Responding to msg by dsucher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Sucher)
on
>OK, finally a simply-stated straightforward
>declarative. "I read this book and it has helped me."
>I like that. I'll go check out this Post Card (which I
>assume is the name of the 'work')
>
>Further afield. Would you say that these deCon writing
>would also inform the shape of cities? of urban design
>imperatives? etc. I mean, it's all very well to leave
>out panels in a suspended-ceiling grid (though I assume
> you are talking more profound things and I just use
>that as quick example of architectural 'dislocation').
> But would a deCon approach to cities put the retail
>spaces of a building on the top floor and the 'boiler
>room' at sidewalk level behind nice big windows?
>
>What results from a decon approach to urban planning
>and design? Please, I need specifics. How would the
>spatial relationships change? How would the
>individual's experience of the city be any different?
>Would the sewer lines be places on utility poles and
>the power/telephone lines be placed underground? Would
>the cars park on the sidewalk and the humans walk in
>the street?
David,
Your questions are direct and poignant. Have a seat for a long
post; here we go. (For digi-saving I will use the term
"decon".)
Decon in city shaping is occuring, is it not, in your own
approach as I presume it to be from the shard of your sig. You
appear to be questioning massive urban renewal, top down
planning and perhaps more. Decon underlies of that approach.
Similarly, urban design that looks at creative reuse of
fragments of neighborhoods, of buildings, of infrastructure, in
order to stitch together a design rather than start from
scratch with a clean slate, this too, is part of decon
thinking.
In this sense, historic preservation, PoMo, architectural
deconstructivism and some of the un-named work I do is well
within the decon philosophical domain, compared to High
Corporate Architecture, Urban Renewal, Mega-structures,
Neighborhood and Slum Clearance and other remnants of corporate
and centralized planning and design.
Further, in your example, consumer shopping might or might not
go on the top floor, certainly The Rainbow Room at the top fo
the RCA (GE) building is a consumer nightspot, as is Windows on
the World Restaurant at the World Trade Center, precisely
because they are "in the wrong place" for the ordinary bloke.
Similarly NBC's recent opening of a broadcast set at the
sidewalk level intends to open up what once was hidden upstairs
(and safer, to be sure). All of these are meant to break the
mold of expectation and arouse interest -- and to me are decon.
Gaetano Pesce's design for Chiat/Day, posted here a few days
ago, is also clearly an example of astonshingly different
approach to design of office space. Frank Gehry, Morphosis,
Michael Sorkin, Eric Moss, others, are designing amazingly
different kinds of architecture that are well-thought-out
designs of what to expect, but not what you pose as bizarre.
In addition, all the small-town newly-retrofitted and
"restored" Main Streets, Disney's peculiar fakery, Trump's
garish casino's, Sea Side, and more, seem to me to be excellent
examples of the breadth and fruitfulness of thinking and
building against the given formula, and to hell with what
once-supreme critical authority says.
On your car/street, pedestrian/sidewalk question: indeed, the
commingling of the these formerly separate activities is
occurring, on purpose, after it has been shown that it is
counter-productive, and too expensive, to separate them too
distinctly in many urban and rural cases. Too much urban land,
for example, has been given to the auto's movement, parking and
service and the municipalities are taking public space back, at
least in the major cities. A parking garage is a kind of auto
sidewalk, where private architecture houses what used to be
left on public property. And, malls public and private are
taking back a proportionate part of the streets for
pedestrians. All hail to Jane Jacobs who was one of the first
decon urbanists.
Utilities, transportation, parking, parks and all the usual
shared infrastructure, as you know, are also undergoing a
decentralization process, but not in bizarre ways as you
suspect. Instead, the separation of the these gigantic units
into manageable parts is now seen to be sound engineering and
organizational planning. The undifferentiated gaints were too
susceptible to disaster on a gigantic scale and prudence
required they be deployed as reliable cells linked in multiple
ways -- this very Net is a case in point. These mutually
supportive and cooperative ventures seem to be more efficient
in the long run than pyramidal ones.
SOM, HOK, CRS, RTKL and a host of other corporatized firms
thrived on the top-down approach. They have not been able to
adjust to decon because it is typically decentralized and
seemingly disorganized, on purpose.
But this apparent disorder is not the bizarre architectural
examples you give, although some playfully taunting schemes
have seemed like that, say those of Coop Himmelblau, Zaha
Hadid, Lebbeus Woods, Daniel Liebskind and others. But if you
compare them to the structures temporarily erected for
construction, off-shore oil platforms, certain military,
industrial and civil engineering structures, you will see that
they are not disorganized at all, but indeed are quiet elegant
and beautiful solutions to intricate design problems.
They only seem discordant when compared to the bland models of
corporate, centralized planning and architecture, which often
tried to comouflage complexity as a soothing balm, but are
often oversimplified, or stripped of richness, for the sake of
plotical, legal and financial goals. Even so, the economic
canard of "bottom-line" constraint often hid profligate
expenditures inside board rooms, executive suites, private
clubs, dining rooms and parking, idyllic (and sybiritic)
campuses and other perquisites of corporate power. (The
disparity of compensation between corporate titans and lesser
souls was only part of the veiled benefits of this life.)
Before you bite: much of my professional practise is with the
merely rich and the Super Rich, god help me, and these views
are based on experience and rather than an overly-simplistic
political ideology. (Not ready yet to post a list of the
arcane projects that have lucratively paid my way for 30
years).
End, examples.
Sign off to avoid hoary speculation.
Decon thinking (not writing, which needs a separate critique)
is, for me (and according to its tenets each of us gets to
decide), about the questioning of past, pat, ready-made
solutions, as I wrote to Suzan yesterday.
Decon in this and in most cases means to incessantly search for
new ways of thinking and doing rather than continuing with the
same (or merely tinkering), just because that is the way its
been done or because the established leaders say so. This
definition applies whether thinking, behaving, designing or
living one's life.
However, this apparently simply prescription is actually pretty
tough to do because of the fear of the unknown, the comfort
experience gives and the satisfaction that comes from fitting
into a scheme of things, that is, within a familiar and
supportive group. So you have to kind of jolt yourself into
it, or be jolted by something. Humor is one method often used
by decon to tip convention.
On the other hand, experimentation and innovation, doing things
and behaving in unusual ways, is often a lonely and desperate
activity. It brings on suspicion and stigmatization, and in
extreme cases, ostracization even death. Humor eases the pain
of this estrangement as all stigmatized groups know. That is
why I noted yesterday that designers, like deconstructionists,
share the fate of odd cults these days.
Lip service to innovation has been discussed here before, and I
think you looked askance at most suggestions, which is correct.
It's not easy to truly innovation or be creative; it's far
easier to be derivative or just simply copy, and proclaim
originality where none exists. There is a long tradition of
doing little no more than that, doing what we call evolution
rather than the dreaded revolution. Creative humor about this
weakness probably would help overcome it.
My sense, is that many of us know that individualist and
ideological approaches have run out of steam. We are searching
for other ways to think and do, alone and with others.
What is key to decon philosophy and my examples above, I think,
is the expansion of opportunites to choose one's own rather
than have it prescribed by others. Top-down says we will do it
for you, admire us, pay us well, give us perks; bottom-up says
we will do it ourselves but you are welcome to join us and
share. Heirarchy out; heteroarchy in, or something along those
lines.
Deconstruction philosophy, as Derrida wrote, is merely one way
to describe this process but did not invent it. Our search is
a joint unfolding invention; it belongs to all of us and we
really don't need a name for it, he says. Names help us tell
stories about what we are doing and new ones crop up as needed.
This is why he thinks deconstruction is so humorous: we call
it a serious philosophy at the very time we poke fun at its
obvious meaning to not-be-structured; this, to him, and to me,
indicates that we are behaving as though we know we don't need
serious philosophy any more, and are just joyfully play-acting
at being serious in our liberation from authority. Taunting
authority, if you will, by aping it.
WHY have YOU got ME exhaustedly DUNCE-DANCING to YOUR decon
TUNE, eh?
John
on
>OK, finally a simply-stated straightforward
>declarative. "I read this book and it has helped me."
>I like that. I'll go check out this Post Card (which I
>assume is the name of the 'work')
>
>Further afield. Would you say that these deCon writing
>would also inform the shape of cities? of urban design
>imperatives? etc. I mean, it's all very well to leave
>out panels in a suspended-ceiling grid (though I assume
> you are talking more profound things and I just use
>that as quick example of architectural 'dislocation').
> But would a deCon approach to cities put the retail
>spaces of a building on the top floor and the 'boiler
>room' at sidewalk level behind nice big windows?
>
>What results from a decon approach to urban planning
>and design? Please, I need specifics. How would the
>spatial relationships change? How would the
>individual's experience of the city be any different?
>Would the sewer lines be places on utility poles and
>the power/telephone lines be placed underground? Would
>the cars park on the sidewalk and the humans walk in
>the street?
David,
Your questions are direct and poignant. Have a seat for a long
post; here we go. (For digi-saving I will use the term
"decon".)
Decon in city shaping is occuring, is it not, in your own
approach as I presume it to be from the shard of your sig. You
appear to be questioning massive urban renewal, top down
planning and perhaps more. Decon underlies of that approach.
Similarly, urban design that looks at creative reuse of
fragments of neighborhoods, of buildings, of infrastructure, in
order to stitch together a design rather than start from
scratch with a clean slate, this too, is part of decon
thinking.
In this sense, historic preservation, PoMo, architectural
deconstructivism and some of the un-named work I do is well
within the decon philosophical domain, compared to High
Corporate Architecture, Urban Renewal, Mega-structures,
Neighborhood and Slum Clearance and other remnants of corporate
and centralized planning and design.
Further, in your example, consumer shopping might or might not
go on the top floor, certainly The Rainbow Room at the top fo
the RCA (GE) building is a consumer nightspot, as is Windows on
the World Restaurant at the World Trade Center, precisely
because they are "in the wrong place" for the ordinary bloke.
Similarly NBC's recent opening of a broadcast set at the
sidewalk level intends to open up what once was hidden upstairs
(and safer, to be sure). All of these are meant to break the
mold of expectation and arouse interest -- and to me are decon.
Gaetano Pesce's design for Chiat/Day, posted here a few days
ago, is also clearly an example of astonshingly different
approach to design of office space. Frank Gehry, Morphosis,
Michael Sorkin, Eric Moss, others, are designing amazingly
different kinds of architecture that are well-thought-out
designs of what to expect, but not what you pose as bizarre.
In addition, all the small-town newly-retrofitted and
"restored" Main Streets, Disney's peculiar fakery, Trump's
garish casino's, Sea Side, and more, seem to me to be excellent
examples of the breadth and fruitfulness of thinking and
building against the given formula, and to hell with what
once-supreme critical authority says.
On your car/street, pedestrian/sidewalk question: indeed, the
commingling of the these formerly separate activities is
occurring, on purpose, after it has been shown that it is
counter-productive, and too expensive, to separate them too
distinctly in many urban and rural cases. Too much urban land,
for example, has been given to the auto's movement, parking and
service and the municipalities are taking public space back, at
least in the major cities. A parking garage is a kind of auto
sidewalk, where private architecture houses what used to be
left on public property. And, malls public and private are
taking back a proportionate part of the streets for
pedestrians. All hail to Jane Jacobs who was one of the first
decon urbanists.
Utilities, transportation, parking, parks and all the usual
shared infrastructure, as you know, are also undergoing a
decentralization process, but not in bizarre ways as you
suspect. Instead, the separation of the these gigantic units
into manageable parts is now seen to be sound engineering and
organizational planning. The undifferentiated gaints were too
susceptible to disaster on a gigantic scale and prudence
required they be deployed as reliable cells linked in multiple
ways -- this very Net is a case in point. These mutually
supportive and cooperative ventures seem to be more efficient
in the long run than pyramidal ones.
SOM, HOK, CRS, RTKL and a host of other corporatized firms
thrived on the top-down approach. They have not been able to
adjust to decon because it is typically decentralized and
seemingly disorganized, on purpose.
But this apparent disorder is not the bizarre architectural
examples you give, although some playfully taunting schemes
have seemed like that, say those of Coop Himmelblau, Zaha
Hadid, Lebbeus Woods, Daniel Liebskind and others. But if you
compare them to the structures temporarily erected for
construction, off-shore oil platforms, certain military,
industrial and civil engineering structures, you will see that
they are not disorganized at all, but indeed are quiet elegant
and beautiful solutions to intricate design problems.
They only seem discordant when compared to the bland models of
corporate, centralized planning and architecture, which often
tried to comouflage complexity as a soothing balm, but are
often oversimplified, or stripped of richness, for the sake of
plotical, legal and financial goals. Even so, the economic
canard of "bottom-line" constraint often hid profligate
expenditures inside board rooms, executive suites, private
clubs, dining rooms and parking, idyllic (and sybiritic)
campuses and other perquisites of corporate power. (The
disparity of compensation between corporate titans and lesser
souls was only part of the veiled benefits of this life.)
Before you bite: much of my professional practise is with the
merely rich and the Super Rich, god help me, and these views
are based on experience and rather than an overly-simplistic
political ideology. (Not ready yet to post a list of the
arcane projects that have lucratively paid my way for 30
years).
End, examples.
Sign off to avoid hoary speculation.
Decon thinking (not writing, which needs a separate critique)
is, for me (and according to its tenets each of us gets to
decide), about the questioning of past, pat, ready-made
solutions, as I wrote to Suzan yesterday.
Decon in this and in most cases means to incessantly search for
new ways of thinking and doing rather than continuing with the
same (or merely tinkering), just because that is the way its
been done or because the established leaders say so. This
definition applies whether thinking, behaving, designing or
living one's life.
However, this apparently simply prescription is actually pretty
tough to do because of the fear of the unknown, the comfort
experience gives and the satisfaction that comes from fitting
into a scheme of things, that is, within a familiar and
supportive group. So you have to kind of jolt yourself into
it, or be jolted by something. Humor is one method often used
by decon to tip convention.
On the other hand, experimentation and innovation, doing things
and behaving in unusual ways, is often a lonely and desperate
activity. It brings on suspicion and stigmatization, and in
extreme cases, ostracization even death. Humor eases the pain
of this estrangement as all stigmatized groups know. That is
why I noted yesterday that designers, like deconstructionists,
share the fate of odd cults these days.
Lip service to innovation has been discussed here before, and I
think you looked askance at most suggestions, which is correct.
It's not easy to truly innovation or be creative; it's far
easier to be derivative or just simply copy, and proclaim
originality where none exists. There is a long tradition of
doing little no more than that, doing what we call evolution
rather than the dreaded revolution. Creative humor about this
weakness probably would help overcome it.
My sense, is that many of us know that individualist and
ideological approaches have run out of steam. We are searching
for other ways to think and do, alone and with others.
What is key to decon philosophy and my examples above, I think,
is the expansion of opportunites to choose one's own rather
than have it prescribed by others. Top-down says we will do it
for you, admire us, pay us well, give us perks; bottom-up says
we will do it ourselves but you are welcome to join us and
share. Heirarchy out; heteroarchy in, or something along those
lines.
Deconstruction philosophy, as Derrida wrote, is merely one way
to describe this process but did not invent it. Our search is
a joint unfolding invention; it belongs to all of us and we
really don't need a name for it, he says. Names help us tell
stories about what we are doing and new ones crop up as needed.
This is why he thinks deconstruction is so humorous: we call
it a serious philosophy at the very time we poke fun at its
obvious meaning to not-be-structured; this, to him, and to me,
indicates that we are behaving as though we know we don't need
serious philosophy any more, and are just joyfully play-acting
at being serious in our liberation from authority. Taunting
authority, if you will, by aping it.
WHY have YOU got ME exhaustedly DUNCE-DANCING to YOUR decon
TUNE, eh?
John