Architecture by memory

ARCHITECTURE BY MEMORY The role of memory in creating and perceiving architectural experiences

by J. Poortman

Our history carries great responsibility in the foundation of who we truly are. Without our history, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this particular place, because the past brought us to where we are standing right now in the present.

This is nothing new, somewhere in our minds we all know this indeed, but understanding of our personal history, being led by our active memories, helps each of us understanding who we are, this unique personality everyone is. Like understanding national history gives great insight in the identity of a nation and the origin of its own culture, standards and rules.

But unlike the collectiveness of a nations identity - coming from its collective, historical memories - personal identity, partly a result of personal memories has an individual character. Your own memories carry great responsibility in the foundation of who you truly are.

Just as this uniqueness of personal memory and personality, the way of designing and perceiving for architects is unique and has this similar individual character. Every architect creates architecture in his/her own way because personality has an essential share in designing. Besides creation, every architect, as every person in general, has a personal, unique perception of everything. In the case of an architect, both his/her own work, architectural design, and the work of others, architectural experiences, are perceived in a unique way, because of this personality.

And if the uniqueness and individual character of personality comes partly from memories of this personality and the uniqueness of architectural design and perception while experiencing is strongly related to the individual person, architecture and memory might be related in an interesting way. This is why the relation between creation and perception of architectural experiences and personal memories is a relation worth exploring and querying.

To find this possible relation between architecture and memory, three visions will be explored, and summarized starting with Aldo Rossi’s point of view as mentioned in his book ‘A Scientific Autobiography’ followed by Rem Koolhaas’ opinion from his book ‘Delirious New York’ and concluding with Richard Sennett’s way of thinking shown in his book ‘The Craftsman’.

Exploring and summarizing these three visions might give an idea about the relation between the creation and perception of architectural experiences and personal memories, but moreover, if possible, the visions will be compared to each other so each of these three visions might possibly act as a mirror and critique for the other two, clearly showing different angles which could help the establishment of a personal opinion about this relation.

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ALDO ROSSI ‘A SCIENTIFIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY’ Of course, Aldo Rossi’s autobiography is, as all autobiographies are, a very personal story in which personal interests and motivations are explained. In the search for a relation between architecture and memory this book provides lots of information, because in his way of describing both his designing and experiencing of architecture Rossi refers a lot to his personal memories, showing countless examples of feelings, atmospheres, people and architecture from his past being an inspiration, motivation and passion for him as both a person and an architect.

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At the very beginning of his autobiography Rossi mentions his memories of summer, in this particular case his sense that every summer seemed to be his last one and that this sense of “statis without evolution” may explain many of his projects, moreover he even states that to understand and explain his architecture, he “must run through things and impressions, must again describe them, or find a way to do so.” 1 Besides using memory as explanation tool of his architecture, this ‘looking back in time’ is also pointing out his awareness of development. Rossi describes the reading of the book ‘Apparecchio alla morte’ by Alfonso dei Liguori and that this “strange book, which I still recall in many images,…….. it was an instrument”.

There was a moment in time from which he came to “regard architecture as the instrument which permits the unfolding of a thing. I must say that over the years, this awareness has increased my interest in my craft, especially my latest projects, where I have tried to propose buildings which, so to speak, are vehicles for events…...I can say now that they achieve a silence which is different from the purism I had striven for in my early designs, where I was concerned primarily with light, walls, shadows, openings. I have realized that it is impossible to recreate an atmosphere.” 2 Rossi’s book is full of these ‘memory examples’ in which 1 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 1.

2 Ibid., p. 5.

he refers to his personal history, explaining where his vision of architecture was founded and how it developed to its final form, fully aware of the impact particular historical moments had on his life. Another example of this awareness is mentioned when Rossi speaks about his believe that “……place and time are the first conditions of architecture and hence the most difficult. I have long had an interest in modern architecture, but I think that perhaps this style of architecture is linked in my mind with some buildings of my childhood – a villa or a residential block at Belo Horizonte in Brazil. This is a strange memory or experience of modern architecture, but it is also always accompanied by the awareness that aspects of reality can only be apprehended one at a time; I mean that rationality or the smallest degree of lucidity permits an analysis of what is certainly reality’s most fascinating aspect: the inexpressible.” 3 Rossi had to explain parts of his memory to make his book understandable. He states that his recalling of the effect that others “produced in me when I was a boy” is certainly unavoidable, “Precisely, because I am writing an autobiography of my projects which is mingled with my personal history”. 4 Architecture he has seen in different places of the world, like Filarete’s Colum at the Grand Canal in Venice and the Roman ruins at Budapest for example, compared to each other made him rediscover different architectural elements, like the column for example, which first was a “…..relic of time, in its absolute formal purity, has always seemed to me a symbol of architecture consumed by the life which surrounds it”, and turned into “…...one possible fragment of a thousand other buildings”. 5 So his personal history brought in awareness by personal memory created a development in his vision about architecture and his way of creating it.

In experiencing architecture, besides the shaping of his vision, Rossi also refers to his previous experiences. For instance in the example of the Lichthof of the University of Zurich, “…..whose roof resembles, unless I am mistaken, 3 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 52.

4 Ibid., p. 6.

5 Ibid, p. 6.

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the pyramidal roof of the Kunsthaus.” Normally, this Lichthof is full of students making Rossi see the university “as a bazaar, teeming with life, as a public building or ancient bath.” But at the specific time photographer Heinrich Helfenstein took photographs of the interior, the students were celebrating holiday and the photographs showed “the luminous court and the aerial galleries are absolutely empty, the building is uninhabited, and it is even difficult to comprehend how it might be inhabited……did I clearly see the palm trees in the glass-walled court,… ……I connected the University with the Invernadero at Barcelona and with the gardens at Seville and Ferrara, where I experience a peace that is nearly complete. But in depicting the two palms, the photographs reminded me of the façade of the Hotel Due Palme on Lame M., where I spend some of my time; the façade of the hotel constituted anew a sensitive manifestation of architecture, one that went beyond any stylistic or technical reference.”

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The memory of architectural experiences didn’t just influence his new experiences of architecture, but also guided him in his architectural design. Rossi describes his experience with the convent of Santa Clara at Santiago de Compostela. His analysis show inter alia “A diffuse luminosity pervades the large room, where the figures lose themselves as in a piazza. The practice of carrying naturalism to its extreme consequences leads to a kind of metaphysics of the object; things, old people’s bodies, light, a cold ambience – all are offered through a kind of observation that seems distant. Yet this emotionless distance is precisely the deathly air of the poorhouse.

When I was designing the cemetery at Modena, I constantly thought about this hospice, and the light which traces precise bands on that section of the painting is the same as that which passes through the window of this project.” 7 The example of Santa Clara is one of the many Rossi gives, showing his awareness of architectural analysis and observations of in the past “……has remained my most important formal education; for observation later becomes transformed into memory. Now I seem to see all the things 6 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 8-11.

7 Ibid., p. 12.

I have observed arranged like tools in a neat row; they are aligned as in a botanical chart, or a catalogue, or a dictionary. But this catalogue, lying somewhere between imagination and memory, is not neutral; it always reappears in several objects and constitutes their deformation and, in some way, their evolution.” 8 (crafstman) It seems that for Aldo Rossi, history is part of his most important formal education and memory is involved in the process of applying and practising this education.

In his autobiography, Rossi explains besides his own memories also the memory of architecture itself! Buildings with memories of which the theatre is an often used example in which he “…….realized as much while looking at empty theaters as if they were buildings abandoned forever, even though this abandonment in reality is often briefer than the length of a day. Still, this brief abandonment is so burdened with memory that it creates the theater.” 9 Architecture so full of memory that it even creates the architecture, enriches the experience of a building. Rossi is using the example of a theatre, the ‘Little Scientific Theater’ in particular of which he explains after “…..a beautiful dedication” by Anthony Vidler who has given Rossi a copy of Frances Yates’s ‘Theatre of the World’: “For A., from the theatre of memory to the theatre of science”, that indeed “Certainly the Little Scientific Theater was the theater of memory, but memory in the sense of repetition: this was its magic.” 10 All these performances in the building, followed by abandonment over and over again, formed the memories of the theatre.

Memory is playing such a great and important role in the designs of Rossi, that it seems almost like he is designing for memory instead of using it as an instrument. “Likewise in my projects, repetition, collage, the displacement of an element from one design to another, always places me before another potential project which I would like to do but which is also a memory of some other thing.” 11 Rossi’s memory tells him about an experience of architecture and almost instructs him obsessively to 8 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 23.

9 Ibid., p. 30.

10 Ibid., p. 68.

11 Ibid., p. 20.

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create the same feeling again in his own architecture like in his “……project for the villa is perhaps an attempt to find again this architecture which filters that distinctive light, that evening coolness, those shadows of a summer afternoon. Azul de atardecer.” 12 Architecture serving memory, serving an obsession of reliving the past, so to say.

This obsession of reliving the past and the ‘copying’ of different observations and times, of memories, becomes more clear in Rossi’s example about the opposite of memorizing, namely “…..forgetting is also associated with a loss of our own identity and that of the things we observe; every change occurs within a moment of obsession.

The difference between the long urban building I had designed for the Gallaratese quarter in Milan about ten years earlier and these small houses of Elba seems to me to elucidate my one idea about the city and the places where we live: they should be seen as part of the reality of human life. They are like copies of different observations and times: my youthful observation of long workers’ scaffolds, of courtyards full of voices and meetings which I spied on with a sort of fear in my bourgeois childhood, had the same fascination as the cabins or, better, as the small houses which came to mind in other situations and places – like the monks’ houses at the Certosa in Pavia or those endless American suburbs.” 13 Rossi’s architecture is not only serving memory but also avoiding the loss of identity which is related to forgetting because it seems plausible that if memory carries responsibility for identity, oblivion serves the loss of this identity and is opposed by Rossi’s architecture.

After describing his particularly interest in books about immunology, Rossi declares being deeply impressed by Ivan Roitt’s definition in Essential Immunology: ““Memory, specificity, and the recognition of ‘non-self’ – these lie at the heart of immunology.” Memory and specificity as characteristics enabling the recognition of the self and of what is foreign to it seem to me the clearest conditions and explanations of reality. Specificity cannot exist without memory, nor can memory that does not emanate from a specific moment: only the union of the two permits the 12 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 34-37.

13 Ibid., p. 41.

awareness of one’s own individuality and its opposite (of self and non-self).” 14 Here Rossi shows a link between one’s own individuality (‘self’, personality so to say) and memory. His opinion is that specificity, that what makes personality unique, cannot exist without memory and memory cannot exist without the specificity of a moment.

Comparing memory with architectural structure, Rossi creates a link between architecture, specificity and memory when he explains that these ideas about immunology “…..have seemed to answer my questions, seemed to correspond to my interest in things and, let us also say, my interest in architecture. Memory is constructed out of its own specificity, and whether this construction is defensible or not, it can recognize alien structures. This is also man’s relation with the city, with the construction of his microclimate, with his own specificity.” 15 In his concluding statement, Rossi explains the importance of specificity of memories, in the obsession for recreating history when he again approaches “…..what I stated a moment ago about the theater and the mirror.

The desire to remake something is similar to retaking the same photograph: no technique is ever sufficiently perfect to prevent changes introduced by the lens and the light, and in the end, there is always a different object anyway. Certainly there is always a different object. This is perhaps what is autobiographical in a building and what I like to see in architecture, but also in the abandonment of architecture. For a past without the desire of the present is sad.” 16 Rossi states that it is impossible to remake history, because changes, especially small ones, are unavoidable and moreover, it would be a sad thing if history was desperately trying to stay unaltered, ignore the specificity of the moment, and deny changes creating the present.

Drawing a short conclusion about Aldo Rossi’s ‘A Scientific Autobiography’ there can be said that the relation between architecture and memory is mostly a personal one. His inspiration, motivation and passion in architecture come 14 Rossi, A. (1981), p. 62.

15 Ibid., p. 62.

16 Ibid., p. 78.

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from his personal history and by his memory he is fully aware of this. His memories tell him who he is and he explains his architecture by the use of his memory.

In experiencing architecture, Rossi refers to his personal architectural experiences in the past, which influence his design behaviour, trying to design from this memories and recreate moments of his personal history, almost like he is designing for memory itself.

But in the end, Rossi also realizes that exact copying of memory is impossible, because the specificity of a moment constructs its uniqueness and like an architectural structure, memory recognizes alien structures.

REM KOOLHAAS ‘DELIRIOUS NEW YORK’ Totally different from the story of Aldo Rossi, Rem Koolhaas’s book seems to be not a personal tale. So personal memory appears impossible to be found in ‘Delirious New York’, but considering the cover of the original and first edition of the book, the city and its buildings are pictured as if they have real and individual personalities, as if they are living characters. Taking this into account, the history of New York, Manhattan, might show some ‘personal’ memories comparable to our own.

Koolhaas’s documentation about the founding history of New York City starts at the very beginning with a small part about prehistory and the discovery of Manhattan in “…..1609 by Henry Hudson in his search for “a new route to the Indies by way of the north” on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.” 17 The story ends with the World’s Fair of 1964 and afterwards, Koolhaas suggests a couple of designs for Manhattan in his final chapter: “Appendix: A Fictional Conclusion” in which he shows the value of the different designs by referring to the city’s ‘personal’ history with its developed theories.

It has no use to describe every aspect of Manhattans history, but some essential subjects will be discussed 17 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 17.

because they might support the insight in Koolhaas’s version of the relation between creation and perception of architectural experiences and personal memories.

Of course, the worldwide known ‘Manhattan Grid’ is mentioned in the book, as a design that started in 1807 when “……Simeon deWitt, Gouverneur Morris and John Rutherford are commissioned to design the model that will regulate the “final and conclusive” occupancy of Manhattan. Four years later they propose – above the demarcation that separates the known from the unknowable part of the city – 12 avenues running northsouth and 155 streets running east-west. With that simple action they describe a city of 13 x 156 = 2,028 blocks (excluding topographical accidents): a matrix that captures, at the same time, all remaining territory and all future activity on the island. The Manhattan Grid.” 18 This grid which makes, according to Koolhaas “…..the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant.” and turns the Central Park of the city into “…..a synthetic Arcadian Carpet” 19 So with this grid, Manhattan turns its back to architectonic history and urban lessons, so to say.

Another important development is the invention “…..that avove all others will change the face of Manhattan (and, to a lesser degree, of the world): the elevator.” 20 This development was the start of ‘unlimited’ possibilities in the field of high buildings and vertical expansion.

Continuing New York’s history, Koolhaas describes the first artificial connection between the in 1609 discovered Coney Island and the mainland in 1823 “…..allowing it to consummate its relationship with Manhattan, where humans have by now congregated in densities as unprecedented as that of Coney’s rabbits. Coney is the logical choice for Manhattan’s resort: the nearest zone of virgin nature that can counteract the enervations of urban civilization.” 21 On this Coney Island, the Dreamland was placed with different attractions like “The Fall of Pompeii is the 18 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 18.

19 Ibid., p. 20-23.

20 Ibid., p. 25.

21 Ibid., p. 30.

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perfectionist culmination of a series of simulated disasters that have apparently become a psychological addiction for the metropolitan public. In a single day on Coney Island it is possible to “experience” the San Francisco earthquake, the burnings of Rome and Moscow, various naval battles, eposides from the Boer War, the Galveston Flood and…….the eruption of the Vesuvius,…..” and “The Canals of Venice is a gigantic model of Venice inside a reduced version of the Ducal Palace, the largest building in Dreamland. Inside it is night, “with the soft moonlight typical of the city of ‘water streets’ accomplished by a newly invented electrical device. Real gondolas carry the visitors through a Grand Canal reproduced with faithful regard for detail……..Life in Venice is simulated too. “All along the line of progress [of the gondolas] are the natives of the city engaged in their various occupations, coming and going just as the traveller would find them in a real city…..”” 22 These attractions refer to history and other locations in the world, showing that Manhattan isn’t completely oblivious.

But the attractions are no more than references and the original situations of their inspiration are immensely more sophisticated and serious.

But the toy of Manhattan didn’t last. Koolhaas declares that “In May 1911 the lighting system in the devils that decorate the façade of Dreamland’s End of the World short-circuits. Sparks start a fire that is fanned by a strong sea wind………In three hours Dreamland burns to the ground.” 23 From that moment on, Manhattan started to carry on with its development on its own ground and “Manhattan itself has become the theater of architectural invention.” 24 And after this, Koolhaas writes about ‘The Skyskraper’ and includes in his book a quote of Benjamin de Casseres: “We take from you what we need and we hurl back in your face what we do not need. Stone by stone we shall remove the Alhambra, the Kremlin and the Louvre and build them anew on the banks of the Hudson.” 25 22 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 46-61.

23 Ibid., p. 76.

24 Ibid., p. 78.

25 Ibid., p. 81.

This quote is considering world history and world memory so to say, but the attitude is quite arrogant. Like the New York disrespects world’s memory and uses just what it needs, for no more than its own good.

In “The Reproduction Of The World” Koolhaas explains that the invention of the elevator has a great share in the development of the skyscraper with all its levels and that the individuality of every level is extreme. “Each of these artificial levels is treated as a virgin site, as if the others did not exist……..The disconnectedness of the aerial plots seemingly conflicts with the fact that, together, they add up to a single building…….the use of each platform can never be known in advance of its construction. Villas may go up and collapse, other facilities may replace them, but that will not affect the framework.” 26 This quick and ‘shallow’ creation of buildings is not by the approval of everyone. Koolhaas mentions an architect named Stanford White who was “forced to experiment, to invent and establish “situations” with a wide popular appeal within the interior acreage. “In 1893 he sets up a gigantic panorama of the Chicago Exposition, to save New Yorkers the long trip West….” Later he turns the arena into replicas of “the Globe Theatre, old Nuremberg, Dickens’ London and the city of Venice, the visitors floating…from exhibit to exhibit in gondolas.” White is caught in the crossfire of the battle between high and low culture that has already flared up at Coney: his spectacles are so “tasteless” that they keep the Social Register away, but they are still not intense enough to attract masses. In the difference between a real gondola and Dreamland’s mechanical gondola propelled along its mechanical track lies White’s dilemma: he is a man of taste who ought to have less. He has no time to resolve it: in 1906 a madman shoots him on the roof of his own project.” 27 So it appears that this new way of constructing, creating architecture with these ‘snatches’ of world memory and culture isn’t very tasteful and the Manhattan blocks, as a result of the Manhattan Grid “are identical and emphatically equivalent in the unstated philosophy of the Grid, a mutation in a single one affects all others as 26 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 82-85.

27 Ibid., p. 94-95.

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a latent possibility: theoretically, each block can now turn into a self-contained enclave of the Irresistible Synthetic.

That potential also implies an essential isolation: no longer does the city consist of a more or less homogeneous texture – a mosaic of complementary urban fragments – but each block is now alone like an island, fundamentally on its own. Manhattan turns into a dry archipelago of blocks” according to Koolhaas. 28 In the chapter “The Lives of a Block”, Koolhaas zooms in on a particular block, namely the block of the WaldorfAstoria Hotel and how it turned into the Empire State Building.

He explains the history of the block starting at the beginning, showing how “In 1799 John Thompson acquires (for 2,500 USD) 20 acres of wilderness – “fertile, partly wooded and eminently suitable for the raising of various produce”- to cultivate as farmland. He builds “a new and convenient house, barn and several out-houses.” In 1827 the site ends up, via two other owners, in the possession of William B. Astor for 20,000 USD……Myth meets Block when William B. builds the first Astor Mansion on the new property…...In the 1880s the 33rd Street corner carries the original Astor Mansion, now inhabited by grandson William Waldorf Astor…..Throughout the century, the aura of the Astor Mansions has attracted an assembly of similar residences; the block has become the heart of Manhattan’s more desirable area, its famous Astor ballroom the epicentre of New York’s high society…..the house will be replaced by a hotel, but a hotel that will remain, in Astor’s instructions, “a house…with as little of the typically hotel features in evidence as humanly possible,” so that it can preserve the Astor aura. For Astor, the destruction of a structure does not preclude the preservation of its spirit; with his Waldorf he injects the concept of reincarnation into architecture.” and mentioning all of this, Koolhaas gives the origin of Waldorf Astoria’s name and the concept of architectural reincarnation, the creation of architecture with history as ‘foundation’. 29 Considering buildings and blocks as personalities, the architecture of the block seems to be constructing on memory and this idea continues while Koolhaas resumes 28 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 97.

29 Ibid., p. 132-134.

his story about the development of this block: “As soon as the 13-story Waldorf is finished, Boldt diverts his attention to the other half of the block. He knows that he can only realize the full potential of location and site by reuniting the two halves. After years of negotiations he convinces Jacob Astor to sell. Now the Astoria, postponed twin of the Waldorf, can be built…..In 1896, three years after the opening of the Waldorf, the 16-story Astoria is completed…..The transplantations from the Astor mansions – literal or merely by nomenclature – suggest that the Waldorf-Astoria is conceived by its promoters as a haunted house, rife with the ghosts of its predecessors.

To construct a House haunted by its own past and those of other buildings: such is the Manhattanist strategy for the production of vicarious history, “age” and respectability.

In Manhattan the new and revolutionary is presented, always, in the false light of familiarity.” 30 So here Koolhaas speaks about a memory of the block that is kept alive in the new and revolutionary version of the building, again with the earlier arrogant attitude because the new is presented “in the false light of familiarity” and “vicarious history, “age” and respectability” are simply used as a cheap tool: the Manhattanist strategy.

This disrespect of history and culture, by simply using what seems to fit in the most successful way becomes even clearer in Koolhaas’s next description of the block’s development. He states about the ‘twin hotel’ Waldorf that “the two parallel tendencies announce the death of the hotel, or at least the end of its material being. The Waldorf has instigated a paradoxical tradition of the last word…..which, to preserve itself, is forced continuously to self-destruct ,eternally to shed its latest incarnation. Any architectural container that fixes it to a site degenerates sooner or later into a battery of outdated technical and atmospheric apparatus that prevents the hasty surrender to change that is the tradition’s raison d’être. After barely 20 years of confident existence the twin hotel is abruptly diagnosed – by a consensus of commercial intuition and public opinion – as “old”, unfit to accommodate true modernity. In 1924 Boldt and his partner, Lucius Boomer, propose gradually to “reconstruct the Waldorf-Astoria and make it vastly more modern.”…..The final remedy is to 30 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 134-135.

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perform cosmetic surgery on the older part of the twin, so that the Waldorf reaches the same height as the Astoria.

But each proposal is an additional argument for the hotel’s death warrant” 31 But why? Why is every proposal an additional argument for the hotel’s death warrant? Why is preserving itself equal to forcing to self-destruct and eternally to shed the latest incarnation? History as a physical and architectonic foundation seems to doom the future of the block.

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In the part “Liberation”, of the “The Lives of a Block” chapter, Koolhaas explains by the use of ‘Manhattanism’ that “The real problem of the Waldorf-Astoria is that it is not a Skyscraper. The more the hotel’s success enhances the value of the block, the more urgent it becomes to realize a definitive structure that is at once: a new incarnation of the idea of the Waldorf as defined by William Waldorf Astor – a colossal “house” with the preserved atmosphere of a private mansion – and a Skyscraper that reaps the financial harvest allowed by the Zoning Law…….the block is now contested by two equally phantasmagorical occupants: the first, the final Skyscraper that strives, almost beyond the control of man, toward the full exploitation of the 1916 model; and the second, the re-reincarnation of the Waldorf idea. The first……as culmination of a sequence of occupancies – from virgin nature to Thompson’s farm, to the Astor Mansions, to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to finally, the Empire State. It suggests that the model for Manhattan’s urbanism is now a form of architectural cannibalism: by swallowing its predecessors, the final building accumulates all the strengths and spirits of the previous occupants of the site and, in its own way, preserves their memory. The second…..suggests that the spirit of the Walldorf will, once more, survive the physical destruction to reappear triumphantly on another location in the Grid. ” 32 This means that the first option is literally building on memory, leaving everything intact and develop architecture, step by step, till its final form, the Empire State Building in which memory will stay in physical appearance.

31 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 137.

32 Ibid., p. 137-138

The second option however, demolishes everything, erases physical memory and rebuilds the idea from memory, the Waldorf-Astoria history, at once to its final shape, the Empire State Building, without any development in architecture.

This second option fits the ‘Manhattanism’ best and Koolhaas declares that “In any other culture the demolition of the old Waldorf would have been a philistine act of destruction, but in the ideology of Manhattanism it constitutes a double liberation: while the site is freed to meet its evolutionary destiny, the idea of the Waldorf is released to be redesigned as the example of an explicit Culture of Congestion.” 33 Manhattanism is all about erasing physical, architectonic memory and completely starting over again on a ‘clean’ site with no sensible memory at all. The memory is subconsciously present but the city is not using it as a foundation.

Giving a conclusion about Rem Koolhaas’s writings in his “Delirious New York” there can be said that indeed there is a relation presented between architecture and memory, but not on a regular personal level.

Seeing Manhattan as a personality, it is very aware of both the world’s and its personal memory but its way of referring to it isn’t exactly bringing back these memories, at least not from the physical and architectonic point of view. Cocky Manhattan knows about the cultural and architectonic memories of the world, but seems to turn his back to it and uses just what it needs, in an obsessive attempt to be modern and seems successful in doing it.

The result is not the re-experiencing of these memories, but ‘tasteless’ attractions for ‘shallow’ entertainment.

Also the ‘personal’ memories of the city, in particular of the Manhattan Blocks, zoomed in on the development of the Walldorf-Astoria Hotel into the Empire State Building are not completely forgotten; however the physical and thereby architectonic experience of these memories is erased. It seems that Manhattanism cannot live with experiencing memory through architecture and has to slaughter every constructed piece referring to it, desperately trying to be and stay ‘modern’.

33 Koolhaas, R. (1994), p. 137-138

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RICHARD SENNETT ‘THE CRAFTSMAN’ In his elaborated writing about craftsmanship, Richard Sennett uses history as an important source of inspiration.

Now history and memory are not the same thing, because unlike history, the existence of memory is dependent on personality.

Sennett’s tale is not directly a personal one, because he is not telling the story of his own life or his own feelings, but in another way the book is very personal. His personal opinion and emotion show themselves through his explanation of ‘The Craftsman’. But history, and in a kind of way memory, described in his story aren’t related to his own personality.

Sennett presents every aspect of craftsmanship to the very detail and it appears that besides history, which inter alia shows inspirational examples of craftsmen from the past, also memory is involved in the process of acquiring quality which is essential for craftsmanship.

The link between this craftsmanship and memory starts when Sennett states that “All craftsmanship is founded on skill developed to a high degree. By one commonly used measure, about ten thousand hours of experience are required to produce a master carpenter or musician….. people can feel fully and think deeply what they are doing once they do it well.” 34 According to Sennett, skill is needed to become a craftsman, skill that takes ten thousand hours of experience. He shows that this skill has also another importance when he declares that “As with deeply held values in any culture, it seems self-evident that people will identify with other craftsmen as follow citizens. Skill would bind them to their ancestors as to their fellows”’ 35 This means that if skill is the link between the craftsman and both is ancestors and fellows, skill carries responsibility for memory and personality. These skills play a great role in the book of Sennett which shows many examples of skills like “In de traditional world of the archaic potter or doctor, 34 Sennett, R. (2008), p. 20-22.

35 Ibid., p. 22.

standards for good work were set by the community, as skills passed down from generation to generation.” 36 So what then is a skill precisely? Sennett asks himself this very same question in his book and answers it immediately by saying that “The generic answer is that skill is a trained practice. In this, skill is contrasts to the coup de foudre, the sudden inspiration. The lure of inspiration lies in part in the conviction that raw talent can take the place of training. Musical prodigies are often cited to support this conviction – and wrongly so. An infant musical prodigy like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart did indeed harbour the capacity to remember large swatches of notes, but from ages five to seven Mozart learned how to train his great innate musical memory when he improvised at the keyboard. He evolved methods for seeming to produce music spontaneously. The music he later wrote down again seems spontaneous because he wrote directly on the page with relatively few corrections, but Mozart’s letters show that he went over his scores again and again in his mind before setting them in ink.” 37 Skill becomes skill by training, by practicing over and over again. This practicing is also linked to personality when Sennett says that “Going over an action again and again…..enables self-criticism.” 38. Skill makes a craftsman aware of oneself as a person by criticizing oneself, like skill is connecting a craftsman as a personality to his fellows as personalities.

Also the craft of architecture seems to be relying on skills when Sennett explains, by Renzo Piano’s working procedure: “”You start by sketching, then you do a drawing, then you make a model, and then you go to reality – you go to the site – and then you go back to drawing. You build up a kind of circularity between drawing and making and then back again.” About repetition and practice Piano observes, “This is very typical of the craftsman’s approach. You think and you do at the same time. You draw and you make. Drawing…is revisited. You do it, you redo it, and you redo it again.“” 39 Sennett speaks about skills as a result of training, 36 Sennett, R. (2008), p. 25.

37 Ibid., p. 37.

38 Ibid., p. 38.

39 Ibid., p. 40.

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practised by the use of subconscious memory. Although he is not literally saying this he explains that “Embedding stands for a process essential to all skills, the conversion of information and practices into tacit knowledge. If a person had to think about each and every movement of waking up, she or he would take an hour to get out of bed.

When we speak of doing something “instinctively,” we are often referring to behaviour we have so routinized that we don’t have to think about it. In learning a skill, we develop a complicated repertoire of such procedures.” 40 We remember how to act, we experience the beddingin of a practice into tacit knowledge, and it becomes so routinized that is moves from being a conscious process to a subconscious memory in progress. So practice seems to be a conscious process and tacit knowledge appears to be the subconscious memory of this practice.

All of this is about skills and repetition on a personal level but besides examples about single persons, Sennett gives an architectural example about a zoomed out version and the improvement of the skill when it is shared over more 10 generations and becomes a system with a ‘collective memory’, so to say.

The example is about “…..the immense Salisbury Cathedral began, in 1220 – 1225, as a set of stone posts and beams that established the Lady Chapel at one end of the future cathedral. The builders had a general idea of the cathedral’s eventual size, but no more. However, the proportions of the beams in the Lady Chapel suggested a larger building’s engineering DNA and were articulated in the big nave and two transepts built from 1225 to about 1250. From 1250 to 1280, this DNA then generated the cloister, treasury, and chapter house; in the chapter house the original geometries, meant for a square structure, were now adapted to an octagon, in the treasury to a sixsided vault. How did the builders achieve this astonishing construction? There was no one single architect; the masons had no blueprints. Rather, the gestures with which the building began to evolve in principles and were collectively managed over three generations. Each event in building practice became absorbed in the fabric of instructing and regulating the next generation. The result is a striking building, a distinctive building embodying 40 Sennett, R. (2008), p. 50.

innovations in construction…..” 41 Subconscious, shared memory achieving incredible results. Here it seems that skill by repetition and memory can be a powerful tool.

Looking back, learning from past achievements and mistakes, memorizing in a certain way, can be a guide for craftsmanship, according to Sennett when he uses the path of Ruskin as “His is not the path of effortless mastery; he has had troubles, and he has learned from them.” and “Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture provided seven guides, or “lamps,” for the troubled craftsman, guides for anyone who works directly on material things. These seven are:…..”The lamp of memory,” the guidance provided by the time before machinery ruled;…..As a vein of radical thought, Ruskin refuses the present, looks backward in order to look forward.” 42 Like described earlier, Sennett explains that craftsmanship needs time, because practicing of skill needs time. He uses this statement to show a difference between craft and art when he says that ”the elapse of time proved one way to separate craft and art: craft practice is stretched out, art of the original sort is a more immediate event.

The ancient potter dwelled in stretched-out time; after the wheel spinning on a pivot first appeared, centuries elapsed before the practice formed of drawing up clay was routinized. The bedding-in of a practice, in which the actions of the hand gradually become tacid knowledge, explains this longue durée.” 43 One could say that according to Richard Sennett, a difference between craft and art is that craft is the one with memory and art is the one without.

Through his book, Sennett gives various example about ‘memory’ in the long term, but there is also short term memory and one example pointed out about this kind of memory is the one of “…..music…..” in which “the ear works in concert with the fingertip to probe. Put rather dryly, the musician touches the string in different ways, hears a variety of effects, then searches for the means to repeat and reproduce the tone he or she wants. In 41 Sennett, R. (2008), p. 70.

42 Ibid., p. 113-114.

43 Ibid., p. 123.

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reality, this can be a difficult and agonizing struggle to answer the question “What exactly did I do? How can I do it again?” Instead of the fingertip acting as mere servant, this kind of touching moves backward from sensation to procedure. The principle here is reasoning backward from consequence to cause.” 44 At the end of his book, Sennett shows five basic mental domains which “…..seem to map out the raw materials of what any sort of skill will be composed.” namely “….. fluid reasoning…..basic knowledge…..quantitative reasoning…..visual-spatial processing…..working memory.” 45 So memory is not the only thing responsible for the existence of the skill, but it appears that a working memory is an essential aspect for a skill to exist and since craftsmanship cannot survive without skill, there is no craftsmanship without memory. So final, if we believe, like Richard Sennett, that everyone can be a craftsman, crafted architecture is only possible with the support of memory.

Concluding about Richard Sennett and his ‘The Craftsman’ can be stated that the relation between architecture and memory is a subtle one. Sennett describes good craftsmanship in relation to skills. Skills can only exist when memory is involved in a process of repetition and practice. Because of self-criticism, learning from ones mistakes, a skill can develop and is also partly responsible for personality development and shaping.

The skill exists because we experience the bedding-in of practice into tacit knowledge in which practice seems to be a conscious process and tacit knowledge appears to be the subconscious memory of this practice.

Memory is a powerful tool, but when shared over more generations it becomes even stronger and result in unbelievable craftsmanship, also applicable to architecture.

44 Sennett, R. (2008), p. 157.

45 Ibid., p. 280.

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MIRROR Comparing and criticizing these three different visions, both Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas see memory in full awareness, as a conscious thing from the architectural point of view. Where Rossi is almost saying that you should listen to your memory in the creation of your architecture because it tells you how to make good designs, nice architectural experiences and the re-experiencing of memory, Rem Koolhaas’s Manhattan argues that you definitely shouldn’t listen but turn your back on it and use only the parts (of world’s memory) and ideas (of the Manhattan Block’s memory) that fit best considering your plans of being completely fresh and modern, because that is good architecture.

There lies a truth in both of them; the story of Rossi is such a personal one, that the architecture being product of it, is also very personal, created for his memories. So everything Rossi states might be true according to himself, but can we, as a visitors of his buildings, experience his personal 12 memories? So will it for that reason be good architecture to us too? That statement could be questioned.

On the other hand, Manhattan’s arrogant attitude towards world’s memory and culture is something that Koolhaas could define as ‘entertainment’ architecture, being a quite shallow reference of its inspiration. Looking at the Manhattan Block of the Empire State Building, it is understandable that not every piece of history can be saved because there is simply no space for it; but the theory’s quality of demolishment and thereby the Walldorfs release - since the memory wouldn’t have its physical and architectural form anymore and a new building could only refer to it - do not make its history completely reexperienceable. Rossi would say that perfect redesigning of this idea is impossible.

Different from Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas, Richard Sennett’s craftsman (architect) is not working with the term memory as conscious element, but states that quality of his work comes from his subconscious memory, his skills. By practising, while time passes, the architect will become better without the need of directly referring

to his personal memory. Both Rossi and Koolhaas are not arguing this, but then, Sennett’s vision is not saying anything about a design attitude or the experiencing of architecture combined with memory.

So first, Sennett might be right in his vision about the fact that one needs memory on a subconscious level to become a crafted architect, but the fact that this working memory acts on a subconscious level, leaves no other choice but using it.

Second, Rossi’s statement about the need of memory to explain his architecture is confirmed by Sennett when he points out that our working memory turned us into the craftsmen we are and helps us explaining our architecture.

In the end, the creation of an architectural design is a personal thing and our design skills tell us about who we truly are.

But the designing for our memory, like Rossi does, the recreation of memories, is something quite difficult to understand though, because the only one who knows and is able to re-experience our personal memories is ourselves and the creation of architecture should not contain a selfish attitude but is mainly meant for others, not able to architecturally experience our personal memories.

Besides that, Rossi himself is already stating that we cannot re-design memory completely and perfectly, so perhaps we should not try to do so.

Finally, Manhattan was developing so fast that memory had a hard time catching up. History was there, but New York City was so focussed on looking forward, that looking back felt like holding back. So therefore, Manhattan’s ‘rebuilding from scratch’-attitude is acceptable, but like Koolhaas points out, it feels so ‘delirious’, it feels like a sort of sensibility - that Rossi seems to have plenty of - is missing.

So personal memory in creation and perception of architectural experiences seems to be inevitable and is perfectly coöperating with the sub-conscious part of memory that creates quality through design skills.

But what about this conscious part of memory? Emotionally referring to personal memories, like Rossi did, is not very useful for others. But the shallow referring to ‘personal’

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memories, like Manhattan did, also does not seem to be the best possible answer.

Is it better to not refer to memory at all? Or is there another way to use memory in the creation and perception of architectural experiences? Rossi compared memory to an architectural structure, but is architecture also comparable to an aspect of memory?

Memory, conscious and sub conscious, appears to be the total of what we know. Architecture is included by this knowledge and the perception of spaces and the understanding of it have everything to do with what we already have experienced, with what we already know and therefore with our memories. Also the creation of architecture cannot exist without knowledge, grown by our memory.

But what if architecture could question this knowledge.

What if there are spaces questioning the very thing we already know, the spaces we know, the perspective we use both to create and experience architecture? Would it be possible to create these spaces? Would it be possible that architecture created by our memory and therefore created by the known, the familiar, show us something of the unknown, the unfamiliar and give a renewed perspective in the way we perceive and experience spaces?

Architecture is a useful tool in expressing our attitude towards the familiar. It reflects the approval of our positive memories - the experiences we desire to revive - and the critique towards our negative memories - the experiences we desire to change - and thereby constructs prospective memories. By knowing and learning from its past, architecture can create its future, seeking to reveal what is hidden and amaze the ordinary by creating the extraordinary.

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