Paradox not Parody

Paradox not Parody

Paradox not Parody

Can self-contradiction inherent in architecture be used positively in order to avoid degeneration into parody?

Nicholas Zembashi History & Theory Studies Third Year Seminar Tutor: Nerma Cridge

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God is dead, get over it; now ...

It’s Saturday December 6th 2014. At the Architectural Association, in a series of talks organized by the Architectural Exchange, entitled ‘How Architecture is Political?’

Pier Vittorio Aureli, begins his response with a paradox.

“I will answer this question in two opposing ways. I believe that architecture cannot be political .... I also believe that architecture is always political” With this, a fascinating point is made, attributing an inherently self-contradictory nature to architecture; to one extreme, absolutely political, and to the other, entirely a-political. A political architecture is innately paradoxical, as a lot of the discussions during this sereis of talks reveal.

Before Aureli’s, or any of the other speakers’ deliberations are better understood, the question of paradox in architecture is to be addressed. Paradox must be contextualised within a much wider contemporary, post-political crisis, where it can positively and negatively impact architecture’s capacity to represent.

To begin with, ...

“A symbol of man’s dedication to world peace ... a representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation his ability to find greatness.”

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“…what happens when the normative is disrupted … And what if this disruption reveals the normative as a comforting illusion, nothing more than a ritual of conventions repeated mantra-like in order to shield people from a horrible truth: that life is without universal or common meaning? … And what would there be, then, of architecture to ‘express’?” 1 Prevailing systems of values that had governed architecture fell apart when humanity lashed out at its normative power structures.

With the annihilation of meaning, hierarchic systems were toppled to a rubble of nothingness. Coming to direct confrontation with all that was established, forms a significant departure point for Lebbeus Woods in many of his arguments.2 Having rendered the survival of hierarchies futile, Woods sees contemporary architecture as an out-dated carcass, the shadow of a system, the illusion of an order that has long since died out. Yet, architecture latches onto whatever it can helplessly; a last fight to anchor itself against the rise of heterarchy and of the self. 3 This crisis of architectural expression goes hand-in-hand with a wider ideological struggle, whereby humanity has cast itself into a bottomless void of meaning for over a hundred years now. By striking a fatal blow against the foundations of pre-conceived absolutes, a history-defying avalanche was set in motion. Ever since Nietzsche and the entirety of late 19th century nihilist philosophy saw ‘God’ dying amidst the advent of science and technology, it is no longer surprising that “the highest values devalue themselves.” 4 Perhaps this stands for an ironic foretelling of the fall of the ‘hero’ architect, as the power of a governing singularity is diminishing in an increasingly pluralistic world. Be that as it may, hasn’t architecture retained the conservative ‘hero’ image throughout the last century, arguably adhering to it through the current creation of starchitects?

In any case, nihilistic concepts are established. Destroying meaning is, in other words, highly overrated and in itself no longer forms a radical proposition. Woods identifies this as well, which is why he poses the question of what would there be for architecture to express in the face individuation, of absolute ambiguity and the heterarchical re-shaping of value systems. Perhaps it is not a question of what but of how to express. Post-modernism retaliated against the modernist spirit via paradox.

‘A war on totality’, explains Charles Jencks, 5 is what French philosophers like Jean-François Lyotard, defined the Post-Modernist movement in 1979. “Jaques Derrida defined his particular meaning of différance ... It meant not only to differ but, as the French pun insisted, ‘to defer’ the meaning of anything, endlessly, because it is never total or finished.” 6 What seems to emerge from Jencks’ studies on post-modernism is in agreement with Woods: architecture had gained the capacity to be outwardly contradictory and articulated, as the Derrida suggested, through perpetual defiance. “Such oppositional categories as subjectivity versus objectivity; historical time versus timelessness; individual versus collective; precept versus concept; text versus thing; abstraction versus referential form.” 7 accentuate the fact that architecture is inherently contradictory. 8 Versus seems to be the key. What, essentially, is a state of Paradox, could possibly be the hallmark of architectural expression.

Now beware of being fooled into a false sense of reassurance. It is yet another illusion of security, for the explosive post-modern image, that came as the great reaction to modernism, has also faded away. The critical issue lies with the current condition, wherein architecture faces a precipice of change; it stares ahead into the ever-present abyss whilst the fleeting grounds of post-modernism have crumbled away beneath it. Over a decade into the twenty first-century the age of information has ushered in a new paradox.

‘Reality’ itself has been transfigured into a flow of simulacra. The only reference point for any architect has become a “singling self-awareness about his relative impotence to author change.” 9 This seemingly bleak outlook is counter-argued by Emmanuel Petit. He revivifies Jencks’ and Wood’s paradox in a still potent space of architectural irony. 10 Petit is swift to critically contextualise the time-frame of our current crisis by asking whether “...the ironic era of architecture started on 15 July 1972 at 3:32 P.M. and ended on 11 September 2001 at 8:46 A.M.?” 10 Is self-paradox still a viable and secure means to architectural expression?

1 Woods, L., Radical Reconstruction, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997), p. 23 2

In the introduction to Radical Reconstruction, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997) and throughout Architecture and War, (Pamphlet Architecture, Issue 15, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1993 ) 3 As the word itself suggests the -archy (αρχή), or power, exercising domination over humanity no longer stems from a sacred, source (from something -hiero - ιερό) but from the collective and fragmented. The self has emerged through technology’s communication network power structures. The hetero, the different/ other, has become the archy. In Lebbeus’ words “…there is no longer ‘someone else’ - a leader - to represent them, to make decisions and accept responsibility for the results. Rather, it is based on the integrity of individuals…”, Radical Reconstruction, p.29.

4 Nietzsche, F., Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) 5 Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011), p.53 6 Ibid. , p.53 7 Petit, E., Irony or, the Self-critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013), p.22 8

For instance, Jencks aptly mentions Venturi, whose Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, “coined and borrowed from literature so many tropes ‘ambiguity’, ‘contradictory levels’, ‘contradiction juxtaposed’, ‘the obligation towards the difficult whole’ - it became the first textbook of Post-Modernism” and finds that despite all the points of disagreement amongst Post-Modernists at the time, the fact that the world was complex and composed of differences was something that they all agreed upon - heterarchy is a fact. The Story of Post-Modernism, p.33 9 Petit, E., Irony or, the Self-critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013) p.16 10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p.6

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The question alludes to the tragic irony of modernist Minoru Yamasaki’s visionary and career-defining projects, the Pruitt-Igoe Estate in St. Louis and the World Trade Centre Towers of Manhattan. The former, was demolished after its vision to revitalise the local community failed, revealing arhitetcure’s incapability in addressing mass complex social issues. Pruitt-Igoe is seen by Charles Jencks as the defying architectural moment of the death of modernism and birth of post-modernism.12 The term postmodernism seems like a paranoiac joke, a paradox, as it implies an impossibility of modernism’s obsolescence by being ‘postpresent’.

The latter case of the Twin Towers, on the other hand, could not have been a more devastating realization of what Rem Koolhaas had referred to Manhattan in Delirious New York, as “an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen”13 and tragically did.

Henceforth, the attack on the towers, as Petit demonstrates, could have signalled the end of post-modernism. Events like this one do not necessarily ‘kill’, as death is potentially emancipating. ‘Death’ and ‘beginning’, as mentioned by both Petit and Jencks, are paradoxes in themselves. They act as mere constructs, making much more lucid, transitional periods seem fixed. Architectural traits evolve, rather than die. If anything, attributes of post-modernism might have intensified after 9/11.

Whether modernism or post-modernism had precise expiry dates should not be important. Such a notion implies a rigidity that only historians impose when post-rationalising the past. What may be pivotal are the specific architectural attributes cultivated over such epochs and transcending them. An attribute superseding modernism was the irony that would define post-modernists.

Notwithstanding their visionary architectural schemes, modernists were arguably paradoxical in many more ways than they would have made apparent, making them unintentionally paradoxical.14 By striving to find purity and a universal meaning in abstracted forms, modernists were engaging in a paradox to which they were either oblivious or refrained from making evident. “One of the most critical epistemological aspirations of modernity has been to create ‘transparency’ with the intention to see ‘through’ or ‘behind’ the phenomenal world into a ‘deeper’, ‘cleaner’, and ‘truer’ reality... [Modernists] swore to remove the veil, which covered ‘truth’, and expose essential and rational structure behind all phenomena.” 15 This quest for purity was pushing the polarities of their own underlying contradictions in ever more distant directions resulting in how Jencks refers to Mies’ late modernist cooperate architecture as one of “steel and glass to create elegant monuments to nothingness - an interesting paradox - how can nothing be potent?” 16 Paradox in architecture can then be seen as a recurring trope that pre-dated post-modernist irony as, a more-often-than-not, unintended undercurrent to the grandeur of modernist visions.

Furthermore, Jencks distinguished between positive and negative irony, as its mature versus cynical use. 17 The unintentional paradoxes imply a negative undertone of tragic irony, as in Yamasaki’s case. Although they include in their purview hostile comments, by allowing contradictory propositions to be asserted simultaneously, they still succeed in urging a balance between opposite views. Nonetheless, if paradox is still able to manifest itself in architecture as a from of positive irony shouldn’t it, then by definition, be intentional?

In an age when paradox became intentional, post-modernists ‘resurrected’ polychromy, ornament, metaphor, reference, convention and sensuous materials in architecture. By playing them against each other they produced deliberate, critical paradox. It was, just as the Canadian Journalist David Beers described, an “...irony that pays attention to contradictions and embraces paradoxes.” 18 The concept of irony and intentional paradox isn’t, however, unique to post-modern thinking and fixed to history’s division into ‘movements’.

Hence, we have to question whether positively ironic architecture is possible? “Of course”, claims architectural theorist Ignasi de Solà-Morales. In fact, he suggests that a long tradition of irony in architecture is more than relevant at times of social criticism and disillusionment. Solà-Morales mentions “False ghettoes and baroque rockery, the amiable monsters of the garden of Bormazo, the Versailles follies” and perhaps more importantly, “Adolf Loos’ skyscraper for the Chicago Tribune in the form of a Doric Column.”19 as just a few of testimonies to a self-aware self-contradiction not exclusive to the later half of the 20th century.

Essentially, architecture had been through flourishing moments of conscious antimony as a means of becoming fundamentally political and critical, both to itself and to its historical context. That being so, intentional paradox has been an intrinsic component of some architectural expression and representation of ideas.

It can be said that in architecture “the pursuit of an idea assumes its contradiction” 20 and who more befitting of such selfcontradiction, just as Solà-Morales exemplifies, than Adolf Loos himself.

12 Jenks, C., The New Paradigm in Architecture, (Yale University Press, London, New Haven, 2002), p.9 13 Koolhaas, R., Delirious New York: A Retro-active Manifesto for Manhattan, (Monacelli Press, New York, 1997) 14

Such unintentional paradoxes are characteristic many architectural theorists and artists of the first half of the 20th century, more specifically, Van Doesberg, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe or indeed masters of abstraction including Mondrian. They fell for it. It was an obsessive scouring of established systems with an utterly paradoxical objective; to find pure universal meaning in absolute ambiguity. Mondrian maintained that by diluting all conventional means of representation into pure abstraction art and architecture would somehow discover “a beauty that is more clear and direct”, essentially what he and De Stijl envisioned as a Neo-Plastic Architecture.

15 Petit, E., Irony or, the Self-critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013) p.213 16 Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011), p.30 17 Ibid., p.79 18

Beers, D., September 25, 2001, ‘Irony Is Dead! Long Live Irony!’ [online] Available: http://www.salon.com/2001/09/25/irony_lives/ [Accessed November 3, 2014]

19

Ignasi de Solà-Morales, “Between Enigma and Irony: The Recent Architecture of Arata Isozaki”, Arata Isozaki Works 30: Architectural Models, Prints, Drawings, (Rikuyu-sha, Tokyo, 1992), p. 294-295 20 Rowe, C., “Architecture of Utopia”, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1978)

“The beauty is how this strange trade works, ...�

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“... and the truth of it is, we are fabulous ... suggesting what is underneath, suggesting�

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Here is a figure who, to one extreme inspires a flaring passion with his radical and heated arguments and yet, simultaneously, arouses an equal and directly opposite reaction to his design work. “There are many sides to Loos, many paradoxes; in photographs he rarely looks the same way twice... Theorists ponder the psychology, but commercial architects have found much inspiration in his luxurious use of materials, and non-commercial ones wonder at his ingenious use of space, and in both cases Loos can become far more practically useful than Le Corbusier or Mies.” 21 While seemingly disgusted by ornament and condemning everything up until the notion of tattooing, he proposes a Doric column as the form of the Chicago Tribune building, professing the fact that architecture can only be grave or memorial. A joke, or his own intelligent way of making a provocative statement? Loos seems to have been extremely serious when it came down to his personal convictions especially regarding architecture. On that account, the Tribune project may be misunderstood as a joke but in all probability seems deliberately critical. Moreover, his paradoxical approaches remained stern, as exemplified by his take on ‘taste’, which was no less assertive. By writing extensively on the issue of dress he goes as far to condemn pre-tied ties as inauthentic and unworthy of a tasteful man. 22 Such controversies, surrounding his work and personality alike, are indisputably epitomised within his proposal for the Josephine Baker House.

A contradictory undertaking in itself, the 1927 proposal mysteriously comes into being out of unfounded correspondences between client and architect, since Baker couldn’t even recall meeting Loos. 23 He seems, though, to be head-over-heels Baker’s paradoxical persona; outside, the fabulous diva at the forefront of the social elite juxtaposed with her transformation on the stage, into the savage and exotic. These attributes, fused with his own personal capacity to induce paradox guided the design of the house. In it he obsessed over material purity, authenticity in cladding, regarding art as having “... nothing to do with counterfeiting. Her paths are full of thorns, but they are pure.” 24 And yet he designed spaces which, programmatically, embraced superficiality, staginess and dramatic effect. A grand staircase and highly atmospheric entrance hall aimed at framing and amplifying Baker’s figure as she would have ushered guests into her lair, while an indoor pool, surrounded by windows, made the inside/outside relationship a voyeuristic game of peeping-tom. Such aspects of the project continue to provoke 25 and reassert the fact that paradox in architecture is able to overstep critical theory and obtain a physical, spatial potential.

Above all, Loos represents an individual totality composed of equally valid polarities; the personification of self-paradox in architecture, decades before post-modernism. In him, paradox is no arbitrary or accidental outcome, but an innate trait of his personality, a tour de force throughout his life and work, emerging both intentionally and accidentally. Loos, is the ideal substantiation of the argument that “Instead of searching to over-come such contradictions … architects … [should] choose to draw attention to them and to polemicize their discord with the idea of a synthetic and overreaching Zeitgeist.” 26 As much as positive paradox may poses evident potential in architecture, what of self-contradiction in a post 9/11, post- post-modernist condition?

Paradox becomes a precarious business as negative irony can pose its own risks. “The double-coding which asserts and critiques a message at the same time can be used to lie. Duplicity and kitsch can attend negative irony.” 27 The remnants of post-modernism have plagued the beginning of the new millennium with an architecture of parody.

The humorously exaggerated imitation of post-modernist irony finds itself in the melting pot of a new identity crisis whereby starchitect branding has ground architecture’s progress to a halt. Even the Wikipedia entry of starchitecture is a joke. 28 The assessment of buildings is based on a cringe-worthy ‘wow factor’, while starchitects are part of lists by order of reputation and prestige, measured using a mixture of Pritzker-Prize and pop-culture celebrity status. Don’t call me a starchitect’, pleaded Frank Ghery. 29 As much as architects themselves refuse to embrace the label of starchitect, their heavily established ‘brands’ re-enforce the trend.

This current crisis in architecture still owes its existence to the void of meaning which humanity had suddenly been reminded of after the fall of the World Trade Centre. Instead of facing it once and for all, architecture, on the level of some dominant firms at least, fell back into precisely what Woods had warned against - systems of empty authority. The fear of ‘what will succeed post-modernism?’ and incessant craving for a successor has become a blinding reality again. This menacing -ism syndrome was addressed with all seriousness. The profession was quick to respond and in 2008 architecture was given an ‘answer’ a new ‘style’.

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Paul Davies, October 8, 2013, Adolf Loos, The Architetcural Review, [online] Available at: http://www.architectural-review.com/reviews/reputations/adolfloos/8653892.article [Accessed October 10, 2014] 22

Loos, A., September 25, 1898, “Underclothes”, Neu Freie Presse

23

Shapira, E., ‘Designing a Celebrity: Adolf Loos’s House for Josephine Baker’, Studies in Decorative Arts, Vol. 11, No.2, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Spring - Summer 2004), p. 3 24 Loos, A., September 4, 1898, “The Principle of Cladding & Underclothes”, Neu Freie Presse 25 in texts such as Beatriz Colomina’s Privacy and Publicity Modern Architecture As Mass Media, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996) 26 Petit, E., Irony or, the Self-critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013) p.22 27 Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011), p.79 28 Starchitect definition, Wikipedia, [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starchitect [Accessed November 22, 2014] 29

Holly Williams, December 22, 2009, Frank Gehry: ‘Don’t call me a starchitect’, the Independent, [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/architecture/frank-gehry-dont-call-me-a-starchitect-1842870.html [Accessed November 12, 2014]

We g a arch ve the a itetc ural nswer to conti nuu m the Zaha & Pa trik

XXX

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Patrik Schumacher declares a new style. “We call this style Parametricism. Parametricism is the great new style after modernism.

Post-modernism and De-constructivism have been transitional episodes that ushered in this new, long wave of research and innovation.” 30 The issue? Schumacher is not joking. He is dead-pan serious. To merely be declaring a ‘style’ is so fundamentally irrelevant it becomes a comical-tragic trap for architects who want to seem exceedingly progressive and yet dwell in concepts of the past. 31 ‘Styles’ - in the form of tastes, trends and modes of fashion - have become subject to the instantaneous nature of the internet and technology. Contemporary mass media create and destroy meaning with blitz ferocity. Architecture faces a “…modern ‘abstract man’ and a modern culture that is ‘doomed to exhaust all possibilities and to nourish itself wretchedly on all other cultures’.” 32 These current parodies are affirmations of post-modernity’s prevailing ‘dark-side’.

Condemning Parametricism entirely is a far-reaching endeavour, problematic or not in its ambition to form a ‘style’. That aside, paradox and parody may fundamentally reveal a wider condition in critical architectural expression. Especially, seen through the juxtaposition of extremities within the profession and even more explicitly, within the Architectural Association. The imperative; Schumacher’s contributions to architecture get built under Zaha Hadid’s ‘brand’. It is worth exploring the approach found in figures such as Pier Vittorio Aureli, 33 whose projects remain largely on paper. His view on the ‘politics’ of architecture is illustrated in his introduction to The Project of Autonomy.

Aureli finds that “...the idea of post-modernity, as the antithesis of modernity, manifested a pathetic inability to express something positive tout court ‘leading to its self-definition as simply post-something , that is, through a reference to that which was but is not anymore, and to its attempts to self-glorification by means of the bizarre contention that its meaning is non-meaning and its style is no-style.” 34 To re-evaluate this, post-modernity fell victim to it’s own veneration of paradox. It became a parody of itself, now more than ever.

Post-modernism dramatically failed to address these issues due to its excessive reverence towards complexity and heterarchy. It has stimulated an a-political, a-moral and massively passive attitude that is forced to accept difference and ironically become enslaved by the ‘liberating’ illusion of ‘everything is acceptable’. Aureli directly refers to this through Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis.“Complacently mixed up with loose but fashionable talk about ‘pluralism’ and ‘respect’ for difference, for ‘the other,’ [the value of today’s theory] ends up by glorifying eclecticism, covering up sterility and banality, and providing a generalized version of ‘anything goes’.” 35 Such an utterly de-politicizing character assumed by contemporary architecture is what contributes to paradox’s replacement with parody.

Thus, what was seen as self-aware self-contradiction, characteristic of modern thinkers of irony, “... grew into a veritable Grand Canyon of [built] hypocrisies …” 36 In a sense, this is nowhere more exaggerated than in places like Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Literal and metaphorical barren landscapes of nothingness which have become the 21st century’s grand repositories for starchitectural parodies. Here, Schumacher’s attempt to dub the architectural expression of the firm he works for a ‘style’, more closely resembles a typical global ‘brand’.

A cacophony of such brands could not be more abhorrent, on an urban scale, than on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat island. It’s cultural district, currently under-construction, features Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, followed by Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi, next to Zaha Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre, along with Norman Foster’s Zayed National Museum and Tadao Ando’s Maritime Museum. And just when it seems like it cannot possibly get worse, this ‘starchitetcural’ mess can be summarised in a singular experience at the Hotel Puerta América in Madrid.

The official description in the hotel’s website declares this building ‘innovative’, a ‘never-been-attempted-before project’ and ‘a space that invites people to dream’. It engenders Saadiyat island in 12 floors differentiated by each one’s designated designer.

Architects have been allowed to quite mercilessly regurgitate all their ‘brand-defining’ principles to realize hyper-stylized interiors which parodise Loos’ Principle of Cladding. 37 Nouvel-ism, Foster-ism, Hadid-ism, become Starchitecture’s answer to postmodernism.

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Schumacher, P., 2008, Parametricism as Style: The Parametricist Manifesto, [online] Available: http://www.patrikschumacher.com [Accessed 13 November, 2014] 31

The out-dated notion of ‘styles’ is backed by the fact that more than half a century ago, Adolf Loos had condemned style as ornamentation and an indicator of decadence. He also stated that a “costume is clothing that has developed no further” just like the style is architecture that has become stagnant and redundant.

In Toward an Architecture Le Corbusier had repeatedly made a similar assertion “That style is nothing more to Architecture than what a feather is to a woman’s head. It is sometimes pretty, though not always, and never anything more”. Style is further seen as problematic by Adolf Göller, as “aesthetic fatigue”, since “we exhaust styles and nowhere faster than in a consumer society with its voracious appetite for the new.”

32 Aureli, P. V., The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism, (The Temple Hoyne Buell Centre for the Study of American Architecture and Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2013), p. 1 33 Pier Vittorio’s work in his firm Dogma, co-founded with Mario Tattara, as well as his academic career at the Architectural Association through his Diploma Unit 14, make him a key figure in the topic of ‘political’ architecture. Also, perhaps, a counter-figure to Schumacher, one of the founders of the AA DRL. Aureli’s books, The Project of Autonomy, and The possibility of an Absolute Architecture make important arguments relevant to contemporary architectural discourse. His approach becomes evident during his talk at the AA as to ‘How is Architecture Political?’By tying paradox to architecture’s political nature, Aureli’s statement becomes an apt point from which the argument of pardox-not-parody could unfold.

34 Woods, L., Radical Reconstruction, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997) 35 Castoriades, C.,‘The Retreat from Autonomy: Post-Modernism as Generalized Conformism’, The World in fragments, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997)p.32 36 Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011), p.32 37 “The law goes like this: we must work in such a way that a confusion of the material clad with its cladding is impossible. That means, foe example, that wood may be painted any colour except one - the colour of wood”, writes Adolf Loos in “The Principle of Cladding & Underclothes”, Neu Freie Presse, 1898

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“The designer of the Zayed National Museum arrived in a pair of green suede shoes and a flamboyant pink shirt and tie. Lord Foster of Thames Bank - to give him his full title - struggled to make his way to the auditorium through a press of camera flashes and requests for photographs.�

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A parody of Loos’ Principal of Cladding?

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what hat should you be wearing?

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Evidently, there could be a more crucial question raised out of all the cases of architectural paradox and parody. Loos’ more extreme instances of self-contradiction lie in theoretical writing and un-built projects such as the Tribune tower and Baker House.

‘Starchitectural’ parodies seem to emerge by being materialised in built reality. How can a successfully political architecture, which criticizes through intentional paradox, be expressed? Does it resort to a comparison between the ‘immaterial’ mediums of drawing and theory as opposed to the ‘physicality’ of a building? The principles of Aureli and Woods could make for an compelling, conclusive counter-argument.

It seems to have come full circle in Woods’ urge for architects to engage paradox. “Dynamism in any form inevitably produces paradox ... the dynamics of contemporary urban life have shown the inadequacy of existing languages in dealing with rapid and continuous change, except by producing self-contradictory - paradoxical - constructions.” 38 He refers to paradox as the way to facing the post-political crisis and the void of meaning.

Self-paradox lays a path towards stimulating, provoking, expanding and hence expressing through architecture. Woods’ highly political projects had fully embraced the inevitability of architectural paradox, while maintaining an exceptionally serious approach to delicate issues of conflict and war. Yet, does this prolifically successful figure owe this to the very fact that his work remains un-built? This question resonates within arguments made at the very recent event at the Architectural Association, titled ‘How Architecture is Political.’

Pier Vittorio Aureli makes his paradoxical response: “Architecture cannot be political since historically the profession of the architect has been not only a practise dependant on consensus, but also an instrument of neutralization and de-politicization of the city. I also believe that architecture is always political even within the most modest job or tiny detail”. 39 To clarify, he ‘solves’ this contradiction by emphasizing how form makes architecture political, while the discipline renders it a-political. The institutionalisation of design is seen as the replacement of politics, as the architectural profession has been adopting ever more rigid hegemonic power structures. Justifiably so since such hegemonies, although varying according to firm, make building possible.

Aureli sees the true critical potential of architecture lying in the dialectic between consensus versus conflict.

Intentional paradox may boil down to a desperate need to re-politicize architecture - in essence to avoid architectural parody by reestablishing its capacity to pose serious critique. Intellectual self-reflexivity and perspicacity are essential. As Aureli summarises, he finds that systems of political hegemony can only be reconstructed when architects start seeing themselves as producers, selfaware of the consensus-versus-conflict condition.40 Importantly, all the speakers at the talk, including Sarah Whiting, Ines Weizman and Reinhold Martin, referred to mainly ‘paper architecture’ case studies and very few built projects (notably the ‘Red Vienna’ housing blocks mentioned by Aureli). Even work commissioned to be built by Whiting’s firm was shown only through renders and drawings. One can further point out that, although Aureli’s own practise, Dogma, produces highly political and evocative projects, they remain pre-dominantly unrealised, and most likely intentionally so. Thus, the issue of immaterial versus built, can be questioned in relation to paradox.

Moreover, regarding theoretical and built critique, Petit writes that “…between the ‘absolute’ ideas of theory and their limited ‘translation’ in the physical world, [Paradox] always places the timeless ‘absolute’ of intellectual concepts face to face with the dynamics of the historical dialectic.” 41 Does this further substantiate that a critical architectural paradox is exposed with far greater potency when projects are expressed immaterially? 42 It seems clear that unfortunate remnants of exaggerated post-modernist irony lead “to political antagonism, or to the funny acrobatics [parodies] performed by the post-modernists or their brethren.” 43 Architects struggling to find meaning in architectural expression should waste no time and return to re-politicizing their practises and maintaining intentional paradox. As for starchitects’ parodies? Are they not, at least, a useful, built, experiment, regardless of their lacking in decisive critical qualities? 44 While self-aware paradox is key to politicising architecture, the question still remains of whether a critical project looses its vigour when built. The Josephine Baker House, The Chicago Tribune tower, Dogma’s powerful urban-scaled projects 45 and Woods’ speculative drawings; How would these measure-up to their own critiques if they ever became a reality? Perhaps not all architecture is meant to be built and not all built architecture is meant to be intentionally critical in Aureli’s sense.

38 Woods, L., Radical Reconstruction, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997), p. 28 39 Pier Vittorio Aureli, December 6, 2014, London, The Architectural Exchange II, ‘How Is Architecture Political?’

40

A philosophical interpretation of positive, self-aware contradiction/paradox in politics is discussed by Chantal Mouffe, who concluded the talk. Her views on the issue are manifested through her personal polemic on an Agonistic Democracy, derived form states of constant conflicts and positive reactions to adversaries.

There is no revolutionary architecture but reactionary architecture, she states, contributing to hegemonic re-articulation. For this to be realized architecture must engage with hegemonic power structures and not withdraw from them. The example of the Red Vienna housing project, brought up by Aureli, is seen by Chantal as an agonistic space for architecture to contribute to counter-hegemony.

41 Petit, E., Irony or, the Self-critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013), p. 7 42

Aureli sees the manifestation of such a question in the vertical forest towers of Milanese architect Stefano Boeri and is baffled. By confessing his great appreciation for Boeri as a thinker as well as respect for his truly political past, he finds his tree-laden towers to come in an astonishingly problematic contradiction to his own principles - possibly a parody?

43 Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011) 44 Further questions would be if indeed all architetcure should pose a rigorous critique and whether some buidings could just remain largely a-political?

45

Dogma’s work is featured in their official publication, titled Dogma: 11 Projects. The works on an urban-scale, such as ‘A Simple Heart’, ‘Parallel Tirana’ or ‘City-Walls’, to mention a few, propose vast monolithic interventions addressing European as well as Asian cities, such as South Korea or Taiwan. The project of a political architecture is deeply rooted within the work. Represented in such a way, it arguably adheres to ‘reality’ with greater potential than any renders of buildings that actually get constructed. The essence of the argument doesn’t lie in whether Dogma’s buildings ‘perform well’ realistically or ‘can be built’ but in their direct critiques on the urban environment and their contemporary reactionary nature to architecture through a highly detailed and rigorous approach.

figure 15

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Books, Articles and other Publications: - Woods, L., Radical Reconstruction, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997) - Woods, L., Architecture and War, (Pamphlet Architecture, Issue 15, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1993) - Nietzsche, F., Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) - Jenks, C., The Story of Post-Modernism, (Wiley, Chichester, 2011) - Koolhaas, R., Delirious New York: A Retro-active Manifesto for Manhattan, (Monacelli Press, New York, 1997) - Ignasi de Solà-Morales, “Between Enigma and Irony: The Recent Architecture of Arata Isozaki”, Arata Isozaki Works 30: Architectural Models, Prints, Drawings, (Rikuyu-sha, Tokyo, 1992), p. 294-295 - Rowe, C., “Architecture of Utopia”, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1978) - Shapira, E., ‘Designing a Celebrity: Adolf Loos’s House for Josephine Baker’, Studies in Decorative Arts, Vol. 11, No.2, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Spring - Summer 2004) - Colomina, B., Privacy and Publicity Modern Architecture As Mass Media, (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996) - Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture, (The Ghetty Research Institute Publications, Los Angeles, 2007) - Göller, A., edited Elkins, J., Williams, R., Rennaissance Theory, The Art Seminar, Vol. 5, (Taylor & Francis Group, New York, 2008) - Aureli, P. V., The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture within and against Capitalism, (The Temple Hoyne Buell Centre for the Study of American Architecture and Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2013) - Castoriades, C.,‘The Retreat from Autonomy: Post-Modernism as Generalized Conformism’, The World in fragments, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997) - Mouffe, C., Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically, (Verso Books, London-New York, 2013) - Mouffe, C., The Democratic Paradox (Radical Thinkers 4), (Verso Books, London-New York, 2009) - Mondrian, P., Holtzman, H., James, M.,S., ‘Purely Abstract Art’, The New Art - The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian, (Da Capo Press Inc, 1993) - Aureli, P.V. and Tattara M., with Tournaire, J., van de Wijdeven, T., Phol, D., Dogma: 11 Projects, (AA Publications, Belgium, 2013) - Loos, A., September 4, 1898, “The Principle of Cladding & Underclothes”, Neu Freie Presse - Loos, A., September 25, 1898, “Underclothes”, Neu Freie Presse - Loos, A., 1910, “Ornament and Crime”, The Industrial Design Reader, p.74-81 - Van Doesburg, T., 1924, ‘Architecture-Diagnose’ ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Online Articles and other Web references: - Starchitect definition, Wikipedia, [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starchitect [Accessed November 22, 2014] - Holly Williams, December 22, 2009, Frank Gehry: ‘Don’t call me a starchitect’, the Independent, [online] Available at: http:// www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/frank-gehry-dont-call-me-a-starchitect-1842870.html [Accessed November 12, 2014] - Schumacher, P., 2008, Parametricism as Style: The Parametricist Manifesto, [online] Available: http://www.patrikschumacher. com [Accessed 13 November, 2014] - Beers, D., September 25, 2001, ‘Irony Is Dead! Long Live Irony!’ [online] Available: http://www.salon.com/2001/09/25/irony_ lives/ [Accessed November 3, 2014] - Paul Davies, October 8, 2013, Adolf Loos, The Architetcural Review, [online] Available at: http://www.architectural-review.com/ reviews/reputations/adolf-loos/8653892.article [Accessed October 10, 2014] ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Talks and Exhibits: - The Architectural Exchange II, ‘How Is Architecture Political?’, December 6, 2014, Architectural Association, London - Zaha Hadid and Suprematism, October 8, 2014, Tate Modern, London [online] Available: http://www.tate.org.uk/contextcomment/video/zaha-hadid-and-suprematism [Accessed December 5, 2014] - Tate Modern, ‘Malevich: Revolutionary Russian Art’, 16 July – 26 October 2014 ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Images and Captions: ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 1. “Sick Husband”, 1881, by Vassily Maximovich Maximov. Oil on canvas. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Figure 2. Installation view, “0-10, (Zero-Ten), The Last Futurist Exhibition”, 1915, Petrograd. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

God is dead, get over it; now...

London’s Tate Modern hosted a major retrospective on Russian Suprematist art ‘Malevich: Revolutionary Russian Art’, between 16 July – 26 October 2014. Despite the ‘revolutionary’ nature of the work in the history of art and architecture the exhibition itself, had a fairly traditional approach to representing the work with the only slight deviation witnessed in a re-creation of the Suprematist ‘Zero - Ten’ corner from the 1915 Petrograd Exhibition (figure 2). This places Malevich’s black square at the highest corner in the exact same position where Russian Orthodox families traditionally adorned the home with religious icons (as Vassily Maximov illustrates in his “Sick Husband” painting, in figure 1) In other words, God is replace by what Suprematism saw as a new pure system in artistic expression that adheres to the spirit of abstract artists at the time. Ground-breaking? Very much so ...

100 years ago! The exhibition becomes a conservative approach to viewing the past but fails at re-contextualising the work within contemporary issues. It is most likely beyond the retrospective’s scope but it does seem to unintentionally emphasize an out-dated crisis of de-constructing power systems or ‘killing God’. What of art in 2014 though? What of architecture? ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 3. Photo-montage by Nicholas Zembashi, “Minoru Yamasaki - Modernism’s Tragic Irony” ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

“A symbol of man’s dedication to world peace ... a representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation his ability to find greatness.”

A quote from Minoru Yamsaki’s inagural speech for the World Trade centre reveals a tragic irony - an unintentional paradox - when read after the 9/11 attacks on the towers. Modernism’s optimism in grand social visions is shattered by the brute force of history and the unpredictability of events. In the writings of both Emmanuel Petit and Charles Jenks, Yamasaki’sestate at Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and the World Trade Centre Towers of Manhattan are seen as history defying moments for modernism and post-modernism. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 4. Portrait of Adolf Loos, from Mak Now, [online] Available: http://www.mak.at/en/press/press_infos/past?article_ id=1358720342800&download_items=yes&media_type=image Figure 5. A rendering of the Chicago Tribune Tower by Adolf Loos, from BDonline, Oliver Wainwright, August 17, 2011, ‘Top 10 unbuilt towers: Chicago Tribune Tower, by Adolf Loos’, [online] Available: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/top-10-unbuilttowers-chicago-tribune-tower-by-adolf-loos/5023198.article Figure 6. Adolf Loos, Baker House Project, model, 1927-1928, from Heinrich Kulka, ed., Adolf Loos: Das Werk des Architekten, (Vienna, 1931), fig. 222.

Figure 7. Josephine Baker Banana Dance, from Afro-Modernism in the 20th Century, [online] Available: http://hsar375f14. coursepress.yale.edu Figure 8. Adolf Loos, Baker House Project, floor plans, 1927-1928, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, (Adolf-Loos-Archiv 588) Figure 9. Josephine Baker, [online] Available: http://grazianooriga.nova100.ilsole24ore.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/importe d/6a00d8341c684553ef015432bd726b970c-pi.jpg ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

“The beauty is how this strange trade works, ... and the truth is, we are fabulous .. suggesting what is underneath, suggesting” In these quotes from Elizabeth Alexander’s ‘Josephine Baker: Two Poems, Diva Studies’, it is evident that Baker wasn’t unintentionally paradoxical and not necessarily, what one could say was a parody on stage. A lot of her acts arguably embody powerful critiques on the political order at the time and on social taboos. She was not only self-aware but serious underneath it all. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 10. Photo-montage by Nicholas Zembashi, ‘The answer to the Architectural Continuum’ - Based on Venturi’s Eclectic House Series, 1977, Elevations, Colored plastic film on photomechanical print.

Figure 11. Saadyat Island, cultural district map index, from Clio’s Calendar: Daily Musings on Architectural History, ‘Pritzker Paradise’ [online] Available: https://archhistdaily.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/january-30-2/ Figure 12. Norman Foster signs autographs after the panel discussion held at Manarat Al Saadiyat, by Pawan Singh, from The National UAE, [online] Available: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/architecture-giants-unveil-plans-forsaadiyat-island#ixzz3LVBMDvHl ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

“The designer of the Zayed National Museum arrived in a pair of green suede shoes and a flamboyant pink shirt and tie.

Lord Foster of Thames Bank - to give him his full title - struggled to make his way to the auditorium through a press of camera flashes and requests for photographs.”

A quote from the National UAE newspaper’s article on the Saadyat projects, perfectly captures ‘starchitetcure’. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Figure 13. Photo montage, Nicholas Zembashi, 2014, based on illustrator Paul Tuller’s drawings, from ‘6 Starchitects Wearing Their Most Famous Buildings As Hats: these are the kings and queens of architecture. now check out their crowns’, [online] Available: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3030504/6-starchitects-wearing-their-most-famous-buildings-as-hats ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

what hat should you be wearing?

To wrap up the argument on paradox not parody in architecture a wider question may be posed on architecture’s critical abilities.

A comparison between those contemporary starchitects who build (and their iconic buildings) and those who prefer being critical through the un-built. The latter arguably pose much more important, deliberate critiques on architecture than the former. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Figure 14. Still from Zaha Hadid’s presentation, from Zaha Hadid and Suprematism, October 8, 2014, Tate Modern, London [online] Available: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/zaha-hadid-and-suprematism [Accessed December 5, 2014] ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

To tie in with the very first set of images in figures 1 and 2, the void in meaning is being filled in architecture with the ‘brand’ of the starchitect. Zaha poses under Malevich’s Black Square at the major retrospective of Suprematist art at the Tate Modern. She also shows this image during her presentation at a talk at the Tate. She makes some interesting points during the talk on her personal inspirations, on past exhibits and De-Constructivist projects. Her photograph under the black square becomes interestingly relevant to the crisis of meaning and paradox-not-parody arguments when set against the painting of Miximov and the 1915 Suprematist exhibition. In other words, it is perhaps the only image from the Tate’s exhibition on Suorematism that actually re-contextualises the work within a more current situation in architecture. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Lebbeus Woods , ‘Quake City’, San Francisco Bay, 1995, (collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

Dogma, ‘Simple Heart’, Düsseldorf, 2002 - 2010, from Aureli, P.V. and Tattara M., with Tournaire, J., van de Wijdeven, T., Phol, D., Dogma: 11 Projects, (AA Publications, Belgium, 2013) p. 27