The New York Times, October 16, 1994,
Section 2, Arts and Leisure, p. 40
[Two photos of projects]
By Herbert Muschamp
Columbus, Ohio - -The Building of New Mu-
seums was a major architecture
story of the 1980's. Learning how to
use them is turning out to be one of
the big stories of the 1990's. In the
past few years, a new generation of archi-
tecture and design curators have joined the
staffs of American museums. They are only
beginning to figure out how these institu-
tions can best serve architecture. It is not
going to be an easy process, to judge from
"House Rules," a show of residential archi-
tecture at the Wexner Center for the Arts in
Columbus, Ohio. This is a flawed exhibition.
But it is also just the kind of experimental
venture that museums with a serious com-
mitment to architecture must support:
Up to now, the Wexner Center has pre-
sented only traveling architecture shows
initiated by other museums. With " House
Rules," it initiates its own architectural pro-
gram, and perhaps it is not surprising that
the show has much in common with the ., ar-
chitecturally ambitious building in which it
is presented. Designed by Peter Eisenman,
the Wexner theoretically provides a cultural
bridge between the ivory tower and the city
beyond. But Eisenman's cryptic meanings
probably escape those who don't work the
academic side of the street.
"House Rules" suffers from a similar
form of introversion. Though the show grap-
ples with social issues, it disdains the prag-
matic tools traditionally employed by archi-
tects to effect social change. There is little
of practical value for American homemak-
ers in this show of largely theoretical de-
signs. There is nothing to comfort the home-
less. But the show does open up an impor-
tant set of questions about the right of archi-
tects to redefine what is "practical" and
about the value of museum shows that help
them to assert that right.
Organized by Mark Robbins, the
Wexner's curator of architecture, the show
sets out to explore connections between the
design of houses and such social factors as
race, class and sex. Each of the 10 projects
on view was produced by a team of archi-
tects working in collaboration with a social
critic or theorist. Ostensibly chosen to rep-
resent a rainbow of social perspectives --
feminist, gay, Latino, black -- the partici-
pating architects include Michael Sorkin;
Hank Konig and Julie Eizenberg; Adobe
L.A., Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Haw-
kinson, Joel Sanders, and Mabel O. Wilson.
Their critic-collaborators are Joan Copjec,
Bell Hooks, Margaret Crawford, Silvia Kol-
bowski, Jonathan Crary and Heidi J. Nast.
Each team was asked to design a house for
a standard 80-by-100-foot lot. Beyond that,
the teams were given little guidance on how
to carry out the show's ideological agenda.
Clearly, this is a highly polemical show,
though the argument is somewhat veiled. At
heart, it is a response to the conservative
crusade for family values and to the "neo-
traditional" housing in places like Seaside,
Fla., which embody that crusade in archi-
tectural form. The 10 projects add up to a
protest against attempts to impose rigid so-
cial norms on a diverse society. If there's
any logic to the idea that private houses can
perform this political function, it goes some-
thing like this: Families live in houses. Ar-
chitects design them. Their designs reflect
prevailing social attitudes. As those atti-
tudes change, the designs change. And per-
haps designers can accelerate social change
by representing progressive attitudes in
built form.
There are sound historical reasons for
proceeding with this logic. The ideal home
plan proposed in 1869 by Harriet Beecher
Stowe and Catharine Beecher in "The
American Woman's Home" recognized the
emancipation of women. The open floor plan
of Frank Lloyd Wright responded to the in-
creased social informality that accompa-
nied suburban growth. In both cases, design
both reflected social changes and helped
make them a reality.
But a world of difference separates these
precedents from the work on view at the
Wexner. Beecher and Wright were design-
ing for the cultural mainstream. They
sought to define new middle-class norms.
The projects at the Wexner are pitched
against the mainstream. Their designers
want to break the grip of homogenized
norms and allow heterogeneity to flower
across the land.
Whether noble or knee-jerk, the show's so-
cial agenda is not easily translated into
buildings. Aren't we reinventing the wheel
here? Has there ever been a more heteroge-
neously housed nation than present-day
America? Lofts, log cabins, luxury high-
rises, trailers, brownstones, ranch houses,
studios, Victorian charmers, inner-city casi-
tas, bungalows: American architecture is
already far more diverse than the society it
houses. Pay your mortgage, take your
choice.
Nor do we lack a sign language to identify
the subcultural affiliations of those who
dwell within. From the mezuza by the door
to the political sticker in the window, there
is no shortage of symbols with which resi-
dents can proclaim their identities to the
outside world. Of course, when architects
begin to prescribe such devices, they run the
risk of perpetuating social stereotypes.
For the most part, the Wexner projects
studiously avoid this risk. The designs em-
phasize flexibility and openess as architec-
tural metaphors for an enlightened society
that has progressed beyond pigeonholes.
But such a neutral approaeh contradicts the
show's underlying premise that buildings
should refleet eultural differenee. And
weren't flexibility and openness already
hallmarks of the neutral modern house?
There's another contradiction in this
show. Diversity is not encompassed by indi-
vidual visions. It results from a multiplicity
of visions, many of them incompatible. In
theory, one might expeet 10 individual archi-
tects to produce 10 very different projects.
But many of the projects on view are quite
similar. Most of the collaborating social
critics have been strongly influenced by lit-
erary deconstruction. While only three of
the projects resemble the deconstructionist
esthetic of architects like Zaha Hadid and
Coop Himmelblau, all of them are, in effect,
"deconstructions" of the single-family
dwelling unit. It is hard to see how diversity
would gain by lifting people out of Seaside
and setting them down in Decon City.
Architects should be developing alterna-
tives to the neo-traditional models. But
"House Rules" does not propose genuine al-
ternatives. What it presents, rather, are ex-
amples of a hermetic, self-sufficient strain
of contemporary architectural culture, one
so self-absorbed that it neither expects nor
desires to make a significant impact on the
material world. Instead, this strain finds ful-
fillment in the realm of the school, the mu-
seum and the academic publication. How
can these architects present alternatives if
they inhabit another sphere altogether?
One project, "House, 20 June 1994," made
the whole show worth doing, and it clicked
not only because of an eminently sensible
design -- a complex of four units grouped
around a central courtyard -- but because
the collaboration took the form of disagree-
ment. Julie Eizenberg, an architect whose
firm has produced some of the most impres-
sive housing in Los Angeles in recent years,
is a pragmatist with little patience for theo-
retical convolutions.
What architects need to reckon with, Ms.
Eizenberg wrote to Bell Hooks, her collabo-
rating critic, is not theory but "planning
regulations, banks, economies and struc-
tures for the protection of personal assets."
Ms. Hooks, in reply, insisted that arehitec-
ture is influenced by theories, whether they
are explicitly stated or concealed, and that
it's better to be aware of them. The ex-
change, reproduced on a Plexiglas box con-
taining the model, conveyed a completeness
of vision that the show as a whole did not.
Together, the architect and the writer dis-
covered that architecture is a medium with
a unique capacity to connect the conceptual
and material realms.
Otherwise, "House Rules"
illustrates a breakdown in that
connection. It suggests that the
most conceptually sophisticated
young architects today are un-
able or unwilling to embrace the practical
tools of their profession. While the Wexner
deserves credit for exposing that break-
down, it would be even more commendable
if the museum helped repair it. Instead of
match-making architects with theorists,
why not pair them with developers or public
officials? Don't architects have enough the-
ories of their own? Surely the architects at
the Wexner don't seem to be running short.
The issue isn't whether architects should
be designing conceptual projects. It is what
museums should be doing with them. Sixty
years ago, when the Museum of Modern Art
pioneered the idea of presenting architec-
ture in an art museum, it pursued a twofold
mission: educating the public and persuad-
ing builders and manufacturers to embrace
modern design. This mission wasn't the re-
sult of excess ambition. It reflected the view
that architecture differs fundamentally
from painting and sculpture; it finds fulfill-
ment not within a museum's finite frame of
esthetic experience but in the world beyond
it. That theory is worth holding onto.
-------------------
END
Section 2, Arts and Leisure, p. 40
[Two photos of projects]
By Herbert Muschamp
Columbus, Ohio - -The Building of New Mu-
seums was a major architecture
story of the 1980's. Learning how to
use them is turning out to be one of
the big stories of the 1990's. In the
past few years, a new generation of archi-
tecture and design curators have joined the
staffs of American museums. They are only
beginning to figure out how these institu-
tions can best serve architecture. It is not
going to be an easy process, to judge from
"House Rules," a show of residential archi-
tecture at the Wexner Center for the Arts in
Columbus, Ohio. This is a flawed exhibition.
But it is also just the kind of experimental
venture that museums with a serious com-
mitment to architecture must support:
Up to now, the Wexner Center has pre-
sented only traveling architecture shows
initiated by other museums. With " House
Rules," it initiates its own architectural pro-
gram, and perhaps it is not surprising that
the show has much in common with the ., ar-
chitecturally ambitious building in which it
is presented. Designed by Peter Eisenman,
the Wexner theoretically provides a cultural
bridge between the ivory tower and the city
beyond. But Eisenman's cryptic meanings
probably escape those who don't work the
academic side of the street.
"House Rules" suffers from a similar
form of introversion. Though the show grap-
ples with social issues, it disdains the prag-
matic tools traditionally employed by archi-
tects to effect social change. There is little
of practical value for American homemak-
ers in this show of largely theoretical de-
signs. There is nothing to comfort the home-
less. But the show does open up an impor-
tant set of questions about the right of archi-
tects to redefine what is "practical" and
about the value of museum shows that help
them to assert that right.
Organized by Mark Robbins, the
Wexner's curator of architecture, the show
sets out to explore connections between the
design of houses and such social factors as
race, class and sex. Each of the 10 projects
on view was produced by a team of archi-
tects working in collaboration with a social
critic or theorist. Ostensibly chosen to rep-
resent a rainbow of social perspectives --
feminist, gay, Latino, black -- the partici-
pating architects include Michael Sorkin;
Hank Konig and Julie Eizenberg; Adobe
L.A., Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Haw-
kinson, Joel Sanders, and Mabel O. Wilson.
Their critic-collaborators are Joan Copjec,
Bell Hooks, Margaret Crawford, Silvia Kol-
bowski, Jonathan Crary and Heidi J. Nast.
Each team was asked to design a house for
a standard 80-by-100-foot lot. Beyond that,
the teams were given little guidance on how
to carry out the show's ideological agenda.
Clearly, this is a highly polemical show,
though the argument is somewhat veiled. At
heart, it is a response to the conservative
crusade for family values and to the "neo-
traditional" housing in places like Seaside,
Fla., which embody that crusade in archi-
tectural form. The 10 projects add up to a
protest against attempts to impose rigid so-
cial norms on a diverse society. If there's
any logic to the idea that private houses can
perform this political function, it goes some-
thing like this: Families live in houses. Ar-
chitects design them. Their designs reflect
prevailing social attitudes. As those atti-
tudes change, the designs change. And per-
haps designers can accelerate social change
by representing progressive attitudes in
built form.
There are sound historical reasons for
proceeding with this logic. The ideal home
plan proposed in 1869 by Harriet Beecher
Stowe and Catharine Beecher in "The
American Woman's Home" recognized the
emancipation of women. The open floor plan
of Frank Lloyd Wright responded to the in-
creased social informality that accompa-
nied suburban growth. In both cases, design
both reflected social changes and helped
make them a reality.
But a world of difference separates these
precedents from the work on view at the
Wexner. Beecher and Wright were design-
ing for the cultural mainstream. They
sought to define new middle-class norms.
The projects at the Wexner are pitched
against the mainstream. Their designers
want to break the grip of homogenized
norms and allow heterogeneity to flower
across the land.
Whether noble or knee-jerk, the show's so-
cial agenda is not easily translated into
buildings. Aren't we reinventing the wheel
here? Has there ever been a more heteroge-
neously housed nation than present-day
America? Lofts, log cabins, luxury high-
rises, trailers, brownstones, ranch houses,
studios, Victorian charmers, inner-city casi-
tas, bungalows: American architecture is
already far more diverse than the society it
houses. Pay your mortgage, take your
choice.
Nor do we lack a sign language to identify
the subcultural affiliations of those who
dwell within. From the mezuza by the door
to the political sticker in the window, there
is no shortage of symbols with which resi-
dents can proclaim their identities to the
outside world. Of course, when architects
begin to prescribe such devices, they run the
risk of perpetuating social stereotypes.
For the most part, the Wexner projects
studiously avoid this risk. The designs em-
phasize flexibility and openess as architec-
tural metaphors for an enlightened society
that has progressed beyond pigeonholes.
But such a neutral approaeh contradicts the
show's underlying premise that buildings
should refleet eultural differenee. And
weren't flexibility and openness already
hallmarks of the neutral modern house?
There's another contradiction in this
show. Diversity is not encompassed by indi-
vidual visions. It results from a multiplicity
of visions, many of them incompatible. In
theory, one might expeet 10 individual archi-
tects to produce 10 very different projects.
But many of the projects on view are quite
similar. Most of the collaborating social
critics have been strongly influenced by lit-
erary deconstruction. While only three of
the projects resemble the deconstructionist
esthetic of architects like Zaha Hadid and
Coop Himmelblau, all of them are, in effect,
"deconstructions" of the single-family
dwelling unit. It is hard to see how diversity
would gain by lifting people out of Seaside
and setting them down in Decon City.
Architects should be developing alterna-
tives to the neo-traditional models. But
"House Rules" does not propose genuine al-
ternatives. What it presents, rather, are ex-
amples of a hermetic, self-sufficient strain
of contemporary architectural culture, one
so self-absorbed that it neither expects nor
desires to make a significant impact on the
material world. Instead, this strain finds ful-
fillment in the realm of the school, the mu-
seum and the academic publication. How
can these architects present alternatives if
they inhabit another sphere altogether?
One project, "House, 20 June 1994," made
the whole show worth doing, and it clicked
not only because of an eminently sensible
design -- a complex of four units grouped
around a central courtyard -- but because
the collaboration took the form of disagree-
ment. Julie Eizenberg, an architect whose
firm has produced some of the most impres-
sive housing in Los Angeles in recent years,
is a pragmatist with little patience for theo-
retical convolutions.
What architects need to reckon with, Ms.
Eizenberg wrote to Bell Hooks, her collabo-
rating critic, is not theory but "planning
regulations, banks, economies and struc-
tures for the protection of personal assets."
Ms. Hooks, in reply, insisted that arehitec-
ture is influenced by theories, whether they
are explicitly stated or concealed, and that
it's better to be aware of them. The ex-
change, reproduced on a Plexiglas box con-
taining the model, conveyed a completeness
of vision that the show as a whole did not.
Together, the architect and the writer dis-
covered that architecture is a medium with
a unique capacity to connect the conceptual
and material realms.
Otherwise, "House Rules"
illustrates a breakdown in that
connection. It suggests that the
most conceptually sophisticated
young architects today are un-
able or unwilling to embrace the practical
tools of their profession. While the Wexner
deserves credit for exposing that break-
down, it would be even more commendable
if the museum helped repair it. Instead of
match-making architects with theorists,
why not pair them with developers or public
officials? Don't architects have enough the-
ories of their own? Surely the architects at
the Wexner don't seem to be running short.
The issue isn't whether architects should
be designing conceptual projects. It is what
museums should be doing with them. Sixty
years ago, when the Museum of Modern Art
pioneered the idea of presenting architec-
ture in an art museum, it pursued a twofold
mission: educating the public and persuad-
ing builders and manufacturers to embrace
modern design. This mission wasn't the re-
sult of excess ambition. It reflected the view
that architecture differs fundamentally
from painting and sculpture; it finds fulfill-
ment not within a museum's finite frame of
esthetic experience but in the world beyond
it. That theory is worth holding onto.
-------------------
END