DÉJ[Agrave] VU: MEMORY IN ARCHITECTURE

It was Walter Benjamin's fundamental insight that all experience is technological, that the term ‘technology’ designates the artificial organization of perception. and that architecture, as the locus of modern experience, is the vehicle of this organization of perception. Against the current technologies of ‘virtualization’ and assimilation of architecture to the media image industry, this essay turns to Walter Benjamin's notion of media and speculates on the relation between building and photography—as the old new media—to advance the possibility of viewing architecture as a form of ‘media’ in the organization of perceplion. From a psychoanalytical reading of the notion of ‘photography.’ the argument proceeds with the Benjaminian thesis that at the beginning of our modernity, ‘photography’ is the foundation forthe constitution oj the psychic-origin of technology Tbeessay concludes with the proposition that, after Benjamin, any speculation on ‘media theory’ in architecture must lake up a psychoanalytical framework in order to theorize the relation of technology to the human psyche. It is on this relation that we must locate Benjamin's legacy for contemporary criticism.     

DESIGNING AS A DISCURSIVE PRACTICE

The importance of Walter Benjamin s thinking to Daniel Libeskind's design process as he developed the Jewish Museum. Berlin, has been noted by a number of writers — not least Anthony Vidler and Naomi Stead — as well as the architect himself.¹ Among the opening displays was a room dedicated to the philosopher of the city, who it as not only a great chronicler of Berlin itself, but perhaps the outstanding thinker of the modem city as such. Benjamin and Libeskind are connected above all by the latter's creative use of the concept now most associated with the former: the passage, or, more accurately, passaging as the form of modern being. But the two men are also connected at a deeper theoretical level. I will show in this paper that it was a set of Benjamin's core concepts that enabled Libeskind to find a solution, not only to the problem for architecture set by Adorno, but also that set by Heidegger. The philosophical and therefore architectural originality of the Jewish Museum. Berlin — as Andrew Benjamin has also recognized — lies here.²     

Mimesis

The desire for camouflage is the desire to feel connected. It is the desire to find our place in the world and to feel at home This article analyses this desire through Walter Benjamin's theory of mimesis. This is a linguistic theory that argues that we find meaning in the world through the discovery of similarities, We are therefore inclined to model ourselves on the world, and make ourselves similar to it According to Benjamin, it is children who have the greatest capacity to blend in with their environment in their games of hide-and-seek and so on. There is. then, something to be learnt perhaps from the behaviour of children — from their openness and powers of imagination — if we want to fully comprehend the mechanism by which we identify with our homes and architectural spaces     

ARCHINEERING IN CHINATIME

Reading Benjamin's text today opens up the question of whether ‘porosity’ becomes the concept through which it may he possible to rework the nature of the border. Borders, classically understood, mark points of confrontation and separation They are established after wars and in addition their establishment causes war. The question for architectural theory — especially a theory in which the digital and the political can be interarticulated — is how to rethink border relations. This paper works through Walter Benjamin's text. ‘Naples.’ in order to further this project.     

Kaiser,Douglas, and Kerner on Low-Income Housing Policy

Benjamin C. Marsh, a vigorous young social worker in the early years of the twentieth century, attacked the extreme congestion of poor people in the nation's largest cities. In his analysis of the causes of congestion, Marsh identified the basic dynamics of large-scale crowding and offered some of the most radical solutions of taxation, land-use, and planning proposed during his day. As an early leader against the overcrowding of land, the author of the first book devoted entirely to city planning, and the founder of the first National Conference on City Planning, Marsh's career points up the diversity of style and ideology that characterized the pioneers of the planning profession.     

The Carpenter's Apprentice

This essay explores an understanding of architectural space that neither rejects out of hand nor is fully premised in prevailing assumptions about it as constitutionally independent of time, movement, experience, and the world. In so doing, various sources are examined that provide some insight on possible ways of expanding our notions of space and its involvement with vision, tactility, the body, and the body's capacities for action. Of special interest in this regard is Walter Benjamin's proposition of a “distractive art.” Under this rubric, connections between film and architecture, their inherent characteristics, and their means of appropriation are pursued. As a corollary, a few important qualitative characteristics of experience at Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center are discussed.     

Trauma Within the Walls: Notes Towards a Philosophy of the City

Renowned philosopher and critical theorist Andrew Benjamin provides a framework for thinking about trauma and the city. He returns to Sigmund Freud's definition of trauma as repressed memory and to Aeschylus' formulation of the unmasterable as portrayed in mythical Athens in the Oresteia trilogy. This view of unaccustomed or unpredictable forces, such as civic strife, as ever present and integral to democracy, enables the maintenance of the urban project avoiding repression. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Housing Reform And Fishermens Bend 1900–1913

Abstract

This paper examines the development of the Port Melbourne Council's (PMC) housing campaign between 1910 and 1913. In addition, it explores the contest between the PMC, the harbour trust and the lands department over the use of Fishermens Bend, an area of vacant crown land adjacent to Port Melbourne and the proposed site of the PMC's workers' housing scheme.     

Rabat-salé

The graceful city of Rabat-Salé is situated at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. The capital of Morocco, Rabat-Salé is the ‘Washington DC’ of Morocco and its elegance contrasts with the metropolis of Casablanca, the country's principal commercial and industrial city. Traditionally, Rabat, lying to the south of the Bou Regreg, and Salé, lying to the north, have been rivals. Their historical evolution has been in every sense a tale of two cities. Today, although they are grouped into a single administrative unit and function economically as a single conurbation, each retains its own identity and considerable contrasts exist in the social structures of the two communities.     

Innovative use of a sediment dumping area by the port as a car yard

The Port of Kotka is situated by the Baltic Sea and the river Kymi. The river transports into the estuary sediments containing pollutants. The dredging and dumping of the polluted sediments are challenging tasks, which are strictly monitored by the environmental authorities. In this study, we show how a former dumping area was converted into a car storage area in an innovative way. The construction on wetland base was extremely challenging. The field was built by using tyre scrap, which weighs only a quarter of the stone material's weight. The advantage of frost season was used during the construction phase, which reduces the costs. The Port of Kotka's solution to use polluted dredged material and waste material, in order to economically reclaim new land, sets a good example that can be used in other ports as well.     

Notes on Designing Surficial Elegance

Mastery of technique is as essential as design ability to the production of elegant works. Elegant features can only be realised through an understanding of the systemic logics of the digital environment and a full working knowledge of generative techniques. Benjamin H Bratton of The Culture Industry and Hernan Diaz Alonso of Xefirotarch describe Xefirotarch's wholly visceral, but exacting, approach to the design process. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From tradition to innovation: Lewerentz's designs of ritual spaces in Sweden, 1914–1966

Sigurd Lewerentz's architectural production throughout the twentieth century set a course for subsequent developments in Sweden, and the various monographs and analyses featuring his work to date reveal his lasting influence on international architectural discourse. Reyner Banham included Lewerentz in his book The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?. While his British Brutalist counterparts explored everyday life after the 1950s, Lewerentz's connection with popular culture was strongly tied to tradition. This paper analyses how Lewerentz's study of traditional construction methods affected his design of ritual spaces from 1914 to 1966, and explores his statements about tradition as compared with his built projects. His initial years reflect his adhesion to tradition, as a reaction to some of the existing practices in Sweden. After 1940, Lewerentz sought to reassess existing models and in his last projects referred to heritage as a basis for innovation and for interpreting traditional construction elements in novel ways. Lewerentz's shifting regard for tradition defines a novel framework in which to consider his extensive production in an all-inclusive way. His use of tradition as a resource to produce novel designs provides a lens through which to examine innovation, establishing continuity with existing designs.     

The uncanny side of the fairy tale: post-apocalyptic symbolism in Terunobu Fujimori's architecture

Having first established himself as an architectural historian, Terunobu Fujimori (b. 1946) is now more famous for his design work than for his academic publications. He has even been praised as ‘the most influential architect in Japan’ by the critic Kenjiro Okazaki (2006). Fujimori's popularity is attributable in particular to the fairy tale-like image of his architecture, which tends to appear playful as well as natural and nostalgic. However, this research focuses on the other side of the ‘fairy tale’—specifically, the strangely unfamiliar, even unsettling, feeling that his architecture evokes. Using Freud's and Vidler's notions of ‘the uncanny’ for analysis, this study identifies the contradictory sentiment residing in the hidden clashes between the natural and artificial qualities of his design. Arguably, the uncanny aspect of Fujimori's architecture stems from a post-apocalyptic sensibility imprinted in the Japanese unconscious, which is haunted by the trauma of ruin, whether caused by natural or man-made disaster. This research focus can lead to a broader cultural discourse beyond the scope of a single architect's work, relevant to all ‘modern unhomely’ societies.     

An Interview With Bernard Tschumi

Fredric Jameson (1934-), a critical theorist and Marxist philosopher who has written numerous books and articles on critical theory, is recognized as the first thinker who brought postmodernism's critical theory into architectural discourse. In Jameson's own words, “it was the representation of architecture that sparked dynamic dialogues of postmodernism as a cultural logic.” Architecture thus plays a most significant role in the formulation of his postmodernist theory. Jameson's contribution has become one of the major areas of research for several prominent architectural theorists and architects. This paper reviews Jameson's shift in his approach from Marxist theory to postmodernism. The investigation into this shift not only sheds light on the early theorizing of architecture, but also begins to add a historical dimension to various strands of interdisciplinary thinking on architecture and its philosophical undergirdings. Following a historical introduction to Jameson's theories and criticisms of architecture, the paper then covers his life and theories; clarifies his concepts of Marxism, postmodernism, and architecture, with particular attention to his interest in historicism and the role of built forms in cultural construction; and, lastly, delivers a thorough criticism of his works that have influenced architectural disciplines.     

Christopher Wren as a Baconian

This paper views Francis Bacon's theory of knowledge as an inseparable part of Christopher Wren's architectural production, and in doing so, attempts to explain, through selective examples, how Wren's buildings may be seen in a more appreciative light. Relevant ideas in Bacon's theory of knowledge are highlighted within their historical context as a powerful reaction to the existing intellectual traditions in seventeenth century England. In particular, the paper focuses on the Baconian notion of utility being the touchstone of credible knowledge in his search for power through knowing. His ideas became a powerhouse in the development of seventeenth century science in England, and generated a profound influence on, among others, John Wilkins and Wren's father, also Christopher Wren. Both men played an important role in the upbringing of Wren and in shaping his intellect. The works and writings of Wren and his close associate Robert Hooke are examined in this framework with an emphasis on architecture. This establishes an approach that is different from the conventional preoccupations with analyses of forms, and it provides an opportunity to give some of Wren's writings and buildings a fresh reading. Two salient themes in Wren's works emerge from this exercise. The first is an unprecedented architectural pragmatism that may be seen as fundamental to Baconian thinking; the second is a strong sense of formal freedom in architecture that seems to stem from the empiricist distrust of any notion of beauty. Although far from exhaustive, it is hoped that this examination will highlight the importance of focusing on ideas in trying to understand Wren's architecture. It is in this light, more than in the light of 'styles of forms', that Wren made his endlessly enlightening contributions to architecture; it is from this powerful Baconian empiricist background that Wren drew his confidence in creating a new architecture towards the end of the seventeenth century.     

ARCHITECTURE REVIEWING THEORY: Sir Henry Wotton's Dialectical Articulation of the Vitruvian Tradition.

In the introduction to his text of 1624, The Elements of Architecture Sir Henry Wotton briefly, and critically, reviews the texts of the Vitruvian theoretical tradition to date. He concludes that none of his predecessors have adequately articulated the precepts of ancient architecture. Their texts, he variously suggests, are muddled, overly concerned with rhetorical style, or limited by their attention to purely local (non-English) conditions. He proposes his Elements of Architecture as a remedy for this lamentable slate of affairs.

It would be an error to dismiss this introduction as mere rhetorical flourish, for its critical focus upon the style of Wotton's predecessors draws attention to the deliberate construction of his own text. It reveals the parallel between the architecture of Wotton's prose and that of an exemplary Vitruvian edifice: both building and text are ruled by order, clarity, symmetry, economy and decorum.

Wotton's text might be read as an eloquent argument for the proximity of theory to architecture. The analogous relation of these two realms of practice is a familiar theme within classical discourse. However, this paper argues that Wotton. for all his apparent simplicity, is making a sophisticated claim. He emphasises not only the intelligibility of theoretical discourse, but also its resistance to closure. The Aristotelian dialectic of his ‘method’ acknowledges the limits of authorship.

In Wotton's text the proximity of theory and architecture allows a reversal of the usual relationship: architecture reviews theory as much as theory reviews architecture. This paper reflects on Wotton's dialectical method. and observes the potential for architecture to review theory     

Industrial architecture and negativity: the aesthetics of architecture in the works of Gordon Matta-Clark,Robert Smithson and Bernd and Hilla Becher

The modernist idea of monumentality derived its inspiration from the imagery of late-nineteenth century industrial structures. In the 1960s, this monumentality and modernist 'total design' was criticised by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown who proposed the 'ugly and ordinary' architecture and 'vital mess' of commercial populism instead. On the background of these two approaches, I will read the art works of Gordon-Matta Clark, Robert Smithson and Bernd and Hilla Bechers as giving voice to all that is forgotten, excluded or unacknowledged in architecture. The importance of these artists lies in their exploration of negativity in architecture. Their art works stage the contras, first, between the inevitable continuity of architecture as a process and its discontinuity when it is reduced to a set of objects, as well as the contrast, secondly, between the continuity of urban and architectural space and its discontinuity when our perceptions reduce it to its monumental and important parts. Negativity stands for the time 'before' and 'after' of what is commonly understood as an architecture, as well as for the 'invisible' materiality parts of urban space and buildings that are usually ignored. Today, it is in obsolete industrial architecture that negativity finds its purest expression: in the words of Walter Benjamin, the Modernists' imaginary monuments are recognised as ruins even before they have physically crumbled.     

READING,VOICE AND VOWEL: L PETER KOLLAR'S ARCHITECTURAL THEORY AS RHETORIC

L. Peter Kollar is best known for his proto-Platonic architectural theory and, for those who have heard him speak, for the way he delivers his concepts. Drawing upon the story of the ancient Greek maiden Phrasiklea as a rhetorical figure whose name equates with ‘famous-for-her-thoughts’, related by Jesper Svenbro in his book of the same name, Kollar's architectural theory is subjected to a structural then a rhetorical analysis. The structural analysis is tentatively proposed around his extensive use of triads, trichotomies and other multiples of three. The rhetorical analysis is proposed as a 'rhetoric of architecture' parallel with Lawrence J. Prelli's ‘rhetoric of science’, but primarily in three (!) discourses: the invented, the addressed, and the reasonable. A weak construction of architectural theory as a rhetorical practice is put forward following on from arguments offered in my book, The Theory of Architecture. Kollar's theory is proposed as a masterful, yet orthodox, weak rhetorical practice which is largely unadmitted as such. Because it claims reasonableness as the basis for its appeal and its closure, Kollar's theory leaves itself open to an interpretation that belies its claims to universality. In the largely tough-minded, pragmatic environment of architecture, Kollar is a lender-minded theorist using tough-talking to try to insinuate delicate and subtle ideas.