8. Place is not a Post-Card: ‘The Problem of Context in Contemporary ArchitectureArchitectural Philosophy and Hermeneutic CCunisrian NonbeRc-ScHvt2’s WRITINGS on architectural the- ‘ory were of crucial importance to elevate architectural discourse beyond the reductive arguments of rationalism and formalism that generally dominated education and practice during the 1960'sand 70'. His first book, Intentions in Architecture, though inspired by structuralism, was already an attempt to connect ar- tural theory to broader philosophical positions; a strate- _gy tha: I felt was crucial at the time to move architecture zway from fanctionalism and unproductive stylistic debates." His sub- sequent books took a phenomenological turn His revised posi- tion, influenced by Heidegger and existential, is perhaps best ce, Space and Architecture (1971), Genius ‘Loci, Towards’ a Phtionnenology of Architecture (1980), and in The Concept of Dweling (1985) | wish to start my discussion by revisiting Norberg-Schal’s use ofthe concept of genius loci. The “spirit of place” was crucial ‘concept for him during the 70's and in his later work: its identi- fication in historical contexts a proof of architectures mearing. He writes: “Prague... seizes you and remains with you as hardly any other place... this closeness of the earth... The strength of ‘Prague asa place depends first of ll on the flt presence of the ge- ‘nus loc’ throughout” The language is unquestionably moving and evocative of experience. In his books, however, this “spirit” is transmitted to the reader through black and white (and only later colour) photography, carefully framed and edited. “Genius loci” came to stand for an appropriate identification of context, a a setting and point of departure for meaningful contempo- rary design practices. How is this “spirit of place” given? Isit the ‘embodiment of a tradition hermetic to the alien? Is it objective, like a picture? Do we have to transform our self-understancing, and our understanding of perception in order to “get it"? Or sit Plc ot Post Card The Problem of Contest in Contenpnary Architects ig 8 Plazza alia in New Orleans by Charles Moore (completed 1978). Itis not mere coincidence that the appropriation ofthe con- ‘cept of genius loci by postmodern architects in the 198('s resulted in a fiasco, cresting nothing but pastiche. Ifthe place could be ~wepresented as. pictureit takes little imagination to claim that its genius loci could certainty be recreated, like in Charles Moore's Piazza dtalia in New Orleans (fig. 1). This urban project has rremained protlematic and practically ignored by the inhabi- tants of the city sine its inception. How may architecture and ‘urban form more authentically acknowledge the specific cultur- al particularities that we associate with the identity of a place? ‘Despite the powerful rhetoric of recent avant-garde practices ~ like Rem Koolhaas for instance ~ claiming that such identity is ‘more or less a delusion, the question remains challenging to our ‘experience. Since the strategies of postmodernism failed, does ‘this mean that anything goes instead? Does this give license to “starchitects” to build branded projects anywhere in the world, regardless of cultural milieu? This is evidently a central question for an ethical contemporary architecture that respects and em- ‘braces cultural differences. In my view, the question is real, but inherently ambiguous. Contrary to what many architects and critical theorists may think, contextualism is not an obvious op- ‘eration, particularly when what is at stake should be the designArchtctural Philosophy and Hermenentcs of attuned atmospheres for diverse cultural habits and practices. Furthermore, artistic products from the most diverse cultures seem to have the capacity to touch us by virtue of their para- doxical universality; they both belong to a time and place and ‘transcend it contributing to human sef-understanding, ‘The difficulties around this question are a direct result of 4 typically modern cultural dilemma, namely the challenge of imagining and building meaningful architecture and urban en- vironments in a world that in many respects, regardless of geo- graphical location, remains in the grip of Cartesian dualism. Descartes believed that in order to bridge the divide between the hhuman mind and the world, our vision should depend upon pre- cise perspective pictures. Thus geometrical perspective was iden- tified with the truth ofthe world All other sensory dimensions were potential distractions or ruses/Heidegger thought this re— diction of realty toa perspectval picture in fact revealed an in herent incapacity to perceive the “context” of objects it ignored ‘the Aristotelian insight that when an object changes place, this_ modifies its being, This visual “enframing.” a specific manifes- “Tation of the technological mentality, posed the gravest dangers to our world: a contemporary symptom isthe reduction of the ‘world to pictures, the hegemony of the image. Descartes’ dual- istic world has made the global village possible, one in which ‘concepts of reality and delusions of progress are fueled by the ‘evident successes of technology in controlling and dominating ‘the environment. In this predominantly scientist world, the ‘great majority of building reflects litle else but the enshrined, ‘supposedly objective and hedonistic values of economy and eff- siencys such architecture instaniates, ikea signpost, monetary and political power. “In order to design and build a poetic world both grounded in a cuiture and also transcending it, a world that may enable ‘humans to participate in a sense of meaning without reducing ‘buildings to literal signs, we must question certain deep-rooted Place not Pos-Card The Problem of Cote n Contemporary Archtectre assumptions. First of all architecture isnot the mere manipu- lation of form or space, it is neither an art nora science in a re- duced sense of the terms. Understanding our profession this way ‘we will never grasp what belongs ina site, or what is appropriate to the given set of focal actions to which architecture must give place, ie, the architectural program. The ultimate relativity of value is insurmountable if architecture is reduced to a question of esthetics (in the eighteenth-century sense) “ornament” or style (in the nineteenth-century sense). Positions for and against the importance and precedence of a given cukural milieu are ‘equally fallacious if one understands such a milieu as a picture, ‘or as a materialistic, dead, and objectified collection of physical features or buildings. Such a “context” can neverbe the origin for the generation of meaningful architectural ideas and built work. ‘There isa noble desire, in reaction to the banality of techno- logical modernism, to relate recent urban architecture either to landscape, to one specific historical tradition ~ or both. This is the call that was articulated by Norberg- Schulz. He writes: “Even {in our ‘global’ epoch, the spirit of place remains . reality, Human sdentity the identity of place, and the genius loci therefore oaght ts be waders piesecved” Context as an objectified, picture-like, lifeless form in the sense sketched above, however is far from a synonym of either nature or cultural heri- tage, and cannot be a point of departure for a more rooted archi- tecture. Iti interesting to point out that even Heidegger, usually identified with the conservative impulse toward rootedness and stable identity that characterizes Norberg-Schulzs works (and ‘often quoted by Norberg-Schulz as his main source), insisted in his late works on the transitory character of life and cultural ‘worlds, arguing that we continually remain within homelessness and attempted homecoming’ ‘To grasp the significance ofboth our given ratural world and ‘our histories asthe ground for a distinct architecture, we must understand these phenomena as interwoven, only. graspable_Areitectral Philosophy and Hermeneties through narratives, which also enable our self-understanding as modern architects, This hermeneutic imagination is indeed the ‘only sure foundation that may allow the architect to articulate a project as political position, following an understanding of what ‘ay be appropriate here and now. Key to this problem is the is contrary 10 scat ft r sivor prudence, the practical philosophy of Aristotle the ground ‘of culture that is also the ground of truly relevant human truths, including the good and the beautiful. The nature of such truth yr is of course unlike the truth as correspondence of mathematics, Mpct and closer tothe Heidegerin concept of altheia an event of Uunconcealment. Contemporary architect have a tendeney to bypas language, believing thatthe imagination, creativity and the project» identified with pitue-making~ can ocupy some universal realm that allows for ubiquity. In this way, we may fee! wwe are perfectly capable of designing in New York a school for ‘Uganda, for example, fulfilling an abstract brief provided by « client, for seemingly all that matters is an international language of forms, made posible by universal technological means Stores are crucial for an ethical pai for a design profes sional to state where she stands, History and “context” are nev- tr senply given He unchanging objets; we have to make thers tt every moment because understanding is tterpretation, and ‘our conceptual skills and background are very much part of our peoeption, which i never paste. We weave them in the pre ent through our own desire, and we must do this with humili: ‘yin an exchange with the culture in which we expect to build, Genin dslogue, confluence of horizons, is paramount. Only when emerging fom the deeply rooted language ofa particular culture can an appropriate positon be formulated sulting in + program and eventual an appropriate architectural projet. At peel sey’ ‘Pace na Post Card The Problem of Content in Cantemporary Architecture Nietasche has suggested, history is the most authentic knowledge wwe possess if we wish to act creatively, to take a position and make -a promise. History is our full inheritance: it comprises both the ‘constitution of the mental framework that has its roots in the Western tradition (for the contemporary technological world 1s constituted out of that tradition), and local architectural arti- facts that are cultural symbols made by others asking questions kindred to ours, artifacts through which we can glean an order allowing our present orientation. We should seek basic strategies for poetic inhabitation in the artifacts, history and fictions that constitute our background. This is of course far from being a call a simple retuin to the vernacular. Let me foreground, through afew examples, some aspects of experince that emerge from a phenomenological appreciation of context. It has been observed that the perception of invariant Colors and dimensions inthe empirical world is bound to spe- cific cultures through language. The Init inthe polar desert, for example, perceive many color where we see only white. Ye the perception of invariance, however it may occu, i a secondary ‘phenomenon, while the flow of experience itself is primary. Pure eee, they aways appear sitste, in aed, and under acer ‘ain light Similarly,» vertical dimension is always perceived as larger than the horizontal dimension of the same quantitative ex- ‘snot an optical illusion, We wl invariably ovres- timate the horizontal distance lling tower may reach, because vertical distance i, inthe fist instance, greater than horizon- tal distance. What we perceive as primary i always elastic time and distance depending, for instance, on whether we go home from the ofc riding bicycle on a faster, and depending oa whether we ae hungry or bored The mileage reading in the car cndometer iin this sense, secondary abstraction ‘Thus, if we turn to architecture and think of St. Peter's Basil- ica in Rome, we may choos to objet it as art historians often tension. ThiArchitectural Philosophy and Hermeneutic do, and state that its proportions are actually awkward and squat, ‘ignoring that Bernini's oval piazza makes it look right. Such in- tellectualizing objectifications of architecture constitute a dan- ‘gerous fallacy. Notice that the objectified, context-ess building, is taken as the real building, allowing the critic to utter such a ‘scathing judgment. St Peter's Basilica is what it isin its existing site, The work never exists outside or apart from its context, even. though we may wish to.consider itasan-autonomous geometri- cal object in the Cartesian space of our mind. Furthermore, the ‘Zontext that contributes so much to its identity is never pure- ly the objectified, measurable ste either. The site has a site; it is perceived through the body whose awareness always includes pre-reflectve consciousness. ‘Thus we must conclude that context is, crucial for architectural meaning, yet must be understood in its moze en- Compassing sense as situation or ground, or even as the “world of the work" It also follows that the issue of the generation of appropriate architectural ideas in an urban site or region of the ‘modern world 'sa complex problem that depends on the proper working ofthe imagination, reconciling what is given with what is possible in order to open up the possibility of poetic dwelling. Itis therefore a problem of metaphoricity it necessitates rhetor- ical and political thinking and not instrumental or stylistic de- duction. Only an architect with broad cultural understanding and roots in the humanities is lable to succeed in this task. As ‘we know wel, these are conditions that unfortunately do rot re- spond to the pedagogical priorities of contemporary architecture schools and professional corporations. ‘The modern world has a specific realty that is not indepen- dent from our consciousness. The world itself is an intentional phenomenon, and our place in history (as modern humans) de- ‘mands that our actions not become curtailed by a reactionary enslavement within prevailing traditions when these become ‘empty of content. Martin Heidegger ~ who helped establish the Place nota Pos-Car The Problem of Cone in Contemporary Architetre Phenomenological awareness at the root of my previous remarks ‘bout the importance of the site as place ~ writes as well: “The ‘ight into tradition, out of a combination of humility and pre- scription, can bring about nothing in itself other than self-decep- tion and blindness in relation to the historical moment”* Architectural historians have contributed to a delusion ‘when they falsely try to explain the development of architec- ‘ture as progressive organic change. The great architecture thet -we now perceive as our tradition is in fact the work of enlight- ‘ened individuals whose highly personal and imaginative syn- ‘theses were never “contextual” in the modern, narrow sense of the word. These works were atthe leading edge of culture atthe time they were created. ‘They fit into the culture and the natu- ral environment not becaise they were “formally coherent” but rather because their identity ~ that which they represented, and that allowed their builders and inhabitants a deep sense of rec- ‘ognition ~ was the result of the individual architect's broad and. -deep cultural roots in his/her own space/time. This iat the heart, ‘of architectural meaning: the participatory role of architecture Which, in its manifold historical embodiments, has allowed the individual inhabitant at different times in history and in all cul- tures to belong to an institutional totality and understand life as a coincidence of opposites, as @ given sense (meaning) in the po- etic incandescence that shows if (plurality) and death (unity) as potentially one. T have written elsewhere that our traditional sense of place or locus has been disrupted by our belief that technological, iso- tropic, geometric space can be the real ambit of our worldly tions? Australian philosopher Jeff Malpas grants that while place is fundamental, and primary to existence, ithas been 0 ‘our concepts of geometric space.” Our age supports an almost blind faith in applied science, one that has become increasing ly international and transcultural, fueled by ever more efficent systems of communication and information, blurring traditional sulted by_Archiecrl Philoepby and Hermenetis boundaries and, with them, the qualities of specific places that may still be present in everyday modern life. This is a reality that ust be acknowledged by architects and urban designers. The recovery of place is a critical project. It is not enough to look out, at the world or region transformed into a picture: cultural val ues and relations to place must be sought in architecture through 1 personal search, a work of the ethical imagination and not of pastiche or statistics. To expect that one can isolate regional or cultural characteristics and reflect them in architecture through 1 conscious, externalized operation is naive. Equally futile is the desire to recreate nostalgic “urban public space.” a parallelogram with four litle trees does not make a plaza. Postmodern simu- lations are not the modern equivalent of the locus where tradi- al architecture fulfilled its intersubjective, cultural promise to become a cosmic space, offering through experiential wonder 1 ground and orientation to our finite lives. This kind of con- textualism, regionalism or even revivalism has clearly failed to produce truly meaningful architecture, even when it rivals the surrogate forms of cultural participation represented by the me- dia, cyberspace or television. ‘What, then, are our alternatives? From the historical tra- jectory of modernity we have also inherited a very real capacity for reaction and personal reconciliation. The history ofthis al- ternative poetic epistemology started with the inception of the Romantic Movement and continued in the twentieth century, ‘mainly through surrealism and phenomenology. Making archi tecture with a desire to acknowledge local identity we must rec- ‘ognize the priority of embodiment and our connections to the natural world; and yet neither the world nor the body are simply given unmediated, asa permanent and unchanging essence. Our, conceptual skills can actually modify our perceptions, enriching, ‘or impoverishing them. Meditating upon an artificial lake creat- ed by planners in the middle of Dallas Ivan Illich demonstrates how difficult itis for H,O, a modern fluid whose function since Paes nota Pst. Card The Problem of Context in Contemporary Achileure the late-cighteenth century has been to “circulate” to appear as water under these conditions, as the mythical liquid that not ‘only makes life possible, but allows for remembering and for- getting. In arid regions where water is scarce, for example, this observation is crucial. While itis important to conserve H,O and to procure the amounts needed for practical purposes, itis even more fundemental to remember that its symbolic value can only be recovered through imaginative work, displacement and ‘metaphor. While waste must be avoided, the problem will not be solved by shutting down a few fountains. Life will be made worse if potential for true poetry is eliminated. ‘The world and the body image finaly ceased to be “classical” 1m the early nineteenth century. We have been severed from a tradition, and an architecture capable of disclosing places can not be the outcome of simple-minded extrapolation from historical ‘or autochthonous, vernacular buildings. The theory of function- alism obviously filed, becoming prey to its own reductionist ob- sessions, and yet almost regardless of what architects themselves may have said or written about their work, true modern archi tecture has been produced that is not identical to technological ‘building. Some modern architecture has immense atmospheric ‘power, and it sall diverse and heterogeneous, from Gaual’s Casa Mila to Aalto’ Faimio Sanatorium or Villa Mairea, from Mies’ ‘Barcelona Pavilion to Le Corbusier's La Tourette or Ronchamp. ‘Regardless of its “styl” or of its more or less figural or abstract, ‘quality, such architecture allows for cultural recognition; it cre- ates atmospheres that welcome our dreams, it represents our val- ‘ues in a mode ultimately irreducible to paraphrase. Contrary to common assumptions, this architecture is profoundly meaning- fal precisely because it does not have a meaning, like the logo of ‘a company or afilse idol, and rather opposes all strong dogmatic, and ideological reductions. Perhaps we should emphasi further: Barragan’s architecture doesnot represent “Mexico” asaArchitect Philosphy and Hermenetice Corbusier and France. This coupling isone of the most problem- atic misunderstandings of regionalism. As Giorgio Agamben has clearly explained, nation-states are modern fabrications often held together by police control: ‘True architecture always over ‘helms its simple function a sign and plays with power: this is why itis erucial for humanity's survival ‘Weexpect to be at home in our itis, to share a sense of exis- tential, and not merely physical, security. Yet our collective home must accept a dimension of utopia, one that accompanies the true values of modernity: the possibilty of real historical evo- lution and our self-assertion as individuals, leaving behind the repugnant prejudices of the past and transcending both totalitar tanism and anarchy. We must therefore embrace the positive as- pects of utopia, while remaining open to the gifts of our cultural region, particularly as made manifest in artifacts of many kinds, literary and artistic. I is my contentior that within this tradition of poetic artifacts in different media we may find appropriate strategies to be internalized and tested by the architect. Abstract architectural ideas evidently pose a danger of being easy to as similate to the alms of technological domination. The power of the modern architec as a maker, however, should not be denied, ‘The great works of modern architecture, even though they are in the world and belong to culture, like gestures or food, are com paratively fre from the traditional limitations and associations of the specific sit. This does not mean that these works simply ignore their place; on the contrary, when successful unveils the sense of place and returns it to us always been given, as the gift itself. Only by acknowledging this difficulty will we be able to transcend the danger of solipsism and irrelevance in architectural practice. Let me reiterate: there is obviously no creation ex nihil. Phenomenology proclaims that the werld co-emerges with con- sciousness and gives it its meanings. In this sense the artist re- vals the unnameable through the poetic image, the invisible and Place ots Poet Car: The Problem of Context in Contemporary Architecture concealed deep reality of our human world. Since perception is action and is never passive, the inveterate dualistic distinction between nature and culture is ambivalent. The structure of “ground, sky, and horizon” to which the poet and architect must allude is always present yet, in our technologleal world place can no longer be simply disclosed through a mimetic imagination: it has to be produced through a hermeneutic one.” This operation is first gestural ard linguistic, even dramatic, rather than simply ‘question of images. Indeed, suggesting that we can recognize purely material qualities - typolegical, topological, or morphological ~ at each cone of the different scales addressed by the planner or architect, in order to build a figural building or city in a supposedly iden- tifiable “place” with its particular genius loci is a delusion, It is «delusion that can be particularly dangerous when extrapolat- ed to the political realm. In a world where we are called to live with others, hoping to preserve our own autochthonous cultures but remaining open to newcomers, it is indeed of the essence ‘e.to objectfy. It does not live through signs, like swastikas or crucifixes, bt thcugh open symbolic artifacts and actions, more akin to Byzantine icons than to pagan idols: allowing meanings “through” without circumscribing them. Dwelling in the early third millennium demands a reinvention of the ground of ar- chitecture by idertifying frst our renewed, non-Cartesian body image and its particular and necessarily fragmented recollec- tion of Being. Through an introspective search, in the form of self-knowledge through making, the architect can then expect to ‘generate an order appropriate to the task and site, without giving ‘up the quest for figuration. The search is a personal one and, in ‘this sense is intimately related to the search of the painter, the ‘write, or the musician: a search always oriented by a historical sense, by the identification of a founding tradition. As in Roth- kos dark canvasesin Houston, the embodiment ofthe archetypalArchitect Philosophy and Herreneates landscape is today perhaps closer tothe universal than, sayin the ‘works of an eighteenth-century painter; yet it remains uniquely ‘concrete, immediately transformative, and equally impossible to paraphrase. ‘To conclude, let me return to the crucial role of language in all of this: the language of poetry, of course, as a language “against” the conventional connotative power of prose, capable “of expressing for us the true essence of a place, a city or a region; but also the language of stories, capable of articulating ways of life, relationships, modes of engagement, and most importantly, ethical isues. These are the stories of the traditional dwellers, ofthe historical dwellers, and of the future dwellers, eventually taking the form of the programs architects and urban designers ppt forward for new modes of collective participation inthe city of the future. Ths latter use of language is part of the architec- tural and urban project, as important I would argue as the draw- ings that may give itform; it has precedents in the early modern ‘works of Ledoux and Lequeu. Ths language is emphatically not algorithmic: it is not about functions but a vision ofa poetic life, for an idealized client, one that is thus related to its context. Itis the language of the humanities, and not one of hard science. Its deliberately a narrative language, keeping in mind Merleau-Pon- ty's observation that our fixation with calculation and universal language isa sure way to kill true language and human expres- sion. The program for the new city respectful of cultural identity isa promise, and must be a promise of beauty and justice ~ terms that as Elaine Scarry has shown, point to the same value rather than being antithetical It isa promise borne from the architect's responsible, personel imagination, through compassion for the ‘other, asa project fo: the common good. Place is nat a Post-Card The Problem of Context in Contemporary Archlucare NoTEs 1 Christan Norberg-Schula, Inentions in Architecture (Cambridge MA: MFT Press, 1968). 2 Norberg-Schul, Existence, Space and Architecture (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971; Genus Loc, Towards a Phenomenolgy of “Arhtecture (New York: Rizzi, 1980) The concep of dengan the ‘nay to fiqwatve architecture (New York: Rizzoli 1988). 3. Novberg-Schulz, Gents Loc, 78-8, 4. Norberg-Schulz,Theconcept of delling 70 5. Robert Mugerauer analyzes 77 of Heidegger late works (fom the 1940% tothe 19703) in Heidegger aa Homecoming (Torowo ON: U of Toronto Press, 2008). He concludes that Heidegger's final works, offen unknown outside local audiences, “detebe how one recognizes the meaning of a ife-werlds surroundings and iteralzes what is given at one wn in a manner that can ‘sccomamodate disturbing forces fom the outside” For farther elaboration, see ch. 15 ofthis volume. See ch. 2in this volume Martin Heldeger, “The Age ofthe Wodd-Picture” The Question Concerning Tecnology (New York: Garland Publishing, 1977), 136 9. Seech,9 in his volume 10, Jef Mapas, Place and Experience A Philosophical Topography (Cambridge UK: Cambeidge UP, 2007) 11, See for example, Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, Sovereign Pover and Bare Lif (Stanford CA: Stanford UP, 1958, 12. Foran analysis ofthe historical modalities of the imagination, ee Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination (Minneapolis MN: Uo | ‘Minnesota Press). ad