Is Space Political?
SPACE
1: A period of time; its duration
2: A limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions
3: a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction
4: Physical space independent of what occupies it – absolute space
5: The region beyond Earth’s atmosphere pr beyond the solar system
So what is space? In order to take stance on the polemical argument, Is Space Political, we must first settle on what space is. Space in definition has numerous meanings, but as post-structuralists theorize, anything can mean anything. “A” no longer just means “A”, it can also mean “B”, “C”, “D”, etc. Henri Lefebvre states that “a specific or indefinite multiplicity of meanings, a shifted hierarchy in which now one, now another meanings comes momentarily to the fore, by means of – and for the sake of – a particular action”. In the theory of language we see that text is an element of how we understand meanings. The meaning of text depends directly upon the texture. Take for example a use of signifiers and the signified, a chair in the context of a church and that of a home, the language to describe the chair is a signifier of the chair or signified. The chair takes on 2 different meanings due to the signifier becoming disconnected by the power or dominance of the space it is in. As Fredric Jameson points out, we can not remove ourselves from the fabric of society so we can not fully understand the “truth” of an object. By using this theory of text and texture we can conclude this argument:
Text is based on Texture
Texture is based on Culture
Culture is based on Society
Society is based on Government
Government is based on Politics
Therefore: Text is based on Politics
Consequently if this is true, everything, including space, is political. The duration of this investigation will work off of this premise in order to prove the argument at hand.
It is assumed that “space” is a referential signifier to Architecture. Architecture in classification is known as a formation or construction as or as if as the result of conscious act. In Post-Structuralist thought a conscious act is based on the fabric of society, which is a realm we can not get outside of. All actions in this theory are determined due to the dominance of tradition. This dominance of tradition, according to a reading from Andrew Benjamin, can not be escaped because tradition defines what is outside of it. Historically, we know that Architecture was to house. Structures we erected as a means to a purpose or function. Even if we see Architecture in an avant-garde movement, due to Architecture’s tendency to always moving and creating new boundaries, we are still in the realm of tradition. The avant-garde, which begins on the fringe of society, will end up working its way to the center and hence becoming part of tradition. When that shift occurs the meaning takes on a completely new meaning from something that once held power. When the tradition no longer dominates, it has lost its power. In Post-Structuralist theory this power balance is recognized where there is always emphasis on one above the other. This itself is a very political notion of power and the balance of power.
“The contemporary age is dominated by capitalism. There is no space outside exchange society. Within postmodern culture everything is immediately co-opted into commodities and images.” Fredric Jameson. Society gives the meaning to the space, but Architecture can not change society it only acts as a catalyst. In readings of Bernard Tschumi we see that Architecture can only speed-up or slow-down society and the intention behind Architecture makes it political. “Architecture has always been as much about the event that takes place in a space as about the space itself. There is no Architecture without event” Bernard Tschumi. Foucault termed an event as a turning point not an origin or and end while Jacques Derrida defined it as “the emergence of a disparate multiplicity” or a constant shift of meaning. Therefore, if space is dependant on events and events are caused by society, than we conclude that space is affected by society.
In a more conventional sense, Architecture has to deal with local and global governing factors. To make architecture one must abide by the rules and regulations that society has set forth for development. “Building codes, zoning, city ordinances, local politics, wards and parishes, bosses, payoffs, unions and the Mafia – I suppose all this comes to mind first when we think of attempting to refocus our object so that an architectural space can slowly be seen as persisting in the middle of politics.” Fredric Jameson. The fact that many postmodernist thinkers are steeped in Marxist ideology gives insight into why this is true. Marxist theory is directed at social change and the fact that they want to analyze social relations in order to change them. This is an attack against a Capitalist society for the injustices that play a major role in economics. The Marxists wanted a days pay to be worth what the product produced. In a Capitalist society the workers are compensated the same amount no matter how much money the company makes. This unequal share of wealth is a major issue within Marxist theory. Marxism also deals with materialism and how we have created a material culture. Tschumi, Lefebvre and Jameson all talk of the surface meaning and image, in terms of the power struggle and consumption of. The reason may be that those thinkers were all under the influence of the Marxist theories. The idea of consumption of the “image” architecture presents is in a direct relation to a Capitalist society. Hegel was quoted to say that “architecture was whatever in a building did not point to utility”. So if Architecture is about the image then it is stuck in a political realm if it is known or not. Everything that deals with Architecture and the making of Architecture in one or more ways directly relates to politics and society.
The postmodern movement was one that arrived at many different conclusions that made the Architectural world think again but this time in another direction. The Marxist influences and the philosophical basis for a myriad of theories brought to light issues that not necessarily converted to an architectural form. So did these theorists and thinkers come up with an answer to the question, “Is Space Political?”? By using the argument presented at the onset, we see that since textures are what define a postmodern text, that space must be political with deductive reasoning. Through the argument of the signified and signifiers, the role of tradition and the power struggle, space and events, as well as society and Marxism, we can conclude that space is political and has been determined to be so.
“Architecture can somehow never get out of politics” Fredric Jameson.
Posted in Architectural Theory by Studio Render with 46 comments.
Avant-Garde movements in terms of Normative and Non-Normative Architecture
During the 20th Century various avant-garde movements have emerged within the context of major architecture. Normative architecture is termed as the architecture of everyday; the major architecture. This position is apolitical, territorial and conservative. The avant-garde takes the opposing position to normative architecture in that the status-quo is not what the leading edge is about. This minor architecture is political and deterritorialized. The 20th Century saw many changes on what it meant to be avant-garde. Leading up to this period of time it changed from universal civilization (18th), anti-industrial & gothic revival (19th), art for art’s sake (late 19th) and lead into the technological progress in the 20th Century. The remainder of this study will cover what the avant-garde is and what changes in thought have done to it over the modern era.
Repetition is about tradition. This is the stance of the Post-Structuralists where the thinkers proclaim that tradition can not be escaped because tradition defines what is outside of it. The avant-garde, the front and leading edge, of culture is continuously being replaced by the next. When the shift occurs, the once avant-garde position moves towards the center of the fabric of society and in time becomes part of tradition. Architecture in these terms is the same; it is always about creating its boundaries. In any period of architecture it can be said it is in one of three phases: Becoming & Changing, Current or Institutionalizing.
The avant-garde in Post-Structuralism has been compared to the Sublime. The Sublime is that sense of feeling terror but knowing you are in safety. That moment in time where the sublime occurs is the avant-garde, but after that moment it follows the same slope. Once the terror no longer dominates it has lost its power and the meaning takes on a completely new meaning to something that once held power. That conversion changes from being avant-garde to tradition.
Not all of the 20th century thinkers believed that the avant-garde was possible. Bernard Tschumi detailed a similar theory to the Sublime. He theorized that you can not both think and experience at the same time. Architecture in this view exists between the conceptual (a thing if the mind) and the perceptual (experience); the pyramid and the labyrinth. Can not be both, but it is. This dichotomy between mind and body presents a paradox. Tschumi also details an idea of architecture in terms of fireworks. “Produce a delight that cannot be sold or bought, that has no exchange value and cannot be integrated in the production cycle.” Phenomenologists argued the avant-garde as well as but as a struggle between socialism and capitalism. These theorists believed it was impossible and came up with the term arrieve-garde. The arrieve-garde was a theory that you don’t start from zero, but you also do not return to the past. They called for distance to be made from the Enlightenment and from the reactionary impulse to return to the architectonic forms of the preindustrial past.
“Over the past century-and-a-half avant-garde culture has assumed different roles, at times facilitating the process of modernization and thereby acting, in part, as a progressive, liberative form, at times being virulently opposed to the positivism of bourgeois culture.”
Posted in Architectural Theory and tagged 20th century, anti-industrial, architect, architecture, avant-garde, bernard tschumi, culture, Discussion, gothic revivial, history, modernization, normative, phenomenology, preindustrial, review, style, sublime by Studio Render with 75 comments.
Making in Architecture
“Making in architecture has been defined as the process of conception, creation and realization of a building design. In the early part of the twentieth century, ‘Making’ has been mediated by the presence of a modern consciousness that responds to a new reality.”
From this point on, this paper will be about this paper. The intent of this paper is to discuss the new reality in the terms of Architecture of the early twentieth century. This is a Modernist thought process; the reality of this paper is that the past must be referenced to validate the content. The early twentieth century brought about a new thought process in Architecture, Modernism, which included styles such as futurism, constructivism and purism. This modern consciousness changed the reality of ‘Making’ in architecture, but what was this new reality? How was this new work conceived, created and realized? What were the factors behind these changes?
We are looking at a shift in the way the world thought. This shift was made possible by asking the right question: How? This question alone brought about consciousness in reason, the laws of nature and the order of the universe. Man had discovered that, “though one cannot know the truth, man can at least know what he makes himself”. By asking How instead of What, homo faber (man the maker) proceeded down a path of discovery and development by discontinuing the linear nature of the past to the present. This Modern movement dealt with a self-referential nature in architecture, looking onto itself for answers. By architecture referencing itself and not history, gave intent to the ‘Making’ of architecture as well as giving it a direction. The break from history, self-referential signs, progressive experience of a building by movement and volume in architecture all show the language of this new reality.
Mass production and standardization of the Industrial Revolution brought the Purism, the Bauhaus and the International Style into the vanguard of this new reality in ‘Making’. The industrial revolution influenced the Bauhaus that based the work of ‘Making’ as a team-work effort or an industrial production. A statement from the Bauhaus talked of this, “Building should be the result of a collective effort and that each artist-craftsman should contribute his part with full awareness of its purpose in relation to the whole building”. Conception of design for the French Purists like Le Corbusier contained principals of Architecture as a volume rather than a mass and regularity rather than axial symmetry for means of ordering. Purism by definition breaks down to the reduction of all buildings to the basic geometric shapes of rectangle, plane surface, cube and cylinder. The Bauhaus thinkers also used the universal truth or pure geometry and object type, although abstract painting influenced and not the cubism of the Purists. The Bauhaus thinkers with the influence of constructivist design dealt with structure and the space it occupies. In contrast, Mies van der Rohe used walls as a device for direction and to define space instead of using them as a load bearing piece of a building as seen in Classical Architecture.
Creation for the International Style dealt with the following main objects: pilotis, continuous strips of fenestration, glass walls and flat roofs. “More than a revolution in building technique, though its characteristic effects of hovering volumes and interpenetrating planes admittedly relied on the machine-age materials of concrete, steel and glass”. The thin Pilotis we used to show they did not have to support a heavy mass from the volume above, usually a concrete geometric shape, like as seen in Poissy, France with Villa Savoye. The ribbon windows were created to show that the wall was a non-load bearing object and acted more as the tightly wrapped skin around the structure. These principals were used as an exaggeration of the idea, to drive the point home. The Bauhaus statement regarding creation stated, “We aim to create, organic architecture whose inner logic will be radiant and naked, unencumbered by lying facings and trickery; we want architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios and fast cars…with the increasing strength of the new materials – steel, concrete, glass – and with the new audacity of engineering, the ponderousness of the old methods of building is giving way to a new lightness and airiness”. The Bauhaus had to deal with ruins of a defeated nation in Germany as well as the financial effects of the war, Walter Gropius said of this, “The benumbered world is shaken up, the old human spirit is invalidated and in flux towards a new form”. The new form was a horizontal layering of space and the expression of hovering planes, the building as a whole being formed on cantilevered trays on pillars with brackets. The use of marble, steel and glass with the design of a recessed column line eliminated the vertical corner line and expressed the horizontal nature as well as showing a continuation of material.
The realization of Architects like Le Corbusier was that the “vast imaginative world included a vision of the ideal city, a philosophy of nature and a strong feeling for the Classical tradition”. The Modernists of this time were based in thought of a self-referential nature, but the past can be seen as the reference for aspects of most designs of that period, including Le Corbusier use of the golden section and human scale ordering. The modern use of these principals can not be critiqued in a traditional manner to understand, one must see the intention behind the idea. Modern architecture is also a style that cannot be totally realized without the movement of the observer. The progressive experience of a building is accomplished only by movement of the observer. One must move through spaces to fully understand it as the building reveals itself or as in a panoramic operation. The constructivists realized that with mass production becoming the overriding force in construction that “efficiency for its purpose” became their motto. They also realized that buildings had a formal relationship between structure and the space it occupies.
There was a new reality in the early twentieth century in terms of ‘Making’ and the new reality it created. By discussing what caused this movement, what factors went into changing the world’s views and showing how different styles of Architectural thought in that period all used similar aspects for ‘Making’. It can be said that the Modern movement in the early twentieth century can be defined as a method of thinking that breaks away from history, uses self-referential signs, shows progressive expression of a building by movement and has a notion of volume. To end with a quote of Mies van der Rohe which is commonly misused, “Less is More”, the truth and purity of this paper is completed by the lack of that which is not essential.
Encyclopedia of Modern Architecture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1964.
Curtis, William J R. Modern Architecture. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1987.
Gardiner, Stephen. Le Corbusier / Stephen Gardiner. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988.
Stevenson, Neil. Architecture. New York: DK Publishing Inc., 1997.
Trachtenberg, Marvin and Hyman, Isabelle. Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism. Netherlands: Harry N. Abrams, B.V. 1986.
Posted in Architectural Theory and tagged architecture, bauhaus, constructivists, development, Discussion, golden section, history, homo faber, industry, international style, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, modern, modernists, organic architecture, pilotis, purism, purists, review, style, technology, theory, twentieth century, villa savoye, Walter Gropius by Studio Render with 77 comments.
