Culture Merchandise

8/18/2019 Culture Merchandise

1/12

Culture, Merchandise, or Just Light Entertainment? New Architecture at the Millennium

Author(s): Bruce Thomas

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 50, No. 4, (May, 1997), pp. 254-264

Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of

Architecture, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1425438

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2/12

Culture,Merchandise,

r

Just

Light

Entertainment?

New Architecturet the

Millennium

BRUCE

THOMAS,

Lehigh University

Much of

the

recent

discussion about architectural

theory

concerns the

so-

called

New

Spirit

in

design,

an

approach

that

urges

a redefinitionof archi-

tecture in

ways

"more

appropriate"

o

our

media-driven,

commercially

dominated millennialculture.

Many

of these ideas

are

wrapped

around their

own

newness.

Yet if

examined

closely,

the

newest new is not without

prece-

dent.

More

troubling

s the contention that the

quality

of

empathy

in archi-

tecture

must be redefined.

Empathy

has been essential to the

shaping

of the

built

environment,

a

characteristic

that

most

literally

renders architecture a

humanist endeavor. Yet now we

are

being

told

that an

appropriateempathy

for our time does not celebrate our

place

inthe

universe;rather,

the

human

condition

is

one

of

violation

and

abuse.

This

essay

questions

the

New

Spirit's

claim of newness and its

interpre-

tation of

empathy.

The

appropriation

of

unprecedented

newness is contra-

dicted by even the most superficialexamination of various avant-garde

movements that have

paraded through

the twentieth

century.

The

essay

fur-

ther

argues

that a

theory

that

finds the

Enlightenment

definitionof

empathy

to

be a

mask

for

human abuse and

degradation

is no more than

"tabloidhu-

manism,"

perhaps appropriate

to our

age,

but nonetheless a

perversion

when

applied

to the

discipline

of

architecture.

The

author

Marge Piercy explains

that she writes reviews

when

she believes hat

"something eing

admired is less than

admirable;

perhaps

meretricious,

perhaps dangerous.

"

This

essay

s written

or

the

same reason.

COMPOSITIONAL

SKILL AND

FACILITYWITH

VISUAL

AESTHETICS MAKE

architecture

a fine art.

An

understanding

of

materials

and

technol-

ogy

makes architecture

a

complex

science. Good intentions and be-

nevolent

principles

make

building

a

responsible

and

ennobling

endeavor.

Encompassing

all of these skills

and

ideals, architecture,

as

Ralph

Erskine has defined

it,

is

"that rich and

all-embracing

weave of

practical

and

spiritual

satisfactions . . . this

exceptional

art

which

both

protects

our

bodies

and

expresses

our dreams."'

As

such,

architecture

is more than

gallery

art,

no matter how

stimulating

and

captivating

the

aesthetic,

and architectural

theory

is more than an

intellectual

parlor

game,

no

matter how clever and

provocative

the

premise. The essential nature and social responsibilities of

an

en-

deavor

that

has so

proudly

claimed the mantles of

both

art and sci-

ence should

not be cast aside

in a

cavalier manner-even

if

the

newest visual aesthetic is

exciting,

even

if

the latest intellectual

pose

is

appealing.

The

most

compelling

evidence of

the

scope

of architecture is

contained

in the

built work.

However,

the

key

to

understanding

Journal

of

Architectural

Education,

pp.

254-264

?

1997

ACSA,

Inc.

that work is also to be

found

in

the intentions of

the

architect,

what

is

often

categorized

as

"theory."

The

struggle

to

understand

theory's

relationship

to the

creative

process

and

to

the built

product

lies in

the

complexity

of architecture

itself:

Theory

is often

appropriated

to

bridge

the

sometimes

conflicting

requirements

of artand science.

The

increasing

distance between art

and

science,

which dates from

at least

the fourteenth

century,

is

responsible

for

misunderstanding

and

misinterpretation

within

the

discipline

of architecture. Vincent

Scully

contends that an

indulgence

in

intellectual

gymnastics

is

partly responsible

for

that

distancing, characterizing

a certain con-

fusion of art and science in architecturaltheory over the centuries

as "one of

the silliest and

most

persistent

beliefs of

French

criticism,

which was to

pop up

in

various

guises throughout

history,

culmi-

nating,

if

that

is the

word,

in

the

peculiar

twist of Deconstructivism

itself,

wherein 'art' is in fact made

by

the

critic,

by

'science.'"2That

confusion

is

symptomatic

of critics' and theorists'

tendency

to cre-

ate a

disjunction

between

design

theory

and what is

actually

built.

This

separation

is a fortuitous one for

today's

media-driven

culture,

for

it allows a choice to be

made

between

architecture and

merely

thinking

about architecture.

As

is

apparently

being

demonstrated

by

the New

Spirit,

thinking

is

preferable

because

it

can

be

produced

and consumed far

quicker

and easier than

building

itself. Provoca-

tive

theory

stretches the limits

of

a

discipline-a healthy

and nec-

essary

exercise-but with the

power

of

today's

media,

with its

insatiable

appetite

for

the next new

thing,

we

should be

wary

of sur-

rendering

too

easily

the

tangible

nature of

architecture.

Now,

as the

New

Spirit begins

to

be

built,

we should ask whether it is a

worthy

successor

to

previous

theories of the New.

When Peter Eisenman

boasts that he

is

able to make the av-

erage person physically

ill

through

his

new

manipulation

of

space

and

Lebbeus Woods

hypothesizes

an

urban

landscape

in which

people

are

compelled

to inhabit the bombed ruins of

war-torn

cit-

ies,

the

New

Spirit

in

design

should

be

questioned

as

to

its inten-

tions.3 What kind

of

built environment

will

be

produced

as

the

New

Spirit

theory

is

misunderstood and

misapplied by

lesser tal-

ents, as has been the case with every other fashion in architecture?

As we

approach

the

millennium,

some of the

discipline's

most

persuasive

figures

seem to be

asking

us

to reconsider

architecture as

we

have

known

it,

and

to

prepare

for revisions on an

apocalyptic

scale. Eisenman

explains

that

humanism,

the

centerpiece

of western

culture

since the

Renaissance,

is

already

dead and buried.4

Having

wearied

of

the

postmodern

trivialities he

so

happily helped peddle,

Charles

Jencks

has

apparently

left this mortal

coil

and taken

archi-

tecture

with

him into

the

"Jumping

Universe."5Woods

urges

us

to

consider the attractions of an Orwellian

world-we've

been there for

May

997JAE

50/4

254


3/12

some time

anyway,

he

explains-in

which war s

peace,

destruction

is

creation,

and we will live in

bombed-outBosnian

ruins.6

This is a

scary

prospect.

To

the

fainthearted,

architectural

schemes

and

cultural

deals)

positedby

Eisenman,

Woods,

Daniel

Libeskind,

nd

any

numberof those

engaged

n

the

so-calledNew

Spirit

or

New Freedom

in

design may

suggest

the

words of

FriedrichNietzsche'smadman:"Whither

arewe

moving?

..

Are

we not

plunging continually?

Backward,

ideward, orward,

n

all

directions? s there still

any

up

or down?Are we

not

straying

as

through

an infinite

nothing?"7

ome

skeptics

f the New

Spirit

con-

tend that recentarchitecturendtheoryrevealnothingso much as

narcissismand

self-indulgence

ubstituted or the

superior

deals

and

aspirations revalent

arlier n

the

century.8

This

may

be too

harsh.

Jencks,

of all

people,

warnsof "the

harnessing

f

instrumen-

tal reasonnot to the

project

of the

Enlightenment

ut to the

forces

of

darkness."9 his is almost

certainly

overly

alarmist,

not to men-

tion

melodramatic,

et

the manner

n

which

the New

Spiritrepo-

sitions

design

and

theory

for a new

millennium

begs

the

question

of

whether ome of the

qualities

hat have orcenturies

iven

build-

ing

"thebite

and sweet

gravity

of

things

realand

beautiful" re be-

ing

overlooked r even

willfully

distorted.10f

this is

so,

it

must also

be asked:To what

ends?

An

Avant-garde

for the Media

Age

Art,

the

expression

f society,manifests,

n its

highest

oaring,

the most

advanced ocial endencies:t

is the

orerunner

nd

the revealer.

Therefore,

o know

whether rt

worthily

ulfills

its

proper

mission s

initiator,

whether

heartist s

trulyof

the

avant-garde,

nemustknow

where

Humanity

s

going,

know

what

the

destiny f

the humanrace

s.

-Gabriel-Desire

Laverdant,

De la

mission

de l'art

et du role

des artistes

1845)

Despite

the radical

natureof

what

they espouse,

Eisenman,

encks,

Woods,

and others

place

hemselves n

a secure

position.

The inter-

sectionof an

artistic

vant-garde

nd a

rarefied

ntellectualizationf

the rational

discipline

of

architecture s for

some a

comfortable

perch.

In

this

regard,

t is

tempting

to

recall a

pointed

remark

penned by

Somerset

Maugham

n

1919:

"It is not

difficult to

be

unconventional

n

the

eyes

of the

worldwhen

your

unconvention-

ality

is but the

conventionof

your

set.

It

affords

you

then an

inor-

dinate

amount of self-esteem.

You have the

self-satisfaction of

courage

without the

inconvenienceof

danger."'

An

avant-garde

hat

adheres o the

convention of

its set is

hardly

n

unusual

phenomenon-one

needs

o

look no

further han

the

twentieth-century

rt

ndustry

or

multiple

examples.

However,

as is

the case with

so

manyaspects

of

our

turn-of-the-millennium

world,

it is worth

considering

he

relationship

between

the most

recent

avant-garde

nd

today'shypermedia

ulture

and

asking

to

what

degree

and to what

ends this

affinity

shapes

architecture.

Eversince

the

moment at the

beginning

of

this

century-or

maybe

t was n

the

previous

entury,

or theone before

hat-when

the

avant-garde

ppropriated

ey

aspects

of the

intellectual

basisof

architecture,heoristshavefound it helpfulto sell certainadopted

principles

s

gospel

truth.Like

a

silver-tongued

nakeoil

salesman,

the

avant-garde

educes

witha

carefully

rafted

oncoction

of

intel-

lect,

personality,

nd,

although

he

open

use of the term

s

avoided,

style.

The

object

s to

bottleculture

tselfand

to label t

theory.

Whether his

alchemy

epresents

n

appropriately

omplex

nd

inclusive

understanding

f

architecture-and

culture-or whether t

is

primarily

he resultof

external

nd

transitory

nfluences,

uch

as

intellectual

adsand

aesthetic

ashions,

houldbea

subject

f

debate.

Over

he

past

ew

decades,

rchitectural

roduction

asbecome

ever

more

engulfed

n

a

media-driven

nd

marketing-oriented

orld.

This

shouldcome as

no

surprise,

or

architecture

as never

been

removed

from ts

contemporary

ulture.

Despite

numerousacile

characteriza

tionsthatpaintarchitectures a mirror hatpassivelyeflects ertain

aspects

of

society,

it has never

been

merely

a

reflective

medium.

Rather,

rchitectures an

active

principal

omponent

n

the

making

of

culture-and a

very

angible

nd

expensive

ne at

that.12

Today's

media

culture

depends

on the

availability

f an inex-

haustible

upply

of new

images.

ncreasingly,

vidence

uggests

hat

the

image

s

independent

rom,

and more

mportant

han,

he

reality

it

supposedly

epresents.

orthe

architectural

vant-garde,

he

be-

trothed

weary

roma

century-long

ngagement

ith

the

architectura

object,

t is a

divorce

made

n

heaven.For

hose

who

prefer

o believe

that

architectures more real

than

that,

for

those

who

agree

with

Michael

Benedikt hat "in

our

media-saturated

imes t falls

o archi-

tecture o have he

direct

esthetic

experience

f

the real

at the

center

of its

concerns,"

t is

confounding

o realize hat

the

discipline

tself

aids and abets

ts own

submersion

n

this

bravenew

world.13n a

shrewd xamination

f the

effectof

these

orceson

architecture,

rit-

ten

almosta

decade

ago,

Stephen

Kieran ecounts

he

coercive

ature

of

marketing

hat

turns

architecture

nto a

consumer

product

and

makes

practice

rimarily

he

creation f

designer

abels.

Yet,

he

con-

cludes,

"These

quandaries

otwithstanding, cceptance

of

market-

ing-

and

media-driven

architecture]

is

the

only

potentially

constructive

esponse."14

ut with

what

results?

255

Thomas


4/12

The

acceptance ostulatedby

Kieranhas takena numberof

forms.The

stage-setbuilding

andfashion-of-the-week

ostumesof

postmodernism

ere

perhaps

he mostovert

examples,

ut

in

a num-

ber of more

significantways,

n reaction o

the often

misguided

nd

arrogant

eroismof

the Modern

movement,

discussions f architec-

turehave

orsakents raison

'etre,

he

building,

he

architecturalb-

ject.

Instead,

riticism s often

prized

above

building

tself.Incritical

discourse,

distancing

rom real

building

s now

oftenthe

norm;

as

John

Whiteman

omments,

"The

wo,

[critical]

meaning

and mate-

riality,

re

never o be

conjoined."'5

ad o

say,

he same s trueof

any

smart

marketingtrategy

oran inferior

roduct.

The

reality

f

build-

ing

is

simply

not

excitingenough;

t cannot ive

up

to the

hype

of

much recent

heory.

Writing

of

ZahaHadid's irstexecuted

project,

the Vitra irestationof

1993,

ThomasFisher

bserved

hat

whenher

paintings

and

drawings

or the "Peak"

ompetition

n

Hong Kong

appeared

n

1984,

they

seemedon the

cutting edge

of

design.

Yet,

later,

with the realization f an

actual

building,

Hadid'swork"seems

somehowold-fashioned.

Bold

iconoclastic

orm-making,

n

and of

itself,

no

longer

seems

very

daring."'6

n

the architectural

rocess,

synthesis

ometimes

ompares oorly

o

imaginative ypothesis.

Often,

the

representation

f architecture asascended o the

position

of

having

ntrinsic alueunrelated o

any

actualbuilt

prod-

uct. This is not

without

precedent.

Marketing

orceshave

always

drivenarchitecture, eingpartof the fundamental lient-architect

equation.

Moreover,

wo centuries

ago,

French

visionary

architec-

tureraised

he

issueof the

relationship

etween

drawing

nd

build-

ing:

Etienne-LouisBoullee'smost

significant

work was on

paper

only;

some of

Claude-NicolasLedoux's

most

provocative

orms,

he

plan

of the

Oikema,

for

example-were

available

nly

to those few

able to

possess

an

expensive

olio.

Beginning

n

the late

seventies,

architects ike Michael Gravesand

Stanley

Tigerman

and outlets

like the Max Protech

Gallery

n New York

City

reestablished

sepa-

rate market or architectural

rawings.Significantly,drawing

was

viewed not as a means of

producing

architecture,

but ratheras a

mediumfor

opposing

the limitations inherent

in

the

making

of

buildings.Tigermanexplained

hat such

drawings

demonstrated

how "theverytraditionof synthesiss graduallyroded, uggesting

the

greaterpower

of the

juxtaposition

f thesisand antithesis."17

Reality

s a relative erm.

Now,

as the "simulacrum"ontinues

to

gain currency

n

architectural

heory

and as the

map

of

culture

s

being

recharted

n

cyberspace,inkering

with the architectural

esign

process

s more han

merely

matterof

exchanginguxtaposition

or

synthesis.

Humanism

may,

as Eisenmanand othersso

glibly

con-

tend,

already

e

gone,

but its

replacement

s at best a

highly

specula-

tivealternative. s

the raw

power

of media

plays

an ever

arger

ole

in

shaping

the

intellectual basis for

much of the

emerging

millennium's

ulture,

we run the risk

of

building

a new

architectur

not on

substantial

oundations,

but

according

o a debasement f

humanist

deals,

what

might

be

described s

"tabloid umanism."'

Since

architecture s the most

public

of

arts,

the effect of

media-shaped heory

on

the

production

of

a sharedbuilt environ-

mentshouldbe a

paramount

onsideration.

Why,

for

example,

does

so

much of recent

theory

seem to be the

product

of an in-house

Academy

Editions

think

tank?Should

antitrust aws be

applied

o

intellectual iscourse?

las,

o

examine his

relationship

s

presump-

tuous,

at the

very

east ntellectualbad

manners,

ome true believ-

ers scold. For

example,

Rosalind

Krausscondemns criticism

of

Eisenman s

"philistine

illiness,"

rguing

hat t shouldbe

regarded

as "some

kind of

annoying

ly

that has

andedon one's

shoulder."1

To

those who would

prefer

not

to be bothered

by

critical

analysis

founded

in

less

rarefieddefinitions of architecture

and

culture,

skeptical

onsideration f the

New

Spirit

n

design

s

not

much

fun

and

drags

the

discourse nto

openly addressing

architecture

s a

commodity(something

best

kept

in

the

closet)

with all the associ-

ated notions

of

fashion,

micro-

and

macroeconomics,

ulturalhe-

gemony,

political

duplicity,

and other

messy

things.

Better,

accolytes

of the New

Spirit

would

paradoxically

ounsel,

just

to

stickto

simple,

axiomatic

ruths:"Architectures Art"or

"Architec

ture is the spiritof the agemade manifest" andto the ageits art,

and

to

art its

freedom).

Unfortunately, ependence

on

simple

axi-

oms

may

obscuremore

subtle,

but

perhaps

more

real,

ruths.

Of these

"truths,"

r

fundamental

rinciples

hathave

ong

been

heldascentral o

architectural

roduction

nd

discourse,

wo standout

for

particular

nd critical xamination-of themselves

nd of recent

reinterpretations.

ne issue s more

significant

o

media's elation o

architecturendmost

certainly

o

the

neo-avant-garde'sroduction

f

contemporaryheory:

hat

is,

the issue

of

newness. he other

speaks

more

directly

f one of the

characteristicshathas orcenturies

haped

architecture,

amely,

he

quality

f

empathy

n

building.

he first s be-

ing seriously

misconstrued.hesecond s

beingperverted.

New

Again

The

millennium,

oming

o

soon,

o hard

upon,

s bad tim-

ing.

In

the

year

999,

in

the

year

1499,

in the

year

1899

(and

in

all the

years

between:hemillenniums a

permanent

mil-

lennium)-it

didn't

really

matterwhat

people elt

or what

theyfelt

ike

saying.

The

end

of

the

worldjust

wasn

t

coming.

Nobody

had

the hardware.

-Martin

Amis,

London Fields

(1990)

May

199/ JAE

50/4

256


5/12

In

magazines,

n

galleries,

and now on

the

street,

high-style

archi-

tecture

s

awashwith

dazzling

models,

drawings,

nd

computer-gen-

erated

mages,

some of which seem

intentionally

designed

o

defy

comprehension

and

so

plead

to be

recognized

as

New. Eachnew

thing

is

accompaniedby

legions

of

acolytes

who

prefer

not

to be

troubled

by

the

skeptic.

Most of the authorsof the

New

claim

that

the conditions

of

our

age,

and

consequently

the

very

nature

of

today's

designtheory,

are

unprecedented-that

the New

Spirit

or

New Freedom s

quintessentially

New. It is

important

o establish

the

validity

of such a claim because

much recent

heory

s

wrapped

around he

singular

ruth of its own

newness.

f

the core

premise

s

shaky,

he

possibility

xists hat

the

latest

theory

s

merefashion-

seductive,

entertaining, tylish,

but

something

ess

than a

body

of

essential

principles

with which to

design.

One of

the sharedtenets

of

New

Spirit

or

New

Freedom

theorists s that

basic

assumptions

bout

society,

and

consequently

also

about

architecture,

eed

to be

redefined.Rocks of

stability-

such as

the

epistemology

of the

Enlightenment,

aithin

social

sys-

tems of

order,

the rationalessence of

architectureas it has

been

defined

for

centuries,

architecture tself-are thus

swept

away

by

the chaotic idalwave

hat s the latest

modernity.

The transcendent

lesson of

cultural

modernism,

we

are

told,

is that we

are

no

longer

masters of our

own

productions.20

We

are

faced

with

the

neoexistentialistealization hat each of usis on his orher ownand

no one

gets

out

of

here

alive.

All

that is solid melts

into air.21

The rationale for

changing

long-held assumptions

about

Western

ociety

and about architecture s we have

known t is

that

traditionaldefinitions

no

longer

are

appropriate

or

the

unprec-

edented

spirit

of

our time. The

age,

we

are

old,

is

relentlessly

om-

mercial.

Consequently,

esign,

as an

inherentlypublic

artand thus

a creature f

popular

culture,

s

above all else a

commercial

prod-

uct. The commercialmilieu is

by

nature

quixotic,

ess than

stable.

Architecture s

we have known it

is, then,

too

permanent,

oo du-

rable or

the culture

n

which

it

would

exist.

In

fact,

it is

claimed,

the

durableworldwe have

known,

one that

has been the

particular

domain of

building,

s

itself

coming

to

an

end.

In the past, the comingof a millenniumhasproduceddire

and

frighteningpredictions.

Similarly,

oday's

critics

and theorists

tell us to

braceourselves or

tomorrow.

Recent

upheavals

n

theory

and

design speak

of a new intellectualism

hat is

just

now

flower-

ing

in

unprecedented

orms.The

new architecture

s evidence

hat

some are n

touch-more so than

ever

before,

t is

implied-with

a

society

hurtling

oward

a

completely

new

world.

The new

aesthetic nd the

ideas

hat

underpin

ts formsmake

up

an

interesting

losed

oop

of

logic:

In an

anarchic

ge

like

ours,

the

appropriate

ormsand ideasare

characteristically

haotic;

f

an-

archy

results rom

this,

it

is evidence that

this is an

age

of

chaos.

Thus,

societalandaesthetic

disorder re

appropriate

o

the

age

and

therefore

"good,"

or at least

"honest,"

n

the

very

limited

way

in

which such

judgments

arestill

possible.

Firmness,

ommodity,

and

delight

are,

ikeVitruvius

himself,

ancient

history.

Just

so there is no

mistake about

it,

many

of

today's

most

influential

critics,theorists,

and architects

xplain

that what con-

cerns

them is of

immense

significance.

The

writtenwords

that ac-

company

he

newnesscount muchless than do

visual

qualities

but

nonethelessare

themselves

breathlesswith

pregnant

mportance.

Andreas

Papadakis

laims hat we are

witnessto

"theconscious

re-

birthof the artof

architecture"ndthat "anew

way

of

designing

s

emerging."22

ebbeusWoods

modestly

asserts

hat his work

in-

volves "the entire

shape

and substanceof

human

communaland

private

ife

[as it]

is

and

always

has

been

determined."23 e

are,

it

is

argued,

engaged

n

no less

a task than

throwing

out

centuriesof

Enlightenment

nd

humanist

baggage,

purging

of

culturalnorms

that

will,

as

PeterEisenman

xplains,displace

"man

away

rom the

centerof his

world."

According

o

Eisenman,

"therole of

artis to

alienate

anddislocateman

from his

environment o that he

is

jolted

into

seeing

what it

is

again."24

aniel

Libeskind

exclaims,

"The

period

of

enlightened

human

intellect

with

reality,

that

great

Socraticandpre-Socraticontribution o seeingtheworld, s com-

ing

to an end."25

Such

provocative pronouncements

echo

those of

earlier

avant-garde

movements;

he

dadaists,

urrealists,

nd

mpressionists

in

theirown

time all

sought

to

see

the world

anew.

Today's heory,

which

contains nternal

cloaked

contradictions hat

cleverly

ques-

tion the

veryproposition

being put

forth-for

example,

he neo-

avant-garde'sepudiation

f

Modernist

zeitgeist

claims n

favorof

a

new,

more

appropriate

pirit

of the

present

age-is nothing

new.

In the

first half

of this

century,

the Soviet

poet

Vadim

Shershenevich

eclared,

"Poetry's

hief

magnificent

aw is

'There

are no

lawswhatever.'"26

The

statement

s,

of

course,

tself

a

law.)

Is

Eisenman's

ontentionthat

humanism s on

its

way

out itself

an

argumentbornfromhumanistphilosophy?sLibeskind's bserva-

tion

concerning

he end

of

Socratic

wisdom

to be derived

hrough

Socratic

questioning

of

the

condition of

knowledge?

Eventhe

insistence hat the

age

s so

new that

any

ties to

pre-

cedent have been

severed

s itself

not

new.

Such

a

claim

was,

of

course,

he basis or

the

tenets of

Modernism,

hedominant

archi-

tectural

philosophy

nd

aesthetic f

the first

wo-thirds f the

twen-

tieth

century.

Moreover,

he

underlying

messianic one of

today's

millennial

heory

has ts

own,

more

distant

precedents

romthe

end

257

Thomas


6/12

of the first

thousand-year

ycle

of the western alendar nd thedo-

ings

of latermedieval

religious

revolutionaries nd

mystical

anar-

chists.

ronically,

he

Judaic

and Christian raditions

f

apocalypse

are

part

of

the

foundationof Western

culture,

the same societal

structure

hat,

we

are

told,

must be

significantly

eworkedo

con-

form

to the

mostrecent

apocalyptic

ision.

Millenarianism,

he

be-

lief that the

thousand-year

ntervalwould conclude

in

the Last

Judgment,explained

hat

life

would

be

utterly

ransformeds his-

tory

reached ts culmination.Salvationwould

be

obtained

by

the

reshaping

f a world dominated

by

evil,

a

societycompletely

cor-

ruptedby tyrannical owers apable

f

destroying

ife

as

it

had

been

known.27

If

this

sounds

familiar,

it

is

probably

because the

millenarians'isionof a

society

n

needof salvation

s not

dissimilar

to the

depictions

of recent

heorists,

uch

as

Lebbeus

Woods,

of

our

own

age.

However,

alvation

s

apparently

o be different romwhat

it

was

imagined

o be at thelastturnof a millennium.Woods's

no-

tion of resurrected

erfection, hapedby

a

preference

or

a

specific

visual

tyle

(one

popularized,

ppropriately,

ot

only

in

architecture

but

in

the mass

media,

namely,

he

postapocalyptic

Mad Maxmov-

ies),

includes a

new, better,

dynamic

form of human

community

arising

rom his

scary

"free-zones."

Much

of the

resignation

o

sup-

posed

destructive endencies

of

capitalism

and

cynical images

of

commerce

ound

n

today's

New

Spirit

and New Freedom

n

design

is the secular ounterparto the MiddleAges'recognition f Satan's

tyrannical owers.

ronically,

millenarianshemselveswereonce said

to

engage

n

"the

heresy

of the Free

Spirit."28

Evenas

applied

o

artand

architecture,

he terms

free

spirit

nd

new

piritpredate

Academy

Editions.29

hey

havecome

up

now and

again

ince the Middle

Ages,

with

their

most

insistent

use

occurring

throughout

his

century.

Ambitious

claimsof

significance

ndvali-

dation

by

attachment

o

science

and

culture

usuallyaccompany

he

invocation.

The

last turn

of a

century pawned

numerous

roups

of

cultural

reformers,

romsecessionists o

futurists,

most of whom

claimed

o

recognize

nd

incorporate

truly

new human

condition.

In

1917,

Guillaume

Apollinaire xplained

n

"l'Esprit

ouveau,"

is

essay

on

cubism,

"Thenew

spirit truggles

o

open

new views

on

the

exteriorand interioruniversewhichshall not be inferior o those

which scholars

f

everycategory

are

discovering

ach

day

. .. The

new

spirit

distinguishes

tselffrom

all

the artistic nd

literary

move-

ments which

have

preceded

it."30Less than

a

decade

later,

Le

Corbusier

sed

he

term

or

his

Pavillionde

L'Esprit

Nouveau

at the

1925

Exposition

des

Arts Decoratifs.

Meanwhile,

Germany's

most

important

architectural

heoristswere

busy formulating

a Neue

Sachlichkeit,

new

objectivity,

hatwould

lay

the

groundwork

or a

new

freedom n

design.

Off

in

the

metaphorical

mountains,

Paul

Scheerbart,

Bruno

Taut,

and members

of the secret

society

Glass

Chain

hypothesized

fantastic

lass

architecturehatwould

"provide

us

with a new culture."31

y

the

eighties,

with Modernism n

aging

dowager,

most of the

revolutionary

ew

spirit

was little morethan

charming

nostalgic

memories.

However,

anotherNew

Spirit

arose

phoenixlike

rom its

ashes.

Ironically,

he new New

Spirit

was de-

scribed n termsof old new

spirits:

t

had

"the

thrusting,dynamic

imagery

f Constructivismnd

.. Futurism's

avage eauty."

t was

Dadaesque,

t was

surreal,

aid the

acolytes

f theNew.32

Many

of

today's

hinkers

and makersof

the

New sharewith

their

predecessors myopic

view

of the

world,

an

assumption

hat

what is

happening

n their

time

is unlike

anything

that has ever

happened

o

anyone

before.Libeskind

writes,

"Something

as

hap-

pened culturally,

cross

he

barriers

f old that has

fundamentally

alteredthe mood and

modality

of

people'sfeelings,

desires,

and

consequently, houghts."33

his

is

exciting

talk,

but it

may

be less

than accurate.

Today's heory,

ike

any theory

primarily

hapedby

the

avant-garde

as

has

been

the case

or

the

last

one hundred

ears),

speaks

irstandforemost

only

to

its own makers.

t is

impossible

or

the

avant-garde

o

accommodate he

prevailing

uman

condition,

to

represent ny feelings,

desires,

and

thoughts

other

than those of

its own self-definednarrow liverof

society.

In

fact,

an

avant-garde

that

gains

oo substantial

footing

in

the world

n which it exists s

self-negating.As Matei Calinescu xplains,"Ironically,in thesix-

ties]

the

avant-garde

ound

itself

failingthrough

a

stupendous,

n-

voluntary

uccess.

This situation

prompted

ome

artistsand critics

to

question

not

only

the historical ole of

the

avant-garde

ut

the

adequacy

f

the

concept

tself."34

The makers

of much recent

theory

fall into a familiar

rap,

believing

hat

they

rest

atop

the

pinnacle

of

history,poised

as none

before o

leap

into the future.Such

a view was the

principal

ause

of

large

blind

spots

scattered

hroughout

he often

brillianthisto-

ries and

theories

of

Giedion,

Pevsner,

and

Le

Corbusier,

s well as

the work of lesser

purveyors

f the Modernist

gospels.

It is

a belief

that

can

seduce

otherwise ational nd

nsightful

hinkers nd

build-

ers into

assuming

that

they

are,

in the

words

of

the

historian

HerbertButterfield,"co-operators ithprogresstself."35

Being

a

partner

of

progress,

apturing

he essence

of an

age

identified

or claimed)

as

fundamentally

ew,

particularly

ne that

is also the culmination

f

history,

reates

great

and

dangerous

ree-

dom. The

designer

s able-in

fact,

is

required-to

create

com-

pletely

new standards

by

which to build and

judge,

values that

because

of the nature

of the

avant-garde

must

rejectprecedent.

For

a media-driven

ulture

dependent

on

a

supply

of new

images,

he

set

of circumstancess

just right. Problematically,

his

often does

May

997 JAE

50/4

258


7/12

not

square

with the

tangible

eality

of

architecture.

ime

and

again

buildingproves

o be

dependent

on

continuity

rather han

radical

change.

Architecture

s

self-referential,

discipline

based

on

prece-

dent.Inreaction o

nineteenth-century

evivalism,

he last

hundred

years

of

Westernarchitectural

heory

have

largely

been

shapedby

attempts

o create

unprecedented uilding

orms,

or at least forms

appropriate

o

"modern"materials

nd to a modern

zeitgeist.

Yet

even the most canonicalof

Modernists,

uch as Le

Corbusier,

Mies

van der

Rohe,

and Louis

Kahn,

admitteda debt to classical

prin-

ciples.

Frank

Lloyd

Wright

acknowledged

he influence of tradi-

tional Japanesearchitectureeven as he proclaimedhimself the

quintessential

modern

architect.

The

problems

o be

solved are often

great,

especially

when

architecture

s

expected

o drive

a

social

agenda.

Pressure o

adopt

a

new

system

of

valuesoften leads

to foolish naiveteor

arrogance.

Le

Corbusier

hus dismissed

urbanism's

ingle

most

important

le-

ment,

the

street,

because"our

heartsare

alwaysoppressed

by

the

constriction

of its

enclosing

walls,"

and then

rejected

t

completely

because

"when all is said and done we

have

to

admit it

disgusts

us."36Modernist

avant-gardeplanners

abstracted

and

systematized

the troublesome

human

component

out of urban

heory.Legions

of urban-renewalureaucrats ould

follow suit.

In

England

after

World

War

II,

betweena blitzed-outurban

andscape

nd

a social-

ist

government,

some

Angry Young

Men

(and

Alison

Smithson)

concoctedthe New Realism and extracted

rom

it

the transcen-

dently

brutalPark

Hill

housing

n

Sheffield.

Not to

worry,

he En-

glish

enfants

erribles

xplained, hey

were

merely

giving

"form o

our

generation's

dea

of order."37More

recently,

Eisenman an-

nounced

that,

in

contrast

o

the

past

three

hundred

years

of Ameri-

can domestic

architecture,

when

designing

a

house

he

refuses o

pander

o the wishesof the client.

Rather,

he

"basically ttempts

o

destabilize he notion

of home."38

Other

significant

endenciesseen before

n

this

century

are

beingrepeated,

ot invented.

The

formsand

design

philosophies

f

the New

Spirit

n

architecture

re

hardly

without

precedent.

Theo

van Doesburg'sopaquetheoryof neoplasticismwould be rightat

home

with

many

of the nineties'dense

pronouncements.

Lebbeus

Woods andAntonio Sant'Eliawould findone another'surbanro-

mantic

drawing

style

familiar,

and

later Woods and

Filippo

Tommaso Marinetti

might

well

compare

notes

on the

cleansing

power

of

heavyartillery.By

now it

is

commonplace

o callattention

to the resemblance etween

early

Modernism's onstructivist

hase

and

recentworks.

In

the last decadeof

the twentieth

century,

we

may

not be

atop

the mountainof

history,

but we have been travel-

ing

to

where

we are for some

time now.

No matter o what

engthsbuilding

s

intellectualized,

rchi-

tectural

design

remains

primarily

matterof aesthetics

hapedby,

and

shaping,

three-dimensional

orms. Since aesthetics

might

be

considered matterof

taste,

a difficult

concept

not

easily upported

by

academic

argument,

laborate

"theoretical"ationalizations re

constructed o defend the choice of

style

or fashion.

Criticism

or

even

skepticism

s

dismissed s

partisan

ppositionemanating

rom

acommitted

antitheoretical

obby.39

ismissal

of

contrary

riticism

through

he

appropriation

f "the

spirit

of the

age"

s

hardly

new.

David

Watkin

explains

n

Architecture

nd

Morality

hat

the

defense

of visualaestheticshasbeencommonplace verthe last two centu-

ries. Watkin

points

out that A.W.N.

Pugin,

Viollet-le-Duc,

and

Nikolaus Pevsner

(three

very

different

personalities,only

two

of

whom favored imilar rchitectural

tyles)

each

ustified

his

position

by

claiming

hat

his aesthetic

preference

was

the inevitable

esponse

to the

shape

of

contemporary ociety.

In

part,

theirswere

philoso-

phies

designed

o

compensate

or an

overemphasis

n

personal

ref-

erences

for a

particular tyle

of

architecture,

one

in

which visual

appeal

was

primary

ut was

suppressed,

isguised

n

the nineteenth

century

behindveils of

religion

and nationalism nd

in

the twenti-

eth

centuryby

naive faith

in

the social collectiveand the

promise

of

technology.40

n

this

light,

the

latest

theory

that demonstrates

tendencies o

misinterpret

ulture,

misapplyechnology,

or

support

simplisticpoliticalagendas

ooks all too familiar.

New

Empathy

Physical

ormspossess

character

nly

becausewe ourselves

possess

body....

Wereadourown

mage

nto all

phenom-

ena.

We

expect

verything

o

possess

whatwe know o be the

conditions

of

ourown

well-being.

-Heinrich

Wolfflin, Prolegomena

o a

Psychology

of

Architecture"

1886)

Whenthe wordempathy ascoined,it wasregarded ot as a ratio-

nal

thoughtprocess

but rather s a less

precise

eeling

or emotion.4

Subsequently,

Theodor

Lipps

redefined he

term

as the

objectiv

enjoyment

of

self,

contending

hat

beauty

was a matterof encoun-

tering

the

self in

an

object,

while

ugliness

was the resultof

feeling

the

self

repelled.42

n such an

explanation,

heorists

acitly

acknowl-

edge

the

validity

of

characteristics

ound

in

classicism,

whereinhu-

man

traits

give shape,

cale,

and

meaning

o a

specific

vocabulary

f

architecture.

Moreover,

he

empathetic

orrespondence

f a build-

ing

element to the

body-a

column to a

standingperson,

for ex-

259

Thomas


8/12

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r

-2

2.

Cedars-Sinai

Comprehensive

Cancer Clinic

sculpture,

Los

Angeles. (By

permission

from

Morphosis,

Architects.)

venture

in

collectivism has

collapsed

throughout

the

world.

If

the

spirit

of the

age

is

to be

captured

(and

the New

Spirit

might

un-

charitably

be characterizedas

warmed-over

zeitgeist theory),

such an

event of

global

political

significance

as the failure of the

communist

experiment

is

not to be

ignored-nor

is the

opportunity

to

appro-

priate

it to be

missed. Thus the

inhabitant of Lebbeus

Woods's

Zagreb

Free Zone

occupies

a

solitary

cell but

is connected to

the

world

by

the new

omnipresent

electronic

media.

Alas,

despite

this

late-twentieth-century

reemergence

of the

individual,

the human condition

is,

apparently,hardly

triumphant.

Instead,

empathy

is now

recast as a

recognition

of

assault,

violence,

and abuse

perpetrated by

an

emerging

malevolent

global

culture.

The

individual's most

ardent

champion, Ayn Rand,

would

recog-

nize

this,

but she

would be

appalled

at the

latest

response

to the

presumed

cultural condition:

a masochistic

celebration of the "vio-

lated

individual" and the

concomitant

abdication of

responsibility

for the

shape

of a

larger society.

To

Lipps,

Scott,

and others con-

cerned with the

deep

understanding

of

architecture,

empathy

was

important

as an

explanation

for the

affinity

between

people

and

the

buildings

that

shaped

their

world.

Although

the definition of em-

pathy

was not

necessarily

narrow,

it was

nonetheless most often cast

3. Lebbeus

Woods,

"Untitled,"

rom Anarchitecture:

Architecture

Is

a Political Act

(1992).

(By permission

from

Academy

Editions/

St.

Martin's

Press.)

as a

positive

architectural determinant. New

spins

now

depict

empathetic

correspondence

in

a

negative light.

Whereas "old

em-

pathy"

was an

ennobling

characteristic,

"new

empathy"

is a

weary

recognition

of abuse.

Aaron

Betsky's description

of a

1987

sculpture

at

Cedars-

Sinai

Comprehensive

Cancer Center in

Los

Angeles

illustrates the

new

conception

of

empathy.

Placed three

floors

underground,

the

sculpture,

as

Betsky

describes

it,

"lacksmotivation. It does not

seem

to

represent

anything."

He

explains

that the

sculpture

"reverses

our

sense of

proportion,

gravity

and coherence."

Contradicting

himself,

Betsky

adds that it

is, however,

anthropomorphic:

"Its

legs,

torso,

and

head stand

in

for our

body, revealing

skeletal and

planar

ele-

ments which are the essence of the building housing our body....

The

construction thus serves as a

hybrid

model

for

ourselves and

that which

contains us-a

map

of ourselves

and our

environment

that

suggests

a

way

out of our

body

and the world of our creation."

It

is,

according

to

Betsky,

an

appropriate metaphor

both

for the

cancer clinic in

which it stands and the

age

that has

produced

it:

The context

"is a world inhabited

by

the

terminally

ill,

people

whose insides are transformed

by

an

uncontrollable and alien trans-

mutation." The

building

that

houses the

sculpture, Betsky points

261

Thomas

-4

600'

n77?30


10/12

out,

is

itself

"not

an

affirming

architecture."49

Elsewhere

in

his

ap-

propriately

titled Violated

Perfection:

Architectureand

the

Fragmen-

tation

ofthe

Modern,

Betsky explains

that a new

form

of architecture

he calls

"technomorphism"

concerns "a

strange

hybrid

of'building/

body/machines'

. .

.

technomorphic

tools

[that]

stand

in

for,

con-

sume,

and

deny

both the

body

and the world."50

Empathy,

whose

significance

in

the

identification

and

production

of

beauty

was un-

derstood at the

beginning

of this

century

to entail the

recognition

of the self in an

object,

is now at the end of the

century

a denial of

the

body

and the world-or at best a

reappraisal

resulting

in

a

pa-

thetic surrender of humanism. "This is the

way

the world ends /

Not with a

bang

but a

whimper."51

Given the

depiction

of

the

human condition

and

the world

in

much recent

theory,

denial of

any correspondence

to architecture

would indeed seem to be the best move. Woods

explains

that he

works

in

a

world

in

which

change

is

"violent and

terrible,

bringing

... the most dreadful

suffering

and

loss ...

[that]

erode the

ground

on which

civilization and

personal

existence

rest,

leaving

voids

of

rea-

son."

Furthermore,

previous

attempts

to better this condition were

little more than shams:The

Enlightenment

ideaof

progress

s "noth-

ing

more than a veil

covering

eyes

that would otherwise look

upon

their own madness." For

Woods,

"a

theory

that can

never

fail,

and

at the same

time

can never

succeed,

. . . is the

perfect theory

of the

human condition today-a paradoxwhich is apreludeto an enigma.

Such a

theory inevitably produces

the

twins:

war

and architecture."

The

destructive tendencies of

humanity

and the creative

impulse

thus unite

in a

new

design

method. Destruction is creation. War is

peace.

Chillingly,

Woods

openly

attributes his

philosophy

to

Doublethink,

explaining

that

George

Orwell's

nightmare

vision "was

nothing

more nor less than a confirmation of the

irreparable

dam-

age

done

by

modern

thought

to the idea

of

classical coherence."52

For another

example

of the "new

empathy,"

consider

a

course

in

architectural

theory

offered

at the

Architectural Association

in

London

by

MarkCousins. The

prospectus

for

"Danger

and

Safety"

states that the

course,

which

"give[s]

the

slip

to

attempts

to

orga-

nize

aesthetics and ethics around the

category

of

the

subject,

this

fading star of the Enlightenment," is "an attempt to link politics,

ethics

and

art

through

the axis of

danger

and

safety."

Cousins

ex-

plains,

"Recent art and cultural

production present

a fundamental

relation to

danger-danger

to the

body,

of

the

body

...

a

body

in

danger, damaged,

violated,

invaded,

eroded....

The

trace of the

body

is no

longer

idealized as the

Human

Form,

but

materialized

as

visceral and fearful."

In

the

course,

"the

malice of the virtues

of

conscience and

principle

are

rejected

in favor of

tolerance,

negotia-

tion and

positions

of weakness."

(The

"safety"

n

the course title is

concerned

with "a

post-ethical politics."

As

Cousins

notes,

"Daunted,

unillusioned and

sad,

this

emerging

politics

also stresses

the

body,

rather than the classical

subject.")53

Numerous studies of

the

phenomenology

of

perception

have

revealed

ascinating

inks between

pain

and

imagination.54

Moreover,

the human form

in

torment has been a

staple

of

artistic

representa-

tion,

from the Laocoon o

images

of St. Sebastian o Picasso'sGuernica

to Chris Burden's

performance

piece

in

which

he

is shot

in

the shoul-

der. For

architecture,

however,

it is different.

When

pain

and abuse

become the dominant

characteristicsof

empathy,

we descendinto an

overly

emotional,

malevolently

mannered

state,

a

condition that

is

far

from the

highest expression

of

the art

form,

and we are left with the

antihero as measure of all

things.

Albert Camus's

L

Etranger,

ather

than Eisenman's

cipher,

is the obvious model

for

this new Vitruvian

man-placed suitably

outside the

circle,

of course.

As

poststructuralism

filtered into fashion in

many

branches

of

the

humanities,

Michel Foucault

cleverly put

forth the

premise

that the

subjugated

or

marginalized

aremore able to observe the real

workings

of a

society

than are either the mainstream or

less

alien-

ated.

Moreover,

in

Discipline

and

Punish,

Foucault further defined

marginalized

man as the

"body

condemned,"

tracing

a

history

of the

victimized individual back centuries to the

scaffold,

the

wheel,

and

the

panopticon.55

As mutual infatuation

grew

between architectural

theory and poststructuralist theory in other disciplines, the tradi-

tional

understanding

of

empathy

in

architecture

began

to

appear

hopelessly

dated. An

understanding

of

empathy

as an essential char-

acteristic of architecture

escapes many

from

outside the

discipline;

empathy

thus becomes

just

another

piece

of

Enlightenment/hu-

manist

baggage

to be

jettisoned.

Jumping

on the

poststructuralist

bandwagon (itself

now rather

outdated),

the

purveyors

of the archi-

tectural

New

follow suit.

The New

Spirit presents

the

troubling

possibility

that,

given

the media-directed nature

of

our

times,

half-baked

proclamations

that render the human condition as

inherently

abused and violated

might

be

accepted

without

question.

Any

culture

grows upward

from

roots,

but

it

is also formed

top-down

under

the direction of

an intellectualand political elite. Choices made in the making of the

landscape

are

tangible

and

long

lasting.

If,

as Woods

contends,

Doublespeak

is

a

confirmation

of

our

condition,

then the

possibili-

ties

for

serious

mischief are boundless.

In

most

instances,

the

new

empathy masquerades

as a concern

for the

downtrodden:

Now,

finally,

the

disenfranchised

will have

their

say.

Daniel Libeskind calls

for

a new

landscapeshaped

"not for

the victorswho have dominated

architecture

for five thousand

years,

but

the

vanquished-an

architecture

for

losers."56 uch

a

philosophy

May

997

JAE

50/4

262


11/12

of

building

is

no

more than

a

politically

correct smoke screen. Per-

verting

so essential an architecturalcharacteristicas

empathy

will not

usher

in a new

egalitarian

world

any

more than

did

previous

naive

Modernist

political-architectural

formulas.

Theory

that

celebrates

the visceral and

fearful,

that finds malice

in

conscience and

principle,

that activates an architecture

for

losers,

is

indeed

a

departure

from

what we

have known and

hoped building

to

be.

It is a

telling

indication of

the

nature

of

much recent

theory

that architects outside elite Western intellectual

circles,

those most

directly

concerned with the true

"marginalized"

who

are the Third

World,

seem to

have little time for nihilistic

posturing.

In

many

cases,

the intellectual attachment to the

marginalized

individual is

no more than an

expedient

measure

that dovetails with

today's

fash-

ion

in

academia

and visual

aesthetics. Within

consumption-driven

Western

society,

claims that recent

avant-garde

architectural

theory

embodies

the essential societal

characteristics

of

our

age

are at best

culturally

naive

or

presumptuous,

at worst self-delusion or deceit.

Notes

1.

Ralph

Erskine,

"Democratic

Architecture-The

Universaland Useful

Art:

Projects

and

Reflections,"

Thomas Cubitt

Lecture,

Royal

Society

fArts

Jour-

nal

130

(1982):

643.

2. Vincent Scully, "Theoryand Delight," Progressive rchitecture 0/10

(Oct. 1989):

86.

3.

See MarkAlden

Branch,

"Critique:

Queasy

in

Columbus?"

Progressive

Architecture

Feb.

1994)

78-81,

for

a

discussion

of

Eisenman'sColumbus

(Ohio)

Convention

Center. Also see Lebbeus

Woods,

War

and Architecture

New

York:

PrincetonArchitectural

ress,

1993).

4. See Peter

Eisenman,

"The End of the

Classical,"

erspecta

1

(1984).

5.

See Charles

Jencks,

TheArchitecture

f

the

Jumping

Universe

London:

Academy

Editions,

1995).

6.

See

Lebbeus

Woods,

Anarchitecture:

rchitecture

s a

Political

Act

(Lon-

don:

Academy

Editions

1992);

and

Woods,

WarandArchitecture.

7.

Quoted

in MarkC.

Taylor,

"Descartes,

Nietzscheand the Search or the

Unsayable,"

New York

Times,

Feb.

1,

1987:

sec.

7,

p.

3.

8. See

Juhani

Pallasmaa,

SixThemes

for the Next

Millennium,"

Architec-

turalReview

July

1994):

74-79.

9. Charles encks,"TheNew Moderns,"AD Profile:New Architecture: he

New Moderns nd the

Super

Moderns

0/3-4

(1990):

15.

10. The

phrase

"the bite and

sweet

gravity

of

things

real and beautiful" s

from MichaelBenedikt's

Foran Architecture

f Reality

(New

York:

Lumen,

1987),

p.

22,

which

incorporated

usan

Sontag's

erm "biteand

sweet

gravity."

11.

Maugham's

emark s made

by

the fictional

narrator f TheMoon and

Sixpence

1919]

(New

York Modern

Library,

n.d.),

p.

80. It is

in

the context of

praising

he fierce and

completely ndependent

actions of

Strickland,

he novel's

central

character,

Paul

Gauguin

counterpart.

12.

This

view is

championed

n the works of

Spiro

Kostof,

particularly

History

of

Architecture:

ettings

nd Rituals

New

York:Oxford

University

Press,

1985),

in which

Kostof

explains,"Every

uilding

represents

socialartifact f

spe-

cific

impulse,energy,

and commitment.That is its

meaning,

and this

meaning

re-

sides

n its

physical

orm. Neithermaterial

eality

alone nor

generalbackground

f

culture

will

suffice to

explain

he

peculiar

natureof the

building"

p.

7).

13.

Benedikt,

For an Architecture

of

Reality,p.

4.

14.

Stephen

Kieran,

"The

Architecture f

Plenty:

Theory

and

Design

n the

MarketingAge,"

HarvardArchitectureeview

(1987):

111.

15.

John

Whiteman, "Criticism,

Representation

nd

Experience

n Con-

temporary

Architecture:

Architecture and

Drawing

in an

Age

of

Criticism,"

HarvardArchitecture eview

(1987):

139.

16. Thomas

Fisher,

"Editorial: he

Avant-Garde,

astand

Future,"

rogres-

siveArchitecture

4

(Aug.

1993):

7.

17.

Stanley

Tigerman,

Versus: n AmericanArchitect's lternatives

New

York:Rizzoli,1982), p. 11.

18. I first

encountered his term

n a

review

by

David Holahan n the

Phila-

delphia

nquirer,

Oct.

1,

1993.

Holahandubbed

a

book that

purported

o

prove

hat

MarkTwainwas

gay

"tabloid umanism." he

expression

uggests

mutatedmean-

ing

of

humanism,

ne

shaped

by

the sensibilities

f

makers f luridorsensationalab-

loid

headlines

ather han

by

the

thoughtful

onsideration

f

the humancondition.

19. See "Eisenman

and

Company)Respond,"Progressive

rchitecture

6/

2

(Feb.

1995):

88-91.

20.

John

Whiteman,

"The

Paradox

f

Classical

Representation,"

n

Jonathan

Jova

Marvel, d.,

Investigations

n Architecture:isenman tudios t the GSD:

1983-

85

(Cambridge,

MA: Harvard

University

Graduate chool of

Design,

1986),

p.

9.

21. This

phrase

s

borrowed

rom the

title of MarshallBerman'sAll That s

Solid

Melts nto

Air:

The

Experience f Modernity New

York:

Simon

and

Schuster

1982).

Bermanborrowshis title from Marx'scontention that to be modern s to

be

part

of a universe n which "all

that is solid melts into air."Bermanwrites of

characters s variedasJosephPaxton,BaronHaussmann,RobertMoses, Goethe,

Marx,

and

Baudelaire,

ll

of whom

"know

he thrill and

dread

of a world

n

which

'all that

is solid melts into

air"'

Penguin

edition, 1988,

p.

13).

22.

Andreas

Papadakis

nd Kenneth

Powell,

"Freedom nd

Function,"

AD

Profile:

Free

Space

Architecture2

(March/April

992):

p.

7.

23.

Lebbeus

Woods,

"Heterarchy

f Urban Form and

Architecture,"

D

Profile:

Free

Space

Architecture2

(March/April

992):

37.

24.

Quoted

in Andreas

Papadakis,

"On

Theory

and

Architecture,"

n

Theory Experimentation:

nIntellectual

xtravaganza

London:

Academy

Editions

1993),

p.

8.

25.

Daniel

Libeskind,

"Between

he

Lines,"

n

Andreas

Papadakis,Geoffrey

Broadbent,

and

Maggie

Toy,

eds.,

Free

Spirit

in

Architecture:

OmnibusVolume

(London:

Academy

Editions,

1992),

p.

179.

26. Alexander

Kaun,

SovietPoetsand

Poetry

Berkeley:University

of Cali-

fornia

Press,1943),

p. 69.

27. Norman Cohn, The Pursuitof the Millennium (New York:Oxford

University

Press,

1961),

p.

21.

28.

Ibid.,

p.

148.

29.

See E.M.

Farrelly,

"'TheNew

Spirit'

(Post-modernism

s

Dead),"

Ar-

chitecturalReview180

(Aug.

1986):

6-12,

for an

early

discussion

of

a trendthat

would

pick up speed.

30.

Quoted

in Peter

Collins,

Changing

Ideals in Modern

Architecture

(Montreal:

McGill-Queen's

University

Press,

1975),

p.

276.

31.

Paul

Scheerbart,

Glasarchitektur

Berlin:

Verlag

der

Sturm,

1914),

p.

25.

32.

Geoffrey

Broadbent,

Deconstruction: StudentGuide

London:

Acad-

emy

Editions,

1991).

263

Thomas


12/12

33.

Libeskind,

"Between he

Lines,"

p.

179.

34.

Matei

Calinescu,

Five Faces

f

Modernity

Durham,

NC: Duke

Univer-

sity

Press,

1987),

p.

121.

35.

Herbert

Butterfield,

The

Whig nterpretationf History

[1913]

(New

York:W.W.

Norton,

1965),

pp.

41-42.

36.

Le

Corbusier,

"The

Street,"

n W.

Boesiger

and 0.

Stonorov,eds.,

Le

Corbusiert

PierreJeanneret:

euvre

Complete,

Vol.

1,

1910-1929

[1929] (Zurich:

Les Editions

d'Architecture, 964),

p.

118.

37.

Alison and Peter

Smithson,

"The Built

World,

Urban Re-identifica-

tion,"

Architectural esign June

1955):

33.

38.

Robert A.M. Stern interviewwith

Eisenman,

May

9, 1985,

cited in

Stern's Pride

of

Place

(Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin,

1986),

p.

87.

Although

one

mightquestionwhetherwillfuldenialof gratifications anappropriaterchitectural

service,

t must be admitted that Eisenman's lients come to

him with their

eyes

open

and in most cases

get

exactly

what

they

are

ooking

for.

39.

See

Papadakis,

On

Theory

and

Architecture,"

or

one

such

ndictment;

and the

previously

discussed"Eisenman

and

Company)Respond."

40. See David

Watkin,

Morality

ndArchitecture

Oxford:

Oxford

Univer-

sity

Press).

41. The

OxfordEnglish

Dictionary

ays

thatTheodor

Lipps

used the

term

"Einfuhlung"in

903,

defining

t as "the

power

of

projecting

ne's

personality

nto

(and

so

fully

comprehending)

he

object

of

contemplation."

The first

English

use

of the term

empathy

s V.

Lee,

Diary,

Feb.

20, 1904,

cited

in Lee

and Anstruther-

Thompson,

Beauty

nd

Ugliness,

912,

p.

337:

"Passing

n to the

aesthetic

empa-

thy (Einfuhlung),

r more

properly

he aesthetic

ympathetic

eeling

of the act of

erecting

and

spreading."

42.

Kent

C. Bloomer

and CharlesW.

Moore,

Body,Memory,

ndArchitec-

ture New Haven,CT: YaleUniversityPress,1977), p. 27.

43.

Christian

Norberg-Schulz,

Genius

Loci: Towards

Phenomenology

f

Architecture

New

York:

Rizzoli,

1979),

p.

74.

44.

Geoffrey

Scott,

The

Architecture

f

Humanism

1914]

(Garden

City,

NY:

Doubleday,

1954),

pp.

93,

185.

45.

John

Whiteman,

"Some

Paradoxes

n

the Refutation

of Classicism:

Denial and

Possibility

n

Architecture"

n

Jonathan

ova

Marvel, d.,

Investigation

in

Architecture,

.

12.

46. As

quoted

in

Hanno-Walter

Kruft,

A

Historyof

Architectural

Theory

(New

York:PrincetonArchitectural

ress,

1994),

p.

68.

47.

Le

Corbusier,

Versune architecture

Paris:

Cres,

1924),

p.

99.

48. Bloomerand

Moore,

Body,Memory,

nd

Architecture,

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5.

49.

Aaron

Betsky,

Violated

erfection:

rchitecturend

the

Fragmentationf

the Modern New York:Rizzoli,1990), pp. 9-11.

50.

Ibid.,

p. 183.

51.

T.S.

Eliot,

"TheHollow

Men,"

1925.

52.

SeeAndreas

apadakis,

Lebbeus

Woods,"

n

Theory

Experimentatio

An

Intellectual

xtravaganza,

p.

392-409;

and

Woods,

WarandArchitecture.lso

see

Woods,

"Heterarchy

f Urban Form

and

Architecture,"

p.

36-53.

53.

ArchitecturalAssociationSchool

of

Architecture

Prospectus,

London,

1993-1994,

pp.

114-15.

54.

In

particular,

ee

Elaine

Scarry,

The

Body

n

Pain: The

Making

and

Unmaking

f

the World

New

York:Oxford

University

Press,

1985).

55.

See Michel

Foucault,

Discipline

and Punish

(New

York:

Random

House,

1979).

Originally ublished

s Surveiller

tpunir Paris:

Editions

Gallimard

1975).

56.

Quoted

in

Charles

encks,

"The New

Moderns,"

AD

Profile:

New

Ar-

chitecture:

heNew

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nd The

Super

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May

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264

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