ARCHITECTURE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS This page intentionally left blank Architecture and the Unconscious Edited by John Shannon Hendrix University of Lincoln, UK and Lorens Eyan Holm University of Dundee, UK First published 2016 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by 5RXWOHGJH 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm 2016 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Architecture and the unconscious / [edited] by John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-5647-2 (hbk) 1. Architecture--Psychological aspects. 2. Subconsciousness. I. Hendrix, John, editor. II. Holm, Lorens, editor. NA2540.A6123 2016 720--dc23 ISBN: 9781472456472 (hbk) Contents List of Illustrations vii About the Editors xi About the Contributors xiii Introduction 1 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm PART I HISTORICAL PARADIGMS FOR ARCHITECTURE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 1 The Unconscious and Space: Venice and the Work of Albrecht Dürer 27 Gordana Korolija Fontana-Giusti 2 Architecture and the Kantian Unconscious 45 John Shannon Hendrix 3 Gradations of Consciousness and Claude Bragdon’s ‘Space- Conquest’ 57 Christina Malathouni 4 Composing Form, Constructing the Unconscious: Empiriocriticism and Nikolai Ladovskii’s ‘Psychoanalytical Method’ of Architecture at VKhUTEMAS 77 Alla G. Vronskaya PART II THE UNCONSCIOUS AS A DISCOURSE FOR ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY 5 Aldo Rossi and the Field of the Other 99 Lorens Eyan Holm vi ARCHITECTURE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 6 Seducing God(s): Renaissance Ideal Cities as Mirror-images of Western Subjectivity 119 Francesco Proto 7 Unconscious Places – Thomas Struth and the Architecture of the City 137 Hugh Campbell 8 X Marks the Spot that Will Have Been 151 Jane Rendell PART III FANTASIES, DESIRES, DIAGNOSES 9 Psychoanalytic Diagnosis in Architecture and Urban Design 167 Timothy D. Martin 10 Architecture and the Unconscious: Fantasy, Construction, and the Dual Spatiality 181 Nikos Sideris 11 Shadows of Venice: Adrian Stokes, Aldo Rossi and ‘Interior Darkness’ 201 Stephen Kite PART IV CASE STUDY: MAISON DE VERRE 12 Projection: On Approaching the Maison de Verre 223 Andrew Ballantyne 13 Imaginative Enclave in the Maison de Verre 233 Kati Blom 14 Part-architecture: The Manifest and the Hidden in the Maison de Verre and the Large Glass (or Towards an Architectural Unconscious) 253 Emma Cheatle Bibliography 273 Index 293 List of Illustrations 1 The Unconscious and Space: Venice 4.3 Above: Nikolai Ladovskii, Geometrical and the Work of Albrecht Dürer analysis of Petrov’s project. Reproduced in Izvestia ASNOVA (1926, No. 1), p. 4, 1.1 Nuremberg Chronicle, public domain. public domain. Right: V.A. Petrov, ‘Parallelepiped’. Abstract assignment on 1.2 Jacopo de’ Barbari, ‘View of Venice’, the exposure of form (VKhUTEMAS, 1920). Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Reproduced in Izvestia ASNOVA (1926, No. 1), p. 5. 1.3 Albrecht Dürer, ‘Nemesis’, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. 4.4 Mikhail Korzhev, ‘Grain elevator’. Industrial assignment on the exposure and 1.4 Albrecht Dürer, ‘Melencolia I’, expression of form (VKhUTEMAS, 1922). Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Reproduced in S.O. Khan-Magomedov, Ratsionalizm (Ratsio-arkhitektura) 4 Composing Form, Constructing ‘Formalizm’ (Moskva: Arkhitektura-S, 2007), the Unconscious: Empiriocriticism and p. 165, copyright owner unknown. Nikolai Ladovskii’s ‘Psychoanalytical Method’ of Architecture at VKhUTEMAS 5 Aldo Rossi and the Field of the Other 4.1 Left: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ladovskii, 5.1 Aldo Rossi, ‘Project for a municipal Example of a Composed Structure, 1921, piazza’ (1975). © Eredi Aldo Rossi / Courtesy: ink, ink wash and pencil on cardboard, 38 × Fondazione Aldo Rossi, Milano + FFMAAM 27.5 cm – State Museum of Contemporary | Collezione Francesco Moschini e Gabriel Art – Costakis collection, Thessaloniki. Vaduva A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna. Right: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Ladovskii, In which the architecture of the city is Example of a Constructive Structure, 1921, constituted of recurring elements, or the ink, ink wash and pencil on cardboard, 38 × lexicon of the city of the dead. 27.3 cm – State Museum of Contemporary Art – Costakis collection, Thessaloniki. 5.2 Freud’s ‘schematic diagram’ of linguistic elements or signifiers, in their 4.2 Illustration from Ernst Mach, Beiträge ‘external associations’. © Bloomsbury Zur Analyse Der Empfindungen (Jena: Publishing. The lesson of this diagram is G. Fischer, 1886), p. 14, public domain. that symbolic objects are fluid even if words viii ARCHITECTURE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS and buildings are not. Words vanish with 7.3 Thomas Struth, West 44th Street their utterance, and buildings are fixed, but (Mummenschanz), New York, Theater D, the significance of words and buildings 1978. to the subject are enduring and mutable. Imagine that this diagram is a plan of Rome 7.4 Thomas Struth, Dallas Parking Lot, or a section of Plug-in City. Dallas, 2001. 5.3 Aldo Rossi, ‘Il Teatrino Scientifico 7.5 Thomas Struth, Shinju-ku (die with the hand of a saint (1978)’. © Eredi Hochhäuser), Tokyo, 1986. Aldo Rossi / Courtesy: Fondazione Aldo Rossi, Milano + FFMAAM | Collezione 7.6 Thomas Struth, The Shimada Family, Francesco Moschini e Gabriel Vaduva Yamaguchi, Japan, 1986. A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna. An inventory of architectural elements 8 X Marks the Spot that Will Have Been overshadowed by the hand of the Other; instead of Adam Smith’s invisible hand 8.1 Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 driving the economy, or Halbwachs’s (Kennington Station). Commissioned by Art subject of economic memory. on the Underground / LUL, 2013. The work © the artist, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth. 5.4 The origin of architecture, in Photograph © Thierry Bal. the Cesariano edition of Vitruvius, On Architecture (1521). Public domain. Or, the 9 Psychoanalytic Diagnosis in birth of the multitude, in which architecture Architecture and Urban Design and language, called together by fire, constitute the field of the Other. The 9.1 The Bingham Copper Mine, Utah. multitude is born in the collective processes Public domain. of construction and speech, and will remain a multitude so long as construction and 9.2 Bernard Tschumi, Parc de la Villette, speech do not terminate in objects of 1982–98. Photo by Tim Martin. conscious self-reflection. 9.3 Robert Smithson, Partially Buried 6 Seducing God(s): Renaissance Ideal Woodshed, Kent State University, Ohio, Cities as Mirror-images of Western 1970. © Estate of Robert Smithson / DACS, Subjectivity London / VAGA, New York, 2015. 6.1 Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1500), The Virgin 10 Architecture and the Unconscious: and Child with St Anne and St John the Fantasy, Construction, and the Dual Baptist (‘The Burlington House Cartoon’). Spatiality © The National Gallery, London. 10.1 Man’s Encounter with History. 6.2 Lorens Eyan Holm, visual pattern of Courtesy of Nikos Sideris. the perverse as gazing at the perspective window. Courtesy of Lorens Eyan Holm. 10.2 Architecture = The Architect’s Fantasy (Re)Formulated (Elevated) in the Language 7 Unconscious Places – Thomas Struth of Construction. Courtesy of Nikos Sideris. and the Architecture of the City 10.3 The Architect and the Other. 7.1 Thomas Struth, Sommerstrasse, Courtesy of Nikos Sideris. Düsseldorf, 1980. 10.4 Casa Batlló. © Casa Batlló S.L.U. 7.2 Thomas Struth, West Broadway, New York, Tribeca, 1978. 10.5 Casa Batlló. © Casa Batlló S.L.U. IMAGINATIVE ENCLAVE IN THE MAISON DE VERRE ix 11 Shadows of Venice: Adrian Stokes, 13.7 Cross-section. In Kenneth Frampton, Aldo Rossi and ‘Interior Darkness’ ‘Maison de Verre’, Arena, The Architectural Association Journal, 81(901) (1966), p. 258. 11.1 A house, seventeenth century, from Kenneth Frampton 1966. Adrian Stokes, Venice (1945), Plate 17. © Estate of Adrian Stokes. 13.8 Cross-section. ‘Maison de Verre’, Perspecta, 12 (1969), p. 91. Kenneth 11.2 Gallaratese housing, north Milan, 1969–70. Photo by Stephen Kite. Frampton 1969. 11.3 Detail of clock tower, St Mark’s Piazza, 13.9 ‘Forecourt night view of house, Venice, from Adrian Stokes, Venice (1945), illuminated both internally and externally’. Plate 9. © Estate of Adrian Stokes. The blackness of the attic is another noticeable feature. ‘Maison de Verre’, 11.4 Stoa, New Cemetery of San Cataldo, Perspecta, 12 (1969), p. 93. Michael Modena, 1971–8. Photo by Stephen Kite. Carapetian 1969. 13 Imaginative Enclave in the Maison 14 Part-architecture: The Manifest de Verre and the Hidden in the Maison de Verre and the Large Glass (or Towards an 13.1 The reception hall. In Kenneth Architectural Unconscious) Frampton, ‘Maison de Verre’, Arena, The Architectural Association Journal, 81(901) 14.1 Pierre Chareau, Maison de Verre, (1966), p. 262. The Architectural Association, 1928–32, ‘Nevada’ glass lens to front Éditions du Salon des Arts Ménagers. façade. Photo by Emma Cheatle, 2012. With À hauteur de la reproduction: Les Arts permission of Robert Rubin. Décoratifs, Paris / Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Dans la rubrique crédit photographique: 14.2 Pierre Chareau, Maison de Verre, photo distr. Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Paris, 1928–32. Photo by Emma Cheatle, 2009. With permission of Robert Rubin. 13.2 Fujiko Nakaya, Veil (2014), in Philip Johnson’s Glass House (1949).