Week 1

Uses and Abuses of theory - Sylvia Lavin

It’s better to have any theory, even if wrong, than no theory at all. We have become too
interdisciplinary. Literary theory is becoming more like philosophy which is immaterial and
architecture will never be immaterial.
Key words: Theoretical vacuum

Rebuttal - Michael Hayes

Argues that Lavin your theory should be accurate for it to be considered a theory. Takes into
account the world outside of architecture stills needs to be taken into account.

Week 2
PAGE 103

Non Place – Marc Augé – “From Places to Non-Places” (1992)

Keywords: travel and corridor locations that have lack of communication
No personal connection or ties to the space no history loss of identity. Place of passing through
disconnected. It comes without warning and it never goes away. It’s a mobile space that can
take us anywhere Non-places do not hold enough personal significant to be recorded as a
place. A place is considered a space that is relational or historical in concern with identity. If it
can’t be defined by it then it is considered a non-place. Such as the following:
- Airport
- Railways
- Supermarkets
- Hotels
The space of a non-place does not create single identity, or relation only isolation and similarity.
(P.103) They separate people from identity creating mass groups such as commuters,
passengers, shoppers, and consumers. Super modernity produces non-places. When a person
enters the space of a non-place they are relieved of their usual determinate. They become
nothing more than what he/she does or experience.
A non-place can become a place: EX: Sydney
“creating a story” = relating to iconic architecture
No history and lack of individualism
Instagram: place of a bunch of non-places
EXAMPLE: Movie of nothing happening lol !..... people walking in the airport (aka Playtime by
Jacque Tati)
Svhared identity but solitude within these spaces
Supermodernism – Hans Ibelings – (1998)

Lost identity in globalization. Minimalism found in form, material and character.

Supermodernism is essentially postmodernism but with a high-tech inspiration.
Supermodernism reacts against deconstructivism. Usually expressionless, neutral.
Transparency.
- Airport
- Selfridges in Birmingham, UK (hotdog)
The same building could be built anywhere - neutrality of glass facades and rectangular
buildings that have no individuality or authenticity.
The neutrality - no context to surrounding environment which ties back into starchitecture
(strange building that could be built anywhere)
The two main points:
1) Describes architectural formats/typologies which are neutral
2) A specific style Herzog & de Meuron , lots of glass, impersonal, light, transparency,
neutrality

Postmodernism -> deconstructivism -> Supermodernism

Generic City - Rem Koolhaas

Purposeful superficiality; the building only lead up to one’s essential needs. The best version of
the generic city can only come from losing identity. Authenticity gets depleted with “public”
spaces. Generic cities are comprised of many smaller parts that form a “whole” which are
usually expendable therefore giving planning a disadvantage. This disadvantage allows the
freedom of abandoning whatever doesn’t work.
- Skyscrapers (no context needed, can be placed anywhere, all needs found in one place)
“The generic city fractal an endless repetition of the same simple structural module.
- Superficial & hollow
- High degree of entropy / unpredictability
Undifferentiated mass of construction similar to Augé’s Non Places
- Generic city is made up of junkspace
Koolhaas
-Generic city has a purpose but no function; similar to junkspace but at a larger scale
-Talks about how different cities are related around the world
- Generic cities are caused by globalization

Junkspace - Rem Koolhaas

“ALWAYS INTERIOR” - Quote from text
A reaction to modernism - Modern architecture is degrading and has a lack of commitment.
Junkspace does not challenge new ideas. Incidental randomness. LARGENESS and issue with
bigness. Parts become expendable. Quantity > quality in terms of material and time. Expands
with economy. FRACTALS. Conditioned = conditional space.
Junkspace and Generic Cities have no specific definition
Architects have settled for less
No experimenting with new methods
Left after
- Malls
- Overpasses
Air Conditioning and escalators as the base for architecture
- “Sooner or later all conditional space turns into junksace”
- Non contextual or inhumane spaces
- Lack of context
- No windows
- Lot of transitional spaces

JUNK SPACE ONLY HAPPENS IN THE INTERIOR

Focus on superficiality and skin

Ever expanding cannot be mobile smaller only abandoned
Lifespan of a building, not built to last quantity over quality
EXPANDING BUT NEVER EVOLVING
It is sealed and held together not by structure but by skin,like a bubble

Architecture that is not a building - Aaron Betsky

- Architecture is not building / Buildings are not architecture

- Something behind, constructing things and going on beyond about it
- Architecture and building and construction are no the same things
- Architecture as a playground for specialist, does not solve any problems
- Experimentation of form
- Buildings do not speak unless analyzed
- We become slaves to regulations. Limiting ability to design.a

Function and Sign - Umberto Eco

- Culture means communication
- Eco does not understand architecture as its full potential,
- Simplistic view of architecture
 - You can’t read it, just like you would read a text
- Architecture is based on context, experience
- Gothic Cathedral, does not lose its symbolic significance even though it's not the
tallest building anymore / comparison with skyscrapers
- Throne example vs chair
- Denotation: the literal meaning/primary function (sitting on a chair)
- Connotation: symbolic meaning (thrown is a symbol for power and royalty)

Week 3
Spatiality and Temporalities - Saskia Sassen
Globalization influences spatiality and temporalities which fall on the economy, politics, culture
and the subjective; all of which is sustained by the national which insinuates that there are
overlaps between the global and the national. Space is constituted through social relations.
Global cities are nodes of use. Production relies on capitalism. Borderlands - help. National
state is deteriorating spatio-temporality, global is spatio-temporal disorder.

Empire - Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri

Sovereignty and imperialism. Sovereignty is composed of a series of national and supranational
organisms under a single rule. Physical boundaries used to determine where economic limits in
activity lied. Center of power and a physical place was required for imperialism. Imperialism
controlled flow of resources but is no longer viable with ever-changing economy.

Intro & Judging the Icon - Charles Jencks

Rise of iconic architecture as the new genre of postmodern architecture. Portrayed the
relationship between art and the building as an icon. Iconic architecture puts architecture on par
with best contemporary art -> creativity, freedom in design. Bilbao effect: monumental shift
towards popularity of a building as an icon and spurred the influx of tourism and reinvention.
Enigmatic signifiers!! - allow connotations of building to develop narrative that is separate from
the buildings original intention (metaphor). Explicit sign vs. implicit symbol.
 - Enigmatic signifiers - symbols that are assigned meaning transforming a building
into a image brand or icon. All about free market (neoliberalism)(globalization /
branding)
- Architect’s identity is important
- Sydney Opera House - Example
- Jewish museum of berlin
- Birds nest olympic stadium
- Aquatics center in Beijing

ICONIC ARCHITECTURE QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Open to different perspectives and interpretations
2. Can be turned into a logo or brand
3. Ignore their context, which helps them stand out
4. Celebrate the architect

Miracle in Bilbao - Herbert Muschamp

Influence of iconic architecture - influenced education towards freedom of orthodoxies.

Iconic/different architecture made the Bilbao go from “tragedy” to “paradise” and gave the town
an identity.
- All over Gehry…
- Believes icons are a positive and attributes a city’s success to one building

Iconic Architecture and Culture - Ideology of Consumerism - Leslie

Sklair
Iconic architecture and consumerism; wants to rid of consumerism and globalization. Alternative
to iconic architecture not exactly given (preaches facts, gives no solution). Repurpose iconicity
for social architecture. Capitalism is a form of neoliberalism. Opposite of Schumacher. Turns
iconic architecture into relative machines. TCC’s (transnational capitalist class). Class
struggle. Shared democratic spaces, dismantle consumerist exposure. Non capitalist
globalization through iconic architecture.

Turn into something that is not consumerist.

Utopian goal without any direction of how it could be achieved.

“Alternative form of non capitalist globalization”

Counterpoint to other readings

Design for the One Percent - Alex Cocotas

Sassy soul implying that iconic architecture caters to the elites (top 2%) as opposed to local
despite public funding. Iconic architecture benefits globalization. EGOTECTURE.
Understands what starchitects bring to the city but understands it wastes money and space
because lower class cannot fully use them due to ticket purchases etc
- Starchitects to modernist
- Modernism was socially minded
- Neoliberalist system building structures for the 2%, that do not benefit the local
population
- Maxi Museum - Hadid (Rome) Does no interact with context, maintenance is over the
italian budget, government invest in projects like this, instead of other areas. They say
that these building create jobs, while they are temporary
- Zaha working with questionable people / clients / projects, projects that benefit the
masses and no the elites.

Variety of Zaha Hadid Examples

Gehry
Norman Foster
Pruitt Igoe Building - St Louis, MO (Public housing)

Patrik Schumacher Lecture - Amy Frearson

Ban social housing / public space. We need free, self-regulating and self-motivating market.
Regulate planners, abolish land-use prescriptions, continue gentrification, stop housing
“standards” and social/affordable housing. Abolish government subsidies, rent control. Privatize
everything (public squares, spaces and streets).

1. Regulate the Planners

- Access/traffic constraints,
-
 - “infringement of neighbours property utilisation (right of light), historic heritage
preservation, pollution limits. Nothing else can be brought to bear - no social
engineering agendas!”
2. Abolish all land use prescriptions
3. Stop all vain and unproductive attempts at “milieu protection” (Berlin law- prohibited
people from being bought out from their neighborhoods)
4. Abolish all prescriptive housing standards
5. Abolish all forms of social and affordable housing
6. Abolish all government subsidies for home ownership like Help to Buy
7. Abolish all forms of rent control and one fits all regulation of tenancies
8. Privatise all street, squares, public spaces and parks, possibly whole urban district

He’s for gentrification