The Politics of Friends in Modern Architecture, 1949-1987”
Title: “The politics of friends in modern architecture, 1949-1987”
Name of candidate: Igea Santina Troiani, B. Arch, B. Built Env.
Supervisor: Professor Jennifer Taylor
This thesis was submitted as part of the requirements for the award of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the
School of Design, Queensland University of Technology
in 2005
i Key words
Architecture - modern architecture; History – modern architectural history, 1949-1987; Architects - Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi, Elia Zenghelis, Rem Koolhaas, Philosophy - Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship; Subversive collaboration
ii Abstract
This thesis aims to reveal paradigms associated with the operation of Western architectural oligarchies. The research is an examination into “how” dominant architectural institutions and their figureheads are undermined through the subversive collaboration of younger, unrecognised architects. By appropriating theories found in Jacques Derrida’s writings in philosophy, the thesis interprets the evolution of post World War II polemical architectural thinking as a series of political friendships.
In order to provide evidence, the thesis involves the rewriting of a portion of modern architectural history, 1949-1987. Modern architectural history is rewritten as a series of three friendship partnerships which have been selected because of their subversive reaction to their respective establishments. They are English architects, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; South African born architect and planner, Denise Scott Brown and North American architect, Robert Venturi; and Greek architect, Elia Zenghelis and Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas.
Crucial to the undermining of their respective enemies is the friends’ collaboration on subversive projects. These projects are built, unbuilt and literary. Warring publicly through the writing of seminal texts is a significant step towards undermining the dominance of their ideological opponents. It also appears that through the making of these projects, the unrecognised architects are able to convert themselves to being recognised as new figureheads.
This thesis contends that as a consequence of the power within each of the three friendship partnerships, the architects are enabled to collaborate against the dominant ideology of their respective enemies and gain status. It also contends that a cycle of friendship and warring is the political system by which the institution of modern architecture has historically reengineered itself to suit the times.
iii Table of Contents
page Key words…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………….. ii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………. iii List of illustrations…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. viii-x Statement of original authorship……………………………………………………………………………………………………. xi Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….xii
Chapter One An analysis of politics in architecture………………………. 2
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……….3-4 Motives ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………....……… 4-5 Contentions …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……….6 Original contribution ……………………………………………………………………………………………....…………. 6-7 Clarifications …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……. 7 Definitions…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7-10 Nomenclature………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 10 Representation of history………………………………………………………………………………….. 10-12 Limitations ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……… 13-20 Review of literature …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20-21 Background…………………………………………………………………….………………………………………… 21 Ideology and aesthetics……………………………………………………………………… 21-24 Truth……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 24-26 Politics ………………………………………………………………………………………………….……. 26-28 Conflict……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 29 Fame…………………………………….……………………………………………………………………… 29-31 Collaboration..…………………………………………………………………………………………. 31-35 Topic……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 36 The Smithsons……………………………………………………………………………………….. 36-39 Scott Brown and Venturi……………………………………………………………………. 39-43 Zenghelis and Koolhaas…………………………………………………………………….. 43-46 Learning from the literature review……………………………………………………………….. 47 Method and thesis structure …………………………………………………………………………………………. 47-49
iv Chapter Two Making friends with Derrida………………………………………….. 50-53
A subversive text – Politics of friendship, 1997……………………………….………….……….…. 53-54 On “primary” subversive friendship……………………………………………..……………….. 55-59 The death of friends…………………………………………………………………..………………………… 59-61 The need for the enemy……………………………………………………………..…………………….. 62-64 Complaint in friendship ………………………………………………………………..……………………. 64-65 The institution, friendship and warring………………………………………..………….…… 65-69 Publishing names in the public sphere…………………………………..………………….. 69-73 The fraternity – fathers, brothers and sisters…………………………..…………….…. 74-76 Breaking secrecy………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………. 76-77
Chapter Three Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, 1949-1993…………………………………………………………………… 78-79
Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson’s subversive collaboration……………….… 79-81 The Smithsons architectural inheritances………………………………………….………….…….…… 81-84 Collaborating on a subversive building – Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Norfolk, 1950-1954………………….…………….………….….…………… 85- 90 Making friends in the IG…………………………………………………………………………………….…………….… 90-99 Collaborating on two subversive exhibitions – Parallel of Life and Art, 1953 and “Patio and Pavilion exhibit”, 1956…………………… 99-103 From IG to CIAM…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……… 104-108 Collaborating on a subversive design and a book - Golden Lane Housing Competition, 1952 and Ordinariness and light, 1970…………. 108-111 Making friends in Team X, 1953……………………………………………………………………….…………… 111-113 Team X war with CIAM…………………………………………………………………………………….……….….…… 113-120 The death of CIAM, 1959……………………………………………………………………………….………….……… 121-122 Collaborating on a subversive book – Team 10 primer, 1968……….…… 122-126 The architectural legacies of the Smithsons……………………………………….………….………… 126-130
Photo illustrated history of the Smithsons ………………………………………………….……………. unpaginated
v Chapter Four Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, 1967-……………….……………………………………………………………. 131-132
Scott Brown’s architectural inheritances………………………………………….………………………… 132-137 Venturi’s architectural inheritances………………………………………………………………….…………… 137-141 Learning from America………………………………………………………………………….……………………….…. 142-143 Making friends with Venturi……………………………………………………………………………….…………… 143-144 A subversive book – Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1966………………………………. 144-146 Warring with Mies van der Rohe and Blake…………………….………………………………………. 146-150 Making friends with Scully and Blake…………………………………………………….……………………. 150-153 Warring with the Smithsons………………………………………………………………….……………………….… 154-156 Making friends in Las Vegas…………………………………………………………………………..…….………… 156-159 Scott Brown and Venturi’s “primary” collaboration……………………………….……………… 159-160 Collaborating on two subversive research studios, an exhibition and a book – “Learning from Las Vegas” studio, 1968; “Learning from Levittown” studio, 1970; Learning from Las Vegas, 1972; and Signs of life exhibition, 1976 …………………………………………………………………… 160-171 The death of Post-Modernist architectural philosophy……………………………….……….. 172 The architectural legacies of Post-Modernist critiques…………………………….………… 173
Photo illustrated history of Scott Brown and Venturi ………………………………..……….… unpaginated
Chapter Five Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas, 1975-1987………………………………………………………………….. 174-176
Zenghelis’s architectural inheritances…………………………………………………….…………………… 176-178 Koolhaas’s architectural inheritances…………………………………………………….…………………… 178-181 Two subversive student designs – Berlin wall as architecture, 1970 and Exodus, 1972……………………………… 181-185 Learning from America………………………………………………………………………….………………………..… 185-187
vi Collaborating on a series of subversive designs – the Manhattan projects, 1972-1976………………………………………………………….…… 187-194 A subversive book – Delirious New York, 1972-1978…………………………… 194-197 Warring over Europe versus America……………………………………………………….………………… 198-200 Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s collaboration – early OMA, 1975 ……………….…………… 200-205 The death of early OMA……………………………………………………………….………………….…………..…… 205-207 The legacies of early OMA …………………………………………………………….………………………..……… 207-212
Photo illustrated history of Zenghelis and Koolhaas ………………………………….……….. unpaginated
Chapter Six Learning from modern architectural history, 1949-1987……………………………………………………………………..……….. 213-214
“Primary” subversive friendship in modern architectural history……………………… 214-218 Inheriting from the fathers of modern architecture………………………………………………… 218-219 The Smithsons inherit from the European Moderns………………………………. 219-222 Scott Brown and Venturi inherit from the European Moderns and their progeny……………………………………………………………………….………………………….……… 222-223 Early OMA inherit from the Moderns and their progeny………………………. 223-225 Enemies in modern architectural history……………………………………………………………………. 225-228 Complaints in modern architectural history……………………………………………………………… 228-231 Collaborating with friends to war against enemies………………………………………………… 231-241 The ethics of friends……………………………………………………………………………………………… 242-244 Learning from the landscape………………………………………………………………………….… 244-247 Publishing names in the public sphere………………………………………………………………………… 247-253 The death of friends……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 253-256 The death of the “modern project”…………………………………………………… …………… 256-258 The institution of modern architecture and a cycle of friendship and warring…………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….. 258-259
List of references ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 260-291
vii List of illustrations
All of the illustrations in the thesis are collaged photographs. Copyright of these collages is in accordance with the relevant copyright laws as outlined in the Copyright Act 1968 Section 40. The photographs have been grouped into three photo illustrated histories.
Photo illustrated history of the Smithsons'
Photograph 1: (Left to right) Peter Smithson and Alison Smithson in front of the book cover image of Jacques Derrida’s Politics of friendship.
Photograph 2: (Left to right) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Peter Smithson, Alison Gill and Le Corbusier at an exhibition of Peter Smithson’s Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1948 (top left); and Alison Gill’s, Royal Academy Museum, London, 1948 (top right).
Photograph 3: (Left to right) Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson and Mies van der Rohe in front of the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, 1950-1954.
Photograph 4: “Group 6”- (Left to right) Alison Smithson, Nigel Henderson, Peter Smithson and Eduardo Paolozzi at Parallel of life and art exhibition, 1953.
Photograph 5: “Group 6”- (Left to right) Peter Smithson, Alison Smithson, Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi at “Patio and Pavilion exhibit”, 1956.
Photograph 6: (Left to right) Nigel and Judith Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter and Alison Smithson in the “Famous Graphic” collage for the Golden Lane Housing Competition, 1952.
Photograph 7: (Left to right) Ernesto Rogers and Alison Smithson in front of the Smithsons’ “Urban Reidentification” grid presented at CIAM IX, Aix-en-Provence, 1953.
Photograph 8: (Left to right) Jakob B. (Jaap) Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Alison Smithson (in red) and Peter Smithson saluting Le Corbusier who sits on the stairs of Unité d’Habitation, 1953.
Photograph 9: At CIAM 1959, Otterlo (Left to right) Peter and Alison Smithson, John Voelcker, Bakema, Sandy van Ginkel, van Eyck and Blanche Lemco hold a CIAM wreath.
Photograph 10: In Peter Smithson’s 1958 visit to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, (Left to right) Mies van der Rohe and Peter Smithson stop to look at Crown Hall.
viii
Photo illustrated history of Scott Brown and Venturi
Photograph 11: (Left to right) Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in front of the book cover image of Jacques Derrida’s Politics of friendship.
Photograph 12: (Left to right) Peter Smithson, Alison Smithson and Denise Scott Brown standing in front of Independent Group (IG) member, Richard Hamilton’s collage, “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” 1956.
Photograph 13: (Left to right) Louis Kahn, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson (in far background) and Denise Scott Brown visiting Kahn’s Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, 1965.
Photograph 14: (Left to right) Robert Venturi behind a model of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building, New York, 1955 which Mies van der Rohe has his hand on.
Photograph 15: (Left to right) Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Peter Blake outside the “Long Island Duckling” in 1964, the year Blake’s God's own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America's landscape was first published.
Photograph 16: (Left to right) While undertaking their “Learning from Las Vegas” studio in 1968, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown cross paths with Peter Blake in Las Vegas.
Photograph 17: (Left to right) Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi visiting Levittown for their “Learning from Levittown” studio, 1970.
Photograph 18: (Left to right) Tom Wolfe, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown outside Las Vegas, 1968.
Photograph 19: (Left to right) Mies van der Rohe, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi outside the Guild House, Philadelphia, 1960-1963.
Photograph 20: (Left to right) Mies van der Rohe sits on “grandma’s sofa” when he visits the Signs of life exhibition, 1976. Denise Scott Brown and Venturi look on.
ix
Photo illustrated history of Zenghelis and Koolhaas
Photograph 21: (Left to right) Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas in front of the book cover image of Jacques Derrida’s Politics of friendship.
Photograph 22: “1, 2 , 3 Groep”- (Top left to bottom right) Kees (later Samuel) Meyering, Rem Koolhaas, Frans Bromet, Renee Daalder and Jan de Bont.
Photograph 23: (Left to right) Peter Smithson and Elia Zenghelis outside the Economist building, St. James Street, London, 1964.
Photograph 24: (Left to right) Elia Zenghelis, Ivan Leonidov and Rem Koolhaas at the exhibition of the Monument of the Third Communist International by Tatlin, 1919.
Photograph 25: (Left to right) Elia Zenghelis, Rem Koolhaas and Peter Cook at Koolhaas’s 1972 presentation of Exodus.
Photograph 26: (Left to right) Peter Eisenman and Rem Koolhaas in front of the Manhattan project - Story of the pool, 1976.
Photograph 27: (Left to right) Peter Eisenman and Rem Koolhaas in front of the original edition of Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, 1978.
Photograph 28: (Left to right) Léon Krier, O.M. Ungers and Rem Koolhaas at the IAUS conference, 1982. They stand in front of Ungers’s controversial masonry high-rise design for Frankfurt Messe, Germany.
Photograph 29: (Left to right) Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas in front of OMA project, Dutch houses of parliament, Hague, 1978-1979.
Photograph 30: (Left to right) Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis and Eleni Gigantes outside Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, 1987.
x Statement of original authorship
“The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.”
signed:………………………………………………………………
date:………………………………………………………………….
xi Acknowledgements
“I trust, as I satisfy this need to enumerate particular persons, places, and institutions, that I shall ….emphasize my indebtedness to outside influences.”1
This research is inspired by a select number of “outside influences,” all of whom are friends and without whose support and inspiration I would have wavered from completing it.
As my only supervisor for the project, I thank Jennifer Taylor. Her astute feedback combined with her enduring encouragement towards this dissertation – in a strange climate in which the critical study of architecture was consistently being undermined – can not be overstated.
I thank my husband, Andrew Dawson who has steadfastly supported and encouraged my work for many years. I devote it to him and Lola.
1 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony at the Palacio de Iturbide, Mexico City, May 16, 1991,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996, p. 98.
xii
The politics of friends in modern architecture, 1949-1987
1 Chapter One
An analysis of politics in architecture
2 Introduction
This thesis endeavours to reveal a range of paradigms related to the internal politics of Western architectural institutions. It is an examination of the rise and fall of a selection of architectural oligarchies and their figureheads. It involves the analysis of the systems by which marginalised, unrecognised architects within the profession usurp dominant establishments with whose philosophies they disagree.1
This study appropriates theories on political activism found in Western philosophy which link politics to friendship and warring. In so doing, a crucial association emerges between public and private political actions. As Jane Rendell recalls, “The personal is political.”2
To provide evidence of this relationship, the thesis focuses on the personal details of three significant politically subversive collaborations found in modern architectural history, 1949 - 1987. Each collaborative partnership consists of two friends who become accomplices. The collaborations are English architects, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; South African born architect and planner, Denise Scott Brown and North American architect, Robert Venturi; and Greek architect, Elia Zenghelis and Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas.
Professional secrecy is broken by making public that political practices associated with dominant architectural institutions emerge from resentments felt in the architects’ private lives. It also breaks professional secrecy by exposing that although the process of undermining a dominant architectural institution originates with two people, there is in fact, a broad web of collaborations with other friends, in and outside of architecture, which contribute to the momentary overthrow of oligarchic enemies. This network of friends and enemies contributes to how the reactionary architects evolve their independent philosophies exemplified in a sequence of built, unbuilt and literary subversive projects. The literary products become highly influential weapons by which the architects define their enmity
1 Explanation of “analysis” appears in Chapter Two. The thesis is enabled to achieve its aim by taking advantage of a post-modern cultural context in which practices leading to marginalisation are a timely focus. 2 Jane Rendell, “Introduction: ‘Gender’,” in Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner and Iain Borden eds., Gender space architecture: an interdisciplinary introduction, London and New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 15. Rendell writes on p. 16, “Second wave feminism recognised that, of equal significance to political and institutional forms of discrimination is discrimination experienced at a personal level…. leading to the phrase, ‘The personal is political’.”
3 towards and difference from dominant ideological bodies. This is because publicity makes an appeal to the broader architectural fraternity who are called to act. Using a synergy of written text and graphics, the polemical texts written by the architects are records of the dissident philosophies and projects. They are also the sites in which the motives of friendly “collaboration” against enemies appear.
This chapter begins by defining the motives of this research. It then identifies the contentions which undergo analysis and how it makes an original contribution to knowledge. After an explanation of the background to this study, limitations and clarifications to the research are stated. The method to achieve the motives and the thesis structure then follow.
Motives
“Collaborate: Work jointly (with), esp. on a literary or scientific project; Cooperate traitorously with (or with) an enemy.”3
All of the motives associated with this study relate to collaboration. They relate to exposing the role of subversive collaboration in the system of gaining architectural autonomy by providing evidence; accentuating the link between collaboration and making architecture; and identifying that any form of polemical writing is itself implicitly involved in collaboration between author/s and reader/s.
The primary motive of this thesis is to reveal “unspoken” practices associated with the system of gaining and attributing recognition in the architectural establishment and to establish a link with personal collaboration in architecture. In Beatriz Colomina’s essay, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” she identifies that “secrets” in architecture are, in fact, well known.4 She writes “The secrets of modern architecture are like those of a family, where everybody knows about things that are never acknowledged.”5 Taking this lead, the thesis aims to make public practices that are present but not normally acknowledged by the
3 Lesley Brown ed.,The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 438. 4 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, 3 (September 1999): 462-471. 5 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 462.
4 academy.6 This breaking of secrecy relates to revealing the secrets of “how” the “family” or institution of architecture operates, generates and regenerates according to cycles of friendship and warring. The thesis does not suggest that subversive collaboration is the only way by which establishment values can be challenged. Rather, it argues that it is one way that has been successful and demonstrates this by example.
Linked to “exposing” private “family” details is the motive of the thesis to shift away from a common type of architectural historiography which focuses on the architectural achievements of the single figure.7 Although architectural biographies and monographs outline a chronological history of respective architect/s and their projects, they neglect to reveal private details of the circumstances which impinge on the making of projects. In contrast, this study acknowledges the contributions of others to the evolution of a building or the architectural philosophy of highly regarded architects. This shift in focus from writing about “what” architects produce, to writing about “what” from the perspective of “how”, involves rewriting architectural history.8 The histories in this dissertation include a series of “interpersonal relations”.9 These relations are with pedagogical figures who convert from being regarded as friends to enemies, and close contemporaries who are friends.
The final motive of this study is to bring into question the “truthfulness” of any polemical writing whether it is historiography, as in this case, or architectural philosophy, as in the case of the three architectural partnerships selected. Any gesture of writing involves its own political collaboration between author and reader/s in a call for friendship and support for the author’s ethics.
6 While inspired by and intersecting with Colomina’s writings, this dissertation differs to her work in its motives and method. For instance, Colomina’s motive of documenting a feminist history of modern architecture is not a priority for the author since it is felt this type of historiography focuses on architects as heroic individuals. Unlike one of Colomina’s methods, the author has not interviewed any of the selected architects in the study due to financial reasons, relying rather on textual evidence. 7 Other types of architectural historiography including architectural history represented as a history of materials; the history of a project or institutional body; a philosophical history of ideals and so on are acknowledged by the author. 8 The author acknowledges the claim of “rewriting” architectural history is a sizeable one to make. It is argued the original approach taken to writing a subversive history of modern architecture substantiates the claim. This alternative approach is what allows the author to suggest the histories represent an alternate form of architectural historiography. Refer “Method and thesis structure” for embellishment of how the author came to write a subversive history of modern architecture. 9 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 462.
5 Contentions
The contentions in this study relate to linking politics in architectural establishments to friendship and warring. One contention is that dissident collaborations by architects against dominant Western architectural oligarchies and their figureheads are made possible by the productive power associated with “primary” friendship.10 This power gives the friends hope with which they produce projects which undermine their respective establishment enemies. Another contention is that a cycle of friendship and enmity, reverence and irreverence, is the political system by which the institution of modern architecture has historically reengineered itself to suit the times. The demise of enemies and complaints over established rules must be made public so that unrecognised architects can shift to gaining recognition and status in the profession. It is also contended that only architects with the capability to “publicly” politicise their antagonism through their literary “propaganda” are able to overthrow any dominant architectural establishment.
Original contribution
The research contributes to an emerging field in architectural writing engaged in reinterpreting the production of architecture and architectural history as a collaborative act. The originality of this research lies in its focus on collaborations which are highly disruptive to architectural conventions at the time. The partnerships selected are subversive collaborations.
The research is significant because of this author’s collaboration with late Derridean philosophy. Unlike other architectural writers who have appropriated Derrida’s early philosophy to affect architectural form and its signification, this study appropriates Derrida’s late philosophy to reveal political attributes of architectural societies.
The representation of history as a series of subversive collaborative friendships is an original contribution. The writing no longer centres on the history of the typical single architectural genius but rather is dispersed to be an inclusive documentation of the
10 Aristotle refers to “primary” friendship in his writings. This is outlined in Chapter Two, “Making friends with Derrida.”
6 contribution of women and men, architects and non-architects, to architectural avant-gardism.
This thesis also makes an original contribution in regards to its invention of two unconventional techniques used to represent modern architectural history. These relate to the use of different font styles in the document and the photo illustration of the select histories.
The overall significance of the work is that it reveals new perspectives on the creation of architecture and the emergence of architectural developments. Thus, it extends the knowledge and understanding of modern architectural history. In offering an alternative form of historiography it offers contemporaries and future generations opportunities to revisit how architectural history is written.
Clarifications
There are a number of clarifications relating to this study that need to be noted. The first series clarify the definitions of architectural establishment/s; secret; subversion; “primary” architectural friendships; friends; ethics; and warring specific to this study. The second clarification refers to nomenclature used in this study. The third set of clarifications relate to the resultant representation of modern architectural history in regards to it not representing a finite depiction of history; the reasons for its “reportage” style; the reasons for varying the font styles; and electing to photo illustrate the histories.
Definitions
The definition in The new shorter Oxford English dictionary of “establishment” is “a settled arrangement… constitution or government; … a household; its members collectively; ... The group in society exercising authority or influence and seen as resisting change; any influential or controlling group.”11 In this study, the society under examination is the architectural society, predominantly understood as the architectural academy. The phrase “architectural establishment” refers to “the group
11 Lesley Brown ed.,The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 853.
7 in architectural society exercising authority or influence and seen as resisting change.” While this study uses the phrase “architectural establishment” and interchanges it with architectural oligarchy it is acknowledged that there is no one architectural establishment since in each architects particular situation a different “household” or group exercises control. So for instance when the phrase “European architectural establishment” is used, reference is made to the acknowledged dominant group of architects in Europe dictating architectural teaching and discourse at the time and whose philosophies are promoted in academic, pedagogical and literary circles. This study does not accept that architectural ideology has been successfully eliminated since it is in its academies that the inherited values of pedagogues continue to be passed down, enforced on or accepted without objection by younger generations of architects.
The word, “secret” as used in the dissertation is defined as stated in The concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English as “a thing known only to a few… kept or meant to be kept private, unknown, or hidden from all…”12 The “secrets” disclosed in this work relate to the broader architectural fraternity but rely on the “secrets” of the particular architects in the study. These are known by a few and have been published in secondary literary sources. So while accessible information they are, in the main, unknown to the wider architectural fraternity. Many of these secrets relating to subversive collaboration appear in found interviews – some not in English. It should be noted that there is a temporality associated with architects disclosing their personal “secrets”, experiences and motives. At a certain time, usually in their early careers, the architects may freely express their conspiratorial aspirations and enmities. With the rise in the respective architect’s persona, these “secrets” can be hidden i.e. no longer spoken about. This practice is perhaps premised on what each architect finds appropriate to advertise about their personal politics at a given time.
In The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, subversion is defined as “the action or practice of subverting (esp. a political regime)”, and subvert as to “upset, overturn; … Disturb or overthrow (a system, condition, principle, etc.); attempt to achieve, esp. by covert action, the weakening or destruction of (a country, government, political regime, etc.).”13 In this study, subversion is understood in relation to the upsetting,
12 Della Thompson ed., The concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 1249; 9th edition; first edition published in 1991. It was first edited by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler. 13 Lesley Brown ed.,The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, p. 3127.
8 overturning, disturbing or overthrowing of an acknowledged governing architectural establishment. The overthrow involves the usurping of principles and moralities.
In this study, the term “primary” friendship attributed to the philosopher, Aristotle is interpreted to mean highly powerful collaborative architectural partnerships.14 The selected partnerships are considered “primary” because they are intimate, productive and powerfully successful friendships. This definition takes its mark from Plato’s studies of “primary” friendships which are also subversive. Not all collaborative friendships or partnerships in architecture are subversive. Much collaboration in architecture does not contest dominant ideological positions and in the eyes of the author are not deemed “primary” friendships because of that.
When used in this dissertation, the term “friends” refers specifically to subversive friends and is based on Michel de Montaigne’s definition in his essay, “Of friendship” of friends sharing in his words, “a consonance of wills.”15 In this definition, the architectural “friends” are united and joined in their political campaigns. In contrast to Montaigne’s contention, in this thesis subversive “friends” can also be conjugal partners. In adopting this definition, subversive friends need not be only male/male. The definition of “ethics” used in this work is taken from the “Glossary” in Sexual Subversions: three French feminists. “Ethics” is “A term commonly used as a synonym for morality… In the work of French feminists, ethics is not opposed to politics but is a continuation of it within the domain of relations between self and other.”16
Working from the definition of an establishment as a “household,” this study takes the liberty of interpreting “warring” in architecture as the rivalry between irreverent “brothers” and “sisters” rebelling against their familial, pedagogical “fathers.” This definition differs to Carl Schmitt’s definition in The concept of the political which contends that warring involves the “real possibility” of physically killing an enemy.17 Schmitt is quoted by Derrida; “For only in actual/effective combat … is revealed the most extreme consequence … of the political grouping of friend and enemy. From
14 Refer Chapter Two. 15 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,” Essays, Book One, Chapter 28, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1958, p. 94. 16 Elizabeth Grosz, Sexual subversions: three French feminists, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989, p. xvii. 17 Carl Schmitt, The concept of the political, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996, first published by Duncker & Humblot in 1932 as Der Begriff des Politischen; Translation, Introduction and notes by George Schwab.
9 this most extreme possibility… human life gains … its specifically political tension.”18 Architectural history does not document revolution in regards to actual physical killing. This study argues that the most severe expression of enmity in architecture occurs in ideological warring. The illustration of Team X’s overthrow of Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) or International Congresses of Modern Architecture comes metaphorically closest to an architectural war.
Nomenclature
A series of clarifications in regards to the use of names in this study follows. Team X is used by this author. Inconsistency occurs when it appears in quotations from other sources as Team “10” or Team “Ten”. Similarly, Etienne de la Boetie is used in this study although some other texts spell his name Estienne de la Boetie. In order to differentiate between Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson their full names are listed. When referring to Scott Brown, reference is made to Denise Scott Brown not Robert Scott Brown. Similarly, when referring to Zenghelis, reference is made to Elia Zenghelis not Zoe Zenghelis. The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is referred to in two ways in the dissertation. The early OMA is the partnership of Zenghelis and Koolhaas and spans 1975-1987. The late OMA refers to Koolhaas’s collaborations after the early OMA split and spans 1987 to date. Non-English letters which have special characters have been included where possible. Limitations with available word processing programmes have prevented all being shown.
Representation of history
The resultant rewriting of history represents only one lineage of change in modern architecture. It should be noted that the sequential history of the three selected partnerships is not intended to be a finite representation of subversive modern architectural history. The author is aware of the existence of a range of other seminal subversive collaborations in architecture which have or are presently taking place publicly. The examination of these offers opportunities for further work.
Because the historical rewriting names personal friends and enemies of the architects the historiography produced in Chapters Three to Five takes on a
18 Carl Schmitt, The concept of the political, p. 35 in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, London, New York: Verso, 1997, p. 129.
10 “reportage” style. The author wishes to clarify that this shift in architectural historiography does not aim to be uncritical but rather endeavours to achieve the opposite by making a deliberate link between the private/personal and the public/professional in architecture. Numerous historians, including the author, have explored the possibilities of using different writing styles for architectural history.19
In accordance with the desire to explore the techniques available to represent architectural history is the use of three different fonts in this document. The three fonts have been selected because they relate to time. They are fonts used in seminal texts written by the architects in this study. The fonts relate to the chapters whose order is explained later in “Method and thesis structure”.
Chapters One, Two and Six use the Microsoft Word Sans serif font. In an article on OMA’s Student Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Peter Hall notes how in developing the design for the building, in their research on Mies van der Rohe, OMA’s graphic design collaborators “2x4 discovered that” Mies “had designed a sans serif typeface. Though clearly aspiring to be one of those universal fonts that could eliminate the need for others, Mies’s typeface is not as refined as his architecture.”20 Unable to obtain Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s typeface, the Microsoft Word Sans serif font has been used as the closest available substitute. This font has been used for main chapter headings and sub headings also. The use of red text for the title page and chapter headings plays on the political association of the colour and intersects with the content of this study.
19 Refer Jane Rendell, “Writing aloud: Architectural history as critical practice,” Keynote speech at Society of Architectural Historians Australian and New Zealand (SAHANZ) conference, Brisbane, October 2002; Igea Troiani, “Supplementing architectural theory with a fiction novel: the writings of Alison and Peter Smithson,” [unpublished paper], Cultural Studies Association of Australia (CSAA) conference, Hobart, December 2001; Igea Troiani, “Fiction writing: Contesting the sacred rite of the language of architectural criticism,” [unpublished paper], January 2002. “Fiction writing” begins with the quotation from Manfredo Tafuri, “The historical project” in The sphere and the labyrinth: avant-gardes and architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1987, p. 12, Translated by Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly; “… Even the language of criticism, the language that should “move and break up stones,” is itself a “stone.” How are we to utilize it, then, to prevent it from becoming the instrument of a sacred rite?” The notion that writing may be a mode of architectural practice has been explored by Jennifer Bloomer, Architecture and the text: the scrypts of Joyce and Piranesi, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993; and Rebecca Sinclair, “Virginia Woolf’s architecture: an incidental practice,” Society of Architectural Historians Australian and New Zealand (SAHANZ) conference proceedings, Brisbane, October 2002. 20 Peter Hall, “Wrestling with the legacy: OMA and 2x4 collaborate on a student center that stands on sacred ground - the Mies-designed Campus of IIT,” Metropolis, 21, 1 (August- September 2001): 109.
11 In Chapter Three, the Courier New font has been used because it is similar to the font style on an old typewriter used to document the conversations between Team X members. Alison Smithson writes, “Our typewriter was an inherited Remington portable: the top copy of many Team 10 documents were in red, using the lever that brought the lower red stripe of a bi-colour ribbon into play.”21 This has been done to mimic the technology for writing available to the Smithsons and Team X at the time.
Chapter Four is in the Univers font. This font is the closest to the IBM Composer Univers font which Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour use in the first edition of Learning from Las Vegas.22
In Chapter Five, the Microsoft Word Sans serif font has been used because it is closest to the text used in the body text of the original edition of Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan.23 There is some irony in that it returns to the text preferred by Mies van der Rohe.
The strategy of constructing a photo illustrated history has been employed to visually represent and support the rewritten portion of modern architectural history. The sequence of artificially constructed or “collaged” photographs, represent the rewriting of history chronologically and visually. The photographs included in the photo illustrated histories have been collaged from other found photographs. They depict interactions between the friends and enemies in the urban landscapes that inspired the critiques of the establishment or adjacent subversive projects. The sequence of photographs in the album achieves the integration of the urban context at the time. The technique results in an unpaginated photo album of images of the selected modern architectural “family” members. It becomes a visual genealogical and political history of modern architecture.
21 Alison Smithson’s description of “Comments on chosen documents” on “Pages 13-16” for Team X documents included in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, London: Architectural Association, February 1982, p. 5. 22 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1972, 1st edition. 23 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, 1st edition.
12 Limitations
The limitations of this study are structured around the following questions. Why select friendship as the field under which to reinterpret modern architectural history? Why limit the study to three architectural friendship partnerships? Why choose these three particular architectural partnerships to study? Why limit this study to an examination of modern architectural history from 1949-1987? Why work in the medium of polemical architectural theory? Why limit the resources to secondary sources? Why choose friendship?
The field of friendship has been chosen for study because it is felt it overrides gender divisions. The presence of Derrida's writings on the topic from a political perspective also contributes to the selection of friendship as the field under which to reinterpret modern architectural history.
Why limit the study to three architectural friendship partnerships?
The reason for limiting this study to the examination of three architectural friendship partnerships is that each represents a cycle associated with the modification of modern architecture at its most public level. The cycle begins with the most significant undermining of modernism (The Smithsons), the continued public attack on modernism (Scott Brown and Venturi) and the return to beliefs in modernism (Zenghelis and Koolhaas).
Why choose these three particular architectural partnerships to study?
The particular architectural partnerships: the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi; Zenghelis and Koolhaas have been selected for study because they are similar in many ways.24 They are partnerships which contain key figures that are arguably regarded as figureheads in the profession. All three partnerships have successfully
24 There is also much dissimilarity between the architectural partnerships chosen. As the purpose of this research is not to neatly categorise all three as identical, it is important that dissimilarities be acknowledged. Of dissimilarity is the resultant architecture produced by the three partnerships contrasts in regards to style. Another dissimilarity is that while Alison Smithson (born 1928) and Peter Smithson (born 1923) are close in age, as are Scott Brown (born 1931) and Venturi (born 1923), there is an eleven year difference between Zenghelis (born 1937) and Koolhaas (born 1944). For this reason, Zenghelis could be interpreted as a “father” figure to Koolhaas, as well as political accomplice.
13 deviated and conspired against the dominant understanding of modern architecture at that time.25 Because they have made the most public challenges to existing architectural values held in their respective circles through publicity, there is considerable found literature on them with which to review history.
The architects selected for this study have all had training in architecture and urban planning, most at elite schools.26 Because they are all “inside” the profession, the architects actively participate/d within the architectural establishment. They all had or have varying connections with architectural institutions including the Architectural Association (AA) in Britain; Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands; International Laboratory for Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD) in Italy; the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale and Harvard in the United States (US). They have taught, or presently teach, at these institutions. From being educated or active at these elite institutions, they have a precise knowledge of the present discourses within the academy of architecture and are privy to participate in theoretical architectural debates. As a result, some have had direct associations with prominent architectural leaders. Alternatively, they have gained acquaintance with their work, indirectly through architectural literature which they were introduced to by their teachers and colleague friends at these institutions or by access to archives.
As a consequence of their involvement in elite schools and congresses, the six architects are associated to one another in a web. Scott Brown studied at the AA at a time when the Smithsons were active. Through their involvement in CIAM, the Smithsons met Louis Kahn who was at the University of Pennsylvania. Because of this acquaintance the Smithsons recommended Scott Brown study at the University of Pennsylvania. CIAM was usurped by the culturally diverse architectural group Team X, of which the Smithsons and Dutch architect, Aldo van Eyck were a part. Venturi taught with Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania at the same time as Scott Brown. After their marriage, Scott Brown and Venturi collaborated in practice and taught studios at Yale. Zenghelis and Koolhaas were also trained and taught together at the AA. Koolhaas has expressed his affinity with the work of Team X even when they were considered unfashionable.27 In contrast, Dutch Team X
25 Initially, the research was structured around an analysis of the history of Le Corbusier; the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi. Because Le Corbusier was a protagonist for the “modern project” in architecture rather than a modifier of it, other figureheads were selected. 26 Of the architects in the partnerships, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson are of exception in that while not trained at elite architectural schools, they did teach at a number of them. 27 George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],”GSD News/Harvard University, Graduate School of Design (Summer 1996): 50; “Rem was the first
14 predecessor, van Eyck has criticised Koolhaas’s illogical position towards architecture.28
As a consequence of their pedagogical affiliations, the architects selected are similar in their method of subversive collaboration. All three partnerships are architect- architect partnerships.29 They collaborate as a couple or twosome, acknowledge themselves or are recognised by others for their contrary dispositions, have criticised and attacked their respective architectural establishments early in their careers and wrote seminal literature which publicly opposed prevailing values. Of the later, they have used low culture in order to critique high culture.
In regards to their “coupling”, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson were and Scott Brown and Venturi are marital and architectural partners.30 Not in the category of the conjugal, architectural partnerships of the Smithsons and Scott Brown and Venturi, Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s early partnership is none the less similarly symbiotic.
Of the architects selected, Koolhaas is the most candid in acknowledging his contrary disposition. In an interview published in Transition he states, “I am a very reactive person. I react all the time. Perhaps too much.”31 Peter Cook and Stephen Greenberg are two critics who refer to the Smithsons' defiant characters in their
person I knew who was prepared to make a defense of the cultural production of Team Ten in the years after it had suffered radical criticism …” 28 Aldo van Eyck referring to the content of a lecture delivered by Koolhaas in Martin Pawley, “Money, time and details,” World Architecture, 22 (March 1993): 22; “Listen to this. “Why should we be truer than true? Why not falser than false?” What possible sense can you make of that? These people are not clever enough to be really absurd like Duchamp, who designed a door that opened and closed at the same time, they are merely illogical. Listen to this from Koolhaas: “Yes the building does leak and I will find a solution, but I dislike the word solution.” He dislikes the word solution! And he goes on here… “I admire slick detailing but it is a misuse of energy, perfection is a fetish… If you want perfect detailing go to Hertzberger or van Eyck!” This was a lecture and at that remark the audience laughed and applauded. They were excited to hear such nihilism! I tell you these people are the enemies of rational thought. They have given up all hope of modesty in favour of kill all or cure all.” 29 There was an early thought to examine Koolhaas’s collaboration with Canadian designer, Bruce Mau. While of significant impact on the production of “suitable” literature in architecture, it was felt that Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s partnership was more emblematic of the architect-architect model. Refer John Shnier, “Conversations: Plump fiction,” Canadian Architect, 40, 11 (November 1995): 18-21; John E. Czarnecki, “A master of imagery and collaboration, Bruce Mau discusses his role in design culture,” Architectural Record, (3 October 2002), http://www.archrecord.com/INTRVIEW/mau/mau2.asp 30 The term “coupling” is used by Colomina in her essay, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 467. Unlike Colomina who only uses the term to refer to conjugal architectural partnerships, the liberty is taken in this research to refer to male-male architectural partnerships also as a “coupling”. By doing this, the term shifts from being gender specific to numerical. It thereby takes on a political quality. 31 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference 1980: the interviews,” Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 17.
15 retrospective writings on the architects.32 Evidence of Scott Brown’s argumentative nature as a young student who quarreled publicly with Kahn, appears in her essay, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy.”33
The disregard for the academy is a shared quality of all three partnerships. In her conversation with Ole Bouman and Roemer van Toorn, Scott Brown explains how the disrespectfulness of Las Vegas was something she and Venturi were attracted to because “Las Vegas …. consistently broke the rules… in ways that the academy said you should not…”34 All of the architects gain renown through disputation with architectural authorities, who they disrespect but can also respect.
Disputation also occurs with each other. Scott Brown and Venturi disagree with the Smithsons over the contribution to architecture by Sir Edwin Lutyens, even though the couple admires the early work of the “New Brutalists”.35 In 1980, Koolhaas denounces any similarity between his studies of New York with Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s studies of Las Vegas.36 Mark Irving notes in “Another lesson from Las Vegas [Guggenheim museums],” Koolhaas’s more recent criticism of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s techniques for analysing the urbanism of Las Vegas.37
Aside from the direct arguing with other architects, there is a cheeky insubordination about the method used by all three architectural partnerships to publicise their complaints which has resulted in their dissident literature. They have all written
32 Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” Architecture Review, 172, 1025 (July 1982): 38; Stephen Greenberg, “Justice not done to the Smithsons [book review],” Architects’ Journal, 207, 11 (19 March 1998): 44. 33 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, London; New York: Academy Editions; St. Martins Press, 1990, p. 12. 34 Denise Scott Brown in Ole Bouman and Roemer van Toorn, “‘We set out to do our job, and to follow the clients’ values.’ Interview with Denise Scott Brown,” Archis, 1 (January 1993): 43. 35 Alison Smithson, “The responsibility of Lutyens,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969): 146-151; Peter Smithson, ““The Viceroy’s house in Imperial Delhi,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969):152-154; Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Learning from Lutyens: Reply to A. & P. Smithson,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (August 1969): 353-354; Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990, pp. 203-206. 36 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” p. 17. 37 Mark Irving, “Another lesson from Las Vegas [Guggenheim museums],” Domus, 843 (December 2001):106-119. On pp. 116 and 118, Irving refers to a lecture by Koolhaas at the AA in 2001 in which Koolhaas speaks of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s early studies of Las Vegas as outdated surgical techniques; the book described as “an interesting, if rather quaint, surgeon's casebook.”
16 seminal architectural texts, with which they have publicly and significantly affected the academy and profession of architecture because their texts outline convincing arguments against prevailing architectural concepts at the time for which they feel enmity. They include the edited texts by Alison Smithson, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-197038 and Team 10 primer, 39 Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction in architecture,40 Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas and Koolhaas’s Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan.
All three architectural partnerships use their preoccupation with the relationship between “art/architecture and life” in their texts. They contend that what they perceive is occurring in their own contemporary culture needs to be urgently addressed and incorporated into architecture rather than blindly avoided. They find themselves with an urgency to argue against values being espoused by their elders or peers and provide evidence to support their opposing ethics. By seeing what other architects can not, the three architectural partnerships challenge the aesthetic moralities of the architectural establishment. One senses, aside from the immediate recognition gained, they derive pleasure from forcing their mostly unwilling peers to acknowledge the previously unsightly urban landscapes each architectural team advocates. They use arguments which contend that unless the architectural establishment changes its perception of select urban landscapes, architects will lose their ability to be efficacious. Therefore, they all perceive themselves to be engaged in contributing to the longevity or survival of the architectural profession in capitalist society. In their irreverence, they all embrace and befriend the often perceived enemies of the architectural establishment: capitalism, consumption, mass media and popular culture. By doing this, sources not only from high culture but those from popular culture are made available to themselves and other practicing architects. The collaborations that have generated the subversive architectural theories and texts by the three architectural partnerships are the consequence of friendships associated with both high culture and popular culture.
High culture is embraced by all three predominantly through literature. The Smithsons refer to the writings of English classics by James Joyce and the work of French Dadaists and Surrealists, all recognised by the literary and art
38 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970, London: Faber, 1970. 39 Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, London: Studio Vista, 1968. 40 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, London: the Architectural Press, 1983, 2nd edition, 4th printing, first published in 1966.
17 establishments. They admire the work of architectural masters, Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) and Mies van der Rohe. Venturi refers to classical Roman architecture, the work of Mannerist writers and architects and the projects of select modern architectural masters including Le Corbusier and Aalto. Koolhaas engages with the literature of post-structuralist philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche and the theories by psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. He is influenced by the work of Dadaist, Salvador Dali. Zenghelis and Koolhaas are inspired by the projects of the Russian Constructivist artists and architects.
Popular culture is a fundamental influence in the arguments the architectural partnerships use in their attacks on the architectural establishment. It is a factor which contributes significantly to their selection for this study. The three architectural partnerships are all influenced by popular literature and its associated graphics which document the association of “art and life” of their respective times. The Smithsons engaged with the rise of post World War II popular culture through their interest in its documentation in the women’s journals and by the visual artists in the Independent Group (IG) of whom they were members. Scott Brown and Robert Venturi challenged conventions of architectural seriousness and appropriateness in their texts influenced by the literature of American pop novelist and critic, Tom Wolfe and the pop artists of the times who celebrated non-architectural urban landscapes such as road side billboards on the Main street. Koolhaas embraced a culture of modernisation, popular excess and entrepreneurialism by promoting the virtues of skyscrapers in New York’s architectural history, all of which were supported by a range of Manhattan projects on which Zenghelis collaborated. From this engagement with popular culture, all three architectural teams befriend other accomplices from the disciplines of sociology, photography, pop art and graphic design. Due to their interdisciplinary practice, they experiment with architectural ideas in alternative mediums. For instance, Peter Cook explains of the Smithsons,
“They have used every medium of expression: the building, the project, the drawing, the manifesto, the exhibit, the collection of pictures, the painting, the imitation of real objects, the novel, the textbook, the formal lecture, the performance, the home movie, the collection of toys, the professional model, the thing that doesn’t look like anything, the shout, the groan, the in-fight, the
18 wearing of remarkable clothes, the creeping away in disgust, the tea ceremony, the heroic pronouncement.”41
Scott Brown and Venturi have been involved in the design of furniture, fabric and home wares.42 Zenghelis and Venturi have contributed to the production of architectural paintings.
Another similarity of the architects is their use of the synergy of image with text in their seminal books and projects. The combination of the two is a deliberately subversive strategy made possible through their collaborations with friends from other disciplines. For each of the architectural partnerships, the found image, representative of the real urban landscape at that time is used as an accomplice to the architects’ text to provide visual evidence to ground the textual contentions. Most of the images are of select populated urban landscapes.
Why limit this study to an examination of modern architectural history from 1949-1987?
The time frame of this study begins in 1949 with the formation of the Smithsons’ architectural partnership. It ends in 1987, the date most commonly recognised as the year when the early OMA partnership split.
Why work in the medium of polemical architectural theory?
The study focuses on Western architectural theory since the production of theoretical polemical texts by the respective architects resulted in significant
41 Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” pp. 37, 40. Cook has omitted their design of furniture which includes chairs and tables. The film made by the Smithsons was titled, “The New Principles of Town Building.” It explained their competition entry for the Berlin Hauptstadt, 1957-1958. Refer the fiction novel, Alison Smithson, A portrait of the female mind as a young girl, London: Chatto and Windus, 1966; and poetry; Peter Smithson, “Aphorism: Peter Smithson per Domus IV ’94,” Domus, 759 (April 1994): 6. 42 Refer “Scott Brown, Denise” in Muriel Emanuel et al. eds., Contemporary architects, London: Macmillan, 1980, p. 866; Charles K. Hoyt, “The Knoll Center, New York, N. Y., 1979; architects: Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown; partner-in-charge: Robert Venturi,” Architectural Record, 167, 3 (March 1980): 97-102; Suzanne Stephens, “Knoll International showroom, New York; architects: Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown, partner-in-charge; Robert Venturi,” Progressive Architecture, 61, 7 (July 1980): 74-77; Marta Thorne, “My tailor is rich,” Quaderns d'arquitectura i urbanisme, 162 (July-September 1984): 123-125; Robert Venturi, “Process and symbol in the design of furniture for Knoll,” SD: Space design, 241 (October 1984): 41-60; Maeve Slavin, “Jury on Venturi,” Interiors, 144, 2 (September 1984): 154-155; Refer Igea Troiani, “The relationship between decoration, locality, consciousness and individual identity: chair design by architects, Venturi, Scott Brown and Le Corbusier,” [unpublished paper], Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) conference, Brisbane, December 2000.
19 paradigm shifts in architectural values. This theoretical focus does not infer that the study will omit resistance by the architects in graphic material or architecture itself. It also explains why seminal texts written by the architects selected in the study are important literary sources.
Why limit the resources to secondary sources?
In an interview with Gevork Hartoonian, Mark Wigley refers to the role disconnection plays in the production of research when discussing the writing of his 1986 doctoral thesis titled, “Jacques Derrida and architecture: the deconstructive possibilities of architectural discourse,” later published as The architecture of deconstruction: Derrida’s haunt.43 He states, “… I always complained… about being so disconnected — not yet believing… that disconnection is crucial to research.”44 Deliberate “disconnection” is the primary reason why no attempt was made by this author to make contact with any of the architects or theoreticians associated with this study.45 While there are obvious dangers in rewriting architectural history as a series of interpersonal friendships of architects – most of who are still alive – since it partakes in Koolhaas’s words, in “biographical snooping,”46 it is felt that the overriding political project of revealing paradigms associated with architectural oligarchies and change within the institution substantiates the publicity of personal histories.
Review of literature
The literature reviewed in this study is from secondary sources. The material is from published books, transcripts of interviews in journals, journal articles (architectural and non-architectural), newspapers, internet sources and conference proceedings. It is found in a range of writings “inside” the discipline of architecture and “outside,” predominantly in the fields of sociology and political philosophy. Some of the literature intersects the two.
43 Mark Wigley, The architecture of deconstruction: Derrida’s haunt, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1993. 44 Mark Wigley in Gevork Hartoonian, “An interview with Mark Wigley,” ATR: Architecture Theory Review, 7, 1 (April 2002): 100. 45 It was unfeasible to interview the six architects, with Alison Smithson already deceased before the research began. This was not seen to be a disadvantage because there was substantial found literature available. 46 Rem Koolhaas in Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” Assemblage, 40 (December 1999): 52.
20
The first section refers to background literature reviewed in writings from “inside” and “outside” architecture. The background literature is grouped in the followings fields: ideology and aesthetics, truth, politics, conflict, fame and collaboration. The reading of background literature enabled the dissertation topic and method to be resolved. The second section is a literature review pertaining particularly to the topic. It reveals the sources for historical information associated with the three architectural teams: the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi; and Zenghelis and Koolhaas. Background Ideology and aesthetics
The research began with an examination of ideology in architecture studied through of a range of anthologies on polemical architectural theory.47 Books read include Ulrich Conrads ed., Programs and manifestoes on 20th-century architecture; Peter Collins’Changing ideals in modern architecture, 1750- 1950; Tim and Charlotte Benton’s Form and function: a source book for the 'History of architecture and design,’ 1890-1939; William J. R. Curtis’ Modern architecture since 1900; Joan Ockman et al. eds. Architecture culture, 1943- 1968: a documentary anthology; Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995 edited by Kate Nesbitt; Rethinking architecture: a reader in cultural theory edited by Neil Leach; and Architecture: Theory since 1968 edited by K. Michael Hays.48 Most are compilations of extracts from influential architectural manifestoes for specific
47 Refer Lesley Brown ed.,The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 1305. “Ideology” is defined as “A system of ideas or way of thinking pertaining to a class or individual, esp. as a basis of some economic or political theory or system, regarded as justifying actions and esp. to be maintained irrespective of events.” 48 Ulrich Conrads ed., Programs and manifestoes on 20th-century architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971, first published in 1964; Peter Collins, Changing ideals in modern architecture, 1750-1950, London: Faber and Faber, 1965; Tim and Charlotte Benton eds., Form and function: a source book for the 'History of architecture and design,’ 1890-1939, London: Crosby Lockwood Staples, 1975; William J. R. Curtis, Modern architecture since 1900, Oxford: Phaidon, 1987, 2nd edition; Joan Ockman et al. eds., Architecture culture, 1943-1968: a documentary anthology, Columbia books of architecture, New York: Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Rizzoli, 1993; Kate Nesbitt ed., Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996; Neil Leach ed., Rethinking architecture: a reader in cultural theory, New York: Routledge, 1997; K. Micheal Hays ed. Architecture: Theory since 1968, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000, first published in 1998.
21 time periods. They indicate the relevant criteria for particular movements and make evident the shifting boundaries of architectural consensus.
David Watkin’s 1977 book, Morality and architecture: the development of a theme in architectural history and theory from the Gothic revival to the modern movement contends issues of architectural morality formulate “explanations” for dominant architectural ideologies. Watkin’s identifies “three of the most persistent explanations of architecture (are) in terms of (1) religion, sociology, or politics; (2) of the spirit of the age; and (3) of a rational or technological justification…”49 The book looks at the period beginning in the late nineteenth century when Augustus Pugin argues for the Gothic style in his book, Contrasts: or, a parallel between noble edifices of the Middle ages, and corresponding buildings in the present day: shewing the present decay of taste.50 It ends at the time when Nikolaus Pevsner advocates the modern movement through his book, Pioneers of modern design: from William Morris to Walter Gropius.51 Referring to a range of examples, Watkin reveals an important relationship between “needs” and “the invention of the critics who speak of them.” He writes; “They are needs only in so far as they are needed to realize the beliefs associated with a particular political or social programme which could only be imposed by a party but which may by no means be widely shared.”52 In his 1976 book, The failure of modern architecture, Brent C. Brolin writes in agreement, “The architect’s mission… (is) to redesign the world in his own image.”53 In the book, Brolin reviews the implicit moral responsibility or “missionary attitude” promoted by modern architects and its relationship to aesthetics.
Much literature has emerged in architecture on the relationship of ideology to morality and aesthetics. Karsten Harries’s book, The ethical function of architecture pursues the relationship of architectural ethics through an
49 David Watkin, Morality and architecture: the development of a theme in architectural history and theory from the Gothic revival to the modern movement, Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1977, p. 3. 50 Augustus Pugin, Contrasts: or, a parallel between noble edifices of the Middle ages, and corresponding buildings in the present day: shewing the present decay of taste, London: C. Dolman, 1841. 51 Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of modern design: from William Morris to Walter Gropius, London: Penguin Books, 1991; 2nd edition; first printed in 1960. 52 David Watkin, Morality and architecture: the development of a theme in architectural history and theory from the Gothic revival to the modern movement, p. 10. 53 Brent C. Brolin, The failure of modern architecture, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1976, p. 14.
22 examination of the Greek work, ethos and defines “the ethical function of architecture… (as) its task to help articulate a common ethos.”54 In the book, Harries reveals that Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s 1735 dissertation established aesthetic studies as a primary branch of philosophy. Harries argues that Baumgarten’s important contribution was the connection between aesthetics and “the principles… that govern judgments of taste” and writes “Taste, Baumgarten insists, resembles reason. Both are species of judgment and governed by its law.”55 On the topic of aesthetics and judgement is Kant’s The critique of judgment.56 Originally published in 1790, Kant explores in Book I the relationship of taste to beauty in “Analytic of aesthetic judgment.” In it, Kant connects “the faculty of desire” and “interest” with taste judgment. He writes, “Everyone must allow that judgment of the beautiful which is tinged with the slightest interest, is very partial…”57
A review of 19th century architectural literature shows a tendency to question the foundations of aesthetic judgment defining what is beautiful or not. Of the writings on landscape aesthetics, Sir Uvedale Price wrote on the relationship of the “sublime and the beautiful” in his book, Sir Udevale Price on the picturesque: with an essay on the origin of taste, and much original matter.58 Written in reaction to the book by Edmund Burke, A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful,59 Price approaches the topic of beauty by considering its opposites, as he contends, of “ugliness and deformity”.60 He states “It seems to me, that mere unmixed ugliness does not arise from sharp angles, or from any sudden variation, but rather from that want of form, that unshapen lumpish appearance, which, perhaps,
54 Karsten Harries, The ethical function of architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1997, p. 4. 55 Karsten Harries, The ethical function of architecture, p. 21. 56 Immanuel Kant, The critique of judgment in Mortimer Adler ed., Great books of the Western world, 42 (Kant), Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1952; Refer also Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics and subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche, Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1990. 57 Immanuel Kant, The critique of judgment in Mortimer Adler ed., Great books of the Western world, 42 (Kant), p. 476. 58 Sir Uvedale Price, Sir Uvedale Price on the picturesque: with an essay on the origin of taste, and much original matter, Edinburgh: Caldwell, Lloyd, 1842; later edition. Price lived from 1747-1829. 59 Edmund Burke, A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. 60 Sir Uvedale Price, Sir Uvedale Price on the picturesque: with an essay on the origin of taste, and much original matter, p. 147.
23 no one word exactly expresses.”61 Price argues that while painting represents the beauty of nature, it is also the medium which allowed previously considered “ugly” landscapes to be celebrated.
The question of reviewing the aesthetics of landscapes in the polemical writings of the twentieth century architects begins with the works of Le Corbusier. In Towards a new architecture, Le Corbusier reveals in his chapter “Eyes which do not see” the beauty of industrial, functionalist landscapes. 62 Devoted to a study of the moral implications of functionalist theory in architecture, Edward Robert de Zurko explains in his book Origins of functionalist theory that the values associated with modern functionalism are not fixed.63 For de Zurko, functionalism can have multiple meanings. Those meanings imparted by different groups and their public voices do not coincide with “truth.” Truth
In her article, “Stories about stories,” Hilary Lawson explores the philosophical core of post-modernism and its attack on “truth”. 64 Lawson refers to post-modern philosophy outlined in the writings of Nietzsche, Lyotard, Foucault and Derrida. In the process of dismantling truth, Lawson argues “all our truths are, in a sense, fictions … we choose to believe.”65
A number of other writers, including the author, have explored the relationship between writing and truth through an examination of the representations of facts in regards to the recounting of history.66 In his book, What is history? Edward H. Carr argues that “It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when
61 Sir Uvedale Price, Sir Uvedale Price on the picturesque: with an essay on the origin of taste, and much original matter, p. 148. 62 Le Corbusier, Towards a new architecture, New York: Praeger, 1970, Translated from the 13th French edition with an introduction by Frederick Etchells; first published in 1927. 63 Edward Robert de Zurko, Origins of functionalist theory, New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. 64 Hilary Lawson and Lisa Appignanesi eds., Dismantling truth: reality in the post-modern world, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989. 65 Hilary Lawson, Dismantling truth: reality in the post-modern world, p. xxviii. 66 Igea Troiani, “Truth-telling and the emancipation of women in twentieth century architectural history,” Society of Architectural Historians Australian and New Zealand (SAHANZ) conference proceedings, Wellington, November 2000.
24 the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.”67
Written 26 years later, Scott Brown’s essay “Looking for the future into the immediate past” addresses how historians interpret architectural history “differently” at different times.68 She writes, “The future will show which eddies were important. But this is a chimera because different futures will find affinity with different strands in our present, depending on their own urgencies.”69 In response to the present “urgencies,” Colomina suggests that the change in the writing of architectural history as a series of collaborations rather than singular work can emerge from the material relayed in oral accounts.70 But Scott Brown points out in “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” that oral accounts offer only another version of the “truth”. 71 She writes “Even eyewitness accounts of actual happenings are so conditioned...”72
It is in Martin Heidegger’s “The origin of the work of art”, that a flexible definition of “truth” is found which is able to incorporate timely concerns. In the essay, Heidegger refers to the concept of “truth” as aletheia – the term used by the Greeks for the “unconcealedness of beings” – rather than “truth” as adaequatio – identical statements which agree “with what is.”73 Heidegger argues that the act of disclosing creates “truth” and involves concealing a previous “truth.” “Truth” then belongs to the realm or world in which it is opened up. For Heidegger, works of art are opened up in a particular context and as the context shifts with time so does the “truth” that appears unconcealed. In her book, Architecture and modernity, Hilde Heynen summarises the Heideggarian position that “this disclosure is never final or definitive. There is a continual play between the concealed and the unconcealed that can be observed by anyone who is sufficiently open and
67 Edward H. Carr, What is history? New York: Vintage Books, 1967, p. 11, first published in 1961. 68 Denise Scott Brown, “Looking from the future into the immediate past,” Architecture, 76, 5 (May 1987): 116-121. 69 Denise Scott Brown, “Looking from the future into the immediate past,” p. 116. 70 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 463. 71 The essay outlines a network of friendships and affiliations in a particular historical period. 72 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 69. The author is aware of this point when noting the reliance on oral accounts in this study. 73 Martin Heidegger, “The origin of the work of art”, Poetry, language, thought, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971, p. 36, Translation and Introduction by Albert Hofstadter. The first version was delivered on 13 November 1935 as a lecture titled Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes.
25 receptive.”74 This play between concealing and unconcealing is an important procedure of any political dialectician.
Politics The search for literature examining political behaviour involved the sequential reading of philosophical texts. These encompass classical philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus); 20th century philosophy (Henri Lefebvre, Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and early Derrida); 16th century philosophy (La Boetie and Niccolo Machiavelli); and late 20th century Derrida.75
Karl R. Popper’s, The open society and its enemies offers an interpretation of the philosophical foundations of Western thought on leadership and morality attributed to Plato, Aristotle and Heraclitus.76 Popper describes Plato’s philosophical foundation as “all things in flux, all generated things, are destined to decay.”77 Popper argues that Plato’s Law of Degeneration leads to his belief that an ideal state is eternal and is characterised by stability. Popper notes that lawlessness is condemned by Plato whose teachings consider rest an ideal state and change, evil. This contrasts markedly to Plato’s predecessor, Heraclitus’ “idea of change” which Popper describes as Heraclitus’ doctrine of the identity of opposites. Popper describes this doctrine; “A changing thing must give up some property and acquire the opposite property. It is not so much a thing as a process of transition from one state to an opposite state and thereby a unification of the opposite states…”78 So unlike Plato, Heraclitus rejects the hierarchical dominance of political stability. Popper contends that Plato’s theory of Leadership defines the great leader as a “proud possessor of truth” who is “a trained dialectician, he is capable of intellectual intuition, i.e. of seeing…”79
74 Hilde Heynen, “Architecture facing modernity,” Architecture and modernity, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999, p. 16, 2nd edition. 75 The political philosophies of the classical philosophers, Plato, Aristotle and Heraclitus were, of the listed philosophers, the only ones understood primarily through secondary sources. 76 Karl R. Popper, The open society and its enemies, 1, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966, 5th revision. 77 Karl R. Popper, The open society and its enemies, 1, p. 19. 78 Karl R. Popper, The open society and its enemies, 1, pp. 16-17. 79 Karl R. Popper, The open society and its enemies, 1, p. 132.
26 Lefebvre’s Everyday life in the modern world and Critique of everyday life explore concepts of alienation and mystification consequential of consumption in relation to repetitious everyday activities.80 In these texts, Lefebvre conveys his Marxist ideology and scepticism towards systems of capitalist authority. Lefebvre writes “the critique of everyday life involves an investigation of the exact relations between… everyday life and festival….It implies criticism of the trivial by the exceptional – but at the same time criticism of the exceptional by the trivial, of the ‘elite’ by the mass…”81 This affinity with the plight of minorities underpins Lefebvre’s Marxist philosophies.82
Nietzsche’s, Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future explores the issue of immorality and politics.83 Neitzsche rejects Plato’s advocacy of collectivism over individualism and celebrates the “free spirit.” He condemns Plato’s moral utilitarianism where “it is stupid to do what is bad,” while “good” is taken without further ado to be identical with “useful and agreeable.”84 Of most relevance in Nietzsche’s text is the contempt he holds for the morality of the ruling group and for the “might” of the majority who obey them. He captures a spirit of insubordination and dissidence in this text. From Nietzsche, Derrida’s Of grammatology and Foucault’s The history of sexuality were read.85 While Foucault’s analysis of power relations between women and men was intriguing, the focus on sexual domination was not the type of relationship this research aimed to explore. Rather the focus on ideological domination emerged. As a consequence reading narrowed towards political philosophy including a number of texts on ideology by Slavoj
80 Henri Lefebvre, Everyday life in the modern world, London: Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, 1971, Translation by Sacha Rabinovitch, first published in French in 1968; Henri Lefebvre, Critique of everyday life, London and New York: Verso, 1991, Translation by John Moore. 81 Henri Lefebvre, Critique of everyday life, p. 251. 82 This point is made clear in Mary McLeod, “Henri Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life: an introduction,” in Steven Harris and Deborah Berke eds., Architecture of the everyday, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997, pp. 9-29. 83 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, Translation by Walter Kaufmann, first published in 1886. 84 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future, p. 103. 85 Jacques Derrida, Of grammatology, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967, Translation by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Michel Foucault, The history of sexuality, New York: Vintage Books, 1986, Translation by Robert Hurley.
27 Zizek.86 Zizek’s “The KING is a thing” refers to La Boetie’s writings in The politics of obedience: the discourse of voluntary servitude.87 Other political philosophers who La Boetie refers to are Xenophon and Plutarch.88 Machiavelli’s 15th century manual The prince, referred to by Murray N. Rothbard in his introduction to La Boetie’s book, was also reviewed.89 While these political writings all contributed to the inquiry into the actions and moralities of hero leaders, there was concern that while the nature of resistance in revolution was relevant to architecture, the notion of physical battle and warfare in political antagonisms between states was not.
Rosalyn Deutsche’s essay on “Sharing strangeness” referred to the recent writings of Derrida.90 Unlike Of grammatology, these later Derridean writings address cosmopolitanism. From the revisitation of Derrida’s recent writings, Politics of friendship was examined. In this text, Derrida connects the writings of many of the philosophers already studied but brings them together under an analysis of a less violent concept of feuding between friends and enemies. Most influential in Derrida’s understanding is the fragility as well as political power of collaborative friendships. The suitable philosophy in Derrida’s Politics of Friendship is not only profound because it binds together previous research but also is a crucial accomplice to this thesis project.91 It offers the opportunity to understand the “complexity and contradiction” associated with friendships, something felt unachievable through readings in sociology.92
86 Slavoj Zizek, “The KING is a thing,” in Slavoj Zizek, For they know not what they do: enjoyment as a political factor, London and New York: Verso, 1991, pp. 253-277; Slavoj Zizek ed., Mapping ideology, London: Verso, 1994. 87 Etienne de la Boetie, The politics of obedience: the discourse of voluntary servitude, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997, written in 1548; Translation by Harry Kurz; Introduction by Murray N. Rothbard. 88 La Boetie’s familiarity with the writings of Xenophon and Plutarch came about because he translated their classics. 89 Niccolo Machiavelli, The prince, Irving, Texas: University of Dallas Press, 1984; Translation, introduction and notes by Leo Paul S. de Alvarez. 90 Rosalyn Deutsche, “Sharing strangeness: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Aegis and the question of hospitality,” Grey Room, 6 (2002): 41. In endnote no. 7, Deutsche refers to Jacques Derrida, On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness, New York: Routledge, 2001. 91 In regards to recent writings which refer to Derrida’s Politics of friendship, the author is aware, by word of mouth only, of those by Samuel Weber. Although Weber was contacted directly, the author was unable to obtain details of his writings on such. The search in early 2003 for any other literary works by architectural historians or theoreticians inspired by Politics of Friendship was unsuccessful. 92 In using the phrase, reference is made to Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction in architecture.
28 Conflict
In search of a theoretical framework with which to approach an analysis of cycles of political group affiliations, select readings in sociology were examined. Texts on conflict by 19th century German sociologist, Georg Simmel were reviewed. In Conflict and the web of group-affiliations, Simmel focuses on the role of disputation in social organisation.93 Simmel writes “Conflict is thus designed to resolve divergent dualisms; it is a way of achieving some kind of unity, even if it be through the annihilation of one of the conflicting parties. This is roughly parallel to the fact that it is the most violent symptom of a disease which represent the effort of the organism to free itself of disturbances and damages caused by them.”94 Within this system, Simmel identifies the importance of social hatred. Simmel’s essay, “The stranger” in On individuality and social forms: selected writings comes close to defining the “inner enemy” in social organisations.95 Simmel’s writings do not contribute to a method to analyse the complexity of architectural affiliations because they do not prioritise the political within the social. Fame
In his 1998 book, The favored circle: the social foundations of architectural distinction, Garry Stevens undertakes an examination of how architects gain fame in modern architectural history through a study of the circle of favourism in dominant American architectural organisations. 96 He does so by applying the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu.97 Using diagrams, Stevens begins to reveal the impact of the web of group affiliations of the avant-garde on the production of recognised modern architectural contribution. He concentrates on the architect’s social training and argues that recognition in architecture is not predicated on talent. He discusses the regenerative cycle
93 Georg Simmel, Conflict and the web of group-affiliations, New York: The Free Press, 1955, p. 13, “Conflict” translated by Kurt H. Wolff and “The web of group-affiliations” translated by Reinhard Bendix, “Conflict” was written in 1908 and “The web of group-affiliations” in 1922. 94 Georg Simmel, Conflict and the web of group-affiliations, p. 13. 95 Georg Simmel, “The stranger,” in Donald N. Levine ed., On individuality and social forms: selected writings, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971, first published in 1908. 96Garry Stevens, The favored circle: the social foundations of architectural distinction, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998. Refer Jill Pearlman, “Designed for success [book review],” DBR: Design Book Review, 43 (Fall 2000): 79-81. 97 Refer Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: a social critique of taste, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984, first published in French in 1979.
29 of ideological campaigns and writes, “It is true that all architectural theories start off with some sort of exogenous rationalization … but these disappear within a generation as the field’s natural desire for autonomy takes over.”98 In achieving autonomy, systems of power are discussed. Stevens announces Bourdieu and Foucault “would argue that power is the product of relations between people, not quality inherent in them...”99 Stevens claims Bourdieu’s definition of “symbolic violence, (is) the use of symbolic power to achieve what would otherwise have to be accomplished with force. The essence of the concept is that an individual group wields symbolic power over others by simply convincing them that this should be so. Its key characteristic is that it is not perceived as power per se, but as a legitimate right to make demands on others.”100 Although close to the topic of this study, because of its scientific methodology, Stevens’s book fails to contribute directly to its method.
In Andrea Oppenheimer Dean’s 1999 interview with Cynthia Davidson, Paul Goldberger, Jayne Merkel, Michael Sorkin and Suzanne Stephens, “Listening to critics: the stage is set,” architectural fame is discussed. 101 In alignment with Stevens, Stephens argues that “stars come into being by a process she described as “the rubbing molecules syndrome” in which “you get a bunch of people who are teaching and talking to one another and writing in magazines, and ideas percolate, bubble up…”102
Like Stevens who applies Bourdieu’s studies on social behaviour and the institution of architecture, but to a lesser degree, are the writings by Dana Cuff. In Cuff’s 1991 book, Architecture: The story of practice,103 she refers to Bourdieu’s books, Distinction and Outline of a theory of practice.104 Many of Cuff’s writings explore how the legacies of architectural education affect an architect’s professional life and success. In her essay in Architects’ people,
98 Garry Stevens, The favored circle: the social foundations of architectural distinction, p. 110. 99 Garry Stevens, The favored circle: the social foundations of architectural distinction, p. 42. 100 Garry Stevens, The favored circle: the social foundations of architectural distinction, pp. 60-61 101 Suzanne Stephens in Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, “Listening to critics: the stage is set,” Architectural Record, 187 (1 January 1999): 68-73. 102 Suzanne Stephens in Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, “Listening to critics: the stage is set,” p. 69. 103 Dana Cuff, Architecture: The story of practice, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1992; 2nd printing; first published in 1991. 104 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
30 Cuff reviews famous contemporary American architects of the time to discuss their architectural theories.105 In so doing, she reveals a range of methods associated with architectural production.
Of similar notoriety are the critiques of the institution of architecture by Magali Safatti Larson. Larson’s essay, “Patronage and power,” published in 1996 examines the role collaboration between patron/or client and architect affects architectural recognition.106
Collaboration
Collaboration in architecture is reviewed in two fields. The first field relates to “how” architects collaborate with others to undermine institutional conventions. This section focuses on the recent collaboration of architecture and philosophy. It therefore offers a precedent for the method of this study. The second field reviews writings on collaboration in gender studies in architecture.
John Rajchman’s essay, “The 'place' of architecture in philosophy,” addresses the possibilities of continuing collaborations with philosophy in architecture after having already had a number of architects do so.107 The writings by Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi and Mark Wigley sit within this category. In the early 1970s Eisenman, referring to the writings of Noam Chomsky, translated post-structuralist theories of language to question architectural form in a number of unbuilt and built house designs. The most
105 Dana Cuff and Russell Ellis, “Jospeh Esherick: The drama of the everyday,” in Russell Ellis and Dana Cuff eds., Architects’ people, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 55-63; Dana Cuff, “Through the looking glass: Seven New York architects and their people,” in Russell Ellis and Dana Cuff eds., Architects’ people, pp. 64-102. 106 Magali Safatti Larson, “Patronage and power,” in William S. Saunders ed., Reflections on architectural practices in the nineties, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, pp. 130-143. Refer also Magali Safatti Larson, The rise of professionalism: A sociological analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977; Magali Safatti Larson, “Emblem and exception: The historical definitions of the architect’s professional role,” in Judith Blau et al. eds., Professionals and urban form, Albany: Statue University of New York Press, 1983, pp. 49-86. 107 John Rajchman, “The 'place' of architecture in philosophy,” in Cynthia Davidson ed., Anyplace, Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1995, pp. 12-13; Refer also Elizabeth Grosz, “Architecture from the outside,” in Cynthia Davidson ed., Anyplace, pp. 14-23.
31 famous of these is House X.108 Tschumi collaborated directly with Derrida in 1985, on the controversial urban design for Parc de la Villette, Paris. From such, Derrida wrote the retrospective essay, “Point de Folie – Maintenant l’architecture.”109 Transcripts of how Eisenman was invited by Tschumi to join him and Derrida on the project appear in Chora L works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman.110
Since his 1986 doctoral research titled “Jacques Derrida and architecture: the Deconstructive Possibilities of architectural discourse,” Wigley has explored how philosophy may be translated into architecture. In “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrrida,” published in 1987 Wigley refers to a number of philosophical theories by Derrida, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant and examines how they might be “digested” (or not) into architecture. For instance, he refers to Derrida’s analysis of Sigmund Freud’s investigation of the “uncanny” or unheimlich. Referring to deconstruction in the early writings of Derrida, Wigley writes, “Deconstruction undermines the foundations of the edifice of metaphysics by locating inside the house that which is excluded from it, the “sickness of the outside,” which is actually the “sickness of the homeland, a homesickness,”111 the hidden source and both the stability and the ruin of the house. In so doing, Derrida follows Freud’s investigation of the “uncanny” (unheimlich) which begins by noting that the word “heimlich” is defined as both “belonging to the house, not strange, familiar, tame, intimate, friendly, etc.” but also the opposite: “concealed, kept from sight, so that others do not get to know of or about it, withheld from others.”… ”112 Taking his mark from philosophy, Wigley suggests that the institution of architecture is itself a house which conceals the exclusive practices which occur within it.113
108 Peter Eisenman, House X, New York: Rizzoli Publications, 1982. In his introduction to House X, “From structure to subject: the formation of an architectural language,” on p. 22 Mario Gandelsonas refers to Eisenman’s theory of “de-composition”. 109 Jacques Derrida, “Point de Folie – Maintenant l’architecture,” in K. Michael Hays ed., Architecture: Theory since 1968, pp 566-581, first published in 1986. 110 Kipnis, Jeffrey and Thomas Leeser eds., Chora L works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, New York: Monacelli Press, 1997. 111 Jacques Derrida, Of grammatology, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1967, p. 313; Translation by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in Mark Wigley, “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrrida,” Perspecta, 23 (1987): 167. 112 Mark Wigley, “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrrida,” p. 167. 113 Unlike Wigley’s examination of “institutional” unhomeliness, a number of architects have explored the issue of unhomeliness differently. Refer Anthony Vidler, The architectural uncanny: essays in the modern unhomely, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999; 5th printing; first published in 1992. Vidler’s book is a recent, well recognised text on the topic. It refers to Freud’s writings including Sigmund Freud, “The uncanny” (1919) in
32
Wigley’s collaboration with Derridean philosophy was extended in an exhibition and a number of texts written from the late 1980s to date. In 1988, Wigley collaborated with Philip Johnson to curate the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) exhibition, “Deconstructivist architecture” of which a book of the same title was produced.114 The exhibition was influenced by his earlier writings which translated Derridean philosophy into architecture to question the foundations and stability of the institution. The exhibition aimed to show how architects challenged Platonic forms such as those favoured by Le Corbusier.115 Legacies of the MOMA show were the architectural style publicised in the exhibition; and the pursuit of Derridean philosophy by architects.
In his 1995 book, White walls, designer dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture, in the chapter, “The fashion police” Wigley examines the actions of dominant figures in the American Modernist architectural establishment in policing aesthetics and describes them as “pedigreed watchdogs”.116 He contends “the watchdog mentality (of the modern movement) is exemplified in the writings of Sigfried Giedion, the leading promoter of the movement and the very active secretary of C.I.A.M…. its at once promotional and defensive – if not disciplinary – body.”117 He cites both aesthetics and ideology as “discriminating” criteria when discussing Giedon’s watchdog mentality.
Sigmund Freud,The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1955, XVII (1917-1919), pp. 219-252; and Sigmund Freud, Wit and its relation to the unconscious, New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916, Translation by A. A. Brill. In Vidler’s chapter, “Vagabond architecture,” pp. 207-216, he focuses on John Hejduk’s mobile, nomadic architectural “masques” of which a range of texts have been published. Refer John Hejduk, Victims, London: Architectural Association, 1986; John Hejduk, Collapse of time and other diary constructions, London: Architectural Association, 1986; John Hejduk, The Lancaster/Hanover Masque, London: Architectural Association, 1992; and James MacGregor, “The architect as storyteller: making places in John Hejduk’s masques,” ATR: Architecture Theory Review, 7, 2 (November 2002): 59-70. 114 Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist architecture, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1988. 115 Refer “Figure I. Le Corbusier. The Lesson of Rome (illustration from L’esprit nouveau, no. 14, n.d. {1922-23})” in Mark Wigley, “Deconstructivist architecture,” in Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist architecture, p. 10. 116 Mark Wigley, “The fashion police,”White walls, designer dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1995, pp. 35-58. “Pedigreed watchdogs” appears on p. 37. 117 Mark Wigley, White walls, designer dresses: the fashioning of modern architecture, p. 39.
33 In 1992, Wigley contributed the essay, “Untitled: the housing of gender” to Sexuality & space, a text edited by Colomina .118 In it Wigley writes of the restrictions imposed by the institution of architecture, in particular the legacies of Leon Battista Alberti. He refers to Alberti’s treatise, On the art of building in ten books which outlines how men and women are defined socially by the “private house.”119 This pursuit of an examination into what Wigley describes as the “constitutional violence of architecture” by its dominant figureheads and their ideologies is also pursued in the field of gender studies in architecture.120
Writings on collaboration found “inside” the discipline of architecture appear in the field of gender and architecture. 121 Predominantly in feminist studies in architectural theory, these writings address the unacknowledged contribution to modern architecture by women to collaboration. They are also the sites in which evidence of institutional “violence” in architectural history appear. New Zealand historian, Gill Matthewson has recently written on Reich’s contribution to architecture. In “Pictures of Lilly: Lilly Reich and the role of victim,” Matthewson questions her own practice of exposing Reich in architectural history in association with Mies van der Rohe.122 Alice T. Friedman’s edited book, Women and the making of the modern house: a social and architectural history includes essays on the topic, one of which deals with Edith Farnsworth’s collaboration with Mies van der Rohe.123
Through her studies of gender and architecture, Colomina has been able to elaborate on warring, publicity and collaboration in the profession. In the
118 Mark Wigley, “Untitled: the housing of gender,” in Beatriz Colomina ed., Sexuality & space, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992, pp. 327-390. 119 Leon Battista Alberti, On the art of building in ten books, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, c. 1988, Translation by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor. 120 Mark Wigley, “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrrida,” p. 172. 121 Texts which deal more generically with the topic of women, sexuality and the profession of architecture include Aaron Betsky, Building sex: men, women, architecture and the construction of sexuality, New York: William Morrow, 1995; Diana Agrest, Patricia Conway, Leslie Kanes Weisman eds., The sex of architecture, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996; Debra Coleman, Elizabeth Danze, Carol Henderson eds., Architecture and feminism: Yale publications on architecture, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996; and Annmarie Adams and Peta Tancred eds., Designing women: gender and the architectural profession, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. 122 Gill Matthewson, “Pictures of Lilly: Lilly Reich and the role of victim,” Society of Architectural Historians Australian and New Zealand (SAHANZ) conference proceedings, Brisbane, October 2002. 123 Alice T. Friedman ed., Women and the making of the modern house: a social and architectural history, New York: Abrams, 1998. Refer Chapter 4, “People who live in glass houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson.”
34 early to mid 1990s, Colomina wrote on Eileen Gray’s feuding with Le Corbusier over the “vandalism” of E. 1027.124 In an interview in Transition in 1993 she explains “Architecture … (is) a violent institution… I was struck with the issue of Eileen Gray, not just with the violence of Le Corbusier… but also by the violence of the institution of architectural discourse itself.”125 She has pursued the topic of warfare “without fighting” in her studies of the domestic interior in “Domesticity at war”.126 Her writings in Privacy and publicity: Modern architecture as mass media also branch into the role popular mass media plays in “producing” modern architecture.127 More recently, she has written on the topics of collaborative partnerships and collaborations in “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture” and “Couplings.” 128 “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture” offers a series of important propositions which are expanded in the research. They relate to the practice of breaking secrecy in architecture about “how” things happen through interpersonal collaborations, where the details of collaboration appear, how architects have complained about how critics give recognition to individual architects and lists a number of types of architectural collaborations between architects and their partners, employees, engineers, landscape architects, interior designers, builders, manufacturers, institutions, clients, photographers, graphic designers, writers, critics, newspaper critics, historians, curators and artists. Of these types, Colomina speaks of male/male collaborations as well as female/male collaborations. Of the male/male collaborations listed, Colomina names Koolhaas’s work with the Canadian designer, Bruce Mau. In regards to female/male collaborative teams, she names the partnerships of Scott Brown and Venturi; and the Smithsons.
124 Refer Beatriz Colomina, “War on architecture: E. 1027,” Assemblage, 20 (1993): 28-29; Beatriz Colomina, “Battle lines: E. 1027,” Center: a Journal for architecture in Australia, 9 (1995): 22-31. Caroline Constant has also written on Eileen Gray’s “non-heroic Modernism”. Refer Caroline Constant, “E. 1027: the non-heroic Modernism of Eileen Gray,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 53, 3 (September 1994): 265-279; Caroline Constant et al., Eileen Gray: an architecture for all senses, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 1996. 125 Beatriz Colomina in Gillian Garner et al., “Interview - Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley,” Transition, 41 (1993): 14-21. On p. 20 of the interview, Wigley speaks of the optimism held within Colomina’s project. He states, “The kind of work which uncovers specific scenes of brutality like this, opens up whole areas of thinking which are then much more general and curious.” 126 Beatriz Colomina, “Domesticity at war,” Assemblage, 16 (December 1991): 14-41. 127 Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and publicity: Modern architecture as mass media, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1994. 128 Beatriz Colomina, “Couplings,” Oase, 51 (1999): 20-33.
35 Topic The Smithsons
In the last 10 to 15 years considerable architectural literature has emerged on the work of the Smithsons. In the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, the US, Australia and France there has been resurgence in interest in the projects and theories of the couple. These include the writings of Jonathan Hale,129 Helena Webster130 and Irénée Scalbert131 in the UK; Max Risselada132 and Bruno Krucker133 in the Netherlands; Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley in the US; 134 and Geoffrey London135 in Australia. The January- February 2003 issue of the French journal L’Architecture d’aujoud’hui has been devoted entirely to their architectural contribution.136 Aside from receiving recent publicity in architecture, the Smithsons are publicised in the
129 Jonathan Hale, Conversations: Team Ten seen through the works of the Smithsons and Aldo van Eyck, [unpublished Bachelor of Architecture Thesis], Bath, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, The University of Bath, 1990. 130 Helena Webster ed., Modernism without rhetoric: essays on the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, London: Academy Editions, 1997. Webster’s book is the outcome of a symposium she organised at Bath University School of Architecture which took place on 15 October 1994. Webster was a member of staff at Bath University School of Architecture at the time and in her book she identifies that she organised the symposium which ran alongside an A+PS Exhibition. Her book is a compilation of the papers from the symposium and her editorial contribution. Due to Peter Smithson being ill, Royston Landau presented the paper written by Peter Smithson at this symposium. For a review of the exhibition refer Vaughan Hart, “Consistent ideals of the Smithsons,” Architects’ Journal, 200, 17 (3 November 1994): 55. 131 Irénée Scalbert, “Architecture is not made with the brain: the Smithsons and the Economist building plaza,” AA files, 30 (1995): 17-25; Irénée Scalbert, “Towards a formless architecture: the House of the Future by A + P Smithson,” Archis, 9 (September 1999): 34-47 and Irénée Scalbert, “Parallel of life and art,” Diadalos, 75 (April 2000): 52-65. 132 Max Risselada, “Chronology of the work and texts of Alison and Peter Smithson,” and Max Risselada, “The space between” in Oase, Issue on the Smithsons titled “Rearrangements: A Smithsons Celebration,” 51 (1999). Risselada is credited in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1991, p. 6; “That the publication of this document was accomplished by Max Risselada at the Delft University of Technology, is a tribute to the capability of Jaap Bakema to energise both people and institutions with whom he came into contact…” The author assumes Risselada became friends with the Smithsons through his friendship with Bakema. 133 Bruno Krucker, “Complex ordinariness: the Upper lawn pavilion by Alison and Peter Smithson,” Diadalos, 75 (April 2000): 44-51. 134 Colomina notes in “Couplings”, pp. 20-33 that up until 1993, there was little interest in the publication of work by the Smithsons in America. She writes on p. 20 that Alison Smithson “called me from London one summer day in 1993… She said… that she had just finished preparing a manuscript of their writings and would like to find an American publisher for it… But despite repeated efforts, I was unable to find a publisher for their book. The Smithsons – I was told – were of no interest to the American public. In just a few years, the landscape has changed.” 135 Only through brief correspondence is the author aware that London has been working on a book on the Smithsons. 136 Unknown, L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 344 (January-February 2003).
36 arts for their contribution to such. They are included in The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty 137 and in issue 94 of the art journal, October on the Independent Group (IG).138 It seems the work of the couple has gained recent notoriety globally. Even when they had lost favour with other architects and theoreticians, the Smithsons were prolific in their promotion of their theories in their own writings.139 The writings by the Smithsons relate to publicity of their own projects, documentation of their inheritances, and recollections of their participation in the IG, Team X and involvement in the demise of CIAM. Aside from the many articles they have written in journals, the list of architectural books written by or edited by Alison Smithson/and or Peter Smithson includes Urban structuring: studies of Alison & Peter Smithson,140 Team 10 primer, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970,141Without rhetoric: an architectural aesthetic, 1955-1972,142 The heroic period of modern architecture,143 Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift,144 The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents,145 AS in DS: An eye on the road, 146 Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984,147 Italian thoughts,148 Changing the art of
137 David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 1990. 138 Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” October, 94 (Fall 2000): 3-30; Mark Wigley, “The architectural cult of synchronization,” October, 94 (Fall 2000): 31-61. 139 Abby Bussel, “Alison Smithson 1928-1993 [obituary]”, Progressive Architecture, 74, 10 (October 1993): 26, Bussel states that “By the mid-1970’s, the Smithsons had become marginalized. They “became historical footnotes while still practicing and teaching,” says Hugh Pearman of London’s Sunday Times.” In the early 1990s, interest in the work of the Smithsons increased gradually. 140 Alison and Peter Smithson, Urban structuring: studies of Alison & Peter Smithson, London, New York: Studio Vista, Reinhold, 1967. 141 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970, London: Faber, 1970. 142 Alison and Peter Smithson, Without rhetoric: an architectural aesthetic, 1955-1972, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1974. 143 Alison and Peter Smithson, The heroic period of modern architecture, New York: Rizzoli, 1981. 144 Alison and Peter Smithson, Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, London: Academy Editions, 1982. 145 Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, London: Architectural Association, February 1982. 146 Alison Smithson, AS in DS: An eye on the road, Delft, Netherlands: Delft University Press, 1983, originally written in 1972. 147 Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1991. 148 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, London: A&P Smithson, 1993. The Prologue titled “Three Generations” is particularly revealing of the origins of the Smithsons’ work.
37 inhabitation,149 and The charged void: architecture.150 Interpersonal details of the history of the Smithsons appear in a range of found literature which includes interviews, retrospective accounts by close friends and accounts of events by other historians or CIAM participants.
All of the found interviews are with Peter Smithson only.151 Colomina’s transcript, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” is a revealing interview with Peter Smithson. Through discussions on the history of the production of the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Norfolk, 1950-1954, Peter Carolin’s conversations with Peter Smithson recorded in “Reflections on Hunstanton” disclose the sources of a number of the Smithsons inheritances from forefathers, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier as well as colleagues.152 Published seven years after Alison Smithson’s death, Peter Smithson’s interview with Liane Lefaivre titled “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview]” is revealing of the collaborative relationship between the couple and refers retrospectively to the Smithsons’ contribution to architectural rebellion.153 Aside from interviews with the architects themselves, interviews with friends offer a tangential understanding of the events surrounding the respective subversive collaborations as do obituaries on the architects or friends of the architects. (Peter) Reyner Banham’s interview with Richard Hamilton154 gives an insight into the Smithsons' history, as does Georges Candilis’s comments in his interview with Armelle Lavalou.155 Obituaries to Alison Smithson by friends, Giancarlo de Carlo, Derek Sugden, Stephen Greenberg, Louisa Hutton and
149 Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, London: Artemis, 1994. The book is divided into three sections titled “Mies’ pieces”, “Eames’ dreams” and “The Smithsons”. 150 Alison and Peter Smithson, The charged void: architecture, New York: Monacelli Press, Inc., 2000. 151 Only in Colomina’s “Couplings” is there a trace of Colomina’s conversation/s with Alison. Other interviews which are not used as sources for the study include: Peter Davey, “Passing it on (British tradition in architecture: interview),” Architectural Review, 175. 1047 (May 1984): 58-59; Jose Maria Fernandez Isla, “Peter Smithson [interview],” Arquitectura, 310 (1997): 93; Tom Henegan, “Interview: Team 10, Peter Smithson, “The radicalism of “ordinariness”,” Kenchiku bunka, 49, 572 (June 1994): 75-84. 152 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly, 2, 4 (Summer 1997): 32- 43. 153 Liane Lefaivre, “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview],” Architecture: the AIA Journal, 89, 1 (January 2000): 51-53, 143. 154 “Richard Hamilton in conversation with Reyner Banham, 27 June 1976 used in the soundtrack of Fathers of Pop,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 21. 155 Armelle Lavalou, “Alison Smithson et Team 10: Georges Candilis se souvient [interview], L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 290 (December 1993): 28-30.
38 others give detail on her contribution to the partnership.156 The writings by other historians and participants on the demise of CIAM and emergence of Team X include Oscar Newman’s New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo,157 Royston Landau’s essay, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British”,158 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,”159 Eric Mumford’s The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960,160 “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic)” 161 and Ernesto Rogers’ lament, “CIAM at the museum”.162
Scott Brown and Venturi
Although many commentators wrote on the contribution of Scott Brown and Venturi in the 1970s to 1980s,163 Scott Brown and Venturi appear infrequently in contemporary architectural literature.164 Regardless of such, they continue to theorise on popular culture, urbanism and architecture, as does Steven Izenour.165 In the early 1990s, they shifted from the American context, from whose analysis they gained fame, to comment on Tokyo’s urbanism.166 In 1996, they wrote retrospectively of their Las Vegas studies in
156 Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” Architects’ Journal, 198, 8 (1 September 1993): 18-19. 157 Oscar Newman ed., New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo, New York: Universe Books Inc., 1961. 158 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” Rassegna, 14, 52 (4) (December 1992): 40-47. Refer also Royston Landau, New directions in British architecture, London: Studio Vista, 1968. 159 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” Rassegna, 14, 52 (4) (December 1993): 48-57. 160 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000. 161 Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” Architectural Review (March 1960): 78-79. 162 Ernesto Rogers, “CIAM at the museum,” Casabella, 232 (1959): unpaginated. 163 A scant selection of these include Alan Colquhoun, “Sign and substance: reflections on complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin,” Oppositions, 14 (Fall 1978): 26-37; Patrick L. Pinnell, “On Venturi 2: allegory and kitsch,” A+U: Architecture and Urbanism, 106 (July 1979): 119- 122; Peter Corrigan, “Reflections on a new North American architecture: the Venturis’”, AinA: Architecture in Australia, 61, 1 (February 1972): 55-66; Peter Corrigan, “On non- architecture,” AinA: Architecture in Australia, 62, 6 (December 1973): 68-73. 164 For some recent articles refer Deborah Fausch, “Robert Venturi's and Paolo Portoghesi's photographs of Rome,” Daidalos, 66 (December 1997): 76-83; Deborah Fausch, “Ugly and ordinary: the representation of the everyday,” in Steven Harris and Deborah Berke eds., Architecture of the everyday, pp. 75-106; Robert Venturi, “It’s a wise child: the Vanna Venturi house,” in Alice T. Friedman ed., Women and the making of the modern house: a social and architectural history, pp. 188-213. 165 Steven Izenour and David A. Dashiell, “Relearning from Las Vegas,” Architecture: the AIA Journal, 79, 10 (October 1990): 46-51. 166 Robert Venturi et al., “Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Big and small, new and old existing together in Tokyo,” Japan Architect, 3 (Summer 1991): 4-7.
39 “Las Vegas after its Classic Age.”167 It compares their new findings to those made in the late 1960s, early 1970s outlined in Learning from Las Vegas. Learning from Las Vegas extends controversial theories outlined in Venturi’s 1966 text, Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Aside from these influential texts, Scott Brown and Venturi have contributed many articles to architectural journals and have written personal accounts on their experience in architecture. Many “secrets” about their collaborations are revealed in these writings in which they complain, reminisce, acknowledge and thank others. In regards to Scott Brown’s personal writings, she makes protest in her essay, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture” complaining about the inability of critics to acknowledge her as an equal collaborator with Venturi.168 Her architectural inheritances from pedagogical friends and experiences on the “three stools” of Africa, England and the US are revealed in “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,”169 “Paralipomena in urban design,”170 “Learning from Brutalism,”171 and “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history.”172 Most of Venturi’s personal writings appear under the heading, “Growing up” in Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room.173 The essays in “Growing up” are predominantly tributes to pedagogical friends and experiences. His speech on receipt of the Pritzker Prize Award in 1991 “enumerates” those he feels most indebted to, of which other tributes in the section give more detail.174 Scott Brown also gives
167 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, “Las Vegas after its classic age,” Domus, 787 (November 1996): 9-12, first published in winter 1995-1996. The essay was written after being invited by the BBC to revisit Las Vegas in 1994. 168 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” in Ellen Perry Berkeley ed. and Matilda McQuaid assoc. ed., Architecture: a place for women, Berkeley, Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, c. 1989, pp. 237-246. 169 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” pp. 8-20. This essay was first published in Ann Ferrebee ed., Education for Urban Design, New York: Purchase, New York, Institute for Urban Design, 1982, pp. 132-172. 170 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, pp. 6-7. 171 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, pp. 203-206. Scott Brown’s account is based on an interview conducted by David Robbins and Jacquelyn Bass in Philadelphia in spring 1988. 172 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” Architectural Record, 172, 2 (February 1984): 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81. 173 Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996. The section “Growing up” is from pp. 41-106. 174 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony at the Palacio de Iturbide, Mexico City, May 16, 1991,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, pp. 97-106. The speech was originally published as “Acceptance,” The Pritzker Architecture Prize, The Hyatt Foundation, 1991.
40 details of Venturi’s history in her essay, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history.” Friends and enemies are acknowledged in prefaces to their books. All these writings are important sources because they relay details of Scott Brown and Venturi’s individual architectural legacies, friendships, first acquaintance, and early collaboration in teaching and writing.
Interviews with Scott Brown and Venturi – either separately or together – by critics in architectural and non-architectural journals also provide important sources of information about Scott Brown and Venturi’s collaborative partnership.175 Of the interviews published in architectural journals the most insightful comments are found in Linda Groat’s interview with Scott Brown,176 Peter Eisenman’s interview with Venturi,177 and more recent interviews with the couple by Robert Maxwell, 178 Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin,179 and William Braham and Louise Harpman.180 Interviews which are not referred to directly in the historical rewriting appear in Harvard Architecture Review;181 Archis;182 Domus;183 and Architectural Record.184 Other select interviews with Scott Brown and/or Venturi are found in popular literature i.e. newspapers and glossy magazines. These interviews generally reveal more personal details not present in the architectural interviews. In these conversations Scott Brown and Venturi tend to expose detail associated with their own partnership and friendships with other acquaintances. They include
175 Some of the interviews are amusing. Refer Robert Venturi in Antonio Sanmartin, “Robert Venturi [interview],” Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme, 162 (July-September 1984): 96- 101. On p. 101, Venturi states,”Well, I have a problem with Peter (Eisenman): I don’t understand him. I never understand him. And I’ve decided I’m really not going to try that hard.” 176 Linda Groat, “An interview: Denise Scott Brown,” Networks, 1 (1972): 49-55. 177 Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” Skyline (July 1982): 12- 15. 178 Robert Maxwell, “Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: interview with Robert Maxwell,” Architectural Design, 62, 7-8 (July-August 1992): 8-15. 179 Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” Perspecta, 28 (1997): 126-145. 180 William Braham and Louise Harpman, “Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi [interview],” Practices, 5-6 (1997): 5-13. 181 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” Harvard Architecture Review, 1 (Spring 1980): 228-239. 182 Ole Bouman and Roemer van Toorn, “‘We set out to do our job, and to follow the clients’ values.’ Interview with Denise Scott Brown,” pp. 40-47. 183 Enrico Morteo, “Choosing richness [interview],” Domus, 747 (March 1993): 17-28. 184 James Russell, “VSBA today [Interview],”Architectural Record, 186, 2 (February 1998): 58-67, 252.
41 the interview by Maralyn Lois Polak in the Philadelphia Inquirer,185 Jim Quinn’s interview in Philadelphia Magazine,186 and interviews in House Beautiful by Barbaralee Diamonstein,187 and Christine Pittel.188 Biographical information on the couple themselves or select friends and enemies enables completion of the sequence of historical rewriting.
Book reviews of Complexity and contradiction in architecture and Learning from Las Vegas show the controversy and affect the two books had on changing the institution of architecture in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Most of the appraisals of Complexity and contradiction in architecture appear in academic architectural journals including Architectural Forum;189 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians;190 Architectural Review191and Harvard Design Magazine .192 Another informative article on the book appears in the glossy magazine, Interiors by John F. Pile.193
Soon after it was released, Learning from Las Vegas was reviewed in academic architectural, popular culture and landscape journals including the Yale publication, Novum Organum;194 Journal of Popular Culture;195 Landscape Architecture;196 Architectural Forum197 and Oppositions.198 Other
185 Maralyn Lois Polak, “Architect for pop culture [Interview: Denise Scott Brown],” Philadelphia Inquirer Today Magazine (8 June 1975): 8. 186 Jim Quinn, “Dumb is beautiful,” Philadelphia Magazine (October 1976): 156-158, 176, 178,181-184, 186,189,190. 187 Barbaralee Diamonstein, “HB architecture today: Good buildings, Robert Venturi believes, derive from a collaboration between architect and client,” House Beautiful, 128, 5 (May 1986): 172. 188 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” House Beautiful, 133, 9 (September 1991): 100-101, 150, 156, 162-163. 189 Peter Blake, “Books, Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” Architectural Forum (June 1967): 56, 57, 98. 190 Naomi Miller, “Complexity and contradiction in architecture [book review],” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (December 1967): 318-319. 191 Christian Norberg-Schultz, “Less or More?” Architectural Review, 143 (April 1968): 257- 258. 192 Robert Harbison, “Complexity and contradiction in architecture [book review] and Learning from Las Vegas [book review],” Harvard Design Magazine (Fall 1998): 83-84. 193 John F. Pile, “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” Interiors (July 1967): 24. 194 Donald Watson, “LLV, LLV:? VVV,” Novum Organum, 5, New Haven Yale School of Art, 1969, page numbers not shown. This review is of the studio not the book. 195 Sigrid H. Fowler, “Learning from Las Vegas by Venturi, Brown and Izenour: Architecture and the civic body,” Journal of Popular Culture, 7, 2 (1973): 425-433; David J. Neuman, “Learning from Las Vegas [book review],” Journal of Popular Culture, (Spring 1973): 873. 196 Gary Hack, “Venturi View of the strip leads to Las Vagueness [book review],” Landscape Architecture (July 1973): 376-378. 197 J. M. Fitch, “Single point perspective: Learning about Las Vegas: or the critical difference between looking at pretty pictures of hell and actually having to live there,” Architectural Forum, 140, 2 (March 1974): 89.
42 articles appear in Today’s Family Digest199 and The Harvard Independent.200 As a consequence of Learning from Las Vegas, the debate over whether Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour are anti-architecture, because they invite architects to learn from the popular landscape, is discussed by Lance Wright201 and briefly by Robin Boyd.202
Zenghelis and Koolhaas
Because Koolhaas is a present-day figurehead in the architectural profession an extraordinary amount of literature has been written by contemporary critics on him and OMA. Due to the selection of Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s collaborative partnership as a focus of this study, the literature review on OMA has been limited to the history of the detail surrounding the early partnership. Unlike the Smithsons and Scott Brown, Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s early partnership has limited literary sources. Historical details appear in texts written by Koolhaas and Zenghelis and by critics on the early OMA, book reviews, published interviews, biographical details of friends and public talks.
Koolhaas’s Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan is a central text to the study. Particular reference is made to the “Acknowledgments” and “Appendix” to the book which provides evidence of Koolhaas’s early collaboration with Zenghelis and others. Memoirs of Koolhaas’s education recorded in the late OMA architectural “monograph” S,M,L,XL are another literary source.203 Reviews or retrospective discussion of Delirious New York and S,M,L,XL referred to in this dissertation are by
198 Fred Koetter, “On Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas,” Oppositions, 3 (May 1974): 98-104. 199 Paul Richard, “Learning from Las Vegas,” Today’s Family Digest, 24, 10 (November 1969): 12-17; The same review was published as Paul Richard, “Learning from Las Vegas,” The Washington Post [The Arts] (19 January 1969): k1, k8. 200 J. B. Jackson, “An architect learns from Las Vegas,” The Harvard Independent (30 November 1972): 6, 7. 201 Lance Wright, “Robert Venturi and anti-architecture,” Architectural Review, 153 (April 1973): 262-264. 202 Robin Boyd, “Anti-architecture,” Architectural Forum (November 1968): 84-85. 203 O.M.A, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, New York: Monacelli Press Inc., 1995. S,M,L,XL is a non-traditional “monograph”. It includes Koolhaas’s recent research on urbanism, originally to be published under the title, The contemporary city.
43 Richard Munday,204 Joseph Rykwert,205 Naomi Stungo,206 Robert Harbison,207 Andre Bideau208 and William S. Saunders.209 In contrast to S,M,L,XL, OMA: Projects 1978-1981 is a rare monograph of early OMA work.210 The 1977 issue of Architectural Design is also devoted to the early OMA projects.211 Essays in the journal are by Kenneth Frampton,212 George Baird213 and Demetrios Porphyrios.214 Frampton and Baird have continued to critique the writings of OMA in later writings.215
Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s oral accounts of events associated with the early OMA are recorded in interviews published in academic and non-academic literature. In the first category are two interviews which support the research. Conducted only two years before the split of the early OMA partnership, they are by Patrice Goulet and were published in French in the April 1985 issue of the architectural journal, L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui. The interviews outline autobiographic details which reveal how the two men met, how they came to collaborate and what they were collaborating for and against. Goulet’s interview with Zenghelis titled “… Or the beginning of the end of reality: Interview with Elia Zenghelis” is a rare document in which Zenghelis speaks
204 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 46-48. 205 Joseph Rykwert, “America dreams of Europe. Europe dreams of America,” Casabella, 56, 586-587 (January-February 1992): 32-35, 117. 1992 is the date listed in the Avery index but this author suspects the date of the article is 1982. 206 Naomi Stungo, “Sizing up Rem Koolhaas [book review],” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 102, 12 (December 1995): 28-29. 207 Robert Harbison, “Big is not always beautiful [book review],” Architects' Journal, 203, 5 (8 February 1996): 26-27. 208 Andre Bideau, “Koolhaas' katharsis [book review],” Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, 5 (May 1996): 45-52. 209 William S. Saunders, “Rem Koolhaas's writing on cities: poetic perception and gnomic fantasy,” Journal of Architectural Education, 51, 1 (September 1997): 61-71. 210 OMA, OMA: Projects 1978-1981, London: Architectural Association, 1981. 211 Unknown, “OMA”, Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): entire issue. Refer also Unknown, “OMA [Office of Metropolitan Architecture],” Architectural Design, 55, 3-4 (1985): 50-51. 212 Kenneth Frampton, “Two or three things I know about them: a note on Manhattanism,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 315-318. 213 George Baird, “Les extremes qui se touchent?” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 326- 329. 214 Demetrios Porphyrios, “Pandora's box: an essay on metropolitan portraits,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 357-362. 215 Kenneth Frampton, “Preface,” in Ivan Leonidov, Ivan Leonidov, New York: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, Rizzoli International Publications, 1981, p. 1; Kenneth Frampton, “Leonidovs Vermachtnis: von der Kunsthalle zum Educatorium,” Arch Plus, 142 (July 1998) : 12-13 ; Kenneth Frampton, “Rem Koolhaas: Kunsthal a Rotterdam,“ Domus, 747 (March 1993): 38-47; Kenneth Frampton, “OMA, the legacy of Leonidov,” AV Monographs, 73 (September-October 1998): 24-27; George Baird, “OMA, “Neo-modern,” and modernity: George Baird in “conversation” with the editors of Perspecta 32,” Perspecta, 32 (2001): 28-37.
44 intimately of his partnership and conspiracy with Koolhaas against the ideology of the English architectural establishment at the time.216 Goulet’s conversation with Koolhaas titled “The second chance of modern architecture: Interview with Rem Koolhaas” is revealing of the couple’s early association and collaboration.217 Koolhaas’s interview published in Transition in 1980 reveals details surrounding Koolhaas’s move to America.218 After the split of early OMA, interviews with Zenghelis – whose career becomes less prominent in the media – are rare, with a plethora of interviews with Koolhaas being published, as he gains prominence. One interview with Zenghelis by Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides in El Croquis, published seven years after the early OMA partnership split provides telling details of the early OMA partnership.219 Some of Koolhaas’s many interviews after the early OMA split include Marta Cervello’s in Quaderns d’Arquitectura i urbanisme;220 Alejandro Zaera Polo’s in El Croquis;221 Cynthia Davidson’s in ANY: Architecture New York;222 Odile Fillion’s in Lotus International,223 George Baird’s in GSD News;224 Hans Ulrich Obrist’s found on the internet;225 Sarah Whiting’s in Assemblage226 and Charles Jencks’s in Architectural Design.227 In Cervello’s interview
216 Patrice Goulet, “… Or the beginning of the end of reality: Interview with Elia Zenghelis,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 10-14. 217 Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture: Interview with Rem Koolhaas,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238, (April 1985): 2-9. 218 Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” pp. 6-23. Koolhaas is one of three keynote speakers at the 1980 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Victorian chapter conference interviewed in the journal. The interview with Michael Graves appears on pp. 6-13; the interview with Koolhaas on pp. 14-18; and the interview with George Baird on pp. 19-23. 219 Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” El Croquis, 67 (1994): 122-145. 220 Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” Quaderns d’Arquitectura i urbanisme, 183 (October- December 1989): 80-103. 221 Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Finding freedoms: Conversations with Rem Koolhaas,” El Croquis, 53 (1992): 6-31. 222 Cynthia Davidson, “Rem Koolhaas: Why I wrote Delirious New York and other textual strategies,” ANY: Architecture New York, 1, 0 (May-June 1993): 42-43. 223 Odile Fillion, “La Ville: six interviews,” Lotus International, 84 (1995): 112-131. The six architects interviewed are Oriol Bohigas, Andrea Branzi, Rem Koolhaas, Léon Krier, Pierluigi Nicolin and Jean Nouvel. The interview with Koolhaas appears on pp. 119-121. 224 George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” GSD News/Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, (Summer 1996): 49-50. 225 Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Rem Koolhaas/OMA [interview],” http://www.paddavis.de/dualism/Berlin.html, site accessed 17.03.2003, unpaginated. 226 Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” pp. 36-55. 227 Charles Jencks, “Branding – signs, symbols or something else? Charles Jencks in conversation with Rem Koolhaas [interview],” Architectural Design, 70, 6 (December 2000): 34-41.
45 Koolhaas voices his anxiousness “with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career.” He states that he feels the “fatal things” for an architect come when he starts to take himself too seriously - “when he runs out of secrets.”228 Other interviews appear in Arch Plus,229 Archis230 and Domus.231 In the popular journal, Index Magazine is another interview with Koolhaas conducted by the editor of S,M,L,XL, Jennifer Sigler.232
Articles on collaborators including Zoe Zenghelis,233 O. M. Ungers,234 Zaha Hadid235 and Laurinda Spear236 which contain biographical details relating to the early OMA partnership embellish the historical detail. Zenghelis’s public lecture at Yale in 1992237 and Koolhaas’s Pritzker prize speech238 are also important resources.
Outside these sources are biographies on the Smithsons, Scott Brown and Venturi, Zenghelis and Koolhaas, their friends or enemies which are found on internet sites. They also appear in texts such as Contemporary architects and Macmillan encyclopedia of architects. 239
228 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” p. 80. 229 “Summary; Rem Koolhaas in an interview with Nikolaus Kuhnert and Philipp Oswalt (excerpts) p. 24” in Rem Koolhaas, “Die Entfaltung der Architektur,” Arch Plus (June 1993): 80-83. 230 Hans van Dijk, “‘The architect is obliged to be an honourable man’. Interview with Rem Koolhaas,” Archis, 11 (November 1994): 18-24. 231 Bart Lootsma, “Rem Koolhaas: In search of the new Modernism [interview],” Domus, 800 (January 1998): 38-41. Outside of these recorded conversations is Sanford Kwinter ed., Rem Koolhaas: Conversation with students, Houston; New York: Rice University School of Architecture; Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. 232 Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [interview],” Index magazine, http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/interview_koolhaas.html; site accessed 14.04.2003, unpaginated. 233 Jasia Reichardt, “An artist in an architectural context: paintings by Zoe Zenghelis 9 January – 9 February 1985 [exhibition review],” AA files, 10 (Autumn 1985): 62-65; Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall, “Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall: house for Zoe Zenghelis, London [interview],” Architectural Design, 61, 3-4 (1991): 54-59. 234 Oswald Mathias Ungers and Stefan Vieths, Oswald Mathias Ungers: the dialectic city, Milan: Skira, 1997. 235Zaha Hadid, “Zaha Hadid [interview],” Transition, 20 (May 1987): 17-21; Joseph Giovannini, “Portrait: Zaha Hadid, architecture's new diva makes an international scene,” Architectural Digest, 51, 1 (January 1996): 26, 28-29, 32, 35; Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” A+U: Architecture and Urbanism, 11, 374 (November 2001): 32-35. 236 John Morris Dixon, “Layers of meaning: Spear House, Miami, Florida,” Progressive Architecture, 60, 12 (December 1979): 66-71. 237 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” Yale seminars in architecture, 2 (1982): 155-179. 238 Unknown, The Pritzker architecture prize, 2000: presented to Rem Koolhaas, Los Angeles, California: The Foundation, 2000. 239 Muriel Emanuel et al., Contemporary architects, London: Macmillan, 1980; Ann Lee Morgan et al., Contemporary architects, Chicago; London: St James, 1987; Adolf K. Placzek ed., Macmillan encyclopedia of architects, New York: The Free Press, 1982.
46 Learning from the literature review
Through an examination of background literature, the focus and method for this dissertation have been established. From the reading of anthologies on polemical modern architectural theory, the author has learned that many of the revolutionary developments in modern architecture were instigated by pairs or groups of architects who contested the “truths” of preceding ethical frameworks. From an overview of the “truthfulness” of historiography, the author has learned of the virtues and restrictions associated with alternative methods of historiography. From the examination of a range of writings on political philosophy, Derrida’s book Politics of friendship has been identified as a key text in setting out the method for approaching the research topic. Politics of friendship has been chosen to frame the research because it is deemed an authoritative text on the topic of political subversion of oligarchies through the personal politics of friends. It also refers to Aristotle’s and Plato’s political philosophies, respectively on the construction of the institution through friendship and war, and subversive collaboration. From an examination of writings on collaboration, Colomina’s essay on the topic has been chosen for referral in the writing of the dissertation because of her reference to “secrets” present but not acknowledged by the architectural establishment. Because of her reference to the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi; and Koolhaas’s collaborations, her essay is used in chapter introductions. Literature pertaining specifically to the three selected architectural partnerships, predominantly found in interviews, provides evidence of political paradigms associated with selected architectural oligarchies.
Method and thesis structure
The research method used to produce this dissertation is qualitative rather than quantitative. It involved four steps. They include reviewing literature and selecting relevant textual sources from the literature, thereby defining the topic and dissertation approach; extracting political theories from a selected authoritative text; inspired by these political theories electing to propose an alternative type of architectural historiography by representing three subversive architectural histories
47 supported by secondary literary sources; and weaving the extracted political theories with the architectural histories to reveal paradigms associated with the operation and evolution of the institution of modern architecture.
The research method began with the review of background literature selected because of the author’s interest in the nature of exclusion and inclusion in the profession. The examination of literature in the fields of architecture, sociology and political philosophy aimed to focus the topic, literature and approach to writing the dissertation. The focus was how excluded groups gained power and displaced ruling oligarchies. The topic of the dissertation was narrowed to the examination of aspects of political practices in the institution of modern architecture from 1949-1987 through a study of three select architectural partnerships: the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi; and Zenghelis and Koolhaas. Relevant topic based literature on the three architectural partnerships was found for textual sources and evidence. By selecting Derrida’s Politics of friendship from the review of background literature as a pivotal text underpinning the study, an approach to the structuring of the dissertation was established.
The second step in the method involved extracting a range of political theories found in Politics of friendship. The theories are ordered for later reference. They also contribute to the titles of the chapters.
With Derrida’s political theories in mind and in order to provide evidence of the politics of friends in modern architecture, the third step in the method involves the representation of architectural history. The decision to rewrite history emerged as the most suitable way to expose this evidence since it could be structured around Derrida’s selected political theories. Three chapters, each devoted to one of the three architectural teams, are rewritten as the histories of architectural friends and their warring. In order to achieve the project of revealing “secret” practices which are known but not given public credence by the architectural academy, private details about these events are disclosed in this rewriting of history. These three chapters begin deliberately with one or more quotations from Colomina’s essay, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture.” All three of the chapters conclude with a graphic depiction or photo illustration of the rewritten histories. This uses a method of creative artistry.
48 The final step involves the weaving together of the selected theories from Derrida’s examination of political philosophy with details surfaced in the three historical rewritings. From this intersection, paradigms relating to “how” the institution of architecture operates are revealed. This method translates directly into the thesis structure for Chapters One to Six.
Chapter One titled “An analysis of politics in architecture” establishes the direction of the study from which the method emerges. The introductory chapter outlines the motives, contentions, original contribution, clarifications, limitations and review of literature for this dissertation.
Chapter Two is titled “Making friends with Derrida.” In it select political theories found in Politics of friendship are distilled from the text and set aside for reference later.
Chapter Three is titled “Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, 1949-1993.” In it, modern architectural history is rewritten as the history of the architectural politics of Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson.
Chapter Four is titled “Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, 1967 – to date.” In it, modern architectural history is rewritten as the history of the architectural politics of Scott Brown and Venturi.
Chapter Five is titled “Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas, 1975-1987.” In it, modern architectural history is rewritten as the history of the architectural politics of Zenghelis and Koolhaas.
Chapter Six is titled “Learning from modern architectural history, 1949-1987.” In it, “truths” are surfaced and summarised relating to the operation and evolution of the institution of modern architecture.
49 Chapter Two
Making friends with Derrida
50 “My dear Peter, … I had the feeling, and I believe that you said it somewhere, that you have judged me to be too reserved, in our “choral work,” a little bit absent, entrenched in discourse, without obliging you to change, to change place, without disturbing you enough… Therefore tell me whether after Choral Work … your work took, in effect, a new direction and engaged itself in other paths. What has happened? What for you is this period? this history? … when did we begin to work together…?”1
In his letter to Peter Eisenman, made public in Assemblage, Jacques Derrida refers to their interdisciplinary collaboration – architect and philosopher – and speaks of how it has affected Eisenman’s own practice. Eisenman is only one of a number of architectural thinkers who have publicised their direct collaboration with Derrida. He and others recognised for such including Bernard Tschumi, Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley have translated Derrida’s philosophical writings – done as early as the late 1960s – into architecture. They have “made friends with Derrida” and used his philosophy to critique, predominantly, architectural form. These collaborations are best described, referring to Wigley’s words, as “a metaphoric transfer, a straight- forward application of theory from outside architecture to the practical domain of the architectural object.”2
This study, while similar in its method of the author as architect “working together” with Derridean philosophy, differs in that, firstly, it is not done in-person and secondly, because it negates using philosophy abstractly to critique architectural form. In contrast, it refers to Derrida’s writings in the Politics of friendship in order to expose operational paradigms associated with the architectural academy whose authority through teaching and judgement impacts on what kind of architecture is produced and recognised.3 Applied to the institution of architecture, the philosophies are used as devices with which to construct an alternative reading of specific historical events in modern architectural history. The study emerges as a practical demonstration of theories of political behaviour in the architectural academy.
1 Jacques Derrida, “An exchange between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman: Jacques Derrida, a letter to Peter Eisenman,” Assemblage, 12 (1990): 8. 2 Mark Wigley, The architecture of deconstruction: Derrida’s haunt, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1993, pp. 1-2. 3 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, London, New York: Verso, 1997.
51 But the application of theories on the politics of friendship to a study of modern architectural history is complicated by the author’s position. As Derrida points out “Who could ever answer for a discourse on friendship without taking a stand?”4 This study is the result of what Wigley might describe as “internal resistance,” not on the part of the architectural object but on the part of the architect as participant.5 Derrida’s words capture the atmosphere of the study; “What is unfolding itself at this instant… – is perhaps only the silent deployment of that strange violence that has always insinuated itself into the origin of the most innocent experiences of friendship or justice. We have begun to respond. We are already caught up, we are caught out, in a certain responsibility…”6 Derrida explains“… Allowing us… to assume responsibility” (is) “in the name, in one’s own name, in the space of autonomy, where the law gives oneself and the name one receives conspire.”7 The taking of responsibility and publicity of this research is similar to the method and critiques undertaken by the three selected architectural partnerships. Like the three partnerships, this dissertation has political motives. All four are responses against what Wigley describes as “the constitutional violence of architecture.”8 This irony is heeded by the author, as is the fact that an interrogation of the practices of the academy may end, as the other subversive critiques of the academy have, by simply being subsumed by the academy and in so doing, depoliticised.
It is because Derrida’s book offers a framework for explaining systems of political activity that it gains “usefulness” for this study.9 The content of the Politics of friendship has enabled the author to “re-view” the institution of architecture and its fraternity as a series of dynamic political friendships or collaborations which generate subversive theories represented in realised and unrealised architectural and urban designs, exhibitions, research, teaching and literature, ideology and architectural movements.
The consequence of this shift in “point of view” has been critical because it has enabled unspoken practices of the architectural establishment to be revealed. The “usefulness” of Politics of Friendship lies, in Derrida’s words, on his provision of “categories and … axioms which have constituted the concept of friendship in its history…: the subject, the person, the ego, presence, the family and familiarity,
4 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 228. 5 Mark Wigley, The architecture of deconstruction: Derrida’s haunt, p. 1. 6 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 231. 7 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 232. 8 Mark Wigley, “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrida,” Perspecta, 23 (1987): 172.
52 affinity, suitability (oikeiōtés) or proximity, … the parent, the citizen and politics (polítēs and politeía), man himself, and … the brother.”10 A select range of these “categories and … axioms” follow so that they may later be woven together with details found in the three modern architectural histories.
A subversive text – Politics of friendship, 1997
Between 1988 and 1989, Derrida conducted a series of seminars on the politics of friendship. These seminars were inspired by his examination of the remark attributed by Diogenes Laertes to the classical Greek philosopher, Aristotle, “O my friends, there is no friend.” Derrida’s literary outcomes of these seminars were an essay published in 1988 titled “Politics of friendship,” and the book of the same title, published in French in 1994 and then translated and first published in English in 1997.11 Derrida’s Politics of friendship is a philosophical, not architectural, inquiry into preceding writings on the topic of philía or friendship. In it, he outlines and collates the discourses on such by select philosophers, theologians and political theorists in order to reveal the origins of the politics of friendship within the classical Greek and Christian heritages of Western philosophy and theology. Derrida is able to continually defer conclusion of these writings through his strategy to examine various tonal variations in stimmung or mood of Aristotle’s phrase as interpreted by the select philosophers, theologians etc.12
According to Derrrida; “Stimmung changes everything. Beyond the concept—even if it is the same one, and even if it becomes undecidable—Stimmung suspends or terrifies oppositions, converts the antithesis into its antithesis (friend into enemy, love into hate, etc.).”13 This technique allows Derrida to evade the necessity to select an interpretation or meaning of the phrase. The discourse is always
9 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, pp. 204-205. Derrida speaks of “useful” political friendships in contrast to those based on virtue. 10 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 294. 11 Jacques Derrida, “Politics of friendship,” The Journal of Philosophy (New York), LXXXV, 11, (November 1988). 12 Unknown ed., Taschen-Worterbuch: Deutsch-Englisch, Englisch-Deutsch, Koln: Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1991, p. 148; “stimmung= mood; atmosphere.” 13 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 57.
53 suspended, deliberately discursive rather than conclusive revealing only the “complexity and contradiction” associated with friendship.
As a consequence of this technique, in the “Foreword” to Politics of friendship, Derrida describes alternative interpretations of the remark. One interpretation of “O my friends, there is no friend” is that the remark is a declaration of political camaraderie, brotherhood or fraternity. Derrida reveals the fragility of friendship and the fraternisation which results in the remark being voiced as a complaint or grievance for an injustice from a former friend now enemy. From disputation comes the interpretation of the statement as an appeal for action, the political subversive quality that binds friends. Another interpretation which relates to the demise of friendship is that “O my friends, there is no friend” is a lament or “funeral oration” spoken to friends and enemies. Derrida writes “The dying person addresses friends, speaking of friends to them, if only to tell them there are none. As for the living person, he addresses enemies, speaking to them of enemies, if only to tell them there are none. The dying person dies, turning towards friendship; the living person lives on, turning towards enmity.”14
While the cycle of friendship occurs around this system, the Politics of friendship is less simply ordered. Derrida reveals a series of related concepts and returns to them so that they “haunt” the text, never finished with, always returning. Late in the book, he refers to this strategy of suspending resolution which is described as the temptation of the book to resist conclusion so as “to keep the temptation in sight.”15
The following selections of “categories and axioms” which are elaborated bring order to Derrida’s text. The reason for this ordering is to distinguish concepts so as to make each of them into thematic threads which will later be woven with the architectural histories. Because the deconstruction of the politics of friendship undertaken by Derrida refers to a chain of writings on friendship by a range of Western philosophers, many of whom refer directly to the quotation attributed to Aristotle, this summary begins where Derrida begins, that is, with the writings of 16th century legal scholar and theologian, Michel de Montaigne16 and classical philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero.
14 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 51. 15 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 218. 16 Although not renowned as a scholar, Montaigne gained his knowledge from his personal reading. He was familiar with the classics by Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Plutarch, Xenophon and Cicero and incorporates select concepts from these thinkers into his writings.
54 On “primary” subversive friendship
It is of no coincidence that Derrida’s first chapter title, “Oligarchies: naming, enumerating, counting” refers to the word oligarchy which can be defined as “(a) form of government by a small group of people”.17 This is pertinent because it establishes an underlying premise in Derrida’s enquiry into the politics of friendship.18 It is in pursuit of philosophising the association between government and friendship that leads to Derrida’s “analysis” of the writings of select Western thinkers who have all written in detail on friendship and its politics.19 Derrida refers firstly to the writings of Montaigne and Cicero because both have written on their experience and knowledge of “primary” friendship.20
Derrida refers to Montaigne’s essay, “On friendship” in Essays which includes Aristotle’s remark “Oh my friends, there is no friend!”21 In the “Introduction” to the book, J. M. Cohen contends Montaigne’s Essays aims “to present a portrait of himself.”22 Its original title, Essai, means “trials” and is structured in three books all of which contain tests of Montaigne’s response to particular topics, of which friendship is only one of twenty-six. Montaigne’s essay on friendship in Book One is important because it intimately documents the nature of his “perfect” friendship with Etienne de la Boetie, a senior colleague and judge, who Montaigne met in Bordeaux where he held a legal post. In “On friendship,” Montaigne refers to La Boetie’s
17 Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 1991. 18 In this research, the liberty has been taken to interpret the institution of architecture as an oligarchy, where the small groups of people governing are associated with the academy. 19 The word “analysis” has been used deliberately, as Derrida reveals its semiotic foundation in Chapter 4, “The phantom friend returning (in the name of ‘democracy’),” Politics of friendship, pp. 77-78. Derrida uses analysis as a strategy for deconstruction. 20 In the following section, the terms “primary,” “true and perfect” and “perfect” are used and interchanged in the discussion of philía. “Primary” is the term used by Aristotle to describe this “superior” type of friendship. Cicero uses the phrase, “true and perfect” while “perfect” is the word preferred for use by Montaigne. 21 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,” Essays, Book One, Chapter 28, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1958, pp. 91-105; Translation and introduction by J. M. Cohen. Cohen states on p. 19 that “The greater part of the essays in Book One were composed in their first form in 1572 and 1573”. The remark attributed to Aristotle is quoted on p. 99 of Essays. The exclamation mark shown in Montaigne’s essay is not included in Derrida’s first quotation of the remark. 22 J. M. Cohen, “Introduction,” in Michel de Montaigne, Essays, p. 9.
55 treatise, The voluntary servitude, later renamed The protest,23 which is referred to later, as well as to De amicitia by Cicero.24
De amicitia is based predominantly on a story by Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the Augur whose father-in-law was Gaius Laelius. Cicero was introduced to Scaevola by his father and Scaevola’s story in De amicitia was relayed intimately to Cicero through their conversations. The discourse in De amicitia is based on Scaevola’s “true and perfect” friendship with Laelius. From these writings, Derrida reveals Cicero’s distinction of “true and perfect” friendships in contrast to those that are “vulgar and mediocre.”25 Derrida identifies through his “analysis” of Montaigne and Cicero’s writings on friendship, the importance placed on “naming and enumerating” “true” friends, as well as “counting” them as rare. Through the naming of “true” friends, the friends acquire legendary renown. They are named because, as Derrida terms it, “primary” friendships “illuminate.”26 This point regarding the “illumination” associated with “primary” friendships is significant. Illuminated through these kinds of rare, “perfect” friendships are promising outcomes of happiness, as well as fortune.27 Referring to Cicero, Derrida contends this type of friendship holds the potential for hope and can continue beyond the life of the friends.28
Cicero maintains the hope made possible by “true and perfect” friendship is due to friends sharing the quality of sameness. He suggests the perfect friend is an “exemplar” or portrait of one’s own image.29 Between “true and perfect” friends there is familiarity and proximity which both constitute how friends are elected. Later, Derrida contends that familiarity and proximity in friendship relate to oikeiótēs which refers to “the hearth (oikos), the home,
23 Etienne de la Boetie, The voluntary servitude or The protest or Discours de la servitude volontaire in Etienne de La Boetie, The politics of obedience: the discourse of voluntary servitude, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997; written in 1548; Translation by Harry Kurz; Introduction by Murray N. Rothbard. In Politics of friendship, Derrida refers to Estienne de La Boetie, Slaves by choice, Surrey, England: Runnymede Books, 1988. Slaves by Choice includes both treatises from Montaigne and La Boetie. 24 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De amicitia, London: University Tutorial Press Ltd, Date unknown, Translation by J. F. Stout and W. F. Masom. 25 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 2. 26 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 3. 27 From the contention that “perfect” friendship brings fortune, it is argued that in regards to the architectural collaborations dealt with in this study, it is their friendship which enables the couple to act against their enemies. This enables them to gain recognition and fame. 28 Jacques Derrida, Politics of Friendship, pp. 3-4. 29 The opening paragraph of Montaigne’s “Of friendship,” p. 21 refers to portraiture, painting and friends. To show this point, the cover of the first English edition of Politics of friendship is of Jacopo Pontormo’s c. 1522 painting, “Doppio ritratto” or “Two portraits.”
56 habitate, domicile…: kinship” but can also be translated as “suitability.”30 Referring to Diogenes Laertius’s reference in Lives of eminent philosophers31 to Aristotle, Derrida summarises Laertius’s claim that the friend is defined by Aristotle “through the economic figure of the habitat. The body houses the soul, offers its hospitality, inviting it to stay over… ‘What is a friend?’ Response: ‘One soul in twin bodies’.”32
“Two bodies in one soul” is made possible by suitability, which is required for the election of friends. In friendship, emerges a suitable way of behaving and of being just in loving – the question of justice. The bonding of friends as soul mates obliges one friend to the law of the other. This law is associated with confidence and trust. The justice of friendship is in the mutual agreement to conceal confidences. Derrida refers to Montaigne’s description of his friendship with La Boetie;
“Our souls were yoked together in such unity, and contemplated each other with so ardent an affection, and with the same affection revealed each to each other… that not only did I know his mind as well as I knew my own but I would have entrusted myself to him with greater assurance than myself.”33
Like Montaigne, Aristotle believed the just way of loving in friendship is tested only with the trials associated with confidentiality found in friendships tested over time. Derrida notes Aristotle’s point that the requirement of time for “primary” friendship means that “One must not have too many friends, for
30 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 154. Here Derrida refers to Plato/Aristotle’s Lysis which reveals the concept of friendship related to kinship and pedagogy. In endnote 31 on p. 169 of Politics of Friendship, Derrida writes: “…the adjective oikeios connotes, in Plato as in common language, that which is one’s own, person, even intimate and interior, as well as that which is close, from the parent or the friend to the compatriot. It thus takes on all the original signification of the term philos, while undoubtedly stressing more than that word the relation to personality and to interiority.” 31 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of eminent philosophers, London: Heinemann, 1925; Translation by R. D. Hicks. 32 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 177 refers to the closest reported statement in Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics [Revised Oxford translation], VII, 1240b, pp. 2-15. Note the definitions of “Economy = (earlier) oe-; f. Gk oikonomia, f. oikonomos manager of a household, steward, f. oikos house… The managing or administration of the resources of a community or establishment; the art of managing resources;… Household management…” in Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 782. 33 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,” p. 213 in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 195.
57 there is not enough time to put them to the test by living with each other.”34 One must choose friends carefully. As Derrida summarises, a “friendly community” therefore requires “election” and “selection.”35
The act of election, selection or discrimination of friends is bound to the feature of friendship to discriminate against or exclude non-friends. This point, that the consequences of discriminating friendships are simultaneously constructive and destructive – constructive, in that, the hope made possible by the presence of discriminating friendship can “illuminate” and empower action; and destructive, in that “true and perfect” friends can discriminate against those not selected as friends – is crucial. Referring to the former, for Aristotle the testing of “primary” friends through “the passage through an ordeal that takes time” and of surviving grievances, allows the friends to develop an empowering “stability, constancy and firm permanence.”36
Referring to Plato’s agreement on this point, Derrida reminds us of an example from Symposium37 and summarises Plato’s argument that, “A friendship that has become steadfast, constant or faithful (bébaios) can even defy or destroy tyrannical power.”38 It is this capability of “steadfast, constant or faithful” friendship to “defy or destroy tyrannical power” which is the foundation of this study into subversive friendships in modern architectural history.
The feature of friendship to usurp tyranny in the name of justice emerges because of the relationship friendship has to law-making.39 Montaigne writes “… Aristotle says that good lawgivers have paid more attention to friendship than to justice. Of a perfect society friendship is the peak.”40 When Derrida refers to this quotation in Politics of friendship, he adds a comment from
34 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 20. This point is made by Aristotle in Eudemian Ethics, 1237b, p. 34, 1238a, p. 3. 35 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 21. 36 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 15. 37 Refer Plato,The portable Plato: ‘Protagoras’, ‘Symposium’, ‘Phaedo’, and ‘The republic’, complete, in the English translation [from the Greek] of Benjamin Jowett, Edited, with an Introduction by Scott Buchanan, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. 38 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 15. 39 When referring to tyranny in modern architectural history, the author is referring to ideological tyranny. 40 Michel de Montaigne, “Of friendship,” p. 92.
58 Michelet that “Fraternity is the law above the law”.41 Derrida continues “the law of friendship … seems… heterogeneous to political laws… Better yet … it would be heterogeneous to genericity, to all law – indeed, to all concepts that would not form the genus of the non-genus, the genus of the unique. The unique must be, every time, as is said of genius, a genus.”42 From this, Derrida establishes an important semiotic link between lawmaking, friendship, the species or genus and the representation of a genus by the genius.43 If “illuminating” hope and fortune have been identified as potential outcomes of the presence of “primary” friendship, what are the outcomes of the absence or “death of friends”?
The death of friends
Derrida states the “political problem of friendship” occurs with the death of friends.44 This proposition is prompted by his study of Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings, predominantly those found in Human, all too human, a book for free spirits.45 Derrida indicates that Nietzsche is the first philosopher in the heritage of political philosophy to break with the Aristotelian heritage and reverse the remark that stimulates his book, “O my friends, there is no friend,”46 when Nietzsche writes in “Of friends”,
“Perhaps to each of us there will come the more joyful hour when we exclaim: ‘Friends, there are no friends! Thus said the dying sage;
41 Michelet, “Fraternity,” in François Furet and M. Ozouf, Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, Paris: Flammarion, 1988, ch. IV, p. 210 in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 182. 42 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, pp. 182-183. 43 The concept of a genius representing a genus is one challenged by some of the architects discussed in this study. For instance, the genius is challenged by Team X member, José Antonio Coderch y de Sentmenat in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, London: Studio Vista, 1968, p. 37. Denise Scott Brown contests the genius under the guise of the male architectural “star” in her essay, Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in Architecture,” in Ellen Perry Berkeley ed. and Matilda McQuaid assoc. ed., Architecture: a place for women, Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, Berkeley, Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, c.1989, pp. 237-246; Refer Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 1078; “genus = [L=birth, family, nation.]” 44 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 27. 45 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, all too human, a book for free spirits, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Translation by R. Hollingdale; first published in 1878. 46 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 27 writes that Nietzsche’s break from the philosophical tradition, by reversing the paradoxical remark attributed to Aristotle, is done in order to disturb the foundations of philosophy.
59 ‘Foes, there are no foes!’ say I, the living fool.”47
Robert Wicks reveals that Human, all too human “signalled” the death of Nietzsche’s personal friendship with Richard Wagner. Nietzsche met Wagner in 1868 but had had an affinity with him since 1858 when he was 14. Wicks writes; “… Nietzsche completed Human, All-Too-Human (1878) – a book which marked a turning point in his philosophical style, and which signalled (sic) the end of his friendship with Wagner, who came under attack in Nietzsche’s thinly-disguised charactization of “the artist.””48 Nietzsche and Wagner had shared an interest in the work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Nietzsche had himself composed “piano, choral and orchestral music since he was a teenager.”49
In a letter to Malwida von Meysenbug written two years after Human, all too human was published, Nietzsche writes of the “death” of his friendship with Richard Wagner and his wife, Cosmina and of his abandonment confirming Wicks contention;
“Any news of the Wagners? It’s three years now since I’ve heard from them. They abandoned me too; I knew long ago that Wagner, as soon as he realized that our aims had diverged, would do just that … I am still grateful to him for having inspired me to strive passionately for independence of spirit.”50
Nietzsche’s writings in Human, all too human prompt Derrida to question if “perhaps”51 “the very thing constitutive of the ‘value of good and honoured things’ … – is related, knotted, entangled … – to its antithesis, to wicked things.”52 This leads him to question the relationship of attraction and repulsion in what Derrida succinctly describes as “the movement of
47 Friedrich Nietzsche, “376: Of friends,” Human, all too human, a book for free spirits, 1, in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 28. 48 Robert Wicks, “Friedrich Nietzsche – life: 1844-1900,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/; date accessed 2003; unpaginated. 49 Robert Wicks, “Friedrich Nietzsche – life: 1844-1900,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/; unpaginated. 50 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Letter to Malwida von Meysenbug, Naumburg, 14 January 1880,” in Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche: a self-portrait from his letters, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 51; Edited and translated by Peter Fuss and Henry Shapiro. 51 Derrida uses the word “perhaps” as a strategic deconstructive device in the chapter, ”Loving in friendship: Perhaps – the noun and the adverb,” Politics of friendship, pp. 26-48. 52 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 30.
60 philein.”53 Derrida speculates “the movement of philein” from friend to enemy to friend and so on, is made possible if “perhaps” the enemy was already entangled within the friend and the friend already entangled within the enemy.54
But what is the cause of the “movement of philien”? Derrida suggests that “Unheimlichkeit would … suffice to usher in, between friend and enemy, every and all conversion, inversion and revolution. It lodges the enemy in the heart of the friend—and vice versa.”55 Not unusual then is the association in the meaning of the word, unheimlich with the unwelcome of a stranger “to the intimacy of the hearth and familial lodgings, to the oikeiótēs.”56 Derrida extends the argument, proposing that the friend “converts” into the enemy. He refers to the writings of Carl Schmitt who argues the need for the endless presence of the enemy within the family of friends. Derrida writes,
“And the brother is revealed as my enemy, Schmitt said. My own enemy. The suitability [convenance: also affinity, correspondence, appropriateness, convenience] of the enemy. The suitability of the enemy at one’s own convenience. The enemy had indeed to be there already, so near. He had to be waiting, lurking close by, in the familiarity of my own family, in my own home, at the heart of resemblance and affinity, within parental ‘suitability’, within the oikeiótēs which should have lodged no one but the friend. This enemy was a companion, a brother, he was like myself, the figure of my own projection; but an exemplarity more real and more resistant than my own shadow. My truth in painting. The enemy did not rise up; he did not come after the friend to oppose or negate him. He was already there, this fellow creature, this double or this twin; I can identify and name him. The proof? He has disappeared, he has slipped off and I must call him back.”57
53 Later Derrida proposes the “movement and time of friendship” as one interpretation of “O my friends, there is no friend.” Refer Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 249. 54 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 32. 55 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 58. Unheimlichkeit is defined as “eeriness, uncanniness” and heimlichkeit, “secrecy, covertness, furtiveness, privacy, stealth, stealthiness.” Refer http://intertran1.tranexp.com/Translate/result.shtml 56 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 58. Refer Mark Wigley, “Postmortem architecture: the taste of Derrida,” p. 167. 57 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 172.
61 The need for the enemy
Carl Schmitt was a prominent German political theorist active post World War I. He was also a Catholic.58 He joined the Nazi party in 1933, the same month as the phenomenologist, Martin Heidegger and was spoken highly of by members of the Frankfurt School including Walter Benjamin even after 1933. In “Foreword: dimensions of the new debate around Carl Schmitt” in Schmitt’s The concept of the political, Tracy B. Strong notes that as an intellectual of the Weimar period, Schmitt ”probed” in his writings, the nature of “the modern, liberal parliamentary state, both in its embodiment in the Weimar constitution and more broadly as the modern form of political organization.” 59 It is in regard to the broad discourse on “the modern form of political organization” in Schmitt’s book originally published in 1932, that Derrida reviews theories found in The concept of the political in Politics of friendship. This is not done without acknowledging Schmitt’s “glaring” anti- Semitism. Unlike Strong, Derrida contends that Schmitt was arrested, tried in Nuremberg and convicted after the war.60 He refers to Schmitt’s imprisonment and writings on such. Derrida reveals Schmitt’s “serious and… repugnant” commitments to Nazism, including his anti-Semitic writings but argues “that this should not distract us from a serious reading, nor keep us from taking up a thought and a work so deeply rooted in the richest tradition of the theological, juridical, political and philosophical culture of Europe…”61 Strong defines the interest in Schmitt’s writings lies in relation to their study of the link between “liberalism and democracy,” “politics and ethics,” and “the importance of what Schmitt called “enemies”…”62
58 Refer Carl Schmitt, The necessity of politics: an essay on the representative idea in the Church and Modern Europe, London: Sheed & Ward, 1931. 59 Tracy B. Strong, “Foreword: dimensions of the new debate around Carl Schmitt,” in Carl Schmitt, The concept of the political, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. ix; first published by Duncker & Humblot in 1932 as Der Begriff des Politischen; Translation, Introduction and notes by George Schwab. 60 Derrida refers to an interview between Schmitt and Prof. Robert Kempner in his Endnote no. 9, Politics of friendship, pp. 134-135. The interrogation of Schmitt was published by Joseph W. Bendersky, “Schmitt at Nuremberg,” Telos, New York, Special issue no. 72, “Carl Schmitt: Enemy or Foe?” (Summer 1987). In the interview, Schmitt argues that his political writings were scholarly rather than specifically linked to Nazism. He suggests he “was not searching to institute…, only to diagnose.” Derrida’s scepticism is sensed in his comment; “This did not prevent him from presenting himself elsewhere as an adventurer of intelligence who had always assumed the risks of his actions and never sought to avoid paying their price.” 61 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, Endnote no. 4, p. 107. 62 Tracy B. Strong, “Foreword: dimensions of the new debate around Carl Schmitt,” p. xiii.
62
Schmitt’s theories are introduced into Derrida’s discourse on the politics of friendship in regards to political decisionism. Derrida sees that Schmittian decisionism “is a theory of the enemy,” which defines “left-wing” and “right- wing” politics.63The concept of the political is concerned with discussing the need for and loss of a political enemy. Schmitt’s argument for the need for the enemy is entangled with the concept of the loss of the enemy. Schmitt contends that the endless need for the existence of the political enemy is that the loss of the political enemy would evoke a loss of the concept of the political. The political event is entangled for Schmitt, with the decision of enmity of which the subject is the determinant. Derrida states that with decisionism comes knowledge. That is, knowing who one’s enemy is. Schmitt argues that in fact, the identification of the enemy (and conversely, the friend) is only possible if the friend/enemy opposition remains present. If this tension is not sustained, “knowing” the enemy is not achievable. In this sense, Derrida notes that Schmitt is “stubborn” in his use of distinctions that are dichotomous. Later, when Derrida is exploring Schmittian and Heideggerian political theorisation on the friend/enemy distinction, he argues that both purport “the oppositionality itself… that which holds adversaries together.”64 For Schmitt and Heidegger, it is the recurring potential for adversarial rivalry that establishes the other clearly as friend or enemy.
Only from this position of knowledge is one capable of taking action and of contesting authority. Knowledge of the enemy is crucial for contestation but also important in defining oneself. Derrida writes, “Without an enemy, I go mad, I can no longer think, I become powerless to think for myself, to pronounce ‘cognito, ergo sum’.”65 Prompted by Schmitt, Derrida suggests the self is defined through the enemy but also that this opposition must be always present. Derrida returns to Nietzsche who summarises, “The life of the enemy. He who lives to combat an enemy must see to it that he remains alive.”66
Derrida is intrigued by Schmitt’s argument, like Nietzsche’s, for the perpetuity of the enemy, even after warring. Schmitt goes beyond Nietzsche to
63 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 67. 64 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 249. 65 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 175.
63 hypothesise that because “both voices speak of the political”, the loss is “perhaps” a “crime against the political itself.”67
Consequently, losing the enemy may not necessarily prescribe progress. Derrida states that “for Schmitt, it is indeed nothing more and nothing less than the political as such which would no longer exist without the figure of the enemy and without the determined possibility of actual war.”68 To sustain the concept of the political, Schmitt argues the presence of the distinction or “political difference” between friend and enemy. Derrida presents Schmitt’s argument of not treating the distinction between friend and enemy lightly, since if “political difference” is erased, politics loses its borders. Through the rewriting of the architectural histories that follow, it appears that for the evolution of the familial institution of architecture to occur, the enemy, in whichever guise, is only temporarily annihilated, any warring beginning over complaints which define political difference.
Complaint in friendship
It is within the concept of the “brotherhood”– one who belongs to the family or fraternity – that the gaining of knowledge of the enemy is made possible. Through Derrida’s exploration of the association of fraternisation to democracy, he argues that brothers “dream of demise” and adds that “This demise continues endlessly to haunt its principle. At the centre of the principle, always, the One does violence to itself, and guards itself against the other.”69 In essence, the brother-enemy is already a member of the brotherhood, one who has delivered a judgment that the brother-friends contest. Friendship of this type, associated with complaint against a judgment delivered, is analysed by Derrida through the concept of “the political crime.”70 Derrida argues bound up with “the political crime” is the concept of grief or injustice.71
66 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, all too human, 1, p. 531 in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 26. 67 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 83. 68 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 84. 69 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. ix. 70 Jacques Derrida, “Foreword,” Politics of friendship, pp. ix-xi. 71Jacques Derrida defines “grief” in Politics of friendship, p. ix: “In English the word means primarily pain or mourning, but grievance also expresses the subject of the complaint, injustice, conflict, a wrong that must be righted, a violence to be repaired.”
64 If between “brothers” a grievance or injustice is felt, friends can respond by acting on the grievance “with a view to protesting or contesting — that is to say, to appealing — before another testimonial agency, from fact to law and from law to justice.” 72 If the crime is significant, Aristotle’s “O my friends, there is no friend” is an appeal to kill a tyrannical enemy; an appeal for the death of a former friend. Under this interpretation, Derrida argues the impetus for the politics of friendship or fraternisation is in preparing to act or “in taking one’s mark”. He writes “…in ‘taking one’s mark, this gathers up a stooping body, first folded in on itself in preparatory reflection: before the leap, without a horizon, beyond any form of trial.”73
In this instance “O my friends, there is no friend” is a call to the law in the name of democracy, responsibility and respect, all of which are linked to another group of friends or a third party.74 Friendly respect is premised on the need to respect the other. Derrida contends “The respect of friendship … is inseparable from a ‘morally good will’ (the tradition of virtue in the próte philía, from Aristotle to Cicero and Montaigne).”75 But Derrida points out that moral respect for the friend does not imply respect of the law.
It is the potential to act on a complaint on behalf of a third party that enables one to free oneself and others from tyranny. War or revolution must be waged. Derrida returns to Cicero who states that the act of war must be waged by the weak (a small number) against the strong (a great number).76 The “just” name for warring is friendship and its entanglement with enmity.
The institution, friendship and warring
“It is said that Aristotle subscribed and spoke in unison with these sages… Like them, he believed the cause … of the institution…
- hence the cause of the social and political bond, but also that of destruction …
72 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. xi. 73 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. xi. 74 Derrida devotes some of the later discourse to the writings by Immanuel Kant. He refers to Kant’s treatise “On the most intimate union of love with respect in friendship,” in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 253. In the treatise, Kant speaks of the “friend of man” who is a “friend of the whole race.” Here the friendship with a third party is fraternal rather than parental/paternal. 75 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 252.
65 – is friendship on the one hand, war on the other.”77
The transition from preparing-to-leap and leaping to victory, from preparing- to-act and acting against a grievance, is discussed by Derrida in Politics of friendship. He proposes that when friends act, their actions are filled with urgency. Unlike the slow binding of “true and perfect” friendships that take time through a series of ordeals, subversive friendships act quickly against an identified enemy. Through the event of waging war publicly the weak develop the capacity to “convert” to the strong.
Derrida notes it is important for Schmitt to associate the enemy in warring with a “public” enemy and notes Schmitt’s contention that within the public sphere the antithesis of friendship is not enmity but hostility. It is the display of public hostility that defines the public enemy. Derrida summarises, “The enemy is solely the public enemy … because everything that has a relationship to such a collectivity of men … becomes public by virtue of such a relationship. The enemy is hostis, not inimicus.”78 But Schmitt is careful to acknowledge that while the public enemy (hostis) can also be a private enemy (inimicus) even though they are treated with hostility in public there is also the potential for them to be treated in private as a friend (amicus).79
In his theorisation on the enemy, Schmitt refers to Plato’s dialogues in The Republic, written in 360 B.C.80 Benjamin Jowett contends of The Republic, that in no “other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy.”81 The Republic deals with
76 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 71. 77 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 175. 78 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 88. 79 Derrida hastens to acknowledge this in Endnote no. 14, Politics of friendship, p. 109. 80 Plato, The Republic, New York: Norton, c.1985; Translation by Richard W. Sterling and William C. Scott. 81 Benjamin Jowett, “The introduction,” www.http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.1.introduction.html In his introduction, Jowett argues the influence of Plato’s The Republic on the writings of Aristotle, as well a number of other political philosophers including Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Republica or On the Commonwealth; and, On the laws, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, Edited by James E. G. Zetzel; Saint Augustine, The city of god, New York: Random House, 1950, Translation by Marcus Dods, Introduction by Thomas Merton; and Sir Thomas More, Utopia, London: Folio Society, 1972, Translated from Latin with an introduction by Paul Turner; Utopia was originally published Louvain: Arte Theodorici Martini, 1516. Jowett suggests Aristotle’s indebtedness to Plato’s The Republic has not been fully “recognized” stating that Aristotle does not acknowledge it in his own writings. Jowett writes “The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle.”
66 the political concept of obtaining justice. Justice is discussed through ten books, in regards to a discussion of the refutation of the popular notions of justice, the origins of justice in the “first” State and its education, an enquiry into the ruling of a “second” State by philosophers and the nature of perversion of States and tyrants through the principle associated with tyranny.
It is in V, 472a of the Republic that Schmitt receives Plato’s elaboration of two types of enemies. There are Greek enemies, present inside a state (stásis),82 and Barbarians or foreign enemies from outside the state (pólemos).83 Internal discord (stásis) or civil war is interpreted by Plato as war between Greeks.84 Derrida referring to Plato describes “it as quasi- familial” since “Greeks are ‘by nature friends among themselves’.”85
Derrida notes that any disagreement or diaphorá between like countrymen, because of “share(d) kinship ties or origins…: family, household, intimacy, community of resources and interests, familiarity, etc” never aims to dominate or destroy.86 Again through Plato, Derrida elaborates that when Greeks wage war on themselves, they aim only to reveal an inner sickness, that is, the pathology of the community.87 Ironically, the sickness within the
82 Jacques Derrida notes in Endnote no. 13, Politics of friendship, p. 109 the conflicting definitions of “stasis” in Carl Schmitt,Théologie Politique, 1922, 1969, pp. 127, 173-175; “Stasis means in the first place repose, state of rest, position, arrest (status); the opposite notion is kinesis: movement. But secondly, stasis also means (political) unrest, movement, revolt and civil war. Most Greek lexicons juxtapose with no further ado the two opposed meanings, without attempting to explain them… However, even the simple juxtaposition of numerous examples such as an opposition is a gold mine for the knowledge of political and theological-political phenomena…” The latter definition is referred to by Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 114 as “a foreign body” – “an evil, an illness, a parasite or a graft” “within the body politic itself, in its own body.” 83 Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 114. Pólemos refers to the foreign body of the enemy outside itself. 84 The interest here is with Plato’s concept of civil war between kinship, rather than with strangers. It is focused on to prepare the reader for a metaphoric link to subversive warring between kinship within the institution of architecture. 85 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 90. Derrida uses the terms “domestic politics” in Politics of friendship, p. 119. The phrase is apt because it refers to the politics of the home and its family, of the fraternity or institution. 86 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, pp. 90-91. 87 The histories of the subversive critiques of the discipline describe pathologies or diseases present within the institution of architecture. The three architectural collaborations identify pathologies within the discipline associated with moralities and judgments of the architectural establishment. This research also participates in revealing the symptoms of pathology within the institution of architecture – the disease of which is the practice of exclusion because of the politics of friendship. The architects become symptomatic of the disease they expose. They have experienced the symptom and set out to expose their own “injustice” or “grievance” to something that has harmed them personally. Refer Friedrich Nietzsche,
67 community exposed by subversive collaborations, Derrida argues, is easily reconciled because of the ties of kinship. But he contends that an equality established at birth endlessly compels individuals to seek legal equality, a kind of “brotherly harmony” that will oblige inner subversive collaborations to expose injustices. This is done in the name of “brotherly” democracy.88
The warring within familial institutions is a warring therefore between friends for other friends in the returning name of the “phantom friend”, democracy.89 It is this requirement for equality and its link to civil fraternity, in the always- suspended call for democracy, which Derrida maintains is what friendship signifies. He proposes that this politics of fraternity brings together “truth, freedom, necessity, and equality.”90 All of these call for action against the dominant aristocracy in the name of the masses. Derrida refers to Schmitt’s point that “the concept of the State presupposes the concept of the political, not the other way around…”91 This is important to acknowledge since it reveals the endless potential for revolution against the State or institution.
Any “genealogical deconstruction” has at stake, the status of the genealogical schema since it is concerned with confidence within kinship. Derrida suggests that “genealogical deconstruction” in the name of democracy relies on the “indefinite right to criticism, to deconstruction (guaranteed rights, in principle, in any democracy: no deconstruction without democracy, no democracy without deconstruction)” and argues the presence of “a self-destructive force in the very motif of democracy.”92
The search for democracy or as Derrida terms it, “aristo-democracy,” which allies itself with the aristocracy, appears as a competition within the aristocracy. Derrida contends that subversion within the aristocracy is made possible when there is an “image” the subversive aristocrats work towards.
Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 205; “The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not (really) need approval; it judges, “what is harmful to me is harmful in itself”; …it is value-creating. Everything it knows as part of itself it honors: such a morality is self-glorification.” 88 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 96. 89 As is indicated in the title of the chapter, “The phantom friend returning (in the name of ‘democracy’), “democracy” is the friend of friends who crusade for “brotherly harmony.” 90 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 100. 91 Carl Schmitt, The concept of the political, pp. 30-32 in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 119. 92 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 105.
68 He writes, “This image can either pre-exist the orator or form itself, reform itself, in the mirror thus held out.”93
In order to gain authority within the aristocracy, referring again to Plato’s Republic, Derrida states that rhetoric of sedition is required. This rhetoric mourns the death of the political enemy. He describes it as a “funeral oration… the discourse of mourning.”94 Political mourning documents and reflects on the demise of the enemy.
It is in a crusade for the politics of democracy from which the polemic emerges.95 Prescribed in the very nature of the polemic is the arguing against a position and an enemy. If we return to Schmitt’s contention in The concept of the political that the presence of the political coincides with the point of practically identifying the enemy, the role of polemic is confirmed. Derrida suggests the role is a practical one; of politics in practice because it confirms “concrete antagonisms.”96 The role of polemics in publicising “concrete antagonisms” against enemies is entangled with publicising friends. In rewriting the architectural histories, the subversive texts written by the architects are analysed in regards to their clarity of defining “concrete antagonisms” and enemies. Also entangled within the polemical texts selected for analysis are “perfect” friendships which are equally connected to the formation of the texts.
Publishing names in the public sphere
“Everything in the political question of friendship seems to be suspended on the secret of a name. Will this name be published?”97
“To Richard Wagner Basel, 2 January 1872
93 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, pp. 102-103. 94 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 103. 95 Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, p. 2273; “polemic = a controversial argument or discussion; argumentation against some opinion, doctrine.” It is contended polemical theorisation is fundamental to the deconstruction of the architectural aristocracy. 96 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 118.
69 Most revered Master, at long last my New Year’s greeting, and a Christmas offering …98 May my essay justify at least in some measure the active interest you’ve always taken, to my great embarrassment, in its growth… On every page you’ll find me but trying to thank you for all you’ve given me, and the only doubt that plagues me is whether I’ve always properly received it. Perhaps later I’ll be able to do a lot of it better… Meanwhile I feel proud that I’ve been baptized, and that from now on whenever I am mentioned it will be in connection with you…”99
“This book is more than a book, it is myself. That is why it belongs to you. It is myself and it is you, my friend.”100
The third remark by Michelet written to his friend, Edgar Quinet refers to his book, Le Peuple. The comment captures the relationship of publicity to the binding of friends, of publishing names together and of acknowledging friendships in the public sphere. This point is reiterated in Nietzsche’s letter to his then dear friend, Wagner to whom he devotes his book, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music.101 In both cases, the book is a gift to an intimate friend. The book publicises the association of the names of friends and promotes the agreements made between friends by their collaboration. It documents their “accointance” or acquaintance publicly so that others may become acquainted with the nomenclatural association.102
Derrida writes that from friendships such as that between Montaigne and La Boetie, “The knowledge of the name and the question of public space will be caught up in the same knot.”103 Derrida participates in the “maieutic tradition of Lysis”, of loosening a knot, when discussing the act of publicising
97 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 77. 98 The footnote reads “The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, published in Leipzig, December 1871, with a dedicatory preface to Wagner.” Refer Friedrich Nietzsche, “Letter to Richard Wagner, Basel, 2 January 1872,” in Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche: a self-portrait from his letters, p. 18 99 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Letter to Richard Wagner, Basel, 2 January 1872,” in Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche: a self-portrait from his letters, p. 18. 100 Michelet to Edgar Quinet, Le Peuple, Paris: Flammarion, 1984, p. 57; Introduction and notes P. Viallaneix in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 228. 101 The book is published under the alternative title; Friedrich Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy and the case of Wagner, New York: Random House, 1967; Translation by Walter Kaufmann. 102 This notion of becoming acquainted with, which Derrida describes in the Politics of friendship on p. 251 as “the proper name”, is subjective because of its tie to friendship. Derrida continues, “Heidegger claims, that philía is older than subjectivity.”
70 friendships.104 The model or exemplar, Derrida argues, that is loosened by “analysis” is “furnished by a twosome” “even if there are more than two of them” – “by some great couple of friends.”105 He states that “Our culture, our school, our literature are the theatre of these couples — and the posterity of these great friends.”106 Derrida notes that in the heritage of philosophy, the “coupling” of friends is “always men.”107 It is publicised as “masculine — neuter-masculine.”108
Michelet publicises his masculine friendship with Quinet in Le Peuple, Nietzsche his masculine friendship with Wagner in The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music. Cicero publicises the “true and perfect” masculine friendship between Scaevola and Laelius in De amicitia. Montaigne speaks of his “perfect” masculine friendship with La Boetie in “Of friendship”.
In this last example of the friendship between Montaigne and La Boetie, the publicising of the masculine name enables their friendship to form. That is, Montaigne becomes acquainted with La Boetie through his writings. He then writes of their acquaintance. Nietzsche’s rhyme to “The Reader” rings true of the bonding of friendship, in the absence of the friend, through the presence of the friend in the book; “I am the cook. Good teeth, strong stomach you will be! And once you have got down my book, You should get on with me.”109 The inference from Nietzsche is that through the absorption of a (literary) speech, the reader, if capable of “getting it all down,” will emerge as a friend to the author. This is an important pedagogical attribute of the architectural collaborations that are analysed. For instance, literary friendships with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or Le Corbusier precede acquaintance in person.
The attribute of friendship “couplings” revealed in the public sphere of the literature is also an important feature of the architectural collaborations
103 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 78. 104 Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 1666; “Maieutic” is defined as “Of a mode of inquiry: Socratic, serving to bring out a person’s latent ideas into clear consciousness.” Refer Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, p. 1652, “Lysis” is defined as “loosening; a gradual resolution of a disease without apparent phenomena (opp. crisis)” 105 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 78. 106 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 78. 107 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 78. 108 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 56. 109 Friedrich Nietzsche, “My Reader”, Rhyme no. 54 in “Joke, Cunning and Revenge: Prelude in German rhymes,” in Friedrich Nietzsche, The gay science, New York: Random House, 1974; Translation and commentary by Walter Kaufmann.
71 selected. Friendships between “fathers” and their “sons” and between “brothers” are revealed in the analysis or loosening of architectural history that is undertaken. The influence of friendships made through literary polemic is an important component of their political subversion.
Returning to the friendship between Montaigne and La Boetie, the literature between them reveals its own subversive nature, one that relates to the question of the nature of “couplings” as always masculine. In the opening pages of Montaigne’s essay, “On friendship” he writes of his first acquaintance with La Boetie’s name through his treatise before he was secondly acquainted with him in person; “… I owe a particular debt to this treatise because it was the means of our first acquaintance. For it was shown to me a long time before I met him, and gave me my first knowledge of his name, thus preparing the way for that friendship so complete and perfect…”110
The treatise referred to by Montaigne as The voluntary servitude was written by La Boetie at the age of seventeen.111 Its brevity is no sign of its political sincerity and activism. The essay is a clear call for resistance against despotism. The polemic is predominantly abstract, arguing that tyranny is fundamentally the consequence of obedience and consent by the masses, not due to the force of despotism as was the popular belief at the time. The highly political text calls for the masses to overthrow tyranny by simply withdrawing their consent to which they have only become accustomed to. A highly judgmental and judicious text, it calls for fraternisation against tyranny through the virtues of friendship. La Boetie writes:
“The fact is that the tyrant is never truly loved, nor does he love. Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing; it is never developed except between persons of character, and never takes root except through mutual respect; it flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the knowledge of his integrity; as guarantees he has his friend’s fine nature, his honor, and his constancy. There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places
110 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,”p. 92. 111 Malcolm Smith, “Introduction,” in Estienne de la Boetie, Slaves by choice, pp. 8, 15 states that La Boetie was born in 1 November,1530 and died on 18 August, 1563. La Boetie wrote his treatise in the summer of 1548.
72 where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends; they are merely accomplices.”112
While La Boetie calls for collective power to release consent to tyranny, his friendship with Montaigne reveals its own politics. This relates to their discourse on friendship with and between women. The discourse between Montaigne and La Boetie in regards to the question of the “perfect” friendships with women is also acknowledged by Derrida as present in the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schmitt.113
The interest in “primary” friendships with women relates to the intention of this study to “loosen” architectural history in regards to the friendships between the male and female “couplings”.114 It is the desire to value powerful “primary” non-masculine teams that leads to the following examination of the discussion of fraternisation between “brothers” and “sisters” through the writings of Montaigne and La Boetie.
The fraternity – fathers, brothers and sisters
112 Etienne de la Boetie, The politics of obedience: the discourse of voluntary servitude, p. 83. 113 Jacques Derrida, Politics of Friendship, p. 56 refers to Nietzsche’s writings when discussing “this question: what is a friend in the feminine, and who, in the feminine, is her friend?” Jacques Derrida, Spurs Nietzsche’s styles, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1979, as the title suggests, is concerned with the spur, trace or mark in Nietzsche’s writing. On p. 41 in it, Derrida refers to one trace as the “question of woman.” In Spurs on p. 43 Derrida writes, “[All of Nietzsche’s investigations, and in particular those which concern woman, are coiled in the labyrinth of an ear. Thus a little further on in Joyful Wisdom (… The Mistresses of Masters, 70), a tapestry or curtain… rises… at the sound of a powerful contralto voice… This voice, like the best of man… to be found in woman, appears to transcend the difference between the sexes… and incarnate the ideal. Concerning these contralto voices, which “represent the ideal male lover, for example, a Romeo” Nietzsche however, expresses a certain reserve: “People do not believe in these lovers; these voices still contain a tinge of the motherly and housewifely character, and most of all when love is in their tone.” This confusion in Nietzsche’s writings in advocating the feminine voice, going so far as to suggest a new species of philosopher affiliated with the feminine, is contradicted with his other anti-feminine writings. Similarly Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 149, notes “It seems to me that Schmitt never speaks of the sister.” Derrida identifies on p. 159 that within Schmitt’s writing is an “oath of fraternity” or the “fraternity of the oath” which returns to the similarity or natural resemblance “in the face” of the friend. 114 Worth adding is the fact that contemporary architectural history has already represented the selected collaborations. This research goes beyond the mere publicity of the “couplings” by trying to reveal the motives for their political activism in architecture.
73
“Nature, the minister of God and the governor of men, has made all of us in the same form, in the same mould as it were, so that we should recognize each other, as fellow-beings — or rather as brothers… Rather must we believe that in giving greater shares to some and less to others, she wanted to leave scope for the exercise of brotherly love… and has striven by every possible means to build us together in the tight embrace of kinship and companionship, and has shown in everything she does that her intention was not so much to make us united as to make us one — we cannot doubt that we are by nature free, since we are companions of each other. And nobody can imagine that nature has placed anyone in a position of servitude, since she has made each of us the companion of all others. La Boetie
But there is no example yet of woman attaining to it. Montaigne”115
Fraternisation between man and woman is discussed between Montaigne and La Boetie through their dialogue on the “naturalness” of the physical relationship between man and woman and their marriage. In “On friendship,” Montaigne refers to the authority of the ancients to suggest that marriage does not resemble “primary” friendship. As Derrida points out, Montaigne argues that the sexual relations between man and woman are the reason why “perfect” friendship with women, at that time, is unattainable. Both he and La Boetie are acquainted with these temporary, satiating, sexual relations between men and women and confess their agreement that they only dissipate rather than stabilise into long-time, constant friendships. On the institution of marriage, Montaigne contends at that time, women are unable to sustain the intellect or display the stability of character required to nourish “true” friendship.116 After such pessimism, Montaigne speculates on the optimistic possibility in the future, of “true” friendships within marriage;
“If it were possible to form a free and voluntary relationship which offered total fulfilment of soul and in which the body, too was part of the union, a relationship in which the whole man was committed, it is certain that such a friendship would as a result be fuller and more
115 The two quotations are from Jacques Derrrida, Politics of Friendship, pp. 171-172. The first quotation is referenced by Derrida as Estienne de la Boetie, Slaves by choice, p. 48. The quotation by Montaigne is not referenced by Derrida.
74 complete. But there is no example of the female sex having yet been able to arrive at such friendship, and by the common consent of the ancient schools women are excluded from friendship.”117
Returning to Derrida’s point of the literary history of friendships as masculine, he extends his argument that in order to achieve freedom, equality and fraternity – the motto of a republic – friendship needs to overwhelm history since “the history of the name leaves less chance to the woman, to the daughter, to the sister.”118 This he explains is a consequence of the act of “inheriting” names or renown through literature. This inheritance is found in the philosophy of the ancients. Derrida argues Aristotle’s Eudemian ethics offers the foundation for the association between gender, friendship and politics.119 In it, Aristotle defines the friendship with the father is deemed royal or monarchical; between a man and his wife, it is aristocratic; and between brothers, it is deemed democratic. From this gendered division of political types, Aristotle proposes alternative types of friendships which form a hierarchy, of which “primary” masculine friendship is most optimal. Bound within and outside of political “primary” friendships are the attributes of usefulness, virtue and pleasure.
In Eudemian ethics, all political friendships are grounded by Aristotle, according to their usefulness to the community. Friendships between husband and wife are only useful for Aristotle in that they bequeath virtue to their offspring. But the affiliations between father and son or between brothers are deemed otherwise. Derrida suggests the father-son relationship is that which results in the proximity between fraternity and comradeship. Honour or entitlement to consideration is bound with the hierarchy of the father and his legitimate sons, not daughters. In order to affect the “inheritance” found both in philosophy and architectural history, narratives are rewritten in this study to include “primary” masculine-feminine friendships.
116 J. M. Cohen’s “Introduction”, p. 18 to Michel de Montaigne, Essays reveals that two years after La Boetie’s death, Montaigne married Françoise de la Chassagne. 117 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,” in Etienne de la Boetie, Slaves by choice, p. 24. Italics added. 118 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 292.
75 Breaking secrecy
“Profit from my absence in order to speak freely.”120
It is important to note that this study is engaged in “naming, enumerating, counting” friends of the architectural collaborators selected in order to reconstruct narratives other than those typically inherited. The dissertation names and enumerates the “illumination” by other collaborators which contribute to the selected subversive manifestoes published by the architectural teams. In order to break professional secrecy on this issue of collaborative work, this study takes advantage of the architects’ personal writings and interviews in which they speak publicly about their histories. Confidentiality is usually broken by the architects if it is not damaging at the time.
This research is itself politically subversive if we refer to Derrida’s study of friendship and silence as discussed in Nietzsche’s Human all too human. Derrida summarises Nietzsche’s argument as “Friendship does not keep silence, it is preserved by silence… Friendship tells the truth — and this is always better left unknown.”121 In revealing the network of friendships that contribute to the formation of the arguments in the final subversive texts, “truths” that the architects may now wish were keep silent are resurfaced. Because they are entangled within the histories, they are loosened in the rewriting process. Specific reference is made here to the early collaboration between Koolhaas and Zenghelis. It is suggested the secrecy that Koolhaas advocates, referred to in the Introduction, may relate to secrets associated with the friendships within the early OMA that may now be felt are “better left unknown.” The demise of Venturi’s various architectural partnerships prior to his collaboration with Scott Brown may hold similar secrets. “Perhaps” the lack of writing found generally about the collapse of architectural friendships within partnerships, is explained by the comment “As the friends know this truth of truth…, they had better keep silent together. As in a mutual agreement.”122 Under no such agreement and to use Derrida’s words, “profit(ting) from my absence in order to speak freely” the rewriting of modern architectural history begins with Alison Smithson and Peter
119 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Eudemian ethics, books I, II and VIII, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1982; Translated by Michael Woods. 120 Jacques Derrida, “An exchange between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman: Jacques Derrida, a letter to Peter Eisenman,” p. 8. 121 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 53. 122 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 54.
76 Smithson and their subversive collaboration against the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM).
77 Chapter Three
Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, 1949-1993
78 “The postwar period inaugurated a new kind of collaborative practice that has become increasingly difficult to ignore or subsume within a “heroic” conception of an individual figure.”1
The post World War II period is described by Beatriz Colomina as the period when “a new kind of collaborative practice” began to emerge in architecture. For this reason, the rewriting of architectural history that takes place in this dissertation begins in the 1950s. This chapter deals with the subversive collaboration of Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson and reveals their gradual contribution to the demise of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). It opens with some friendly recollections of Alison Smithson by Peter Smithson in order to expose the political nature of their “primary” friendship which it is contended initiated the collapse of CIAM.
Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson’s subversive collaboration
“That is the basic difficulty with Alison having gone. The relationship was more like a conspiracy. She and I against everybody else. Not literally.”2
In his interview with Colomina, Peter Smithson refers to the nature of his relationship with his architectural partner and wife of 43 years after her death in 1993, as conspiratorial.3 Colomina’s essay contains details of Peter Smithson’s intimate
1 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, 3 (September 1999): 467. 2 Peter Smithson in Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” October, 94 (Fall 2000): 30. 3 The Smithsons 44 year partnership began in 1949 and ended in 1993. Alison Smithson died on 16 August 1993. While writing this document, Peter Smithson died on 3 March 2003. Refer Abby Bussel, “Peter Smithson, 1923-2003 [obituary],” Architecture: the AIA Journal, 92, 4 (April 2003): 21.
79 memories, friendships and architectural conspiracies with others but reveals Peter’s “primary”4 accomplice as Alison.
When Alison died, a number of obituaries honouring her contribution to architecture were published.5 One of these titled “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],”6 consists of a series of comments by “friends and colleagues”; Giancarlo de Carlo, Derek Sugden, Stephen Greenberg, Louisa Hutton and others, on their memories of Alison Smithson and her partnership with Peter Smithson.
Remembering her at Team X meetings, close friend and Team X member, De Carlo writes, “she had a double role to play, as mother of a small family and as someone who fostered ideas.”7 Sugden, a client of the Smithsons, wrote of her: “I believe she saw herself as one of the great champions in the lists fighting the evil of the cosmetic detail. There could be no compromises for Alison Smithson where these principles were concerned.”8 Greenberg agrees with Sugden and adds; “People who knew Alison well say that her uncompromising conviction that architecture is a moral pursuit at the highest level was a driving force not only of Team 10 but in her and Peter’s partnership.”9 In an interview with Liane Lefaivre, Peter Smithson sums up Alison Smithson’s contribution to their partnership: “… She was a strong person. Her energy, I believe, in retrospect, sustained our partnership, our family,
4 The word “primary” is used to make direct association to Aristotle’s writings on “primary” friendship. 5 Others obituaries include Abby Bussel, “Alison Smithson 1928-1993 [obituary],” Progressive Architecture, 74, 10 (October 1993): 26; Kenneth Frampton, “Alison Smithson, in memoriam [obituary],” Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Newsline, 6, 1 (September-October 1993): 9; and Georges Candilis’s reminiscences in Armelle Lavalou, “Alison Smithson et Team 10: Georges Candilis se souvient [interview], L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 290 (December 1993): 28-30. 6 Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” Architects’ Journal, 198, 8 (1 September 1993): 18-19. The phrase “friends and colleagues” appears on p. 18. 7 Giancarlo de Carlo in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 18. 8 Derek Sugden in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 18. The Sugden House, 1955-1956 was designed by the Smithsons. 9 Stephen Greenberg in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 19.
80 and our creative work. Team Ten, too, was sustained to a great extent by it.”10
Alison’s “fostering ideas,” “fighting the evil of the cosmetic detail,” having “uncompromising conviction” and energy contributes to her steadfast partnership with Peter Smithson, which is later described as “indivisible”. Hutton, who worked as a student for the Smithsons identifies this and states “Being a woman architect was not what Alison was about. It was the indivisibility of the couple which always struck me as unusual, so the attribution of ideas to gender seemed not to be an issue.”11 De Carlo reiterates this point and concludes: “It is impossible to distinguish her contribution from that of Peter; they were a perfectly complementary team.”12 Peter Smithson embellishes on the productivity of their partnership. He states, “We got a lot done because there were two of us. We needed each other. That doesn’t mean we were the same. Alison was a born writer, I wasn’t, and she took the lead most of the time. I think that had either of us been working alone, we would not have been able to do what we did.”13
The Smithsons architectural inheritances
In 1944 at the age of 16, Alison Smithson, then Alison Gill, commenced her studies at the Durham School of Architecture in Newcastle. Peter Smithson, five years her senior, had begun his own studies in architecture at the school in 1939.
10 Peter Smithson in Liane Lefaivre, “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview],” Architecture: the AIA Journal, 89, 1 (January 2000): 143. 11 Louisa Hutton in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 19. Italics added. 12 Giancarlo de Carlo in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 18. 13 Peter Smithson in Liane Lefaivre, “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview],” p. 143.
81 By 1942, he had “passed the intermediate exam”14 and then joined the army, entering the Royal Engineers. In the army, he learnt how to assemble Bailey bridges, a demountable steel bridge system used during the war. He was later shipped to India and Burma where he joined the Indian Army as a member of Queen Victoria’s Madras Sappers and Miners. Peter Smithson explains his wartime travel abroad exposed him to cities and urban experiences usually inaccessible to someone born in Stockton-on-Tees, not of the “solicitor class.”15 Returning to Newcastle in 1945, he completed his architecture course two years later. It was at this time that he met his fellow collaborator and “conspirator”, Alison.
After winning two scholarships, Peter Smithson travelled again, firstly to London and Cambridge and then to Scandinavia and Denmark. Through an introduction from Tom Ellis, one of his lecturers at Newcastle, he met Steen Eiler Rasmussen and Sven Markelius and visited Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg Law Courts, 1913-1936 and Sigurd Lewerentz’s Chapel of Resurrection at Woodland Cemetery, 1915-61. In Denmark, he met Arne Jacobsen.16
Aside from these Nordic influences, the Smithsons elaborate on their early alignment with German and French modernism in Italian thoughts. The Prologue to the book, titled “Three generations” outlines the origins of the Smithsons’ work. In the book, they admit their understanding of early modernist ideology was “instantaneous but not by direct contact; it reached us through books.”17 Because of rationing and shortages during the 1940s, books on recent architecture were rare.18 They list the seminal early influences; “for P.S….
14 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly, 2, 4 (Summer 1997): 32. 15 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 32. 16 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 34. Peter Smithson’s continued affinity with Stockholm is represented in Peter Smithson, “Lament for Stockholm,” Architectural Design, 32 (December 1962): 169. The “poem”, as it is referred to, is written to celebrate Sven Markelius’s receipt of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medal. 17 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, London: A&P Smithson, 1993, p. 11. 18 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 36.
82 there was a small, almost read-out copy of Gropius’ The New Architecture and the Bauhaus in our architecture school’s library… ; for A.S.,… the University library’s book on Bauhaus graphics, the school library’s Cahiers and Oeuvre complete of Le Corbusier.” 19 On the later, Stephen Greenberg comments in his retrospective essay, “Smithsons 40 years on buildings and ideas,” that “Alison Smithson once remarked that every time you open oeuvre complete of Le Corbusier it is full of ideas which you thought you’d had yourself.”20
In 1948, using his ex-serviceman’s grant, Peter Smithson returned to London to study architecture at the Royal Academy Schools. At the same time, Alison Gill was in her last year at Newcastle. Her final year project was a museum for the South bank in London called the Royal Academy and was “based on Corbusier’s expandable spiral museum for which, as Peter Smtihson recalls, she used to say, she unsuccessfully tried to develop a better section.”21 The couple wrote to each other while apart.
At the Royal Academy, Peter Smithson had also designed a museum – the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge (unbuilt) – in which its detailing was influenced by the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Peter Smithson had purchased Philip Johnson’s 1947 book on the Bauhaus architect and wrote to Alison of his discovery of it.22 After this, Alison sent him pages torn out of the 3 January 1946 issue of Architects Journal.23 The pages were of the steel details of the Minerals and Metals building at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, 1942-43 by Mies van der Rohe.24 Peter Smithson explains to
19 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, p. 11. 20Stephen Greenberg, “Smithsons’ 40 years on buildings and ideas [book and exhibition review],” Architects’ Journal, 199, 5 (2 February 1994): 42. 21 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 35. 22 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York: Museum of Modern Art, c.1947. 23 Unknown, “Metals and Minerals Research Building: Illinois Institute of Technology,” Architects’ Journal, 103 (3 January 1946): 7-10. 24 It should be noted that aside from the direct influence of IIT, other projects designed by Mies van der Rohe such as the Barcelona Pavilion influenced the Smithsons’ work. Refer Alison and Peter Smithson, “Mies’ pieces,” Changing the art of inhabitation, London: Artemis, 1994, pp. 7-69.
83 Lefaivre, “Mies – the American Mies, that is – was a direct influence, around 1949… The Mies I liked then, and now, was the architect of the first building at IIT… the Minerals aned Metals Research Building, which is a different kettle of fish from the other buildings at IIT, such as Crown Hall… I was from the industrial belt in the north of England– County Durham near Newcastle – which is perhaps why it struck a chord in me.”25
In a summary of their student work in the book, The charged void: architecture, the Smithsons list their “simple inheritances.”26 They write,
“As students… we were the conscious inheritors of three European architectural languages: … the Swedish – and related, war-interrupted, Danish – social architecture, whose character is equable, contributory: a message principally received through Gunnar Asplund; … Le Corbusier, up to his African years… which included his first conch-shell museum studies; … the first words of Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, supported by the timely publication of his European works.”27
Here are the beginnings of the Smithsons’ participation in the modern project where through their student legacies they are associated with the names of their architectural forefathers. The inheritance, present particularly in Peter Smithson’s student project, is extended into a competition entry for the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School.
25 Peter Smithson in Liane Lefaivre, “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview],” p. 52. 26 Alison and Peter Smithson, The charged void: architecture, New York: Monacelli Press, Inc., 2000. The first chapter is titled “Simple inheritors”. 27 Alison and Peter Smithson, The charged void: architecture, p. 19.
84 Collaborating on a subversive building - Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Norfolk, 1950-1954
“My own debt to Mies is so great that it is difficult for me to disentangle what I hold as my own thoughts, so often have they been the result of insights received from him.”28
In a tribute to Mies van der Rohe on his 80th birthday, Peter Smithson indicates his indebtedness to him. In return, the Smithsons published The heroic period of modern architecture.29 Originally to be called The earth of the modern movement or 1916 a.s.o, the book is a collation of historical facts honouring the projects of the modern movement period of 1916-c.1926. The Smithsons first published it as the December 1965 issue of Architectural Design.30 Its front cover image is a photograph of “Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe discussing the Weissenhof Exhibition, Stuttgart, 1926, Wie Bauen, 1927.” In a letter by Alison Smithson to Beate and John Johansen, she writes of her preparation of the document; “In this way I attempt to fulfil our obligation to the inventive capacity of our grandfathers.” 31
In Peter Carolin’s conversations with Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” Smithson explains that in
28 Peter Smithson, “For Mies van der Rohe on his 80th birthday,” Bauen & Wohnen, 20 (May 1966); reprinted in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, p. 14. The Smithsons participated in a seminar on the work of Mies van der Rohe held at the Technical University, Berlin from 4-9 December 1967. From it they published the essay; Alison and Peter Smithson, “Mies van der Rohe …,” Architectural Design, 39 (July 1969): 363-366. 29 Alison and Peter Smithson, The heroic period of modern architecture, New York: Rizzoli, 1981. 30 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The heroic period of modern architecture 1917-1937,” Architectural Design, 35 (December 1965): entire issue. 31 “Letter by Alison Smithson to Beate and John Johansen dated 1 August 1986,” in “Mies’ pieces,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, p. 69.
85 return for the insights the Smithsons gained from Mies van der Rohe, Mies gained “two apprentices”; their apprenticeships revealed in their design of the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School.32 The events leading up to their design of the School follow and are preceded by an outline of the sentiment at the time.
After World War II, architects in Britain searched for ways of improving not only their physical surroundings but also society in general. Helena Webster notes optimism towards a better world was felt by both the young student generation and older generation of architects but suggests, while their aim was similar, the younger generation differed in their proposed method for achieving it.33 In their method, the younger generation turned to the original “heroic” ideology inherited from the modern movement avant-garde architects of the 1920s rather than the more picturesque, “The New Empiricism” and Socialist doctrine advocated by the older establishment at the time. It was in this optimistic climate that Alison, then aged 21, moved to London and reunited with Peter Smithson. They married in 1949.
From 1949-1950 both Alison and Peter Smithson worked in the Schools Division at the London County Council (LCC), the public service which was undertaking the majority of the reconstruction work in London.34 Recognised as a place for enthusiastic young graduates to work, it was here at the LCC that the Smithsons met colleagues, William (Bill) Howell, Alan Colquhoun, Colin St John (Sandy) Wilson and Peter Carter; and submitted their entry into the open architectural competition for a school at Hunstanton in Norfolk. Peter Smithson states,
32 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 42. The full quotation reads “What did we eventually give to Mies? Hopefully a sense of gaining two apprentices.” 33 Helena Webster ed., Modernism without rhetoric: essays on the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, London: Academy Editions, 1997, pp. 14, 16. 34 Refer Alison Smithson, “L.C.C. was our Uncle,” Architectural Design (September 1965).
86 “I can’t remember how we heard of the competition nor why we decided to enter. We prepared our entry in the evenings and at weekends at our lodgings at 32 Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square.”35 To their surprise, they won the competition, the first they had entered. Alison Smithson was age 21 and Peter Smithson, 26. Peter Smithson writes, “We were just children, as it were straight out of school.”36 The design for Hunstanton is an extension of Peter Smithson’s student project, the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, which he did at the Royal Academy two years earlier, a legacy from Mies van der Rohe as well as a revival in England of studies of Palladian architecture.37
But the legacy from Mies van der Rohe was not without modification. Peter Smithson suggests that in the Hunstanton design “… What we wanted to find out was how to use Mies’ methods without any mannerisms.”38 Architectural historian and co-member of the Independent Group (IG), (Peter) Reyner Banham describes this as offering to “correct… Miesian style,” since “Hunstanton is more frank about its materials and structure than anything by Mies.”39 Peter Smithson explains his conflicting admiration and rejection of Mies van der Rohe. He states, “Mies’ work interested me because it seemed a pure way of building.... But the taste of Mies is not an easily acquired thing or somewhere I appear to have said I found his details too formalistic…: far more likely, at this period, was my affection for the simplicity and directness of the Bailey Bridge.”40 Peter
35 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 36. 36 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 39. 37 Refer Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural principles in the age of humanism, London: A. Tiranti, 1952, 2nd edition; and Peter Smithson, “Letter on architectural principles in the age of humanism, Wittkower,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (March 1952). 38 Peter Smithson in Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” Architectural Review, 172, 1025 (July 1982): 37. 39 Reyner Banham in Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” p. 38. 40 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 35.
87 Smithson adds, “If we had had the money we wouldn’t have made it more elaborate.”41
Further on in “Reflections on Hunstanton,” Peter Smithson acknowledges how Alison Smithson’s experience at the LCC contributed to the design of the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School. At the LCC, Alison Smithson became familiar with the Hills System which was developed by Hills and the Hertfordshire County Architects for the easy assemblage of the schools. Her intrigue with the Hills System was with its requirement to minimise steelwork profiles. This familiarity of minimising steelwork gained by the Smithsons affinity/rejection of the Miesian style and Peter Smithson’s experience with the assemblage of the Bailey bridge combined in the design of Hunstanton.
In recalling Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Robert Maxwell outlines the influence of Le Corbusier’s architectural philosophies on the design. Maxwell was a friend of Colquhoun, Wilson and Carter who were all working with the Smithsons at the time when he moved to London to teach at the Architectural Association (AA) in 1958. In his essay, “Truth without rhetoric: the new softly smiling face of our discipline,” Maxwell states “the work going on in the LCC at the time was “the race to bring Corb to England.” 42 He states;
“In 1951… I was taken by Alan Colquhoun to view the Smithsons’ competition entry for Hunstanton School. As a Rowe man, I was wowed by the classicism of it, the near symmetry, the control, the Miesian discretion, the shadow, even, of Palladio. Yet the Smithsons were not … neo-classical architects. As a
41 Peter Smithson in Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” p. 37. 42 Robert Maxwell, “Truth without rhetoric: ‘The new softly smiling face of our discipline’,” AA files, 28 (Autumn 1994): 3. Maxwell is here referring to Colin Rowe, student of Rudolf Wittkower. Maxwell suggests Rowe took on an antithetical position to Banham.
88 Banham man, I was wowed by the cheek of it (my italics), the exposed piping in the bathrooms, the naked structure, the use of a simple water tower as an architectural marker, the sheer directness of it… Originating, perhaps, in Le Corbusier’s idea of beton brut, the concrete structure exposed as the essence of the building, the term now expanded to suggest a philosophy of design through which the truth would out, and would be sufficient.”43
Maxwell includes a reference to the fundamental importance of the inheritance gained by the Smithsons from Le Corbusier’s beton brut philosophy. This “brutalist” aesthetic – more brutal than Mies, inspired by Corbusian philosophy – was used by Banham to promote Hunstanton as the first example of “New Brutalist” architecture of which he refers to his article, “The New Brutalism,” 44 published in 1955 and his 1966 book, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic?45 Banham’s book also links the movement with a nickname given to Peter Smithson. Banham writes; “Peter Smithson was known to his friends during his student days as ‘Brutus’ from a supposed resemblance to classical busts of the Roman hero.”46
In their review of The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? titled “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism”, the Smithsons outline the extent of Banham’s participation in the IG, undermine Banham’s explanation for the origin of the phrase “New Brutalism” and commend him on recognising the influence of Le Corbusier on
43 Robert Maxwell, “Truth without rhetoric: ‘The new softly smiling face of our discipline’,” p. 4. 44 Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,” Architectural Review, 118, (December 1955): 354- 361. 45 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? London: Architectural Press, 1966. Banham claims on p. 5 of the book, it is an historical explanation into the important aspects of the “New Brutalism” written over a decade after it became recognised as a style. 46 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? p. 10.
89 their early work.47 They describe Banham’s involvement in the IG as “similar to that of a war correspondent – he was present at some of engagements and heard the gossip at first or second hand… This gives him a curious ‘in’: allowing him to get quite right the emotions of the time but making him over confident about the detail.”48 For instance, they clarify that the phrase “New Brutalism” was first written by Alison Smithson not Peter Smithson. They explain; “‘New Brutalism’ was a spontaneous invention by A. M. S. as a word play counter-ploy to The Architectural Review’s ‘New Empiricism’… The brutal part was taken from an English newspaper cutting which gave a translation from a French paper of a Marseilles official’s attack on the Unite in construction, which described the building as ‘brutal’.”49 In praise of Banham’s book, the Smithsons write, “Page 14 Banham is marvellous on Le Corbusier and conveys the feel of his influence – especially during the building period of the Unite – with great accuracy. For it was Le Corbusier of all the old CIAM who continued to talk and to build in terms of the built-world as a dialogue between the individual and the collective. This is what interested our generation.”50 Aside from the early influence of the older generation of modernist architects, the Smithsons inter-disciplinary friendships were seminal in their pursuit against CIAM.
Making friends in the IG
“It is highly probable that the objects that we are so painfully devising may be the wrong ones and
47 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” Architects’ Journal (28 December 1966): 1590-1591. 48 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590. 49 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590. In Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,” p. 356, Banham credits the origin of the phrase to Alison Smithson when describing the Smithsons design of Soho house, London, 1952. 50 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590.
90 it is a good thing every now and then to let other specialists into one’s private world to see if their specialization makes one’s own irrelevant or, what is more probable, to produce mutual modification of concepts.”51
It is in the spirit of revisiting architectural solutions through other specialisations, of which Peter Smithson speaks of, that the Smithsons became involved in inter-disciplinary discussion groups while in London. Banham was affiliated with the architects at the LCC, some of whom the Smithsons had become friends with, and organised informal meetings with them at his house. The regular friends who attended included the Smithsons, Sandy Wilson and Peter Carter. At these meetings, they conversed about architecture and the rise of popular culture. From 1952-1955, Banham chaired meetings at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) of an expanded group named the Independent Group (IG). It consisted of young artists, critics and architects and included the Smithsons.
Contention exists over the origin of the group’s name. Dorothy Morland, director of the ICA at the time, indicates in an interview in 1982 that “I think I named it the ‘Independent Group,’ because I had to put something down in the diary so that it was booked – and I thought that they were independent… But they’re not entirely in agreement with that.”52 IG member, Richard Hamilton offers another explanation in a conversation with Banham in 1976. Hamilton says the name signifies a direct reaction to the art establishment associated with the ICA. He says; “I understand that the title ‘Independent Group’ came from the idea of rejecting the mother image of the ICA. That it was a resentment of the ICA actually bringing these people together at all, and so we said, all right, we’ll be together
51 “Peter Smithson, ‘Design’, 1960” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, London: Studio Vista, 1968, p. 43. 52 “Dorothy Morland, Interview, 1982 May 26,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990, p. 21.
91 but we want to be independent of the ICA.”53 Hamilton identifies that which bound the IG friends was a mutual resentment for the ICA’s art establishment. On this point, Royston Landau is more specific. Landau writes, “The Independent Group… set themselves up in opposition to the founders and the leaders of that Institute, Roland Penrose and Herbert Read, who were important modernist intellectuals of the thirties… This was a situation with some similarities to CIAM.”54
James Lingwood refers to Banham’s famous contention the IG was “the revenge of the elementary school boys,” with the majority of members, excluding the photographer, Nigel Henderson having working class backgrounds.55 There was a political antagonism that underpinned the formation and activities of the group. In “Richard Hamilton’s interview with Banham, 1976 June 27,” Hamilton states that the IG’s antagonism towards the art establishment was in its acknowledgement of the “best artists” and suggests that it was the “resentment” towards such which he recalls to be the “the binding influence of my friends and colleagues” in the IG.56 The enemy of the IG was clearly the ICA art establishment and the IG members conspired to overthrow them.57
In order to do this, the IG embraced popular culture, something the ICA art establishment chose to ignore at the time. Contributing to this interest in popular culture was (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan’s 1951 book The mechanical bride:
53 “Richard Hamilton in conversation with Reyner Banham, 27 June 1976 used in the soundtrack of Fathers of Pop,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 21. 54 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” Rassegna, 14, 52 (4) (December 1992): 40-41. 55 James Lingwood, “Nigel Henderson,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 76. 56 “Richard Hamilton’s interview with Banham, 1976 June 27,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 17. 57 According to the IG, the art establishment who dominated the ICA, because they captured the sentiment of the British art establishment, came to represent their institutional enemy.
92 folklore of industrial man.58 Ordered by IG member, Lawrence Alloway, after seeing an advertisement for it in View magazine, it was used to discuss popular culture “seriously” at IG meetings. Mark Wigley summarises, for the IG:
“High art connoisseurship was to be displaced by an unpatronizing embrace of popular taste. In this, the group identified strongly with the work of Marshall McLuhan, treasuring his first book, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man of 1951 which treats advertisements, newspaper layouts, movie posters, cartoons, and pulp fiction as the most important symptoms of modern society. The analysis of popular culture as a work of art becomes the most decisive means of political analysis…”59
The analysis of the relationship of mass media, art and politics was elaborated upon by McLuhan in two other articles; “Notes on the media as art forms,”60 and “New Media as political forms.”61 Both essays deal with a range of mass media from printed literature, radio, movies to television and its use to control its reading, listening and viewing audiences. In regards to printed literature, McLuhan elaborates on the virtues of James Joyce and in June 1950, the ICA hosted an exhibition on Joyce’s life and works. McLuhan refers to both Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion when discussing the relationship of mass media to technology. Giedion’s book, Mechanization takes command: a contribution to anonymous history was also used to prompt IG discussions.62 The rise of technology was a paramount influence on the
58 Marshall McLuhan, The mechanical bride: folklore of industrial man, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1967; first published in 1951. 59 Mark Wigley, “The architectural cult of synchronization,” October, 94 (Fall 2000): 54-55. Wigley notes that McLuhan spoke to the IG for the first time in May 1962. 60 Marshall McLuhan, “Notes on the Media as Art Forms,” Explorations, 2 (April 1954): 6-13. 61 Marshall McLuhan, “New Media as Political Forms,” Explorations, 3 (August 1954): 120- 126. 62 Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization takes command: a contribution to anonymous history, New York: Oxford University Press, 1948.
93 majority of IG participants, of which the Smithsons were no exception and manifested in their work.63
Of the architects who attended the IG meetings including Sandy Wilson, Geoffrey Holroyd and James Stirling, Wigley claims the Smithsons were “most active.”64 They attended around four IG meetings. While small in number, Peter Smithson acknowledges Alison Smithson and he “enjoyed friendship and support within the group.”65 The couple developed close friendships with Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson in particular.66 Peter Smithson goes so far as to compare the friendship to “a love affair” in his interview with Colomina, “Friends of the Future: a conversation with Peter Smithson.” The transcript reads,
“Colomina: … Tell me something about the Independent Group. Smithson: … I suppose I regarded it as an arena to celebrate friendship with Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson. At that stage of friendship, everything was amusing. You know, it is like a love affair. And consequently, the meetings were regarded as an opportunity to show off. Colomina: So it is more as a personal relationship that you remember it?
63 Refer Peter Smithson, “The Rocket,” Architectural Design, 35 (July 1965): 322-323; and Alison Smithson, AS in DS: An eye on the road, Delft, Netherlands: Delft University Press, 1983. 64 Mark Wigley, “The architectural cult of synchronization,” p. 52. 65 Peter Smithson in Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” p. 6. Italics added. 66 Smithson recalls in his conversation with Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” p. 5 that although Richard Hamilton was meant to have corresponded by letter with the Smithsons about an exhibition of “Pop Art” mass produced items, he was not a close friend of theirs because they “never really connected with him”. For this reason, a relationship between the Smithsons and Hamilton has not been pursued in this research. Refer “Letter to Peter and Alison Smithson dated 16 January 1957,” Richard Hamilton, Richard Hamilton, Collected Words, London: 1982, p. 28 in Marco Livingstone ed., Pop art, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1991, p. 157. The Smithsons’ interest in popular mass produced architecture was extended in two projects; Alison and Peter Smithson, “But today we collect ads,” Ark, 18 (1956): 49-50 and their design for the “House of the future” for the Daily Mail Ideal Home Competition in London, 1955-1956.
94 Smithson: Yes. Of course…”67
But how did the friendship between the Smithsons, Paolozzi and Henderson begin and what were the inheritances and skills that Paolozzi and Henderson brought with them? How did the two “couplings” collaborate against the ICA art establishment at the time?
In regard to their meeting, Peter Smithson, Paolozzi and Henderson had all taught at the Central School of Art in London. Paolozzi had studied with Henderson at the Slade School. Eduardo’s wife, Freda worked in the gallery at the ICA and was a close friend of Morland. In this entanglement, the four met.
Prior to meeting the Smithsons, Paolozzi had lived in Paris from 1947-1949 to understand the root of Dada and Surrealist philosophy.68 Irénée Scalbert argues this was not typical for British artists at the time normally most of whom showed little interest in Surrealist art practice.69 Prior to this, Henderson had been exposed to the work of key Surrealist figures at the Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London. Peggy Guggenheim opened the gallery in 1938 with the help of Henderson’s mother, Wyn Henderson. Victoria Walsh notes that Nigel Henderson “struck up a friendship” with Guggenheim in the early 1930s.70 Walsh writes “A ‘kind of fairy godmother’, Guggenheim had enthusiastically taken to the young Henderson (noted for his quiet but beguiling charm) when she first met him in Paris during trips to see his mother in the 1930s. Happy for him to accompany her on visits to artists’ studios
67 Beatriz Colomina and Peter Smithson in Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” p. 3. Italics added to the word, “friendship”. 68 In the interview with J. G. Ballard and Frank Whitford, “Speculative illustrations,” Studio International, CLXXXIII, 937 (October 1971): 136 in Marco Livingstone ed., Pop art, p. 160, Paolozzi claims his roots are in “radical Surrealism” rather than “Pop” art. 69 Irénée Scalbert, “Parallel of life and art,” Daidalos, 75 (April 2000): 58. 70 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 15. Walsh’s book contributed to the exhibition at the AA titled “Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art,” 26 April-14 June 2002 which was associated with a symposium on the photographers work at the AA on 26 April 2002 titled “Nigel Henderson: Street Photography in the 1950s”.
95 and exhibitions, Henderson was introduced first hand to the Surrealist art being created at the time…”71 Through Guggenheim, Henderson met Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and Marcel Duchamp.72 Through Guggenheim, Henderson and Paolozzi met Hans (Jean) Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Fernand Léger, and Tristan Tzara.73 Tzara had been a good friend of Andre Breton and was well acquainted with Surrealist philosophy. Paolozzi attended Tzara’s lectures at the Sorbonne on Surrealism. Scalbert notes, Tzara “owned an important collection of primitive art which, along (with) Max Ernst’s famous tiny collage, “Le rossignol chinois” made a lasting impression on Paolozzi.”74 From having seen the collages of Ernst and Duchamp, Paolozzi began to compile scrapbooks of his own collages made from images found in American magazines. This early series was titled the “Bunk” series.75 Working with “found” objects or objet trouve, Paolozzi explored the relationship between life and art. Timothy Hyman refers to Paolozzi’s “most-quoted statement… that “all human experience is just one big collage”.”76
On his return from Paris, Paolozzi presented his collages from the “Bunk” series at an “epidiascope ‘lecture’”. Robbins claims, Paolozzi’s “… epidiascope showing…, directly confronted what (Lawrence) Alloway called “the modern flood of visual symbols.” The projection of a heterogeneity of messages generated from SF magazine covers, car ads, animated film clips, and military images appears to have had a bewildering effect. No one had taken mass media imagery so seriously
71 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 15. 72 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 15. 73 Irénée Scalbert, “Parallel of life and art,” p. 58. 74 Irénée Scalbert, “Parallel of life and art”, p. 58. 75 One image in the “Bunk” series, Dr. Pepper, 1948 incorporates the split-image model in the Ivory Soap advertisement found in popular literature at the time. The advertisement is analysed in Marshall McLuhan’s, The mechanical bride: folklore of industrial man, p. 98 “to study the techniques of pictorial reportage in the popular press and magazines.” 76 Timothy Hyman, “Paolozzi: Barbarian and Mandarin,” Artscribe, 8 (September 1977): 34. On the same page, Paolozzi’s challenge to art practice is revealed in his comment made in 1973; “… That there were other considerations about art beside the aesthetic ones and that these were basically in kind sociological, almost anthropological… Because you simply can’t spend the rest of your life moving shapes and colours around, really.”
96 before.”77 It is not surprising that other IG members were inspired by Paolozzi’s work, which was in turn influenced by French Dada and Surrealist philosophy. The political intent underpinning the art movement of Dada, for instance, is its clear identification of “the arts as the enemy”. This antagonism is, after all, what brought the IG members together. Lucy Lippard writes;
“Dada was a broad idealist anarchy with an immense intolerance for pomposity of all forms. It was especially applied to the false notion of culture rampant in post-World War I Europe. The Dada demonstrations… followed a pattern of murder by ridicule; the arts were the enemy - as well as the weapon - not the government...”78
The political Dada and Surrealist quality of Paolozzi’s collages, their “brutal” directness of critiquing life and art and their use of “found” popular images influenced the Smithsons. But an appreciation for collage techniques and brutalist aesthetics was also shared by Henderson who impacted on the Smithsons architectural philosophy through his photography of popular “street” culture. Henderson’s photography was affected by his wartime experience and the manner in which he viewed life after that.
Henderson had been a pilot in Coastal Command during the war. He joined at the age of twenty-two but became mentally shattered by the experience of flying. Towards the end of the war, Henderson suffered a nervous breakdown and “began to attend a clinic at Guy’s Hospital on a regular basis… Henderson had been encouraged and supported through this period by … Judith Stephen… whom he married in 1943. As their correspondence during the war reveals, Judith … was … an
77 David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 94. 78 Lucy Lippard, “Introduction,” in Lucy Lippard ed., Pop art, London: Thames and Hudson, 1967, p. 22; first published in 1966.
97 intellectual soulmate…”79 A student at Cambridge, Judith Henderson studied economics and anthropology from 1937-1940. Due to her work as an anthropologist, the Hendersons moved in 1945, to Bethnal Green “which had suffered severe bombing raids during the war and large-scale poverty.”80 Judith Henderson moved to the area to pursue a project called “Discover your Neighbour” instigated by J. L. Peterson.81 The Paolozzis also lived in Bethnal Green at the time.
Frank Whitford notes “The life of his neighbours and their children fascinated Henderson, who took thousands of photographs. These reveal a distinct flair for direct observation, but also an interest in graffiti, decay and the lively graphic displays of hoardings and shop fronts.”82 It is argued that Henderson’s fascination with Bethnal Green was due to his admiration of a “raw” independent spirit he saw in his photographic subjects and which he tried to capture the character in his photography. In 1961, Henderson wrote in his “Prose Poem to Paolozzi”; “I wish, looking back… that I could have sung the song of every blotch and blister, of every patch and stain on road and pavement surface, of step and rail and door and window frame. The patched garments, the creaky shoes, the warm bodies, the stout hearts and quirky independent spirit…”83 Henderson’s photography exposed IG members to an alternative visual morality. No longer was poverty and physical destruction ugly. Henderson’s photographs captured a brutal beauty. In retrospect, the Smithsons described the implications of what was celebrated in his photography. They write, “In the early ‘fifties the things thrown away by our own culture… were transformed in the images made by… Henderson, whose vision through the camera lens made us look differently … Things found, things cast away. The story of
79 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 17. 80 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 17. 81 Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 17. 82 Frank Whitford, Nigel Henderson: photographs, collages, paintings [exhibition catalogue], Kettle’s Yard Gallery, Northampton Street, Cambridge, 5-27 March 1977, unpaginated. 83 Nigel Henderson, “Prose Poem to Paolozzi,” Uppercase, 3 (1961): unpaginated; reprinted in Nigel Henderson, Nigel Henderson: Photographs of Bethnal Green 1949-51, Nottingham: 1978, unpaginated.
98 rejection in a society identifies strange, even remote resentments. In written ephemera we have tried to identify these blind moves – that are sometimes rages – within a society where they coincide with periods of inventive activity…”84
The photographs taken by Henderson of the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School under construction, which include a photograph of Alison Smithson seen through a dirty, graffiti-ed pane of glass, are included in this category. The Smithsons “inherited” from Henderson’s images. Peter Smithson states,
“It is the key to the period. But why something is ‘a good image’ cannot be understood outside the persons and the period of its use. Such condensation of meaning into a single word is a characteristic of people campaigning together. Such then were we.”85
Collaborating on two subversive exhibitions - Parallel of Life and Art, 1953 and “Patio and Pavilion exhibit”, 1956
The conspiracy of the Smithsons, Paolozzi and Henderson occurred through publicised writings on the work of the group and exhibitions at the ICA. In regards to publishing, Banham notes that it was through the Smithsons’ friendship with Theo Crosby and Paolozzi that Brutalist theories were disseminated through the
84 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The shift,” in Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, London: Academy Editions, 1982, p. 9. Aside from revealing how the Smithsons gained from Henderson’s photography, there is expressed in this quotation, the Smithsons’ mutual appreciation of “things cast away” or rejected. 85 Peter Smithson, “Foreword,” in Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 7.
99 journal, Architectural Design. It is argued through these writings that the Smithsons began to wage their war against orthodox modernism publicly. Banham reveals, “The Smithsons had been contributing statements and letters on The New Brutalism to the English architectural magazines ever since the publication of their projected house in Soho... Although these miscellaneous literary activities had contributed some resounding rhetorical phrases… there had been no extended statement of aims and orientation until the effects of a change in the editorial staff of ‘Architectural Design’… Theo Crosby, who had been associated with the Smithsons and friends of theirs, such as Edouardo (sic) Paolozzi, joined the staff of ‘Architectural Design’, and was able to swing the magazine’s policy … none profited better than the Smithsons.”86 In the early 1950s, Paolozzi worked for the architectural firm of Jane Drew and Edwin Maxwell Fry and it is through this affiliation that he came to join the staff of Architectural Design (AD). Importantly, Peter Cook notes the political component of the Smithsons’ “writings and proclamations … (were) directed towards other architects. Their loves and hates… directed inwards towards a principal activity that is really about extending the state of the art.”87
In regards to exhibitions within the IG, the Smithsons, Paolozzi and Henderson collaborated under the name “Group 6” on two significant shows; the Parallel of Life and Art, 1953 and “Patio and Pavilion exhibit” for This is Tomorrow, 1956. In their essay, “The ‘As found’ and the ‘Found’”, the Smithsons suggest that for both exhibitions “Group 6”, while affiliated with the IG, was independent of the other group members.88 The two
86 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? p. 45. Italics added. 87 Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” p. 39. Italics added. 88 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The ‘As Found’ and the ‘Found’,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, pp. 200-202.
100 exhibitions are stepping stones to some significant architectural work the Smithsons produced as a consequence of their “Group 6” collaboration.
In the Parallel of Life and Art exhibition, a range of “found” images and objects were arranged disorderly in the ICA gallery space. Included among these images were some of Henderson’s “stressed” photographs – a technique Henderson became preoccupied with after suffering his nervous breakdown upon leaving the Air Force. His use of the technique of distortion accentuated the beauty of “found” everyday objects and activities. The original title proposed for the exhibition was Sources and the catalogue for the selected images categorised the “sources” into the following groups: anatomy, architecture, art, calligraphy, landscape, movement, nature, primitive, scale of man, stress, stress structure, football, science fiction, medicine, geology, metal and ceramic.89 The exhibition was controversial in its method of presentation and subject matter because it explored the meaning of an object in “association” with other objects i.e. it was relational and challenged boundaries of aesthetic beauty. Webster notes the victory for “Group 6” of this exhibition. She writes “The anti-beauty nature of the display caused much dissent from the establishment, who considered it anti- art.”90 In his essay, “Exhibitions” Graham Whitham adds that the Smithsons compiled a “manifesto” outlining the aims of the Parallel of Life and Art exhibition.91 This unpublished manuscript was titled “Asides to ‘Thoughts
89 The title of the exhibition changed three times from Sources to Documents ’53 and finally to Parallel of life and art. 90 Helena Webster ed., Modernism without rhetoric: essays on the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, p. 24. 91 Graham Whitham, “Exhibitions,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, pp. 122-127.
101 on Exhibitions’,”92 and was incorporated into the Smithsons text, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970.93 Peter Cook contends the Smithsons began to write the book, originally titled Urban Reidentification, between 1950 and 1952.94 This piece of early writing appears as the first part of the book and is titled “Urban re-identification”. In their preface to Ordinariness and light, the Smithsons state that “In it were laid down the main themes we have been steadily working on.”95
The “Group 6” “Patio and Pavilion exhibit” for This is Tomorrow also contained Henderson’s photography. The photograph, Head of a Man, 1956 is one of Henderson’s collage “photograms”, which were later called “Hendograms”. Head of a Man is a “Hendogram” compiled of bomb site debris photographs collaged together to form the image of a man and was intended to represent man as a complex being. It was only one component of the exhibit but not only was Henderson’s photography included but also was his backyard in Bethnal Green, which influenced the Smithsons’ design of the patio and pavilion. Graham Whitlam writes that “Patio and Pavilion was to some extent a parody of … Henderson’s backyard in Bethnal Green, but only insofar as his backyard was a parody of others, with their sheds and pigeon roofs… The Smithsons planned and constructed the environment, then left for the CIAM congress in Dubrovnik, asking Henderson and Paolozzi to invest the structure with signs of inhabitation.”96
92 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Asides to ‘Thoughts on exhibitions’,” unpublished manuscript, Alison and Peter Smithson archive, pp. 6-9. 93 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970, London: Faber, 1970. 94 Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” p.38. 95 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light, p. 9. 96 Graham Whitham, “Group Six,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, pp. 140-141.
102 Prior to the Smithsons leaving for Dubrovnik, they had “campaigned together” with Paolozzi and Henderson against the British art establishment. The Smithsons claim their architectural campaign in CIAM was affected by the “deep and direct influence” of Nigel Henderson’s photography and of its fruition and association to Judith Henderson’s sociological studies of Bethnal Green.97 The Smithsons association and friendship with the Hendersons was to appear at CIAM where the Smithsons transformed their subversive collaboration within “Group 6” to their subversive collaboration in Team X. Returning to Colomina’s conversation with Peter Smithson on this shift;
“Colomina: And Eduardo? Smithson: He lives near here still. Colomina: Do you see him sometimes? Smithson: I haven’t seen him since Alison died. But there is no affection in him for me. Whereas with Nigel, we were all affection until the end. He was very remarkable. Without ambition. Eduardo is an academician. Nigel was, physically also, like Lewis Caroll…. Smithson: He did these things without thinking he would be famous. Nigel was that way. Eduardo was always more ambitious. Colomina: But in the 1950’s you were so close to both of them. What happened? Smithson: There are times when you need somebody and they need you too, by chance. Colomina: Yes, it is like what you were saying before about love affairs. Then you moved on with your friends of Team 10, replacing one set of friends for another…”98
97 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590. 98 Beatriz Colomina and Peter Smithson in Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” p. 28. Italics on “friends” added. Nigel Henderson died in 1985.
103 From IG to CIAM
Eric Mumford in his documentation of the emergence, history and demise of CIAM in The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928- 1960 points out that the organisation and its meetings began in June 1928.99 In Kenneth Frampton’s “Foreword” to Mumford’s book, he explains “that the idea of an international congress on modern architecture had been first proposed by the Soviet avant-gardist El Lissitzky, who invited Le Corbusier to join him in founding such an organization in 1924. One may assume that Le Corbusier would have declined this invitation largely on political grounds…”100
Deciding to develop a separate group to the Russian Constructivists, CIAM was founded by a group of European architects including Le Corbusier and Giedion and was used as a vehicle to propagate the then avant-garde architectural philosophy of the European modern movement. Intended as an elite group, CIAM members deviated from the dominant neoclassical philosophy being taught in the academies at the time, such as the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and pursued a mechanised and socially motivated concept of architecture and urbanism. The illustration from Le Corbusier’s, Croisade, ou le crépuscule des académies,101 1935 captures an occasion in May 1932 when Le Corbusier, after presenting his and Pierre Jeanneret’s plans for Algiers, was challenged by M. Umbenstock from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts who Mumford argues “suggested that Le Corbusier was preaching a crusade for modern architecture against the state academies of architecture.”102
99 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000. 100 Kenneth Frampton’s “Foreword,” in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, pp. xi-xii. 101 Le Corbusier, Croisade, ou le crépuscule des académies, 1932 in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 74. 102 Eric Mumford, Caption 2.9, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 74.
104 Five years after CIAM began, at CIAM IV in 1933, British delegates joined the group for the first time. CIAM’s British national representative group was called Modern Architecture Research Society (MARS). Landau notes that MARS was founded by Wells Coates. Some of the other early members included John Betjeman, Edwin Maxwell Fry, Amyas Connell, Arthur Korn,103 Berthold Lubetkin, Colin Lucas, Philip Morton Shand, John Summerson and Basil Ward.104
Also at CIAM IV, under the theme of “The Functional City”, CIAM’s seminal “Charte d’Athènes” or “Athens Charter” was defined. The “Athens Charter” outlined four functions associated with dwelling in modern cities. They were living, working, leisure and circulation. The charter became a critical point for CIAM discussions.105 At CIAM VII in 1949, after it was deemed that the “Athens Charter” was no longer aligned with the shift in urbanism post World War II, Le Corbusier called for the “Charte de l’Habitation” or “Charter of Habitat” to be formulated. It was the Smithsons’ contribution to the “Charter of Habitat” that marks their involvement in CIAM and their new friendships in Team X.106
The Smithsons were introduced to CIAM through Bill Howell, LCC colleague, member of the MARS group and a representative of the younger architects for the CIAM Council. The Smithsons attended their first CIAM meeting with Bill Howell and his wife, Gill. This was the 8th congress of CIAM and was held at Hoddesdon, north of London from 7-14 July 1951. They only attended one day of the Congress and “heard Le Corbusier
103 Korn made a significant contribution to the MARS plan for London. Refer Architects’ Journal, 9 July 1942, p. 23 and Architectural Review, June 1942. 104 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” p. 40. 105 Between CIAM IV and CIAM V, in October 1935, Le Corbusier visited the United States. In the two months he was there, he met with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in an attempt to obtain commissions and “met almost daily with New York architect Wallace K. Harrison, a Rockefeller relative by marriage, about projects such as an extension of Rockefeller Center with Y-shaped apartment blocks”. Refer Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 103. Mumford notes on p. 126, through his affiliation with Giedion, Harrison was an active CIAM member from 1939 to 1944. 106 Peter Smithson later wrote a review on the Athens Charter. Peter Smithson, “The Athens Charter, by Le Corbusier [book review],” Architecture Plus, 2, 2 (March-April 1974): 6.
105 (speak) on ‘Gardez nous du Pleonasme’...”107 The presentation by Le Corbusier was on the importance of human scale.
For CIAM delegates, the 8th Congress was not successful in defining the ongoing avant-garde position of CIAM internationally. Since its inception, CIAM had evolved into a large organisation. Its size made communication at meetings difficult and it was acknowledged that it needed to be restructured. There were rumblings from older delegates such as Giedion for the younger generation to take a more active role in defining the direction of CIAM. Landau states that at this meeting “it was agreed that the next Congress (the 9th) would be a good opportunity to “hand over” CIAM control to the younger members.”108 For this reason, the young members, Howell and Georges Candilis were appointed onto the Council at CIAM VIII.
An interim meeting at Sigtuna, Sweden was scheduled for 1952 in order to plan the agenda of the CIAM IX. At this meeting, a rift between the younger and middle generation of CIAM members emerged over allegiance to the older generation. It was in the sixth Sigtuna session chaired by Candilis ”The place of the young generation in CIAM groups,” that this antagonism appeared. Candilis argued that there were present in CIAM “two families: those who had founded modern architecture and those who worked on the base provided by the founders.”109 He suggested they split. CIAM delegate, Ernesto Rogers opposed him. Mumford writes, “Rogers replied by stating he was “resolutely” against this division of the younger and older members… CIAM, he said, “was a body which renews itself.””110 While Sigtuna did not resolve the future of CIAM, it revealed the emerging discontentment between the three generations which manifested further at CIAM IX with the help of the
107 Alison Smithson, “A record of Team 10 meetings,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1991, p. 17. 108 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” p. 40. 109 Candilis’s quotation is not referenced but appears in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 224. 110 Ernesto Rogers in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 224.
106 Smithsons who attended as representatives of the MARS group which they joined in 1953.
Howell selected a number of architects, some associated with the LCC, others affiliated with the AA, “who he knew had work appropriate to the CIAM 9th Congress theme: ‘… Charte de l’Habitation’” to be held July 19-21, 1953 at Aix-en-Provence, France.111 Some of the projects selected by Howell for exhibit were the “Zone” AA thesis project done under Arthur Korn, by Pat Crooke, Andrew Derbyshire and John Voelcker; and the “Urban Reidentification” (UR) grid or “Grille” by the Smithsons.
Initially the Smithsons were to drive to Aix-en-Provence to present their UR grid with the Paolozzis. But when the latter were unable to attend, the Smithsons were accompanied by Bill and Gill Howell. Alison Smithson notes in Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984 that from their arrival at CIAM IX, the “older generation” was dissociated from the younger delegates. Their accommodation was elsewhere and they did not interact socially.112 Members of the “older generation” in attendance at CIAM IX were Le Corbusier, Giedion, Josep Lluis Sert, Walter Gropius, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt and Cornelius (Cor) van Eesteren. Landau writes that the “older generation” “did not “hand over” as was suggested at Hoddesdon, but nor were they able to negotiate nor, it appears, even adequately communicate with the younger members.”113 Alison Smithson recalls having only one social outing with members of another generation. That was a meal with the members of BBPR (Lodovico Belgiojoso, Gianluigi Banfi, Enrico Peressutti, Ernesto Rogers) who formed part of the “middle generation” of CIAM.114 She writes; “BBPR
111 Alison Smithson, “A record of Team 10 meetings,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p.17. 112 Alison Smithson, “A record of Team 10 meetings,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 18. 113 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” p. 41. 114 Alison Smithson notes the connection of English architects with part of the “middle generation” of CIAM was Ann and John Voelcker had both worked in Milan for BBPR. Ann Voelcker had studied at the AA and had worked at the LCC in 1949. The Howells had both been taught by Rogers at the AA.
107 were only persuaded to eat one evening meal with the young English… more alongside us, not very communicative and offering less comradery than complete strangers… this lack of connective will was to prove the rotten core of CIAM.”115
CIAM IX was divided into discussion groups called Commissions of which there were six. Commission 1 was on “Urbanism”; Commission 2, “Synthesis of the Arts”; Commission 3, “Formation of the architect”; Commission 4, “Construction techniques”; Commission 5, “Legislation”; and Commission 6, “Charter of Habitat”. The Smithsons and Howells were part of Commission 6. The Congress stipulated that presentation by all delegates be in a CIAM grid format that had first been proposed by Le Corbusier at CIAM VI. It was a system of graphically representing town planning projects on 21x33cm panels which could be assembled into a larger graphic consisting of up to 120 panels.116
Collaborating on a subversive design and a book – Golden Lane Housing Competition,1952 and Ordinariness and light, 1970
In Commission 6, the Smithsons presented their “Urban Reidentification” grid. It consisted of a matrix of images ordered under the headings: THE HOUSE, THE STREET, THE DISTRICT and THE CITY. It contained Henderson’s Bethnal Green street photography and included the Smithsons’ Golden Lane Housing competition entry which was one of a series of competitions, including Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, which the
115 Alison Smithson, “Aix-en-Provence, September 1953,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 18. 116 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, pp. 180-181, 226.
108 Smithsons entered between 1950 and 1952.117 Regardless of its lack of success in winning the competition, the project is decisive in that it marks another of the Smithsons evolutionary modifications of early modern movement philosophy. The shift is influenced by their IG collaboration with friends, Henderson and Paolozzi and publicised in Ordinariness and Light. In their “Preface” to the book, the Smithsons reveal that the document’s “format was based on Le Corbusier’s classic work ‘Urbanisme’” and “was in fact never published as a whole, and has lain unread over the intervening years… Its survival, however, will not rest on the text but on the drawing; for in this work (the ‘Golden Lane’ study) was seen for the first time as a random aesthetic …not based on rectangular geometries, but founded in another visual world.”118
An eleven storey housing scheme, the Smithsons design for the Golden Lane Housing competition is both inspired by and a critique of the design for mass-housing, Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles, 1947-53 by Le Corbusier. The Smithsons gesture of “improving” Le Corbusier’s design is similar to their critique of Mies van der Rohe’s IIT that resulted in the Hunstanton School. The Golden Lane Housing competition entry uses the formal building blocks in Unité d’Habitation but critiques Le Corbusier’s rue interior or interior streets. The Smithsons replace Le Corbusier’s rue interior with their own “Streets-in-the-air” or “Golden Lanes”, of which Golden Lane has three levels. The Smithsons describe the intent of the elevated streets; “Streets will be places
117 In “Alison and Peter Smithson: list of buildings and projects,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, p. 96. Other competitions entered by the Smithsons, aside from Hunstanton are listed as; Competition entry for Vertical Feature, South Bank Exhibition, London, 1950; Competition entry for Restaurant, South Bank Exhibition (with Theo Crosby and R. T. Simpson), 1950-1951; and Competition entry for Coventry Cathedral, 1951-1952. 118 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light, pp. 10-11.
109 and not corridors or balconies.”119 Building block forms are elevated above ground and networked over London, connected vertically to the existing context below. This is of direct contradiction to Le Corbusier’s tabula rasa theory.
The cause for this shift from Le Corbusier’s theories, of rue interior and tabula rasa, was a consequence of the affinity the Smithsons had with London’s “found” urbanism such as that documented in Henderson’s social and photographic studies of Bethnal Green. The spilling out of activities onto the street and the backyard evidenced in Henderson’s photography was a valued component of the Smithsons Golden Lane design. In two collages of the project by Peter Smithson, the inhabitation of space such as that found in Henderson’s photographs is applied to the built architectural form.
In the first collage, “Streets in the air”, the street deck as it is alternatively termed, is inhabited by figures cut out of popular magazines. Unlike Henderson’s children playing, the figures are popular celebrities. In “Streets in the air” Hollywood stars, Marilyn Monroe and her then lover, Joe di Maggio, stroll down the street deck. A cut-out of Peter Ustinov is included in the distance. The Smithsons combine in this collage Henderson’s street photography with the pop culture collage technique of Paolozzi and result in a modified, occupied version of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation.
The second collage titled “Famous Graphic” demonstrates the similar meeting of collaborative influences. French film star, Gérard Phillipe is cut out of a magazine and included in the foreground. He stands in a brutal urban landscape photomontage reminiscent of Henderson’s photography of Hunstanton under construction or war torn
119 Alison and Peter Smithson, The charged void: architecture, p. 86.
110 London. In this collage, the inner courtyard celebrates the brutalist beauty of the existing Coventry context. Peter Smithson summarises the influence of their friends Paolozzi and the Hendersons on he and Alison Smithson’s contribution to CIAM IX. He writes, “One speculates… in our work, part certainly of ‘life of the streets’ – from Nigel and Judith Henderson, and the looser-linked forms in which we began to formulate these street ideas, again, certainly, in part, from the graphics of Eduardo Paolozzi in that period.”120
In their text accompanying the “Grille”, the Smithsons write at Aix-en-Provence of their “direct opposition” to Modernist solutions such as Unité d’Habitation and begin their attack on CIAM “elder”, Le Corbusier. They also argue their proposal resolves the inadequacies of the previous “Athens Charter”. They write using the Golden Lane Housing design as an exemplary model: “Our hierarchy of associations is woven into a modulated continuum representing the true complexity of human association. This conception is in direct opposition to the arbitrary isolation of the so-called communities of the “Unité” and the “neighbourhood.” We are of the opinion that such a hierarchy of human associations should replace the functional hierarchy of the “Charte d’Athènes.””121
Making friends in Team X, 1953
In Commission 6, Aldo van Eyck, Sandy van Ginkel, Shadrach (Shad) Woods and the GAMMA group from Morocco also presented. The Smithsons liked the “Grille” by the GAMMA Group which was
120 Peter Smithson, “Afterword,” in Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 151. 121 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Paper written at CIAM IX dated 24 July 1953,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 7.
111 preoccupied with inhabitation. For the Smithsons, it signified an exemplary model of their own proposal for “a hierarchy of human association”. Titled “The Moroccan Habitat, or Habitat for the Greater Number,” the grid was by Atelier des bâtisseurs- Afrique (ATBAT) members, Vladimir Bodiansky, Candilis, Michel Ecochard, Henri Piot, Woods and others. ATBAT were the team who had worked for Le Corbusier on the Unité d’Habitation. Peter Smithson writes: “That the work was in parallel with our own, and the shock it gave, can still be experienced from two images: one the woman in the courtyard… life-lived, body posture, equipment, ambience; the other … air–views of the pattern of the ‘collective’.”122 Aside from ATBAT’s, a number of the “Grilles” hung up by the delegates of each commission brought the future Team X members together. Alison Smithson writes: “The nascent Team 10 found each other in their admiration of these schemes…”123
In “Informal contacts”, Alison Smithson notes that at the formal meetings at Aix-en-Provence, aside from the challenges by the younger, there were disagreements over policy which enabled “the younger generation’s discovery of each other.”124 This also occurred informally. She suggests that “much formative discussion took place in the late evenings...” 125 She contends it was in a friendly environment that the first unofficial Team X meeting took place.
Voelcker agreed with the value of acquaintances first made at Aix. He states: “We scarcely knew each other but in the course of a fortnight we discovered and accepted that we all had an attitude in common, that we were all trying to find means through which this attitude could become an approach and in
122 Peter Smithson, “Afterword,” Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, p. 150. 123 Alison Smithson, “The ‘Grille’,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 19. 124 Alison Smithson, “The ‘Grille’,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 20. 125 Alison Smithson, “Informal contacts,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953- 1984, p. 20.
112 consequence a positive force in town planning.”126 This common attitude was to evolve at a gathering of some of the “youngers” at Doorn in the Netherlands.
Team X war with CIAM
Due to discontentment with the ineffectiveness of CIAM IX, some of “the like-minded who had met at Aix”127 gathered at Doorn from 29-31 January 1954 in order to develop the new directions which began to appear at CIAM IX. “The Doorn Group” as they became known consisted of Peter Smithson, John Voelcker, Jakob B. (Jaap) Bakema, van Eyck, Hovens Greve, Mart Stam and van Ginkel; the latter at whose family house the meeting was held. Mumford notes that “MARS member Denys Lasdun wrote that at Doorn the “English and Dutch groups found their closest affinities.””128 This is outlined in the “Minutes for first meeting Doorn, 29 January 1954 (morning),” which note considerable discussion over the difficulty with the present size of CIAM which made explanation of projects and subsequent discussion difficult.129
The minutes begin by summarising unresolved issues which emerged at the meetings at Sigtuna and Aix-en-Provence. The question of the allegiance of the “youngers” to their CIAM pedagogy and the institution of CIAM is recorded in the debates over the forthcoming days. The words spoken at CIAM IX by van Eesteren, one of the “old guard” members are summarised and restated at the opening of the meeting: “we have no organisation; we come together because there is something that attracts us; that is no longer there, there should be no
126 John Voelcker, Arena (June 1965): 12 in Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” Rassegna, 14, 52 (4) (December 1993): 54. 127 Royston Landau, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British,” p. 41. 128 Denys Lasdun in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 239. 129 “Minutes for first meeting Doorn, 29 January 1954 (morning),” taken by Amita Schumacha in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, pp. 17-27.
113 longer a CIAM.”130 On this point, Peter Smithson speaks of the importance of shared values in collaboration and their association with friendship. The minutes summarise: “Smithson: experience in CIAM that same work, same expression is what binds together; nothing to do with friendship; by some principles of work Smithsons, Howells, Voelcker and others found each other, outside of MARS, spontaneously.”131 While this quotation may sound contradictory, it is suggested it supports the idea of rebellion against friends who have now become enemies. Peter Smithson points out that the younger delegates should not feel bound to their former friendships – presumably from the middle and older generations – but rather group according to similarity in architectural philosophy, such as was the case with the Smithsons meeting with the Howells and Voelcker. In the minutes, Bakema, van Eyck and Peter Smithson all acknowledge their agreement on their reservations towards the “Athens Charter” arguing that its scientific approach ignores the relationship of dwelling to site, as well as the association between dwelling, art and life but disagree on details of the manifesto which records the outcomes at Doorn.
Landau’s essay, “The end of CIAM and the role of the British” – a consequence of his participation in collating The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents – and Francis Strauven’s essay on the important role of the Dutch in the affair in “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck” point to early disagreement over the subsequent collaboration of the subversive “youngers” on the document publicising their opposition towards the philosophy of CIAM’s old guard, “the Doorn Manifesto”. Landau argues that because Peter Smithson was “well prepared” for the Doorn meetings he was able to
130 Cornelis van Eesteren quoted in “Minutes for first meeting Doorn, 29 January 1954 (morning),” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 17. A detailed version of Easteren’s comment is in Oscar Newman ed., New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo, New York: Universe Books Inc., 1961, pp. 15-16. 131 Peter Smithson in “Minutes for first meeting Doorn, 29 January 1954 (morning),” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, pp. 19-20. Italics on “friendship” added.
114 offer a resolved theory of “human association” which strongly influenced the content of the finally publicised draft of the “Doorn Manifesto”. Referring heavily to Patrick Geddes’s “valley section”, Landau contends that Peter Smithson was able to critique the four functions of the “Athens Charters” through “human association” and was offered the opportunity to produce the first draft of the “Doorn manifesto”. But Bakema and van Eyck had explored similar concepts independently and earlier. In his essay, Strauven points to the longer history of participation of the two in CIAM. Bakema went as a representative of the national Dutch CIAM contingent, De 8, first attending CIAM VI at Bridgwater in 1947. From his study of mass housing in the Netherlands, Bakema identified “new needs”. It was at Bridgwater that van Eyck, not a member of De 8, “denounced CIAM’s functionalist language and its eagerness to dedicate itself from then on to applied production.”132 In the late 1940s, early 1950s Bakema participated in CIAM VII and CIAM VIII. At CIAM VIII, he argued that relationships between things were important in attaining a fuller life rather than the objects themselves. Strauven concludes at CIAM IX, Bakema and van Eyck “restated their ideas and made contact with a number of contemporaries who had independently reached analogue ideas, especially, the newly arrived British.”133 It is because of the long time separate development by Dutch “youngers” of the similar antagonism with orthodox modernist philosophy that disagreement over the British draft of the “Doorn manifesto” arose. The writings by van Eyck in the Forum (Dutch) are evidence of the emerging critique by the Dutch against prescriptive modernist planning. Strauven contends van Eyck’s Forum essay, “Het Verhaal van een Andere Gedachte,” or “The story of an other idea,” is another draft of the “Doorn manifesto.”134
132 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” p. 51. 133 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” p. 54. 134 Aldo van Eyck, “Het Verhaal van een Andere Gedachte,” or “The story of an other idea,” Forum (Dutch), 7 (1959)
115 It is at this point that the intimate correspondences of the Smithsons with Team X and CIAM friends, collated in The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents become most telling of the breakdown of friendship with CIAM elders, its subsequent demise and the conspiratorial role the Smithsons played in it. Bakema and van Eyck disagreed with and made criticisms of the draft by the English.135 While the criticisms are noted in a “Letter to Bakema from Howell, Voelcker, A & P Smithson, London – 31 October 1954,” the English call for cohesion, writing “any unilateral alteration of this common factor seems to us a breakdown in the technique of group action.”136 Regardless of the criticisms by the Dutch, the document was unchanged by the British. Because of such, Strauven notes “Van Eyck decided to take up the instructions himself, and to rework them according to his own views” which were later appended to the document and titled a “Dutch supplement.”137
The “Doorn manifesto” was to pre-empt draft documents for the direction of CIAM X. These drafts were shown to the “old guard” prior to the meeting, who offered comment. In a letter to his “dear friends”; “Messrs. Smithson, Bakema & Co” dated 25 March 1955, Candilis writes of Giedion’s visit to him in Paris in which they discussed Giedion’s reservations about the subject of the forthcoming meeting.138 In their reply, the Smithsons write, undisturbed: “Perhaps we should not find it surprising that the “old guard” are worried about the “spiritual and material organisation of the Congress, for it was just for that reason – to change their organization that we took on our task.”139
135 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” pp. 54, 56; discusses the controversy surrounding the content of the “Doorn Manifesto”. 136 Bill Howell, John Voelcker, Alison and Peter Smithson “Letter to Bakema from Howell, Voelcker, A & P Smithson, London – 31 October 1954,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, pp. 36-37. 137 Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck”, p. 56. 138 “Letter from G. Candilis to members of Team 10, Paris, le 25 March, 1955,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 42. 139 “Reply to G. Candilis letter of the 25.3.55 – From Smithsons, 28 March 1955,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 43.
116 Mumford notes that on 9 May 1955, Le Corbusier sent Candilis copies of his “Intervention” which supports, after some resistance, the propositions put forward by the now officially titled Team X. In a letter to the Smithsons, Bakema writes of Le Corbusier’s support for them and adds a personal note: “We did win the battle against the professors!”140 While the battle by the “youngers” against the older CIAM generation was gradual, the eventual demise is perhaps marked by Le Corbusier’s support for their philosophy, an admission of defeat.
It is not surprising that CIAM X at Dubrovnik in 1956 was opened with Le Corbusier words in his “Letter to CIAM 10” in which he concedes that the ideology of the generation of 1928 CIAM members is no longer relevant. In his absence, Sert read out Le Corbusier’s letter to the delegates in attendance of which there were approximately 250 present. Le Corbusier writes,
“It is those who become 40 years old, born around 1916 during wars and revolutions, and those then unborn, now 25 years old, born around 1930 during the preparation of a new war and amidst a profound economic, social, and political crisis – thus finding themselves in the heart of the present period the only ones capable of feeling actual problems, personally, profoundly, the goals to follow, the means to reach them, the pathetic urgency of the present situation. They are in the know. Their predecessors no longer are, they are out, they are no longer subject to the direct impact of the situation.”141
Aside from Le Corbusier’s letter, the Dubrovnik congress is acclaimed by Mumford for the “subversive activities of Team
140 “Letter from J. B. Bakema to Smithsons 7 June 1955,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 44. The ‘professors’ to whom Bakema is referring are Giedion, Sert, Gropius and Tyrwhitt. 141 “Le Corbusier, Letter to CIAM 10, Dubrovnik,” in Oscar Newman ed., New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo, p. 16.
117 10.”142 Reyner Banham writes; “the real business of the Congres, (CIAM X)… was the direct challenge presented to the established members by the young radicals of Team X, Bakema, Candilis, the Smithsons, and van Eyck. By the end of the congress, CIAM was in ruins and Team X stood upon the wreckage of something that they had joined with enthusiasm, and – with equal enthusiasm – destroyed. The sense of the end of an epoch was so strong that the Congres accepted the fact of death with comparative calm…” 143
Shown at the congress were seven grids by Team X members, the Smithsons, Voelcker, Howell, Bakema (with Stokla) of Opbouw group (Rotterdam) and van Eyck. In their notes “The Tenth Congress of C.I.A.M., Dubrovnik, August, 1956” the Smithsons write “The most positive result of the Tenth Congress is that CIAM as a whole (see footnote) began doubting the reason for its continuing existence.” The footnote reads; “Up to CIAM 9 (Aix en Provence) 1953, most young architects even those outside CIAM, believed in the “CIAM Idea”.”144
After Dubrovnik, there had been a resolution that the “Charter of Habitat” be formulated at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. A conference was held in April 1957 of which only the “professors” and Bakema were in attendance. In Mumford’s record of the conference, discussion of Peter Smithson takes place. Mumford writes; “Giedion described Peter Smithson as “the man who makes problems,” to which Gropius replied “They think they are asked to do the same as us” – that is, challenge existing, institutional authority, as the modern movement had done in the 1920s… Bakema agreed that he liked Smithson’s “courage to attack his own environment.””145 The Smithsons attack on retaining the name of CIAM, found in
142 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 249. 143 Reyner Banham, “CIAM,” in Vittorio Lampugnani and Barry Bergdoll eds., The Thames and Hudson encyclopaedia of 20t–century architecture, London: Thames Hudson, 1986, p. 70. 144 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The tenth congress of C.I.A.M., Dubrovnik, August, 1956,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 71. The quotation and footnote are both on p. 71. 145 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 259.
118 letters of correspondence, reveals the explicit role they played in eradicating CIAM as an institutional body.
Four months after CIAM X, the Smithsons wrote “The future of C.I.A.M.” document addressed to Team X members and the old CIAM Council. The letter deals with the use of the name CIAM and recommends a complete break from it. They write, “Although we agree with the general aims of the old CIAM, we no longer believe absolutely in its means… Our whole way of thinking… has completely changed since 1928. In these circumstances it would be better to “make CIAM history” and start a new group with new specific aims and a new name which reflects a new attitude… Maybe it would be sufficient to call the new organisation simply “TEAM”. TEAM XI (Structure of Communities), TEAM XII (Domestic Equipment), A.S.O., each title reflecting a change of composition of the TEAM to suit changing objectives, which itself reflects our general attitude.”146
Gradually with each letter in The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, the British make their intention clear about the need to make a solid break from CIAM. In March 1957, they write a draft document titled; “C.I.A.M dissolution” which is their explicit attack on CIAM.147 One week later, an edited version of the document is labelled in handwriting, “Manifesto”, renamed “C.I.A.M reorganisation or dissolution?” and signed by Howell, Lasdun, the Smithsons and Voelcker.148 The English elect not to attend the forthcoming CIAM meeting planned for La Sarraz and write of their withdrawal to support CIAM as it remains. Driven towards the destruction of CIAM but strangely apologetic, they write “Dear Colleagues, We regret very much that it is impossible for either of us to be present at the Reunion. Since CIAM 10 … we have felt many times about
146 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The future of C.I.A.M.,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 75. 147 “C.I.A.M dissolution, A & P Smithson, 14 March 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 77. 148 “Manifesto – C.I.A.M. reorganisation or dissolution? 22 March 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 78.
119 CIAM that “one can only recreate what one loves by repudiating it” this is why we felt it necessary to be fiercely polemic about a new sort of international organisation… We send our greetings to all.”149 This state of apologetic irreverence is perhaps best described by Joan Ockman in her summary of the events surrounding the rise of Team X. She states; “The “youngers” as the incipient Team 10 thought of themselves, were in an oedipal relationship with the generation of the masters, reverent but restive.”150
Five days after writing their letter apologising for their inability to attend the meeting at La Sarraz, the Smithsons made a compromise to their proposal to discontinue CIAM and conceded the option of continuing the organisation under the name CICON. “The word CICON is derived from CIAM CONTINUITY…etc.”151 The argument over dissolution or reorganisation of CIAM “drags on” through a Post Box created by Bakema “to solve the problem of shunting the old followers of CIAM on to a track all their own.”152 This indecision over the reorganisation or dissolution of CIAM makes the precise moment of the death of the organisation difficult to determine although we sense it occurs at the point that Le Corbusier supports the overthrow by the “younger” generation; the moment the name Team X, originating from CIAM X, is realised publicly. The Team X victory over CIAM is celebrated at Otterlo.
149 “C.I.A.M Meeting La Sarraz, letter from Smithsons 23 August, 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 80. Italics added. 150 Joan Ockman, “Introduction,” in Joan Ockman et al. eds., Architecture culture, 1943-1968: a documentary anthology, New York: Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Rizzoli, 1993, p. 19. 151 “Formation of Cicon, Smithsons, 28 August, 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 81. 152 “C.I.A.M. reorganization, 28-29 August, 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 82.
120 The death of CIAM, 1959
In the essay, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” the death of CIAM at Dubrovnik is described as “the official ‘suicide’” but its celebration takes place at CIAM 1959 meeting at Otterlo.153 The essay is published with a photograph of Team X members taken at Otterlo. From top to bottom, left to right, Peter Smithson, Alison Smithson, John Voelcker, Jaap Bakema, Sandy van Ginkel, Aldo van Eyck and Blanche Lemco hold a sign which marks the grave of CIAM. A wreath is drawn under the name.
The celebration of the death of CIAM at Otterlo was preceded by two other “funeral orations” presented at the congress; one by van Eyck, the other by Rogers. Van Eyck’s essay, “The story of an other idea,” reviews the history of CIAM over its 30 year existence but also summarises the agreed reasons for CIAM’s dissolution. Rogers’s essay “CIAM at the museum” is more melancholic.154 It is lamenting, described as “a personal farewell to the corpse of the beloved.”155 The museum in Rogers’s essay represents both the Kroller-Muller Museum at Otterlo in which the conference was held and the museum as a metaphor for the “glorious” institution of CIAM. Rogers states: “Like every revolutionary movement of thought that has come out of the secret period and become the public domain, CIAM had to accept the judgment of their successors because they had lost the clear purpose.”156 Rogers’s lament of the institution of modern architecture was because he felt it was an unfinished moral project. It was argued with the loss of CIAM, architects lacked necessary guidance which they “need… so badly”. Kunio Maekawa is quoted “The young English architects are mad to kill off CIAM when we need it so
153 Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” Architectural Review (March 1960): 78. 154 Ernesto Rogers, “CIAM at the museum,” Casabella, 232 (1959): unpaginated. 155 Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” p. 79. 156 Ernesto Rogers, “CIAM at the museum,” unpaginated. Italics added.
121 badly.”157 The review concludes with the aggressive call to Team X members to now take responsibility, “explain their motives and suggest alternatives to CIAM.”158 These are collated in Team 10 primer.
Collaborating on a subversive book – Team 10 primer, 1968
Like most books published by the Smithsons, the considerable time taken to produce the publications after the events makes them historical records. Team 10 primer is no exception. In 1965, eight years after CIAM X, Team 10 primer was first published in square paperback format. It was earlier printed in the December 1962 issue of Architectural Design,159 reprinted in 1968 and published in Japanese in 1971.160 Edited by Alison Smithson, it is a collection of writings by Team X members who vary during its existence. At the time of the primer’s publication the listed Team X members or “X-teamsters”161 are Jaap Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Georges Candilis, the Smithsons, Shadrach Woods, Giancarlo de Carlo, José Antonio Coderch y de Sentmenat, Charles Pologni, Jerzy Soltan and Stefan Wewerka.
The Team X “family”, as Alison Smithson refers to the group, was kept deliberately exclusive. For instance, James (Jim) Stirling participated in the IG’s “Group Eight” and CIAM X. At the later, Stirling presented his Rural Housing Project but was not included in the Team X
157 Kunio Maekawa in Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” p. 79. 158 Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” p. 79. 159 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Team 10 Primer,” Architectural Design, (December 1962): 559-602. 160 The Japanese edition of Team 10 primer was published by Shokokusha Publishing Company, Inc. in spring 1971. 161 “X-teamster” is a term used in Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo,” p. 78 to describe Aldo van Eyck as one of the Team X members.
122 “family”. Alison Smithson explains the deliberateness of keeping the group small and select. She writes, “Team 10 was kept small – by a continuous battle of wills – because we personally found ‘the few’ most effective in making us think: kept private, a ‘family’ by our efforts and will power.”162 She adds, “… A family of different individuals who wanted to talk openly-in-confidence... you can only do that if you share enough…”163
The book is complex because it does not espouse one philosophy but delivers the philosophies of a range of Team X members in order to criticise dominant architectural conventions. The book collates a series of complaints against architectural conventions perpetuated by the establishment. Some select grievances by van Eyck, Woods, Coderch and Soltan are recalled. Van Eyck doubts the architect’s obligation to operate within “a deterministic...Euclidean groove”164 and calls to the architectural fraternity to respond against its limitations. Woods complains about the need for architects to think about solutions rather than problems.165 Coderch beckons architects to challenge the notion of the architectural “genius” and the “need (for) High Priests or dubious Prophets of Architecture, or great doctrinaires.”166 Originally published in the May 1960 issue of Architectural Design, Soltan complains in Team 10 primer and reveals the shared mission of Team X “to fight the inner enemy, the ‘brother-modernist’.” Soltan is quoted:
162 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 13. 163 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 11. 164 “Otterlo meeting. Van Eyck,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 37. 165 “Letter to A.S.: Markishces Viertel, Berlin, 1967. Shad Woods,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 18. 166 “J. A. Coderch y de Sentmenat, Barcelona, August, 1961,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 37.
123 “… Among some of the ‘true modernists’ one feels a need to react against the achievements of the previous generation. This need for reaction often has no sensible background other than the wish to be different. Now it is obvious that the research and true seeding of new solutions is our task, but this task often degenerates today into some shallow dream of being different from a Corbu or a Mies… The previous generation of CIAM had to fight an enemy that was outside the movement. Our task is to fight the inner enemy, the ‘brother-modernist’. The task of the previous CIAM was, maybe more heroic – our task needs more moral strength.”167
The motive of the “family” as outlined by Alison Smithson in “The Aim of Team 10” is to “come together” to start a “new beginning” responding to the inadequacies of the modern movement; to speak with these architects of different nationalities in order to progress one’s own work.168 Of all the Team X members, Alison Smithson suggests that she and Peter needed the group most in order to progress their work.169 Through the group individual work could be furthered. In most of the writings, there is a clear affinity for accepting difference into the architectural design process.170
The inclusion of the word “primer” in the title of the book is not by coincidence. Meaning “a small … book … introducing or providing initial instruction in a particular subject, practice etc”,171 the primer aims to
167 “AD., May, 1960, Jerzy Soltan, Poland,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 48. Italics added. 168 Alison Smithson, “The Aim of Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953- 1984, p. 8. 169 Alison Smithson, “Need for Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953- 1984, p. 11. Alison Smithson suggests that she and Peter Smithson “needed Team 10 most”. 170 Refer Reyner Banham, “The future of the universal man,” Architectural Review, 127, 3 (April 1960): 253-260 which brings up the question of challenging the early modernist idea of the universal man. This is an important contention of most Team X members. 171 Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 2353.
124 prompt practicing architects to be freed from prescriptive ideology which they deem no longer relevant and to respond to their present situation. This campaign is for a third party and has a democratic agenda.
While aiming to be instructive, the book does not direct an architect in a particular mode of practice. This lack of singular ideology by Team X makes the group an incomparable replacement for CIAM. But it is doubted that was ever the intention of the participants. Instead the actions of Team X members were solely to kill the enemy, CIAM, in order to remove an architect’s obedience to what became a dominant tyrannical ideological framework. The shift by Team X makes the architect responsible for developing their own architectural philosophy. While this appears liberating, Pologni questions, retrospectively Team X’s influence on the thinking of architects once they lose agreement between themselves as “close friends”. Pologni’s “funeral oration” to Team X reads:
“It is very difficult to say exactly how the ideas developed within or around Team 10, influenced today’s thinking. The dialogues, the meetings among close friends, where the roots of ideas were formulated into principles, continued their life through publications, through the activities of the members of the Team who were engaged in actual construction as well as in teaching nearly all over the world… The Team 10 Primer became a widely used dictionary in this dialogue. But a good dictionary doesn’t make a poet. Not even everyone using the same dictionary arrives at the same meaning for a given word.
It is easy to agree in the extreme cases, but as we arrive at particular solutions, after a certain
125 point the evaluation, the decision making becomes a very individual matter. Thus dialogue becomes difficult even among very close friends who developed the general ideas together…
Just as a fire always goes out if a small number of people are not on fire themselves. Team 10 is needed to keep the Primer alive.” 172
If we accept the acquaintance of Team X members to have taken place at Aix en Provence in 1953, the group was most active from 1953 to 1962, the latter being determined by the year the Team X primer were first published. Although Team X continued its meetings until 1984 when the group officially disbanded, it is contended Team X was most effective in its formative years. The dates for the birth and death of Team X are taken from Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984.
The architectural legacies of the Smithsons
”Years later we were able to observe, through our friendships, that when the aligned and the cause of alignment meet, both mutual regard and a sense of common work generate an influence both ways… the old influencing the young – and the young the old…”173
The legacies of the Smithsons subversive collaboration, including their involvement in the IG and Team X, are recorded by Banham in his retrospective book, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic. It is a history of the Smithsons contribution to institutional change in architectural philosophy through the
172 “Ghana 1967, Pologni,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 5, 6. Italics added. 173 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, p. 11. Italics added.
126 “New Brutalist” movement. Banham’s 1966 text was published twelve years after Hunstanton Secondary Modern School had been completed. The book outlines the influences of the work of Mies van der Rohe’s IIT and Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation – as Alison Smithson terms it, “the old influencing the young” – on the design of the school by the Smithsons but also reveals the Smithsons architectural legacies in strains of “New Brutalist” architecture in the UK, France, Netherlands, Africa, Japan and the US.174 Only selected examples included in Banham’s book are discussed to reveal a friendship network which extended the Smithsons architectural philosophies.
The influence of the Smithsons “New Brutalist” architecture was most felt in Britain. For instance, in Stephen Greenberg’s review of Webster’s Modernism without rhetoric, “Justice not done to the Smithsons [book review],” he reveals the effect the Smithsons had on his, then “younger”, generation of British architects; “My generation could recite passages from Team X CIAM ’59 in Otterloo (sic) book; when one of my contemporaries got a summer job with them, we were in awe when he came back talking about ‘thresholds’ and affecting the Smithson pauses.” 175 Aside from the Smithsons own projects, examples of “New Brutalist” British architecture in Banham’s book are by friends of the Smithsons including Bill and Gill Howell and Stanley Amis; Voelcker; Sandy Wilson and Alex Hardy; Denys Lasdun and Partners; James Stirling and James Gowan, to name a few. In France, Le Corbusier’s “art brut” examples are included. Some of the Dutch and African projects in the book are by the Smithsons respective Team X friends; Johannes van den Broek and Jaap Bakema; Aldo van Eyck; and Vladimir Bodiansky and ATBAT. From Japan, Banham includes projects by critic of the Smithsons at Otterlo, Kunio Maekawa. From the US, Banham includes Louis Kahn and Douglas Orr’s Art
174 There are strains of “New Brutalist” architecture which were produced in other countries such Australia but which were produced after Banham’s book was published. 175 Stephen Greenberg, “Justice not done to the Smithsons [book review],” Architects' Journal, 207, 11 (19 March 1998): 44. An earlier exhibition on the Smithsons was “The last CIAMs,” at ETH-Zurich, 23 April-3 June 1993. Refer Tracy Quoidbach, “Bringing the Smithsons back [exhibition review],” Archis, 7 (July 1993): 14-15.
127 Gallery for Yale University, New Haven, Conneticut, 1953. The Smithsons had become friends with Kahn through their involvement in CIAM.
Aside from this series of “New Brutalist” buildings by friends of the Smithsons or their progeny and friends, the Smithsons’ ideological legacies were passed down through Peter Smithson’s involvement with the AA where he taught between 1954 and 1959.
Before outlining Peter Smithson’s teaching legacies, it was while at the AA, that Peter Smithson was offered the opportunity to travel to America in 1957 and 1958. On both trips Peter Smithson recalls crossing “the Atlantic in a converted Liberty ship run by the Holland-Amerika Line with a kind of academic crew sponsored by an organization run by Dutch students which brought European students to the US and American students to Europe.”176 The later visit to America was significant because it was the occasion that he met Ray and Charles Eames; and Mies van der Rohe in person.
The Eames sent him “a ticket and 50 dollars to go to Santa Monica” which he describes as a “spontaneous act of friendship.”177 The Smithsons write extensively of the influence of their friendship with Ray and Charles Eames in their chapter, “Eames’ dreams,” in Changing the art of inhabitation. Details of the Smithsons’ friendship with the Eames have not been pursued in this research because they influenced a later “shift” in the Smithsons architectural thinking after the events of the IG, CIAM and Team X.
In the same trip, in New Canaan, Peter stayed with John Johansen, neighbour of Philip Johnson. Johnson gave Smithson $100 to travel to Chicago where he met up with previous LCC colleague, then employee in the office of Mies van der Rohe, Peter Carter. This was when Peter Smithson met Mies van der
176 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 40. 177 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 40.
128 Rohe for the first time. Almost ten years after Smithson designed his student project, the Fitzwilliam Museum, he visited the IIT. Smithson notes he was struck by how “remarkably similar” the colour of the bricks at IIT were to those used in the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School. But in the “Letter by Peter Smithson to Alison Smithson, dated 12 September 1958 from Carmen Hall, IIT Campus, 60 East Street, Apt 16, Chicago 16” he notes that while “there is so much good – 75 per cent is successful” at IIT, there are many errors” describing Mies’ errors as “Miestakes.”178
Through his teaching at the AA, Smithson promoted a rise of humanist values in architecture. Both Denise Scott Brown and Elia Zenghelis were exposed to this as students at the AA.
Some time between 1954 and 1957, the Smithsons met Denise Scott Brown. While Peter Smithson did not teach her, they made acquaintance at the time. The impact of the Smithsons “New Brutalist” philosophy was to take seed in Scott Brown – “the old influencing the young” – and be extended in Scott Brown’s subversive collaboration with Robert Venturi against the architectural establishment in America in the 1960s. The cycle of friendship and warring in architectural theory was to reignite with Scott Brown and Venturi’s campaign, an extension of the Smithsons influence, against the establishment including the American “professors”.
Elia Zenghelis was taught by Peter Smithson in his fifth year and recalls Smithson talking on his Economist building, St. James, London, 1960-1964.179 Unlike Scott Brown, Zenghelis failed to inherit the humanist agenda promoted at the AA at the time he was a student there and went on to collaborate with Rem Koolhaas, against the values espoused by the post- humanist European establishment in the early 1970s.
178 “Letter by Peter Smithson to Alison Smithson, dated 12 September 1958 from Carmen Hall, IIT Campus, 60 East Street, Apt 16, Chicago 16,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, pp. 8, 7. 179 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality: Interview with Elia Zenghelis”, L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): p. 11.
129
The legacies of the Smithsons subversive friendship supported by their other friendships make in the IG and Team X was the first significant attack on the ideology of the early modern movement. As a consequence of Peter Smithson’s teaching legacies, Scott Brown, through her collaborative friendships, was to continue the campaign against the modern movement ideology and Zenghelis, through his collaborative friendships, the campaign for the reaffirmation of modern architecture.
130 Chapter Four
Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, 1967–
131 “The 1950s also saw the first acknowledged “couplings” in architecture, by which I mean professional partnerships that are also intimate. Ray and Charles Eames provided a model for following generations, to a certain extent for Alison and Peter Smithson, whose partnership provided a model for that of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and so on.”1
In her essay, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture”, Beatriz Colomina contends that the Smithsons were a model for the architectural partnership of Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. More than this, they are directly connected. The link between the architectural philosophy of the Smithsons and Scott Brown represents a direct evolution of architectural ideas which Scott Brown inherited prior to living in America.
Scott Brown’s architectural inheritances
“My artistic and intellectual concerns were formed before I met Bob (and indeed before I came to America), but they were the base of our friendship as academic colleagues.”2
Scott Brown and Venturi developed a friendship as academic colleagues based on shared “artistic and intellectual concerns” which Scott Brown had developed prior to meeting Venturi. Scott Brown reveals the origins of these concerns in two essays included in her 1990 retrospective, Urban concepts.3 In the first of these essays, “Paralipomena in urban design,” Scott Brown writes, “The pages that follow show the many others to whom I owe an intellectual debt of gratitude. It’s been a joy to piece together their motley, setting the fragments where they fit in the fabric of my
1 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, 3 (September 1999): 467. 2 Denise Scott Brown, Endnote no. 5. “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” in Ellen Perry Berkeley ed. and Matilda McQuaid assoc. ed., Architecture: a place for women, Berkeley, Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, c.1989, p. 246. Italics added. 3 Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, London; New York: Academy Editions; St. Martins Press, 1990.
132 ideas and experience. The garb, and how I wear it, is my own.”4 In the second essay, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy” she reveals how her ideas began to develop prior to living in America, the consequence of inheritances from pedagogues while living in the “three stools” of Africa, England and the United States (US).5
Scott Brown was born in Zambia.6 While she does not write extensively of her parental legacies, she reveals in an interview with Maralyn Lois Polak that her mother studied architecture and states “so when I was a girl growing up in South Africa, I thought architecture was women’s work”.7 Scott Brown began her own studies in architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg which she attended from 1948-1951. From Johannesburg, she moved to London to enter the Architectural Association (AA) as a fourth year student in 1952. Scott Brown enrolled in an AA Diploma and Certificate in Tropical Architecture which she gained in 1956.
The majority of Scott Brown’s early “intellectual debts” listed in the two essays in Urban concepts are gained from her experiences in London. As mentioned, in Britain in the 1950s debate abounded about the rise of American popular culture and the aesthetics of urban landscapes. One public avenue for comment on such was in the British architectural journals. For instance, the December 1950 issue of the Architectural Review was devoted entirely to and titled, “Man Made America”. Jean-Louis Cohen notes in his essay, “Knowing how to look at Las Vegas,” that Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Christopher Tunnard and Gerhard Kallmann were invited by the editors of this issue to “investigate the American urban landscape”.8 The editors then took the opportunity to denounce the chaos of a number of manmade American landscapes.
It was this kind of criticism of popular culture by the British establishment to which Independent Group (IG) members, Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Nigel Henderson and Reyner Banham were vehemently opposed. The
4 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, p. 7. 5 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, pp. 8-20. 6 The author has been unable to find Scott Brown’s maiden name. 7 Denise Scott Brown in Maralyn Lois Polak, “Architect for pop culture [Interview: Denise Scott Brown],” Philadelphia Inquirer, Today Magazine (8 June1975): 8. 8 Jean-Louis Cohen, “Knowing how to look at Las Vegas,” Lotus International, 93 (1997): 102.
133 Smithsons collaboration with Paolozzi and Henderson on The Parallel of life and art exhibition, 1953 was one example of their challenge to the aesthetic values held by the British art establishment. Scott Brown clarifies the influence of the New Brutalists in three texts. In 1967, she wrote of it in “Team 10, Perspecta 10, and the present state of architectural theory.”9 In her essay based on an interview conducted by David Robbins and Jacquelyn Bass in Philadelphia in spring 1988, Scott Brown outlines her involvement in the early 1950s with the IG in her essay, “Learning from Brutalism”.10 She writes; “I remember seeing Nigel Henderson’s photographs and the Parallel of Life and Art show… and… I knew of the work of … Paolozzi and … Banham. However, because the Smithsons’ architecture and ideas were extremely important to me, it was primarily through them that IG perspectives came to influence my thinking.”11 Scott Brown extends comments made in “Learning from Brutalism,” in an interview in 1992 with Robert Maxwell”.12
Although they did not teach her directly, Scott Brown contends that she found the theories of the New Brutalists “irresistible” and sympathised with the fact they “had moved to eyes which did not see to facing the unfaceable, to enjoying the aesthetic shiver.”13 Specifically, she states it was the New Brutalists’ “delight in places and things other architects considered ugly … (that) evoked a sympathetic response… deriving from my childhood and youth in Africa.”14 As a child in Africa, she was aware of the differences between what she saw around her and what she read of in literature, most of which was from England. This interest between what “is” and “ought” to be, she shared with the Brutalists who adopted an approach to “real” urbanism.15
9 Denise Scott Brown, “Team 10, Perspecta 10, and the present state of architectural theory,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners (January 1967): 42-50. 10 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990, pp. 203-206. 11 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 203. 12 Denise Scott Brown in Robert Maxwell, “Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Interview with Robert Maxwell,” Architectural Design, 62, 7-8 (July-August 1992): 8. As mentioned, Maxwell had been a friend of Alan Colquhoun, Colin St John (Sandy) Wilson and Peter Carter and is well acquainted with the British scene at the time, providing a platform of retrospective discussion with Scott Brown. 13 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 9. 14 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 203. 15 Denise Scott Brown, “The rise and fall of community architecture,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, pp. 31-32
134 Scott Brown pursued a relationship with the Smithsons admitting she sought their advice. She recalls visiting them to discuss her 1954 thesis project, a collaborative work Scott Brown undertook with fellow student, Brian Smith. It was an urban proposal for workers’ housing for a small Welsh village. Scott Brown recounts how she and her first husband, Robert Scott Brown – who had also moved to London from Africa to study at the AA – sounded out Peter Smithson “for career advice”.16 Smithson recommended they finish their studies at the University of Pennsylvania – “the only place to study town planning” and “where Louis Kahn was teaching.”17
Through their involvement in the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) the Smithsons met Kahn. Because of this acquaintance, the Smithsons wrote an essay on Kahn published in 1960.18 Scott Brown notes that “Kahn … emerged as a quite unexpected American confirmation of Brutalist ideas, owing chiefly to his Trenton Bath House.”19 In Idris Walters’s obituary on Kahn in Building Design, Kahn’s personal and architectural biography is relayed. It reveals the origins of Kahn’s interest in brutal architecture with which the Smithsons held an affinity.20
Kahn spent three months as a resident at the American Academy in Rome in 1950. After this, he traveled to Greece and Rome which Walters states “inspired him with first hand experience of the Mediterranean architecture, which he brought back with him to Yale as a kind of brutal masonic modernism.”21 Walters lists a number of examples of Kahn’s “brutal masonic modernism”, two of which are the Trenton Community Bath House, 1955 – aforementioned by Scott Brown – and the Art Gallery of Yale, 1953. It is for its brutalist qualities that Banham included Kahn’s Art Gallery of Yale project in his text, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic.22 After visiting it, Peter Smithson wrote of Kahn’s project in 1976 in his article, “Louis Kahn’s Centre for British Art and British Studies at Yale University” published in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (JRIBA).23
16 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 204. 17 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 10. 18 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Louis Kahn,” Architects’ Yearbook, 9 (1960): 102-119. 19 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 205. 20 Idris Walters, “Louis Kahn [obituary],” Building Design, 19, (29 March 1974):14-15. In the same issue, the Smithsons pay tribute to Kahn. Alison and Peter Smithson, “Louis Kahn [obituary],” Building Design, 19 (29 March 1974): 15. 21 Idris Walters, “Louis Kahn (obituary),” p.14. 22 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalists: ethic or aesthetic? London: Architectural Press, 1966, pp. 44, 54, 55. 23 Peter Smithson, “Louis Kahn’s Centre for British Art and British Studies at Yale University,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 83, 4 (April 1976): 149-151.
135
Aside from naming the Smithsons in “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy”, Scott Brown identifies three other key friendships and their pedagogical influences. They are listed as Arthur Korn’s “social view of architecture”24; John Summerson’s lectures on Classicism; and contact with the Greek planner and engineer, Paul Kriesis.
Korn was a member of the Bauhaus who immigrated to England. At a “Special Congress” held in 1931 in Berlin, prior to CIAM IV, Eric Mumford notes that Korn criticised the concept of the “Functional City” for its lack of “reference to actual social conditions”.25 In England, Korn participated in the post World War II urban redevelopment of London through his involvement in the Modern Architecture Research Society (MARS), of which the Smithsons later joined. Korn taught Scott Brown at the AA. She writes; “Korn’s communist rhetoric, his Utopianism, his social view of architecture and his great-hearted pedagogic style imbued us with a mission. We were to be commandos for social change and regeneration through architecture… Korn’s commandos.”26
Summerson gave lectures on Classicism at the AA. As a student of his, Scott Brown was so taken by them she attended the series twice. From these lectures, she claims to have developed her affinity with the work of John Soane, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir John Vanbrugh and Sir Edwin Lutyens. She reveals two legacies from Summerson: that he gave Lutyens a “friendly appraisal” and that he “helped open students’ eyes. He … introduced us to real urbanism, not the CIAM kind.”27
Kriesis is also cited as a key influence on the evolution of Scott Brown’s architectural philosophy. In 1956, one year after Denise and Robert Scott Brown wed they had a conversation with Kriesis that impacted on them greatly. Scott Brown believes Kriesis was working at the London County Council (LCC) at the time.28 Through their conversation, the Scott Browns realised that Kriesis, like them, exhibited an aversion to idealised urban solutions. In her essay, “Paralipomena in urban design”,
24 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 9. 25 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000, p. 64. 26 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 9. 27 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 9. Italics added. 28 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 204.
136 Denise Scott Brown suggests he was skeptical about the importance of aesthetics in town planning.29 She admits the title of her essay is inspired by Kriesis’s 1951 paper, “Paralipomena in town planning,” which he gave her a copy of at the time.30
Kriesis’s essay runs along the lines of the IG Brutalists argument that things which the establishment condemns should not be ignored. Scott Brown notes “’Paralipomena’ means ‘things that have been left out’.”31 In his introductory summary to Kriesis’s, Three essays on town planning, Roger Montgomery summaries the essay’s argument writing “Kriesis argues that conventional planning is out of touch… He calls for a new town planning rooted in … reality.”32 Kriesis’s urban legacy for Scott Brown was that he “introduced us to pessimism, skepticism, pragmatism and conservatism as modes of thought suitable for urbanism. ‘I’ll be happy if I can say I have saved one street’, he told us.”33
After this, between 1956 and 1957, Scott Brown worked in Rome for the architect, Giuseppi Vaccaro. She had already worked as a student architectural assistant for Erno Goldfinger; and Dennis Clarke Hall in London, 1955-1956. Before leaving for America, she returned to Johannesburg where she worked for Cowin, De Bruyn and Cook between 1957 and 1958.
Venturi’s architectural inheritances
“I trust, as I satisfy this need to enumerate particular persons, places, and institutions, that I shall appear not egotistical, but rather the opposite in emphasizing my indebtedness to outside influences.”34
29 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design,” p. 7. 30 Paul Kriesis, “Paralipomena in town planning” in Paul Kriesis, Three essays on town planning, 1, St. Louis: School of Architecture, Washington University, May 1963, pp. 3-34. 31 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design,” p. 6. 32 Roger Montgomery, “Introduction,” in Paul Kriesis, Three essays on town planning, pp. 1- 2. 33 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 9. 34 “Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony at the Palacio de Iturbide, Mexico City, May 16, 1991,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996, p. 98.
137 In his 1991 acceptance speech on receipt of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, Venturi thanks all those “particular persons, places, and institutions” to which he feels indebted. A selection of those enumerated in his speech is listed and details of these friendships are embellished through other tributes or interviews with Venturi. Venturi gives recognition to the exposure to, and love of, architecture which his parents showed him; experiences at Princeton University where he was taught by Donald Egbert and Jean Labatut; his friendship with Louis Kahn; Rome and his fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and the influence of Philip Finkelpearl.
Venturi was born in Philadelphia and is of Italian ancestry. In Philadelphia, his parents ran a fruit and vegetable store. Both parents loved architecture and introduced Venturi to it. On his first visit to New York, Venturi’s father took him to visit the great hall of the old Pennsylvania Station which was based on the Baths of Caracalla. In his Pritzker Prize speech Venturi recalls; “I shall never forget that breath-taking revelation of that monumental civic space bathed in ambient light from the clerestories above.”35 On his father’s death, he received a small inheritance which sustained his early architectural practice. Aside from this support, Venturi acknowledges his indebtedness to his mother’s socialist values and unorthodoxy which he claims prepared him to “feel almost all right as an outsider.”36
In a tribute to Egbert and his book, Beaux-Arts tradition in French architecture, Venturi notes having taken Egbert’s course on the History of modern architecture four times while studying at Princeton University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1947 and Master of Fine Arts degree in 1950.37 Even after graduating, Venturi recalls visiting Egbert in his office where they spoke about architecture and where Egbert asked questions that prompted Venturi to find answers to. In his interview with Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, Venturi points out that Egbert’s other passion for Beaux-Arts history was highly unconventional at the time, stating “in the 40s no-one dreamed of taking the Beaux-Arts seriously: it seemed outrageously irrelevant and reactionary.”38 Venturi contends that his legacies from Egbert were an appreciation for modern architecture and architectural
35 “Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” pp. 98-99. 36 “Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” pp. 99. 37 Robert Venturi, “Donald Drew Egbert – a tribute,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, pp. 43-46. The tribute was originally published as a foreword to Donald Drew Egbert, David van Zanten ed., The Beaux-Arts tradition in French architecture, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. 38 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” Perspecta, 28 (1997): 128.
138 history in general and praises Egbert for his liberal teaching. In his tribute to his teacher Venturi explains, “Egbert did not prescribe ideology: he opened up directions... not dreamt of in my philosophy, where I could perceive modern architecture not as an end but as the current and latest part within an evolution. We students were truly students within a liberal process of education, not seminarians being given “the word.””39 Encouraged by Egbert’s teaching, Venturi later criticised inadequacies in American modernism. The irony is that he remained faithful to modernism and to this date considers himself a modernist rather than an architect working in the style, Post-Modernism of which he is commonly associated.
Mentioned in his Pritzker Prize speech and his conversation with Barriere and Lavin, Venturi reveals the modern architectural inheritances he gained from Labatut. In discussing Sigfried Giedion’s shift from Europe to America in “Transplanting CIAM, 2: America and Europe, 1938-1939,” Eric Mumford reveals Labatut’s involvement in the project of modern architecture. Then a professor at Princeton University, Labatut was approached by Cornelius (Cor) van Eesteren to “secure financing” to publish a CIAM publication, intended to consist of four volumes, each corresponding to the CIAM four functions outlined in the Athens Charter.40 Mumford notes that in April 1939 Labatut and his team, including Stamo Papadaki, presented their design of a model plywood house at a CIAM meeting organised by Giedion and which included among many, the New York architect, Wallace K. Harrison. The meeting was held at Oscar Stonorov’s farm near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Labatut’s plywood house was to be built at the 1939 New York World Fair. Four years later, Labatut taught Venturi. Venturi credits Labatut’s wide knowledge of history and application of such in critiques as instrumental in the expansion of his own ideas. Reviewing Venturi’s history, Scott Brown tells of what Venturi “learned” from Labatut and how Venturi transformed this inheritance. She writes “Jean Labatut… introduced him to methods of architectural analysis that Bob used in his theory of architecture course and later applied with wit in Las Vegas.” Bob credits Labatut with the invention of the phrase “Postmodern architecture,” in the mid 1940s.”41
Venturi tells how after graduating from Princeton, he worked for the Philadelphian modern architect, Robert Montgomery Brown. He states; “Kahn… was in an office on the floor above. I would see him in the elevator. I also saw the five or six young
39 Robert Venturi, “Donald Drew Egbert – a tribute,” p. 44. 40 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 124. 41 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” Architectural Record, 172, 2 (February 1984): 77.
139 people who worked for him. They never talked to me… but Louis Kahn did; he was very kind.”42 From this elevator acquaintance, Kahn became what Venturi describes as a “good friend”.43 Venturi asked Kahn to be on the jury assessing his Master’s thesis, “Context in Architectural Composition: M. F. A. Thesis, Princeton University,”44 and acknowledges “Kahn liked what I had done, so he took an interest in me.”45 Kahn recommended Venturi to Eero Saarinen, where he worked for two and half years. After Venturi’s father fell ill, he left Saarinen’s office returning to Philadelphia to run the family business and confesses visiting Kahn at the time for “sustenance”.46
After visiting Rome for the first time on 8 August 1948, Venturi decided to apply for a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.47 Kahn was a fellow at the Academy in 1950. In the typical frankness with which Venturi relays his history, he tells Barriere and Lavin how he applied for the prize three times stating “People said, “Why do you apply a third time, don’t you know when you’re not wanted… have you no pride? But the secretary in the New York office at the time, Mary Williams, was a very nice person and encouraged me to reapply.”48 Venturi won the fellowship. Scott Brown notes “Kahn was on the jury when Bob won the Rome Prize.”49 Venturi took up his residency in Rome from 1954 to 1956.
The experience was extraordinarily significant in the development of his architectural philosophy. In “Notes for a Lecture celebrating the Centennial of the American Academy in Rome delivered in Chicago,” Venturi speaks of his affinity with the “richness” of Rome, rather than its purity. He studied Classical Roman architecture there and made intuitive links between Roman and Renaissance Classicism and International style modernism, arguing there were similarities. Aside from this,
42 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 127. 43 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. Italics added. 44 Robert Venturi, “Context in Architectural Composition: M. F. A. Thesis, Princeton University,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, pp. 335-374. 45 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. 46 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” pp. 127-128. 47 Robert Venturi, “Notes for a Lecture celebrating the Centennial of the American Academy in Rome delivered in Chicago,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, p. 48. 48 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. 49 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 73.
140 Venturi reveals it was in his studio in Rome that he first read Vincent Scully’s book, The Shingle style: architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of Wright50 and began to broaden his understanding of American architecture from the perspective of Rome.51 But most importantly, reminiscing on his fellowship in Rome, he writes; “It was in the last few weeks at the Academy that I realized Mannerism was what turned me on…”52
In his Pritzker Prize speech, Venturi describes Philip Finkelpearl as “college friend and best friend, who as dedicated scholar and born teacher appreciated me all along and instructed me in Mannerism...”53 Scott Brown gives more detail on the influence of Venturi’s friendship with Finkelpearl – a Professor in English literature. She writes,
“Phil… helped Bob to focus on his emerging ideas by defining them: “What you’re interested in, essentially,” he said, “is complexity and contradiction in architecture.” Phil introduced Bob to Elizabethan Mannerist literature and to literary criticism that acknowledged the Mannerist principles of ambiguity and uncertainty. Parallels from this other medium provided illumination to both the content and method of Bob’s study of architecture.”54
Scott Brown explains that after returning from Rome, Venturi worked for Kahn for nine months and was his teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania.55 In 1958, Venturi left Kahn’s office to start his own architectural practice with Paul Cope and H. Mather Lippincott; Venturi, Cope and Lippincott. In 1961, he commenced a partnership with William Short which existed from 1961-1964. The Guild House, 1960-1963 was designed by Venturi while a part of Venturi and Short and is a legacy of this earlier collaboration. At the same time, Venturi continued to teach with Kahn. It was through his teaching that he met Scott Brown who began her affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania as a student.
50 Vincent Scully, The Shingle style: architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of Wright, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955. 51 Robert Venturi, “Adorable discoveries when I was a semi-naive fellow at the American Academy in Rome that I never forget,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, p. 57. 52 Robert Venturi, “Notes for a lecture celebrating the Centennial of the American Academy in Rome delivered in Chicago,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, p. 53. 53 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 100. Italics added. 54 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” pp. 77, 79. 55 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 73.
141 Learning from America
Taking Peter Smithson’s advice, in September 1958 Denise and Robert Scott Brown began their studies in a Masters of City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, which Denise Scott Brown graduated from in 1960. G. Holmes Perkins was head of the School of Fine Arts at the University at the time. Perkins was an architect and had previously been a Professor at Harvard where Gropius became head of the architecture department in March 1937 bringing with him his European modernist thinking. Scott Brown claims Perkins brought “the CIAM social-housing approach to architecture and urbanism, current in Europe and at Harvard” to Pennsylvania’s “New Deal, social-administration approach that was introduced into Penn’s School of Fine Arts by professors William L. C. Wheaton and Robert Mitchell.”56
Because the Scott Browns had only recently arrived, they elected not to undertake a design studio in their first semester but studied courses in a range of diverse fields outside of architecture including sociology. At that time, Herbert J. Gans ran a course on urban sociology at the University. Participation in the course was to have a seminal effect on Scott Brown. She writes of Gans’s course; “As much as Le Corbusier he cried against eyes which did not see, but the eyes were those of architects and urban planners and what they did not see was social reality. We argued volubly with him for one semester and became good friends.”57 Gans had just moved to live in Levittown, a suburban housing community on the outskirts of Pennsylvania. He and his wife purchased a house in the middle of the estate and moved into it in October 1958. They lived there for two years as participant- observers of the suburban community. His book, The Levittowners: ways of life and politics in a new suburban community, while published nine years later, is the outcome of the study and was incorporated into Scott Brown and Venturi’s later architectural and urban philosophy.58
In their second semester of study, the Scott Browns took their first studio at the University of Pennsylvania. It was run by David Crane and required the re-planning of Le Corbusier’s city of Chandigarh in India. Scott Brown recollects that Kahn was
56 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 73. 57 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 10. Italics added. 58 Herbert J. Gans, The Levittowners: ways of life and politics in a new suburban community, London: Allen Lane; The Penguin Press, 1967.
142 on the jury for the final presentation by students, as was “a young instructor named Robert Venturi,” although she states she “did not meet him until over a year later, when… on the faculty at Penn.”59
Robert Scott Brown was killed in the summer of 1959. Denise continued her studies after his death. During her final semester, she joined the faculty staff offering to teach a course on urban design called “Forms, Forces, and Functions (FFF)” which looked at broader forces, economic and social, which impact on urban design. From 1960-1965, Scott Brown was an Assistant Professor at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1965, she received her Masters of Architecture.
Along with the theory from this course, she brought to her collaboration with Venturi a collection of photographs of the American popular environment, which she had started with Robert Scott Brown. She writes; “All this… ideas, aesthetics and slide collection – I brought to my collaboration with Robert Venturi…”60 Her friendship and first professional collaboration with Venturi developed from their “shared… interests” as academic colleagues.
Making friends with Venturi
“When Bob and I met, as Penn faculty members in 1960, our shared historical interests, parallel study travels and similar early professional experience caused us to form a friendship and a professional collaboration.”61
In 1960, Scott Brown and Venturi formed a friendship. They were drawn together by their fondness for architectural history, an inheritance of the teachings of their respective lecturers, Summerson; Egbert and Labatut; their “parallel study travels”, both spending time in Rome; and their “similar early professional experience”. It is in regards to a “shared historical interest” in the work of Philadelphian architect, Frank Furness that Scott Brown and Venturi were drawn together.
59 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 12. 60 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 205. 61 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 77. Italics added.
143
Venturi has written intimately of his affinity with the work of Furness. In “Furness and taste”, he admits that “with me concerning Furness… it is absolute, unrestrained adoration and respect for his work… my love is a little perverse – I can’t help feeling it a touch kinky, my love.”62 Also fond of Furness’s work, Scott Brown reveals she and Venturi “were on the same side” of a faculty debate on whether to demolish Furness’s Library at the University of Pennsylvania.63 In her interview with Scott Brown and Venturi in House Beautiful, Christine Pittel states that Venturi introduced himself to Scott Brown at a meeting after she spoke up to save the library.64 Pittel quotes Scott Brown, “Bob said to me, ‘I agree with everything you said and I’m Robert Venturi.” I said, ‘Well then, why didn’t you say something?”65 Venturi confirms Pittel’s journalism; ”My then future wife, Denise Scott Brown, was eloquently and courageously for saving the building; I sat there too shy to say I agreed.”66
A subversive book – Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1966
“During the spring semester, the theories course became more specifically architectural and was run by Robert Venturi… I started visiting Bob’s office to give ‘crits’ and, when his teaching assistant left, suggested that he let me collaborate with him on his course by giving the tutorials.”67
Scott Brown had taught a theory course titled “Theories of architecture, landscape architecture and planning” to first year graduate architecture students at the University of Pennsylvania prior to collaborating with Venturi.
62 Robert Venturi, “Furness and taste,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, p. 64. “Furness and taste” was originally published as the introduction to George Thomas, Michael J. Lewis and Jeffrey A. Cohen, Frank Furness: the complete works, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991. 63 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 15. 64 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” House Beautiful, 133, 9 (September 1991): 100-101, 150, 156, 162-163. 65 Scott Brown quoted in Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” p. 163. 66 Robert Venturi, “Furness and taste,” p. 63. 67 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 15.
144 Their first academic collaboration was a more architecturally focused theory course in which Venturi gave lectures and she tutored. Venturi claims that it was “probably in ’61” that Perkins invited him to deliver the series for which Perkins suggested Venturi “look at Guadet and use his system of dividing architecture into elements for the purpose of analysis.”68 Venturi explains in his interview with Barriere and Lavin, “And that’s just what I did. I put together a course with fifteen lectures, each devoted to an element of architecture: space, details, form, structure…”69 Ironically, Perkins contributed to the structure of Complexity and contradiction in architecture.70 Ironic because Venturi confesses, “In one sense the book was a reaction to the ethos at Penn at the time. Under Holmes Perkins, Penn was an orthodox, Harvard-oriented, Modern school…”71
At the end of each lecture, Venturi summarised his position on the topic. These ideas had slowly evolved from his Rome internship and his friendships. Scott Brown notes that “those last parts” of the lectures “provided the profound critique of modern dogma and the new direction for architecture that, although they were incipient in the thought of Brutalists in the 50s and Penn social planners in the early 60s, were attained by neither group, nor by any other, before him.”72 The first outcome of Venturi’s theory course was the article, “Complexity and contradiction in architecture” which was published in the 1965 issue of the Yale journal, Perspecta.73 John R. Pile notes Perspecta “is not a publication with very wide circulation.”74 The essay is an extract of Venturi’s book of the same title published one year later. Venturi claims in his conversation with Eisenman; “Partly, I wrote the book out of frustration at not working”.75
68 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. 69 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. 70 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, London: Architectural Press, 1983; 2nd edition, 4th printing; first published in 1966. 71 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 128. 72 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 15. 73 Robert Venturi, “Complexity and contradiction in architecture [extract],” Perspecta, 9-10 (1965): 17-56. 74 John F. Pile, “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” Interiors (July 1967): 24. 75 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” Skyline (July 1982):12.
145 Unlike the Perspecta article which was not widely circulated, Complexity and contradiction in architecture has been published in twelve languages and won the Classic Book Award in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Seventh Annual International Book Awards program in 1996.
The architectural historian, Stanislaus von Moos writes of the significance of the book as “often referred to as marking the “watershed” that separates the modernist past from the “absolutely delightful” postmodernist future (PHILIP C. JOHNSON in Time, January 8, 1979)...”76 It is the polemical nature of the book, that reveals Venturi’s antagonisms towards Perkins’/ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s “orthodox … Modern school”.
Warring with Mies van der Rohe and Blake
In an interview with Maxwell, Venturi speaks of the importance of “intellectual and artistic enemies” and refers to how his reaction to the theories in Peter Blake’s 1962 book, God’s own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America’s landscape enabled him to define his own architectural philosophy.77 He states;
“… I learned a lot from Peter Blake’s scorn of the Long Island Duck illustrated in his book God’s own Junkyard. You often learn what you love from observing what other people hate… in this case vulgar… vital representational commercial roadside architecture. I loved it as a child would. You learn from your intellectual and artistic enemies. You understand your own position as you disagree with others.”78
76 Stanislaus von Moos, “Venturi, Robert,” in Adolf K. Placzek, ed., Macmillan encyclopedia of architects, New York: Free Press, 1982, p. 305. 77 Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America’s landscape, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964; first published in 1962. In his “Acknowledgements,” in Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard, Blake notes that “a small portion of the text first appeared in the May, 1961 issue of Horizon, in an article entitled “The ugly America.” He adds below this; “A portion of this book appeared under the title “The suburbs are a mess” in The Saturday Evening Post, October 5, 1963.” 78 Robert Venturi speaking in Robert Maxwell, “Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Interview with Robert Maxwell,” p. 13.
146 In Complexity and contradiction in architecture, Venturi publicly names and attacks two enemies in the body of the text and gives credit to friends in his “Acknowledgments”. The two enemies are the philosophy of “orthodox modern architecture” exemplified by Mies van der Rohe’s architecture and the theories in Blake’s God’s own junkyard. In the opening pages of Venturi’s book in “Nonstraightforward architecture: a gentle manifesto”, he quickly names and criticises the simple ideology of “orthodox modern architecture”, later defined by Eisenman as “International Style” architecture.79
Sixteen years after Complexity and contradiction in architecture was first published, Venturi delivered a lecture titled “The Gropius Lecture” at Harvard. The lecture took place on 15 April, 1982 and was published as “Diversity, relevance and representation in historicism”.80 Eisenman’s interview with Venturi concentrates on the lecture. In it, they discuss broader questions of ideology and symbolism. On the question of Venturi’s ideology, Eisenman comments on Venturi’s opposition to “orthodox modernism” as outlined in Complexity and contradiction in architecture and redefines Venturi’s enemy as “the International Style” rather than “orthodox modernism”. Eisenman states;
“… From 1932 until 1966, when Complexity and Contradiction came out, there was no ideological practice in this country. I believe you oversimplify in attacking the ideology of modern architecture when I think you mean the International Style. Your book, in fact, suggested an end to the non- ideological condition of American architecture. Your book, because it was about complexity and ambiguity, suggested an ideology to the aesthetic structure which was absent in the International Style.”81
Mies van der Rohe is targeted and undermined as a figure head of the movement; of which Perkins’ orthodox, Harvard-oriented, modern school is one outcome.
In Complexity and contradiction in architecture, Venturi makes an appeal to architects to react. He writes; “Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox modern architecture… More is not
79 This definition does not comply with Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International style, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966; first published in 1932. 80 Robert Venturi, “Diversity, relevance and representation in historicism,” Architectural Record, 170, 8 (June 1982):114-119. 81 Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” p. 12.
147 less….Rationalizations for simplification are still current… They are expansions of Mies van der Rohe’s magnificent paradox, “less is more”…Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore.”82 In writing, that “More is not less” and “Less is a bore” Venturi uses and distorts Mies van der Rohe’s own dictum, “Less is more” to challenge the master’s architectural authority.
The majority of Complexity and contradiction in architecture operates to substantiate Venturi’s argument for complexity and contradiction, working to undermine modernist simplicity and uses a myriad of illustrations from the work of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Vanbrugh, Lutyens, Furness, Kahn, Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier to name a few, as visual evidence. By taking on Perkins’s suggestion to look at semantic building elements rather than time frames, the book becomes what Alan Colquhoun describes as “supra-historical”.83 By this, Colquhoun suggests that Venturi treats “history as a mere reservoir of examples… This lack of historical perspective allows Venturi to include his empyrean examples of modern architecture and to discuss them at the same level at which he discusses examples from the past.”84 But the selection of images is deliberate, a consequence of what Venturi describes to Eisenman as his “aesthetic intuition”. Venturi states; “… Someone once said, accusingly, that Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was really a compilation of favorite buildings that I put together and made a theory out of. I think there is a lot in that, but it is not necessarily a criticism… So the ideological qualities which are part of our work have aesthetic origins; they are the result of aesthetic intuition.”85
While the book is a call for architects to withdraw their obedience to the ideology of the “orthodox modern architecture”, Venturi attacks the content of Blake’s book, God’s own junkyard. German born architect and critic, Blake immigrated to America in 1939. Between 1940 and 1941 Blake completed his architectural studies, which he had begun in London, at the University of Pennsylvania. During those years, he also worked as an apprentice for George Howe, Oscar Stonorov and Louis Kahn. Between 1950 and 1964, he was Associate and then Managing Editor of the architectural journal, Architectural Forum and between 1964 and 1972, its Editor-in-
82 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, pp. 16, 17. 83 Alan Colquhoun, “Sign and substance: reflections on complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin,” Oppositions, 14 (Fall 1978): 27. 84 Alan Colquhoun, “Sign and substance: reflections on complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin,” p. 27. 85 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” p.12.
148 chief. In the May 1955 issue, Blake reviewed the Smithsons Hunstanton Secondary Modern School in his essay “Three approaches to architecture” and described their design stating, “… somehow Hunstanton looks like Mies gone fey”.86 In 1960, Blake wrote The master builders. 87 The book was a study of the works of the three architectural masters: van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. When Peter Smithson reviewed the book in Design, he bluntly writes “Mr Blake writes with love of his three heroes and he writes with knowledge; but often one suspects his large generalities cover detailed ignorance”.88
But to the contrary of Smithson’s comment, Blake was well versed on the works due to his prolific production of books on the early European and American modern masters. In 1949, he published Marcel Breuer: architect and designer.89 His books, Le Corbusier: architecture and form90 and Mies van der Rohe: architecture and structure91 were published in 1963. Blake admits that as a young European architect in the United States, he was “tremendously influenced by the clear logic and pure beauty of Mies van der Rohe’s work.”92 In addition, he was acquainted with Mies van der Rohe personally. He states: “I knew Mies quite well and found his theories and his performance enormously persuasive… he was not only a superb artist but also a man of enormous charm and, believe it or not, of enormous humanity.”93 A strong advocate of the architecture of the early moderns, Blake wrote in condemnation of the chaotic popular American landscapes in God’s own junkyard.
It is of no surprise that Blake, a young lover of order and opponent of disorderly popular landscapes, is named and condemned in Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction in architecture. While Venturi uses Mies van der Rohe’s words against him, he uses illustrations taken directly out of Blake’s book to challenge Blake’s contentions on popular American landscapes. The two photographs are from
86 Peter Blake, “Three approaches to architecture,” Architectural Forum (May 1955):142- 153.The first of the “Three approaches” is 1. “The New Brutalism”– a review of Hunstanton Secondary Modern School. The quotation appears on p. 142. 87 Peter Blake, The master builders, London: Gollancz, 1960. 88 Peter Smithson, “Book review: The master builders, Peter Blake,” Design, 145 (January 1961): 75. 89 Peter Blake, Marcel Breuer: architect and designer, New York: Architectural Record in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, c.1949. 90 Peter Blake, Le Corbusier: architecture and form, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1963. 91 Peter Blake, Mies van der Rohe: architecture and structure, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1963. 92 Peter Blake, “Blake, Peter” in Muriel Emanuel ed., Contemporary architects, New York: St. James Press, 1994, p. 96. 93 Peter Blake, “Blake, Peter” in Muriel Emanuel ed., Contemporary architects, p. 96.
149 Blake’s chapter, “Townscape” and are of “two American scenes”.94 Blake writes “The two American scenes … document the decline, fall, and subsequent disintegration of urban civilization in the United States…. At the top, Thomas Jefferson’s campus for the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, started in the 1820s; below, Canal Street, the busiest business street in New Orleans, as it appears in the 1960s.”95 In Complexity and contradiction in architecture, Venturi writes of his disagreement with Blake:
“In God’s Own Junkyard Peter Blake has compared the chaos of commercial Main Street with the orderliness of the University of Virginia… Besides the irrelevancy of the comparison, is not Main Street almost all right? Indeed, is not the commercial strip of a Route 66 almost all right? ... Illustrations in God’s Own Junkyard of Times Square and roadtown are compared with illustrations of New England villages and arcadian countrysides. But the pictures in this book that are supposed to be bad are often good.”96
Devoted “to my mother and the memory of my father”, in his “Acknowledgments” in Complexity and contradiction in architecture Venturi gives recognition to his experience in Rome and to friends. Those friends which influenced the content of the book are listed as Scott Brown, Finkelpearl, Robert Stern,97 and Vincent Scully.98
Making friends with Scully and Blake
“… Most of us have been privately (or not so privately) complaining that the norm of “correct” modern architecture has become a bore. Now when even the hack architect can produce a fair facsimile of a Seagram Building, instead of being pleased that the hacks have become good, we find
94 The two illustrations appear in Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard, p. 33. 95 Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard, p.33. 96 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, p. 104. 97 Beyond this acknowledgment, no other mention of the influence of Stern on Venturi’s formulation of the argument in the book has been found. 98 Mrs Henry Ottmann and Miss Ellen Marsch on staff at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) who first published it in “The Museum of Modern Art papers on architecture” are also acknowledged. Marion Scully is acknowledged for editing of the text.
150 ourselves questioning the total vitality of the doctrines that produce “good” architecture that is so dull.”99 In his “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” John F. Pile refers to the general discontentment towards the ideology of early modern movement philosophy that was present in America in the early 1960s, of which he claims “most” architects have been complaining about. His comment that the majority of complaints have been made “privately” signifies the importance of Venturi’s book which publicly attacks the philosophy of the modern movement and thereby captures the swelling sentiment of the time. This task is aided by the support of architectural critic and writer, Vincent Scully who promotes Venturi in his “Introduction” to the book.
Scott Brown states that “Scully has been a good friend to Bob and was the first member of the architectural establishment to recognize and proclaim his ability.”100 She openly recalls Venturi’s reading of Scully’s The Shingle style and of how Venturi “found it a revelation. Its documentation of mannerly Mannerism, of orderly houses that allowed for exceptions and contradictions… provided early and most meaningful lessons in the handling of complexity.”101 Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction in architecture extends Scully’s own architectural interests. But the importance of Scully’s support of the book is well recognised by Venturi who in his Pritzker Prize speech names and describes him as “Vincent Scully of Yale, friend and respected scholar and critic, who appreciated that first book and our work back when to others in the establishment I was either out or outré.”102 Venturi acknowledges that it was because of the support of this well-regarded critic of the establishment that the criticisms Venturi made in the book received support and were deemed acceptable. In his “Introduction,” even before the book hits the stands, Scully compares the significance of Venturi’s book to the seminal text by Le Corbusier, so that Venturi’s name is placed in proximity to Le Corbusier. Scully writes of Complexity and
99 John F. Pile, “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” p. 24. 100 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 79. Italics added. Ada Louise Huxtable was also a vocal commentator in support of Scott Brown and Venturi’s theorisation. Huxtable’s promotion of Scott Brown and Venturi has not been outlined here because the author considers Huxtable was not as significant as Scully in launching their careers. Refer Ada Louise Huxtable, “Heroics are out, ordinary is in,” Section 2, New York Times (18 January 1970); Ada Louise Huxtable, “Plastic flowers are almost all right,” New York Times (10 October 1971). 101 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 79. 102 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p.100. In Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 2040; “outré = Beyond the bounds of what is usual or proper; eccentric, unusual, out-of-the-way.”
151 contradiction in architecture: “… It is probably the most important writing on the making of architecture since Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture, of 1923.”103 Scully’s support and promotion of the text is a flattering review by a renowned critic before the book is reviewed by others. On the issue of acknowledgement by critics, Scott Brown complains in “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture” of the way in which she is represented as a collaborator with Venturi but also writes of the characteristics of a critic. Scott Brown states: “The critic in architecture is often the scribe, historian, and kingmaker for a particular group… His other satisfaction comes from making history in his and their image.”104 It is to Venturi’s advantage that Scully makes him, in his own image, an architectural “king”.
In a review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture by Blake in Architectural Forum, he refers to Scully’s statement associating Venturi’s text to Le Corbusier’s. In the concluding paragraph, Blake brings Scully’s judgment on this comparison of the book into question. He writes “… well, we think very highly of Vince Scully, most of the time.”105 Interestingly, Blake makes mention of Venturi’s criticism of his book, God’s own junkyard in an asterisk footnote to the review. Blake concedes defeat graciously: “Since Mr. Venturi’s book occasionally, and gently, chides my own vintage-1962 views as spelled out in a book called God’s Own Junkyard, I should like to make it clear that I have changed my mind on several points made in that book, and that I agree with his criticism of them to a considerable extent. So much for that.”106
Blake’s confessed conversion may appear questionable when he argues in support of Mies van der Rohe. The year Complexity and contradiction in architecture was published Mies van der Rohe turned 80 and was being honoured in the profession by people such as Peter Smithson.107 While no response by Mies van der Rohe to the book has been found, Blake replies tangentially in his review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture, in support of the “master”, rebutting Venturi’s suggestion that Pop Art offers the lessons for architects to be awakened from “prim
103 Vincent Scully, “Introduction,” in Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, p. 9. 104 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 242. 105 Peter Blake, “Books, Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” Architectural Forum (June 1967): 98. 106 Peter Blake, “Books, Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” p. 57. 107 Mies van der Rohe was born 29 March 1886 in Aachen, Germany and died on 17 August 1969 in Chicago. Peter Smithson, “For Mies van der Rohe on his 80th birthday,” Bauen & Wohnen, 20 (May 1966).
152 dreams of pure order…” Blake writes: “Only Mies, of the leading architects of this century, could really be accused of having dreamed “prim dreams of pure order”; yet this would be a rather superficial appraisal: Mies’s whole notion of “universal space” implies unpredictable changes, contradictions, etc. And when he was the director of the Weissenhof Exposition …he said: “I have refrained from laying down a rigid program… to avoid regulations that might interfere with free expression”.”108
In a paper delivered by Blake in Melbourne, four years after Complexity and contradiction in architecture came out, there is no question of his conversion.109 Discussing the impact of popular culture on architecture, he speaks of those, including himself, who wrote books deploring “visual pollution”. Blake states,
“But we were totally blind, myself specifically included, in our attacks on what we called “visual pollution”. I even wrote a book which I called God’s Own Junkyard, and I became, overnight, the darling of all those little old ladies in tennis shoes who run our garden clubs and our beautification societies. My God – how blind I was! ... As so often before, it took the painters and the sculptors to open our eyes for us…”110
Blake notes in his Melbourne talk that Venturi was the first architect to understand the implications of popular culture and admits having visited him in his office in Philadelphia prior to writing his paper in which he promotes a number of Venturi’s recent projects. Blake writes; “He and I have disagreed, quite vehemently, in print. Yet I respect him the more I talk to him…”111 But it is not Venturi who Blake credits with his ideological transformation but an experience he had in Delhi, “about six or seven years ago” where driving through Lutyens’ grand design of New Delhi, he noticed it was “almost totally devoid of people”, while the Old Delhi was full of lively vitality. The question of the contribution of Lutyens becomes a heated public debate between Scott Brown, Venturi, and ironically, their early mentors, the Smithsons.
108 Peter Blake, “Books, Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” p. 57. In a reply to Blake’s review, Donald R. Kingman disagrees on this point in Donald R. Kingman, “Letters, Relaxing with Venturi,” Architectural Forum (September 1967): 12, 16. 109 Blake spoke at the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria on 14 October 1970. His paper was published in Peter Blake, The New Forces: the Melbourne architectural papers, Melbourne, Victoria: Royal Australian Institute of Architects (Victoria), 1971, unpaginated. 110 Peter Blake, The New Forces: the Melbourne architectural papers, unpaginated. 111 Peter Blake, The New Forces: the Melbourne architectural papers, unpaginated.
153
Warring with the Smithsons
Due to her experiences in America, Scott Brown’s reverence towards the ideology of the Smithsons’ Brutalism diminished. She claims it was not only the Smithsons but the “planning faculties at Penn and Berkeley” who helped her develop her personal approach stating, “the social planners seemed to provide conceptual tools for approaching Brutalist urban aims.”112 In a review of the Smithsons’ book, Urban structuring: studies of Alison and Peter Smithson113 although Scott Brown refers to the couple as “two top gurus of international architecture” she shows her shift from their philosophy and criticises their lack of engagement with “regional science, urban land economics, and transportation… engineering.”114 She admits this shift in “Learning from Brutalism” in which she writes, “By the mid-1960s, Venturi and I were headed in a direction quite different from that of the Smithsons.”115 In the article, she refers to their four-person exchange on the contribution of Lutyens which took place in the pages of JRIBA.
In the April 1969 issue of the journal appeared two essays on Lutyens; one by Alison Smithson, the other by Peter Smithson. In Alison Smithson’s essay, “The responsibility of Lutyens,” Lutyens is criticised for his “responsibility for the look of housing in England from 1934 to 1965.”116 In the same issue is Peter Smithson’s “The Viceroy’s house in Imperial Delhi”.117 Both essays respond to Christopher Hussey’s 1950 book on the architect, The life of Sir Edwin Lutyens.118 Four months later in the August 1969 issue of the journal, Scott Brown and Venturi attack the Smithsons’ criticism of Lutyens’s contribution to architecture in their joint essay, “Learning from Lutyens.”119 Both advocates of Lutyens’s work, they write:
112 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 205. 113 Alison and Peter Smithson, Urban structuring: studies of Alison & Peter Smithson, London, New York: Studio Vista; Reinhold, 1967. 114 Denise Scott Brown, “Urban structuring [book review]”, Architectural Design, (January 1968): 7. 115 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism”, p. 205. 116 Alison Smithson, “The responsibility of Lutyens,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969): 146-151. 117 Peter Smithson, ““The Viceroy’s house in Imperial Delhi,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969):152-154. 118 Christopher Hussey, The life of Sir Edwin Lutyens, London: Country Life Ltd., 1950. 119 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Learning from Lutyens: Reply to A. & P. Smithson,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (August 1969): 353- 354.
154
“The argument against Lutyens in the April 1969 RIBA Journal (… by Alison Smithson… and Peter Smithson) are condescending and irrelevant. To hold Lutyens ‘responsible’ for ‘the look of housing in England from 1934 to 1956’… that is, for suburban housing… is like blaming Le Corbusier for the equally prevalent travesties of La Ville Radieuse during the same 21 years. But more to the point, are we still so sure that ‘the house on a plot, with roses and a hedge as the accepted dream’ perpetuated under the influence of Lutyens… from Lutyens to Levittown… is bad, and the opposite, as implied good? Are architects still so condescending about the ‘dreams’ of the occupants of Levittowns…? The argument is no longer simply low-rise v high-rise, suburban sprawl v megastructure or even ‘anonymous’ architecture v Georgian (or other) styling. Rather there is no longer an argument. Some battles don’t end, the ground merely shifts and they become irrelevant.”120
Nineteen years after “Learning from Lutyens” was printed, Scott Brown writes of her legacies from the Smithsons but notes how she has “diverged”. She writes, “The Smithsons and Banham had always looked askance at Venturi’s work and, since our collaboration, presumably at mine as well. I find that sad, having learned from them. However, we’ve diverged far from Brutalism…. Perhaps, like the IG members, we were too “independent” to join a movement.”121
If Scott Brown and Venturi “diverged” from the Smithsons’ Brutalism, both they and Banham continued to pursue the IG’s interest in American popular culture. In Britain, Banham remained one critic who continued to be inspired and write in praise of popular urban landscapes. He was fascinated by the American scene. He visited Chicago, New York and Los Angeles during the early to late 1960s and wrote of commercial American architecture in the journals, Landscape and Architectural Review.122 In his essay in Architectural Review, “Towards a million-volt light and sound culture,”123 he admits being inspired by Tom Wolfe’s writings in The Kandy- Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, which came out in Britain in 1966, one
120 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Learning from Lutyens,” p. 353. 121 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” pp. 205-206. 122 Reyner Banham, “The missing motel: unrecognized American architecture,” Landscape (Winter 1965-66): 4-6; Reyner Banham, “On trial: towards a pop architecture,” Architectural Review, 132 (July 1962): 43-46. 123 Reyner Banham, “Towards a million-volt light and sound culture,” Architectural Review, 142 (May 1967): 331-335.
155 year after it was published in America.124 He compares Wolfe’s book to (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding media: the extensions of man,125 and earlier influential book on the IG, The mechanical bride: folklore of industrial man.126 In 1971, Banham’s book on Los Angeles, Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies127 was published, one year before Learning from Las Vegas.128 It is a guidebook to the ecologies (or landscapes) and architecture of the city. Two architectures described in the book are “the architecture of symbolic assemblage”, Scott Brown and Venturi’s “decorated shed”; and “the architecture of commercial fantasy of the city … (as) a single symbolic form …”, Scott Brown and Venturi’s “duck”. Both types of architecture were discussed by Banham in his earlier articles. Also in Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies, Banham refers to the experience of a city from driving in an automobile on its freeways and of the importance of signs to the driver. Alison Smithson published her book, AS in DS: An eye on the road, on a similar topic.129 Smithson’s book looks specifically at the experience of the landscape observed from driving in a Citroen DS and documents a journey from London to Wiltshire. Although published in 1983, her book was originally written in 1972.
Making friends in Las Vegas
Colquhoun notes that from Venturi’s controversial book, Complexity and contradiction in architecture to Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s controversial text, Learning from Las Vegas there is both a continuation of ideas and an important
124 Tom Wolfe, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965. 125 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding media: the extensions of man, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. 126 Marshall McLuhan, The mechanical bride: folklore of industrial man, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1967; first published in 1951. 127 Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001; “Introduction Los Angeles: City of the Immediate Future” by Anthony Vidler; first published in 1971 by Allen Lane: The Penguin Press. From Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies Banham wrote Reyner Banham loves Los Angeles, a television programme shown on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television in 1972. 128 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1972; first edition. 129 Alison Smithson, AS in DS: An eye on the road, Delft, Netherlands: Delft University Press, 1983, originally written in 1972.
156 “shift in viewpoint”.130 It is contended this “shift” is significantly influenced by Scott Brown’s friendship with Venturi which drew him to the West Coast of America to visit her, where they experienced new friendships and, importantly, visited Las Vegas for the first time.
When not having been reappointed after her fourth year teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, Scott Brown left to take up an invitation to be a Visiting Professor in the School of Environment Design at the University of California, Berkeley for one semester in 1965. There she met John Brinckerhoff (J. B.) Jackson who was also a visiting scholar that semester. Scott Brown admits she “admired the urbane scholarship he brought to his analysis of rural strips” and they “became good friends”.131
Jackson had a similar affinity for popular American landscapes. He had founded the American journal, Landscape in 1951, in which Banham had published an essay. Until 1968, Jackson contributed writings to the journal on, what Ervin H. Zube describes as, “the humanized landscape”.132 To show his commitment to discussing such landscapes, some of Jackson’s essays are listed, the latter of which intersect with the content in Learning from Las Vegas. In the Autumn 1952 issue of Landscape, Jackson wrote of Optimo City as “The almost perfect town”, describing it as a kind of generic township of which there are “hundreds or more towns, all very much alike” and of the consequences of its potential growth.133 In the spring 1954 issue of Landscape he wrote “Two street scenes”, a study of two types of Main Streets in Santa Fe.134 But significantly, in the winter 1956-1957 issue of Landscape, Jackson promoted the beauty of American highways and their roadside architecture. His essay, ”Other-directed houses” critiques Bernard De Voto’s condemnation of such landscapes, published in Harper’s Magazine almost one year
130 Alan Colquhoun, “Sign and substance: reflections on complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin,” p. 27. 131 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” p. 16. Italics added. Scott Brown expresses her gratitude to Jackson for recommending she read Philip Wagner, The human use of the earth, Glencoe: Free Press, 1960. 132 Ervin H. Zube, “Foreword,” in Ervin H. Zube ed., Landscapes: selected writings of J. B. Jackson, United States of America: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970. 133 J. B. Jackson, “The almost perfect town,” Landscape, 2, 1 (Autumn 1952) in Ervin H. Zube ed., Landscapes: selected writings of J. B. Jackson, p. 116. Refer also J. B. Jackson, “The westward-moving house,” Landscape, 2, 3 (Spring 1953) in Ervin H. Zube ed., Landscapes: selected writings of J. B. Jackson, pp. 10-42. 134 J. B. Jackson, “Two street scenes,” Landscape, 3, 3 (Spring 1954) in Ervin H. Zube ed., Landscapes: selected writings of J. B. Jackson, pp. 107-112.
157 earlier.135 This arguing has parallels with Venturi’s disagreement with Blake, almost ten years later.
In 1964, Jackson wrote “The American landscape seen in passing: limited access”.136 It is a comprehensive review of Blake’s God’s own junkyard in which he identifies the contentiousness at the time surrounding the American landscape. While acknowledging the validity of some of Blake’s arguments, Jackson identifies the author’s lack of sympathy for urban landscapes. Jackson wrote “The American landscape seen in passing: limited access” one year before he met Scott Brown.
Ironically, Jackson reviewed Learning from Las Vegas.137 He wrote the review while holding a teaching position at the University of Berkeley. In it, Jackson ungenerously refers to Learning from Las Vegas as “Venturi’s” not Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s. Generously, he concludes his review with the following words on Venturi and the influence of the book; “If he has not written the last word on the strip and its vernacular art, he has written what is surely the most informed and serious study of an aspect of the American urban environment other critics have preferred to ignore. Whoever reads the book will learn to perceive the strip… with greater clarity and understanding.”138 Ensuring Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s words were not the last Jackson continued to write on American landscapes long after Learning from Las Vegas was published. These writings include his 1979 text co-authored with D. W. Meining, The interpretation of ordinary landscapes139 and Discovering the vernacular landscape published in 1984.140 Jackson started writing on landscape prior to Scott Brown and Venturi and continued after they had deviated in other directions.
After Berkeley, from 1965 to 1968, Scott Brown taught at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) where she initiated the Urban Design Program. It was at UCLA that Scott Brown began to
135 J. B. Jackson, “Other-directed houses,” Landscape (Winter 1956-1957): 29-35. 136 J. B. Jackson, “The American landscape seen in passing: limited access,” Landscape, 14, 1 (Autumn 1964): 18-21. 137 J. B. Jackson, “An architect learns from Las Vegas,” The Harvard Independent (30 November 1972): 6, 7. 138 J. B. Jackson, “An architect learns from Las Vegas,” The Harvard Independent, (30 November 1972): 7. 139 J. B. Jackson and D. W. Meining, The interpretation of ordinary landscapes, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. 140 J. B. Jackson, Discovering the vernacular landscape, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1984.
158 compile the content of the FFF studios she had taught at the University of Pennsylvania in her book, Determinants of Urban form. It was not published due to lack of funding.
As joint head at UCLA, she focused on an interdisciplinary studio format. While still working in partnership with John Rauch, in Venturi and Rauch on the East Coast, Venturi visited her during this time.141 Pittel reveals in her interview with the couple that it was because of Scott Brown that Venturi discovered Las Vegas. Pittel states it was Scott Brown “who first brought Bob to Las Vegas, where they began to fall in love.” 142 In his Pritzker Prize speech, Venturi extends this to say he learned of Las Vegas, “via the perspective of Rome and through the eyes of Denise”.143 After falling in love, they wed in Santa Monica in 1967. Pittel states, “The hors d’oeuvre napkins read: “Marriage is almost all right”.”144 1967 is also the year they commenced their formal architectural collaboration in practice, teaching and writing. They have written together but have also continued to write individually since this date.
Scott Brown and Venturi’s “primary” collaboration
Scott Brown and Venturi began formally collaborating in architectural practice when she returned to Philadelphia to join Venturi in his partnership with Rauch. Their collaboration is described by Pittel. She writes, “Husband and wife, colleagues for 30 years, complement each other” – she brings “a broad planning perspective to the practice”; he “is the detail man”.145 Pittel adds, “He and Denise work together symbiotically.” Scott Brown expresses the importance of their collaborative partnership; “We ourselves cannot tease our contribution apart.”146 She extends the point by adding, ”Because Robert Venturi and I have collaborated as academics and practitioners over the last 30 years, our ideas have grown together and there is no
141 The architectural practice, Venturi and Rauch existed from 1964 to 1980. 142 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” p. 163. 143 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 101. 144 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” p. 163. 145 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” p. 162. 146 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 239.
159 clear cleavage between our professional roles; we each are ‘both/and’, and we make a ‘difficult whole’...”147
In his Pritzker Prize speech, Venturi supports this “indivisibility”. When he speaks, he speaks in one voice for both of them:
“And last, you will notice… I have used more and more the first person plural, that is, “we”… meaning Denise and I. All my experience representing appreciation, support, and learning from would have been less than half as rich without my partnership with my fellow artist, Denise Scott Brown. There would be significantly less dimension within the scope and quality of the work this award is acknowledging today — including dimensions theoretical, philosophical, and perceptive, especially social and urban, pertaining to the vernacular, to mass culture, from decorative to regional design…and in the quality of our design where Denise’s input, creative and critical, is crucial.”148
Collaborating on two subversive research studios, an exhibition and a book - “Learning from Las Vegas” studio, 1968; “Learning from Levittown” studio, 1970; Learning from Las Vegas, 1972; and Signs of life exhibition, 1976
Between 1966 and 1970, Scott Brown and Venturi were Professors in Urban Design at Yale University School of Architecture. In the March 1968 issue of Architectural Forum, in their “A Significance of A&P parking lots, or Learning from Las Vegas” essay the couple published their theories on Las Vegas.149 This essay was published four years after Jackson’s essay, “The American landscape seen in passing: limited access” was printed. In the October 1968
147 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design,” p. 7. 148 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 102. 149 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “A significance of A&P parking lots, or Learning from Las Vegas,” Architectural Forum (March 1968).
160 issue of Architecture Canada, they contributed the essay “On ducks and decoration.”150 The latter journal was devoted to “Pop Architecture” and included a contribution by Wolfe.151
Wolfe became acquainted with Venturi, a consequence perhaps of their mutual advocacy of popular culture and art. Wolfe’s architectural writing about the virtues of popular culture and landscapes originate in his work as a journalist. Wolfe worked for the Herald Tribune in New York in the early 1960s and covered stories on American (car) culture. He moved to California to work for Esquire magazine. From these experiences, he wrote of “High society” in New York and the teen culture he had witnessed in California.152 These essays were written in the early 1960s and later collated in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, the book that inspired Banham. One of the essays was titled “Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can’t Hear You! Too Noisy) Las Vegas!!!!”153 In it, Wolfe tells the story of a visit to Las Vegas, commenting on its architecture and the signs on its Strip. From having experienced Las Vegas’ landscape, Wolfe interviewed the everyday street pop artists who made the electronic signs and promotes their work as more “avant-garde” than some of the recognised pop artists in his essay in Architecture Canada, later published in Architectural Design as “Electrographic Architecture”.154 Wolfe’s direct acquaintance with Venturi is revealed in “Electrographic Architecture” when he acknowledges him in the endnotes:
“Robert Venturi is one of the few serious American architects to comprehend the possibilities of electric sign technology and to conceive of full-scale electrographic architecture. In fact, this month (October) he has taken his third-year studio class at Yale to Nevada to study the electro-graphic landscape of Las Vegas with the same
150 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “On ducks and decoration,” Architecture Canada, 45 (October 1968). 151 Tom Wolfe, Architecture Canada, 45 (October 1968). 152 For his criticism of “High Society” refer to Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970. 153 Tom Wolfe, “Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can’t Hear You! Too Noisy) Las Vegas!!!!” in Tom Wolfe,The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, pp. 17-34. 154 Tom Wolfe, “Electrographic architecture,” Architectural Design (July 1969): 380-382.
161 objective and scholarly thoroughness that might be applied to Athens or Pompeii.”155
In collaboration with Izenour, then a Principal-in-charge at Venturi and Rauch, Scott Brown and Venturi taught studios at Yale. Two of these studios contributed directly to the content of Learning from Las Vegas. In their “Preface to the first edition” of the book, Scott Brown and Venturi credit Izenour as “our co-worker, co-author, and sine qua non”.156 The intent of the two research studios was the formal analysis of everyday landscapes with the primary focus on symbolism. They also aimed to extend Scott Brown and Venturi’s interest in evolving pedagogical teaching methods. The 1968 studio was called “Learning from Las Vegas” or “Form Analysis as Design Research”;157 and the 1970, “Learning from Levittown” or “Remedial Housing for Architects”.
The “Learning from Las Vegas” studio was interdisciplinary and involved the “three instructors” spending “three weeks in the library, four days in Los Angeles, and ten days in Las Vegas “with thirteen students – “nine students of architecture, and two planning and two graphics students.”158 Scott Brown notes the influence of her acquaintance with Jackson’s writings when preparing for the Las Vegas Studio. She writes, “Later, when Bob and I had already published two articles on Las Vegas … I read back issues of Jackson’s Landscape magazine and realized that he had written in the same vein, rather better than we had and 10 years before us.”159 The studio
155 Tom Wolfe, Endnote no. 3, “Electrographic architecture,” p. 382. On the same page, Wolfe criticises the rise in the national Beautification programme. Wolfe’s interest in electronic media was extended to his writing of Marshall McLuhan, the man and his message (video recording); produced and directed by Stephanie McLuhan, Canada, McLuhan Productions in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, c.1984. 156 Sine qua non directly translates as “without which not.” It means indispensable, absolutely necessary or essential. 157 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition,” in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1989; 2nd edition; 10th printing; first published in 1972, p. xi; note “Toward the end of the semester, as the spirit of Las Vegas got to them, the students changed the second name to “The Great Proletarian Cultural Locomotive.” 158 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition,” in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, p. xi. 159 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” pp. 16-17. Scott Brown acknowledges in Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 79 that in Scott Brown and Venturi’s library are “worn copies” of the “J. B. Jackson years of Landscape.”
162 extended arguments put forward in Scott Brown and Venturi’s earlier articles, “A Significance of A&P parking lots, or Learning from Las Vegas”, “On ducks and decoration” and “Mass communications on the people freeway, or, Piranesi is too easy” and nascent in Complexity and contradiction in architecture.160 The title of the first essay was used to name Part I of Learning from Las Vegas.
The “Learning from Levittown” studio directly extended the research initially undertaken on the suburban estate, Levittown by Scott Brown and Venturi’s sociologist “friend”, Gans and incorporated theories on “taste cultures” later published in Gans’s Popular culture and high culture: an analysis and evaluation of taste.161 Unlike other sociologists, Gans’s study aimed to be non-judgmental of such housing estates. Scott Brown describes the range of research techniques used in the “Learning from Levittown” studio in two interviews. In an interview recorded in Harvard Architecture Review, she states, “We didn’t only look at houses. Most students did content analysis of mass media; that meant we looked at television primarily; … at housing backgrounds of ads, situation comedies, and soap operas. We also examined a broad range of journals, from architectural ones through Popular Mechanics with House and Garden in between …”162 In the journal, Networks, she tells Linda Groat that “one student surveyed Walt Disney comic strips. There is one episode where Daisy Duck moves to the suburbs. She is non-conformist; she has a house which is different from everyone else’s… Quite soon everyone is copying her, and you see everyone installing a desert cactus and a mailbox on a chain.”163
Also from the two studios, Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour produced their Signs of life, symbols in the American city exhibition at the Smithsonian
160 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Mass communications on the people freeway, or, Piranesi is too easy,” Perspecta, 12 (1969): 49-56. This essay is described in VSBA Bibliography; http://www.vsba.com/ as “In conjunction with Bruce Adams; third year studio project at Yale”. 161 Herbert J. Gans, Popular culture and high culture: an analysis and evaluation of taste, New York: Basic Books, 1974. Refer Scott Brown notes in her essay, “Architectural taste in a pluralistic society,” Harvard Architecture Review, 1 (Spring 1980): 43; original essay written in 1977; that she and Venturi used this book to assist them in “classifying and defining architectural tastes.” 162 Denise Scott Brown in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” Harvard Architecture Review, 1 (Spring 1980): 238. 163 Denise Scott Brown in Linda Groat, “An Interview: Denise Scott Brown,” Networks, 1 (1972): 52.
163 Institution’s Renwick Gallery in Washington. The exhibition ran from February 26 through to September 30, 1976. Interior designer, Dian Boone, photographer, Steven Shore and painter, John Baeder also collaborated to produce the exhibition. Deborah Fausch argues the exhibition was “the most direct presentation of their (Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour’s) ideas about the everyday”.164 The two studios and the exhibition reveal what Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour inherited from American popular landscapes and their proponents including the American pop artists and British IG artists, who were also inspired by mass media. Of the later, Scott Brown writes; “… The pop imagery and collage techniques launched by the IG, although they are not our only sources, obviously inform our “Learning from Las Vegas” and “Learning from Levittown” research projects and the Signs of life: symbols in the American city exhibition that resulted from them.”165 One year after the “Learning from Levittown” studio, the theories in Scott Brown and Venturi’s “On ducks and decoration” were extended in their essays, Part I and II of “Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed”.166 The title of the latter essay was used to name Part II of Learning from Las Vegas.
In 1970, after the “Learning from Levittown” studio, Scott Brown and Venturi retired from academic life and focused on their practice. They published Learning from Las Vegas in 1972.
In Learning from Las Vegas, the research findings of both studios, literary and graphic, are collated and used to refute the lack of symbolism in the ideology of “orthodox modern” architecture. The reliance on graphics is discussed by critics, Sigrid H. Fowler167 and J. M. Fitch.168 Fitch’s essay, “Single point perspective: learning about Las Vegas: or the critical difference between looking at pretty pictures of hell and actually having to live there” is the more critical of the two and questions the graphic means of
164 Deborah Fausch, “Ugly and ordinary: the representation of the everyday,” in Steven Harris and Deborah Berke eds., Architecture of the everyday, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997, p. 78. 165 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 205. 166 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Ugly and ordinary architecture, or the decorated shed,” Part I, Architectural Forum (November 1971): 64-67; Part II, (December 1971): 48-53. 167 Sigrid H. Fowler, “Learning from Las Vegas by Venturi, Brown and Izenour: Architecture and the civic body,” Journal of Popular Culture, 7, 2 (1973): 425-433. 168 J. M. Fitch, “Single point perspective: learning about Las Vegas: or the critical difference between looking at pretty pictures of hell and actually having to live there,” Architectural Forum, 140, 2 (1974 March): 89.
164 communication used in Learning from Las Vegas. Fitch uses the work of Soutine as a metaphor to discuss the techniques used in Learning from Las Vegas which turn “this urban squalor” into “handsome photographs.” Fitch writes,” Soutine could make handsome paintings of disemboweled cattle. But Soutine did not paint in an abattoir; nor did his patrons view his paintings in a butcher shop. Even more important, neither party ever made the mistake of thinking that his painted meat was edible. Yet this is precisely the error that we in the architectural profession make.”169
But the graphics serve two important purposes in Learning from Las Vegas. They promote the value of signage and commercial American architecture and undermine the “success” of Miesian architecture from the perspective of driving on the highway. Images in the book include photographs taken by the students themselves, Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour; diagrammatic sketches, mostly by Venturi; popular literature including tourist brochures and the odd postcard; and images of architecture or the plans of buildings taken directly from other architectural texts. Of the many illustrations from architectural texts, noteworthy is the inclusion of two images taken from Blake’s God’s own junkyard; the “Long Island Duckling” and a “Road scene”.170
Although by this time Blake has converted to being an advocate of popular landscapes, in Learning from Las Vegas Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour continue to undermine his early condemnation of urban “junkyards”. Blake’s admission that he became a representative of “all those little old ladies in tennis shoes who run… our beautification societies” is not to be ignored, for Beautification societies emerge as another enemy in Learning from Las Vegas.171
In the “Preface to the first edition” of Learning from Las Vegas, Scott Brown and Venturi acknowledge old and new enemies and friends but do not use the terms per se. In regards to their enemies, they reveal their antagonism towards the urban philosophies of the Strip Beautification Committee who
169 J. M. Fitch, “Single point perspective,” p. 89. 170 The illustrations are in Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard, pp. 101, 109 and Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, pp. 17 and 88, 89. 171 Peter Blake, The New Forces: the Melbourne architectural papers, unpaginated.
165 recommend beautifying the Las Vegas Strip by turning it “into a western Champs Elysees, obscuring the signs with trees and raising the humidity level with giant fountains”.172 In the November 1969 issue of Today’s Family Digest, Paul Richard expands on this “war” in his review of Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour’s Las Vegas studio and the reception of the outcomes of the study by the Las Vegas officials involved in beautification of the strip. Richard refers to the escalation of “Lady Bird Johnson’s war on billboards” to which Venturi is opposed and writes, “We all have been taught that signs are bad. Most office buildings, apartment towers and similar structures try not to identify themselves at all. Anonymity is the goal. Venturi disagrees. Signs, he points out, characterized much of the greatest architecture of the past.”173 Richard continues on Las Vegas, “The city beautifiers hate it. They flinch at its vulgarity. They shudder at its messiness. They wish that it would go away. Most architects take one look at those tinfoil dazzlers spinning above the gas station and begin dreaming of bulldozers, rectangles, and trees. But not all of them.” 174 What the city beautifiers hate, Scott Brown, Venturi, Izenour and the Yale students refrain from judging, in order to “learn from the landscape”.175
Their modernist “enemy” which Venturi has so explicitly undermined in Complexity and contradiction in architecture continues to be criticized in Learning from Las Vegas for its lack of symbolism. In Architectural Review, Lance Wright goes so far as to describe Part II of the book as “a sizzling pulling-off of the Modern Movement’s pants.”176 Paradoxically, Scott Brown and Venturi pledge their allegiance to the Modern Movement in their preface and redefine previous criticisms of such. It is this contradictory irreverence and reverence towards modernism that is reminiscent of the Smithsons’ attack on CIAM. Scott Brown and Venturi write:
172 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition”, in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, p. xiii. 173 Paul Richard, “Learning from Las Vegas,” Today’s Family Digest, 24,10 (November 1969): 13. 174 Paul Richard, “Learning from Las Vegas,” p. 14. 175 The phrase “learn from the landscape” is a summary of Scott Brown and Venturi’s architectural philosophy by Jim Quinn, “Dumb is beautiful,” Philadelphia Magazine (October 1976): 184. 176 Lance Wright, “Robert Venturi and anti-architecture,” Architectural Review, 153 (April 1973): 262.
166 “Because we have criticized modern architecture, it is proper here to state our intense admiration of its early period when its founders, sensitive to their own times, proclaimed the right revolution. Our argument lies mainly with the irrelevant and distorted prolongation of that old revolution today. Similarly we have no argument with the many architects today who, having discovered in practice through economic pressure that the rhetoric of architectural revolution would not work, have jettisoned it and are building straightforward buildings in line with the needs of the client and the times… We think the more directions that architecture takes at this point, the better. Ours does not exclude theirs and vice versa. ”177
In order to exemplify their criticism of modern architecture, Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour make a comparison of two buildings to prove their point, neither of which is designed by Mies van der Rohe. The buildings are the Guild House, Friends’ Housing for the Elderly, Philadelphia, 1960-1963, which is attributed to Venturi and Rauch, Cope and Lippincott, Associates; and Paul Rudolph’s Crawford Manor, New Haven, 1962-1966. The Guild House apartment building for the elderly is praised for its use of symbolism, of which the controversial golden replica television antenna which caps the building is most noted. Crawford Manor is used as a surrogate example to condemn the strategies of “orthodox modern architecture” lacking in symbolism because of its rejection of ornament.
Specific friends are enumerated in the preface; many of whom have been previously acknowledged as such. Scott Brown and Venturi list them as “…the late Donald Drew Egbert, Herbert J. Gans, J. B. Jackson, Louis Kahn, Arthur Korn, Jean Labatut, Esther McCoy, Robert B. Mitchell, Charles Moore, Lewis Mumford, the Pop artists (particularly Edward Ruscha), Vincent Scully, Charles Seeger, Melvin M. Webber, and Tom Wolfe.”178 Of these enumerated “friends” McCoy, Moore, Mumford, the Pop artists
177 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition,” in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, p. xiii. 178 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition”, in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, p. xii.
167 particularly Ruscha, Seeger and Webber will be discussed in regards to their connection or influence.
McCoy is an architectural historian who has documented Californian architecture in books such as her 1960, Five California architects179 and 1962, Case study houses, 1945-1962.180 She was affiliated with the UCLA. Moore studied at Princeton University under Kahn and Labatut between 1954 and 1957. He ran a number of practices in Berkeley, California at the time that Scott Brown and Venturi were there and was Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Berkeley.181 He held a range of positions at Yale University between 1965 and 1975 during which time Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour taught their two afore-mentioned studios.182 In their preface to Learning from Las Vegas, the couple thanks Moore, along with a number of others from Yale University. They write of their Yale colleagues “none of whom found it odd that Yale architects could have serious purposes in Las Vegas.”183 Moore’s willingness to “look at existing modern development in all its messiness” is praised in Scott Brown’s 1967 review of Perspecta 10, “Team 10, Perspecta 10, and the present state of architectural theory.”184 In her essay, she refers to Moore’s article, “You have to pay for the public life” included in the journal, in which Venturi first published “Complexity and contradiction in architecture.”185 Scott Brown writes of Moore, “his attitude is analogous to that of the planners’ emerging acceptance of the value of, say, Levittown, to the people who live in it and use it; he insists that we understand what people need and can use from the buildings that the commercial market has produced.”186 Mumford’s writing on urban planning, sociology and architecture brought him significant
179 Esther McCoy, Five California architects, New York: Reinhold Pub. Corp.,1960. 180 Esther McCoy, Case study houses, 1945-1962, Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1977; 2nd edition; first published in 1962. 181 Moore was a partner in Moore-Lyndon-Turnbull-Whitaker, Berkeley, 1962-1964; and MLTW/Moore Turnbull, Berkeley, 1964-1970. 182 Moore was Chairman of the Department of Architecture, 1965-1969; Dean of the School of Architecture, 1969-1971 and Professor of Architecture, 1969-1975 at Yale University. 183 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the first edition”, in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, p. xiii. 184 Denise Scott Brown, “Team 10, Perspecta 10, and the present state of architectural theory,” pp. 42-50. 185 Charles Moore, “You have to pay for the public life,” Perspecta, 9-10 (1965): pp. 57-106; Robert Venturi, “Complexity and contradiction in architecture [extract],” Perspecta, 9-10 (1965): 17-56. 186 Denise Scott Brown, “Team 10, Perspecta 10, and the present state of architectural theory,” p. 46.
168 recognition. His humanitarianism and opposition to totalitarianism is also well known. His seminal texts were his 1961, The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects 187 and The myth in the machine: technics and human development, published in 1967.188
Scott Brown and Venturi were indebted not only to the British Pop artists but also the American Pop artists. In Venturi’s interview with Eisenman, he states the profound influence of the later: “Pop Art helped bring Denise and me to symbolism in general.”189 The importance of American pop art on the development of Scott Brown and Venturi’s architectural and urban philosophy is explained further in their interview with Maxwell; in Venturi’s 1965 essay, “Justification for a Pop architecture”190; and Scott Brown’s 1969 essay, ”On Pop art, permissiveness and planning.”191 In ”On pop art, permissiveness and planning” she refers directly to the work of West Coast Pop Artist, Edward Ruscha. Ruscha is used to exemplify how artists, unlike architects, have engaged with visual “strangeness”. She mentions a number of his projects including Some Los Angeles apartment houses, Thirty four parking lots, and his Sunset strip, the later of which she describes as “a long accordion fold-out, shows every building on each side of the Strip, each carefully numbered but without comment.”192 Ruscha’s elevation of the Sunset Strip was imitated by the Yale students in their “Learning from Las Vegas” studio when they produced an elevation of the Las Vegas Strip which was later included in Learning from Las Vegas. Seeger’s musical studies of Beethoven may be the connection to Venturi who has been interested in Beethoven’s music because it would have shocked the elite with its “themes from folk tunes.”193 Webber taught at the University of California and has written on the love affair Americans have with the automobile.
187 Lewis Mumford, The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961. 188 Lewis Mumford, The myth in the machine: technics and human development, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967. 189 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman”, p. 14. 190 Robert Venturi, “Justification for a pop architecture,” Arts and Architecture (April 1965): 22. 191 Denise Scott Brown, “On pop art, permissiveness and planning,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners (May 1969): 184-186. 192 Denise Scott Brown, “On pop art, permissiveness and planning,” pp. 185-186. Refer Richard Marshall, Edward Ruscha: Los Angeles apartments, 1965, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990; and Edward Ruscha, The works of Edward Ruscha, New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, c.1982. 193 Denise Scott Brown, “On pop Art, permissiveness and planning,” p. 185.
169
Aside from these friends, Scott Brown and Venturi enumerate in their preface John Rauch: “… our partner, our Rauch of Gibraltar, for his sometimes grudging but always crucial support and for the sacrifices a small office makes when three of its members write a book…”; and the students who participated in the research, whose collation of visual material from the studio are seminal in supporting Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour’s architectural polemic in Learning from Las Vegas. In their interview with Barriere and Lavin, Scott Brown and Venturi reveal their political position on acknowledging the contribution of students when discussing their influence on the work of Kahn:
“RV: … Someone should consider the subject of students influencing masters. DSB: It was certainly true with Louis Kahn. I watched him over the years, first as his student, then as his colleague, and I saw ideas I had suggested incorporated in his work, and heard things I’d said repeated by him. AA: Is that good or bad? DSB: Well it would have been nice to have been acknowledged.”194
In New York in 1973, Scott Brown spoke to the Alliance of Women in Architecture publicly complaining about the lack of recognition she has received in her contribution to the partnership she has with Venturi. Scott Brown’s architectural experience becomes a sociological exemplar of “paralipomena.” Colomina notes in “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” that Scott Brown’s speech “circulated privately for many years”, from 1973 to 1989, the year it was published as “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture” in Architecture: a place for women. It is a clear grievance from Scott Brown about selection by architectural critics and commentators and about the fraternity’s inability to acknowledge her contribution to architecture. Towards the end of the article, Scott Brown parallels her thinking on the topic to the writings of Cynthia F. Epstein. Summarising Epstein, Scott Brown writes that “elevation within the
194 Conversation between Scott Brown (DSB), Venturi (RV) and Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin (AA) in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 129.
170 professions is denied women for reasons that include “the colleague system”.195 In “Women in professions, architecture”, Vivien Raynor summarises Scott Brown’s comments which reveal one aspect of “the colleague system”; “The most valuable skills are those passed on verbally and by demonstration from, for instance, a great surgeon to his apprentice working alongside. As Mrs Scott Brown points out, a great man “isn’t going to do that with a young woman.”196 Scott Brown theorises further about how the system operates:
“Architects… select a guru whose work gives them personal help… The guru, as architectural father figure, is subject to intense hate and love; either way, the relationship is personal, it can only be a one-to- one affair… I suspect, too, that for male architects the guru must be male. There can be no Mom and Pop gurus in architecture.”197
Seven years after Scott Brown spoke to the Alliance of Women in Architecture, she became a Principal in the firm, Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, in which her name was acknowledged. In 1989, the partnership became Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA) of which it remains today. Scott Brown and Venturi shared receipt of the Vincent Scully Prize in 2002.198
195 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 242. Italics added. Refer definition in Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 1, p. 439;”colleague= Join in alliance, associate; Unite, alliance, conspire.” Cynthia F. Epstein, “Encountering the male establishment: sex status limits on women’s careers in the profession,” American Journal of Sociology, 75 (May 1970): 965-982. 196 This handing down of information from male master to female apprentice does occur eg. Kahn’s relationship with Anne Griswold Tyng. 197 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 241. Refer also to Maralyn Lois Polak, “Architect for pop culture [Interview: Denise Scott Brown],” p. 8. 198 Unknown, “Venturi and Scott Brown share Scully Prize,” Blueprints, 21, 1 (Winter 2003): 14.
171 The death of Post-Modernist architectural philosophy
Four years after Learning from Las Vegas was published, Venturi preempts another cycle of architectural warring. He states; “I know the fate of most revolutionaries… you get successful and old-fashioned, and pretty soon new revolutionaries are revolting against you. I don’t usually look forward to that. But sometimes I wish it would hurry up and happen.”199 With these words, Venturi makes a lamenting call for his own demise as a figurehead in the architectural academy, in which he is commonly recognised as the father of the Post-Modern style.
The battle undertaken by Scott Brown and Venturi with the American orthodox modernists may also have ended with the admission by Scott Brown that their anti- modernist critiques against simplicity were in fact substantiated in Learning from Las Vegas. Scott Brown explains, “In another sense, the modernists have won. What we recognize is that the shed we so often work with is essentially a modern building.”200
In the May 1987 issue of Architecture, Scott Brown reveals her own understanding of the cycle of architectural warring and speaks of the death of modernism and Post- Modernism. She is one of a group of architects and historians asked to respond to the question, “How do you think that future historians will assess the period 1978- 1987?” She replies, “If present preoccupations are a touchstone, 1978-87 will certainly be defined as another battlefield of the styles in architecture.”201 But most importantly she adds, “By 1978 modernism was dead and by 1987 postmodernism was dead, although supporters of both movements claimed reports of their deaths were exaggerated.”202
199 Robert Venturi speaking in Jim Quinn, “Dumb is beautiful,” p.190. 200 Denise Scott Brown in James Russell, “VSBA today [Interview],”Architectural Record, 186, 2, (February 1998): 252. 201 Denise Scott Brown, “Another battlefield of the styles in architecture,” in D. C., “Looking for the future into the immediate past,” Architecture, 76, 5 (May 1987): 116-121. 202 Denise Scott Brown, “Another battlefield of the styles in architecture,” p. 116.
172 The architectural legacies of Post-Modernist critiques
Kenneth Frampton describes the Post-Modernist critique as an “anti-utopian ‘contexturalist’” one which emerged “more than a decade ago, first in Colin Rowe’s neo-Sittesque approach to urban form (as taught in Cornell University and presented in his book of 1979, Collage city), and then in Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture…”203 After studying in London under the historian Rudolph Wittkower, Rowe migrated to America. Scott Brown credits him in her essay “Learning from Brutalism” as being one lineage in which the Brutalists’ philosophies were first brought from Europe to America.204 In America, Rowe taught at Cornell University. He co-authored with Fred Koetter, Collage city, the text of which was completed in December 1973.205
Both Complexity and contradiction in architecture and Collage city share a revitalised interest in Classical architecture and a return to valuing the attributes of the European city. Both books reveal the timely wane in support for the possibilities of modern architecture and CIAM urbanism which Rowe and Koetter describe in Collage city as “the city of modern architecture” or “the modern city”.206 This wane was made possible and public by Scott Brown and Venturi’s subversive collaboration with friends. It is in reaction to the nostalgic, contexturalist sentiment that Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas subversively collaborate, against their European architectural establishment enemies who shared this enmity for “the modern city” at the time and with whom they disagreed.
203 Kenneth Frampton, “Place, production and scenography: international theory and practice since 1962,” in Kenneth Frampton, Modern architecture: a critical history, London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1985; 2nd edition; first published in 1980, p. 290. 204 Denise Scott Brown, “Learning from Brutalism,” p. 203. 205 Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage city, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1993; 7th printing; first published in 1978. The date of the first publication contradicts Frampton’s date. 206 Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage city, p. 2.
173 Chapter Five
Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas, 1975–1987
174 “Some of the great “masters” of modern architecture associated with other architects to build in Manhattan. Mies van der Rohe worked with Philip Johnson on the Seagram Building, a collaborative project … from the moment of commission. Gropius “came on board” with the team of Emery Roth to build the Pan Am Building. And Wallace Harrison “stole” from Le Corbusier the forms of the new headquarters for the United Nations in New York. “En-ablers” is what Rem Koolhaas calls the local associated architects in these partnerships. In a recent article on the subject in Bob Somol, ed., Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an Avant-Garde in America (1997), Koolhaas suggests that such partners are always overlooked...”1
In her paper on collaborations in modern architecture, Colomina refers to Rem Koolhaas’s essay, “Eno/abling architecture” in which he outlines the role of “overlooked” “en-ablers” in the architectural achievements of three modern “masters”: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.2 In a sense, the subversive partnership focused on in this chapter, paradoxically one of Koolhaas’s own, is one which has been “overlooked” in architectural literature. Unlike the partnerships of the Smithsons and Scott Brown and Venturi, the early Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) partnership of Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas is less well documented and recognised. The partnership was short lived, officially starting in 1975 and terminating in 1987.3 The productive fusion of the partnership at its height, and how the politics of the friendship of Zenghelis and Koolhaas contributed to change in the architectural establishment through the production of architectural designs and theory are the foci of this chapter.
Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s friendship is productive because it results in subversive urban designs which supplement Koolhaas’s theoretical text, Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan.4 It is contended both the projects and this seminal “pop” book are the outcome of the “primary” partnership, “En-abled” by Zenghelis. There are secondary “En-ablers” or friends which collaborate on Delirious
1 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: The private life of modern architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, 3 (September 1999): 466-467. 2 Rem Koolhaas, “Eno/abling architecture,” in Robert E. Somol ed., Autonomy and ideology: positioning an avant-garde in America, New York: Monacelli Press, 1997, pp. 292-299. 3 There are conflicting dates found for the precise date the early OMA partnership terminated. The date used in this study is 1987. Refer Elia Zenghelis, “Curriculum vitae,” El Croquis, 67 (1994): 123. 4 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
175 New York; Zenghelis’s first wife and OMA founder, Zoe Zenghelis; and Koolhaas’s wife and OMA founder, Madelon Vriesendorp. Both painters, Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp produced the majority of the iconic paintings of OMA Manhattan projects included in Delirious New York. It is because of the importance of the architectural “image” to the campaign of friends that a return is made to Colomina’s thoughts on the role of the graphic designer in collaborations, to which she refers to Koolhaas’s more recent collaborations with the Canadian designer, Bruce Mau, rather than Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp:
“It is no longer possible to ignore how much of modern architecture is produced both in the media and as media, and how much of architectural practice today consists in the production of images… By the end of the century, the graphic designer has assumed an equally important role. Bruce Mau, the designer of S,M,L,XL, is credited equally as author with Rem Koolhaas and… OMA. One day historical research will have to explore this kind of partnership.”5
Zenghelis’s architectural
inheritances
Zenghelis was born and lived the early part of his childhood in Athens. In 1948, when he was age nine, his father, who was living in Johannesburg, South Africa, sent him a plane ticket to visit him on his holidays. The experience was seminal for Zenghelis as it was his first encounter with what he describes as “a gigantic city made of skyscrapers, on a screen of enormous avenues, bathed in the multi- coloured light of neon, a city which emerged from a carpet of green of an intensity that I never would have imagined possible.”6 Preoccupied with what he saw as a metropolitan “paradise,” Zenghelis began to draw plans of cities. He says,
“My most significant drawing was that of a city-fortress which juxtaposed all the extremes. It was surrounded with desert, but it rose vertically on a plateau (to 2000m like Johannesburg) abounded by water and greenery…The
5 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 463. 6 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality: Interview with Elia Zenghelis,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 10.
176 skyscrapers had 100 stories (I was still unaware of those in New York and those of Johannesburg did not exceed 25 stories)… High and thick walls protected it…”7
Seeing Zenghelis’s interest for architecture and urbanism, his father approached a friend of his who was an architect to have Zenghelis work in his office. Zenghelis was then in his mid teens. Although disillusioned with the work in the office, the experience was important because it was there that Zenghelis saw in a journal a review of the Architectural Association (AA). Excited about the potential of living in the metropolis of London, Zenghelis approached his father to ask if he could study there. With his father’s approval, Zenghelis studied at the AA in the late 1950s completing his studies in 1961. While at the AA, he was taught by the German émigré, Arthur Korn, who was influential on Denise Scott Brown’s thinking; and Peter Smithson in his fifth year. He recalls Smithson talking on the Economist building, St. James, London, 1960-1964.
Of his student years at the AA, Zenghelis reveals that they were “very traumatic” because he disagreed with some of his lecturers, who he describes to Goulet as “insane tyrants,” although he later found sympathy with lecturer, John Killick, who encouraged him and renewed his original enthusiasm for architecture.8 Zenghelis suggests that the reason for his trauma as a student was that he was unfamiliar with acceptable practices in design. He explains to Goulet that as he encountered the work of modern architects such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Hans Scharoun and Oscar Niemeyer he would “digest them” and be directly “quotational” of their work in his own designs. His lecturers disapproved of this method and for this reason Zenghelis was failed in his first year of study.
The predominant architectural sentiment at the time when Zenghelis was a student was humanist. Zenghelis relays to Goulet how when Dutch Team 10 member, Aldo van Eyck came to speak to them at the AA on scale, he spoke of the scale of children to architecture. Zenghelis recalls being perplexed by van Eyck’s argument because it seemed to him “that for a child, the only interesting scale was that of the skyscrapers!”9
7 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 8 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 9 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 11.
177 After completing his studies, Zenghelis worked for Douglas Stephen and Partners, a London based practice recognised for its modernist projects. Some of his colleagues at the time were Kenneth Frampton, Adrian Gale and Robert (Bob) Maxwell. Although he became an Associate Partner in the office in 1964, Zenghelis admits to Goulet becoming disillusioned with architecture because many of the projects he worked on at Douglas Stephen and Partners were not built. Zenghelis also taught at the AA after graduating. Peter Cook recalls Zenghelis at the time “was the first fanatical enthusiast for the Russian work of the twenties and thirties … seen to be ferreting around swapping postcards of Tschernikov or Melnikov in covert circles of London or Moscow!”10
Koolhaas’s architectural inheritances
In his interview with Goulet, Rotterdam born Koolhaas relays that his grandfather was an architect.11 From the age of 3-6 years old Koolhaas recalls visiting his grandfather’s architectural office ritually every Sunday. Koolhaas acknowledges that from this early introduction, he wanted to become an architect.
Koolhaas’s father was a writer, theatre critic and director of a film school. When Koolhaas was age 6, his father was invited by the Indonesian government to become their culture director. For this reason, Koolhaas and his family lived in Indonesia from the early to mid 1950s.12 Goulet suggests to Zenghelis that he and Koolhaas are similar for this reason. Goulet states to Zenghelis, “Although completely different from that of Koolhaas, your personal history does none the less have one significant common point: confrontation, as a very young person, with two completely different environments.”13 The two contrasting environments referred to are for Zenghelis, Athens and Johannesburg; and for Koolhaas, Rotterdam and Indonesia.
10 Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” A+U: Architecture and Urbanism, 11, 374 (November 2001): 32. 11 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture: Interview with Rem Koolhaas,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 2. 12 Koolhaas’s childhood experience in Indonesia has also been cited as influential on his recent theories on shopping. Refer Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [Interview],” Index magazine,http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/interview_koolhaas.html; site accessed 14.04.2003; unpaginated. 13 Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10.
178
In his mid teens, Koolhaas claims to have “discovered Brazilia” and “dreamt of becoming a Brazilian architect.”14 But on his return to the Netherlands, where he completed his high school studies in Amsterdam, Koolhaas met “friend,” Rene Daalder who as an adolescent wanted to become a cinematographer.15 Because of his friendship with Daalder, Koolhaas confesses, “I forgot my dreams of architecture in order to become a scriptwriter and then a journalist.”16 Koolhaas explains to the editor of S,M,L,XL,17 Jennifer Sigler, how he and Daalder were “outcasts” who represented a version of ““alienated” modernity” in the 1960s.18 Rather than hate society and want to destroy it, they wanted to reengineer it so as to make it more artificial. Koolhaas adds, “That explains the ties, the suits. It’s the same ’68 impulse, but a different side of it.”19
From 1962 to 1967, Koolhaas worked as a journalist for the Dutch newspaper, Haagse Post. He admits enjoying the experience because of his encounter with deviant social life. At the same time as being a journalist, Koolhaas wrote film screenplays. In his work as a scriptwriter, Koolhaas displayed his political disregard for the European establishment in two scripts he wrote for the films, 1,2,3 Rhapsodie, 1965 and De Blanke Slavin or The White Slave, 1969.
Koolhaas collaborated with Daalder, Jan de Bont, Frans Bromet, and Kees (later Samuel) Meyering under the name “1,2,3 Groep” to produce the experimental, short film, 1,2,3, Rhapsodie in which the five young men take on all roles including acting, directing, camerawork etc. An anarchic film which displays complete disregard for the English monarchy, 1,2,3, Rhapsodie was nearly banned because of Koolhaas’s extreme representation in the film of Queen Elizabeth II who is shown to smoke a lot and acts as a vampire.20
14 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 15 Rem Koolhaas describes Daalder as a “friend” in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. Now a Hollywood filmmaker, Daalder’s most recent film is Massacre at Central High, 2001. 16 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 17 O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, New York: Monacelli Press Inc., 1995. 18 Rem Koolhaas in Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [Interview],“ unpaginated. 19 Rem Koolhaas in Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [Interview],“ unpaginated. 20 Unknown, “1,2,3 Retrospectief, 1 October 1997,” http://www.classic.archined.nl/news/9710/123groep.html; site accessed 2.07.2003; unpaginated.
179 Koolhaas and Daalder collaborated to make the subversive film, De Blanke Slavin or The White Slave which uses images from B grade movies as a commentary on Europe at that time. In his interview with Goulet, Koolhaas further describes the film as a “Fassbinder allegory on the problem of Europe and the 3rd world.”21
In 1968, Koolhaas returned to his dream of becoming an architect and left the Netherlands, electing to study architecture. Before beginning his studies he travelled to Paris in May 1968 and to Prague in the autumn of that year, when the Russians arrived. Then aged 24, he was deeply affected by the events of May 1968. He elected to study architecture at the AA because he could learn to speak English and the course length was shorter than the nine years required in the Netherlands. Koolhaas, like Zenghelis, was also seduced by the prospect of living in London. Also like Zenghelis, Koolhaas describes his early experiences at the AA as “traumatic.”22
Koolhaas recalls to Goulet, his early encounters with AA lecturers were uneven because what he wanted to learn was not being taught at the time. He remembers, “I found myself face to face with a lecturer explaining seriously: “Do not fall for architecture! You are here to open your spirit!” Meanwhile asking us to glue ping- pong balls together to show how nature worked with cells! I felt myself misled.”23 Because of his resistance to such teaching, Koolhaas reminisces that his lecturers recommended he transfer to another school of architecture. He recalls his disagreements with numerous lecturers, most significantly, Cook, who he claims took an early dislike to him. But Koolhaas also contends while the experience was harrowing, he found it rewarding because it helped him learn how to overcome adverse situations, something he claims the practice of architecture is plagued with. He states, “Viewed retrospectively, this situation was enriching. One gains more from a form of teaching which one is not in sympathy with. It obliges one to have good reflexes. Isolated, it forces unceasing defence of one’s position.”24
Koolhaas recollects how the AA studios provided the opportunity for students to be recognised. Koolhaas himself gained recognition as a student after his involvement in organising lectures by the member of Superstudio, Adolfo Natalini. Koolhaas recalls being inspired by Natalini’s presentation of Il monumento continuo or The continuous monument, 1969 and relays to Goulet that he found the project
21 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 22 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 23 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 24 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2.
180 “fantastic” because it reminded him of “the rationalism of Leonidov.”25 Koolhaas became acquainted with Natalini thanks to his “friend, Gerrit Oothuys.”26 Koolhaas had studied the work of Leonidov with Oorthuys and had made numerous visits to Russia, contacting Leonidov’s heirs. His understanding of Leonidov’s projects came from this research. It was in 1969 while at the AA that Koolhaas encountered Zenghelis who was also an admirer of Russian Construcitivism.
Two subversive student designs – Berlin wall as architecture, 1970 and Exodus, 1972
“Rem was the first student to which I had nothing to say but “continue”, the first who inspired me instead of discouraging me… We were both very insulated because we didn’t agree with what occurred around us and liked architecture, which was not the style of the day… We did not have the same temperament… but shared the same goals: we could fight together …”27
Zenghelis was Koolhaas’s second year tutor. Zenghelis explains to Goulet of their “likeness”: their agreement on design philosophy; they felt excluded from the establishment at the time; they both liked an architecture not liked by their peers; and they shared the same antagonisms, although their temperaments were contrasting. Aside from this, they shared “traumatic” early experiences as students at the AA; an affinity with the work of the Russian Constructivists; and were seduced by metropolitan urbanism. Koolhaas tells Goulet that when they met “Zenghelis and I were also, by pure coincidence, both married to painters…”28
Both men admit finding comfort in their partnership. Zenghelis recalls how Koolhaas encouraged him: “He was the enthusiastic student and I was the
25 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 26 Rem Koolhaas refers to Oothuys as a ‘friend” in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. Italics added. 27 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 28 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3. No details have been found of when Elia Zenghelis met Zoe Zenghelis or when Koolhaas met Vriesendorp. No research material has been found on Vriesendorp, either independently or on her involvement in OMA.
181 disillusioned professor.”29 Koolhaas relays that his encounter with Zenghelis made his “time at the school a lot easier.”30
In his conversation with Goulet, Zenghelis describes two projects done by Koolhaas as a student at the AA, the Berlin wall as architecture and Exodus or the Voluntary prisoners of architecture. The Berlin wall as architecture was a project which was part of a course to undertake a “summer study”. The project aimed to document an existing architectural artefact of which typically a student might select to study a Palladian villa or the like. In his 1993 essay, “Field trip A(A) memoir” included in S,M,L,XL, Koolhaas describes his presentation of the Berlin wall as architecture to his teachers, Cook, Smithson, Cedric Price, Charles Jencks, Alvin Boyarsky and Zenghelis.31 In the way that he might write a script, Koolhaas portrays the scene, an early moment in which his architectural contribution is taken seriously by his lecturers.
In his interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Koolhaas explains that at the time there was an optimism that architecture could participate in human liberation, a belief that he was taught at the AA.32 He tells Obrist it was his scepticism of the efficacy of this project, and in his “Field Trip A(A) memoir”, his intuition, discontentment and his sense of enquiry as a journalist that prompted him to study the Berlin wall in order to explore where architecture’s real power lay. In both texts, Koolhaas expresses how shocked he was by the wall because it entrapped West Berlin in order to establish it as a free society. The wall demonstrated graphically that the power of architecture lay in its unpleasant effects of dividing, enclosing, imprisoning, and excluding. 33 Koolhaas was fascinated by how the Berlin wall represented “the horrible, powerful side of architecture”34, its “true nature.”35 The Berlin wall suggested to him that the beauty of architecture was proportional to its brutalism and that architectural form was not linked to meaning. He writes: “… on the eve of postmodernism, here was unforgettable (not to say final) proof of the “less is more” doctrine…
29 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 11. 30 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 31 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” in O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, pp. 212-233. 32 Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Rem Koolhaas/OMA [Interview],” http://www.paddavis.de/dualism/Berlin.html; site accessed 17.03.2003; unpaginated. 33 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” p. 226. 34 Rem Koolhaas in Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Rem Koolhaas/OMA [Interview],” unpaginated. 35 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” p. 225.
182 I will never again believe in form as the primary vessel of meaning.”36 The wall was also evidence for Koolhaas that there was no connection between importance and mass in architecture and that architecture, like the wall, was unstable and variable showing signs of “urban incidents or dimensional conflicts.”37 After he presented his Berlin wall as architecture project to his lecturers Koolhaas writes; “There was a long silence. Then Boyarsky asked ominously, “Where do you go from here?””38 From the Berlin wall as architecture, it is noted in “The discovery of Manhattan,” that Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis and Vriesendorp all collaborated to produce Koolhaas’s final year project, Exodus.39
In reminiscing to Goulet of his city-fortress drawings of Johannesburg which he did as a child, Zenghelis is reminded of Koolhaas’s Berlin wall and speaks of how it “became” Exodus. Zenghelis states: “Many years later, when Rem was a student of mine, he showed me his Berlin, I was amazed by his interpretation of the ideal city: I recognized the same intense desire there for building an enclave for the inhabitants which would become the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture.”40
Exodus was a scheme produced to respond to a competition run by the Italian architecture journal, Casabella for “The city as meaningful environment”. Under “Homage to Superstudio,” Koolhaas writes “next to the Berlin Wall, their Continuous Monument was an obvious inspiration for Exodus.”41 Koolhaas extends philosophies - suggested to him by his research on the Berlin wall and inspired by The continuous monument - into Exodus, an urban design for metropolitan London. In it, London, like Berlin, is divided into two segments: a “good” and a “bad”. Koolhaas describes in his essay on the project in S,M,L,XL how he designed a thick inhabitable wall, a kind of metropolitan condenser and “oasis”, which aimed to provide “totally desirable alternatives. The inhabitants of this architecture, those strong enough to love it, would become its Voluntary Prisoners, ecstatic in the
36 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” p. 227. 37 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” p. 221. 38 Rem Koolhaas, “Field trip A(A) memoir,” p. 231. 39 Unknown, “The discovery of Manhattanism,” in Issue on “OMA,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 330. 40 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 41 Unknown, “The city of the captive globe/1972,” in Issue on “OMA,” Architectural design, 47, 5 (1977): 333.
183 freedom of their architectural confines.”42 He explains the project aims to accommodate all individual desires. The architectural wall is described as containing a Reception Area – the first step of indoctrination; Central area – a viewing platform; the Ceremonial Square; the Tip of the Strip; the Park of Four Elements – Air, Desert, Water and Earth; the Square of Arts – an industrial zone; Baths – for socialising; the Institute of Biological Transactions – a hospital; the Park of Aggression – for public conflicts to become spectacles; and Allotments – provided for each voluntary prisoner to privately partake in cultivation. Importantly, like the Berlin wall, the Exodus wall is unstable, ever changing and constantly associating with the “old” city of London around it.
Zenghelis describes the significance of the Exodus project firstly for Koolhaas and then for himself. He states, “For him, it was a project for school, for me, a restarting. For him, the fruit of his knowledge of Berlin, for me, a new version of my city-fortress with this abrupt line which separates the good from the evil and which everyone wants to cross to enter the oasis.”43 Koolhaas admits to Goulet that Zenghelis “drew some of the fragments” of the Exodus project which he submitted.44 The project is listed as a competition entry in Zenghelis’s “Curriculum vitae” in El Croquis 67.45
One painting of Exodus included in Zenghelis’s 1994 interview with Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides’s, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis” broadens credit for the project to “Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis with Madelon Vriesendorp and Zoe Zenghelis.”46 Zenghelis tells Aesopos and Simeoforides that Exodus was a joint project and that after collaborating on the project, he and Koolhaas agreed to start a firm together. They began to work on a series of projects which were to later support Koolhaas’s research in Delirious New York. Zenghelis explains,
“The brainchild of Rem and myself, OMA was a polemical laboratory that sought to re-examine and re-define orthodox dependencies on
42 Rem Koolhaas, “Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners of architecture,” in O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, p. 7. 43 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 11. 44 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 45 Elia Zenghelis, “Curriculum vitae,” El Croquis, p. 123. 46 Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” El Croquis, 67 (1994): 125.
184 notions of reality and normality… It was launched to develop and project ideas that had evolved, from 1972 onward, through our early collaboration in London and New York — in joint projects like Exodus and Roosevelt Island — and which matured in the course of Rem’s research for Delirious New York and the projects we did to support it. OMA was about the possibilities of architecture in the metropolis i.e. the “culture of congestion”. … It is hard to remember the emergency vacuum of the time, a climate of violent reaction and prejudice, in which we were two tiny voices in a storm, seen as mad, since The City was then what everybody wanted to amputate and run away from.”47
Learning from America
“Rem then left for the United States, but we continued to collaborate. I was going to give lectures and we each did theoretical projects on New York which helped us to reflect, the Welfare Palace for him, the Hotel Sphinx for me.”48
Although keen to further his collaboration with Zenghelis, in 1972, Koolhaas applied for a Harkness fellowship to study in the United States in order to avoid being taught in the fifth year by Cook49 and to examine the American metropolis. Koolhaas explains to Goulet, “I already had the vague idea of doing something on New York. I had observed that that city was the only example of architecture of the 20th century that enthused the whole world and had not been taken seriously by any historian. I had the desire to rectify that…”50 Aside from this, Koolhaas was attracted to America because Europeans often consider it an illegitimate source. William S. Saunders describes Koolhaas’s attraction to studying “the ordinary, the ugly, the banal” as “Koolhaas’s possible need to break from an enervating Dutch refinement.”51
47 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 125. 48 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 11. 49 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 50 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 51 William S. Saunders, “Rem Koolhaas’s writings on cities: poetic perception and gnomic fantasy,” Journal of Architectural Education, 51, 1 (September 1997): 61.
185 On receipt of the fellowship, Koolhaas elected to study for the first year at Cornell University in Ithaca, rather than New York, because he knew that the German architect, Oswald Mathias (O.M.) Ungers led the Department of Architecture there.52 Koolhaas was attracted to Ungers’s previous work on the city of Berlin and the contemporary city. Zenghelis and he, who continue to collaborate while apart, worked with Ungers during this time. In Zenghelis’s “Curriculum vitae” in El Croquis, one of Zenghelis’s three collaborations in private practice, broadly grouped between 1971 and 1975, is with “Rem Koolhaas (London and New York) and O.M. Ungers (Ithaca and New York)” but it is unclear as to the extent of Zenghelis’s direct collaboration with Ungers.53 In his conversation with Goulet, Koolhaas explains that he and Ungers were in close collaboration until 1978. He states; “We could work in an almost telepathic way. We would meet at the airport in New York, speak for ten minutes, hand in and win a competition.”54
In Grant Marani, Cathy Peake, Ian McDougall and Richard Munday’s interview with Koolhaas, “The pleasures of architecture conference 1980: the Interview,” when speaking of his and his wife’s early experiences in Ithaca, Koolhaas explains that he “became friends with Ungers.”55 At the time, Ungers was involved in “trench warfare” with Colin Rowe, then a Professor at Cornell. Koolhaas elaborates that his friendship with Ungers inevitably put him “on the wrong side of the track.”56 Koolhaas decided to leave Cornell after two years, electing to travel in the United States with Vriesendorp. From Ithaca, they moved to New York.
Frampton, a colleague of Zenghelis’s, recommended Koolhaas attend the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS or “The Institute”) in New York. Peter Eisenman was a co-founder of the IAUS. Michael Graves explains in his Transition interview that Frampton was invited by him and Eisenman to speak at a series of conferences sponsored by Princeton University for the Conference of Architects for
52 There is a conflict in the dates in regard to when Ungers taught at Ithaca. In Oswald Mathias Ungers and Stefan Vieths, Oswald Mathias Ungers: the dialectic city, Milan: Skira, 1997 on the inside of the back cover, it is stated that Ungers taught at Cornell University from 1975 to 1986. This is three years after Koolhaas was meant to be taught by Ungers. 53 Elia Zenghelis, “Curriculum vitae,” El Croquis, p. 123; Between 1971-75 Zenghelis was in “Private Practice with George Candillis, Michael Carapetian and Aristides Romanos (London and Paris); with Rem Koolhaas (London and New York) and O.M. Ungers (Ithaca and New York); and Peter Eisenman at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) in New York.” 54 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3. 55 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 17. Italics added. 56 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 17.
186 the Study of the Environment (CASE). After Eisenman left Princeton and moved to New York, he continued the debates of CASE at the IAUS which had three arms: practice, education, and publishing. “The Institute” was located in a skyscraper on 8 West 40th Street in New York. After becoming a visiting fellow at the IAUS, Koolhaas admits to Goulet, he and Eisenman “became good friends.”57 Koolhaas’s office in the building overlooked the Empire State Building and it was here that he began his research on New York’s metropolitan condition which was later collated and published as Delirious New York, the content of which developed gradually between 1972 and 1978.
Koolhaas’s research on New York incorporated unconventional methods of researching architectural history of which he had become familiar with from his earlier research with Oorthuys on Leonidov.58 For instance, Koolhaas and Vriesendorp joined the Metropolitan Postcard Collector’s Club and began to collect what Koolhaas describes as “the debris of America.”59 Through their study of the New York postcards, Koolhaas began to find themes associated with the city of New York. These images and themes were incorporated into Delirious New York and were supported by a series of Manhattan projects.
Collaborating on a series of subversive designs – the Manhattan projects, 1972-1976
The Manhattan projects are a series of fictional designs produced between 1972 and 1976 by combinations of the official OMA founders and others. Seven of these Manhattan projects, as well as essays promoting them by Kenneth Frampton,60 George Baird61 and Demetrios Porphyrios62 appeared
57 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3. Italics added. 58 Koolhaas recalls looking behind cupboards and trunks in the home of Leonidov’s widow for original documents by the architect. 59 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 18. 60 Kenneth Frampton, “Two or three things I know about them: a note on Manhattanism,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 315-318. Frampton’s essay opens with the collaged image, Suprematist icon over Manhattan, 1923 by Malevich. 61 George Baird, “Les extrêmes qui se touchent?” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 326- 329. Jencks had taught Koolhaas and is described as a friend at the AA in Patrice Goulet,
187 in the 1977 issue of Architectural Design (AD) devoted entirely to the work of OMA, a precursor to the publication of Delirious New York. In the order the projects appear in the journal, they are City of the captive globe, 1972; Egg of Columbus Center, 1973; Hotel Sphinx, 1975; New Welfare Island, 1975- 76; Welfare Palace Hotel, 1976-77; Roosevelt Island, 1975; and Story of the pool, 1976.63 Only two of these projects, the Egg of Columbus Center and Roosevelt Island, were not included in Delirious New York. Of the Manhattan projects published in AD, the City of the captive globe; Egg of Columbus Center; New Welfare Island; Welfare Palace Hotel; and Story of the pool become representative of OMA’s critique of European architectural philosophy which prescribed homogeneity. The projects promote skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s in order to resuscitate enthusiasm for the modern project which had faded in Europe.
In the AD profile on OMA, City of the captive globe is listed as the collaboration of Koolhaas with Zoe Zenghelis; Zoe credited with producing the painting representing the scheme.64 The project shows a metropolis with all its artificial “mental constructions” or “manias,” represented as unique skyscrapers each occupying one plot on the metropolitan grid. The towers react with the globe captured in the centre of the metropolis. Different towers represent different architectural ideologies or styles. This is in contradiction to the European situation in which only one ideology is typically applied to the entire city. In the essay, “The city of the captive globe/1972” in AD the designs for each of the different buildings are inherited from architectural and film sources. They are listed as Religion in ruins; Architecture in the process of reproducing itself – an O.M. Ungers project; Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; Homage to Mies; Dali’s ‘Architectural Angelus’, 1933; Leonidov’s Ministry of Heavy Industry, 1933; El Lissitsky’s orator’s stand; Outdoors indoor; Malevitch’s Architecton; RCA building, Rockefeller Center, 1933; Homage to Superstudio; Trylon and Perisphere.65 The City of the captive globe, although preceding Koolhaas’s
“The second chance of modern architecture”, p. 3. Charles Jencks and George Baird eds., The meaning of architecture, London: Barrie & Rockliff the Cresset Press, 1969. 62 Demetrios Porphyrios, “Pandora’s box: an essay on metropolitan portraits,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 357-362. 63 Of the dates for projects listed in AD, three differ to project dates in Delirious New York, the latter which states Hotel Sphinx, 1975-76; Welfare Palace Hotel, 1976 and Story of the pool, 1977. 64 Unknown, “The discovery of Manhattanism,” p. 330. 65 Unknown, “The city of the captive globe/1972,” pp. 332-333.
188 study of Manhattan, was prophetic of its architecture. In the research on Manhattan in the 1920s individual plots were interpreted by the architects to be distinct islands, each representing different values.
The Egg of Columbus Center is credited in “The discovery of Manhattanism” as the collaboration of Elia and Zoe Zenghelis.66 It is noted in the essay named after the project that it “was conceived of as a sequel to Exodus: it attempted to transfer the Squares of the London strip to the blocks of Manhattan, which… offered a perfect fit.”67 The Egg of Columbus Monument, in the centre of the scheme is described as “the equivalent of the Reception in Exodus.”68 Other “graftings” from Exodus are the Baths, the Park of Aggression, the Park of the Four Elements, and the Institute of Biological Emergencies.69 The design for The City of the captive globe is modified into The Square of the captive globe and made to represent a School of Architecture where conflicting ideologies are incubated. Fifteen “voids” created by the grid, represent studios which are seen to be “ideological laboratories” in which buildings are constructed. Each construction represents a particular ideology which is assumed to be usurped and destroyed. This ongoing process of oligarchic usurpation deems the skyline of the School of Architecture to be ever changing.
Included in Zoe Zenghelis’s painting of the Egg of Columbus Centre is a version of (Jean-Louis-André-) Théodore Géricault’s French Romanticist painting, The Raft of Medusa, 1819 which is shown being flown by balloon to the enormous egg at the centre of the metropolis. In the Egg of Columbus Center, the raft is the exact size of one Manhattan block. The original painting by Géricault documents the real life story of the soldiers from the military vessel, Medusa, after it has been shipwrecked. The soldiers are depicted adrift off the Senegalese coast on a raft on which they have only limited food and ammunition supplies. Géricault’s painting illustrates the moment on 17 July 1816, when the 15 survivors are overcome with despair
66 Unknown, “The discovery of Manhattanism,” p. 330. 67 Unknown,“The Egg of Columbus Center/1973,” in Issue on “OMA,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977): 334. 68 Unknown, “The Egg of Columbus Center/1973,” p. 334. 69 In Unknown, “The Egg of Columbus Center/1973,” p. 334, the phrase “The Institute of Biological Emergencies” is used, whereas in Rem Koolhaas, “Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners of architecture,” in O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, p. 16, the phrase, “The Institute of Biological Transactions” is used. They refer to the same space.
189 as the ship sent to rescue them, Argus, sails off. In a panic or “loss of nerve”, on the second day adrift they begin to cannibalise each other. Ironically, they are saved after 12 days.70 In the AD profile on OMA the reason for referring to Géricault’s painting is explained: “This monumental expression of ‘loss of nerve’ corresponds to the premature panic and loss of nerve about the Metropolis in the present moment of the 20th century.”71 The incident depicted in Zoe Zenghelis’s painting is described as “the impasse towards which architecture was heading. The raft is pictured the moment when the castaways catch sight of the Metropolis – their rescue.”72
New Welfare Island is recognised in the AD profile on OMA as the collaboration of Koolhaas, with German Martinez and Richard Perlmutter. Vriesendorp is again acknowledged for the paintings of the project. In the essay, “OMA [Office of Metropolitan Architecture],” its author notes that the Welfare Palace Hotel is part of the larger project, New Welfare Island.73 The Welfare Palace Hotel is a city within a city and is attributed to Koolhaas with Derrick Snare, Richard Perlmutter. Vriesendorp is credited with producing the paintings for the project. In Vriesendorp’s cutaway axonometric painting of the project, she includes in one of the penthouses of the six skyscrapers in her painting, Freud Unlimited, which appears as a separate interior painting in Delirious New York. The Raft of Medusa and the Constructivist pool, included in the Story of the pool, are shown in the axonometric painting in the foreground of the metropolis.
The last of the Manhattan projects, Story of the pool is credited to Koolhaas. Vriesendorp’s painting of the project depicts a floating pool full of Constructivist architects swimming laps in order to move the pool towards Manhattan. In his mythical story of the pool in Delirious New York, Koolhaas explains the pool was designed by a student in Moscow in 1923 as “a long rectangle of metal sheets bolted onto a steel frame. Two seemingly endless linear locker rooms formed its long sides–one for men, the other for women.
70 Unknown, “Géricault: Jean Louis (1791-1824),” http://www.louvre.fr/anglais/collec/peint/inv0488/inv0488.html; site accessed 01.04.2003; unpaginated; states that they were saved after twelve days rather than 7 days as published in the OMA issue of AD. 71 Unknown, Inside description of “Frontcover,” Architectural Design, 47, 5 (1977) 72 Unknown, “The Egg of Columbus Center/1973,” p. 334. 73 Unknown, “OMA [Office of Metropolitan Architecture],” in Issue on “OMA,” Architectural Design, 55, 3-4 (1985): 50.
190 At either end was a glass lobby with two transparent walls...”74 The story explains, at the time the pool became a heroic form of modern architecture. But ten years after it was proposed, the pool, no longer representative of the popular ideology and a symbol of modern architecture, is considered a subversive activity. Koolhaas explains, “In a secret meeting, the architects/lifeguards decided to use the pool as a vehicle for their escape to freedom. Through the by now well-rehearsed method of auto-propulsion, they could go anywhere in the world where there was water. It was only logical that they wanted to go to America, especially New York. In a way, the pool was a Manhattan block realized in Moscow, which would now reach its logical destination.”75
When the Constructivists arrive, Koolhaas explains the pool is received by the New Yorkers suspiciously. They criticise the pool’s design. Koolhaas writes: “They complained that the pool was so bland, so rectilinear, so unadventurous, so boring; there were no historical allusions; there was no decoration; there was no… shear, no tension, no wit–only straight lines, right angles...”76 Regardless of their criticisms, the New Yorkers elect to give the swimmers a medal on their arrival, although unsure that the motto shown on the medal is relevant to Manhattan architects. In “The pleasures of architecture conference 1980: the interviews,” Koolhaas admits “the Pool analogy is really addressed to Eisenman – he would always say there is no shift, no tension, no… “architecture is aargh” of my work.”77 The Story of the pool is deliberately concerned with programme and the neglecting of form.
Another project which also appears in the OMA issue of AD but which was not included in Delirious New York because of its location is House in Miami, 1974 or the Spear House. The design is the collaboration of Koolhaas and Laurinda Spear. It is important because it marks the moment when Koolhaas gains recognition, through his friendship with Eisenman, by receiving an award from the New Yorkers.
74 Rem Koolhaas, “The story of the pool (1977),” in Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, p. 253. 75 Rem Koolhaas, “The story of the pool (1977),” p. 253. 76 Rem Koolhaas, “The story of the pool (1977),” p. 255. 77 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference 1980,” p. 17.
191 During the mid 1970s, Zenghelis taught at Columbia University in New York. One of his students was Spear who later became a co-founder of the firm, Arquitectonica. Koolhaas reveals to Goulet that he met Spear at Columbia University after giving a lecture.78 She approached Koolhaas to design a house for her parents and it was in this way that she came to join Koolhaas to work at “the Institute”. Eisenman became interested in their design of the Spear house and convinced the jury of Progressive Architecture, of which he was a juror, to award the Progressive Architecture award to the house which was published in the January 1975 issue of the journal.79 In an article on the completed house, which changed from the early Koolhaas/Spear design, John Morris Dixon recalls Eisenman’s praise of the design “for being “a- stylistic” and “iconic” – also for thumbing its nose at its neighbours.”80 Interestingly, Koolhaas states; “This project was much closer to my objectives than the drawings of Delirious New York.”81
In a review of an exhibition of the work of Zoe Zenghelis in the article, “An artist in an architectural context: paintings by Zoe Zenghelis 9 January - 9 February 1985,” Jasia Reichardt refers to the contribution of the paintings by Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp, such as those of the Manhattan projects, to the work of OMA. She writes “Partly because of the collaboration of the two artists and their visual presentations of OMA’s work, the office has been associated with mythical, unlikely or impossible buildings which are more like monuments or sculptures than the throbbing, bustling conglomeration of disparate elements which make up the city as we know it.” 82 Reichardt notes that both women contribute their personal representation of cities and mentions Zoe Zenghelis’s “paintings of moody and romantic buildings” and Vriesendorp’s “fantastic narratives” of collaged interiors and exteriors. 83 This is in contradiction to Cook who describes the contribution by Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp as simply one of “aesthetic interpreters” of the work of the early OMA partnership.84 Reichardt notes that the representation of cities,
78 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 4. 79 Unknown, “22nd annual awards program,” Progressive Architecture, 56, 1 (January 1975). The entire issue is devoted to recipients of the awards of which Koolhaas and Spear are one of 19. 80 John Morris Dixon, “Layers of meaning: Spear House, Florida,” Progressive Architecture, 60, 12 (December 1979) p. 70. 81 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 82 Jasia Reichardt, “An artist in an architectural context: paintings by Zoe Zenghelis 9 January – 9 February 1985 [exhibition review],” AA files, 10 (Autumn 1985): 62. 83 Jasia Reichardt, “An artist in an architectural context,” p. 62. 84 Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 32.
192 rather than natural landscapes, was a rare practice for British artists at the time to be undertaking.
It is Reichardt who reveals Zoe Zenghelis’s early studies in set design during the 1960s at the Regent Street Polytechnic. The theatrical quality of Zoe Zenghelis’s OMA paintings of architecture and urbanism are shown to have origins predating her involvement in OMA. But Reichardt points out that it is precisely because Zoe Zenghelis is not an architect that her drawings are not obliged to being plausible representations but rather represent a thematic quality.
In his interview with Aesopos and Simeoforides, Elia Zenghelis reveals a one-time name for his formal collaboration with Koolhaas, Dr. Caligari Cabinet of Metropolitan Architecture inspired by the 1919, now cult film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.85 The fictional, surreal, Constructivist style set designs in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were an early inspiration for the partnership and featured in the City of the captive globe.
In his interview with Goulet, Koolhaas reveals his acknowledgement of the significance of the representation of projects which he suggests he learnt when doing his research on New York. Koolhaas explains the “fuzzy, quasi- romantic, mythical and popular drawings of New York were useful to erase theoretical intentions and to allure the broadest audience.”86 When discussing why the images included in Delirious New York were paintings rather than drawings, he refers to the contribution of Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp to OMA. Koolhaas explains that the technique of painting used by the women paralleled the mood of the drawings he had found of New York skyscrapers, such as those by Hugh Ferriss.87 Not only this, Koolhaas argues that the method of presenting painting was not conventionally used by architects in New York at the time and therefore appealed to him because of such. The method of representing OMA projects as paintings such as the Manhattan projects was strategic for Koolhaas.
85 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 125. 86 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3. 87 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3.
193 While Koolhaas and Vriesendorp were in America, Zenghelis took Léon Krier on to teach with him at the AA.88 When asked by Goulet about this, Zenghelis explains that he “liked” Krier’s projects published in Controspazio and as soon as he discovered that Krier was working in London for James Stirling,89 he called Krier inviting join him in his teaching.90 A brief biography included in “Zaha Hadid [interview],” states that Hadid studied at the AA between 1972 and 1977.91 During this time she was taught by Krier. Cook quotes her recollections of him at the AA which she expressed in an interview with Boyarsky; “Leon (Krier) was an unknown. We only knew him through our lectures. He gave us an insight into the city and at that point wasn’t as dogmatic as he later became.”92 Krier’s dogmatic urban philosophies grounded in humanism were to be contested indirectly through Koolhaas’s writings promoting the metropolitan city of New York.
A subversive book – Delirious New York, 1972-1978
Koolhaas explains that although he was offered a job in an architectural firm, and the Spear house looked like being built, he decided not to remain in America and returned to Europe.93 With the recent advent of Post- modernism, Koolhaas felt there was little opportunity to “fight for the modern.”94 He elucidates to his interviewers from Transition: “… I became interested in going back to Europe because I felt things were getting a bit out of hand there, in architecture. I could not relish the prospect of a Europe completely dominated by an ideology that had Krier on one hand and Rossi on the other.”95
88 Unknown, “Biographical information,” in “Léon Krier architect and urban planner,” http://applied.math.utsa.edu/krier/krierbiography.html; site accessed 01.04.2003; unpaginated. It is stated that Krier lectured at the AA from 1973-1976. 89 Unknown, “Biographical information,” in “Léon Krier architect and urban planner,” http://applied.math.utsa.edu/krier/krierbiography.html; unpaginated. Krier worked for James Stirling from 1968-1974. 90 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 11. 91 Zaha Hadid, “Zaha Hadid [interview],” Transition, 20 (May 1987): 17-21. The biography is on p. 17. 92 Zaha Hadid in Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 32. 93 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 94 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 95 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 18.
194
Koolhaas returned to London, taught with Zenghelis at the AA and began to write Delirious New York. He tells Goulet that he wrote the book “to fill a vacuum, to give a kind of justification…” for modern architecture because at the time, there was fatigue towards such.96 In his 1993 interview with Cynthia Davidson titled “Rem Koolhaas: Why I wrote Delirious New York and other textual strategies,” Koolhaas explains a more personal reason for writing the book;
“My first reason for writing in architecture was technical not strategic in that I sensed that I wanted to be a particular kind of architect, and I felt that at the time there was no place for that kind of architect. So I wrote New York to prove that that kind of architecture and therefore that type of architect had existed before and that there was still a possible role for architecture conceived on such a level. I would say that the writing of New York had one major “aim”: I wanted to construct – as a writer – a terrain where I could eventually work as an architect.” 97
In the concluding pages of the issue of Transition in which Koolhaas is interviewed, Richard Munday reviews Delirious New York.98 Influenced he assumes by Koolhaas’s experience in script-writing, Munday notes the unconventional way in which Delirious New York is written and argues that it does not undermine its scholarship but renders it prone to multiple readings. It is contended Koolhaas’s method of writing and montaging of historical information cleverly conceals “hidden” agendas of which Koolhaas refrains from stating outright and which are concealed in what first appears a chronologically ordered history of Manhattan. Munday describes the book, “as for any other famous personality: This is Your Life – New York” progressing from the history of the colonisation of Manhattan Island by the Dutch through to the theories of Manhattanism in which Koolhaas recognises previously unrecognised American architects from the 1920s and 1930s:
96 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 97 Rem Koolhaas in Cynthia Davidson, “Rem Koolhaas: Why I wrote Delirious New York and other textual strategies,” ANY: Architecture New York, 1, 0 (May-June 1993): 42. Cynthia Davidson’s interview with Koolhaas was part of the ANY issue on “Writing in architecture”. 98 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 46-47.
195 Wallace Harrison, Raymond Hood and Benjamin Wistar Morris.99 In so doing, Delirious New York celebrates the abundant and accomplished commissions of such architects.
The very act of publicising and recognising these architects is strategic because it has the effect of undermining what a suitable architectural hero should and can be. Munday writes; “The heroes of Koolhaas’s New York, those whom he credits with acts of genius, and who go almost unmentioned in other histories, are in the main also portrayed as shrewd opportunists, gamblers and showmen, people who exploit and mislead a society which colludes eagerly in its own debasement.”100 Astutely, Munday notes that in Delirious New York, “society is portrayed as irrational, coarse, even cruel, and this is applauded. Values are inverted and become suddenly meaningless.”101 In doing this, Munday sees that Koolhaas “undermines the positivism endemic in urban and architectural ideology and implicit in… the manifesto… and in this lies a hidden proposition: to see and recognise a reality, and to formulate values more comprehensive than those which earlier sufficed as a basis of action.” 102
When the Transition interviewers question Koolhaas as to whether his interest in Manhattan lead him to a fascination between the line of what is moral versus what is immoral, Koolhaas replies by suggesting that Delirious New York is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s The gay science,103 although he points out that the former is less about “a struggle between good and evil” than “a kind of shedding of the shackles…”104 George Baird defines in a retrospective interview with Perspecta editors, one of OMA’s intense aversions towards the mythological architect known for “liberal do-goodery and the notorious “good intentions”.”105 In his 1995 interview with Odile
99 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, p. 46. 100 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, p.47. 101 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, p.47. 102 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for New York [book review]”, p.47. 103 Friedrich Nietzsche, The gay science, New York: Random House, 1974; Translation and commentary by Walter Kaufmann. 104 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 15. 105 George Baird, “OMA, “Neo-modern,” and modernity: George Baird in “conversation” with the editors of Perspecta 32,” Perspecta, 32 (2001): 35.
196 Fillion – making comments at the time of the opening of an exhibition on city plans by architects including Le Corbusier and Ludwig Hilberseimer titled “The City” – Koolhaas criticises the “mythology” of the architectural profession which instils the morality for architects to be “missionaries” who “have to do good for others.”106 Koolhaas argues that if there is no political system which supports this project, it is difficult to achieve. The city of Manhattan becomes Koolhaas’s exemplar of the theory that “the city of the future, and… of today, constitutes not a whole but an archipelago of different enclaves, where ideological values could be installed in limited, strong, and specific places, but with no pretence at being universal.”107
It is Koolhaas’s promotion of American urbanism in Delirious New York that Joseph Rykwert refers to in his essay “America dreams of Europe. Europe dreams of America”108 in which he compares Delirious New York to The architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, edited by Arthur Drexler and published around the same time.109 Rykwert’s discusses a clichéd battle between the philosophies espoused in America versus those in Europe, which he suggests the two books are premised upon. He explains: “To Europeans, America is still ‘the land of opportunity’. Streets are no longer paved with gold, it is true, but Americans are … less hidebound by distinction of class or shackles of precedent. American are movies and musicals and fast-food chains … And the American vision of Europe? Stability and values; distinction; taste; refinement.”110
106 Rem Koolhaas in Odile Fillion, “La Ville: six interviews,” Lotus International, 84 (1995): 121. 107 Rem Koolhaas in Odile Fillion, “La Ville: six interviews,” p. 121. 108 Joseph Rykwert, “America dreams of Europe. Europe dreams of America,” Casabella, 56, 586-587 (January-February 1992): 32-35, 117. 109 Arthur Drexler ed., The architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, London: Secker and Warburg, 1977. 110 Joseph Rykwert, “America dreams of Europe. Europe dreams of America,” p. 117.
197 Warring over Europe versus America
In his 1982 seminar at Yale University, Zenghelis embellishes on the cross continental antagonism, such as that referred to by Rykwert, and speaks openly of the politics secretly housed within Delirious New York. Zenghelis begins his seminar by noting that his name may not be familiar to the group and so introduces himself as Koolhaas’s partner of ten years, Koolhaas now famous because of the publication of Delirious New York. Zenghelis explains: “Many people wrongly think it is an explanation of the history of New York. In fact it is Rem’s way of using New York as a tool to expand his theories in architecture… Our main interest was and is modern architecture and the relationship of modern architecture to the traditionally historical city, especially the European city. We have tried to take inspiration from the architecture of New York and to see to what extent those models had any pertinence in Europe.”111
In the lecture, Zenghelis argues that the condition at the time of which they are responding is not Post-Modernist but rather “post-humanist”. 112 He mentions Léon and Rob Krier because their urban philosophy aims to reform society by referring to a pre-industrial society embedded in anti-progress. Zenghelis suggests at the time there are four different methods of responding to the post-humanist condition: “carry on, regardless, with an uncritical mind”; withdraw - either through pessimistic cynicism or, as in the case of Rossi, by being poetic; invoke memory and nostalgia; and “to see modernism as a reflection of our culture critically” whereby the advancements of the modern age are seen as irreversible.113 He posits himself in
111 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” Yale seminars in architecture, 2 (1982): 155. 112 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” p. 163. Zenghelis uses the term, ”post-humanist”. 113 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” pp. 163-164. Refer Kurt W. Forster, “Aldo Rossi’s Architecture of Recollection: The Silence of Things Repeated or Stated for Eternity,” in Aldo Rossi Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate 1990, http://www.pritzkerprize.com/rossi.htm; date accessed: 4.04.04; unpaginated. Forster reveals how Eisenman’s IAUS promoted Rossi. He writes, “Rossi’s international recognition is in no small way connected to the interest with which he was first received by American architects and schools. Foremost among them was Peter Eisenman’s Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, which, by means of exhibitions and the publication of Rossi’s writings, laid the groundwork for a steadily widening audience and help position Rossi’s thought in the area of architectural controversy during the 1970s”. Refer Aldo Rossi, The architecture of the city, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1982; first published in 1966 as L’Architettura della citta by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, Chicago and the IAUS, New York; and Peter Eisenman, “Aldo Rossi in America: 1976-1979,” Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (Catalogue)
198 the fourth category, therefore defining the work of OMA within a tradition of Progressive Modernism.
In the Yale presentation, Zenghelis differentiates different kinds of modern urban projects. He suggests that critiques of modern architecture are not directed at the modern object but rather one person’s urban visions of such, namely Le Corbusier’s. Zenghelis contends that Le Corbusier’s urban visions such as Ville Radieuse were premised to have no relation to the traditional city and are therefore incapable of achieving such. Zenghelis proposes that the modern urban projects of the Russian avant-garde architects, such as the work of Konstantin Melnikov, are contrary to this type of urban vision because they are preoccupied with modern architecture as “an activity.”114 In favour of advancing the modern project from this alternative tradition, Zenghelis argues that if progress is irreversible, the method of response is to channel annihilation rather than attempt to annihilate progress. It is over this point that OMA disagree with the values of the European architectural establishment at the time of which the work of Léon Krier is exemplary.
On 12 and 13 November 1982, Koolhaas and Léon Krier were amongst 24 architects invited to participate in a conference held in Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, Charlottesville, Virginia.115 Eisenman initiated the conference to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the IAUS, where it was originally to be held. The transcripts of the debates at the conference are recorded in The Charlottesville tapes.116 In the various presentations there emerges, among other themes, a distinction between the planning principles of the Europeans against those of the Americans, who are perceived by the Krier brothers to take a sell-out position.
Ungers also attended the conference. The “O.M. Ungers” transcript included in The Charlottesville tapes begins with a picture of him shown sitting near his earlier young collaborator, Koolhaas. It records Ungers’s presentation of two projects undertaken by his office at the Frankfurt Messe or fairgrounds and the subsequent discussion of them, the most contentious of which is a masonry high-rise. In the conversation that
2 (1979): 1-57. The catalogue is of the exhibition, “Aldo Rossi” held at the IAUS, New York, 1976. 114 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” p. 168. 115 This is one of the praised landscapes in Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America’s landscape, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964; first published in 1963. 116 Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1985.
199 follows Philip Johnson notes the “progress” in Ungers’s work by contrasting the presented masonry high-rise to an early fantastical house by Ungers. Léon Krier also refers to this shift in Ungers work but does so by discussing the topic of principles in architecture. Of moral judgement, Krier argues that big business “doesn’t give a damn. This is an attitude that we in Europe call American.”117 Krier recalls how three projects done by Ungers in 1965 personally inspired him and his philosophy but suggests that because of the lack of recognition that Ungers received in Europe that Ungers has now reverted to a situation in which he is forced “to try to survive as an intellectual in a world of big business.”118 Krier condemns Ungers’s high-rise project describing it as “totally empty” but adds that by participating in projects which are artificial or kitsch, Ungers “uses and completely destroys values” in so doing, ruining his own credibility.119
The transcript notes Ungers’s “extremely agitated” reply in which he suggests that Krier also participates in such projects but elects to not speak of them in public. Ungers describes them as Krier’s “private kitsch.”120 Ungers defines his project differently; “I am trying to struggle with reality, which is a totally different story.”121 Ungers goes on to define the “dilemma” more precisely; ”Should I say“, No, I am an artist, I don’t want to get my fingers dirty”? What if I get my fingers dirty? I spent ten year theorizing, and many people profited from that work. You know this perfectly well. You came as a little boy to my office, and you profited too. You admitted it. But you know what? I decided to go back to practice, get my fingers dirty, and work with those big developers. And I wish you would do the same.”122
Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s collaboration - early OMA, 1975
117 Léon Krier in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 72. 118 Léon Krier in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 72. 119 Léon Krier in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 73. 120 O.M. Ungers in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 73. 121 O.M. Ungers in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 73. 122 O.M. Ungers in “O.M. Ungers,” in Jacquelin Robertson ed., The Charlottesville tapes; p. 73.
200 OMA officially began in 1975. The origin of the name for the office is unclear with numerous explanations to be found. In an article in AD in 1985, the unknown author offers two explanations, the former more likely than the latter, writing “the name of the group is a play on ‘OMU’, the nickname of Oswald Mathias Ungers, their teacher, and perhaps also on ‘MOMA’, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.”123 In Alejandro Zaera Polo’s essay, “Notes for a topographic survey” he refers to a lecture delivered by Koolhaas at Columbia University in November 1989 in which Koolhaas explicitly rejects the adjective “metropolitan” within the name OMA.124 This is in contradiction to Zenghelis’s contention that OMA was initiated to explore the metropolis, which at that time was not a preoccupation of the architectural academy.125
In OMA: Projects 1978-1981, a catalogue produced to coincide with an exhibition which took place at the AA between 2 June to 27 June 1981 of OMA work, Zenghelis and Koolhaas write on the shift from unofficial OMA’s unreal projects to official OMA’s real projects. In Zenghelis’s April 1981 essay, “Drawing as technique and architecture,” he explains how in 1975 OMA “turned” their “attention to competitions” and states “as through them we saw the opportunity of realising the lessons we were drawing from our earlier self-initiated and imaginary projects and from the painting and drawings illustrating our concepts.”126 Zenghelis adds, “We also saw no reason to go on fighting with drawings a war that was already over. What was still to be achieved was the main purpose of setting up OMA, which was to have its architecture constructed.”127
Koolhaas’s essay in OMA: Projects 1978-1981, “Our ‘new sobriety’” was written in 1980.128 Unlike Zenghelis who contends the “war… was already over”, Koolhaas explains the “exhilarating prospect… to create a condition where… modernity” will be “once more exotic… an era of new sobriety.”129 Koolhaas explains OMA’s campaign to revive the modernist tradition of functionalism. He writes:
123 Unknown, “OMA [Office of Metropolitan Architecture],” pp. 50-51. 124 Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Notes for a topographic survey,” El Croquis, 53 (1992): 32. 125 To the author’s knowledge the association of OMA to the name of the Russian group, the Organization of Contemporary Architects (OSA) of which Leonidov was a member and whose first exhibition of modern architecture took place in 1927, has not been insinuated. 126 Elia Zenghelis, “Drawing as technique and architecture,” in OMA, OMA: Projects 1978- 1981, London: Architectural Association, 1981, p. 14. 127 Elia Zenghelis, “Drawing as technique and architecture,” p. 14. 128 Rem Koolhaas, “Our ‘new sobriety’,” in OMA, OMA: Projects 1978-1981, pp. 9-10. 129 Rem Koolhaas, “Our ‘new sobriety’,” p. 10.
201 “OMA has been concerned with the preservation and revision of this tradition of so-called functionalism – exemplified by Leonidov, Melnikov, the ‘Berlin’ Mies, the Wright of Broadcare City, the Hood of the Rockefeller Center – that was a campaign of territorial conquest for the programmatic imagination so that architecture could intervene directly in the formulation of the contents of a culture based on the givens of density, technology and definitive social instability. Recent architecture has abandoned such claims.
Procrustes was the robber who made his victims fit his bed by stretching or lopping them. In the ‘new’ historicist and typological architectures, culture will be at the mercy of a cruel Procrustean arsenal that will censor certain ‘modern’ activities with the excuse that there is no room for them, while other programs will be revived artificially, simply because they fit the forms and types that have been resurrected.”130
OMA was officially created after winning a competition to build the extension to the Dutch houses of Parliament, Hague, 1978-79, one of the projects exhibited at the AA exhibition. For this reason, the founders opened an office in Rotterdam which became and remains their central office. In Cook’s essay, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid” he recalls how Hadid came to be involved in OMA through her affinity with Russian Suprematist and Constructivist architecture, collaborating with Zenghelis and Koolhaas on their design for the Dutch houses of Parliament, which Cook suggests “resembled” her earlier solo project for the Museum of the nineteenth century, 1977-78.131
As a student at the AA, Hadid was taught by Zenghelis and Koolhaas.132 Hadid’s translation of Russian Suprematist and Constructivist architecture into her student projects, in particular her affinity with the work of Kazimir Malevich, matched the enthusiasm for such by Zenghelis and Koolhaas.133 Cook recalls Hadid’s words in an interview with Boyarsky in which she describes her relationship with “Rem and Elia” as “almost telepathic.”134 Cook states this “symbiosis with Zenghelis and
130 Rem Koolhaas, “Our ‘new sobriety’,” p. 9. 131 Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 32. 132 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 127. 133 Hadid embellishes on the influence of Malevich to her work in Joseph Giovannini, “Portrait: Zaha Hadid, architecture’s new diva makes an international scene,” Architectural Digest, 53, 1 (January 1996): 29. 134 Zaha Hadid in Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 32.
202 Koolhaas led to her inclusion in the embryo Office for Metropolitan Architecture” in 1977.135
In his interview with Goulet, Koolhaas explains that Hadid worked on the Dutch houses of Parliament competition for three months with him and Elia after she graduated.136 Koolhaas elucidates that the project was divided into three which Zenghelis, Hadid and he each took a fragment of to design. Included in the article, “Expansion of the parliament of The Hague: competition project, 1979,” is an axonometric of the proposal coloured by Vriesendorp.137 It is unclear as to why Hadid’s involvement in OMA was so brief but Cook points out that “despite the fairly obvious moves made … to keep her out of OMA’s masthead” she and Rem “have remained friends.”138 Hadid began her own private practice in London in 1980.
In “Chronologie OMA: 1972-1985,” thirty-six early OMA projects are listed after the Dutch houses of Parliament competition.139 Of these only two projects are shown to involve the collaboration of Elia Zenghelis and Zoe Zenghelis: The house at Kratigos, Greece, 1978; and the IBA Social Housing competition, Berlin, 1980. Vriesendorp is not named in any of the listed collaborations.140 Only three projects are shown to involve the collaboration of Elia Zenghelis and Koolhaas; Residence for the Irish Prime Minister, 1979141; Parc de la Vilette competition, Paris, 1982- 1983; and Exposition Universelle 1989, Paris, done in 1983.
In the 1985 interview, “The second chance of modern architecture: Interview with Rem Koolhaas,” Koolhaas speaks of his collaboration on the Residence for the Irish
135 Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 32. In 1977, Hadid began to teach at the AA. 136 Rem Koolhaas to Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 137 OMA: Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, “Expansion of the parliament in The Hague: Competition project, 1979,” Lotus International, 25 (1979): 25-30. The coloured drawing appears on p. 28. 138 Peter Cook, “The emergence of Zaha Hadid,” p. 33. Italics added. 139 Unknown, “Chronologie OMA: 1972-1985,”L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 96, 98. 140 One exception appears. Refer Deborah K. Dietsch, “First position: the Netherlands Dance Theater, the Hague; Office for Metropolitan Architecture,” Architectural Record, 176, 4 (April 1988): 72-81. On p. 72, Dietsch recognises Vriesendorp as having “designed” the painting billboard, part of the Netherlands Dance Theater which is shown in “Chronologie OMA: 1972- 1985” to have begun in 1980. In Peter Buchanan, “Koolhaas container [Netherlands Dance Theatre; the Hague],” Architectural Review, 184, 1099 (September 1988): 32-39; Buchanan states on p. 34 that the mural is “by” Vriesendorp. 141 Unknown, “Residence of the Irish Prime Minister: competition for the housing of the Irish Prime Minister and State Guests in Phoenix Park, Dublin, 1979,” Lotus International, 25 (1979): 15-24 shows the scheme by Zenghelis and Koolhaas on 19-24. Hadid’s separate competition entry appears on pp. 15-18 of the journal. Vriesendorp is acknowledged as colouring a number of the drawings for OMA’s submission.
203 Prime Minister.142 Koolhaas reveals that together he and Elia Zenghelis established the broad outline for the proposal which comprised two buildings, one residence for the Prime Minister, the other the State Guest House. The project was then split into two with each taking a building to resolve. Koolhaas articulated the design for the State Guest House. Zenghelis designed the Prime Minister’s residence which Koolhaas describes to Goulet as “turbulent… illogical and brilliant.”143 He recalls how Léon Krier described Zenghelis’s building as ““two bananas” because they were two curved buildings which cross.”144 Koolhaas refers to this method of collaboration as the best way of working with Zenghelis because in isolation Zenghelis is able to resolve a design solution “artistically”, whereas Koolhaas sees himself to be more logical in his design process. Throughout the interview, Koolhaas repeatedly praises Zenghelis for his interesting work, frequently describing his own contribution as contrastingly “tedious”.
When asked about their method of working, Koolhaas explains that “the projects of OMA are the fruit of a collective work” either in Rotterdam or in combination with the OMA staff in their offices in London and Greece. Koolhaas states that the collaboration takes place while discussing and criticising projects, in which stage, little actual drawing takes place. He contends that discoveries made through diagrams allow the design solution to emerge. When asked specifically of his collaboration with Zenghelis, Koolhaas answers, “To work with him, for me, is to work with somebody who knows me very well (and that I know very well), in whose judgment I have total confidence.”145
In the final stages of their interview, Goulet asks Koolhaas what he and Zenghelis speak of when they are not speaking about architecture and queries whether it is the cinema or painting. Koolhaas replies:
“Our relations are much less intellectual, much friendlier, similarly architecture is secondary there. If it were necessary to choose between remaining friendly or partners, it is obviously the first solution which I would choose. It is not that we have the same character, on the contrary! Elia is… Mediterranean and “very Wagnerian”, much more serious, deep, much more … insane than me, but sometimes it is not what one has in common but rather
142 Rem Koolhaas, “The second chance of modern architecture,” pp. 4, 6. 143 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 144 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4. 145 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 9.
204 the differences which feed the seduction. We work together, in a rather comic way, but it is not for architecture that we are most dependent.”146
During this period of early OMA collaboration, Team X terminated. In the essay “Team 10 is history,” Alison Smithson reveals one reason for Team X’s termination stating, “It came about because there was a loss of momentum in the ‘ideated’ extension of the Modern Movement; a loss of certain architectural energies; a loss of fibre in the threads of connection to those grandfathers who took the ‘jump’ as inventors of the Modern Movement.”147 Six years after Team X officially disbanded, the early OMA, whose campaign was to reinvigorate energy towards the inventions of the Modern movement architects, terminated.
The death of early OMA
“T: What was the central figure in your development as an architect? RK: I would say Leonidov. In the beginning. Without any doubt. But I hope to exorcise that by publishing a book some time next year.”148
The mutual interest in the work of Leonidov which contributed in part to Zenghelis’s alignment with Koolhaas was later seen to be in need of “exorcising” by Koolhaas. The early research done on Leonidov by Koolhaas and Oorthuys was eventually publicised through “the Institute”. In 1977, the retrospective exhibition on Leonidov curated by Oorthuys took place at the IAUS. Frampton and Silvia Kolbowski wrote the exhibition catalogue for the show. In his “Preface” to the book on the show, Ivan Leonidov, Frampton credits Koolhaas and Oorthuys’ research on the “Soviet avant- garde their numerous visits to Russia, their contact with Leonidov’s heirs… and Oorthuys timely … exhibition...”149
146 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 9. Italics added. 147 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smtihson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 15. 148 Transition interviewers (T) and Rem Koolhaas (RK) in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” p. 18. 149 Kenneth Frampton, “Preface,” in Ivan Leonidov, Ivan Leonidov, New York: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, Rizzoli International Publications, 1981, p. 1. In Rem Koolhaas, “Doubletake?” AV Monographs, 73 (September-October 1998): 28-29; Koolhaas examines two reviews of OMA’s work by Frampton. Kenneth Frampton, “Leonidovs Vermachtnis: von der Kunsthalle zum Educatorium,” Arch Plus, 142 (July 1998): 12-13; and Kenneth Frampton, “Rem Koolhaas: Kunsthal a Rotterdam,“ Domus, 747 (March 1993): 38- 47. In Koolhaas’s comparison, he notes Frampton’s return to the influence of Constructivism on OMA’s work long after Koolhaas felt he had “exorcised” the inheritances from Leonidov.
205
The earlier departure from Leonidov becomes an allegory for the eventual split of OMA who not only shift away from the Russian Constructivist but also from each other. For instance in 1991, retrospective of her involvement in the early OMA, Zoe Zenghelis interviewed by previous OMA employers,150 Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall, discusses her outlook on art at that time.151 In the interview, Zoe Zenghelis explains that she no longer produces paintings such as those she did while a partner in OMA. She states, “I don’t do architectural paintings at all now, in the sense of working for specific designs.”152 When asked if she still looks to Constructivism as much as she used to, she responds: “Not so much.”153
Ian Latham refers to the splitting up of the early OMA partnership in his essay, “Creative Influence.”154 Latham reveals that towards the end of the original OMA partnership, Zenghelis and Koolhaas were each starting to gain commissions in their respective homelands and this led to the gradual split.
In “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” it is Zenghelis who speaks candidly on the gradual events which lead to the death of the early OMA. Zenghelis cites two built OMA projects, “Rem’s National Dance Theatre in the Hague and my Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin”, done after the Irish Prime Minister’s Residence and Parc de la Villette, as marking the “transition.”155 Zenghelis states that it was the incompatibility of the “unreal” objectives of the early partnership with the “reality” of practice which doomed its perpetuity. With Checkpoint Charlie, he claims “the ground had shifted, OMA was on a life support machine.”156 Confronted with this
Rem Koolhaas, “Doubletake?” p. 29 writes; “For Kenneth Frampton, the weight is and remains Constructivism. Once, I was a believer. I have tried to hit the ball hard enough to break the cord. Frampton is happy each time it flies back to the center.” Refer also Kenneth Frampton, “OMA, the legacy of Leonidov,” AD Monographs, 73 (September-October 1998): 24-27. 150 De Martino and Wall are recognised as participants in OMA in “Project credits,” O.M.A., Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau; Jennifer Sigler ed., S,M,L,XL, p. xxx. 151 Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall, “Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall: House for Zoe Zenghelis, London [interview],” Architectural Design, 61, 3-4 (1991): 54-59. Zoe Zenghelis reveals that by the time of the interview, she had remarried the journalist, Peter Crookston. She also explains that she is running the colour workshop at the AA, although she makes no reference as to how long she has been teaching at the AA. 152 Zoe Zenghelis in Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall, “Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall: House for Zoe Zenghelis, London [interview],” p. 59. 153 Zoe Zenghelis in Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall, “Stefano de Martino and Alex Wall: House for Zoe Zenghelis, London [interview],” p. 59. 154 Ian Latham, “Creative influence,” Building Design, 975 (2 March 1990): 16-21. 155 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 126. 156 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 126.
206 transition, OMA required redefinition and it was the neglect to do so, along with the fact Zenghelis and Koolhaas operated two separate practices – Zenghelis running the office in Athens until 1985 and Koolhaas the Rotterdam office – that sealed the partnership’s demise. With the London office still present, the three OMA offices ultimately transformed into three distinctly separate firms, each expressing different emphases and diverging from a singular OMA objective. Zenghelis notes, “The joint work of Rem and I in London has a different quality from the others.”157
The legacies of early OMA
Latham contends that Zenghelis is “without doubt one of the great unsung heroes of contemporary European architecture.”158 He suggests that while the death of early OMA is regretful, he feels that the office has fruitfully “spawned a number of talented partnerships”, the most significant among which he sees is the new collaboration of Elia Zenghelis with Eleni Gigantes, Zenghelis’s second wife and student of Hadid. Their architectural partnership, Gigantes Zenghelis architects (GZA) began in 1987 and is one legacy of the early OMA.
When questioned about his work in GZA as being “”very” OMA” or “very Gigantes/Zenghelis”, Zenghelis reveals two legacies of the early OMA partnership, his practice with Gigantes and Rem Koolhaas’s OMA, neither of which are like their parent body. Zenghelis states:
“In my view neither the work of GZA nor the current work of Rem Koolhaas is OMA – both offices have moved beyond it… It is a chapter that finally closed… when Rem and I split and – so as not to obscure OMA’s clarity of purpose – should have closed earlier, as our work gradually shifted. OMA is understandable and relevant as an historical chapter, concerned with defining a navigational ideal during an historic air-pocket and its continuity depended on conditions which have changed. Loosening OMA’s compactness devalues it… So for me there is a strong element of ambiguity in Rem’s retaining the name for his office in Rotterdam. And unfortunately the
157 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 126. 158 Ian Latham, “Creative Influence,” p. 16.
207 reality of some 30 projects – each part of a 13 year legacy – is increasingly absorbed and obscured.”159
In his conversation with Aesopos and Simeoforides, Zenghelis reveals his perplexity in Koolhaas’s decision to continue using the name OMA. For Zenghelis, OMA died a gradual death, the consequence of a diminishing and then non-existent collaboration between him and Koolhaas. The continuation of OMA also has the effect in his eyes of “absorbing” and “obscuring” 13 years of their collaborative work. In his 1991 interview with Polo, “Finding freedoms: conversations with Rem Koolhaas”, Koolhaas refers to the “second pregnancy” of theories in Delirious New York which took place in 1987, after completing the Netherlands Dance Theatre when he “took charge” of the OMA office.160 Koolhaas explains “This was for me the beginning of a new cycle: I felt liberated, took the direction of the office, and dared to be alone. That was also the moment that the partnership with Elia Zenghelis dissolved; I had a sense of extricating myself from a lot of ties, which was very scary, of course, because ties are very important...”161
Koolhaas expands on this in his conversation with Martha Cervello in July 1989 by referring to two “parts” to his career. 162 The first is his early collaboration in the 1970s-1980s in the early OMA in which he states that his “identity was submerged in a group.”163 The second part is his independent career after the early OMA split, because “somehow – the world insists on the individual.”164 In the interview titled “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” Koolhaas reveals his legacy from the early OMA partnership of “group” work and he speaks of the kinds of collaborations after terminating his partnership with Zenghelis. The reason given by Koolhaas is “… rather than suffer alone and put up with your own contradictions, it’s essential to insist on these kinds
159 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 124. 160 Rem Koolhaas in Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Finding freedoms: Conversations with Rem Koolhaas,” El Croquis, 53 (1992): 8. 161 Rem Koolhaas in Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Finding freedoms: Conversations with Rem Koolhaas,” p. 9. 162 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” Quaderns d’Arquitectura i urbanisme, 183 (October-December 1989): 80. 163 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” p. 80. 164 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” p. 80.
208 of injections that expand your thinking.”165 He explains to Polo, “I have complete horror of what happens to architects when they are really alone and how boring and unbearable and “important” their work becomes. To fight against that insipient mania of loneliness, I have become more interested in involving other people in the designs… I am now interested in resisting this “loneliness” through working together with other architects.”166 To Cervello, the tactic employed by Koolhaas avoids the “fatal” occurrence in an architect’s career when he “takes himself too seriously – when his idea of himself coincides with what the others think of him – when he runs out of secrets.”167
In “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” Whiting refers to Koolhaas’s ability to re-invent himself within the profession of architecture.168 She describes Koolhaas’s method; “Each invasion has been almost- repetitious, almost-unique, forming a progressive loop-de-loop that multiplies, twists back on itself, and then extends outward again, never in quite the same direction.”169 In their discussion of the late OMA’s work with large corporate clients, Koolhaas identifies the need for corporate ”reengineering” in which decisions that sustain the success of the corporation rely on modernisation at astonishing speeds. Koolhaas explains; “They don’t have the luxury to plan campaigns or plot long-term visions.”170
In the interview titled, “Branding – signs, symbols or something else? Charles Jencks in conversation with Rem Koolhaas [interview],” Koolhaas expands on two interpretations of corporate identity. 171 The first is where branding is a “terminal identity”. The second is when it is variable. It is the latter that Koolhaas contends allows corporations to survive, be efficacious and succeed in the market place. The strategy to be variable is one that Koolhaas applies to the later OMA, which after his intimate collaboration with Zenghelis becomes a plethora of temporary, opportunistic strategic collaborations, the friendships of which are brief and based on usefulness.
165 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” p. 82. 166 Rem Koolhaas in Alejandro Zaera Polo, “Finding freedoms: conversations with Rem Koolhaas,” p. 9. 167 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” p. 80. 168 Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” Assemblage, 40 (December 1999): 36-55. 169 Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” p. 38. 170 Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” p. 41. 171 Charles Jencks, “Branding – signs, symbols or something else? Charles Jencks in conversation with Rem Koolhaas [interview],” Architectural Design, 70, 6 (December 2000): 34-41.
209 In Baird’s interview with Koolhaas for the GSD News/Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Koolhaas discusses how the identity of OMA is not about the unique characteristics of the individuals in the office but rather a response to the situation in which architecture finds itself having reduced power.172 Regardless of such, Koolhaas gained personal recognition in 2000 when he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. This was nine years after Robert Venturi had received the prominent award.
In the interview with Sigler in the celebrity pop magazine, Index Magazine, Koolhaas refers to the significance of the Pritzker jury’s decision to award him the prize.173 He explains: “… It seems that for the first time in recent memory they gave it to another kind of architect, and they acknowledged that other fields, like writing, are also important. They adopted a certain kind of openness toward the definition of architecture in the 21st century, and a modification of the identity of the architect. That will be good for other people.”174
In his speech at the prize giving ceremony in Jerusalem, Israel, Koolhaas began by thanking those to whom he was indebted. In order, he thanks Cindy Pritzker, the Pritzker family and foundation; the jury of the Pritzker Prize; his OMA partners; the Harvard Design School; and his clients. Unlike his “Acknowledgements” on the final page of Delirious New York in which Koolhaas enumerates many friends and collaborators but which he puts in their place by adding “which stimulated this book’s progress without, in any way, being responsible for its contents,”175 in his Pritzker speech his OMA partners become nameless when he thanks, “each and every five hundred fifty of them have made the contribution that now turns out to be critical.”176
The remainder of his speech is devoted to a synopsis of the recent history, present condition, and future of the profession of architecture and its evolutionary phases. It is a summary of the history of architectural collaboration. Beginning in the 1950s, Koolhaas argues that then architecture was about “the group, the movement” rather
172 George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” GSD News/Harvard University, Graduate School of Design (Summer 1996): 49-50. 173 Rem Koolhaas in Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [Interview],” unpaginated. 174 Rem Koolhaas in Jennifer Sigler, “Rem Koolhaas, 2000 with Jennifer Sigler [Interview],” unpaginated. 175 Rem Koolhaas, “Acknowledgements,” in Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, p. 263. 176 Rem Koolhaas, “Rem Koolhaas 2000 Laureate,” The Pritzker architecture prize, 2000: presented to Rem Koolhaas, Los Angeles, California: The Foundation, 2000; unpaginated.
210 than “a unique individual, the genius.”177 It was ideological. Whereas in 2000, he suggests that the existence of the Pritzker Prize signifies a shift to multiple architectural identities or signatures that respect each other but “do not form a community.”178 Rather than be directed through urban projects towards the improvement of a client previously labelled society, the clients of these architects are corporations. It is a “post-ideological” era which is only ever to be market driven. While the rest of the world has kept pace with such a shift, architecture has been unable to redefine itself. He argues that unless the profession liberates itself, it is doomed to death. In effect the speech is a call to the architectural fraternity to keep up with the times, to lose its commitment to ideological campaigns, to styles, and release itself from the traditional perspective of itself to become more market focused and less ideological.
In a conversation with Baird, Koolhaas expresses his doubt about the institution of architecture’s ability to keep in sync with contemporary culture’s need for multiple styles of architecture. Koolhaas contends that “One of the interesting things about the twentieth century is that we live in a period and a culture in which rebuttal doesn’t lead to death.”179 As an example, Koolhaas refers to the architectural style of Post-Modernism which he suggests exemplifies the architectural establishment’s inability to respond to reality. Koolhaas argues that while schools of architecture no longer discuss it “seriously”, having “signed its death sentence”, if we look around, the remainder of the world has not done so because it is a kind of architecture “that can be generated at the speed that architecture now has to be generated.”180 By referring to the accelerated pace of urbanism in China, Korea and Thailand, Koolhaas illustrates his point about the inability the academy has to “dictate the agenda” of architectural production.181
After the early OMA split, Zenghelis also continues to undermine the traditional behavior of the architectural academies. His complaints appears publicly, twelve years before Koolhaas receives the Pritzker prize. In 1988, Zenghelis contributes to
177 Rem Koolhaas, “Rem Koolhaas 2000 Laureate,” unpaginated. 178 Rem Koolhaas, “Rem Koolhaas 2000 Laureate,” unpaginated. 179 Rem Koolhaas in George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” p. 50. 180 Rem Koolhaas in George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” p. 50. 181 Rem Koolhaas in George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” p. 50.
211 Architectural Design the essay, “The aesthetics of the present.”182 The article is a retrospective of how the academy has responded to the conditions of the time with proposals of successive styles – including Post-Modernism, New Classicism and New Modernism – rather than ideas. In the essay, Zenghelis makes a public call for the academy to engage with reality and to reduce its dogmatism. He states:
“The community of architects has become a self-congratulatory fan club, involved in ritual rallies, inventing its own imaginary antagonisms, prides, jealousies, and insecurities: like a bourgeois caucus isolated within the limited horizons of a suburban enclave where the urban landscape is out of sight and the action out of mind. A caucus without a paradigm.”183
But the architectural academy appears dependant on its paradigms - its modes of viewing - in order to legitimise itself. It relies on a lineage of inheritances being passed down from modern masters to prodigies and, just as much, it relies on the cycle of architects to collaborate subversively against one another such as is the case with Zenghelis, Koolhaas and their network of friends. It relies on imaginary or not imaginary antagonisms to be ever present so that its oligarchies can reinvent the qualities of the architectural fraternity to suit the times. The sustained tension between the individual and the group, the excluded architect and the included architect, is both the history of modern architecture and also the reason for its perpetuity.
182 Elias (sic) Zenghelis, “The aesthetics of the present,” Architectural Design, 58, 3-4 (1988): 66-67. 183 Elias (sic) Zenghelis, “The aesthetics of the present,” p. 66.
212 Chapter Six
Learning from modern architectural history, 1949-1987
213 Through the rewriting – as a series of political friendships – of the contribution to modern architectural history of Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson; Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi; and Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas, the thesis reveals a range of “unspoken” practices associated with the system of gaining and attributing recognition in the architectural establishment. The practices have been surfaced through the translation of select theories found in Jacques Derrida’s Politics of friendship into modern architectural history in order to provide evidence of their presence.1 The thesis forces to the surface of the historiography, friendship partnerships in order to subvert conventional historical writing which typically focuses on the single figure of an architect in isolation and in so doing conceals such collaborations. For this reason, Martin Heidegger’s concept of “truth” as aletheia, rather than adaequatio, is relevant to the thesis project. By concealing previous readings of modern architectural history as individual and “unconcealing”2 a sequence of three subversive friendships and their friendship networks, “truths” are “illuminated” about the internal operation of the institution of Western architecture and its cycle of degeneration and regeneration. All three of the selected partnerships turned the tide of modern architecture, in part, through the destructive and constructive power bound within each of their friendship “couplings.”3 The “truths” surfaced in this thesis are associated with friendship and warring within the institution of architecture. They follow interwoven with deliberate re-quotation from a selection of the secondary sources for this study.
“Primary” subversive friendship in modern architectural history
“Is the friend the same or the other? Cicero prefers the same… this is because the friend is, as the translation has it, ‘our own ideal image’. We envisage the friend as such. And this is how he envisages us: with a friendly look. Cicero uses the word, exemplar, which means portrait but also, as the exemplum, the duplicate, the reproduction, the copy as well as the original, the type, the model.”4
1 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, London, New York: Verso, 1997. 2 “Unconcealedness” is the term used in Martin Heidegger, “The origin of the work of art,” in Martin Heidegger, Poetry, language, thought, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971, p. 51; Translation and Introduction by Albert Hofstadter. 3 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 58, 3 (September 1999): 467. 4 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 4.
214
“… Friendship is freedom plus equality.”5
In this dissertation, “primary” friendship can be found present in all three architectural partnerships. In all three “couplings,” the two friends are drawn together by familiarity made possible by their likeness of architectural philosophy which manifests into their mutual political campaigns. In this regard, they support Marcus Tullius Cicero’s theory outlined in De Amicitia that friends are exemplars or portraits of one another.6
In the case of Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, they share similar modern architectural inheritances gained as students. They share an aesthetic sensibility which attracts them to “found” lively urban landscapes that they both find beauty in even though such landscapes have previously been ignored as architectural sources. They are inclusive of the practices of other disciplines aiming to revisit their inherited architectural values through alternative value systems present in the visual arts and sociology. They share a disregard for the boundaries of conventional architectural enquiry and operate within a range of disciplinary mediums. They are outspoken, provocative, and irreverent towards both the British art establishment and the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). They share common complaints regarding both establishments.
Scott Brown and Venturi share similar qualities. They are both trained in the philosophies of modern architecture but share a fondness for complex “found” urban environments. They both like and value the lessons of historical urban layers. The latter is exemplified by their sharing an affinity with the work of Frank Furness, unfashionable at that time, which displays their belief in conserving historical and cultural layers in cities. In regards to aesthetics, they enthusiastically embrace and learn from American popular culture. Inclusive in their approach, they are inspired by research in other fields – literary, visual arts and sociology – prior to and after meeting. They are outspoken, provocative and irreverent towards the “orthodox modern” American establishment.7 They share common complaints regarding the establishment.
5 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 282. 6 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Amicitia, London: University Tutorial Press Ltd, Date unknown. 7 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, London: Architectural Press, 1983; 2nd edition; 4th printing; first published in 1966; p. 16.
215 Zenghelis and Koolhaas have similar academic histories, both finding their educations “traumatic.”8 They are both attracted to the architectural and urban schemes of the Constructivists. They disagree with the dominant humanist values underpinning architectural philosophy at the time and are attracted to the modern metropolitan condition. They are inclusive, collaborating with visual artists on interdisciplinary projects. They share an affinity for architectural history as well as the revival of the “modern project.” They disagree with the values underpinning the European architectural community at that time and are outspoken, provocative, and irreverent towards such. They share common complaints regarding the establishment.
While the friends in each of the partnerships share similar political architectural values they may differ markedly in character. Peter Smithson explains in his conversation with Liane Lefaivre that while Alison Smithson and he needed each other, they were not the same. He explains, “Alison was a born writer, I wasn’t, and she took the lead most of the time.”9 Scott Brown and Venturi differ in Christine Pittel’s opinion in that she “is much more didactic and linear” while he is “very instinctive.”10 In the case of Zenghelis and Koolhaas, their collaboration is described to be “fed” by their different temperaments. 11
Even if their characters differ, because of their familiarity and proximity, the two friends find hospice in their shared soul. “Primary” architectural friends are in Aristotle’s words, “One soul in twin bodies.”12 The ideological portraiture present in the three “primary” architectural friendships allows the “union” of friends to occur. In Michel de Montaigne’s words, the friends “mix and blend one into the other in so perfect a union that the seam which has joined them is effaced and disappears.”13 This feature of friendly union between Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, colleagues for 44 years, is described succinctly by Giancarlo de Carlo when he states, “It is impossible to distinguish her contribution from that of Peter; they were a
8 Elia Zenghelis uses the word “traumatic” in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality: Interview with Elia Zenghelis,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 10; and Koolhaas uses it in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture: Interview with Rem Koolhaas,” L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 238 (April 1985): 2. 9 Peter Smithson in Liane Lefaivre, “Peter Smithson after the rebellion [interview],” Architecture: the AIA Journal, 89, 1 (January 2000): 143. 10 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” House Beautiful, 133, 9 (September 1991): 162. 11 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 9. 12 Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (VII, 120 b 2-15) in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 177. 13 Michel de Montaigne, “On friendship,” Essays, Book One, Chapter 28, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1958, p. 97.
216 perfectly complementary team.”14 Pittel notes this “union” in the partnership of Scott Brown and Venturi. She writes, “He and Denise work together symbiotically.”15 Unlike the Smithsons and Scott Brown and Venturi, Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s partnership was in the end divisible, lasting 12 years.16 But during that time, the features of fondness, confidence and trust associated with “primary” friendship were all present and appear in Koolhaas’s affectionate description of his collaboration with Zenghelis; “To work with him, for me, is to work with somebody who knows me very well (and that I know very well), in whose judgment I have total confidence.”17 While Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s partnership was not indefinite, all three architectural “couplings” display a strong friendship which allows them to act defiantly. Plato’s words echo, “A friendship that has become steadfast, constant and faithful (bebaios) can even defy and destroy tyrannical power.”18
All three architectural partnerships are selective and highly exclusive of who can be a friend – “primary” and “secondary”– because friendship is premised on similarity of architectural values. The situation of James Stirling’s exclusion from the Team X “family” relates to this. Alison Smithson excuses keeping Team X small and select “because we personally found ‘the few’ most effective in making us think.”19 Zenghelis notes the issue of enumerating a small number of friends too. He explains he and Koolhaas “were two tiny voices in a storm.”20 The feature of fraternisation to be exclusive will always imply exclusion of other non-like minded friends, even those not in the dominant organisation and even if a democratic call to the architectural fraternity is made.
Another consequence of the presence of “primary” friendship is that without such we are powerless to initiate the modification of the architectural establishment. If we never find a friend or accomplice who shares our dissident values and complaints,
14 Giancarlo de Carlo in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” Architects’ Journal, 198, 8 (1 September 1993): 18. 15 Christine Pittel, “Conversation with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,” p. 162. If we take 1967, the year Scott Brown and Venturi formally began their architectural collaboration in practice as the start of the partnership and note they are still in partnership in 2003, they have been colleagues for 36 years. 16 The commencement of Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s collaboration has been taken as 1975, the official date OMA began, with the split taking place in 1987. These dates have determined the partnership length of 12 years. 17 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 9. 18 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 15; Refer Plato, The portable Plato: ‘Protagoras,’ ‘Symposium,’ ‘Phaedo,’ and ‘The republic,’ Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. 19 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1991, p. 13. 20 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” El Croquis, 67 (1994): 125.
217 we are never “enabled”21 to conspire against and, subsequently, change architectural ideas we are pressured to work with, inheritances from our pedagogical forefathers.22
Inheriting from the fathers of
modern architecture
“This friendship is quite fraternal. It binds brothers together between themselves but not with the father, who wills the happiness of all and to whom the sons submit. There is no friendship with the father, one is not the friend of the one who makes friendship possible. One can be grateful to him, since one is obliged to him. There is even reciprocal love with the father, but this reciprocal love (non-equal) is not friendship.”23
In referring to Immanuel Kant’s writings in the Doctrine of virtue, metaphysics of morals Derrida outlines the relationship fraternal friends have with their fathers.24 Inheritances associated with architectural philosophy are gained from architectural forefathers, in person or through books written on or by them. In either of the two ways, Colomina contends “architectural ideas are inherited from one architectural generation to the next.”25 Scott Brown explains; “Architects… select a guru whose work gives them personal help… The guru, as architectural father figure, is subject to intense hate and love; either way, the relationship is personal, it can only be a one- to-one affair…”26 All three of the architectural “couplings” inherit values but also change values inherited from forefathers in the modern movement – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Ivan Leonidov – who they either “hate” or “love”. The responses by the fraternal friends to the genealogical inheritances from these father figures are fundamental components dictating how the architectural academy
21 Reference is made here to Koolhaas’s theory of architects being “enabled” which he outlines in Rem Koolhaas, “Eno/abling architecture,” in Robert E. Somol ed., Autonomy and ideology: positioning an avant-garde in America, New York: Monacelli Press, 1997. 22 It is recognised that architecture can be created solitarily. This differs from subversive campaigns, which it is contended rely on two friends beginning the rebellious community. 23 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 261. 24 Immanuel Kant, Doctrine of virtue, metaphysics of morals, II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; Translation by Mary Gregor. 25 Beatriz Colomina, “Couplings,” Oase, 51 (1999): 29. 26 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” in Ellen Perry Berkeley ed. and Matilda McQuaid assoc. ed., Architecture: a place for women, Berkeley, Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, c.1989, p. 241.
218 changed direction during the post World War II period. This recurring sentiment is perhaps best represented by Jerzy Soltan’s remark in Team 10 primer; “… Among some of the ‘true Modernists’ one feels a need to react against the achievements of the previous generation… This task often degenerates today into some shallow dream of being different from a Corbu or a Mies….”27
The Smithsons inherit from the European Moderns
In their student and immediately post-student years, the Smithsons received knowledge of the philosophies of the European Moderns “through books… rather than direct contact.”28 The books or journals were written by the masters themselves or by their critic friends. In Italian thoughts, the Smithsons acknowledge the early influence of Walter Gropius’s book, The new architecture and the Bauhaus and the journal articles by Le Corbusier.29 Aside from this are the inheritances they received through Philip Johnson’s book, Mies van der Rohe.30
It is the fervour with which the Smithsons were able to absorb and promote the philosophies purported in literature by and on Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier which allows them to refer to themselves as “two apprentices” 31 and “simple inheritors.”32 In regards to their promotion of the modern masters, Alison Smithson explains in a letter of her preparation of the book, The heroic period of modern architecture in their honour.33 She reveals the reason for writing about her genealogical forefathers as an “attempt to fulfil our obligation to the inventive capacity of our grandfathers.”34
27 “AD., May, 1960, Jerzy Soltan, Poland,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, London: Studio Vista, 1968, p. 48. 28 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, London: A&P Smithson, 1993, p. 11. 29 Walter Gropius, The new architecture and the Bauhaus, London: Faber and Faber, 1955; Translation by P. Morton Shand; first published in 1935. 30 Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, New York: Museum of Modern Art, c.1947. 31 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly, 2, 4 (Summer 1997): 42. 32 Alison and Peter Smithson, The charged void: architecture, New York: Monacelli Press, Inc., 2000. The first chapter is titled “Simple Inheritors.” 33 Alison and Peter Smithson, The heroic period of modern architecture, New York: Rizzoli, c.1981. 34 “A letter by Alison Smithson to Beate and John Johansen dated 1 August 1986,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, London: Artemis, 1994, p. 69.
219 But as shown in the historical rewritings, the relationship the Smithsons have with mentors Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier is not of continual reverence. In Joan Ockman’s words, it was “an oedipal relationship with the generation of the masters, reverent but restive.”35 The reason for this was that with time, the inheritances which the Smithsons had received which once appeared “suitable” converted to being “unsuitable.” For instance, while Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier’s architectures were an early inspiration, the Smithsons deviated in the early 1950s from the ideologies of their forefathers.
Of his conflicting admiration and rejection of Mies van der Rohe, Peter Smithson explains: “Mies’ work interested me because it seemed a pure way of building.... But the taste of Mies is not an easily acquired thing or somewhere I appear to have said I found his details too formalistic.”36 Peter Smithson was not able to “swallow” Johnson’s entire book on Mies van der Rohe. The Smithsons criticised Mies van der Rohe’s architecture for not being brutal enough. Their design of Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, 1950-1954 was an attempt to improve legacies inherited from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Mineral and Metals building, Chicago, 1942-43. When Peter Smithson eventually visits IIT in 1958, he continues his admiration and criticism of the design. He writes in a letter to Alison Smithson, “there is so much good – 75 per cent is successful” at IIT, there are many errors” describing Mies’ errors as “Miestakes.”37 In the late 1960s, the Smithsons met Mies in person when they dined at his house and had two long conversations with him.38 While no further detail of their acquaintance is expressed after their meeting, in a tribute to Mies van der Rohe on his 80th birthday, Peter Smithson reveals his indebtedness to him.39
In a similar tone, Stephen Greenberg notes that “Alison Smithson once remarked that every time you open Oeuvre Complete of Le Corbusier it is full
35 Joan Ockman, “Introduction,” in Joan Ockman et al. eds., Architecture culture, 1943-1968: a documentary anthology, New York: Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Rizzoli, 1993, p. 19. 36 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 35. 37 “Letter by Peter Smithson to Alison Smithson, dated 12 September 1958 from Carmen Hall, IIT Campus, 60 East Street, Apt 16, Chicago 16,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, p. 8. 38 Peter Smithson, “Reflections on Hunstanton,” p. 40. 39 Peter Smithson, “For Mies van der Rohe on his 80th birthday,” Bauen & Wohnen (May 1966) reprinted in Alison and Peter Smithson, Changing the art of inhabitation, p. 14.
220 of ideas which you thought you’d had yourself.”40 After reading his polemical literature, the Smithsons had direct contact with Le Corbusier when they first heard him speak at CIAM VIII.41 Ironically, the presentation by Le Corbusier on the importance of human scale was to become the protagonist argument for the Smithsons’ own subversive theory of “human association.” In terms of Le Corbusier’s architecture, the Smithsons acknowledge their admiration for the work’s beton brut qualities. In their review of Reyner Banham’s book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or aesthetic? the Smithsons reiterate the significance of Le Corbusier’s “influence – especially during the building period of the Unité.”42
But the Smithsons complaint with CIAM’s modern urban project leads them to attempt to improve the legacy from Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation, 1947- 1953 in their Golden Lane Housing Competition entry, 1950-1952. That which they admire becomes the project with which to critique the ideology of the modern movement at the time. They criticise CIAM’s urbanism by modifying Le Corbusier’s project in order to show the inadequacies of the “Charte d’Athènes.” They use the Unité d’Habitation to revisit the idea of “neighbourhood” in urban design.43 Publicity of their subversive ideas represented in the Golden Lane Housing Competition entry and documented in Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970 ironically take their format from Le Corbusier’s classic work, Urbanisme.44 But even after their attack on CIAM, the Smithsons remain faithful to Le Corbusier. They write: “For it was Le Corbusier of all the old CIAM who continued to talk and to build in terms of the built-world as a dialogue between the individual and the collective. This is what interested our generation.”45 This social view of architecture was a
40 Stephen Greenberg, “Smithsons’ 40 years on buildings and ideas [book and exhibition catalogue],” Architects’ Journal, 199, 5 (2 February 1994): 42. 41 Alison Smithson, “A record of Team 10 meetings,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 17. 42 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? London: Architectural Press, 1966; Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” Architects’ Journal (28 December 1966): 1590. 43 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Paper written by Alison and peter Smithson at CIAM IX, dated 24 July 1953,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, London: Architectural Association, February 1982, p. 7. 44 Alison and Peter Smithson, Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970, London: Faber, 1970; Le Corbusier, Urbanisme or The City of To-Morrow and its planning, Paris: Cres., 1924. 45 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590.
221 crucial legacy the Smithsons gained from their modern movement “grandfathers” from the 1920s.
In the Smithsons shift, they hybridise ideas inherited from their modernist “grandfathers” with ideas shared with their friends, who in turn receive inheritances in their respective disciplines. The ideas inherited from an older generation are transformed through their friendships. This reiterates Alison Smithson’s retrospective comment that ”…through our friendships, … when the aligned and the cause of alignment meet, both mutual regard and a sense of common work generate an influence both ways… the old influencing the young – and the young the old…”46
Scott Brown and Venturi inherit from the European Moderns and their progeny
Like the Smithsons, Scott Brown and Venturi express a cycle of admiration, disregard and admiration for the early Moderns. Both were trained by the progeny of the European Moderns who believed in the continuation of the practice of modern architecture. For Scott Brown, these prophets of the modern movement include Arthur Korn from which she inherited Bauhausian social view of architecture and the Smithsons themselves. The Smithsons, John Summerson and Paul Kriesis exposed Scott Brown to a criticism of CIAM’s modern urban project which she inherited and extended. For Venturi, his teachers training him in modern architecture were Donald Drew Egbert, Jean Labatut and Louis Kahn. From Egbert and Labatut, Venturi inherited an admiration for the architecture of Le Corbusier such that he declared, “I adore Corbu; I worship Corbu; the man makes me want to weep when I mention his name…”47
But Venturi did not inherit affection for Mies van der Rohe’s simple minimalist modern architecture. Unlike the Smithsons, who felt Mies van der Rohe’s architecture was not brutal enough, Venturi chastised Miesian architecture
46 Alison and Peter Smithson, Italian thoughts, p. 11. Italics added. 47 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” Skyline, (July 1982): 13.
222 for being too minimal. By promoting the inheritances of complex modern architecture, including some of the works of Le Corbusier, and not inheriting from the lineage of work inspired by Mies van der Rohe, Venturi succeeds in Complexity and contradiction in architecture, in Lance Wright’s words, “a sizzling pulling-off of the Modern Movement’s pants.”48 Holding objection with Le Corbusier’s utopian planning schemes but never intending to undermine the modern project as a whole, Scott Brown and Venturi restate their support for their early forefathers in their Preface to Learning from Las Vegas.49 They write “Because we have criticized modern architecture, it is proper here to state our intense admiration of its early period when its founders, sensitive to their own times, proclaimed the right revolution. Our argument lies mainly with the irrelevant and distorted prolongation of that old revolution today.”50
Early OMA inherit from the Moderns and their progeny
As students, Zenghelis and Koolhaas absorbed and worked within the styles of a range of modern forefathers and their prodigy in their design projects. Of the Modernists from the 1920s, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Leonidov offered theories the early Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) inherited or rejected.
Koolhaas admits acknowledging the relevance of Mies’s dictum “Less is More” after undertaking his research on the Berlin wall. In 1980, he expresses his admiration for the projects by “Berlin Mies” rather than “American Mies”. Koolhaas states; “American Mies…, I admit, is rather heavy and dull most of the time… It’s more the Mies of the early Berlin period that interests me. I’m fascinated by his ability to invent programmes, combined
48 Lance Wright, “Robert Venturi and anti-architecture,” Architectural Review, 153 (April 1973): 262. 49 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1972; 1st edition. 50 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Preface to the First Edition,” in Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1989; 2nd edition; 10th printing; p. xiii; first published in 1972.
223 with an incredible formal ability.”51 Koolhaas has recently brought into question his allegiance to Mies van der Rohe through his writings on the late OMA’s redesign of IIT. In his essay titled “Miestakes,”52 – which makes no reference to Peter Smithson’s use of the term – Koolhaas refers to the inheritance of legacies from Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. He writes; “I do not respect Mies, I love Mies. I have studied Mies, excavated Mies, reassembled Mies. I have even cleaned Mies. Because I do not revere Mies, I’m at odds with his admirers.”53 On the issue of Mies van der Rohe’s urbanism, Koolhaas explains the importance of Mies versus Le Corbusier; “It is a mistake to read Mies as a master of the freestanding, or the autonomous. Mies without context is like a fish out of water. The iconography of Le Corbusier could dispense with neighbours or even the city; Mies would be unimaginable without them. In his collages and models, context is annexed to support his campaigns.”54
Le Corbusier’s criticism of the skyscrapers in Manhattan during his 1935 visit to the city and outlined his book, When the cathedrals were white: a journey to the country of timid people55 provides Koolhaas an opportunity in Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan56 to put into question Le Corbusier’s tabula rasa urban visions. In his Yale lecture, Zenghelis explains that “one person’s visions…, that being Le Corbusier’s urban visions” have no relation to the traditional city and are incapable of redirecting the modern project.57
Rather than inherit from Corbusian urbanism, early OMA inherit legacies from the Russian modern architects of the 1920s who they perceive to accommodate modern architecture, in Zenghelis’s description of Konstantin Melnikov’s modern architecture, “as “an activity”.”58 Of Koolhaas’s student projects, Zenghelis remembers his design for the Town Hall in Amsterdam
51 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 17. 52 Rem Koolhaas, “Miestakes,” in Phyllis Lambert ed., Mies in America, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2001, pp. 716-743. 53 Rem Koolhaas, “Miestakes”, p. 720. 54 Rem Koolhaas, “Miestakes”, p. 721. 55 Le Corbusier, When the cathedrals were white: a journey to the country of timid people, London: Routledge, 1947; Translation by Francis E. Hyslop, Jr. 56 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 57 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” Yale seminars in architecture, 2 (1982): p. 165. 58 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” p. 168.
224 describing it as “a podium with minimalist blocks posed above, very Leonidov.”59 Leonidov is seen by Koolhaas to be the “central figure” in his early development.”60 But Koolhaas elects to rid himself of the legacies of Leonidov’s thinking by undertaking an “exorcism”61 of the architect through publishing a book on him. This is in contradiction to Kenneth Frampton’s continued practice in linking the late works of OMA to Constructivism.62 The combination of promoted and rejected inheritances from all three Modernists leads to an early OMA philosophy which is described by Zenghelis as “the preservation of functionalism” qualified as “fantastic functionalism.”63
Friendships (or enmities) between “youngers” and their “elders”, such as those exhibited by the younger architectural partnerships, occur at a particular time when both are at a certain age. Scott Brown adds insight to this phenomenon when explaining Lewis Mumford’s affection towards mentor, Patrick Geddes. She writes “Mumford has told the sad tale of his first meeting with Patrick Geddes. After reading and admiring his works, the 27- year-old disciple was disappointed in how little he was able to communicate with the elderly master. He said he wished he had met Geddes when Geddes was 27 years old.”64 As exemplified in the case of Mumford and Geddes, the moment when friends align in their thinking is often momentary. As both parties grow and change, so does their “friendly” relationship, a consequence of what Derrida describes as the “movement and time of friendship” in which the friend converts into the enemy and so on.65
Enemies in modern architectural history
59 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “… Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 60Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 18. 61 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 18. 62 Rem Koolhaas, “Doubletake?”AV Monographs, 73 (September-October 1998): 29. 63 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” p. 172. 64 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” Architectural Record, 172, 2 (February 1984): 81. 65 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 249.
225 “The enemy had indeed to be there already, so near. He had to be waiting, lurking close by, in the familiarity of my own family, in my own home, at the heart of resemblance and affinity, within parental ‘suitability’, within the oikeiotes which should have lodged no one but the friend… The enemy did not rise up; he did not come after the friend to oppose or negate him… The proof? He has disappeared, he has slipped off and I must call him back.”66
Ideological change in modern architecture is made possible because of what Derrida describes as the “movement of philein” in which someone who was once a brother- friend converts into the brother-enemy. All three of the partnerships are members of the architectural fraternity and practice within the tradition of modern architecture. But rather than be friendly towards their authorities, unheimlichkeit or unhomeliness allows the “youngers” to shift select figures in their pedagogy from being a brother- friend to a brother-enemy. It is within this feeling of being unwelcome that Derrida suggests the friend “converts” into the enemy and the fragility of friendship is understood.
The enemies in the period of modern architectural history examined are inner, quasi- familial enemies who were at one stage mentors and friends. The histories reveal a range of disagreements or diaphora between architects who share kinship ties. The three architectural partnerships have both familial public (hostis) and private (inimicus) enemies.67 In order to undermine private enemies, the friends can typically attack a more public figure so as to obtain agreement from a larger audience who are familiar with the injustices of the more public enemy.
In Team 10 primer, the Smithsons’ enemy is described succinctly by their Team X friend, Jerzy Soltan, as “the inner enemy, the ‘brother-modernist’.”68 Once familial friends, the brother-modernists or the CIAM “elders” who promote a functionalist based Modernism become the public enemy or hostis of the Team X generation. Ironically, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, father figures and mentors for the Smithsons’ early development, shift from being public friends to public enemies to private friends.
66 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 58. 67 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 88. 68 “AD., May, 1960, Jerzy Soltan, Poland,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 47.
226 Scott Brown and Venturi have both public and private enemies which are undermined in Complexity and contradiction in architecture and Learning from Las Vegas. The public enemy or hostis criticised is “orthodox modern” architecture as exemplified in the work of Mies van der Rohe. For Venturi, there is a private enemy, proponent of orthodox Modernist philosophy at University of Pennsylvania at the time, ex-Harvard professor, G. Holmes Perkins.69 Peter Blake emerges as a public enemy and is undermined in Complexity and contradiction in architecture. The enmity towards Blake dissipates when Blake elects to convert from being Venturi’s enemy to amicus. Besides this, Scott Brown and Venturi fall out publicly with the Smithsons in the pages of the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (JRIBA).70
Zenghelis and Koolhaas share enmity for their Architectural Association (AA) lecturer “tyrants” who advocate humanist urbanism. Koolhaas names “Robespierre”71, Peter Cook as an early private enemy. Léon Krier emerges as an ideological opponent because of his exemplary European “post-humanist” ideology.72 This is also paradoxical considering Zenghelis’s early friendship and collaborative teaching with Léon Krier. The public enemies for Zenghelis and Koolhaas are non-progressive post-humanist architects but also, importantly, the architectural academy.
Carl Schmitt’s theory on “the need for the enemy”, espoused in The concept of the political and to which Derrida refers, is poignant in regards to how the three architectural partners define their own position.73 Derrida explains Schmittian decisionism contends that being able to identify our enemy is one way of “knowing” ourself. For the Smithsons; Scott Brown and Venturi; and Zenghelis and Koolhaas; they define themselves respectively in opposition to their enemies as; not-CIAM functionalists; not-“orthodox” American Modernists; and not-post-humanists. Their
69 Robert Venturi in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” Perspecta, 28 (1997): 128. 70 Alison Smithson, “The responsibility of Lutyens,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969): 146-151; Peter Smithson, ““The Viceroy’s house in Imperial Delhi,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (April 1969):152-154; Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Learning from Lutyens: Reply to A. & P. Smithson,” JRIBA: Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 (August 1969): 353-354. 71 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 72 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” p. 163. 73 Carl Schmitt, The concept of the political, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996; first published by Duncker & Humblot in 1932 as Der Begriff des Politischen; Translation, Introduction and notes by George Schwab; Refer Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 83.
227 respective political positions are relative to the system in which they are presently operating in but within which, if it remains such, their architectural interests will never be recognised. Venturi’s words support this contention. He states: “You learn from your intellectual and artistic enemies. You understand your own position as you disagree with others.”74 Koolhaas provides agreement; “One gains more from a form of teaching which one is not in sympathy with… Isolated, it forces unceasing defence of one’s position.”75
Complaints in modern architectural history
“O my friends, there is no friend.”76
In line with the fragility of friendship is the potential to complain about friends who have become enemies, echoed by the phrase attributed to Aristotle. All three architectural partnerships, in association with other friends, publicly complain about the injustices of inherited ideology. The rules relate to how to practice as an architect; what aesthetics and landscapes to acknowledge; and who the dominant establishment at the respective times elects to favour and recognise.
Members of the Independent Group (IG), including the Smithsons, complain about how only certain kinds of art and artists were being recognised by the establishment. Conversely, the injustice is of not acknowledging the work of non-preferred artists. In “Richard Hamilton’s interview with Banham, 1976 June 27,” he states the IG’s antagonism; “The thing I remember most about the binding influence of my friends and colleagues was a kind of resentment … that there was an establishment of this kind that could be so precise about what English art was, was anathema…”77 The IG criticised the establishment’s inability to address the rise of popular American culture and to acknowledge its increasing influence on British society.
74 Robert Venturi in Robert Maxwell, “Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: interview with Robert Maxwell,” Architectural Design, 62, 7-8 (July-August 1992): 13. 75 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 2. 76 Quotation attributed to Aristotle in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 1. 77 “Richard Hamilton’s interview with Banham, 1976 June 27,” in David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990, p. 17.
228
The Smithsons’ complaint, as CIAM “youngers”, appears in regards to the means by which CIAM achieves it aims through its “Athens Charter” rather than the aims per se.78 They complain the charter fails to represent “the true complexity of human association.”79 Team 10 primer collates a series of associated grievances expressed by Team X members against architectural conventions perpetuated by the establishment. For instance, Aldo van Eyck complains about the obligation to adhere to the order set in Euclidean geometry.80 José Antonio Coderch y de Sentmenat complains that architects no longer, “need High Priests or dubious Prophets of Architecture, or great doctrinaires.”81
Scott Brown and Venturi’s primary complaint about the doctrine of “orthodox modern” architecture appears in Venturi’s Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Venturi writes: “More is not less… Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore.”82 It is Venturi’s “complaining that the norm of “correct” modern architecture has become a bore” that John F. Pile identifies in his review of the book.83 Associated with this, is Scott Brown and Venturi’s criticism of CIAM’s tabula rasa philosophy which ignores the value of the existing city and its popular American commercial architecture.
Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s grievance is discussed by Zenghelis in his presentation at Yale University in 1982 in which he complains about the loss of faith that architects have in the project of modern architecture.84 He criticises architects at the time who are failing to acknowledge that progress is irreversible and argues that the tactic of attempting to annihilate progress is an inadequate method by which architects are responding to the problem of modern urbanism. Koolhaas complains about the obligations set by the establishment for the architect to design architecture for the morally good will of society and for the need for architects to behave nobly.85
78 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The future of C.I.A.M.,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 75. 79 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Paper written at CIAM IX dated 24 July 1953,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 7. 80 Aldo van Eyck in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 20. 81 José Antonio Coderch y de Sentmenat in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 primer, p. 37. 82 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, pp. 16, 17. 83 John F. Pile, “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” Interiors (July 1967): 24. Italics added. 84 Elia Zenghelis, “Elia Zenghelis,” pp. 155-179. 85 Rem Koolhaas in Odile Fillion, “La Ville: six interviews,” Lotus International, 84 (1995): 121.
229 One common grievance by all three partners relates to their personal exclusion or lack of recognition by the establishment on the basis of difference in beliefs. The subversive friends, although inside the academy feel like outsiders because they are overlooked. All three “couplings” are themselves representatives of the fraternal body who feel the pain of exclusion personally and comply with Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “What is harmful to me is harmful in itself.”86 For instance, Venturi speaks of being “either out or outré.”87 Scott Brown complains of not receiving acknowledgement by the academy.88 Zenghelis and Koolhaas are criticised, undermined or ignored at different stages during their educations by their AA lecturers.
The complaints relate to both the lack of recognition the architect receives for their individual contribution and their contribution in collaborative work. The later is what Colomina refers to when she writes, “Architects in partnership, from Denise Scott Brown to Rem Koolhaas, have publicly complained about the obsession of critics and the media with the single figure, despite their offices’ efforts to provide precise credit.”89 In his Pritzker Prize speech Koolhaas cites the cycle of this complaint in architectural history. He argues that in the early 1950s, architecture was about “the group, the movement” rather than “a unique individual, the genius.”90 Whereas in 2000, he suggests that the existence of the Pritzker Prize signifies a shift to multiple architectural identities or signatures that respect each other but “do not form a community.”91 The individual is recognised but not under the banner of a group title. Within this scenario, the individuals of the fraternity respect each other’s difference. In effect, the complaints which recur in the historiography relate to how the academy accommodates difference.
The difference which leads to the architects being initially excluded converts through their campaigns into the motive for being included. Not only this, it allows them to conspire. Stephen Greenberg’s description of the Smithsons “place” in the academy
86 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 205; first published in 1886. 87 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony at the Palacio de Iturbide, Mexico City, May 16, 1991,” in Robert Venturi, Iconography and electronics upon a generic architecture: a view from the drafting room, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996, p. 100. 88 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” pp. 237-246. 89 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 468. 90 Rem Koolhaas, “ Rem Koolhaas 2000 Laureate,” The Pritzker architecture prize, 2000: presented to Rem Koolhaas, Los Angeles, California: The Foundation, 2000; unpaginated. 91 Rem Koolhaas, “Rem Koolhaas 2000 Laureate,“ unpaginated.
230 is poignant; “to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson’s wonderful phrase” they were “on the outside of the Dome pissing in.”92
Collaborating with friends to war against enemies
“There are always some men who are more noble than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot prevent themselves shaking it off, who will never be tame enough to accept subjugation.”93
Referring to the writings of Etienne de la Boetie, Derrida suggests that friendship signifies an always suspended call for democracy. La Boetie’s words explain how each couple of architectural friends “cannot prevent themselves shaking … off… subjugation.” Derrida describes this feature of “genealogical deconstruction” as the consequence of the “indefinite right to criticism, to deconstruction…” and argues the presence of “a self-destructive force in the very motif of democracy.”94 All three architectural partnerships, although differing in their political agendas, all campaign for freedom from restrictions placed on them by the dominant ideology at their respective times.
The Smithsons voice their complaints for the ‘good will’ of the architectural fraternity aiming to liberate them from the restrictions put on them by the establishment at the time. They carry on the early Modernist project to improve society but campaign for “brothers” in the architectural fraternity to be freed from the obligations of CIAM’s functionalist Modernist philosophy. Scott Brown and Venturi also campaign for the architectural fraternity to be freed from the restrictions placed on them by “orthodox Modernism.” Their campaign is a significant step in freeing architects to collaborate and participate without guilt in commercial projects, no longer viewed as “bad”. Zenghelis and Koolhaas campaign for freedom from the restrictions imposed by the architectural academy (or Procrustes) against Modernism. Koolhaas writes poetically, “Procrustes was the robber who made his victims fit his bed by stretching
92 Stephen Greenberg, “Justice not done to the Smithsons [book review],” Architects’ Journal, 207, 11 (19 March 1998): 44. 93 Estienne de la Boetie, Slaves by choice, Surrey, England: Runnymede Books, 1988, p. 53; written in 1548. 94 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 105.
231 or lopping them. In the ‘new’ historicist and typological architectures, culture will be at the mercy of a cruel Procrustean arsenal that will censor certain ‘modern’ activities with the excuse that there is no room for them...”95
The feature of contrariness – being contrary to – is a critical attribute of subversive friends and is present in all three architectural partnerships. It provides them with, in Jakob B. (Jaap) Bakema’s words describing Peter Smithson, the “courage to attack … (their) own environment.”96 For instance, Eric Mumford notes that “Giedion described Peter Smithson as “the man who makes problems,” to which Gropius replied “They think they are asked to do the same as us” – that is, challenge existing, institutional authority, as the Modern Movement had done in the 1920s.”97 Alison Smithson is praised by Louisa Hutton because of “her seeming immunity to convention…”98 Koolhaas is direct in describing his own character; “I am a very reactive person. I react all the time. Perhaps too much.”99
The architectural “couplings” are drawn to react against or disobey a tyrannical institutional body either voluntarily or involuntarily. Of the former, reference is made to Scott Brown and Venturi and early OMA; the latter, the Smithsons. Regardless of such, there is a self-destructive force associated with their actions directed towards the institution of architecture. Peter Smithson’s words describing the attack on CIAM outline how the system of deconstruction works, “one can only recreate what one loves by repudiating it.”100
This trait of being self-destructive – of warring between kinship – is discussed by Derrida through Plato’s writings on why Greeks wage war on themselves. Plato’s The Republic suggests internal warring in a community is a sign of pathology in that community.101 The three architectural partnerships reveal, as well as represent, pathologies within the discipline. The diseases are the result of the practice of
95 Rem Koolhaas, “Our ‘new sobriety’,” in OMA, OMA: projects 1978-1981, London: Architectural Association, 1981, p. 9. 96 Jaap Bakema in Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000, p. 259. 97 Eric Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960, p. 259. 98 Louisa Hutton in Giancarlo de Carlo et al., “Alison Smithson: courageous utopian [obituary],” p. 19. 99 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 17. 100 “C.I.A.M meeting La Sarraz, letter from Smithsons 23 August, 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 80. 101 Plato, The Republic, New York: Norton, c.1985; Translation Richard W. Sterling and William C. Scott.
232 exclusion of values held by a younger generation of architects as a consequence of the politics of friendship. Derrida reads through Plato the manifestation of pathological symptoms within an institution may be the consequence of “bad luck, misfortune.”102 Unsure as to if the architects experience “bad luck”, it is contended all three “couplings” are symptomatic of the disease they expose. Non-friends who try to subvert authority represent pathology within the institution of architecture. This phenomenon remains present as long as friends exclude non-friends. The sickness within the community exposed by subversive collaborations, Derrida argues, is easily reconciled because of the ties of kinship. But he contends that an equality established at birth endlessly compels individuals to seek legal equality, a kind of “brotherly harmony” that will oblige inner subversive collaborations to expose injustices. This is done in the name of “brotherly” democracy.103
The three historical subversions of the academy represent responses to its pathological exclusion which need to surface in order to change the organism or architectural body to sustain its survival in the now changed times. All three of the attacks by the “couplings” represent an attempt to cure the pathologies which are seen to plague CIAM’s “modern project” at different times in history, some of which include its pro-functionalist rather than humanist focus; its theory of tabula rasa which excludes non-architecturally designed and existing landscapes; and its uniformity rather than capacity to allow diversity. All campaigns do not aim to dominate or destroy the institution of architecture but rather cure it of its inadequacies.
While the warring between kin is not uncommon in architecture – one instance spoken about by Koolhaas is Colin Rowe and Oswald Mathius (O. M.) Ungers’ “trench warfare”104 – the internal warring that appears in the three historiographies takes place between generations. It pertains to what Derrida refers to as “genealogical deconstruction.”105 In all three cases, the friendship partners are “youngers”– those not-established – who challenge established “elders”. Le Corbusier’s description of Team X “youngers”; “finding themselves in the heart of the present period” they are “the only ones capable of feeling actual problems, personally, profoundly, the goals to follow, the means to reach them, the pathetic
102 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 92. 103 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 96. 104 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980,” p. 17. 105 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 105.
233 urgency of the present situation,” applies to all three partnerships. 106 The younger generation who display a “pathetic urgency”107 – which represent pathology – having suffered the pain of exclusion, become new ambassadors of architecture. They modify the academy to suit the demands of the time.
In the Politics of friendship, Derrida discusses the productive or collaborative power associated with friendship, a point which the Smithsons are credited by Colomina to have acknowledged. Colomina defines their argument: “In collaborative work, they seemed to be saying, the sum is always larger than the addition of the parts. Ideas grow from the continuous exchange. When the partnership is also intimate, there is even more confusion about how ideas come about. This confusion is very productive.”108 In their likeness, both of the friends in each of the three partnerships share the quality to act together on a mutual campaign which Michel de Montaigne describes as the “‘correspondence of wills’ [convenance des volontez].”109 It is the “correspondence of wills” of architectural friends which allows friendship to be productive. The power associated with intimate collaborations comes from the fact that friendship “illuminates” hope. Built on resentments, friends can be led to act. Alison Smithson explains: “The story of rejection in a society identifies strange, even remote resentments. In written ephemera we have tried to identify these blind moves – that are sometimes rages – within a society where they coincide with periods of inventive activity…”110
“Primary” friendship has the power to be libratory because it allows the couple empowerment to respond to adverse situations or, in Derrida’s summation of Plato’s argument, to “even defy or destroy tyrannical power.” 111 For this reason, the Smithsons’ “correspondence of wills” is described succinctly by Peter Smithson as a “relationship … more like a conspiracy. She and I against everybody else. Not literally.”112 Zenghelis summarises the consequence of his “correspondence of will”
106 Le Corbusier, “Letter to CIAM 10, Dubrovnik,” in Oscar Newman ed., New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo, New York: Universe Books Inc., 1961, p. 16. 107 The linguistic association between “pathetic”- the term used by Le Corbusier, meaning full of pathos, sadness or mental suffering - and “pathology”- meaning the study of patho i.e. abnormality/disease/suffering/sorrow is noted. Refer Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 2123. 108 Beatriz Colomina, “Couplings,” Oase, 51 (1999): 22 referring to the Smithsons theories on collaborative work. Italics added. 109 Michel de Montaigne in Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 179. 110 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The shift,” in Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, London: Academy Editions, 1982, p. 9. 111 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 15. 112 Peter Smithson in Beatriz Colomina, “Friends of the future: a conversation with Peter Smithson,” October, 94 (Fall 2000): 30.
234 with Koolhaas; “We did not have the same temperament… but shared the same goals: we could fight together…”113
The manner in which architects “fight” or war against restrictions put on them by their familial establishment enemies can occur directly or indirectly. Of the former is the Smithsons’ confrontation with the old guard of CIAM. The aftermath of the “direct challenge presented … by the young radicals of Team X” is described as a literal deconstruction: “By the end of the congress, CIAM was in ruins and Team X stood upon the wreckage of something that they had joined with enthusiasm, and – with equal enthusiasm – destroyed.”114 In a letter to the Smithsons, Bakema speaks explicitly of the conflict stating “We did win the battle against the professors!”115
Of the latter scenario – where warring does not take place in person – subversive projects are created by the friends in collaboration with other like-minded friends and become the sites of contestation. The projects produced – realised and unrealised architectural and urban designs, exhibitions, research, teaching, literary – define the ethics and values of the friends in order to provide evidence for disputation.
As seen through the historical rewritings, the origins of the dissident ideas and projects can never clearly be attributed to any one individual but evolve through a broader range of friendship collaborations. In this sense, the politics of friendship and its productiveness is shown to be integrally connected to the practice of creating architecture and architectural ideas through the collaborative process. In this regard, polemical theorisation is symbiotic with practice.
The first subversive product by the Smithsons is the built project, Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, 1950-1954. Through their “Group 6” collaborations, two controversial art exhibitions, Parallel of Life and Art, 1953 and “Patio and Pavilion exhibit” for This is Tomorrow, 1956 are produced. The Smithsons’ unbuilt design for the Golden Lane Housing Competition, 1952, makes direct amendments to Le Corbusier’s design for the Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles, by adding a network of spaces for external movement and human interaction. The design contests planning concepts of the modern urban residential high rise. The project was used in the
113 Elia Zenghelis in Patrice Goulet, “…Or the beginning of the end of reality,” p. 10. 114 Reyner Banham, “CIAM,” in Vittorio Lampugnani and Barry Bergdoll eds., The Thames and Hudson encyclopaedia of 20th-century architecture, London: Thames Hudson, 1963, p. 70. 115 “Letter from J. B. Bakema to Smithsons 7 June 1955,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 44. Italics added.
235 Smithsons’ “Urban Reidentification” Grille to critique the four functions outlined in CIAM’s “Athens Charter”; living, working, leisure, and circulation. The Smithsons replaced the functions with four of their own; THE HOUSE, THE STREET, THE DISTRICT, THE CITY, which they felt better represented “human association” to modern urbanism. Literature by the Smithsons which publicise these subversive projects and theories include Ordinariness and light: urban theories 1952-1960 and their application in a building project 1963-1970, 1950-1970, and Team 10 primer, 1968.
Venturi’s 1966 book, Complexity and contradiction in architecture is the first subversive work published by the architect. It contests the ethics of the American academy at the time. Two research studios run by Scott Brown, Venturi and Izenour at the University of Pennsylvania; “Learning from Las Vegas”, 1968; and “Learning from Levittown”, 1978; provide collated evidence which extends theories outlined in two earlier essays, “A Significance of A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas”116 and “On ducks and decoration.”117 Two products of the studios are the 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas and the exhibition, Signs of life: symbols in the American city, 1976. Both redefine Scott Brown and Venturi’s ethics associated with symbolism and architectural form.
The first collaborative project for Zenghelis and Koolhaas is Koolhaas’s unrealised student project, Exodus or the Voluntary prisoners of Architecture, 1972, which is based on the preceding research project by Koolhaas, Berlin wall as architecture, 1970. Exodus reinvigorates the modern urban proposal by showing its potential outside the theory of tabula rasa. It redefines the ethics of urban planning in an existing metropolitan condition. Koolhaas’s 1978 book, Delirious New York outlines the value of the metropolitan project through its evidential study of Manhattan. In this indirect way, Koolhaas celebrates modern urbanity. A range of collaborative unbuilt Manhattan projects including City of the captive globe, 1972; Egg of Columbus Center, 1973; Hotel Sphinx, 1975; New Welfare Island, 1975-76; Welfare Palace Hotel, 1976-77; Roosevelt Island, 1975; and Story of the Pool, 1976 and included in the book challenge the aesthetic homogeneity prescribed by European modern architects and reveal the presence of diverse types of architectural ideologies all coexisting in the metropolitan condition. The ethics outlined in Delirious New York
116 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “A significance of A&P parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas,” Architectural Forum (March 1968). 117 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “On ducks and decoration,” Architecture Canada, 45, (October 1968).
236 celebrate shrewd architectural heroes of Manhattan’s 1920s. The book makes a direct challenge to the ethics of the architectural academy which at the time promoted socially responsible or architectural “liberal do-goodery.”118
Each “coupling” having found comfort in their own friendship by creating a homely space which did not exist earlier, initiate the potential for beginning a new familial body or oikeiotos. After finding each other, the giving of hospice or heimlichkeit allows the two friends to campaign with a range of other “suitable” friends to undermine their respective establishment enemies and begin to build a new friendly architectural community. These secondary friendships can be with one or both of the “couplings”. Scott Brown recognises these friends as “the many others to whom I owe an intellectual debt of gratitude… The garb, and how I wear it, is my own.”119 Venturi phrases it differently in his Pritzker Prize winning speech, “I trust, as I satisfy this need to enumerate particular persons, places, and institutions, that I shall appear not egotistical, but rather the opposite in emphasizing my indebtedness to outside influences.”120
From the historical rewriting, these like-minded friends help to evolve subversive theories held by the couple, provide visual representations of the ideas, as well as promote either or both friends in the “coupling”. In these histories, a number of friends from inside and outside the discipline of architecture are shown to help to evolve subversive theories rather than a singular figure as is commonly publicised.
For Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, their network of like-minded friends is from the IG, “Group 6”, Modern Architecture Research Society (MARS), CIAM and Team X. Through their friendships with Banham and William (Bill) Howell, made at the London County Council (LCC), the Smithsons are introduced to the communities of the IG, MARS and CIAM. Through their involvement in the IG, they become good friends with Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson, as well as with Judith Henderson and Theo Crosby. Through their participation in MARS and CIAM, they develop friendships with other disgruntled CIAM “youngers” including van Eyck and Bakema who they collaborate with to develop dissident and alternative philosophies. Public disagreements at CIAM allow the “youngers” to find each other. They were
118 George Baird, “OMA, “Neo-modern,” and modernity: George Baird in “conversation” with the editors of Perspecta 32,” Perspecta, 32 (2001): 35. 119 Denise Scott Brown, “Paralipomena in urban design,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, London; New York: Academy Editions; St. Martins, 1990, p. 7. 120 “Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 98.
237 also brought together by their informal and friendly discussions through which they find, in John Voelcker’s words, they “discovered and accepted that…” they “all had an attitude in common, that …” they “were all trying to find means through which this attitude could become an approach and in consequence a positive force in town planning.”121
For Scott Brown and Venturi, their network of like-minded friends is from academic and “pop” culture circles. Scott Brown’s like-minded friends, before meeting Venturi include the Smithsons, Korn, Summerson and Kriesis. For Venturi, his academic friends prior to meeting Scott Brown include Egbert, Labatut and Philip Finkelpearl. Their mutual friendships with the Smithsons, Kahn, Herbert J. Gans, Vincent Scully, John Brinckerhoff (J.B.) Jackson, Steven Izenour and Tom Wolfe each contributes to theories Scott Brown and Venturi use in their dissident attacks on the American academy.
For Zenghelis and Koolhaas, their primary like-minded friends with whom they campaign are their respective early OMA partners; Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. Their friendly network includes Rene Daalder, Gerrit Oothuys, O. M. Ungers, Frampton, Peter Eisenman and Zaha Hadid.
Of these friends, there are two distinct areas – outside of contributing to the evolution of the subversive theories – in which the friends contribute to the campaigns of each “coupling”. Colomina describes the two contributions as to; “the production of images”122 and “the role of the critic as collaborator.”123 Of the like-minded friends in the three histories, both types of collaborators – graphic (photographers, painters etc) and media (critics, journalists, “pop” writers etc.) – are present. In the case of the Smithsons, Henderson’s photographs are seminal sources which they use in evolving their architectural philosophy of “human association” and which are included in their reactionary urban projects. Peter Smithson describes the importance of Henderson’s images as “the key to the period.”124 Paolozzi’s seminal epidiascope show was also significant to the Smithsons campaign because it collaged complex images from popular literature and film around at the time into an
121 John Voelcker, Arena (June 1965):12 in Francis Strauven, “The Dutch contribution: Bakema and van Eyck,” Rassegna, 14, 52 (4) (December 1993): 54. 122 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 463. 123 Beatriz Colomina, “Collaborations: the private life of modern architecture,” p. 464. 124 Peter Smithson, “Foreword,” in Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of life and art, London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, p. 7.
238 acceptable aesthetic. Through Paolozzi taking mass media images “seriously”125 the Smithsons were able to address issues present in post World War II British culture and translate them into some of their urban designs.
For Scott Brown and Venturi, the British and American “pop” artists were of importance to their argument for engaging with issues in popular culture such as consumption and popular landscapes. The “coupling” employed representation techniques used by the British “pop” artist, Richard Hamilton in their 1976 exhibition, Signs of life. They adopted photographic techniques used by the West coast American “pop” artist, Edward Ruscha in their study of Las Vegas and included them as evidence in Learning from Las Vegas. The slide collection by Denise and Robert Scott Brown of popular landscapes initiated the acquiring of visual evidence that was extended in seminal texts which argued that popular landscapes such as Main street were “almost all right.”126
Images sourced from architectural history – both Modern and pre-Modern – were also seminal in Scott Brown and Venturi’s campaigns. In Complexity and contradiction in architecture, Venturi was able to represent history, in Alan Colquhoun’s words, as “as a mere reservoir of examples.”127 This allowed examples of architecture to be analysed outside of their historical framework in a new light for formal and symbolic analysis. The compilation of images of Venturi’s “favorite buildings” allowed him to formulate his theories. Venturi states: “… Someone once said, accusingly, that Complexity and contradiction in architecture was really a compilation of favorite buildings that I put together and made a theory out of. I think there is a lot in that, but it is not necessarily a criticism.”128
For OMA, the paintings produced independently and in association with Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp can not be understated in their contribution to the political campaign of Zenghelis and Koolhaas. Zenghelis describes their “fighting with drawings” in his essay, “Drawing as technique and architecture.”129 In “The second chance of modern architecture: interview with Rem Koolhaas,” Koolhaas explains his political motives in using the mythical style paintings because they were
125 David Robbins ed., The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty, p. 94. 126 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, p. 104. 127 Alan Colquhoun, “Sign and substance: reflections on complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin,” Oppositions, 14 (Fall 1978): 27. 128 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” p.12. 129 Elia Zenghelis, “Drawing as technique and architecture,” in OMA, OMA: Projects 1978- 1981, p. 9.
239 highly unconventional at the time.130 Not only this, the theoretical “Manhattan projects” represented in the paintings paralleled the drawings produced by artists such as Hugh Ferriss for the entrepreneurial architects Koolhaas praises in Delirious New York. The use of postcard images also plays a significant role in the campaign to promote the metropolitan skyscraper. Those included in Delirious New York were sourced by Koolhaas and Vriesendorp through their involvement in the Metropolitan Postcard Collector’s Club. Hadid’s contribution to producing drawings for the Dutch houses of Parliament also deserves acknowledgement.
The role of the critic in the architectural academy is described by Scott Brown as “the scribe, historian, and kingmaker for a particular group… His other satisfaction comes from making history in his and their image.”131 In all three historical studies, like-minded critics, journalists or “pop” writers contribute to the shift by the previously excluded architectural “coupling” to being recognised by the establishment.
Aside from the Smithsons themselves, Banham and Crosby both promoted the couple’s theories and work which were included in numerous journals but which appeared most in Architectural Design during the time that Crosby was its editor. This is supported by Banham’s comment that “The Smithsons had been contributing statements and letters on The New Brutalism to the English architectural magazines ever since the publication of their projected house in Soho... Although these miscellaneous literary activities had contributed some resounding rhetorical phrases… there had been no extended statement of aims and orientation until the effects of a change in the editorial staff of ‘Architectural Design’… Theo Crosby, who had been associated with the Smithsons and friends of theirs, such as Edouardo (sic) Paolozzi, joined the staff of ‘Architectural Design’, and was able to swing the magazine’s policy … none profited better than the Smithsons.”132 Banham also promoted the Smithsons and named them in association with their other friends in his book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or aesthetic?
Scully and Wolfe both contribute to promoting Venturi. Scully’s support and promotion of Complexity and contradiction in architecture are perhaps recognised most by Venturi himself who states when acknowledging “outside influences” on his career; “Vincent Scully of Yale, friend and respected scholar and critic, who
130 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 3. 131 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 242. 132 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: ethic or aesthetic? p. 45.
240 appreciated that first book and our work back when to others in the establishment I was either out or outré.”133 Scully’s association of Venturi’s name with the modern master, Le Corbusier allows the possibility that Venturi be regarded seriously by the academy. To a lesser degree than Scully, Wolfe commends Venturi for taking popular landscapes “seriously” in his essay, “Electrographic Architecture.”134
Eisenman and Frampton are two critics who contribute to the early OMA partners receiving recognition. Eisenman’s decision to award the Spear house the Progressive Architecture award and to publish the design on the cover of the January 1975 issue of the journal marks the first early recognition. Frampton’s interest in promoting the early OMA’s pursuit of Constructivism in architecture allows them public acknowledgement.
While all three architects act as their own publicists by writing texts which promote their theories, when outside critics support the texts, the possible chain of support from other like-minded friends, now readers of the seminal texts, is begun. Also worth noting is the relevance of Scott Brown’s earlier point that the critic’s “satisfaction comes from making history in his and their image.”135 That the critic reaffirms their own image is reminiscent again of Cicero’s comment that friends are exemplars or portraits of one another. Banham and Crosby are strong advocates for engaging with popular culture. Venturi was in fact attracted to Scully’s book, The Shingle style: architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of Wright during his residency in Rome and the affinity for the local style, with all of its contradictions is returned through Complexity and contradiction in architecture.136 Wolfe, Venturi and Scott Brown share an admiration for popular electrographic architecture and are happy to learn from the “pop” artists and landscape. Frampton shares Zenghelis and Koolhaas’s admiration of Constructivist architecture and promotes the early (and late) OMA, in association to such.
133 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p.100. 134 Tom Wolfe, Endnote 3, “Electrographic architecture,” Architectural Design (July 1969): 382. 135 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 242. 136 Vincent Scully, The Shingle style: architectural theory and design from Richardson to the origins of Wright, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955.
241 The ethics of friends
“Well it would have been nice to have been acknowledged.”137
From the three historical rewritings, it appears that the history of modern architecture at the public level is a cycle of one group of excluded friends overthrowing a dominant enemy body which disallows or ignores their ethics. Typically, the “primary” friends and their friend-networks all share a similar ethical framework. These alternative values of the dissident friends are a reaction to the existing set of values held by the dominant establishment but also redefine the “laws” and morality of “suitable” architectural practice for that group of friends. There are three fields in which the architectural “couplings” modify some or all of the following ethics: rules for architectural and urban design; aesthetics; and the commitment of architects towards causing societal change.
The friendship and friendships of Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson in the IG and Team X exemplify how the group of friends usurp CIAM whose urban design ethics defined in the “Athens Charter” are deemed no longer “suitable” by the group in the Post World War II period because they are perceived to be harmful. The challenge made by the Smithsons to defining “suitable” architectural aesthetics appears in their acceptance of “found” landscape such as streetscapes or backyards as sources. This contestation of aesthetic parameters begins in their “Group 6” exhibition, Parallel of Life and Art, in which objects or scenes previously considered ordinary are made extraordinary. The Smithsons comply with the early modern architects’ campaign towards the betterment of society.
Scott Brown, Venturi and their network of friends react against the ethics taught in America by the “orthodox modern” architects in the academy. These ethics defined in European minimalist philosophy are deemed no longer “suitable” by the younger group of friends because they neglect popular American landscapes. Scott Brown and Venturi contest the aesthetic parameters set by the “orthodox Modernists” so as to promote aesthetic complexity rather than simplicity; decoration and symbolism rather than
137 Denise Scott Brown in Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 129.
242 minimalism; “popular” commercial landscapes rather than architecturally designed landscapes; and building and urban conservation rather than Modernist tabula rasa philosophy. In John F. Pile’s words, “Venturi makes a full scale assault on these doctrines of what is “good” and suggests that it is the distortion, the confusion and the downright “error” that is the most precious part of innumerable great designs. His position might be summed up as “bad is good”.”138 Scott Brown and Venturi argue that architects should be socially responsible by becoming more inclusive, rather than exclusive, thereby incorporating difference. Fred Koetter questions the social morality set out in Learning from Las Vegas in his contentious review of the book.139
The friendship of Zenghelis and Koolhaas and their early OMA friendships illustrate how the group usurps the European establishments whose ethics defined around humanist philosophy are no longer “suitable” to their interest in the metropolitan condition. Koolhaas’ Delirious New York promotes the virtues of the modern urban project; in particular, the book renews regard towards the skyscraper and the metropolis. The aesthetics of popular Manhattan skyscrapers are promoted as “good”, inspired by the experimental modern skyscrapers by select Constructivists. By valuing the skyscraper designs by entrepreneurial rather than socially motivated architects, the architectural ethics promoted by the establishment are brought into question and are redefined so that collaborating with “big business” is no longer immoral.
The changes made incrementally by the architects to architectural and urban “laws” in regards to design; aesthetics and moral obligations keep pace with cultural changes taking place. For instance, as cultural obligations towards the need to be perfect, ideal or right are challenged and modified, so do the institutional “laws” promoted by the architectural establishment. One consequence of this cultural development is the incremental shift by all three groups of friends towards engaging with a market economy, permitting practitioners to more freely collaborate with business, so as to not lose their efficacy. In all three instances, the subversive architects make the changes for the betterment of the architectural fraternity.
138 John F. Pile, “Review of Complexity and contradiction in architecture,” p. 24. 139 Fred Koetter, “On Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas,” Oppositions, 3 (May 1974): 98-104.
243 Apparent in the sequence of the three histories is that ethics held by the architectural establishment are temporary values reflective of the ethics of that particular group of friends in authority as spokespeople of the time. Concomitant with this is that ethics in architectural philosophy are always susceptible to change by a group of friends who subvert the authority of others whose values they find “unsuitable”. Subversion takes place because the philosophies espoused by the previous establishment which at that time appeared “good”, with the shift in time convert to being “harmful” to the community and/or architectural profession. What previously appeared ‘harmful” or “bad” can emerge as “good” for society and the profession. Of most significance from this, is that what is “good” or “bad” practice is only ever the consequence of those friends in authority as representatives of that time.
Heidegger’s concept of “truth” as aletheia as “unconcealedness” is relevant in regards to this practice of determining what is “good’ or “bad” in architectural philosophy and practice.140 The ethical “truths” espoused by the three architectural partnerships set the “truths” in the world as they see them at that time. Concealing versus unconcealing, or not seeing versus seeing aspects of the landscape, is therefore fundamental to the process of subverting their architectural establishment enemies.
Learning from the landscape
“Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary for an architect. Not the obvious way, which is to tear down Paris and begin again, as Le Corbusier suggested in the 1920s, but another way which is more tolerant: that is to question how we look at things.”141
The physical act of how we look at things – of seeing or not seeing – emerges in both the literary and visual languages used by the subversive architects. In the case of the latter, the architectural “couplings” can see and appreciate previously ignored existing landscapes either independently or be brought to
140 Martin Heidegger, “The origin of the work of art,” p. 36. 141 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in Jim Quinn, “Dumb is beautiful,” Philadelphia Magazine (October 1976): 156.
244 see them by their accomplice or through the eyes of a friend from an outside discipline. Friends see things which enemies are unable to see. When other potential friends allow themselves to see – or in Hilde Heynen’s words are “sufficiently open and receptive”142 – the friendly community begins to build.
Henderson’s photography is credited to have helped the Smithsons see what was really occurring in the 1950s in Britain. Henderson’s photography captured “the story of rejection in a society…”143 and revealed its brutal beauty. Alison Smithson writes “In the early ‘fifties the things thrown away by our own culture… were transformed in the images made by… Henderson, whose vision through the camera lens made us look differently, and at least twice, at every old door, boot or rusty nail.”144 Scott Brown suggests that Gans’s course at the University of Pennsylvania allowed her to see urbanism differently; “As much as Le Corbusier he cried against eyes which did not see, but the eyes were those of architects and urban planners and what they did not see was social reality.”145 Venturi admits to learning of the Las Vegas landscape, in his own words, “through the eyes of Denise.”146
All of the architects see, reveal and promote different landscapes to argue against the values of the establishment when they publish polemical texts. For this reason, theories found in the texts are evidenced by visual images provided by the architects themselves or their friends. Graphics are an integral part of publicising subversive values. Allowing others to the see that the landscapes are “almost all right”, when previously the landscapes were either ignored or disliked, is a common feature of all three subversions of the establishment. The Smithsons allow ordinary working class streetscapes and expose the virtues of backyards in Bethnal Green to incite architectural change. Scott Brown and Venturi reveal the virtues of complex and contradictory Mannerist architecture, American popular landscapes, suburbia and Main Street and suggest that they are “all right” sources for architects. Venturi writes“… Is not Main Street almost all right? Indeed, is not the
142 Hilde Heynen, “Architecture facing modernity,” Architecture and modernity, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999; 2nd edition; p. 16. 143 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The Shift,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, p. 9. 144 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The Shift,” in Alison and Peter Smithson, Alison + Peter Smithson: the shift, p. 9. 145 Denise Scott Brown, “Between three stools: a personal view of urban design pedagogy,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, p. 10. 146 Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 101.
245 commercial strip of a Route 66 almost all right? ... Illustrations in God’s Own Junkyard of Times Square and roadtown are compared with illustrations of New England villages and arcadian countrysides. But the pictures in this book that are supposed to be bad are often good.”147 By suggesting a previously “bad” landscape might be “all right” Venturi questions Blake’s aesthetic judgments made in his book. Venturi’s campaign to look at these popular landscapes differently is accepted by Blake himself who confesses to not to have seen because of his blindness. Blake writes, “But we were totally blind, myself specifically included, in our attacks on what we called “visual pollution”. I even wrote a book which I called God’s Own Junkyard, and I became, overnight, the darling of all those little old ladies in tennis shoes who run our garden clubs and our beautification societies. My God – how blind I was! ... As so often before, it took the painters and the sculptors to open our eyes for us…”148 Zenghelis and Koolhaas expose the virtues of the Berlin wall as a renewed belief in “Less is more” and reveal the renewed beauty of the modern skyscraper and the metropolis through the example of Manhattan. In all three architectural campaigns, the majority of the landscapes used as evidence are all complex, impure, brutal and “found.” They are examples of what Scott Brown describes as “real” urbanism;149 of what “is” rather than what “ought” to be and signify the presence of scenes which the academy has overlooked but which are present.
In feeling “overlooked” themselves, the architects elect to promote landscapes which have been overlooked. This is best demonstrated by Scott Brown and Venturi’s interest in urban paralipomena - “things that have been left out” – inspired by Kriesis’s essay “Paralipomena in town planning.”150 In doing this, they create a new ethical space in the establishment which otherwise did not exist and a new space for themselves as different kinds of architects who have been present but not recognised. The ignored landscapes become the vehicle for the overlooked architects to shift from being outré to inside because their values are now taken seriously. All of this is made possible by the feeling held by the architectural partners that
147 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, p. 104. 148 Peter Blake, The New Forces: the Melbourne architectural papers, Melbourne, Victoria: Royal Australian Institute of Architects (Victoria), 1971, unpaginated. 149 Denise Scott Brown, “The rise and fall of community architecture,” in Denise Scott Brown, Andreas C. Papadakis ed., Urban concepts, pp. 31-32. 150 Paul Kriesis, “Paralipomena in town planning,” in Paul Kriesis, Three essays on town planning, 1, St. Louis: The School of Architecture, Washington University, May 1963, pp. 3- 34.
246 something outside might be alright, a sentiment which Venturi claims his mother prepared him for; to “feel almost all right as an outsider.”151
The urban landscapes provide factual evidence for the architectural friends which respond to their complaints with the establishment. Images of the real landscapes, as well as designs by the friends, are typically included in their polemical, subversive texts. In some instances, the real landscapes are taken directly out of the book of an enemy such as in the case of Venturi’s use of illustrations taken from Blake’s, God’s own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America’s landscape.152
Publishing names in the public sphere
“Everything in the political question of friendship seems to be suspended on the secret of a name. Will this name be published?”153
Writing a subversive text offers the author the opportunity to respond against or make a public complaint against an authority figure. In so doing, it presents the author the chance to name the names of enemies and/or friends. As a result, a new space in the profession is created through creating a new literary space which did not previously occur but which represents the architect themselves as another kind of architect. Through the politics publicly housed in the texts, the authors are offered the opportunity to make future friends and thereby gain fame and recognition for speaking out. Through the publicity of projects, the friends make an appeal, in Derrida’s words, “before another testimonial agency, from fact to law and from law to justice.”154
Speaking publicly of problems within the academy contradicts what usually takes place i.e. of keeping silent in friendship. It is perhaps precisely because the three “couplings” feel excluded by the academy that they feel capable to break silent
151 “Robert Venturi, “Response at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony,” p. 99. 152 Peter Blake, God’s own junkyard: the planned deterioration of America’s landscape, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, p. 33; first published in 1963. 153 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 77. 154 Jacques Derrida, “Foreword,” Politics of friendship, p. xi.
247 confidences held within it. Their books become markers of what Ernesto Rogers describes as “every revolutionary movement of thought that has come out of the secret period and become the public domain.”155
By voicing a complaint in literature in the “public domain”, books can respond to values expressed by their pedagogical enemies or in the promotional literature written by them. Nietzsche’s words apply in this instance; “I am the cook. Good teeth, strong stomach you will be! And once you have got down my book, You should get on with me.”156 If the reader is unable to “swallow” the values espoused by the (pedagogical) author, they can elect to write a book to develop theories exposed by their own group of friends in a one-sided attack on their enemy. Reference is made to Venturi’s inability to “stomach” arguments in God’s own junkyard.
In polemical texts, either the names of enemies or friends in association can be named as individuals or as a collective body. The books represent the evolution of ideas in parallel with the evolution of friendship groups. For the Smithsons, Team 10 primer names Team X’s enemy and makes public the names of the subversive Team X members as well as outline a range of contrary projects and philosophies created by the members. Complexity and contradiction in architecture complains about and names the philosophies of a number of modern masters’ works. It links Venturi’s name publicly with a range of pre-Modern and Modern architects through the inclusion and promotion of their projects in his book. It also publicises a selection of Venturi’s unbuilt and built architectural designs which contradict the dictums of “orthodox” Modernism. Sigrid H. Fowler describes Part II of Learning from Las Vegas as bringing “out the artillery” because it “names names and lays down the challenge.”157 In its original “Preface”, Scott Brown and Venturi name and acknowledge a range of other friends who contribute to the evolution of the theories outlined in the book. Unlike the other texts, in Delirious New York the names of enemies are kept secret. Rather than make direct complaint, Koolhaas promotes indirectly antithetical values in order to define his and the values of the early OMA friends. In his “Acknowledgements” in Delirious New York, Koolhaas recognises friends who in his words “have stimulated this book’s progress without, in any way,
155 Ernesto Rogers, “CIAM at the museum,” Casabella, 232 (1959): unpaginated. 156 Friedrich Nietzsche, “My Reader”, Rhyme no. 54 in “Joke, Cunning and Revenge: Prelude in German rhymes,” in Friedrich Nietzsche,The gay science, New York: Random House, 1974, Translation and commentary by Walter Kaufmann. 157 Sigrid H. Fowler, “Learning from Las Vegas by Venturi, Brown and Izenour: Architecture and the civic body,” Journal of Popular Culture, 7, 2 (1973): 428.
248 being responsible for its contents.”158 Of the many listed friends, he names, Eisenman, Spear, Ungers, Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Vriesendorp.
The published group name for friends can not only associate the friends to one another but can also represent their political motives. For instance, the Independent Group were a group of friends who were independent of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) establishment. In this instance, resentment is defined in the name. The political project of the early OMA, arguably promoting the metropolitan condition, makes a public association of the OMA group of friends with a campaign to resuscitate modern architecture. Similarly, the name of subversive campaigns can signify the intent to counter another campaign. For instance, the Smithsons state the origin of the phrase “New Brutalism” “was a spontaneous invention by A. M. S. as a word play counter-ploy to The Architectural Review’s ‘New Empiricism’… The brutal part was taken from an English newspaper cutting which gave a translation from a French paper of a Marseilles official’s attack on the Unite in construction, which described the building as ‘brutal’.”159 The name of their subversive movement makes nomenclatural association to Le Corbusier’s architecture.
When one group of friends in authority is usurped by another, the published names signify the new friendships. For instance, once the need to change the name of CIAM is agreed, discussions take place between members. The rejection of the suggestion the new name of the group be CICON, “The word … derived from CIAM CONTINUITY…”160 exemplifies the need for the “youngers” to dissociate themselves from continuing to comply to the beliefs of the old CIAM guard. So as to ““make CIAM history” and start a new group with new specific aims” the Smithsons propose “a new name which reflects a new attitude…”161 They write, “Maybe it would be sufficient to call the new organisation simply “TEAM”. TEAM XI (Structure of Communities), TEAM XII (Domestic Equipment), A.S.O., each title reflecting a change of composition of the TEAM to suit changing objectives, which itself reflects our general attitude.”162 The new representative body replacing CIAM is named Team X marking the tenth meeting of CIAM where the idea of “one” CIAM losses
158 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, original edition, p.263. 159 Alison and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s bumper book on brutalism,” p. 1590. 160 “Formation of Cicon, Smithsons, 28 August, 1957,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 81. 161 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The future of C.I.A.M.,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 75. 162 Alison and Peter Smithson, “The future of C.I.A.M.,” in Alison Smithson ed., The emergence of Team 10 out of CIAM: documents, p. 75.
249 support. The names of Venturi’s architectural partnerships show his friendly associations over time. These change from Venturi, Cope and Lippincott (in partnership with Paul Cope and H. Mather Lippincott) to Venturi and Short (in partnership with William Short) to Venturi and Rauch (with John Rauch) to Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown to Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA). After the split of the early OMA, Zenghelis forms a new partnership, Eleni Gigantes, Gigantes Zenghelis architects (GZA) in which his name is marked in a new association. It is perhaps for the reason that a name defines a group of friends and their agenda, that Zenghelis expresses his surprise at Koolhaas’s continued use of the name OMA after the break-up of the early partnership. For Koolhaas, the public name of OMA does not remain a static representation of what he describes as “a terminal identity.”163 Rather it shifts to become a brand made “variable” by the diverse, frequent and varied range of collaborations which Koolhaas elects to participate in.164 The stable name of OMA conceals the practice’s internal reengineering which allows the practice to keep pace with the rapid cultural changes taking place externally that impact on the architectural profession’s efficacy.
The production of polemical literature in modern architecture constructs a literary space in which the previously excluded architects can operate. All three political friendships redefine what is “suitable” and in so doing, find their place within the fraternal body. Koolhaas explains this succinctly when discussing why he wrote Delirious New York, “I wanted to construct – as a writer – a terrain where I could eventually work as an architect.”165 The explanation of writing in order to gain work is reiterated by Venturi who tells Eisenman: “Partly, I wrote the book out of frustration at not working.”166 The polemics expressed in subversive literature create a literary space for the values of a different kind of architect to take refuge or be housed and which is so doing, can initiate the formation of a bigger familial body.
The seminal texts by the architects provide a medium in which to make a call to a fraternity for future friends who are similarly dissatisfied with the establishment at the time. The texts are written in a call for non-violent rebellion by the fraternity and exemplify La Boetie’s plea: “Resolve to be slaves no more, and you are free! I am
163 Rem Koolhaas in Charles Jencks, “Branding – signs, symbols or something else? Charles Jencks in conversation with Rem Koolhaas [interview],” Architectural Design, 70, 6 (December 2000): 37. 164 Rem Koolhaas in Charles Jencks, “Branding – signs, symbols or something else?” p. 37. 165 Rem Koolhaas in Cynthia Davidson, “Rem Koolhaas: Why I wrote Delirious New York and other textual strategies,” ANY: Architecture New York, 1, 0 (May-June 1993): 42. 166 Robert Venturi in Peter Eisenman, “Interview: Robert Venturi and Peter Eisenman,” p.12.
250 not asking you to push him out of your way, to topple him: just stop propping him up and, like a great colossus whose plinth has been taken from under him, he will crumble and be shattered under his own weight.”167 Complexity and contradiction in architecture asks architects to withdraw their support for “orthodox” modern architecture so as to cease the “intimidation.”168 Delirious New York participates in a similar emancipation from dominating humanist values which Koolhaas describes as “a kind of shedding of the shackles…”169 By “swallowing” the content of a polemical text, as Nietzsche suggests, the reader can “get on with” the author. In this instance, the seminal architectural texts create a new space in which friendship can begin.
In the case of Team 10 primer, Complexity and contradiction in architecture and Learning from Las Vegas the texts provide new strategies with which to practice as an architect. Peter Cook notes that the Smithsons’ “writings and proclamations are directed towards other architects. Their loves and hates are directed inwards towards a principal activity that is really about extending the state of the art.”170 In “extending the state of the art”, the meaning of the word primer – “a prayer-book or devotional manual for the laity; a small introductory book … introducing or providing initial instruction in a particular subject, practice, etc” – is not unnoticed.171 But while Team 10 primer offers alternative strategies in which individual architects are intended to pursue their own directions, Scott Brown and Venturi’s texts are more prescriptive, although the authors claim this was never their intention. By proposing new ways in which architects can work, the histories show the importance polemical theorisation has on the way architects practice. Robert Maxwell describes this association as one of “words to deeds.”172 Confronted through theory, polemical texts expose problems experienced in practice in the now changed times and allow the academy to regenerate accordingly. Subversive ideas housed in books have the potential to “illuminate” hope and fortune for the friends to become recognised figureheads for a new generation of architects.
By warring publicly, the weak unrecognised architects develop the capacity to “convert” to the strong recognised architects through publishing their names in the public domain. But not only do the authors gain figurehead status, so do the friends
167 Estienne de la Boetie, Slaves by choice, p. 44. 168 Robert Venturi, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, 1983 edition, p. 16. 169 Rem Koolhaas in Grant Marani et al., “The pleasures of architecture conference, 1980: the interviews,” p. 15. 170 Peter Cook, “Time and contemplation: regarding the Smithsons,” p. 39 171 Lesley Brown ed., The new shorter Oxford English dictionary, 2, p. 2353. 172 Robert Maxwell, “Truth without rhetoric: ‘The new softly smiling face of our discipline’,” AA files, 28 (Autumn 1994): 4.
251 named in the books. For instance, in Koolhaas’s Delirious New York, the publicised friends whose work is taken seriously in the book, not only include his contemporaries but include the “shrewd” opportunist architects in Manhattan in the 1920s who are transformed, in Richard Munday’s words, into the new “heroes of Koolhaas’s New York.”173
While friendship partnerships between men and women allow divisions between gender to diminish, since it is “suitable” values rather than gender that dictate appropriateness, this does not always lead to both partners receiving equal recognition for their literary contribution. In the case of the female/male “couplings”, both partners are enabled and provided the opportunity to be recognised through the partnership. When speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright’s partnership with Olgivanna Milanov, Scott Brown asks “why brilliant women of her generation shone through their husbands rather than in their own light.”174 Scott Brown complains of receiving less recognition for her literary contribution than Venturi. The preference for architects to select a male/father figure rather than a female/mother figure is discussed by Scott Brown; “I suspect… that for male architects the guru must be male. There can be no Mom and Pop gurus in architecture.”175 Scott Brown’s theory may be supported by Derrida’s study of male-male versus male-female friendships which outlines that women have traditionally been excluded from fraternal (brother- brother) friendships since the ancient schools contend that honour is passed on from the father to the son rather than the daughter. One explanation for Scott Brown’s lack of acknowledgment which may shed light on why, as she states, “It has even been suggested that the articles I wrote were in fact written by Bob using my name”,176 is that Venturi received his honour before her. His name was published before being published in association with hers. But when the question of why Alison Smithson receives equal recognition for her contribution in collaboration with Peter Smithson, Scott Brown answers “That was in England” although the interviewers, William Braham and Louise Harpman, suggest “with the Smithsons, she took his name and perhaps that had some effect.”177
173 Richard Munday, “Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto of New York [book review],” Transition, 1, 4 (October 1980): 47. 174 Denise Scott Brown, “A worm’s eye view of recent architectural history,” p. 81. 175 Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the top? Sexism and the star system in architecture,” p. 241. Refer Maralyn Lois Polak, “Architect for pop culture [Interview: Denise Scott Brown],” Philadelphia Inquirer, (Today Magazine) (8 June1975): 8. 176 Denise Scott Brown, Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 130. 177 Denise Scott Brown in William Braham and Louise Harpman, “Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi [interview],” Practices, 5-6 (1997): 13.
252 As an aside on this topic, Scott Brown states; “It’s interesting to consider what would have happened had Bob and I both been men. Greene & Greene have an identity as two men… It’s hard to tell. I think if I were a man, things may have been different but I can’t say that for sure….”178 In the male-male “coupling” of Zenghelis and Koolhaas, with the issue of gender dropped, it is noteworthy that the more public figure, Koolhaas, takes on the figurehead status in the partnership, with the less publicised figure, Zenghelis, barely named in Delirious New York and concealed in the “coupling”.
The timeliness of “primary” subversive friendship campaigns is a key factor in this transition and perhaps relates to Derrida’s point about “luck” because it is within a certain cultural context that the campaigns of friends receive support – the need for change already felt by the wider architectural fraternity. Seminal architectural texts are socially timed crusades. This appears “true” because even if others are working in the similar field of subversive criticism at the same time, the publication of a book seals the intellectual contribution of the named architectural friends.
From the study, the history of modern architecture appears to be a cycle of finding a new place for a different kind of architect made possible by constructing a literary space first, in which the architect may exist. The method of collaborating on a subversive text appears to be one important means by which architects can have their ethics recognised and be acknowledged as “new” leaders in the profession. Also, these spokespeople for a new generation of the profession can become such through their association and lineage to the names of other respected forefathers whose demise from authority is made public.
The death of friends
“Our reflection on friendship, where it will have intersected the political thing [la chose politique], will regularly pass through this moment of political mourning.”179
Whether the warring takes place in person or through projects which the architectural friends collaborate on to produce, the historical rewriting undertaken in
178 Denise Scott Brown, Phillipe Barriere and Sylvia Lavin, “Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi,” p. 130. 179 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 103.
253 this thesis identifies the aftermath of architectural warring involves mourning the death of the political enemy. The “funeral oration… the discourse of mourning”180 – as Derrida refers to it – appears in the architectural histories as the rhetoric of sedition by the enemy themselves or by their subversive brothers. Aside from these confirmations of the death of an architectural oligarchic enemy, is a call by some of the subversive architects themselves to be overthrown or to mourn their own death. The “funeral orations” listed chronologically begin with the death of CIAM; the death of Team X; the death of “orthodox” Modernism in America; the demise of Venturi as a figurehead in the profession and the death of post-Modernist architectural philosophy; the death of the European post-humanist philosophy; and the death of early OMA.
Le Corbusier’s “Letter to CIAM 10, Dubrovnik” contains an explicit “funeral oration” acknowledging the death of CIAM and the death of the authority of its founders. There is obvious irony in that the enemy’s leader, Le Corbusier, undertakes his own mourning. He relinquishes authority stating, “It is … those then unborn, now 25 years old… – thus finding themselves in the heart of the present period the only ones capable of feeling actual problems, personally, profoundly, the goals to follow, the means to reach them, the pathetic urgency of the present situation. They are in the know. Their predecessors no longer are, they are out, they are no longer subject to the direct impact of the situation.”181 Two other “funeral orations” by van Eyck and Rogers are presented at the Otterlo CIAM conference. Van Eyck’s essay, “The story of an other idea,”182 summarises the agreed reasons for CIAM’s dissolution. Rogers’s essay, “CIAM at the museum,” 183 is “a personal farewell to the corpse of the beloved.”184 Rogers laments the death of CIAM because he feels, rather than terminate the organisation, it should renew itself.185 Regardless of such, the death of CIAM is received at the Otterlo conference “with comparative calm.”186
In “Team 10 is history,” Alison Smithson explains the reason for Team X’s termination was its “loss of momentum” towards “the ‘ideated’ extension of the
180 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 103. 181 “Le Corbusier, Letter to CIAM 10, Dubrovnik,” in Oscar Newman ed., New frontiers in architecture: CIAM ’59 in Otterlo, p. 16. 182 Aldo van Eyck, “Het Verhaal van een Andere Gedachte,” and “The story of an other idea,” Forum (Dutch), 7 (1959) 183 Ernesto Rogers, “CIAM at the museum,” unpaginated. 184 Unknown, “CIAM: resurrection move fails at Otterloo (sic),” Architectural Review (March 1960): 79. 185 The historical rewriting reveals this does happen. 186 Reyner Banham, “CIAM,” in Vittorio Lampugnani and Barry Bergdoll eds., The Thames and Hudson encyclopaedia of 20th-century architecture, p. 70.
254 Modern Movement; a loss of certain architectural energies; a loss of fibre in the threads of connection to those grandfathers who took the ‘jump’ as inventors of the Modern Movement.”187 The eventual decision in Lisbon to terminate Team X in November 1981 came about “as a tribute” to the death of Bakema.188 Aside from Bakema’s death, John Voelcker died in September, 1972; Shad Woods on 31 July, 1973; Bill Howell in December, 1973 and Coderch on 5 November, 1984. With the death of “half” of the Team X friends came the end of the Team X family.189
Venturi makes a call for the fraternity to relinquish their support for “orthodox” Modernism in America in Complexity and contradiction in architecture because it ignores complexity. While there is no explicit “funeral oration” because Venturi argues that all kinds of architecture should be allowed, through his claim that times have changed, he undermines the perpetuity of a solely Modernist aesthetic being followed.
Venturi makes a call for his own demise as a figurehead for the profession in an interview with Jim Quinn in October, 1976, four years after Learning from Las Vegas is first published. He states, “I know the fate of most revolutionaries – you get successful and old-fashioned, and pretty soon new revolutionaries are revolting against you. I don’t usually look forward to that. But sometimes I wish it would hurry up and happen.”190 The battle “fought” by Scott Brown and Venturi with the American establishment ends with the admission that their subversive critiques of the Modernists simplicity were in fact substantiated in Learning from Las Vegas. Scott Brown explains, “In another sense, the modernists have won. What we recognize is that the shed we so often work with is essentially a modern building.”191
The end of the early OMA’s subversive campaign against anti-progressive Modernism is marked by their decision to shift from producing speculative to real projects. Zenghelis refers to the fight which took place through the drawings of the Manhattan projects included in Delirious New York. He confirms the end of “a war” in which OMA “fought” for the modern writing, “In 1975 we turned our attention to
187 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smithson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 15. 188 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smtihson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 34. 189 Alison Smithson, “The beginning of Team 10,” in Alison Smtihson ed., Team 10 meetings: 1953-1984, p. 15. 190 Robert Venturi in Jim Quinn, “Dumb is beautiful,” p.190. 191 Denise Scott Brown in James Russell, “VSBA today [Interview],”Architectural Record, 186, 2 (February 1998): 252.
255 competitions, as through them we saw the opportunity of realising the lessons we were drawing from our earlier self-initiated and imaginary projects… We also saw no reason to go on fighting with drawings a war that was already over.”192
Many commentators make public the death of the early OMA partnership. Of the couple, Zenghelis speaks candidly of it. He explains that it was the inability of him and Koolhaas to redefine the new OMA which sealed its death.193 But within the cycle of the symbolic death of oligarchies or their figureheads is a cycle associated with the death of the “modern project”.
The death of the “modern project”
The fundamental “movement of friendship” in all three of the historical rewritings evolves around the “modern project” and affiliations to its continuity. For the Smithsons, while they contend the “modern project” must remain alive, they are involved in the symbolic “killing off” of the enemy, CIAM. Scott Brown and Venturi’s architectural campaign in the 1960s and 1970s is recognised by the academy for its success in “killing off” “orthodox” American Modernism. Zenghelis describes the climate at that time; “…The City was then what everybody wanted to amputate and run away from.”194 In the 1970s, early OMA “fight for the modern”195 and resuscitate the “modern project”. They turn to the American metropolis as evidence to argue that the modern European city need not represent “one” ideology but rather multiple diverse architectural identities. In the Manhattan projects, the American metropolis appears in association with early OMA who either afloat – on their version of (Jean-Louis-André-) Théodore Géricault’s Raft of Medusa – or swimming – with their friends, the Constructivists – move towards the city to learn from it, so as to rescue the “modern project”.
While the Smithsons and Scott Brown and Venturi compromise the ideology of the “modern project” by bringing to the surface humanist agendas, early
192 Elia Zenghelis, “Drawing as technique and architecture,” in OMA, OMA: Projects 1978- 1981, p. 9. 193 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 126. 194 Elia Zenghelis in Yannis Aesopos and Yorgos Simeoforides, “Conversations with Eleni Gigantes & Elia Zenghelis,” p. 125. 195 Rem Koolhaas in Patrice Goulet, “The second chance of modern architecture,” p. 4.
256 OMA reinstates the “modern project” on the basis that it can internally house complexity and difference. In the historical cycle of friendship partnerships, the “modern project” shifts from friend to enemy, enemy to friend and so on. The “modern project” is surfaced or concealed according to what the friends deem is “suitable” for the time and for them personally. Scott Brown states, “The argument is no longer simply low-rise v high-rise, suburban sprawl v megastructure or even ‘anonymous’ architecture v Georgian (or other) styling. Rather there is no longer an argument. Some battles don’t end, the ground merely shifts and they become irrelevant.”196
While the “modern project” is seen by the academy to be either alive or dead according to what suits the ideology of the architects in power or contesting power, it is never fully terminated, since the architects have their own genealogy invested in it. In Koolhaas’s words, “…rebuttal doesn’t lead to death.”197
Scott Brown, in outlining the cycle of history in modern architecture describes the situation: “By 1978 Modernism was dead and by 1987 post Modernism was dead, although supporters of both movements claimed reports of their deaths were exaggerated.”198 It is on this point of exaggerating the death of versions of the “modern project” that Zenghelis and Koolhaas criticise the academy. Different groups of friends will always reconstruct or deconstruct versions of Modernism which suit their own politics. Architectural battles in the academy are therefore only moments in which the academy can, in Koolhaas’s words, “reengineer” itself to suit the cultural milieu at the time.199
Present within the institution of architecture is this recurring potential for antagonism, which revolves around reengineering the “modern project” as a friend or enemy in cyclical succession achieved through alternative interdisciplinary perspectives. Derrida suggests that political fraternisation relies on the recurring principle that brothers “dream of demise.”200 He writes
196 Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “Learning from Lutyens,” p. 353. 197 Rem Koolhaas in George Baird, “Rem Koolhaas in conversation with George Baird [interview],” GSD News/Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, (Summer 1996): 50. 198 Denise Scott Brown, “Another battlefield of the styles in architecture,” in D. C., “Looking for the future into the immediate past,” Architecture, 76, 5 (May 1987): 116. 199 The term “reengineering” is used by Rem Koolhaas in Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” Assemblage, 40 (December 1999): 41. 200 Jacques Derrida, “Foreword,” Politics of friendship, p. ix.
257 “This demise continues endlessly to haunt its principle. At the centre of the principle, always, the One does violence to itself, and guards itself against the other.”201
The reengineering of the “modern project” occurs through the reengineering of collaborative architectural partnerships. For instance, Koolhaas reengineers himself through new groups of friends via short, specific collaborations. This flexibility allows him to hold an “autonomous” position within the academy. Sarah Whiting refers to Koolhaas’s ability to re-invent himself within the profession of architecture. She describes Koolhaas’s method; “Each invasion has been almost-repetitious, almost-unique, forming a progressive loop-de-loop that multiplies, twists back on itself, and then extends outward again, never in quite the same direction.”202 An explanation for this may be Koolhaas’s continual resistance towards architecture. In 1989, 21 years after entering the profession, he states, “…I still don’t feel very deeply that I’m an architect, because besides my great interest in architecture, I also feel an incredible resistance against architecture.”203
The institution of modern architecture and a cycle of friendship and warring
“It is said that Aristotle subscribed and spoke in unison with the sages… Like them, he believed the cause… of the institution… – hence the cause of the social and political bond, but also that of destruction… – is friendship on the one hand, war on the other.”204
The rewriting of the three portions of modern architectural history as a series of friendships “unconceals” the seminal role that friendship and warring play in regenerating the institution of architecture. It appears that warring between rival groups allows the institution of architecture to reconstruct itself. The cycle involves a
201 Jacques Derrida, Politics of Friendship, p. ix. 202 Sarah Whiting, “Spot check: a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Sarah Whiting,” p. 38. 203 Rem Koolhaas in Marta Cervello, “I’ve always been anxious with the standard typology of the average architect with a successful career,” Quaderns d’Arquitectura i urbanisme, 183 (October-December 1989): 82. 204 Jacques Derrida, Politics of friendship, p. 175.
258 minority of friends speaking on behalf of the architectural masses or fraternity and waging war against a larger body of establishment enemies. The selected friendship partnerships display their power to be “creatively destructive” and “destructively creative” .205 In the act of collaborating as friends against their authority figures, the subversive groups simultaneously destroy and renew the academy of architecture. They replace one oligarchic body with another. For the Smithsons, they replace CIAM with Team X. For Scott Brown and Venturi, they replace “orthodox” American Modernists with Post-Modernists; and for Zenghelis and Koolhaas, they replace European post-humanists with a reengineered version of modern urbanists.
Any morality suggesting the notion that public complaint and conflict within the architectural academy is counter-productive fails to acknowledge the fundamental role that friendship and warring play in reconstructing the architectural academy to suit the times. The publishing of theoretical literature has a crucial role in bringing about change to institutional values. The act of theorising, of writing subversive theories in architecture, is shown to be a fundamental vehicle by which other kinds of architecture and architectural friends can be included in the academy.
The evidence surfaced in this historical study reveals the systemic practices of friendship and warring, described by Aristotle. It explains one way in which the institution of architecture regenerates. In so doing, it reinforces a link between social and political operations in architecture. If this cycle of progress represents a dominant paradigm, the academy will never die because the attacks on it are only temporary. Now the question arises, what other systems exist by which the architectural academy might operate? Must heimlichkeit and unheimlichkeit always be present? More to the point, does the institution of architecture need to be a perpetually exclusive oligarchy in order to survive?
205 David Harvey, The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1989, p. 15.
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