The Negative Mirror and Critical Memory

Volume 12 Article 13

1-1-1990

Paul Armstrong

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Recommended Citation Armstrong, Paul (1990) "The Negative Mirror and Critical Memory," Oz: Vol. 12. https://doi.org/10.4148/ 2378-5853.1201

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Paul Armstrong

Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The the recently christened Wexner Center for stead, a critiCal reconstruction of the past. of time and place are synthesized into a Traveler recognizes the little that is the Arts of Ohio State University explore In Eisenman's terms, architecture can be more intense reality. An unique telos his, discovering the much he has the process of "excavating the site'' in simultaneously autochthonous and emerges with its own syntactic reading not had and will never have. order to rediscover the traces of the past autonomous. a referent to the past serving memory and - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (whether the Mercator grid or the a dislocation in time aspiring to be devoid "reconstructed" foundations of an Ar Critical memory is the past reinterpreted of all mnemonic association. Marco Polo's negative mirror is, more or mory). Past and present are brought and reconstructed. Like the negative mir less, like one of the concave parabolic sur together in simultaneous juxtaposition ror, in Eisenman's definition of disloca faces used to concentrate the parallel solar not a literal archeology of the site, but in- tion, isolated and undifferentiated facets rays into a unique point, giving them a previously unknown shining. In a similar manner the traveler's gaze will bend the apparently isolated and undifferentiated facets of a place and tie them together in a more intense reality thereby revealing the "genius loci," which is a projection of human conscience. Places which display traces of human action (past or present) become teleonomic, i.e., illustrative of an intention which is always the print of human action. The "human intention" can be discovered · even in the natural landscape, as in the traditional toponymy of mountain peaks, rivers, woods, etc. An cient geographical names often refer to characters and events which work accor ding to the finalist causality typical of mythical thought. In a sense, the negative mirror reveals the autochthonous or in digenous character of place.!

In describing his urban architecture, Peter Eisenman uses the term dislocation. Eisenman accepts the mnemonic poten cy of architecture, but, at the same time, poses the paradox of architecture as a mnemonic device while presenting itself as dislocated from its continuity with

time. Projects such as the housing pro- Figure 1: Peter Ei~nman and Jaquelin Robertson, Restricted International Competition Living and Working in Southern Friedrichstadt, Block 5 , 46 ject at Check Point Charlie in Berlin and Berlin, Site Plan. (Courtesy Rizzoli International Publications). The City and Collective Memory skeleton of history; it becomes an clearest embodiment of the philosophical of history. Eisenman illuminates the ex apparatus, an instrument for principles (rooted in the syntactic dialec istential condition of "dislocation" The time of each man is limited; analysis and measure ... Memory tics of deconstruction espoused by the through the persona of Rossi's architect. the future, therefore, must be the fuses with history to give type-form semiologists and post-structuralists) Rossi's architect is both a participant present. a significance beyond that of an which have consistently governed his within the context of collective memory - Aldo Rossi, original function. Thus, typology, ouevrefor almost three decades. Thomas and a voyeur positioning himself as an Tbe Arcbitecture of tbe City which previously consisted only of Fisher writes that at almost every turn in "objective" observer beyond the demar the classification of the known, the Wexner Center, "Eisenman confronts cations of time and memory. Whereas the In his preface to Tbe Arcbitecture of tbe now can serve as a catalyst for in our design conventions and challenges humanist conception attempted an in City, Eisenman cites Rossi's description vention. It becomes the essence of our often unexamined assumptions, tegration of subject (the architect) and the of the city as "a collective artifact" which design for the autonomous creating a building that aims not to pro object (the city), the modernist concep juxtaposes the humanist view of the researcher.3 vide comfort or consolation, but one that tion polemically attempted their separa evolution of the city as a sort of accretion tries, successfully, to shake us from the tion. The problematic nature of the prac based upon natural law versus moder The humanist view of the evolutionary complacency of our convictions."5 tice of modern architecture with respect nism's reductive scientism which seeks to process of "accretion" of the city and col to the theory of modernism has to do intervene clinically in the city's historical lective memory is exemplified by Rossi's Fisher observes that in the Wexner Center, precisely with its inability to effect this and natural evolution. "In this heroic description of the city of Split in Eisenman challenges historicism and the separation and thus its contamination climate of modernism the city of modern Yugoslavia. Rossi points out that as the belief in the communicative power of with imperatives from the humanist architecture, supposedly born out of a city of Split grew up within the waJls historical styles. The fragments of the conception. rupture with history, was progressively Diocletian's Palace, it gave new uses and armory that form one side of the Wexner propelled by that very history toward the new meanings to unchangeable forms. Center represent an analogy to the A modern example of intervention in the vision of a sanitized utopia."2 Rather than subsuming or obliterating the fragmentation of the past that historicists historic city is cited in Michael Graves' ancient palace, the city accomodated the have, ironically, brought upon themselves "Roma Interrotta" of 19786. As architect Hence, Eisenman presents the existing architecture within the context of by asserting that history is a matter for in-residence at the American Academy in dichotomous condition of the city as an its own transformation in a type of organic specialized, scientific study. If history, Rome, Graves invited twelve architects, in archeological artifact and of the city as an symbiosis. According to Rossi, this is then, is perceived by most people to be cluding Colin Rowe, James Stirling, and autonomous structure which coexist symbolic of the meaning of the architec fragmented, like the armory towers, into Leon Krier, to take one of the twelve within the context of the present. In con ture of the city, where "the broadest adap disconnected pieces of information, does segments of the Nolli map and redesign trast to the humanist architect of the six tability to multiple functions corresponds the use of historic styles any longer have that segment of Rome in any way they teenth century, and the functionalist ar to an extreme precision of form." 4 meaning? Eisenman also questions chose. In Tbe Elusive City Jonathan chitect of the twentieth century, Rossi's ar Therefore, history, as an accretion of col whether a related view of the past is Barnett records that using a collage chitect would seem to be an unheroic, lective memory, exists so long as an ob desirable or even possible if language technique advocated by Rowe, the diverse autonomous researcher distanced from ject is in use; that is, so long as a form itself can be used to create false unity and results suggested "interventions in Rome the object of his analysis who no longer relates to its original function. However, to suppress dissention. after a lapse of time." 7 Many of the par believes in science or progress. when form and function are severed, and ticipants responded in a predictable, yet only form remains vital, history shifts into Eisenman effects the transition from the highly individualistic, manner. Stirling, Eisenman continues: the realm of memory. Eisenman writes historic, chronological notion of time to for instance, used variants of his own The new time of architecture is ... that the singular form of Split now not on the psycbological condition of time with buildings to compose his own sector. that of memory, which replaces ly signifies its individuality, but at the reference to the memory of the city as a Rowe and his associates based their pro history. The individual artifact for same time, is a syntactic record of events succession of events. In Eisenman's posals on the Nolli map itself, albeit with the first time is understood within that are part of a collective (urban) parlance, if time in the chronological a more regular and repetitive quality of the the psychological construct of a memory. History, thereby, comes to be sense belonged to a classical context, and new elements. However, it was Leon Krier collective memory. Time as collec known through the relationship between in the historicist sense to a modernist con who designed perhaps the most unex tive memory leads Rossi to his par a collective memory of events, the text, then once associated with memory pected interpolations. Modifying St. ticular transformation of the idea singularity of place, and the sign of the rather than history, it moves into a Peter's Square, the Via Corso, the Cam of type. With the introduction of place as expressed in form. p.sycbological context. Thus, Eisenman pidoglio and the Piazza Novona with dif memory into the object [the city], defines an existential condition which dif ferent versions of the same structure, the object comes to embody both Although Eisenman recognizes the ferentiates the form of the city as urban Krier's drawings for Roma Interrotta seem an idea of itself and a memory of a significance of history and fundamentally history from its memory as a succession to mark a transition in his work from the former self. Type is no longer a agrees with Rossi's analogue of the "col of events and redefines time within a design of projects for monumental, sym neutral structure found in history lective" house as a mnemonic device, he psychological condition in which the ar metrical megastructures8 to a monumen but rather an analytical and ex remains sceptical of historic convention. chitect is separated from the events of tal city design of more conventional kind. perimental structure which now The Wexner Center for the Visual Arts at history in his role as analyst and, According to Barnett, Krier's planning can be used to operate on the Ohio State University is perhaps the paradoxically, is a catalyst to the process proposals resemble the texture of Paris in 47 occurred precipitously over a period of many centuries. In Urban Space Rob Krier contends that the demise of the necessity of fortification and the demolition of city walls with the introduction of new military technology and new tactical patterns for warfare after the French Revolution ushered in an era in which all assump tions and empirical principals about town planning were fundamentally question ed. Rendered obsolete, city walls had once played a well-defined role in town planning. As "regulators" of urban space, the absolute necessity of protec tion and security has imposed a total discipline on every aspect of the construc tion, rebuilding and expansion of the town. The decline of the city wall coincid ed with the onset of industrial develop ment, which forced cities into un precedented growth. Unchecked, cities spread over the surrounding countryside in a chessboard pattern, which was almost always used as the basis for new settlements.11 Figure 2: Leon Krier, Roma Interotta 1977, St. Peter's Square, Perspective. (Couttesy AD Editions, Ltd.l. According to Krier, no significant varia which monumental boulevards section try through a combinaton of greenbelts tural expression replacing the stylistic tion in this method of town planning was off districts into strongly articulated and orderly clusters of development. In a diversity characteristic of nineteenth- and proposed until about 1900 with the precincts, more regular than in a medieval perverse way, Ebenezer Howard's early-twentieth-century buildings. publications of Ebenezer Howard's city but just as distinct. "Garden City" has become a model for to Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Soria y Mata' s day's suburban developments in which The Negative Mirror concept of the linear city, Tony Garnier's Krier rejects the infinite axial exten the infrastructure of the older city has Cite' industrielle, and Camillo Sitte's sion of earlier Baroque plans and, been imagined to "wither away." 10 Link In Maurilla the traveler is invited to Stadtebau nach seinen kunstlerischen like Camillo Sitte, seems to con ed by airports and roadways, the new, inspect the town and also to look Grundsatzen. Although never fully realiz sider the enclosure of space more decentralized urban center has become a at certain picture postcards which ed, each of these proposals was to have important than the vista. The in complex of offices, factories and show what it used to be like: the an enormous impact upon modern plan tersections of two major boulevards warehouses, clusters of hotels, and very same square with a chicken in ning strategies and formed the underpin are often articulated by a regional shopping centers. place of the bus station, the music nings of the rhetoric for modern urban monumental, covered outdoor pavillion instead of the fl yover, two theoretical premises. space where the roof is supported The concept of the modern city was also young ladies with parasols instead by a group of buildings. This is a a reaction against the way cities had evolv of the ammunition plant. To avoid By the 1920's, rapid growth and totally nontraditional concept that ed during the nineteenth century. The old disappointing the locals, the unregulated industrialization during the was not even technically possible forms of urban organization provided by traveller must praise the town on nineteenth century created deplorable liv until the late nineteenth century? street and square were discarded in favor the postcard and say how he ing conditions for the poor in large slum of individual buildings in a parklike set prefers it to the present-day town , districts that occupied large urban areas. Unlike Eisenman's dialectical. views ex ting. Except for a few structures retained being careful though to keep his Although some of the worst sanitation and pounding the dislocation of post for historical or sentimental reasons, the expressions of regret within the water-supply problems had been address modernist architecture, Krier presents a modernists believed that cities would be well-defined limits laid down by ed, laws regulating development were not more antiquarian polemic as a reaction to completely renewed. Since there would be convention. stringent and often unenforced. The the decentralization and tabla raza ad no incongruity between old buildings and - Italo Calvino clarion call of modernist architecture and vocated by proponents of modernism. new, modernist proponents believed that urban planning was based upon Le Cor The concept of the modern city sought to stylistic unity would be conferred upon Historically, the erosion of urban space busier's redefinition of central Paris, 48 unify the attributes of both city and coun- cities through a single, unified architec- in twentieth-century town planning has known as the Voisin Plan, exhibited in 1925. In this proposal, the business center espoused by the C.I.A.M. conferences ture, part landscape and part the seemless continuity of time, yet of Paris is replaced by eighteen sixty-floor and generally accepted as the raison d'etre scaffold.15 disconnected and separate. Like images skyscrapers and three clusters of luxury of urban planning. Instead, Rob Krier superimposed upon a screen, past and apartments accessed by a limited-access presents three theorems which serve as Like Calvino's contrast of the postcard present fuse into a singular image; highway driven directly through the heart the basis for his own city planning pro view of romantic/nostalgic memory of the separable yet composite; a synthetic im of the city. Autocratic and bold, the Voisin posals. First, Krier writes, each building displaced city versus the cold reality of its age of place both present and Plan was not based on the functional in a town must be subordinate to the present condition, the historicist visions remembered. Calvino's postcard, then, is organization or the priorities of real cities, overall plan in terms of scale, building of the Kriers' require the critical reasess a mnemonic device which recollects the nor was it an egalitarian proposal design type, and architectural vocabulary. Se ment of the attributes (the street, the past and dislocates the moment from the ed to obliterate and restructure the cond, the existing conception of urban square) or the traditional, monumental ci continuum of time. deteriorating working-class districts of space must not be destroyed, but com ty and require their assimilation into the Paris. Ironically, Le Corbusier's original plemented by new building. And, final fabric of the modern city. Neither Rob nor For Rossi the European city has become vision of a new order was designed for the ly, the terms "regular" and "irregular" in Leon Krier would accept Eisenman's ex the house of the dead.17 Its history, its elite.12 the context of the urban fabric and istential condition of dislocation as the function, has ended; it has erased the building form , should not be postulated raison d'etreof architecture or urban plan specific memories of the houses of in It wasn't until the mid-1930's, however, on any ideological grounds.14 As an exam ning. However, they certainly would not dividual childhood to become a locus of that the concept of a universal modern ar ple, Krier points to the introduction of the object to Rossi's analogy of the house and collective memory. Rossi employs the im chitectural style was accepted as a tenable orthogonal town-plan in Greece and its the collective memory of the city. age of the house as an analogue to the ci hypothesis and the modernist theory of imitation in new urban settlements and, Whereas Eisenman's excavations unearth ty. Analogy allows for both memory and site planning began to impose a new kind during the same period, towns that were not only the memory of the site itself (i.e.: history mixing "autobiography and civic of uniformity on city design. The Congres built on an irregular ground plan. History pre-existing building foundations), they history." individual and collective.18 Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne shows that architectural and spatial also unearth the collective memory or Whereas the bourgeois house of Rossi's (C.I.A.M.J , founded in 1928, brought masterpieces were produced by both psychological condition of the site which childhood permitted fantasy, it denied the together leading modernist architects of types. links it to a broader, universal collective ordering of type; that apparatus codify Europe, including Gropius, Mies and Le memory (i.e.: the mercator grid). 16 Eisen ing the city in such a way that, in spite of Corbusier. The fourth C.I.A.M. meeting, In his critical assessment of the Wexner man's polemical position, therefore, history, memory can imagine and of which Le Cor busier was an influential Center, R.E. Somol focuses upon Eisen presents the architect with an irrecon reconstruct a future time of fantasy. Thus, organizer, adopted a series of statements man's initial archeological excavation of cilable psycho/philosophical condition memory is set into motion through the in of principles about city planning. Four the site which provide the impetus for the in which the memory of the site (past, pre ventive potential of the typological ap critical areas of city planning were iden reconstruction of the fragments of the ar sent, and future) is a simultaneous con paratus, the analogous design process (in tified as dwellings, recreation, mory. So mol recounts the analogy of the dition of the site, but cannot be in Rossi's case, the "analogous city" is a workplaces, and transportation. burrow and the castle to the writings of dividually invoked without abrogating (or manifestation of both his writings and his Although the tall building was officially Kafka, where the castle and the burrow "dislocating") some "other" condition. drawings). 19 adopted by C. I. A.M. as a basic design ele become emblems for the multiple From Eisenman's point of view, the issues ment of cities, Barnett points out that ac passageways and connections of the of "modernism" versus "historicism" are Critical Memory tual European housing projects were labyrinth, and1:he act of castling in chess, a mute point because the existential con always in row houses or walk-up where two pieces are simultaeously in dition of "post-modern" man (and, by ex There came a period when the apartments.13 The prototype of the motion, passing through one another and tension, the "post-modern" city) is in charm radiated by old towns was skyscraper capriciously interjected into reversing positions. determinate and nonabsolute. not so harmless, for it might lead the existing fabric of the city, while cer one to believe that the architect's tainly not the original intention of As the parabolic surface of the negative ambitions did not go beyond the C.I.A.M., has ingrained itself as the pat At Wexner, the sovereign grid mirror focuses that which is reflected to decorative aspect, that a pictures tern of urban development throughout (reason) is allowed a doubling two a unique point and yields a previously que backdrop was all that was the twentieth century. step with the rook, suspending the unknown image the "house" of the city needed. laws of normal movement and becomes the repository of collective - Fritz Schumacher The excesses of modernism, the intrusive development. This process pro memory and, like the negative mirror, disruption of the traditional urban fabric duces a third term for the avant reveals the apparantly isolated and In the catalogue of the International with the careless introduction of the garde object, between the sphere disconnected facets of place and focuses Building Exhibition Berlin 1987: Examples skyscraper, the decentralization of urban and the labyrinth, where the them together in a more intense reality. of a New Architecture, Joseph Paul Kleihues and civic spaces, and the deterioration of becoming-grid of the castle and the Calvino' s postcard image of the city of the discusses the critical reconstruction of the the street and pedestrian scale, have led becoming-castle of the grid pro past is held captive by its own memory; city and takes issue with the nostalgic the brothers Krier to reassess patterns of duce an imperceptibility. The a transient moment dislocated from the tendencies of present-day historicism. In urban building. Both Rob and Leon Krier 'final' structure exists in a state of reality of the present. A frozen instant in Kleihues' view, "Postmodernism," "Neoclassicism;· and "Neoromanticism" reject the concept of the tabla rasa as between, a supplement to architec- time, it is a specific place or locus part of 49 are symptomatic expressions of escape their arrangement of the site they each city has its own particular character, The city is a three-dimensional model from an industrial way of life and a "flight constitute parts of a whole, relating its own history, its own conventions and, as a corporeal manifestation of the into the illusionary world of theatrical to each other and enhancing each which yield its own memory. Kleihues collective memory through its composi 20 scenery." Architecture and town plann other ... The urban areas where we believes that ignorance of this truth can tion of individual elements, is inex ing just cannot be reduced to the live, and which we remember, are only lead to the decay of urbanistic tricably integrated with its ground-plan. denominator of functionalism and localities defined by the interaction culture and of the city as a place to live in. However, the ground-plan is a passive rationalism. Wherever they are permitted of the individual elements regulator of the organization of buildings 13 to operate as incipient and adventurous building, water, and landscape: Rediscovery of the principles underlying in regard to the changing types and styles art they combine the constructive ra the construction of the historic city, the of buildings that are erected upon it. tionality with the power of the poetic, they Both Krier and Moore would appear to conventions set aside or forgotten due to Whatever program the ground-plan lays become what Holderlin called a concur that memory is not embodied in industrialization, population expansion, down, it will not take definite shape until "transcendent design of man abiding in any individual component of the site, but, and the devastions of war, and invoking a superstructure has been erected: streets, his merit and his spirit of poetry."21 rather, it is the composition of the a "critical" memory grounded in the squares and parks only come to life in multifarious components and their rela telenomic condition of place is essential conjunction with the urban planning pro In the IBA competition in Berlin, Charles tionship to the site and context (" locali to the reconstruction of the city. Without gram. Therefore, Kleihues asserts, it is the Moore's winning urban landscape and ty") in which the collective memory is in lapsing into the futile nostalgia of a image of the city, the constituent parts as Leon Krier's "little town by the waterfront" vested. According to Kleihues in a state postmodern "representative historicism" well as the whole, especially the proposal for the Tegel lake and woods ment which seems to parallel Rossi's at that exhausts itself in quotations, ironical physiognomy of its houses, that - district on the outskirts of the city evoke titude, the topographic layout of the allusions or cliches, Kleihues argues that transcending the geometry of the city memories of ancient cities firmly rooted historical city no longer exists. In spite of "architecture needs to be reinstated in reveals the spiritual and cultural values of in the ground plan and enhanced by piaz the brutal acts of destruction and disrup what Greeks called "the world:" a world changing epochs. za and street perspectives. The idealistic tive interventions within the context of the where man is participant in a "game,'' a concept proselytized by Krier and has city, it is the urban ground-plan that of world that reveals itself in this game by Kleihues embraces the Greek concept of characterized his drawings with their fers the most clues to its origins. Over the showing up the differences between tecbne which has a double function of historical emphasis and nostalgia is centuries, conventions having universal poiesis (beauty) and logos (reason), both skill (craft) and art (aesthetic). As underscored by Krier's unwavering character have evolved for architecture metaphor and function, existential in such, it is the instrument of rationality adherence to classicism: and urban development. Nevertheless, security and institutional form." 24 and allows imaginative emancipation (ex-

The public buildings must be con structed to the highest standards of craftsmanship and technology. Classical architecture found the definitive answer to all the pro blems in this field. Not only did we employ a scale that gives an urban district a pleasant and familiar at mosphere, we also tried to give the buildings that special imprint which alone makes a location into a real , unique locality22

In Moore's Recreational and Residential Facilities proposal for the Tegel Docks area, water became the unifying element connecting the individual parts. To Moore, it is the specific relationships of parts to whole and the relationship of the complex in plan and scale to the site that contributes to the "unique locality":

Admittedly, we have designed the cultural institutions, leisure

facilities and dwelling-houses as Figure 3: Charles Moore, John Rubel, and Buzz Yudell, Residential and Recreational Facilities at Tegeler Hafen, Berlin, Axonometric. (Courtesy Rizzoli 50 individual buildings, but through International Publications). pression of "poiesis'1. In terms of Freud's Notes: metapsychology, transmission of ideas involves three moments: "repetition," I. Norberg-Schulz. Christian. Genius Loci: Towards II. Krier, Rob, Urban Space, Rizzoli International matrix of the elevations. The ground-plane grids a Phenomonology of Architecture, Rizolli Inter Publications. Incorporated, p. 64. alternately create elevated walkways. walls. and "remembrance," and "working through" national Publications. New York. 1980, p. 8. 12. Barnett notes that Le Corbusierwas a great artist preserve and define the excavation of the site. which is a liberating and separating pro 2. Rossi, Aldo, The Architecture of the City, The MIT who was able to capture the promise and the ex Eisenman's elablorate "reconstruction" of the cess. Although critical reconstruction in Press. Cambridge. Massachusetts. 1982. p. 3. citement of modernity in extraordinarily ground-plane was not executed. volves an interest in the past, it embodies 3. Ibid .. pp. 7-8. authoratative images. but the images were not 17. Rossi, op. cit., p. 10. the dialectic between "separation" and 4. Ibid. , p. 7. based on the functional, organizational or 18. Ibid ., p. 9. 5. Fisher. Thomas, "Eisenman Builds: Introduction." economic priorities of real cities. His 1935 revi 19. Rossi cites the Quatremere de Quincy's definition "restoration" and seeks emancipation on Progressive Architecture 10:89. p. 68. sion of his theoretical city, La Ville Radieuse. in of type: new terms without romanticizing 6. Barnett. Jonathan, The Elusive City: Five Centuries its social structure. reflected the authoritarian The word 'type' represents not so much the im repetition. of Design. Ambition and Miscalculation, Harper organization advocated by the syndicalists. Its age of a thing to be copied or perfectly imitated & Row, Publishers. New York. 1986. p. 38. plan had a new anthropomorphic appearance. as the idea of an element that must itself serve as the rule forthe model ... The model, understood In critical memory the references are 7. Ibid., p. 37. with an administrative head (the familiar cluster 8. Barnett recounts Krier's architectural evolution: of cross-shaped towers). a residential body with in terms of the practical execution of an. is an ob historic; however, the mnemonic device By contrast. monumental city design. not long commercial-district viscera, workers' housing for ject that must be repeated such as it is: type. on (syntactic referents) are divested of their ago discarded as an irrelavent and outmoded set legs and factories for feet. The influence of the the contrary. is an object according to which one symbolic and iconographic connotations of ideas, has been gaining new interest. Leon recently adopted C. I.A.M. principles may can conceive works that do not resemble one and, thereby, acquire new semiotic mean Krier ... began his monumental planning con perhaps be seen in the increasing articulation of another at all (p. 401. 20. Kleihues, Joseph Paul , International Building Ex ing. In the European city, context and cepts as a reaction to the megastructure, but also separate districts, but the nature and placement in evolution from it. Straight lines of communica of these districts did not correspond to the func hibition Berlin 1987: Examples of a ew Architec memory are defined as a vertical tion typical of megastructure design became a tional organization of existing cities. ture, DAM. Frankfurt am Main. 1986. p. 15. phenomenon. The new is built upon the monumental axis. This transition is clearly visi 13. Barnett. op. cit .. p. 120. 21. Ib id., p. 57. site and superimposed upon the founda ble in Krier's Leinfelden City Center project of 14. Krier, op. cit., p. 66. 22. Ibid .. p. 14. tions of the old, sometimes literally retrac 1971. where the main and cross axes are lined 15. Somol, R.E. , "0-0'; Progressive Architecture, 23. Ibid .. p. 14. ing the footprint of the past. Memory per with continuous, large-scale buildings, and the 10:89. 24. Ibid .. p. 15. intersection of theiwoaxes is the site for a cl uster 16. In his residential project for the Southern sists through the vertical translation of the of what looks like four modern office buildings. Friedrichstadt district of Berlin near Check Point past into the present and continuity is Krier .in his more recent projects resolutely Charli e, Eisenman "excavated" the site and assured for the future. Critical memory, refuses to deal definitively either with groups of superimposed two grids: the existing urban grid therefore, is not simply the recreation of tall buildings or with automobiles, which end up of the district and the mercator grid which was the past, but a non-nostalgic emancipa being excluded from his monumental-city con "revealed" in the excavation. Eisenman then pro cepts (p. 190l. ceeded to use the layered grids to organize the site tion of the past through telenomic in 9. Barnett. op. cit., p. 38. and building footprint and, by tilting the grids tervention and transmission. 10. Ibid., p. 186. vertically. using them to define the compositional