THE ABSURD ENSPACED A DARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF ARCHITECTURE MAY 2016 By Chelsea Silvia DArch Committee: Lance Walters, Chairperson Arindam Chakrabarti Cathi Ho Schar Keywords: Absurd, Absurdism, Threshold Acknowledgements For my little brother, my mother, and my father. ii Abstract The contradictions between the ideal-reality, solid-void, and inside-outside are just a few of architecture’s most fundamental and accepted incompatibilities. Not exclusive to architecture, contradiction is ultimately a result of our human condition to seek out meaning and order in a meaningless, disorderly world. Albert Camus refers to this basic conflict between us and the universe as “absurdism” and lends only two solutions: a suicide or an acceptance. The purpose of this research is to enspace the absurd, which is to realize in architecture an acceptance of absurdity. This effort establishes that the opposing roles within contradiction are not two independent, separate forces up for casual omission (suicide) to ease complexity, but rather that these opposing roles are in fact two intimately entwined roles of the same part. The absurd is explored through Camus’ collected works as well as through precedents of absurd demonstration from literature to the arts and toward architecture. Undertaking the contradiction as the clearest articulation of the absurd and upon recognizing the threshold as the purest contradiction in architecture, this work finds the absurdity in architecture to be the threshold. Out of our human condition to search for reason and order, we separate spaces (functions) within architecture so we may make sense of them. The separation, the attempt to reason, forms the “here” and “there” and the threshold, the absurd, exists between them—where you may be here and there simultaneously. The threshold is therefore the absurd enspaced as it is contradiction manifested as architecture. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Preface ............................................................................................................................................ xi Stage One 01. The Formal Living Room: The Architecture Condition ................................................ 12 a. Accepted Incompatibilities ........................................................................................... 12 b. Tension of Senselessness .............................................................................................. 15 02. In Passing: “That’s Absurd” ............................................................................................ 16 a. Absurd in Conversation ................................................................................................ 16 b. John Silber’s Absurd ..................................................................................................... 17 03. The Dressing Room: The Absurd, Absurdity, and Absurdism ..................................... 18 a. An Introduction.............................................................................................................. 19 b. Bonjour, Monsieur Camus ............................................................................................. 19 c. Presence Together: Man and the World ........................................................................ 20 d. Three Possible Responses .............................................................................................. 22 04. The Garage Workshop: Notions of Absurdity ................................................................ 24 a. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture .............................................................. 24 b. The Dada Movement ..................................................................................................... 26 c. Theater of the Absurd .................................................................................................... 29 05. The Library: Camus Texts ............................................................................................... 31 a. Myth of Sisyphus ........................................................................................................... 31 b. The Stranger .................................................................................................................. 35 06. The Body-Building Gym: The Absurd Life .................................................................... 38 a. Three Characteristics of the Absurd Life ....................................................................... 38 iv Revolt Freedom Passion b. Four Characters Who Live the Absurd Life .................................................................. 41 07. The Ballroom: Instigators ................................................................................................. 42 a. Creations ........................................................................................................................ 42 b. Rachel Whiteread .......................................................................................................... 43 c. Gordon Matta-Clark ...................................................................................................... 49 d. Piranesi .......................................................................................................................... 53 e. Marcel Duchamp ........................................................................................................... 56 08. The Lounge: Playing Against Meaning ........................................................................... 59 a. Graphic Explorations ..................................................................................................... 59 b. Thought Explorations .................................................................................................... 63 c. Building and Dwelling, and the Invisible Line Between ............................................... 65 Stage Two 01. Home Theater: Non-Signal, Non-Place ........................................................................... 75 a. Projection ....................................................................................................................... 75 b. The Projector ................................................................................................................. 76 c. The Traveler .................................................................................................................. 78 02. Bedrooms 1-5: Absurd Character(istics) ......................................................................... 79 a. Characters, Not Men ...................................................................................................... 79 b. Bedroom 1: The Seducer ............................................................................................... 83 c. Bedroom 2: The Actor ................................................................................................... 84 d. Bedroom 3: The Rebel ................................................................................................... 86 e. Bedroom 4: The Artist ................................................................................................... 87 f. Bedroom 5 (Guest Bedroom): The Jester ...................................................................... 88 g. Closing the Bedroom Doors: “Sweet Dreams” ............................................................. 90 03. The Neighbor’s House: Los Angeles ................................................................................ 91 a. Pause .............................................................................................................................. 91 v b. Grey ............................................................................................................................... 92 c. LA Absurd ..................................................................................................................... 93 d. Angelinos and the Absurdities They Live Against ........................................................ 94 Freeways Billboards L.A. River Facades e. Realization of the Threshold .......................................................................................... 99 04. The Hallway: The Threshold .......................................................................................... 101 a. In-Between .................................................................................................................. 101 b. The Perceived and Yet to be Perceived ....................................................................... 102 c. The Airplane and the Birthday Party ........................................................................... 103 d. Edge-ness ..................................................................................................................... 105 e. Architecture of X/Y ....................................................................................................