Juhani Pallasmaa | encounters | Architectural Essays | Baited by Peter MacKeith RAKENNUSTIETOTSIX THEMES FOR THE NEXT MILLENNIUM (194) “There is a widely shared sense that Western ways of seeing, knowing and representing have irreversibly altered in recent times; but there is little consensus over what this might mean or what direction Western culture is now taking,” writes Jon R. Snyder in his introduction to Gianni ‘Vatuimo's seminal philosophical investigation of our age, The End of ‘Modernity’ The emerging new horizon of Western culture, or perhaps ‘more correctly, the disappearance of such a horizon altogether, seems to annihilate the ground ofthe ideals and aspirations of Modernity, The view of the world and of the mission of architecture—as belief structures ‘unquestionably grounded in concepts of truth and ethics as well asin a social vision and commitment—has shattered, and the cultural sense of purpose and order has faded away. The architectural avant-garde of today has all but abandoned the central challenges of the Modern Movement the issues of planning, housing, mass production, and industializaton. Why is it that contemporary architecture tus away from social realgy and becomes self-referential and self motivated? Why Be Tae cissism and self-indulgence in our work replacing empathy and social ‘and becomes self-referential and self-motivated? Why are nar™ The idea of totality, so central for the conception of Modernity, and the accompanying notions of a discrete historical era and of cultural progress have lost their validity; itis no longer possible to understand reality through a single conceptual construction or representation At the end of this millennium, the concept of a universal history hhas become impossible, disintegrating into a multitude of altemative heterogencous histories; simultaneously, the perspective of redemption has vanished. The great prospect of redemption underlying Modemarchitecture, as narrated by Siegfried Giedeon and others, has also lost its credibility; as a consequence, a multitude of suppressed alternative histories are being unveiled from the shadow ofthe pathetic story of the ‘emancipation of architecture. “For some time now there has been an extraordinary receptive ness to theory, more especially to philosophy, in the architectural community,” writes Karsten Harries, and continues, “That Tact invites ‘thoughtful consideration...One thing the widespread interest in phi Josophy that has became so much part of the post-modern architectural scheme suggests is that architecture has become uncertain of its way."* ‘The bewildering interest in theorizing and the verbal explanation of architectural meanings and intentions today reveals an uncertainty of the role and essence of architecture. Architecture is nervously seeking lts self-definition and autonomy in the embrace of the culture of con~ sumption, a culture which otherwise will transform architecture into a commodity and an entertainment Today, truly disturbing buildings barely conceal their attachment to nihilism and mental violence, and are viewed and accepted as mani- festations of a new aesthetic sensibility. The unprincipled Ideology of consumption immediately accepts and exploits any aesthetic or moral diversion, well before it can create a sufficient critical distance to function as an authentic opposition. The post-historical condition has climinated the possibilty of a true avant-garde. ‘The growing entanglement of the arts and their philosophical Foundations has been apparent since the 1960s. This development is also reflected in the current tendency of architecture to increasingly seek identification with is own theory and rationalization. Art has tured away from the task of representing reality tothe surveillance of| the problem of representation itself, and to the essence of its particular medium, The disappearance of a stable conceptual ground has forced art at large into critical negativity, into attempts to define its teritory through negation and denial, The logocentrism of today’s architecture also reflects a similar loss of innocence; the tacit practice of architec- ture within the continuum of architectural culture has become a con~ scious intellectual fabrication. Moreover, the obsession for architectural originality has eliminated the possibility of acquiring and retaining a cumulative knowledge of the art. “The current uncertainties of architecture can be understood more clearly by examining the cultural condition that we inbabit at the end of our millennium. This examination could enable us to grasp why “the horoscope of architecture” does not look good, as Alvar Aalto proph- csied as early as 1958. se memes rot wep soon be lotta BES Fgura vg 1 ey 369 Sh Memos forthe Nec Milan: alo Caine’ thes for hs i Carles, lot Norton lectures, schestled for Hanardin 1985-86,‘A central theme in Modernist architectural theory was the rep- resentation of the space-time continuum, Architecture was seen as & representation of the cultural world view, and as an expression of the space-time structure of physical and experiential reality. Of course, the space-time dimension is central to all ideas and activities of mankind, from the hidden geometries of language to the forms of production and politics. An analysis of the contemporary, post-historical space-time experience brings us to the core of current frustrations in architectural representation, In The Condition of Postmodernity, David Harvey uses the notion “time-space compression” to describe the fundamental changes in the qualities of space and time contemporary culture is undergoing. He argues that we are consequently forced to alter radically our represen tation of the world. In Harvey's view, “the experience of time-space compression is challenging, exciting, stressful and sometimes deeply of social, cultural, ‘and political responses. We have been experiencing, these last two decades, an intense phase of time-space compression that has had a disorienting and disruptive impact upon political-cconomiec practices, the balance of class power, as well a upon cultural and social life"* The implication is clear: man used to seck eterual life through over ‘coming the limitations of time, whereas today we seek salvation through overcoming the limitations of space. The “time-space compression” and the consequent fatness of experience have caused a curious fusion of these two dimensions: the spatialization of time and the temporalization of space. Instantaneity and the collapse of discrete time horizons have reduced our experience to a series of unrelated presents. Furthermore, ‘the commodity production cycle emphasizes instantaneity and dispos- ability, novelty and fashion, and this development has expanded to the realm of values, lifestyles, cultural products and architecture, Architecture's reversion to images ofa lost, inaccessible, or roman Licized past is grounded in the very strategy of capitalist economy: the whole of history becomes a market place, in which local and ethnic traditions, and historical settings, are fabricated under the disguise of 2 search for tradition and stability. Thematization is but the newest strategy of persuasion, of directing and controlling emotional response troubling, capable of sparking, therefore, a diversi by detaching imagery from its autonomous spontaneity; the image is not allowed to arise from within our perception and experience, but is forced upon us by a preconceived interpretation. “Everything tends to flatten out at the level of contemporancity and simuttaneity, thus producing a de-historisation of experience,” asserts Fredrle Jameson’ The loss of temporality is accompanied by lossthe nd, and tral £ of depth, Jameson has emphasized the ‘deptilessness' of contemporary cultural production and its fixation with appearances, surfaces, and instant impacts. By extension, he describes past-modem architecture by the notion of “contrived depthlessness.* “Ie is hardly surprising that the artist's relation to history...has shifted,” writes Harvey, “that in the era of mass television there has emerged an attachment to surfaces rather than roots, to collage rather ‘than in-depth work, to superimposed quoted images rather than worked surfaces, to a collapsed sense of time and space rather than solidly achieved cultural artifact” In the post-historieal experience, truth becomes replaced by the aesthetic and rhetorical experience. Every aspect of cultural activity and production of daily life turns into pure aesthetics: technology, economics, politics, love, and war. — ‘The surprising success of high-tech architecture in our eclectic and revisionist age can be understood through such architecture's capacity to determine its own criteria of quality and goals. Within its self- defined realm, high-tech architecture succeeds by replacing the issues of representation with the inner logic of technological rationality. ‘The criteria of performance that high-tech architecture promotes appear to have objective ground; all metaphysical questions of architecture have been answered by and transformed into the logic of technology. In Heidegger's view, “twentieth-century technology fs historically the most advanced form of Western metaphysis,” for technology has brought the objectivization of thought to its conclusive historical extreme.* THE DEFENSE OF LITERARY QUALITY In his terry testament ended Sir Memos forthe Next Menium, Halo Calvin, the author of Invisible Chiles, acknowledges the confi- sion and superfcly of our time, but simultaneously expreses an emphatic feonfiden i lca: My confidence In the future of literature consists inthe Lnowiedge that there are things that only he wes? literature can give us, by means specific to it Calvino gave the manuscripts for his Charles Fliot Norton lectures at Harvard University the following six stimulating titles: 1. Lighmess, 2. Quickness, 3. Exactitude, 4. Visibility, 5. Multiplicity, 6. Consistency. Sadly, due to Calvino's sudden death in 1985, the lectures were never delivered. Although, in fact, no manuscript for the sixth lecture hhas been found, Calvino did leave on his work table five poetie and wise essays on the feasibility of literary art in the post-modera condi- tion. The essays present essential criteria for literary quality, with the 209 bf ' [A | wd Cnc fk { i Wacder Warneintention to strengthen the self-defense of literature against the reduc- Live force of post-historical culture. "In each of my lectures,” he writes, T have set myself the task of recommending to the next millennium 4 particular value close to my heart. The value { want to recommend today is precisely this: In an age when other fantastically speedy, Widespread media are tiumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogenous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening differences, between them, following the true bent of written language." “Only if pocts and swters set themselves tasks that no one else dor imagine wl ve a faction Be contine ‘es; and concludes, “the grand challenge for literature isto be capable of weaving together the various branches of knowledge, the various ‘codes’ tnto a manyfold and multifaceted vision of the worl." Confidence in the future.of architecture can, in my view, be based on the very same knowledge; existential meanings of truly ighabidiig-— Space can_be wrought by the art of architecture alone. Architecture KA| Sontlnues to have ap sssental human task: to mediate between the _Motd and ourselves, and to provide a horizon by which to comprehend ‘our existential condition, - "HE DEFENSE OF ARCHITECTURAL QUatTY The cet cual conaton render te emergence af pout sect dies thao end ents Tega cx cndion tne o ease the ey funafon of ae eae “eeturl mansion by upouing des and expormens bo ey “Tave had ine o tte root in societal ot Sach atempts or uy somed in insantanens commode i te soko ae, it mls eateaanets dra ofa ser Caen qustons he the ae! pes Today ca anaecteéetie 2 eee sc and al eh an aiecie be ot nels onde tee an espe lca pace, an ety? Can arr reoee pang shared ond ht provides sa fri cutncton osc Sear Inrepons tote prvallg guns and along Caves scene Leh o gist hems ore eenchminstetac, | cre 3 tf of te lefty Slee m te oso dnsme| Taman mii of ahiccte ania pmb af geumng 718} 4s in the continuum of time and in the specificity of place. The six ‘ld ‘themes that I regard essential for the strengthening of architecture's x uf 2© position inthe post-histoical realty are: 1, Slowness, 2. Plasticity, 3. OEENCE OF ARCHTECTURAL QUALITY a Sensuousness 4, Authenticity, 5. ldeaization, 6. Silence. 370 beta of Mac's frome an m : Each theme has the potential fora separate esay, but here I shall Ja thee Nata ale i simply sketch short suggestive notes on each, with the intention of tn ly, stimulating further thinking by the reader. 377 SITE Projects inc, Notch Showroom x inven Sepp cee of ‘ 1. sLowness tedced to stacneos age y “Architecture 8 not only about domestcating space.” writes Karsten somes es Harries, “itis also a deep defense against the terror of time. The language ms ; is essentially the language of timeless realy." This may be ase cea Ab re * 0, but the contemporary cultural condition prevents us from grasping cfcontaty 273 bas 1988 The inhuman this dimension of time, as Italo Calvino describes: “long novels writen today are perhaps a contradiction: the dimension of time has been shat- i tered, vre cannot live or think except in fragments of time each of which oes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears. We can 4 rediscover the continuity of time only in the novels of that period when 6 ‘ime no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded, e a period that lasted no more than a hundred years." © Indeed, today we experience the slow progression of time in the reat 1 nineteenth-century Russian, German, and French novels with the same “ pleasurable nostalgia and fascination with which we regard the architec- j tural remains of the glorious civilizations of the past. But architectural ‘works also are museums of time, with the capacity of suspending time, Great architecture petrifies time; even today we can experience the slow time of the Midalle Ages in the voids ofthe great Gothic cathedrals. There is a tacit wisdom of architecture that has accumulated in tradition and history; this wisdom luminously reveals the mental essence ofthe art of architecture. However, architecture needs slowness his source of silent knowledge. Architecture to resconnect itself with requires slowness in order to develop again a cumulative knowledge, to nse of continuity, and to become enroo accumulate 4s We need an architecture that rejects momentariness, speed, and fashion; instead of accelerating change and a sense of uncertainty, architecture must slow dovin our experience of reality in order to create an experiential background for grasping and understanding change. Instead of the current obsession with novelty, architecture ‘must acknowledge and respond to the archaic, bio-cultural dimensions ‘of the human psyche, 2. PLASTICITY “Architecture has become an art ofthe printed image. As buildings lose their plasticity and their connection with the language of the body, theyars become isolated in the distant and cool realm of vision. The dominant role of the photographed image in today's architectural culture, as well 5 new graphic means of generating architectural images, have con- tributed to the flamess and sheerly retinal quality of architecture. With the loss of tactility, and the measures and details crafted for the human ody and hand, architecture becomes repulsively flat, sharp-edged, immaterial, and unreal Flatness, the lack of three-dimensionality, is also due partly to the techno-economic requirements for thinness lightness, and temporality buildings are constructed merely as virtual visual images, and thei sur- faces become ever thinner and more weightless, Our capacity for plastic {imagination is weakening; buildings tend to be a combination of the ‘two-dimensional projections of plan and section, instead of conceived and constructed through a sensory and spatial imagination. The archi- tectural profession at large has turned into a paper profession, one that thinks and communicates through lines on paper rather than through a bodily and physical participation. The sense of flatness is reinforced by the diminishing role of craft in construction, by atectonic construc- tion, and by the extensive use of synthetic materials, whose technically perfect surfaces are impenetrable to our vision, {again learn to speak of materiality, gravity, and _-the"ectonic logic of ts own making, Architecture must become a plas- tic art and engage our full, bodily participation 3. SENSUOUSNESS Architecture is inheréntly an art form of the body and ofall the senses But the constant “rainfall of images," as Calvino labels the incessant totality of ephemeral, momentary cultural Ricker, as detached archi- tecture from other sensory realms and tamed it solely into an art ofthe eye. However, even vision implies an unconscious ingredient of touch: ‘with our eyes we stroke the edges, sul We live in an era with a frustrating discrepancy and distance betoren the sensory experience ofthe world and the eonscioustess ere ated by it on the one hand, and the bio-cultural responses accumulated over the course of human evolution, in our unconscious reactions, on and details of buildings. the other. Our relation to experienced, physical realty keeps weaken- ‘ng-ve live increasingly ina virtual world, in a steam of unrclared _supetiil sensony impressions “Architecture mediates between these outer ind inner realities that Would otherwise tend to separate from cach other. Architecture’ task 1S to provide the stable and reise ground fr the perception of the ‘orld, for the ground of homecoming iito the world. Such a homecom-inant swell with Aged, othe aly; astic the ved hie shat sh sed y a architecture ig confined. more as the quality of deep ing cannot be grounded in a sentimental return to the past: it has to be created through a profound understanding of the phenomenological essence of the art of architecture, and ofthe current human condition, and through means that are radical enough to resist the cultural forces of conditioned desire In The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke describes the traces of live lived in a demolished house, traces left on the wall ofthe adjacent building: “There were the midday meals and the sicknesses and the exhalatons and the smoke of years, and the stale breath of mouths, andthe oily odor of perspirng fet. There were the pungent tang of urine and the stench of burning soot and the rey reck of potatoes, and the heavy, sickly fumes of rancid grease, The sweetish, lingering smell of negected infants was there, and the smell of frightened children who goto school, and the stffiness of the beds of mubile youths." Here is an astonishing document of a poet's empathetic capacity and the epic resonance of his work. Our architecture is certainly sterile and schematic in comparison to the poe’ sensibility. The spectrum of emotions conveyed by today's care ange, ofthe visual. aesthetic id it lacks melancholic and tragle, a8 well as ecstatic, ies. Great architecture is not about aesthetic style, but about embodied images of an authentic life, with all its contradictions and iereconcilabilities. Authentic architecture communicates its existen~ tial significance through our entire bodily and mental constitution, nd der Architecture provides us the ground by which to perce stand the world as @ continuum of time and culture 4. AUTHENTIC | am aware ofthe pilosophica diicultes oF distinguishing between sence and ‘appearance; andthe consequent ambiguty oF the notion of authenily Regardless ofthat, end the somewhat fashionable tone ofthe term itself I want to aue for the possblty ad significance of authenticity im architecture. Authenticity sFequenty dented with the dea of arti autonomy and originality. understand authenty sedan te pp fcations of cul Tn the consumerist worl, emotions and reactions are increas ingly conditioned. We need works of art and architecture to defend the autonomy of emotional respons. tna world of inautheniity and simulation, we need islands of artic authenticity that wil let our reactiogs grow astonomously and allow us to identify with or ow emotions. puasmciry 374 The Frechtheion, Aeropal, Athens Telang.age ofthe body, 375 Le Conus Roncharo Chapel, 1950-53. Tce thes meron SENsvOUswess 375 Pee Bonnar, The Large Bath, ‘Nude 1935. The sensvousness of humanist pointing, 377 Joh Baldessar, Werk vith On ‘One Property, 1965-67. Acricon as. The Gieston Far es Anodes, ‘numieNmicTY 378 Avr Ate, Via Mates, Nema, 1938-39. work zeny cote inthe satestors of ature 379 Oral Shater box ca, 1844-70, ‘Aver unonctioned by amaVOEALATION 380 Pere Chareau and Bernard ict, The Glass Houte (Maan de Vr, Pars, 1929, 381 Tadao Ando, Kiosk Hour, Setagaye, Tokyo, 1582-86 architecture reifies an ide In Calvino’s ‘rainfal” of placeless and timeless information, our existential experience loses its coherence; we become detached from traditional sources of identity, Architecture provides a horizon on Which to measure and understand ourselves. Authentic architecture builds confidence in our comprehension of time's duration and human nature; it provides the ground for individual identity. Architecture is @ conservative art in the sense that it materializes and preserves the history of culture. Bulldings and cities trace the con- ‘inuum of culture in which we place ourselves and by which we can recognize our identities. Architecture's conservatism does not exclude chitecture must reinforce ou existential net against the forces of aliqnation and radicalism; on the contra experience in a radical chitecture, as all art, makes us experience our own __being with extraordinary weight and intensity. Ths dense authenticity ‘enables us to dwell with dignity. 5, IDEALIZATION Im our troubled time, we cannot expect to build an Arcedia through architecture. But we can create works of architectural art that confirm ‘buman value, reveal the poetic dimensions of everyday life and, con- sequently, serve as cores of hope in a world that seems to have lost its coherence and meaning. As the continuity of architectural culture is lost, the world of architecture becomes fragmented into detached and isolated works, an archipelago of architecture, As I have said many times: the patron saint of the archipelago of architecture is Hope. My acknowledgement of a conflict between architecture and the current cultural condition could, perhaps, be interpreted as a support to the view that the architect should faithfully fulfil the explicit desires of the client. I do not believe in such a populist view. The uncritical _scsaplance of the vor popullor the client's brief only Tads to 5 _ietal kts the archicet’s esponsibility penetrate the surace of ondition mental “commercially, socially, and ‘The authenti artist and architect must engage in an ideal world; e, Architecture is lost at the point lew of i ‘at which this vision and this aspiration for an ideal ts abandoned. Only the architect who projects an ideal client, and an ideal society as he designs, can create buildings that give mankind hope and direc- tion, Without the masterpieces of Modern architecture, our understand- ing of contemporary life, and of ourseives, would be decisively weaker than now: ghese works materialize idealized possibil hum thought and existence 204 ASIA,from lies lade vial and ‘ity Architecture can either tolerate and encourage individualization, or stifle and reject it. We can make a distinction between an,arehitee- ture of accommodation and an architecture of rejection. The first one facilitates reconciliation, the second attempts to impose a preconceived order through Its arrogant forms and gestures. The first is based on images that are rooted in our common memory that i, in the phenom- enologically authentic ground of architecture. The second manipulates Jimages~striking and fashionable, perhaps—but ones that do not incor- porate our identities, memories, and dreams. This approach likely cre- ates more imposing buildings suitable for fashionable publication, but the first attitude provides the condition of homecoming. Today we need an architecture that does not seek bombast, ef fr adoration. We need an architecture of empathy and humility. 6. SILENCE have carter written extensively about an architecture of silence but I shall, however, add a few concluding notes on my last stated theme." “Nothing has changed man's nature so much a the oss of silence,” vets the iis philosopher Max Picard in his thought-provoking book The World of Silence.® “Poetry comes out of silence and yearns for silence." Pleard concludes his thoughts with Kierkegaard’ instruction: All great artis engaged in silence. The silence of at is not the mere absence of sound, but an independent sensory and mental state, an observing, listening, and knowing silence, a silence that evokes a sense of melancholy and a yearning for the absent ideal. Great architecture also evokes silence. Experiencing & building is not only a matter of Tooking at its spaces, forms and surfaces~it is also a matter of listening 10 its characteristic, unique silence. A powerful architectural experience eliminates external noise and turns my consciousness inwards, to myself. I hear only my own heartbeat. The innate silence of an experience of architecture results, it seems, from the fact that i turns our attention to our own existence find myself listening to my own being. The task of architecture is to create, maintain, and protect silence Great architecture is silence turned into matter; it is petified silence. ‘As the thunder and clatter of construction fades, as the shouting of workers cease, the great building turns into a timeless monument of silence. What faithfulness and patience can be felt in the great works of architecture! 205 382 Viheim Hammering), Oust Motes Dancing in Sunight, 1900. Pivate colecion, Copenhagen 383 Waar Ean, Fre’ Kche, Hale County, Abas, 1936, ences an independent sensory and metal