Lap - top, desk - top On top - of the - desk, on top - of the - lap The Desk as a Carrier and Reading of Collective Culture
History and Theory Studies Second Year Student: Gabrielle Eglen Tutor: Sofia Krimizi
“This anonymous hero is very ancient.” 1 A single volume with four sides. A tangible object, with a physical presence. A series of fluid porous boundaries, a plane of ever changing and consistent movement. A place to connect and disconnect, though increasingly connect. The lights that shined from the top above, muted to limit the abundance of glare which now occupies its surface. We witness an increasing mobility, an abundance claimed for the adaptable individual, perhaps few with a personable connection beyond the boundaries of the home. The collective culture of the architectural school can be seen in its spatial arrangement, such an arrangement is deployed to reflect or embed a specific culture and pedagogic strategy. The desk steadfastly occupies these spaces, it can be seen as a “stable landmark”. The school (if viewed as a system or a model) produces, places or provides the desk as an object, the object is thus used as a reflection or disruption of this system. This can create or pose a tension between how the individual organises themselves compared to how the school intends for the space to be used. This tension exists at both the scale of the individual and the collective, with the object establishing a personal relationship to both. Joan Ockman reads the object in relation to architectural education and its 24/7 ‘lifestyle’, “this prime piece of real estate became a key component of the academic culture”. 2 Thus one single desk and an individual’s relationship with it is presented as capable of changing the way the students’ use the space of the studio. Personal ownership and the building of a relationship with the object over the cycle of a year acts as a significant factor in influencing student culture and specifically their hours of work. It also informs upon the creation of an individual relationship to the desk, as a place of relation and influence upon behaviour. The statement relates to North American architectural education, where the routine assignment of an individual desk occurs within the school. Such a process is not necessarily widespread beyond there. However, it pinpoints a moment in time with the potential to trace and project a wider history, setting up a reading of the desk as an architectural space, one which can potentially reflect different interpretations of the culture of architectural education. The desk must be acknowledged as having a wider history outside of the architectural school. It can trace external influencing cultural and societal developments such as the evolving digital media age, consumer culture and the market of higher education. Nonetheless, it can be seen or presented to have a specific history and connection to architectural education and its developments (the changing ergonomics of the architectural student in relation to the desk can be seen as an example). It seems there is an interplay between these two factors, with each development not being unique and singular in itself. The etymology of the desk acknowledges this wider history and its interpretation as a functional object that satisfies a need, 3 as an item of prestige (“to hold a desk”), a specific area to perform a task (“a job on the sports desk”, “to check in at the desk”) and a physical place to return to (“back to their desk”). It is interesting to consider a wider educational connection with the desk across the different stages of an individual’s lifetime. Learning can exist without the desk, yet it can perhaps be considered as a physical and crucially formal space to promote focus, concentration and study. From a young age we can be assigned a desk at primary school, yet learning through play is also a crucial distinction. Frederich Froebel’s pedagogical writings detail play as fundamental to children’s development, a form of expression that develops the individual beyond routine recitation. “By harnessing the impulse that impels children, and, indeed, many other animal young to play, learning would be made easier and knowledge more long-lasting.” 4 The writings can be viewed in relation to the philosophies of Johannes Itten and his movement of students away from their desks at the beginning of class to complete a series of exercises to prepare the mind. Movements such as these which can be traced to moments within architectural culture ask how the individual’s relationship with and separation from the desk could project a different reading of the student experience and culture. The plane of the desk has changed; in its axis, its ergonomics and its adaptability. Crucially the plane has now been rotated 90 degrees. The desktop on the screen is now at a right angle to the desktop of the desk, this x, y, z axis has changed. It can be constantly adaptable and personable to the individual and their viewpoint through minor tilts and adjustments. In Georges Perec’s Life A User’s Manual, the desk of the character Marguerite is described as follows: “Her table was an eternal glory-hole, always stacked with great amounts of useless equipment, piled high with heteroclite objects, invaded by a tide of muddle which she had to stem each time before she set to work.” 5
De Certeau, M. 2011. The Practice of Everyday Life. USA: University of California Press, pp. preface. Ockman, J. 2012. Studio Culture and Student Life. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America. USA, MIT Press, pp. 399. 3 Baudrillard, J. 1996. Introduction. The system of objects. USA: Verso, pp. 6. 4 Brosterman, N. 1977. Kindergarten. Inventing Kindergarten. USA: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., pp. 33. 5 Perec, G. 1996. Winckler, 3. Life a User’s Manual. USA: Vintage Classics, pp. 392. 1 2
The desk of Marguerite is read as a personable collection of materials, one which has individual meaning. In a sense this personable collection could now be read as sitting upon the screen of the computer that creates a rotation of the plane, the ‘clutter’ now slows its functioning. This reading reflects a video called the “Evolution of the Desk” 6 by the Harvard Innovation Lab. All of the “heteroclite” and functioning objects are absorbed as applications and symbolic logos onto the screen, such as the calculator and the pin board. Such a change is viewed in connection to minimalism, “minimal interiors have long been an aesthetic goal of modern architecture”. 7 It speaks of wider cultural, societal and architectural developments in relation to the desk as an object. Whilst being a clear reflection of the digital age, it also speaks of the desk as indicative of changes within society and of the dispersal of the workplace. This interiority reading is similar to that of Baudrillard’s in “The System of Objects” of being “more supple” with the individual having a “much more liberal relationship”. 8 The rotation of the axis of the plane can be seen to have implications on its increasing transportability with the ability to work anywhere. As a reflection within education, the lap can become a plane whilst sitting in a lecture. A quote of Michael de Certeau’s in ‘The Practice of everyday life’ adds another layer to this, “The analysis of the images broadcast by television (representation) and of the time spent watching television (behaviour) should be complemented by a study of what the cultural consumer “makes” or “does” during this time and with these images.” 9 For architecture students, the relationship of the screen with the desk is not as tied a relationship as the drawing board with the desk. It asks whether the space loses or negates its individual relationship and what the effect on behaviour could be from a condensation of images (work, leisure and social etc.) onto the singular plane, to how both of these could inflect upon architectural education and the creation of a specific culture within the institution of the architecture school. Asking questions on what an increased efficiency and ‘minimalism’ of functions means for wider architectural culture. The change in individual ergonomics appears as more of a reflection of changes within architectural education. It therefore can read into developments within architectural culture through the establishment of a relationship with it. Tracing the desk through history a very distinctly different set of individual postures occur in the space that surrounds, from the posture of the individual to the level of viewpoint above the plane. The arrangement of the furniture can create efficiency and function. Postures change from a stooped lean over the desk, to sitting with the backrest of the chair supporting the back slumped with eyes fixed forwards. The latter posture setting up more of a relationship with other objects of furniture as support mechanisms. The lean over drawings still occurs when they are at their analogue state, creating a change in posture from the latter to the prior. (See appendix of images, detailing posture, positions of arm and eye level) This adds another layer to the idea of culture within the architectural school that goes further than the positioning of the collective and the individual, to how individual objects on the plane of the desk throughout history can influence individual positioning. An example being the absorption of functions onto the rotated plane. The objects upon the desk thus set up different relationships with it, but speak of wider cultural developments and changes than those specifically within architectural education. However, at same time a connection can be seen if we consider the relationship with the development of the computer and methods of architectural representation, yet architects have adapted their working space to facilitate this relationship. “The photograph showing Alvin Boyarsky at the AA, shows the chairman behind his desk, overflowing papers: it can be read as a reflection of the way in which he understood education, as a well-laid table.” 10 In the System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard he talks of three primary functions of the objects (being furniture) within domestic space; how they “personify human relationships”, are “bound” to humans and have a “complex structure of interiority” spatially. 11 These categories give a way of analysing the following architectural education case studies to study individual institutions and their presentation of educational culture, how desks are positioned and integrated whilst seeking to fulfil a role or function. Each case study develops the interplay between the desk as a carrier of architectural and wider culture. “At the end, “See to that for me,” and he would move on to the next place.” Emmanuel Pontremoli, 1920s “…he would pass quietly from table to table, stool to stool…” “He had moved from table to table, with the élèves grouped behind him with bated breath” Leon Jaussely, 1919
Cormier, B. 2017. Value Debates: How Small Is Too Small? UK: Victoria and Albert Museum. Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/shekou/value-debates-how-small-is-too-small/ [Accessed: 23rd November 2017]. Ibid. Cormier. 8 Baudrillard, J. 1996. 1 Structure of Interior Design. The system of objects. USA: Verso, pp. 15. 9 De Certeau, M. 2011. General Introduction. The Practice of Everyday Life. USA: University of California Press, pp. xii. 10 Sunwoo, I. 2010. Architecture and its past Symposium 4/9: 'The static age’. UK: The Architectural Association. Available at: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2552 [Accessed: 22nd November 2017]. 11 Baudrillard, J. 1996. 1 Structure of Interior Design. The system of objects. USA: Verso, pp. 14. 6 7
“Followed by his pupils, he went from table to table, giving his criticism to each student in turn; having made the round, he would bow” Victor Laloux, turn of the century 12 The atelier is the space of learning of the Beaux-Arts, it as a space sets up a pedagogical strategy. Long wooden desks with large crossed trusses supporting are arranged axially in lines with the walls bordering, the littered wooden drawing boards disrupt this linearity. Filth covering the tables, drawings rolled up and laid out upon. Students are densely packed together in their over coats. They lean; hunched over, perched upon and pressing against the desk. Elbows rest on the angle of the board and the plan view is in close proximity. “It is the damnedest pigstie I ever got into.” 13 The space of the atelier has been described as “basic”. 14 The desk was one of the prime objects to facilitate the drawing board. It reflects current architectural models of working. The spatial organisation of the desks inflects upon the culture of the architectural school. The desk personifies the closeness of relationships, the close placement and connection inflects upon the different relationships bound to such a space. The desk axiality allowed for the focus of the patron (tutor) to make his rounds at speed, as in the above quotes. This allowed for face-to-face interaction on visits that occurred two to three times a week, regarded as essential for the development of the student within this architectural model. The relationship with the patron was one of formality, a visit to each specific desk in turn. This relationship contrasts with the student culture of the Beaux Arts, appearing as a distinct separation. The master guides, the students share. “Jokes fly back and forth, snatches of songs, excepts from operas, at times even a mass may be sung, yet amid the confusion and the babble - strange as it may seem - work proceeds.” 15 The student culture is described as “ritualistic, if not without its conviviality”. 16 The dense placement of desks creates a structure of bonds between students (alongside the embedded long hours spent together). The culture of competition is furthered by this placement, the anciens and the nouveaux constantly in proximity to exchange ideas (“key to the intellectual life of the atelier”). 17 Mirrored by the ‘grand prix’ with the educational structure of the school described as “like a step-pyramid, with a top big enough for only one man”, with students as “competitors” receiving “points”. 18 The notion of competition is encouraged within the space, ateliers are teams within and rivals to each other. There can be a constant comparison and development of designs between individuals, discovering each others capability, and thus the individual relationship with the desk is tied to a relationship and viewpoint of another student and the furthering of both of their works. As a model of educational culture it sets up a comparative tone, but its establishment of a personal and collective relationship is of more resonance. A wooden top, with tubular steel legs. Welded together, light and “suitable for heavy use”. Marcel Breuer, 1925, Tubular Steel Furniture 19 “Woods of equal strength and width were used for the table legs. The alternating angle of the legs ensures stability and expresses a circularity which is further underlined by the underlined supports. These are attached at the bottom of the legs across the narrow ends of the table, when they are not in the way, and along the top of the long sides of the table, where they can be used as shelves.” Josef Albers, 1923, Conference Table 20 The Bauhaus workshop creates a different culture and space of learning. Students worked on desks and rows of tables as both individuals and a collective. Significantly these desks are designed within the school, with a student and tutor role in the production. The school in this case thus produces the table as an object intertwined with its culture, the interiority is bound to the individual. This creates a very different culture and “spirit of enquiry”. 21 The individual develops a relationship with the desk to carry this spirit, working on it and in proximity to it enables an experience of the design. Physical self experience is an emphasised part of student culture and it therefore becomes tied and personified by the desk, the everyday nature of the relationship thus promotes the culture right through to what may be considered a mundane or regular object. Creativity in all its forms is celebrated, with the model of education being tied fundamentally to the individual self. It allows for multiple exposure and thus reflection for further development. The student thus can have this “objectified self enjoyment” and the method of education gains a “human quality” that seeks to develop the students beyond being mere “receptacles of knowledge”. 22 This production promotes another aspect of the culture alongside that of individual development, that of the communal process of working with others, it is another reading of the individual and the collective through the architectural space of the desk. “Giving and receiving were interchangeable”. 23 Students assisting masters in the production of such objects
Drexler, A. 1977. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Ateliers. The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. USA: MIT Press, pp. 94. Ibid, Drexler. PP. 90. 14 Ibid, Drexler. PP. 90. 15 Ibid, Drexler. PP. 91. 16 Ockman, J. 2012. Studio Culture and Student Life. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America. USA: MIT Press, pp. 396. 17 Ibid, Drexler. PP. 92. 18 Ibid, Drexler. PP. 92. 19 Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. 1998. Marcel Breuer’s early tubular steel furniture. The Dessau Bauhaus Building. Switzerland, Birkhäuser, pp. 33. 20 Droste, M. 1998. The Furniture Workshop. Bauhaus. Germany: Taschen, pp. 82. 21 Wingler, H. 1969. Origin and History of the Bauhaus. Bauhaus. USA: MIT Press, pp. xvii. 22 Ibid, Wingler. PP, xvii. 23 Ibid, Wingler. PP, xvii. 12 13
shared co-responsibility for the economic success of the school, they are bound in a different manner. Their experience of the design thus has another layer added on to it, a desire for communal success and self sufficiency. In this case, the culture is tied to this co-responsibility of accomplishments, thus the emphasis on the personal development of the creative self becomes important to the individual and the collective culture and imagination. It has an ability to affect wider and create momentum towards a common goal. The culture of the workshop appears vey tied to that of the school overall, its development of mass production and collective hope in attitude speaks of wider societal change of the post war years. The desk thus traces both an exterior cultural change and the development of a contrasting architectural one. “Where are our desks?” 24 “A single, large open-plan space above the entry level, which is divided into five ‘trays’ which cascade down, hosting students from the school’s three design disciplines: Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.” 25 These trays contain the student desks, where space is at a premium with nearly 500 students. The wooden laminate tops, with steel legs house an abundance of screens, models and post it notes. Seemingly acoustic barriers divide the space. The trays of the Gund Hall house the Harvard School of Design architectural department and trace wider developments of the changing axis of the desk. The subdivision and setting of the trays were intended for the cross - disciplinary interaction of students, a key driver of the encouraged culture. The studio culture policy of the school dictates that “the goal of the GSD studio teaching method is to achieve a free exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect.” 26 The culture focuses on interaction, exchange of ideas, cross - disciplinary interaction and research. However, with the rotation of the desk plane a view of the student working below becomes obsolete, each ‘desk - top’ now negates such flatness of the plane. The students movement has to manifest a similar culture, a level of subdivision appears until they move between the trays descending the stairs. This change appears as a wider reflection of digital media and almost satisfies the need of the consumer, surfing the surrounding ideas of a seemingly private yet public desk space and then selecting from these as reference. The space traces the desk model mentioned previously by Joan Ockman. The expectation of an individual relationship with the desk is interesting in a seemingly challenging interior environment, with not much tolerance for the individual desire for a personal environment that is adaptive to their working style. The environment is tied to multiple notions of necessity beyond the need of the student. The culture and deployment of spatial organisation has a wider trace throughout history to its previous space of Robinson Hall, its removal of partitions sought to create a communal space for working alongside and in close proximity. The physical object of the desk is thus presented here as precipitating interaction. 27 This culture provoking act extends much beyond its symbolism with clear psychological impact, but in its massing responding to the need to accommodate growing student bodies. In both spaces, the interior is further tied to booming student numbers. The culture can be read to favour visual connection and sociability, with the desk taking on more of a multifaceted public and private role. The spatial organisation of proximity between individuals has changed alongside the wider collective beyond architecture. “The lack of a large lobby compels students and visitors upstairs to the bar, where they meet informally around small tables and exchange ideas.” 28 Long rectangular laminate tops with steel frames, large thick cut wooden desks, circular tables with a curved form support, small coffee tables. The desk space of the AA is informed by its culture and the domestic nature of the school space. The movement and adaptation between ‘rooms’ outside the primary individualised unit space creates a set of relationships that are tied to different functions of the space and its previous interiority. The student has a constant choreography of movement with their belongings, this movement outside of the unit space fosters notions of collaboration outside the primary work space. Each room has a different objective that is intended to generate a certain atmosphere. It reflects an institution with a culture that becomes embedded in its interior. The desk thus personifies a relationship that is bound to the space that the individual shares with the collective within the school, a space they have to cross to reach each of these desks. Within such a space one of the methods of assessment is “tables”. The plane of the desk becomes a place of importance at certain points of the year, it creates a temporary hierarchy and a symbolic space that the individual can use as a method of presentation. Beyond this domestic reading, if the AA is taken singularly as an institution it becomes interesting to specifically look at the culture of the unit space and how the desk is placed within this, to study whether the desk can be seen to reflect this shift and pedagogic development of the unit system. The introduction of
Lebryk, T. Design School Building Draws Praise, Except For the Desk Space. USA: The Harvard Crimson. Available at: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/8/gsd-gund-hall-praise-desks/ [Accessed: 13th October 2017]. 25 Moussavi, F. 2012. School buildings produce culture. UK: The Architectural Review. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/today/school-buildings-produce-culture/8636270.article [Accessed: 13th October 2017]. 26 Studio Culture Policy. USA: Harvard Graduate School of Design. Available at: http://l87r32c95dp1hz05tig4px11.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Studio-Culture-Policy.pdf 24
[Accessed: 20th November 2017]. 27 28
Ibid, Ockman. PP. 398. Ibid, Moussavi.
the unit system in 1970s can be traced through images of the studio space. It appears that the plane of the desk changes in that the plan view is slightly lowered, with the division of spaces extended. The desk as an object in use appears similar, appearing not as much of an inflection upon the change in culture. The individuals adopt similar positions in gathering around, with the ergonomics not noticeably changing in comparison with the difference in plane of today. However, there is more of an impression of individuality with the wall as a surrounding vertical plane and screen to display information. Speaking of today, “the unit spaces are person-centred, providing students with an intimate space to develop a sense of self and their individual interests, their true potential, outside disciplinary limits.” 29 With the AA culture seen through this lens of having a focus on the individual and their development, there is a very distinct and separate differentiation in there being no assigned desk space. It perhaps speaks of an individual within a collective culture, a personal claim to a collective space within the wider institutional and architectural environment. “For all their multiplicity, objects are generally isolated as to their function, and it is the user who is responsible, as his needs dictate, for their coexistence in a functional context”. 30 The essay aims to look at how a reading of the plane of the desk at a specific moment in time could be looked at as a constructive object for educational culture. As an architectural space, the individual relationship with the desk offers a reading beyond that of its context. Passing events and technological advancements appear as traces within its surrounding three dimensional plane, the desk is both an object and device tied to a specific ergonomic positioning. It increasingly seems much more of a space of public projection than that of private reflection. It exists as a microcosm of wider influences and societal trends than those of just architectural culture. The function of the desk has changed in its “mobility and multi-functionality” 31 but its necessity remains. Its relationship to time through its persistence appears multifaceted. It can be seen as a tool for culture, it can also be seen to personify a relationship to space. This relationship asks questions of the architectural education environment’s interior space at the most primal level because of the discipline’s focus on the consistent improvement of its environment exterior to the school. How can this interior space be modulated to ensure it doesn't generate an environment of perceived ‘efficiency’ at the sacrifice of the individual, to retain this sense of play as a way of learning within the architectural school.
Ibid, Moussavi. Ibid, Baudrillard. PP. 6. 31 Ibid, Baudrillard. PP. 16. 29 30
Image Appendix
Students in the Beaux Arts Atelier At the Turn of the Century
Student in the Bauhaus 1927
Students of Harvard in Robinson Hall and Gund Hall 1946 and present
Student in the Architectural Association Unit Space 2005 and 2017
Students in the Architectural Association - pre and post the unit 1950s and 1970s
1912
1960
1930
1965
1970
Students in the Architectural Association
1950
1947
2005
Bibliography of Essay Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. 1998. The Dessau Bauhaus Building. Switzerland, Birkhäuser. Baudrillard, J. 1996. The system of objects. USA: Verso. Brosterman, N. 1977. Inventing Kindergarten. USA: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Cormier, B. 2017. Value Debates: How Small Is Too Small? UK: Victoria and Albert Museum. Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/shekou/value-debates-how-small-is-too-small/ [Accessed: 23rd December 2017]. Cousins, M. 2015. The Architect and the Rabbit. 2000+ The Urgencies of Architectural Theory. USA: GSAPP Books. De Certeau, M. 2011. The Practice of Everyday Life. USA: University of California Press. Drexler, A. 1977. The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. USA: MIT Press. Droste, M. 1998. Bauhaus. Germany: Taschen. Lebryk, T. Design School Building Draws Praise, Except For the Desk Space. USA: The Harvard Crimson. Available at: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/8/gsd-gund-hall-praise-desks/ [Accessed: 13th October 2017]. Moussavi, F. 2012. School buildings produce culture. UK: The Architectural Review. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/today/school-buildings-produce-culture/8636270.article [Accessed: 13th October 2017]. Ockman, J. 2012. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America. USA, MIT Press. Perec, G. 1996. Life a User’s Manual. USA: Vintage Classics. Studio Culture Policy. USA: Harvard Graduate School of Design. Available at: http://l87r32c95dp1hz05tig4px11.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Studio-Culture-Policy.pdf [Accessed: 20th November 2017].
Bibliography of Images Architectural Association Photo Archive. Galwey, Reginald Hugo de Burgh (1917-1971). Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections, UK: England. RIBA34986. Bauhaus Building: Prellerhaus/Studio Building. BAUHAUS, DESSAU. Available at: https://dessaubauhaus.wordpress.com/project-sites/studio-flats/atelier-von-s-giesenschlag-1927/ [Accessed: November 2017]. Drexler, A. 1977. The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. USA: MIT Press. Lebryk, T. Design School Building Draws Praise, Except For the Desk Space. USA: The Harvard Crimson. Available at: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/8/gsd-gund-hall-praise-desks/ [Accessed: 13th October 2017]. Available at: https://onecampus.harvard.edu/timeline [Accessed: November 2017].