Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture [TANAFA]
An Anthology of Architectural Theory
1965-1995 Kate Nesbitt, Editor, c.1996
Princeton Architectural Press, NYC NY
............................................................
reading TANAFA's introduction, i unwittingly realized i'd
purchased a POMO Tome of Grand Design schema(n)tics... it
brings up several threads on D-L, on and offlist.
first of which is an old question: what is Post-Modern,
Postmodern, PostModern, Postmodernism? a question i dodged
from sgp's query months back. i have a rudimentary working
definition i use, in comparison to the singularity of the
'modern project' and its universal narrative and monoculture
identity design - in relation to this, postmodern, for me
has meant the fracture, factions, and fractions of this idea
that did not hold their weight under stress - the blowouts,
breakdowns, cracks, crevices, and suspensing bridges made
of paperclips, rubberbands, and gum. i think postmodernism
has represented the plethora of "choice", architectural and
other, from decon design to vernacularism to neotraditional
and corporate decorated shed design, which, in retrospect
[and with respect to the Venturi-effect] i equate even with
the ubiquitous anonymous skyscraper (box) with affixed sign
or symbol, 50 stories or 800 feet above ground -- that that
bird's eye view so easily drafted, re-enacted, replicated
and animated for the pluralism of the destroyed single point
of vanishing, vanquishing perspectival thoughts. that is, in
a word (now presumed in retrospect) summarized as fragmented.
the fragment. fragmentation. schiz. break/flow. artifact.
the next event was in talking with .H. when he arrived in
San Francisco. we were talking about POMO, about the role of
basic research in architecture, and the idea of POMO as a
reference to historical fragments popped into the mind from
the realm of the sub- and un- conscious architectural id.
the fragment, an architectural artifact.
memory, the third stream of unconsciousness overwhelmed the
hallucinatory mind-bank with the important role of Sir John
Sloan, and his enlightened questing and questioning of the
historical artifact as a part of the architectural milieu,
that is, an archaeological reference.
the fragment, an archaeo-architectural event.
now, picking up this rather immense bible-of-a-book, i see
the words 'fragment' and 'artifact' populating most every
page of the introduction and many of the texts. and i wonder
what i missed in school, how could i miss such a basic design
development. i am beginning to think the connections between
architecture and archaeology are more closely linked in the
a-(his)-storical record, architecture, than i'd ever thought.
in one section of the book's introduction, the purpose of
the Theoretical Treatise is overviewed. one aspect is stated
as being an "origin" story for architecture, which makes me
think of Nold's anthro-architecture as a necessary piece of
the anthro-archaeo-architectural puzzle.. then attributes
are outlined as follows..
"the basic subject matter of architectural treatises can be
categorized using the following five points:
1) The requisite qualities of an architect in terms of
personality, education, and experience.
2) The requisite qualities of architecture.
3) A theory of design or construction method encompassing
technique, constituent parts, types, materials, and
procedures.
4) Examples of the canon of architecture, the selection
and presentation of which reveal the author's attitude
to history.
5) An attitude about the relationship between theory
and practice."
it makes me wonder if somehow, the design-talk or the
architectural discourse (discursive practice ) of the
design-list somehow qualifies in this theorizing realm.
connect the dots. so the author/editor Kate Nesbitt then
offers up a complex interweaving of what POMO really is:
* Postmodernism as a Historical Period
* Postmodernism's Defining Theoretical Paradigms
1. Phenomenology
2. Aesthetic of the Sublime
3. Linguistic Theory
- Semiotics
- Structuralism
- Poststructuralism
- Deconstruction
4. Marxism
5. Feminism
* Postmodernism's Architectural Themes
1. History and Historicism
2. Meaning
3. Place
4. Urban Theory
5. Political and Ethical Agendas
6. the Body
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
back to archaeo-architectural ideas/ideologies.. i am taken
by a particular paragraph of the text:
"Because of the durability of buildings, the architectural
theorist is always confronted with a historical condition:
the simultaneous experience of works dating from vastly
different time periods. This necessitates a consideration
of one's present relationship with the tradition of the
discipline of architecture."
it has me thinking about American architecture in particular.
what is it, if not about a pluralism of design? .H. referred
to the great wealth of this American asset. a wider-range, i
think he said, of building solutions.
it keywords a new idea on the tip of my Frankenstinian frontal
lobe, that is, an architecture of interpretation, hermeneutic?
as there is Information Architecture, there is also, i propose,
an Information Archaeology tied in with the architectureality.
from the scant evidence dug up in research, i'd have to bet:
* Postmodernism as a Historical Period
* Postmodernism's Defining Theoretical Paradigms
* Postmodernism's Architectural Themes
all are rooted in this anthro-archaeo metaphor of fragments.
fragments of buildings equivalent to fragments of ideas. and
architecture in the realm of 'the sample', now, analogous to
"digital" design. a bit here, a bit there, this that.
architecture as information. archaeology as a blending of the
architectural information of insight within an anthropology.
thinking about de|con design, POMO, fragments, bits, artifacts,
and about the origin of much of this discourse in the fields
of anthro-archaeology via the way of linguistics and history.
is archaeology the handmaiden, or handyman of architecture?
this information archaeology, could it be the architectural
interpretation of form, place, meaning, the sign-system of
centuries of mind-design upon the ~tabula~rasa, scripted out
of and onto the modern project's clean-room, computer doom..
the intro, for me, ties in with Paul-Alan Johnson's Theory
of Architecture; in that it focusses in on design-talk, as
does Nesbitt's emphasis upon the 'writing of architecture'
and the importance of the POMO architectural theorists who
use 'the FRAGMENTARY essay as their tool', emphasis mine.
and, adding or detracting from this heap of words in space-
time, could it be this 'architectural interpretation' that
is faced when desiging and building a building in today's
built environment. that, like the quote above, an architect
is faced with this cacaphony of precedent, to either choose
to embrace, ignore, or both - in an attempt to explore the
chaos or ordering of the universe in built form..?
i don't know. just thinking about it. thinking about my
attempt to read Eisenman, so slick that my mind slid across
the page like i was a monkey on Gehry's back while he was
playing ice-hockey with all his architectural chums.. that
is, so slick and fast that i didn't understand a thing--
except: the game. the game of mind-design. signs, d'signs,
codes, complex cryptographic images and ideas, is it our
(semiotic) language - where, or better, who are the rules?
into architecture. out of the word. building upon ideas.
dismantling structures, rehabbing brains, imaginations.
if theory (which i prefer the word "research" to any day)
is the discursive practice it is believed to be, the word
revealing/unfolding/recreating/birthing itself, mediated,
then maybe this design-talk, this design-list, is just as
theoretical as these polemical POMO texts. so, there were
the Whites, the Greys-- does that make us the Blacks?
bc
An Anthology of Architectural Theory
1965-1995 Kate Nesbitt, Editor, c.1996
Princeton Architectural Press, NYC NY
............................................................
reading TANAFA's introduction, i unwittingly realized i'd
purchased a POMO Tome of Grand Design schema(n)tics... it
brings up several threads on D-L, on and offlist.
first of which is an old question: what is Post-Modern,
Postmodern, PostModern, Postmodernism? a question i dodged
from sgp's query months back. i have a rudimentary working
definition i use, in comparison to the singularity of the
'modern project' and its universal narrative and monoculture
identity design - in relation to this, postmodern, for me
has meant the fracture, factions, and fractions of this idea
that did not hold their weight under stress - the blowouts,
breakdowns, cracks, crevices, and suspensing bridges made
of paperclips, rubberbands, and gum. i think postmodernism
has represented the plethora of "choice", architectural and
other, from decon design to vernacularism to neotraditional
and corporate decorated shed design, which, in retrospect
[and with respect to the Venturi-effect] i equate even with
the ubiquitous anonymous skyscraper (box) with affixed sign
or symbol, 50 stories or 800 feet above ground -- that that
bird's eye view so easily drafted, re-enacted, replicated
and animated for the pluralism of the destroyed single point
of vanishing, vanquishing perspectival thoughts. that is, in
a word (now presumed in retrospect) summarized as fragmented.
the fragment. fragmentation. schiz. break/flow. artifact.
the next event was in talking with .H. when he arrived in
San Francisco. we were talking about POMO, about the role of
basic research in architecture, and the idea of POMO as a
reference to historical fragments popped into the mind from
the realm of the sub- and un- conscious architectural id.
the fragment, an architectural artifact.
memory, the third stream of unconsciousness overwhelmed the
hallucinatory mind-bank with the important role of Sir John
Sloan, and his enlightened questing and questioning of the
historical artifact as a part of the architectural milieu,
that is, an archaeological reference.
the fragment, an archaeo-architectural event.
now, picking up this rather immense bible-of-a-book, i see
the words 'fragment' and 'artifact' populating most every
page of the introduction and many of the texts. and i wonder
what i missed in school, how could i miss such a basic design
development. i am beginning to think the connections between
architecture and archaeology are more closely linked in the
a-(his)-storical record, architecture, than i'd ever thought.
in one section of the book's introduction, the purpose of
the Theoretical Treatise is overviewed. one aspect is stated
as being an "origin" story for architecture, which makes me
think of Nold's anthro-architecture as a necessary piece of
the anthro-archaeo-architectural puzzle.. then attributes
are outlined as follows..
"the basic subject matter of architectural treatises can be
categorized using the following five points:
1) The requisite qualities of an architect in terms of
personality, education, and experience.
2) The requisite qualities of architecture.
3) A theory of design or construction method encompassing
technique, constituent parts, types, materials, and
procedures.
4) Examples of the canon of architecture, the selection
and presentation of which reveal the author's attitude
to history.
5) An attitude about the relationship between theory
and practice."
it makes me wonder if somehow, the design-talk or the
architectural discourse (discursive practice ) of the
design-list somehow qualifies in this theorizing realm.
connect the dots. so the author/editor Kate Nesbitt then
offers up a complex interweaving of what POMO really is:
* Postmodernism as a Historical Period
* Postmodernism's Defining Theoretical Paradigms
1. Phenomenology
2. Aesthetic of the Sublime
3. Linguistic Theory
- Semiotics
- Structuralism
- Poststructuralism
- Deconstruction
4. Marxism
5. Feminism
* Postmodernism's Architectural Themes
1. History and Historicism
2. Meaning
3. Place
4. Urban Theory
5. Political and Ethical Agendas
6. the Body
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
back to archaeo-architectural ideas/ideologies.. i am taken
by a particular paragraph of the text:
"Because of the durability of buildings, the architectural
theorist is always confronted with a historical condition:
the simultaneous experience of works dating from vastly
different time periods. This necessitates a consideration
of one's present relationship with the tradition of the
discipline of architecture."
it has me thinking about American architecture in particular.
what is it, if not about a pluralism of design? .H. referred
to the great wealth of this American asset. a wider-range, i
think he said, of building solutions.
it keywords a new idea on the tip of my Frankenstinian frontal
lobe, that is, an architecture of interpretation, hermeneutic?
as there is Information Architecture, there is also, i propose,
an Information Archaeology tied in with the architectureality.
from the scant evidence dug up in research, i'd have to bet:
* Postmodernism as a Historical Period
* Postmodernism's Defining Theoretical Paradigms
* Postmodernism's Architectural Themes
all are rooted in this anthro-archaeo metaphor of fragments.
fragments of buildings equivalent to fragments of ideas. and
architecture in the realm of 'the sample', now, analogous to
"digital" design. a bit here, a bit there, this that.
architecture as information. archaeology as a blending of the
architectural information of insight within an anthropology.
thinking about de|con design, POMO, fragments, bits, artifacts,
and about the origin of much of this discourse in the fields
of anthro-archaeology via the way of linguistics and history.
is archaeology the handmaiden, or handyman of architecture?
this information archaeology, could it be the architectural
interpretation of form, place, meaning, the sign-system of
centuries of mind-design upon the ~tabula~rasa, scripted out
of and onto the modern project's clean-room, computer doom..
the intro, for me, ties in with Paul-Alan Johnson's Theory
of Architecture; in that it focusses in on design-talk, as
does Nesbitt's emphasis upon the 'writing of architecture'
and the importance of the POMO architectural theorists who
use 'the FRAGMENTARY essay as their tool', emphasis mine.
and, adding or detracting from this heap of words in space-
time, could it be this 'architectural interpretation' that
is faced when desiging and building a building in today's
built environment. that, like the quote above, an architect
is faced with this cacaphony of precedent, to either choose
to embrace, ignore, or both - in an attempt to explore the
chaos or ordering of the universe in built form..?
i don't know. just thinking about it. thinking about my
attempt to read Eisenman, so slick that my mind slid across
the page like i was a monkey on Gehry's back while he was
playing ice-hockey with all his architectural chums.. that
is, so slick and fast that i didn't understand a thing--
except: the game. the game of mind-design. signs, d'signs,
codes, complex cryptographic images and ideas, is it our
(semiotic) language - where, or better, who are the rules?
into architecture. out of the word. building upon ideas.
dismantling structures, rehabbing brains, imaginations.
if theory (which i prefer the word "research" to any day)
is the discursive practice it is believed to be, the word
revealing/unfolding/recreating/birthing itself, mediated,
then maybe this design-talk, this design-list, is just as
theoretical as these polemical POMO texts. so, there were
the Whites, the Greys-- does that make us the Blacks?
bc