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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
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00 BDfiooaK* raaaaua Hx « c c ^ j > .. ■ (. j -
B « » 0 "0
X 0 0 < • ^ 0 *
00 saKaooatxx 9 »•>!■> oMx i o o a o i k i «•■
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XX aPGDK»»!l XaVJiAXOM KOIKOJODK 10-
^ f ..:;..>. . J . .. . . ■ « K oKd 0 a o,K fat-
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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
questions from philosophical, aesthetic, historic-
graphical, theoretical, and practical perspectives.
As the first and only referccd journal of its kind in
American academia, future /(nferior engages the
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
Graduate School of Archileclure. Planning, and Preservation
Columbia University
Founder and Director; Jorge Otero-Paitos
Editorial Board: Barry Bergdoll, Paul Spencer Byard. Jean-Louis
Cohen. Andrew S Doll<ar1. Mark Jarzombek. Helene Lipstadt,
Fernando Manas. Daniel B. Monk. Joan Ockman, Marc Treib,
Gwendolyn Wnght
Managed and produced by Columbia University Historic
Preservation students
To subscribe or contact;
Write Future Anterior
Journal of Historic Preservation
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Individuals: $24 in US, $34 international
Institutions: $60 in US, $70 international
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