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.     

What is life? Exploring Mies van der Rohe's concept of architecture as a life process

From his popular motto ‘less is more’ to his concept of architecture as ‘the spatially apprehended will of the epoch’, the aphorisms of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) remain one of his most memorable legacies. Despite being less well known, other such statements promoted by Mies are also important to clarify the philosophy that sustained his works. This paper investigates one of these less known yet highly revealing statements: ‘Building-art is only understandable as a life process’. Considering the broader context of Mies's discourse, philosophical readings and architectural projects, this paper argues that Mies used the term ‘life process’ to refer to a larger changing reality that united the material and the spiritual realms of life. According to Mies, the recognition of this material-spiritual unity was necessary to recover architecture's status as ‘building-art’ [Baukunst] amid an overly technological and individualistic modern age. This view of life and modernity is consistent with the writings of Rudolf Schwarz, Max Scheler and Alfred North Whitehead, which, as this paper shows, were highlighted by Mies not as sources of his thought, but as key references that could especially illuminate the significance of his work and architectural philosophy.     

Absent architectures: post-war housing in British children’s picture books (1960–present)

In the decades following World War II, British cities—and, to a lesser degree, rural areas—underwent radical architectural and structural transformations. Yet, architecture associated with post-war reconstruction is significantly underrepresented in children’s picture books of the period. The home, the street, and the high-street are, more often than not, depicted in a formal language associated with Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian architectural ideals. This paper explores what kind of cultural ideologies children are integrated into when it comes to the representation of post-war architecture. Specifically, the paper focuses on domestic space and asks what ideas of the ‘home’ are promoted. Drawing on Gaston Bachelard’s exploration of the relationship between domestic architecture and emotional/psychological response in The Poetics of Space (1957), and Jean Baudrillard’s theory of communication in the age of postmodernity, this paper maps the influence of post-war architectural design on a selection of children’s picture books published during the 1960s and 1970s. The paper concludes with an examination of two popular picture books published in 1996 and 2013, which trace the legacies of post-war architecture.     

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION AGAINST THE DEFUTURED

The essay is introduced with an address to its mode of argument, the defamiliarisation of the still not entirely resolved term—‘sustainability’. It then proceeds through four sections. Section I, visits architecture and design outside their orthodox characterisations. In section 2, connections are made between architecture (as design), anthropocentrism and the notion of ‘extended responsibility’. What results from this formation is then employed in section 3 to reconfigure architectural education. The last section confronts the question of getting from where ‘we are’ to where ‘we’ want to be. A brief conclusion then follows.     

Architectural history from eye-level: Nikolaus Pevsner's ‘Treasure Hunts’ in the Architectural Review, 1942

In 1942, Nikolaus Pevsner published a series of articles in the Architectural Review that he called ‘Treasure Hunts’. Discussing mostly obscure, and often unpopular, buildings of the last hundred years, Pevsner jovially invited readers to join him in a game to ‘Date your District’. Instantly recognisable through bubble-shaped detail photographs and with a mixture of cheerful language and dense art-historical analysis, these articles present a unique opportunity within Pevsner's often-examined oeuvre to explore word-image relationships and their appeal to the lay public. The present article analyses the use of typography, layout and photography in the Treasure Hunts and relates them to two specific modes of writing, analysis and ‘pictorial criticism’, a term coined by James M. Richards. Both verbal and graphic elements of the Treasure Hunts work by contrasting overviews to close-ups, imitating human vision and intellectual cognition and, by doing so, facilitate the education of the lay public in visually reading—and enjoying—buildings, their proclaimed aim. Thus, Pevsner established an architectural history from eye-level that relied on natural vision paired with art-historical method, bred and shaped through his German training, applied in a distinctly English context, and refined later in his Buildings of England.     

Mediated Architecture in China

This article argues that contemporary Chinese architecture is profoundly shaped by a ‘culture of figuration’ that appears to be grounded in the way in which the Chinese square words manipulate images and meanings in relation to reality. This culture of figuration reconstitutes the image culture—as it has been constructed by the consumer society—and allies with the electronic media to produce a mediated architecture in China. As twentieth-century modernity articulated a critique of the image culture through the notion of authenticity, the culture of figuration anticipates a ‘figurative modernity,’ which suggests a possible space for a more reflexive architectural culture in China.     

Gathering,Disposing and the Cultivation of Judgement in Sir Henry Wotton's: The Elements of Architecture

Employing a hermeneutic approach to Sir Henry Wotton's seventeenth century text on architecture, this paper discloses the discourse on judgement that lies at its heart. Wotton's conception of judgement is Aristotelian, and refers to Aristotle's Ethics; specifically his discourses on practical reasoning, legislation and political wisdom. Addressed to the aristocratic amateur architects of Jacobean England. The Elements of Architecture seeks to provide a ‘rule’ to guide the cultivation of good judgment in architecture. Nuances of the relationship between ‘rule’ and ‘example’ in Wotton's conception of judgement are examined, highlighting a consonance with the play between logos and ethos that is characteristic of Aristotelian ethics. This play, it is argued, is crucial to Wotton's conception of both judgement and architectural making     

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.     

The Education of the Innocent Eye

The teaching of space in architectural education has generally been explained to students as an eternal truth outside of context or history. Nevertheless, a genealogy exists for the teaching of space. A visual language of spatial relations was first promoted by nineteenth-century child educators as an alternative to overly conventionalized methods of reading and writing. Bauhaus masters Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers developed a coherent method of teaching space in art by linking the child educators' visual language to John Ruskin's ideal of the innocent eye. As later translated into architectural terms by Colin Rowe, Robert Slutzky, and others, the idea of a language of space served to bolster the discipline when architecture seemed to lose its purpose in the sixties. The conclusion of this article examines the language of space and the innocent eye as methods of teaching today.     

Embodying networks: bubble diagrams and the image of modern organicism

After the Second World War, cinema was fundamental in portraying the spatial form of the time, while simultaneously contributing to the creation of a visual culture at a key moment in Italy. Despite the controversy regarding the definition of post-war cinematic style, Italian film of this time is generally globally recognised as ‘neorealist’. Neorealist cinema created an environment that informed architecture, photography, painting, and other forms of art. The term neorealism has been adopted ad hoc in architecture, perhaps unconsciously, however the transfer has not been carefully studied. Placing the architecture-cinema relationship at the analytical focal point may shed light on some unaddressed questions: How did architecture get involved with cinematic discourse? What do the films and the architectural projects share? This article starts from the cultural context portrayed by films and investigates if and how — using which formal language, tools and references, and to what end — the neorealist discourse was transferred from film to architecture. Six projects are presented that help understand neorealist conditions in architecture: the Quartiere Tiburtino (Rome), La Martella village (Matera), the Towers in Viale Etiopia (Rome), the Quartiere in Cerignola (Foggia), the Quartiere San Basilio (Rome) and the Quartiere in Cesate (Milan).     

The architectural legacies of Kisho Kurokawa in China

Kisho Kurokawa (1934–2007) was a world-famous Japanese architect who made his impact on urban architecture in Japan and many other countries. His philosophy of symbiosis influenced several generations of designers and social architects in Japan and the world. In his heyday during the mid 1980s, Kurokawa started a twenty-year journey of architectural design and urban planning in China. His designs in China are closely involved with the contemporary architectural history and practice of the country: for example, in importing foreign architectural design, researching the formal design language and the emerging of private development. The authors traced the footprints of Kurokawa in China and investigated the relevant building and urban design cases. This paper reviews Kurokawa's outstanding works in China, tries to reveal the master's trajectory of adapting ‘symbiosis’ and ‘grey’ concepts in different conditions, and fills a gap in the understanding of modern Chinese and Japanese architecture.     

Eisenman beyond Eisenman: language and architecture revisited

Until the 1990s, architectural criticism was based on the idea that architecture could be compared to language, and the tools for interpreting architecture were similar to those of linguistics and literary criticism. Such a view was rejected by post-critical architecture, which started looking at architecture as an asignifying, performative and affective phenomenon. However, language philosophy after the ‘linguistic turn’, in particular what Felice Cimatti has called the ‘Italian language theory’, provides new tools for rigorously addressing the parallel between language and architecture. The architectural trajectory of Peter Eisenman's Houses will be re-interpreted through the lens of these theories.     

中国文人建筑传统现代复兴与发展之路上的王澍

将2012年普利兹克奖得主王澍的建筑设计置于中国文人建筑传统现代复兴与发展的语境考察,这一复兴与发展的轨迹以童寯、刘敦桢、郭黛姮、张锦秋、汉宝德、冯纪忠、贝聿铭以及王澍为代表,而王是将它发扬光大并在建筑学的多个方面贡献于世界现代建筑的最突出的一位代表。这一方面因为其探索规模更大、类型更广;另一方面是因为他对于中国文人建筑空间与时间传统的发掘。相对于现代主义建筑的普适性空间和现在时态时间,王澍注意表现中国传统的空间意象,他的建筑空间设计体现出对文人园林与绘画的理解;而将旧有建筑材料的再利用则创造出一种现在完成时态的时间体验,这也是中国文人艺术的一个特点。     

空间体验概念探源

"空间"概念作为建筑词汇在19世纪末才出现,其源自于德国哲学领域的思考,并深受同时代的一小部分德国哲学家和艺术史学家对空间概念阐释的影响。其中美学中的移情理论和空间中的围合概念为发展空间体验的概念奠定了理论前提:同时20世纪初的德语系建筑师路斯的"空间布局"与西特的"空间艺术"则为这一概念提供了实践案例。     

Hitler's ‘Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost’: a case only for Poland? A forgotten dimension of national-socialist spatial and town planning in the former Czechoslovakia

Adolf Hitler constructed his Nazi ideology as a universal worldview aimed at the German Reich's eastward expansion; the ‘Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost’ programme was officially launched in 1940. The forcible establishment of multiple administrative units in 1938/1939 created the conditions for an architecture that would serve the totalitarian regime. Thus began an enormous planning process and the targeted institutionalization of urban development and spatial planning and research. This programme included not only German government agencies and research institutions specifically established or reorganized for this purpose, but increasingly also involved communal politics and independent or government architects. The author pursues the thesis that this Germanization concept, formulated within the framework of the ‘Generalsiedlungspläne Ost’, allowed the relevant agencies to increase their influence or eliminate any opponents. From this basis, the study identifies the role that GBI (Generalbauinspektor) for Berlin Albert Speer, his architects, and local architects played in the planning process in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and analyses the architectural evidence of the Nazi rulers’ Germanization and colonization policies. The initial comparison of the urban planning models applied in ‘Großreich Deutschland’ with those in the annexed regions in today's Poland and Czech Republic offers relevant arguments related to this far-reaching sociological and architecture–historical topic.     

Form follows metaphors: a critical discourse analysis of the construction of the Israeli Supreme Court building in Jerusalem

This article examines critically the role of architecture in the construction of national identity, using the case of the Israeli Supreme Court building. Through critical discourse analysis of texts that accompanied the design and construction of this building, I propose to study the interrelations between the production of the architectural object and the practice of the construction of an Israeli national identity. The existing body of knowledge that supports this article claims that the creation of national identity is a socially constructed process, which involves a variety of practices including education, music, army service, as well as the design of the built environment. It is important to note that the realisation of such practices does not occur as a natural process, but rather as a result of power relations, embodied within the national sphere. Following this line of argument, the paper proposes a critical approach, which aims to move towards the politicisation of the term ‘sense of place’. In this context, concentrating on the Israeli Supreme Court building is not an arbitrary decision, since this institution is at the focus of the Israeli civil arena, and its building became a ‘land-mark’ and symbol of architectural quality. Following the texts written by the architects and critics, I would argue that this building reflects – and thus strengthens – the hegemonic interpretations of Israeli social and cultural reality. This interpretation is characterised by using selective historical and biblical references, in order to create through architecture an ‘iconographic bridge’ into an imagined collective past. However, this bridge reproduces the antinomies that frame Israeli space and transform it into ‘our place’, that is West versus East and Local versus Diaspora.     

Architecture as the built message of power: Buenos Aires under Evita's spell

All totalitarian governments try to capitalise upon cultural production for their own benefit, as metalanguages that reaffirm their values, and this includes architecture. The best-known example of this phenomenon is that of Nazi Germany, where the architect Speer transformed German cities into suitable settings for political display.

This can be found, also, in Argentina, during the first two Juan D. Perón governments (1946–1955), under the influence of his wife Eva Duarte, known as ‘Evita’. In those days the social and political value of aesthetics was maximised, and architecture was converted into a political imagery. The aim was to create an urban stage to highlight the image of the leader.

It is interesting to notice that the stylistic options that Germany, through Speer, and other totalitarian states adopted, were among those considered. Following the connotations that architectural styles developed through history, Neo-classicism was chosen for institutional buildings, whereas the vernacular languages that appeal to some kind of ‘national identity’ were the option for domestic architecture.

So, the ‘Peronist city’ was not ‘one’, but at least ‘two’, solved by juxtaposition and assemblage. In spite of their differences, these two types of architecture defined artificial settings: on the one hand, the city of political power, on the other, the city of dwelling as space of illusion.     

Architecture and global imaginations in China

This article examines the changing consciousness of globality in the Chinese discourses of national and modernist architecture between 1949 and 1965. Drawing on recent scholarship concerning knowledge and representation, the study focuses on three crucial moments when Chinese architectural imaginings were decisively shaped by the dynamic relationship between a vexed Chinese situation and a shifting world stage: (1) the search for a ‘Socialist Realist’ architecture in relation to the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries during the early 1950s; (2) the reception of modernist architecture in relation to an expansive internationalist view of the world in the second half of the 1950s; and (3) the re-evaluation of modernist architecture in relation to Third World nations during the early 1960s. The study demonstrates the world in Chinese architectural discourses not as a static one that could be neatly divided into a centre/periphery but a dynamic one constantly being reconstructed. The article reveals the history of modern architecture as a narration of tangled global and local experiences, instead of a linear one bounded within a nationally defined space.     

Architecture and global imaginations in China

This article examines the changing consciousness of globality in the Chinese discourses of national and modernist architecture between 1949 and 1965. Drawing on recent scholarship concerning knowledge and representation, the study focuses on three crucial moments when Chinese architectural imaginings were decisively shaped by the dynamic relationship between a vexed Chinese situation and a shifting world stage: (1) the search for a ‘Socialist Realist’ architecture in relation to the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries during the early 1950s; (2) the reception of modernist architecture in relation to an expansive internationalist view of the world in the second half of the 1950s; and (3) the re-evaluation of modernist architecture in relation to Third World nations during the early 1960s. The study demonstrates the world in Chinese architectural discourses not as a static one that could be neatly divided into a centre/periphery but a dynamic one constantly being reconstructed. The article reveals the history of modern architecture as a narration of tangled global and local experiences, instead of a linear one bounded within a nationally defined space.