NATØ: Exploring architecture as a narrative medium in postmodern London Claire A. Jamieson A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Royal College of Art for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2014 For James – who kept me sane. And for Ian and Anne, whose support made it possible. Copyright Statement This text represents the submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. This copy has been supplied for the purpose of research for private study, on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment. 7 Abstract This thesis is concerned with the way that architecture, (that is space, buildings, cities and urban environments), has been and continues to be speculated upon through a rich palette of narrative methods. Taking NATØ, the group of young architects led by Nigel Coates that emerged from the Architectural Association in the early 1980s as its subject matter, the thesis questions how architectural production is able to narrate and the modes and methods it employs. The research reveals echoes and resemblances between NATØ projects and a wider artistic, filmic and literary culture that emerged from the specific political, social and physical conditions of 1980s London. Personal archives of original NATØ material – including drawings, photographs, magazines, ephemera and writings – are exposed for the first time. Combined with personal interviews with NATØ members and other significant individuals, the narrative traces the group’s evolution and development at the AA in Unit 10 in the late 1970s, to their active period between 1983-1987. The thesis also examines the key influences of Coates and his early work: exploring his relationship with Bernard Tschumi, the influence of a period spent in New York and his association with diverse artists and filmmakers in London. As such, the research presents the first detailed examination of NATØ and produces original insight into the territory of architectural narrativity. The thesis contextualises this moment of narrative architecture with the evolution of narratology over the same period – a discipline whose changing consideration of narrative in the 1980s expanded from a literary basis to take in a broad range of media. Engaging with contemporary narratology, the thesis employs concepts and terms from narrative studies to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of how narrative functions in architectural production. The thesis also constitutes a history of postmodernism that represents an alternative to the dominant architectural mode, considering NATØ’s output as a subcultural form of architectural production that drew on techniques of bricolage, montage, fragmentation, polyvocality and defamiliarisation. Framing NATØ’s work through an understanding of the way in which their use of medium evolved alongside their conceptual ideas, the thesis considers the material in relation to four distinct areas, each constituting a chapter: performance and video, the drawing, the magazine and the exhibition. Chapter 1 on performance and video exposes the influence of both Tschumi and a pivotal year spent in New York on Coates, and the development of his ideas from student to co-tutor at the AA in the late 1970s. The chapter proposes a move from the highly cerebral and literary approach of Tschumi, to one concerned with the presentness of direct experience via video. Chapter 2 takes the architectural drawing as its subject, showing how Coates evolved the drawing in his unit at the AA in the early 1980s, and how in turn NATØ employed the drawing as an 8 expressive narrative medium. Chapter 3 considers the group’s self-published magazine, NATØ, produced between 1983-85, drawing parallels with street style publications i-D and The Face, of the same era. The chapter proposes the graphic design of the magazine as a medium through which NATØ developed the explorations of the drawings into a more complex form – positing the idea of the mise-en-scène of the magazine. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the apotheosis of NATØ’s output: the exhibitions Gamma City at the Air Gallery (London, 1985), and Heathrow part of ‘The British Edge’ at the Institute of Contemporary Art, (Boston, 1987). Taking the ideas established in the previous chapter into three dimensions, the chapter proposes the installation as a microcosm of the narrative experience of the city that NATØ sought – evoked through an embodied drift through space, and the replacement of the architectural scale model with the auratic object or stimulator artefact. Concluding, the framework of narrative architecture set out in the thesis is proposed as both a period preoccupation and a way of thinking about spatial narrativity more broadly. It critical assesses the potential for such architectural narrativity to be designed and built, finding the truest form of narrative architecture emerging from the city condition itself. Finally, the conclusion proposes a lineage of projects and ideas that have evolved since the late 1980s whose concepts represent a continuation of NATØ’s preoccupations. 9 Table of contents Abstract List of illustrations Acknowledgements Author’s declaration Introduction ‘Excite and Offend’ London A reappraisal of postmodernism A subcultural architecture The narrativist decade Narrativisation Structure and methodology Chapter 1: From object to action: Performing architecture – 1973-81 Introduction Bernard Tschumi 1973-79 - The dematerialisation of architecture - The Manhattan Transcripts: architecture of notation Nigel Coates 1975-1981 - The performance of making space - Spatial theatricality - From theory to action - New York 1980-81 - Ski Station Towards a subcultural architecture - Bring sensation to architecture - The arrival of video Chapter 2: A new expressionism: Drawing architecture – 1982-84 Introduction Architectural drawing - Drawing as architecture - The drawing’s shadow The narrative drawing - Viewing narratively - Pictorial narrativity Drawing at the Architectural Association – 1970-83 - Emancipating the architectural drawing - Themes - Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis The possibility of the sketch - ‘Funny drawings’ - Albion The madness is the method - Montage Drawing time - The perpetual drawing - The drawing body - ArkAlbion 10 Chapter 3: The mise-en-scène of the magazine – 1983-84 Introduction NATØ magazine The subversion of the magazine Publishing at the AA The creation of an architectural fanzine NATØ 1: Navigating the page ‘On the Boardwalk’ The magazine as polyphase narrative NATØ 2: Bricolage as oppositional strategy House for Jarman ‘Dress Apprentice’ ‘Albionize Your Living Room’ Critical bricolage Chapter 4: Dreaming the city: Exhibiting architecture – 1985-87 Introduction Exhibiting architecture - Architectural exhibiting in the twentieth century - From exhibition to installation - The architectural installation - The Presence of the Past The installation as narrative medium: Gamma City (1985) - Installation as event - The navigable space of the installation Replacing the architectural model - The ‘stimulator artefact’ - Street vernacular - ‘Radio Dog’ - Creative salvage - The totem and the dreamscape A Festival of Britain - The British Edge - ‘English empiricism’ - Heathrow Conclusion The end of the story Narrative architecture After NATØ 11 List of illustrations Introduction Figure 1: Note from Mark Prizeman to NATØ members, 24 February (1984). Chapter 1 Figure 1: Catalogue page – Dan Graham, A Space: A Thousand Words, Royal College of Art (1975) Figure 2: Catalogue page – Nigel Coates, A Space: A Thousand Words, Royal College of Art (1975) Figure 3: Daniel Buren, Peinture-Sculpture, Guggenheim New York, (1971). Figure 4: Trischa Brown, notation for Locus (1975 – combining numerical scores, diagrams and biographical notes. Figure 5: Trischa Brown, notation for Locus (1975 – combining numerical scores, diagrams and biographical notes. Figure 6: Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov’s experiment in montage – perception of the face on the left is altered according to which shot accompanies it. Figure 7: Tripartite system of notation, combining spatial and temporal elements to be narrativised by the reader. Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts, (1976-81) Figure 8: Deconstructed notation, emphasising the disjunction between space and event. Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts, (1976-81) Figure 9: Architectural notation influenced by musical and choreographic scores. John Perver, The Theatre of Restriction, (1978) Figure 10: Sheets from a portfolio of a project titled Blythburgh Lodge – the inhabitation of a house in Suffolk by Nigel Coates, Jenny Lowe and Antonio Lagarto. Nigel Coates, (1975) Figure 11: Sheets from a portfolio of a project titled Blythburgh Lodge – the inhabitation of a house in Suffolk by Nigel Coates, Jenny Lowe and Antonio Lagarto. Nigel Coates, (1975) Figure 12: Nigel Coates, Blythburgh Lodge, (1975) Figure 13: Front cover for Housework portfolio, showing the house in Camden inhabited by the group. Nigel Coates, Housework, (1975) Figure 14: Nigel Coates occupying a room for a performance work, Housework, (1975) Figure 15: Pages from portfolio showing notation and instructions for performance and installation works. Nigel Coates, Housework, (1975) Figure 16: Pages from portfolio showing notation and instructions for performance and installation works. Nigel Coates, Housework, (1975) Figure 17: Nigel Coates and Antonio Lagarto performing A Marat