Lipstadt 1993

Philosophy, History, and Autobiography: Manfredo Tafuri and the "Unsurpassed Lesson" of Le
Corbusier
Author(s): Hélène Lipstadt and Harvey Mendelsohn
Source: Assemblage, No. 22 (Dec., 1993), pp. 58-103
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171170 .
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Helene Lipstadt
Harvey Mendelsohn
Philosophy, History,
and Autobiography:
Manfredo Tafuri and
the "Unsurpassed
Lesson" of Le Corbusier
Hdl3neLipstadtis a visitingprofessorat Looking for Manfredo Tafuri

the Ecoled'Architecture, Universitede
Montreal,and a fellowof the Institutde "Thosewho lookformust,moreor less, workon existingmaterial,
Rechercheen Histoired'Architecture.
She is the editorand principalauthorof choosing,assembling,disassembling."'
The ExperimentalTradition:Essays on From the first appearance in Italy of Theoriesand History
Competitions in Architecture (New York: of Architecturein 1968, Tafuri's vision of contemporary
ArchitecturalLeagueof New Yorkand architecture and of the capacity of critics to affect this
PrincetonArchitecturalPress,1989). architecture has been described as pessimistic;2 although
HarveyMendelsohnis an independent he subsequently denied the charge, it is easy to see how a
scholarand antiquarianbooksellerfrom superficial reading of this allusive and complex text could
Cambridge,Massachusetts.He is the give such an impression. While Tafuri does consider con-
translatorof PeterSzondi,On Textual temporaryarchitects to be in an "absurd"situation, he sees
Understanding and OtherEssays the critic, at least in this book, as an "indispensable"ele-
(Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota ment in preparingfor a possible, though far from certain,
Press,1986).
escape from the contemporarycity's chaotic state, an event
itself dependent, of course, on a revolution in society.'
True, in 1979 the "The Historical 'Project"'appeared to
have reduced the compass of the historian as well, so that it
was commensurate with the limited one of the architect.
1. Paul Klee, Der Seiltanzer Nevertheless, the historian, by virtue of his methodological
(The tightrope walker), 1923 rigor, political and philosophical wariness, and "Sisyphian"
dutifulness, continues to reconstruct precisely and then to
smash, reconstructing, in fact, in order to smash, the better
Assemblage 22: 58-103 ? 1994 by the to build "barriers,"which prove to be only "temporary."At
Massachusetts Institute of Technology the end of his jigsaw puzzle game, he arrivesat "little, not
59

~~
,,-'D''
,.'•~~ ..
, ? -"
-? ?" i-

assemblage 22
obvioustruths,"as Tafuriputs it, quotingthe wordsof object might want to work as Tafuri now does, in a "philo-
MichelFoucault,whowas,in turn,quotingNietzsche.4 logical" mode. The "philologist,"he explained to Jean-
Louis Cohen in an interview, proceeds "in tighter and
Tafuri'sapproachto historywritingis at one withhis re-
tighter concentric circles around the object until the blind
jectionof linearityand certaintyin historicalanalysisand
architecturalaction.He is renownedforthe breadthand spot about which there is no documentation is discovered
and it is surely this very small spot that is to be made to
depthof his scholarship,whichrespectsnone of the tradi-
tionalboundariesbetweencountriesor periodsand draws speak."'The philologist-historian uses such instruments as
the "traditional"one of a "self-assured"philology as well
on vastaccumulationsnot onlyof materialsbut of meth-
as the "extremelymodern" one that makes the "silences
ods. Evenhis severestcritic,TomasLlorens,thinksthe
... speak"- with the specialized histories ("economic,
deliberatelyBarthian"assembled" qualityof his writingis
of value.5 political, social") serving as his "safety-nets."9
Forall his recognitionof the limits of his effectiveness, Imagine, then, the danger that attends the historian of the
Tafurian project, who is forced to operate not only with-
this historian'spreferredwayof workingcombines"diag-
out the safety net of the yet-to-be written specific histories
nosis"with "war."As a result,as he goes aboutdefining of the context for Tafuri's activities,'0but also without the
and criticallyclarifyingthe historian's"propertask,objec-
tive and unprejudicedhistoricaldiagnosis,"Tafuriseems balancing stick of the document. And, if this oeuvre as a
whole is taken as the basic document, to echo his raptor
to be operatingsometimesas an epidemiologist,who can
tracethe spreadof "dreamideology"and otherdelusions metaphor, one would need to "flylike the eagle" to
encircle it, for Tafuri was simultaneously a historian of
in contemporary architecturalpolemicsand aesthetic
his Roman contemporaryLudovico Quaroni and of
theoriesbackto the firstmomentof infectionin the Re-
Borromini;a commentator on his Venetian colleague
naissance,sometimesas a pathologist,"scalpel"-wielding
and "dissecting," and sometimesas a publichealthoffi- Giuseppe Samona and on Sansovino; a close readerof Le
Corbusier's inhabited highway for Algiers in the 1930s and
cial,warning communitythat its watersupplyhas
the
of the Via Giulia in the Cinquecento." He was then the
been poisonedat the source.6
philologist among the polemicists, as he is now the po-
It is thus understandable that Italiansmightnot onlyhave lemicist among the philologists. A full historicization of
been surprised,but alsodiscomfitedby the "disconcerting the Tafurian project would need to develop the relation-
rumor... goingaroundamongarchitectsin the jet set ship of all of his texts and of their author not only to the
[that]Tafuriis no longerinvolvedin contemporary archi- concurrent debates among Marxistsand within Italian
tecture."In 1984Tafurirespondedto this remarkin an culture, but to the structure of the intellectual field in
interview,commentingthat with the workpublishedin which they were written.12 It is nevertheless possible to
1980,"Ihavein somewayconcludeda workphaseon work "historically"on this phase if the history one writes
whatis indicatedas 'contemporary."' He explainedthis conforms to Tafuri's instruction to "look at [history] ... as
abandonmentas the faultof architecture's diminishing the continual exposure to the unexpected ... one that
value:"Likeall history,thereforealsothat of architecture presents concatenations ratherthan causes ... a history
choosesandwithdrawsits objectswherethey showthem- with a hole in the middle."'3
selvesto be historicallysignificant."'
If there is to be a history of any part of Tafuri's work, Le
The questionthereforearises:havingbeen concluded,is Corbusier represents an excellent starting point, for when
this phaseof workreadyforhistory?It is not merelya the "modern ... philological"method is applied to this
questionof insufficienthistoricaldistanceor the sensibili- figure, a "speakingsilence" is indeed heard. The "unex-
ties of livingindividuals.The historianof the Tafurian pected" to be "exposed"is, simply stated, the persistent
historical"project" who is appropriately attunedto his/her presence of Le Corbusier in Tafuri's writings from 1968 to
60

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
1982 and the constancy of the role he is assigned there.

Notwithstanding the major theoretical and political
changes that occurred between the first and the second
(1970) edition of Theoriesand History of Architecture,'4Le
Corbusier has retained a special place in this oeuvre and
continues to play, in Tafuri's view, a major part in con-
temporaryarchitecture. Further, since the work phase's
conclusion, he continues to evoke the example of Le
Corbusier when dispensing advice to contemporaryarchi-
tects. In 1985 Tafuri explained that he "insist[s] on the
late work of Le Corbusier,"and in 1991 he commented
that "the words, although outdated and somewhat naive,
of Le Corbusier still contain a grain of truth. Le Corbusier
sustained [sic] that the historical site is a danger for con-
temporarylife." Tafuri has here returned to the argument
of the first chapter of Theoriesand History of Architecture,
to the very section in which the "still-unsurpassedlesson"
was originallypresented.'5
The history of the Corbusian presence would ideally be a
"concatenation," reproducingall of the references to him
along with the arguments in which they are embedded,
unto the very ends of the negative dialectical chain. While
not quite the Borgesian map the size of a country, this Le
Corbusier could easily engulf any single issue of this jour-
nal.'6 We have chosen, instead, to cull the Tafurian Le
Corbusier from two texts situated at the antipodes of his
work phase on contemporaryarchitecture. If similarity
more than difference obtains in these two highly dissimi-
lar works placed on either side of the dividing line of Ar- 2. Elisabetta Catalano, portrait
chitecture and Utopia (1973), then, short of assuming a of Manfredo Tafuri, 1984
double about-face in the intervening years, we may assert
that, however "intermittent" Tafuri's "journey"and
"tangled"his "path"in this period,"7Le Corbusier was, at one whose "culturalpositions made him too dangerousto
the very least, a constant and faithful traveling compan-
advance furtherthan the rankof assistant in the Italian aca-
ion. Consonant with a favored Tafurian figure of speech,
demic system,"'9and it was in many ways his "ungentle"
the continual presence of Le Corbusier is like the legend-
manifesto. Tafuri strode into the fray,challenging all the
ary red thread of the British Navy: he is woven into the
reigning authorities in architecturalhistoriography,includ-
totality of the work, inseparable from it, indelibly revealing
the identity of its maker.'8 ing (or especially) the Italian "'masters'of contemporary
criticism,"Guilio Carlo Arganand Bruno Zevi; staking out a
The first text, Theoriesand Historyof Architecture,is a position on what seems like every one of the burning foreign
wide-rangingdiscourse on method. It was written by an and domestic topics of the day; and "biting into" just-
emerging architect-historian,alreadya "public figure,"but published or just-translatedtexts from severalcountries.20
61

assemblage 22
A philological readingof the then-currentliteraturewould historical coupurebetween classicism and modernity in

lay bare the fullness of the book's topicality, which in- architecture and then, years later, to exploit a philosophi-
cludes at least one of his favoredfigures of speech - that cal reconceptualization capable of englobing this coupure
of the "lesson."In short, it was a treatise a cld.21 within an extraordinarilycapacious framework.All the
The second text, "'Machineet memoire':The City in the same, to problematize and then to thematize in detail his
Work of Le Corbusier"of 1982, is a monographic study multiple engagements with these vast topics would be to
rewritehis oeuvre, something that could be done only at
preparedexpressly for the Garlandpublication of The Le the cost of stripping the historical demonstrations from
CorbusierArchive.22Editor H. Allen Brookscommissioned
the themes and, moreover, of isolating the polemicist in
it from Tafuri in recognition of his current influence and
Tafuri from the philologist.
assigned him, along with Alan Colquhoun, the only
broadlydefined topic.23In 1982 the subject of Le Our task, rather, is to excavate the Corbusian underpin-
Corbusier was not to be addressed timidly. On the one
ning of Tafuri's own historical "project,"while leaving
hand, the first revisionist interpretations based on archival what he has characterized as the "temporaryconstruc-
researchhad begun to introduce more sophisticated tions" and "unsafebuilding" above it intact.27We do en-
modes of analysis. On the other, Le Corbusier'surbanism
gage metamethodological questions, but primarilyin the
was widely discounted and even disparaged.24However course of examining the slowly sedimenting figure of Le
contingent the reasons for Tafuri's return to the subject Corbusier. Further, it is by examining piece by piece the
of Le Corbusier in "'Machineet the commis-
m.moire,"' fragmentaryevidence of this configuration in Theoriesand
sion satisfied his desire, expressed almost ten years earlier,
History of Architecturethat we discover just how much
to see such researchpursued.25 Tafuri was assembling a history in a Barthianmode but
One is tempted to blaze trails leading as directly as pos- written under the sign of Walter Benjamin. This philo-
sible through what FredricJameson has called the "bewil- logical method also allows us, in "'Machineet me-moire,"'
to spiral out from a single, allusive reference to two key
deringly dense and difficult to read"landscape of Tafuri's
writing to the most prominent Corbusian formations.26 Heideggerian concepts, those of poiesis and techne, and
Since the tangled metaphoric thickets and conceptual work our way through this text to its overall philosophical
boulder fields that surroundthese towering creations are, orientation.
in fact, essential qualities of the Tafurian Le Corbusier,
The concatenated Le Corbusier of Theoriesand Historyof
we have decided to conserve something of his characteris-
Architectureis much indebted to Benjamin in his most
tic mode of analysis.Although one must forgo the hope of
Marxist period, when he wrote the essays "The Work of
communicating all of the rich and subtle Tafurian argu- Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"and "The
mentation - its constant concertinalike action of bring-
Author as Producer,"both heavily indebted, in turn, to
ing together opposing positions, only to show their the Marxist and revolutionaryplaywrightBerthold
complementarity, and then stretching them apart again
to underscore a new set of differences - our mode of Brecht.28It was the latter, many now realize, with whom
Benjamin was dialoguing and who was, in fact, the origina-
presentation conveys some of the structure and rhetoric tor of the idea of the object denuded of its aura, as Tafuri
of his argument, which almost as much as the substance
had perceptively noted. The monographic Le Corbusier of
invests Le Corbusier in his role of the "unsurpassed"
"'Machineet memoire"'owes much to the later writings of
lesson-giver. Martin Heidegger with their emphasis on the dominant,
Read together, these two texts reveal the centrality to his and baleful, influence of technology in the creation of the
overall project of what Tafuri repeatedly refers to as the modern world and the possible salvation offered by a re-
dual crises of history and of the object. It is this approach newed comprehension of poiesis and techne and of their
that allows him, at first, to confront in a novel way the place in the long are of Western civilization.
62

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
Tafuri often speaks of his work as a trajectorywhose Le Corbusier,the Crisis of History, and the
course he had not controlled, and to strive for a thor- Crisisof the Object
oughly synthetic account of this voyage would be to dena-
ture his thought, to recast it in the form of everything he
"Inspite of Le Corbusier,... thereremainsan insuperable
has alwayscombated: the dispassionate, the disengaged, contradictionin contemporary architecture."29
the linear, and the certain. In the place of synthesis,
the readerwill find an "experience of Tafuri," to use a
Tafurian image, replete with his dangling arguments, self- Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Introduction
indulgent obscurity, and frustratinguse of key words that Although Tomas Llorens is correct in asserting that Theo-
sometimes seem to be their own antonyms, as well as the ries and History of Architectureresists any sort of linear
complacency-shattering insights and mental fortification reading, he is mistaken when he compares it to the desul-
to be gained by grapplingwith his critical unorthodoxy tory target shooting of a myopic marksman.And, while
and methodological experimentalism. Llorens perceptively characterizesTafuri's discursive prac-
tice, comparing it to a "riverthat preservesin its waters
Even as Italian and English readerswere first encountering fragments and trophies from whatever region it has tra-
translations of the now-celebrated Benjamin essays, Tafuri versed,"he has underestimated the depth of Tafuri's
was drawing from them his theories of the two crises with thought: it is perhaps more properlydescribed as a stream
which he redefined the very notion of the architectural of consciousness, and indeed, can be read as the soliloquy
of a critic whose dilemma is as personal as it is cultural.30
avant-garde.His reading of Le Corbusier in the light of
the Brechtian Benjamin eventually led to the interpreta- We enter it (not despite, but often on the flotsam and
tion of this architect that was made influential by Archi- jetsam it carries) only as often as necessary to "catch"
tecture and Utopia - one with which historians are still Tafuri's Le Corbusier. Nor is Theoriesand History of Ar-
chitecture entirely without a framework.In fact, Tafuri
contending. However idiosyncratic Tafuri's approach may
have been, the then-nascent discipline of architectural poses three questions that form "the core of [the] book"
criticism and theory would have been differently consti- and stabilize this Barthianassemblage:
tuted without the provocation of the Tafurian soixante- "To what degree does the opposition ... of the critic who
huit of Theoriesand History of Architecture.And, even if wants to make historical the experiences of contemporary
we are not fully convinced by the late Le Corbusier that architecture and who tries to rescue historicity from the
Tafuri constructs in his 1982 essay, we believe that it is an web of that past ... involve the historicity of the modern
example of an authentically Heideggerian rethinking in movement? And to what degree is the separation from the
architecturalhistory. More intriguing for us, however, is flow of praxis symptomatic of a deep crisis of operative
the suggestion in Theoriesand History of Architecturethat
criticism, or is there an opening, in criticism, for a new
Le Corbusier is the architecturalanalogue of the artist
operative modus?... What is the relation that history and
Paul Klee, an insight that the reader is left to develop criticism can legitimately start with the new sciences and
from textual and visual clues found in widely separated theories of communication, and still preserve their specific
sections of the book. Only after laying out in the order of
prerogatives,... roles,... and methods?""3
the texts the elements of these constructions, do we piece
together the im'ageof a Le Corbusier that the new philo- Here, in the orderof Tafuri's chapters, we will observe how
sophical framing, the changes of position, the accumula- Le Corbusier accompanies Tafuri in his search for answers
tion of researchby Tafuri and others, and, indeed, the end to all three and how he helps him to settle on the "tempo-
of the work phase, had not modified. Here, then, are some rarytasks"that critics can and should take up, until they,
of the "lessons"we have learned from Tafuri about Le along with the "anguishedpresent situation," are "left
Corbusier, and from Le Corbusier about Tafuri. behind" by this hoped-for "radicaltransformation.""32
63

assemblage 22
The current situation of architectureand of its criticism

"difficult ... disturbing ... transient and dangerous"-
provides "the starting point of [his] analyses"and the
achieved goals of the "modernmovement" force him to
take an oppositional stance.33What, then, are "the tasks of
criticism," "the why of history and criticism"?34 What is
the historicist critic like Tafuri (his position is clear on this
point) to do in the face of the ambient antihistoricism,
which finds avant-gardeand structuralistsin agreement?
Le Corbusieris enlisted immediately, allowing Tafuri to
demonstrate that structuralism,while useful for its
scientificity, is, for the critic, inferiorto historicity.5 The
architect here makes his first appearanceas prophet, for
he, alongside the dadaists, some members of De Stijl, and
Russian constructivists, had alreadyforeseen what Levi-
Strausshad yet to postulate, the "end of the myth of
humanist anthropocentrism"in history.36
Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Chapter 1

Architect and critic are entangled in "anti-historicism,"
the web that has been spun by the "traditional"antago-
nism of the avant-gardeto history, and its self-image as a
production of modernity, with neither debts nor roots.37
To demonstrate that antihistoricism is neither new nor
revolutionaryand is, indeed, part of a historical (and his-
torically determined) continuity, Tafuri returns in his
first chapter, "ModernArchitecture and the Eclipse of
History,"to the "true origin of the process,"to the
Quattrocento, arguing that antihistoricism, "the neat cut
with preceding traditions,"becomes, paradoxically,the
"symbol of an authentic historical continuity" between
Brunelleschi and the twentieth century.38Three figures
who have a "prophetic"relationship to the entire twenti-
eth century are featured in Tafuri's account. 3. FrancescoBorromini,St.
John in Lateran, 1646-49, tomb
Tafuri first shows how Borromini,fully conscious of the of CardinalGiussano, 1655.
problem of history, saw architecture as obligatorily "strati- From Theoriesand Historyof
fying itself in a complex system of images and geometric- Architecture.
symbolic matrixes."In the altarsof Saint John in Lateran,
his spaces "ostentatiously absorb"historical fragments and
set them like "ready-madeobjects" in ideal spaces created
by deforming perspective. These may seem to us to be
antihistoricist pastiches, but in terms of the "value"these
64

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
quotations might have had for those who first saw them, shows how, by positing the artist's complete freedom
they could have made a "genuine experienceof history with respect to the choice of materials and forms, Hegel's
possible," renderinghistory multivalent and not only chal- "prophecy"touches on the reasons for these crises of
lenging classical codes, but questioning history itself. This twentieth-century art. In opposing romantic eclecticism
"experience"admits of only one reading:Borrominiantici- and its "instrumentalization ... of history, the artistic
pates twentieth-century avant-gardeattitudes with their avant-gardesof the twentieth century have pushed aside
"collageof memorieslifted out of their historical contexts history in order to build a new history."41
[which] finds structure and semantic location within the
frame of an independently built organic space." Although Tafuri concludes in a blaze of italics: "Theanti-historicism
many played with quotation, Borrominialone spatialized of the modernavant-gardesis ... the logical end of a change
his play with language, actually "reorganiz[ing] the histori- that has its epicenterin the Brunelleschianrevolutionand
cal material."39 its basis in the debate ... [of] more than five centuries by
Europeanculture."To contend with such a persistence,
The neoclassical period, called "Illuminism"here, with its Tafuri now approachesWalter Benjamin. From Benjamin
familiar Enlightenment elevation of the status of Man, is (who, we must remember, was still an unfamiliar figure)
then recast in terms of the crisis of history. Within Illumi- comes the analysis of film technique as a means of under-
nism, Tafuri divides those who fuse history with planning standing the crisis of the object. Tafuri fashions a tax-
from those who renew antihistoricism, giving it Illuminist onomy of the twentieth-century avant-gardefrom
form. Piranesi, who had already"prophesied"this division, Benjamin's distinction between the painter/magicianand
unleashes the next as well, "open[ing] the doors to mod- the operator/surgeon,using it as an analytical tool with
ern architecture and, at the same time, become[ing] its which to vet the participation of the various avant-garde
most merciless critic." In his Pareresull'architetturaand in movements in this crisis. An aside praisingBenjamin for
his altar for Santa Maria del Priorato,he realizes the "ago- his "courageousrealism"offers the occasion for the first of
nizing dialectic" of the dispute. On the one side, facing several comparisons between the experiences and beliefs
the public, the baroque is proclaimed; on the other, its of the philosopher-critic and those of Le Corbusier.42
Illuminist opposite: the antinomies are thus narrative/
abstract;didactic/antidescriptive;caustic (baroque)/ Futurists, constructivists, and Marcel Duchamp are "ma-
haunting (Illuminist). At the back, a sphere and a "geo- gicians," and thus, in Benjaminian terms, "not yet free
metrical solid figure"embrace, testifying allegoricallyto from the equipment."By using the "newnature of artificial
the "alreadyachieved eclipse of the sacred."Eclecticism, things" in their work, they in fact sustain mimesis, the cult
which originates with Piranesi, "postulate[s] the crisis of Man, and even that of Reason. Unlike these figures,
of historicism ... in a pitiless and self-destructive self- Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier are
criticism.... The end of the object is tied to the eclipse "operators"who "identify the new laws of the equipment,
of history: as bears witness the sphere of Piranesi.'"40 and solve, by entering into it, its irrationalitiesand contra-
dictions." A third group, composed of Paul Bonatz,
Tafuri turns next to Hegel, who allows him to jump to Heinrich Tessenow, and Emil Fahrenkamp,remains unde-
the twentieth century's experience of the now-inseparable cided and disappearsimmediately from Tafuri's narra-
crises - of history and of the object - for Hegel gave tive.43Tafuri demonstrates at length the magicians' -
word to what Piranesi had proclaimed in form, the now reconstituted to include Piet Mondrian and the
"eclipse of the sacred."Tafuri adds his own "completely dadaists - imperfect attempts to confront history.44Turn-
arbitrary,of course," reading of this philosopher's relation ing then to the operators,he explains how Gropius, by
to the avant-garde,to the conventional view of Hegel as bringing together in the Bauhaus all the "conceptual ma-
the one who put an "end to the traditional concept of art terials"of the interwarperiod, placed himself "behindthe
... to make room for a higher form of knowledge." He equipment,"in order to free himself from it.45Mies, his
65

assemblage 22
importance notwithstanding, falls away, and Frank Lloyd established,49 for, with an authorial first person plural,
Wright arrives,so to speak, unannounced, to be linked to Tafuri invites the reader to consider a new theme: "Let us
Le Corbusier, despite great "differences"in their "meth- now verify the effects of modern historicism on critical
ods" and "poetics."Wright, although not lacking in activity, and on the relationship between the old town and
antihistoricism ("his main tool is still the bricolage"),is contemporaryarchitecture.""s
connected to Le Corbusier by an essential characteristic:
Tafuri next finds that the avant-gardescan be linked to
"their recognition of the historicity of their anti-histori-
cism." "Wright's search for the autochtonous forms of the Benjamin and Brecht and that this connection is of impor-
tance for the subject of the historic center. They were all
Usonian myth, and ... Le Corbusier's ... fidelity to Illu- of them "rightin their prophecies"and in seeing "in his-
minist dialectic, are guarantee[s] of a multivalent struc-
ture of language, able to accept, at the right moment, all tory a dangerfor modern art."To begin with, he demon-
strates that Brecht and Benjamin shared the same view,
the instances of 'memory' and of new critical (even self-
for it was the former who, in the Dreigroschenprozess,first
critical) symbolism."46 Tafuri immediately thereafter
recognized that because of its "technical [mechanical]
quotes a Le Corbusierwho in 1937, in Quand les
reproducibility"the work of art now has "'exhibitionable
cathe'drales"taientblanches, had understood the paradoxi- value"'and has been irrevocablychanged into "'merchan-
cal relationship of the Italian sixteenth-century masters to
dise."' "Supported"by Brecht (as Benjamin had been),
Venice's "pre-constituted urban structure,"that is, the
difference between Venice's experience of the high Re- Tafuri then suggests that the "concept of art" should
be abandoned to its fate. The "new functions of art"
naissance and that of the rest of Italy. This intuition al-
transformthe functions of history; they "cancel out the
lows Le Corbusier to speak of himself as someone who
historical quality and characterof the artistic processes,
"lives intensely in the present moment of modern times."
He asserts, "We are far from the theatrical stage that tries revolutionize their meanings, and compromise their
to place events of qualitative interest above and outside values."5'Finally, he explains the connection between
human labors."47 Brecht, Benjamin, and the avant-gardes.They all maintain
that the danger of the past is that it "carriesa memory
of a ... way of producing values"that is now extinct, a
The readerattentive to Tafuri's figures of speech can flip
back several pages and find that the "Illuminist dialectic" memory that is "disturbingand dangerous because of the
is embodied by Piranesi.Tafuri thus implicitly links Le illusion of the possible return to a sacralconception of
artistic activity."52
Corbusier to his "prophetic"Piranesi (who demanded
that he be called the "architetto Veneto") and joins them This approach allows Tafuri to confront the core problem,
to Venice itself - all of them historically recognized resis- the relation of history to contemporary architecturalac-
tors. (And who, in Italy, could ignore the association with tivities, textual and projectural,his own and those of the
Le Corbusier'sVenice Hospital Project of 1964-65, whose architects of his time. Specifically, he examines the ability
future was just then being discussed and encountering of antihistoricist architects, after the crisis of the object,
opposition from the central authorities in Rome?) What to contend with historic towns, "with their mythical and
is important in the end, or, at least, at the end of this cultural values or their static and contemplative frui-
particulardemonstration, is Le Corbusier'sfondness for tions."53Again, despite "differences,"this time in "their
the entire past and for the human presence that it "sig- global conception of the modern city," at least two
nals." Tafuri finds that he can "legitimately place ... twentieth-century architects, Le Corbusier and Wright
[him] next to the other great friend of history, and for this share an identical insight: "the historical centers, if used
very reason, as great a radical innovator, Pablo Picasso. as 'pieces' of the contemporarycity, are dangerousto
This is perhaps the reason why Louis Kahn recognized Le life."54The normative/operationalresult of his reading of
Corbusier as his master.""48 A temporarycertainty has been them is clear:"the old town center, in order to become
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
again structure,must expel from itself ... post-industrial Somona) for a new office building for the Italian parlia-
alterations."" ment. He thus specifically links his own reading of this
It is difficult to recapitulate all of Tafuri's argument, theory and Samona's operative suggestions with Cor-
busian principles and realizations. These pages demand
with its subtle interweaving of a defense of avant-garde
close attention.
antihistoricism concerning historic city centers; a warning
about the dangers of a misrepresented past ("historicity First, a general principle is deduced. In such a "museified"
made fetish"); and the Corbusian and Wrightian position city center, "architecturecan . . . clarify the meaning of
by which "historicalcenters" are "reduced"to "museums" the historical textures, make perceptible their internal
so that a "dialectical clash" can be created that goes be- valencies and re-establish their meanings."64The opera-
yond antihistoricism.56 The "iron consistency" of Le tion, Tafuri warns, may be "somehow violent" but the
Corbusier and Wright's personal position-taking along results themselves will be conditioned by its "capacityto
with their historicism ("a remythization and ambiguous bring out . . . the dialectical link between historicity and
'historicity' of architectural images") provide the standard the permanence of the ancient textures and the values of
for judging many other architects.57As Tafuri progresses the present, the changeable, the arbitrary,the energetic,
along what seems to be a checklist of current positions on typical of contemporarylife and architecture"from the
the historic city and history,"sLe Corbusier appearsvari- "clash between old and new." Second, a "meaningful"
ously as the indirect cause of, the "yardstick"for, and the example is proposed. A word picture of the Samonas'
temporary "cure"for the situation in Italy. Le Corbusier is project ("the transparencyof the ancient behind the fili-
evoked when Tafuri suggests that the problem stems from gree of wiry iron structures- seemingly a reminder of
rejecting the Athens Charter in the 1950s, without an Paul Klee's lesson of irony - and the upward explosion of
understanding of "the high value given ... [there] to the an unbalanced dynamism of geometrical forms") is appar-
meaning of the historical remains within the new city";59 ently sufficient to illustrate the principle in operation,
when he puts in their place the architects of the Italian since Tafuri then continues with the simple assertion that
neo-Liberty movement, who were engaged in introducing "the dialogue is made possible by accepting the terms of
the historic into contemporaryarchitecture, calling it "the the problem as they are, in sharpopposition with each
most garish"of the proposals for making history into a other."65Third, Tafuri asserts that in the process of
new myth (in the negative sense) and dismissing its "clarify[ing]historical situations, architecture charges
"anachronism";60when he subjects Kahn'sambiguity itself with critical values."
about history to a nuanced analysis from which Le
Corbusier emerges as superior to Kahn (and which justi- Fourth, he enlarges the dimension of application from
architecture to city planning. The Samonas projected
fies the master/student remarkmade earlier);61 when he
their operation on the "small scale" of architecture in a
demonstrates that those who defend the historical center
in the name of a mythic figural unity, in fact, free it up for highly exceptional setting. Le Corbusier, however, en-
larges the scale and offers generalizable results with regard
speculative development;62and, finally, when he identifies to the same problem. This is the "lesson"of his Venice
the writings of Giuseppe Samona on the city as "a new
Hospital: it shows the "most suitable way"to deal with
chapter in the history of our problem."63 the problem set by Samona. Here is Tafuri's description of
Indeed, Samona's writings are said to provide a valid ana- the double dialogical relationship between Venice and the
lytical frameworkand to suggest a form of action. To de- hospital: "Le Corbusier creates a definite link between the
monstrate how Samona actually designs in a historic city structure of Venice and that of the new intervention: the
center that, in his theoretical writings, he has previously dialogue between the structures is carriedout at the level
suggested be reserved for "purecontemplation," Tafuri of their respective organisms, emphasizing, in the new
turns to Samona's 1967 competition project (with Alberto hospital, the continuity and seriality of the various nuclei.
67

assemblage 22
A specific environment, then, undergoes a reorganization amples are presumablynot worth mentioning). The "si-
imposed by the articulated hospital machine."At the same lences" of Le Corbusier,however, are opaque, for they are
time, Le Corbusier "criticallyclarifies"the undeveloped unlikely to be those of the Venice Hospital, which has
"fringe"and the entire city's "urbanstructure takes on a been described as being actively engaged in dialogue.71
completely new character."Armed with his knowledge of (Since the notes offer no further information, the reader
this recent project, Tafuri finds in Le Corbusier'srelation- who turns to the hors-texteplates would find a photograph
ship to the specific, resistant Venetian historicity the of Chandigarh- unusual in not being from the Oeuvre
analytical key to all of (a certain) Corbusian urbanism: complete- which may be there to fill the gap between
"[Le Corbusier's] relationship with a town like Venice, so text and meaning.)
particularly'finished' and organic in its historicity, allows
[him] to single out the articulation of the architectural Finally, Tafuri returns to his largertheme of the proper-
that is, critical -relationship to history. He defines "the
organism as the mediating element between the new
intervention and consolidated history; as in the previous great task facing the ideology of the modern movement"
as "definitely renouncing history as a source of prospects
projects for Algiers and the South American towns, he was and values for the future: not a rejection of history but
able to set up a new code of values and a new frame of
references, absorbingnatural, geographical,historical finding its right place in planning."The avant-gardecould
not but achieve its historically determined failure. Never-
elements into articulated organisms, as if they were ready-
made objects open to the revolution of their semantic theless, its understanding of an "equivocal relation with
attributes."66 the past" should not be rejected." Better than the two
alternatives explored by his contemporaries- the "mur-
Fifth, from all this, Tafuri can derive a criterion for the der of history" (structuralism) and "banala-historicism"
development of suitable operative models for current (modernism) - is the "still-unsurpassedlesson" of Le
urbanism in less specifically "organic"environments: Corbusier:"because it comes from one who has accepted,
"Historicaldialogue and revolution of the meanings: the without Romantic second thoughts, the dissolving of the
binomial - Le Corbusier shows- is inseparable."67 The traditional function of history, of the artistic object, of the
binomial is found in a number of "operations"tried by concept itself of art, recovering,from a radicallynew start-
others (Kenzo Tange in Japan, Quaroni in Venice, Kahn ing point, the values of memory, of history, of the indefi-
in Philadelphia). Like Le Corbusier, they establish a "dia- nite; the very operation . . . predicted by Brecht in ... the
lectic" between "meanings"in both primaryand second- Dreigroschenprozess. ""7
ary "features"and thus seem to save the historical towns There is apparentlylittle hope of this lesson becoming
from the (wrong sort of) "museification."68A check on
current theoretical propositions, and a proposed bridging widely influential. Contemporaryarchitecture, "in spite of
Le Corbusier,"remains in an "insuperablecontradiction,"
of certain contradictions between them, clears the way for
believing, correctly,that the twin crises of history and of
adding the workof other Italians, specifically Aldo Rossi the object are ongoing challenges of modernity, but incor-
and Carlo Aymonino, to an enlarged list of approved
rectly assuming that they therefore can be successfully
projects, all analogous to the Venice Hospital project.69 confronted only within the confines of the particular
Sixth, we arriveat an allusive conclusion: "Between the "code of values" that constituted the modern movement
intuitive criticism of Scarpaand the study of objective in its prime. What is the critic to do? "It would be better,
control systems, there is still a gap, bridged only (but in then, to accept reality as it really is, and give the historian
the negative sense) by Le Corbusier's'silences."'The first a dialectical role in respect of the architect; almost to the
term apparentlyrefers to the "deeply critical even if not point of constant opposition." This said, Tafuri is nearly
yet historicized architecturalmeta-language"of Scarpa's ready to take up his second question. Before doing so,
historical restorations." The objective control systems however, he must explain how the "conception" of archi-
might be its opposite, standard planning (and the ex- tecture has been redefined after the crisis of the object.
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Chapter2

In his second chapter, "Architectureas 'Indifferent Ob-
ject' and the Crisis of Critical Attention," Tafuri charts
significant changes in the very concept of architecture
since the Renaissance, tracing its transformation from
"absolute object" to "relativevalue" through the introduc-
tion of references to "human experiences"and the merg-
ing, especially in architecture set in landscape, of nature
("now ... a structure shared by man") with the "historyof
the entire human species." In the nineteenth century,
with eclecticism, the phenomenon spreads to "major"
architecture. Tafuri jumps quickly - in the course of two
pages - to the modern movement.74Inits hands, the
simultaneous reconceptualization of architecture by
camps of otherwise disparatearchitects transformsarchi-
tecture into an "ambiguousobject"that allows "open
readings"and involves the observerin an "ambiguous
collocation." Participation ratherthan contemplation is
now encouraged, with the result that "the observerbe-
comes more and more the user who gives meaning to the
object or to the series.""
Tafuri has thus described the crisis of the object as a

gradual process that originates in the crisis of history: the
architectural object, in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, loses its absolute value and, with the modern
movement, becomes ambiguous. Meaning lies in the eyes
of the observer-user,now a participant. When paintings
and architecture are "absorb[ed] into behavior,"they can
no longer be spoken of as objects, but, have become "hap-
penings, and in this sense, the crisis of the historicity of
art is linked to the crisis of the object."76
4. Le Corbusier,Capitol,
Chandigarh, 1958-1962, detail With the introduction of mechanical reproduction into
showing the Assembly and, in this analysis, the qualities of the mass mediumgive the
the foreground, the ramp of
the Secretariat. From Theories "productiveprocess the role once played by the absolute
and Historyof Architecture. object, that of expression. The resulting diminution of the
authority of the unique work carriesover to worksthat are
parts of series, where the relation must be to the whole, a
productive series. Since structure is now a series, "an in-
definite process, an open formal and productive organiza-
tion," the object, freed from its status as unique and
eternal, can become "a model or instrument for action."77
Works by Le Corbusier and others illustrate the "ambigu-
69

assemblage 22
ous object," the workwhose meaning lies in relation to opposing ways. The first "reduces"the image, making it
mechanical reproduction and the workwhere the single into a "pure,empty and available form,"canceling speci-
cell, or "event,"is conditioned by the whole "aggregate," ficity (or "morphology"),and reducing it to the invariant
or structure/process.78 type or, alternately, destroying objectness through serial
This reformation of the crisis of the object is, again, an repetition. In the other, modern architecture and the
mode of reception are identical, for architecture makes
enlargement of the Benjaminian insight: in this case, his itself over as a "new object able to make reality explode
explanation of the effect of mechanical reproducibilityon into an espace indicible,"a permanent Gropiusian "total
the work of art. Doubling back to Brecht's "request"for
theater." "On the one side, Mies, on the other, the late
"collective unconscious" makes the links clear:what
works of Le Corbusier."These two modes are, in fact,
Brecht wanted for theater, Benjamin recognized as already
inherent in the perception and appropriationof architec- complementary, for both "stimulate"the user to "con-
scious freedom," putting him at the center of an almost
ture by everydayusers of the city.79Architecture and the
infinite net of relations that are "outlined, ... but not yet
city are thus considered to be comparable to Brecht's epic
completed." The real difference between the two is the
theater, with everything this implies for aesthetics and
degree to which the architect is conscious of this occur-
politics.8?
ring, and whether he "submits to or elects" this open-
Benjamin's "swing"between rejection (early in his career) ness.83
and acceptance (later on) of the global meaning of mass
Tafuri engages in a long digression about contemporary
culture and technology is a "tragedy"that he shared with
painting that begins with a parenthetical aside comparing
"all the most sensitive European intellectuals since the Klee and Le Corbusier. In it, he elevates Le Corbusier to
beginning of the century - Weber, Husserl, Brecht, Klee the special position that Arganhad reserved for Klee,
and Le Corbusier."The intellectual who investigates
these subjects makes a move toward the "rescueof Man," claiming that "perhapsonly Klee ... and Le Corbusier...
had been able to merge within a single and stratified vi-
but opens himself up to the tension between positivity
sion of the world ... two opposite dialectical poles" at
and alienation that, in the cases of Benjamin, Weber,
which are situated constructivism and anticonstructivism
Adorno, Marcuse, and even Brecht, takes a heavy toll.81
The tragedy that confronted Husserl, Le Corbusier, and (in the Arganiansense).84Whatever nuances have been
omitted from an assertion that is made, as Tafuri admits,
Klee is not explained any further.
"against"Argan's"intention" (for he was no admirerof Le
This tension is shared by contemporaryarchitecture, and Corbusier), we are left with the impression that Klee and
it is the source of the "present diffusion of complex and Le Corbusier are unlike all others inasmuch as they alone
multivalent architecturalstructures."The state of affairs possess a "single and stratified"world vision, enveloping
can be traced back to the attitudes of some modern move- the two modes here described, and thus stand apart from
ment architects - although only a minority among them a host of modernists and present-day figures in the arts.
- including architects habitually thought to be funda- Assembling the two parts of this argument, we may con-
mentally different: the "entire work of Le Corbusier from clude that the seriality/opennessdichotomy corresponds
1919 to 1938," Gunnar Asplund, Hugo Hiring, and the to, or parallels,the constructivist/anticonstructivistone
prewarAlvarAalto. What is of immediate and historical and that respective elements of both of these fall within
significance is the new nature of artistic production as an the different strata of Le Corbusier'sworld vision.
"independently structured process."82 In Tafuri's first chapter, Le Corbusier is so much a part of
As a result of the cultural effects of the "age of mechani- the critic's own history, and, if our reading of the geneal-
cal reproduction"thematized by Benjamin, modern archi- ogy of prophets is accepted, of the history of historicism
tecture now "involves"the spectator in two seemingly and antihistoricism, that he is inextricable from the argu-
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
ment. In this chapter, Le Corbusier is worked into the unnamed - the positions are simply described as "ideal")
argument in two different ways:On the one hand, Tafuri are valid attitudes toward the city, for they are, although
illustrates the Benjaminian notions of the destruction of at opposite extremes, identical with regardto the ques-
the aura, unicity, and authority of the workof art in the tion of attention.87Dissolving is clearly not wanted here,
age of mechanical reproduction (and the concomitant because it "changes every structure into superstructure,"
changes in perception from concentration to absented- and "structure,"in the specific sense the word will later
minded perception) with Corbusian and other modern take on, is emerging as the desirable quality for the work
movement examples. The demonstration suggests that to have - structure, we might add, combined with open-
Benjaminian notions can be applied generally to architec- ness.88Le Corbusier and Benjamin apparentlyheld out for
tural "images."Le Corbusier and Gropius are the only dissolution and for a participatorywork, and in this they
creators of works that "prove"the pertinence of more than are like the proponents of action painting, total theater,
one effect of mechanical reproduction. At the same time, and aleatory music, like Duchamp and Andre Masson, all
though, Tafuri links Benjamin and Le Corbusier as indi- previously associated in the discussion of contemporary
viduals whose engagement with technological society is art with the "open" side of the antinomy type/espace
qualitatively similar - that is, in the courage of their real- indicible. The end of rationalism, at an unspecified mo-
ism and the tragedy of their acknowledgment of its global ment, proves Benjamin's and Le Corbusier'sdreams to be
meaning. The move is audacious: Tafuri is comparing Le illusory as far as the city is concerned, although they re-
Corbusier not with another great artist, as in the rather main valid for the workof architecture.89
common Picasso/Le Corbusier equation (which Le
The illusion lies in believing that being a coauthor is a
Corbusier had certainly encouraged by publishing photo-
sufficient condition for being a "coprojector"(erroneously
graphs of them together), but with a philosopher. In other translated as "coplanner")in the "Gropiusiansense."
words, he is proclaiming Le Corbusier'sexperience to be
What is wanted in the city is "criticalbehavior,"and
that of an "intellectual."
"relaxedparticipation"or "dilution of attention" inhibits
In the midst of a prolonged discussion of the mixed it, leaving undone the "greattask"to be accomplished:
achievements of contemporaryarchitects whose work "preciselythat of stimulating experimentally, by con-
explicitly involves ways of perceiving the city, Tafuri stantly verifying on a reduced scale, the request for a new
makes yet another comparison of Le Corbusier and Ben- urban structure."90It emerges that "city"represents not
jamin.85He asserts that the end of "rationalism"had al- just the physical fabric, but technological and capitalist
ready ended the illusion "of the possibility of dissolving society.
critical activity in the use of the city," in which Benjamin
Let us check, to use a Tafurian word, if these arguments
and the early Le Corbusier, although in different ways,
can be assembled. Le Corbusier'searly work, we have
had believed. As the context makes clear, they "dreamt"
been told, exemplified a cell/aggregaterelationship in
of making "architecture,drowning in the city, explode
towards the user [and] involve him in its processes, mak- architecture, which makes the single workpart of a struc-
ture, which is, in turn, an event and part of a "processin
ing him co-author of a formal event in fieri." In this, they
resembled artists who had "tried to establish with the fieri." This makes Benjamin's and Le Corbusier'snotions
observera sense of participation with the work."86 of the artistic object - in this case, the private villa -
similar. Further, Le Corbusier'sconception of architec-
Tafuri is making this point in what is almost an addendum ture in the city is also like that of the Benjamin's. But
to his discussion of the architecture of his contemporaries. surely, Tafuri, awareof the existence of class domination,
He is here moving forwardwith his argument that neither is not thinking of Raoul La Roche, the Savoyes, and the
"typological"proposals nor the attempts to create cities as "members of the rich Parisianbourgeoisie"as coauthors
"fields of images" (in each instance by persons or groups and coparticipants in the creation of a work.91Nor could
71

assemblage 22
the early houses - the semisuburbanvilla at Passy or the acritical images," would have been unmistakable for an
"Virgilian"weekend house at Poissy - exemplify "drown- Italian reader."9(Twenty yearslater Tafuri will say, "I don't
ing in the city," even if they had been open works.While believe in 'operative' criticism and my objections in the
Le Corbusier'sBat'a Pavilion for the International Exhibi- '60s were specifically directed against proponents of this,
tion of 1937 is illustrated, and while it could be under- like Bruno Zevi.")96The historical avant-gardeis not so
stood as an open work, a point to which we will return, it much forgotten in this discussion as dismissed from con-
would not have been physically "drownedin the city," sideration. This is because it is like the tightrope walker
being a self-enclosed, self-referentialexhibition display for who insists on workingwithout a net, because it is "affir-
a shoe manufacturerthat was to be set down in a parklike mative, absolutist, totalitarian, ... ignoring existing mate-
setting.92We are missing, at the very least, the architec- rials,"and because it is preternaturallyincapable of the
tural piece that would illustrate their shared dream, and three types of architecture that are hypothesized here:
with it the connection to the third "valence,"their experi- experimental, ironical, and critical.9
ence of modernity as intellectuals.93
Experimentalism "is constantly taking apart, putting to-
As he does at the end of each chapter, Tafuri here reevalu- gether, contradicting, provokinglanguages and syntaxes
ates his situation. The present-day observeris in an am- that are nevertheless accepted as such .... The real task
biguous position, and the critic's position is of an "even [of experimentalist architects] is ... the widening, the
more accentuated ambiguity."He sits in the front row of composition and decomposition in new modulations, of
"the show offered by an architecture continuously split- the linguistic material, of the figurative codes, of the con-
ting itself in an exhausting mirrorgame."''94 If the tracker ventions, that, by definition, they have indeed assumed as
of the Corbusian presence feels him/herself put in a simi- reality."Yet neither experimentalism nor irony are suffi-
lar state of exhaustion, then not only has Tafuri succeeded cient for a "criticalarchitecture."Irony is admirable for its
in putting readerand author in the same state of mind, he silence, for "the critical content of an intentionally ironical
has also made his readerscoprojectors of this difficult work is more ... in what seeps through than in what is
work, a discursive position consonant with the Benjamin- clearly said."'9And it may have an "aesthetic dimension
ian modes of reception here analyzed. rich in critical valences" (of this, "Kleeleaves no doubt").
But it only "concedes ambiguous evidence about the limi-
tations of language."Architecture's ability to "operate
critically implies a deformation of architecture itself." It
Startingwith his third chapter, "Architectureas Metalan- must "change from language into metalanguage,... must
guage:The CriticalValue of the Image,"Tafuri'sattention speak of itself, . . . explore its own code without leaving it,
shifts from the crises of history,the object, and critical except for very carefullymeasured experiments.""99
attention - that is, from "the situation of architectural
culture"and "architectureand the town as transmittersof Although there are modern movement examples of "ex-
perimentalism,"only Chandigarh (probablythe Capitol)
information"- to yet another crisis, that of contemporary and a "late"workby Peter Behrens, an apartment house
criticism.As he approacheshis ultimate object, "the why of
on Bolivarall6e(Westend, Berlin, 1930), qualify as critical.
historyand criticism,"texts per se and their authors (theo- The Behrens work "assembled and disassembled the or-
rists, historians,critics) are in the ascendancyand the mod-
ern movement diminishes in importance. ganism by using, in the nodal points, a casual sequence of
protrudinghalf-cylinders."The building is critical in the
With Roland Barthesas his explicitly cited theoretical explicit sense of "order[ing]and rationali[zing]" Hans
ally, Tafuri polemically engages and dismisses Bruno Scharoun's contemporaneous but "less systematic" criti-
Zevi's premise of a critical discourse realized through cism of Gropiusian "rigorism."At the same time, it criti-
images; the object of his disdain, the "slimybog of cizes Scharoun's "dissolution of the wall" and, in a larger
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
sense, the "wallas limitation of 'Rationalism."'Finally, it

is "productive"today as a "precocious example of self-
criticism on the part of modern architecture."'00
Le Corbusier's Capitol satisfies only one of the three con-
ditions for seeing a work as a "criticalsounding":it can be
"readas a critical cycle" because in it cycles, image and
language, "aesthetic and semantic information,"meet.'0'
This said, Chandigarh needs to be read with particular
care, for it is understood "only by isolating, in its complex
stratifications, those features containing communicative
valencies that, in the totality of the work, belong to sec-
ondary informative structures."The other conditions for
critical architecture are "the isolation of the various
themes, so that they can emerge as protagonists in an
architectural narrativethat is complete in itself... [and]
the rigorousand conscious check of this narrative."'02
Because it incorporates terms whose meanings will only
emerge as Tafuri expands his discussion to take up the
subject of linguistic analysis, the assertion about Chan-
digarh is elusive, but impossible to mistake for anything
other than a positive evaluation. The import of such
an assessment will increase as the rarityof truly critical
worksin the period under consideration emerges. In
Chandigarh, there is more than "ironic"silence; there is
a meeting of oppositions - of language and image (or
form) - within the stratifications. One might, in the
absence of further elucidation in Tafuri's text about
Chandigarh, turn to the photograph of the Assembly
building included among the illustrations to the first
chapter (although it is only mentioned there in passing). 5. Peter Behrens, apartment
The photograph is taken from the top of the Secretariat house in the Bolivaralle,
and gives special prominence to the ramp that, in its Westend, Berlin, 1930. From
small-windowed towerlike volume, is attached to the Theories and Historyof
Architecture.
main, southeast, faqade. The unflattering plunging view
shows the literal strata of the project and thereby empha-
sizes not only the indirectness of connections, both visual
and real, between the buildings, but also the oppositional
relation between the elements programmaticallyintended
for circulation and access. The orthogonal bridges leading
to the Assembly offer a rebuttal to the hairpin turns of the
ramp, which is very much a part of, but still visually dis-
tinguishable from, the overall volume of the Secretariat.
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assemblage 22
Taken together, these worksby Behrens and Le Corbusier reality."'06The critical architect "goes them better," for
provide subtle hints about how a "critical"workcan disas- he/she would question architecture while navigating the
semble conventional meaning by subverting the very ele- high wire without the net.'"7Critical architecture is "will-
ments (here, of the wall and the circulation system) that ing to expose itself - without a safety net - to the dan-
usually carrythis meaning within the totality of the organ- gerous test of an unprejudiced critical exploration,"which
ism. One is reminded of the stratified and nonsynthetic the architecture that consciously seeks metalanguage
"worldvision" found in Tafuri's Klee/Le Corbusier. cannot do.'08
Tafuri also reviews a number of present-day examples Le Corbusier suffers no devaluation in this chapter. When
Palladio goes beyond "simple criticism," achieving a "per-
(among them, worksby Japanese architects, by the
brutalists, by Paul Rudolph) that stand in for the "condi- fect balance" between experimentation and "the expres-
tion" of international architecture generally.These fail to sive potential of images," he is compared to Wright (but
satisfy the conditions for critical architecture, or even for only in the Prairiehouses), to Eisenstein (in film), and -
ironic architecture, because, essentially, they are tryingtoo without qualification as to object or discipline - to Le
hard to be critical, because this architecture is "fold[ed] Corbusier. In the dimensions mentioned, each of these
on itself, in search of its own 'why,' of the 'why' of its four were "at the same time, poet, critic and a good theo-
structure and of its historical permissibility."'"Another retician."'0•In an interesting note to a defense of the
insufficiency is displayed by a sort of architecture that "is unspecified critics' (and clearlyhis own) interest in neo-
on its way to becoming metalanguage," in other words, classicism/Illuminism, Tafuri uses Le Corbusier to demon-
that is obviously "'speakingof architecture,"'but again strate that the real hinge between the modern movement
too self-consciously and intent on rejecting "an in-depth and history is Illuminism and not the tradition thought to
start with William Morris.Why? Because Le Corbusier
dialogue with criticism." (Perhapsthey are one in the
same?)104 employed rationalism in "an effort to reach a new classical
dimension" and can therefore be thought of, along with
To explain the important distinction between these ten- Edoardo Persico, as using "the language of modern archi-
dencies and fully critical architecture, Tafuri revives the tecture as a docile metalanguage, capable of speaking
metaphor of the tightrope walkerof his introduction. about classicity metaphorically.""'
There the critic, obviously the author himself, "conscious
of the transient and dangeroussituation of modern archi-
tecture, ... is like the person who has decided to walk on
a tight-rope while constantly changing winds do their best When in his fourth chapter, "OperativeCriticism," Tafuri
to blow him down."'"'The avant-gardeswere so abun- finally turns to his second core question - "And to what
dantly confident in their own prowess and ability that degree is the separation from the flow of praxis symptom-
they "performwithout a net . . . they look in the face of atic of a deep crisis of operative criticism, or is there an
disaster and accept it from the start . . . as an ... inevi- opening, in criticism, for a new operative modus?"- Le
table ... destiny.... [They] seldom stop to argue with Corbusier again proves of interest and value to the critic.
what they are destroying."The experimentalists, who are He is pertinent here in his guise of the author of "self-
continuously self-questioning and thus hyperawareof how publicity." His polemical worksillustrate a kind of
absurdlydangerous - and, perhaps, dangerouslyabsurd operative criticism that was, in its time, "short-lived,con-
- is their act ("the wire might break at any moment"), sumable."As polemics, they were continuous and prompt,
demand a "strongnet below." The avant-gardesare journalisticallyextravagant,and deliberately and justifi-
subversives;the experimentalists, certainly the architects ably arbitrary,repetitive, and casual in their relationship
of the Kahn-Rudolphgeneration, decompose and recom- to truth. Along with other architect-writersand with the
pose "linguistic material"that "they have assumed as leading avant-gardejournals, Le Corbusier wrote and
74

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
published a "kindof literature which [gave] up an histo- Whatever the (uncritical, we assume) historian does, he
riographicalarrangementin order to bite into the present, will find himself involved in operative criticism, now
accepting the risk of contradiction.""' raised by these activities to a higher power."6
Tafuri is also tolerant of the worksof the "'Masters'of (It is not out of place to point out here, as Tafuri leaves
architecture as such for his third and final question, some
contemporary criticism," like Pevsner and Giedion, in
relation to those of the modern movement writers."'2The of the ties that have bound the previous chapters to-
shortcomings of this sort of criticism are to be expected; gether. The repeated references to the themes suggested
more worrisome are the propositions of his contempo- by his questions are alwaysplaced at the end of a chapter
raries, Zevi, Benevolo, and Portoghesi, for a "criticalpho- and articulate precisely the connections to the next one.
There is also a constancy of structure:a chronological
tography."Opposed to this instrumentalization, Tafuri
imagines a correct, rigorous, critical use of photography presentation of historical examples, concluding with an
that has the potential to become "a formidable operative extensive reflection on present-day architects, followed by
instrument." Like critical historiography,this photography the final "critic'ssoliloquy,"in which he reiterates and
will "focus aspects such as articulation, organicity, disag- expands on the challenges and frustrationsthat beset him
in his search to justify undertakinghis tasks. Further, in
gregation ... [and will] place [the building] in a new
context, ruled by an already familiar a-perspective, frag- what Tafuri frequently calls the "drama"of contemporary
mentary, and discontinuous reading code. And not sur- architecture, it is always the same architecturalactors who
catch the critic's attention: Kahn, Rudolph, and Copcutt,
prisingly, it will also use montage.""73
joined by, in some but not all chapters, Samona, Rossi,
A second sort of acceptable operative criticism helps to and Aymonino."7)
build the case against Zevi, the critic Tafuri appears to
have had in mind when directing this chapter against
those who seek to "overcome the traditional barriersbe-
tween criticism and concrete intervention.""4Researchby In his fifth chapter, "Instrumentsof Criticism," Tafuri
architects on town structure and morphology, that by addresses the final question posed in his introduction:
Kahn, Copcutt, Samona, Aymonino, and Rossi, as well as "What is the relation that history and criticism can legiti-
that by the Smithsons and the Buchanan Report Commis- mately start with the new sciences and theories of com-
sion, also makes for excellent operative criticism. This munication, and still preservetheir specific prerogatives,
"essentially urban criticism" avoids the ideological ("a ... roles,... and methods?" and he discovers a "language
tradition that goes from Pugin to Mumford") and works crisis of modern architecture."''"He is obliged to engage
with reality. In addition, it links itself to Illuminist criti- in a disputatio with scholars and critics drawn from
cism, and by questioning functionalist assumptions, dis- (seemingly) all the possible disciplines that thematize
tinguishes itself from that undistinguished school. In the architecture as language. Although Le Corbusier has
hands of Kahn and Rossi, this newly named "typological been employed on more than one occasion as a means to
criticism"even manages to be almost all right with regard measure the failures and achievements of architectural
to the historical."' All in all, it creates a new critical his- critics,"9one would not expect to find him pertinent to
tory of the modern movement, uses graphic imagery with this learned discussion of structuralism,semiology, the
new awareness,and where it is faulty, these "deformations Kunstwollen,iconology, symbolic forms, the open work,
... are perfectly justifiable: its historiographicalinstru- nouvelle critique, Barthianmythology, Weberian ideal
mentalism, with its perspective on experimental planning types, and philology, even if there are mentions from time
choices, is taken for granted." Its very virtues, however, to time of architecturalcritics like the hapless Zevi.'12
intensify the difficulties of the critics, whose operative Le Corbusier is recalled, nonetheless, and in ways that
tasks typological criticism preempts by doing them better. require lengthy explanation and some philology.
75

assemblage 22
First, the last time that Tafuri mentions specific examples stresses both the dynamic interaction of the varied archi-
of Le Corbusier'swork in chapter five is in the midst of a tectural and nonarchitecturalelements involved and the
discussion of the usefulness to architecturalcriticism of fact that "the specific architecturalvalues spring from the
semantic codes borrowedfrom the study of language. In complex stratification of architecture itself."'23He clearly
this regard,he stresses the risk of an overrelianceon func- finds considerable promise in this suppler tool of analysis.
tional analysis, even on the part of a writer as sophisti- Indeed, the prospect of introducing it into the study of
cated as Umberto Eco, and cites several architects whose architecturalhistory (which, of course, brings up a host of
work tends to defeat this approach, namely, Michelan- methodological problems, some of them addressed later in
gelo, Palladio, the Dientzenhofers, members of De Stijl, the chapter) evokes one of the most upbeat passages in
and Le Corbusier.The discussion also engages, and not the entire book: "Byinterpreting architecture in its com-
by chance, the problem of ideology. Tafuri observes, un- plex structure and not in its mere visual appearance,we
surprisingly,that "the contents of architecturallanguage have the means of bringing back that very structure into
contain meanings derived from disciplines outside ar- unity and organicity. But in order to do this we will have
chitectural planning"and that "as ideology, architecture to find out how to re-insert past utopias into present real-
is bound to see the failure of its purposes."Likewise, ity, how and within what limits we can recover the original
given "the ambiguous relations, from the start, between historical meanings of architectures that have become part
architecture and revolution, between form and planning of modern urban and territorialstructures and how the
methods, [and] between history and avant-gardes,"we are present myths will allow the decoding of myths, values
preparedfor the assertion that "in this sense architecture and involutions of architecturalphenomena in the course
is alwaysthe constructionof a utopia." of history."'24
What we are not preparedfor is the next sentence, intro- Second, in the last in a series of examples that demon-
ducing something like a transcendental note into a fuller strate the risk of the instrumentalization of the new lin-
treatment of the utopian element in architecture:"The guistic analyses, and in the last substantive discussion of
values and meanings of architecture go beyond what ar- the book, Tafuri contends with both Robert Venturi's
chitecture manages to realize in society. Chartres, the Complexityand Contradictionin Architectureand Vincent
Pazzi Chapel, Saint Ivo alla Sapienza, the salines of Scully's introduction to this book. Tafuri criticizes
Chaux, the Villa Savoye and Chandigarhare evidence of Venturi's "ambiguity"as nothing more than an all-purpose
ideas that have value as messages beyond their immediate "criticalparameter"and "a-prioricategory with only ge-
effect on social behavior and beyond their historical con- neric meanings," which has been adopted for his own
sequences."'2'Continuing in the same vein, he notes that "personalplanning choices" rather than for critical pur-
architecture, which "has a high degree of ambiguity,... poses. Venturi is, Tafuri concedes, capable of "many per-
presents itself as a usable object and projects into the ceptive observations,"including the discovery in the early
future utopian needs that are, logically, bound to be "Purist"Le Corbusier of "multi-significance, ... dualism,
frustrated."While this ambiguity naturallyleads to con- ... complexity." But the ahistoricity of the Venturian
siderable tension, it does have its bright side, since "this notions of ambiguity and contradiction and their reposses-
possibility of inserting a fragment of utopia into reality is sion for a personal poetic taint this contribution. How,
a privilege"that architecture possesses to a greater degree Tafuri wonders, could Scully, "such a serious and percep-
than the other visual arts.'22 tive scholar,"assert that Complexityand Contradictionis
second only to Vers une architecturein historical impor-
Next come several paragraphstreating architecture in tance?125
terms of a code considered as a system of systems (a no-
tion derived from the writings of Roman Ingardenand Tafuri makes a pointed comparison of Venturi's "pro-
of R6ne Wellek and Austin Warren), in which Tafuri posal" and the poetics of Klee. Klee's poetics, like that of
76

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
many members of the avant-garde,but to a greater degree, Corbusier was ironic, too, but his irony "wasas sharp as a
"recognized the introduction of the unconscious, of the steel-toothed smile." Le Corbusier, Scully seems to say,
irrational,of ambiguity and of the unsolved tension be- instrumentalized irony, which, he further implies, dis-
tween opposite polarities, into the structures of artistic guised his "true"intentions. Venturi's irony is "this
activity." Furthermore, unlike Venturi, he does not "start generation's answer to grandiose pretensions which have
from a priori categories ... in order to identify the dimen- shown themselves to be destructive and overblown,"pre-
sions of his poetic." For Klee, "irony,complexity, and tensions that cannot be anything but Corbusian.129
soundings on the verge of the rational are end results and The Venturian and the Tafurian Le Corbusiers share
not starting points."'126
many similarities, but on these last points they are anti-
It is perhaps no accident that the book concludes with this thetical, for Scully detects in the architect precisely what
most ungentle reaction to the "gentle manifesto." Yve- Tafuri opposes: heroism, authoritarianism,synthesis, and
Alain Bois imagines Tafuri thinking, in a hypothetical manipulative consciousness. Such a Le Corbusier would
meditation, that his critical project is at risk of being un- be incapable of "criticalarchitecture."Further, Scully's
done by this other analysis, "which is nevertheless simply account vitiates Tafuri's explicit suggestion that Le
Corbusier is a lesson-giver for the current generation.
complementary to it," and in response, characterizingit as
"cowardly."Bois believes that Tafuri cannot know "that Nevertheless, Tafuri seems willing to let these errorsin
the very speed of [one's] reaction is readable as a symptom the interpretation slide, for he notes only the most egre-
of [one's] fear."'27His psychoanalytic reading of this en- gious one of the comparison of Le Corbusier'smanifesto
counter is persuasive, for there is an uncharacteristic and with Venturi's.
therefore revealing omission at this point. Tafuri's use of Or has he, in fact, done more? Le Corbusier'spoetics
Klee in the place of an architect to dispose of Venturi and resembles Klee's, if only because Klee is like the rest of the
to neutralize the Scullyian construction of Le Corbusier is
avant-garde,only more so. But, we contend, Tafuri would
a surprisinglyindirect tactical choice for the fearlessly have us believe they were especially close, for their poetics
confrontational Tafuri of the preceding chapters who has must, in each case, be encompassed in a unique "vision of
taken on the powerful Zevi and his own teacher, Argan. the world"that they alone have attained. If, encouraged
Perhaps, we speculate, this hesitation is the place where by Tafuri's own "jumps,"we bring together two illustra-
Tafurian philologists should recognize an inexplicable tions not specifically related to each other in the book, the
silence, or hole, and so we do. subsequent splicing enables us to detect in Klee a substi-
tution for Le Corbusier.
Turning to the original "document" of Complexityand
Contradiction in Architecture,we find that the parts of In the original Italian edition, the confrontation bridges
Scully's introduction not glossed by Tafuri contain an some hundred-twenty-odd pages. If the readerassociates
extended comparison of Le Corbusier and Venturi, who the two, he/she does so simply by virtue of their both
are, according to the Yale professor, similar as "visual, being within the strata of the bound codex, unintention-
plastic" artists, as independently minded polemicists, as ally therefore, and in a state of absent-minded visual
projectors of a "new visual and symbolic attitude toward attention recommended by Tafuri. The sequence of
urbanism as a whole," and as "architects who have really moves is as follows: First, assume that the Klee drawing,
learned something from the past."'28There is, however, a Air-tsu-dni ("Industria"written backward),functions as
vital distinction between them: Le Corbusier generalizes a traditional illustration and is intended to amplify the
while Venturi is "more fragmentary";Le Corbusier dreams statements about Klee'sirony,ambiguity,and introduction
of heroes, of "Achilles ... become [ing] king";Venturi is of the unconscious, and so on, that it faces.•3 The draw-
"consistently anti-heroic," and what is more, truly ironic, ing is certainly humorous, as are many of Klee's creations,
"shrugginghis shoulders ruefully and mov[ing] on." Le and its playful qualities can be thought to encompass the
77

assemblage 22
6. Klee, Air-tsu-dni, 1927.

From Theoriesand Historyof
Architecture.
irrationaland the unconscious. It can further be read for its Fast forwardto the comparable stratified world visions of
ambiguity and unresolved tensions between polarities. The Klee and Le Corbusier, able to merge the constructivist and
title itself, if not one of the "eversions"(a turning inside the anticonstructivist in a single, nonsynthetic whole. By an
out) with which Tafuri has been concerned, is at least an easy stretch of formal and semantic association, the upside-
inversion. Ambiguity rules the composition, which re- down/right-side-upcity, a city of assembled but uncon-
sembles a cityscape in an unorthodox perspective, or, alter- nected strata, in which forms are themselves composed of
nately, a city and its fantastic opposite, with one part layers of stringy wires, could be a product of this kind of
reflecting the other in an asymmetricalbipolar opposition, imagination. Here some of the individual buildinglike
forms in the upper left corner being more or less mirrored shapes are constructed of building-shaped cells (in the
middle of the uppermost register);a pitched roof is tiled
by inverse forms in the lower right (voids by solids as well as
forms right side up by their upside down equivalent). with pitched roofs (in the lower left corner); and shapes
that resemble spindles on industrial looms are, equally,
Next, recall Tafuri's very first mention of Klee, in reference spun out of thread (in the lower right corner). Between the
to the unillustrated project by Samonai.What Tafuri saw group of spindles and the American skyscrapershape near
there was "an ironic memory"of Klee in the "transparency the left corner a stair leads to a diamond-shaped form. The
of the ancient behind a filigree of wiry iron structures,"a drawingtechnique gives the work the look of a manufac-
description that can be easily transferredto Air-tsu-dni.3' tured image. (The drawing, now in a private collection in
78

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
7. Le Corbusier,Bat'a
Pavilion, International
Exhibition, Paris,1937,
perspective drawing of the
interior. From Theories and
Historyof Architecture.
Berne, Switzerland, is dated 1927, and not, as Tafuri space and contains a second mural of colossal figures,
thought, 1917.)1 32 looming over a show window filled with the product for
which Bat'a was world-renowned,shoes.
At this point, we take up Le Corbusier'sdesign of the
Bat'a Company pavilion for the International Exhibition Now consider what could have been learned about this
in Paris of 1937. Assembled in the small cube of the pavil- project by a reader who in 1968 consulted the relevant
ion is an airplane that flies under a world map, itself volume, 1934-1938, of the Oeuvrecomplate.The pavilion
draped over an airy, filigrainelikegrid as if supported by was to be constructed of steel framing elements, on which
the lines of its own Mercator projection. Hung on the were to be hung panels made of tanned leather, laid up
visible walls in four registersare, in descending order, a like tiles. The interior space was to hold, behind the Bat'a
large mural devoted to a heroic figure of a workerand his name, three booths where pedicures would be offered.
equipment, a giant gear, and adjacent to it, an illegible Films were to be projected onto a screen in the darkened
plan (in fact, that for Hellocourt, a company town pro- void formed by the boxlike container. The plane, inciden-
jected by Le Corbusier for Bat'a in eastern France); a tally, recalls the large role aviation played in the manage-
panel labeled "Bat'aHellocourt";another entitled a "Site ment and diversification of the Bat'a company empire.'33
of the City"; and a shelf for models. Within, a metro- Let us explain the position of Le Corbusier'sdrawingof
nome-shaped volume is divided off from the exhibition the pavilion in the Italian edition of Tafuri's book, where
79

assemblage 22
9. Bat'a Pavilion,Wall 1
devoted to a demonstration of
8. Bat'a Pavilion, plan with key the Bat'a manufacturing
to other views process
PI -~ 10 57W
?-4-
7h .e
% ."
?,.
,,
Ig o.,
.
7
g0 Il
i*L
1 /e
10. Bat'a Pavilion,Wall 3 11. Bat'a Pavilion, roof plan.

showing, in descending order, Filmswere to be projected
the company logo, in neon; onto the movie screen above
a back-lit transparencyof the pedicure booths.
figures; and a storefront
window display of shoes
80

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
it faces the distinction between Miesian seriality and the crisis of the object, the crisis of critical attention, and the
Gropiusian/Corbusianopen work.'34Knowing more of its multivalences and ambiguities of language. It can be un-
programis illuminating, for we can certainly recognize it derstood as an example of architecture that gets behind
as a small theater, and even, with its fourth wall pulled up, the equipment and creates an experimental "eversion"of
as a theater on a stage. It is an open work, conflating the building into shoe box.
museum, the theater, the showroom, the factory and -
with the colossal socialist-realist figure of the workerwith (A cross-check with the real cannot be resisted. Le
Corbusier was surprisedwhen the firm refused the "ideal
his gear and the bust of Tomai Bat'a, the firm's deceased
and mythologized paternalistic founder - the monu- project"that they had commissioned, considering it to be
ment. There is indeed, as Jean-Louis Cohen has recog- "unacceptable."'36He believed that he had been offering
them his enthusiasm and complete devotion to duty. Was
nized, something vaguely tomblike to it."'5 Le Corbusier truly using irony with this much-sought-after
Air-tsu-dni enables us to open up the Bat'a Pavilion. The client? If there is irony, it is as unintended as was the un-
two ink drawings,gridded and divided into registers, are conscious conflation of tomb and memorial-monument
compositionally similar, and the Klee drawingresembles with the mass-produced shoe. Nevertheless, whatever Le
the project, which also employs registers, strata, and Corbusier'sconscious intentions, he could be understood
zones. One can, in fact, be filtered through the other. by Tafuri as playing, in a Kleelike manner, with the object
Bat'a inverts the status of the mass-produced object by and its representation.)
installing it in a gallerylikesetting. It then reinverts this
(An additional irony can be introduced, thanks to recent
serious, aura-laden,even heroic presentation by introduc-
historiography:here Le Corbusier scored an unintentional
ing its opposite, the film medium, with its inherent ab-
sence of aura- which is especially the case if we suppose point in his ongoing campaign to differentiate himself
from the citizen of the former Austro-HungarianEmpire
that its subject was the Bat'a shoes. Like the map of the
to whom he owed so much, Adolf Loos. Loos, who had
earth on its ceiling, this is a world upside down, where
praised his bespoke shoemaker in "Ornamentand Crime,"
Industry is Art. an essay published in L'Espritnouveau,would have been
At this point, we are ready to speculate even more boldly horrified at this unholy mixture of true architecture, the
on Tafuri's placement of the project in proximity to his tomb and the monument, with the mass-produced shoe
assertion about Klee's and Le Corbusier'sworld visions. - and Czechoslovakian, to boot.'37)
The Bat'a Pavilion is a temple to the mass-produced shoe
in a shoe box-shaped pavilion, incorporatingthe materials (It now appears from archivaldocuments that the floor
would have been constructed from the rubberused for the
used to fabricate shoes. In it, the (presumablygratis) ser-
soles of shoes. Shoe-shaped cutters would have been
vice rendered to the public in the pedicure booths puts
the industry at the feet of those it has shod. All together, pressed into the rubberand the resulting cavities filled
with a grout or plasterlike substance, so that the floor
we find here an assemblage of structuralmaterials and the
would be composed of thousands of pavers in the shape of
materials for manufacturing shoes (iron, structuralwalls,
real shoes of varyingsizes.'38In this case, in at least one
plywood, rubber,and leather), an exhibition space in
which materials in different media are arrangedin strata, aspect, that of structure, the pavilion would have been an
and a multimedia show, a montage of transparenciesand assemblage of assemblages, combining collage (from the
French for glue), ready-made,and montage, demonstrat-
films. The visitor who receives a pedicure is involved in
ing, once again, Tafuri's notion of Le Corbusier'sstratified
"producing"the show from the different pieces of flicker- world vision.)
ing images, murals, and industrial, consumable objects.
The Bat'a Pavilion appears to demonstrate all the qualities (Research subsequent to Theoriesand Historyof Architec-
that Tafuri associates with Le Corbusier with regardto the ture also confirms the Tafurian intuition about Klee.
81

assemblage 22
Tafuri could thus not be more right about the coexistence The readerimpatient for an assessment of
of the constructivist and the anticonstructivist in Klee's Tafuri's "intentions" will perhaps find a
world vision, for it here incorporates,quite literally, satisfactory, if brief, explanation in the fol-
anticonstructivist, or expressionist, imagery in a drawing lowing extract from an interview with Tafuri
conducted by Frangoise Very, a formerstu-
that seems to be manufactured. If one follows Constance
dent of his, and publishedin AMC in 1976.144
Naubert-Riser'srecent reading of another of Klee's city
drawings,this drawingwould fit with others from around FV: It was ten years ago that Theories and
1927 designed "to give the illusion of being machine- History...
made." It is also clearly related to Klee's Architectureof
MT: Ten years, no.
Variations of 1927, in which Naubert-Riserhas recognized
a resistant utopianism in the explicit crystalline shape FV: But the date of writing, isn't that the
woven into the mechanically traced grid. The most promi- most important?
nent crystal in the drawingthat Tafuri presents is found at
MT: 1966? More like 1967.
the head of a set of stairs, a configuration that cannot help
but remind us of the Ernst Olbrich-designed mystical FV: There is something that has always sur-
ceremony, Das Zeichen, in which a crystalwas carried prised me a little. The book speaks con-
down the steps of the Darmstadt artists colony building, stantly of the crisis of the object, without
the Ernst Ludwig House, in 1901. Naubert-Riser'sconclu- analyzing it.
sion about Architectureof Variations, which contains a MT: The crisis of the object?I considered it
crystal identical to the one found in the space between the already analyzed by Walter Benjamin.
two registersof Air-tsu-dni,might be applied as well to the
FV: Yes, but ...
drawingchosen by Tafuri: "the image of a pure and trans-
parent 'elsewhere' remained for Klee the ideal Utopian MT: Perhapsyou are right. I overestimated
'place,' even when it adopted the face of a modern the Italian public's knowledgeand compre-
city."'139) hension of the writings of Benjamin. They
had just appeared in Italian translation,
(If Tafuri is right about Klee, and if the anticonstructivism and I thought that everythinghe had written
is indeed utopian, does Le Corbusier'screation - with its had been assimilated. In fact, it requireda
equally anticonstructivist ready-madequalities - incorpo- lot of hard workto explain it again. ... Per-
rate a resistant utopianism? Would this be what prompted haps one should keep in mind that Theories
Tafuri to argue for their shared fate as "sensitive intellec- and Historyof Architecture,byvirtueof
tuals?"How is a readerto know?) the structure of the book itself, was not in-
tended only for architects, but also for histo-
rians of art. And the debate on the crisis of
Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Chapter6 the object, during those years when a po-
lemic was flourishing between those affili-
Le Corbusier is absent from Tafuri's sixth and concluding
ated with Op Art and with Pop Art -
chapter, "The Tasks of Criticism," with its well-known between Argan, on the one hand, and critics
exhortations to the historian and the architect to take up like Calvesi, on the other - was more easily
their properand separate tasks, but to do so with some
comprehendedby art historians than by ar-
optimism, with "faith in the positiveness and possibility of chitects. You have to understand that I do
revolutions."'40The worksof the architects referredto in not limit myself to one specific discipline.
this final critic's soliloquy on his tasks are cited as object That is to say, yes I do, but I always play on
lessons and enduring examples of persistent errors.'41Le several fronts. At that moment, you see,
Corbusier could have no place here. For the painful situa- those most interested were the art histori-
82

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
ans. Since architectural history as such was tion of architecture that Tafuri describes for one last time
not fashionable in Italy at the time, there is precisely the one that persists "in spite of Le Corbusier,"
were then few architectural historians. as we remember from the first chapter. He had understood
FV: Argan was very important. the nature of the problems that still elude present-day
architects: "The reality of production and technology in
MT: Certainly, he is a master. which we find ourselves has not left behind the great prob-
FV: And Le Corbusier? lems relating to the 'technical reproducibility'of the work
of art, to the crisis of the object and to the 'fall of the
MT: ?????[sic] aura.'142
FV: Le Corbusier is given such importance At this point, our "coproduction"makes it seem as if
in Theories and History of Architecture, he Tafuri had reservedfor Le Corbusier the role of the major
is always cited.
protagonist in his "drama,"which raises the question
MT: I do not know how much I understood of his overall intention. Are the various configurations
it/him then [the French is ambiguous on this supposed to serve as trail blazes, each posted with the
point]. For me, he was a kind of soldering Benjaminian message of "hope in the past"?'43Or is Le
between Benjamin and surrealism.145 He Corbusier constituted of a resistant rock that has re-
seemed to be the individual who had gone mained after the softer materials of the twentieth century
beyond the death of the aura and who - the avant-gardes,Rudolph, and, especially, Kahn -
brought back the discourse in the labyrinth have been eroded by Tafuri's constant abrasivecriticism?
of the subject. I never believed a word of his The consequence in either case is that Le Corbusieris the
attacks against the surrealists. And the Le
Corbusierwho interested me most was that only modern architect left standing.
of Algiers, of the paintings of 1935-40,
where the doors are open .... It is easy to Le Corbusier,Poiesis, Technology
understand why, and why I never speak of
him. I know that if there is a revealing fig- "Itwasa gamefortightropewalkersas Le Corbusierwasto
ure, it is that of the Pavilion of Bat'a. I was recognizelucidlytowardthe end of his career."146
trying to treat problemsobjectivelyand to In "'Machineet mimoire"'Tafuri devotes a lengthy essay
speak of him would have raised highly sub- to a single figure, a major figure. Tafuri's return to the
jective problems because it was Le Corbusier
who discoveredthe unconscious, the lyrical, subject of Le Corbusier in 1982, after the end of the "work
the imaginary, who practically discoveredthe phase" on contemporaryarchitecture, was perhaps the
crisis of the crisis of the object. result of a contingency, but a few yearslater he did, in
fact, go to some effort to explain how Le Corbusier was
FV: Perhaps my question was presented a bit pertinent to the way he believed architecture was to be
abruptly, but he is in fact the most fre- "done":"what I was saying fifteen years ago in Architecture
quently cited person in the book, without and Utopia [he is referringto the date of the Contrepiano
there being any explanation of why that is
so. Later, in Architecture and Utopia, there essay, 1969] has become a fairly standardanalysis:there
are no more utopias, the architecture of commitment,
is a full chapter...
which tried to engage politically and socially, is finished,
MT: Thus, one understands. and what is left to pursue is empty architecture. Thus an
architect today is forced to either be great or be a nonen-
FV: The problem is clarified.
tity. I reallydon't see this as the 'failure of modern archi-
MT: But it took about nine years for me to tecture'; we must look at what an architect could do when
clarify it for myself. certain things were not possible, and what he could do
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assemblage 22
when they were possible. This is why I insist on the late poietica, that production and poiesis share common
work of Le Corbusier, which had no longer any message to roots. And whereverthe fully productive discloses itself
impose on humanity. And as I have been saying in talking striving for absolute dominance over the future, myth
about the historical context: no one can determine the reappears."150
future.... To live in the world today is to live in a state of
constant anxiety .... The mass of architects shouldn't Among the many intimations of a Heideggerian inspira-
tion for this text, none is clearerthan the use of the term
worry,they should just do architecture.... We can only
poiesis, which would signal to any European readerits
try to live more completely - if we really are resolved to affiliation with Heidegger's well-known essay "The Ques-
eliminate anxiety, then we would realize that history
tion Concerning Technology.""' A major obstacle would
serves to dispel nostalgia, not inspire it."'47
seem, however, to stand in the way of a purelypoietic
In light of the bold proposition that Le Corbusier'slate reading of Le Corbusier and technology, or the machine
buildings should serve us as an exemplar of an architec- (as opposed to a poetic reading, which has dominated
ture that does not impose a "message,"let us look at one architecturalinterpretation since 1968): that of his obses-
of those late works (indeed, considering its posthumous sion with the "Plan"- the schema of all-powerfulreason
- that is so prominent in his urban planning. While he is
construction in 1986, a verylate work), Chandigarh's
no longer considered the prophet of the machine age, or
Open Hand. Consider the concluding statements of "'Ma-
chine et mmoire"' where Tafuri describes the Open Hand even the failed prophet of the machine age (pace Ban-
placed in the Fosse de la Consideration, or "Ditch of Con- ham), and while the importance of the organic in his art
sideration."'48Le Corbusier, we learn, has found "the es- (after 1928) and of the vitalist elements in his architecture
sence of technology itself, its emblems - diffraction, (after 1930) is now part of the received wisdom,'52few
have seen how to defend much of Le Corbusier'scity
displacement, plurality"- "linked"to the "poiesisof the
primeval.... [There] ... the construction of myth pre- planning, which is generally agreed to be the most ques-
sents itself in its pure state." Further, in the placement of tionable part of his oeuvre. Tafuri's point of view on this
the Open Hand he has established an expression of a "'will question was well known from his influential chapter in
to cessation,"' saying "halt"to the excesses of technology Architectureand Utopia, in which he first described Plan
in all domains of our living and thinking. This is the result Obus A for Algiers. But "'Machineet memoire"'is not a
not of "asceticism,"but of a "searchfor new frontiers for revisiting of this essay, nor is it a reshuffling of the sec-
the space of the utterable,"which will leave behind the tions devoted to Le Corbusier'surbanism in ModernAr-
rest of his urbanism. And he has not merely "shattered" chitecture. (This is not the place to show it, but there are
his own planning utopias of the 1920s and 1930s, but notable differences, as well as the inevitable similarities.)
more, formulated a critique for all of us, which "now "'Machineet mmoire"' is the story of a journey, one that
come[s] to exert itself on disciplinarylimits as well." occurs outside the discourseon planning and outside both
We have reached "the outermost limit of the 'will to the theoretical city plans and all but three of the myriad
planning.'""49 specific urban proposals Le Corbusier produced between
1914 and 1961. Here, then, is Tafuri's account of the voy-
Thus we all have not only a personal stake - "just do
architecture"- but also a disciplinarystake in discovering age, in which there will be a shattering and surpassingof
Le Corbusier'surbanism, and, in fact, of all urbanism.
what the late Le Corbusier did in Chandigarh.And what
he did, we are told, was to make a Heideggerian voyage, Amputating virtuallyall other conceptions and discussions
one that he began twenty years before the German phi- of urbanism from the essential Le Corbusier, Tafuri con-
losopher himself traced out its route: "Le Corbusier seems centrates on the trajectorythat leads from the Beistegui
to know what Heidegger would later have occasion to Penthouse to the Plan Obus A for Algiers and ends at the
observe,... namely, that technique is in essence Capitol of Chandigarh (though not encompassing the
[techn,]
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
autobiographical,importance for this evolution. Tracing

the appearanceof organic elements in Le Corbusier's
painting after purism, Tafuri asserts that "the Eros discov-
ered in Algiers""makesits mark"on the Ubu and Ozon
series of paintings, emerging, in the sculptures made with
Joseph Savina in the 1940s, as "laceration,rupture, ten-
dency toward an otherness."'54
Located high above the Champs-Elysees and consisting
of a suite of reception rooms and two terraces, the pent-
house, designed for the parties of Charles de Beistegui,
was hardly a city plan. Moreover, it had many eccentrici-
ties - moving walls and chandeliers, for example. Two
of its features, however, created a special relationship to
the city below and to technology. A periscope on the
penultimate terrace, by which a visitor could see over the
high walls to the city beyond, permitted the traditional
12. Le Corbusier,Beistegui panoramic view, but this view was possible only by means
Penthouse, 1930, view of the of this technical device. On the upper terrace, the visitor
uppermost terrace found an outdoor living room ringed by high walls and
carpeted with grass, from which only the fragmentarytops
of Paris'shighest monuments could be seen. In Tafuri's
plan for the city around it). The voyage begins at the Pent- argument, this odd structure provides "manyhints," more,
house in 1929. Tafuri sees Beistegui as displaying on a in fact, than Le Corbusier'swritings, about "his positions
small scale a key insight of the architect's and as being on urban themes." Indeed, it proves an "excellent litmus
emblematic of what Le Corbusier will later do on a much test" of the "hidden motives" that "guide - not always
largerscale: "its message will have to pass through the consciously - Le Corbusier'sapproach to the urban phe-
dance of forms on the Algerian hills in order to shape the nomenon." And it is not the penthouse's lower terrace
with its technological toy, but the topmost, view-frustrat-
'listening spaces' of the capitol of Chandigarh."The myth
revealed by what Tafuri calls Beistegui's "detachment," ing outdoor room that conveys the "message"whose
"silence," and "waiting"meets the machine in Algiers. odyssey to the very "limits of space and time" is Tafuri's
There, the eroticism of Le Corbusier'sartistic researchwill theme."'55
preparehim for the final step of "seeking in Chandigarh
the essence of technology itself."''5 Beistegui, Tafuri says, "has as its precondition a meta-
physical separation, the rupture of all usual connections,"
Encompassing, as it does, painting, sculpture, architec- which implies an "attitude of mind" of one who "'waits.'"
ture, and city design, Le Corbusier'soeuvre allows Tafuri Because this poietics of listening is attainable only after
to make the first step in the argument, namely, that his traversingthe spaces where architectonics and technology
work tests architecture'sboundaries. Second, he observes dominate, and because the view is obstructed, one has
that the developing plasticity and eroticism of his painting arrivedat the space of separation, of "suspenses, absences,
and sculpture released Le Corbusier more and more from and expectations."56 The philosophical presupposition
the domination of reason, although, of course, never com- that Tafuri seems to attribute to Le Corbusier in tracing
pletely. Finally, Tafuri notes that "it was cities of develop- the development of Beistegui's message is that no system
ing countries" that were of critical philosophical, as well as can encompass all reality, that there are elements of life,
85

assemblage 22
that, in this case at least, it might be possible to have a

technology so cleverly constructed that it can cope to
some degree with "the unexpected, chance, mutability,"
elements usually considered to exceed the reach of city
plans. For Tafuri, a crucial element of this achievement
lies in the organic forms of this "immense biomorphic
machine." The inhabitable road and the viaduct over the
casbah on the hills of Fort-l'Empereurbecome the sites of
a battle between nature and technology.57
Meanwhile, another conflict is encompassed by Le
Corbusier'soverall conception. Tafuri emphasizes that in
this conception the casbah should be seen as the necessary
13. Le Corbusier,Plan Obus A
for Algiers, 1932, view of the
counterpart to the dominating, aggressivetendencies
manifest in the European sectors of the plan. As in the
model
Beistegui Penthouse, Le Corbusier seeks to oblige the
observerto share his intuition that a major aspect of real-
ity exceeds the grasp of the rational, but here this is shown
on a grand scale, in the opposition between the casbah
differences, that escape any attempt at planning. It ap- and the bridge above it: "A very carefully preserved
pears that throughout his career, and particularlyin this Casbah is inserted into that image of the machine as per-
instance, Le Corbusier grappledwith the question of fect process, the Plan Obus: the Casbah is the antithesis
control, that is, the extent to which the various facets of of this perfect process. . . . The bridge in its way takes on
reality, especially of urban reality, can be brought under unsettling meanings. Thrown over an anthropological relic
rational control. that the activity of colonialization could not destroy, it
accentuates the fundamental 'difference' that secretly
Later, in Obus A, Le Corbusier takes technology about as undermines the unity of the overall 'machine."''58
far as it can go, in what Tafuri describes as a virtual parox-
ysm of desire for control: the "desiresthat were frustrated The observer'sdisquiet derives from the knowledge of the
in the Beistegui Penthouse ... irrupt ... [here], twisting radical difference between the moment-to-moment exist-
before the sea, swiftly flowing in a stream of fluxes, ence of the "new Algiers"and the "primevalmode of ex-
clenching in their coils both nature and history, joyously istence" of the inhabitants of the casbah, in which Le
and victoriously dancing upon the hills of Fort- Corbusier saw "the difference between a cosmic disposi-
l'Empereur."This is no rigid application of technology, tion and a trust in the great ocean of being, now lost," the
however. Plan Obus A for Algiers consisted of curvilineara difference, that is, between the momentary and the eter-
redenthousing on the heights of Fort-l'Empereur,a curva- nal present. Thus in Algiers we encounter a kind of stale-
ceous highway, under which villas could be inserted, unit mate of indeterminable duration. Tafuri calls this a
by unit, in accordance with their owners' taste, and a busi- "synthesis,"but as he makes clear, it is one of counter-
ness quarter in the port area, with a large skyscraperas its position, of confrontation rather than resolution leading
centerpiece. Linking lower and upper parts was a viaduct to a higher stage. In any case, from what Tafuri tells us,
that bridged the casbah, assuring its preservation.By pro- it seems that in 1932 Le Corbusier is still squarelyon the
viding for the insertion of villas designed to personal side of the completion of the technological age and so
specification, Le Corbusier allows for mobility and even does not yet grasp the overall situation that Heidegger
for a kind of "festivity"of personal taste. Thus it seems himself has not yet fully thought out.'59
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
If we now turn to the Capitol at Chandigarh, we find that

the Secretariat, High Court, and Assembly that appear in
Tafuri's analysis do not resemble those transcendent pub-
lic buildings so beloved by architecturalhistorians,160 those
that synthesize East and West, ancient and modern, ar-
chitecture and nature. Tafuri believes that Le Corbusier
chose to devote most of his attention to the Capitol and
its monumental buildings and that while he had titular
control over updating the existing plan, he voluntarily left
the decisions for the design and construction of the city
proper to his on-site team. This enables Tafuri to cleave
the Capitol from the surroundingcity, the site of the Plan, 14. Le Corbusier,
and thus to separate Le Corbusier from it. photomontage of the Open
Hand in the Fosse de la
Here we encounter the essence of all of the late Le Consideration
Corbusier's plastic language. For example, in the trun-
cated allegoryof the Assembly's curving pronaos roof line
as a partiallycut-off Open Hand there are "interruptions, steering wheel that turns unguided by any hand, Tafuri
slippings, and distortions." Tafuri observes the reappear- states that "the Ville Radieuse wanted to guide such a
ance of the differences that he first observed in the mythological steering wheel" - that is to say, a steering
Beistegui Penthouse. "Difference [ratherthan] dialectics wheel "of technology assumed as destiny, as the 'infernal'
holds the three volumes together";with "neither roads, foundation of 'what is most modern,' the limitless
perspectival allusions, nor formal triangulations"to con- calculability and organizabilityof all that lives." And
nect them, Chandigarh'sbuildings desire to overcome Tafuri concludes his article with the assertion that "its
place, to reach eternity. So decisively separated are these ceaseless motion is what the Open Hand opposed with its
three monuments, which Tafuri terms "desiringobjects," oscillating metaphors, which are endowed, to use Walter
that they fail in their attempts to join up. Symbols with- Benjamin's phrase, 'with a feeble messianic strength.""'62
out codes, they speak another, sacred language. They "dis-
How is it possible for Le Corbusier to have begun this
articulate the Capitol," "the objective [being] rather to
fuse the memory of the origin with the tendency toward odyssey when Heidegger was only just taking up the sub-
ject of technology for the first time in the 1930s?True,
surpassingthe present."Assessing the new Capitol, Tafuri
sees Le Corbusier as a "modern 'builder of symbols,' Heidegger's "theoryof technology" allows for poets to
anticipate in their own domain what he alone among
seek[ing] to converse with time, nature and being."'161 Western philosophers had thematized. We will need to
The desire of the three buildings to overcome place, to examine his "The Question Concerning Technology,"
reach eternity, is not unrelated to their placement near written in the 1950s, to fathom what it means for Le
the Himalayas. In other words, the space between them - Corbusier truly to have known what Heidegger believed
their separation by vast distances, by the Fosse de la he, anticipated by a few poets, had understood: that the
Consideration, and by the depressed roadways- origi- age of technology must be traversedin its entirety. Even
nates in a certain poietics in which Tafuri discerns the before technology has completely run its course, though, a
"limits of time and space." With the Open Hand, to be few geniuses may catch a glimmer of the emergence of a
constructed in the Fosse, the "limits of time and space" new dispensation by giving up the struggle to achieve the
are reached. Thinking back to the "modern tragic symbol" fulfillment of technology in its current form and by con-
conjured up by Louis Aragon, the literarysurrealist,of a templating its essence instead. Now, in the present epoch,
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assemblage 22
this essence is the revelation of entities as "standingre- plishes in a dramatic fashion with his placement of the
serve"available for human manipulation and exploitation. bridge. It would appear to us, given what Tafuri has said,
In the coming epoch, if it becomes possible to return to a that a more positive step is apparentlyruled out because,
condition like that found at the origins of Western civili- at this moment in any case, Le Corbusier finds it impos-
zation, that is, in pre-SocraticGreek thought, then the sible to go backwardin his own work (a utopia of nostalgia
essence of technology will again be seen to be the disclo- is not what is wanted) and impossible to go forward,since
sure of entities as they are in themselves, independent of he does not yet see a way beyond the complete dominance
their utility to human beings. of technology, at least at the urban scale. In other words,
he has not yet glimpsed the post-technological age of
Let us briefly outline what this implies about Le Gelassenheit. He has not yet seen the coupurethat
Corbusier'sattitude toward technology as we have seen Heidegger thinks may possibly rescue humanity from its
Tafuri recount it in the trajectoryof Beistegui-Algiers- forgetfulness of authentic Being.
Chandigarh. His encounter, in this view, goes from un-
In the Capitol at Chandigarh, Tafuri believes, Le
thinking acceptance to aggressiveapplication to initial
doubts and the sadder-but-wiserknowledge of the need to Corbusier has finally understood the need to look toward
a post-technological age and, what is more important, has
push technology's universal application to the maximum,
to, finally, the glimpse of a new age in the perhaps distant attempted to create buildings for this age, or at least ones
future. Le Corbusier is seen as traversing,in his under- that point toward it. Here, in his own making, he is at-
standing of the place of technology, the stages through tempting to work in accord with the Heideggerian notion
which one must pass to arriveat something akin to that true production, or technd,is poiesis, in the sense of
an authentic revelation of entities without regardto their
Heidegger's state of Gelassenheit, "letting be."
instrumental values. This, basically, is the insight Tafuri
Tafuri implies that in Algiers Le Corbusierwas beginning attributes to Le Corbusier, who seems, however, not to
to realize that the total dominance of technology has led have abandoned any of his other views, those underlying
to the total forgetfulness of happiness, indeed, that the and expressed by his writings on urbanism and all the
very possibility of recalling happiness has passed out of other myriadcity plans he projected. That urbanism is
reach for the West, because it has gone so far astrayfrom "dominated by a conceptual poverty"and a search for "the
the happiness that comes from rootedness in nature and absolute of the planned unit."
tradition. One cannot help but be reminded here of
Heidegger's strictures against modern thought, which has Le Corbusier'sTwo Minds: Poiesis and the Plan
strayed so far from a concern with Being that it is no
longer even capable of raising the question of Being. Ac- There is found in "'Machineet mimoire,'"inserted be-
cording to Tafuri, Le Corbusier seems, at this time, to tween the accounts of Beistegui and Algiers, what might
know what true making or producing is, namely, that it be called an article within the article, directed against the
participates in a common realm with poiesis, with the notion that Le Corbusier'surbanism is a synthesis of his
work of art, and that examples of it could be found in the "entire process of research."'63Tafuri concedes here that
casbah. But it also appears that Le Corbusier does not "the portrait of technology painted by Le Corbusier is
think that in the modern age in the West such poietic indeed an ambiguous one." He admits that "there is a
production is still possible - in the Heideggerian sense of bipolar relationship between that urbanism that is under-
allowing objects to reveal themselves as things in their stood to be a 'home of technology,' in which the accursed
own right. The best one can do now is to point to differ- multiplicity of languages is 'forced' to find a hearth com-
ences between the products of a society still vitally con- mon to all, and the centerless multiversumof the con-
nected to its origins (the casbah) and those of present temporarymetropolis." Further, he recognizes that Le
Western society, something that Le Corbusier accom- Corbusier'sintellectual biographyand desire for synthesis
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
led him to "place his hopes in the prophecies of decision- the course of Le Corbusier'sstudy in painting come into
making authorities whose power would be unequivocal conflict with the assertive demands of his urbanistic
and centralized."'64Yet this is the same Le Corbusier who theory. The villas of the 1930s, as well as the Cite de
was simultaneously voyaging toward Chandigarh'sinsight, Refuge and the project for the Palace of the Soviets,
and doing so even as he was flirting with the Vichy regime. constitute the theaters of this conflict .... It is this side
How is this possible? Time and again, Tafuri concedes of Le Corbusier that acted as director and strategist of
that the appearance of a problem exists. these dramas of conflicts that should be seen as a lasting
Tafuri assures us, however, that the obvious potential for interpreter of the 'age of poverty' and not that other
side, which prefiguredand made apologies for inevitably
conflict implicit in the existence of these two components anachronistic forms of dominion over this age."'67
of Le Corbusier'swork- rationalization and the plan, on
the one hand, and his plastic language, difference, and It appears, then, that Le Corbusier is not of two different
eventually poiesis, on the other - "does not mean that Le minds about rationalization, but rather,displays two dif-
Corbusier was of two different minds." Why not? we ask. ferent sides of one mind in his work as a whole, with the
The answer turns out to be simple, although its explana- relative emphasis varyingwith the kind of work involved.
tion will be long. Brieflyand obscurely it is that "rational- While this assessment may save him from the charge of
ization must be carriedout in order to be surpassed, in artistic schizophrenia, it clearly calls for further explana-
order to recuperate other universes of ends."''65 tion, which Tafuri provides in his analyses of the Obus
Plan and the Capitol of Chandigarh, and we have exam-
Drawing on the fact of Le Corbusier'sreading of
Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustraand knowing of its ined these in some detail. The Heideggerian interpretation
influence on artists and intellectuals in the early decades allows him to reconcile these two sides in a way that can
of the century, Tafuri points to the inversion of codes offer a coherent and satisfying view of Le Corbusier'sover-
contained in the "Five Points" and concludes that "the all career. Looking more closely at the statement we
will behind the new act of creation is founded upon nihil- quoted earlier- "rationalizationmust be carriedout in
order to be surpassed, in order to recuperate other uni-
ism."'166Given that Le Corbusier, emboldened by this
nihilism, is obviously intent on far more than just indi- verses of ends" - we see that despite its mysterious for-
vidual gestures (such as the Beistegui Penthouse), some mulation, it proposes that one side, rationalization, can be
new kind of overall scheme or principle will be needed to considered a means to an end.
operate on a large scale. But where, Tafuri asks, "is the The manner in which Tafuri attributes to Le Corbusier's
synthesis of Le Corbusier?"His response is one that seeks work the reconciliation of these two sides in something
to avoid the appearance that the architect is of two minds,
like a means/end schema does not require the architect to
after all. Although both the designs of which Tafuri ap-
be conscious of the operation, at least not fully or always
proves (such as the Villa Savoye) and the plans for cities so. Moreover, to the extent that this reconciliation is actu-
other than Algiers may be termed "matters of synthesis,"
one instance turns out to be much the better one. In fact, ally effected, it occurs only over the course of about three
decades, from the early 1920s to the mid-1950s, and it is
in discussing Le Corbusier'swork after 1922, Tafuri con- achieved in large measure through experimentation in art.
tinually points to the failure of the urbanism and the In a transition section linking some of the admittedly
success of the individual buildings and the painting.
worst aspects of Le Corbusier'surbanism to some of the
Tafuri places all the "good"elements on the side of what best elements of his work, Tafuri makes the following
may be called the plastic research, research that alone comment, which partiallyharmonizes with Heidegger's
could rescue, at least partially,the urbanism. It is worth diagnosis of the reign of technology as a manifestation of
quoting him at some length on this point: "The materials a ceaseless will to power that is itself the last stage in the
brought together . .. ever more problematically ... over history of traditional Western metaphysics: "The post-
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assemblage 22
liberal city prefiguredby the Ville Radieuse points to a end of this path, which will occur when he once again
surpassingof the civilisation machiniste itself through the returns to city planning in a developing country, India.
acceleration of the processes ensured by the machine plan.
At this point, we pause to raise the question of the degree
But such a machine must continually strive for more; the
to which this Nietzschean-Heideggerian reading is a satis-
'illness' of modern times will be vanquished when technol-
factory- that is, philosophically coherent - application
ogy shapes the entire universe as a whole. . . . Only by of philosophy to history. It is, we have found, a sophisti-
their total immersion in the flow of this process, according
to Le Corbusier, can conflicts be eliminated."'68 cated, well-informed use of philosophy, internally consis-
tent and consonant with a careful reading of Heidegger on
It is thus a Heideggerian diagnosis that allows Tafuri to technology and on the work of art. And insofar as the two
consider the Ville Radieuse, conceived on the heels of sides of Le Corbusier, his plastic language, on the one
Obus A and dedicated in May 1933 to "authority,"as an hand, and his rationality,on the other, are both inter-
insufficient interim stage in Le Corbusier'sdevelopment. preted through Heidegger, the reading is satisfactory.
What enables him to surpassit, to arriveat the other "uni- Problems arise not with Tafuri's reading of Heidegger, but
verse of ends"?According to Tafuri, Le Corbusier, in the rather when one attempts to apply Heidegger's notions to
wake of his sculptural research,loses faith in "totalizing a Le Corbusier other than the one constructed here.
hypotheses" and becomes more receptive to "the over- Let us now turn from this internal critique to consider the
whelming pluralityof the forces that penetrate the subject matter in historical terms. Although an argument cast in
as well as the intersubjective relations."The result is that
the form of a narrativejourney is not at first sight implau-
his late architecture becomes a battle between giants,
between "fragmentsof certitude" who "heroicallybattle sible, one can wonder just how plausible it is.7' Our ques-
tion is, granting that Tafuri's approach is, after all, the
figures born out of the 'listening' to 'unutterable' lan-
right path, could Le Corbusier conceivablyhave gone fur-
guages":those pregnant in the differences of Beistegui and ther along this path and still have been Le Corbusier?In
Algiers. Tafuri views the ensuing stalemate in a positive other words, could he have allowed the elements of dis-
light, stating that it is this that keeps the late work "from
ruption and negativity to have entered his city plans much
falling into 'sickness."''69 more decisively and still not have given up so much con-
Assessing the postwar city planning from this standpoint, trol that they ceased to be plans, that is, architectural
he notes that alreadyin the Unite of Marseilles, "this ex- projects with a relation to the real?And if not, could any-
treme homage to the collectivist dream,"Le Corbusier one in his historical epoch have accomplished such a task?
seems implicitly to acknowledge the impossibility of actu- Finally, if this is not the case either, then is this really the
ally remakingthe city in the way, and especially on the path that we should be pursuing?
scale, foreseen in most of his previous urbanism, both
written and drawn.This is why Tafuri can say that this
Another Casbah, Another Open Hand
building, now an "enclosed whole," speaks in a "second
language"that "expressesthe conditions that . . . force it In the light of these questions, we present some alternate
to pretend to be a 'type,' and chain it to its condition as a readings first of Algiers and then, at greaterlength, of the
fragment of a totality destined to remain merelythink- Open Hand. The argument that Obus A ceases to be an
able."'70The concession that it must remain merelythink- ordinaryplan hinges on the casbah, indeed, on the space
able shows how far Le Corbusierhas traveled along the between it and the bridge above. Most historians agree
Heideggerian path; the insistence on continuing a tradi- that, overall, the plan is unusually organic, mobile, and
tion that finds it desirable that the expansion of such a embracing of the landscape; these dancing forms do, in
building type to a totality should even be thinkableindi- fact, take technology as far as it can go. The undermining
cates, however, that Le Corbusier had not yet reached the begins with the bridge, and it depends entirely on Tafuri's
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Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
reading, a subjective one, which amounts to no more than the use of erotic postcards to substitute for the live model
a bald assertion. Problems arise with the idea of the cas- is a thoroughly traditional, even banal, artistic practice."7
bah as "the antithesis of this perfect process."We need to
Tafuri is familiarwith the complex history of the
look more carefully not only at the cultural relationship of
Ruskinian image of the Open Hand, but had he followed
the city to the casbah, as Zeynep gelik has suggested, but
to the physical one as well. Both are more complex than its later career in India, he would perhaps have penetrated
more deeply into its oscillating message with regardto
Tafuri cares to mention, with more points of meeting than
he has noted, beginning with the placement of the sky- technology.'76In the 1959 edition of L'Artdecoratif
d'aujourd'hui,Le Corbusier describes his most recent
scraperitself. And it is the same for Eros: Le Corbusier's version of this enduring image. In 1957 Nehru, who pre-
art is "immersed"in the traditional Orientalist "discourse
sided over the "destinies of India,"had made him respon-
that attributed a lascivious sexuality to Islamic culture."
sible for the "architecturalfate" of that "giganticwork of
His visual obsessions and use of feminine imagery to
describe Algiers also echo the colonialist obsession with technology," the hydroelectric dam at Bhakrain the
this part of Muslim society. Conquer the women, it was Himalayas. On its "summit" Le Corbusier intended to
place the Open Hand. After giving the vital statistics of
argued, and one would undermine the core of the resistant the dam (220 meters above the riverat the top, 750
society.72 meters wide) and the Open Hand (17 meters high, 13
meters wide), he remarks,"they say that the dam ... is
If we assess the separation and the bridging in terms of Le
one of the largest hydraulic enterprises (if not the larg-
Corbusier'splastic language, are we then authorized to see
this same language as separating as well as preserving,and, est)." The text establishes a parallel:Le Corbusier/Nehru;
at the same time, merging the casbah with the modern "architecturalfate"/"destinies";dam/India;Open Hand/
Bhakradam."77In the preface to L'Artdecoratif, Le
city by bringing it within the ambit of the skyscraper? Corbusier found it self-evident that he and the Open
From this point of view, which is not Tafuri's, the plan is
Hand were well suited, perhaps fated, for the "crowning"
extended and reinforced. Indeed, Obus encircles the
of this Indian masterworkof technology.
casbah with high-walled structures- skyscraper,roads,
and bridge - from which one could look down on its Although Le Corbusier was long fascinated with dams,
timelessness as onto a tableau vivant or a living postcard. starting with his own 1917 project for a "Usine Hydro-
The casbah becomes a representation of otherness, a nos- electrique" for Isle-Jourdainin France,'78the Oeuvre
talgic one, kept at arm's distance."'73
Joining together all completeleaves no doubt that the consultancy for the
these observations, one may argue against Tafuri that the Bhakradam brought him face-to-face with a level of tech-
revelation of differences at the bridge strengthens rather nology beyond anything that he had encountered in plan-
than "undermines the unity of the overall 'machine."'And ning the city of Chandigarh or designing the Capitol.
if, in Obus A, as in the colonial plans, difference was to be Bhakrawas "the highest straight gravitydam in the world,
segregated, Eros was to be contained. Tafuri's argument of and the highest high dam in Asia," whose construction
Eros hinges on Le Corbusier'spaintings and sketches; it is had required twenty-one years and a work force of fifteen
curious that he can absorb the conclusions of Stanislaus thousand persons. When finished, it not only generated
von Moos, whom he cites, without engaging his premise, electricity, but provided irrigationand flood control for
that the drawingsdemonstrate the idealist basis of Le Northern India. Le Corbusier was asked to "contribute an
Corbusier's painting and architecture and place him aesthetic and plastic touch" to the engineers' "otherwise
squarely,with disegno, in the Albertian tradition.'" More- straightforward"design. He found what had been decided
over, although Tafuri could not have known this in 1982, so satisfactorythat he chose not "to give undue impor-
Eros was discovered before Algiers, for Le Corbusier had tance to architectural features as the Bhakradam itself
been painting prostitutes since his early years. Of course, [was] a very powerful structure which he felt should domi-
91

assemblage 22
nate the environment." His original contribution was to

project the balustrade and the Open Hand as "a crowning
feature."He also proposed a "platformfor spectators
above the spillway"and was asked to do the "building as
well as the landscaping of the dam and the lake area. He
designed a museum and was to have designed a cafeteria,
a hotel, a motel, a tourist reception center, and a sports
club."'79 Le Corbusier'sSketchbooksrecord the many sug-
gestions he made for the decoration of the dam and for its
landscaping. The Open Hand, at least, attained the stage
of a definitive project for which an architecturaldesign
survives."
It seems fair to inquire whether what Tafuri called the 15. Le Corbusier,BhakraDam
ChandigarhOpen Hand's "second meaning" is also found project, right half of the
elevation
at Bhakra,since we are assured in "'Machineet meimoire"'
that the Open Hand commences a "new search for a
space of the utterable."And the braggadocioof the text in bridged their once-separate steep, pine-covered slopes; it
L'Artdicoratif d'aujourd'huithat accompanies the de-
allowed visitors to its balustradedpromenoirto approach
scription of the Open Hand at Bhakrashould not prevent them, to go near the power houses and spillway,and to
us from examining it in the Heideggerian light proposed
in this essay; for, if Tafuri is right, such explicit rhetoric pass directly under the Hand. This balustraded deck was
has often veiled ratherthan revealed Le Corbusier'sposi- apparentlya toft-terrasseon the "roofof the world,"meant
to accommodate visitors to the dam and to the lake area,
tions. then becoming a "greattourist attraction."'84The Hand
Let us explore, then, this second Open Hand as it appears itself was inserted into a closed but accessible chamber,
in the posthumous volume of the Oeuvrecomplete.'8' As although just what purpose it served is difficult to discern
sculpture, it is a clone of the first, and like it, was to pivot from the acrobatic activities of the two modulor men seen
on a vertical shaft. The first Open Hand, proposed in in its section.
1951, was to be placed at the far northern and outer edge If, as Tafuri believes, it is "not insignificant" that the
of the Capitol area and to be surroundedby the squared-
off water pools of the Fosse and by the sunken public Capitol contemplates the Himalayasand if it is not by
"accident"that the Hand is set in the sunken plaza de-
spaces intended for "debates on public affairs.""'82 If a
voted to "contemplation,"then it behooves us to believe
photomontage from the posthumous volume of the that setting is of equal importance for the Hand at Bhakra.
Oeuvrecomplete is a guide to the "final"design (and it is
the one followed in the posthumous construction), the According to Tafuri, the metaphors of Beistegui were
"furtherdeveloped" by the Fosse: "Descending into it,...
base, although open on one side, offered no access to the one is supposed to remain in the company of one's own
form.'"3Only by stepping away from it could the Hand be solitude, while the symbols of great values disappear.
seen oscillating against the distant foothills of the Better yet, one is supposed to contract into the final and
Himalayasand the sky. unitary symbol of the Open Hand."'85It appearsthat at
The second Open Hand, sketched in 1958, was placed on Chandigarh, the Open Hand is a magnetic north that
the "crowning"superstructureof the hydraulicdam, far drawscitizens away from the defining activity of institu-
above the 104-square-kilometerlake created by it. Set tionalized government. (It apparentlymatters little to
within a cleft in the lower Himalayas, the dam not only Tafuri that Le Corbusier dedicated the space to debate
92

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
about government.) At Bhakra,on the contrary,the as-

cending visitor is not frustrated,but rewarded,as the walls
of the chambred ciel ouvertare lowered to encourage par-
ticipation in a spectacle that, indeed, permits closeness to
the dam, the lake, the now-approachablelower slopes of
the Himalayas, and the Hand. The tourist facilities fore-
seen in discussions between Le Corbusier and the Indian
authorities would have "opened"up the area further.
Moreover, Le Corbusier's Sketchbooksfrom this period
record his many ideas for a son et lumiere atop the dam. A
drawing executed at the time these effects were decided
on depicts evergreen-coveredmountains made blue by the
night surroundinga dam bathed in a bright yellow light to
be projected, we learn from another drawing,from gigan-
tic spotlights placed on the heights of the surrounding
Himalayas.'86For us, every aspect of the architecture of
the Open Hand at Bhakra,whether drawnor projected in
jottings (the tourist developments, the sound-and-light
effects, and all the schemes for decorating the structure in
violent colors noted in his Sketchbooks),is of a piece. Like
the city of Chandigarh, the dam was infused with Nehru's
belief in the "universalvalidity . .. of modern science and
technology," which Le Corbusier neither refused nor
refuted."87
The differences in the settings of the two Hands are thus 16. Le Corbusierat Bhakra
not trivial. In the Fosse, the Hand declares halt; on the
dam, its meaning would be one that Heidegger, for whom
dams and hydroelectric plants were prime representatives
talization of all the different relations posited there by cate-
of the reign of technology, could hardly have accepted.
Tafuri argues that Le Corbusier's "conscious"decision not gorizing them as superficial things disguising a true poietic
intention. Even were we to accept that Le Cor-busier was
to involve himself in the planning of Chandigarh city
demonstrates that he sought a separation that would en- adding the Hand's "oscillating metaphors"of stop/go to the
dam as a curative measure, we could still not ignore the
able him, in the Capitol, to "conversewith time, nature
and being." To do so, Tafuri must disregardthe evidence overwhelming evidence of the rest.
that this segregation occurred only after Drew, Jeanneret, Granting that Tafuri provides many powerful insights into
and Fry, in concert with the Indian authorities, thwarted the physical qualities that make Chandigarh so unsettling,
Le Corbusier'sintention to be the "SOLE supplier of the readerof Le Corbusier must now decide how much
ideas" for a city of five hundred thousand and to design has been gained overall from the introduction of the
everything in his Paris atelier. (Le Corbusier actually was Heideggerian dimension there. In any case, for all his ability
angered by what he later termed in his Sketchbook,"Pierre to distinguish between Le Corbusier'svalid and invalid
J[eannere]t's and Fry's 1951 betrayal.")'88We cannot do conscious intentions, Tafuri has not confronted the greater
the same, for, in the case of Bhakra,it is impossible to challenge, which is to establish why Le Corbusier,after so
bracket the celebration of technology and the instrumen- many disappointments, continued to identify himself and
93

assemblage 22
his workwith the Plan. Our question is this: how could Le being appear initially to be cut from different political and
Corbusierhave surpassedall those barriersthat constrain philosophical cloths. The first realizes the predictions of
most others and from which they have no chance of escap- the engaged and Marxist Brecht and of the most Brechtian
ing (and must therefore resign themselves to "just do of Benjamins;the second anticipates the cosmically pa-
architecture")and still have gone about his business in the tient, later, and least explicitly political Heidegger.192 Like
usual way most of the time, unquenchably projecting and these two philosophers, whom Tafuri has said are "not
planning, in the architecturaland everydaysense of the irreconcilable,"so also would it appear that the two Le
word, and, simultaneously, energetically proclaiming him- Corbusiers are not irreconcilable.'93
self the victim of will-frustratingconspiracyon conspiracy?
At the very least, when it comes to demonstrating the In 1968 Tafuri thought that not only did Le Corbusier's
completeness of Le Corbusier'svoyage the workis unfin- actions, writings, and projected cities and buildings distin-
ished. The problem remains one of the possibility of rec- guish him from most architect members of the interwar
onciling the Le Corbusier who unconsciously achieved a historical avant-garde,but further, that they earned him a
few sparklingmoments of poetic insight and Gelassenheit position alongside those few painters and thinkers whose
with the one who spent all those hours insistently rework- understanding of historicity, experience of modernity, and
ing the Plan. To his last day, Le Corbusier found in the conception of making and production placed them far
Plan - the activity of intentional planning - and its above their peers. It is a role for which he seemed to have
attendant promises both source and outlet for his personal been predestined by the way he carriedout the prophesies
dynamism and for the conviction that he could safely defy of Borromini,Piranesi, and Hegel. Once assured of Le
death. It was on his mind as he descended from his Corbusier'splace in this firmament of the prophets of
cabanon to take the swim that would prove fatal, saying to modernity, we are not surprisedto find that he experi-
a neighbor, "Youknow, I am an old greenhorn, but I'll still enced modernity in the same manner as Benjamin and
have plans on the brain for at least one hundred years. See Brecht, whose own prophesies he realizes in both his early
you later, then."'89 serial and late open works.As Tafuri sought to compre-
hend the similaritybetween Klee's and Le Corbusier's
worksand the Brechtian-Benjaminiantheories of the crisis
of the object, and found that the four figures shared a
Tafuri and the "Imageof Le Corbusier" similar notion of mass culture, and thus of modernity, he
"Theabsorptionof a mystic,the artof a prosewriter,the verve came to see that they were like each other in many dimen-
of a satirist,the eruditionof a scholar,andthe partialityof a sions. And so he posited a profound resemblance among
monomaniac.'"'91 the four personal experiences of modernity and forms of
The Le Corbusier of 1968 and the Le Corbusier of 1982 understanding.94 The theme of the tragedy of those who
are found in dissimilarworks,written by a single author seek to rescue man even when apprised of the true nature
who was at very different points not only in his historical of mass society and of global technology, a theme left
and methodological research,but also in his careertrajec- dangling in Theoriesand History of Architecture,reappears
tory. These worksare parts of substantially different his- in "'Machineet mimoire"'in the Heideggerian idea of the
torical projects and are products of the very different voyage. Equally, the reconciliation of poiesis and techne
rhetorical and political universes in which the "early"and fulfills Tafuri's task of proving Le Corbusier to be an intel-
"late"Tafuri operated, correspondingroughly to the lectual who is the equivalent in architecture to the great-
Marxist, on the one hand, and the post-Marxist and neo- est theorizers of modernity. Heidegger's views (but not his
Heideggerian associated with the philosopher Massimo personal trajectory)thus overshadowthose of all but one
Cacciari, on the other.'"'The two Le Corbusiers, their of the other "sensitive intellectuals," for the last word in
works, conceptions of the work of art itself, and ways of the essay is left to Benjamin.
94

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
In "'Machineet Chandigarhcompletesthe
mrmoire"'
voyageandbringsLe Corbusier,in the Fosse,to the si-
lence that is omnipresentin Tafuri'slaterwritings.Si-
lence, whichwe havenow come to understandwithJoan
Ockmanas "myth... or the 'silence'of an asceticrefusal
to engagein noisydiscourseswith others,"allowsLe
Corbusierto fulfillthe taskthat Tafurihad alreadyde-
fined forhim in TheoriesandHistoryof Architecture.'95
Mythalreadymakesfleetingappearancesin this book,
wherethe historictownsarecharacterized by the "mythi-
cal and culturalvaluesof theirstaticandcontemplative
fruition"andwhereLe Corbusier,alongwith Wright,is
consideredto be one of onlytwo architectswho under-
stood the historiccenters.Further,Chandigarhalready
showsthe wayto myth,as the followingpointsreveal.
First,an illustrationof Chandigarhwith antlikehumans
and toy-sizedbusesdwarfedby seeminglyinaccessible
buildings"floats"into the firstchapterforus to perceive 17. Giuseppe and Alberto
absentmindedlyjustwhereTafuriis (obscurely,allusively) Samona, competition project
invokingLe Corbusier's"silences"in a sectiondevotedto for the Chamberof Deputies,
the activelydialogicalVeniceHospital,which,in turn, Rome, 1967, perspective
precedesthe paragraph devotedto Le Corbusier's"unsur- drawing of exterior
passedlesson."Second,Chandigarhis the singlegroupof
postwarbuildingsthat satisfiesat least one of Tafuri's
criteriaforcriticalarchitecture.Third,the threecontem- declaration:"Betweenthe intuitivecriticismof Scarpaand
poraryprojectsmost frequentlypraised(at least relatively) the studyof objectivecontrolsystems,thereis still a gap,
and simultaneouslysingledout as inadequatelycriticalare bridgedonly (in the negativesense)by Le Corbusier's
Dacca,the BostonGovernmentServiceCenter,and 'silences."'
Samoni'sbuildingforthe Italianparliament.Another
building"favored" by Tafuriis BostonCity Hall.They are It mightbe saidthat Le Corbusieris the secretprotagonist
all governmentalbuildingsand programmatically similar in TheoriesandHistoryofArchitecture,realizingTafuri's
to those at Chandigarh.Samona'sprojectrefersto the project,whichwe readnot as the promotionof pessimism,
96
Capitolquite specifically. An oppositionis thus sug- but rather,as a troubledsearchspringingfromthe longing
gestedbetweenthe at least partiallycriticalChandigarh of someonewho,like Kafka'shungerartist,nevercouldfind
and the projectsof contemporary architecturewhoseinad- the kindof food he wantedto eat. In "'Machine et
equacies most interestTafuri. Fourth, the Capitolbuild- memoire"' Tafuripresentsa fullerbut alsoa much more
ings arethe only modern buildingsamongthe worksthat coherentpictureof Le Corbusier,by virtueof the philo-
bear"evidence"of "ideasthat havevalueas messages sophicalframework withinwhichhis wholecareer- his
beyondtheirimmediateeffectsandhistoricalconse- education,his culture,and politicalactivities- is now
quences."This impliesthat they succeedin the dimension inserted.Heideggerianinsightshaveclearlyenabledhim to
in whichcontemporary architecture(illustratedby the deriveconsiderablesatisfactionfromLe Corbusier'sefforts,
above-mentionedbuildings)has failed:in surpassingthe even if truesatiation,to staywith Kafka'sfigureforthe
specificityof codes. Let us now recallTafuri'ssibylline moment,maystill lie beyondhis reach.Buthe mayhave
95

assemblage 22
derived a certain satisfaction in another, related dimen- appear to many as an "intellectual salvage operation" (to
sion. For within the Heideggerian vision, one can argue, it use the disparagingterm applied by Tafuri to Scully's
became possible for Tafuri to find a better way of linking hyperbolic treatment of Venturi), and indeed, it has for
the two great crises discussed in Theoriesand History of us the regrettable effect of cleansing Le Corbusier of any
Architecture.By seeing the crisis of the object both as responsibility for his behavior during Vichy;but it is co-
resulting, at least partially,from the original split between herent with the evolution of the Tafurian engagement
poiesis and techndand as capable of being overcome in our with the subject of the historical avant-garde.At each
epoch, if only sporadicallyby a few great creators,Tafuri stage, he examines its failure with a new yardstick,to use,
could now set this crisis within a chronological scheme once again, a favored metaphor, and with each comes the
encompassing the crisis of historicity. Those who produce deepening of his understanding of it.
in accord with what their own period most authentically
Because of his allusiveness and elusiveness, Tafuri often
calls for are those who are freest from the "unnecessary"
seems to American readersto have designed a game that
constraints of history, of the burden of the past. In any
only he, and those who share his cultural world, can play
case, authentic production will always reveal its rootedness
in the common ground of poiesis/techne. (This revelation skillfully, and it is true that it sometimes seems as if his
methodology allows for changes of rules even as the game
may take the form of what is left unsaid, of silence, as at This allows him in "'Machineet mmoire'"
progresses.197
Chandigarh.) In the particularcase of the modern world, to play an exculpatorywild card. Whenever a Corbusian
the historical avant-garderightly adopted a vigorously
project resembles a standardcity plan, in its form, struc-
antihistorical stance, throwing off a burden that had be-
come "dangerousfor life." The greatest figures among this ture, or accompanying legitimatory argument, something
is put into play that cancels out its negative effect, and it
group, however, correctlyperceived that their move was a is the same with his stated theory, his writing, and his
historical one, that they, too, were part of history. But now
politics.
they could adopt a free attitude to it. Not needing to fear
it, they could either "use"it or not use it (or even abuse At the end of "'Machineet mimoire,'"explaining Le
it). Someone like Le Corbusier, therefore, could be a Corbusier'sexperience of the unutterable contained
classicist at one time and something different at another, within the Open Hand, Tafuri invokes Proust's idea of
with no fear of falling into eclecticism or imitation. And, "memoireinvolontaire."This notion governed Proust's
whichever direction he chose, he could produce, at least in writing of a book whose ending was its beginning and in
his finest moments, the kind of work that overcame the which memory redeems the narratorso that he can dis-
crisis of historicity by overcoming the crisis of the object, cover his task as a writer, the results of which the reader
that is, by creating objects (whether stratified, multiva- alreadyknows. It is, we speculate, appropriatethat Tafuri's
lent, or silent) bearing intimations of the "myth"and essay, which comes at the end of the "workphase" and
"silence"that prevailedbefore the reign of technology. which mysteriously speaks of an unspecified "memoire,"
should end under the sign of the Proustian theory of
With the concatenated Le Corbusier of Theoriesand His- memory; for as the quote from Benjamin's "The Image of
toryof Architectureand the Heideggerian one of "'Ma- Proust"that begins this section hints, the relationship of
chine et mmoire"' before us, we can finally inquire into Tafuri to Le Corbusier is one of identification.'98There is
what kind of figures Tafuri has wrought. We must admit also a hint of a voyage of self-discoveryin the concluding
that the second, although much more complete, Le phrase of Theoriesand Historyof Architecture,where
Corbusier comes at a considerable cost, for he has been Tafuri speaks of "the temporarytasks we have tried to
achieved only by bracketinglarge parts of his activity, make clear to ourselves in this volume." This theme reap-
including his misguided, and only half-understood, infatu- pears in the interview with Very:"When I wrote that book,
ations with a variety of political movements. This may it was a work truly intended only for myself. I did not
96

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
think of it as capable of being a success. It is a strange Notes Americanized throughout. Empha-

book, a book made without a public, because of the fol- This article grew out of a paper ses are Tafuri's, except where indi-
cated.
lowing precise reason: in those years, I was driven from given at Carlton University, pub-
pillar to post between Milan and Palermo, I had roots lished as "The Poietic in Contem- 2. Manfredo Tafuri, Teorie e storia
nowhere, and I was a real 'reject' of the Italian university poraryArchitectural Culture: dell'architettura (Bari:Laterza,
Le Corbusier, Heidegger, and 1968). We will be quoting from
system. The ideal reference [for me, implied] was then Manfredo Tafuri," in Architecture the second edition of 1970.
history, and that was all. It is thus a book that was not and Culture International Research
3. Theoriesand History of Archi-
made for the public."'99In which case, Le Corbusier be- SymposiumProceedings (Ottawa: tecture, 234-37. Tafuri speaks of
came the center of a discourse on method that Tafuri had Carlton University, 1992), 34-40, the accusation of "desperate nihil-
and includes work presented as
originally destined for himself. "ManfredoTafuri and Le
ism" made in Italy (ibid., viii). The
Corbusier's Two Minds" at the appearance of Architectureand
Perhaps, then, we understand why involuntary memories Utopia prompted a similar reaction
History, Theory, Criticism Forum, in both Italy and the United
abound as Tafuri constructs his Le Corbusier. The tight- Department of Architecture, Mas- States. See Diane Ghirardo,"Past
rope walker,whom the critical architect, the critical histo- sachusetts Institute of Technology. or Post Modern in Architectural
We gratefully acknowledge the
rian, and Le Corbusier all resemble, is a figure that Paul Fashion," Journalof Architectural
Klee drew several times, and Klee, as we have tried to many useful comments and sug- Education 39 (Summer 1986): 4.
gestions received from our listeners
show, is virtuallyinterchangeable with Le Corbusier. on both occasions, as well as from 4. Manfredo Tafuri, "The Histori-
When Tafuri writes that Le Corbusier'sspecial under- H. Allen Brooks,Joseph Connors, cal 'Project,'"in The Sphereand
the Labyrinth:Avant-Gardesand
standing of Venice singles him out from the rest of the Kurt Forster, Emily Norris, Mary
Architecturefrom Piranesi to the
McLeod, Detlef Mertins, Patricia
avant-gardeand proves that his understanding of historic- 1970s, trans. Pellegrino d'Acierno
Morton, Joan Ockman, Francesco
ity was redemptive, he must know that Le Corbusier was Passanti, Diane Radycki, Sara and Robert Connolly (Cambridge,
remembering (involuntarilyor not, we do not know) the Ksiazek, and the readers for Assem- Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), 4, 12.
Ruskin through whose eyes he had first "seen"Venice, and blage. Our interest in Tafuri's Le Joan Ockman, who first noted this
indeed, all of architecture. Ruskin'sVenice was also a Corbusier began with a seminar, quote, suggests that "the radically
"Le Corbusier et la modernitg," scaling down of the historian's am-
place of resistance, resistance, in fact, to the machine and that one of us led at the School of bitions ... parallels the fate of the
all it was coming to represent - as Le Corbusier knew.200 aspirations of the architectural
Architecture, Universit6 de
In Tafuri's writings there is an uncanny resemblance be- Montreal; the many insights avant-garde,"and one might add,
tween his Le Corbusier and his Venice. According to Jo- gained from those students and
in Theoriesand History of Architec-
ture, that of its descendants. We
seph Connors, Tafuri's Venice is "the great resistor, the the logistical support received
owe a great debt to her perceptive
from the department are also ac-
city of meaningful silences, able to accept any language text. See "Postscript:Critical His-
knowledged. Research on Le
except the absolute one of Roman antiquity. The global Corbusier himself was greatly fa- tory and the Laborsof Sisyphus,"
image of Venice was so strong it dampened individual cilitated by the collections of The in Architecture,Criticism, Ideology,
urban initiatives and especially attempts to expand the Le Corbusier Room, Loeb Library, ed. Joan Ockman (Princeton:
Princeton Architectural Press,
city. A cult of continuity prevailed,... since a utopia HarvardUniversity, Graduate
which was alreadyheld to be marvelouslyperfect could School of Design, and the gracious 1985), 186, 188.
help from its librarian,Mary 5. Llorens suggested that the
only be changed incrementally, at the edges."201Much like Daniels.
the Venice that Tafuri sees refuting and defying the pre- properway to approach Theories
and History of Architecturewas to
vailing classicism of the Renaissance, his Le Corbusier 1. Manfredo Tafuri, Theoriesand see it as a palimpsest in which are
forms an enclave within the avant-garde,and with Ben- History of Architecture,trans. superimposed traces of contempo-
jamin and Heidegger, within the experience of modernity. Giorgio Verrecchia (New York: raryEuropean and Marxist cultural
He is a Le Corbusier who resides, with several other of Harper& Row, 1979), 104. We crises. See Tomas Llorens, "Man-
have indicated the places where fredo Tafuri: Neo-Avant-Garde
Tafuri's historical figures, in a city of resistance whose the translation has been modified. and History,"in On the Metho-
creation is the historian's lifelong project. The English spelling has been dology of ArchitecturalHistory, ed.
97

assemblage 22
Demetri Porphyrios (London: nos. 79-84 (1967): 85-107; as well in the design process. Tafuri, how- Venice school of historians, see
Architectural Design, 1981), 85, 93 as idem, "Borrominiet l'esperienza ever, maintained in introductions Cohen, "La Coupure entre
n. 14. della storia,"Communita 129 to the second and fourth editions architectes et intellectuels," 218.
(1965), and idem, "La poetica of Theoriesand History of Architec-
6. Cf. "the dissection carried out 19. Ibid., 190-91.
borrominiana:Mito, simbolo e ture that the first book was a "pro-
on the body of history" and the
ragione,"Palatino (April-March logue" to the second and that in 20. To take only familiar Ameri-
many mentions of diagnosis in 1968 he had already"postulated... can figures as a yardstick,he was
Theoriesand History of Architec- 1966), both cited as "important
ture, 229, 2, 3, 6. For the surgeon,
articles" in Llorens, "Manfredo the absolute separation of criticism up-to-date on the debate around
Tafuri,"93 n. 7, nn. 10-11; idem, from activity" (Theoriesand His- Venturi's Complexityand Contra-
see "operatingon its own body,
JacopoSansovino e l'architettura tory of Architecture,xxi, xviii). diction in Architectureand on the
history makes an incision with
a scalpel," and for battle, see
del '500 a Venezia (Padua: 15. Tafuri, "There Is No Criti- emergence of the New York Five.
Marsilio, 1969); Manfredo Tafuri, For the former, see Theoriesand
"analysisenters into the center of cism," 11. Idem, "Storia,
a series of battles" ("The Historical Luigi Salerno, and Luigi conservazione, restauro,"Casabella History of Architecture,225 n. 94;
Spezzafero, Via Giulia: Una utopia for the latter, see ibid., 114, 124,
'Project,'" 12). "Rotten to the very 580 (May 1991): 23. We are quot-
urbanistica del '500 (Rome: and the casual references to a
roots" is a statement that Tafuri ing from the translation, 60. Cf. "Meier"and to the "young Ameri-
takes up from Piranesi and fre- Staderini, 1973). His thoughts on Theoriesand History of Architec-
Samona can be found both here can architects in opposition to
quently uses. ture, 64.
and later in "Les Muses Kahn," 103, 132. His recent Ameri-
7. "Domusinterview 5: Manfredo 16. The number of times Le can reading included the Journalof
inquietantes, ou le destin d'une
Tafuri," interview with Fulvio Corbusier's name is cited in the the Society of ArchitecturalHistori-
g6neration des 'Maitres,'"
Irace, Domus 653 (September L'Architectured'au'jourd'hui181 indices is a useful indicator of his ans and Perspecta,as well as the
1984): 26 (trans. modified). massive presence in several of trade journals, and he was, at the
(September-October 1975): 14-
33. Before 1968 Tafuri also wrote Tafuri's books on contemporary time of publication, restlessly
8. Jean-Louis Cohen, "La
architecture. In Theoriesand His-
Coupure entre architectes et
L'architetturamodernain searching for more Anglo-Ameri-
Giappone (Bologna: Cappelli, tory of Architecture,in frequency of can reading. Cf. 170 n. 35; for the
intellectuels, ou l'enseignement de
1965), La cattedrale di Amiens citation, Le Corbusier is first, SAH, see 217 n. 5.
l'italophilie," In extenso 1 (1984): Louis Kahn second, and Bruno
199. See also Luciano Semerani, (Florence: Sadea-Sansoni, 1965), 21. Cf. Guiseppe Samona, "La
and L'architetturadel Manierismo Zevi third (ibid., 320, 324). In
ed., The School of Venice (London: Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co's lezione di Le Corbusier,"
Architectural Design, 1985). nel cinquecento europeo (Roma:
Officina, 1966). ModernArchitecture,trans. Robert Communitd 108 (March-April
9. "Indeed, the questions will be Erich Wolf (New York:HarryN. 1963).
on the reasons for the silences" 12. See Cohen, "LaCoupure entre Abrams, 1979), and in History of 22. Manfredo Tafuri, "'Machineet
architectes et intellectuels," 143- Italian Architectureas well, Le
("Domusinterview 5," 28 [trans. memoire':The City in the Work of
224. Corbusier is evoked with great fre-
modified]). Le Corbusier,"trans. Stephen
10. The best introduction to the 13. Manfredo Tafuri, "There Is No quency. In Architectureand Uto- Sartarelli,in The Le Corbusier
state of architecture in Italy is Criticism, Only History,"Design pia, he is the only individual to Archive,ed. H. Allen Brooks, 32
BookReview 9 (Spring 1986): 11. whom a chapter is devoted and vols. (New York:Garland, 1982-
Tafuri's own History of Italian Ar-
the author of the only extensively 84), 10:xxxviii-xxxix. We will
chitecture, 1944-1985, trans. Jes- 14. The change that occurred in discussed project. Given Tafuri's quote this and other Garlandes-
sica Levine (Cambridge, Mass.: 1969 can be seen in Manfredo well-known resistance to the blan-
MIT Press, 1989), from whose says from the reprint edition, Le
Tafuri, "Peruna critica dishments of the pleasure of the
notes one can cull a bibliography Corbusier,ed. H. Allen Brooks
dell'ideologia architettonica," text in analyzing twentieth-century (Princeton: Princeton University
that was up-to-date in 1985. See
Contrepiano 1 (1969): 31-79, later works, this expansiveness is in it- Press, 1987), 203-18.
for example, 203 n. 1, 218 n. 14, to become Progettoe utopia (Bari: self a sign of preferment. On this
226 n. 62, 251-54. Laterza, 1973), translated as Archi- 23. Brookshas described Tafuri's
point, see Cohen, "La Coupure
11. See Manfredo Tafuri, Ludovico tecture and Utopia: Design and entre architectes et intellectuels," role as a special one: "I chose
Quaroni e lo sviluppo dell'architet- Capitalist Development, trans. Bar- 205. Tafuri because at that time (c.
tura modernain Italia (Milan:Com- bara Luigia La Penta (Cambridge, 1981) he enjoyed a lively following
Mass.: MIT Press, 1979). It is gen- 17. Tafuri, "The Historical within the profession. . . . Of all
munita, 1964); idem, "Borromini
in Palazzzo Carpegna,"Quaderni erally understood that he here re- 'Project,"'21. the authors, I gave a virtual free
(University of Rome, Istituto di nounced the belief that the study 18. On the importance accorded hand to only two, Alan Colquhoun
Storia dell'Architettura), ser. 14, of history could somehow be useful to the filo rosso by Tafuri and the and Manfredo Tafuri, each to write
98

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
whatever they wanted about Le tions, trans. HarryZohn (New 37. Ibid., 7. 51. Ibid., 46.
Corbusier's architecture and ur- York:Schocken Books, 1969). 38. Ibid., 14, 30. 52. Ibid., 47.
banism respectively. I knew they
would write something theoretical, 29. Theoriesand History of Archi- 39. Ibid., 19-22. 53. Ibid., 45.
which is what I wanted as a bal- tecture, 61.
40. Ibid., 26, 28. 54. Ibid., 48.
ance to the more traditional, chro- 30. "The reader ... should take
41. Ibid., 28-30. 55. Ibid., 49.
nological articles I assigned to each paragraph... as a shot in a
others.... I gave Tafuri a 'global' series aiming at a distant and not 42. Ibid., 30-31. His "braveact" is, 56. Ibid., 49, 58.
topic" (H. Allen Brooks, personal always discernible target." Llorens in fact, identical to those of Gro- 57. Ibid., 48, 50.
communication to He61ne discusses the crises in which Italian pius and Leger as well.
Lipstadt, 21 January1993). modernists and, especially, Marx- 58. For example, "the notion of
43. Ibid., 32. history as 'instrument of plan-
24. As Vincent Scully wrote in his ists, found themselves in 1968
("ManfredoTafuri," 93 n. 14, 83- 44. This group is subjected to a ning,'" as represented by the
own Garland essay, the "urbanism"
84). full-fledged demonstration, with a appropriate,if, in the end,
was then generally "judged as
level of detail and specificity of ref- instrumentalized, analyses of
faulty in conception and highly de- 31. Theoriesand History of Archi- Gregotti. See ibid., 53-55.
structive in practice, as we have erence unusual for Tafuri, typically
tecture, 8. so stenographic when presenting
seen ... at Chandigarh itself" ("Le 59. Ibid., 73 n. 87.
32. Ibid., 237. the work of the avant-garde. See
Corbusier, 1922-1965," in Le 60. Ibid., 50, 52.
ibid., 32-40.
Corbusier,47-55). 33. Theoriesand History of Archi- 61. Tafuri praises this ambiguity
25. Architectureand Utopia, 126- tecture, 1, 2, 216. After the refor- 45. Ibid., 41.
because it is a "denunciation" of
28 nn. 74-76. mulation of his position in 1969, 46. Ibid., 42. sorts, which, in its inconsistencies,
Tafuri would maintain that he is at one with the American tradi-
26. As well as "fascinating and ex- "was not concerned with architects 47. The seven paragraphsdevoted
to Venice contain several ideas and tion that it objectively observed.
emplary":Jameson was speaking as such," and any traces of these
of Architectureand Utopia, or Kahn's objectivity allows him to
concerns were "to be taken as the figures of speech not quoted by
Tafuri's "little book," but the de- present difficult problems with de-
residue of cultural and political po- Tafuri that strengthen the associa-
tachment, but this very talent -
scription is apt for all his books. sitions that the author left behind, tion with Benjamin. For example,
See Fredric Jameson, "Architecture the Renaissance artists "place the ability to explain design or ar-
at least in intention, quite a while chitectural communication - that
and the Critique of Ideology," in themselves above things; they are
ago." See "Note to the Second so satisfies a contemporary desire
Architecture,Criticism, Ideology, not of the thing.... We are of
[Italian] Edition," ibid., xviii. for "verifiability"limits, in turn,
64. There are also the difficulties "Modern movement" is in upper daily realities, facing consciousness
of translation on which reviewers itself" (Le Corbusier, Quand les his relationship to history. In the
case in the Anglo-American trans- last analysis, for Kahn, history is
often comment. Of "a previous cathidrales etaient blanches [Paris:
lation; we will follow the conven- "only an ingredient to be manipu-
work,"which "sold very well" tion of lower case. Plon, Editions Gonthier, 1965], 16
lated." Although he seems more
(probablyArchitectureand Uto- [our trans.]).
"up-to-date," Kahn's historicism,
pia), Joseph Rykwertsaid that it 34. Ibid., title of chap. 6 and 216.
48. Theoriesand History of Archi- and that of the "rigorists,""harks
was "translatedby someone whose
35. Ibid., 2, 1-8 passim. tecture, 42. back to the European myth of Rea-
command of both English and Ital-
ian seems so shaky that even a 36. Ibid., 6. This complex combi- 49. The brief treatment accorded son," which makes him "lag behind
nation of avant-garde artists (some to the operators makes a strange someone like Le Corbusier ... at
reader familiar with the subject
was hard pressed to reconstruct of them certainly perceived as ir- contrast to the preceding pro- least as far as methods of dealing
what some sentences could have reconcilable at the time), and of longed and nuanced analysis of the with form go" (ibid., 56).
meant in the original." See Joseph that entire group with structuralist magicians. At the same time, this 62. By perpetuating the myth of
Rykwert,"The Masochistic Envi- anthropology, also previews the almost hyperbolic statement and the city as "object,"they reconfig-
ronment," The Times Literary book's methodology: Tafuri ab- unqualifiedly positive assessment ure impossibleurbanenvironments,
Supplement, 10-16 March 1989, solves himself from the need to stopped at least these readers that is, in its name they destroy
258. prove direct influences ("almost short. We looked in vain for the zones that are insufficiently
certainly non-existent"), preferring usual alternance and negation, for historical, and thereby facilitate
27. Tafuri, "The Historical the redivision to which one has
to identify the more interesting the "plunder"of those very centers
'Project,'" 12. fact of a common attitude to the been accustomed. See ibid., 33-40. they are defending. Tafuri'sultimate
28. In Walter Benjamin, Illumina- "present historical condition." 50. Ibid., 42 (trans. modified). conclusion on all these efforts is
99

assemblage 22
devastating: Italian architecture is of the sacred";the dissolved "con- 83. Ibid., 91 (trans. modified). the three equations of Le
also dominated by the "wrong" cept ... of art," the prophesy of 84. Constructivism and
Corbusier equals Klee; Le
kind of historicism, "a gutless and Hegel; and the "operation pre- Corbusier equals Benjamin and
anticonstructivism were assigned a
indecisive attempt to get free from dicted by Brecht," the Benjamin- the other sensitive intellectuals;
ian reconceptualization of the meaning that Tafuri's readers
the tradition of the new." See ibid.,
would recognize as Argan's, from early Le Corbusier and Benjamin
58-59. object after mechanical repro- Walter Gropius e la Bauhaus (spe- equals dreamers of a participatory
duction. architecture for the city. After
63. Ibid., 59. cifically cited by Tafuri, 90, and
1973 the last pairing would be-
64. Tafuri, who is glossing the 74. Ibid., 82. Tafuri explicitly already used in that sense, 40).
states that he is using Foucault's Anticonstructivists were then come clear, for herein lies the germ
third (1963) edition of Samona's of the chapter on Algiers in Archi-
Urbanistica e l'avveniredella cittd archaeology of the human sciences thought to be the negative avant- tecture and Utopia.
negli stati europi (Bari:Laterza,
as his model. See ibid., 80. garde of expressionism, surrealism,
and dadaism. The wider implica- 94. Ibid.,97.
1959), characteristicallymakes this 75. Ibid., 84.
tion of the use of these terms in
positive statement through a 95. Ibid.,133.
double negative: "This doesn't 76. Ibid. Italy is discussed in Llorens,
mean that modern architecture ... "ManfredoTafuri," 83-84. 96. "ManfredoTafuri," interview
77. Ibid., 86.
cannot We do not 85. These figures include Paul with Giacinto Pietrantonio, Flash
clarify,...." 78. The "ambiguous object" is ex- Art International 145 (March-April
believe we have denatured his Rudolph, Kahn, Tange, Rossi,
thought by canceling out the emplified by Adolf Loos's and Samona, and younger Italian archi- 1989): 67.
double negatives in this case, since Ludwig Hilberseimer's Chicago tects, as well as unnamed propo- 97. Theoriesand History of Archi-
here his demonstration has not Tribune designs, Mies's houses, nents of the city "as an a-syntactic
some of Marcel Breuer'searly tecture, 104.
been conditioned by a negative and a-logical field of pure images,"
dialectic. See ibid., 60. works, Wright's Barnsdalland 98. Ibid., 112.
probablyArchigram,to judge from
Ennis houses, and "perhaps,even" the pertinently placed illustration
65. Ibid., 61 (trans. modified). Le Corbusier's churches at Firminy
99. Ibid.,110.
of one of their projects. See ibid.,
66. Ibid. and Ronchamp. The effect of me- 100. Ibid.,124-25.
92, 94, 95 fig. 10.
chanical reproduction is shown by
67. Ibid. 86. Ibid., 94. 101. The Capitol and not the city:
Picasso's, Braque's,or "even bet-
68. Ibid., 62. this is an assumption on our part,
ter," Le Corbusier's paintings and 87. Ibid., 92.
the relation of object to series by based on the general context here,
69. Including Aymonino's and 88. Ibid., 93. in which Tafuri is discussing criti-
Rossi's "themes," the former's the 1920s villa/immeuble-villascon-
nection and by Gropius's Bauhaus cal buildings.
89. See ibid., 86-87, 94, 91. The
project for a theater in Parma,
Ludovico Quaroni's competition masters' houses/Seidlungen rela- difficulty of the passage stems 102. Ibid., 111.
tion, where the first members of mainly from finding the Le
project for the CEP in Mestre 103. Ibid.,125.
the pairs are "ideal cells" of the Corbusier/Benjaminpairing in an
(Venice), Geoffrey Copcutt's plan
for Glasgow, Giancarlo De Carlo's second members, the "lateraggre- unaccustomed light, that is, on the 104. Ibid.,127.
studies for Urbino, and some of gate." See ibid., 84, 86. side of illusion, and it is exacer-
bated by certain minor choices 105. The image is used to intro-
Kevin Lynch's "hidden intentions." 79. Ibid., 87.
made by the translator, especially duce readers to the critic who
See ibid., 63.
80. No reference is given, but we "returnsto his proper task of ...
by his merging of two sentences at
70. Ibid., 58. objective and unprejudiced histori-
may assume that Tafuri thinks the "dreamt of" that were, in the Ital-
idea of mechanical reproducibility cal diagnosis" (ibid., 2-3).
71. Ibid., 62-63. ian, separate. See Teorie e storia,
had been anticipated by Brecht's 116. Nor is the reader helped by 106. Ibid., 105.
72. Ibid., 63.
notion of "exhibitionable value." the circumspection surrounding
73. Ibid., 64. One is tempted to See ibid., 45. the identity of the architects 107. We are not hypercorrecting.
disassemble this sentence as tradi- whose errorsare being described. Although Tafuri's inclination is to
81. Ibid., 88. Weber "payswith
tional rabbinics does a biblical perceive the architect as male, he
neurosis," Benjamin with suicide, 90. Ibid., 94, 96. does mention Alison Smithson.
quotation: "without... second and Adorno and Marcuse with
thoughts," that is, unlike the other 91. Ibid., 86.
108. Ibid., 127 (our emphasis).
members of the avant-garde;the making their opposition somehow
nostalgic. Even Brecht admitted 92. See ibid., 93.
dissolved "history,"referringto the 109. Ibid., 120.
that "old rubbish"persists in his 93. We believe that the reader of
prophesy of Borromini'scollage of work. 110. Ibid.,124, 137n. 33.
memories; the dissolved "object," this book in 1968 would have been
the prophesy of Piranesi's "eclipse 82. Ibid., 89. incapable of fully understanding 111. Ibid.,153, 154.Tafurirefers
100

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
here to Persico, Adolph Behne, relationship to Kahn as well. It is 6 il nostro padrone,"

cliente sity of Minnesota Press, 1986),
Guiseppe Pagano, Morton Shand, interesting to note that Tafuri ac- Rassegna 2, no. 3 (1980): 57. 145-59.
Ernst May, and Bruno Taut, as cuses "the architecture which is
136. Cohen, "Bat'a,"66-67. 144. "Entretien avec Manfredo
well as to several interwar maga- on its way to becoming meta-
zines, including L'Esprit nouveau. language," that is, the work of 137. "Ornament and Crime" was Tafuri," interview with Franqoise
112. Ibid., 154. Rudolph, Kahn, and the Philadel- published in L'Esprit nouveau 2 V6ry,AMC (Architecture,
phia School, of using a similar ploy (November 1920): 159-68. See mouvement,continuite) 39 (June
113. Ibid., 157, 158. to preempt the critic: "the best Stanislaus von Moos, "Le Cor- 1976): 66, trans. H61'ne Lipstadt.
busier and Loos," Assemblage4 A personal note: We did not learn
114. Ibid., 162. way to neutralize a feared oppo-
nent is to fully absorb his aggres- (October 1987): 25-37. of this document, at least did not
115. Ibid., 159, 158. sive techniques" (Theoriesand remember knowing it, until we had
138. Cohen, "Bat'a,"67.
finished the first version of this ar-
116. Ibid., 162, 163. History of Architecture, 127).
139. Constance Naubert-Riser, ticle. Since a publication by one of
117. In the first chapter, the 128. These passages are, however,
"Images of Utopia," in The 1920s: the two authors of this article ap-
cited by him, since he refers to the
group includes Rossi, Samona, Age of the Metropolis, ed. Jean pears in the same issue of AMC,
introduction in its entirety. See
Aymonino, and Copcutt, as well as Clair (Montreal: Musee des Beaux- we most probablyknew it in 1976.
Le Corbusier, see ibid., 63; in the Theories and History of Architec- Arts, 1991). For Architectureof The interview is an invaluable
second, Rudolph, Kahn, and the ture, 225 n. 95; cf. Teorie e storia, Variations, from the Kunst- source for the study of Tafuri.
Cumbernault plan, revealed to be 258 n. 95. museum in Berne, see ibid., fig.
145. This point is not emphasized
by Copcutt, see ibid., 97 (cf. 169 n. 129. Robert Venturi, Complexity 186. The Olbrich ceremony is de-
in Theoriesand History of Architec-
30); in the third, Kahn, Samona, and Contradiction in Architecture scribed in the specialized litera-
ture and corresponds to an argu-
Stirling, and Copcutt, see ibid., (New York:Museum of Modern ture, for example, JosephM.
132; and in the fourth, Rossi, Olbrich, 1867-1908, ed. Bernd ment that Tafuri made in 1976, in
Art and Doubleday, 1966), 11-16.
Samona, Aymonino, Copcutt, and Krimmel (Darmstadt: Mathilde- "Ceci n'est pas une ville," Lotus 13
Kahn, see ibid., 162. 130. See Theoriesand History of h6he Darmstadt, 1983), 151. It is (December 1976): 10-13.
Architecture,214-15. prominently discussed in Kenneth
118. Ibid., 174. 146. Ibid., 13.
131. Ibid., 61 (trans. modified). Frampton, ModernArchitecture:A
119. Tafuri cites Persico, Zevi, Critical History, rev. ed. (London: 147. Tafuri, "There Is No Criti-
and Argan. The latter two's 132. Stefan Frey, Paul Klee- Thames and Hudson, 1985), 80.
cism," 11 (our emphasis).
misunderstanding of the late Le Stiftung, Kunstmuseum, Berne, The classic article on crystalline
Corbusier is, for him, a convenient Switzerland, personal communica- imagery is Rosemarie Haag Bletter, 148. Translated as "Pool of Reflec-
test of the shortcomings of operations to the authors, 16 August "The Interpretation of the Glass tion" in "'Machineet memoire."'
tive historiography. See ibid., 154, and 23 August 1993. Dream: Expressionist Architecture There seems to be no agreed-upon
168 n. 26. and the History of the Crystal translation of this name.
133. Le Corbusier and Pierre
120. Ibid., 201. Metaphor," Journalof the Society
Jeanneret, Oeuvrecomplate, 1934- 149. "'Machineet memoire,'"214.
1938 (Zurich: Editions of ArchitecturalHistorians 40, no.
121. Ibid., 203. 1 (March 1981): 20-43.
d'Architecture, 1939), 170-71. 150. Ibid., 210.
122. Ibid., 204. 140. Theoriesand History of Archi-
134. See Teorie e storia, 112-13. 151. Martin Heidegger, "The
123. See Rend Wellek and Austin tecture, 234.
135. He believes, however, that Question ConcerningTechnology,"
Warren, Theoryof Literature (New 141. These are Kahn, Rudolph,
the pavilion's resemblance to the in The Question ConcerningTech-
York:Harcourt, Brace & World, the later Wright, and the un-
1963); cf. Theoriesand History of memorial to Bat'a in Zlin, which nology and Other Essays, ed. and
named "aware"present-day au- trans. William Lovitt (New York:
Architecture,217 n. 5. also incorporates the manufac- thors who do wrong by doing right,
turer's favorite plane in which he for their "self-critical experimen- HarperTorchbooks, 1977), 3-35.
124. Ibid., 205.
met his death, is probably acciden- talism" produces only "pathetic 152. See Alan Colquhoun, "The
125. Ibid., 213-14. tal. See Jean-Louis Cohen, "Bat'a,
'monuments"' (ibid., 231, 235). Significance of Le Corbusier,"in
126. Ibid., 214. Tomai," in Jacques Lucan, ed., Le Corbusier,23, following the
142. Ibid., 232.
Encyclope'dieLe Corbusier (Paris: work of Mary McLeod. Tafuri cites
127. Yve-Alain Bois, "On Centre Georges Pompidou, 1987), 143. See Peter Szondi, "Hope in McLeod's "important essay" in
Manfredo Tafuri's Theorieset 66-67; on diversification, see ibid., the Past: On Walter Benjamin," in "'Machineet memoire,"'217 n. 28.
histoire de l'architecture,"Opposi- 63. The space for pedicures was to On Textual Understandingand
tions 11 (Winter 1977): 121. Bois be painted in primarycolors; cf. Other Essays, trans. Harvey 153. "'Machineet memoire,"'203,
believes that this is true of Tafuri's Jean-Louis Cohen, "I1nostro Mendelsohn (Minneapolis: Univer- 214.
101

assemblage 22
154. Ibid.,210, 208, 211. what he describes as a prevailing best-known image of the project, Russell Walden (Cambridge,
155. Ibid.,203, 204, 213. view. although it does appear in the Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), 452 n. 35.
172. In "Le Corbusier, Oriental- posthumous volume of the Oeuvre 180. The only drawing for Bhakra
156. Ibid.,203, 208, 204. complete, in U. E. Chowdhury,
ism, Colonialism," Qelik maintains that we have found to date in the
157. Ibid.,210. "The Bhakra-Damin the Himalaya Garland publication is that of the
that Obus A's preservationof the
Mountains of India," in Willy
158. Ibid.,210-11. casbah is a form of segregation, Hand, erroneously assigned to the
Boesiger, ed, Le Corbusier'sLast section on the Open Hand at
159. See MichaelE. Zimmerman, prolonging into the future the Works(New York:Praeger, 1979),
"colonial premises" of the city
159-61. There are also numerous Chandigarh. See The Le Corbusier
Heidegger's Confrontation with
plans of the French governors. Archive,24:448;FLC5845.
Modernity: Technology, Politics,Art jotted references to it in the Indian
IndianaUniversity Moreover, she argues that Tafuri's 181. The Open Hand reproduced
(Bloomington: Sketchbooks;see Le Corbusier
finding of timelessness in the in L'Art decoratifd'aujourd'huiand
Press,1990). Sketchbooks,4 vols. (Cambridge,
casbah belongs to the "Orientalist the one reproduced in the volume
160. Orheldblameworthy, to re- Mass., and New York:MIT Press
tradition." See Assemblage 17 added to the Oeuvrecomplete in
call Scully'sabove-citedremarks and the Architectural History
(April 1992): 69, 71, 76 n. 73. 1970 have the identical shape.
fromhis introductionto Complex- Foundation, 1981), vol. 3 (1954-
173. Criticizing Tafuri, Qelik sees 57) and vol. 4 (1957-64). The re- 182. "Lachose publique," the lit-
ity andContradiction. this relationship as one of domi- cent MIT Press translation of L'Art eral translation of res publica. See
161. Ibid.,213, 212. nance, for the "plan establishes decoratif d'aujourd'huithat sup- Le Corbusier, Oeuvrecomplete,
162. Ibid.,214. This joiningillu- constant visual supervision over posedly "follows ... the original 1957-65 (Zurich: Editions
minatesthe ideaof Le Corbusier the local population and clearly page layout" not only failed to re- d'Architecture, 1965), 108.
Benjaminandsurreal- marks the hierarchical social order produce the Open Hand drawing,
"soldering" 183. Ibid.; reprinted in Last
ism expressedin the interviewwith onto the urban image" (ibid., 69). but even excised the paragraphre-
Works, 167.
Veryextractedabove. 174. Stanislaus von Moos, "Von ferring to it. See James Dunnett,
163. "'Machine 204-
et memoire,'" des 'Femmes d'Algers'zum 'Plan trans., "Introduction,"The Decora- 184. Chowdhury, "Bhakra-Dam,"
10. Obus,"' Archithese 1 (1971): 25- tive Art of Today (Cambridge, 159.
Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), xi, xix.
36; cited in "'Machineet me'- 185. Here we are building on
164. Ibid.,207, 208. On the importance of the post-
moire,'"217 nn. 28, 31. See also Tafuri's observation, "'Machineet
165. Ibid.,204. idem, "Le Corbusier as Painter," scripts and the layout of the book, memoire,'"217 n. 37.
see H61'ne Lipstadt, "'We are
166. Ibid.,207. Oppositions 19-20 (Winter- 186. See Sketchbooks,vol. 4, P62,
Spring 1980): 102-3. S.. not in the Agora of the
167. Ibid.,209. no. 636, where the lights are placed
Philosophers':A Critique of
175. For an example of Le Poststructuralist Readings of Le on the summits. For other solu-
168. Ibid. Corbusier's erotic drawings dating Corbusier'sL'Artdicoratif tions, see ibid., P60, nos. 540-42,
169. Ibid.,212. from his years before Algiers, i.e.,
d'aujourd'hui,"in Architectureand
and R65, nos. 820, 821. The editor
170. Ibid. from 1917, see "X,"in the Culture International Research of the Sketchbookscalls these
EncyclopedieLe Corbusier,479. SymposiumProceedings,26-33. In "sound-and-light effects" the
171. The argumentof plausibility We thank Francesco Passanti for "main feature" of Le Corbusier's
addition, the reprint of the original
is legitimate.Withoutmakingref-
pointing this out to us. Von Moos text (Paris:Artaud, 1980) is of the plans for the BhakraDam. See
erenceto Tafuri'stheoriesof his- makes the same point, quoting an ibid., 4:51. It is R65, no. 820, dated
first edition, so naturally, the 1959
tory,andremainingwithinthe observation of Ozenfant's; see "Les 4 December 1961, that is repro-
preface does not appear, although
text, the questionis appropriate, Femmes d'Alger,"in Le Corbusier the image of the Open Hand is reduced in color in Last Works, 161.
forhe himselfframeshis interpre- et la Mediterrane(Marseilles:
tationas a responseto the reduc- produced on the back cover. 187. Cf. SunandPrasad,"Le
Editions Parenthise, 1987, 190). Corbusier in India," in Le
tive argumentthat takesLe 178. See The Le CorbusierArchive,
Corbusier's statementsand 176. "'Machineet memoire,'"217- 1:153;FLC31455. Corbusier:Architect of the Century,
18 nn. 18, 36-37. " Bhakra-Dam," ed. Michael Raeburn and Victoria
projectsof urbanismto be the goal 179. Chowdhury,
Wilson (London: Arts Council of
of his research,that is, he main- 177. The Open Hand at Bhakrais 159. The author of this account
tainsthat his ownis moreplau- Great Britain, 1987), 282.
mentioned in the preface to the was Le Corbusier's female assis-
sible.Further,sincethis claimis 1959 reedition of L'Art decoratif tant, as identified in Stanislaus von 188. "Le Corbusier had seen him-
madein the bodyof a Garlandes- d'aujourd'hui(Paris:Editions Moos, "The Politics of the Open self ... as spiritual director of the
say,we takethe interpretation to Vincent Freal) and illustrated on Hand: Notes on Le Corbusier and whole enterprise.... The only per-
be forwarded as a proposedalter- the frontispiece and on the trans- Nehru at Chandigarh,"in The son who challenged [his] desire to
nativeto, andevena correctionof, parent overwrapping.This is the Open Hand and Other Essays, ed. totally control the enterprise was
102

Lipstadt/Mendelsohn
Maxwell Fry [who was] amazed by words, McCole has written that paths that lead to other than the cent sculpted face hides the fact
the extent to which Le Corbusier "Benjamin ascribed to Proust's final goal" (Architectureand Uto- that it is carved only on the public
had assumed responsibility for ev- work a list of qualities he might pia, 129 n. 77). side. Le Corbusier then advises his
ery detailed aspect of the design, well have wished for his own." readers to "hasten to the archives
whether the layout of the sector, 195. Joan Ockman, personal com-
See his Walter Benjamin and the of Venice," where they would dis-
the network of the roads, the vil- Antinomies of Tradition (Ithaca: munication to He1'ne Lipstadt, 16 cover that the sculptor of this
December 1992.
lage of seven hundred fifty inhabit- Cornell University Press, 1993), tomb was later "expelled for forg-
ants, or the Capitol complex, as 253. 196. That is, they comprise a sym- ing documents." See The Decora-
evident from the details sent back bol of government, two "secretari- tive Art of Today, 132 (trans.
191. See Massimo Cacciari, Archi-
from Paris after his first visit." A ats" and an assembly building. modified). The discussion of "or-
tecture and Nihilism: On the Phi-
meeting between the chief admin- Samon 's building incorporates nament" in the autobiographical
istrator and Fry and Jeanneret re- losophy of ModernArchitecture
two specific references to Chan- "Confession" is a coded reference
sulted in the suggested "separation (New Haven: Yale, 1993). In her
introduction to this volume, "The digarh: the Governor's Palace and to Ruskin; see ibid., 194.
of powers,"which Le Corbusier ac- the Open Hand. And Samona's
Philosophy of the City," Patrizia 201. Joseph Connors, "Manfredo
cepted, "perhapsto avoid disaster." Lombardo discusses the exchanges project is also heavily indebted Tafuri, Ricercadel Rinascimento:
See Madhu Sarin, "Chandigarhas to Kallmann McKinnell's Boston
between Tafuri and Cacciari and Principi, cittd, architetti," ms. of an
a Place to Live In," in The Open City Hall.
the atmosphere in which they took article trans. in L'Indice 3 (Sep-
Hand, 399, 401, 400 fig. 117, FLC
AW 21 November 50, a sketch of place. See ibid., vii-lviii. Her valu- 197. In "'Machineet memoire,'" tember 1992).
the organizational chart showing
able text came to our attention too Tafuri frequently places in quotes
late to be used for this study. phrases and foreign words that are
Le Corbusier as the source of
propositions, in direct contact with 192. See McCole, Walter Ben- drawn from a wide range of theo- Figure Credits
retical sources, without identifying 1. Courtesy of Paul Klee-Stiftung,
the Punjab government. A more jamin, 195-205.
the source, beginning with the title Kunstmuseum, Berne.
placid account of the "sole supplier 193. Manfredo Tafuri, "Architec- itself.
of ideas" episode is found in Ravi ture and Poverty,"Architectural 2. "Domusinterview 5: Manfredo
Kalia, Chandigarh:In Search of 198. Ockman has noted this pro-
Design 52 (July-August 1982): 57. Tafuri," Domus 853 (September
an Identity (Carbondale and pensity for identification: "It is 1984).
Edwardsville,Ill.: Southern Illinois 194. On this point, it is interesting difficult not to read ... this [as]
to note the rhetorical similarity be- Tafuri's identification of his own 3-7. Manfredo Tafuri, Theories
University Press, 1987) 106. The
tween the list of Klee's achieve- situation as historian with that of and History of Architecture(New
"betrayal"comment is noted in
Prasad,"LeCorbusierin India,"281. ments at the conclusion of Schwitters as artist; Schwitters York:Harper& Row, 1979). Fig 6.
Theoriesand History of Architec- emerges in these pages as both Private collection, Berne, Switzer-
189. "Vous savez, je suis un vieux ture and those of the Benjaminian land.
herald and personal hero.... Such
cornichon, mais j'auraisencore Le Corbusier in the 1976 interview a generic determination of the
dans la tete des plans pour au 8-11. Le Corbusier and Pierre
in AMC: they are close to inter- 'story line' is, one would think,
moins cent ans. A tout AI'heure, Jeanneret, Oeuvre
changeable. Klee "recognized the structurallycloser to the domain of complite,
donc" (Le Corbusier to his friend 1934-1938 (Zurich: Editions
introduction of the unconscious, the fiction writer . . . than to that
Mme Schelbert; cited in Stanislaus d'Architecture, 1939).
of the irrational, of ambiguity and of the historian who affirms the
von Moos, Le Corbusier, of the unsolved tension between 12, 13. Le Corbusier and Pierre
l'architecte et son myth [Paris:Ho- necessity of detachment" ("Post-
opposite polarities, into the struc- Jeanneret, Oeuvrecomplate,
rizon de France, 1971], 302-3). script," 186-87).
ture of artistic activity" and "it was 1929-1932 (Zurich: Editions H.
The highly characteristic oxymo- 199. "Entretien avec Manfredo
Le Corbusier who discovered the Girsberger, 1935).
ron of old greenhorn makes this Tafuri," 65.
unconscious, the lyrical, the imagi- 14. Le Corbusier, Oeuvrecomplete,
anecdote entirely credible. On the
nary, who practically discovered 200. "Aschildren," Le Corbusier 1957-65 (Zurich: Editions
"defiant bravado"that character- the crisis of the crisis of the ob- says, "we were exhorted by Ruskin. d'Architecture, 1965).
ized his attitude to death, see Tim
ject." Tafuri had already compared Dense apostle, complex, contradic-
Benton, "The Sacred and the Le Corbusier's of Poeme de l'angle 15, 16. Willy Boesiger, ed., Le
tory, paradoxical.... He gave a
Search for Myths," in Le Corbusier: droit and Klee's graphics in a note demonstration of honesty to a Corbusier'sLast Works (New York:
Architect of the Century, 244. to Architectureand Utopia, where Praeger, 1970).
population stuffed with the first
190. Walter Benjamin, "The Im- the two artists share a "searchfor saturating incursions of the na- 17. Manfredo Tafuri, History of
age of Proust," in Illuminations, synthesis [that is] enriched by the scent machine age." His example is Italian Architecture,1944-1985
201. We are following John uncertainty of memory, by equivo- Ruskin's description of a tomb in a (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
McCole's translation. Of these cal goal, even by the existence of Venetian church whose magnifi- 1989).
103


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Philosophy, History, and Autobiography: Manfredo Tafuri and the "Unsurpassed Lesson" of Le

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Hdl3neLipstadtis a visitingprofessorat Looking for Manfredo Tafuri

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1982 and the constancy of the role he is assigned there.

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A philological readingof the then-currentliteraturewould historical coupurebetween classicism and modernity in

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The current situation of architectureand of its criticism

Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Chapter 1

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Theoriesand Historyof Architecture:Chapter2

Tafuri has thus described the crisis of the object as a

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sense, the "wallas limitation of 'Rationalism."'Finally, it

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6. Klee, Air-tsu-dni, 1927.

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10. Bat'a Pavilion,Wall 3 11. Bat'a Pavilion, roof plan.

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autobiographical,importance for this evolution. Tracing

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that, in this case at least, it might be possible to have a

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If we now turn to the Capitol at Chandigarh, we find that

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nate the environment." His original contribution was to

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about government.) At Bhakra,on the contrary,the as-

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think of it as capable of being a success. It is a strange Notes Americanized throughout. Empha-

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here to Persico, Adolph Behne, relationship to Kahn as well. It is 6 il nostro padrone,"

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