The Architectural Antagonist by thomaswhite_96

M.ARCH ARB/RIBA Part 2 Dissertation

The Architectural Antagonist Bernard Tschumiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Concept of Architecture as a Critical Tool Thomas White UCA Canterbury School of Architecture 2019/20

M.ARCH ARB/RIBA Part 2 Dissertation

The Architectural Antagonist Bernard Tschumiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Concept of Architecture as a Critical Tool Thomas White Research Group TotC // Theories of the City Supervisor Gabor Stark

UCA Canterbury School of Architecture 2019/20

Contents

1.0: Criticality 1.0 Introduction: 07 1.1 Bernard Tschumi: 08 1.2 Critical Fireworks: 10 2.0: Notations, Diagrams & Sequences 2.0 Architectural Linguistics: 14 2.1 The Cinematic Double Act: 22 2.2 The Paradox of the Dematerialised Experience: 28 3.0: Antagonistic Autonomy 3.0 The correlative disjunction of Parc de la Villette: 36 3.1 Maintenant Non-Compos Mentis : 42 4.0: Maintenant Madness 4.0 The Infinite Curtain Call: 50 4.1 Epilogue: 52 Glossary: 54 Bibliography: 58 Webography: 59 List of illustrations: 60

1.0: Criticality

Introduction

Twenty first century architecture is in a current state of post-criticality. The focus has been directed to favour building systems and construction methods over the architectural concept. This is due to the demand of socio-economic constraints and the many other factors that the ‘design team’ of developers and consumerists bring forth. This occurs in an increasing number of contemporary practices with the introduction of systems such as BIM (Building Information Modelling) where it can be used to constrict the method of architectural design. This can therefore devise inanimate architecture which neither evokes concept nor function stuck in the dematerialized zone. Nonetheless there has always been a set of architectural antagonists in many eras that challenge architecture in its current state. The antagonist is defined as ‘a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:25). This being applied to architecture, the antagonist confronts present issues that architecture faces, whether it be contriving a design, building, function and form. These architects critique architectures premise through the various media associated with architecture; such as literature, technical drawing, and visualisation. However, the select few go beyond these archetypal representations and look instead, towards other art platforms as its adopted siblings. This transversal intersection of platforms creates a ‘dualism’- ‘the state of being dual or consisting of two parts; division into two’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:211). Whereby methods are learnt, adopted and criticized in disjunction with each other.’ - the act of disjoining or condition of being disjoined; separation, disunion’ (Tschumi, 1994:99). These are never as one, rather in the intermediary sense, where they run parallel to one another. This thesis examines the architectural antagonist, and how architectures extensive spectrum can be used as a critical tool to challenge the crisis’s and issues in the profession. It will investigate the work and critiques of Bernard Tschumi and his role as the antagonist in twentieth century architecture. These projects chronologically opening with his impactive unbuilt research methodology, which position themselves as an intermediary disjunction between art and architecture. Followed by the antagonising catalyst of Tschumi’s built project Parc De La Villette in Paris, which applies these adopted practices. The aspect of ‘dualism’ will be analysed in four key chapters and their subcategories, first looking at an overview of Tschumi and what it means to be critical. This then being applied to architectural equivalent in its language and its antagonists’ siblings in the art realm. Definitively critiquing this disjunction and correlation of the Parc de la Villette as a built architectural critical tool. The objective of this thesis is to focus on the antithesis of the antagonists and how the critique of many factors neither compare but instead are used as an apparatus for change. This being outside of the ‘cosa mentale’- mental mind state (Tschumi, 1995:13) and into the transitional complexity of ‘non compos mentis’-not having control of one’s mind (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:464). Wherefore the architectural antagonist adopts the key factor of a critical mind state to question architecture. Allowing it to go outside its natural environment and enter the critical world.

Fig.1 ‘Mediocre tools lead to mediocre thinking’ (2018)

Bernard Tschumi

Bernard Tschumi born in 1944 is a widely recognized architect and is an active figure in the various architectural debates that have faced both the twentieth and 21th century. Tschumi a dual Swiss and French national is an established theorist and entered the architectural domain after graduating from the ETH Zurich in the 1960’s. His first influential presence was in his critical essays and literature which questioned twentieth century architecture on issues of form, function, space and program. These include; Architecture and Disjunction (1994), Manhattan Transcripts (1994) and Questions of Space (1995). Tschumi furthered his academia and research in the AA (Architectural Association) London, Princeton University - New Jersey and Columbia University – New York. Where he set up briefs and student projects that criticized architecture using modes outside the norm of architectural representation and the agendas of the time. This is shown in Tschumi’s programme at the Architectural association titled ‘theories, language and attitude’ where Tschumi describes it as ‘students projects explored the overlapping sensibility, often in a manner sufficiently obscure’ (Tschumi, 1994:90). This encouraged students to broaden architectural representation by adopting media such as film, writing and photography. This therefore challenged architectures common place archetypes of the section, plan, elevation and axonometric drawings to initiate a tool of critique of architectural linguistics as a whole. Tschumi then adapted this discovered research from his various non-built studies and applied it to his most distinguished built project Parc de la Villette, Paris in 1983. The competition saw the periods most prominent architectural antagonists including; Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenmen and Zaha Hadid’s conflicting approaches to the site. The Battle for the prize was arguably a definitive point in architectural critical history. Tschumi’s proposal used ‘The intertwining concepts of “event” and “movement” in architecture and were supported by Tschumi’s belief that ‘architecture is the most important innovation of our time’ (Tschumi Architects, 2019). This ran parallel with his deconstructivist roots to produce an anti-tourist ensemble of distinctively red adaptable follies on the 125-acre site. Samantha Hardingham in Super Crit (2011), describes Tschumi and deconstructivism as a ‘controlled chaos’ of complexity in architecture and uses the overlapping conditions of architecture to derive a design (Hardingham,2011:58). Tschumi sometimes defensively rejected being part of the deconstructive movement and his affiliation but yet is strongly associated to it in the architectural sphere. Tschumi established Tschumi Architects after Parc de la Villette in 1983 and completed various other projects, these being; Le Fresnoy Art Centre, The Acropolis Art Centre and The Rouen Concert Hall and Exhibition complex. Tschumi continues to use these disjunctives finding in his contemporary projects and often references other disciplines ‘such as literature and film, proving that architecture must participate in culture’s polemics and question its foundations’ (Tschumi Architects, 2019). The reference to architectures adopted siblings allows Tschumi to reduce the restraints of architectural representation and instead criticize architectures ‘cause -and- effect’ approach that has existed and precedes to exist in architecture in regard to event – function and spatial form (Tschumi Architects, 2019). 09

Critical Fireworks

Architectures current state of ‘post’ criticality is shown by Hilde Heynen in A critical position for architecture (2007). This is the idea that criticism once existed but is no longer. This is supported by the idea of projective architecture’ which is used as the disguise of the critical ‘whereby a younger generation of critics who need to murder their fathers’ (Heynen,2007:52), is the replacement of the past. Tschumi however, believes the past needs to exist in order to be critiqued providing a platform for the future by manipulating the past and present. Throughout Tschumi’s career criticality has been a defining factor in his approach to confront architecture. This thesis sets out to question what it is to be critical in architecture and how one can achieve this. The term ‘critical’ has many various definitions and adaptations, these like Tschumi’s definition of disjunction intersect with one another yet stay parallel in separate conjunction. The two dual definitions closely depicted with architecture are defined a. ‘having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something, involving the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:158). This definition explains how the critique is conceived following its success and its effectiveness. Alongside the juxtaposition of definition b. ‘relating to or denoting a point of transition from one state to another: a self-sustaining chain reaction’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:158). This indicating the catalyst reaction and change caused by such critique.

Fig 2. The Tall office building artistically considered (1896)

Fig 3. ‘Form follows fiction’ (1980)

“if architectural work consists of questioning the nature of architecture, what prevents us from making this questioning a work of architecture itself?” Bernard Tschumi, 1994

These definitions describe the key architectural elements form and function, that Tschumi believes are the tools that conflict each other. The ‘functional’ tool is the critique of architecture that is something conceived and planned, i.e. Option a, where the existential research and constraints generate the architectural critique. This running parallel with the ‘formal’ reaction of option b, where the realization is actualised and starts its journey. Tschumi introduces his critique of American architect Louis Sullivan, and his theory that ‘form follows function’ in the article ‘The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered’ (1896). Where Sullivan describes that ‘life is recognisable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the Law’ (Sullivan,1947:202-13). Sullivan describes it as an unalterable factor in the nature of architecture, similar to that of life and death itself whereby, the function creates the chain reaction. Tschumi antagonises this with the opposing argument that ‘form does not follow function’ and the event that follows. Described by Tschumi that ‘spaces and programs become totally interdependent and fully condition each other’s existence. In these cases, the architects view of the user’s needs determine every architectural decision -which may in turn, determine the user’s attitude’ (Tschumi, 1994:128). This describing the intersecting components of form and function as essential formation, and not a chronological occurrence as described by Sullivan. These components produce the architectural ‘event’ of constructing architecture and its predictable or unpredictable transgression, as opposed to a formal outcome as argued by Sullivan. This foundational concept of form and function inform many other of his critical responses using dualism and ‘fireworks’ to integrate criticality. The concept of fireworks is ‘the erotic forces contained in your movement […] architecture must be conceived erected and burned in vain’ (Tschumi,1996: 262). This definition describes the overlapping of architectural components to create the event of criticality much like a firework display. Dualism is explained as a junction between the critical and the criticized which Tschumi describes as ‘the existence of a body of work that contradicts the accepted dogma of a period’ (Tschumi, 1994:77). Where the pure existence of architecture is the platform for the criticized as well as the critical, it cannot exist without the other. The question without the answer. Tschumi raises the important question ‘if architectural work consists of questioning the nature of architecture, what prevents us from making this questioning a work of architecture itself? (Tschumi, 1994:34). Therefore, raising the question, ‘can the architectural platform be used as a tool to antagonize its own doctrine through fireworks and its double?’

2.0: Notations, Diagrams & Sequences

Architectural Linguistics

The establishment of diverse modes of architectural language, has been the vehicle for critique, and has been used by many antagonists throughout history. This method of representation is used to communicate the architectural project to all other than the architect themselves. Historically, these were conceived through construction drawings in the form of plans, sections and elevations. However, the medium has been challenged in terms of what? how? and why? the method of communication has been used, by questioning the architectural drawing. Tschumi incites the naming of the architectural drawings itself should not be labelled sketches, mappings and technical drawings, but instead ‘notations’, ‘diagrams’ and ‘sequences’ of thought (Tschumi, 2014:6). This describes the idea of the architectural project as something of a forensic science, where the project is deconstructed to investigate and realise its fragments. The elements would then run parallel in a discovered, envisioned and communicated architectural sequence of representations. The Deconstructivism label movement is Tschumi’s approach towards being critical in architecture, which he describes as a critique of postmodernism (Hardingham,2011:60). It is not an architectural style, but instead a critique of ones thinking and statement of architecture outside of the already established norm of that period. The architectural notation of diagrams and sequences are therefore a fundamental system to deconstruct a project, as they are the test tubes and formula to assess the practice of architectural drawing. Historically the architectural drawing hit a junction of critique during the analytical period of the fifteenth century. This period produced the Italian Renaissance, a point in history where humans questioned the accuracy of the established rules and methodologies that were passed down by their European ancestors. These everyday practical occurrences were deconstructed, through the already established platforms of; art, architecture, maths and science who sought to rediscover each platform’s ‘genuine’ linguistics. This authenticity was challenged in the method of renaissance architectural drawing, through the establishment of the experiential perspective drawing. This is explained by Tschumi’s critical cohort Jonathan Hill in his essay ‘Criticism by design’ in Critical architecture (Hill, 2007). Hill portrays it as a step outside two dimensions of architectural thinking, as it is ‘a fundamental change in perception, establishing that the drawing truthfully depicts the three-dimensional world […] which places the viewers outside and in command of view’ (Hill,2007:165). The one- and two-point perspective drawing was a method used by renaissance architects and artists which was described as the ‘mathematics of art’. This was a critique of the two-dimensional technical drawing, as the calculations of points in a perspective allowed architects to create material views inside and outside of a proposal. This allowed the visualisation to create an experience through the contrived forms. This method used tonal shadows, as well as the architectonics of symmetry to bring the communication of the architectural language to a more realistic significance. Allowing for the ‘outsiders’ (users) to understand the architect’s cognisance. This definitive point provided an analytical tool of space and its perception to question the drawing as a notation of space, as well as criticise architectural language and its expression.

Fig 4. Adoration of the Magi by da Vinci (1481) Fig 5. Santo Spirto by Filippo Brunelleschi (1428) Fig 6. Setting for Tragedy by Sebastiano Serlio (1545)

The nineteenth century adversary to the perspective drawing was Sant’Elia. As all antagonists do Sant’Elia adopted this method of drawing and appropriated its meaning to question the politics of the architectural language. But unlike most antagonists, Sant’Elia questioned the future of architecture instead of creating a model for one. Tschumi introduces Sant’Elia as ‘the creator of buildings without plans’ (Tschumi,1995:43), as Sant’Elia uses the perspectival drawing to visualise future cities as ‘formalised desires’ of the futurism movement to confront drawings as a whole. The perspective drawing like the renaissance perspective questions architectural language, but also provides another tool. Sant’Elia looks to abolish the other practices entirely, as the future will soon have no place for them in its advance. However, these drawings do not critique the existing, as they are spaces of desire contrived from Sant’Elia’s ‘cosa mentale’. Tschumi describes them as a replacement not only of the architectural drawing but also the replacement of architecture as a whole. Wherefore the imagination and fetishes of the architect are notated. Consequently, never to be built. These disjunctive representations pronounce the futuristic city, but never predicts it, the surrealism of the architectural language is therefore imaginary. Thus Should architectural notations be actualised? Sir Peter Cook enters the critical stage as a definitive character in 1960’s- 70’s Archigram with its own language. Cook uses the concept of Sant’Elia’s unbuilt desires to become a part of the coined taxonomy of ‘paper architects’. This term is communicated through the illustration of schematic notations never to be built, but quintessentially may have an intention to. This paper language was the platform for critique of architecture and its politics, in a utopian alternative to rethinking both existing and future cities. This is evident in his notations of the Instant City of 1968 with its bold text referencing the dominating manifesto, to engulf British cities with a prototypical airship. However, Cook’s theme of adaptive kinetic architecture is most evident in his critique ‘Way out West-Berlin’ 1988. The notations not only contested the medium of an architectural drawing though use of watercolour and ink but also proposed a protest for the political climate of the 1980’s. The critique was a sequence of notations displaying a mutating architecture overcoming constraints. Cook describes this as ‘the western end of the wonderful Kurfürstendamm, no-mans-land behind the Halensee Lake would erupt a hybrid of building and growths’ (Cook, 2014:54). Cook looks towards an architecture that engulfs itself. However conversely conceptual, it objected to the politics of the berlin wall and looked to form a linguistic of how to move forward and past its original harrowing purpose. With talks of its demolition in progress and heightened tensions, Cook created a metaphor in architectural linguistics as a potentially despairing growth for the rebuilding of a society.

“A fundamental change in perception, establishing that the drawing truthfully depicts the three-dimensional world […] which places the viewers outside and in command of view.” (Hill, 2007)

Fig 7 . Antonio Sant’Elia persepective drawing tool (1909)

This configuration of language is something Cook uses to describe the critique of the notational dialect. This time, however inside the architectural sequence and its technique. Cook describes the use of collage another adopted medium of the arts as ‘a critical tool of the 20th century architect’ (Cook, 2014:23). The architectural siblings of Shwitters and Picasso are used to antagonise the contemporary agenda. The collage like the perspective drawing, is sensory perception of space through the use of the drawn, the existing and the non-existent. It allows the architect and their audience to visualise and relate. Something Cook clarifies as the architects attack of ‘looking like something’ (Cook, 2014:22). This is evident in Tschumi’s favoured comrade Cedric Price in the collage of the Fun Palace (1959). The collage is formed of a mixed media aerial view of the scheme from the perspective of a cockpit. The drawing realises the architectural attack as it looks past the generic architectural drawing and takes the audience on an experiential aeroplane ride inside the formalised desire of the Fun Palace. Conversely, looking beyond this is the critique of the architectural drawing from American architect Perry Kulper. Kulper continues the theme of the hybrid and adapts the collage further. Instead of overlapping medium Kulper instead layers information. This method is described as ‘folding’ (Cook, 2014:22). As it uses various mediums of the digital, hand drawn and analytical to harvest architectural information in its overlapping folds of a singular drawing. This is evident in Kulpers notation for the competition design for central California History Museum 2010. Where Kulper uses the drawing to critique its content by displaying the usually disregarded ‘construction lines’. These allow the drawing to show how it was conceived. This is followed by overlapping of drawing types, as well as analytical tools such as scale bars and text that find their way onto the drawing instead of dismissed orderly to a corner. Kulper raises the question ‘can one drawing hold all the notational sequences?’

Fig 4. Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci (1481) Fig 5. Santo Spirto by Filippo Brunelleschi (1428) Fig 6. Setting for Tragedy by Sebastiano Serlio (1545)

Fig 8. Cedric Price Fun Palace: perspective from cockpit (1959-61) Fig 9 & 10. Way Out West-Berlin : Layout of the District (1988)

Fig 11-12. Competition design for Central California History Museum (2010)

The Cinematic Double Act

Having looked at linguistics and its overlapping dualism of context and content, Tschumi questions the sincerity of architecture by asking ‘what is the double of architecture?’ (Tschumi, 1994:77). Tschumi analyses the disjunction between its familial sibling of the arts where one is not the other, but instead an adopted family. The double of architecture uses linguistics such as Cooks attack of information and Kulper’s folding of layers to create the ‘violence of architecture’ Tschumi, 1996:122). This violent nature of architecture is the building- user relationship. Where the act of the user entering a building is seen as an attack on architecture, as it disturbs the orderly rule of architecture as an individual. The reverse is subsequently the domination of architectural information ie; a building too small or too large which swamps a user with its overpowering or under bearing layers. This violent attack of information describes the spatial experience similar to the perspective where the user- building and notation-audience do not exist without the other. Both nonetheless disrupt each in accordance when they collide. The identity of architecture is also challenged by other critical antagonists in art. Where the arts construct their own destruction by questioning their own identities and realities. This follows the non-compos mentis intellect by adopting architecture as a platform. Architectures key element ‘space’ is adopted by many mediums such as; exhibition, drawing and film. Can the critique of architecture from outside its own scope be a means to aggress its identity? That being where art does not become architecture neither that in reverse, but instead is the topic of debate in disjunction with its sibling’s. Thus, as a means of representation, antagonization and critique. Art can be architectures double. Tschumi studies various media as a tool to contest what is determined ‘architecture’. This being through the ‘cinematic’- ‘ the cinema, motion pictures collectively, as an art.’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011,114). Tschumi adopts the concepts and theories of cinematography established by the Russian antagonist Sergei Eisenstein, and in particular analyses the ‘the theory of montage’ (Eisenstein, 1925). The 1920’s soviet filmmaker critiques film, by using itself as a tool to revise the idea of film editing and challenged many others of his contemporaries. This was a revolutionary approach not only to the politics of cinema, but also created the possibility to antagonise the political climate of the Soviet Union. Eisenstein’s dialect of film in 1920’s soviet Russia arguably critiqued and catalysed insurrections, at the time including; Strikes, the 1905 revolution, and the 1917 revolution. Eisenstein therefore having a cause-and-effect relationship with his platform and others in conjunction. Eisenstein described the stimulus nature of montage, as the solution to the problems in film (Eisenstein, 1925). Montage being defined as; - ‘the technique of combining in a single composition pictorial element from various sources, as parts of different photographs or fragments of printing, either to give the illusion that the elements belonged together‘(Oxford Dictionary, 2011: 446). This concept of montage like the architectural collage is the layering of information and its dramatisation, bringing elements together to create the disjunction. Film can also therefore embrace other techniques outside its own situation to alter, critique and edit the intended portrayal. This revolutionary impact can be seen in Tschumi’s idea of architecture as a critical tool. Through the formation of a montage, architecture can edit aspects and their counterparts to notate the architectural montage of critique.

This idea of montage is described in Tschumi’s essay titled ‘Sequences’ in the Princeton Journal: Thematic Studies in Architecture (1983). Tschumi adopts Eisenstein’s montage theory and adapts it to create the disjunctive architectural sequence. This animates architecture as a cinematic experience, portraying it as a constantly adaptable living mechanism and not that of a stagnant object. This concept of sequences is split into various tools of critical fragments. However, when architecture becomes the critiqued subject, it becomes the film containing three definitive properties. These are addressed in the sequential critique as the; internal relation, external relation and the foundational idea of program (Tschumi, 1994:153). This adaptation of the architectural film uses space as it is experienced. Evidently this is similar to Eisenstein’s ‘theory of montage’ which is defined in five key experiential factors of filmic editing. These are; metric, rhythmic, tonal, over tonal and intellectual (Eisenstein, 1925). These components are the strategic manifesto for spatial perception and understanding for Eisenstein, who draws on key elements of architectural experience and space in cinema. Wherefore the cinematic double act takes place.

Fig 13. Manhattan event and action (1996)

Fig 14. ‘Filmic montage’ (1996)

Eisenstein’s metric and rhythmic factors are shown in Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts 1979-80. Tschumi adopts these montage factors and uses it to document the movie-like sequences of the city. Tschumi uses the metric method- the depth of the shots in relation to each other (Eisenstein, 1925), to depict the folding layers of architectural violence. Whereby the sequential events result in murder. Tschumi uses Rhythmic montage- ‘the continuity arising from the visual pattern within the shots’ (Eisenstein, 1925), to create visual patterns. This is apparent in the language of each notation, where each follows the same rules but display different material. The photographs above or below the axonometric is used in their own sequence, never to connect but always to support. These screen plays of Manhattan therefore criticize the architectural drawing similar to Kulper, by also raising the same notion of a drawing incorporating different architectural information in one sequence. This being in an opposing ‘orderly’ layout appropriated from film stills, to portray Eisenstein’s manipulation of architectural space. Tschumi’s architecture is the double of Eisenstein’s cinema.

Fig 15. Twelve hundred coal sacks filled with paper (1938)

Fig 16. ‘La Rue Surrealiste’ (1938)

This theft of method is commonplace in art and particularly the surrealism movement of the 1930’s. The double act of Duchamp and Bataille interrogate architectural space in their 1938 exhibition the ‘Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme’. This aimed to heighten formalised desires by challenging how a space is used. They used Eisenstein’ tonal montage-the editing decisions. Followed by over tonal, ‘to evoke the desired effect from the audience’ (Eisenstein, 1925). This critique set out to cause the madness of experiencing surrealistic spaces which strengthened the pleasure of being outside the norm. The performative space of its ‘Unconsummated Act’ used sensory pleasure of smell, dance and atmosphere by having a live dancer, and the smell of coffee to symbolise exoticism moving around a grotto (Tschumi,1995:74). Duchamp and Bataille are hence the double of Eisenstein’s performance as well as Tschumi’s space. The last montage of the intellectual - highly charged and emotionalized sequence. (Eisenstein, 1925), is shown in architectures critical venue. The Architectural Association in London is the oldest independent school of architecture and has been the prestigious critical venue for architectural debate. Nonetheless the tenure of Alvin Boyarsky as its head during 1971-1990, saw the birth of critical architects in his various studio’s; such as Hadid, Koolhaas and in particular Tschumi. This duo witnessed the establishment of the ‘architectural salon’ where the AA become the venue for pedagogical debate. In Igor Marjanovic’s essay ‘Alvin Boyarsky’s Delicatessen’, 2007 it describes the AA as the global exchange. The removal of the subsidised tuition fees for British students, welcomed international students to pay the high fees (Marjanovic, 2007:193). This in consequence was seen as an opportunity to establish a permeable location for students to use the space as the social critical battlefield. This venue would discuss the various concerns of architecture during that period. Studio spaces were to be removed and replaced with surreal-esque exhibition spaces where notations, discussions and socialising took place to form the architectural party. The ‘salon’ thus creates a revolutionary manifesto for the organisation of architecture school. The historic studio was to be evicted and replaced by event; the architecture school became the critical tool. Thus, cinema and surrealism become the double of architecture’s salon.

Fig 17. Metric Montage (1925)

Fig 18. Rhythmic Montage (1925)

Fig 19. Tonal Montage (1925)

Fig 20. Overtonal Montage (1925)

Fig 21. Intellectual Montage (1925)

Fig 22 . Le Corbusier Composium debate at the AA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;salonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; showing Boyarsky (1971)

The Paradox of the Dematerialised Experience

Once analysing linguistics and the double of architecture, it is convincing that its nature is a spatial experience in conjunction with a deconstructed concept. The atmospheric desire in a perspective drawing and surrealistic space charged with Tschumi-Cook’s theoretical intention of the violent attack, advances architecture as a dematerialized experience. This occurs in Tschumi’s concept the architectural paradox (Tschumi,1995:11). Which looks at the ‘pyramid’ as the symbol of the dematerialised concept and the labyrinth as the experience of space. In consequence forming the dividing architectural paradox. Tschumi defines the solution to the dualism crisis, as the shift in the nature of the paradox debate. By blending ‘rule and pleasure’ (Tschumi, 1996:51). Wherefore the labyrinth is renamed as the architectural rule (the creation of space). The ‘pyramid’ is then suitably retitled pleasure, following Sant’Elia’s imagined ‘formalised desires’. Thus, the critique of the paradox is the architectural project. This causes the shift in debate to remove itself from the labyrinth and pyramid and rechristened the disjunctive architectural rule of pleasure. The critical architectural project challenges architecture’s cosa mentale with built form. Similar to the linguistic double by challenging what is represented. The architectural project uses its linguistical sequence to banish the generic but adopts its topic as the double to execute it in a dispute. Cedric Price arrives in the architectural theatre as Tschumi’s critical comrade. Tschumi looked towards Price as the inspiration of escape from the nauseating French scene of the 1960’s. This formed a strong disjunctive bond between the two when Tschumi finally left for London. As the duo are yet so distinctive but arguably the motivation for one another. Cook describes their relationship as the ‘motivation and combination of spirit and analytical clarity’ (Cook, 2014:27). Price’s analysis is in the form of the aforementioned unbuilt Fun Palace during 1959-61. The project looks to challenge the doing of architecture similar to Cook, with his hybrid mutating projects, Price looks towards a kinetic structure that challenges static architecture.

Much like Boyarsky, Price looked to critique the institution of architecture. The everchanging Fun Palace was to be the park of entertainment ‘for everyman’ as Tim Anstey describes in his essay ‘Architectural action’, (2007). The project aimed to provide an adapting structure, which changed dependent on what the users desired as its function. This therefore critiqued the authorship of the project whereby the user was in control, much like the Crystal Palace. Tschumi describes Crystal Palace as ‘the neutral shed of nineteenth-century’s Great exhibitions, which accommodated […] displays of elephants draped in rare colonial silks to international boxing matches.’ (Tschumi, 1996:127). The Fun Palace is therefore the twentieth century equivalent. As the building and its audience become the author succeeding the architect as the cornerstone end in a building’s life. This is displayed in Price’s extensive analysis of the decision-making structure for the Fun Palace, as the flow chart diagram Prices office prepared describes how ‘different fields of institutional authority intersects decision-making for remote theatres of activity and influence’ (Anstey, 2007:221). These theatres of activity are the legislative, institutional and contractual connections involved in the design team of the Fun Palace. Comparable to Boyarsky’s salon’s, each decision is part of a political jurisdiction that can complement or conflict each other in disjunction. Therefore, Price is highlighting the authorship of the project as an intricate pyramid system, where the architect is the middleman for an architectural proposal.

Fig 23. Elephant performance, Crystal Palace (1851)

Fig 24. Crystal Palace multi functions (1851)

Price expresses to critique this structure of the projects by instead exchanging authorship in favour of the collective users, and against the building’s material owner. This allows the project to become a dematerialised experience, as the users cosa mentale is the limit for the structure’s capability. Price acts as the architectural agent in favour of the user over the financial counterpart. The idea of the architect as an agent is studied in Spatial agency: Other ways of doing architecture, (2011). Where spatial agency is defined as ’ the figure of the architect as individual hero, and replaces it with a much more collaborative approach in which agents act with, and on behalf of, others. (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:26). Price was also a sizeable advocate of spatial agency, long before the term was coined and looked to use his architecture as the critical tool to redesignate its authorship. This is clear in his critique of the ‘Non-plan’ which opposed the UK’s decision to preserve and list buildings. Price described this as the ‘overbearing and outdated planning regulations that called for control to be handed back to its citizens in order to allow a self-organised processes’ (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:189). This highlights Prices concept that architecture should never be caged, as it would be restricted to following one function. It was therefore under the citizens control to decide if a building is relevant anymore. Prices disposal of the authority’s structure in the Fun Palace is echoed in Brian Holmes ‘European Norms of World Production (2003). The similar flow chart depicts the structure of a larger European scale. The diagram also looks at the organisation of power structures of the European commission (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:76). Thus, analysing the production of architecture and how it is becoming privatised in the labyrinth of the material bureaucratic EU. Therefore, this shows that Price and later Holmes realised the cause-and-effect of the authorship of an architectural project. The clear evidence in the flow charts highlight the need for the critical hybrid architectural project. Ultimately architecture seeks the experience of concepts and the politics of decision making over the materialised. Much like Boyarsky, Price pursues a platform for architecture similar to that of the commons described by the philosophy of David Harvey. The commons are portrayed as the ‘utilization of common property resources’ (Harvey,2012:68). The Fun Palace becomes an active common, where users define its function. This raises the question ‘where are the commons for architects themselves if it is user defined?’ Do such platforms exist beyond the institutional counterpart of the salon in the AA. And the pedagogical rethinking of architecture?

Fig 25. Authorship network diagram (1959-61) Fig 26. European norms of world production (2003)

Nevertheless, these architectural commons have existed throughout twentieth century in the form of antagonistic groups of architects who create an alliance to criticizes architecture and its nature. Archigram formed at the AA in 1961 looked to question the politics of architecture and its futurism that member Cook shared. The consumerist city published in ZOOM! Amazing Archigram looked at the genericised use of modern technology, as the vehicle to question the concerning growth of reduction in natural resources. Technology was the contradictory topic as its savoir. This detachment of politics from architecture was later criticized by Archizoom as inevitable reality, as the architecture is the commons of the dematerialized experience for a user. In additional publications, Architektur magazine highlighted the political inevitability by stating ‘architecture is always in a political field and that is exactly the realm where we want it to be’ (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:40). Architecture is hence political but never the politician. It is a common’s where information is welcomed, manipulated and criticized, certainly not dictated. Decisively, the dematerialised experience is critiqued by the amalgamation of architectural linguistics and its dual nature. Where this is the siblings of the arts and users are a part of the commons. The paradox then has shifted in debate further from the dematerialised pyramid and the labyrinth of pleasure. As described by Tschumi that ‘architecture in the past gave linguistic metaphors to society. It may now provide the culture model.’ (Tschumi,1995:29). This allows the use of the architectural language of notational sequences to become the model for society. The attitude change towards the perception of space is the recognised compliment of the critical attitude. The architectural agent becomes the critical director, amongst its plethora of cinematic architectural salons.

Fig 27. Zoom! Amazing Archigram (1964) Fig 28. Archizoom No-Stop City critique (1966)

3.0 Antagonistic Autonomy

The Correlative Disjunction of Parc de la Villette

Fig 29. ‘Do I do this competition for the win or the history?’- Tschumi (1982)

The 1982 competition for the Parc de la Villette was a defining point in Tschumi’s architectural career, as it allowed the transition from the unbuilt concepts of his theoretical writing and projects to an actualised winning proposal. In 1982 the French government organised the international architectural competition in search of a chief architect to oversee the structuring of the Parisian park. The brief was set as the ‘Urban Park for the Twenty-first Century’ (Tschumi, 2014:15). The futuristic connotations of the park mean that it was to be built to be adaptable and interchangeable. Much like the past discussed projects of The Fun Palace by Price and Way-Out by Cook. The park was to be multifunctional but also critical of the contemporary park. This critical approach was described by Tschumi as ‘architecture against its-self: a dis-integration’ (Tschumi,1996:198). The parks tectonics became an assault on to western twentieth century park. The twenty-first park could therefore not follow the classical rules established for a park. Instead anticipated in the hypothesis of the ‘urban shock’. This concept derives from Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935). Where Benjamin describes the shock factor as ‘an image that stands out: moreover, it was also characteristic of our contemporary condition and dangers of life in the modern metropolis.’ (Benjamin, 1935). The urban shock was therefore the individuality of the architectural project used as a tool to combat the genericism of mass of information in contemporary society. This theory of a disinterested society was implemented by Tschumi’s theory of the Geborgenheit – ‘the state of having a sense of security and well-being’: (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:288). Tschumi believed that the city

of twentieth century was in a state of comfort and had to be instead prompted by the shock of his schematic approach to the urban park. Tschumi used his premeditated topic of violence as the critique and ‘urban shock’, while the park was the platform for the attack described by Cook. Tschumi looked to challenge the idea of the artificial park, that replaced the enclosed ‘hortus gardens’ of the contemporary park which were emblematic landscapes for the urban dweller. These artificial parks are described by the la Villette contributor and architectural historian Anthony Vidler in his essay Trick/Track (1986). Vidler describes the twentieth-century parks of Paris designed by gardener Alphand as ‘the artificial imitation of every aspect of nature, including the prefabrication of wooden fences in concrete’ (Vidler, 1986:80). These artificial parks overtook the once medieval parks and instead replicated what was already there with prefabrication. Creating villas for the urban inhabitant, which removed the city even further from nature and unjustly replicated them. In response to this unauthentic experience of the modern park, Tschumi aimed to remove the whole idea of a functioning park. This concept rejected synthesis much like the Fun Palace. As the traditional order of a park was completely deconstructed. The park aimed to ‘making an event out of urban shock, intensifying and accelerating urban experience through clash and disjunction’ (Tschumi, 1996:248). The park would in consequence become the agent for the user as it was functionless and adapted dependent on users’ needs and interpretations of the site. Tschumi adopts the folly‘an ornamental building with no practical purpose’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:268) as his architectural weapon for the un-functioning multifunctional structure. Tschumi replaces the folly with the more appropriate French ‘la folie’ which is associated with hidden structures but translates into English as madness (Tschumi,1996:265). La folie therefore becomes the psychoanalytical structure similar to non-compos mentis, as it is outside of the mindset of an ordinary park to become the critical weapon. Tschumi used the concept of points, lines and surfaces to create the folding layers of the park. Obligating the park of many functions to not follow the normal mode of architectural layout and thinking. This concept is described by Tschumi as ‘dancing in the first court, fighting in the second, skating in the third’ (Tschumi, 1996:168). Wherefore the function of the park is an active experiment and game of chance. Where event takes place and is not forced place.

“A way a lone a last a loved along the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.” James Joyce,1939:8-127

Fig 30 . Joyce’s Garden project (1977)

Tschumi’s points are established by the grid created by the ordinance survey of the site and where the vertical and horizontal intersect. This formed natural politics on the placement of each 10m x 10m x 10m folie. The hybrid site therefore could not be dictated by the architect, as an agent and would in response create neutral anchoring points for event. The grid system can be derived from Tschumi’s earlier project Joyces Garden (1977). In which Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (1939) is used as the program to establish an infinite vague grid system in Covent Garden as the deciding factor for students’ proposals. This aimed to provide a site for students existing concepts, to highlight that program does not follow location. This is shown in the opening and closing

duplicate sentence in Finnegan’s Wake ‘A way a lone a last a loved along the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. (Joyce,1939:8-127). This rhetorical quote emphasises the never-ending cycle of functions in both the hybrid la Villette and the multi project Joyce’s gardens. This notion of anchoring is echoed in Quilting Jakarta by Stephen Cairns (2007). As the concept of quilting is described as ‘The quilting point is where ‘floating signifiers’ are anchored, enabling them to function as master signifiers around which wider systems of meaning might be generated’ (Cairns,2017:215). Hence the quilt of the anchoring points does not exist because of the parameters on the site. The points are screenplays of event, each point is an actor sparking fortuitous cinematography rather than planned function. The parks ‘lines’ are outlined in Tschumi’s folding layer of the cinematic promenade. Much like the quilt the lines form intersecting paths in a curving circuit which spark encounters and filmic happenings. The lines are the connection between each anchor point and create ‘the linearity of sequences, orders, events, movements and spaces in a progression that either combines or parallels divergent concerns’ (Tschumi, 2014:131). The lines characteristically follow the analogy of a film strip, where the chief architect acts as the film director who oversees the potential of event but does not plan it. Ultimately creating the correlative disjunction of the potential to create corresponding or deterring events in a ‘cinematic promenade’. The promenade- ‘to walk slowly along a street or path, usually where you can be seen by many people, for relaxation and pleasure’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:268) is described by Tschumi as a cinema experience where the users become the actors moving along the linear sequence. This idea of audience experiencing and being involved in the sequence is shown in Tom Gunning’s Cinema of Attractions (1990), whereby Eisenstein antagonises the fairground by adapting the montage of attractions. This is described in a ride on a switchback where’ by mounting a camera not on a roller coaster […] but on a railway engine’ (Gunning, 1990: 56-62). This recreated the movement and experience of excitement with the use of the vernacular movement of trains turning and climbing up and down tracks, with the manipulation of the montage. Reiterating the Trick/Track essay. Vidler depicts la Villette as the un-sinister backgammon board and Tschumi the agent gamekeeper of ‘surface’. Vidler describes that the park ‘was now entirely open to chance, deprived of the security of articulated moves and their known consequences’ (Vidler,1986: 78). The game of chance was now in the control of the games pieces themselves, taken from the overshadowing design team and allowing for dynamic forces to take the reins of control. The result being an overlapping of points, lines and surfaces as an Eisenstein montage. Where the architectural director gives control to the acting users. The never-ending Joyce string to the closing curtain is pulled on the la Villette show, thus the correlative disjunction takes action.

Fig 31 . Parc de la Villette components diagram (1984)

Fig 32 . The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cinematic promenade film stripâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (1984)

Maintenant Non-Compos Mentis

Fig 33 . Exploded cross-programming folly (1984)

Tschumiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s topic of madness in architecture as aforementioned throughout this dissertation in the form of non-compos mentis provides the antithesis for critical architecture. This idea of madness is explained in the deconstructivist influence of Maurice Blanchot in Madness par excellence (1951) as the deconstruction of critical theory is imagined. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Madness would then be a word in perpetual discordance with itself and interrogative throughout, so it would question its own possibility, of the language that would contain in; thus it would question itself, since the latter also belongs to the game of languageâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; (Blanchot, 1951:174).This quote was adapted by Tschumi in his idea of madness and the combinative, as the driving concept behind architecture as a critical

tool. Blanchot’s notion of madness describes the idea of thinking outside the ‘cosa mentale’ of what is being critiqued, by challenging it with the present. This mind state is shown in the deconstructivism instigator Jaques Derrida in his essay on la Villette titled point de folie- maintenant l’architecture (1986). Derrida as a philosopher was an active influence on Tschumi as well as playing a vigorous role in the formation of la Villette. Derrida’s idea of ‘non common sense’ describes the idea of deconstructing a project and its maintenant components by being critical of each factor to provide an enhanced outcome. The definition of maintenant- ‘maintaining, keeping in position, supporting, upholding; from se maintenir the hand that holds (Derrida,2014:125) translates in English as ‘now’. This describes the idea of being in the present, allowing architecture to act upon the event of the future and not of its definitive end. Derrida describes this idea of maintenant architecture as ‘a strategy of events […] it anticipates the architecture to come. It runs the risk and gives us the chance.’ (Derrida, 2014:124). This architecture of chance describes the strategy of the architect’s visualisation, which is then left in the critical amphitheatre to mutate with the future. Thus, portraying an architecture deconstructed by its conceptual non-compos mentis. This then becomes maintenant in the event of becoming physical, therefore forming the maintenant non-compos mentis. To analyse the maintenant non-compos mentis, it is necessary to investigate the state of the twentieth century and its transference in to the twenty first. By using Benjamin’s urban shock factor, it is clear that contemporary society is trapped in capitalistic ideals of information awaiting madness to upset the status quo. In Tschumi’s lecture De-, Dis, Ex- (1987) Tschumi describes the abolition of boundaries in modern society. The historical city is described to have always had a city wall and gates (Tschumi, 1996:215). Nevertheless, the vague contemporary is questioned by Tschumi’s definition of the contemporary gate to the city. ‘Are the new gates those electronic warning systems installed in airports, screening passengers for weapons?’ (Tschumi, 1996:215). This raises the question that are the only urban boundaries airports? Consequently, is technology surpassing the historic identity of a city, where the openness of maintenant society allows for its own critique. This is evident in fellow deconstructivist and architectural antagonist Rem Koolhaas, in his essay The Generic City (1995). Koolhaas describes the contemporary need for the removal of identity where cities become ‘global cities’. The lack of boundaries allows for the removal of identity to be replaced with the maintenant. The once historic cities have become deregulated as described by Tschumi ‘this deregulation is reinforced by the fact that much of the city does not belong to the realm of the visible anymore’ (Tschumi,1996:216). The deregulated city is thus the city symbolised by the airport and its invisible boundaries. Which capture its visitors in a mixing bowl of a lacking identity. Koolhaas describes the airport as ‘emblematic sign imprinted on the global collective unconscious in savage manipulations’ (Koolhaas, 1995:1251).

This derives the current urban shock as the capitalistic advertising and consuming of a city’s goods. The airport becomes the entrance to the city, while still being in limbo of an unestablished boundary of duty free. It is the contemporary shock which wakes the visitor. The cities once need for a dominant centre of importance has now been removed. The airports outdates the centre with capitalism, while the centre remains lost selling its historic representation. Society becomes a much more complex module, as it no longer is established by the bounds of function and form it instead looks towards establishing a political autonomy of multipurpose architecture. Koolhaas’s narrative of ‘eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, on the 9th floor of the downtown athletics club’(Koolhaas,1995:322). Wholly describes the autonomy of architecture. The building remains kinetic and evolves dependant on the complexity of society. The urban shock factor of the airport duty free runs parallel or in disjunction with societies need to make events happen. Can architectural autonomy provide this necessity for functioning complexity?

Fig 34. eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, on the 9th floor of the downtown athletics club’ (1995)

Antagonistically both Tschumi and Koolhaas look towards an autonomous society where the centre’s cosa mentale is given to the periphery. The periphery- ‘the outside boundary of an area that is most important’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:507) a secondary point of importance would become the whole, there is no centre to a city. Tschumi describes this autonomous periphery as the decentring of society. The entrance to the age of deregulation takes jurisdiction outside of society in endless autonomy (Tschumi,1996:225). This in relation to the multi functioning la Villette, as borders are removed the subject in the debate has changed and much more importantly the autonomy has changed. Tschumi describes that ‘de-, dis, ex-. These are the prefixes of today. Not post, neo-, or pre- ‘(Tschumi,1996:225). These negative conations of contemporary prefixes therefore mirror non-compos, where the periphery is the latest salon for critique. The idea of autonomy- ‘self-governing freedom of action’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:41) arrives in the critical debate similar to agency and authorship. But looks beyond the discussed authorship and control of a project to the act and taking place of architectural event. Autonomy is hence the critique of the dematerialised experience, as discussed previously where the adaptation of the generic city is adopted to compete against itself. Tschumi describes this as tactical judo which is to ‘use the force of one’s opponent in order to defeat it and transform it into something else’ (Tschumi,1995:229). This takes form in the concept of non-compos mentis. The generic city is the maintenant which has been manipulated to critique its own disfunction. In the essay Passing Through Deconstruction by Andrew Benjamin (2007). The ideas of deconstructivism as stated previously become the tactical judo. Autonomy translates the theory of deconstructing a project but takes form as the result of deconstruction. Tschumi consequently antagonises his own doctrine much in the spirit of his critical techniques. Autonomy is discussed by Benjamin as ‘locating architecture’s potential both for development and criticality […] architecture cannot be evaluated merely in terms of its symbolic value; evaluation has to do with its own internal operation and therefore in terms of its own self-conception’ (Benjamin,2007:41). This is the idea that deconstruction allows for the language and theory of architecture, but then morphs into autonomy as a political venue where form and function is discussed. It also plays the role of main actor where its pure existence is a critique of its necessary existence. Noncompos mentis conclusively is the mind state of the mutating building for the maintenant city.It is the critical commons of debate as well as the architectural event. Architecture is therefore always political even after its construction. Much like Koolhaas’s biblical film depiction of the generic city, the outdated unusable architecture self-implodes ‘we can leave the theatre now…’ (Koolhaas,1995:1264).

Fig 35. Airport scanner dance sequence (2011)

4.0: Maintenant Madness

The Infinite Curtain Call

Architecture is not in a post- critical state, as Tschumi describes that its prefix is instead the ‘dis’-junctive and the opposition to what is discussed and not the subsequent result. Architecture becomes an event in the maintenant- ‘now’, where its self-governance acts as its own maintainer. Autonomy is therefore the event platform for critical architecture. Autonomy is the maintaining tool that allows architecture to mutate but also allow for self-critique. Autonomy then is the double of deconstruction, as one cannot exist without the other but run in disjunction with one another. Autonomous deconstruction is described by Tschumi as ‘no longer linked in a coherent whole, independent from their past, these autonomous fragments can be recombined through a series or permutations whose rule have nothing to do with those of classicism or modernism’ (Tschumi,1996:180). This is subsequently not an ‘architectural style’ like Tschumi’s opposed ‘post-modernism’, but instead a language of fragments and folding criticality. The nearly 4000 drawings of la Villette express this autonomy of language and the painstaking process of deconstructing the park. This established a self-critical venue. The architect as acting director and not maintainer, gives the authorship of the project to the building and its users much like the Fun Palace. The notations are never theoretical, but the critical tools of the maintenant reality. The theory is held in the development of the autonomous deconstruction. Architecture is not ‘post’ its predecessor but ‘non’ and anti the situation. Architecture is non-compos mentis of all present, past and future. It is the critical mind state of being conceived, actualised and existent. The maintenant is architectures autonomy and its ‘non’ is its criticality, where tactical judo is used to attack itself to stay adaptive and inkeeping with the social climate. Highlighting its ‘non’ state of mind where it thinks outside of its own periphery. Becoming the antagonist of contemporary society. Form cannot follow function when the debate lives within both. The architect directs the critical sequence, whereby its notations and montage techniques allow for the urban shock of the architectural event. This forms the autonomous deconstruction. Whereby the authorship is given to the periphery (user), to allow for the maintenant event to take place. This becomes the infinite architectural curtain call.

Throughout architectural history, architecture has always been critical. This being either of its drawings (language) or its tectonics and symbolism. The contemporary of this criticality is authorship, the architect does not construct and leave the side of the stage. Instead hands the baton to the user and more importantly to the building. The architect still plays an active role throughout its existence but is not the maintainer. Architecture self maintains by overcoming boundaries. In a society filled with mass information, the madness of the building become the excitement of the urban shock necessary to keep a building alive. The non-compos mentis mind state is the stimulating unpredictability of the future of a building. A building must overcome boundaries but not create them. This non commons sense is explained in the fitting translation of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in Anti-Oedipus two volumes capitalism and schizophrenia (1972). â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Between an empty space with an empty landscape and a still life strictly speaking, there are certainly many similarities. But ... an empty space is worth above all by the absence of a content the compositions of objects that wrap themselves or become their own contentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (Deleuze,1972:80). Architecture is not the establishment of boundaries i.e. four walls and parameterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, but instead the deconstruction of problem solving. Conclusively the curtain can never be called as long as infinite madness exists. Thomas White, Canterbury 2020

Fig 36. Ropes & Rules (1976-77)

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Epilogue

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ntrol ng co nal i v a h not ditio state- of its tra enda d n i n ag tis m side s men inking out creating a re. This o p m hus, cultu e th n-co n s a no 64) Wher riticised. T ming non- he moder t s e f i 4 t n : o c 1 a c c 1 e e u e r m 0 r t h b sively ctionary, 2 e use of t ulture by manufactu ems const n’s u l c n Di h th to ec t co ndo syst rojec d (Oxford ity throug s and trad l identity sible ctions. Lo rsion i v n i l The p s n e a a i a nd th usine critic conve trans e’s m dition of on s informs western b ndon’s tra rrelevant a rengthen ting for its i t o st it od meth que curren left of L es become ries that ters, perm a s i i i e r t d to cri tes what al bounda non-boun site param i a r c e i e t o t d a a d f era ar. M ate to cre nrestricte l u c a es u vern ft in deb ecom ar’. hi b s t c e i r l h t t ss dis er Vernacu e n i s bu yb the ‘C in to

Glossary

Agency ‘The figure of the architect as individual hero, and replaces it with a much more collaborative approach in which agents act with, and on behalf of, others. (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:26). Antagonist ‘A person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:25). Attack ‘Looking like something’ (Cook, 2014:22) Authorship The project as an intricate pyramid system, where the architect is the middleman for an architectural proposal Airport ‘Emblematic sign imprinted on the global collective unconscious in savage manipulations’ (Koolhaas, 1995:1251), Autonomy ‘Self-governing freedom of action’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:41) Cinematic ‘ The cinema, motion pictures collectively, as an art.’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011,114). Collage ‘A critical tool of the 20th century architect’ (Cook, 2014:23) Commons ‘Utilization of common property resources’ (Harvey,2012:68) Cosa mentale Mental mind state (Tschumi, 1995:13) Critical a. ‘Having a decisive or crucial importance in the success, failure, or existence of something, involving the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:158) Critical b. ‘Relating to or denoting a point of transition from one state to another: a selfsustaining chain reaction’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:158). Deconstructivism Critique of postmodernism It is not an architectural style, but instead a critique of ones thinking and statement of architecture outside of the already established norm of that period (Hardingham,2011:60) Disjunction ’ The act of disjoining or condition of being disjoined; separation, disunion’ (Tschumi, 1994:99) Dualism ‘The state of being dual or consisting of two parts; division into two’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:211)

Fireworks ‘The erotic forces contained in your movement […] architecture must be conceived erected and burned in vain’ (Tschumi,1996: 262) Folding Uses various mediums of the digital, hand drawn and analytical to harvest architectural information in its overlapping folds of a singular drawing (Cook, 2014:22) Folly An ornamental building with no practical purpose’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:268) Intellectual Highly charged and emotionalized sequence.’ (Eisenstein, 1925) Geborgenheit ‘ The state of having a sense of security and well-being’: (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:288) Labyrinth the experience of space La folie Associated with hidden structures but translates into English as madness (Tschumi,1996:265) Lines ‘The linearity of sequences orders events, movements and spaces in a progression that either combines or parallels divergent concerns’ (Tschumi, 2014:131). Madness ‘ a word in perpetual discordance with itself and interrogative throughout, so it would question its own possibility, of the language that would contain in; thus it would question itself, since the latter also belongs to the game of language‘ (Blanchot, 1951:174) maintenant ‘maintaining, keeping in position, supporting, upholding; from se maintenir the hand that holds (Derrida,2014:125) Metric Uses the depth of the shots in relation to each other (Eisenstein, 1925) Montage ‘the technique of combining in a single composition pictorial element from various sources, as parts of different photographs or fragments of printing, either to give the illusion that the elements belonged together ‘(Oxford Dictionary, 2011: 446). Mutating Architecture overcoming constraints Non-compos mentis Not having control of one’s mind (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:464). Non-plan Overbearing and outdated planning regulations that called for control to be handed back to its citizens in order to allow a self-organised processes’ (Awan,Shneider,Till, 2011:189)

Periphery ‘The outside boundary of an area that is most important’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2011:507) Points- grid created by the ordinance survey of the site and where the vertical and horizontal intersect, to form natural politics on the placement of each 10m x 10m x 10m folie. Projective architecture Used as the disguise of the critical ‘whereby a younger generation of critics who need to murder their fathers’ (Heynen,2007:52) Pyramid The symbol of the dematerialised concept Quilting ‘Floating signifiers’ are anchored, enabling them to function as master signifiers around which wider systems of meaning might be generated’ (Cairns,2017:215) Rhythmic ‘Continuity arising from the visual pattern within the shots’ (Eisenstein, 1925) Salon Studio spaces were to be removed and replaced with surreal-esque exhibition spaces where notations discussions and socialising took place to form the architectural party Surface ‘ Now entirely open to chance, deprived of the security of articulated moves and their know consequences’ (Vidler,1986: 78) The Generic City The contemporary need for the removal of identity where cities become ‘global cities’ as the lack of boundaries allow for the removal of identity. Tactical judo The ‘use the force of one’s opponent in order to defeat it and transform it into something else’ (Tschumi,1995:229). Tonal The editing decisions followed by over tonal, which evokes ‘the desired effect from the audience’ (Eisenstein, 1925). Urban shock ‘An image to stands out: moreover, it was also characteristic of our contemporary condition and dangers of life in the modern metropolis.’ (Benjamin, 1935). Violence This violent nature of architecture is the building- user relationship where the act of the user entering a building is seen as an attack on architecture, as it disturbs the orderly rule of architecture as an individual.

Bibliography

• Awan, N., Schneider, T. and Till, J. (eds.) (2011) Spatial Agency, Other ways of doing architecture. London: Routledge. • Esra Akcan: Reading “The Generic City”: Retroactive Manifestos for Global Cities of the Twenty-First Century (2008) • Cambridge Dictionary (2011) Cambridge Essential English Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge publishing. • Cook,P (2014) Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. • Dorrian,M,Fraser,M,Hill, J & Rendell,J. (2007) Critical Architecture. London: Routledge. • Hardingham, S, Rattenbury, K (2011) Bernard Tschumi - Parc de la Villette (Super Crit). London: Routledge. • Harvey, D. (2012) Rebel Cities. London: Verso • Koolhaas, R (1994) Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New York: Monacelli Press. • Koolhaas, R (2001) Mutations. Barcelona: ActarD inc • Koolhaas, Rem; Mau, Bruce: Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large / Office for Metropolitan Architecture. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995 • Lahiji,N (2014) Architecture Against the Post- Political: Essays in Reclaiming the Critical Project. Oxon: Routledge. • Oxford Dictionaries (2012) Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Tschumi, B (1994) Architecture and Disjunction. (5th ed.) Cambridge,MA:MIT Press 1996. • Tschumi,B (2012) Bernard Tschumi: Architectural concepts: Red is not a colour. New York:Rizzoli International Publications. • Tschumi, B (1995) Bernard Tschumi: Questions of space (architectural Association). London: Bernard Tschumi and the Architectural Association. • Tschumi,B (1994) The Manhattan Transcripts. New York,NY:St Martin’s Press. • Tschumi,B (2014) Notations: Diagrams & Sequences. London: Atrifice Books. • Tschumi, B., Derrida, J., Vidler, A (2014) Tschumi Parc De La Villette. London: Artifice Books

Webography

• https://www.archdaily.com/773283/the-long-ish-read-louis-sullivan-discusses-thetall-office-artistically-considered?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=navigation-prev • https://atributosurbanos.es/en/terms/generic-city/ • https://www.citylab.com/design/2011/12/case-generic-architecture/771/ • https://kennethtlin.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/reading-response-generic-city-byrem-koolhaas/https://www.google.com/ • https://www.spatialagency.net/ • re-building-assembly-line-cities-and-buildings-a-803798-2.html • http://www.tschumi.com/ • https://theputnamprogram.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/the-generic-city-a-precis/

List of illustrations

• Figure 1. Perround, Sandirne (2018)Mediocre tools lead to mediocre thinking [Photograph; Bernard Tschumi] At: https://actu.epfl.ch/news/mediocre-tools-lead-to-mediocre-thinking/ (accessed: 27/11/19) • Figure 2. Taylor-Foster, James (2015) The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered [Photograph] At: https://www.archdaily.com/773283/the-long-ish-read-louis-sullivan-discusses-the-tall-office-artistically-considered?ad_medium=widget&ad_ name=navigation-prev (accessed: 29.11.19) • Figure 3. Tschumi, Bernard (1980) ‘ Form follows fiction [image] At: https://www. moma.org/collection/works/38 (accessed: 02.12.19) • Figure 4. Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci (1481) [drawing] At: https:// uk.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2015/april/14/how-leonardo-da-vinci-usedscience-to-elevate-art/ (accessed on 21.09.19) • Figure 5. Santo Spirto by Filippo Brunelleschi (1428)[drawing] At: https://medium. com/emergent-code/on-the-art-of-developing-new-perspectives-194f007afe40 (accessed on 21.09.19) • Figure 6. Setting for tragedy by Sebastiano Serlio (15450 [drawing] http://italian-renaissance-theatre.weebly.com/italian-renaissance-scenic-design.html (accessed on 21.09.19) • Figure 7. Antonio Sant’Elia persepective drawing tool (1909) [drawing] https://www. architectural-review.com/essays/antonio-santelia-one-of-the-least-understood-pioneers-of-the-modern-movement/10006655.article(accessed on 21.09.19) • Figure 8 Cedric Price Fun Palace: perspective from cockpit (1959-61) [collage]. In: Cook,P Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. • Figure 9. Way Out West-Berlin : Layout of the District (1988) [drawing]. In: Cook,P Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. • Figure 10. Way Out West-Berlin : Layout of the District (1988) [drawing]. In: Cook,P Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. • Figure 11-12. Competion design for Central California History Museum (2010)[collage]. In: Cook,P Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. • Figure 13. Manhattan event and action (1996) [diagram]. In: Tschumi, B Architecture and Disjunction. (5th ed.) Cambridge,MA:MIT Press. • Figure 14. Filmic Montage (1996) [diagram]. In: Tschumi, B Architecture and Disjunction. (5th ed.) Cambridge,MA:MIT Press. • Figure 15. Idealab (1938) Twelve hundred coal sacks filled with paper [photograph] At: https://westernidea.wordpress.com/tag/surrealism/ (accessed 05.12.19) • Figure 16. Idealab (1938) La Rue Surrealiste [photograph] At: https://westernidea. wordpress.com/tag/surrealism/ (accessed 05.12.19) • Figure 17-21. Eisenstein, Sergei (1925) Metric Montage,Rhythmic Montage, Tonal Montage, Overtonal Montage & Intellectual Montage [ film still] At: https://www. jukolart.us/film-editing-2/sergei-eisenstein-the-theory-of-montage.html (accessed 03.12.19)

• Figure 22. Sunwoo, Irene (1971) Le Corbusier Composium debate at AA ‘salon’ showing Boyarsky [ photograph] At: http://www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5518in-progress-the-iid-summer-sessions (accessed 20.12.19) • Figure 23. Reed, Lawrence (1851) elephant performance, Cyrstal Palace [painting] At: http://www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5518-in-progress-the-iid-summersessions (accessed 20.12.19) • Figure 24. Reed, Lawrence (1851) crystal Palace multi functions [painting] At: http:// www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5518-in-progress-the-iid-summer-sessions (accessed 20.12.19) • Figure 25. Authorship network diagram (1959-51) [diagram]. In: Dorrian,M,Fraser,M,Hill, J & Rendell,J. (2007) Critical Architecture. London: Routledge. • Figure 26. European norms of the world production (2003) [diagram]. In: Awan, N., Schneider, T. and Till, J. (eds.) (2011) Spatial Agency, Other ways of doing architecture. London: Routledge. • Figure 27. Architecture without architecture (1964) Zoom! Amazing Archigram [comic] At: http://architecturewithoutarchitecture.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-amazingarchigram-4-zoom-issue-1964.html (accessed 22.12.19) • Figure 28. Mellissa, Ly (1966) Archizoom No-Stop City critique [photograph] At: https://medium.com/@Ly_Melissa_2926535/a-fun-palace-full-of-activities-defined-by-pieces-of-architecture-1af7fea26361 (accessed 22.12.19) • Figure 29. Do I do this competition for the win or the history? (1982) [notation] In: Tschumi,B (2014) Notations: Diagrams & Sequences.London: Atifice Books. • Figure 30. Tschumi Architects (1977) Joyce’s garden project [ brief]. At http://www. tschumi.com/projects/49/ (accessed 22.12.19) • Figure 31. Parc de la Villette components diagram (1984) [drawing] In: Tschumi, B., Derrida, J., Vidler, A (2014) Tschumi Parc De La Villette. London: Artifice Books. • Figure 32. The cinematic promenade film strip (1984) [drawing] In: Tschumi, B., Derrida, J., Vidler, A (2014) Tschumi Parc De La Villette. London: Artifice Books. • Figure 33. Exploded cross-programming folly [drawing] In: Tschumi, B., Derrida, J., Vidler, A (2014) Tschumi Parc De La Villette. London: Artifice Books. • Figure 34. eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, on the 9th floor of the downtown athletics club’(1995) [image]. In: Koolhaas, R (1994) Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New York: Monacelli Press. • Figure 35. McGinnis, Chris (2011) Airport scanner dance sequence [photograph] At: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20110808-radiation-free-full-body-scanners (accessed 22.12.19) • Figure 36. Tschumi Architects (1976-7) Ropes & Rules [poster] At: http://www.tschumi.com/projects/19/# (accessed 23.12.19)

M.ARCH ARB/RIBA Part 2 Dissertation

Thomas White twhite1@students.ucreative.ac.uk thomaswhite104@outlook.com Master of Architecture ARB/RIBA Part 2 Dissertation 2019/20 University for the Creative Arts Canterbury School of Architecture New Dover Road Canterbury Kent CT1 3AN United Kingdom cantarch.org uca.ac.uk