Other Untimely Meditations
Riccardo Cozzi
HTS Second Year T1 - AA School of Architecture
Tutor: Sofia Krimizi
Prologue
In this essay, I have decided to collect some thoughts and observations on the educational journey I am currently experiencing. This series of considerations is intended to be an active stance, not a polemic for its own sake, a programme of action, not a passive criticism that will become one of the many projects on paper never completed. Throughout the text, the reader will find some considerations on architecture, on the history of architecture and on its education, collected during the various seminars of the history and theory of architecture course in my second year at the Architectural Association. I wanted to call these considerations “Untimely Meditations” (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen), abusing the relevance and pertinence of Nietzsche’s book, a legacy I am in absolutely no way deserving of, but I do think it helps in understanding the motivations and arguments.
At the moment, the essay is a limited number of question marks, which I hope will grow side by side with my university journey. This is a text whose ending is yet to be defined, perhaps will be indefinable, in continuous development. A text that, who knows, maybe will be refuted by me in the future, but at the moment it collects the current state of some of my thoughts.
Time to remove the word “Architecture” from “History of Architecture”
Trying to be pertinent to the brief of the course, I want to begin with the first consideration on the education of architecture, specifically the teaching of architectural history. To do so, I have decided to accompany my arguments with Nietzsche’s thesis found in the text “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life1” within the collection of Essays “Untimely Meditations” published in 1876. It is an extremely interesting text from a compositional and stylistic point of view, a declaration of war without half measures, in which the philosopher with a hammer demolishes the certainties of the people of 19th century Germany.
In Nietzsche’s words:
“These are essentially polemical writings. They show that I was not a dreamer, that I am also happy to draw my sword; perhaps also that I have a dangerously loose grip. The first assault (1873) was directed against German culture, which even then I regarded with limitless contempt. Without meaning, without substance, without purpose: a mere public opinion. [...] The second outdated observation (1874) points out what is dangerous, what corrodes and poisons life in our way of cultivating science: life, sick because of this apparatus, this mechanism without personality, because of the impersonality of the worker and the false economy in the division of labour. The end: culture, is lost; the means: the modern scientific movement, is barbarianised.
[...] In the third and fourth Untimely Considerations, as indices of a higher concept of culture, of the re-establishment of the concept of culture, two cases of selfishness, of self-education, two types par excellence out of their time, full of sovereign contempt for everything around them called empire, culture, Christianity, Bismarck, success; I say Schopenhauer and Wagner, or, with one word, Nietzsche.”
In the second “meditation” of the philosopher’s book, Nietzsche attacks historicism, arguing that the excess of history weakens man’s creative potential. Furthermore, historicist culture, like that of positivism, fosters the idolatry of the fact, and makes man the result of a necessary process, forced to bend his back in front of history. I am convinced that this theory is extremely relevant and can be applied to analysing the motivations, successes and failures behind an assiduous study of history in this subject, the history of architecture.
The education of this discipline, especially in the European and Italian context is based on an exhausting study, especially in the early years of education, of the understanding of architectural techniques and styles of the past. Following the philosopher’s thesis, we should question this approach. It is clear that there must be reasons for questioning this millenary discipline, reasons that the philosopher made very clear in his arguments against historicism. - Questioning architectural history as a pedagogical and useful tool for society... Is this at all possible? Or has it become intrinsic to the discipline? How can we demolish an untouchable certainty that gives comfort within the community?
In the first instance, I would like to raise the question of why there is a specific history of architecture...
Does a science need its history in order to be capable of action in the present day? Does architecture as a science and the architect as a scientist for action really need to stand back and look passively at the past of its great masters for years?
Extending the theories of the philosopher against historicism, I am convinced that in order to fulfil the needs of today (in our field), we must start by getting rid of the great weight of Frank Lloyd Right or Le Corbusier, whose creatures are preserved as works of art in the British Museum. We architects, from being the antiquarians of past history that we are, quoting Nietzsche’s second historiographical method1, should become the critics of it. Instead of looking at the past faithfully and lovingly, tending to paralyse action, we should start looking at architectural history as a burden to be freed from, in order to live today and understand the current needs of our audiences. But unfortunately there are composition exams, there is the love of formalism and the conviction of its absolute priority. That is why we become imitators of the past.
Universities are temples submerged in drool, disciples live on their bended knees admiring the grandeur and magnificence of a bygone golden age. But
1 Nietzsche distinguishes three types of history: monumental, antiquarian and critical history. Monumental history is characteristic of those who look to the past to find models and masters that they do not see in the present; it tends to mythologise the past, erasing certain areas of it. Antiquarian history is typical of those who look at the past with loyalty and love and tend to paralysing action. Critical history is proper to those who look at the past as a burden to be freed from in order to live. It wishes to sever the past, forgetting that we are the result of previous generations.
really, how beautiful is Bernard Tschumi’s Architectural Association, how I would like to live in 1960s AA, there the revolution was made. Idolatry of past events.
For Nietzsche, the solution is clear: to eradicate the saturation of history in culture, a necessary, albeit painful operation must be performed: ‘forgetting the past’2. In order to live, it becomes essential to forget. This is demonstrated by animals, which live ‘non-historically’, i.e. without memory, and are therefore envied by humans. Happiness - from this point of view - is ‘being able to forget’. Action itself rests on forgetting, i.e. the removal of what is known, so that knowledge does not restrain and prevent action. Ancient Greek culture was ‘an essentially anti-historical culture’ and, because of this, it was rich and full of life. We must return to being disciples of antiquity, of the primitive Greek world: this will enable us to think with greatness. In an age such as ours, which has sickened us with history (i.e. ‘saturated with history’), there is the task of preparing equally painful remedies against this illness.
In this first critique, or attempt to contextualise the philosophical process of the German author, hoping not to have fallen into mere polemic, I would like to question, as a first step, the history of architecture.
Why should it be called a specific history of architecture?
The past is history in its essence, there is no need for distinctions. Today, knowing about Napoleon’s battles or the difference between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian order makes no difference. It has no influence on the actions and responsibilities that the architect is called upon to take. The first step is to throw the concept of architectural history into the great cauldron of the past and reclaim the present. Medicine, physics, biology, and computer science are the disciplines that have been able to overcome the weight of history, have managed to remove past idols of the brake of progress from their shoulders. One does not study a completely falsified scientific law, one analyses it and contextualises it in the historical period in which it occurred, but there is no claim to make it relevant to the decisions of today.
It ends up in the great cauldron of the past, a cauldron in which the ingredients are all mixed up, one cannot claim to separate the history of the various disciplines.
Everything that is past is history and we must apply Nietzschean anti-historicism to it, from the Punic Wars to Ptolemaic theories or Bohr’s atomic theories. Architecture falls into these categories. Just as scientific theories are confuted and superseded, so too is the architecture of the past to be confuted. But if the judges whose task it is to judge, to refute the architecture of the past are themselves part of the cauldron of history, we enter a vicious circle. The architects, they are the judges who have this duty. To refute. To overcome the
past. But they refuse and fail daily. Architecture, starting with its temples and dynasties, the great universities of architecture, should start overcoming itself. Only in this way can it focus on the real issues of today.
Phrenologychart, 1800
Demarcation Problem between Science and - Architecture -
From pseudo-science to architecture - a study and analysis of Karl Popper
~ Medicine: science of action, Architecture: speculative non-science.
~
Doctor: takes the Hippocratic oath, Architect: swears by his instincts.
~ Doctor: has social and civic responsibilities, Architect: uses illustrator.
I would now like to extend the previous considerations by focusing mainly on the relationship between science and architecture.
~
Doctor: outside the emergency room, finds lawyers handing out their business cards to patients1. Architect: takes business card and hopes for financial reward. (Hopefully not)
~
Scientist: invests years of his life to prove the truth of a scientific law.
Architect: takes inspiration from Netflix TV series.
I’m studying architecture, I take inspiration from Le Corbusier and Netflix TV series, I blow up balloons and pretend to create architecture during studio work, I strive to choose Helvetica instead of Arial Black... but I want to build hospitals and airports that will be on this planet for the next 100 years... hypocrisy at its finest... yet I’ve never had so much fun.... But maybe I don’t need to realise the social responsibilities I will be called upon to fulfil. And even if I did, from whom could I learn them? Everything is so ephemeral, At the end... simply add the word “speculative” to the end of a sentence and you instantly become untouchable.
But I swear, I feel a visceral need to consider this discipline a serious science. How can I contribute to this society? I want to start questioning myself seriously, it’s becoming too easy... I’m afraid I’m not up to the responsibility I want to have, or at least hope to have.
I feel architecture is homeopathy. It is a non-scientia. A discipline saturated with empiricism and intuition that stands at the opposite poles of the epistemological and scientific world, and so does its education in universities. DOXA-EPISTEME. The architect does not want to be a scientist - why? Why would an architecture-science put his preachers and disciples in full crisis?
In order to elaborate on these statements and concretise them into a rational alternative, one must first have a clear and defined concept of science and non-science. In order to do this, I would like to bring into the discussion Karl Popper, an Austrian-British philosopher of the 20th century, who, in the course of his philosophical journey, worked on defining the demarcation criteria1 between science and pseudo-science. For the philosopher, science is distinguished from the rest of knowledge not by its demonstrability but by its falsifiability, i.e. its characteristic of being refutable. In his talk “Science: Conjectures and Refutations”, in fact, he says:
1 The first example in history of a demarcation problem occurs in ancient Greece, when the problem arose of distinguishing true knowledge (in Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistème) from opinion (δόξα, dòxa). However, the first philosopher who systematically posed the problem of distinguishing between what human beings can know and what is mere supposition or faith was the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who with his critical approach (hence the term ‘criticism’ by which his philosophy is defined) sought to distinguish the scientific field from the metaphysical. He, therefore, can be defined as a forerunner of this problem.
The turning point lies in the realisation of the, perhaps previously unconscious, process of the falsifiability of science. For a theory to be considered scientific, it must admit its possible refutation, and the role of the scientist is to make his or her knowledge available to all so that it can be corrected or surpassed. Disproving a theory is always more important than affirming it, because a confirmation is momentary, whereas a refutation allows for the demonstration of errors and gives room for a more correct theory.
This is a disruptive escape from history by scientific progress. The weight of the past has been removed from the scientists’ shoulders and left them free to fly, to explore without constraints and presumed certainties. This liberation, quoting Nietzsche again, allows man to live in a state of continuous, vortical and unstoppable evolution.
But is the overcoming of one’s own certainties possible in Architecture?
If this question were to be answered in the affirmative, there is no doubt in calling architecture a science and the architect a scientist. But for this to come true, architects would have to become the falsificationists of architectural history. Universities would have to stop being flooded with the drool of their disciples and preachers and become the courts of architecture. Classrooms should be tribunals in which the architects of the past are debunked and refut-
ed one by one. We will finally realise that there has never been a Golden Age in architecture, that all the time spent contemplating great architects has only distracted us from action. We will stop relying on the answers of the past to solve the questions of today.
But why should architecture become science and embrace Popper’s theories? Can it not remain a mere exaltation of the artistic talents of its creators, a formal expression of the creative abilities of its architects?
Perhaps everything will remain the same, after all, the economic interests behind construction and investment in new architecture are too great. If it has worked so far why change the state of things? But has the architecture actually worked and is it currently working? Do we feel safe and protected by it? Does it grow and develop respecting the natural context? Perhaps we have persuaded ourselves of this certainty so that we never have to ask ourselves the question and put ourselves in a state of crisis...2
But where do we begin the falsification of this non-science? We only have to look around, open our eyes and begin to realise that we live and move inside human traps every day.
2 “The crisis is the greatest blessing for people and nations, because the crisis brings progress. Creativity comes from anxiety as the day comes from the dark night. In the crisis that is inventiveness, discoveries and great strategies” The world as I see it - A. Einstain
“The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, refutability and controllability“2020, La Valletta, Malta 2018, Barcellona, Spain
The house is the most dangerous place to spend time.
2.7 million Americans are treated for falls in the home every year
1,076,558 average accidents related to falling down stairs
12,000 deaths each year as a result of falling down stairs
120,000 deaths from home accidents
For those over 65, fatal injuries in the home are greater than 80% 3
Home is a deadly trap that we pay gold for and in which we spend hours cleaning and taking care of it. But how can we not realise this? It is there for all to see. How can we still design a staircase when we perfectly know that as soon as we become elderly we will no longer be able to use it. How can we continue to believe and unconditionally love something so senseless and dramatic? How can we justify the death of soil and land in the name of a beautiful house or a beautiful school, when cosmic inefficiency prevails within it?
2021, London, UK 2020, La Valletta, MaltaIt almost sounds like a comical conclusion: ‘eliminate all stairs in the world to make it safer and more liveable’. Rebelling against the staircase lobby to reclaim our freedom and right to life. That would be iconic. Comical more like it. Ironic...
Irony and its definition is a perfect fit with the discussion brought so far. By irony I mean the Greek irony, Socrates and the Maieutics, quite different from the romantic irony1 and the irony of the idealists. Socratic irony is in fact the moment when we realise we are incomplete, it is the moment when contradiction emerges. Contradiction is the starting point for reaching the truth and consequently, through Karl Popper’s definitions, we can define science as the apotheosis of it.
Philosophy or architecture? I don’t think there is any difference, the premises are identical. Strong historicist culture and idolatry of facts, Hegelism at its highest level, fighting with all its might against a hammer and the hand that supports it. There is a difference though, and it is dramatic. Architecture exists, it is physical, and it roots into the ground and bites it for centuries. Hopefully for twenty years or so, given the poor quality of materials and architecture... But this too is a tragedy, from the disposal and reconstruction... Nothing grows over a strip of asphalt any more, the decision-makers are murderers in this regard. Let’s be clear, I don’t just want to make pure environmentalis propaganda, the ‘physical’ issue of the matter, which breaks away from the pure theoretical speculation of philosophers, is extremely important.
Those who inhabit the architecture are trapped. A real trap, designed as such. In the trap, or home, as the reader prefers to call it, we slam our heads against corners, stumble over carpets and slip in the bathroom. We fall down the stairs. We flood the bathroom because the shower clogs. We are forced into hard labour inside these much-desired and extensively paid prisons. We have to take care of it, look after it, clean the floor and vacuum, remove dust from every corner, every shelf, from morning to night the house absorbs our time of life. The house absorbs the time of life.
1 Irony for Gohete and Schlegel indeed becomes a means that through play wants to reach the infinite, Collisani, Amalia. “ROMANTIC IRONY, ‘CLASSICAL STYLE’, REPRESENTATION.”
It is clearly a common desire to have a nest, a safe space in which to take refuge in the evening and share private moments with loved ones. Not just a desire, but a natural instinct to take refuge in a certainty. But let us aspire to something better!
What tools should we use to make the world aware? Irony? A hammer? A court and judges? In the end there are only words and sentences that can make up a relatively good book...
I would now like to conclude or in any case give a conclusion to this first series of “other untimely considerations” on architecture by introducing and giving justice to Giancarlo De Carlo1. An architect who managed to find and make explicit the meeting point between pure theoretical speculation and physical action. I conclude with some of his phrases, a manifesto of action that followed his entire artistic production, remaining exhaustingly consistent with itself.
“The architecture of the future, will be characterised by an ever-increasing participation of the user in its organisational and formal definition, leading to a confluence of intentions between the client, the designers and the implementers”1
“When everyone intervenes equally in the management of power, or perhaps it is clearer this way - when power no longer exists because everyone is directly and equally involved in the decision-making process, utopia becomes reality and architecture stands at the centre between man and the environment, with the sole objective of defining a compatible degree of transformability.”2
“However, it is not a question of bringing back the ‘interdisciplinary myth’ that aroused so much misunderstanding in the 1960s. Instead, it is necessary to venture outside the confines of conventional disciplines and venture into “transdisciplinary” research, which consists of posing precise problems and engaging anyone who has a point of view on those problems, from which they will continue to explore them by crossing their experience with that of others”.3
1 De Carlo proposed the “Participatory Design”, often through the workshop methodology, in which the user is immediately involved in the decision-making process, giving prominence and substance to his expectations. He set precise operational boundaries for himself and the community of architects: as a technician, he limited himself to making individual ‘desiderata’ converge towards a common interest in overall quality, functional, technical-economic and aesthetic.
1 He argued that only ‘horizontal dialogue’ between administrations, planners and citizens makes it possible to reduce the possibility of errors in operations, particularly in urban transformation processes.
2 Rejecting the idea of architecture as pure abstraction, De Carlo directed his research towards a patient work on the relationship between theoretical approach and the concreteness of doing, towards a simplification that preserved the values of complexity, rationally and poetically combining the concept of ‘open form’.
3 [GDC, 1991, aa. 40, p. 4].
“Architecture is too important to be left to architects”2022, London, UK
Bibliography
Brobjer, Thomas H. “Nietzsche’s View of the Value of Historical Studies and Methods.” Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (2004): 301–22. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/3654211.
Collisani, Amalia. “IRONIA ROMANTICA, ‘STILE CLASSICO’, RAPPRESENTAZIONE.” Rivista Italiana Di Musicologia 37, no. 1 (2002): 79–107. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24324323.
De Carlo, Giancarlo, ‘An Architecture of Participation’, Perspecta, 17 (1980), 74-79.
De Carlo, Giancarlo, aa. 40, p. 4, 1991
Einstein Albert, “The World As I See It”, Carl Seelig, 1954
Nietzsche, F. “Untimely Meditations”, 1997, Cambridge Univeristy Press
Popper, Karl R., Conjectures and Refutations : the Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York :Harper & Row, 1902-1994.
Ryder, Frank G., and Benjamin Bennett. “The Irony of Goethe’s Hermann Und Dorothea: Its Form and Function.” PMLA 90, no. 3 (1975): 433–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/461630.
Sabatino, Michelangelo, “Space of Criticism: Exhibitions and the Vernacular in Italian Modernism”, Taylor & Francis, Ltd., (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40480955), Vol. 62, No. 3 (Feb, 2009), pp. 35-52.
Zuddas, Francesco. “The Idea of the Università.” AA Files, no. 75 (2017): 119–31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44427933.
- All black and white images have been produced by me over the years -
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818