Figure 2.10

the project, as so evidently seen in Extrovert Architecture. Often, Extrovert Architecture will attempt to create a space that overtly tries to embody the full story of the project, potentially resulting in other areas being neglected or forgotten in the architecture. The Chichu Art Museum, on the other hand, effectively generates a unique language for each void, by considering how each space is telling its own story and using the architecture uniquely to do so.

Figure 2.11

The Chichu Art Museum by Tadao Ando, 2004.

Figure 2.10 (Left)

Void, A Point of Introvert Architecture.

Occupancy

Occupancy - The architecture is dependent on occupancy. Only by dwelling in the architecture can one truly appreciate the architecture.

(Visualized through Absalon’s Cell + Robert Bray Playboy Penthouse)

As a critique of extroverted architecture, there is often an absence of the human in the monumentalized image. Frequently, Extrovert Architecture disregards the person in its representations, as the human body is often deemed as a distraction to the attractiveness of the architecture, and the objects within it. Returning to the dialogue of Playboy, many of the featured architectural images included drawings by Robert Bray, who designed a series of rooms titled, ‘Six Designs for A Playboy Penthouse Pad.’ In one of the drawings there is a description as follows, “‘you are standing in the foyer of our duplex penthouse, looking toward the living-room area …. In front of the fireplace wall are leather Domino Chairs; behind them, a multipaneled abrasion proof painting covers an array of audio and video equipage’.”33 Even through the description, the reader of the magazine is forced to admire the architecture, guided to certain furnishings, objects, and artworks. Neither the drawing, nor the description seeks to describe how people would occupy the space. This is because the drawings of the rooms are not a representation of one’s life, they neglect life and the one who would move through, react to, and develop emotions within the architecture. The image here is used to exhibit an architecture that is attractive. The use of the word ‘our’ in the description of the image, “you are standing in the foyer of our duplex penthouse…”34 suggests that this architecture has been claimed by Playboy and Bray. They produce these images of this extroverted architecture because they desire the attention the image provides. By avoiding placing people living in these spaces, Bray himself, can remain desirable through his own architecture. Once a person occupies the space, no longer is the architecture desirable, but the occupant is desirable, as they are who claims ownership of that space. For an architect producing an Extrovert Architecture, and therefore producing images to monumentalize it, it is expected to disregard

Figure 2.12

Figure 2.13

Occupancy, A Point of Introvert Architecture. Visualized through Absalon’s Cell. Occupancy, A Point of Introvert Architecture. Visualized through Robert Bray’s Playboy Penthouse.

Figure 2.14

Two Drawings from “Six Designs for a Playboy Penthouse Pad” by Robert Bray in Playboy, 1940.

the occupant and keep the attention focused on the architecture, and subsequently, the architect. While the architecture of the extrovert ideal has continued, architects and architecture persistently desire to bring attention to themselves. Unfortunately, people, their movement, their lifestyles, and their emotions do not change the outcome of the architecture. This not only has influenced the representations of architecture, but also the design and construction of it. In architecture’s extrovert ideal, the disconnect between building and dwelling becomes more obvious.

For Introvert Architecture, the intention is to harness the occupant, and build a relationship with their actions and emotions. As stated by the principle of ‘place,’ the Introvert Architecture is a product of its surroundings. This is also evident in the principle of ‘occupancy.’ Here, the architecture is a product of how it is to be used and occupied. The person shapes the space, as the space is simply for the person, not for the architecture. Though architecture may act as an enabler or disabler of occupancy, Introvert Architecture wants to ensure functionality, and avert distractions from usability. It is simple in the means of program, where the architecture works exclusively for the way an occupant wished to use a space. Here, the desires of the mortal, as used by Heidegger, become clear, as their lives and aspirations should build the spaces they occupy.

The two examples chosen to demonstrate this point were selected to show the contrast between extroverted and introverted architecture. Both were chosen as rooms, as the room is the most obvious form of architecture.35 As the room becomes a tool to define the role a person has within a space, these drawings attempt to show how the room is ultimately a backdrop to the person when their occupancy is considered the forefront of an architecture’s experience. Even in the most opposite of rooms, Absalon’s Cell and a derivative of Robert Bray’s Playboy Penthouse Pad, the room, or the architecture, is ultimately a product of the occupant.

In an Introvert Architecture, there is a desire to ensure that the room responds to and works for those who use it. It should not disregard movement, emotion, and lifestyle, rather each of these become fundamental in the creation of an Introvert Architecture.

Time

Time - The architecture is not static. It exists within time, containing stories, energy, sound, shadow, and environment.

Time is a unique and fundamental principle of Introvert Architecture. Time harnesses each of the previous four points, as it is connected to each in a unique manner. Time affects material through history and lifespan. It exists a part of site and place, being an ever changing, growing, and dying entity consuming the architecture. Time is a dependent of space and void, as the analog relationship that the architecture has with time should be considered in the creation of space. Last, occupancy is a product of time, where the processes of life, and person-architecture relationships can only occur through time. Introvert Architecture recognizes that it is a part of time, and it cannot isolate from it. Time will affect its design and its existence.

The extrovert ideal has disconnected architecture from time. Notably, the introduction of the image has isolated architecture from time, as the image, itself, is independent from time. Increasingly, architecture has been at the mercy of planned obsolescence.36 New architecture is being designed with an expiry date, as buildings are being forced to conform to the unstable rise and fall of popular design trends. There are architectural discoveries and fads that tend to sweep through architecture every few years, causing an altercation with everything in practice, from the building itself, to the way it is being produced through drawing. This ‘popular architecture’ that is often delivered by ‘starchitects’ continue to produce an architecture that egotistically seeks to discredit all architecture before it. This escalates an architecture’s extrovert ideal, as it forces cities to constantly rebuild, in search of their own icon of popular architecture.

Introvert Architecture embraces time. It is an architecture that desires to be a part of time, embracing changes in human-architecture relationships. It understands material decay, weathering, and the grievances through occupancy. It creates a relationship between time on all scales, daily and yearly cycles, as well as generational cycles.

Figure 2.15

Time, A Point of Introvert Architecture.

Five Point Conclusion

As developed by the Five Points of Introvert Architecture, it appears that there is a binding relationship that context has with architecture’s ability to be introverted. ‘Context’ in this case, used as a noun that encapsulates the fourfold, and the ‘Five Points,’ all of which are essential in the development of Introvert Architecture. For Introvert Architecture, form cannot exist without context, and context cannot exist without form. An Introvert Architecture demonstrates the importance of cultural backstories and critical theory in how buildings are designed and constructed. There is honesty and genuine concern for the material being used and how it is being crafted. There becomes an intense treatment of even the simplest objective, as they become so critically studied and analyzed as integral to the making of the overall architecture. The process of design and construction is not influenced by the image, nor influenced by its ability to distinguish itself. Rather, the architecture places a critical focus on the ‘objects’ of the architecture, where the relationship an Introvert Architecture builds with ‘objects’ is a necessity of design. The Introvert Architecture becomes background to the craft, to its environment, and to its operation. It is sublime in the essence of presence and is opposite to extroversion. Additionally, the power in introverted buildings must be rooted in their introspective design, focus on human-scale, and genuine care for the ability of individuals to live the way they choose.

Introvert Architecture Equation

Introvert Architecture = Desire to Build Relations + Form Governed by Context

An Introvert Architecture is reflective of a genuine practice, it is not born from a desire for accolades, attention, or status. It seeks to simply be. To be built from its physical existence, users, site, environment, socioeconomics and occupants. It is not vain, but it can still be beautiful. Introvert Architecture exists within the context of economy, but it does not desire distinguishment. It may operate in or separate from the uniformity of urbanization but has no dependency on such. The attempt to use forms and spectacular expressions

like Extrovert Architecture is not justified through the image but can only be justified through context and relations. Introvert Architecture is calm, gentle, and reflective. It is interior, not in the respects of interior or exterior space, rather, it is internal to the context it resides. There is no intention to engage beyond its interior actors. As an extroverted building would likely establish a relationship of dominance, an introvert building would carefully examine its actors and be reflective of the intimate relationships it creates with them.

Endnotes

26 Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of An Absolute Architecture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011), 45.

27 Aureli 2011, 16.

28 Aureli 2011, 35-44.

29 Aureli 2011, 35-44.

30 Martin Heidegger and Albert Hofstadter, “Building Dwelling Thinking.” In Poetry, Language, Thought (New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 1971).

31 Heidegger.

32 Heidegger.

33 Robert Bray, “Six Designs for A Playboy Penthouse Pad.” In Playboy January 1970. Accessed August 26, 2021. https://drawingmatter.org/robert-bray-six-de signs-for-a-playboy-penthouse-pad/.

34 Bray.

35 Dogma, The Room of One’s Own: the Architecture of the (Private Room) (Milano: Black Square, 2017).

36 Daniel Abramson, Obsolescence: An architectural history (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Figure 3.1

Context, Human, and Dwelling.

CHAPTER 3 ALLAN GARDENS TEMPORARY EXHIBITION MUSEUM

Context, Human, and Dwelling

The Resting Station was an early design exercise that evaluated Introvert Architecture and its relationship to people and context, based on the Introvert Architecture Equation. The goal of the design was to create a ‘project’ that had a simple program and used the definition of an introverted person to help influence the design of the architecture, creating a resting station suitable for introverted people. Moreover, the project was placed on a simplified landscape, so it did not compete with the architecture. The decision for the simplified parameters was to focus directly on the architecture’s relationship to people and land, with minimal distractions.

Through the process of this design charrette, the first notable obstacle of an Introvert Architecture was its form. As noticed early on, the minimal site and program posed a challenge to the formal development of the architecture. Other than an arbitrary path placed alongside the project site, no other factors contributed toward formal decisions. Initially, the project began as individual segments that were similar in form but were separated to create distance between the people occupying the architecture. The thought behind this was in respect to an introvert’s intention to be evasive. At first pass, the building, the Resting Station, should be minimal, self-effacing, and simple, as if it only served to provide a sheltered bench for one person or a small group. However, it appeared that the collection of isolated objects in an open space resulted in bringing more attention to the architecture and the people who occupied it. Therefore, it was apparent that the architecture’s scale needed to be large enough that the introverted person could occupy the space, but not be framed by it.

This resulted in the architecture taking on a seemingly random formal arrangement. However, the logic for this arrangement fell back on the spatial experience of an introverted person. The dynamic placement was to use the architecture to draw attention away from the individual. As learned through projects such as the Centraal Beheer Building, for an introvert, they want to exist within an environment, separated from people, but not isolated so much that they become identifiable as alone or standing out. The occupant can feel concealed within the architecture, while simultaneously existing among a variety of people who use it, through observation. Therefore, the architecture attempts to create an environment that allows a person to situate themselves freely within it. The openness and randomness prevent definable areas in the architecture, which results in no location, or person, being spotlighted by the building. Additionally, its simple form, materiality, and construction work to bring little attention to the building, it simply exists in a most basic form and expression. The act of being simple in form, materiality, and construction, is necessary for an Introvert Architecture. However, it was clear that a genuine development of an Introvert Architecture requires more contextual, programmatic, and human influences to be designed, appropriately. Therefore, this informs the next strategy of research on an Introvert Architecture. An approach that occurs alongside the development of ‘relations’ and the reevaluation of the ‘Five Points of Introvert Architecture.’ It considers how an architecture that desires no monumentation or recognition, makes formal decisions based solely on context, program, and people.

Figure 3.2

Plan, Resting Station.