Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
TU Delft Library
Architecture
Julianalaan 134
2628 BL DELFT
I. Title.
NA2543.S6T78 1994
720'. l '0309048-dc20 93-45683
CIP
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
Sources and Acknowledgments viii
Contents
Introduction 2
I Space (essays written in 1975 and 1976) 25
The Architectural Paradox 27
Questions of Space 53
Architecture and Transgression 65
The Pleasure of Architecture 81
II Program (essays written between 1981 and 1983) 99
Architecture and Limits 101
Violence of Architecture 121
Spaces and Events 141
Sequences 153
ill Disjunction (essays written between 1984 and 1991) 171
Madness and the Combinative 173
Abstract Mediation and Strategy 191
Disjunctions 207
De-, Dis-, Ex- 215
Six Concepts 22 7
Notes 260
Sources and Acknowledgments "The Architectural Paradox" and "Questions of Space" orig-
inally appeared in a different form as "Questions of Space:
The Pyramid and the Labyrinth (or the Architectural Para-
dox)" in Studio International, September-October 1975. Re-
printed by permission of the Medical Tribune Group,
London.
proposition. fr dissociation.
-Webster's Dictionary
that take place within the social and political realm of ar- the rich and complex relations between spaces and the events
chitecture. But these texts refuse the simplistic relation by that occur within them. The third part, Disjunction, devel-
which form follows function, or use, or socioeconomics. In ops the implications of the first two parts. Often related to
contrast, they argue that in contemporary urban society, any the beginnings of an architectural practice that tried to ex-
cause-and-effect relationship between form, use, function, pand these concepts in the form of actual buildings, it tries
and socioeconomic structure has become both impossible to propose a new, dynamic conception of architecture.
and obsolete. The direction of this research did not appear
Written between 1975 and 1991, these essays overnight. Around 1968, together with many in my genera-
were conceived as successive chapters of a book that could- tion of young architects, I was concerned with the need for
somewhat in the manner of Le Corbusier's Vers une Archi- an architecture that might change society-that could have
tecture and Robert Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction a political or social effect. However, the effect of the events
in Architecture-provide a description of our architectural of 1968 has been to demonstrate, both through facts and
condition at the end of the twentieth century. While their through serious critical analysis, the difficulty of this imper-
common starting point is today's disjunction between use, ative. From Marxist commentators to Henri Lefebvre and to
form, and social values, they argue that this condition, in- the Situationists, the modes of analysis changed consider-
stead of being a pejorative one, is highly "architectural." ably, but all shared a skeptical view of the power of architec-
Throughout the following chapters, architecture is defined ture to alter social or political structures.
as the pleasurable and sometimes violent confrontation of Historical analysis has generally supported
spaces and activities. The first group of texts, assembled the view that the role of the architect is to project on the
under the theme of Space, analyzes earlier theories of archi- ground the images of social institutions, translating the eco-
tectural space and suggests that a precise definition will nomic or political structure of society into buildings or
always include mutually exclusive or contradictory terms. groups of buildings. Hence architecture was, first and fore-
Such an opposition introduces the notion of architectural most, the adaptation of space to the existing socioeconomic
pleasure as the experience of space intersects with its more structure. It would serve the powers in place, and, even in
conceptual aspects. The second part, entitled Program, be- the case of more socially oriented policies, its programs
gins by questioning the three classical tenets of beauty, so- would reflect the prevalent views of the existing political
lidity, and utility, and suggests that the programmatic framework. Such conclusions were, of course, unpleasant to
dimension of usefulness be expanded into the notion of arrive at for young architects who wanted to change the
ev,ent. "Violence of Architecture" provides a key account of world through their designs. Many returned to life-as-usual
Introduction
4 5
Introduction
and entered conventional practices. A minority, however, Belfast, etc.) the place where social conflicts were most ex-
kept trying to understand the nature of the mechanisms that acerbated but, I argued, the urban condition itself could be a
made our cities and their architecture, exploring whether means to accelerate social change. I went several times to
there was not another angle to the story or another way to - Belfast and Derry using clandestine IRA contacts, gathering
address the issue of architectural change. information with the aim of preparing an issue on urban
Fascinated by the ability of the metropolis to insurgency for the magazine Architectural Design. (The proj-
generate unexpected social or cultural manifestations (and ect was finally aborted when publishers acted upon a rumor
even micro-economic systems), I had started extensive re- that bomb threats had disrupted a symposium on the subject
search. How might it be possible to encourage such urban at the AA.)
upheavals-"to design the conditions" rather than "to con- If "The Environmental Trigger" gave an
dition the design," as it was said at the time? The courses I overly optimistic account of the potential for economic col-
was teaching at the Architectural Association in London in lapse to generate social transformation, it also analyzed the
the early 1970s were entitled "Urban Politics" and "The potential role of the architect in the process of change. The
Politics of Space." These lectures and seminars-distributed question was: How could architects avoid seeing architec-
as leaflets printed on colored paper, to alleviate their serious ture and planning as the faithful product of dominant society,
tone-provided an important means by which to develop my viewing their craft, on the contrary, as a catalyst for change?
argument. Could architects reverse the proposition and, instead of serv-
One of these texts was entitled "The Envi- ing a conservative society that acted upon our cities, have
ronmental Trigger." It had been prepared for a symposium at the city itself act upon society? Twenty years later, my anal-
the AA in 1972. I was twenty-eight then, and the extensive ysis has changed little and I will quote extensively from this
questioning it contained outlined my major concern: How early work. "Could space," I wrote,
could architecture and cities be a trigger for social and polit-
ical change? I had been fascinated by the detournement of be made a peaceful instrument of social transformation, a
the Paris streets during the May events and began to perceive means of changing the relationship between the individual
similar patterns of "misuse" in many large cities throughout and society by generating a new lifestyle? Minimal cells
the world. Due to the concentration of economic power in and community kitchens in revolutionary Russia were to
such urban centers, any actions, whether planned or spon- be the social condensors that determined new relationships
taneous, would immediately take on unexpected dimen- between people, acting as a mould of the society to come
siqns. Not only was the city (Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, as well as its ideal reflection. If the failure of such attempts
6 7 Introduction
Introduction
in the rest of Europe (where no revolution had taken place) end of 1968 by students from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, using
could be explained in terms of the absolute contradiction materials "borrowed" from nearby construction sites:
between a new spatial organization and ever-growing land
speculation, their fate was not much different in countries The guerilla building was architecturally just a shelter, a
in which the political situation had been more favorable barrack on a building site, but it was called "The House of
to them. the People" and thus referred to meanings of freedom,
A fundamental misunderstanding was the cause. equality, power, and so on. The space in itself was neutral,
Linked to the ideology of a pure and liberating technique, but in order to prove that it had a political meaning, specific
such theory was based on an interpretation of behaviorism, signs to this effect were necessary so as to give it a name
according to which individual behavior can be influenced, or, less crudely, to perform political acts involving building
even rationalized, by the organization of space. If a spatial (in this case, erecting a building for the people on private
organization can temporarily modify individual or group or state property). It was a rhetorical act, and the only
behavior, this does not imply that it will change the socio- possible one, for the main reason for such acts was their
economic structure of a reactionary society. symbolic and exemplary value in the seizure of the land,
not in the design of what was built.
The implication of this analysis was that an
architectural space per se (space before its use) was politically I then saw only three possible roles for ar-
neutral: an asymmetrical space, for example, was no more chitects. Either we could become conservative, that is, we
or no less revolutionary or progressive than a symmetrical would "conserve" our historical role as translators of, and
one. (It was said at the time that there was no such thing as form-givers to, the political and economic priorities of exist-
socialist or fascist architecture, only architecture in a so- ing society. Or we could function as critics and commenta-
cialist or fascist society.) Several precedents pointed, how- tors, acting as intellectuals who reveal the contradictions of
ever, to the extraordinary power of incidents, of small actions society through writings or other forms of practice, some-
amplified a thousand times by the media so as to assume the times outlining possible courses of actions, along with their
role of revolutionary myth. In these cases, it was not the strengths and limitations. Finally, we could act as revolu-
form of architecture that counted (whether it was contextual tionaries by using our environmental knowledge (meaning
or modernist), but the use (and meaning) that was assigned our understanding of cities and the mechanisms of architec-
to it. I used the example of a mythical 11 guerilla" building ture) in order to be part of professional forces trying to arrive
coµstructed in three days in a derelict Paris suburb at the at new social and urban structures.
8 9 Introduction
Introduction
While I advocated a combination of the roles experimentation and reinforcement of the means of
tations of our position as intellectuals and architects who But above all, the purposes of the exemplary ac-
were unlikely to find ourselves loading guns and hiding ex- tion are demystification and propaganda; it means to reveal
plosives in underground networks. I therefore proposed two that the capitalist organization of space destroys all collec-
types of actions or strategies as possible political acts. I called tive space in order to develop division and isolation, and
these strategies "exemplary actions" and "counterdesign." that it is possible to build fast and cheaply with building
The first was not specifically architectural but relied heavily methods that are in contradiction with the economic logic
on an understanding of urban structures. It also suggested of the system. (It is implied that the underdevelopment of
the polarization of conflicts so as to destroy the most reac- building methods is a direct result of private land property).
tionary norms and values of our society. The purpose is, therefore, not merely the realization of an
object built for itself, but also the revelation through build-
"Exemplary actions 11 act as both the expression of and the ing of realities and contradictions of society.
catalyst for the environmental crisis, while they combine, The takeover of the closed Kentish Town Railroad
in a guerilla tactic, useful immediacy with exemplarity, Station in London with my AA students in November
everyday life with awareness. For example, the three-day 1971, along with subsequent painting and squatting activ-
construction of a 11 Maison du Peuple" on seized land rep- ities, went beyond the mere implementation of inflatable
resents a most startling attempt to promote a guerilla ar- domes for community services. The five-minute attacks
chitecture in the workers' suburbs of a large western and the appropriation of space were the first steps to free
Introduction
10 11
Introduction
"Counterdesign" can be described as a desperate and nih- It is political through the plan's embodiment of
ilistic attempt to use one particular feature of architectural an analysis of the speculators' aims, along with propa-
expression, with all its cultural values and connotations. ganda, tactics of confusion, caricature, and demonstration
It is desperate in that it relies on the weakest of all archi- by the absurd. By being the devil's advocate, counterdesign
tectural means, the plan, since we have defined that, by is aimed at creating an understanding in the people con-
nature, no built object could ever have an effect on the cerned by 'the implications of such developments on their
socioeconomic structure of a reactionary society. It is nih- everyday life, and at leading to their active rejection of
ilistic in that its only role is to translate the pessimistic such planning processes. It is cultural in that it attempts
forecast of the intentions of the holders of financial power to cast doubt and impel reconsideration of the cultural
into an architectural statement. values that are still attached to architecture. Since the
This approach considers that the plan's weakness graphic revealing of speculators' scandals is by no means
may only be apparent. As the plan is meant to be the end going to lead to a restructuring of society, the long-term
product, it acquires an additional freedom that no capital- objective of tactics of the absurd is the destruction of some
bound built piece ever had. Its role is not to design a social of its cultural values.
alternative that would soon be mystified by the power For artists from the revolutionary twenties to the
groups that implement it, but simply to comprehend the radical Italian architectural scene of the early seventies-
official forces in an area, to predict their future and to Archizoom and others-the destruction of the established
translate them in graphical terms for explanation's sake. culture and the development of a revolutionary art form
It is a graffiti business. Just as graffiti or a pornographic have traditionally been considered prerequisites to social
image bears an obscenity that the real thing ignores, the and economic change. If it is doubtful that the development
architectural drawing can support specific meanings that of a new formal language ever had an effect on the structure
the everyday experience of the actual building prevents. It of society, it is clear that the destruction of the old language
may be used not only to demonstrate the increasingly well- had. Education and "the advice of experts" are means of
known absurdity of some redevelopment proposals, or to maintaining the traditional structures in place, and their
verify where the capitalist system is going, but also to questioning is a necessary step towards any new approach.
confirm emerging doubts about the relevance of this par-
ticular mode of expression. It is thus a cultural statement While not denying the validity of this strat-
as well as a political one. egy, I then proceeded to show its limitations by pointing to
12 13 Introduction
Introduction
the ease with which cultural institutions took rebellious and these conflicts could be only a first step, intended to unsettle
destructive attitudes and translated them into sophisticated a situation that itself might contain the seeds of a better
forms of mainstream culture. Duchamp's urinal, after all, is social and urban 'condition.
now a revered museum artifact; revolutionary slogans of "None of these environmental tactics leads
1968 Paris walls gave new life to the rhetoric of commercial directly to a new social structure," I stated. No doubt. Ar-
advertising. I then suggested that, even if counterdesign was chitecture and its spaces do not change society, but through
one of our few available courses of action, it was vulnerable architecture and the understanding of its effect, we can ac-
to what the French call "recuperation." A subversive cultural celerate processes of change under way. (Similarly, architec-
practice did not automatically mean that its end product ture can always slow down these processes of change by
would be so. Someone's critical or ironic proof using absurd- implementing passeist forms of building and of use.)
ist gestures could always become someone else's sincere The political argumentation of the time was
proposal. Indeed, this period saw designs of Superstudio-like taking place in a context that saw radical questioning invade
ideal cities emerging from schools of architecture, this time the cultural sphere as well. A key slogan of 1968 was "Imag-
as well-intended alternative lifestyles. Architecture (or the ination takes power." I felt at the time that while many social
drawings that represent it) has always been an ambiguous and political activists were articulate about the mechanisms
mode of expression, as multiple interpretations can always of power, they often forgot the first term of the equation:
be given to it. imagination. Among those who understood the power of
Weary of the difficulties prompted by the invention were the Situationists, who by 1972 already
strategies of "exemplary actions" and "counterdesign," I seemed distant history. Yet the most radical moments of
concluded by proposing a form of subversive analysis that twentieth-century art, literature, or film could not be absent
would use environmental knowledge to accelerate radical from a complete questioning of society. From the Futurists
change. It would reveal the absurdity of our current condition to Dada and the Surrealists, a whole range of precedents
as well as precipitate the downfall of the most socially re- fascinated us. Anatole Kopp had also just published his cel-
pressive aspects of our culture and cities. However, the ex- ebrated City and Revolution on the different movements
amples I gave at the time showed an optimistic view of the that followed the 1917 uprisings.
outcome of social struggles. As I write today, the urban con- I was starting to realize that the old revolu-
flicts in Northern Ireland have certainly not led to "new tionary concept of "taking advantage of the internal contra-
social organizations through the illuminating effects of en- dictions of society" was applicable to architecture andI in
vironmental actions." The text concluded, however, that turn, could one day influence society. The internal contra-
Introduction
14 15
Introduction
dictions of architecture had been there all along; they were insert both programmatic and spatial concerns within the
part of its very nature: architecture was about two mutually architectural discourse as well as within its representation.
exclusive terms-space and its use or, in a more theoretical The debates taking place in other disciplines-art, literary
sense, the concept of space and the experience of space. The -criticism, and film theory among them-were confirming
interplay between space and activities appeared to me as a those first intuitions. Allies could be found in those other
possible route to bypass some of the obstacles that accom- fields who would help demonstrate what I perceived as blind-
panied many anxieties about the social and political role of ing evidence: architecture was, by definition, by nature, dis-
architecture. joined, dis-sociated. From Foucault to Barthes, from the ac-
Indeed, any political discussion by critics and tivities of Sollers and the Tel Quel group to the rediscovery
historians about the making of architecture had generally of Bataille, Joyce, or Burroughs, from the film theories
focused on the formal or physical aspects of buildings and of Eisenstein and Vertov to the experiments of Welles and
cities, rarely raising the question of the events that took place Godard, from conceptual art to Acconci's early perfor-
in them. Just as the detournement, or rebellious use, of the mances, an enormous body of work was helping to substan-
urban physical framework had led to various types of urban tiate the evidence of architecture's dissociations. Those who
upheaval, could the use and misuse of the architectural space say that architecture is impure if it must borrow its argu-
lead to a new architecture? Over the next decade I kept ments from other disciplines not only forget the inevitable
exploring the implications of what had first been intuitions: interferences of culture, economy, and politics but also un-
(a) that there is no cause-and-effect relationship between the derestimate the ability of architecture to accelerate the work-
concept of space and the experience of space, or between ings of culture by contributing to its polemic. As practice
buildings and their uses, or space and the movement of bodies and as theory, architecture must import and export.
within it, and (b) that the meeting of these mutually exclu- I must add here that too often architects do
sive terms could be intensely pleasurable or, indeed, so vio- not see the relationship between theory and cultural work.
lent that it could dislocate the most conservative elements They want to see theory as a means to arrive at, or justify,
of society. architectural form or practice. It is striking to notice, for
Just as inherent oppositions had been iden- example, the respective interpretations of postmodernism in
tified between the urban framework and social movements, the separate fields of art and architecture, whereby postmod-
comparable oppositions could be witnessed between archi- ernism in architecture became associated with an identifi-
tectural space and its many possible uses. By arguing that able style, while in art it meant a critical practice.
\there is no architecture without event or program, I could
17
Introduction
16
Introduction ·-
In.my case, theoretical writing had for its aim think through it. As I had written in the introduction to The
Manhattan Transcripts:
not only to expand architectural concepts but also to nego-
tiate the relationship between the cultural practice of archi-
In architecture, concepts can either precede or follow proj-
tecture and the interrelated spheres of politics, literature, or
ects or buildings. In other words, a theoretical concept may
the arts. In no way was I interested in translating or trans-
be either applied to a project or derived from it. Quite often
posing literary or film motives into architecture. Quite the
this distinction cannot be made so clearly, when, for ex-
contrary. But I also needed these allies to support a key
ample, a certain aspect of film theory may support an
architectural argument. The research in other fields corrob-
architectural intuition, and later, through the arduous de-
orated my view that the inherent disjunction of architecture
velopment of a project, be transformed into an operative
was its strength and its subversive power; that the disjunc-
concept for architecture in general.
tion between space and event, together with their inevitable
cohabitation, was characteristic of our contemporary con-
dition. Architecture, then, could not only import certain Architecture's inherent confrontation of
notions from other disciplines but could also export its find- space and use and the inevitable disjunction of the two terms
means that architecture is constantly unstable, constantly
ings into the production of culture. In this sense, architecture
on the verge of change. It is paradoxical that three thousand
could be considered as a form of knowledge comparable to
years of architectural ideology have tried to assert the very
mathematics or philosophy. It could explore and expand the
opposite: that.architecture is~about stability, solidity, foun-
limits of our knowledge. It could also be intensely social and
political, as architecture could not be separated from its very
dation. I would claim that architecture was used "a contre-
emploi", against and despite itself, as society tried to employ
use.
Simultaneously, I tried to develop these con- it as a means to stabilize, to institutionalize, to establish
permanence. Of course, this prevailing ideology meant that
cepts through other means-the drawings of The Manhattan
architecture had to ignore the other terms of its equation
Transcripts, the multiple and discontinuous buildings of
(i.e., to be nothing but "the artful building of spaces," "le jeu
the Pare de la Villette in Paris, along with numerous urban
schemes, up to the "Le Fresnoy" project (Studio National des
correct et magnifique des volumes sous la lumiere"1' or to
coincide with frozen rituals of occupancy-a court of justice,
Arts Contemporains) in Tourcoing in northern France.
11hospital, a church, even the vernacular one-family house-
Whether texts, drawings, or buildings, each mode of working 2
18 19
Introduction
discussion on architecture and power ultimately echoed Sul- inition unstable. Few can decide what a school or a library
livan's "form follows function." should be or how electronic it should be, and perhaps fewer
Of course, from the pyramids of Egypt to the can agree on what a park in the twenty-first century should
monuments of Rome to today's shopping centers, "clients" consist of. Whether cultural or commercial, programs have
have seen architecture as a means by which institutions long ceased to be determinate, since they change all the
could manifest and solidify their presence in society. In doing time-while the building is designed, during its construc-
so, the disjunction between various terms of the architec- tion, and, of course, after completion. (At the Pare de la
tural equation-space, program, movement-had been sup- Villette, one building was first designed as a gardening center,
pressed. Not to include the uncertainties of use, action, and then reorganized as a restaurant by the time the concrete
movement in the definition of architecture meant that the framework was completed, and finally used-successfully-
architecture's ability to be a factor of social change was sim- as a children's painting and sculpture workshop.)
ply denied. What has been true for very large buildings
Similarly, the most significant so-called de- (the ever-changing use of warehouses or of the new genera-
constructive architectural challenges against order, hierar- tion of American "big footprint" skyscrapers) also applies to
chy, and stability in the last two decades have been praised the smallest constructions. There is no longer a causal rela-
or attacked by critics for what they called a "style" or the tionship between buildings and their contentI their useI andI
"pursuit of aesthetic experimentation." These critics were of course, their very improbable meaning. Space and its usage
unwittingly at risk of ignoring, not to say suppressing, the are two opposed notions that exclude one another, generating
underlying discussion about program and use in this work, an endless array of uncertainties. Not unlike developments
and, by extension, about the larger social, political, and even in modern scientific knowledge that dismantled the me-
economic implications of architecture. By downplaying the chanistic and determinate vision of classical scienceI here
programmatic dimension, they were repeating what they had we see disorder, collisions, and unpredictabilities entering
accused others of doing in staging the 1932 International the field of architecture. While there still may be local cer-
Style exhibition at MoMA in New York. tainties of specific or autonomous systems, the relationship
The new questioning of that part of architec- between them is inevitably one of disjunction.
ture called "program," or "function," or "use," or "events," Yet it is in this very state of uncertainty that
is fundamental today. Not only is there no simple relation the new developments in architecture reside. Today, the two
between the building of spaces and the programs within areas of investigation most likely to provide fertile discov-
\ them, but in our contemporary society, programs are by def-
Introduction
20 21
- -----------------------------
Introduction
eries are located in an extension of our two disjoined terms: mon denominators. Yet we should remember that there is
spaces (through new technology and structures, or-to use no social or political change without the movements and
the title of a conference at Columbia University-through programs that transgress supposedly stable institutionality,
"glue and microchips") and events (through new program- architectural or otherwise; that there is no architecture with-
matic, functional, or social relations, through the spectacle out everyday life, movement, and action; and that it is the
of everyday life). One argument for the interchangeability of most dynamic aspects of their disjunctions that suggest a
the two terms can be found in the new media technology new definition of architecture.
that at once defines and activates space, such as electronic
fa<;ades that are both enclosure and spectacle.
The definition of architecture as simulta-
neously space and event brings us back to political concerns,
or more precisely, to the question of space as related to social
practice. If architecture is neither pure form nor solely de-
termined by socioeconomic or functional constraints, the
search for its definition must always expand to an urban
dimension. The complex social, economic, and political
mechanisms that govern the expansion and contraction of
the contemporary city are not without effect on architecture
and its societal use. Space always marks the territory, the
milieu of social practice. Would we ever wish it to do so, our
society could not get out of its space. Even though it produces
space, society is always its prisoner. Because space is the
common framework for all activities, it is often used politi-
cally in order to give an appearance of coherence through the
concealment of its social contradictions.
This conjoined/dis-joined condition charac-
terizes our cities, our architecture. The contemporary world
is a dislocated space of constraints that may find few com-
22 23
Space essays written in 1975 and 1976
Fireworks, Manifesto, 1974.
28 29
Space -
embracing set with subsets such as literary space, ideological determinants of the postwar period and aware of recent lin-
space, and psychoanalytical space. guistic studies, architects talked about the squareI the streetI
and the arcade, wondering if these did not constitute a little-
4. Architecturally, to define space (to make space distinct) known code of space with its own syntax and meaning. Did
literally meant "to determine boundaries." Space had rarely language precede these socioeconomic urban spaces, did it
been discussed by architects before the beginning of the accompany them, or did it follow them? Was space a condi-
twentieth century. But by 1915 it meant Raum with all its tion or a formulation? To say that language preceded these
overtones of German esthetics, with the notion of Raum- spaces was certainly not obvious: human activities leave
empfindung or "felt volume." By 1923 the idea of felt space traces that may precede language. So was there a relationship
had merged with the idea of composition to become a three- between space and language, could one "read" a space? Was
dimensional continuum, capable of metrical subdivision there a dialectic between social praxis and spatial forms?
that could be related to academic rules. From then on, ar-
chitectural space was consistently seen as a uniformly ex- 5. Yet the gap remained between ideal space (the product
tended material to be modeled in various ways, and the of mental processes) and real space (the product of social
history of architecture as the history of spatial concepts. praxis). Although such a distinction is certainly not ideolog-
From the Greek "power of interacting volumes" to the Ro- ically neutral, we shall see that it is in the nature of archi-
man "hollowed-out interior space," from the modern "inter- tecture. As a result, the only successful attempts to bridge
action between inner and outer space" to the concept of this philosophical gap were those that introduced historical
"transparency," historians and theorists referred to space as or political concepts such as "production," in the wide sense
a three-dimensional lump of matter. it had in Marx's early texts. Much research in France and in
To draw a parallel between the philosophies Italy opposed space "as a pure form" to space "as a social
of a period and the spatial concepts of architecture is always product," space "as an intermediary" to space "as a means
tempting, but never was it done as obsessively as during the of reproduction of the mode of production."
1930s. Giedion related Einstein's theory of relativity to cub- This politico-philosophical critique had the
ist painting, and cubist planes were translated into architec- advantage of giving an all-embracing approach to space,
ture in Le Corbusier's Villa Stein at Garches. Despite these avoiding the previous dissociation between the "particular"
space-time concepts, the notion of space remained that of a (fragmented social space), the "general" (logico-mathemati-
simplistic and amorphous matter to be defined by its physical • cal or mental spaces), and the "singular" (physical and delin-
boundaries. By the late 1960s, freed from the technological tated spaces). But by giving an overall priority to historical
e Architectural Paradox
30 31
Space -
processes, it often reduced space to one of the numerous building that escapes the utility of space, a building that
socioeconomic products that were perpetuating a political would have no other purpose than "architecture."
Although such a question may be irrelevant,
status quo. 1
lt finds a surprising echo in the present search for architec-
6. Before proceeding to a detailed examination of the am- tural autonomy. After more than half a century of scientific
bivalence of the definition of space, it is perhaps useful to pretense, of system theories that defined it as the intersection
consider briefly this particular expression of space in archi- of industrialization, sociology, politics, and ecology, archi-
tecture. Its territory extends from an all-embracing "every- tecture wonders if it can exist without having to find its
thing is architecture" to Hegel's minimal definition. This meaning or its justification in some purposeful exterior need.
latter interpretation must be pointed out, for it describes a
difficulty that is constitutive to architecture. When Hegel The Pyramid: Stating the Nature of Space (or The Dematerialization
elaborated his aesthetic theory, 2 he conventionally distin- of Architecture)
guished five arts and gave them an order: architecture, sculp-
ture, painting, music, and poetry. He started with 7. Little concerned with Hegel's ''artistic supplement," ar-
architecture because he thought it preceded the others in chitects have nevertheless not regarded the constructed
both conceptual and historical terms. Hegel's uneasiness in building as the sole and inevitable aim of their activity. They
these first pages is striking. His embarrassment did not really have shown a renewed interest in the idea of playing an active
proceed from his conservative classification but was caused role in fulfilling ideological and philosophical functions with
by a question that had haunted architects for centuries: were respect to architecture. Just as El Lissitzky and the Vesnin
the functional and technical characteristics of a house or a '.brothers sought to deny the importance of realizing a work
temple the means to an end that excluded those very char- d stressed an architectural attitude, so the avant-garde
acteristics? Where did the shed end and architecture begin? s reasonably free to act within the realm of concepts.
Was architectural discourse a discourse about whatever did parable to the early conceptual artists' rejection of the
not relate to the "building" itself? Hegel concluded in the commodity market and its alienating effects, the archi-
affirmative: architecture was whatever in a building did not !position seems justified by the very remote possibility
11
point to utility. Architecture was a sort of artistic supple~ had of building anything other than a "mere reflection
ment" added to the simple building. But the difficulty o prevalent mode of production. 11
such an argument appears when one tries to conceive of Moreover, historical precedents exist to give
credibility to what could paradoxically be described
32 33
Space
34 35
Space -
architectural elements of the past, with their oppositions,
no other context would readily provide for it. The question
contrasts, and redistributions. Not only does it refer to itself
became: "ls there an architectural essence, a being that tran-
. ?"Th. ~nd to its own history, but function-the existential justifi-
scends all social, political, and economic systems· is
cation of the work-becomes virtual rather than real. So the
ontological bias injected new blood into a concept that al-
language is closed in on itself, and architecture becomes a
ready had been well aired by art theorists. Investigations into
truly autonomous organism. Forms do not follow functions
Hegel's "supplement" received the support of structural lin-
but refer to other forms, and functions relate to symbols.
guistic studies in France and Italy. Analogies with language
Ultimately architecture frees itself from reality altogether.
appeared en masse, some useful, some particularly naive and
Form does not need to call for external justifications. In a
misleading. Among these linguistic analogies, two figure
critical article in Oppositions, Manfredo Tafuri can thus de-
prominently.
scribe Aldo Rossi's architecture as "a universe of carefully
selected signs, within which the law of exclusion dominates I
9. The first theory claims that the Hegelian "supplement,"
and in fact is the controlling expression," and the trend it
added to the simple building and constitutive of architecture,
represents as /1 l'Architecture dans le Boudoir" because the
is immediately struck by some semantic expansion that
circle drawn around linguistic experimentation reveals a
would force this architectural supplement to be less a piece
pregnant affinity with the obsessively rigorous writings of
of architecture than the representation of something else.
the Marquis de Sade. 7
Architecture is then nothing but the space of representation.
Freed from reality, independent of ideology,
As soon as it is distinguished from the simple building, it
· ~rchitectural values are striving toward a purity unattained
represents something other than itself: the social structure,
.~ince the Russian formalist criticism of the 1920s, when it
the power of the King, the idea of God, and so on.
~was argued that the only valid object of literary criticism was
The second theory questions an understand-
literary text. Here, the tautology of architecture-that isI
ing of architecture as a language that refers to meanings
architecture that describes itself-becomes a syntax of
outside itself. It refuses the interpretation of a three-dimen·
ty signs, often derived from a selective historicism that
sional translation of social values, for architecture would
.centrates on moments of history: the early modern move-
then be nothing but the linguistic product of social deter·
the Roman monument, the Renaissance palace, the
minants. It thus claims that the architectural object is pure
· Transmitted through history, and removed from the
language and that architecture is an endless manipulation of
· R . 1 raints of-their time, can these signs, these diagrams of
the grammar and syntax of the architectura1 sign. at10na .
become the generative matrices of today's work?
architecture, for example, becomes a selected vocabulary of
Paradox
36 37
Space
38 39
Space
You touch a wall, you hear an echo. But how do you relate
nessed by twentieth-century architecture. Suffice it to say
all these perceptions to one single object? Is it through an
that current conversation seems to fluctuate between (a) the
operation of.reason?
German esthetic overtones of the Raumempfindung theory,
whereby space is to be "felt" as something affecting the inner
13. This operation of reason, which precedes the perception
nature of man by a symbolic Einfiihlung, and (b) an idea that
of the cube as a cube, was mirrored by the approach of con-
echoes Schlemmer's work at the Bauhaus, whereby space
cept-performance artists. While your ~yes were giving in-
was not only the medium of experience but also the mater-
structions about successive parts of the cube, allowing you
ialization of theory. For example, the emphasis given to
to form the concept of cube, the artist was giving instructions
movement found in dance the "elemental means for the
about the concept of cube, stimulating your senses through
realization of space-creative impulses," for dance could ar-
the intermediary of reason. This reversal, this mirror image,
ticulate and order space. The parallel made between the dan-
was important, for the interplay between the new perception
cer's movements and the more traditional means of defining
of "performance" space and the rational means at the origin
and articulating space, such as walls or columns, is impor-
of the piece was typically one aspect of the architectural
tant. When the dancers Trisha Brown and Simone Forti re-
process: the mechanics of perception of a distinct space, that
introduced this spatial discussion in the mid-1960s, the
is the complete space of the performance, with the move-
relationship between theory and practice, reason and percep-
ments, the thoughts, the received instructions of the actors I
tion, had to take another turn, and the concept of theoretical
as well as the social and physical context in which they
praxis could not be simply indicative. There was no way in
,,p;erformed. But the most interesting part of such performance
space to follow the art-language practice. If it could be argued
as the underlying discussion on the "nature of space" in
that the discourse about art was art and thus could be exhib-
neral, as opposed to the shaping and perception of distinct
ited as such, the theoretical discourse about space certainly
es in particular.
was not space. It is in recent works that the recurring etym-
The attempt to trigger a new perception of
"cal distinction appears at its strongest. Reduced to the
space reopened a basic philosophical question. Remember:
simplicity of six planes that define the boundaries of a
you are inside an enclosed space with equal height and width.
.or less regular cube, the series of spaces designed by
Do your eyes instruct you about the cube merely by noticing
Nauman, Doug Wheeler, Robert Iwin, or Michael
it, without giving any additional interpretation? No. You
do not play with elaborate spatial articulations. Their
don't really see the cube. You may see a corner, or a side, or
is is elsewhere. By restricting visual and physical
the ceiling, but never all defining surfaces at the same tirn
40 41
Space
perception to the faintest of all stimulations, they turn the new object out of a perceived one), the metaphorical Laby-
expected experience of the space into something altogether rinth implies that the first moment of perception carries the
experience itself. '
different. The almost totally removed sensory definition in-
evitably throws the viewers back on themselves. In "de- It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there
prived space," to borrow the terminology of Germano Celant, may be no way out of the Labyrinth. Denis Hollier, in his
the "participants" can only find themselves as the subject, book on Georges Bataille, 8 points out that from Bacon to
aware only of their own fantasies and pulsations, able only Leibniz the Labyrinth was linked with the desire to get out,
to react to the low-density signals of their own bodies. The and science was seen as the means to find an exit. Rejecting
materiality of the body coincides with the materiality of the such an interpretation, Bataille suggested that its only effect
space. By a series of exclusions that become significant only was to transform the Labyrinth into a banal prison. The
in opposition to the remote exterior space and social context, traditional meaning of the metaphor was reversed: one never
the subjects only "experience their own experience." knows whether one is inside or not, since one cannot grasp
it in one look. Just as language gives us words that encircle
14. Whether such spaces might be seen as reminiscent of the us but that we use in order to break their surround, the
behaviorist spaces of the beginning of the century, where Labyrinth of experience was full of openings that did not tell
reactions were hopefully triggered, or as the new echo of the whether they opened toward its outside or its inside.
Raumempfindung theory, now cleaned-up of its moral and
esthetic overtones, is of little theoretical importance. What ·Y~amid and the Labyrinth: The Paradox of Architecture
one back on the interpretation of the "nature of space" itself. ional play of language as opposed to the experience of the
As opposed to the previously described pyramid of reason, ses, would be a tedious game if it were to lead to a naive
the dark corners of experience are not unlike a labyrinth rontation between the mind and the body. The architec-
where all sensations, all feelings are enhanced, but where no 1 avant-garde has fought often enough over alternatives
overview is present to provide a clue about how to get out. tappeared as opposites-structure and chaos, ornament
Occasional consciousness is of little help, for perception in :.purity, permanence and change, reason and intuition.
the Labyrinth presupposes immediacy. Unlike Hegel's clas· ten enough it has been shown that such alternatives
sical distinction between the moment of perception and the fact complementary: our analysis of a demateriali-
moment of experience (when one's consciousness makes a of architecture in its ontological form (the Pyramid)
42 43
Space
and of a sensual experience (the Labyrinth) is no different. quired an existing revolutionary society but also a blind be-
But if the existence of such an equation does not raise doubts lief in an interpretation of behaviorism according to which
over its complementarity, it certainly raises questions about individual behavior could be influenced by the organization
how such equations can go beyond the vicious circle of terms of space. Aware that spatial organization may temporarily
that speak only of themselves. modify individual or group behavior, but does not imply that
The answer may lie in the context in which it will change the socioeconomic structure of a reactionary
such an equation takes place. A common accusation of anal- society, architectural revolutionaries looked for better
yses or even of works that concentrate on the specific nature grounds. Their attempts to find a socially relevant, if not
of architecture is that they are "parallel," that is, they fold revolutionary, role for architecture culminated in the years
and unfold in some Panglossian world where social and eco- following the May 1968 events with "guerrilla" buildings,
nomic forces are conveniently absent. Not affecting the de- whose symbolic and exemplary value lay in their seizure of
termining forces of production, they constitute harmless urban space and not in the design of what was built. On the
forms of private expression. We shall therefore briefly con- cultural front, plans for a surrealistic destruction of estab-
sider the ambiguous particularities of the relationships be- lished value systems were devised by Italian "radical" de-
tween architecture and politics. signers. This nihilistic prerequisite for social and economic
change was a desperate attempt to use the architect's mode
16. These have been well researched in the past few years. of expression to denounce institutional trends by translating
The role of architecture and planning has been analyzed in them into architectural terms, ironically "verifying where
terms of a projection on the ground of the images of social the system was going" by designing the cities of a desperate
institutions, as a faithful translation of the structures of future.
society into buildings or cities. Such studies underline the Not surprisingly, it was the question of the
difficulty architecture has in acting as a political instrument. production system that finally led to more realistic propos-
Recalling the nostalgic and attenuated cry of the Russian als. Aimed at redistributing the capitalistic division of labor,
revolutionary "social condensers" of the 1920s, some advo- these proposals sought a new understanding of the techni-
cated the use of space as a peaceful tool of social transfor- cians' role in building, in terms of a responsible partnership
mation, as a means of changing the relation -between the directly involved in the production cycle, thus shifting the
individual and society by generating new lifestyles. But the concept of architecture toward the general organization of
"clubs" and community buildings proposed not only re- building processes.
17. Yet it is the unreal (or unrealistic) position of the artist artistic supplement or a cultural justification for financial
or architect that may be its very reality. Except for the last manipulations, architecture is not unlike fireworks, for these
attitude, most political approaches suffered from the pre- "empirical apparitions," as Adorno puts it, "produce a de-
dictable isolation of schools of architecture that tried to offer light that cannot be sold or bought, that has no exchange
their environmental knowledge to the revolution. Hegel's value and cannot be integrated in the production cycle. " 9
architecture, the "supplement," did not seem to have the
right revolutionary edge. Or did it? Does architecture, in its 18. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the non-necessity
long-established isolation, contain more revolutionary of architecture, its necessary loneliness, throws it back on
power than its numerous transfers into the objective realities itself. If its role is not defined by society, architecture will
of the building industry and social housing? Does the social have to define it alone. Until 1750, architectural space could
function of architecture lie in its very lack of function? In rely on the paradigm of the ancient precedent. After that
fact, architecture may have little other ground. time, until well into the twentieth century, this classical
Just as the surrealists could not find the right source of unity progressively became the socially determined
compromise between scandal and social acceptance, archi- program. In view of the present-day polarization of ontolog-
tecture seems to have little choice between autonomy and ical discourse and sensual experience, I am well aware that
commitment, between the radical anachronism of Schiller's any suggestion that they now form the inseparable but mu-
"courage to talk of roses" and society. If the architectural tually exclusive terms of architecture requires some eluci-
piece renounces its autonomy by recognizing its latent ideo- dation. This must begin with a description of the apparent
logical and financial dependency, it accepts the mechanisms impossibility of escaping from the paradox of the Pyramid of
of society. If it sanctuarizes itself in an art-for-art's-sake po- concepts and the Labyrinth of experience, of immaterial ar-
sition, it does not escape classification among existing ideo- chitecture as a concept and of material architecture as a
logical compartments. presence.
So architecture seems to survive only when To restate my point, the paradox is not about
it saves its nature by negating the form that society expects the impossibility of perceiving both architectural concept
of it. I would therefore suggest that there has never been any (the six faces of the cube) and real space at the same time but
reason to doubt the necessity of architecture, for the neces- about the impossibility of questioning the nature of space
sity of architecture is its non-necessity. It is useless, but and at the same time making or experiencing a real space.
radically so. Its radicalism constitutes its very strength in a Unless we search for an escape from architecture into the
society where profit is prevalent. Rather than an obscure general organization of building processes, the paradox per-
sists: architecture is made of two terms that are interdepen- alters the subject of architecture, you and I. It may be intol-
dent but mutually exclusive. Indeed, architecture erable to scientists who want to master the subject of science.
constitutes the reality of experience while this reality gets It may be intolerable to artists who want to objectify the
in the way of the overall vision. Architecture constitutes the subject.
abstraction of absolute truth, while this very truth gets in Let us first examine the Labyrinth. In the
the way of feeling. We cannot both experience and think that course of this argument, it has been implied that the Laby-
we experience. "The concept of dog does not bark"; 10 the rinth shows itself as a slow history of space, but that a total
concept of space is not in space. revelation of the Labyrinth is historically impossible because
In the same way, the achievement of archi- no point of transcendence in time is available. One can par-
tectural reality (building) defeats architectural theory while ticipate in and share the fundamentals of the Labyrinth, but
at the same time being a product of it. So theory and praxis one's perception is only part of the Labyrinth as it manifests
may be dialectic to one another, but in space, the translation itself. One can never see it in totality, nor can one express it.
of the concept, the overcoming of the abstraction in reality, One is condemned to it and cannot go outside and see the
involves the dissolution of the dialectic and an incomplete whole. But remember: Icarus flew away, toward the sun. So
statement. This means, in effect, that, perhaps for the first after all, does the way out of the Labyrinth lie in the making
time in history, architecture can never be. The effect of the of the Pyramid, through a projection of the subject toward.
great battles of social progress is obliterated, and so is the some transcendental objectivity? Unfortunately not. The
security of archetypes. Defined by its questioning, architec- Labyrinth cannot be dominated. The top of the Pyramid is
ture is always the expression of a lack, a shortcoming, a an imaginary place, and Icarus fell down: the nature of the
noncompletion. It always misses something, either reality Labyrinth is such that it entertains dreams that include the
or concept. Architecture is both being and nonbeing. The dream of the Pyramid.
only alternative to the paradox is silence, a final nihilistic
statement that might provide modern architectural history 20. But the real importance of the Labyrinth and of its spatial
with its ultimate punchline, its self-annihilation. experience lies elsewhere. The Pyramid, the analysis of the
architectural object, the breaking down of its forms and ele-
19. Before leaving this brief exploration of architecture as ments, all cut away from the question of the subject. Along
paradox, it is tempting to suggest a way of accepting the with the spatial praxis mentioned earlier, the sensual archi-
paradox while refuting the silence it seems to imply. This tecture reality is not experienced as an abstract object already
conclusion may be intolerable to philosophers, in that it transformed by consciousness but as an immediate and con-
crete human activity-as a praxis, with all its subjectivity. may be the only means to transcend it. By changing the
This importance of the subject is in clear opposition to all prevalent attitudes toward space and its subject, the dream
philosophical and historical attempts to objectify the im- of the step beyond the paradox can even provide the condi-
mediate perception of reality, for example, in the relations tfons for renewed social attitudes. Just as eroticism is the
of production. To talk about the Labyrinth and its praxis pleasure of excess rather than the excess of pleasure, so the
means to insist here on its subjective aspects: it is personal solution of the paradox is the imaginary blending of the
and requires an immediate experience. Opposed to Hegel's architecture rule and the experience of pleasure.
Erfahrung and close to Bataille's "interior experience," this
immediacy bridges sensory pleasure and reason. It introduces
new articulations between the inside and the outside, be-
tween private and public spaces. It suggests new oppositions
between dissociated terms and new relations between ho-
mogeneous spaces. This immediacy does not give precedence
to the experiential term, however. For it is only by recogniz-
ing the architectural rule that the subject of space will reach
the depth of experience and its sensuality. Like eroticism,
architecture needs both system and excess.
Questions of Space
1 . 1 2 If space does not have boundaries, do things 1 . 4 If, etymologically, "defining" space is both
then extend infinitely? making space distinct and stating the precise
nature of space, is this an essential paradox
1 . 1 2 1 As every finite extent of space is infinitely of space?
divisible (since every space can contain
smaller spaces), can an infinite collection of 1 . 5 Architecturally, if defining space is making
spaces then form a finite space? space distinct, does making space distinct de-
fine space?
l . 1 3 In any case, if space is an extension of matter,
can one part of space be distinguished from 1 . 5 1 If architecture is the art of making space dis-
another? tinct, is it also the art of stating the precise
nature of space?
1 . 2 If space is not matter, is it merely the sum of
all spatial relations between material things? 1 . 6 Is architecture the concept of space, the space,
and the definition of space?
I . 3 If space is neither matter nor a set of objective
relations between things, is it something sub- 1 . 6 1 If the concept of space is not a space, is the
jective with which the mind categorizes materialization of the concept of space a
things? space?
1 . 3 1 If the structure of the mind imposes an a 1 . 6 1 1 Is conceptual space then the space of which
priori form (that precedes all experience) to material is the concept?
the perception of the external world, is space
such a form? 1 . 6 1 2 Incidentally, is the experience of the mater-
ialization of the concept of space the experi-
1 . 3 2 If space is such a form, does it have prece- ence of space?
dence over all other perceptions?
54 55 Questions of Space
Space
1 . 6 3 1 Does a De Stijl facade differ from a baroque ments that have a degree of invariance, such
one through the microspace it defines? as archetypes?
56 57
• Space
1:1,1
2 . 5 1 Since it can be said that experience is con- 2 . 8 If space is neither an external object nor an
tained within the nature of practice, is space internal experience (made of impressions,
inextricably bound up with practice? sensation's and feelings), are space and our-
selves inseparable?
2 . 5 2 Architecturally, if space is the medium for
the materialization of theory, is a space the 2 . 8 1 Are objective social space and subjective in-
materialization of the architectural concept? ner space then inextricably bound together?
2 . 6 Is the materialization of architecture neces- Is space thus one of the structures that ex-
2 . 9
sarily material? presses our "being" in the world?
2 . 7 Is the experience of space the experience of Do all spaces in society taken together con-
3 . 1
the materialization of the concept of space? stitute a language?
Or of any concept?
3 . 1 1 Is a selection from this totality a set of spaces
2 . 7 1 Can a geometrical spatial concept be replaced (which, of course, can be called a space of
by a concept based on one's experience of spaces)?
space?
3 . 1 2 If space (singular, indefinite) is collective and
2 . 7 2 Does the experience of space determine the permanent, are spaces (plural, definite) indi-
space of experience? vidual and transformable?
2 . 7 3 If such a question is said to be absurd, does 3 • 2 If a definite space is a thing that can be re-
(architectural) space exist independently of ferred to, can it become a symbol (a form that
the experiencing body? will signify)?
58 59
Questions of Space
Space
3 . 2 1 If a definite space can become a sign or sym- 3 . 4 2 1 Can a space (stylistic form) be separated from
bol, can it signify a thought or a concept? the space that is a dimension of the meaning
embodied in its architecture?
3 . 3 (For linguists only.) If space is just a thing, (a)
does it determine thought and language; (b) 3 . 5 In any case, does the concept of space note
together with thought, is it determined by and denote all possible spaces, both real and
language; (c) together with language, is it de- virtual?
termined by thought?
3 . 5 1 If the understanding of all possible spaces in-
3 . 3 1 (For you and me.) Does a~b~c~a? cludes social and mental space as well as
physical space without any distinction, is the
3 . 4 If a space is a representation of an idea or a distinction between living, perceiving, and
thought that is signified, does a space achieve conceiving space a necessary condition of that
its meaning through its relation to all the understanding?
other spaces in a context, or through all the
spaces for which this space has become 4 . 0 Is space the product of historical time?
metaphorical?
4 • 1 Does the Hegelian end of history mean the
3 . 4 1 If there are different modes and uses of lan- end of space as a product of history?
guage, can space thus be classified into sci-
entific, mythical, technological, logico- 4 . 2 On the other hand, if history does not end,
mathematical, fictive, poetic, rhetorical, and historical time is the Marxist time of
critical spaces? revolution, does space lose its primary role?
3 . 4 2 Does the explicit classification of the various 4 . 3 If space is neither a social product (an end
meanings, modes, and uses of space destroy result) nor a pure category (a starting point),
the experience of that space? is it an in-between (an intermediary)?
60 61 Questions of Space
Space
62
Bernard Tschumi, Advertisements for Architecture, 1975.
Transgression opens the door into what lies beyond the limits usu-
ally observed, but it maintains these limits just the same. Transgres-
One issue rarely raised in architecture is that of taboo and The very fact that something is written here makes it part
transgression. Although society secretly delights in crime, of the field of architectural representation. Whether I use
excesses, and violated prohibitions of all sorts, there seems words, plans, or pi~tures, each page of this publication could
to be a certain puritanism among architectural theorists. b~ liken~d to the mythological world of Death: that is, it
They easily argue about rules but rarely debate their benefits from the privilege of extraterritoriality; it is outside
transgression. From Vitruvius to Quatremere de Quincy, architecture; it is outside the reality of space. Words and
from Durand to modem movement writers, architectural plans are safeguarded among mental constrdcts. They are
theory is primarily the elaboration of rules, whether based removed from real life, subjectivity, and sensuality. Even
on an analysis of historical tradition or on a New Man (as when the words of the printed page are metamorphosed into
the twenties' architects conceived it). From the systeme des slogans sprayed on city walls, they are nothing but a dis-
Beaux-Arts to computer-aided design, from functionalism to course. Boullee's aphorism that "the production of the mind
typologies, from the accepted rules to the invented ones, is what constitutes architecture" merely underlines the im-
there is a comprehensive and ever-present network of pro- portance of conceptual aims in architecture, but it excludes
tective precepts. However, my purpose here is not to criticize the sensual reality of spatial experience altogether.
the notion of rules nor to propose new ones. On the contrary, A debate at a conceptual architecture confer-
this essay will attempt to demonstrate that transgression is ence in London 1 (where the majority of contributors predict-
a whole, of which architectural rules are merely one part. ably concluded that "all architecture is conceptual")
Before speaking about transgression, how- emphasized the strange paradox that seems to haunt archi-
ever, it is first necessary to recall the paradoxical relationship tecture: namely, the impossibility of simultaneously ques-
between architecture as a product of the mind, as a concep- tioning the nature of space and, at the same time, making or
tual and dematerialized discipline, and architecture as the experiencing a real space. The controversy indirectly re-
sensual experience of space and as a spatial praxis. flected the prevalent architectural attitudes of the past de-
cade. If the political implications of the production of
Part One: The Paradox building had been abundantly emphasized in the years fol-
lowing the 1968 crisis, the subsequent Hegelian reaction was
If one has a passion for the absolute that cannot be healedI there is
revealing: "architecture is whatever in a building does not
no other way out than to constantly contradict oneself and to rec- point to utility," 2 and of course, by extension, whatever can-
oncile opposite extremes. not be the mere three-dimensional projection of ruling so-
cioeconomic structures, as theorists of urban politics were
Frederic Schlegel
66 67
Architecture and Transgression
Space
then maintaining. This emphasis on what Hegel called the language and history), their discourse reintroduced rules that
"artistic supplement added to the simple building"-that is, were to govern architectural work by making use of old
on the immaterial quality that made it "architectural"-was concepts such as types and models. 4
no return to the old dichotomy between technology and This constant questioning about the nature
cultural values. On the contrary, it set an ambiguous prece- of architecture only underlined the inevitable split between
dent for those "radical" architects who did not regard the discourse and the domain of daily experience. 5 The architec-
constructed building as the sole and inevitable aim of their tural paradox had intruded once more. By definition archi-
activity. Initially intended as an ideological means of stress- tectural concepts were absent from the experience of space.
ing architectural "avant-garde attitudes" and refusing capi- Again, it was impossible to question the nature of space and
talist constraints, the work of such "radical" Italian or at the same time make or experience a real space. The com-
Austrian groups of the late 1960s was an attempt to dema- plex opposition between ideal and real space was certainly
terialize architecture into the realm of concepts. 3 The sub- not ideologically neutral, and the paradox it implied was
sequent statement, ''everything is architecture, /1 had more fundamental.
affinities with conceptual art than with all-inclusive eclec:·· Caught, then, between sensuality and a
ticism. But if everything was architecture, how could archi- search for rigor, between a perverse taste for seduction and a
tecture distinguish itself from any other human activity or quest for the absolute, architecture seemed to be defined by
from any other natural phenomenon? the questions it raised. Was architecture really made of two
Structural linguistic studies developed in the terms that were interdependent but mutually exclusive~ Did
1960s in France and Italy conveniently suggested a possible architecture constitute the reality of subjective experience
answer: analogies with language appeared everywhere, some while this reality got in the way of the overall concept? Or
useful, some particularly misleading. The chief characteris- did architecture constitute the abstract language of absolute
tic of these analogies was their insistence on concepts. truth while this very language got in the way of feeling? Was
Whether these theorists stated that architecture always rep- architecture thus always the expression of a lack, of a short-
resented something other than itself-the idea of God the coming, or something incomplete? And if so, did architecture
I
power of institutions, and so on-or whether they took issue always necessarily miss either the reality or the concept?
with the interpretation of architecture as a (linguistic) prod- Was the only alternative to the paradox silence, a final nihil-
uct of social determinants (and thus insisted on the auton- istic statement that would provide modern architectural his-
omy of an architecture that only referred to itself, to its own tory with its ultimate punchline, its self-annihilation?
68 69
Architecture and Transgression
--
Space
Such questions are not rhetorical. It may be be confused with sensuality, eroticism does not simply mean
tempting to answer yes to all of them and accept the para- the pleasure of the senses. Sensuality is as different from
lyzing consequences of a paradox that recalls philosophical eroticism as a simple spatial perception is different from
battles of the past-Descartes versus Hume, Spinoza versus architecture. 11
Eroticism is not the excess of pleasure, but
Nietzsche, Rationalists versus Raumempfindung symbol- the pleasure of excess 11 : this popular definition mirrors our
6
ists. It is even more tempting, however, to suggest another argument. Just as the sensual experience of space does not
way around this paradox, to refute the silence the paradox make architecture, the pure pleasure of the senses does not
seems to imply, even if this alternative proves intolerable. constitute eroticism. On the contrary, 11 the pleasure of ex-
cess11 requires consciousness as well as voluptuousness. Just
Part Two: eROTicism
as eroticism means a double pleasure that involves both
It appears that there is a certain point in the mind wherefrom life mental constructs and sensuality, the resolution of the ar-
chitectural paradox calls for architectural concepts and, at
and death, reality and imaginary, past and future, the communicable the same instant, the immediate experience of space. Archi-
and the incommunicable cease to be perceived in a contradictory tecture has the same status, the same function, and the same
meaning as eroticism. At the possible/impossible junction
way.
of concepts and experience, architecture appears as the image
Andre Breton, The Second Manifesto of two worlds: personal and universal. Eroticism is no differ-
ent; for one whose concept leads to pleasure (excess), eroti-
Paradoxes equivocate. They lie, and they don't; they tell the cism is personal by nature. And by nature it is also universal.
truth, and they don't. Each meaning has always to be taken Thus, on the one hand, there is sensual pleasure, the other
with the others. The experience of the liar paradox is like and the I; on the other hand, there is historical inquiry and
standing between two mirrors, its meanings infinitely re- ultimate rationality. Architecture is the ultimate erotic ob-
flected. The paradox is literally speculative. To explore it, it ject, because an architectural act, brought to the level of
is useful to consider two correspondences without which
7
excess, is the only way to reveal both the traces of history
much remains obscure. 8 and its own immediate experiential truth. 9
First Correspondence The first correspondence is obvious Second Correspondence The junction between ideal space
and immediate. It is the correspondence of eroticism. Not to and real space is seen differently in the second correspon-
dence. This second correspondence is immensely general and
70 71
Architecture and Transgression
Space
inevitably contains the present argument as it would contain related to the phase of decomposition, for white bones did
many others. It is nothing less than the analogy of life-and- not possess the intolerable aspect of corrupted flesh. Archi-
death, applied here to one celebrated architectural example. tecture reflected 'these deep feelings: putrefying buildings
Each society expects architecture to reflect were seen as unacceptable, but dry white ruins afforded de-
its ideals and domesticate its deeper fears. And architecture cency and respectability. From being respectful to seeking
and its theorists rarely negate the form that the society ex- respectability, there is only one step. Were the rationalists
pects of it. Laos's celebrated attack on the intrinsic crimi- or the "New York Five" unconsciously striving for respect
nality of ornament was echoed by the modern movement's through the white and timeless skeletons they proposed?
admiration for engineering "purity," and its admiration was Moreover, the fear of decaying organisms-
translated into architectural terms by an unconscious as opposed to the nostalgic search for the "outmoded purity
consensus. "The engineers fabricate the tools of their of architecture"-appears in conservationist enterprises as
time-everything except moth-eaten boudoirs and moldy much as in utopian projects. Those who in 1965 visited the
houses .... " 10 This consistent repudiation of the so-called then derelict Villa Savoye certainly remember the squalid
obscene scrawl1 1 (as opposed to the puritan sense of hygiene) walls of the small service rooms on the ground floor, stinking
is not unlike mankind's horror for decaying an/ putrefied of urine, smeared with excrement, and covered with obscene
bodies. Death is tolerated only when the bones are white: if graffiti. Not surprisingly, the long campaign to save the
architects cannot succeed in their quest for "healthy and threatened purity of the Villa Savoye doubled in intensity in
virile, active and useful, ethical and happy" 12 people and the months that followed, and finally succeeded.
houses, they can at least be comfortable in front of the white Satiety scares easily at those aspects of sen-
ruins of the Parthenon. Young life and decent death, such suality that it qualifies as obscene. "Inter faeces et urinam
was the architectural order. nascimus" (we are born between excrement and urine), wrote
Calling itself modern as well as independent St. Augustine. In fact, the connection between death, fecal
of the bourgeois rules of the time, the heroic tradition of the matterI and menstrual blood has often been demonstrated.
1930s nevertheless reflected the deep and unconscious fears In his studies of eroticism, Georges Bataille, 13 Le Corbusier's
of society. Life was seen as a negation of death-it con- contemporary, pointed out that the fundamental prohibi-
demned death and even excluded it-a negation that went tions of mankind were centered on two radically opposed
beyond the idea of death itself and extended to the rot of the domains: death and its obverse, sexual reproduction. As a
putrefying flesh. The anguish about death, however, only result, any discourse about life, death, and putrification im-
plicitly contained a discourse on sex. Bataille claimed that
72 73
Architecture and Transgression
Space
tangency: the rotten point, the very point that taboos and The life-and-death correspondence material-
culture have always rejected. This metaphorical rot is where izes the meeting place: the meeting place becomes the mem-
architecture lies. Rot bridges sensory pleasure and reason. ory of life between death, the rotten place where spatial
praxis meets mental constructs, the convergence of two in-
terdependent but mutually exclusive aspects.
Part Three: The Transgression
Second, and very literally, such a place may
Living in conformity with the archetypes amounted to respecting possess the moldy traces that time leaves on built form, the
soiled remnants of everyday life, the inscriptions of man or
the 'law' ... through the repetition of paradigmatic gestures, archaic
of the elements-all, in fact, that marks a building.
man succeeded in annulling time. Third, by extension, this meeting place is a
threat to the autonomy of, and the distinction between, con-
Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History
cepts and spatial praxis. We have seen the beaux-arts archi-
I was subject to respecting too much in my youth. tects at the turn of the century display blindness toward pure
engineering structures, and most contemporary architects
Stendhal, Souvenirs d'egotisme
close their eyes to the traces of decay. Of course, the taboos
It is tempting to leave the argument here and let the reader that haunt architects are hardly surprising. To paraphrase
determine where this metaphorical rot becomes architecture Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
and where architecture becomes erotic. For like eroticism, most architects work from paradigms acquired through ed-
the phenomenon described here is of universal nature, al- ucation and through subsequent exposure to architectural
though the suggested attitudes are subjective and particular. literature, often without knowing what characteristics have
However, it is important to underline exactly what the two given these paradigms the status of rules or, by inversion,
correspondences imply. that such paradigms imply subsequent taboos. These para-
First, the two correspondences-that of rot digms-taboos may be more binding and more complex than
and that of life and death-are aspects of the same phenom- any set of rules that might be abstracted from them; they
enon. In both cases, the meeting point of ideal and real space remain entrenched because of the difficulty in unveiling the
is a proscribed place; just as it is forbidden to experience hidden rules that have guided the particular architectural
pleasure while thinking about it, it is forbidden to look at approaches that generated them. Rules stay obscured, for
the place where life touches death: Orpheus is not allowed schools of architecture never teach concepts or theories in
~o watch Eurydices' passage from death to life. the abstract. As a result, architects' perceptions are often as
l
! Space
78
El Lissitzky, Tat/in at Work, 1922.
I
Space
ality of ideas but also within the reality of the reader's spatial Neither the pleasure of space nor the pleasure
experience: a silent reality that cannot be put on paper. of geometry is (on its own) the pleasure of architecture.
r
Fragment I A Double Pleasure (Reminder) Fragment 2 Gardens of Pleasure
The pleasure of space: This cannot be put into words, it is In his Observations sur ]'Architecture, published in The
unspoken. Approximately: it is a form of experience-the Hague in 1765, Abbe Laugier suggested a dramatic decon-
"presence of absence"; exhilarating differences between the struction of architecture and its conventions. He wrote:
plane and the cavern, between the street and your living- "Whoever knows how to design a park well will have no
room; symmetries and dissymmetries emphasizing the spa- difficulty in tracing the plan for the building of a city accord-
tial properties of my body: right and left, up and down. Taken ing to its given area and situation. There must be regularity
to its extreme, the pleasure of space leans toward the poetics and fantasy, relationships and oppositions, and casual, un-
of the unconscious, to the edge of madness. expected elements that vary the scene; great order in the
The pleasure of geometry and, by extension, details, confusion, uproar, and tumult in the whole."
the pleasure of order-that is, the pleasure of concepts: Typ- . Laugier's celebrated comments, together
ical statements on architecture often read like the one in the with the dreams of Capability Brown, William Kent, Lequeu,
first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1773: "ar- or Piranesi, were not merely a reaction to the Baroque period
chitecture, being governed by proportion, requires to be that preceded them. Rather, the deconstruction of architec-
guided by rule and compass." That is, architecture is a "thing ture that they suggested was an early venture into the realm
of the mind," a geometrical rather than a pictorial or exper- of pleasure, against the architectural order of time.
iential art, so the problem of architecture becomes a problem Take Stowe, for example. William Kent's
of ordinance-Doric or Corinthian order, axes or hierarchies, park displays a subtle dialectic between organized landscape
grids or regulating lines, types or models, walls or slabs- and architectural elements: the Egyptian pyramid, the Italian
and, of course, the grammar and syntax of the architectures belvedere, the Saxon temple. But these "ruins" are to be read
sign become pretexts for sophisticated and pleasurable ma- less as elements of a picturesque composition than as the
nipulation. Taken to its extreme, such manipulation leans dismantled elements of order. Yet, despite the apparent
toward a poetic of frozen signs, detached from reality, into a chaos, order is still present as a necessary counterpart to the
subtle and frozen pleasure of the mind. sensuality of the winding streams. Without the signs of order,
Fragment 5 Rationality
ture then the necessity of architecture may well be its non-
nec~ssity. Such totally gratuitous consumption of architec-
In Architecture and Utopia, the historian Manfredo Tafuri
ture is ironically political in that it disturbs established
recalls how the rational excesses of Piranesi's prisons took
structures. It is also pleasurable.
Laugier's theoretical proposals of "order and tumult" to the
extreme. The classical vocabulary of architecture is Pira-
Fragment 4 Metaphor of Order-Bondage
nesi's chosen form of bondage. Treating classical elements
as fragmented and decaying symbols, Piranesi's architecture
Unlike the necessity of mere building, the non-necessity of
battled against itself, in that the obsessive rationality of
architecture is undissociable from architectural histories,
building types was "sadistically" carried to the extremes of
theories, and other precedents. These bonds enhance plea-
irrationality.
sure. The most excessive passion is always methodical. In
such moments of intense desire, organization invades plea-
Fragment 6 Eroticism
sure to such an extent.that it is not always possible to dis-
tinguish the organizing constraints from the erotic mat~er.
We have seen that the ambiguous pleasure of rationality and
For example, the Marquis de Sade's heroes enjoyed confinmg
irrational dissolution recalled erotic concerns. A word of
their victims in the strictest convents before mistreating
warning may be necessary at this stage. Eroticism is used
them according to rules carefully laid down with a precise
here as a theoretical concept, having little in common with
and obsessive logic.
Similarly, the game of architecture is an in- fetishistic formalism and other sexual analogies prompted
by the sight of erect skyscrapers or curvaceous doorways.
tricate play with rules that one may accept or reject. Indif- .
Rather, eroticism is a subtle matter. "The pleasure of excess"
ferently called systeme des Beaux-Arts or modern movement
requires consciousness as well as voluptuousness. Neither
precepts, this pervasive network of binding laws entangles
space nor concepts alone are erotic, but the jun~tion between
architectural design. These rules, like so many knots that
the two is.
cannot be untied, are generally a paralyzing constraint. When
The ultimate pleasure of architecture is that
manipulated, however, they have the erotic significance of
impossible moment when an architectural act, brought to
bondage. To differentiate between rules or ropes is irrelevant
excess, reveals both the traces of reason and the immediate
here. What matters is that there is no simple bondage tech-
experience of space.
nique: the more numerous and sophisticated the restraints,
the greater the pleasure.
late. Behind all masks lie dark and unconscious streams that
Fragment 7 Metaphor of Seduction-the Mask
cannot be dissociated from the pleasure of architecture. The
mask may exalt appearances. Yet by its very presence, it says
There is rarely pleasure without seduction, or seduction
that, in the background, there is something else.
without illusion. Consider: sometimes you wish to seduce,
so you act in the most appropriate way in order to reach your
Fragment 8 Excess
ends. You wear a disguise. Conversely, you may wish to
change roles and be seduced: you consent to someone else's
If the mask belongs to the universe of pleasure, pleasure itself
disguise, you accept his or her assumed personality, for it
is no simple masquerade. The danger of confusing the mask
gives you pleasure, even if you know that it dissimulates
with the face is real enough never to grant refuge to parodies
"something else."
and nostalgia. The need for order is no justification for imi-
Architecture is no different. It constantly
tating past orders. Architecture is interesting only when it
plays the seducer. Its disguises are numerous: facades, ar-
masters the art of disturbing illusions, creating breaking
cades, squares, even architectural concepts become the ar-
points that can start and stop at any time.
tifacts of seduction. Like masks, they place a veil between
Certainly, the pleasure of architecture is
what is assumed to be reality and its participants (you or I).
granted when architecture fulfills one's spatial expectations
So sometimes you desperately wish to read the reality behind
as well as embodies architectural ideas, concepts, or arche-
the architectural mask. Soon, however, you realize that no
types with intelligence, invention, sophistication, irony. Yet
single understanding is possible. Once you uncover that
there is also a special pleasure that results from conflicts:
which lies behind the mask, it is only to discover another
when the sensual pleasure of space conflicts with the plea-
mask. The literal aspect of the disguise (the facade, the street)
sure of order.
indicates other systems of knowledge, other ways to read the
The recent widespread fascination with the
city: formal masks hide socioeconomic ones, while literal
history and theory of architecture does not necessarily mean
masks hide metaphorical ones. Each system of knowledge
a return to blind obedience to past dogma. On the contrary,
obscures another. Masks hide other masks, and each succes-
I would suggest that the ultimate pleasure of architecture
sive level of meaning confirms the impossibility of grasping
lies in the most forbidden parts of the architectural act·I
reality. where limits are perverted and prohibitions are transgressed.
Consciously aimed at seduction, masks are
The starting point of architecture is distortion-the dislo-
of course a category of reason. Yet they possess a double role:
cation of the universe that surrounds the architect. Ye~ such
they simultaneously veil and unveil, simulate and dissimu-
Architecture resembles a masked figure. It street of the unconscious/' Generally speaking, it appeared
cannot easily be unveiled. It is always hiding: behind as a series of fragments (the Freudian notion of fragments
drawstrings, behind words, behind precepts, behind habits, does not presuppose the breaking of an image, or of a totality,
behind technical constraints. Yet it is the very difficulty of but the dialectical multiplicity of a process).
uncovering architecture that makes it intensely desirable. So, too, architecture when equated with lan-
This unveiling is part of the pleasure of architecture. guage can only be read as a series of fragments that make up
In a similar way, reality hides behind adver- an architectural reality.
96
Bernard Tschumi, Screenplays (The Fight), 1977.
p ho Dissolve), 1977.
Bernard Tschumi, Screenplays ( syc
. Distortion), 1979.
Bernard Tschumi, Screenplays (Domino
Sequences
phological variations are endless. Social and symbol~c chosen rules ultimately imply the exhaustion of a process
connotations characterize the third relation; we shall call it its circularity, or :its repetition. The open ones are sequence~
1
for now the programmatic sequence. -.;.vithout closures, where new elements of transformation can
be added at will according to other criteria, such as concur-
One customary mode of architectural drawing already im- rent or juxtaposed sequences of another order-say, a narra-
plies a transformational sequence. Successive layers of trans- tive or programmatic structure, juxtaposed to the formal
parent tracing paper are laid one upon another, each with its transformational structure.
respective variations, around a basic theme or parti. Each
subsequent reworking leads to or refines the organizing prin- Roland Barthes, in the "Structural Analysis of Narratives,"
ciple. The process is generally based on intuition, precedents, defining a sequence: "A logical succession of nuclei bound
and habit. together by a relation of solidarity: the sequence opens when
one of its terms has no solitary antecedent and closes when
This sequence can also be based on a precise, rational set of another of its terms has no consequences. "2
transformational rules and discrete architectural elements.
The sequential transformation then becomes its own theo- Sequences of space, configurations-en-suite, enfilades,
retical object, insofar as the process becomes the result, while spaces aligned along a common axis-all are specific archi-
the sum of transformations counts at least as much as the tectural organizations, from Egyptian temples through the
outcome of the final transformation. churches of the quattrocento to the present. All have em-
phasized a planned path with fixed halting points, a family
Transformational sequences tend to rely on the use of de- of spatial points linked by continuous movement.
vices, or rules of transformation, such as compression, rota-
tion, insertion, and transference. They can also display Sequences of transformation and sequences of spaces rarely
particular sets of variations, multiplications, fusions, repe- intersect, as if architects carefully distinguished means of
titions, inversions, substitutions, metamorphoses, anamor- inception from end product through a sort of discrete re-
phoses, dissolutions. These devices can be applied to the straint that does not reveal the maker's artifices in the final
transformation of spaces as well as programs. result and favors the certainty of a well-defined axis over the
passionate uncertainties of thought.
There are closed sequences of transformation as well as open
~nes. Closed sequences have a predictable end because the
Sequences
154 155
Program
-
Yet architecture is inhabited: sequences of events use ac-
If spatial sequences can be obviously manifest differences of • , , , I I
t1v1t1es, mcidents
, are always superimposed on those fi xe d
geometrical form (the Villa Adriana), they can also differ by
- spatial sequences. These are the programmatic sequences
dimension alone, while maintaining similar geometrical
that s~ggest secret maps and impossible fictions, rambling
form (the Ducal Palace at Urbino). They can even steadily
collect10ns of events all strung along a collection of spaces
increase in complexity, be constructed, step-by-step-or de-
frame after frame, room after room, episode after episode. '
constructed-according to any rule or device.
Sequences
156 157
-
Konstantin Melnikov, preliminary sketches for the Soviet Pavilion,
Paris Exhibition, 1924.
Vignola and Ammanti, floor plan for Villa Guilia, Rome, 1952.
::::::: UUU:J~
- Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou, 1928.
B ........:11...........
······· ·' \..---
:::::::::::I .. ::J
::::~~::~
.-..... ..
'
.11:::::::::'\I ......._;\ ::::::::::::········ ..... .
::::::::: ~L--J of study, etc .... , a list of the items or 'numbers' of a concert,
etc., in the order of performance; hence the items themselves
collectively, the performance as a whole .... " 4
Sequences
Program
ideal Werkbund kitchens, space-age vessels where each ac- The linearity of sequences orders events, movements, spaces
tion I each movement is designed, programmed. One then into a single progression that either combines or parallels
observes a strategy of reciprocity in which each sequence _ divergent concerns. It provides "security" and at least one
actually reinforces the other-the sort of architectural tau- overriding rule against architectural fears.
tology favored by functionalist doctrines. (The skater skates
on the skating rink.) Not all architecture is linear, nor is it all made of spatial
additions, of detachable parts and clearly defined entities.
Conflict: sequences of events and spaces occasionally clash Circular buildings, grid cities, as well as accumulations of
and contradict each other. One then observes a strategy of fragmentary perspectives and cities without beginnings or
conflict in which each sequence constantly transgresses the ends, produce scrambled structures where meaning is de-
other's internal logic. (The battalion skates on the tightrope.) rived from the order of experience rather than the order of
composition.
In themselves, spatial sequences are independent of what
happens in them. (Yesterday I cooked in the bathroom and Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion: dissociation, frag-
slept in the kitchen.) They may coincide for a shorter or mentation of unitary space. There is one sequence of direct
longer period. As sequences of events do not depend on spa- vision and one for the experience of the body where a set of
tial sequences (and vice versa), both can form independent indeterminate and equivocal articulations suggests a multi-
systems, with their own implicit schemes of parts. plicity of readings. Its spatial sequence is nevertheless orga-
nized around a thematic structure, a series of variations
Spatial sequences are generally structural; that is, they can around a limited number of elements that play the role of
be viewed or experienced independently of the meaning they the fundamental theme-the paradigm.
may occasionally evoke. Programmatic sequences are gen-
erally inferential; conclusions or inferences can be drawn By order of experience, one speaks of time, of chronology, of
from the events or the "decor" that provide the sequence's repetition. But some architects are suspicious of time and
connotative aspects. Such opposition is, of course, quite ar- would wish their buildings to be read at a glance, like
tificial; these distinctions do not exist separately. billboards.
Events "take place." And again. And again. Sequences have emotional value. Moretti, again, discussing
''
St. Peter's: "pressure (access doors), limited liberation
Sequences
160 161
Program
(atrium), opposition (atrium walls), very short pressure (ba- The composite sequence SEM breaks the linearity of the
silica doors), total liberation (transversal of nave), final con- elementary se~uence, whether S, E, or M.
templation (space of central system)."
But architectural sequences do not mean only the reality of
Like snapshots at key moments in the making of architec- actual buildings, or the symbolic reality of their fictions. An
ture, whether in the procedure or real space. Like a series of implied narrative is always there, whether of method, use,
frozen frames. or form. It combines the presentation of an event (or chain
of events) with its progressive spatial interpretation (which
If the spatial sequence inevitably implies the movement of of course alters it). Such, for instance, are rituals and their
an observer, then such movement can be objectively mapped routes of initiation where, from points of entry to point of
and formalized-sequentially. Movement notation: an ex- arrival, successive challenges await the new candidate. Here,
tension from the drawn conventions of choreography, it at- the order of the sequence is intrinsic. The route is more
tempts to eliminate the preconceived meanings given to important than any one place along it.
particular actions in order to concentrate on their spatial
effects: the movement of bodies in space (dancers, football- A ritual implies a near-frozen relationship between space
ers, acrobats). and event. It institutes a new order against the disorder it
aims to avoid. When it becomes necessary to mediate the
For Lautreamont, to move is never to go from one place to tension between events and spaces and fix it by custom, then
the next, but always to execute some figure, to assume a no single fragment must escape attention. Nothing strange
certain body rhythm. "He is running away . .. he is running or unexpected must happen. Control must be absolute.
away." Or "the mad woman who passes by, dancing."
Partial control is exercised through the use of the frame.
Each frame, each part of a sequence qualifies, reinforces, or
s E M
alters the parts that precede and follow it. The associations
Space Event Movement
so formed allow for a plurality of interpretations rather than
a singular fact. Each part is thus both complete and incom -
The final meaning of any sequence is dependent on the re- plete. And each part is a statement against indeterminacy;
lation space/event/movement. By extension, the meaning of indeterminacy is always present in the sequence, irrespective
any architectural situation depends on the relation S E M. of its methodological, spatial, or narrative nature.
Sequences
162 163
Program
166 167
Program
168
II Program essays written between 1981 and 1983
. Advertisements for Architecture, 1978.
Bernar d T sc hum 1•
;I~
t..}
.g;
,., ..
Architecture and Li mi ts
I.
Program
I The same can be said for whole fields of en- be ignored in a craft whose very scale involves cautious
t clients and carefully invested capital. Like the hidden clue
l deavor: there are productions at the limit of literature, at the
limit of music, at the limit of theater. Such extreme positions
in a detective story, these works are essential. In fact, the
I inform us about the state of art, its paradoxes and its contra-
concept of limits is directly related to the very definition of
architecture. What is meant by to define-"To determine the
dictions. These works, however, remain exceptions, for they
boundary or limits of," as well as "to set forth the essential
seem dispensable-a luxury in the field of knowledge.
nature of. 11 1
In architecture, such productions of the limit
Yet the current popularity of architectural
are not only historically frequent but indispensable: archi-
polemics and the dissemination of its drawings in other do-
tecture simply does not exist without them. For example,
mains have often masked these limits, restricting attention
architecture does not exist without drawing, in the same way
to the most obvious of architecture's aspects, curtailing it to
that architecture does not exist without texts. Buildings have
a Fountainhead view of decorative heroics. By doing so, it
been erected without drawings, but architecture itself goes
reduces architectural concerns to a dictionnaire des idees
beyond the mere process of building. The complex cultural,
rec;ues, dismissing less accessible works of an essential na-
social, and philosophical demands developed slowly over
ture or, worse, distorting them through association with the
centuries have made architecture a form of knowledge in and
mere necessities of a publicity market.
of itself. Just as all forms of knowledge use different modes
The present phenomenon is hardly new.
of discourse, so there are key architectural statements that,
The twentieth century contains numerous reductive policies
though not necessarily built, nevertheless inform us about
aimed at mass media dissemination, to the extent that we
the state of architecture-its concerns and its polemics-
now have two different versions of twentieth-century archi-
more precisely than the actual buildings of their time. Pira-
tecture. One, a maximalist version, aims at overall social,
nesi's engravings of prisons, Boullee's washes of monuments,
cultural, political, programmatic concerns while the otherI
have drastically influenced architectural thought and its re-
minimalist, concentrates on sectors called style, technique,
lated practiCe. The same could be said about particular ar-
and so forth. But is it a question of choosing one over the
chitectural texts and theoretical positions. This does not
other? Should one exclude the most rebellious and audacious
exclude the built realm, for small constructions of an exper-
projects, those of Melnikov or Poelzig for example, in the
imental nature have occasionally played a similar role.
interest of preserving the stylistic coherence of the modern
Alternatelyc-celebrated and ignored, these
movement? Such exclusions, after all, are common architec-
works of the limit often provide isolated episodes amidst the
tural tactics. The modem movement had already started its
thainstream of commercial production, for commerce cannot
106 107
Program
ity, metaphor and metonymy, similarity and contiguity fol-
One of the more enduring equations is the
lowing the terms of Jakobson, Chomsky, and Benve~iste.
Vitruvian trilogy-venustas, firmitas, utilitas-" attractive
A~though exclusively formalist manipulation often exhausts
appearance, 11 "structural stability, 11 "appropriate spatial ac-
~tself if new criteria are not injected to allow for innovation,
commodation." It is obsessively repeated throughout cen- its very excesses can often shed new light on the elusive
turies of architectural precepts, though not necessarily in boundaries of the "prison-house" of arch1't ec t ura11anguage.
that order. Are these possible architectural constants, the At th e l'1m1t,
· t h'is research introduces preoccupations with
inherent limits without which architecture does not exist?
the notion of subject and with the role of subjectivity in
Or is their permanence a bad mental habit, an intellectual
language, differentiating language as a system of signs from
laziness observed throughout history? Does persistence grant language as an act accomplished by an individual.
validity? If not, does architecture fail to realize the displace-
ment of limits it has held for so long? The concern for the next term-structural stability-seems
~o. have disappeared during the 1960s without anyone real-
The twentieth-century has disrupted the Vitruvian trilogy, 1zmg or discussing it. The consensus was that anything could
for architecture could not remain insensitive to industriali-
be built, provided you could pay for it. And concern with
zation and the radical questioning of institutions (whether
structure vanished from conference rosters and dwindled in
family, state, or church) at the turn of the century. The first architectural courses and magazines · Who, aft er a11, wants
term-attractive appearance (beauty)-slowly disappeared
to stress that the Doric pilasters of current histori-
from the vocabulary, while structural linguistics took hold
cism are made of painted plywood or that applique moldings
of the architect's formal discourse. Yet early architectural
are there to give metaphorical substance to hollow walls?
semiotics merely borrowed codes from literary texts, applied
In the 1980s, interest in engineering issues
them to urban or architectural spaces, and inevitably re-
returned but was often marked by a particular condition: the
mained descriptive. Inversely, attempts to construct new progressive reduction of building mass over a period of cen-
codes meant reducing a building to a "message" and its use
turies meant that architects coul~ arbitrarily compose, de-
to a "reading." Much of the current vogue for quotations of
compose, and recompose volumes according to formal rather
past architectural symbols proceeds from such simplistic than structural laws. Modernism's concern for surface effect
interpretations. further deprived volumes of material substance. Today, mat-
In recent years, however, serious research has
ter hardly enters the substance of walls that have been re-
~pplied linguistic theory to architecture, adding an arsenal
duced to sheetrock or glass partitions that barely differentiate
of selection and combination, substitution and contextual-
108 109
Program
inside from outside. The phenomenon is not likely to be The pervasive smells of rubber, concrete,
reversed, and those who advocate a return to "honesty of flesh; the taste of d_ust; the discomforting rubbing of an elbow
materials" or massive poche walls are often motivated by o~ an abrasive surface; the pleasure of fur-lined walls and
ideological rather than practical reasons. It should be the pain of a corner hit upon in the dark; the echo of a hall-
stressed, however, that any concern over material substance space is not simply the three-dimensional projection of a
has implications beyond mere structural stability. The ma- mental representation, but it is something that is heard and
teriality of architecture, after all, is in its solids and voids, is acted upon. And it is the eye that frames-the win~ow
its spatial sequences, its articulations, its collisions. (One the door, the vanishing ritual of passage .... Spaces of move~
remark in passing: some will say concern for energy conser- ment-corridors, staircases, ramps, passages, thresholds·
vation replaced the concern for construction. Maybe. Re- here begins the articulation between the space of the sense~
search in passive and active energy conservation, solar power, and the space of society, the dances and gestures that com-
and water recycling certainly enjoys a distinct popularity yet bine the representation of space and the space of represen-
does not greatly affect the general vocabulary of houses or tation. Bodies not only move in but generate spaces produced
by and through their movements. Movements-of dance
cities.) I
3
formance as a whole .. · ·
i
i'
Program
icism, by focusing on the intrinsic qualities of autonomous differ. Beyond their diverging esthetic means, both conceive
objects, formed an alliance with semiotic theory to make of architecture as an object of contemplation, easily acces-
architecture an easy object of poetics. sible to critical attentioh, as opposed to the interaction of
But wasn't architecture different from paint- space and events, which is usually unremarked upon. Thus
ing or literature? Could use or program be part of form rather walls and gestures, columns and figures are rarely seen as
than a subject or content? Didn't Russian formalism differ part of a single signifying system. Theories of reading, when
from Greenbergian modernism in that, rather than banishing applied to architecture, are largely fruitless in that they re-
considerations of content, it simply no longer opposed form duce it to an art of communication or to a visual art (the so-
to content but began to conceive of it as the totality of the called single-coding of modernism, or the double-coding of
work's various components? Content could be equally postmodernism), dismissing the "intertextuality" that
formal. makes architecture a highly complex human activity. The
Much of the theory of architectural modern- multiplicity of heterogeneous discourses, the constant inter-
ism (which, notably, emerged in the 1950s rather than in the action between movement, sensual experience, and concep-
1920s) was similar to all modernism in its search for the tual acrobatics refute the parallel with the visual arts.
specificity of architecture, for that which is characteristic of If we are to observe, today, an epistemologi-
architecture alone. But how was such specificity defined? cal break with what is generally called mo(k~rnism, then it
Did it include or exclude use? It is significant that architec- must also question its own formal contingency. By no means
tural postmodernism's challenge to the linguistic choices of does this imply a return to notions of function versus form
I
modernism has never assaulted its value system. To discuss to cause-and-effect relationships between program and type,
"the crisis of architecture" in wholly stylistic terms was a to utopian visions, or to the varied positivist or mechanistic
false polemic, a clever feint aimed at masking the absence of ideologies of the past. On the contrary, it means going beyond
concerns about use. reductive interpretations of architecture. The usual exclu-
While it is not irrelevant to distinguish be- sion of the body and its experience from all discourse on the
tween an autonomous, self-referential architecture that tran- logic of form in a case in point.
scends history and culture and an architecture that echoes The mise-en-scenes of Peter Behrens, who
historical or cultural precedents and regional contexts, it organized ceremonies amidst the spaces of Josef Maria
should be noted that both address the same definition of Olbrich's Mathildenhoehe; Hans Poelzig's sets for The Go-
~rchitecture as formal or stylistic manipulation. Form still lem; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's stage designs, which combined
follows form; only the meaning and the frame of reference cinema, :grnsic, sets, and actions, freezing simultaneities· El
\ I
118
Violence of Architecture
their relations to the world, they inevitably face one another Bodies Violating Space
in an intense confrontation. Any relationship between a
building and its users is one of violence, for any use means first, there is the violence that all individuals inflict on
the intrusion of a human body into a given space, the intru- spaces by their very presence, by their intrusion into the
sion of one order into another. This intrusion is inherent in controlled order of architecture. Entering a building may be
the idea of architecture; any reduction of architecture to its a delicate act, but it violates the balance of a precisely ordered
spaces at the expense of its events is as simplistic as the geometry (do architectural photographs ever include runners,
fighters, lovers?). Bodies carve all sorts of new and unex-
reduction of architecture to its facades.
By "violence, /1 I do not mean the brutality pected spaces, through fluid or erratic motions. Architecture,
that destroys physical or emotional integrity but a metaphor then, is only an organism engaged in constant intercourse
for the intensity of a relationship between individuals and with users, whose bodies rush against the carefully estab-
their surrounding spaces. The argument is not a matter of lished rules of architectural thought. No wonder the human
style: modern architecture is neither more or less violent body has always been suspect in architecture: it has always
than classical architecture, or than fascist, socialist, or ver- set limits to the most extreme architectural ambitions. The
nacular variations. Architecture's violence is fundamental body disturbs the purity of architectural order. It is equiva-
and unavoidable, for architecture is linked to events in the lent to a dangerous prohibition.
same way that the guard is linked to the prisoner, the police Violence is not always present. Just as riots,
to the criminal, the doctor to the patient, order to chaos. This brawls, insurrections, and revolutions are of limited dura-
also suggests that actions qualify spaces as much as spaces tion, so is the violence a body commits against space. Yet it
qualify actions; that space and action are inseparable and is always implicit. Each door implies the movement of some-
that no proper interpretation of architecture, drawing, or one crossing its frame. Each corridor implies the progression
of movement that blocks it. Each architectural space implies
notation can refuse to consider this fact.
(and desires) the intruding presence that will inhabit it.
What must first be determined is whether this relation be-
tween action and space is symmetrical-opposing two camps Space Violating Bodies
(people versus spaces) that affect one another in a comparable
way-or asymmetrical, a relation in which one camp, But if bodies violate the purity of architectural spaces, one
wp.ether space or people, clearly dominates the other. might rightly wonder about the reverse: the violence in-
flicted by narrow corridors on large crowds, the symbolic or
Violence of Architecture
122 123
Program
physical violence of buildings on users. A word of warning: wish to be subjected to such spatial aggression, just as you
I do not wish to resurrect recent behaviorist architectural may go to a rock concert and stand close enough to the
approaches. Instead, I wish simply to underline the mere ~oudspeakers to ~ustain painful-but pleasurable-physical
existence of a physical presence and the fact that it begins or psychic trauma. Places aimed at the cult of excessive
sound only suggest places aimed at the cult of excessive
quite innocently, in an imaginary sort of way.
The place your body inhabits is inscribed in space. The love of violence, after all, is an ancient pleasure.
your imagination, your unconscious, as a space of possible Why has architectural theory regularly re-
bliss. Or menace. What if you are forced to abandon your fused to acknowledge such pleasures and always claimed (at
imaginary spatial markings? A torturer wants you, the vic- least officially) that architecture should be pleasing to the
tim, to regress, because he wants to demean his prey, to make eye, as well as comfortable to the body? This presupposition
you lose your identity as a subject. Suddenly you have no seems curious when the pleasure of violence can be experi-
choice; running away is impossible. The rooms are too small enced in every other human activity, from the violence of
or too big, the ceilings too low or too high. Violence exercised discordant sounds in music to the clash of bodies in sports,
from gangster movies to the Marquis de Sade.
by and through space is spatial torture.
Take Palladio's Villa Rotonda. You walk
through one of its axes, and as you cross the central space
Violence Ritualized
and reach its other side you find, instead of the hillside
landscape, the steps of another Villa Rotonda, and another, Who will mastermind these exquisite spatial delights, these
and another, and another. The incessant repetition at first disturbing architectural tortures, the tortuous paths of prom-
stimulates some strange desire, but soon becomes sadistic, enades through delirious landscapes, theatrical events where
actor complements decor? Who ... ? The architect? By the
impossible, violent.
Such discomforting spatial devices can take seventeenth century, Bernini had staged whole spectacles,
any form: the white anechoic chambers of sensory depriva- followed by Mansart's fetes for Louis XIV and Albert Speer's
tion, the formless spaces leading to psychological destruc- sinister and beautiful rallies. After all, the original action,
turing. Steep and dangerous staircases, those corridors the original act of violence-this unspeakable copulating of
consciously made too narrow for crowds, introduce a radical live body and dead stone-is unique and unrehearsed, though
shift from architecture as an object of contemplation to ar- perhaps infinitely repeatable, for you may enter the building
chitecture as a perverse instrument of use. At the same time again and again. The architect will always dream of purifying
i't must be stressed that the receiving subject-you or I-may this uncontrolled violence, channeling obedient bodies along
Violence of Architecture
124 125
Program
-
ately frozen into a solid corridor. The relationship is more
predictable paths and occasionally along ramps that provide
subtle and mov~s beyond the question of power, beyond the
striking vistas, ritualizing the transgression of bodies in
_question of whether architecture dominates events or vice
space. Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center, with its ramp that
versa. The relationship, then, is as symmetrical as the ineluc-
violates the building, is a genuine movement of bodies made
table one between guard and prisoner, hunter and hunted.
into an architectural solid. Or the reverse: it is a solid that
But both the hunter and the hunted also have basic needs to
forcibly channels the movement of bodies.
consider, which may not relate to the hunt: sustenanceI food I
The original, spontaneous interaction of the
shelter, and so forth. Hunter and hunted enjoy these needs
body with a space is often purified by ritual. Sixteenth-cen-
independent of the fact that they are engaged in a deadly
tury pageants and Nathan Altman's reenactment of the
game. They are respectively self-sufficient. Only when they
storming of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, for example,
confront each other's reality are their strategies so totally
are ritualistic imitations of spontaneous violence. Endlessly
interdependent that it becomes impossible to determine
repeated, these rituals curb all aspects of the original act that
which one initiates and which one responds. The same hap-
have escaped control: the choice of time and place, the se-
pens with architecture and the way buildings relate to their
lection of the victim ....
A ritual implies a near-frozen relationship users, or spaces relate to events or programs. For any orga-
nized repetition of events, once announced in advance be-
between action and space. It institutes a new order after the '
comes a program, a descriptive notice of a formal series of
disorder of the original event. When it becomes nt;,cessary to
proceedings.
mediate tension and fix it by custom, then no single\fragment
When spaces and programs are largely inde-
must escape attention. Nothing strange and unexpected
pendent of one another, one observes a strategy of indiffer-
must happen. Control must be absolute.
ence in which architectural considerations do not depend on
utilitarian ones, in which space has one logic and events
Programs: Reciprocity and Conflict another. Such were the Crystal Palace and the neutral sheds
of the nineteenth-century's Great Exhibitions, which accom-
Such control is, of course, not likely to be achieved. Few
modated anything from displays of elephants draped in rare
regimes would survive if architects were to program every
colonial silks to international boxing matches. Such, too--
single movement of individual and society in a kind of ballet
but in a very different manner-was Gerrit Rietveld's house
mecanique of architecture, a permanent Nuremberg Rally of
in Utrecht, a remarkable exercise in architectural language,
everyday life, a puppet theater of spatial intimacy. Nor would
~hey survive if every spontaneous movement were immedi-
Violence of Architecture
126 127
Program
promote.)
Most relations, of course, stand somewhere
in between. You can sleep in your kitchen. And fight and
lqve. These shifts are not without meaning. When the typ-
ology of an eighteenth-century prison is turned into a twen-
tieth-century city hall, the shift inevitably suggests a critical
statement about institutions. When an industrial loft in
128 129
Program
motivations.
8-11.
130 131
Program
15-18.
134 135
1. Orson Welles, The Lady from Shanghai, 1947. (film still)
2. Norman Bel Geddes, General Motors Building, New York World's Fair,
Flushing, NY, 1939.
12. Vsevolod Meyerhold and Varvara Stepanova, set for The Death of Tare/kin,
1922.
or ideological leanings. In the early 1970s, some denounced sensibility, often in a manner sufficiently obscure to generate
architecture altogether, arguing that its practice, in the cur- initial hostility through the school. Of course the codes used
rent socioeconomic context, could only be reactionary and -in the students' work differed sharply from those seen in
reinforce the status quo. Others, influenced by structural schools and architectural offices at the time. At the end-of-
linguistics, talked of "constants" and the rational autonomy year exhibition texts, tapes, films, manifestos, rows of story-
of an architecture that transcended all social forms. Others boards, and photographs of ghostlike figures, each with their
reintroduced political discourse and advocated a return to own specific conventions, intruded in a space arranged ac-
preindustrial forms of society. And still others cynically to~k cording to codes disparate from those of the profession.
the analyses of style and ideology by Barthes, Eco, or Baudnl- Photography was used obsessively: as "live"
lard and diverted them from their critical aims, turning them insert, as artificial documentation, as a hint of reality inter-
over like a glove. Instead of using them to question the posed in architectural drawing-a reality nevertheless dis-
distorted, mediated nature of architectural practice, these tanced and often manipulated, filled with skillful staging,
architects injected meaning into their buildings artificially, with characters and sets in their complementary relations.
through a collage of historicist or metaphorical elements. Students enacted fictitious programs inside carefully se-
The restricted notion of postmodernism that ensued-a no- lected "real" spaces and then shot entire photographic se-
tion diminished by comparison with literature or art-com- quences as evidence of their architectural endeavors. Any
pletely and uncritically reinserted architecture into the cycle new attitude to architecture had to question its mode of
representation.
of consumption.
At the Architectural Association (AA) in Other works dealing with a critical analysis
London, I devised a program entitled "Theory, Language, of urban life were generally in written form. They were
Attitudes." Exploiting the structure of the AA, which en- turned into a book, edited, designed, printed, and published
couraged autonomous research and independent lecture by the unit; hence, "the words of architecture became the
courses, it played on an opposition between political and work of architecture," as we said. Entitled A Chronicle of
theoretical concerns about the city (those of Baudrillard, Le- Urban Politics, the book attempted to analyze what distin-
febvre, Adorno, Lukacs, and Benjamin, for example) and an guished our period from the preceding one. Texts on frag-
art sensibility informed by photography, conceptual art, and mentation, cultural dequalification, and the "intermediate
performance. This opposition between a verbal critical dis- city" analyzed consumerism, totems, and representational-
, course and a visual one suggested that the two were comple- ism. Some of the texts announced, several years in advance,
' mentary. Students' projects explored that overlapping preoccupations now common to the cultural sphere: dislo-
United States I gave extracts from Finnegans Wake as the could accommodate the everyday life of an average suburban
program. The site was London's Covent Garden and the ar- family.
chitecture was derived, by analogy or opposition, from Such research was obviously not aimed at
Joyce's text. The effect of such research was invaluable in providing immediate answers, whether ideological or prac-
providing a framework for the analysis of the relations be- tical. Far more important was the understanding that the
tween events and spaces, beyond functionalist notions. relation between program and building could be either highly
The unfolding of events in a literary context sympathetic or contrived and artificial. The latterI of courseI
inevitably suggested parallels to the unfolding of events in fascinated us more, as it rejected all functionalist leanings.
It was a time when most architects were questioning, at-
architecture.
tacking, or outright rejecting modern movement orthodoxy.
We simply refused to enter these polemics, viewing them as
Space versus Program
stylistic or semantic battles. Moreover, if this orthodoxy was
To what extent could the literary narrative shed light on the often attacked for its reduction to minimalist formal manip-
organization of events in buildings, whether called "use,,, ulations, we refused to enrich it with witty metaphors. Issues
"functions," "activities," or "programs"? If writers could of intertextuality, multiple readings and dual codings had to
manipulate the structure of stories in the same way as they integrate the notion of program. To use a Palladian arch for
twist vocabulary and grammar, couldn't architects do the an athletic club alters both Palladio and the nature of the
same, orga~izing the program in a similarly obj,ective, de- athletic event.
tached, or imaginative way? For if architects could self- As an exploration of the disjunction between
consciously use such devices as repetition, distortion, or expected form and expected use, we began a series of projects
juxtaposition in the formal elaboration of walls, couldn't opposing specific programs with particular, often conflicting
they do the same thing in terms of the activities that occu~red spaces. Programatic context versus urban typology, urban
within those very walls? Pole vaulting in the chapel, bicy- typology versus spatial experience, spatial experience versus
cling in the laundromat, sky diving in the elevator sh~ft? procedure, and so on, provided a dialectical framework for
Raising these questions proved increasingly stimulatmg: research. We consciously suggested programs that were im-
conventional organizations of spaces could be matched to possible on the sites that were to house them: a stadium in
the most surrealistically absurd sets of activities. Or vice Soho, a prison near Wardour Street, a ballroom in a church-
versa: the most intricate and perverse organization of spaces yard. At the same time, issues of notation became funda-
,o
,..)o ___ " q<o
16a.___,
~ d
~ 'up\ o
°' i I 0
' - . _ ...- I
\. 0 /
er'
Ill Disjunction essays written between 1984 and 1991
Bernard Tschum1,. Pare d.e Ia Villette: Programmatic
. deconstruction:
the largest common d enom1 ·nator = the fo/1e.
1
aimed at developing a related theory that would take into nifier," notes Lacan; "Smoke is nothing but the sign of the
account both the unexpected and the aleatory, the pragmatic smoker." 2
and the passionate, and would turn into reason what was But if signs are variables that are regularly
formerly excluded from the realm of architecture because it displaced, there are other constants, such as form. In archi-
seemed to belong to the realm of the irrational. tecture, as elsewhere, the meaning of form resides only in
the fact that form can be identified, and no more: "Form does
Dissociation, Transference, Anchoring Point It is unnec- not know more than it expresses. It is real, inasmuch as it
essary to state again the disjunctions characterizing our time, contains being. Form is the knowledge of being. 11 3 Grasping
as opposed to the false certainties generally propagated by fragments of life is linked to the identification of forms in
architectural ideologists. The noncoincidence between being space.
and meaning, man and object have been explored from When confronted with the dispersion, the de-
Nietzsche to Foucault, from Joyce to Lacan. Who, then, could personalization, the dispossession of contemporary architec-
claim, today, the ability to recognize objects and people as ture, the analogy with psychoanalysis is possible and even
part of a homogeneous and coherent world? correct. Numerous works on schizophrenia have shown how
Much of the practice of architecture-com- the schizophrenic hides in another mode of being in order to
position, the ordering of objects as a reflection of the order exist, existing outside the body and losing origins, protective
of the world, the perfection of objects, the vision of a future limits, identity, and part of personal history. "In schizophre-
made of progress and continuity-is conceptually inappli- nia, something takes place that fully disturbs the relation of
cable today. For architecture only exists through the world the subject to reality and drowns content with form. 11 4 In-
in which it locates itself. If this world implies dissociation deed, the schizophrenic places words and things on the same
and destroys unity, architecture will inevitably reflect these plane without distinguishing their respective origins.
phenomena. The excesses of style-Doric supermarkets, In this analogy, the contemporary city and
Bauhaus bars, and Gothic condos-have emptied the lan- its many parts (here La Villette) are made to correspond with
guage of architecture of meaning. The excess of meaning the dissociated elements of schizophrenia. The question be-
lacks meaning. But how can meaning be produced when signs comes that of knowing one's relationship to such dislocated
only refer to other signs; when they do not signify, but only city parts. My hypothesis, here, is that this relationship nec-
substitute? /1 A sign is not a sign of something, but of an effect essarily suggests the idea of the transference. The transfer-
which is what assumes as such the functioning of the sig- ence in architecture resembles the psychoanalytic situation,
6
intensity. political role, rejecting the ideological a priori of the master-
The grid of folies permits the combination of plans of the past. The Urban Park at La Villette offers the
places of transference on the background of the La Villette possibility of a restructuring of a dissociated world through
site. Obviously, it is secondary to try to determine in advance an intermediary space-folies-in which the grafts of trans-
the architectural forms that are most appropriate to such ference can take hold.
transferential situations. All that counts is that the folie is The point grid of folies constitutes the place
both the place and the object of transference. This fragmen- of a new investment. The folies are new markings: the grafts
tary transference in madness is nothing but the production of transference. These transference grafts allow access to
of an ephemeral regrouping of exploded or dissociated space: one begins with an ambivalence toward a form in
structures. space that must be "reincarnated." The folies create a "nodal
The psychoanalytical analogy ends here. In- point where symbol and reality permit the building of the
\ deed, in the patient's world, a new factor would intervene, imaginary by reintroducing a dialectic of space and time. "7
· · spac
The par1< at La Vi"llette offers such a transit10n . e' a form bination, that all form is the result of a combination. It then
of access to new cultural and social forms in which expres- proceeds to indicate that the notion of combination can be
. is
s10n . poss i"ble, even when speech has disappeared.
. · - articulated into different categories. It should be emphasized
La Villette, then, can be seen as an mnovative that architecture is not seen here as the result of composi-
. .
exposit10n of a technique on the level of superimpositions
b" tion, a synthesis of formal concerns and functional con-
and anchoring points. It offers places to apprehend o 1ects straints, but rather as part of a complex process of
It "builds itself into a mechanism that acts as
an d uses. . 11s It · a transformational relations. Between pure formalism, which
bl . unit for all the modes of locatmg. is reduces architecture to a series of forms (which at the limit,
reassem mg . h· r
f Of mu ltireferential anchoring pomts for t mgs o could be "formless" and meaningless), and classical realism,
sur ace ll h
eople that leads to a partial coherence, yet cha enges t e which attempts to give all forms an expressive value, aspects
~ . .
mstitut10na 1 s tructure of official culture, urban parks, mu- of structural analysis (which concerns us here) attempt to
seums, leisure centers, and so on. distinguish the nature of such transformational relations.
The purpose of this discussion is not to pro-
2. Combination pose the kind of new moral or philosophical role often as-
. . of necessity combinative, society, by sociated with architectural endeavors. Instead, it aims to
Although every creat10n is
consider the architect first as a formulator, an inventor of
. myth of 'inspiration' cannot stand being
virtue of the old romantic relations. It also aims to analyze what will be called in this
context the "combinative," that is, the set of combinations
told so.
and permutations that is possible among different categories
Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola of analysis (space, movement, event, technique, symbol,
11 etc.), as opposed to the more traditional play between func-
The fragmentation of our contemporary "mad .condition .
tion or use and form or style.
. . bl ggests new and unforeseen regroupmgs of its
mevita Y su h 1 · d en
In this perspective, architecture is regarded
fragments. N o longer linked in a coherent w o e, m ep be-
dent from their past, these autonomous fragments can as no longer concerned with composition or with the ex-
recombined through a series of permutations whose _rules pression of function. Instead, it is seen as the object of per-
. t o do with those of classicism or modermsm. mutation, the combination of a large set of variables, which
have noth mg
The following pages attempt to demonstrate, is meant to relate, either in a manifest or secret way, domains
as different as the act of running, double expansion joints,
\ first, t h at any "new11 architecture implies the idea of com-
and the free plan. Such a play of permutations is not gratui-
taus. It permits new and hitherto unimagined activities to ments belonging to different domains, generally segregated
occur. However, it also implies that any attempt to find a by social taboo~ ("the Pope's ass"). What is unlikely on the
new model or form of architecture requires an analysis of the _initial level, that is, "a turkey whipped by an armless dwarf,"
full range of possibilities, as in the permutational matrices "a staircase perched on a tightrope," becomes both a possi-
used by research scientists and structuralists alike. Indeed, bility of discourse and a poetic device. Contamination
perhaps the most important legacy of structuralism has to touches all "styles" of discourse.
do with heuristics, demonstrating that meaning is always a In a remarkable study entitled Palimps-
function of both position and surface, produced by the move- estes, II the literary critic Gerard Genette has refined these
ment of an empty slot in the series of a structure. concepts of transformation. Combination, he writes, exists
The guiding principle of research on La Vil- only within a complex system of transformational relations.
lette is precisely that of the empty slot. This play of permu- These relations can act on whole texts as much as on frag-
tations was initially explored in The Manhattan Transcripts; ments. In the case that concerns us, that of La Villette, a
"the football player skates on the battlefield" 9 was the man- general type of transformation called "mechanical opera-
ifesto of the interchangeability of objects, people, and events. tions" can be distinguished. Mechanical operations may take
Influenced by poststructuralist texts as much as by the dif- several forms: (a) that of "lexical" permutations, as in the
ferent techniques of film montage, the Transcripts were only decomposition of the lOm x lOm x lOm cube of the original
introducing, in a theoretical manner, what is to be applied at folie into a series of discrete fragments or elements that is
I I
La Villette. I
square or rectangular rooms, ramps, cylindrical stairs, and so
Obviously, combination techniques are not forth, which have been ordered to form a catalogue or lexicon.
without precedent. Sadian practice, as analyzed by Barthes A lexical permutation entails taking an element from the
in Sade, Fourier, Loyola, gives a clear example: In Sade, all original cube and mechanically replacing it with another
functions are interchangeable; there are only classes of ac- form from the lexicon (for example, e + 7: each element of
tions as opposed to groups of individuals. The subject of an the cube is exchanged for the element of the lexicon placed
action can be turned into its object; it can also be a libertine, in seventh position behind it); or (b) that of "hypertextual"
· t.Iill1 a helper/ a spouse. The erotic code takes advantage
a VIC permutation, by which an element of the cube will be re-
of the logic of language and its varied permutations. Sade placed by another-for example, by a nineteenth-century
demonstrates: in order to combine incest, adultery, sodomy,
/1
neoclassical pavilion placed nearby on the site. Such trans-
. d augh ter Wit
and sacrilege, he buggers his marned . h a h os t .JJlO
plantation may lead to a semantic transformation in terms
\ Within the same system Sade juxtaposes heterogeneous frag- of its new context.
184 185
Madness and the Combinative
Disjunction
chitecture along different axes; to indicate that space, move- rope") may correspond to an insistent need to force
ment, and event are inevitably part of a minimal definition architecture to ~ay more than it is capable of saying (if I skate
of architecture, and that the contemporary disjunction be- _ on the battlefield, I bring about an erotic displacement. )12
tween use, form, and social values suggests an interchange-
able relation between object, movement, and action. In this La Villette In the La Villette project two alternative strat-
manner, the program becomes an integral part of architec- egies to establish a basis for such combinative research
ture, and each element of this program becomes an element emerged at the outset. The stated concern of the project was
to apply theoretical concerns on a practical level, to move
of permutation akin to solid elements.
No permutation is "innocent": just as the from the "pure mathematics" of The Manhattan Transcripts
form of a text cannot be changed without altering its mean- to applied mathematics. The first possible strategy was to
ing, so no permutation of program, space, or movement fails employ specific "texts" or architectural precedents (Central
to achieve a shift in meaning. The transformation alters Park, Tivoli, etc.) as starting points and adapt them (in the
events less than their meaning. Specifically, three basic types sense of a movie adaptation of a book), to the site and the
of relations can be distinguished: (a) the reciprocal relation, program. This strategy implied considering a preexistent spa-
for example, to skate on the skating rink; (b) the indifferent tial organization as a "model" that could either be adapted
relation, for example, to skate in the schoolyard; and (c) the or transformed in the manner that Joyce "transformed"
conflictual relation, for example, to skate in the chapel, to Homer's Odyssey. This method had already been applied in
skate on the tightrope. According to the strict terms of logic, Part I of The Manhattan Transcripts (The Park), 13 in which
nothing differentiates (a) from (c). However, the actual dif- Central Park acts as the original or "hypotext" for the con-
ference between the normative "a" and the disjunctive "c," temporary "hypertext" of the Transcripts. The other strategy
that is, between a functional reciprocal relation and a con- involved ignoring built precedents so as to begin from a
flictual relation, generally depends on a moral or aesthetic neutral mathematical configuration or ideal topological con-
judgment, which is external to architecture and highly var- figurations (grids, linear or concentric systems, etc.) that
iable. Hence according to circumstances, a functional build- could become the points of departure for future transforma-
ing can become conflictual or vice versa. The only tions. This second approach was the one selected: three au-
distribution that counts, then, is one of motivation. tonomous abstract systems-systems of points, lines, and
Similarly, all new relations emit "erotic" surfaces-were laid out. Independent, each with its own in-
charges. Besides an obvious theoretical motivation, the in- ternal logic, these three systems would then begin to con-
vention of new relations ("the battalion skates on the tight- taminate one another when superimposed.
may either:
derived from elsewhere-from other cities, other parks Hence the concern, reinforced by recent de-
(a palimpsest) velopments in philosophy, art, and literature, that the park
d. Search for an intermediary-an abstract system to me- - propose a strong conceptual framework while simulta-
diate between the site (as well as all given constraints) neously suggesting multiple combinations and substitu-
and some other concept, beyond city or program (a tions. One part could replace another, or a building's program
mediation) be revised, changing (to use an actual example) from restau-
rant to gardening center to arts workshop. In this mannerI
During the Pare de la Villette competition, the park's identity could be maintained, while the circum-
thought had been given to employing as a methodology either stantial logics of state or institutional politics could pursue
the palimpsest or the abstract mediation. The composition their own independent scenarios. Moreover, our objective
and complement were rejected outright, the one for its sub- was also to act upon a strategy of differences: if other design-
scription to old architectural myths, the other for its limiting ers were to intervene, their projects' difference from the Fol-
pragmatism. Yet the palimpsest (which had been explored in ies or divergence from the continuity of the cinematic
the 1976 Screenplays) was not pursued, for its inevitably promenade would become the condition of their contribu-
figurative or representational components were incompati- tions. The general circumstances of the project, then, were
ble with the complexity of the programmatic, technical, and to find an organizing structure that could exist independent
political constraints that could be foreseen. Furthermore, the of use, a structure without center or hierarchy, a structure
object of the competition was both to select a chief architect that would negate the simplistic assumption of a causal re-
who would be in charge of the master plan as well as of lationship between a program and the resulting architecture.
construction of the park's key elements, and to suggest, co- Recourse to the point grid as an organizing
ordinate, and supervise possible contributions by other art- structure was hardly without precedent. The concept of an
ists, landscape designers, and architects. The numerous abstract mediation had been researched earlier in Joyce's
unknowns governing the general economic and ideological Garden (1977), in whicl:i a literary text, Finnegans Wake, was
context suggested that much of the chief architect's role used as the program for a project involving a dozen contri-
would depend on a strategy of substitution. It was clear that butions by different students on a "real" site, London's Cov-
the elements of the program were interchangeable and that ent Garden. The intersections of an ordinance survey grid
budgets and priorities could be altered, even reversed, at least became the locations of each architectural interventionI
pver the course of one generation. thereby accommodating a heterogeneous selection of build-
grid was also one of the few modes of spatial organization tual, reasons was the regular point grid selected. It is also
important to recall that the point grid of Folies (the "system
that vigorously resisted the stamp of the individual author:
of points") constitutes only one of the project's components;
its historical multiplicity made it a sign without origin, an
the "system of lines" and the "system of surfaces" are as
image without "first image" or inaugurating mark. Never-
fundamental as the "system of points. 11
theless, the grid's serial repetitions and seeming anonymity
made it a paradigmatic twentieth-century form. And just as Each represents a different and autonomous
system (a text), whose superimposition on another makes
it resisted the humanist claim to authorship, so it opposed
impossible any "composition,"'maintaining differences and
the closure of ideal compositions and geometric dispositions.
refusing ascendency of any privileged system or organizing
Through its regular and repetitive markings, the grid defined
element. Although each is determined by the architect as
a potentially infinite field of points of intensity: an incom-
II
sub'Jee t , II w h en one system is superimposed on another, the
plete, infinite extension, lacking center or hierarchy.
subject-the architect-is erased. While one could object introduce discontinuity-a segmented world in which each
that the same architect continues his controlling authority f~agrnent mai~tains its own independence, thereby permit-
by staging the superimposition (and hence that the park re- _ tmg a multiplicity of combinations · In film , each frame 1tor
mains the product of his individual intentions), the compe- photogram) is placed in continuous movement. Inscribing
tition requirements provided a means to relativize the m.ovement through the rapid succession of photograms con-
presence of such a masterminding subject by stipulating, as stitutes the cinegram.
in any large-scale urban project, that other professionals in- The Park is a series of cinegrams each of
tervene. Another layer, another system could then be inter- which is ba~ed on a precise set of architectonic, s~atial, or
posed among the preceding three layers in the form of programmatic
. . transformations · Contiguity and supenmpo-
.
occasional constructions juxtaposed to several Folies, or of s1t10n of cinegrams are two aspects of montage. Montage as
experimental gardens by different designers, inserted into the a te~hnique, includes such other devices as repetition, 'in-
sequences of the cinematic promenade. Such juxtapositions vers10n, substitution, and insertion · These devices
. suggest
would be successful only insofar as they injected discordant an art of rupture, whereby invention resides in contrast-
notes into the system, hence reinforcing a specific aspect of even in contradiction.
1976 onward in The Manhattan Transcripts, where the over- vivalisms" and "symbolisms" appearing throughout history.
lapping of abstract and figurative elements (based on "ab- The architectural postmodernism contravenes the reading
stract" architectonic transformations as much as on evident in other domains, where postmodernism involves an
"figurative" extracts from the selected site) coincided with assault on meaning or, more precisely, a rejection of a well-
a more general exploration of the ideas of program, scenario, defined signified that guarantees the authenticity of the work
and sequence. of art. To dismantle meaning, showing that it is never trans-
The independence of the three superposed parent, but socially produced, was a key objective in a new
structures thus avoided all attempts to homogenize the Park critical approach that questioned the humanist assumptions
into a totality. It eliminated the presumption of a preestab- of style. Instead, architectural postmodernism opposed the
lished causality between program, architecture, and signifi- style of the modern movement, offering as an alternative
cation. Moreover, the Park rejected context, encouraging another, more palatable style. Its nostalgic pursuit of coher-
intertextuality and the dispersion of meaning. It subverted ence, which ignores today's social, political, and cultural
context: La Villlette is anticontextual. It has no relation to dissociations, is frequently the avatar of a particularly con-
its surroundings. Its plan subverts the very notion of borders servative architectural milieu.
on which "context" depends. The La Villette project, in contrast, attempts
to dislocate and deregulate meaning, rejecting the symbolic
Non-sense/No-meaning repertory of architecture as a refuge of humanist thought.
For today the term park (like architecture, science, or liter-
The Pare de la Villette project thus can be seen to encourage ature) has lost its universal meaning; it no longer refers to a
conflict over synthesis, fragmentation over unity, madness fixed absolute nor to an ideal. Not the bortus conclusus and
and play over careful management. It subverts a number of not the replica of Nature, La Villette is a term in constant
ideals that were sacrosanct to the modern period and, in this production, in continuous change; its meaning is never fixed
manner, it can be allied to a specific vision of postmodernity. but is always deferred, differed, rendered irresolute by the
But the project takes issue with a particular premise of ar- multiplicity of meanings it inscribes. The project aims to
chitecture-namely, its obsession with presence, with the unsettle both memory and context, opposing many contex-
idea of a meaning immanent in architectural structures and tualist and continualist ideals that imply that the architect's
forms that directs its signifying capacity. The latest resur- intervention necessarily refers to a typology, origin, or deter-
gence of this myth has been the recuperation, by architects, mining signified. Indeed, the Park's architecture refuses to
of meaning, symbol, coding, and "double-coding," in an operate as the expression of a preexisting content, whether
eclectic movement reminiscent of the long tradition of "re-
Pare de la Villette, superpositions. subjective, formal, or functional. Just as it does not answer
to the demands of the self fthe sovereign or "creative" archi-
tect), so it negates the immanent dialectic of the form, since
- the latter is displaced by superimpositions and transforma-
tions of elements that always exceed any given formal con-
figuration. Presence is postponed and closure deferred as each
permutation or combination of form shifts the image one
step ahead. Most important, the Park calls into question the
fundamental or primary signified of architecture-its ten-
dency fas Derrida remarks in La Case Vide) to be "in service,
and at service," obeying an economy of meaning premised
on functional use. In contrast, La Villette promotes program-
matic instability, functional Folie. Not a plenitude, but in-
stead "empty" form: les cases sont vides.
La Villette, then, aims at an architecture that
means nothing, an architecture of the signifier rather than
the signified-one that is pure trace or play of language. In a
Nietzschean manner, La Villette moves toward interpretive
infinity, for the effect of refusing fixity is not insignificance
but semantic plurality. The Park's three autonomous and
superimposed systems and the endless combinatory possi-
bilities of the Folies give way to a multiplicity of impressions.
Each observer will project his own interpretation, resulting
in an account that will again be interpreted (according to
psychanalytic, sociological, or other methodologies) and so
on. In consequence, there is no absolute truth to the archi-
tectural project, for whatever meaning it may have is a func-
tion of interpretation: it is not resident in the object or in
the object's materials. Hence, the truth of red Folies is not
the truth of Constructivism, just as the truth of the system plays the same role as narrative in other domains: it can and
of points is not the truth of the system of lines. The addition must be reinte~preted, rewritten, deconstructed by the ar-
of the systems' internal coherences is not coherent. The chitect. La Villette, in this sense, is dys-narrative or dys-
excess of rationality is not rational. La Villette looks out on programmatic: the programmatic content is filled with cal-
new social and historical circumstances: a dispersed and culated distortions and interruptions, making for a city frag-
differentiated reality that marks an end to the utopia of unity. ment in which each image, each event strives towards its
very concept.
Disjunctions
Disjunctions
208 209
Disjunction
dissociative logic governing the work. If one were to define To paraphrase Orson Welles: "I don't like architecture, I like
disjunction, moving beyond its dictionary meaning, one making architecture."
would insist on the idea of limit, of interruption. Both the -
Transcripts and La Villette employ different elements of a 6. Notation
and Bataille and Artaud, who all worked at the edge of phi- reassembly is an extended process; above all, what is ulti-
losophy and nonphilosophy, of literature and nonliterature. mately a transgression of classical and modern canons should
The attention paid today to Jacques Derrida's deconstructive not be permitted to regress toward formal empiricism. Hence
approach also represents an interest in the work at the limit: the disjunctive strategy used both in the Transcripts and at
the analysis of concepts in the most rigorous and internalized La Villette, in which facts never quite connect, and relations
manner, but also their analysis from without, so as to ques- of conflict are carefully maintained, rejecting synthesis or
tion what these concepts and their history hide, as repression totality. The project is never achieved, nor are the boundaries
or dissimulation. Such examples suggest that there is a need ever definite.
to consider the question of limits in architecture. They act
as reminders (to me) that my own pleasure has never surfaced Disjunction and the Avant-garde
in looking at buildings, at the great works of the history or
,the present of architecture, but, rather, in dismantling them. As Derrida points out, architectural and philosophical con-
' cepts do not disappear overnight. The once fashionable "epis-
Disjunctions
::no 211
Disjunction
temological break" notwithstanding, ruptures always occur But it is not anti-autonomy or anti-structure; it simply im-
within an old fabric that is constantly dismantled and dis- plies constant, . mechanical operations that systematically
located in such a way that its ruptures lead to new concepts produce dissociation in space and time, where an architec-
or structures. In architecture such disjunction implies that tural element only functions by colliding with a programatic
at no moment can any part become a synthesis or self-suffi- element, with the movement of bodies, or whatever. In this
cient totality; each part leads to another, and every construc- manner, disjunction becomes a systematic and theoretical
tion is off-balance, constituted by the traces of another tool for the making of architecture.
construction. It could also be constituted by the traces of an
event, a program. It can lead to new concepts, as one objective
here is to understand a new concept of the city, of
architecture.
If we were to qualify an architecture or an
architectural method as /1 disjunctive," its common denom-
inators might be the following:
Disjunctions
212 213
Bernard Tsc hum ·, • Photogram
· • Proposal for Kansai Airport, 1989.
Delivered as a lecture at the Dia Foundation in New York City in Fall 1987.
Disjunction
and, more generally, technology replaced the boundaries, the way can architecture today claim permanence of meaning.
guarded borders of the past? Churches are turned into movie houses, banks into yuppie
The walls surrounding the city have disap- - restaurants, hat factories into artists' studios, subway tun-
peared and, with them, the rules that made the distinction nels into nightclubs, and sometimes nightclubs into
between inside and outside, despite politicians' and planners' churches. The supposed cause-and-effect relationship be-
guidelines, despite geographical and administrative bound- tween function and form ("form follows function") is forever
aries. In "L'Espace Critique", Paul Virilio develops a chal- condemned the day function becomes almost as transient as
lenging argument for anyone concerned with the making of those magazines and mass media images in which architec-
urban society: Cities have become deregulated. This dereg- ture now appears as such a fashionable object.
ulation is reinforced by the fact that much of the city does History, memory, and tradition, once called
not belong to the realm of the visible anymore. What was to the rescue by architectural ideologists, become nothing
once called urban design has been replaced by a composite but modes of disguise, fake regulations, so as to avoid the
of invisible systems. Why should architects still talk about question of transience and temporality.
monuments? Monuments are invisible now. They are dis- When the philosopher Jean-Franc;ois Lyotard
proportionate-so large (at the scale of the world) that they speaks about the crisis of the grand narratives of modernity
cannot be seen. Or so small (at the scale of computer chips) ("progress," the "liberation of humanity," etc.), it only pre-
that they cannot be seen either. figures the crisis of any narrative, any discourse, any mode
Remember: architecture was first the art of of representation. The crisis of these grand narratives, their
measure, of proportions. It once allowed whole civilizations coherent totality, is also the crisis of limits. As with the
to measure time and space. But speed and the telecommu- contemporary city, there are no more boundaries delineating
nications of images have altered that old role of architecture. a coherent and homogeneous whole. On the contrary, we
Speed expands time by contracting space; it negates the no- inhabit a fractured space, made of accidents, where figures
tion of physical dimension. are disintegrated, dis-integrated. From a sensibility devel-
Of course, physical environment still exists. oped during centuries around the "appearance of a stable
But, as Virilio suggests, the appearance of permanence (build- image" ("balance," "equilibrium," "harmony"), today we
ings as solid, made of steel, concrete, glass) is constantly favor a sensibility of the disappearance of unstable images:
challenged by the immaterial representation of abstract sys- first movies (twenty-four images per second), then television,
tems from television to electronic surveillance, and so on. then computer-generated images, and recently (among a
' I
an element of signification: for every form, every signifier, Partly fascinated by such connotations
there is an objective signified, a function. By focusing on partly longing for some long-lost traditional forms, architec~
denotation, it eliminated connotation. _ tural postmodernism in the seventies attempted to com-
Of course, this dominant discourse of ration- bine-to quote Charles Jencks-"modern techniques with
ality was bound to be attacked. At that time, it was by the traditional building, in order to communicate both with the
surrealists, whose transgressions often relied on the ethics public and with an elite" (hence "double-coding"). It was
of functionalism, a contrario. In fact, some fixed, almost above all concerned with codes, with communicating some
functionalist expectations were necessary to the surrealists, message, some signified (perhaps characterized by irony, par-
for they could only be unsettled through confrontation: the ody, eclecticism). Architectural postmodernism was totally
surreal set combining 11 the sewing machine and the umbrella in line with the mission of architecture according to domi-
on the dissecting table" only works because each of these nant history, which has been to invest shelter with a given
objects represents a precise and unequivocal function. meaning.
The transgressed order of functionality that Ten years later, the illusion was already van-
resulted reintroduced the order of the symbolic, now dis- ishing. The Doric orders made of painted plywood had begun
torted and turned into a poetic phantasm. It liberated the to warp and peel. The instability, the ephemerality of both
object from its function, denounced the gap between subject signifier and signified, form and function, form and meaning
and object, and encouraged free association. But such could only stress the obvious, what Jacques Lacan had
transgressions generally acted upon singular objects, while pointed to years before: that there is no cause-and-effect
the world was becoming an environment of ever-increasing relationship between signifier and signified, between word
complex and abstract systems. The abstraction of the follow- and intended concept. The signifier does not have to answer
ing years-whether expressionist or geometric-had its ar- for its existence in the name of some hypothetical signifi-
chitectural equivalent. The endlessly repeated grids of cation. As in literature and psychoanalysis, the architectural
skyscrapers were associated with a new zero-degree of mean- signifier does not represent the signified. Doric columns and
ing: perfect functionalism. neon pediments suggest too many interpretations to justify
Fashion upset all that. It had always ad- any single one. Again, there is no cause-and-effect relation-
dressed issues of connotation: against fashion's unstable and ship between an architectural sign and its possible interpre-
ever-disappearing image, the stable and universal denota- tation. Between signifier and signified stands a barrier: the
tions of functionalism appeared particular and restrictive. barrier of actual use. Never mind if this very room was once
a fire station, then a furniture storage room, then a ritualistic
dance hall, and now a lecture hall (it has been all of these). were trying to provide were weak in comparison to the new
Each time, these uses distorted both signifier and signified. scaffoldings of our time: the mediatized images of ephemeral
- representations.
Not only are linguistic signs arbitrary (as de Saussure showed
us long ago), but interpretation is itself open to constant "To represent construction or to construct
questioning. Every interpretation can be the object of inter- representation" (Virilio): this is the new question of our time.
pretation, and that new interpretation can in turn be inter- As Albert Einstein said, "There is no scientific truth, only
preted, until every interpretation erases the previous one. temporary representations, ever-accelerating sequences of
The dominant history of architecture, which is a history of representation." In fact, we are forced to go through a com-
the signified, has to be revised, at a time when there is no plete reconsideration of all concepts of figuration and repre-
longer a normative rule, a cause-and-effect relationship be- sentation: the constant storm of images (whether drawings,
tween a form and a function, between a signifier and its graphs, photographs, films, television, or computer-gener-
signified: only a deregulation of meaning. ated images) increasingly negates any attempt to restore the
The deregulation of architecture began long Renaissance ideal of the unity of reality and its representa-
ago, at the end of the nineteenth century, with the world tion. The concept of double-coding was the last and futile
fairs of London and Paris, where light metallic structures attempt to keep some of that ideal intact by establishing a
radically changed the appearance of architectural solids. Sud- new relation between communication and tradition. It is the
denly, architecture was merely scaffolding supporting glass, word "tradition" that misled much of the architectural scene
and it was discrediting the "solid," symbolic character of in the late seventies and made some aspects of architectural
masonry and stone. Human scale ceased to be an issue, as postmodernism what I think will soon appear as a short-lived
the logic of industrial construction took over. Human pro- avatar of history: a form of contextual eclecticism that has
portions from the ages of classicism and humanism were been recurrent throughout architectural history, with and
without irony, allegory, and other parodies.
rapidly replaced by grids and modular systems, a superim-
position of light and materials that were becoming increas- In any case, the problem is not a problem of
images: gables and classical orders, however silly, are free to
ingly immaterial-another form of deconstruction.
In the mid-seventies, nostalgic architects, be consumed by whoever wishes to do so. But to pretend that
longing for meaning and tradition, applied sheetrock and these images could suggest new rules and regulations in
plywood cutouts to those scaffoldings, but the images they architecture and urbanism by transcending modernism is
simply misplaced.
224 225
I
De-, Dis-, Ex-
Folie P6, Pare de la Villette, Paris, 1985.
Six Concepts
the same article, he pronounces the rest of the architectural This reaction against the perception of mod-
profession to be in "a moment of supreme silliness that ernity as the abstract reducer dates from the mid-1960s I
whether through scholarly texts or through the first orga-
deconstructs and self-destructs."
I would like to pursue a short exploration of nized protests against the demolition of neighborhoods and
some of the issues that are addressed by those who, because landmark buildings in the name of progress, from New York's
they do not wish to perpetuate the revival of the vernacular Pennsylvania Station to Paris's Les Halles. Among archi-
and the classical, are now condemned to that "supreme sil- tects, it is certainly a book, Robert Venturi's Complexity and
liness." I want to examine some of the concepts that govern Contradiction in Architecture, published by The Museum
the making of architecture and cities at this particular pe- of Modern Art in 1966, that triggered an extraordinary and
riod-a period that cannot easily be recontained within the widespread reappraisal of architectural priorities and valuesI
suggesting that there was more to architecture than the ethe-
comforting fiction of an eighteenth-century village.
If we were to characterize our contemporary real, abstract formulation of a utopian ideal. Filled with ex-
condition, we could say it is "after simulation," "postmedia- amples that ranged from Borromini's work to "juxtapositions
tion." What do we do after everything has been relived at of expressways and existing buildings," Venturi's text con-
least once, after everything has been presented, re-presented, cluded by praising "the vivid lessons of Pop Art," for pop art
and re-re-presented? In order to elaborate on this, please al- involved contradictions of scale and context "that should
low me to briefly recapitulate our recent architectural past. have awakened architects from their prim dreams of pure
Much of architectural postmodernism was order."
developed at a time of general reaction against what was Almost simultaneously, a new area of knowl-
perceived as the abstraction of modernism: abstraction be- edge was developing that was to prove a formidable instru-
ment in the hands of architects and critics who sought to
cause modernism's glass office buildings were "imageless"
and cold like abstract painting. Abstraction too because, it restore meaning to what they had attacked as the zero degree
was said, modern architects were elitist, detached, or "ab- of modernism. Semiology and linguistics invaded the archi-
stracted" from everyday life-from people and, above all, tectural scene. Often greatly misunderstood, the work of
from the community that was not allowed to "participate" Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, and Roland Barthes was to
while zoning, highways, ans! high-rise housing (to quote inform new architectural strategies of coding, so that ordi-
nary people and scholars alike could finally decode multiple
Scully again) "destroyed the very fabric of our neighbor-
meanings pasted onto what nevertheless remained neutral
.hoods." Were Brasilia and Chandigarh beautiful or ugly, so-
sheds. While as early as 1968 Barthes, in one of his rare
cial or asocial, historical or ahistorical?
Six Concepts
228 229
Disjunction
ventures into urbanism and architecture, had concluded with sold. Despite recent interest in new forms of contemporary
the impossibility of fixed meanings, postmodern architects architecture, t~is preindustrial Arcadia constitutes the main-
and critics developed a most unusual construct of a signifying - stream of architectural and political ideology in most of the
architecture in which building facades would convey a world built world. The more ideologically inclined among the apol-
of allusions, quotations, and historical precedents. ogists of revival argue that at the end of the twentieth cen-
Particular to these allusions is that they all tury, after hundreds of years of industrial, technological, and
referred to a very narrow sector of architectural culture: first, social development, it is still possible to return to an earlier
they dealt only with the appearance of architecture, with its lifestyle, ignoring cars, computers, and the nuclear age. And,
surface or image, never with its structure or use. Second, a more important, ignoring the specific social and historical
very restricted set of images was being proposed-Roman changes that took place during this time. These ideologists
palazzi, villas, and English vernacular buildings, or what claim that the Arcadian "towns" now being developed on
could be described as the Arcadian dreams of a conservative the model of holiday villages will, by virtue of their archi-
middle class whose homogeneity of taste disproved the very tecture, foster ideal communities where social values and
theories of heterogeneity that Barthes and Venturi seemed respect for one another will replace difference, conflict, and
to suggest. In passing, it should be added that for others who urban interchange. This k~ind of community dream (shared
were proposing a new formalist vocabulary instead, the same by co-op boards and politicians alike) is ironic when proposed
situation often occurred. The talk was mostly about image, in a city like New York, where people move an average of
about surface; structure and use were not mentioned. Indeed, every four years. However, it is symptomatic of a fantasy:
the industrial and metropolitan culture of our society was that the village of our ancestors-one that we have never
notoriously absent. Rare were allusions to the megalopolis, known-can be a model for generations to come.
to factories, power stations, and other mechanical works that But are modern versus classical or vernacular
had defined our culture for more than a century. In contrast, images really the issue? Pitched roofs against flat roofs? Is it
we were treated to a constant set of images of a preindustrial really a key question? Of course not. I would claim that our
society-pre-airport, pre-supermarket, pre-computer, pre- contemporary condition affects historicists and modernists
nuclear. alike.
Of course, developers and builders were as
easily convinced by these "classical" architects as by preser-
vationists: the world of nostalgia, of comfort, of geborgenheit
'would be a better world to live in, and more houses could be
Part I
Such work on the surface can also be seen in
I have always been fascinated by the construction phase of building renovatiOns, as in the Biltmore Hotel in New York
I
two Manhattan buildings that were erected simultaneously where a 1913 brick facade was replaced seventy-five years
and side-by-side on Madison Avenue in the Upper Fifties. later by a more businesslike curtain wall. Almost simulta-
These two skyscrapers, one designed for IBM and the other neously, the white tile facade of Columbia University's East
for AT & T, are almost identical in their steel structure, func- Campus dormitories was being replaced by an imitation 1913
tion, and office layout. The skins of both buildings are hung brick facade. This comment is not a value judgment: it has
onto their structures using the same technique of lattice and become a condition of our time. It should be noted that the
clips. But here the similarities end. In the first case, the IBM administration and trustees of Columbia University ago-
building is clad with a slick, polished marble and glass facade, nized over what to do with the building when they found
with abstract and minimalist detailing. In contrast, the that the falling tiles could not be repaired or replaced, and
AT&T building has a slightly articulated facade treatment that the alternative was to find $70 million to build a new
with pink granite slabs cut to resemble Roman and Gothic dorm. No one is happy about the decision the university had
stonework. The IBM building has a flat roof; the AT&T, a to make-to change the skin-but if it is of any comfort, one
pediment. Until recently, the IBM building was seen as a can think of that shedding skin as a symptom of our contem-
symbol of a passe modernist era, the AT&T building as the porary condition, rather than as a result of faulty
construction.
heroic statement of the new historicist postmodernism that
became the established corporate style of the 1980s. Both "The triumph of the superficial," as Stuart
buildings are nearly identical in content, bulk, and use. Less Ewen calls it in his recent book on the politics of style, All
than ten years later the same situation was repeated in Times Consuming Images, is not a new phenomenon, but architects
Square, with a proposal for a so-called deconstructivist skin have yet to understand the consequences of this separation
replacing a postmodern classical one. Such examples also of structure and surface. Until the nineteenth century, ar-
apply to houses in East Hampton, Long Island where the chitecture made use of load-bearing walls that held the build-
designs of Robert A. M. Stern and Charles Gwathmey often ing up. Although it was common to apply decorations of
serve the same programs, and sometimes the same clients. various styles to these surfaces, the walls performed a key
One architect is labeled a historicist, the other a modernist structural function. Often there was a connection between
in their manufacture of fashionable images. the type of image used and the structure of the wall. By the
1830s the connection between image, structure, and con-
232 233
Six Concepts
Disjunction
struction method was gone. New construction methods em- to their own content. Paradoxically, they even function bet-
ployed an inner structural frame that supported the building. ter this way. /1
Whether in the form of "balloon frame" structures covered
Looked at in this matter, modernist buildings
by a skin or of "structural frames" covered by curtain walls,
became "better" in the 1930s when social ideals began to
these new building techniques meant that walls no longer
prove illusive and finally vanished. By extension, are not
played a structural role: they became increasingly ornamen-
Richard Meier's buildings today more "esthetic 11 than
tal. A multiplicity of styles became possible due to the de-
Le Corbusier's? A generalized form of estheticization has
velopment of prefabricated panels, ready to be shaped,
indeed taken place, conveyed by the media. Just as Stealth
painted, or printed to reflect any image, any period.
Bombers were estheticized on the televised Saudi Arabian
With the new disembodied skins, the roles sunset, just as sex is estheticized in advertising, so all of
of engineer and architect became increasingly separate: the
culture-and of course this includes architecture-is now
engineer took care of the frame, the architect the skin. Ar-
estheticized, "xeroxized. 11 Furthermore, the simultaneous
chitecture was becoming a matter of appearances: the skin
presentation of these images leads to a reduction of history
could be Romanesque, Baroque, Victorian, "regionalist ver-
to simultaneous images: not only to those of the Gulf War
nacularI " and so on. This evolution of the interchangeability
interspersed with basketball games and advertisement but
of surfaces coincided with new techniques of visual repre-
also to those of our architectural magazines and, ultimately,
sentation. Photography and the mass printing of decorative to those of our cities.
wallpapers further democratized the merchandising of sur-
The media appetite for the consumption of
face treatments in architecture. Above all, photography in- architectural images is enormous. And one consequence of
creased the power of the image over any structure of
the shift of attention toward the surface has been that much
substance.
of architectural history has become the printed image, the
We are talking about the nineteenth century, printed word (and their dissemination), and not the actual
but things have intensified so much that the quantitative
building. At the time of this writing, influential architectural
change has led to a qualitative leap. With photography, mag-
personalities-Daniel Libeskind for example, or Wolf Prix,
azines, television, and buildings designed by fax, so-called
Zaha Hadid, or Rem Koolhaas-have built relatively little.
superficiality has become the sign of our times. To quote
Our generation of architects is the subject of countless arti-
Jean Baudrillard in "Transparency of Evil": " ... things con-
cles, even though it is only infrequently given the power to
tinue functioning when their idea has long disappeared from
build. Still, it dominates media information. The intensity
[th~m]. They continue to function with a total indifference
of this information offensive, or what we might call "reality, 11
trends, theories, schools, movements, and waves. The ques- mentation and superficiality and to turn it against itself. If
tion is: why oppose this mediated world? Should it be in the the prevalent ideology was one of familiarity-familiarity
name of some solid, unified reality? Should we once again with known images, derived from 1920s modernism or eigh-
teenth-century classicism-maybe one's role was to defam-
long for a coherent Gesamtkunstwerk? But today, the project
of the early twentieth-century appears as a wish to restore a iliarize. If the new, mediated world echoed and reinforced
society in which every element is in a fixed hierarchical our dismantled reality, maybe, just maybe, one should take
advantage of such dismantling, celebrate fragmentation by
relationship with every other-a world of order, certainty,
and permanence. celebrating the culture of differences, by accelerating and
intensifying the loss of certainty, of center, of history.
Indeed, if most of architecture has become
surface, applied decoration, superficiality, paper architecture In culture in general, the world of commu-
(or to use Venturi's celebrated expression, "decorated shed"), nication in the last twenty years has certainly helped the
what distinguishes architecture from other forms of billboard expression of a multiplicity of new angles on the canonic
story, airing the views of women, immigrants, gays, minor-
design: or, more ambitiously, what distinguishes architec-
ities, and various non-Western identities who never sat com-
ture from editions, layouts, graphics? If the so-called contex-
tualisms and typological historicisms are nothing but a set fortably within the supposed community. In architecture in
particular, the notion of defamiliarization was a clear tool. If
of opportune
I
disguises applied to a ready-made formula-in
the design of windows only reflects the superficiality of the
236 237
Six Concepts
Disjunction
238 239
Six Concepts
ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1988.
242 243 I
Six Concepts
i
I
Disjunction
Le Fresnoy, Cen ter for Art and Media, Tourcoing, France, 1991.
skin's decoration, we might very well start to look for a way
to do without Wil).dows. If the design of pillars reflects the
conventionality of a supporting frame, maybe we might get
rid of pillars altogether.
244 245
Six Concepts
Disjunction
246 247
Six Concepts
Disjunction
ence through clash and disjunction. archy between them. To quote Leon Battista Alberti: "Or-
_nament has the character of something attached or
Let us return to the media. In our era of re-
additional." Ornament is meant to be additive; it must not
production, we have seen how the conventional construction
challenge or weaken the structure.
techniques of frame and skin correspond to the superficiality
and precariousness of media culture, and how a constant But what does this hierarchy mean today,
when the structure often remains the same-an endlessly
expansion of change was necessary to satisfy the often banal
repetitive and neutralized grid? In the majority of construc-
needs of the media. We have also seen that to endorse this
tion in this country today, structural practice is rigorously
logic means that any work is interchangeable with any other,
similar in concept: a basic frame of wood, steel, or concrete.
just as we accelerate the shedding of the skin of a dormitory
As noted earlier, the decision whether to construct the frame
and replace it with another. We have also seen that the shock
from any of these materials is often left to the engineers and
goes against the nostalgia of permanence or authority,
economists rather than to the architect. The architect is not
whether it is in culture in general or architecture in partic-
meant to question structure. The structure must .stand firm.
ular. Over fifty years after the publication of Benjamin's text,
After all, what would happen to insurance premiums (and to
we may have to say that shock is still all we have left to
reputations) if the building collapsed? The result is too often
communicate in a time of generalized information. In a world
a refusal to question structure. The structure must be stable
heavily influenced by the media, this relentless need for I
otherwise the edifice collapses-the edifice, that is, both the
change is not necessarily to be understood as negative. The
building and the entire edifice of thought. For in comparison
increase in change and superficiality also means a weakening
to science or philosophy, architecture rarely questions its
of architecture as a form of domination, power, and authority, foundations.
as it historically has been in the last six thousand years.
The result of these "habits of mind" in ar-
chitecture is that the structure of a building is not supposed
Concept III: De-structuring This "weakening" of architec-
to be questioned anymore than are the mechanics of a pro-
ture, this altered relationship between structure and image,
jector when watching a movie or the hardware of a television
structure and skin, is interesting to examine in the light of
set when viewing images on its screen. Social critics regu-
a debate that has resurfaced recently in architectural cir-
larly question the image yet rarely question the apparatus,
cles-namely, structure versus ornament. Since the Renais-
the fram~. Still, for over a century, and especially in the past
san<!;e, architectural theory has always distinguished
twenty years, we have seen the beginning of such question-
248 249
Six Concepts
Disjunction
ing. Contemporary philosophy has touched upon this rela- another, with displacement. Again, to quote Nietzsche:
tionship between frame and image-here the frame is seen "There are no far;ts, only an infinity of interpretations. /1 And
as the structure, the armature, and the image as the orna- _very soon, maybe due to the fact that many architects shared
ment. Jacques Derrida's Parergon turns such questioning be- the same dislike for the Geborgenheit of the "historicist
tween frame and image into a theme. Although it might be postmodernists" and the same fascination for the early
argued that the frame of a painting does not quite equate to twentieth-century avant-garde, deconstructivism was
the frame of a building-one being exterior or "hors born-and immediately called a "style"-precisely what
d'oeuvre" and the other interior-I would maintain that this these architects had been trying to avoid. Any interest in
is only a superficial objection. Traditionally, both frame and poststructuralist thought and deconstruction stemmed from
structure perform the same function of "holding it together." the fact that they challenged the idea of a single unified set
of images, the idea of certainty, and of course, the idea of an
Concept IV: Superimposition This questioning of struc- identifiable language.
ture led to a particular side of contemporary architectural Theoretical architects-as they were
debate, namely deconstruction. From the beginning, the po- called-wanted to confront the binary oppositions of tradi-
lemics of deconstruction, together with much of poststruc- tional architecture: namely, form versus function, or abstrac-
turalist thought, interested a small number of architects tion versus figuration. However, they also wanted to
because it seemed to question the very principles of Ge- challenge the implied hierarchies hidden in these dualities
I
borgenheit that the postmodernist mainstream was trying to such as, "form follows function," and "ornament is subser-
promote. When I first met Jacques Derrida in order to try to vient to structure." This repudiation of hierarchy led to a
convince him to confront his own work with architecture, fascination with complex images that were simultaneously
he asked me, "But how could an architect be interested in "both" and "neither/nor"-images that were the overlap or
deconstruction? After all, deconstruction is anti-form, anti- the superimposition of many other images. Superimposition
hierarchy, anti-structure, the opposite of all that architecture became a key device. This can be seen in my own work. In
stands for." "Precisely for this reason," I replied. The Manhattan Transcripts (1981) or The Screenplays (1977),
As years went by, the multiple interpreta- the devices used in the first episodes were borrowed from
tions that multiple architects gave to deconstruction became film theory and the nouveau roman. In the Transcripts the
more multiple than deconstruction's theory of multiple read- distinction between structure (or frame), form (or space),
ings could ever have hoped. For one architect it had to do event (or function), body (or movement), and fiction (or nar-
with dissimulation; for another, with fragmentation; for yet rative) was systematically blurred through superimposition,
collision, distortion, fragmentation, and so forth. We find ground are not structural, they are ornament. Yes, fiction and
superimposition used quite remarkably in Peter Eisenman's narrative fascina,ted many architects, perhaps because, our
work, where the overlays for his Romeo and [uliet project enemies might say, we knew more about books than about
pushed literary and philosophical parallels to extremes. buildings.
These different realities challenged any single interpretation, I do not have the time to dwell upon an in-
constantly trying to problematize the architectural object, teresting difference between the two interpretations of the
crossing boundaries between film, literature, and architec- role of fiction in architecture: one, the so-called historicist
ture. ("Was it a play or was it a piece of architecture?") postmodernist allegiance, the other, the so-called decon-
Much of this work benefited from the envi- structivist neomodernist allegiance (not my labels). Al-
ronment of the universities and the art scene-its galleries though both stemmed from early interests in linguistics and
and publications-where the crossover among different semiology, the first group saw fiction and narrative as part
fields allowed architects to blur the distinctions between of the realm of metaphors, of a new architecture parlante, of
genres, constantly questioning the discipline of architecture form, while the second group saw fiction and scenarios as
and its hierarchies of form. Yet if I was to examine both my analogues for programs and function.
own work of this time and that of my colleagues, I would I would like to concentrate on that second
say that both grew out of a critique of architecture, of the view. Rather than manipulating the formal properties of ar-
nature of architecture. It dismantled concepts and became a chitecture, we might look into what really happens inside
remarkable conceptual tool, but it could not address the one buildings and cities: the function, the program, the properly
thing that makes the work of architects ultimately different historical dimension of architecture. Roland Barthes's Struc-
from the work of philosophers: materiality. tural Analysis of Narratives was fascinating in this respect,
Just as there is a logic of words or of drawings, for it could be directly transposed both in spatial and pro-
there is a logic of materials, and they are not the same. And grammatic sequence. The same could be said of much of
however much they are subverted, something ultimately Sergei Eisenstein's theory of film montage.
resists. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A word is not a concrete
block. The concept of dog does not bark. To quote Gilles Concept V: Crossprogramming Architecture has always
Deleuze, "The concepts of film are not given in film." When been as much about the event that takes place in a space as
metaphors and catachreses are turned into buildings, they about the space itself. The Columbia University Rotunda
generally turn into plywood or papier mache stage sets: the has been a library; it has been used as a banquet hall; it is
ornam.ent again. Sheetrock columns that do not touch the
I
254 255
Six Concepts
,'1!
'ii
ill.
Disjunction
space. Such confrontation parallels the Surrealists' meeting Just as important is the spatialization that
of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table goes with the event. Such a concept is quite different from
or, closer to us, Rem Koolhaas's description of the Downtown the project of the modern movement, which sought the af-
Athletic Club: "Eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, on firmation of certainties in a unified utopia as opposed to our
the nth floor." current questioning of multiple, fragmented, dislocated
We find it today in Tokyo, with multiple terrains.
programs scattered throughout the floors of high-rise build- A few years later, in an essay about the folies
ings: a department store, a museum, a health club, and a of the Pare de la Villette, Jacques Derrida expanded on the
railway station, with putting greens on the roof. And we will definition of event, calling it "the emergence of a disparate
find it in the programs of the future, where airports are si- multiplicity." I had constantly insisted, in our discussions
multaneously amusement arcades, athletic facilities, cine- and elsewhere, that these points called folies were points of
mas, and so on. Regardless of whether they are the result of activities, of programs, of events. Derrida elaborated on this
chance combinations or are due to the pressure of ever-rising concept, proposing the possibility of an "architecture of the
land prices, such noncausal relationships between form and event" that would "eventualize," or open up that which, in
function or space and action go beyond poetic confrontations our history or tradition, is understood to be fixed, essential,
of unlikely bedfellows. Michel Foucault, as cited in a book monumental. He had also suggested earlier that the word
by John Rajchman, expanded the use of the term event in a "event" shared roots with "invention," hence the notion of
manner that went beyond the single action or activity and the event, of the action-in-space, of the turning point, the
spoke of "events of thought." For Foucault, an event is not invention. I would like to associate it with the notion of
simply a logical sequence of words or actions but rather "the shock, a shock that in order to be effective in our mediated
moment of erosion, collapse, questioning, or problematiza- culture, in our culture of images, must go beyond Walter
tion of the very assumptions of the setting within which a Benjamin's definition and combine the idea of function or
drama may take place-occasioning the chance or possibility action with that of image. Indeed, architecture finds itself
of another, different setting." The event here is seen as a in a unique situation: it is the only discipline that by defi-
turning point-not an origin or an end-as opposed to such nition combines concept and experience, image and use, im-
propositions as form follows function. I would like to propose age and structure. Philosophers can write, mathematicians
that the future of architecture lies in the construction of can develop virtual spaces, but architects are the only ones
such events. who are the prisoners of that hybrid art, where the image
hardly ever exists without a combined activity.
256 257
Six Concepts
Disjunction
~~-------------- .............
It is my contention that far from being a field
possibility of constructing conditions that will create a new
suffering from the incapability of questioning its structures
city and new rel~tionships between spaces and events.
and foundations, it is the field where the greatest discoveries
Architecture is not about the conditions of
will take place in the next century. The very heterogeneity
design but about the design of conditions that will dislocate
of the definition of architecture-space, action, and move-
the most traditional and regressive aspects of our society and
ment-makes it into that event, that place of shock, or that
simultaneously reorganize these elements in the most lib-
place of the invention of ourselves. The event is the place
erating way, so that our experience becomes the experience
where the rethinking and reformulation of the different ele-
of events organized and strategized through architecture.
ments of architecture, many of which have resulted in or
Strategy is a key word in architecture today. No more mas-
added to contemporary social inequities, may lead to their
terplans, no more locating in a fixed place, but a new heter-
solution. By definition, it is the place of the combination of
otopia. This is what our cities must strive toward and what
differences.
we architects must help them to achieve by intensifying the
This will not happen by imitating the past
rich collision of events and spaces. Tokyo and New York
and eighteenth-century ornaments. It also will not happen
only appear chaotic. Instead, they mark the appearance of a
by simply commenting, through design, on the various dis-
new urban structure, a new urbanity. Their confrontations
locations and uncertainties of our contemporary condition.
and combinations of elements may provide us with the
I do not believe it is possible, nor does it make sense, to
event, the shock, that I hope will make the architecture of
design buildings that formally attempt to blur traditional
our cities a turning point in culture and society.
structures, that is, that display forms that lie somewhere
between abstraction and figuration, or between structure and
ornament, or that are cut up and dislocated for esthetic
reasons. Architecture is not an illustrative art; it does not
illustrate theories. (I do not believe you can design decon-
struction.) You cannot design a new definition of cities and
their architecture. But one may be able to design the condi-
tions that will make it possible for this nonhierarchical,
nontraditional society to happen. By understanding the na-
ture of our contemporary circumstances and the media pro-
cesses that accompany them, architects possess the
\
258 259
Six Concepts
Notes The Architectural Paradox
6. One of the first and most significant events of rational Architecture and Transgression
architecture was the XV Milan Triennale, organized by Aldo Rossi,
whose catalogue, edited by Franco Angeli, bore the title of Archi- 1. London, 1975. With Peter Eisenman, Roselee Goldberg,
tettura Razionale (Milan: F. Angeli, 1973). Peter Cook, Colin Rowe, John Stezaker, Bernard Tschumi, Cedric
Price, Will Alsop, Charles Jencks, and Joseph Rykwert, among
7. "The return to language is a proof of failure. It is necessary others.
to examine to what degree such a failure is due to the intrinsic
character of the architectural discipline and to what degree it is due 2. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, vol. 1
to a still unresolved ambiguity." Manfredo Tafuri, Oppositions 3, (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd, 1920).
May 1974, where the author develops a historical critique of tradi- 3. See also such magazines as Casabella and Architectural
tional approaches to theory and shifts from a central focus on the
Design for their documentation of the work of Superstudio, Archi-
criticism of architecture to the criticism of ideology.
zoom, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler, Raimund Abraham, and so
8. Denis Hollier, La Prise de la Concorde (Paris: Gallimard, forth.
1974), the reading of which suggested the opposition between the 4. Cf. Architettura Razionale, (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1973).
labyrinth and the pyramid. See also Georges Bataille, Eroticism
(London: Calder, 1962) and "L'Experience Interieure," in Oeuvres 5. Cf. A Space: A Thousand Words (London: Royal College
Completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). of Art Gallery, 1975); The Chronicle of Space, documenting student
work done in the Diploma School of the Architectural Association
9. Bernard Tschumi, "Fireworks," 1974, extract from A I
262 263
Notes
Ill ot es
9. Too little research has been done on the relationship be- Sequences
tween architectonic concepts and the sensory experience of space:
1. Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts (New York/
London: St. Martin's Press/Academy Editions, 1981).
264 265
Notes
...
Notes
the English word "folly": "The name generally given to these dwell- 10. Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, trans. Richard
ings by the eighteenth century was "little houses, 11 not because Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976).
they were small, but from a play on words deriving from popular
11. Gerard Genette, Palimpsestes (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
humor. The idea of the folie was obviously associated with madness,
1982).
and at that time lunatics were confined in the H6pital des Petits
Maisons or Little Houses-not the first instance, perhaps, nor the 12. One can extend this combination to the psychological
last, of a Parisian pun." From Michel Gallet, Paris Domestic Ar- level. In the preface to Diogenes Casares's Invention of Morel, Jorge
chitecture of the 18th Century (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972). Luis Borges notes that "the Russians and the disciples of the Rus-
2. Jacques Lacan, "Encore," Seminaire, Livre XX. Unless sians have demonstrated ad nauseum that nothing is impossible:
otherwise noted, all translations from the French in this text are by Suicides by excess of happiness, assassinations by charity, lovers
the author. who adore each other so to split up forever, traitors by love or
humility ... Such total freedom leads to total disorder."
3. Ibid.
13. Tschumi, op. cit.
4. Jacques Lacan, "Les Ecrits Techniques de Freud," Semi-
14. Genette, op. cit.
naire, Livre I.
PHASE II!
268