Destroy Experimental Architecture!

Oz Volume 14 Article 2 1-1-1992 Destroy Experimental Architecture! Lebbeus Woods Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/oz This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Woods, Lebbeus (1992) "Destroy Experimental Architecture!," Oz: Vol. 14. https://doi.org/10.4148/ 2378-5853.1229 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oz by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Destroy Experimental Architecture! Lebbeus Woods Several years ago, following the acquired by attacking "paper archi experience what questions to ask and modern stream of consciousness, Research Institute for Experimental tecture") writing in a journal (which have the expertise to address them. but-fortunately-very little ofthe Architecture (RIEA) First Conference I will not name, for the same reason) To ask students who have little or actually constructed world. Never on Experimental Architecture, I wrote responded to my statements with a no background in architecture to theless, it is a disease that could be the following statements: frontal attack. An excerpt: conduct serious research or experi come terminal, because its destroys mentation is a mistake. They can respect for the nobility of architec Experimental architecture propels I thought ''paper architecture" was contribute nothing to the field of ture, and takes up too much space architecture as an activity and result a problem. Well, there is a new dis architectu~e as it is actually prac in architectural publications. Stu into unknown realms, without sanc ease attacking the profession ofarchi ticed, simply because they have no dents are seduced by self-proclaimed tion, justification, or the promise of tecture. It is called "experimental understanding ofit. In attempting to "experimental architects, " the most usefulness to anyone. While one can architecture. " This disease is being be "experimentalists, " they only waste virulent bacilli of the disease now argue that experimentation is nec spread by a group ofpseudo-archi the time they could be spending threatening architecture. The future essary for progress in any field of tects who have arrogated to them learning important architectural is to some extent threatened, because thought and work, one is then re selves a kind ofautonomous author fundamentals, such as functional students are always looking for some quired to state in advance a goal ity to play in the fields ofarchitec planning and solar orientation. way to avoid the drudgery of hard that is progressive and essentially ture, as though it were their personal but really valuable architectural optimistic. The presence of goals property. This play, so seductive to While this clever fellow makes many work, and they have been given a prejudices experimental efforts, and young people who have a serious innuendoes, recalling the disreputable convenient way out by these archi the necessity of optimism ties them . desire to become architects, has now techniques employed by Pietro tects, many of whom must make a to a chain oflogic that corrupts their begun to infect the architectural Aretino in his attack on Michel living teaching, having no profes actual purpose, which is experi schools. Some of these "experimen angelo's Last Judgement, I decided sional work whatsoever. It is high mentation for its own sake. The tal architects" have been invited by not to write a rebuttal, but simply to time the profession takes this infec experimental architect claims for well-meaning deans and chairper let my statements stand or fall on their tion seriously, this experimental himselfand herselfa .freedom to pur sons to teach design studios, where own merits. Within weeks of this first architecture, and dispenses with it sue ideas and work limited only by they spread a gospel of "resistance" attack, the critic repeated (quite liter once and for all. their internal possibilities. This or "liberation. "Resistance to what? ally) his tactic, this time in a foreign claim puts the experimental architect Liberation ftom what? More to the journal of normally good repute. An The threat implied in this last state at odds with the profession ofarchi point, liberation to do what? The excerpt: ment seemed double-edged, aimed at tecture, and most especially with the answer is: be irresponsible and waste me and my experimantalist colleagues, schools that supply the profession time with improbable dreams of There is a new disease in architec but also at the students who might with new architects. For them, what architecture "might be, "there ture today, and it goes by the name venture into experimental ways of architecture is a service to client and by ignoring what architecture has "experimental architecture. " There is thinking about and making architec community, not to architects, and always been and irrevocably is, and a historical basis, or one might say, ture. The whole tenor of these criti even less to architecture. To the still needs to be. No one will deny a pathological history to this type of cisms recalled the chilling pro experimental architect, architecture that architecture, ifit is to progress, architecture, running from the nouncements of the Nazis about "ver is autonomous. needs serious research and responsi Futurists, through the Surrealists min" and "bacilli" that must be exter ble experimentation. But this can (this was the real impetus behind minated "once and for all." Images of Some time later, a critic (who I will only be accomplished by architects Expressionism), to Archigram, a vir Salman Rushdie also came to mind. not name, simply because I do not with substantial professional expe ulent strain of hyper-imagistic In America (and Europe?) of the con 4 want to increase the fame he has rience, who understand from that ''paper" architecture that pollutes the servative, right-wing late '80s, would we-who represent a minority of an era that promises much more. To the principles they offer are no longer haps in no other time before, the fun architects, at best-be denied even whomever might still desire dreariness valid, but that they no longer (if they damentals of living, and therefore of our right to work in the manner that and "drudgery," as a cross to bear for ever did) address the real mission of architecture, are not about static and suited our restless dispositions? Would the manifold sins of mankind, or for education-the asking of questions. timeless verities, but are instead con we in fact be ostracized even more less noble, more pathological reasons, In the end, they amount to rote learn cerned with the fluidity of things, and than we already are, being hounded I can say nothing at all. ing, however many variations one therefore with the achievement of a from school to school, from loft to might make on east-south orientations kind of dynamical balance, a poise in loft, from exhibition to exhibition? I It is difficult to imagine a more de or the rotations of a cube in space. the midst of continual, often tumul decided to make a rebuttal, which the manding and critical task in architec Yes, we must learn to read and write, tuous and confusing change. The fun editors of Oz have been sympathetic ture today than teaching young archi but whoever thinks that the equiva damentals are concerned with living enough to present here. tects. Given the fast-moving archi lent of these civilizing tasks in archi and working affirmatively in the midst tectural scene, with its trends, fash tecture is or can be acquired by the of uncertainty, even of doubt, even of It is true that many experimental ions, tendencies and general tumult, learning of pre-digested procedures questions which never stop coming, architects have no commissions to any architect-experimental or oth forgets that both the substance and and for which the answers seem indef build. Serious clients have yet to erwise-is hard-pressed to offer to stu mission of architecture today is to cre initely postponed. Experimental archi emerge for "landscrapers," "suit-a dents anything that might in fact seem ate a resonance between the built tecture, like experimental living, is not loons", "subtle bodies," "optigraphs," coherent to them. There are always world and human beings of today. an option in the present world, but a "renegade cities," "cactus buildings," the trends, but if one is a follower of And what are the "fundamentals" of fact of existence. or "aeroliving-labs." It is also true that such things, their propagation through such beings? Perhaps the good critic these architects often earn their living teaching is merely a rear-guard action. (and other "fundamentalists") would The following course description and by teaching in schools of architecture. The students know this better that the wish they were as simple as having the commentary depicts an experimental While the phrase "those who can't teachers who, steeped in the latest morning sun at the breakfast table or project for a Third Year Options Studio do ... teach," is particularly resonant in architectural journals, pass on the fash distinguishing one cubical shape from at the Harvard University Graduate America, I shrug off the stigma that ionable ~forms and techniques of the the next. As a teacher and architect School ofArchitecture . The project is some would attach to teaching. It is moments, oblivious to the fact that as a human being living in the world entitled Boston Free Zone, in which also true that some students are the publication of anything is already of today-I would rather ask whether Lebbeus Woods is a critic. intrigued enough by the possibilities of proof of its passing.

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