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HOW HAS THE MARKED TRANSFORMATION IN CULTURAL PRACTICE UNDER NEOLIBERALISM COMMODIFIED THE ARCHITECT? AND WITH THE CULMINATION OF THE SUPER-BOOM HOW DOES ARCHITECTURE POSITION ITSELF IN THE ABSENCE OF CAPITAL, AND THUS DEMAND?

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PRODUCTIVE CRISIS This essay describes the marked transformation in cultural practice in relation to shifting political-economic ideologies in the post war era. Specifically it addresses the shift from Modernist to Postmodernist ideals; examining the commodification of the architect and a growing awareness of architecture’s increasing dependence on capital in an era characterised as the super- boom.1 This essay acknowledges the architecture as a discipline is reduced if designs are not being realised.

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challenge for architectural production in the absence of capital yet questions the assumption that

The shift from modernity to post modernity in contemporary Western culture has been exhaustively chronicled, debated and disputed. The nature and depth of this transformation swings from a fad or “hollow spectacle” to “…paradigm shift of the cultural, social and economic orders.”2 While Charles Jencks will pinpoint the break between Modernism and Postmodernism to 3.32pm 15th July 1972; the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development, others acknowledge the emergence of postmodernity as a changing sensibility through a range of diverse fields.3 Regardless the passage from Modernism to Postmodernism offers a moment in which to interrogate the intersections between politics and architecture. The rise of Postmodern architectural theory was part of a larger transformation in cultural practice shaped by the changing political-economic realities of the post war era. During an era of disillusionment of the 1960s and 70s the perceived value of

architecture shifted from a redemptive social power under Modernism to its role as a cultural object under Postmodernism.4 While Modernism fetishized programme, Postmodernism was motivated by form, representation and image.

Born out of an industrial society, the Modern movement was deeply concerned with housing as a social program. Le Corbusier’s claim, “Architecture or Revolution, Revolution can be avoided”5 argued for an expansion of the architect’s role to address social problems. The cosmopolitan ethos, specifically ideas involving a universal view of the subject, shaped the Modernist agenda and reciprocally the Modern movement shaped the ideological positions of the era, challenging social patterns through the reorganization of the domestic and associating the free plan with notions of democracy. Highly idealistic, Modernists believed it was architecture’s role to scientifically impose a revolutionary vision of society, one that controlled the expansion of urbanization and challenged class structures.6 The formal austerity, standardization and mass production of early Modernism represented a critique of bourgeois values and expressed the changes in production possible in the machine age.7 For Modernists form was the result of structural and functional concerns. “…architecture’s political role was conceived first as a question of process and only secondarily as a question of form.”8 From the 1950s, architects and critics such as Reyner Banham, Yona Friedman and the Archigram group proposed the arrival of a second machine age, questioning the relationship between technology, society and architecture. Through abstract speculation Archigram demonstrated a technological utopianism, developing an experimental architecture that animates the city. But their propositions involving a plugging-in, switching on and tuning of the existing urban environment with technology and pop culture were criticized as flippant.

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This speculative approach failed to sit comfortably within conventional Modernist theory nor within the early stirrings of Postmodernist thought of those later to be named, the New York Five. It was instead associated with the youth counterculture of drugs and protest. Although the pamphlet architecture of the 60s and 70s “…challenged building as the primary locus of experimentation and debate,” 9 it was both improvised and fleeting, largely rejected by academia and the profession.

The critique of Modernism and subsequent emergence of Postmodernism followed an era of economic instability and political disillusionment. During the 1960s a deep suspicion of the status quo developed through all facets of cultural production. There was a paradigm shift in political reality and philosophic thought which fundamentally challenged the doctrine of Modernism. The Cold War, nuclear threat, student protest and multinational capitalism combined to undermine modernist social vision. The failing of social housing such as Pruitt Igoe, the impact of gentrification and urban renewal and the corporate rationalization of Modernism were cited as the result of a destructive utopianism. Warren Chalks article, Owing to Lack of Interest, Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled in 1969 was almost prophetic of a waning interest in the speculative.10 With the oil crisis of the early 1970s young architects such as Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves, found themselves out of work, further fuelling the perception of the architect’s diminished social role.11 With the publication of Oppositions in 1973, Peter Eisenman, Kenneth Frampton and Mario Gandelsonas positioned themselves against the technological progressivism of Archigram and Banham.12

Early Postmodernism rejected “…the universalizing, homogenizing, dehumanizing qualities of Modern architecture.”13 The professed purpose of architecture no longer lay in its redemptive social power, but in its communicative power as a cultural object. With the belief that buildings

alphabet of signs, bright colours and historic references to communicate their design intent.14 The Postmodernists developed a new vocabulary, discovering past vernaculars and repackaging them for mass culture. The Postmodern focus on form, aesthetics and a fixation with image was embraced by an increasingly commercialized society.15 With the economic boom of the early 1980s architectural production increased and Postmodernism became subject to the forces of consumption and commodification. With this the image of the architect shifted from social crusader to trendsetter and later on media star.”16

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should be more engaging, mid 60s Postmodernism experimented with an architectonic

With the prolific production granted by surplus capital the Postmodern agenda shifted from a movement that questioned aesthetic parameters to one that affirmed a status quo.17 Despite early criticism of the generic corporate skyscrapers and government housing projects under Modernism, Postmodernism became the new corporate style.18 In 1980 Robert Stern summarized Postmodern architecture’s new political cast as, “… not revolutionary in either a political or artistic sense; in fact, it reinforces the

effect of the technocratic and bureaucratic society in which we live…”19 Fredric Jameson’s book Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism exemplified a growing awareness of capital’s influence and an understanding of Postmodernism as a commodification of culture in an era of post-industrial capitalism.20 “…aesthetic production today has become integrated into

commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel goods at even greater rates of turnover, now assigns an increasingly essential structural function and position to aesthetic innovation and experimentation.”21 Postmodernism was celebrated as a product of surface, image and play. And the architect, as the producer of and projector of image, become pivotal to architecture’s marketability. Paradoxically, as the market increasingly co-opted Postmodernism, the value of variety decreased and Postmodernism became a singular historic style thereby rendering Modernism just another style.22 The Postmodern assumption of architecture’s communicative power is as flawed and arrogant as Modernism’s imposition of a universal solution for a universal subject. Both the historicist and poststructuralist tendencies within Postmodernism correctly addressed the failures of the Modern movement’s instrumental rationality and unequivocal faith in technology. But they did so under the assumption that form remains either a critical or affirmative tool independent of social and economic processes.23 The political and economic shift away from institutional thinking, the rise of neoliberal capitalism, privatization and the globalization of real estate markets has provided an era of exceptional growth.

Architecture has not developed in isolation. Since the 1960s new modes and trends driven by the market have altered the competition and production of architecture. “Mass production was replaced by a Postfordist flexible specialization, where the production of trends occurs as fast as fashion.”24 Architecture’s acknowledgement of the new demand posed by an increasingly affluent culture-consuming society has been profitable. Like other commodities, architecture has enjoyed the offerings of free market capitalism and has been constructed with the credit and leverage of an era of boom.

Fig. 27.

The Resort City Monster [Le Corbusiers Unite d’habitation and the three legged Marina Bay Sands]

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As the role of the architect extended to embrace a chasing of style and trend in a time of surplus, it has exposed itself to weakness in lieu of it. The promotion of architecture as the ultimate luxury product has made the profession reliant on a market that has diminished with the current economic recession.

In the eighties Manfredo Tafuri described an architecture that is exhibited in a cinema of its own creation. “Architectural theory [became] a recording apparatus, rather than a reflection arena. The result; a critical paradox in which the search for constant newness resulted in architectural languages and types that were outdated before even being built.”25 As architecture has become aware of a

creeping commercialization it has detached itself further, “…institutional crises are observed with fatalistic detachment.”26 In an era of rapid change architecture has become reactionary; it’s purpose intentionally vague as it struggles to remain relevant to constantly shifting demagogies. “…architecture has not offered alternative ways of relating to the economy, but that of chasing its changeability.”27 And as such will scramble to keep up in an era of instability and recession.

Architecture’s inability to construct in an era of financial crisis is commonly cited as its greatest challenge but currently the opposite is being broached. “…if it is true that the economic crisis and its frugality is affecting architecture in its construction, its discursive core has been in more vital “crisis” for a longer period when following the opposite factor; excess.”28 As culture has become bankable architecture or the construction of museums and galleries has become the prime tool to market a region and to propel that region forward.29 The style or image cultivated by the architect has an economic value; this is purchased in the form of an iconic building and marketed as an example of a city’s uniqueness. The iconic building has become a recipe to be repeated in every city, the Guggenheim in Bilbao is the same Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi.30 For Reinier De Graaf “The city has become an accumulation of individual gestures: an icon of excess made up of an excess of icons.”31 Perhaps the saturation of the market with a repetitive product is also adding to architecture’s crisis?

Despite a critical political background architecture and urbanism appear unable to find a role within contemporary politics.32 The architect’s role as ideologist has become redundant as the ever-

quickening cycle of consumption shifts political meanings with such rapidity. Rem Koolhaas argues, “… the absence of utopian drive is perhaps almost as serious as an overdose of it.”33 There has been a cultural shift away from the “manifesto” and this political resignation of contemporary architecture displays a reversal of the utopian aspirations of the modern movement.34 Koolhaas believes this loss of confidence since the 1970s and absence of utopian drive poses a dilemma for the negotiation between public and private space.35

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“Frank Gehry, you’ve done it again!”

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Fig. 28.

Frank Gehry Cameo

The Simpsons

Pier Vittorio Aureli argues Anglo-Saxon architectural culture wrongly associated “autonomous architecture” with a period of architectural history in which the autonomy of form FROM political, social and commercial significations was discovered.36 This reading emerged during the increasing commercialization of architecture as a professional practice, and as such the concept of autonomy in architecture was discussed as a strategic retreat, a refusal to reform the existing world.37 In this context radically different theorists like Aldo Rossi, Manfredo Tafuri, Peter Eisenman and Colin Rowe were grouped together due to their criticism of the modern movement. Aureli argues this was both a harsh generalization and a misreading of autonomy.

The Italian Autonomia in the 1980s was presented to the English speaking world as a “creative, futuristic, neo-anarchistic, post ideological and non-representative political movement,”38 when in reality they were not about destroying capitalist culture but about a deep analysis of it and its assimilation of institutions.

Aldo Rossi, Scuola di Venezia (the Venice group) and later Archizoom and Superstudio placed higher emphasis on the speculation of architecture’s influence on the city over professional practice. But this autonomy didn’t deny the reality of the emerging post-industrial city. Instead it questioned the empirical interpretation of that reality and the naïve embrace of techno-utopian visions of the contemporary world.39 “In the face of capitalism’s total absorption of the technological rationality of planning, Rossi sought to privilege architecture as the field for theoretical reinvention of the city… without the mediation of planning.”40 Rossi’s position on architecture as a basic yet partial unit of the city differed markedly from the emerging urban planning methodologies of the 1960s.41 For Rossi the difficult duality was in representing both

the formal and political understanding of the relationship between the city and architecture.

Rossi argued architecture must move beyond a diagram or a generalization of geographic, economic or political structures and criticised Tafuri’s totalizing attitude to the city; accusing it of being nothing but a discursive and ideological practice without the tools to address the difficulties of the city.42 Rossi proposed architectural study of the city should focus on both the “geographic continuities that functioned as structuring elements” and “historic discontinuities that characterized the city’s evolution.”43

Proliferation ceases in a moment of crisis, providing a gap in which to evaluate architecture’s relationship to the city. Economic downturn poses a challenge for architectural production but could offer a re-evaluation of architecture as a discipline. The post war struggle of the 1920s spurred Modernism, the disillusionment of the 1970s brought about further theoretical reassessment and Postmodernism. Eras of uncertainty shift paradigms and act as a catalyst in the questioning of architectural production and contribution.

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“If you design the object without the financing, you’re an academic; if you design the marketing without the object you’re a politician; if you design the financing without the object, you’re a capitalist.”44 Productive Crisis

So what is an architect?

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The role of the architect needs to be interrogated. If architecture is political it should advocate something and if it is a business it needs to incorporate broad economic and political theory. Architecture as a discipline must project beyond the current instability and recession and unveil invisible structures of power, capital and ownership. Both architectural production and architectural theory must start questioning and engaging with the politics and economics of the city, speculate with outrageous imagery, highlight and question obvious paradoxes and develop a sense of humour about some of the more ridiculous elements of the current situation.

The same argument that attacked Archigram’s utopianism in the 1970s is being recycled, “…today’s vanguard is celebrated for leaving the shackles of built form behind as often as it is chastised for advancing monstrous aberrations of architecture.”45 This essay does not advocate a return to a technological utopianism; it simply wishes to highlight the conviction displayed by this thinking. Defaulting to ironic commentary is unproductive. But architecture’s ability to project a version of the world that

goes beyond a well calculated prediction is fascinating and should be encouraged, especially one that offends as much as it inspires, because that conflict is what survives long after the discussion of the image.

The current paradox involves the success of architecture as a symptom of change, and its decline as an instrument of change. Aureli questions “… whether the power of images is (still) a valid instrument for an architectural project of the city, or whether it is only the constraint that impedes architecture from being more than a visual commodity.”46 Aureli argues for the image to not be seen as the conclusion or product of architecture but rather iterations of a larger project seeking “… a form that in fact goes beyond its image.”47 In Aureli’s opinion the project for an autonomous architecture is on-going. Acknowledging that managerial approach must be discussed and strategized as “against from within”48

Fig. 29.

The New Yorker 1976

Saul Steinburg

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capitalism and autonomy share the same conceptual ground Aureli believes this resistance to capitalism’s

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Those who choose to wildly speculate in tough economic times will be criticized as flippant but hopefully those who cling to the current situation will also gradually be discredited.

Architecture should be uncomfortable and squeamish about the repetitive proliferation that has characterized an era of boom. Architecture should be active in the constructed reality of our cities; interrogating the seemingly concrete structures of power and capital. As architects are not removed from the ideologies that govern, it therefore follows that architecture is unable to communicate unbiased meaning. But this reality should not be used as an excuse to remain detached. The relationship between politics and architecture is complex and made more so as neither can be reduced to the other. Acknowledging this, crisis should be seen as an operative moment in which to invoke the necessity for both the political within architecture and the positioning of architecture within the political.

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Fig. 30. The New Yorker 2076 City Vision Competition [an example of the current push to manipulate the future through reimagining the city, from past to future or future to past]

NOTES

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

George Soros defines the super-boom as the previous forty years of perceived financial growth and stability in the Western World due to a fiscal overextension through the increasing use of credit and leverage. George Soros, “The Worst Market Crisis in 60 Years,” Financial Times(2008), http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24f73610-c91e-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html.

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989). 39.

Ibid., 39-41.

Mary McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” Assemblage 8(1986): 25.

Ibid. ( McLeod quoting Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture) Mary McLeod, “Le Corbusier and Algiers,” in Architecture theory since 1968, ed. K. Michael Hays (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998).

McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 25.

Ibid., 26.

Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley, Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196X to 197X, M+M books (Princeton: Actar, 2010). 8.

Warren Chalk, “Owing to Lack of Interest, Tomorrow Has Been cancelled,” (1969), http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/essay. php?id=282. ( First published in Architectural Design, September 1969) McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 39.

Todd Gannon, “Return of the Living Dead: Archigram and Architecture’s Monstrous Media,” Log 13/14(2008).

McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 38.

James Steele, “Imagining Utopia: The Figurative Universe of Ettore Sottsass,” in Ettore Sottsass : architect and designer, ed.

Ronald T. Labaco (London: Merrell, 2006), 96.

McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 38.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 18.

Ibid., 54.

Published in 1990 Jameson describes the American postmodern condition, differentiating it from European Postmodernism which developed out of diverse political and economic realities and a theoretical focus on post war reconstruction.

Steele, “Imagining Utopia: The Figurative Universe of Ettore Sottsass,” 96.

Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1990). 102.

McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 34.

Ibid., 54.

Fernando Donis, “Evolution in the Age of Crisis,” Conditions(2009), http://www.conditionsmagazine.com/archives/1486.

Ibid.

Manfredo Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). 293.

Donis, “Evolution in the Age of Crisis”.

Ibid., 1.

Reinier De Graaf, “Manifesto for Simplicity™” (paper presented at the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, London, 19.10.2008).

Ibid.

Ibid.

Alejandro Zaera- Polo, “The Politics of the Envelope,” Log 13/14(2008): 194.

Rem Koolhaas, “Dilemmas in the Evolution of the City,” CABE(2006), http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. uk/20110118095356/http:/www.cabe.org.uk/articles/dilemmas-in-the-evolution-of-the-city.

McLeod, “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” 54.

Koolhaas, “Dilemmas in the Evolution of the City”.

Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), http://site.ebrary.com/lib/auckland/Doc?id=10477992. 12.

Ibid.

Ibid., 8.

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 13.

Pier Vittorio Aureli, “The Difficult Whole,” Log 9(2007).

Ibid.

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43 44 45 46 47 48

Aureli, The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism.

Arjen Oosterman, “How to Make Unsolicited Architecture,” Volume 14, no. 4 (2007).

Gannon, “Return of the Living Dead: Archigram and Architecture’s Monstrous Media,” 179.

Pier Vittorio Aureli, “Secular Monumentality in the Architecture of Palladio and Mies,” in Iconoclastia: News from a Posticonic World, ed. Florian Sauter (Zurich: ETH, 2009), 31.

Ibid.

Pier Vittorio Aureli, “Forms of Autonomy,” in AA PhD Open Seminar Series, ed. Architectural Association (Architectural Association 2012).

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