ALMOS T Almos t
condi tion
in
architectu re
Alisa Silanteva M. Arch Architecture / M. Arch History and Theory: Year 4, Assessed Component 2016-7 HT6: Jon Goodbun/ An Ecology of Mind - revisiting Gregory Bateson’s 1976 seminar in the era of World Systems London, 2017
Fig. 1. Abraham Sacrificing Isaac - Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern, 1849 Source:http://blog.libero.it/radovicka/newcom.php?mlid=305023&msgid=12834781&mpadid=0, (accessed 1 January 2017)
1
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: For now I know that thou fearest God, Seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, Thine only son from me. Genesis 22.10-22.12
2
Dear reader,
On the next few pages we will observe almost conditions that we are able to perceive through our sense of sight and a sense of time. Let’s think of several things before. Humans essentially strive towards a balanced being, we are pleasured by a balanced image, dish, song, and movie. Balanced space makes one to feel comfortable. However, which moment are we truly happy? It is surely not the moment of windy and rainy night, but is it the moment of bright and hot afternoon? “Almost” states that the true happiness only exists in an intangible moment of dawn, when the day is full of hope and the one feels excessively inspired. The “almost” is a stubborn character, its intention to last as long as possible. Absorbing objectives of an architectural environment, “almost” desires to occur in its inner nature. If we consider perception of the architectural environment in static and dynamic conditions, we allow “almost” to operate in specific feedback loops employing specific qualities of these receptive cycles. So in view to these two modes, let’s imagine the world of infinite “almost” in architecture.
3
What is a static almost? Is that an almost something, that you instantaneously perceive at the moment of contemplation? Hearing, touching, tasting a first time, watching it just at the moment of opening the eyes in the morning. What is your almost momentary feeling? Do you keep it throughout the day? Is it possible to bring it through time and space? Would you like to bring it in the pocket, on the lenses of your glasses, keeping it in the bookmarks on your phone? What is it around you now? Can you catch this moment and feel it deeper? Does it engage with you? Imagine a landscape of a genius artist several centuries earlier and follow your eyes. Where do they lean first? Broad and plain mass on the bottom, several prolonged masses, several thick lines. You do not need a full colour picture to describe this, it is a linear diagram. You define space and figure, you define proportions of both relatively to each other and within their portions, and you define roundness and angularity over the masses and voids, directionality over the prolongation. Some first static tensions appear from this diagram. A full colour picture happens to be essential for the second capture, when eyes start picking differences over the surface of the mesh. Deepness of the structure, inner directionality, masses receive its inherent coherence through the process of examination. When almost comes to the materiality, we find it in physical inconsistencies. When one’s natural state is closed or open, full or empty, assembled or dispersed, it happens to feel uncomfortable at the moment of its almost closeness or openness, fullness or emptiness, assemblage or dispersion.
4
Spatially from the static perspective, “almost� is found in the perceived landscape within solid and void masses in their almost conditions. Almost touching each other thick and thin masses of either void or solid state evolve tension filled areas and that level of engagement of the parts is the output desired from an almost brush.
5
Almost
is
a
dash ed continuity
6
What is a dynamic almost? If you can call it dynamic. Is that the haze of the dream which you do not feel ending? When you get up scared and sweat of the haze pulling you down in effortless attempts to run. What did you know about the past and the future? Stepping up the force again and again did you remember your event before and imagine the light at the front? What is the moment between? Movement is no doubt a measure of time, but if anticipation condenses the time in a dot or a black hole, does it feel infinite? Do you feel pressure of each step at all, does it engage with you? Let’s dress in white and enter the hospital. Wonder how logical and explicit the place! Here is a guardian sitting on left of the door and you see a great open space all around, the hospital welcomes you and offers a pleasant navigation. You enter the elevator and push the familiar button, do you hear those quiet sounds of the platform lifting? Another welcoming space, several corridors in 3 directions, counted steps to the right door, left, right, left, a welcoming door and a lovely light warming the floor of the room. Such a logical single-use place! In 10 minutes you have 600 opportunities for different captures, and here all these just wasted? Imagine if logic of space would be broken for 600 times, will the length be increased by 600 times? In the black hole...
7
...space is fragmented. ...space is unfitting. ...space is postponed. ...space is emerging. ...space is embarrassing. ‌space is illogical.
Spatially from the dynamic perspective, “almost� is found in the broken logic of a journey within the captures of space conditions. Almost fitting each other conditions promote the vivid unfamiliar and implicit locomotion, postponing the destination to the infinity of almost. 8
9
Contents
Almost introduction
13
Weirdness
15
Flatness
16
Kissiness
18
Suspensiveness
19
The language of suspense
21
Almost conclusion
26
Bibliography
28
Word count: 4446 10
Fig.2. ChimĂş style (1350 - 1450), ceremonial textile. Source: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/ chimu-textiles.htm, (accessed 14 November 2016)
Long time ago, in an ancient culture of Inca society women were appreciated by their deliberate mastery of weaving. Tapestries presented such a great value for the society, Incas used them as a trading currency. Deeply meaningful these tapestries expressed a wonderful care for the work. Examining the figural language of this Chimu textile one feature might catch the attention. Fingers of men are very closely situated to each other and to the edges of the piece. This feature can be the result of very technical side of weaving as well it can be an intuitive decision. Regardless of reasons, it shapes a tiny sharp tensions in these areas. If drawing figures on the tapestry the eye required a space in-between its part, may we assume that the body requires this tension areas when we build figures? Is it appropriate to assume that we intuitively evolve suspensiveness in our language?
11
Almost introduction “Today, architecture is ready and able to contribute to the reinvention of experience, not personal or sentimental or idealized, but affective and political. By recalibrating how it extends itself, how one gently shifts the limits of the other to create provisional if profound pressure between two rather than a utopian collapse into unity, architecture is redesigning the way it exercises power and diagrams politics.” - Sylvia Lavin, “Kissing architecture”
This clear statement of Sylvia, an internationally known critic, historian, and curator, provides a vast space for the re-evaluation of contemporary architecture. She kindly explains that after the “probes, spit, and scraping” of dentistry room which determined the architectural criticism of 1990s, discipline is in the urgent need for the cuddle of “flavor, succulence and sensation”.1 Being deeply influenced by such a convincing proposition this essay’s statement is optimistic about the potential of architectural space. Contemporary theories give lenses through which we are able to bring new ways of approaching architecture and exploiting these lenses essay’s statement of the “almost” condition aims to be fruitfully reinterpreted on the soil of existing conversations. If we consider history of philosophy as a sequence of shifting lenses through which all disciplines establish their relationships to the world, we can easily put architectural discipline on several points in a recent history when not only the way we see it, but also, essentially, the way we deal with it, was influenced by these lenses. As we know, history is evolving spirally, thus all the shifts of views happening in philosophy are coherent and our attention to the structure of world systems considering relations between parts and the whole is alternating likewise spirally. So at this moment of time some recognizable modern schools are wearing edgy glasses of “Object Oriented Ontology”, cutting the image of world into separate pieces and examining the potential of junctions between self-sufficient bodies; the whirly glasses of earlier theory were, in opposite, fluidly connecting, mixing and uniting things; and this in its turn was a coherent reaction on several previous optical accessorizes dealing with differently articulated hierarchies. All this directions defined the way how we construct the world and, of course, what kind of architecture we produce. Speaking of modern object oriented glasses, architecture practitioners and theorists are engaging with the concept of a junction between extremely differentiated structures which occur as a result of collision between different matters and mediums. In the following chapters we will discuss ideas of several modern activists of Object 1
Sylvia Lavin, Interview on her book Kissing Architecture, http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110810_lavin_sylvia_on_kissing_architecture/?page=1 (accessed 19 December 2016)
12
Oriented Ontology and how they articulate this paradigm towards architecture. David Ruy presents the understanding of architecture masterpiece, claiming for the Weirdness of reality; Tom Wiscombe evolves new types of architectural tectonic and material thinking claiming for the Flatness of architectural ontology; Sylvia Lavin explains an affective potential of space calling for the Kissiness of spaces and mediums within architecture. Reviewing these approaches give an opportunity to deeply understand our position in architectural discourse today which allow to speculate about it on the more valuable level. In the contemporary theory of architecture proposed “almost” condition can be adopted in many ways. Conceptually kissing objects are almost mixing, but at the same time objects might not even kiss each other, the “almost” in this case can offer a short prelude moment before the kiss itself. What then can be the possible outcomes for the theory? Regardless the abstracts potentials, the main focus of “almost” in the essay’s statement is figural and procedural conditions in architectural creature. Static and dynamic modes of “almost” declared in the statement are these particular conditions that can be encompassed in architecture as tectonic and choreographic features. Claiming for the implementation of this state to architecture essay will firstly unwrap principles of new architecture emerging under evolving school of thought in order to establish our position and further potential of space and then examine some precedents of suspension in art and cinema to analyse their formal and performative mechanisms exploited in the effort to raise sublime issues of human existence.
13
Weirdness “My favorite moments in architecture have been those astonishing moments when I thought to myself, “Wow, I didn’t know the world could do that.” - David Ruy, “Weird Realism”.
What is the Masterpiece of new architecture? David Ruy in his essay “Weird Realism” appeals to the notion of weirdness and as it is obvious by the title, he is claiming the enstrangening of reality. Utopian architecture of the 20th century was intended to construct new fantasies upon the intractable reality and this way to redirect our behaviour changing world through different desires and actions. In the capitalism this strategy failed for two reasons. Firstly, constructed fantasies became a tricky tool in its hands of the governing institutions as an instrument to distract people from the real; secondly, and more importantly, this world of fantasies established deceiving feeling that the real is concrete, when actually it is abstract. And there should definitely be the brave movement towards the direct execution of a strange real, otherwise we will continue hiding behind the “real” practice and its Trojan horses.2 So involving such obvious mastery qualities as elegance and economy, architecture masterpiece should play with the real and present an unassimilable strangeness for the world perceiving it.
2
David Ruy, “Weird Realism”, http://www.ruyklein.com/essays/Weird_Realism.pdf, (accessed 29 December 2017)
14
Flatness “One does not erase or assimilate the other, but the two may anticipate one another.” - Tom Wiscombe, “Flat Ontology”
What is the Language of new architecture? Tom Wiscombe in his concept of “Flat Ontology” appeals to the notion of flatness in architecture, privileging part-to-part relationships in regards to produce new models of coherence.3 The approach considers architectural elements as entities which exist equally but differently, in opposite to tactics of last century, where elements were defined in the hierarchical, symmetrical and proportionally rigorous part-to-whole relationships. Flat Ontology maintains the role of objects not over-mining their relationships to the major role of the whole and not undermining the whole as the structural assemblage of parts. And weirdness becomes an essential feature of this duo-mining tactics as it produces new hybrid, illogical but at the same time mutually reinforcing relations between parts and the whole. The new language of architecture according to Tom Wiscombe’s theory from the smoothness, endlessness, difference and repetition is being replaced by the more abrupt terminology such as chunks, strong silhouette, edge, separation, hovering, gaps, joints, nesting, embedding, interstitial space, and so on.4 All the projects of Tom Wiscombe’s studio represent new models of relations between the ground, mass, surface articulation and interior as wrapped objects inside objects, hovering and ground objects, tattoos. The term tattoos, for example, very properly explains the new attitude towards surface panelization. Panels are no more resulting from the mesh structure of the surface breaking its logic with an additional one. Flat Ontology also defines its position towards new materiality and the tools. Going beyond the homogeneous logic of digital environment and pure technological logic of physical constructions, new concept engages with a notion of “broken tool”. Breaking and muting tools architecture is kept from being reduced to the index of its means of production and losing durability and mystery as a thing in itself. 5 So the new language of architecture mutes between different matter and mediums establishing models of coherency that are able to create new weird collisions of architecture elements.
3
Tom Wiscombe, “Discreteness, or Towards a Flat Ontology of Architecture” in Project, Issue 3, (Spring 2014), pp. 34
4
Ibid., 37
5
Todd Gannon, Graham Harman, David Ray, Tom Wiscombe, “The object turn: A conversation” in Log 33, (Winter 2015), pp. 78
15
Kissiness “Kissing may mirror suckling, turn into grooming, generate oral fixations, find sublimated means of expression, and even be erotic. Kissing may be self-soothing and appeasing. But ultimately kissing is something you cannot do on your own.” - Sylvia Lavin, “Kissing architecture”
What is the Flavour of new architecture? Sylvia Lavin in her book “Kissing architecture” is promoting an affective potential of the new architecture. The concept of “kissing” appeals to the paradigm of part-to-part relations. Described within such a prolific meaning, it provides a mode of coherence where two distinct bodies do not fuse together and become one generalized body, they are solid and soft at the same moment, they can “brush up” and produce other inter-influenced characters.6 In terms of architecture, Lavin applies concept for the revaluation of relations in spatial conditions to eventually discover its affective potential for the perceiver. Either hurling exterior and interior or architecture and other mediums, the kiss increases the affection of space. The new flavour of affect is brought by the end of false separation between interior and exterior. There is neither inside out turn of space nor outside in, but the sly filling in-between, embracing transition and joining “porsche” spaces. For instance, the play between exterior and interior is getting realised in the window displays of Frederick Kiesler.7 Glimpsing inside from the outside he peaks interest to the content of buildings. Accentuating the “porsche” space, Frederick creates a seduction to the passer-by, wall is no more closed and autonomous, it engages with the viewer. Another intense flavour of space is found in fruitful collaborations of different media with architecture. The easiest collaboration can happen between architectural surfaces and digital media applied to the surface. Minor fluctuations of texture, reflectiveness, layering or digital responsiveness produce major deflections in the act of perception. For example, in the Herzog de Meuron Architects’ Laban Dance Centre luminosity of the wall is affected by the curvature, what disturbs viewer to distinguish a distance to the surface. This new mode of affective surface thus rise the emotive engagement with the environment. 8 So the flavour of new architecture occurs in the effects provided by new combinations of spaces and mediums that offer a viewer a new level of engagement, either it is a seduction from the glimpses through the wall or an uncomfortable disturbance from the elusive effects of the surface.
6
Todd Gannon, Graham Harman, David Ray, Tom Wiscombe, “The object turn: A conversation” in Log 33, (Winter 2015), pp. 81
7
Sylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture (Princeton University Press, 2011), pp.88-89
8
Ibid.,pp. 96-98
16
Fig. 3. Collider Activity Center by Tom Wiscombe Design. Source: http://aasarchitecture.com/2013/05/collide r-activity-center-by-tom-wiscombedesign.html, (accessed 15 December 2016)
Fig. 4. Laban Dance Centre by Herzog de Meuron Architects. Source: https://www.herzogdemeuron.com/index/ projects/complete-works/151-175/160laban-dance-centre.html, (accessed 15 December 2016)
Fig. 5. Automatic Show Windows Frederick Kiesler’s Retail Technology and American Consumer Culture. Source: http://research.caus.vt.edu/automaticshow-windows-frederick-kieslers-retailtechnology-and-american-consumerculture/, (accessed 15 December 2016)
17
Suspensiveness What can be the Spice of new architecture? We already know that the new flavour of architecture comes with new combinations of various matter and media applied to architecture, and the essay assumes to bring a particular spice, which is able to achieve a more particular flavour. There are many ways architectural space can affect the viewer as there are many spices to compile a dish and the almost condition we put on the table in this essay can be positioned as a spice of suspense. Suspensiveness here is the architectural quality causing infinite anticipation for the completeness of a physical state or event in space. Suspensiveness is built on the natural necessity of the mind for a comfortable or a complete state, being just a touch incomplete “almost� condition evokes a great affection in the mind, forcing it literally to grave for the end.
So if the suspense is such a powerful affection can we spice architecture with it?
18
The language of suspense To explore the language of suspense and its multiple meanings it is worth to refer to some precedents in the cultural production where suspense as a tool was used more extensively than in architecture. Analysing different kinds of works we can detect specific syntax rules of the suspension that authors explored in different media.
19
Fig. 6. Menashe Kadishman, Open suspense, metal, 1968 Source: https://www.1stdibs.com/creators/menash e-kadishman/art/, (accessed 19 December 2016)
Beginning from the primary instance of figural suspense, let’s examine some works of Israeli sculptor Menashe Kadishman. Carefully balanced, his sculptures present an immersive ostensible sense of suspense. In the “Open suspense” moment of an immobilized instability refers to the biblical moment between life and death when Abraham raises a knife above his son and then hears the voice of God, asking him to stop. Being autonomous in the abstract forms of sculpture, artist remains the value of ancient ritual, unifying conflicts of past and future, ancient and progressive, playing with the location of sculpture and its material he also points on the unity of local and universal. The syntax rules for the suspension in the sculptural instrumentality here are realised through the massiveness of material, interaction of figure with the background, scale and proportions of masses in their overall composition. To unveil the role of material physical suspense it is worth to mention another artist Ben Woodeson, who developed the whole series of grand suspensive installations made of glass sheets called “Obstacle”. 20
Fig. 7. Menashe Kadishman, Suspended, metal, 1977. Source: http://new.menashekadishman.com/allworks/sculptures/geometrical/nggallery/page/4/, (accessed 19 December 2016)
Fig. 8. Ben Woodeson, Screaming ankle slashing tension glass piece (60 second self-destructive sculpture), sheet glass, 2012. Source: http://www.woodeson.co.uk/pages/screaming_ankle.html, (accessed 23 December 2016)
21
Fig. 9. Bas Jan Ader, Fall 2 (Los Angeles), 1970. Courtesy Meliksetian Briggs – Los Angeles and Metro Pictures – New York. Source: http://www.dreamideamachine.com/en/?p=14066, (accessed 19 December 2016)
Being somewhere in-between the figural and performative performances of Ben Jan Ader, Dutch conceptual artist, are so highly fragile and untouchable that we rather do not evaluate any means of the act but examine senses and questions the artist passionately initiates. Ader created several black-and-white films showing his performances. In “Fall 1” he is falling from the pitched roof with a chair he was sitting on, in “Fall 2” Ader rides his bike right into the canal, in “Broken Fall” “organic” and “geometric” versions he makes himself falling again, intentionally appearing in an unstable condition hanging on a branch or inclining the body, and finally in the “Nightfall” he is standing in front of two lights on the floor and one big piece of stone, diligently hanging the rock with his slim seemingly at the moment fragile body, Ben allows his hands to be guided by the gravity, therefore dropping the rock on lights sequentially almost as it was an accident. Accentuating the irreducible physicality of performance Ader speaks metaphorically, allegorically and ironically. Allowing his own body to fall within different conditions, artist is playing with its subjective and objective sides at the same time, the one is facing a failure simultaneously allowing this failure to happen as a result of theological order.
22
Firstly, Ben Jan Ader enacts the Cartesian contradictions between the experience of bodily pain and the intersubjective production of consciousness.9 In the moment when the body is falling mind recognizes its material constitution and faces the smug folly of its consciousness. Some poets even describe the essence of Laughter as a pleasant acceptation of this inevitable state of self, when the mind becomes the body and loses its self-possession: “The man who trips would be the last to laugh at his own fall, unless he happens to be a philosopher, one who had acquired by habit, a power of rapid selfdivision, and thus of assisting as a disinterested spectator at the phenomenon of his own ego.” 10 Secondly, he is domesticating the gravity towards the body and a person behind initiating affection for a viewer. Narrative is playing with the fate which forms a field of uncertainty, activating empathy and inducing hope. Theologically speaking the fall is offering the sense of balance of a single moment. “This moment, so aptly represented by Michelangelo’s Fall of Man in the Sistine Chapel fresco cycle, is a point of contemplation between standing and falling. It is the precipice of all of mankind. It is a moment of eternal suspension between the forces of good and evil...” 11 Beyond the materiality and at the same time within the materiality there is an infinite paradox of Man’s freedom and limitations. And designing the fall artist was repeatedly pointing on the suspended space between what we know and the real generating a fertile ground for all possible juxtapositions between body, mind, subject and object.
9
Brad Spense, “The Case of Ban Ader”, http://www.basjanader.com/ (accessed 26 December 2016)
10
Ibid.
11
Pilar Tompkins Rivas, “The sea, the land, the air. The space between them” in Bas Jan Ader: Suspended Between Laughter and Tears, ed. Pilar Tompkins Rivas (Claremont: Pitzer College, 2010)
23
Fig. 10. Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (geometric), 1971; Broken Fall (Organic), 1971; Fall 1, 1970; Nightfall, 1971. Courtesy Meliksetian Briggs – Los Angeles and Metro Pictures – New York. Source: http://www.widewalls.ch/bas-jan-ader-artmetro-pictures-new-york/, (accessed 19 December 2016)
24
Fig. 11. Strangers on a train (1950). Image Courtesy of Ethics Course, School of Architecture UIC Source: http://www.archdaily.com/775637/sixthrillers-seven-strategies-of-architecturaldesign/, (accessed 19 December 2016)
The absolute master of suspense in cinema is Alfred Hitchcock. This fact of his mastery is even inflated by the accusation for the lack of content, what Alfred himself compares with the possible accusation of the artist for the arrangement of apples to accentuate the importance of medium against matter for emotional engagement in the movie. Differentiating mystery and suspense in the movie Alfred explains a major principle for suspense: “Mystery is an intellectual process, like in “whodunit”, but suspense is essentially an emotional process; therefore you can only get the suspense element going by giving the audience information”.12 In his movie “Family Plot” (1976) Hitchcock shows the audience brake fluid leaking out of a car well before the characters find out about it and it forces viewers to experience anxiety while the car passengers are carelessly driving. Therefore, the main trick of stimulating emotion here emerges from the enforced incompleteness when the narrative brings glimpses to the future and delays the moment of finale.
12
“Dialog on film”, interview with Alfred Hitchcock in Sidney Gottlieb (ed.), “Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews”, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), p.86
25
Apart from the major trick there are excessive amount of spatial tricks for the delaying. A comprehensive analysis of these design principles carefully made by an American professor of architecture interprets them as Crime, Transition, a Look, Editing, a Magnificent field, Doubt.13 So, actually, Hitchcock is emphasizing the distance between characters, space and the narrative shaping severe continuity through fragmentation of space by various kinds of delimiters: windows, walls, huge void masses, long corridors, that at some point offer a glimpse to the other side and a sense of desire.
13
Alfons Puigarnau e Ignacio Infiesta, “The Architecture of Thrill: How Hitchcock Inspires Spatial Effects�, ArchDaily, http://www.archdaily.com/775637/six-thrillers-seven-strategies-of-architectural-design, (accessed 20 December 2016)
26
Fig. 12. Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho, 1960 (in article author suggested to consider principles used in this movies as “a Look”); Rear Window, 1954; (“a Look”); Vertigo, 1958 (“a Transition”); Shadow of a doubt, 1943 (“a Doubt”); Strangers on a train, 1950 (“a Magnificent field”). Image Courtesy of Ethics Course, School of Architecture UIC. Source: http://www.archdaily.com/775637/six-thrillers-seven-strategies-of-architectural-design/, (accessed 19 December 2016)
27
Almost conclusion Acknowledging the influence of new philosophical school on the theory and practice of architecture we are able to understand diverse directions in which architecture is open to expand today. In an effort to avoid shortcomings of previous attitudes new design paradigm is reviewing the system of relationships between parts and the whole. Striving to estrange the reality through the built environment, parts are being treated as discrete entities that operate equally but differently and being collided but not fused in order to discover new models of coherence in architecture. According to David Ruy, architectural Masterpiece today should feel weird, and design should rather enstrange the reality and mix matters and mediums freely rather than evolve from inside itself. Exploring the new language within this framework a recognizable architecture rock-star Tom Wiscombe established a new attitude to basic architectural elements such as ground, envelope and mass owing to which tectonic articulations are forming unexpected mysterious figures and spaces. Speculating on the level of affection for new architecture Sylvia Lavin claims for its kissiness to other mediums as well as within its parts. Architectural activists suggesting the role of new philosophy for the discipline open a vast space to reinterpret its foundations and on this soil of an emerging flavoured architecture we are able to speculate on the particular spices for it. And having that opportunity essay strives to find a spice for modern architecture, the suspensive condition of “almost” in figural and performative qualities. The language of suspense represented by the “almost” condition has a long history and many cultural figures used this language to raise sublime questions about the nature of Man and the World. We find it in the explicitly suspensive sculptures of Menashe Kadishman, in the mysterious and remotely melancholic performances of Ben Jan Ader and in the skilfully grasping movies of Alfred Hitchcock. Articulating suspense in their artworks authors develop individual and specific for each medium techniques which we are able to analyse further and paraphrase them in the architectural design. Particularly from above examples some obvious syntax rules can be extracted: carefully balanced plays with gravity and material fragility or plays with architectural transitioning elements such as windows, walls, stairs as well as general rules of portioning of the information given in the narrative. So living in the moment of absolute communication we are able to engage with as many different, opposite or nuance, matters and mediums to shape the world we exist in and architecture is undoubtedly running towards the very affectionate relationships with the outside and within its own structures. Imagining this warming connections and emerging flavours of the space we establish new models of coherence in architecture. And “almost” condition stated in this essay as well as by many artists, writers and movie makers hopes to inform these models finally in architecture hence they spicy affect our living experience. 28
“Almost” is a conflict. Physical and touchable, omniscient and mental it is a disturbing conflict of a thing, of an object, of a subjective perception, “almost” describes and encodes its essence intentionally and theologically, “almost” conflicts with the wholeness, manifesting absolute incompleteness, even if determined by an oxymoron. The world cannot be completed in the uncertainty of being, the Man is almost here, almost there, almost full, almost empty, almost physical, almost aware, almost beautiful and almost ugly, almost alone and almost sociable, almost defined! Designing a Man’s environment we create a habitable space for an uncertainty. Denoting it, design is almost complete. Almost closed, almost open, almost solid, almost void, almost implicit or almost explicit, almost hierarchical, almost equal, almost linear and complex, almost atmosphere and almost rock, almost everywhere and almost nowhere. If we the ones, who are almost alive, why don’t we live in a space that is almost…
29
Bibliography Aaron Ben-Zeev, “Explaining the Subject-Object Relation in Perception” in Social Research, Vol. 56, No. 2, (Summer 1989), pp. 511-42 Alfons Puigarnau e Ignacio Infiesta, “The Architecture of Thrill: How Hitchcock Inspires Spatial Effects”, ArchDaily, http://www.archdaily.com/775637/six-thrillersseven-strategies-of-architectural-design, (accessed 20 December 2016) Brad Spense, “The Case of Ban Ader”, http://www.basjanader.com/ (accessed 26 December 2016) David
Ruy, “Weird Realism”, http://www.ruyklein.com/essays/Weird_Realism.pdf, (accessed 29 December 2016)
Heinrich Wolfflin, “Prolegomena to a psychology of architecture” in Robert Vischer, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Eleftherios Ikonomou (eds.), Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893 (Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994), pp. 149-92. Pilar Tompkins Rivas, “The Sea, the land, the air. The space between them” in Bas Jan Ader: Suspended between Laughter and Tears, ed. Pilar Tompkins Rivas (Claremont: Pitzer College, 2010) Robert Vischer, “On the optical sense of form: a contribution to the aesthetics” in Robert Vischer, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Eleftherios Ikonomou (eds.), Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893 (Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994), pp. 89-124. Samuel
Medina, “Hitchcock and the Architecture of Suspense”, http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/January-2014/Hitchcock-andthe-Architecture-of-Suspense/, (accessed 2 January 2017).
Schützeichel Rainer, “Architecture as Bodily and Spatial Art: The Idea of Einfühlung in Early Theoretical Contributions by Heinrich Wölfflin and August Schmarsow” in Architectural Theory Review, Vol.18(3), (December 2013), p.293-309 Sidney Gottlieb (ed.), Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews, (University Press of Mississippi, 2003), pp.82-100 Sylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture (Princeton University Press, 2011) Sylvia
Lavin, Interview on her book Kissing Architecture, http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110810_lavin_sylvia_on_kissing_architecture /?page=1 (accessed 19 December 2016)
Sylvia Lavin, “Open the box: Richard Neutra and the psychology of the domestic environment”, AA School of Architecture YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i7juYc-4r0&t=1290s, (11 December 2000) Todd Gannon, Graham Harman, David Ray, Tom Wiscombe, “The object turn: A conversation” in Log 33, (Winter 2015), 73-94 Tom Wiscombe, “Discreteness, or Towards a Flat Ontology of Architecture” in Project Issue 3, (Spring 2014) 30
Tom Wiscombe, “New Models of Coherency” in Louis I. Kahn Studio Book Introduction, (Yale School of Architecture, 2014) Tom Wiscombe, “Extreme Integration” in Marjan Colletti (ed.) AD: Exuberance, (March 2010), “The art of danger and suspense”, https://www.creativereview.co.uk/the-art-of-dangerand-suspense/, (accessed 3 January 2017) “Menashe Kadishman”, Sotheby’s Israeli and international http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/israeli-artn09240/lot.37.html, (accessed 3 January 2017)
art,
“Menashe Kadishman”, 1stdibs, https://www.1stdibs.com/art/sculptures/abstractsculptures/menashe-kadishman-60s-kadishman-sculpture-steel-aluminumsuspension/id-a_95338/#0, (accessed 3 January 2017)
31