Page iii After the City Lars Lerup The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts Massachusetts London, England
Page iv © !!! Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved" #o part of this boo$ may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means %including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval& 'ithout permission in 'riting from the publisher" This boo$ 'as set in (elvetica and 'as printed and bound in the )nited *tates of America" Library of Congress Cataloging+in+Publication Cataloging+in+Publication ata Lerup, Lars" After the city - Lars Lerup" p" cm" Includes bibliographical references and inde." I*/# !+0+12+3 %hc 4 al$" paper& 1" City City pla plann nnin ing5 g5(i (ist stor ory5 y5! !th th cen centu tury ry" " " Cit City y plan planni ning ng5 5 Philosophy" 3" Metropolitan areas" 2" *uburbs" 6" Architecture, Modern5!th century" I" Title" #A7!76"L28 !!! 8!5dc1 77+!60908
Page v :or the sailors of my youth, 'ho told me about the vast oceans, :risco, Pancho, and *hanghai
Page vi C;#TE#T* Ac$no'ledgments
viii
The Metropolis4 A Portfolio of 3 Images
I Introduction
!
Tafuri
1
The =anderer, Authority, and oublespace The *traying >a?e
7 7
*tones at @est
3!
The Eye in the Center
3
The :ace of Po'er
32
The oublespace
38
A #e' Map
23
II The *uburban Metropolis
20
*tim and ross4 @ethin$ing the 28 Metropolis (ouston, 9th :loor" At the 28 =indo' Megashape 27 Intention
6!
The Plane, the @iders, and Air 6! *pace :ields 61 *pra'l
63
;ceanic >rammar
62
Entortung
60
*tim and ross
69
*timulators
0!
*timdross
01
*parta
02
The ;ther City
02
irgin :ields
00
A Certain istance
81
The Protean :ield
83
@adical Mobility
80
I Introduction
!
Tafuri
1
The =anderer, Authority, and oublespace The *traying >a?e
7 7
*tones at @est
3!
The Eye in the Center
3
The :ace of Po'er
32
The oublespace
38
A #e' Map
23
II The *uburban Metropolis
20
*tim and ross4 @ethin$ing the 28 Metropolis (ouston, 9th :loor" At the 28 =indo' Megashape 27 Intention
6!
The Plane, the @iders, and Air 6! *pace :ields 61 *pra'l
63
;ceanic >rammar
62
Entortung
60
*tim and ross
69
*timulators
0!
*timdross
01
*parta
02
The ;ther City
02
irgin :ields
00
A Certain istance
81
The Protean :ield
83
@adical Mobility
80
oids and apors
88
III
92
Architecture @econsidered The End of the Architectural Promenade4 A Portfolio of Images ist istra ract cti ion ers ersus Conc Concen entr tra ation tion
96 90
Planned Assaults
78
Ambiguity and Action
11!
The Metropolitan Architect
110
Architects< (ands
110
The Architect
117
The Ar Architect in in th the Me Metropolis
1!
ehicular /ehavior4 A Portfolio of 17 Images esign Machines 137 Mechanisms of Closeness
137
(ousehold ehicles
123
To'ard :usion
129
The *imple (ouse
16!
I
160
The :rontier The Middle Landscape
168
:rontiers
168
Museum >eography
10!
:rontier Ecology
100
Architecture and /iota
108
#otes
180
/ibliography
17!
Page vii
Illustration Credits
176
Inde.
178
Page viii ACB#;=LE>ME#T* I especially 'ant to than$4 *anford B'inter and *tephen :o. for their brilliant admi.ture of criticism, enthusiasm, and editorial suggestions" Michael /ell, Aaron /ets$y, ohn /iln, :arDs el ahdah, Ed'ard imendberg, Albert Pope, and :rederic$ Turner for their support, patient listening, and important comments" ung #go for earlier developments of te.t and image" Bim *hoema$e and Lu$e /ulman for their invaluable assistance 'ith the loo$ of the boo$" oris Anderson and anet =heeler for their support" @oger Conover of the MIT Press, 'hose astonishing t'enty+year list I am very proud to be part of, and my editor Matthe' Abbate and designer im Mc=ethy" I also 'ant to than$ President Malcolm >illis and former Provost avid Auston of @ice )niversity for their active support of a 'or$ing dean" I can thin$ of no better setting for creative 'or$ than this great university" I especially 'ant to than$ ohn Casbarian" (is friendship and support of my creative 'or$ combined 'ith his e.uisite associate deanship ma$es my life at @ice a pleasure" I 'ant to ac$no'ledge all of the 'ild developers and builders 'ho created (ouston, 'ithout 'hom this boo$ 'ould not have been possible" :inally, I 'ant to than$ my family 'ho have suffered stoically the ups and do'ns of the author" (;)*T;#, #;EM/E@ 1777
Page 3 T(E MET@;P;LI*4 A P;@T:;LI; ;: IMA>E*
Page 2 "r5 "+F + 1 @ear vie'
A sudden glimpse, a distant bearing, a momentary stop on the eye
Page 6 >ulfgate *hopping City G/orn to shop,G the stimmers spill off the free'ay to evaporate in the par$ing lot" The assemblage of car-credit card-shopper is the hypodermic of the shopping stream" ust as the medieval stirrup transferred the po'er of the horse to the horseman
Page 0 3 *ic$ City, the Te.as Medical Center A fleet of air and ground vehicles, elevators, and stretchers delivers the medical body" The ecology of prevention, care, and intervention operates on 'orld time5t'enty four hours a day, seven days a 'ee$" /odies come and go, live and die" :ree par$ing at first visit" /rain scan, bone scan, M@I, P*A, hopes, illusions, and the eternal 'ait" *tatistics vs" self"
Page 8 2 epth and height The oil gusher is transfigured and petrified in the priapic to'er5the emptying of the earth and the filling of the s$y"
Page 9 6 Preparation and promise The prefiguration of the metropolis as
a holey space soon to be filled" The clean slate includes the city floor, the 'eather system, and the facsimiles of 'hat
Page 7 0 Minor air sho' Lifting out of the ground, the free'ay abandons its base to Hoin, ever so briefly, the air space" (elicopters Hoin *ub+ urbans in the minor air sho'"
Page 1! 8 *$eletons The corner columns, essential to the s$eletal structure inside the distant Transco To'er %designed by ohnson and /urgee&, 'ere removed from the early plans, at the client
Page 11 9 Air space /et'een desire and action4 The huge and volatile air bag rests li$e a pillo' over the metropolis" eceptively inviting in good 'eather even the 'eariest get no rest 'hen Canadian air confronts its Me.ican double" In (ouston air has a special taste, a special promise, a special desire4 a mi.ture of roughnec$ and astronaut dreams, of helicopters %heading for the rigs at sea& and space vehicles" =ealth and adventure" Te.as action"
Page 1 7 emolition derby The subconscious of the free'ay mind fulfills its 'ildest dream" At the center are oil, grease, smo$e, roaring engines, and the crashing of metal, 'hile the cro'd hovers on the perimeter in the dar$ness beneath the giant s$ull+cap of the Astrodome" >ladiators, bullfighters, rodeo riders, all are destined to meet in mortal embrace, ma$ing the arena a historical place4 the end of the line" The ultimate behavioral sin$4 here 'e are born again to destroy at the end of the cul+de+sac of time and motion"
Page 13 1! *ound and fury If 'e could only hear the thunder5the hissing, the crac$ling, and the echoes5the flatness of the image 'ould disappear in favor of a space 'hose confinements are mysteriously created by content rather than e.tent5the ur+architecture of the metropolis"
Page 12 11 The ?oohemic canopy Planning Principle 14 =hen in doubt, plant a tree"
Page 16 1 The Large >lass reflected on (ouston
Page 10
Page 18 12
Miasma =hen :riedrich Engels inspected the innermost courts of Manchester in search of 'or$ing+class life, he 'as astounded to find that he could not feel the ground under his feet because of the refuse and debris" The modern 'anderer may feel similarly on days 'hen the yello'ish miasma hides the hori?on, burns the eyes, and stings the throat"
Page 19 16 E.tensions The vast flatness of the Te.as landscape 'elds ground space and air space seamlessly" The ne' space confuses fish and fo'l, particularly 'hen the ?oohemic canopy is bro$en" In this vehicular paradise, cars are loved, helicopters smiled at, airplanes adored, and airships revered" In :inland, 'here everyone seems to have one, the mobile phone
Page 17 10 *uperhigh'ay Thirty+four man+years are spent per day commuting on the free'ays in (ouston" Jet the ride heals, soothes, and eases the Hump cuts bet'een home and 'or$, bet'een nature and culture, bet'een by'ay and free'ay, bet'een his and hers"
Page ! I5 I#T@;)CTI;#
Page 1 Tafuri
reali?ed that for the first time I had encountered 'hat Manfredo T afuri, the Italian architectural theorist and historian, called Gthe merciless commerciali?ation of the human environmentG4 America and the suburban metropolis" 1 This encounter 'as fraught 'ith conflict, fascination, and repulsion" Jet in retrospect it 'as cathartic and deeply liberating" )pon confronting the metropolis, my Gambiguous conscienceG5my resistance5'as slo'ly, then radically transformed into pragmatism and ne' hope, particularly for the generations of students5future architects5'ho have been in my life for so many years" The boo$ attempts to cover the ground bet'een city and design, succinctly rather than e.haustively because the subHect is so vast and because of my lac$ of patience and my desire to ma$e a comprehensible proHect that is open and accessible, filled 'ith lacunas and incipient traHectories" I must confess to having read a fe' boo$s many times and not the other 'ay around" Tafuri
Page GheroicG attempts to brea$ the media constraints of architectural form, to ma$e form 'rite" Invariably the proHects became 'edded to the d'ellers because only the latter could bring meaning to life Gin speech and actionG %Arendt&" This proved conseuential, since the comple. of subHect+obHect relations 'as to become my path to liberation" Tafuri
conclusions in Architecture and )topia 'ere full of despair" After a personal crisis he abandoned the modern proHect for the nobler and safer pursuit of history" The last time I sa' him, he loo$ed at me enigmatically 'ith a hint of a smile" *ince I didn
ianni attimo, the Italian philosopher of hermeneutics, describes our fare'ell to modernity as a convalescence from sic$ness4 'e have become used to architecture that is no longer the instrument of city form" 3 Conseuently the Gnecessary reconciliation bet'een the mobility of values and the stability of architecture
Page 3 chitecture as a static enterprise has been displaced by architecture as a form of soft'are %a suggestion posed at the outset as a mild provocation&" The traHectory of the old city
'as to'ard complete and utter artifice %thin$ of nature in Paris or @omeO& the %suburban& metropolis points in the opposite direction, to'ard nature, or should 'e say to'ard the preternatural alloy of nature and artifice" The metropolis
Page 2 reached an impasse, and the remedy is not readily apparent" It
seems obvious, ho'ever, that the role of the architect as the privileged %albeit tragic& hero is defunct because so fe' are able to play it" :urthermore there is no longer time or room for 'hat Tafuri called Gthe free contemplation of our destiny"G The metropolis that 'ill soon be absorbed into an all+ encompassing cordon urbain %urban barrier& 'ill render us all riders, since the driving has been left to an increasingly global mar$et" The demise of the city has erased the borders bet'een city, suburb, and hinterland to form this huge barrier that is sometimes a metropolis and al'ays part of a vast Terrapolis, a 'orld urbanism" The echo of cordon sanitaire %a sanitary barrier to protect a city from the plague& is intentional, for the significance of 'orld urbanism is not that it is every'here, as in a global city, but that in its dominance it delimits and forecloses other alternatives for habitation" Perple.ingly, 'e seem no longer able to Gthin$ globally and act locally,G because the global and the local are so intert'ined that they have become synthetic and inseparable" The alternating 'isdom and foolishness of the many 'ill drive us all, although as individual members of a collective 'e are parado.ically all in the driver
Page 6
city form, but once agglomerated into vast trac$s of similar buildings, %suburban& form again begins to shape the metropolis" It is asinine to suggest that the single+family house and its lot, agglomerated, have no conseuence for urban form" They are the very cause of our daily commute" These agglomerations, or megaforms, are hard to visuali?e despite their molecular regimentation %house, lot, and street& because their hori?ons, their coherence as obHects, are fu??y and disHointed" The sorry ne's for architects is that the heroes of these conseuential megaforms are the Levitts, the Eichlers, and more recently )"*" (omes, and thousands of lesser+$no'n developers and builders 'ho continue to house us" The decline of the ideological importance of modern architecture as e.pressed in urban organi?ation is in part the result of the architect
Page 0
have the recipe for neurosis if not professional catastrophe" Instead, architectural educators should promote team'or$ and choose the design of authorless obHects as their fundamental preoccupation, combined 'ith the integration of design and practice" =ith time, architects 'ill see ho' their relevance to the metropolis 'ill be reinvigorated" There is much to learn from industrial design practices and design mar$eting and distribution" The premise of architectural production as team'or$ does not prohibit individuals from playing the role of heroes in their practice" (o'ever, before 'e can rethin$ curriculum 'e must rethin$ the metropolis" In Piranesiehry, *;M from (eHdu$, >raves from :ran$ Lloyd =right, enturi-*cott /ro'n from Paul @udolph" As al'ays, binary thin$ing brea$s apart and dissolves the purported differences, particularly 'hen the pairings are close to home" Again 'e encounter the absolutism of the binary" Again, T afuri found a 'ay out" *ignificantly for my argument and
Page 8 surreptitiously, he too$ us across the ocean to L
plan for =ashington and the many plans and proHects by Thomas efferson, president and architect of 'hite America par e.cellence" The third 'ay" In efferson, Tafuri sa' a po'erful organi?er of culture %a true architect&, one 'ho constructs the ne' democratic culture of the )nited *tates 'ith the %empty& signs of European culture" /ut efferson
Page 9 :inally after some t'enty years Tafuri is behind me" The
assertiveness of my proposition in this boo$ reflects my ne'+ 'on freedom, since it allo's me to rethin$ the metropolis, to reconsider architecture and the role of the architect, and euphorically, at last, to find a ne' frontier for further architectural deliberations and actions" After Tafurilobal euphoria must be coupled 'ith local energies" Although our IRs may be improving, 'e still eat, sleep, and die housed in the same vulnerable body saddled 'ith the same, often poorly e.pressed, insatiable desire for love, friendship, and community"
Page 7 The =anderer, Authority, and oublespace The *traying >a?e The very idea of carving an armored car out of stone smac$s of a certain psychological acceleration, of the sculptor being a bit ahead of his time" As far as I $no', this is the only monument to a man on an armored car that e.ists in the 'orld" In this respect alone, it is a symbol of a ne' society" The old society used to be presented by men on horsebac$"
5oseph /rods$y, describing a statue of Lenin standing on top of an armored car in front of former Leningraduide to a @enamed City,G in Less Than ;ne4 *elected Essays The 'anderereorges /ataille lin$ed to the prison5a monumentality 'hich, as 'ith the /astille, 'ould eventually be attac$ed by the storming mob of the street, the stonemasons, the bron?e casters, the grooms, and the cre's of the armored cars" Let us follo' the dDrive %drift& of the straying ga?e" @adically peripatetic, let
Page 3! The straying ga?e needs its centers as parasites reuire hosts" At the Pantheon 'e can establish at least three, apart from the perspective of strict architectural history that forms the basis for the entire discussion" 13 The first is dra'n by Michel *erres and his stones momentarily at rest in the foundations of @ome, the second by Michel :oucault and his all+seeing eye forcing us, confined to the interior of the building, to confess, and the third by enis (ollier in his interpretation of >eorges /ataille, 'hose man in the pia??a is suashed by the sheer monumentality of the building" The perspectives are not entirely comparable, but serve as strategic positions in this te.t" *erres
others are recto and verso of the same coin, fi.ed points of the stage on 'hich the primary plot of this te.t is acted out" :oucault and (ollier 'ill set the rules for the action, 'hile *erres 'ill assist in the escape" As Gthe peasant gives the land a landscape,G 12 these nuclei of steady ga?es 'ill help to construct a set of positions in and around the ancient monument, positions that curve, shape, and delimit our conceptual geography" The faint outline of a space appears bet'een them5a lacuna5a lunar la$e that in its solid dar$ness is hard pressed to reveal its secrets" *tones at @est >eometry has to ma$e itself stone before the 'ord can ma$e itself flesh" " " " The obHect apprehended by >alileo reuired t'o 'orlds, or rather t'o spaces and one time" The incandescent space of geometry and the dar$ 'orld of opaue mass" #othing is so easy as to understand the first5it is there only to understand and be understood nothing is so easy to hear as the 'ord5it is there to be heard but nothing so obscure as the second5nothing so difficult to conceive as the body, flesh or stone, nothing so hard to hear as the sound that escapes from it nothing is so difficult as to $no' ho' it receives and envelops light" 5Michel *erres, @ome4 The /oo$ of :oundations >eometry ersus *tone >eometrically spea$ing %'hich historians have done 'ell&, the Pantheon is a sphere, a miniature universe, a heaven on earth5 a mental structure to be $ept in one
Page 31 its immediate surface the Pantheon is dar$, thic$, and formidable in its ambiguity" The Pantheon as material, as stone, as the other space, or even specifically as bric$s, roc$s, mortar, and @oman concrete, 'ill not brea$ its silence" To apprehend it briefly via the anthropometric trace, it is a giant blac$ s$ull, to'ering and 'ide, filling no' in a 'orld of Lilliputians one end of a small pia??a" It and the sculpture of TraHan on its priapic column are considered to be the t'o most spectacular @oman monuments" (o' and 'hy they have survived is ambiguous at best4 /arbarians demolish buildings in order to bring the stone bac$ to its function as proHectile4 'isdom builds in order to immobili?e stone to appease hatred, to protect" =hy do you thin$ 'e have 'alls, to'ns, and temples, 'hen 'e could sleep under the stars and prostrate ourselves before the hori?on =e have only built to settle stones, 'hich could other'ise fly continually in our midst" The builder
the architectonic ideal e.ists only for representation5the point is that proHectiles come to rest" 16 @ome as represented by the Pantheon is a uarry of 'eapons, dormant, petrified, and opaue" As such, the Pantheon is a perfect symbol of @ome, because it is as if this lo'bro' city had escaped all of the academic contemplation that is associated 'ith the city4 G*cience never appeared in @ome, nor did geometry or logic4 never anything but politics"G 10 Imported for the convenience of politics %and 'arfare&, the geometry of the half+circle that haunts the outer cupola and inner room %and our giant blac$ s$ull& 'as for the @omans only a 'ay to get to the proHectiles5to the obHect5and this suits us fine" The difference bet'een the geometry of the ideal sphere that lingers in the Pantheon and the bordering outer geometry of the ideal @oman city5the chec$erboard of the encampment5is Hust a line" The built difference bet'een the spherical interior of the inner space of the temple, the outer s$ull, and the t'isting fabric of the street is a gap filled by the opaue mass of material" This suits us fine too, because it is into this dar$ness that 'e 'ill eventually stray" >ray ersus /lac$ As our first position, this fabric of stone must be held right here, because even as an arsenal of proHectiles it becomes too metaphoric4 the roc$s and bric$s 'ill prob
Page 3 ably never fly again" The Pantheon
$ept obliue" (ere at degree ?ero, the 'andererree$ polis" The purpose of this duality 'as Gto render accessible to a multitude of
Page 33 men the inspection of a small number of obHects4 this 'as the problem to 'hich the architecture of temples, theatres and circuses responded"G 19 =hen the 'anderer Hoins his fello' tourists 'ith their guides, maps, and incessant picture+ ta$ing, it is the opposite pole that comes to mind4 Gto procure for a small number of people, or even for a single individual, the instantaneous vie' of a great multitude"G 17 Thus it is :oucaultree$ than 'e believe" =e are neither in the amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of po'er, 'hich 'e bring ourselves since 'e are part of its mechanism"G ! *urveillance /entham
The Pantheon, caught in this Panoptic ga?e, transforms the body of the emperor into light" The great oculus, rain or shine, thro's light5diffuse %'hen overcast& or focused and columnar %'hen sunny&5across the space" :ocused, the searchlight 'anders across the 'arped surfaces" As in a theater set, the cells are rendered in trompe+l
Page 32 'hich anyone may come and e.ercise Gthe functions of surveillance,G has been removed and replaced by the giant searchlight, the reminder of the father" :rom :oucault
/ataille
Page 36 itself and the other because it does not" ;ne represses %imposes silence& the other e.presses %ma$es one tal$&" 5enis (ollier, Against Architecture4 The =ritings of >eorges /ataille The *$ull The forest of the giant portico
sees architecture not Hust as an image of social order, but as instrumental in imposing the order4 G:rom being a simple symbol it has become master"G 2 There is an anthropomorphic sleight of hand at 'or$ here5the monument becomes a sentry, a human form" This is of particular interest, because the order the Pantheon imposes on our 'anderer5no'
Page 30 /ataille
his s$ull 'ith the incorrect address" 3! =ith the Pantheon severed from its body, untraceable, both the father standing on his column and his decapitated son fade a'ay"
Page 38 The ouble*pace Lacuna Three positions5the opaue mass of the built substance and t'o prisons %one concave, the other conve.&5are all cradled in the official history of the monument" As conceptual dominions, ho'ever, they do not fully map out the Pantheon" Much li$e the lines in a value engineeroethe, in spea$ing of Palladian villas, called the GcontradictionG bet'een surface and column" This contradiction stalls, if briefly, the onslaught of representation5of speech5to e.pose the 'riting of the 'all" The 'anderer has his third and ultimate encounter 'ith the gap 'hen he discovers that the 'all bet'een the pylons is hollo' and occupiable" Intra Muros (ollier refers repeatedly to a GgapG 'hen he compares :oucault and /ataille, and also 'hen he compares the slaughterhouse and the museum" These gaps are conceptual and actual distances bet'een loci" It is their status as voids that is signifi
Page 39 cant, because the subtle and insidious connection bet'een the loci is intramural" It is genetically inscribed" /ataille
Page 37 cus, li$e a peripheral other, repeats and doubles both the outer and inner monument, but lies outside the focus of 'hat #orman /ryson calls Gthe menacing ga?e"G 36 Le @egard5The >a?e The genealogy of the disturbed and disturbing ga?e in modern :rench thin$ing is a large and comple. subHect, and indeed is an essential ingredient of both :oucaulta?e in the E.panded :ieldG attempts to investigate G'here the modern subHect resides"G This is important for architecture because the architect al'ays assumes a subHect, more or less consciously, for a building5the architect
Page 2! placed by the inner calm of the 'all" This inner 'orld has momentarily blinded all menacing ga?es" The subHect has been ta$en out of his obsessive self+enclosure to become one 'ith the buildingothic art, as a landscape, created a :rance and a :rench humanity that no one could foresee4 outlines of the hori?on, silhouettes of cities5a poetry, in short, that arose from >othic art, and not from geology or from Capetian institutions"G37 :ocillon
Page 21 The form of the Pantheon remains the same, and so does its o'n Gpersonal and specific value"G The narro' path that loops through the Pantheon
Page 2 s'ers or its figures" In contradistinction, the great interior
space is made for an ideali?ed observer 'hose interest is the meaning %a facsimile of the universe& rather than the factuality of the building, the fabbrica" The interspace5the mold of both outside and inside5li$e a gene holds the inscription of the architectural act itself" %Li$e a bicycleiuseppe Terragni to separate entire systems of columns and 'alls in order to produce ?ones of inbet'eens to 'hich various activities could be assigned" Each ?one 'as given its o'n vocabulary, clearly distinguished from the rest of the building" The beginning of this internal decomposition has, as the case of the Pantheon proves, been falsely associated 'ith Le Corbusier" To be sure, the Pantheon is not the origin either" The importance of this territory 'ithin the architectural body lies not only in its formal possibilities, but in its formal significance" ifferences in architecture are often driven by functional distinctions, but here they are driven by the nature of the form itself" This 'or$ is being done on the very vehicle of :ocillon
Page 23 it al'ays represents something other than itself from the moment it becomes distinguished from mere building" 22 The re'riting of the Pantheon attempts to claim an additional territory for architecture in the gap bet'een architecture as
representation and architecture as mere building" *imply put, architecture for (ollier and others is a form of speech, 'hile by no' it is also a form of 'riting, in erridarammatology 26 The articulation of the doublespace is the difference" This space is not dominated by the fi.ed ga?e but by the straying ga?e, and because the stage is dimly lit, the 'ea$er senses are allo'ed their much deserved handicap" %ision has dominated architecture, as speech has 'riting"& If this is the ac$no'ledgment of a certain autonomy of architecture, then, to paraphrase #orman Mailer, Garchitecture
Page 22 dered finite and limited because their e.tent has been severed by the momentary autonomy5by the doublespace5Gthe gap in the garment,G as /arthes 'rote in another conte.t" 20 And perhaps more fundamentally, discipline and state are limited by their affiliation to either the interior or the e.terior realm, 'hich is particularly ineffective in a 'orld in 'hich there is no longer an easy distinction bet'een the t'o5even #olli 'ould have difficulties dra'ing the map"
The threat is no' far more sinister, since the three previous threats still had some blind spots in 'hich the subHect could 'or$ and hide and remain in his reverie 'hile the obHect 'as overloo$ed" The threat is more violent and more random in its specific attac$s, but it is also more pervasive in that it is all+enclosing" Tentatively such a culprit is best illustrated by the pollution that is slo'ly attac$ing the Pantheon
Page 26 tonomies" This ultimate commingling s'eeps up the stones 'ith the paranoias, racing along surfaces, cutting out beyond the building, thrusting the subHect5mind and all his ne'+ 'on senses5into the vast comple. of the metropolis"
Page 20 II5 T(E *)/)@/A# MET@;P;LI* Loo$ing out from belo' the night s$y, the aviator no longer sees cities as solitary light sources struggling against the dar$ness" Instead homologies of nebulas, here cast on the ground, ma$e up luminous vapors, strea$s, ?ones, and clusters of lights that threaten the supremacy of the dar$ness they occupy" The metropolitan gala.y has replaced the city as a singularity" The density of this gala.y varies radically, and some'here in the middle of the spectrum from bright to faint lies the suburban metropolis"
Page 28 *tim and ross4 @ethin$ing the Metropolis stim As in stimulation %=illiam >ibson in Mona Lisa ;verdrive&, *timme4 voice, *timmung4 ambience dross 1" =aste product or impurities formed on the surface of molten metal during smelting" " =orthless stuff as opposed to valuables or value" regs" rethin$ing Changing onelass, cut at midpoint by a bright hori?on4 a dense band of lights flic$ering hysterically, li$e a great mil$y 'ay sending myriad distress signals about its impending demise" Enter the chocolate grinder, the bride, and her nine bachelors, and yet a third field speedily emerges" Pulsating from belo', the flurry momentarily dra's attention from uchamp
of the >lass5the mov+
Page 29 ing lights easily match the intensity of the far more numerous immobile ones, suggesting the monstrous possibility that none are definitively fi.ed" All is labile, transient, as if it 'ere only a uestion of time before all these lit particles 'ould move5billiard balls on a vast table, unless the table is not itself a fluid in motion Physicists abstract from these flu.+fields features such as smoothness, connections to points+particles, and rules of interaction %bet'een sources, sin$s, cycles, and flo's&" <<=here space 'as once Bantian, embodying the possibility of separation, it no' becomes the fabric 'hich connects all into a 'hole"G #othing on the plane is stationary, everything is fluid5even the ground itself on 'hich the billiard balls careen" The bio+vehicular, electro+commercial, socio+ electronic, and optico+ocular metropolis $no's no steady state" In a city predominantly constituted by motion and temporalities, space is about deformation and velocity, constantly being carved out in front and abandoned behind" efinitive no' the end of the Corbusian promenade, and the Corbusian subHect as the gentleman puppet on the architect
Page 27 Megashape /ac$ at my 'indo' the palimpsest of a ne' city (aunts its hyperte.tuality in blac$ and light" Its mental map of diverse subHectivities rarely operates 'hile one is on foot, a predicament that hints at the possibility of a ne' visibility, a ne' field 'ith emergent, une.pected megashapes apprehensible but only at vastly different scales of motion" 6 =e can e.pect megashapes to be uite comple." ;n the one hand 'e have a megashape such as the ?oohemic canopy, constituted by a myriad of trees of varying species, si?e, and maturity" ;n the other, 'e have do'nto'n, 0 'hich is formed by the tight assembly of s$yscrapers" /oth shapes rely on repetition, one of many small elements, the other of a fairly small assembly of large elements" Though the t'o megashapes seem different, both are apprehended through shifts and distortions of scale and speed" o'nto'n relies less on speed than on distance" /oth 'ould reuire modern mathematics for analytical description" The canopy demands a special $ind of attentiveness, since it operates on the periphery of everyday vision" (o'ever, once focused on, trees get counted and form 'ith time and repetition a ?oohemic appreciation5even the pedestrian gets a sense of the forest" More intriguing, the canopy is understood from 'ithin, from the counting of trees, not from the reali?ation of the 'hole" There are t'o 'ays of seeing the canopy, one from 'ithin and the other from the perspective of the aerial field %such as the space all across the city vie'ed from the 9th floor&" @adically different, they don
Page 6! the field" (o' 'e reconstruct or thin$ about do'nto'nulf%ing& city" Its plane is crude and 'ild, mar$ed by fissures, vacated space, and bits of untouched plain, aptly described by 'hat @obert *mithson found in #e' ersey4 GPassaic seems full of
Page 61 and trees, particularly 'hen %even for the briefest of moments& they 'al$ the plane" The traHectories along 'hich riders move follo' at least t'o speeds, both ballistic in nature" Along the first, bullet cars 'ith cooled interiors push through the thic$, humid phlegm" Along the second, even
more viscous one, that of fear5urban fear %driving one to the false safety of closets, behind the barricades in one
Page 6 prised and totally innocent drifters under the canopy change their clothes as if models 'or$ing the run'ay" ;r thunder poised to deliver" :lashes that, li$e a giant Pert chart, dra' the most random connections, cloud to cloud, cloud to building, cloud to ground, independent along the hori?on, hideous verticals etching crac$s in the blac$ heavens destined
for human disaster" ;r rain, totally ignoring gravity by operating in any conceivable direction, up, do'n, side'ays, to'ard you, and a'ay from you suc$ing you into its destiny" #ature rampant" )nli$e the lo'er strata, this huge stadium seems underdeveloped5begging for more to'ers, more air traffic, more lights, introduced, if for nothing else, to counteract the forces of nature, to challenge its total dominance" As it stands no', nature shares the ground 'ith artifice, 'hile the bag of air rules above, if it 'eren
Page 63 cause the vehicle operates along a curve 'hose origin is some'here above drivers, s'inging them out of, yet against and into, the crust of the earth that serves as the carpet
*pra'l :lying in over (ouston from the east, a late 'inter afternoon, 'ith the 'estern light rushing in parallel to the ground creating endless shado's %and the >ulf vs" Canada 'eather 'ar cooperating by staying a'ay&, one sees the holey plane emerge in all its tattered, uncouth ungainliness" *imultaneously, the very material that defines the holes comes into focus, $no'n as spra'l" In spra'l, units, s'atches, ?ones, and domains come to the fore, and since the ?oohemic canopy is no' its lo'est photosynthetic self, the observer can read through the trees for the hundreds of thousands of houses, the meandering streets, the cul+de+sacs, the arteries, and the sinuous free'ays" *pra'l is the very motor of this entire plane" *pra'lo 'est, young man %and all itinerant family members and paraphernalia&" oooooooooooo ;ne of the dominant megashapes in the suburban metropolis is so close to home that it is hard to see4 the vast agglomerations of identical single+family houses on various+ si?ed and + shaped lots" At first 'e may hesitate to refer to them as shapes, since it is only the interior reading that is distinct and clear 'hile at the perimeter, at the locus of the figure, formlessness prevails" :urthermore, the tentative shapeliness is only readable from an eagle
Page 62 The internal nature of the spra'l unit is both rudimentary and crude, and in need of evolution" The orientation of the house is totally dependent on the platting, 'ith no regard for the compass, the landscape, or prevailing ecology" Inefficient and 'asteful, spra'l
spra'l is much li$e the effersonian grid5(amilton doing efferson5and the ne.t evolutionary stage may be to tamper 'ith this bias" ;ceanic >rammar In the air or on the road, the clashes bet'een the ?oohemic and the aerial put the drifter in touch 'ith 'hat /audrillard calls the Gastral"G 13 This may also be particularly European %East Coast too&, but the sensation one has 'hen, for the first time, a tumble'eed crosses the high'ay some'here on former @oute 00 'ith no other car in sight ma$es one
Page 66 one
through repetition5a conception of an inside" This inside is in no 'ay trivial, particularly since it substitutes structurally for the loss of European city form" As city form, (ouston interiority is very different from, say, Parisian interiority" =here the latter is constituted by the street, the verticality established by the perimeter bloc$, and is propelled by pedestrian subHectivity, the lo'+slung green canopy establishes a pervasive almostdomestic intimacy that in the European city can only be had inside the residential bloc$, in the 'armth of a house" Thus (ouston is at any one location a giant room as 'ell as an ocean of endless surfaces" This inner field+and+room, produced through a traHectorial subHectivity, is held in place by t'o planes4 the ground and the canopy of trees" /oth planes undulate" The fieldroom is not a space in the European %Euclidean& sense but a constantly 'arping and pulsating fluidity" The pedestrian, painsta$ingly circumscribing the bloc$s of the old city, harbors no doubt about 'hat moves and 'hat is fi.ed" In (ouston, the speeding car proHects itself into a space that is never formed, forever evolving, emerging ahead 'hile disappearing behind" This creates a liuidity in 'hich the dance and the dancer are fused in a s'irling, self+engendering motion promoted by the darting of the driver
Page 60 olis, so lo' that the tops of s$yscrapers brush it" #ot yet completed, the blan$et gapes to the east, and the sun, li$e a child
red, 'hile the sun rises up and out to create an eventual Arctic+ scape of the cloud cover
Page 68 the beginning of its traHectory the house still had a basement" As it migrated farther 'est5and it sometimes did so because the settlers brought their houses 'ith them5it 'as modified to respond to the ne.t move" Among the first modifications 'as leaving the cellar behind, replaced by a set of roc$s placed simply on the ground to serve as point supports" The final transformation of the frontier )rhaus is the contemporary mobile home, still the cheapest and fastest
'ay to o'n a home, since it can be delivered li$e a car the follo'ing day on the basis of a loan amorti?ed over a ten+year period" The tendency to ma$e things lighter and more mobile goes hand in hand 'ith 'hat Barl Popper called the ephemerali?ation of technology, the suggestion that all technology 'ill evolve from cloc$s to clouds" The tilting houses %they sit on the same type of supports as the 'est'ard+ moving house, no' made of mass+produced concrete bloc$s& are an e.pression of the ephemerali?ation and an uprooting of the house severed from the ground, it shifts its status from building to furniture5the house can no' be part of the ne.t move" The rolling street %a reminder of the clay gumbo out of 'hich (ouston arose& gives the e.perience of driving in this flat city the feeling of being held hostage on a subdued roller coaster" The rolling is not at all confined to the poorest parts of the city but characteri?es the entire secondary street grid5and every house has, had, or 'ill have a bad foundation day" )nsettling as it may seem, the rolling rhythm of the road and the rac$ing of the houses %real or imagined& produce a strange echo of 'hat in #e' Jor$ 'ould constitute a city beat, though here it is not bebop but blues, ?ydeco, and cumbia" This rolling of the ground suggests that not only are the elements upon it unstable %and rhythmic& but the very field itself is the ultimate demonstration of metropolitan Entortung %uprootedness& 'hich >eorg *immel began to map out in his essay GThe Metropolis and Mental LifeG and Massimo Cacciari used as one of the bases for his Architecture and #ihilism4 ;n the Philosophy of Modern Architecture" 19 In (ouston, the entire foundation of the ground+level ecology is soft, rhythmic, and unstable, held together by the roots of the canopy of trees, creating the absurd impression of a city suspended from the treetops from 'hich its cars, riders, and roads gently s'ing" At any rate, the ground is a detached ground, the house an infinitely migrating detached house that follo's in a slo' attenuated progression the same /ro'nian traHectories as do its associated deputy paraphernalia5the car and the d'eller, emblems of a restless urban matri., continually on the move" -3-!13 147 AM
Page 69 *tim and ross *pace is granted little physical presence on the plane of this planet" ominated by motion, time, and event, all components of this comple. hide an essential vulnerability4 trees die, cars and mar$ets crash, and the air slo'ly $ills" In fact, in (ouston air functions much li$e our s$in, an immense enveloping organ, to be constantly attended to, chilled, channeled, and cleaned" Pools of cooled air dot the plane,
much li$e oases in deserts" Precariously pinned in place by machines and human events, these pools become points of stimulation5stims5on this other'ise rough but uninflected hide, populated only by the dross5the ignored, undervalued, unfortunate economic residues of the metropolitan machine" *pace as value, as locus of events, as genius loci, is then reduced to interior space, a return to the cave" In these enclaves or stims, time is $ept at bay, suspension is the rule, levitation the desire, 'hether of the office, the house, the restaurant, the museum, or the evermarauding *uburban" ;utside, the minimi?ation of time is the dominant force that dra's lines on this erratically littered surface and gathers its pools of energy" ;nce the time lines are seen to coincide and overlap, they begin to curl and t'ist" ;ur plot thic$ens at the >alleria5(ouston
Page 67 forms a signifying beat, tapping gently on the rider
stretch of s$y" )rban threats prevail in this huge ecological envelope" Largely hiding out in the spaces bet'een, the threats are $ept a'ay from the stims" %*tims must not be implicated or soiled by harsh realities"& Clandestine at first, yet ultimately as palpable as the humidity, the threats rush to the surface" Environmental ones, made apparent by the metropolis as a large unified ecology, an envelope 'ith its o'n air, a sloppy organ 'hose precarious health is clearly in uestion" (ere the fear of miasma is real5(ouston is one of the most polluted cities in the nation" And that of urban fear5the insidious force that atomi?es the city li$e a scatter bomb into myriad cells each surrounded and enclosed by various forms of callused protective tissue %physical pro'ess, po'er in numbers, rent+a+ cops, 'alls, gates, distance, electronics, guard dogs, lot si?e, borders, railroad or free'ay barriers&5an entire physics of enclavism" =e are tal$ing 'arfare here" This strife propels and animates the ecology, much more than Ecology itself, maybe as much as the mar$et force" Li$e myriad invisible nanomachines clandestinely at 'or$ undermining metropolitan sanity, fear has delaminated the stim from the plane, Entortung efficiently at 'or$" In gaggles, stims agglutinate, s$ip, and leapfrog once the barometer of fear passes the critical mar$" Jet among the middle class, the fear remains unspo$en, silenced, merely illustrated in passing by the antiseptic crime statistics of the ne's media" In the street it spea$s loud and clear" In fearuns and gas5the propellants of the metropolis on the run" To 'hat end is all this paraphernalia, 'hen according to recent polls (ouston ran$s as the fourth most livable city in the )nited *tates The ans'er surely leads us to the stims themselves, to their internal strength and, alas, to their vulnerability"
Page 0! *timulators A colleague invites us to a reception given by an art patron" =e traverse the plane and navigate the dross4 a mental map, an address, a curving road, large lots and gigantic houses, the de rigueur smiling rent+a+cop" ;ur destination is a marvel of a house, a fantasy sustained by spectacular architectural scenography, various addenda %arresting decoration, 'himsical furniture, subdued music&, and the glamour of the party itself" The collusion is in fact a perfect one, bet'een architects %the curved interior street&, decorators %the to'els arranged on the floor in the bathroom&, caterers %the
glutinous loot of shrimp&, the art patron %her sonulf of Me.ico" These interloc$ing systems have, in architectural practice, been ta$en for granted and ignored, or dealt 'ith as a $it of parts, each
Page 01 component neatly defined and rendered independent" This array forms a comple. body that must, in the 'et of the post'ar city, be seen for 'hat it is, a partially selfsteering, partially spontaneous, yet cybernetic agglutination of forces, pulsations, events, rhythms, and machines" The neglect of any of its interloc$ed systems may, despite a multitude of chec$s, loc$s, gates, and balances, threaten its e.istence" The Age of Integration has come to call" *timdross
The metropolis, li$e the surface of a la$e during a rainstorm poc$ed by thousands of concentric ripples, is bombarded by a million stims that flic$er on and off during the cityarage, a stim that lasts for an hour or t'o on :riday afternoons 'hen his clients come to pay their respects" (e is the much beloved and respected mechanic %he 'or$s on imports& 'hose diverse clientele come to stim4 beer and cars car+as+transport par$ed and briefly elevated to car+ as+ art, setting aside all class and money distinctions bet'een the aficionados" *imultaneously, a bloc$ a'ay the hoods on a do?en cars go up %and the tiny lights turn on& to 'ire the iron+clad (ispanic Par$ing Lot *tim" Men gather around, the echo of a cumbia proHected from several car radios envelops the momentary brotherhood" ;pen treasure chests, the stationary cars proHect bac$ in time and place %to common culture and history&5/ulevar de *uenos, a telling balance to the carroame, all stims are held precariously in place, intensity, and motion by the metropolitan physics of G'alls, particles, and fields"G Metropolitan life is concentrated in these stims, and 'e live as if our life
Page 0 depended on them" 1 The common tendency to focus all attention on the stim ignores the fact that it is a living organism, machines, a behavior setting, in short a manifold shale of 'onderful comple.ity" As such it is dependent on its talons and its bac$'oods %its lacunas&, first the ocean of the metropolis, then the 'orld" The inadeuacy of the binary opposition of stim and dross is becoming evident %the legacy of our stale language and its profound grammatical limitations&" ;nly in the hybrid field of stmdross may 'e begin to rethin$ and recover from this holey plane some of the many potential futures" oooooooooooo
riving along (igh'ay 67, one of the central free'ays in (ouston, going 'est %or south&, the road'ay suddenly drops belo' grade, and the neighboring streets bridge over 'hile drivers race do'n a concrete canyon, crossed by overpasses for some four or five bloc$s" This is the result of neighborhood action" A group of 'ell+to+do citi?ens convinced the city to sin$ the free'ay to lo'er the noise %and maybe put an open trench bet'een them and their less affluent neighbors&" riving the free'ay you may see a lone observer" ust as you begin the descent into the canyon the observer loo$s right at you, then do'n at you, until he disappears above you" Invariably they are alone, often leaning on the balustrade, not moving" ;r they 'al$ bac$ and forth, agitated, gesturing, and since their mouths seem to open and close5their heads are turning fast, bac$ and forth, up and do'n5they may be screaming, or haranguing you" Jou cannot hear" They are the overpass people" =here they come from, 'ho they are, no one seems to $no'" At first, you may thin$ they are people from the neighborhood, loo$ing do'n at you 'ith a certain smug satisfaction" /ut in this to'n the 'ell+to+do are not idle" *o they come from some'here else" =ho is to $no' They are clearly too fe' for a sample, or a sociologist" They range from the uiet $ibbit?er to the enraged, suggesting that they are here for the action, for the movement, not the attention" *ome may be students of motion, others radicals protesting our daily commute, or aficionados of the noise and smell of motor cars, or transcendentalists in search of a continuous e.ternal and loud mantra, an artificial river" :or us, the drivers of the superhigh'ay, they are the others" Those 'ho have time to spare" Those 'ho don
Page 03 observer&" Those 'ho don
Page 02 *partas @evenge Mycenae certainly 'as a small place, and many of the to'ns of that period do not seem to us to+day to be particularly imposing yet that is not good evidence for reHecting 'hat the poets and 'hat general tradition have to say about the si?e of the TroHan e.pedition"
*uppose, for e.ample, that the city of *parta 'as to be deserted, and nothing left but the temple and the ground+plan, distant ages 'ould be un'illing to believe that the po'er of the Laconians 'as at all eual to their fame" Jet the *partans occupy t'o+fifths of the Peloponnese itself but also numerous allies beyond its frontiers" Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices it rather resembles a group of villages, li$e the ancient to'ns of (ellas, and therefore 'ould ma$e a poor sho'" If on the other hand, the same thing 'ould happen to Athens, one 'ould conHecture from 'hat met the eye that the city had been t'ice as po'erful as in fact it is" =e have no right, therefore, to Hudge cities by their appearances rather than their actual po'er " " " 5Thucydides, (istory of the Peloponnesian =ar The ;ther City T'o cities5or better, one city and its other5serve as poles in a speculation that permits us to race across the suburban metropolis" In this duality, ancient Athens and *parta are seen to outline t'o divergent traHectories" /oth have had considerable conseuence for modern civili?ation" In the =est, the eternal city5stenstaden %the city built of stone& as the cradle of civili?ed life in all its turbulences and lulls5is 'ell established and may be emblemati?ed by ancient Athens" The ultimate city+ state, Athens gained its importance from high visibility4 its built environments and its G'ords and deeds"G *parta, left as mere archaeological spec$s on the Peloponnesian fields, gained its place in history not because of monumental built mar$ers, but because astute historians ma$e us remember"
Page 06 Athens, the site and stage for the birth of =estern philosophy %Plato and Aristotle& and politics 'ith its agora %pla?a& and Acropolis, are etched deep on our cultural screen" In (annah Arendt
The ancient procession of the Panathenaia sna$ed diagonally across the agora in the third century /"C" and 'eaved and stumbled up the rough steps of the Acropolis to rest, momentarily, in the Propylaea to overloo$ the highly comple. and unusual Erechtheion to the left, and to the right the most glamorous and sophisticated of all temples, the Parthenon" (ere all the mysteries of architectural composition and human ritual, even the Garchitectural promenade,G 'ere brought into one miraculous assembly" /ut, as in all tragedies, there 'ere villains too, Hust across the 'ay in the Peloponnesos" If Athens 'as the city of light, 'isdom, and culture, *parta 'as the dar$ city occupying the plains of Peloponnesos" In Thucydides
Page 00 agents demonstrating von (aye$
apertures in the ;pen City" 2 These diverging desires begin to hint at the comple. struggle bet'een nature and civili?ation, freedom and control, that still reigns in the modern metropolis" efferson, president and architect, may have housed, Gin speech and action,G both the head of the frontier
Page 08 sightful essay of 17934 Gefferson invented a
the pavilions< diverging characteristics reveal ten agendas that, although held by the %almost& rigid arcade, challenge the singularity of the entire composition" (overing bet'een order and individuality, the )niversity of irginia begins to reveal its comple. dual identity" At first the portico appears perfectly rigid, as seen in a dra'ing of 192, but as built it steps in segments do'n the slope of the landscape, ma$ing sectional brea$s, some uite a'$'ard" A certain 'ea$ness gives in to the real contours of the landscape rather than staying the course of an ideal plan" The reason may have been to save money by minimi?ing e.cavation or costly reshaping of the land, or, by mimic$ing the land, to reflect a certain reverence for or conspiracy 'ith the natural5the pragmatic and the poetic" :urther comple.ities are revealed in Gthe successive lengthening of distance bet'een the pavilions,G 'hich produces forced perspectives that ma$e the mountains appear closer 'hen seen from the @otunda, 'hile from the open side of the uad the @otunda appears farther a'ay5again 'or$ on the distance, revealing the desire to have urban monumentality 'hile remaining close to nature" Individuali?ed, each pavilion spea$s of a freedom desired, ho'ever disguised as Gvariety " " " to serve the architectural lecturer,G8 but each is restrained by the portico" Jet this encounter bet'een pavilion and portico is problemati?ed by sometimes having the columns of a pavilion literally step over the portico, 'hile at other times they stand behind" This comple. intert'ining, combined 'ith different architectural e.pressions %all 'ithin the productive confines of classical ta.is&,9 reveals
Page 09 that the uad is appro.imate rather than precise, 'ea$ rather than rigid, open rather than closed" ;rganic, uasi+metabolic, the university as (umpty+umpty, 'ith arteries as porticos reluctantly holding the pumped+up pavilions, spills, behind curving 'alls bac$ed up by ro's of student hostels, into gardens" (ere an uneasy and incomplete or unfulfilled communion bet'een husbandmen and nature is played out" )neasy, since efferson believed that 'e 'ould never comprehend the modus operandi of nature" 7 Incomplete4 enclosed and domesticated in $itchen gardens, nature slipped surreptitiously inside civili?ation, but at the same time, at the missing fourth side of the uad, it held bac$ so that 'ilderness 'ould be at a proper distance" ;scillating, doubtful, or more positively pragmatic, multifaceted, and prepared for the GHust in case,G the university and nature are profoundly intert'ined" avid /ell 'rites of it as Ga
stochastic unity composed of a hierarchy of diversities 'hich accepts the occurrence of chance events and change 'ithin an ordered frame'or$"G 3! American railroads, according to the geographer ames ance, 31 'ere built to climb hills faster and turn curves sharper than English railroads, to save time and money" The same pragmatism is displayed in efferson
Page 07 (ere the grid had both heart and head, but harsh economic realities %@evolutionary =ar debts& and pressures from urban mercantilists added an economic t'ist that turned the grid from the public realm into an essentially private domain" The country 'as divided into commodity before it 'as fully e.plored" %A procedure, incidentally, contrary to the La' of the Indies of some t'o hundred years earlier, 'hich 'as the final result of years of practical e.perience5there the la' as theory 'as the mere confirmation of a process that had already ta$en place"& The GcontentsG of the effersonian grid, as agreed to by agrarian and mercantile interests, 'ere Hust that4 attached, leaving the grid to its o'n peculiar structural yet contradictory characteristics of simultaneous enclosure and openness, ma$ing statements such as >rady Clay
In this 'ay, 'estern prairie 'as converted into urban commodity" The stretching of Hurisdiction %po'er& and resources over immense distances left a 'idely dispersed built 'orld, a dispersion that 'as made all the more obvious but also comprehensible by the ever+present si.+mile grid" Po'er 'as not manifested in the built, but in the gridded land4 monumentality, normally associated 'ith built things, 'as transferred onto the immense territorial e.panse and its associated geography" Through the abstract grid as cool instrument and rigid frame, 'ealth and po'er 'ere surreptitiously shifted from property to sheer distance" (o'ever, the same grid had also turned the 'ilderness into nature, a nature that despite someone
Page 8! for the radical mobility to come" It is ironic that American academicians, so dependent on physical evidence, have left *parta in the historical dustbin and concentrated their 'or$ on Athens5 especially since their everyday life'orld has become increasingly suburban, a radical shift from the architectural and philosophical splendors of Athens to the laconic minimalism of *parta and its highly disciplined 'arriors, a shift from to urbs to rus" Thucydides noted that *parta 'as a city of Gdiscontinuity, lac$ing in monumentalityG as 'ell as Gphysical distinction"G *uburbia, 'ith its absence of monuments %leaving aside the shopping mall& and loosely connected enclaves, shares many of *parta
approve of the Hoggers, even the golfers, of suburbia, since they 'ere avid believers in fitness" Li$e'ise they 'ould not be surprised by the chain stores, since the 'ealth of the full citi?ens of *parta 'as vested in landed property, 'hile commerce 'as left to the lesser class, in this case to an invisible franchise class" The traHectory constructed here ties the *partan legacy to the American suburb" In the light occupation of land by the emphasis of land over buildings5nature over civili?ation5by class separation, by dispersal rather than concentration, and by order and discipline 'ithin despite the turmoil beyond, one assumes a deep+seated antipathy to the city" oooooooooooo The radical step from efferson
Page 81 A Certain istance This synchronic race across the architecture of American distance is meant to provide a calibrating device against 'hich more immediate and current phenomena may be measured" American distance, to put it bluntly, is every'here, 'hether it pertains to subHects or obHects" Li$e genetic code, it underlies at least all spatial actions performed by Americans, including those that are psychological and interpersonal" This code has been socially constructed in comple. interactions bet'een d'ellers, obHects, and the continent" And it is still under construction" Condensing everything 'e $no' about building and d'elling, there is al'ays a Gcertain distanceG in America" This distance bet'een obHects and subHects is the emblem of our ethos of d'elling" istinctly separate from the European ethos %in 'hich distances are fluctuating, ambiguous, or simply lac$ing&, the American distance ranges from the first distance that the Puritans inserted bet'een themselves and England on the one hand and nature on the other, via E" T" (all
metaphorically" Perry Miller 'rote beautifully in his essay on the Puritans of 1760 that a society so Gdespatched upon an errand that is its o'n a'ard 'ould 'ant no other a'ards4 it could go forth to possess a land 'ithout ever becoming possessed by it"G 32 Thus a certain distancing 'as necessary" The threatening 'ilderness 'as $ept at armreat Migration of 103! 'as inscribed in a rigid mental and actual stoc$ade that 'ould ensure its purity, its rationality5a concerted effort to adHust by separation to life on the frontier" (o'ever, this helps only to e.plain the distance" =e have yet to find its specific nature harbored in the modifier <
Page 8 'hich gave them, and particularly artists, an Gimpulse to reHect completely the gospel of civili?ation in order to guard 'ith resolution the savagery of the heart"G 30 Compelled to defend society
primitive hut, far from /oston, Philadelphia, and #e' Jor$, the occupants 'ere 'ell informed through boo$s, maga?ines, and mail" A secondhand urbanity %the metropolitan vapor& results" The street is e.changed for other channels of communication" /y inHecting information into distance, physical distance is overcome 'hile still separating" The specificity of the American dimension has its o'n push and pull, 'ith evasive as 'ell as revealing features" The young female college student lap+dancing for the out+of+to'n businessman can, than$s to the push of distance, remain almost virtual, hiding both her personality and se.ual proclivities" =ith do'ncast or distancing ga?e, the same 'oman 'al$ing home at night after a performance constructs a vulnerable distance that allo' males to scrutini?e intimately and undisturbed, a simultaneous push and pull" In the suburban house, the intercom %prefiguring the Internet& becomes a 'ay to tell the truth in the dysfunctional family by $eeping out of armalleria in (ouston did not Hust sepa
Page 83 rate shopping from the office space of do'nto'n, therefore ma$ing the latter a misnomer, but played out the loathing of the city and its evils deeply embedded in the American distance" The American city may al'ays have been on the run from itself, first 'ithin itself, but no' more dramatically a'ay from itself" (ouston is no different" As a dramatic manifestation of this urban self+loathing, (ouston is on the run, and, li$e most e.panding metropolitan areas, is going 'est" It may in t'enty+ five years Hoin Austin %Ga much nicer placeG& and leave Gthe undesirableG behind5as in %imagined& ever+e.panding lumpen proletariat" (austin may in turn go south %for even better 'eather and a beach&, because too many of " /" ac$son
The Protean :ield >eorg *immel, the >erman sociologist, began the important 'or$ that recogni?ed the return of the spirit of the invisible city and the subseuent metropolitan uprootedness, the enormous and radical socioeconomic change associated 'ith the emergence of metropolitan life" In the >erman 'ord for uprootedness, Entortung, the 'ord ;rt5place5reveals *immel
Page 82 of the metropolis" *ome thirty years before the drift from stasis to mobility had reach its ape., Le Corbusier made at Algiers in his Plan ;bus of 173!+1732 a valiant, or desperate, attempt to carry architecture beyond bloc$+ma$ing" (e attempted to refurbish an entire city in one single architectonic gesture, bonding transportation systems, commerce, and housing into one immense megastructure" Manfredo Tafuri 'rote hauntingly in Architecture and )topia4 Absorb the multiplicity, reconcile the improbable through the certainty of the plan, offset organic and disorganic ualities by accentuating their interrelationship, demonstrate that the ma.imum level of programming of productivity coincides 'ith the ma.imum level of the productivity of the spirit4 these are the obHectives delineated by Le Corbusier 'ith a lucidity that has no comparison in progressive European culture" 38 This may have been the last attempt to deploy architecture as a totali?ing instrument, ma$ing a synthetic amalgam of built form and city culture using the entire anthropogeographic landscape" =ithin the *partan traHectory there are potential bifurcations" ;bus may have been one of them, 'here the traces of the phalan., in the form of a free'ay+ city, get petrified5 turned bac$ on itself5and returned bac$ at the gates of the city itself" In the decades that follo'ed ;bus, the )"*" :ederal (igh'ay Act of 1760 separated the high'ay from its architectural
counterparts %housing, commerce, and industry&" Along separate traHectories, federal subsidies of housing %amounting to guaranteed mortgage loans that spa'ned a huge private housing industry& and the free'ay program ended up in suburbia but forever apart" Architecture as the potential missing lin$ in a maHor federal city+building program 'as unceremoniously left to the private sector" =ith the e.clusion of state+sponsored architecture %in contrast to European democracies, the )**@, and China&, architecture became a consumer good" uring decades as a commodity, competing 'ith cars and Christmas vacations, architecture fared reasonably 'ell, saved by its sheltering capacities and propelled by its appeal to the egos of the upper middle class and to the collective psyche of those 'ho had even more, the captains of industry and the modern corporation" =ith its roots in the city severed, architecture, as a cultural enterprise, did
Page 86 not fare 'ell" A couple of spectacular architectural proHects %on hills or at ends of left+over vistas& set apart from the all+consuming metropolis ma$e no city culture, but are mere sound bites in the ne's, or rest stops on the endless metropolitan Hourney" :or Le Corbusier, the architect 'as the organi?er, not a designer of obHects" :or the *partans the high'ay department is the organi?er, even if, as ic$ Tracy said, Gthe one 'ho o'ns the se'age o'ns the city"G The authority of the plan became a pipe dream" The disappearance of urban form, a disappearance perfected in *parta, shifted the public a'ay from colluding 'ith architecture to shape city life" oes the reader sense a tinge of regret here Jou shouldnuattari may be closer 'hen he tal$s about a state of affairs Gunstable, precarious, transitory,G the protean field more li$e a chemical formula than li$e Ghomogeneous a.iomatics"G 39 Corbu had many aspects right in the ;bus, such as aligning human 'or$ 'ith everyday life, but he sought this alignment through form rather than through free association" The assemblage of humans, their machines, and their connections to the floor of the metropolis is still the $ey to a better 'orld, but at present the manner of these associations is too *partan to reach all the metropolitans" The ability of the *partan metropolis to create mar$ets, to move goods and services and high+paid personnel is e.emplary, but its ability to construct Glife, desire, science, creation, libertyG on a massive scale is severely restricted to the chosen fe'" The
old *parta e.changed architecture for a 'ar machine the ne' *parta is displacing the architecture of the city 'ith a consumption machine, 'hose unintended e.ternalities may be its only redeeming features" *pending thirty+four man+years a day commuting, as 'or$ers do in (ouston, is not one of these features, 'hile speed and mobility for all 'ould be" In 1778 si. hundred houses 'ere built inside (ouston
Page 80 @adical Mobility Tracing the marching orders of the *partan phalan., mobility %rather than stasis& comes into focus" Mobility is one of the $eys to the suburban machine" /ut suburban mobility moves in contradistinction to pedestrian %city& mobility" The former is radical in nature, characteri?ed by modern filmic seuences and Harring Hump cuts, and although its origin may be the horse and its rider, it is the automobile and its rider that come into focus" It is a gloomy 'inter morning in *toc$holm" Artificial light from 'indo's, light poles, and cars carve a narro', ine.act, labile tunnel" rifts of sno'+slush, mostly along the edges of traffic lanes and bet'een street and side'al$, define an other'ise glistening blac$ surface that seamlessly meets an eually blac$ surround" ar$ shapes of people and vehicles move li$e robots along seemingly predetermined trac$s" The glum anatomy of an everyday 'inter morning some 6!! miles from the Arctic Circle, 'here the day is as dar$ as the night" The year is 1701 *'eden is Hust about to change from left+ hand to right+hand traffic" I stand at a large 'indo' in an office overloo$ing a maHor street" E.actly at 9 A"M", all cars, buses, motorbi$es, and bicycles come to a halt, only to slo'ly cross from one side to the other" Inscribing sigmoidal curves in the glistening blac$ surface5moving forever from the left to the right, as if part of some vehicular ballet5all drivers abandon for an instant their individual destinations to Hoin this vast national collusion" *imultaneously along the tunnel+li$e net'or$ of roads all across the country the citi?enry has its mobility rearranged" #o', abruptly untangled, *'edish traffic Hoins, in a straight line, the European continent belo'" @oughly at the same time as the shift+ over in *toc$holm,
particularly along the nebula of post'ar cities5T o$yo, T aipei, Los Angeles, (ouston, ;rlando, Atlanta, @andstadt (olland, and the @uhrgebiet5another event 'ent by unseen" In the blin$ of an eye the city shifted from being primarily stationary to becoming predominantly mobile" The moment 'hen pedestrians psychologically became drivers 'hen soft'are as in communication superseded hard'are as in streets 'hen total accessibility overturned Glocation, location, locationG 'hen the hegem+
Page 88 ony of the city 'as overturned by a suburban ethos" At this event the city lost its bearings and no longer served as the geological substratum for 'hat 'as becoming an immense protean field" This is neither trivial nor simple" The reali?ation that speed dominates stasis, and that stasis has become mere pause and rest, completely undermines the age+old concepts of permanence and identity in favor of transformation and event" The city is being s'ept a'ay by the metropolis" This action does not Hust replace one noun 'ith another, but radically turns one state of affairs into a state of perpetual motion" As a collective action5a verb more than a noun5the metropolis destabili?es our concepts of time and place" =ith the dissolution of the city into the forever+emerging metropolis, our e.istence slides into permanent mobility" oids and apors Americans< tendency to distance themselves from each other, fueled by loathing and an abundance of space5resulting in a certain distance5is only one side of a comple. national story of distance" The other side, almost its opposite, is the undeniable fact that Americans have al'ays had to overcome distance" This 'as dramatically apparent in the si.ty years after the treaty of 1893 'hich ended the American =ar of Independence" The initial north+south coastal a.is began its rotation to'ard the continental 'estern a.is4 the Louisiana Purchase of 19!3, the :lorida treaty of 1917, the T e.as anne.ation of 1926, the acuisition of the ;regon Country of 1920, the Me.ican Cession of 1929" The immense feat of crossing and laying claim to this vast land area must have stretched everyoneuedalla 'rote in his reflections on the 'estern tendency4 It tilted the 'hole country in a ne' direction and gave its territories a ne' depth" ;ne day, perhaps, the lines of the )nited *tates 'ould be redra'n" Their main direction 'as still north and south along the Atlantic slope" /ut if the 'est'ard tendency gre' more pronounced, the old direction of the country might lose its meaning and the lines of the )nited
*tates 'ould run east and 'est across the continent"
37
Page 89 If going 'est 'as li$e stretching a fabric of claim all the 'ay from the east, it is no 'onder that parts 'ere s$ipped, left ac$no'ledged but unaccounted for, leaving an immense plane of clearings as 'ell as voids, blips, and lacunas" /et'een the push to ma$e distance and the pull to overcome it may lie the root of the characteristic disHointedness of all American conurbations" Although connectedness is the spirit of the city, and 'ill probably remain so, the American version has al'ays harbored a tendency to e.plode, to atomi?e and to spread itself as far apart as possible" Today this may be e.acerbated %or made more possible, if you li$e& by the media of virtuality" Connectedness need no longer be physical" @obert *mithson may have set the agenda of $enofilia, the love of emptiness, in opposition to topofilia, the love of place" In his succinct description of the radical difference bet'een the built fabric of Manhattan and Passaic, #e' ersey, he suggested that the latter might have replaced @ome as a 'orld city" To others these holes may appear idiosyncratic or simply invisible, mere Hump cuts in the ebb and flo' of the city" (o'ever, 'hen focused on, the voids of the holey plane are clearly systematic, essential, and, as it may prove, fortuitous components of the ubiuitous American real estate machine" Leapfrogged, the voids are elastic blobs that allo' the developers to hang onto their profit margins" The si?e and shape of the blob may in fact be a comple. reflection of the dynamics of land costs, mar$et forces, building practices, and peculiarities of local conditions" These voids might be evidence of someone
*toc$holm and (elsin$i" The care afforded these islands5the lacunas of the sea5
Page 87 and the ensuing union bet'een nature and culture hold a lesson for the corresponding lacunas of the (oley Plane4 the domain of the voids is best put in the hands of a custodian, for it may not survive on their o'n" The nature and future of these voids are currently unclear" Pope suggests that they should remain so, although the real estate machine Gthin$sG other'ise" Jet, li$e animals %to paraphrase Luc :erry, the :rench philosopher&, these lacunas are the bac$side of the metropolis5the other5 'hose very nature is ambiguous" 2! It is the custody of this ambiguity that is one of the sources of our humanity" More specifically American, these voids %be they the atomi?ed lacunas of the inner loops of the metropolis or the larger ones in the outer reaches of the urb& could serve as a national reminder of the once great, e.hilarating push 'est embedded in the national character" *imultaneous 'ith the national stretch for overcoming distance, other compensatory steps emerged" The spreading of ne's, combined 'ith advertising, rumors, and gossip, has since become a national pastime that today, 'ith the help of telephony, T, and the Internet, may have annihilated the very idea of distance" The spreading of metropolitan airs ta$es many forms, and some of them operate under the auspices of architecture and building" Marfa, Te.as riving 'est across Te.as, you traverse one+third of the continental )nited *tates, but you may not count the rivers you crossed %about ten if you drive along the 3!th parallel& nor notice the subtle but steady rise of the land %from almost sea level to 0,!!! feet&, even if you notice the change in climate %from humid to dry& and vegetation %from moss+covered oa$s to mesuite&" Most certainly you are not noticing that the rivers after the Mississippi are increasingly tilting 'est" And 'hen you climb the >uadalupe and avis Mountains %the tail end of the @oc$y Mountains& and stop to study the map %one that displays the topography&, it is evident that the great geographer has struc$ an arc 'ith its origin some'here along the 7!th meridian in the >ulf of Me.ico" The legs of this arc form a great bet'een the Appalachians and the @oc$ies, 'ith the rivers follo'ing suit in bet'een" #o' you $no' you are going 'est5even the land tilts so" Jou 'ill find Marfa, a tiny to'n, sitting in the high desert, in the last of three huge GfieldsG bounded by the maHor rivers that ma$e up Te.as" In the first %going east to 'est&, bounded by the *abine and the /ra?os, lie (ouston and allas" In the
sec+
Page 9! one field, bound by the /ra?os %for the argument s$ipping the Colorado& and the @io >rande, lie Austin and *an Antonio5 Ed'ards Plateau and the (ill Country5 and in the third, bounded by the Pecos and the @io >rande, lies Marfa" The artist onald udd moved here in the 178!s to establish a place for art that he sa' as a radical alternative to the museum, if not to the city" /enefiting from the declining population of to'ns li$e Marfa, he 'as able to acuire numerous buildings and tracts of land" (ere he installed permanently his o'n and his friends< 'or$s of art, his primary residence and place of 'or$" Aside from being hauntingly beautiful, uddrande&, udd asserted4 GI
Page 91 In a te.t outlining the intentions of his Chinati :oundation, udd e.plained ho' art and architecture had been separated from the d'eller and ho' they <ulf belo'" *tanding in the Artillery *hed overloo$ing one hundred versions of udd
Page 9 the other, the parallel bet'een uddoing 'est has still its place in the American psyche" /ut there are many other turbulences, Hitters, and pulsations that ma$e up the boo$ of distance4 the daily commute migratory patters of seasonal 'or$ers the bac$ and forth of ;$la+
Page 93 homans see$ing their fortunes in California4 the going, the failure, the return, and the rene'ed attempts the great African+American e.odus north the T rail @iders descending yearly on the (ouston @odeo uncomfortably sharing right of 'ay 'ith thousands of commuters on the feeders of the superhigh'ays %the hoofbeat of the prairies Hu.taposed on its metropolitan counterpoint4 the hum of neoprene& the drive+to+ drin$ from dry to 'et counties still shaping *aturday traffic patterns in Te.as or the electronic hi$es along the bit'ays of the computational gala.y" Conseuently, belo' the steady national 'estern flo' lies, on a molecular level, a cacophony of /ro'nian motions that obscure and contradict all simple theories of distance on the #orth American continent" Jet going 'est may be the euivalent of a Ma.'ell
Page 92 iii5 A@C(ITECT)@E @EC;#*IE@E The city
In its 'a$e numerous nuclei of architectural preoccupations find their focus4 the relations bet'een subHects and obHects, the demise of ideology and the potential for freedom, the roles of the architect, and the emergence of a ne' generation of design machines"
Page 96 The End of the Architectural Promenade4 A Portfolio of Images
Page 90 18 istraction istraction ersus Concentration =hat is at sta$e in the metropolis
Page 98 19 The absentminded e.aminers The Parade, /erlin, early 17!!s" Photograph by =aldemar Tit?enthaler, turn of the century"
Page 99 =e are in =alter /enHaminermany that 'ill be $no'n as the Third @eich" *houlder to shoulder, united and strong, they march 'ith purpose into their future5our all+too+painful past" Their ga?es brush past our faces 'ithout focus" =hat is important is the ga?e itself4 the beam that bridges the depths of their eyes and our blan$ faces" It is hope, direction, and determination coupled 'ith a certain absentmindedness, even self+indulgence, because the ga?e doesn
Page 97 sight" *uch appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building" ;n the tactile side there is no counterpart to contemplation on the optical side" Tactile appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit" As regards architecture, habit determines to a large e.tent even optical reception" The latter, too, occurs much less through rapt attention than by noticing the obHect in incidental fashion" " " " The public is an e.aminer, but an absent+minded 1 one" /ac$ on the boulevard, in the spectacle of the city, the men march as the actors and 'e 'atch as the audience" As rapt bystanders 'e are part of the architecture, the bac$drop for the events of history, only stepping stones in a narrative that is eagerly trying to get to the end, to a future that the marchers thought 'ould be better than their present"
Page 7! 17 Their plan >round plan of the Altes Museum, /erlin, by Barl :riedrich *chin$el" The metaphoric footprint of this narrative can be seen in the plan of a building not far from the boulevard4 Barl :riedrich *chin$el
Page 71 !
The bo.er Le Hardin suspendu, Le Corbusier, 179+177" Immeuble =anner, >eneva" :ull+fledged Corbusian man comes into vie' in ProHect =anner of 179+177" In the application of the concept of the Immeubles+illas of 173 and 176, he is sho'n in a dra'ing of an interior dressed in trun$s and tan$ top pounding a punching bag in one of les Hardins suspendus" A 'oman stands 'atching on a balcony %as a mother 'ould 'atch a child&" It could be his 'ife, or la bonne5her hands are resting on a railing on 'hich a blan$et hangs5as much a symbol for her as the punching bag is for him" The dra'ing sho's the distinctive double+ height space that became the insignia of Corbusian space of this vintage despite the constraints of 'hat Colin @o'e has called the <
Page 7 first trace of the architectural promenade and its technologies" In Le Corbusier
Page 73 1 (is section @amp and solarium4 A illa #e.t to the *ea, Le Corbusier, 179" Corbusian man arrives by automobile at illa *avoye" Le Corbusier describes the arrival4 GThe auto enters under the pilotis, turns around the common services, arrives at the center, at the door of entry, enters the garage or continues on its 'ay for the return Hourney4 this is the fundamental
idea"G 2 (e marches no longer in the company of others" The footprint is no longer the enfilade of rooms or the plan, but the entire array of roads and its e.tensions5the ramp and its associated technologies" The house itself is a mere stop on a much longer Hourney than the Gcircular ruinG the Altes Museum implied5Gthis is the fundamental idea"G Le Corbusier continues4 GThe house poses in the middle of the open as an obHect, 'ithout displacing anything"G 6 ;nce inside the vestibule, our man steps out of his city clothes and dons shorts and a tan$ top" (alf running, his fingertips run absentmindedly along the handrail of the ramp that ta$es him to the floor of the house proper" G/ut
Page 72 'e
Page 76
The moving subHect *ectional technologies, after Le Corbusier" The enfilade of rooms in the Altes Museum marches endlessly in its o'n footsteps, one story laid on top of another" The doors as erect rectangles hint at the physiognomy of the pedestrian" This circularity must have appeared completely ridiculous to Le Corbusier, 'ho sa' the great errand into the modern 'orld as a stair, corridor, rope, and ramp reaching up and a'ay from the constraints of the past" The ;euvre complUte of the period bet'een 171! and 172! 'as replete 'ith sectional technologies, all promising speed, efficiency, and fortunes beyond" 9 This message 'as all too optimistic and thereby cast a critical light on the invisible seam bet'een architecture and utopia, on architecture
Page 70 3 The end Plan ;bus, Algiers, Le Corbusier, 173!" The Gpure topological fieldG recogni?ed by Manfredo Tafuri in his interpretation of Le Corbusier
Page 78 2 *uburban plans
Planned Assaults Thirty years later American suburban planners have begun to prune the gird, to create Pope
Page 79 )nderlying the 'or$ is thus the assumption that the single+ family house is a Gdisciplinary mechanism,G morality manifested in form" The assignment of rooms, furniture, and euipment, and their synta., is a vehicle of ideology and a behavioral modifier" The built form is supported by numerous additional structures of influence4 the rhetoric of politics and la', ceremonial oratory, the language of everyday life, and various te.ts and image assemblies, from the codes of behavior 'hose sources range from the advice columns and advertising to television soap operas" 1! Corbusian plans, sections, technology, and oratory have come a long 'ay in suburbia" @arely have 'e seen a more effective culture+ shaping assembly of devices" )sing seemingly benign and timid GtechnologiesG and invisible propaganda methods rather than Corbusian bombast has proven a most effective 'ay to drive the suburban comple. of lifestyle and real estate machine"
Page 77 6 ;pera Photograph from the e.hibition GThe Eichler (omes4 /uilding the California ream,G )niversity of Te.as, Austin, 1779" In the 176!s oseph L" Eichler, a housing developer, presented a modern suburban house to the booming mar$et in California" )nli$e most other suburban developers, Eichler used architects %Ruincy ones, :rederic$ Emmons, Anshen and Allen, and Claude ;a$land& to create
stri$ingly modem houses, overdetermined by an eually modem lifestyle proHected through photography and advertising brochures" The architectural homunculus is no longer Corbu
Page 1!! tral atrium4 the t'enty+four+hour life cycle" A cycle that needs no utopia but the firm belief in family values and procreation to survive" The photographs by Ernest /raun of the model Eichler family of the middle 176!s appear operatic today in their unfettered and naive enthusiasm" They represent one of the fe' successful attempts to bring the architect to the suburban housing mar$et, and as such must remain in our focus"
Page 1!1 0 Assaults The single+family home4 poised for intervention" My first employment in the )nited *tates 'as as a draftsman in Claude ;a$land
Page 1!
ifested in his *tuttgart *taatsgalerie of 1796, is not evasive but pragmatic, populist if you 'ill" The relationship bet'een *chin$elordian $not 'ith one s'ift chop" =e have again come to the end of the promenade, but unli$e our encounter 'ith the end at the solarium on the roof of the illa *avoye, this is the conceptual end %although *tirling
Page 1!3 8 elay illa Prima :acie, a.onometric, Lars Lerup, 1796" =alter /enHamin 'rites4 <
scientific management, much li$e cogs in a machine" The turtle served as a delay of the everyday narrative and its inevitable end" And, as /enHamin reali?ed, the aesthetic strategy to end the mad rush of time 'as miserably defeated"
Page 1!2 illa Prima :acie %A (ouse at :irst Appearance&, of 1786, is the first attempt to interfere in the suburban realm, by designing a house that e.plicitly delays the everyday narrative" As 'ith /enHamin
Page 1!6 9 Traps The Liberated (andrail, the )seless oor, the :resh =indo', the *tair That Leads #o'here" #ofamily (ouse, from Lars Lerup, Planned Assaults, 1798" The #ofamily (ouse of 1789+1791 is designed for a stereotypical family 'hose everyday narrative is Hu.taposed on a house filled 'ith traps set to delay or completely stop it" A Liberated (andrail ceases at one point to serve its dull assignment, abandoning its use value to simply revel in its form" A )seless oor stares accusingly at its user, 'hile the :resh =indo' allo's a ne' point of vie' on family life" :inally, the *tair That Leads #o'here stops the architectural
promenade Hust at the ceiling, prohibiting a Corbusian conclusion at a potential solarium" Aside from Corbu and /enHamin, the inspirations are uchamp and his coat hanger nailed to the floor, causing everyone to trip, and the atmosphere of frustration and endless delay described by orge Luis /orges in GThe ImmortalG of 17604 A labyrinth is a structure compounded to confuse men its architecture, rich in symmetries, is subordinated to that end" In the palace the archi+
Page 1!0 tecture lac$ed any such finality" It abounded in deadended corridors, high unattainable 'indo's, portentous doors 'hich led to a cell or pit, incredible inverted stair'ays 'hose steps and balustrades hung do'n'ards" ;ther stair'ays, clinging airily to the side of a monumental 'all, 'ould die 'ithout leading any'here, after ma$ing t'o or three turns in the lofty dar$ness of the cupolas" 13 As )mberto Eco has pointed out in his Theory of *emiotics, the @ussian formalists 'ere fond of using the so+called Gdevice of ma$ing it strange,G priem ostrannenHa, in an attempt to increase the Gdifficulty and the duration of the perception, of the art obHect itself<5the te.t becomes self+focusing4 it directs the attention of the addressee primarily to its o'n shape"12 This is an attempt to overcome the chasm bet'een /enHamin
Page 1!8 7 A Plan egree Wero Three plans4 enfilade, corridor, and free, and a postmodern coda4 the Plan egree Wero Lars Lerup, 1797" uring 1797 a house 'as designed for four clients4 t'o 'omen 'ith their young sons" The house 'as to be set in the >arden istrict in #e' ;rleans" An offspring of the Te.as Wero, the #e' Wero creates a neutral plane5a plan degree ?ero" )nli$e the Corbusian plan libre, the neutral plane does not promise freedom but establishes a status uo4 a genteel version of /orges
neutrality or status uo" The plan of the #e' Wero is full of these figures4 t'o Leaning :ireplaces %one in compression, the other in tension&, the =hich+=ay+Mirror, =hich+=ay+Mirror, the *ofa-/ed, the =hich+=ay+Chair, =hich+=ay+Chair, the :irst =or$table-Last *upper Table, and the Almost *ymmetrical Bitchen+Toilet+/athroom Bitchen+Toilet+/athroom (ouses" Assembled in Gsentences,G the components form reversions and in other cases palindromes %GsentencesG %GsentencesG that read the same 16 for'ard and bac$'ard&" The idea of a territory degree ?ero is mediated by the interest in Gthe enfilade of rooms,<< Gthe double+loaded corridor plan,G and the Gfree plan"G :rom this stems at first the Plan egree Wero, in 'hich ambiguous furniture demands that the d'eller construct her
Page 1!9 o'n paths and fields" The ambiguity consists in double meanings4 sofa and bed, last supper and table" The ambiguous furniture leads in turn to the (ousehold ehicles, 'here the d'eller can see her o'n subHect as a shado'-automaton" The $ey is to embrace movement, the Gfor$ing of pathsG %/orges&, the Gmovable feastG %*teinbec$&, 'hile double meanings prevail4 sofa-bed-coffin, sofa-bed-coffin, closet-coffin, closet-coffin, chair-'heelbarro', chair-'heelbarro', boo$case-library boo$case-library ladder %fig" 23&"
Page 1!7 3! @iver @un or the (ouse That @oars Lars Lerup, 1779" In 1779, to date the last iteration of the neutral plane, a further articulation of the plan 'as made, as a river of activity interspaced by eddies of rooms" Metaphorically, I e.changed the life cycle for the river of life, suggesting that life despite procreation does not repeat itself but goes on 'hile transforming and changing" The plan 'ith its riverli$e serpentine also provides eddies or rooms that in ensemble create levels of privacy, ranging from total to partial" The stereotypical arrangement of living, dining, and coo$ing is abandoned or negated, although the euipment may still be present" The aim is to ma$e a 'orld of form and formality, but 'ith minimal suggestions for use" This reinforces that the relation bet'een d'ellers and architecture must be acted upon because fundamentally ambiguous"
Page 11! 31 Ambiguity Ambiguity and Action There is a distinct distance bet'een the body and the marching rooms of the enfilade" (ere the 'alls lived separate from the pedestrian, 'hose only reflection is the outline of the doors" This clarity of distinction bet'een the human and the artificial is completely abandoned in the architectural promenade that serves as a prosthetic device for the ne' man5 surreptitiously surreptitiously 'e slip from the realm of flesh and blood to the 'orld of artifice" #o 'onder that 'e have begun to confuse ourselves 'ith it, and call for more anthropomorphic anthropomorphic semblance" Jet this is a fool
Page 111 alas, bro$en pediments" These devices attempted to create ambiguity by putting the structure of the building into %some& uestion" @eturning briefly to the hypothesis that there are only t'o $inds of plans, the enfilade and the corridor+ generated, I 'ould li$e to propose a ne' hypothesis4 there are three $inds of plans, to the former t'o adding the plan libre and in particular its postmodern version that I have called the neutral plane and the associated technologies of delay and ambiguity" This is a ne' dimension of the communication bet'een the subHect, its mind and body, and architecture" (ope cannot be severed from architecture, even if at this time it must be found inside architecture4 there is a for$ at the end of the promenade" In assuming the position of a fictional character of /orges, the ne' plan for the suburban house ta$es a position" /orges 'rites and T s
find his or her freedom"
Page 11 3 Action :rom room, an installation by Lars Lerup and *ohela :aroh$i, The Menil Collection, 1777" =ords are " " " li$e ice" " " " And, if poets struggle against the iciness of 'ords and refuse to fall into the traps set by signs, it is ever more appropriate that architects should conduct a comparable campaign, for they have at their disposal both materials analogous to signs %bric$s, 'ood, steel, concrete& and material analogous to those GoperationsG 'hich lin$ signs together, articulating them and conferring meaning upon them %arches, vaults, pillars, and columns openings and enclosures construction techniues and the conHunction and disHunction of such elements&" Thus it is that architectural genius has been able to reali?e spaces dedicated to voluptuousness %the Alhambra of >ranada&,
Page 113 to contemplation and 'isdom %cloisters&, to po'er %castles and chateau.& or to heightened perception %apanese gardens&" *uch genius produces spaces full of meaning, spaces 'hich first and foremost escape mortality4 enduring, radiant, yet also inhabited by a specific local temporality" Architecture produces living bodies, each 'ith its o'n distinctive traits" The animating principle of such a body, its presence, is neither visible nor legible as such, nor is it the obHect of any discourse, for it reproduces itself 'ithin those 'ho use the space in uestion, 'ithin their lived e.perience" ;f that e.perience the tourist, the passive spectator, can grasp but a pale shado'" 18 Although deeply ambiguous, the relation bet'een subHects and obHects 'ill ta$e productive form through collusion and action" As I suggested in /uilding the )nfinished of 1788, the d'eller must act in order to see" Architecture comes alive in action" Theoretically the concept of architecture as a verb 'as nurtured in the phenomenology of Merleau+Ponty, 'ho 'rote %still& mysteriously4 To loo$ at an obHect is to inhabit it" " " " ;ur previous formula must " " " be modified4 the house itself is not the house seen from no'here, but the house seen from every'here" The completed obHect is translucent, being shot through from all sides by an infinite number of present scrutinies 'hich
intersect in its depth leaving nothing hidden" 19 And later, the more pragmatic and practical thin$ing of >eorge (erbert Mead and my very senior colleague (erbert /lumer, 'hose 'ords still resound4 G=hen in doubt, go out and loo$"G uring the 179!s, the era of formalist obsession in architecture, it 'as my stubbornness that $ept my o'n version of interactionism alive" :or me, it is still the dynamic and elusive in+bet'een separating and holding together subHects and obHects that drives my proHect" All uses reuire space, and as long as there is use there is the potential for architecture" As architects 'e are not only agents of its use but agents of its ma$ing, a role that Lefebvre doesn
Page 112 signed and built %as models&" Thin$ of them as pools of energy, buoying and lifting us out of the morass of the mundane, onto a plane of creativity, innovation, s$ill, ambition, and pleasure" =e are the custodians of this energy, 'hich if used 'isely 'ill flo' out into the 'orld and spa'n numerous architectural bodies, 'hich in turn 'ill be brought alive by use" This is an a'esome thought that gives tremendous value to our profession4 'e help build living bodies" The :rench theorist Michel de Certeau put it some'hat differently4 GTo 'al$ is to lac$ a place"G 17 To (oustonians 'ho move mostly by car, the sense of Glac$ of placeG is greatly heightened" After all, pedestrians don
construction of everyday life" This finally suggests that 'hile lac$ing place 'e are simultaneously performing place, ma$ing placelessness in (ouston a some'hat less urgent problem" Lefebvre and de Certeau put enormous 'eight and value on the role of the d'eller in the a'a$ening of architecture and place" )se, in turn, propelled by the d'eller, is a $ey to this comple.ity" )se, in all its splendid comple.ity %by the 'ay, far beyond 'hat 'e normally understand as the program&, brings this energy forth, and numerous stims are lit across the plains, along mountainsides, in valleys, in cities, in neighborhoods" =e can choose to sul$ over the fact that there seems to be little appreciation of this a'esome thought, but 'e can also choose to ta$e it in our o'n hands and bring it forth to the 'orld" As Lefebvre says4 Gits presence is neither visible nor legible as such, nor is it the obHect of any discourse"G 1 This puts an enormous burden on us,
Page 116 since to live this a'esome thought you must build the body" =e are caught in a parado.4 the society that pays for our services has forgotten %or much more li$ely, has never e.perienced& the po'er of the living body of architecture, yet 'e have to build it to convince them" (ere our convictions 'ill be put to test, and our s$ills of persuasion" To convince the 'orld 'ill be at least as hard as it is to build that magical body"
Page 110 The Metropolitan Architect Architects< (ands In a photograph of Louis I" Bahn, his hand, closer to the camera and therefore proportionally larger, frames his face, to dominate in t'o 'ays" The photograph renders Bahn speechless, allo'ing the hand its prominence by si?e and position" (eld half'ay bet'een him and us, Bahn
the comple. similarity bet'een the opposing thumb and the laryn. is the trace of the emergence of speech, giving the concept of body language ne' meaning" Bahnone are professional hands in gesture4 hands holding architectural models, pencils, or cigarettes %for affect and style&" Instead hands are held close to the body, hiding in poc$ets or li$e soft crutches propping up %'eary& heads" (ands appear in other places, disembodied, fleeting, mere synecdoches of human presence, or more interestingly as shado's, as contact prints on machines4 on their levers5as in computer mice, remote control devices, or %on *undays at the shooting range& precision rifle butts" Inside the machine, in its 'or$ing parts, in its very intelligence, even the hand
Page 118 shado' is nearly forgotten" <
not travel one 'ay" In his )seruide to the Millennium, " >" /allard implies that machines are po'erful, mesmeri?ing, but that their feedbac$s, ho'ever faint, reveal sinister limitations4 Type'riter It types us, encoding its o'n linear bias across the free space of the imagination" 6 A type'riter, before its reinvention as a machine, referred to the person G'ritingG the type" *ubseuently, the type'riter came to G'riteG the operator, but no', in spite of the $eyboard, the linear bias is not fully carried over to the computer" Than$s to the ne' 'riting program
Page 119 our hands are typing 'ith all ten digits, yet their message gets collapsed into the t'o inde.+digits %at least in the computer belo' the $eys&" =ill the remaining eight gather their peculiarities %pin$ie-la?y, ring-fidelity, middle-rude, thumb-happy& and start a rebellion #o longer Hust a 'or$ing tool or symbol, the hand reemerges full+ fledged" #o longer 'ith all its tric$s up the sleeve, but right here and no', our hands 'ill operate the complete GdigitalG menu 'ith di??ying biotechnic 'i?ardry, 'ith bit for bit coincidence in a parallel universe" )ntil no', the hand designing our various universes %modernist, postmodern, deconstructive, minimalist& has been far from parallel, but constrained, coloni?ed, and held do'n by the universe itself" =ith lighter touch, more ease, more directness, more parallelism, other universes 'ill appear de.terous, liuid, and alive" If Gscience fiction is the body
as a model and a promise of a highly evolved architecture in 'hich form and 'ill are inseparable" *imultaneously 'ith the decline of authority, Bahn as the master has lost some of his luster too" #o' the open hand gapes over a loss" The era is gone G'hen cathedrals 'ere 'hiteG %Le Corbusier& and still held their citi?ens in subdued a'e 'ith their muffled dramas in a single ironclad perspective %/ataille&" Monumental architecture has become media events of brief social conseuence" Mass education is slo'ly unsettling authority, e.pertise, privilege, and even authorship" Although still star+struc$, architects have Hoined the ran$s of product designers 'ho in team efforts produce designs of no clear pedigree or single origin" Even under the banner of a single star designer, as everyone $no's, the office has become a nebula 'hose inner 'or$ings are so comple. and dispersed that the author is effectively decentered, if not dead" *pa'ned and buoyed by this nonhierarchical inertia, s'arms of ne' interests may soon be moving to'ard unorgani?ed coincidence4 a democracy of hands ma$ing a ne' metropolitan space" The search for a ne' metropolitan architecture Hust beyond the traditional grasp of the hand of the master is fraught 'ith entanglements and opportunities" Benneth
Page 117 :rampton
have instinctively understood this comple. site before anyone else" (is t'o houses in Palm *prings stand in their lightness and in their unsentimental tribute to nature and modern technology as touchstones of metropolitan habitation" Li$e a pilot in a treacherous ship channel, :rey navigates so elegantly bet'een the modern techniues of the time and the ancient site 'ith its huge boulders and grand vistas as to ta$e my breath a'ay" Loo$ing from an eagle
Page 1! /oth 'ill miss :rey4 his asceticism, his determined habits, the lac$ of furniture, the abundance of storage, his grasp of the landrounded, the metropolitan architect has very sharp dar$ eyes" (e no longer needs the architect
a'areness for itself" The 'or$ of Bahn, :rey, and others has been repossessed and reconfigured and is no' effectively consolidated in the genetics of the metropolis" Let the intense solar 'ind from the metropolis illuminate and gather all e.emplary design under its o'n auspices" (esitation In :rey
Page 11 a hand before it $no's 'hether it is the left and right hand" In earlier 'or$ I thought of this hesitation as the unfinished, and to build the unfinished as habitation proper" Ta$en in t'o 'ays, the unfinishedness refers to the dynamic binding by the d'eller to the physical setting, and to the setting itself, al'ays in the ma$ing" The addition of hesitation suggests an inherent blindness or unpredictability superadded to the unfinished" (o' many times have I seen my plans designing GanotherG house, my 'riting constructing its o'n reason, or my body stumbling over itself These potential bifurcations threaten reason itself, 'hile liberating both language and body" The unsettling of reason and the enigma of pantomime allo' the appearance of an abundance of marginalities" eleu?e calls them phantasms" 31 /e they theological, oneiric, or erotic, our hands have performed them all4 the believer crossing himself, the hands as the body
glitch5a ?one of rapid change, filled 'ith potential freedom and its opposite" The struggle over control of the ne' infrastructures5net'or$ computing, telephony, cable television, and energy, to mention the most important5is a reflection of the struggle of the many 'ith the fe'" A thousand designers hun$ered do'n over their computer screens are amongst the many, and they have the potential to change their profession, dramaticallyO =omen and men4 the sheer volume of talented 'ell+trained designers no' flooding the mar$et, occupying every empty seat in the drafting halls, is a po'er that could fundamentally alter the map of metropolitan culture" The odds are a'$'ard" ;n the one hand the chances of becoming a signature architect are 'orse than the lottery" %In each si?able country there are only a fe' seats at the high table, and only one in smaller ones5a *i?a in Portugal, a @ossi in Italy, a #ouvel in :rance"& And on the other hand, the chance of remaining
Page 1 amongst the ran$ and file is high because it may be the most comfortable choice" Jet the sheer collective po'er of mind, talent, and $no'+ho' among the un$no'n designers is immense" 33 )n$no'n designers moonlight" Clandestinely or accidentally they design high uality into other'ise mundane commercial proHects, assist and ma$e possible the 'or$ of master architects, design outside the narro' confines of the profession, construct thousands of houses, additions, and refurbishings for families e.pecting mere commodity, 'hile thousands of others go on thin$ing and dreaming" All this activity 'ould have occurred unnoticed in the past, but this time it may be different" The ne' communication channels, 'ith their chat groups, 'eb pages, and e+mail traffic, 'ill lead to net'or$ enterprise, 32 in 'hich professionals gather around specific proHects li$e to' truc$s around a free'ay accident" esign coalitions may ta$e time to form, since clients demand predictability %traditionally held by 'ell+established firms&" (ere recent developments around virtuality may change attitudes to'ard predictability, since virtual buildings may allo' not only a visit to your future office or apartment but entry into a design process in 'hich d'ellers at the outset gather 'ith all the actors in the process from conception to sale" And 'ith designers becoming savvier in accessing capital %and 'ith net'or$ capitalists traveling the same net'or$s&, net'or$ firms may soar" *imultaneously, and no' more spontaneously, once the micropo'ers of design begin to throttle through our ne' high'ays, unorgani?ed coincidence may occur and design 'ill
'ell up from the floor of the metropolis" ispersed, miniaturi?ed, and unauthori?ed in the literal sense5a cultural inundation5ne' inundation5ne' patterns of design may emerge on vastly different scales" The metropolis 'ill finally have its o'n design culture" ust as the city and architecture %as 'e have $no'n it since the @enaissance& are disappearing because of the atomi?ation of the metropolis and its manifold technologies, these ne' micropo'ers, after their divide+and+ conuer, 'ill manifest themselves, fleetingly to be sure, and maybe only as patterns, proliferations, disHointed speech, haptic cadences and events and only occasionally as traditional, comprehensible comprehensible built form, because motivated by ne' vision machines, or because of sheer numbers and the muscle of repetition" The change needed, for a discipline and profession that have labored in the shado' of the master architect, is radical and 'ill reuire a thorough conceptual revamping, a revamping that includes all actors from designers to d'ellers" @obert
Page 13 >oodman 'rote in his 1781 After the Planners4 G/y raising the possibilities of a humane 'ay of producing places to live, by phasing out the elitist nature of environmental professionalism, professionalism, 'e can move to'ard a time 'hen 'e 'ill no longer define ourselves by our profession, but by our freedom as people"G 36 The conceptual step from distributed design to ne' engagements in the re+creation of the metropolis by the d'ellers is not far" istant in time but not in possibility, >oodmanoodman brothers< Communitas, 38 straddling the political spectrum from right to left" The proposals are characteri?ed by an ambivalent acceptance of the suburban, and by attempts to reurbani?e" Ironically, the much+ maligned metropolis, 'ith its strip malls, spra'l, and apparent disorgani?ation, disorgani?ation, may be harboring a ne' democratic force that 'ill lead to massive %erratic&, 'idespread freedom and upgrades in environmental uality" alue Turning a'ay from the city to'ard the metropolis also means turning to'ard ne' data" The data needed to build the old city 'ere bound to building and its immediate e.ternalities" Enhanced and propelled by ne' technologies, metropolitan metropolitan data are vastly different" They are no longer bounded but, li$e the metropolis itself, 'ide, scattered, and un'ieldy" The amount and variety of data are further complicated by the sense that design can no longer rely on traditional building data but
must no' be opened to Gall"G The general output of metropolitan data is /abelian in its incomprehensibility, incomprehensibility, leaving vast mounds at the feet of modern managers and designers" =hat does it all mean (o' can the data be enhanced and be made informative (o' can sheer 'eight become intelligence Architects have al'ays had to act under uncertainty, even 'hen the data 'ere confined to the city" This 'as done as a matter of course design action solved the dilemma" The catastrophic shift from data to synthesis had a built+ in transformational step in 'hich data 'ere deemed unimportant or made informative and turned into synthesis" This ability to discriminate and conceptuali?e is needed more than ever, and architects may be better prepared than most" The challenge lies in accepting the /abelian nature of the information at hand, and in beginning to parse it to ma$e manageable and finite elements that, combined, can build the
Page 12 ne' metropolis" The $ey in the transformation transformation of metropolitan data is to focus on the purpose" =hy and ho' does a better physical setting enhance our lives (o' does it add value Architects< tendency to leave the determination of value outside their professional realm, relying on architectureeorgian" To prove to this Haded, uninspired mar$et that a modern house5a modern environment5 bound to the t'o a.es of the metropolis is of value reuires a maHor campaign that has yet to find its movers and sha$ers, not to spea$ of its audience" Ilya Prigogine, the #obel laureate physicist and systems analyst, 'rites4 GThere need no longer be a gap bet'een the
is lodged in the area of physics that he calls Girreversible processes,G37 'hich in my crude interpretation suggests that all systems have emergent properties4 those 'e used to thin$ of as systems of certitude harbor possibility" Ta$ing a ris$, I suggest that this ne'ly discovered possibility has positive bearing on the future of architecture" Today, architects face the dual universe of certitude and possibility every time the developer tells them about the infle.ibility and certitude of the bottom line" Invariably architects must bac$ do'n because they are unable to euate the value of architecture 'ith economic value" In fact, since the demise of modernism 'e have been patently unable to spea$ coherently about architecture
Page 16 of the bottom line by articulating architectural architectural value in terms understandable by developers and clients at large" Prigogine 'rites that as long as 'e have the same arro' of time, 'e have5in all aspects of e.istence from cosmology to psychology5comple. psychology5comple. amalgams of la's and events" And since events are al'ays associated 'ith bifurcation, 'ith various possibilities, possibilities, 'e have choices and thus values" Prigogine concludes that 'e must find Gthe narro' path bet'een the deterministic 'orld, 'hich leads to alienation, and the random 'orld,G 'hich 'ould e.clude human rationality and lead to utter chaos" 2! To appreciate the tas$ ahead, let me ta$e a very simple e.ample" Every spring term for fifteen years, I used to teach an introductory course at the )niversity of California at /er$eley called GPeople and Environment"G ;ne of the most common and reasonable uestions directed to me at the customary *ocratic fifteen minutes after each lecture 'as4 G=hat is architectureG A uestion to 'hich I ans'ered variously" ;ne of the more impudent ans'ers 'as4 <
has no value at 'orst and esoteric value at best5value only in the eye of the beholder" The unraveling of this standoff 'ill ta$e a maHor societal change" As Prigogine suggests, such a change coincides 'ith maHor changes in the vie' of science, but I contend that it is easier to change our vie' of science than our value system" Mihaly Csi$s?entmihalyi, a psychologist, states our dilemma as follo's4 #o', it seems to me that values 'hich are not based on e.pectations of some form of transcendence must, by default, be material values" :or me, the interesting uestion is not 'hy economic values are so po'erful, but rather 'hy the alternatives are so 'ea$ at this point in his+
Page 10 tory" =hy is there a vacuum of hope, and 'e are left 'ith so little besides material values 21 In research he had done in Chicago, he as$ed a number of respondents 'here they 'ould go for solace and interest in the city" They listed five locations4 the *ears To'er %then the tallest building in the 'orld&, ;<(are Airport %the gate'ay to the 'orld beyond&, the la$eshore %the panorama of city and nature&, Marshall :ield %the largest store in to'n&, and the Art Institute %the palace of art&" %#ote that no sports arenas or churches 'here chosen"& Csi$s?entmihalyi concluded that the respondents 'ent to these places in a'e, 'ith a sense of pride, even transcendence" 2 It should come as no great surprise that 'e have set aside transcendence for the material" There 'as a time, particularly 'hen 'e 'ere 'orse off materially, 'hen religion, hope, and faith played a much more important role in our lives" Through the systematic improvement of our material conditions 'e have come to reali?e that 'e have considerable control of our destiny, rather than being at the 'him of fate or >od
that should be loo$ed at4 variation, selection, and transmission 23 ariation )sing the concept of meme %reproduction through imitation, i"e", in the most generic sense, memory& developed by the biologist @ichard a'$in %The *elfish >ene&, Csi$s?entmihalyi suggests that patterns of values are formed and stored in the human mind and transmitted through culture" 22 Memes help affect our values" They do not e.actly determine our values, but they direct and constrain them" A va
Page 18 riety of memes are thus somatically and socially produced and disseminated" *election =e have progressively selected material values over transcendent ones" #o' 'e have to find a 'ay of producing ne' memes that 'ill replace the old ones" In selection, attention becomes a crucial concept, or as Michael ;<(are suggests, Gthe most valued scarce resource in human life"G 26 /y paying attention to material values, 'e select them over transcendent values that 'e pay less attention to" And if other values survive long enough, 'e 'ill transmit the ne' memes to the ne.t generation through teaching, repetition, and persistent attention" (ence 'hen architects give in to the demand of translating everything into material terms, 'e stop attending to the values of architecture that can never be measured in dollars" Conseuently our first step is to begin tal$ing again about the esoteric values of architecture to our clients" Architecture
these differentiated systems may be appreciated by itself or in unison 'ith others" Many of these subsystems may appear incompatible, yet their integration suggests they are not" The computer and its soft'are may serve 'ell as a model for a ne' value system" The salient terms here are comple.ity, differentiation, and integration, 20 The crisis of value is ma$ing its o'n demand on architects< speech and form4 architects must spea$ up and thin$ aloud in form" More than ever, built thought is
Page 19 essential to architects< professional status, 'hich distinguishes us from those agents that see building as mere real estate" *ince such a transformation of values is a cultural enterprise, 'e need many allies that 'ill help to construct these reproductive units of value and ma$e them proliferate and course through the social body" #e' meme technologies must be fashioned integrating values ranging from the material to the transcendent" :or architects this is a conscious construction along t'o traHectories4 rhetoric and building5'hat the ancient >ree$s called le.is and pra.is" =e shall no' turn to pra.is"
Page 17 ehicular /ehavior4 A Portfolio of Images
Page 13! 33 =hen living is erased from living room, the )r+te.t of enclosure brings to the surface ancient freedoms, obscure, itinerant, uncertain" Momentarily the room seems free" :igures 33+21 are from room, an installation by Lars Lerup and *ohela :aroh$i, The Menil Collection, 1777"
Page 131 32 The persistent shado's of everyday life are replaced by a penumbra, a chiaroscuro that fogs our predetermined destinies in favor of an almost+ perfect future5right before le plus+
ue+parfait :rench tense of a more+ than+perfect future %*teiner&"
Page 13 36 /egun as stories of the sea told by summering sHo$aptener and styrman from the lHugarban$en %liarenetically bac$ed by generations of mariners on my grandmother
Page 133 30 Across the unfro?en room+field, potential destinies are insinuated in the household vehicles" This mobility at the hands, feet, and bodies of the roomers erupts in roaming" Li$e lantern flies, mythically lit, Hoyriders cross the field to build ne' traffic situations"
Page 132 38 In the lulls of mobility, the pastures of this fieldroom, the technics of the interiors, yield other vistas" istas of the real4 pollution, as in co's and burnt air, and the clumsy limits of springs and aluminum tubes" *uggesting that the limits are no longer 'alls but conditions %conseuences of our imagined freedom& and states of mind4 our avarice and our purported superiority"
Page 136 39 The instrumentality of the imaginary, as embedded in its startling tilting and the furious roar and crac$le of the =obbly =all, rattles the everyday, humors our limitations, and throttles to'ard a future 'here everything moves, everything gro's"
Page 130 37 *'edish, English, and a passing $no'ledge of :rench, Italian, and >erman brought me to other polyglots5for 'armth and camaraderie in the lac$ of a fi.ed linguistic ground" :irst /orges, then /ec$ett" In room, in this open field of multi+spea$, the vehicles+in+motion are the speech acts" room is the ancient nomadic ground5a most American territory"
Page 138 2! The three young drivers %at the moment of the camera shutter
Page 139 21 BEJ 14 @ubber doors, 4 Miasma 1, 34 Miasma 2, 24 Miasma 6, 64 Miasma 0, 04 Miasma 8, 84 @acer, 94 T, 74 =att
Page 137 esign Machines Mechanisms of Closeness *treet crossings are 'alled off, people line the edge of the street, constructing 'ith the buildings a city 'all, half artifice, half human flesh" The bull, tightly surrounded by horses and riders leaning up against him, careens do'n this instant semi+soft boulevard5fear and courage" Embedded, larded in horse and human flesh, the bull is the motor of an ensemble of man+tool+animal5riders, horses, bull, and riding gear4
stirrups, bits, and saddles" Leaning in on the bull, restraining him, a machine is formed through a morphing of flesh and technology" *tic$ing together, shape against shape, touching, softly deforming each other, the bond is the inde." This ne' beast is benign 'hen controlled but al'ays dangerous, al'ays ready to brea$ its bonds, al'ays ready to fall apart" /rea$ing loose, the bull pushes the horses and their riders apart, and dives into the soft 'all5it screams" In the ne.t instant the human 'all scatters into individual agents scurrying, leaping, Humping to safety4 :eria de #Xmes" The assembly of men, horses, and bull careening do'n the ma$eshift bull run is a design machine" The assembly displays an understanding of men, their rituals, and animals5the result of a profoundly realistic and pragmatic analysis of a narro' reality" *imultaneously, 'ithout any brea$ the same assembly is a design, in 'hich mechanisms of closeness %using friction and force& are precariously assembled to form a momentary unity" This unity, this interactivity, is essential here" It is also a generic feature of design machines since it establishes the necessary relationships bet'een all of their components4 technical, human, and in this case animal" The assembly is a spatial flo'5a space-time-economy fragment, in 'hich there is only a figural distinction bet'een rider and ride, bet'een men and animal, bet'een technology and flesh, bet'een energy and 'aste, bet'een opportunity+cost and desire" A spatial flo' 'ith a strict economy, an efficient use of material and resources4 a beginning, a middle %the most harmonious part&, and a potentially catastrophic
Page 12! 2 =et Machine end" As in :rancis /acon
The bull
Page 121 is soon bac$ in the cradle of horses and men" Transformation is the mode of operation, linear and continuous, replication and morphing" A form of humid rhetoric in 'hich life and technology produce transformers along a.es of condensation %all components become one& and displacement %stirrups lose importance 'hen the bull is free&" The $ey here is the line of flight5the enormous po'er proHected by the bull
reflection of the loss of hold of the purely symbolic over many of us" :orm and figure are no longer forced but found in the materials at hand4 the bull
Page 12 pated from the ideology of sign systems5of 'ished+for meaning5 the modem designer can no longer shape his or her material from 'ithout, leaving the matter of construction to the technicians" esigners must become the design opportunity, Hoin force 'ith the bull
city and its rituals" The ne' design machine must ta$e the long perspective too, despite the increasing demand for speed"
Page 123 (ousehold ehicles In 1709, a boo$case shaped by the 'idths of boo$s rather than their average heights began the proHect for suburban furniture" In retrospect, this inauspicious beginning is of importance because of its assault on a convention" Li$e levers on a great un'ieldy machine, the subseuent (ousehold ehicles have served as buildings may do for e.perimental architects, or as e.periments for scientists" :urniture stands at the threshold bet'een d'eller and d'elling %in both of its meanings&, 'here the body meets the 'orld" My furniture has a genealogy" @unning in parallel 'ith conventional architecture proHects, the furniture seems often more relevant to my inuiry4 a curiosity about the relationships bet'een architecture as the fi.ed, furniture as the movable %as in :rench meuble&, and the d'eller as the agent of action" And in particular, my curiosity and unease about the cartoonish fi.ity of the dynamic aspects of the same euation in suburbia" ;nce inscribed on the other, or read through, the vehicles, their imagined agents, and the settings become tests of thought e.periments, the to$ens of my preoccupation 'ith daily life in the metropolis" In 1798, a chair is the site of the fusion of lo' and high culture" The fusion of an Adirondac$ chair and @ietveld
bro$en leg, gently holding you forth to the ocular feast" The (ousehold ehicles, critically inspired and affected by these visions, attempt to move closer and further a'ay simultaneously" The pragmatics of Corbu
Page 122 sectional technologies, the intersubHective compassion of Eames chair and leg splint, combined 'ith s$epticism, conHure up images of personal technologies that hint, serve, submit, and uestion" Panorama, introspection, and doubt at the same time" After the tapered boo$case and the fused chair, ne' vehicles 'ere designed in 1797 for a Plan egree Wero" The 'hich+'ay+ mirror, in 'hich t'o inhabitants face each other across the mirror, ma$es them GshareG each otherathered together in a comple. sentence, these domestic devices are separated from the fi.ed architectural setting" Transformers, vehicles of interaction, community devices, machines for intersubHectivity, versatility, and choice %fig" 23&" This separation is a step in the genealogy" In the #ofamily (ouse of 1793 architecture
surrounding, played out in a large house, although still lodged in English class society, =att
Page 126 23 :irst generation =att did not $no' 'hether he 'as glad or sorry that he didn
Page 120 Lives being played out in this field are gently tugged at by mild fears, intangible pressures, and held in place 'hile driven by routines and structural limitations" *tepping out of the house, your neighbor is e.actly a house lot a'ay, and you cannot see if he has shaved or if she 'ears ma$eup and the house itself is caught in a free?e frame" A million loci held in place by free'ays, cul+de+sacs, and invisible mortgage institutions" espite a steady change of hands, and the speed and vigor of the protean field they sit in, these loci do not move an inch" The house, although lac$ing the upstairs+ do'nstairs of Mr" Bnott
the bed, and the night+stool on its face by the door, and the 'ash+hand+stand on its bac$ by the 'indo' and, on the Monday, the tallboy on its bac$ by the bed, and the dressing+table on its face by the door, and the night+stool on its bac$ by the 'indo', and the 'ash+hand+stand on its feet by the fire and, on the Tuesday, the tallboy on its face by the door, and the dressing+table on its bac$ by the 'indo', and the night+stool on its feet by the fire, and the 'ash+hand+ stand on its head by the bed and, on the =ednesday, the tallboy on its bac$ by the 'indo', and the dressing+table on its feet by the fire, and the night+stool on its head by the bed, and the 'ash+hand+ stand on its face by the door and, on the Thursday, the tallboy on its side by the fire, and the dressing+table on its feet by the bed, and the night+stool on its head by the door, and the 'ash+hand+stand on its face by the 'indo' and, on the :riday, the tallboy on its feet by the bed, and the dressing+ table on its head by the door, and the night+stool on its face the 'indo', and the 'ash+hand+stand on its side by the fire and " " " 27
Page 128 *uburban life as pantomime of overly repeated behaviors is, 'hen accumulated over time and territory, absurd too or better, =att and Bnott are not" Energetically Corbu
*ebastian
Page 129 been independently burst, the one from =att
doings" The 'alls at Prima :acie are not about the science of materials but closer to a psychology of materials, fueled by >aston /achelard
Page 127 oooooooooooo In light of the insinuating presence of nature, a suburban design machine demands the e.plorations of material, its physics and chemistry" /ut it is unli$ely that at the synthetic moment, 'hen all the forces of nature and culture are brought together, the Ineinsbildung %the into+one+ma$ing or esemplastic& 'ill be a simple fusion bet'een the behavior and science of a set of materials" Instead the designer must find the propensity of the material, a concept borro'ed rather frivolously in light of its distinguished history in Chinese thin$ing" 63 This vitality is both given and 'illed" #ot totally automatic, the propensity in the ne' design machine is an unac$no'ledged promiscuity, in 'hich the designer merges 'ith the material" Li$e s'immers in the summer+'arm @hine in /asel, the designer goes do'nstream immersed in the material, finding its inclination and ma$ing use of it to design, a give and ta$e" Clearly, media constraints have al'ays e.isted, but all too often the material has been seen as an adversary, urging the designer to use force and mastery rather than an amalgam of 'ill and complicity" The ne.t iteration of the fusion of material and technology reuires %for me& a maHor paradigmatic shift in 'hich the physics and chemistry of material and, alas, its propensity are the focus" The step to 'hat Louis Bahn called the 'ill of the material is long and cumbersome, since any $ind of inherent science of propensity is deeply embedded and therefore utterly incomprehensible 'ithout e.tensive scientific and practical e.perimentation" The character of the division bet'een nature and artificiality has come to recent public attention" The bioengineering of the common potato has erased for good 'hat is left of the division" =e are again facing serious ethical and e.istential uestions, although further development is inevitable, as are future disasters" (o'ever, even in a mar$et+driven economy 'here Gabuse of materialG %in apparent favor of process and cost& is commonplace, discoveries in tune 'ith the material
'ill not only result in lo'ered costs and increased efficiency but in positive environmental and cultural effects" The positive results 'ill be more li$ely 'hen and if our methods of transforming nature become more sophisticated, 'hich al'ays means simpler %often contrary to the comple. science necessary for understanding&, leading to an engineering of materials as energy+conserving as nature5the emergence of biomimetics"
Page 16! The *imple (ouse The first day of summer" The motorboat is Hammed 'ith groceries, clothes, sails, fishing gear, tools, boo$s, and anticipation" The 'ind is still cold" Eyes 'atering, 'e steer out of the harbor5out on the first open flat of 'ater5in bet'een the t'o first navigation beacons, red and green" Trying to reconnect our sea legs, 'e s'ay and stumble 'hile the vigorous sea heaves" The roar of the outboard motor dro'ns all conversation and 'e are left to our o'n reveries" The sea 'e are entering is the /altic, the city 'e are leaving behind is *toc$holm, and its archipelago, purportedly fifty+ t'o thousand islands, lies ahead" /ut this is no virgin voyage" Thousands of others 'ill do the same, because in the course of the three summer months, in shifts, 'e all go on semester" *emester, or vacation, is the pri?e for our labors" The endless light is our redemption" The gala.y
yearly ritual is particularly graphic because so public, so predictable4 the summer hats, the sandals %and the an$le soc$s&, the cameras, and the endless plastic bags cro'ding the aisles on the sub'ays, in buses, in commuter trains, and on fer+
Page 161 ries" The huffing and the puffing, the slight irritation, and the anticipation, 'rit large belo' s'eaty bro's" Jet the tradition is simplicity" ;n the islands %here serving as a metaphor for the holes in the holey plane& there is rarely running 'ater, no se'erage or septic tan$s, no cars, since human occupation is so short and the islands so small and so disconnected from the infrastructures of the city" *urrounding $obbarna och s$aren %the islands&, modernity in the shape of boats, ro'ed, sailed, motori?ed, and combinations thereof, slo' or fast, 'ell+sailed or aggressively pushed for pea$ performance, large and small, crisscross the 'aters, reminding us that the city is not too far a'ay, particularly in mind and attitude" Jet even the ear+ shattering noise of a polluting t'o+stro$e engine fades, once the first autumn storm signals the return of nature
potatoes, raspberries, salad, and carrots" (o'ever, roc$ rather than soil is ground ?ero" The natural vegetation is tough and resilient4 mostly conifers, 'ith some birch, oa$, and beech" The valleys are %in season& covered 'ith
Page 16 berries and 'ild grasses" The spring flo'ers last until the end of uly" (unters and gatherers have lived here since the end of the Ice Age" The aristocracy and later the middle class have inhabited the islands, mostly during the summer and only in the nineteenth and t'entieth centuries" =e reach the house by climbing %and carrying and, at the cusp, dragging our luggage& some si.ty feet above the 'ater" A stunning panorama of islands and open 'ater fills the vie' to the hori?on" Cumulonimbus stac$ fa$e, 'hite islands above us as if mirroring the true islands belo'" /ut they are gray and heavy, as if the granite5 defying gravity5is about to rain" =e s'ay from the ride and our heads spin" The blue 'ater and s$y fade seamlessly into each other" *ummer has begun" ;ur house is a cabin, simple, built predominantly of 'ood, placed directly on the granite roc$" Essentially prefabricated, it 'as built around 1706 by three carpenters" #o running 'ater or se'age" The design is a distillation of *'edish functionalism4 living room+$itchen+dining, t'o small sleeping cabins, and some storage" A tric$le+ do'n design from the great functionalist era of Asplund and Le'erent?" A building designer 'or$ing for the fabricator designed our house" The veranda, the living room 'ith its picture 'indo's, and the dining area face the grand vie' in 'hich the islands in the panorama are layered to form a natural theater in 'hich the only variants are boats, birds, and 'eather" Carefully maintained, the house seems unfa?ed by thirty years of battering by use, 'eather, and 'ind" At first 'e had ambitions to add and change, but 'ith the reali?ation that everything that is added %or subtracted& has to be carried up %or do'n& the si.ty feet across very rough terrain, 'e came to loo$ at changes 'ith a minimalist eye" Conservation of energy, mostly my energy %only once did I buy beer in glass bottles&" It occurred to us that tin$ering and modification %instead of starting from a tabula rasa& are in themselves a design strategy that is effectively used by people of limited po'er but 'ith some measure of ingenuity" LDvi+*trauss the :rench anthropologist tal$ed about the great resourcefulness of the bricoleur, the Hac$+of+all+trades 'ho ma$es use of the discarded by reassembling and inventing ne' uses for old things" Conseuently 'e have come to thin$ of our house, the old furniture left 'ithin, the tools, even the pictures on the 'alls as nature, as givens, as potential
readymades" All 'e have to do desire to ma$e all of it ours bring all these givens across readymade 'as an invention of influential artist+
is to hone and t'ea$ them" The is strong, so the tas$ is to the line to the ta$en" The Marcel uchamp, one of the most
Page 163 thin$ers of the t'entieth century" #otoriously he presented a urinal, rotated on its bac$, as a fountain in an e.hibition in #e' Jor$" espite the publicenerali?ed ma$ing in unison 'ith thin$ing form a strategy for an e.istence, albeit a privileged one, but one driven by an openness rather than by a narro' discriminating vie' in 'hich fe' if any obHects and actions pass muster" Architects 'ith their carefully honed aesthetic concerns fail here, since they live and die to create a 'orld according to their o'n narro' ideology" This narro'ness is in my vie' debilitating, because it forecloses so many options" (o'ever, the alternative strategy presented here does not lac$ ideology or an aesthetic position" /ut since it is compromised by the given, or rather since it never starts from scratch but al'ays 'ith the given, the result is al'ays a reflection of the given and the ta$en" =hen I carve hangers from Huniper, the characteristic bo' in its branches 'ill al'ays permeate my attempts to see$ my o'n shapes" The bo', the result of a built+in feedbac$ mechanism present in all branches, Huts out from the trun$ only to turn vertical after an inch or t'o" These characteristic bends and verticals add up to the overall lo?enge shape of the tree, 'hile allo'ing the greenery its necessary Lebensraum" The bends ma$e the Huniper distinct and
different from other conifers 'here the stems of each branch Hut out straight from the trun$" Trees 'hen observed this closely reveal an uncanny GintelligenceG in 'hich shape and feedbac$ mechanisms play an important role" My hangers, fastened to the 'alls of the house, illustrate the characteristic bend of the Huniper better than
Page 162 the tree, since the greenery has been removed" The conceptual distance is vast bet'een the Huniper branch %and its relations to the host trun$& and the typical t'o+by+ four milled to serve the construction of the house" Although there is a strong desire to come closer to the 'isdom of the aboriginal forest, the current 'or$ on the island is at this point but a step closer to the energy+ conserving position of nature" %An attempt on my part, li$e a crab, to move side'ays into ecology 'ithout stumbling into its fascist inclinations"& The intervention5the turning of an everyday obHect into a ne' obHect, a builder
Architecture, design, architect, designer, reconsidered are components of a Pandora
Page 166 to'ard distributed design, leaving in its 'a$e the ancient barricades around architectural autonomy 'hile opening the gates to'ard nature and the propensity of things" The erasure of the distinction bet'een subHect and obHect in the design machine signals the end of the binary and opens the gate to the design not only of things but of humans" Le Corbusier
Page 160 I5 T(E :@;#TIE@ /uoyed by e.pectation, maybe fortified by discovery, yet be'ildered by the opaue panorama, 'e are bac$ in the suburban metropolis" *till see$ing, but no' for a frontier 'here 'e can play out a distributed architecture and situate its architects" *earching the suburban metropolis for its frontier is confusing" In a country 'here going 'est still claims its enthusiasts, one might assume that the edge of gro'th is the frontier" /ut loo$ing closely at the utterly predictable coo$ie+cutter e.pansions, often on former farmland, instantly $ills any hopes of finding the frontier" Anything less inspiring and more predictable is hard to imagine" And tal$ing to Edge City developers is further confirmation, since predictability is precisely 'hat they 'ant and ostensibly 'hat they get" Compass and gro'th are no longer good predictors" =e must search else'here"
Page 168 The Middle Landscape The stretch of urbanity bet'een o'nto'n and the suburban enclaves5the (oley Plane5is motionless in the dense summer heat" The large s'aths of empty space, regularly interspersed 'ith the built, are teeming 'ith nature, mosuitoes, fire ants, and, under the trees, shade for the 'eary" The blac$ par$ing pools of asphalt5the *trands of(ell5 boil" The incessant hum of air conditioners and their persistent drip set this scene of unglamorous construction to a beat" Jet in
its eclectic mishmash, in its foregrounding of urban process over form %even over the grid since it is often bro$en&, the Plane teems 'ith restless anticipation" :rontiers The frontier is a heterogeneous subHect, especially since it is increasingly mythical if not already fictional" Its recent shorthand history is tragic" After the *econd =orld =ar the frontier turned introspective, and under the auspices of urban rene'al the inner city became the ne' frontier" The medico+ military model, probably nurtured during the >reat =ar, replaced the unregulated energy driving earlier frontiers, but 'ith very dubious results" =ith the end of the ietnam =ar, the Mash spirit see$ing to heal urban sic$ness 'ith radical surgery, hard'are, and military strategy has lost its credibility" ery recently, after decades of inaction, a ne', most unli$ely frontier force has arisen4 the #imbys %#ot In My /ac$ Jard&, no' reaching a logical conclusion in the /A#A#As %/uild Absolutely #othing Any'here #ear Anyone&5an effete type of citi?en+guerillas that form momentary coalitions to stop a proHected development" ietnam still haunts the nation in more than one 'ay, 'hile its most recent frontier has become a # orman @oc$'ell painting holding onto a utopia of the past" The relationships bet'een frontiers and the ne' metropolis are synthetic and inscrutable" The vast metropolitan surface is greatly uneven, harboring only fragments of the various frontiers, more or less calcified" To begin to search this surface for the most vibrant frontier, 'e must turn to the ne' metropolitan vocabulary4 to megashapes and to their internal characteristics, their ecology" If still permeated by the promise of opportunity, the ne' frontier must belong to those 'ho continue to suffer the city" GA clearing in the 'oods 'as infinitely prefer+
Page 169 able to unemployment in a city street,G 'rote Philip >uedalla about those 'ho e.perienced the economic slump of 1938" espite the persistent but no' faint glo' of the 'est, 'e must loo$ closer to the suffering for the GclearingG in the frontier ecology" In reference to the city, @eyner /anham, in his boo$ on Los Angeles, used the concept of ecologies" 1 (e never defined 'hat he meant by an ecology, but it is evident that he thought the common arsenal of concepts, such as district or neighborhood, 'as inadeuate in describing the comple.ity and specificity of the relationships bet'een d'ellers and their settings in a city" *ince ecology is undiscriminating in its recognition of relationships, it seems a particularly apt concept in a metropolis 'here city form is eual to time, location, geography, and 'eather" /anham 'anted
to capture not Hust the physical aspect of *urforbia or the Planes of Id, but the atmosphere, the smell, the pulse %or lac$ thereof&, and the spirit as 'ell as the landscape, the infrastructure, and the buildings" (e understood that the narro' definitions of architects and planners failed to include 'hat 'e today call soft'are" %Among the many revolutions of the computer, the concept of soft'are has helped us understand that a 'orld is not completely described by an operating system"& It is safe to surmise from /anhamerman e.tension of such uaint cities as /asel, *'it?erland" Located bet'een defined domains %do'nto'n and suburb&, the middle landscape is unfinished, incomplete, 'aiting some'here bet'een de
Page 167 velopment and sualor" (ard to grasp, hard to 'rite, even in its most rational and technical aspects, this territory is an in+bet'een, neither here nor there" This landscape in the middle has its history, its depth and breadth, and ubiuitousness, 'hich even in the e.ample of (ouston, in the face of its relative youth, is all but t'odimensional" (oustonalleria, the middle landscape remains baffling, even at closer scrutiny" And in this enigma lies the frontier spirit" In discussing the city, Michel de Certeau identified the Gimbricated strataG5the palimpsest of habits, practices, physical traces, accretions and subtractions and overlays of
memories5as a fertility, the controverted gro'ing ground of urban culture" /enHamin in his /erliner Chroni$ 'rote, Gremembrance " " " must, in the strictest and rhapsodic manner, assay its spade in ever+ne' places " " " and ever deeperG strata" Applied to (ouston
Page 10! It is as if everything, despite its profound and deep difference, is painted, if not in the same color, at least in the same hue" >enerous, forgiving, forgetful, this plane divulges none of its secrets too easily" (ighly uneven, sometimes articulate, occasionally in the ma$ing, there is much to read in the middle landscape, particularly 'hen distinguished by type and function4 a ne' medical museum, a (olocaust memorial, a refurbished housing proHect consisting of three apartment )
crude removal being a most graphic e.pression4 this erasure has been long in the ma$ing" After all, some families harbor three generations of unemployment" *tanding above them as I did for t'o years, I sa' these people silhouetted against the rules and regulations manifested in their E.isten?minimum apartments e$ing out a meager e.istence" =e can only hope that their tactics of survival %de Certeau&, against most odds, had a measure of success despite the freuent violence, the occasional fire, the police raid, and daily s'eet seductions of *eYor A?Zcar5the >ood (umor man" #e.t door the public par$, the museums, and the stable allo' the children of these beleaguered families to encounter the open city" (ere the facilities of the metropolis, open and accessible, have not yet closed do'n the full thermodynamics of the old city" Jet Hust beyond the trees, on the outside of the loop, the grid that assumes access to all is freuently bro$en to allo' for the fe' and privileged to live out their paranoias" =hole hives of enclaves are subdividing the city" The enigma of the middle landscape is not 'ithout its contours, outlines, and shapes" *ome are more readable than others, and some more purposeful" The Museum istrict is such a formation, although it is evident that the very nature of the middle landscape5its stuttering, its hesitancies, its gaps 5have impinged here too" 6 Museum >eography At first it is only the road signs then, after several street crossings, the district itself emerges, or rather the museum buildings and only then the district begins to come
Page 101 forth, if not ta$e shape" The Museum istrict is not a /erlin Museum Insel, 'ith a distinct urban shape or location, but more an atmosphere %vapor& 'ith subtle reminders about its presence4 slightly higher densities, occasional large buildings, some semipublic space, and Modern Architecture, but no perspectival presentation, no net'or$ of boulevards, no civic conclusions, no public pla?as" #ot yet a megashape, the district is a grain, offering a certain level of discrete pattern recognition" Located bet'een the Medical Center and o'nto'n, it has no precise borders" As in spra'l, the see$ers have to do some 'or$ to find their prey" ;nce they find it, there is al'ays par$ing" The Menil Collection is both the subtlest and the most po'erful demonstration of this peculiarly suburban commitment to public life" #eatly arranged on nine bloc$s right in the middle of the Mittellandschaft, the Collection is discovered almost by accident, even once the visitor sort+of+$no's 'here it is" :rustrating Maybe, but suburbanO5the gentle reminder
of our itinerant inclinations" The buildings belonging to the Menil :oundation are an almost picture+perfect demonstration of efferson
Page 10 deliberate or not %as is most certainly the case here&, is evidence that the foundation understood something profound about the middle landscape it 'as about to grace 'ith its presence" Pianoallery %in the shape of a pavilion properly situated on the adHacent bloc$ in a mi. of small institutions and d'ellings& is ?oohemic, outfitted 'ith a second+generation
canopy, confirming Piano
Page 103 =hat if the museums decided to cooperate, 'hat should they do /uild a net'or$ of boulevards and pla?as A ne' sign system, or a navigating device, such as a (and Pilot (o' should they attempt to fictionali?e the e.perience 1! of going to the museum, of being 'ithin the vapors of urban culture Although the open museum %Malrau.& has been a concern among museologists, it has invariably meant a concern 'ith the museum
public, space or other'ise" Even here in the hyperspace of the modern metropolis, an archipelago of isolated private spheres accessed solely by streets and high'ays seems untenable" It is clear that the same vigilance and optimism 'ith 'hich 'e embrace the global dimension must be applied to the local, but no' e.actly in the opposite direction" The peculiar deadpan accessibility that e.ists in the gridded street pattern of the Museum istrict brings each museum a step closer to a public" The lac$ of ?oning, the resulting absence of hierarchy, and the GaccidentalG Hu.taposition of many uses add more openness, since you may stumble on a museum 'hile on another errand" The nature of this accidental field has put museums ne.t to hospitals, housing, restaurants, art galleries, houses, churches, and clinics, creating an alphabet soup of peculiar richness, variety, and openness" Jet museums remain Ginaccessible"G Lac$ of openness in Malrau.
Page 102 cern in a 'orld of radical mobility and efficient commerce" The commitment is to public net'or$s but not to public space" *hort of a maHor reorientation of the city
even placelessness, and instant communication, that in the end the most direct solution to museum isolation is the call for a measure of pedestrian space best performed by traditional pla?as and boulevards" /ut the terrain of the public realm in (ouston and conurbations of a similar $ind is no longer 'ell symboli?ed by the colored suares of Mondrian
Page 106 court ne.t to the museum may help construct occasions in 'hich the elegance of the game meets the beauty of paintings" This helps e.pand the notions of a Glife in art"G All these multiplicities are activity+driven" Time and occasion are more important than place" The overall density of residential population, as distinct from event+provo$ed density, seems to be the destiny of each metropolitan region" Los Angeles is four times as dense as (ouston, and it 'ould ta$e unimaginable political 'ill to change this" (o'ever, in special districts, such as the Te.as Medical Center and the Museum istrict, the (ouston drift is to'ard increased residential density because of the e.ternalities produced by the maHor activities" The current boom of multiple housing in (ouston
cooperation bet'een all involved is needed, but since the theme is already established, mobili?ing the content of the fiction seems possible" An internal spatial flo' must be constructed in 'hich the bloc$s of the districts are brought together by soft'are4 bloc$buster museum sho's, metropolitan vapors4 raves, stims, :oto :ests, fire'or$s, marathons, street fairs, sports events, music+in+the+ streets, bi$e+ins, and political rallies, all cast in the vapor of museums" The very genetics of the middle landscape, and the loose agglomerations agglomerations of GsimilaritiesG %museums, hospitals, etc"& populating it, suggest strongly that the city government 'ill be a minor player in any form of change" Instead the maHor institutions, in full vie' of the immediately affected community, must do the 'or$" The aggressive museum building, and the proliferation of ne' GpopulistG museums, is promising, but the physical props building the <<'indo's to the publicG have yet to find engaging shapes and programs" @ather than relying on Menil
Page 100 cause as a stim it is turned on and off, permanent because it is repeated over and over again" Circus over city" :rontier Ecology The other side of the middle landscape, the 'ards of poverty, lies still as a do'nto'n par$ing lot on *unday" A century of programs designed to solve the endemic problem of poverty lies dormant" Today some seventy million people live in these pools of economic underdevelopment, in the nation
The utter lac$ of political 'ill and compassion are blatantly visible in some of the poorest 'ards" Massive public funds have been used repeatedly to destroy decent housing to disperse the population" Any attempts at cooperation bet'een city and 'ards seem doomed to fail, although this is a crucial part of a functioning ecology" *elf+improvement, *elf+improvement, another of the salient components, is almost impossible 'hen there are no pro.imity groupings attracting resources and technology to start small enterprises" ata about social and economic conditions abound, but there are no devices to turn the data into useful information that may lead to enterprise and hope" To build ecology is to build relationships4 relationships4 general ones such as 'ith the city, schools, 'or$, and leisure and specific and uniue ones laden 'ith emotion and character, as 'ith family, relatives, community groups, and athletic teams" The city gives no assistance, no encouragement or incentives %free land, ta.+free ?ones, interest+free loans, vouchers, etc"& only local churches, charities, and dedicated volunteers do" The schools are more than substandard, lac$ing any access to the outer 'orld 'ith all its 'ealth and technology" Li$e rusted, stalled engines, the 'ards of poverty are graphic e.pressions of dying ecology" To approach this seemingly impossible tas$ %outside the ta. model& is to build
Page 108 'hat Manuel Castells calls spatial flo's" The poc$ets of poverty are totally disconnected from the spatial net'or$ in 'hich information, $no'ledge, s$ill, and production flo'" It is unli$ely that such essential connections 'ill be made unless the poc$ets have something to offer" Much li$e the frontier, these embryonic spatial flo's are already on their o'n" To paraphrase /acon, the light must be lit inside, fueled by science, a drive to discover affection and human emotion" The current state of the 'ards of poverty is living proof of the tragic conseuence of underestimating the cultural dimension in the building of spatial flo's and frontier ecologies" The looser, more ephemeral relationships in an assembly of men, 'omen, and children building a production and community apparatus are as essential as the strong forces and frictions of the horse-men-bull-technology horse-men-bull-technology machine" ust as important as close relations among the 'or$ing components of such an apparatus are the loose and ephemeral relationships relationships 'ith the global conte.t of the ecology" The reasons are not Hust to build connections but to see these as crucial access points in ma$ing larger, more po'erful e.ternal spatial flo's" The principle is to brea$ do'n barriers as 'ell as building relations" /ro$en barriers 'iden the scope, 'ithout deflecting
the narro' purpose, and force various participants to 'or$ together" #ever having become a deductive science, community+ building remains a theoretical enlightenment proHect, sadly stuc$ in the academy" The prospect of ma$ing the entrepreneurial entrepreneurial concept of spatial flo's successful, socially and economically, seems eually dim" Architecture and /iota #ature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" 5:rancis /acon /acon =e tal$ of deviations from natural life, as if artificial life 'ere not also natural" 5@alph =aldo Emerson @en?o Piano, the architect of the Menil Collection, made a refracting and subtle move 'hen he turned the Cy T'ombly >allery ninety degrees a'ay from the street"
Page 109 Against the common organi?ation of the houses on the e.isting bloc$, in 'hich all entrances face the street, the gallery opens onto a la'n in 'hich a grand oa$ tree presides" ust as he rearranged the effersonian university grammar in the placement of the large museum on its la'n, Piano manipulated, in the placement of the T'ombly, the demanding and rigid logic of the regular city bloc$, leaving an inner sanctum relegated to nature" The decision to turn a'ay from the street, the traffic, and direct vehicular access may have been made to establish the difference bet'een house and museum, to put distance bet'een contemplation and action, and to turn visitors, ever so briefly, into pedestrians" (o'ever rational and coolly elegant the ninety+degree move, it 'as also a radical move from a metropolitan perspective, perspective, a turning of the uintessential urban museum to'ard the inside of the bloc$ to consolidate 'ith nature" =ith this rotation a'ay from the mercantile to'ard the agrarian, the ne' museum Hoins forces 'ith the ?oohemic canopy" As difficult as the construction of spatial flo's may seem, the reinvention of architecture for the suburban metropolis is even more difficult" Clearly, as the double e.pression of the architect
pale purple to intense green, from dormant to fully alive" This process of sleep and a'a$ening brings to the middle landscape its natural splendor, but more pragmatically it reflects the flo' of energy, the po'er of climate, and mar$s the passages in the yearly cycle" The biota sets the manners of the seasons and defines the hori?on of the comple. middle ecology" ;bliuely there is a deep commitment to the ?oohemic canopy in the middle landscape" The leapfrogged holes in the urban fabric contribute significantly and as accidentally to the sporadic maintenance of the canopy" As 'ith so many comple.es in the suburban metropolis, the canopy is on its o'n assignment" Its support of and integration 'ith these other systems %streets, housing, public space&
Page 107 often seem accidental and hapha?ard" =hen it does support these systems, it does so as a matter of fact, as something metropolitans ta$e for granted, out of focus in the corner of their daily perceptions" Jet the biota counteracts, balances, and often hides the rampant artifice" %Landscape architects as camouflage artists, called in 'hen architect and developer have finished, $no' this all too 'ell"& In our everyday lives 'e see the gardens, the trees, the birds, and the bayou sna$es as pleasant surplus to the real estate" Jet 'ithout them 'e 'ould reali?e that they establish and embody the radical difference bet'een the metropolis and the city" Conseuently, if 'e loo$ed at the bios as the ethos of suburban culture and artifice as its poor relation %not yet& 'or$ing hard to become as intelligent and alive, architecture might again find its purpose" Even 'hen 'inter or bulldo?ers suppress it, the biota 'ould again come into focus, no longer as an adverse and threatening 'ilderness but as the conceptual locus of the suburban metropolis" The great oa$ tree facing the T'ombly >allery gains presence and specificity by its privileged placement" =hen visitors e.it the museum they see a great oa$ rather than a motor vehicle" /ut its nature is of greater potential and conseuence" If 'e fail to see the individual tree for the canopy, 'e may also miss the immense bayou system that delineates the plane and miss its role in the service of the tree" The tree 'or$ing as a huge pump gets its 'ater molecules from the ground and releases them via its leafed cro'n into the atmosphere at the time of photosynthesis" All is driven by solar po'er" This cycle is a form of stimdross, in 'hich the visible and apparently significant reveals its dependence on the less apparent" And there are millions of these trees, pumping a'ay and unli$e their artificial others pumping oil,
the trees< output is clean" The conceptual and technical distance bet'een these t'o pumps is unli$ely to be bridged any time soon" /ut since architects are more susceptible to change, 'hat can 'e learn from trees 11 The turning of a museum to'ard a tree is 'ithout any conseuence on the metropolitan scale, 'hile here on a microscopic scale the 'ild has 'on over the 'est, an implosion has ta$en place" The frontier is no' 'ithin the metropolis" oooooooooooo The double movement5the turn to'ard the canopy and the simultaneous mimesis 1 bet'een canopy and roof5is an e.uisite demonstration of the biota as the
Page 18! conceptual center of a ne' metropolis" The turning of the suburban metropolis to'ard nature neither implies a turning a'ay from 'hat de Certeau called Gthe universal 'riting of technologyG nor a return to some ne' version of the picturesue, but a dragging %as 'ith assistance of a computer mouse& in 'hich culture and nature become coe.istent multiplicities" ;ne is seen through the other" The turning to'ard nature does not suggest that culture should be an e.tension or prolongation of nature, but that coe.istence 'ould provo$e a mimesis and a shoal of interactivity" Innovation and mar$et forces cannot be replaced by some ne'fangled rootedness" @ather all three must find their 'ay and e.pression through various processes of reconciliation" The ne' nature is no longer the dauntingly opaue 'ilderness that the Puritans encountered, but an emerging evolutionary comple. in 'hich 'e as creatures of matter 13 5and our technological e.tensions5are implicated" The hint of nature that Piano constructed in the glass canopy in the T'ombly >allery is a trace that traveled a long 'ay" >illes eleu?e 'rites in reference to /ergson
surrounding canopy of trees" The age of oooooooooooo The bull machine in the :eria of #Xmes, of southern :rance, relied on pro.imity indeed for its beauty" *een from 'ithin
integration has begun" deep in the Camargue for its success, the bull
Page 181 run, 'ith my young son on my shoulders, Hust at the outset %presumably a safe distance from the bull
the level of the unconscious, because they are collective, although 'or$s of art are individual" (o'ever, this is a minor difference, and really only an apparent one, since social phenomena are produced by the public and 'or$s of
Page 18 art for the public it is the public 'hich endo's them 'ith a common denominator and determines the conditions of their creation" *o it is not in any metaphorical sense that 'e are Hustified in comparing5as has often been done5a to'n 'ith a symphony or a poem they are obHects of a similar nature" The to'n is perhaps even more precious than a 'or$ of art in that it stands at the meeting point of nature and artifice" Consisting, as it does, of a community of animals 'ho enclose their biological history 'ithin the boundaries and at the same time mould it according to their every intention as thin$ing beings, the to'n, in both its development and its form, belongs simultaneously to biological procreation, organic evolution and aesthetic creation" It is at one and the same time an obHect of nature and a subHect of nature an individual and a group reality and dream the supremely human achievement" 10 At the verge of the t'enty+first century, the supremely human achievement has a dar$ side4 culture
Page 183 ings, insensible to the climate, ignorant of anything but the most stereotypical habitation, forming automatic enclaves because of their rigid uniformity, these buildings betray the intelligence of a metropolis 'orld+reno'ned for its advanced medicine, for'ard+loo$ing science, creative oil e.ploration, and enormous economic vigor" The rigor mortis is completed by the employment of out+ of+ date building styles %>eorgian and Mediterranean&5the lethal combination of stereotypical architectural representations and a highly proficient building and sales machinery" The roots of this collusion are comple." It is hardly the result of a sinister conspiracy, rather the coincidence of a deep+ seated conservatism on the part of d'ellers and ma$ers and the drift of the mar$et system, most notably the mortgage industry" It is deeply ironic that Adolf Looseorgians and Land @overs" The spectacular gro'th of the suburban metropolis, of 'hich (ouston is a typical e.ample, has resulted in a giant board game5the cordon urbain5in 'hich nature and culture are running side by side, one oblivious of the other" Conservative values and smoothly operating machineries from real estate to transportation form alliances of enormous efficiency and strength" Architects have e.cluded themselves from the game" Jet all is not 'ell" The deep+seated denial of the larger conseuences of all accumulated actions has produced a holey plane 'ith too many voids of social and economic depression, serious environmental problems, and often banal and overly striated spatial stereotypes" This refusal misses countless opportunities to pool resources, to build ne' and more diverse coalitions, and to construct richer and more comple. environmental conditions" *uch radical rearrangements5a ne' alliance5'ill be essential to our prosperity" *uburban culture 'ill no longer be rescued by the city
Page 182 mensely delicate machinery, and the direction of this seemingly inevitable development could be reversed" The missing part is the salient part, the $ey to the design machine, the part that bridges the heterogeneous5the vegetable in the inanimate, the hint that ma$es a building cogni?ant of a larger plane4 climate, biota, comple. d'eller needs, various economies, alternative styles and predilections" Jet the hope of inserting the missing lin$ in the design machine is slim" (o'ever, since time is on the side of the ?oohemic ecology, the ne.t generation5my students5may defy the various suburban machineries and insert the missing lin$ because they already $no' that the abyss bet'een technology and nature must be bridged" As the psychologist @ichard Born said4 GThere 'ill be a time 'hen our children 'ill teach us"G 18 May that time be very soon" And time is of the essence, because 'hen 'e leave the city behind, 'e have left space behind" If the second la' of thermodynamics applies, the city
Page 186 =e used not to see the forest for the trees" =hat happens 'hen
'e cannot see the houses for the forest And the body" =ill it too disappear in the forest And as :oucault suggested, 'ill humans be erased <ymnopDdie #", *parta
Page 180 #;TE* I5 Introduction 1" Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and )topia4 esign and Capitalist evelopment, trans" /arbara Luigia La Penta %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1780&, p" 23" " Ibid", p" 2" 3" >ianni attimo, The End of Modernity4 #ihilism and (ermeneutics in Postmodern Culture, trans" on @" *nyder %/altimore4 ohns (op$ins )niversity Press, 1771&, p" 1" Particularly the concept of er'indung" 2" The idea of gro'ing our house stems from a disparate range of sources, from Marvin Mins$y
1!" Ibid" 11" =alter /enHamin, @eflections4 Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical =ritings, ed" Peter emet?, trans" Edmund ephcott %#e' Jor$4 (arcourt /race ovanovich, 1789&, p" 23" 1" It should be noted that Lenin had but Gscorn for the life of the massesG in Michel Maffesoli
Page 188 19" Michel :oucault, iscipline and Punish4 The /irth of the Prison, trans" Alan *heridan %#e' Jor$4 @andom (ouse, 1787&, p" 10" 17" Ibid" !" Ibid", p" 18" 1" Ibid", p" !1" " Ibid", p" !9" 3" >eorges /ataille, uoted in enis (ollier, Against Architecture4 The =ritings of >eorges /ataille, trans" /etsy =ing %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1797&, p" 28" 2" Ibid" 6" Aldo @ossi, The Architecture of the City %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 179&, p" 0!" 0" (ollier, Against Architecture, p" 66" 8" /ataille, uoted in (ollier, Against Architecture, p" 63" 9" (ollier, Against Architecture, p" 28" 7" Ibid", p" .ii" 3!" The Latin inscription aside, historians seem to agree that the most li$ely architect is (adrian" 31" =alter /enHamin, Illuminations4 Essays and @eflections, ed" (annah Arendt, trans" (arry Wohn %#e' Jor$4 *choc$en /oo$s, 1707&, pp" 37+21" 3" (ollier, Against Architecture, p" .iii" 33" Ibid" 32" @ossi, The Architecture of the City, p" 19" @ossi defines fabbrica as GbuildingG in the old Latin and @enaissance sense of man
the churcha?e in the E.panded :ield,G in (al :oster, ed", ision and isuality %*eattle4 /ay Press, 1799&, p" 98" 30" Ibid" 38" The point about imagination should be stressed here, since I have yet to visit the gap" This is not entirely due to lac$ of opportunity, but rather in order to $eep the gap imaginary for as long as possible" A visit 'ill eventually be necessary because, I have been told, ga?ing
Page 189 do'n through the oculus is one of the great architectural e.periences" 39" /ryson, GThe >a?e in the E.panded :ield,G p" 11!" 37" (enri :ocillon, The Life of :orms in Art, trans" Charles /eecher (ogan and >eorge Bubler %#e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1797&, p" 01" 2!" Ibid", p" 36" 21" Ibid", p" 30" 2" /ryson, GThe >a?e in the E.panded :ield,G p" 1!3" 23" (ollier, Against Architecture, p" .i" 22" Ibid", pp" 3+33" 26" acues errida, ;f >rammatology, trans" >ayatri Cha$ravorty *piva$ %/altimore4 ohns (op$ins )niversity Press, 1780&" 20" @oland /arthes, The Pleasure of the Te.t, trans" @ichard Miller %#e' Jor$4 (ill N =ang, 1786&, p" 7" II5 The *uburban Metropolis An earlier version of G*tim and ross4 @ethin$ing the MetropolisG 'as published in Assemblage %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1772&, pp" 9+1!!" 1" The city 'e face at the dus$ of the century is infinitely more comple. than the night suggests" =e must close the boo$ on the City and open the manifold of the Metropolis" /ehind this melodramatic pronouncement lies the hypothesis that our customary 'ays of describing, managing, and designing the city are no' outmoded" Though the 'orld is mutating at a di??ying speed, 'e remain mesmeri?ed by the passDiste dream of the City" Contemporary metropolitans must confront a series of givens that radically change the euation of the old city" Perhaps no'here 'ith more intensity than in (ouston is the full set of these revolutions being cinematically played out4 emographic, in the emerging metropolis, the old patterns are giving 'ay to a truly multiethnic continuum" Economic, global integration threatens not only to e.tend but to continuously
redra' the boundaries of the city
Page 187 " The entire section on the relationship bet'een physics and the metropolis is dra'n from Martin Briegeralleria, accented 'ith hori?ontal bars of light running along the eaves, highlight their lo'+slung hori?ontality" As t'o ends of a spectrum displaced by a certain distance, the separation %at birth& bet'een the vertical and the hori?ontal is eerily graphic" The decision to remove the commercial ground+floor business from do'nto'n and to relocate it on the grounds of the >alleria is the most dramatic display of the demise of the city and the rise of the
metropolis" The instigators, >erald (ines and his real estate movers, did in one single Monopoly move 'hat Ale.ander may have achieved by chopping off the >ordian $not" Those nostalgic for the city that could have been are still smarting" :or the suburbanite the logic 'as clear4 'ith the separation of the oil business from shopping, the male 'ould get his 'orld and the female hers" In the process 'e 'ould avoid congestion, traffic snarls, par$ing problems, street life, all the components that ma$e up the inefficient and 'ic$ed t'entieth+century do'nto'n" #ostalgic attempts to return do'nto'n to o'nto'n are not only futile but ill advised, since they obscure the fact that (ouston is not a city but a multicentered metropolitan domain in 'hich each center has to fend for itself" In other 'ords, 'hen (ouston Industries lights up do'nto'n in a huge multimillion+dollar fire'or$, they are much closer to a more productive strategy4 as a potential contender as energy capital of the 'orld, (ouston
Page 19! a gallon of gas a'ay" This part of do'nto'n
and Plater+Wyber$, Calthorpe, *olomon&, are predicated upon a more or less hidden positivity that, if fulfilled, 'ould bring us community5or better, bring us bac$ to the American version of the European city" Jet the city is forever surpassed by the metropolis and all its givens %a steadily globali?ing economy, demographic changes, AI*, unemployment, and violence&, all of 'hich 'ill ma$e any return to the past impossible and undesirable" The obsession 'ith valori?ing the pedestrian over the car hides the fact that there is a driver %and passengers& in the car5a roving subHectivity 'hose body phantom apprehends the 'orld in a vastly different manner, a manner that in turn 'ill and must have conseuences for the 'ay the metropolis is designed" More important, ho'ever, to hinge all Hudgments about the city on the forlorn pedestrian and all his reuirements avoids tac$ling the fact that the metropolis is driven in and driven not only by the pedestrian and the driver but by a myriad of subHectivities ranging from the old %and possibly infirm& to the young %and eually vulnerable&, men and 'omen, African+ American and 'hite, as 'ell as less human obHectivities such as the economy, public opinion, and the mar$etplace" 9" The stabilities of the old city, its buildings, monuments, and city fabric, are rapidly losing their firmness %if not their delight&" /uildings in cities li$e To$yo and (ouston are li$ely to disappear before their mortgages run out and long before the companies that occupy them" #e' street systems are bro$en, cul+de+sac+ed, and largely incoherent, leading some'here but never every'here" Monuments, often built for enormous sums of money, are completely idiosyncratic and out of date" /ecause they serve so fe', their publication in various media is more conseuential than the monuments themselves" In the metropolis, absurdly, shoc$ingly, a series of radical reversals of stability have ta$en place" Aspects and characteristics that in the city 'ere the mere bac$drop of everyday life have been rudely foregrounded as ne' stabilities4 stabilities that are not characteri?ed by their firmness but rather by their dynamic, unpredictable instability" I am thin$ing about pollution, 'eather, vegetation, and 'ater" #one of these is, under the demanding auspices of the metropolis, truly natural, but a comple. compound or admi.ture of nature and artifice" Jet in their persistent return or foregrounding, 'e $no' that they all 'ill be here 'hen 'e leave" espite often valiant attempts to reverse its presence, pollution is here to stay" It 'ill come and go if one type is held bac$, pollution as a
Page 191 fi.ture of metropolitan life 'ill return, be it in the air,
'ater, food, or our bodies" Pollution slo's imperceptibly bet'een nature and artifice" And on the side of artifice flo' other stable instabilities, such as electricity and gas and their transformation into lights and vehicles" The Gastral specsG of the artificially lit metropolis bring the entire conurbation under the same spell at night" It is as if nocturnally the metropolis counts itself, one light for every event" Traffic flo's, pea$ing t'ice a day, are as predictable as the profile of do'nto'n" Jet this flo' is also highly unstable" This goes for 'eather, vegetation, and 'ater5 particularly true in (ouston, 'here the 'ater table often sho's its sudden destructive po'er on the ground floor of the city5the sudden liberation of all bathtub rubber duc$s" *ooner or later these instabilities 'ill bring all of us into their momentary orbits" The nature of all these ne' stabilities is their catastrophic instability, their dynamic flu., 'hich li$e the metropolis itself immerse everyday life in their only semi+predictable po'er games5semi+natural or semi+artificial" =hen the rainstorm, the morning commute, the steady T signal, and the open telephone line5and lately, band'idth5have become our only stability, the city as 'e have $no'n it has truly disappeared" :irmitas has become stochastic and conHectural" 7" *mithson, =ritings of @obert *mithson, p" 66" 1!" The city must be seen as an organism, but as such a deeply perple.ing one because it is simultaneously a machine, or rather a series of disconnected %nano+& machines running their o'n determined and rec$less courses5the combined results of 'hich 'e 'ill never fully fathom" rifting, the procedure of preference for this reading, is umbilically connected to the metropolis, via /audelaire and the ultimate flVneur =alter /enHamin %although he 'ould agree that in (ouston the car rather than pedestrian locomotion is the drifter
frame'or$s and constructions that shape the metropolis, ranging from the (ouse to the ;ffice to the circulation of Money" rifting+as+te.t is more about departures than arrivals, more about movement and change than fi.edness, but also about a desire to cover more 'ith less, a leaving of lacunas to be filled later 'ith the help of others" 11" The term subecology applies to large domains in (ouston, but a narro'er band can be defined that roughly surrounds do'nto'n and reaches out to the first belt'ay5an e.ample of the middle landscape"
Page 19 1" The holes, Gthe empty lots,G 'rites Michael /enedi$t, Gdotted about the landscape have to do 'ith the use of land as speculative investment vehicles by ban$s, real estate investment trusts @EIT*, and even individuals, 'ith deep enough poc$ets to 'ait for more favorable " " " mar$et conditions"G Ruoted in Michael *torper, G/eautiful Cities, )gly Cities4 )rban :orm as Convention,G in Center 1!, ed" Michael /enedi$t %Austin4 Center for the *tudy of American Architecture, )niversity of Te.as at Austin, 1778&, p" 1" 13" ean /audrillard, America, trans" Chris Turner %#e' Jor$4 erso, 1799&, p" 8" 12" Ibid", p" 1!6" 16" Ibid", p" 8" 10" The t'o dominating ecologies harbor a multitude of subecologies or biotopes %limited ecological regions or niches in 'hich the environment promotes and supports certain forms of life&" These topoi are often the gro'ing grounds for the stim, 'hose biotic potential %the li$elihood of survival of a specific organism in a specific environment, especially in an unfavorable one& is, as I hope to sho', highly dependent on both stim and surrounding dross" 18" " /" ac$son, GThe =est'ard+Moving (ouse,G in Landscapes4 *elected =riting of " /" ac$son, ed" Er'in (" Wube %Amherst4 )niversity of Massachusetts Press, 178!&, p" 1!" 19" GIn the Entortung it is the destiny of the =est itself that runs from the rooting of the #omos in the Hustissima tellus, through the discovery and occupation of the ne' spaces of the Americas %
comple.ity and multitude of cultures and concerns in the manifold of the metropolis force us to seriously uestion conte.tualism, or to elevate this issue to environmental conte.tuality, leaving the issue of style to the beholder" !" The stim
Page 193 " (annah Arendt, The (uman Condition %Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1769&, pp" +36" 3" Most notably, uany and Plater+Wyber$, and Hust recently the isney Company" 2" The ;pen City is a code for the democratic city, accessible by a complete grid5the good city in my boo$" 6" avid /ell, GBno'ledge and the Middle Landscape4 effersoneography, :all 1708" 3" >rady Clay, @eal Places4 An )nconventional >uide to Americaeneric Landscape %Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1772&, p" .." 33" E" T" (all, The (idden imension %#e' Jor$4 Anchor /oo$s, 177!&" 32" Perry Miller, Errand into the =ilderness %Cambridge4
(arvard )niversity Press, 1760&, p" 3" 36" Ibid" 30" Ibid", p" 10" 38" Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and )topia4 esign and Capitalist evelopment, trans" /arbara Luigia La Penta %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1780&, p" 16" 39" :Dli. >uattari, Chaosophy %#e' Jor$4 *emiote.t%e&, 1776&, p" 21" 37" Philip >uedalla, The (undred Jears %#e' Jor$4 Torch/oo$s, 1730&, p" 39" 2!" Luc :erry, The #e' Ecological ;rder, trans" Carol ol$ %Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1776&, p" 02" 21" onald udd, Archite$tur %M\nster4 =estflisher Bunstverein, 1797&" 2" Ibid", p" 0" 23" Ibid"" pp" 06+00"
Page 192 22" Ibid", p" 00 %uoting ;rtega y >asset&" 26" Ibid", p" 87" III5 Architecture @econsidered *ome parts of GThe End of the Architectural PromenadeG 'ere published in an earlier version in *cott Marble et al", eds", Architecture and /ody %#e' Jor$4 @i??oli, 1799&, no pagination" *cattered fragments of GThe Metropolitan ArchitectG 'ere published as G(ands )p,G in Louis I" Bahn4 Conversations 'ith *tudents, ed" ung #go, Architecture ] @ice 0 %(ouston4 @ice *chool of Architecture, 1799&, pp" 07+88" 1" =alter /enHamin, Illuminations4 Essays and @eflections, ed" (annah Arendt, trans" (arry Wohn %#e' Jor$4 *choc$en /oo$s, 1707&, pp" 37+21" " The intimate connection bet'een the /eau.+Arts dual concept of enfilade-marche and architectural promenade is most interesting" /ased on avid an Wantenarnier,G in Arthur re.ler, ed", The Architecture of the Ecole des /eau.+Arts %#e' Jor$4 Museum of Modern Art, 1788&, there seems to be a direct lin$ bet'een enfilade and architecture and bet'een marche and promenade5 further investigation is called for" 3" GMan of the Month4 Le Corbusier,G *cope Maga?ine %London&, August 1761, pp" 08+09" 2" Le Corbusier and Pierre eanneret, ;euvre complUte de 171!+177 %Wurich4 >irsberger, 1738&, p" 2" The :rench te.t reads4 GL
entre dans le garage ou poursuit sa route pour le retour4 telle est la donnDe fondamentale"G 6" Ibid" The :rench te.t reads4 GLa maison se posera au milieu de l
Page 196 9" ;f the illa *avoye Le Corbusier 'rites4 <irsberger, 1721&, p" 6" 7" *ince the Plan ;bus is utopia manifested, 'e no longer need the promise %as in the hope implied by the suspended garden&, since, as Tafuri 'rites, Gthe technological universe is impervious to the here and there"G Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and )topia4 esign and Capitalist evelopment, trans" /arbara Luigia La Penta %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1780&, p" 16" 1!" Lars Lerup, Planned Assaults4 The #ofamily (ouse, Love-(ouse, Te.as Wero %Montreal4 Centre Canadien d
Phrase %/er$eley4 (ermagoras Press, 1773&, pp" 2+22" 10" /orges, Labyrinths, p" 0" 18" (enri Lefebvre, The Production of *pace, trans" onald #icholson+*mith %;.ford4 /lac$'ell, 1771&, p" 138" 19" Maurice Merleau+Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans" Colin *mith %London4 @outledge N Began Paul, 170&, pp" 09+07" 17" Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans" *teven :" @endall %/er$eley4 )niversity of California Press, 1792&, p" 1!3" !" Ibid"" p" 118" 1" Lefebvre" The Production of *pace, p" 139" " The umbilical connection bet'een designer and d'eller is apparent in the concept of a living body that it is a radical proposition may be less apparent4 to the d'eller because it is too evident %that there is a connection&, and to the architect because he or she is blinded by form"
Page 190 3" The aim is not to dismiss the importance or genius of master architects" Bahn and >ehry are of great significance to our culture, and there 'ill be others" /ut our obsession 'ith the stars prohibits the appreciation of all others4 an underestimated force of architectural culture, 'hose contribution may have its day in the metropolis" Among 'ell+ $no'n architects, Philip ohnson and @em Boolhaas %despite their si?able egos and heroic postures& ta$e a position closer to the more anonymous architects 'ho are my concern here" ohnson" /allard, A )seruide to the Millennium4 Essays and @evie's %London4 Picador, 1770&, p" 80" 0" Ibid" 8" Ibid", p" 87" 9" ennifer >olub, Albert :rey-(ouses 1` %#e' Jor$4 Princeton Architectural Press, 1779&, p" 28" 7" In 1727 /orges published a collection of< ficciones called El Aleph" :or me most of /orges
telephones, telegraphs, phonographs, the latest in radio+ telephone and motion+picture and magic+lantern euipment add Internet, computers, etc", and glossaries and calendars and time tables and bulletins " " "< this t'entieth century of ours had upended the fable of Muhammad and the mountain5 mountains no'adays did in fact come to the modern Muhammad"G And finally the aleph itself4 GJes, the place 'here, 'ithout admi.ture or confusion, all the places of the 'orld, seen from every angle, coe.ist"G In orge Luis /orges4 Collected :ictions, trans" Andre' (urley %#e' Jor$4 i$ing Penguin, 1799&, pp" 86+80, 91" 3!" :oucault suggests that 'e may eventually refer to the t'entieth century as the eleu?ean century in Language, Counter+memory, Practice4 *elected Essays and Intervie's by Michel :oucault, ed" onald :" /ouchard %Ithaca4 Cornell )niversity Press, 1788&, p" 106" 31" >illes eleu?e, The Logic of *ense, ed" Constantin " /oundas, trans" Mar$ Lester 'ith Charles *tivale %#e' Jor$4 Columbia )niversity Press, 177!&, p" 9!" 3" Ibid"" p" 03" 33" It is 'orth noting that predictions about the future of politics suggest that direct democracy is in the ma$ing because of the Internet" ic$ Morris, the political consultant, predicts
Page 198 that voters using the Internet 'ill ma$e their opinions heard to such a degree that Congress and its special interests 'ill lose their current significance" The voting pool, the chat group, and the design dungeon 'ill be the ne' mar$etplace" 32" Castells defines net'or$ enterprise as one in 'hich Gthe actual unit of production is not a firm" It is an ad hoc combination of firms of different si?es and different sectors 'ith different purposesG %p" 9&" 36" @obert >oodman, After the Planners %#e' Jor$4 *imon and *chuster, 1781&, p" 1!" 30" (erbert Muschamp, Man about To'n4 :ran$ Lloyd =right in #e' Jor$ City %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1793&, p" 198" #ote Muschampoodman, Communitas4 Means of Livelihood and =ays of Life %#e' Jor$4 Morningside /oo$shop, 177!&" 39" Ilya Prigogine, GThe @ediscovery of alue and the ;pening of Economics,G in Center 1!, ed" Michael /enedi$t %Austin4 Center for the *tudy of American Architecture, )niversity of Te.as at Austin, 1778&, pp" 1+8" 37" Ibid", p" 2"
2!" Ibid", p" 8" 21" Mihaly Csi$s?entmihalyi, Galues and *ocio+Cultural Evolution,G in Center 1!, ed" /enedi$t, p" 2" 2" Ibid", pp" 21+2" 23" Ibid", pp" 23+20" 22" Csi$s?entmihalyi ta$es the e.ample of the value of being thin rather than fat in modern =estern societies, implying that there are other societies 'here being fat is a sign of 'ealth and beauty" 26" Michael ;(are, GAttention, alue, and E.change,G in Center 1!, ed" /enedi$t, p" 96" 20" Csi$s?entmihalyi, Galues and *ocio+Cultural Evolution,G p" 6!" 28" A 'or$ critical of the disciplinary divisions that had prevailed since Aristotleree$&" 29" *amuel /ec$ett, =att %#e' Jor$4 >rove Press, 1767&, p" 09" 27" Ibid"" pp" !2+!6" 6!" ean /audrillard" *imulations, trans" Paul :oss" Paul Patton, and Philip /eitchman %#e' Jor$4 *emiote.t%e&" 1793&" p" 7"
Page 199 61" /ec$ett, =att, p" 198" 6" Ibid", pp" 10!+101" 63" :ran_ois ullien, The Propensity of Things4 To'ard a (istory of Efficacy in China, trans" anet Lloyd %#e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1776&" 62" @alph =aldo Emerson, The Complete =or$s of @alph =aldo Emerson, 1 vols", ed" Ed'ard =aldo Emerson %/oston4 (oughton, 17!3+17!2&, G#ature,G from the :irst and *econd *eries, p" 397" I5 The #e' :rontier 1" @eyner /anham, Los Angeles4 The Architecture of:our Ecologies %#e' Jor$4 Penguin /oo$s, 1783&" " =alter /enHamin, @eflections4 Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical =ritings, ed" Peter emet?, trans" Edmund ephcott %#e' Jor$4 (arcourt /race ovanovich, 1789&, p" 0" 3" Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans" *teven :" @endall %/er$eley4 )niversity of California Press, 1792&, p" !1" 2" Ibid", p" 1!" 6" The subHectivity roaming the middle landscape is in favor of an open city, against hard enclaves, for a complete grid, for double reading, ambiguity, interpretation, trespassing, permeability, indeterminancy5the holey plane, le terrain vague, the Laconian field"
0" The Menil Collection should not be confused 'ith the )niversity of *t" Thomas, 'here Philip ohnson designed a copy of )niversity of irginia S la Mies 'hat is perple.ing is that the Menil is much more effersonian in spirit if not in form" 8" The museum store has been carefully placed outside the museum in the bordering bloc$, to demonstrate that the museum comes first and the mercantile far behind" 9" The color 'as chosen by Mrs" de Menil and her (ouston architect (o'ard /amstone, 'hose creative genius often too$ form in modem, scaled proHects" 7" As might be e.pected from the Te.as Medical Center, the design of the Medical Museum is probably even 'orse than that of a typical suburban hotel" octors, the clients of the ne' museum, are becoming so increasingly speciali?ed and narro' in outloo$ that all larger cultural aspirations have been left behind" Bno'ing everything there is to $no' about the left ventricle seems to foreclose an interest in the entire architecture of the body or5even further removed5of the buildings the ventricle is supposed to operate in"
Page 197 1!" This idea is dra'n from >ianni attimoilles eleu?e, /ergsonism, trans" (ugh Tomlinson and /arbara (abberHam %#e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1799&, p" 76" 16" Turner, G/iology and /eauty,G p" 2!0 %uoting Thomas Mann
10" Claude LDvi+*trauss, Tristes Tropiues %#e' Jor$4 Atheneum, 1782&, p" 12" 18" @ichard Born, GThe Private Citi?en, the *ocial E.pert, and the *ocial Problem4 An E.cursion through an )nac$no'ledged )topia,G in /ernard @osenberg, Israel >erver, and :" =illiam (o'ton, eds", Mass *ociety in Crisis %#e' Jor$4 Macmillan, 1702&, p" 687" 19" GTransportation is in a very cool spot bet'een a social system and a physical system,G e.plains Christopher L" /arrett at Los Alamos #ational Laboratory" (is colleague *teen @asmussen adds, GThe elements or vehicles 'idely distributed over space that interact 'ith one another are li$e biological systems" They are dynamical hierarchies 'ith controls at many different levels, li$e organelles, cells, tissues, humans"G %ra'n from Benneth @" (o'ard, G)nHamming Traffic 'ith Computers,G *cientific American, ;ctober 1778, p" 98"&
Page 17! /I/LI;>@AP(J Arendt, (annah" The (uman Condition" Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1769" Auerbach, Erich" Mimesis4 The @epresentation of @eality in =estern Literature" Trans" =illard @" Tras$" Princeton4 Princeton )niversity Press, 1763" /allard, " >" A )seruide to the Millennium4 Essays and@evie's" London" Picador, 1770" /anham, @eyner" Los Angeles4 The Architecture of :our Ecologies" #e' Jor$4 Penguin /oo$s, 1783" /arthes, @oland" The Pleasure of the Te.t" Trans" @ichard Miller" #e' Jor$4 (ill N =ang, 1786" /audrillard, ean" America" Trans" Chris Turner" #e' Jor$4 erso, 1799" /audrillard, ean" *imulations" Trans" Paul :oss, Paul Patton, and Philip /eitchman" #e' Jor$4 *emiote.t%e&, 1793" /ec$ett, *amuel" =att" #e' Jor$4 >rove Press, 1767" /ell, avid" GBno'ledge and the Middle Landscape4 efferson
@enaissance of Minimum Energy *tructures" @otterdam4 !1! Publisher, 1779" /orges, orge Luis" Labyrinths4 *elected *tories and ;ther =ritings" Ed" onald A" Jates and ames E" Irby" #e' Jor$4 #e' irections, 1702" /orges, orge Luis" orge Luis /orges4 Collected :ictions" Trans" Andre' (urley" #e' Jor$4 i$ing Penguin, 1799" /ouchard, " :", ed" Language, Counter+memory, Practice4 *elected Essays and Intervie's by Michel :oucault" Ithaca4 Cornell )niversity Press, 1788" /ryson, #orman" GThe >a?e in the E.panded :ield"G In (al :oster, ed", ision and isuality" *eattle4 /ay Press, 1799" Cacciari, Massimo" Architecture and #ihilism4 ;n the Philosophy of Modem Architecture"
Page 171 Trans" *tephen *artarelli" #e' (aven4 Jale )niversity Press, 1773" Clay, >rady" @eal Places4 An )nconventional >uide to Americaeneric Landscape" Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1772" Certeau, Michel de" The Practice of Everyday Life" Trans" *teven :" @endall" /er$eley4 )niversity of California Press, 1792" eleu?e, >illes" /ergsonism" Trans" (ugh Tomlinson and /arbara (abberHam" #e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1799" eleu?e, >illes" The :old4 Leibni? and the /aroue" Trans" Tom Conley" Minneapolis4 )niversity of Minnesota Press, 1773" eleu?e, >illes" :oucault" Ed" and trans" *eVn (and" Minneapolis4 )niversity of Minnesota Press, 1799" eleu?e, >illes" The Logic of *ense" Ed" Constantin " /oundas" Trans" Mar$ Lester 'ith Charles *tivale" #e' Jor$4 Columbia )niversity Press, 177!" eleu?e, >illes, and :Dli. >uattari" A Thousand Plateaus4 Capitalism and *chi?ophrenia" Trans" /rian Massumi" Minneapolis4 )niversity of Minnesota Press, 1798" eleu?e, >illes, and Claire Parnet" ialogues" Trans" (ugh Tomlinson and /arbara (abberHam" #e' Jor$4 Columbia )niversity Press, 1798" errida, acues" ;f >rammatology" Trans" >ayatri Cha$ravorty *piva$" /altimore4 ohns (op$ins )niversity Press, 1780" o'ns, Anthony" #e' isions for Metropolitan America" =ashington4 /roo$ings Institution Cambridge4 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1772" Eco, )mberto" A Theory of *emiotics" /loomington4 Indiana )niversity Press, 1787" Emerson, @alph =aldo" The Complete =or$s of @alph =aldo Emerson" 1 vols" Ed" Ed'ard =aldo Emerson" /oston4 (oughton,
17!3+17!2" G#ature,G from the :irst and *econd series" :erry, Luc" The #e' Ecological ;rder" Trans" Carol ol$" Chicago4 )niversity of Chicago Press, 1776" :ocillon, (enri" The Life of:omis in Art" Trans" Charles /eecher (ogan and >eorge Bubler" #e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1797" :oucault, Michel" iscipline and Punish4 The /irth of the Prison" Trans" Alan *heridan" #e' Jor$4 @andom (ouse, 1787" :oucault, Michel" The ;rder of Things4 An Archaeology of the (uman *ciences" #e' Jor$4 @andom (ouse, 178!"
Page 17 >ibson, =illiam" Mona Lisa ;verdrive" #e' Jor$4 /antam /oo$s, 1799" >lassie, (enry" :ol$ (ousing in Middle irginia" Bno.ville4 )niversity of Tennessee Press, 1786" >olub, ennifer" Albert :rey-(ouses 1`" #e' Jor$4 Princeton Architectural Press, 1779" >oodman, Paul and Percival" Communitas4 Means of Livelihood and =ays of Life" #e' Jor$4 Morningside /oo$shop, 177!" >oodman, @obert" After the Planners" #e' Jor$4 *imon and *chuster, 1781" >uattari, :Dli." Chaosophy" Ed" *" Lotringer" #e' Jor$4 *emiote.t%e&, 1776" (all, E" T" The (idden imension" #e' Jor$4 Anchor /oo$s4 177!" (ollier, enis" Against Architecture4 The =ritings of >eorges /ataille" Trans" /etsy =ing" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1797" (olt, #ancy, ed" The =ritings of @obert *mithson" #e' Jor$4 #e' Jor$ )niversity Press, 1787" (o'ard, Benneth @" G)nHamming Traffic 'ith Computers"G *cientific American, ;ctober 1778" ac$son, " /" GThe =est'ard+Moving (ouse"G In Landscapes4 *elected =riting of " /" ac$son, ed" Er'in (" Wube" Amherst4 )niversity of Massachusetts Press, 178!" ac$son, Benneth T" Crabgrass :rontier4 The *uburbani?ation of the )nited *tates" #e' Jor$4 ;.ford )niversity Press, 1796" udd, onald" Archite$tur" M\nster4 =estfQlischer Bunstverein, 1797" ullien, :ran_ois" The Propensity of Things4 To'ard a (istory of Efficacy in China" Trans" anet Lloyd" #e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1776" Bora, @ichard" GThe Private Citi?en, the *ocial E.pert, and the *ocial Problem4 An E.cursion through an )nac$no'ledged )topia"G In /ernard @osenberg, Israel >erver, and :" =illiam (o'ton, eds", Mass *ociety in Crisis" #e' Jor$4 Macmillan, 1702" Brieger, Martin" oing Physics4 (o' Physicists Ta$e (old of the =orld" /loomington4 Indiana )niversity Press, 177"
Lang, Peter, and Tam Miller, eds" *uburban iscipline" #e' Jor$4 Princeton Architectural Press, 1778" Lelebvre, (enri" The Production of *pace" Trans" onald #icholson+*mith" ;.ford4 /lac$'ell, 1771"
Page 173 Lerup, Lars" GAt the End of the Architectural Promenade"G In *cott Marble et al", eds", Architecture and /ody" #e' Jor$4 @i??oli, 1799" Lerup, Lars" /uilding the )nfinished4 Architecture and (uman Action" /everly (ills4 *age Publications, 1788" Lerup, Lars" G(ands )p"G In ung #go, ed", Louis I" Bahn4 Coversations 'ith *tudents" Architecture ] @ice 0" (ouston4 @ice *chool of Architecture, 1799" Lerup, Lars" G*tim N ross4 @ethin$ing the Metropolis"G Assemblage %Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1772&" LDvi+*trauss, Claude" Tristes Tropiues #e' Jor$4 Atheneum4 1782" Lynch, Bevin" The Image of the City" Cambridge, Mass"4 Technology Press, 170!" Maconald, =illiam L" The Pantheon4 esign, Meaning, and Progeny" Cambridge4 (arvard )niversity Press, 1780" Maffesoli, Michel" The Time of the Tribes4 The ecline of Individualism in Mass *ociety" Trans" on *mith" London4 *age Publications, 1770" Merleau+Ponty, Maurice" Phenomenology of Perception" Trans" Colin *mith" London4 @outledge N Began Paul #e' Jor$4 (umanities Press, 170" Miller, Perry" Errand into the =ilderness" Cambridge4 (arvard )niversity Press, 1760" Mins$y, Marvin" The *ociety of Mind" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1799" Muschamp, (erbert" Man about To'n4 :ran$ Lloyd =right in #e' Jor$ City" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1793" @ossi, Aldo" The Architecture of the City" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 179" *erres, Michel" @ome4 The /oo$ of :oundations" Trans" :elicia McCarren" *tanford4 *tanford )niversity Press, 1771" *torper, Michael" G/eautiful Cities, )gly Cities4 )rban :orm as Convention"G In Michael /enedi$t, ed", Center 1!" Austin4 Center for the *tudy of American Architecture, )niversity of Te.as at Austin, 1778" *u?u$i, aisel? T" Wen and apanese Culture" Princeton4 Princeton )niversity Press, 1767" Tafuri, Manfredo",2r---ecfti+e and )topia4 esign and Capitalist evelopment" Trans" /arbara Luigia La Penta" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1780" Thucydides" (istory of the Peloponnesian =ar" Trans" @e.
=arner" /altimore4 Penguin /oo$s, 1762"
Page 172 Turner, :rederic$" G/iology and /eauty"G In onathan Crary and *anford B'inter, eds", Incorporations" #e' Jor$4 Wone, 177" T?onis, Ale.ander, and Liane Lefaivre" Classical Architecture4 The Poetics of ;rder" Cambridge4 MIT Press, 1790" aneigem, @aoul" The Movement of the :ree *pirit" Trans" @andall Cherry and lan Patterson" #e' Jor$4 Wone /oo$s, 1772" attimo, >ianni" The End of Modernity4 #ihilism and (ermeneutics in Postmodern Culture" Trans" on @" *nyder" /altimore4 ohns (op$ins )niversity Press, 1771" irilio, Paul" The ision Machine" Trans" ulie @ose" /loomington4 Indiana )niversity Press, 1772" lach, ohn Michael" /ac$ of the /ig (ouse4 The Architecture of Plantation *lavery" Chapel (ill4 )niversity of #orth Carolina Press, 1773" =ycherley, @" E" (o' the >ree$s /uilt Cities" #e' Jor$4 =" =" #orton, 170"
Page 176 ILL)*T@ATI;# C@EIT* :igures 1, 3 Photographs by Paul (ester, © Paul (ester :igure Photograph courtesy of the L@ >roup :igures 2, 8 Photographs by *teve /rady :igure 6 Photograph by Esther /ubley :igures 0, 9, 1!, 12 Photographs by >eorge ;" ac$son :igure 7 Photograph by >eoff =inningham :igures 11, 0 Photographs by Lu$e /ulman and Bimberly *hoema$e :igures 1, 13 ra'n by Lars Lerup, 1772 :igure 16 Collage by /race =ebb photograph by Paul (ester :igure 10 Courtesy of the Te.as epartment of Transportation :igure 18 )n$no'n :igure 19 :rom =aldemar Tit?enthaler, /erlin in Photographien des 17" ahrhunderts, ed" :riedrich Terveen %/erlin4 @embrandt erlag, 1709&, p" 07 :igure 17 :rom Barl :riedrich *chin$el, Collection of Architectural esigns %#e' Jor$4 Princeton Architectural Press, 1797&
:igures !, 1 © :ondation Le Corbusier :igure ra'n by Lars Lerup, 1790
Page 170 :igure 3 :rom Le Corbusier, )rbanisme, 173!, © :ondation Le Corbusier5 L3%1&6 :igure 6 Photograph from the e.hibition <uarnotta :igures 3+2! Photographs by /en Thorne :igure 21 ra'n by Lu$e /ulman and Bimberly *hoema$e :igure 2 Photograph by ;ne?ieme Mouton :igure 23 ra'n by Lars Lerup
Page 178 I#E A Alberti, Leon /attista, 6, 9 Ale.ander, Christopher, 61 Algiers, 82, 86 Ama?on"com, 9 Anshen and Allen, 77 Archer City %Te.as&, 9 Arendt, (annah, , 3, 06 Asplund, >unnar, 16 Athens, 02+00, 8! Atlanta, 80, 169 Auerbach, Erich, 197n1 Austin %Te.as&, 83 / /achelard, >aston, 129 /acon, :rancis, 12!, 108 /allard, " >", 118 /altic *ea, islands, 89, 16!+166 /anham, @eyner, 6!, 169, 19!n8 /arnstone, (o'ard, 199n9 /arrett, Christopher L", 197n19 /arthes, @oland, 22 /asel, 169 /ataille, >eorges, 7, 3!, 32+30, 38+39, 37, 23, 119 /audelaire, Charles, 191n1! /audrillard, ean, 62, 19!n8 /ec$ett, *amuel, 130, 138, 122+129 /ell, avid, 00+08, 09
/enedi$t, Michael, 19n1 /enHamin" =alter" 9" 38" 29" 90" 99+97" 7!" 72" 1!1" 1!" 1!3+1!2" 1!6" 1!0" 167" 191nl! /entham" eremy" 33 /ergson" (enri" 18! /erlin" 98" 99" 191nl! /eu$ers" Adrian" 197nll /iln" ohn" 92 /lumer" (erbert" 113 /orges" orge Luis" 1!6+1!0" 1!8" 1!9" 111" 1!" 130" 190n7 /raue" >eorges" 0 /raun" Ernest" 1!! /rods$y" oseph" 7 /ryson" #orman" 37" 21 C Cacciari, Massimo, 68 Calthorpe, Peter, 19!n8 Castells, Manuel, 9, 108, 198n32 Certeau, Michel de, 112, 167, 10!, 18! CD?anne, Paul, 0 Chamberlain, ohn, 91 Chicago, 10 Clay, >rady, 07 Csi$s?entmihalyi, Mihaly, 16+10 allas, 169 a'$in, @ichard, 10 ebussy, Claude, 186 eleu?e, >illes, 1!+11, 12, 18! errida, acues, 2!, 23 uany, Andres, 19!n8, 193n3 uchamp, Marcel, 16, 28, 29, 00, 1!6, 16+163 E Eames, @ay and Charles, 123, 122, 128 Eco, )mberto, 1!0 Eichler, oseph L", 6, 77+1!!, 1!1 Eisenman, Peter, 0 Emerson, @alph =aldo, 108 Emmons, :rederic$, 77 Engels, :riedrich, 18 : :aroh$i, *ohela, 11, 13!+139 :ederal (igh'ay Act %1760&, 82 :erry, Luc, 87, 180n2 :ocillon, (enri, 2!, 2, 22
Page 179 :oucault, Michel, 3!, 3+32, 38, 37, 2!, 23, 186, 190n3! :rampton, Benneth, 117 :rey, Albert, 117+11 > >ehry, :ran$, 0, 190n3 >ibson, =illiam, 28 >oethe, ohann =olfgang von, 38 >oodman, @obert, 13 >raves, Michael, 0 >uattari, :Dli., 86 >uedalla, Philip, 88, 169 ( (adrian %emperor&, 7, 33, 30 (all, E" T", 81, 8 (amilton, Ale.ander, 8, 62, 09 (Qring, (ugo, 0 (ausmann, @aoul, 0 (eidegger, Martin, 60 (eHdu$, ohn, 0 (ines, >erald, 187n0 (ollier, enis, 3!, 32+30, 38+39, 2+23
(ouston, 2+17, 1, , 3, 8, 9, 28+03, 83, 86, 80, 112, 12, 169+167, 18+186, 19!n8, 191n1! do'nto'n, 27, 69, 83, 187n0 :ifth =ard, 01 free'ays, 2, 7, 17, 0, 86, 186 >alleria, 69, 8, 187n0 >ulfgate *hopping City, 6 Menil :oundation buildings, 101+10, 108+107, 18! Museum istrict, 10!+100 Museum of :ine Arts, 102 Te.as Medical Center, 0, 106, 199n7 Transco To'er, 1! ac$son, " /", 60, 83 efferson, Thomas, 8, 62, 00+8! ohnson, Philip, 1!, 190n3, 199n0 ohnson and /urgee, 1! ones, Ruincy, 77 udd, onald, 9!+9 B Bahn" Louis I"" 110" 119" 1!" 127" 190n3 Blineberg, *tephen L", 189n1 Boolhaas, @em, 0, 19!n8, 191n1!, 190n3 Born, @ichard, 182 Brieger, Martin, 187n Brier, @obert, 19!n8 L Lacan, acues, 37 Land ;rdinance %1896&, 09 Las egas, 106, 187n0 Laugier, Marc+Antoine, 3 La' of the Indies, 07 Le Corbusier, 2, 29, 82, 86, 7!+70, 79, 77, 1!6, 119, 123, 122, 128, 166 Carpenter Center, 1! Immeubles+illas, 71 Immeuble =anner, 71 Maison om+ino, 71 Plan ;bus, 82, 86, 70, 78 illa #e.t to the *ea, 73 illa *avoye, 7!, 73+72, 1! Lefebvre, (enri, 11+113, 112 L
Page 177 LDvi+*trauss, Claude, 16, 181+18 Levitt brothers, 6 Le'erent?, *igurd, 16 Loos, Adolf, 183 Los Angeles, 3, 9, 80, 169, 106 Lynch, Bevin, 187n6 M Machiavelli, #iccolo, 23, 22 Mailer, #orman, 23 Malrau., AndrD, 103 Mann, Thomas, 181
Marfa %Te.as&, 87+9 Mar., Leo, 169 McBim, Mead and =hite, 00, 09 McMurtry, Larry, 9 Mead, >eorge (erbert, 113 Menil :oundation, 11, 13!+139, 101 Merleau+Ponty, Maurice, 113 Mies van der @ohe, Lud'ig, 0 Miller, Perry, 81+8 Mins$y, Marvin, 180n2 Mondrian, Piet, 0, 102 Monet, Claude, 0 Morris, ic$, 190n33 Munch, Edvard, 0 Muschamp, (erbert, 198n30 Muybridge, Ead'eard, 121 # #e' Jor$ City, 6!, 61, 68 #Xmes %:rance&, 137+121, 18!+181 #olli, >iambattista, 3, 22 #orth'est ;rdinance %1898&, 09 #ouvel, ean, 11 ; ;a$land" Claude" 77" 1!1 ;<(are" Michael" 18 ;rlando %:lorida&" 80" 169 P Palladio" Andrea" 6 Paris" 7" 6!" 61" 66" 90 Passaic %#e' ersey&" 29" 6! Phoeni., 169 Piano" @en?o" 0" 101+10" 108+109" 18! Piranesi" >iovanni /attista" 0 Plater+Wyber$, Eli?abeth, 19!n8, 193n3 Polloc$, ac$son, 102 Pope, Albert, 89, 87, 78 Popper, Barl, 68 Prigogine, Ilya, 12, 16
@ @andstadt (olland, 9, 80 @asmussen, *teen, 197n19 @auschenberg, @obert, 0 @ietveld, >errit, 123, 129 @oc$'ell, #orman, 168 @odin, Auguste, 36, 21 @ome Pantheon, 9, 7+22 TraHanermany&, 80, 169 * *t" Petersburg %@ussia&, 7 *artre, ean+Paul, 37 *atie, Eri$, 186 *chin$el, Barl :riedrich, 7! Altes Museum, 7!, 73, 76, 1! *cott /ro'n, enise, 0 *erres, Michel, 3!+3, 33, 39, 37, 23 *iebert, Charles, 118 *immel, >eorg, 0, 68, 83 *imon, (erbert, 3 *i?a, Alvaro, 11 *$idmore, ;'ings and Merrill %*;M&, 0 *mithson, @obert, 29, 6!, 89
Page !! *olomon, Arthur P", 19!n8 *parta, 02+00, 07+8!, 86 *teinbec$, ohn, 1!9 *tirling, ames, 1!1+1! *taatsgalerie, *tuttgart, 1! *toc$holm, 80, 16!+161 T Tafuri, Manfredo, 1+9, 82, 91, 92, 70, 196n7 Taipei, 9, 80 Taylor, :roderic$ =inslo', 1!3 Terragni, >iuseppe, 2 Thoreau, (enry avid, 9 Thucydides, 02, 06 Tit?enthaler, =aldemar, 98 To$yo, 80
