YOU KNOW IT IF YOU SEE IT

Turnbull. In interviews Stauffacher makes it sound more like AN ITCH YOU CAN’T SCRATCH an improvisational performance, as her work was responsive INTERVIEW BY JACK MURPHY to the architecture and the site. She said, “I just went from one wall to another.” Maybe it comes down to the freedom M.ARCH, 2020 of cooperation (I like to note the importance of this word as RICE ARCHITECTURE much for its prefix as for its root). It comes back around to collaboration, which at its best promotes a mutuality of action, with common goals arrived at via multiple vectors. In a well- functioning collaboration one can still detect the autonomy of each actor. Maybe it’s a bit like the Black Mountain performance How did your educational experience at Rice set up the interests [1] The Ooz, or the Ooze, experiments that Cunningham/Cage/Rauschenberg/Fuller did— or the Ooziness of a space, must never be under- you work on today in your practice? How did you arrive into everything all at once, where the viewer has to decide what to stood as a stationary circumstance: It is a condition that emerges the work you do today from the academic background of a look at, in what order they can, to whatever effect they find. and re-emerges only through active engagement of a space. As an aggregation of the events, recollections, and ideologies that allow for a space Masters in Architecture? Maybe that makes it more open for everyone. to be constituted at any given time, the Ooz describes the manner in which this Kimberly Shoemake (who founded the graphic design office presentness is revealed, and, simultaneously, the method that this peculiar presentness Thumb with me) and I had an architecture studio with Mary Your clients are regularly schools of architecture, architects, uses to transform itself—the Ooz is a description and an action, respectively. A space that reeks of Ooziness exists in its transitional nature; it is never the same twice. It is the constant Ann Ray and Robert Mangurian where they made books, we or architecture offices. How do you still participate in archi- dialogue between the inhabitant and space, occurring in the territory between compliance and made books, the whole studio made books. We did this to tectural culture? How do you understand—and how might you defiance. Without these notions, the Ooz makes an empty space, one of neither submission nor organize things we found, to make sense of the research we revolution. The Ooz cannot exist within indifference. describe—the extra-architectural apparatus that allows archi- Further, it is vital to understand that the Ooz is not latent or provisional: It is a real Thing, and like were doing, and to explain things to others. We also liked paper tecture itself to exist? all things comes with undercurrents that exist beyond its physicality. It demands a break from the an awful lot. It was like you couldn’t do a project at that time, I held the Books and Architecture seminar at Yale School of mundane and defies the existing rituals of a space, instead spurring newer modes of occupation and [2] connection as the blanket of reality folds in upon itself. The Ooz is always a beginning in its own and expect to be taken seriously, without having a book to Architecture from 2008 to 2018, which is probably the single right; its becoming is a developmental process, one that is only characterized by its absolute back it up—the same way that the book acts as an alibi to an most sustained engagement. We might do that class again, unpredictability. It could be said that it is the capriciousness of its Form—or of form architecture practice extended into studio and school culture but right now we’re running a new thing, Graphic Inquiry, in general—that defines the Ooz on its own terms. in general. It was also a time when Sanford Kwinter and Bruce which works back and forth between screen and print, using Mau were collaborating on studio and seminar courses, so material culture research as a driver. The work is trying the discourse around communication was quite sophisticated. to find a way to get past the fly-through video towards a Many of the faculty were also committed to book projects; more meaningful engagement between the moving image I’m thinking about Albert Pope’s Ladders as well as Michael and architectural thinking. Directional temporal experience Bell’s anthology Slow Space, both of which were wholly syn- seems to offer a lot in terms of image, but what we’re really thetic in form and message. So, as I saw it, one could use the most interested in is text-image combination that acts in a book as a medium to put forward arguments about space, descriptive manner. I engage with architecture schools on an material, culture—kind of like doing architecture without the ongoing basis. We got the chance to design and roll out an building. After we graduated Kimberly Shoemake and I were entire identity program at University of Minnesota with program co-directors of publications and exhibitions at Rice and we head Marc Swackhamer over the last few years, which was really THE OOZ MANIFESTO got to experiment while learning a lot about graphic design. propulsive. We developed a low-profile identity to keep everything Tayyaba Anwar, M.Arch II, 2019, YSoA Lars Lerup, our dean at the time, was a great instigator; we consonant and then created several publications lines, producing really owe our launch into design to his support. After that about eight to 10 books in the last two years. I tend to engage more I decided I wanted my own office and started Thumb in New with schools than practice. We just completed a project for UMinn York. Jessica Young, who had the Rice position after me, with Dream the Combine to represent their MoMA PS1 project in a joined me there for a few years. Since then, I’ve mostly run book format, which was a real pleasure. the office with a few collaborators. Can you share an image you like that complicates the relationship of Tell us about your commitment to the book. Why is it still text and image? a relevant technology to communicate information in a Nothing beats Bruce Mau’s poster for Rice, c. 1997: “The blurring of Additionally, sequential order? How was the book an “instrument of our boundaries suggests the shape of a new terrain” – see [7]. the Ooz provokes a response: It incites a dialogue and is a part of an architectural thinking” during your time at Rice and what ongoing riposte. It also exists temporally, in that was the influence of that pedagogy on your work? One goal of graphic design is clear communication. How do you see the Ooz is the indistinct interval after the end of an event but before its The book represents a commitment to the assertions of understanding, a durational gap which otherwise goes without acknowledgement, as your role as helping architects to communicate their work into the it is typically understood to have occurred within a bounded time period. Such a condition of architecture into material form, not altogether unlike world? Is this challenging? If so, why? heterochrony within a no-man’s time zone gives the Ooz significance, as it becomes an event that the building, but different in crucial ways. Once a I’m still waiting for a chance to take up some of the threads that were refuses to be bound by a single instance. Instead, it is driven by and carried on through its repercussions, through myth and memory, extant only until one becomes fully cognizant of its existence—at which point, it book is set in ink and paper, in thousands of copies, left dangling by S,M,L,XL. The book’s open figure, full of detritus as slimily morphs into something else. While the physical remnants of an event have the potential to eventually ideas may proliferate (i.e. Victor Hugo’s ubiquitous much as gems, (stim and dross?) suggests contingency and complication fade away, the Ooz’s lingering disposition is a crucial aspect of its condition. “this will kill that” argument). The slowness of as something to be sought. In most of the monographs I see today So, would the Ooz, once deciphered, allow for an understanding about space that enables us to make strange new unexpected things? In seeing the Ooz for what it is, does everything become less oozy when seen through the book is part of its strength; its resistance everybody is working so hard to find a position or to defend territory our distracted gaze? When does the Ooz sell out? Is there a possibility that the Ooz can be formally and relative permanence demand that whatever that the projects end up seeming disconnected from the world. That analyzed so that it becomes a reliable method of understanding space? Or does it only exist where is set into this medium be of consequence. We order does not exist, and therefore disappears the second awareness sets in? Is it possible that seems like a weak position for architecture. Look at Keith Haring’s the Ooz gets out of control in these types of looped inquisitions because it transforms the can admire the movements of magazines, Insta- Radiant Baby—it kind of says it all. –see [10]. moment attention is applied to it? How is it so evasive and evanescent and still so gram, exhibitions, websites, etc., for their im- ubiqtuitous? What kind of Borgesian condition is this, such that the longer you study it, the less you know about it? What is the Ooz, anyway? mediacy, but none of them have the weight of What comes after S,M,L,XL in your view? a book. I don’t know, but if you open the process of making a book up to contingency, to suspending boundaries at least tem- Can you share an influential image that was porarily, I’m pretty sure something would happen. important to you during this point of your edu- cation that impacted your thinking? The responsibility to make good space is a That is the spread on pages 482–483 in somewhat oozy item, as it is not really the S,M,L,XL – see [2]. sole concern of architects anymore, if it ever was. How do you work to What did you learn from Bruce Mau? place graphic design in space, A few sort of aphoristic things: Type has memory. whether it is the space of an Graphic design is faster than architecture. Com- interior or the space of a [11] munication is the strategic release of information book? Is space a primary over time. “A little song, a little dance, a lit- conceptual concern of [3] tle seltzer in the pants” i.e. sometimes you should your work? just do what feels good. But mostly it was that I got spend time with someone who was a designer who engaged with architecture without doing buil- dings—that was a model for me.

Do you believe in disciplinarity? What is the potential [12] [4] of two creative fields colliding together—in this case architecture and graphic design? Haven’t they always been joined together? I know a few things and you know a few things—we Luke Bulman is a graphic designer who operates Office can work together to extend each other’s reach. If of Luke Bulman in New York. He received an M.Arch from Rice University before serving as its Director of we both recognize the former, the latter can happen. Publications and Exhibitions together with Kimberly If not, then not. That said, knowing the influen- Shoemake. As a lecturer at Yale School of Architecture, he taught Books and Architecture for a decade and ces, precedents, and techniques of architecture is currently teaching a course called Graphic Inquiry. makes it possible to use the internal language [13] We of architecture in pursuit of formulating a Bulman works in the overlap between architecture and graphic design; he designs books about architecture, can be project with the architects that I work posters, and identities. Many important publications concerned with… To me, scalar logic is the most cru- of the twenty-first century were “book directed” by him. But, “most of all,” he writes on his [5] cial aspect of architectural thought. It where something is website, his design practice is “dedicated to makes it possible to address different or is not, i.e. “Do things finding ways to link subjects with objects.” align? Is spacing consistent?” aspects of the design project with the Via email, Bulman graciously answered my questions about his career, These are the simple issues of space recognition that there may be echoes or the shared space of architecture we are concerned with in graphic design. implications at another scale. Systems and graphic design, and his But I’m interested in voids—that is, vast empty awareness and tectonic/fabrication sensi- creative processes. If you’re looking to make [14] spaces that are somehow places: temporary spaces, bility can also inform collaborations. A lot the next S,M,L,XL, pop-up spaces, light spaces, “it’s a shame that anything of the architects I work with are dead (i.e. please hire should be built here...” Lina Bo Bardi, Paul Rudolph, Gordon Bunshaft, him. et al.) so the dialogue is as much with the work as Where does inspiration come from? it is with the architect; what becomes important is An itch you can’t scratch. what I can identify as central to the set of ideas that they were working on across the span of their practice. What do you look at that most reliably leads to good ideas? Mark Wigley remarks that all architecture begins and ends Stuff on the street. New York simultaneously draws repulses as graphic design—it all starts with drawing and ends in a me, so I document those moments when I’m amazed by library—which seems pretty inclusive. Drawing matters a lot to what is put/left/ejected on the street. I’m inspired by our work, as we can’t really think without drawing and using it cognitive dissonance. I don’t think this leads to good as a means to connect ideas to potential organizations. These ideas, but it’s a sign that I’m processing. drawings are sometimes diagrams or plans or sections; the array of conventional drawings is present in the flow of our work, but not Can you share an image of work in progress that necessarily in its final form. you’re fond of? What are the differences in constraints that make architecture and The Ooz Paprika! Vol. 04 Issue 16, April 11, 2019 See [3], [4], [5], [8], [9]. Issue Editors: Tayyaba Anwar and Jack Murphy graphic design uniquely challenging? Designer: Julia Schäfer and Herdimas Anggara How do you start a project and begin the movement The constraints are so vast for architecture; graphic design by com- Coordinating Editors: Page Comeaux, Nicole Doan, Alejandro Durán Publishers: Dina Taha, Jun Chen, Liam Grace-Flood from information to visualization/organization/de- parison is a free-for-all. Each situation has its own advantages. While a Web Editor: Seth Thompson sign? Do you have a process you rely on? graphic design office can have commissions at the highest level within I usually like to think about format first, i.e. how a very short time, architects (for the most part) have to spend years big a thing is. This conditions the design quite a [7] gaining the trust of the individuals and institutions that support their lot. After that, maybe what paper(s) might be used work. The flip side is architects tend to have quite long careers, while — sometimes a paper combination might begin to finding a graphic designer over 50 is a rarity. The views expressed in Paprika! indicate a structural logic to the book due to manu. do not represent those of the Yale School of Architecture facturing constraints. We really prefer projects that How would you describe the area where architecture and graphic design or Rice Architecture. Please send comments and corrections to have more limited budgets where we can commis- overlap today? What do you like to work on in this realm? Why is it [email protected]. To read Paprika! online, please visit our website, yalepaprika.com. sion the production; this means we need to think exciting? This issue was published in collaboration with PLAT. about limits and how we might push/pull them. There should be more overlap in how a graphic program might be deployed [8] in architectural spaces, but in my experience this type of commission Can you share a couple alluring images you’ve seen is very rare. Other than graphic identity and websites, there really isn’t recently? that much overlap. See [1], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. What might a more fused, oozy union of architecture and graphic design Everything is so sharp these days. What’s the value look like? of blur, ambiguity, or low-resolution work in our HD [9] Having a graphic designer in an architecture studio that was not there world? to do proposals and marketing, but rather was there to contribute The lower the resolution, the faster and further it to the development of wayfinding, legibility, color, typography would can go. be an interesting thing to consider. It’s really worthwhile to look at the super-graphics that Barbara Stauffacher developed at Sea [10] Ranch —incredibly rich integrations of type, space, and color—its work that has association with Lawrence Halprin, Charles Moore, and Bill linkages that we deem requisite for our own QUICK TRIPS THROUGH IMAGES OUT OF FOCUS FOOD PLANS OF RESISTANCE: HYPER-REFERENTIAL ends. In such a world, the idea that buildings THE MULTIVERSE MAI OKIMOTO NATALIE BROTON GORDON MATTA-CLARK’S ARCHITECTURE require their own meaning still holds, as the task of signification is still an important NICOLE DOAN M.ARCH, 2022 M.ARCH, 2021, YSoA FAKE ESTATES JACK MURPHY one, but it can be reached using the oppo- site worldview. M.ARCH II, 2019, YSoA RICE ARCHITECTURE It seems strange that food is not considered art in the way that KOHEN HUDSON M.ARCH, 2020 architecture, painting, and sculpture are. Food, just like art, Blurring usually results in a loss of detail. In the series is a reflection of culture, of time, and of interaction. Despite M.ARCH, 2021 RICE ARCHITECTURE O+B seem to profoundly misread contemporary I have visited John Portman’s Westin the fact that it is necessary for survival, there is something to Architecture, photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto captures well- culture; our current state is not about the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles three times: known Modernist architectures out of focus. His subjects, be said about the rituals that revolve around it. For example, RICE ARCHITECTURE “We live in a non-referential world” declares once to eat fast-food pasta, once to ride whether they are the whole Seagram Building or a portion of people typically choose to sit down and enjoy this time with failures of resistive islands but instead potential others, and they choose to prepare meals according to texture, the first sentence of the introduction of a the Guggenheim Museum, float fuzzily within the frame. The premature passing of an artist signals a loss of intellectual of the rising sea. We exist within the para- up and down elevators in the four towers, taste, and temperature. Perhaps what is most unique They have no clear edges, something commonly associated potential but also the rousing of speculative projection within thin book bound in cloth the color of ice. Titled about food is that it is ephemeral and fleeting—it only lasts digm of neoliberal individualism, but we have and once to drink champagne in the revolving with the physicality and durability of buildings. They are blurry, the art world. When Gordon Matta-Clark (GMC) succumbed to Non-Referential Architecture, it was ide- but by capturing them from an angle such that the sky is a few moments, yet it is ritually experienced every day. the potential to be more connected and united rooftop restaurant. Downtown Los Angeles’ pancreatic cancer in 1978 at the early age of 39, he had ated by Valerio Olgiati, renowned Swiss the primary background, Sugimoto’s photographs retain the made the seven building cuts that form the core of his influ- skyline is weak, at best, and the most exciting It is only recently that thoughts about food have begun to be than we ever have been. In not acknowl- buildings’ key characteristics, making them recognizable at ence in the arts and architecture, but his eventual stature architect, and written by Markus Breitschmid, cataloged as a kind of “food theory,” which inevitably edging the ooze of living today, their founding building can barely be perceived along its a glance. Have the buildings been stripped down to their core was to be confirmed. a Swiss architect who teaches at Virginia essence? Has thereduction of information yielded clarity? has drawn attention to the relationships between other art arguments grow stale; they age quickly smoggy horizon. The only way to observe it and forms such as sculpture, painting, composing, and Tech (O+B, in this text). Within its 125 pages With these acts the sky is the only part of the environment that As an example, the files for Fake Estates, a project in which its introverted, mirrored glory from the out- architecture. and poorly. This, of course, doesn’t even Sugimoto retains; the context is cropped out of the image’s GMC purchased 13 micro-parcels in Queens, New York, of clear and direct prose, it lays out a method side is while in traffic along the 110 Freeway. If frame. In achieving what may be clarity, the building has been collectedtheir attendant documents and tax receipts, and begin to account for the effects of media and For the last decade and a half, architects have studied, read, for making non-referential architecture— reduced to an isolated object in a partial environment. photographed the lots, idled in a closet for nearly 18 years. economy that tie us more closely together. you’re lucky enough to find one of the hid- collected, and formulated thoughts about the way food The blurring makes it recognizable asan object on a more or It became the role of the curator, historian, and viewing architecture that does not refer to elements relates to architecture and what can be learned about the Consider that somewhere our online activity den entrances to Portman’s Bonaventure Hotel, less blank canvas, not as a building that stands on a site. subject to narrativize Fake Estates upon its posthumous outside itself for meaning—in a distinctly disciplines in tandem. Architects and educators Paulette you’re in for a treat—and I don’t mean pasta publicization at the 1992 IVAM exhibit in Valencia, assembled and purchases are linked together in some Singley and Jamie Horwitz were of the first to collect essays non-oozy manner. Blurring usually results in a loss of detail, by his widow, the writer and filmmaker Jane Crawford.1 secret algorithm of advertising and credit or champagne. Beyond the cold, reflective, but we look for additional details within explicitly about the relationship between the two, which were published in a 2004 book titled Eating Architecture. scores; this is surely a type of referentiality that machine-like facade lies a reality separate from the blur. The photograph here, Matta-Clark’s leftover spaces, as with his very process of This book illuminated a relationship that is becoming In a series of introductory chapters, O+B inspired by Sugimoto’s land-accumulation, are often positioned as commentary plagues contemporary living. Plus, if Olgiati the one before our eyes. increasingly discussed in academia. Gastronomy has become outline their position as it relates to the Architecture series, was upon systems of land use, valuation, and speculation. The a major topic in studios at the GSD, where chefs have truly believed in non-referentiality, would he use taken from the second tiny parcels, some smaller than two square feet, high- history of architecture; they introduce seven been invited to lecture on the topic. Food was the theme

The first time I went to the Bonaventure level of James Turrell’s light inconsistencies within an omnipresent, continuous land- hashtags on Instagram to promote his work? for a spring/summer 2015 issue of Log 34, highlighting principles of non-referential architecture:

Skyspace on the Rice use structure that comprise the framework of capitalism. Hotel, I met my friend, Franco, during his its relationship with architecture. Sci-Arc published a video University campus by In an effort to maximize the bureaucratic management and Experience of Space, Oneness, Newness, T on the collaboration between Chef Jordan Kahn and Eric Throughout, the argument is made with a lunch break to catch up on post-college narrowing the camera’s subdivision of space, the system undermines its own totalizing Construction, Contradiction, Order, depth of field. Like Sugimoto’s Owen Moss. rigorous discipline that verges on meanness. life and to make my pilgrimage to Portman’s logic. Some residual spaces were not worth optimizing and Sensemaking; and they close with a subjects, the Skyspace is an iconic and therefore became invisible as the mechanics of the city, infamous building. The sun smiled down Food and architecture are the most primal necessities It is clear that O+B are interested in de- structure, and could be easily in its insatiable hunger for real estate (versus land), grew final chapter about Authorship, in of life. The once distinct boundaries are finally blurring. scribing a practice that works at the highest on us during the warm June day as we recognizable if captured out of outwards and upwards. The tiny lots manifest as ruptures which they make a case for the neces- focus against the Houston within the capitalist Gesamtkunstwerk. Perhaps more telling levels of creativity and exclusivity: “A result

sauntered across the pedestrian skybridge sity of single “author-architects”

sky. However in this photo- is that the city reacquired the lots in lieu of col-lecting of the postmodern ethical compass is to to the gaping orifice which serves as A graph, another building, taxes after GMC’s death. Though unserviceable, the parcels who conceive and make buildings. the hotel’s entrance. A pang of confusion Ricardo Bofill’s Shepherd remained privileged for their fiscal status: land is capital, make believe that a group of mediocre people 3 School of Music’s Alice no matter the size. can become good if they work as a team” . hit me as we broke through the thres- Pratt Brown Hall, domi- BLURRED BOUNDARIES The central argument of the book is hold, as I was unsure as to why we nates the background Additionally, O+B focus on the experience PRIYANKA SHETH GMC was trained as an architect at Cornell. He participated that contemporary buildings entered the building through such a of the image. With- in—and doggedly protested—the many practices and of space as a universal quality for non-refer- out a blank canvas like should generate their meaning nondescript hole in the otherwise channels of architectural production, including a “visceral” ential architecture, but they overlook the Sugimoto’s images, M.ARCH II 2019, YSoA installation at the Institute forArchitecture and Urban without the use of extra- the Skyspace cannot 2 actuality that experience itself is embodied and

windowless concrete podium. O Studies . Perhaps best known for his volumetric architectural devices such as According to Franco, the skybridge be simplified to While the decades following the second World War were marked interventions in which he cut, erased, and displaced built therefore subject to the specificities of fleshy an object, cannot be historical or social signifiers, was the best way to enter. It by student rebellions, workers movements, and anti-war demon- matter, Fake Estates specifically activates a no-less consciousness. Space, arguably, is perceived isolated from strations in the West, a different process of identity-building significant—for some the primary—architectural and that they do this through its context, and differently in a female body than in a male body, wasn’t until after my second trip was taking place in newly independent countries. The Republic of instrument: the plan. In working architecturally, GMC having an idea that is cannot be made ideas simultaneously in two-dimensional a tall body instead of a short body, a black to the hotel that I realized recognized at a India was formed in 1947, marking the end of British rule in the “form-generative” and “sense- Indian subcontinent. A region with a complex social, cultural, and polit- drawings and three-dimensional space. His real estate body instead of a white body, an old brain how right he was as I ex- L glance. The documents employ a series of notational systems, making,” in their words. edges of the ical history, the Indian subcontinent was an amalgamation of prin- instead of a young brain. This is not to support perienced the dullness of the namely those conventions pertaining to plani-metric O+B articulate this claim Skyspace merge cely states before it was consolidated as a colony. Independent India is projection, which delimit spatial boundaries and determinism in spatial experience based on added ground floor entrance with the hall, a secular, democratic nation with a society still rooted to centuries of cogently; if anyone is serve as a means of information exchange. Within identity, but to simply point out that experiences on Flower Street. the two structures tradition. As India grappled with the challenges of forging its own identity, real estate practice, the plan manifests as curious about the means flatten into one, new institutions were being built across the burgeoning nation. both the expression and document of capital; of space are embodied and are therefore and the sky, through which Olgiati it is legal and speculative at the same subject to the conditions of the perceiver. Bathing in ignorance from appearing in patches, creates architecture, F In 1950, the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, invited Le Corbusier to time. In Fake Estates, GMC instrumentalizes my then lacking know- is absorbed into design Chandigarh, signaling India’s embrace of modernity. Balkrishna Doshi, the plan for its resistive potential: it as- this book is a useful the structures. As serts a border and legitimizes the space Non-referential architecture is a project ledge of the building, the viewers, we try to make a young Indian architect working in Corbusier’s atelier in Paris, accom- primer. within, at once participating in the of autonomy that seeks to further enshrine astounding sight sense of the relation- panied him. Beyond Chandigarh, Corbusier’s association with India extended process of spatial subdivision while of the interior punched ships between the to Ahmedabad, where he was commissioned to build private residences destabilizing the apparatus of land spec- the architect with certain totalizing Skyspace and its sur- While O+B’s me in the face. I hadn’t and public institutions. Doshi arrived in Ahmedabad to supervise Corbusier’s ulation. In other words, GMC’s tiny responsibilities, rather than acknowledging roundings, to read the fuzzy projects and made the city his permanent home, where he established his lots resist the production of capital as philosophy and ambiguous patches the vast energetic flows into and out of bothered to Google own practice in 1955. As he moved ahead in his own career, Doshi’s interpre- they thwart its total spatial conquest. of “sense-making” images of the interior of light and dark. We look for His plans, and the spaces they the discipline. The philosophy is elegantly details that were overlooked tation of modernism became more nuanced as he developed a unique archi- does make prior to my visit, but tectural vocabulary that was relevant to the context within which he was working. represent, are interstices within the ignorant on the variety of issues at pre-blurring, and we seek new economic ooze of the city. sense, it arrives

its unique cylindrical shape information out of a blurred image His interpretation of modernism did not arise from an outright negation of work in the discipline that seek to make it

where details have been reduced. history. Traces of building traditions of Ahmedabad and other parts of India made with a number of

and exterior elevator 1–de Monchaux, Nicholas. E more equitable and sustainable, satu- E There is no need to crop the deeply proble- their way to his rich repository of inspiration. This assimilated approach shaped “The Death and Life of Gordon rating the tome with an air of privilege, as pods were enough to entice environment, no need for a blank his practice and his role as an academician. In 1962, Doshi started the School of Matta-Clark.” AA Files 74 matic caveats. canvas to appreciate the blur. if written at sunset after a couple bottles me to make my own Architecture (now known at CEPT University). (2017): 183–199. Some of these are excursion. A concrete 2–Richard, Frances. of fine Alentejo wine in the courtyard “Spacism,” Places Journal, embedded in playground with spiraling Doshi studied at the J.J School of Architecture in Bombay, the first school in India of Olgiati’s Villa Além. An architect who to introduce architecture as a professional discipline in 1913. Initially, the school March 2019. Accessed the principles

paths, ellipsoidal balconies, 06 Apr 2019. https://doi would opt to jettison these impor-

N focused on the Beaux Arts tradition and steered towards a Modernist attitude in themselves that

org/10.22269/190305

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as we ventured deeper. up architecture, and those who did were primarily trained as draftsmen to execute historic and enduring expertise

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A cross between a sci-fi the designs of British architects. As the founder and architect of the School of seems like someone who might I Architecture in Ahmedabad, Doshi was tasked with setting up an institution to train of what a building

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alien and familiar. While the buildings should and many became leading practitioners that inspired generations of C C embedded within society and glass elevator shafts women seeking to pursue architecture in a male-dominated field. be “conceptually” made

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an ‘open campus,’ freely accessible to painters, sculptors, ON THE around for both this and U pol-ished brown tiles reminded writers and musicians, who intermingled with the enrolled assemblies and energetic S the non-ideological argu- me of a mall near my grandma’s architecture students. The intrinsic quality that led to GROUND requirements. O+B advocate

old apartment in San Jose. It the openness in space making was through the blurring ments of O+B to be worth- SITE SPECIFIC Wednesday 4/3 that a building must strive

was as though someone had of boundaries, which became the defining aspect of while. The discipline’s the school’s architecture. “You don’t have to use for oneness, a quality that T enmeshed condition is a infused my childhood memories SEBASTIAN LOPEZ a typeface to do bling. comes from beginning with a strength, not a weakness,

with Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. In many ways, the campus functions like a micro- A successful typeface conceptual whole, rather

M.ARCH, 2022, RICE has a level of invisibility.” T a feature, not a bug of cosm of an Indian city. For example, the transition than a preceding nothingness from closed to open spaces on campus takes –Luke Bulman on the architecture’s operating Franco sensed my astonishment ARCHITECTURE to which various parts are place through various kinds of thresholds that expressiveness of Futura’s system. If architec-

and excitedly led me around first design iteration added. In many corners of their

draw inspiration from the myriad ways in which ture is a spark delivered the spiraling ramps and stairs The folds of this sheet articulate open, semi-open and closed spaces come I book they support their argument “How can you be an architect unto the wooden that hugged the massive concrete accumulations of thought. together in the “Walled City” of Ahmedabad. by stating that because we live in a columns. Tacky stores and res- Neighboring thoughts across a fold Typically closed private inner spaces in the who never builds anything? sticks of construction, Doesn’t that make you “fully polyvalent and non-referential taurants flanked the periphery of reveal gradations of intent. “Walled City” are often adjacent to a veranda then the act’s T a failure? If I never got any world,” buildings must do X or be surrounding a courtyard; the courtyard societal context is its the circular space. Franco insisted The end of the sheet is not the end then meets a semi-open porch which faces the writing published, I would Y. And, given our concern in this hearth. If constructed on trying a particular pasta res- of the thought. open street. Similarly, the closed spaces of just be some guy with a publication with the contemporary notepad!”–Mark Oppenheimer well, it will pull taurant, and blue “street signs” tried Edges and folds mediate between the School’s studios are buffered from open ooziness of consciousness, it is spaces by unprogrammed semi-open spaces. on architecture and journalism and the resulting

their best to help us find what we scales of organization. H this claim—that we live in a non- fire will last the night. were looking for. For at least 15 minutes, The sheet exists within a field. Thursday 4/4 referential world—that deserves the Life on campus is lived as much on the outside If not, then its E we meandered around a few different Accumulations of thought self- as it is on the inside of the buildings. The land- “Why white paint?” David Bruce most scrutiny. circulation cores (they were numbered to organize within the field. scape, whose prominent features are the forest, asked. “Painting it white makes it pretentious smoke will the lawns and the open ground, is master- look like architecture,” Sou Fujimoto fill the room, despite help orient people) and ran up and The discipline reproduces itself O+B situate their work on non- fully integrated into the fabric of the campus. The replied. one’s best efforts. down the twisting staircases until finally we ad nauseam. C referential architecture as the latest dense forested area on the northernmost edge In all of their muscular spotted the restaurant. I think it was acts as a buffer between the campus and the noisy “When in doubt, skew things,” in a series of architectural ideas, declarations, O+B called Angry Chef Grill—or something funny streets. This forest slowly gets less dense and Lars Lerup mused during his farewell snapping a chalk line from Eisenman and lecture at Rice Architecture. seem to forget that life Flike that. If it didn’t have a silly name, I melts into rolling lawns. These lawns are composed Tschumi to Herzog & de Meuron S of two mounds or hills separated by a valley which itself is a particu- would have been more disappointed by the and Zumthor and then to Koolhaas. We were made by displaced soil during construction and “If you can’t do OOO in Revit then your larly oozy affair, and that choice of cheap materials and the fact shit sucks.”–Armaan Shah on trends in have, they argue, left behind both the have become one of the prized assets of the school. its oscillations over that we had to order at the counter. In the back In the evening, hordes of students lounge on these theory and design computation R modern and postmodern project, and now time change what space of the small restaurant, an out-of-place door S lawns after a tiring day of classes. At the heart of the exist in a world where “people want to campus is a large open space with soft, unpaved Friday 4/5 means and how we, took us outside to the elevated roof deck, where confront the complexities of life in a non- John ground where the annual dance festival takes place. On John Hejduk was kind of like Chewbacca… at first as individuals and other office workers basked in the warm Los Lerup going full Star Wars in conversation ideological way that does not embrace other days it is a football field, a volleyball court and 1 then collectively, con- Angeles sunshine. the site of a carnival during the school’s cultural festival. with Aaron Betsky. significance referentially” . Because larger Hejduk A struct its meaning. The The texture of this ground changes from the dry sand systems of ideology and consensus Also, another choice piece of ocular advice maddening frustration of our As soon as I slipped through the door, I was teleported E in the summer to the soft mud in the monsoon. have been dismantled, and because ours was kind of like back to the same reality that I currently face at the from Lerup: “When in doubt, go out and current predicament is that The school building is sandwiched between the lawns look.” is a “world without fixed values and moment in which I type this sentence. In Postmodernism, 2 there is so much of that frustration, and the open ground. It is an exposed brick and concrete rules” , it is incumbent upon a building Chewbacca… Lerup or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Saturday 4/6 N that you can slice it up to serve building following an L-shaped configuration with to make meaning according to its A tired Richard ushered symposium guests nearly every viewpoint. Simultaneously Jameson wishes the hotel “ought not to have entrances parallel masonry walls spanned by deep concrete beams. own generative and consistent internal going full Star Wars at all, since the entryway is always the seam that links The studio spaces are made by interlocking single into Hastings Hall to listen to speakers discuss the world is worse than it’s ever

death in post-disaster spaces within Japan. principles, rather than relying on the L and double volumes and each studio is filled with natural been (in terms of wealth inequality or the building to the rest of the city that surrounds it.” “I’m here on a Saturday; of course I’m tired.” unstable, flickering values of contemporary in conversation with Somehow Portman’s Bonaventure Hotel transports its light from the large clerestory windows to the north carbon emissions) and better than and is shaded from the harsh light of the south by deep A society. visitors to a different place and a different time in a seemingly balconies. The architectural expression of the build- “Honestly, if a cult were interesting enough ever (in terms of life expectancy or Aaron Betsky. I would join it for the friends.” individual freedom). Life is “bad but better,” different universe. The building turns its back on the city, ing reflects Doshi’s modernist sensibilities and is devoid of But do we live in a non-referential world? any iconography, ornament or symbols. “Indianness” @overheard_anderson always. not only by refusing to partake in the Los Angeles skyline, Surely political and religious solidarity but also by its introverted expres- sion through materiality and is not a mere stylistic device but it lies in his acknowl-

edgement of ephemerality, spontaneous and uncal- Monday 4/8 have disintegrated, leaving many of us

M O+B make strong claims about how to make fantastical interior landscape. This escapist piece of archi- culated usage patterns, and the seamless transition The school’s badminton court was temporarily apolitical and atheistic, but that’s nothing Also, another choice transformed into the fourth floor pit for Building architecture, but they land without joy. tecture completely dissociates from the rest of the Bunker Hill from indoors to the outdoors. The architecture of new. Taking a wide, panning look across

the School embraces frugality and simplicity but derives Project final reviews. Congratulations Team C! In making architecture, surely not “anything area and confronts the visitor with scattered lounges, retail, the cultural landscape, it seems that our world piece of ocular advice its richness from meaning. Over the years, layers goes,” but a more tolerable position about

bars, and restaurants—forcing him or her to indulge, even if it is “Enjoy it! What’s the point if you’re not having is not a lamentable vacuum of shared ref-

only mediocre pasta. of meaning have been added to these spaces by the how architecture holds meaning for each of generations of students who have left their mark fun?” Frida Escobedo and Heather Rowell erence but, instead, a churning world of links,

from Lerup: “When in encouraging their ARCH 602 option studio at us carries with it the possibility of a diver- A in tangible and intangible ways. In return, this school influences, confluences, overlaps, confu- the start of Charrette Week. sity of ways in which space is significant and Eventually, the server emerged from the building with our lunch skillfully has left an indelible mark in each student’s mem- sions, and imitations—it pulses more wildly doubt, go out and ory, contributing to their growth during their journey excellence can be achieved. In the fluxing balanced on his forearm. With the sun shining down on us, I twirled than ever before. It’s not that there is no as aspiring architects. “You’re born with only so many good design ideas. It’s flow of our oozy predicament, this basic the fettucine around my fork and could not help but wonder if this pasta best not to load them all up in one project. Save fixity of meaning, but instead that meaning look.” declaration of expert plurality, of a cornucopia truly came from the reality in which I am currently living, or, in fact, one for a rainy day.”–John Casbarian during a crit for is all around us, swirling in its conversions

his Architecture for Non-Architects course. of potential meaning, seems an important

the world contained just beyond the threshold of the Out-of-Place Door. between understandings; everyone must E one to stand by. Without it, the rest is slime. “Nozzle colliding with print, please remove–that sort through it individually. Actually, we live cantilever is redonkulous.” [Archstudent] mailing list in a hyper-referential world, and this too 1–Olgiati, Valerio, and Markus Breitschmid.

message about a failed print on Ultimaker 2. contributes to its non-ideological feeling. No

Non-Referential Architecture. Basel: Simonett S longer yoked together by past dogmas, we Tuesday 4/9 & Baer, 2018, 21. are able to exist as individuals who assemble Turner Brooks guffawed at Miguel Sanchez-Enkerlin in his 2–Ibid, 22.

formal Career Fair attire. “I remember we used to dress personal understandings of the world, as 3–Ibid, 117–8. up like this in the ’80s.” motley as they might be, and make the