Sonia Shah - Concealing the Fifth Wall, Conversing ceilings

CONCEALING THE FIFTH WALL Conversing ceilings, sealing conversations

SHARIFAH SONIA SYED MOKHTAR SHAH TUTOR : MERCEDES RODRIGO GARCIA

‘I do not see anything above me, I am unable to see past what I know.

I have been deceived by two false truths…

I am finally making a breakthrough.’

Look up. Have you ever taken notice to what is above you? When was the last time you tilted your gaze from the horizon towards the horizontal surface above you?

We are not restoring the plaster ceiling above you.

We are not conserving it. We are in fact revealing its behavioural properties throughout time. We are using the ceiling as a lens to observe the world and using this side effect of architecture as a methodology to reveal and analyse economic cycles/tendencies and dispositions. We are restoring the construct of our perception towards it. What we are conserving is its value.

(1) Irwin, Robert. The Alhambra, Wonders of the World. London : Profile Books, 2011.

(2) Marx, Karl. Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1.

Washington : Regenery Publishing, 2009.

(3) Albert Dragstedt, Value: Studies By Karl Marx, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7-40.

empty ceiling

‘I do not see anything above me’

Historically, only when the body was dressed did it have a sense of social interface. Only when the ceiling was ornamented did it serve its purpose to showcase wealth to the public - not through its materiality but rather, the craftsmanship of the ornaments. Only by adding another layer of materiality did its economic significance gain its value. In the case of the Alhambra, ornamentation played a vital role in the whole complex. The level of complexity of each facade’s details in the Alhambra outshone any other element within its own complex 1

but also any other Islamic Palace during the 13th century. This was because the value of the city was shown through craftsmanship and ornamental detail rather than the expanse of the resources itself.

Over time, it could be argued that the trend of ornamented ceilings is inversely correlated to the growth of consumerism. Instead of the ceiling being a part of the representation of class anymore, it conceals these objects under it instead, and the demonstration of monetary value within that space lies below it rather than it constructing the perception of its own value.

An empty ceiling can be defined as one that has no attachment to 2

value. A commodity as defined by Marx is something that has a use 3

value. The empty ceiling is not seen as a commodity then. It is only an extension of its own ornamentation. In this case, ‘ornamentation’ can either refer to the addition of materiality (e.g. Frescoes) that is not an applied addition but rather embedded within the structure of the building itself. Or through the lens of modernity, it can also refer to the light fixtures that ornament the current ceiling above us; one that is heavily decorated with a grid of panels.

Photo of St Paul Cathedral’s ceiling

The ceiling admits ornament to useless objects except from that of the light that shows what lays on the floor. It is only a supporting act for the parallel below it, the floor, in this play of space.

An empty ceiling can also be defined as a counterweight to consumer goods. Purposefully, it is the contrary to a commodity. It acts conversely to the feudal system whereby the higher class used to have their ceilings painted. It is a manifestation opposing a material world already filled with an overload of objects, a saturated society. In a modern context, the ceiling is the only part of the house that acts as a blank canvas for consumerism. The etymology of the word ceiling itself comes from that of ‘to conceal’ or ‘to cover with panelling’. Quite metaphorically and literally, it conceals all that we consume.

(4) Fundamental Finance. Price Ceilings; Written by B. Taylor. Date published: 2006. http://economics.fundamentalfinance.com/price-ceiling.php (5) E-flux architecture. Platforms: Architecture and the Use of the Ground; Written by: Aureli, Pier Vittorio; Tattara, Martino. Date published: 2019. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/conditions/287876/platforms-architecture-and-the-use-of-the-ground/

price ceiling

‘I am unable to see past what I know’

If the ceiling is seen as a blank canvas in this case, does that mean that the other walls are full canvases?

Floors can be seen as the sixth wall, one that holds the value system of a domestic space. This used to be true to ceilings as well, but much similar to its plan, its value has also been reflected onto the surface below it. Floors reveal the consumer’s wealth rather than neglecting/concealing it. On it, you can distinguish private and public spaces as well as differentiate floor areas based on their economic value, whilst the ceiling remains blank and homogenous throughout.

A price ceiling can be defined as the legal maximum price for a good or service, while a price floor is the legal minimum price. A price ceiling creates a shortage when the legal price is below the market equilibrium price, but has no effect on the quantity supplied if the legal price is above the market equilibrium price.

Similar to the ‘price ceiling’, the ceiling itself expresses an intangible limit while the floor projects or plans accordingly. Somewhere in the passage to modernity the ceiling loses the expressive behaviour to become subordinated to the floor as an empty geometric reflection of an empty plan before it the plan comes into use or is inhabited.

Our perception of its value has also been skewed whereby we have constructed an imitation of its architectural plan; the Reflected Ceiling Plan (RCP). Therefore, undermining the importance of the ceiling itself. Our perception of it has been limited…as if capped by the price ceiling. Is the sight of the white surface of the ceiling made to looks like the RCP itself, a pure geometry without expression, disturbing in any way?

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Speculative renders of the dismantling of St Paul’s to start and question the projective relationship between the floor and the ceiling.

The projectile relationship between the floor and ceiling through parallel surfaces are based on the force acting on them, gravity. The floor can be used to distribute objects and define their position in relation to their function/use. If the same objects are placed on the ceiling, they will fall down and devaluate their position. This leads to different behaviours of materialities and practices of dealing with each surface.

The floor of many early houses was comprised of a platform built purposely to differentiate areas dedicated to different activities, such as cooking, fasting, and sleeping—conferring theatrical emphasis 5

to essential reproductive functions. The floor thus turned the house into a stage, whilst the ceiling, its parallel counterpart, remained in its limitation of a side act.

(6) Koolhaas, Rem; Harvard Graduate School of Design; Trüby, Stephan; Westcott, James; Petermann, Stephan. Rem Koolhaas. Elements of Archi-

tecture. Cologne, Germany : Taschen GmbH, 2020.

(7) Study Academy. Poche in Architecture. Date published, 2016. study. com/academy/lesson/poche-in-architecture.html (8) Koolhaas, Rem; Harvard Graduate School of Design; Trüby, Stephan; Westcott, James; Petermann, Stephan. Rem Koolhaas. Elements of Archi-

tecture. Cologne, Germany : Taschen GmbH, 2020.

false ceiling ‘I have been deceived by two false truths’

The association of the term ‘false/drop ceiling’ (apparently) has no meanings. It is an interface between the systems that are installed above and the space below its surface, hosting air diffusers, smoke detectors, sprinklers, CCTV cameras, neon lights. It is in fact its utility that reinstates its value in modernity. A new form of value is added 6

alongside regaining the ceiling’s three dimensionality. Between the underside of the floor above and panels hanging down from it, there is a large inaccessible section used as storage space for services that aid the technological performance of a building. Such a ceiling is considered ‘false’. It is the sectional equivalent of poche—the cavity 7

usually considered only in plan, in relation to walls. In this cavity, lies the system of symptoms of what is perceived to be concealed.

Another sense of the false ceiling could be the ‘false interiors’ it creates as a result of its concealed system. We are a service economy that relies heavily on the utilitarian systems above us (literally and metaphorically). We follow our daily routines, turning switches on and off, without questioning the false environment we find so much comfort in. The ceiling, which seems to be neglected, is actually conserving services for us and controlling our false environment using services for us.

Modern architecture also claims that the utilitarian ceiling has been treated sometimes as an aesthetic theme. As Rem Koolhaas questioned, ‘Utility vs Symbol but also Utility and Symbol, or Utility as a Symbol.’

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(9) Latour, Bruno. We have never been modern. Boston : Harvard University Press, 1993.

It could be argued that modernity’s attempt to oversimplify and make things homogenous, is a strategy that in turn works against itself. The identification of the ordinary where there is an even ground and no hierarchy, through the removal of individualism and differences allows for other factors to be revealed. The concealment of the false ceiling does allow certain agents to do things without being seen. However, this allows the ceiling that doesn’t seem to be claiming attention in appearance, to actually intensify its symbolic value.

Another example of this concept of a false negative could be Archigram’s attempt to eliminate symbolism through its pop aesthetic. This was done by promoting a general class (utilitarian) approach. Thus, encouraging everybody’s capacity to buy. The promotion of such ideals, in turn, became a symbol for capitalism, another economic ideology. An objectified example could materialise this argument too. By placing an artwork against symbolism in a gallery itself, only makes it become an object again. The irony in it all is that the attempt to separate an entity from its symbolic meaning, poses the question of that act itself being symbolic.

As Bruno Latour mentions, ‘we have never been modern’, the more we pretend, the less modern we are. So, where does the ceiling sit 9

in this critique on modernity? On the one hand, there is an ambition to display symbolical meanings on its surface, on the other there is an obligation to respond to utilitarian demands. The encounter of architecture with modernity dramatically increased the imperatives of utility, usually at the expense of (explicit) symbolism. In the case of the ceiling, its journey to modernity has left it with a replicated aesthetic, fuelled by a system of utilities. It is therefore not a question between Utility or Symbol but Utility as Symbol - as Koolhaas pointed out.

Developed surface drawing of St. Paul’s - the ceiling is drawn here insread of the floor to highlight the other walls in relation to the fifth wall

glass ceiling ‘I am finally making a breakthrough’

The developed surface drawing could hardly show anything other than peripheral furnishings, paintings inventories, catalogues and surviving pieces from the period; it was the total design of an enveloping surface, the empty space contained within was left indescribable and untouched. Nevertheless, anything that could be pulled towards this enveloping inner surface of the room would be absorbed into it, or flattened against it as if some centrifugal force had thrust it out and 10

pressed it there.

The ceiling refers specifically to the inner face of the plane, therefore staying true to the developed surface drawing. This orientation is crucial and brings value back to the ceiling. The changing (temporal) outside (e.g. weather) resists any form of control and is therefore literally left ‘out,’ neglected by the inner orientation of the ceiling.

(10) Wikipedia. Glass ceiling. Date sited: 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Glass_ceiling (11) Evans, Robin. Translation from Drawing to Building. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2017.

It is only when you take a step back and distance yourself from the ceiling that you are able to notice it. From the street level, looking at the floor above you, it is the main architectural surface that is exposed through the filter of a window. In a modern world, where buildings are competing in height, our gaze is forced upwards and onto the only architectural element visible to the eye. Yet, when you enter that space, it is the most neglected surface. There is an interesting relationship of our perception towards the ceiling that correlates with what is inside the space and what is on the outside.

The term glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic from rising beyond a certain 11

level in a hierarchy. In both this metaphor and the literal ceiling, there is a creation of not a surface, but a volume with an intention to highlight one space or demographic from another. And the end goal would be to make a breakthrough. What if the barrier exists physically above us? Would the breakthrough then be to admit that we take notice of it and abide by its environment?

If taken literally, the term glass ceiling represents a glass surface above us that allows a relationship with the outside environment. In this sense, the breakthrough would be the attention towards the ceiling again as light passes through the glass above. The material acts as a transitory element that reintroduces the relationship between what is outside and what is inside. If the space is lit up by natural sunlight, there is an immediate bridge being built between the floor and the ceiling. A gaze that starts off on the floor, is then tilted towards the ceiling above. Perhaps then, the behaviour of the material is what allows the breakthrough through this (in)visible barrier.

Diagrammatic drawing representing both the symbolic elements of the ceiling as well as its utility.

(12) Wikipedia. The Fourth Wall. Date sited: 2020. https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Fourth_wall

revealing the fifth wall

By referring to the ceiling as the fifth wall, it also brings a sense of tangibility to something that is usually out of reach and disconnected.

Interestingly, ceilings are often referred to in metaphors and associated with other words rather than it’s actual state. Again, it’s value only exists when attached to another entity. In the case of it as an architectural element, it is attached to the walls around it; in the case of words, there is more perceived value when it is associated with a metaphor. This could be because there is an inherit association with it being a barrier - an interruption between the inside and the outside.

Therefore, its utility only becomes utilitarian when paired with either the system that sits inside it or when it is seen as a collective.

In theatre and film, breaking the fourth wall refers to the audience being detached from the story and characters and begins to regard the production as people on a stage rather than a transportation to another possible reality. The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, in what is known as a box set, the “fourth” of them would run along the line (technically called the “proscenium”) dividing the room 12

from the auditorium. Therefore, the term ‘breaking the fourth wall’ eliminates this divide and now there is no dissociation between the audience and the performance.

Similarly, the ‘revealing of the fifth wall’ can be perceived to eliminate the concealment and better under the system above us - both in literal sense and economic sense. Although the ceiling has been referred to as a supporting act in this essay, through revealing layers that have previously been concealed, we become more aware of what we do not know. Not only in terms of the ceiling, but the system that we are apart of. And in that, the value of the ceiling is regained - through the exposure of its concealment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albert Dragstedt, Value: Studies By Karl Marx, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7-40.

Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The experience of modernity. London: Verso, 1983.

Certeau, Michel de. The practice of everyday life. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Felix. Nomadology: The War Machine. Translated by Brian Massumi.

Semiotext(e), 1986.

E-flux architecture. Platforms: Architecture and the Use of the Ground; Written by: Aureli, Pier Vittorio; Tattara, Martino. Date published: 2019. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/conditions/287876/platforms-architecture-and-the-use-of-the-ground/ Evans, Robin. Translation from Drawing to Building. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2017.

Fundamental Finance. Price Ceilings; Written by B. Taylor. Date published: 2006. http://economics. fundamentalfinance.com/price-ceiling.php Irwin, Robert. The Alhambra, Wonders of the World. London : Profile Books, 2011.

Koolhaas, Rem; Harvard Graduate School of Design; Trüby, Stephan; Westcott, James; Petermann, Stephan. Rem Koolhaas. Elements of Architecture. Cologne, Germany : Taschen GmbH, 2020.

Latour, Bruno. We have never been modern. Boston : Harvard University Press, 1993.

Marx, Karl. Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Washington : Regenery Publishing, 2009.

Mitchell, Timothy. The Arab City: Architecture and Representation; The Capital City (essay). New York : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016.

Quetglas, J. ‘Act Two’ in: Fear of Glass. Berlin: Birkhauser, 2001.

Study Academy. Poche in Architecture. Date published, 2016. study.com/academy/lesson/ poche-in-architecture.html Wikipedia. Glass ceiling. Date sited: 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_ceiling.

Wikipedia. The Fourth Wall. Date sited: 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall.

‘I do not see anything above me, I am unable to see past what I know.

I have been deceived by two false truths…

I am finally making a breakthrough.’