MANIFESTOS FOR ARCHITECTURE
ANDC 2016
04
contents.
space.
00
preface.
i
The first sketch gives birth to a space that exists only in my mind. The prime question shifts swiftly from what is space, to, is there any difference between space and paper space?
05
transgression.
01
prologue.
Obsession leads to the deduction that all philosophical theories have similarities to each other. Filled with skepticism about the nature, any sort of magic and the surroundings, the only striking question is "what is real?"
1
06
utopia.
02 03
“Some people consider utopia to be derived from nature. For some people, utopia is the city.” -Joel Sternfeld
the city.
2-4
"Fiction turns into reality. The master quoted “plan is the generator" sounding quite eccentric, but clever, perhaps both. The signature spectacles narrates to develop the first sketch."
architecture. Sudden wave of introspection hits to say how naïve we are. It was no longer a careful tessellation of inspiration and tectonics. ‘Utilitas’, ‘Firmitas’, ‘Venustas’, all now seems flawed.
07
death.
“...for life's not a paragraph and death i think is no parenthesis” -E.E.Cummings
5-7
08
credits.
8-10
11-13
14-21
22
23
preface.
This book is all about looking for question within the questions. When the architecture around you evolves from the utmost adulterated ideas - What are you? What are you not? We lust for a change and that change is an indispensable faculty. From the architecture in the mind to the drawings in a space plane and the outcomes in three dimensional space - All these become the pure parallel projections of the mind. This change brings in the question of apotheosis and ultimately the reality - that is where you look for the real answer. “If there is no idea in the drawing, there is no idea in the constructed project. That's the expression of the idea. Architects make drawings that other people build. I make the drawings. If someone wants to build from those, that's up to them. I feel I'm making architecture. I believe the building comes into being as soon as it's drawn. ” [1] - Lebbeus woods [2]
A man named marc finds himself in “The library of babel” and comes across an old book that has not been read ever before. Despite no views, the title of the book enamors him so much that he begins reading it. With each new chapter and each new idea he is inspired and taken to an all new world of his imagination...
i
Manifestos for Architecture | Introduction
MANIFESTOS FOR ARCHITECTURE Adventures in the quest for truth...........
Manifestos for Architecture
prologue.
‘Manifestos of Architecture’ are the compilation of selected excerpts from my personal diary. These excerpts explain my journey in the quest of becoming an ‘architect’. A journey marked by a spectrum of emotions arising due to the lust for truth. And hence the expedition unravels the various questions leading to an obvious dilemma. Each chapter revolves around a question leading to a paradox. This paradox filters the architect’s understanding of the known and the unknown. Rationality triggers the thought of right and wrong, fiction and reality whereas everything coexists in unison.
DISCLAIMER Whosoever begins the book must read it till the end, for incomplete information may lead to fallacies.
1
Manifestos for Architecture | Prologue
CHAPTER I
the city.
19th OCTOBER 2017 “Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. The temperature is anticipated to be 27 degree Celsius, while the humidity is said to be 30%. Thank you.” I could barely hear her voice. The sudden jerk woke me up. Subconsciously, I lifted the window shutter. The light was too sharp. What lay before me was the most spectacular view man could ever embrace. Deja vu. The city was exactly how the ‘master’ narrated. Fiction turned into reality. To believe would be a defeat. I pinched myself only to realise that I had lost. The grid was sharp like no other. I was utterly speechless. Overwhelmed to say the least, I felt guilty to have laughed at my own ignorance. I also remember the master quoting “plan is the generator”. He sounded eccentric, but he was clever, perhaps both. He only drew, what now existed. He only thought, what reality was now. He was bold with his bow tie sparkling like a pearl upon the ocean, but I preferred to believe it were his round signature spectacles, the secret to his success. Could they do the same for me? I wore mine in enthusiasm. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I gathered my pen and notebook to draw my first sketch, or rather my first ‘sketch’.
2
Manifestos for Architecture | The City
Fig.1.1
“Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to [3] exist.” - Italo Calvino
If white is romantic, and black is sexual, my relation with the ‘city’ was grey. I sketched what I imagined and what I saw, but my sketch in itself was speechless. I struggled with my strokes, but I didn’t give up. Something got me going. I would like to believe it was the ‘master’. I could almost hear his voice; it was clear and pristine, yet blurred….. even my ‘round’ spectacles couldn’t decipher it. Did I already know what he had to say? Books always fascinated me, and so I would read anything that came along the way. I remember the book ‘Invisible Cities’ but only understood it now. Too many questions… these questions were strange….. like strangers. So is it Calvino disguised as the ‘master’? For he was always ahead……ahead of me, time, the ‘master’, and the ‘city’. I totally envy him. Have you ever been tipsy without alcohol? That is the state I am talking about. My conscience preferred to filter the words of my grandfather (he was supposedly a ‘very’ good friend of the ‘master’). He talked about …… Lungs……..Heart ……. Brain …….. Arms and what not. His seductive vocabulary and eroticised words personified the city like no other. What truly seduced me was the ‘city’ itself. Like your first kiss……gentle, subtle, sensual, ecstatic. Suddenly, fear clouded my thinking. I cannot recollect, what it was, the fear of an architect’s unlimited power or his genius to turn fiction into reality? Fear made me contemplate, fear liberated me to introspect. “Thank you for flying with us……” said the most soothing voice in the aircraft. We landed safely. What remained were only thoughts, fading slowly, as voices began to dominate the air. Could I be what the ‘master’ could have been? I questioned…….
3
Manifestos for Architecture | The City
Fig.1.2
You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours. - Italo Calvino [4]
Fig.1.3
4
Manifestos for Architecture | The City
CHAPTER II
architecture.
9th FEBRUARY 2029 I keep staring at the sheet of paper, the pen in my hand and its ink blotting it - from a little dot to a circle proliferating in size. The emptiness of my mind turns into vexation. This sheet and the ink oozing out slowly- so much that my botheration turns into belligerence. The nib breaks, and tears apart the drawing, taped on my table. I look down to the floor, only to see more bits of crumpled paper, each depicting my disappointment. Yet, I kept staring at the table, aghast at its cruelty. “Where there is nothing, anything is possible but where there is architecture nothing (else) is possible� - Rem Koolhaas [5] The quote hits me profoundly and like never before. Nothing does seem possible... What are you? I ask this to the walls, the door, the windows, this room, the world outside. My voice echoes yet i get back an unceasing silence in return. This inevitable quietness, the wait of an answer that i know will never come, makes me chuckle. Architecture is contaminated. No idea is as pure as the ones that are in your mind, but it is ludicrous that these are the ideas that die till the time they reach reality. Politics, economics, ecology crippled you. You never called for, to build or demolish but a celebration. I did fall for you. You meant something to me. Addiction, lust, adrenaline make an absinthe of emotion so strong that it infuses in you a craving for more, and I yearned for it by drowning in the quicksand of madness. Intoxication, love, tranquillity deceive you with the purest of intentions. Is this even authentic? What could be the panacea for this sceptic wound,
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Manifestos for Architecture | Architecture
Fig.2.1
I pondered…. A sudden wave of introspection hit me and I realised how naïve I had become. From a refuge for man, architecture had turned into some rampant construction activity. It was no longer a careful tessellation of inspiration and tectonics. ‘Utilitas’, ‘Firmitas’, ‘Venustas’, all seemed flawed. All these thoughts fill me with disgust and I throw the pen on the wall. The ink splatter distracts me and shifts my attention to something written on the wall- “Architecture [6] does not exist, what exists is the spirit of architecture.” - Louis I. Kahn Exasperation turned into contentment as truth cleansed my faculties. How could I be so ignorant? The realization left me spellbound and silent tears rolled down my eyes. I slowly sit back into my chair, letting the realism settle. I did get my answer yet I do not know it. I have attained nirvana yet i do not know about it. What are you not? I question you.
Fig.2.2
6
Manifestos for Architecture | Architecture
fragmted amd unified; dense and sparse; open and enclosed; incidental and normative; disordered and organized; conservative and radical; realistic and romantic; ....and sometimes perhaps a bit junky - Pavel Bouse [7]
Fig.2.3
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Manifestos for Architecture | The City
CHAPTER III
space.
15th NOVEMBER 2035 Part I Alchemy I stopped before I could finish. I couldn’t feel my legs. One could almost hear my heart knocking down my chest. The cold breeze jolted me into opening my eyes. Paralysed I stood, as my gaze remained fixed at the mist floating over the lake. It concealed a secret. The solitary rock offered me a seat and I couldn’t refuse the proposal. I tried to see beyond the fume, but it seemed obscure. The only thing that broke the silence were my thoughts. What is it hiding? I asked. The philosophical rock, in its tranquil state, refused to answer. Part II Lucid Dreams I’m falling upside down. Destiny unknown. I’m in space. Is this space? Oblivion. The ultimate freedom. The sheer pleasure of falling transcends all human emotions. Space seems endless. Suddenly I’m stuck in a labyrinth. Walls higher than the heavens. I’m trying to solve the labyrinth, but can’t. I’m trying to walk, but I realise that I am chained. I’m a wall, occupying space. There seems to be no beginning, no ending. I’m suspended in animation. Water starts to rise as the moon reveals itself. I’m suffocating. The early temptation to move obliterates as water surrounds the space. My vision starts to blur. Only visible is the faint light of the moon. I start counting backwards.
Fig.3.1 [8]
“Junkspace is nothing, and everything is junkspace...”-Rem Koolhaas
8
Manifestos for Architecture | Space
Part III Reincarnation Again, the cold breeze cast its spell on me. Epiphany! The rock was silent, the mist was mysterious. ‘Space’, the only thing binding and separating me from the mist. The birds mocked me by disappearing in it as they travelled through space. I began to think. What is space? I questioned. The epitome of enigma. We are in space, inhabiting space, experiencing space and talking about it. Everything that we see is space. However, to delineate space becomes labyrinthine. As thoughts clouded my mind, I scribbled in my diary with zest. I imagined the space beyond the mist, and I sketched. My strokes were now vivid with experience. Then there was a sudden realisation. I remember Lebbeus Woods “In order to see an object we must be separate from it. A space must exist between us and the object. Therefore, we imagine a space around the object, and also around ourselves, because, at some stage in our mental development, we realize that we, too, are objects. Space is the medium of our relationships with the world and everything in it, but, for all of that, we do not experience it in a palpable, physical sense. We must think space into existence..... Space is what we think it is……” [9] As I drew I created a space. The space I created existed only in my mind, but was true in every sense. The sketch was a horcrux to me. Pure and pious. My question shifted swiftly from what is space, to, is there any difference between space and paper space? Space in itself is nothing, yet defines the materiality of objects. What creates is space, and what dismantles is also space but space in itself is a paradox. “Halfway between dreamt-up images that are suspended between documentation and fiction, and a visual experience with elements of the absurd and metaphorical irony; reality swiftly moves from obviousness to abstraction, from fullness to emptiness, from mockery to simulation. The visible thus becomes minimalistic, ghost-like, a breath-taking void, a work of deconstruction.”- Michel Le Belhomme
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Manifestos for Architecture | Space
Fig.3.2
“When there isn't mystery, there isn't seduction. Architecture is a mystery that must be preserved. If everything is revealed at once, nothing will ever happen organically. Without a doubt, concealing is one of the elements of eroticism [10] and therefore, of erotic architecture.” - Jean Nouvel
Michael Sorkin - Neurasia: Urban Network
Lebbeus-Woods - Aerial Paris
Fig.3.3
“What does it mean to collect visionary architecture in a digital age? What kind of vision does the architect have today? How is architecture being visualized? If collecting architecture began with preserving, reframing, classifying and interpretting drawings, what has happened to drawing today? - Mark Wigley [11]
10
Manifestos for Architecture | Space
“Things outside you are projections of what’s inside you, and what’s inside you is a projection of what’s outside. So when you step into the labrinth outside you, at the same time you are stepping into the labrinth inside” - Haruki Murakami [12]
Fig.3.4
CHAPTER IV
transgression.
21st MAY 2063 Laying in my bed. Its 3 am. [ Tick : Tock….Tick : Tock ] “I can sleep.”, I told myself. [ Tick : Tock….Tick : Tock ] (deep breaths) [ Tick : Tock….Tick : Tock ] (changing positions) [ Tick : Tock….Tick : Tock ] Stop it! I shout. I rush to the bathroom to wash my face, but there was no water in the tap. My eyes are blood red with fury. No cigarettes… only it’s remnant smoke surrounding me. I gasp in agony. [ Tick : Tock ] With an incertitude of me being an insomniac now, I sit in chair with despair and fire up my laptop to begin the voyage for the terra incognita. Going through various philosophical theories and art movements- Libertarian Marxism... Communism.... Karma... Situationist International... Cubism.... Dadaism... Fauvism... De Stijl, I smirk. My obsession leads me to the deduction that all of them have similarities to each other somehow.
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Manifestos for Architecture | TTransgression
Fig.4.1
[ Tick : Tock ] The doorbell rings. “Who could it be?”, I wonder as I proceed towards the door. With acute curiosity I open the door. All I can see is white and captivating purity. Bewildered, I stand, not believing my own eyes. Projection of my thoughts, Apotheosis! My eyes wander into the labyrinth of the white and I nictate my eyes to bring myself to reality. This room, in absolute dichotomy of ‘real’ black and of the ‘true’ white. Complexity of the practical world seemed pitch black and purity of truth, white. White tries to seduce me, but I resist its temptation to stay with black. The white begins to weep as I unwillingly close the door. In this darkness I manage my way to my sketchpad. The mystery of black and white, make me pick up my pen. Before I begin I recollect the theories I read. Were those antagonist theories ‘white’. Taken aback, I charge towards the door. White was already gone. I scream to my dismay. Filled with skepticism about the nature, any sort of magic and my surroundings, I question what is real. I am completely agnostic and have always settled for nihilism and existentialism- for nothing around you has a real existence. Then does the blackness even exist? Is everything made up of white? Anarchy was never chaos; it is a social system- Is it white? Something tells me that maybe I can change the world. I take out another sheet and with my transgression, I continue letting out my ink storm, drawing on the whiteness with vehement strokes. My white sketchpad becoming black as I sketch the black inside me into white. Fig.4.2
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Manifestos for Architecture | TTransgression
Raoul Haussmann - ABCD
Bernard Tschumi - Advertisements for Architecture
Fig.4.3
"I'm not interested in living in a fantasy world ... All my work is still meant to evoke real architectural spaces. But what interests me is what the world would be like if we were free of conventional limits. Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a [13] different set of rules." - Lebbeus Woods
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Manifestos for Architecture | TTransgression
Fig.4.4
"I believe in one thing only, the power of human will." - Joseph Stalin
[14]
CHAPTER V
utopia. Peter Cook - Plug-in city
22th MAY 2063 “I’m obsessed with a line. I’m obsessed with starting line somewhere and ending nowhere. I’m obsessed with fields. Field of buildings, field of columns, field of shapes, field of objects... [15] I’m obsessed with overgrown, forsaken spaces.” - Anahit Hayrapetyan With intense devotion I kept on sketching my white sheet black. What was routine to me, now became my religion. Neither water nor elixir only sketch would quench this thirst. Days I spent in insanity, perfecting the drawings. Rationality seemed to be the only ideal. Back in time, it wouldn’t express much on its own but only obliged me with its blunt overtones, leaving me perplexed. Soon our understanding transcended into a spiritual connection and I sketched even more. Its infatuation with me grew and it would refuse to stay without me. Often, its whispers would wake me up from my ignorant slumber and we would spend the whole night together, discussing purpose and reason. Eventually, when it called for UTOPIA, I couldn’t decline. It made realize who I was and the power I contained. What do I seek? What do I dwell upon? The hunger grew stronger, as the spark
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Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
Fig.5.1
proliferated into the perpetual fire. Utopia was no longer a dream, it was a vision. I stood in trance as utopia surged into a panacea for the wounds inflicted by the society. In the grand scheme of things, everything was in order. “Where we do not reflect on myth but truly live in it there is no cleft between the actual reality of perception and the world of mythical fantasy….” - Ernst Cassirer I didn’t need to be a pacifist anymore, for all was white. Paradise - I was free. No religion, no politics, no economy, no injustice. A perfect world with perfect citizens. “Who will buy what? Who believes which? Who lives or dies? Thought, action Chain response Life forces balanced In tension The urban community [16] The city” – CROWD
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Manifestos for Architecture | The City
Archizoom - No-stop city
Fig.5.2
Constant - New Babylon
"[Adam and Eve] were given a choice; happiness without freedom or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative" - Yevgeny Zamyatin[17]
Fig.5.3
16
Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
“For those who, like ourselves, are convinced that architecture is one of the few ways to realise cosmic order on earth, to put things according to reason, it is a “moderate utopia” to imagine a near future in which all architecture will be created with a single act,from a single design capable of clarifying once and for all the motives which have induced man to build dolmens, menhirs, pyramids, and lastly to trace (ultimate ration) a white line in the desert.” - Superstudio [18]
Buckmister Fuller - Manhattan geodesic dome
"Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else."- Italo Calvino[19]
Fig.5.4
17
Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
"‌if design is merely an inducement to consume, then we must reject design; if architecture is merely the codifying of bourgeois model of ownership and society, then we must reject architecture; if architecture and town planning is merely the formalization of present unjust social divisions, then we must reject town planning and its cities‌until all design activities are aimed towards meeting primary needs. Until then, design must disappear. We can live without architecture‌" - Adolfo Natalini, Superstudio[20]
Le Corbusier - Radient city
"People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course, that's both liberating and alarming." -Rem Koolhaas[21]
Fig.5.5
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Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
“A new generation of architecture must arise-with form and spaces that seem to reject the percepts of “Modern” REJECT-curtains-design-history-graphpaper DIG ACCECPT endorse-homogeneity-travelators-Monk-expend [22] ability.” - Simon Sadler
Yona Friedman - The spatial city
“To know oneself is to disbelieve utopia.” [23] - Michael Novak
“Thus we clearly have something to learn from the utopian tradition, but we must avoid the temptation to idealize it, after having discarded it [24] for so long.” - Picon, Antoine Fig.5.6
19
Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
Superstudio - The continuous monument
"Religion gives us happiness and protection from suffering at the price of forcibly fixing them in a [25] state of psychical infatilism" - Sigmund Freud
Fig.5.7
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Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
"History repeats itself... first as tragedy, then as [26] farce" - Karl Marx
Guy Debord - The naked city
“Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another...." - Milan Kundera [27]
"From our myopia arose our dystopia." [28] Anthony Marias
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Manifestos for Architecture | Utopia
Fig.5.
CHAPTER VI
death.
23rd MAY 2063 I lay awake in my own dream, For the creation I created was melancholy Paranoid I become, at thrill of the unknown Time stops as I move on Passion or lust, curiosity or fear Give me truth, I bleat and yell What drives you to live some more Is it breath or hunger for the same? Peace is in death, obliteration from tyranny With this thought I surrender myself To have a beginning something has to end Then to have utopia will architecture end? I feel nothing, only numbness all-over How could this be? Did I resurrect.....
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Manifestos for Architecture | Death
credits. PREFACE
THE CITY
UTOPIA
1.
“The Reality of Experimental Architecture: an Interview with Lebbeus Woods”, Carnegie Online, July/August 2004
3.
Italo Calvino - “Invisible Cities”
15.
4.
Italo Calvino - “Invisible Cities”
Anahit Hayrapetyan - “Overgrown” Columbia University | GSAPP
16.
“Crowd,” in Crosby and Bodley, eds., Living Arts, no.2.
"The Library of Babel" (Spanish: La biblioteca de Babel) is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set.
ARCHITECTURE
17.
Zymatine - “We”, a dystopian novel
5.
Rem Koolhaas - "Imagining Nothingness" - 1985
18.
6. 7.
Louis I. Kahn Pavel Bouse - “Dystopia of the Urban block”
19.
Superstudio, The Continuous Monument: An Architectural Model for Total Urbanization, 1969. Italo Calvino - “Invisible Cities”
20.
Adolfo Natalini, Superstudio(1971)
21.
Rem Koolhaas - interview in Wired 4.07, July 1996 Simon Sadler - “Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture”
2.
SPACE 8.
Rem Koolhaas - “Junkspace”
22.
9.
Lebbeus Woods - “The question of space”
23.
10.
Jean Nouvel - Interview, The Huffington Post Mark Wigley - “Back to black” (2005) Haruki Murakami - “Kafka on the Shore”
Michael Novak - “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982)”
24.
Picon, Antoine. 2013. Learning from utopia: contemporary architecture and the quest for political and social relevance. Journal of Architectural Education
25.
Sigmund Freud - “Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)”
26.
Karl Marx - “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”
27.
Milan Kundera - “The book of laughter and forgetting”
28.
Anthony Marais - “Delusionism”
11. 12.
TRANSGRESSION 13. 14.
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Manifestos for Architecture | Credits
Lebbeus Woods - “The Light Pavilion (2011) Joseph Stalin