Toward a New Interior: An Anthology of Interior Design Theory by PA Press

Toward a New Interior — An Anthology of Interior Design Theory

Lois Weinthal, editor Princeton Architectural Press · New York

Published by Princeton Architectural Press 37 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003 For a free catalog of books, call 1-800-722-6657 Visit our website at www.papress.com © 2011 Princeton Architectural Press All rights reserved Printed and bound in the United States 14 13 12 11 4 3 2 1 First edition No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. Editor: Dan Simon Special thanks to: Bree Anne Apperley, Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek Brower, Janet Behning, Fannie Bushin, Megan Carey, Carina Cha, Tom Cho, Russell Fernandez, Jan Haux, Linda Lee, Jennifer Lippert, John Myers, Katharine Myers, Margaret Rogalski, Paul Wagner, Joseph Weston, and Deb Wood of Princeton Architectural Press —Kevin C. Lippert, publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Toward a new interior / [edited by] Lois Weinthal. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61689-030-8 (alk. paper) 1. Interior architecture—Philosophy. I. Weinthal, Lois. NA2850.T69 2011 729—dc23 2011021280

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Preface Introduction

Chapter 1: Body and Perception

Introduction

Places at the Zero Point – Doris von Drathen

The Box Man – Kobo Abé

40 An Architecture of the Seven Senses – Juhani Pallasmaa 50

Body Troubles – Robert McAnulty

Chapter 2: Clothing and Identity 72

Introduction

Cutting Patterns – Kerstin Kraft

Drapery – Anne Hollander

102

Notebook on Clothes and Cities – Wim Wenders

113

A Conversation with Jacques Herzog – Jeffrey Kipnis

127

No Man’s Land – Caroline Evans

Chapter 3: Furniture and Objects

144 Introduction 147

The Decorative Art of Today – Le Corbusier

154 A Battle Against Kitsch – Milena Veenis 163

Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life – Andrew Blauvelt

175

The Rules of Her Game: A-Z at Work and Play – Trevor Smith

191

For the Love of Things – Louise Schouwenberg

199 Furnishing the Primitive Hut: Allan Wexler’s Experiments

Beyond Buildings – Aaron Betsky 212 Courtney Smith, Tongue and Groove: Movable Sculpture – Manon Slome

Chapter 4: Color and Surfaces

222 Introduction 225

Chromophobia – David Batchelor

240 The Principle of Cladding – Adolf Loos 246 The Amber Room: Introduction – Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy

252 The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman 267

The Five Senses: Boxes – Michel Serres

271

Curtain as Architecture – Petra Blaisse

283

Skin: New Design Organics – Ellen Lupton

Chapter 5: Mapping the Interior

296 Introduction 299

The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into the Brief Life of an

Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique – Robin Evans 326 Corners and Darts – Lois Weinthal 335 Flattened Room – Jeanine Centuori 341 Space-Enfolding-Breath – Monica Wyatt 348

Engineering the Indoor Environment – Jeffrey Siegel

358

In a Few Lines, Alan Storey – Catherine Bédard

364

Self as Eye: The Perspective Box – Celeste Brusati

Chapter 6: Private Chambers

380 Introduction 383

Inside the Inside – Mark Wigley

394

Domesticity – Witold Rybczynski

413

The Name of the Boudoir – Ed Lilley

425

Closets, Clothes, disClosure – Henry Urbach

438 Inside Anne Frank’s House: An Illustrated Journey through

Anne’s World – Hans Westra 446 Berggasse 19: Inside Freud’s Office – Diana Fuss and Joel Sanders 475

Interior – Beatriz Colomina

Chapter 7: Public Performance

502 Introduction 505 The Specular Spectacle of the House of the Collector – Helene Furján 519 Polyvalent Spaces: The Postmodern Wunderkammer and

the Return of Ambiguity – Pablo Helguera 527 A Metaphysics of Space: The Quay Brothers’ Atmospheric

Cosmogonies – Suzanne H. Buchan 546 Architecture of the Gaze: Jeffries’s Apartment and Courtyard – Steven Jacobs 559

Display Engineers – Aaron Betsky

Chapter 8: Bridging the Interior and Exterior 576 Introduction 579 Théâtre de l’univers – Frances Terpak 586 The Secrets of Rooms – Diana Gaston 596 Gordon Matta-Clark – Dan Graham

609 House 1993 – Charlotte Mullins 616 Rodinsky’s Room – Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair 625 Of the Hollow Spaces in the Skin of the Architectural Body – Wolfgang Meisenheimer

632 Biographies 639

Bibliography

641

Index

Body and Perception

Introduction: Body and Perception

The body comprehends the world through senses and physical grasp. The senses of sight and sound are internally registered through eyes and ears while the physical grasp of materials relies upon the body’s outward engagement of touch. Together, these inward and outward perceptions contribute to an overall understanding of the built environment. Essays in this first section explore these two forms of perception and how they influence the projection of the body’s measurement in shaping interiors. Architectural historian and theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz conveys ideas of the senses in his essay “The Phenomenon of Place” that people understand the built world through concrete and phenomenal modalities.1 For him concrete modalities are tangible objects that people engage on a daily basis, such as the material touch of a chair or height of a window; phenomena are sensory perceptions of the world, such as the way light enters through a window. Together these senses and measure of the body guide how we read and shape the architectural interior realm. The body’s ability to comprehend the senses is crucial to the study of the interior in architecture, in part because crafting interior spaces ultimately relies on the senses for perceiving elements inherent to the interior, such as color, light, and darkness, sound and silence, and the texture of materials. The selected readings in Body and Perception draw upon art, classic literature, and architecture to reveal ways that the body perceives the built environment. Originating from Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, referencing classical order, the famous drawing of a man’s body and its placement in measured space provides a foundation for design theory and its interpretations of space. The human figure is located within a constructed geometry that measures the body, while projecting measurement outward as a means of generating architectural space. Architecture has a long-standing tradition of analyzing the measure of man that can be seen in historical reference to the writings of Vitruvius, 24

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Leonardo da Vinci, Le Corbusier, and more recently, Joseph Rykwert. These writings situate the body in systems of measurement that in some cases are generative of architecture. The interior builds upon these analyses but has further need for representation specific to furniture and products. These types of diagrams and proportional systems can be found in the research on ergonomics, largely undertaken by the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss in the early twentieth century. By applying bodily proportions to interiors, Dreyfuss influenced human factors on the engineering of products and spaces. The essays that constitute this first section reference the measured body alongside concrete and phenomenal modalities, parallel to the physical and perceptual. Chapter 1 begins with a reading that offers an alternative example of bodily measurement and representation. Doris von Drathen frames the artist Rebecca Horn’s work in intrinsic forms of measurement in her essay, “Places at the Zero Point.” Horn, whose body projects Measure Box and White Body Fan focus on the body and its ability to be measured and to project measurement, repositioned da Vinci’s classical figure to allow for later critical interpretations that focus on a feminized version of the drawing. Where the Vitruvian Man is static, contained, and inscribed within a circle, Horn’s White Body Fan is dynamic—she can inscribe or un-scribe the circle around her. The body continuously establishes a relationship to the scale of interior space by projecting its measurements onto the physical world. An excerpt from Kobo Abé’s Box Man provides an immediate example of how occupants project their bodies onto neutral space by giving it scale. Box Man is the story of a homeless man (the Box Man) who personalizes the interior of his cardboard box based upon basic needs: sight, sound, and shelter. Like the Vitruvian Man inscribed within a circle, the Box Man’s perception of geometric boundaries is a projection of his measurements. He creates openings to take in light and sound. His box mimics architecture with visible and audible thresholds that mark a distinction between interior and exterior. The limited flexibility of altering architectural materials to reflect the body is not the case with the Box Man, where the temporary nature of cardboard easily allows for alterations. In this narrative, cardboard acts as both exterior shell and interior wallpaper. Abé focuses on comprehending the internal senses of sight, sound, and smell. The outward sense of touch is the focus of Juhani Pallasmaa’s essay, “An Architecture of the Seven Senses.” Pallasmaa conveys how interior space can be used to gauge the physical body. He focuses on architectural details that measure the body with interior elements such as the rise and run of stairs. Like Abé, he explores occupied space using the senses of sound and smell. They are revealed through architectural techniques that strike a balance between tangible, everyday elements and how we perceive 25

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them. These range from a door handle to a finish material, which absorbs our use, accumulating a patina over time. Pallasmaa manifests a poetic description of the built environment through the senses. In the last essay of this section, “Body Troubles,” Robert McAnulty looks to the interior as a site for re-thinking these modes of perception as they rely upon the interior as an occupied site. There, an indecipherable zone emerges where architecture, body, and object cross paths. They meet at the scale of the interior, where external forces find their way into the representation of the architectural interior through comparisons of body and world, objective and subjective, natural and artificial. This chapter defines the properties of the body. It inhabits architecture, creates scale, and engages objects within a space. It is a recurring theme in this chapter that demonstrates the interior as a meeting between the intimate scale of the senses and the larger scale of interior architecture they shape. As later chapters build upon environments’ and objects’ increasing scales, the body stands as a basis for comparison. 1 Christian Norberg-Schulz, “The Phenomenon of Place,” Architectural

Association Quarterly, 4 (1976): 3–10.

Places at the Zero Point Doris von Drathen

introduction The body interprets the constructed world through unconscious calculations of orientation and measurement. We find these calculations represented in the dimensions of the human body in the writings of Vitruvius and in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvius-inspired drawing, the Vitruvian Man. These systems define how human measurement and proportion establish an equivalent foundation for architectural representation relative to the body. In the following essay, Doris von Drathen repositions artist Rebecca Horn’s work from its context of measurement and orientation, to offer an alternative image of the body, and in doing so, forming the space of interiors. Horn’s early works focused on using body extensions to measure and gauge the world. Unlike static Renaissance drawings of the body, Horn’s tools are dynamic, set in motion by human interaction. The body is just as important as the work itself. Without it, her art does not truly convey its intent. Horn’s White Body Fan shares a similar approach to da Vinci’s static male figure, but omits a confining perimeter; instead it is animated with geometric forms. A sequence of photographs depict Horn’s movement with large, white fans, opening and closing, subtly implying horizontal and vertical relationships to the body and the ground, while opening up limitless possibilities for making space, using the edges of the wings as if they were drawing tools. Von Drathen draws a distinction between the architect and artist, the former limited by a set of rules, the latter open to infinite possibilities. Although Horn’s work can certainly be called an artistic endeavor, the body’s central location in the mechanisms that activate it suggests interiority. Interior design, as a recent discipline, has fewer references to anthropomorphized structures. If classical drawings of the body are a foundation of architecture that guided later interpretations, such as Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man, what are the analogues to interior design? Classical architectural Originally appeared in Rebecca Horn: Moon Mirror (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2005), 41–46.

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drawings represent the body two-dimensionally, often drafted with lines generating measurement and proportion, while Horn’s representation is threedimensional. In one photograph of White Body Fan, Horn wraps herself within the fans, transforming her body inscribed in a circle, as it were, into an enclosure that implies spatiality. ——— Is ther e space : before or behind space? Is there time beneath shaped time, when a crack opens up in the seamless sequence of no-longer and notyet moments? The awe that seizes us in the face of such questions stems from a primeval phenomenon that permeates all cultures: the premonition of a chasm of nothingness. “The depths of the vast chasm are filled with shapeless forces,” we are told by the ancient scriptures; only the processual development of the world can lend them form and create something from them. Until this has happened, this chasm or “primal space” remains the preserve of darkness.1 Time and space have more in common than the fact that anyone who seeks to penetrate their inner mystery becomes even further embroiled in their unfathomableness: they are also characterized by this chasm of nothingness. It is the crack that opens up when we venture beyond our well-defined and measurable notion of space or our familiar framework of time. Anything that defies definition immediately invokes a sense of limitlessness; it is impossible for us in our limited condition to conceive of, let alone create, infinity. It suffices to go just one step beyond the reassuringly measurable units of time or space for us to experience this staggering rift that opens up an indeterminate field of possibilities. So one might logically assume that artistic creativity would go in search of such an opening, however daunting this might seem, in order to proceed further into new realms. How astonishing it then is that so few artists possess the courage to face this challenge. In the work of Rebecca Horn, however, the crack appears to be transformed into a primeval moment of creativity, into a dynamic core of space- and timelessness, into the zero point of a new beginning. Being the World Axis Oneself

It is precisely from this zero point that Rebecca Horn begins to reinvent her universe, by establishing her very own measuring system as a means of comprehending and creating space. She proceeds empirically, using the human body, its movements, and its proportions as her yardstick to measure the universe. As if her aim were to dispense with all timeworn, accustomed parameters, she first founds a world axis that she herself determines. 28

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In archaic traditions, when a new community was being founded, a tall wooden stake would be driven into the ground at a chosen spot. This stake was to connect heaven and earth; it was declared the axis mundi and was thus considered the center around which all the other buildings would be oriented. Without consciously alluding to such traditions, Rebecca Horn creates an image in one of her first performances2 that can be understood as an axis mundi. Characteristically, however, the artist invents a wandering, mobile world axis: in the performance Unicorn (1970) a woman bears on her head a long, upright pole, thus using her own body to establish a connection between heaven and earth. She paces freely through the field and forest, measuring herself “against every tree and cloud.”3 The length of the vertical pole, which transforms the woman into a creature from another world, is not some arbitrary number of centimeters but precisely half the length of the woman’s body. In all of the performances from this period these sculptural body extensions are calculated in exact proportion to the performers’ stature. For example, a horizontal pole that a man awkwardly balances on his head is three times as long as he is tall (Balance Pole, 1972). In these first performances Rebecca Horn is thus in fact concentrating on the vertical and horizontal measurement of space. She works purely functionally and experimentally, using extensions of the body to venture a direct physical transgression of her own dimensions and her own spatial reach. In order to determine more simply the physical proportions of the various participants in her performances, the artist built a metal construction in the early 1970s that she called Measure Box (1970). [Figs. 1.1 + 1.2] It was nothing more than an open steel frame whose four upright struts were perforated at regular intervals so that slender horizontal rods could be slid in and out. Each participant in a performance would stand in this measuring box and be palpated by the metal rods; on stepping out, the shape of his or her body would remain behind as an empty form in outline. In this manner, the artist was able to produce individually proportioned body extensions for each participant. Characteristic of these early performances is Rebecca Horn’s experimentation with a kind of dialogic experience of space. From the very outset she worked within correlational systems. After a long period of isolation due to a lung infection, this collaboration with other participants (recruited from among her friends and fellow students) represented for her the first major step towards re-establishing contact with others. Experimenting with space thus also became a way of measuring others, of being concerned and assuming responsibility. She herself tailored the body extensions and made sure that no one came to harm when risk was involved. In her first documenta piece in 1972, a man’s head was inserted inside the Head Extension, a towering mask-like object that was twice as tall as the man and tapered to 29

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left Fig. 1.1: Rebecca Horn, Measure Box, 1970. Steel, aluminium. opposite Fig. 1.2: Rebecca Horn, Measure Box, 1970. Steel, aluminium. Copyright 2011: Rebecca Horn: VG Bild Kunst Bonn: ARS. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany. Photo credit: Achim Thode

a point at the top. Four people, including the artist, positioned themselves around the man along the axes of the four points of the compass, each holding a rope that was connected to the pinnacle of the obelisk-like object. The manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s balance could only be safeguarded by maintaining equal and constant tension on all four ropes, enabling him to move about very carefully with the rest of the group. Even the slightest disturbance in the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focused sense of balance would have pulled the man, whose sight was obstructed by the head extension, crashing to the ground. Frequently, the risk involved in such performances was not restricted to the physical experience of spatial boundaries, bur also verged on the extremes of physical danger. These were precarious situations witnessed only by the participants themselves; at this juncture the performances still took place without an audience. 30

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Certain critics have filed away these first works by Rebecca Horn under â&#x20AC;&#x153;physical experience,â&#x20AC;? failing to explore them further in terms of their pictorial function and power. But if one considers the spatially expansive imagery of these performances, it becomes immediately clear that through a highly original procedure they evolve their own spatial parameters and that, seen now with hindsight, they already schematically form the basis for the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entire later oeuvre in the realm of spatial composition. For, from the very start, these acts of gauging and measuring the crossed vertical and horizontal axes open up the greatest degree of freedom within unlimited space. In these terms, far greater significance should be attached to the frequently underestimated Measure Box than has previously been the case: even if this sculpture ostensibly served a technical purpose, it was also the 31

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first of many spaces Rebecca Horn was to create. It says a great deal about the extreme precision of her later spatial compositions that her early performances and sculptures possess, for all their astonishing beauty, the technical and functional character of an architecture completely of her own making. Measure Box recalls the theory of proportions put forward by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who started out from the “measurements of nature” and calculated thus: “4 fingers make 1 palm, and 4 palms make 1 foot, 6 palms make 1 cubit; 4 cubits make a man’s height. And 4 cubits make one pace and 24 palms make a man.” Vitruvius matter-of-factly postulated man as the only possible model for his architecture.4 Although Rebecca Horn has herself never directly referred to Vitruvius, her first axis mundi can nonetheless be seen very clearly within this broad tradition of gauging space by means of human proportions. Yet in this the artist differs in one crucial aspect: from the very start she demonstrates that her notion of space is also determined by experience and movement. The woman who moves through open countryside as a mobile world axis, establishing a new center for determining space with each step, is herself spanning a field between heaven and earth, is the embodiment of this spatial axis. The Hebrew word for earth, adamah, was traditionally read as adammah, meaning: “Adam-What?” The earthbound universe was called mah (“What?”), while the character for the heavenly universe is called mi, meaning: “Who?” Resonating in the image of the Unicorn is not only the sense that enquiry is fundamentally inscribed into human nature, but also that the human condition intrinsically causes man to move back and forth between these two questions. Building Spaces with Living Determinants

The large Body Fans (1972), in which Rebecca Horn explores the substantiality of air, represent another context where she measures space on her own terms. [Figs. 1.3 – 1.5] The fans tower over the artist, half as tall again as she is. They are strapped to her body at regular intervals from her ankles to her shoulders. When the artist sets the giant semicircular sails in motion against the resistance of the air, it is as if the wings of a giant butterfly were opening and closing around her body; this is the first mobile space in the artist’s oeuvre, a space that—initially—only the artist can experience. The silent deployment of individuals in the artist’s early experiments, in which she measured and created space with her own body or the bodies of invited participants, is reminiscent of the “monads” or “living determinants”5 Giordano Bruno described as a means of explaining spatial relationships in terms of human experience. As if these bodies were merely being substituted, the later walk-in spatial compositions introduce kinetic sculptures that seem no less alive and no less corporeal. The viewers, who 32

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were absent in the early performances, are ultimately also drawn into the equation as “living determinants” and over the course of the years become increasingly visible as components of such spaces. Each of the elements with which Rebecca Horn works is itself an excerpt from reality; none of the objects is invented. What makes them seem so unfamiliar is the way in which their reality is isolated and inserted into new contexts. Like the protagonists of a world theater, each time they step onto the stage they perform new roles; their movements and pictorial power are dependent on the respective space and the new sculptures they encounter. On each occasion they develop new relations to one another and to the new space in which they occur. They occupy floors, ceilings, and walls, and erupt through windows and skylights. It is through the dialogue between the various sculptures that each spatial composition becomes an overall, 33

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dynamic work of art. At the same time, however, they are also acts of naming. It often seems as if reality taken literally is precisely what constitutes the poetry of her composed visual spaces. Rebecca Horn’s oeuvre thus evolves like a stream of images that swells progressively in volume, and in which old and new constructional elements create unexpected spatial events. Simply enumerating these elements says little about their roles or about the visual spaces they create; the ladder, small hammers, styli, conductors’ batons, metronomes, violins, cellos, pianos, spring wheels, flashes of light, mirrors, water baths, towers of beds, funnels, typewriters, butterflies, mercury pumps, pistols, copper tubes, water drops, suitcases, shoes, umbrellas, thermometers, beehives, boulders, skulls, ostrich eggs, pyramids of pigment, and walls of ash become units for measuring an energy of things and spaces that goes far beyond the material presence of these “determinants,” an energy whose movement utterly surpasses such materiality. Thus, for example, a rod from an old Chinese scale balance, once used to measure weight, is transformed into a baton that floats freely in the air. With its conducting motions it connects spaces that are temporally and spatially distant from one another to create a single, large spatial composition.6 In our attempt to understand the distinctive way in which Rebecca Horn conceives her spaces, the spatial terminology of architecture will not offer much help. Unless, that is, we enlist the sort of architects who always try to incorporate infinity, and who see in every building “a unique place in this infinity.”7 Can art history offer other possibilities for comparison? Max Raphael teaches us that space is not “form alone—at least not abstract form alone, completely independent of content—because things insist on appearing that cannot have a reality in our surroundings, that cannot be represented by means of the surrounding space; because space and time may be different, but they cannot be separated.” Cutting across the history of art, Max Raphael defines the range of such spatial contents: noting, for example the “space of the dream world” in Frans Hals and Velázquez; the “space of the unconscious” in Vermeer; the “space of transition from this world to the beyond” in Hugo van der Goes and Tintoretto; the “space of the infinitely empty” in Egypt; the “space of infinite fullness or fulfillment,” the “space of mood within the soul,” or the “space of contemplation” in India; the “space of physical and spiritual action, of charges of energy between this world and the one beyond” in El Greco; or the “space of the dissolution of existence” in Hieronymus Bosch.8 Yet any attempt to use Max Raphael’s method to analyze Rebecca Horn’s spaces would immediately raise fundamental doubts: to speak of contents suggests some kind of spatial shell containing them. But it is precisely such delimiting barriers that the artist breaches. The unique thing about her spaces is that they generate openness. The constructional elements she 34

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employs burst through the boundaries of their spatial surroundings, creating conditions for a space that manifestly lies outside architectural parameters and maintains a precarious balance between the definition and the dissolution of space. Each of her compositions establishes a specific relationship to the preexisting space and site for which it was developed. The point of reference here, however, is not the site’s physical architecture but its historical and ethical significance: the lost place. This, ultimately, is the essence of the spatial and temporal autonomy embodied in her places. But let us not forget that the fundamental precondition for all metaphysical experience of these spaces is an extremely precise calculation of the mathematics and physics of angles, proportions, and light reflections. The world of physical phenomena and our ability to perceive them symbolically or spiritually stand in close proximity. Notes 1 See Gershom Scholem, Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1980), p. 325. 2 In most of her performances in the 1970s Rebecca Horn worked with fellow students or artist colleagues. For Unicorn she invited a fellow female student whose height made her a suitable choice. 3 Rebecca Horn, poem on the work Unicorn, in Rebecca Horn: The Glance of Infinity, exh. cat. Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover (Zurich, 1997), p. 56. 4 Leonardo da Vinci, The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Jean Paul Richter and Irma A. Richter, trans. R. C. Bell, 2nd ed. (London, 1939), p. 255; Leonardo is paraphrasing De architectura by Vitruvius (first century BC). 5 Jochen Kirchhoff uses this term to summarize Giordano Bruno’s theory of monads in his Giordano Bruno in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1980), p. 74. 6 See pp. 52–3 in [von Drathen, Rebecca Horn, 2005]. Concert for Buchenwald, Part 1 Tram Depot, and Part 2 Schloss Ettersburg, White Salon (1999). 7 Peter Zumthor, “Composing in Space,” a+u (architecture and urbanism), special issue (Tokyo, 1989), p. 20. “When we as architects are concerned with space we are concerned with but a tiny part of the infinity that surrounds the earth, each and every building marks a unique place in this infinity.” 8 Max Raphael, Raumgestaltungen: Der Beginn der modernen Kunst im Kubismus und im Werk von Georges Braque (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1986), p. 63. Max Raphael (1889–1952) wrote this study during the 1940s, living in exile in New York, where he committed suicide.

The Box Man Kobo Abé

introduction The layers that wrap the body include a range of scales that span from clothing to architecture. This excerpt from Kobo Abé’s existential novel The Box Man focuses on one of the more unconventional of these layers—a box that houses the body, like architecture, but is worn like clothing. In the book, Abé’s title character, Box Man, seeks anonymity and refuge from a Japanese culture that is changing around him. The Box Man seeks solitude in an anonymous cardboard box and guides us through his instructions to convert it into a personal shelter unit. Step by step the measurements projected onto the box represent the dimensions of the Box Man and alterations to the inside reflect the personalization of space intrinsic to the interior. The Box Man’s simple act of cutting into a box reveals his vision for creating liveable space. His cuts are guided by fundamental needs: for the body to breathe, see, hear, and be sheltered. He cuts, for example, a window in front for the eyes and small holes on two sides for hearing. Additonal layers of function are added, such as a curtain over the eye window, which Abé treats with an anthropomorphic quality, as in “expression of the eyes.”* The openings are referenced by different names: apertures, windows, openings, or peepholes. They reveal the multitude of form interpretations an opening can have. Abé’s selection of a standard cardboard box for its anonymity recalls Adolf Loos’s article on men’s fashion that appeared in the Neue Freie Presse in 1898. Loos called for architecture—like the exterior of a man’s dinner jacket— to be styled anonymous and inconspicuously.† For Loos and Abé, the interior realm is where we should be allowed to demonstrate individuality. The Box Man arranges his personal effects (consisting only of essentials that include a radio, mug, thermos, flashlight, towel, and small miscellaneous bag) around the inside of the box.‡ In doing so, he addresses issues of construction, material properties, and programming for an unconventional but instructive solution. The neutrality of the Box Man’s tone and his desire for an anonymous Excerpted from The Box Man, translated by E. Dale Saunders, 3–7. © 1974 by Kobo Abe. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

The Box M an

exterior and personalized interior forms an analogy to architectural and interior design. Like Loos’ writings, the difference of identity on the interior and exterior play out in the cardboard box sharing the same aesthetic issues that accompany the outward appearance of the body. ——— My Case

This is the record of a box man. I am beginning this account in a box. A cardboard box that reaches just to my hips when I put it on over my head. That is to say, at this juncture the box man is me. A box man, in his box, is recording the chronicle of a box man. Instructions for Making a Box

materials: • 1 empty box of corrugated cardboard • Vinyl sheet (semitransparent)—twenty inches square • Rubber tape (water-resistant)—about eight yards • Wire—about two yards • Small pointed knife (a tool) (To have on hand, if necessary: Three pieces of worn canvas and one pair of work boots in addition to regular work clothes for streetwear.)

Any empty box a yard long by a yard wide and about four feet deep will do. However, in practice, one of the standard forms commonly called a “quarto” is desirable. Standard items are easy to find, and most commercial articles that use standard-sized boxes are generally of irregular shape—various types of foodstuffs precisely adaptable to the container—so that the construction is sturdier than others. The most important reason to use the standardized form is that it is hard to distinguish one box from another. As far as I know, most box men utilize this quarto box. For if the box has any striking features to it, its special anonymity will suffer. Even the common variety of corrugated cardboard has recently been strengthened, and since it is semiwaterproof there is no need to select any special kind unless you are going through the rainy season. Ordinary cardboard has better ventilation and is lighter and easier to use. For those who wish to occupy one box over a period of time, regardless of the season, I recommend the Frog Box, especially good in wet weather. This box has a vinyl finish, and as the name suggests, it is exceedingly strong in water. When new 37

Kobo A b é

it has a sheen as if oiled, but apparently it produces static electricity easily, quickly absorbs dirt, and gets covered with dust; then the edge is thicker than the ordinary one and looks wavy. You can tell it at once from the common box. To construct your box there is no particular procedure to follow. First decide what is to be the bottom and the top of the box—decide according to whatever design there may be or make the top the side with the least wear or just decide arbitrarily—and cut out the bottom part. In cases where one has numerous personal effects to carry, the bottom part can be folded inward without cutting, and, with wire and tape, the two ends can be made into a baggage rack. Tape the exposed part of the edges at the three points on the ceiling and at the one on the side where they come together. The greatest care must be taken when making the observation window. First decide on its size and location; since there will be individual variations, the following figures are purely for the sake of reference. Ideally, the upper edge of the window will be six inches from the top of the box, and the lower edge eleven inches below that; the width will be seventeen inches. After you have subtracted the thickness of the base to stabilize the box when in place (I put a magazine on my head), the upper edge of the window comes to the eyebrows. You may perhaps consider this to be too low, but one seldom gets the opportunity to look up, while the lower edge is used frequently. When you are in an upright position, it will be difficult to walk if a stretch of at least five feet is not visible in front. There are no special grounds for computing the width. These parts should be adjusted to the required ventilation and the lateral strength of the box. At any rate since you can see right down to the ground, the window should be as small as possible. Next comes the installation of the frosted vinyl curtain over the window. There’s a little trick here too. That is, the upper edge is taped to the outside of the opening and the rest left to hang free, but please do not forget to anticipate a lengthwise slit. This simple device is useful beyond all expectations. The slit should be in the center, and the two flaps should overlap a fraction of an inch. As long as the box is held vertical, they will serve as screens, and no one will be able to see in. When the box is tilted slightly, an opening appears, permitting you to see out. It is a simple but extremely subtle contrivance, so be very careful when selecting the vinyl. Something rather heavy yet flexible is desirable. Anything cheap that immediately stiffens with temperature changes will be a problem. Anything flimsy is even worse. You need something flexible yet heavy enough not to have to worry about every little draft; the breadth of the opening can be easily regulated by tilting the box. For a box man the slit in the vinyl is comparable, as it were, to the expression of the eyes. It is wrong to consider this aperture as being on the same level as a peephole. With very slight adjustments it is easy to 38

The Box M an

express yourself. Of course, this is not a look of kindness. The worst threatening glare is not so offensive as this slit. Without exaggeration, this is one of the few self-defenses an unprotected box man has. I should like to see the man capable of returning this look with composure. In case you’re in crowds a lot, I suppose you might as well puncture holes in the right and left walls while you’re about it. Using a thickish nail, bore as many openings as possible in an area of about six inches in diameter, leaving enough space between them so the strength of the cardboard isn’t affected. These apertures will serve as both supplementary peepholes and be convenient for distinguishing the direction of sounds. However unsightly, it will be more advantageous in case of rain to open the holes from the inside out and have the flaps facing out. Last of all, cut the remaining wire into one-, two-, four-, and six-inch lengths, bend back both ends, and prepare them as hooks for hanging things on the wall. You should restrict your personal effects to a minimum; as it is, it’s quite exhausting to arrange the indispensable items: radio, mug, thermos, flashlight, towel, and small miscellaneous bag. As for the rubber boots, there’s nothing particular to add. Just as long as they don’t have any holes. If the canvas is wrapped around the waist, it is excellent for filling the space between oneself and the box and for holding the box in place. With three layers, divided in front, it is easy to move in all ways as well as being most convenient for defecation and urinating and for sundry other purposes. Notes * Kobo Abé, The Box Man (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 6. † Adolf Loos, “Men’s Fashion,” Neue Freie Presse, May 22, 1898. ‡ Abé, 7.