No. 7 by DATUM

NO. 7 DATUM

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY Student Journal of Architecture

ABSENCE

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter Behaviorally, we notice almost any presence before an absence. Presence provides, immediately, a clear subject, something to engage with, a muse, something to react to, something to inspire. However, in this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s publication we have contemplated what it means for absence to take on the role of subject. Where might irreverence situate itself within built, architectural practice? How does architecture work to form bygones into a physical, more vested vessel for collective memory? What sorts of invisible forces can we uncover once we begin a process of explication? The Red Pages return to this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s publication where we continue to report, celebrate, archive and expand upon the uniquely engaging guests and events that continue to employ and enlighten our discussions. In many ways throughout this issue, we are actually thinking about a new attuned, attention. We investigate past superficial lackings and wantings, to attentively observe what is absent. It is this specific inquisition for the foreseen absent that we seek to understand in order to perform our own explications.

Callah Nelson Editor in Chief

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Callah

Nelson

CO-EDITOR Ryan

Carter

PRESIDENTS: David Cordaro Preston Mila Ashley Schmitz

TREASURER Ashley

Danielson

FACULTY

ADVISOR

Ross

Adams

Exo

Photo Credit: Alicia Pierce

TABLE LACK

WANT

THE

CONTENTS

Carrara Thermal Baths Mirthful Architecture Cycle

10 14 18

Center for Cinema Studies Birds, Bats and God Caroline Freese’s Table Black Contemporary: Temptations

24 28 30 32

RED PAGES “What is the Urban?” Symposium Masterclass Biennale Sessions Preview The Existential Act

38 44 52 54

INATTENTION 2x2 Practicing Presence Untitled by Liza Walling In Harm’s Way

60 66 68 70

MEMORY Detroit Labor Chapel Being Towards Death Where Were You?

76 80 84

LACK The following have identified something missing from a particular environment. In their own way, they seek to use this void as a prompt.

Carrara by

Kyle

Thermal Bath tition Chakour

Zack

CompeWerba

Parts of the Apuan Alps have been left untouched by the humankind. The unharmed mountain lays in a direct contrast to the core, which has been carved away by human consumption. By reinventing the thermal bath to an intimate connection with a beautiful material such as Carrara marble. The visitor can truly feel and understand naturesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; true value and beauty. The Carrara Thermal Baths reduces mansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; scale to manifest a palpable sense of something larger than ourselves. By replacing the excavated marble with the life-giving force of water, the area will begin the process of re-naturalization. The surrounding forest will descend upon the site, while the water nourishes a new ecosystem that extends outward. While inhabiting the spaces deep within the mountain the visitor gets the true sense of the land altering process of marble mining while being able to take in the breath taking experience of inhabiting these spaces once only seen by the eyes of the men and woman who excavated the stone. The scale shift from the large pit flooded by a waterfall, to a small intimate space utilized for reflection on oneself, is effective in making one feel the true connection to nature and other beings. It is a true escape from our busy lives to become one with the natural environment. We, as humans, have the opportunity to benefit the environment and all living things. It is our relationships with the environment and other species that make us part of an ecosystem. 10

Mirthful by

Architecture

James

Zeller

“Death got you down? At last an alternative!” - LA Weekly In their March 1999 issue, LA Weekly listed this advertisement with a link to a website called “Final Curtain1”. The website, adorned in serif fonts and floral edging, proposes a series of memorial parks that “throw away all the rules” for creative individuals who wish to invent their own specific “works of passage” and memorials for the afterlife. At the bottom of the page, visitors are welcomed to submit their own proposals for a chance to win a limited scholarship for artists, which would consist of a free plot on their grounds, and a chance to be featured on their online gallery. Of the submittals, few, if anym resemble your normal gravestone and the great majority more closely resemble theme park amusements. Mary Dresser plans on having her ashes mixed with a suitable soil and placed into a larger-than-life Ant Farm. Nick Gaetano would like a neon sign that reads, “Nick is Dead” to serve as his tombstone. Kim Markegard’s plot will consist of a 10x10 dancefloor and a jukebox. Alex Repasky plans on putting his ashes in an etch-a-sketch. In his final press release, made in May of 2000, Joey Skaggs revealed that Final Curtain was a hoax aimed at drawing attention to the death-care industry and its morbid grip on funeral services2. Many people were outraged, offended, or disgusted by the idea of blenders filled with cremated human remains (so the deceased can be “whipped into a frenzy”), but Skaggs were able to call into question and change the conversation around our death-care industry through his use of satire. Since the new millennia and the “passing” of Final Curtain, many new and more sustainable burial practices have seen recent popularity, from biodegradable urns3 to coral reef shells made from cremation4. Irreverence, even in the case of death, can have a lasting change in public practice. Is there a place, then, for laughter and satire in the built environment? Art has a unique tolerance for vulgarity since art is most characteristically personal and interpretive. However, once “buffoonery” begins to invade real public space and private investment, it is often the designer who is held responsible. We should be clear that satire, humor and levity in general are important tools for critical thinking. We are 1 “The Final Curtain.” 7 Jul. 2016 <http://www.finalcurtain.com/> 2 “Final Curtain – Joey Skaggs.” 2016. 7 Jul. 2016 <http://www.joeyskaggs.com/works/final-curtain/> 3 “Bios Urn - Biodegradable Urn with seed.” 2014. 7 Jul. 2016 <https://urnabios.com/> 4 “Eternal Reefs » Living legacies that memorialize our loved ones.” 7 Jul. 2016 <http://eternalreefs.com/> 14

Steintor Tram & Bus Stop, Hannover, Alessandro Mendini, 1992 Photo by: Christian A. Shrรถder

often too careful around the things we hold most reverently to begin to see them critically. As a high-risk, high-visibility profession, Architecture tends to distance itself from the kind cultural self-criticism that is so beneficial to discussion and instead confines itself within “appropriate” design. Slavoj Žižek, a popular contemporary Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic, explains that this kind of restraint, or what he discusses as “political correctness”, stands in the way of true social understanding. He argues that jokes, especially ones that cross the line into the obscene, vulgar, and racist territory, offer true “shared obscene solidarity” wherein the disparity that separates us can be confronted instead of being topically hidden under restraint1. Among the things contemporary architects abhor lies postmodernism, or those buildings so detested that they are often described as vulgar. Post-modernism’s predecessor modernism excelled in the kind of self-restraint currently decried by Zizek. Broadly speaking, postmodernism tried to address what they claimed to be modernism’s shortfalls: cold, undecorated and unforgiving environments that couldn’t fill the human need for comfort, familiarity or beauty. Between these two movements was an argument over the usage and usefulness of decoration: where one said, “Less is More,” the other countered with, “Less is a Bore.” Robert Venturi’s response to Mies van der Rohe is a clever example of the witty and referential treatments of past styles or logics of postmodernists. These were often used in order to communicate double coded meanings and self-aware critiques on itself. Postmodernist thought even pervaded other mediums like television and comics, where characters often “broke the fourth wall” and invaded the assumptions we make daily, even passing criticism to the writers and creators themselves. Indeed, it is difficult to find any architects who would self-identify as postmodernist today, even though the movement has been described as the cultural logic of late capitalism. The few designers who do accept postmodernist as their title have collectively generated some of the most whacky, strange, and playful designs that exist today. Notable in this group is Robert Venturi and Alessandro Mendini, whose colorful buildings were like masses stuck together with bright, overpowering, diagonal patterns plastered and repeated ad infinitum on their facades: all of which decisively question modernism’s assertion for restraint. They are, at their core, playful. Today, we are left with half-in-the-bag playful spaces, where their only defining features to distinguish themselves from the bland modernism of the 1900’s is the carpet samples. Even then, in these spaces which claim to be youthful and jubilant, there is nothing but complacency left to give credence to what used to be a discipline of knowledge. Any innovation to speak of lies closer to the disciplines of material design and manufacturing than to architectural design, and this has left some young architects scratching their heads, wondering where the dissent that was so promising in school has left off to. Architectural designers who are both committed to the communities they design for and who share an interest in being skeptical or critical are yearning for their moment to make a difference. Yet, instead, they are stuck between clients who are (rightfully) entitled to the designs that they are paying for, and a professional organization that regulates and facilitates a discussion but is unable or otherwise unwilling to see itself critically. 1 “Slavoj Žižek: Political Correctness is a More Dangerous ... - YouTube.” 2015. 7 Jul. 2016 <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=5dNbWGaaxWM> 16

What happens instead is a regimented “professionalism”, or at best, a reserved kind of playfulness that happens only in the surface aesthetic but remains uncritical of the processes which constrain it. Artists and producers of far off genres have been breaking ground outside of architecture and asking the essential, irreverent questions. Comedians like Bo Burnham are defying genre norms and are exploring that which constrains their work. Bo’s latest performance “Make Happy” pushes the boundary of comedy, occasionally crossing over from silly and ridiculous to serious and almost painful. Burnham seems to revel in his contorted position between the audience’s ruthless expectation to be entertained and his responsibility to be truthful to his performance. He constantly pulls back the curtain, asking the audience “I can’t figure out why you’re here”, questioning his own place in a discipline of entertainment. Burnham isn’t the only artist breaking convention. Why can’t we be self-critical towards Architectural practice? There is a large precedence for impatience towards young architects speaking out against some of the traditions of professional practice, on top of the mountain of complaints against styles that subvert power against what is typical, like postmodernism. Architectural practice fails to ask these questions against itself. Perhaps this is why Elia Zenghelis has said we are in a “doldrum,” or a moment of directionless-ness. Photo Credit: I Harsten

It is quite easy to criticize student work as being overambitious and naïve, but perhaps the reverse is true, too; practices that remain complacent to popular trends and resistant to new or skeptical projects are in denial about their place in the profession. A common critique that students get in school is that “a client would never want/agree to that,” but this is beside the point. As professionals of the built environment, we should be the ones leading the conversation about public spaces, not clients. Maybe this is counter-productive to a business of service, but we lend more than our service, we are a discipline of knowledge. Our education and studio culture has equipped us to be able to ask and address larger cultural questions and pose possible answers and responses. As the new generation graduates from college and becomes the world’s new architectural designers, perhaps a question we ought to be asking is “why are we here?” And when it comes to offering the world a new set of questions and answers, maybe we’ll have the guts to be a little irreverent.

Brady

Cycle

Daniel, Haeyeon Kwon,

Eli

Morales,

The evolution of a space can be predicted, but never known until the space is put to use. As designers we can manipulate spaces through the placement of programs. Considering the dynamic lifestyle of New York City, placing a static structure with void space for potential living units will shape the building through social, economical and political aspects. The reoccurring competition ‘Timber in the City’ challenges participants to design a mid-rise, mixed-use complex with affordable housing units, a NYC outpost of the Andy Warhol Museum, and a new expanded home for the historic Essex Street Market. Timber is required as the primary structural material. By celebrating visually the capabilities of timber, we created a structural grid that holds these programs together. The upper portion of the structure will work as a placeholder for future private living units while the lower levels will hold active public spaces. Utilizing the city blocks adjacent to Delancy St. and Essex St., we are expanding the existing market on the ground level while also creating a pedestrian path connecting both sides of the site. The path connects the static programs such as the market, and museum while creating a pedestrian path on the ground level to enhance the circulation of the site. An elevated bike path will also allow cyclists to maneuver through the site. A crane, located permanently on site, helps the phasing of housing units, acts as core circulation and as a visual representation of the constant change and construction of NYC through time. By displaying the programs mentioned previously we see an opportunity to revive this area of the city by offering activities for all age groups in consideration of the diverse character of the city’s demographic. 18

WANT Want is at most cyclical. Want, as well as need, are conceived of a perceived lack. A tension builds between want and have, and at some point it must be released. This work explores this interstitial space.

CENTER

Evan

FOR

Giles,

CINEMA Alex

STUDIES

Hochstetler,

Sited roughly in the center of Savannah College of Art and Design’s sprawling campus in Savannah, GA, the Center for Cinema Studies is a multi use mid-rise containing apartments for graduate students, gallery space, and accommodations for both displaying and teaching film. The essence of film is encapsulated in the control of light. By manipulating the relationship between dark and light, both within film and the spaces that house it, the emotional experience of the viewer is manipulated by the maker. This control of aperture, coupled with the stitching together of still-frames to create a whole underlaid our design process. The Center is itself a gradation of light, with the program broken up according to the light quality required by each space. Two theatres and small classrooms sit below grade, above which are two levels of gallery space are accessible to public and could be used for film showings, receptions etc. Above these public functions are two residential towers, containing one and two bedroom units, that are connected by a enclosed atrium space that connects back down to the sublevel space via a series of floor plate openings. As sunlight fills the void between the residential towers, the floor plates act as filters, which gradually sift the intensity of illumination in order to optimize each programs below. During sunlit hours, cinema is shown on the first and subterranean levels. Once the sun sets, the cinema showings move upward: projections of class projects, favorite films and music videos dot the gently angled walls of the atrium. The Center for Cinema Studies establishes a strong identity within the historical fabric of Savannah, while actively responding to the direct site context, which determines building datum lines and materiality, reflected by the local housing typology as well as The Center’s adjacent neighbor, a highly ornate Scottish Rite Temple. The heavy masonry base of the 100-year-old masonic temple continues the Spanish moss ‘ceiling’ line, draping a light sunshade over the sidewalks below. The proposed Cinema Studies project reacts to this condition, using a large, panelized translucent concrete system at the human scale, which portrays the weight of traditional Savannah homes, but then illuminates the streetscape after dusk, advertising the film gallery. The same panel scheme is used above for a contrasting plastic system, consisting of unique variations using opaque, translucent, and transparent infills to create privacy as well as thermal comfort for each space. This facade emphasizes verticality in response to the tall pilasters of the adjacent Scottish Rite Temple. The Center for Cinema Studies reinforces a cultural and academic node through its adjacencies to SCAD’s Student Admissions Building and the historic Scottish Rite Temple in the center of Savannah’s discontinuous campus layout. It creates public spaces for SCAD to showcase student work, reach out to prospective students and further integrate the city of Savannah with the academic and artistic community.

BIRDS, by

BATS,

James

AND

Lieven

GODS

Light rushes through the bottom crevice of the closed shade. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to open the floodgate, but people around me slip between black and white dreams. So here I sit. Gazing at cheap blue fabric of the seat head in front of me. The flattened world at the mercy of my gaze concealed by the thinnest of plastic membranes that shields their fragile dreams from the vibrant vastness of what is only seen by birds, bats, and gods.

TABLE

Caroline

Freese

Caroline Freese is an Iowan furniture designer who draws on the traditions of her home state to create handmade furniture and ceramics. She uses multiples in her designs to emphasize her focus on craft and modern shapes. 30

Nicole

TEMPTATIONS Becker,

Rob

Lawrence,

â&#x20AC;&#x153;... the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.â&#x20AC;? - Michael Pollan

The study considers the impact of consumerism and the consequences that the demands for food have had on the farm operations in rural Iowa. Human temptation to over consume has caused the industrialization of farming, resulting in the collapse of many small farms. The consumer demands created the need to preserve foods for longer periods of time. Food has become genetically modified to assist in the preservation to fulfill the needs of consumers. This farmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heritage has left a desire to study spatial phenomenon to represent the understanding of the farm through the act of making. 32

RED PAGES Through the Red Pages we continue to express our extreme gratitude towards the Department of Architecture here at Iowa State University. This year we dove into Peter Sloterdijk’s concept of explication while wading through 14 lectures composing the “What is the Urban? Register of a World interior” symposium. An event was conceived and curated from within by our very own Ross Exo Adams. We have also exchanged letters with world renowned architect and writer Juhani Pallasmaa, and warmly, welcomed Elia Zenghelis back for our second intensive masterclass, continuing to challenge our abilities to extrapolate and synthesize. You will also find a sneak peak into one of this year’s Biennale sessions, developed by Shelby Doyle and Leslie Forehand.

WHAT IS THE URBAN

“The modern urban experiment was stopped before it even got started. We need to restore experimentation to urban thinking. We need to make a better machine, not destroy the machine. Experimentation needs to be revised.” -Albert Pope (Rice University) “By a show of hands, how many of you think we’ve passed or will soon pass a tipping point, and that the world as we know it is doomed?” -James Scott (Yale University) A brief stop through Iowa State University has left me compelled to reflect upon an invigorating intellectual-trainingsession hosted by a former professor, Ross Adams. The two day symposium ‘What is the Urban? Registers of a World Interior’ was organized around a simple question that underpins Adams’ research: what actually is urbanization and the urban? The 14 lectures were divided into four broad categories intended to cast light upon this condition: Urban as Interior, Urban as Factory, Urban as Strategy, and Urban as Becoming. As the subtitle of the symposium suggests, the work of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk provided an important entry point into the lectures and discussions through his notion of the ‘world interior’ as a metaphorical framework for understanding the spaces of global capitalism. The keynote speaker whose work was clearly structured upon Sloterdijk’s was Albert Pope (Rice University) with his lecture entitled “Airquake” – also the title of one of Sloterdijk’s shorter, ancillary texts. The primary concept drawn upon by Pope via Sloterdijk was that of ‘explication.’ In Airquake, also referred to by its alternative English title Terror from the Air, Sloterdijk outlines moments in human history where various ‘givens’ were foregrounded in a violent way – moments when latent background conditions became explicit and were henceforth no longer able to be taken for granted. The primary explication explored in the text is that of the emergence of gas warfare in WWI, namely the first instance of using mustard

gas as a means to kill an enemy not by attacking the enemies bodies’ themselves, but by attacking the environment they exist within. This foregrounding of a previously safe environmental condition (in this case the ‘pneumatic common’, or the free breathable atmosphere that we all rely upon) is an important element in much of Sloterdijk’s work, and part of the reason why it is so appealing to architects: it gives clearer terminology and gravitas to architecture as a truly ‘immersive’ art; designed environments as modus vivendi; spaces in which bodies have no choice but to soak in. The concept of explication dovetails nicely with those of climate change, namely the way we come to know how limited and exclusive all of the things that we’ve taken for granted are, at least as humans in the developed West. Things like clean air, water, soil, food, etc. Indeed, Pope used Airquake in concert with a series of sobering statistics referring to climate change as a means to set the stage for the project he’s been developing with students at Rice University in Houston. The project was an extension of Pope’s seminal work on post war housing in America, in particular his text entitled Ladders. His research looks at how the production of suburban fabrics creates a number of troubling contradictions and insidious patterns of organization; interpretations which by extension prove useful in illuminating the urban. Without doing a full on book review (and I have yet to read the book in its entirety), suffice it to say that while the ‘ladder’ is both an expansive and proliferating spatial logic, it also produces alienation and the effect of a closed diagram. As opposed to the grid-iron form of organization, where any individual circulating from point A to point B can be carried out in a multitude of ways, on a ‘ladder’ there is only one way to get from point A to point B. This places individuals in suburbia at the centre of a ‘spiral’ both physically and psychologically. In this way the spiral ‘produces individualism’.

post-war sense of individualism is directly related to how Americans find themselves “at the end of the cul-de-sac.” Rather than get into the specifics of what constitutes suburban vs. urban or rural space, one of the main points of the lecture was that many of American cities are constructed in a kind of ladder/suburban-spiral logic, and that, for Pope, we should consider returning to a hyper dense gridiron framework that has been proven to work in cities like New York, a truly ‘green’ city when considered in terms of efficiency and density. This simple idea was proposed in concert with a serious conviction regarding the use of sustainably forested materials and renewed considerations regarding time and the cycles of human life and domesticity. It was a sobering yet potent lecture that ultimately suggested a re-working of the modern architectural project in American cities. Interestingly, the anecdote from Sloterdijk’s Airquake that Pope didn’t address, or perhaps didn’t find relevant, warns of the peril that is at the heart of operating in the same modern way Pope endorsed. In a later chapter in the text, Sloterdijk explores another form of ‘explication’, this time in regards to Dada, Surrealism, and the work of Salvador Dali. These artistic movements were engaging in psychological explication, using art to foreground or bring to the foreground the subconscious in jarring and violent ways. Sloterdijk tells the story of Dali nearly killing himself in one of his surrealist performances: literally in one of his performative explications. This warning of performing an explication is akin to establishing a design project based on the new challenges humanity encounters with climate change. Design is always a performance, in the sense of it consisting of certain codes, rituals and conducts, and if we play too closely to the tenets of modernity we will inevitably exacerbate that which we seek to fix. This kind of modern thinking was found in many different forms throughout the symposium and is practiced by many designers and 39

thinkers throughout the world. One of the guest speakers, James Scott, a political scientist and anthropologist from Yale, talked about humanity’s responsibility to fix climate change, as we are “the custodians of the earth”. This rhetoric is never far from discussions surrounding activism and climate change. As good as this sounds, and as responsible as certain parts of humanity should be held for destroying the ‘free gift’ that we today refer to as the Earth, it is this kind of thinking that reasserts the ecological sovereignty so foundational to the engineered crisis we now face. If we are truly humans who have domesticated the earth, have become its custodians, then we fail to recognize that we are embedded in the world as a process. Far from roaming on top of this nouncalled-planet-Earth, humans are in fact what that very noun is doing. At least this is what I gathered from Heidegger when he said (and when Ross cited) “the world worlds…” The world is a verb - an old one at that - and in humanity’s meagre 200,000 years of existence, it is only recently that we’ve felt compelled to re-engineer or domesticate this process as we see fit. One of the questions that hovered over the round table discussion led by Pope was: how then do we act as architects if we can’t make a project out of the earth? The only reason we can speak of modernity as a clearly articulated attitude is because modernity had/ has a project. The discussions at the symposium tripped up on this more than a few times, as the divide between modern and other attitudes were made known through a conceptual ‘flipping of the coin’: between rallying behind a design project and recognizing the flawed thinking embedded in that same project. Albert Pope preceded his lecture by saying we all need to change the way we live; that the coal companies are too quickly demonized and that there is actually a lot we can do from the get-go as humans. While this may be true, I can’t help but feel that a way forward in the Anthropocene as a project is precisely in seeing through the personal burden that 40

we supposedly all share as ‘custodians of the earth’. It seems far more productive to blame Iowans, Houstonians and the coal companies (let off the hook by Pope) for the conditions they/we’ve produced, than all of humanity; if we all are responsible, then no one is. Only paralysis ensues. For me it was the notion of time as being thick, as requiring that buildings and building cycles be considered in duration longer than any handful of generations currently inhabiting the urban, which was the most promising aspect of Pope’s project and lecture. There is a long history of architects concerned with ‘cycles’ that would have provided an interesting supplement here. I immediately thought of the work of Herman Hertzberger, less so in the buildings he produced than in the ways he’s written about the life cycles of buildings versus the cycles of tenants, familial generations, seasons and rhythmic intervals more generally. Many of Pope’s diagrams echoed Hertzberger’s sketches, and some of his ideas about architects not just designing buildings but ‘designing cycles’ is exactly in the same mental space Hertzberger must have been in. Upon completing his lecture, Albert Pope led a brilliant question and answer session, one of the highlights of which was an answer to the questions about why architects, in all of their visual prowess and technical brilliance, didn’t show more experiential views of their proposals. Pope’s response was quite generous in the context of the talk, and it basically gravitated around the obvious ‘limits of the human sensorium’ (gesturing towards Sloterdijk’s notion of the microsphere or autogenous ‘bubble’ of every individual) implying that a concern with human experience in the construction of the urban is also integral to the production of suburbia, of ‘ladder’ configurations; that the scale of the human, when paired with the technologies of infrastructure, aids in the proliferation of the urban. For Pope, as for most architects, there is a professional obligation towards thinking beyond the individual experience toward the loose organization of multitudinous experiences. In many ways Albert Pope’s lecture

was indicative of the symposium as a whole. The event generated insightful discussions and exchanges between internationally renowned scholars in an often overlooked yet undeniably urban locale. Presentations were performed with tremendous oral and visual finesse, and the diversity of both content and forms of research was invigorating. [If I had to summarize the other 13 lectures into concepts that had my antenna buzzing, it would read as follows (as regurgitated from my furious note taking): It was clear from the symposium – in the lectures, coffee breaks, dinners and roundtables – that when we were talking about the urban we were also in part talking about power, space and colonialism, a seemingly seamless space (naturally filled with holes); and when we were talking about urbanization, we were often discussing the folding of a given world into new institutional structures, into pre-existing taxonomies; restructuring forms of government; rearrangement; diagrams of automata; a decontextualizing affective force, de- and re-territorializing land into machines of circulation and domesticity; a kind of ‘underlying reverberation’, a continuous ‘proliferation of non-subsumable details’; a theft, in the form of auto-construction; a thick, slippery force, made known through its violent inscription…In a manner characteristic of all shifting signifiers, the urban became a distorted reflection of every topic into one another, producing an impossible polyphonic unity. A huge kudos to Ross, Ali, and the department for pulling it all off. What is the Urban? will undoubtedly form an important reference for future, albeit dizzying explications.

Extras: Eco-pragmatics and morality in architecture. Sloterdijk’s anecdote raises an interesting relationship: that between ecological crises and surrealism. Certainly we see a lot of defiance today in the face of overwhelming evidence surrounding climate change (or perhaps more accurately, climate weirding). The eco-pragmatic architect, technological emancipator, hinges upon a particular defiance regarding notions of scale. It is easy for an ecological imbalance to be corrected at the scale of an aquarium or building, but to assume that its application at larger scales, its capacity to ‘scale-up’ (in business terms), will happen in a smooth, frictionless manner is simply false. Nikos Katsikis’ depiction of broad patterns of uneven development and the question of history in the Planetary Urbanization agenda; Charles Rice and his reading of ‘new spatial correlates’, using Portman to craft a genealogy of the street, the unnerving sensation everyone felt with the question “why do we still imagine that what are being created are still streets?”; Antonio Petrov’s retelling of Bruno Taut and his adolescent Nietzsche notations, ‘irregular landscapes of empathy’, of Zarathustra and the morality of transparency, of Sorgel and Atlantropa, Ernst and Europe; Max Viatori’s talk on ocean mapping in Peru, on double internalities/externalities and the class politics associated with seemingly simple coastal ‘offsets’ (which makes one think of the political potentialities of every banal AutoCAD command: OFFSET, FILLET, HATCH); the use of classical forms deployed by Design Earth, the way complex forms merely engender complex and less useful discussions, of designing ‘strategies of care’; Jane Rongerude and the politics of empathy in affordable housing in Des Moines; Kenny Cupers analysis of the ‘internal colonization’ of post WWI German South Africa, the coupling of energy and territory in the production of hinterlands; Ayala Levin’s unveiling of the false depiction of linear rationales in otherwise circular logics, cybernetics and the invention of the region in the 1965 plan for Sierra Leone; Marwan Ghandour’s history of Iowan landscapes, intimations of productive atomization and a disconcerting inability to visually identify ‘the rural’ (anticipating the title of the next symposium?); Adbul Maliq Simone’s performative description of autoconstruction, making ways of life, inscription and inoperability in the black city; Alice Randall’s brilliant production of urban imaginaries through Ziggy Johnson, being imagined into a city, the erotic freedom of hotels as a counterpoint to contemporary domesticity; Barbara Ching and the fine line between advertisement and anarchy at Iowa State and american campuses.]

Photo Credit: Sean Wittmeyer

Reflections Text

on by

the

Callah

Masterclass Nelson

This year marks the second consecutive year that the Department of Architecture has welcomed Elia Zenghelis to host an intense, week-long masterclass. Similar to last year, the ultimate objective was to, in Elia’s words, “cultivate a particular way of thinking.” … “Architecture is in the doldrums.” His glossy, cyanotype blue eyes scan each of our own, slowly stopping at every set while he lets this notion sink in. It is the second day of this week-long event and Elia has been inspiring us and opening our minds up to concepts such as “modernity,” “domesticity” and “public condenser.” Divided into teams of two, we begin an in-depth analysis on pairs of seminal architectural paradigms that represent the evolution of the modern movement and the concepts that constituted it. These range from Peter Behrens’ AEG Turbine Factory and the Werkbund, to Eames’ Case Study House and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, to an End Paradigm of Archizoom’s No-Stop City & Dogma’s Stop City: The Limitless and the Finite. It is not often that we are provided a prompt in which two paradigms may be considered beside one another. When analyzed in pairs what is particularly interestingfascinating is to examine one project through the lens of the other;taking the conceptual intent of one project and analyzing the other using this new set of criteria. This method helps to illuminate that which was not immediately apparent before. Under such an intense time crunch, we were able to capitalize on this opportunity to interpret conditions through existing lenses and, most importantly, to take a position. These manifested themselves in the selected images that follow. On the final day, we stand at the front of the presentation space absorbing the critical remarks pointed at the details and specifics of our images. The ebb and flow of presentation and critique went on for almost an hour before the conversation was shaken up with one question. “How was this masterclass useful to you?” What became apparent with this question was the importance of honing one’s ability to analyze lofty concepts in an overwhelming field of information and, most importantly, synthesize in a matter of days. To answer this question simply; To take a stance.

Photo Credit: Sean Wittmeyer

Ashley Schmitz & Kelsie Stopak

Ben Kruse & Elizabeth Jenson

Alison Brunn, Paolo Orlando, Zeinab Amiri 48

Nicole Becker, Ryan Carter 49

Preston Mila, Nicholas Savage

Ran Gu, Callah Nelson

Biennale

Shelby

Doyle

Reporting from the Front is the celebrated theme of the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture curated by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena of Elemental. Arevena states that there are several battles that need to be won and several frontiers that need to be expanded in order to improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life. The theme aims to focus on architecture which works within the constraints presented by a lack of resources, and those designs which subvert the status quo to produce architecture for the common good - no matter how small the success. Arevena’s curatorial statement concludes with ‘there is not only need but also room for action.’ The ISU.CoD.DoA Biennale Session will consist of a two-day student workshop entitled Making Room: Design/Carry/ Build and a one-day colloquium will address the first of the themes –To Be 52

Sessions

and

Leslie

Fore-

entitled Making Room: Design/Carry/ Build and a one-day colloquium will address the first of the themes –To Be Determined Both address the Biennale themes - Reporting From the Front. The workshop, led by Shelby Doyle and Leslie Forehand will consider both the Giardini and the Arsenale exhibitions as sites for action, for making room. Fifty design, interior design, and architecture students, faculty and beyond will create a dynamic form that elevates our understanding of the performative actions of making room through architectural engagement, the most elemental production of architecture. In the end, this temporal installation will serve as an architectural intervention to a near-invisible condition of the plane before us, Making Room: Design/ Carry/Build The focus on non-classified architecture leads into a discussion of the

architecture of groups underserved by the traditional profession: the other – be that the impoverished (or any otherness). Does the concept of architecture as craft beget a non-traditional practice? And how does the architect address poverty when he himself is not impoverished? In The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Elaine Scarry remarks on the de-objectifying effect of pain and its consequent destruction of language. On this lack of referential content Scarry says, “...it is not surprising that the language for pain should sometimes be brought into being by those who are not themselves in pain but who speak on behalf of those who are...”[1] However, how do those who speak gain their voice and their agency? For Scarry this happens through the act of imagining. Through imagination, the speaker can enter into the unsharable space between the certainty of pain and the doubt of its objectlessness. “...Imagining may entail a revolution of the entire order of things, the eclipse of the given by a total reinvention of the world, an artifact (a relocated piece of coal, a sentence, a cup, a piece of lace) is a fragment of world alteration. Imagining a city, the human being “makes” a house; imagining a political utopia, he or she instead helps to build a country; imagining the elimination of suffering from the world, the person instead nurses a friend back to health.” [2] Despite Scarry’s conviction that imagination alone produces agency, she does allow that the objects resulting from imagination have their own agency: “...through tools and acts of making, human beings become implicated in each other’s sentience.” Or as John Ruskin, declared in The Crown of Wild Olive: “what we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”[3] It can therefore be reasoned that a consciousness of things cannot be independent of the things themselves. Through an engaged material consciousness, we become particularly interested in the things we can change. 53

THE

EXISTENTIAL ACT

interview with Juhani Pallasmaa

D: Datum JP: Juhani

Pallasmaa

D: Education is primarily vision centric, dealing in the world of ideas not reality, and lacking tactility. Is vision centric representation in school the primary reason architecture as a whole has become so flat and vision focused? If so, why? JP: Vision is the sense of control and dominance, not of participation and sharing. Our western industrial culture as a whole has developed towards the dominance of vision since antiquity. Cultures vary in the hierarchies they give to the senses and even our culture was dominated by hearing and smell until the eighteenth century, historians argue. We associate vision, truth and knowledge, and it is an intellectualized value judgment that makes us prioritize vision, although vision has been connected with truth since the Greek philosophers. Our educational philosophy has adapted this vision-centered view. Along with the recent cultural development, architecture 54

has turned increasingly visual and it has lost its sense of materiality, tactility and presence, and turned into an immaterial image. The technological development has further advanced this attitude of distancing and unreality.

ethical and scientific autonomies when they are made to serve directly the economic and production world. Architects need to be educated as free and comprehensive thinkers and they should exemplify critical independent wisdom.

D: Do you find this to be a problem? If so how do you suggest we shift this perspective?

D: In your experience as an educator, have you pursued alternative approaches to teaching? e.g. installation based studio?

JP: I see this as a huge problem. For me, the task of architecture is to place and house us in the world. But being in-theworld authentically, is a multi-sensory and existential act, through which we feel our unity with the world. Vision separates us and makes us outsiders in the world. This distance calls for new thinking and a re-tuning of our sensory balance. We can become more conscious of our sensory reality and emancipate our suppressed senses. The most important sense for architecture is touch, not only touching by the skin, but especially the ideated touch experienced unconsciously through vision. We touch the world through vision, but our culture tends to reject this essential existential connection with the world. D: Many students feel the pressure to focus their studies within their architectural education. Do you see architecture as a field to be studied in order to prepare for the professional filed, or is it a way of thinking that should reach beyond? JP: I have always been critical of strictly professionalist education. The main purpose of university education is to make us knowing, observant, critical and deeply feeling individuals. Architecture is too widely and existentially rooted in the human existential reality, to be seen merely as a formalized practice. In my view, architectural education should not be controlled by the profession, but be independent and critical of it. Universities at large are losing their

JP: I have always taught architecture through other art forms, literature, visual arts, theater, cinema, and music. Architecture is an expression and articulation of the human existential condition – how it feels to be a human being in this world – and this can be learned through the other arts. There is a special category in art that of epic art, which includes art forms that deal with culture, human life, and their historical continuum. Architecture used to be an epic art form, but it has regrettably regressed to an episodic art form, that only provides interesting moments instead of rooting us in the grand continuum of culture and life. The fundamental existential issues in architecture are usually lost behind the dense layers of rationalization, instrumentality, technique, codes, regulations, etc., whereas in poetry, music, and painting, the mental layers are directly present and pure. The fact that students today are losing their personal contact with history and books, and they do not work with materials by their own hands, will have catastrophic consequences. We are losing our silent embodied skills and wisdom. Simply, Google and the computer will not replace human curiosity, imagination, and the power of emotion and feeling. We need to get back to the “flesh of the world,” to use the wonderful notion of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. We need to return to a “thick,” sensory and sensual reality. 55

D: Have you seen any greater shifts or changes over the course of your academic career? JP: The most dramatic shift has been the move to the digital world. It has, of course, opened unforeseen possibilities, but it has also impoverished our embodied and mental worlds. It would be naïve to speak against the computer, but is responsible to oppose the misuse of the computer. The most dangerous distortion is the technological hubris, and a blind confidence in the computer is an example of this. In terms of thinking, the most important one has been the recent strengthening of the experiential reality of architecture through the phenomenological interest in the art form. The new consciousness of the biased hegemony of the eye and the consequent suppression of the other senses has given a philosophical and historical ground for a critical position and an alternative ground for thinking about and making architecture. The ground of sensory realism, which keeps us away from manipulation, aestheticization and formalism. D: What should students be thinking about? Has design education itself become so split and specified that we don’t think about how the world works in a more general sense? JP: Your question is a very pertinent one. We all should think alertly of the world in all its dizzying complexity. We should also begin to understand who we are as biological beings, and what we essentially want to become. This is the view of Edward O. Wilson, the great biologist and spokesman of Biophilia, the science and love of life. I advise students to become interested in the biological phenomena, our own biological historicity, as well as in our own mental worlds, including 56

our most humane capacity, that of imagination. The world, “the flesh of the world,” and our minds, memories, and imaginations form a continuum, a magical Möbius strip that has two sides, but only one single continuous surface. D: Do you see writing as an architecture, or possibly as a space to inhabit? JP: Too many practicing architects have a belittling view of architectural writing and philosophy. However, during the past few years an interest in architectural writing and approaching architectural issues through verbal means has increased as have international competition in architectural writing. I can mention a general history of architectural writing Architektur wie sie im Buche steht edited by Winfried Nerdinger (2006), Marilyn R. Chandler’s book Dwelling in the Text: Houses in American Fiction (1991), and Klaske Havik’s Urban Literacy: Reading and Writing (2014), on the use of the verbal approach in design work itself. For me, literary, painterly and cinematic depictions of settings and spaces have been seminal for my understanding of the mental, emotive and mythical dimensions in buildings. I have myself written a book on cinematic architecture, The Architecture of Image: existential space in cinema (2001). Architecture has a material existence and an experiential and mental existence, and the latter can be encountered through literary means – the title of Chandler’s book suggests actual dwelling in text [which] has to be taken metaphorically, but the experiential and mental dimensions and meanings of dwelling can well be mediated by text. D: What role do you believe your writing has, both in your own practice of architecture, and also in the larger architectural discourse?

JP: When I began to write seriously in the 1980s, which necessarily implied taking time away from my design work, I had hesitations. I felt that I should focus on design work in order to have a presence in the field of architecture. In a few years, I realized that I could actually have a wider presence through writing. Now, wherever I travel in the world â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and I do travel a lot, last year four and half rounds around the globe, this year three and half; there is always someone who comes to thank me for my writings. Three years ago I actually closed down my design activities in order to write, lecture, and teach. I guess my writings today fuse my perspectives from half a century of architectural practice with a serious engagement in the arts and rather active reading in various fields. My writing always arises from my personal experiences and thinking, although I use a lot of references. My most important frame of thinking is phenomenological philosophy, but I have recently also written on architecture and neuroscience, as well as empathy and atmospheres. I do not have a personal project or overall plan; I go wherever my observations, thinking and writing take me.

Inattention The following work exploits care-free negligence. Once realized, inattentions can illuminate the most compelling considerations.

TWO

202

TWO

STUDIO

Two x Two was a design-build studio project completed during the Spring semester of 2016 by 77 2nd year architecture students. Five weeks were spent designing, developing, fabricating, and assembling a large scale installation for the College of Design atrium. The project aimed to redefine the atrium as a public space by introducing new programs and challenging conventions of how the space is used. For three weeks the project transformed interactions within the atrium and added a unique inhabitable area to Iowa State’s campus. In its beginning, the studio began with precedent research into public spaces such as Millennium Park and The High Line, as well as observational studies which collected information on sites around campus and the College of Design atrium. Using data gathered, students responded by designing segments of what would become part of the overall design. One proposal from each of the five studio sections was selected through a vote and merged together. The segments proposed by each section were modeled in Rhino and refined into a single 25’x20’ structure. Inspired by SHoP Architect’s Dunescape, students followed similar methods of construction and use of lumber as a material. Using the form produced in Rhino, a documentation team began converting the 3D model into 2D annotated AutoCAD drawings which fabrication crews used for cutting and measuring parts of the structure. In total, over 2100 individual pieces of lumber derived from 200 pages of drawings made up the installation. In a system lead and organized by students, fabrication took less than three weeks and assembly a matter of a few days to bring the project to completion prior to its opening ceremony. Working together to combine ideas and overcome setbacks, all while maintaining the integrity of the concept throughout, students were able to experience a piece what architecture truly entails. The final installation was well-received and became a popular place for individuals to congregate and share experiences. During the three weeks the installation stood in the atrium, people were attracted from across the university to see what had been created. As a new project for the Architecture Department, Two x Two set a standard of expectations in its exploration of beauty, expressed construction, and craftsmanship. Following deconstruction at the College of Design, Two x Two was relocated to the university-owned public garden, Reiman Gardens, where it became a favorite among children and families. A popular location in Iowa, Reiman Gardens extended the enjoyment of Two x Two to the larger audience of visitors attracted to the site each year.

All Photos By: Christopher Gannon 60

Practicing Presence: How Two x Two personalized a discussion

Designers have to be thinkers, dreamers, drawers, artists, builders, cogitators, workers, programmers, leaders, environmentalists, nurturers, drafters and frontrunners. They don’t have to be male. This is obvious to society, but sometimes a reminder aids to dispel the still semi-prevalent image we all have of white older men in black turtlenecks and spectacles. How can we, as students, change the way that “capital-S” Society supports confident women in the field of architecture? The solution I feel most authorized to give is to focus not on an absence of representation and ask “where are all the women in this room?”, but to actively support the women in academia and practice by supporting assertiveness, technology, and leadership amongst anyone who wishes to succeed. To achieve this level of support, the best thing that academia can do is teach exploration of craft, of creation, of people. This exploratory experience for me was co-managing such an integrated design-build project as Two by Two. 66

gender

It was a hot, crowded room of approximately twenty students with two or three women represented, and we were making adjustments to a preliminary Rhinoceros model for an upcoming design-build project, Two by Two. I was not editing at as customary a speed. I remember having three different male classmates over my shoulder pointing at my screen and telling me three entirely different ways that I should fix the model. It was a stressful experience where I felt unsupported and was one of the first moments of my design education that showed what it might be like to work in the professional field of architecture and work with the intensity that builds under a deadline. It is also the first time I was pressed with the question, “where are all the women in the room?” This isn’t another statistic of women being underrepresented, it was a real, personal experience that showed me what an absence of women in the field feels like on an academic scale that could relate to practice. I had to stand up for what I knew how to do, which is one of the most

important skills that if emphasized could further the presence of current women in Architecture, as long as we listen. Technology, a sector of industry that has historically been primarily male, is entering into the professional and academic world exponentially. Our project relied heavily on this model and the contributions of many people modeling, drafting, annotating and coding using Grasshopper, Rhinoceros and AutoCAD. These aspects of the project were executed by a large portion of the project members, both male and female, but the core digital modeling group was made up of myself and seven of the men from our studio. Does this mean that technology in our particular studio relied primarily on men? Absolutely not. But it does petition a more thoughtful perseverance to ensure that the women who do have an interest or compatibility with software feel supported and welcome when they represent a minority.

our field. Along these lines, women in studio shouldn’t have to feel like they must develop traits like control or dominant competitiveness to fit in when they join the professional world of architecture. In fact, many studies today are discovering the differences in leadership traits between men and women and analyzing the different situations and preferences that lead to a lack of women in leadership. It seems that for women to become even partners in the field of architecture, society must develop in a way where multiple traits of leadership and design can be accepted as effective. We as students are the future problem-solvers and thinkers of this era, a responsibility that cannot be abstracted by an absence of a supportive, creative, and present minds.

Due to the size of the project, there were different parts that either my male co-leader or I dealt with. My primary role involved talking with individuals about their levels of participation and engagement, as some people didn’t feel fulfilled in their roles and were not happy with the state of the project. Specifically, I had conversations with individuals about how they didn’t appreciate the more direct and commanding styles of leadership they saw from project leaders. They felt that such a style was too demanding and they even thought that I was being overpowered as a co-leader because I wasn’t as outwardly vocal or confrontational. In reflection, it might have appeared I wasn’t as strong of a leader, but in reality this was absolutely not true. Simply because dominant leadership traits are more vocal and observable doesn’t mean that quiet or more implanted traits such as collaboration, compassion, and balance should be valued any less by society and 67

Harm’s

Collaborative

Way

Studio

When you think of a typical design studio, the first scene to come to mind is probably a high end project within a sprawling cityscape where your main concepts are based off of views and daylighting, not whether or not your building can withstand heavy firepower. The latter is definitely a concern when designing in a war zone, which is exactly where Interior Design Professor and Chair Lee Cagley’s “In Harm’s Way: Interior Design for Modern Combat” studio set up camp this past Fall semester. The goal of this graduate level Interior Design studio was to challenge the way combat outposts are designed to keep our military safe from both enemies and the potential onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The students of “In Harm’s Way” have initiated the beginning of an era where design can protect our deployed military both physically and mentally. Society has known the effects of PTSD for years, yet has limited treatments for this diagnosis to therapy and medications. One of the most common statements from veterans with PTSD was that they never truly felt safe while deployed. Research done by the students revealed that very little has changed in the design of outposts over the years, including the cots which were initially designed for World War II. This insecure feeling leads soldiers to avoid confrontation with their traumatic experiences until they are home, where it becomes difficult to cope. Therein lies the root of the problem, which Lee and his students fought to overcome by questioning how the environment our deployed military are housed in can be designed to help fight against PTSD. With all of this in mind, students set forth to redesign a 30,000 square foot compound that would accommodate 100 to 120 military personnel. Design proposals included safe zones for mediation and more user friendly billeting enclosures (living quarters). Stronger materials such as compressed Sacon, a glass-fiber reinforced concrete that has the ability to absorb munitions, and transparent aluminum that can withstand the force of a 50 caliber round without shattering, would keep our military safe. The materials would protect the soldiers from attack and also put their minds at ease with the hope that knowing they are safe within their compound will give them stronger mental health. Though the focus of the studio was on relieving military of PTSD, these same solutions could be implemented for other trauma victims on home soil. One project in particular, completed by the lone Industrial Design graduate student, acts as an interface for users to record and play back their verbally cataloged thoughts. The goal of this feedback loop enabler is to allow patients a sense of distance and perspective on their traumatic experience. With such a device, those suffering from traumatic encounters could begin the process of understanding and self-healing before the point of diagnosable PTSD. This begs to ask the question “Why hasn’t anything been done before now to aid in the prevention of PTSD, especially through design solutions?” Even Professor Cagley is unsure of the reasoning behind the lack of attention towards design in military conditions, but hopes to end the drought and change the way combat outposts are viewed by our military. He looks forward to teaching the studio in the future and is hoping to receive a grant to construct and test prototypes at Camp Dodge. If this studio proves anything, it is that we must take these opportunities within academia to face challenges that have been overlooked or simply unexplored in order to make changes for the better.

Memory Recalling or recognizing previous experiences. Memory tends to act as a most powerful form of absence. In this sense it feels its lacks, it wants. How powerful it is to remember.

Labor

Zack

Chapel

Werba

Yasong

The revealing of the labor situation in Detroit plays a vital role in explaining its past and future state. Detroit is a wasteland of industry and the memories of the laborers that once occupied those spaces. The materials of those buildings have become ruined, and although they are inhabitable they tell the story of Milwaukee Junction and Detroit as a whole. The construction and demolition process is engaged in labor. We propose that the material of Detroit (the memories of the labors that once occurred) be collected and archived. This database of material can inspire a community and begin to reveal the culture of the city. The labor chapel is a linear passageway that acts as a reflective space. Through contrast of scales, light and darkness, and materiality, we want to create a phenomenon that encourages people to discover the spaces through moving horizontally as well as vertically. When walking inside, one can feel the fluidity of the passageways created within a mass. To develop an understanding of the spaces we wanted to create and manipulate objects from ruined buildings to get atmospherically rich spaces. The models deal with light and apertures and takes on a form of architectural thinking. The effects created must be translated into architectural surfaces, which can be defined by materials and forms. How the surfaces act with edges creates an incoherent experience for people. When passing through the spaces, one can touch, hear, and feel heightened emotions. The physical movement evokes mental feelings with each personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own experience. That experience is the subconscious act of labor. Which is the physicality one exerts to move through space.

Being

Towards

Death

Ryan Carter, Callah Nelson, Jenna Wiegand, James Zeller

Within the San Francisco Bay limits, the dead have an unusual history of marginalization. This project focuses on the ritual of mourning and burial from a new perspective of urban consciousness. Typically, the embalming process begins with replacement of the fluids in the body with a formaldehyde-based solution. Due to the objectionable odor of the solution, it is typically mixed with a cocktail of fragrances and colors to emulate the life-color of the living body. The mortician prepares the recently deceased, closing wounds, securing the mouth and eyes shut, and eventually having the hair cut and styled and applying makeup to the face and neck. The dressed corpse is placed in an upholstered box and displayed, usually to the public, for several days. The body is then buried and discarded into it’s final resting place outside the city limits, where it slowly rots and leaches into the ground. This process of embalming wastefully attaches the identity of the deceased to a corpse, a connection which makes necessary the archival of deceased bodies; Within conversations of Western attitudes towards death-related practices, Sociologists and anthropologists argue that these have led to it becoming taboo, denied or sequestered. Our discomfort with death leads us to marginalize it, place it underneath a veil of ignorance. We ignore the reality of our relationship with death and our irreverence towards it, which we see manifested in our collective history of removing graves from within the city of San Francisco and re-burying the bodies in the city of Colma. In a documentary titled “A Second Final Rest,” Ena Mendle recounts a conversation with her father,“He told me 80

‘oh, your great grandmother and great grandfather are buried there. I didn’t get around to it until one day I went over there and they had already started digging up the coffins and destroying the graves. I still to this day don’t know where my great grandmother and grandfather were moved to.”These bodies along with many others, have been displaced to the city of Colma, located 2 miles south of the San Francisco city limits. Colma is known by its excessive ratio of dead to living, approximately 1,500 bodies per capita. This left only two burial places within the city; the Columbarium and the San Francisco National Cemetery. At the beginning of the 20th century the development of the city, as a result of the gold rush, was expanding exponentially. Real estate values skyrocketed, and the attitudes of the residents surrounding existing cemeteries deemed these spaces less important than the possibilities of future land development. During the construction of the addition to the fine arts museums of San Francisco, it became evident that the site was the location of an informal burial ground within the city. Archeologists knew this, but nobody quite knew the extent of it; around 800 burials were excavated and many many more were left in place. While digging trenches, workers would come across a burial that was halfway inside the trench and halfway out. As the number of excavations began slowing down the project, workers were told at the end that “in order to speed things up you need to take half the burial and leave the other half in the trench, or in the wall of the trench because it’s taking too long.” In the documentary, a photographer documenting the project stated:

“...what became interesting was the building, the skeleton of the building...and the skeletons that were actually there... and the fact that while one was being exhumed, the other was being deconstructed and put back together. ...you began to see the care that was being taken of the artwork...and the care in terms of the crating and the padding that was going on and then what was happening on the outside was these burials being thrown into cardboard boxes.” It’s evident through this example that a new way of archiving and transitioning the living to the dead is needed within the urban fabric. Natural burial exists and is practiced today, involving some of the same aspects of a traditional funeral, minus the public viewing of the body. The remains are buried unaltered with a sapling of a tree. As the body decomposes, the tree absorbs the reconstituted matter of the individual to make a new kind of living monument. As a middle ground between traditional and natural burial practices, we propose processing the large number of deaths in San Francisco with the technique called Promession. This involves granulating the body by crystallizing it in liquid nitrogen, vibrating via sound waves, and then freeze-drying to remove excess moisture. The result is not unlike cremated remains, but does not contribute to the pollution of the air or ground. This saves space, makes room for a new architecture and brings the memory of our ancestors back into the fabric of the city. It provides a space to grieve within San Francisco; grieving that is not marginalized but centralized. Leland De La Durantaye in his Cabinet article entitled ‘Mode of Death’1 states, “(the character)Fashion begins with the bright side of Death, that it ‘continually renews the world,’ and argues that this renewal is a part of their shared calling. Seeing death as an unhappy ending is to see only one half of the story—and is to leave out the fresh beginning which is, ultimately, a question of perspective .” Our project celebrates the anti-perspective to death as an ‘unhappy’ end and brings this phenomenon back into the city fabric. This is our goal; to once again make room to memorialize the dead within the city of San Francisco, and give it an honored placement at the center of the city. 1 Cabinet Issue 49, Spring 2013, Durantaye Quoting Giocomo Leopardi’s “Dialogue Between Fashion and Death” 81

Where by

Were

Ryan

You?

Carter

“Architecture stands with one leg in a world that’s 3000 years old and another leg in the 21st Century… You could say we are the last profession that has a memory, or the last profession whose roots go back 3000 years and still demonstrates the relevance of those long roads today. Initially, I thought were misplaced to deal with the present, but what we offer the present is memory” - Rem Koolhaas, Interview, May 20161 Architects are both organizers and archivists. In addition to all pragmatic concerns of building making, architects bear the responsibility of locating a project in relation to history. Architecture flattens the past and present, providing a ‘fixed-position’ in order to understand contemporary structures. Structures ‘fix’ themselves in relation to history through the medium of space. These spaces, or the three dimensional environs2 that we inhabit, serve as a means to inhabit and manifest ideas, events, or people that no longer occupy the contemporary context. As constructed objects, these manifestations exist in the ‘real’ visible realm for a large length of time. This characteristic means that architecture should serve as a carefully planned physical repository of things that are physically absent; that is, architecture should serve as a memory bank. Significance of Memory Why is memory essential? Perhaps the best answer to this question is within cases of extreme memories; those that have had an impact on all humanity. The example of Auschwitz comes to mind. These camps represent a point in history that was the result of the decisions and beliefs of a group of people during a specific period of time. It shows the end result of those actions and stands as a warning to those who would try to walk that road again. Closer to home, the phrase “never forget” immediately hearkens the events that occurred on September 11th. While it is frequently used as a catchphrase to push questionable policies or silence opposition, the fact remains that this event deeply impacted American 1 Koolhaas, Rem, interview with Mohsen Mostafavi, on Budds, Diana, “Rem Koolhaas: “Architecture has a serious Problem Today” http://www.fastcodesign.com/3060135/innovation-by-design/rem-koolhaas-architecture-has-a-serious-problem-today . Accessed 6/22/2016 2 While space eludes definition, I use it to refer to the three dimensional world. I know that it includes elusive elements that are invisible to humans but are powerfully felt. For the purposes of the argument presented in this essay, I have divorced the two elements to show how they relate to one another in a specific way. 84

culture. Memory’s significance is that it shows us how those who have gone before made decisions within their context and the outcomes of those decisions. It’s a demonstration of social, cultural and political experiences and as such is essential for societal learning. Association of Memory and Space In his book ‘The Poetics of Space’ Gaston Bachelard states, “Memories are motionless, and the more securely they are fixed in space, the sounder they are.” (pg. 92)3 Think again of the example seen in Auschwitz. This appeal found on the homepage of the Auschwitz-Birkenau website ties memory with a specific place. “Memory is not something that is acquired once and stays on forever. The moment that the last eyewitnesses and survivors pass away, we have to work together to build on that which remains: the testimonies of those former prisoners and the authentic artifacts connected with Auschwitz. Each item can have its own enormous meaning and should find its place in the collection of the Auschwitz Memorial. Here, it will be preserved, studied, and displayed. Its place is here.” The argument of the curators of Auschwitz is that this place serves as a physical documentation of a particular period of time. The structures and ruins here serve as a repository for objects and memories that are significant to all of humanity. This is the draw, to put it crudely, of this place. Its power is not in the ruined and basic structures in empty fields but in the embodied memory of a human tragedy. The fully preserved remains act as a vessel for a finite, yet significant, period of time. A slightly different perspective on the association of memory to the three dimensional world can be seen in a personal example. Think of a significant occurrence within your own life. For me, it is a Tuesday afternoon. I can see the bright, blue sky, free of clouds through a window in my classroom. An important person – maybe the principal – walks in and whispers something to the teacher. Being a fifth grader, I think nothing of the minor episode. Later that day as I was waiting for my mom to pick me up in our beat up mini-van I heard a couple people talking about some planes hitting a building. Again, nothing serious for a fifth grader with an avid imagination. I was just excited to go home and re-enact famous battles on three-acres of Iowa landscape, surrounded by cornfields. The significance of the events that occurred on that fateful September day sank in that evening as I watched images of planes exploding into buildings with bursts of bright orange flame on television. My memory is tied to a specific and vivid sequence of spaces. Manifestation of Memory through Architecture In his book “Genius Loci4,” Christian Norberg-Schulz discusses the notions of dwelling and place. He quotes Heidegger and develops an idea of dwelling and place. “Man dwells when he can orientate himself within and identify himself with an environment… when he experiences the environment as meaningful. [Place is] the concrete manifestation of man’s dwelling…his identity depends on his belonging to places.” “[Place is] a totality made up of concrete things having material substance…these things determine an ‘environmental character,’ … A place is a qualitative, ‘total’ phenomenon, which we cannot reduce to any of its properties…without losing its concrete nature out of sight.” (Norberg-Shulz, pg. 6-7) Norberg-Shulz concludes that contemporary theories of architecture do not address character which he believes is manifested in the way a structure is put together. (Norberg-Shulz, pg. 15) However, 3 Bachelard, Gaston “The Poetics of Space.” Beacon Press, Boston. 1958. 4 Norberg-Shulz, Christian; “Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.” Academy Editions, London. 1980 85

architecture that is realized is highly technical. These technical details can remember. Diener and Diener Architekten’s extension of the Berlin Museum of Natural History’s East Wing is a primary example of this. The architect’s used a latex mold to duplicate the order of the existing façade then used this mold to cast panels to put into the portions of the outer wall that were ruined. The rooms are restored to their formerly closed condition, but the ruin is still evidenced by the contrast of concrete and brick. Through the technical process of making a mold of the existing structure and then casting concrete from this mold, the architecture embeds the memory of its former state of disrepair within itself. Repository for Memory Perhaps the best space of memory can be found within the cemetery. A plot serves as a ‘dwelling’ for a person; a place to elicit a memory of them. However, cemeteries can become environments of collective memory. Aldo Rossi studied this process in the cemetery he designed in Modena with Gianni Braghieri. The project could be described at length5 but the focus here will be on two elements; the conical mass grave and the cubic war memorial. The mass grave which takes the form of a chimney. Italian laws allow for the disinterment of remains after ten years, due to limited burial ground. The conical grave becomes the final resting place for the less wealthy. A single space serves as the marker for many individual memories. So too, does the cube shaped war memorial that sits on axis with the cone. The dead are placed in vaults in the walls of the cube. When arranged within the grid of windows and walls, the deceased lose an individual identity and become a part of the structure. The memories associated with the individual become a part of the space that the remains occupy. There is no longer a need for an individual plot when the one structure bears the memories for each of the deceased who occupy it. The architecture itself replaces the individual headstone. The structure is absorbed into memory as a manifestation of the immaterial. Its form and spaces are cemented in mourner’s memories and help them recall the one they loved. The structure gains iconic significance within the city, not for its formal qualities alone, but for its function as a repository for collective memory.

5 The project is broken down in an essay by Eugene J. Johnson called “What Remains of Man – Aldo Rossi’s Modena Cemetery” that appears in The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

Photo Credit: Deiner and Deiner Arkitekten 86

Conclusion The relationship of space and memory cannot be split. Architects serve as organizers and archivists with a responsibility to locate contemporary structures within history. Character within a place is related to technical resolution of structure according to Christian Norberg-Shulz. This being the case, architecture can serve as a marker for memory as seen in the Berlin Museum of Natural History’s renovation and extension. Memory’s significance is that it demonstrates the results of various decisions from the past. This relationship suggests an architecture that uses its technical resolution to develop a character that acts as a conscious repository for memory. Architecture becomes a physical representative of things that are physically absent. Knowing this, architecture can take on a character, a someone. In this someone, we can see the roots of why constructing physical marker of our memories is so imperative. I’ll leave you with this quote. “…Everyone dies alone. But if you mean something to someone, if you help someone, or love someone, if even a single person remembers you, then maybe you never really die at all.” - Jonathon Nolan and Denise Thé, “Person of Interest,” Fifth Series Finale

Drawing, San Cataldo Cemetary by Aldo Rossi 87

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