Daniel Mijalski Dissertation

ARC3060 Dissertation in Architectural Studies

THE MYTH OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN · SISYPHUS · NEOLIBERALISM

DANIEL

Student no. 180395598

MIJALSKI

Supv. Nathaniel Coleman

ARC3060 Dissertation in Architectural Studies

THE MYTH OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN · SISYPHUS · NEOLIBERALISM

DANIEL

Student no. 180395598

MIJALSKI

Supv. Nathaniel Coleman

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to Dr Nathaniel Coleman for his exceptional guidance and constant inspiration in my explorations of architecture.

I would also like to thank my parents and friends who provided unlimited motivation to delve into architectural theory and philosophy.

Yet, most importantly, I wish to thank Marta W. for keeping my side at every stage of this paper's creation.

COVID RESEARCH ADAPTATION ACCOUNT The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced author’s research possibilities disabling visit to Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals which is the paper’s key case study. As a result, the case study was based on other relevant sources and resulted in various readings of the building. The different perspectives include existential, as meaning and purpose of the building existence, architectural, as modes of the building delivery, and ideological, as political, cultural, and economic rationales for and results of the building creation. The different ‘fields’ of the perspectives may appear problematic due to difficulty in transition of specialised definitions and phenomena from one field to the other. Yet the introduced ideological perspective was used as a medium bonding the other approaches in order to provide a relevant conclusion to all, existential philosophers and architects.

Dissertation word count: 8797 + 730 footnote references

Dedicated to all 'absurd heroes'

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Mountain & Stone

2. Way Up

Neoliberalism, logic of late capitalism

Engineering authenticity, Therme Vals

Neoliberal complexity

11

Place's essence

22

Paradox of Neo-liberty

13

Materialazing the atmosphere

24

Death of Architecture or Sisyphus?

8

17

10

21

3. Peak & Fall

4. Way Down

Sisyphus and Vals

Conclusion

Deception and naivety

30

Absurd irony

32

29

34

Bibliogaphy

List of Figures

38

39

INTRODUCTION In the second half of the twentieth century Manfredo Tafuri, neo-Marxist architectural historian claimed that the myth of architecture as an ideological discipline which serves to lead the society is dead.1 He pointed out that the capitalist system translated consumption as the only ‘correct use’ of space redefining meaning of architecture. 2 Space purposed primarily as an economic venture became a commodity to be exchanged for the capital (understood throughout this paper as exchangeable products and abilities to acquire them).

As a result, the necessity of positive economic balance subjected all architectural works to the universal code of income. The built environment appeared homogenous, limited by the economic rationales. Many architects and critics proclaimed projects of resistance, aiming to alter the capitalist system through revolutionary architectural spaces. Nevertheless, their rejection or alteration of the capital’s convention seems to cause their failure as, in the economical realm, they appear less efficient.3 However, in some cases the capitalist pragmatism translates radicality and revolutionary character of the architectural resistance as a marketing quality, picturing the architectural objects as unique products.

Although that legitimizes their existence it turns them into fashions in service to the capitalist exchange thereby diffusing the fundamental goal of altering the system. The myth of architecture seems terminated picturing the discipline as enslaved in the convention of the capital. This indicates that architecture is incapable of ideological leadership what questions purpose of the discipline in society and can become an architect’s ethical crisis.

The system conditioning everything with the capital redefines value of one’s life into mere economic worth, spreading inequality based on one’s possession of the capital. It seems that an architect, forced into the modes of capitalist production, can never achieve ‘socially positive space’ because his work will always contribute to the system based on economic discrimination. Ethically, the effort to change the current state of mater is out of question but the resistance, being doomed to failure, seems ineffective and pointless. Should architects accept their incapability to respond to capitalist domination, submit to the system, forsake ethical ambitions, and announce architecture ideologically dead?

This paper will examine modes of the capitalist ‘enslavement’ seeking a response to the architectural crisis in the Myth of Sisyphus. Story of the Greek mythological hero punished by the gods to carry a Stone at the top of the Mountain which once delivered at the peak rolls back down. His torture is endless therefore his effort, resonating the architectural resistance, appears pointless. Yet, French philosopher Albert Camus sees a possibility for Sisyphus’s escape. In the curial moment within the journey back down, when the dramatically repeated image of the Stone awaiting at the mountainside makes meaninglessness of the effort inevitable to face.4 Once the contradiction is acknowledged, the drama of the 1 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture And Utopia: Design And Capitalist Development (1973) trans.

Barbara Luigia La Penta (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976), pp. 62-63 2

Ibid. pp. 84-86.

3

Ibid. pp. 116-120

4

Albert Camus The Myth Of Sisyphus (1942) trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage Books,

8

INTRODUCTION

endless torture can become a weapon against the tormentor. The act of pointless yet conscious struggle can be used to scorn the Mountain and the Stone unworthy submission.5 Sisyphus appears as an absurd hero, seemingly committed to a pointless effort yet led by a meaningful purpose of defying the Stone, the Mountain and even the gods themselves.6 Conditions of Sisyphus’s torture seem to reflect the challenge of contemporary architecture. But can the mythological hero become an inspiration to tackle the existential and ethical crisis, a role model teaching disdain of the capitalist domination, and a motivation to revive the ancient myth of architecture’s leadership?

The paper will identify the architectural dimension of the Sisyphean allegory examining work of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and his masterpiece Therme Vals built in 1996 in Switzerland. Zumthor’s philosophy aims to resist the global homogeneity through clarity of expression and cultivation of places ‘essence’ manifested through their ‘atmosphere’.7 Yet, the architects announced Therme ‘dead’ due to change in building's ownership.8 The tension between the architect’s philosophy and failure of his project will be used to discuss whether a change in philosophical approach can tip the scales and help to overcome the capitalist domination.

Inspired by Sisyphean journey, the first chapter will discuss the Stone and the Mountain analyzing Neoliberalism, the ideology explaining the capitalist domination of architecture. Further, the Sisyphean effort of Way Up the Mountain will be presented by Zumthor’s architectural effort to overcome homogeneity through his theory and its execution in Therme Vals. In the last chapter, analysis of the Baths ‘death’, reflecting arrival to the Peak and Fall, will verify the possibility of resistance to the capitalist system and role of the Sisyphean approach in architectural discourse. The conclusion reflects the crucial moment of the Way Down, a moment of reflection over the effort.

1991), pp. 23-24. <https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20 Sisyphus.pdf> [Accessed 26 January 2021] 5

Ibid.

6

Ibid.

7 Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture trans. Maureen Oberli-Turner and Catherine Schelbert, (Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1999), pp. 9-26.

8 Jessica Mairs, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerland-destroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

INTRODUCTION

9

MOUNTAIN & STONE NEOLIBERALISM LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM

NEOLIBERAL COMPLEXITY Every absurd Sisyphean journey begins with the Stone and Mountain. Tafuri presented the architectural crisis and its cause, reflecting the objects of Sisyphean torture, as the interaction between an architect, the 'ideologist of the society', and the capitalist development.9 He identified a beginning of the architectural ambition to lead humanity with the bourgeois intellectualism which privileged existence was rationalized by fulfilling a ‘social mission’ of managing the society.10 According to Tafuri, the architectural dimention of ‘social mission’, was realized through the myth of an architect who by encoding political signs in space influences the entire built environment and thus alters the society.11 He continued claiming, that the bourgeois intellectualism evolved alongside the nineteenth-century Enlightenment and its ideal of productiveness which rejected everything ‘unprogressive’.12 All conservative beliefs were presented as subjective, egocentric, and essentially negative stereotypes produced by the social system.13 As a result, the bourgeois culture and its ideological tools, such as architecture, were transformed into a radical break with the contemporary social order to re-built it and liberate the society from the limiting system.14 According to Tafuri, architecture was the only medium able to satisfy and materialize utopian ambitions in material space. Consequently, the discipline was reassigned to the mystical function of leading humanity and transforming it into the imagined society of the future. However, as Tafuri continues, the radical potential of nineteenth-century ideals was lost, rejected by pragmatism of the capitalist production entangled with economic rationales.15 The necessity of the positive economic balance dissolved the architecture’s subversiveness due to their economic impotence or enslaved them as mere commercial ‘avant-garde’ products. Eventually, Tafuri doomed architects as hopeless, unable to subvert the system and lead society.16 Seemingly, the myth of architectural leadership, dominated by the capitalist system, ended.

Neoliberalism, the ideology of global capitalism, causes the glorification of the capital and consequently system’s enslavement of architectural invention thus becoming a Sisyphean mountain of architecture. The fundamental neoliberal principle is conviction defined by Friedrich Hayek which states that human-led management is limited and subjective, discriminatory towards particular social groups or nations.17 Accordingly, the philosopher proposed that management over the society should be controlled by an unconscious, machine-like body capable of ordering all aspects influencing the results of specific governance

9 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture And Utopia: Design And Capitalist Development (1973) trans.

Barbara Luigia La Penta (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976), p. 3-4.

10

Ibid. p. 2

11

Ibid. pp. 3-4

12

Ibid. pp. 54-55

13

Ibid.

14

Ibid.

15

Ibid. pp. 85-86, 91-100.

16

Ibid. pp. 181-182.

17 p. 74

Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2001), MOUNTAIN & STONE

11

decisions.18 The calculation should determine the most efficient direction for the entire society to follow, considering all variables so that all individuals interest is considered. Then, the management appears rightful and objective, evenly ‘caring’ for all subjects. Process of deduction should also be spontaneous, namely, it should be based on continuous testing of various results. The endless re-calculation of the most efficient ‘direction’ in a dynamically changing environment of the society maintains the objective status quo.19 Hayek saw the capitalist market as the perfect machine of objective rule and governance.20 Economic interactions between different individuals, like transactions of the capital, form the market database which accordingly to laws of demand and supply calculates the perfect economic equilibrium. The equilibrium informing economic trends indicates the direction that ‘leads’ the society, providing a seemingly objective framework for individuals to decode.21 The balance spontaneously evolves thanks to the dynamic economic competition providing the market with the latest data. As long as competition continues the palette of products, set of possible options of investing one’s capital, grows because the equilibrium is continuously recalculated. As a result, new demand and supply are created triggering new flows of the capital again growing the palette of products. This vicious circle of prosperity provides unlimited development opportunities for one to explore, available within a grasp if one obeys the system conventions and acquires the capital. When an individual does not compete, perform attractive employability, and strive for the employment, he rejects the convention and fails to decode the equilibrium. As a result, the individual cannot acquire the capital and is unable to secure his living within the system. Thus, the market’s equilibrium creates a framework of existence within the society focused on possession of the capital.22 Additionally, the system, by unleashing individual’s full potential, reflected within the unlimited products of the market, seems liberatory. Neoliberalism appears just and progressive, seemingly satisfying the utopian ambitions of the nineteenth-century Enlightenment. Nevertheless, the market by forcing individuals, through the promise of liberty and fear of insecurity, to participate in the competition reveals the ideology’s more dystopian dimension of manipulation and enslavement.

From neoliberal point of view, architecture’s ideological ambition to lead and liberate the society reflects the limited human-led management because it is consciously designed by architects, not by the mystified unconscious market.

According to Hayek, set of ideas created by the planned projects, failing to acknowledge their wider effect, will lead to “dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective instrument of coercion and the enforcement of ideals”.23 Additionally, the attempts of altering the system may negate the conception of 18 Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2006) p. 52 19 Douglas Spencer, The Architecture Of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became Instrument Of Control And Compliance (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016), pp. 19-22 20

Ibid. pp. 21-22.

21 Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, (London: Verso, 2013), p.54 22

Spencer, pp. 23-24.

23

Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, p. 74

12

MOUNTAIN & STONE

the capital. Therefore, architectural ambition to lead society can attempt to halt the economic competition threatening the objective rule of the market. Thus, the process of production, being informed by the equilibrium, can be seen a self-defence system verifying architectural concepts and deactivating whatever stands against the vision of neo-liberated society. As a result, the market rejects any subversive and ideological potential of space turning it into an empty vessel of the capital. Architecture is flattened to an economic tool and purged of social purpose what initiates the discipline existential crisis. Neoliberalism enslaves architecture making resistance impossible due to the market economic verification. Consequently, the neoliberal ideology reflects the Sisyphean Mountain because they both present resistances as ineffective and thus pointless.

PARADOX OF NEO-LIBERTY The struggle of carrying the Stone appears to be articulated by Stone’s weight and shape. However, examining a painting by Tiziano Vecelli one can suggest that the Mountain qualities, topography and climate, are what really informs the torture (Fig. 1). Accordingly, it is the neoliberal ideology that characterizes the existential crisis of architecture which reflects the Sisyphean torture. Looking at Vecelli’s painting, or rather what is untold about it, it appears that to understand the Sisyphean struggle the entire picture of the Mountain should be considered.

Thus, to examine the nature and results of the architectural ‘enslavement’ the neoliberal modes of enforcement and its spatial results should be investigated.

Fig. 1. Sisyphus, Tiziano Vecelli, 1549, painting in public domain Source: Wikimedia Commons MOUNTAIN & STONE

13

Neo-liberty can be conceptualized on two aspects, substitution of the subjective central planning with the objective, inclusive verdict of the equilibrium and promise of the unlimited possibilities provided by the market.24 The neoliberal ideology presents individualism and opportunism as ethically positive, emancipatory qualities leading to the 'greater good' because they foster the objective rule of the market. The ethical changes and the enforcement of economic competition create a new ‘model’ of a human being.25 One that is competitive, self-interested, and adjustable to dynamic changes within the equilibrium. Those qualities are necessary for one to succeed within the market what apart from individual gains appears as a positive social contribution.

Michel Foucault explained this remodelling of a human being as unconscious enforcement of entrepreneurialism.26 The system does not separate or restrain its subjects or dictates norms and behaviours. One’s life is not dependent on a single body holding power but on a web of numerous stakeholders, such as employers or state-appointed organizations, ‘sufficiently limited in their scale for the individual’s actions, decision and choices to have meaningful and perceptible effects, and numerous enough for him not to be dependent on one alone’.27 The individual appears to be a self-dependent enterprise governing his resources like private property and relations with other bodies like the abovementioned stakeholders.28 The challenge of self-management and ruthlessness of the economic competition legitimizes the change in universal human qualities because they are intrinsic for survival in the neoliberal world. Additionally, the capability of choice appears as a direct articulation of the promised neo-liberty.

Yet, practice of the self-governance does not extend one’s freedom but further legitimizes the capital as a condition of human existence.29 Individual’s choices and relations are all subjected to the market equilibrium therefore the apparent ‘free’ will is inevitably bonded with the capital. Is it freedom if it must be paid for in one’s submission to the economic conventions?

The forced obedience to the market and convention of the capital can be seen as the objective framework informing how the social system works because all society members must obey the same ‘rules’. Yet, the vision of individuals being left on their own, forced to fight for survival in the economic competition seems anything but liberating. Nevertheless, the system apparatus, using the illusion of free will, dominated the society priorities. The convention of capital became fundamental what allowed the neoliberal system to eradicate any efforts of seeking alternatives. Case in point, architecture's crisis which destroys hopes of resistance to the convention and forces architects to accept the definition of space as nothing more than a meaningless vessel of the capital. Neoliberalism appears as a trap so deceptively liberating and objective that anything beyond 24

Spencer, pp. 12-14

25

Ibid. pp. 15-16.

26 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France (1978-79) trans.

Michel Senellart (Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p.241.

27

Ibid.

28

Spencer, pp. 14-16

29

Ibid.

14

MOUNTAIN & STONE

its constraints seems out of place, and is automatically rejected. Here is the dystopian dimension of neoliberalism, its self-legitimization, namely, employment of the system’s own apparatus to enforce its validity.30 The society doomed to the misery of the ruthless competition is trapped by the system with no hope for a better alternative.

Spatial results of the neoliberal manipulation are well reflected by the transformation of architectural ‘works’ into ‘products’. Henri Lefebvre pointed that within the contemporary built environment ‘products’, reproducible and general due to their homogenous convention, ‘have vanquished works’ which are specific to their context and users.31 Consequently, contemporary space became paradoxical, “homogenous, rationalized, and as such constraining; yet at the same time utterly dislocated”.32 The built environment became united in the sameness of its capitalist purpose yet disconnected between one another, perhaps because motivated by individualistic intentions. Lefebvre described this condition as absence of ‘formal boundaries’. 33 Analyzing spatial evolution of workspace from classic capitalist assembly line (hierarchized mode of production where labour is divided into various sectors of repetitive jobs34) to so-called post-Fordist infrastructure, one can anticipate how the loss of ‘formal boundaries’ serves enforcement of the competition and illusion of freedom further discrediting utopian efforts.

Developments of information and management theory in the 1960s concluded that traditional capitalist assembly line is inefficient.35 Consequently, the revolutionary organization of work was suggested to democratize the production and maximize efficiency. Its fundamental principles were based on a limited hierarchy between employees grouped into small teams with no leader, or with supervisor placed within a team, not above it.36 Spatially, the organization prioritized flexibility of workspaces achieved by arrangement of a large open space with minimal physical separation between various sections, like potted plants and movable screens (Fig. 2).37 The arrangement aimed to expose an employee to the information stream of the whole company infrastructure. As a result, spatial ‘freedom’ and reciprocal organizational independence introduced the self-entrepreneurialism. This maximized individuals’ sense of responsibility for their input of work what motivated to greater involvement. As a result, employees achieved a record-breaking efficiency and established unprecedented spontaneous cooperation between different company’s departments.38 However, one can anticipate that the spatial ‘chaos’ (even the used colours and 30

Ibid. p.2

31 Henri Lefebvre, The Production Of Space (1974) trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991), p. 75 32

Ibid. p. 97.

33

Ibid.

34 Andreas Rumpfhuber, ‘Framing The Possible’, in Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, eds.

Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), pp. 32-36.

35

Ibid.

36

Ibid.

37

Ibid.

38

Ibid.

MOUNTAIN & STONE

15

Fig. 2 Layout of a postFordist workplace, Buch und Ton, Bertelsmann, Gutersloh, 1959-61, Source: Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner, Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), p.36

types of ceilings were to foster the visual illusion of vastness and complexity) may have a negative influence (Fig. 3). The work environment appears as a neoliberal microcosm, a materialization of the market accommodating competition for the capital. Self-dependence, flexibility and lack of constraint reflect neoliberal ideals, yet they are not liberating but alienating, leaving an individual on his own.

One’s performance in his responsibilities verifies whether his skills are sufficient enough to guarantee his survival. Possible success as well as fear of being rejected enforce the neoliberal individualism, creativity, and adjustability. According to Douglas Spencer, the by-effect of the post-Fordist workplace was increased acridity of competition.39 This escalated the global obsession with employment and employability making work the most crucial aspect influencing human life.40 In result, a workplace, acting as spatial function, expanded into other realms like public space, leisure and housing causing the emergence of global generic space characterized by flexibility, holding many, if not all, purposes at the same time.41

39

Spencer, p. 76.

40

Ibid.

41

Ibid. pp. 76-79.

16

MOUNTAIN & STONE

Fig. 3 Burolandshaft office landscape, Buch und Ton, Bertelsmann, Gutersloh, 1959-61, reconstruction by Andreas Rumpfhuber © Archive Gebruder Schnelle/ Andreas Rumpfhuber

Consequently, Lefebvre’s vision appears materialized. Looking at the space of post-Fordist workplace, it is a ‘liberating’ realm of unlimited opportunities, yet at the same time absence of ‘formal boundaries’, both spatial and in the work organization, is confusing and alienating. So is the built environment transformed into the neoliberal realm, seemingly full of unlimited potential, yet homogenous due to the same totalized purpose of efficiency reflected by the ‘generic space’.

Architecture, transformed by the neoliberal ideology, accommodates the manipulatory self-governance consequently becoming direct articulation of the human alienation. From this point of view, the architectural resistance seems out of question, not to save the myth of architecture but for the sake of the society.

Nevertheless, the achievement of maximized efficiency seems economically priceless effectively discrediting any alternatives to the post-Fordist workplace diffusing relevance of the architects’ ethical ambitions.

DEATH OF ARCHITECTURE OR SISYPHUS? How can architecture resist the system if it always fails to retain its revolutionism when verified by the market? Moreover, revolutionism and radicality can be used as arguments to upsell spaces of resistance as ‘one of a kind’, ‘authentic’ commodity products.42 The profound architectural myth of seeking the utopian alternatives appears abused, commodified into a neoliberal fetish.

Rem Koolhaas, who as Tafuri, claimed that the architectural ideology is ended, called for an embrace of the present state and reconciliation with neoliberalism to escape the impossibility of the resistance.43 Exchanging the critical ‘negative’ analysis of the neoliberal presence for the ‘positive’ thought of ‘accepting what exists’, he sought to create a new way of thinking.44 Embracing the architectural fetishization, Koolhaas envisaged the neoliberal built environment as The City of the Captive Globe (Fig. 4) of which he writes: 'The capital of Ego, where science, art, poetry and forms of madness compete under ideal conditions to invent, destroy and restore the world of phenomenal reality. Each Science or Mania has its own plot. […] The changes in this ideological skyline will be rapid and continuous: a rich spectacle of ethical joy, moral fever or intellectual masturbation.'45 Each of the ideological ‘plots’ offers a unique architectural 'religion', radical concepts and aesthetics for one to follow revoking the neoliberal unlimited palette of products.46 However, the apparent richness is an illusion, an evolutionary reconfiguration of the same capitalist convention, purposed for the economic exchange.47 The neoliberal built environment emerges as a realm of alienating sameness with no more meaningful contrast between the ‘plots’ 42

Tafuri, pp. 91-100.

43 Nathaniel Coleman, Utopias And Architecture (Milton, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005). pp. 83-87.

44 Rem Koolhaas, ‘Whatever Happened to Urbanism’, in S,M,L,XL, OMA, Rem Koolhaas and Bruc Mau (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), pp. 969, 971.

45 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p. 294.

46 Ole W. Fisher, ‘From Liquid Space To Solid Bodies’, in Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, eds. Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), pp. 18-25.

47

Ibid.

MOUNTAIN & STONE

17

than between rides in an amusement park. Instrumentalized and fetishized architecture transformed into an intellectual whim of the neoliberal society seems ideologically and ethically dead. The architectural myth appears irrelevant since any architectural work will, through the market circuits, become a mere element of the capital of Ego imagined by Koolhaas. Thereby, the absurd of architectural resistance suggests a correspondence between architects and Sisyphus whose struggle is also deemed to failure. The execution of architectural projects of resistance and their unique philosophies pictures them as the Sisyphean Stones that must be carried to the Mountain Peak to overcome the crisis. However, is the stubborn continuation worth the struggle or is there no hope and only the surrender can spear more torture? Should architects, like Tafuri and Koolhaas, abandon their Stones?

Tafuri claimed that the only relevant response is architecture of silence which would abandon ideology and oppose commerce through stoicism and purity.48 However, the ‘sublime’ uselessness and the drama of ethical submission reveal architecture’s ambitions, ‘desire for authenticity. and ideological subversiveness.49 The vision of design’s silence creates an impotent and decadent image of the built form which appears as alienating as the presumed emptiness of utopias fated for failure and economic consumption. Similarly, Koolhaas’s vision, which goes further in the anti-utopian discourse embracing the present and 48

Tafuri, p. xi

49

Coleman, Utopias And Architecture, pp. 71-73

18

MOUNTAIN & STONE

Fig. 4. The City of the Captive Globe, Madelon Vriesendorp, 1972 Source: Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p. 142.

attempting to achieve neoliberal ecstasy, seems flagrantly ignorant and ethically incorrect towards the society harassed by the system. According to Nathaniel Coleman, Koolhaas seems to take society’s silent acceptance of Neoliberalism as ethical approval to embrace it.50 There is no consideration that the system self-legitimization makes individuals passive towards the present and unable to imagine the alternatives.51 From this point of view, silence does not suggest acceptance but an abandoned hope picturing Koolhaas as unethical. 52 One can argue that rejection of hope in design is a simple way out, almost an act of cowardice towards architectural ethics. Coleman concludes that architecture without utopia is impotent in responding to any artistic, social, or philosophical desire indicating how crucial it is for the architectural invention.53 However, his critique can be extended as follows.

The Neo-liberty through self-governance places one’s success as an acquirable achievement dependent on efficiency within the market, the belief that ‘you can be anything that you want to be if you want it bad enough’.54 Thus, the system ideology creates an idealized life destination based on economic rationalism which accordingly to Albert Camus naively ignores the fundamental paradox of life which, through its relationship with time, inevitably goes towards death.55 One awaits the tomorrow, but tomorrow brings closer to death. Longing for the better future, sacrifices and efforts to achieve it momentarily become pointless as the journey merely conceals the inevitable. Neoliberal narratives of prosperity, that make the process of achieving the promised success alienating and forced, present the struggle as meaningless because the process is a torture leading to nothing but an illusion. When the absurd is anticipated, existence pictured by the system is meaningless. An escape towards meaningfulness connected with aspects such as family, religion or passion appear the only way to retain purpose in life. An ideological suicide is legitimized to stop the pointless torture. Applying to architecture, acceptance of the ‘death of architecture’ appears as a merciful act relieving of the meaningless struggle. Yet, Camus discredits suicide presenting meaningfulness on the example of the Myth of Sisyphus who overcomes his endless torture although there is no hope for escape.56 The resistance is absurd, pointless, and illogical. Yet paradoxically, the drama of understanding the contradiction makes the revolt against it meaningful.

Sisyphus’s conscious continuation of the pointless struggle is an act scorning the Stone and the Mountain unworthy his submission. This can become an inspiration to revive the myth of architecture as a discipline of absurd.

Architecture which aims to satisfy the ethical necessity of belief in utopian alternatives, yet accepts fetishization which inevitably makes the alternative impossible. The consciousness of this contradiction makes resistance and pursue of utopia a dramatic act, a commitment to the effort despite its absurd. As a 50

Ibid.pp. 83-87.

51

Ibid.

52

Ibid.

53

Ibid. pp. 71-73, 83-87.

54

Mirowski, pp 116-117.

55

Camus, pp. 23-24.

56

Ibid. p. 23-24.

MOUNTAIN & STONE

19

result, the effort scorns the neoliberal ideology as unworthy submission, an ethical surrender and most importantly incapable to stop the futile attmepts of resistance. A Sisyphean architect is an absurd character because he knows that there is no hope for change, however, he stubbornly continues the effort despite its pointlessness what makes the torture meaningful. But how can the Sisyphean approach be applied to architectural discourse and used in theory and practice?

20

MOUNTAIN & STONE

WAY UP ENGINEERING AUTHENTICITY THERME VALS

Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals, a project apparently ‘killed’ by laws of the capital will be compared with the proposed Sisyphean theory to verify if an architect can approach the task of designing a building as existentially and ethically absurd.

PLACES AND ESSENCE If an architect has an intention to transform the built environment towards a more socially positive and less alienating alternative his theory and practice can be compared to the Sisyphean journey. Designed spaces and spatial theories can be seen as steps, the struggle, towards a utopia, the peak. Yet, what determines Sisphus’s Way Up is a belief in the achievement of the desired goal whilst being conscious of its impossibility. Applied to architecture, an examination of an architect’s work could determine whether his Way Up is Sisyphean, hence absurd or naively believes that resistance is achievable. If a work opposes the system successfully heading towards the utopia then it proves the Sisyphean allegory wrong.

Investigating Peter Zumthor’s philosophy, the utopian peak is detectable within his belief that architecture which is ‘honest’ with its context and function ‘can put up a resistance’ and change the present definition of space by a return to ‘real things […] which are what they are, which are not mere vehicles for an artistic message, whose presence is self-evident’.57 His theory and practice reveal the utopian intentions because they seek to create a space which is capable of resisting and changing the system. Therefore, comparison between Zumthor’s philosophy, its materialization in Therme Vals and the Sisyphean approach will show if the theory of absurd hero can help in Zumthor’s resistance to the neoliberal domination. Zumthor claimed that the Baths are dead due to the building ownership changing from public to private what already suggests that his philosophy fails.58 Yet, the analysis is necessary to review the Sisyphean approach’s architectural relevance. Additionally, Therme Vals is considered Zumthor’s most famous work, yet tragically ‘killed’ by a mere capitalist transition of wealth what presents the case acutely relevant when discussing architectural escapes from Neoliberalism.

The foundation of Zumthor’s work is an understanding of architecture as the framework of peoples’ lives.59 The built environment, as the framework of society, seems for him to be overloaded with meaning and symbols, creating an artificial realm of confounding mass communication. Describing the contemporary world Zumthor says: '[it] is full of signs and information which stand for things no one fully understands because they […] turn out to be mere signs for other things. The real thing remains hidden. No one ever gets to see it.'60 Zumthor proposes creation of architectural objects which are ‘at peace with 57

Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, p. 17

58 Jessica Mairs, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerland-destroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

59

Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, pp. 12-13.

60

Ibid. p.17.

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themselves’ opposing the contemporary meaninglessness through clarity of ‘things […] which are what they are’’61 He defines them as objects which are relieved of the unnecessary messages becoming empty ‘vacuums’ for users’ perception to embrace and allow them to escape the chaos into sublime beauty of place completeness.62 The completeness requires the work to embrace the place ‘essence’ expressed through its context’s ‘atmosphere’. Regional specificity, site cultivation and modesty of expression are to create a historic, aesthetic, functional, personal, and poetic bond of understanding between users, architecture, and the place.63 The clarity that informs the bond is to be achieved by the new intervention embrace of its context. Zumthor claims that building should be saying ‘I am as you see me, and I belong here’. Then the belonging expresses ‘things which are what they are’, becoming a beacon of order within chaos.

Zumthor’s obsession with the place specificity and understanding of architecture as the framework of our everyday life seems to revoke Lefebvre’s definition of ‘works’. Nevertheless, the conviction that essence and atmosphere lead to the place’s ‘completeness’ makes the approach doubtful. According to Coleman, the conviction leads towards ’Jargon of Authenticity’, a term coined by philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, defined by Coleman as a ‘specialized language intended to confirm the authentic experience of the self and the world, especially in the absence of authenticity’.64 Applying to Zumthor’s philosophy, ‘authenticity’ is presented as an objective architectural trait given with the ‘essence’ or achievable through ‘atmosphere’. This omits that ‘authenticity’, ‘essence’ and ‘atmosphere’ are all ‘at best contingent’.65 Thus, the philosophy, by mystification of objects and experiences as ‘special’, creates a marketing potential and risks them to be transformed, by the market circuits, into ‘one of a kind’ commodity products.66 The bond between a building, its user and a place explored by Zumthor seems to be a positive contribution to the effort of changing the definition of space from a commodity to object of one’s identity. However, the involvement of ‘Jargon of Authenticity’ in the bond creation seems to contradict with Zumthor’s ambition of resistance. The architect’s philosophy appears misaddressed because it ignores the problem of neoliberal fetishization. Therefore, the approach employed in Terme Vals creation is self-destructive, possibly leading to the project ‘death’ and interfering with Zumthor’s own ethically laudable intentions. Acknowledgement of the Sisyphean dimension in the architect’s ambitions and philosophy already seems beneficial in introducing the acknowledgement of architectural resistance’s reality. Regardless, the delivery of the promised completeness should be read to identify the results of the contradictory philosophical approach.

61

Ibid. pp.10-26.

62

Ibid. pp.16-18.

63

Ibid. p. 18

64 Nathaniel Coleman, Materials and Meaning in Architecture. Essays on The Bodily Experience of Buildings (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020). p. 96.

65

Ibid. p. 107.

66

Ibid.

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MATERIALIZING ATMOSPHERE Striking qualities of the environment displayed along twenty-kilometre-long passage connecting Vals with the town of Ilanz, which is the most probable route for a visitor, is an introduction into both Vals and Zumthor’s understanding of its ‘essence’. Powerful masses of mountains and rich meadows, fields and forests dotted with waterfalls and streams are inhabited by scattered farmhouses, cottages and infrastructure skillfully adapted to the local terrain. Vals' architecture, surmounting the promenade, reveals itself with ‘wood and stone and horizontal and vertical elements’ that ‘assert permanence against inevitable transience’.67 Dramatic relationships between the mountains and sky highlighted by architecture, so ingrained within the landscape that in some cases it is physically embedded within the slopes, create a setting of profound sublime (Fig. 5). Remoteness and beauty seem so seductive that one wants to call Vals a utopia (or at least its image). The allurement is so irresistible that Zumthor's ‘talk of essences’ may seem appropriate.68 Therme Vals design is an exemplar reflection of Zumthor’s philosophy. Elements constituting the place are employed as foundations of the building design which itself ‘frames’ the ancient ritual of bathing associated with spiritual cleansing and dialogue with the lifegiving water.69 Utilizing the place ‘essence’ and the event

67

Ibid. p. 95.

68

Ibid. p. 96

69 Sigrid Hauser and Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals (Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2011). pp. 18-23.

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Fig. 5. Passage to Vals, No Author Source: Ausflugsziele.ch

Fig. 6. Therme Vals bathing ‘atmosphere’, Fernando Guerra © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

of bathing Zumthor creates a unique architectural language used to sculpt the mountain. This opens up the slope (site location) creating an artificial cave for the visitor to explore. Seductive ‘atmosphere’ of Vals permeate into the grotto through precise manipulation of materials, rhythm of volumes, water, light, temperature, and sound carefully composing journey of various bathing pools. The landscape is accurately showcased by outdoor views framed internally by large glazed openings and externally by large voids.70 Even the sky serving as ‘ceiling for outdoor pool and decks’ was employed to augment the presence of the Alpine skyline within the building.71 The mystical act of bathing was rigorously interwoven not to disturb but augment the building’s atmosphere achieving ‘overwhelming sensuality’ of the building experience. Here is Therme Vals genius, namely the method in which the bathing references and all landscape characteristics, the seductiveness especially, find their way into the building.72 They are masterly balanced creating an exceptional atmosphere that makes the Baths an ‘atmospheric’ masterpiece (Fig. 6). Its relationship with the landscape makes it inevitable that the Baths are a materialization of its surrounding what seemingly legitimizes the building authenticity. The mystical atmosphere and the building special dialogue with its surrounding, similarly to seduction in the valley, deceives one into calling it the ‘belonging’ beacon of order in the chaotic neoliberal world.

70

Coleman, Materials and Meaning in Architecture, p. 96.

71

Ibid.

72

Ibid.

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Here is the concern with Zumthor’s philosophy which seems to spoil his work, namely the desire to design a building which is authentic and ‘belongs’.

To ensure the belonging Zumthor employs different historical connotations, architectural qualities of specific methods of production and objects, to create the new architectural language of Vals and bathing. Consequently, the material is translated as an object which ‘belonging’ is objectively factual, legitimized by its nature (origin, historic references, cultural importance within the valley and widely accepted connotations).73 Therefore, the asserted message conveys that the Baths are authentic and belong because they are made out of stuff which creates its surrounding, or as in case of bathing, supplements it. Yet, is the conscious manipulation of authentic elements into a new entity creation of authenticity?

Otherwise, is a pursued engineered authenticity fundamentally inauthentic because enforced thus artificial and illusory?74 Is authenticity an objective fact or a subjective and accidental phenomenon? Throughout Zumthor’s work, those questions seem unacknowledged what reflects the ‘Jargon of Authenticity’.

Philosophical reflection over what authenticity and ‘belonging’ mean is omitted, taking those qualities as granted. Claims of authenticity and essence do not legitimize achievement of the promised clarity but, through the jargon, contribute to the building capitalist value, making it a more attractive economic investment.75 As a result, the outcome of noble architectural effort, which accommodated social delight, innocent happiness, and bathers commonality in their mutual experience, was jeopardized when the building was privatized.

The jargon encourages circuits of income to take over the Baths verifying that the obsession with the essences, consciously or not, leads to fetishization. Case in point, the use of Valser quartzite which apart from determining appearance of most of the Baths’ surface creates a crucial bond between the building and the site ‘essence’.76 The quartzite is a local material, so a physical reference of the valley within the Baths, its geological origins symbolically resonate the mountain within which the building is embedded, and its aesthetic qualities contribute to the atmosphere of a cave. Additionally, the stone, being a widely used roofing material of almost all buildings in Vals (Fig. 7), seems to enforce justification of its use as a direct indication of the building belonging and authenticity. Strong relation of the quartzite with the surrounding context and ambition for the project to ‘belong’ make the stone inevitably crucial. Zumthor claims that materials are not themselves ‘poetic’ and require a creative process to be made so.77 Therefore, walls, symbolically representing the mountain, mimic the cave sterotomic qualities through external applique of Valser quartzite tiles in different finishes. The achieved collage of rough-sawn, bush-hammered, ground, or polished surfaces refine and modernize the stone showcasing the architect ‘poetization’ of the material.78 However, the wall treatment seems to be an overly direct evocation of the village roofing method which is also based on

73

Ibid. pp. 96-98.

74

Ibid. p. 97.

75

Ibid. pp. 111-113.

76

Ibid. pp. 99-102

77

Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, p. 11

78

Hauser and Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, p. 89.

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Fig. 7. Vals roofing slates, No Author Source: Sigrid Hauser and Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals (Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2011), p. 18.

stacking tiles (Fig. 8).79 Zumthor's literal interpretation of references, as in case of the roofing method, seems to jeopardize the act of poetization, causing the references' ‘essence’ to overwhelm the creative process. ‘Jargon of Authenticity’, mystifying the stone as a guarantee of ‘authentic essence’, fostered the material fetishization. A publication of which Zumthor is a partial author reveals that the success of the Baths contributed to the marketing efficiency and exchange of the stone making it 'globally famous'.80 The material performance is significant in terms of tensile strength, resistance to frost and mechanical abrasion what undoubtfully ought to be reflected in its worth. However, being 'transformed into […] tables, bowls, dinner plates, drinking cups, egg cups, bottle coolers, storage vessels, washbasins, oil-burning lamps, candle holders, vases, quick-change picture frames, palisade fences, birdbaths…' the material hardly contributes to any communally sensual experience, essence, or clarity as in case of Zumthor’s design.81 Although the creation of egg Fig. 8. Valser quartzite in Therme Vals interior, Fernando Guerra © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

79

Coleman, Materials and Meaning in Architecture, pp. 99-102.

80

Hauser and Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, p. 23.

81

Ibid. p.24.

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cups, bottle coolers, storage vessels, etc. is not of Zumthor’s doing, the photographs of Therme Vals accompany most of the stone advertisements brochures successively upselling the material and maximizing income from the enterprise. Accidently or not, the building contributes to the neoliberal systems of inequality accelerating the stone commercialization and making it a fetish, object of a commercial whim. From this perspective, the Baths do not diffuse the chaos of meaningless messages but themselves become employed by the capitalist modes of exchange.

Looking at the bath’s design again, from the overall aspects: context, views, volumes, circulation, treatment of topography, use of materials, to the details: lightning, connections, finishes, sounds, all elements of the building are masterly compiled into a unique atmosphere. The experience is so faithful to its references that journey through different bathing areas can sporadically cause anxiety evoking claustrophobic qualities of a cave system. 82 According to Coleman, the achievement of such an irresistible and real illusion requires the greatest precision and total control over the creation, from the modes of design and studio culture to the construction process itself.83 All aspects influencing the potential experience had to be perfectly balanced so that the entire vision can never be questioned and risk jeopardizing the Baths impression of ‘belonging’. Zumthor’s total control over the complex set of aspects influencing the project picture his authorship as a genius and inevitably fundamental for the achievement of the building success.84 Although acknowledgement of the architect authorship does not seem negative per se, the created image of Zumthor as ‘the atmospheric’ genius creates a threat of himself becoming a branding product for neoliberal income maximization. What one may suggest is that the essence which is supposed to be in the centre of Zumthor work is substituted by the architect himself. The Baths, being a masterpiece of a genius, implicate advertisements slogans which can contribute to its luxurious status and highlight its capitalist potential. The critique does not concern Zumthor’s success but the approach of resistance through the cultivation of ‘essences’ which is naïve and easily colonized by the matters it is supposed to tackle.

For example, the perfectionism required to legitimize the construction of ‘authentic’ experience of belonging can be translated as a justification of the experience high capitalist value.

Zumthor’s resistance, which seems to be used against his own philosophy, led to the architect’s philosophical self-destruction (his announcement of the Baths' death) presenting the effort of Therme Vals creation as pointless what dramatically reflects the Sisyphean absurd. This issue draws back towards the primary question of this paper, namely, is architectural resistance to the neoliberal system at all possible?

82

Coleman, Materials and Meaning in Architecture, pp. 96-98.

83

Ibid.

84

Ibid.

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PEAK & FALL SISYPHUS AND VALS

DECEPTION AND NAIVETY The moment of the Stone's Fall is a breakthrough, questioning the entire effort of the Way Up. Examining Therme Vals, a reflection of the Fall took place in 2012 when the Vals community, which owned the building, voted to sell it to a private investor. Zumthor claimed that the public ownership conditioned building success as a ‘social project’ which he with his wife nurtured and maintained for twenty years.85 He concluded that 'it now belongs to a financial figure who bought all of it and destroyed it […] this social project is dead'.86 The eventual commercialization of the building proves that either Zumthor’s philosophy was too passive, allowing the fetishization, or the philosophy execution was misaddressed and self-destructive. Regardless, is resistance to neoliberal commercialization at all possible? Once history of the ‘social project’ is analyzed, the possibility for opposition towards the system in Vals appears successfully disabled by the unconscious neoliberal machine of the market.

From an economic point of view, Vals is a mediocre Swiss village, it is ‘off the mountain tourist trail and has nothing noteworthy at first sight’.87 It is seductive, ‘but there are many prettier in Switzerland’.88 Setting mining of Valser quartzite aside, the valley does not present any potential for the capital that could sufficiently secure its existence within the neoliberal competition. However, Vals’s ‘essence’ and atmosphere appear the greatest bargaining chip to guarantee the village place on the global list of tourist destinations establishing its relevance in the market. Consequently, instead of remaining inclusive, the community wealth is displayed and exchanged for the capital becoming a rationale for the capitalist architectural developments what seems to encapsulate the purpose of Therme Vals. Tracing the history of Vals touristic infrastructure back to its beginning, it was first developed in the twentieth century and focused on the spa complex with a hot spring.89 In the 1960s the complex underwent a revival and was redeveloped by collective of German investors, yet after twenty years the venture went bankrupt.90 At this point, there were around two hundred tourist-aimed workplaces in the village, therefore the community, to secure its economy and existence, started successfully buying off and regenerating the touristic complex.

Part of this process was restoration of the hot spring for which competition was won by Peter Zumthor. The purpose of the building was described as replacement of the old thermal Baths and attraction of new guests for both the existing hotel and the village.91 Zumthor claimed that Therme Vals was “purely a project of the community, as an important contribution to the tourist infrastructure”, the ‘social project’ appears as architectural cultivation of the village identity 85 Zumthor quoted in Jessica Mairs, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerlanddestroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

86

Ibid.

87 No Author, “Summary: Visionary Policies Help Reverse Decline of Mountain Regions In Switzerland”, Therme Vals - Press Information, Press-pack, Vals (2003), p. 4 of 15.

88

Ibid.

89 Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor - The Thermal Bath At Vals, (London, Architectural Association,1996) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1BdfKZyTLw&ab_ channel=AASchoolofArchitecture> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

90

Ibid.

91

Hauser and Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, p. 18.

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purposed to trigger economic benefits (exchange identity for the capital).

Zumthor also explained the Baths as the village inclusive ‘place of relaxation’ and ‘encounter between the human body and the water’. This characterisation appears to fit the theory of clarity and chaos, simplicity of things which ‘are what they are’, because ‘place of relaxation’ is the fundamental function of the building. However, the envisioned economic contribution, the genesis of the building commissioned by the community, seems to contradict the intentions of Zumthor’s resistance through clarity. According to Zumthor, the Baths “were never envisioned as a marketing product that would attract attention through name recognition or by being an extravagant landmark”.92 Yet, the community by agreeing to exchange its inclusive masterpiece for the worth of six million pounds (allegedly Zumthor made a similar offer but was refused93) proved that it was a marketing product or at least it was treated as such when exchanged.

Here is the problematic result of Zumthor’s work that questions his integrity. The architect’s philosophy clearly puts him against the contemporary fetishization of architecture which, as he claims, transforms buildings into empty vessels of meaninglessness.94 Yet, his work leads to just that by causing the fetishization, as in case of ‘authentic’ Valser quartzite transformed into egg cups, etc., or the communal sensory experience of bathing becoming a luxurious privilege in a private hotel. Moreover, Zumthor confessed to seeing Vals “through the eyes of the advertisers who launched a huge campaign for sparkling water from Vals with a double page spread in the newspapers, showing a primordial landscape of water […] and the heading ‘The Vals Valley 80 Million Years Ago.’”95 Therefore, Zumthor could have predicted the capitalist potential of the authentic and primordial ‘essences’. Failures of the approach to Therme Vals design namely, naivety towards problems of authenticity and fetishization presents the architect as a Sisyphean hero who still has not realized the paradox of his struggle and pointlessness of ‘putting up a resistance’ within the neoliberal world. The existential failure of the Baths appears the breakthrough, the Fall, when it is acknowledged that the work instead of being the promised beacon of order turned out to be a mere capitalist product. Yet, the neoliberal intrusion must be acknowledged not to blame the community for forfeiting its 'essence' and the Baths' failure. It is the neoliberal ideology that, through the market, imposes competition and pictures the exchange of the valley identity as emancipatory act supporting the community economic situation.

The Myth of Sisyphus provides a relevant philosophical approach that allows to reconcile with capitalist domination, and yet allows to revive the discipline meaningfulness through its ethical ambitions shared by Zumthor. It substantiates the illogical effort of looking for the questioned resistance for the sake of believing in the better, more utopian system, scorning Neoliberalism unworthy architects’ submission and acceptance of the society abuse. Acknowledgement of

92

Ibid. p. 18, 168.

93 Jessica Mairs, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerland-destroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

94

Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, p. 17

95

Hauser and Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, p. 20.

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the Sisyphean allegory does not automatically discredit Zumthor’s philosophy of clarity within chaos because of its conviction that spatial resistance is achievable.

It rather invites to critical reflection over the contemporary state of the discipline, society, relevance of the essences and definition of ‘belonging’. Zumthor’s work lacks the act of facing the reality what presents the Sisyphean journey as beneficial, perhaps necessary, in acknowledgement of the capitalist domination to still motivate to further resistance. This philosophical ‘breakthrough’ could have made Therme Vals a different building but most importantly could have prevented Zumthor’s crisis, highlighted by the architect own announcement of his life’s work 'death'. But how can the Sisyphean approach influence spatial decisions and become materialized?

ABSURD IRONY Commercialization of identity of Vals is a dramatic result of the neoliberal enforcement of competition. It may be seen as a process of transformation from the architectural ‘work’ into a ‘product’ turning the valley into a ‘new ride in the global amusement park’, an element of the alienating capital of Ego. This is well reflected in other architectural developments of the village touristic complex including works of Kengo Kuma, Morphosis and Tado Ando. Globally famous architects are regularly invited to add their unique masterpieces which serve as branding products contributing to Vals’s touristic attractivity.96 Transformation of Vals into a touristic mecca of architecture's fetishized ‘crème de la crème’, to maximize income and nurture the village relevancy in the economic competition, shows that the village community has been abused. The place identity is used as a mere marketing rationale picturing the communal feeling of belonging, which is the fundamental purpose of identity, as meaningless. However, one can anticipate something ironically cheering about this abuse of the place. When the identity was translated as a marketing argument, it stopped being authentic and became a modified deception. From this point of view, the market cannot own identity but must 'kill it' first what indicates a disability of the system, a potential object of Sisyphean disdain.

According to Nathaniel Coleman, Zumthor’s ambition of perfectionism in creation of the Bath’s atmosphere is ‘too smooth […] in conception’ and execution. Coleman continues saying that ‘perfection – true perfection – is beyond human achievement’.97 Paradoxically, the conviction that the perfectly engineered atmosphere will legitimize its authenticity proves that a planned creation of authenticity is too ‘beyond achievement’. Case in point, the poetization of Valser quartzite which aimed to legitimize the atmosphere’s authenticity but, when compiled into a collage of stone sections, smoothed the roughness ‘of the local roofing slates’.98 The atmosphere’s seductiveness, implying that authenticity is achieved through the setting seeming perfection, diffuses

96 Jessica Mairs, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerland-destroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021].

97

Coleman, Materials and Meaning in Architecture, p. 104.

98

Ibid.

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‘the natural and animalistic wildness’ of the valley.99 Therefore, the ambition to achieve authenticity makes the building its illusion at best what contradicts Zumthor’s ambitions and presents pursue of perfection as absurd. The absurd is detectable for example by the disconnection between tactile experiences of stone in the village and the Baths. Yet, smoothness revelling the paradox of pursuing authenticity presents potential to become an object of irony scorning the system.

The market enforces the community to employ the identity as a product what makes it a meaningless economic rationale to build Therme Vals. The more ‘authentic’ the Baths are, the more ‘valuable’ its marketing capability. Yet, authenticity is unachievable, therefore the identity reproduced in the Baths can only be an illusion. Here is the cheering aspect of market domination.

Planned cultivation of identity is doubtful itself but when it is motivated by the market it is also meaningless because the market has already 'killed' it. Therefore, the cultivation is fundamentally absurd, yet it still must be continued as if it was meaningfull. Otherwise, it will become kitsch or fail to meet the fixed objective of exchanging the 'identity', decreasing its captalist value required for the building to satisfy relevance of the project's economic rantionals and be built. The entire enterprise of ‘identity cultivation’ is illusory therfore belief in 'essences' or any degree of thier authenticity is out of place.

Yet, this can be celebrated as a manifestation of the market incapability to own the identity. For example, a conscious denial of the building authenticity would be an ironical act revelling the enterprise absurd, scorning the system as both incapable to produce authenticity and to stop the irony. Nevertheless, expression of the irony appears problematic. It has to be understandable for the building users, but must be gentle enough not to be detected as kitsch again jeopardizing the building existence. The smoothness, a by-effect of Zumthor’s perfectionism, is a possible medium of the ironical code. It contradicts the market-enforced ambition of identity cultivation but augments the atmosphere seduction and enables its fetishization as in case of Valser quartzite. Therefore, it is potentially undetectable for the market and yet reveals its failure. Then, the market would be resisted because the message is ideological and yet cannot be disabled because of its economic contribution.

It is unclear how smoothness would be materialized when consciously used by Zumthor as a tool of scorn. The ironical effort is absurd because the village identity is spoiled regardless. Yet, it is still meaningfull because it is used to scorn the system. The ironical contradiction appears as a relevant tool of resistance when it seems otherwise impossible. Regardless, Zumthor’s philosophy, Therme Vals execution and his recognition of building ‘death’ prove that smoothness was not intentional and is rather a reason to critique the architect’s conception as misaddressed. However, the ‘death’ of Zumthor’s social project and Fall of his philosophy appear to be a possible beginning of Sisyphean architecture which is still to be uncoded, tested and defined to clarify issues like modes of its expression. For now, it seems to be an architecture of absurd, economically dominated by the market rationales yet ideologically and ethically triumphant.

99

Ibid.

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WAY DOWN CONCLUSION

The Myth of Sisyphus appears as a coherent inspiration to understanding of architecture’s existential and ethical crisis caused by Neoliberalism. The ideology's self-legitimizing apparatus forces rule of the market, conventions of the capital and the economic competition enslaving the society in the illusionary trap of fake liberty. The system enforcement of the status quo reveals its dystopian dimension making alternatives unachievable what pictures Neoliberalism as a Sisyphean Mountain which presents existence in the forced and deceptive system as meaningless. This applies to architecture which ideological and ethical purposes are entrapped by the system apparatus. As a result, space becomes an empty vessel of economic resources.

Although many architects proclaimed projects of resistance, the neoliberal system successfully rejects the revolutionary character of the projects or turns them into fetishized products. Case in point, Therme Vals’s commercialization despite the building ambitions of resistance. One may suggest that the projects’ failures are a result of either incomplete philosophies or misaddressed executions as in case of Zumthor’s ‘Jargon of Authenticity’ and lack of recognition of architectural fetishization. However, architectural resistance appears at all impossible because the economic conventions are fundamental to the present social system. Therefore, the philosophies behind the resistance reflect Sisyphean Stones because their delivery is unachievable. Consequently, the effort appears meaningless what legitimizes acceptance of architecture’s ideological and ethical death.

Ideological suicide seems the only escape from the entrapment what is a symbolical act of abandoning the Stone and accepting the impossibility of reaching the peak. However, submission to Neoliberalism, system which alienates the society spreading economic inequality, is an empty confirmation of architecture meaninglessness. Although the architectural invention is entrapped within the market and can never escape, Sisyphus’s resistance presents a motivation to continue the pointless effort and revive the myth of architecture as a discipline ‘leading’ the society.

The mythological hero’s torture is pointless because it is endless, yet the consciousness of this absurd makes his commitment to continue the illogical effort dramatic and meaningful. He is ready to continue the struggle only to deny and scorn the mountain as unworthy of his submission. An architect also appears as an absurd hero because there is no hope to overcome the commercialization and change the neoliberal system. Yet, a sense of compassion to society’s misery of the neoliberal enslavement and an architect’s desire for his work to be more than just an empty economic vessel legitimize the resistance as meaningful.

Analysis of Therme Vals and symbolic Fall of Zumthor’s philosophy indicates potential to achieve the system disdain in spatial irony. Claims of seemingly achieved perfection, authenticity or ‘socially positivity of space’, often used by the market as advertisement slogans as in case of Therme Vals, are fundamentally absurd. Definitions of perfection and authenticity fundamentally deny their achievability, ‘social positivity’ is also impossible within the present state of matter due to the necessity to contribute to the market circuits which cause inequality. Therefore, the empty slogans and claims appear as potential mediums WAY DOWN

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of scorn of the system through the exposure of its disability to truly achieve what it claims to do. But most importantly this effort is a resistance which cannot be stopped by the market as in case of smoothness in Therme Vals. Regardless, spatial articulation of the Sisyphean allegory appears vague, undefined and requires further research and experimentation outside of this paper scope. Yet, the presented potential for resistance is undeniable.

Is the Sisyphean torture a negative process? In the case of architecture, an architect committing to the illogical effort appears as a martyr to the society and the discipline presenting his existence as meaningful and profound but difficult and deplorable. Yet, “one must”, says Camus, “imagine Sisyphus happy” because he has accepted the absurdity of existence and understood that there is no better life than one which “negates the gods and raises rocks”.100 Once an architect anticipates the absurd, he can come back to his stone, not with grief but joy.

'The rock is still rolling.'

The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

100 36

Camus, p. 24.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor W. Negative Dialectics (1966) trans. Ashton, E.B, (Routledge, 1973) Adorno, Theodor W, The Jargon Of Authenticity (1964) trans. Tarnowski, Knut, and Will, Fredric, (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973) Augé, Marc, Non-Places (1995) trans. Howe, John, (London: Verso, 2008) Camus, Albert, The Myth Of Sisyphus (1942) trans. O'Brien, Justin, (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) <https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf > [Accessed 26 January 2021] Coleman, Nathaniel, Lefebvre For Architects (Milton, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015) Coleman, Nathaniel, Materials And Meaning In Architecture. Essays On The Bodily Experience Of Buildings (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020) Coleman, Nathaniel, Utopias And Architecture (Milton, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005) Fisher, Mark, Capitalist Realism (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2009) Fisher, Ole W., ‘From Liquid Space To Solid Bodies’, in Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, eds. Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner (Berlin: Jovis, 2013) Foucault, Michel, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France (1978-79) trans. Michel Senellart (Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Harvey, David, Spaces Of Hope (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000) Hayek, Friedrich A., Law, Legislation and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2006) Hayek, Friedrich A., The Road to Serfdom (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2001) Hauser, Sigrid, and Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals (Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2011) Jameson, Fredric, Architecture and the Critique of Ideology in Jameson, Fredric, The Ideologies Of Theory , Essays 1971-1986, Volume 2 The Syntax Of History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988) Koolhaas, Rem, ‘Whatever Happened to Urbanism’, in S,M,L,XL, OMA, Rem Koolhaas and Bruc Mau (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), pp. 969, 971 Koolhaas, Rem, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p. 294 Lefebvre, Henri, The Production Of Space (1974) trans. Nicholson-Smith, Donald, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991) Lefebvre, Henri, Rhythmanalysis (1992) trans. Moore, Gerald, and Elden, Stuart, (London and New York: Continuum, 2004) Mairs, Jessica, ‘Therme Vals Spa Has Been Destroyed Says Peter Zumthor’, Dezeen, 11 May 2017 <https:// www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/peter-zumthor-vals-therme-spa-switzerland-destroyed-news/> [Accessed 26 January 2021] Mirowski, Philip, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, (London: Verso, 2013) 38

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Spencer, Douglas, The Architecture Of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became Instrument Of Control And Compliance (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016) No Author, "Summary: Visionary Policies Help Reverse Decline Of Mountain Regions In Switzerland", Therme Vals - Press Information, Press-pack, Vals (2003), p. 4 of 15 Rumpfhuber, Andreas, ‘Framing The Possible’, in Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, eds. Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner (Berlin: Jovis, 2013) Tafuri, Manfredo, , Architecture And Utopia: Design And Capitalist Development (1973) trans. La Penta, Barbara Luigia, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976) Zumthor, Peter, Atmospheres (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006) Zumthor, Peter, Thinking Architecture trans. Oberli-Turner, Maureen, and Schelbert, Catherine (Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1999) Zumthor, Peter, Peter Zumthor - The Thermal Bath At Vals, (London, Architectural Association,1996) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1BdfKZyTLw&ab_channel=AASchoolofArchitecture> [Accessed 26 January 2021]

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Sisyphus, Tiziano Vecelli, 1549, painting in public domain Source: Wikimedia Commons <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Punishment_sisyph.jpg> [Accessed 26 January 2021] Figure 2. Layout of a post-Fordist workspace, Buch und Ton, Bertelsmann, Gutersloh, 1959-61, Source: Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner, Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), p.36 Figure 3. Burolandshaft - office landscape, Buch und Ton, Bertelsmann, Gutersloh, 1959-61, reconstruction

by Andreas Rumpfhuber Source: Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner, Is There (Anti- )Neoliberal Architecture?, (Berlin: Jovis, 2013), p.35 © Archive Gebruder Schnelle/ Andreas Rumpfhuber Figure 4. The City of the Captive Globe, Madelon Vriesendorp, 1972 Source: Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995), p. 142.

Figure 5. Passage to Vals, No Author Source: Ausflugsziele <https://www.ausflugsziele-schweiz.ch/sommer/vals-das-bergdorf-fur-alle-die-dasbesondere-suchen/> [Accessed 26 January 2021] Figure 6. Therme Vals bathing ‘atmosphere’, Fernando Guerra Source: ArchDaily < https://www.archdaily.com/798360/peter-zumthors-therme-vals-through-the-lens-offernando-guerra > [Accessed 26 January 2021] © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG Figure 7. Vals roofing slates, No Author Source: Sigrid Hauser and Peter Zumthor, Peter Zumthor Therme Vals (Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 2011), p. 18.

Figure 8. Valser quartzite in Therme Vals interior, Fernando Guerra Source: ArchDaily < https://www.archdaily.com/798360/peter-zumthors-therme-vals-through-the-lens-offernando-guerra > [Accessed 26 January 2021] © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG LIST OF FIGURES

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