Letting Go a manifesto by Matthew Lambert
NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
CONTENTS
SUMMARY
1
THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE
2
KNOWING IGNORANCE
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THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
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AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
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LETTING GO
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MATTHEW LAMBERT
SUMMARY
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I was greatly influenced by the arguments put forward in Jeremy Till’s ‘Architecture depends’, and wanted to investigate several key aspects of the work in more detail, reading further into Till’s bibliography to make sense of the arguments and form my own opinion. Jeremy Till is the Dean of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Westminster. The subject of this paper is an investigation into autonomy in the field of architecture. I will firstly reflect upon autonomy’s proponents and investigates the factors which drove autonomy into the heart of architecture, investigating several proponents including Le Corbusier and Eisenman who looked at Architecture through the wrong end of the telescope. In a reflective section I elaborate upon the implications of doubt in society, using science and philosophy to illustrate a possible human trait of the will to order and pose the idea that there is strength in knowing ignorance. I then move on to investigate the challenging nature of coping with contingency within both education and practice, searching for truth in an uncertain future. I conclude with examples of practices which are learning to let go of traditional ideas of Architecture and embrace new forms of thinking.
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THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE Jeremy Till argues that in the 1970s autonomy had consumed architecture and created “an interior game within which architecture was a universe sufficient unto itself, nourished on its own history and emerging from the interior of its own rules and protocols.””1. The actual definition of the word autonomy means to self govern, and therefore within an architectural context it could be thought of as detachment from the outside world. The modern movement of architecture largely used its own rules to carry out it’s various tasks, disconnecting itself most importantly from social responsibility. The first written work which fully embraced autonomy was written by Aldo Rossi. Many believe Rossi to be at the centre of structuralist principles, Rossi’s ‘Architecture and the City’2 looked to establish a structuring of typologies of which many structuralist and postmodern architects were influenced by. K Michael Hays points out, “the logic of types is autonomous in the sense that it provides the form for conceptual thought and social experience rather than being determined by them.”4 It is this emphasis on form rather than social determination which architects such as Peter Eisenman embraced. Peter Eisenman’s exploration into housing typologies form one of the most notorious examples of autonomy. Eisenman was deeply influenced by Rossi and as part of his pre-1978 investigations into typology “elaborated the architectural elements and operations that would ensure the autonomy and self reflexivity of the architectural
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Fig. 1 The infamous split bed HouseVI Peter Eisenman
object, which would verify and purify it in resistance to all encircling determinants of architectural form.” 5 In resistance to the constantly changing external forces which were seen as a threat, Eisenman subverted the established housing typology, intentionally divorcing it from all reference to use or materiality. It was Eisenman’s intention to remove architecture from the social, to search for a true architecture which was seen as seperate, undetermined by external political and social forces. Eisenman strictly followed his autonomous processes to the letter., the “’will to ‘represent a change’ is paramount”,6 so much so that he carried design ideas through into built form sometimes without a second thought, leading to difficulties and design flaws for his clients. The infamously ill placed window in House VI meant that clients, who were a couple, were forced to sleep in separate beds. This highlights Eisenman’s utter disregard of the needs of the buildings occupants. This disregard of user needs was echoed in much of modern architecture, which in my view was looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
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THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE To illustrate this point I wish to highlight another influential autonomous figure within Architecture. Le Corbusier’s work when analysed from a social perspective falls into a similar bubble to that of Eisenman. Corbusier’s obsession with a ‘coat of whitewash’7 and his love of purity distracts us from the importance of social morality. His influential writings have undertones of an architecture which looks to control, in denial of the otherness. Corbusier looked to create Architecture which ordered life, and so in which tried to purify its other, the social and external forces which sought to muddy the water. “The station is disgusting, not an employee on the crowded platform. An official with a gilded insignia does not know when the train will arrive. At the office of the stationmaster they are evasive, no one knows exactly. The general uproar, offensive filthiness, the floor is black , broken up, the immense windows are black. A 9pm express stops at platform 4 completely cluttered with boxes of vegetables, fish, fruit, hats, returned empty bags”8 In this quote he paints a picture of disorder showing his own fears of dirt and imperfection and perhaps a phobia of the clutter of everyday life. From reading Corbusier’s work it becomes apparent that he worked within an autonomous field of Architecture. Jeremy Till highlights that if we look at Corbusier through the Lens of Zygmunt Bauman then Corbusier is relegated from position of a creator of modernism to merely an inevitable consequence. Bauman is best known for his theories of postmodern consumerism and it is through Bauman’s NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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critique of modernism that we can see Corbusier’s undertakings as a “typically modern practice...the effort to exterminate ambivalence”.9 This ‘will to order’10 which Corbusier exhibited in his career in Bauman’s view arose from a fear of disorder. Bauman states that “The kind of society that retrospectively, came to be called modern, emerged out of the discovery that human order is vulnerable, contingent and devoid of reliable foundations. That discovery was shocking. The response to the shock was a dream and an effort to make order solid, obligatory and reliably founded” 11 The modern movement in Architecture could be seen as this dream, and as a facilitator of the modern project it looked to create order, against the chaos of external forces, of otherness, of the social, political, and the cultural which was seen as undermining it in all it’s purity. This inward looking nature has undoubtedly limited the scope of modern architecture, and confined it to autonomous realms. In an attempt to understand why autonomy has held preference all these years I will now expand upon it briefly outside of the field of Architecture.
Fig. 2 Interior with fish on Table, Villa Savoye NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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KNOWING IGNORANCE
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If we are to break from autonomy then the alternative is it engage with contingency. Dealing with contingency has been a subject which most Architects have avoided because at its very heart contingency may go against ingrained human traits. Architects may be hesitant to engage with contingency ultimately because Architecture’s contingent processes throw up too many problems which are difficult to deal with all at once. Architecture perhaps allows Architects to fight with their own uncertainties and doubts, to create certainty and order. Doubt or contingency is something that which not just Architects may see in a negative light and possibly goes against the grain of our own individual aspirations. If we doubt something we may think that we are going against ourselves and in way, against our sense of self. Descartes said famously “I doubt therefore I am”, implying an intrinsic quality in us, that of acceptance of ignorance. It could be argued that within the scientific community, doubting is healthy. Physicists are trained to look at the universe in the context of uncertainty, and questioning nature.
Fig. 3 Statue of Socrates by Lysippos. NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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The largest unanswered question in the scientific community is that of Dark matter. Scientists know that 66% of the universe is made up of something which cannot be measured, possibly the biggest doubt we face as humans in the universe. It is clear that doubt, contingency and uncertainty are concepts which are alive and well in both science and philosophy. In order to understand doubt from a philosophical stance I think it pertinent to draw on the story of Socrates. When Socrates went to ask the famous oracle at Delphi whether anyone in Athens was wiser than Socrates, the oracle replied that no one is wiser. This puzzled Socrates because if there was one thing he was conscious of it was that he knew very little at all. But over time he worked out that what the oracle mean was that he was wise because he was conscious of what he didn’t know.12 Socrates philosophy wasn’t based on the accumulation of facts or certainties but on an appreciation of the limits of human knowledge and the attempt to flourish as human beings. Socrates said that the only wisdom is to know that we don’t know anything. It is hard to imagine the modernists or post-modernist Architects were influenced by this powerful if somewhat disturbing line of questioning. It’s a common trait amongst human kind to become disturbed and angry when the certainties about the world are questioned. Instead of trusting in doubt, Architects have searched for the truth. In this search for truth perhaps something has been lost, a distinctly human falability. Might there be opportunities for doubt, something that we can draw from the rough and un-ordered, from the contingent?. NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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CONTINGENCY
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As talked about earlier there was a deep urge in post-modern architecture and indeed modern architecture to claim that autonomy would somehow put us in touch with something greater, more real and authentic than the contingencies which make up our lives. Indeed Architecture protected itself from the buffeting contingent forces of the outside world and was seen to fail if it did not stand up against this. Richard Rorty, a philosopher who has written a book on contingency among other things, argues that we need not be “doomed to spend our conscious lives trying to escape from contingency”13 Rather we should recognise that there is nothing more than contingencies, and that we should try and create something new out of them .14 Rorty puts forward the striking idea that we should see opportunity in contingency instead of becoming perhaps afraid of it and shying away, and argues that “only if we catch hold of some crucial idiosyncratic contingencies in our past shall we be able to make something worthwhile out of ourselves, to create present selves whom we can respect” .15 Therefore to catch hold of the “crucial idiosyncratic contingencies”16 of the building industry it is necessary to define what they are. Steven Groak outlines several forms of uncertainty within the building industry as Industrial uncertainty, Market uncertainty, Project uncertainty, Workplace uncertainty, and Uncertainty of site organization. Industrial uncertainty is concerned with the scarcity or availability of resources. Market uncertainty describes the uncertainty and doubt at where the next job will come from. NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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Indeed the Architect “may not know what will be the next contract, where it will be, what the contract sum or duration will be involved.” It is this which leads many to conclude that the building industry is essentially a responsive industry.17 Groak highlights that in learning to cope with uncertainty Architects use contradictory strategies such as specialisation alongside maximising flexibility and an Architects ability to respond to unforeseen conditions. Coping with contingency it seems is a divergent and uncertain in itself, and as Till argues, the making of choice in the contingent world is “far from being relativist and far from being absolutely determined”18 and that this is because of two reasons, firstly we cannot help but choose with a degree of intent and vision, with an end in sight. Secondly we also cannot help but be biased in certain ways towards certain outcomes due to our character, our particular desires as “situated people” in the world. If Architects traditionally have been egotistical visionaries, contingency calls for the Architect to become modest and light-footed and allow that vision to become adjusted to the circumstances. Instead of the traditional top down view of Architecture, this form of Architectural thinking calls for a bottom up approach, an appreciation that Architecture plays a role in a much wider context.
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AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
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With an uncertain future for Architects looming, contingency could be used a tool with which to find new opportunity. I will next investigate ways in which contingency could be used in practice. It is undeniable that Architecture currently stands in an uncertain position in the professional world. The current recession has caused the Architects role to become compromised, and it is clear that a different kind of thinking will be required in the future. If traditionally Architecture has been characterised by autonomy and an obsession with the production of beautiful objects then the current situation will provide opportunities to break free from the sterotypes which have dominated the profession. Faced with conflicting demands in an uncertain future, Architects are in a position to embrace contingency and find opportunity in diversity. One option for Architects would be to diversify and embrace a concept of ‘spatial agency’. The concept of architectural or spatial agency was recently formulated by Jeremy Till, Nishat Awan, and Tatjana Schneider and moves towards exercising architectural intelligence rather than the imposition of architectural knowledge. Spatial agency is influenced by the utopian practices of the 1960s and looks at how buildings and space can be produced in different ways to the traditional problem solving view. It attempts to move away from traditional aspirations of creating beautiful objects, and looks at the wider picture in which architects and non-architects can operate. Jeremy Till argues that we should hold on to “architectural knowledge” but allow it to be “reconsidered away from any notions of authority and certainty”,19 NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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and argues that we are in a time when Architecture could shift from the production of objects to that of agency. Rather than imposing knowledge, Spatial agency aims to develop knowledge from within, which grows from the social-cultural surroundings in which it is situated. Cedric price famously noted that that often the best solution to an architectural problem is not necessarily a building and agency expands upon this idea.20 Problem solving is seen as simply a method of selflegitimising Architecture, Spatial agency requires Architects to move away from this kind of thinking and look at wider social determinants. As “buildings are offered as the only solution to architecturally defined problems, since it is Architects who are professionally legitimated to deliver buildings.” 22 It is implied that problem solving looks inherently backward whereas spatial agency’s apparent direction is optimistically forward, “realising new possibilities and discovering our reactions to them.” 23 Till emphasises the importance of the brief over the architectural object, in order to bring the social to the surface. Spatial agency’s ambitious aim may have become easier in recent times due to the restructuring of the profession by economic forces. As the recent report ‘The Future For Architects’ 24 indicates, the Architects traditional role has been greatly affected by the recession and the future will likely see the Architect expanding into a broader range of strategic roles in order to expand their outlook. I’d like to end by looking at examples of how this kind of thinking is being incorporated in practice.
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LETTING GO
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We may then be at a crucial point in time in which Architecture can take a new direction, indeed several firms such as 00:/ Architects and TILT are currently challenging preconceived ideas of Architecture, using principles of spatial agency to inform their work. TILT’s recent work into ‘co-design’ looks at design holistically from the end user’s perspective and their is people oriented “de-mystifying architectural and design practice...using participation to connect end users to their space.” 00:/ Architects are another firm working within the realms of spatial agency using architectural designs alongside strategic analysis to create the spatial conditions necessary for social networks to thrive.26 When 00:/ visited the Barch students at UWE last year they provided a provocative and contrasting viewpoint. The reaction from a lot of students however was one of frustration as concepts and ideas held dear to students were thrown out. I remember pitching my own idea only to be told by “So what” by Inderpaul Joha, director of 00:/ “it’s been done before”. I can now appreciate where Inderpaul was coming from as there is currently a large gap between the intellectual thinking of spatial agency and current Architectural education being taught.
Fig. 4 Inderpaul Johar NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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Fig. 5
TILT engaging in co-design
In order to fully embrace this potentially fruitful strategic approach I believe it would be neccesary to radically overhaul Architectural education. If Architecture is to remain relevant and in order for Architecture to aspire to something more than just consultancy, we need to re-understand our place in a learned society, to become a profession based not on the creation of beautiful objects autonomously but on commodity and working for the public’s interest, making time for uncertainty and doubt, and allowing for contingency. By embracing these new and untested territories of the contingent and the social, Architects have the potential to expand their scope of work and see buildings as just one small part of an expansive range of possibilites which could integrated through co-operation. These are ideas which could transform and open up new possibilities in Architecture, and by widening our scope, we can shift and adapt to the current market conditions which we face and perhaps find new opportunities for social enterprise. Learning to let go of Architecture and all its autonomous history we can perhaps learn how to connect with what could be its an exciting new direction for Architecture as a strategic facilitator of the social. NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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REFERENCES 1. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009) pg 46. 2. Aldo Rossi, Architecture and the City (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 1982) 3. K. Michael Hays Architecture’s Desire (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2010) pg. 32 4. Ibid, pg. 54 5. Ibid, pg. 39 6. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009) pg 31. 7. Le Corbusier, The Decorative Art of Today (London: Architectural Press, 1987), pg. 188 8. Ibid. 9. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009), pg. 33 10. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, pg. 4 11. Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity, pg. xi 12. Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters (Princeton University Press, 2005)
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13. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 1989) pg. 28 14.Ibid. pg. 31 15. From “Rorty’s Liberal Utopia” in Richard J. Bernstein, The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.) pg. 32 16. Ibid. pg. 40 17. Steven Groak, The idea of Building: Thought and Action in the Design and Productions of Buildings (London: E& F. N. Spon, 1992) pg. 42 18. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009), pg. 39 19. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009), pg. 165 20. Cedric Price, Cedric Price Works II (London: Architectural Association, 1984) pg.18 http://www.spatialagency.net/about/ accessed on 13/04/11 21. J. Christopher Jones, Design Methods, 2nd edn. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992) pg. Xxix 22. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009), pg. 166 23. http://www.spatialagency.net accessed on 15/04/11 NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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24. Claire Jamieson, The Future For Architects, http:// www.buildingfutures.org.uk/projects/building-futures/ the-future-for-architects, Accessed on 13 2011 25. http://www.studiotilt.com/blog/ Accessed on 13/04/2011 26. http://www.spatialagency.net Accessed on 13/042011
BIBLIOGRAPHY Rossi, Aldo, Architecture and the City (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 1982) Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity and Ambivalence. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity. (London: Routledge, 1992) K. Michael Hays Architecture’s Desire (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2010) pg. 32 Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009) Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters (Princeton University Press, 2005) Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge University Press, 1989) pg. 28 NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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Bernstein, Richard J. The Newconstellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) Steven Groak, The idea of Building: Thought and Action in the Design and Productions of Buildings (London: E& F. N. Spon, 1992) Cedric Price, Cedric Price Works II (London: Architectural Association, 1984)
FIGURE CREDITS Fig 1. Photo of Eisenman’s House IV split bed. from http://bartlettyear1architecture.blogspot.com /2010/07/house-vi-by-peter-eisenman.html accessed on 15/04/11 Fig 2. Interior with fish on table, Villa Savoye De Monzie, Garches, 1926, Le Corbusier, from Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2009), pg. 33 Fig 3. Statue of Socrates by .Lysippos. image from http://www.artmuseum.gov.mo accessed on 15/04/11 Fig. 4 from http://blog.emap.com/footprint/, ASF-UK on ‘Social Enterprise - Lessons for Architects’ Seminar. accessed on 13 2011 Fig 5. from http://www.studiotilt.com/blog/ accessed on 13 2011 NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
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