What Devices does Museum Architecture Use to Turn History into Heritage

What devices does museum architecture use to turn history into heritage and create an approachable, yet cathartic experience for tourists

Ruzha Sirmanova

D EP A RTME NT O F A R C HITE C TU R E A N D

3 D D E S IGN U NI V E RS I TY O F HU D D E R S F IE LD

May, 2014

UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD School of Art Design and Architecture Department of Architecture and 3D Design THA 1121 Architectural Dissertation

What devices does museum architecture use to turn history into heritage and create an approachable, yet cathartic experience for tourists

A Special Study submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for BA (Hons) Architecture

By Ruzha Sirmanova U1161753 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others.

(May, 2014)

Acknowledgements: I would like to use this opportunity to express my endless appreciation to my parents who have put their time and effort to develop my interest in art, history and psychology, from which the initial idea of this dissertation stem from; to my sister who has always been my best friend, kind and understanding; and to my closest friends who have shared my joys and pains through the last years.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my tutors and the Queen Street Studios staff for guiding and encouraging me to develop my skills, to prepare me for life after university.

This is the final chapter of my first steps in the field of design and this dissertation is an embodiment of what has transformed my designer’s vision; of what has inspired me to look for the experience in architecture.

ABSTRACT

This dissertation investigates the ways in which heritage is sculpted out of history through the architecture of popular tourist sites and specifically museums. It focuses mainly on the relationships between architecture and human behaviour.

It argues that if approached correctly, design can build parallel, although transient realities. The purpose behind which is that contemporary tourists are controlled by the tourist gaze and are looking for a specific environment that would be completely different from their own and entering it is the only way they can relax: by having the chance to involve themselves into fantasies of lost civilizations. Museum designs, and more specifically the new Renaissance and Medieval galleries in the Victoria & Albert Museum (2009) and the Acropolis Museum of Athens (2009), have accomplished the effect of an unreachable utopia through applying theories and methods from other fields in order to create a full experience by affecting all of the senses of the spectators. Simulations and montage of typical mythological scenes create non-places which support the illusion. It is also them who destroy it to bring the spectator to e sobriety and thus show them a new side of the exhibition; its new reality – of being an exhibition and not a reality.

This report challenges the importance of presence and movement of its inhabitants, as without them populate the utopic cities of the un-real, it would remain a mere place to house old marble and demolished buildings. This is conducted through a vast research on human behaviour and psychology and the effects architecture has on them, as well as applying them in the investigation and exploration of the two museums in focus.

KEY WORDS: simulation, montage, place, space, utopia, exotic, heritage

CONTENTS:

List of Figures......................................................................................................1 Introduction..........................................................................................................3 Chapter One: Heritage and the Tourist Gaze: The Need for Narrative................................................................................................5 Chapter Two: Simulacrum and Simulation. Hyperreality....................................................................................................................9 Chapter Three: Montage and Cinematography..................................................15 Sequences................................................................................

Chapter Four: Case Studies.................................................................................

Medieval and Renaissance Galleries in Victoria and Albert Museum, MUMA Architects................................................

The New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi Associates..............................................................................................

Conclusion............................................................................................................

Appendix I: Disneyland - the Epitome of Simulation.............................................

Appendix II: The Acropolis as the First Film..........................................................

Appendix III: The Panopticon................................................................................

Bibliography..........................................................................................................

LIST OF FIGURES: Figure 1 ..........................................................................................................................................................................7 Lin, S. (2012). Looking at, Looking in: Reframing the Tourist Gaze in San Francisco [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://sllsslls.com/looking-at-looking-in/ Figure 2...........................................................................................................................................................................8 Sheveleva, A. (n.d.). World Map Made of Landmarks [Cartoon]. Retrieved from http://www.dreamstime.com/stockphotography-world-map-made-landmarks-image25038602 Figure 3...........................................................................................................................................................................9 Unknown (n.d.). “If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break-up and infidelity.” –Jean Baudrillard [Cartoon]. Retrieved from http://songandsin.wordpress.com/ speakers/1996-2010-speakers/ Figure 4.........................................................................................................................................................................12 Miller, E. (2013, August 23). . Retrieved from http://trendland.com/alice-in-wonderland-inspired-eats/ Figure 5.........................................................................................................................................................................13 Unknown (2014, March 8). Map Middle Earth Paper Lord Of The Rings [Map]. Retrieved from http://closeentertainment.com/download-wallpaper-map-middle-earth-paper-lord-of-the-rings-3.html Figure 6.........................................................................................................................................................................18 McEwan, C. (2010, August 4). The workers from Metropolis wait in Akira’s Block; Hitchcock climbs the stairs in Edinburgh to reach Tschumi’s Park.”] [mixed media photomontage with ink drawing]. Retrieved from http://cameronmcewan.wordpress.com/tag/film/ Figure 7.........................................................................................................................................................................19 Http://www.aticomagazine.com/ (2014, April 9). La magia del Montaje fílmico: ¿Qué hace exactamente el editor de una película? [Photomontage]. Retrieved from http://www.aticomagazine.com/la-magia-del-montaje-filmico-que-haceexactamente-el-editor-de-una-pelicula/# Figure 8.........................................................................................................................................................................23 Http://www.cultureaddicthistorynerd.com/ (n.d.). Airport Scanners safety in doubt: Update [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.cultureaddicthistorynerd.com/2012/11/airport-scanners-safety-in-doubt-update-video/ Figure 9.........................................................................................................................................................................25 Wakeling, P.. Retrieved from http://www.penelopewakeling.co.uk/pages/D%20Non%20place%20%2811%29.html Figure 10.......................................................................................................................................................................26 Http://www.enmaxcentre.ca/index.asp (n.d.). A to Z Facility Guide, Cameras and Recording Devices [Graphic design].

Retrieved from http://www.enmaxcentre.ca/subcontent-detail.asp?ID=252&SubID=402 Figure 11.......................................................................................................................................................................28 Wood, H. (n.d.). V&A Museum, Medieval & Renaissance Galleries [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.holmeswood.com/index.php?p=w&id=23 Figure 12.......................................................................................................................................................................28 London - Cromwell Gardens - Victoria & Albert Museum [Photograph]. (2010, December 6). Retrieved from http:// www.panoramio.com/photo/44698199 Figure 13.......................................................................................................................................................................30 File:Giuliano da sangallo e bottega, scarsella di santa chiara, firenze, 1494-1500 ca. 01.JPG [photograph]. (2011, December 3). Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giuliano_da_sangallo_e_bottega,_scarsella_di_ santa_chiara,_firenze,_1494-1500_ca._01.JPG

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Figure 14.......................................................................................................................................................................31 Welch, A. (2011, March 7). Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK [Photograph].

Figure 15.......................................................................................................................................................................32 Unknown . (2011, February 10). Retrieved from http://tashula.tumblr.com/post/10933636385/medieval-renaissancegalleries-v-a Figure 16.......................................................................................................................................................................33 Unknown (2012, June 10). New Acropolis Athens Museum, Greece [The Unobstructed View of the Acropolis]. Retrieved from http://tourism.lami.education/?p=438 Figure 17.......................................................................................................................................................................34 Bernard Tschumi Architects (2010, June 27). New Acropolis Museum / Bernard Tschumi Architects [Photograph].

Retrieved from http://albertanorweg.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/new-acropolis-museum-bernard-tschumi.html Figure 18.......................................................................................................................................................................35 Bernard Tschumi Architects (2010, June 27). New Acropolis Museum / Bernard Tschumi Architects [Photograph].

Retrieved from http://albertanorweg.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/new-acropolis-museum-bernard-tschumi.html Figure 19.......................................................................................................................................................................36 Bernard Tschumi Associates (n.d.). Museum Floor Plan [Diagram, Plan]. Retrieved from http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/content/museum-floor-plan Figure 20.......................................................................................................................................................................37 Bernard Tschumi Architects (2010, June 27). New Acropolis Museum / Bernard Tschumi Architects [Photograph].

Retrieved from http://albertanorweg.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/new-acropolis-museum-bernard-tschumi.html Figure 21.......................................................................................................................................................................38 Tschumi, B. (2009, July 13). New Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi Architects in Athens, Greece [Site Plan].

Retrieved from http://www.arcspace.com/features/bernard-tschumi-architects/new-acropolis-museum/ Figure 22.......................................................................................................................................................................38 Kontos, Y. (2009, July). The Parthenon as seen from the new Acropolis Museum, April 2009, with, at right, the west metopes, of the Greeks and Amazons in battle [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/07/hitchens200907 Figure 23 Mackey, B.....................................................................................................................................................................40 (n.d.). non-place 01 [Collage]. Retrieved from http://www.workerincorporated.com/collage.html Figure a1.1....................................................................................................................................................................46 Unknown (2014, February 10). Disneyland Paris Wonderful Children Enjoyment Place [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://tourists360.com/disneyland-paris/ Figure a2.1....................................................................................................................................................................47 Eisenstein, B. (1989). . Retrieved from Montage and Architecture Figure a2.2 ...................................................................................................................................................................48 Eisenstein, B. (1989). . Retrieved from Montage and Architecture Figure a2.3....................................................................................................................................................................49 Eisenstein, B. (1989). . Retrieved from Montage and Architecture Figure a3.1....................................................................................................................................................................52 Unknown (2012). Jeremy Bentham’s Panopt [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://the-watched-field.tumblr.com/

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INTRODUCTION This report puts in focus the design of contemporary museums and the way they interpret history in order to create heritage, as well as a pleasing experience for tourists and thus benefit both them and the institutions. The analysis concentrates mainly on abstract theories like the tourist gaze, simulation, cinematography and supermodernity and how their usage creates historical hyper-realities, utopias of the past in order to satisfy the expectations of the tourist gaze; along with their supporting sub-theories about heritage, simulacrum, montage and non-place. After a thorough research of these, two case studies are analysed as evidence of the use of the abstract theories, psychological games, and methodologies from typical of other arts in the creating of museum architecture which not only converses with the exhibition but transforms it into a new reality.

This dissertation is based on five chapters. The first focuses on heritage and how it is different to history in its quality to shift according to the viewer’s perception and understanding. It expands on the advantage hyper-reality forming architecture has to the usual clinical layout most museums have.

The following two chapters discuss the means used to create the fantasy. The first one explains Baudrillard’s theory of simulacrum and simulation and how they create hyper-realities. The second is based on montage and cinematography, their usage in film and how it is applied and transformed in terms of architecture, according to architect Bernard Tschumi and to the cinematographer and engineer, Sergei Eisenstein.

The fourth chapter is based on Auge’s theory of non-place, which is compared to relative terms like place and space. Furthermore, this section will focus on what defines supermodernity and how it is related to museum spaces. This chapter is different from the previous two with its conclusive nature. Its purpose is not to only explain the meaning of the terms mentioned above but to sum up the methodologies and theories explained in the previous chapters in order to expand on how supermodernity and non-place are achieved through them.

The last chapter of this dissertation is divided in two sub-sections. One discusses the Medieval and Renaissance galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, re-designed by the MUMA architects in 2009 and the other – the new Acropolis museum in Athens, by Bernard Tschumi Architects 2009. The information in these sub-chapters is based on personal impressions and experience from the two museums, combined with the conclusions drawn from the vast research, explained in the first part of the report. Therefore, this last section offers a broad argumentation supporting the importance of incorporating such methodologies in heritage centers. The report is focused on the internal design of the new galleries and how they work to affect the visitor. Therefore, it won’t comment on any 3

features of the external envelope of the two museums, as they are regarded as irrelevant.

A thorough research of various theories, has led the course of this study to the decision to put its focus on the psychological theories that have been used for the transformation of the buildings in focus into places to feel an atmosphere rather than see an exhibition. Thus the hunger for the exotic from the tourist gaze is satisfied which in present day is the sole purpose of every heritage space.

Fig. 01, Inception is a popular example of people’s pursuit of untrue realities based on frames and glimpses, building up an impossible to sustain world of dream in order to escape from their own. Pre-designed environments control them through these untrue realities so they would sustain the fantasy as without it, the utopia wouldn’t exist.

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“Architectural narratives and representations are used to communicate identity to the public.�

- Bakhtin, 1986

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CHAPTER ONE HERITAGE AND THE TOURIST GAZE: THE NEED FOR NARRATIVE The first chapter of this document will expand on the reasons why modern museum architecture needs the means mentioned in the following sections to create a specific experience. It will also expand on the process in which this is executed, which is discussed in further detail later. All this is done by explaining a term as simple as heritage, as well as the ways it is different to history. At last, the section will state the relationship between heritage and tourism; and the meaning behind the term “tourist gaze”. The focus on these factors makes the chapter different from the following ones as it states what creates a necessity to use methods like simulation, cinematography specifically in history museums.

Heritage and history are commonly mistaken to be synonyms but actually have a major difference in meaning. (Markus & Cameron, 2002) If history is meant to be exact; to work with dates, facts and undeniable truths; then heritage only “mimics” it. Unlike history, it is not a science, as it is vague with its tendency to purposely exaggerate and forget, as it “thrives on ignorance and error” (Markus & Cameron, 2002). In other words, anyone can interpret history differently and create their own version which then would be their heritage.

Therefore, in order to be relatable and popular, present-day tourism is tightly connected only with heritage, and not history. In his book “Globalizing the Tourist Gaze” (1990), John Urry highlights the importance of tourism to all modern people. He argues that even though it is, in a way an unnecessary service/experience, it has a greater impact on “tourists” than they might suspect. The reason people travel, go on holiday and turn into tourists is recreational. (See Fig. 1) New places offer a new atmosphere, radically different from their permanent occupation, usually associated with mundane chores and work; an unfamiliar place that offers new unfamiliar thus pleasurable experiences. (Urry, 1990) Subconsciously, tourists expect those experiences. This situation creates the pre-condition to the forming of the tourist gaze. According to Urry, the gaze “supposes a system of social activities and signs” (Urry, 1990, p. 2) which are typical to a place in the eyes of those who are unfamiliar with its true appearance, hence it thrives on over-simplification of character and even prejudice, an image based on information created by the mass media. Urry calls this “social patterning”. (Urry, 1990, p. 3) Various, constant outside factors have imposed labels on places (English countryside is associated with “good olde [sic] England” and traditional English pubs) which are at this point unavoidable. The tourist isn’t looking for an authentic experience but for a utopia embodying what the place is famous

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for in their set of mind. (See Fig. 2)The opposition of real life and the expectation of fantasy in the tourist gaze is extremely important as it creates the situation in which architecture would step in. Design can ensure to a satisfaction of the need for a fantasy, by creating different realities in museums. It is architectural techniques that will aid the escape from the everyday life and the reaching of a longed catharsis, ensuring the tourists will see what their gaze is searching for rather than history as it was (traveling and tourism have long lost their strictly educational side (Urry, 1990). Therefore, “tourist spaces” are transformed so they would gain the quality of “staged authenticity”. (Urry, 1990, p. 9) (MacCannell, 1973) According to the author, the latter depends on how the viewer reacts to different stimuli constantly dictating him where to go and what to see (Urry, 1990): another reason why architecture plays important part to satisfying the tourist gaze.

If reflecting and obeying the tourist gaze is the way heritage is conveyed on an individual level, the next paragraph will explain how design and architecture are also responsible to generate a feeling of community and closeness, which museums try to establish. If history can’t be related to every visitor, as tourism attracts people from different nationality, ethnicity, age and gender, the design of a building can help everyone to feel that the subject of the museum is in a way relatable; to make them feel as part of the community that is in focus in the certain situation (Markus & Cameron, 2002). This is enhanced by the “anti-structure out of time and place” which is developed in museums. This releases people from the usual social norms (they are in another reality completely different from their normal one) and encourages them to socialize between each other and even connect with past generations. Urry speaks of ”reintegration” in this situation, which is an establishment of a bond with a previous social group.

Fig. 1, The tourist gaze and the hunger for a utopia 7

Fig. 2, Labeling of the world’s heritage 8

Fig. 3, Jean Baudrillard, Portrait

“The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.

The simulacrum is true.”

– Jean Baudrillard

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CHAPTER TWO SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION. HYPER-REALITY This chapter will focus on the theory behind simulacra and simulation. Even though this subject has originally been discussed as early as Plato and his findings that a simulacrum is a shifted copy of reality, the research is based mainly on the views and writings of 20th-century French intellectualist, Jean Baudrillard (Fig. 3), as he has the broadest contribution to the matter and had looked at it in most detail in comparison to both his predecessors and successors. This section will define the two terms in their initial, purely theoretical sense and will only outline their appliance in architecture; it will focus on their relation between each other and with another term used by the author: the hyper-real; all that through both theory and life examples putting the abstraction into the frame of the familiar. The research conducted is based mainly on couple of Baudrillard’s books and mostly on “Simulacra and Simulation” (1994), on analysis of the latter by Gary Genosko, “Baudrillard and Signs” (1994) and Paul Hegarty, “Jean Baudrillard: Live Theory” (2004) and on an outlining online presentation: “Simulacra and Simulation - Jean Baudrillard” by Samantha Trieu (2011).

In the media-run world of television, commercials and other alternative realities, the theory behind the terms simulacrum and simulation becomes especially appropriate to discuss. According to Baudrillard, a simulation is an act, a process of replacement of the real, implying its absence. (Baudrillard, 1994) The author highlights the big difference between simulating and pretending, as it is crucial to the overall meaning of the theory. He uses the simple example of the illness: if one pretends to be ill, they can “simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill”; however, if they simulate an illness, there is a need to produce some of its symptoms. (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 3) Unlike, pretending or dissimulating, simulation blurs the line between what is real and what isn’t, as well as to what is true and what is not. Baudrillard poses a question: “Is the simulator sick or not, given he produces “true” symptoms? Objectively one cannot treat him as being either ill or not ill”, since there seems to be no difference between the two states to everyone but the simulator. (Baudrillard, 1994) (See Fig.4) This process is simulation, creates the environment in which the simulacrum (plural: simulacra) is conceived. The simulacrum is an event, a situation, a static image. (Trieu, 2011) The author regards Disneyland as the best way to explain the simulacrum: “a city of incredible proportions but without space, without dimension”; it isn’t true, yet it isn’t false either. It is a make-belief of a world of “childness”, populated by adults; “a space of regeneration of the imaginary” which is otherwise lacking in the modern society. (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 13) Disneyland is a copy without an original and since it isn’t based on a reality, it becomes a reality on its own, which Baudrillard names hyper-reality – a world of simulacrum. (Trieu, 2011) (See Appendix I) 10

Furthermore, the simulacrum is based on what Baudrillard calls “memory banks” and “matrices”; “models of control”. Those particles are the skeleton of the event.

Genosko refers to them as “creative signs” which effect is causing “the representing referents”: when the latter is described as if it preceded the former which is the turning point creating a simulacrum. (Genosko, 1994) Originally, these creative signs compound the real, miniaturizing it in its dimensions; creating an opportunity for it to be multiplied based on the references.

These copies of the real produce a hyper-real since there is no imaginary to oppose it anymore. (Baudrillard, 1994) The multiplying of the same element is connected with the death of the original. However, no importance is added to this as the new double is cleansed by this death. Therefore, it is better, “more cheerful, more authentic, in the light of their model”. (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 11) As mentioned above, these events of simulacrum create simulations. Baudrillard defines four steps in the process of an image changing until its reality crosses over to being hyper, rather than true: a faithful image, which is a mere reflection, a perverse image which tries to shift and change what is true, a pretense image which disguises a missing reality and a purely new image which is the final step of the metamorphosis when the new simulacrum isn’t related to any reality but its own. (Baudrillard, 1994) (Trieu, 2011) The museums in focus are based on hyper-realities mimicking towns from previous times. They are simulating walking through cities which have been destroyed centuries ago, recreating events and situations (simulacrums) through mainly architectural exhibits (creative signs). These proceed through all four stages of their simulation, from simply portraying a place from the past, to trying to recreate it in a new hyper-reality, completely different from the original which is currently dead.

The simulacrum only seems to be a likeness, in which the spectator is included.

(Genosko, 1994) This way an exotic experience of an inaccessible otherness is created. (Genosko, 1994) This is what the visitor of the museum is striving for: an escape from the real world to the exotic. The viewer is looking for a certain atmosphere of a utopia which reflects a past reality the way it is promised by the media rather than by history. (Harrison, 2011).

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Fig. 4, “Alice in Wonderland“ describes a world full of simulations of the real world outside the rabbit hole. Yet they are copies of it and disappear after she wakes up. However, Wonderland functions like a “true“ reality. Therefore, one cannot tell if it is real or not.

Therefore, its is a simulation.

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Fig. 5, “The Lord of the Rings“ is another simulation of a hyper-relaity. It has all the symptoms to function like a real place, yet it isnt.

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“…indeed the more the arts develop, the more they depend on each other for definition.”

– E.M. Forster

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CHAPTER THREE MONTAGE AND CINEMATOGRAPHY. SEQUENCES This chapter will expand on the terms montage and cinematography in their initial sense derived from film-makers. Later it will create a link between their original meaning and architecture; forming an idea of what is common between the two arts in order to explain better how architecture could use the same methodologies like films to create a three-dimensional image/story, tailored exactly to the author’s idea. Moreover, the chapter will explain the purpose of sequences and how they relate to cinematography and aid the silent narration of the story, in architecture just like in films, through repetitive events leading to one of shock.

Unlike the previous chapter, this one is more focused on architecture, creating a parallel with cinema. That is simply because the authors who have been researched have been interested in both film and design. The research is based on Eisenstein, a Russian cinematographer, who had studied to be an engineer and his books “The Film Sense” (1986) and “Montage and Architecture” (1989); and on Bernard Tschumi, an architect, writer and theorist who has been majorly influenced by Eisenstein in all his work, with his book of essays “Architecture and Disjunction”, written between 1981 and 1983.

In their book, “Film Art, an Introduction” (2013), a rather basic textbook for future film-makers, Bordwell and Thomson define cinematography (literally, “writing in movement”) as it follows: the process which happens after an event has been captured on film. “The recording process opens up a new area of choice and control” which is based mostly on photography (“writing in light”). The author has the opportunity to choose the frame, the quality and the length of all shots, as well as their juxtaposition and thus manipulate further the final product (Bordwell & Thompson, 2013, p.160); to inspire their aimed impression through “transforming the relationships of reality” needed to complete the idea/image/event, they want to show (a simulacrum); to put together the different frozen frames/shots which together will create a complete and clear idea - cinematography: the visual movement through simulacrums montaged together; the active element in the passive set that is simulation.

Choisy explains montage as the “link” between the different “elements (fragments) filmed in diverse dimensions, from diverse points of view and sides” into a complete whole. (Eisenstein, Bois & Glenny, 1989) (See Fig. 6) This is the execution of the synchronization of senses (of the viewer) Eisenstein writes about in his book “The Film Sense” (1986): all elements such as: material objects, subjects indicating human behavior, and sound, blend together into a “single unifying, definitive image” (Eisenstein, 1986, p. 61): a simulacrum; this image is of a reality that seems true but isn’t; it is a copy of a missing reality. This way the intensity prevails without the need of description, making the architecture become a sequence of events, as well as a sequence of spaces. (Tschumi, 1981-83) 16

Therefore, in architecture, Eisenstein tends to be less concerned with movement on its own, rather than with the movement of the body through spaces (parallax) and its perception of them (Eisenstein, Bois & Glenny, 1989), using the Man himself as source of information about his methods of gathering experience. (Eisenstein, Bois & Glenny, 1989) The film/building is derived from the Man for the Man.

SEQUENCES It is exactly the order of that experience that outshines the order of composition through the perspectives; that it sets with its time, chronology and repetition, giving meaning to the architecture; an emotional value to the sequences that compose the structure. (Tschumi, 1981-83) (See Fig. 7) In his book “Architecture and Disjunction”, Tschumi mentions several different types of sequences depending on their hierarchy and purpose. According to the author, they all share the common characteristic of ascendance in their gradation, significance in the juxtaposition and the establishment of a timeline. (Tschumi, 1981-1983) However, this text will focus on what he defines as the most superior sequence: the sequence of program/event. This is likely to be less obvious, and more implicit from the “decor”, the exhibition, which supplies additional information on other aspects of the sequence, in which events keep taking place. (Tschumi, 1981-1983) This rhythm of continuous events happening is essential to the sequence. (Rarely, sequences can be “strategically disjunctive”. (Tschumi, 1981-1983) It is what creates awareness of place and position and navigates the movement. Any additions, extractions and changes create a twist in the overall meaning and thus have a big influence on the viewer. (Tschumi, 1981-1983) Such break in that repetition would purposely create a dissonance in the sequence, leading to something, which Tschumi calls “shock”, a final event, quite similar to what Eisenstein calls “attraction”. (Tschumi, 1981-1983, p. 148-149) (Eisenstein, 1986) The hunger for drama, in the viewer, pressures the architecture to stop being a passive décor but to become an active part of the “play”, to communicate with the spectator through the “shocking” event/attraction. (Tschumi, 1981-1983) Eisenstein states that for such a situation to work effectively, every element of the building needs to, in its own way, influence the viewer’s experience at the very same time as the rest, in order to create an “aggressive moment” which is usually independent and prime in the theatrical construction. All this is done and then montaged together so the author’s final ideological conclusion to be received and 17

understood. This is what Eisenstein calls the “way to knowledge�. (Eisenstein, 1986, p.181-182) (See Appendix II) In this case, the knowledge of heritage, introduced by simulated events and cityscapes, images of past ages, montaged together to create a cinematographic sequences, through simulations of history which are modern museum exhibitions.

This way is navigated by the supermodernity that is imposed in the galleries. Both cinematography and simulation have contributed to the founding them as a place that is non-place.

Fig. 6, Hitchcock climbing the stairs to Edinburgh 18

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Fig. 7, Montage of different frames creaes a comprehensible story, where the viewr can fill in the gaps.

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“Architecture has the power to engage in human experience.�

- Coates

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CHAPTER FOUR SUPERMODERNITY and NON-PLACE This chapter will give an explanation to the term “non-place” by comparing it to place and space in general. Furthermore, it will explain the concept of supermodernity and how it navigates the space and involves the spectators in the spectacle of a non-place itself, as well as the theory about anthropological place.

Unlike the other chapters, this one is based only on Marc Auge’s “Non-Places, an Introduction to Supermodernity” (2008) and talks about theories which are initially connected with architecture. Moreover, as a last chapter focused on literary research, it will create connections with both previous chapters on simulacrum and simulation and cinematography and montage, expressing the inter-dialogue between the three methods and their reciprocity. This inter-dependence is what the case-studies rest for so this chapter would serve as a connection between the literary research conducted and its appliance in the case studies.

According the Michael de Certeau, the best way to differentiate the line between place and non-place is to involve the term space, which is “true”, and oppose it to the other “true” term of the couple – place. He states that place is nothing but a geometrical expression which can become space only when it is occupied. “The space could be to the place what the word becomes when it is spoken.”(Auge, 2008, p. 65) A non-place is the polarity of place. They are the two sides of the same coin and even though they clash in their meaning, they can’t exist without each other; can’t be found in pure form. Place can never be completely erased (the real place where the simulation takes place is always there) and the nonplace (the hyper-reality) is impossible to be totally completed. (Auge, 2008, p. 64) “Certain places exist only through the words that evoke them, and in this sense they are non-places or rather, imaginary places: utopias”. (Auge, 2008, p. 70) With this statement, Auge gives proof that simulacrums are non-places.

Returning to the assertion that a place is just a space without it being inhabited, without housing an event, Auge claims that the spectator is involved in the spectacle under the “gentle possession” (Auge, 2008, p. 83) of the supermodenity which is subtly “controlling” him turning him from a mere passenger into part of the event, the simulacrum. The visitor is what transforms the place, into a non-place in the situation of the museum by not only giving it scale; but also by involving the spectators who become part of the simulacrum, taking part of the stage-play of ancient town to which they are ancient citizens. They stick to the “program” of the inside city/place of each museum. Returning to the initial thesis that tourists’ main aim is to experience something completely new, an illusion of a utopia, this final touch of “soft” manipulation is what makes the simulation complete.

Supermodenity runs non-real places defined by texts; instruction of use. There is a set of common rules which visitors obey without even realizing: “where to

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Fig. 8, Airports are among the most controlled places in our society: supermodernity.

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enter” and “where to smoke”, “where to look” and “where to pay” (See Fig. 8, 9 & 10) (the sequences created by cinematography contribute to the self-awareness of the spectator; there is only one way to go in and they need to follow the narrative in order to get out; to receive the answer of the story, a catharsis evoked by the last bead of this rhythm: the shocking element). The latter even compelling them to identify themselves (through a cheque, a payment or a loyalty card).

Those are the characteristics that define supermodernity and the anthropological place. The latter is completely formed by individuals’ participation in the abovementioned activities of obedience. (Auge, 2008) Visitors “receive the same message, respond to the same entreaties” – the anthropological place doesn’t create identities or relationships. On the other hand, it offers “the passive joys of identity loss” and the pleasure of “role playing”. This is once again the reason why visitors would want to go to each museum, to experience the exotic, the hyper-reality which will alienate them from the true mundane reality of their usual lifestyle.

Auge states that supermodernity doesn’t offer history in its pure meaning, as it is now exhibition and both realities can’t exist without blurring their boundaries.

Therefore the history is transformed to a spectacle of heritage, rather than facts and truths. (Auge, 2008) This chapter summerises how all of the methodologies in focus so far turn museums into hyper-realities of the spectacle of history producing an activity which visitors would enjoy, escaping real-life and role-playing in the space of the anthropological place. It outlines the relationships between simulation, simulacrum and cinematography and montage and their appliance in architecture; their contribution to creating non-places and utopias with internal system of to control the spectators into the designed way of the fantasy that is the simulation of history.

Fig. 9, Identifying oneself in the place of supermodernity 25

Fig. 10, Signs that run the supermodenity 26

CHAPTER FIVE CASE STUDIES This chapter will look at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and more specifically its recently rebuilt Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, designed by the MUMA Architects and the Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by Bernard Tschumi and Associates.

The research conducted and stated so far in the dissertation is applied to the design of each of those museums. Their architecture and planning, along with their exhibitions are analysed in order to show how simulacrums have been created and montaged; how the circulation develops cinematic sequences and lastly how the visitors are involved in the simulations with their movement and presence.

All this would be the final proof how museums ensure an illusion of a utopia and since the buildings in focus are among the most popular ones of their kind, therefore this is a successful design strategy that works in giving the public’s tourist gaze what it desperately seeks: a hyper-reality, an opposition to the chores of the day-to-day life.

VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE GALLERIES, LONDON MUMA ARCHITECTS 2009 The new galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum house an exhibition that consists mainly of architectural and sculptural artefacts: details such as: cantilevers, balconies, statues, arches, gates, altars, fountains and so on, all from the Renaissance and Medieval periods. These are integrated in the walls, positioned in the galleries, not as an exhibition but as life-size facades and streets formed around squares, gardens and a small church, all connected in order to create a narrative of the historic city from the same eras.

The smallest units that compile the illusion is the artefacts. The exhibition contains the most essential bits and pieces of every cityscape. The individual objects are what Baudrillard considers “memory banks”. They are the most basic evidence of accuracy, the most vivid and true proof of the appearance of the medieval city. It is these “references” that create the skeleton of the simulation, the matrix of the 27

Fig. 11, Courtyard in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries in the V&A.

Fig. 12, Courtyard in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries in the V&A. 28

utopia. Just like Baudrillard states, they are older than their container (the museum) but in the staged illusion claim not to be, simply because in the hyper-reality of the medieval city, the latter is older than its material components.

The exhibits are positioned in several galleries, three of which are the focal spaces, the main simulacra of the whole. One is the first gallery of the main event sequence, situated right after the entrance hall of the museum. It is least secluded and creates a transition to the spaces of simulation. The space recreates a simulacrum of a Renaissance courtyard, where the most visitors gather. It’s the noisiest and best lit gallery; offering seating and a running fountain to throw coins in. All of the objects are part of the exhibition but are integrated in a way that blurs the boundary between the space of the simulation and the components that make the museum in reality. The new non-place is populated by the spectators who are the element that makes the place a space and give life to the city-scape, transforming from visitors to citizens, walking the streets, going to church, sitting in the gardens. Without the presence of the spectators, the simulation stops and the exhibition turns back into mere ruins. (See Fig. 11 & 12) This public space of the courtyard leads to two more secluded ones: the other two focal points of the simulation: the Chapel of Santa Chiara (originally built in Florence in 1492), and a back street of London from the time of the Great fire. They are both secluded with more controlled light. The latter is a narrow double height space which contains several window frames and their surrounding facades, as well as a spiral wooden staircase. The floor finish and the brick walls continue the theme of being outside on the street. The isolation from the noise of the crowd is complemented with the echoing steps of the spectator. A vertical montage includes the image of the “sky”: glazed roof which allows just enough soft light to enter the space and add the final touch of the simulation. All of the components of the space of the street, fuse together to create a unified image of overwhelming feeling of fear from a pending danger: recreating the event of the Great fire of London. (See Fig. 14 & 15) According to a 3-D interactive video reconstruction of The Santa Chiara Chapel, it is one of the most important exhibits in those particular galleries; it creates a logical relation to its initial edifice, which was originally built in Florence in 1492.

Its style, a variation of the Italian Renaissance, was developed in the 1920s and 1930s again in Florence. (Burckhardt, 1985) This type of church consisted of relatively few elements and was simple in plan, as it included a nave and two isles (Burckhardt, 1985). The exhibition subtly zones the isles and the nave of the “church” and the glazing of the roof (which is different from that of the other galleries) answers to the Renaissance requirements for the windows to permit only a view of the sky (Burckhardt, 1985). The chapel is situated at the very end of the sequence, where it is isolated from the main stream of circulation in the museum - a requirement stated in Leon B. Alberti’s “De re Aedificatoria”. (See Fig. 13)

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“The general course of the montage is the uninterrupted interweaving of these diverse themes into one unified movement. Each montage-piece has a double responsibility – to build the total line as well as to continue the movement in each of the contributory themes; at times one of the themes would take a necessary step backwards only to make more effective its two steps forward”. (Eisenstein, 1986, p.65-66) In this course of a sequence, the theme of the hyper-reality takes a step back the moment the spectator reaches the balconies overlooking the exhibition. This event interrupts the sequence: the simulation takes a step back and leaves the reality take over, placing the objects of the exhibition in a new light: as objects of an exhibition. This is their true appearance and since the simulacrum can never really escape the real place it is held in, the artefacts’ true meaning breaks out the fantasy. This is the shocking event is the final effect that puts end to the main sequence of a romantic dream. It adds another layer to the meaning of the exhibition and gives the experience another way of interpretation adding an aftertaste to the character of the simulation.

Fig. 13, The Santa Chiara Chapel, V&A Museum

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Fig. 14, A “back street“ going round the courtyard and leading to the chapel

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Fig. 15, A staircase, remains from the Great Fire of London

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THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM, ATHENS BERNARD TSCHUMI ARCHITECTS 2009 The new Acropolis museum, designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects, houses numerous statues and relics from the Acropolis. It is positioned in a close proximity to the ancient monument itself, making it a part of the exhibition. (See Fig.16) According to an article by Yannis Aesopos, Tschumi’s designs are usually based on the three key components: space, movement and event. Furthermore, the architecture of the new museum in Athens includes another factor – content – which also essential to the designer. (Aesopos, 2009) Those four key aspects are most important to the museum. It is the same aspects which are the driving forces of the simulation and cinematography which subtly take place and turn the exhibition into a utopian space of gods, heroes and mythical creatures.

The museum consists of three basic components connected by the vertical spiral circulation: it starts with the archaeological excavations in its basement, and continues with galleries from several periods on the middle levels and a glass gallery on the top, on which this study will mostly focus on (Aesopos, 2009); all of these juxtaposed in a historical sequence so that the movement through would create scenes from the history of the Acropolis, montaged into a film about its heritage.

Factors like the strictly controlled circulation of the visitors (one needs to follow it in order to be able to go back outside) and the ticket fare are both signs that the museum is a non-place controlled by the supermodernity. Therefore, it is a space of events and movement which support the course of the fantasy.

Once again, the smallest particles of the structure of the simulation are the exhibits. Unlike in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries, the artefacts in this occasion are statues rather than architectural details. (See Fig. 17) The loosely

Fig. 16, The Acropolis Museum , and the reknown hill in the distance 33

Fig. 17, The “town-scape“ of the museum, full of petrified citizens

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positioned marble figures, relate to their original situation in the Acropolis. Moreover, Tschumi’s design allows natural light to converse with them as if they were still in their initial places. (Aesopos, 2009) This mimicking of the past reality of ancient Greece is the foundation of the simulation. In the occasion of this museum it is not the visitors, but the statues that turn into the citizens of the dream: the open-plan, double-height spaces and the slope of the circulation (Aesopos, 2009) (, typical to the actual hill of the Acropolis) are the set and the exhibition transforms into the lost society that once populated the ancient city: sculptures of men and women, of warriors, heroes, of wild animals and cattle bring the places to life creating a hyper-reality of an “agora”. The impression of the living statues – inhabitants is exaggerated even more by the views of the modern city, visible from most galleries. The visitor is positioned in a “town” that seems to spread out of the building, connecting with the reality of the outside, reaching all the way to the horizon. These are the basic units which help the spectator put the pieces of a puzzle together, filling out the gaps, with the knowledge from any media, carried by the tourist gaze.

To navigate the circulation and encourage the supermodernity of the space, the designer has positioned the sculptures in way that they can’t be seen fully without one walking among them. (Easopes, 2009) (See Fig. 18&19)This cinematographic effect guides the spectators, who create the illusion of the “movement” of the marble citizens through their own. An exhibition in any typical museum wouldn’t be able to recreate the same event with the artefacts, in this situation the statues, clinically lined up in narrow rooms with their backs against the walls.

Fig. 18, The circulation doesn’t allow the cpectator to choose their own way; they need to walk through the whole exhibition to go outside again.

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Fig. 19, An exploded diagram of the floors of the museum shows the inner circulation 36

The top floor of the Acropolis museum is the final bead of the sequence of the events: of the oldest city that is the ruins in the basement, through the other eras housed on the middle floors. (See Fig. 18&19) This final gallery houses the most important part of the exhibition: a frieze from the Acropolis. The whole floor is planned in accordance to that single object, which is the embodiment of the overall theme of a historical timeline and its relationship to the present. That is why this final space is quite different from the others beneath it. (Easopes, 2009) The floor is shifted from the general foot print of the buildings so the plan inside, and more specifically the orientation of the frieze will coincide with its original position. (See Fig. 21) Furthermore, the outside walls consist mainly of glazing which makes this top layer translucent allowing views from the city and the Acropolis, a conversation between the past and the present: the simulation is clearly stated by the design. (See Fig. 20) The juxtaposition between the “frame� of the frieze and that of its former home is the shocking element of the sequence which breaks the rhythm. Being half-way through the narrative, it sobers the visitor from the dream. (See Fig. 22&23) This is done by creating a reverse panopticon (See Appendix III); positioning the frieze in the middle of the gallery, and encouraging the spectators to walk round it through precise planning and ingenious design. The contents of the gallery cannot be seen without one walking around the frieze in a complete circle. At the same time, it is lit from all sides and on top, the same way it was in its original place. This attracts further attention to the visitors, encouraging their circulation. The piece is an embodiment of cinematography. It challenges the visitor to go all the way around it to see the

Fig. 20, The top floor frieze 37

Fig. 21&22, The relationship between the frieze and the Acropolis

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end of the story it tells. (If it wasn’t weaving in 360 degrees but was flat on a wall, the effect would have been different) Furthermore, as walking round, the visitor catches glimpses of the Acropolis. This conversation between the two gives the spectators a new perspective on the spectacle and adds new characteristics to the exhibition and the Acropolis: they are no longer what they have been. The simulacrum is evidence that the original reality of the artefacts no longer exists.

Instead, they are reborn for a new life. Therefore, they need to be shown in their present appearance: not as props, not as part of a simulacrum but an exhibition, a fragment from an irretrievable past reality.

The designers have created a “hyper-real” that is based on the substitution of the signs, which, in this case, are the exhibited items, and allows the past to be “resurrected” through the model of the townscape. The way every item falls into its place, turning the gallery walls into facades with doors leading to nowhere, and balconies, overlooking other spaces, creates an image of what those cities might have looked like. The galleries create a simulation through montaging several simulacrums, all frames from the most vital spaces of such town – emphasizing on the exotic, in order to please the spectator, whose aim is to be isolated from the “real world” and put into the fantasy which is the utopia that reflects a past reality (Baudrillard, 1994).

Fig. 23, A reflection of the Acropolis, looking over the museum

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Fig. 24, Non-places, Montage

CONCLUSION In conclusion, this dissertation will emphasize once again on the main characteristics of the hyper-reality super modern museums and how they create nonspaces to house the utopias of the past and create heritage and more specifically in the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries of the Victoria & Albert Museum, designed by the MUMA architects and the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, by Bernard Tschumi Architects.

Both designer teams have translated the message of the Renaissance and Ancient eras into theatrical stages – a simulated cityscape - through which the visitor can walk and feel the atmosphere of a 15th century town, to be sold the experience of what it must have felt like to enter a church in Florence during the 1420s, to walk on the streets of London before the Great Fire or to walk past demi-gods and ancient heroes from the Greek mythology. All this has been put together and situated in modest looking new galleries - which can be defined as a mixture of all arts, from sculpture, through film to architecture, combined with precise planning and lighting to reflect human psychology, simultaneously connecting with all senses – the designers’ contemporary interpretation of the past and its translation to the present.

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BIBILIOGRAPHY Coates, N. (2012). Narrative Architecture. United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Coombs, T. (1992). Scarpa’s Castelvecchio: A Critical Rehabilitation [Speaking of Places] [eScholarship]. Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6ws3f5zn Cudill, W. W., Pena, W. M., & Kennon, P. (1978). Architecture and You: How to Experience and Enjoy Buildings. New York, USA: Whitney Library of Design.

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Hegarty, P. (2004). Jean Baudrillard. Live Theory. New York, NY: Continuum.

Herman, D. (2000). Narratology as a cognitive science. Retrieved from http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/narratology/davidherman.htm Interactive: Explore the Church of Santa Chiara. 2013. 3D Reconstruction Video. Victoria & Albert Museum. London, [online]. Available at <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/interactiveexplore-the-church-of-santa-chiara/> [accessed 16 April 2013].

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London, United Kingdom: Routeledge.

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Naredi-Rainer, P. (2004). A Design Manual: Museum Buildings. Berlin, Germany: Birkhauser.

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Pierroux, P., & Skjulstad, S. (2011). Composing a Public Image Online: Art Museums and Narratives of Architecture in Web Mediation. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S875546151100048X Rab, S. (1998). Carlo Scarpa’s Re-designing of Castelvecchio in Verona | Samia Rab - Academia.edu. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/543331/Carlo_Scarpas_Re-designing_of_ Castelvecchio_in_Verona Rashid, M. (2013). Architecture and Narrative The Formation of Space and Cultural - GetInfo. Retrieved from https://getinfo.de/app/Architecture-and-Narrative-The-Formation-of-Space/id/tandf%3 Adoi~10.1080%252F13602365.2010.486570 Savic, S. (2013). Event and Movement in Architecture. The Manhattan Transcripts: Theoretical Projects. Retrieved from http://kucjica.kucjica.org/selena-savic_event-movement-architecture.pdf Sirefman, S. (1999). http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20027576?uid=3738032&uid=2129&ui d=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103237165773 The Best In Heritage. 2011. Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, Victoria & Albert Museum, MUMA – The Best in Heritage 2011 [online]. Available at < http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=HhDTvRON4x8> [accessed 16 April 2013].

Unknown Author, Games of Architecture. (1996). London, United Kingdom: Academy Group Ltd. Williams, P. (2013, January 31). Paul Williams’ inspiration: Castelvecchio museum, Verona by Carlo Scarpa | Building Studies | Building Design. Retrieved from http://www.bdonline.co.uk/paulwilliams-inspiration-castelvecchio-museum-verona-by-carlo-scarpa/5049482.article Zamani, P. (2009). Architecture as Curatorial Device: Space, Views and Narrative in the Galleries of the High Museum of Art. Retrieved from http://www.sss7.org/Proceedings/04%20Building%20 Morphology%20and%20Emergent%20Performativity/134_Zamani.pdf

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Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). United States of America: Michigan.

Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2013). Film Art, an Introduction (10th ed.).New York: McGraw Hill Burckhardt, J. (1985) The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. London: Secker & Warburg.

Eisenstein, S. (1986). The Film Sense (J. Leyda, Trans.) (2nd ed.). London, United Kingdom: Faber & Faber Limited. (Original work published 1943).

Eisenstein, S., Bois, Y., & Glenny, M. (1989). Montage and Architecture. Retrieved from http://www. jstor.org/stable/3171145 Genosko, G. (1994). Baudrillard and Signs, Signification Ablaze. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Goss, P. (2010, April). Panopticon | Architecture and Anthropology Curiosity Collaborative. Retrieved from http://architectureanthropology.com/articles/panopticon Harrison, R. (2011) â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is Heritage?â&#x20AC;? [online]. Available at < http://www.open.edu/openlearn/ history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.3> [accessed 16 April 2013].

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APPENDICES: APPENDIX I DISNEYLAND - THE EPITOME OF SIMULATION APPENDIX II THE ACROPOLIS AS THE FIRST FILM APPENDIX III THE PANOPTICON

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DESINEYLAYND – THE EPITOME OF SIMULATION Hyper-real and imaginary

by Jean Baudrillard Extract Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc.

This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful.

But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious revelling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks.

You park outside, queue up inside, and are totally abandoned at the exit. In this imaginary world the only phantasmagoria is in the inherent warmth and affection of the crowd, and in that aufficiently excessive number of gadgets used there to specifically maintain the multitudinous affect. The contrast with the absolute solitude of the parking lot — a veritable concentration camp — is total. Or rather: inside, a whole range of gadgets magnetize the crowd into direct flows; outside, solitude is directed onto a single gadget: the automobile. By an extraordinary coincidence (one that undoubtedly belongs to the peculiar enchantment of this universe), this deep-frozen infantile world happens to have been conceived and realized by a man who is himself now cryogenized; Walt Disney, who awaits his resurrection at minus 180 degrees centigrade.

The objective profile of the United States, then, may be traced throughout Disneyland, even down to the morphology of individuals and the crowd. All its values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form. Embalmed and pactfied.

Whence the possibility of an ideological analysis of Disneyland (L. Marin does it well in Utopies, jeux d’espaces): digest of the American way of life, panegyric to American values, idealized transposition of a contradictory reality. To be sure.

But this conceals something else, and that “ideological” blanket exactly serves to cover over a third-order simulation: Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the “real” country, all of “real” America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.

The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It ~s meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the “real” world, and 45

to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among those adults who go there to act the child in order to foster illusions of their real childishness.

Moreover, Disneyland is not the only one. Enchanted Village, Magic Mountain, Marine World: Los Angeles is encircled by these â&#x20AC;&#x153;imaginary stationsâ&#x20AC;? which feed reality, reality-energy, to a town whose mystery is precisely that it is nothing more than a network of endless, unreal circulation: a town of fabulous proportions, but without space or dimensions. As much as electrical and nuclear power stations, as much as film studios, this town, which is nothing more than an immense script

Fig. a1.1, Disneyland, Paris

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THE ACROPOLIS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; THE FIRST FILM Montage and Architecture

by Sergei Eisenstein Extract The Acropolis is a cliff, isolated on all sides, whose summit is dedicated to the worship of the national deities. At point T was the mark made by Poseidonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trident, while near to it grew the olive tree sacred to Athene. In immediate proximity to this sacred spot a temple was built to both gods. The site being empty after a fire, it was therefore possible to build a new sanctuary on the very spot indicated by legend. The temple was moved to point S and given the name of Erechtheion. The highest point (P) was the site in this and another era (the time of the Pisistrades and after the Persian War) of the great temple of Athene - the Parthenon. Between the Parthenon and the entrance to the Acropolis was disposed a series of smaller temples, evidently relating to both the ancient and the new Acropolis. . . . In this same space the colos-sal statue of Athene Promakhos (the Warrior) was erected in the fifth century B.C. The Propylaeum (M) formed the frontal fagade of the Acropolis (in both the old and the new layout) ... The two layouts differed only in detail. The first, however, was a collection of buildings of various epochs, whereas the second was laid out to a single plan and adapted to the site, which had been cleared as the result of a fire. The apparent assymetry of this new Acropolis is only a means of lending picturesqueness to this group of buildings, which have been laid out with more art than

Fig. a2.1

any others ... [This] becomes clear from the series of panoramas that unfolded before visitors to the Acropolis in the fifth century B.C. View of the Propylaeum.

The general idea of the plan of the Propylaeum can be seen in figure 3. ... We see the symmetrical central block and two noticeably different wings - the righthand one broader and the left-hand one less SO. .. . At first sight, nothing could be more uneven than this plan, but in fact it constitutes a completely balanced whole in which the general symmetry of the masses is accompanied by a subtle diver-sity in the details. . . . The optical symmetry is impeccable. ... First view of the square; Athene Promakhos. Passing by the Propy-laeum, the spectatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye embraces the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and Athene Promakhos (figure 4). In the foregroundt owers the statue of Athene Promakhos;t he Erechtheion and the Parthenon are in the background, so that the whole of this first panorama is subordinated to the statue,

Fig. a2.2

which is its central point and which creates an impression of unity. The Parthenon only acquires its significance when the visi-tor loses sight of this gigantic piece of sculpture. The Parthenon and its oblique perspectives.T o modern thinking, the Parthenon - the great temple of the Acropolis - should be placed opposite the main entrance, but the Greeks reasoned quite differently. The cliff of the Acropolis has an uneven surface, and the Greeks, without altering its natural relief, placed the main temple on the highest point at the edge of the cliff, facing the city (figure 5). Placed thus, the Parthenon first of all faces the spectator obliquely. The ancients generally preferred oblique views: they are more picturesque, whereas a frontal view of the 48

faGade is more majestic.6 Each of them is allotted a specific role. An oblique view is the general rule, while a view en face is a calcu-lated exception (figure 6). The central body of the Propylaeum is presented en face, just as we head straight for the pronaos of the Parthenon, crossing the square of the Acropolis. With the exception of the two examples given, where this effect is deliberately calculated, all the other structures present themselves at an angle - as does the temple of Athene Ergane (H), when the spectator reaches its precinct at point E . . . After the first panorama from the Erechtheion, let us continue our way across the Acropolis. At point B the Parthenon is still the only structure in our field of vision, but if we move on to point C, it will be so close to us that we shall be unable to encompass its shape; at that moment the Erechtheion becomes the center of the panorama. It is precisely from this point that it offers us one of its most graceful silhouettes (figure 7).

The bare wall (a) is enlivened by the Porch of the Caryatids, which stand out from it as though against a background specifi-cally created for them. Thus three pictures have passed before us, corresponding to the three chief points - A’, B, and C - on figure 4. At each of them only one architectural monument was dominant: at point C, the Erechtheion; at point B, the Parthenon; and at point A’, Athene Promakhos. This one, principal motif ensures the clarity of the impression and the unity of the picture. How responsibly and with what careful thought this has been done is witnessed in the following additional cornm-ment by Choisy: Erechtheion and Athene Promakhos. Let us return to the starting point (figure 4), that is, to point A’, at which our whole attention was concentrated on Athene Promakhos.

The Erechtheion with its caryatids is in the background. One might fear that the grace49

Fig. a2.3, Frames

ful caryatids would appear crushed by force of contrast with the gigantic statue of the goddess; to prevent this, the architect sited the base of the statue in such a way that it shut out the view of the Porch of the Caryatids - line A1RL, which only revealed itself to the eye of the spectator when he was so close to the colossus that he could no longer see all of it, and therefore a comparison became possible only in memory. Furthermore, Choisy sums up as follows: If we now recall the series of pictures that the Acropolis has given us, we shall see that they are all, without exception, calculated on the first impression that they make. Our recollections invaria-bly take us back to first impressions, and the Greeks strove, above all, to make it a favorable one. Both wings of the Proplyaeum balance out at the exact moment when the general view of the building opens out in front of us (figure 3). The disappearance of the caryatids when looking at Athene Pro-makhos is also calculated on the first impression (figure 4). As for the Parthenon, the fullest view of its fagade, with its asym-metrical flight of steps, is revealed to the spectator when he passes through the precinct around the temple of Athene Ergane.

This creation of a favorable first impression was evidently the constant concern of Greek architects. The calculation of a [film-] shot effect is obvious, for there, too, the effect of the first impression from each new, emerging shot is enormous.

Equally strong, however, is the calculation on a montage effect, that is, the sequential juxtaposition of those shots. Let us, in fact, draw up the general compositional schemes of these four successive “picturesque shots” (figure 8). It is hard to imagine a stricter, more elegant, and more triumphant construct than this sequence. Shots a and b are equal in symmetry and, at the same time, the opposites of each other in spatial extent. Shots c and d are in mirror symmetry, and function, as it were, as enlargements of the right-hand and left-hand wings of shot a, then reforming again into a single, balanced mass. The sculptural motif b is repeated through shot c, by the group of sculpture d and so on and so on. It would further be of particular interest to analyze the length of time in which each of these pictures was pre-sented to the spectator.

We will not go into the details of this here, but only remark that the length of these montage sequences is entirely in step with the rhythm of the build-ing itself: the distance from point to point is long, and the time taken to move from one to the other is of a length in keeping with solemnity. In the “montage plan” of the Athenian Acropolis we find, of course, the same unsurpassed artistry as in other monu-ments of antiquity.

50

49

THE PANOPTICON

by Paul Goss

The panopticon was conceived in 1785 by social theorist Jeremy Bentham.1 It was originally designed as a new type of prison facility, in which the inmates could be watched and controlled by a minimum number of guards. The simplicity and power of the system came through the designed relationships between prisoner and guard. The prison was designed as a circular building with a tower standing in the middle. The periphery of the building was filled with cells, each one with bars on the inside and a large window on the outside. The large windows drastically backlit the prisoners, making them, and their movements, easily visible to the guards occupying the central tower. In contrast to the pervasive visibility of the prisoners in the cells, the guards were to be completely hidden and concealed in the tower. The guards could easily see what the prisoners were doing, while the prisoners had no idea whether they were being watched at any given time. They had to assume that they were always under the watchful eye of the guards. According to Hille Koskela, “While the panopticon ostensibly keeps the body entrapped, it is in fact targeted at the psyche: in this mechanism ‘the soul is the prison of the body.’”2 The dynamic of the prison, and indeed power relations, changes with this concept. While the body may be free to move about, the mind is controlled through visibility. “Visibility is a trap,” because each prisoner became “perfectly individualized and constantly visible.”3 The prisoners did not have to be physically controlled. Because of their pervasive and constant visibility, they would control their own behavior, assuming they were being scrutinized at all times. The design also increased power and control through “axial visibility and lateral invisibility.”4 Because prisoners could not see or otherwise communicate with one another, there was no possible way for a plan or revolt to form. The prisoners were only objects of information, and had no way to participate in communication.

Many people see modern surveillance and society as a corollary to the panopticon, especially considered through Michel Foucault’s analysis in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. The last several hundred years have given rise to urban systems and power relations that Foucault describes as a “discipline society,”5 and related to Bentham’s Panopticon. Foucault traces the development of this society back to the time of the plague in Europe. A strict hierarchy implemented a highly developed form of surveillance in order to monitor and control the citizens. Houses were locked from the outside, entire populations becoming quarantined in their homes. Each day, the syndics would come by to observe the health of each member of each family in each home. This way, no one could be hidden if they were ill, dead, or otherwise abnormal. The plague was fought by order, with an omniscient and omnipresent power placed on each individual.6 In addition to the plague, Foucault briefly examines the binary separation of lepers, in which mass exclusion and division was established between one group of people and the other. The response to the plague took this simplified approach and began to create “disciplinary projects…an organization in depth of surveillance and control, and intensification and ramification of power.”7 This gave rise to the strict hierarchy and separation found in plague-afflicted towns and the omnipres51

ent and omniscient power placed on the individual. The responses to the lepers and the plague were implemented upon the advent of a binary difference in the health of people in society; plague-free or plague-stricken, a leper, or not. This division is a common function, as Foucault observes, “all the authorities exercising individual control function according to a double mode; that of binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal)…”8 Power structures and discipline projects are a response to the fear of the abnormal.

Foucault sees panopticism operating today because of how it functions, and how it functions in society. He sees the panopticon as a “figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use.”9 The panopticon should not only be used as a prison, or as a way to control a plague outbreak. The key to its successful invasion in culture is the principles that can be widely applied, and the system allowing nearly anyone to control it. It uses flexible methods of control that can be transferred and adapted. The system is not concrete, attached to one group of people or one function, but can be used in a variety of functions, and once the system is established, anyone can supervise it. Foucault considered the panopticon to also be a laboratory, to be used as a machine to experiment, to alter behavior, to produce health, to produce knowledge, and so on.10 This laboratory operating in society produces individuals within its framework and allowances. Individuals are still individuals, free to do as they will, but act according to their formation within the “panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanisms.”11 According to this view, people brought up within the panoptic machine act in ways to perpetuate its existence. They are not only shaped by the machine, but participate in it.

Today that implies that surveillance is an accepted practice because surveillance is a way to continue the panoptic society we have grown up in. Video-surveillance and CCTV are just modern tools to do what the panopticon prison proposed in the 18th century. Whether we fight for it or against it, the panoptic machine is watching.

Fig. a3.1, The panopticon prison 52

1. “Panopticon.” 7 Oct. 2008. 8 Oct. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/panopticon>.

2. Koskela, Hille. “‘The gaze without eyes’: video-surveillance and the changing nature of urban space.” 2000. University of Helsinki. 25 Sept. 2008 <http://www. geog.psu.edu/courses/geog497b/readings/koskela.pdf>.

3. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 200.

4. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 200.

5. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 208.

6. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 197.

7. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 198.

8. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 199.

9. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 205.

10. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 203.

11. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books, 1977. 217.

The multiple points of view replaced the linear story.

Watching a repeated action or an intersection happen again and again...they hold the audience. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like watching a puzzle unfold. \ - Gus van Sant, director