, the only physical

element in an empty space. On the other hand, the fluidity of space in the Pavilion is

56 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 156. 57 Caroline Constant, “The Barcelona Pavilion as Landscape Garden: Modernity and the Picturesque”, AA Files, 20 (1990). p. 46-54. 58 Werner Blaser, Mies van der Rohe: Less Is More (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1986), p. 146. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 38 contained between two poles: the two pools at each end. Nevertheless, these pools are both ends and beginnings. On one hand they stop the physical motion, and on the other hand they redirect it; they denote a change.

Schulze sees the Pavilion as a collage of characteristics, and he attributes its properties to a range of variables:

His [Mies’s] debt to both Frank Lloyd Wright and Theo van Doesburg were manifest in his union of free-flowing interior space with the De Stijl precedent of sliding planes. A passionate feeling for materials was traceable to his own family craft tradition. Other influences were at work as well: from Reich, the bold color scheme, from Le Corbusier- specifically from the entry to the first floor of the single family house at Weisenhoff- the device of the revelatory 180 degree turn at the top of the staircase. Indeed, in that same passage there was a reverberation of Schinkel’s use of a parallel exterior staircase in the Gardner’s Cottage at Charlottenhof.”59

But many other theorists disapprove of this theory, notably Robin Evans and Josep

Quetglas. Quetglas even argues that there is a major difference in the way that Mies perceived the free plan and the way Wright did. Mies’s plan does not limit its boundaries by a physical element; rather the boundaries of space are defined by the floor’s limits. While in Wrightian architecture, “to be in space is never to be on the floor” he suggests. Mies’s spaces rather consist of “an active being towards one or more directions, whether precise or ambiguous.”60

59 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 157. 60 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 75. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 39

Even though the proportions of the Pavilion were, and still are, hailed for their beauty,

Mies’s explanation concerning the height of the Pavilion indicates that it was far from being intentional.

When I had the idea for this building I had to look around. There was not much time, very little time in fact. It was deep in winter, as you cannot move marble from the quarry in winter because it is still wet inside and would easily freeze to pieces. So we had to find dry material. I looked round the huge marble depots, and in one I found an Onyx block. This block had a certain size and since I had only the possibility of taking this block I made the Pavilion twice that height.61

After six months the Barcelona Pavilion was dismantled, since it was originally a temporary structure. In 1986, the Pavilion was reconstructed on the same site, even though the original materials were lost.

61 Juan Pablo Bonta, An Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 60. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 40

1:3 The Writings of Mies Before 1929

What if Mies’s recollections of his earlier years had been contaminated by what has occurred between the two periods, the actual act and the time of its recollection? Is it possible then to extract that which pertains to truth, or does it become a futile attempt?

In order to understand more reliably what happened before 1929, when the Barcelona

Pavilion was designed, we should seek out more concrete and contemporary sources, which have a fixed position in time: Mies’s own writings.

Even though Mies was a man of few words, he left behind some written material.

Though scarce, the writings of Mies open up a door to begin to understand his developmental process. From the analysis of these texts, we will extract the keys that will allow us to make the first interpretive cut through his work, especially the

Barcelona Pavilion. His writings of the time can indicate whether he already had a developed system of understanding and operation.

Mies’s first piece of writing appeared in 1922, and concerns his design for the 1921 skyscraper competition on the Freidrichstrasse. It addresses his understanding of what a skyscraper is, and his strategy for tackling the problems that are at hand, as well as his design strategy, here in the words of Philip Johnson’s translation:

Skyscrapers reveal their bold structural pattern during construction. Only then does the gigantic steel web seem impressive. When the outer walls are put in place, the structural system which is at the basis of all artistic design, is hidden Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 41

by a chaos of meaningless and trivial forms. When finished, these buildings are impressive only because of their size; yet they could surely be more than mere examples of our technical ability. Instead of trying to solve the new problems with old forms, we should develop the new forms from the very nature of the new problems.

We can see the new structural principles most clearly when we use glass in place of the outer walls, which is feasible today since in a skeleton building these outer walls do not actually carry weight. The use of glass imposes new solutions.

In my project for a skyscraper at the Friedrichstrasse Station in Berlin I used a prismatic form which seemed to me to fit best the triangular site of the building. I placed the glass walls at slight angles to each other to avoid the monotony of over-large glass surfaces.

I discovered by working with actual glass models that the important thing is the play of reflections and not the effect of light and shadow as in ordinary buildings.

The results of these experiments can be seen in the second scheme published here. At first glance the curved outline of the plan seems arbitrary. These curves, however, were determined by three factors: sufficient illumination of the interior, the massing of the building viewed from the street, and lastly the play of reflections. I proved in the glass model that calculations of light and shadow do not help in designing an all-glass building.

The only fixed points of the plan are the stair and elevator shafts. All the other elements of the plan fit the needs of the building and are designed to be carried out in glass.62

From this first piece of written work, we can already see a developed theory of building.

An emphasis on structure, an understanding of materials and material characteristics and a denunciation of form as an aim rather than a means: these constitute the broad outline of Mies’s understanding. But is it only on this level that Mies’s words operate?

We know that the theory of St. Thomas Aquinas recognizes a thing through its basic characteristics, and identifies forms with their individual material manifestations. Truth then lies in the correspondence between the thing, which is defined by its characteristics, and the mind or intellect. The mind then extracts the universals from things. According

62 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 187. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 42

to Aquinas, these universals do not exist outside the mind and they are derived from the

basic characteristics of a thing. Mies sets a crucial importance upon the materials he

uses in buildings and their intrinsic characteristics. This concept requires a full

understanding of the material at hand, because eventually the material will be stripped

down to its basic characteristics. It is to be reduced to its simplest statement until no

more reduction is possible. But if this is true with materials as things, it is equally true

with buildings as things. It is basically a question of truth. A building is to be reduced

to its essential elements: “a clear regular structure, and universal omni-functional

space.”63 For this reason, Mies throws away traditional forms that “hide” the structure, and replaces them with a material that provides access to the structure, which in tern liberates the structure from the “chaos of meaningless and trivial forms”. But what about structure?

Schulze states that Mies held the matter of structure in high theoretical esteem.64 Peter

Carter affirms that structure for Mies is not the physical structure of the building but rather a philosophical expression of the construction.65 A simple wall thus becomes at the highest level a structure expressing the idea of its construction. Therefore,

“structure” implies a complete morphological organism and not merely the columns and girders. Mies himself asserts that structure is at the basis of all artistic design. It is the essential reductive component that makes building possible. Again, we are back to

63 Richard Padovan, “Machines a Mediter” in Mies van der Rohe, Architect as Educator ed. ed. Rolph Achilles, Kevin Harrington and Charlotte Myhrum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 21. 64 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 109-110. 65 Peter Carter, Mies van der Rohe at Work (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), p. 96. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 43

the pure essential, the truthful component, but on a more abstract level, not merely a

formal one.

Franz Schulze’s translation of this text reveals other elements than that of Philip

Johnson. Schulze translates the first paragraph as:

Only in the course of their construction do skyscrapers show their bold, structural character, and then the impression made by their soaring skeletal frames is overwhelming. On the other hand, when the façades are later covered with masonry this impression is destroyed and the constructive character denied, along with the very principle fundamental to artistic conceptualization.”66

The two translations are principally the same with a different mode of word

arrangement, but the idea remains clear.

Mies’s attack on form, and his description of forms as a trivial attachment to modern

buildings, fit within the framework of Aquinas’ theory, and his first written comments

affirm that. This leaves little doubt that by that time, Mies was already familiar to a

large extent with the work of Aquinas. Franz Schulze mentions that Mies was reading

the works of St. Thomas Aquinas as early as 1920, and that his readings revealed to him

a system that he could make his own.67 The design of the 1921 skyscraper project was an attempt to crystallize that method.

In 1923 Mies designed another project which also remained on paper, an office building.

He published his thoughts about this design in the first issue of the magazine G:

66 Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 100. 67Peter Carter, Mies van der Rohe at Work (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), p. 93. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 44

The office building is a house of work, of organization, of clarity, of economy.

Broad, light workspace, unbroken, but articulated according to the organization of the work. Maximum effect with minimum means.

The materials: concrete, steel, glass.

Reinforced concrete structures are skeletons by nature. No gingerbread. No fortress. Columns and girders eliminate bearing walls. This is skin and bone construction.

Functional division of the workspace determines the width of the building: 16 meters. The most economic system was found to be two rows of columns spanning 8 meters with 4 meters cantilevered on either side. The girders are spaced 5 meters apart. These girders carry the floor slabs, which at the end of the cantilevers are turned up perpendicularly to form the outer skin of the building. Cabinets are placed against these walls in order to permit free visibility in the center of the rooms. Above the cabinets, which are 2 meters high, runs a continuous band of windows.68

The first thing that Mies defines in this text is the characteristics of the office building.

Here again we see the same strategy of operation: the material characteristics are the first mode through which we encounter the building. The second thing is the definition of the spatial characteristics, with an attention to minimalist, reductive elements:

“Maximum effect with minimum means.” The third thing is the definition of materials.

All three reflections show clearly that what is essential is the building “characteristics”.

It is important throughout to distinguish between material “properties” and material

“characteristics”, because the term “material properties” sets the properties of the material as distinct, or standing on their own, while the term “material characteristics” refers to the correspondence between the material and the mind.

Platonic theory of forms states that there exists for every common characteristic one and only one universal form, which is in itself independent from the material world. It is a

68 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1978), p. 188. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 45

move from the specific to general. Aristotle’s theory moves in the opposite direction to

set the specific at the basis of understanding, where the specific characteristic of a thing

or a material is what is essential. Aristotle’s theory has a drawback as to how the senses

comprehend such characteristics. Aquinas theory avoids this drawback by denying the

separate existence of forms, and concludes that they reside in the correspondence

between the mind and the characteristics of a thing. Thus the characteristics of objects

are realized through this correspondence.

The possibility of speculation nevertheless remains open. It is most probable that Mies

is not fully ascribing to Aquinas’ theory, and his attempts are not by necessity conscious

attempts to submit to a fixed line of thought. His acceptance also of the principle of the

Zeitgeist, which could be regarded as a form of historicism, is a manifestation of the

collage of thought that he acquired. In 1923 he wrote in the magazine G #1:

We reject all aesthetic speculation, all doctrine, all formalism. Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space; living, changing, new.

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only this kind of building will be creative.

Create form out of the nature of our tasks with the methods of our time. This is our task.69

Though this statement could be easily ascribed to the concept of the Sachlichkeit, it nevertheless could also be something else. It does not declare anything except that form should not be an end but rather a result of the necessities that the current time is imposing upon modern life. It is not a process of blind copying, but rather a conscious act of “building”. The Sachlichkeit’s principles of functionalism fit within this framework

69 Ibid. p. 188-189. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 46 but this does not mean the framework is limited to the Sachlichkeit. Mies cannot be considered a devoted follower of the Sachlichkeit like Peter Behrens, for example. As mentioned before, he was even attacked on many occasions as being un-Sachlich. But since Mies’s devotion to the Zeitgeist is quite apparent in the passage, this could mean that even the concepts of the Sachlichkeit are under the sword of change and comply with the age’s necessities. What is essential is today, not yesterday, nor tomorrow. Yesterday had its own Zeitgeist, tomorrow will have its own, so we must seek to achieve the spirit of our age.

Mies’s statement, though small, holds the key concepts for understanding his methodology. First, he is rejecting three main concepts, aesthetic speculation, doctrine and formalism. His understanding of the aesthetic approach towards architecture lies within the realm of speculation, which definitely distracts us from the way to truth in building. The second is a rejection of doctrine. Here lies an insight towards understanding Mies’s attitude towards already established modes of thinking. He regards them as present within a sphere of rigidity that makes them incapable of transformation to fit the necessities of present life. The third rejection is that of form, or a doctrine of intentionality based on form, and this is not new in Mies’s understanding.

In the second issue of G he wrote:

We refuse to recognize problems of form, but only problems of building. Form is not the aim of our work, but only the result. Form, by itself, does not exist. Form as an aim is formalism; and that we reject.70

70 Ibid. p.189. Chapter 1: Mies van der Rohe: Life and the Pavilion 47

Again, form is not the aim but only the result. But here a very interesting statement occurs: “Form, by itself, does not exist.” Mies’s denial of an autonomous existence of form seems like a rejection of the Platonic doctrine which states that forms exist by themselves. This fits within the framework of thought that adheres to the logic of correspondence, i.e. to the theory of Aquinas.

In conclusion, Mies seems to elude all the prevailing ideologies of his age through a method of selection. He selected the elements of theory that fit within the framework of his architectural vision. He definitely was affected by the theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, and even took this theory as sketching the broad outlines of his understanding. The distinction between material “properties” and material “characteristics” is essential to understand his outlook on things: The term “properties” is aesthetic in nature, whereas the term “characteristics” is intellectual.

Yet what remains open is the question concerning the “work” of architecture. Does

Mies’s understanding of architecture and truth play an important role in providing an entrance into understanding the Barcelona Pavilion, or is the architect merely a vehicle through which the work emerges and gains a life all its own? This question will surely surface later in addressing the “work” which is the Pavilion. But first, there are many interpretations that have to be considered before venturing into that direction. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 48

Chapter 2: Different Interpretation of the Pavilion

2:1 Juan Pablo Bonta

Remaining within the conventional matrix of exposition, I shall examine the main theories concerning the building to break down their methodology of operation and resituate them within the broad interpretive framework. The main architectural theorists who have dealt specifically with the Barcelona Pavilion on an interpretative basis are Juan Pablo Bonta in his book “Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation”, Robin

Evans in his article “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, and Josep Quetglas in his book “Fear of Glass”. Each of these interpreters belongs to a school of interpretation; whether his interpretive agenda is stated or not remains a matter of deliberate self-realization, or non-deliberate self-distancing, either consciously or non- consciously.

These three theorists, because of their difference of approach, provide a somewhat inclusive manifestation of interpretive theories that are traditionally utilized to understand what a thing is, and in this case what an architectural object is. At the same time, and specifically because of their diversity, they will provide a more or less comprehensive field against which we can counter the canonic thrust of architectural interpretation.

Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 49

I shall begin with the work of Juan Pablo Bonta since his is one of earliest accounts of the

Barcelona Pavilion. As it is obvious from the title of his book, “Anatomy of

Architectural Interpretation”, Bonta’s main intention is to define a comprehensive

analysis of architectural interpretation that could be utilized, or projected upon any

architectural entity of any kind. As he states, his main purpose is to state ultimately the

“meaning of architecture” and not what architecture “should mean”.71 Bonta calls the

method “anatomy”, which directly implies that the method is methodological, scientific

and organic. He even refers to his categorical analysis as a “corpus”.72

Bonta is not concerned first and foremost with the Barcelona Pavilion per se. The

Pavilion is a case study that would lead ultimately to the definition of an interpretive method that could be applied henceforth to the literature of other architectural landmarks.73 From a scientific point of view, however, this method could be accused of being drawn upon a single example, whereas the analysis of a number of various examples would have provided a broader and more reliable method for application.

Bonta’s “corpus” is divided into eight categories. There is definitely a lack of explanation regarding the method that was followed to define these categories. Bonta mentions that his categories are “characterized by a certain consistency in the ways the authors interpret the meaning of the building.” So his methodology draws heavily on the interpretations that came before him. Another important aspect of these categories is their chronology. Bonta mentions that his categories “follow” each other according to a

71 Juan Pablo Bonta, Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 57. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 50 certain internal logic.74 So the interpretive method becomes chronologically systematized. I should point out first though that my recounting of Bonta’s categories is not an innocent process, but rather a selective process with a specific aim that will be apparent in a later phase.

Let us consider each of the categories. The first stage is “Blindness”. Blindness constitutes the passiveness of architectural interpreters concerning the establishment of new patterns for the building and getting them accepted. Whereas some interpreters were sensitive to the new patterns provided by the Barcelona Pavilion, the passive state of mind of others is what could be called “Blindness”. This stage corresponds to the state of oblivion that the Pavilion fell into for more than twenty five years, even though today it is celebrated as one of the major achievements of the modern movement. But is it fair to presuppose that every landmark experiences this state of blindness--supposing that it is a legitimate stage? The extremely specific conditions that rotated around the

Pavilion make this “stage” intensive: The Pavilion was a temporary structure, and the number of photographs taken was minimal and not accessible to the broad public; moreover the Pavilion was dismantled, and the Second World War broke out, and even the pieces of the building were lost.

The second stage is the Pre-Canonic Responses. Here, Bonta provides a discussion of the books and articles that mentioned the Pavilion before it was recognized as an architectural monument by the canon. Surprisingly enough, not to say negating, Peter

Behrens claimed as early as 1930 that the Pavilion “will someday be hailed as the most

74 Ibid. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 51 beautiful building in the twentieth century.”75 This seems to create a certain tension with the previous stage. Nevertheless, the number of architects to recognize the importance of the building remained minimal. This specific phase seems to be a compilation and synthesis of diverse historical information.

The third stage deals with the Official Interpretation of the Pavilion. This stage has two parts. The main part addresses architecture as a political sign, or signal, a code which is to be deciphered by the public. Germany was on the brink of war, and the Pavilion was supposed to be a message of clarity, simplicity and integrity. The Weimar Republic was sending a conciliatory message of peace. The second fraction of the Official

Interpretation addresses what Mies himself mentioned about the Pavilion. What remains odd though is that Bonta mentions that Mies himself had a voice in constructing the official interpretation, and he quotes a piece of literature by Mies which appeared in the German magazine Die Form in 1928, a year before the Pavilion was constructed. But he does not elaborate or explain the intention or the message that Mies was conveying with his statement. Instead, he quotes another passage from a conversation with Mies discussing how he obtained the marble block for the Pavilion. But in the end of this section it seems that what Bonta is ultimately saying is that an architect’s view about his work can influence people’s own views, and affect the canonic interpretation. Bonta also points out that this is also a two way process: “the people will fire back at the designer and force him to see his own work in certain ways.”76

75 Ibid. p.58. 76 Ibid. p.61. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 52

The Canonic stage is the fourth and most elaborate stage in Bonta’s interpretation.

According to him it is the “cumulative result of many previous interpretations, distilled

by repetition rather than the product of first hand experience of the building”.77 The

canonic interpretation is a collective interpretation rather than individual. The canonic

interpretation does not necessarily synthesize or include all aspects of previous

interpretations, but rather undergoes a process of selection. Bonta rightly observes that

the best thing he can do is to put together a pastiche of the points most frequently

mentioned by all the various outlooks who participated in this process of

“Canonization.”

The first point talks about the new kind of spatial experience, the fluidity of space. The

second point addresses the expressive possibilities of the free plan that were explored in

the Pavilion. The third point deals with the building as the exhibited artifact or

architectural object itself, rather than being a space to enclose an exhibition. The fourth

point addresses the eclectic nature of the multiple precedents that the building brought

together. The fifth point addresses its political message and the sixth point regards it as

being a work of art, the leading building of the decade.78

Nevertheless, Bonta realizes that “a piece of architecture is not a self-contained system, but rather a part of a broader architectural and cultural system.”79 This leads eventually to the conclusion that a piece of literature, detached from the context of the book or essay where it was proposed, loses its value; and not every interpretation is included in

77 Ibid. p. 64. 78 Ibid. p. 62. 79 Ibid. p. 63. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 53 the Canonic interpretation. Bonta gives a list of various raised points about the Pavilion but which were ruled out for one reason or another: For example, Mies was free to select the site himself out of two locations, and he did. Another point was the use of marble in a modern building. The official interpretation is accepted as part of the

Canonical interpretation even though it is formulated in the Pre-Canonic manner. At the end of his explanation, Bonta admits that he might have failed in delivering the

Canonic interpretation, but he is right in his apology. Nobody knows fully the complex pathways whereby certain buildings enter in the canonic stream, whereas others don’t.

The fifth category deals with Class Identification. Here the author states that a certain work of architecture cannot be regarded by itself. It is when placed in a certain class of other works that we would begin to understand it properly. “It is in the potentiality of a piece of architecture to initiate a new class, wherein lies the kernel of creation but in designing and in interpreting.”80 Common features occurring in other works define a class. Bonta assets that this kind of classification is necessary to future generations; it is an essential part of any interpretation to position the building in a class.

Dissemination is the sixth stage. It is where the architectural interpretation breaks out of the professional field and reaches the wider public. Bonta also calls it “socialization”.

The most remarkable property of this phase is that authors begin to base their appraisal on other texts. They disregarded the documentation of the project itself and refer rather to what others have written about the subject. Consequently the meanings get lost, or

80 Ibid. p.69 Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 54 rather fall into banal repetition. The meaning of these terms would be used in one article and copied into others without necessarily a full understanding.

The seventh stage is the stage of Grammaticalization and oblivion. Established firmly by the canonic interpretation, it becomes hard to think of the building in a different way.

The architectural work comes to be hailed on the same grounds over and over again.

This solid unshakable ground can defy criticism for decades. When this happens, the building becomes a mute entity; it has nothing more to say. This leads back to the first stage of blindness. Whereas some interpreters might be blinded by silence about the building, others are blinded by Gramaticalization, which becomes a manner of blind repetition of previous interpretations.

The eighth and the last stage is the Meta-Linguistic Analysis. What Bonta means by meta-linguistic is the analysis of the texts themselves; it is the analysis of all the previous stages in the form of criticism. Even though this technique has been used by many, even most historians, it was never used as a method for interpretation. Roland Barthes used this method in his study about fashion, analyzing the literature that was written on garments. But this method has never been applied to architecture. Bonta regards this method as promising, and that a lot of work has to be done to achieve its potential.

In his re-interpretation Bonta stresses the point that there is nothing fixed in the process of interpretation. His re-interpretation should be regarded as beginning a new set of stages, since interpretation is a-temporal. When things are examined anew they acquire different meanings. Bonta compares the interpretative process to a scientific one. “As in Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 55 science, interpretations are cumulative to a certain point. But also as in science the cumulative process in architectural interpretation is interrupted from time to time by

‘revolutions’ in which everything is restudied and rearranged.”81 The flow of interpretative horizons from one stage to the other suggests that the ways in which forms are perceived by society never depend solely on the forms themselves.

The space of the building does not pose a problem to contemporary criticism. The semiotics of interpretation does not bother about what the form or the space of the building means, but rather it addresses the question of why they mean all the things they do. Bonta raises high hopes for the semiotic method, and he concludes by stating that architectural historiography is biased towards what the architectural message means, more than it is concerned about its interpretation. Bonta’s method seems to be an attempt to institutionalize architectural interpretation, especially given that his work is published in four languages in the same book. The steps set forth do raise a lot of interesting questions and they re-examine the traditional canonical views of architectural interpretation, and that alone is a major contribution.

Bonta’s book was published in 1975, and eleven years later the Barcelona Pavilion was reconstructed. In an article entitled “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries,”

Robin Evans refers to Bonta’s book, saying that it showed how the actual Pavilion was obliterated by the photographs and the literature about it. He says that after reading

Bonta’s book, he “began to see the Pavilion as mere phantom, its reputation built on the

81 Ibid. p.73. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 56

flimsy evidence of a few published photographs and an inaccurate plan.”82 Evans visited the Pavilion after its reconstruction, and using a lot of the data collected by

Bonta, he offers yet a different reading of the Pavilion.

82 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 234. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 57

2:2 Robin Evans

In his article “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, the architectural historian

Robin Evans speculates on a question that Juan Pablo Bonta posed before him in his

book An Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation. The question asks, “Why had it taken so long, and in the absence of the Pavilion itself, and on what basis were judgments made, that caused this building to be raised to the status of a masterpiece?”83 His article is an

attempt to understand the underlying reasons behind this phenomenon.

The article is mainly divided into seven parts. Each of these parts deals with a certain

paradox uncovered as the result of the analysis of the Pavilion. The first part entitled

“Asymmetry” sets the first paradox in the form of an architectural oxymoron. The

Pavilion in its asymmetry canceled the symmetry of the site scenery. It related to its site

by being at odds with it. Juan Pablo Bonta showed that during the time it was built, the

Pavilion’s asymmetry was associated with the conciliatory political stance of Germany.

The Pavilion was a message of reconciliation stated by the Weimar Republic. But in its

refusal to conform to its site, through its asymmetry, the Pavilion delivered another

message, one of nonconformity. Between the traditional convention of symmetry

associated with authority and national aggrandizement, and nonconformity through

asymmetry, the Pavilion becomes situated in a state of paradox. Through its asymmetry

83 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 234. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 58

it stands against convention and against reconciliation at the same time. The message

conveyed by the nonsymmetrical character of the Pavilion was a sort of humiliation. But

because of its nonconformity to the site it became a message of refusal.

This refusal brings about questions concerning Mies’ relation with Nazism. As Josep

Quetglas puts it: “Were the vacant, silent and useless qualities of the Pavilion a sign of

Prussian militarism?”84 But is it possible for a building to be an agent of political introduction, a sign of what is yet to come, the Nazi military machine? According to

Evans, a building can, whether it was intentional or not. The Pavilion, read as a metaphor for a nation’s disposition, turned humiliation through asymmetry into

“disarming beauty”.

Here Evans reflects upon another matter. The asymmetry of the Pavilion resides in the overall composition of its components, not in the components themselves. Referring to

Hitchcock and Johnson who proposed regularity as a substitute for symmetry, and who stated that asymmetry is more preferable aesthetically, Evans concluded that asymmetry was a reaction not so much against classical architecture as it was against modern architecture itself.85 So, the Pavilion could be considered as a reaction against classical

and modern architecture simultaneously.

In the second part entitled “Rational Structure”, Evans tries to look beyond the clash of

symmetry and asymmetry, since these two came and went in Mies’s work. There is

84 Ibid. p. 236. 85 Ibid. p. 239. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 59

another kind of logic which was central: the logic of structure and its expression. Mies

attempted to free the walls from the burden of the roof and to use the columns as the

means of support. The function of the columns was to support the roof; the function of

the walls was to divide the space. Even though this seems to be the case in the plan, in

reality something else occurs. The columns in the Barcelona Pavilion are the principal

means of support but not the only one. Mies was not interested in the truth of

construction as much as in “expressing” the truth of construction: another paradox.86 In a letter to Philip Johnson, Frank Lloyd Wright advised Mies to get rid of his steel columns because they interfere with his lovely designs. If the columns were the sole means of support, then the walls should be detached from the roof. In both cases there is a conflict. Either the walls are interfering with the roof or the columns are interfering with the walls.87 All the columns in the Pavilion are located near a wall except for one.

The relation between the podium, the walls, and the roof is assembled, but not held

together. It is the columns which seem to perform this task: They seem to be holding

the roof down rather than up. The question then is this: If the mechanical structure of

the building is to declare the transition of loads and not to conceal it, why is Mies

concealing that fact? This meant for Evans that if Mies adhered to a certain logic, it was

the logic of appearance rather than truth.88 Here Evans indulges in another inquiry regarding truth and appearance. Stating that appearance is never the whole truth, but it is true to itself.

86 Ibid. p. 239-240. 87 Ibid. p. 241. 88 Ibid. p. 247. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 60

These first two parts deal mainly with the formal properties of the building itself. They

present a kind of formal paradox. The third part portrays yet another paradox, but a

perceptual rather than formal one, even though it depends on the formal composition.

The Pavilion’s life was merely about six months. After that it was dismantled, and all

that was left were some photographs and the building’s architectural drawings. Evans

mentions that even though the plan looks extensive and that the section looks

compressed the building gives the impression of being neither.89 This statement was

made when he visited the Pavilion after its reconstruction in 1986. He points out that

Mies was often criticized for pressing architectural space between flat horizontal sheets,

thus making the space confined, despite the fact that his design is a generalized open

plan. Evans argues that Mies’ use of the horizontal slice could be compared to that of

the horizon line that is used to define wide open spaces. In his response to the comment

made about his plans, that they resembled De Stijl paintings and especially those of van

Doesberg, Mies answered that the comparison is not valid since architecture is not the

same as painting. The horizontal line in the architectural perspectival space stands in

opposition to De Stijl paintings: His free plans, as experienced have far more to do with

the compositional discoveries of perspective paintings than the anti-perspectival

ambitions of De Stijl artists.90 The Miesian horizontal slice could be related more to the restriction of the line of vision upwards, after the realization that space is defined vertically by one’s own body, and horizontally by the limits of his own locomotion.

89 Ibid. p. 249. 90 Ibid. p. 253. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 61

Evan’s fourth part is entitled “Physical But Bodiless” and it addresses the paradox of materials and light in the Pavilion. The materials used, such as marble, chrome, and tinted glass, perform as instruments for the manipulation of light and depth. The absence of certain material properties within the Pavilion, and the accentuation of other features to a point of saturation, gives the notion of creating a “desert” in which all attention is focused on the remainder.91 The effort to eliminate sensual properties makes one hypersensitive to their presence: accentuation by elimination. The smooth and reflective qualities of the materials deny you the access to the solids beneath. As a confrontation against the notion of the honesty and truth of material proposed by

Hannes Meyer, the Bauhaus fundamentalist, the Pavilion cannot be addressed in this manner; it also cannot be addressed in the manner of the purity of colors proposed by the De Stijl painters such as Mondrian. The Pavilion escapes both of these notions.

Between the glorification of the material surface and its denial, the Pavilion finds itself in a totally different class. It adopts the procedure of abstraction in order to reveal properties that are neither formal nor material. This is achieved by means of accentuating color, luminosity, and reflectiveness and by the absorption of light. Evans mentions that Bonta found a first hand description that said the Pavilion felt gloomy under the canopy. The drawings of the Pavilion do not say anything about the perception of light and depth, and that is why there was a luminous box of glass in the middle of the Pavilion. Mies was not so happy with the shadows it cast in the Pavilion however, so he turned its electric lights off during the opening ceremony.92

91 Ibid. p. 255. 92 Ibid. p. 256. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 62

In his fifth part, Evans reflects upon an observation he made through looking at the

photographs which he took during his visit to the Pavilion. He couldn’t identify the

proper orientation of the photographs inside the Pavilion, that is what was up and

down; and therefore he concluded that it was because of the horizontal symmetry of the

Pavilion. While Mies eliminated the vertical bilateral symmetry, he reintroduced it

horizontally. The plane of horizontal symmetry in the Pavilion is very close to eye-level,

breaking the field of vision into two equal parts. Even though the height of the Pavilion

was determined by shear accident (the size of the available onyx block), Evans argues

that Mies was quite aware of the consequences it brought about. Evans refers to the

only constructed perspective drawing of the Pavilion that survived to indicate that Mies

was quite conscious of the property of reflective symmetry, and that he included it in

other projects to follow such as the Tungendhat house, the Greicke house, the Ulrich

house and others. Le Corbusier, disallowing the doubling of the modulor height for

interiors, explained that he wished to avoid the equalization of the floor and the

ceiling.93

Commenting on Bonta’s conclusion that the Pavilion was only an “idea” that had been promoted to greatness, Evans reflected that what he saw in the Pavilion was a building that “ate ideas”. That is, the Pavilion was capable of absorbing any idea that was thrown towards it.

In the sixth part, Evans considers the reflective properties of the Pavilion. Manfredo

Tafuri, Michael Hays and Josep Quetglas emphasize the importance of the reflective

93 Ibid. p. 260. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 63 properties of the Pavilion. The main paradox here involves using reflection as a means of producing symmetries. First symmetry is eliminated by Mies, and then it is introduced again in different forms. Evans mentions that Hays had presented reflection as the key to the Pavilion through its fragmenting and distorting of the space, denying it the possibility of unity. Evans however, disagrees with Hays and presents his argument: “Mirrors can destroy coherence, but they can also reveal it.”94 When images of a certain element are distorted and broken apart, they are retrieved to a coherent unity by means of mirrors. Reflected images in the Barcelona Pavilion, according to

Evans, work in a similar manner, making the asymmetrical arrangement virtually symmetrical. Through this vantage point, we can see that symmetries in the Pavilion were present in great strength and numbers. Evans describes the Pavilion at that point as a Trojan horse. Tafuri and Hays argued that the Miesian reflections are a way of breaking thing up, but according to Evans they are a way of bringing things together, of creating coherence.

Here, an important intervention takes place. Evans lays his strategy for interpretation.

Due to the conflict between his interpretation and that of Hays and Tafuri, Robin Evans poses a question: What if his point of view prevailed? What then happens to the idea promoted so forcefully by Tafuri and Hays that Mies’s architecture takes a critical stance by dismembering our too coherent picture of reality?95 Critical judgment today is somehow taken for granted. Any work of art or architecture can be surrounded by critical intentions. Yet, if the critical function is to be taken as the measure of art then art

94 Ibid. p. 262. 95 Ibid. p. 265. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 64

will blend with commentary and the analogy with language will become indispensable.

As a personal reflection and in an ironic manner, it is, but not in an analogous manner. I

here quote Evans in full, since this section is essential to my thesis:

Tafuri and Hays have taken the old idea of aesthetic distance and reformulated it as critical distance. The two kinds of distance may be described in similar terms, but they originate in opposite tendencies. Critical distance is maintained for the purpose of scrutiny; aesthetic distance is maintained for the purpose of adulation. Critical distance reveals blemishes; aesthetic distance is prophylactic.96

I shall not elaborate here on the consequence of this statement. This shall come later.

Let us continue with the last point that Evans raises. Evans’ last point is somehow the most controversial. It is entitled “Distraction”. He begins by citing Alberti on the beauty of a building, and his claim that if a building is beautiful it can withstand the dangers of enraging enemies, and that the beauty of the building will serve as a defense mechanism against their anger preventing them from offering any injury. He then cites

Jean Paul Sartre, the French philosopher, that beauty puts things out of reach. He mentions that the word “attractive” in this sense could be used rather as distractive, since the beauty of the building puts it out of reach. The Barcelona Pavilion distracts the entranced observer from what is troubling elsewhere: “this is the architecture of forgetting.”97 But what does the Pavilion make us forget? Evans makes a guess about

this question: politics and violence. In the time of the Weimar Republic, the tension that

existed within the intellectual society was electrifying. All the artists seemed to be

affected by this tension. But it is not visible in Mies’s architecture. This was the last

paradox. Forgetting can also be a challenge. Distraction is not amnesia, it is

96 Ibid. p. 266. 97 Ibid. p. 268. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 65

displacement. Colin Rowe interpreted the more explicit symmetry in Mies’s other work

as a return to the conventions of classicism. But the paradox is that the symmetries of

Mies are hidden rather than explicit. The transformation of bilateral symmetries in

monumental traditional architecture is a message embodied in appearances. The hidden

symmetries of the Pavilion escape the traditional conception of symmetry. If it adopted

the traditional approach towards symmetry it would have been nailed down by that

notion. The building that ate so many words would have fallen a victim to a word.98

In his postscript Evans refrains from commenting on the reconstruction of the Barcelona

Pavilion. “Others regard the issues of its authenticity and reproducibility as significant, but I am unable to see why.”99

98 Ibid. p. 271. 99 Ibid. p. 272. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 66

2:3 Josep Quetglas

The work of Josep Quetglas somehow takes a different approach to the Barcelona

Pavilion. His book “Fear of Glass” has a construction like a puppet show. He even begins by describing how a puppeteer defined the space where his play will take place.

This is the manner in which he introduces his work and its chapters. Like a play, the book is composed from acts and scenes. His interpretation seems to break from the traditional method of approach. But the book has a curious quality. Even though he refers to a lot of writers and theorists in the body of the text, his work does not have any references such as footnotes or endnotes. His reading is more like a marionette show.

Even though I discuss his work after that of Robin Evans, Quetglas’ interpretation was the earlier of the two.

Quetglas defines the boundaries of his stage set by two quotations: The first is from the

New Testament, describing Jesus casting out the traders from the temple, which according to Quetglas represents emptiness; The second is from a poem by Kostantin

Kavafis addressing the knowledge of the future by the gods, the present by men, and what is coming by the wise, and this quotation represents the future. He situates these as the two poles that are at all times present if we are to discuss the German Pavilion in

Barcelona: Emptiness and the Future.

Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 67

In the first scene, Quetglas mentions that the German Pavilion was meant as a

temporary structure to safeguard protocol: a place where king Alfonso could sign the

book of the ceremony, drink a toast, and have a seat, perhaps in the company of his wife.

This setting, which is the Pavilion, was to be designed by the Germans, and which

would communicate Germany’s self image to the world. The first question becomes:

What does the Pavilion resemble, if it is to resemble, Germany?101 In this case then, what

is Germany? Quetglas argues that Germany has been, from the age of the Rathenaus,

from Bismark to Weimar, synonymous with a certain economic and political project

with the concept of work at its basis, work as its organizer, unifying everything and

vitalizing Kultur itself. The German work was modern, transparent, crystalline and electric. This project of modernity was to become allegorized in an architectural project.

The Pavilion would have to “enclose and reflect an organic continuity between work and culture, an integration of life into work.”102 The Pavilion thus was a matter of showing the constitution of society based on such work. It is situated at the crossroads of work and art, neither the workplace nor the place of art. The Pavilion would represent the house of the German spirit.

Quetglas hypothesizes that Mies’s chain of reasoning ran thus: “a stage is required for the inaugural ceremony; the stage must represent the German house; the German house is the modern house; how should the modern house be designed?”103 What is the shape of the modern? Or even, what is modern? The first answer would be that the modern is that which is not old. It is that which displaces and replaces the present, or rather

101 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 27. 102 Ibid. p. 29. 103 Ibid. p. 32. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 68

anachronises the present. Here Quetglas lays his finger on a fundamental paradox

embedded within the modern tradition. A modern project has two contradictory terms.

“Modern” anachronises the present, and “Project” means in front of, to throw ahead into

the future, a flinging forward. This ultimately places the object thrown and the thrower

somewhere behind the point towards which the object is thrown. So in fact there could

be no such thing as a “modern project”. Then here, how would Mies confront such a

dilemma?

If the modern house is the house where I don’t belong, which I can not claim as mine, where neither I nor my imagination may venture, an I that is not everything that I know and everything that I am able to do – if the modern house is known as such because it excludes me, because I am radically absent from it, because it is the house of the Other, of the Other whose name and face I do not know, just as I know neither the face nor the name of God…”104

From this literary figure, Quetglas moves to an architectural figure: “The modern house

is like the house of God.” But what house of what god escapes the iconoclasm of the

modern? It would be the house which was the forbidden house, the house which was

not that of congregation. The German Pavilion would be a “Doric Temple”.

The Doric according to the Greeks was not what we see today, organized and

continuous, nor was it that balanced shape between the sky and the ground, but rather,

what the Greeks saw was the image of the discontinuous. It was not the outer columns

and the peristyle, but rather past them into the cella, into the body of the temple, the

house of “God”.105 This house though was different in the sense that it did not admit visitors. Quetglas insists on the notion that the Pavilion is a Doric temple, and he even

104 Ibid. p. 36. 105 It is interesting here that Quetglas uses the capital “G” for a Greek god. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 69

compares its elements to those of a temple. He mentions that canonically the Pavilion is

composed of three elements – the cella or hall, the stylobate or platform on which the

row of columns stand; and the peristyle, the columns themselves.106 Oddly, Quetglas refers to the row of columns that are situated in front of the Pavilion which were designed by another architect, and he attributes them to the Pavilion as an integral part.

This collage according to Quetglas becomes a last metaphor in Mies’s “Temple”.

But it also seems that Quetglas realizes a conflict, a non-sufficiency. He raises two connected arguments. The first is that the Pavilion has always been portrayed and drawn, even in Mies’s drawings, without the row of columns. Quetglas’ response depends on Mies’s taste for collage, and seen in this manner, the Pavilion becomes an element of this collage: the columns in front and Kolbe’s statue behind. The second argument is that if the Pavilion is a Doric temple, why should the columns be only on one side? Quetglas’ answer is that the frontal side is the only side that can be seen. The other three sides are not seen; therefore it is not necessary to build them. Remaining within the framework and spirit of questioning that Quetglas is following, I have another question: If the Pavilion is a Doric temple, then why are the columns in front built in the Ionic form?

In his description of the Pavilion’s approach, the author raises the issue of the stairs that leads to it. According to him, Mies hesitated while tracing the steps. They could not be frontal because of the site’s lack of depth and would interrupt the base of the platform.

106 Ibid. p. 39. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 70

He claims that the problem though was one of “content” rather than “form”.107 Mies’s intention was to conceal the steps so that the visitor will not find a sign of a way in.

Mies’s relation to Schinkel is brought up about which Quetglas then lists four observations all of which area an attempt to establish a relation between the two architects, necessary to his thory.

Returning to the row of columns, Quetglas raises the question of its purpose. Drawing on Nietzsche’s “Birth of Tragedy”, he relates their role to that of the chorus in the ancient theater, which is a living wall that tragedy draws about itself, a figure of discontinuity, of non-participation.108 Thus, the Pavilion is not merely a stage set but

rather a performance whose elements are up to that moment in his interpretation the

chorus and the woman by the pool, i.e. Kolbe’s statue.

And what about the spectator? He joins in the action, positioned in the midst of the

scene, yet remaining a spectator. He contemplates his own reflection in the virtual

mirror which is the theater. This same reflection brings the spectator inside. So he is

inside even when he is outside. “Could it be that the Pavilion has no interior?”109 Is the spectator rejected from the Pavilion? Quetglas quotes one journalist writing in 1929 about the Pavilion saying that the glass walls are mysterious. While on the outside, one is reflected and appears to be inside; but once inside, gazing at the glass wall, one clearly sees the outside.

107 Ibid. p. 47. 108 Ibid. p. 60. 109 Ibid. p. 65. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 71

At this point, Quetglas raises the question about the commission for the Pavilion. Apart from being a good team adequate for the commission, Mies’s and Lilly Reich’s work on the Crystal Hall that was designed for the Stuttgart exhibition in 1927 proved to be a valuable precedent for their work at the Barcelona fair. In Barcelona, Mies repeated the

Crystal Hall. The earlier design was located in a large interior hall. Mies mobilized the interior space by forcing it along the rectangle’s main diagonal and trimmed it by means of low-standing screens. The result was a labyrinth of screens that couldn’t be crossed.

The only referential element within the space was a statue, the bust of a woman, but it existed within a glass enclosure, inaccessible.

In the second act, Quetglas begins with the value of an open space as opposed to an enclosed space. Modern critics have always affirmed that an open space is superior to an enclosed space. The Barcelona Pavilion, as a modern building, was expected to encapsulate this superior character. Yet, according to Quetglas, the Pavilion is an enclosed space, and accordingly, the question becomes: how could the Pavilion be regarded as a closed space if it doesn’t even have any doors? According to the late

Catalan architect Nicolau M. Rubio, the Pavilion was contained by geometry, and not by the geometry of physical relations or patterns, but rather by a geometry of evocations, of perceptions, of references.110 Space is enclosed by its edges and not by the vertical planes which define its peripheries. In the Pavilion the thin platform of travertine separates the space from the floor, and the plastered ceiling above it defines and encloses the interior. It is as Aldo Rossi once described: Mies was obsessed with one

110 Ibid. p. 74. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 72

problem, which is to build segregated closed spaces defined only in the term of their

horizontal planes, and where the vertical planes dissolve in that gap.111

Defining the space first and foremost by the two horizontal planes, Mies then goes on to define what lies between. The geometrical network, which often appears in his perspectives acts as a slider for any element that touches the ground, expelling it. There are no columns that are driven into the ground; the chrome-plated columns instead dissolve in the multiple reflections all around. In a reconstruction plan by Rubio, the columns are not included, but rather missing. Frank Lloyd Wright’s advice as we recall was that Mies should lose the columns in his buildings because they interfere with his beautiful designs. But Mies had already lost them here by blending them into the space through reflection. Even the furniture, if it can be called furniture, is lost in the space.

Rubio had suggested that the Pavilion encloses only space, Quetglas pushes the statement further: the Pavilion encloses nothing but enclosed space.112 He notes that

Mies’s architecture is anti-sensory; it is made of representations rather than physical

presences.

The pillars of the Pavilion, in their cruciform section, break the space into compartments,

and the planes which would contain them slide away. They are the traces of four empty

transparent boxes of space. “Physical space is immobile” Quetglas remarks.113 In Frank

Lloyd Wright’s case, space possesses its own being; and though continuous, it is defined

by its perimeter. Wright’s space is that of participation, Mies’s space is that of exclusion:

111 Ibid. p. 77. 112 Ibid. p. 84. 113 Ibid. p. 92. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 73

“observing a space in which one is not present, from a space which one does not occupy, crossing the lines that mark places off, going through without staying, going down a path which slips away to one side”.114

At this point Quetglas asks another question: what is the Pavilion made of? Opposed to the conventional materiality of a building, the Pavilion is not made up of stone, glass and iron, but rather of reflections. These materials were not chosen because they were suitable to the technology and the imagination of the new age, but rather because of their reflective properties. Mies also chose water to add another reflective element to the

Pavilion. He even placed the marble sheets in a manner that suggests that one is the reflection of the other. The glass panels stun the senses: They turn the exterior into a reflection of itself and drain the interior. There is no labyrinth in the Pavilion after all, since a labyrinth presupposes the existence of a continuous uniform space where all passages have the same value. The reflections in the Pavilion suggest something different as in Rilke’s words : “You mirrors who go on emptying the empty rooms”.115

Mirrors suck in all that appears before them. This character separates the work of Mies from that of his De Stijl contemporaries. Their planes are two dimensional. Mies’s planes are three dimensional. These vertical elements within the space render any section through the Pavilion meaningless, since the sectional dimensions do not count:

They are not excluded as insignificant, but rather are perceptually non-existent.

114 Ibid. p. 93 115 Ibid. p. 101. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 74

Quetglas points out that the monument dedicated to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa

Luxembourg was ignored both because “of its political content and form--although this expression is misleading, as content is always a part of form.”116 In this project also, the mirror--like qualities of the planes reached their limit thanks to the virtual horizontal depth of the monument.

Mies’s intention behind all the qualities proposed in the Pavilion becomes an issue of investigation for Quetglas. Since the Pavilion according to him was an exasperated memory of the 1927 Glass Hall at the Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart, then it becomes necessary to ask what was the Glass Hall? Quetglas brings back to mind Bruno Taut’s

Glass House saying that fifteen years later Mies would evoke and rebuild that pavilion.

The shape of Taut’s project could be interpreted as a flower bud and a crystal, marrying the harmony between nature and reason. Inside the Glass House, the visitor would notice that the unknown interesting element in the House was not the atmosphere, but himself.

But even before the Glass House there was another project: Peter Behrens’ inauguration ceremony of the Darmstadt artists’ colony in 1901. Glass as making peace between the world and the individual, as a sign of the society founded on work as a source of value.

Work and the individual are merged. The individual is not a spectator but an active participant. When the visitor enters the house, the empty house, the Pavilion, he himself is impoverished and emptied. It is only in the empty house that richness reveals itself.

The moment he goes in every room, he will realize that he had already left.

116 Ibid. p. 105. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 75

The next question concerns the spatial, organizing structure of the Pavilion, and the question about its center. According to Quetglas, it is not the grid of reference produced by the pillars, since each of the pillars is an individual whose surrounding conditions differ. The general grid marked by the floor slabs cannot be taken as a matrix from which the elements of the Pavilion originate, since the blueprint measurements show this could not be possible. But if the building’s aim is to provide a space of congregation, a space where the King and Queen would sit, then there must be a center.

And indeed, this space exists, and it is marked by a black carpet, upon which two of the subsequently-famous “Barcelona” chairs serve as thrones. This center though both attracts and repels. It marks off a space denied to people.

But Quetglas points out another center. On the other side of the throne room, there is a shining glass wall. The visitor can walk around this wall but never goes beyond. It contains the only source of light in the Pavilion. Thus, the Pavilion has two centers, symmetrical and opposed. In the oscillation between the two centers, the Pavilion is destabilized. But also there remains another light: Kolbe’s statue at the far end of the

Pavilion. A statue of a woman shielding herself from light, immense light, crushing her with its weight. At her feet the pool grows, and she melts in silence.117

“If it is possible to propose a Gesamtkunstwerk,” Quetglas asserts, “Mies’s Pavilion builds it as an empty stage--a stage where nothing can be lost any longer and which is therefore

117 Ibid. p. 149. Chapter 2: Different Interpretations of the Pavilion 76

complete.”118 Thus begins the third act. Tafuri had realized this in his interpretation and stressed the emptiness of the Pavilion; Quetglas adds something to Tafuri’s reading, a missing element: the counterpart of emptiness, which is richness. The Pavilion is empty as much as it is rich. The emptier it gets, the richer.

The Pavilion was dismantled only six months after its construction. Quetglas suggests that it was dismantled because the modern house is empty, and the presentation of emptiness is the object of the presentation. Without a necessary presence, emptiness remains represented. “The emptiness after the Pavilion is the irremovable presence of an absence.”119

……..

Curtain

118 Ibid. p. 166. 119 Ibid. p. 171. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 77

Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation

3:1 Etymology of Hermeneutics

As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, the word hermeneutics is the art or science

of interpretation, esp. of Scripture, commonly distinguished from exegesis or practical

exposition.120 In the root of the word Hermeneutics we can detect the connection with the word “Hermes”, the Greek god. Hermes is known to be the messenger of the gods.

The son of Zeus and Maia, he is also the god of science, commerce, eloquence, and many other arts. Hermes is commonly figured as a youth, carrying the caduceus or rod, petasus

or brimmed hat, and the talaria, or winged shoes.

The origin of the word Hermeneutic is Herma, a Greek term that means a pile of stones.

It seems that there existed in Crete and in other Greek regions a custom of erecting a herma or hermaion, which consisted of an upright stone, surrounded at its base by a heap

of smaller stones rising to a shape of a pyramid. These monuments were regarded as

boundaries between lots of land, or as landmarks for travelers.121 The myth says that

when Hermes killed the many-eyed monster Argus, he was brought to trial by the gods.

When the gods in return voted for Hermes’ innocence, each of them threw a stone at his

feet surmounting to a heap. Later, in Athens and the surrounding areas, it was applied

to any four cornered pillar surmounted by a head or a bust. A statue composed of a

120 Oxford English Dictionary, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) 121 R.F. Willetts, "Hermes" entry in Richard Cavendish, ed., Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural. (New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1970), p. 1289. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 78

head, usually that of the god Hermes, is placed on the top of a quadrangular pillar of the

proportions of the human body. The OED mentions that these pillars were exceedingly

numerous in ancient Athens, and were used as boundary marks, mile stones, signposts,

pillars, pilasters, etc.122

Socrates used this word in Cratylus, where he said: “I should imagine that the name

Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter (ermeneus) or messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer; all that sort of thing has a great deal to do with language.”123 After Socrates, this term was used by Aristotle in one of his works “On

Interpretation” (Peri hermeneias), where he used the term to designate how the logical structure of language conveys the nature of things in the world.124

This term was later used in reference to the interpretation of Biblical scriptures.

According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, one of the verbs derived from this word is “hermeneuo”, meaning to explain or interpret, and which is used to explain the meaning of words in a different language. Another verb is “diermeneuo”, which is a strengthened form of the first meaning. The prefix dia, "through," used intensively, signifies the meaning to interpret fully. A third verb, “methermeneuo”, means to change or translate from one language to another, with the prefix meto, implying change. The noun derived from this word is “hermeneia”, meaning akin to interpretation.

122 Oxford English Dictionary, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) 123 Plato, Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961) 124 William E. Vine. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. ed. Thomas Nelson 1984. (Tenesee: AMG Publishers, 1995) Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 79

Richard Palmer describes how, although the usage of the term was broadened in the

eighteenth and nineteenth century to take in methods of understanding and explicating

both sacred and secular texts from antiquity, the term "hermeneutics" continued to

suggest an interpretation which discloses something hidden from ordinary

understanding and which remains mysterious. 125

Hermes is the messenger of the gods, he moves in the realm between the two spheres of

gods and men, and he crosses these ontological thresholds with ease.126 This liminality

or marginality is his very essence. Palmer cites Paul Freidrich’s describtion of eight

characteristics of Hermes, the two most interesting of which are his mobility, which

makes him a creature of betwixt and between, and his marginality, which is indicated by

the location of his phallic herms, not just anywhere, but on roads, at crossroads and in

groves. So, it seems that Hermes mainly is the god of gaps and boundaries or

transitions.

Martin Heidegger also traces the meaning of the word Hermeneutics to the Greek god

Hermes. According to Heidegger, Hermes’ characteristic as a messenger of the gods and

not of humans makes his message a “fateful tidings”.127 Therefore, the message he carries is beyond doubt, and the Human Being becomes utilized by the message and not the other way around. Man belongs to the message, and serves as its receiver and carrier.

125 Richard E. Palmer, The Liminality of Hermes and the Meaning of Hermeneutics (Michigan: Michigan State University, 1980.), http://www.mac.edu/~rpalmer/liminality.html 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 80

Referring to Walter F. Otto, Richard Palmer revises the meaning of the magical properties of Hermes: the magical cap and the magical wand. With the cap, Hermes can make himself invisible, and with the wand he can awaken or put to sleep. These characteristics again take us back to the marginal characteristics of Hermes as a mediator between two realms, sleep and awakening, visibility and invisibility.

If we consider that one of architecture’s characteristics is to display a certain meaning or to communicate in one sense or another, then it becomes necessary to translate that specific language and interpret it. Many architectural theorists throughout time have done this, and still attempt to understand the nature of architectural language. Thus, understanding the nature of interpretation is an essential building block in architectural theory. But not many architects have worked on the issue of interpretation itself as much as on the issue of interpreting specific buildings or methods. Juan Pablo Bonta is one of the theorists who specifically attempted to define the nature of architectural interpretation. He dealt with this issue in two of his books, Architecture and Its

Interpretation, and An Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation, where the Barcelona

Pavilion is taken as a case study; although both of them remained merely analytical and classifying exercises concerning existing interpretations, rather than explanations of the fundamental nature of interpretation itself. Nevertheless, any architectural theory presupposes an attempt towards interpretation.

There are two additional points worth bringing out of the mythical origins. The first is the identification of the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth. Thoth was worshiped at the Hermopolis in Upper Egypt where he was depicted as a man with the Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 81 head of an ibis bird, and carriying a pen and scrolls upon which he recorded all things.

He was considered to be the creator or inventor of the hieroglyphs. In the same way as

Hermes, he was connected with the building of the obelisks.

Derrida describes the qualities of Thoth as related to those of Hermes.

“The figure of Thoth is opposed to its other (father, sun, life, speech origin or orient, etc.), but as that which once supplements and supplants it. Thoth extends or opposes by repeating or replacing. By the same token, the figure of Thoth takes shape and takes its shape from the very thing it resists and for which it substitutes. But it thereby opposes itself, passes into its other, and this messenger-god is truly a god of the absolute passage between opposites. If he had any identity-- but he is precisely the god of non identity-- he would be that coincidentia oppositorum… The god of writing is thus at once his father, his son and himself. He cannot be assigned a fixed spot in the play of differences. Sly, slippery, and masked, an intriguer and a card, like Hermes, he is neither king nor jack, but rather a sort of a joker, a floating signifier, a wild card, who puts play into play.”128

If Thoth puts play into play, then hermeneutics itself has the ability to escape the rigid formulation of traditional interpretation. Actually, it is not a matter of escaping the rigidity more than it is a realization of the impossibility of a rigid system of interpretation. Interpretation should at once take the place of, and oppose or add to what is to be interpreted. In the process, interpretation takes it shape from what is to be interpreted and becomes interwoven with what it is directed towards and eventually directed by.

The second point is the connection between interpretation and architecture through the spatial dimension of separation and combination. The meaning of the word “Herm” as

128 Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. B. Johnson. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981) p. 93. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 82 a landmark that denotes a spatial change in the physical world sheds a new light on the manner through which architecture is approached. The correlation with architecture as a sign inhabiting an intermediate realm, and acting as a mediator between two worlds, suggests an understanding of architecture as a sign of separation and combination, of opposition and supplementation. Architecture breaks out of any rigid formality into a realm of differences that escapes definition and floats into a world of constantly shifting relations and horizons.

This ultimately reaffirms the impossibility of any interpretation through addressing an architectural “object”, and trying to force out a meaning from its autonomous formal characteristics, because a world that is constantly shifting cannot sustain an objective form. The object itself is removed and replaced, opposed and supplanted. It is a floating signifier. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 83

3:2 Tradition and the Interpretive Methods

For interpretation to occur, two important conditions must be met. The first is to be aware of the historical methods of Interpretation that were utilized throughout the tradition, and the second is to secure an adequate framework through the anticipatory fore-structures. The awareness concerning the traditional methods of interpretation includes the manner through which the metaphysics of Presence directed and constituted these methods, and thus did not allow an adequate framework for interpretation to be secured. The next two sections in this chapter address these two conditions since they will be utilized to criticize the three already discussed interpretations of the Barcelona Pavilion.

In one of Heidegger’s lectures entitled “The Origin of the Work of Art”, the German philosopher draws a map of the way western thought has understood the meaning of things since the ancient Greeks, and formulated methods for their interpretation.

According to Heidegger, there have been three modes of definition that were used by the tradition to interpret what a thing is. The road to understand anything was articulated by one of these modes or the other. The first mode of interpretation addresses the thing as a “bearer of traits”.129 The characteristics of a thing are the first

129 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 156. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 84

layer that we encounter, and for that we are prone to define a thing by its characteristics,

so we say the red book or the smooth cup. One important reason lies in the translation

of the Greek terms into Latin, and this is where the confusion begins. Heidegger

mentions that hypokeimenon, that was supposed to be the core of the thing for the Greeks, became connected with the subiectum, substantia, and accidens in Latin.130 Our natural

interpretation of the thing today is dependant on the translation of these terms into

Latin. The correlation between the thing as a substance, and its characteristics, is viewed

as though it addresses what a thing ultimately is.

The loss of the experience of the Greek speech to this Latin translation launched the

Western tradition into a swirl of confusion. The Greek experience was transformed into

a different way of thinking. Through this translation, the rootlessness of Western

thought begins. By imposing the existence of a relation between “things” and

“statements”, the structure of language was imposed upon understanding. A sentence

structure, containing the subject and the predicate, becomes associated with, or rather,

reflects the structure of a thing. But how could this be? How can the structure of a

sentence be the manner through which we understand anything? Whether the thing is

regarded as a mirror image of a sentence structure or the other way around is a mere

illusion. Neither the former is mirrored in the later, nor the later in the former. They

both derive from a more original source. All this confusion renders this mode of

understanding invalid and an assault on the thing itself.

130 Ibid. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 85

The second mode of interpretation lies in the conception of the thing as a unity of

manifold sensations.131 We depend on our senses to determine what a thing is. The thing is the aistheton, that which is perceptible by sensations.132 This means that truth becomes something seen, heard, felt, etc. But in order to see the color of the thing we look away from it, to look at its color for example. We hear the wind whistling in the chimney, but not the wind itself. If we hear a sound we are in contact with the sound and not with the thing itself. The characteristics of things, or the sensation of the characteristics of things, create a distance between us and the things themselves. As the first conception distances us from the thing itself, the second attaches our senses to so it closely, that the thing is lost in the process.

The third mode regards the thing as formed matter. Form (morphe) and Matter (hyle) are

the two properties that eventually determine the truth about the thing. Matter is what

provides things with constancy and, as such, is thought to be the substrate and field of

action for the artist.133 These two concepts became the most popular mode in the

interpretation of all art theory and aesthetics. For example, in his article about the

Barcelona Pavilion, Robin Evans accuses Manfredo Tafuri and Michael Hays of taking

the old idea of aesthetic difference and reformulating it as critical distance.134 This shows the manner through which the field of architectural theory is infiltrated by this pair of concepts.

131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Dorothea Olkowski, “If the Shoe Fits- Derrida and the Orientation of Thought” in Hermeneutics and Deconstruction (New York: State University of New York Press, 1985), p. 267. 134 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building. London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 266. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 86

Form and content are the most hackneyed concepts under which anything and everything may be subsumed. And if form is correlated with the rational and matter with the irrational; if in addition the subject-object relation is coupled with the conceptual pair form-matter; then representation has at its command a conceptual machinery that nothing is capable of withstanding.135

Josep Quetglas, suggests that the monument dedicated to Liebknecht and Luxembourg

“was ignored because of both its political content and form--although this expression is misleading, as content is always a part of form”.136 Quetglas also resorts to this pair of concepts to advance his view. These issues will resurface later in the criticism concerning the interpretations of the Pavilion.

Any attempt to find a resolution to the problem posed by this pair of concepts requires an a priori knowledge about its origin, and in what sphere form and matter realize their indisputable defining power. But since this pair of concepts is mainly used in aesthetics, it might allow us to trace them as concepts that originated from the essence of the artwork, and which afterward made their way to “things”. Here, a differentiation should be made clear, namely between the thingly character of things and workly character of works. In things that occur in nature, such as a block of granite, there is a certain distribution and arrangement of materials. This results in a certain form, in this case, a block of granite. But in a work, form is not a result of a former distribution of matter, but rather dictates the arrangement of matter, for example, a hammer. This dictation even prescribes the selection of an adequate material. The specific combination of form and matter in a piece of equipment is predetermined by its purpose. For a

135 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 153. 136 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 105. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 87

hammer, a certain strength is necessary, for a jug, a space of containment. This

usefulness is never an addition but rather a determinant factor in a thing.

Matter and form, occurring simultaneously, are grounded in usefulness. Usefulness

determines their mode of being as equipment, as the product of a process of making.

“Matter and form are in no case original determinations of the thingness of the mere

thing”.137 The relation between a mere thing, a piece of equipment, and a work of art is thus somehow determined. A piece of equipment is self-contained as is a mere thing, but it is different in that it did not take shape by itself. On the other hand it is similar to a work of art in so far as it is something made, something produced by a human being.

Also, a work of art has this thingly character as well, but nevertheless it is not a mere thing. Somehow, a piece of equipment occupies a middle ground between a mere thing and a work of art.

Consequently, the matter-form structure presents itself as the intelligible constitution of every being. This pair of concepts, by the virtue that it was used to comprehend the

Being of equipment, and because equipment occupies a middle ground between mere things and art works, suggests that all beings are to be understood in such a manner.

But the problem in this interpretation is revealed as soon as we talk about a mere thing, as soon as we strip the thing of its character of usefulness. Once this occurs, the wall breaks down. Since the equipmental character of a thing is the paradigm of its

137 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 154. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 88

definition, the thingly character would then remain hidden and will not come to view.

This “nudity” becomes an offensive act upon the thingly character of the thing. Thus the

third interpretation also turns out to be inadequate, and “an assault upon the thing.”138

These conceptions are grounded mainly in the experience of Being as presence. This notion of presence becomes the deliverer of the essence as appearance and visibility.

Thinking aimed at truth is grounded not in existence, but in perceiving the idea; being is conceived not in terms of living experience but in terms of idea--statically, as a constant, atemporal presentness. 139

But it is not only through these modes that a thing has been understood. Heidegger also

explains that in the course of the history of truth, these interpretations that were

mentioned also entered into combinations, which further strengthened their tendency to

expand and become inclusive. They would define the thingly character of a thing, the

equipmental character of equipment, and even the workly character of a work.

Yet by avoiding these concepts would we let the thing be. In letting be, the thing will

come forth. Letting be is not synonymous to indifference but rather an active turning

toward the being, and by means of this thinking, letting the thing rest upon itself in its

essence. Only in this manner will we be able to gain access to the workly nature of the

work.

138 Ibid. p. 156. 139 Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969) p. 143. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 89

3:3 The Anticipatory Fore-Structures

But how then are we to understand what a thing is without resorting to these traditional

modes of understanding? The closest answer to what anything is would be that this

specific thing is for such and such a purpose. But if we tell what a thing is for, we are

not stating what it is but rather what it is “as”. For example we see things “as”

hammers, tables or doors. We shed a light upon the disclosed nature of a thing by

means of this “as”. This “as” constitutes the interpretation.140 This interpretation, nevertheless, while giving access to what a thing is “as” something, discloses it. When we look at something, we exclude it from a totality. This exclusion limits the mode of understanding. The “Object” becomes ready-to-hand, “as” such and such. Even if this

“as” is not pronounced, its absence does not eradicate its work. It is there, working, in the background. It is present in its absence. When we merely stare at something, or just-having-it-before-us, it lies before us as a failure to understand it anymore. If the “as” is not ontically expressed this must not seduce us to overlook it as a constitutive state of understanding, existential and a priori.141 Any attempt that works towards an

“objective” analysis fails in this domain, specifically because it is object-ive. This objectification is a clear sign of the metaphysics of Presence. Whenever we try to understanding something about a thing and take it as an object present-at-hand, we have already missed it.

140 Martin Heidegger, “Understanding and Interpretation”, in The Hermeneutic Reader, ed. Kurt Mueller- Vollmer, (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1994), p. 222. 141 Ibid. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 90

The Heideggerian manner of interpretation requires what he calls the “fore- structures”.142 The fore-structures are the “fore-having”, the “fore-sight”, and the “fore- conception”. These fore-structures are not chronological in order, rather they are simultaneously occurring. There is a complete system of anticipation that is happening at the same time. Each of these fore-structures is connected with the other, and included in it, they are neither separable nor detachable. The interpretive approach thus lies in a totality of understanding. There cannot be isolated fragments for interpretation or miniature systems of dealing with certain issues in a separate manner, but rather the system is totally compatible and comprehensive. There can also be no objects that escape the predetermined, presupposed framework of interpretation.

When we encounter something within the world, this thing already has a certain involvement in us. Through this involvement we can address this thing “as” something.

This involvement though remains undisclosed in our understanding of the world. Any thing which we encounter as ready-to-hand is always understood in terms of a totality of involvements. But this understanding remains or recedes in the background.

The fore-having is something that we have in advance. It is that which we already have in the background. It covers the totality of the framework of operation. I have the thing to be interpreted beforehand. So, if I consider my fore-having for interpretation, it includes my understanding of something “as” something. This “as” is an integral part of my fore-having, but in order not to follow its path I must be aware of its operation as

142 John D. Caputo, More Radical Hermeneutics: On Not Knowing Who We Are (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 157. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 91 a hidden “as”. Interpretation then is grounded in something we have in advance, that is in the fore-having. “Hermeneutic understanding proceeds from a network of presuppositions that must always be adequate for the matter to be interpreted.”143 The fore-having covers the whole range of entities to be understood, and the entire phenomenon that might and would appear within its range. To understand something, we have to “stand-under” it, but how can we stand under it if we haven’t already understood it?

The second fore-structure is the fore-sight. For the process of interpretation to take place, there is a question that poses itself beforehand. This question concerns the specific point of view under which anything is to be understood. Interpretation, from the beginning, is guided by this point of view. The ready to hand has been already understood in terms of a totality of involvements, but yet it remains undisclosed. In the fore-sight, the point of view which is found to be the most appropriate to unveil the interpretation is fixed, defined and resorted to. This act of appropriation interprets that which has been understood by that totality of involvements. The fore-sight covers the range of entities involved in the context, and more than that, it undergoes a process of selection for the appropriate cut through the contextual situation that it sees as the most adequate. This process is already guided beforehand by the intuition in the fore-sight itself.

The third fore-structure is the fore-conception. It is the possibility of interpretation based upon a pre-knowledge. We know in advance how to grasp what is to be

143 Ibid. Chapter 3: Hermeneutics and the History of Interpretation 92 interpreted. Thus the interpretative elements for the entity are either drawn from the entity itself or from forcing the entity into concepts that oppose it in its Being. For example, Heidegger explains the traditional modes of understanding which oppose the mode of being of a “thing”, by showing how all these modes of understanding assault the mode of being of a “thing”. It is a manner of conceptualizing the interpretation for that which we have held undisclosed in our fore-having, and upon which we “set our sights foresightedly.”144

In any case, one has to find himself located within this interpretive situation. The interpretation of anything is founded upon these fore-structures of understanding. This totality of involvement precedes our understanding, articulates, and predefines it. It is from this network of presuppositions that a thing emerges as the thing that it is. The set of presuppositions is not to be eliminated, but rather we should secure an adequate pre- suppositional framework of understanding. The key to understanding becomes apparent through the realization of a Hermeneutic situation.

144 Martin Heidegger, “Understanding and Interpretation”, in The Hermeneutic Reader, ed. Kurt Mueller- Vollmer, (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1994), p. 223. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 93

Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts

4:1 Robin Evans’ Paradoxical Symmetries

The presence of a quality such as paradoxical symmetries in the Pavilion seems to provoke in turn its own paradoxes. We may begin by uncovering the set of presuppositions or fore-structures that is operating within the text of Robin Evans and that points towards the paradoxical. Perhaps Evans’ attempt is the most elaborate among those who tried to deal with the Pavilion on an interpretive level. It utilizes and coordinates most of what Mies was stating during the period when he designed the

Pavilion. His approach to the properties of glass reaffirms Mies’s own understanding of the main characteristic of glass, and his anti-aesthetic attitude also coincides with that of

Mies in his refusal of aesthetics as a mode of understanding. So, it seems that Evans’ interpretation draws the closest connection to what is to be interpreted. Or so it seems.

Interpretation though must not be accepted as what seems to be. It is only after the set of presuppositions behind the interpretation are made obvious that interpretation itself comes to the fore. Yet, in Evans’ analysis, the Pavilion remains an object, not merely as the object of interpretation, but as an object present-at-hand to be interpreted. The concept of form and matter operates within the work of Evans. Through the intrinsic characteristics of the form and its paradoxical symmetries, the content is determined to be what it is. But in Derrida’s words, “as soon as we use the concept of form--even to criticize another concept of form--we must appeal to the evidence of a certain source of Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 94

sense.”145 In what sense then are we to understand the “form” which is at the basis of

Evans’ interpretation? What “form” does his interpretation take?

It seems that Evans’ understanding of form is definitely not that of the “eidos” in the

Platonic sense, but rather, it seems to have more connections with the terms of morphe

and hyle in the Aristotelian tradition, which as we have seen before, is at the basis of St.

Thomas Aquinas’ theory. Form does not exist buy itself, independent of the material

world, but rather the specific characteristics of a thing is what determines our

understanding of that thing. Here it looks like we have turned a full circle, and came

back to Aquinas, again reaffirming that Evans’ mode of interpretation is moving in that

direction, even if it is not being stated. The question is not why this happened, (since the

medium of understanding is rooted in the metaphysical tradition and its vocabulary),

but rather the mode through which this understanding infiltrated the interpretive act of

Evans in the form of a critical interpretation. Derrida observes:

The system of oppositions in which something like form can be considered, the formality of form, is a finite system. Further more, it is not enough to say that “form” has a sense for us, a center of evidence, or that its essence is given to us as such: indeed, this concept is, and always has been, indissociable from the concepts of appearance, sense, evidence or essence. Only form is evident, only a form has or is an essence, only a form presents itself as such. This is a point of certainty that no interpretation of the Platonic or Aristotelian conceptual system can dislodge.146

In other words, one cannot avoid the powerful “presence” of form as “being-at-hand”,

presenting itself as the first character that meets the eye, and consequently, forces us

along a specific road through its powerful “presence”. The mode in which form

145 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 108. 146 Ibid. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 95

presents itself, or is present as a form, determines the mode of its interpretation, on the

basis of this formal presence. The formal presence is the first manner through which

Evans reaches out for his interpretation. The Pavilion is regarded as some sort of equipment, an object to be addressed. The Pavilion is addressed through its thingly characteristics, and for this specific reason, the architectural “work” which is at work, is missed in the process. If we look at all the points that Evans raises in the article, we can see that the thingly characteristics are what he always appeals to in the work. Whether it is the Pavilion’s symmetries or asymmetries, its rational or irrational structure, or the distinctive qualities of its materials, the formal characteristics are the first mode of presentation for this interpretation.

By going down this road, Evans takes the architectural work as an object, and in the process misses the work which is at work.

As soon as we look for such a thingly substructure in the work, we have unwittingly taken the work as equipment, to which we then also ascribe a superstructure supposed to contain its artistic quality. But the work is not a piece of equipment that is fitted out in addition with an aesthetic value that adheres to it.147

In Evans’ work, interpretation is directed towards the architectural “object” rather than the architectural “work”. The object is addressed through its thingly characters, and a meaning which has been presupposed, is ascribed to the object. It is only when the architectural object is re/moved that the workly character of the work could be identified. The object should not be “removed" but re/moved, not by eliminating it, but

147 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 164. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 96

rather by recognizing that it is not what is determinative here. As Heidegger puts it,

“The thingly feature in the work should not be denied; but if it belongs admittedly to the

work-being of the work, it must be conceived by way of the work’s workly nature.”148

So, Evans worked in the opposite direction. Instead of starting from the work itself, he started form the object. It turns out that while he accused Tafuri and Hays of reformulating the aesthetic distance as a critical distance, he himself unconsciously was following the same steps. But let us follow Evans’ steps in his interpretation.

The first part, “Asymmetry”, has somehow, ‘too much reading”. Evans reads too much into the asymmetry of the Pavilion. The asymmetry of the overall composition of the

Pavilion is read as being a conciliatory statement by the Weimar Republic, by being a message of nonconformity with the tradition, and then through the regularity of its components, the Pavilion is read as a reaction against modern architecture itself. Here, a question must address our reflection: What allows us to state that there is too much reading? The statement itself, “too much reading suggests an imposition, that there is something being forced upon something else, namely the form being ascribed a superstructure, and in this case, multiple superstructures, to provoke an artistic value.

The excessive reading begins when Evans tries to associate the asymmetrical attributes of the Pavilion with a political message, a strategy followed by most critical interpreters.

But asymmetry as an architectural message differs from its political message. The known political message of the asymmetry of the Pavilion was associated with the

148 Ibid, p. 165. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 97

conciliatory political stance of the Weimar Republic, since symmetry was traditionally

associated with imperiousness and national aggrandizement.149 A more recent political

interpretation suggests the willingness of Mies to collaborate with the Nazis during that

period, which is refuted by certain exonerations that Mies was only a man who loved his

country and wasn’t interested in politics. But the symmetry according to Evans exists in

the Pavilion in the form of a reflective symmetry. This in turn questions the validity of

the former interpretations concerning the nature and meaning of symmetry in the

Pavilion. In the end symmetry is substituted with regularity, which was prevalent at

that period in the modern tradition. Asymmetry then becomes not as much a message

against classical architecture as against modern architecture itself.150

I actually doubt that when designing the Pavilion, Mies could have thought of such an

elaborate political message, especially since the commission came on such a short notice,

and considering the chance occurrences of selecting key materials like the marble block.

But if we are to suppose that the Pavilion has a life of its own, independent from the

artist’s intention, then another question arises: Why then are we to discuss Mies’s

political affiliations at that period? According to Heidegger, for the artwork to emerge,

the artist remains inconsequential compared to the work.151

The second, the third, the fifth and the seventh parts of Evans’ interpretation has somehow the same fore-having. In the second part, the expression of the logical

149 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 235. 150 Ibid. p. 239. 151 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 166. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 98

structure and its deceiving characters is discussed. Here, Evans talks about the relation

of the columns to the walls and ceiling. To eliminate the possibility that the Pavilion

was “an early but none too successful attempt” to free the wall from the burden of the

roof and to utilize the column for this purpose as to express the “truth of construction”,

Evans affirms that this could not be possible, and the reason is that the Pavilion was so

refined and beautiful,152 a concept that he returns to in the seventh part where he would state that beauty is a distracting element that shields from raging enemies. Yet, when someone uses a statement such as “the Pavilion was so refined and so beautiful”, and refers to Jean Paul Sartre, one of the milestones in Western aesthetic theory, it opens up the system of thought that the author ascribes to. The term “beautiful” is used here to denote an aesthetic character. Because the building was beautiful, the possibility of it being a mistake is not conceivable. For some reason, it seems that Evans, through this remark, retreated from Mies’s own approach towards building. Mies refuses to term his buildings as aesthetic. A careful review of his publications shows that he never used the term beautiful to refer to any building, as opposed to many of his contemporaries, especially Le Corbusier, who stresses the issue of aesthetic beauty in architectural design.

You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.

But suddenly, you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: ‘This is beautiful.’ That is Architecture. Art enters in.153

152 Ibid. p. 240. 153 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, (London:The Architectural Press, 1965), p.141. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 99

On the other hand, and while discussing the structure of the Pavilion, Evans gets entangled between the rational and the irrational. The role of the columns according to

Evans was not to hold the ceiling up, but rather down. They act like tension wires to connect the two horizontal planes of the building. But here the controversy arises.

Evans’ theory is highly dependant on visual perception rather than rational deduction.

Ultimately, what Evans is trying to say is that if Mies adhered to any logic or rationality, it was the logic of appearance.154

Appearance though is not as simple as it appears to be. Appearance presents a certain manner of looking at things.

Here one has in mind certain occurrences in the body which show themselves and which, in showing themselves as thus showing themselves, ‘indicate’ [“indizieren”] something which does not show itself. The emergence [Auftreten] of such occurrences, their showing themselves, goes together with the being- present-at-hand of disturbances which do not show themselves. Thus appearance, as the appearance ‘of something’, does not mean showing itself; it means rather the announcing-itself by [von] something which does not show itself, but which announces itself through something which does not show itself. Appearing is a not-showing-itself.155

In other words, the concept of appearance is four times detached from a phenomenon.

For example, let us take a white paper. The whiteness of the paper shows itself as the property of the paper. It “indicates” the paper, which does not show itself. This whiteness nevertheless in itself does not show itself, or let’s say does not say anything about the “White”. Thus the whiteness as the appearance of the paper does not show itself, but merely announces itself as whiteness through the paper, which in itself does

154 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 247. 155 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1962), p. H. 29. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 100 not show itself. This paper on the other hand is announcing itself by virtue of the whiteness as a property that remains undisclosed and does not show itself as well.

According to this we can see that Phenomena are never appearances. This kind of logic requires the present-at-hand approach for such a conclusion to emerge. The Pavilion is viewed as present-at-hand, an object of interpretation.

In the third section entitled “Extremes of Vision”, there are two opposing explanations of the spatial qualities in the Pavilion. One side, namely Franz Schulze, claims that the drive behind the Pavilion produced an unprecedented generalized open plan, while the other side, represented by Jose Quetglas, describes the Pavilion as being confined.

Evans decides that it is neither. This third interpretation looks like an attempt to separate itself from the other two explanations and find a unique context to itself. By opposing both theories, Evans comes up with a third, which somehow lies in the middle.

Yet this middle remains within the same matrix of thinking, since it is still trying to answer the same question. The problem here does not lie in finding the answer but rather in posing the proper question. The title itself “Extremes of Vision” suggests the manner in which we observe. This brings us back to the same issue that we discussed in the previous section. Observation is highly affected by vision, and vision as we have seen, directs our senses and understanding into predetermined routes of approach. Our vision shows us what seems to be, and for this specific reason could not be trusted.

The fifth section entitled “The Horizon” is also dependent on vision. Evans mentions that the Pavilion has a horizontal symmetry by virtue of the height of the ceiling. The plane of horizontal symmetry in the Pavilion is very close to eye level. This as we know Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 101

is unintentional, since the height of the Pavilion was determined by the height of the

marble block that Mies found at the last moment and by chance. Evans realizes this fact

but shows that Mies was aware of the consequences of this property by using

approximately the same height in his later projects.

This opens several issues for discussion. The first is that the discovery of this property

occurred by accident as well. As Evans was pursuing the slides that he took in the

Pavilion, he couldn’t determine which side was up or which side was down. He thus

concluded that Mies reintroduced symmetry horizontally. The second is the

metaphorical message, political or domestic, that is ascribed to this property: a world

turned upside down.156 But the question remains: Was Mies aware of this horizontal symmetry? And if he was aware, why did he conceal it? The other question then becomes: If Mies didn’t intend it, what then happens to Evans’ theory?

All these questions would have different routes and channels depending on the nature of the answers that we might submit. My supposition is that Mies didn’t intend it, not as a political message, as would be very convenient for a critical interpreter, nor even as an architectural oxymoron. It just occurred. Whatever meaning we wish to ascribe to it would act as a superstructure imposed on a physical characteristic for the sake of a political message, or an aesthetic character.

156 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 258. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 102

The fourth section could be summarized in one sentence: Mies “wanted to create a

desert in which all attention would be focused on the reminder.”157 Evans mentions that

Mies accentuated color, luminosity, reflection and absorption of light to reveal properties that are neither formal nor material, like light and depth. He writes

Both the forms and the materials of the Pavilion are merely instruments for the manipulation of light and depth. The combination of polished marbles, chrome and tinted glass – all smooth and highly reflective – denies access to the solids beneath.158

In fact, this conclusion is very consistent with the theory of Aquinas, and the material

characteristics of things as the defining elements of what a thing is. And, there is some

truth in the statement of Evans. The characteristics of the materials definitely deny the

access to the solids beneath and in general to the Pavilion itself.

Finally, in the sixth section, Evans stands against three modern theorists in interpreting

the property of reflection in the Pavilion. Michael Hays, Manfredo Tafuri, and Jose

Quetglas see the reflectiveness of the Pavilion as contributing to its silence. Evan asserts:

“A reflective building is an echo, not a statement”.159 For him, mirrors can destroy

coherence but they can also reveal it. The Pavilion reflects itself more than its

surroundings, creating a copy of itself, another symmetry. Evans accuses Hays and

Tafuri of reformulating the aesthetic distance as a critical distance, and holds that

157 Ibid. p. 255. 158 Ibid. p. 256. 159 Ibid. p. 261. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 103

“critical distance is maintained for the purpose of scrutiny; aesthetic distance is

maintained for the purpose of adulation.”160

Yet both of these methods do not tell us anything about the workly character of the work

itself. Critical theory drives us into politics and social science by ascribing a political

message to objects, and aesthetics fix our sight onto the appearances. They both address

the thingly characteristics of a thing to support their theory. Yet we cannot understand

anything about the work itself as long as we pose the question starting from the inquiry

about its thingly substructure, thus forcing the work into a preconceived framework,

which obstructs our access to the work-being of the work. The thingly characteristics are

the determinant factors in the work of Evans. His interpretation is highly dependent

upon the physical characteristics of the Pavilion. In his postscript, he mentions that

others regard the issues of the authenticity and the reproducibility of the Pavilion as

significant, but he is unable to see why.161 One final remark: If it weren’t for the reproduction of the Pavilion, Evans’ interpretation wouldn’t have been possible. This consequently shows that the architectural “object” is the key to his interpretation rather than the work itself.

160 Ibid. p. 266. 161 Ibid. p. 272. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 104

4:2 The Anatomy of Bonta’s Interpretation

The opening of Bonta’s book has a rather curious element. I would like to quote it in

full:

This study is about the meaning of architecture--not about what architecture should mean, but about what it actually means for real people-–and, furthermore, about the ways in which pieces of architecture reach their meaning. One of the ways of finding this out is to review the available records about the reactions to a real building by real people: laymen, journalists, critics and historians.162

At first, I thought that Bonta’s reference to “real” people meant to the general public, the ordinary everyday folk, excluding the professionals in the field whose views might be contaminated by too much reading. But reading ahead I realized that his “real people” included not only the laymen but also the critics, the journalists, the historians, the architects, and even Mies himself. Furthermore, it appeared to me that he was trying to emphasize the importance of this matter by repeating the word “real”. This denotation is an important gesture of the metaphysics of presence.

Now, we could have easily started by the “affirmation” as a form of grounding, the affirmation of the “actuality” of meaning as a means of criticism, but “reality” as an indication of a presence has more weight. Reality is a form of grounding in which an origin is embedded. When something is real, its presence is more forceful than that which is “unreal”. A “real” person indicates a physical presence that erases doubt, and

162 Juan Pablo Bonta, Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 57. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 105

a “real” building reaffirms presence in the form of a concrete and objective reality, a

“real” object. The statement “a real building” then addresses a building as an object

present-at-hand.

Bonta’s affirmation of the actuality of meaning embeds modern elements within its

structure. Actually, the elements of modernity are traceable in his work. When he

published An Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation in 1975, the thrust of the modern tradition was still alive and well (it didn’t die on July 15, 1972 at 3:32pm, as stated by

Charles Jencks,163 and perhaps not even yet). One of the prominent goals of modernity was to find solutions to problems, to come up with answers, to create systems of operation that could cover a wide section of any discourse, if not all the discourse.

Bonta’s elaborated system attempts to typify the process of interpretation, to make it applicable to “the literature of other architectural landmarks.”164 Furthermore, Bonta

published his work in four languages all in the same book. It is clearly an attempt to

institutionalize architectural interpretation, and to make it spread worldwide, to

formulate a comprehensive method for interpretation. Yet, and as Richard Palmer

brings forward the irony in Gadamer’s title of “Truth and Method”, “method is not the

way to truth. On the contrary, truth eludes the methodical man. Understanding is not

conceived as a subjective process of man over and against an object, but the way of

being of man himself.”165

163 Charles Jencks, “What is Postmodernism”, in From Modernism to Postmodernism, ed. by Lawrence E. Cahoone (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 470. 164 Juan Pablo Bonta, Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 57. 165 Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics (Jacksonville: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 163. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 106

Bonta’s methodology consists of a recount of various interpretations of the Pavilion in different stages and by different people. Since his eight stages are derived from reviewing the literature of the Pavilion, the question concerning the validity of applying these stages to the interpretation of other architectural monuments comes to the fore. As

I stated earlier, his method violates even the conventional scientific approach of taking a wider section for analysis in order to define a methodology. The Pavilion is not even a

“typical” section (if there is such a thing) of the genre of architectural monuments. The set of events and the specific timeframe and context of the Pavilion, not to mention the fact that it was a temporary structure, all contributed to shape the approaches of its interpretation. This formulation does not allow a space for interaction between the interpretive approach and what is to be interpreted.

Yet, Bonta tries to establish a more scientific approach towards interpretation in which a system could act as the backdrop of an interpretive process.

“As in science, interpretations are cumulative to a certain point. But, also as in science (Kuhn, 1962), the cumulative process in architectural interpretation is interrupted from time to time by “revolutions” in which everything is restudied and rearranged.”166

As we already know, the scientific method is not alien to the operations of modern thought. It plays a constitutive part in formulating the outline of the modern approach.

This leads ultimately to the alienation of interpretation from what it is out to interpret.

Interpretation here is pre-defined, and is not allowed to be guided by the nature of what is to be understood. Yet, different from the interpretations of Evans and Quetglas,

166 Juan Pablo Bonta, Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 73. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 107

Bonta’s attempt is two times detached from the object itself, and deals with second hand resources, an objective and semiotic review of the criticism of the Pavilion. This detachment nevertheless is not one that moves away from the object, since the Pavilion remains the “object” of interpretation, but merely a detachment from the material characteristics of the Pavilion. The pre-formulation of a methodology is elaborated at the beginning of the text:

…it became apparent to me that [the] categories follow each other according to a certain internal logic, as in a dialectical process. They may occasionally overlap in time, and some texts may have to be considered as belonging to more than one stage. However, each of them seems to typify a certain stage in people’s interpretation of, or response to, a new architectural form. This led me to assume that the categories were applicable also to the literature of other architectural landmarks.167

There are four weak points in Bonta’s definition of his categories. First, he does not elaborate on the manner through which he arrived to decide on the chronology of the categories, it remained a hidden, internal logic. The second point is admitted by Bonta himself, that the categories overlap, and some are considered to belong to more than one stage. This fact uncovers an important aspect of interpretation, that it cannot be

“scientific”. The overlapping is of course inevitable. Interpretation is such a complex phenomenon that it cannot be reduced to a system. The third point reaffirms the tendency to formulate a scientific method through typifying the stages of interpretation, and the fourth point lies in the assumption. He assumed that the categories were applicable to the literature of other landmarks.

167 Ibid. p. 57. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 108

The cumulative probabilities in Bonta’s discourse raise doubts about the validity of his

interpretive process and about the validity of its application to other architectural

landmarks. In his concern with people’s response to a new form, Bonta misses the work

at the Pavilion. Bonta’s work in its formulation and dependency on other

interpretations whose authors already inherited prejudices about what is being

interpreted, is already contaminate by the operations of the metaphysical Presence. The

fore-structures of all the authors who interpreted the Pavilion, or even addressed it in

one sense or another cannot be taken as a reference without critical investigation. Even

though Bonta tries to criticize these former interpretations, his criticism remains within

the traditional framework of Western thought. This leads us back to the same situation

we faced in Evan’s case: “as soon as we use the concept of form--even to criticize another

concept of form--we must appeal to the evidence of a certain source of sense.”168

The metaphysics of presence is not restricted to the sense of reality that Bonta is trying to subscribe to. It also shapes the fundamental understanding of the nature of interpretation and its task. The task of interpretation in Bonta’s case becomes nothing more than the compilation and classification of previous interpretations in a corpus that is systematically organized. Yet there remain interesting insights in his 9th category,

which is his own re-interpretation of what he discussed in the previous categories. It

seems here that Bonta touches upon some critical issues concerning the changing

perspectives of interpretation through history. In his assessment of this issue, he makes

two important breakthroughs:

168 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 108. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 109

The fact that interpretation of architecture changes with time shows that the ways in which forms are perceived by society never depend solely on the forms themselves (Prieto, 1973, 1974). Consequently, the meaning of architecture cannot be simply equated with what the designer “wanted to communicate”. Interpretation becomes semiotically more relevant than the design or the creation of the form. Designers may have definite intentions about meaning, but they cannot assume that form will be interpreted with the same code as the one operating at the time of designing.169

Interestingly enough, Bonta marks two important points, the first is that the form is not

decisive in the process of interpretation, and the second is that the architect’s intention

remains inconsequential compared to the architectural work itself. These points

nevertheless remain on that level and are not elaborated. The semiotics of interpretation

is more important to him than the work itself. Semiotics as we know is tightly

connected with structuralism, and post-structuralist theory. But here we do not need to

go into the ramifications of these issues because Bonta himself raises the main problem

with this approach while commenting on an interpretation of the Pavilion by Giovani

Klaus Koenig. Koenig describes the Pavilion as an empty or neutral space, and that

political significance could be attached to the building by using additional signals. So,

the Pavilion could have easily accepted a fascist or a Marxist symbol as easily as any

other. This according to Bonta raises the two main problems in semiotics. The first is

the distinction between signals and indicators, and the second is the presence of a level

of articulation with two articulating elements: the architectural space and the political

signals, which would then have to enter into combinations.170

Disappointingly, Bonta closes his text only after making a very important remark:

169 Juan Pablo Bonta, Anatomy of Architectural Interpretation (Barcelona: S.A. Publishers, 1975), p. 75. 170 Ibid. p. 78. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 110

Meaning is presented as dependant on the interpreter’s cultural background, thus highlighting the fact that semiotic analyses cannot be reduced to merely studying dyadic relations (form/meaning), but must cope with-–at least--triadic ones: form/interpreter/meaning.171

This remark realizes the importance of the preconceptions that are operating in the interpreter’s background. Yet, for Bonta, it remains a matter of adding this phenomenon as merely a triadic variable to the form/content relationship. This fact draws Bonta back into the scientific mainstream of interpetation, because he himself has not addressed his own presuppositions in the process of interpretation.

Bonta raises many important points in his interpretive analysis. The first is that forms are not the fundamental concern in the interpretive process, yet they remain and integral part for him. The second is the fact that the architect’s intention becomes inconsequential, especially over time, compared with the work. The third is the semiotic problem of interpretation and the fourth is the importance of the interpreter’s own background, which plays a part in shaping the interpretation.

Even though Bonta touches upon all these points, he nevertheless is not decisive about the manner of their operation. Form for him still plays an important role in the interpretive process but the manner through which it does so remains ambiguous, and the interpreter’s presuppositions act only as a third something operating in some undefined way in the interpretive equation.

171 Ibid. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 111

In the beginning of the text, I mentioned that we could have easily started with the affirmation of the actuality of meaning as a means for criticism. Bonta’s notion of

“actuality” also reaffirms his adherence to the line of thought that searches for a ground, for an origin.

What does the expression “actual” mean here? To us it is what is in truth. The true is what corresponds to the actual, and the actual is what is in truth. The circle has closed again.172

Indeed, the circle has closed again. In referring to the actual or present object, interpretation is forced to take certain routes that are generated by this objectification.

This eventually leads to a dead end. Bonta mentioned that the categories were derived from his analysis of the Pavilion. There is one more specific issue concerning the

Pavilion as an architectural object, and which challenges Bonta’s categories: Eleven yeas after he published his book, the Pavilion was reconstructed on the same site.

172 Martin Heidegger Basic Writings, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY, 1993. From the essay The Origin of the Work of Art. p.175. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 112

4:3 The Theatre of Cruelty

In the first page, Quetglas opens with Rafael Moneo commenting on his work. It seems like an homage (or establishing credibility) for Quetglas. Moneo writes:

Quetglas suggests that the artist or architect does not control his or her works completely; rather the artist or architect intuits what he or she wants to say but seldom finds a way of saying it, being, at the end, an instrument, though a relevant one, in the making of the work which he or she only partly governs.173

It is a remarkable comment by Moneo concerning the role of the artist or the architect in bringing about the work. Yet he mentions that the artist or the architect partly

“governs” the making of the work. What interests us here though is not Moneo’s comment as much as Quetglas’ procedure. In discussing the Pavilion, and in opposition to Moneo’s statement, Quetglas draws heavily on Mies’s intention in creating the work.

This reliance on intention does not let the work be what it is. It remains connected to the intention of the architect. This is the first indication concerning the fore-having of

Quetglas. It indicates that Quetglas is presupposing that the pavilion is to be seen from the architect’s perspective.

In his Overture, Quetglas has a dual theme. The first is the analogy with the theatre

(since the Barcelona Pavilion has been frequently compared with a stage, an empty stage), and the second is the definition of his boundaries or the two poles between which

173 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 9. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 113 his interpretation is located, namely “emptiness”, by portraying Jesus casting out the merchants from the temple, and the “future” from Kavafis’ poem, the future that only the gods know. The first boundary is an attempt to create an analogy between the emptiness of the Pavilion and that of the Temple, the Doric Temple, the empty house of

“God”. Quetglas affirms that anyone who wishes to discuss the stage that Mies built in

Barcelona has to repeat these two words.

And indeed, the emptiness of the Pavilion is one of its most important aspects. But the relation between this emptiness and the workly character of the work is to be discussed later. The other boundary, the Future, remains shy in playing the role assigned to it by

Quetglas. First let us try to follow his work and the manner through which he composes the elements of his interpretation.

Quetglas forms the chain of reasoning, which, according to him, Mies went through when he was commissioned to design the Pavilion at Barcelona: “His chain of reasoning ran thus: a stage is required for the inaugural ceremony; the stage must represent the

German house; the German house is the modern house; how should the modern house be designed?”174 There is always a high improbability in Quetglas’ interpretation. He assumes a lot, and builds on this assumption. After assuming Mies’s line of thought,

Quetglas raises the question concerning the shape of the modern. On the shape of the modern there is another set of assumptions based on his personal analysis. The modern is that which is not old. The modern anachronises the present.

174 Ibid. p. 32. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 114

The other section of his discussion addresses the term “project.” The word “project”

itself means to throw forward. This will place the one who throws somewhere behind

that which is to be thrown. All projects then come from behind. On this basis, the term

“modern project” is a paradoxical statement. The modern house then is the house

where I do not belong. The third question becomes: What is the house where I do not

belong?

Until now, there are two sets of suppositions, one is claimed to be the line of thought of

Mies, and the second is the analysis of the term “modern project.” Now Quetglas

concludes that if the modern house is the house that excludes me, It means that it

resembles the house of God. From this literary figure, he goes on to decide that the

“modern house is like the house of God.”175 Now which house of what God was man denied through history? It would be the house of the Greek gods, specifically, the Doric

Temple, the forbidden house. Quetglas ultimately concludes that “Yes, the German

Pavilion would be a Doric Temple.”176

It is a laborious process based on a composition of suppositions, and, more than that, presuppositions. Quetglas needs the Pavilion to be a Temple, and specifically, a Doric

Temple. Without the Pavilion being a Temple, the first boundary will be a weak link in his interpretation. By being a Doric Temple, the Pavilion expels man, or now the modern man, from it. The Pavilion is the house where I don’t belong. This is why the

175 Ibid. p. 36. 176 Ibid. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 115 modern house “should” be compared to the house of God, the God that denies my entrance to His house; and consequently it becomes the empty house.

The emptiness of the Pavilion has always been an issue for the interpreters. Each as we have seen gave it a certain meaning; yet these did not spring from emptiness itself, but were always an imposition of some sort, originating outside the emptiness, or rather in another “presence.”

In the case of Quetglas this is also the case. The emptiness of the Pavilion could gain a critical meaning only if the Pavilion was compared to a Doric Temple. The Doric

Temple was not the house of the congregation, but the forbidden house. In this case, the emptiness that was caused by Jesus when he cast out the traders from the temple could be coupled with the emptiness of the Doric Temple, where the God would deny the human presence inside, and consequently with the Pavilion as the empty house. Here, we went back to emptiness, the first boundary. It seems that the decision which was made in the Overture was guiding the interpretive operation of Quetglas. But the question is: Would his interpretation have taken this route if it weren’t for that a priori decision? Of emptiness more will be said later.

In the second scene another controversial matter shows itself: The Ionic columns in front of the Pavilion. In his interpretation, Quetglas ascribes the eight ionic columns to the

Pavilion. Even though he recognized that they weren’t designed by Mies, Quetglas says that Mies incorporated the columns in his design by way of a collage. This second attachment appears to be another attempt to reaffirm that the Pavilion is a Doric Temple, Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 116 necessary to his interpretation. Yet, Quetglas recognizes the difficulty in convincing his readers by his supposition:

Perhaps my assigning of the row of columns to the pavilion did not convince you. You might think that if Mies designed and built the structure which has always been drawn, photographed and portrayed in plates as the German Pavilion without the row of columns, it is capricious on my part to add it to the architecture of the pavilion.177

In his attempt to establish a connection between the Pavilion and the Doric Temple,

Quetglas resorts to another strategy: formal structure. Establishing a formal consistency between the Pavilion and the Doric Temple would balance his theory. And yet, there remains another complementary question: “If the pavilion is a Doric Temple, why should the row of columns be built on one side only?”178 Quetglas’ answer is that the other three sides are unnecessary and never will be seen.

The fact that Quetglas depends on the formal aspects of the building to construct his theory, the driving concept behing his interpretation comes to the fore. Quetglas’ interpretation utilizes the concept of form and content in an attempt to bring coherence to his structure. Yet, it seems that Quetglas himself is not aware of this matter. He utilizes the concept of form and content as if it was a matter-of-fact.

This dependency on the form/matter concept is consistent through his interpretation. It recurs in different places and in different occasions. One example is in his analysis of the monument of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, where he mentions that “the

177 Ibid. p. 40. 178 Ibid. p. 42. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 117

project was ignored both because of its political content and form--although this

expression is misleading, as content is always a part of form.”179

Quetglas’ understanding of the function of the form/content concept is similar to the traditional understanding discussed earlier in Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art”.

The importance assigned to the formal characteristics of the Pavilion highlight the difference between “thing” and “work.” The workly nature of the work should never be viewed from the point of view of the thingly nature of the thing. Rather, and as mentioned before, “the thingly feature in the work should not be denied, but if it belongs admittedly to the work being of the work, it must be conceived by way of the work’s workly nature.”180

In discussing the Stairs of the Pavilion, Quetglas again resorts to the form/content

concept. He mentions that the site’s lack of depth made frontal steps an impracticable

solution. “Yet the problem was one of content rather than form.”181 Mies’s stair

resembles the stairs of Schinkel. The theater, Quetglas claims, is the model for both Mies

and Schinkel. Later he asserts the coincidence of two “formal” references in the

Pavilion, the Doric Temple, and the theatre, the Pavilion as a stage. The analogy with

the theater here also attempts to create a correlation between the structure of his

interpretation composed in acts and scenes as in a play, the theatricality of the Pavilion

as an empty stage, and the Doric Temple again. It is an attempt to bring together all the

179 Ibid. p. 105. 180 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 165. 181 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 47. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 118 elements of his interpretation into one coherent body through formal correlations. Yet, this formality does not allow the elements of interpretation to take shape from that which it is seeking to interpret, but rather forces its different elements into a preconceived, predetermined line of thought that remains undisclosed within the text.

In the Second Act, Scene Two, Quetglas makes a third form/matter correlation. The first question he asks is: “What is the Pavilion made of?”182 The traditional answer that the

Pavilion is made up of stone, glass and iron does not satisfy him. He rather asserts that the Pavilion is made up of reflections. These reflections are caused by the reflective qualities of the formal materials of the Pavilion, which allow such an interpretation to occur. In this case, the reflective content of the materials used in the Pavilion determines its identity as “The Palace of Reflections.” In Derrida’s words, “Form is presence itself.

Formality is what is presented, visible, and conceivable of the thing is general.”183

Quetglas then takes the Pavilion as an object present-at-hand with the vocabulary and structure of metaphysical Presence operating within the text. As in the case of Evans,

Quetglas’ interpretation forces the Pavilion into a preconceived framework that obstructs the workly character of its work. His presuppositions were the driving force behind his interpretation, and he didn’t allow the Pavilion, or the work in the Pavilion, to be.

182 Ibid. p. 95. 183 Jacques Derrida, “Form and Meaning” in Speech and Phenomena (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973) p. 108. Chapter 4: Deconstructing the Texts 119

The cruelty in Quetglas’ interpretation takes two shapes. The first is through the preconceptions that give rise to his presuppositions, and the other is by assaulting the workly nature of the work through resorting to the concept of form and matter. This disclosed dual theme, one that Quetglas himself is not aware of, and which lies hidden, while on the surface it looks like interpretation is simply running its course. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 120

Chapter 5: Closure!!!

And yet, we need to reach a point that sums up the work. A sort of a conclusion. But isn’t the conclusion an essential part of the operations of the metaphysical Presence?

Actually, haven’t we already concluded the moment we began? And didn’t this closure in turn insure an opening up of something else?

In discussing the issue of “writing”, Jacques Derrida draws upon an important discourse that lies within the text and beyond the book. The opening of the text requires a closure of the book. The question of writing then could be opened only if the book was closed.

Yet this closure of the book is what insures the opening of the text. It is not a closure that describes a limit, but rather one that allows an opening-up. This closure is what allows us to come back to the book, to repeat its epoch. This repetition does not reissue the book, in other words, it doesn’t take us back to the book itself and enclose us within; it is a moment of wandering. It opens up a writing of the origin which no longer belongs to the origin itself. This repetition then is the first writing. It is “the writing of the origin, the writing that retraces the origin, tracking down the signs of its disappearance, the lost writing of the origin”.1 But what does this discussion have to do with ours? Actually, a lot.

1 Jacques Derrida, “Ellipses”, in Writing and Difference (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 294, 295. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 121

Before we venture further, there remains a difference in the manner through which

Derrida addresses the issue of writing and the manner that the issue of architecture is

approached. This difference lies in the fact that architecture is not writing. This

discussion is similar to ours in terms of its structure. In the same manner that Derrida

introduces another type of writing, the first writing, the archē-writing, to dislocate the traditional mode of writing as replacing something in its absence—we write because we cannot speak, the absent person is brought to Presence through writing—the re/moval does the same thing. The removal of the physical object, i.e. the Pavilion, wasn’t incorporated in the interpretations of the Bonta, Evans and Quetglas. All of them reintroduced the Pavilion as an object into their interpretation. All these traditional interpretations sought to recover the comfortable zone of the “proper”, by reintroducing the Pavilion, and thus, missing the opportunity of the “missing” object. The re/moval on the other hand takes advantage of this accident. This re/moval though is not the same as the removal of something from one place to the other, but rather, like Derrida’s arché-writing, operates on a more fundamental level. It poses the same questions and opens up the same dimensions. The issue of writing is similar to that of architecture in that both of them require an attitude towards understanding and interpretation that involves the redefinition of our presuppositions. Similar to the question of writing, the question of the architectural work could be opened only if the architectural object and even the work itself is re/moved. The re/moved work seems to shake within a zone of re/moval, within the possibility of loosing its “too firm” ground. But hasn’t this already happened? The work that is at work at the Barcelona Pavilion has been resisting that particular form of interpretation that the tradition has directed towards it. It was already at work the moment we stopped asking about it and let it be what it is. Even Chapter 5: Closure!!! 122 though it is “present”, this presence is in a particular way that cannot be handled by the traditional concepts of form and matter, nor any other traditional method. The presencing of the work could only be grasped once the work works. It is not a Presence in the metaphysical sense, but rather a presence that is made present by way of the work.

It is this peculiar movement of presencing that will allow us to break out of the loop.

The work re/moved and was re/moved at the same time. To be re/moved requires a movement that leaves behind a trace of something that has not been “Present”. It requires first a movement into that space, where there was no Presence, and then a re- movement that leaves nothing behind but a trace of what hasn’t been. It is not the absence that manifests itself in that space, but rather a trace. This trace though is not a

“Presence”, but rather a replacement of some sort, a presencing of the work. Derrida reflects:

But what disposes it in this way, we now know, is not the origin, but that which takes its place; which is not, moreover, the opposite of origin. It is not absence instead of presence, but a trace which replaces a presence which has never been present, an origin by means of which nothing has begun.2

This is the peculiar presence of the work. The re/moved work points in that direction.

The architectural work has been re/moved; it has even been removed from the body of the thesis, and remained a promise of an opening, a saving grace. The reason for this re/moval is an attempt to avoid introducing before hand that which we are seeking to find, and consequently do violence to it. If the concept of work was elaborated within

2 Ibid. p. 295. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 123

the text, then it would have predefined the manner through which we would perceive

the end, and it would denote a closure, the closure of the work itself, which in turn

would close up the clearing within which the work works. This re/moval is intentional

in the sense that foreshadows a happening of truth, an unconcealment in the

Heideggerian sense. Such unconcealment will allow us to understand “world” as

“opening up” a space for man, and “earth” as “self-concealing” within the opening up of

the world.

For this reason, the re/moval of the work becomes necessary. Without this re/moval

the self-subsistence of the work will not be able to display itself. It will always be forced

into preconceived frameworks that will obstruct our access to the work-being of the

work. Yet, and in this re/moval, since it is not a removal in the traditional sense,

something always remains, something that hasn’t been there. This peculiar quality of

the work constitutes the driving force behind our access to the work itself.

Heidegger asserts: “To gain access to the work, it would be necessary to remove it from

all relations to something other than itself, in order to let it stand on its own for itself

alone.”3 To remove the work from all relations is an impossible task, because it is essential for the work to stand in relations.4 So, here lies a dilemma: How can the work be removed from all relations, and yet stand in relations? But the work belongs only to that realm opened up by itself. So, its detachment from its material relations does not place it in a space where nothing exists, but rather, the relations that are opened up by

3 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 165. 4 Ibid. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 124 the work are related to it by the virtue of this opening up. This is exactly the re/moval.

It is in the opening up of “world” and “earth”, which are related to the work through this opening up.

This re/moval, though, is not as simple as expelling any presence from the Pavilion.

What is left is not the absence of the presence, as we would be inclined to think. This is where the discourse of Peter Eisenman finds its thrust. Eisenman takes the Barcelona

Pavilion as a system of signs. Yet, Eisenman’s discourse on Mies’s work and its textuality has an element of contamination, or rather a misreading. While claiming to resort to deconstruction in addressing the notion of the sign in architecture – whether present or absent – Eisenman seems to work with a structuralist concept of the sign. He suggests that “as opposed to language, where signs represent ‘absent’ objects, in architecture the sign and the object are both present.”5 The textuality that will be found in architecture is revealed when the symbol and the form are extracted from the object.6

But going back to Derrida, this understanding of the function or the role of the sign is inadequate and finds its roots in the structuralist concept of the sign.

Let us begin with the problem of signs and writing – since we are already in the midst of it. We ordinarily say that a sign is put in place of the thing itself, the present thing – “thing holding here for the sense as well as the referent. Signs represent the present in its absence; they take the place of the present.7

The problem here is that the concept of the sign is dependent upon and determined by

Presence. Through replacing what is already there, the sign attempts to replace the

5 Peter Eisenman, Re:Working Eisenman (London: Academy Group, LTD,1993), p. 11. 6 Ibid. 7 Jacques Derrida, “Difference”, in Speech and Phenomena (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 138. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 125

Presence in its absence. It attempts to retrieve the “proper” situation that does not threaten the conditions of its comfortable Presence. Eisenman’s reading depends on the validity of the primary definition of the sign, as representing something in its absence.

The representation of the presence has been constituted in the system.

The work has two essential features. First, to be a work means to set up a “world”. The

“world” is the ever-nonobjective to which we as humans belong. It is not the mere collection of the countable or uncountable, familiar and unfamiliar things that are at hand.8 This means that the world in this sense is different than what we usually understand by, and associate with, all the objects that are present in the world. Second, the work is a setting forth. What is set forth is what we usually or traditionally understand by as “production.”9

But here, the full strength of the work comes to the fore. Because production is a common characteristic of both equipment and work, a work sets itself apart from equipment through a certain characteristic. The basic quality of the equipment lies in its serviceability. Equipment is expected to perform a specific task. The materials are used in their production and at the same time they are used up. By contrast, the work does not use up the material. The material is never present in the work. In fact, the material comes into being as the material that it is by virtue of the work-being of the work.

8 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 170. 9 Ibid. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 126

The self-seclusion of the work is what differentiates it from equipment. In equipment,

the earth is used in a manner to bring forward the elements of use and serviceability. In

a work, earth is set free to be nothing except what it is. When the production of a piece

of equipment is finished, the equipment has another task, which is that of use. In this

use, the equipment is released beyond itself. But a work is rather different than

equipment in that it is not released beyond what it is. “However, in the work,

createdness is expressly created into the created being, so that it stands out from it, from

the being thus brought forth, in an expressly particular way”.10

The createdness of the work does not become something else, usefulness for example, it remains what it is. Through the work, createdness shows itself, whereas through equipment, createdness is disclosed. But here we pay attention to an important quality of the work. The work remains something that has been created. So it is impossible to arrive to the workly character of the work, unless first we pass through the artist and his activity. Yet, the creative process should not be viewed from the point of view of creation itself, but rather from the work-being of the work. The other route will eventually lead into modern subjectivism, the concept of genius and the work as the product of the performance of the intellect of a capable person. It is only in the work’s self-subsistence that the happening of truth occurs. As impartial as the artist should remain in the process of createdness, he still is an integral part of the process of creation itself.

10 Ibid. p. 190. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 127

For this reason, the exploration of the development of the architect was essential in the

process of understanding. Though it is not that which speaks of the work, the work

passed through it. Mies’s life and thought played an important role in the happening of

truth, yet the happening of truth does not depend on this matter. Rather, the happening

of truth shaped the life and thought of Mies afterwards.

It was a long circle, but we had to pass through it in order to arrive to the work itself. As

opposed to other buildings, the Barcelona Pavilion holds an important character which

sets its workly character to work. It does not get used up. Rather, it opens up that

realm, that clearing through this character. Different than other buildings that are built

solely for the purpose of use and serviceability, the Pavilion has no proper function. It

wasn’t created to be used for something. Even though King Alfonso was supposed to

sign the Golden Book in the Pavilion, the Pavilion wasn’t designed for the signing of the

Book. In the Pavilion, there remained an element beyond use. This is the first indication

of the workly character in the Pavilion. The Pavilion encloses nothing. It stands there in

the clearing on its own cutting all ties with human beings.

All the interpreters agree that the Pavilion is a space denied for human beings. Evans

compares it to a desert,11 Quetglas to a labyrinth of screens,12 and Manfredo Tafuri calls it a place of absence, and a forest of pure data.13 But in the process, each of these

interpreters assigns a certain message to this denial. Their explanations nevertheless

11 Robin Evans, “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries”, in Translations From Drawing to Building (London: Architectural Association Publishers, 1997), p. 255. 12 Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass, Mies van der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona (Basel: Birkhäser Publishers for Architecture, 2001), p. 69. 13 Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1995, p. 111-112. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 128 remain grounded in their fore-having. Each of these interpreters as we saw had a pre- determined route for thought. Thinking wasn’t allowed to be itself, but rather it was made to follow something else. Whether it is the methodology in case of Bonta, the critical theory in case of Evans, or the form/content concept in case of Quetglas, the work in the Pavilion wasn’t allowed to work. But the self-sustenance and the sense of denial in the Pavilion open up the first indication of the work.

The more solitary the work, fixed in the figure, stands on its own and the more cleanly it seems to cut all ties to human beings, the more simply does the thrust come into the open that such a work is, and the more essentially is the extraordinary thrust to the surface and what is long-familiar thrust down. But this multiple thrusting is not violent, for the more purely the work is itself transposed into the openness of beings – an openness opened by itself – the more simply does it transport us into that this openness and thus at the same time transport us out of the realm of the ordinary.14

The denial in the Pavilion highlighted the thrust of its workly character. In the Pavilion there is no exposition, no function, no sense of direction and no service. The elements stand there on their own and only for their own. The column becomes a column, the wall a wall, and water becomes water. Even the presence of anthropomorphic objects such as the chairs brings the chairs into focus, such that they deny the element of serviceability and stare back at you. They expel you as a human to sit, relax and take their presence for granted. In their formal presence, which is not at all present, they maintain a trace of something else, something that we as humans cannot utilize functionally.

14 Martin Heidegger “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 191. Chapter 5: Closure!!! 129

Water in the Pavilion does not have a function, it is detached from our use, it is re/moved from its “proper”, its conventional understanding, and for the first time, comes forward as “water”. The same is true for the chair in the Pavilion, it is also re/moved from its “proper” use, and does not invite us to sit down: Thus, it comes forward as a “chair”, by virtue the “work”. The wall does not sit there for a function, it separates nothing, and it joins nothing: It stares back at us through the shimmering tint of its smooth reflective surface, and through this re/moval, we see it as a wall. The cruciform columns that stand beside the marble hold nothing, they support nothing, they stand there in the clearing of space, and they come forward as columns; and they do so by virtue of the “work”. Travertine and marble, sculpture and light are re/moved from their “proper”, and we see them as the things they are, by virtue of the work.

The world that the Pavilion, then, sets up is brought to light by this workly character.

The Pavilion does not become a political message, an aesthetic object or a sign that replaces something in its absence; but rather, it becomes itself. Through this becoming, the chair in the Pavilion becomes a chair, the pool a pool, and sculpture becomes sculpture. In the Pavilion, art becomes itself. In the Pavilion, the world that is opened up by virtue of its work, worlds. The worlding of the world is in being more than the tangible realm that is discussed by the different interpretations of the Pavilion.

But in the same way that the Pavilion as a work opens up these dimensions, it sets itself back into the marble, glass, steel and water. It recedes into the elements of the earth and hides. In this hiding, the work makes itself apparent, but inaccessible. This is the property of “earth”; in the “opening up” it is “self-concealing.” This is basically the Chapter 5: Closure!!! 130 reason why the Pavilion was resisting any presence of a human being. The presence stands against its workly character. The essence of its workly character expels any form of presence and cuts out the human intuition for use. Moreover, this denial was intensified by the removal of the physical object itself. Here the temporality of the structure accentuated its sense of denial. The removal of the material object highlighted the property of uselessness to a great degree, and the Pavilion, according to Bonta,

Evans, Quetglas and others was hailed as a masterpiece of the 20th century.

The work is nothing present; it is not an object, nor the material qualities of the object.

The Pavilion, in its self-denial, transposes us into the realm that it opens up by virtue of this denial, not by an association with something other than itself. It is not a system of signs that represent something else. It is not matter co-posited and regulated by form.

The work opens up the tension between “world” as an “opening up,” and “earth” as

“self-concealing.” What is in the Pavilion is not “form” and “matter” then. What is in the pavilion turns into “earth”. We can only grasp the “earth” as self-concealing when we also grant it the opening up of the “world”. In the same manner, the work cannot come to appearance, to an “opening up,’ unless there was a background of

“concealment.”

The Pavilion challenges us to put into question the traditional sense of Presence by showing us that its re/moval cannot be understood merely as an absence dependent on a presence. It is not matter that is shifted from one place to the other. It is hiding within the elements of the earth.

Chapter 5: Closure!!! 131

Through the re/moval of the object and the work in the Barcelona Pavilion, the work is allowed to work. The work works because it denies any presence. The work opens up a world and is related to that world by virtue of this opening-up. The work sets forth an earth that conceals itself. The self-denial that is opened up by virtue of the work lets earth become earth, and nothing else. In the Pavilion everything is let-be to be what it is. Bibliography 132

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