Undergraduate Thesis Book 2020 - Will Hall

WILL HALL

INEFFABLE REALITIES— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Ineffable Realities— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

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Front Matter

WILL HALL

INEFFABLE REALITIES— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

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Ineffable Realities— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

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Front Matter

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Architecture Degree, Auburn University.

Spring 2020 Thesis Advisor: Randal Vaughan Submitted: 04/30/2020

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Ineffable Realities— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Acknowledgment

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Front Matter

This document contains my undergraduate design thesis, the final document for my Bachelor of Architecture degree at Auburn University. It describes my research into fiction and what I have deemed the architectural boundary. Completing this project could not have been possible without the people who challenged, supported, and stuck with me along the way.

I am extremely thankful to my many teachers, who’s timely advice and dedication over these years have helped to advance both my knowledge and interests in architecture, and the world. Also to the many friends I have made along the way, this time together has meant so much to me.

Of course, this would not be complete without recognizing the overwhelming support of my family, who encouraged me throughout my entire study. My final acknowledgment goes to my wonderful significant other, she has been loving, patient, and supportive throughout this challenging process.

I hope you enjoy the work I have produced. vii

Ineffable Realities— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Table of Contents

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Front Matter

0 Abstract 1 Introduction 2 Defining the Boundary 3 Probable vs. Possible

3.1 Lebbeus Woods Freespace

3.2 Libeskind: Drawing to Reality 4 Fiction in Architecture

4.1 Storytelling and the Narrative 5 Case Studies

5.1 Underground Berlin, Lebbeus Woods (1988)

5.2 Victims, John Hejduk (1986) 6 The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

6.1 A City Survival Story

6.2 Living With Water 6.3 Pump Stations as Site

6.4 Constructing the Architectural Narrative 7 Conclusion 8 Back Matter

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Ineffable Realities— Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Abstract

Front Matter

Within the history of the architectural profession, there have been many experimental theorists that have successfully altered the perception of what Architecture is. This thesis seeks to explore that which pushes or lies near the boundary, as one might call it, and where the greatest extent lies. Or, if the boundary even exists at all... It also attempts to connect the architectural limits and the exploration of a fiction and the narrative. Utilizing narrative storytelling as a methodology for the design of an architecture, as well as an artifact in itself.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Introduction 01

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Introduction

“I’m not interested in living in a fantasy world... All my work is still meant to evoke real architectural spaces. But what interests me is what the world would be like if we were free of conventional limits. Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules.”01

Architecture, according to Merriam Webster’s definition, is the “art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones”02 and has long been understood as the physical constructed reality surrounding us. However, in the interconnected digital age we are currently succumbed to, the definition necessitates a change. We are, by this condition of life, perpetually surrounded by complexity and a constantly evolving ambiguity that necessitates rapid response and gratification even within the role as an architect.

Because of this evolving reality it his resulted in increasing dissatisfaction with the role, aesthetics, and constraints of the architect operating in the basis of a constructed reality.

In contrast to this, is the everlasting affinity for the new creation or invented object. This has been survived in Architecture through things like new architectural forms, structural typologies, and development of sustainable systems. These elements have constituted the experiments within architecture for the greater part of the last two centuries, all being based in the construction methods and performance or behavior of the building itself, but because of the scientific and historical context of this era have now evolved into a more substantial experimentation and forecasting.

01

LEBBEUS WOODS, “An Architect Unshackled by Limits of the Real World”, New York Times, Aug. 25, 2008

02

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “architecture,” accessed February 19, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/architecture.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

The history of experimental architecture is not a long one. There has been a long standing tradition of architecture that does not aim to produce a blueprint for building, but strives for visionary, utopian and dystopian design, which acted as more as a critique on existing conditions rather than a proposal for something to be built. However, something changed. Coming to fruition around the 1970’s, architects began expanding the field of experimental architecture into the realm of the fantastical. No longer was the notion that the final outcome of architecture had to be a building, architects began experimenting for the sake of experimentation. Architects like Peter Cook (who coined the term Experimental Architecture), Michael Webb, Lebbeus Woods, Thom Mayne, Daniel Libeskind, among many others began to push the ideas of architecture to its conceptual limits. This new exploratory architecture is only realized within this more contemporary context of inevitable precise timing that allows architects to pose questions regarding the future condition of humankind.

“Experimental work frequently finds its grit and inspiration in the desire to undermine and explode all rival positions.�03

The role that the experimental architect assumes is to take us to places and spaces we have never been before or could theoretically never go. Which is much more difficult than it sounds. It is also taking place in a time period where the solution to global social issues: housing crises, natural disaster, urban slums has garnered hardly any devotion. So, one might ask, why spend time focusing on these speculative spaces? And instead focus our efforts on solving these global issues first, then being able to go back to these exploratory conditions. If this were the case, solving these issues would be an infinite loop. This future forward architecture can influence and direct

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Cook, Peter. Experimental Architecture. Londres: Studio Vista, 1970.

Introduction

real-world decisions and attribute to these solutions. One example of the way that these architects attempted to use experimentation towards a more collective goal, was Lebbeus Woods founding of the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture (RIEA).04 This group of architects tasked with themselves with being able to contribute to an advancement of a collective knowledge in architecture, rather than as individual works. This idea is explained through Woods’ own recollections about the RIEA in one of his many blog posts: “The main task of the artist is to produce uniquely original, inimitable masterpieces, not contributions to a body of knowledge. Even when the gifted artist is backed up by a production team, the goal is the same. The founding idea of RIEA was to challenge that model, to create a collaborative spirit that could advance architecture by meeting together many challenges facing it today that cannot be met by inspired loners.”05

Image taken from RIEA: The First Conference, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1989. (Seated around the table, counterclockwise: Gordon Gilbert, Michael Webb, Hani Rashid, Michael Sorkin, Lebbeus Woods, Ken Kaplan, Ted Krueger, Peter Cook, Neil Denari.

Because of this perceived ability for the theoretical to impact the material, architecture that exists on the boundary, that by the nature of the words’ very definition, may be questioned as such exists at a capacity that in itself is the only architecture. I contend that the realm of the fantastical has basis and ties to this reality through our subconscious process and while it may not be probable, it is indeed a possible outcome. The influences of this architecture can manifest themselves in the built environment in some capacity, and because of that, this is Architecture.

04

K., Dia. “Lebbeus Woods.” Widewalls, July 28, 2013. https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/lebbeus-woods/.

05 5 Woods, Lebbeus. “RIEA: the Back Story.” LEBBEUS WOODS, June 25, 2011. https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/riea-the-back- story/.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Defining the Boundary 02

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Defining the Boundary

Is there a place that allows us to explore the terra incognita that hopefully still exists? The uncharted territory of architecture, often labeled “paper architecture” exists at the outer most boundary of this metaphysical world. If architecture is defined as the designing and construction of physical space, there is a belief that within this idea of architecture there exists a field condition, or rather a limit to what can be considered architecture. Depending on who this is posed to these limits may be tightened or loosened, and some may argue that there exists no boundary at all. Lebbeus Woods’ comments on the subjectivity of architecture and what truly defines the architectural condition:

“The question comes down architecture, we narrow the field to what is built at the moment, limiting as well its potential to fully engage the human condition in a time of tumultuous change.”06

I would contend that the boundary of architecture is in continuous fluctuation. Old boundaries constantly are in a state of effacement, yet architecture is still not boundless. Architects that operate on or near the boundary do so operating on the extent of previous knowledge and claim it as a site condition. In the previous quote by Woods, his statement of convenience of commercial viability is one of interest and is not in itself a boundary on the ideas of the experimental architect. In fact, the only boundary in which an architect may op-

06

Woods, Lebbeus. “OPEN QUESTIONS.” LEBBEUS WOODS, March 10, 2009. https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/architecture/.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

erate in this area of architecture is the limits placed by themselves.

In the physical reality of construction architecture is often dictated by means and methodologies of constructions and “finds expression in its demands”07 .The meta architecture proposed by these experimental architects is valuable because no architect can come to a sense of duty until the meta is established.

“Distinction between those who think and those who do needs to be broken… work, are foregrounds-models as reality-and backgrounds-ideas as reality. The middle ground-plans that define architectural intentions to be built by the skilled anybody-is abandoned and instead becomes a site of and for a specific social negotiation, a possibility for users of reality to choose, think, and work their problems. If there is anything that architects can “give to people” it is no more (but also no less) than choices that other than, not yet thought, still being thought, choices that demand movement of bodies and energies, not their stasis.”08

It can be argued that the best architects of today often have little or no commissions. Often, they want to build but are dismissed by the institutions and individuals most threatened by the content of their work. This may be because this type of work is inherently political and generally finds itself criticizing social forms. But the quest for creation persists and these ideas find their way into manifestation on this ever-changing boundary.

Is this architecture only an end-product that people can physically inhabit, or is it also the matrix of ideas, concepts, and designs that serve as inspirations for constructions that can be inhabited, but lack the financial support, or the technical capacity to be physically built? Or, perhaps, architecture can exist only as forms and spaces that can be inhabited mentally, until such time—if ever—when they

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07

Wagner, Aleksandra, forward to Radical Reconstruction, by Lebbeus Woods, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,1997.)

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Wagner, Aleksandra, forward to Radical Reconstruction, by Lebbeus Woods, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,1997.)

Defining the Boundary

can or need to be physically constructed.

This boundary seeks to fluctuate and is based on both the interpreter’s observation and experience. Work seemingly outside of architecture, such as plays and movies now take on a questionable role in the construction of architectural notation. Is there a limit to this boundary? Can we seek to distinguish architecture from non-architecture?

Should we? These are some of the questions the idea of the boundary impose onto us, as designers and observers.

Diving further into the notion of some sort of Ant Farm, “50’ x 50’ Pillow”, Point Reyes, California (1970) metaphysical line which separates architecture from other, it begins to beg the question of purpose to the idea of containment. Much of this is based in subjective interpretation, but there seems to be value in the exploration of the notion of boundary. One such exploration that can be explored is the idea of the boundary of the architect’s role. According to The American Institute of Architects (AIA) the role of the architect is one that “works to advance our nation’s quality of life and protect the public’s Ant Farm, “Media Burn” (1991) health, safety and welfare”09 . If this is true it leaves the extension of the arm of the architect to be unfathomable. Such blanket statement professes that the boundary of the architect is limitless. Does that mean everything the architect creates is architecture? Or is there still some enigmatic boundary that defies definition? Hopefully some determination can be made, or at the very least an eternal discourse, similarly to what one might determine individually what they consider art.

09 “Where Architects Stand: A Statement of Our Values.” The American Institute of Architects. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://www.aia.org/ resources/50766-where-architects-stand-a-statement-of-our-va.

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Probable vs Possible 03

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Probable vs Possible

In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology. Potential and potentiality refer to the capacity, power, ability, or chance for something to happen or occur. In particular, this refers to some type of change or alteration. For example, a seed has the potential to grow into a plant. The potentiality exists, even when the end result has not yet happened. In the same sense, actual and actuality refer to the potential or potentiality that has been realized.

A full-grown plant is the actuality of a seed’s potential.

These principles can also be applied to the relationship between the field of architectural experimentation and body of architectural work. Just as the principal states, the potentiality of architect’s projects, such as the work by Lebbeus Woods and others, act as the potentiality in architecture. If/when these projects or elements from the projects come to fruition this represents the element of actuality in architecture. But in some sense this idea of both the possible and probable does not attempt to bridge the gap between drawing and construction. But instead the representation of the idea is a means to and end and is the possibility of an idea. In the case of Archigram, David Greene would explain the implications of construing Archigram imagery as a blueprint for building as: “A misreading of [the work of Archigram] as a set of proposals, a set of windows through which to see a ‘new world’, is only a rather pathetic regurgitation of the dogma which asserts that architectural drawings are representations of something that wishes to become. Archigram’s efforts lay not in this tradition; they were not restyled modernism, they represent-

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

ed a conceptual shift, in common with other creative enterprises, away from an interest in the commodity (in this case, say, the building or the city) towards an interest in the protocols, structures and processes of mid twentieth-century culture…”10

For some architects, the goal of their work lies in the drawing.

The translation from imagery to construction is not vital to enforce their ideas, and in some cases may cause detriment to the idea.

In Deleuze’s idea of the virtual he discusses the value of the virtual versus the real. In this case, the virtual is used by Deleuze used the term to refer to an aspect of reality that is ideal, but nonetheless real.

“More precisely put, any concrete system is composed of intensive processes tending toward the (virtual) plane of consistency and/or toward (actual) stratification. We can say that all that exists is the intensive, tending towards the limits of virtuality and actuality; these last two ontological registers do not “exist,” but they do “insist,” to use one of Deleuze’s terms.

Nothing ever instantiates the sheer frozen stasis of the actual nor the sheer differential dispersion of the virtual; rather, natural or worldly processes are always and only actualizations, that is, they are processes of actualization structured by virtual multiplicities and heading toward an actual state they never quite attain.” 11

Based on Deleuze’s virtuality model, some architects such as Lebbeus Woods and Daniel Libeskind operate within this realm of the possible, but not necessarily the probable. However, that potentiality is sometimes manifested in the constructed reality.

3.1 Lebbeus Woods Freespace “Woods introduced the term freespace to propose an architectural approach freed from its conventional, predetermined and deterministic char10

Steiner, Hadas A. Beyond Archigram: the Structure of Circulation. New York: Routledge, 2009.

11 Smith, Daniel and Protevi, John, “Gilles Deleuze”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. W (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/deleuze/>.

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Probable vs Possible

acter, or else an architecture that instrumentalizes the ever-changing landscape of the modern era which is exposed to natural and manmade changes. In contrast to the model of organization and development of the modern city, the freespace was for Woods a field of unpredictable forces and continuous transformations of both its user and society which is characterized by morphological fluidity and

Lebbeus Woods, Freespace

ideological liberation. The concept of freespace was addressed to the remaining empty space whose meaning differs from that of the indefinite void whether it is perceptual, natural, political, social or cultural. A building mass is not a necessary condition for the existence of space. The act of abstraction is an entirely creative logic that leads to covering the remaining empty space with human energy and movement. The subtracted mass cannot be replaced with anything else as the energy lost in the act of subtraction can only be offered to the system through human energy, thus ensuring the system’s balance.[9] In Woods’ freespace, the user of the building plays the role of the creator, and the space exists only when it is inhabited. It is not intended for a particular social group, but for those who wish to transform their everyday life from static to fluid and from deterministic to existential. It does not have a predefined plan of use and is not part of a particular building type. The purpose of establishing such a space is the transformation of the user through their existence into an unprecedented and totally indefinable spatial reality. Woods’ society can only be founded on the intelligence, resourcefulness and awareness-raising initiative of the individual who is called to identify and harmonize with the complexity of their self-sufficiency in space and time. To do this, they must devise new and more experimental ways of using freespace.” 12

The way this idea of freespace manifests in the constructed reality is by its association within other architectures. One example of this is in Pritzker Prize winning architect Alejandro Aravena’s Quinta Monroy Housing in Iquique, Chile, (2004).

In this project Aravena creates a new social housing typology 12

Woods, Lebbeus (1992). ANARCHITECTURE: Architecture is a Political Act. London: Academy Editions. p. 8, 11, 46, 50. Wikipe dia contributors, “Lebbeus Woods,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lebbeus_ Woods&oldid=948377847 (accessed April 30, 2020).

Alejandro Aravena, Quinta Monroy Housing (2004)

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that allows for the inhabitant to build onto their environment over time. The resident, like in Woodsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ideas, dictates what the space is best used for and constructs it themselves. Whether or not Aravena was influenced or even aware of Woodsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; use of Freespace is yet to be determined, but the concept is very similar and shows the potential influence the Probable can have on the Possible.

3.2 Libeskind: Drawing to Reality Unlike Lebbeus Woods, Daniel Libeskind is an architect who made the transition from the fictional into the constructed reality. Mitigating the boundary and arriving at what some would argue is the core of architecture. Libeskind began his career as an architectural theorist and professor, holding positions at various institutions around the world. From 1978 to 1985, Libeskind was the Director of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His practical architectural career began in the late 1980s, where he submitted to an architectural competitions. With this he was able to successfully translate some of the ideas of his architectural drawings into a physical manifestation of architecture. In this case the Possible became the Probable.

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Probable vs Possible

Daniel Libeskind, Danish Jewish Museum (2003), BitterBredt

Daniel Libeskind, Theatrum Mundi (1985)

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Fiction in Architecture 03

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Fiction in Architecture

“The task of the experimental architect is to take us to places and spaces we haven’t been before. That is more difficult than it sounds…”13

“Fiction” is a term usually referred to in relation to works of literature.

It is often used to describe literary works that construct an imagined reality or works that impose their own truth. According to Merriam -Webster the definition of fiction is as follows: “fic·tion | \ ˈfik-shən \ Definition of fiction 1a: something invented by the imagination or feigned specifically: an invented story b: fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories)was renowned as a writer of fiction c: a work of fiction 2a: an assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth a legal fiction b: a useful illusion or pretense it was only a fiction of independence his mother gave him; he was almost totally under her power— G. A. Wagner 3: the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination”

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Architecture, and knowledge surrounding its’ discourse, as a matter of course, reveals and conveys itself in multiple forms of representation. Therefore, the term fiction and use of it even within the conventional aspects of architecture is not something removed and abstract. Through these multiplicities of its’ representation, architecture constructs “fictions” between them, from thinking to drawing, from drawing to construction, and from observation to understanding.

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Woods, Lebbeus. “THE EXPERIMENTAL.” LEBBEUS WOODS, August 12, 2010.

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“Fiction.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Accessed November 13, 2019. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

These fictions between the forms are what constitute an architecture. In the case of experimental architects such as Lebbeus Woods, this fiction is utilized to construct an architecture within the unconventional realm. Woods’ work is liable as being interpreted as “a sham” if not interpreted under the assumptions surrounding an unconventional architecture and because of the lack of concreteness, physical presence of the architecture, the goal of the work may be more difficult to understand. For Woods’ this work was a way of exploring and attaining new knowledge in the world of architecture.

Within these works he can construct the theoretical framework in which the fiction of his reality takes place, resulting in an architecture that is able to convey new spaces and understandings of the built environment.

Now, the linearity of the architectural process of thought to drawing and resulting in a building is broken. A new type of architecture can be created within this fictional realm where thought and drawing process are the product and all can be conceived simultaneously, resulting in a new methodology of architecture for discerning and discovering architectural knowledge.

4.1 STORYTELLING AND THE NARRATIVE Since more primitive times, storytelling has provided as one of the most powerful tools for humans that help us make decisions based on the emotions stirred by stories. Likewise, storytelling as architecture, has prevailed as a convoy for ideas and thoughts, evoking emotions not by plot, but as a configuration of settings. Architecture itself is set of spatial relationships where human action can and will take place, which in a way is the same basis as the story.

Not only does architecture serve as settings for plots to take place in, but it also can become the plot of a narrative. For example, what we can see in Eisenman’s re-reading of Palladio’s work is an interesting twist on the historical reading of architectural work. Eisenman focused more heavily on constructing a narrative of Palladio’s work

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Fiction in Architecture

through process drawings and writings rather than an analysis strictly of the built work. Daniel Shearer writes about Eisenman’s interpretation of Palladio’s work: “Both Palladio’s built work and the Palladianism that emerged from it are dominated by this tension between the real (the physical building as it exists in the world) and the ideal: the proportional and harmonic systems

Lascaux Cave Paintings, France (15,000-17,000 BCE)

that regulate its composition through drawing. Indeed, Palladio famously redrew many of his projects for The Four Books on Architecture of 1570, making them seem more ideal, more harmonious, and hence more paradigmatic for future generations of readers and architects than they actually were.” 15

Eisenman identified the struggle between Palladio’s representation of his work and the “real-world” manifestation of those drawings.

That struggle becoming a narrative work that appears in the architecture, both drawing and constructed reality.

While architecture can both act as a setting for a story and the method for creation of a narrative some architects are able to utilize the architecture as individual characters is a story. John Hejduk is a good example of an architect who utilizes the personification of his architectural ideas to supplement a greater narrative he has formed about his work. One example of this is Hejduk’s entry entitled “Victims” for the 1984 Prinz-Albert-Palais competition in Berlin for the construction of a memorial park. The site is former Gestapo headquarter next to the Berlin Wall, which contained a torture chamber employed during WWII. Within this contextual narrative Hejduk imparts his own narrative of a park continuously constructed over increments of time. A central recurring theme of research in Hejduk’s projects of that period is the development of the concept of “Masques“. These are architectural structures that attempt to embody a character, specified more by the construction of relationships

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The Boyhood of Raleigh, John Everett Millais (1870)

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, Le Valentin (1618)

12 Monkeys, Dir. Terry Gilliam, Universal Studios (1995)

Emmons, Paul. Confabulations : Storytelling in Architecture (p. 2). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

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with other elements than by a specific identity and representing the problematic correlation between the human being and the symbols which heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supposed to embody. The whole project in a way is a construction over time, with some of the structures literally personifying the subject of the passing of time like the clock turntable, the pendulum and the cantilevered hourglass.

The way that this narrative is constructed throughout intervals of time lends itself to the aspect of the narrative as a sequence of events.

Not only does sequence in itself have a connotation to architecture, but it also has relationship to utilizing the aspect of narrative as a design tool rather than a resultant.

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Fiction in Architecture

Narrative as Child

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

5.1 Underground Berlin, Lebbeus Woods Analysis of this project was conducted because of the fiction based narrative it contained as well as the site condition in which Lebbeus Woods creates his architecture. Like Underground Berlin, Woods bases much of his architecture in a realistic site condition. Typically this is in a location that has been deemed to have some sort of political or other catastrophe or hardship. In this case, Berlin, the city is under siege from a dividing wall. An underground infrastructure is constructed by Woods’ that connects the two sides of the city but in a very fictional manifestation of the architecture.

Woods’ also utilizes the film treatment in this project to explore the idea of the narrative of his work. This methodology utilizes the story to both supplement and create the architecture with the use of the story.

UNDERGROUND BERLIN: the film treatment What follows is a treatment (Hollywood slang for story synopsis) with sketches that I made for a projected film in which new forms of architecture—and the way of living they enable—would play a central role. This followed hard on the heels of my experience as a “conceptual architect” for the big-budget movie Alien3. Working on that project, I realized that set designers have no power over how their designs are used, and certainly no influence on the story or its social or ethical implications. So, I decided to write a screenplay that—contained in a melodrama—would project architecture as a vital instrument of social change.

After writing the treatment, I wrote, together with Olive Brown, a complete screenplay, which significantly expands key ideas in the story. It was shown around in Hollywood and deemed to have “potential.” I became absorbed by other projects, having nothing to do with movies, and never pursued it further, though the idea still intrigues me. I post the treatment here, together with proto-storyboard drawings, as an item of curiosity, but even more so as an example of how experimental architecture might find its way, however tentatively, into the mainstream of public life.

Note that the treatment and drawings are copyrighted by me, and I reserve all rights to them. Fair Use is, of course, permitted.

Underground Berlin Film Treatment, Lebbeus Woods (1988)

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Case Studies

Underground Berlin, Lebbeus Woods (1988)

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

5.2 Victims, John Hejduk “Victims was a project designed by John Hejduk for Berlin, described as ‘a construction of time’. The site was former Gestapo headquarters that had contained a torture chamber during WWII. The site contained 67 structures, to be built over two thirty-year periods.

The 67 structures were named; each name signified the role of the individual objects of the project eg. horticulturalist, gardener, drawbridge man, physician, children, researcher, judge; objects include picnic table, watch shop, etc.”01 The narrative aspect of the project taking place over time and the ideas of architecture as character were the important elements in the study of this architecture.

“AA Archives: John Hejduk ‘Victims’ Drawings.” Architectural Association Collections. Accessed April 30, 2020. http://collectionsblog.aaschool.ac.uk/aa-archives-john-hejduk-victims-drawings-2/.

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Case Studies

Victims, John Hejduk (1986)

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

The Willing Inmates of Oscillation 06

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

In order to further explore the concepts of research, both fiction and boundary, an architectural experimentation was conducted. This experiment allows for a different lens of analysis to expand discourse.

In this project it was important to utilize the element of fiction, but like in many case studies, within some grounds of a constructed reality.

Because of this obstruction the resultant project attempts to bridge the architectural gaps between the physical reality and the fantastical with the architectural drawing and narrative. This narrative evolves at many different scales. The initial scale, the site, is chosen based on the characteristics of narrative of that site. In this case, that site is New Orleans. This idea of the narrative of the city permeating in both the selection process and the character of the project.

As the scale narrows design decisions begin to be made. In order to achieve a broad range of scales a narrative was created from an architectural perspective. A unique experiment in personifying the architecture narration both as a resultant and a methodology of design. Structural elements of the literature, in this instance literal sentences, used to compose the architectural drawing.

This is also intended to question the boundary of the architecture in a multiplicity of ways. One such way it poses this question is through the suggestion of an architecture being infrastructural yet highly abstracted. The fictional nature of the architecture as a representation of what the architecture could be, instead of a blueprint of what it should be.

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

6.1 A City Survival Story The city of New Orleans has long been a city stricken with the plague of destruction. Ever since its conception between both the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain, both natural and man made disaster has engulfed the city. A small risk built for a city below sea level. Yet, population prevails.

Similarly to the idea of the ancient parallel cities, New Orleans leaves behind and builds on top of ruins, a constant reminder of what once was and is. History has shown that no matter what occurs in this city, people will still chose to live here. That is why it is such a strong site choice for a city of repetitive flooding.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

(Top Left) The Great New Orleans Fires (1788 and 1794) , (Top Right) Union Occupation and Reconstruction (1862-1877), (Bottom Left) Hurricane Betsy (1965), (Bottom Right) Hurricane Katrina (2005)

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

6.2 Living with Water Greater New Orleans possesses a 100-year hurricane protection systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the envy of other coastal cities. But with more than sixty inches of rain each year and growing risk posed by climate change, last centuryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over-matched drainage infrastructure is inadequate to present and future challenges. The consequences of the current approach to water management, which removes storm water as fast as possible, are visible in sinking land and broken infrastructure.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation Hurricane Katrina (2005)

(Top Row) Vincent Laforet /AFP/Getty Images, (Middle Row) Georgiev /Getty Images (Bottom Row) Michael Appleton /NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

6.3 Pump Stations as Site “In the 1890s, the city council decided to deal with the “extraordinary disastrous condition” of the city’s drainage. By the turn of the century, the city had built giant drainage canals (today mostly hidden underneath the streets, so big that a truck could drive through them).

But moving water out required pumps to get it up and over the higher land rimming the city. The canals carried water from pumping station to pumping station, until the end of the line, where it was pumped into Lake Borgne or, if necessary, Lake Pontchartrain.

There were pumps built into the original drainage system, but in the 1910s, a local engineer, Albert Baldwin Wood, built New Orleans better pumps than any city had ever had...

Wood’s innovative pumping system made it possible for New Orleans to thrive and expand, despite the city’s less-than-ideal location. A century after their creation, his pumps are still engineering wonders. But they come with a caveat. Many of the pumps use an outdated electrical standard, and the city generates power just for them, with turbines that are difficult and costly to maintain. They’re unreliable enough that this past summer a rainstorm caused the city to flood for days, and whenever hurricanes threaten the system’s weak spots are put to the test.”16 Within the irony of the pump station the project chooses to impregnate the city with it’s architecture. Eleven temporary habitats are constructed at major pump site locations throughout the city (indicated in the drawing by full circles). Each of these locations assigned to a portion of the population as city living space during flooding (indicated with hatch patterning scale). The narrative of the failing infrastructure replaced by a new one.

17th Street and London Avenue Canal Temporary Pump Stations, Gresham Smith

16 Laskow, Sarah. “New Orleans Has Been Using the Same Technology to Drain the City Since the 1910s.” Atlas Obscura. Atlas Obscura, October 30, 2017. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-orleans-wood-screw-pumps-history-power-drainage-flooding-infrastructure.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Habitat Map, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

6.4 Creating the Architectural Narrative In order to create the architecture a short descriptive narration was written alongside the development of the architecture. This was both a resultant and a methodological process of creation. Written from the perspective of “Architecture as Narrator” literal sentences are translated back and forth between drawing and writing.

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATION— a Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

The 11 Habitats, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATIONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

This is the new normal for the now residents of New Orleans. Those that do not wish this lifestyle have left, and others have joined. The drawing on the right depicting one of these moments of entry into Habitat 07. A formidable line of subscribers waiting to enter...

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Nomadic Americana, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATIONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

The rhythm of entry and exit goes through the architecture. Nature dictates the time allocated for each. The duality of the drawing reflecting the characteristics of the entry and the exit, with the architecture traversing the between.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Influx and Exodus, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATIONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; A Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

The inhabitant is bound to the architecture, similar tho how they are bound to nature. The reactionary forces driving them to and away from the habitats, never to cease.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Bound Between, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATION— a Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

The architecture provides. While this provision is mandated by the architecture itself, the inhabitants gladly take to the measures for protection. Laboring for new growth, the temporarily enslaved help to birth new portions of the “building”.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

The Temporary Slave, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATIONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; A Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

Form is dictated individually. The language persistent throughout, but each character growing from the infrastructural wall individually. Thus creating an architectural language, but not a blueprint.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Languages, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

THE WILLING INMATES OF OSCILLATIONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Descriptive Narration of and by an Architecture Time: The Near Future Place: New Orleans, Hurricane Season One by one they file into me, the earsplitting ring of the alarms a continuous symphony echoing throughout the city. This is the sixth entry this month. This influx is heavier than usual, and the parade of inmates seems to be growing with each season. Prisoners of their own movement, and subscribers to the new nomadic Americana.

This is the new normal, an ironic existence of influx and exodus that binds the inhabitant to me and the unpredictable characteristics of nature. This irony is both the resultant and origin of my birth.

I represent the vein of intervention, dueling with nature, and shielding those who temporarily enslave themselves to me. I provide, and in parasitic fashion they take to me.

Nature retreats.

The prisoners leave their shackles behind and once again to return to what once was. This is the process. Ready at the ever-fleeting moment to return to us. Yes, that is correct. There are more. We are all fluent in the same language, but many of us speak with different dialect. Our constant state of expansion has been bred and cultivated by those who inhabit. Distance to be closed further in this time of retreat. We grow indefinitely awaiting their return.

Architecture expands infinitely. The draw of population to the region and lifestyle necessitate this.

Drawing represents potential geometries for expansion within the architectural plan.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Indefinite Growth, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

The architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parasitic condition expands over time. utilizing the medium of video to attempt to represent this stage-like growth. The film strip as a narrative.

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Stills from an animation of the growth and construction of the object.

(2020)

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

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The Willing Inmates of Oscillation

Duality of Perspective, 2020

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

Conclusion 07

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the experiments conducted are ultimately still ongoing. Valuable discourse regarding the architects’ and Architecture’s boundary has been propelled, but just the fact that we can begin to question the notion of a limit to architectural work is valuable to discourse.

This idea of the boundary, and the flexing or breaking of that boundary seems to do so, or can be done, wit the use of literary concepts such as fiction and storytelling. Not only is storytelling innately human, it is innately a subconscious part of our architecture.

If we are able to harness these elements of fictions between the architecture and utilize them to create an architecture, I believe that ultimately this will lead to more informed design. Not only utilizing the idea of narrative as a resultant, but as a methodology or tool for design proves invaluable.

I would like to repeat an earlier statement, as I feel it concludes this work well, for now: “The linearity of the architectural process, of thought to drawing and resulting in a building , is broken. A new type of architecture can be created within this fictional realm where thought and drawing process are the product and all can be conceived simultaneously, resulting in a new methodology of architecture for discerning architectural knowledge and create and telling stories.”

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Ineffable Realities: Fiction and the Architectural Boundary

1 LEBBEUS WOODS, “An Architect Unshackled by Limits of the Real World”, New York Times, Aug. 25, 2008 2 Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “architecture,” accessed February 19, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ architecture.

3 Cook, Peter. Experimental Architecture. Londres: Studio Vista, 1970.

4 K., Dia. “Lebbeus Woods.” Widewalls, July 28, 2013. https:// www.widewalls.ch/artist/lebbeus-woods/.

5 Woods, Lebbeus. “RIEA: the Back Story.” LEBBEUS WOODS, June 25, 2011. https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/ riea-the-back-story/.

6 Woods, Lebbeus. “OPEN QUESTIONS.” LEBBEUS WOODS, March 10, 2009. https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/ architecture/.

7 Wagner, Aleksandra, forward to Radical Reconstruction, by Lebbeus Woods, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,1997.)

8 “Where Architects Stand: A Statement of Our Values.” The American Institute of Architects. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://www. aia.org/resources/50766-where-architects-stand-a-statement-of-ourva.

9 Steiner, Hadas A. Beyond Archigram: the Structure of Circulation.

New York: Routledge, 2009.

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Bibliography

10 Smith, Daniel and Protevi, John, “Gilles Deleuze”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/ deleuze/>.

11 Woods, Lebbeus (1992). ANARCHITECTURE: Architecture is a Political Act. London: Academy Editions. p. 8, 11, 46, 50. Wikipedia contributors, “Lebbeus Woods,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lebbeus_Woods&oldid=948377847 (accessed April 30, 2020).

12 Woods, Lebbeus. “THE EXPERIMENTAL.” LEBBEUS WOODS, August 12, 2010. https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress. com/2010/08/12/the-experimental/.

13 “Fiction.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Accessed November 13, 2019. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiction.

14 Emmons, Paul. Confabulations : Storytelling in Architecture (p. 2). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

15 Sherer, Daniel. “Daniel Sherer on Peter Eisenman’s Palladio Virtuel.” Daniel Sherer on Peter Eisenman’s Palladio Virtuel - Artforum International, November 1, 2016. https://www.artforum.com/ print/201609/peter-eisenman-s-palladio-virtuel-64198.

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Colophon Swis721 BT designed by Bitstream, 1982 Aktiv Grotesk designed by Dalton Maag, 2010

Contact E: will.hall@auburn.edu C: 256-345-8879