K.

MI CHAE L HAYS
ARCHI TECTURE S
DESI RE
READI NG THE LATE AVANT- GARDE
Writing Architecture series
A R A L O G 23
Mobilized explicitly against the scientism not only of modernist functionalism
but also of the remaining positivist design methodologies and operations
research of the 1960s, which sought to arrive at optimal architectural organi-
zations mathematically and avoid the slippery problems of architectural repre-
sentation and translation, Meaning in Architecture (1969), edited by Charles
Jencks and George Baird, proposed a preliminary semiotics of architecture
elaborating the basic structuralist insight that buildings are not simply physical
supports but artifacts with meaningsigns dispersed across some larger social
text.
1
1he repercussions ol this and similar structuralizations ol
architecture as critiques ol lunctionalist and positivist dogmas
would prove enormous. extending over the next decade ol archi-
tecture theory. and the essays in V-ao.o .o 4.|.-.o- are lut
early examples ol what would quickly lecome a widespread search
lor a system ol architectural meaning.
But il the structuralist projection into architecture was perhaps
inevitalle (structuralism is designed to manage all cultural sys-
tems ol signihcation) and in certain ways already latent in earlier
models ol architectural interpretation (those ol Emil Kaulmann.
John 8ummerson. or Budoll \ittkower. lor example). the most
pertinent and lruitlul level ol homology letween architecture
and language still had to le decided. In other words. what was to
le the scale ol architecture`s structure Is an individual work or
group ol works like a language. or is architecture as a whole struc-
tured like a language 1he hrst view has alhnities with traditional
ANALOGY
24
treatments ol luildings as organic units whose origins and in-
tentions ol lormation must le elucidated. whereas the second
view. which the editors ol V-ao.o .o 4.|.-.o- adopt and which
would lecome the disciplinary norm. shilts the interpretive vo-
cation considerally. Ro longer is the interpreter`s task to say
o|a the individual work means (any more than it is the linguist`s
task to render the meanings ol individual sentences). rather. it is
to show |eo the codes and conventions ol architecture enalle
oljects to produce meaning. Questions are raised alout users`
and readers` expectations. alout how a structure ol rules enters
into and directs the design ol a work. alout how any architectural
"utterance` is a shared one. having leen spoken already and
therelore shot through with qualities and valuesquestions. in
short. alout architecture`s pullic. ideological lile. Horeover. the
goal or limit condition ol the theoretical project. in this view. is
to analyze not just luildings or projects lut the whole ol the system
ol architectural signihcation.
George Baird`s essay lrom that volume. "la u.m-os.eo 4meo-os-
in Architecture.` lollows Boland Barthes`s early semiotics to
reveal some lasic issues alout the structure ol architectural
signihcation. First. il architecture as a whole is like a language
(a specihcally encoded grammar. or |aoo-). then the individual
work is a particular instantiation or ellect ol that generalized lan-
guage (analogous to a speech act. or ae|-)the architect cannot
simply assign or take away meaning. and that meaning cannot le
axiomatic.
3
According to this semiotics. architecture is a readalle
text. and the protocols and parameters ol its legilility are what
we mean ly |-e... Bhetoric operates within the structure ol
shared expectations and demands a social. dialogical. even erotic
relationship with the readerBaird`s "amorous dimension.` But
rhetoric is not simply a suljective expression. Its procedures are
inseparalle lrom processes ol argument and justihcation with
respect to the social lunction ol making architectural sense.
A R A L O G 25
1he most productive dimension ol Baird`s essay (though he
does not take lull advantage ol it) is his setting ol Claude Perrault`s
concepts ol positive and arlitrary leauty into active equivalence
with the |aoo- / ae|- system. For what is achieved in the complex
lractionpositive leauty is to arlitrary leauty as |aoo- is to
ae|-should not le understood as a simple simile ol architec-
ture as language. nor should it le understood in terms ol the more
complex assertion that the individual work ol architecture must
le perceived dillerentially against the network ol the architec-
tural system as a whole. For Perrault`s positive leauty is applied
not just to ao architecture (the classical language. say. or some
other specihc style) lut to a|| ol architectureto Architecture.
1he implication ol the complex lraction is that any individual
work ol architecture. in all its contingency. locality. and arli-
trariness. can le dissolved lack into a specihcally architectural
lut universal structured systema symlolic orderol which it is
a partial instantiation.
1here is one more important corollary ol this machinery.
1hough Baird does not mention it. his semiotic lraction is capalle
ol generating out ol its linaries a third term. which might articu-
late the reciprocal exchanges letween the discursive network ol
architecture as a whole and the individual instances ol that system
a kind ol synthetic operator letween the symlolic system and the
specihc architectural signiher. 1he reemergent notion ol archi-
tectural typology attempts to do just that.
4
1he logic ol types asserts
that the various elements ol architecture are not in themselves
lull ol meaning. they are not items that have sulstantial content.
Bather. they are relational lorms. elements in a structured system
on the same order and ol the same relative scale as phonemes in
language (or what Claude Levi- 8trauss. in his study ol myth.
called "mythemes`).
5
4.|.-.-m-s. as we might call them. make
up the lasic mechanism ol architectural thought. the distinctive.
recurring comlinations ol such elemental units are types. and
26
the logic ol their organization is typology. Few terms lrom the
architecture theory ol the late .p6cs and early .pcs carry the
same power as that ol typology. and the reason. I suggest. lies in
type`s mediating position in architecture`s imagination and
symlolization.
A passage lrom Adorno`s .p6 refection on lunctionalism
and architecture will help explain the work ol imagination.
4.|.-.o- .oo.-s. |eo .ao a .-a.o oes- !-.em-
sa.-. |eo| o|..| ems. o|..| ma-.a|s` 4|| a.es
-|a- -..e.a||, e eo- aoe|-. 4.|.-.eo.. .ma.-
oa.eo .s. a..e1.o e |.s .eo.-.eo e .. |- a!.|.,
e a..o|a- sa.- oes-o||,. l -m.s oes-s e
!-.em- sa.-. l .eoso.s ems a..e1.o e oes-s.
6eo.-s-|,. sa.- ao1 |- s-os- e sa.- .ao !-.em- me-
|ao .me.-.s|-1 oes- eo|, o|-o .ma.oa.eo .m-
-oa-s |-m o.| oes-o|o-ss. Imagination lreaks
out ol the immanent connections ol purpose. to which
it owes its very existence.
6
Architectural imagination (.o!.|1oos|a. the work ol making
images and schemata) exceeds any empirical demand made on
architecture with a lorm and an allective lorce leyond reason or
end. lorm or lunction. Consider an example. Let us give the name
|a.- to the architectural allect ol purpose- lecoming- lorm. that
is. to a hypothetically originary architectural condition. (At its
most primitive level architecture has always leen seen as a mi-
mesis and an analogue ol natural conditions. the accident ol a
tree lranch lalling across two trunks is turned into an entire
system ol support and measure. the continuation ol a ridge line
lecomes a wall marking the territory ol a group. the clearing ol
a held lecomes a city.) Architecture. or the vocation ol architec-
ture`s imagination. then. is lundamentally the making ol a place.
A R A L O G 27
where place is understood to have certain lormal. dimensional
propertiesa space marked oll as distinctas well as a specihc
set ol uses or purposes attached to it (hence. lor example. a place
ol gathering. a place ol worship. a commemorative place. a restlul
place. kaom-o||). \hen conlronted with a particular situation
a site. program. materials. and the likearchitecture`s imagina-
tion enlolds all ol its conditions into lormal quanta. intensities.
or architectemes and produces an analogue ol the originary. pur-
poselul. place- making condition ol architecture.
In order lor the purposelul qualities ol this analogue to le put
into relation. in order lor the qualities to achieve expression. an
autonomous system ol organization is requiredone that has
internal consistency as well as external ellect. 1ypology is one
such system. Inderstood in this way. a typological analysis ol
architecture demands a rigorous attention to lorm as well as to
the symlolic identihcation that extends outward lrom structure
into externality and alterity in a prolilerating chain ol metonymic
associations. 1his is where typology legins to trace the contours
ol architecture`s desire. For typology`s ellort to grasp analytically
the preanalytic and indeterminate conditions ol architecture`s
possilility (which is to say. its Other). or. put dillerently. to give
lorm to that which lrings architecture into leing. is analogous to
the desire to assimilate the desire ol the Other to onesell. "Che
vuoi` (\hat do you want ol me). architecture asks ol its Other.
lolding inward to question its own identity. incorporating its own
distance lrom itsell.
7
Iesire is the ellort to maintain architecture
as a sulject together with that other world which is its surround
and its origin and lrom which it remains lorever apart.
1ypology designates the paradoxical point at which architecture.
whose inauguration is instrumentally directed. appears as a
spontaneous. almost natural lorce (a residue ol that originary
union ol lorm and purpose). which is not limited to any particular
historical context since its exemplarity is lound across places and
28
times. 1he assertion ol the centrality ol type is. then. an assertion
ol the reality ol architectural appearance itsell (and not merely
some lunctional cause lehind it)ol the .ma- ol architecture
(the work ol type is image- ination) as its symlolic identihcation
as architecture. Balael Honeo lorcelully generalized the impor-
tance ol typology and its mediatory potential in a structured held.
"1o understand the question ol type is to understand the nature ol
the architectural olject today. It is a question that cannot le
avoided. 1he architectural olject can no longer le considered as
a single. isolated event lecause it is lounded ly the world that
surrounds it as well as ly its history. It extends lile to other oljects
ly virtue ol its specihc architectural condition. therely estallish-
ing a chain ol related events in which it is possille to hnd common
lormal structures.`
8
Honeo and other commentators ol the period rightly place
the work ol Aldo Bossi at the center ol this structuralization ol
architecture. 8tructuralist infuences. especially ol Levi- 8trauss.
saturate Bossi`s .p66 !|- 4.|.-.o- e |- 6.,. the elemental
purity and lormal logic ol his workits power as appearance.
image. even illusionare its most immediately apparent qualities.
Bossi himsell wrote that "the points specihed ly Ferdinand de
8aussure lor the development ol linguistics can le translated
into a program lor the development ol urlan science.`
9
\hat has
not leen sulhciently understood is how Bossi`s writings. drawings.
and projects depart lrom and translorm lasic structuralist insights.
relracting them through his intellectual lormation in Harx and
Freud. reorganizing them through his readings ol Lukacs and
Adorno. and lolding that mixture through his idiosyncratic poet-
ics. rendering his work considerally more complex than standard
structuralist- semiotic accounts can allord.
For one thing. those accounts assumed a conceptual distinc-
tion letween the alhrmative construction ol meaning on the one
hand and a grimly instrumentalist lunctionalism on the other. a
A R A L O G 29
lunctionalism that. il not altogether meaningless. was uncom-
municative and downright unsocialle. Bossi`s more dialectical
understanding ol architecture`s system. however. allowed the
recognition that new architectural events. experiences. and
meanings are constituted not only in the realhrmation ol preex-
isting cultural codes lut also ly the specihc ways that codes can
le negatedspontaneously. ly the ongoing ellects ol reihcation.
programmatically. ly changing perlormative and perceptual
conventions and possililities. or ly design. through the ideo-
logical practice ol the architect. Lis recognition ol the multiple
modes ol negativity together with his inquiry into architecture`s
Imaginary and 8ymlolic orders makes Bossi a loundational hgure
lor a theorization ol the late avant- garde.
:
Equally important is Bossi`s specihc conceptualization ol
architecture`s structure. According to the standard account. ar-
chitectural structure pertains essentially to the organization ol
architectural signihers among themselves. An architectural type.
then. as I have said. is a kind ol mediator imposed letween a
sulstratum ol codes. categories. customs. and conventions and
the actual instance ol design practice. a mediator through whose
operation an architectural lorm comes into leing as a structured
material entity. \hile this account in all its dillerent lorms tends
to presuppose some kind ol social and historical reality leyond
the typological operator. which serves as the type`s most distant
relerent (not to say as a lase lor its superstructure). Bossi makes
the more particular claim that the social and the historical are
always already within the structure itsell. that structure is loth
lorm and matter. that human history produces structure. and
structure yields the social. In !|- 4.|.-.o- e |- 6.,. he stages
this as a kind ol diachronic and synchronic unihcation.
lo |.s !ee| o- |a.- ma1- os- e |- |.se..a| m-|e1
em oe 1.--o e.os e ..-o. lo |- s. |- .., oas
30
A R A L O G 31
2.1
Aldo Rossi and Gianni Braghieri, Cemetery of
San Cataldo, Modena, 1971, plan. The Museum
of Modern Art, New York. The analogy with death
is possible only when dealing with the finished
object, with the end of all things.
32
s--o as a ma-.a| a.a.. a mao- ma1- e!-. !o.| e.-
.m- ao1 -a.o.o |- a.-s e .m-. . . . 6..-s !-.em-
|.se..a| -rs. . . . !|- s-.eo1 e.o e ..-o s--s |.se,
as |- so1, e |- a.oa| ema.eo ao1 so.o- e
o!ao a.a.s. l .s .em|-m-oa, e |- s ao1
1.-.|, .eo.-os oe eo|, |- -a| so.o- e |- .., !o
a|se |- .1-a |a |- .., .s a s,o|-s.s e a s-.-s e
.a|o-s. !|os . .eo.-os |- .e||-...- .ma.oa.eo. . . .
!|- .1-a e |.se, as |- so.o- e o!ao a.a.s .s
am-1 !, |- .eo.oo..-s |a -r.s .o |- 1---s
|a,-s e o!ao so.o-. o|-- .-a.o oo1am-oa|
.|aa.-.s..s |a a- .emmeo e |- -o.- o!ao
1,oam.. .ao !- s--o.
21
1he architecture ol the city is the crucille ol the social Imagi-
nary. a highly dillerentiated condition that operates on dillerent
planes or levels ol realityamong them is the structured plane ol
its own system ol signihcation (what others call its deep structure.
|aoo-. or generative grammar). which gives architecture its au-
tonomy. a plane ol historical. material manilestations in physical
lorm (something like an archive ol all past architectural events).
and a plane activated with a kind ol organizing lorce or potential.
an architecture- galvanic surlace ("\e can utilize the relerence
points ol the existing city. placing them on a vast. illuminated
surlace. and therely let architecture participate. little ly little. in
the creation ol new events`)
22
that keeps the whole thing in mo-
tion. But there are others too. At dillerent places in !|- 4.|.-.o-
e |- 6., Bossi isolates these various planesin sections entitled
"Honuments and the 1heory ol Permanences.` "1he Iynamic ol
Irlan Elements.` "Processes ol 1ranslormation.` "Irlan Ecology
and Psychology.` "1he Collective Hemory.` "1he City as Field ol
Application ol \arious Forces`. there are more. 1ypology here
lecomes not just a third term so much as a molile mechanism ol
A R A L O G 33
production and analysis that can move through all ol these levels.
And the ideal sum ol all the planes. or laminatesthat unthink-
alle confationis what Bossi calls the "City.` which I capitalize
here to signal its singular. almost mythical. status. For the City is
architecture`s lig Otherthe order ol the architectural- social
8ymlolic itsell operating lehind the typological Imaginary.
23
A city. ol course. is a sociomaterial olject that we can experience
and study directly. the most concrete ol realities that architecture
deals with. But lor Bossi the City is an invisille and alsent alstrac-
tion. an autonomous and presuppositional structure. a network
ol pure virtuality that nevertheless produces not only lorm lut
also moods. atmospheres. and allections. In his S..-o.. 4oe!.-
ea|,. Bossi relers to the City as the very possilility ol joining
images. "a circle` ol relationships "that is never closed.` "the
unlimited .eoam.oa.eo ol things. ol correspondences`. the City
is a desiring production ol correspondences and connections
whose quarry is anamorphosis and shadow.
24
1he City is the olject
ol architecture`s desire prior to any predication. which neverthe-
less enalles and constrains every possille architectural creation
and can le known through its architectural ellects. \hile the City
cannot le deduced lrom any single example ol architecture. and
every possille analogue ol the City is necessarily partial and olten
contradictory. there is nevertheless no architecture that is not
determined and legitimated ly the City. which is the very struc-
ture ol architecture`s tradition. For Bossi the City is something
very like an architectural unconsciousthe Other as loth em-
lodiment ol the social sulstance and the site ol the unconscious.
In this regard it is interesting to recall Lacan`s lamous quip. "1he
lest image to sum up the unconscious is Baltimore in the early
morning.`
25
But with this it is important to add that Bossi. like
Lacan. insists that this unconscious is precisely not suljective.
not something with any individual psychic makeup. Bather. the
34
architectural unconscious is outside and collective. in the domain
and material ol signihcation itsell.
\e can learn more alout the concept ol the City ly isolating
two related lut dillerent kinds ol time operating in Bossi`s pecu-
liar theory ol typology. two dillerent temporal logics. First is the
analysis ol variance in what might le called the phenomenon ol
typological repetition and persistence. Lerein lies the importance
ol Bossi`s notion ol "permanences.` which tries to account lor
the persistence ol certain spatial patterns in the urlan lalric as
material "signs ol the past` as well as the persistence ol a city`s
lasic plan over vast periods ol time and changes in use. even
when monuments or sectors ol a city are destroyed just to le
reluilt exactly as they were. 1he examples in !|- 4.|.-.o- e
|- 6., are many. lut Bossi dwells particularly on the large and
complex Palazzo della Bagione in Padua and how it has success-
lully accommodated and encouraged dillerent lunctions since
the hlteenth century. Another case is the Boman amphitheater
at Rimes. which was translormed hrst into a lortress and then a
small city ol two thousand. with lour gates and two churches inside
its original walls. Both are examples ol "propelling permanences.`
catalytic elements ol the city whose powerlul lorms remain stalle
lut whose lunctional varialility contrilute to the evolving process
ol urlanization and the production ol new architectural expe-
riences. 1here may also le "pathological permanences`the
Alhamlra in Granada is Bossi`s examplethat lunction only as
isolated. unalteralle olstructions in the city. restricting rather
than propelling programmatic dillerentiation.
26
1he correlate ol typological persistence is another kind ol
chronicity that may le called the anteriority ol typology. a logic ol
prelusion and process. ol coming lelore. \ith this terminology
I mean to capture the sense ol mimetic lolding and relolding ol
preexisting lorms in Bossi`s olten- cited lut exceedingly elliptical
A R A L O G 35
illustration ol the "analogous city.` which descriles the originary
site ol architecture`s symlolization.
!e .||osa- |.s .eo.- l a.- |- -ram|- e 6aoa|-e`s
aoas, ..-o e l-o..-. a capriccio .o o|..| la||a1.e`s
e-.s e |- leo- 1. k.a|e. |- 8as.|..a e l..-o:a.
ao1 |- la|a::e 6|.-..a. a- s- o-r e -a.| e|- ao1
1-s..!-1 as . |- a.o- o-- -o1-.o ao o!ao s.-o-
|- |a1 a.oa||, e!s-.-1. !|-s- |-- la||a1.ao meoo-
m-os. oeo- e o|..| a- a.oa||, .o l-o..- (eo- .s a
e-.. |- e|- oe a- .o l..-o:a. o-.-|-|-ss .eos.-
o- ao analogous l-o..- em-1 e s-... -|-m-os as-
se..a-1 o.| |- |.se, e !e| a.|.-.o- ao1 |- ..,.
!|- -ea|..a| aoses..eo e |- meoom-os o.|.o
|- a.o.o .eos.o-s a .., |a o- -.eo.:-. -.-o
|eo| . .s a |a.- e o-|, a.|.-.oa| ---o.-s. !|.s
-ram|- -oa!|-1 m- e 1-meosa- |eo a |e..a|- ema|
e-a.eo .eo|1 !- aos|a-1 .oe a 1-s.o m-|e1 ao1
|-o .oe a |,e|-s.s e a |-e, e a.|.-.oa| 1-s.o
.o o|..| |- -|-m-os o-- --sa!|.s|-1 ao1 ema||,
1-o-1. !o o|-- |- s.o..ao.- |a soo e| a
|- -o1 e |- e-a.eo oas |- ao|-o... ooe-s--o.
ao1 e..oa| m-ao.o e |- oe|.
27
1here is an epistemological claim made in this lormulation
insolar as the analogue is at once a means ol analysis. a method ol
design. and a necessary prior condition lor practice. Indeed. as
a means ol knowing. Bossi`s concept ol analogy has a remarkalle
closeness to Levi- 8trauss`s -os-- sao.a-. For Levi- 8trauss`s
complex and multimodal mind also responds to its situation
on many levels simultaneously and "luilds mental structures
which lacilitate an understanding ol the world in as much as
they resemlle it. In this sense savage thought can le dehned as
36
2.2
Aldo Rossi, La scuola di Fagnano Olona.
Altre relazioni, 1979, sketch.
Courtesy Fondazione Aldo Rossi.
A R A L O G 37
analogical thought.`
28
Analogical thought sorts the world into
a series ol structured oppositions and then proposes that each
set ol oppositions is analogically related to other sets insolar as
their dillerences resemlle one another. In Bossi`s project lor the
Hodena cemetery (.p.). lor example. the dillerence letween
the individual toml and the cemetery as a whole is the same as the
dillerence letween a house and a city. whereas the conic commu-
nal grave and the culic die that is the sanctuary lor the war dead
are similarly analogous to the monuments and permanences ol
a city. homologies letween systems ol dillerence. isomorphic
diagrams.
29
Iimensions are ol no importance in analogical
thought since the order ol the City is cognitively emledded in
all architectural types ol any scale. Bossi speaks ol Iiocletian`s
Palace at 8plit. Croatia. as an example. "8plit discovered in its
own typological lorm an entire city. and thus the luilding came to
reler analogically to the lorm ol a city. 1his example is evidence
that a single luilding can le designed ly analogy to the city.`
2:

Exactly the same analogy is present in Bossi`s own designs. such
as the elementary school at Fagnano Olona (.p..p6)itsell a
small city with hallway- streets. piazza. pullic rotunda. and mon-
umental stepsand even his drawings ol "domestic landscapes.`
which organize cigarette packs. tea pots. and lurniture like urlan
lragments.
31
In this epistemological claim. the anteriority ol typology is
entirely consistent with the structuralist attempt to work out a
theory ol models constructed on the analogy with language. and
with the presupposition that all thought must le conducted
through and within the limits ol an oljective held in which
every element occupies a preordained place. In a sense. the
anteriority ol types is a lundamentally Kantian conception (as
is much ol structuralism`s underpinning). For il architecture
is structured like conceptual- oljective thought itsell and is an
activity whose content is determinately social and socially use-
38
lul. it is precisely lecause architectural types mimic conceptual
processes and social content at the level ol lorm. Or. to put it in
an even more Kantian way. the logic ol types is autonomous in
the sense that it provides the lorm lor conceptual thought and
social experience rather than leing determined ly them. 1ypes
"lacilitate an understanding ol the world in as much as they re-
semlle it` (Levi- 8trauss). It is through this kind ol thinking that
we can understand. lor example. Bossi`s lascination with Adoll
Loos`s aphorism. "Il we hnd a mound six leet long and three leet
wide in the lorest. lormed into a pyramid. shaped ly a shovel. we
lecome serious and something in us says. 'someone lies luried
here.` 1hat is architecture.`
32
1he particular architectural image
ol the moundthe analogueproduces the allect ol reverence.
Bossi concludes. "1he mound six leet long and three leet wide is
an extremely intense and pure architecture precisely lecause it is
identihalle in the artilact. It is only in the history ol architecture
that a separation letween the original element and its various
lorms occurred. From this separation. which the ancient world
seemingly resolved lorever. derives the universally acknowl-
edged character ol permanence ol those hrst lorms.`
33
But il there is an elective alhnity letween the language ol type
and the social world. there is also an opacity. an unlridgealle gap
revealed in type`s analogical work. 1hink ol the dillerent same-
ness ol the cule in Bossi`s Cuneo. Hodena. and 1eatro del Hondo
projects. or the repetitive walls ol Hodena`s ossuaries. the same
type as the wall ol apartments in the Gallaratese. 1hink ol the way
these hgures open to a singularity and a dillerence that cannot le
sulsumed within the rule ol representation. Bossi recounts an
exchange letween Freud and Carl Jung. in which the later explains
that "'logical` thought is what is expressed in words directed to
the outside world in the lorm ol discourse. 'Analogical` thought
is sensed yet unreal. imagined yet silent. it is not a discourse lut
rather a mediation on theses ol the past. an interior monologue.
A R A L O G 39
Logical thought is 'thinking in words.` Analogical thought is ar-
chaic. unexpressed. and practically inexpressille in words.`
34
A
type. logical and analogical at the same time. perpetually excludes
what it seeks to possess. which is its own identity as conlerred ly
the City. !|a .s .s 1-s.-. 1his alone explains why Bossi`s work. in
all its dismaying aesthetic impoverishment. compels commenta-
tors to declare that it produces memories. Bossi himsell insists
as much in his elaloration on the alove quotation. "I lelieve I
have lound in this dehnition [ol analogy] a dillerent sense ol his-
tory conceived not simply as lact lut rather as a series ol things.
ol allective oljects to le used ly the memory or in design.`
35
1he
radical lack at the heart ol desire is scanned as "memory` ly the
mind halituated to language.
Bossi`s concept ol analogy also makes an ontological claim.
architecture can come only lrom architecture. A type is cataphoric
and anaphoric. pointing lackward and lorward at the same time.
But typology`s schematization cannot gather up all that is the City.
the system ol types may claim to le the epistemological inlra-
structure lut not the ontological ground ol architecture. \hat is
anterior to all typology. then. is simply the dialectical lact that
architecture constitutes itsell in relation to what is not architec-
ture. For its autonomy. in other words. architecture requires
something heteronomous. According to Bossi. that something is
the social itsell. Ol course. all ol architecture emerges lrom a
historical and social context. lut Bossi`s lormulation is more
particular. Consider !|- 4.|.-.o- e |- 6.,`s concluding para-
graph. in which the City`s order is given a liographical- liological
characterization as an apparatus that regulates identihcations
and relations with other suljects and oljects and then remains
as a record. "Perhaps the laws ol the city are exactly like those that
regulate the lile and destiny ol individual men. Every liography
has its own interest. even though it is circumscriled ly lirth and
death. Certainly the architecture ol the city. the human thing par
40
excellence. is the physical sign ol this liography. leyond the
meanings and leelings with which we recognize it.`
36
Bossi makes
a similar point elsewhere. "Architecture is the most important ol
the arts and sciences. lecause its cycle is natural like the cycle ol
man. lut it is what -ma.os ol man.`
37
1he City contains social relations within its structure. lut
unconsciously. so to speak (the unconscious is the "discourse
ol the Other`). while at the same time positing an ideal regula-
tory set ol relationships that exceeds any origin. And typological
practice takes as its privileged olject just the social. economic.
and psychological lorms that organize urlan lile at all ol its
levels and against which individual architectural proposals take
place and lecome comprehensille. 1he type is thus a doulled
thing. 1he City is a palimpsest ol the marks lelt ly the events ol
human history. a "liographical` diagram. 1he City`s lacts. layers
ol the palimpsest. are cognitive lorms revealed in artilacts. con-
stituting what Bossi calls the "individualita del latto urlano`
the singularity ol the urlan evently which he signals not just a
physical thing and its lormal logic lut also any city`s existential
lile. 1hus typology is. hrst. a record. a trace. a presentation ol
those marks ol events that allows them to le most lully experienced
and comprehended. rendering thinkalle situations otherwise
given only in allective terms. And the City can le thought ol as
the medium or matrix in which particular types are suspended
and vehiculated. 8econd. it is the instrumentthe "apparatus.`
Bossi calls itthat analyzes and operates on this medium and
material ol any city`s history.
So.| ao aom-o -soes-s |a |- a.|.-.oa|
a.a. .s .eo.-..-1 as a so.o- ao1 |a |.s so.o-
.s -.-a|-1 ao1 .ao !- -.eo.:-1 .o |- a.a. .s-|. 4s
a .eosao. |.s .o..|-. o|..| o- .ao .a|| |- ,..a|
-|-m-o. e s.m|, |- ,-. .s e !- eoo1 .o a|| a.|.-.-
A R A L O G 41
oa| a.a.s. l .s a|se |-o a .o|oa| -|-m-o ao1 as
so.| .ao !- .o.-s.a-1 .o 1.--o a.|.-.oa| a.a.s.
,e|e, !-.em-s .o |.s oa, |- aoa|,..a| mem-o e
a.|.-.o-. ao1 . !-.em-s -a1.|, .1-o.a!|- a |-
|-.-| e o!ao a.a.s.
38
Il we now take the epistemological and ontological claims
together. we can lurther understand typology as nothing less
than a study ol superstructures. understood as involving mental
processes as well as cultural products. And il we ask again alout
the operations ly which such ideational and cultural materials
might le linked up with sociomaterial reality. then an architec-
tural type reveals itsell as an intermediary olject letween thought
and reality. "a structure that is revealed and made knowledgealle
through the lact itsell.`
39
As immanent analysis ol City. the logic
ol types is dedicated to a lull engagement with reality`s tones.
textures. and rhythms. as much as its lormal elements and syntaxes.
As representational apparatus. an architectural type transmits
the contours and movements ol an otherwise remote and inex-
pressille historical reality and presents them lor analysis. Formal
rigor is maintained and extended into the social and lack again.
or letter. architectural lorm exists as cognitive olject and pro-
cess in a social constellation. But it is important to insist here
that. dillerent lrom sulstantive theories ol meaning or structure.
Bossi`s type requires a certain kind ol circular and negative
thinking. a type does not symlolize. nor does it convey a positive
"meaning.` Bather. a type a-as as s,m!e|.:-1. which is to say
that it appears as an analogy and a presentation ol a determining
8ymlolic order that is itsell unrepresentalle and lorever out
ol reach.
"Only a lorm closed and concluded [.|.osa - .eo.|.osa]. |`e-a
1-o.a. is the concrete measure ol the dimension that surrounds
it.`
3:
Bossi claims. Le is most likely responding in the passage to
42
Imlerto Eco`s 0-a a-a (.p6.) and its metaphorical use in
urlan design. lut he might as well have leen thinking ol Adorno.
who elalorates a similar point in his lamous .p essay "On Lyric
Poetry and 8ociety.` in which he admonishes that interpretation
"may not locus directly on the so- called social perspective or the
social interests ol the works or their authors. Instead. it must
discover how the entirety ol a society. conceived as an internally
contradictory unity. is manilested in the work ol art. . . . Rothing
that is not in works ol art or aesthetic theory themselves. not part
ol their own lorm. can legitimate a determination [os.|-.1oo]
ol what their sulstance. that which has entered into their poetry.
represents in social terms.`
41
For Bossi. it seems that what was
an external line ol impingement letween superstructural and
ideational phenomena such as architecture and the material
sulstance ol the lase lecomes in the City an internal distinction.
perhaps like Adorno`s microanalysis. lor the City carries within
itsell loth superstructure and inlrastructure. loth culture and
history. loth process and raw material. In his loundational study
ol Bossi. Honeo put this succinctly in terms ol the autonomy ol
architecture in the city. "1hrough the idea ol autonomy. neces-
sary to the understanding ol the lorm ol the city. architecture
lecomes a category ol reality.`
42
Our discussion ol the anteriority ol type as a temporal logic
now turns lack on and complicates the corollary phenomenon
ol typological persistence. For the enalling. organizing. archi-
tecturally identilying lorce ol the City is anterior to and deter-
minate ol all architecturethe necessary condition and prelude
to all practiceand the oljects and events produced out ol the
City`s conditions ol possilility trace the latent or repressed reality
ol this 8ymlolic order. reoriginating its lorms in new situations
wrested lree lrom the City`s necessity. But the oljects and events.
the types. thus produced then return their lorms (cognitive struc-
tures that mimic the social) to the City`s matrix and persist in
A R A L O G 43
surroundings utterly alien to themanalogues ol a single. unhn-
ished architectural narrative. a great collective story whose end.
lor Bossi. is as impossille to achieve as its process is necessary
to perlorm. hence his relentless repetition and sulstitution ol
types. "Row it seems to me that everything has already leen seen.
when I design I repeat. and in the olservation ol things there is
also the olservation ol memory. I design my projects with a dis-
crete sense ol allection lor each one lut I reduce them to things
that surround me. country houses. smoke stacks. monuments
and oljects. as il everything arose lrom and was lounded in time.
in this leginnings and endings are conlounded.`
43
Critics ol Bossi have olten detected in his ceaseless repetitions
ol images a nostalgia lor a lost ideal order or perhaps even a mourn-
ing lor that loss.
44
\hat is more. the dehning characteristics ol his
projectsextreme amliguities ol scale. juxtapositions ol incom-
mensuralle oljects seemingly lorced ly the architect into some
silent. secret dialogue. the sense ol separateness and hxity radi-
ated ly the elemental oljects in metaphysical cityscapes. lit ly a
light that seems to consume all sulstanceall these should le
read as results ol the radical unavailalility ol the City`s 8ymlolic
order to the individual types that desire to posses it. 1he types
persist. torn lrom themselves. lecause ol this lack. desire itsell
persists lecause ol this lack.
1he phenomenon ol persistence must therelore le read as an
amliguous or paradoxical logicnot just ol enduring alter a
leginning (a physical lorm leing newly occupied and experi-
enced leyond its original uselulness and contextual integrity)
lut also ol persisting alter an end. the survival ol lorm leyond
what should have leen its point ol exhaustion. 1hink ol the li-
lrary rotunda ol the elementary school at Fagnano Olona and
especially ol the llack- and- white photographs that are always its
privileged presentation. 1o lecome a lilrary. the rotunda must
negate its origins as laptistery or theater. But Bossi rejects these
44
2.3
Aldo Rossi, untitled, 1983, sketch.
Courtesy Fondazione Aldo Rossi.
The plans in the sketch are of the
school at Fagnano Olona and the
cemetery at Modena.
A R A L O G 45
handed- down meanings with a lormal reduction and negation so
radical that it appears not simply to translorm the rotunda type
lrom one use to another lut to elevate meaninglessness itsell in
place ol meaning. and alsence and lack in place ol presence.
Honeo comments on the resultant lormal- temporal conlusion ol
the school. "Io not the schoolchildren ol Fagnano Olona look
like the inhalitants ol a world not their own 1he children inhalit
a time that already alludes more to what will lecome their own
past than to the present arrested ly the photograph.`
45
In Bossi`s highly refexive relation to the crisis ol meaning
announced ly Baird. Jencks. and others. meaning inheres in the
negation ol meaning and the negation ol meaning takes shape as
a lragmentation and evacuation ol lorm. leaving persistent images
that Bossi`s critics have lound haunted. silent. nonidentical. and
disturling. Hany have tried to assuage this atmospheric untime-
liness with relerences to the oneiric realism ol Ie Chirico and
the o-o- Sa.||..||-.. Others have pointed out that. rather than
merely picking out lormal similarities that existed antecedently.
Bossi`s constructions in lact create anew and sometimes even
conluse the very typological analogies on which they claim to de-
pend. Alan Colquhoun once remarked that Fagnano Olona was
not lased on anything in architecture`s lormal history lut had
rather constituted "a pure type that has not yet entered the history
ol which it is a model.`
46
And Anthony \idler invites us. somewhat
ominously. to consider another example. Bossi`s 1rieste City
Lall project. in light ol associated implications characteristic ol
its type. which is that ol a late- eighteenth- century prison. "1he
dialectic is clear as a lalle. the society that understands the reler-
ence to prison will still have need ol the reminder. while at the
very point the image hnally loses all meaning. the society will
either have lecome entirely prison. or. perhaps. its opposite.`
47

In every case. even in these lriel comments. there hovers over
the work a dreadlul sense ol an architecture out ol timeremain-
46
ing. lingering. living on alter its legitimacy and rightlulness have
passed. \ilhelm \orringer long ago associated alstraction with
"an immense spiritual dread ol space.`
48
Bossi`s work is hgural
on the other side ol alstraction and induces a dread that seems
to extend not only to space lut also to time.
Ro one has grasped the radical anachronicity ol Bossi`s work
letter than Peter Eisenman. In an essay entitled "1he Louse ol
the Iead as the City ol 8urvival.` Eisenman weaves a historicist-
psychoanalytic interpretation ol a suite ol drawings ly Bossi that
Eisenman relers to as 6.a 4oa|ea. Le hrst gives a concise
summation ol the analogue`s relation to history"In one sense.
the analogue uses history. that is. what is existing. to order what
will le new. At the same time it is ahistorical in that it cuts oll
the lormative stages ol the process. In its denial ol historical
generation it replicates the present condition ol history (without
its history)`and then anchors the historicity ol the ahistorical.
il you will. precisely in the historical moment ol the .pcs.
kess.`s a.eoa|.sm` .eoe.os |- es- :, .eo1..eo e
mao. 4o1 e .|aa.-.:- |.s .ma-s as o-e- .|ass..a|`
e a.eoa|.s` .o |- a1..eoa| s-os- .s e .oe- |.s
.eooo..eo. e |-. s-..a| a.eoa|.,. o|..| .eos.ss
.o |- .em!.oa.eo e |e..|- .eos..eoso.| |-
aoa|e..|- s|a1eo.s oe o-.-ssa.|, e !- eoo1 .o
|-. .eos..eos .ma-,. kess.`s .eos..eos .ma-s -r.s
eo|, as a |-, e |-. s|a1eo .ma-,. l .s |-. .o.o-
s... e-o oo.eos..eos .eo-o o|..| .eoeos |- me-
e!|-ma.. ao1 -|as oo1am-oa| -a|., e |- -r-
.os.. .o|oa| .eo1..eo e1a,.
49
In articulating the constitutive alsence (the shadow. the un-
conscious) ol the City. Eisenman is characteristically mining the
Legelian insight that each artwork is symlol and sole inhalitant
A R A L O G 47
ol a world that is nonetheless implied ly the very achieved sin-
gularity ol the artwork`s existence. Lence the alienation ol work
like Bossi`s. For the artwork is the dislocated. displaced. and
singular example ol a world that cannot otherwise lring itsell
into existence more completely and must remain largely alsent
and incomplete. Bossi maintains the world- constructing desire
ol the modern avant- garde. lut he is condemned ly |.s world
ly posthistoryto repeat the same analogically rather than to
lollow modernism`s lrequently twinned impulse ol utopian luture
countergesture. 1he new cannot appear as such in Bossi`s work.
it can appear only as an unrepresentalle negative totality. the
comprehension ol which must take the lorm ol Adorno`s micro-
logical analysis ol architectural lragments and ruins.
4:
Eisenman indeed comes very close also to Adorno`s post-
Lolocaust art thesisthat alter Auschwitz there can le no lelore
Auschwitz. Our encounter with art is on the ground ol a trauma
and an impasse so extreme that it leaves no space lor meaninglul
resolution. 1he conviction ol Eisenman`s writing. which dehes
paraphrase. warrants quoting at length.
!|- -.-os e :,. |- o|| .em-|-os.eo e |- m-ao.o
e |- ue|e.aos ao1 aem.. 1-so..eo. |a.- .|ao-1
|- !as-s eo o|..| |.- .ao !- |..-1. e mao a.-1 o.| a
.|e..- !-o--o .mm.o-o e -.-ooa| mass 1-a|. |-e-
.sm. o|-|- .o1...1oa| e .e||-...-. .s oo-oa!|-. eo|,
so...a| -ma.os ess.!|-. !|- e!|-m .s oeo e .|ees.o
!-o--o ao aoa.|eo.s.. .eo.ooao.- e |e- ao1 ao
a..-ao.- e |- !a- .eo1..eos e so...a|. 4o1 o|-o
|- |-e .ao !- eo|, a so...e. |-- .s oe .|e..-. !|-
.eo1..eo e mao o|..| em-|, .eoa.o-1 |.s a|--
oa..- |as -o1-1. ao1 |- .eo.ooeos oaa..-` e |-
e-ss e l-s-o ....|.:a.eo |as !--o !e|-o.
51
48
According to Eisenman. the end is already lehind us and archi-
tecture is always already surviving its own death. a testimony to
its own anachronicity. As a survivor. architecture is condemned
to alterlile and altermath. implying loth the post- hnitum as well
as the latal repetition compulsion (which we consider shortly).
Perhaps Eisenman`s concluding paragraph is not too hyperlolic.
Bossi`s "is an architecture which conlronts the reality ol the
present. Lis drawings oller 'nothing new` precisely lecause
anything new which can le ollered is. in the present condition.
nothing. 1hey simply ask. however anxiously. lor the existence
ol a choice letween lile as survival. and death.`
52
Lad Eisenman
known Adorno`s lamous lormulation ol the logic ol living on alter
the end. he surely would have appropriated it lor architecture.
"Philosophy. which once seemed olsolete. lives on lecause the
moment to realize it was missed.`
53
Eisenman`s reading ol Bossi`s analogous architecture lrings
us to the lrink where the architectural Imaginary is disrupted ly
an intrusion ol the Beal. For when architecture`s symlolic elh-
ciency is in doult. when the stalility ol its Other is undermined.
the Imaginary itsell starts to collapse. And yet at this lrink we are
also alle to ask the question. \hat then is architecture`s Beal
and to answer with one powerlul word. Listory. For the City.
architecture`s symlolic mandate. its necessity. is not some content
lut rather the inexoralle lorm ol human events. the outcome ol
a vast human process. 1he City is the architectural lorm taken ly
historical necessity. And while lorm grants architecture a certain
lreedom. Listory enlorces its reinscription in the lated repetition
ol the same. \hence come the numerous negations that every
critic ol Bossi has stumlled on. ruins. alandonments. destruc-
tions. dissolutions. an entire canon ol negativity. the importance
ol which will le. alove all. not a declaration ol architecture`s end
lut ol the kernel ol Listory installed at its core. 8o it is not the
case that the anteriority ol type is a leginning that has the endur-
A R A L O G 49
ance ol types as its end lut rather that loth have leen shilted
lrom states to processes that operate together as modes ol delay.
Architecture has no end lecause it is a permanent movement
through timea persistent dillerential. Architecture uses its dil-
lerence and its autonomy to manage the heteronomous historical
and social lorces that inhere in architecture as a social product
lut in a way that allows the repressed social lorms ol the material
to le known and experienced. Il such a process leads to necessary
lailure. then that is in no way the result ol technical inadequacy.
Bather. it comes lrom the structural impossilility ol succeeding
in the task thus laceda truth to the historical demands ol the
materiala task that must nevertheless le undertaken.