AUTONOMOUS ARCHITECTURE AND THE QUEST FOR FORM Tahl Kaminer states that architecture have never had a distinct theory of autonomy similar to art like “ l’art pour l’art movement” yet, as architecture started to decline modernism and turned into history, adopted aesthetic values and, the term of “autonomous architecture” became more “lucid”. 1 He continues his statement, the development of idea of autonomy into a crucial issue in 1970s was not a “consequence” situation, during those years optimistic ideas about improved future of Modern Architecture was changed into doubt and discontent in present and the historical question of past. 2 Moreover, Kaminer explains that in mid 1970s before modernism was disapproved, architecture was avoided, outdated and estranged from unstable society, then the term of autonomy came into existence and the situation of architecture developed and transformed within two decades. 3 Similarly to Kaminer, K. Michael Hays states that the idea of architectural autonomy emerged in consequence of these conditions of the time and he points out the importance of 1970s in architecture in a few words in 2001: “The most theoretically aware of contemporary architects have rejected what was the most important operative concept 1 Tahl Kaminer, “Autonomy and the resuscitation of the discipline”, in Architecture, Crisis and Resuscitation, (Oxon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 74. 2 Ibid., pp. 77-82. 3 Ibid.
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AUTONOMOUS ARCHITECTURE
AND
THE QUEST FOR FORM
Tahl Kaminer states that architecture have never had a distinct theory of autonomy
similar to art like “ l’art pour l’art movement” yet, as architecture started to decline
modernism and turned into history, adopted aesthetic values and, the term of “autonomous
architecture” became more “lucid”.1 He continues his statement, the development of idea of
autonomy into a crucial issue in 1970s was not a “consequence” situation, during those years
optimistic ideas about improved future of Modern Architecture was changed into doubt and
discontent in present and the historical question of past.2 Moreover, Kaminer explains that in
mid 1970s before modernism was disapproved, architecture was avoided, outdated and
estranged from unstable society, then the term of autonomy came into existence and the
situation of architecture developed and transformed within two decades.3 Similarly to
Kaminer, K. Michael Hays states that the idea of architectural autonomy emerged in
consequence of these conditions of the time and he points out the importance of 1970s in
architecture in a few words in 2001:
“The most theoretically aware of contemporary architects have rejected what was the
most important operative concept of architecture theory at the moment of its
re-foundation in the 1970s: namely the aspiration toward autonomous forms and tech-
niques to create and measure the distance between a resistant, critical practice and the
degraded languages and ideologies of consumer culture that surround it.”4
As a result of the circumstances, firstly in 1973 in the articles of “Oppositions”, editors began
to discuss architectural autonomy but, they did not use the term itself, autonomous architec-
ture was examined under the names of “neo-realism”, “neo-rationalism” and
1 Tahl Kaminer, “Autonomy and the resuscitation of the discipline”, in Architecture, Crisis and Resuscitation, (Oxon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 74.2 Ibid., pp. 77-82.3 Ibid.4 K. Michael Hays, “Prolegomenon for a Study Linking the Advanced Architecture of the Present tothat of the 1970s through Ideologies of Media, the Experience of Cities in Transition, and theOngoing Effects of Reification,” Perspecta: the Yale Architectural Journal. vol. 32, (The MIT Press, 2001), pp. 100-107.
“neo-classicism”.5 Later on, in 1983, in the Harvard Architecture Review, the clear title “au-
tonomous architecture” appeared and autonomy in architecture started to be debated in more
perceptible way with relation to “architectural production”.6 According to the editors of Har-
vard review autonomous architecture embraced two important traditions, “classical as thesis,
modern as anti-thesis” and, generated relationship between type and form rather than being
pressed into a particular style. 7 In the Harvard Review, editors define autonomous architec-
ture as:
“Autonomous architecture is closely related to the idea of type and the notion of an
architectural discipline. The possibility of autonomy ultimately depends on archi-
tecture’s reference to a priori, ideal forms.”8
In addition to these crucial journals, short while ago in “Perspecta” the Yale Architectural
Journal the autonomy in architecture were re-appraised and re-discussed and in the Editors’
Statement discussions of autonomy in architecture declared as a “self-contained project with
its own legible, meaningful forms” moreover, Stanford Anderson also highlighted the issue of
“use and form” in his article “Quasi-Autonomy in Architecture.9
In the light of the information, it can be stated that the idea of autonomy can be
interpreted in several different ways and architecture is autonomous or not according to
standing point of the dealt with the subject. Main argument of this research paper is a claim
that the purpose of embracing the idea of autonomy in architecture is quest for form. Because,
form, represents the aesthetic side of the architecture, is a major issue of architecture.
Furthermore, form which is the critical point of different intersection of different fields of
architecture, gives architects to create relationship between buildings to humanity. Likewise,
Gutenschwager defines architecture is a combination of “process (design) and product
(artifact)” and as buildings forms are meaningful both internally and externally, architectural
5 Canan Seyhun, “Introduction”, in the role of the architect and autonomy of architecture: an inquiry into the po-sition of the early modern architect and architecture: Le Corbusier and Maison Curutchet, (Middle East Techni-cal University, Unpublished Master Thesis, 2004), pp. 7.6 Ibid.7 As in the reader of arch 513 course, Andrew Anker, Mark Kessler, W. Scott Clark, Selected articles from"Autonomous Architecture," in Harvard Architecture Review, vol. 3 Winter 1984.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.
products are crucial both for society and architecture itself. 10 Furthermore, Arnheim
emphasizes the significance of architectural form in his books “The Dynamics of
Architectural Form” defining form as “the creation of a building’s tangible and visible
shapes” and he says that form as a building shape can be neglected but, cannot do without it.
However, form plays an important role, the influencers of development and exchanges of the
form always stay unclear. In his book “Sources of Architectural Form” Mark Gelernter
mentions that the main question of design theory is:
“How this idea of building form is generated, what influences its shape, from what is
derived?”
The search for form in architecture and art continued through the years and definitely it will
pursue in the future. Form, reflects understanding of architectural design, has distinct connec-
tion between different aspects of architecture, always stays crucial issue in architectural the-
ory. Therefore, form became central debate discussions of autonomy in architecture. In this
research, the ongoing search for architectural form will be examined through the adaptation
period of autonomy in architecture based on assertion that the idea of autonomy was received
as a response to quest for form.
Kaminer says that before the emergence of autonomy term in architecture, the idea of
autonomy was came into existence during Enlightenment in the writings of Voltaire and
Rousseau as connected with “ideal freedom” and in those years, aesthetics adapted as a
philosophy of art because, it was required as a mean of analyzing art's purpose and function,
autonomy can “legitimize” art’s role therefore, aesthetics united with autonomy.11 Moreover,
he also states that autonomy played an significant role in Kant’s metaphysics of morals,
Kaminer states that Kant used the “autonomy” term in his crucial work “Critique of
Judgement” as the essence of human will as “moral judgement”, and in his writings about
aesthetics, Kant defined aesthetics as a distinct branch of philosophy, he explained “human
pleasure in the beauty of natural and cultural object” were free and purposeless
–“purposiveness without purpose” and were not related with daily requirements.12 Haskins
10 Gerald Gutenschwager, “Architecture in a Changing World: The New Rhetoric of Form”, in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 49, No. 4, (Blackbell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics, 1996), pp. 246-258.11 Kaminer, op cit., pp. 74-77.12 Ibid.
summarizes Kant’s point of view about art and aesthetics in a few words:
“For Kant, then, a work of art's aesthetic value (though he uses no expression
translatable directly as "aesthetic value") needs to be understood as a comprehensive
form of instrumental value, or of what some philosophers have meant by "inherent
value": a work is valuable for its own sake and for the sake of some end(s) beyond it-
self.”13
According to Kaminer with the great contribution of “Kant’s notion of autonomy of the
human will and his idea of the disinterested reception of art” the artistic movement l’art pour
l’art appeared in the romanticism era.14 Wood also states that in romanticism, the idea of
“purposeless “ is the focal point of that time, life itself became a work of art that depended on
aesthetic principles and world was tried to be changed with making poems and paintings
depending on aesthetics values. 15As quoted in Kaminer’s book Gautier explains the main
thought of the era:
“The useless alone is truly beautiful; everything is ugly, since it is an expression of a
need, and man’s needs are, like his pitiful, infirm nature, ignoble and disgusting. The
most useful place in the house is the latrines.”16
Wood says that unfortunately the attempt of changing world with constructing a building was
much more difficult than trying to heal the world with writing poems or depicting paintings.17
Therefore, Kaminer claims that thanks to “art’s for art’s sake rebellion” functionalist and
utilitarian thoughts in art altered into artistic vision of community but, unlike art in those
years architecture did not have same evolution and never had its own autonomous theory.18
In spite of Kaminer’s statements that the term of autonomy became more “lucid” after
art isolated from purpose, Lefaivre and Tzonis explain architectural autonomy as referencing
to medieval texts with utilitarian its approach. According to Lefaivre and Tzonis, as in the
13 Casey Haskins, “Kant and the autonomy of art”, in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 47,
No. 1, (Blackbell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics, 1989), pp. 43-54.14 Kaminer, op cit., pp. 75.15 Christopher Wood, “Why Autonomy?”, in Perspecta, Vol. 33, Mining Autonomy, (The MIT Press on behalf
ofPerspecta, 2002), pp. 48-53.16 Kaminer, op cit., pp. 75.17 Wood, op cit.18 Ibid., pp. 77.
writings of Socrates in Pistols, the new architectural design attitude came into existence
which “whether forms are normative in themselves” – that is autonomous – became an issue,
in mediaeval texts some forms were seen as “auspicious” some of them seen as bad or unluck
so, the “measure of autonomy” defined with architectural form.”19 Lefaivre and Tzonis asserts
that utilitarian and autonomous point of view of architecture appeared in De Architecture
written by Vitruvius but, because of its poetic written it was not easy to comprehend the text,
after Vitruvius, in the Ten Books of Architecture by Alberti the theory of autonomy became
more clear and architectural forms were defined as “products of formal norms whose warrant
is the pleasure of the viewer” and, the idea of autonomy in architecture accepted as “purely
formal activity”20. Lefaivre and Tzonis explain the importance of form and “pictorial effect”
of architectural autonomy with its “social content and use” as turning in the beginning of
architecture, the aim of their examination, returning to idea of autonomy, was not receiving
back to the beauty norms yet, emphasizing “preciousness” of form will always be stayed
crucial issue.21I have drawn from the results here as depending on the writings of Lefaivre and
Tzonis is that the idea of autonomy was in the heart of architecture from Vitruvius to now,
and in the autonomy discussions architectural form was always key issue and main problem at
the sometime. However, until 1970s as architecture was captured by district utilitarian
approach, architecture did not need to return idea of autonomy although the idea was existed
unconsciously essence of itself. As architecture threatened from mechanization, by working
to return to the essence of architecture, architectural forms became main instrument.
Vidler points out that in 1933, the Viennese historian Emil Kaufmann was the first
who used the term “autonomen architectur” in his study Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier ,
Kaufmann did not accept modernism as a “ brief avant-garde experiment” in the 1920s, he
interpret the period a development of aesthetic with the philosophy of Kant’s autonomy of
will.22 As in quoted from Vidler, in the translation by Teyssot, Kaufmann says that:
“At the time when Kant rejects all the moral philosophies of the past and decrees the
autonomy of the will as the supreme principle of ethics,” an analogous transformation
takes place in architecture. In the sketches of Ledoux these new objectives appear for
19 As in the reader of arch 513 course, Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis. “The Question of Autonomy in Ar-chitecture,” in Harvard Architecture Review. vol. 3, 1984, pp. 25-42.20 Ibid.21 Ibid.22 Anthony Vidler, “Emil Kaufmann and the Claims of Kantian Autonomy”, in Perspecta, Vol. 33, Mining Autonomy, (The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta, 2002), pp. 16-29
the first time in all their clarity. His works marks the birth of autonomous
architecture.”23
Fig. 1 Sketches of Ledoux
(Source: Anthony Vidler, Emil Kaufmann and the Claims of Kantian Autonomy, Perspecta, Vol.33, Mining Au-tonomy, pp. 19)
According to Vidler , Kaufmann examined autonomy from Kant to Le Corbusier in
philosophy and architecture, at first Kaufmann’s works were found generalized and
underestimated by protective historians like Hans Sedmayr but, in 1970s his works “re-
interpreted” by Peter Eisenman and Aldo Rossi and he was accepted as an architectural
theorist who works on autonomy with linguistic terms.24 In addition to Vidler’s statement,
Kultermann claims that as a result of the changes in 1910, 1930 and 1950, in 1970s a new
perspective of architectural thought was developed by architects who were born in between
1930s-1940s, their works were related with 1960s, 1970s and developed through that years
yet, also affected from earlier achievements.25 Hays also states that however, the ideology of
autonomy was very old in fact depended on Enlightenment period, the autonomy concept
became a significant issue in 1970s, because at that times, there was a great pleasure of
“technological optimization and utilitarianism” on architecture which turned to the servant of
industry and started to lose its own “specificity”, autonomy saved architecture from collision
into another discourse with “intervening culture” negatively.26 Moreover, Vidler declares that
architectural autonomy has spent it transformation of its own meaning in modern period with
emphasizing the importance of architectural forms opposed to the “style” and changing to role
of the architects in professional world.27
23 Ibid.24 Ibid.25 Udo Kultermann, “Autonomous Architecture Since 1970: Regional Identity and the Regaining of Tradition”, in Architecture in the 20th Century, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993), pp. 185-187.26 Hays, op cit.27 Vidler, op cit.
As autonomy in architecture plays significant role in continuous search for form, the
critical question is -what is the main tool of autonomous architecture? In the Harvard
Architectural Review editors explain the term of autonomous architecture with its connection
to type and they claim that as if autonomous architecture simplified with a particular style, it
was “type”, although it can be assumed that type is generated with a “certain power and
precedence as a source of identity” and considered as affected from force of function, there is
an “arbitrary” meaning of type and its relations.28 Lawrence and Low explain the importance
of type in architecture in the article Built Environment and Spatial Form:
“Architecture is typically defined to encompass the built forms, often monumental,
characteristic of civilizations, and self-consciously designed and built by specialists.
The current typological debate among architects, architectural historians, and
folklorists, seems only tangential to our concerns here, since we believe any
anthropological theory of the built environment should be able to accommodate and
explain all “types”.29
Additionally, K. Michael Hays declares that in 1970 as a result of the demands of autonomy
and “architectural presentation” of the city, the theory of typology in architecture established
by architects.30 As quoted in “Oppositions” by Hays, Rafael Moneo explains the significance
of typology in a few words:
“To understand the question of type is to understand the nature of the architectural
object today. It is a question that cannot be avoided. The architectural object can no
longer be considered as a single, isolated event because it is bounded by the world that
surrounds it as well as by its history. It extends life to other objects by virtue of its
specific architectural condition, thereby establishing a chain of related events in which
it is possible to and common formal structures.”31
Moreover, Anthony Vidler explains that in 18th century there were two dominant typologies
that one of them was related with historical explanation of the city and the other was occurred
28 Anker, Kessler, Scott, Clark, op cit.29 Denise L. Lawrence, Seths M. Low, “The Built Enviroment and Spatial Form”, in Annual Review of
Anthropology, Vol. 19, (Published by: Annual Reviews, 1990), pp. 453-505.30 Hays, op cit.31 Anthony Vidler, “Third Typology”, in Architecture theory since 1968 / edited by K. Michael Hays, (Cam-bridge: The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 284-296.
as a result of industrialization and assimilation of architecture into a “machine production”.32
Vidler continues to say, after modernism was started to be declined, architects turned into past
and the issue of typology became a crucial issue with the contribution of Leon Krier’s and
Aldo Rossi’s ideas, later than the new, third typology which main thought is the adaptation of
architectural forms into the city and consideration of entire city as its past and future
fragments rather than connection between form and use, was born.33 In addition to Vidler, the
editors of Harvard Architectural Review defines autonomous architecture as a synthesis of
classical and modern at the sometime, it accepts “classical as thesis” and “modern as
antithesis”, and two important architects, examined about type and typology in a different
ways, reflects the two different aspects of autonomous architecture. These architects are Aldo
Rossi whose ideas related with classical tradition and Peter Eisenman who reflects the modern
side of autonomous architecture.
Aldo Rossi defines architecture as an everlasting artifact which is a witness of
evaluation of civilization and occurred with the history of the city.34 About Rossi’s work
Mario Gandelsonas points out that:
“Rossi’s Architecture of the City presents a theory involving the persistence of form,
the insistence of urban traces in the permanent process of differentiation that
characterizes the historical city.”35
Rossi also states that the spirit of the city and psychological effects of buildings on people
were relevant with the “legibility” of form thus, as a result of the intercourse between form
and type, type was developed according to two main characteristics of architecture which are
aesthetic desire and demand for better environment for life.36 Rossi continues to say that the
logic of type generated according to form, type is complicated and continual and variable
from society to society so, type became basis of architecture.37 According to Hays, although
city combines fragmented and isolated architectural parts in a whole, each of them is crucial
and every single type creates the “genetic code” of the city and, Rossi’s Modena Cemetery is
32 Ibid.33 Ibid.34 Aldo Rossi, “The Architecture of the City”, in Theories And Manifestos Of Contemporary Architecture
edited by Charles Jencks and Karl Kropf, (Great Britain: Academy Editions, 1997)35 Mario Gandelsonas, “The City as the Object of Architecture”, in Assemblage,No.37, (The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 128-29.36 Ibid.37 Ibid.
a significant example of this idea.38 Hays explains the project:
“The project attempts to solve the most important technical issues in the same manner
as they are solved when designing a house, a school, or a hotel. As opposed to a house,
a school, or a hotel, where life itself modifies the work and its growth in time, the
cemetery foresees all modifications; in the cemetery, time possesses a different di-
mension. Faced with this relationship, architecture can only use its given elements, refus-
ing any suggestion not born out of its own making; therefore, the references to the ceme-
tery1are also found in the architecture of the cemetery, the house, and the city. Here,
the monument is analogous to the relationship between life and buildings in the modern
city.”39
Fig. 2 Aldo Rossi, Cemetery of San Cataldo,Modena(Source: Aldo Rossi. “Moderna Cemetery,” in Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal forIdeas and Criticism in Architecture, 1973-1984. ed. by. K. Michael Hays,, pp. 68-72)
Hays also highlights, Rossi’s typological demands can be seen as reminiscence for the
traditional European city which had its own architectural meaning was completely lost,
summarily, his interpretation of architecture was in “full historical awareness.”
As Aldo Rossi represents the classical attitude in autonomous architecture and
“architectural representation” of the cultural city, Peter Eisenman symbolizes the modernist
aspects of autonomous architecture. Hays points out that the term of “traditional city” is
started to be disappeared, and as a result of the changing and developing technology media,
the technology of communication itself, began to force public spaces to be change, the
38 Hays, op cit. 39 Aldo Rossi, “Cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena”, in Architecture theory since 1968 / edited by K. Michael Hays, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 68-72.
meaning of “public” became related with “pluralist, consumerist, suburban” culture.40
Moreover, according to Hays, unlike Rossi’s idea of revising traditional city, Eisenman
claimed that the idea of autonomy should be accepted with the importance of heterogeneity of
the “mediatic” city.41 Eisenman states that architecture should be separated from the weight of
past or future, architecture was a “fiction” with its own values, representation and
experiences.42 Eisenman explains his ideas about the era in a few words:
“With the rise of industrialization, this balance seems to have been fundamentally
disrupted. In that it had of necessity to come to terms with problems of a more com-
plex functional nature, particularly with respect to the accommodation of a mass
client, architecture became increasingly a social or programmatic art. And as the
functions became more complex, the ability to manifest the pure type-form eroded.”43
Eisenman defines architecture as “work of the language itself” and he extends a theory that
called “Post Functionalism” for developing new alternatives to functionalism and responding
changes of interaction between man and objects which main purpose turned description of it-
self rather than speak about the man, his theories were interpretation of relationship between
form and function in a humanist aspect related with the evolution of the form.44 Moreover, ac-
cording to Muzaffar in his book Eisenman Inside Out: Selected Writings, 1963-1988 he de-
clares his intention as:
“[p]rohibiting into the heat of architecture by an architect, not a historian or academic
theoretician, in attempt to explain its interior discourse, its inside, as something other
“than a study of essences or dialectic strategies.”45
Muzaffar also summarizes that Eisenman’s approach is so crucial because, his aim is exposing
the essence of architecture as cultural response and aesthetic demands, his works are not es-
caping from past, explanations of the unnecessary demand of returning into past. 46
40 Hays, op cit.41 Hays, op cit. 42 As in the reader of arch 513 course, Peter Eisenman, The End of the Classical: The end of the Beginning, theEnd of the End, in Perspecta, Vol. 21 1984, pp. 154-173.43 Peter Eisenman, “Post-Functionalism,” Oppositions 6 (Fall 1976)”, in Architecture theory since 1968 / edited by K. Michael Hays, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 234-240.44 Ibid.45 Ijlal Muzaffar, “Eisenman Inside Out: Selected Writings, 1963-1988”, in Future Anterior, Vol 1, No. 2, 2004.46 Ibid.
As seen in the works of Aldo Rossi and Peter Eisenman, after refusing solid restrictive
ideas of modernism, the connection between architecture and city became stronger with
contribution to the idea of typology and architecture now became a part of culture and society.
Moreover, due to humanistic aspect of autonomy, architecture is started to be used as a
protective tool against assimilation of city. Aurelli defines autonomous architecture is a period
when “the autonomy of architectural form from political, social and commercial significations
was discovered”.47 According to Editor’s Statement in Perspecta 33: Mining Autonomy,
autonomy was considered as the only way to withstand “capitalist cycle of production”,
architects in Oppositions emphasized the importance of social role of architecture and they
were against “technocracy and used autonomy as resistance to “status quo”.48 In his book Pier
Vittorio Aureli explains the importance of autonomy:
“Autonomy became a way neither to master nor to resist capitalism but instead to
transform it by means of a very sophisticated hermeneutics of its cultural effects, and
within the highly progressive perspective of the development of forces that were
supposed to be its antagonist.”49
Kaminer summarizes that although the theory of autonomy grew up in modernism, the
idea appeared after declination of modernism and autonomy played an important role to
“resuscitation” of architecture and led architecture to become a part of society rather than
alienated in changing world.50
As a result of all of this information, depending on Lefaivre’s and Kaminer’s
statements, it can be claimed that the idea of autonomy has always been in the essence of
architecture from Vitruvius to now but, it re-read, re-revised and re-appeared in modernism
period because, at that time architecture was captured by distinct utilitarian limitations.
According to Wood a synonym word of freedom, the autonomy term provided architecture to
be saved from solid functionalist ideas and reconnect humanity with culture and city.51 Hays
47 Ibid.48 “Editor’s Statement”, in Perspecta 33: Mining Autonomy, (Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/156729 ), pp.7. 49 Pier Vittorio Aureli. The Project of Autonomy, (New York: Columbia Univ., The Temple Hoyne Buelle
Center, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), pp.5-14.50 Kaminier, op cit., pp. 81.51 Wood, op cit.