Exposing the Power of Geometry

exposing the power of geometry ARCHITECTURE AGAINST FROM WITHIN Lisa Fransson 20170302 Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection Position: Criticality With the starting point in reading The Project of Autonomy by Pier Vittorio Aureli, this research aims to analyse three different projects, looking at the use of architecture as a critical tool.

By way of introduction, the investigation will start with a summary of The Project of Autonomy, followed by a comparative analysis between the radical paper architecture of italian Superstudio’s Continous Monument and Rem Koolhaas’s Exodus. This is then followed by an analysis of Bernard Tschumi’s project for a new Acropolis Museum. The paper ends with a concluding discussion on the analysis of all three projects and a personal position within the architectural field will be presented.

Lisa Fransson 20170203

opposing by accepting Autonomia was a political movement in 70’s Italy. The belief of the propagators of Autonomia was in the workers autonomy from the capitalist state. It was presupposed by Operaism, a movement that believed the source of capitalism’s power over the working class lied in the system of production itself. The Operaists were interested in how the subject, the working class, could establish themselves beyond passive forms of resistance.

An important figure in Operaism was Raniero Panzieri. Panzieri criticized previous socialist theories to overlook the moment of production. He saw that it was the attractor of the technological development that enabled the worker’s cooperation. This was the result of Neocapitalism, which was not only concerned with accumulation of profit, but also in the wealth of its workers as the workers are also the consumers, and in this way, neocapitalism intergrated itself with the whole social body. Through neocapitalism, society transformed into a productive system. The factor of wealth of the workers had made them dependent on capitalism. The technical innovations provided better labor conditions, tending to production as well as the improvement of the product tended to consumption. By exposing this “apologetic” character of neocapitalism, Panzieri defined the possibility of the workers autonomy: through the demystification of technical development, and the worker taking control over these mechanisms.

By understanding how the structures of capitalist power operated, the Autonomia movement found a way to refuse it. Like Panzieri, Mario Tronti believed the improved treatment of the working class was a product of the development of capitalism. He believed however that it was the pressure of the workers that triggered capitalism’s response, not the other way around. Tronti found that what spurred capitalist development was its ability to absorb the negative, to turn the moments of crisis into moments of development.What triggered capitalist development then, was its need respond to the working class. Tronti believed the salvation of the worker was to be found in the development of capitalism, and proposed not an opposition against capitalism but instead that the worker’s political power should be “against

from within”.

For Panzieri, production was more than the production of material goods. It consisted of the different ways of controlling labor force. Tronti argued that production was the structure of society, and that society was a factory.

“The more capitalist development advances, which means the more the production of relative surplus extends itself, the more the capitalist cycle of production-distributionconsumption becomes one. [...] At the highest point of capitalist development, social production becomes a moment of the process of production, which means that all of society lives within the factory, and the factory extends its domination over the whole society.”

- Tronti He figured, if the capitalists wanted more work for less pay, than the workers should strive to give them less work for more pay. This would reverse the process of capitalist development in the direction of the worker’s autonomy. He believed in political autonomy, autonomy through negotiation. Being essential to the capitalist process of value creation, the working class was capitalisms ultimate threat. Tronti saw in the workers refusal to be work a potential of true political liberation.

Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection

A READING OF PIER VITTORIO AURELI - THE PROJECT OF AUTONOMY “We have to courageously assume the principle that not only does capitalism need the

working class, but the working class also need capitalism. Not only do the workers need capitalism to achieve their own political maturity, but society in general also needs capitalism for the sake of its own development. If capital is the modern form of development, the working class is the modern form of power. “ - Tronti In the socialistic project Red Vienna, Tronti found the archipelago of monumental artifacts, which refused the master planning of the city, to be a manifistation of autonomy. Architect Aldo Rossi conceptualized the theory of autonomous architecture. He analyzed the relationship between politics and architectural language, and found that the monumental buildings of the neoclassical city were means for the bourgeoise to express their status as the new dominant class. Rossi believed the same strategy should be applied by the socialist city. His idea was to appropriate the tradition of rationalism to build what could potentially be autonomous architecture, in opposition to the technologically generic forms that was the symbol of neocapitalist urbanism. Rossi critisized the concept of megastructure; a use of old functionalism in combination with an exaggerated belief in technology.

Rossi proposed to see the city as a plurality of parts, that could not be added into a totality. By looking at the city as a manifastation of a collective urban memory, and analyzing its singularities to understand their structural consequences, its actual history could be found.

Archizoom’s No-Stop City was an idea of the city appropriated by the workers, sprung out of Trontis theory of society as a factory. Archizoom believed architecture should not play into the hands of capitalism, but demystify it. They wanted to expose a cynical realism of capitalism, and show it at its most advanced development. No-Stop City was a theoretical design of the capitalist city in its most advanced stage of development- in absurdum. Like Tronti, the purpose was not to resolve the contradictions between worker and production, but to exploit them. The archetype for the No-stop City was the supermarket.

“The only place where the factory model and the consumption model come together is the supermarket. This is the real yardstick and, consequently, of reality as a whole: homogenous utopian structure, private functionality, rational sublimation of consumption.

Maximum result for minimum effort. “ - Archizoom This was a representation of a city without architecture, an image made up only of architectural signs such as columns, elevators and walls. To expose the capitalist city in its most extreme state of development was a way to achieve autonomy for architectural theory. The project of autonomy strived to replace the institutions of capitalism through acting at the same scale with the same power.

“I believe it is possible to learn from these experiences how a new political subject might be materially constructed from within, but ideologically against, the very constraints of our civilization that, in spite of its ongoing transformations, remains a civilization of labor.”

- Aureli

emancipation or captivity?

RETHINKING LIVING SPACE AS A REPRESENTATION Lisa Fransson 20170210 Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection The radical paper architecture of italian Superstudio and early Rem Koolhaas uses irony as a strategy to overthrow capitalist tendencies through appropriation, “against from within�. It realizes the critical possibilities of architecture past its material limits. By playing with associations to modernism, it is a re-imagining of rationalist and functionalist constructions. The proposed megastructures are illustrated through collages and texts, demonstrating the potentials of media representation.

Lisa Fransson 20170210

Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection

YEAR: 1969 LOCATION: Global NARRATIVE: A future scenario with all life taking place inside a continous building wrapping the earth, the last stage of capitalism.

GRID SYSTEM

The grid can be understood as an autogenerative system, an algorithm that provides for a single design solution to everything. By applying a replicable grid that can spread along the x, y, and z axes, the grid system is expandable and proportionless as it is able to jump dimensions.

The grid is self-referential and opens up movement in all directions. It is a synthesizing and unifying element, abstracting the constructive elements of space.

The grid is rational as it allows for a generalized, reductive design process. The grid can expand to different scales for the enhancement of a pure and static nature.

FORM

The architecture is stripped down to its essential forms, to enourmous, white blocks. One can see how the monument as it spreads across land resembles the form of the aqueduct. The stripped-down, repeatable form allows for the monuments visual and narrative possibilities.

The monument stretches over the built environment, preserving parts of it in pockets that acts like museum artifacts, reminding of the old world. The opposition between the over-dimensional building and the surrounding environment represents the juxtaposition between the real and the imagined.

HORIZONTALITY

The modernist vision of endless movement is taken to its extremes through a horizontal megastructure circulating the earth.

The lateral movement becomes polemical as horizontality is used as a tool to give the structure its weblike quality.

The advantage with horizontality is that it knows no limits, it carries the potential to be extended infinitely.

The Continous Monument represents horizontal drift as the end point of network architecture: an infrastructural web stretching beyond the horizon, acting as the stage for global life.

INSIDE / OUTSIDE

The hard mirrored surface of the Monument reflects its surroundings while revealing nothing of itself. The facade is made up of an endlessly repeated grid, mimicing Le Corbusier’s megastructural project for Algiers.

The contrast between the object and the serene surroundings makes you aware of what the surroundings are, what “the other” is. The Monument acts as a foreign, massive and autonomous form placed on top of the existing.

In this way, it reminds of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Rem Koolhaas writes in Bigness that “The distance between core and

envelope increases to the point where

the facade can no longer reveal what

happens inside. The humanist

expectation of “honesty” is doomed:

interior and exterior architecture

becomes separate projects.”

Lisa Fransson 20170210

Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection

YEAR: 1972 LOCATION: London, England NARRATIVE: A future scenario where the city of London has become a city of two parts: one bad and one good. To control the mass exodus into the good part, a wall is erected, encircling the strip of the good part. The volontary migration into the strip is a condition of freedom by self imprisonment within the walls of a prison of metropolitan scale.

GRID

The use of grid in Exodus recognises an existing spatial order, an a-material grid which Koolhaas has referred to as a “vacant terrain”. The vacant terrain contains a layering of programs, fixed into squares.

The grid illustrates the extreme order and regulation of the system within the strip. The autonomous squares enclosed within the walls acts as inverted images of the everyday situations of urbanity, narrating the city’s confinement.

FORM

The project make use of one of architectures essential forms: the wall, and more specifically, the Berlin Wall.

“It is not East Berlin that is imprisoned, but

the West, the ‘open society.’ In my

imagination, stupidly, the wall was a

simple, majestic north-south divide; a

clean, philosophical demarcation; a

neat, modern Wailing Wall. I now realize

that it encircles the city, paradoxically

making it ‘free.’”

- Koolhaas The physical appearance represents exactly what it is, an insurmountable obstacle. By dividing the city into two parts and making one of the parts inaccessible, that part becomes even more appealing. It is hence the performative powers of the wall that gives it is aesthetic effects, rather than its physical presence.

HORIZONTALITY

As in The Continous Monument, the use of horizontality is related to the concept of expanding. As there will be a mass exodus from the old city into the enclosed strip, the strip is designed as a growing architecture that like a cannibal will go to take more and more pieces of the old London.

There is a dialogue between the imposed geometric order and the richness of human inhabitation. The linearity gives the strip a monumental form which acts to create maximum contrast between the old and the new city. The Strip continuously expands into the existing urban fabric of London, but as in The Continous Monument, some desirable parts are presereved in pockets.

INSIDE / OUTSIDE

Like The Continous Monument, Exodus acts as an autonomous object and avoids interaction with its surroundings. The physical barriers of the walls enforces detachment and inequality between the inside and the outside. The unsurmountable walls manifest the notion of inside and outside, which not only applies on the level of a single building but also extends to the idea of a city.

The importance of the threshold, which is the gate between the inside and outside, is illustrated through emphasis on the ritual entry of the “fugitives,” and the “reception square” when entering. The gate of Exodus only functions in one direction, the prisoners can never leave once they have entered.

context beyond representation MONTAGE AS A STRATEGY FOR ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION Lisa Fransson 20170301 Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection The strive for architectural design to intergrate context that transcends the mimetic and representational is complex and surrounded by a lot of questions.

How is it possible to respect the existing context when designing a building, and what conditions are relevant to take into consideration? In his project for the New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi relates to the historically sensitive site below the Acropolis in Athens by designing an architectural montage of spatial sequences that brings the visitor in contact with the context of the museum.

Lisa Fransson 20170302

YEAR: 2001 - 2009 LOCATION: Athens, Greece BACKGROUND: The project was the winning competition entry for a museum dedicated to the archaeological findings of the Acropolis of Athens.

Located at the foot of the Acropolis, the site contains archeological excavations.

The building is intended to be non-monumental, allowing the sculptures and artifacts to be the main attraction.

Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection

INSIDE/OUTSIDE

The use of glass allows the museum’s architecture to physically interpret the connection to the surroundings as the transparency directs attention to the real Acropolis, making the visitor aware of the distance and separation between the Acropolis and the museum.

The top volume contains the Parthenon gallery, and mimics the dimensions of the actual Parthenon, giving the visitor a sense of the scale of the sculptures in relation to the original temple.

To orient it directly towards the Parthenon, the top volume is shifted 23 degrees from the rest of

LIGHT

The Archaic gallery contains a sculpture collection surrounded by ambient, natural light streaming in through the glass curtain walls and skylight. The importance of natural light is related to the historical context of the collection, as the sculptures were meant to be viewed outside in the Attic sun. To soften the effect of the bright sun, and prevent damage to the sculptures, the interor walls are made of concrete and treated to absorb the light.

MOVEMENT

The most important motif of the museum is the adjacent Acropolis Hill. The layout of movement patterns interprets the connection to the physical site, which can best be seen in the slope gallery, where the floor is tilted, reflecting the inclination of the slope of Acropolis Hill.

PROMENADE

The user follows a predetermined path through the building. The movement follows a certain logic that chronologically reflects the context of the site, forming a narrative.

The route follows a loop going up from the lobby via escalators to a double-height space containing the Archaic galleries; then again upward by escalators to the Parthenon Gallery; to find the way back down via the Roman Empire galleries to exit outside, facing the Acropolis itself.

PHYSICAL CONTEXT

The museum is built on top of an archaeological excavation, which can be experienced through use of transparant glass the floor. Just as Continous Monument and Exodus, the New Acropolis Museum stretches over the ancient city, preserving it in pockets that becomes museological artifacts. It appears as if the museum grows from the ruins of the ancient architecture, with the columns visually connecting the modern space with the ancient ruins.

Lisa Fransson 20170302

the pleasure of movement THE USER AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF ARCHITECTURE With the starting point in reading The Project of Autonomy by Pier Vittorio Aureli, this research has aimed to analyse three different projects, focusing on the role of architecture as a critical tool, and the use of montage in representation and in the arranging of space.

The critical comparative analysis between Superstudio’s Continous Monument and Rem Koolhaas’s Exodus showed two projects rethinking living space as a representation, using architecture as a means to deconstruct established value systems. The use of irony as a strategy to overthrow capitalist tendencies by appropriating them is and example of working “against from within”, realizing the critical possibilities of architecture past its material limits. Both projects uses photomontage as a means to present a future architecture taken to its extremes, designing cities of a dystopian future.

In Continous Monument as well as Exodus, the use of grid can be understood as an autogenerative system, expandable and proportionless. The grid is used as a synthesizing and unifying element, abstracting the constructive elements of space. In Exodus, the grid illustrates the extreme order and regulation of the system within the strip, pointing to its absurdity. The grid here works to illustrate the confinement of the city, as the enclosing squares imprisons and segragates the inhabitants. Relating to the use of the grid is the use of linearity, or horizontality, as this also is used as a means to illustrate the expanding properties of the projects. By taking the modernist vision of endless movement to its extremes, the projects exposes the institutional value systems affecting architecture. By exposing these mechanisms, the surrealist montages demonstrates the possibilities of architecture as a critical means.

Looking to the New Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi, the project of autonomy is not as clear as in Continous Monument and Exodus, however, one can see that the project shares the ambition to use architecture as a critical tool. There are many similarities in the architectural language.

Like the monument and Exodus, the museum works with the use of an architecture stripped from decoration to its essential forms. The volume reflects the site through its geometrical shape, alligning with the street on the first three levels before turning towards the Parthenon on the fourth level. As in both Exodus and Continous Monument, there is a juxtaposition between the imposed geometry and the existing surroundings. The large, modern museum appears to hover above the remains of the ancient city, landing on an irragular forest of concrete columns placed so that they precicily avoid penetrating the remains of an ancient city. This juxtaposition between old and new is intentionally exposed. Indeed, Tschumi believes that the confrontations of juxtapositions has the potential to provide what he calls the event, or the shock that activates the user. As architecture has to exist between the written, the ideal space, and the built, the real space, Tschumi works to reveal this instability. The user is forced to critically engage with the architectural form.

The New Acropolis museum can not be read as a single, unified structure regulating specific programs, as it consists of a multiple, superimposed autonomous and at the same time coherent

Values, Concepts and Methods; Architectural Research, Projection and Reflection

structures. Tschumi questions the notion of unity. The juxtaposition of elements relates to the idea of a narrative; the architectural montage. While the Continous Monument offers endless, monotonus movement, the New Acropolis follows a predetermined route that consists of montage sequences.

The predescribed route leading the visitor through the museum aims to bring together individual sequences into the experience of a whole. The idea of the individual sequences forming a whole can also be seen in Koolhaas’s idea of Bigness: “Beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a Big Building. Such a mass can no

longer be controlled by a single architectural gesture, or even by any combination of

architectural gestures. This impossibility triggers the autonomy of its parts, but that is

not the same as fragmentation: the parts remain committed to the whole.”

Rem Koolhaas / Bigness Like cinema, architecture exists in the dimension of time and movement, and one experiences the museum in terms of sequences. It is hence the visitor that constructs the meaning of the architecture, as he or she through the movement of the body experience the architectural montage, shot by shot.

“The insertion of any additional space within a spacial sequence can change the meaning

of the sequence as well as its impact on the experiencing subject (as in the noted

Kuleshov experiment, where the same shot of the actor’s impassive face is introduced into

a variety of situations, and the audience reads diff erent expressions in each successive juxtaposition).”

Bernard Tschumi / Manhattan Transcripts The idea of how the circulation can affect the spatial experience for the user is something I have investigated in earlier projects, and want to elaborate on further in my BA-thesis. What intrigues me about the use of architectural montage is the importance given to the subjectivity of the user, overturning the hierarchical order of object-subject. As the precondition is that it is in-between the preconceptions of the user and the physical reality of the building that space is experienced, the visitor’s moving body is seen as an integral part of the architecture.

MONTAGE: Second Year Design Project. The starting point for the project was to investigate in how the ramp can affect the spatial and sensorial experience of a space as the user is constantly ascending or descending. Gevork Hartoonian writes in Architecture and Spectacle of the sheer pleasure of the body in ascending and descending and more importantly, in the excitement experienced upon anticipation of an ”event” as one ascends the ramp.