Henri Lefebvre's proposition that the (evolutionary) flattening out of space was to come emer ae aa Meee Ron ee em Wee cue s tested out here by Mark Robbins in his Miami Art Project ( (2000-2001). By Manaus mer neon ieee CM Coa peo oa Cee eee nee sten (mene ecR nec gt Mion ta e-toc Ra Penn eR eect ewer aon cone a Ratnele my alas ou lems ole see A series of billboards was produced in response rapid sacl flux. The photographic panels are row ne ke at to the area along the Miami River. Now amore _ presented in three variations in a series of 12 ‘marginal residential and commercial corridor, billboards. These have been distributed throughout the the site has a rich ethnic history of control, different neighbourhoods that flank the river, which areData waeoe Of Mies and Men or his temporary installation for the American Academy in Rome, 19 the poetry of looking and being observed. Mark Robbins explores Completed for the gallery at the American ‘Academy in Rome, the piece connects reflections fon Baroque art, the observer and high modernist architecture, ‘A. On the streets and in the interior rooms of Rome, painted and carved figures press in on the viewer. Saints in extremis, putti and crowned nobles look down, appended to facades, doubling the living figures in mation, B. In the Barcelona Pavilion the viewers and the Kolbe statue, a female nude, are endlessly and ambiguously reflected in the deceptively simple setting. The apparent split between a Baroque intoxication with figuration, surface ‘ornament and theatricality and the spare Miesian sensibility begins to diminish. C. The spare set of elements in the installation serve as a modified Miesian framework within a Neoclassical building ‘low wall is marked with a grid of images of alternately shaved and unshaved torsos pasted jn a chequerboard, the irregular arabesques of hair against the classically smooth chest. This panelling could also be read as a hedge or a low screen. On the: blank stucco wall ofthe gallery lengths af bent plastic tubing, of mostly unnecessary electric conduit, make a filigree of contractors’ vernacular. Light bulbs, which don't illuminate much, provide a reasonable excuse for the wiring. Three empty square pedestals occupy the foreground. During the exhibition three men struck poses - vaguely ‘the three muses’ in drag - voguing 10- ‘minute stances: regular guys in front of the bul torsos. (The crowd formed a perfect arc spontaneously in deference to their performance.] The display is a modernist assemblage into which figurative work is inserted. The rectilinear plays off of the curve, torsos against the repetitive grid, conduit against the lines ofthe space, figures are set apart by the square pedestals, There is an interest in the encrustation of surface in Baroque architecture, and furnishings. This apparent Uselessness was replaced by a modernist canon thatrejected artifice, cladding and veneer as inauthentic, like make-up full of guile. The wallpaper tiles present masculinity through an ‘example of perhaps gay body ‘couture’ which, like the excess conduit without wiring inside, is strictly unnecessary from the paint of view of the task at hand. This body is produced without standard utility in mind, decorated as itis in'a ‘meat suit’, through a stylisation of work in the gym, using pulleys and lever arms that are also detached from their traditional productive processes and goals, The imagery aligns itself with a similar economy of overproduction, more often associated with the feminine body and interior decor, in which beauty and surface are sufficient ends. it also, oddly, can recall [no, not Sullivan] Mies, whose I-beams are famously laminated without function on the facade of the Seagram Building, the notational proof of structure. Here the pecs are ornamental, signifying male strength on the posing block.COM@letee yet Unconcluded: The Poetic Resistance of Some Melbourne Architecture Mauro Baracco examines the paradox of human joy in the eidetic immediacy of the moment, and he considers how the often simultaneous joy of generalising or theorising ndition of potentiality’ in human affairs He illustrates this with the work of theoreticians and architects in Melbourne, seen the same experience creates an unavoidable through Piedmontese eyes To compose a finished, well-constructed poem, the mind is obliged to make projects that prefigure it. But for a simple poetic image, there is no project .! Gaston Bachelard In his investigations into the poetic qualities of space, Bachelard thinks of reaching @ plausible explanation by differentiating the rational state of that which would be a composed series of images from the essential, immediate, intuitive, noncalculable, nonrational, and therefore poetic, state that apparently would inform a ‘simple’ and ‘original’ image; the poetic ‘and original state ofthe latter is analogised, through the words of Pierre-Jgan Jouve repeated by Bachelard, to that of ‘a soul inaugurating a form’? But realising an absence of form and projection is already an inevitable way of representing; itis already a way of rationalising which naturally in fact inevitably, guides our innate process of determining the real. In fact, Bachelard himself cannot anyway avoid admitting that ‘everything specifically human in rman is logos’ Its our own logos, infact, that makes us always think, thus represent and ‘admit, that for a simple poetic image there is no Project’ Itis impossible and unthinkable to escape logos: iit were otherwise, we could never anyway realise it, we could never conceive it, we could never admit/represent it to both the world and ourselves. Therefore, the poetic and not-rational state a state that is beyond both logos and, the self, escapes us; we only can, already ‘poetically’, always tend towards it, always ‘unconsciously/poeticaly” go in search of it, intiting that reaching it would anyway imply a comprehending Ifrom Latin, cum-prehendere, {grasp with] and a rationalising of it, thus a denying it. In his way Soren Kierkegaard dwelt densely on this ‘complex and immeasurable paradox of the human state, describing the ‘despair’ of human beings as ‘the sickness unto death’ He tells us that despair is @ typically human condition, that itis the condition of anyone who has a self; self that we cannot be rid of. In a human being, despair is precisely ths: .. to be forced to.be “self” in a way that he doesn’t want to be, that is his torment - not being able to be rid of himself... That is the condition of despair .. because having a self, being a self, is the greatest, the infinite, concession that has been made to man, but also eternity’s claim on him." Therefore, the condition of despair is inevitable since itis implicitly rooted in our inclination to reach that which is unreachable; that which, ifit was reached, ‘would automatically and immediately stop being unreachable and therefore unrepresentable - that is, ‘poetic’ and ‘essentialAnalogously ‘desperate’, of a desperate releasement, isin its turn the state of waiting that is praised by Heidegger: ‘Waiting, all right but never awaiting, for awaiting already links itself with re-presenting and what is re- presented." If, as he suggests, ‘thinking would be coming-into-the-nearness of distance” then the despair, a positive despair is that which characterises those who faithfully, thus unconsciously, ‘numbly’ and ‘diotically’ wait for something that will never be reached, something that is truly ‘inthe distance’, destined to be constantly and for ever ‘distant’ to us, who are capable of just and only reaching its ‘nearness’! Some Melbourne architecture, some local and ‘traditional’ ways of thinking about architecture, ‘express a nation of the poetic which is characterised by the despair of waiting for something which cannot be reached. tis @ ‘despair that is already pervaded by the poetic state of a numb and absorbing/overcoming form of resistance to the process of representing, picturing and objectifying reality. This ‘resisting ‘way informs the reduced and ‘minimat ~ certainly not Minimalist ~ works of Robin Boyd and Bernard Joyce, as well as some more contemporary examples that continue the tradition marked by the projects of these two, ‘and some ather, architects of the 1950s, 1960s ‘and 1970s.’ The reduction of these projects, resulting from a minimalism by means rather than by stylistic manners and intentions, ‘acknowledges the inevitability of both the form ‘and the forming process, but also expresses @ form that is minimal and ‘open’, finished yet never quite definite; a form that always opens to something else, to an unreachable essential, to. sd to be distant, which can always be hoped for yet is never seizable and that ‘distant’ dest conceivable, Giorgia Grassi has commented on his own projects in words that are indirectly, yet precisely, capable of explaining the formal reduction of these Melbourne projects: these are projects that always, while displaying forms, also set out to reveal long- term formal objectives. And here again the potentiality of the form... as sale means of expression .. What else does the rather provisional aspect, that unfinished air common to all these projects signify? What else, if not their condition of expectation and at the same time of forced inertia? If not their determination to always go beyond the figure laid down in the design? Robin Boyd's thought is analogouslycharacterised by this same notion ofa ‘potential and ‘unfinished’ form: it reveals itself not only in the modularity of the compositional layout of many of his works {among others Finlay House, Clemson House, Handfield House, Domain Park Flats, John Batman Motor Inn, Menzies Colleg Carnich Towers and other late and unbuitt proposals and ‘urban visions’), but also in his disclosed interest in architectures which are ‘unfinished’ and never concluded as a result of their flexibility and potentiality Its not surprising that during the design process for the Featherston House, which is conceptually and volumetrically an ‘open’ work inthe trajectory of the Boyd House in South Yarra and other early projects [Wood House in North Balwyn and the unbuilt Wynn House Boyd wrote a review of the German Pavilion a the 1967 International Expo in Montreal describing Frei Otto's project as a ‘keen, brave and potential... tent’ whose ‘design is, literally as well as figuratively, open-ended. It could be expanded to cover the whole Expo site, if requested, without losing its integrity, unity o iyis an ards which we camposure’" Boyd kno always, inescapably and unavoidably, tend in our way of thinking, determining and ordering ou thoughts. Therefore, our way of imagining, representing and producing forms inevitably also tends towards the In Cacciar’s words: any judgement belongs to the complex of discourse, tothe order and rules of the logos. The rejection of the abstract idea of totality therefore, merely establishes its authentic dominion Boyd also knows, however, that the idea of a ‘true’ and ‘essential’ unity, a ‘true’ and ‘essential’ and thus intuitive and poetic unitary form, is inexpressible and never rationally reachable, His projects press the tunutterableness and unrepresentability ofthe ‘over essential One’ .. of the “pre-potence” of the One with respect to any discourse and any judgement herefore, ‘open’ and ‘unfinished’ yet necessarily formed and completed, Boyd's works speak the language of the despair that pervades this paradoxical thinking. The principle of ‘variety within unity’, warmly supported by the Melbourne architect as a distinctive character of interesting a 19608," shot beyond our conceiving is the ‘essential unity of al. which are, however, a form that isc itecture designed in the his paradox; never reachable and -cessarily completed in ventionally unitary, a form that is finite yet never final Boyd's despair cannot help translating itself into a ‘clumsy’ and ‘impure’ attempt, faithful yet irremediably lost, to paradoxically express the inexpressiility of anecient aint teen onan a. comet Pacer esigo Soi hears ‘Pomona ina pan cea i nn arn tr, taarhedin 12 Beer et ee Navel, ‘essential’ and ‘poetic’ unity - that is, the ‘over- essential One’. In this way, the notion of variety within unity’ admits, at the same time, both an inevitable inclination of our logical thinking towards the ‘one’ and yet the impossibility of ccamprehending it; an admission that therefore proposes a ‘weak’ idea/image of unity, That is, a Unity which isin any case conceptually modifiable since it is composed of various and variable part, in their turn already unitary in themselves. ‘The Domain Park Flats complex, an ‘exemplary case of ‘variety within unity," has a finite and physically completed form that yet defers to an essential and poetic ‘One’ that will never be reached. In some way this is already suggested by the two exaggeratedly high towers ‘on the south side; waiting’ towers that ‘open to" and ‘hope for’ something else. An analogous ‘character informs the indifferent and repeated grid of the John Batman Motor Inn, conventionally and necessarily concluded by the line of a curved roof yet constantly ‘ready {for/open to’ possible variations, additions and other future configurations: new variations/additions, however, that never ‘occurred, but remained existing and certainly ‘more ‘essential in their state of potentiality/virtuality.The projects and studies that Bernard Joyce ‘and Bill Nankivell often developed together in the 1960s, exactly while Boyd was focusing his attention on the concept of ‘variety within unity are guided by the notion of a repeatable and variable ‘system’.” That which is of most interest in their proposals is the emphasised repetitiveness of the modules. tis a repetitiveness virtually pushed to infinity: a repetitiveness ‘without qualities, ‘idiot’ and indifferent. Michael Markham precisely reads the infinite modularity of these projects as evocative of a different and ultimately more accentuated grain of modernity; that of an urban territory that is ‘unbounded and lateral, without a ‘diversity of types’, pervaded by the typical ‘Australian ‘sameness'.* A'system’ is never concluded and never reaches completion, although itis inevitably concluded and ‘unitary’ as an idea, as a principle. Joyce Nankivell’s modular and repetitive configurations are a product of this definition, and in such a context they need to be considered. They are concluded and finished configurations, conscious of not being able to escape an unavoidable sense of completion yet informed by laconic and reduced lines, of 2 reticence that defers to something else; an inexpressible infinite of which we can only express 2 finite concept It is not coincident that the aerial-view drawings of Joyce's tartans are never ‘framed never concluded or enclosed by framing lines, ‘or represented in relation to their context. In a certain way they already incarnate and express their Posmall wn and absolute specific content: that of Melbourne ost fants intrinsic splendid non-spectaculacty, decishs taal derived from the ‘indifference’ not only of the om foundation's original grid, but also ofthe act itself the!“ auided Hodes origina layout” seco Also, the Boydian notion of ‘variety within unity’ syst ya sell. cman aphoristic concept, inwardly leaning towards it a relation between terms which are merely and exclusively interested in the process of composing: type of relation disinterested in refering directly and» literally to the surrounding environment and the contextual landscape and architecture; a type af re that impossibly tries to resist the process of relating. Sl Infact, resisting the action of terol and direct al commenting onthe pre-xistence inevitably generat aad anater form of elation the one between the term=o° aga ity and variation. Leon towards eachother, the all are the terms of an equation that is still of a relatioty nature; an introverted relation guided by ettionaf trajectories which are internal in comparison to the: external projections of forms of relation that are m("* MoMA explicitly informed, but also ‘muzzled’ by their actig'a~\ =< commenting on the urban and natural pre-existing suse landscape. c Strongly encouraged by Melbourne's ‘non- spectacularity’ and ‘non-picturesqueness’, the aphoristic modular compositions by Boyd and Joyer express the despair of realising the impossibility of ‘escaping representation, of escaping logos, even in? simultaneous act of an eternal, and eternally defea esistance to it. The mod modernity specifically typi: characterised by a rational-scientific-progressiveeset ess pa see ‘phere a fatal y eter norton SS ‘Seape' re armes teow ti sah ‘Sian spent iter ra Ione re Sect nature, It is marked by this faithfully ‘idiot’ form of, despair, that of being apparently always defeated from the start, yet constantly hoping/searching for ‘an unreachable ‘distant’ - therefore, a condition that is absolutely poetic in being continuously, eternally, destined to be defeated. This is the message conveyed by the never finished, yet completed forms by Robin Boyd and Bernard Joyce. They are open and unfinished, characterised by the language of repetitiveness, naively and ‘idiatically/faithfuly’ waiting for that Which will never be reached; forms that can impossibly resist the rational logos through an ‘action of bath reiterating and always deferring, pervaded by the ‘poetic’ despair of being always inevitably Finished, yet always in search of the ‘essential fini. Immense’ and ‘vast’ projects — not only 50, and not really, because conceived for Melbourne's spread-out territory ~ these unconcluded and never finite, yet completed, schemes by Boyd and Joyce ‘despairingly/poetically’ tend to the ‘poetic/intuitive’ state of non-descriptiveness, rnon-representability and non-relativeness. Their completion, together with their own inescapable condition of openness, makes them similar to ships perpetually and ‘despairingly/poetically’ in ‘movement/search In effect, as Bachelard had already suggested by reinterpreting Baudelaire the shi ‘beautiful volume resting on the waters, contains the infinite of the word vast, which is a word that does not describe, but gives primal being to everything that must be described.” © ae and cag fe ree {nner ace opening anes eer at Temiranne (inte tial Iter Sota, he Ponts ace pial ‘hepato moar open ‘rtd rence ct) SS acl eed od arta ainto facture. able, imm jocated.’ He lust [els MTN (cued ONE inate are een mela eli Team ialuar=(et8) 1 Beyond the acknowledged culture of architecture comprised of buildings by known or anonymous Cee Cee oe ee power and character - which seems only to be beginning to be seen or used as content, subject matter or matiére by practitioners such as Gre een eeu ce eee es Cee mC no is an established idea. However, more subtle and Srnec Ean) re eee eee ncaa eee ‘occurs naturally in childhood: the exploration of eae Te ea interiority - the self-centred, ‘provincial world ees ee eee ert) Pec cee oe ror Cee acs ee eu eet Cone ees Ce ee ee eee Pee neue a ae artnet tela Ope Maci comme tte Ron tata mee (oct Miu erate Sty erate ice) PERU a eee eros ing is not — th Rueeleeccre mine ean eg ae ale Chelating Es a Rie-le- eg) te) Ree ee ee aoe ee se ee eee ‘energy particularised lke a laboratory experiment free ‘of narrative or encumbering form. The falling water eee er tee eee figures in a silent de Chirico piazza, The effect isto ee eer Pee en ec Sree Meee eT ce particularly when highly determined, What power has it ee Sc cote eee eer) Cee eee Impressionism is transporting - curiously, criticism of eee en eee ey light rather than on the timeless, trancelike scale-less eee ee) Where an easy, conventional reading is nat the Peete ae soe space/state of mind is located. It lies between the circle of parked cars at a picnic, Ce eee een ras Ce eee eed pe eae ey of the conscious and unconscious intentionality. This is seen in the ordering and composition of Zen gardens orCe ee ce Sree ee eu) the suburban meeting hall and the fence. There ‘spaces do nat necessarily only provide recreation, entertainment or diversion - the trivial Easily, the gravest realms of life can slip into them, Geert ee en eae ec dislodged, loosened and connected by modernity eee cee en table top and pavement can lift as a plane into the sky and the mound of moss loom as a Cee ees RTE eet Pee Oe ou ee a) Ce eae nem ne Sree on cute ea SE EU CeesThe Technique of Space Nicholas Boyarsky ack rocates the rediscovery of a notion of resistance to combat the current homegenisation of ‘meaning’ in culture. This he suggests has the potential to shatter the technologically induced ‘sublime ambiguity’ of digital interchangeability. Affirming Bachelard, he asks ‘Why not begin with the house? Are spatial histories of people possible any more? Is there a ‘space’ of immigration, of the diaspora, of the dispossessed, of the World Wide Web? Probably nat. The cultural history of the 20th century can be read rather as a history of resistances to the habitualisation and homgenisation of everyday life and the disappearance of space. As early as 1917 the Russian Formalist critic Vietor Shklovsky was writing that ‘Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war... and at exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of artis to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art isto make objects “unfamiliar, to make forms dificult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must bee prolonged, Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important” Bachelard’ s ‘topoanalysis, which he described as ‘the systematic psychological study ofthe sites of our intimate lives, and the Situationalit’ urban strategies of dérive, détournement and psychogeography all reinforce the primacy of direct, unmediated experience. We appear to have reached a position of ‘almost sublime ambiguity. Technology and the media both sustain us and consume us. Memory is a8 much to do with branding as with intimacy. History, 25 Mare Auge reminds us, is snapping at our heels ever faster and with lessening critical distance’ The speed of ‘communication sometimes leaves nothing to say. Information {knowledge} has become data {facts given) without anyone particularly noticing. Image is now pixel Maybe we do all share a cultural unity far greater than, lever before, Probably we have to begin to make decisions about all this. To discover the unfamiliar in ‘our shared everyday lives. To rediscover the notion of resistance, How to shatter our own cultural unity? Why riot begin with the house? Bachelara's oneiric house has two principal connecting themes: that its a vertical being and that it isa concentrated being, It is composed of a few specific elements: the cellar, stairways, bedchamber, attic and roof. Bachelard is, however, clearly uncomfortable when he comes to the city where, for him, there are no houses and therefore no intimate values of verticaliy. For Bachelard the individuality of experience is lost in the communality of urban experience: ‘a house in a big city lacks cosmicity’* Today's home is politicised within this debate. The familiar elements of domesticity are all imbued with the cultural and gender nuances of our times. HH, however, we see the contemporary house as a site for the construction of difficulty and the unfamiliar then it becomes possible to speculate on privacy, intimacy, dreams, indulgence and self-discovery again. ©Artist Stephen Bram illustrates how he works from @ specific space in a remote location to exhibit in the ubiquitously available exhibition space of the magazine. In his ‘pointing to nothing’ he describes how the potential’ta mean’ is ‘stricken with contradictions’, and his work creates a series of relationships which occur the same way in different circumstances. A constant poetic? q1s.) Tw yn ts r TL sie1. The Ruins of Romanticism What do art and architecture have to say to each other? And, more specifically, over the question of ‘poetics? Almost nathing, ‘To my mind, this ‘almost nathing’ is ‘consequence of Romanticism which, about 200, years ago, dismembered the existing hierarchy of aesthetic practices and founded the modern dispensation of art, Despite everything that has happened since, | believe - with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Naney idual Romanticism still regulates the aesthetic hierarchy of our times. As they themselves put it ‘What interests us in romanticism is that we still belong to the era it opened up. The present period continues to deny precisely this belonging, which defines us [despite the inevitable divergence introduced by repetition|.A veritable romantic unconscious is discernible today, in most of the central motifs of our ‘modernity. Not the least result af romanticism’s indefinable characteris the way it has allowed this so-called modernity to Use romanticism as a foil, without ever or in order nat to recognize — that it has done little more than rehash romanticism’s discoveries, that a recognizing My aim here is simply to sketch the new relations that Romanticism forges between aesthetic practices: first, by way of a very ‘general account which surnmarises some of the existing research in the field; second, by nuancing this, account through a close examination of an emblemat ‘contemporary Romantic artist: the Australian painter Philip Hunter If architecture can, as I claim, learn ‘almost nothing from ar, itis still the case that: (1) this almost nothing is already a great deal; (2] art can, equally, learn almost nothing from architecture 2. A Politics of Spaces ‘As Michel Foucault has argued, in a text that seems decisive for any subsequent debate on this topic: {At the moment when a considered politics of spaces. was starting to develop, at the end of the eighteenth century, the new achievements in theoretical and experimental physics dislodged philosophy from its ancient right to speak of the world, the cosmos, finite or infinite space. This double investment of space by political technology and scientific practice reduced philosophy to the field of a problematic of time. Since Kant, what is to be thought by the philosopher is time, Hegel, Bergeon, Heidegger. Along with this {goes a correlative devaluation of space, which stands an the side of understanding, the analytical, the conceptual, the dead, the fied, the inert* ‘As Foucault suggests, however, the practice of architecture moves more and more centrally into the ‘command circuits of modernity, forging links with palticians, city planners and bankers, And, as it does 0, architectural design and discourse necessarily undergo a complete mutation,Life in Quotes Just as Bachelard used poetry with its specitics, traditions and conventions to explore poetic space, Mark Robbins here uses the medium of Hollywood cinema with its own well-established world view and artifices as a starting point for a discussion of American Urban Space. I watched a lt of vas a kd, especially movies on ‘Sundays, From morning to early evening, there was a movie on one of New York's non-network stations every two hours on the hour. It was cheap programming filler, showing mostly black and white flicks from the 30s, Produced ‘mainly by newly minted Americans, they were the products of the controlled workings of the studio, They simulated the world of America - garden parties, gangsters and ‘hostesses’ with pencilled eyebrows, The stylisation of every element was. attractive |1was and still am engaged with Hollywood, which has always been engaged with the production of fantasy images that defined the ideal American family and home, as well as every manner of history. | was fascinated by the artifice, the hugely complex machine that produced it ll. The totality ofthe system was appealing, Like the military, it took care of and controlled everything: the hair, the walk, the dialect and speech, the hhousing, the social hierarchy, the costumes, the relationships, identities and the lives ~ all that was publicly said or written about them. This Whole other world, which seemed so complete, never seemed to exist much in the world | knew except in fragments, Back in the early 60s from the back seat of a two-tone Impala | would see traces ofthis movie {decor in the streamlined bars and shop fronts along the older commercial streets, In modest Long Island towns like Hicksville and Mineola, rows of shop fronts that had been renovated in the 30s and 40s remained, ‘moderne’ below and Victorian above. Glass block, ribbed aluminium trim and of course Vitrolte, the brand name for integral coloured glass panels, offered urbanity and gloss for the three-storey commercial blocks. Inthe 30s main streets across the country were redane lke this. Buildings dating fram only some three decades earlier had their older ‘ornament stripped and, a least on the lower level, reveneerad, The Depression had embalmed the city, stalling most new building, and recladding signified prosperity. Facades were streamlined, refiect ‘an image of the future, of glamour, speed and wealth. This marketing decor, which used newer materials and farms to replace the old fashioned, was a talisman of prosperity In 2001 rather than visions of tomorrow we get retra, On the road instead of fins and improbably aerodynamic forms of concept cars, the Daimler Chrysler revs up the PT Cruiser ~ a Dick Tracy DeSoto. In the supermarket, fod products with trace elements of nutrients found in nature are heralded as ‘old-fashioned’, ‘country, ‘classi or original. [Swanson has repackaged its 1954 TV dinner line as Traditional Favorites. In cities and suburbs, ong again, elder buildings, which are now 60s and 70s modern glass and steel, re being reclad with new: historical elements rendered in stucco or marble tle. Classical pediments are unnaturally stretched over porte-cocheres in front of aluminium curtain walls, and: exposed structural elements are filled in with brick and Lintelled windows. The surface renovation offers an approximate historical sign. The past, while always popular, has growing appeal. ‘The notion of modern has become suspect. Science, ‘once the source of hope, now offers the threat of biological manipulation, not better ving, Pragress is less frequently sold as a promise, but instead is percieved as a latent threat, a symbol of change and an alien future. Historical theming, like a blue plate of toast points and chicken 8 la king, offers warmth in a confusing world ‘somehow not of our making Cities are replaced with pantomimes of cities beyond the suburbs, which having inherited real problems, are as an unattractive as the city centres once were. Reproduced in understandable terms from a known catalogue af elements of an American past, they have become public space lite. In the interest of notions like community, family ar security, new town squares are ‘made which only increase the commute and anomie, and! the lack of shared social space and institutions. Outlying suburbs are coded as self-contained urban entities. Its just at these moments when the reality ofthe town fades that the nostalgia foritrises. As Svetlana Boym points ‘ut in her eloquent Future of Nostalgia ‘the stronger the loss, the more itis overcompensated with commemorations, the starker the distance from the past, the more it is prone to idealizations' This is visible in our thorough enjoyment of historically themed houses and parks, which are reproduced without the drudgery of daily life that the majority of people experienced, The sheer inconvenience, discomfort and inequality are lost in the translation. This nostalgic view of things keeps us {rom engaging in the ‘present space of experience’, keeping the object of longing ‘somewhere in the twilight of the past or on the island of utopia where time has happily stopped'*{Setar Bom, tre inter 20 Receive stems Prelim Chater Gaps, ey ‘heey 70990 Crres ‘These 19th-century city replicas offer a ‘smiling replacement of the remains of ‘downtowns that they eventually asphyxiate. They create an urban kitsch, and Uke the kitsch described by theorist Sam Binkley, it functions to fabricate a web of familiarity and comfort, protecting ‘routine habits from interruptions and disturbances that might induce reflection, discomfort or introspection’ tis, in other words, {good for business, Architecture has a tradition of conservative ‘alignment, often invested in the way things are a tradition of conservative, often with an appeal to {an image of the way they were. Current rhetoric appropriates the language of family’ and ‘morality, with problematic views witnessed as somehow anti-American, Modern art and architecture are allied with ‘elites, assumed to be counter to populist views. There was a period, atleast stylistically, when it seemed that a glossy Vision of the American family could fit into the ‘modern home. Eero Saarinen tulip chairs and ‘white Formica in suburban dinettes had their ‘moment. In the age of space, and the Korean War ‘we drank Tang - the drink of the astronauts, Historically, Modernism is tied to a re- ‘evaluation of art and society, anew set of questions. It was constructive but also sought consciously to disrupt standard economies. In the late teens, Walter Gropius wrote of the fundamental irreconcilability of the state and art He bemoaned an age ‘suffocated by a world of shopkeepers... trapped in a quagmire of ‘commercialism, white calling for ‘a reunion between creative artists and the industrial world’.* Critiques today are often equated with a threat — being by implication un-American, The fundamental radicalism of the historical American proposition becomes neutered by pious renditions of history in colonial drag, Today, God's preferred style, as seen on the sets of 1 fundamentalists isa loopy rendition of Baroque, forthe settee and the coiffures] or Victorian. A new American ‘Christian’ style has replaced Gothic. In times of cultural displacement there is a call for a return to values, origins. (in the 20th century, in response to immigration and industrialisation and the alienation of the overcrowded city, the City Beautiful offered a cosmetic vision of healing.) The interiors of the Mormon visitors, centres offer an od hybrid between Colonial and Louis Quinze in fibreglass. All-you-can-eat buffets serve large white families in rooms lined with gingham, rough-hewn beams {and white-painted wood: the heartland as utopia ‘of American values. Not justin towns like Celebration and Seaside, Victoriana has stuck as a kindof stylistic default for America. New subsidised housing across the country ‘Vvogues’ the middle class in Victorian fretwork, ‘and herringbone brick. The failure of public housing is blamed on form and style rather than bad planning, a lack of maintenance and the segregation of uses and classes. Familiar visual cues are calming, comforting in the midst ofa perceived erosion of values. Latinos, ‘gays, Blacks, women and immigrants, no longer iiterally minorities, threaten the standard order. We see the result ofthis easy acquiescence in the suburban Georgian MeMansions, the 3/5 scale Victorian villages for daycare centres, in the proliferation of ‘magazines and home shows dedicated to the traditions of home. Martha Stewart and her ken offer reconnection with an earlier craft tradition. “The New Yankee Craftsman’ shows how to make corner secretaries for the modern kitchen, burnished wood outside, white melamine inside, Rooms are purified with mechanical scent diffusers and potpourri that ‘smells lke apple pies in the oven. While a madern aesthetic may be more widely embraced in some targeted circles - see J Crew, KEA ‘and the Gap - why even Martha Stewart has bought 2 heroically modern structure to live in the Gordon Bunshaft house - the issue here is not one of style. Itis rather the question of why at this point in time there is this proliferation and hunger for mock historical forms. And that this fixation on style ~ an easier nut to crack than invention perhaps - keeps Us safely on the surface, playing to the desires of a market that it helps create. So the car isn't designed. to be faster, or more economical or safer, or more comfortable - or even remarkably and singularly beautiful, oly to look comfortably familiar. Pre- existing models have lessons, but without transformation cannot accommodate technologies, land uses, building types anda culture that have never existed before. There is in all ofthis sense of fixed value and form {or the way society works, the family, the home and its institutions. They stand in for radically changed entities, whose images have not been updated. In architectural terms what is spectacular in Savannah Js unique and can't be grafted whole onto Camden, N The notion that to revive community life, we need to make the appropriate stage séts ~ the décor of public ‘space [brick shop fronts, Victorian benches, etc] - ‘somewhat simplistic, rather than thinking about other functions and uses that bring people out of doors. Unfamiliar cues that make people stretch eventually can become familiar and valued. Is a narrative that changes and the lag between the facts and the story doesn't need to be encouraged. ©yLeyIS UeA UOaT jasalgypuy When Gaston Bachelard wrote The Poetics of Space he wrote from the heartland of a (very) particular culture. Confident of its unity, he was able to make links between a shared sense of being-in-space and a shared expression in words of that sense of habitation of place. He could connect the literature of his culture to the geography of space internalised into the consciousness of the educated elite. Today ‘fully’ 2 per cent of the world’s population live in countries other than the one in which they were born Communication media also render people more aware of the cultural production of other countries, even if this is predominantly a hegemonic flow of images from the usa, the ‘Americanisation’ of the world (including the usa). Bachelard’s cultural unity is for many, shattered. More positively, many now find their energy between cultures. On the one hand architecture, free from the need for obvious translation, has been the first truly ‘international’ cultural production, conveyed by journals, shared practices such as competitions, educational practices such as project- focused learning, and the jury system and shared recognition structures through awards and exhibitions.But does this transmissibility sit comfortably with the spatial histories of people, which histories are part of ancient evolved continuums, evident in the robust survival of indigenous ways of seeing despite two centuries of determined efforts at erasure in Australia, to take one example? Are there practices that resist the seemingly easy flux of information? Is it significant that Sansovino and Utzorn faced similar political difficulties in the competition processes of the mid-1400s and of the mid-1900s? 4 Does procurement procedure determine product? Or is there an evolution of social awareness of space to match the emergence of dual and multiple poetic contexts for so many people today? © The above was originally written by Leon van Schaik as an invitation letter to contributors at the Inception of the Poetics project when he requested architects, writers and artists to participate in the issue.96 Contributor Biographies aur Baraca vas ben in ay oer paces inion te Spt rir a ac te ve osen steel od raat, es caren ar ‘Tenor hc on brani se Naas Boj cnr es ry Reel — 9 or ‘Bsa hos ut ane ietredset in tm exon A Mot ‘ean he hasbeen Vis ri tere Unstone en ‘ese nse een as ets ung Coren Ue Lenton rege Th tat Acton Rescrchon Bk Morn was ond terete prac pbs Bas Do in ‘Sepa Bram an srs ws ea woken Maun ura etcrpecnad by ne xr Clay st 390913 Astin usta aa Ramah Mey Geary J 6472 oo ‘ez iNew od es earths ght Seagate neato Meare a snared ex et re ithe gte Bian nw nce. Sees pos of aprons le pais yesh Banks Fey 29 ym ith sr el Nero 9700, ‘sume denn Feserstion Sere Mabou ans uti Caan a pub want le a, ctr, ‘essays and pop Ab ees The Reanim Entangray Pom rteigan atgn PrssHacret ‘exam pea od rate prereset ‘eterans sew ptce mire n span ads sag hr Inia ear Spo Wat pb Cemten rors am te eee casio ect ern Marat Ides agit maging Fay a fs Gor msi he ds arin feted interred 9101 nd alo Crete conan 3 pnt ene a ieee ee ere eee Fetus ranoson ans itl saya Now oh mond & Cage a on 26 tt eu natal arestecral Beye te Helo Sr nes ass nuh lee Gael rents Ps Dark autor st ph aster i171 6 raring eect ica here ain ar wae qh extagen tere ‘ienar been retry nants pata tra ‘te ean stn ita rhea Osi ero te ale decibel Wak lm yponten om et present wring onthe der of ees blige ers Thane cd een cre uy a in Expres Mars Lge Ror amirent—ecatraton oth Compan Sse ands project wn Alc tars new psc range Ros Pa iy ported yn a Crane Dag Daf Credo pet ies They sesh nse np ot trig onc Cammanty Cb athe lary Caan lel Hehe sos shares bak, Nika apart crt Seir Later an end te Cote fo ee {ib ran Clg fhe ats Hea rey Sno ali ti Users ‘ems Sis, Urs Mebsrne ESvted lhe Uvery esrne ‘sso nave ben rani Freeh German Spann, Cain, inh a ‘stn ace martin ra gibson smo recat bok as The Torben of Mga 0 ann eat, Wha tn Berger So 00, ‘orate ndrenen sn cotinine iy oad cnet reo saer tin puerto es ary cytes ings ots ote ple Fundeen tthe tHe crety sein Masten ‘Shoprs rcv ural he Sinner Arce Be eo crimnnerari cre dag seo Leon vn Sea PR ns meer tne aera Pasar reece stereos ost al hel cg ey ‘gan Ute dy. ull a Tm Kose and an ange Gti Pn| ‘hile tse Hes ao ergata en pc {7 yr Oran bee hears Bes Won Curent wrk Inte Bart Moe 02, Wastglantner oe bangs Flenios Hambor 9% 2401 estan, Wester Oak, 200-5, Puter Waan thePast Imperfect Practice Profile: kim Wilkie Associates Nicola Kearton Interior Eye: Cultural Ministry Kell Building Profite: Alba di Milano Engineering Exegesis: Soft Materials Strong Structures Michael We from Wiley-AcademyAdrian Forty is one influential figures in history and theory today. The author of two seminal boo! sine (1986) Wo is also the founder Course in the Hist Architecture at the hitecture, Univers rtlett My inaugural lecture in architectural history at UCL. took place on 5 December 2000, 30 years to the day after Reyner Banham delivered his in the same place Banham's lecture, entitled ‘At Shoo Fly Landing’, was about the Santa Monica Pier - ‘Shoo Fly Landing’ being the name af the spot an which the pier stood, so-called ‘on account af the stench of the local tar pits which made this an automatic gesture by anyone in the vicinity, The pier appealed to Banham because it was rot the sort of thing architectural historians normally took any notice of. Though an ebvious, familiar feature of the Santa Monica coastal landscape, it lacked any documentary records whatsoever ~ however, with a certain amount of poking about underneath the pier Banham managed to piece together its origins and successive transformations. If part of the purpose of the lecture was to show that architectural historians usually failed to notice what was under their noses, the other point of it was to show that it was the pier that had triggered the entire subsequent development of Santa Monica. Without knowing the history ofthe pier, you could nat grasp the rest af the history of Santa Monica's Urbanisation, In other words, no pier ~ no Santa Monica Besides telling the story of the pier in his lecture, Banham made three general remarks about architectural history as a discipline, which, three decades on, are worth reconsidering. The first of these was that architectural historians spend too much time looking at phatographs of works of architecture, and not intent on scanning an erfect past, archit Imperfect’, F on the hiSa Manic Par Sa Fy Landing sated in Rene Soren Los ‘Angin 96s ol messes 5 eee woe | ‘teenth inter Ban ome fo wen oh be waged acts eer hon er oe od Phcgrpt arn tel yun of nde achat Abang ‘tee elas canstnty us auc sess Tels ‘rioenet vuring Perr Koons Lar ng ane Sta Pao 22 Inopi eober 200 eae moths tothe hi, strats st enough time craving about on, in, or under the built works themselves. Works of architecture, Banham pointed out, are fied tothe ground, and this fixity is a necessary feature of their property as works ~ but a feature that photographs always overlook. Now one of Banham’s more useful pieces of advice | remember as a young lecturer was ‘never talk about anything you haven't been to see, because there'll probably be ‘somebody in the audience who has’. d endorse this advice, but there isa sense in which it can now be qualified. A growing familiarity with semiotics and Structuralism in the last 30 years has allowed us to see that - to paraphrase Roland Barthes ~ the realty of an object is nat exhausted by its phenomenal existence, but extends into each and every representation of itn other words, we have works, and we have photographs, and it is not thatthe photograph is simply a poor substitute forthe work, but rather that i is another facet of the work's being, and one that can be thought about in its ‘own right. As a result, the work is never “nished’. While images of a building continue to be produced, it remains ever in development’. No one has done mare to develop our understanding of photographs as part af the system af modern architecture than Beatriz Colomina in her book Privacy and Publicity (1994) and other writings. To take a recent instance of this phenomenon a fashion advertisement from last October's Vogue features as a backdrop to Pierre Koenig's Los Angeles Case Study House 22, a building that isthe object of one of the most famous architectural photographs ofall ime, taken by Julius Shulman. Now, to consider the building without Shulman’s image would be absurd, and so too the Vogue advertisement clings to the work -forus the work does not ‘exist without these photographs, but that does not mean we cannot tll the building apart from the photograph. The distinction that Banham drew between the ‘hands on’ historian and the library-bound scholar who experiences the work only through images no longer seems quite so necessary. Architectural history has become reasonably sophisticated at dealing with built objects and their representations without confusing one withthe other Banham’s second observation was that architectural historians spent too much time looking at ‘canonic’ works, and not encugh time looking at the everyday and the ordinary. Banham presented this very much as an ‘either/or scenario, and it is certainly true that as a historian you tend to develop a reputation either as a “high art’ Person, or as a ‘popular culture’ freak. As someone who has paddled in both ponds, | do not really see why one should have to stay in one or the other, and indeed Id prefer to see the two ponds not as two, but just as one. big one. To take an example, in the Essex village of South Woodham Ferrers there was in the 1970s {but maybe is no more ~ | have not been back to look] a corrugated-iron church, a church that in its form and situation clearly longed to be something much grander, like perhaps the 15th-century parish church at Thaxted inthe same county. And in the same village, South Woodham Ferrers, before it was cleaned up and made into a ‘town’, one would find a simple residence like the old railway carriage nestling in an orchard setting, ‘making 2 dwelling that maybe dreamed of something nobler ~ the Villa Barbaro by Palladio perhaps. But at the same time, there is a sense in which the Villa Barbaro longs for the primitive arcadian simplicity of the railway carriage. In other words, there is something to be gained by thinking about each in terms of the other. To grasp the significance of any particular abject, it pays to think ofthe entire system in which it belongs. Architecture is unusual among the arts in that it has a very large significant ‘other’, usually called ‘building’ - architecture is 2 relatively small and specialised sector within the generat field of building. This is not a situation that arises with the other arts. In literature there is both high art and popular fiction, and although people certainly distinguish between the two, they are both deemed arts. It is perfectly possible, for instance, for an author to produce work in both genres. The same Js true of cinema, painting and any other art you can think of. In architectural design, however, you have 2 situation where, while all things fixed to the ground are ‘buildings’, only afew of them are ‘architecture’. For architects, this distinction is very important - their entire occupation depends on preserving it. Yet while for them so much is invested in the upkeep of the defences, afor everyone else outside the construction industry the distinction really does not matter very much. In so far {as buildings provide the setting for everyday life, itis rot of great importance whether you call some of these ‘architecture’ and some ‘buildings. It may well be that ‘some works make us more conscious of who we are and of our relations with our fellow beings than do others and on that account might be said to be better, lr more interesting ~ but otherwise, in the normal conduct of everyday lfe, the distinction between architecture and building is not all that important. We can certainly afford now to be more relaxed about the rather categorical distinction that Banham made between the study of high architecture and ‘ordinary stuff than he felt able to be in 1970. The third of Banham’s distinctions was between historians who got their material from investigating built works, and those who got their material from ather sources, from ‘theory’. Banham was very blunt about this: The strength of architectural history is that itis fundamentally about physical objects and physical systems, not about abstract categories or academic disciplines. It will always rejuvenate itself by going back to those objects and systems in order to ask new questions about them.” Now here Banham described a distinction that has become normative in architectural history ~ and put himself very firmly on one side. You know the scene ~ on the one hand there are the theorists, for whom works of architecture are just a means of illustrating a theoretical discourse; and on the: other hand we have the trainspatters. Both types will be familiar to you, but | do nat believe they cannot mix - and indeed | would suggest that part ofthe pleasure of architectural history comes from on the one hand examining the work, and using that experience to test cut theoretical propositions; and on the other hand from bringing theories to interrogate the work. It's a two-way process, as a result of which both works and theories are enriched. And certainly the best of our students work has been very successful at this, at moving from ‘object to theory, and back again from theory to object, thinking through abjects and seeing through theory. ©aetna (aa) Kim Wilkie Associates Nicola Kearton reviews the work of landscape architects and urban designers Kim Wilkie Associates, whose interest in the intimate relationship between land, culture and place has abled them to combine the restoration historic landscapes with radical designs in both rural and urban cont Describing themselves as landscape architects, urban designers and environmental planners, Kim Wilkie Associates have in the last decade produced a body of work that is remarkable for its far-reaching and innovative solutions in a wide variety of settings. (Their own setting is an office on leafy Richmond Hill in London. In London they have won acclaim for {2 proposal which provided a 100-year landscape strategy for the River Thames. Following on from this they produced @ detailed study of the densely urban area of Borough at London Bridge, a masterplan for the redesign of Hyde Park Corner and are now working on a plan for a new square in Greenwich, International projects include the restoration and management plan for Sir Harold Acton’s estate at La Pietra, now the New York University campus in Florence, described by Wilkie as a perfect relationship between man, garden and the productive landscape; a masterplan for the ancient monastic complex of, Solovki, et in a highly sensitive environmental area that was ‘once the site of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, and a competition design for a Garden of Forgiveness’ in the central area of Beirut. Many projects involve public work and community spaces but the practice also creates lyrical pieces of landscape art, most notably the series of elegantly curved grass terraces at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk, which evokes the ancient British tradition of turf-covered earth sculpture. Or the new botanical gardens in Moscow where in winter 3 long pool flanked by Siberian birch trees is artificially kept a few degrees above freezing in order to form a frozen mist over the water, thereby coating the nearby trees with ice The practice works on the regeneration of historic landscapes both urban and rural, applying radical new designs that spring from a close study of place. The sense of place as, something formed by the intimate relationship between man, culture and nature greatly preoccupies Wilkie himself, who graduated with a history degree from Oxford before studying landscape architecture at Berkeley. He is drawn by the Enlightenment theories af the wholeness of man and nature ‘and the idea that the cultivation of land was intrinsic to its beauty. He prefers to emphasise the ‘use’ aspect of ‘Alexander Pope's famous dictum: ‘All must be adapted to the Genius and Use of the Place, and the Beauties, not forced into it, bt resulting fram it, Kim Wilkie Associates’ work in cities has been marked, where appropriate, by a desire to bring the Country into the urban environment thereby blurring the distinction between town and nature. The 100-year Landscape Strategy for the Thames concentrated on the ‘area between Hampton and Kew but has now been adopted as a prototype for conservation and development for the whole river. The aim was to reinstate the river as one of the great natural spaces of London, the symbolic lifeblood of the city, and maintain a continuous pedestrian route along the river bank, saving it from becoming a ghetto of luxury development. The study was notable for its analysis of the river and its banks as a working landscape of boatyards, docks. and commercial centres: a unique natural habitat rich in pastures and flood meadows and an unparalleled historical landscape of vistas, parks and gardens which has inspired poets, writers and artists since the Tudors.‘ painstaking consultation process with local {groups that crossed many different local authority boundaries produced an agreed series of environmental atin Wiki ssc proud rst a eth esti nd manga he “etal a Pa, Pre, 097 0 Cigna Se Har Aan sry {GPa yo tata compu New or Urs policies as well as specific project proposals to reinstate and tenhance the landscape and the lives of Londoners. Wilkie is also keenly 1, he says, ‘Growing your own food is a real antidote to the nterested in the allotment moverien Unreality and sense of dislocation which can come about in urban life’ in fact, reintroducing allotments into some of London's Royal Parks is one of his dreams. Communi gardens are forming part of a small-scale scheme Winchester, which also illustrates the consultation process and the close ties that have to be formed with the local community such a project is to be successful and take root in the future small public park is being designed with adjacent allotments ‘and the people who work in them will also oversee the park providing an overall supervision which should help prevent vandalism. A scheme has also been introduced at La Pietra involving students in the harvesting of locally grown produce rom the estate, an idea which harks back to Platonic ideals of ‘manual work enhancing the mind One af Wilkie Associates’ most important and complex projects to date is a study prepared for English Heritage to ork for the shor and long-term enhancement of Hyde Park Corner in London, Central Londen depends on traffic flowing smoothly around this vitally important junction but public perception has rarely seen it as more than @ large traffic island in the middle of a seemingly unction, an awh