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IIT  LIBRARIES 

•jeptember  15, 
2006 


ROTCH 


^  CtmRENXISSME 
DOds  N<PJ  CIRC^LAXL 


thresholds  32 


ACC 


Editor 

Z.  Pamela  Karimi 

Assistant  Editor 

Sadia  Shirazi 

Graphic  Designer 

Pantea  Karimi 

Advisory  Board 

Mark  Jarzombek.  Chair 

Stanford  Anderson 

Dennis  Adams 

Martin  Bressani 

Jean-Louis  Cohen 

Charles  Correa 

Arindam  Dutta 

Diane  Ghirardo 

Ellen  Dunham-Jones 

Robert  Haywood 

Hassan-Uddin  Khan 

Rodolphe  el-Khoury 

Leo  Marx 

Mary  McLeod 

Ikem  Okoye 

Vikram  Prakash 

Kazys  Varnelis 

Cherie  Wendelken 

Gwendolyn  Wright 

J.  Meejin  Yoon 


Patrons 

James  Ackerman 

Imran  Ahmed 

Mark  and  Elaine  Beck 

Tom  Beischer 

Robert  F.  Drum 

Gail  Fenske 

Liminsl  Projects  Inc. 

R.T.  Freebaim-Smith 

Nancy  Stieber 

Robert  Alexander  Gonzales 

Jorge  Otero-Pailos 

Annie  Pedret 

Vikram  Prakash 

Joseph  M.  Diry 

Richard  Skendzel 


*Cover  image  and  theme  photographs  by  Pantea  Karimi 
Net  Huts,  Hastings.  England.  2004. 


Editorial  Policy 

Thresholds  is  published  biannually 

in  spring  and  fall  by  the  Department 

of  Architecture  at  Massachusetts 

Institute  of  Technology. 

Opinions  in  Thresholds  are  those  of 

the  authors  alone  and  do  not  necessarily 

represent  the  views  of  the  editors. 

No  part  of  Thresholds  may  be 

photocopied  or  distributed  without 

written  authorization. 

Thresholds  is  funded  primarily  by  the 

Department  of  Architecture  at  MIT.  Alumni 

support  also  helps  defray  publication  costs. 

Individuals  donating  $100  or  more  will  be 

recognized  in  the  journal  as  patrons. 


Correspondence 

Thresholds 

Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 

Department  of  Architecture,  Room  7-337 

77  Massachusetts  Avenue 

Cambridge,  MA  02139 

threshigmit.edu 
architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/ 

e  2006 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  TechnologylSSN: 

1091-711X 
PSB  05-12-0888 

Designed  by  Pantea  Karimi 
www.redcanvas.net 

Printed  by  Puritan  Press,  Hollis,  NH. 

Text  set  in  Palatino  Linotype;  digitally 

published  using  Adobe  Indesign. 


Acknowledgements 

I  would  like  to  thank  Pantea  Karimi.  Shadi 
Kashefi.  Frank  Forrest.  Talia  Dorsey.  Sadia 
Shirazi,  Deborah  Kully,  Matthew  Benjamin 
Matteson.  Robert  Irwin.  Lauren  Kroiz,  Mechtild 
Widrich,  Razan  Francis,  Lucia  Allais,  Anne 
Deveau,  Eyiem  Basaldi,  Jack  Valleli.  Rebecca 
Chamberlain,  Minerva  Tirado.  Jose  Luis  Ar- 
guello.  Melissa  Bachman,  Elizabeth  Pierre, 
Hamid  Karimi  as  well  as  Professors  Mark 
Jarzombek.  Stanford  Anderson,  Arindam  Dutta. 
Afsaneh  Najmabadi.  and  Nasser  Rabbat  for 
their  continued  and  tireless  help  and  support. 


"This  issue  is  dedicated  to  Adele  and  Kamran 


Contents 

04    Z.  Pamela  Karimi 

Introduction 


Mark  Jarzombek    06 

From  Corridor  (Spanish)  to  Corridor  (English);  or.  What's  in  Your  Corridor? 

Naomi  Davidson    12 

Accessible  to  all  Muslims  and  to  the  Parisian  Public 

Z.  Pamela  Karimi  and  Frank  Forrest    18 

Picturing  the  "Exhausted  Globe" 

William  C.  Brumfield    26 

America  as  Emblem  of  Modernity  in  Russian  Architecture,  1870-1917 

Michael  W.  Meister    33 

Access  and  Axes  of  Indian  Temples 

Neri  Oxman  and  Mitchell  Joachim    36 

PeristalCity 

Null  Lab    40 

The  Bobco  Metals  Company 

Ole  W.  Fischer    42 

The  Nietzsche-Archive  in  Weimar 

Sarah  Menin    47 

Accessing  the  Essence  of  Architecture 

Talinn  Grigor    53 

Ladies  Last!  Perverse  Spaces  in  a  Time  of  Orthodoxy 

Nicole  Vlado    57 

(Re)collection:  Surfaces,  Bodies,  and  the  Dispersed  Home 

Mark  Rawlinson    62 

Charles  Sheeler;  Musing  on  Primitiveness 

Jennifer  Ferng    66 

Designing  Conclusions  for  a  Cold  War  Humanity 

Sara  Stevens    71 

The  Small  Box  Format  of  the  Retail  Pharmacy  Chains 

Douglas  and  Mitchell  Joachim    76 

Human-Powered  River  Gymnasiums  for  New  York 

Garyfallia  Katsavounidou    78 

Unfamiliar  (Hi)stories:  The  "Egnatia"  Project  in  Thessaloniki 

Elliot  Felix    81 

The  Subway  Libraries 

Nigel  Parry    90 

British  Graffiti  Artist,  Banksy,  Hacks  the  Wall 

Tijana  Vujosevic    94 
Para-thesis  Symposium:  Columbia  Graduate  School  of  Architecture,  Planning  and  Preservation 

98    Contributors 

lUl     Illustration  Credits 

102    Call  for  Submissions 


.-k«V 


Introduction 


Z.  Pamela  Karimi 

All  progress  and  development  in  life  depends  on  access, 
whether  it  is  the  ability  to  inhabit  certain  spaces, 
having  essential  resources  available,  or  having  access 
to  important  information  and  ideas.  Access  can  be  self- 
perpetuating,  with  each  opened  door  offering  a  vista  of 
even  greater  possibilities  and  opportunities.  But  many 
doors  are  at  risk  of  again  being  closed,  and  the  thresholds 
that  some  have  crossed  are  denied  to  others.  As  technology 
and  globalization  draws  the  world's  cultures  and  societies 
ever  closer,  the  challenges  of  access  granted  and  access 
denied  confront  us  today  like  never  before. 

Recently,  the  world's  largest  archive  of  Nazi  Germany, 
containing  important  information  about  victims  of  the 
Holocaust,  was  finally  opened  to  historians.  Meanwhile, 
hundreds  of  Europe's  Afghani  immigrants  went  on  hunger 
strike  to  protest  deportation,  as  their  countrymen  back 
home  still  smuggle  themselves  out  of  war  and  destitution 
into  more  stable  and  prosperous  countries.  As  MIT  began 
to  unveil  an  online  project,  allowing  educators,  students, 
and  self-learners  around  the  globe  to  access  the  school's 
course  materials,  the  Iranian  government  denied  its 
citizens  access  to  the  BBC's  Persian  language  Internet 
site.  Doors  being  opened.  Doors  being  closed. 

Restricted  access  to  certain  geographical  areas  as  well 
as  architectural  and  virtual  spaces  can  be  found  in  all 


cultures  throughout  history,  transcending  belief  systems 
and  nationality.  But  the  post-9/11  world  has  taken  such 
phenomena  to  a  new  level,  denying  access  to  many  people 
around  the  globe  with  the  justification  of  improving 
security.  In  this  context,  the  question  of  accessibility 
becomes  even  more  topical  and  omnipresent.  Today's  new 
laws  and  regulations  regarding  accessibility  have  shaped 
my  desire  to  address  this  topic  from  various  viewpoints. 

Even  commonplace  means  of  access  that  we  take  for 
granted  have  involved  stories  behind  them.  As  contributor 
Mark  Jarzombek  reveals,  the  history  of  the  corridor 
incorporated  numerous  cultural  formations  that  served 
various  purposes  before  becoming  a  typical  feature  of 
modern  office  buildings,  residential  housing,  and  schools. 
A  different  perspective  is  offered  by  Michael  W.  Meister, 
who  elaborates  on  the  topic  of  Early  Hindu  temples, 
showing  the  multiple  ways  in  which  the  "access  and  axes" 
in  these  buildings  both  embodied  the  divine  and  defined 
people's  access  to  sacred  zones,  thus  working  as  "machines 
for  social  order."  By  looking  at  the  Mosquee  and  Institut 
Musulman  de  Paris,  Naomi  Davidson  analyzes  the  ways 
in  which  a  single  architectural  space  in  early-twentieth- 
century  Paris  simultaneously  promoted  and  discouraged 
access  to  Islamic  tradition  and  faith. 

These  authors  raise  a  broader  question;  What  criteria 
determine  access?  At  times  it  is  based  on  economic, 
psychological,  physical,  geographical  or  political  factors; 
other  times  it  is  decided  by  nationality,  religion  or  ethnic 
background.  For  centuries.  Jewish  communities  in  Europe 
and  the  Middle  East  were  not  granted  easy  access  to 
many  places  outside  of  their  neighborhoods.  Nigel  Parry 
highlights  a  similar  phenomenon  relevant  to  our  time. 
He  describes  the  work  of  the  foremost  British  graffiti 
artist,  Banksy,  who  covers  the  concrete  barrier  along  the 
West  Bank  with  ironic  murals  that  are  pregnant  with 
deep  meanings  regarding  the  concept  of  accessibility. 
Such  barriers  to  access  are  inseparable  from  issues  of 
history,  memory,  nostalgia,  nationality,  politics,  and 
power.  Garyfallia  Katsavounidou's  article  considers  these 
ideas  as  she  tells  the  story  of  millions  of  people  displaced 
in  the  last  century  during  the  compulsory  exchange  of 
populations  between  Greece  and  Turkey.  The  story  is 
told  through  the  Egnatia  installation  project,  which  could 
be  described  as  a  "laboratory  of  memory"  that  hopes  "to 
leave  traces  of  collective  memories  now  forgotten  and 
obliterated."  The  project  attempts  to  preserve  the  past 


for  future  generations,  recalling  the  words  of  historian 
Pierre  Nora:  "Modern  memory  is,  above  all,  archival: 
it  relies  entirely  on  the  materiality  of  the  trace,  the 
immediacy  of  the  word,  the  visibility  of  the  image."'   In 
this  sense,  Nicole  Vlado  presents  a  more  personal  method 
of  (re)collecting  and  accessing  memory  as  she  makes  casts 
of  her  own  body  parts  in  various  postures  and  positions. 

Restricted  access  is  not  just  limited  to  certain  buildings 
and  geographical  areas.  Similar  limitations  extend 
also  into  the  academic  realm.  The  histories  of  art  and 
architecture  rely  partially  on  archival  evidence.  In  Archive 
Fever:  A  Freudian  Impression  (1995),  Derrida  reminds 
us  how  turning  Freud's  house  in  Vienna  into  a  museum 
allowed  the  secretive  to  become  public.  Ole  Fisher's 
article  explores  the  ways  in  which  the  accessibility  of  such 
sources  affect  our  perceptions  of  past  scholarly  work  as 
he  explores  the  difficulty  of  access  to  Nietzsche's  archive 
both  at  the  time  of  his  illness  and  throughout  the  years 
following  his  death.  William  Brumfield,  on  the  other  hand, 
depicts  the  ease  of  exchange  of  architectural  knowledge 
between  Russia  and  the  United  States  between  1870 
and  1917,  discussing  how  "no  other  form  of  endeavor  in 
Russia  expressed  this  relation  to  America  as  clearly  as 
architecture,  with  its  emphasis  on  both  the  pragmatic  and 
the  cultural." 


exceptional  architectural  proposals  for  New  York  City. 
Other  articles  deal  with  the  concept  of  access  in  a  more 
abstract  sense,  and  yet  all  contributors  insist  on  greater 
opportunity  for  accessing  information,  and  reaching 
better  solutions  for  architectural  design.  Thus  while  each 
author  brings  his  or  her  own  unique  perspective,  this 
issue  can  be  considered  a  collective  project,  addressing  a 
common  area  of  concern  that  presents  not  only  historical 
topics  but  also  indirectly  speaks  to  the  mood  of  our  post- 
9/11  world.  In  so  doing,  this  issue  of  Thresholds  hopes  to 
generate  discussion  over  the  new  challenges  we  face  in 
this  world.  It  is  clear  that  access  to  ideas,  concepts,  and 
social  networks  that  inspire  creativity  in  artistic  and 
architectural  endeavors  is  important,  but  a  far  greater 
concern  is  ensuing  that  people  throughout  the  world  have 
access  to  basic  human  rights.  The  doors  must  be  opened. 


Notes 

1,  Pierre  Nora.  "Between  Memory  and  History:  Les  Lieux  de  Memoire.' 
Representations  26  (Spring  1989):  13. 


Throughout  history,  it  has  been  possible  to  gain  access  to 
a  restricted  place  through  masquerade  and  transvestite 
disguise.  Mikhail  Bakhtin  describes  how  the  medieval 
carnival  brought  a  leveling  of  performer  and  spectator, 
where  boundaries  were  eliminated  and  the  distances 
between  people  were  suspended.  Over  the  centuries, 
homosocial  spaces  gained  ground  in  many  Islamic  societies 
due  to  the  inaccessibility  of  the  harem  to  most  men,  and 
to  the  forbidden  nature  of  public  spaces  to  most  women. 
Talinn  Grigor  demonstrates  how  gender-segregated  buses 
in  today's  Tehran  both  reflect  and  overcome  such  past 
limitations.  On  a  different  note,  photographs  of  Robert 
ParkeHarrison  and  his  wife  Shana  depict  "exaggerated" 
accessibility  to  the  earth's  natural  resources,  raising 
questions  of  when  and  where  we  should  voluntarily  limit 
ourselves.  Sarah  Stevens  addresses  a  similar  issue  by 
looking  at  a  recent  history  of  mass  marketing  attempts  to 
provide  American  consumers  with  over-saturated  access 
to  retail  pharmacy  shopping.  And  Elliot  Felix  and  Douglas 
and  Mitchell  Joachim  suggest  a  more  humane  approach 
to  our  hyper-consumerist  and  rat  race  life  through  their 


ILJr 


rvit^i..  .<::•:>;•■ 


Figure  1.  Felice  Delia  Greca, 
manuscript  treatise  of  1644, 
house  and  garden  plan,  unbuilt 


ef  a;ui..L-i 


t*3.,,.mSii.      ,mm...f:Ssf 

JI ,■■  ■     Jl 


/w«— «<b.« 


Figure  2.  Castle  Howard,  York,  commissioned  1698 
John  Vanbrugh 


r=t-i  XI- 1 


Figure  3.  Burlington  House. 
Picadilly.  London,  1665-8. 
James  Gibbs  and  Colen 
Campbell 


Mark  Jarzombek 


From  Corridor  (Spanish)  to  Corridor 
(Englisli);  or,  What's  in  Your  Corridor? 


Corridors  these  days  are  so  ubiquitous  that  one  can  hardly 
imagine  that  they  actually  have  "a  history."  But  up  until 
the  1850s,  corridors  were  a  rarity  even  in  large  public 
buildings,  and  insofar  as  they  were  even  mentioned  in 
the  literature  of  the  late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth 
centuries,  they  were  inevitably  described  as  dark  and 
lonely  places,  sometimes  even  haunted.  Marquis  de  Sade 
imagined  them  filled  with  trap  doors;  Charlotte  Bronte 
visualized  them  as  places  for  restless  soul-searching; 
George  Byron  made  them  into  convenient  props  for  the 
Romantic  soul.  "But  glimmering  through  the  dusky 
corridor,"  he  wrote  in  1814  in  Corsair,  "Another  [lamp] 
chequers  o'er  the  shadow'd  floor."  '   But  by  1877,  when 
Henry  James  wrote  The  American,  the  corridor  had  come 
of  age  in  the  world  of  business  and  government. 

He  passed  his  arm  into  that  of  his  companion 
and  the  two  walked  for  some  time  up  and 
down  one  of  the  less  frequented  corridors. 
Newman's  imagination  began  to  glow  with  the 
idea  of  converting  his  bright,  impracticable 
friend  into  a  first-class  man  of  business.^ 

The  cause  of  this  turn-around  will  be  the  subject  of  the 
next  paper.  Here,  I  will  only  have  space  to  discuss  the  pre- 


history, so  to  speak,  of  the  corridor.  I  should  add  that  I 
mean  very  specifically  the  word  corridor,  and  not  just  any 
long  passageway.  Nomen  est  omen. 

The  purpose  of  this  exercise  is  to  add  a  layer  of 
thought — modest  perhaps,  but  not  insignificant — to  our 
understanding  of  the  formation  of  modern  spaces.  I  would 
like  to  suggest  that  the  corridor's  history  engages  various 
cultural  formations  before  becoming  the  typical  feature 
of  the  modern  office  and  school;  it  had  to  jump  across 
national  boundaries  (from  Spain  to  England)  and  across 
the  domains  of  various  building  typologies  (from  defensive 
military  architecture  to  domestic  architecture  to  civic 
architecture),  migrations  that  do  not  easily  anticipate  the 
word's  eventual  position  in  architectural  vocabulary  as 
one  of  the  last  significant  neologisms,  becoming,  in  fact, 
a  flash  point  in  debates  about  modern  epistemological 
conceptions.  In  today's  world,  where  corridors  have  been 
often  criticized  for  their  association  with  the  bureaucratic 
mind-set,  it  might  come  as  a  surprise  that  the  corridor, 
at  its  most  fundamental  historical  level,  is  a  legacy  of  the 
Spanish  Empire  and  is  thus  connected  with  a  particular 
type  of  modernism,  the  origins  of  which  have  nothing  to 
do  with  bureaucracy,  but  with  a  mid-seventeenth  century 
image  of  a  well-oiled  imperial  world. 


Figure  4.  Luton  Hoo.  Bedfordshire.  1772.  Robert  Adam 


ifl#**<ii«tir«*%tJ 


Figure  5.  The  Government  House.  Pondicherry  India. 
1752.  Dumont 


The  "Coridoor"  and  its  Origins 

A  corridor,  initially,  was  not  a  space  but  a  person,  one 
who,  as  its  Latin  root  suggests,  could  "run  fast":  that  at 
least  was  its  primary  definition  in  the  famous 
Tesoro  de  la  Lengua  Casteltana  o  Espanola  of  1611,  the 
first  dictionary  of  the  Spanish  language.  The  dictionary 
lists  several  other  meanings.  A  corridor  could  be  a  scout 
sent  behind  enemy  lines  to  probe  their  defenses;  he 
could  be  an  intergovernmental  messenger,  and  even  a 
negotiator,  arranging,  in  particular,  mercantile  deals  and 
marriages.'  In  the  sixteenth  century,  corridore  were  still 
in  use  by  the  Spanish  government  criss-crossing  Europe 
with  money,  messages  and  confidential  reports.  The  word's 
secondary  meanings  have  to  do  with  protected  spaces 
on  fortifications  that  allow  for  rapid  communication  or 
deployment  of  troops.  This  was  the  usage  of  the 
Italian  version  of  the  word,  corridoio  (a  "running  place"), 
which,  as  far  as  I  can  determine,  never  referred  to  a 
person.  An  early  documentable  example  of  the  word  can 
be  found  in  Giovanni  Villani's  treatise  on  the  history  of 
Florence,  the  Cronica  Universale  (1324),  where  the  author 
refers  to  a  corridoio  on  the  city  walls  of  Florence.''  One  of 
the  most  famous  corridoio  of  all  time  was  erected  in  that 
city  in   1565  by  the  Medici  to  connect  the  Pallazo  Pitti 


with  the  Uffizi,  running  not  around  the  city,  but  right  into 
its  center.^ 

This  etymological  history  reminds  us  that  up  until  the 
seventeenth  century,  in  architecture  proper,  there  were 
no  corridors;  a  palazzo  was  entered  by  means  of  an  andito 
(from  the  word  andare  "to  go"),  which  might  have  given 
way  to  a  camminata  ''  (a  "walking  place")  or  a  passaggio, 
which,  if  it  was  running  along  a  courtyard  might  have 
been  called,  from  the  fifteenth  century  onward,  a  portico. 
Neither  Palladio  nor  Serlio  ever  used  the  word  corridor. 
They  rarely  even  had  hallways  in  their  designs  given  that 
villas  were  usually  composed  of  tightly  interlocked  rooms 
bound  within  pilastered  skins. 

One  of  the  first  documentable  uses  of  the  word  in 
architecture  that  I  have  been  able  to  trace  is  in  a  plan  for 
a  house  designed  in  1644  by  Felice  Delia  Greca  in  which 
the  building's  entrata  is  connected  with  the  giardino  in  the 
rear  by  means  of  a  "coritore."  (the  spelling  no  doubt  reflecs 
the  Italian's  unfamiliarity  with  the  term).'   This  coritore 
was  not  particularly  grand  and  could  easily  have  been 
mistaken  for  an  andito,  but  it  was  precisely  not  an  andito; 
nor  was  it  a  corridoio,  for  it  had  no  military  purpose. 
In  emphasizing  the  equivalency  between  a  "running 


man"  and  a  "running  space,"  it  was  a  status  symbol, 
meant  to  imply  that  its  owner  was  being  kept  abreast  of 
world  events  by  fleet-footed  messengers.  And  so,  in  an 
almost  magical  moment  of  transliteration,  from  walking 
to  running,  and  from  local  politics  to  world  politics, 
a  new  element  in  the  semantics  of  prestige  was  born, 
emphasizing  not  the  dignified  pace  of  old  along  an  andito, 
but  a  pace  that  was  purposeful  and  targeted — a  pace,  one 
has  to  add,  that  was  of  a  modern  dimension.  For  if  there  is 
anything  that  clearly  marks  the  transition  to  modernity, 
it  is  the  need  for  speed:  and  for  the  rulers  of  the  Spanish 
Empire,  who  had  to  bring  together  information  from 
Austria,  Holland  and  the  far-reaching  colonies,  speed  was 
a  necessity.  Couriers  were  known  to  cover  up  to  185km  per 
day,  meaning  that  the  Spanish  commanders  frequently  got 
their  information  long  before  their  opponents  did.*  The 
imprint  of  Spanish  courier  system  is  still  with  us  in  the 
word  "taxi,"  which  derives  from  the  name  Tassi,  the  family 
who  were  put  in  charge  of  facilitating  the  flow  of  Spain's 
European  dispatches. 

Anglicanizing  the  Corridor 

The  shift  between  an  Italian  andito  and  an  Italianized- 
Spanish  coritore  might  have  been  too  subtle  or  perhaps 
even  too  regional  to  have  changed  architecture  in  any 
significant  way  if  the  term  had  not  been  adopted  by 
the  English,  who  used  it  not  for  just  any  building,  but 
for  one  of  the  most  prestigious  palaces  of  the  time,  the 
huge  Castle  Howard,  commissioned  in  1698  for  Charles 
Howard,  third  Earl  of  Carlisle.  The  building,  designed 
by  John  Vanbrugh,  has  a  central  body  that  consists  on 
its  piano  nobile  of  a  great  square  hall  with  the  principal 
apartment,  also  square,  directly  behind  it.  One  stretch 
of  space,  labeled  corridoor,  cuts  across  the  front  of  the 
great  hall  and  curves  around  toward  the  side  wings.  A 
second  corridoor  runs  along  one  side  of  the  entire  stretch 
of  the  apartment  wing.  One  could,  of  course,  argue  that 
long  thin  buildings  by  necessity  required  corridors,  but 
this  is  easily  disproved  if  one  looks  at  the  ground  plan 
of  Petworth  House,  built  more  or  less  at  the  same  time 
as  Castle  Howard;  despite  its  vast  frontage,  it  had  no 
corridors,  apart  from  the  usual  cramped  passageways  in 
the  servant's  quarters.  One  could  also  compare  Castle 
Howard  with  Burlington  House  (1665-8)  by  James  Gibbs, 
which  was,  of  course,  modeled  on  Palladian  villas  where 
there  were  no  corridors  (Fig.  1  &  2). 

So  why  do  corridoors  suddenly  appear  in  this  building?  It 
could  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  many  in  Vanbrugh's 
generation,  had  a  fascination  for  things  Spanish.  On  a 
culinary  front,  the  dish  "Spanish  olio, "  a  mixture  of  meat 


and  vegetables,  had  become  all  the  rage  in  London,  as 
had  the  English  translation  of  Don  Quixote.'  Vanbrugh 
even  wrote  a  play  set  in  Spain,  The  False  Friend  (1709). 
One  also  has  to  take  into  consideration  that  in  the  late 
seventeenth  century  military  terminology  had  begun  to 
spread  in  common  language."'  Palaces  were  even  laid  out 
with  fake  fortifications,  and  the  corridor,  "a  foreign  word 
of  Italian  or  Spanish  extraction,"  as  Ephraim  Chambers 
defined  it  somewhat  loosely  in  his  Cyclopaedia,  (ca. 
1630-1140),  was  still  a  pre-eminently  military  term." 
Vanbrugh  was  certainly  knowledgeable  about  military 
architecture  as  he  had  once  thought  of  embarking  on  a 
military  career.  But  the  corridors  of  Castle  Howard  have 
to  be  understood  within  a  larger  perspective.  Charles 
Howard,  a  strong  supporter  of  the  Whigs,  was  a  prominent 
figure  in  the  politics  of  the  age,  a  minister  for  William  III, 
member  of  the  Privy  Council  and  also,  briefly.  Lord  of  the 
Treasury.  William  III  (1650-1702),  a  Dutch  aristocrat, 
ruled  England  together  with  Mary  II,  and  allied  himself 
with  the  Spanish  against  the  French  who  had  invaded 
Holland  in  1672.  Once  installed  as  King  of  England,  he 
maintained  close  relations  with  Spain,  signing  the  Treaty 
of  Madrid  in  1670  and  the  Treaty  of  Windsor  in  1680 
and  another  in  1685,  all  aimed  to  rid  the  Caribbean  of 
French  buccaneers.  The  treaties  also  formally  launched 
the  English  Caribbean  expansion,  with  Britain  taking 
formal  control  of  Jamaica  and  the  Cayman  Islands  and 
thus  establishing  a  strong  foothold  in  the  lucrative  sugar 
industry. 

The  warm  relations  between  England  and  Spain  paid  off 
in  the  War  of  the  Grand  Alliance  against  France  with  a 
victory  for  England  and  Spain.  The  war  came  to  an  end  in 
1697,  one  year  before  the  commissioning  of  Castle  Howard, 
which  means  that  the  building  served  purposefully  and 
ostentatiously  as  a  proclamation  of  England's  arrival  on 
the  world  stage.  Ih  that  respect,  it  was  the  predecessor 
to  the  more  famous  Blenheim  Castle,  also  designed  by 
Vanbrugh  though  with  the  help  of  William  Hawksmoor. 
which,  as  mandated  by  Parliament,  celebrated  England's 
victory  over  the  French  in  a  battle  at  Blenheim.  Germany. 
That  building  too  had  corridoors  running  away  from 
the  huge  main  hall.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  in  Colen 
Campbell's  1715  Vitruvius  Britannicus  Blenheim  Castle 
and  Castle  Howard  were  the  only  two  buildings  among 
the  dozens  featured  in  the  book  that  had  corridors.  The 
word  was  novel  enough,  however,  that  Vanbrugh,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  felt  the  need  to 
explain  it:  "The  word  Corridor,  Madam,  is  foreign,  and 
signifies  in  plain  English,  no  more  than  a  Passage,  it  is 
now  however  generally  used  as  an  English  Word."'-    The 
condescending  casualness  of  the  explanation  should  not 
belie  the  implications  of  this  innovation.  The  corridoors  of 


8 


^mmmmm 


Figure  6.  Design  for  a  Grande  Maison.  unexecuted,  ca.  1780.  Claude  Nicholas  Ledoux 


\l    .■ 

I  "^^^^  -7'        GRAMMAR  SCHOOL 


Figure  7.  King  Edward's  School.  Birmingham.  1838. 
Charles  Barry 


Castle  Howard  with  their  purposeful  overlapping  of  the 
military  and  the  political,  demonstrated,  in  the  language 
of  architecture,  England's  imperialist  intentions  and 
its  usurpation  of  the  technology  associated  with  its  new 
status  as  a  colonial  empire,  namely  speed. 

It  was  left  to  Robert  Adam  in  a  house  now  known  as 
Luton  Hoo  (1772)  in  Bedfordshire  to  tame  the  corridor 
and  coordinate  it  with  the  ideals  of  Italian  planning  (Fig. 
3).  Because  the  house  was  designed  for  the  noted  Tory, 
John  Stuart,  3rd  Earl  of  Bute  (1713  -1792),  the  corridor 
was  clearly  meant  to  reflect  the  impression  of  majesty  the 
Tories,  by  then  in  control  of  English  politics,  wanted  to  see 
expressed  in  their  architecture.  Stuart,  on  the  accession 
of  George  III  in  1760,  was  the  king's  Privy  Counselor 
and  for  a  while  even  Prime  Minister  (1762-3),  famous  for 
having  arranged  the  marriage  between  George  III  and 
the  German  Princess  Sophia  Charlotte  of  Mecklenburg- 
Strelitz.  In  1763,  John  Stuart  negotiated  the  peace  treaty 
between  England  and  France  that  ended  the  Seven  Years 
War.  Though  the  treaty  was  not  popular  in  England  where 
many  thought  that  Stuart,  a  Scotsman,  had  been  too 
soft  on  the  French,  history  has  born  out  the  fact  that  the 
treaty,  whatever  its  weaknesses,  had  established  England 
as  the  world's  chief  colonial  empire. 

Luton  Hoo,  which  served  as  Stuart's  retirement  estate. 
was  clearly  meant  to  commemorate  his  international 
career.  A  wide  corridor  cleaves  the  house  into  two  and 
terminates  in  grand  staircases  at  both  ends."  Matching 
oval  spaces  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  central  Salon 
serve  as  transitions  between  the  corridor  and  the 


bedroom  suites.  The  integration  of  the  staircases  with  the 
placement  of  bathrooms,  "powdering  rooms,"  and  service 
stairs  in  the  shape  of  a  flat  U  are  also  innovative.  The  very 
public  and  the  very  private  have  been  extracted  from  the 
plan,  so  to  speak,  to  be  placed  within  their  own  circulatory 
core.  The  rooms  in  the  house  were  not  viewed  as  spaces 
of  transit  to  other  rooms,  as  was  usual,  but  relatively 
tranquil  entities,  dialectically  distinct  from  the  bustling 
activities  of  the  circulatory  system.  In  fact,  one  could  see 
the  "served  spaces"  as  having  been  freed  from  the  clutter 
of  the  "service  spaces"  so  that  the  served  spaces,  at  the 
periphery,  could  better  take  command  of  the  views,  the 
landscape  and  gardens,  as  designed  by  the  most  famous 
landscape  designer  of  the  day.  Capability  Brown." 

John  Stuart  was  considered  one  of  England's  leading  bota- 
nists, and  his  extensive  library  with  some  thirty  thousand 
volumes — one  of  the  most  complete  scientific  libraries 
in  Europe — dominates  the  entire  right-hand  flank  of  the 
design.  Perhaps  one  can  see  in  this  an  early  example  of 
the  shift  of  the  corridor  from  a  political  space  to  an  episte- 
mological  one.''  I  would  thus  venture  to  suggest  that  the 
building  was  designed  as  an  anthropomorphic  entity,  with 
the  Great  Hall,  the  heart;  the  Salon,  the  head:  the  Portico, 
the  eye;  the  two  enclosed  courtyards,  the  lungs;  and  the 
corridor,  stairs  and  bathrooms,  the  circulatory  system. 
The  military  interpretation  is,  however,  also  still  possible, 
for  the  plan,  unusual  even  for  Adam,  has  unmistakable 
similarities  to  the  Government  House,  in  Pondicherry 
India,  completed  in  1752  (Fig.  4).  which  had  a  series  of 
rooms  accessed  from  the  rear  by  a  continuous  corridor,'* 
except  that  at  Luton  Hoo,  speed  had  been  separated — 
more  so  than  at  Castle  Howard — from  program,  this  being, 
very  truly,  the  prototype  of  the  modern  corridor.  The  corri- 
dor, in  other  words,  did  not  bring  one  into  the  depth  of  the 
building,  but  to  a  threshold,  both  real  and  conceptual — a 
within  in  the  within. 

In  France,  in  the  meantime,  the  word  corridor  also  began 
to  make  its  way  into  the  architectural  vocabulary,  but  one 
rarely  sees  the  word  anywhere  on  a  plan  other  than  in 
the  servant's  quarters,  as  can  be  seen  in  the  design  for  a 
grande  maison  of  Claude  Nicholas  Ledoux.  for  example, 
from  about  1780  (Fig.  5).  It  would  have  been  anathema 
to  culture  of  the  French  elite  to  have  had  a  corridor  in  a 
bedroom  suite  where  the  spatial  alignment  of  rooms  was 
less  important  than  the  degree  of  intimacy  which  was 
modulated  by  a  series  of  ante-chambers  and  where  privacy 
of  bodily  functions  was  often  a  non-issue,  the  king  himself 
often  receiving  diplomats  while  dressing.''   Furthermore, 
the  Palladian  imperative  to  work  without  internal  circula- 
tion— carried  forth  in  mid-seventeenth  century  designs 
like  that  for  the  Barberini  Palace  (161628-38)— remained 


10 


a  tradition  in  France  until  well  into  the  nineteenth  centu- 
ry. As  a  consequence,  the  corridor  as  a  significant  element 
in  design  remained  rare  in  France.  Beaux-Arts  architects 
would  inevitably  use  what  we  today  might  call  courtyard- 
corridors,  but  which  they  consistently  called  galleries, 
colonnades,  or  colonnades  convert,  with  their  allusions  to 
historical  precedent. 

The  Darkening  of  the  Corridor 

Despite  the  innovations  of  Castle  Howard  and  Luton 
Hoo,  the  corridor  was  in  truth  a  relative  rarity  even  in 
England  and  especially  during  the  Georgian  and  Regency 
eras,  when  architects  remained  strongly  committed  to 
the  Palladian  ideal. ^"  William  Kent's  Holkam  Hall  (1734) 
is  just  one  example,  even  though  the  plan  struggles  to 
maintain  cohesion  in  its  arrangement  of  rooms.  By  the 
turn  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  corridor  had  certainly 
lost  its  mystique  and  came  to  be  equated  not  with  the 
world  of  international  power-brokerage,  but  with  remote 
passageways  in  castles  and  the  nocturnal  wanderings  of 
old  men  in  creaky  mansions.  Rarely  used  in  architecture, 
corridor  was  drifting  toward  extinction,  its  functionality 
now  its  primary  definition.'''  Robert  Kerr,  author  of  The 
Gentleman's  House  (1864),  for  example,  positioned  the 
corridor  lower  in  status  to  the  French-derived  gallerie 
because  of  its  "utilitarian  character."^'' 

The  corridor's  negative  associations  hindered  its  progress 
into  respectability  even  in  a  time  when  civic  architecture 
was  developing  rapidly.  Well  into  the  1820s,  courthouses, 
one  must  remember,  did  not  have  corridors  of  any 
significance.  Lawyers  and  clients  were  expected  to  meet 
in  nearby  inns  or  coffeehouses.  Corridors  could  be  found 
on  the  lower  floor  to  connect  offices,  but  this  was  driven 
by  a  need  for  the  rationalization  of  space  rather  than 
by  civic  purpose.  Even  grand  buildings,  such  as  Schloss 
Wilhelmshohe  by  Christoph  Heinrich  Jussow  (1792),  the 
US  Capitol  (1793)  or  the  Massachusetts  State  House  in 
Boston  (completed  1798)  had  no  corridors  insofar  as  their 
prototypes  were  for  the  most  part  French  (Fig.  6).  Even 
the  King  Edward's  School  (1938),  designed  by  Charles 
Barry,  better  known  as  the  architect  of  the  English 
Parliament  building,  had  no  corridors  (Fig.  7).   With  this 
in  mind,  the  redemption  of  corridic  space  in  the  mid- 
nineteenth  century  is  actually  quite  remarkable,  but  that 
is  another  story,  which  will  be  subject  of  a  subsequent 
article. 

*  The  second  part  of  this  essay  "Le  Corbusier  and  the  Post-Corndic 
Alternative"  will  be  published  in  Thresholds  33 


Notes 

1.  George  Byron.  Corsair  (London:  Printed  by  Thomas  Davidson  for  John  Murray. 
1814),  sec.  xix. 

2.  Henry  James,  The  American  (Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company.  1907),  chap, 
xvii. 

3.  Tesoro  de  la  Lengua  Castellana  o  Espanola  (1611),  ed.  Martin  de  Riquer  (Barceloa: 
S.A.  Horta,  1943).  363. 

4.  Giovanni  Villani.  Cronica  Universale,  227.  Villani  (1275-1348)  was  a  historian  of 
Florence  and  a  Florentine  government  functionary  who  authored  this  twelve-volume 
history  of  the  city,  "ma  aggiunsevi  per  ammenda  gli  arconcelli  al  corridoio  di  sopra."  I 
would  like  to  thank  David  Friedman  for  this  citation.  It  is  possible  that  the  corridoio 
originated  with  the  crusaders,  who.  often  fighting  against  great  odds  needed  to  move 
soldiers  rapidly  about  the  fortifications. 

5.  The  French  king  Francis  I  had  an  underground  corridor  built  between  his  palace 
and  the  residence  of  the  aged  Leonardo  da  Vinci 

6.  See  for  example.  Canto  XXXIV  of  Dante's  Inferno,  in  which  he  writes,  "Non  era 
camminata  di  palagio  la  Veravam.  ma  natural  burella  ch'avea  mal  suolo  e  di  lume 
diaagio  [It  was  not  any  palace  corridor,  there  where  we  were,  but  dungeon  natural, 
with  floor  uneven  and  unease  of  light]." 

7.  For  an  image  of  the  plan  see  David  R.  Coffin,  Gardens  and  Gardening  in  Papal 
Rome  (Princeton:  Princeton  University  press.  1981).  161. 

8.  http://www. history .acuk/reviews/paper/macpherson.html;  Internet;  accessed  6 
April  2005, 

9.  Edna  Healey.  The  Queen's  House.  A  Social  History  of  Buckingham  Palace  (New 
York:  Caroll  &  Graf,  1997).  10. 

10.  Christopher  Ridgway  and  Robert  Williams.  Sir  John  Vanbrugh  and  Landscape 
Architecture  in  Baroque  England.  1690-1  730  (Gloucestershire:  Sutton.  2000).  55. 

1 1 .  "Corridor,  in  Fortification,  A  Road  or  Way  along  the  Edge  of  the  Ditch, 
withoutside;  encompassing  the  whole  fortification.  See  Ditch.  The  Corridor  is 
ordinarily  about  20  yards  broad.  The  word  comes  from  the  Italian  Cohdore,  or  the 
Spanish  Coridor.  Corridor  is  also  used  in  Architecture  for  a  Gallery,  or  long  Isle, 
around  a  Building,  leading  to  several  Chambers  at  a  distance  from  each  other."  See 
further.  Ephraim  Chambers.  Cyclopaedia  (Dublin.  Printed  by  John  Chambers,  1787); 
available  from  http://digicoll. library  wiscedu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech- 
idx?id=HistSciTech,Cyclopaedia01;  Internet, 

12.  Charles  Saumarez  Smith.  The  Building  of  Castle  Howard  (London:  Faber  and 
Faber.  1990).  54. 

13.  In  the  1830s  the  building  was  transformed  by  Robert  Smirke. 

14.  I  want  to  thank  ray  colleague  Arindam  Dutta  for  pointing  out  the  importance  of 
this  particular  aspect  of  the  design. 

15    Another  precedent,  evoking  the  still  very  distant  uses  of  the  corridor  in  the 
twentieth  century,  was  the  Gloucester  Infirmary  (1761)  where  we  see  the  emergent 
institutional  culture  adopt  the  manner  of  the  grand  house,  radically  simplified 
and  modified,  of  course.  Here  the  corridor  links  the  two  wards;  the  central  hall  has 
become  the  chapel  with  the  operating  room  above  it  on  the  first  floor.  It  was  designed, 
so  it  has  been  argued  by  Luke  Singleton.  The  design  was  made  around  1756,  Patients 
were  admitted  in  1761.  See  further,  http://www.british-history-ac,uk/report.asp?comp 
id=42309;Internet;  accessed  1  April  2005, 

16,  Pondicherry  on  the  west  coast  of  India  was  a  French  colony,  but  seized  by  the 
British  three  times  during  the  eighteenth  century.  My  argument,  however,  is  not 
based  on  a  possible  cultural  transmission;  it  is  purely  based  on  formal  grounds. 

17,  Another  comparison  can  be  made  with  the  Palazzo  Corsini  (begun  in  1736)  in 
Rome,  which  has  galleries  connecting  important  spaces  and  serving  to  define  the 
structure's  over-all  geometry.  Though  here  too  there  is  a  corridor,  it  is  little  more 
than  a  service-ally,  squeezed  into  the  fabric  of  the  building. 

18,  Walpole  in  Strawberry  Hill  constructed  what  today  would  be  called  a  corridor, 
but  he  called  it  a  passage, 

19    Today  we  say  that  panoptic  prisons  have  corridors.  But  Jeremy  Bentham  called 
them  galleries.  They  were,  however,  no  doubt  corndor-hke.  One  must  also  remember 
that  they  were  not  circulation  spaces,  but  optical  spaces  and  free  of  circulation. 
20.   Robert  Kerr.  The  Gentleman  s  House  (New  York.  NY  Johnson  Reprint  Corp., 
1972).  169. 


11 


Naomi  Davidson^ 

"Accessible  to  all  Muslims  and  to  the 

Parisian  Public": 

The  Mosquee  de  Paris  and  French 
Islam  in  the  Capital 


Figure  1.  Institut  Musulman  de  Paris 


The  minaret  of  the  Mosquee  de  Paris  and  Institut 
Musulman  rises  above  its  green-tiled  roof  into  the  sky  of 
Paris'  fifth  arrondissement,  in  the  heart  of  the  Latin 
Quarter.  Across  the  street  from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes' 
museum  campus,  its  cafe  maure  and  hammam  (public 
bath)  have  long  been  touted  as  exotic  attractions  to 
generations  of  tourists  making  their  way  through  the 
French  capital.  The  Mosquee,  whose  construction  was 
completed  in  1926,  was  the  metropole's  first  modern 
mosque,  built  with  the  financial  support  of  the  government 
after  the  recent  passage  of  the  law  of  1905,  which 
separated  Church  and  State.  A  series  of  complex 
negotiations  between  the  metropolitan  administration,  the 
colonial  governments  of  North  Africa,  Parisian  officials, 
and  Muslim  elites  ultimately  gave  form  to  the  institution 
which  to  this  day  serves  as  the  main  representative  of 
Islam  in  France  to  the  French  state.-  The  Mosquee  and  its 
Institut  Musulman  embodied  its  founders'  vision  of  islam 


frartfais,  or  a  "traditional"  Moroccan-inflected  Islam 
inscribed  firmly  within  a  French  republican  and  laic,  or 
secular,  model.  It  was  through  the  medium  of  this 
republican  Islam,  at  once  French  and  other,  that  the 
metropolitan  and  colonial  states  administered  the  Paris 
region's  North  African  immigrant  population  during  the 
early  decades  of  the  20th  century.  The  use  of  Islam  as  a 
tool  to  mediate  the  relationship  between  the  state  and 
maghrebin  immigrations  signaled  the  administrations' 
belief  in  Muslims'  inability  to  actually  be  laic  subjects,  and 
their  simultaneous  inclusion  and  exclusion  in  the  French 
republic. 

In  this  essay,  I  will  argue  that  the  architectural  and 
aesthetic  plans  for  the  Mosquee  and  Institut  Musulman 
were  essential  to  the  creation  and  diffusion  of  islam 
fran<;ais.   The  placement  of  the  complex  with  its  "Muslim 
architectural  character"  in  the  heart  of  Paris'  intellectual 


12 


neighborhood  signaled  visually  the  tension  between  its 
role  as  a  secular,  cultural,  and  religious  institution. 
During  the  period  in  question,  the  working  class  Muslim 
population  of  Paris  was  relatively  small  and  transient,  and 
the  Mosquee  was  imagined  by  its  creators  as  a  space 
destined  for  North  African  and  Middle  Eastern  Muslim 
elites  touring  the  capital,  and  non-Muslim  French  tourists 
interested  in  Islam.  French  Islam,  or  islam  franfais,  was 
enshrined  in  a  space  that  was  inaccessible  to  the  capital's 
Muslim  population  because  of  its  geographic  location, 
decor,  and  religious  practices.  The  Mosquee  thus  served 
as  a  physical  manifestation  of  the  paradoxical  inclusion/ 
exclusion  which  the  "secular"  vision  of  islam  franfais 
offered  Muslims  living  in  France. 

On  the  eve  of  the  First  World  War,  France's  position  as 
a  political  power  in  the  Muslim  world  was  challenged  by 
England's  imperial  interests  in  the  Middle  East.   In  order 
to  maintain  its  position  as  the  world's  premier  "Muslim 
power,"  the  French  administration  on  both  sides  of  the 
Mediterranean  had  to  articulate  a  politique  musulmane 
which  would  allow  it  to  maintain  its  hold  on  its  empire.^ 
The  carnage  of  the  First  World  War  and  the  deaths  of 
Muslim  colonial  soldiers  provided  the  catalyst  to  re-launch 
the  campaign  to  build  a  mosque  for  the  French  capital, 
which  had  been  afloat  since  1895. ■"  The  idea  of  a  mosque 
as  a  war  memorial  and  gesture  of  gratitude  was  widely 
acclaimed  across  the  political  spectrum  as  a  powerful 
propaganda  tool,  but  plans  to  build  a  religious  site  with 
state  funds  on  metropolitan  soil  posed  the  problem  of  a 
conflict  with  the  law  of  1905.'  Senator  Edouard  Herriot, 
one  of  the  institution's  strongest  proponents,  explained 
during  the  parliamentary  debates  on  the  question  that 
"there  [was]  no  contradiction"  in  the  state's  decision  to 
finance  the  institution,  for  what  the  French  and  colonial 
administrations  were  funding  was  an  Institut  Musulman 
which  would  allow  for  the  study  of  Muslim  civilization, 
law,  history,  and  Arabic  grammar.   In  other  words,  the 
state  was  funding  a  secular  site.  Yet  at  the  same  time. 
Herriot  declared  that  state  was  also  within  its  rights 
to  fund  a  religious  edifice  since  in  the  colonies  "we  very 
legitimately  give  churches  to  Catholics,  temples  to 
Protestants  and  synagogues  to  Jews.""  Morocco's  Resident 
General  Lyautey.  who  opposed  the  plan  to  build  the 
complex,  saw  the  pairing  of  the  Mosquee  and  Institut  as  a 
"cunning"  maneuver  by  metropolitan  politicians  to  avoid 
controversy  over  funding  a  religious  site,' 

I  argue  that  the  play  between  the  "secular"  and  "religious" 
sites  was  not  merely  political  slight  of  hand,  but  an 
integral  part  of  the  process  of  defining  islam  franqais. 
This  vision  of  Islam  was  defined  implicitly  in  discussions 


of  where  the  complex  housing  the  Mosquee  and  Institut 
should  be  built  and  how  it  should  be  decorated.   It 
was  this  physical  site  which  served  as  the  grounds  for 
negotiating  what  French  Islam  would  look  like.  The 
French  supporters  of  the  Mosquee  believed  firmly  that 
Islam  was  a  religion  which  invaded  all  aspects  of  daily  life 
in  both  the  public  and  private  spheres,  and  that  Muslim 
rituals  needed  to  be  performed  in  a  particular  kind  of 
space.   Their  choice  to  use  a  mosque  to  embody  their 
conception  of  Islam  was  thus  a  logical  one,  though  in  fact 
Muslim  ritual  does  not  require  a  sacralized  space,  nor 
does  Muslim  religious  belief  accord  the  visual  the  same 
importance  it  had  in  this  French  imagining.'  Yet  of  course 
the  Mosquee  was  not  merely  a  religious  site,  it  was  a 
monument  to  France's  power  in  the  Muslim  world,  and  as 
such,  was  a  "repositor[y]  of  meaning"  used  to  make  visible 
France's  relationship  with  its  Muslim  subjects  on  a  daily 
basis." 

The  islam  franfais  embodied  by  the  Institut  Musulman 
was  a  system  of  thought  particular  to  "rejuvenated" 
Moroccan  Islam,  whose  "isolation"  for  centuries  brought  it 
"closer  to  the  purest  [Muslim]  belief  but  whose  encounter 
with  "modern  life"  and  "progress"  through  the  French 
presence  was  bringing  this  archaic  Islam  into  modernity.'" 
This  new  Islam  had  much  in  common  with  French 
republicanism,  or,  as  President  Doumergue  explained 
at  the  site's  inauguration,  "the  Muslim  savants. ..have 
exalted  the  respect  of  individual  dignity  and  human 
liberty.  They  have  called  for. ..the  reign  of.. .fraternity  and 
equal  justice.   Democracy  has  no  fundaments  other  than 
these.""   Paris'  municipal  council's  decision  to  donate 
the  land  formerly  used  by  the  Hopital  de  la  Pitie  for  the 
complex's  construction  seemed  "curiously  predestined" 
to  scholar  Emile  Dermengham.  who  noted  that  Muslim 
ambassadors  frequented  the  neighborhood  during  the 
epoch  of  Louis  XVI.'-  The  location  of  the  Institut  in  the 
fifth  arrondissement  gave  credence  to  the  assertion  that 
the  Islam  celebrated  in  the  site  was  compatible  with 
French  civilization.  As  the  Prefet  de  la  Seine  exclaimed 
at  the  site's  inauguration,  "are  we  not  right  next  to  the 
Pantheon?  Do  not  the  works  of  the  Persian  Saadi  and  the 
Arab  Averroes  appear  on  the  shelves  of  the  library"  next 
to  the  French  classics?''  Thus  the  Institut,  which  was 
always  discursively  situated  in  the  university  district  but 
never  described  as  an  actual  physical  site,  made  clear  that 
Islam  frangais  was  compatible  with  French  values  without 
necessitating  the  abandonment  of  Muslim  intellectual 
traditions. 

It  was  the  Mosquee,  rather  than  the  Institut,  which  did 
the  work  of  being  bound  to  "Muslim"  ritual  as  filtered 
through  French  perceptions  of  Moroccan  practices  and 


13 


aesthetics.  When  its  proponents  discussed  the  Mosquee's 
creation,  they  did  not  situate  it  in  Paris'  intellectual 
center;  that  was  the  space  occupied  by  the  Institut.  The 
Mosquee  was  not  discursively  situated  in  any  particular 
neighborhood.  It  was  essential  that  the  site  be  easily 
accessible  to  visitors  to  the  capital,  but  its  precise 
geographical  location  was  far  less  emphasized  than  its 
design.  Its  aesthetic  character  was  of  primary  importance 
because  the  Mosquee  embodied  an  Islam  which  had  "a 
hold  on  its  faithful,"  requiring  them  to  perform  particular 
rituals  in  a  given  setting,  since  daily  life  and  religious 
practices  were  inextricably  linked  for  Muslims.'^  The 
Mosquee"s  architects"  referenced  Morocco,  whose  Muslim 
aesthetics  were  much  appreciated  in  France,  in  their 
designs  so  as  to  assure  its  appeal  to  Muslim  and  non- 
Muslim  visitors. 

Nowhere  is  the  tension  between  the  Latin  Quarter  Institut 
Musulman  and  the  Moroccan-modeled  Mosquee  more  vis- 
ible than  in  a  drawing  distributed  with  a  commemorative 
brochure  for  the  site's  inauguration  (Fig.  1).  In  the 
drawing,  the  Mosquee's  complex  occupies  a  virtually 
empty  space.   It  could  be  anywhere  in  Paris,  or  anywhere 
in  the  world.  The  legends  at  the  bottom  right  and  left 
corners  of  the  drawing  engender  further  confusion,  for 
the  French  text  identifies  the  site  as  the  "Paris  Muslim 
Institute"  while  the  Arabic  caption  refers  to  "the  Paris 
Mosque  and  Muslim  Institute."  In  the  illustration  there 
is  nothing  to  signal  an  institute  designed  to  creating  links 
between  French  and  Muslim  civilization:  what  is  signaled, 
not  least  by  the  way  the  eye  is  drawn  first  to  the  mina- 
ret towering  over  the  complex,  is  a  Muslim  religious  site 
which  seems  out  of  place  in  1920s  Paris. 

This  was  exactly  the  aim  of  the  site's  architects,  who 
were  active  proponents  of  the  "new  architecture "  being 
developed  in  Morocco,  "a  collaboration  between  French 
science  and  intelligence  with  indigenous  craftsmanship 
and  tradition.""'  The  Muslim  elite  association  charged 
with  the  Mosquee's  construction  voted  to  give  the  building 
"an  African  architectural  character,"  specifically  that 
of  Fez's  mosque-medarsa  Abou-Inan.'"  This  decision 
was  praised  by  metropolitan  architectural  critics,  who 
considered  that  "Muslim  constructions,  unlike  ours, 
have  not  evolved  and  must,  on  the  contrary,  remain 
traditional.""  Lyautey's  Service  des  Beaux  Arts  instituted 
campaigns  to  preserve  entire  districts,  virtually  freezing 
medinas  in  time,  though  Gwendolyn  Wright  has  argued 
that  this  was  not  incompatible  with  its  orientation 
"towards  charming  streetscapes  that  would  appeal  to 
French  residents  and  tourists."" 

The  architects'  textual  description,  which  accompanied 
14 


their  drawing  of  the  site  (Fig.  2)  of  their  project  highlights 
all  the  elements  which  the  popular  press  would  echo  as 
reasons  to  visit  the  Mosquee  de  Paris. 

The  site,  its  architects  promised,  would  "be  of  the  purest 
Arab  style  in  composition,  construction,  and  furnishing, 
while  keeping  in  mind  modern  comfort  and  the  special 
dispensations  the  Parisian  climate  requires."-"  The  com- 
plex included  a  restaurant,  "accessible  to  all  Muslims  and 
to  the  Parisian  public,  where  only  Arab  cuisine  prepared 
with  the  greatest  care  will  be  served,"  as  well  as  a 
hammam  whose  management  would  be  "confided  to  a 
proven  Muslim  specialist."  The  elements  associated  with 
religious  ritual  as  described  in  this  document  include  the 
minaret,  whose  description  is  somewhat  cursory  when 
compared  with  other  aspects  of  the  building.  The 
Ablutions  Room,  "installed  according  to  ritual,  and 
destined  for  the  purification  of  the  body  before  prayer,"  led 
to  the  patio  which  preceded  the  Prayer  Room,  which  was 
properly  oriented  towards  Mecca.   Small  changing  rooms 
on  either  side  allowed  "Muslims  dressed  in  European 
clothes  to  change  into  ritual  clothing  for  prayer."-'  The 
section  of  the  Mosquee  reserved  for  prayer  would  be  lit 
discreetly  "so  as  to  preserve  mystery  and  meditation."  The 
promise  of  "mystery"  held  out  by  the  Mosquee  was  enthu- 
siastically received  by  the  press  on  both  sides  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. One  newspaper  urged  its  readers  to  visit  the 
site,  arguing  that  "it  will  provide  a  change  for  Parisians 
from  the  cardboard  boxes  with  which  one  pretends  to  con- 
vey, in  expositions,  the  mysterious  charm  of  the  intimacy 
of  African  houses."^-  L'lUustration  recommended  a  trip  to 
the  Mosquee  to  those  who  wanted  to  re-experience  the  food 
and  color  they  had  so  enjoyed  on  trips  to  the  Maghreb.^' 
From  the  beginning,  the  Mosquee's  founders  planned  to 
charge  admission  to  the  site  from  non-Muslim  visitors, 
making  it  clear  that  they  were  fully  conscious  of  its  tourist 
potential.-* 

The  Mosquee  complex,  so  celebrated  by  politicians 
and  the  transnational  Muslim  elite,  not  to  mention 
indigenophile  Parisians,  played  a  minor  role,  if  at  all, 
in  the  lives  of  average  Muslims  living  in  the  capital. 
Nevertheless,  national  and  municipal  officials  used  the 
islam  frangais  of  the  Mosquee  as  the  primary  tool  to 
mediate  their  relationship  to  the  North  African  immigrant 
working  class.  These  people,  primarily  single  men,  were 
simultaneously  identified  by  their  nationality  and  by 
their  presumed  "Muslim-ness,"  whether  they  would  have 
chosen  to  identify  themselves  as  such  or  not.   If  they  did  in 
fact  engage  in  Muslim  practices,  which  took  place  outside 
of  the  confines  of  the  Mosquee,  these  observances  were 
dismissed  as  "pagan."  The  small  North  African  population 
of  Paris  during  this  period  was  saturated  with  a  religion 


rn.liliil  Mimiln, 


Figure  2.  Architects'  blueprints  for  the  Mosquee 


\A^i^^M^^>^l^ 


which  they  would  not  necessarily  have  identified  as  theirs, 
and  which  thus  precluded  their  ability  to  ever  become 
laic  subjects  since  their  nationality  and  religion  were 
inextricably  linked. 

The  Mosquee  was  inaccessible  to  most  of  the  city's  Muslim 
residents  for  reasons  having  to  do  with  its  location,  the 
schedules  for  prayers  and  holiday  observances,  and  not 
least  the  site's  well-heeled  "clientele."  The  guests  of  honor 
for  landmark  occasions  as  well  as  for  the  annual  cycle  of 
holidays  were  Muslim  dignitaries  passing  through  Paris 
and  representatives  of  the  metropolitan  and  colonial 
administrations.  Si  Kaddour,  the  site's  director,  admitted 
that  workers'  factory  schedules  made  it  nearly  impossible 
for  them  to  travel  from  the  northern  and  western  suburbs 
where  they  worked  to  the  center  of  Paris  to  celebrate 
the  holidays  or  to  come  to  Friday  noon  prayers,  yet 
imams  from  the  Mosquee  rarely  if  ever  ventured  out  to 
those  neighborhoods.  As  an  official  sent  from  Morocco 
to  investigate  the  activities  of  Moroccan  emigrants 
explained,  the  Mosquee  "is  far  from  their  neighborhoods. 
It  is  expensive  for  their  budgets.  The  hammam.  the  cafe 
and  the  restaurant  attached  to  the  Mosquee  are  luxurious 
spaces  destined  for  Parisians  or  for  foreigners  looking 
for  exotic  thrills  and  in  which  the  shabby  clothes  and 
workers'  helmets  would  be  a  sorry  sight."-*  North  African 
nationalist  groups  in  Paris  condemned  the  institution 
primarily  as  a  piece  of  colonial  propaganda  and  an 
"insult  to  Islam,"  but  also  because  it  was  built  in  part 
with  donations  from  workers,  who  were  excluded  from 
it.-"  Yet  the  significant  absence  of  Paris'  North  African 
workers  from  the  celebrations  of  islam  franfais  was  also 
a  conscious  choice  and  not  merely  the  result  of  the  site's 
inaccessibility.  Although  French  observers  qualified 
their  practices  as  a  "very  particular  Islam,  with  its  sheen 
of  paganism,"-'   emigrants  had  a  well-established  and 
highly  organized  network  of  sites  for  social  and  religious 
gatherings.  These  meetings  took  place  in  private  homes  or 
in  cafes  or  restaurants,  in  which  people  prayed  together, 
or  featured  visits  from  religious  leaders  who  traveled  from 
North  Africa  on  tours  of  the  metropole.  On  these  occasions, 
people  would  "eat  couscous,  drink  mint  tea,  listen  raptly 
to  stories. ..hear  musicians,  singers  and  dancers..."  and 
raise  money  for  mutual  aid  projects.-'*  Much  as  the 
Mosquee  remained  inaccessible,  whether  by  choice  or  not, 
for  Muslim  workers,  their  Muslim  practices  remained 
inaccessible  to  the  proponents  o{  islam  franfais. 


laicite  though  rooted  in  "traditional"  Moroccan  Islam, 
The  Institut  Musulman  celebrated  the  similarities 
between  French  and  Muslim  civilizations,  while  the 
Mosquee's  Moroccan-inspired  aesthetics  guaranteed  the 
"authenticity"  of  the  religious  practices  to  be  enacted 
there.  Yet  the  belief  that  Muslim  practice  was  intrinsically 
physical  and  invaded  all  aspects  of  daily  life,  confounding 
the  public  and  private  spheres,  also  made  clear  that  the 
proponents  of  islam  frangais  did  not  actually  believe 
it  was  possible  for  Muslims  to  actually  access  the  laic 
sphere.  This  simultaneous  move  to  rhetorically  include  but 
practically  exclude  Paris'  colonial  North  African  working 
class  from  French  republicanism  was  enacted  physically 
in  the  site  of  the  Mosquee  de  Paris.  The  institution  and 
its  modern  Islam  were  as  inaccessible  to  them  as  was  the 
luxurious  museum-like  site  in  the  heart  of  the  capital. 


In  conclusion,  the  complex  originally  conceived  as  a  fairly 
straightforward  political  move  in  response  to  external 
threats  quickly  became  something  much  more  complicated. 
The  Mosquee  de  Paris  and  Institut  Musulman  came  to 
embody  a  secular  Islam,  islam  frangais,  compatible  with 


16 


Notes 

1.  This  article  is  drawn  from  the  first  chapter  of  my  dissertation,  entitled  "  Un 
espoir  en  devenir:  The  Mosquee  de  Pans  and  the  Creation  of  French  Islams."  at  the 
University  of  Chicago's  history  department. 

2.  The  Mosquee's  director,  or  recteur.  serves  as  the  President  of  the  Conseil  fran^ais 
du  culte  musulman.  the  Muslim  association  that  acts  as  an  intermediary  between 
Mushms  in  France  and  the  French  state, 

3-  For  a  discussion  of  this  issue,  see  Henry  Laurens,  "La  politique  musulmane  de 
la  France"  in  Orientates  II:  La  Illeme  Republique  et  I'lslam  (Pans:  CNRS  Editions. 
2004).  See  also  Pascal  Le  Pautremat.  La  Pohtique  Musulmane  de  la  France  an  XXe 
siecle  (Paris:  Maisonneuve  &  Larose,  2003) 

4.  Paul  Bourdane,  one  of  the  Mosquee's  strongest  proponets,  provides  a  summary 
of  the  site's  history  in  "L'Institut  Musulman  et  la  Mosquee  de  Paris,"  Extrait  de  La 
Revue  Indigene  (October-November  1919), 

5.  The  most  often-cited  article  of  the  law  of  1905  is  its  second,  which  states  that 
"the  Republic  does  not  recognize,  salary,  or  subsidize  any  religion. "  The  law  did  not 
restrict  religious  practice  or  the  construction  of  religious  edifices,  but  it  did  change 
the  way  these  practices  and  sites  were  funded.  The  situation  of  the  Mosquee  as  a 
Muslim  site  was  further  complicated  because  of  the  way  the  law  was  applied  in 
Algeria,  A  regime  of  "temporary"  exceptions  meant  that  Muslim  religious  affairs 
continued  to  be  financed  by  the  colonial  administration  For  a  complete  discussion 
of  the  application  of  the  law  in  Algeria,  see  Raberh  Achi.  "La  separation  des  Eglises 
et  de  I'Etat  a  I'epreuve  de  la  situation  coloniale.  Les  usages  de  la  derogation  dans 
I'administration  du  culte  musulman  en  Algerie  (1905-1959),"  Politix  17.  no,  66 
(September  2004):  81-106. 

6.  Herriot's  complete  arguments  can  be  found  in  the  Journal  Officiel  of  July  1.  1920. 

7.  Letter  from  Lyautey  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  24  May  1922.  AMAE 
Afrique  1918-1940/Affaires  musuImanes/11. 

8.  As  Oleg  Grabar  has  argued,  "traditional  Islamic  culture  ...  identified  itself 
through  means  other  than  the  visual."  See  his  "Symbols  and  Signs  in  Islamic 
Architecture."  m  Architecture  and  Community  Building  m  the  Islamic  World  Today, 
ed.  Renata  Holod  (Millerton,  NY:  Aperture,  1983).  See  also  Barbara  Daly  Metcalfs 
introduction  to  her  edited  volume.  Making  Muslim  Space  in  North  America  and 
Europe  (Berkeley:  University  of  California  Press.  1996), 

9.  I  borrow  this  phrase  from  Daniel  Sherman's  discussion  of  French  memorial 
monuments  after  WWL  See  his  The  Construction  of  Memory  in  Inlerwar  France 
(Chicago:  University  of  Chicago  Press.  1999).  216. 

10.  Rene  Weiss.  Reception  a  ('Hotel  de  Ville  de  Sa  Majeste  Moulay  Youssef.  Sultan 
du  Maroc:  Inauguration  de  I'lnstitut  Musulman  et  de  la  Mosquee  (Paris:  Imprimerie 
Nationale.  1927).  2. 

1 1 .  Doumergue's  speech  is  cited  in  Weiss.  36.  It  also  celebrates  the  friendship 
between  "the  Muslim  elite  and  the  French  elite,"  Non-elite  Muslims  in  North  Africa 
were  solicited  for  donations  to  aid  in  the  construction  of  this  site,  but  as  this  citation 
suggests,  the  Mosquee  was  not  intended  for  their  use. 

12.  Emile  Dermengham,  "Musulmans  de  Pans,"  La  Grande  Revue  799  (December 
1934):  15-21, 

13.  Weiss.  45. 

14.  These  sentiments  were  expressed  by  many  of  the  Mosquee's  proponents.  This 
particular  citation  comes  from  a  letter  sent  by  Lyautey's  deputy  to  the  Minister 
of  Foreign  Alfairs,  7  January  1916    AN  Fonds  Lyautey  475AP/95/Lettres  au 
departement  1916.  See  also  Commissariat  General  a  I'lnformation  et  a  la 
Propagande.  "Projet  de  loi  relatif  a  I'edification  a  Paris  d'un  Institut  Musulman"  n.d. 
AMAE  Afrique  1918-1940/Affaires  musulmanes/11 

15.  Although  the  original  plans  for  the  site  were  drawn  up  by  Maurice  Tranchant 
de  Lunel,  the  former  Directeur  du  Service  des  Beaux-Arts  under  Lyautey's 
administration,  The  architects  who  would  eventually  take  charge  of  the  complex's 
construction  were  Maurice  Mantout,  Robert  Fournez.  and  Charles  Heubes.  Mantout 
and  Fournez  had  also  both  been  employed  as  architects  in  the  Moroccan  Service  des 
Beaux-Arts, 

16.  Henri  Descamps,  L'architecture  moderne  au  Maroc  (Paris:  Librairie  de  la 
Construction  moderne,  1931),  1. 

17.  Letter  from  the  Mosquee's  first  director.  Si  Kaddour  ben  Ghabrit,  6  October 
1920.  AMAE  Afrique  1918-1940/Affaires  musulmanes/11. 

18.  Antony  Goissaud,  "L'Institut  Musulman  et  la  Mosquee  de  Paris."  La  Construction 
moderne  3  (2  November  1924):  50-55. 

19.  Gwendolyn  Wright.  The  Politics  of  Design  in  French  Colonial  Urbanism  (Chicago: 


University  of  Chicago  Press.  1991).  134. 

20    This  citation,  and  those  which  follow,  are  taken  from  "Note  descriptive  de  la 

Mosquee  et  de  ses  dependances  dressee  par  M.  MANTOUT,  Architecte  de  la  Societe 

des  Habous  des  Lieux  Saints  de  I'lslam."  n.d.  AMAE  Afrique  1918-1940/Affaires 

musulmanes/11. 

21.  Although  worshippers  must  remove  their  shoes  before  entering  the  Prayer  Room, 
no  ritual  dress  is  required. 

22.  Le  Petit  Journal  25  February  1922. 

23.  "Un  decor  d'Orient  sous  le  Ciel  de  Paris."  L'lllustration  26  (November  1926):  582. 

24.  One  of  the  Mosquee's  architects,  fresh  from  his  success,  would  in  fact  go  on 
to  construct  the  Moroccan  pavilion  of  the  1931  Colonial  Exposition  in  Paris.  The 
mosaics  used  to  decorate  the  Mosquee  itself  were  in  fact  taken  from  an  earlier 
Colonial  Exposition  in  Marseille,  see  the  correspondence  of  the  Mosquee's  director 
from  March  1923  in  AMAE  Afrique/ Affaires  musulmanes/12. 

25    Rapport  du  Lt-Colonel  Justinard  sur  les  travailleurs  marocains  dans  la  banlieue 
parisienne.  26  November  1930.  AMAE  K  Afrique/Questions  generates  1818-1940/ 
Emploi  de  la  main  d'oeuvre  indigene  dans  la  Metropole  1929-1931. 

26.  Messali  Hadj,  the  leader  of  the  Etoile  Nor d -Africa ine.  expressed  this  particular 
critique  Cited  in  Pascal  Blanchard  et  al..  Le  Paris  arabe  (Paris:  La  Decouverte. 
2003).  132. 

27.  Letter  from  the  Prefet  de  la  Seine  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  13  October 
1926,  AMAE  K  Afrique/Questions  generates  1918-1940/Emploi  de  la  main  d'oeuvre 
indigene  dans  la  Metropole.  1926-1928, 

28.  Note  au  Sujet  de  tournees  de  Ziaras  faites  par  des  Chefs  indigenes  en  France 
pendant  I'annee  1938  par  Lt.  Huot.  10  October  1938.  AMAE  K  Afrique/Questions 
generates  1918-1940/Emploi  de  la  main  d'oeuvre  indigene  dans  ta  Metropole,  1926- 
1928. 


17 


The  Architect's  Brother 

(The  Architect's  Brother  series.  1993-1994) 


Z.Pamela  Karimi  and  Frank  Forrest 


Picturing  the  "Exiiausted  Giobe":^ 


An  Interview  with  Robert  and  Shana 
ParkeHarrison 

Q.  Many  of  your  photographs  show  man's  desire  to  gain 
"access"  to  something  beyond  him  through  technological 
inventions  and  scientific  activities.  You  often  depict  a 
devastated  land  in  which  man  has  perhaps  gone  too  far  in 
seeking  this  access.  How  can  human  beings  reconcile  this 
striving  for  "progress"  with  the  negative  consequences  that 
often  result,  environmental  degradation  being  just  one? 

A.  This  is  a  central  question  for  us.  In  society's  constant 
quest  for  the  carefree  life,  we  often  disregard  the 
consequences  of  technology  on  our  social  interactions,  and 
on  the  environment.  The  issue  of  the  boundaries  of 
technology  and  the  negative  effects  it  can  have  on  society 
and  the  environment  are  barely  considered,  if  at  all.  So 
who  but  the  individual  determines  the  limits  of 
technology?  In  our  work  we  deal  with  the  best  and  worst 
humans  have  to  offer.  The  works  represent  our  fascination 


with  these  issues  by  visually  representing  our  ability  to 
create,  and  our  ability  to  destroy.  Throughout  our  work, 
new  technological  functions  are  given  to  discarded 
contraptions  of  contemporary  culture.  And  through  our 
creations  and  actions  we  try  to  explore  this  very  question 
and  contradiction  we  all  face:  with  convenience  and 
innovation  there  is  a  price  to  be  paid.  Is  there  a  way  to 
survive  and  create  technologies  that  could  not  harm  or 
deplete  resources  yet  still  serve  our  needs?  Is  there 
technology  that  can  actually  reverse  the  damage  that  we 
have  already  caused?  These  are  intriguing  questions  we 
want  to  explore.  We  use  the  stage  of  an  archetypal 
landscape,  the  barren,  lifeless  field,  to  act  out  these 
questions. 

Q.  "Earth  is  too  crowded  for  Utopia"  is  the  title  of  a  recent 
story  on  the  BBC,  suggesting  that  the  global  population  is 
greater  than  the  earth  can  sustain.  Considering  this,  we 
would  like  to  know  the  reason  why  only  one  person 
occupies  the  vast,  dreamlike  environment  in  almost  all  of 


18 


Oppenheimer's  Garden  (Earth  Elegies  series.  1999-2000) 


your  photos.  Is  it  time  to  "take  things  into  one's  own 
hands"  or  is  something  else  implied? 

A.  Our  work  offers  more  questions  than  answers.   Indeed, 
each  individual  can  make  a  difference.  By  focusing  on  one 
person,  the  viewer  is  often  better  able  to  identify  with  the 
actions  of  the  protagonist.  But  having  said  that,  we  have 
used  other  people  in  our  images.  Currently,  this  is  on  our 
minds  even  more.   Over  the  years  we  have  built  a  body  of 
work  that  is  interconnected,  while  dealing  with  various 
concepts.  One  thread  ties  the  work  together  and  that  is  the 
constant  protagonist.  The  ability  to  work  with  one  person 
enables  us  to  focus  on  specific  tasks,  actions,  and  rituals  in 
the  work.  Being  physically  part  of  one's  work  creates  a 
strong  connection  to  the  content.  We  conceive  of  the 
images,  but  also  act  them  out.  This  performative  element 
roots  the  work  in  a  physical  and  personal  connection. 
Focusing  each  image  on  one  specific  person  is  similar  to 
the  idea,  "What  is  the  sound  of  one  hand  clapping?" 
Through  this  single  character  we  are  experiencing  an 


intimate  and  focused  perspective  that  we  hope  many 
people  can  relate  to  personally.  Metaphorically,  he  is 
represented  alone,  seeking  ways  to  reconnect  to  a  lost 
language  of  the  earth.  He  tries  to  interpret  his  relationship 
to  these  lifeless  and  barren  surroundings.  He  is  always  in 
search  of  and  exploring  ingenious  and  futile  acts  that  are 
based  more  in  poetics  and  hope  than  in  scientific  fact.  He 
represents  our  constant  search  for  fulfillment  and  hope  for 
a  better  place,  or  represents  the  reckless  and  damaging 
tendencies  of  humanity. 

Q.  Journalist  Christopher  Millis  once  described  the  figure 
in  your  photos  as  "Charlie  Chaplin  meets  the  Sierra 
Club."-  Charlie  Chaplin's  Modern  Times  expresses  the 
fear  that  people  are  not  controlling  their  technology,  but 
technology  is  controlling  them.  Fritz  Lang's  Metropolis 
also  reflects  such  an  anxiety.  Given  our  own  "modern 
times,"  this  issue  is  still  relevant,  and  yet  most  of  your 
photos  often  give  the  sense  of  the  individual  controlling 
everything.  Is  this  a  Utopian  vision? 


19 


A.  The  character  in  our  work  is  not  necessary  controlling 
all  of  his  technologies,  but  is  approaching  it  on  the  brink  of 
hope  and  failure.  In  the  images  the  moment  of  duality  is 
actually  our  goal.  The  idea  that  this  moment  or  act  could 
end  in  failure  or  success  truly  represents  our  lives. 
Constantly,  we  are  faced  with  failure,  yet  guided  by  the 
hope  of  success.  Found  throughout  our  work  is  the  sense  of 
moments  balancing  on  the  brink  of  falling  or  flying, 
healing  or  harming,  mending  or  destroying.  If  ever  there  is 
a  sense  in  our  work  that  he  is  represented  as  controlling 
everything,  it  is  balanced  by  the  fact  that  this  control  will 
only  end  in  failure,  or  futility.  We  understand  that  as  we 
create  we  are  constantly  faced  with  this  revealing  notion, 
with  failure  comes  success  and  we  truly  work  out  of  failure 
and  error,  but  to  represent  only  failure  in  our  vision  would 
be  unbalanced.  Utopian  visions  are  often  doomed  by  a  lack 
of  understanding  that  perfection  can  never  be  attained. 
Within  failure  is  success.  The  key  is  to  understand  this 
and  use  it.  It  is  a  force  in  nature  and  also  a  force  revealed 
even  in  our  search  for  technological  perfection. 

Q.  Whether  dealing  with  DaVinci's  wings  or 
Oppenheimer's  bombs,  the  approach  in  your  work  remains 
humorous.  The  strength  of  Cloud  Cleaner  lies  in  multiple 
meanings:  ridiculous  and  purposeful,  silly  and  serious.  In 
most  of  your  photographs  a  solitary  man  in  a  wrinkled  suit 
and  white  shirt  tries  to  save  the  natural  world  that  is  in  a 
state  of  decay.  In  fact,  behind  the  naive  surface  of  most  of 
your  works  there  is  a  serious  message — a  feeling  of  hope 
for  repairing  our  damaged  planet.  Can  you  elaborate  on 
this  feature  of  your  work? 

A.  We  do  attempt  to  layer  meanings  in  our  work.  We  do 
this  to  allow  for  multiple  entrances  into  the  work.  We  are 
drawn  to  the  work  of  Anselm  Kiefer,  Louise  Bourgeois, 
Joseph  Beuys,  and  Robert  Wilson,  because  of  this  very 
quality  of  layering  meanings.  We  explore  possibilities  for 
repairing  the  earth,  but  equally  important  we  delve  into 
the  psychology  of  individuals,  their  relationship  to  others 
(isolation),  to  technology  and  to  nature.  We  enjoy  the 
notion  of  the  absurd  often  found  in  black  comedy  films  like 
Brazil.  Films  by  Jacques  Tati  offer  interesting  solutions 
for  dealing  with  the  complexities  of  our  political  and 
technological  world.  We  are  also  drawn  to  the  writing  of 
Samuel  Beckett.  Existential  nightmares  actually  become 
precariously  balanced  with  humor.  For  us  it  is  part  of  our 
own  sensibilities  as  artists.  We  are  always  faced  with 
failure  and  the  ridiculous  as  we  create  our  often-idiotic 
performances  before  the  camera.  We  work  in  an  impulsive 
manner,  yet  we  are  guided  by  a  strong  desire  to 
communicate  something  about  the  human  condition  and 
our  lives.  This  often  does  come  out  as  humorous,  and 
serious  and  thoughtful  and  deliberate  and  idiosyncratic. 


Exchange  (Earth  Elegies  series,  1999-2000) 


Q.  Mending  the  Earth  and  Suspension  are  so  startling 
because  they  represent  impossible  tasks.  They  show  at 
once  comically  surreal  schemes  as  well  as  serious  anguish 
and  exhaustion  from  trying  to  turn  a  dream  into  reality. 
These  pictures  seem  to  say,  if  human  beings  could  easily 
suspend  the  movement  of  a  cloud  or  patch  up  a  damaged 
land,  or  even  turn  themselves  into  machine  for  producing 
clouds  (as  shown  in  Cloudburst  from  the  "Industrial  Land" 
series),  we  would  have  had  a  radically  different  life  on 
Earth.  The  machine  in  Cloudburst  is  not  just  a  tool;  it 
signifies  a  lifestyle.  Can  you  expand  on  this? 

A.  Our  images  develop  out  of  a  process  of  both  imagination 
and  research,  but  in  the  end  the  images  exist  as 
metaphoric  and  dreamlike  possibilities  that  are  obviously 
not  possible.  Our  images  rely  on  the  combination  of  the 
imaginative  world  confronting  true  and  important  issues 
facing  our  world  today.  The  point  of  our  work  is  not  to 
offer  realistic  solutions  for  a  better  world,  but  rather  to 
offer  viewers  possibilities.  These  images  become  a  state  of 
consciousness.., to  see  alternative,  imaginative  realities 
and  to  consider  the  power  of  the  imagination  and  poetry. 

Q.  In  the  1970s  the  artist  Gordon  Matta-Clark  bought 
what  were  described  as  "inaccessible"  houses  at  incredibly 


20 


cheap  prices  and  cut  them  up  for  artistic  installations.   In 
doing  so,  Matta-Clark  "designate [d]  spaces  that  would  not 
be  seen  and  certainly  not  [be]  occupied."'  One  major 
intention  of  Matta-Clark  was  to  question  our  perceptions 
of  property  value  that  are  often  influenced  by  the  norms  of 
"laissez  faire"  real  estate  developers.  Your  works,  on  the 
other  hand,  portray  unreal  environments  in  states  of 
decay  and  devoid  of  real  estate  value,  which  you  often 
strive  to  rescue.  In  an  attempt  to  bring  life  to  a  dead  piece 
of  land  or  a  lifeless  plant — as  shown  in  Bloodline  and 
Exchange — you  seem  to  donate  your  own  blood  (or  maybe 
this  photo  signifies  a  symbiotic  relationship  between  man 
and  earth  in  which  each  depends  on  the  other  for  its 
existence).  Perhaps  you  and  Matta-Clark  share  the  same 
sensibility  about  things  we  waste,  damage,  and  consider 
valueless. 

A.  Bloodline  and  Witnessland  are  seminal  pieces  within 
our  work.  It  is  due  to  the  symbolic  expression  of  self- 
sacrifice,  of  giving  one's  lifeblood  back  to  the  earth,  that 
these  images  were  made.  We  certainly  resurrect  various 
objects  and  even  aspects  of  the  earth.  Like  those  from 
Gordon  Matta-Clark  and  the  artists  of  the  Arte  Provera' 
movement  to  Duchamp,  we  collaborate  with  obsolete 
objects  for  use  and  meaning  in  our  tales  about  the  human 
condition.  Our  work  places  importance  on  the  earth,  not 
with  relationship  to  its  real  estate  value,  but  rather  as  the 
life  force.  The  interactions  between  the  protagonist,  his 
objects,  and  the  earth  represent  the  possibilities  of  human 
ingenuity  to  find  a  new,  less  abusive  relationship  to 
nature.  The  images  show  a  reconnection  and  reverence  for 
the  relationship  between  humans  and  nature. 

Q.   Many  of  your  photos  seem  to  frame  artificial 
environments  created  in  your  studio  and  are  outcomes  of 
putting  together  bits  and  pieces  of  items  and  images  you 
collect.  Despite  their  inherent  artificial  quality,  your 
photos  illustrate  genuine  natural  sites  that  just  don't 
happen  to  exist.  The  vigor  of  your  works  lies  in  the 
multiple  meanings  they  bear  upon;  natural  and  man- 
made,  archaic  and  hi-tech.  As  W.S.  Merwin  has  put  it 
elsewhere,  "you  will  wonder  to  what  extent  it  should  be 
described  as  natural,  to  what  extent  man-made."* 


Mending  the  Earth  (Earth  Elegies  series,  1999-2000) 


Suspension  (Earth  Elegies  series,  1999-2000) 


21 


Bloodline  (Witnessland  series,  1995-1996) 


22 


da  Vinci's  Wing  (Industrial  Land  series,  1997) 


23 


A.  Actually,  almost  all  of  our  images  are  made  in  real 
landscapes.  The  props  are  built  and  transported  to 
landscapes.  Sometimes  real  landscapes  are  merged  with 
old  photographs  of  other  landscapes.  In  that  way.  yes,  we 
do  merge  the  artificial  with  the  real.  Today,  within  our 
digitally  altered  visual  world,  this  is  also  a  relevant  issue. 
In  graduate  school  we  were  fascinated  by  the  writing  of 
Jean  Baudrillard.  His  observations  of  American  culture 
articulated  what  we  see  as  a  world  and  culture  that  exists 
within  a  constant  artificial  reality.  Also,  at  that  time  in 
the  early  90's,  while  living  in  the  desert  of  the 
Southwestern  U.S.,  we  were  influenced  by  observing  how 
the  landscape  and  nature  were  being  altered  and 
manipulated  for  development  and  industry.  We  were  not 
interested  in  creating  heavily  technological  realities  nor 
futuristic  scenes,  but  rather  simple  basic  artifices. 
Elements  of  those  early  influences  have  continued 
throughout  our  work.  Our  whole  human  existence  is 
artificial  due  to  the  way  we  choose  to  manipulate  nature 
and  its  resources  for  survival  and.  more  significantly,  for 
comfort. 

Q.  Given  that  a  major  theme  of  our  journal  is  architecture, 
how  was  it  that  you  chose  "The  Architect's  Brother"  as  the 
title  of  your  exhibit  last  year  at  the  DeCordova  Museum? 
This  title  also  refers  to  a  specific  photograph.  Since  the 
majority  of  your  photos  lack  what  we  would  call  the  built 
environment  (i.e..  buildings),  why  this  title  to  encompass 
the  entire  exhibit? 

A.  Architects,  while  creative,  work  with  logic  and 
structure,  designing  spaces  that  require  highly  technical 
manipulations/uses  of  materials,  within  limitations  at 
times,  to  create  environments.  The  protagonist  in  the 
images  often  works  in  ways  contrary  to  how  an  architect 
works.  He  creates  from  waste,  idiosyncratic,  illogical 
solutions/attempts  that  are  based  on  impulsive  or  spiritual 
reactions.  He's  the  non-linear,  idiosyncratic  architect.  We 
utilize  titles  to  refer  to  new  meanings  and  associations 
that  further  the  image.  As  artists  we  have  the  freedom  to 
not  be  specific  and  even  disorient  the  reading  of  our  work. 
We  have  received  some  interesting  associations  concerning 
the  title  of  the  exhibition.  Some  associations  have  been 
curious  while  other  readings  of  this  title  have  been  beyond 
even  our  own  intentions.  Once  the  work  and  the  titles  of 
our  pieces  leave  the  studio  we  intentionally  relinquish 
control  as  to  how  an  audience  interprets  the  work.  This  is 
the  thrill  and  fear  of  exhibiting  your  work,  but  without 
this  connection  with  an  audience  our  work  is  incomplete. 

Q.  Compared  to  other  media,  what  "access"  does  the 
medium  of  photography  offer  you  to  express  your  ideas? 


A.  Of  course,  the  photograph  is  merely  the  end  of  a  process 
that  includes  theatre,  puppetry,  sculpture,  installation, 
performance,  and  painting.   Photography  allows  us  to 
make  "believable"  images.  Clearly  they  are  not  truthful 
images — most  photographs  are  not  truthful — but  rather 
they  are  subjective.  We  use  photography  to  combine  many 
different  mediums  and  creative  approaches  into  a  visual 
piece.  Through  that  selective  frame  we  can  create  another 
world  and  reality,  where  the  mechanics  behind  achieving 
the  illusions  are  not  seen.  Photography  offers  us  the 
ability  to  distort  reality  by  exploiting  the  powerful  notion 
that  "  if  it  exists  in  a  photograph,  then  it  must  have 
happened."  To  draw  or  paint  the  scene  would  create  a 
different  experience  for  our  images.  This  characteristic  of 
a  photograph  becomes  interesting  when  considering  how 
digital  technology  is  impacting  our  sense  of  reality  in  a 
photographic  image.  The  majority  of  our  work  is  not 
digital,  thus  making  the  sense  of  the  real  even  more 
mysterious  and  startling  for  the  viewer.  Even  as  we 
explore  the  digital  in  current  work,  we  still  maintain  a 
strong  sense  of  the  real,  by  relying  less  on  digital 
manipulation  and  more  on  illusion  created  before  the 
camera.  To  exceed  this  sense  of  the  real  could  create  an 
overly  altered  reality  and — for  our  artistic  vision — would 
alter  the  content  of  our  images. 


Cloud  Cleaner  (Earth  Elegies  series.  1999-2000) 


24 


Cloudburst  (Promisedland  series,  1998) 


Notes 

1.  "Exhausted  Globe"  is  the  title  of  ParkeHarrisons'  photographic  series  from  1997. 

2.  Christopher  Millis,  "Lighter  than  Air:  Robert  ParkeHarrison's  Lofty  Earth 
Mission"  [article  online]:  available  from  httpY/www.bostonphoenix.com/bostonyarts/ 
art/documents;  Internet;  accessed  October  7.  2004. 

3.  Gordon  MattaClarck  cited  in  Pamela  Lee,  Objects  to  be  Destroyed:  The  Work  of 
Gordon  Ma/(a-Clark  (Cambridge:  MIT  Press.  2000).  103. 

4.  This  Italian  movement  used  worthless  materials  to  produce  art. 

5.  W.S.  Merwin.  "Unchoping  a  Tree,"  in  Robert  ParkeHarrison:  The  Architect's 
Brother  (Santa  Fe:  Twin  Palms  Publishers.  2000),  n.p. 


25 


William  C.  Brumfield 


America  as  Emblem  of  Modernity  in 
Russian  Architecture,  1870-1917 


In  a  long  digression  on  architecture  in  one  of  the  1873 
issues  of  his  Diary  of  a  Writer.  Fedor  Dostoevskii  made 
the  following  sardonic  comment  on  contemporary 
Petersburg:  "And  here,  at  last,  is  the  architecture  of 
the  modern,  enormous  hotel-efficiency,  Americanism, 
hundreds  of  rooms,  an  enormous  industrial  enterprise: 
right  away  you  see  that  we  too  have  got  railways  and 
have  suddenly  discovered  that  we  ourselves  are  efficient 
people."'   Here,  as  in  so  many  other  areas,  the  great  writer 
noted  the  salient  features  of  an  issue  that  would  be  much 
pursued  by  specialists  and  professionals,  for  the  terms 
"enormous"  and  "efficient"  define  just  the  qualities  that 
Russian  observers  valued  in  American  architecture.  When 
it  came  to  European  architecture  of  the  same  period, 
Russians  showed  an  awareness  of  nuance  and  style,  and 
they  mentioned  the  "right"  names  from  the  perspective 
of  architectural  history.  Yet,  in  the  case  of  America. 
Russian  journals  made  an  isolated  reference  to  Henry 
Hobson  Richardson  or  Daniel  Burnham  and  John  Root  but 
otherwise  exhibited  an  indifference  to  the  specifics  of  a 
developing  American  architectural  idiom.  What  they  saw 
was  enormous,  colossal,  incredible,  and  efficient. 

The  Russian  architectural  press,  which  conveyed 
these  accounts  of  American  architecture  to  its  Russian 
audience,  was  essentially  a  product  of  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century;  its  development  was  directly 
related  to  the  professionalization  of  Russian  architects. 
The  beginnings  of  cohesion  in  the  profession  date  from 
the  1860s,  when  architects  in  both  St.  Petersburg  and 
Moscow  realized  the  need  to  create  an  association  that 
would  rise  above  narrow,  commercial  interests  to  address 
problems  confronting  architects  as  a  group.  To  be  sure, 
commercialism  provided  the  major  financial  impetus  for 
a  professional  organization,  as  the  economic  forces  of 
nascent  capitalism  led  to  the  replacement  of  the  older 
patronage  system  of  architectural  commission  with  a 
more  competitive,  contractual  approach  to  the  business 
of  building.  But  in  order  to  promote  the  interests  of 
professional  development  and  to  regulate  the  practice  of 
architecture,  a  form  of  organization  that  transcended  the 
individual  architect  or  architectural  firm  was  essential. 

The  Great  Reforms  of  the  1860s  facilitated  the  economic 
progress  necessary  for  the  expansion  of  architecture 
beyond  the  commissions  of  the  state,  the  court,  and 


a  few  wealthy  property  owners,  and  they  also  created  the 
legal  conditions  for  the  foundation  of  private  associations. 
Although  certain  Petersburg  architects  had  begun  to 
explore  the  prospect  of  founding  a  professional  group 
as  early  as  1862,  the  first  formal  organization  was  the 
Moscow  Architectural  Society,  chartered  in  October 
1867.-    From  the  outset  this  organization  disseminated 
new  technical  information  and  served  as  a  center  for  the 
establishment  of  standards  in  building  materials  and 
practices.  In  addition  to  its  advisory  function  in  technical 
matters,  the  society  initiated  a  series  of  open  architectural 
competitions  as  early  as  1868,  thus  establishing  a 
precedent  to  be  followed  in  the  awarding  of  major 
building  contracts  during  the  latter  half  of  the  century. 
An  ambitious  attempt  by  the  society  to  sponsor  a  general 
conference  of  architects  in  1873  failed  for  bureaucratic 
reasons,  and  it  was  not  until  1892  that  the  First  Congress 
of  Russian  Architects  took  place. ^ 

In  the  meantime,  architects  in  the  capital  obtained 
imperial  approval  to  found  the  Petersburg  Society  of 
AiThitects,  chartered  in  October  1870,  whose  functions 
paralleled  those  of  the  Moscow  Architectural  Society.  At 
the  beginning  of  1872,  the  Petersburg  group  published 
the  first  issue  of  the  journal  Zodchii  (Architect),  which 
appeared  monthly,  and  later  weekly,  up  until  1917. 
For  forty-five  years  this  authoritative  publication  not 
only  served  as  a  record  of  the  architectural  profession 
in  Russia,  but  also  provided  a  conduit  for  information 
on  technical  innovations  in  Western  Europe  and  the 
United  States.  It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate  the 
importance  oi  Zodchii  in  supporting  professional  solidarity 
among  architects  and  establishing  a  platform  from  which 
to  advance  ideas  regarding  architecture's  "mission"  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  urban  environment.'' 

There  were  other  architectural  publications  in  Russia, 
and  a  few  of  them  made  occasional  reference  to  America: 
but  Zodchii  remained  the  major  source  for  information 
on  architecture  and  civil  engineering.  The  general  areas 
of  interest  covered  in  the  journal's  reports  on  America 
included:  city  planning,  construction  technology, 
architectural  education,  building  materials  and  standards, 
and  the  related  topic  of  disasters,  particularly  fires.  Many 
of  the  items  were  taken  from  American  and  European 
architectural  journals,  as  well  as  from  general  Russian 


26 


publications  such  as  Birzhevye  vedomosti  (Stock  Exchange 
News),  which  had  obvious  reasons  of  its  own  to  be 
interested  in  the  progress  and  economic  development 
represented  by  new  American  construction.  In  addition, 
Zodchii  frequently  published  lectures  given  at  the 
Petersburg  Society  of  Architects  by  members  who  had 
traveled  to  the  United  States,  and  thus  provided  firsthand 
observations  of  the  New  World. 

From  the  first  year  of  publication,  and  every  year 
thereafter.  Zodchii  included  news  items  on  the  American 
architectural  scene,  such  as  a  short  comment  in  1872 
on  the  new  building  for  the  New  York  City  post  office.^ 
The  construction  of  buildings  for  public  institutions  in 
America's  booming  cities  gained  the  frequent  attention 
of  Zodchii,  whose  editors  understood  that  there  was  a 
corresponding  need  for  such  buildings  to  serve  Russian 
society  in  the  period  following  the  Great  Reforms.  In  1873, 
for  example,  there  were  reports  on  communal  housing  for 
women  working  in  New  York's  factories;'^  readers  of  such 
articles  might  have  been  reminded  of  the  housing  crisis 
affecting  workers  in  Russia's  large  cities.  The  rapidity  of 
American  building  methods  elicited  expressions  of  wonder 
that  are  repeated  with  ritualistic  emphasis  throughout  the 
1872-1917  period.  An  early  burst  of  enthusiasm  appeared 
in  an  1873  article — which  drew  extensively  from  American 
publications — on  the  reconstruction  of  Chicago  after  the 
Great  Fire  of  1871.  The  effusive  praise  reveals  much  about 
Russian  architectural  taste  during  this  period,  as  well  as 
its  fascination  with  technological  innovation: 

All  of  them  [Chicago's  new  "building-palaces"] 
are  built  in  the  latest  American  style,  which 
represents  a  mixture  of  classical,  Romanesque, 
gothic,  and  Renaissance  styles;  here  one  can  see 
the  widespread  use  of  iron  structural 
components,  luxurious  entryways  even  for 
private  houses,  balconies  on  all  floors, 
magnificent  roofs  and  domes  encircled  with 
beautiful  balustrades.  Many  of  these  buildings 
exceed  in  luxury  and  refinement  the  best 
buildings  of  the  European  capitals  and  are 
decorated  with  statues  and  colonnades.  It  is  hard 
to  understand  how  this  could  have  been  created 
in  something  like  a  year  and  a  half  Such 
unusual  speed  is  partially  explained  by  the  use 
of  great  quantities  of  iron,  including  entire 
facades  consisting  of  a  row  of  iron  columns 
connected  by  iron  beams,  and  also  by  wooden 
construction  work  (such  as  at  the  Palmer  Hotel) 
carried  out  at  night  by  artificial  lighting,  and 
with  machines  lifting  pre-fabricated  elements  to 
a  height  of  four  stories.' 


The  article's  final  sentence,  echoing  similar  opinions  from 
Birzhevye  vedomosti,  proclaimed  that  the  new  Chicago 
reflects,  "The  results  of  moral  and  material  activity  such 
as  we  have  seen  nowhere  else  in  the  history  of  the  cultural 
development  of  mankind."' 

Indeed,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  limit  to  Russian 
credulity  in  the  face  of  American  technological  ingenuity, 
as  is  evident  from  an  item  on  the  "Beach  pneumatic 
tube,"  intended  to  carry  passengers  around  the  city  at  a 
"remarkable  speed"  far  exceeding  that  of  railroads.'  There 
was  in  fact  an  experimental  pneumatic  subway  opened 
in  1870  under  Broadway  Avenue  in  Manhattan,  but  its 
speed  and  potential  for  development  seem  to  have  been 
considerably  less  than  remarkable.  Pneumatic  systems 
were,  however,  used  for  transporting  mail  in  New  York  by 
the  turn  of  the  century. 

Throughout  the  1870s,  Zodchii  published  a  wide  variety 
of  articles  on  developments  in  American  architecture  and 
technology.  The  subjects  ranged  from  Edison's  "Electric 
telegraph"  to  engineering  topics  such  as  plans  for  a 
canal  in  Nicaragua,  bridges  in  Philadelphia  and  New 
York,  and  American  methods  for  producing  ice — a  topic 
of  interest  even  to  Russians  because  the  rapid  growth 
of  cities  required  more  reliable  methods  of  cold  storage 
for  perishable  foodstuffs.'"  A  direct  correlation  between 
Russian  and  American  interests  appeared  in  a  favorable 
review  of  the  Russo-American  Rubber  Company  pavilion 
at  the  1876  Centennial  Exhibition  in  Philadelphia,  in 
which  Russians  recorded  American  comments  on  Russian 
art."  Yet  attention  remained  primarily  on  American 
builders,  whose  accomplishments  made  St.  Petersburg's 
building  boom  seem  modest. 

In  general,  contributors  to  Zodchii  showed  little  interest 
in  exploring  the  principles  underlying  the  new  American 
architecture,  but  there  were  occasional  comments  that 
showed  the  Russians'  perceptions  of  what  the  American 
experience  meant  for  the  development  of  architecture. 
In  an  article  about  the  journal  American  Architect  and 
Building  News — a  frequent  source  of  information  for 
Zodchii — the  reviewer  not  only  provided  a  detailed 
description  of  the  American  publication,  but  also 
commented  on  what  he  saw  as  the  pervasive  influence 
of  the  nineteenth-century  French  theoretician  Etienne 
Viollet-le-Duc,  whose  writings  played  a  major  role 
in  discussions  on  the  nature  of  Russian  architecture 
during  this  period.  Particularly  noted  is  Viollet-le-Duc's 
mfluence  on  American  "practicality"  and  on  American 
architects'  return  to  medieval  architecture  as  a  source  of 
guidance,  not  in  a  literal  or  historicist  sense,  but  for  a  new 
understanding  of  structural  support  systems  in  building.'* 


27 


Technology  and  Architecture  at  the  End  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century 

It  can  be  argued  that  Russian  architects  were  receptive 
to  favorable  reports  on  the  American  republic  by  virtue 
of  their  obvious  professional  interests  in  economic  growth 
and  technical  progress.  Although  architecture  had  its 
social  and  ideological  uses  in  Russian  society,  Russian 
architects  could  praise  American  buildings  and  technology 
without  implying  political  views  of  either  monarchic  or 
radical  tint.  Indeed,  expressions  of  wonder  continued 
unabated  from  Zodchii's  correspondents.  An  1879  report 
on  Leadville,  a  mining  town  in  Colorado,  noted  that  it 
"sprang  up  as  if  by  magic"  in  this  "land  of  wonders." 
Surely  such  references  would  have  suggested  visions  of  the 
rapid  exploitation  of  the  rich  unsettled  regions  of  Siberia 
and  other  parts  of  Russia.  A  report  on  the  development  of 
the  telephone  in  America  stated:  "One  can  indeed  call 
America  the  land  of  application  of  scientific  theories  to 
practice  and  to  life.  While  we  engage  in  debates  over  the 
practicality  and  future  of  the  telephone,  city  telephone 
networks  are  being  created  in  America."" 

America  was  frequently  referred  to  as  the  standard  for 
comparison  in  construction  and  technology,  as  can  be  seen, 
for  example,  in  an  article  on  the  efficiency  of  American 
housing  construction:  "Our  masons,  carpenters,  and  other 
craftsmen — would  be  amazed  at  the  speed  and  daring  of 
the  Americans."  This  highly  favorable  account  took  notice 
of  cooperation  between  New  York's  housing  contractors 
and  municipal  authorities  in  the  laying  of  utility  lines 
and  the  subsequent  paving  of  streets  and  sidewalks.  Also 
noted  was  the  reliance  on  prefabricated,  standardized 
components — for  example,  window  frames  and  doors — in 
the  design  of  urban  homes. '^  efficiencies  that  would  later 
become  a  central  part  of  Soviet  housing  construction, 
but  on  an  altogether  different  scale.  Another  news  item 
described  the  opening  of  New  York's  Metropolitan  Opera 
House,  with  the  usual  hyperbole  "enormous." 

Beginning  in  1882,  most  of  the  brief  technical  news 
items  on  American  architecture  appeared  in  Nedelia 
stroitelia  (Builder's  Week),  the  newly  established  weekly 
supplement  to  Zodchii.  Nedelia  stroitelia  contained 
excerpts  from  the  journal  Scientific  American,  as  well  as 
reports  from  American  publications  on  new  buildings, 
technical  innovations,  and  occasional  disasters.  Theater 
fires  were  noted  with  particular  frequency.  In  1885. 
Nedelia  stroitelia  paraphrased  an  article  from  the 
popular  journal  Niva  on  the  recent  completion  of  the 
Washington  Monument.  Referring  to  the  monument  as 
"colossal,"  Nedelia  stroitelia  took  a  very  critical  view  of  "an 
unattractive  and  crude  structure"  and  said  "the  monument 
is  striking  by  the  lack  of  all  taste."'"  The  tone  of  this 


report  cannot,  it  seems,  be  attributed  to  anti-American 
sentiment,  but  rather  to  the  monument's  sharp  break 
with  contemporary  tastes  regarding  heavily  ornamented 
memorials — for  example,  London's  Albert  Memorial, 
completed  in  1872  by  Sir  George  Gilbert  Scott,  and  the 
early  1880s  entries  in  the  competition  for  the  design  of  the 
Church  of  the  Resurrection  of  the  Savior  on  the  Blood  in 
St.  Petersburg. 

Most  of  the  reports  on  America  in  Zodchii  and  Nedelia 
stroitelia  dealt  with  commercial  architecture  in  cities, 
from  Boston  and  Philadelphia  to  New  Orleans  and 
San  Francisco.  The  centers  of  attention,  however,  were 
Chicago  and  New  York,  which  represented  the  most 
concentrated  expression  of  the  American  ethos.  In  the 
mid-1880s.  Nedelia  stroitelia  reported  on  projects  for 
the  building  of  a  New  York  City  subway,  techniques  of 
elevator  construction,  the  number  of  houses  and  firemen 
in  the  city,  water  systems,  sanitation,  the  city's  telephone 
network,  and  the  dedication  of  the  Statue  of  Liberty.  Land 
prices  in  New  York  were  "fabulous."  but  the  operative 
word  was  "colossal" — as  in  a  "colossal  new  bridge"  between 
New  York  and  New  Jersey,  or  the  "colossal  building"  for 
the  newspaper  New  York  World,  which  was  twenty-six 
stories,  constructed  from  iron,  steel,  and  brick."  Although 
the  reporter  had  difficulty  in  describing  a  building  of  such 
unprecedented  scale,  the  Russians  had  finally  discovered 
the  skyscraper;  during  the  next  decade,  reports  on  this 
American  form  would  appear  regularly  in  the  Russian 
architectural  press. 

Appropriately,  the  first  detailed  descriptions  of  the 
skyscraper  appeared  in  articles  on  Chicago,  where 
preparations  for  the  1893  Columbian  Exposition 
stimulated  an  interest  in  the  city  unparalleled  since  the 
Great  Fire  of  1871.  The  exposition  was  the  subject  of 
extensive  reports;  such  as  an  analysis  of  the  planning 
and  construction  of  the  site,  with  statistics  from  the 
German  publication  Deutsche  Bauzeitung.  The  account 
mentioned  the  firm  Holabird  and  Roche,  a  rare  occasion  in 
which  the  Russian  press  identified  American  architects." 
Among  other  news  items  on  the  exposition  was  an  ecstatic 
report  on  the  project  to  construct  an  all-electric  house, 
described  as  a  glimpse  into  the  future."  A  general  review 
of  construction  in  Chicago  noted  that  for  six  years  a  new 
type  of  structure,  based  on  a  skeletal  steel  frame  on  a 
reinforced  concrete  foundation,  had  been  developed;  but 
the  reports  were  tentative  and  made  no  mention  of  specific 
architects.'" 

In  1893.  the  crescendo  of  attention  surrounding  the 
Chicago  exposition  reached  a  peak.  The  first  issues  of 
Nedelia  stroitelia  contained  lead  articles  describing  the 


28 


pavilions  and  the  frenetic,  last-minute  preparations 
in  the  area  between  Jackson  and  Washington  parks. 
In  addition  to  reciting  the  fair's  greatest  architectural 
achievements  and  its  surpassing  dimensions,  the  unsigned 
correspondent  acknowledged  the  guiding  presence  of 
Messrs.  John  Root — whose  death  in  1891  was  noted — and 
Daniel  Burnham,  who  served  as  chief  of  construction  for 
the  exposition.-"  After  1893,  there  appears  to  have  been 
no  further  notice  of  these  two  pioneers  of  the  Chicago 
School  in  the  Russian  press. 

Some  observers  looked  beyond  the  extravaganza  of  the 
exposition  to  the  more  solid  achievements  of  the  Chicago 
School.  One  compact  but  informative  report  noted  that 
"giant  buildings  here  bear  the  strange  name  'Sky 
Scrapers'"  and  contended  that  Chicago  was  particularly 
"rich  in  these  buildings,"  despite  a  growing  reluctance  to 
insure  them.-'  The  nineteen-story  Auditorium  Hotel,  more 
commonly  known  as  the  Auditorium  (1886-90),  was 
described  as  an  example  of  the  speed  of  construction 
possible  with  the  new  technology.  The  description  included 
an  abundance  of  statistics  concerning  the  building's  cost, 
its  height,  its  weight,  the  number  of  bricks  needed  for 
construction,  and  the  length  of  its  water  and  gas  pipes. 
Yet  there  is  no  mention  of  the  style  of  this  spectacular 
building,  nor  of  the  architect,  Louis  Sullivan.  For  Russian 
architectural  critics,  "style"  was  to  be  found  in  Europe; 
America  was  the  land  of  statistics  and  technology. 


American  Pragmatism  and  the  New  Urban 
Environment 

However  significant  the  role  played  by  the  French  school 
in  American  design,  Russian  observers  were  more 
interested  in  the  practical  results  of  American  technical 
developments.  In  1895,  Viktor  Evald — the  editor  of 
Zodchii  and  one  of  the  most  frequent  commentators  on 
American  civil  engineering — provided  an  account  of 
skyscraper  construction  in  New  York  and  Chicago,  with 
particular  attention  to  methods  of  foundation  support  for 
the  steel  frames.  Impressed  by  the  size  and  technology  of 
such  large  structures,  Evald  took  a  dim  view  of  their 
aesthetic  qualities  and  predicted  that  they  would  create 
an  urban  environment  in  which  "some  of  the  main  streets 
will  be  enclosed  between  two  rows  of  tall,  gloomy  cubes, 
with  small,  separate  windows  in  which  the  sun  never 
peers.  Such  streets  will  resemble  narrow  canals  or 
streams,  flowing  at  the  base  of  deep  ravines."^^  This  poetic 
image  was  followed  by  the  observation  that  American 
skyscrapers  were  intended  for  use  between  eight  and  five, 
after  which  time  the  central  areas  of  American  cities 


became  depopulated. 

Subsequently,  Evald  wrote  a  book  entitled  Structural 
Characteristics  of  Buildings  in  North  America,  and  in  1899 
he  continued  his  analysis  of  the  American  skyscraper  with 
an  extensive  report  on  a  fire  at  the  sixteen-story  Home 
Life  Insurance  Company  building  on  Broadway  Avenue, 
constructed  in  1893.  His  observations  regarding  the  still- 
far-from-ideal  methods  of  fire  prevention  in  tall  buildings 
were  based,  in  large  part,  on  data  from  the  German 
publication  Thonindustrie-Zeitung,  which  represented  the 
producers  of  fire-retardant  ceramic  shields. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  century,  reports  on  skyscrapers 
and  fires  in  American  cities  appeared  in  roughly  equal 
measure.  In  1903,  Zodchii  published  a  technical  review  of 
recent  progress  in  the  area  of  skyscraper  construction, 
with  special  attention  to  new  methods  of  insulating  the 
steel  frame  from  the  effects  of  intense  heat  (many  of  these 
advances  were  introduced  after  the  Pittsburgh  fire  of 
1897).  Drawing  upon  books  by  Joseph  Freitag  and  William 
Birkmire — prominent  American  civil  engineers 
specializing  in  the  design  of  skyscrapers — the  writer 
attributed  the  extraordinary  increase  in  tall  buildings  in 
America  to  three  basic  developments:  the  cheap  and 
efficient  production  of  high-quality  rolled  steel;  the 
production  of  new  types  of  fire-resistant  coating  for  steel 
frames;  and  the  introduction  of  rapid  elevators. ^^ 

Fire  had,  of  course,  been  an  enemy  of  Russian  cities  from 
time  immemorial,  yet  there  was  a  specific  interest  in  the 
spectacular  effects  of  fire  on  the  new  American  urban 
environment,  even  though  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from 
these  conflagrations  had  limited  applications  in  Russia. 
The  1904  issues  of  Zodchii  contained  several  items  on  this 
subject,  among  which  was  a  report  on  the  devastating 
Iroquois  Theater  fire,  in  which  some  four  hundred  died, 
and  a  survey  of  measures  for  fire  safety  in  other  major 
Chicago  theaters,  including  the  Auditorium.-^  A 
subsequent  article  described  methods  of  fire  prevention 
developed  by  the  firm  Adler  and  Sullivan.^*  The 
culmination  of  this  inflammatory  obsession  appeared  in 
the  journal's  extensive  coverage  of  the  great  Baltimore  fire 
of  February  1904.  Based  on  reports  in  the  New  York 
Herald.  Zodchii  provided  a  general  description  of  the 
disaster  and  its  effect  on  the  city  in  the  first  article.-'*  The 
second  article  took  a  more  technical  approach,  examining 
the  conditions  of  large  structures  after  the  fire.  The 
conclusion,  bolstered  by  information  from  the  German 
publication  Stahl  und  Eisen.  discussed  the  remarkable 

progress  in  protecting  steel  frames  from  fire  damage." 


29 


.o 


^-:4n 


f 


\i ' 


Figure  1.  Northern  Insurance  Company  building,  Moscow.  1909-1911.  Ivan  Rerberg.  Marian 
Peretiatkovich,  Viacheslav  Oltarzhevski  (Brumfield  M59-32) 


Visions  of  the  Sl<yscraper 

For  most  of  its  final  decade  of  publication,  Zodchii 
reported  with  regularity  on  new  developments  concerning 
American  skyscrapers.  Articles  appeared  on  the  Singer 
Building  in  1906,  on  the  Metropolitan  Life  Building  in 
1907,  and  on  buildings  by  Francis  Kimball  in  1908.  There 
were  also  reports  on  the  completion  of  other  major 
structures,  such  as  New  York's  Penn  Station  and  the  New 
York  Public  Library.  A  brief  notice  in  1908  commented  on 
the  "gigantomania"  of  Ernest  Flagg,  probably  the  most 
active  builder  of  skyscrapers  in  New  York:  "[Flagg]  dreams 
of  constructing  a  building  as  high  as  one  thousand  feet.... 
Even  the  Yankees  have  had  second  thoughts  about  this. 
There  are  reasonable  people  thinking  of  raising  the 
question  of  a  law  to  set  limits  on  the  flights  of  artists 
beyond  the  clouds."^*  Yet  after  1908,  for  no  clear  reason, 
the  number  of  articles  on  America  underwent  a  sharp,  if 
temporary,  decline.  In  1909,  the  only  item  on  America 
dealt  with  air  pollution  in  Chicago;  in  1910,  there  was  a 
single  report  on  a  new  bridge  in  Philadelphia;  and  in  1911, 
R.  Bernhard  reviewed  R.  Vogel's  book  Das  amerikanische 
Haus,  reflecting  a  growing  curiosity  about  the  American 
design  of  the  detached  house  and  its  suitability  as  a  model 
for  suburban  development  around  Moscow. 

The  reappearance  of  articles  on  American  architecture  and 
technology  in  Zodchii  was  due,  in  large  measure,  to  the 
Sixth  International  Congress  on  Materials  Testing,  held  at 
New  York's  Engineering  Societies  Building  in  1912.  Given 
the  standards  of  the  time,  it  is  noteworthy  that  the 
journal's  correspondent  was  a  woman,  Maria  Koroleva, 
about  whom  regrettably  little  is  known.  Her  dispatches 
provide  detailed  and  highly  technical  accounts  of  the 
proceedings,  as  well  as  an  analysis  of  the  construction  of 
New  York's  Woolworth  Building  by  Cass  Gilbert.-'  To 
Russian  observers,  the  Woolworth  Building  represented 
an  extreme  example  of  the  American  mania  for  the  office 
tower — a  mania  that  went  beyond  the  limits  of  economic 
feasibility,  according  to  the  writer  of  an  article  on  the 
building,  who  also  noted  that  its  primary  function  was  to 
serve  as  a  trademark  for  the  Woolworth  firms.'"  In  a 
series  of  postcards  entitled  "Moscow  in  the  Future,"  dating 
from  1913.  visionaries  in  Russia  were  producing  fanciful 
sketches  of  a  "new  Moscow,"  which  bore  a  distinct 
resemblance  to  midtown  Manhattan.""   Indeed,  the  first 
tentative  steps  in  this  direction  had  already  been  taken 
with  the  completion  of  Ivan  Rerberg's  modest  tower  for  the 
Northern  Insurance  Company  in  central  Moscow  in  1911.'- 
(Fig.l) 

The  increasingly  specific  technical  descriptions  of  the 
engineering  involved  in  the  construction  of  skyscrapers 


and  their  skeletal  steel  frames  indicate  that  Russian 
builders  were  prepared  to  undertake  such  projects. 
World  War  I  and  subsequent  events,  however,  postponed 
the  large-scale  application  of  this  technology  until  the  late 
1940s.  The  most  significant  statement  of  this  convergence 
between  American  and  Russian  goals  in  civil  engineering 
appeared  in  Nikolai  Lakhtin's  two-part  survey  of  the 
latest  techniques  for  the  use  of  steel  and  reinforced 
concrete  in  New  York's  skyscrapers.'^  For  Lakhtin 
Russia's  economic  future  clearly  pointed  toward  the 
American  model  in  urban  architecture: 

Industry,  trade,  and  technology  are  developing, 
prices  for  land  parcels  are  growing,  telephones 
and  other  communications  cannot  always  satisfy 
demand;  in  short,  circumstances  analogous  to 
those  in  America  are  gradually  arising  in  our 
urban  centers.  These  circumstances  make  it 
necessary  to  construct  tall  buildings,  which  must 
be  erected  on  a  steel  frame. '^ 

With  this  imperative  in  mind,  Lakhtin  analyzed  the  tall 
building  from  foundation  to  wind  braces  and  made 
detailed  drawings  of  key  points  in  the  steel  column  and 
girder  structure.  The  same  message,  regarding  the 
convergence  of  Russian  and  American  architectural 
conditions,  was  propagated  at  the  Fifth  Congress  of 
Russian  Architects  in  1913  by  Lakhtin  and  Edmond 
Perrimond,  both  of  whom  had  recently  attended 
conferences  in  America  and  returned  to  Russia  convinced 
of  the  relevance  of  the  new  American  architecture.'" 

With  the  onset  of  war,  visions  of  growth,  progress,  and 
technical  development  receded,  and  with  them  the 
possibilities  of  an  American-style  construction  boom  in 
Russia.  These  visions  were  undoubtedly  unrealistic  or 
premature;  Lakhtin  once  went  so  far  as  to  compare  the 
subsoil  of  St.  Petersburg  with  that  of  New  York  to  assess 
whether  it  could  support  tall  buildings.  During  the  war 
years,  references  to  America  dwindled,  with  the  exception 
of  a  series  of  detailed  articles  written  in  1916  by  Roman 
Beker  on  small  community  library  buildings  in  America. 
Beker  presented  a  highly  favorable  view  of  these 
structures  because  of  their  design,  and  also  because  they 
seemed  to  express  the  democratic  belief  in  education  for 
the  people.'"  In  1917,  America's  entry  into  the  war  on  the 
side  of  the  Entente  produced  renewed  interest  in  the 
United  States;  but  at  the  end  of  1917,  Zodchii  ceased 
publication.  In  a  wholly  unintended  irony,  the  last  article 
published  in  the  journal  bore  the  title  "American 
Engineers  and  the  War."" 


31 


American  Architecture  as  Cultural  Model 


Notes 


An  element  of  fantasy  reigns  over  many  Russian 
perceptions  of  American  architecture,  even  those 
expressed  in  the  pages  of  sohd  professional  journals — not 
to  mention  the  more  imaginative,  if  less  reliable,  passages 
from  literary  works  such  as  Maksim  Gorkii's  City  of 
the  Yellow  Devil  (1906).  This  air  of  unreality  must  be 
attributed  in  part  to  the  different  levels  of  development 
between  Russia  and  America  at  the  time,  and  to  the  great 
distance  separating  the  two  countries.  Yet  for  all  of  these 
limitations,  there  is  evidence  to  suggest  that  the  extensive 
Russian  reporting  on  American  architecture  established 
a  receptivity  to  technology  that  would  continue — and 
in  some  respects  increase — after  the  revolution,  despite 
barriers  to  exchanges  of  information.^* 

Beyond  the  specific  function  of  America  as  a  model  in 
civil  engineering  and  architectural  design,  there  is  the 
broader  issue  of  cultural  perception,  which  Zodchii  was 
uniquely  qualified  to  convey.  Although  technical  concerns 
are  of  obvious  importance  to  members  of  the  architectural 
profession,  architecture  as  an  art  and  as  a  building 
technology  also  participates  in  the  social  and  cultural 
values  of  the  environment  that  it  shapes.  In  this  respect, 
Russian  reports  and  articles  on  American  architecture 
reveal  a  continual  measuring.  America  is  seen  as  the 
ultimate  standard,  regardless  of  Russia's  more  immediate 
relation  to  Europe.  Paradoxically,  this  taking  of  measure 
reflects,  on  a  deeper  level,  a  type  of  nationalism  that  seeks 
a  model  commensurate  with  its  own  aspirations.  Only 
America,  with  its  continental  sweep  and  boundless  energy, 
provided  a  comparable  scale  for  the  challenges  confronting 
Russian  builders. 

No  other  form  of  endeavor  in  Russia  expressed  this 
relation  to  America  as  clearly  as  architecture,  with 
its  emphasis  on  both  the  pragmatic  and  the  cultural. 
Whatever  suspicions  Russian  thinkers  such  as  Dostoevskii 
might  harbor  toward  American  culture,  the  material 
from  Zodchii  suggests  that  the  two  countries  have  often 
perceived  in  each  other  a  set  of  values  and  characteristics 
that  are  tacitly  admired  and  accepted  as  one's  own.  Hence 
the  willingness  of  Russian  observers  to  repeat  the  terms 
of  American  boosterism — "colossal."  "enormous."  and 
"fast" — even  while  offering  skeptical  comments.  These  are 
the  terras  that  have  appealed  to  the  Russians'  own  sense 
of  destiny — terms  that,  despite  immeasurable  social  and 
cultural  differences,  indicate  in  the  broadest  sense  the 
presence  of  shared  ideals. 


1.  Fedor  M.  Dostoevskji.  Polnoe  sobranie  sochinenti  v  tridtsati  tomakh  (Leningrad: 
Nauka.  1980),  21:106. 

2.  For  a  history  of  the  foundation  of  the  Moscow  Architectural  Society,  see  lu.  S. 
Laralov,  ed.  100  let  obshcheslvennykh  arkhitekturnykh  organizalsii  V  SSSR,  1S67- 
1967  (Moscow:  Soiuz  arkhitektorov.  1967),  6-11. 

3.  laralov.  ed..  100  let.  12. 

4.  The  complicated  publishing  history  of  Zodchii  and  its  supplement  Nedelia 
stroitelia  is  presented  in  laralov,  ed.  100  let,  103-4. 

5-  Zodchii.  1872.  no.  3:  46, 

6,  Ihid.,  1873.  no.  9:  110.  based  on  material  taken  from  Birzhevye  vedomosti. 

7,  Ibid,,  1873.  no,  9:  107-8, 

8,  Ibid. 

9,  Ibid,.  1873,  no.  7-8:  94. 

10,  See  Zodchii.  1876,  no.  7:85,  based  on  material  from  .4rmenian  Architect  and 
Building  News. 

11,  Ibid.,  no.  11-12:  120. 

12,  Ibid.,  1877,  no.  3:  29-30. 

13,  Ibid,.  1880,  no,  3-4:  33, 

14,  Ibid,,  no,  6:  49-50, 

15,  Nedelia  stroitelia,  1885.  no,  15:  3, 

16,  Ibid.,  1891,  no.  3-4:  20. 

17,  Ibid,,  no,  39-40:  385-86, 

18,  Ibid,,  no.  26:  288. 

19,  Ibid.,  1892.  no.  46:  313. 

20,  Ibid.,  1893.  no,  1:  2-3,  and  no,  3:10-11, 

21,  Ibid,,  no,  14:62, 

22,  Ibid,,  1895.  no,  29:155;  the  article  is  entitled  "Sky  Cities." 

23,  Ibid.,  1903,  no.  51:  605-8, 

24    Ibid,,  1904,  no,  8:  86-89.  and  no.  11:137-38.  with  material  from  Deutsche 
Bauzeitung. 

25,  Ibid.,  no.  17:  207-8. 

26,  Ibid,,  no,  26:  303, 

27,  Ibid,,  no,  39:  431-35,  with  numerous  photographs  of  tall  buildings  standing 
among  the  ruins, 

28,  Ibid-,  1908.  no,  40:  375, 

29,  Ibid.,  1912.  no,  46:  455-59:  no,  47:  467-70:  and  no,  48:  479-81, 

30,  Ibid.,  1912.  no,  52:  522, 

31,  See  E,  I,  Kirichenko,  Moskva:  Pamiatniki  arkhitektuty  lS30-19I0-kh  godov 
(Moscow:  Iskusstvo,  1977),  95-99, 

32,  The  tower  has  survived  very  well  in  contemporary  Moscow,  See  photograph 
in  William  Craft  Brurafield,  The  Origins  of  Modernism  in  Russian  Architecture 
(Berkeley:  University  of  California  Press.  1991).  284. 

33,  Zodchii,  1913.  no,  18:  203-11,  and  no.  19:  215-21, 

34,  Ibid,,  no.  18:204,   ■ 

35,  Compare  to  Koroleva's  report  on  papers  read  at  the  technology  section  of  the 
Fifth  Congress,  Zodchii.  1914,  no,  3:  27, 

36    Ibid.,  1916,  no.  46:  412-16,  and  the  three  subsequent  issues,  with  floor  plans, 
photographs,  and  a  bibliography, 

37,  Ibid..  1917,  no,  47-52:  226-29. 

38,  Extensive  reports  based  on  personal  observations  of  American  architecture 
began  appearing  again  in  the  Russian  architectural  press  in  the  1980s,  For  example, 
Stroitel'naia  gazeta  published  an  interview  with  a  faculty  member  at  the  Leningrad 
Engineering  and  Construction  Institute,  who  had  visited  American  construction 
sites  in  1985  and  gave  a  positive  account  of  what  he  saw.  Even  the  terms  used  are 
reminiscent  of  those  in  Zodchii.  "Bystree — znachit  pribylnei"  {Faster  means  more 
profitable),  Stroitel'naia  gazeta.  March  3  1987:  3, 


32 


Figure  1.  Eh/iih. 1111,1,  .\l.,li,in 
Shaivite  cave,  sanctum  with 
lingam,  ca.  540  A.D. 


Michael  W.  Meister 

Access  and  Axes  of  Indian  Temples 


Figure  3.  Elephanta.  image  of 
Shiva  Mahadeva 


At  the  beginning,  before  the  creation  of  the  world,  sex,  and 
death,  the  Creator  Prajapati  formed  Rudra-Brahma  as  a 
pillar  to  separate  sky  and  water  and  to  start  time.  This 
pillar,  called  Skambha  ("the  frame  of  creation"),  instead 
retreated  to  the  bottom  of  the  cosmic  ocean,  and  waited  for 
procreation  to  begin  by  other  means.  "By  how  much  did 
Skambha  enter  the  existent?  How  much  of  him  lies  along 
that  which  will  exist?"  asks  the  sacred  Hindu  text  Atharva 
Veda  (AV  X.7.9).'   First  built  more  than  a  millennium 
after  the  Atharva  Veda  was  compiled,  an  early  Indian 
stone  temple  echoes  Skambha's  condensed  crouching  form. 

The  cubical  block  of  the  sanctum  in  the  famed  sixth- 
century  A.D.  Shaiva  cave  on  Elephanta  island  near 
Mumbai  lies  compressed  between  the  floor  and  ceiling 
of  a  mountain  excavation  (Fig.  1).  Its  four  cardinal 
doorways  are  protected  by  giant  guardian  figures.  This 
cella  can  be  approached  from  two  directions:  on  axis 
from  an  eastern  court  along  the  central  aisle  of  a  pillared 
hall,  or  indirectly,  from  the  north,  along  an  axis  facing 
an  immense  bust  of  the  "Great  Lord"  Mahadeva  Shiva, 
incarnate  with  cardinal  faces  (Fig.  3).  This  Shiva  image 
rests  within  the  mountain,  as  if  looking  into  the  cave's 
excavation  from  beyond  a  southern  entry-portico-  (Fig.  2). 

Access  to  early  temples  was  at  first  limited  to  the  deity 
and  its  cult  functionaries.  Temple  17,  built  at  Sanchi  (an 
early  first-century  Buddhist  site)  ca.  425  A.D.,  has  often 
been  called  the  earliest  surviving  stone  Hindu  temple. 


intended  to  shelter  an  icon  of  a  deity  (Fig.  4).  It  consists 
of  a  small  masonry  cube  with  an  inner  sanctum  and  four- 
pillared  portico,  suitable  for  the  approach  of  only  one 
person  at  a  time.  Such  a  temple  was  a  point  of  power, 
seen  as  a  "crossing"  (tirtha),  a  mechanism  for  seducing 
the  divine  into  the  created  world,  and  a  tool  for  the 
transformation  of  the  worshiper. 

This  manifestation  of  the  divine  was  gradually  marked 
on  temple  walls  by  axes  in  the  ground  plan  that  project 
sacred  interior  spaces  onto  offsets  of  the  exterior  walls, 
providing  facets  where  sculptures  of  varying  aspects  of  the 
divinity  and  creation  could  be  placed  and  viewed 
(Figs.  5  &  6).  In  some  temples  in  the  seventh  century, 
however,  these  cardinal  projections  show  shuttered  doors 
rather  than  images,  emphasizing  the  secure  nature  of 
the  shrine  and  limiting  visual  access  of  the  deity  to  those 
whose  function  was  to  administer  to  it  in  the 
sanctum  (Figs.  7  &  8). 

Image-worship  increasingly  replaced  rites  of  sacrifice 
by  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  and  temple  rituals 
began  to  focus  more  on  the  role  of  an  audience  of  devotees 
and  the  experience  of  worship.  The  cosmological  plan 
of  the  temple  expanded,  but  access  to  the  shrine  and 
sanctum  remained  limited  and  controlled.  These  temples 
were  "monuments  of  manifestation"^  in  Stella  Kramrisch's 
words— cosmic  mountains,  but  also  markers  of  creation, 
palaces  of  the  gods,  and  machines  for  social  order 


33 


Figure  4.  Sanchi,  Madhya 
Pradesh,  temple  17,  ca.  425 


.^..^UiST 


Figure  5.  Projection  of  sacred  space  onto  walls  of  the  temple:  Bhubaneshwar,  Orissa, 
Parasurameshvara  temple,  ca.  600  (left);  Mahua.  MP,  Shiva  temple  no.  1.  ca.  650-75 


Figure  6.  Bhubaneshwar. 
Parasurameshvara  temple, 
south  view 


Figure  9.  Masrur,  Himachal  Pradesh.  Shaivite  temple, 
ca.  725-75.  section 


Figure  8.  Sirpur.  Lakshmana  temple, 
view  from  southwest 


temple,  wall  with  blind  shutters,  ca.  600-25 


#n|M|njL 


Figure  10.  Masrur.  ground  plan 


#  ^-ii% 


<"1 


Figure  11.  Expansion  of  temple  plans:  North 
and  South  India 


34 


IW»9a)  Vnlnjcw.  I  Tv>  ca<*«y 


Figure  12.  Vishnupiir.  Bengal.  Eastern  India  in  the  17th  century 


Figure  13.  Osian,  Rajasthan,  Sachiyamata  hiil.  temple 
complex,  8th — 20th  century 


(Figs.  9  &  10).  Temple  Hinduism  gradually  took  on 
political  and  social  roles  that  transformed  the  temple, 
expanding  its  plan  along  a  path  of  human  approach, 
an  "axis  of  access."  As  architecture  and  changing  usage 
evolved  over  many  centuries,  open  halls  were  added  to 
walled  halls,  additional  pavilions  were  built,  enclosing 
fences  became  compounds,  and  compounds  grew  to  cities. 
In  South  India,  seasonal  festivals  and  rites  evolved  that 
brought  the  deity  out  into  the  city  and  countryside,  giving 
access  to  populations  not  allowed  entry  to  the  sanctum 
(Fig.  11). 

As  I  have  noted  elsewhere,  "The  Hindu  temple  must  also 
act  as  access  and  approach  for  aspirants  and  worshipers. 
This  role  changes  the  temple  from  a  centralized, 
bilaterally  symmetrical  structure  (reflecting  the  nature  of 
the  cosmogonic  process)  to  one  with  a  defined  longitudinal 
axis.  On  that  axis  the  worshipers  approach  their  personal 
divinity  within  the  sanctum;  but  also  on  that  axis  the 
aspirants  increasingly  can  place  themselves,  in  halls  built 
for  that  purpose,  as  if  under  the  umbrella  of  the  sacrificer, 
positioning  themselves  for  ascent."' 

Two  alignments,  however,  coexist.  One  is  centralized, 
symmetrical,  and  expresses  a  cosmic  order  in  which  the 
deity  dwells.  The  other  is  linear,  signifying  the  approach 
of  humans  in  this  world.  In  seventeenth-century  Bengal,  a 
new  type  of  temple  was  created,  built  in  brick,  for  rituals 
"hidden"  from  Islamic  hegemony.  These  temples  retain 
an  east-west  axis  for  priests  to  enter  the  sanctum  and 
attend  to  the  god.  But  they  also  have  a  north-south  axis 
to  provide  visual  access  to  an  assembly  of  devotees  who 
sing  and  dance  in  the  temple's  court,  "emphasizing  the 
participation  of  the  community"  (Fig.  12).''  These  temples 
take  on  the  form  of  a  village  compound.  Such  dual  axes 
for  esoteric  and  popular  rituals  had  already  been  augured 
at  Elephanta  (Fig.  3),  yet  here  communities  of  worshipers 
commanded  access  that  in  previous  centuries  had  often 
been  limited  or  denied. 


The  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  once-closed  machine 
of  the  temple  has,  over  time,  taken  on  the  flexibility  to 
adapt  to  radically  changing  social  circumstances,  giving 
access  to  a  variety  and  multitude  of  communities  (Fig.  13). 
Even  as  the  Creator  Prajapati's  Skambha  cowered  in  the 
primordial  waters  long  ago,  the  potential  for  creation  of 
the  sexually  charged,  multivalent,  multicultural  universes 
served  by  Hindu  temples  had  become  its  ordering  force. ^ 

Early  Hinduism  focused  on  rites  of  sacrifice.  Temples 
to  shelter  images  of  deities  were  built  in  early  medieval 
India  as  instruments  of  priestly  cults.  To  patronize  cult 
communities  became  a  means  to  extend  kingship.  Yet 
through  such  community  patronage,  temples  gradually 
became  public  institutions.'  Today  communities  have 
taken  the  place  of  kings,  and  temples  function  in  fresh 
ways,  with  a  renewal  of  multiple  pivots  of  access. 


Notes 

1.  Atharva-veda  Samhita,  trans.  William  Dwight  Whitney,  rev.  and  ed.  Charles 
Rockwell  Lanman,  Harvard  Oriental  Series,  vol   7-8  (Cambridge:  Harvard 
University,  1905). 

2.  Stella  Kramrisch,  The  Presenee  of  S'iva  (Princeton:  Princeton  University  Press, 
1981).  443-68. 

3.  Stella  Kramrisch,  The  Hindu  Temple  (Calcutta:  University  of  Calcutta,  1946), 
passim, 

4.  Michael  W.  Meister.  "Temple:  Hindu  Temples."  in  The  Encyclopedia  of  Religion, 
ed,  Mircea  Eliade  (New  York:  Macmillan  Publishing  Company)  vol.  14,  372:  "The 
whole  intention  of  the  Vedic  Tradition  and  of  the  sacrifice  is  to  define  the  Way  by 
which  the  aspirant  ...  can  ascend  [the  three]  worlds,'  wrote  Ananda  Coomaraswamy, 
'Earth,  Air,  and  Sky  ,..  compose  the  vertical  Axis  of  the  Universe....  [These  are]  the 
Way  by  which  the  Devas  first  strode  up  and  down  these  worlds  ...  and  the  Way  for 
the  .Sacrificer  now  to  do  likewise,'" 

.5,    Pika  Ghosh.  Temple  to  Love,  Architecture  and  Devotion  in  Seventeenth-Century 
Bengal  (Bloomington  &  Indianapolis:  Indiana  University  Press,  2005).  138. 

6,  Michael  W,  Meister.  "Sweetmeats  or  Corpses'?  Community,  Conversion,  and 
Sacred  Places,"  in  Open  Boundaries,  Jain  Communities  and  Cultures  in  Indian 
History,  ed,  John  E,  Cort  (Albany:  State  University  of  New  York,  1998),  111-38, 

7,  Arjun  Appadurai,  "Kings.  Sects  and  Temples  in  South  India.  1350-1700  A,D.,"  in 
South  Indian  Temples,  ed.  Burton  Stein  (New  Delhi:  Vikas  Publishing  House,  1978). 
47-73, 


35 


Soft  pod  skin  and  muscle 


A  project  by  OJ  Studio:  Neri  Oxman  and  Mitchell  Joachiim 

PeristalCity:  A  Circulatory  Habitat  Cluster 
for  Manhattan 


New  York  City's  first  skyscraper,  or  what  might  be 
considered  as  such,  was  built  in  1902  (Flatiron  building). 
Since  then,  skyscrapers  have  come  to  define  the  city's 
distinctive  skyline.  Despite  their  captivating  image, 
skyscrapers  in  New  York  City  (as  well  as  in  other 
cities  throughout  the  world)  have  not  yet  overcome  the 
limitations  of  their  most  basic  function:  the  vertical 
navigation  of  their  inhabitants. 

The  elevators  in  these  buildings  have  long  constrained 
compositional  forms.  More  significantly,  these  elevators 
limit  the  arrangement  of  social  practices  with  regards 
to  both  labor  and  leisure.  But  elevators  stifle  more  than 
just  our  movement  by  virtue  of  their  rectangular  rigid 
planes  and  fleeting  cars.  Temporally  speaking,  the  vast 
space  of  the  elevator  shaft  is  almost  always  vacant, 
and  thus  useless.  But  suppose  we  embraced  a  different 


interpretation  of  that  inactive  and  sequestered  domain 
which  much  of  this  central  shaft  represents.  It  would 
demand  a  vital  shift,  or  at  least  a  conceptual  reworking, 
towards  an  active  utilization  of  such  a  space.  This 
possibility  is  precisely  what  our  design  explores. 

By  substituting  a  dynamic  spatial  application  for  the 
traditional  organization  of  a  skyscraper's  core,  we 
dissolve  the  dichotomy  between  circulation  and  static 
habitable  environments.  We  have  eliminated  typological 
stacking  where  limited  social  practices  are  allocated 
to  different  floors.  Instead,  we  propose  a  spatial  layout 
that  establishes  heterogeneous  movements,  and  not 
just  assorted  practices,  as  the  criteria  for  a  dynamic 
assemblage.  The  following  set  of  statements  will  explain 
how  this  is  envisioned: 


36 


.;    f 


Front  view  of"  sky  surface  and  urban  cluster 


37 


Concept:  Circulation  =  Space 

An  inhabitable  pocket  is  contained  within  a  flexible 
element.  It  is  a  module  that  flows  in  a  vertical  trajectory, 
responding  to  other  neighboring  units,  and  with  the 
surrounding  members.  Their  positioning  is  determined 
and  managed  by  a  responsive  signaling  system. 

Technology:  Fluidic  Muscle  Tectonics 

Peristalsis  is  derived  from  the  ancient  Greek  peristaltikos. 
which  means  contraction.  Today  the  word  is  often  used 
in  medicine,  referring  to  the  rippling  motion  of  muscles  in 
tubular  organs,  which  are  characterized  by  the  alternate 
contraction  as  well  as  relaxation  of  the  muscles  that 
propel  the  contents  onward.  Although  its  use  in  medicine 
predominated,  this  phenomenon  became  a  point  of 
departure  for  the  technology  that  enables  this  form  of 
spatial  and  social  dynamics. 

Fluidic  muscle  technology  provides  much  flexibility  of 
use  when  designing  with  pneumatic  structures  (these  are 
mostly  inflatable  structural  forms  stabilized  wholly  or 
mainly  by  pressure  differences  of  gases  or  liquids).  This 
is  a  soft,  pliable,  sealed,  and  non- mechanical  innovation, 
which  encapsulates  the  volume  of  the  structure  with 
textile-reinforced  hoses  executing  a  peristaltic  action. 
Thus,  the  spatial  modules  are  able  to  create  an  articulated 
motion  that  is  symbiotically  connected  to  an  urban 
armature,  a  large  frame  that  stabilizes  those  "peristaltic 
sacks"  in  place. 

Social  Construct: 

Urban  Cluster/Mixed  Use 

Here,  at  West  Side  railyards,  we  imagine  a  metropolitan 
assemblage  that  registers  mobility  and  freedom.  As  a 
vibrant  set  of  mixed  and  multi-use  programs,  it  operates 
both  in  section  and  plan,  allowing  for  dynamic  vertical 
reallocation  and  planar  expansion  of  the  space.  On  the 
ground  plane  a  multistory  plinth  fits  the  cluster  into  the 
metabolism  of  the  cityscape.   The  assemblage  acts  as  an 
elevated  setting  for  cultural  and  multimode  uses  (e.g. 
auditoriums,  esplanades,  piers,  and  parking). 

Environment:  Sky-Surface 
as  Community  Realm 

The  sky-surface  is  the  eventual  destination  for  the 
transportable  unit  occupants,  with  pleasurable  retreats 


and  striking  vistas  overlooking  the  Hudson.  At  this 
juncture  the  collective  body  of  the  cluster  is  granted  the 
capability  to  gather  democratically. 


Perspective:  Urban  Window 

The  peristaltic-fabric  is  designed  as  a  sequential 
organization  around  an  "urban  window"  condition — a 
visual  gateway  to  both  city  and  waterfront  allowing  a 
selection  of  interchanging  viewing  angles  and  heights. 
This  temporal  effect  re-reads  the  city  constantly, 
promoting  a  quality  of  transparency  in  the  context  of 
urban  mass.  A  micro  cosmos  is  born  which  inter-relates 
habitation  to  light,  air,  space,  and  views  across  scales  of 
individual  units,  clusters  and  cities. 

If  there  is  one  feature  that  characterizes  the  Modernist 
project  in  the  twentieth  century  and  represents  its 
aspirations,  it  is  the  skyscraper.  This  project  has 
attempted  to  reconsider  and  critically  revisit  this  well- 
celebrated  typology  in  the  context  of  the  ever-growing  city 
of  the  twenty-first  century.  It  aims  to  develop  the  notion  of 
vertical  mobility  as  an  approach  to  the  changing  needs  of 
both  the  individual  and  the  collective. 

As  the  sole  signifier  of  vertical  rigidity,  both  programmatic 
and  performative,  elevator  and  core  have  been 
dematerialized  through  the  invention  of  PeristalCity. 


Inside  the  pods 


38 


imertlllUAl  ipAce  [conttdOirtg  <or« 


«ncnul  fluicK  rriuMle  f'btn 
mtniul  fluiAc  mwKir  Fibcn 


mipitui  xirvtty  pod 


Internal  muscles  and  skin  section 


inicrvllitwl  HU<r  l<onitd<IMg  COW 


Multistory  plinth  at  West  Side  railyards 


Pod  model 


Plan  of  pods 
and  solar  chart 


A  circulatory  habitat  cluster  for  Manhattan 


39 


Bobco  Metal  Headquarters.  Display  section 


Administrative  tunnel 


A  Project  by  the  Null  Lab 

The  Bobco  Metals  Company 

In  December  2004,  500  leading  art  critics  voted  Marcel 
Duchamp's  "Fountain,"  an  autographed  urinal,  one  of  the 
five  most  influential  works  of  modern  art  in  the  world; 
it  trumped  Pablo  Picasso's  paintings  "Les  Demoiselles 
d'Avignon"  and  "Guernica."  "Fountain"  is  an  extreme 
exercise  in  "found  art,"  the  undisguised  use  of  objects  that 
are  not  normally  considered  art.'  These  works  usually 
have  a  mundane  utilitarian  function,  yet  they  derive  their 
significance  from  the  designation  placed  upon  them  by  the 
artist.  Creation  of  an  architectural  space  in  traditional 
terras  represents  an  intentional  activity — in  this  sense, 
sites  are  inhabited  by  being  "found." 

We  here  at  Null  Lab  have  been  influenced  by  this  concept, 
and  its  application  can  be  seen  in  our  work  with  Bobco 
Metals,  a  self-described  "metals  supermarket." 
The  project  unfolded  as  we  explored  the  fabric  of  South 
Central  Los  Angeles  on  foot.  Situated  along  the  Alameda 
corridor,  a  narrow  concrete  intestine  that  digests  metal 
cars  and  trains  and  discharges  them  at  the  Long  Beach 
Port,  Bobco  Metals  is  no  Arcadia.  The  harsh,  even 
ferocious  urban  vibe  bestowed  a  kind  of  dramatic  merit 
on  a  landscape  covered  by  deteriorated  concrete  and 
littered  with  graffiti,  razor  wire  and  the  occasional  bullet 
hole.  Everywhere,  objects  were  chaotically  separated  in 
accordance  with  some  hidden  logic.  This  pedestrian-free 
zone  sits  on  the  border  of  South  Central  Los  Angeles, 


where  gang  wars  have  been  fought  for  thirty  odd  years. 
The  Bobco  Metals  Project  came  to  represent  a  protest 
against  standard  modes  of  production,  as  well  as  a 
statement  that  nothing  is  new,  only  found.  The  remix  of 
steel  and  hardware  represents  the  structure  of  a  "desire 
machine" — a  machine  that  abandons  interpretation 
because  no  analytical  thought  and  no  memory  pushes 
itself  between  the  space  and  your  sensory  system.  In  this 
project,  we  de-gravitated  the  metallic  particles  and  the 
forms  themselves,  then  shaped  a  "crystalline  narration"  in 
response  to  the  strange  and  disturbed  nature  of  its  milieu. 
Gilles  Deleuze  has  pointed  out  that  in  such  a  narration, 
the  sensory-motor  schemata  collapses: 

[Hjaving  lost  its  sensory-motor  connections, 
concrete  space  ceases  to  be  organized 
according  to  tensions  and  resolution  of  tension, 
according  to  goals,  obstacles,  means  or  even 
detours...  there  is  the  overlapping 
of  perspectives  which  does  not  allow 
the  grasping  of  a  given  object  because  there  are 
no  dimensions  in  relation  to  which  the 
unique  set  would  be  ordered. - 

In  the  Bobco  Metals  project,  layered  manifolds  and 
planes  present  a  viable  complexity  in  the  order  of 
established  architectural  tectonics.  One  of  the  most 
significant  achievements  of  such  a  system  is  the 
abolition  of  the  relationship  between  polar  modes:  the 
room  and  the  hallway,  the  inside  and  the  outside,  etc. 


40 


Administrative  tunnel  and  display  windows 


Layers  continuously  produce  unpredictable  effects  by 
multiplying  themselves  and  creating  interfaces  for  new 
currents.  In  the  Bobco  Metals  project,  layered  manifolds 
and  planes  present  a  viable  complexity  in  the  order  of 
established  architectural  tectonics.  One  of  the  most 
significant  achievements  of  such  a  system  is  the  abolition 
of  the  relationship  between  polar  modes:  the  room  and 
the  hallway,  the  inside  and  the  outside,  etc.  Layers 
continuously  produce  unpredictable  effects  by  multiplying 
themselves  and  creating  interfaces  for  new  currents. 
Recent  pattern  recognition  technology  has  provided 
us  with  physical  (quantitative)  mappings  of  affective 
and  expressionist  (qualitative)  values.  If  in  this  sense, 
there  is  a  geometry  associated  with  fear  or  lust,  it  is  our 
ambition  to  trace  them  for  the  geometries  of  architecture. 
Similarly,  on  a  movie  set.  dramatic  tension  is  extracted 
from  actors  not  only  through  direction  and  rehearsals, 
but  also  by  placing  the  actor  in  the  context  of  intensified 
lights,  aimed  cameras,  towering  scaffolds  and  artificial 
walls.  Such  post-functional  and  artificial  space  could  serve 
the  same  purpose  of  dramatization  when  placed  against 
the  mundane  interactions  of  everyday  life.  Our  process 
of  design  begins  with  the  inner  works,  with  causes  and 
effects  that  are  natural  and  generative,  yet  extreme. 

Notes 

1,  http://  reuters.co.uk/news;  Internet:  accessed  1  December  2004. 

2.  Gilles  Deleuze.  Cinema  2:  The  Time-Image,  trans.  Hugh  Tomlinson  and  Robert 
Galeta  (London:  Athlone  Press.  1989).  128-129. 


Exterior  view  of  Bobco  Metal  headquarters 


Cross-section  showing  the  positioning  of  the  panels 


Axonometric  drawing  of  Bobco  Metal  headquarters 


41 


■^  -•      ^ 

# 

^-^     }V?^V     1'    ^ 

,»»*^tPsi  y 

Bl^^^l^l^^jiv^ 

mi^iii 

O/e  W.  Fischer 


Figure  1.  Above  left.  Villa  Silberblick.  1898  (before  van  de  Velde's 
alterations);  right.  Villa  Silberblick/Nietzsche-Archive.  1904 
(after  van  de  Velde's  alterations) 


Nietzsche-Archive  in  Weimar:  A  Retroactive 
Studiolo^  of  Henry  van  de  Velde 


In  early  January,  1889,  the  German  philosopher  Friedrich 
Nietzsche  (1844-1900).  a  professor  of  philology  in  early 
retirement,  sent  several  obscure  letters  to  friends  and 
colleagues  from  Torino  signed  "Dionysos,"  "Nietzsche 
Caesar."  or  "the  Crucified."-  His  alarmed  friend  Franz 
Overbeck  arrived  in  Torino  from  Basel  on  January  8th 
and  found  Nietzsche  already  losing  control  of  his  senses. 
Overbeck  decided  to  take  Nietzsche  back  with  him  to 
Basel's  asylum — the  first  station  in  an  eleven-and-a-half- 
year  twilight  of  madness. 

After  Nietzsche's  breakdown,  his  manuscripts,  letters 
and  parts  of  his  library  remained  in  Torino,  as  well  as 
in  other  locations  from  his  unstable  life:  in  Italian  cities 
and  alpine  villages,  with  friends  in  Basel  and  family  in 
Naumburg.  With  the  ebbing  of  hope  for  Nietzsche's  mental 
recovery,  the  question  arose  of  what  to  do  with  his  literary 
remains,  especially  since  the  last  months  of  his  rational 
life  were  extraordinarily  productive.  Nietzsche's  mother 
was  overwhelmed  with  caring  for  him  and  as  a  pastor's 
widow  she  was  repelled  by  the  radical  writings  of  her  son. 
but  she  conceded  to  allow  Franz  Overbeck  and  Heinrich 
Koselitz  (Nietzsche's  former  student  and  secretary 
respectively),  to  function  as  literary  executors.  In  1893, 
Nietzsche's  younger  sister  Elisabeth  Fdrster  returned 
from  a  failed  anti-Semitic  colony  experiment  in  Paraguay, 
where  she  had  lost  her  husband,  wealth,  and  mission,  and 
immediately  took  over  as  the  representative  of  Nietzsche's 


interests  and  seized  his  literary  remains.'  She  gathered 
together  his  manuscripts,  struggled  with  Nietzsche's 
publisher  for  the  proof  sheets  with  his  annotations,  asked 
all  correspondence  partners  for  a  return  or  copy  of  his 
letters,  and  collected  his  library  and  private  papers. 

In  1894  Elisabeth  Forster-Nietzsche  (the  name  she  used 
from  then  on),  was  able  to  open  the  "Nietzsche-Archiv" 
on  the  first  floor  of  her  mother's  house  in  the  small  city  of 
Naumburg.  The  sick  philosopher  himself  lived  upstairs. 
Soon  her  literary  circles,  afternoon  teas,  piano  soirees 
and  other  social  activities  interfered  with  looking  after 
her  brother,  and  Elisabeth  chose  to  move  to  Weimar,  to 
participate  in  the  social  life  of  the  Grand  Duke's  court 
and  to  profit  from  the  glorious  cultural  shine  of  Friedrich 
Schiller  and  Johann  Wolfgang  Goethe — the  emblems  of 
German  literature  and  poetry.  In  the  spring  of  1896,  a 
grant  from  Meta  von  Sails,  a  writer  friend  of  Nietzsche, 
provided  Elisabeth  with  a  villa  in  the  hills  overlooking 
Weimar,  because  the  death  of  their  mother  had  made  it 
necessary  to  re-unify  the  archive  and  care  for  the  mad 
philosopher-brother  under  the  same  roof.  Nietzsche 
himself  was  transported  at  night  in  a  special  train  cabin 
from  Naumburg  to  Weimar. 

In  the  meantime  Elisabeth  had  twice  started  an  edition 
of  Nietzsche's  works.  Although  she  was  in  charge  of  the 
copyrights  of  the  published  works  and  had  managed  to 


42 


collect  almost  all  of  the  literary  remains,  she  disassociated 
herself  several  times  from  the  editors  she  had  engaged: 
first  she  fired  Kdselitz,  who  had  been  working  as  an  editor 
since  1893.  Then  she  hired  and  fired  Fritz  Kogel,  Rudolf 
Steiner — the  later  founder  of  Anthroposophy — as  well  as 
Ernst  and  August  Honeffer  within  a  few  years.  Finally, 
in  1898  Koselitz,  the  only  one  able  to  read  Nietzsche's 
cryptic  handwriting,  came  back  and  helped  her  to  start  the 
editing  project  of  the  20-volume,  "Complete  Works,"  which 
was  not  finished  before  1913.'  This  work,  together  with 
a  pocketbook  edition,  a  selection  of  Nietzsche's  writings 
and  an  edition  of  the  collected  letters  were  a  big  success. 
Translated  soon  into  French,  English,  and  many  other 
languages  these  volumes  were  the  basis  of  "Nietzsche"  as 
the  cultural  phenomenon  that  we  are  still  infected  with 
today.* 

However,  the  Nietzsche-Archive  remained  a  private 
institution,  or  more  precisely,  a  one-woman-property, 
which  brought  unfortunate  side  effects  to  the  publishing 
policy.  With  the  unscrupulous  help  of  her  editors, 
Elisabeth  held  back  Nietzsche's  finished,  but  unpublished 
autobiographical  work  Ecce  Homo.''  revised  several  of  his 
letters,  and  compiled  his  so-called  masterpiece.  Will  to 
Power.  In  addition,  she  vindicated  her  own  image  of  her 
brother  with  a  series  of  biographies."  This  met  criticism 
from  the  beginning  by  Nietzsche's  former  friends  such 
as  Overbeck  as  well  as  former  editors  and  employees 
of  Elisabeth.  Nevertheless,  Elisabeth  enjoyed  great 
confidence  from  almost  all  public  intellectuals  of  her  time. 
She  was  still  induced  by  her  brother,  as  she  showed  the 
"fallen  eagle,"  the  most  important  "piece"  in  her  collection, 
to  "special  guests"  of  the  archive.  Following  the  example 
of  Cosima  Wagner  as  high  priestess  of  the  Wagner  cult  in 
Bayreuth,  Elisabeth  cultivated  her  role  of  devoted  sister, 
wise  woman,  and  hostess  of  a  cultural  circle  in  Weimar. 
With  the  help  of  the  patron  Count  Harry  Kessler  the 
archive  soon  turned  into  a  center  for  avant-gardes. 

Elisabeth  understood  the  importance  of  art  and  media 
in  modern  society  (as  well  as  the  new  laws  on  copyright) 
and  monopolized  the  production  of  Nietzsche  portraits, 
sculptures  and  photographs  by  various  artists.  In  fact, 
she  made  use  of  photographs  of  her  brother  from  the 
time  before  his  breakdown  and  only  preferred  paintings, 
etchings,  and  sculptures  of  the  sick  philosopher.  Finally, 
with  the  help  of  Kessler,  she  succeeded  in  finding  the 
appropriate  artists  Hans  Olde  and  Max  Klinger,  who 
were  able  to  handle  the  delicate  problem  of  representing 
Nietzsche  whose  character  hovered  between  intimate 
martyr  and  heroic  prophet.  Elisabeth  handed  out 
pieces  and  fragments  of  Nietzsche's  writings  to  several 
of  the  new  art  and  literature  magazines,  which  were 


emerging  around  the  turn  of  the  century  in  Berlin, 
Vienna,  Darmstadt,  Frankfurt,  Munich,  and  Leipzig. 
These  publications  helped  to  connect  the  philosophy 
of  Nietzsche  with  new  aesthetic  movements  and  thus 
raised  the  demand  for  Nietzsche's  works.  The  increase  in 
income  through  donations  and  royalties  made  it  possible 
for  Elisabeth  not  only  to  pay  for  transcribing,  correcting, 
and  editing  Nietzsche's  works,  but  also  to  enjoy  living  in 
bourgeois  comfort.  Already  in  1898  she  started  to  make 
alterations  to  the  villa  "Silberblick"  (gleam  of  silver). 
The  building  belonged  de  facto  to  Meta  von  Sails  and 
Elizabeth's  actions  led  to  a  break-up  of  this  friendship. 
But  after  the  death  of  Nietzsche  in  August  1900,  it  became 
obvious  that  she  was  in  need  of  a  new  attraction  for  the 
archive:  an  interior  design  by  the  style  reformer  van  de 
Velde. 

The  Flemish  painter,  autodidactic  designer,  and 
architect  Henry  van  de  Velde  was  recognized  as  an 
early  enthusiastic  follower  of  the  "philosopher  with  the 
hammer."  After  his  break-through  as  a  precursor  of  art 
nouveau  at  the  exhibition  of  Dresden  in  1896,  van  de 
Velde's  star  began  to  shine  in  Germany  and  within  the 
same  circles  that  were  interested  in  Nietzsche's  "New 
Man."  In  spring  1901,  he  gave  a  lecture  series  about  the 
theoretical  foundation  of  the  "New  Style"  in  the  well- 
known  salon  of  Cornelia  Richter  in  Berlin,  and  Kessler 
introduced  him  at  one  of  his  soirees  to  Elisabeth.  She  in 
turn  invited  van  de  Velde  and  Kessler  on  a  pelerinage  to 
Nietzsche's  tomb  on  25  August  1901,  the  first  anniversary 
of  his  death.  In  1901,  after  he  had  left  behind  the  idea  of 
a  new  guild  society  with  the  bankruptcy  of  his  arts-and- 
crafts  workshops  in  Berlin  and  Brussels,  van  de  Velde 
became  immediately  interested  in  the  idea  of  reforming 
the  applied  arts  production  in  the  grand  duchy  of  Weimar. 
Elisabeth,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted  to  re-animate  the 
idea  of  a  cultural  Weimar  movement.  After  the  "golden 
age"  of  the  poets  Schiller  and  Goethe,  followed  by  the 
"silver  age"  of  the  composer  and  virtuoso  Franz  Liszt,  she 
thought  of  a  "New  Weimar"  of  literature,  arts,  architecture 
and  life  reform  with  the  help  of  van  de  Velde  under 
the  banner  of  Nietzsche's  philosophy.  To  reinforce  her 
diplomatic  maneuvers  for  his  appointment  at  court,  in 
fall  of  1901,  she  hired  van  de  Velde  to  modify  the  archival 
villa  Silberblick. Changes  in  the  design  of  the  archive 
could  reinforce  Elisabeth's  autonomy,  who  had  also  taken 
over  the  ownership  of  the  archival  villa  that  same  year. 
Van  de  Velde,  who  as  early  as  1890s  had  seen  Nietzsche's 
philosophy  as  a  fundamental  critique  for  bourgeois  culture 
and  artistic  production,  and  who  had  sensed  his  "mission" 
in  a  renewal  of  the  applied  arts,  now  saw  the  chance  to 
combine  his  interests  in  aesthetic  reform  and  new  style 
with  an  homage  to  "his"  philosopher. 


43 


Furthermore,  the  design  of  the  Nietzsche-Archive  became 
an  exemplary  case  study  of  van  de  Velde's  concept  of 
"ornamental  transcription,"  or,  programmatic  art  in  the 
sense  of  late  Romantic  music  theory.  Van  de  Velde  was 
aware  of  this  model  of  conceptual  reference  to  external 
thoughts  of  philosophy  or  literature  as  formulated  by 
Richard  Wagner  and  Franz  Liszt.  He  applied  those 
ideas  to  architecture,  furnishing  and  book  design. 
Programmatic  art  was  meant  to  disarm  the  latent  distrust 
put  forward  by  idealistic  philosophy  against  music  (and 
architecture)  in  the  aesthetics  of  Kant,  Hegel  or  Schelling, 
who  preferred  philosophy  and  poetry.  They  disregarded 
music  (and  architecture)  as  meaningless  entertainment 
or  emotional  expression,  and  therefore  as  inferior 
arts.  According  to  Wagner,  music  is  able  to  refer  to  an 
external  philosophic  "program"  by  the  title  of  the  work, 
an  explanatory  theoretical  text  of  the  composer  (where 
the  name  "program"  is  taken  from),  and  a  significant 
way  of  structuring  the  abstract  material  into  themes 
or  the  so-called  leitmotifs.  Wagner  goes  on  to  explain 
that  Beethoven  consciously  transgressed  the  canonic 
symphonic  form  with  the  vocal  finale  of  his  Symphony  no. 
9  in  order  to  transcend  and  express  highest  emotion:  the 
celebration  of  joy  of  a  liberated  mankind.  This  moment 
was  in  Wagners  eyes  the  rebirth  of  the  Gesamtkunstwerh 
(synthesis  of  arts)  of  ancient  Greek  tragedy.  Van  de  Velde 
adopted  this  idea  of  synthesis  of  arts  interpenetrating 
all  aspects  of  life.  But  even  more  relevant  for  van  de 
Velde's  aesthetic  thought  was  the  rejection  of  mimicry  and 
imitation  in  the  concept  of  programmatic  art,  providing 
an  abstract  object  with  philosophic  meaning  beyond  the 
application  of  symbolic  ornament  or  classical  tectonic 
language.  Nietzsche,  who  had  reflected  on  Wagner  and  the 
metaphysics  of  music  in  his  early  writings,  proposed  yet 
another  important  motive  of  non-figural  representation: 
he  suggested  an  identity  of  internal  and  external  worlds,  a 
characteristic  of  the  post-Christian  thinker  with  his  built 
environment,  which  reformulates  the  pre-Socratic  idea 
ot  physis  as  an  organic  unity  of  spirit  and  matter  or  what 
Nietzsche  called  the  "architecture  for  the  perceptive."* 

At  the  Nietzsche-Archive  van  de  Velde  operated 
with  a  series  of  manipulations  that  can  be  read  as 
"programmatic":  he  improved  the  unsatisfactory  entrance 
of  the  house  by  adding  a  street-facing  portico  to  the  simple 
cubic  building  (Fig.  1).  To  mark  its  status  as  a  public 
institution,  he  labeled  it  with  the  inscription  "Nietzsche- 
Archiv"  carved  in  stone  in  broad  roman  letters.  This 
gesture  did  not  correspond  to  the  status  of  a  private  villa, 
but  had  to  be  understood  in  the  context  of  programmatic 
art  as  "title"  of  this  work.  For  building  the  new  fagade 
van  de  Velde  continued  to  use  the  brick  and  stucco 
of  the  existing  structure,  but  rather  than  resembling 


Figure  .3.  Above.  Nietzsche-Archive  by  Henry  van  de  Velde.  view  from 

the  Entrance  (East).  The  stele  by  Max  Klinger  can  be  seen  in  the  back; 

below  view  from  the  West  (Weimar,  1992) 


Figure  4.  Niefz 


,  The  picture  was  taken  in  early  1980s, 
shortly  before  renovations 


44 


the  original's  Neo-Renaissance  wall  and  opening,  the 
new  street  fagade  is  a  compositional  play  of  surfaces 
and  proportions.  This  anthropomorphic  positioning  of 
openings  can  be  directly  connected  to  Nietzsche's  idea  of 
physiognomic  expression,  as  in  the  "architecture  for  the 
perceptive."  The  excessive  height  of  the  dark  oak  entrance 
door  serves  as  part  of  this  geometric  frame,  but  for  the 
approaching  guest  it  offers  another  enigma:  instead  of  a 
door  handle  there  is  a  set  of  sculptural  brazen  handholds 
with  labyrinth  ornamentation  (Fig.  2).  This  might  reflect 
on  the  unclear  status  of  the  house  as  both  shrine  and  villa, 
literary  archive  and  last  domicile  of  the  philosopher,  but 
at  the  same  time  it  structured  the  proportion  of  power 
of  inside  and  outside:  the  arriving  guest  had  to  request 
access.  In  addition,  van  de  Velde  noted  in  an  earlier 
version  of  his  memoirs,  in  the  chapter  "The  Nietzsche- 
Archive  and  the  New  Weimar"  that  he  intended  to  give 
the  archive  an  appearance  "more  solemn  and  monumental 
like  a  Schatzkammcr  [treasure  chamber)"' — the  leitmotif 
of  this  work. 

Once  inside,  there  is  a  dark  entrance  hall.  A  crystalline 
lamp'"  over  the  doorway  illuminates  cloakrooms 
containing  a  series  of  brass  coat  hooks,  which  work 
as  joints  between  the  capitalist  chaos  outside  and  the 
synthesis  of  art  inside,  constructing  a  new  society  of 
"Nietzscheans."  A  few  steps  to  the  right,  a  double  door 
opens  to  the  "treasure"  of  the  archive:  the  library  with 
"His"  books  and  manuscripts. 

This  oblong  room,  a  merging  of  two  smaller  rooms,  has 
a  rather  low  ceiling  for  its  size.  Since  van  de  Velde  could 
not  easily  change  the  height  within  an  existing  house, 
he  chose  a  repetitive  vertical  structure  as  "organic  ribs" 
to  arrange  the  walls  and  virtually  elevate  and  carry  the 
white  plafond.  These  planks  hold  the  shelves  for  books, 
but  integrate  openings —  with  movable  window  grilles  to 
prohibit  unwanted  visitors — as  well  as  other  furniture, 
even  a  chamber  piano.  The  color  palette  of  this  room 
ranges  from  natural  red  beech  to  fraise-colored  plush 
and  intensive  red  curtains,  heightened  by  white  stucco 
and  brass  details.  The  only  contrast  is  the  grayish-blue 
carpet — the  room  as  a  whole  invoked  the  atmosphere  of 
the  alpenglow"   of  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra.  Van  de  Velde 
put  another  "title"  reference  inside  his  work,  this  time  in 
the  form  of  the  initial  of  the  philosopher's  name:  a  brass 
N  in  a  circle  is  embedded  in  the  wall  above  the  tiled  stove. 
Nietzsche  himself,  apart  from  his  books  on  the  shelves  and 
his  manuscripts  in  the  cupboards,  is  "present"  in  a  life-size 
marble  stele  (or  vertical  sculptural  object)  by  Max  Klinger. 
The  only  object  in  the  room  that  is  not  designed  by  van  de 
Velde,  is  this  stele,  which  rests  on  a  platform  against  a 


surface  of  colored  glass  illuminated  by  evening  light. 
(Fig.  3) 

But  why  did  van  de  Velde  deliberately  blur  the  status  of 
the  main  room  between  private  salon  and  sacred  temple, 
literary  archive  and  intimate  library?  The  answer  might 
be  found  in  the  program  of  the  "New  Weimar"  and  its 
direct  rivalry  with  the  cult  of  Goethe,  manifest  in  the 
conversion  of  Goethe's  house  in  Weimar  to  a  national 
museum  in  1885  as  well  as  the  new  Goethe-Schiller- 
Archives,  built  in  1896.  The  Nietzsche-Archive  had  to 
undergo  comparison  with  the  palazzo  of  the  thinker,  poet 
and  minister  (three  characteristics  of  Goethe)  with  its 
exquisite  classical  interiors  and  artwork.  Goethe 
had  brought  back  the  idea  of  the  humanist  studiolo  from 
his  Italian  Journey  (1786-87)  and  remodeled  his  house 
into  a  personal  microcosm:  the  succession  of  salons, 
dining  hall,  study  chamber,  scientific  collection,  garden 
and  library  were  read  as  an  ideal  portrait  of  the  educated 
bourgeois.  Van  de  Velde's  strategy  of  staging  a  mood 
of  authenticity,  a  plausible  yet  retroactive  studiolo  for 
the  dead  philosopher,  was  extraordinary  successful.  For 
Nietzsche,  who  had  never  consciously  understood 
that  he  had  vegetated  four  years  in  Weimar,  van  de  Velde 
created  a  physiologic  resemblance  of  architecture  and 
philosophy  and  constructed  an  organic  atmosphere 
for  "the  perceptive"  with  a  synthetic  work  of  art  in  his  new 
style.  The  interiors  of  the  Nietzsche-Archive  (and  van  de 
Velde's  book  illustrations)  soon  became  synonymous  with 
"Nietzsche  design."  providing  evidence  of  the  modernity 
and  superiority  of  "his"  philosopher. 


Figure  2.  Villa  Silberblick/Nietzsche-Archive,  Portico.  1904 


45 


Epilogue 

After  WWII,  the  Nietzsche-Archive  was  closed  down 
because  of  its  association  with  the  Nazi  regime.  The 
incriminating  contact  became  manifest  in  a  neoclassicist 
"Nietzsche  memorial  hall"  next  to  the  Nietzsche-Archive 
from  1938.  also  remained  unfinished.  Nietzsche's 
manuscripts  and  books,  together  with  Elisabeth's  literary 
remains,  were  confiscated  by  the  East  German  authorities 
and  transferred  to  the  socialist  predecessor  of  the 
Weimar  Classics  Foundation  or  Nationale  Forschungs- 
und  Gedenkstdtte  (der  Deutschen  Klassik)  Weimar.  Since 
Georg  Lukas  had  denounced  Nietzsche's  philosophy  as 
proto-fascism,  ^-  there  was  almost  no  opportunity  for 
serious  research  on  archival  stocks  of  Nietzsche  in  East 
Germany.  The  Nietzsche-Archive  building  was  "hidden" 
by  the  new  owners. ^^  the  inscription  destroyed,  the  villa 
modified  and  reused  as  a  seminar  building  and  guesthouse 
of  the  socialist  "National  Research  and  Memorial  Place  in 
Weimar."^^  (Fig.  4) 

In  the  1960s,  the  Italian  philosopher  Giorgio  Colli  and 
the  Italian  philologist  Mazzino  Montinari  started  their 
project  of  a  new  critical  edition  of  Nietzsche's  works. 
An  ideological  re-evaluation  of  art  nouveau  and  early 
modernism  in  the  1960s  and  70s  opened  the  dialogue  for 
a  renovation  of  the  archive  building  as  well  as  its  interior, 
which  was  begun  in  1984,  five  years  before  the  fall  of  the 
Berlin  Wall,  and  remained  unfinished  until  1991  in  the  re- 
united Germany. 

Today  the  Nietzsche-Archive  is  a  museum  of  the  national 
Weimar  Classics  Foundation.  It  is  open  to  the  public, 
but  the  manuscripts  are  stored  in  the  Goethe-Schiller- 
Archives.  Friedrich  Nietzsche's  as  well  as  his  sister's 
books  belong  to  the  Anna  Amalia  Library  of  the  same 
Weimar  Classics  Foundation  in  Weimar  and  are  only 
accessible  for  institutional  research.  Ironically,  the  private 
archive  of  the  philosopher's  sister  was  after  all  united  with 
its  national  rival  and  Nietzsche's  original  writings  became 
even  part  of  the  world's  cultural  heritage.'^  but  not  in  the 
sense  imagined:  the  Nietzsche-Archive  is  an  archive  with 
empty  shelves 

Notes 

1.  The  term  is  Italian  and  refers  to  Renaissance  artist  and  humanist  studios,  like  the 
studiolo  of  Frederico  da  Montefeltre  (Urbino).  the  studiolo  of  Isabella  d'Este  (Mantua) 
or  that  of  Francesco  I  de  Medici  (Palazzo  Vecchio.  Florence).  See  further.  Wolfgang 
Liebenwein,  Studiolo.  Die  Entstehung  eines  Raumtyps  und  seine  Entwicklung  bis  urn 
1600  (Berlin:  Gebr.  Mann.  1977). 

2.  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  Sdmtliche  Briefe.  Kritische  Studienausgabe  in  8  Bdnden. 
eds.,  Giorgi  Colli  and  Mazzino  Montinari  (Berlin  &  New  York;  Walther  de  Gruyter, 
2003)  567-.579. 


3.  For  a  detailed  biography  see.  H.  F.  Peters,  Zarathustra's  Sister:  The  ease 
of  Elisabeth  and  Friedrich  Nietzsche  (New  York:  Crown.  1977);  Carol  Diethe. 
Nietzsche's  Sister  and  The  will  to  Power.  A  Biography  of  Elisabeth  Forster- Nietzsche 
(Urbana:  University  of  Illinois  Press.  2003). 

4.  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  Nietzsche's  Werke,  Grofioktav-Ausgabe  (Leipzig:  Naumann. 
1899-1909;  Kroner,  1909).  An  index  of  the  previous  19  volumes  of  works  and 
fragments  was  published  in  1926,  For  the  first  English  edition  see  Friedrich 
Nietzsche.  The  Complete  Works  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  ed..  Oscar  Levy  (Edinburgh  & 
London:  T.  N.  Foulis,  1909). 

5.  In  2002,  the  Weimarer  Nietzsche-Bibliographie  counted  over  22.000  publications 
with  reference  to  Nietzsche 

6.  Nietzsche  finished  Ecce  Homo  in  1888.  however;  due  to  several  "offensive 
paragraphs"  as  well  as  Nietzsche's  explicit  criticism  of  his  sister  and  mother,  the 
manuscript  remained  unpublished  until  1908. 

7.  Elisabeth  Forster-Nietzsche.  Das  Leben  Friedrich  Nietzsche's.  2.  Bdnde  (Leipzig: 
Naumann.  1895-1904)i  Derjunge  Nietzsche  (Leipzig:  Kroner,  1912):  idem.  Der 
einsame  Nietzsche  (Leipzig:  Kroner,  1914);  idem.  Wagner  und  Nietzsche  zur  Zeit 
ihrer  Freundschaft  (Munchen:  Muller.  1915):  idem.  Friedrich  Nietzsche  und  die 
Frauen  seiner  Zeit  (Munchen:  C  H.  Beck.  1935).  The  inaccuracy  of  the  edition  of 
the  Nietzsche-Archive  was  obvious  and  no  better  edition  existed  until  1967  when 
Friedrich  Nietzsche  Werke.  Kritische  Gesamtausgabe  was  published  by  Giorgi  Colli 
and  Mazzino  Montinari,  The  final  transcription  and  edition  of  the  handwritten 
fragments  has  remained  unfinished  up  until  today — 106  years  after  Nietzsche's 
death. 

8.  "Architecture  for  the  perceptive:  There  is  and  probably  will  be  a  need  to  perceive 
what  our  great  cities  lack  above  all:  still,  wide  extensive  places  for  reflection;  places 
with  tall,  spacious,  lengthy  colonnades  for  inclement  or  unduly  sunny  weather 
where  no  traffic  noise  or  street  cries  can  penetrate,  and  where  a  finer  sensibility 
would  forbid  even  a  priest  from  praying  aloud:  buildings  and  locations  that  express 
as  a  whole  the  sublimity  of  bethinking  and  of  stepping  aside.  The  time  is  past  when 
the  Church  possessed  the  monopoly  of  reflection;  when  the  vita  contemplativa 
primarily  had  to  be  a  vita  religiosa;  and  yet  that  is  the  idea  expressed  in  everything 
the  Church  has  built,  I  do  not  know  how  we  could  ever  content  ourselves  with  its 
buildings,  even  stripped  of  their  ecclesiastical  function;  they  speak  far  too  emotive 
and  too  constrained  a  language,  as  the  houses  of  God  and  as  the  showplaces  of 
intercourse  with  another  world,  for  us  as  godless  people  to  think  our  thoughts  in 
them.  We  want  to  have  ourselves  translated  into  stones  and  plants;  we  want  to 
have  ourselves  to  stroll  in.  when  we  take  a  turn  in  those  porticoes  and  gardens." 
Friedrich  Nietzsche,  Die  frohliche  Wissenschaft.  book  4.  §  280.  m  Friedrich  Nietzsche: 
Sdmtliche  Werke  Kritische  Studienausgabe  [KSAJ  in  15  Bdnden.  Band  3,  eds.  Giorgi 
Colli  and  Mazzino  Montinari  (Berlin  &  New  York:  Walter  de  Gruyter.  1988),  524-525. 
9    Henry  van  de  Velde,  "Grand  Manuscrit  Autobiographique"  tmemoirs]  FS  X  1-2, 
414.  Archives  Henry  van  de  Velde.  Bibliotheque  Royal,  Brussels.  The  quote,  "solennel 
et  monumental  d'une  'Schatzkammer',"  appears  in  Henry  van  de  Velde.  Recit  de  ma 
vie  II.  eds.  Anne  van  Loo  and  Fabrice  van  de  Kerckhove  (Brussels:  Versa.  1992).  155. 

10.  The  analysis  of  cr\'stal  as  a  metaphoric  motive  in  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra  as  well 
as  its  effects  on  expressionist  architects  such  as  Paul  Scheerbart  and  Bruno  Taut  is 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay. 

11.  A  reddish  glow  seen  near  sunset  or  sunrise  on  the  summits  of  mountains.  This 
reddish  glow  has  been  read  as  reference  to  the  mountain  setting,  the  Parsi  worship 
of  the  sun  and  the  blood  metaphors  in  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra.  All  three:  the 
metaphor  of  sun/light/fire,  the  metaphor  of  the  clear  and  crisp  mountain  atmosphere, 
and  the  metaphor  of  blood  can  be  found  in  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra  and  were  reflected 
by  van  de  Velde  in  his  Nietzsche-Archive  works. 

12.  Georg  Lukacs.  Der  deutsche  Faschtsmus  und  Nietzsche  (Paris:  C.A.L.P.O.  1945); 
idem,  Die  Zerstorung  der  Vernunft  (Berlin:  Aufbau-Verlag.  1954). 

13.  The  name  "Nietzsche-Archiv"  was  erased  from  the  city  plans  as  well  as  from 
street  signs,  and  people  were  instructed  to  use  the  new  name.  Some  elder  locals  told 
me  that  visitors  asking  for  the  Nietzsche-Archive  had  to  be  reported  to  the  police. 

14.  Affected  by  this  alteration  was  the  second  floor  of  the  Nietzsche -Archive  with  the 
"private"  chambers  of  Elisabeth  Forster-Nietzsche  and  the  death  room  of  Friedrich 
Nietzsche,  which  were  destroyed  at  that  time.  These  rooms  were  not  touched  by  van 
de  Velde's  restoration  of  1902-03;  some  of  the  furniture  remained  in  the  possession 
of  the  repository  of  Goethe  National  Museum  in  Weimar. 

15.  Since  2001.  the  Goethe-Schiller-Archives  have  been  part  of  UNESCO's  "Memory 
of  the  World"  program. 


46 


Figure  1.  Row-houses  for  workers  housing  with 
"practically  worthless"  balconies,  Sunila.  1936 


Figure  2.  Link  houses  that  stepped 
up  the  hill  in  section,  Sunila 


Sarah  Menin 


Accessing  the  Essence  of  Architecture:  "In-between"  Nature 
and  IVIodernity  in  Aalto's  Engineers  Housing  in  Sunila 


There  is  a  stream  of  awareness  just  below  the 

level  of  day-to-day  self-consciousness  that 

monitors  the  field  of  spatial  relationships 

around  us. ...For  it  is  not  only  for 

an  insight  into  our  mysterious  moments  of 

elation  that  we  look  to  it  but  also  as 

the  catalyst  for  those  responses  of  alienation  and 

exasperation  provoked  by  the  buildings  that,  as 

we  vaguely  say,  "do  not  work. "' 

In  his  essay  "The  Natural  Imagination,"  Colin  St  John 
Wilson  describes  the  architectural  experience  as  an 
ineffable  yet  "inescapable"  natural  condition  of  life.  In  this 
he  grasps  at  an  energy  that  often  goes  unrecognized.  To 
speak  of  architecture  at  this  depth  is  perhaps  to  speak  of 
an  essence  that  both  feeds  and  is  fed  by  the  human  life 
that  inhabits  it. 

Aldo  van  Eyck  articulated  a  process  of  re-establishing 
a  connection  between  the  need  for  shelter  and  the  full 
nature  of  that  need.  Making  this  connection  was  crucial, 
he  argued,  "for  each  man  and  all  men,  since  they  no  longer 
do  it  for  themselves."-  If  a  building  does  not  address  these 
instincts  it  may  subtly,  even  imperceptibly,  alienate  us 
from  the  same  deep  realms  of  being.  At  this  threshold 


much  architecture  has  stumbled,  failing  to  interpret 
and  enact  appropriate  solutions  to  the  fundamental  (but 
ineffable)  problem  of  facilitating  access  to  this  inter  and 
intra-personal  psycho-social  realm.  Our  experiential 
response  to  such  architectural  failure  is,  as  Wilson 
suggests,  "alienation  and  exasperation."^  It  is  emotional 
stress.  Wilson  continues: 

All  our  awareness  is  grounded  in  forms  of 
spatial  experience  and  that  spatial  experience 
is  not  pure  but  charged  with  emotional 
stress  from  our  "first-born  affinities." 
There  is  a  domain  of  experience,  born 
before  the  use  of  words,  yet  structured  like 
a  language  replete  with  its  own  expectations, 
memory  and  powers  of  communication: 
a  domain  that  is  indeed  the  primary  source 
of  the  one  language  that  is  truly  universal 
and  to  which  we  have  given  the  name 
of  "body  language."' 

Wilson  rightly  suggests,  "it  is  intrinsically  these 
sensations  [of  body  language]  that  are  the  primary  vehicle 
for  architectural  experience."* 


47 


After  the  Russian  Revolution,  a  newly  independent 
Finland  strove  to  modernize  by  looking  westward — out 
of  reach  of  the  Russian  Bear  (be  it  Red  or  White).'  When 
Finns  rushed  to  replace  wooden  dwellings  with  modern 
concrete  row  houses,  the  Finnish  architect  Alvar  Aalto 
feared  that  the  new  architecture  would  create  a  sense 
of  alienation.  Although  by  no  means  encouraging  a 
return  to  the  backwoods.  Aalto  felt  that  the  indigenous 
buildings  could  better  satisfy  the  human  need  for  shelter. 
In  their  haste  to  avoid  Red  dictatorship,  the  Finns  would 
encounter  another,  subtler  sort  of  dictatorship,  later 
described  by  Aalto  as  "the  slavery  of  human  beings  to 
technical  futilities  that  in  themselves  do  not  contain  one 
piece  of  real  humanity."'   Here  Aalto  was  referring  to  the 
limited  rationalism  of  Modernity. 

In  the  1930s.  Finnish  architecture,  like  Finnish  society, 
stood  poised  between  the  wilderness  backwoods  and 
the  rationale  of  industrial  European  Modernity.  Alvar 
Aalto  sought  to  forge  both  a  physical  and  a  phenomenal 
relationship  between  these  two  in  an  extended  commission 
from  the  Ahlstrbm  Company  to  design  a  series  of  housing 
projects  for  employees  of  a  vast  pulp  factory  in  Sunila. 
These  projects,  largely  designed  between  1935-37  with 
some  additional  housing  blocks  in  the  mid- 1940s  and 
early  1950s,  ranged  from  minimal  housing  for  workers  to 
more  generous  dwellings  for  engineers  and  managers.* 
In  Karl  Fleig's  synopsis  of  Aalto's  oeuvre  we  see  the 
progression  through  these  commissions,  highlighting 
the  growth  of  Aalto's  preoccupation  with  threshold  and 
transition  details.  '  The  content  of  such  architectural 
detailing  was  Aalto's  concern,  too.  for  the  alienating 
effects  of  modern  life  on  the  well-being  of  uonio  piccolo — 
little  man  as  he  affectionately  called  his  users.'"  Aalto 
judged  that  many  modern  buildings  did  not  enrich  the 
psycho-physical  life,  but  all  too  often  created  further 
schisms  between  humans  and  the  environment,  between 
people,  and  more  importantly  within  the  person.  This 
was  due,  Aalto  believed,  to  the  buildings'  rigidity  and 
inflexibility."   If  architecture  had  the  task  "to  aid  in  the 
solution  of  wide-ranging  humanistic,  socio-economic,  and 
psychological  problems,"  he  argued,  it  "must  be  allowed 
as  much  internal  and  formal  flexibility  as  possible. "'- 
Humans,  he  felt,  were  forced  into  architecture  that  ill- 
fitted  their  needs — architecture  that  was  not  rational 
"from  the  human  point  of  view.""  I  would  suggest  that 
this  preoccupation  spoke,  too,  of  Aalto's  own  deep  schisms 
within,  and  the  importance  of  the  rejuvenating  contact 
with  nature  to  comfort  and  heal."  Aalto  wanted  to  offer  in 
his  architecture  that  which  he  knew  to  be  essential  within 
himself,  and  between  himself  and  the  world. 


In  Sunila,  Aalto's  concern  for  the  process  of  entering, 
and  for  the  richness  of  being  "in-between"  inside  and 
outside,  gradually  came  to  the  fore.'°  His  first  workers 
housing  in  Sunila  had  no  balconies,  and  appeared  at  first 
glance  to  be  scantily  garbed  in  the  stripped  Modernism 
of  Gropius'  Siemensstadt  Housing,  but  he  argued  that 
"every  family  had  no  difficulty  in  gaining  direct  access 
to  the  landscape."  '*  Aalto's  second  scheme  contained, 
by  his  own  admission,  "practically  worthless"  token 
balconies  (Fig.  1),  like  the  ones  his  friend  Gropius  had 
offered  students  at  the  Bauhaus."  This  important  failure 
pushed  Aalto  to  make  access  to  nature  not  just  a  desire, 
but  an  essential  aspect  of  his  housing  design.  He  began 
to  explore  the  intrinsic  relation  between  architecture  and 
landscape,  advancing  ideas  of  "the  trinity  of  the  human 
being,  the  room,  and  the  garden"  and  its  out-working  in 
"outside  rooms"  that  he  had  put  forward  ten  years  before.'* 
He  became  determined  to  offer  "access  to  the  landscape" 
from  all  dwellings,  believing  that  sudden  alienation  from 
nature,  which  had  occurred  because  of  Finland's  "ever- 
increasing  mechanization,"  was  responsible  for  many 
social  ills.  Yet  Aalto  knew,  too.  that  "also  our  own  actions 
estrange  us  from  nature."  "  In  his  third  housing  scheme 
in  Sunila,  Aalto  created  link  houses  that  stepped  up  the 
hill  in  section  (Fig. 2),  providing  more  extensive  balconies, 
a  typology  he  used  again  in  Kauttua.-" 

After  these  "workers"  housing  schemes,  Aalto  had  the 
opportunity  to  further  explore  the  relationship  between 
architecture  and  landscape  in  the  more  generous 
specification  allowed  in  the  housing  for  engineers. 
Here,  on  a  flatter  piece  of  woodland  ground,  he  flexed 
the  plan  instead  of  the  section,  allowing  it  to  open  up 
to  the  south  and  the  sun  like  a  flower.  Unlike  the  very 
rational  rectilinearity  of  the  earlier  housing  schemes, 
the  plan  flexes  (Fig.  3)  in  what  he  later  called  "elastic"  or 
"flexible  standardisation,"  accommodating  views  of  the 
natural  environment  and  the  need  of  the  users  for  more 
privacy  and  individuality.  By  the  1930s  such  a  conscious 
accommodation  of  both  natural  and  human  circumstances 
had  become  a  central  tenet  of  Aalto's  design  process,  and 
was  not  unlike  Haring's  Leistungsform  or  content-derived 
form. 

The  access  to  these  "engineer's"  row  houses  is  of  particular 
interest.  Trees  grow  against  the  whitewashed  facade, 
while  an  "in-between"  space  or  architectural  "moment" 
creates  a  transition  between  two  places  and  two  states  of 
mind  (Fig.4).  Here  the  "moment"  both  divides  and  unites 
the  tree  and  whitewashed  facade,  easing  one  to  and  fro: 
forward  into  the  white  Modernity  and  backward,  into  the 
folkloric  realm  of  Tapio.  the  forest  god  (Fig. 5). 


48 


Figure  3.  Both  images  sh 
Sunila,  Aalto,  1938 


With  the  vernacular  accent  of  his  mother  tongue.  Aalto 
enunciates  this  gesture  of  welcome  into  Modernity,  this 
easing  between  nature  and  culture.  He  uses  wood,  whose 
Latin  root  {materia)  is  closely  related  to  the  word  mater, 
meaning  mother  and  maternal  love.-'  This  is  a  playful 
reminder  of  the  essence  of  the  argument,  the  preverbal, 
physical  reality  of  primal  embrace  from  which  our  body- 
space  language  grows.  Aalto  believed  that  wood  was 
"psychologically  very  valuable."--  perhaps  due  to  its  rich 
"kinship  with  man  and  living  nature."  and  the  "pleasant 
sensation"  of  its  tactile  quality.  Thereafter,  Aalto  accessed 
the  potential  of  Modernism  with  wood. 

The  smooth  round-wood  does  not  alienate  the  body,  Aalto 
argued.  It  does  not  conduct  heat  away  from  the  hand,  as 
metal  does.-'  The  wood  thus  provides  a  tectonic  transition. 
From  forest  the  visitor  passes  through  a  trellised  gateway 
that  marks  the  territorial  entrance  to  the  cold  white 
fagade  of  the  north  wall  (Fig. 3).  Yet  against  the  hard 
facade  the  gateway  appears  vulnerable,  a  palimpsest  of 
the  Finnish  tradition  and  mysticism  of  forest  lore  thrust 
up  against  whitewashed  rationalism.-''  It  is  also  a  gesture 
of  subliminal  encouragement  to  dwell,  more  fully,  in  the 
new  architecture,  reassuring  us  that  the  old  relationship 
with  nature  can  be  maintained,  or  made  anew.  It  marks 
an  acknowledgement  of  something  archetypal.  Aalto  thus 
manifests  a  transition  because  the  Finns  "no  longer  did  it 
for  themselves,"  as  Van  Eyck  put  it.  They  no  longer  dwelt, 
eye  to  hand  to  mouth,  in  the  forest,^*  no  longer  marked 
the  subtle  boundaries  of  their  shelter  or  settlements, 
and  thus  were  losing  conscious  sight  of  the  psycho-social 


reality  that  is  inherent  in  the  physical  realm. 

The  round-wood  trellis  is  a  psycho-spatial  episode, 
functioning,  in  Aalto's  terms,  "to  tie  the  threads  of  a  living 
present  with  those  of  a  living  past."-"  Yet  crucially,  Aalto 
wrote  that  such  manoeuvres  were  a  "point  of  departure,"-' 
existing  in  order  to  "meet  today's  needs."-"  The  clear 
tectonic  connections  between  these  trellises  and  the 
vernacular  Finnish  enclosures  do  not  suggest  that  Aalto 
sought  to  re-create  ethnological  specimens.  Rather,  they 
form  a  caveat  to  Functionalism,  reminding  us  that  limited 
Functionalism  and  the  "intoxication  with  Modernism"--' 
failed  to  address  some  realities  of  human  life.  Rationalism, 
he  felt,  "often  suffers  from  a  lack  of  humanity,"  and 
needed  to  be  "expanded."  Such  "in-between"  episodes 
at  Sunila  were  Aalto's  way  of  addressing  the  "human 
question."  I  suggest  that,  in  both  the  form  of  wooden 
entrance  detail  and  the  particular  tectonic  manifestation, 
Aalto  sought  to  draw  the  users  deeper  into  themselves,  a 
"moderating  pause"  in  which  to  acclimatize, '"  at  the  same 
time  rooting  Modernism  in  both  the  cultural  past  and  the 
environmental  present.  In  this  architectural  pause  he  was 
reaching  for  what  was  missing  in  much  of  Finland's  new, 
urban  architecture  as  it  raced,  full-tilt,  into  that  "rootless, 
airborne  internationalism."" 

Skeptical  about  the  promises  of  the  Modern  epoch. 
Aalto's  work  constantly  questioned  the  status  quo  of 
the  Modern  dictatorship,  as  he  saw  it,  believing  it  could 
be  transformed  "into  its  apparent  opposite,  to  love  with 
critical  sensibility.""-  Here  Aalto  nails  his  colors  to  the 


49 


Figure  o.  Vernacular  enclosure,  Lieksa  Folk  Museum.  Finland 


mast,  and  his  wooden  poles  to  the  whitewashed  fagade  of 
Modernist  architecture.  In  doing  so,  he  offered  "little  man" 
a  way  in  to  the  alienating  modern  epoch.  He  established  a 
crucial  rubric  for  accessing  and  simultaneously  subverting 
Modernity.  This  is  important  to  the  current  argument, 
since  by  even  suggesting  the  need  for  a  transition  between 
inside  and  outside  Aalto  was  searching  deep  in  the  very 
nature  of  architecture  as  shelter,  and  was  intuitively 
speaking  at  the  psychological  as  well  as  the  physical 
level.  Here  we  return  to  the  mother  tongue — the  physical 
language  of  space  and  embrace. 


various  forms  (both  positive  and  negative)  into  our  human 
futures.  Aalto  suggested,  "One  way  to  produce  a  more 
humane  built  environment  is  to  expand  our  definition  of 
rationalism."  In  "Rationalism  and  Man"  (1935)  he  went 
on  to  speculate  that  the  most  important  area  of  demand 
that  an  architect  must  address  is  "invisible  to  the  eye:  this 
area  perhaps  conceals  the  demands  that  are  closest  to  the 
human  individual  and  thus  elude  definition."  Therein,  he 
concluded  lie,  "the  purely  human  questions."'*  It  was  this 
architectural  essence  or  "energy"  that  Wilson  explores  in 
the  opening  quotation,  above. 


In  this  way,  I  suggest,  Aalto's  entrance  to  his  Sunila 
engineer's  housing  offered  the  users  the  early  opportunity 
to  dwell  more  fully  in  his  housing,  to  access  the  benefits 
of  Modern  living  by  carrying  with  them  the  rooting 
relationship  of  nature  without  and  nature  within. 
This  is  not  as  far-fetched  an  idea  as  it  might  seem.  If 
architecture  invites  and  does  not  repel  or  alienate,  those 
who  use  it  may  do  so  in  a  more  relaxed  way.  In  "The 
Natural  Imagination"  Wilson  suggests  that  architecture 
can  accommodate,  and  even  embody  something  of  the 
emotional  drama  of  human  life.  He  relates  the  deepest 
root  of  this  idea  to  the  work  of  the  psychoanalyst  Melanie 
Klein.''  Like  his  friend,  art  theorist  Adrian  Stokes,-" 
Wilson  utilizes  Klein's  theories  of  the  development  of  the 
infant  psyche,  and  most  importantly  her  identification 
of  the  two  polar  "positions"  or  modes  of  experience. 
Envelopment  and  Exposure,  and  the  delicate  and  fecund 
place  between  these.  This  psycho-spatial  grammar, 
rooted  in  the  first  holding  environment,  is  extrapolated  in 


Aalto  thought  that  the  age-old  feel  for  materials  was 
severed  in  early  Modernism.   Therefore  it  is  no  accident 
that  the  "in-between"  episode  in  Sunila  is  made  from 
wood.  To  Aalto  it  mattered  deeply  that  metal  conducted 
heat  away  from  the  hand  and  wood  did  not.'"  For  this 
reason  Aalto  used  wood  on  occasions  when  he  wanted  to 
extend  an  invitation  to  the  deepest  realms  of  architecture. 
But  he  chose  wood,  too,  for  its  association  with  nature 
and  therefore  the  capacity  to  rehearse,  in  the  heart  of 
the  building,  the  relationship  with  the  forest.  Within 
his  buildings,  and  in-between  them  and  their  immediate 
environment,  he  invited  the  user  to  keep  relating  to 
the  natural  environment.  Aalto's  writing  reinforces 
his  architectural  argument  that  we  deny  our  inner- 
life  at  a  great  cost, "  and  indeed,  for  Aalto  personally 
nature  played  a  crucial  regenerative  role  in  his  own 
Ufe-long  struggle  with  deep  psychological  disturbance.'* 
Aalto's  work  offers  the  users  a  way  in  to  their  "hidden" 
experience — what  Suzanne  K.  Langer  called  the  realm  of 


50 


i£y^ 


YJ'"'\^:i'llHt^^'^'^    <ni>'**^'"''.9f y*^'^'XMTmKr'BnsKKWU*VMriP<:Ay>:vwiemM>9*.*t Pif>Jii'^ iiiri.'itf   ■ 


Figure  4.  Wooden  "inbetween"  episode.  Engineer's  housing,  Sunila,  Aalto  1939 


"threads  of  unrecorded  reality"'^:  threads  connecting  the 
living  present  with  the  Uving  past,  both  personally  and 
culturally.  As  I  suggest  elsewhere,  Aalto  was  able  to  shore 
up  his  own  vulnerable  self  by  weaving  such  disparate  and 
often  broken  threads  into  his  creative  work.^^  At  its  best, 
architecture  subtly  invites  us  to  be  more  fully  human, 
and  aspires  to  remind  us  of  our  relation  to  the  "other," 
be  it  another  person,  or  some  natural  phenomenon. 
The  architectural  moments  Aalto  creates,  such  as 
the  threshold  in  Sunila's  Engineer  s  Housing,  seek  to 
encompass  the  whole  human  condition— "his  comedy  and 
tragedy  both."^^ 


*  Thanks  are  due  to  Rurik  Wasastjerna  of  the  ProSunila  organisation 
which  campaigns  for  the  restoration  and  upkeep  of  Aalto's  complex  in 
Sunila.  Finland,  and  Sandy  Wilson  for  his  inspiration  and  friendship. 


Notes 

1.  Colin  St  John  Wilson.  "The  Natural  Imagination."  Architectural  Reflections 
(Manchester:  Manchester  University  Press.  2000),  18. 

2.  The  quote  is  derived  from  a  1962  untitled  paper  by  Aldo  Van  Eyck.  reprinted  in 
Team  10  Primer,  ed.  Alison  Smithson  (Cambridge:  MIT  Press.  1968).  43. 

3.  Wilson.  16-17. 

4.  Ibid. 

5.  Ibid..  12. 

6.  Having  always  been  downtrodden  beneath  the  kingdoms  of  Russia  and  Sweden, 
and  being  in  no  mind  to  allow  Russians  to  over  run  her  again,  the  rapid  expansion  of 
her  fledgling  economy  was  a  bulwark  against  further,  Soviet,  dictatorship 

7.  Alvar  Aalto,  'The  Architectural  Struggle."  1957,  reprinted  in  Aliar  Aalto: 
Skelches.  ed.  Goran  Schildt.  trans.  Stuart  Wrede  (Cambridge;  MIT  Press.  cl978).  145. 

8.  The  plan  for  the  whole  area  was  conceived  at  the  start,  although  the  housing 
projects  proceeded  in  series.  Aalto  wrote,  "Only  the  south  slopes  of  the  hills  are  for 
dwellings,  the  valleys  are  traffic  ways  and  gardens.  On  the  north  slopes  the  pine 
forest  shall  remain  undisturbed."  Aluar  Aalto.  ed.  Karl  Fleig  (Zurich:  Verlag  fur 
Architektur  Artemis.  1990).  96, 

9.  Aalto.  "Art  and  Technology."  1955.  reprinted  in  Schildt.  128, 
10-  Ibid.,  129. 

11.  Aalto.  "Rationalism  and  Man,"  Ibid..  50. 

12.  Aalto,  "The  Influence  of  Construction  and  Materials  on  Modern  Architecture." 
1938.  Ibid.,  61. 

13.  "Rationalism  and  Man,"  Ibid.,  50. 

14.  Sarah  Menin  and  Flora  Samuel.  Nature  and  Space:  Aallo  and  Le  Corbusier 
(London:  Routledge.  2003). 

15.  This  interest  in  inside/outside  had  been  a  concern  for  Aalto  during  his  early 
neo-classical  style  of  design  as  is  demonstrated  in  his  famous  Pompeian  sketch  of  the 
aedicular  atrium  moment  in  the  Villa  for  his  brother. 

16.  Aalto  cited  in  Fleig.  96,  Fleig's  synopsis  of  Aalto's  work  was  compiled  in 
collaboration  with  Aalto.  who  had  a  hand  in  writing  up  the  project  descriptions, 

17.  Sarah  Menin.  "The  Meandering  Wave  from  Sunila  to  Marseille."  PTAH  I 
(Helsinki:  The  Alvar  Aalto  Academy.  2003):  42-51. 

18.  Aalto  had  illustrated  his  argument  with  both  Pompeian  villas  and  Le  Corbusier's 
Esprit  Nouveau  Pavilion,  Alvar  Aalto,  "From  Doorstep  to  Living  Room"  reprinted  in 
Alvar  Aalto  in  His  Own  Words,  ed,  Goran  Schildt  (New  York:  Rizzoli,  1997).  49-55. 


Herein  Aalto  wrote  of  "the  trinity  of  human  being,  room  and  garden,"  50. 

19.  Aalto,  "Between  Humanism  and  Materialism,"  Schildt  (1978).  131.  This  idea 
grew  into  a  new  housing  typology;  three  floors  of  accommodation  stepped  into  a  hill, 
with  direct  access  at  the  rear  to  nature.  After  achieving  this  in  Sunila  he  repeated  it. 
most  successfully  in  the  Kauttua  Workers  Housing  scheme. 

20.  Ibid. 

21.  Macfarlane,  J.  Dictionary  of  Latin  and  English  Languages  (London:  Eyre  and 
Spottiswoode.  n.d), 

22.  Aalto.  "Wood  as  a  Building  Material."  1956.  reprinted  in  Schildt  (1978).  142. 

23.  Aalto,  "Rationalism  and  Man, "1935.  reprinted  in  Schildt  (1997).  91. 

24.  Aalto.  "Experimental  House."  Schildt  (1978).  116. 

25.  J.  Pallasmaa.  "Eye.  Hand,  Head  and  Heart:  Conceptual  Knowledge  and  Tacit 
Embodied  Wisdom  in  Architecture,"  in  The  Four  Faces  of  Architecture,  eds.  L.Villner 
and  A.  Abarkan  (Stockholm:  RIT.  2005),  61-72. 

26.  Aalto  used  these  words  to  describe  Gunnar  Asplund's  architectural  legacy  in 
"E.G.Asplund  in  Memorium,"  Schildt  (1978).  66. 

27.  Aalto.  "The  Dwelhng  as  a  Problem."  Schildt  (1978).  31. 

28.  Aalto.  "Between  Humanism  and  Materialism."  Schildt  (1978).  131, 

29.  Aalto.  "Rationahsm  and  Man."  Schildt  (1978).  47. 

30.  Wilson,  "The  Natural  Imagination."  16, 

31.  Aalto.  "Art  and  Technology,"  1955.  reprinted  in  Schildt  (1978),  129. 

32.  Aalto.  "Centenary  Speech,"  Schildt  (1978).  163, 

33.  'Wilson.  'The  Natural  Imagination".  See  also  Sarah  Menin  and  Stephen  Kite.  An 
Architecture  of  Invitation:  Colin  St  John  Wilson.  Ashgate.  2005, 

34.  Adrian  Stokes.  Three  Essays:  The  Luxury  and  Necessity  of  Paintings  (London; 
Tavistock,  1961). 

35.  Aalto,  "Rationahsm  and  Man,"1935.  Schildt  (1997).  91. 
36-   Ibid,.  90-1. 

37.  Menin.  "Aalto  and  the  Tutelary  Goddesses."  in  Andrew  Ballantyne.  ed.. 
Architectures:  Modernism  and  After  (New  York:  Blackwell,  2003).  57-87. 

38.  Menin  and  Samuel,  Nature  and  Space. 

39.  Susanne  Katherina  Knauth  Langer,  Philosophy  m  a  New  Key:  A  Study  in  the 
Symbolism  of  Reason.  Rite  and  Art  (Cambridge.  MA"  Harvard.  cl993).  281. 

40.  Menin,  "Aalto  and  the  Tutelary  Goddesses";  idem.  'The  Profound  Logos:  Creative 
Parallels  in  the  Lives  and  Work  of  Aalto  and  Sibelius."  Journal  of  Architecture. 
Spring  2003:  131-148. 

■II,  Aalto.  "Instead  of  an  Article. "1958.  reprinted  in  Schildt  11978).  161. 


52 


Talinn  Grigor 

Ladies  Last!  Perverse  Spaces 
in  a  Time  of  Orthodoxy 


My  research  had  taken  me  to  Tehran  on  more  than  one 
occasion.  In  my  effort  to  access  archives,  people,  and 
institutions — each  with  its  own  politics  of  openness, 
sociability,  and  gender — I  soon  realized  that  the  most 
intense  site  of  social  narrative  was  positioned  en  route 
to  these  places:  in  the  public  bus.  In  a  vast  system  of 
transportation  that  caters  to  a  megalopolis  of  some  fifteen 
million  inhabitants,  the  politics  of  the  Iranian  public  bus 
oscillates  between  extremes  of  compromise  and  stiffness, 
generosity  and  selfishness,  and  above  all,  severe  orthodoxy 
and  subtle  pornography.  This  mobile  and  transient  space 
allows  various  enactments  of  transgression,  excess,  and 
access.  While  by  its  very  definition  and  function,  the 
bus  is  open  and  accessible  to  every  Iranian  and  non- 
Iranian  alike,  it  seems  to  maintain  some  kind  of  political 
autonomy  by  the  virtue  of  its  mobility  and  temporary 
nature.  Thus,  for  millions  of  people  daily,  the  bus  creates  a 
space  that  is  inaccessible  and  uncontrollable  by  officials;  it 
disables  the  policing  and  enforcement  of  the  harsh  edicts 
of  the  Islamic  Republic  of  Iran  (IRI).  As  a  result,  this 
transitional  site  often  encourages  sexual  transgression  by 
some  of  the  younger  members  of  Tehran's  population. 

Public  transportation  in  general  and  the  bus  service 
in  particular  remain  top  priorities  on  the  agenda 


of  Iranian  state  welfare.  Arguably,  Tehran  "works" 
because  the  government  has  done  an  exceptional  job  of 
maintaining  public  transportation,  despite  a  long  list 
of  other  social  and  urban  concerns.  Serving  the  entire 
metropolis,  Tehran's  bus  system  is  operated  by  the 
Sherkate  Otobusrani  Vahed  (United  Bus  Company),  which 
was  created  by  Mohammad  Reza  Shah  after  the  1953 
countercoup  d'etat.  It  unified  various  small  private  and 
public  buses  into  one  single  transport  system — hence 
vahed — owned  by  the  state  and  managed  by  the  Tehran 
Municipality.  These  units  move  the  vast  majority  of 
the  urban  population.  To  remain  true  to  the  rhetoric  of 
"the  downtrodden"  (mo'stazafin)  of  the  1977-79  Iranian 
Revolution,  post-revolutionary  governments  have  insisted 
on  making  these  services  affordable  for  everyone.'   Every 
month,  well-designed  vouchers  of  ten  toman,  equivalent 
to  1.5  US  cents,  are  printed  and  sold  (see  image).  Each 
ride  costs  two  vouchers,  making  the  service  the  cheapest 
possible  means  of  transport  in  the  country.   For  those  who 
cannot  afford  to  pay,  the  service  is  free  by  an  unspoken 
agreement.-  The  subsidization  of  public  transportation, 
along  with  bread,  sugar,  kerosene  and  natural  gas,  is 
a  part  of  a  much  larger  post-revolutionary  commitment  to 
social  welfare  programs.  It  also  aims  to  prevent  another 
urban  revolution.  "In  order  to  alleviate  the  increasing 


53 


problems  of  urban  transport  and  associated  air  pollution, " 
reported  the  UN  in  1995,  "the  Municipality  of  Tehran 
has  initiated  a  number  of  efforts,  namely  a  trolley  bus 
system,  the  implementation  of  separate  bus  lanes  to 
increase  efficiency,  trucking  restrictions,  multi-story 
parking  structures,  the  opening  of  the  metro  system,  and 
an  electronic  traffic  control  system."'  These  efforts  are 
attempts  to  control  the  urban  chaos  and  alleviate  the 
problems  of  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  the  world. 

For  the  most  part,  individual  buses  are  clean,  orderly, 
well  organized,  and  efficiently  regulated.  The  internal 
floor  plan  is  quite  simple;  eight  rows  of  two  double-seats 
constitute  the  area  reserved  for  male  passengers,  with  six 
rows  of  similar  seats  in  the  back  for  female  passengers. 
A  central  open  zone  for  standing  passengers,  flanked 
by  the  middle  double-door,  divides  these  two  spaces. 
Unlike  buses  in  most  places  in  the  world,  however,  the 
middle  opening  has  an  intensely  loaded  meaning  in  Iran. 
This  zone  is  divided  by  a  bar  that  cuts  the  bus  in  half, 
creating  two  separate  entrances  to  the  men's  and  women's 
sections,  respectively.  Strangely  enough,  the  bus  is  also  an 
iconoclastic  space.  In  a  country  where  the  state  legitimizes 
itself  based  on  a  popular  revolution,  and  unlike  most  of 
its  other  public  sites,  in  the  bus  there  are  no  commercial 
advertisements,  no  state  propaganda,  no  "no  smoking" 
signs,  nor  even  the  "please  observe  the  hejab  (Islamic 
veil)"  signs  so  popular  on  the  entrance  doors  of  most 
stores  and  restaurants.  The  iconoclastic,  segregated,  and 
seemingly  chaotic  but  well-functioning  bus  is  a  signifier  of 
the  society  that  it  serves. 


Ambivalence  of  Social  Welfare 

The  bar  separates  the  space  of  women,  at  the  back 
of  the  bus,  and  that  of  men,  in  the  front  of  the  bus.  A 
simple,  inch-thick  horizontal  pole  cuts  the  interior  space 
in  two,  but  it  functions  as  an  impenetrable  wall  that 
negates  the  male  gaze  and  confines  it  to  the  front  of  the 
bus — at  least  theoretically.  In  practice,  the  two  sides  of 
this  bar  accumulate  all  kinds  of  sexual  tension.  In  my 
observations,  from  the  women's  section,  the  male  bus- 
driver  seemed  to  be  the  only  person  who  was  gender- 
neutral:  the  eunuch  of  the  Oriental  seraglio.  He  had 
free  access  to  the  space,  either  collecting  the  tickets  or 
repairing  a  part  of  the  bus.  His  presence  was  neither 
threatening  nor  comforting.  While  the  bus-driver  existed 
in  a  gender-neutral  bubble,  this  was  not  so  for  the  rest  of 
us. 

One  afternoon  during  the  5  p.m.  rush  hour,  as  I  was  being 
pushed  and  shoved  in  the  women's  section  at  the  back  of 


the  bus,  I  began  to  watch  two  young  men,  perhaps  in  their 
late  teens  or  early  twenties.   They  were  gazing  from  their 
side  of  the  bar  at  three  young  women  of  the  same  age, 
seated  in  the  second  row  behind  the  bar.  This  was  strange, 
since  ordinarily  most  men  turned  their  back  to  the 
women's  section  and  faced  the  front  of  the  bus.  In  contrast, 
these  two  boys  were  directly  facing  the  rear  of  the  bus.  As 
I  watched  each  side  of  the  bar  and  concluded  that  these 
rather  good-looking  girls  either  did  not  see  the  piercing 
male  gaze  or  chose  not  to  see  it.  one  of  them  shouted. 
"Don't  look,  you  stupid!"  One  of  the  boys  immediately 
shied  away,  while  the  other  began  cursing  the  girls,  based 
on  the  logic  that  "watching  is  not  a  crime."  This  spoke 
directly  to  a  range  of  perceptions  about  laws  and  their 
violation,  about  masculine  civil  liberties  and  feminine  lack 
of  legal  rights.  While  men  seemed  to  remain  completely 
indifferent  to  the  commotion,  female  voices  got  louder  and 
more  numerous.  A  young  woman  behind  me  said.  "If  they 
had  any  religious  dignity  (mo'inen).  they  would  be  turning 
their  backs  to  us."  Another,  "She  is  right;  he  has  been 
staring  at  them  since  Tajrish."  south  of  central  Tehran. 

A  casually  veiled  woman,  who  appeared  to  be  in  her  mid- 
sixties  and  of  somewhat  unexpected  courage,  screamed. 
"Let  him  watch,  let  him  watch,"  adding  without  any 
hesitation,  "tamasha  majani-ye:  spectacle  is  free."  Some 
laughed,  others  scorned.  But  she  did  not  stop.  "Let  them 
watch;  these  boys  are  hungry  (gorosneh)."  Letting  her  veil 
fall  on  her  shoulders,  she  rhetorically  asked,  "Don't  you 
know  that  these  kids  have  been  brought  up  on  women's 
laps?"  This  comment  contained  an  undeniable  Oedipal 
reference,  the  real  meaning  of  which  was  lost  on  me  as 
well  as  on  most  of  the  passengers.  As  the  bus  approached 
the  terminal,  she  ended  up  shouting  at  the  top  of  her 
lungs  as  she  walked  off  the  bus,  "Javid  shah,  javid  shah: 
Long  Live  the  King,  Long  Live  the  King."  These  words  had 
almost  certainly  not  been  uttered  in  the  Iranian  public 
space  since  1977. 

Two  things  became  clear  to  me.  On  the  one  hand.  1 
realized  that  for  the  boys  to  show  sexual  interest  on 
the  bus  rendered  the  secretive  thoroughly  public,  hence 
perhaps  more  gratifying.  Around  the  sexualized  bar, 
these  boys  seemed  to  have  no  qualms  about  accessing  the 
bodies  of  those  around  them — physical  and  fantasy  alike. 
I  explained  this  at  the  time  by  the  fact  that  they  may  not 
have  access  to  the  sexualized  female  body,  except  in  the 
public  domain  and  only  through  a  gaze  of  longing,  which 
itself  is  sustained  by  the  presence  of  young  women,  who 
(have  to)  wear  the  veil.  Not  being  a  mo'men  was  a  mode  of 
domination  through  the  gluttony  of  the  heterosexual  male 
gaze.  On  the  other  hand.  I  realized  that  the  three  girls — 
and  most  women  in  the  IRI — had  mastered  the 


54 


cult  of  evasion,  of  dismissal,  of  endlessly  pretending  not 
to  see  the  masculine  gaze.  In  effect,  to  evade  and  dismiss 
that  gaze  has  become  a  form  of  feminist  insolence  and 
boldness  for  the  law  clearly  privileges  the  masculine 
prerogative  to  gaze.  The  obligatory  veil,  and  the  many 
ingenious  ways  that  it  is  re-appropriated,  provide  young 
women  their  constitutional  right  not  only  to  be  in  public, 
but  also  to  defy  that  gaze.  The  presence  of  the  serai-veiled 
seductive  body  of  the  moderate  woman  in  public  is  her 
feminist  speech,  while  loyalty  to  the  Islamic  dress  code  is 
a  feminist  act  of  the  thoroughly  veiled  adherer  to  the  IRI. 
Both  pursue  the  same  political  agenda — feminism — under 
different  guises,  in  this  case  literally.  For  these  teenagers, 
male  and  female  alike,  the  gender  barriers  (bars,  walls, 
partitions,  labeled  entrances,  and  opaque  windows)  all 
serve  to  mediate  social  interaction.  The  social  domain  in 
the  IRI  is  a  public  space  of  inaccessibility,  more  often  than 
not  delineated  by  architecture  rather  than  the  law. 


Praxis  of  Political  Defiance 

The  childish  quarrels  of  young  men  gazing  at  young 
women  or  old  women  making  Freudian  pronouncements 
were  never  mere  acts  of  anti-sociability.  Rather,  they 
were  silent  political  discourses  on  power  and  domination. 
The  (non)conformity  on/of  the  bus,  while  highly  nuanced, 
penetrated  much  deeper.  Here,  the  space  of  the  sexual 
had  mutated  into  the  space  of  the  political.  Or  rather,  in 
the  IRI,  the  space  of  the  political  was  once  more  revealed 
as  a  priori  sexual,  gendered.  Therefore,  the  bus  provided 
a  rather  large,  clean,  and  safe  window  not  only  into  the 
urban  mess  of  the  city  outside,  but  also  into  the  inner 
social  fabric  of  that  city.  From  the  height  of  my  position 
inside  the  bus,  I  observed  the  urban  and  social  chaos  as 
a  spectator:  cars  that  drive  either  too  fast  or  too  slow, 
too  close  or  not  close  enough;  men  that  stand  too  close, 
women  not  close  enough.  Sometimes,  conditioned  by  the 
overpopulation  of  the  city,  two  worlds  meet  on  the  bus. 

During  my  daily  rides  from  Haft-e  Tir  Square  in  central 
Tehran  to  Valiasr,  as  the  bus  moved  northward,  the 
cityscape  changed  considerably.  This,  I  know,  was  the 
legacy  of  the  Pahlavi  urbanism  of  the  1960s  and  70s.^ 
The  towers  stood  taller  and  were  better  designed.  The 
landscape  turned  greener  and  denser;  the  air  cleaner  and 
brighter.  Midway  through  the  ride,  the  type  of  passenger 
changed  too:  veils  got  smaller,  thinner  and  more  colorful; 
Islamic  overcoats  (rupiish)  got  shorter,  tighter,  and 
more  transparent.  Cell  phones  started  to  ring  and  the 
spoken  language  to  anglicize.  The  tags  of  handbags  and 
schoolbags  altered  from  "Sakht-e  Iran"  (Iran's  Production) 


to  "Made  in  US."'  The  public  behavior  of  these  two  groups 
differed  too.  A  woman  of  the  north,  who  opposed  the 
regime,  defied  its  rules  by  bringing  her  ten-year-old  son  to 
the  back  of  the  bus.  Along  with  the  barely  covering  veil, 
the  tight  overcoat  and  the  heavy  make-up,  this  was  her 
daily  and  enduring  protest.  Meanwhile,  a  woman  of  the 
south,  who  adhered  to  the  IRI,  sent  her  five-year-old  son 
to  the  men's  section  to  stand  there  on  his  own. 

The  perception  of  what  the  bus  represents  for  different 
socioeconomic  groups  in  Iranian  society  was  polarized 
along  the  lines  of  politics,  culture,  and  aesthetics.  Most  of 
those  who  were  once  accused  of  cultural  "Westoxication" 
and  political  rightism  abhor  the  very  idea  of  riding  a  bus — 
precisely  because,  for  them,  it  is  dangerously  gendered 
and  is  perceived  as  a  site  of  perversion.  The  economically 
challenged,  moderate,  or  pro-IRI  population,  regard  it 
as  the  redeemer  of  their  livelihood.'*  The  former  group, 
blinded  by  its  hatred  of  the  regime,  is  unable  to  appreciate 
the  Republic's  effort  to  accommodate  the  fast-growing 
population  of  Tehran,  while  the  latter  is  unable  to  imagine 
a  life  of  individual  commodity  and  excessive  consumption 
without  it.  In  these  minor  signifiers  of  deference — gazes, 
veils,  overcoats,  handbags  and  cell-phones — there  was  far 
more  in  the  meaning  of  the  everyday  that  met  the  eye. 
These  minor,  but  pervasive  signifying  practices,  were 
intentional  political  acts. 

As  I  sat  there,  week  after  week,  I  came  to  perceive  my  bus 
ride  as  a  microcosm  of  a  far  more  complex  and  convoluted 
Iranian  society.  The  bus  experience  was  diverse, 
charitable,  seemingly  chaotic  but  highly  orderly,  always 
negotiable,  and  above  all  divisive;  it  was  simultaneously 
accessible  to  every  citizen,  yet  delineated  by  acute  gender 
and  spatial  politics.  All  these  thoughts  were  endorsed  on 
my  final  ride  when  a  motorcyclist  approached  the  waiting 
bus  at  the  station  and  stopped  under  the  central  window. 
Looking  up,  he  exposed  himself.  After  realizing  that  the 
women  in  the  first  row  did  not  notice  him,  he  covered 
himself  and  left.  Seven  minutes  later,  he  returned  to  the 
same  spot  for  a  second  round.  The  two  women,  who  finally 
detected  him,  were  shocked.  In  the  women's  section, 
the  4,5-minute  ride  that  followed  turned  into  a  buzz  of 
female  murmurs,  gossip,  and  trepidation.  That  evening, 
I  recognized  that  the  bus  was  in  fact  a  crucial  site  of 
compromise,  insolence,  and  affirmation  for  the  majority  of 
those  who  rode  it;  while  for  bored  teenagers,  it  was  a  site 
of  perversion,  where  everything  and  anything  went  as  long 
as  they  could  get  away  with  it.  In  effect,  in  the  Gramscian 
tradition,  alternatives  were  embedded  in  the  dominant — 
in  this  case,  both  the  hegemony  of  the  IRI  as  well  as  that 
of  the  unrelenting  teenage  gaze. 


55 


This  last  incident  not  only  corroborated  my  impressions 
about  the  bus  as  a  site  of  sexo-pohtical  transgression, 
but  also  convinced  me  that  neither  the  bar  nor  the  veils 
seem  to  fulfill  their  intended  functions,  except  perhaps 
to  create  a  semblance  of  order  and  obedience.  In  fact, 
both  render  the  very  act  of  transgression  more  desirable. 
What  is  more,  the  bus's  tectonics — strictly  segregated 
but  openly  accessible — renders  these  lapses  doubly 
alluring  and  overtly  perverse.  For  some  Iranian  young 
men.  perversion  has  become  a  mode  of  authority;  for  their 
female  counterparts,  aversion  is  both  a  genre  of  resistance 
and  a  paradigm  of  defiance.  In  Iran,  this  is  distinct  by 
the  fact  that  while  women  are  given  free  access  to  the 
public  domain  and  are  protected  by  some  laws  to  do  so, 
they  are  simultaneously  subordinate  and  inferior  to  men 
by  a  different  set  of  laws.  This  renders  the  position  of  a 
woman  in  the  public  space  particularly  vicarious.  Outside 
the  IRI's  norms  of  sexuality  and  sociability,  both  are 
political  critiques  of  hegemonic  culture.  Therefore,  the 
bar  around  which  gender  segregation  is  reinforced,  has 
become  the  place  were  edges  meet,  opposites  touch,  gazes 
actualize,  and  illicit  tensions  oscillate.  This  is  where  the 
most  anxious  but  invisible  social  contact  occurs.  It  also 
remains  the  ultimate  embodiment  of  the  public  space  and 
its  {dis)functionality  in  the  Islamic  Republic  of  Iran.  At 
this  threshold,  in  this  transient  liminal  space,  between  the 
outside  and  the  inside,  all  hell  has  broken  loose. 


Ontario,  which  have  become  one  of  the  more  powerful  forces  behind  the  Diasporic 
anti-IRI  movement. 

6.  The  Pahlavi  dynasty— especially  Mohammad  Reza  Shah — was  accused  of 
"Westoxication"  or  "indiscriminate  borrowing  from  the  West"  by  well-known 
ideologues  like  Jalal  al-Ahmad  and  Ali  Shariati  in  the  1960s.  Jalal  al-Ahmad's 
pamphlet,  entitled  Gharbzadegi,  also  translated  as  "The  Plague  of  the  West," 
advocated  a  return  to  Islamic  roots  and  was  widely  circulated  in  Iran.  See  E. 
Abrahamian.  Iran  Between  Two  Revolutions  (New  Jersey:  Princeton  University 
Press,  1982).  425-  Historically,  the  more  westernized  secular  segment  of  Tehran  has 
occupied  the  northern  neighborhoods,  while  the  central  and  southern  areas  have 
been  inhabited  by  the  less  privileged,  religious  population. 


Notes 

1.  Urban  historians  have  argued  that  the  Iranian  Revolution  of  1977-79  was  a  result 
of  an  urban  crisis  as  much  as  a  sociopolitical  struggle  for  power;  and  that  the  stage 
for  this  crisis  was  the  capital  city.  Tehran.  See  Bernard  Hourcade,  "Teheran  1978- 
1989:  la  crise  dans  I'Etat,  la  capitale  de  la  ville."  Espaces  et  Societes  64.  no,  64  (1991): 
19-38. 

2.  A  one-minute  ride  in  the  collective  taxi  costs  seventy-five  toman,  while  a  closed- 
door  taxi  (dar  bast)  two  thousand  toman.  Those  who  cannot  afford  to  do  not  hand 
over  their  tickets  while  they  are  being  collected.  The  conductor  takes  note,  but  as  an 
act  of  charity,  he  moves  to  the  next  person  without  a  word  or  a  gesture.  This  occurred 
consistently  during  my  daily  rides.  Nor  do  passengers  object  to  such  exceptions. 
There  exists,  it  seemed,  an  unwritten  "you  can.  you  pay.  you  can't,  you  don't"  policy 
that  everyone  feels  is  fair, 

3.  "Tehran.  Iran."  The  Challenge  of  Urbanization:  The  World's  Largest  Cities  (United 
Nations  Publications:  April  199.5). 

4.  The  demarcation  of  the  north-south  axis  was  initiated  under  the  Qajars  in  the 
19th  century,  but  was  promoted  by  the  Pahlavis  as  both  an  urban  and  a  social  axis 
of  promotion. 

5.  These  apeak  to  another  kind  of  accessibility— a  global,  Diasporic  one.  The  owners 
of  Western-designed  handbags  swing — culturally  and  physically — between  the 
Iranian  society  of  the  IRI  and  the  growing  Iranian  communities  of  California  and 


56 


Br 


Figure  10.  "Shoulder  rest"  for  facade 
(embedded  within  surface) 


Figure  7.  "Shoulder  rest"  for  facade 
(attached  to  surface) 


Nicole  Vlado 

(Re)collection:  Surfaces,  Bodies, 
and  the  Dispersed  Home 


In  search  of  a  personal  architecture  that  is  not  located 
within  the  domestic  interior,  (re)collection  describes  a 
method  for  occupying  and  marking  familiar  spaces  within 
the  city. 


Resident/Residue 

The  city's  surfaces  contain  attributes  of  the  home.  In 
neighborhoods  such  as  Manhattan's  East  and  West  Villag- 
es, home  is  often  found  on  stoops  and  sidewalks  in  passing 
moments.  The  scale  of  streets  and  buildings  in  these  parts 
of  the  city,  the  preservation  and  degradation  of  its  surfac- 
es, and  the  continuous  density  of  bodies/objects/architec- 
ture provide  a  unique  backdrop  for  this  project.  These  (his- 
torically) dense  neighborhoods  provide  a  map  of  small, 
tenement-lined  streets,  evidence  of  the  flux  of  bodies  into/ 


out  of  the  city.  With  limited  interior  space,  one  can  imag- 
ine the  physical  saturation  of  bodies  and  objects  from  in- 
side these  small  apartments  out  towards  the  street.  It  is 
outside  where  private  space  is  claimed.  This  claiming  of 
the  city's  surfaces  is  a  continued  and  repeated  pattern  of 
city  dwellers.  Through  this  act  of  release  from  the  interior, 
home  is  dispersed  throughout  the  city.  It  is  upon  the  city's 
surfaces  that  this  dispersion  is  read. 

The  (re)collective  practices  referred  to  throughout  this 
work  are  techniques  for  the  observation  of  physical 
memories  with  relation  to  the  city.  These  practices 
attempt  to  shift  the  act  of  remembering  away  from  the 
traditional  photograph  to  a  new  spatial  and  tactile 
construct  of  memory.  As  physical  objects,  spatial  memories 
are  not  only  recalled,  they  are  collectible.  They  act  as 
remnants  of  past  occupations. 


57 


Figure  1.  Evidence  of  occupation  on 
the  city's  surfaces 


Figure  2.  Devices  for  Remember 
Figure  3.  "Pillow"  for  stoop 


As  the  body  seeks  to  create  comfort  within  the  city,  it 
engages  the  surfaces  of  the  city  and  attempts  to  transform 
them  into  spaces  of  the  home.  The  city's  inhabitants  seek 
refuge  along  the  surfaces  of  the  city,  leaning  and  resting 
their  bodies  on  its  exterior  architecture.  Through  the 
continued  use  of  these  surfaces:  stoops,  sidewalks,  facades, 
their  infrastructure  and  decoration  become  the  sites/ 
containers  of  domestic  occupation.  Surfaces  within  the  city 
display  evidence  of  prior  use.  At  times,  something  quite 
tangible  is  left  behind:  an  empty  bottle,  cigarette  butts;  at 
other  times,  this  evidence  is  nearly  invisible  and  lies 
mainly  within  the  memory  of  the  occupant — within  their 
(re)collection  of  those  places.  Although  the  occupation  of 
these  surfaces  is  temporary,  the  body  begins  to  leave  its 
impression'   throughout  the  city.  While  appearing  quite 
durable,  these  concrete,  stone,  and  metal  surfaces  undergo 
transformations  through  constant  use:  cracks  in  the 
sidewalk,  peeling  paint,  rust,  dried  chewing  gum,  stains, 
the  smoothing  of  stone  steps;  each  expresses  a  pattern  of 
surface  habitation.  (Fig.  1) 

In  place  of  the  study  of  maps  or  architectural  plans,  this 
investigation  is  based  on  the  exploration  of  surfaces. 


Techniques,  borrowed  from  casting  and  printmaking. 
provide  methods  for  mapping  the  textures  of  the  surfaces 
of  both  the  city  and  its  inhabitant.  In  search  of  the 
evidence  of  the  dispersed  home,  (re)collective  practices  are 
employed.  They  record  the  interactions  made  between  the 
surfaces  of  body  and  city,  making  permanent  the  fleeting 
domestic  exchange  between  a  city  dweller  and  her 
surrounding  urban  landscape. 

(Re)collection  and  Remembering 

(Re)collections  replace  the  photographic  snapshot  as 
devices  for  remembering.  By  mapping  the  dispersed  home, 
casts  were  produced  to  construct  the  space  between  the 
body  and  the  city.  To  produce  these  casts,  poses  of 
domestic  comfort  (sitting,  leaning,  reclining)  were 
performed  in  relation  to  a  surface  (the  stoop,  facade,  and 
sidewalk).  These  casts  were  produced  in  the  studio,  of 
plaster  which  took  shape  in  the  negative  space  between 
the  posed  body  and  the  recalled  surface.  Various  poses  and 
sites  were  cast,  producing  a  range  of  objects.  The  intention 
of  each  cast  was  to  create  an  architectural  object  that 


58 


Figure  4.  "Arm  rest"  for  window  ledge 

Figure  5.  "Pillow"  for  stoop 

Figure  6.  "Arm  rest"  for  window  ledge 


captured  the  domestic  habitation  of  exterior  space. 

Once  produced,  the  objects  contain  attributes  of  both  the 
site  and  the  body.  By  containing  information  of  both  the 
city  and  the  body,  the  casts  can  have  an  independent 
relation  to  either  surface.  If  the  casts  remain  with  the 
body  they  can  be  worn,  repositioning  the  body  into  a 
specific  posture  related  to  a  domestic  activity.  It  is  in  this 
role  that  the  casts  function  as  devices  of  physical  memory 
(Fig.  4).  The  casts  are  keepsake  objects  or  mementos 
produced  for  one  body/one  pose/one  site.  They  represent 
architecture  for  the  individual,  worn  for  the  assurance  of 
the  comfort  of  home  by  allowing  for  a  continued  relation  to 
a  domestically-occupied  site  in  the  city. 

When  returned  to  their  sites,  these  casts  transcend  their 
innocence  as  personal  memory  devices,  posing  as 
territorial  markings  of  public  space  while  mimicking 
existing  urban  infrastructure  and  street  furniture. 
Attached  to  the  surfaces  of  the  city,  the  casts  resemble  the 
existing  decorations  of  the  site's  architecture.  They  extend 
the  architectural  surfaces  of  the  city,  making  it  more 
inviting  to  the  human  form.  The  exposed  surface  of  the 


cast  relates  to  the  body,  allowing  the  city's  surfaces  to 
behave  as  objects  of  furniture  by  cushioning  the  body. 
Growing  off  existing  buildings  and  sidewalks,  the  casts 
serve  a  function  specific  to  the  pose  that  created  them. 
Therefore,  these  objects  take  on  the  role  of  "arm-rest," 
"shoulder-rest,"  and  "pillow"  once  they  have  been  re-sited 
within  the  city.  (Figs.  3-11) 


Impressions,  Markings  and  Territory 

While  the  casts  began  as  memory  devices  for  use  apart 
from  the  sites  that  produced  them,  when  placed  back  into 
the  city  they  transformed  into  types  of  street  furniture.  A 
term  used  to  describe  public  amenities  such  as  benches 
and  lampposts,  "street  furniture"  in  this  context  includes 
objects  inspired  by  the  domestic  interior  moved  into  the 
realm  of  the  public.  Located  along  the  public  surfaces  of 
the  city,  the  casts  challenge  the  accepted  codes  of  behavior 
,  in  these  spaces  while  placing  the  personal  within  the 
space  of  the  collective. 

Urban  designs  often  consider  the  occupant  of  public  space 
as  part  of  a  collective  identity  rather  than  as  a  corporeal 


59 


^^^ 


I  I  I  I  I 


I ; ■;  i;  i;  I 


kv 


Figure  8  &  9.  "Shoulder  rest"  for  facade  (attached  to  surface) 


individual.  These  casts  are  the  product  of  a  persistent 
insertion  of  my  own  body  into  pubhc  space.  Using  my  body 
as  the  subject  of  the  work,  the  casts  record  my  relation  to 
the  city,  and  when  located  within  the  city,  they  invite  my 
return.  In  my  absence,  the  casts  are  decorative  extensions 
of  various  facades,  stoops,  and  sidewalks. 

The  casts  made  from  my  body  recall  the  sensuality  of 
human  form,  but  they  are  not  as  recognizable  as 
functional  objects;  they  do  not  suggest  a  method  of  how, 
when,  or  why  they  are  to  be  used.  With  no  signage 
accompanying  them,  and  no  reference  for  understanding 
them  in  the  city,  the  isolated  casts  are  anomalous,  foreign 
objects. 

Through  their  location  in  the  public  realm,  they  may  be 
tested  for  use  by  bodies  other  than  my  own.  They  invite 
investigation  rather  than  reject  it,  allowing  for 
programmatic  ambiguity.  Still,  the  design  of  the  casts  is 
intended  for  my  return  to  them,  constructing  a  ritual 
between  my  body  and  the  city. 
The  placement  of  these  casts  into  the  city  represents  a 


desire  to  personalize  a  place  other  than  that  of  the 
domestic  interior.  They  identify  a  comfortable  positioning 
of  my  body  outside  of  the  "home."  The  body  of  the  woman 
is  historically  bound  to  the  domestic  interior,  and  it  is 
inside  the  home  where  she  engages  in  physical  encounters 
with  furniture  and  materials  sensitive  to  the  human  form. 
The  casts  extend  this  intimate  relation  between  body  and 
furniture  into  public  space.  In  contrast  to  the  hard 
surfaces  of  the  city's  streets,  which  represent  the  space  of 
the  male  (flaneur),  the  casts  provide  a  sensual 
reconstruction  of  the  city  through  their  reference  to  the 
female  body.- 

Both  comfort  and  security  are  achieved  through  the 
location  of  the  familiar  cast  forms.  The  articulated  fagade 
in  combination  with  the  cast  provides  an  opportunity  for 
the  female  body  to  become  part  of  the  surface  of  the  city. 
Collapsing  the  distinction  between  the  "organism  and  its 
surroundings,"  the  urban  dweller  enacts  a  form  of  mimicry 
while  occupying  the  facade's  surface. '  The  female  body 
becomes  part  of  the  surface  reading  of  the  city.  Rather 
than  being  foreign  to  the  city,  she  is  embedded  within. 


60 


^ 

^ 

= 

/           \ 

1      I      1 

I  '  I  '  r~ 

I  '  1-1  1 

1      1      1 

'  I      1 

t-H-rl 

I       I       1       1 

I       1       1       1 

^»rJ 

r 


b 


Figure  11.  "Shoulder  rest"  for  facade  (embedded  within  surface) 


Combining  the  desire  for  collecting  the  domestic 
habitation  of  city  with  a  need  to  claim  individual  space  for 
the  (female)  body,  this  project  concludes  its  research 
through  customized  representations  of  a  body  situated  in 
the  corners,  cracks,  and  surface  decorations  of  the  city.  As 
an  architectural  speculation,  this  work  invites  questions 
surrounding  the  individual  within  the  city,  while 
challenging  existing  practices  of  ownership  and  disrupting 
codes  of  behavior.  Recognizing  such  challenges,  this  work 
positions  itself  as  an  exploration  for  the  author,  claiming 
space  for  itself  within  the  discourse  of  architecture  just  as 
it  suggests  the  claiming  of  public  space  within  the  city. 


Notes 

I     In  his  book  Oblivion.  Marc  Auge  describes  remembrance  as  "impression." 
Extending  this  concept  to  describe  (re)collection,  we  can  imagine  it  as  the 
manipulation  of  a  medium,  as  the  transfer  of  physical  information  from  object  to 
surface.  Thus,  we  can  view  the  analogy  of  casting  as  a  method  that  (re)collects 
information  and  practices  it  in  various  forms  to  gather  proof  of  the  dispersed  home. 
Methods  of  {re)collection  further  express  the  physical  attributes  of  the  surface,  both 
of  the  body  and  the  city.  Casting  and  printmaking  techniques  register  specific 
textures  of  each  surface. 

2,  Guiliana  Bruno  discusses  the  location  of  the  female  body  inside  the  home  in 
relation  to  the  male  body  outside:  "Confined  in  the  private,  made  to  feel  at  home  in 
the  home,  woman's  sexual  field  is  restricted  while  her  field  of  motion  is  sexuatized.  A 
male  loiterer  is  a  flaneur;  a  female  is  a  'streetwalker."'  See  Guiliana  Bruno,  "Bodily 
Architectures"  Assemfc/age  19  (December  1992):  108. 

3.  Roger  Caillois,  "Mimicry  and  Legendary  Psychasthenia,"  trans.  John  Shlepley, 
October  31,  no.  17  (winter  1984):  58-74. 


61 


Figure  1.  Charles  Sheeler  (1883-1965).  Doylcstown  House:  Stairway 
C.1917,  gelatin  silver  print  mounted  on  paperboard.  image:  245  x  .169 
(9  5/8  X  6  5/8);  sheet:  253  x  .196  (9  15/16  x  7  11/16).  National  Gallery 
of  Art,  Washington,  New  Century  Fund 


Figure  2.  Charles  Sheeler,  Doylestown  House:  Stairway  with 
Chair,  1917,  gelatin  silver  print  on  paper.  National  Gallery 
of  Art.  Washington,  Gift  of  the  Brown  Foundation.  Inc., 
Houston,  1998.19.1. 


Mark  Rawlinson 


Charles  Sheeler:  Musing  on  Primitiveness 


Alfred  Stieglitz  condescendingly  referred  to  the  interior 
arrangement  of  Charles  Sheeler's  Doylestown  house  as  his 
"Pennsylvania  Hut  aesthetitque."'  In  The  Poetics  of  Space, 
Gaston  Bachelard  makes  a  similar  claim:  "'[a]  dreamer  of 
refuges,"  he  says,  "dreams  of  a  hut,  a  nest,  or  of  nooks  and 
corners  into  which  he  would  like  to  hide  away  like  an 
animal  in  its  hole."-  For  Walter  Benjamin,  "[t]he  original 
form  of  all  dwelling  is  existence  not  in  the  house  but  in  the 
shell.  The  shell  bears  the  impression  of  its  occupant."^ 
Unable  to  return  to  the  shell,  we  make  of  the  house  a 
refuge,  a  space  in  which  to  burrow,  where  each  room 
wears  the  traces  of  occupancy.  As  a  man  who  once  referred 
to  himself  as  "the  hermit  of  Doylestown,"  for  all  the  world 
Sheeler  seems  in  tune  with  Benjamin  and  Bachelard.' 

The  dreamer  of  refuges  lives,  according  to  Bachelard,  "in  a 
region  that  is  beyond  human  images"  and  it  is  through  the 
medium  of  the  image — in  this  instance,  the  photograph — 
that  Sheeler  "dreams."^  It  is  poetry  and  not  the  image 


which  is  Bachelard's  privileged  mode  of  representation, 
but  I  will  argue  throughout  this  essay  that  Sheeler's 
images  of  the  Doylestown  house,  besides  their  obvious 
engagement  with  a  photo-cubist  aesthetic,  reflect  another 
of  Bachelard's  claims,  namely  that  "we  must  start  musing 
on  primitiveness."^  To  muse  on  primitiveness  is  to  access 
the  very  beginnings  of  our  "becoming,"  it  is  to  trace  most 
poignantly  the  relationship  between  the  individual  and 
the  home.   Contrary  to  Stieglitz's  disdain  of  Sheeler's 
primitive  retreat,  it  is  precisely  the  inclusion  of  the 
primitive  in  these  images,  which  marks  them  out  for 
attention.  And  whilst  these  works  explicitly  reveal  the 
primitive  function  of  the  hut,  they  generate  a  region 
"beyond  human  images"  in  the  dialectical  interplay 
between  the  realism  of  photography  and  the  abstraction  of 
formal  experimentation. 

In  each  of  Sheeler's  Doylestown  photographs,  entry  and 
exit,  the  flow  between  boundaries  and  over  thresholds,  is 


62 


restricted;  access  to  those  spaces  beyond  the  frame  (or 
plane)  of  the  image  is  barred,  limited  to  the  point  of  self- 
imprisonment.  In  the  end.  however,  I  want  to  argue  that 
Sheeler's  series  of  Doylestown  photographs — repeated 
images  of  darkened  windows,  silhouetted  stoves,  shady 
stairwells  and  half-open  doorways — allow  us  to  access 
something  fundamental,  something  ancient.  These  rooms 
are  monadic,  literally  windowless  because  the  windows 
are  no  longer  transparent,  where  the  truth  of  the  monad 
lies  in  its  self-containment.  Taken  from  Leibniz,  the  notion 
of  the  monad  recurs  in  the  work  of  both  Benjamin  and 
Theodor  Adorno.  For  Adorno,  "[t]he  interpretation  of  an 
artwork  as  an  immanent,  crystallised  process  at  a 
standstill  approximates  the  concept  of  the  monad;"  the 
importance  of  this  is  that  the  "monadological  constitution 
of  artworks  in  themselves  points  beyond  itself."'  These 
images  of  restrained  access,  of  barred  thresholds,  are 
themselves  thresholds  which  allow  access  to  the  world  in 
miniature. 

Between  1910  and  1926  Charles  Sheeler  rented  the 
Doylestown  House,  a  colonial  cottage  in  Bucks  County, 
Pennsylvania,  built  by  Jonathan  Worthington  in  1768. 
The  house,  shared  with  fellow  artist,  Morton  Schamberg 
until  his  death  during  the  influenza  epidemic  in  1917,  was 
a  place  to  escape  to,  a  retreat  where  both  men  could 
produce  art.  The  house  was  isolated  and  the  isolation  of 
the  place  was  felt  doubly  because  of  the  distance  of  Bucks 
County  from  the  developing  art  scene  in  Manhattan,  but 
also  because  of  the  attitude  of  those  in  the  local  area 
toward  modern  art.  According  to  Sheeler.  "Modern  art 
was  considered  there  on  the  same  status  as  an  illegitimate 
child  born  into  the  first  families,  something  to  live  down 
rather  than  providing  opportunity  to  introduce  new 
blood."*  The  hostility  Sheeler  obviously  felt  towards  his 
growing  modernist  influences  did  not  discourage  him  from 
exploring  them  explicitly  in  relation  to  the  house  itself,  a 
risky  venture  one  might  presume. 

As  Karen  Lucie  notes,  the  choice  of  subject  is  not  the  usual 
fodder  for  the  determined  modern  artist  because  Sheeler 
could  quite  easily  have  been  accused  of  nostalgia  and  of 
betraying  his  avant-gardist  principles.  And  yet  Sheeler's 
Doylestown  images  avoid  both  with  some  skill.  For  Lucie 
this  is  because  "Sheeler  aimed  to  synthesize  past  and 
present  in  a  new  way;"  a  formula  that  he  was  to  repeat 
over  and  again  throughout  his  career.'  This  neat  equation 
should  not  foreclose  the  analysis  of  the  Doylestown 
images.  According  to  Theodore  Stebbins,  Sheeler  saw  in 
these  photographs  "something  personal,"  but  evades  the 
issue  of  what  this  might  have  been  in  favour  of  questions 
and  not  answers,  provisional  or  not.'"  I  would  like  to  ask 
the  question  again:  Sheeler  saw  in  these  photographs 


"something  personal,"  but  what  might  that  be? 

In  Doylestown  House:  Stairwell  (c.l917)  (Fig.  1)  we  see  the 
twisting  risers  of  the  staircase  caught  between  a 
whitewashed  wall  and  the  edge  of  the  frame  of  the  door, 
both  brightly  lit.  The  lighting  catches  the  underside  of  the 
rising  stairway;  the  stairwell  illuminated  enough  to  allow 
us  to  distinguish  the  space  beneath  and  the  pattern  of  the 
stairs  themselves.  But  two  vertical  stripes  of  murky 
darkness  frame  these  thin  interjections  of  light,  pressing 
in  on  the  scene.  On  one  level,  the  photograph  abandons 
content  in  favour  of  formal  composition,  a  photo-cubist 
rendering  of  the  space  in  terms  of  geometric  line  and  tonal 
pattern.  On  another,  one  literally  can  identify  a  doorway, 
a  stairwell,  and  the  underside  of  the  stairs  rising  up  and 
into  an  unseen  space  above.  In  Doylestown  House: 
Stairway  with  Chair  (c.l917)  (Fig.  2),  a  similar 
arrangement  of  forms  presents  itself  to  us:  strong 
verticals,  this  time  in  white,  frame  a  black/grey  oblong 
which  contains  the  stairs  coiling  diagonally  to  the  right, 
continuing  upwards  into  darkness.  The  door  at  the  bottom 
of  the  stairs  is  open,  extending  out  toward  the  viewer, 
concealing  a  window  to  the  left.  Next  to  the  window, 
nearest  the  viewer  is  a  small  mirror,  which  is  countered 
bottom  right  by  a  slither  of  a  chair  and  its  shadow.  The 
door  is  open,  so  one  can  ascend  the  stairs  but  the  darkness 
is  forbidding:  the  window  and  mirror  are  redundant,  as  is, 
because  of  the  little  we  see  of  it,  the  chair. 

Together  this  reordering  of  the  visible  and  the  imagined 
space  exposes  Bachelard's  dreamer  of  nooks  and  crannies 
to  a  degree  of  critique.  What  lurks  in  those  dark  spaces 
under  stairs,  or  behind  the  door?  What  has  happened  to 
the  world  beyond  the  windowpane?  'For  whatever  reason, 
Bachelard  does  not  find  anything  sinister  in  nooks  and 
crannies,  only  adventure,  anticipation,  discovery.  The 
home  is  seen  as  the  source  of  happy  memories;  it  exists  as 
a  place  that  returns  to  us  in  dreams  as  we  sleep  or  in 
daydreams  when  our  minds  wander.  But,  as  Rachel 
Bowlby  argues,  there  is  something  troubling  about 
Bachelard's  untroubled  home."   For  Bowlby,  Bachelard's 
view  of  the  home  is  overly  optimistic,  reminding  us  of 
Freud's  notion  of  the  unheimlich.  The  fact  that  the  house 
can  also  be  the  opposite  of  the  home:  a  place  of  darkness, 
fear  and  hostility.  Freud's  nightmarish  vision  of  the 
familiar  made  unfamiliar  is  all  about  fear,  peril,  and  the 
loss  of  the  sense  of  security  in  the  place  where  it  matters 
most,  the  place  where  one  must  always  feel  at  home:  in 
one's  own  home. 

Bachelard's  eulogy  on  nooks  and  crannies  and  Freud's 
willingness  to  find  horror  in  them,  however,  does  not  fully 
account  for  the  feeling  Sheeler's  photographs  generate. 


63 


One  can  argue  that  the  Doylestown  house  is  not  a  homely 
place  at  all,  there  is  nothing  subtle  about  the  place,  hard 
whitewashed  walls,  harshly  lighted  with  excessive  bright 
spots  and  deep,  deep  shadows,  all  add  up  to  an 
uncomfortable  place  to  be.  One  cannot  help  but  note  the 
staged-ness  of  each  image.  These  photographs  are  full  of 
dark  spaces,  looming  silhouettes;  there  are  thresholds  that 
cannot  be  crossed,  stairs  that  cannot  be  climbed  and 
windows  that  cannot  be  seen  through.  The  interior  thus 
becomes  site  of  containment,  a  claustrophobic  space  with 
harsh,  unpredictable  lighting  and  deep,  dark  shadowy 
area  which  one  dare  not  venture  into. 

Lucie  argues  with  justification  that  these  images  are  a 
series,  or  with  Adorno  in  mind,  a  constellation.  As  such, 
one  can  piece  together  the  house,  as  it  were.   In  spite  of 
the  house's  residual  closedness.  the  viewer  begins  to 
recognise  latches,  doorways,  fireplaces,  windows  and  other 
objects,  which  act  as  visual  clues  and  in  turn  form  a 
mental  map  of  the  space.  But  what  a  flattened  space  it 
remains  even  with  this  acquired  knowledge.  The 
fragmentary  forms  of  the  individual  images  themselves, 
though,  make  for  an  unstable  constellation.  Rare  are  the 
images  which  offer  more  than  a  doorway  or  a  corner  for  us 
to  peer  into,  the  most  Sheeler  gives  us  is  Doylestown 
House:  Interior  with  Stove  (c.1932)  (Fig.  3).'-  Here  is  a 
wider  perspective  on  a  room  with  a  door  to  the  right — 
which  is  cropped — the  white  beads  of  the  window  bright 
against  the  blackened  window  panes,  to  the  left  another 
closed  door,  and  in  the  middle  a  glowering  silhouette  of 
the  stove,  light  bursting  from  its  belly  through  an  open 
door.  But  this  image  is  hardly  panoramic. 

Interior  with  Stove  is  illuminating  for  a  number  of 
reasons.  As  part  of  a  series  or  constellation.  Interior  with 
Stove  appears  like  a  sun.  providing  light  and  the  forcefield. 
which  binds  the  constellation  together.  The  importance  of 
Interior  with  Stove  is  underscored  by  its  reappearance  in 
Sheeler's  self-portrait.  The  Artist  Looks  at  Nature  (1943). 
Here  Sheeler  sits  at  an  easel  working  on  a  re-rendering  of 
Interior  with  Stove,  perhaps  in  conte  crayon,  but  the  artist 
is  not  in  the  studio,  he  is  working  au  plein  air  and  the 
scene  before  him  a  montage  of  an  older  home,  Ridgefield, 
Connecticut  and  the  Boulder  Dam."  The  "something 
personal"  is  again  invoked  and  I  want  to  suggest  here  that 
it  is  the  work  of  light  in  this  image  that  makes  it  such  an 
important  image.  It  seems  possible  to  imagine  that  in  the 
other  photographs  in  the  constellation,  the  light  source  is 
not  a  strategically  placed  photographic  lamp  but  the  light 
from  this  stove  emanating  through  the  house.   Granted 
the  light  in  the  stove  is  a  lamp  and  not  a  fire  but  Sheeler's 
imagery  seeks  to  make  the  analogy. 


Sheeler  says  "Light  is  the  great  designer"  and  in  these 
photographs  light  works  to  outline  or  abstract  form,  it  is 
used  to  both  illuminate  surface  texture  and  to  obliterate 
texture  also."  Constance  Rourke  writes: 

With  Sheeler  light  becomes  a  palpable  medium 
through  which  form  is  apprehended  to  the  full, 
through  variations  in  its  quality,  through 
contrasting  shadow,  through  modulations  of  tone 
within  shadow.... A  full  perception  of  the  use  of 
shadow  in  his  art  may  lead  to  an  understanding 
of  its  most  fundamental  qualities,  bringing  the 
spectator  back  finally  to  the  constant  use  of  light 
itself  as  a  dimensional  force. '^ 

I  would  argue  that  in  the  case  of  the  Doylestown 
photographs  and  subsequent  related  images.  Rourke  is 
only  half  right.   Locked  as  we  are  in  the  monadic  house, 
imprisoned  amongst  its  nooks  and  crannies,  pushed  into 
its  corners,  thresholds  barred  and  our  sense  of  space 
impeded,  we  see  only  the  interior.  Light  blackens  the 
windows,  denying  them  their  transparency,  making  this 
house  a  windowless  place:  from  inside  we  cannot  see 
outside.  What  we  forget  in  this  confusion  is  that  we  can  be 
seen  from  outside  of  the  house,  from  the  other  side  of  the 
blackened  glass. 


Figure  3    Charles  Sheeler,  Interior  uith  Store.  1932. 

Conte  crayon  on  wove  paper.  National  (lallery  of 

Art. Washington.  Gift  (Partial  and  Promised)  of 

Aaron  I.  Fleischman,  2000.181.1 


64 


This  is  the  illuminated  hut  in  which  Bachelard  finds 
poetry.  Referring  to  Henri  Bachelin's  novel,  Le  Serviteur. 
Bachelard  claims; 

[The  author]  finds  the  root  of  the  hut  dream  in 
the  house  itself.   He  has  only  to  give  a  few 
touches  to  the  spectacle  of  the  family-sitting 
room,  only  to  listen  to  the  stove  roaring  in  the 
evening  stillness,  while  an  icy  wind  blows 
against  the  house,  to  know  that  at  the  house's 
centre,  in  the  circle  of  light  shed  by  the  lamp,  he 
is  living  in  the  round  house,  the  primitive  hut,  of 
prehistoric  man."* 


As  a  threshold  the  viewer  can  imagine  looking  into  the 
Doylestown  House  from  outside,  rather  than  from  inside 
out,  and  by  doing  so  gain  access  to  this  pre-history, 
present  and  future  time.  The  blackened  windows  and  non- 
reflective  mirrors,  the  closed  or  half-open  doors,  the  lack  of 
furniture,  all  evoke  an  uncomfortable  sense  of  a  place  and 
yet  from  the  other  side  of  the  window  this  place  and  space 
become  timeless,  evocative,  and  dream-like.  The 
Doylestown  House  is  a  burrow,  a  place  to  hide,  a  bolthole, 
a  place  we  search  out  for  in  the  darkest  dreams,  a 
miniature  world  that  lies  beyond  the  unhomely. 


Bachelard  makes  much  of  the  image  of  the  lamp  in  the 
window  as  a  vigilant  and  safeguarding  eye  of  the  house, 
and  in  turn  relates  an  anecdote  about  Rilke.  One  dark 
night,  Rilke  and  his  friends  were  about  to  cross  a  field 
when  they  saw  "the  lighted  casement  of  a  distant  hut,  the 
hut  that  stands  quite  alone  on  the  horizon  before  one 
comes  to  fields  and  marshlands."  They  felt  like  "isolated 
individuals  seeing  night  for  the  first  time."''   For  the  dark 
background  of  our  lives  is  assumed  as  inevitable  until  a 
flash  of  insightful  light  is  seen.  As  Bachelard  puts  it: 

One  might  even  say  that  light  emanating  from  a 
lone  watcher,  who  is  also  a  determined  watcher, 
attains  to  the  power  of  hypnosis.  We  are 
hypnotized  by  solitude,  hypnotized  by  the  gaze  of 
the  solitary  house;  and  the  tie  that  binds  us  to  it 
is  so  strong  that  we  begin  to  dream  of  nothing 
but  a  solitary  house  in  the  night.'* 

This  is  what  Bachelard's  means  when  he  says  "we  must 
start  musing  on  primitiveness.""  The  Doylestown  House 
was  a  retreat  from  the  world.  The  isolation  of  the  place  is 
evident  in  every  photograph  of  every  room.  To  picture  the 
landscape  in  which  the  house  sits  would  make  this  no 
more  obvious  but  to  imagine  the  lighted  house  as  a  beacon 
in  the  darkened  landscape  or  as  a  place  into  which  we  can 
peer  and  watch  unseen  provides  an  altogether  different 
perspective.  The  house  as  a  monad  is; 

An  object  blasted  free  of  time  for  the  purposes  of 
analysis — it  is  concentrated  time,  pre-history, 
the  present,  and  post-history  are  crushed 
together  there...  It  is  an  important  moment  of  the 
past  that  can  explain  the  present  and  the 
possibilities  of  the  future.  An  image  of  a  greater 
totality — the  experience  of  an  historical  era — can 
be  found  there.  It  is  a  threshold.™ 


Notes 

1.  Alfred  Stieglitz  quoted  in  Wanda  Corn.  The  Great  American  Thing:  Modern  Art 
and  Natwnal  Identity,  1915.1935  (California:  University  of  California  Press),  299. 

2.  Gaston  Bachelard,  77ie  Poetics  of  Space  (Boston:  Beacon  Press.  1986).  30. 

3-  Walter  Benjamin,  The  Arcades  Project  (London:  Harvard  University  Press,  1999). 
221. 

4,  Sheeler  quoted  in  Karen  Lucie,  Charles  Sheeler  in  Doylestown:  American 
Modernism  and  the  Pennsylvania  Tradition  (Allentown:  Allentown  Art  Museum, 
1997),  19. 

5,  Bachelard.  30. 

6,  Emphasis  as  in  the  original  text.  Ibid,.  33, 

7,  Theodor  Adorno,  Aesthetic  Theory  (Minneapolis:  University  of  Minnesota  Press, 
1997).  180, 

8,  Sheeler  quoted  in  Constance  Rourke.  Charles  Sheeler:  Artist  in  the  American 
Tradition  (New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace.  1938),  59, 

9,  Lucie,  26. 

10,  Theodore  Stebbins,  Charles  Sheeler:  The  Photographs  (Boston:  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  1987).  9. 

11,  See  Rachel  Bowlby,  "Domestication"  in  Feminism  Beside  Itself,  eds,  Diane  Elam 
and  Robyn  Wiegman  (New  York:  Routledge,  1995).  76. 7, 

12,  Deliberately  reproduced  here  is  Sheeler's  conte  crayon  drawing  of  the 
photograph,  which  appears  in  The  Artist  Looks  at  Nature  (1943) — a  drawing,  which  is 
a  copy  of  the  photograph  of  the  same  name  and  is  reproduced  here  to  impress  the 
importance  of  the  series,  or  constellation,  in  Sheeler's  practice, 

13,  See  Lucie,  110.  Carol  Troyen  and  Erica  Hirshler,  Sheeler:  Paintings  and 
Drawings  (Boston;  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  1987),  183.5, 

14-  Sheeler  quoted  in  Rourke.  109, 

15,  Ibid, 

16-  Bachelard.  31. 

17,  Rilke  quoted  in  Bachelard,  35-6, 

18-  Bachelard,  36- 

19-  Emphasis  as  in  the  original  text.  Ibid,.  33 

20.   Esther  Leslie,  "Walter  Benjamin's /Ircatics'  Project"  [article  online];  available 
from  Http://www,militantesthetix, co.uk/yarcades.html;  Internet;  accessed  28 
February  2006. 


65 


Figure  1.  Buckniinster  Fuller  and  students  in  the 
classroom  during  the  World  Game  workshop  at  the 
New  York  School  of  Painting  and  Sculpture.  1969 


Figure  2.  Photograph  of  starving  Bangladesh  people  from 
Gabel's  Ho-ping:  Food  for  Everyone 


Jennifer  Ferng 

Designing  Conclusions  for  a  Cold  War  Humanity 


Buckrainster  Fuller  described  architecture  as 
"comprehensive  anticipatory  design  science,"  while  Cedric 
Price  referred  to  his  own  creative  approach  as  "continuous 
anticipatory  design."'   Architecture,  in  both  cases,  was 
redefined  as  a  combination  of  disciplines,  including 
physics,  engineering,  and  statistics,  which  together 
could  produce  solutions  to  universal  problems  such  as 
population  overcrowding,  hunger,  and  weapons  of  mass 
destruction.  Known  as  the  eccentric  designer  of  the  1967 
Exposition  Dome  for  Montreal  and  the  Dymaxion  map. 
Fuller  was  an  architect  and  physicist  whose  work  bridged 
between  architecture  and  the  sciences.  He  often  delivered 
lengthy  lectures  that  encompassed  diverse  academic  and 
popular  topics,  developed  tensegrity  structures  using 
minimal  amounts  of  material,  and  corresponded  with 
forward-thinking  individuals  such  as  Price,  C.A.  Dioxiadis, 
and  Marshall  McLuhan. 

This  essay  will  situate  the  "world  systems"  of  Fuller 
and  Fuller's  student  Medard  Gabel  into  the  lineage  of 
simulations  within  the  history  of  technology,-  It  touches 
upon  three  historical  periods:  the  Rand  Corporation's 
simulation  models  of  the  Cold  War  during  the  mid-1950s, 
architectural  propositions  of  the  1960s,  and  the  beginning 
of  sustainable  development  in  the  1970s.  In  conceiving 
these  examples  of  architecture  as  hybrid  simulations,  my 
aim  is  to  specifically  demonstrate  how  Cold  War  influences 
were  translated  and  interpreted  in  Fuller's  World  Game. 
In  turn.  Fuller's  student  Medard  Gabel  employed  the 
same  practices  of  the  World  Game  for  his  own  project  later 


entitled  the  World  Game  Laboratory,  which  concentrated 
on  strategies  for  sustainable  development.  Gabel's  rhetoric 
and  visual  media  masked  the  objectivity  of  "science"  with 
the  veneer  of  a  moral  obligation  to  responsibly  assess 
the  Earth's  diminishing  resources.  While  Gabel  seemed 
openly  critical  of  war-inducing  technologies,  his  visual 
and  numeric  techniques  in  the  World  Game  Laboratory 
ironically  drew  upon  and  reinforced  this  same  Cold  War 
legacy  of  game-based  scenarios  and  interdisciplinary 
research,  initially  interpreted  by  his  mentor  Buckminster 
Fuller. 


Cold  War  Games 

The  persona  of  the  architect  used  charisma, 
unconventional  taste,  and  vivid  imagination  to  bring  an 
idea  into  existence,  both  in  the  public  realm  and  in  the 
private  mind  of  the  designer.  The  architect  who  played 
scientist  was  allowed  conscientious  yet  unconventional 
applications  of  Cold  War  trends,  which  would  be 
artistically  employed  to  manipulate  public  perception  of 
what  constituted  sustainable  development.  Fuller  and 
Price  developed  themselves  as  prodigal  experts  who  knew 
what  was  best  for  the  world  and  were  willing  to  teach 
anyone  how  to  manage  it.  Part  empirical  fact  and  part 
subjective  behavioralism,  architecture  was  configured  as 
a  visual  practice  that  would  translate  global  data  into 
an  aestheticized  model  of  political  commentary.  What 
commenced  as  an  initial  political  means  for  military 


66 


research  remained  a  politicized  vehicle  for  architectural 
expression.  These  highly  personalized  interpretations  of 
"science"  became  a  legitimate  foundation  for  furthering 
subjective  suggestions  of  moral  activism  that  went  far 
beyond  the  traditional  realm  of  architectural  design. 

From  the  early  1950s,  global  strategies  inspired  by 

systems  theory  were  aimed  at  enlisting  the  everyday 
individual  to  actively  participate  in  the  planet's  future. 
While  models  of  operations  research  developed  by  Jay 
Forrester  and  the  military  technologies  used  in  urban 
planning  as  examined  by  Jennifer  Light  are  useful  points 
of  comparison,  I  am  more  interested  in  the  distinctions 
between  simulations  and  scenarios.'  For  example, 
Sharon  Ghamari-Tabrizi  has  noted  that  the  war  games 
of  the  Rand  Corporation  were  a  combination  of  "synthetic 
history"  and  "laboratory  experiment"  used  to  generate 
operational  data.  She  wrote,  "In  the  absence  of  empirical 
sources,  the  phenomena  taking  place  in  the  course  of 
play,  as  well  as  game  outcomes,  acquired  the  aura  of  well- 
founded  fact."^  Simulations  were  often  referred  to  as  "task 
environments"  and  were  played  in  large-size  conference 
rooms. 

Role-playing  was  also  used  to  provoke  political 
inventiveness  and  to  prioritize  research  for  policy  decision 
makers.  In  the  Social  Science  Division  of  the  Rand 
Corporation,  four  political  games,  organized  by  Herbert 
Goldhammer,  were  played  between  1955  and  1956.  The 
fourth  game  occupied  twenty  participants  for  three  weeks 
in  April  1956  and  would  be  the  most  elaborate  war  game 
of  the  decade.  In  the  final  round  of  the  fourth  game,  the 
United  States  team  was  encouraged  to  exercise  all  possible 
options  while  other  teams  were  constrained  to  make 
moves  based  on  the  current  doctrines  of  their  respective 
governments.  Most  of  the  multiple  trials  were  too 
exhausting  for  the  parties  involved,  and  game  scenarios  as 
a  whole  were  often  too  comprehensive  and  time-consuming 
to  be  effective  as  strategic  tools. 

Organizational  theory  was  incorporated  into  man- machine 
simulations,  where  an  organization  was  likened  to  an 
organism,  measured  by  its  responsibilities  and  by  how 
successfully  its  internal  behavior  accounted  for  success 
and  failure.  While  the  controversial  uncertainty  of 
scientific  realism  plagued  the  verification  of  simulations, 
there  were  certainly  concrete  differences  for  researchers 
between  mathematical  games  and  operational  exercises. 
Scenarios  presented  whole  world  pictures  that  were 
inherently  attached  to  cultural  and  historical  situations. 
They  could  not  be  quantified  or  rationalized  but  could  also 
depict  several  streams  of  interactions  simultaneously. 
For  Fuller,  the  World  Game  would  never  achieve  a  level 


of  realistic  application,  but  its  gaming  framework  served 
as  compound  iterations  of  role-playing  and  man-machine 
simulations.  Human  actors  identified  themselves  as 
agents  of  change,  and  the  technologies  employed  in 
wartime  would  be  alternatively  used  to  ensure  peace  and 
suitable  resources  for  the  preservation  of  humanity.  While 
the  World  Game  was  certainly  an  organized  reaction  to 
the  counterculture  phenomena  of  the  1960s,  its  methods 
of  scenario-making  utilized  many  different  techniques 
in  order  to  multiply  solutions  for  an  idealized  balance 
between  man  and  his  environment. 

In  disseminating  their  views  through  university 
workshops,  public  lectures,  and  appearances  before 
government  committees,  these  two  generations  of 
architects  sought  to  remodel  Cold  War  research  in  a  softer 
light,  projecting  a  positive  future  based  on  real  numbers. 
Large-scale  technological  systems  such  as  the  World  Game 
put  forth  questionable  claims  of  fair  "equilibrium"  that 
perpetually  attempted  to  juggle  the  interests  of  politicians, 
design  professionals,  educators,  and  the  general  public. 
James  Webb,  administrator  of  NASA  from  1961  to  1968, 
forewarned  of  the  dangers  of  trying  to  achieve  a  perfect 
equilibrium  for  society  as  a  whole.  He  said,  "...if  dynamic 
equilibrium  is  achieved  for  the  whole  mass  at  any  one 
time,  it  becomes  increasingly  difficult  to  maintain. ..These 
methods  must  include... the  intellectual  response  time  of 
humans,  the  inertia  of  human  systems,  and  the  interaction 
of  human  endeavors  with  their  supporting  physical  and 
social  environment."^  Fuller's  World  Game  thus  privileged 
individual  decisions  in  the  delicate  balancing  act  between 
natural  resources  and  human  needs. 

The  dynamic  language  of  Fuller,  Price,  and  Dioxiadis 
advocated  for  a  unified  world  where  the  ecology  of  the 
earth  and  Cold  War  science  would  integrate  comfortably 
in  utopic  harmony.  For  example,  in  Price's  Atom:  New 
Town  from  1967,  funded  in  part  by  a  federal  atomic 
research  facility  and  executed  as  a  studio  workshop  at 
Rice  University  in  Houston,  Texas,  a  large  nuclear  reactor 
was  centered  in  a  satellite  city  thirty  miles  southwest  of 
Chicago.  The  town  was  conceived  as  a  social  experiment  to 
examine  the  impact  of  new  educational  models  on  urban 
planning.  Various  education  centers  such  as  the  Home 
Study  Station  could  be  loaded  into  an  existing  house  and 
customized  to  persons  of  different  age  groups  to  provide  a 
source  of  continuous  learning.  Unlike  Fuller,  Price  viewed 
nuclear  power  as  a  useful  source  of  energy  to  design  a 
better  educational  model  for  the  condition  of  the  city. 


67 


World  Game 

The  use  of  scientific  research  in  architecture  was  meant  to 
provide  a  foundation  of  legitimate  research  and  to  provoke 
the  American  pubhc  into  action.  In  conflating  statistics 
and  scientific  methodologies  with  architectural  invention. 
Fuller,  as  well  as  Gabel.  modeled  his  version  of  Earth  as 
a  flexible  "closed  world"  where  numbers  represented  real 
resources  that  could  be  easily  manipulated  into  feasible 
solutions  but  where  participant  feedback  could  essentially 
change  any  outcome  of  the  simulation."  Fuller  and  Gabel 
both  believed  that  large-scale  social  action  would  only 
result  from  the  cumulative  actions  of  individuals.  An 
individual's  rational  attainment  of  "expected  utility"  could 
help  restore  the  earth  back  to  its  natural  equilibrium. 

Originally  conceived  by  Fuller  in  1927.  the  World  Game 
was  an  unusual  hybrid  between  a  simulation  and  a 
scenario.  In  reaction  to  the  1798  Malthusian  doctrine 
of  limited  resources.  Fuller  created  drawn  diagrams, 
statistical  graphs,  charts,  and  physical  models  to  solve  the 
world's  hunger  and  energy  demands.  Known  as  Fuller's 
triad  of  "a  single  world,  a  single  house,  a  single  family," 
man  represented  not  only  himself  as  an  individual  but 
also  as  the  universal  agent  of  Spaceship  Earth,  who 
would  either  deliver  redemption  or  annihilation  to  his 
environment.'   One  of  the  many  goals  of  the  World 
Game  was  to  involve  as  many  people  as  possible  in  the 
research,  design,  and  development  of  strategies  for 
solving  worldwide  problems  in  the  most  peaceful  and 
effective  manner.  Based  on  Ludwig  von  Bertalanffy's 
systems  theory  from  molecular  biology  and  Fuller's  own 
sense  of  regenerative  structural  and  service  systems. 
Fuller  conceptualized  the  philosophy  behind  the  World 
Game  as  being  "objective."  For  each  version  of  the  World 
Game,  a  pre-scenario  began  with  examining  the  amount 
of  energj'  and  resources  needed  by  one  human  being. 
Guided  by  the  principle  of  the  basic  unit  of  one  individual, 
the  participants  would  calculate  the  "hare  maximum" 
for  subsistence  levels.  For  example,  for  working  men, 
approximately  3,500  calories  a  day  were  needed  to  survive, 
for  women,  3,300  calories  a  day  were  considered  necessary. 
Once  this  basis  was  established.  Fuller  and  his  students 
began  experimenting  with  plausible  methods  of  procuring 
energy  sources  in  various  scenarios.  Scenarios,  for  Fuller, 
were  perceived  as  stages  of  development  that  would 
possibly  lead  to  better  results  or  better  efficiency. 

The  fundamental  logic  underlying  the  first  stage  of  the 
World  Game  assumed  that  electrical  energy  was  necessary 
to  transport,  store  food,  and  dispose  of  waste.  A  universal 
electrical  grid  was  placed  across  the  entire  globe,  and 
then  participants  worked  together  to  figure  out  how  this 


grid  would  affect  world  resources.  By  keeping  efficiency 
and  technological  competence  at  present  levels.  Fuller 
wanted  to  demonstrate  that  the  first  stage  would  be 
plausible  using  only  existing  technologies.  The  final  stage 
analyzed  processes  on  how  to  increase  food  production 
as  the  ultimate  goal  (Fig. 3).  The  first  group  of  players  to 
bring  humanity  closer  to  success  in  the  shortest  amount 
of  time  possible  won  the  game.  The  World  Game  could  be 
played  in  different  timed  rounds,  always  with  perpetual 
equilibrium  in  mind  for  continuing  generations  of  all 
nations.  While  teaching  at  Southern  Illinois  University, 
Fuller  designed  an  unbuilt  gaming  facility  for  the  solution 
of  world  problems,  published  in  the  February  1967  issue  of 
Architectural  Record,  which  would  possess  a  live  display 
surface  capable  of  showing  a  comprehensive  inventory  of 
the  planet's  resources. 

The  prolific  results  of  many  workshops,  classes,  and 
research  seminars  were  collected  under  the  heading  of 
the  World  Resources  Inventory.  The  first  phase  of  the 
project  manifested  itself  as  the  World  Design  Decade 
1965-1975  series,  which  included  global  statistics,  maps, 
directions  on  how  to  play  the  World  Game,  as  well  as 
congressional  documents  and  popular  source  articles. 
Fuller  proposed  a  unique  type  of  interdisciplinary 
pedagogy  that  ambiguously  connected  three  components 
-  graduate  students,  large-scale  government  organizations 
and  universities,  and  "design  science"  as  a  humanist 
philosophy  to  alter  the  external  environment.  From  the 
special  collections  at  the  Loeb  Library  in  the  Harvard 
Graduate  School  of  Design,  the  World  Game  Report,  a 
brochure  published  in  1969  during  a  simulation  workshop 
at  the  New  York  Studio  School  of  Painting  and  Sculpture, 
depicted  images  of  eager  graduate  students  and  other 
intelligent  amateurs  among  which  included  artists, 
housewives,  and  a  bread  baker  (Figs.  4  &  1).  Against  the 
backdrop  of  the  Vietnam  War  and  the  shrinking  assets  of 
Big  Science,  Fuller  himself  never  stated  explicit  political 
goals  for  the  World  Game.  Any  industrial  method  of  mass 
production  and  standardization  was  allowed  to  generate 
as  many  solutions  as  possible.  World  leaders  and  nations 
were  able  to  devise  any  type  of  conclusion  they  wanted  as 
long  as  they  avoided  the  accumulation  of  mass  weapons 
and  the  destructive  outcome  of  war.  Fuller  himself 
admitted  that  the  finalized  version  of  the  World  Game 
would  never  be  played  until  the  simulations  themselves 
could  be  calculated  on  a  computer. 


World  Game  Laboratory 

Medard  Gabel  and  his  World  Game  Laboratory  practice 
in  the  raid- 1970s  took  over  where  Fuller's  work  had 


68 


Figure  3-  Hand-drawn  maps  measuring  calorie  intake  and  disease  from 
the  World  Game  workshop  at  the  New  York  School  of  Painting  and 
Sculpture.  1969 


Figure  4.  Buckminster  Fuller  and  students  in  the  classroom  during 
the  World  Game  workshop  at  the  New  York  School  of  Painting  and 
Sculpture,  1969 


ended.  Gabel  emphasized  a  humanitarian  message  of 
moral  activism,  while  reinterpreting  Rand  Corporation 
simulation  models  whose  original  purposes  lay  in 
planning  Cold  War  political  scenarios.  As  a  former  Fuller 
student  who  participated  in  the  1969  New  York  Studio 
School  workshop,  Gabel  was  interested  in  utilizing  his 
mentor's  designs  to  expose  the  general  public  to  issues 
of  sustainable  development.  As  the  current  CEO  of 
BigPictureSmallWorld,  Gabel  had  worked  with  Fuller 
over  twelve  years,  was  the  former  executive  director 
of  the  World  Game  Institute,  and  had  authored  six 
books  on  global  problems  and  strategies.  He  has  been  a 
consultant  on  global  policy  issues  for  the  United  Nations 
Environmental  Program  and  the  U.S.  Departments  of 
Agriculture  and  Energy  and  to  large  corporations,  such 
as  General  Motors,  IBM,  and  Novartis.  During  the  1970s, 
simulations  were  still  viewed  as  valuable  educational 
tools.  In  an  article  from  The  Elementary  School  Journal 
from  April  1973,  Harvard  McLean  also  pressed  for 
the  use  of  simulation  games  such  as  "Make  Your  Own 
World"  to  help  children  understand  man's  relationship 
to  the  environment.  He  stringently  forewarned  of  "blithe 
optimists"  or  "prophets  of  doom"  who  would  develop 
attitudes  that  would  work  at  counter  purposes  to  effective 
environmental  education." 

Despite  these  misgivings,  Gabel  still  applied  the  same 
techniques  that  Fuller  had  developed  to  global  food 
problems  in  order  to  illustrate  how  everyone  on  earth 
could  be  fed.  As  he  sermonized  in  Ho-ping:  Food  for 
Everyone  from  1979,  "Without  food  you  die.  ...Food  for 
life  should  be  a  birthright,  not  an  earned  right.  Billions 


of  humans  should  not  have  to  work  their  lives  away 
for  food  and  suffer  the  consequences  if  they  are  not 
successful"'  (Fig.  2).  His  manifesto  against  world  famine 
was  strikingly  thorough  in  its  use  of  research.  The  same 
visual  aesthetic  remained  true  for  his  earlier  work  Energy, 
Earth,  and  Everyone,  first  published  in  1975.  For  instance, 
copies  of  Fuller's  Dymaxion  maps  illustrated  various 
distributions  of  products  from  wheat,  rice,  bananas, 
tobacco,  to  food  priority  areas  and  agricultural  tractors. 
In  using  the  Dymaxion  map  and  scenario  chart  as  his 
primary  templates,  Gabel  also  modeled  the  long-term 
effects  of  animal  husbandry,  hydroponics,  and  fishing  in 
the  most  general  terms.  He  projected  trends  such  as  whey 
products  as  protein  supplements  and  new  preservation 
methods  for  milk,  beginning  in  1980  until  2010. 

Most  of  this  unrealized  research  culminated  in  the  design 
of  Gabel's  Global  Food  Service,  a  non-profit,  non-political 
world  food  organization  that  would  buy  surplus  grain 
from  world  reserves,  assist  local  self-sufficiency  programs, 
and  fund  money  for  research  into  unconventional  food 
sources.  What  distinguished  Fuller's  World  Game  from 
Gabel's  World  Game  Laboratory  was  their  strikingly 
different  use  of  rhetoric  and  visual  media.  While  Fuller 
aligned  his  writing  with  the  visual  and  social  merits  of 
using  combined  scientific  strategies,  Gabel  exploited  the 
advantages  of  visual  research  to  promote  moral  activism. 
He  proclaimed,  "There  is  no  energy  shortage.  There  is 
no  energy  crisis.  There  is  a  crisis  of  ignorance."'"  Gabel 
tried  to  position  the  more  optimistic  scenario-making  of 
the  World  Game  Laboratory  against  the  war  games  of  the 
generals  and  admirals  who.  with  their  "counter-counter 


69 


Figure  5.  Nuclear  Weapons  and  Nuclear 
Facilities  in  the  United  States.  1977-78  from 
Gabel's  Energy.  Earth,  and  Everyone 


moves"  want  the  other  side  to  lose  in  these  "hot  and  cold 
war  situations"  '^  (Fig.  5).  However,  the  World  Game 
Laboratory  never  introduced  a  new  mode  of  representing 
global  statistics.  It  retained  the  original  framework  of 
the  World  Game,  yet  de-emphasized  science's  potential 
to  enhance  the  influence  of  the  architectural  project. 
Fuller's  original  call  to  convert  "weaponry  into  livingry" 
transformed  from  an  open  exercise  in  free  thought  into  a 
guilt-ridden  moral  lesson  for  Gabel. 

Energy.  Earth.  Everyone.  4.3  x  10  to  the  9th  power  of 

capable  individuals  could  be  possibly  drafted  as  experts 
on  how  to  make  the  world  work.'-  They  no  longer  needed 
to  be  guided  by  a  visionary  but  now  only  needed  a  kit  of 
parts  to  manage  the  world.  Founded  in  1972,  the  World 
Game  Institute,  an  UN-affiliated  NGO  led  by  Fuller's 
daughter  Allegra,  Howard  Brown,  and  Medard  Gabel, 
has  continued  this  legacy  of  world  simulations.  For  the 
World  Game  Institute  spinoff  called  Global  Simulation 
Workshop  created  by  Brown's  private  company  O.S. 
Earth,  the  cost  of  today's  planetary  salvation  is  a  mere 
$3,500.  a  comprehensive  fee  that  includes  a  multi-media 
presentation,  travel,  shipping,  hotel,  equipment,  and 
a  three-hour  workshop  "  Participating  schools  and 
organizations  in  states  such  as  Connecticut.  New  Jersey, 
and  Rhode  Island  receive  regional  discounts.  Planning 
the  Earth  no  longer  required  the  able  bodies  of  willing 


believers  or  the  polemical  language  of  Utopia.  It  could  now 
be  designed  with  cash,  check,  or  credit  card. 


Notes 

1.  The  term  "comprehensive  anticipatory  design  science"  stems  from  Fuller's  World 
Resource  Inventory  or  World  Science  Design  Decade  series,  which  consists  of  six 
documents  including  "The  Design  Initiative"  (1964)  and  "The  Ecological  Context" 
(1967).  Fuller  liked  to  divide  the  world  into  basic  physical  design  principles  that 
reaffirmed  the  systematic  logic  found  in  nature  and  condensed  profound  meaning 
into  simply  described  concepts. 

2.  This  essay  is  adapted  from  a  longer  research  paper  written  for  a  class  entitled 
"Cold  War  Science"  taught  by  David  Kaiser  in  the  History,  Anthropology,  and 
Science.  Technology,  and  Society  program  at  MIT-  I  would  like  to  especially  thank 
Professor  Kaiser  for  his  generous  comments  and  suggestions  during  the  course  of 
this  ongoing  project.  In  2005.  this  paper  was  presented  at  MIT's  Science.  Technology, 
and  Society  graduate  student  workshop  as  well  as  the  annual  conference  of  the 
Society  for  the  History  of  Technology  that  took  place  in  Minneapolis.  Special  thanks 
to  Deborah  Fitzgerald,  Susan  Silbey.  Etienne  Benson.  Sara  Wylie.  and  those  who 
offered  useful  remarks  and  revisions. 

3.  For  additional  information  on  models  of  operations  research,  see  Jay  Forrester. 
Urban  Dynamics  (Cambridge:  MIT  Press.  1969).  idem.  World  Dynamics  (Cambridge: 
Wright-Allen  Press.  Inc  .  1971)-  On  how  military  technologies  were  translated  into 
the  civilian  sphere,  see  Jennifer  Light,  From  Welfare  to  Warfare:  Defense  Intellectuals 
and  Urban  Problems  in  Cold  War  America  (Baltimore:  Johns  Hopkins  University 
Press.  2003). 

4.  Sharon  Ghamari-Tabrizi.  "Simulating  the  Unthinkable:  Gaming  Future  War  in 
the  1950s  and  1960s"  in  Social  Studies  of  Science.  30,  no.2  (April  2000):  163-223, 
201-  For  her  more  recent  work,  see  The  Worlds  of  Herman  Kahn:  The  Intuitive 
Science  of  Thermonuclear  War  (Cambridge:  Harvard  University.  2005).  For  one  of 
the  first  historical  studies  which  utilized  the  Rand  Corporation  archives,  see  David 
Hounshell.  'The  Cold  War.  RAND,  and  the  Generation  of  Knowledge,  1946-1962" 
Historical  Studies  of  the  Physical  and  Biological  Sciences  27.  no.  2  (1997):  237-267. 

5.  James  Webb,  Space  Age  Management:  The  Large  Scale  Approach  (New  York: 
McGraw-Hill  Book  Company.  1969):  110.  For  other  examples  of  systems  theory 
applied  to  urban  planning,  see  the  brochure  by  administrator  Volta  Torrey,  Science 
and  the  City  (Washington  DC:  U.S.  Department  of  Housing  and  Urban  Development. 
1967). 

6.  I  use  "closed  world"  in  the  spirit  of  its  original  context  from  Paul  N.  Edwards' 
77ie  Closed  World:  Computers  and  the  Politics  of  Discourse  in  Cold  War  America 
(Cambridge:  MIT  Press,  1996).  As  Edwards  defines  it.  closed  world  discourse 
describes  "the  language,  technologies,  and  practices  that  together  supported  the 
visions  of  centrally-controlled,  automated  global  power  at  the  heart  of  American  Cold 
War  politics."  Ibid., 7.  More  specifically,  a  closed  world  is  a  "radically  bounded  scene 
of  conflict,  an  inescapably  self-referential  space  where  every  thought,  word,  and 
action  is  ultimately  directed  back  toward  a  central  struggle."  Ibid.,  12. 

7.  Mark  Wigley,  "Planetary  Homeboy"  in  "Forget  Fuller:  Everything  You  Always 
Wanted  to  Know  About  Fuller  But  Were  Afraid  to  Ask."  AiVyMagarm.'  17(1997):  16. 

8.  Harvard  W.  McLean.  The  Elementary  School  Journal  73.  no. 7  (April  1973):  374- 
80,  376.  Other  simulation  games  for  third  to  sixth  grade  school  children  include 
Ecopolis.  Land  use.  No  Time  to  Waste.  Pollution:  Negotiating  a  Clean  Environment. 
Black  Gold,  and  Science  Bingo. 

9.  Medard  Gabel,  Ho-ping:  Food  For  Everyone  (New  York:  Anchor  Press.  1979),  4. 

10.  Ibid. 

11.  Ibid.  9. 

12.  For  Gabel.  this  is  the  total  number  of  known  conscious  energy  measuring 
and  manipulating  entities  in  the  universe.  See  further,  idem,  Energy,  Earth,  and 
Everyone,  foreword  by  R.  Buckminster  Fuller  and  afterword  by  Stewart  Brand 
(Garden  City:  Anchor  Press.  1980). 

13.  For  information  on  the  Global  Simulation  Workshop  see  http://www,osearth, 
com;  Internet.  Refer  also  to  Rick  Poynor's  "Desktop  Diplomacy"  Metropolis  (December 
2000):  54-56.  Poynor  discusses  Net  World  Game,  an  online  version  created  for  ten 
players  and  also  released  by  the  World  Game  Institute. 


70 


Sara  Stevens 


The  Small  Box  Format  of  the  Retail  Pharmacy  Chains 


Convenience  is  the  management  goal  of  today's  retail 
pharmacy  chains.  The  expansion  strategy  that  retail 
pharmacies  employ — more  stores,  more  frequent,  more 
visible — illustrates  their  prioritization  of  time  over  all 
else.  The  consumer's  perception  of  speed  and  ease  of  retail 
pharmacy  shopping  is  of  utmost  importance,  and  thus, 
these  companies'  real  estate  departments  greedily  increase 
the  frequency  of  their  stores  along  commercial  corridors. 
Today's  national  retail  pharmacy  chains  are  operating 
under  new  rules,  especially  in  the  area  of  real  estate 
planning.  A  few  simple  guidelines  begin  to  define  a  new 
building  format:  a  freestanding  building,  a  large  site  at  a 
busy  intersection,  near  other  retail,  and  surrounded  by 
plenty  of  parking.  Seeming  to  borrow  cues  from  big  box 
stores,  the  "small  box"  format  employed  in  the  retail 
pharmacy  industry  is  a  spatial  product  which  grew  out  of 
a  specific  set  of  market  conditions.  This  article  will  explore 
the  appearance  of  the  physical  and  contextual 
characteristics,  how  they  reflect  other  organizational 
policies  and  tendencies,  and  how  they  are  a  reaction  to  a 
changing  political  climate.  The  discussion  of  the 
architectural  products  against  the  changing  market 
landscape  will  aim  to  present  a  unique  analysis  of  this 
contemporary  retail  condition,  adding  to  a  larger 
discussion  of  the  consequences  of  expansive  urban  growth. 


The  average  store  size  for  a  major  chain  grew  by  79 
percent  from  1985  to  2004.'  In  recent  years  retail 
pharmacies  have  entered  a  growth  spurt  in  the  form  of  an 
expanded  building  program  that  insists  on  stand-alone 
stores.  To  put  the  newness  of  this  growth  in  perspective, 
consider  Walgreens:   despite  being  the  oldest  major 
company  in  this  market,  Walgreens  boasts  that  fully  half 
of  their  stores  today  are  less  than  five  years  old.-  These 
changes  raise  important  questions.  What  forces  drive 
these  companies  to  insist  on  the  model  of  the  large, 
freestanding  store?  What  industry  practices  affect  urban, 
labor,  and  environmental  conditions,  both  generally  and 
specifically  as  a  result  of  this  building  type? 

The  struggle  of  the  retail  pharmacy  industry  becomes 
clear  against  the  context  of  new  competitors,  which 
entered  their  market  sector  in  the  early  eighties. 
Previously,  supermarkets  and  discount  stores  did  not 
contain  pharmacies  within  their  bounds,  but  this  began  to 
change.  By  1994,  supermarkets  and  discount  stores 
accounted  for  20  percent  of  prescription  sales,  taking  a 
huge  market  share  away  from  pharmacy  chains.''  Up  to 
this  point,  the  industry's  success  relied  on  its  "monopoly" 
of  prescription  drugs,  with  convenience  items  comfortably 
padding  sales  figures. 


The  hardware  of  the  industry,  its  stores  and  building  sites, 
has  changed  dramatically  in  the  recent  past.  Twenty  years 
ago,  a  new  pharmacy  would  rent  a  modest  space  in  a 
shopping  center,  likely  near  a  supermarket,  or  within  a 
shopping  mall,  and  share  parking  with  other  businesses. 


The  rapid  takeover  of  prescription  sales  by  the 
supermarkets  and  discounters  instigated  panic  in  the 
retail  pharmacy  chains.  Companies  initially  reacted  to 
this  threat  by  increasing  their  focus  on  front-end  sales 
(non-prescription  sales)  to  diversify  and  make  their 


71 


organizations  less  reliant  on  prescription  sales,  which 
were  too  vulnerable  to  health  care  regulations.  This  fear 
of  reform  caused  the  increase  in  square  footage  for  general 
front-end  merchandise  that  began  the  drastic  increase  in 
store  size.  But  over  time,  as  prescription  sales  continued 
to  increase  despite  the  loss  to  these  new  entries  to  the 
field,  a  new  focus  returned  to  the  forefront:   perception 
of  convenience.  Growth  markets  were  in  outlying 
metropolitan  areas,  which  had  few  independently-owned 
pharmacies,  so  the  main  competition  was  from  large 
stores — discounters  and  supermarkets.  By  being  more 
visible  (closer  to  the  street)  and  smaller  (fast  in-and- 
out)  than  these  competitors,  and  therefore  cornering  the 
market  on  the  quick  trip,  they  could  compete  better.  So, 
while  retaining  the  flexibility  of  a  large  space  for  front-end 
merchandise  and  at  the  same  time  being  smaller  and  more 
accessible  than  the  big  box,  the  new  "small  box"  typology 
quickly  became  the  norm  for  retail  pharmacy  companies 
and  by  the  early  nineties  was  the  accepted  industry 
standard.' 

The  componentry  was  simple:  new  buildings  sited  close 
to  a  corner  with  a  generous  single  or  double  row  of 
parking  between  store  and  street.  Visibility  from  the 
road  and  access  by  car  were  necessary.  In  order  to  be 
recognizable  from  a  distance,  these  new  formats  could  not 
be  similarly  sized  to  a  fast  food  restaurant,  a  gas  station, 
or  a  convenience  store,  but  needed  to  appear  as  their  own 
genre,  despite  similar  site  requirements.  Differentiation 
between  breeds  was  important,  but  not  between  brands. 
Massing  achieved  this  best,  simultaneously  increasing 
shelf  space  for  front-end  merchandise.  Increasing 
building  height  gave  the  store  added  street  presence  and 
simplified  building  design  and  construction.  After  some 
adjusting,  the  11,000-14,500  square  foot  size  became  a 
nationwide  industry  standard.   Site  planning  improved 
visibility  and  accessibility — closer  to  the  street,  with 
ample  parking  surrounding  the  building  and  multiple  curb 
cut  entrances  increased  the  appearance  of  accessibility. 
Presenting  an  appearance  of  easy  access  was  increasingly 
important  to  retail  pharmacy  companies.  More  curb  cuts 
and  automobile  entrances,  more  parking  spots — these 
design  decisions  contribute  to  an  image  that  promotes 
convenience  in  shopping. 

Legally,  this  format  also  provided  autonomy  from  an 
independent  building  owner  and  from  dependence  on 
other  tenants'  success.  Attached  to  a  shopping  center, 
pharmacy  sales  would  plummet  when  an  anchor  store 
closed.   CVS's  vice  president  of  real  estate  describes  it  this 
way:  "No  more  do  we  have  Mr.  Landlord  coming  to  us  to 
say,  "I'm  building  a  Shaw's  supermarket  and  I  have  eight 
thousand  square  feet.  Do  you  want  to  be  beside  it?  Our 


biggest  decision  then  was  looking  at  the  demographics 
and  the  incomes,  ...  and  then  making  a  decision  as  to 
what  color  we  wanted  to  paint  the  back  of  the  store."'" 
By  developing  stores  themselves,  as  part  of  the  push  to 
build  freestanding  stores,  these  retail  pharmacies  have 
increased  their  control  over  their  physical  space  and 
envelope. 

Depending  on  the  company,  ownership  and  lease 
structures  changed  too.  Leases  have  been  shrinking  in 
term  length  from  a  typical  30-year  lease  to  20-year  leases 
within  the  traditional  leasing  format.  Walgreens,  the  most 
well-capitalized  company,  always  owns  their  new  stores, 
hiring  a  developer  for  a  turnkey  operation.  The  developer 
is  paid  a  fee  based  on  a  percentage  of  the  project  cost. 
CVS,  younger  and  less-capitalized,  has  been  migrating  to 
a  creative  new  arrangement."  Now,  rather  than  follow  the 
turnkey  standard,  CVS  buys  the  site,  then  works  with  a 
pre-selected  developer  that  it  has  picked  for  that  region. 
These  developers  sign  on  to  do  groups  of  stores  rather  than 
individual  stores  in  an  area  and  are  given  a  set  fee,  not  a 
percentage.  CVS  then  sells  bundles  of  stores  to  investor 
groups,  leveraging  the  success  of  the  company  behind  this 
small  group  of  stores.   The  sale  of  stores  is  done  in  a  sale- 
leaseback  arrangement  with  the  investors,  where  CVS  has 
control  of  the  terms  and  lease,  and  opens  up  more  capital 
for  further  building  projects.  This  arrangement  gives  CVS 
more  control  over  the  developer  and  less  liability  with  each 
specific  building.  CVS  also  claims  the  arrangement  has 
lowered  operating  costs  by  $4-5/square  foot  per  project. 
This  increased  autonomy,  especially  in  investing  groups 
of  stores,  pulls  the  stores  deeper  into  the  national  market 
and  makes  them  less  dependent  on  local  conditions.'  The 
new  development  strategies  of  these  companies  reflects 
a  policy  change  in  size,  location  strategy  and  tightness  of 
variability.  Not  only  has  the  architectural  model  changed, 
but  the  management  style  and  corporate  operation  itself 
has  transformed. 

Despite  these  new,  large  stores,  the  greatest  sales 
growth  is  still  in  prescriptions.  The  companies  attribute 
the  growth  of  prescription  sales  to  an  aging  population, 
increased  life  expectancy,  and  better  (and  more) 
prescription  drugs.   Baby  boomers  require  an  ever- 
expanding  battery  of  drugs,  and  drug  companies  and 
pharmacies  are  happy  to  provide.  The  cycle  has  created  a 
positive  feedback  loop — more  drugs  are  produced  because 
more  drugs  are  needed,  more  drugs  are  taken  because 
more  drugs  are  available.  Most  major  chains  reported  a 
small  sales  drop  in  their  front-end  merchandise  in  the 
last  two  to  three  years,  while  prescription  sales  have 
continually  increased."  This  slight  tipping  of  the  scales 
indicates  that  they  are  no  longer  trying  to  fill  the  space 


72 


73 


left  by  the  convenience  stores,  but  further  supports  the 
idea  that  their  fate  is  tied  to  the  health  care  industry, 
and  therefore,  to  politics.'  The  result  is  that  they  are 
operating  in  a  different,  more  political  way.  Where  these 
companies  did  not  have  strong  lobbies  twenty  years  ago, 
they  now  are  quite  politically  active. 

A  further  retreat  from  the  emphasis  on  front-end  sales  can 
be  seen  in  the  increased  implementation  of  drive-through 
pharmacy  windows.  By  the  mid-nineties,  it  was  a  standard 
feature  for  all  major  companies'  new  stores.  Prescription 
sales  almost  tripled  in  America  just  between  1991  and 
1999,  and  this  spending  on  prescriptions  is  where  these 
companies  reap  profits.'"  Front-end  sales  are  not  about  to 
be  forsaken,  as  they  still  represent  a  large  portion  of  sales 
and  square  footage,  but  for  today,  front-end  merchandise 
seems  to  be  in  a  holding  pattern  as  the  prescription  end 
grows  rapidly.  Adding  drive-through  windows  changed  site 
layouts,  requiring  more  space  and  more  entrances  from 
the  street,  without  reducing  parking  requirements. 

Site  selection  in  this  industry  is  seemingly  quite  easy,  as 
the  bare  minimum  of  requirements  for  this  autonomous 
format  are  not  difficult  to  acquire.  A  priority  has  been  to 
relocate  old  stores  into  freestanding  locations,  but  little 
concern  is  given  to  proximity  to  other  pharmacies.  A  new 
location  built  only  a  few  blocks  away  from  a  competitor 
might  catch  a  different  pattern  of  traffic  and  therefore 
interfere  only  slightly  in  attracting  customers.  Walgreens' 
single-minded  focus  on  convenience  is  best  described  by 
their  new  buildings  and  at-the-ready  stock.  The  retail 
pharmacy  prefers  to  be  evenly  distributed,  in  their  words, 
to  densify  the  market  with  an  even  dispersion." 

The  latest  adjustment  to  the  store  design  of  the  retail 
pharmacy  is  aimed  to  counteract  the  growing  business  in 
mail  order  pharmacies,  and  involves  the  visibility  of  the 
pharmacist  at  the  counter.  Companies  are  attempting  to 
give  the  pharmacist  more  visibility  to  consumers,  while 
keeping  them  at  the  far  corner  of  the  store,  by  lowering 
the  counter,  adding  signage  and  waiting  areas,  and 
visually  "clearing  a  path."'-  The  drive-through  strategy 
provides  a  level  of  privacy  to  compete  with  the  mail  orders, 
while  the  inside  arrangement  of  the  pharmacist's  position 
tries  to  strengthen  the  personal  connection  that  the  mail 
orders  lack.  As  an  industry  in  danger,  retail  pharmacy 
companies  strive  to  improve  their  business  to  thwart  mail 
order,  supermarket  and  big  box  competition.  By  improving 
distribution  systems  and  procedures,  their  business  can 
be  more  responsive  and  efficient.  Information  systems 
and  technology  improvements  offer  the  same  benefits. 
Walgreens  and  Rite  Aid,  among  others,  are  also  trying  to 
improve  and  increase  the  use  of  technology  by  investing 


in  it  now,  with  the  future  hope  of  decreasing  the  required 
labor  costs.   Hampered  in  the  past  by  slow  distribution 
networks,  retail  pharmacies  require  quick  access  to  new 
stock  in  order  to  remain  at  the  top  of  the  convenience  scale 
to  consumers. 

The  retail  pharmacy  industry  in  America  has  recently 
transformed  itself  as  the  issue  of  healthcare  and 
prescription  drugs  has  continued  to  be  a  hot  topic  in 
politics  and  the  media.  No  longer  renting  out  space  from 
larger  commercial  developments,  these  companies  prefer 
an  autonomous  situation  that  refiects  other  organizational 
policies  and  tendencies.  Their  immense  store  size  is 
trivialized  by  their  reliance  on  prescription  drugs  for 
the  growing  bulk  of  their  profits.  Now  facing  greater 
threats,  the  retail  pharmacy  industry,  through  its  building 
program  and  involvement  in  benefit  management, 
strategizes  to  stabilize  its  tenuous  position. 

The  small  box  is  multiplying  across  the  landscape,  using 
the  same  network  organization  of  the  big  box  but  with  a 
smaller  footprint  and  at  a  higher  frequency.  This  familiar 
spatial  product  exists  in  a  changed  political  situation — a 
more  fearful,  more  defensive,  more  striated  society — and 
grew  directly  out  of  such  conditions.  Industry  insecurity 
led  to  a  push  for  front-end  sales,  which  led  to  larger 
stores.  As  the  profit  projections  lean  away  from  front-end 
sales,  the  industry  continues  to  build  large  stores,  holding 
onto  the  extra  shelf  space  should  the  trend  return  to  an 
emphasis  on  front-end  sales.  The  super-sized  pharmacy  is 
the  result  of  this  profit-predicting  game,  providing  a  safety 
net  against  market  volatilities.  The  even  larger  sites  that 
these  stores  sit  on  result  from  fierce  competition  with 
larger  stores,  discounters  and  supermarkets,  by  giving  the 
retail  pharmacies  greater  street  presence  and  visibility 
from  the  road.  By  grossly  exceeding  parking  needs  these 
stores  can  better  compete  by  always  seeming  accessible. 
Even  at  the  busiest  hours,  empty  parking  spots  signal  to 
potential  customers  that  a  quick  stop  is  still  possible.  A 
tall  fagade  and  a  busy  street  corner  serve  double  duty  as 
signage  and  marketing  tool — clean,  new,  big,  and  easy. 
Behind  this,  legalese  protects  company  interests  and 
provides  maximum  flexibility  for  these  self-developed 
buildings  through  contracts  and  leasing  deals.  Finally,  the 
advanced,  precise  nature  of  this  system  is  best  seen  in  the 
new  locations  which  retail  pharmacies  are  willing  to  build 
in.  Now  commonplace  in  small  towns  and  poorer  inner  city 
neighborhoods,  the  stores  are  entering  new  territories  but 
not  without  calculated  understanding  of  the  risks;  their 
site  requirements  and  market  area  studies  are  so  precise 
and  defined  as  to  all  but  eliminate  major  risk. 

Looking  to  the  small  box  to  understand  its  political  and 


74 


economic  position  and  to  search  for  how  those  factors 
might  have  influenced  its  physical  attributes  brings  us  to 
a  clearer  understanding  of  the  larger  systems  which  retail 
is  embedded  in.  Such  a  study  can  highlight  opportunities 
within  such  schemes  and  reveal  abuses,  adjacencies, 
and  resistances,  which  explain  design  decisions  as  well 
as  social  conditions.  The  typology  of  the  small  box  bears 
the  load  of  market  forces,  political  treaties,  consumer 
science,  and  technological  innovation — each  providing  the 
opportunistic  thinker  with  a  diverse  set  of  possibilities  for 
change. 


Notes 

1.  In  1985.  the  average  store  size  was  seven  thousand  square  feet.   By  2004,  that 
had  grown  to  twelve  thousand  square  feet.  See  further.  "Controls.  Same-Store  Gains 
Boost  CVS  Profits."  Drug  Store  News  U.  no.  9  (1989):  167;  "Turn  Around  Leaves 
Bite  Aid  Confident  of  'Bright  Future."  Cham  Drug  Beuiew  26,  no.  8  (2004):  130; 
Walgreens  Corporation.  "Walgreens  Financial  and  Other  Numbers."  Rite  Aid,  Annual 
Report  2004.  2004.  66;  available  from  http://www.walgreens.com/about/press/facts/ 
factl.jhtml;  Internet;  accessed  17  December  2004. 

2.  Ibid.  ;  James  Frederick,  "Strategy  Reflects  a  Confident  Course,"  Drug  Store  Neivs 
25,  no.  4  (2003):  52-54. 

3.  "Wall  Street  Eyes  Drug  Chains  as  They  Face  Structural  Changes."  Chain  Drug 
Review  16,  no.  9(1994):  34. 

4.  To  the  author's  knowledge,  the  term  "small  box"  is  not  used  elsewhere. 

5.  Jennifer  Kulpa,  "Cultivating  a  Strategic  Store  Development  Process."  Drug  Store 
New3  21.no.  16(1999):  63. 

6.  In  1997,  25%  of  projects  were  structured  this  way.  By  1999.  52%  used  this  system. 
Ibid.,  64. 

7.  Ibid,.  63-65.  Rob  Eder.  "Controlled  Growth  Heart  of  Development's  Master  Plan," 
Drug  Store  News  12,  no,  16  (1999),  50-52. 

8.  "Longs  Pharmacy  Sales  Roll  Ahead,  Front-End  Lagging,"  Ibid.,  24,  no.  13  (2002):  8. 

9.  This  was  called  out  as  a  trend  in  the  late  eighties  as  front-end  sales  sharply 
increased,  concurrent  to  an  increase  in  store  size.  "Convenience  Drives  Chains' 
Grocery  Sales."  Drug  Store  News  12.  no.  1  (1989):  12,  See  also  Diane  West.  "Survey 
Says  Rx  Spending  Slowing  Down,"  Drug  Store  News  24.  no.  8  (2002):!, 

10.  In  1991,  retail  prescription  sales  were  at  $42,7  billion;  in  1999  the  sales  reached 
$111.3  billion.  Andrew  Sullivan,  "The  Way  We  Live  Now,"  The  New  York  Times 
Magazine  29  (October  2000):  21. 

1 1 .  Walgreens  Corporation,  "Walgreens  Financial  and  Other  Numbers," 

12.  James  Frederick.  "New  Concepts  Encourage  Interaction  with  Pharmacists."  Drug 
Store  News  26,  no,  10  (2004):  80.  Pharmaceutical  Care  Management  Association 
(PMCA).  "Consumers  Relying  on  Mail-Service  Pharmacies  Report  Overwhelming 
Satisfaction,  New  Survey  Research  Finds,"  18  November  2004;  available  from  http:// 
www.pcmanet.org;  Internet;  accessed  12  November  2004. 


75 


Douglas  and  Mitchell  Joachim 

Human-Powered  River 
Gymnasiums  for  New  York 


Locomotion  is  perhaps  the  most  primal  of  all  human 
functions,  and  the  motion-starved  environment  we  live  in 
can  be  considered  the  antithesis  of  our  being.  An  urbanite 
exercising  at  a  traditional  gym  often  performs  controlled, 
repetitive,  single  plane  movements  using  industrial  fitness 
equipment.  All  of  this  energy  is  summarily  dissipated 
and  ultimately  exhausted  for  the  sake  of  an  individual's 
well  being.  Why  should  gym  members  be  forced  to  stare 
restlessly  at  a  mirror,  television,  or  static  streetscape 
when  their  entire  bodies  are  active?  We  envision  the  gym 
as  a  machine  of  human  propulsion  that  purifies  water  and 
transports  less-motivated  citizens  to  their  destinations. 
This  new  fitness  center  would  take  form  as  a  series  of  soft, 
floating,  micro-islands  revolving  on  a  fifteen-minute  river 
loop  with  an  exquisite,  ever-changing  panoramic  view. 

The  River  Gym  will  fulfill  one  of  the  major  contemporary 
fitness  goals  of  "functional  training"  by  exploiting  the 
inherent  disequilibrium  of  floatation  devices.  Our  design 
encapsulates  a  new  typology  for  the  contemporary  urban 
gym.  It  challenges  our  innate  proprioceptive  and  multi- 
planar locomotive  abilities  while  concurrently  altering  the 
surroundings. 

We  have  developed  a  way  to  harness  the  vast  human 
expenditure  of  caloric  energy.  The  River  Gym  channels 
this  self-produced  energy  to  supply  New  York  City  with 
needed  supplemental  transport  and  amenities.  Our  design 
leaves  the  realm  of  the  standard  "glass  box"  and  thus 
becomes  a  useful  multi-planar  kinetic  space.  Each  River 
Gym  vessel  varies  in  size  and  critical  mass  population. 
Therefore,  some  vessels  will  need  only  a  few  members  to 
boost  the  craft  on  its  predetermined,  computer-navigated 
loop.  Other  larger  floating  units  would  require  a  higher 
sustaining  population  of  club  members,  and  would  only  be 
used  during  peak  hours. 

These  River  Gyms  would  travel  through  the  Hudson  and 
East  Rivers  at  a  leisurely  pace.  Along  the  edges  of  each 
river  body,  modest  docking  facilities  such  as  a  reception 
desk,  lockers,  and  health  food  kiosks  would  serve 
members,  who  could  easily  access  their  River  Gym  vessels 
to  travel  to  and  from  multiple  points  throughout  the  city. 
The  gym  can  also  ease  the  transportation  burdens  on 
various  ferry  lines  and  carry  volunteering  commuters  in 
tow.  The  benefit  of  extra  passengers  increases  the  vessels' 


Map  showing  various  fitness  loops  and  water  routs 


mass  and  amplifies  the  intensity  of  the  exercise.  Finally, 
fitted  with  onboard  purification  devices,  the  gym  would 
help  mitigate  water  pollution. 

The  notion  of  transforming  unused  human  mechanical 
energy  into  a  useful  kinetic  gymnasium  is  unique.  The 
gym  provides  multiple  benefits:  increased  transportation, 
water  purification,  caloric  energy  expenditure,  and 
superior,  changing  views.  Our  design  thus  redefines  the 
urban  gym  in  a  cost-effective  and  environmentally  friendly 
manner.  This  is  the  kind  of  munificent  vision  for  which  the 
great  city  of  New  York  is  renowned. 


76 


wmam 

Energy  is  derived  from  human  motion  and  is  converted  to  usable  electric  energy  stored  in  onboard  batteries 


Soft  floating  micro-island  gyms  on  waterway  patlib 


77 


Figure  1.  Arrival  of  refugees  from  Asia  Minor  in  Salonica,  following  the 
Lausanne  treaty 


Figure  2.  Photograph  from  the  workshop  Osservatorio  Nomade 
organized  in  Saoul  Modiano,  Old  People's  Home  of  the  Jewish 
Community  of  Thessaloniki.    As  part  of  the  "Egnatia"  project, 
stones  like  this  one,  upon  which  the  participants  left  their 
own  traces,  have  been  dispersed  along  the  route  of  Via  Egnatia. 
The  stones  originated  from  Salento — the  starting  point 
of  Egnatia  road  across  the  Adriatic  Sea 


Garyfallia  Katsavounidou 


Unfamiliar  (Hi)stories:  The  ''Egnatia"  Project  in  Thessaloniki 


"Via  Egnatia,"  or  the  Egnatia  Way,  connected  Rome 
to  Constantinople  and  was  one  of  the  most  important 
roads  of  antiquity.  Built  by  the  Romans  in  the  2nd  and 
3rd  centuries  AD,  the  road  started  in  Durach,  on  the 
shores  of  Albania,  across  the  point  where  Via  Appia  (the 
Appian  Way)  met  the  Adriatic  Sea  in  Southern  Italy. 
From  Durach,  the  Egnatia  Way  traversed  the  lands  of 
Albania,  Macedonia  (passing  through  the  major  port- 
city  of  Salonica),  and  Thrace.  Finally,  after  739  miles. 
Via  Egnatia  ended  in  Constantinople.   It  was  on  these 
ancient  paths  that  millions  of  people — Greeks,  Turks, 
Jews,  Albanians,  Armenians,  Kurds,  Rom.  and  many  other 
ethnic  groups — were  displaced  during  the  last  century, 
mainly  during  the  compulsory  exchange  of  populations 
between  Greece  and  Turkey,'   but  also  unofficially  and 
in  smaller  numbers  (Fig.  1).  As  the  locus  of  memories  of 
migration,  but  also  of  displaced  memories,  this  famous 
road  inspired  the  "Egnatia"  project,  which  was  funded  by 
the  European  Union  and  launched  in  October  2004.  The 
cross-categorical  project,  which  could  be  described  as  a 
laboratory  of  memory  along  Via  Egnatia,  aims  to  "collect 
stories  of  people  who  have  been  displaced  along  the 
Egnatia  way,  to  leave  traces  of  collective  memories  now 
forgotten  and  obliterated,"^  but  also  to  listen  and  interact 


with  contemporary  immigrants  who  travel  on  the  same 
roads. 

The  methodology  of  the  "Egnatia"  project  is  based  on 
an  experiential  approach.  According  to  art  historian 
Flaminia  Gennari,  the  researcher  acts  as  a  catalyst  in  the 
pursued  transfer  of  memory,  "not  only  because  memory 
is  ephemeral  and  sentimental,  but  also  because  the  one 
who  listens  always  adds  something  of  himself."'  Such 
an  approach  has  its  origins  in  the  artistic  group  Stalker, 
which  has  been  working  in  Rome  since  1995.  combining 
interventions  and  research  on  the  territory.  Members 
of  Stalker  have  formed  a  new  collective  subject  called 
Osservatorio  Nomade  ("Nomad  Observatory"),  with  the 
participation  of  visual  artists,  theoreticians,  architects, 
and  historians.  As  the  main  agent  of  the  "Egnatia"  project, 
Osservatorio  Nomade  has  been  collaborating  with  the 
groups  Architecture  Autogeree  (hased  in  Paris)  and 
Oxymoron  (based  in  Athens),  organizing  workshops  in  five 
cities  (Rome,  Berlin.  Paris,  Athens,  and  Thessaloniki).  The 
participation  of  artists  and  scientists  from  various  ethnic 
backgrounds  is  quintessential  to  the  project:  the  "Egnatia" 
project  is  above  all  "a  common  ground  where  to  encounter 
and  share  values  and  cultural  experiences."'' 


78 


In  February  2005,  Osservatorio  Nomade  organized 
a  workshop  with  the  telling  title  "Ghostbustering  in 
Thessaloniki."  With  the  exception  of  local  (Greek) 
participants,  most  members  of  the  group,  including  visual 
artists  and  architects  from  Italy,  France,  and  Spain  were 
making  their  first  visit  to  Thessaloniki.  As  art  critic 
Francesca  Recchia  writes,  "'the  complex  dynamics  of 
persistence  and  absence  were  clear  and  tangible  right  from 
the  first  contacts  and  walks.  The  city  seems  to  be  without 
a  past;  it  experiences  the  visible  traces  of  its  centuries- 
old  history  with  the  indifference  of  a  chance  encounter."^ 
During  the  five  days  of  the  workshop,  the  members  of 
Osservatorio  Nomade  worked  in  small,  flexible  teams, 
exploring  the  city  instinctively  and  non-hierarchically. 
The  participants  combined  field  research  with  improvised 
public  performances  that  related  to  the  particular  place 
and  time  (Fig.  2).  These  experimental  actions  aimed  to 
engage  the  locals,  create  new  intercultural  collective 
memories,  or,  in  other  cases,  expose  traces  of  the  past  in 
city  areas  where  history  seems  to  have  been  obliterated — 
as  in  the  case  of  the  campus  of  Aristotelian  University, 
occupying  the  grounds  of  the  Jewish  cemetery.  On  the 
final  night  of  the  workshop,  all  participants  created 
another  public  performance  as  they  toured  the  city  by 
bus.  Revisiting  the  places  encountered  during  the  walks, 
they  organized  video  projections  of  the  groups'  actions 
and  performances  at  the  places  where  these  performances 
took  place,  thus  engaging  public  attention  and  sharing  the 
feelings  and  experiences  these  places  invoked. 

After  the  workshop  in  Thessaloniki.  the  members  of 
Osservatorio  Nomade  realized  that  the  city  was  central 
to  the  general  premise  of  the  "Egnatia"  project.  By 
accessing  stories  and  memories  from  an  unfamiliar  past, 
the  "Egnatia"  project  creates  the  possibility  for  a  unifying 
culture.  The  idea  of  ethnic  difference  is  a  cornerstone  in 
each  country's  respective  history,  despite  the  fact  that 
the  areas  now  separated  by  national  borders  were  for 
centuries  a  cultural  entity  encompassing  many  peoples, 
languages,  and  religions.  In  Salonica,  itself  traversed  by 
the  Egnatia  Way,  Christians,  Spanish  Jews,  and  Muslims 
coexisted  for  five  centuries  in  peace  and  compassion.   Until 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  Salonica  represented  a 
real  "Utopian"  multicultural  hub.  It  existed  as  a  paradigm 
for  the  "Egnatia"  project's  goal  for  the  future:  an  inclusive, 
transnational  culture. 

Thus,  the  city  became  the  subject  matter  for  a  project  on 
the  theme  of  "migration,"  in  the  context  of  the  exhibition 
"M  city/European  Cityscapes "".  organized  in  Graz 
(Austria)  in  October  2005.  The  installation  presented  by 
Osservatorio  Nomade,  entitled  "The  un-familiar  city,"  was 
quite  different  from  most  of  the  projects  on  view  at  the 


show,  which  took  place  in  the  famous  Kunsthaus  of  the 
Austrian  city  (designed  by  Peter  Cook  and  Colin  Fournier). 
Fully  conscious  of  the  hyper-domination  of  imagery  as 
means  of  representation,  the  artists  chose  not  to  show  any 
visual  representation  of  the  city  of  Thessaloniki.  Instead, 
the  installation  consists  of  21  double-faced  slabs  of  Salento 
stone  (called  "chianca"  in  the  local  Southern  Italian 
dialect),  suspended  from  wires  from  the  ceiling  (Fig.  3). 
The  first  stone  has  the  name  "Thessaloniki"  on  one  side 
(the  ancient  name  of  the  city,  which  was  reattributed 
to  it  in  1912  when  it  became  part  of  the  Greek  state), 
and  on  the  other  side  it  bears  the  different  versions  of 
its  name,  as  used  by  the  various  peoples  that  shared  its 
space:  Selanik,  Salonika,  Salonica,  Salonique,  Salonicco, 
Saloniki,  Solun,  Saruna.  The  rest  of  the  stones  make 
reference  to  twenty  areas/  buildings/personages  of  the  city 
with  double  identity.  For  example,  the  stone  dedicated 
to  the  area  of  the  Hirsch  Ghetto  (last  stop  in  the  city  for 
48.000  Salonican  Jews  before  their  transfer  to  the  Nazi 
camps)  makes  reference  to  the  fact  that  nowadays  the 
history  of  the  area  has  been  forgotten — the  neighborhood 
is  known  as  the  city's  Chinatown.  Another  stone  is 
dedicated  to  the  district  of  Galini:  there,  in  the  middle 
of  a  residential  suburb,  stands  a  Russian  church  that 
replicates  a  church  in  Novorosijsk,  the  Russian  city-port 
and  origin  of  many  recent  immigrants  to  Thessaloniki.  In 
order  to  make  the  story  behind  each  double-faced  stone 
available  to  the  viewer,  the  installation  also  consists  of 
21  printed  postcards  with  brief  explanatory  texts  (Fig.  4). 
"Each  stone  is  both  a  story  and  a  device,  indispensable  to 
deeply  understand  the  contemporary  face  of  Thessaloniki 
where  erasures,  reinterpretations  and  "emergencies" 
coexist  in  an  unprecedented  way."' 

Undoubtedly,  few  cities  have  changed  so  dramatically  in 
such  a  short  period  of  time.  After  1912  and  its  annexation 
to  Greece,  Salonica  became  Thessaloniki,  and  along  with 
its  new  (old)  name,  came  a  systematic  rewriting  of  its 
past — a  common  practice  in  all  national  states  of  the 
region.  The  Hellenization  of  the  city,  hastened  by  the 
Muslim  exodus  in  1923  and  the  Holocaust  in  1943,  was 
complete  by  the  end  of  World  War  II.  At  the  same  time, 
Thessaloniki  underwent  an  economic  and  cultural  decline. 
The  thriving  cosmopolitan  port  became  within  a  few 
decades  a  ghost  of  its  old  self,  a  provincial  Greek  town. 
Until  very  recently,  the  official  history  of  the  city  treated 
its  Ottoman  period  as  a  "sad  parenthesis";  the  Spanish 
Jewish  presence,  so  dominant  in  the  city  for  five  centuries, 
was  extremely  understated.'  Nonetheless,  since  the  early 
1990s,  mass  migration  from  the  Balkans  and  former 
Soviet  countries  has  been  changing  the  city,  making  it 
once  again  a  metropolis  of  strangers.^  In  a  reversal  of  the 
dominant  ideology  in  the  historiography  of  the  city,  the 


79 


Figure  3.  View  of  the  installation  "The  Un-faniUiar  City" 
in  Kunsthaus,  Graz 


Figure  4.  The  cards  that  accompany  the  rotating  stones 


"sad  parenthesis"  of  introversion,  which  opened  in  1912 
with  the  city's  annexation  by  Greece,  finally  seems  to  be 
ending. 


Notes 

1.  The  exchange  of  populations  between  Greece  and  Turkey  was  decided  in 
the  treaty  of  Lausanne  in  1923.  following  Greece's  defeat  during  an  expedition 
in  Asia  Minor.  In  a  historically  unprecedented  move,  the  leaders  of  the 

two  countries  agreed  upon  a  compulsory  exchange  of  minority  populations 
between  the  two  countries.  All  Muslim  inhabitants  in  Greek  territory  had  to 
evacuate  their  homes  and  go  to  Turkey,  and  all  Christian  Orthodox  residents 
of  Turkey,  to  find  refuge  in  Greece.  An  enormous  number  of  people  were 
affected:  more  than  two  million  people  on  both  sides  of  the  Aegean  had  to 
migrate  within  a  few  months  up  to  800  miles  away:  in  this  terrible  journey, 
more  than  300,000  people  died.   This  obligatory  displacement  of  millions  of 
people  was  the  watershed  event  that  dissolved  societies  of  mixed  identities 
and  intercultural  exchange. 

2.  Egnatia  News  1  (September-December  2004):  1;  available  from  http://www. 
osservatorionomade.net;  Internet. 

3.  Flaminia  Gennari,  "L'imprevedibilita  di  azione  e  pensiero",  in  Voyages 
Croisees.  ed.  Gabi  Scardi  (Milano:  5  Continents.  2005),  54-59. 

4.  Egnatia  News,  ibid. 


5.  Francesca  Recchia  and  Lorenzo  Romito.  "Towards  'Thessaloniki:  The  Un- 
familiar City;  A  Work  in  Progress."  in  M  city  /  European  Cityscapes,  eds. 
Marco  de  Michelis  and  Peter  Pakesch  (Graz:  Kunsthaus.  2005),  109. 

6.  Curated  by  Marco  de  Michelis  (dean  of  the  faculty  of  arts  and  design 
at  Universita  lUAV  di  Venezia).  Katrin  Boucher  and  Peter  Pakesch, 
the  exhibition  presented  works  by  artists  who  dealt  with  the  current 
transformations  in  Europe's  urban  centers.  The  exhibition  was  organized  in 
six  thematic  fields:  "Earthscapes",  "'Eurosprawl",  "Shopping".  "Migration",  "No 
Vision?"  and  "Mapping".   See  further,  www.kunsthausgraz.net;  Internet. 

7.  Excerpt  from  the  text  accompanying  the  installation  "The  Unfamiliar  City" 
in  M  city  exhibition.   See  also  Osservatorio  Nomade  (Fyllio  Katsavounidou. 
Mihalis  Kyriazis,  Laure'nt  Malone,  Francesca  Recchia,  Lorenzo  Romito),  'The 
Un-familiar  City",  in  ibid.,  268-271, 

8.  An  astonishing  96  percent  of  the  community  was  annihilated  in  the  camps 
of  Auschwitz  and  Birkenau.   See  further,  Garyfallia  Katsavounidou,  "Invisible 
Parentheses;  Mapping  (out)  the  city  and  its  histories"  (SMArchS  thesis, 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  2000), 

9.  Foreign  immigrants,  mainly  from  Albania  and  the  former  Soviet  countries 
(most  notably  Georgia,  Russia,  Kazakhstan,  Armenia),  constitute  an 
estimated  10  percent  of  the  city's  population  of  1.000.000.  A  quintessential 
difference  of  this  contemporary  cohabitation  from  its  historical  precedent, 
however,  is  the  fact  that  it  takes  place  within  the  sociopolitical  conditions  of  a 
national  state  and  not  in  a  multinational  empire. 


80 


Elliot  Felix 

The  Subway  Libraries 


Subway  library  (view  of  interior  of  subway  car, 
retrofitted  with  bock  storage.) 


Do  we  need  an  avant-garde  architect?  Well,  perhaps.  We 
need  avant-garde  users.  You  need  social  networks.  You 
need  to  design  processes,  not  just  the  thing.  So  rather 
than  barricading  the  space  with  forms  that  express 
"displacement" and  "movement" and  "openness" while 
in  fact  often  disrupting  the  possibility  of  movement  and 
change — they  are  substitutes,  replacements  for  actual 
changes  in  society  and  in  human  minds  and  lives — the 
architect  could  create  certain  conditions  or  instruments, 
points,  elements  that  can  inspire  people  to  make  good  use 
of  them  toward  a  change  in  their  lives.' 

Cities  are  places  of  density,  potential,  and  movement. 
In  them,  "[t]he  crowd  sets  the  pace.  The  individual  must 
hurry  with  it  or  be  pushed  aside"  ^  as  pace  surmounts 
place.'  However,  it  is  not  that  simple.  We  define  ourselves 
both  by  acceding  to  and  seceding  from  the  crowd.  And 
so  in  urban  environments,  though  their  character  and 
extent  may  change,  one  thing  is  constant:  the  struggle 
between  anonymity  and  community'  as  each  of  us  seeks 
to  find  a  personal  balance  of  associations  and  interactions. 
Everyone  in  the  city  negotiates  between  self  and  other — 
each  of  us  is  in  some  way,  a  stranger. 

Cities  are  full  of  strangers.^  They  are  places  of  negotiated 


access  where  people  may  be  both  near  and  remote, 
nomadic  and  fixed,  objective  and  distanced,  involved  and 
intimate.''  Whether  regarding  what  we  read,  with  whom 
we  associate,  or  where  we  go,  this  access  always  has  two 
dimensions:  rights  and  abilities.  The  two  are  inextricably 
linked:  they  are  simultaneously  implied,  immaterial, 
explicit,  and  physical.  The  barriers  to  our  rights  and 
abilities  may  be  geographical,  cultural,  or  financial, 
and  when  institutions  grant  access  to  many  rather  than 
consolidating  it  in  a  few,  we  call  them  democratizing.  Such 
institutions  then  empower  through  distribution  rather 
than  repress  through  concentration. 

Subways  democratize  mobility.  They  embody  access 
and  opportunity.'  Since  anyone  can  affordably  travel 
anywhere  within  the  city,  this  access  provides  the 
potential  for  interaction,  growth,  and  increased  quality 
of  life.  It  also  fundamentally  changes  the  way  we  view 
each  other,  our  environment,  and  ourselves.  On  a  subway 
map,  each  stop  is  a  point,  a  point  around  which  activity, 
people,  and  memory  pivot.  From  underground,  we  actively 
construct  the  city  in  our  minds,  piecing  together  a  mapped 
network  from  points  or  nodes  whose  connections  we 
interpret  and  infer.  We  are  passive  observers  when  the 
conditions  are  clear — at  a  plaza's  center  or  at  water's 


81 


edge — but  in  the  subway  we  move  the  way  we  think  and 
vice  versa. 

Subways  exist  as  exaggerated  zones  of  cities,  hyper- 
urban  environments  marked  by  artificiahty,  movement, 
and  disorientation.  Within  such  places,  boundaries  of 
personal  space  collapse,  an  anxiety  of  standing  still  sets 
in,  conversation  diminishes,  and  seating  patterns  tend 
to  minimize  visual  confrontation"  — the  facing  of  "the 
other."  And  so  the  subway  is  a  space  of  strangers.  It 
epitomizes  the  personal  navigation  between  anonymity 
and  community.  As  underground  environments,  subway 
spaces  are  also  prophetic,  foreshadowing  what  is  to  come 
above  the  ground.  Just  as  Lewis  Mumford  used  mines 
to  examine  cities  and  their  future,'  subway  spaces 
offer  glimpses  of  emerging  environments,  interactions, 
and  sensibilities.  And  while  ascendancy  and  light  have 
long  symbolized  knowledge  and  understanding,  the 
underground  now  serves  as  an  equally  powerful  metaphor 
in  which  learning  and  inquiry  are  inseparably  tied  to 
going  underground,  to  digging  and  uncovering." 

The  public  library  democratizes  knowledge  just  as 
the  subway  democratizes  mobility.  The  former  grants 
intellectual  access:  the  latter  grants  physical  access.  Both 
entail  similar  cultures  and  customs:  cards,  turnstiles, 
and  regulated  public  spaces.  In  fact,  there  is  a  pervasive 
culture  of  reading  on  the  subway  that  bridges  racial, 
geographic,  class,  and  age  divisions.  Like  airplanes, 
subway  cars  are  our  contemporary  reading  rooms. 
Further,  reading  has  always  been  a  form  of  travel  itself, 
and  the  library  its  most  championed  vehicle.  These 
alignments  suggest  that  combining  subway  and  library 
would  be  symbiotic,  a  coupling  whose  physical  and 
cultural  positioning  beget  a  new  kind  of  institution. 

As  an  institution,  the  "subway  library,"  has  the 
potential  both  to  bring  information  to  users  and  users 
to  information.  It  can  also  extend  the  historical  opening 
of  the  library,  which  is  marked  by  innovations  such  as 
Antonio  Panizzi's  catalog  for  the  British  Library,  which 
was  designed  in  the  1830s  for  public  use  as  well  as 
for  the  librarian."  Since  then,  libraries  have  become 
increasingly  open  and  user-centered.  Today,  this  opening 
calls  for  responding  to  and  reinforcing  cultural  trends 
in  the  democratization  of  content  production.  Through 
such  activities  as  blogging,  podcasting,  wikis,  and  open- 
source  software  development  (to  name  a  few),  more  and 
more  people  are  creating  their  own  content  and  products'^ 
as  part  of  a  participatory  culture.  The  effects  of  these 
trends  are  startling,  producing  what  can  only  be  called 
revolutions  in  accepted  ways  of  thinking  and  making. 

Libraries  respond  to  physical  contexts  as  well,  and  so 
82 


Print  on  Demand  (POD) 


A  subway  turnstile  or  a 
security/access  device 


A  library  turnstile  or  a 
security/access  device 


in  order  to  envision  how  and  where  such  an  institution 
might  function  within  the  New  York  City  subway,  it  is 
necessary  to  understand  the  character  and  history  of  that 
infrastructure.  One  of  the  oldest  systems  in  existence, 
the  New  York  City  subway  opened  in  1904.'^  It  has  three 
defining  characteristics:  innovative  local  and  express 
track  routing,  a  combination  of  somewhat  antiquated 
tunnels  with  relatively  modern  cars,  and  lastly,  an 
idiosyncratic  nature,  the  result  of  its  construction  by  three 
different  organizations,  each  with  differing  specifications, 
standards,  and  interests.  Growing  out  of  the  urgent  need 
to  deal  with  congestion  and  population  densities  yet 
unequalled  in  any  city,"  the  subway  began  as  the  result 
of  innovative  public  and  private  partnerships,  namely  the 
Interborough  Rapid  Transit  Corporation  (IRT),  and  the 
Brooklyn-Manhattan  Transit  Company  (BMT).'''  Over 
time,  other  lines  were  added  by  these  two  entities,  and 
later,  what  are  known  as  the  Independent  (IND)  lines 
were  built  by  the  city  itself.  This  history,  and  the  variety 
of  geological,  topographical,  and  political  conditions  in 
New  York,  resulted  in  a  system  that  is  an  amalgamation 
of  difference:  repetitive,  irregular,  and  indigenous  all  at 
once. 

Within  the  New  York  City  subway,  there  are  platform 
spaces  that  have  been  abandoned,  left  unused  within 
currently  operating  stations  despite  millions  of  passers- 
by.'^  These  vestigial  spaces  (which  occur  in  twelve 
locations  throughout  New  York  City)  are  the  result  of 
changes  in  routing  and  car  technology,  population  shifts, 
and  rider  behavior.  Each  location  varies  in  character 
and  accessibility.  Some  spaces  are  merely  beyond  a  set 
of  active  tracks,  open  for  all  to  see  and  accessible  but  for 
a  chain  or  a  gate,  while  others  are  sealed  off  like  time 
capsules  behind  the  ubiquitous  white-tiled  walls  of  the 
subway. 


their  island  platform  counterparts  were  deemed  worthy  of 
extension.  Second,  the  center  island  platform  of  the  IND 
Columbus  Circle  A/C  Station  was  used  until  1981  as  a 
supplementary  exit  for  express  trains  at  rush  hour  when 
both  sides  of  subway  cars  would  open,  but  it  has  since 
been  unoccupied,  plainly  visible  and  eerily  identical  to 
adjacent  platforms  but  for  lack  of  passengers  and  benches. 
Third,  the  eastern  (Northbound)  island  platform  of  the 
BMT  Canal  Street  J/M/Z  Station  was  closed  in  2004  with 
the  cancellation  of  express  service  to  North  Brooklyn, 
rendering  this  platform  unnecessary  yet  still  illuminated 
and  visible  through  openings  in  the  platforms'  demising 
wall."  Taken  together,  these  three  stations  are  sites  of 
potential  to  be  realized  in  subway  libraries. 

In  responding  to  both  physical  and  cultural  contexts,  the 
design  of  the  subway  library  as  an  institution  adopts  an 
open,  distributed  paradigm  which  grants  users  increased 
agency  and  access.  To  open  the  library  and  do  so  within 
a  subway  environment  that  is  mapped,  connected,  and 
constructed  in  the  mind  of  each  rider,  the  subway  libraries 
are  designed  using  a  nodal  understanding  of  program. 
That  is  to  say,  functions  are  distributed  in  a  loose  but 
precise  manner  akin  to  stones  within  a  Zen  Garden  like 
Ryoan-Ji,  so  that  readers  are  left  to  forge  connections 
through  use  rather  than  according  to  an  imposed 
sequence  or  hierarchy.  These  "nodes"  include  entrances 
and  exits,  physical  book  storage,  digital  book  download 
and  upload  stations,  auditoria  for  readings  and  lectures, 
projection  rooms,  writers'  residency  spaces,  and  garden 
spaces  which  bring  planted  form  and  natural  light  below 
grade.  Common  to  all  these  activities  is  the  idea  that  the 
library  has  value  as  a  place;  even  if  users  can  access  the 
same  information  at  home,  there  is  value  in  coming  to 
the  library  to  be  part  of  a  learning  environment  and  to 
interact  with  other  patrons. 


These  unused  spaces  are  ripe  with  potential.  They  exist 
within,  yet  outside  of  the  system,  in  much  the  same 
way  that  reading  serves  as  an  escape  for  subway  riders, 
rendering  them  mentally  elsewhere  while  still  in  a  car 
or  on  a  platform.  Thus  they  are  ideal  sites  for  subway 
libraries,  libraries  that  couple  physical  and  intellectual 
access.  Though  these  institutions  might  be  sited  at  any 
such  platform  space,  three  sites  in  particular  provide  the 
opportunity  not  only  to  illustrate  the  system's  differences 
in  platform  configuration  and  station  typology,  but  also 
to  recall  its  tripartite  history  by  hearkening  back  to  an 
earlier  era  when  the  New  York  subway  fused  physical 
and  social  mobility.  First,  the  side  platforms  at  the  IRT 
Brooklyn  Bridge  4/5/6  Station  have  lain  fallow  since 
around  1910  when  they  were  sealed  off  when  the  trains 
(and  therefore  platforms)  doubled  in  length,  and  only 


The  program  most  central  to  this  open  paradigm  is 
the  library's  print-on-demand  (POD)  collection.  With 
significant  advances  in  printing  technology,  and  since  the 
average  book  only  sells  about  2000  copies  in  its  lifetime,'* 
more  and  more  publishers  are  beginning  to  print  their 
titles  on-demand,  eliminating  storage  and  organizational 
costs  in  the  process.  The  subway  library  uses  this 
technology  so  that  any  book  can  be  available  and  accessed 
by  users  as  needed.  Because  the  subway  library  reinforces 
the  democratization  of  content  production,  the  on-demand 
catalog  also  enables  users  to  add  titles  to  the  catalog  and 
have  them  printed  in  the  same  manner  as  any  other. 
These  titles,  anything  from  an  elder's  memoir  to  a  teen's 


83 


Subway  library  entrances  and  gardens 


tlHf 


Users 


Neurons  and  nodes,  which  inspired  the  "nodal"  organization  of  the  project 


M 

I^SB 

i^R 

iL'fX^BBBP 

^^ 

L^^^^r^^_^s^^G|rf 

^.■M 

^^^I^^^H 

Mi 

^^^^^^^1 

Sites:  Abandoned  pi  . .  (  ■  i  ii  iiig  subway  stations.  Left.  Brooklyn  Bridge,  local  side  plat  form  t. 

(abandoned  circa  IBHJj,  Ccnti^r.  Canal  Street,  east  island  platform  (abandoned  2004);  right. 
Columbus  Circle.  Center  island  platform  (abandoned  1981) 


84 


«miitoc«M< 


Miwintn. 


I      I     '•'  I 


p»   irm  I    ]ii     ni|i!     ■i^Mi    in\ijiL' 


[  I-  -^^■-  -d ^^ 


Readership/ridership  study:  subway  car  seating  chart  showing  which 
riders  are  reading  and  which  media  they  are  reading 


IMPLEMENTATION 

HTIP^J/mCIU  COU^IMPIE MENTATION 


•U*ltnnR 


S>»HM(i9T 


MlwniKaST 


PHYSICAL      YELLOWARROW       bellow 

LOCATION  -M»^L...>,™OREO  *;;™w 


«N5«0«     \  I  /        LOCATION 


e 


0   t>                                          0    0                                          ID                                      > 
00            BDfiooaK*           raaaaua  Hx       «  c   c   ^   j    >  ..     ■            (.   j    - 

B   «                                          »   0                                           "0 

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00      saKaooatxx      9  »•>!■>  oMx      i  o  o  a  o  i  k  i          «•■ 

( 

XX             aPGDK»»!l             XaVJiAXOM       KOIKOJODK             10- 

^  f          ..:;..>.             .  J  .  ..   .       .   ■     «  K  oKd  0  a  o,K        fat- 

ee         aoflS;£e**         »09ixiieH       »  o  •  !  S  x  b  i         e  r  - 

Readership/ridership  study:  color-coded  subway  car 

seating  chart  showing  which  riders  are  reading  and 

which  media  they  are  reading 


/ 


/     \ 


I       OPEN  UBHABY 


■  REOtSTERINC  USE 


Diagram  of  the  open  library  as  an  institution 


S 


€ 


l\     UJI...      IllJJIlLI     UIJ 


r 


— I 


System  design  studies  (these  diagrams  depict  other  systems  that 
involved  electronically  mediated  exchange  of  physical  objects  and 
information.  These  systems  served  as  precedents  for  designing  the 
library  as  a  system,  particularly  its  circulation) 


@ 


3 


Subway  cars  as  reading  rooms  (these  depict  the  4  cars  that  are 
served  by  the  3  stations  in  question.  Their  names — as  designated  by 
the  NYC  MTA— are,  from  top  to  bottom:  R142,  R62,  R38,  R68) 


85 


A  Japanese  Zen  garden  called  Ryoan-Ji  near  Kyoto.  The 
"loose  but  precise"  arrangement  of  the  stones  inspired  the 
nodal  project  organization 


Node  Study;  A  conceptual  model,  which  studies  "nodes"  as  a 
condition  in  an  abstract  sense 


fiction,  would  then  be  visually  announced/registered  at  all 
the  locations  in  the  city,  and  made  available  for 
downloading  and/or  printing. 

Once  in  place,  the  library's  circulation  system  tracks  users 
rather  than  books:  instead  of  loaning  a  book  for  a  limited 
time,  it  is  given  to  the  reader  indefinitely.  A  combination 
of  limits  and  incentives  are  utilized  in  order  to  maintain  a 
two-way  flow  of  media.  One  such  mechanism  would  be  the 
requirement  to  bring  back  a  certain  number  of  books  in 
order  to  print  additional  books,  and  these  could  be  any 
POD  books — those  found  on  the  subway,  loans  from  a 
friend,  or  from  a  previous  visit.  Though  this  circulation 
system  is  a  paradigm  shift  which  claims  new  territory  for 
the  library,  it  does  not  replace  the  bookstore,  since  users 
can  only  print  so  often  and  each  title  can  only  be  printed 
so  many  times."  This  technology  and  circulation  system 
produce  not  only  a  new  kind  of  library,  but  a  new  kind  of 
book-"  whose  content  is  valued  over  its  form,  one  less 
precious  as  an  artifact  and  thus  more  appropriate  to  a 
subway  environment.  In  the  process,  perhaps  a  new  kind 
of  reader  is  created  as  well.  Just  as  Panizzi's  catalog 
sought  to  create  a  more  independent  and  knowledgeable 
reader,-'  the  subway  library  and  its  on-demand  collection 
could  create  empowered  users  who  author  titles  and 
interact  with  others  through  shared  use,  authorship,  social 
bookmarking,  and  commentary. 

The  space  of  the  subway  library  acts  as  the  diagram  of  the 
institution  itself.  The  linear  space  of  the  platform  is 
envisioned  as  the  space  between  walls  which  function  as 


reinvented  "stacks."  Rather  than  static  containers 
designed  solely  to  house  books,  these  stacks  pair  a  glass 
wall  toward  the  subway  with  a  wood  wall  facing  the 
library  to  house  each  of  the  library's  numerous  programs 
in  between.  Sometimes  pairs  are  only  wide  enough  for 
books  and  acoustic  absorption,  while  at  other  times  they 
bulge  to  accommodate  an  entire  room  or  a  sky-lit  planter. 
Along  their  length,  the  variable  thickness  and  character  of 
these  stack  walls  is  established  by  responding  to  nodes  of 
program  which  are  inserted  according  to  a  spatial  catalog 
that  loosely  organizes  access  and  activity.  As  these  stack 
walls  systematically  change  opacity,  configuration,  angle, 
and  size,  they  create  not  only  channels  for  movement  but 
also  places  for  pausing,  gathering,  and  interaction. 

The  tectonics  of  the  wall  system  consists  of  vertical  wood 
members  that  respond  to  the  5'  module  of  the  subway  and 
serve  as  mullions  behind  the  glass  facing  the  trains.  A 
second  set  of  verticals  is  in-filled  with  horizontal  wood 
slats  facing  the  library.  The  angle  and  position  of  these 
slats  vary  according  to  whether  the  wall  needs  to  be  a 
visual  screen,  an  enclosure  for  a  sunken  garden,  or  an 
opaque  wall  creating  an  interstitial  room.  Throughout, 
wood — the  most  "unsubway"  of  materials — is  used  for 
physical  and  psychological  warmth,  for  acoustic 
absorption,  and  to  further  the  notion  of  reading  as  escape. 

Subway  stations  are  designed  as  prototypes  according  to 
various  specifications  derived  from  cars,  clearances, 
turning  radii,  and  human  scale.  Such  designs  are  then 


86 


Library  Stacks.  Image  of  traditional  library  stacks, 
stacks  whose  reinvention  functions  as  the  basis  for  the 
subway  library  demising  walls  which  are  in-filled  with 
nodes  of  program 


installed  in  the  various  locations  along  each  line  and 
adapted  to  them — pushed  and  pulled,  skewed  and  curved, 
sunken  or  elevated  according  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
site  and  other  requirements.  Accordingly,  the  subway 
library  is  designed  as  a  prototype  to  be  instantiated  within 
the  city,  producing  variations  on  a  theme.  Each  library 
has  whatever  collection  its  readers  determine,  rather  than 
stipulating  that  Columbus  Circle  be  the  "history  library" 
and  Brooklyn  Bridge  be  the  "science  library"  (leaving  the 
history  of  science  to  be  found  who  knows  where).  --  As  a 
series  of  related,  sited  prototypes,  the  subway  libraries 
function  as  seed  projects  that  critique  whole  systems 
at  specific  points  to  offer  clues  about  how  to  effect  the 
physical  and  intellectual  renovation  of  both  subway  and 
library. 

The  subway  libraries  use  the  latent  potential  of  vestigial 
spaces  in  the  New  York  subway  in  order  to  capitalize  on 
the  resonance  created  through  the  coupling  of  physical  and 
intellectual  access.   Because  access  itself  is  not  enough, 
these  spaces  are  also  positioned  to  promote  interaction 
by  reinforcing  trends  toward  the  democratization  of 
production,  whether  it  involves  novels,  ringtones,-'  or 
software.  And  so.  just  as  the  true  innovation  of  eBay  was 
to  get  strangers  to  trust  each  other  online,-""  the  social 


innovation  of  the  subway  libraries  is  to  help  instigate  a 
democratized  and  participatory  culture  that  is  enabled 
through  access — access  to  technology,  to  information,  and. 
most  importantly,  to  others.  Instead  of  a  "What  iPod  are 
you?"  ^^  scenario,  people  can  then  be  defined  more  by  what 
they  are  thinking  and  making  rather  than  what  they  are 
consuming.  A  culture  with  an  expanded  pool  of  creators 
and  a  loose  framework  for  their  interaction  helps  to  build 
our  cities  of  difference,  at  once  anonymous  and  communal. 

*  This  content  was  originally  presented  as  my  Master's  of  Architecture 
Thesis  {MIT  Feb.  2006)  with  advisor  Meejin  Yoon  and  readers  Mark 
Jarzombek,  John  Ochsendorf. 


Notes 

1.  Krzysztof  Wodiczko.  "Disruptive  Agency:  A  Conversation  with  Krzysztof 
Wodiczko"  interview  by  Ginger  Nolan.  Thresholds  29:  Inversions  (Winter  2005):  83. 
Parentheses  removed,  emphasis  unchanged, 

2.  Howard  Woolston.  "The  Urban  Habit  of  Mind,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology.  17 
(March  1912):  602. 

3.  Julie  Meyer.  "The  Stranger  and  the  City."  American  Journal  of  Sociology  56 
(March  1951);  476-483. 

4.  Georg  Simmel,  'The  Metropolis  and  Urban  Life,"  in  Classic  Essays  on  the  Culture 
of  Cities,  ed.  Richard  Sennett  (New  York:  Appleton-Century-Crofts.  1969).  47, 

5,  Jane  Jacobs  writes:  "Great  cities  are  not  like  towns  only  larger.  They  are  not  like 
suburbs  only  denser.  They  differ  from  towns  and  suburbs  in  basic  ways,  and  one 

of  these  ways  is  that  cities  are,  by  definition,  full  of  strangers.  To  any  one  person, 
strangers  are  by  far  more  common  in  big  cities  than  acquaintances.  More  common 
not  just  in  places  of  public  assembly,  but  more  common  at  man's  own  doorstep.  Even 
residents  who  live  near  each  other  are  strangers,  and  must  be,  because  of  the  sheer 
number  of  people  in  small  geographical  compass."  Jane  Jacobs.  77ie  Death  and  Life  of 
Great  American  Cities  (New  York:  Vintage  Books.  1961),  30. 

6,  Georg  Simmel,  "The  Stranger"  in  The  Sociology  of  Georg  Simmel.  trans.  Kurt 
Wolff  (New  York:  Free  Press,  1950).  402-405. 

7,  This  observation  grew  out  of  discussions  within  a  design  studio  on  the  Boston 
Subway  at  Harvard  Graduate  School  of  Design.  The  conclusion  is  thus  a  collective 
one  of  the  studio  rather  than  my  own. 

8.  These  aspects  come  from  extensive  personal  observations  done  prior  to  this 
project,  during  which  I  also  developed  a  series  of  reading  and  seating  charts  to  survey 
subway  readership.  The  seating  aspect  has  also  been  studied  by  Oliver  Lutz  in  bis 
"Agonistic  Subway"  project;  available  from  http://web,mit,edu/olutz/www/subway. 
htm,  Internet    In  this  survey  people  are  reported  to  be  more  prone  to  sit  across  from 
each  other  when  two  seats  were  color-coded  in  a  certain  way.  thus  confirming  some  of 
my  anecdotal  observations. 

9,  Rosalind  Williams.  Notes  on  the  Underground:  an  Essay  on  Technology,  Society, 
and  the  Imagination  (Cambridge.  MA:  MIT  Press,  2002).  4-17. 

10,  Ibid, 

1 1-   Matthew  Bartles,  Library:  An  Unquiet  History  (New  York:  Norton.  2003).  130. 

12.  This  phenomenon  is  also  visible  in  the  research  on  Democratizing  Innovation 
by  Eric  von  Hippel  as  well  as  in  the  online  mass-customization  of  products  ranging 
from  sneakers  (Nike)  to  bouses  (KB  Homes).  For  the  former,  see  Eric  von  Hippel 
Democratizing  Innovation  (Cambridge:  MIT  Press,  2005). 

13.  The  New  York  subway  was  opened  four  years  after  the  Paris  metro,  seven  years 
after  that  of  Boston,  and  forty-one  years  after  the  London  metro.  See  further,  Brian 
J-  Cudaby.  Under  the  Sidewalks  of  New  York:  The  Story  of  the  Greatest  Subway 
System  in  the  World  (New  York:  Fordam  University  Press,  1995).  11;  Paris  RAT? 
(regie  autonome  des  transports  parisiens).  "Histoire:"  available  from  bttp;//metro.ratp. 
fr/;  Internet. 


87 


A  diagram,  which  shows  basic  nodal  organization 
of  "reinvented  stacks"  along  linear 
space  of  platform 


Z  =  REMOVAL 


Subway  library  spatial  catalog.  The  image  shows 
programmatic  organization  of  the  library 


Library  access  and  circulation  diagram. 
(This  image  shows  the  different  ways  in 
which  the  prototypical  subway  library 
becomes  accessible  and  how  it  relates  to 
the  adjacent,  active  platform 


f= 


^iT 


Diagram  of  stack  tectonics,  which  shows  the 

different  conditions  of  the  reinvented  stack  walls 

that  are  variable  according  to  program  or  use 


Upload  Station.  Left  to  right;  auditorium  for  readings  and  lectures;  projection 
room;  interior  of  elevated  writers'  residency  space  in  subway  library;  printing 
station  and  sunken  garden 


88 


Left  to  right:  Media  wall  (viewed  from  adjacent,  active  platform);  interior 
of  media  wall  at  entry;  media  wall  (at  mezzanine  level  of  Columbus  Circle) 


Aerial  View  of  Columbus  Circle 


Columbus  Circle:  Plan  at  Platform  Level 


Columbus  Circle:  Plan  at  Grade 


14.  The  crowding  was  the  result  of  intense  immigration  to  the  city.  1.3  million 
immigrants  flowed  through  Ellis  Island  in  1907,  This  would  render  New  York's 
Lower  East  Side  the  most  densely-settled  area  on  record  anywhere,  with  an 
estimated  9000  people  per  acre.  See  further,  Lorraine  Diehl.  Subways:  The  Tracks 
that  Built  New  York  (New  York:  Clarkson  Potter,  2004),  61;  Brian  J.  Cudahy.  Under 
the  Sidewalks  of  New  York:  The  Story  of  the  Greatest  Subway  System  in  the  World. 
(New  York:  Fordam  UP.  1995),  3. 

15.  Originally  the  BRT  or  Brooklyn  Rapid  Transit  Corporation.  Brooklyn  having 
begun  service  to  rival  that  of  Manhattan's  almost  immediately — and  quite  fittingly, 
since  Brooklyn  at  that  time  was  the  nation's  second  most  populous  city. 

16    NYC  Transit  reports  ridership  on  an  average  weekday  of  4.5million    New  York 
City  Transit.  "Subway  Facts."available  from  http://www,mta.mfo/nyct/facts/ffsubway. 
htm;  Internet, 

17.  Joseph  Brennan  "Abandoned  Stations"  [article  online];  available  from  http:// 
www.columbia.edu/-brennan/abandoned;  Internet.  These  abandoned  stations  include 
Brooklyn  Bridge.  Canal  Street,  and  Columbus  Circle. 

18.  Morris  Rosenthal.  "Print-on-demand  Book  Publishing:  Self- Publishing  and 
Printing  Book"  [article  online]  (2006);  available  from  http://www.fonerbooks.com/ 
paper  html;  Internet. 

19.  This  system  would  be  implemented  once  the  libraries  were  open  for  a  short 
period  of  time  In  this  way.  enough  books  had  been  printed  and  thus  in  circulation. 
Though  the  limits  and  incentives  alone  could  control  the  public-domain  titles  and 
could  simply  be  adjusted  in  response  to  an  observed  net  inward  or  outward  flow  of 
books,  copyrighted  titles  would  be  licensed  much  the  way  e-books  are  now.  A  certain 
number  could  be  printed  within  a  given  period  of  time— just  as  now  a  library  might 
only  have  copies  of  a  title  available  as  a  .pdf  file  (with  DRM  software),  a  POD  title 
might  be  limited  to  a  certain  number  of  prints  per  month. 

20.  This  also  raises  the  possibility  that  users  could  assemble  their  own  "readers" 
of  a  sort.  Readers  may  prmt  out  the  first  chapter  of  five  books  they  want  to  read 
simultaneously  and  then  return  two  months  later  for  the  second  chapters,  and  so  on. 

21.  Matthew  Parties.  Library:  An  Unquiet  History  (New  York:  Norton.  2003),  132. 

22.  For  an  extended  discussion  of  how  classifications  can  just  as  easily  obscure  as 
clarify,  see  Geoffrey  Bowker  and  Susan  Starr.  Sorting  things  Out:  Classification  and 
Its  Consequences  (Cambridge:  MIT  Press,  2000). 

23.  An  interesting  example  of  this  is  the  recent  Ringtone  Competition  at  MIT: 
students  were  invited  to  use  free  software  called  HyperScore  (developed  at  the  MIT 
Media  Lab),  to  compose  their  own  tones  rather  than  have  them  dictated  by  the 
phone's  manufacturer. 

24-  Michelle  Conlin,  "The  eBay  Way."  Businessweek  29  (November  2004).  This 
article  is  also  available  online:  Idem,  "Special  Report:  Philanthropy"  [online  article]: 
available  from  http://www.busine8sweek.com/magazine/content/04_48/b3910407. 
html;  Internet. 

25,  Text  from  an  Ipod  advertisement  in  Apple  Store  Another  instance  of  the  "you  are 
what  you  buy"  phenomenon  was  noted  by  Darrel  Rhea  of  Cheskin  in  a  Businessweek 
Podcast  in  which  Rhea  notes  that  Starbucks  successfully  offered  "not  only  coffee 
but  community — the  chance  to  see  and  be  seen."  and  that  within  such  environments 
people  are  able  to  choose  products  that  "say  who  you  really  are."  See  further,  "Making 
Meaning"  [online  article]  (January  9  2006);  available  from  http://www.bu8ines8week. 
com/innovate/index.html;  Internet.com/innovate/index.html;  Internet. 


89 


Banksy"s  graffiti  art  on  Israel's  West  Bank  wall 


Nigel  Parry 


British  Graffiti  Artist,  Banksy,  Hacks  tlie  Wail 


In  the  Summer  of  2005,  celebrated  British  graffiti  artist, 
Banksy,  traveled  to  put  his  mark  on  Israel's  wall  in  the 
West  Bank,  described  on  his  website  as  "the  ultimate 
activity  holiday  destination  for  graffiti  writers." 

"How  illegal  is  it  to  vandalize  a  wall,"  asked  Banksy  in  the 
website  introduction  to  his  summer  2005  project,  "if  the 
wall  itself  has  been  deemed  unlawful  by  the  International 
Court  of  Justice?  The  Israeli  government  is  building  a 
wall. ..[which]  stands  three  times  the  height  of  the  Berlin 
wall  and  will  eventually  run  for  over  700km — the  distance 
from  London  to  Zurich."  ' 

In  Banksy's  work,  location  is  a  major  component  of  the 
resulting  metaphor.  Whether  he's  hanging  a  fake  rock 
pictogram  of  early  man  pushing  a  shopping  cart  in  the 
British  Museum,  or  installing  an  amalgam  of  the  Statue 
of  Liberty  and  Statue  of  Justice  clad  as  a  prostitute  at 
the  site  of  his  last  arrest  in  London,  the  environment  and 
location  are  usually  key  parts  of  the  message. 

The  Holocaust  Lipstick  motif  in  Banksy's  art,  inspired  by 
the  diaries  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Mervin  Willett  Gonin, 
DSO,  has  also  appeared  on  the  streets  of  the  UK  and  aptly 
distills  the  deliberate  incongruity  of  his  large  body  of 
public  work.  Gonin's  diary  entry  about  the  liberation  of 
the  Bergen-Belsen  concentration  camp  in  1945  unwraps 


the  concept: 

/(  was  shortly  after  the  British  Red  Cross  arrived,  though 
it  may  have  no  connection,  that  a  very  large  quantity  of 
lipstick  arrived.    This  was  not  at  all  what  we  men  wanted, 
we  were  screaming  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  other 
things  and  I  don 't  know  who  asked  for  lipstick.  I  wish  so 
much  that  I  could  discover  who  did  it:  it  was  the  action  of 
genius,  sheer  unadulterated  brilliance.  I  believe  nothing 
did  more  for  these  internees  than  the  lipstick....  At  last 
someone  had  done  something  to  make  them  individuals 
again,  they  were  someone,  no  longer  merely  the  number 
tattooed  on  the  arm.  At  last  they  could  take  an  interest  in 
their  appearance.  That  lipstick  started  to  give  them  back 
their  humanity. - 

Gonin's  diary  entry  captures  an  absurdity  in  which  a 
seemingly  gratuitous  commodity  nonetheless  "gives 
back  humanity."  In  his  work,  Bansky  uses  similar 
juxtapositions  to  highlight  the  relentless,  and  therefore 
chaotic  and  distracting,  pace  of  modern  society. 

Familiar  images — the  Queen,  smiling  children, 
policemen — are  given  a  dark  twist,  designed  to  wake 
observers  up  from  the  nine-to-five  rat  race.  The  rat 
race  is  a  common  Banksy  theme,  typically  delivered  by 
talking  rats — a  rat  race  that  literally  streams,  mirror-like, 


90 


through  Banksy's  borderless  gallery  of  streets  to  challenge 
us  to  reassess  the  structures  and  symbols  that  form  the 
backdrops  to  our  lives. 

Much  of  the  art  Banksy  produced  on  Israel's  West  Bank 
barrier  visually  subverts  and  draws  attention  to  its  nature 
as  a  barrier — preventing  Palestinians  from  access  to  Israel 
and,  increasingly  each  other,  as  it  snakes  deep  into  the 
West  Bank  and  blocks  movement  to  neighboring  towns 
and  agricultural  land — by  incorporating  images  of  escape: 
a  girl  being  carried  away  by  a  bunch  of  balloons,  a  little 
boy  painting  a  rope  ladder. 

Other  pieces  invoke  a  virtual  reality  that  underlines 
the  negation  of  humanity  that  the  barrier  represents — 
children  in  areas  cut  off  from  any  access  to  the  sea  playing 
with  sand  buckets  and  shovels  on  piles  of  rubble  that  look 
like  sand,  below  a  painted  break  in  the  wall  that  reveals  a 
tropical  beach  landscape. 

Banksy's  website  offers  two  snippets  of  conversations  with 
an  Israeli  soldier  and  a  Palestinian  who  happened  upon 
him  while  he  was  in  the  process  of  creating  the  series  of 
nine  pieces  on  the  wall,  in  Bethlehem,  Abu  Dis,  and 
Ramallah. 

Soldier:  What  the  fuck  are  you  doing? 

Me:  You'll  have  to  wait  till  it's  finished 

Soldier  (to  colleagues):  Safety's  off 

Banksy  reclaims  public  spaces  as  places  for  public 
imagination  and  enlightenment,  breaking  through 
propagandistic  barriers  to  thought  and  awareness,  as  is 
reflected  in  the  very  terminology  for  Israel's  West  Bank 
barrier,  officially  described  as  a  "separation  fence"  or 
"security  fence."  His  summer  project  on  Israel's  wall 
stands  out  as  one  of  the  most  pertinent  and  visible  artistic 
and  political  commentaries  in  recent  memory. 

Perhaps  the  clearest  answer  to  people  of  this  world  who 
wish  to  whitewash  all  that  is  ugly  rather  than  challenge 
its  basic  nature,  comes  from  another  conversation  Banksy 
reported  having  with  an  old  Palestinian  man: 

Old  man:  You  paint  the  wall,  you  make  it  look  beautiful. 

Me:  Thanks 

Old  man:  We  don't  want  it  to  be  beautiful,  we  hate  this 
wall,  go  home. 


Notes 

1.  http;//www. banksy. co.uk/outdoors/palestine/index. html;  Internet;  accessed 
23  May  2006, 

2.  http://www  banksy  co.uk/manifesto/mdex  html;  Internet;  accessed  23  May  2006. 


Thi-  Hiilociu.-st  Lipstick  Motif 


Banksy's  graffiti  art  on  Israel's  West  Bank  wall 


91 


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Tijana  Vujosevic 

Collectivization! 
Para-thesis  Symposium:  Columbia 
Graduate  School  of  Architecture,  Planning 
and  Preservation,  February  4th,  2006 


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february  4th,  2006 


Is  contemporary  architecture  a  parasitic  digital  enterprise, 
no  longer  with  a  body  of  knowledge  to  claim  its  own? 
Will  the  coming  wave  of  imaging  and  communication 
technologies  wash  off  subjective  bias  and  the  antiquated 
myths  of  genius  and  originality  that  taint  architectural 
expertise?  Can  we  deliver  architectural  pedagogy  from  the 
realm  of  thesis-oriented  curricula  and  singular  authorship, 
so  that  architects,  entwined  in  rhizomatic  networks, 
inhabit  the  luminous  pastures  of  collective  existence 
promised  by  the  advent  of  the  digital  age? 

Yes,  yes,  yes,  say  the  organizers  of  the  Para-thesis 
Symposium,  who,  on  February  4th  this  year,  assembled 
a  think-tank  of  leading  pedagogues  from  both  shores  of 
the  Atlantic  to  brainstorm  publicly  about  architecture's 
destiny. 

Faithful  to  the  original  ecclesiastic  meaning  of 
"parathesis,"  the  colloquium  was  performed  as  a 
prayer  over  a  dying  body — that  of  old  architecture,  now 
commended  for  an  afterlife  in  the  realm  of  collective 
digital  mirth.  The  lure  of  "collective  research,"  and  the 
promise  of  "open  source  network  systems"  to  transcend 
traditional  academia,  was  elaborated  in  two  sessions. 
The  first  delineated  the  tortuous  trajectories  of  the  old 
pedagogical  era  and  the  second  examined  the  triumphant 
afterlife  of  architecture  endowed  by  para-scientific 
objectivity  and  aided  by  digital  prostheses. 

The  problem  was.  the  thesis  did  not  really  pass  away.  The 


lofty  goals  set  for  the  congregation  in  Wood  Auditorium 
proved  difficult  to  attain.  The  most  radical  emissaries 
of  architecture's  past  and  its  future,  Mark  Jarzombek  of 
MIT  and  Jeffrey  Inabe  of  T-Lab,  refused  to  merge  their 
realms,  thus  thoroughly  compromising  the  agenda  of  the 
symposium. 

Professor  Jarzombek,  the  terrestrial  mastermind  of  "dn-ty 
non-applicable  knowledge,"  called  for  widening  the  gap 
between  the  architectural  school  and  the  office  on  one 
hand,  while  voicing  a  protest  against  the  intrusion  of 
accreditation  boards  on  the  other.  The  school's  relative 
autonomy  serves  its  institutional  agenda,  which  is  to 
reflect  and  articulate  the  polyphonic  body  politic,  now 
poorly  represented  in  the  profession,  with  only  0.4  percent 
African-American  women  in  architecture,  for  example. 
Jarzombek  was  not  convinced  that  the  disciplinary 
identity  crisis  could  be  solved  by  liberating  architecture 
from  its  institutions  of  political  power  and  social 
continuity.  He  was  not  convinced  that  replacing  the  school 
with  collectivized  apprenticeship  in  digital  labs  solves 
problems  of  access  and  architecture's  civic  role. 

Inabe,  the  celestial  genie  of  architectural  hyper- 
extensions,  diagrammatic  propaganda,  and  megalomaniac 
projection,  also  remained  skeptical.  In  fear  that 
institutional  rigor  would  compromise  his  lesser,  but  freer 
domain  of  projective  investigation,  he  insisted  that  the 
minor  genre  of  paranoid  criticality  thrives  in  the  extra- 
academic  arena  of  urban  speculation.  Introducing  his 


94 


"Moses  Project,"  a  campaign  for  altering  the  course  of 
Charles  River  in  order  to  gain  more  land  for  Harvard, 
he  insisted  that  outlandish  speculation  is  part  of 
architecture's  political  discourse  and  should  be  indulged 
as  such. 

The  first  session  of  the  symposium  was,  apart  from 
Jarzombek's  address,  marked  by  ambivalence  towards  the 
possible  merger  of  business  and  academia,  and  the  fusion 
of  individual  practitioners  into  incorporated  multitudes. 
Mark  Wigley,  who  closed  the  session,  engaged  the 
essential  irrationality  of  architecture  as  the  element  that 
might  impede  progress  towards  digital  collectivization. 
Reminding  the  assembly  of  the  enormous  conspicuous 
expenditure  of  money,  wisdom,  and  energy  that  the 
discipline  entails,  he  claimed  that  the  aesthetic  core  of 
architecture  has  always  thwarted  architecture's  status  as 
a  rational  professional  enterprise. 

According  to  Brendan  Moran,  the  fast-speaking  historian 
of  collective  research  in  academia,  this  core  has  also 
prevented  the  complete  integration  of  architecture  into 
the  American  research  university.  Instead,  architecture 
engaged  in  parasitic  exploitation  of  neighboring 
disciplines,  most  prominently  sociology  and  spatial 
planning,  and  was  sentenced  to  this  role  because  of  its 
irrelevance  for  policymaking  and  its  semi-artistic  status. 

The  keynote  speaker,  Denise  Scott  Brown,  was  among  the 
pedagogues  who  most  ardently  exploited  architecture's 
neighboring  research  disciplines.  Nevertheless,  she  still 
defined  architecture  as  an  elusive  visual  expertise.  The 
process  of  studio  education,  according  to  Scott  Brown, 
produces  architects,  and  also  sociable  and  responsible 
citizens,  but  it  is  questionable  whether  this  can  be  done 
by  applying  collective  pedagogy  only.  Using  numerous 
diagrams  of  group  and  pedagogical  dynamics,  she  depicted 
how  she  alternated  individual  and  collective  instruction 
in  order  to  produce  a  generation  of  environmentally  aware 
architects,  in  the  famous  1968  Learning  From  Las  Vegas 
Studio. 

Using  the  metaphor  of  a  banquet  to  describe  the 
profession  and  its  codices,  Sarah  Whiting  was  also 
ambivalent  about  the  collectivization,  and  described  the 
profession  as  a  coexistence  of  not  one,  but  many  discursive 
collectivities,  which  present  the  individual  with  complex 
choices  of  affiliation,  individual  contribution,  collective 
belonging. 

Yet,  the  dining  architect  in  Whiting's  metaphor  is  a 
member  of  a  consuming  pack.  At  the  end  of  the  day. 


however,  collective  consumption  entails  the  production 
of  new  knowledge,  and,  according  to  Scott  Brown's 
projection,  of  self-conscious  citizens.  The  second  session 
of  the  conference  was  dedicated  to  main  trajectories  in 
current  production. 

The  most  ambitious  of  the  speakers  proposing  or 
promoting  a  current  trajectory  was  Keller  Easterling, 
who  delivered  a  speech  entitled  "President  of  the  United 
States."  According  to  Keller,  the  citizens  produced  in 
architecture  schools  would  not  shy  from  openly  claiming 
both  disciplinary  autonomy  and  political  power.  They 
would  dare  to  take  on  complex  political  and  cultural 
problems  as  part  of  the  large  field  of  environmental 
fabrication.  They  would  be  capable  of  making  or  becoming 
the  President. 

But  what  kinds  of  civic  congregations,  if  judged  by  the 
results  flaunted  in  the  second  session  of  the  conference, 
does  "current  research"  entail  and  produce?  In  reality, 
the  "open  source  network  systems"  approach  divided  the 
discipline  into  competing  camps,  which,  if  judged  by  the 
reactions  in  the  audience,  frequently  failed  to  delineate 
a  more  glamorous  collective  future  for  architecture's 
subjects. 

Roemer  van  Toorn  of  the  Berlage  Institute  was  the  only 
teacher  of  the  future  to  adopt  a  political  agenda  for  his 
architecture.  Defining  architecture's  role  as  entirely 
polemical,  and  his  Ph.D.  program  as  an  enterprise  of 
"writing  in  opposition  to  others,"  Toorn  further  militarized 
his  agenda  by  designing  studios  such  as  that  in  which 
the  students  parachute  into  Tirana  and  help  the  Mayor 
"put  a  rein  on  wild  capitalism."  In  Toorn's  program 
for  radically  interventionist  architecture,  the  field  of 
collective  intervention  is  located  not  into  celestial  spheres, 
but  rather  in  the  poorer  countries,  and  the  author 
displayed  the  only  context  in  which  an  agonistic  vision 
of  architecture  can  be  executed — that  of  global  imperial 
culture. 

Whereas  Berlage's  emergency  squads  were  envisioned 
as  inspired  self-organized  groups  of  travellers,  Bret 
Steele  from  the  Architectural  Association  (AA)  proposed 
to  engineer  collective  formations  of  students  out  of 
"those  strange  creatures"  that  enter  the  school.  Proud  of 
"outlawing"  the  scholarly  thesis  at  the  newly  collectivized 
AA  in  London,  Steele  pointed  out  that  his  institution 
replaced  "the  world  of  singularity  and  identity"  with  a 
model  based  on  corporate  mergers.  New  architectural 
corporations  are  collectivities  inspired  by  Microsoft, 
"pure  structures"  without  products,  and  Steele  a 


95 


pedagogue  inspired  by  Bill  Gates.  But  how  does  he  judge 
responsibility  and  quality?  He  proposes  grading  according 
to  the  worst  student  in  a  group.  This  scenario,  according 
to  him,  regulates  collective  self-management,  and,  one 
might  add,  replaces  subjective  authorship  with  an  entirely 
punitive  model  of  authority,  which  curiously  resembles 
legal  regulation  of  architectural  production  in  the  West. 

Building  on  the  corporate  model,  Sylvia  Lavin  of  UCLS 
pointed,  after  Rosalind  Krauss,  that  the  notion  of 
originality  is  a  modernist  myth,  and  the  inverse  of  mass 
reproduction.  Lavin  proposed  eliminating  the  written 
thesis  in  a  "closed  group  of  a  few  experimental  schools," 
eliminating  tenure  for  easier  management,  enabling 
"intellectual,"  rather  than  "socioeconomic"  mechanisms 
of  affirmative  action.  The  new  boutique  practice  would 
reinvent  originality  as  "novelty,"  fickle,  decorative, 
entertaining,  and  exemplified  by  a  "pet  rock"  in  a  box. 
Ultimately,  collective  research  would  be  subsumed  in  the 
elitist  and  amusing  post-critical  enterprise  of  dressing  the 
stale  in  the  fresh. 

If  the  Para-thesis  Symposium  did  not  manage  to  produce 
new  clothes,  and  has  left  the  emperor  as  naked  as  ever, 
it  is  no  shame.  "The  poorest  discipline,"  as  Scott  Brown 
dubbed  the  regal  art,  is  still  in  this  world.  It  can  demand 
autonomy  from  the  research  university,  as  Easterling 
suggested,  autonomy  from  Arnold  Schwarzenegger,  as 
Lavin  wanted,  autonomy  from  the  professional  world, 
as  desired  by  Jarzombek,  or  absolute  autonomy,  as 
dreamed  by  Inabe.  The  challenge  is  to  think  of  previously 
unimaginable  potentials  for  creative  and  heterogeneous 
subjectivities,  and  to  exploit  the  fact  that  architecture 
cannot  seek  autonomy  from  the  politics  of  building,  or 
from  critical  consciousness  of  its  complex  history. 


96 


A  Message  from  Dean 
Adele  Naude  Santos 


In  Memory  of  the  Associate  Head  of  MIT's  Rotch  Library: 
Merrill  Smith  (1942-2006) 


Merrill  Wadsworth  Smith  first  joined  MIT  in  1978  as  the  Head  of 
the  Rotch  Visual  Collections.  From  1983  to  1985  she  was  also  the 
Videodisc  Project  Director  for  the  Aga  Khan  Program  for  Islamic 
Architecture — one  of  the  very  earliest  efforts  to  use  digital  technology 
for  image  management  and  delivery.  In  1988  Merrill  was  promoted  to 
the  position  of  Associate  Head  of  Rotch  Library.  Merrill  was  also  active 
professionally  beyond  MIT,  most  notably  in  the  Art  Libraries  Society  of 
North  America. 

Besides  the  loss  to  the  School  of  Architecture  at  MIT,  Merrill's  absence 
will  be  felt  across  the  Institute.  She  could  make  things  happen  and,  in 
that  capacity,  her  dedication  and  professionalism  greatly  supported 
the  work  and  studies  of  our  community.   Members  of  MIT's  School  of 
Architecture  will  always  remember  her  optimism,  strength  of  character, 
and  sense  of  humor. 


97 


Contributors 


William  C.  Brumfield  is  a  Professor  of  Slavic  Studies  at  Tulane  University,  where  he  also 
lectures  at  the  School  of  Architecture.  He  has  received  Fellowships  and  grants  from:  the  John  Simon 
Guggenheim  Memorial  Foundation,  the  National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities  (NEH).  the  National 
Humanities  Center,  the  Kennan  Institute  for  Advanced  Russian  Studies  (at  the  Woodrow  Wilson 
Center),  the  American  Council  of  Teachers  of  Russian,  the  National  Council  for  Eurasian  and  East 
European  Research,  the  International  Research  and  Exchanges  Board,  the  Kress  Foundation,  the 
Woodrow  Wilson  Foundation,  and  the  Trust  for  Mutual  Understanding.    He  is  the  recipient  of  the 
1997  Faculty  Research  Award  from  the  Faculty  of  Liberal  Arts  and  Sciences  at  Tulane  University. 
In  April  2002  Brumfield  was  elected  to  the  State  Russian  Academy  of  Architecture.  Recently  NEH 
awarded  him  a  major  grant,  via  the  University  of  Washington,  for  the  electronic  archiving  of  the 
Brumfield  photographic  collection.  Professor  Brumfield  was  a  fellow  at  the  National  Humanities 
Center  in  1992-93  and  a  Guggenheim  Fellow  in  2000-01.    He  is  the  author  and  photographer  of  nu- 
merous books  on  Russian  architecture  including:  The  Origins  of  Modernism  m  Russian  Architecture, 
Lost  Russia:  Photographing  the  Ruins  of  Russian  Architecture:  and  A  History  of  Russian  Architecture, 
which  the  New  Yorh  times  Booh  Review  included  in  its  "notable  books  of  the  year  1993."  Brumfield's 
photographs  of  Russian  architecture,  which  have  been  exhibited  at  numerous  galleries  and  museums 
around  the  world,  are  part  of  the  collection  of  the  Photographic  Archives  at  the  National  Gallery  of 
Art.  Washington,  D.C.    A  collection  is  also  held  in  the  Prints  and  Photographs  Division  of  the  Library 
of  Congress  and  displayed  at  the  following  LC  site:  http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfdigcol/ 
mfdcphot.html.  Recently  he  was  elected  to  the  Russian  Academy  of  Arts  and  will  be  inducted  into  the 
academy  as  an  honorary  (non-Russian)  member. 

Naomi  Davidson  is  a  graduate  student  in  the  Department  of  History  at  the  University  of 
Chicago.    Her  dissertation,  which  she  is  currently  completing,  is  entitled  "f/n  espdr  en  devenir:  The 
Mosquee  de  Paris  and  the  Creation  of  French  Islams."    Her  research  has  been  made  possible  by  the 
generous  support  of  the  Georges  Lurcy  Charitable  Trust,  the  German  Marshall  Fund,  and  the  Social 
Science  Research  Council. 

Elliot  Felix  is  a  recent  graduate  of  the  MIT's  M.  Arch  program  where  he  pursued  interdisciplin- 
ary design  through  architecture,  industrial  design,  structural  research,  and  conceptual  art  projects. 
His  thesis,  entitled  "The  Subway  Libraries,"  served  as  the  basis  for  the  preceding  article.  Prior  to 
MIT.  he  worked  extensively  at  Rafael  Vifioly  Architects  and  completed  his  undergraduate  studies  at 
the  University  of  Virginia. 

Ole  W.  Fischer  studied  architecture  at  the  Bauhaus  University  Weimar  and  ETH  Zurich  and 
graduated  in  2001.  In  2002  he  founded  an  office  for  architecture  and  urban  design  in  Zurich.  In  the 
same  year  he  started  teaching  theory  of  architecture  at  the  Institute  of  Theory  and  History  of  Archi- 
tecture (gta)  of  the  ETH  Zurich.  In  his  dissertation  thesis  he  is  tracing  the  intentional  transcription 
of  philosophic  thought  into  architecture  and  design  in  the  work  of  Henry  van  de  Velde  dedicated  to 
Friedrich  Nietzsche.  In  2005  he  was  chosen  as  fellow  researcher  at  the  GSD  Harvard.  He  is  founder 
and  curator  of  the  discussion  platform  MittelBau  in  Zurich,  and  he  has  published  on  the  current  is- 
sues of  architecture  in  Archplus.  Werk.  Bauen  und  Wohnen.  Trans  and  JSAH.  Upcoming  publications 
include  an  essay  on  immersive  spaces  in  Projective  Landscape.  010  Publishers  Rotterdam,  and  an  edi- 
torial introduction  on  disciplinarity  in  Precisions:  architecture  between  arts  and  sciences,  Birkhaeuser 
Publishers.  Basel. 


98 


Jennifer  Ferng  is  a  third  year  Ph.D.  student  in  the  History.  Theory  and  Criticism  of  Archi- 
tecture and  Art  program  at  MIT.  She  received  a  B.  Arch  from  Rice  University  and  a  M.Arch,  from 
Princeton  University  and  has  taught  architectural  history  and  design  in  New  York. 

F'^ank  Forrest  is  a  freelance  writer  and  teacher  who  has  taught  at  Boston  University  and  lived 
and  wrrked  in  Central  Europe  and  the  Central  Pacific. 

Talinn  Grigor  received  her  Ph.D.  from  MIT  in  2005  and  will  become  an  Assistant  Professor  of 
non-western  architecture  at  the  Art  History  Department  of  Florida  State  University,  starting  in  fall 
2006.  Entitled  "Cultivat(ing)  Modernities:  the  Society  for  National  Heritage.  Political  Propaganda, 
and  Public  Architecture  in  Twentieth-Century  Iran."  her  dissertation  is  in  the  process  of  revision  for 
publication.  Her  works  on  modern  Iranian  architecture  have  appeared  in  Third  Text,  Future  Anterior, 
Thresholds,  ARRIS,  and  the  Journal  of  Iranian  Studies.  Her  forthcoming  article  in  the  Art  Bulletin 
deals  with  her  next  project  on  the  turn-of-the-century  European  art-historiography  and  its  connec- 
tions to  the  late  19th-  and  early  20th-century  eclecticism  of  Qajar  architecture, 

Mark  JarZOmbek  is  the  director  of  the  program  in  History.  Theory,  and  Criticism  of  Archi- 
tecture and  Art  at  MIT's  Department  of  Architecture.  He  has  worked  on  a  range  of  historical  topics 
from  the  Renaissance  to  the  modern  period  and  his  textbook  entitled  Global  History  of  Architecture. 
co-authored  with  Vikram  Prakash  and  Frances  Ching,  will  be  published  soon. 

Mitchell  Joachim  is  a  Ph.  D.  candidate  at  the  Department  of  Architecture's  Computation 
Group  at  MIT.    His  dissertation  is  entitled:  "Ecotransology:  Integrated  Designs  for  Urban  Mobility." 
Prior  to  MIT,  he  completed  two  master's  degrees  from  Harvard  University  (MAUD)  and  Columbia 
University  (M.Arch).    Currently  he  is  a  researcher  at  the  Media  Lab  Smart  Cities  Group,  collaborat- 
ing with  his  advisor  William  J.  Mitchell  on  the  General  Motors/  Frank  0.  Gehry  Concept  Car.    In  par- 
allel with  Gehry  Partners  in  Los  Angles,  he  actively  worked  as  an  architect  on  the  Brooklyn  Atlantic 
Yards  Project.    During  his  time  in  Cambridge,  he  has  been  a  Moshe  Safdie  and  Associates  research 
fellow,  award  winner  and  a  Martin  Family  Society  Fellow  for  Sustainability.  He  has  also  worked 
as  an  architect  at  Pei.  Cobb,  Freed  and  Partners,  and  the  Michael  Sorkin  Studio  in  New  York  City. 
Mitchell  has  served  as  visiting  faculty  in  sculpture  at  the  School  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston. 
His  work  is  published  in  "How  Harvard  would  remake  Atlanta,"  (Atlanta  Journal-Constitution.  2001), 
Michael  Sorkin  Studio:  Wiggle  (Monacelli  Press,  1998),  and  "The  Guru  of  Impossible  Engineering  Cre- 
ates a  Car,"  (Popular  Science.  2004).    His  winning  design  of  living  structures — Fab  Tree  Hab — with 
Habitat  for  Humanity  and  the  Southeastern  Center  for  Contemporary  Art  has  been  honored  with  a 
nomination  for  the  INDEX  Award  and  exhibited  internationally. 

Douglas  Joachim  is  a  Personal  Trainer,  and  Lecturer.    He  is  certified  with  the  National  Acad- 
emy of  Sports  Medicine:  CPT;  PES;  IFS,  American  Council  of  Exercise:  CPT.  and  American  Academy 
of  Health  Fitness  Professionals:  MES.    He  earned  a  B.S.  with  an  emphasis  in  Exercise  Science  & 
Creative  Studies.    Doug  has  ten  years  of  experience  as  a  PT  in  functional  anatomy,  injury  prevention, 
core  training,  and  motivation. 

Garyfallia  KatsavOUnidou  is  an  architect,  practicing  in  Thessaloniki.  Greece.    She 
received  her  SMArchS  degree  in  Architecture  and  Urbanism  from  MIT  in  2000.    Her  book  Invisible 
Parentheses:  27  cities  in  Thessaloniki,  based  on  her  MIT  thesis,  was  published  in  Greek  in  2004,  with 
a  grant  from  the  Onassis  Foundation.    Since  2005,  she  has  been  collaborating  with  the  Rome-based 
group  Osservatorio  Nomade. 

Michael  W.  Meister  holds  the  W.  Norman  Brown  Professorship  of  South  Asian  Studies  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  in  the  History  of  Art  Department.    His  publications  include: 
Making  Things  in  South  Asia:  The  Role  of  Artist  and  Craftsman.  Encyclopedia  of  Indian  Temple  Ar- 
chitecture, Discourses  on  Shiua.  Coomaraswamy:  Essays  in  Early  Indian  Architecture,  and  Ethnogra- 
phy and  Personhood:  Notes  From  the  Field. 

Sarah  Menin  has  taught  architecture  at  the  University  of  Newcastle  for  many  years.  Her  doctor- 
al research  examined  parallels  between  the  work  of  Alvar  Aalto  and  Jean  Sibelius,  and  her  research 
since  has  examined  the  interrelationship  between  architecture  and  the  mind.  Dr.  Menin  is  an  author- 
'ty  of  the  life  and  work  of  Aalto,  and  her  books  include:  Nature  and  Space:  Aalto  and  Le  Corbusier  (co- 
written  with  Flora  Samuel);  Constructing  Place:  Mind  and  Matter:  and  An  Architecture  of  Invitation: 
Colin  St  John  Wilson  (co-written  with  Stephen  Kite).  She  continues  to  practice  architectural  design. 


99 


Null  Lab  was  launched  by  Arshia  and  his  partners  Reza  Bagherzadeh  and  Afshin  Rais  Rohani  (no 
longer  part  of  the  firm)  in  2002.  Null  Lab  is  an  architectural  design,  research,  and  implementation 
firm,  currently  involved  in  designs  ranging  from  residential  and  commercial,  multi-unit  loft  develop- 
ment, "smart  home"  design  and  integration,  to  production  design  for  film  and  theater.    Their  projects 
include:  the  1 5th  Street  Lofts,  99  artist-in-residence  units;  the  Mateo  Lofts,  an  adaptive  reuse  project; 
the  Santa  Fe  Lofts,  36  artist-in-residence  units,  also  adaptive  reuse,  that  are  under  construction;  the 
"Voxel"  A  new  (soon  to  be  landmark)  on  the  sunset  strip  in  West  Hollywood,  which  was  initiated  to 
coincide  with  the  20th  anniversary  of  the  inauguration  of  the  city,  and  several  residential  projects  in 
Los  Angeles.  In  late  2004,  Null  Lab  Won  AIA's  Interiors  Award  Honor  (highest  category)  for  the  Bobco 
Metals  Headquarters  design  in  Los  Angeles. 

Neri  Oxman  is  a  Design-Technology  Research  Consultant  for  KPF  Kohn  Pedersen  Fox  Associ- 
ates (NY  &  London)  and  is  currently  working  towards  her  Ph.D.  in  Design  and  Computation  at  MIT. 
Neri  studied  at  the  Architectural  Association  School  of  Architecture  in  London  (with  distinction),  the 
Technion  Israel  Institute  of  Technology  (with  honors),  and  the  Hebrew  University  Medical  School.  She 
has  practiced  Architecture  with  Ram  Karmi.  OCEAN  NORTH  and  Kohn  Pederson  Fox.  Recent  exhibi- 
tions of  OCEAN  NORTH,  in  which  Neri  was  a  participant,  include  the  Venice  Architectural  Biennale 
(2002,  2004)  and  the  Beijing  Biennale  (2004).    Neri  has  taught  design  and  computation  workshops  at 
the  Emergent  Technologies  and  Design  Master's  Program  at  the  AA,  the  IT-Master's  Program  at  the 
Oslo  School  of  Architecture,  as  well  as  at  Rice  and  Columbia  Universities.  She  has  collaborated  with 
Bentley  Systems  and  the  Smart  Geometry  Group  and  has  given  numerous  workshops  on  Generative 
Components  and  other  parametric  software  packages  at  various  institutions  including  TU  Delft.  TU 
Vienna.  Cambridge  U.K.  MIT  and  Columbia  University.  Her  work  has  been  published  in  journals, 
magazines  and  books  including  AD,  Icon.  AA  Files,  Building  Design  (BD  Magazine),  Demonstrating 
Digital  Architecture  (Birkhauser  Publishers)  and  Archiprix  International  2005  (010  Publishers).    In 
2005.  she  was  the  recipient  of  the  FEIDAD  Design  Merit  Award,  Archiprix  Award,  and  the  America- 
Israel  Cultural  Foundation  Award  of  Excellence. 

Robert  and  Shana  ParkeHarrison's  collaboration  has  evolved  organically  over  the 
past  fifteen  years.  In  2000  the  ParkeHarrisons  began  to  publicly  acknowledge  Shana's  involvement  in 
the  creation  of  the  art.  Their  exhibition.  The  Architect's  Brother,  began  at  the  George  Eastman  House 
in  2002.  It  has  continued  to  travel  to  venues  throughout  the  United  States,  Canada  and  Europe.  Their 
work  is  in  collections  throughout  the  U.S.  including  The  Whitney  Museum  of  American  Art.  The  Los 
Angeles  County  Museum.  The  Hallmark  Collection  at  the  Nelson  Atkins  Museum  of  Art,  The  San 
Francisco  Museum  of  Modern  Art,  The  Art  Institute  of  Chicago.  The  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Houston, 
and  The  Decordova  Museum. 

Nigel  Parry  lived  and  worked  in  the  West  Bank  and  at  Birzeit  University  from  1994-1998.  Today 
he  lives  in  New  York  City,  offering  public  relations  services,  and  web  and  print  design  through  his 
company  nigelparry.net. 

Mark  Rawlinson  teaches  Art  History  at  the  University  of  Nottingham,  UK.  He  has  previously 
published  work  on  Charles  Sheeler  and  is  soon  to  publish  a  monograph  entitled,  Charles  Sheeler, 
Early  American  Modernism  and  the  Paradox  of  Precisianism,  with  IB  Tauris.  His  next  research  project 
will  explore  the  constructions  of  place/non-place  in  the  work  of  20th  American  photographers'  such  as 
Stephen  Shore,  Joel  Sternfeld  and  William  Eggleston. 

Sara  Stevens  is  a  first  year  Ph.D.  student  in  Architecture  at  Princeton.    She  is  a  graduate  of 
the  Masters  of  Environmental  Design  Program  at  the  Yale  School  of  Architecture,  and  holds  a  B.  Arch 
from  Rice  University.    Her  work  focuses  on  the  contemporary  built  environment,  particularly  expan- 
sive urban  growth  and  the  business  and  economic  history  of  large  companies  that  shape  development. 
Her  Masters'  thesis,  "Systems  of  Retail:  The  Bigger  Box,"  includes  a  set  of  box-like  building  formats 
that  she  investigates  for  their  historical  context  and  impending  effect  on  urban  form — retail  pharma- 
cies, the  self-storage  industry,  home  improvement  stores,  and  megaplex  movie  theaters. 

Nicole  Vlado  has  an  M.  Arch  from  MIT.  She  lives  and  works  in  New  York  City  where  she  contin- 
ues to  explore  the  theme  of  surface  habitation  through  art  and  architecture. 

Tijana  Vujosevic  is  a  second  year  Ph.D.  student  in  the  History,  Theory  and  Criticism  of 
Architecture  and  Art  Program  at  MIT.  She  received  her  M.Arch  From  Yale  University  and  studied 
architecture  at  Belgrade  University. 


100 


William  C.  Brumfield 

Figure  1:  Photograph  by  author.  1975.  D  Brumfiuld  Collection  (M59-32). 
Naomi  Davidson 

Photographs  reprinted  from  Institut  Musulman  de  Paris,  a  brochure  distributed 
by  the  Institut.  C'  Institut  Musulman  et  la  Mosquee  de  Paris. 

Elliot  Felix 

Photograph  of  Ryoan-Ji  by  Sam  Gerstein.  ©  http://www-ryoohki.net/ 

Photograph  of  Library  Turnstile  University  of  Liverpool. 

©  http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/libtour/lawlibtour/secure.html 

Photograph  of  print  on  demand  by  Digital  Graphix.  Cihttp://www.dgxpod  com/ 
equipment/index. html 

Aerial  view  of  Columbus  Circle  by  David  Pirmann,  0  N\'Cs ubway.org 

All  other  images  by  author. 

Jennifer  Ferng 

Figure  1  &  3  &  4:  Reprinted  from  World  Game  Report-  Summary  of  a  Project 
led  by  R-  Buckminster  Fuller.  Edwin  Schlossberg.  and  Daniel  Gildesgame, 
edited  by  Mary  Deren  and  Medard  Gabel    Photographs  by  Daniel  Gildesgame 
and  Herbert  Matter.  C'  New  York:  The  New  York  Studio  School  of  Painting  and 
Sculpture  in  association  with  Good  News,  1969.  Courtesy  of  Edwin  Schlossberg 
and  the  Frances  Loeb  Library,  Harvard  University  Graduate  School  of  Design. 

Figure  2:  Reprinted  from  Ho-ping:  Food  for  Everyone.  <Ci  New  York  Anchor 
Press,  1980:  24.  Courtesy  of  Medard  Gabel. 

Figure  5:  Reprinted  from  Energy,  Earth,  and  Everyone.  0  New  York:  Anchor 
Press.  1980:  92,  Courtesy  of  Medard  Gabel. 

Ole  W.  Fischer 

All  images  courtesy  of  the  Weimar  Classic  Foundation. 

Mark  Jarzonibek 

Figure  1:  &  The  National  Museum.  Stockholm- 
Figure  2:  C.  Campbell's  Vitruvius  Britannicus,  Vol.  I,  1725.  Plate  64.  ©  New 
York  :  B    Blom.  1967-72. 

Figure  3:  Ibid..  31.  ©  New  York:  B.  Blom.  1967-72, 

Figure  4:  Robert  Adam's  Works  in  Architecture.  Vol,  I.  1775.  C>  New  York: 
Dover  Publications.  1980. 

Figure  5:  Architectural  drawing  in  depot  fortifications  des  colonies,  Pondi- 
chery.  Ci  Biblioteque  de  la  section  outre-mer  des  Archives  Nationale,  Paris. 

Figure  6:  Claude  Nicholas  Ledoux's  Architecture.  Volume  I,  €<  Paris:  Lenoir. 
1847,  plate  169, 

Figure  7;  Malcome  Seaborne's  The  Enghah  School:  Its  Architecture  and  Orga- 
nization. C'  Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press.  1971.  p,  176, 

Neri  Oxman,  Douglas  and  Mitchell  Joachim 

All  images  by  authors. 

Garyfallia  Katsavounidou 

Figure  1:  ©The  National  Geographic  Magazine,  November  1925. 

Figure  2  &  3:  Photographs  reprinted  by  permission  from  Lorenzo  Romito.  the 
coordinator  of  Osservatorio  Nomade, 

Figure  4;    Photograph  by  author. 


Illustration  Credits 


Michael  W.  Meister 

Figures  1  &  3  &  4-8  &  13:  Photographs  by  author, 

Figure  2:    Based  on  J,  Fergusson  and  J,  Burgess's  Cave  Temples  of  India.  © 
Delhi,  Oriental  Books,  1880. 

Figures  9  &  10:  Reconstruction  by  author. 

Figure  11:  fO  Osian.  author;  '0  Khajuraho.  after  D.  Desai,  The  Religious 
Imagery  of  Khajuraho.  Bombay.  1996,  fig,  15;  C'  Ranakpur.  after  P,  Brown. 
Indian  Architecture:  Buddhist  &  Hindu  Period.  3rd  ed.,  Bombay.  1959,  pi.  123; 
©  Chidambaram,  after  Encyclopaedia  of  Indian  Temple  Architecture:  C'  Madurai. 
after  W.  Francis,  Madras  District  Gazeteers:  Madura.  1906. 

Figure  12:  Photograph  courtesy  of  P,  Ghosh. 

Sarah  Menin 

'C'  Sarah  Meiiin, 

Null  Lab 

Page  40:  Photo  on  top  left:  Tara  Wujcik  and  Barbra  Runic    Photo  on  top  right: 

Arshia, 

Page  41:  Photos  on  top:  Fotoworks-Benny  Chan.  Hand  Diagrams:  Reza  Bagher- 
zadeh.  Text  by  Arshia 

Robert  and  Shana  ParkeHarrison 

All  photographs  courtesy  of  Robert  and  Shana  ParkeHarrison, 
Nigel  Parry 

iC'j  www  banksy.co.uk, 

Mark  Rawlinson 

AH  images  courtesy  of  National  Gallery  of  Art,  Washington  DC. 
Sara  Stevens 

All  oblique  facades  courtesy  of  Rosewood  Portfolio. 
All  low-level  aerials  courtesy  of  Koman  Properties  Inc. 
Axonometrir  drawing  by  author, 

Nicole  Vlado 

All  photographs  and  drawings  by  author. 
Tijana  Vujosevic 

©  Columbia  Graduate  School  of  Architecture,  Planning,  and  Preservation. 


101 


Future  Anterior 


HISTORIC  PRESERVATION'S 

NEW  POINT  OF  REFERENCE 

Essential  reading  for  anyone  interested  in  historic 
prcscr\'ation  and  its  role  in  current  debates.  Future 
Anterior  approaches  historic  prcser\'alion  from 
interdisciplinary  positions  of  crucial  inquiry.  A 
comparatively  recent  field  of  professional  study, 
historic  preservation  often  escapes  direct  academic 
challenges  of  its  motives,  goals,  forms  of  practice, 
and  results.  Future  Anterior  asks  these  difficult 
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graphical,  theoretical,  and  practical  perspectives. 
As  the  first  and  only  referccd  journal  of  its  kind  in 
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reader  in  new  ways  of  reflecting  and  taking  on  the 
built  past  not  as  a  constraint  but  as  a  provocation 
to  intervene  creatively  in  contemporary  culture. 


A  Journal  of  Historic  Preservation  History,  Theory  and  Criticism 
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Columbia  University 

Founder  and  Director;  Jorge  Otero-Paitos 

Editorial  Board:  Barry  Bergdoll,  Paul  Spencer  Byard.  Jean-Louis 

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Gwendolyn  Wnght 

Managed  and  produced  by  Columbia  University  Historic 

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102 


REVISTA  DE  ARQUITECTURA 

R2l,  Revista  de  Arquitectura,  is  published  year!' 
by  the  School  of  Architecture  of  the  Universi" 
f  Navarra.  R21  is  a  forum  for  results  of  the  aca- 
smic  debate  regarding  the  diverse  dimensions 
of  architecture  and  the  city  considering  both  as 
cultural  realities  of  unarguable  importance  and 
impact,  and  as  objects  of  careful  attention,  study 
and  investigation. 

Ra  aims:%D  specifically  assemblage  the  intellec- 
tual pro^fcpn  of  Theory  and  History,  Urban 
Planning  anoTArchitectural  Design  Departments, 
although  it  is  initially  open  to  articles  and  colla- 
borations from  independ^  professionals  and 
other  academic  institutions.  R3.  also  reeks  to 
feed  the  perception  of  architecture  as  a  cultural 
discipline  in  the  extensive  sense  of  the  word. 

Articles  are  published  in  Spanish  and  English 
after  a  journal  selection  process  conducted  by 
the  International  Editorial  Board. 


FOR  MORE  INFORMATION  C£ 
Jorge  Tarrago  Mingo 
Coordinador  li^i 
ETS  de  Arqiiitecuiiii. 
Universidad  dc  Navarr.i 
31080  Pamplona.  Sp.i  I II 
JLirniin^- unav.es 


ITACT: 


Subset  iprio^»spetsa@unav.es 

^quitccnirj/documtmos/publicacionc; 


:jZQubJb/ tiden.htm  ^m 


103 


thresholds  33 

f'<)ini(alisni) 

call  for  subniLssioDS 

Ihresholds.  ihc  bi-annual  critical  journal  orarcliiiccturc.  art.  and  media  cullurc  of  MIT's  department  of 
archileciure.  in\  ites  submissions  for  issue  33  form(alism). 

submissions  due:  31  august  2006 

Archilcclural  debate  no  longer  waffles  onK  between  the  blob  and  the  box  but  is  also  caught  today  between 
debates  regarding  form  and  formlessness.  Formalism  is  to  art  and  architecture  what  the  80's  is  to  recent 
fashion.  It  periodically  threatens  lo  make  a  comeback  under  (he  guise  of  not  being  its  old  self,  ultimately 
peeking  from  underneath  some  singular  design.  From  the  form  of  cities,  with  the  now  normative  megaeity 
and  the  emergence  of  other  novel  urban  typologies,  lo  architecture's  technological  revolution,  with  the  use 
of  algorithms  to  generate  form  or  the  application  of  aeronautical  software  in  its  design,  formal  paradigms, 
boundaries,  and  processes  are  being  reconsidered  and  reconfigured.  .Ml  of  these  reorganizations  of  space, 
capital,  material,  and  time  beg  for  a  critical  analysis  of  form(alism).  its  definitions,  realization,  and 
deconstniction.  as  well  as  processes  of  form  making,  from  within  the  object  and  without. 

thresholds  33  asks  what  new  concerns  about  fomi(alism)  have  emerged  in  an-architectural  fields  today. 
How  can  we  evaluate  iheorctical  issues  of  form  and  content/  form  and  autonomy'  form  and  ornamenL'  tonn 
and  formlessness?  What/how  is  the  formal  relationship  with  the  subject  challenged,  enriched,  or  elided? 
What  projects'  methodologies  demonstrate  emergent  processes  or  redefine  formal  limits/boundaries? 
Where  are  the  anti-formalists  today?  Where  can  wc  place  foriTi(alism)  within  cultural  practice  and  aesthetic 
discourse  today? 

thrcshulds  .33  invites  contributions  from  a  wide  range  of  disciplines,  including  an.  architecture, 
anthropology,  animation,  video,  urbanism.  history,  theory  and  cross-pollinations.  Submissions  need  not  be 
limited  to  scholarly  work  and  may  include  comedic  and  spoof  submissions,  thresholds  33  will  include  a 
web  component  for  time-based  media. 

(hrcsholds  aucmpls  lo  publish  only  original  material.  Materials  should  be  p<^slmarkeil  by  3 1  August  20O6. 

IKXT;  \1anu5cripl.s  lor  kt  iev\  sliould  he  no  more  Ihan  :.5I)0  words,  lesl  musl  he  I'onnalled  in  accordance  \\  iUl  The  Chieasio  Manual 
of  Slylc.  Spelling  shtnild  Tollow  American  con\enlion  and  quotations  musl  be  truislated  into  Tnglish.  AH  submissions  musl  be 
submilled  electronically,  via  e-mail  or  disk,  and  accompanied  b>  hard  copies  ol'lest  and  images,  text  should  be  saved  as  Microsoft 
Vt'oril  or  RTT  I'onnat.  while  :uiy  aceoinpanyinj:  images  should  he  sent  as  Tll'l'  files  with  a  n.-5olutioii  of  at  least  30O  dpi  at  8"  .x  1"  print 
si«.  I'igures  should  be  numbered  cle-iily  in  the  text.  Image  captions  and  credits  must  be  included  u  iih  submissions,  it  is  the 
rcspiinsihllily  of  the  author  to  securv  pcmiissions  for  itnaue  use  and  pay  any  reproduction  fees,  A  brief  author  bio  must  accompany  tlie 
lexl. 

MEDIA:  Media  submissions  below  8MB  can  be  submitted  via  e-mail  to:  udia^miLcdu  and  by  disk  Submissions  above  8MB  mus 
he  sent  on  disk  and'or  posted  on  a  server  for  download.  Most  common  tile  formats  will  be  accepted.  ITiresholds  reserves  the  right  lo 
request  reformatting  of  worts  for  final  publication.  It  is  Ihc  responsibililv  of  the  author  lo  secure  permissions  for  proprietary  media  use 
and  pay  any  reproduction  fees.  A  brief  aulhor  bio  mu.sl  accompany  tiie  wort;. 


submissions  due:  31  August  2006 

Please  send  all  submissions  to  thresh@>mit.edu 
TEXT/IMAGE  submissions:  threshC*mit.edu 
MEDIA  submissions  (below  8MB|:  sadiae>>mit.edu 
INQUIRIES:  thresh@niit.edu 


ANALOG :  Sadia  Shirazi,  Editor 

thresholds 

MIT  Department  of  Architecture 
Room?  337 
77  Massachusetts  Ave. 
Cambrid9e,MA02l39  USA 


104 


Submission  Policy 

Thresholds  attempts  to  print  only  original  material.  Manuscripts  for 
review  should  be  no  more  than  4000  words.  Text  must  be  formatted  in 
accordance  with  The  Chicago  Manual  of  Style.  Spelling  should  follow 
American  convention  and  quotations  must  be  translated  into  English. 
All  submissions  must  be  submitted  electronically,  on  a  CD  or  disk,  ac- 
companied by  hard  copies  of  text  and  images.  Text  should  be  saved  as 
Microsoft  Word  or  RTF  format,  while  any  accompanying  images  should 
be  sent  as  TIFF  files  with  a  resolution  of  at  least  600  dpi  at  8"  by  9" 
^    _.  print  size.  Figures  should  be  numbered  clearly  in  the  text.   Image  cap- 

!?—  y  0  U  <'     C,  tions  and  credits  must  be  included  with  submissions.    It  is  the  respon- 

sibility of  the  author  to  secure  permissions  for  image  use  and  pay  any 
reproduction  fees.  A  brief  author  bio  must  accompany  the  text. 


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Cont; 

William  C.  Brumfield 

Naomi  Da\adson 

Elliot  FelLx 

Jennifer  Ferng 

Ole  W.  Fischer 

Frank  Forrest 

Talinn  Grigor 

Mark  Jarzombek 

Douglas  Joachim 

Mitchell  Joachim 

Gar>'faUia  Katsavounidou 

Michael  W.  Meister 

Sarah  Menin 

Null  Lab 

Neri  Oxman 

Robert  and  Shana  ParkeHarrison 

Nigel  Parry 

Mark  Rawlinson 

Sara  Stevens 

Nicole  Viado 

Tijana  Vujosevic 


^*^K *,\jL  a 


Z.  Pamela  Karimi,  Editor 
Sadia  Shirazi.  Assistant  Editor