Bur they have fallen out again, and are begining to spread over the surtound= fing ground. And the logic of eansportation seems os yes. The logis of sport operation says bus the passengers sttaight to the plane ee the tarmac, and sap the buiidings, and the lic of freieht handlig—lopcat enough to compete swith Eutopori Reterdam, that isa actes of hard sani with nothing on it eat ca’ he moved out of the way "This Ingc is sleady beginning to make a transitional kind of sexe, visually ‘where tnisings—roofed votures with si stss—peiisy hey S63 0 row naturally as lightweight shells unencumbered by massive masorry ot Suhural peeconsions. In a. portcape where corrugated asbestos and ibd luminiom sheet ate nor cheap substitutes bot the very stuf of building, 2 brick looks as pompous as restcated masonry dos elsewhere the pisenge bal at Tibury, wth its coats of amis and barrel vaults, wold look pompous any= ‘hers, and atains a positively nightoure quality there). And these sted shells, Stiff tens almost, cam be perfectly adequately designed by engincers without any interference trom architects, and usually ae Arshitests, tthe moment, probably don’t mind too much about this, hecavse ic does impinge om their chosen scene the city. No, thot» mo tue—thanks to an unforeseeable series of erossed ditccles from various higher echelons, the fondi-handlingsesthele of horizontal spread and alvin clang gets ne very good showing, within + few minutes of the Britkh Muscum and. Rewent’s Park. After the frecze on ofice building in cent Lordon, Euston station was depeived of sundry archtcct-designed.superstractrcs, andthe ‘upper deck of the surviving rump of the scheme is just hege parcels-depot shed, single-storey and covering most of the extent of the station below. Its ‘ety 00d 100, especially the long, sloiinivm clad side elevation onto Carding ton Stee Cariously enough, credit oF blame fer tix intrusion of the soods-handling esthetic tata central London lies partly with architects, Some of the design Sections fsting its shape and azrangement can be traced back to Theo Cosby's ston design texm at ‘Taylor-Woexrow's, and are all that remain of their original grandiose projet. But then, that was a rather remackable set- bp, since i was where the Archigram visionarie met one another for Ihe first ‘Aad the Archizram vison, as 1 have indicated here efor, 8 somthing that smany thinking mcrbers ofthe profession don’t wish to know about. Personally, Faonbe if even Archigram could do the rca Tilbory otal with any enthuse. “The only architect who might, in fac, is Cedi Price whe applied container technology, near enoulh, © universiey teaching in his Thins projet (New Soviey, 2 June, 1966), Por ths he fas recently boon atticked, not By some Soddering old stchtectral knight, bat by ane of the profession's most esteemed Younger intellectuals, George Bait, arch-priest of the cult of “values” rather than human service) in asehitecture. According to. Bales, the Thinkbelt’s avoidance of showy monumentaty (or which “tracturalism’ is the corent flip synonvm) will lead to practically every Fhnasble cs in the bow, From conemptuousness i» bureaucracy (Chad the passage in which he made these ‘beusations scems to have disappeared asttely enongh, since it exposes Bard to Swiss ridicuke—ia the version of his article tat’ appears in the present petition). “The working profession will Sind ways of by-passing such intelectual dead- cnds—it has to, oF it would go cat of business—and architects will eventually ‘compose themselves into a frame of mind where chey can design a few almost ‘aluefeee buildings for almast bulling-tee sites, and the archtecira? ms ‘ines will find ways of making the photozraphy loak suitably handsome, and will bring out special issues on "The Architecture of Migasurfac’ of some ssh But by then, ef course, hovercaft will have made even the wifer in docky cbsolee, if multifunction pipelines haven't made hovercraft obsolete, and arate lo make a suitably} M. Rickardh-tpe joke) will have missed the bout again. a8 lustrated by Francois Dallegret |When your house contains such a complex of piping, Hus, ducts, wires, lights, fale, outlets, over, Sinks, feluse disposer, Aish teverherators, antennae, ‘conduits reece hesters—when it eontains +0 many services thatthe hardware {ould stand up By iself witheut any assistance from the Bouse, why have a house to hold it up? When the cost of al this ackle is hall of the tal futlay (or more a it ofen b) what the house doing except concealing Your ‘icchanical pudenda from the sores of folks on the sidewalk? Once oF twice fecently there have byen buildings where the public was genuinely confised shout what was mechanical services, what sas structure-—many visiters (0 Philadelphia take quite a time vo work out thatthe floors of Louis Kahn's laboratory towers afe not supported by the flanking brick duct hoses, aod when they have worked i€ out they are inclined to wonder if ie way worth all the trouble of giting them an independent supporting structure, No doubt about ta great deal of the attention captured by thos labs derives fo Kaba’s attempt t0 pur the drama of mechanical srvzes on show—and if, inthe end i fails to do that convincingly, the psychological importance of the geste fihains at fast in the eyes of his fellow architects. Services ae atopic fn which architectural practice has lternated capricious between the brazen and the coy—there was the grand old Letit-dansle period, when every ceiling teas a mess of gaily painted entrails, a6 the council chambers of the UN building, and there have been fis of pudicity when even the most innocent anatomical deals have been hurriedly Veiled witha suspended ceiling ‘Basically, Uhere are wo eeasons forall Uns blowing Bot and cold UF you will sesouse the air condioning industry's eldst-workig pun), The Gist that ‘mechanical services ate too EW to have been absorbed into the proverbial wisdom of the profession: none of the great slogans —Fonn Follows Function, aacwes (a sractar, Firmesss Commedity and Delight, Truth to Materials, Wenig jst Mola much use in coping with the mechanical invasion. The nearest thing in a signfcantly negative way, it Le Corbusier’ Pour Lado ait fcilopss de inks, which seems to be gaining proverbltype currency Ss the expiestion ofa profound nostalgia for the gden ase before piping St in ‘The sscond resson fs thatthe mechanical invasion i 4 Tat, and architets— cxposalls American architests—sense that i€ i cultural threst to their position inthe world. American architects ae certainly right to fel this, because ther professional specialty, the at of creating monumental spaces, has never bown securely established on this continent, It remains a transplant from an folder culeure and architects in America afe constantly hatking back t0 that culture. The generation of Sanford White and Louis Sullivan were prone to behave like drag from France, Frank Lloyd Wright was apt t take cover behind sentimental Teutoniisms ike Lieto Afitr, the big boys ofthe Thirties and Fortes came from Aachen and Berlin anyhow, the pacemakers of the Fifties Snd Sixties are men of international culture hike Chiles Eanes and Philip Jhneon, ands C00, in many ways, ate the coming man of te, Hike Myron Goldsmith ‘Left to thei own devices, Americas do not monumcotaize oF make archi tecture, From the Cape Cod cottage, through the balloon frame tothe perfection (of permanently pleated aluminium sidine with embowed werodkgraiing, they juve tended to build a brick chitancy snd leat 4 enliecton of shacks against i ‘When Groff Conklin vrei “The Weather-Conditioned Hous’) that a house 4s sothing ba a hollow shell. . shell alla use oe ang statue i which human tings live and work, really is. And spas shells ia. nace are ext ordinarily ineficint bariers to cold nd hess.” he wis expressing an extesely Amerism wits, backed by a long-established arasrnontetradtven ‘And since that triton apvoc- with him dint the Amram flow shell is such an inetcent heat harrier, Americans have akeays been prepared to pump fore heat, ight and postr ato thse shelter than have ther peoples, America = monumental space i, T suppose, the great outdoors—the porch, the terrae, Whitman's ralhcaced plans, Kerousc’s infinite road, and now, the Great Up “There. Even within the bowse, Americans epi learned to diepsme with the 1994 partitions that Europeans need to keep space architectural and within bounds, nd long before Wright began blundering through the walls that subdivided polite arshitecure into living room, games 200%, card foam, RUN FOOR, ete, hhumbler Americins had been slipping ito a way of lie adapted to informally planned interiors thar were, efleciely large single spaces im Rinsy shells have to be lighted and dheatedia mance quite diferent and mate genetous then the cubicuar interiors ‘of the Euiopesn tradition around which the concept of domestic architectore firs cxpazed, Right fom the star, from the Franklin stove andthe keroeene lamp, the American interior has had to be bette seroived i t was to support a cvllzed culture and this is one of the reasons that the U.S, has beer the farsing ground of mechanical services in Buiings—so if services ate 40 be feltanyulnere as a threat to architecture it should bein America The plumber is the quartermaster of American culture’ wrote Adolf Loos, wher ofall Europesn platitudes about the supervrity of U.S. plumbing. He knew what he was talking about; his brief wish to the States in the Nineties convinced him that the outstanding vstdes of the American way of life were i jnformality (no ned ro wear atop hat call on kcal officials) and is cleanli= fest which was bound to be noticed by 9 Vienne with as highly developed 8 set of Freudian compulsions a he had, That sbsesion with clean (which ean become one of the higher absurdities of America’s Iysol-breathing Kleenex: calture was sther pnichologial motive tht drove the nation toward mechan~ {eal services, ‘The early asifieation af ae-condtioning was noe just that peopl had to breathe: Konrad Meier (Reflections on Heating and Ventilating’, 1994) ‘wrote festidiously of". . excessive amounts of water vapour, sickly odours from respiratory organs, unclean teeth, perspiration, untidy clothing, the pres- ence of microbes dus €9 various conditions seufly air from dusty carpets and eater discomfort and greater i! health" Have a wish, and come ick fr the next parasrap ‘Most pioncer ait-conditoning men seem to have been nose-obsessed in tis ways best friends could just about farce themselves to tell Americt of her national 1,0,—and then, compulsive solemn to a man, promptly presribed thei impeoved panacea for ventilating the hell out of her, Some wvaere among these clustering concepts~cleanliness, the Hightcight shell, th mechanical services, the informality and ineitference to monumental architec- tural values, the passion forthe outdours—there always seemed to me to Tur Tm in June 1960 the mow highly apple and NASA kick tom taking expensive hardware ito hove envionment) a the Camps beach at Southern Hin. This beac combines the outdoor andthe lean in 2 highly American mannt—scenically i the od stimmin’ hol of Huckleberry Finn tradition, butt propel sd (hy sophomore lifeguards siting on Eames chairs on poles in the water) and is chlorinated too. From where U stood, Tcould sce not on'y immensely claborate family bares and pienicy in progress onthe stead sat, but also, through and above the tres, the baskotry interlaces of one of Buckminster Fuller’ experimental domes And it hit ine then that if d degree of contra ses lft in, stepeacoct tak means, the United States would be happy we dapease with architecture al buildings altogcthe, Bucky Fuller, of cours is very big en this propynition: his famous none hetorical question, ‘Madar, so Jou bnew what your house weighs? anvculates a subversive suspicion of thr monumental. This Suspicion is ietiulately Shared by the untold thousands ot \msstcans who have aleady shed the des of domestic architecture and live im mobile homes Whichy Though they ray never actully be moved, sti deliver rather better performance as sheltct than do ground-anchored siructures weighing ould devsea pac mors, I someon igethat Would effectively'SUPER-COUPE DE LONG-WEEK-END, 1827 i fall. The dlsebation of the a-curin wl be governs by various electronic Hight and Seether senor, and by tat radical new invention, the weathervane. Foe tally Toul weather sstomatic storm shutters would be quire, but in all bt the ‘mos willy inconstant climates, shouldbe possible to design the conditioning to dea with most ofthe weather most ofthe time, sihost the power con: sumption becoming riiclously greater-than for ar onliaeyinefcent ‘monbmenal type hows ‘Obviously, t would stil be appresiably greater, but this whole argumentbinges on the observation that its the American Way to spend money on services fan upkeep rather than on permanent structure at do the peasant cultures of the Old World, In any ease, we don't know where we shall be sith things like Solar power in the next decade, and to anyone who wants to eatertan an almost= possible vision of air-conditioning for absolutely fee, let me recommend Shor. (another smate tick with @ polythene tube) n the December 1964 issue fof Analog, In fact, quite a number of the abvious common sense objections to the unshowse may prove to be self-evaporating: For instance, noise may Be mo profizm because there would be no surrounding wal to eflec e back ito the Ting sacs, and, in any ease, the constant whispet of the aifcUrtain would provide fir thresbold of louie thar sounds would have 0 best before they began to be comprohensiblewnd therefore disturbing, Bugs? Wald ie? In summer they should be no worse than with the dots aa wines of an oFivary house ‘pen in winter all right-thinking eratutes ether migrate or hibernate; but, aay case, Why not encourage ths normal processes of Darwinian comperitin tO "hd up the situation for you? All thats nceded i trigger the proces by meus ‘oF general purpose le: this would radiate mating clls and sexy scents and thus attract all sorts of mutually incompatible predators and prey into. compas pool of unspeakable catnage. A cloned src tclevision camera could relay the Site of play to a screen sie the dusiling and provide @ twenty-foat DOU program that would make the ratings foe Bowanea Took like chicken Fed Ae! privacy? This sees tobe sixh a acminat incepta. Amerisin life ax factally Hive that tie dificule to believe tht anyone is seriously worried. ‘The answer, under the suburban end ‘whole aegament implies, 1 the ame as for the las houses achit isning so busily decade ag0— e sophisticated landscaping, This afer ally the homeland of the bull ‘Sozer and the transplantation of grown trees why let the Parks Commissione have all the fan? ‘As was sid above, ths argument implies suburbia whic, foe better or worse, in where America Warts to ive It has nothing t0 say about the ts, hh, lke architect, is a insecie foreigh growth of the continent, What is und atau archtecual monuments But T ‘Sarr help worming akour he twit uo trading progres. Ie wil tay fo ‘come, year of eat debit [rote saint os ofthe weatet et hele Orch “Yeas orate or Kes the moat opel eure cmpvomicd Uftenotopite ase play aly nd we peu Remembetine the fate of those who fines pesmanarely, thik ther come fSreti maker things ser for ake OF ‘Buc Tim less impressed with de pear St echonogy tan Tam ith ge ‘rhc, ema sntal ome onprsey aed fer to mnt, ad shoes. bat Hal ane seca arenes for no 58 Sek ana tinge tones 16 PAWLEY: The dram o¥ sane apait ‘new job brand net eth = ery day Uantrtanately second hand wus tes te fond parties lingcring i the oer saseml proc, For te ur howe hinkbt to be eally eee izcussion here isan extension of the Jffersonian dream beyond the agrarian sentimentality of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usoaian Brealacre version the dream ‘ofthe good life in the clean countryside, power-point homesteading in paradise ‘arden of appliances. This dream of the un-house may sound very anti- sfehitectural but its so only in degree, and architecture deprived of ts Eueypean Toots bur tying to strike new ones in an alien sil has come else (0 the ati= house once or twice already. Wright wus nor joking when he talked of the troction of the bow’, even though the spatial promise of the phase i rely tealized tothe fll in the all-ioo-soid fact, Gras-roots architects of the plains likt Bruce Goff and Herb Greene have produced. houses whose supposes ‘monumental form is clearly of litle couseqoence to the funetcnl business of ling in and around them But it ism one building ther seein fat sist nothing bist momma frm that the threat of promise ofthe un-house has en most clearly demonstrated the Johason House at New Canian. So much has been misleadingly sd (by Philip Johnvon himself, we well as others) to prove this a work of architecture in the European tradition, that its many intensely American aspects are ually missed. Yer when you have dug ehrough all the erudition about Ledoux and “Malevinch and Palladio and stuf that has ect published, one wary suggestive source or prototype remains ks csi explained sway—the admitted persistence {in Johnson's mind of the visual image of a burned-out New Enghind township, ‘the insubstantial shells of the houses consumed by the fre Isving the brick oor slabs and sanding chimness. The Nev Canaan qlist-Souse consists essentially of just thew two elements, a ested buick foe slab, and standing ‘unit which i a chimney’ replace on onesie and a bathrooms en the other VArwund this has been draped pressely the kind of ineabetantil shel that Conklin was discussing, only event let substantial than that. The roof certainly, 's slid bur psychologically iti dominated by the absence of visual enclosure ail sround. As many pilgrims to this site Rave noticed, the howse does not stop fc the gles, and the terace, and even the trees beyond, are willy part of the Tivigg space in winter, phsscally and operitionlly sain summer when the four doors se open. The “house slit more than a service core sti nite spacey, for alternatively, a éetched porch locking out in all dicctioas atthe Great Out ‘There, In summer, indeed, the glass would be a bt ofa monsence if the trees did nce shade it and in the recent scorching fll, the sun eexching in theovsh the hare tres erated such a greenhouse eect that parts of the interior were acutely uecomfortable—the house would have bern better of without ie lat —When Philip Johnson says thatthe place is not a controlled environment, however, itis nat these aspects of undisciplined glaring he has in mind, but that when it gee cold { have to move toward the fe, and when it gets £00 hot just move away’ In fact, hes simply exploiting the campfize phenomenon (he is also pretending that the Roor-heating does not make the whole aa habitable, ‘which it oes) and in any case, what does he mean by a controlled environment? Ieis no the same thing a= a uniform environment, ii simply an envionment suited to what you are going to do next, nd whether you build a stone menu ment, move away from the fre or turn on the ai-vanditionin, it = the same basic human gesture you are making (Only, the monument is such a ponderous solution that i€ astounds me that ‘Americans ate sil prepared to employ it, excep out of some profound sense of insecurity, a persistent snablity to rid themselves of those habits of mind they Jeft Europe 10 escape. Inthe epen-oated society, with its social and person ‘mobility, its interchangeabilty of components and personnel, its gadgecry and almost universal expendabilicy, the persistence of archtecture-as-monumental~ pace must appear ae evidence of the sentimentality of the rough. BAIRD: Bnum cam that he advocater ie tonethan umsenn’ this Cevsonet apse neti ace) who eo ins owt o wih se inate’; Ive im RS For that mater, why de he rnc tnd the exper he when they anound” him by ti pefound ‘in theve att, Whether ane ecu thereto MI fd ‘Banham ora Pawley ec his themsies of thea habe of mind sy ‘lenmcaton anti overthe Wiraresens le Bore to csape? Incident sees ove quite impenibleto "When hem tnger quite so acu, thnk of the elt o the ship 1048 Ranhum should took sin at thar In the case oft Lome thatismot a house, he wil falco grasp the fll imphacons of se dscepangy i grater ll How sis environmental pobre Banham deweibe & ae fymblone when BANHAM: [reply 0 Ruud and Pavey cst i eemoeabe concer oF Paws Iitersices of ever touthfl of ech, pipetthrouph the mei ca be ste ‘ne some peuple dont ext hat Kind of SH I thay: prove Petey Publ? {Body oe have diene cating habe or eee, ut Now do you swith Of ie Spaced testy or have Rad them ahopsny wardrobe? Th snot a debate ‘aed: rete words, the human race i ort (ike Baird eyieto pected 1 Strub: there bee ssoundingly ine bfered the Warmpannay a am expe Secure who need the percoma srctoral of mbes becuwe the ve penanence Frops Baw and Fawley aivoctes and of Ou bull ettonment could become a fre are otxes of ut who don't. Nether uch 4 form” of pllion ne the vee Bard ner Paley Seems. psehologialy petnanente of polythene and other on ‘cure enouph to admat tit human vat Segmdble rabbat"Or the overprma iitystom imo hein pneu ofthe mence of exchswe values; what Fafa! eof Ine fa sopicatane of find admirable about adsanced techooey hvicouneas) yb’, Eu thee wil tthe numberof embalmed meanings nd {ie chuce ofthe kindof environment sent thie ehrevens. Reypomes t> Simbios that crete people ot my tut thren shore ea whi adm Dovthoiogaltypeand cultural background te up and which arctan ihe worlds cuer wih Baiedsvluet wre ardeayng reactonas. 8