Contents Preface lX Introduction 3 I Houses Unhomely Houses 17 Buried Alive 45 Homesickness 57 Nostalgia 63 II Bodies Architecture Dismembered 69 Losing Face 85 Trick/Track 101 Shifting Ground 117 Homes for Cyborgs 147 III Spaces Dark Space 167 Posturbanism 177 Psychometropolis 189 Oneirism 199 Vagabond Architecture 207 Transparency 217 Notes 227 Acknowledgments 249 Index 251 i I• I Preface Intrigued by the unsettling qualities of much contemporary architec­ ture-its fragmented neoconstructivist forms mimetic of dismem­ bered bodies, its public representation buried in earthworks or lost iri mirror reflection, its "seeing walls" reciprocating the passive gaze of domestic cyborgs, its spaces surveyed by moving eyes and simu­ lating "transparency," its historical monuments indistinguishable from glossy reproductions-! have been drawn to explore aspects of the spatial and architectural uncanny, as it has been characterized in literature, philosophy, psychology, and architecture from the begin­ ning of the ni11eteenth century to the present. Marked by its origins in _:r:omanti£ thought, the theme of the uncanny serves to join archi­ tectural speculation on the peculiarly unstable nature of "hous~ a11~ home" to more general reflection on the questions of social and indi~dual estrangement, alienation, exile: and homelessness. Architecture has been intimately linked to the notion of the un­ canny since the end of the eighteenth century. At one level, the house has provided a site for endless representations of hauntipg, doubling, ': t~ ' dismembering, and other terrors in literature and art. At another level, the labyrinthine spaces of the modern ~ity have been construed as the sourc~s of modern anxiety, from revolution and epidemic to phobia and alienation; the genre of the detective novel owes its existence to such fears-"the unsolved murder is ull.caniiy," wrote the psychoanalyst Theodor Reik. But beyond this largely theatrical role, architecture reveals the deep structure of the uncanny in a more than analogical way, demonstrat­ ing a disquieting slippage between what seems homely and wliat is ·:·.~ .. ,.... (.-.,.<:.::,~~,_~ \c .. X xi '~ '· ,\ " : ' I .. ' ·: Preface ,.!n,<:l'...ft""!.:t~"t"""·J:. ·~~l;_,.t~,L, !l..j• ~·.:: · · ';·~ · )';:· Preface \. ' l ><.1--. ·li)J::-., \ ' ~ _ ~.. , . rr: J.~ ..• rJ.t>~ -·· ~ ~ '§."' '·'· . <1•'-~-~ .11 • ~ ' definitively unhon'iely. As articulated theoretically by Freud, the un- Part I is concerned with the uncanny as a literary, aesthetic, philo­ canny or'<·unheimlich is rooted by etymology and usage in the environ­ sophical, and psychoanalytical concept from Schelling to Freud. ment of the d.Qm~ or the heimlich;'thereby opening up prqbl~!J.l~ Freud's 1919 essay on the uncanny provides a theoretical starting of identity around the self, the ot}1_(!r,_~!Je ~oc:\y andjts abse~~~ thence point for a discussion of the genre of the uncanny tale among nine­ its force in interpreting the rel<l.tiQ~.!>et~_e.~ the psyche~ and the teenth- and twentieth-century authors, including Freud's own favor­ dwelling, the body and the house, the individual and the metropolis. ite example, E. T. A. Hoffmann. I trace the history of the spatial l.inked by Ers;!,ld._ to the death drive, to fear of castration, to the uncanny as it develops out of the aesthetic of the sublime to its full impossible desire to return to the womb, the uncanny has been in­ exploitation in the numerous "haunted houses" of the romantic pe­ terpreted as a dominant constituent of m~9.t=:~()stalgi_a._, with a riod imagined by Victor Hugo, Thomas De Quincey, Charles Nodier, corresponding spatiality that touches all aspects of social life. and Herman Melville. Melville's reflection on the secret recesses of Perhaps this explains why, following the lead of literary and psy­ domesticity leads to a discussion of the role of the uncanny in the choanalytic criticism after ~.£..!!!!. and !?Wi4~· a number of contem­ fantasies of burial and return that were inseparable from the ~­ porary architects have seized on this domain for their own study of . ical and archaeological self-consciousness of the nineteen~l1._t::.<:_l!!:l1.!Y· x .J,.. o.ec·kl ·domesticity and its discontents" in p~o·ect t·h.o.t attempt deliberately' . The uncannmessoT archaeology in its e:icavatiori... ofsft~s from Pom­ .<::;. • . ' "~\ k.<-. xt.>:. \..;..." ;; ~i .. to P!:9-Y9}!! <!~~~~· and .. !.!.!,!~~~ to "the liiaden terrors of the peii to Troy, supplied a guiding metaphor for Freud in his devel­ }(~"~.o.~ house. ~uch project~ assu~e ~,.\l!tj~,.;~.tJ.?P~'-tiese.r;ed for literature opment of psychoanalysis, and provided the incentive for his ~.~~ ~,:it, ... and sooal thought .m thetr em'llratlbn 'ot't'ft~ condtttons of estrang~- d~t:tllisition on the fear of being buried alive, a test case in his psy­ .J \ ment through archttectural and urban form. Although powe~l(!~~ m choanalytical study of the uncanny as a peculiar kind of fear, posi­ >(><'< I-OJJv-4 - the face of actual homelessness, their different versions of a spatial tioned between real terror and faint anxiety. Tinged with late Q_~;_W (J.t& uncanny nevertheless articulate ways in which architectlifewofk.s.Wfth nineteenth-century nostalgia, as evoked by the melancholic reveries respect to the dedomesticated subject. As analytical diagrams of the of Walter Pater, the uncanny became an equally powerful trope for einbodfed gaze constructed by a prostll~tic architecture, they press imaging the "lost" birthplace, against the deracinated'home of post­ the notion of theoretical discourse in architecture to its limits, at the industrial society, in the writings of critics of modernity from Gaston same time forcing political discourse to reformulate its paradigms of Bachelard to Martin Heidegger. spatial analysis. These themes offer a conceptual starting point for the examination In the following book, I have not attempted an exhaustive historical of a number of contemporary architectural and urban projects that or theoretical treatment of the subject; nor have I constructed or implicitly or explicitly pose the question of the unhomely in Il!<:J<ie!E_ applied any comprehensive theory of the uncanny based on pheno­ cuJ!:Y~· In part II I examine -;:h--e complex--and ·shffting;elations menology, negative dialectics, or psychoanalysis. Rather I have chosen between buil~ and bodies, ~~I'l!.<:W.res and sites, that have char­ approaches that seem relevant to the interpretation of contemporary acterized th; attempt t~ destabilize the conventions of traditional buildings and projects provoked by the resurgent interest in the architecture in recent years, with reference to the critical theories of uncanny as a metaphor for a fundamentally unlivable modern con­ .es.t~ment, linguistic indeterminacy, and representation that have dition. In this sense the book is at once historical, serving to situate served as vehicles for avant-garde architectural experiment. Here the contemporary discourse in its own intellectual tradition, and theo­ question of the unhomely becomes particularized, embodied in ar­ retical, investigating the difficult relationships between politics, social chitectural forms that ~~ek ~~.~res~_!_~:~pr~~_aEious~l'~lt;tt.~~lls_hip thought, and architectural design in an era when the realities of between psychologic:<.tl and I?EJ!i<=..~L home; Freud's analysis of the urban existence and the ideals of the neo-avant-garde have never uncanny effects of dismembered bodies is especially redolent for the seemed so far apart. interpretation of an architectural fragmentation thatr(;J~~t~~ths;_t~a­ ditional embodiment of anthropom_()!I?Jlic..I!IQi~<:tio_I!J.!LlmilLform. -----·-·--~-~ .. --~--~~~~- '"~-·~. ··~·~~,~~"··-. __ .,~-··--- .. ··-.. -~- Xll xiii Preface Preface ~,..L-t!~,, Thus the work o(.CQ.QR_J:!@melblau in Vienna, founded by Wolf nostalgia associated with birth but which presents all the sp,ctral ~-::. D. Prix and H. Swiczinsky in the @te sixties, has programmatically effects of the double, as a heuristic device through which to rethink questioned the traditional verities of ar~h~cture through neocon­ the political relations of gender. structivist forms expressly designed to challenge the l_l()ji.Q_!!_ of the In part III, I turn to the implications of the uncanny fOL~,i!"SJanism, of,_~- bo~i~-!i~~rttJ~ by means of the demotiorf<ofthe classic~ibOdy and especially for the interpretation of it~nditions. Fofu;;- from its privileged place in architectural theory and practice. Con­ ing Freud's tantalizinlaccounts of the uncanny effe~ts of getting lost ~ ~'--h~"'' ceived through a design process that resembles a kind of automatic in a city, and conscious of the modernist fascination with the isolated "'vi--,~ writing, Coop Himmelblau's projects attempt to ~~cuperate~im­ flaneur ~~E~!?~ __!o Benjam!n:-i ~~-~k ~t-the-~ays Til whidi ~- .tO ...... d[~~ mediate connection betweenbody language ar1<;l_~, the uncon- psychoanalysis have found in cities a topos for the ex­ ~o'~ \ --------·---·~----·-,-------~-~--~.. ,.... - .. --- ~and x.~~~and its habitat.'- Signs of this dismembering of the corporeal plor.ation..o£an.xii'-t¥::lind~oia_. I describe what mighTbe-cailecla ~ figure in building are equally, if less dramatically, present in the p~_~_!.. I:!!:Q<li1~st __ ~«:;g§ihl.lliy that, from surrealism to situationism, has < ~~ effac~m~nt<of monument~l r_epresentation ~n J~mes Stirling's Sta~ts­ stood against the tendency of modern urbanism t~<:;.re'!t~---~Q_Illaru: 1 ~~\1~ galene m Stuttgart, a buddmg that, desp1te 1ts appeal to classical tc;_bul~~asa_e.:X?(~l~§:b~-~!~lng of Clties.wl:ifiout me~ory. Preoccupied X < r~,,/) archetypes, r.efu.s.es ..tQ_p..u.tup_A..traditimt'!l~- Bernard Tschumi's with traces and residues-the materialof ihe dreamwork-rather bQ Q..6.w.011, project for the new park of La Villette in the northeast of Paris than with the new, writers and·-;;_~~hit~~t~--ha~~-i~~re;~i~gly found ~ le>v-( ~ exploits-< references to modernism'~~~- ~ritiq~-<:~~ cl~s~i-~::tJ anthro­ ways to chart"the underground n;,verb1rrations"'bf the city.