Forwarding message by dwagner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--------------------
From: dwagner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Davor Wagner)
Subject: WAR AND ARCHITECTURE (First in a series of four
articles for A+U)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 19:57:57 -0400 (EDT)
(posted by BOSNET)
***********************************************************
This posting is provided WITH permission from the copyright
owner and it MAY NOT BE distributed further without
permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use".
***********************************************************
Lebbeus Woods
WAR AND ARCHITECTURE
MEDITATIONS and PRINCIPLES
(First in a series of four articles for A+U)
MANIFESTO
Architecture and war are not imcompatible. Architecture is
war. War is architecture. I am at war with my
time, with history, with all authority
that resides
in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of
millions who do not fit in, who have no home,
no family, no doctrine, no firm place to
call my own, no known beginning or end,
no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war
on all icons and finalities, on all histories
that would chain me
with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know
only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and
forms that appear
with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an
architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist
who worships the flesh,
the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky.
I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine.
Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.
This article is dedicated to the citizens of Sarajevo, who at
this writing are still under a viscous and pathological siege
that began more than fourteen months ago. It is my hope
that ideas worked out at a distance will nevertheless have
immediacy for them, and in some way contribute---when the time
comes---to the rebuilding of their city and way of life.
The towers are burned now in Sarajevo. The steel and
glass monuments to enlightened progress in an age of
industrial society are gutted hulks, and with them the
ideologies and values they embodied. Sarajevo's skyscrapers
were prime targets of gunners in the hills, together with
minarets and domed mosques, the great library, the post-
office, the university buildings and all others that
symbolized reason and its promise of humane civil life.
Once set afire by the incendiary shells, there was no way to
save them. Not only had the infrastructure with which to do
so been destroyed, but also the delicate tissue of
reasons to do so. The burning towers of Sarajevo are
markers at the end of an age of reasons, if not of reason
itself, beyond which lies a domain of almost
incomprehensible darkness.
But war is not confined to this city, nor to the
culturally complex Balkan peninsula for which Sarajevo was a
symbol of tolerance and hope, and is now a signal of
despair, and a warning. Armed conflict in one guise or
another rages around the world, in Azerbaijan, Moldova and
Georgia, in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, In Israel
and Lebanon, in Angola and half a dozen other African
states, in Northern Ireland, Peru and Colombia. South
Central Los Angeles was the zone of a civil insurrection
that passed through it like a sudden and virulent storm,
leaving behind not only massive destruction to property,
but also to illusions of America's immunity to the violent
forces of change affecting others. In Germany, the
firebombing of buildings housing guest-workers has led to
riots that expose once again the fragility of civilization in
even the most orderly of societies. Though no one in
--------------------
From: dwagner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Davor Wagner)
Subject: WAR AND ARCHITECTURE (First in a series of four
articles for A+U)
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 19:57:57 -0400 (EDT)
(posted by BOSNET)
***********************************************************
This posting is provided WITH permission from the copyright
owner and it MAY NOT BE distributed further without
permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use".
***********************************************************
Lebbeus Woods
WAR AND ARCHITECTURE
MEDITATIONS and PRINCIPLES
(First in a series of four articles for A+U)
MANIFESTO
Architecture and war are not imcompatible. Architecture is
war. War is architecture. I am at war with my
time, with history, with all authority
that resides
in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of
millions who do not fit in, who have no home,
no family, no doctrine, no firm place to
call my own, no known beginning or end,
no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war
on all icons and finalities, on all histories
that would chain me
with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know
only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and
forms that appear
with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an
architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist
who worships the flesh,
the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky.
I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine.
Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.
This article is dedicated to the citizens of Sarajevo, who at
this writing are still under a viscous and pathological siege
that began more than fourteen months ago. It is my hope
that ideas worked out at a distance will nevertheless have
immediacy for them, and in some way contribute---when the time
comes---to the rebuilding of their city and way of life.
The towers are burned now in Sarajevo. The steel and
glass monuments to enlightened progress in an age of
industrial society are gutted hulks, and with them the
ideologies and values they embodied. Sarajevo's skyscrapers
were prime targets of gunners in the hills, together with
minarets and domed mosques, the great library, the post-
office, the university buildings and all others that
symbolized reason and its promise of humane civil life.
Once set afire by the incendiary shells, there was no way to
save them. Not only had the infrastructure with which to do
so been destroyed, but also the delicate tissue of
reasons to do so. The burning towers of Sarajevo are
markers at the end of an age of reasons, if not of reason
itself, beyond which lies a domain of almost
incomprehensible darkness.
But war is not confined to this city, nor to the
culturally complex Balkan peninsula for which Sarajevo was a
symbol of tolerance and hope, and is now a signal of
despair, and a warning. Armed conflict in one guise or
another rages around the world, in Azerbaijan, Moldova and
Georgia, in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, In Israel
and Lebanon, in Angola and half a dozen other African
states, in Northern Ireland, Peru and Colombia. South
Central Los Angeles was the zone of a civil insurrection
that passed through it like a sudden and virulent storm,
leaving behind not only massive destruction to property,
but also to illusions of America's immunity to the violent
forces of change affecting others. In Germany, the
firebombing of buildings housing guest-workers has led to
riots that expose once again the fragility of civilization in
even the most orderly of societies. Though no one in