CALX 1.1 by Calx.Journal

Calx this line is the problem of whoever wins the lottery.

fromtheeditors editors. althea aarden daniel ebert whitney hamaker jessica lane carl sterner gretchen warner christopher whitley controller. keven denlinger staff. brittany everett nicholas germann nicole germano christina glasgow carrie hunsaker eric kuhn diane lee malcolm lee eleanor luken christopher thompson sly yeo advisor. rebecca williamson

Tangents are not a waste of time. “Final products” are shells of the acts, conversations, and tools that delivered us there. The artifacts of process trace the synaptic and representational leaps that are the substance of learning. Publishing raw work renders it vulnerable but relevant; it pulls isolated instances of inspiration and talk out into a broader dialogue. It’s time to open lines of communication among our disciplines and stop learning as though design could be compartmentalized. Calx was conceived as a print journal, but that is not how it turned out. It avoids facile, static representations of ephemeral processes and communication. As students, we buy the right to question “deliverables.” We can use errors productively and experiment without serious repercussions. If not now, when? How do we avoid institutionalized risk aversion? The constraints of our fields are frameworks within which we are the connective matter, something dynamic that ends up transforming the framework from one generation to the next. If we act to determine our own methodology, develop interdisciplinary dialogue and theory, it will form the basis of our future work.

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Carrew Tower Blind Drawing – Jessica Lane

Perspective – Kevin Denlinger

Pop Installation – Althea Aarden

Modernism, Nostalgia and Ethics – Carl S. Sterner and Daniel Ebert

Photo Tennis – Luke Field and Christopher Whitley

Rural Studio’s Regional Pulse – Christopher Whitley

Analytique Boards – Mary Carroll-Coelho

World Cities and Global Capitalism – Carl S. Sterner

Pendleton Contact Sheet – Christopher Whitley

Death and Architecture – Ian Hartley

Pamphlet Architecture – Whitney Hamaker

Thesis Chair Haiku – Whitney Hamaker

Sketches – Daniel Ebert

As everything accelerates, we’re for the pauses.

- jessica lane el presidente, issue 1 Cover. Whitney Hamaker. Below: Luke Field.

contents

Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

Carrew Tower Blind Drawing – Jessica Lane

Perspective – Kevin Denlinger

Pop Installation – Althea Aarden

Modernism, Nostalgia and Ethics – Carl S. Sterner and Daniel Ebert

Photo Tennis – Luke Field and Christopher Whitley

Rural Studio’s Regional Pulse – Christopher Whitley

Analytique Boards – Mary Carroll-Coelho

World Cities and Global Capitalism – Carl S. Sterner

Pendleton Contact Sheet – Christopher Whitley

Death and Architecture – Ian Hartley

Pamphlet Architecture – Whitney Hamaker

Thesis Chair Haiku – Whitney Hamaker

Sketches – Daniel Ebert

As everything accelerates, we’re for the pauses.

- jessica lane el presidente, issue 1 Cover. Whitney Hamaker. Below: Luke Field.

contents

Above. Kevin Denlinger, House & Home studio, Summer 2006. Sketch, pen and graphite. Left. Jessica Lane, Invisible Cincinnati studio, Spring 2007. Sign pen blind drawings.

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Above. Kevin Denlinger, House & Home studio, Summer 2006. Sketch, pen and graphite. Left. Jessica Lane, Invisible Cincinnati studio, Spring 2007. Sign pen blind drawings.

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Modernism, Nostalgia, and Ethics: Excerpts from a conversation between Carl S. Sterner and Daniel Ebert Pop installation [text/balloons/ribbon] Althea Aarden. Winter, 2007. Installation Poster Text: If we are to become design leaders, then more than a cursory overview of the theories of our time must become a part of the curriculum. Students must be prepared if they are to grasp these concepts, and they must be given time to absorb. Anything less is tokenism. PLEASE, TAKE ONE. This installation is interactive. It is meant to form a childlike desire for those thoughts that have influenced architecture.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007, Rohs St. Café, Cincinnati, Ohio […] Daniel Ebert: And I struggle with that [modernism] in some of the things I’m studying in thesis. Sometimes I really feel like I’m getting close to the boundary of nostalgia. And I have a hard time trying to balance that out. Carl Sterner: It’s difficult. Because on one hand you want to question the modern project, right? I mean, you want to question this idea of an inevitable movement in one direction, toward this uniform end product. But on the other hand you don’t want to say, “Well, the only other alternative is to go back before we had modernity.” […] But in a way, the extreme fear of nostalgia is itself a Modernist idea: you don’t want to copy the past because the past is bad and the future is good.

Perez Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983). 2

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot delivered a public lecture at the opening of the Sorbonne in 1750 in which he discussed history and progress. AnneRobert-Jacques Turgot, Turgot on Progress, Society, and Economics, trans. and ed. Ronald L. Meek (Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1973).

DE: Perez Gomez, in the introduction to Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science,1 also talks about how it wasn’t at least until—I’m not sure if he said it was the Enlightenment or the Renaissance—that we as a society started to think of time as a linear process, rather than as a cyclical process of ebbing and flowing. CS: In fact, it can be tracked back to a lecture delivered [in 1750 by Jacques Turgot],2 who specifically set out to reinterpret history as a linear progression toward better and better states. I think that it is important to question those modern assumptions. And that’s one of the things that bothers me about dystopias [an earlier topic of conversation]: even now that we’re skeptical about where technology is taking us—technology, industrialization, capitalism, globalization, whatever it is—we’re expressing skepticism toward it, but we’re not expressing any doubt that it’s going to continue to its logical end. All those things are seen to still continue. There aren’t any alternatives being presented.

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Perez Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983). 2

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DE: The interesting thing is not only that we have started to question these things but we haven’t thought of any alternative—but even the act of questioning a lot of these things is kind of a dirty little sin. You were talking earlier about the fear of nostalgia being, in a way, one of the constructs of this modern way of thinking—; and so it really is taboo to be anti—not even necessarily anti-Modernist, but to question it. You’re all of the sudden this crazy hermit guy who’s going to live off in the middle of the woods and grow your own opium. CS: Nostalgia can wipe out any argument. The charge of nostalgia even today completely invalidates anything. DE: I sort of equate it to—at least architecturally—it’s kind of like calling someone a communist or a racist. CS: It is!

Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, ed. John Cava (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).

DE: You brand them with nostalgia. And the thing is, a lot of things that are questioned, accused of [being nostalgic], or branded as nostalgia, are not necessarily anywhere near nostalgia. I’m reading Kenneth Frampton right now, Studies in Tectonic Culture,3 and he talks a lot about the way we build and the way we used to think about building versus the way we build now. He does some philological studies—looking at words and where they came from and how they evolved into their current meanings—of words like “build” and “room” and things like that. […] And even some of that stuff you could say “Oh, it’s nostalgia.” But if you really look at his arguments, he’s not advocating going back and building the exact same buildings we used to build; he’s just questioning. What I think he’s really questioning is the tabula rasa of Modernism—of just completely wiping that stuff out and starting from scratch, rather than some sort of evolution or progression on the knowledge that we’ve built up over time. CS: It’s like the architectural Hitler card. Like in any argument if you compare the argument to Hitler you automatically win because you completely delegitimize the other side. It’s like that. Once you say something is nostalgic you completely wipe out—without even necessarily establishing an argument against it, you just sort of undermine what they’re saying, just dismiss it out of hand. DE: I struggle with that sometimes because of what I’ve been thinking about lately. CS: I struggle with it, too, in sustainability. Because obviously sustainability has major problems with industrialization—the way that modernization has occurred—and so you want to question that from an ecological point of view, but you’re not necessarily saying, “Well, we’re going to erase the Industrial Revolution.” You’re asking, “Where can we go from here?” DE: Or “where should we go from here?” I think in a way that was the essential misstep of Modernism—they were asking “where can we go from here?” and not necessarily “where should we go from here?” CS: Right. And I think that the normative part is hugely important. Because for

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so long we’ve been asking as a culture—not just as architects—“what can we do?” and we haven’t been asking “what should we do?” DE: Or even, “what can we imagine?” or “what can we think of?” CS: Right. But at a certain point that becomes a very empty exercise. Because we can think up anything—but that doesn’t make it all worth doing. So the ethical argument of “what should we do?” I think is really important. And a lot of contemporary theorists and architects have neglected that—because “should” […] starts to imply a universal— DE: Ethics or morality. CS: Yeah. Whereas the present discussions have tended toward completely saying “it depends on perception; it depends on all of these other factors; we’re not going to be absolutist; we’re not going to question anything”—therefore, anything goes. But to me that’s a very dangerous lack of a moral framework for architecture. And I feel very conservative when I say that, but I feel that it’s also necessary. To create environments that are livable, enjoyable and sustainable we really do have to ask the normative questions. DE: I think even as architects we have to admit that if we abstract ourselves from our own milieu and think about the spaces, buildings and the places that we actually enjoy, not that we find interesting theoretically or formally, that we enjoy being in, and the places that we tend to spend our time in … they’re not necessarily the things we’re interested in from a professional or academic perspective. I really agree with what you were saying as far as the [relativity] of things. I think we’re to a point now—and I think this started with postmodernism—that we really lost any sense of […] an absolute goal or ideal that we’re working toward as a profession, now all the sudden it’s “just as long as we’re not [Modernists]”. Then whatever we are is essentially okay. And [postmodernists] define themselves as “not this” in a very specific way that led largely to a fairly homogenous style. But then we got to the next level of where we’re at now, […] which is complete avant-garde eclecticism. We’ve gotten to the point where you’ve got architects like Eisenman whose design principles and design processes are abstractions of abstractions. […] There’s nothing concrete whatsoever. And then you end up with environments like [Eisenman’s} Aronoff—or even like the Tschumi building, which is conceptually interesting, spatially interesting, but experientially terrible. […] You can take it to the level of thinking about some of the classic Modernist architects—and would you want to live in Villa Savoye? Would you want to live there? Would you want to live in the Farnesworth house? […] Would you rather live in one of their houses, or would you rather live in a Wright house? Or not even a Wright house, but— CS: —an 1850s building that you don’t even know who the architect is, but it’s just a row house somewhere, with brick bearing walls and lots of daylight and wood floors.

Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture, ed. John Cava (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).

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DE: And years and years of this accumulated embodied knowledge of all the people who have been there, worked on it, modified it, changed it. And how it’s evolved over the process of its life. I think in some way it makes you realize your own place in the world, rather than thinking of yourself as this conqueror of everything. When you realize that you’re coming into something that’s been there—not only since before you were born, but before your grandparents were born—and will probably be there for 100 years after you’re dead. It begins to situate you as this small player in this big game, rather than the Modernist idea of the conqueror of the environment. CS: That idea of understanding your place in the world is almost a religious idea. That’s what many religions—I’m thinking especially of many Native American religions—that’s the function that many of them serve: to ground you, in a way. And you understand your relationship to what came before and to the rest of the world as it exists. And I think that’s a really important dimension that has been largely neglected in Modernism—in the way that Modernism is completely timeless and wants to erase any trace of time or history. It seems really dangerous to me. Not just unfulfilling or unsatisfying from the point of view from the person inhabiting it. I don’t know how to articulate this, exactly … DE: I think—this is my interpretation of where you’re going—or just one of my thoughts—but to me the question is: at what point are you not necessarily done or finished, but at what point are you satisfied? When does it stop? When do you stop redefining yourself and become comfortable with your existence as it is? I think the dangerous thing with Modernism is that you take this slate, you wipe it clean, and you start over—but what happens if it doesn’t work? Do you just wipe it clean again and start over again? Which I think is the attitude. CS: The way I was thinking it’s dangerous is that from the point of view of sustainability the idea of time and duration and your place in the grander scheme of things is important for the coherence of societies—knowing the individual’s relationship to others and to the larger whole—and also, I think, for society’s relationship to the environment. […] Not knowing that—not understanding your place in the grander scheme—seems like it’s inviting social and ecological problems. I’m not saying this very well. That’s the basis for all ethics and normative frameworks, I guess is what I’m saying. […] Without that, you’re just going to create […] a self-centered individualized society that doesn’t understand the effects of their actions and doesn’t see how it has any bearing on the rest of the world or on the future of society. And I think you can see that as the cause of a lot of social and environmental problems. DE: This sort of extreme narcissism. CS: Yeah. Not that architecture is the cause of that—but that Modernist architecture definitely manifests that mentality—and, if nothing else, reinforces it, even if it doesn’t create it initially. I just sort of said that off the top of my head; I don’t know if it’s really true. [...]

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SERVE

Luke Field Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

RETURN

Christopher Whitley | 12

SERVE

Luke Field Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

RETURN

Christopher Whitley | 12

Rural Studio’s Regional Pulse Christopher Whitley Austral red of clay mountains, hill after rising hill, central Alabama spreads out, a physical reminder of where the Appalachian mountain chain comes to rest. Oft forgotten and stranded at the margins of American society, Hale County, Alabama marks the headstone of the Appalachians, a community buried deep in the rural South, far from the national radar. A region riddled by chronic poverty and social distress, the “Black Belt” of Alabama represents one of the most economically and socially dire settings in America. The economic condition of Hale County has changed little since the first half of the twentieth century during the days of poor white sharecroppers. Today’s Hale County consists largely of impoverished African-Americans. These people are the majority of the clients for the Rural Studio. The Studio ventures in social welfare, engenders community spirit and a sense of place, practices ideas of sustainability and progressive design, and sparks pedagogical debate over the curriculum and teaching of architecture students.

David Moos and Gail Trechsel, editors. Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: Community Architecture (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum of Art, 2003).

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From the ashes of the Appalachian chain rises Moundville, a nationally significant Indian burial ground and the gateway to the Black Belt. Long, tired roads meander the county, primarily serving to connect the area’s chief economic benefactor and export: “farms” of densely packed catfish ponds. Like procreating economic cesspools, these misty waters dominate parts of the county, spawning food, fecundity, and job opportunities for the local populace. Between the havens of fish and farmers stretch lush fields of green, dense crowds of Southern pine, and groves of oak and chestnut trees. Abandoned and dilapidated barns swathed in toxic kudzu vines fight for air, their silos rising from the venomous plant fabric like a trace of a drowning swimmer, arm extended before sinking into the abyss. The plight of the dying barn - a fading symbol of a more prosperous time sketches a microcosmic tale of the county’s struggle for subsistence. Survival in the rural Black Belt manifests itself on various levels, and it is this fight for survival that Samuel Mockbee strove to highlight and Rural Studio attempts to reduce.

Hale County’s landscape presents an oxymoron of sorts. The fields are lush, green and vivid, but much of the dirt beneath sticks hard, like bedrock, when compact, though soft, like dust, when unearthed. This natural dichotomy became all too apparent to the designers and builders of Yancey Chapel, one of the earliest Rural Studio buildings, a thesis project realized during the nascent stages of the Studio’s life. Dug into a bluff, unique to the area’s topography, the Yancey Chapel fans out to frame a beautiful landscape. Subterranean and sited on the remains of an old dairy farm, the chapel epitomizes sustainable practices and cost-efficiency, while its unique forms, crafted in recycled local materials, synthesize a regional appearance. The chapel appears more the victim of age and weight, a dilapidated barn felled on the edge of a knoll. A recycled tin roof, rusted in matchless hues of varying reds, lifts off the landscape like an ethereal gesture blanketing what looks like the debris of a fallen shed. Upon closer inspection, the felled barn disappears, revealing instead a unique earthen building, carved into the ground to shape a man-made void embodied in romantic qualities of sound and texture. The walls made of donated old tires, stacked in a running bond, and clad in stucco-rubbed chicken wire - frame the void, like oversized tire treads tracking a deep divet through a lawn. The texture of the walls and a sloped path leading into the ground provides a distinct threshold over which visitors distinguish entry into the building. A nearby creek-bed provided the architects with rock used to clad the floor and entry path, while an artificial stream, mirroring the spine of the roof, traces the slate path across the chapel floor. From within, the rebar reinforced, tire-formed retaining walls rise to support the blanketing roof, framed in pine salvaged from an old house. The roof stretches its wood bones and tin feathers above the openair interior space, forming a chapel-shaped silhouette. The interior channel extends through the earth toward a large opening at its opposite end. Traveling through the chapel’s course one finds themselves standing in the large aperture, their experience culminating in a grand view of wetlands and sprawling landscape. Here, at journey’s end, peace and tranquility become apparent through an architecture steeped in visual and textural euphoria, rooted in regional materials, and fashioned after the low-lying houses and buildings of much of Hale County. Unfortunately, the experience of site and building are limited due to the fact that this particular building rests in private hands. The community buildings of the Rural Studio are largely open to the public, though the domestic projects remain privately owned. A profound educational opportunity combined with social, economic and cultural benefits make the Rural Studio a success not only in the Hale County area, but in the region as a whole. Regional characteristics make Rural Studio both unique and visually responsive to a Southeastern and Alabamian manner of life and living.

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David Moos and Gail Trechsel, editors. Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio: Community Architecture (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum of Art, 2003).

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…the society of the spectacle is a form that chooses its own technological content…If the social needs of the age in which such technologies are developed can be met only through their mediation, if the administration of this society and all contact between people has become totally dependent on these means of instantaneous communication, it is because this “communication” is essentially unilateral. - Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle A line is a crack. - Madeline Gins and Arakawa, Helen Keller or Arakawa

Mary Carroll-Coehlo. Analytique boards. SEC studio, Winter 2007. Black pen and marker, 16” x 16” cardstock.

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Mary Carroll-Coehlo. Analytique boards. SEC studio, Winter 2007. Black pen and marker, 16” x 16” cardstock.

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World Cities and Global Capitalism Carl S. Sterner This essay briefly discusses a few dimensions of the complex interrelationship between global capitalism and “world cities”. It then explores parallels to conditions in Cincinnati, Ohio, and finally posits a role for architects and designers in responding to contemporary conditions. On World Cities, Capitalism, and Diversity: Josef Gugler’s criteria for a “world city”, outlined in his Introduction to World Cities Beyond the West, are primarily economic. The indicators he uses include the net service value of major firms, gross annual revenue, stock market capitalizations, and international flights.1 The very term “world city” is therefore connected to global capitalism, and thus provides an excellent context for an examination of its effects.

Josef Gugler. World Cities Beyond the West: Globalization, Development and Inequality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 6 – 7. 2

This distinction borrowed from Bayly, C. A. The Birth of the Modern World: 1780 – 1914 (Oxford: Blackwells, 2004). This distinction allows simultaneous recognition of the broad processes of globalization and local adaptation and diversity. I argue elsewhere that global capitalism tends toward uniformity and heterogeneity: as underlying forces become more unified, people react by manufacturing difference and constructing identity.

The debate over the effects of global capitalism centers (roughly) around two views: one that sees economic globalization as an overpowering juggernaut razing locality and uniqueness and leaving mass-produced homogeneity in its wake; and the other that sees globalization as a bearer of a bounty of new goods and ideas which localities borrow selectively and adapt, creating heterogeneity and pastiche. Such analysis, however, is fairly one-dimensional. A useful distinction can be made between uniformity (the large-scale systemic similarities) and homogeneity (sameness in appearance or composition).2 This distinction allows simultaneous recognition of the broad processes of economic assimilation and the local processes of adaptation. Thus global capitalism tends toward uniformity and heterogeneity: as underlying forces become more unified, people react by manufacturing difference and constructing identity. One of Gugler’s three conclusions is that world cities are “extraordinarily diverse”, which at first appears to run counter to the uniformity/heterogeneity argument. The forms of diversity include (1) history, (2) spatial and

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architectural patterns (manifestations of history), (3) size of economy (ranging from poor to wealthy), (4) niche in regional economy, (5) political context, and (6) racial/ethnic/religious diversity. Interestingly, most (if not all) of these can be categorized as contextual diversity (as opposed to functional diversity). That is to say, the diversity is not a result of global capitalism, nor a reflection of a variety of livelihood, subsistence, or production strategies. Rather, it is a reflection of the diverse social and historical conditions that existed prior to the rise of the capitalist regime. The remnant diversity (heterogeneity) therefore says nothing about the underlying uniformity. If anything, the emerging conditions in these world cities evidence the uniformity imposed by global capitalism. Terms like inequality and market niche attest to its structural influence. Janet Salaff’s examination of Singapore3 details the social and cultural changes that resulted from (or precipitated?) its embrace. They include: specialized education, decreasing dependence on community (and especially on kin), and increasing dependence on the government (and on the market).4 These changes could be seen as a departure from more traditional subsistence strategies toward a more “modern” approach—one that comports with the requirements of exchange in global markets. Importantly, the increased dependence on markets is connected to gross wealth disparities. Indeed, common to all world cities are expanding differences between rich and poor.5 On Dependence, Vulnerability, and Inequality: Connections between (1) dependence on the global economy, (2) increasing vulnerability of local economies, and (3) increasing social stratification are made several times in these readings. The relationship between dependence and vulnerability is fairly straightforward: “The impact of the global economy, in boom and in crash, is felt most dramatically in world cities heavily dependent on foreign investments, exports, and tourism.”6 This impact is often made worse by lack of public support systems. The connection between dependence on the global economy and deepening inequality is not necessarily as clear, although it is mentioned several times by Gugler.7 It is a significant connection, however, because poverty is often attributed to internal factors (deficient entrepreneurial and management skills and overpopulation—euphemisms for lack of motivation and intelligence), when in fact external factors (in particular, Western impact, both colonial and economic) play a major role.8 Both dependency and inequality in world cities are arguably related to rapid urbanization—specifically, to the movement of the poor9 from rural areas to urban centers.10 This migration can be seen as a movement away from nonmarket livelihood strategies involving a higher degree of autonomy (e.g., growing one’s own food) toward market-based strategies involving a higher degree of dependency and often associated with social changes like those described by Salaff (above). Regarding poverty in Cairo, Abu-Lughod states: “One must ask why the

Janet Salaf. “Singapore: Forming the Family for a World City.” World Cities Beyond the West: Globalization, Development and Inequality. Josef Gugler, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 240 – 267. 4

For more on the relationship between the capitalist economy and the welfare state see: Jürgen Habermas. “The New Obscurity: The Crisis of the Welfare State and the Exhaustion of Utopian Energies.” In The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate. Translated and edited by Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). 5

Gugler, p.

Ibid., 15.

E.g., see 123, 144, 147.

Gugler, p.

“The poor” is a problematic term that tends to essentialize a diverse group of people. It also ignores variation in types and effects of poverty in different areas, especially between county and city. The author advises skepticism. 10

See the Worldwatch Institute for current statistics (www.worldwatch.org).

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Josef Gugler. World Cities Beyond the West: Globalization, Development and Inequality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 6 – 7. 2

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Gugler, p.

Ibid., 15.

E.g., see 123, 144, 147.

Gugler, p.

See the Worldwatch Institute for current statistics (www.worldwatch.org).

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Janet L. Abu-Lughod. “Cairo: Too May People, Not Enough Land, Too Few Resources.” World Cities Beyond the West: Globalization, Development and Inequality. Josef Gugler, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 144. 12

Again, this is by no means an incontrovertible relationship. Briefly, it can be said that modernization by definition necessitates industrial production, which paves the way for global capitalism by providing mechanisms of mass production, including technological capacity and specialization, as well as markets for mass-produced goods. 13

Abu-Lughod, 147.

For an excellent discussion of risk see Ulrich Beck. World Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999). 15

For a case study regarding such “alternative livelihood strategies”, see Rhoda H. Halperin. Practicing Community: Class, Culture and Power in an Urban Neighborhood (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). 16

Abu-Lughod, 119.

National Trust for Historic Preservation. 2006. “America’s 11 Most Endangered Places: Over-theRhine Neighborhood.” Available at: http://www. nationaltrust.org/11most/over-the-rhine.html. 18

Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC). 2007. “3CDC Projects Completed or Currently Under Development in Over-the-Rhine.” Available at: http://www.3cdc.org/otr/projects. 19

Abu-Lughod, 143.

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concerted efforts at modernization […] have not only failed to reduce the proportion of Egyptians and Cairenes living in poverty, but have actually contributed to greater inequality.”11 Insofar as modernization is related to global capitalism,12 there are many possible answers to this question: (1) capitalism rewards access to resources with greater access to resources; (2) investments are targeted toward increasing market activity (and especially toward accommodating international businessmen) and so have failed to improve the living environment of the poorest people;13 (3) risks in capitalist economies are born disproportionately by the poor (e.g., environmental problems);14 (4) growing markets tend to erode community-based livelihood strategies that are often vital for making ends meet in poor communities;15 etc. A demonstrable correlation therefore exists between global capitalism, uniformity, increasing dependency, deepening poverty, and increasing inequality.

“clients” per se), and the economic forces that act upon these constituencies. Ultimately the architect cannot avoid assuming a position—whether critical or unconscious—vis-à-vis economic globalization in light of its role as a primary force defining urban areas in general, and world cities in particular.

On Local Implications and The Role of the Architect: While Cincinnati is by no means a world city, and while Over-the-Rhine (OTR) is not suffering from overpopulation—quite the contrary, it is notably underpopulated—OTR is certainly suffering from poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and ineffectual administration—three characteristics of “mega cities” as described by Abu-Lughod.16 Two lessons can be learned from Cairo in regards to development projects aimed at mitigating the above problems. First: we see in Cairo the difficulty planners have in implementing their plans. It is hard (if not impossible) to force growth along certain predetermined paths. It is also fairly counter-productive, because resources are often expended for projects that are ill-used or ultimately abandoned, while in the mean time people are living without basic necessities. Second: OTR is similar to Cairo in terms of its three competing interests: preservation, development, and equity. OTR has recently been named one of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Places” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.17 Local development interests such as the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) want to “revitalize” (i.e., gentrify) the area.18 And many local residents and nonprofit groups seek to remediate the issues of poverty and racism. It is not promising to note that in Cairo, “the tendency has been for all improvements […] to reduce the spaces available for informal production and low-cost housing”.19 One suspects that a higher degree of community involvement is necessary for development projects to avoid such uniforming tendencies (and associated impacts)—and further, that greater participation ultimately requires (and perhaps promotes) changes in political processes and social organization. This reveals a role for architects in helping to solve—or at least engage with—the complex problems associated with urban conditions, and perhaps to spark social change more generally, by critically engaging the process of design. The architect must be aware of power relations present in the act of design, the myriad effects of architectural interventions on multiple constituencies (most of whom are not

Lia Shapiro, age 7 (in pen), and Rebecca Williamson at a Calx meeting.

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Abu-Lughod, 147.

For an excellent discussion of risk see Ulrich Beck. World Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999). 15

Abu-Lughod, 119.

National Trust for Historic Preservation. 2006. “America’s 11 Most Endangered Places: Over-theRhine Neighborhood.” Available at: http://www. nationaltrust.org/11most/over-the-rhine.html. 18

Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC). 2007. “3CDC Projects Completed or Currently Under Development in Over-the-Rhine.” Available at: http://www.3cdc.org/otr/projects. 19

Abu-Lughod, 143.

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Lia Shapiro, age 7 (in pen), and Rebecca Williamson at a Calx meeting.

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Cleveland storefront, 2004. Anonymous.

Previous pages: Christopher Whitley: digital photography series. This photomontage color-spot series emerged from investigations into Cincinnati’s Pendleton District during the Invisible Cincinnati studio of Spring, 2007. The exercise combines elements of Whitley’s Cincinnati-centered analysis of existing architectural urban voids and seams with images by Will Barclift, a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. Barclift’s work portrays the role and traces of youth within the context of urban adulthood. By transposing Barclift’s balloon character studies into foreign scenes within Cincinnati, Whitley intended to highlight and engage seemingly deserted civic arteries, while critiquing the site specifics and nonspecifics of civic identity.

War and Architecture Whitney Hamaker Is there space for the hope that things will change for all who still believe in change? For optimism that holds back the glance towards the abyss? In other words, does Lebbeus Woods allow us in his works to forget the crisis of awareness afflicting modern people, the reality of the present? He is not a deconstructivist; he does not use the method of deconstruction as an excuse for complacency or as authorization for indifferent architectural expression. Although there are elements of deconstructivism in his work, it is not characterized by uncertainty, but is a criticism of contemporary architectural practice. He creates images that can be described as real, uncomfortable, and liberating. In these images, he envisions an empty world dominated by the cold extravagance of its architecture; he has the alchemical intention of a visionary. His is also an aesthetically overwhelming world, a direct comparison to the massiveness and density of a container ship’s hold that only comes alive through provocation – from silence to upheaval at the moment of arrival. His work is metaphysical; accomplishing what is possible at the outermost boundary of architecture. ‘Mirror images’ describe the conditions of an inevitable awakening, of a fusion of the ideal with the sensual – visions expressed in paper form. Woods knows that urgency prevents certainty. This could be the reason he begins to build his urban constructions on paper. In the same way that light emerges from his wind-soaked ruins, Woods works to overcome the border between dream and reality. Despite working on an abstract level, Woods’ work in War and Architecture is an attempt at translation. He takes the design ideals he sowed and applies them to real-life destruction: the shelling and subsequent reconstruction of Sarajevo post-1992. The discourse begins with a poem describing the premise of his work as defining the relationship between war and architecture:

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Cleveland storefront, 2004. Anonymous.

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Lebbeus Woods. Pamphlet Architecture #15: War and Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993),1. 2

Woods, 4.

Woods, 6.

Architecture and war are not incompatible Architecture is war. War is architecture I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightening forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no “sacred and primordial site.” I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears I know only moments, and lifetimes that are moments, and forms appear with infinite strength, then “melt into air.” I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city. 1

The exploration of Woods’ understanding of architecture as both the structure and embodiment of knowledge serves as an insight into the human condition that created the crises in Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, Columbia, Iraq, and other countries which are deteriorating into armed conflicts. What are the architectural and moral implications that surround these unique situations, made ubiquitous in public consciousness? The structure of knowledge is the knowledge upon which people base their objective actions, concerning a reality independent of subjective human cognitive processes. This can be seen in terms of classical science or as an existential process, the only real difference being that a scientist would choose the method that worked best and an existentialist would choose the method confirmed by experience. This dualistic nature prefigures Woods’s belief in architecture as the embodiment of knowledge. He states that “architecture is the coalescing of activities in society, the union of many flows into a single complex stream2 The real value is the determination that when society is unable to define itself in classically objective terms, it becomes necessary to embrace continually shifting ideals. This requires the removal of all distinctions between art and life, and the generation of a singular flow. In turn, this creates architecture that is only concerned with “fluiddynamic structures of tissues, networks, matrices, and heterarchies.”3 In this view, the heterarchy is the best way to discover the potential of the individual. The old cities are heterarchies based solely on their complex layering of buildings, open spaces, uses, and reuses that have been created over centuries of urban absorption and development. The city has survived the influences of hierarchies that attempted to exert a rigid structure, all the while continuing to grow stronger and even more complex. In Woods’s mind, the advent of the modern,

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mass-technological culture signifies a hierarchy able to consume the complexities of the ‘old city,’ mainly through warfare and the media. This culture thereby embodies the monomaniacal structure of hierarchy at its most extreme form. The real question lies in the creation of a new model. What is the formal and cognitive response to destruction and whose agenda will this response represent? In his vision of the rebuilding process, Woods makes a concerted effort to present a case against the restoration of the old city. He does not deny the need for resurrection, like the rise of important cultural monuments from the ashes of war, but emphasizes the need to embrace the conditions of the present, thus allowing a new urban fabric to emerge. Also, to Woods, it is inexcusable to resurrect monuments that reaffirm the “past social order that ended in war.4 During periods of recovery it is necessary that new directions and choices are articulated and realized. This cannot be done by governments, institutions, or corporations, but must be created by a new multi-layered society, and must germinate from below to be socially representative.

Woods, 10.

Woods, 32.

Building on the extant remnants of war, the built-broken landscape must be respected as a form that embodies a history. This environment will begin to suggest new avenues of thought and comprehension that will lead to new conceptions of space and form. The human ability to integrate will create habitable spaces that will not simply celebrate the destruction of established order or symbolize/ commemorate it. Woods believes there is a moral and ethical commitment to accept what has been suffered and lost, but also what has been gained as a basis for a new community. From this cognitive process, Woods has established a set of representational methods in order to represent new heterachical communities out of what he dubs “freespaces.” He illustrates first the patterns of choice and invention as methods of reconstruction. By examining patterns of degraded urban fabric, a more human scale of complexity can be used as a basis for a new urban fabric. Another form of urban regeneration is the solid yet fluid state – the dimension that exists in the fluid form of electronics and instruments of the “information age,” and most specifically the flow of information between individuals on a communal scale. This solid/fluid form can also be seen as a process used to connect elements of the new urban fabric. In terms of re-inhabiting small-scale built forms, Woods develops the “injection,” “scab,” and ”scar.” These three construction methods are meant to inhabit the spaces in built forms voided by destruction. None create an exact fit, but instead exist as spaces within or over existing spaces, making no attempt to reconcile the gaps between what is new and what is old, or between two radically different forms of space and thought. Freespaces contain forms that are not compatible with the old patterns of living, instead they are difficult to occupy, requiring inventiveness to become habitable. The goal of freespaces is to break from the traditional authority and deterministic systems, making the individual assume the benefits and burdens of self-organization through the continuous reinvention of habitation.

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Lebbeus Woods. Pamphlet Architecture #15: War and Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993),1. 2

Woods, 4.

Woods, 6.

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Woods, 10.

Woods, 32.

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How, then, to deal with the logistics: who inhabits freespaces, who owns freespaces, and who pays for the construction of freespaces? Theoretically, freespace is inhabited by people from every class who want to transform the patterns of their everyday lives from “fixed to fluid,” from “deterministic to existential.”5 Woods sees these individuals as “people of crisis,” who find the dictates of custom and law in the old hierarchical orders too uncomfortable and oppressive – these are people who must perpetually begin again.6 The “owners” are those who make freespaces. This should not be misconstrued as a ‘survival of the fittest’ ethic; it is a form of comradery and compassion. Those who conceive of or construct space place it freely within the common domain.

Woods, 32.

Woods, 35.

Woods, 36.

The social implications of freespaces question the viability of funding such projects. Neither the banks, corporations, nor governments would support this reconstructive vision. In fact, these are the very authorities that enforce the current conformity found in contemporary habitation. In the face of this, Woods insists that money will not be the driving factor in the birth of freespace, simply because it is not available to those who require freespace. A bartering system is suggested as an initial solution to this problem, along with heavy reliance on the ingenuity of salvage. However, the end goal would be the development of a new source of currency: knowledge, that would be exchanged in “bytes or bits.”7 As freespaces are funded from the grassroots, the knowledge, energy, and inventiveness that fuel civilization will now benefit those who create it. Through exploration into the formative qualities of conflict and destruction, new city tissue will form, requiring an architecture that rises from and sinks into fluidity, embracing the turbulence of continually changing conditions. Architecture can become the manifestation of shifting forces, patterns, movement, and disintegrations within society. Woods’s architectural ideal serves only those who ask for nothing; the architecture of the transient and unknown, an architecture indifferent to its own destruction, abandoned yet not waiting to be filled.

Above, and previous pages: Ian Hartley: installation for the Death and Architecture studio.

“…architecture drawn as though it were already built – architecture built as though it had never been drawn.”8

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Woods, 32.

Woods, 35.

Woods, 36.

Above, and previous pages: Ian Hartley: installation for the Death and Architecture studio.

“…architecture drawn as though it were already built – architecture built as though it had never been drawn.”8

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thesis chair haiku whitney hamaker vincent sansalone

process adventures; embodied the physical starlight explorer

rebecca williamson

strength of conviction; born of worldly knowledge created by hand

tom bible

objective teacher; deep well of experience of unbroken earth

thesis topic

hail urban nomad; displaced rest in hooverville subvert habitats

designing for the urban nomad; the return to the hooverville. we as designers take part in the displacement of the poor through gentrification of neighborhoods in the hopes of revitalizing destitute areas of our urban environments. how can a designed and dignified solution be created to accommodate the needs of the urban nomad? urban habitation through subversive development and reinterpretation. the transference from an industrial to service-based economy in the u.s. has created a surplus of unused industrial complexes; is the reinterpretation of these areas a viable economic and aesthetic solution to the need for free or low-income habitation?

Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

Daniel Ebert. Sketches of a church service that were drawn on a co-op with Ziger Snead Architects. The hope was that observing the process of worship would help us understand how our clients would interact with the design.

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thesis chair haiku whitney hamaker vincent sansalone

process adventures; embodied the physical starlight explorer

rebecca williamson

strength of conviction; born of worldly knowledge created by hand

tom bible

objective teacher; deep well of experience of unbroken earth

thesis topic

hail urban nomad; displaced rest in hooverville subvert habitats

Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

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Submissionn Guidelines: We are accepting any and all original work: art pieces, process sketches, byproducts of production, notes jotted in margins, favorite essays written for class—anything that illuminates the process of design and/or participates in and helps to create a critical dialogue about design in its many forms. Send us work you’ve already done—not new material. Please no final presentation drawings or renderings (unless used creatively to inform a larger discussion). Images must be TIFFs or highquality JPGs, 200 dpi minimum; higher resolution preferable. Images should be accompanied by a description of the project, including artist, date, medium, size of original, etc. (Descriptions can be as long as you’d like, including essays). Text must be in Microsoft Word format. All notes and references should appear as footnotes. References must use the Chicago “documentarynote” style. (See www.libs.uga.edu/ ref/chicago.html for style manual). Any length is acceptable.

What the heck is “calx”? calx (kalks) n. pl. calx·es or cal·ces (kal’sez’) 1. The residue or ashy substance that remains after metals, minerals, etc., have been thoroughly burned.

Direct all submission and/or questions to calx.journal@gmail.com.

2. The posterior rounded extremity of the foot; the heel.

Submission deadline for Issue 2: January 28, 2008.

[Middle English, from Latin, lime, limestone, pebble, from Greek khalix, pebble.]

The Lottery: What is the subtitle of this journal? We are accepting entries. Winner will be chosen by lottery. Subtitle will change every issue. Send entries to calx.journal@gmail. com, subject: lottery.

Calx. fall 2007/winter 2008

Calx became the name only after a protracted and intense series of arguments. The Dr. Jekyl side of the name was “phlogiston,” the ancient Greeks’s mythical fifth element that explained how a material could burn: it seemed obvious that this mirrored the creative process, the intangible substance or muse that guides our generative efforts. Despite the arcane attraction of this idea, however, what we are really left with in the end are the residues of our schemes, the

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What the heck is “calx”? calx (kalks) n. pl. calx·es or cal·ces (kal’sez’) 1. The residue or ashy substance that remains after metals, minerals, etc., have been thoroughly burned.

Direct all submission and/or questions to calx.journal@gmail.com.

2. The posterior rounded extremity of the foot; the heel.

Submission deadline for Issue 2: January 28, 2008.

[Middle English, from Latin, lime, limestone, pebble, from Greek khalix, pebble.]

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Calx this line is the problem of whoever wins the lottery.