LEBBEUS WOODS
TABLE OF CONTENTS Freespace Non-Conventional Space Metricality Walls Seperation Zones of crisis New Structures Multiplicity Heterarchy Light Chaos Conceptual Architecture Abstraction Drawings Alternate Reality Recovery Normalcy New From Old Unpredictability
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ORSON NGUYEN
VIS II
JEREMIAH WOODRING
FREESPACE
Figures 1.1, 1.2
NOT CONVENTIONAL, NOT PREDETERMINED Lebbeus Woods was a conceptual architect, meaning that much of his work was not created physically, but rather he created drawings of possiblities and created concepts of design. Predetermination was not something that Woods regarded highly in design. He felt that premediation worked against tension, which was a force necessary to give meaning to creations. If the tension between a viewer and the object was decreased, it also lessened the viewers ablity to truly see a percieve the object. In addition, because of the augmented view that predetermination causes, the viewer will not be able to truly experience the space around the object either. Therefore, Woods made efforts to make his work in line without hierarchy. This meant that even though every piece had it’s importance, this was because of how specific placing could affect the final affect of the space on a viewer. Woods believes that there should be more room for unpredictability in architecture and design.
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Figure 1.3
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SPACE AS AN IMPLICATION
Figure 1.5
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Figure 1.6
Woods describes spaces as an intellectual construct. Spaces are something that are experienced and understood, and the same space could mean completely different things to two different people. This is because space is something imagined by the individual experiencing it. When imagining an object, people also imagine not only the object in question, but the space around the object, the space between themselves and the object. This means that we experience space as the implication of the object within it. Woods states that “We must think space into existence”. Woods relates the concept to cinema; although when watching a movie we are aware that it doesn’t play out physically in the theater, there is still a state of mind of the movie having existed. There is still the impression that the viewers are left with after the movie. As such, space is not necessarily an physical area, but rather a conceptual experience.
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METRICALITY Metricality is a word that Woods uses to describe the structure that sits underneath of his work. He describes it as “woven by light in space and time”. The term is also adjacent with the word ‘geometry’, which Woods defines as an ‘earth measurement’. Metricality does not relate only to architecture, but also in the fields of general relaticity theory, quantum field theory, and quantum mechanics. Metricality links light, engery, and matter.
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WALLS
Figure 2.1
SEPERATION Walls are one of the most basic, necessary elements of architecture. They are used not only to seperate spaces, but to define the spaces themselves. Walls are not just a physical reality, but also the space that exists inbetween two zones that operate on a different set of rules to each other. Walls can be the space between the kitchen and the living room, or the space between two countries with wildly differing cultures. Woods believes that zones of crisis are the places in the walls. People of crisis will always be pushed to these difficult places in the walls.
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Figures 2.2, 2.3, 2.4
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Figure 2.5
ZONES OF CRISIS Crisis is a concept that Woods utilizes in much of his projects. He likens crisis to a tension field; all the of the forces that are working in the field get disrupted by crisis. It forces everything to redistribute itself. A lot of Woods’ work utilizes the leftovers of crisis to form a design around. While crisis is very traumatic and can create unease within a community, it does have a wonderfully dynamic quality to it. Furthermore, there is something to be said about the reaction to crisis. Woods criticizes the culture we live in that tries to ignore crisis, or push it off to the peripheral. Only in the heart of the crisis can we accurately identify the causes and begin to think about how to truly solve the problem and not just placate it.
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NEW STRUCTURES
After something has been ravaged by destruction, Woods believes that there should not be an exact replica put in to replace it, rather a new structure should be put in place. New structures will not fill the void left by the old structure exactly, but it will come to serve a different purpose then the previous one did. New structures do not reconcile the new and the old, but they only become useful as people start to inhabit them and create use for them.
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Figures 2.6, 2.7
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MULTIPLICITY
Figure 3.1
HETERARCHY Heterarchy is the opposite of autocratical societies that have a hierarchy to them. On the other end of the spectrum, Woods believes that a heterarchy will allow people the best chance to realize their human potential. In this current era, there is such oppurtunity for humans to have fluid, mutable societies, where there isn’t more or less importance placed on any one person. However, the current hierarchy cannot coexist with the concept of heterarchies.
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Figure 3.2
LIGHT Light has shown itself to be a recurring concept in Woods’ work. He has a fascination with it that runs as an undercurrent under everything that he creates. Space can be filled with light, but light can only be seen when it is reflected off of something else. One of his projects, Light-metrical Instruments, conisisted of making instruments that would measure light. Woods’ definition of ‘measurement’ was creating a defined shape that would bring light into an measurable state of experience. The goal of this project was to give light a structure, along with intensity, color, and character.
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Figure 3.5
POSSIBLIY OF CHAOS The elements in a project are always changing and transforming. The relationships that elements have with each other are also continuously changing. This means that in every work, there are many differnt avenues that a project could go down based on what the architect sees in it, and based on what crisis may have occured that has guided the architects view.
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CONCEPTUAL ARCHITECTURE
Figure 4.1
ABSTRACTION Lebbeus Woods has chosen to create his work conceptually because he wanted to liberate himself. Woods did not want to be ruled over by the thought of an end-product, or creating something solely for one purpose and never daring outside of that. He draws things conceptually because he wants to enjoy the process of designing, rather than wanting to churn out projects for no reason. He also has criticisms of creating authoritative buildings, that exist in compliance with institutional power. Rather than pursue this, Woods brings ups concepts and ideas that ask questions about how architects view buildings.
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Figures 4.2, 4.3
DRAWINGS Lebbeus Woods’ style of architectural drawing is instantly recognizable as his own. He has a very distinctive way of describing his projects in the form of drawing and of capturing the spirit of his projects in two dimensional medium. Woods considers the drawings he has done to be built. Even if the structure he has drawn does not get constructed in three dimensions, the drawings are existence enough of his work. Woods believes that architecture comes in many forms, not just the physical construction of buildings. Woods states that his drawings are investigations between the connection parts and the manner that elemments come together.
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Figure 4.4
Figure 4.5
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ALTERNATE REALITY Because a great majority of Lebbeus Woods’ work is conceptual, the works that he creates can seem to have a sense of unrealtity about them. His complex drawings make the viewers think about the possibility of something that is completely foreign to other forms of architecture. This is due to Wood’s rejection of conventions and his dedication to designing works that force the viewer to think.
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Figures 4.6, 4.7
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RECOVERY Figure 5.1
RESTORE NORMALCY Woods criticizes the mindset of architects that immediately want to rebuild fallen buildings to restore some sense of normalcy. Woods states that the falling of a building, due to things like war or earthquakes, are traumatic events, and trying to restore the normalcy after the event is like allowing the wound to physically heal, but not addressing the psychological trauma of the fall. Woods thinks that we, not just architects, but as a society, are too eager to erase the evidence of the fall. Architecture is repreentitive of society. Therefore, when humans see that something that once once working and complete become naught more than a pile of rubble, in comes the desire to put it back to normal. However, Woods believes that we should take the oppurtunity of the fall not to just cover up the mistake, but to create something new from the ashes.
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Figure 5.2
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CREATE NEW FROM DAMAGED OLD In addition to his aversion to the conventional, Woods believes that the fall is just an oppurtunity to look at a project with a different set of rules. The events that led to the structure not doing as planned are now a chance to view the project in a differnt way. The fall creates new relationships between the pieces that were already there. New spaces are created with the parts of the previous configuration. The physical act of falling has affected the way the objects appear in the material world, but it also changes the thought of them, creating a new experience from the fragments of the old.
UNPREDICTABILITY Another aspect of embracing the fall of buildings is embracing any unpredictability that may influence a project. While measures are taken to prevent the collapse of a project, there is not enough thought put into what can be made from the result of the accident. Woods believes that accidents come from a matrix of unpredictable vectors. Once something unpredictable has happened, it is no longer the job of the architect to shape a space, but rather to set up the rules of teh space. Design, Woods says, has two components. It is the planning of a space but also the acceptance of the accidents that change the plan.
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Figure 5.3
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CITATIONS FIGURES 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 4.2, 4.6, 5.2, 6.1, 6.2
Woods, Lebbeus. The Storm and the Fall. Princeton Architectural Press, 2004. FIGURES 0.1, 0.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.7, 2.2, 2.5, 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.7, 5.1, 5.3
Woods, Lebbeus. One Five Four. Princeton Architectural Press, 1989.
Figure 6.1
Connah, Roger. Welcome to Hotel Architecture. The MIT Press, 1998. Noever, Peter, and Regina Haslinger. Architecture in Transition: between Deconstruction and New Modernism. Prestel, 1997. Rehfeld, Ekkehard. BorderLine. Springer, 1998. Woods, Lebbeus. One Five Four. Princeton Architectural Press, 1989. Figure 6.2
Woods, Lebbeus. The Storm and the Fall. Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.