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“How many times have we heard: ‘it’s simple’. Nothing is simple. We live in a world where nothing is simple. Each day, just when we think we have a handle on things, suddenly some new element is introduced, and everything is complicated once again.” — Log Lady, Twin Peaks, Season 2: Dispute Between Brothers
ENTRY 05: COMPLEX LOCATION W09: 22.03.21 After observing for 17 years, it took the year1 that was 2020 to alter Log’s course. Log No.49, The Return of Nature is a manifesto if ever there was one. A call to arms for a design industry which, since the end of the 20th Century, has been navel-gazing. For Manning, to break with “Simple Location” is to embrace the opportunities presented when the western system of valuation (as A relates to A nature) are broken with. Writing in 2020, but working closely to Whiteheadian process philosophy, the question arises – are the philosophical ideas of nearly 100 years ago truly the best we have to re-invigorate architectural thinking in the 21st Century?
Is this familiarity essential in re-thinking architectural theory and its effects on practice? Theory – or lack thereof – was what spurred Davidson to start Log in 2003. But I would argue that it is not simply a case of theorising for theory’s sake; for architects shouldn’t it be more of a case of how theory can support practice and vice versa? We think therefore we build, we build therefore we think.2 Agrest’s theoretical approach, having stemmed from her practice, had real1 I use the term “year” loosely; time seems to have seeped from 2020 to 2021 rather than passed. 2 To clumsily, shamelessly, appropriate Decartes…
Figure 3: Concept sketches; understanding A Nature
Manning certainly challenges the Western school of thought, but so does Diana Agrest in her projects and her theory (in that order) in her more recent projects at the end of the 20th century. Where Manning describes the total erasure of hierarchy and valuation, Agrest worked with the prevailing societal hierarchy to challenge them directly, and use them in her challenge by inverting the pyramid itself. One might say that the success of China Basin is both in its direct, unashamed challenge of convention, whilst exploiting the familiarity of existing power structures.
