To really appreciate architecture, you may even need to commit a murder. : 105 Qe esi fe Sth ae ea Rai es ire ae he Cube te 5 2 SFL aa Architecture and Limits In the work of remarkable writers, artists, ox composers one sometimes finds disconcerting element located a the edge of eheir production, a its limit. These elements, disturbing ind out of character, are misfits within the artist's ati ‘Yee often such works reveal hidden codes and excesses hint sngat other definitions other interpretations,“The same can be sald for whole Belds of en- eavor: there ae prictions a the Tmt of iteratur, athe limi masic, a the limit of theater. Such extreme positions inform us about the tate of atts paradoxes and its contra Aictons, These works, howevey, remain exceptions, fr they seem dispensable Tunury inthe feld of knowledge. Inarehitectue, such productions of the limit ave not only historically frequent but indispensable: archi tecture simply doesnot exist without them. For example, architecture does not exist without drawing in thesame way ‘hat architecture doesnot exet without text. Buildings have been erected without drawings, but archicectat itself goes beyond the mere process of building, The complex cultura, social, and philosophical demands developed slowly over centuries have made architecture form af knowledge in and eel Just sal forms of knowlege use diferent modes of discourse, so there ae key architectural statements that, hough not necessarily bul, nevertheless inform us about the seate of architecare—its eoncems and its polemies— ‘more precisely than the actual buildings oftheir time, Pits real’ engravings of prisons, Boule's washes of monuments, have datically influenced architecrural dhought and its lated practice, The same could be sid about particular ar chioctural txts and theoretial postions, This does not exclude the built realm, for small constructions ofan exper imental nature have occasionally played 2 similar role Altemately celebrated and ignored, these works of heli often provide isolated episodes amidst the mainstream of commercial production, fr commercecannot be ignored in a craft whose very scale involves cautious clients and carefully invested capital Like che hiden clue tna devectve story, these works are essential. In fact the comeept of limits is directly related to the very definition of auehiceeate What s meant by to define—"To determine the boundary or limits of,” a6 well as "to st forth he essential natu of." ‘Yer the current populsity of architectural polemics and the dissemination of ts drawings in other do- ‘mains have often masked thse limits, restricting attention tothe most obvious of architectre’s aspect, cutaling ito 4 Fountainhead view of decorative heroes, By doing 20, it reduces architectural concern to dictionnoite des sdées regues, dismissing less accessible work ofan essential na ‘aro, worse, distorting them through asoeition with the ere necessities of a publicity market ‘The present phenomenon is hardly new. Thetwenticth century contains numerouszeduetiveplicies| med at mass medi dissemination, tothe extent that we ‘ow have ewo diferent versions of ewentiethcentuty archi tecture. One, a maximalist version, eims at overall social, cultural, political, progeammatic concerns while che other ‘minimalist, concentrates on sectors called style technique, and so forth. But is ita question of choosing one over the other Should one exchide the most rebellious and audacious projects, those of Melnikov or Pelz for example, in the nerest of preserving the stylistic eaerence of the modem ‘moverent Such exclusions, after ll are common archltee ‘ual eaten The moder movement had already stated itsattack on the beaux ants the 19206 by a tactically bei fnerpretstion of nineteenth contury archiceemre. In the same way the advocates ofthe International Styl reduced the modern movement’ radical concerns to homogenized ‘canographic mannerisms, Today, the most voc represents tives of architectural postmodernism use the same aproceh, ‘bu in ever. By focusing thee attack onthe Intemational Style, they make entertaining polemies and pungent jour nalimn but offer lial new toa cultural context that as long ‘included the same historical allusions ambiguows sigs, and sensuousness they discover today Architectural thoughts nota simple matter of opposing Zeitgeist ro Gens Loci, conceptual concerns to allegorical ones, historical allusions to purist esearch. Un fortunately, arcitectral eitietm remains an undesdevel ‘oped feld. Despite its current popularity in the media, it _enerally belongs tothe radiconalyare, wid “personality” ‘profiles and “practicality” appraisals. Serious thematic ex ‘que is absent, except inthe most specialized publications Worse, critics there are partial to ertent redutive interpre ‘ations and often pretend that plurality of styles makes for compleity of chought. Thus i no suprising tata solid entuque of the eurten frivolity of architecture and architee tural eporting haelly exists. “The bounds beyond which something ceases to be possible or allowsble”® have been tightened co such an extent that we now witness set of reductions highly damaging to the soope ofthe discipline. “Te narrowing of architecne as a form of knowledge into architecture as mere knowledge of form Is matched only by e sealing down of generous research strategies into opers: ‘onal power broker tates ‘The current confusion becomes clear if one distinguishes, amidst curtent Venice or Paris Binnales, smass-matket publications, and other public celebrations of suchitectual polemics a worldwide bate between this na. row view of architectural history and esearch into the nature and definition of the discipline. The conflict is no mere ileetic but areal conflict corresponding, ona theoretical level, to practical battles that occur in everyday life within new commercial markers of architecural evia, older omporate establishments, and ambitions university tevelligentsia Modernism already cootained such tactical battles and often bid them behind reductionist ideologies Vormalism, fanetionlism, rationalism. The coherence these idcologes implied has revealed itself ul of cone tions. Yet this is no reason to strip atchitectue again of is Social, spatial, conceptual concerns and restrict its limits to 4 teritory of “wit and iony," “conscious sehizophrena,” * al coding," and “twice broken sphtpediments” Such redetion occurs in other, Tes obvious ways. The art world’s fascination with architectural mater, ‘evident in the obsessive msmber of “architectural reference’ ‘and “architectural sculpture” exbibitions, is well matched by che recent vogue among architects for adversing in reputable galleries, These works are useful only instar a= ‘hey inform us about the changing nature of heat. To envy architecture's usefulness, rceiproelly, toenvy artistedom shows in both cases naiveté and misunderstanding of ‘the work Building may be about usefulness, architecture not accessrily so, To call architectural those sculptures that superficially row from a voesbulary of gables and stairs is 48 nave as to call paintings some architects tepid water: colors or dhe PR. renderings of commercial firms, ‘uch reciprocal envy is base onthe narrow: «st limits of ontmosed interpretations as if each discipline ‘were inexorably draws toward the other's most conservative texts, Yet the avantgarde of bot elds sometimes ens ¢ common sensiilty, even if thir terms of reference ine ‘ably difer. It should be noted that architectural drawings, a ther best, ate 4 mode of working, of thinking about a chiltectuce. By heir very nature, they ually eer to some ‘hing outside themselves (a opposed to those art drawings thae refer only to themselves, t theie awn materiality and devices) ‘But back to history. The pseude-continuity hitotural history, with ts neatly determined action: reaction episodes, ishased ona poor understandingof history in general and architectural history in particular. After all, this history i not linear, and certain key production ref from enslaved to artifical continuities, While mainstream Diseorians have dismissed numerous works by quali them 38 “conceptual architecture," “cardboard architec: tut,” “nareaive” or “poetic” spaces, the time has come to systematically question theirreductive tratayes. Question ng dem isnot purely a matter of celebrating what they reject. On che contrary, st means understanding what bor 1 Aetline activities hide and cover. This history, eitique, and snalsis remains to be done, Not a fringe phenomenon Ipoets, visionaries or, wos, intellectuals} but a5 eental to the nature of architestore, “The limits of architectre ate variable each decade has is ‘own ical themes, is own confused fashions. Yet each of ‘these peioiesl shifts and digresions eases te same ques- tion: ate there recurrent themes, constants that ae specif- cally architectural nd. yet always under serutiny—an architecture of Kits? ‘As opposed 1 other disciplines, architcture rarely presents coherent set of concepts—adefniion—that Aiplays both the continuity of its eoncems and the more sensitive houndates of is atviey. However, afew aphor- jams and dictums that have been transmitted through cen turies of architectural literature do exist: Such notions a8 scale, proportion, symmetry and composition have specific architectural connotations. The relation between the ab traction of thought and the substance of space~the Platonic istinetion between theoretical and prectical—is constantly recalled to peecive the architectural space of «building is to perceive something-that-has-boen-conceived. The opp sition between form and function, beowesn ideal types and programmatic organization, is simiany recurent, even if bth ers ae viewed, increasingly, a independent,One of the more enduring equations is the Viervisn elogy-—venustas,fmitas, mlitas—"atracive ‘appropriate spatial a commodation." It obsessively repeated throughout cen turies of architectural precepts, though not necessarily in that onder, Are these possible architectural constants, the Inherent limies without which architecture doesnot exist? appearance,” “structural stabil (Oris this permanence bad mental abit, an iatllectual laziness observed throughout history? Does persistence grant validity? Uno, docs architecture fi to realize the dspace ment of limits ic has held foro lone? ‘The ewentiet-century has disrupted the Vieravan wilogy, for ateitecture could not remain insonstve to industri ation and the radical questioning of institutions wether family, seat, or church the turn ofthe century. The ist term—attractive appearance [beauty}~slowly disappeared from the vocabulary, while structural linguistics took hold ofthe arhitee’s formal disenarse. Yet estly architectural semiotics mezely boowed codes from literary texts, applied them to uiban or architectoral spaces, and inevitably re ‘mained descriptive. Inversely, attempts to construct new codes meane reducing» bulling to a “message” and is use to a “reading.” Much of the eurent vogue for quotations of ast architectural symbols proceeds from such simpliste imerpretations. In recent years, however, serious researchhas applcd linguistic chery to architecture, adding an arsenal ‘of selection and combinstion, substitution and contextual: ity, metaphor and metonymy, similarity and contiguity, fol lowing the terms of Jakobson, Chomsky, and Benveniste. Although exclusively formalist manipulation often exhausts itself fnew criteria are not injected t allow fr innovation, fas very excesses can often shed now light on the elusive oundaties ofthe “prisonshouse” of architectural langage. [At the limit, this research introduces pregeeupations with the novion of subject and with the sole of subjectivity in Tanguage, diferentiating language asa aystem of signs from language as an at accomplished by an individual “The concern for the next term—steuctalstabiity—seems to have disappeared during the 1960s without anyone rs: Jzingor discussing it.The consensus was that anything could be built, provided you could pay for it. And concer with stractute van:shed from conference rorters and dwindled in schitectural courses and magazines. Who, to stress that the Dorie pilasters of current histor: ism are made of painted plywood or that appliqué moings se thereto give metaphorical subitance to hollow walls? In the 1980s, interest in engineering iss etumed but was often marked bya particular condition: the progressive redution of building mass aver a period of ex compos, de ‘compose and recompose volumes aecording vo formal rather than structural laws, Modemisn’s concer for surface effect farther deprived volumes of material substance. Today, mat- ter hardly enters the substance of walls that have been re duced osheetock ogas partitions that barely differentiate all, wants tues meant that architects could arbiterinside from outside, The phenomenon 1s not lkely to be reverse, and those who advocate a return to "honesty of ive paché walls ae often motivated by \eologial sather than practical reasons. Ie should be stressed, however, that any concern over material substance has implications beyond mere structural stability. The ma teralty of architecture, afterall is i its solide and voids, fee spatial sequences, is articulations, its collisions. (One remark in passing: some wil say concern for energy conser vstion replaced dhe concern for construction. Maybe. Re- searchin passiveand active energy conservation, solarpower, and water reeling certainly enjoys distinct popolaiy yet docs not greatly atfoct the general Vocabulary of houses or cities) "The soe luge ofthe Last term of the wlogy, “appropriate spatial ascommodston” is, ofcourse, the body, your body, ry body—the starting poin and point of arrival of architec> ‘aye. The Cartesian body-asobjet has been opposed to the phenomenological body-as-subject, andthe materiality and logic of the body has heen opposed to the materiality and logic of spaces. Fom the space of che body tothe boy space—the passage is inteeate. And thet shift that gap in the obseurty ofthe unconscious, somewhere Between bay and Ego, between Ego and Other... Architecture stil has not beg co analyze che Viennese discoveries atthe turn of the century, even if architecture might one day inform psy- ‘hoanalysis more than psychoanalysis has informed architecture ‘The pervasive smells of rubber, concrete, leah, de taste of dst the discomorting rubbing ofan elbow fon an abrasive surface, the pleasure of furcined walle and the pai of commer hit upon in the da; the echo of ahall— space is not simply the three-cimensional projection of a rental representation, but iis something that shear and is acted upon. And i the eye that frames—the window, the door, the vanishing seul of passage... Spaces of move: ‘menc—coridors, stalteases, ramps, passages, thresholds Ihre begins the articulation between the space of the senses the dances and gesures that com: bine the representation of space and the space of represen tation. Bodies not only move in but generate spaces produced by and through their movements. Movements—of dance, spout, war-are the intrusion of events into srehteetural spaces At the limit, these events hecome scenarios a H0- rams, void of moral or funetional implications, independent bot inseparable fom che spaces that enclose them Soa new formulation ofthe old logy ap pears. I overlaps the chee enginal texms i certain ways and the space of soci while eolaging them in other ways. Distinctions can be made between mental, physical, and social space of, alter natively, between language, matter, and body. Admittedly, these distinctions are schematic. Although they onrespond to real and convenient categories of analysis (“conceved,” perceived,” “experienced, they lead co diferent ap prouches and to diferent modes of architectural notation ‘A change is evident in archiectoe’ tte, {nts relationship to its language, its composing materials,and ts individals or societies. The question is how these ‘hice terms ae articulated and how they relate teach other within the lel of contemporary practic, Is als evident that since arehitecture’s mode of production has reached an advanced stage of development, tno longer ness to adhere stcely to linguistic, material, orfonetonal norms but ean Astor them at will. And, folly, iis evident from the role of isoletedincidents—often pushed asde in che past—that architecture's nature fs not aways found within building. Events, drawings, texts expand the boundaries of socially jostle constructions Therecent changes are deep and ile under stood, Architects at-large find them dificult to accep, in ‘uitively aware as they ae that dei erftis being drastically altered. Current architectural histricism is both a part of stud a consequence of this phenomenon—both a sign of fear anda sign of escape. To what extent dosuch explosions, such ‘hangs in the conditions ofthe production of architecture Alisploce the limits of architectural activites in oder to cor respond to theit mutations? Program: deseipie nis, ised beforehand, of any formal series proceedings, 8 festive celebration, x cou of study Lobe lis ofthe items “numberof conert ete nthe ae of pefomancs ees the ems themselves collectively, the per formance asa wae. Am tcc program sof egies, indntes thei telaions, but suggests eiher thei combination or thee To adress the notion of the program today isto enter a forbidden fied, a fed architectural ideologies have con: sciously banished for decades. Programmatic cancers have ‘ben dissed bth ak remnants afhumanssm and as morbid attempts to resurrect now obsolete functionalist doctrines ‘These attacks ae revealing in that they imply an embedded belie in one particular aspect of modernism the prem rence of formal manipulation 1 the exclusion of socal oe uulitarian considerations, «preeminence tha even current postmoslrnstachiteetne has teased to challenge Bue lee us rift recall some histories facts ‘that gover the notion ofthe program. Although the eigh teenth century's development of scientific techniques based fon spatial and structural analysis had already led archite tual thootst to consider use and construction as separate disciplines, and hence to stress pure formal manipulation, ‘the program long remained an important port of the archi ‘tctural process. Implicit or explicitly ete to che news ‘ofthe period or the state, the progsam’s apparently obective requirements by and large reflected particular euleures and values, This was tue ofthe beaux at! ables for a Sow eteign Prince” of 1739 and the "Public Festival forthe Mat riage ofa Prince” of 1769, Growing industlalization andurbanization soon generated their own programs. Depart: ment sores, away stations, and arcades were nineteenth century programs born of commerce and industry, Usually complex, they di oe readily result in precise forms, and meatng factors ike ideal buildings types were often re wired, risking complete disianetion between “form and “The rmodean movement’sealy attacks onthe empty formulas of academicism condemned these disianc ‘ions, along with the decadent content of most beaux ars rogram, which were rpanded ax prteats for repetitive ‘compositional eipes,The concept ofthe program itself was rot attacked, but, rather, dhe way ic reflected an obsolete society, Instead, closer links between new social contents, technologies, and pure geometries annonnced a new func zap Jem solving rather than problem formulating: good sionals ethic. At the fst level, this etic empha architecture waso grow tom the objective problem peculiar to building, site, and client, in an onganie or mechanical ‘manner. Oa a second and moe bere level, che revolution ty unges of the fururist and constructivist avant-gardes joined hose of early nineteenth-century utopian social ‘thinkers o create new programs. “Soll eoadenses,” com ‘nunal kitchens, worker clubs theaters, factories, o even nites d'habitation accompanied new vison of socal ani family structure, In frequently naive manner, architectare ‘wos meant to both reflect and mold the society o came ‘et by the ealy 1930s inthe United States snd Europe, # changing socal context favored new formsand technologies at the expense of programmatic concems. By ‘the 19506 modern ashitestate hed been emptied of sea eologca bass, paally due co the viral failure ofits opin aims, Architecture also found a new base in the theories of mori developed in literature, at, and mu se. "Form follows form’ replaced “orm follows fanetion,” and toon attacks on fanetonalism were voled by neo-mod ernst for ideological reasons, and by postmodernist for centhetie ones, In any cass, enough progiams managed to function in buildings conceived for ently diferent pur ‘poses to prove the simple point that there was no necessary ‘causal relationship between function and subsequent form, ‘or berween a given building type and a given use. Among ‘confirmed modernists, the more conventional the prorat, the better, conventional programs, with ther casy solutions, lef oom for experimentation in style and language, mach ‘8 Kant Heinz Stockhassen used national anchems athe material for syntactical transformations ‘The academization of constructivism, thein fluence of terry formalism and the example of modernist ‘ainuing and sculpture all contributed to architecture's te duction to simple linguistic components. When applied to aychivecture, Clement Greenbers’s dictum that content be dissolved so completely into form thatthe work of art or leraure cannot be reduced in whole or in part to anything Tut itself. subject matter r content becomes someting to be avoid ikea plagio” further removed considerations of use. Ultimately, nthe 1970s, mainstream modemist ent‘ci, by focusing om the insinsic qualities of autonomous objets, formed an alliance with semiotic theory o make architecture an easy object of poetic. ut wasn’t atchitectoe diferent fom paint ing orliteratre? Could use or program be prt of form rather than subject or content? Didn't Russian formalism dies from Greenbergian moderna in that rather than banishing considerations af content, it simply no longer opposed form to content but began to conceive oft asthe totality ofthe ‘work's various components? Content could be equally fora Mich of the dhcory of architectural moern= {sm wich, notably, emerged inthe 1950s eacher than inthe 1920s was similar to all modernism in its search for the syifctyofarchitectute, for that which is characteristic of architecture alone, But how was such specifiy dened? Did it include or exclude uct I is significant that architee tural postmodernism’ challenge tothe linguist colees of modernism has never assaulted ts value system. To discuss fof architecture” in wholly stylistic terms was 2 fae polemic, clever eit aime at masking the absence of conceme about we. he ei While it i not irrelevant to distinguish be toveenan autonomous ef relerentialarehiterare that a scents history and culture and at achiteceure that echoes historical or cultural precedents and regional contents, it should be noted that both addres the same definition of architecture as formal or sylstic manipolation, Form sil follows form, only dhe meaning and the frame of reference Allfer Beyond their diverging esthetic means, both conceive ‘of architecture as an object of contemplation, ealy ace sible critical atenton, as opposed o the interaction of space and events, whichis usualy unremarked upon, Thus walls and geseures, columns and figures are rarely seen as pat of single signifying eystem, Theorie of reading, when applied to architecture, ae ately fruitless in that they re duce xo an at of communiestion of to a vsual at the s called single-coing of modernism, othe doubl-coding of Postmodernism), dismissing the intertextuality” that rakes architecture a highly complex human aetivity. The ‘multiplicity of heterogeneous discouses, the constant inter action between movement, sensual expetience, and concep tual acrobaties efute the parallel with che visual rs. TE we are to observe, today, an epstemolg- cal break with wht is generally called enodemism, thon it rust alo question its wen formal contingency. By no means loos this imply a return to notions of faction versus form, ‘tw cause-andect relationships between pogeam and type, to utopian visions, oe che vaied positivist or mechanistic ‘deologies ofthe past. On the contrary, t means going beyond reductive interpretations of architecture. The usual exch son ofthe boy and its experience fom al discourse on the logic of form in cae in pot. ‘The misc-enscénes of Peer Behrens, who onganized ceremonies amidst the spaces of Josef Maria Olbvic’s Mathidenhoehe; Hans Poelsgs ses for The Go Jem, Laselo Moholy-Naty’s stage designs, which combined ee eins, use set, al actions, rezingsimaltsneities, ElLissteky’s splays of electramechanial aerohatios; Oskar Sehlemmer’s gestural dances; and Konstantin Melnikov’ Montage of Atrttions,” which earned into teal archive: tal constructions~all exploded the restrictive orthodoxy of architectural modernism. There were, of couse, pee dents—Renassance pageants, Jaques Louis David's revo Idonatyftes, and, late and more sinister, Alber Speer (Cathedral of ee and the Nuremberg Rally ‘More recently, depareues from formal ds ‘courses and renewed concems for architectural event have taken an imaginary programmatic mode Altematively, ty" pologica studies have begun to discuss the cxitcal “affect” ofdeal building types that were historically orn of fanetion ‘but were ater displaced into new programs alien to their ‘original purpose, These concerns for events, ceremonies and _vogramssuggesta posible distance vi-visboth modernist, forthodory and hstoricst revival