Oz
Volume 9 Article 7
1-1-1987
Architecture as the Inversion of Architecture
James Wines
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Recommended Citation Wines, James (1987) "Architecture as the Inversion of Architecture," Oz: Vol. 9. https://doi.org/10.4148/ 2378-5853.1136
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oz by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Architecture as the Inversion of Architecture
James Wines
This Essay has been excerpted from James Wines' book entitled " De-architecture" to be published by Rizzoli in the fall of 1987.
De-architecture is a frame of reference Certainly in visual art, its fertile gesture he had created a new kind of tiona! requirements. Existing buildings for questioning the nature and practice resources have been frequently utilized "collaborative art," as well as having were engaged for their sociological iden of architecture in the late 1980s and as a means of commentary on ques staged an assault in the form of cancella tity, even though the structures beyond. The term was invented tionable institutions. In this respect, tion against the mindless rituals of themselves were not in use as legitimate because, as Picasso once observed, "Art Robert Rauschenberg's "Erased culture-hero fetishism . shelter at the time of the artists' interven is a series of destructions,'' and the con DeKooning'' was a landmark in the tions, or became inoperative as a result cept of subtracting from an institutional history of inversion, used for its cen Rauschenberg was able to tap into the of their transformation into art. definition to re-evaluate its purposes suring effect. By the late 1950s, fundamental connections between ar seemed an appropriate way to proceed. DeKoonings' paintings and drawings tistic process and cultural reference in Before his tragic death in a light plane De-architecture is an inversion for had become critically over-praised and a way that would simply not be possi crash in 1973, the pioneer earthwork ar critical effect, a context of exploration economically successful to a degree ble for architects, given the standard tist Robert Smithson had begun to and a purposeful disassembling of all where they were more closely identified design mentality. The manipulation of demonstrate considerable interest in ar those restrictive and axiomatic notions in the popular press with their value as formal elements is seen as the exclusive chitecture by recognizing that buildings of architecture in the interests of capital stock, than as works of art. In a option for creativity in architecture, but are fundamentally anti-entropic in con establishing a more flexible interpreta rebellious statement against such com an inversionist sensibility is clearly ception and stand as the most substan tion of this most essential public art. mercially based acclaim, the younger beyond such constraints. In this regard, tial public expressions of the human in Rauschenberg deliberately erased a the following selection of influential ex stinct to conquer and control the natural It is the thesis of De-architecture that the , DeKooning drawing (with the older ar amples of inversion from the early 1970s environment. Smithson was one of the ultimate function of a building is to com tist's permission) and then exhibited this cannot really be considered "designed" first major visual artists of the post municate as public art. This role has elimination-of-art as art. Through this architecture from the standpoint of func- Modern era to speculate in his art and been seriously eroded during the past writings on the power of entropy as an few decades by the lingering effects of aesthetic concept, equating thought academic Modernism and, more recent itself to what he called ''abstract ly, the pastiche of style and decor of geology" where "one's mind and the Post-modernism. The alternative now is earth are in a constant state of erosion." for architects to reach beyond the limita He saw the role of architecture in art as tions of formalism and historicism and the classic metaphor for maximum order draw upon social and psychological and as the perfect vehicle through which sources in the contemporary world. This to explore the mysteries of disorder. means that architecture today - like Gothic and Renaissance structures of Smithson's " Buried Shed," constructed the past - can use walls and spaces to at Kent State University in 1971 and deliver urgent messages to the public, afterward dedicated to the "Kent State or "narrative content" as way of ad Four" students who were killed by the dressing topical information. With this National Guard during campus anti-war regard , architecture can become a uprisings, was an existing wooden struc critical tool. ture crushed under several tons of earth dumped on the roof until it collapsed. Inversion is the natural extension of ar- The source of its message derived from 24 chitecture as the critique of architecture. Robert Smithson, Partial Buried Woodshed, 1970. the analogy between pressure on the shed's support beams and the mounting which he categorized under the term profitability as real estate, which can through the old building with subversive strains on public conscience after the "anarchitecture" -a subtractive theory celed out the element of occupancy and determination, intent upon creating students' deaths. Under the cir not unlike de-architecture in its rejection shifted the emphasis to cultural merit. what he called a confrontation of the cumstances, it was perhaps regrettable of what he called "the functionalist Art institutional instinct being what they "non-umental, that is an expression of that the artist could not bury a more aspect of past-due Machine Age are, under this hypothesis architecture, the commonplace that might encounter sociologically significant public building moralists,'' included a group of could be deemed worthy of value (and the grandeur and pomp of architectural at Kent State- for example, the ROTC dissected buildings. On superficial ap curatorial maintenance) relative to the structures and their self-glorifying military headquarters. However, what pearance at the time, these works degree of its elimination. client. " "In Paris," he added, "I was was important about "Buried Shed" was seemed to be almost pernicious attacks, incredibly lucky in finding such the use of an architectural presence for like guerrilla warfare, against architec Gordon Matta-Clark's best known work a situation.'' its psychological relationship to social ture. Structures were variously cut up, is "Splitting 1974" in Englewood, New The works of Smithson and Matta-Clark stability. Its subjection to an inversionist stripped, torn apart, excavated and Jersey, where he literally sawed a typical examined here also qualify as concepts attack and its transformation into generally de-materialized in some way suburban wood-frame house in two involving indeterminacy and chance. political commentary were based on the to achieve a precarious feeling of or parts, from roof to foundation. This When, for example, mounds of crushing unconscious associations in the popular chestrated apocalypse. hierarchical split was, in itself, a strong earth and acts of demolition become mind with buildings and orderly func sculptural statement, but the concept part of art-making, the aesthetic tension tions - or that generic "state of Matta-Clarks' art seized upon the gained its narrative identity through an of the idea is based on playing a game use" referred to earlier. Also, this paradoxical relationship between the association with the archetypal with "uncontrollable destiny." The "erasure" of architecture bears great American dream of progress and the act American dwelling. This is completely essential power of this approach, when resemblance to Rauschenberg's "Erased of destruction. Any work of architecture different from the structuring of an applied to architecture, is in the risk fac DeKooning" in method and attitude, if being razed is assumed to be of no value abstract composition - for example, the tor and the vast distance separating the not specific references. within the "blast-out-a-hole-and-build" line bisecting a Barnett Newman paint "chance attitude" from standard ra mentality of the development corpora ing - because no object, other than a tionalist formalism. Gordon Matta-Clark was another victim tions. Buildings are demolished for only house, could have provoked the viewer of early death (of cancer in 1978) whose one reason, to prepare for a more pro to mentally unravel a progression of Since the virtues of indeterminacy and career, like Smithson's was cut off in the fitable replacement. Since a number of ideas so inextricably tied to sociological chance might not be readily apparent to prime of creativity and idea develop Matta-Clark's reduced buildings were content. As the artist explained, ·'Split the average real estate developer - ment. Trained as an architect at Cornell destined to be removed anyway, his pro ting" was his "reaction to an ever less especially in the form of self University, he rejected the profession jects became a unique example of inver viable state of privacy, private property destroying edifices and programmed de after graduation out of distain for its con sion which might be seen as preserva and isolation." materialization, it is perhaps the right formity in order to pursue a highly per tion by demolition. At the point of being moment to inject an explanation. The sonal series of projects in conceptual art; acted upon by the artist (in the form of In another project, entitled ''Paris demonstrations of inversionist art by many of them dealing with architectural dissections) , the buildings in question Cutting," Matta-Clark chopped a series Smithson and Matta-Clark, and a few of inversion. His most famous works, gained significance ~s art, rather than of concentric circular openings through the projects to follow in this discussion, the facade and interior walls of a 17th are included because they so clearly il Century townhouse destined for demoli lustrate the issues involved. These works tion to make way for the burgeoning re were not, strictly speaking, functional or development of the Beaubourg and Les structurally feasible habitat. The ex Halles areas in Paris. The crowning glory amples being discussed now stress the of this vast real estate enterprise was same need for more liberated concep the Pompidou Center, housing all of the tualization and a greater range of sources ministries of French culture and the in architecture. museum of modern art. The site of the Matta-Clark invasion-by-art was direct The unique contributions of Smithson ly adjacent to the Pompidou, then under and Matta-Clark are not supposed to be construction and showing every literally translated into standard evidence of becoming the ultimate building programs (which is an absurd hyperbolization of the artist's definition contradiction, in any case), but rather, of "Machine Age moralist" func be used as role models of sensibility and tionalism. The implicit commentary of perception. There is a great variety of Matta-Clark's perverse statement was possible interpretations of indeter beautifully contrasted to the over minacy and chance which are comfort- zealous technological extravaganza ably applicable to usable structures, and GQrdon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1973. across the street. He burrowed his way some of these will be explored later. One 25 case in particular, SITE's urban con ting." Yet the spirit and content is much short by adverse reaction. client's boardroom screen with hopes of dominium proposal for a "Highrise of less violent. The apocalyptic implica gaining anything more · than an invita Homes, " would fit this category. tions are there, but conveyed through This negative response seemed to have tion to exit through the nearest door. the more quietly poetic device of ar a great deal to do with the inclusion of But, the purpose of focusing on such ex Briefly described, this housing concept chitecture wrapped in elemental skins. "assisted" natural elements which were treme artistic testimony is to encourage suggests a prototype multi-story grid perceived by the public to be antithetic a heightened state of awareness. By containing a vertical community of The "Ice" works, completed during a to the sacred notion of functionalism in understanding that the attitudes in private homes - each individually university residency in Minneapolis, architecture. As the atmospheric condi volved are applicable to an infinite varie responsive to the owner's personal consisted of taking two conventional tions prevailed which produced frozen ty of situations - from the most choices in architectural style and floor structures - a private house and a col water and baked clay, the structures pragmatic to the most exotic, the ar plan configuration. Because the only lege administration building - and became uninhabitable by suburban chitect can then envision how the design contribution of the architect is spraying water over them under freez American living standards. Paradoxical demands of each contest might be used the matrix grid, the collective ensemble ing weather conditions. The cumulative ly. ice and clay shelters are the instinc to unlock its narrative potential. of dwellings is left to chance. In fact, the formations of icicles completely tive and ecologically intelligent choices aesthetic dynamism of the "Highrise of enveloped the buildings and, in the case of certain civilizations (Eskimos and Practicallimiations, for example, did not Homes' ' would decline in direct propor of the private dwelling, was controlled Aboriginals, for example) and yet, in the prevent California architect Eric Owen tion to the amount of effort imposed by a framing device which produced a context of housing based on tech Moss from building his remarkable 1983 by any attempt to unify its single ice cube of impressive propor nological support systems and a pro "Petal House," with its surreal un formal appearance. tions. The "Clay House" in Salt Lake fligate waste of resources, the Pettena folding roof panels which qualify as City was also realized while Pettena was projects were met with apprehension both inclusion (because they extend the Gianni Pettena, an Italian architect teaching at a local college. The project and even hostility. vocabulary of an existing wood-frame working in Florence and various cities involved covering the total exterior sur tract house) and inversion (because they in the United States during the early face of a private residence with a layer By using such perverse and abrasive il play with the spectator's expectations 1970s, was the author of several impor of wet clay while the owners were on lustrations of inversion, indeterminacy for gables, roofs, and sundecks in the tant (and insufficiently credited) con vacation. As the heat of the sun baked and chance as Smithson's "Shed," Los Angeles community). Similarly, tributions to the recent history of in this earthen sheath, it left the rather Matta-Clark's "Splitting" and Pettena's none of the usual constraints stopped versionist and indeterminacy/chance startling illusion of a typical suburban " Ice" works, there is obviously a risk Japanese designer Kuramoto from erect aspects of arch-art. As a graduate from shingle-style house metamorphosized that the entire argument of de ing his "House of Hokkaido" (1974) , the University of Florence School of into adobe. Understandably, these ar architecture could be dismissed by the which resembled a topped orange crate, Architecture, he was, like Matta-Clark, tistic incursions by Pettena were not reflexive conservatism of standard ar but, in reality, served as a very func disenchanted with the conservatism of completely appreciated by the respective chitectural response. These are not ex tional way of dealing with climate, formalist design and drawn to the in communities and, in the case of Min actly the kind of images that a hard-sell seasonal change and the interior tellectual gamesmanship of conceptual neapolis, his teaching tenure was cut designer could project on the corporate distribution of activity from winter to art - particulary the bold experiments summer spaces, depending on the direc in process art, performance art and tion of the sun. And, in a comparably earthworks then taking place in the aggressive displacement, architect United States. Pettena's mentor upon ar Laszlo Rajk turned a pathetically or rival in the States was Robert Smithson, dinary worker's house upside down, and a number of his initial pieces owed altering the entire meaning of a typical considerable debt to the American's in Socialist housing project. Here was the fluence. This is especially true of a group perfect demonstration of inversion as of "architecture-by-selection" land contextual tension, created by using the works in the Southwest copper mining pathos of a bleak and routine dwelling territory entitled ''l'architettura as part of a fantasy of disruption. Fur inconsce" of 1972 and 1973. Of greater thermore, because of the oppressive originality and more relevance to the Russian presence in Hungary, this pro arguments of de-architecture, Pettena ject assumed strong political implica produced a series of three buildings sub tions as well. jected to natural forces and aided by his interventions. These projects, " Ice" In a more strategically subtle confron numbers I and II and ''Clay House,'' all tation with local authority, Robert from 1971 and '72, bear some resem Venturi inserted two superbly camou blance to "Buried Shed" by Smithson flaged inversionist residences on 26 and Matta-Clark's Englewood "Split- Site, Highrise of Homes, 1981. Nantucket Island by acknowledging that a design review board would thwart the state government and an art institution) be understood on the basis of ideas that and literature. construction of any building which inflamed the puritanical right-wing in ar are, at once, very traditional (given the violated traditional New England chitecture. In the visual arts, theatre or legacy of narrative architecture for the SITE's competition entry for the shingle style. For all intents and pur films, this kind of philistine fervor would past 3,000 years) and very radical Frankfurst Museum of Modern Art is a poses, his Trubeck and Wislocki Houses usually be reserved for an affronted because they also ask for a new defini concept which engages most of the form of 1971 appeared to be nothing more public. In architecture, it comes tion of architecture. The obvious con and materials conventions of architec than routine heritage architecture. Their from within. flict is that one cannot have it ture. Yet its meaning is drawn from public image seemed to confirm all of both ways. references totally outside of these the endorsed Nantucket standards in It should not even be necessary to have restraints. Because the project did not terms of shape, materials, detailing to rationalize the functional performance Returning briefly to Michael Graves' win the first award (Hans Hollein's was and scale. of a Gehry, Moss, Kuramoto or Venturi Portland Public Services Building and premiated), it will remain forever unbuilt building. This would be the equivalent the controversy surrounding this struc and, regrettably, must be considered an On closer inspection, however, there of having to defend an accomplished ture, the affront to the architecture example of paper architecture. was a subversive use of typological painter's work with assurances that his establishment was not based on its con forms which completely undermined the canvases are well-stretched. At least art ceptual unfamiliarity, but rather on houses' appearance of conformity. Pro criticism tends to focus on aesthetic con its conformity. The intentions from the outset were to portions were distorted (outsized win tent and conceptual contribution. In ar develop a buildable idea and, in this dows and porches), contradictions were chitecture (which is, after all, nothing Graves is, after all, a mainstream and context, represents a significant land imposed (mock-Palladian motifs on more than construction if it isn't art) fully accredited designer whose works mark in the evolution of SITE's work. fisherman 's cottages) and innumberable there is still some omnipresent obliga are rooted in strict formalist principles. In 1983 it was a seminal effort that in other subversive gestures were in tion to justify every component of a That he chose to intrude upon these cluded some earlier issues; yet it cut the tegrated - like notched comers, exag building as the product of either principles with highly personalized umbilical which had tied SITE to the gerated gables and fenestration that meaurable good judgment or economic sculptural, graphic and referential American shopping center architecture seems to arbitrarily drop off comers or satisfaction. These obligations would devices was his only transgression. of Best Products and proved that certain stack up in bothersome misalignment. seem to be foregone conclusions and conceptual approaches were applicable taken for granted (except in a case of SITE, on the other hand, has regarded to any type of building, on any scale - Unquestionably, the most difficult task some basic violation of functional prin architecture itself as merely a "subject in this case, an institutional structure of a theory like de-architecture is to over ciples, as in the work of Gordon Matta matter" for art and has displayed a in Europe. come the instinctive tendency of the ar Clark. Yet, the self-conscious tradition minimum involvement with the usual chitectural profession to brush aside any of accountability prevails as the enemy sculptural/functional relationships It also confirmed SITE's decision to pur ideas which seem to threaten its habitual of art. deemed necessary for standard evalua sue museum and gallery commissions notions of good design and rational tion. What conventions exist in SITE's in the future. It was a test case for the principles. Even decorative post In this sense architecture becomes a buildings have usually derived more visual dialogue between inside and out Modernism, which in any other art form little like coitus interruptus. The poten from the logic of construction practices side Oater turned into a reality with the would be considered hopelessly conser tial for unlimited expression and fulfill (or de-construction) than from any con last of SITE's Best showrooms in vative, has met with outraged disdain by ment is there, but can rarely be consum sciously created formal shapes or or Milwaukee). And it dealth with a range the mainstream practitioners because mated .as long as every move must be chestrated uses of space. of applications of narrative architecture. the slightest evidence of frivolity is arrested mid-act for clinical analysis. perceived as aberrant and irresponsible. The work has been about totally dif The Frankfurt Museum used the The furor generated by Michael Graves' One regrettable consistency in all ar- ferent issues. In opposition to both building as cultural commentary (or a Portland Public Services Building and . chitectural theories and philosophies Modernist and post-Modernist design, bridge between societal value systems). concept for the Whitney Museum of has been their function as a literary SITE and a number of other 1970s It addressed certain environmental con American Art, for instance, had nothing justification of the author's own ar groups, like Superstudio, Haus Rucker cerns by the imposition of " illogical to do with whether these concepts were chitectural oeuvre. De-architecture is no and Coop Himmelblau, responded to fragments" in its surroundings. It en truly avant garde or whether they ap exception, because the work of SITE has the inhabitants' need for choice and the gaged the elements of myth, memory, propriately sheltered the services for been on the defensive end of most intevention of architecture as the basis and the influences of media. It used which they were intended. But rather arguments for the better part of 15 years. for public communication. This work mutable and provisional symbolism and whether they conformed to pre Although recent critical analysis has of corresponded to the period's visual art, architecture as the critique of architec conceived standards of design morality. fered more sympathetic and generous where SITE's sympathies still remain ture. For these reasons, Frankfurst is ap Both buildings, in point of fact, are appraisals, the origins of SITE's relation by reason of cross-fertilization, propriate to explore toward a better rather problematic and traditional. ship with the architecture scene (par hybridism and a state of de-definition in definition of narrative content and However, the mere presence in each of ticularly in the United States) have been the arts which had all but eliminated its sources. decorative motif and color on a large tentative at best. SITE's buildings, in those tired categorical distinctions scale (especially when endorsed by a teriors and public spaces have asked to separating art, architecture, theatre The city of Frankfurt was approximate- 27 ly 80 percent destroyed by American bombing raids during the World War II . Before this devastation, the community had a rich legacy of historic architecture - both Medieval and Baroque - and thrived as the banking and financial center of Germany. After the war and the German economic miracle, Frankfurt again burgeoned as a power ful business force internationally, rapid ly rebuilding the destroyed areas with a rather drab profusion of international style housing and offices and even resur recting a facsimile of the old Medieval historic center. As a poignant reminder of the war years, a number of bombed out building fragments were allowed to remain by assimilation into the fabric of the cityscape or integration into new structures. The resulting image of Frankfurt today is one of energy and Site, Frankfurt Museum of Modem Art 1983. Site, Frankfurt Museum of Modem Art (drawing) View East, 1983. progress, but filtered through the haunt old and new, congestion and quiet Because of the emerging power of the The peculiar complexity of using nar ing memories of better times and the (referring to the different volumes of traf Green Party in Germany in the early rative in architecture is trying to find a loss of a cultural heritage. There is an fic flow on the three streets), light and 1980s, with its Marxist orientation and solution that can satisfy the practical internal sense of remorse, inherited dark, nostalgia and progress. populist/environmentalist programs, the functions of a building, without submit from the 1930s age of delusion, con competitors were cautioned to design a ting to so many formal decisions that its trasted to the surface prosperity and a SITE was one of six invited competitors museum that would be "democratic" in final message fails to read on business-as-usual exuberance. This for the Frankfurt Museum of Modern feeling and preferably include some psychological terms. This balancing act conflict became one of the elements Art. From the outset, the conceptual garden spaces. With these general direc requires a sensibility that can treat all which influenced SITE's Frankfurt development of the project was a tives, SITE proceeded to develop an idea of the physical components of a struc Museum concept. response to requirements outlined by a which tried to comply on every level , ex ture as pure service on the first level, but then director designate who believed cluding any elements which might be invest them with associative references The site designated for the future that SITE's involvement in the competi read as decorative, compete with the when processed through the narrative museum is a triangular piece of land, tion was appropriate because the com art on show, conflict with the development. This goes back to the enclosed by the intersection of three pleted institution would house a warehouse/factory image or appear discussion of architecture as subject boulevards - Berlinerstrasse, Braubach collection of mainly American contem elitist in complextion. matter and maintaining sufficient strasse, and Domstrasse (leading to the porary art. detachment from the temptations of for city's main cathedrall. Severely dam malism to be able to identify "generic aged during the war, this area is sur This future museum was described as a use" in a building as the basis of sym rounded by a number of masonry build center for cultural activity that would not SITE assumed that virtually all of the bolic content. ing fragments and, at the Domstrasse merely serve as a showcase for painting competitors would approach the end of the triangle, there is a major fish and sculpture but also provide a flexi triangular configuration of the given In the case of the Frankfurt Museum, market (presumably to be removed ble environment to accommodate video, land parcel as a formalist exercise, SITE's earliest instinctive decision was when construction of the museum performance and any range of expanded resulting in a series of variations on a to isolate commonplace architectural begins). This triangle also includes a definitions of visual art that might evolve big slice of cheese. With few exceptions, typologies- one of the ' 'factory of art'' municipal parking lot on the East end, over the years. This was to be a museum the invited participants, and the few and another for the site definition - that post war stucco housing on the North, that would function as "a factory for the hundred architects who entered open did not have to be invented, but, in ef and a South side section of 19th Cen display and manufacture of art. '' Further ly, confirmed this first opinion. SITE's fect, had already been invented. The tury apartment structures which sur competition guidelines suggested that project, therefore, started with an attack choice was cultural. It was immediately vived the bombing. These buildings are the building's exterior should appear on the inevitable "big wedge" by try clear that certain strong relationships ex more typically Germanic, somber in dramatic, expressive and factory-like, ing to find a level of architectural resolu isted between American and German ar feeling and color, with pitched eaves and while the interior should be as flexible tion that would both acknowledge and chitecture and, for example, no less a rows of dormers. The general effect of and deferent to the display of art destroy (or de-materialize) this overly in figure than Frank Lloyd Wright sar 28 the total site is one of contrasts between as possible. sistent triangular shape. donically observed that the Germans stitutional buildings. Since it is imposs the ghost of the triangle is omnipresent. ible to fit the rectangular footprint of the edifice on the triangular site, the side All of the narrative experiences in the facing Braubachstrasse is treated as a Frankfurt Museum are the product of us massive, four-story cutaway to allow fo r ing conventional architecture typo the intrusion of the street. To complete logies, but altered by inversion. For a this illusion of a sheared off building, pedestrian walking around the exterior, the paving surface of the interior ground there is a sequential series of clues, or fl oor is allowed to complete the plotlines, based on people's subliminal rectangle outside by extending the response to institutional buildings. The Ground Floor Plan, 1983. identical floor tiles over the sidewalk and Frankfurt concept presents itself as two into Braubachstrasse. buildings - a " non-building" as building, plus a factory-as-museum - On the cutaway side of the museum, the which seem to have been enjoined by edges of the floorplanes and walls are some unexplained collision. No matter arbitrarily chopped off, recalling those where the spectator begins the journey, jagged-line indications drawn by ar the narrative must be unraveled by ac chitects to explain exterior/interior rela tive participation to discover where the tionships in technical documents (a threads of evidence lead. Questions like device also used in the Best Products " Which is inside and outside (or are (model! View of the cutawav side (model! View Southeast, 1983. "Inside/Outside Building" where it com they one in the same?) ,'' ''Is this one or had ultimately won World War II by provides an enclosure for the required mented on consumer culture). In two buildings?," "Where is the missing exporting the ubiquitous International sculpture garden and outdoor section of Frankfurt this sheared-off side recalls part?" "Is the building finished or in Style to the United States. the museum cafe. some of the existing wall fragments left process?" - are elementary inquires, on around the city as a result of the World one level , yet fundamental to all ar Furthermore, in the 19th Century, the The concept for Frankfurt is a visual War II air raids. Several of these are, chitecture on the other. They can be Germanic factory model was imported dialogue on the subjects of positive and in fact, adjacent to the site asked by a person who has never given to every American industrial center. negative, inside and outside. It is also facing Domstrasse. much thought to buildings, or a This connection was compounded by a colloquy between identifiable con knowledgable theoretician engaged in the fact that most of the 1960s American tingencies and the historical city of am The interior of the museum, because of research on the origins of meaning and art which comprises the bulk of the bivalent memories, between the spirit of its rectangular configuration, is a very definition in architecture. Frankfurt Museum's collection was 20th Century art and the structure that practical orchestration of right-angled of created in an assortment of these will contain it. Because the triangular fice spaces. Contrary to most three-sided The Frankfurt Museum project is an German influenced industrial lofts in plan has been decimated, it becomes an edifices, the triangle problem does not endeavor to express unresolved con New York City. The factory image inversion of the traditional notions of affect the shape of normal rooms and tradictions. It is a metaphor for the in seemed implicit for Frankfurt, but the "site definition" and " respect for site." appears only in the large gallery areas conclusive nature of Modern Art itself. standard masonry factory would never By subverting the site and then resur where its presence becomes an in It is a shelter for works that exist, as well take the shape of a giant wedge of Swiss recting it in glass, it is redefined as a new teresting spatial condition, instead of as a setting for art that cannot be an premium. In accord with this line of site. The transparent structure itself an intrusion. ticipated or imagined. The exterior thinking, it seemed intriguing and recalls the shape of Mies van der Rohe's modulates an industrial interpretation of perverse to treat the designated site as Glq.ss Skyscraper of 1920 for Belin, One of the most intriguing aspects of the two related cultures, as well as the scale nothing more than an inherited incon but filtered through America and interior is the invasion of the space of the surrounding neighborhood. It venience, a situation to be violated by returned to Frankfurt stripped of frame which supports the glass communicates the resonant tradition of a conventionally rectangular building. the moralist/functionalist baggage enclosure outside. In order to continue " permanance" in a museum in jux acquired abroad. the "site memory" theme, in each in taposition with the tentativeness and The result of these speculations pro stance where the frame penetrates the ambivalence of an apocalypse/tuopia duced a concept based on the invasion The basic masonry museum is a masonry, it functions as a reminder of world. The building is a product of the of a triangle by a rectangle. At the same reconstructed factory prototype, typical the actual triangular footprint. In the conceptual layering of ideas about ar time, it seemed obligatory to preserve ly found in tum-of-the-century industrial stairwells this intersection provides a chitecture, as opposed to being architec some visual/vertical indication of the communities like the Ruhr Valley in grid-frame exhibition wall, and in the of ture. While the post-Modern movement horizontal plane. This inspired an Germany and Pittsburgh in the United fices , where this structure would be im has used historically derived decoration ephermeral, or "ghost version," of the States. It is oriented on the North/South practical, it is replaced by the symbol to add figurative identity to surfaces, the site, described by an intersectioning axis consistent with the original town of a dotted line engraved into the floors Frankfurt Museum is a composite of plan of Frankfurt and its landmark in- or woven into carpet fabrics. As a result, stratified ideas which question both triangular glass curtain wall which also 29 sources of identity and the nature be determined in advance. For this of surface. reason, any drawings submitted to il lustrate this discussion are nothing more The Frankfurt concept is an appropriate than speculations. They are visual nota place for a permanent collection of tions on the projected aesthetic, social revolutionary visual art because it in and psychological possibilities that cludes a number of the ideas and at might evolve if multi-story architecture titude that inform these works - among became an orchestration of choice, them irony, ambiguity, fragmentation, chance and change. social commentary, hybridism and pluralism. With this regard, the cutaway The Highrise of Homes began as a side of the building presents a cliff-like response to the classical problem of ver terracing of precarious ledges where art, tical dwellings in an urban situation. normally contained, has been exposed Because of the restraints imposed by real to public view. On the street level, this estate economics and the complicity of effect answers the open and architects who have responded with democratic" mandate of the program design programs of oppressive visual by the appearance of sculpture as part consistency, highrise housing for the of daily sidewalk encounter past 60 years has been characterized by on Braubachstrasse. a ubiquitous similarity and no indication whatsoever of the individuality of the in SITE's Frankfurt Museum is both monu habitants within - no imagery reflective ment and anti-monument. Without of their personalities, idiosyncrasies and specifically addressing any ideological choices of architectural -identity. The issue, it offers a commentary on building Highrise of Homes represents the begin and context, rhetoric and tradition, site nings of a solution. planning and the role of an institution Site, Highrise of Homes, Matrix Showing a Typical Infill of Homes, 1981. in its community. In physical terms, this project is an ex environment of a multi-story building. Virtually all of the buildings and pro perimental condominium prototype Technically and economically, the con posals discussed before as represen The "Highrise of Homes" by SITE is an composed of from eight to 15 stories and cept can be approached by means of two tative of de-architecture and its applica appropriate project to conclude this ex intended for construction in some ma basic applications. The first is a luxury tions have been architect-controlled amination of de-architecture and the use jor city center. The ' 'U'' shaped con version, where the steel matrix is built visions, inclusive of the work of SITE. of narrative content. Although this hous figuration of the total building is a steel by a developer who ~lis off the plots in They have been aesthetic objects which, ing idea is still on the drawing boards, and concrete structure which supports dividually and the inhabitants are en no matter how ambiguous, allusory, it would, if built, challenge those last a vertical community of private houses couraged to insert totally customized metaphorical or metaphysical the inten sacred strongholds of design autonomy - stylistically the choice of individual houses. The second possibility is a tions, have ultimately been resolved as (and the root of academic formalism) - residents ·- clustered .into village-like middle-income adaptation which re:uses carefully orchestrated compositions. the self-righteous conceit of the architect compounds on each floor. All levels pro abandoned factory buildings (tradi Structures like SITE's " Indeterminate as " master builder," as the ultimate vide flexible platforms which can be pur tionally torn down), by stripping off Facade," Gehry's Santa Monica per "form giver," as the arbiter of chased by tenants in the manner of land facades and modifying the core services. sonal house and Venturi's Franklin "design control." p:o•rceis (plots in the sky) and central In this more economical version, many Court allude to the elements of chance elevator and mechanical core services of the home units would use standard and change, but the physical definition The Highrise of Homes is a matrix of the separate houses, gardens and in ized building parts (recalling the early and methodology for achieving results housing choices. It is a form of collage terior streets. The ground floor and one 1900s Palliser Catalogue Houses) with have been specific and determinate. architecture to be created by the in intermediate level includes shops, food plug-in systems for basic walls and Perhaps only SITE's Forest Building, habitants' infinite variety of personal markets, professional offices, enter amenities. This maintains the advantage with its ever-encroaching natural en decisions concerning how they want to tainment facilities and an atrium of variety, but becomes less expensive vironment, anticipates the involvement live and what kind of image they want garden space. as a result of consistent measurements of "uncontrollable destiny" implied by to convey to the world outside. Most and hardware. The lower cost prototype the Highrise of Homes. If trees and significantly, it is not a concept that The Highrise of Homes is based on the would be modularized and property vegetation were to be allowed such liber benefits from the homogenizing vision premise that people need the personal areas reduced, but the options for per ties, it follows that the invasion of a of a single architect. Its final configura- affirmation and territorial definition sonalized facades and gardens would re- building by its inhabitants' personal tion, except for the structural grid which associated with the "detached house," main intact. identities should be the next logical step. From this premise, the Highrise of 30 supports the individual houses, cannot even though living in the compressed aesthetic reading of such an event could primarily as exercises in the manipula not be based on an analysis of its for tion of volume, structure and space. mal harmony, but rather on .the social/ Rarely have contemporary designers psychological implications of the total been involved with the issues which action. This transferred the focus of art underlie say a Samuel Beckett play, a from a composite of structure and craft Magritte painting, a Duchamp object or to a register of certain mental associa a Chaplin film. This entire notion of tions. It was a shift from physical dealing with the unconscious, the sub to mental. conscious and narrative content has been rhetorically dismissed by practi In this sense, the Highrise of Homes is tioners as unsuited to the true mission the " happening sensibility" brought to of architecture which they perceive to be condominium housing. The project has exclusively committed to abstract com the dual advantage of allowing city position in the service of function. dwellers the options of autonomy and self-expression, as well as offering them Unfortunately this narrow vision has a role in the creation of a massive work failed to take into account the true of chance art. lessons of history- for example, the fact that buildings have always served as The Highrise of Homes is a perfect public media in the cause of com example of de-architecture because, munication. The greater proportion of although a far from perfect solution in mainstream architects today reject this the traditional high design sense, it is notion of the psychological and the nar a viable response to an imperfect world rative with the disclaimer " that's not - a world of too many people trying to real architecture.'' occupy too little land surface. If built, Site, Highrise of Homes, Low Cost Version Assembly System, 1981. it would respond to a range of impor This viewpoint goes considerably Homes was born. development of layered dust on his tant human identity and communication beyond a casual dismissal. It shows famous "Large Glass" painting after it needs. People feel deprived if they can evidence of a profound mental block in There are a number of architectural had been stored horizontally in his not define themselves to their sur the profession - a reflex mechanism precendents for the SITE concept studio. Thereafter, he initiated a concep rounding community. used by insecure designers to exclude throughout history and in the 20th Cen tual work to document the progress of any information that doesn't fit comfort tury- most notably Le Corbusier's 1934 dust formation by photography. The The wall of a person's house is primar ably into some familiar profile of ar proposal for a viaduct housing block in only role of the artist, in this case, was ily a point of transition between exterior chitecture. It offers a bulwark against Algiers which included multi-level plat the provision of a surface, or established and interior, between public and private. change, while conveniently justifying forms for a horizontal city of regional context, where the chance phenomenon More specifically, it is a membrane that the status quo. Middle Eastern-style domestic structures could eyolve and to then function as its describes the very nature of that - but most of these examples fall into recording archivist. All evidence of dichotomy. The image of the home, like As with any parochial bias, the idea of the category of autonomous design con aesthetic dominion, in the familiar dressing the body, is an edited presen what constitutes "real" (since trol. Even the Corbusier project showed sense, was nonexistent - the only tation of oneself to others. With this . everything else is automatically regarded clear evidence of the master's hand in testimony being in the selection of regard, the standard, architect-designed, as counterfeit) is the product of a knee every " Arabic" house unit. It is photos to be exhibited. highrise block of today performs the jerk set of assumptions that preclude doubtful, had the project been exact opposite function by encom having to deal with new and expanded realized , whether it would have ever In a similar vein, there was poet Andre passing the inhabitants in their greatest definitions. This security zone of the become the product of a balanced col Breton's "automatist" poetry written by collective defect - the submission " real " in architecture- especially the lective input from other architects and stream of consciousness or the random to conformity. one inherited from orthodox Moderism the inhabitants. assembly of clippings from the press, - is a specious territory indeed, if one John Cage's use of "found sound" in Concepts like SITE's Frankfurt Museum includes the past 30 years of construc The closest recent parallels in attitude music and Allan Kaprow's environmen and Highrise of Homes clearly exist out tion in America as a measure of valid to the Highrise of Homes are to be found tal happenings of the 1960s. Kaprow's side of the traditions of formalist design. ity. Bearing this dismal testimony in in the "chance art" research of an ar events, in particular, were hybrids of art This is because architects of the past few mind, to define "real architecture" as a tist like Marcel Duchamp, with his and theatre, based on spontaneous and decades - unlike painters, sculptors, Modernist-derived paragon becomes " Dust Breeding" experiments. In this accidental occurrences contained within dramatists, film makers and poets - more an act of paranoid faith than a case, Duchamp observed the intriguing a matrix space defined by the artist. The have insisted on treating buildings responsible preservation of standards. 31