Potlatch by Columbia GSAPP

Potlatch

Issue # 1 The Gift Fall 2010 US $ 8

A Journal of the Potlatch Lab at GSAPP, Columbia University.

Sislej Xhafa Beh-Rang Cristobal Amunategui All Ages are Contemporaneous Yehuda E. Safran The Law of Hospitality and The Gift Silvia Perea Syncretism and Discontinuity in the House of Chame-Chame Curro The Gift of Form: Avant-Garde Art & Architecture, 1947-1960 Michael Holt In a Vision Once I Saw & Double Bind Marissa Looby The Invisible Order Martin Kropac The Water Palace Steven Holl Architects Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture Nicolas Grospierre Not Economically Viable Kimsooja Bottari

Potlatch Published by GSAPP Columbia University 413 Avery Hall 1172 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 Visit our website at www.arch.columbia.edu/publications Copyright 2010, by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. All rights reserved.

Fall 2010, issue 1 GSAPP Dean Mark Wigley Potlatch Lab & Journal Director Yehuda E. Safran Potlatch Editor Cristobal Amunategui Special thanks to Dean Mark Wigley Craig Buckley And to all those who generously donated their work for this issue Kimsooja Nicolas Grospierre Steven Holl Sislej Xhafa

This publication has been produced through the Office of the Dean, Mark Wigley, and the Director of Print Publications, Craig Buckley.

ISSN 2156-4906

Cover Sislej Xhafa Beh-Rang, 2004 DVD 3’18” Courtesy CCAA Kabul, Afghanistan The first edition of the video “beh rang” work was donated to the Center of Contemporary Art Kabul, Afghanistan.

Potlatch is a non-profit magazine published by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. Claims and comments should be addressed to Customer Service, Potlatch Magazine, 409t Avery Hall, 1172 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027.

Contents

All Ages are Contemporaneous CRISTOBAL AMUNATEGUI

The Law of Hospitality and The Gift YEHUDA E. SAFRAN

Syncretism and Discontinuity in the House of Chame-Chame SILVIA PEREA

23 The Gift of Form: Avant-Garde Art & Architecture, 1947-1960 CURRO

In a Vision Once I Saw MICHAEL HOLT

39 The Invisible Order MARISSA LOOBY

Studio Work Fall 2009: The House of Pandora MICHAEL HOLT MARTIN KOPRAC

Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS

Not Economically Viable NICOLAS GROSPIERRE

Bottari KIMSOOJA

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All Ages are Contemporaneous Cristobal Amunategui

rchitecture, based on intellectual labour, is first and foremost built upon a system of gift exchange. We become the receivers of the work of our predecessors, and our task becomes the production of an architecture that may well mean a gift to our descendants. To say that every age finds itself mirrored in the present is also to say that the present will be reflected in the future. Thus the exchange of gifts is at work: between our forebears and ourselves, between us and our descendants. Ezra Poundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s belief, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;all ages are contemporaneous,â&#x20AC;? entails the abolition of time as a negative system of measurement, a system that most often sentences thoughts and creations to the oblivious quarters of the outmoded. We live in the multiplicity of times and places. Everything is contemporaneous. A demolished house in Salvador

de Bahia still stands as an exemplary transaction between cultures. We celebrate the apparition of a museum in the city of Nanjing, while we gladly recognize in it some features of utopian times, seemingly gone by now. An abandoned estate in Poland becomes the evidence of a rather ill conceived enterprise: its commanders have long forgotten the gratuitous practices of the gift exchange. Conversely, a woman honours the bottari, a traditional Korean bed cover, which is also used to wrap and protect personal belongings. She turns it into a philosophical metaphor for structure and connection. In the rooms of Avery Hall, some graduate students devote their time to explore the extension of the gift in architecture, while the burning bicycle of a KosovarianAmerican man stands as a present for a museum in the devastated city of Kabul.

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Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square published in Merz nº8/9 (Edited by Kurt Schwitters & El Lissitzky, 1924). The last phrase of the footnote reads: “The modern world is the other half of nature, that which derives from man.”

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The Gift of Form: Avant-Garde Art & Architecture (1947-1960) Curro “Wir kennen keine Form, sodern nur bauprobleme form ist nicht Ziel, sondern Resulttat unserer Arbeit”1 Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe (1922) “What has been discovered in the field of form consciousness since Cezanne, by way of Seurat, the early Cubism of 1910-12, the Dadaism of Merz and Cabaret Voltaire, or Blaue Reiter, Suprematism and De Stijl movement was carried over from the realm of painting to that of architecture. So the painter is relieved of the one sided duty (initially necessary and therefore meaningful) to suppress his need for direct expression in favor of purely formal experimentation. This duty will continue to apply to the architect for a long time to come: for the sake of man and the reality of life he will have to continue his laborious struggle with form…”2 Aldo van Eyck, “Constant and the Abstracts” (1951)

Very few architects think currently about architecture as a form of gift. For that same reason, very few architects are able to conceive architecture as a form of art; many architects may even think that this notion is outdated or senseless. Nowadays there is a lack of clarity and consistency in the notion of architecture as a form of art. As a result, either the notion of art is completely dismissed and architectural design is driven by analytical thinking and technical means, or art is considered “in relation to” architecture - without a deep understanding of the aesthetics principles that ground it. In an attempt to question our current understanding of architecture as a form of art, I propose to look back into a paradigmatic moment of recent history, when the question was addressed causing the first big crisis of the Modern Movement: The Postwar European reconstruction period from 1947 to 1960. At that time, the criticism drafted by Aldo van Eyck and Alison and Peter Smithson to the rationalistic tendency of late CIAM, unveiled the fact that the

artistic principles that had grounded the Modern Movement were falling into oblivion. Facing the overwhelming task of the European reconstruction, the CIAM architects were having difficulties defining architecture as a form of art.3 Architects were thinking about “the role of art in architecture” since they were lacking a definition of architecture as a form of art. The mainstream of CIAM was considering architecture as a technological industry, relying exclusively in analytical thinking and technical means to do so. At CIAM 6 (Bridgewater, 1947) the young Aldo van Eyck remembered his elders the fact that the Modern Movement in architecture had emerged parallel other art movements during the two world war period; in that sense, architecture had been conceived as an avant-garde movement among Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism or De Stijl. In fact, CIAM was founded as an affirmation of architecture as a form of art among the Avant-garde movements; it was a materialization of a “new consciousness”.4 As Van Eyck 23

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pointed out in his intervention at CIAM, the idea of art as a form of consciousness was manifested in the work of artists such as Brancusi, Klee or Mondrian; explicitly referring to them Van Eyck argued: “ (a) new consciousness is already transforming man’s mind…they have turned our senses to a new dimension…CIAM is first and foremost an affirmation of this new consciousness… one in which grace is expressed in life as it is in art”.5 Van Eyck’s intervention was immediately backed by Le Corbusier who took the word exclaiming “Finally, the imagination among CIAM!.” From CIAM 6 (1947) to CIAM 9 (1953), Aldo van Eyck and the Smithsons criticized the approach of the late CIAM architects for overlooking the emotional aspects of the European reconstruction.6 If architecture focused exclusively in analytical thinking to solve the material aspects, overlooking the non-rational aspects of human behavior, cities would become inhuman. CIAM was obliterating the fact that Modern architecture had emerged as an avant-garde movement among the other arts. As a consequence of this, architects were having difficulties to produce form as a product of architecture’s own logic. They were not considering architecture as a form of art; therefore they were not being aware of the fact that they lacked a formal logic - that is why they started looking desperately at other realms of knowledge, or considering the role of other arts in architecture. Since they lacked a notion of architecture as a form of art suitable to produce designs according to the needs of its time, the mainstream of CIAM was relying exclusively in analytical thinking, and a notion of architecture as a technological industry able to solve problems of architectural design. Van Eyck and the Smithsons shared a critical awareness of the limitations of analytical thinking and the idea of progress applied to architectural design. In that sense, architecture was conceived as a form 24

of art, as a humanistic discipline - at least in the sense Panofsky defined humanism: “the conviction of the dignity of man based on both, the insistence on human values (rationality & freedom) and the acceptance of human limitations (fallibility and frailty) from this two postulates resulting responsibility and tolerance.”7 The Smithsons’ and Van Eyck’s understanding of the role of art and aesthetics allowed them to develop their own notion of architecture as an art form. They worked hand in hand with artists and intellectuals from the Independent Group9 and COBRA8 respectively, in such a way that they clearly understood the role of the architect vis-à-vis the other arts. They shared a vision of Modern architecture grounded in art, according to which, architecture should rely in technical and artistic means to fulfill both, material and emotional needs - two complementary aspects mixed in everyday life. The notion that architecture would be able to transcend its materiality, and satisfy “man’s emotional needs” was a notion inherited from the analysis of art history developed by the Vienna School. Inaugurated by Riegl’s analysis of art in terms of “kunstwollen”, it had among its followers H. Wolfflin’s notion that the stylistic developments in art were produced by changes in the way of beholding, and ultimately found a much broader audience in the art world through Worringer’s thesis, Abstraction and Empathy (1909).10 Van Eyck came to know about the Vienna school ideas through Sigfried Giedion’s wife Carola W. Giedion, both had studied under Worringer in Bonn and Sigfried had developed his thesis under Wölfflin.11 The Smithsons did not get into a deep study of history at that time but their fellow members of the Independent Group, like Reyner Banham had been educated in the lineage of the Vienna School.12 Worringer’s thesis criticized the current idea of art in Europe for it was restricted to the narrow scope of Classical art: Art was defined as

Courtesy J.B. Bakema Archive, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.

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Diagram developed during the Team 10 meeting at Doorn (1954), found in J. B. Bakema’s archive together with the Doorn Manifesto drafts and a resume of the Charte d’Athenes. An arrow is traced connecting 1910 (L’Espirit Nouveau, De Stijl, Dada, Futurism, Constructivism) with CIAM 6 Bridgewater (1947) where it is stated: “…Lack of relationship between man and things asks for FORMS stimulating spiritual growth…FORM STIMULATES RELATIONSHIP…”

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a product of empathy, “objectified self-enjoyment”. If the artist enjoyed a pantheistic relation of confidence with the outer world, his work would be driven by empathy producing Naturalist art, an approximation to the organic of life.13 Worringer argued that such a definition of art did not provide an explanation of other forms of art that might be considered the product of equal or higher forms of understanding.14 According to Worringer, if instead of empathy the artist experienced the inner wrest inspired in man by the phenomena of outside world, his work would be leaded by an “urge to abstraction” - man’s endeavor to redeem the individual object from the outer world to render it absolute. The result would be style in art, pure abstraction as the only possibility of repose within the confusion of the world. Art always aimed to redeem the individual object from the outer world; therefore the “urge to abstraction” was the primary impulse in art. Abstraction in art resulted the primitive impulse “before cognition”, before men developed ways of understanding nature. But Worringer noticed that abstraction resulted also the most elevated impulse “above cognition”. In the very early stages it was driven by instinct and in the more evolved stages of civilization was a form of understanding. Worringer’s emphasized the capacity of abstract art, to bestow happiness as a transcendental way of understanding, that had implicit a recognition of the limitations of rational understanding as a form of knowledge. Worringer’s ends his thesis by pointing at the higher capacity of scientific knowledge to provide the feeling of assurance that transcendental art had provided before; from the Renaissance onwards, understanding broke away from instinct and trusted merely to itself: “Science emerged, and transcendental art lost ground. For the world picture set out by science… now offered man who put his faith in the cognitive capacity of the understanding the same feeling of assur26

ance that the transcendentally predisposed man had reached…” with abstract art.15 But the war came and the faith putted by western civilization in the world-picture set out by science, together with its idea of progress felt into a big crisis, the Modern art movements gave form to abstract art. The world-picture set out by Modern Science grounded in rational-logic was complemented by a world picture set out by abstract art grounded in what I would call transcendental logic. It tried to bridge the thing in the mind and the object (thing in itself) developing devices to apprehend the object and to create an object that would produce spiritual relief. Devices such as the process of enstrangement could change the current way of beholding. The mind imagined and articulated an idea that, driven by intuition, created a new object. Through the creative process the mind reached a new stage of consciousness with regard to the created object, and this provided him with a new vision of reality. A new world picture is set out as a result of a change in the way of beholding.16 Abstract art, transcendental art, approached man to the real sense of things fulfilling man’s emotional needs. Therefore, if architecture was nourished by that logic, the object that it was to produce would have the same attributes. This induction grounded Van Eyck’s & the Smithsons’ notion of the relation art & Architecture. But I find it a relatively inconsistent induction. From the fact that A (logic) produces B (painting) that produces C (spiritual relief) in a determined condition - artistic production - we cannot infer that A (logic) produces B’( architecture) that produces C (spiritual relief) in a very different condition which is the production of architecture. I want to propose an understanding of art in relation to architecture in four categories. From a mere superficial apprehension of art to its understanding as a form of knowledge whose inner structure is related to the architect’s capacity to think of architecture as a form of art. I am going to

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illustrate to what extent Van Eyck & the Smithson arrived to a deeper understanding of this categorization of the relation between art & architecture. From a mere superficial understanding of an art piece to a deeper understanding of the role of art in our society: from the understanding in terms of “object”, to the understanding of the creative “process” in art - or a more profound understanding of art’s overall “logic” - to an understanding of art in epistemological terms (ObjectProcess-Logic-Episteme). In order to do so I will try to briefly argue based on some elements of Modern Art that where present and determinant for their work. I will overlook the first level (Object) and will try to illustrate the second and the third ones (Process & Logic) through a project of the Smithsons’ and a project of Van Eyck’s respectively. Finally I will draft some ideas regarding the relation between an epistemological understanding of art and our capacity to think about architecture as a form of art, as a gift. The artistic principles that grounded Van Eyck’s and the Smithsons’ conception of architecture can be traced back to the emergence of the avant-garde movements, from Dadaism to Art Brut. Notions like that of enstrangement coined by the Russian Formalists evolved from the enstrangement in the perception of the object in the Dadaist ready-made, the enstrangement of the subject-artist in the surrealist drift to encounter the objet-trouvé, or the enstrangement of oneself that brought Dubufett to draw like a kid or a fool.17 Enstrangement was a fruitful deviceprocess in Modern Art, a process hat Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson came to know personally from Giacometti and Duchamp respectively. Paolozzi was very much inspired by Giacometti and attracted by his personality when he came to met him at his studio in Paris 1947. Henderson had met Duchamp already in the late 30s and helped him in the set of a Surrealist exhibition in London; Henderson owned one of Du-

champ’s Green Box, full of notes for the painting of The Bride with statements like “To put aside is an operation”.18 When the Smithsons visited the poor neighborhoods of Bethnal Green with Henderson in the early 50s they found the kids playing in the street and re-discovered the street; they saw kids playing/drawing on the street. This experience, together with Paolozzi’s child-like drawings, brought the Smithsons to draw like kids over the existing fabric of the city, an endless building, their own vision of the city entry for the Golden Lane project. It could be said that the Smithson’s witnessed the definition of art given by the artists of the IG not as a mere production of objects, but as the establishment of relations between the objects (images) and the real World. Something they experienced in the design for the “Parallel of Life & Art” exhibition (ICA 1953), a Dadaist tree-dimensional collage that established visual relations between the forms of nature and the forms created by man without providing any logical argument. The Smithsons’ understanding of art in terms of an intuitive logic that establishes relations brought them to explore the idea of the “found object”, the kids playing in the street brought them to rediscover the street. The “as found” element of the city that was reconsidered in relation to the other elements of the city: house, street, district, city. They thought about the architecture of the city as the materialization of the relations between these elements in terms of human associations, instead of the city as a gathering of monuments. An illustration of Van Eyck’s favorite quote of Mondrian: “The culture of particular forms is approaching its end, the culture of determined relations has begun”.19 Alison & Peter Smithson understood art in terms of process: the pop collage of the Independent Group fellows, the Merz-like-sculptures of Paolozzi and the explorations on the photo-technique of C. Schad, Moholy-Nagy or Man-ray that Nigel Henderson was carrying on.20 27

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Three magazines edited by Dadaists that gathered together Neoplasticism and Constructivism, sharing the notion of the “Elementary”: Kazimir Malevich Black square in the cover of De Stijl (Ed. by Theo Van Doesburg, September 1922), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe project for a skyscraper in Berlin in the cover of G nº3 (1922) “Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung” and cover of Merz nº8/9 entitled “NASCI-Nature,” gathering the work of the avant-garde artists: George Braque, Fernand Leger, El Lissitzky, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, and Vladimir Tatlin, together with J.P.Oud’s and Mies van der Rohe’s projects for a skyscraper in Berlin (1922).

An understanding of art in terms of process that brought them to conceive architecture’s potentialities to operate with that same logic, establishing a relation with the existing reality - the scarcity of the impoverished suburban streets of Bethal Green or the ads of the emerging consumer society. Such understanding ultimately brought them to create their own notion of architecture as a form of art, with its intrinsic sense of logic that overcame the existing categories of the Charte d’Athenes that were getting outdated.21 The Smithsons’ understanding of architecture as a form of art was produced intuitively, to a certain extent they were not aware of how Dadaism, and the work of the Independent Group artists was having an influence on them. As opposed to Aldo van Eyck, who came from a completely different background and was very much aware of the logic of Modern Art.22 Van Eyck felt the necessity to reenact the notion of architecture as a form of art created by Modern art movements such as De Stijl; in fact it was the former De Stijl member C. Van Eesteren who invited Aldo to join the Dutch group at CIAM 6.23 Apart from the already mentioned idea of “New 28

Consciousness”, that equaled De Stijl’s notion of Nieuwe Beelding, Van Eyck’s intervention outlined other basic notions of Modern art that were being overlooked by CIAM, like that of imagination: “The old struggle between imagination and common sense ended tragically in favor of the later… Imagination remains the only common denominator of man and nature. The prime detector of change…” Van Eyck understood the logic of abstract art so well that he was able to materialize it in some of his projects, like the Amsterdam playgrounds and orphanage. A logic whose final stage was what he called the elementary. The notion of the elementary in architecture had been introduced in the 20s mainly by Hans Richter’s magazine G: Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung, and adopted by Van Doesburg’s late De Stijl period.24 Van Eyck defined his notion of elementary as similar to Brancusi’s idea of simplicité. “Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, in approaching the real sense of things. Simplicity is complexity itself, and one has to be nourished by its essence in order to understand its value…It is not the

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things that are difficult to make, but to put ourselves in condition to make them. When we are no longer children, we are already dead. To see far, that is one thing, to go there that is another. It is something to be clever, but being honest is worthwhile.”25 Following Brancusi’s notion of simplicité, Van Eyck argued that architecture should approach to the real sense of things, which is the elementary in terms of human behavior.26 Architecture would reach elementary forms if it looked after the elementary in terms of behavior. A clear example of it was Van Eyck’s design for the Amsterdam playgrounds from 1947 to 1955. Departing from a close understanding of kids’ behavior, playing, Van Eyck developed a series of forms, of archetypes, that he happened to find in his trip to Sahara in 1951. He worked with the elementary in terms of behavior and reached archetypes that were elementary in terms of its primitive-geometric forms. As he had learned from Arp’s and Brancusi’s work, Van Eyck developed iterations of the same forms, the same archetypes-abstract forms. He organized them in every site according to what it could be called a “logic of determined relations”, very much related with Mondrian’s quote. The object in itself is quite unimportant, what is important is the relation between horizontal and vertical, color and proportion, etc.27 Van Eyck usually placed a main first element according to the site, usually the sand-pit, and according to which he placed the next element, and so on, no linear logic can be found in the design of the hundreds of playgrounds. A “logic of determined relations” that like Brancusi’s carving and polishing of the stones, lasted for years.28 I have tried to illustrate how Van Eyck’s and Smithsons’ understanding of the role of art in society, art as form of knowledge, brought them to re-define architecture as a form of art departing from the principles of Modern Art and the Modern Movement in architecture. They un-

derstood the processes that artists developed for the production of form, and they understood the logic that governed modern art as a creative process. They tried to bridge pre-war and post-war development of Modern Architecture re-defining the role of the main elements that articulated the architecture of the Modern Movement, from the idea of the “new consciousness” to the “elementary gestaltung” of a new reality. Nevertheless I think they ultimately failed providing an alternative, a truly paradigmatic shift from the architecture of the world war period. The fact that the Smithsons’ and Van Eyck’s paradigmatic break did not reached further was related with their lack of understanding of art in what I called epistemological terms. They understood the logic of abstract art but took it for granted, and did not question it in architectural terms. Both the aesthetic theory that ground it and Modern art itself where falling into a big crisis since the Second World War. Notions like that of Riegl’s artistic volition (Kunstwollen) needed to be reshaped regarding the dramatic change in the conditions of the production of art. Riegl’s approach had found its criticism in Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1935).29 Benjamin’s text outlined the fact that “social transformations” such as the mechanical reproduction of images was changing the perception-reaction of art, and therefore its logic, the world-picture that it creates: “The scholars of the Viennese School…Riegl and Wickhoff…They did not attempt - and, perhaps, saw no way - to show the social transformations expressed by these changes of perception…Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art.” Transcendental art was being turned into a commodity, as Duchamp foresaw when he stopped painting, leaving The Bride unfinished in 1923, and devoting himself secretly to build his last masterpiece in his apartment in New York from 1946 to 1966. 29

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Aldo Van Eyckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Playground (Amsterdam) published in FORUM 10, (1953). Although most of the Playgrounds displayed an irregular arrangement of the elements, in some cases Van Eyck opted for simple, regular and symmetric designs.

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As Adorno and Horkheimer denounced in their book Dialectics of Enlightment, in 1947: “Today works of art, suitably packaged like political slogans, are pressed on a reluctant public at reduced prices by the culture industry; they are opened up for popular enjoyment like parks”30 This article summarizes the main arguments of the PhD dissertation developed for the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM),“The Dialectical Form: Avant-Garde & Architecture in Aldo

van Eyck and Alison & Peter Smithson (19471960)”, supervised by Prof. Juan Herreros & Prof. Kenneth Frampton. The research has been developed at the GSAPP, Columbia University, within the contexts of the AAD and the AAR programs, and the Potlatch Lab, directed by Yehuda E. Safran. Its argument has been lately reinforced and reshaped due to the intensive debates within the PhD program at Berlage Institute (Rotterdam), thanks to the generosity of Prof. Pier Vittorio Aureli and Director Vedran Mimica.

Notes 1 Merz (Nasci) nº8-9. 2 Opening speech for Constant’s exhibition at Le Canard gallery in Amsterdam ( February 16th, 1951). See Strauven, Francis and Vincent Ligtelijn eds. Collected articles and other writings 1947-1998 / Aldo van Eyck. Amsterdam: SUN, c2008. 64. 3 Giedion proposed th subject “Architecture and its Relation to Painting and Sculpture” as the theme for CIAM 6. After a negative reaction of the Dutch group “De 8” it was decided that CIAM 6 would be a preparatory congress for CIAM 7. See Ibid, introduction to chapter 2. 4 The term is used in its broader sense as it was conceived among the Avant-Garde. It could be said that for Van Eyck it equaled the Dutch neologism coined by De Stjil, Nieuwe Beelding. De Stijl conceived it as a new plastic-thinking that comes after a new perception of the individual in relation to the universe. Several Dutch verbs that deal with the perception of the image and its representation are merged: Verbeelden, to imagine or represent (Ver means twist, change), Inbeelden, to imagine (In- meaning in), Uitbeelden, to express or represent (Uit- means out) and Afbeelden, to depict or to represent (Prefix Af- meaning to separate). The several terms depicting subtle variations in the process of perceptionknowledge-expression are synthesized in one word, the Nieuwe Beelding. Outside-inside is perceived as a continuum, the linguistic differentiation: Verbeelden ≠ Inbeelden ≠ Uitbeelden ≠ Afbeelden is dismissed Verbeelden = Inbeelden = Uitbeelden = Afbeelden in a continuum. Ver, In, Uit and Af were prefix defining the position of the object in relation to the beholder-painter, these different relations are erased in the search for an expression with an static/dynamic absolute value. A new meaning-value not provided by the object, a non-figurative meaning provided by the inner volition of the artist willing to build (English) - bilden (German) – beelding (Dutch) a new Beeldend (plastic) for a new world. 5 The quote is from Aldo Van Eyck’s “Intervention at CIAM 6, Bridgewater 1947”. For a complete overview of Van Eyck’s intervention see also: a document Van Eyck prepared for CIAM 6 entitled “Report concerning the interrelation of the plastic arts and the importance of cooperation”, see also “Statement against rationalism” Van Eyck’s edited version of his intervention at CIAM 6 (Published in S. Giedion’s A Decade of New Architecture, 1951); and “We discover Style” published in Forum, March 1949. From, Strauven, Francis and Vincent Ligtelijn ed. The reference to Le Corbusier intervention is taken from Strauven’s introduction to Chapter 2. 6 Pointing out these dates I narrow down the subject matter of this paper to the analysis of Van Eyck’s and Smithson’s works and ideas before they met in the Team 10. For a complete survey on the Team 10 see Risselada,

Max and Dirk van den Heuvel eds. Team 10: 1953-81: in search of a utopia of the present. Rotterdam: NAI, 2005. 7 E. Panofsky, The History of Art as Humanistic Discipline. 1939-40. 8 C.O.B.R.A. is the acronym for the cities were the main artists of the Group came from: Karel Appel, Cornelis and Constant from Amsterdam, Christian Dotremont from Brussels and Asger Jorn from Copenhagen. The “Groupe Experimental Hollandaise”, COBRA-Amsterdam was founded in November 1948 and lasted until 1951. See Willemijn Stokvis, Cobra: la conquete de la spontanéité. Paris: Gallimard ; [s.l.] : V+K publishing, 2001. 9 The Independent Group was a group of young artists, architects and historians connected with the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Around 1952 “meetings of people at the ICA some of whom taught at the Central School of Art and became Independent Group members before Richard Lannoy’s organized sessions”. See Massey, Anne. The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945-59. Manchester [England]; New York : Manchester University Press, 1995. and The Independent Group: Post-War Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. 10 All the following references to Worringer are extracted from Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997. For Wölfflin see Heinrich Wolfflin. Principles of Art History; The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. New York, Dover Publications. 1950. For a contemporary general overview on the Vienna School see Christopher S. Wood, The Vienna School Reader, Zone Books, New York, 2002. 11 See Strauven, Francis. Aldo van Eyck: the shape of relativity. Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura, 1998. 77. 12 Reyner Banham studied under Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld Institute of Art (1946), then Siegfried Giedion and finally Nikolaus Pevsner for the development of his Ph.D. dissertation. Banham’s Ph.D. advisor, Nicolaus Pevsner had studied under Wöfflin in Munich before moving to London during the 2nd World War. 13 Not because the artist desired to give the illusion of a living object, but because the feeling for the beauty of the organic form that is true to life had been aroused, and because the artist desired to give satisfaction to this feeling, which dominated the absolute artistic volition. Worringer clearly detached Naturalism in art from the mere imitative impulse. See Worringer’s Chapter 2: “Naturalism & Style”. 27.

Fall 2010 14 Worringer does not refer in any moment to any kind of modern abstract art, his study referred mainly to Maya, Egyptian and Cisalpine art.

Group see Uppercase nº1. Ed. by Theo Crosby. London: Whitefriars, 1960.

15 See Worringer P-134. It follows “The old art had been a joyless impulse to self-preservation; now, after this transcendental volition had been taken over and calmed by the scientific striving after knowledge, the realm of art seceded from the realm of science. And the new art, which now springs to life, is Classical art. Its coloring is no longer joyless like the old. For it has become a luxury activity of the psyche, an activation of previously inhibited inner energies, freed from all compulsion and purpose, and the bestower of happiness. Its delight is no longer the rigid regularity of the abstract, but the mild harmony of the organic being.” 135.

21 See Uppercase nº3. Ed. by Theo Crosby. London: Whitefriars, 1960. And A & P Smithson “The Built world: Urban reidentification”. Architectural Design, June 1955.

16 See Heinrich Wolfflin. Principles of Art History; The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. New York, Dover Publications. 1950.

22 Strauven, Francis. Aldo van Eyck: The Shape of Relativity. Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura, 1998. 77-78. 23 Cornelius van Eesteren offered Van Eyck a position of architectural designer in the Town Planning division of the Public Works Department of Amsterdam; they got along very well, as Strauven accounts: “they often sought each other out at the end of the day to exchange ideas – ‘In for some Stijl?’ Van Eesteren would ask…”. See Strauven. 100.

17 This point is difficult to argue in such a brief paper. The most difficult connection to argue is maybe from the Russian Formalism to the DadaZurich. In this sense it could be argue that the main connection from the Formalist to the rest of artistic movements was visual-intuitive produced by the diffusion of the work of the Suprematists artists. Moreover, Hugo Bäll was very close to Fritz Brupbacher, a libertarian socialist publisher of the journal Der Revoluzzer and organized leftwing radical roundtables. They were all familiar with the work of Bakunin and Kropotkin. See “The Star of the Cabaret Voltaire” by Hubert van den Berg in “Dada Zurich: A clown’ game from Nothing” (p.76) from Crisis and the arts: the history of Dada / Stephen C. Foster, editor. Vol.II On the other hand the Russian poets such as Klebnikov were in contact with Marinetti, the leader of the Futurist movement. See V. Khlevnikov and A. Kruchonykh, “The Word as Such”, in Collected works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Vol. I Ed. By Charlotte Douglas / translated by Paul Schmidt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.

24 For Van Doesburg’s notion on the elementary architecture See “Futurism between whim and revelation: the manifest of Sant’Elia” in Theo van Doesburg, On European Architecture: Complete Essays from Het Bouwbedrijf, 1924-1931. Birkhauser Verlag ed, Amsterdam 1990. 225.

18 For a complete survey of Nigel Henderson’s background and his connection with Duchamp and the Smithsons see Victoria Walsh, Nigel Henderson: Parallel of Life and Art. Foreword and afterword by Peter Smithson. London: Thames & Hudson, c2001. For E. Paolozzi see Konnertz, Winfried. Eduardo Paolozzi. Köln : DuMont, 1984.

29 For Benjamin’s criticism on Wölfflin’s methods, see Benjamin’s essay on the historical method in The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media. Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. Benjamin’s quote is from “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”.

19 Difference between Van Eyck’s use of the word “relation” and the Smithsons’ use of the word “association”. 20 For a nice illustration of the Dadaist influence on the Independent

25 See Brancusi’s aphorisms on sculpture in De Stijl nº 79-84,1927. 26 Van Eyck’s quote. 27 As in the Dadaist or Russian Formalist notion of artwork, the object in itself loses importance. What is important is the experience, the state of consciousness that the perception of the object provide us. 28 For an understanding of Van Eyck view on Brancusi see Giedion-Welcker, Carola, Constantin Brancusi, 1876-1957. Version française de André Tanner. Neuchâtel : Editions du Griffon, 1958.

30 Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Stanford University press, Stanford, California, 2002. 129.

Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005

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The opening scenes.

Potlatch 1

The Invisible Order Marissa Looby

idden deep within the act of gift-giving lies an invisible order - an unidentifiable construct that codifies, organizes and structures the behavior of those surrounding the given object. The gift-giving ritual describes a form of exchange within the order of society more than a formal language system, it describes a formal behavioral system. The 2005 French film by Michael Haneke, entitled Cache (translated as Hidden in English), starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, revolves around the principles of the gift exchange: where the mysterious past of the main character, Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil), is made visible through the object of the gift in the form of an anonymous videotape. Non-communicative dimensions of this exchange are made visible for the viewer through the clever display of information by Haneke. In making visible the invisible order of the gift, the viewer is transformed into the film, and takes a part in the reciprocal set of relations surrounding both the object and the gift. Cache is set in contemporary Paris, in the home of the Laurent family: Georges, the father, a successful academic and television show host, lives with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and their school-age son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). They comprise a typical middle class Parisian family. In the opening sequence, however, a mysterious videotape appears on the family’s doorstep; its content reveals footage of the street exterior of the Laurent’s home residence, which is being filmed by what seems to be a hidden camera across the street. The Laurents have no idea who filmed their house or sent the tape, nor do they have any clue as to its purpose; they are suspicious and cautioned by the object. As

subsequent videotapes arrive, the images become more and more unsettling to Georges, due to the videotapes increasing in their personal content: they start to display events from Georges’ past, which he does not want to disclose to his family. As these tapes appear, Georges’ memory of his past resurfaces, formed in the state of dreams and nightmares, forging an unwanted trace of his childhood back into the present. Georges is reminded of the house in which he grew up, and the estranged relationship he once had with an Algerian boy named Majid (Maurice Bénichou), who was almost adopted by Georges’ parents. After tracking down the adult Majid, their relationship, although never revealed in its entirety, is played out through the events of this video exchange. Violent, frightful dreams of Georges’ childhood are juxtaposed against his present secrecy to his family, creating suspicion of his secret past, and leaving it unknown to the viewer, and his family, as to whether Georges is essentially good or bad, or if he is threat or the one being threatened. The viewer cannot singularly identify with Georges - or with any other character, for that matter - because each character has been assigned a complex identity that always remains partly hidden within further layers of the narrative. For instance, Anne, Georges’ wife, is accused of having an affair with her boss by her son Pierrot. Both Georges and Anne have a close friendship with Anne’s boss and partner, and they are regularly seen at dinner in the Laurent family’s home, supporting the Laurents through the difficult time of receiving the videotapes. However, Anne is often in close physical contact with her boss, without the presence of their respective partners - touching hands and seen in intimate circumstances. 39

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Haneke creates fluctuating moments of suspicion, leaving it unclear as to whether Anne is guilty of an affair, or innocent. In the same light, Majid, the Algerian boy from Georges’ past, and Majid’s son are both implicated by Georges as the ‘gift givers’ of the videotape. Georges deduces that Majid and his son are the only ones who could possibly have known these intimate details about Georges’ past, so they must be responsible. However, a disturbingly gruesome and panoptictype viewing of Majid’s suicide once again creates doubt in the eyes of the viewer as to his participation in sending the videotapes; Majid is extremely disturbed from seeing Georges, and he kills himself shortly after their reunion. Although in Georges’ eyes, the only person who could have sent the videotape is Majid, Majid is adamant up until his suicide that it was not him. Viewers, receiving only pieces of information about characters, as well as about past and present events, are forced to construct their own course of action and opinions throughout the film. The videotape is an object of the gift in the structuralist sense of the term. French sociologist Marcel Mauss, in his book The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, created a theory of gift exchange at the beginning of the twentieth century, based on the observations of primitive Polynesian Societies. Mauss develops the principles of the gift around a theory of a general and restricted economy gifts, to Mauss, are never free, rather they are connected into a system of reciprocal exchange. Based on his analysis of Potlatch, a term meaning to feed, or to consume, he describes the competition between rival tribes, who would redistribute wealth by way of extravagant gift-giving ceremonies. Rival tribes would spend everything at their disposal in a competition of riches to find out who was the most extravagant and wealthy. The gift, already tainted by its rivalry, is further tainted by Mauss’ description of the three ob40

ligations; giving, receiving and reciprocating. Giving is necessary to maintain social relationships, to which the rival tribe must receive (as refusal of a gift rejects the social bond between the two tribes); and, finally, the rival tribe must reciprocate, for they must show their own honor and value of wealth. Not to reciprocate would be to lose honor, and in Polynesia it is described as losing one’s Mana, which is the spiritual source for wealth and authority. Mauss believes that the only way a truly genuine gift can be given is to offer a Potlatch and not have it returned. In Cache, the anonymous gift was given to the Laurent family, received in the family home, and reciprocated insomuch as Georges found Majid, the boy from his childhood, who, in turn, killed himself shortly after receiving Georges’ presence. Mauss’ description of the gift was widely popular in structural and post-structural theories, influencing such figures as Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. Structuralist theories largely gained from Mauss’ knowledge, which they re-appropriated into their own theories of the gift and its signifying order. In relation to Cache, there are strong ties with the Derridian analysis of the gift. For Derrida, there is an inherent paradox in giving a gift, as tied with the possibility of giving a gift is its impossibility. This is because a genuine gift requires anonymity, for only then there is no accrued benefit in the giver and the receiver - he states: “For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, counter-gift, or debt. If the other gives me back or owes me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long-term deferral or difference.”1 Hence, in the very exchange of the gift lies a system that both adheres to a hidden order and resists against its pure order - therefore it defines an act of resis-

Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005

Potlatch 1

Georges’ dream scene: a memory from his childhood.

tance and adherence at one and the same time; it is both system and rupture of that system. This is further observed by Mauss’ examination of the origin of the word gift. ‘Gift’ translates to the Latin and Greek word dosis, meaning and referring to dose; to give a dose of poison. It also had its origin in the words venenum (from vanati), meaning to give pleasure and genwinnuen, meaning to win.2 The gift of Cache could be said to be of the poisoned variety. The offering of Cache makes visible the forms of societal resistance and coherence surrounding the videotape - its effect is multiplied throughout the film. The gift system is ruptured and made visible, creating a pivotal role for the viewer in deciding their own ending - poison or pleasure - from the limited evidence put forth. Derrida’s anonymous offer of exchange is worthy of further investigation in the context of Cache. Derrida believes, for instance, that, once something is acknowledged as a gift, the very gift itself has been destroyed; adherence to behavioral standards for correctly receiving the gift creates a simulated experience, a masked societal norm - anonymity is the key to unfold-

ing this masking effect. The videotapes that appear at the Laurent family’s doorstep are always anonymous. This estrangement of gift from giver in Derrida’s terms would create a true gift. In the film, the anonymity of the videotape creates suspicion and threat. Is the mystery of the true gift then, to cause suspicion and threat? One would think not, but are the true feelings and actions more true than the complacency associated with the inauthentic exchange that normally occurs surrounding the gift? Cache inverts gift relations to make visible what is usually hidden, all whilst constraining many events, to bring the viewer into the receiving of the gift. Derrida says “…if one holds to the logic of (inauthentic) dissimulation that dissimulates (authentic) dissimulation by means of the simple gesture of exposing or exhibiting it, or seeing in order to see or having seen in order to see, … then one here has a logic of secrecy. It is never better kept than in being exposed. Dissimulation is never better dissimulated than by means of this particular kind of dissimulation that consists of exposing being as a force, showing it behind its mask, behind its fiction or its simulacrum.”3 In the words of Derrida, per41

Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005

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Final scene: Georges’ and Majid’s sons meet at school.

haps the anonymous gift delivered to the Laurents’ doorstep was more true that any known gift could be? However, Derrida continues to argue that the mask, as representative of the social construct, cannot not dissimulate once it is revealed, because with the emergence of one disorder, is the constraint of the even larger construct of order. Simulated dissimulation shines through in Cache, by creating multiple masks, questions, hidden agendas and unknowns for the viewer. Even the minor background scenes and characters all play a part in the multiplicity effect given to the viewer to highlight the hidden societal order. Made visible are the complex innerworkings of the order of the gift - the giver takes the place of the hidden, and the receiver is left to deal with the exchange of the gift on their own; to explain the meaning of its message to his family, and to temporarily live his life through the constructs that this object creates. The viewer’s role is made evident by the careful use of what one could call panoptictype viewings of the on-screen action. Haneke often erases the distinction between the viewing of the actual event within the film and the view42

ing of the copied tape, often leaving the viewer not knowing whether they are watching the ‘live’ events, or the videotaped events of the gift within the context of the film. This technique distorts the perception of the viewer. For example, in the very first scene, a Parisian street is being filmed on a still camera, focused on a house. There are people talking in the background, but the action is glued to the single view of the street. After considerable conversation between two currently unknown characters, whose questions revolve around a mysterious set of question about what an unknown ‘something’ is, the very shot of the street fast-forwards, making the viewer aware that they have been watching a television within the film, exposing the simulated event of the copied tape. It becomes clear very early on that it is the task of the viewer to decide what is real through the lens of the camera. This type of camera shot - the flat vision of a still camera occurs at pivotal points throughout the film, and in effect, the viewer is brought into the action under the guise of surveillance. This technique will repeat throughout the film: sometimes it is the real scene and sometimes it is the televi-

Potlatch 1

sion screen. The effect is quite surreal; at times, it feels as if the viewer has been allowed inside the very intimate setting of the film through this act of surveillance. Behind this forefront action of mystery and secrecy are further layers of hidden meanings and messages, inserted by Haneke to emphasize the multiple use of the object (the gift), in the exchange within the film. Along with the simulated events adding to feelings of surveillance, the background settings and minor characters are sending another set of messages to the viewer. Subtly, and from no dialogue in the film, a major theme is brought into life, which reciprocates the dissimulated world of mask and gift over and over again. On television screens in the background of shots, in newspapers, in characterizations of people in the film, in chance encounters of Georges colliding with an other on the street, Haneke has set up a complex dialogue surrounding the French-Algerian tension, and other race related issues of a national scale. Its inclusion offers no master narrative, or siding or resolution - merely another layer of contemplation, and added meaning to the identity of Georges and Majid. Majid’s parents were killed in an Algerian protest when they were children, and Georges’ parents were to adopt Majid, until Georges’ jealousy became the cause of Majid being sent to an orphanage. Cache is without resolution all the way through. The sender of the unwanted gift is never revealed, nor are the mysterious events of Georges’ past, nor is the affair, or the reason for

Majid’s suicide. The viewer is left to make his or her own judgements. This thriller is gripping and open-ended in its meaning and delivery, yet constrained in its actions, surrounding the videotape and exchange. The repetition of human behavior and duplicity, and adherence to a system is further ignited at the final scene, where Georges’ son, Pierrot, and Majid’s son are seen conversing outside the school. This scene is once again shot like a surveillance camera, from a long distance, and the exchange may even be missed if the viewer is not watching closely. Nevertheless, the two sons, somehow, know each other and are seen to be having a friendly conversation. Rather than opt into conspiracy theories of the sender of the videotape, to which many believe could be the scheming of the two sons, the two young characters could be seen as signifiers of an order of sameness repeating - their coming together representative of an ongoing cyclical process of exchange. The gift in this creative work emphasizes the complex inner workings of both sides of this obligatory ritual of exchange - the giver and receiver, and the reciprocator; where the threat and the threatened, the secret and the secretive are hidden, in order to make visible the structure of the invisible societal order. This order, ruptured by the very small interjection of an anonymous signifying element (the videotape), creates the inauthentic moment that enables the viewer to survey and take part in the exchange within the film. They can then speculate on all the unanswered questions: they are given a part to play within the gift exchange ritual.

Notes 1 Jaques Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago (1992), 12. 2 Ibid. 36. 3 Jaques Derrida, The Gift of Death. Trans. David Wills (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1995 (2008), 39.

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Potlatch 1

Not Economically Viable Nicolas Grospierre

oland is littered with unfinished houses. Each of these houses stands for a tragedy but also an aesthetic experience. They stand for tragedies, because one can imagine the different reasons that have led to the abandonment of the house: death, loss of a job, loan refusal, all stories making the current owners ÂŤeconomically not viableÂť, according to banking terminology. But they are also aesthetic experiences, because these architectures, most of the time lacking originality and ugly, mutilated by their empty windows, are in a way sublimed by the very exterior signs telling about these personal tragedies. Not Economically viable, 2003-6, series of 15 photographs, Lambda D-print on aluminium, 50 x 50 cm. Ed. 4 + 1 A.P. Courtesy of the Artist.

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Bottari Kimsooja

Kimsooja, Bottari (2000) Used Korean bedcover and clothes. Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio.

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Contributors Cristobal Amunategui

was born in Santiago de Chile. He received his professional degree from the Universidad Catolica de Chile, where he currently teaches. He has taught in different schools of architecture, in the departments of Design and History and Theory. In 2009 he was awarded a Master of Science degree by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University, where he has recently completed a research entitled “Four Stories in the History of the Domestic Interior.” He is the editor of POTLATCH, the journal of the Potlatch Lab at GSAPP. His architectural work includes the co-authorship of the recently inaugurated Aubrey Hotel in Santiago de Chile (2010).

Curro

(Juan-Luis Valderrabano-Montañés) Dip. Technical Architect (Madrid, 1997) & Bachelor’s degree in Architecture E.T.S. El Valles (UPC-Barcelona, 2002). Studies architecture in Gran Canaria, El Valles (Barcelona), Paris-La Villete, Federico II (Napoli). Works for Daniel Libeskind (Berlin, 2001). In 2002 joins Miguel Plata founding Plata + Font Architects. Master in Advanced Architectural Design, GSAPP Columbia University 2008/09. Advanced Architectural Research Program, GSAPP Columbia University 2009/10. Visiting Scholar at Berlage Institute (Spring 2010), he is actually engaged in a dissertation at the ETSAM: “The Dialectical Form: Avant Garde art & architecture (1947-1960)” codirected by Prof. Juan Herreros (ETSAM) and Prof. Kenneth Frampton (GSAPP).

Nicolas Grospierre was born in Gene-

va, Switzerland, in 1975. He holds a MSc. from the London School of Economics in Russian and Post-Soviet - Studies, and a MSc. from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris in Political Sciences. His photographic work has been awarded with the Prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland (2009), and the Golden Lyon at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale for 74

best National participation (2008). Collective and individual exhibitions of his work have been made in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Michael Holt

graduated from Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation in 2010 with a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design following on from his education in England where he graduated with Bachelors degrees in Architecture. He is now principal of Architects Untitled, a newly formed collective attempting to establish itself through a number of competition entries. Previously he has worked at a number of British-based practices and held teaching positions at both University of Manchester, UK and Columbia University, USA. He currently resides in New York.

Kimsooja was born in 1957 in Taegu, South

Korea. She earned a BFA (1980) and MA (1984) from Hong-Ik University, Seoul. Kimsooja’s videos and installations blur the boundaries between aesthetics and transcendent experience through their use of repetitive actions, meditative practices, and serial forms. Central to her work is the bottari, a traditional Korean bed cover used to wrap and protect personal belongings, which she transforms into a philosophical metaphor for structure and connection. Kimsooja has received the Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2002), among others, and has had major exhtibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2008); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2006); Magasin 3, Stockholm Konsthall, Sweden (2006); the MIT List Gallery, Cambridge (2005), and other institutions. Kimsooja has participated in internatio nal exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2001, 2005, 2007); Yokohama Triennial (2005); and Whitney Biennial (2002). Kimsooja lives and works in New York.

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Martin Kropac was born in 1981 in for-

mer Czechoslovakia. He received a bachelor degree in architecture from Kansas State University and moved to Southern California where he worked as an architect in Santa Monica. In 2008 he returned to Europe to work in the office of AlbertoCampo Baeza in Madrid and to finish his master’s in architecture from Czech Technical University in Prague. His thesis project was awarded the first prize in the national Architect Award in 2009. Concurrently, he established his own architectural practice. After graduation Martin relocated to New York to pursue a postprofessional degree in architectural design at Columbia University in New York.

Marissa Looby

is a post professional Master’s student from GSAPP Columbia University, where she received an honor award for excellence in design (2010). She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Technology, Sydney and now resides in New York City. Marissa has been working within varying modes of architectural production including teaching, writing and architectural design - having a particular interest and drive to follow a multi-disciplined approach to architecture into both the theoretical and practical fields. She is currently experimenting with these modes under the newly established collective Architects Untitled.

Silvia Perea is an architect, graduated from

the Superior Technical School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (ETSAM) in 2001. Since then, she has combined the direction of her own office, developing urban, architectural and curatorial projects and competitions; with editing and publishing, working for International firms; as well as with teaching in Universities of Spain, Argentina, Brazil, India and United States, where she has widely lectured too. Her professional career has earned her many prizes and fellowships. Currently, she is developing her

doctoral thesis in the University of Columbia, New York, as a visiting scholar.

Yehuda Emmanuel Safran

studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art, the Royal College of Art and University College, London. He has taught at the Architectural Association, Goldsmith’s College, London University, and the Lan van Eyck Academy. He was a fellow of the Chicago Institute of Architecture and Urbanism and Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois as well as at RISD. He has published in Domus, Sight and Sound, Lotus, A+U, AA Files, Springer, Artpress, Prototypo, Metalocus, 9H and Abitare. With Steven Holl and others he was editor of 32 Bejing/New York, and is the author of Mies van der Rohe. He curated, interer alia, the Arts Council of Great Britain touring exhibition ‘The Architecture of Adolf Loos’ and the ‘Fredrick Kiesler’ show at the Architecture Association. He was a trustee of the 9H Gallery, a Founding member of the Architecture Foundation in London and a member of the College International de Philosophie, Paris. Currently he lives and works in New York, where he teaches and directs the Potlatch Lab at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

Sislej Xhafa

is a Kosovarian-American artist born in Peja, Kosovo in 1970. He is based in New York and is known for his artistic investigation into the social, economical and political realities associated with the various complexities of modern society. Xhafa has over the years highlighted his artistic work on economic and social themes, political realities, as they interact with the protean variety of modern society. His investigations, for example, into phenomena of tourism or forced illegality use a minimal language and they are at the same time ironic and subversive, practicing indifferently a wide range of media, from sculpture to drawing, from performance to photography. 75

Potlatch A Journal of the Potlatch Lab at GSAPP Columbia University 1172 Amsterdam Ave. 409 Avery Hall New York, NY 10027