Unfolding Events Peter Eisenman
In all of the design arts we are experiencing
paradigm paradigm s
t from mechanical mechanical to electronic
modes of production; from an age of interpretative techniques to on of mediation. Thus mechanical mechanical reproduction (the photograph) differs from electronic reproduction (the facsimile facsimile); ); in the former, transformation
and therefore interpretation
may occur between original
and reproduc tion; in the latter, there is no change, that is, no interpretatio n, and it is in this sense that o ne might say the electronic reproduction has no essence. While in both cases the value
an original is thrown int o questi on, mediated reprod uction poses a different different valu valu
system precisely precisely because it involv involves es no interpretati on. Co ntemporary media undermin e the essence and aura not only of the original, but
the very nature of reality reality.. Media en vironments
such as advertising and synthetic realities such as Disney World have become so potent that they might be said to form a new reality. Whereas architecture formerly served as a baseline for reality
bricks and mortar, house and home, home, st ructure and foundation were the metaphors
tha t anchored our realit reality y -what
constitu tes reality reality today is not so clear.
Traditionally, Traditionally, architecture was placebound, linked to
condition of experience. Today,
mediated environments challenge th e givens givens of classic classical al time, t he tim of experience: on any afternoon anywhere anywhere in the w orld, whether York, York, horde
the Prado in Madrid o r the Metropolitan in New
of people pass before artworks, hardly stopping to see, at best perhaps merely
photog raphing thei r experience. They have no time for the original, even less less for for the experience of the original. Due to media, the ti me of experience experience has changed; the soundbite infinitesimal, discontinuous, autonomous Architecture can no longer longer be bo und
has conditioned our new time.
by th
static conditions of space and place, here and
there. In a mediated worl d, there are no longer place placess in th e sense that we once knew them. Architecture must now address the problem of th ered
th
archetypal archetypal fo rm of architectural event. People People go to roc k concert s not t o listen
because one canno t merely merely “hear” th e music
z
o
n
e
event. Today, rock concerts may be consid-
but to become port oft he environ environment ment This is a
Unfolding
Events
new type of environment, comprised of light, sound, movement, an ev ent-st ructur e in which archit ectur e does not simply stand against media, but is consumed
by it.
Media deals neither
with physical facts nor with interp retat ion, but rather with the autonomous condition of electronic reproduction. With amplified sound and engineered lighting, the rock concert attempts to deny physical presence. Although architecture cannot accomplish this, it can propose an alternative
some other kind of event, one in which
displacement of the static environment
is not merely an electronic one-liner but, rather, an i nterpr etatio n in which the environment is problematized, in which the event comes between sign and object. Traditional architectural theory largely ignores the idea of the event. Rather, it assumes tha there are two static conditions of object: figure and ground. These in tur n give rise to two dialectical modes of building. On e mode concerns figure-gro und contextu alism, which assumes
reversible and interactive relationship be tween the solid building blocks and the voids
between them.
typical exemplar of contextualism would say that in any historical context
ther e are latent struc tures capable of forming a present-day urbanism. T he oth er mode concern s the point block or linear slab isolated o
tabula rasa ground . Here, there is no relation-
ship between old and new, figure and ground. Rather, the groun d is seen as a clear neutral datum, projecting its autonomy in to the future. In each case, the ter ms “figure/object” and “groun d” are both deter minan t and all-encompassing: they are thought to explain the totality of urbanism. As in most disciplines, though, such all-encompassing totalities have come into question; they are no longer thought to explain the true complexity of phenomena. This is certainly true of urbanism. Wha t is needed is the possibility of reading figure/object and g round within anoth er frame of reference. Such
new reading might reveal othe r conditions t hat may always have been im-
manen t or repressed in the urban fabric. Such
reframing would perhaps allow for the possi-
bilities of new urban struc tures and for existing struct ures to be seen in are redefined. In such
way that they too
displacement, the new, rather than being under stood as fundamentally
different from the o ld, would instead be seen as slightly out of focus in rela tion t o what exists. This out-of-focus condition, then, would permit
blurring o r displacing of the whole, which
is both old and new. One such possibility of displacement can be found in the form of thefold.
:h
It was Leibniz who first conceived
of
matter as explosive. H e tur ned his back on Cartes ian
rationalism, and argued that in th e labyrinth of the continuous t he smallest element is not the ’C-
point but the fold. From Leibniz, one can turn to the ideas of two contemporary thinkers con-
It
cerning the
fold: one is Gilles Deleuze, the o ther is Ren6 Thom . I
the idea of th
fold, form is
seen as continuous even as it articulates possible new relationships between vertical and horien It
zontal, figure and grou nd, breaking up t he existing Cartesian orde r of space. Deleuze says th e first co ndition for Leibniz’s event is extension, in the sense of a philosophical movement outward along a plane rather tha n downward into
at
depth. Deleuze argues that
in mathematical studies of variation, the notion of the obje ct is changed: it is no longer defined
by an essential form. This new object he calls an “object-event,” an “objectile”
modern
conception of a technological object. This new object, for Deleuze, is no longer concerned
with framing space but, rather, with a temporal modulation that implies a continual variation of matter, unfolding through the agency of the fold (an idea first defined in the Baroque). He differentiates between the Gothic, which privileges the elements of construction, frame and on
enclosure, and t he Baroque, which emphasizes
matte r overflowing its boundari es, and before
which the frame eventually disappears. Deleuze states that t he fold/unfold are the constants today in the idea of an object-event. ity
This linking of fold and event also influences work in other disciplines, notably the mathematics of Thom . In his catastrophe theory, Thom defines seven elementary events or transfor-
r-
mations, which allow no classical symmetry, hence n o possibility of a static object (for there is
me
vature or a fold. This variable curvature is the inflection
n-
ture of the e vent of change already inheres in the object; it ca nnot be seen bu t can be mode led
no privileged plan of projection). Instead , there is
i-
(in the ne utral surface
neutral surface formed from a variable curpure event. For Thom, the struc-
the catastrophe fold). Thus, while a single grain of sand can trigger a
landslide, we ca nnot know which grain or when; but the conditions leading up to the moment :ally
of movement can already be seen to be in place in the s truc ture . Thom proposed his seve
sts.
forms of catastrophe to account precisely for how object-events unfold
:h >Id.
In o ne sense, then, catastrophe theory can explain abru pt changes in state or form, such as figure to ground, urban to rural, commercial to housing,
z o n e
by means of complex folds that
42
Unfolding Event
remain unseen. This quality of the unsee n folding deals with the fact that it neither stands out from nor looks like the old but is somewhere between the old and t he new, an in-between or third figure. It can never be neutral; the fold is neither figure nor ground bu t contains aspects of
both.
Architecture can i nterpr et the fold, which is essentially planar in three -dimensional
volumes, but not merely as an extrusion from a plan (as in traditional ar chitectur e), but rather as something that affects both plan and section. The neutral surfa ce of the catastrophic fold already exists betwee n figure and gro und, between plan and section, yet it is homogenous; it is not merely t he appearance of a third, rather, it is By introducing the concept of the fold as
third in its own being.
nondialectical third co ndition, one between fig-
ure and ground yet reconstituting the nature of both, it becomes possible to reframe what is extant on any site. Such a reframing would expr ess that which was repressed by former systems of authority
analytical or other wise
and transform it into potentially new interpretation
of existing organizations. The fold
want t o argue, becomes the site of all the repressed imma nen t conditions of exist-
ing urbanism , which at a ce rtain point, like the grain of sand tha t causes the landslide, has the potential not to destroy existing urbanism but to set it off in
new direction. The fold gives the
traditional idea of edge new dimension: what was seen as an ab ru pt line now has a volumetric dimension, which b oth mediates a nd reframes conditions such as old and new, transport and arrival, commer ce and housing
the fold is not merely a formal device, but
way of unfolding
new social organizations from existing urban environments. Thus, as we near t he end of one era and are about to enter to reassess the e ntir e idea o
new one, there is an opportunity
static urbanism th at deals only with objects, not with events. In
a media age, static objects are no longer as meaningful as timely events, in which t he temporal dimension of th
present merges past and future.
Earthquake,
1990
G l a s s, s t e e l , p h o t o g r a p h s , l i g h t s a n d m o t o r 69
48'/z
inches.
Jon Kessler Courtesy
Luhring Augustine Galler
ts
er
1s
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or
z o n e
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