Space-Espace-Escape: An Interview With Anne Troutman 70 EROS 71

erotic interiors—there was only one book SPACE- on him then—and initially I thought I would research his career. I was working with Tony Vidler at that time, and he suggested I look ESPACE- deeper into the history of eroticism and space. After a year of research, I chose to focus on the eighteenth-century French boudoir, a ESCAPE: unique and unexamined spatial type. The story of the boudoir—a space that came into existence specifically for female retreat in the AN aristocratic hôtel—led me back into the realm of relational space. SG When you say “relational space” what do you INTERVIEW mean? AT I wanted to understand the architectural and spatial dynamics of intimate experience— WITH ANNE of “felt space” in which structure, surface, and the play of light work together to create an experience of intimacy and connectedness. TROUTMAN But the phenomenal is extremely difficult to put into words. Gaston Bachelard did a Christie Pearson on behalf of Scapegoat Journal masterful literary job in The Poetics of Space. What started you on your journey into erotic However, I found that apart from Le Corbusier’s space? exuberant writings (on l’espace indicible and Anne Troutman I taught a design studio at so on), architectural history rarely captured in SCI-Arc for many years and at a certain point a satisfying way how the haptic and the visual became critical of the formal strategies being work together architecturally and spatially to used, so I began focusing my design studios produce intimate experience. Since my chosen on direct experience, assigning my students subject was the erotic space of the boudoir, I to build (and perform) in actual scale, in real decided to try to come up with a vocabulary time. Site-specific installation work wasn’t to describe how this space type worked. I common at the time—we were cutting into did a spatial and architectural analysis of walls at the school, appending structures to the boudoir but soon realized the underlying the building—barely avoiding being shut down experience I was trying to describe—the by the fire marshal! A couple of these studios I erotic—like space itself was not easily put into called Intimate Space—the idea was to explore words. Eros always exceeds Logos. The erotic how each individual might materially and experience of the boudoir certainly exceeded spatially express her or his relationship to the the methods by which its effect was created. world—to architecturally evoke how individuals Slowly my investigation into the construction navigate the space between self-within and of erotic space began to morph beyond the world-at-large. As an architect teaching studio boudoir into a theory of spatial dynamics—or Damenzimmer of the Müller House, by Adolph Loos and not a theoretician, I was operating mostly what I came to think of as spatial erotics—so (photo credit Anne Troutman) intuitively. Later, to deepen my understanding I coined the phrase “erotics of space.” The of the historical underpinnings of my intuitions boudoir as a space type kept unfolding... regarding how personal, intimate, and SG How did the boudoir start? relational space is constructed, I decided go to AT The boudoir was initially a transitional UCLA for a Masters in architectural history and space, a hesitation between rooms—not a cultural theory. I was aware of Carlo Mollino’s hallway (those didn’t yet exist)—but a tiny area

Christie Pearson / Anne Troutman SCAPEGOAT 9 Space-Espace-Escape: An Interview With Anne Troutman 72 EROS 73 with perhaps a cushioned seat, little more than There is also the way the aesthetics of the buildings the proportion and surface material Cedric Price’s Fun House, which was supposed to a threshold which allowed momentary escape space itself worked. It had to do with creating of a column make you feel the weight the be program-free and dynamic, although it has a from the incessant visibility of daily life. In the liminality. How did they create liminal space? column supports. Mies created an integrated, machine-like quality. It was only supposed to have aristocratic eighteenth-century hôtel, all the Flickering candlelight, the play of reflections deeply aesthetic, and dynamic spatiality you the program or activities that people created for rooms were public and organized enfilade: on the mirrored walls, yards and yards of soft can’t really pull apart. themselves. one opening onto another. The concept of voluptuous fabric, minimal furnishings, nature SG When you were talking before about a AT Great examples... individual privacy had barely come into being. itself or scenes from nature: all blended into language you could use around spatial erotics, SG I wonder about the role of the public when Hallways only appeared in the nineteenth- an atmosphere of intimacy and anticipation. you mentioned a few key points: program, you say the boudoir emerged from a building century bourgeois house. As the notion of The boudoir had this kind of oneiric or dream- dynamics, tactility, and integration. where every space was public. You may know privacy came to assert itself, a suite of smaller like quality from the beginning. AT Yes. The historic boudoir was program- that people would receive visitors in the toilet or rooms developed alongside and parallel to the Details aside, this feminine space was in matically flexible, visually dynamic, while in the bathtub, that these were not hidden public rooms. These were usually entered by essence a visually integrated, spatially dynamic, spatially integrated, tactile and haptic. In spaces. There was a degree of “publicness” in a door within a wall panel. Among those rooms and flexible space—a vocabulary that is the twentieth century this space type was everything that you did. How do spatial erotics there was a small sleeping area, a dressing particularly interesting in light of the features generalized over the entire house, and overt relate to the cultivation of private life? There’s room, toilet or bath area, and the boudoir. of high modernist architecture. Loos’s Müeller tactility was replaced by visual texture and the public and the private, and you need some The boudoir was usually located between the House of 1929, which actually had a boudoir, spatial integration; the boudoir effectively sort of relationship between them to activate it. sleeping and dressing areas—a connective is a wonderful example. Directly over the front transformed into an erotics of space. The Damenzimmer is not a windowless pod: it’s a space. The word boudoir likely came from door with views to both inside and outside SG So what does the “erotics of space” mean to place that oversees other rooms where you have the French bouder, meaning “to pout,” the entrances, the Damenzimmer was hidden you right now? visual and acoustic relationships to others. idea being that it was a space in which to in plain sight, poised between inside and AT We are in an era now when categories that AT Spatial erotics has to do with relational feel—to pout, to withdraw. It was a specifically out, where its occupant could observe while were being questioned in the last couple of space, as opposed to rooms, functions, and female space. Men had studies, but before unobserved—giving it a voyeuristic dimension. decades are being destroyed, or perhaps types. The dynamic and immersive boudoir the boudoir women didn’t have a space for Loos’s Raumplan, which is condensed in the just losing relevance. I think the historical created the illusion of unbounded space, a withdrawal, reading, or private conversation. Damenzimmer, is an integrated spatial system. boudoir has significance in this regard, in sense of release from reductive and defining In her boudoir, the lady of the house enjoyed Loos was a bridge figure between the Victorian that it broke out of historical strictures and roles of daily life. It was an erotic space, but informal time and intimate conversation, and modern eras. His very early interiors gave place to new social phenomena. Today, it also suggests an overall erotics of space… an escape from the formal, visible, official borrow from eighteenth-century boudoirs, are maybe an “incubator space” is an example. space—espace—escape… Maybe we could program of the day. Over time the boudoir covered with fabrics and furs, and were later to Incubators are spatially and programmatically think of the eighteenth-century boudoir morphed along with shifts in gender and be transformed, hardened, and flattened into indeterminate, flexible spaces—not only as a sort of trans-space? When we give up politics. During the French Revolution it continuous surfaces, highlighting the spatial as a marketplace of sorts (food for venture categorizing, we gain a sense of freedom and became associated with the illicit—the space dynamics of the Raumplan. A close study of capitalists) but as places of rendezvous in newfound clarity about what really matters. of rendezvous, sexual encounter, and deal the work of Le Corbusier, Mies, Charreau, Loos, which different disciplines are invited to cross- SG The boudoir was a space of freedom for a making—a place of feminine power. Where it and Mollino allowed me to begin to develop a fertilize! A corporate boudoir? particular group of aristocratic women that had survived in the nineteenth century, it changed theory of modernist spatial erotics—too much SG When you say incubator space, what exactly certain rules and modes of operation and roles again with the rise of the middle class and for this conversation but detailed in my essays interests you? to play. In every culture and every group you are the separation of the domestic function of and book. AT There are a lot in LA. They are spaces of going to have those rules and potential for a the bourgeois household, into more of a SG You see it in Mies’s collage drawings, creativity designed to encourage the cross- break. It would be interesting to study how to fantasy space. This was a more repressive era. this incredible ambition to bring together an fertilization of ideas. Incubators are, to borrow grow the space of freedom within a group while The couch, a view (garden or paintings), and extremely sensual palette with enigmatic, a term from Winnicott, pure “potential space.” still holding the group together. I wonder if things decorative furnishings and fabrics remained, abstracted forms, and that in itself is so They are usually repurposed warehouses on are going to get more erotic. Is a more erotic time but in place of the sexual rendezvous was the delightful. It’s almost like those collages present the outskirts of cities—transitional areas—and on the horizon? fantasy space of the written novel. Some of a big question mark to the viewer: how are we thus enjoy a certain freedom from definition AT People don’t really understand what can the furnishings and decorations were inspired going to reconcile these ambitions? and convention, at least compared with a be meant by erotic. Generally it’s associated by colonial exploits, mostly “oriental” in motif. AT The sensual and the abstract are not corporate headquarters on Wall Street. with the sexual, but it’s much more than that. So the boudoir had a history: from a place mutually exclusive. Like the carnal and the SG Within a capitalist framework... I believe that The erotic is a combination of the spiritual to withdraw, to seat of power, intimacy and spiritual, they are two sides of the same coin. MIT has a history similar to this by intentionally and the physical—both/and, never one thing or secrecy, and finally to the realm of fantasy. Mies made space itself palpable in the same mixing people up from different departments in another. Are we entering a more erotic time? A That’s the social and programmatic part. way you’re describing his collages. In his order to generate new ideas. Also, I think about resounding YES. Globalization has forced us to

Christie Pearson / Anne Troutman SCAPEGOAT 9 Space-Espace-Escape: An Interview With Anne Troutman 74 EROS 75

change. Think back to the myth of Psyche and Wouldn’t he utterly reject architecture? He today is “why does everybody have to work?” flexible boundaries. I don’t know how that fits Eros—the relationship of human and divine. would create violence, take that tension and Work doesn’t make sense. There is not enough in with the corporate culture that America When Eros came to Psyche in the dark of night make violence out of it perhaps. I don’t think to do. has adopted now. Meanwhile, we have the very they fell in love, but it turns out that love can that he could tolerate any kind of real form- SG I wonder what the people of Greece and local issue of guiding our children back to only exist in the dark. But when she becomes making. Do you? I’m not sure. His purpose was Germany would say about that right now... their bodies, which are being harnessed curious to see her mysterious lover, and holds to undo. I explored the topic of the informe AT What exactly are they proposing in by corporate culture. Pretty soon we’re going up the lamp to see him, their relationship is in in my essay Blur Buildings and Space That luxurycommunism? to be a little chip. We are terrified of losing our destroyed. We don’t need to see everything Obliterates. SG It’s connected to the Plan C people in bodies, our human nature. defined in bright light. We need to experience SG He also talks about bringing things to the England. I think they are saying could we have a love and not analyze all the time. This is what edge. Without some kind of edge that separates communist-inflected revision of society based makes this subject extremely difficult to talk us from the abyss, there is no speculation about on egalitarian sharing, but also based on the about. I wonder how this relates to the iPhone the abyss. We are simply reabsorbed into the distribution of pleasure, beauty and wealth, rather and virtual reality, this amazing opportunity to totality of matter through death. than work. It’s opposed to capitalist hierarchy live in transitional, relational, virtual space all AT Maybe his edge is like the edge of a knife. and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the time. What happens when we are confronted with the few, but also in opposition to an egalitarian SG And the role played by fantasy as well… VR is the edge of a knife? We are thrust back into minimalism where everyone has to suffer equally full of fantasy. There is some kind of tension that our survival instincts, and that would be due to limited resources, or a scarcity model of needs to be held in the separation between that precisely what he would want. He involutes the economics. Delicious everything for everybody, or fantasy realm and your daily life. symbolic. He is a master of the id. whatever you want. AT Your body! SG My best guess is that it would be more of AT Well, some people’s luxuries are other SG There’s a tension between the mind and body a ritual, like an architecture-supported ritual people’s poverty. I just read an article about in this culture… of bringing people to the knife’s edge and an the removal of the nomads from the remote AT … and they’re always in relation. apprehension of the abyss. You don’t have access lands of western China. China has embarked SG In terms of the production of sexual identity, to that at every moment. Maybe it would be a on a campaign to essentially incarcerate them. there’s something there in the construction of project for reminding people or bringing people They’ve paid these people a nominal sum eros and the articulation of distinct groups who close to that in an event that had the power to to live in concrete bunkers they call towns, are going to symbolically hold these different shock. and the people, robbed of their so-called qualities and maintain separateness and AT That’s where installation and performance “primitive” way of life, have nothing but a few tension within the society. Other freedoms, the is more effective, perhaps, than architecture bucks, a TV, an electric stove, and a couch. freedom to create other kinds of tensions and could ever be in doing what you described. Is this luxurycommunism? It’s a nightmare. relationships and the realm of play that opens Think about Marina Abramović’s well-known Some of these people are killing themselves, up when you pause that script is very exciting. performance where you have to squeeze starving. Yet China is claiming they are better There are other kinds of tension and articulation. between two naked people to get to the next off in these “improved” shelters. Nature and To present yourself in an ambiguous way creates room, inside a museum with white walls where freedom is the ultimate luxury for many of a tension in the mind of the beholder who is everything is objectified. To place two human these people... not a stove and a TV. Breathing trying to figure out your identity, your mystery. bodies in a narrow doorway and then ask the clean air, drinking clean water, and seeing the This relates to Mary Douglas’s definition of the viewer to walk between them, unavoidably sunrise and the moonrise—there is perhaps no sacred/profane as being neither/nor. touching them, to get into the next room. That greater luxury than that freedom of movement. AT You just described two sides of one coin. was a performance of the boudoir: threshold, Luxury is not a cellphone-for-everyone… SG And absolute freedom? the body, touch… you have to press through. SG Freedom of movement is a luxury right now. AT That’s the informe. If you take it SG That example conjures a huge amount of Maybe in the future after that revolution, nobody architecturally you end up with the informe, tension, and orgiastic potential energy. has a passport either. We could move freely. You’d Bataille, and the Surrealists. You end up on the AT That’s what makes it erotic. have to undo a lot of things. Today we see the other side. SG How could the tools that you’ve discovered destruction of nomadic life in China and we all SG What is the architecture of the informe? in the formation of spatial erotics be used for want to cry, while only a few generations ago in AT Well, in physical architectural terms, blur revolutionary purposes? I’m thinking of the North America this happened at a tremendous buildings would be an aspect of the informe. Tumblr site luxurycommunism. scale. We can’t undo that. Bataille is interesting: he was a rule-destroyer. AT I love that. It’s really great. The opening AT This is luxury: freedom of movement and

Christie Pearson / Anne Troutman SCAPEGOAT 9