TRANSPARENCY ~ AUTONOMY & RELATIONALITY Detlef Mertins he binary distinction announced by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s well-known essay of 1963, "Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal’, has been deeply absorbed within ‘American architectural culture. It continues to be re- iterated and reformulated by teachers, critics and even historians grappling with the shift fiom orthodox mid-century modernism to post-modern and post- steuctutal problematics ~ grappling all the more for now recognizing that contemporary preoccupations have emerged out of, as much as in reaction to, mod- ‘emis in its vatious guises.” Without meaning to detract fiom the brilliance ‘of Rowe and Slutzky’s essay or to diminish the produe- tive role that their distinguishing between two ‘species’ of modernism has played in architecture, I would like to suggest that this setting-apart was more complex and unstable than ic is usually taken to have been. Elsewhere I have suggested that the literal transparency of machine aesthetics — as much American as German in its conception’ ~ is inadequate to the ideal of trans- parency promoted by Sigfried Giedion and Lészié Moholy-Nagy, for whiclt Rowe and Slutzky mobilized the term.’ As early as 1978, in a largely overlooked critique, Rosemary Haag Bletter observed that Rowe and Slutzky’s analysis was ‘too erratic to make workable categories’, and their ‘unorthodox’ inter- pretation of cubism and constructivism was sensible only in formal and not in historical terms? Just as Rowe and Shutzky believed that post-cubist trans- arenicy was not as simple as seeing clearly through lass, so too did Giedion and Moholy-Nagy. Their concept of transparency was likewise based on a phenomenology of spatial perception, albeit a four- dimensional one in which the boundaries between inside and outside, subject and object were dissolved for an observer assumed to be moving freely in space and time, In contrast, Rowe and Sluteky invoked a ‘two-dimensional phenomenology that fixed the ‘observer in a position on axis with the plane of the facade as if viewing a painting. And, while Rowe and Sluteky characterized Giedion as championing Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus at Dessau, in fact Giedion too took the experiments of cubism as the origin of a transparency whose ultimate exemplar in architecture 1. Competition projet for the Bibliotheque Nationale, Pars 19 by Rem Koolhaas and OMA. Pho: of model: Hans Werlemann 2, Ldseld Moboly Nagy, Photog Courtesy Gerge Bastman Flows.soy Literal ecta $ ip), ! Robert Robert ultancous an Grist 19) showing arson of showing ‘rion of [Meyer's band de Monsie was Le Corbusier's Purism.“ Dividing the avant-garde inco two opposing camps and favouring one over the other, Rowe and Slutzky staked their distine tive claim to the legacy of cubism, the architecrne of Le Corbusier and the phenomenology of space while dismissing the parallel claims of their opponents and reducing the ambition oftheirenterptise wo wan thing they characterized as simple and ‘literal’, considered today, however, Rowe and Slatzky’s claim should be recognized as based (Perhaps unconsciously) on assumptions and sopoi of the lace nineteenth century whose retecetion acthe end of the twentieth may be of limited strategic value, Reviewing the formal characteristics thae under: pinned the categories of literal and phenomenal tans parency, one cannot help but be stiuck by their correspondence to those deployed by Heintich Walt Jin in forging a distinction beoween lineat and paine- tly styles, so important for his theory of historical change in art. Wolffiin had inaugurated this influ- ential polatity in Renaissance and Baroque of 1888 and later systematized it in his Principles of Art History of 1915." While Walfilin’s binary had recast Friedrich Nietzsche's portrayal of the conflict berween Apol- Jonian and Dionysian impulses" in more psychologi- cal, formal and historical terms, Rowe and Slutzky’s interpretation of the phenomenal eschewed the issue of historical change and with ic the strategic potential of tensions between the formed and the formless. ‘Their preference for the (classical) architectonics of Fernand Léger and Juan Gris displaced the (baroque) movement, disintegration and participation of L4sa6 Moholy-Nagy and Robert Delaunay as a model for ‘modernism (Pigs. 3, 4) Instead, they argued for a sel contained form whose underlying theory of spatial and aesthetic perception privileged stasis, fatness and the self-reflexive autonomy of the aesthetic object.” ‘Where Giedion considered modern space 10 be four-dimensional, indivisible from time and the per ception ofa subject moving freely in the same space as the object — he called it ‘relational space’ ~ Rowe and Slutzky conceived of space as emphatically ewor dimensional. For them time, like the viewer, effec- tively stood still. To be more precise, time was con- sumed in a movement internal to the eye, for the eyes oscillation becween layered. planes was thought © generate a thick spatiality. This phenomenal space wwas considered to be purely optical, in the sense suggested in the late nineteenth centuty by the esthetician Conrad Fiedler when he speculated 02 the possibility of extracting ‘pure visibility’ as @ autonomous clement in respect to the objec, leaving its tactility behind.” “Che planar model of spati perception on which Rowe and Slutzky's inter- pretation rested sought an objective congruence be tween the physiological optics considered inherent to sight and the self-referentially inscribed form of the building. On this basis, they assumed a new kind of cognition and a new kind of pleasure as the build ing attempted to present itself in ideal visual tm mars 32 \ i ae face apps A den Gan wor very pete the ton dela Thr anal moe dept rela: toge Ino back ines clusi askccednevertheless with the limitations of material Taithough Rowe and Slutly’s portrait ofthe go cen facade of Le Corbusier’ Villa Stein-de-Monzie at ‘arches (1926-7) is well known (Fig, 5), [ would like > rehearse it here in order co trace the resonance of its particular terms with the theory of artistic crception that underlies it. To begin, the authors ask xe reader to imagine the villa — they use the classical srm “fagade’ and not the modemist ‘elevation’ ~ as @ laminated version of Fernand Léger’s painting Tone Faces of 1926. They present the building as an nalogous ‘system of spatial stratification’ and ‘a field aodeled in low relief in which the impression of epth is generated by fluctuations in figure-ground slations among fat, highly contrasting shapes vied gether by horizontal bands and common contours, n other words, they ask the reader to suspend con- entional understanding long enough ~ or to step rack far enough ~ to consider the cubic volume and ternal spatial order of the building as operating ex- lusively on a two-dimensional surface, As wel, they sk the reader to ‘enjoy the sensation that possibly the taming of the windows passes behind the wall sur- ace’, t follow the hint provided by the side wals (et rack from the principal plane of the facade) in order 0 recognize there ‘a-narrow slot of space traveling. varallel to i and to imagine that, ‘bounding this slot sf space, and behind it, there lies a plane of which the wound floor, the freestanding walls, and the inner ereals of the doors all form a patt’. The authors resent this ‘imaginary (though scarcely less real) slane that lies behind? as a ‘conceptual convenience’, instrumental in achieving the cognitive effect of ‘our acing made conscious of primary concepts which “interpenetrate without optical destruction of each other.” They draw the reader's eye to other parallel slanes, both in front of and behind this slot of space, planes that are incomplete*yet contribute to the organization of the fagade in such 2 way as to imply ‘a vertical layerlike stcatfication of the interior space of the building, a succession of laterally extended spaces traveling one behind the other.” ‘While the three-dimensionality of the building. may not actually be in question, what concems Rowe and Sluszky is thas, from a point deep in the garden and aligned with the central axis of the buildings itis possible to entertain an analogy with Putist painting and to construct an imaginary model of the entire building in the mind’s eye. Te was in relacion to th capacity of Purist architecture to stimulate the im- aginative participation of the viewer ~ configuring « virtual representation of the building which Rosalind Krauss aptly termed a ‘hermeneutic phantom’ ~ that Rowe and Slutzky drew on Gydrgy Képes’s Gestalt- based theories of visual communication in Language of Vision (1944) t0 set themselves apart from both Giedion and Moholy-Nagy. Yet Képes's book abounds in examples of Moholy-Nagy’s work, and Giedion’s introduction to it reads like a synopsis of his own Space, Time, and Architecture (1941) — which was after 6, Le Corbusier (Charles Bde Jenner) Sel Lie with Pl ‘Books 1920. Oilon canvas, gor7 om. Museum of Moder ‘He Yor, Yan Gag Parcs rograph © 1997 Museum ‘Modem tos New Yor (7. Le Corbusier, Sell Life fe Pavillon de "sprit Nouve Oil on canvas, 81x10 cm. Le Corbusier, Paris, 4, View ofthe ground-floor seeps Cobar Vi 11 Posy of 929-30, as pub ‘Le Corbusier et Piere Jat Buvre complite de 1929~ p26.9. Pages 76 and 77 of The Language of Vision, by Gray Kepes (i944), ceseribing the representation of depth by overlapping figures’ and ‘praniparency, interpenetration’ 10, Pages 78 and 79 of The Language of Vision, ali lusratng the principles of transparency and ‘interpenetration. Tnterpenciraion” tone the mest commonly wed ‘manslasion forthe German word ‘Darchdvingung’ which Sighied Giedion and Lisedd Moboly Nagy awed repeatedly to describe anew spatial sensibility in which the ‘ansonomy of the object, lke the boundary berween inde and ouside twas dsalved into a relational spaces «more appropriate translation would be Sntereaving 1, Pages 84 and 85 of The Language cof Vision showing Képes final illustrations of transparency in artand ‘graphic design, combining a drawing by Le Corbusier an advertising design by Fernand Léger, a poster by E. MeKnight Kasffer, and a text on advertising design bythe auahor himself“che central object of Rowe and Slutzky’s critique.” Rowe and Sluczky’s use of Képes at the expense of his friends and allies was made possible by the way Képes expounded the principles‘of cubism and post-cubismn through the lens of Gestalt theory. Although Moholy- Nagy and Giedion placed considerable emphasis on the role played by cubism in the history of modern art and architecture, Képes's debt to Gestalt theory and its debt in tum to nineteenth-century psycho- physiology served co distinguish his interpresation fiom theirs. Yee Rowe and Slutzky could not have considered Képes's account to be an ‘almost classical explanation’ of paintings by Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger had i not been precedented within early Purism, which presented its linear archi- tectonics as an extension of and a corrective to cubism ‘Although Rowe and Slutzky did not refer to them, the early Purist paintings of Jeanneret and Ozenfant were implicitly the point of reference for their charac- terization of post-cubism in terms of precise spatial locations (Figs. 6, 7). It should be recognized, how- ever, that where these paintings compressed and layered the purified objects that they depicted into a two-dimensional space, subsequent Paist paintings lid out from under the rigour of architectonic ‘objectivism into the uid, perhaps even oceanic, space that Robert Slutcky later described so eloquently.” It vwas these paintings that Giedion (following Jeanneret and Ozenfant) described in terms of the mariage des contours, for they internalized the opposition of linear and painterly qualities, in a play of perception, il- Iusion and cognition engendered by the simultaneous assertion and denial of volumes. Where Giedion (once again following Le Corbusics) recognized chat achieving the affect of Purist paintings in architec- ture required the manipulation of form and colour for observers moving in psychophysiological space Gig, 8)" Rowe and. Slurzky, adopting Képes's language of ambiguity, insisted on the primacy of the fat image.” : parency, Rowe and Slutzky quoted the following passage ftom The Language of Vision, which appears under the heading “Transparency, inter- penetration’ (Figs. 9 10): I ntroducing their notion of ‘phenomenal’ trans- Ff one sees two or more figures partly ovedapping one smother, and cach of them claims for iself che common overlapped part chen one is confronted with a contradic- ‘ion of spatial dimensions. To resolve this contradiction, cone must assume the presence ofa new optical quality. The > figures are endowed with tansparencys thats, they ate able to incerpenctrate without an optical destruction of each other. Transparency however implies more than an optical characteristic; ic implies a broader spatial ordes. Transpas- cacy means a simultaneous perception of different spatial locations. Space not only recedes but fluctuates in a con ‘tinuous activity. The position ofthe transparent figures has ‘equivocal meaning as one sees each figure now asthe closer, ‘ow as the futher one. What Rowe and Sluteky did not cite, however, were the theories of vision and representation that underlay Képes's argument and the role these played in his polemic which was aimed at renewing the language of vision, They did not, for instance, note the subject of Képes's book - modern graphic design, not archi- tecture — or the facr that he associated transparency swith the mariage des contours, Nor did the examples presented by Rowe and Slutzky even approach the diversity of those presented by Képes in support of his argument (Fig. 1)” For Képes (echoing Moholy-Nagy and Giedion as well as Ozenfant and Jeanneret) modern vision needed to be resynchronized t0 the conditions of modern technology, which had, he suggested, finally succeeded in breaking down the old system of per- spectival representation. He believed that new tech- nologies of photography and film had opened up an opportunity to renew a mode of visual representation that was more congruent with what he took to be the biological conditions of human perception ~ form of representation on a flat surface, similar co non- ‘Western and pre-perspectival painting, as well as the naive drawings made by children, Képes’s opening section on ‘plastic organization’ laid the theoretical foundation (interpolated from Gestale theory") for his claim that these other forms of representation ~ at once more primitive and more modern ~ were also more natural. He suggested that, like the anatomist, the perspectivalist achieved know- edge as well as the optical and scientific mastery of nature only at the expense of the living, moving aspects of the body, ‘the Aux ofthe innumerable visual relationships that the visible world has for the spectator’. For Képes, perspective ‘froze the living, fluctuating wealth of the visual field ineo a static geo metrical system, eliminating the time-element always, present in the experiencing of space, and thus de- stroying the dynamic relationships in the experience of the spectator.”” ‘Within Képes’s two-dimensional post-perspectival theory of spatial representation, images played a number of interrelated roles. They mediated between the inner and the outer world, not in the fixed, un- equivocal and absolute mannet of perspective, but rather in engaging the viewer's participation. This, he thought, occurred in several ways, Because both the eye and the picture plane have a limited ability to register depth and space, Képes held that the viewer's perceptual apparatus was constantly engaged in resolving contradictory information.”” He believed that such material deficiencies required that the “observer take an active role in forming the object, or at least its vireual Gestalt, (Every-oundaties between ‘real’ space and ‘representational? ‘pace. According to Bois, Hildebrand’s conception of. ‘culptureas painting, reiterated in the post-war period »y the American formalist critic Clement Greenberg 1 his interpretation of Picasso's cubise constructions ‘swell a sculptures by David Smith* — like Rowe and 'lutzky’s conception of architecture as painting — simed at safeguarding att from the terrifying prospect YF the dissolution of the distinesion between the ‘wonomous space of the art object and real space. this fear had been absorbed within bourgeois art in be nineteenth century, which was withdrawing from he destabilizing experience of industrialization, odetnization and nietropolitanization into the ‘Wonomous self-referential interior of artistic forms fad practices — knowable, controllable, and secure: tke Greenberg, the critic Michael Fried was fearful of ‘ie emergence of a relational conception of art, the teatesttheeat of which he identified in Minimalism, t what he called ‘lteralis? art. Robert Somol has lready commented on the correspondence of terms arias j2 ——— a ace and critiques between Rowe and Fried, and has even pointed to 2 possible way of revaluing the category of the ‘literal’ in architecture through the notion of repetition. Here, however, I would like co expand this to suggest that the relationality of the ‘literal’ prefigures certain aspects of contemporary theory. Just as Rosalind Krauss began her reading of Mini- ‘malise art by revaluing what Fried feared about it — recognizing its ‘theatticality’, or its being in the space and time of the observer, as the basis of its strategic conttibution to the history of post-Formalism and the catly history of post-Modernism ~ so I would like to point to Giedion and Moholy-Nagy for their pre- Minimalist (although idealist) conception of relational space, which was likewise opposed to formalise autonomy and was already engaged in the concrete historical conditions of the space occupied by both the work of are and the observer: ‘The aesthetic effect that interested Rowe and Slutzky was not the dissolution of substance into the particles of space, which had undetpinned Alois Riegl’s ‘Impressionist’ reading of late Roman art works, ot the flowing Raumgestaltung of Moholy- Nagy's constructivism, or the formlessness of yan Docsburg’s quest for a ‘cubist’ four-dimensional architecture, Rather, they sought the hermeneutic pleasure of an almost complete self-referentiality one that absorbed doubs without compromising cognitive efficacy. Enjoying the play of Gestalt am- biguities that was characteristic of Purist paintings —figare and ground, object and mattix, space and sut- face—Rowe and Slutzky’s game of assertion and denial acoepted the experience of doubt, ambiguity and con- tradiction, which accompanied the emérgerté of sub- jective aesthetics, only by internalizing, aestheticizing, and neutralizing its povential to destabilize cognitive certainty, Based still on an objectivist aesthetics of subjective reception (Hildebrand), itself based on an outdated objectivist optics (Helmholtz), their appreci- ation of Purist still lifes and Le Corbusier's Villa Stein Jimiced the game to the frame of the two-dimensional 412, Hans von Marées, The 1, 185-7. Mived media 01 Panel dimensions, left rig 1B4XEx Sem, 182%1815em t8gxba om. (Neue Pinakor Bayerische Seaangemaldea Munich) 13, Adolf Hildebrand, Cowt 1880, Marble relief. Brewste Collection, VilleSan France Florence. (Conwy Library, Courtauld Institute of Ar, 210 plane, charged with the obligation of representing the spatial structure of the building for an observer aligned perspectivally on axis, Justas Hildebrand priv- ileged relief sculpture out of a fear that introducing the subject's gaze into che constitution of the art ob- ject would dissolve its autonomy into the uncontrol- lable space oceupied by the observer; so Rowe and Slutaky pulled back from the implications for archi tecture of the potentially uncontrollable ambiguit and contradictions of the mariage des contours ~ of the object dissolved into aliquid field of unstable yet con- stitutive relationships. They reasserted the pictorial facade as the guarantor of self reflexive tcansparency. Noxwithstanding her admiration for the formalist tca- dition with which she associated Rowe, it was this move that prompted Krauss, in her essay of 1980, to reject formalism in favour of structuralism, She angued thac the formaliss’ demand for ‘examining the ground ofits own access to knowledge’ ~ which earlier she had valued for turning transparency into opacity simply resulted in a second-order transparency, still grounded in the proposition of an intelligence which is transparent to itself ‘While Giedion was likewise motivated by the desire for unity, control and consciousness, he nevertheless attempted to rethink the possibility of achieving such conditions through an analysis of the structural and material conditions of modexnity. He recognized that synthetic cubism, collage and montage marked a turn from the determinate representation of a self-posi consciousness towards a ‘new optics’ of indeterminate biotechnic constcuctions hovering contingently with- ‘out ground in a relational space that is as historical and concrete as itis virtual and ineffable. Beyond the label of literal, the ideal of transparency that Giedion and Moholy-Nagy sought to articulate in the 19208, 19308 and 1940s was phenomenal and perceptual, after all, in its confrontation with the machine, or moze precisely with modes of production and reception in the modern industrial era, As such, it may yet figure in “our understanding of the prehistory of preoccupations in our own time with systems of mediation, on the one hand, and the immediacy of formlessness on the other igs. 1,2). ‘The author would like to thank Alan Colquhoun, George Baie and Georges Teysot for heir comments on ealier versions ofthis say. Notes 1. Colin Rowe and Robert Sty, “Tanspreny: Literal and Phenomenal, Pepe 8 (96), pp. 49-54 The cent to which Genalt psychology informed this essay i more explick nits seq, "Transparency Lite and Phenomenal, Pate I, Perspecta xy/ta (197%), pp. 287-301, The most considred crit treatments ofthe distinction teenen ical and phenomenal transparency ae by Rowling Kino, ‘Death of « Hermeneutic Phanton,Arcicare + Urbeniom ta Ganaay 980), pp. 18-259; Anthony Vide, “Transparency, ‘The Arcitetural Uncanny (Cambridge Mass: MIT Pes, 952) p. att; Terence Rly, Ligh Con- struction (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1995); and Robert Somol ‘Oublier Rowe', Formwork Coin Ro 718 (0994) pp. 845. These eritcshave understood the ‘eansparency in cognitive aswell as visual terms ~ of era subject believing that ideas, fours and incerpretas be eransparen tothe mind hae thinks them. 5. See for instance Alfred H. Bate Js influential x “Machine Art of 1934 a the Museum of Modern Jy 1 catalogue: Machine Art (New York: MoMA, 4. See Detlef Menins, ‘Anything But Literal Sigied and the Reception of Cubism in Germany, in Ar ‘and Cabinm, edited by Nancy Troy and Eve Bla bridge, Mass MIT Pres, forthcoming) Se also D. ‘System and Freedom: Sifted Giedion, Emil Keufm the Constitution of Architectural Modernity, in Ti af the Aaantsarde in Ameria, tps, ec by Somel (New York, Monsceli Press, forthcoming in: 5. See Rosemary Haag Bleter, ‘Opaque Transparencj itis (Surnmet 1978), pp. 121-6. 6. See Sigfied Giedion, Space, Time, and Architectun vide, Mass: Harvard Univesity Pres, 1940. 7. See Heinrich Wollin, Renaisance und Barok. Bin suchung ither Wesen nd Enoscinng des Barocksis i (Munich: Theodor Ackermann, 1988), paraly trans Kathiin Simon ax Rensiscance and Barogue (thac Cornell University Pres, 1964). See also H, Wolff gebichtiche Grandegrif. Des Problem der Stile in der neuron Kune (Mvich: Flug Brucknan, 1: lated by M. D. Howtinger as Principles of Art Hie Problem of the Descopment of Sipe in Laer Are (Ne Doves 1950). For the sources of Walfin’s etgores signfiance of Jacob Burckbard, who aso taught N see Joan Goldhammer Harr, ‘Heirich Wollin: A lecsul Biography’ (unpublished dssereaion, Univ California, Berkeley, 198), pp. 139-210. Foran inte ‘of Wolflin’s categories in ration w Niewsche's Ap sand Dionysian, ee Jan Bailoscock, “Baro”: St, “Haleung’ in Sil wn Fanographic (Dresden, 1963p 8, Fredsich Nieusche, “The Birth of Tiagedy: Out ofc of Music in The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of translated by Waltet Kaufmann (New York: Vinay 1967). «9. Fora poststeucrural analysis of Rowe's thoughe in re insues of autonomy and form, see R. E, Somel, Rowe’, Formwork: Colin Rowe. to, See Konrad Fiedler, ‘Ober den Usepeung der Kis! Tihigksie (887), in K. Fiedlet, Sebvifen sur Kis edited by Gotiod Boshon (Munich: Wilhelm Fin 1p. 1832367. While Giedion also emphasized vision ( optics), ie was the embodied vision of an observer m ‘pace and time that he bad in mind, jos athe oer poreal meraphors ro characterize buildings. a, Rowe and Siteky, Transparency’ p. 49 12, Gybrgy Képes, Lamgrage of Vision (Chicago, ls Pa bald and Company, 1944). Képes was much youn ‘Moholy-Nagy and sete in Bela in 93 under th influence. He then followed Mholy-Nagy to Londo they worked together, and late to Chicago, whe! taught in Moholy-Nagy’s New Beubaus. See } Passuth, Moboly-Nagy (London: ‘Thames & Hudso pp. 60, 65,69, 70. If Kées initially drew on Miokc ‘s34.Giedion, Giedion’s later thought on exanspa primitive as well as modem. are bears caces of Language of Viton. See S. Giedion, “Transparency: | andl Modee’, Art News, vol 1, no. 4 Gune-Avge PP. 47-50, 92-6 vy, Robert Slucaky, ‘Aqueous Humor’, Opposition Winte!Spring 1980, pp, 29-si see also R. Stucky, Purim’ uemblage 4, Oxobee987, pp. 95-1010 tums tothe mariage der cantor the basis of what