Ambiguous hence amoral
can architects escape ethical constructs by lying outside convention?
Nicholas Zembashi History & Theory Studies Second Year Zaynab Dena Ziari
The Royal Institute’s Values * Honesty, integrity and competency, as well as concern for others and for the environment, are the foundations of the Royal Institute’s three principles of professional conducts set out below. All members of the Royal Institute are required to comply. The Three Principles Principle 1: Integrity Members shall act with honesty and integrity at all times. Principle 2: Competence In the performance of their work Members shall act competently, conscientiously and responsibly. Members must be able to provide the knowledge, the ability and the financial and technical resources appropriate for their work. Principle 3: Relationships Members shall respect the relevant rights and interests of others.
ARCHITECTS
BANKERS
POLITICIANS
fig. 1
“A myth … architecture is a world unto itself, and in this separation operates under its own moral laws … Architects trick themselves into believing in a parallel universe … where morality is associated not with other people but with the rectitude of architecture as the rigorous discipline of fine, godly detailing and strict aesthetics. Only in such a parallel universe, presided over by the gods of architecture, could one believe that there is an ethical project that is carried out precisely in the work.”1 There is no correct moral path to take; not for politics, not for religion and most certainly not for architect’s, even if they do believe so, as Jeremy Till puts it, by retreating into a higher plane of consciousness. An ‘ethical project’ relating to aesthetics or godliness is utter nonsense. What may be irrefutable though is the existence of such a higher plane as the realm of the ‘outside’. Questions of what is right or wrong, who is good and who is evil, where is heaven and hell and who plays God and who the Devil boil down to some philosophy concerned with morality; an ethical code governing a pseudo-reality alluding to a type of behavioural propriety (if such a thing exists). To grasp these notions fully, or at least to attempt to challenge them, one must stand not within the constructs of convention but entirely from without. Perhaps the irony lies with the action of interpretation. After all, it is the generator of argument, the destroyer and creator of meaning and the instigator of reversibility, ultimately relying upon the perception of the spectacle. “For the present age, which prefers sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence…truth is considered profane, and illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.” 2 Architects possess their own unequivocal social and cultural power to generate representations of the world through exemplary forms of built reality. Architecture is not simply an abstraction, subject to the spectacle. On the contrary, it orchestrates spectacles. “Like a factitious God, it engenders itself and makes its own rules.” 3 It is the real, boundless, physical manifestation of versatility. As long as it stands it bears the potential of being weaponised. An empty Trojan horse waiting to be re-filled by the highest bidder. Spaces and forms are activated by function and are assigned context, if not intentionally, more often, subconsciously by those who experience them. This potent ambiguity that is bound to sign reinforces the architect’s ability to remain in the grey zone, outside political ideologies and codes of moral conduct. The efficacy of moral trade-offs on the architectural front is beyond the complexities of our conventional understanding of ethics. It may be more relevant to regard architecture’s ‘real history’ as a political one, not only in terms of the profession’s dealings with national or international authorities, but more significantly, within the diplomatic exchanges that are its own political power structure. A curtain of compromise conceals the game of power set on architecture’s private political stage. Ethical terms are petite preoccupations of the self-proclaimed victor who bathes himself in the light of “good” and casts the fallen in the shade of “evil”. If this be the case shall architects be bound by any ethical responsibility? Is the power of compromise or perhaps bluff the sine qua non of the profession? Furthermore, interesting observations can be made on past scenarios where the exploitation of architecture’s ambiguity is evident. When confronted by Mies van der Rohe’s proposals for Nazi competitions or Giuseppe Terragni’s work under the Italian Fascists one could be as naive as to feel shock, given that his perception is obviously clouded by the view from within convention. However, only by fully appreciating architecture’s potential for what it had been in such specific cases, can one discover its power to overcome any moral criticism. The abilities to argue from any position and to assign multiple meanings to a building sway the project’s market value in a life governed by “a totalitarian managerial process based on economy.” 4 The architect could indeed bend reality to his will if he can play at being politician well enough and at the game of capitalism even better. Ultimately, the fact that architecture is able to resist being shackled by shifting moral constructs can be reinforced by questioning the conventions classing it as ethical. By digging deeper into the power of interpretation and indeed reinterpretation, as well as its association with the semantics of buildings, one can possibly unveil the potential to step outside its symbolic significance. *
Opening quote from the RIBA’s Code of Professional Conduct, as of January 2005, p. 3
1 Till, J., ‘Imperfect Ethics’, Architecture Depends, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009), p.172-173 2 Feuerbach, L., translated by Elliot, G., ‘Preface to the Second Edition’, The Essence of Christianity, (Prometheus Books,1989) 3 Debord, G., The Society of the Spectacle, (Rebel Press, London, 1967) p.14 4
Aureli, P. V., The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2011) p.13
HOW TO USE A TOILET fig. 2
Is there a right way? Even an object that seems to have such an unquestionable function can be mis-interpreted. This case messes up not only connotation but whatever role primary function has all together. It essentially abolishes denotation.
The laborious argument regarding the extent to which architecture has its own language is irrelevant. What is of greater urgency is to simply adhere to its various similarities with language and in particular semiotics. Architects like linguists, often rely on particular codes, or an ethos, to provide their standing in the world. Nonetheless, “buildings do not make assertions … They can be neither true nor false [moral or immoral].” 5 The issue lies with the mechanics behind meaning and interpretation and how people generate signs. “Ultimately languages and their speakers who use them [like architecture and those subjected to its experience], are taken to be answerable to the reality outside language, in which are grounded the meanings of words.” 6 Ferdinand de Saussure, in his studies on the signifier (a sign’s physical form) and signified (it’s suggested concept or meaning), identifies two principles in the linguistic sign. One of them is that it is arbitrary. The other is that “the signifier, being auditory in nature, unfolds itself in time only.”7 Hence here architectural symbols are also caught within the flux of time and subsequent changes in conventions, specifically the shift caused by social communities between the signifier and the signified. These notions can be explained with more clarity by considering an anecdote surrounding the housing units provided by the Cassa del Mezzogiorno (‘Fund for the South’). Established by the Italian government in 1950, it aimed at promoting the modernisation of southern rural communities. Accustomed to taking care of their bodily functions in the fields, locals were taken aback by the mysterious forms of sanitary fixtures they were provided with. Not knowing what function to assign to them they found the toilet bowls particularly useful in cleaning their olives, simply by suspending them in nets inside and flushing water over them. They would call it ingenious while you have probably already cringed at the action with disgust. “In fact the form denotes the function only on the basis of a system of established habits and expectations, and thus on the basis of a code. And when another code (adventitious but not illegitimate) is superimposed on the object, the object denotes another function.” 8 Ethical codes are just as vulnerable to mis- or re- interpretation. Akin to Saussure, Umberto Eco’s understanding of the sign relates to something subject to a primary and secondary meaning, seen as denotation and connotation. He argues how “a building will inevitably communicate an ideological perspective … a specific ethos” 9 based on its fluctuating connotations. The entire subject however becomes quite precarious in its association with the arbitrary. Eventually the discourse over meaning and interpretation may indeed be “little more than a jargon that obscures more than it reveals.” 10 What is essential to grasp is that signs depend, according to Saussure, on levels of arbitrariness which, seen in reverse, can relate to a building’s meaning by its degree of specificity. Architecture communicates meaning only through the architect’s intentions just as a sign relies on a degree of motivation. The interpretation of intentions are henceforth dependent on bodies of conventions and rules, returning to the argument of the constructed framework of morality. The degree to which the architect opts at generating specificity relative to moral constructs may in fact be the pivotal power allowing him to abstain from any convention by remaining ambiguous enough. More importantly it becomes ammunition for his weapon of bluff when playing at politics and economics. By having ventured into the ‘outside’ region, no sign, nation, person or building element is good or evil. Those caught within such conventions are left to accuse each other in perpetually vicious cycles. Everything is now dumped into the same pile. If there is any so called moral value one should not abandon is overall respect for human life, even though, in reality, for politicians or bankers it may barely measure up to the importance they assign to their different cuff links. Whichever the case, to define an ethical architecture is nonsense. An architect can either allow himself to be entrapped or to become the moral trickster by concocting the desirable mixture of specificity and ambiguity in his proposals. Yet, to what extent can architects then argue against any ethical responsibility by being ambiguous?
5 Harries, K., ‘The Language Problem’, The Ethical Function of Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000), p.88 6 Sanders, C., ‘The Linguistic Sign’, The Cambridge Companion to Saussure, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004), p.63 7 Ibid, p.60 8 Harries, K., ‘The Language Problem’, The Ethical Function of Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000), p.90 9 Ibid, p.92 10
Ibid, p.89
Lets dive into the pile and the petit peoples’ vicious cycles of moral arguments. Pick a side, a flag, a regime and in your face they slam the question: “should a tempting commission be accepted even if the general policy it serves stands in breach of human and political rights?” 11 Even Mies van der Rohe was caught in the cross-fire. The totalitarian regimes of the early 20th century, by whichever means they employed, were swiftly emerging as finically promising and politically stable nations, where several modernists attempted to continue their approaches to architecture. National Socialism began to cast its harrowing shadow over such institutions as the Bauhaus; and here we have a man, a german citizen, who spoke no foreign language and had taken the reigns of director, wanting nothing more than to keep the school open and to stay in his country, whatever his political affiliations. It was thusly deemed unreasonable and presumptuous to flee his home country. Despite having attempted to respond to the 1933 Reichsbank (Imperial Bank) competition by designing an austere, monumental structure in accordance with the brief, Mies had lost the commission. Even Philip Johnson had called Mies’ design as the only one to have addressed Hitler’s ‘craving for monumentality’ at the time. The Führer had eventually turned down all proposals. Nonetheless Mies remained hopeful. The opportunity to succeed the Barcelona Pavilion on a more monumental scale had arisen with the competition for the 1935 German Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair. “Mies’ design followed his earlier guidelines: ‘less is more’ and ‘form follows function’.” 12 Not only had his aesthetic approach followed his design philosophy, he went to great lengths to maintain his modernist convictions while playing upon architecture’s semiotic ambiguity as a means to appease the Nazis. The game of bluff was brewing. Emblems of the Third Reich would embellish the structure as ornamental details, while its “two marble walls became a billboard for the Nazi ideology.” 13 Symbolic engravings and bronze imperial eagles took central positions and yet Mies proceeded from the very literal to the very abstract, even experimenting with the geometry of the swastika in plan, on a purely aesthetic level, forcing it to comply with his own architectural principles. “The very subtle use of the abstracted form could be interpreted as a hidden message to Hitler … to seal a silent treaty - from architect to architect - between Führer and Mies. It is questionable whether Hitler (or anybody else) understood this message due to the fact that it is hidden in abstraction.” 14 The final verdict was made indisputable; Hitler crushed Mies’ model with his foot and Germany did not participate in the Brussels Expo. Meanwhile, in Mussolini’s Italy “Fascism was actively engaged in supporting modern art and architecture” 15, according to Giuseppe Terragni. The great Italian modernist, highly regarded for his work the Casa del Fascio at Como, embraced the opportunities of the new establishment. Every part of the building, from its site behind the Como Cathedral, its orientation, program and functional composition was compelled to ensure a rampant flare of the fascist ideology throughout its interior and exterior construct. One can go on almost endlessly with how the facade rolls out into the plaza to allow the flowing masses from fascist parades to burst into the building’s grand entrance hall, to make the establishment transparent to the nation, and to exhibit fascist power in every architectural element. Contrary to the seemingly ubiquitously evident references to fascism without an a priori understanding of the concept, the building, at least upon first impression, appears no more than most distinguished modernist works by Le Corbusier or Mies. As much as Terragni would have argued his work as a rational expression of fascist ideals, the symbolic punch was not near enough to discern Casa del Fascio from an ordinary office block, especially after the fall of the regime. Art historian Paolo Fassati illustrates this point by regarding the building at Como a “triumph of individualism and an objective expression of reality.”16 This, according to Fassati, was precisely due to the conceptual ambiguity which proceeded from the constructive to the abstract. Indeed the space on the right hand side of the facade must have been quite the selling point as “a large plane surface planned for the publicity of propaganda.” 17 Terragni had succeeded where Mies had not, while being faithful to his modernist ideals and maintaing a powerful reputation beyond the collapse of fascism. Although Terragni’s registration in the party was attributed to opportunistic motives, “the rhetoric of his various writings, reports, and letters display either the fervor of a true believer or the duplicity of a truly calculating personality, and, since Terragni was something of a moralist in other areas, it is difficult to believe he played politics for opportunistic reasons.” 18 Perhaps he did; no one would never know. Behold the power of architecture’s ambiguity at a game well played. 11 Weizman, E., ‘the Evil Architects Do’, Context, (Taschen, 2004), p.63 12 Welch, C. R., ‘Mies van der Rohe’s Compromise with the Nazis’, Workshop 3, (Wies Z. Hochsch Archit. Bauwes., Weimar, 1993), p.105 13 Ibid, p.106 14 Ibid, p.106 15 Da Costa Meyer, E., The Work of Antonio Sant ‘Elia: Retreat into the Future, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995), p.102 16
Schumacher, T. L., Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy, 1932-36: Asilo Infantile Antonio Sant ‘Elia, Como, Italy, 1936-37, (A.D.A. Edita Tokyo, Tokyo, 1994), p.5 17 Sert, J. L., Léger, F., Giedion S., Nine Points on Monumentality (1943) 18 Schumacher, T. L., Surface and Symbol: Giuseppe Terragni and the Architecture of Italian Rationalism, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1991), p. 37
Is this not just yelling Fascism from every angle?
Well, like this it is
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fig. 4
Now, can you really see it?
lost in a corn field are we?
fig. 7
Mies and Terragni are but two of a plethora of architects who attempted to establish themselves under failed regimes shunned by those who emerged triumphant. Such scenarios discernibly convey the unique position of architects to push forward proposals within the constructs of political, financial and ethical frameworks by thrusting out to such cleverly devised degrees of ambiguity so as to pose almost undisputed arguments from whichever point of view they see fit. The question yet to be addressed is where does one indeed fall into the trap. When does the denotation dominate connotation, condemning meaning to such specificity that any attempt to re-adapt is futile? If there is indeed a plausible answer it would have to lie with function. Function dictates distinctive use for as long as architecture’s infrastructural and programmatic attributes remain historically viable (or socially relevant). A meaning regarded as relatively untarnished is what essentially constitutes to perhaps the only example of a ‘pure’ Nazi architecture; the concentration camp. A drafts-man implicated in the design was clearly fabricating a death machine. Similarly, any architecture involved in warfare has quite a direct aim. Altogether, whatever the ethical interpretation of the function, these would be the only cases where the total disregard for human life sparks moral condemnations from any side. Yet, like the death camps, the functional aim of similar projects would be given a more infrastructural role rather than architectural one. Then, obviously, blame the engineer. Interestingly very few works of great architectural significance would possess such potent uses. Typically any structure designed with such inherent applications in every single element, followed by a usual disassociation with arbitrary architectural concepts, is increasingly becoming the product of the engineer. Brilliantly so architects find themselves in an even more advantaged position of being on the outside. Engineers could be run-down for their works with more ferocity given their degree of specificity while architects can argue away. From the building structurally failing and resorting to fatalities, to the bridge turning out wobbly and making the queen queasy, there’s always the engineer who would initially swear on his life the safety of his structure and later try to justify its failure on being persuaded by the architect’s alterations on a conceptual basis, or vice versa. Arguably, the rigidity of function may perish because of semiotics and Saussure’s second principle of the sign conditioned by the passage of time and changing social ideals, much like the toilets of the Mezzogiorno. Thus, in order to identify a building as functionally fixed, its purpose must be assumed to resonate in time for longer than several generations. In any case, the blurring of meaning and it’s attachment to time and memory can arguably class monuments as the ultimate physical manifestations of ‘pure’ architectural concepts. The ‘good’ Nazi, chief Reich architect Albert Speer,20 made Ruinenwert (ruin value) a core principle of his work. Architecture was more significant to Hitler as a monumental tool for the Third Reich by projecting its evolution into an aesthetically acceptable ruin. This obsessive concern with architecture’s after-life brings into question the sense of meaning; for what is a monument, other than a strong enough expression striving to outlive its surroundings? In most cases, the fact must be that architects commissioned to erect monuments are caught between the two extremes of specificity and ambiguity, many opting for the latter. Hence one could say “monuments of recent date have, with rare exceptions, become empty shells.”21 In other words, monuments can be as ambiguous as any other building and as highly symbolic. Whether or not this is a positive or negative outcome, it is certainly useful. The comforting retreat into ambiguity makes anything morally acceptable to everyone in all possible ways. Inspired by “a field of corn that I was lost in in Iowa … I was trying to do something that had no centre, had no edge, had no meaning, that was dumb.” 22 Eisenman cleverly responds to his critics of his Holocaust memorial in Berlin. According to this, the interpretation of the objects as graves and in effect the demand for a respectable moral stance towards them, of not being trod on, sat upon, or used as a backdrop for photo shoots, is a public assumption because of the context assigned to the site as a memorial commemorating the dead.
19
Le Corbusier had also worked under the Vichi regime and submitted his own proposal for Stalin’s competition for the Palace of the Soviets. A recent discovery of a letter in which Le Corbusier confesses to his mother about being excited regarding Hitler’s rise to power caused distress amongst the Swiss planning to name a square after him. With the prospect of ‘reshaping the world’ what architect in his right mind wouldn’t be excited? 20 He eventually managed to avoid death sentence, to outlive his prison sentence and to seek some sort of redemption. All of which may have arguably depended on his unique position as an architect. He would have even gotten away with more if he hadn’t accepted to be appointed Armaments Minister by Hitler towards the end of the war. 21 Sert, J. L., Léger, F., Giedion S., Nine Points on Monumentality (1943) 22
Chametzky, P., ‘Global Art, National Values, Monumental Compromises :“German” 9/11 Commemoration in America, “American” Holocaust Commemoration in Germany’, The Massachusetts Review, (Massachusetts Review Inc., Amherst, 2009), p.17
fig. 8
fig. 9
One may “portray discussions of the complexity of meaning and associations as useless dithering and a distraction from the practical imperative of simply getting something done. Perhaps the designers believe that meaning is supplied by context”. 23 Post 9/11, the 16 acre site of the Twin Towers had become a playground for architectural compromises in a much similar way to the memorials of the Holocaust. The “Tribute in Light” which began in 2002, was meant to be seen as an absolutely unique and unprecedented event by the public, “an absolute null point of human experience.”24 Yet even La Verdiere, while formulating the proposal, was very much aware of Spier’s spectacular light shows for the monumentalising of Nazi buildings and confessed that “Nine times out of ten this esoteric would never be recognised.” 25 Evidently, by being unaware or overcoming past meanings, associations between such events break down and heated moral reactions are extinguished. New York mayors were equally confused with what should the site express. Rudolf Giuliani called for an ultimately “soaring and very beautiful” 26 ground zero while his successor, mayor Bloomberg, found that “people that live in Battery Park City, don’t want to live in a memorial, and we’ve got to be sympathetic to that” 27. Who’s reputation proved that his memorial ‘solutions’ made him the apt choice for the task at hand? ‘Saint’ Libeskind of course. “I think architects should take a more ethical stance. It bothers me when an architect has carte blanche with a site…we don’t know if there was a public process - who owns this place, this home, this land?” 28 Libeskind’s utterly nonsensical, naive and perhaps even intentionally targeted statement, comes from him almost a decade after his proposal for the ground zero memorial. It seems as pompous as his rhetoric for selling off a “rather literal, “strenuously symbolic” to the point of kitsch, concept.” 29 The form, functions and design decisions implemented communicate in almost no way that one digs deep to reveal the nation’s democratic foundations or casts sun light symbolic of the rays of the heroic dead etc. People like this, believing that such ethical notions are inherent in architecture, should be blacklisted, not forgetting our beloved Prince of Wales. It seems that an architect’s conceptual processes cannot avoid ambiguity of even the slightest degree, let alone the exaggerations of Libeskind. “The modernist tendency to reduce all form to abstraction made it an unsatisfactory manner in which to represent the power and ideology of the state.” 30 Terragni would not have responded lightly to this. The extent to which it may be true is irrelevant, what it proves, yet again, is that architects work with compromise and are able to argue concepts. To label this as opportunistic would also be ludicrous given the negative connotation of the word itself. Once again, whether it is moral or immoral, is not of the architect’s primary concern, such devices are constructs when seen from the outside. The fact is that the game of bluff is evident in more projects than most would accept, if not everywhere. All in all, architects are fantastic players at it and it is pointless to argue whether it is a good or a bad thing. More importantly, architects may at least strive to succeed in transcending the seemingly fixed boundaries and build on their own principals and convictions. Every other symbolic significance is reduced to mere interpretation. Consequently, “the language of denotation and connotation does little work: in this sense anything at all may be said to denote and connote.” In other words, both sign and signifier become utterly irrelevant. “Architecture is an art of representation” 31 regardless of what architects overtly or covertly intend to express.
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Chametzky, P., ‘Global Art, National Values, Monumental Compromises :“German” 9/11 Commemoration in America, “American” Holocaust Commemoration in Germany’, The Massachusetts Review, (Massachusetts Review Inc., Amherst, 2009), p.7 Ibid, p.7 Vetrocq, M. E., ‘Julian LaVerdiere’s Imperial Designs’, Art in America, (United States, June 2003), p. 102 Chametzky, P., ‘Global Art, National Values, Monumental Compromises :“German” 9/11 Commemoration in America, “American” Holocaust Commemoration in Germany’, The Massachusetts Review, (Massachusetts Review Inc., Amherst, 2009), p.21 Steinhauer, J., ‘Bloomberg’s Delicate Dance With the Families of Sept. 11’, The New York Times, (June 15, 2002), A1, A16 Olcayto, R., 2008, Ethics debate: Take an ethical stance, Libeskind tells his peers, accessed February 20th 2014, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/ethicsdebate-take-an-ethical-stance-libeskind-tells-his-peers/3106421.article Kogod, L., Osman, M., ‘Girding the Grid: Abstraction and Figuration at Ground Zero’, Grey Room 13, (Fall 2013), p.113 Frampton, K., ‘Architecture and the State: Ideology and Representation’, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, (Thames & Hudson Inc., New York, 2007) p. 210 Harries, K., ‘The Language Problem’, The Ethical Function of Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000), p.96
fig. 10
Bibliography
Texts - Opening quote from the RIBA’s Code of Professional Conduct, as of January 2005 - Till, J., ‘Imperfect Ethics’, Architecture Depends, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009) - Feuerbach, L., translated by Elliot, G., ‘Preface to the Second Edition’, The Essence of Christianity, (Prometheus Books,1989) - Debord, G., The Society of the Spectacle, (Rebel Press, London, 1967) - Aureli, P. V., The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2011) - Harries, K., ‘The Language Problem’, The Ethical Function of Architecture, (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000) - Sanders, C., ‘The Linguistic Sign’, The Cambridge Companion to Saussure, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004) - Weizman, E., ‘the Evil Architects Do’, Context, (Taschen, 2004) - Welch, C. R., ‘Mies van der Rohe’s Compromise with the Nazis’, Workshop 3, (Wies Z. Hochsch Archit. Bauwes., Weimar, 1993) Da Costa Meyer, E., The Work of Antonio Sant ‘Elia: Retreat into the Future, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995) - Schumacher, T. L., Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy, 1932-36: Asilo Infantile Antonio Sant ‘Elia, Como, Italy, 1936-37, (A.D.A. Edita Tokyo, Tokyo,1994) - Sert, J. L., Léger, F., Giedion S., Nine Points on Monumentality (1943) - Schumacher, T. L., Surface and Symbol: Giuseppe Terragni and the Architecture of Italian Rationalism, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1991) - Chametzky, P., ‘Global Art, National Values, Monumental Compromises :“German” 9/11 Commemoration in America, “American” Holocaust Commemoration in Germany’, The Massachusetts Review, (Massachusetts Review Inc., Amherst, 2009) - Vetrocq, M. E., ‘Julian LaVerdiere’s Imperial Designs’, Art in America, (United States, June 2003) - Steinhauer, J., ‘Bloomberg’s Delicate Dance With the Families of Sept. 11’, The New York Times, (June 15, 2002), A1, A16 - Olcayto, R., 2008, Ethics debate: Take an ethical stance, Libeskind tells his peers, accessed February 20th 2014, http://www. bdonline.co.uk/ethics-debate-take-an-ethical-stance-libeskind-tells-his-peers/3106421.article - Kogod, L., Osman, M., ‘Girding the Grid: Abstraction and Figuration at Ground Zero’, Grey Room 13, (Fall 2013) - Frampton, K., ‘Architecture and the State: Ideology and Representation’, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, (Thames & Hudson Inc., New York, 2007)
Images: figure 1: ‘Architects on the Outside’, Photo-montage, by Nicholas Zembashi figure 2: ‘the instructions for the proper use of the toilet’ http://realhousewifeofaiken.com/2014/02/06/the-2014-winterolympics-welcome-to-sochi/ figure 3: ‘German Pavilion Project Plan’, Welch, C. R., ‘Mies van der Rohe’s Compromise with the Nazis’, Workshop 3, (Wies Z. Hochsch Archit. Bauwes., Weimar, 1993), p. 107 figure 4: ‘Interior perspective of Hall of Honor, German Pavilion’, Welch, C. R., ‘Mies van der Rohe’s Compromise with the Nazis’, Workshop 3, (Wies Z. Hochsch Archit. Bauwes., Weimar, 1993), p. 106 figure 5: ‘Clásicos de Arquitectura: Casa del Fascio / Giuseppe Terragni’, http://www.archdaily.mx/185681/clasicos-dearquitectura-casa-del-fascio-giuseppe-terragni/ figure 6: ‘The Casa Del Fascio embellished with Fascist Propaganda’, http://www.hrvatski-fokus.hr/index.php/vanjskapolitika/9125-neofasizam-u-italiji-u-punom-cvatu figure 7: ‘Lost in a corn field are we?’ Photo-montage, by Nicholas Zembashi figure 8: ‘The Heart and the Soul: Memory Foundations’, Sketch by studio Libeskind, http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/ ground-zero-master-plan/images figure 9: ‘Albert Spier’s choreographed cathedrals of light, Nürnberg, September 1936: Reichsparteitag’, http://www.aref.de/ Highlights/2012/pfingsten-eine-woche-danach.htm figure 10: ‘Julian LaVerdiere’s Light Tribute’, http://defiantwod.com/?attachment_id=1331 Film: - 16 Acres, (2012) directed by Richard Hankin
Ambiguous hence amoral
can architects escape ethical constructs by lying outside convention?
Nicholas Zembashi History & Theory Studies Second Year Zaynab Dena Ziari