294 SEEKING THE CITY

Emerging Pedagogy: Capturing the Expressive Act

BRIAN AMBROZIAK University of Tennessee-Knoxville

A fundamental process of higher learning is that not as readily accessible to the quick sketch such of abstraction and synthesis. The process of ab- as color and texture. In looking at these visual straction reduces sensory input to its fundamental memoirs, select access is granted into the mind of components and allows for the establishment of a the architect. Does this however provide glimpses mental catalogue. These derived essences exist as into to the origins of the creative process? In the one’s artistic conscience. The intensity by which essay Creative Writers and Day Dreaming, Freud these images are engraved varies. The architect writes, Le Corbusier emphasized the act of drawing and its correlation to memory when he wrote, “We laymen have always been intensely curious to know—like the Cardinal who put a similar question to Ariosto—from what sources that strange being, “When one travels and works with visual things… the creative writer, draws his material, and how he one uses one’s eyes and draws, so as to fi x deep manages to make such an impression on us with down in one’s experience what is seen… All this it and to arouse in us emotions of which, perhaps, means fi rst to look, and then to observe, and fi - we had not even thought ourselves capable. Our nally to discover. Once the impression has been interest is only heightened the more by the fact recorded by the pencil, it stays for good, entered, that, if we ask him, the writer himself gives us no registered, inscribed.”1 explanation, or none that is satisfactory; and it is not at all weakened by our knowledge that not This process of discovery through drawing as de- even the clearest insight into the determinants of fi ned by Le Corbusier is fundamental to the way his choice of material and into the nature of the art of creating imaginative form will ever help to in which an architect establishes visual arguments make creative writers of us.”4 based in history and culture. Michael Graves com- mented with regard to drawing that, In his paper Dostoevsky and Parracide, Freud de- nies that he, or psychoanalysis, will ever pene- “No matter what medium I chose, my drawings were always analytical. It was important to me to trate the sources of creativity. He writes, “Before reveal some salient characteristic of the architec- the problem of the creative artist analysis must, ture, perhaps its frontality, the layering of a spa- alas, lay down its arms.”5 These statements with tial sequence, or simply the quality of a surface regard to the creative process describe an act that as it catches the light. I thought that if any one of my drawings was viewed as a travel scene, I had is anything but a process, a term that implies a failed, since it would be merely picturesque.”2 series of actions and operations that are perhaps quantifi able. While one might look for direct con- Thus, “it goes without saying that what the archi- nections between an architect’s drawings and his tect chooses to draw, using his sketchbook as a built work, these literal one-to-one associations record of observation, reveals the examination of tend to be forced. It is more often the case that his artistic conscience.” the architect draws from a multitude of experienc- The travel sketchbooks of architects are typically es and transforms and shapes them throughout fi lled with images of buildings and the landscapes the design process. While not providing a concise they inhabit. Their photographs capture aspects roadmap, an architect’s drawings are one piece of EMERGING PEDAGOGY 295

a vast puzzle that does provide valuable insight one’s ability to see an image, abstract it, and to the evolution of an architectural design. Obvi- eventually recall and combine it as part the cre- ously, the more pieces one has at one’s disposal, ative process. The goal of the course was to ad- the more believable one’s map of the artistic con- dress many of the issues raised by Arnheim and to science becomes. reestablish a method of visual thinking.

An interest in the possibility of mapping the artis- The fi rst assignment for the seminar required the tic conscience led to my development of a seminar students to hone their senses through an analysis entitled Visual Thinking. The title of the course of the Tennessee River. The examination required referenced Rudolf Arnheim’s book and essay by that they formulate an idea about the attributes the same title. Arnheim’s research was ground- of an object through investigation, that they fi rst breaking in its understanding of developmental look, then observe, and fi nally discover. To be- stages of visualization and representation. His gin, each student identifi ed three attributes that emphasis on visual thinking was in large part reac- in some form described an essence of the river. tionary. A signifi cant shift had taken hold during These three ideas were then investigated through the Enlightenment, away from a visual language sketching, writing, photography, model building, or to a system of higher intellect defi ned primarily any other creative form of documentation. Hav- by the written text. This method of conceptual- ing identifi ed a single attribute on which to focus, izing resulted in a disembodied system based in they began a more in-depth analysis. One objec- words and symbols and yielding a visually illiter- tive of the project was to allow students a venue ate society. Arnheim wrote, to expand beyond their own preconceived notions about methods of representation and analysis. “We are the victims of an inveterate tradition ac- Through the investigation it became quite clear cording to which thinking takes place remote from that the method of formal analysis by which they perceptual experience. Since the senses are be- lieved to be concerned with individual, concrete had been trained to look at architecture was not events, they are limited to collecting raw mate- easily transferred to non-architectural objects rial of experience. It takes “higher” powers of the or experiences. The object did not contain the mind to process the sensory data.”6 “words” through which they had been instructed to defi ne architecture. This structured language His belief that “many educators and psychologists includes terms such as hierarchy, threshold, layer- are still reluctant to admit that perceptual thought ing, circulation, fi gure/fi eld, rotation, proportion, processes are as exacting and inventive and re- geometry, repetition, etc., all valid as reductive quire as much intelligence as the handling of intel- generators for understanding space, but not suffi - lectual concepts”7 led him to challenge the state of cient for expansive or temporal analysis. So what education in this country. He writes, was it about the system of formal analysis that did not easily transfer to an object outside of architec- “Consequently, Western education has been con- cerned foremost with words and numbers. In our ture? The psychologist Anton Ehrenzweig writes, schools, reading, writing and arithmetic are prac- ticed as skills that detach the child from sensory “There is certainly virtue in making the student experience, and this estrangement intensifi es dur- aware that any shape, however complex, can ul- ing the high school and college years as the de- timately be built up from the simplest elements. mands of words and numbers grow and childish This awareness makes for clean athletic design. things must be put aside. Only in kindergarten But the awareness of basic elements could also and fi rst grade is education based on the coop- be misused as a fully conscious control of the en- eration of all the essential powers of the human tire working process. An excessive preoccupation mind; thereafter this natural and sensible proce- with the geometric constituents of a design could dure is dismissed as an obstacle to training in the make the student ignore the drastic transforma- proper kind of abstraction.”8 tion which the single elements undergo as they fuse into a more complex overall structure… In language teaching it may be justifi ed to start by These thoughts describe an inability by society training the student to assemble sentences from to effectively comprehend graphic material, a the basic elements of language according to the kind of visual illiteracy. The paralleling of scien- rules of syntax and grammar. But if the student tifi c methods in architecture has had a profound is too content with the mechanical assembly of his sentences he mail fail to grasp the spirit of a living effect on methods of architectural analysis and language (emphasis mine).”9 296 SEEKING THE CITY

The obvious conclusion was that the students had own method of invention that advances its course been analyzing a spatial phenomenon through the through uninhibited metaphorical association. use of words that, by defi nition, have clear and The temporary nature of fl ickering images on a teachable images attached. In his forward to the screen provides a refl ection of our own creative translation of Durand’s Précis of the Lectures on consciousness and a familiar setting for discovery. Architecture at the École Polytechnique, Antoine The virtual realm exists as an environment capa- Picone points out that as an art of composition ble of easily transforming and navigating layers of and decomposition, the analytical method, fi rst information and possesses the added dimension introduced by Locke in his Essay Concerning Hu- of time while incorporating sound to establish a man Understanding, grew increasingly general- rhythm and a mood. ized in its application as the eighteenth century proceeded.10 In an attempt to parallel the suc- cess of the scientifi c community, teaching meth- ods developed by individuals such as Durand at the École Polytechnique ultimately invaded the architectural design studios and became a force within the modern movement.11 Predominantly used in current schools of architecture, this meth- od of analysis as applied to architecture became highly specifi c and formalized. The analysis of the Tennessee River demanded that students ex- pand their preconceived notions of the analytical methods and create visual arguments specifi c to a natural phenomenon.

The second project continued to expand the stu- dents’ methods of visual thinking and supplement- ed their existing palette of analytical instruments Fig. 1 The creative process with the introduction of digital video as a tool for analysis. Using a collection of public domain foot- The fi nal assignment of the semester applied these age from the 1950’s and 60’s, the students were new analytical insights to the study of architec- instructed to reassemble the footage that con- tural precedent. To focus on developing a visual tained an underlying structure. The project intro- argument of natural phenomenon, the students duced students to the basic video editing software were instructed to identify trajectories and events such as iMovie as well as beginning to experiment that would yield insight into the artistic conscience with more involved video and sound editing prod- of the designer, rather than merely breaking down ucts such as FinalCut, Adobe Premiere, After Ef- a project through a process of categorization, the fects, and Audition. While they were not allowed more familiar reductive scientifi c method. The to use any additional footage, they could compose new analytical diagram (Fig. 1) demonstrates the and insert their own audio tracks. Many of the two distinct processes. The central circle with its projects explored the use of audio strategically to radiating lines represents the object to be ana- set a mood and a tempo for their particular fi lm. lyzed. In schools of architecture this object is most commonly a work of architecture. The lines An advantage of digital video as a method of anal- radiating outward describe an analysis that, as ysis is that it allows for the simultaneous com- defi ned by Merriam-Webster, provides “a separa- bination of several mutually exclusive variations tion of a whole into its component parts.” in a single act of comprehension. As such, it is more closely linked to a kind of low-level vision or The analysis below the line in diagram is defi ned dream state as described by Ehrenzweig.12 Work- as reductive in nature. As an example, in Thomas ing with a fl ow of information, in contrast to static Jefferson’s design for the Lawn at the University images, the student is equipped with a tool that of Virginia, a lower half reductive analysis would is far less constraining and closer to his or her generate an understanding of key concepts such EMERGING PEDAGOGY 297

as the manipulation of landscape, threshold, cen- Searching through material that included sketch- ter, layering, and hierarchy. It should be point- books, paintings, writings, and architectural draw- ed out that a clear understanding of this formal ings, the students collected material that they method of analytical abstraction must be estab- found to have been infl uential to Le Corbusier, lished before attempting to expand a precedent specifi cally focusing on material relevant to the and identify origins, themselves a result of the re- design of the Monastery of La Tourette and the ductive process. Capitol Complex at Chandigarh. They operated un- der the assumption that in analyzing a precedent, In studying the lines radiating upwards, one might the architect’s photographs, sketches, paintings, discover in an expansive analysis that in his youth architectural drawings, models, and writings pro- Jefferson was trained as a surveyor, that he ac- vide valuable insight that is not always obvious in quired a copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri while a the fi nal design. In studying these fragments, the student at William & Mary, he visited Mansart’s students were asked to decipher a body of work Chateau de Marly while an ambassador to France, and gain insight to the architect’s process of dis- was a contemporary of the Enlightenment, and covery that could inform their own personal mode that he frequently corresponded with Latrobe and of seeing and methods of visual communication. L’Enfant. This visual catalogue established by Jef- This investigation was not meant to be prescrip- ferson yielded a collection of ideas defi ned by all tive, but rather was meant to demonstrate some the senses that possess formal as well as symbol- tangible methods of the design process. ic meaning. As such, the Lawn can be understood as an expression of his artistic conscience. The The students were instructed to incorporate design is a realization of Nietzsche’s imperative digital multi media technologies to montage the “Become who you are!”13 various revealed parts of Le Corbusier’s artis- tic conscience. The fi nal result was a montage For the fi nal project, students were instructed to based in time that demonstrated both reductive focus on the upper half of the diagram and de- and expansive systems of analysis. The open- fi ne those lines radiating up from the built work, ing sequence of A Journey Through Le Corbusier’s the expansive process. The project looked at two Mind and Hand During the Creation of Chandigarh works by the architect Le Corbusier. During the 1951-1963, one of the projects created during the fi ve-week analysis, students were asked to look semester, uses a photograph to place Le Corbusi- beyond the completed architectural project, as is er in the context of the site (Fig. 2). Le Corbusier often the case in analytical procedures, and to get is seen holding a map atop which is held a cut into the mind of Le Corbusier, or to see through out fi gure of his modular man. The photograph his eyes. As an architect who claimed to have quite literally identifi es the creative mind to be learned everything he knew about architecture explored for the remainder of the movie. This through painting, the work of Le Corbusier pro- technique is expanded upon as the voice of the vided the perfect case study. In Le Corbusier and architect begins to play and subtitles are used to the Continual Revolution in Architecture, Jencks reinforce Le Corbusier’s spoken ideas. The plan writes, “He (Le Corbusier) fulfi lls the well-rounded of the capital city is emphasized through the use paragon of Marx’s Renaissance Man of the future: of a subtle transparent layer of color until eventu- the person who is at least three different things ally the fi lm focuses in on the cut out fi gure of the every day— and Le Corbusier did carry on at least modular man, goes to black, and a title page is in- three different professions. Painter, most morn- troduced with a series of Le Corbusier’s early con- ings until 1:00, architect most afternoons until cept sketches transitioning through it. A change about 6:00, and, in the evenings, writer, some- in the music from Edith Piaf’s 1950’s French clas- time conversationalist, and bon viveur.” 14 The sic “L’hymme a L’amour” to Radiohead’s “I Might extensive resources available as a result of Le Be Wrong” serves to mark the transition from the Corbusier’s seemingly manic need to record and relatively static and familiar image of Le Corbusier archive his work allowed for substantial glimpses to the virtual analysis introduced over the next through the architect’s eyes throughout his for- four minutes. mative years. 298 SEEKING THE CITY

The sequencing of the analysis begins by placing the viewer outside the capitol looking at the long elevation of the Secretariat building. In this scene, a photograph is superimposed atop the digital model of the Secretariat, a comparison is made to Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation de Marseilles, and a colored band on the left side of the image keys the building into a previously shown site plan (Fig. 3). Lines are applied to these images to em- phasize Le Corbusier’s use of his modular system of proportion and are further emphasized with a series of images that transition from Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (1490) to Le Corbusier’s own drawings of his proportional system. Next, the viewer is invited to enter the scene as a motor- Figs. 4a-f Stills from digital analysis of “A Journey bike crosses the composition from the lower right, Through Le Corbusier’s Mind and Hand During the and moves towards the Secretariat (Fig. 4a-b). Creation of Chandigarh” As it passes through the building, an applied lens fl are fi lter and a montaged image of the Himala- series, elevations and plans are superimposed to yan Mountains in the distance establishes qualities establish a connection between the Palace of the of the site to which Le Corbusier responded. The Assembly and Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Mu- next building that appears in the sequence is the seum (1822-30). A light blue tint highlights the Palace of the Assembly (Fig. 4c). In this analytical assembly hall in Le Corbusier’s plan as a fl oating object that exists in contrast to Schinkel’s subtrac- tive Rotunda. Exiting the Palace of the Assembly, a travel sketch done by Le Corbusier while atop the Acropolis, illustrating a framed view and layer- ing of space, is superimposed on our view through a similar space that frames a view towards the Tower of Shadows (Fig. 4d). For both the Palace of the Assembly and the Hall of Shadows, the role of light on the architecture is illustrated through animation. The fi nal building analyzed is the Court of Justice (Fig. 4e). A montaged series of images combines the digital model, a sky, mountains, and water, and displays them as independent animated features. Atop this image is a sketch by Le Cor- busier illustrating his use of large pools of water Fig. 2 Le Corbusier looking at plan of Chandigarh to capture an exterior volume of space defi ned by the overhanging canopy and its refl ection. As we move into the Court of Justice, painting, drawing, digital model, audio, and animation are combined to focus on the poetic and technical aspects of Le Corbusier’s use of light in his architecture. The po- etic and metaphorical aspect, expressed so clearly in his painting, is nowhere more apparent than in the fi nal sequence of the movie that focuses on the Monument of the Open Hand. Through this sequence, the multiple readings attributed to the form are revealed though a series of superimposi- tions concluding with a bird in fl ight (Fig. 4f). Fig. 3 Analysis of the Secretariat EMERGING PEDAGOGY 299

This virtual method of analysis introduces many 8. Ibid. techniques unavailable to traditional two-dimen- 9. Anton Ehrenzweig, Conscious Planning and Uncon- sional processes. Varying degrees of transparen- scious Scanning, in Vision + Value Series: Education of cy or fade allow for a variety of superimpositions Vision, ed. Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, that include architectural precedent the architect 1965), 32. had visited, painting, sketches, design drawings, 10. Antoine Picon, “From “Poetry of Art” to Method: and images outside of the architect’s artistic con- The Theory of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand,” in Jean- Nicolas-Louis Durand: Précis of the Lectures on Ar- science that emphasize certain themes. The vir- chitecture, trans. David Britt (Los Angeles: The Getty tual realm enables the student to move seamless- Research Institute, 2000), 21. ly and establish direct connections between two- 11. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First dimensional and three-dimensional ideas. Plans, Machine Age (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989), 15. elevations, sections, photographs, and three-di- 12. Anton Ehrenzweig, Conscious Planning and Uncon- mensional methods of representation can be es- scious Scanning, in Vision + Value Series: Education of tablished as a single thought. Using the three- Vision, ed. Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, dimensional model as a base and establishing a 1965): 29. camera path, an added benefi t of the movie format 13. Jean-Louis Cohen, “Le Corbusier’s Nietzschean is that it demands that students actually occupy Metaphors,” in Nietzsche and “An Architecture of Our the spaces and landscapes they are documenting, Minds,” ed. Alexandre Kosta and Irving Wohlfarth (Los developing not just an artistic conscience but also Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2000), 314. a spatial experience. One virtually walks through 14. Charles Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Continual a series of superimpositions that demonstrate Le Revolution in Architecture (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2000), 10. Corbusier’s ability to incorporate past experience into his designs. This constant superimposition 15. The glass separating the two contrasting worlds in and transitioning of images allows the viewer to Cornell’s compositions is replaced by the glass of the computer screen in digital methods of analysis. begin to make new metaphorical associations. This digital analysis is similar to the way that the artist Joseph Cornell’s arrangement of photo- graphs and found objects allow for new readings to develop from objects assembled into a single composition.15 The newly established connections and abstractions serve to feed the top tier of the analytical diagram, discovery, and in turn help to establish one’s own artistic conscience.

ENDNOTES 1. Le Corbusier, Creation is a Patient Search, trans. J. Palmes (New York: Praeger, 1960), 37. 2. Michael Graves, “Foreword,” in Michael Graves: Im- ages of a Grand Tour, Brian M. Ambroziak (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), ix. 3. Michael Graves, “Le Corbusier’s Drawn Reference,” in Le Corbusier: Selected Drawings (London: Academy Editions, 1981): 8-25. 4. Sigmund Freud, “Creative Writer’s and Daydream- ing,” in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1989): 436-443. 5. Sigmund Freud, “Dostoevsky and Parracide,” in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1989), 444. 6. Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking, in Vision + Value Series: Education of Vision, ed. Gyorgy Kepes (New York: George Braziller, 1965), 2. 7. Ibid.