The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A New Framework for Architecture, volume 1

The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A New Framework for Architecture, Volume I

Patrik Schumacher

WILEY

Vol. I

THE AUTOPOIESIS OF ARCHITECTURE

Vol. I

Patrik Schumacher

THE AUTOPOIESIS OF ARCHITECTURE A New Framework for Architecture

A John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., Publication

 C

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ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

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Preface

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Introduction: Architecture as Autopoietic System 0.1 Architecture as a System of Communications 0.2 A Unified Theory of Architecture 0.3 Functional vs Causal Explanations 0.4 The Quest for Comprehensiveness 0.5 The Premises Imported from Social Systems Theory 0.6 Architecture’s Place within Society

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Architectural Theory 1.1 The Unity of Architecture 1.1.1 Architectural System-formation and Self-regulation 1.2 The Evolution of Architecture 1.2.1 Architectural Theory as Mechanism of Selection 1.3 The Necessity of Theory 1.3.1 The Function of Architectural Theory 1.3.2 Types of Theories 1.3.3 The Necessity to Reflect Architecture’s

Societal raison d’ˆetre 1.3.4 Super-theories 1.3.5 The Theory of Architectural Autopoiesis as

Domain-specific Super-theory 1.3.6 From Deconstruction to the Programme of

Critical Theory

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2 The Historical Emergence of Architecture 2.1 The Emergence of Architecture as Self-referential System 2.1.1 Inside-descriptions vs Outside-descriptions 2.1.2 Function Systems 2.1.3 The Historical Crystallization of Architecture 2.2 Foundation and Refoundation of Architecture 2.2.1 Autonomization: The Origin of the

Discipline in the Italian Renaissance 2.2.2 The Refoundation of the Discipline as

Modern Architecture

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CONTENTS

Contents

2.2.3 The Exclusive Competency and Universal Scope of Modern Architecture 2.2.4 The Liberation from Traditional Formal Constraints 2.2.5 The Switch from Edifice to Space 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream 2.3.1 A Prerequisite for Evolution 2.3.2 The Autonomy of the Avant-garde 2.3.3 Communications between Avant-garde

and Mainstream 2.3.4 The Reciprocal Dependency between

Avant-garde and Mainstream 2.3.5 The Time Structure of the Avant-garde

Process: Cumulative vs Revolutionary Periods 2.3.6 Concrete Exemplars vs Abstract Principles 2.3.7 Revolution and Philosophy 2.3.8 Latent Utopias vs the Utopian Ambitions

of the Historical Avant-garde 2.3.9 Retroactive Manifestos 2.4 Architectural Research 2.4.1 Architectural Research as Avant-garde

Design Research 2.4.2 Architecture Schools as Laboratories 2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation 2.5.1 The Differentiation of Art and Architecture 2.5.2 The Differentiation of Science and Architecture 2.5.3 The Differentiation of Architecture and Engineering 2.5.4 The Rationality of Demarcation 2.5.5 The Specificity of Architecture within the

Design Disciplines 3 Architecture as Autopoietic System – Operations, Structures

and Processes 3.1 Architectural Autopoiesis within Functionally

Differentiated Society 3.1.1 Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Modern Society 3.1.2 Third Order Observation 3.1.3 Codes and Media 3.1.4 The Concept of Social Autopoiesis 3.2 The Autonomy of Architecture 3.2.1 Openness through Closure 3.2.2 Irritations 3.2.3 Communication Structures vi

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3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture 3.3.1 Design Decisions 3.3.2 Network-dependency of Elemental Operations 3.3.3 Design Decisions and External Demands 3.4 The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design

Disciplines 3.4.1 The Primacy of Distinctions 3.4.2 Form vs Function as the Lead-distinction

within the Design Disciplines 3.4.3 The Double Reference of the Design Disciplines 3.5 The Codification of Architecture 3.5.1 Binary Codes 3.5.2 Utility and Beauty as the Double Code of

Architecture 3.5.3 Polycontexturality 3.5.4 The Unique Double Code of Architecture

as Demarcation Device 3.5.5 The Double Code of Architecture and the

Triple Code of Avant-garde Architecture 3.5.6 Discursive Oscillation: Coping with an

Expanding Universe of Possibility 3.5.7 Abstraction and Openness 3.6 Architectural Styles 3.6.1 The Concept of Style(s) 3.6.2 The Rationality of Style(s) 3.6.3 Styles as the Necessary Programmes of

Architecture 3.6.4 Styles Regulate Form and Function 3.6.5 Reluctant Styles 3.6.6 The Inescapability of the Formal A Priori 3.6.7 The Double Contingency of Style Formation 3.6.8 Stylistic Awareness as Second Order Observation 3.6.9 Progress as Progression of Styles 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes 3.7.1 The Creativity of Styles/Research Programmes 3.7.2 The Tenacity of Styles/Research Programmes 3.7.3 The Structure of Styles/Research

Programmes: Autonomy, Hard Core, Heuristics 3.7.4 The Great Historical Styles: Hard Core and

Heuristics 3.7.5 Problem Domain and Solution Space as

Sources of Stylistic Innovation

3.7.6 Paradigmatic Mainline and Speculative Extrapolation 3.7.7 Progressive vs Degenerate Styles/Research

Programmes 3.7.8 Methodological Tolerance 3.8 The Rationality of Aesthetic Values 3.8.1 The Historical Transformation of Aesthetic Values 3.8.2 Aesthetic Values and the Code of Beauty 3.8.3 The Mystery of Beauty 3.8.4 Formal A Priori, Idiom and Aesthetic Values 3.8.5 The Necessity of Aesthetic Revolutions 3.8.6 Aesthetic Values: Designers vs Users 3.9 The Double-nexus of Architectural Communications:

Themes vs Projects 3.9.1 The Unity of the Difference between

Themes and Projects 3.9.2 The Difference between Themes and Projects 3.9.3 The Interaction between Themes and Projects 4

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The Medium of Architecture 4.1 Medium and Form 4.1.1 Symbolically Generalized Media of Communication 4.1.2 The Medium as Revealing and Concealing 4.1.3 The Medium as Universe of Possibilities 4.1.4 Medium and Manner 4.1.5 The Standard Medium of Architecture 4.1.6 Recursive Self-reference 4.2 The Medium and the Time Structure of the Design Process ´ 4.2.1 Differance: The Productive Vagueness of

the Medium 4.2.2 The Diagram 4.2.3 Specious vs Point-like Time: The Time

Structure of the Architectural Project

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The Societal Function of Architecture 5.1 Architecture as Societal Function System 5.1.1 Function vs Service 5.1.2 Function Systems and the Functional

Exigencies of Society 5.1.3 Framing as Societal Function of Architecture 5.1.4 The Definition of the Situation as

Precondition of Social Interaction

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Concluding Remarks

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Appendix 1: Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems

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Appendix 2: Theses 1–24

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References

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Index

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Picture Credits

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CONTENTS

5.1.5 Framing Double Contingency 5.1.6 Double Contingency Radicalized 5.1.7 The relationship between Art and

Architecture in terms of their Societal Function 5.2 Innovation as Crucial Aspect of Architecture’s Societal

Function 5.2.1 The Burden and Risk of Permanent Innovation 5.2.2 The Innovative Capacity of Architecture’s

Operations and Structures 5.2.3 Variation, Redundancy and Adaptive Pertinence 5.3 Strategies and Techniques of Innovation 5.3.1 The Power of Abstraction 5.3.2 The history of Architectural Innovations 5.3.3 Conceptual Manoeuvres 5.4 Key Innovations: Place, Space, Field 5.4.1 The Emergence of Architectural Space 5.4.2 The Hegemony of Architectural Space 5.4.3 The Transcendence of Architectural Space 5.4.4 From Space to Field

What is the overarching aim of The Autopoiesis of Architecture and how does this work set out to achieve it? The book attempts a comprehensive discourse analysis of the discipline. This analysis combines with an effort towards theoretical systematization. The aim is thus an extensive theoretical system that offers itself to contemporary architecture as its self-description. The premise here is that architecture has constituted itself self-referentially, via its own autonomous, disciplinary discourse. The great theoretical treatises of architecture – starting with Alberti’s De re aedificatoria of 1452 – can be regarded as self-descriptions in the sense aimed at here. Self-descriptions offer a reflective overview of the discipline’s premises, values and methods in relation to its societal tasks. They have been a constitutive part of architecture since its inception as self-conscious discipline with the advent of the Italian Renaissance. The concept of autopoiesis1 refers to the overall discursive self-making of architecture. This is a continuous historical process and, to remain effective, it continues to require new theoretical efforts at each stage of its ongoing evolution. It is my conviction that the successful continuation of architecture’s autopoiesis, now more than ever, requires an all-encompassing theoretical systematization that is able to clarify architecture’s historical challenges, capacities and choices within contemporary society. What does it take to achieve an all-encompassing theoretical systematization? The existing network of concepts and principles has to be transformed into an explicit system of sharpened terms and theses that captures the totality of the discipline’s accumulated, conceptual resources. Therefore the conceptual apparatus that is being unfolded here is of considerable complexity. Nevertheless, I would like to think that this apparatus lives up to the criterion of parsimony if the unfolded conceptual complexity is measured against the expansive scope of phenomena that are to be encompassed, connected and systematically integrated. The task is not unlike a typical (contemporary) design problem: the construction of a legible conceptual architecture, based on 1 The concept was first introduced within biology by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to emphasize the self-producing nature of living systems. Maturana and Varela define as follows: ‘an autopoietic machine continuously generates and specifies its own organization through its operation as a system of production of its own components’, Humberto R Maturana & Francisco J Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition – The Realization of the Living, D Reidel Publishing Company (Dordrecht), 1980.

PREFACE

Preface

the creative reworking of a lot of given material, to be synthesized into a new unified construct. A certain minimum degree of elegance,2 achieved by forcing the material into a formal scheme, is a conditio sine qua non for any hope that the theory might be able to inscribe itself into the discursive trajectory of the discipline. Complementary to this is the attempt to condense the multiple conclusions the theory suggests into a series of theses designed to make an impression. This might increase the chance of propelling the respective insights into the discursive life-process of the discipline. The condensation of (potentially controversial) theses was an explicit and deliberate effort all along, because without conclusions that make a difference, the theoretical apparatus lies idle and the distinctness of the theory evaporates.3 Thus the task was to construct an encompassing, coherent theoretical account with a sufficiently sharp profile to spurn poignant theses. The task of theoretical unification involved the comprehensive recasting of the familiar architectural concepts in rather abstract terms. The effect is initially defamiliarizing. The peculiarity and distinctiveness of the theory of architecture presented here will therefore require an initial endurance of intellectual vertigo, perhaps even nausea. On the first reading the resultant text might seem to oscillate between the trivial and the obscure. It is hard to avoid this effect in an attempt to introduce a new theoretical vocabulary and build up a systematic theoretical edifice that is intended to cover and reinterpret the familiar theoretical apparatus, recuperate accumulated insights, capture emergent trends and produce new, original insights in order to steer architecture into pertinent but yet uncharted pursuits. The strangeness of the theoretical language is a necessary part of any genuinely new perspective. The spirit and mission of this theoretical effort are geared towards making an impact rather than offering disengaged contemplation, even if the primary mode of operation is descriptive and explanatory rather than proselytizing. I am keen to see the veracity of my reconstructive elaborations confirmed (or refuted) by historical research and I am keen to see the fertility of my extrapolative constructions tested by future practice. The analytic task here is to make the implicit normative self-estimations of contemporary avant-garde architecture explicit as norms. These norms may then be reinforced and amplified, or else might 2 Elegance is understood as the capacity to articulate complexity, and thus is always complementary and relative to the underlying complexity that needs to be articulated/communicated. 3 Ultimately, theoretical differences that make a difference are those that facilitate recommendations or injunctions with respect to design processes and with respect to the formulation of evaluative criteria of the resulting designs. xii

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Intellectual Stepping Stones/Acknowledgements This book was first envisioned about 15 years ago. The insights gathered and systematized here were accumulated over an even longer period. The book is thus a rather ripe fruit. Accordingly, the indebtedness of the author is wide-ranging and reaches far back in time. It includes influences that were only received via writings as well as many face to face communications, often embedded in long-term collaborations. The specific inspiration and most decisive theoretical source for this book come from outside the domain of architecture, from the work of the sociologist (and philosopher) Niklas Luhmann. More general intellectual influences from outside architecture include,5 among others, the works of Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, 4 Gilles Deleuze & F´elix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis), 1987, French original: Mille Plateaux, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1980. 5 The names mentioned here do not necessarily feature in the references. They include authors who perhaps made a general contribution to the intellectual shape of The Autopoiesis of Architecture without always having been pinned down in a specific point of reference.

PREFACE

serve as points of departure for critique and transformation. The creative ´ a` vu effect theoretical task of self-description is to achieve a strong dej with new concepts, abstractions and analogies. Such a combination of variety and redundancy turns conceptual ‘lines of flight’4 into potential insights that might contribute to a new outlook that connects to current problems. The book elaborates the theory of architecture’s autopoiesis in 12 parts (five parts within Vol 1 and seven parts in Vol 2), with 60 sections (24 in Vol 1 and 36 in Vol 2) and about 250 chapters. Each of the 60 sections presents a thesis that draws a central message from the insights articulated within the respective section. The 250 chapters gather and sort the accumulated intelligence of the discipline according to the new conceptual framework adopted, in order to elaborate the insights that are encapsulated in the theses. A full list of the theses is drawn together at the end as Appendix 2 and affords a convenient summary of the ‘results’ of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. The endeavour towards a comprehensive theoretical system that offers itself to architecture as its self-description is undoubtedly unique within contemporary architecture. This very ambition is bound to polarize. Indeed, any systematization breeds criticism. If this endeavour has any merit, it might find defenders in an ensuing polemic. Theoretical unification can only be achieved as a result of controversy.

Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ferdinand de Saussure, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Kurt Koffka, Konrad Lorenz, Stephen Jay Gould, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Stuart Kauffman, Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, James ¨ March, Michel Aglietta, Jurgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jacques ´ Guattari, Alain Badiou, Manuel DeLanda Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Felix and Dirk Baecker. This list plots the coordinates of my intellectual biography and world view. Each of these authors contributed a memorable, crucial insight as indispensable element of an evolving world view that finally found all elements confirmed and ordered under the guidance of Luhmann’s theoretical system. The authors who were perhaps most influential in catalyzing the architectural insights and ambitions that are being developed within the present work include Gottfried Semper, Friedrich Naumann, Hermann Muthesius, Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, Adolf Behne, Hannes Meyer, Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, Sigfried Giedion, Robert Venturi, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, Christopher Alexander, Christoph Feldtkeller, Manfredo Tafuri, Francesco Dal Co, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Charles Jencks, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Michael Hays, Adrian Forty, Edward Soja, Mark Wigley, Detlef Mertins, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Spiro Kostof, Lionel March, Philip Steadman, William Mitchell, Bill Hillier, George Stiny, John Frazer, Frei Otto, Jeff Kipnis, Jesse Reiser, Greg Lynn, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Brett Steele and Lars Spuybroek, among many others. All of these authors revealed aspects and potentials of architecture that helped me to comprehend architecture’s role and potential within the world. Most decisive among them were perhaps Alexander, Hillier, Tafuri, Koolhaas, Kipnis and Lynn. In terms of face to face communication and collaboration I would like to acknowledge the intellectual stimulation I received from various teachers, students, collaborators and colleagues. Kevin Rhowbotham was the first to convince me – in direct confrontations – of the relevance of philosophy and social theory within architecture and his teaching first revealed to me how formal design questions can have far-reaching social meanings. Mark Cousins, Adrian Forty, Iain Borden and Herbert Lachmayer were further early teachers or mentors who left their mark. The indebtedness to Zaha Hadid, intellectually and creatively, is greater than can be put into words. Since 1988 Zaha Hadid has been my most important, and most persistent, inspirational mentor, as informal teacher, design leader, design collaborator and teaching partner. The opportunity to retrace, witness and participate in Zaha Hadid’s incredible feats of radical architectural design innovation was the decisive inspiration for the forward thrust of The Autopoiesis of Architecture. The xiv

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intense, collective design efforts at Zaha Hadid Architects constitute the primary source of the inspirational and informative experiences that make up the most immediate experiential base of the book. I further want to recognize some key colleagues at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA). In 1996 Mohsen Mostafavi gave me – together with Brett Steele – the opportunity to create the Design Research Lab (DRL). The intense atmosphere of collective design research and debate at the DRL provides the second, crucial source of experiences that have fed into the book. The architectural discourse that flourished, and still flourishes, not only within DRL but at the AA as a whole, was most stimulating and instructive, and left a definite imprint on the outlook and thrust of The Autopoiesis of Architecture. Within the DRL the following collaborators have left their mark on the thinking that informs the book: Brett Steele, Tom Verebes, Chris Hight, Theo Spyropoulos, Yusuke Obuchi, Christos Passas, Rob Stuart-Smith, and more recently Alisa Andrasek, Marta Male-Alemany and Jeroen van Ameijde. Within the wider AA school community (and beyond) I would like to acknowledge the following AA colleagues (past and present) as the most influential intellectual sparring partners over the years: Ben van Berkel, Michael Hensel, Michael Weinstock, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Farshid Moussavi, Achim Menges, Ciro Najle, George Legendre, Chris Lee, Cristiano Ceccato, Charles Walker, Mark Cousins, Larry Barth and Mohsen Mostafavi. From outside the AA I would like to recognize Winy Maas, Detlef Mertins, Ali Rahim, Jeff Kipnis, Jesse Reiser, Greg Lynn, Wolf Prix, Alan Penn, Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture, Chris Perry, Peter Trummer, Tobias Walliser, Lars Spuybroek, Evan Douglis, Bill Macdonald and Sulan Kolatan who – among many others – made critical contributions to discussions in the context of my students’ design research work. Many students, in different schools, made critical contributions within seminars and design sessions. In addition to the AA I would like to recognize the following universities that offered engaging teaching arenas: Kingston University, Berlin Technical University, Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Illinois, Yale University, Vienna University of Applied Arts and Innsbruck University. Many of the teaching staff and students at these institutions contributed to the formation of the ideas presented here. Many of the most engaging students – too many to be listed here – continued as key collaborators within Zaha Hadid Architects and thus continued to engage me and my discourse. The most immediate gratitude is due to Helen Castle from Wiley who welcomed my book with open arms and who has constructively engaged this unwieldy text just as she had done with my various contributions to AD in recent years. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the support

and engagement I received from my wife Wenxia Shen. She has followed the elaboration of this book and accompanied me to many lectures where aspects of the book’s contents were presented. Her constructive, critical engagement with my statements and arguments convinced me that the book, although of true significance only to architects, might also be able to resonate within different disciplines and find interest in a general, educated readership interested in architecture and design as expressions of contemporary culture.

Patrik Schumacher, London, April 2010

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The phenomenon of architecture can be most adequately grasped if it is analyzed as an autonomous network (autopoietic system) of communications. The theory presented here – the theory of architectural autopoiesis – offers a new theoretical framework that explicates architecture as distinct subsystem of society, understood as a sui generis system of communications. This framework structures a comprehensive analysis of the discipline in terms of its most fundamental concepts, methods and values. The term architecture is usually assumed to denote either a certain class of artefacts – the class of all (fine) buildings – or an academic domain of knowledge concerned with this class of artefacts or, finally, a professional activity directed towards the production of such artefacts. However, architecture as a system of communications is neither a mere collection of artefacts, nor a mere form of knowledge, nor merely a particular professional practice. Rather it encompasses all three categories: artefacts, knowledge and practices – all understood as communications that connect to each other in an ongoing recursive network.

0.1 Architecture as a System of Communications The introduction of the concept of autopoiesis reflects the premise that the discipline of architecture can be theorized as a distinct system of communications. Autopoiesis means self-production.1 The concept was first introduced within biology to describe the essential characteristic of 1 The word is a neologism created by the biologist Humberto Maturana. It combines the Greek words autos (=self) and poiesis (=production). See: Humberto R Maturana & Francisco J Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition – The Realization of the Living, D Reidel Publishing Company (Dordrecht, Holland), 1980. Niklas Luhmann transposed this concept into the domain of social systems. See: Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, original: Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984.

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

THESIS 1

0.1 ARCHITECTURE AS A SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATIONS

0. Introduction: Architecture as Autopoietic System

life as a circular organization that reproduces all its specific components out of its own life-process. This idea of living systems as autonomous, self-making unities can be transposed into the theory of social systems understood as systems of communications that reproduce all their necessary, specific communication structures within their own self-referentially closed process. Systems of communications can therefore be theorized as autopoietic systems in the sense that they generate their own components and structures within the ongoing flow of communications. Within this theoretical framework society is defined as the overarching, all-encompassing system of communications. The theory of architectural autopoiesis closely ‘observes’ (and intends to intervene within) a distinct subset of these societal communications, namely the subset of architectural communications, and – assuming that they form a system2 – is trying to capture this system’s constitutive conceptual structures (concepts), its regular communication patterns (methods), its criteria of evaluation (values), as well as its evolutionary trajectory with respect to those three dimensions. The theory offers a coherent framework that allows architecture to analyze itself in comparison with other subsystems of society like art, science and politics. On the basis of such comparisons the theory insists on the necessity of disciplinary autonomy and argues for a sharp demarcation from both art and science. Design intelligence is an intelligence sui generis . It is a specific collective intelligence that evolves within its own self-referential network of communications. This network is the autopoiesis of architecture. Its past, present and (potential) future trajectories constitute the topic of this book. The autopoiesis of architecture is the ongoing communication process that takes place in myriad architectural practices, schools of architecture, magazines, books and web-sites: a gigantic parallel process producing a swarm-formation of cross-referencing elements. The total mass of communications that constitutes this autopoiesis comprises diverse items such as sketches, drawings, CAD files, renderings, buildings and 2 Communications function only within systems of communications that bound their horizon of understanding and specify (constrain) their connectivity. ‘Once communication is set into and kept in motion, the formation of a bounded social system cannot be avoided. . . . This is an exclusively autopoietic process, which produces what enables it itself.’ Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, p 162. That communications only exist within systems is here taken as axiomatic. The substantial question whether architecture constitutes a single, unified system remains, in principle, open to debate. Ultimately this question can only be answered by an empirically based analysis and argument. Here, the assumption that architecture is a unified system is taken as underlying working premise (hypothesis) for the theoretical reconstruction of architecture. This working hypothesis will be vindicated to the extent to which this reconstruction effort succeeds and convinces. 2

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

3 Buildings and spaces are communications within the autopoiesis of architecture only if they are architectural designs that can be attributed to a named architect-author and his/her oeuvre. Vernacular architecture is excluded from the definition of architecture proposed here. For a particular vernacular building or tradition to enter the autopoiesis of architecture a dedicated communicative effort is required, ie, there must be an architect or architectural theorist who poses as the spokesperson and point of reference for this particular vernacular building/ tradition. 4 Buildings, and the spaces within, between and around them, are specialized communications that frame all other social communications. See part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture. 5 In the same way all designed artefacts – if they can be attributed to a designer with a (potential) career within the design discourse – are to be theorized as communications, the key communications that variously service all the different social systems within society.

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photographs of buildings that all circulate as communications. It further comprises face to face communications to discuss a design, academic seminar contributions and lectures. The published mass communications (exhibitions, books, magazines, web-sites, blog postings) are crucial with respect to the formation of a unified autopoiesis. Through the rapid dissemination of the published material the total mass of communications is relevantly connected on an unprecedented, global scale, with unprecedented speed. It is the stream of simultaneous and successive communications that constitutes architecture as autopoietic system. The theory of architectural autopoiesis theorizes (designed) buildings and the (designed) spaces within and around them as a crucial type of architectural communication.3 Although buildings/spaces are just one of many types of architectural communications, they are privileged within architecture. Completed buildings/spaces constitute architecture’s specific contribution to society. They are those communications through which architecture stimulates all the other communication systems.4 Buildings, as architectural communications, constitute the service that the discipline of architecture delivers to society: architecture’s ‘final’ communications that variously service all the different social systems within society.5 The built architectural works that architecture releases into the wider social world lead a communicative double life: they speak to and intervene in communication systems outside the autopoiesis of architecture, while at the same time circulating within the architectural discourse as examples, evidence, points of critical reference etc. However, as far as the internal dynamics of the architectural autopoiesis is concerned, the completed buildings themselves are rather exceptional communicative events. Completed buildings/spaces are but one set of reference points within the overall network of architectural communications. Buildings are photographed, published, written and

talked about, but in the overall flow of architectural communications the completion of a new building is a rather rare occasion, and their immediate presence within the discourse – by being directly experienced during an architectural excursion – is so rare as to be negligible. A comprehensive theory of architecture as system of communications can therefore not afford to focus all its attention on the built works only. A complete and systematic theory of architecture must embrace all communications that together, as network of cross-references, constitute architecture as sui generis system of communications. Comprehensiveness and systematicity are indeed the two key ambitions of the theory of architectural autopoiesis.6

0.2 A Unified Theory of Architecture The theory of architectural autopoiesis is a general theory of architecture that addresses itself to the discipline of architecture. It focuses on architectural communications and how these depend upon and reproduce communication structures like key distinctions, concepts, codes, values, methods and media. But why should an architectural theory start with this seemingly incongruent accumulation of raw data comprising extensive physical objects (buildings, exhibitions), fleeting events (discussions), locally circulating drawings/CAD files, and mass-replicated items (printed/uploaded publications)?7 An empirical basis is always a healthy point of departure (and point of return) for a theory. This empirical basis must consist of raw data that are ‘given’ in a somewhat unproblematic, direct sense, rather than being theoretically constructed. In fact, all the diverse things and events that are here taken as instances of communication can be readily observed, and recorded.8 This does not mean that the theory presented here starts with an extensive, scientific data collection (although this could be done). Rather than displaying an actual collection of data, the base concept of 6 Whether this ambition is being followed through successfully can only be fully assessed once the theory has been fully formulated. This book presents only one of two volumes of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. 7 All these disparate types of items at least share this crucial aspect: they all function as communications, and as such they are able to form a system. 8 One might contrast this relatively straightforward starting point with a theory starting with such vague and slippery entities as ‘ideas’, ‘purposes’ or ‘stylistic features’. The individuation of such concepts – for example, what is one versus another ‘idea’ – is not a trivial matter but already presupposes a lot of specific theoretical commitments. In contrast, a theory that starts with communications can then observe how ‘ideas’ are individuated within architectural discourse, or under what conditions ‘purposes’ are attributed to designs etc. 4

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

9 The author’s continuous observation of architectural design communications and debates has long since been informed and guided by theoretical concepts. Evidence of this can be found in the 50 articles the author has published since 1996. See: www.patrikschumacher.com 10 Theory has always been a key component of the autopoiesis of architecture. 11 The inevitability of selective observation and interpretation makes the explicit acknowledgement of a normative agenda advisable. 12 A striking example of the ability of theory to reorder the phenomena of experience is Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture. While throughout the 19th century architecture remained indifferent to the achievements of industrialization that were considered to belong to an altogether alien domain, Le Corbusier’s treatise is full of the technological achievements of the industrial era. Images of industrial silos, cranes, ships, aeroplanes and automobiles are featured next to the monuments of classical antiquity. Le Corbusier’s radical conceptual reordering allowed him to compare the Parthenon directly with the modern automobile, both understood as the artistic perfection of a function type that had evolved to the point of

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communication promises a reservoir of potential data that might be tapped into at any time. The ‘empirical basis’ offered here has the status of an invitation to the reader to test the proposed concepts and theorems against his/her own immediate observations and experiences within the field of architecture. The actual ‘empirical’ origin of the theory stems from the author’s own accumulated observations and browsing journeys into this reservoir.9 The theory starts with the description of patterns of architectural communication, moves on to the abstract level of concept formation and proposes theoretical formulas that serve as axioms of a comprehensive theoretical system. But the theory of architectural autopoiesis is not conceived as a scientific theory about architecture, written from the outside.10 Rather, it is a theoretical intervention from within architecture, itself trying to be a part of the autopoiesis of architecture. The theoretical system elaborated here offers a rational reconstruction and normative reinforcement of what the author perceives to be the ongoing architectural autopoiesis and its incipient trends. On this basis architecture’s further evolution is projected.11 There is little credibility in claiming the stance of the disinterested, neutral observer. The author is an active, motivated participant within architecture. But this does not mean that he followed his biases unchecked. The normative agenda that is being unfolded here is being argued for on the basis of the author’s observation of architecture’s current state as well as its history. It is no contradiction to insist on an empirical base of rigorous observation while at the same time being fully conscious that the ‘facts’ of architecture are rather multi-faceted and that there are many ways to filter and structure them. Theory is no reflection of the given order of the world. Rather, it is a designed apparatus to give order to the phenomena we experience.12

The realization that a theory is designed rather than discovered opens up a whole new game, with a whole new freedom and burden. Instead of going round in circles with the received, crude apparatus of traditional architectural thinking, we might aim to construct a new, more sophisticated apparatus. And during this conceptual construction process we should be aware of our manifold theory design choices. These choices become concrete only to the extent to which we roam and browse through the theoretical landscape within and without our discipline. One simply has to read, and think a lot, and try a lot of conceptual constructions. These theoretical constructions are then tested with respect to the ‘empirical base’, ie, with respect to the experiences accumulated as longstanding participant within architecture. This empirical base, selected and filtered, remains crucial. It includes the apparatus of traditional architectural thinking. It is one of the fundamental theses of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that the given apparatus of architectural thinking is a constituent of the sustained reality of architecture and therefore cannot simply be discarded without trace. The currently circulating theoretical communications play a role in the constitution of current architecture. As such they must form a part of the empirical base of any general theory of architecture. Also, any new theory should be able to absorb and integrate the achievements of the most prominent current theories. Thus the freedom that springs from the insight into the ultimately ‘designed’ nature of all theory is constrained by the need to maintain sufficient connectivity with the current reality of architecture as ongoing system of communications. The ultimately ‘designed’, upgraded theory has to reckon with the inherited architectural thinking that has evolved and sustained itself within a long collective process. The task is to reflect and progress this collective process. The new theory must be able to carry forward most of the insights (and thus concepts) accumulated within the older theories. The task of capturing and reconstructing the rationality of the existing architectural discourse – rather than indulging in the construction of a supposedly radical, new ideal – has been taken very seriously here. The author’s attitude towards what has evolved over several hundred years to become the established discipline of architecture is one of profound respect. Throughout, the heuristic starting point has been that the patterns and structures of communication that are being maintained and standardization on the basis of ‘the law of selection’ in terms of ‘economic and social necessity’. Thus a new theoretical level of abstraction allowed for the reordering of the universe of buildings and artefacts. See: Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), Towards a New Architecture, John Rodker Publisher (London), 1931, Dover Publications (New York), 1986, French original: Vers une architecture, Editions Cr`es (Paris), 1923, pp 130–48. 6

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

13 That there must be such a raison d’ˆetre is the heuristic starting point here. This heuristic is the essence of Hegel’s teaching that the real is the rational. Karl Marx based his radical critique of capitalism on a profound respect for its unprecedented historical achievements, as analyzed in the three volumes of Capital. Niklas Luhmann displays the same attitude towards all the social systems he examines, compares and theorizes. 14 Such insights might then spurn the search for functional equivalents.

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reproduced with pervasiveness and tenacity must achieve something compelling. Any theoretical-critical intervention has to start with the description of what has been achieved, and the explanation of how it has been achieved. To reveal these achievements, in order to build upon them and point to potential further achievements, has been the main theoretical effort of this book. The theory of architectural autopoiesis never rests with the mere description of those patterns, but is always ˆ .13 Only trying to penetrate to a theoretical account of their raison d’etre on this basis can there be a chance to move on to a critical intervention that deserves to be taken seriously. Over and over again, on the basis of grasping how the achievements of the discipline are effected, the theoretical intervention insists upon the benefit (and thus functional necessity) of certain types of communication structures. For instance, the insistence upon the ‘necessity’ or importance of disciplinary autonomy and a sharp demarcation against both art and science, the importance: of an avant-garde set against the mainstream, of theory, of the distinction of form vs function, of typology, of formalism, of style, and of aesthetic values. The grasp of the functional importance of these communication structures leads to their sense of inevitability, or ‘necessity’. The term ‘necessity’ is here placed in quotation marks because the ‘necessity’ suggested here is not absolute. Ultimately all these structures are contingent. They are improbable, evolutionary achievements. They are ‘necessary’ only within certain constellations within which they play an important role that might be difficult to fulfil in another way. They contribute to architecture’s ability to fulfil its societal function on the level that it currently does.14 Since every one of these communication structures is indeed historically contingent and thus in principle subject to being questioned, it might seem as if the insistence upon them is dogmatic. These fundamental conceptual structures of architecture’s autopoiesis are indeed all too often ‘radically questioned’, or supposedly ‘suspended’, within theoretical discourses that enjoy the feast of creative destruction and end in vague promises of new beginnings now possible. What we are usually left with in these essay-length glimpses at a bright future enlightenment is often little more than a firework of idle rhetoric and a conceptual void. If we hear it being argued that the dichotomy of form vs

function should be rejected, that typology has to be discarded, that we should reject styles and resist aesthetic values etc, we might respond with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s compelling counter-question: what do you gain by this impoverishment of your language? The theory of architectural autopoiesis is careful to avoid such impoverishing conceptual iconoclasm. Starting with the recuperation of past and ongoing achievements, the theory of architectural autopoiesis will move on to point to emerging challenges that call for new concepts, procedures and turns of argument. New communication structures will be promoted that should serve to update and upgrade the discipline: for example, the further dissolution of the distinction of architectural and urban design, the explicit differentiation and division of labour between formal and functional research, the re-conceptualization of architectural function in terms of action-artefact networks (rather than schedules of accommodation), the shift from drawing to scripting, and the related shift from static components to parametrically conceived generative components, potentially on all levels of abstraction and all scales. Again, the theory of architectural autopoiesis is not a science about architecture. It is an intervention from within. Its declared audience is the discipline of architecture itself. But its primary theoretical source of inspiration lies outside architecture. This does not compromise the notion of architecture as autonomous discipline. The notion that architecture constitutes itself as a self-referentially closed, autopoietic system of communications does not imply that architectural theory has to abstain from importing theoretical resources from other discourses. It only implies that architecture does not accept any outside authority with respect to architectural matters. Autonomy means that schemata and turns of argument that are imported can only succeed by being convincing and productive enough in their (specifically adapted) architectural deployment within the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. Imported ideas never succeed on account of appeals to any external authority. Architecture must defend the autonomy it has achieved in this sense. It can do this all the more successfully if it finds ways to continuously upgrade its theoretical apparatus. The importation of new ideas is necessary for the vitality of any discourse. No vital autopoietic communication system can afford to lag behind when it comes to updating its communicative sophistication in line with advancements achieved elsewhere in societal communication. Philosophy is often the point of exchange where the most advanced patterns of communication are drawn together, abstracted, systematized and disseminated back into the various specialist discourses that in turn 8

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

15 As examples of architectural theories that are informed by philosophy one might cite the phenomenological approach to architecture, drawing on Heidegger’s phenomenology, as articulated in the architectural writings of Christian Norberg-Schulz; or the theoretical underpinnings of Deconstructivism, drawing on French Post-Structuralism and Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstruction, as articulated in the architectural writings of Bernard Tschumi and Peter Eisenman. 16 This again does not prevent other discourses from finding some interest here.

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might be able to incorporate equivalent advances into their respective discourses. This does not elevate philosophy into a higher authority to be consulted for authoritative words of wisdom, but it makes philosophy a very useful resource for architectural theoreticians. Obviously, one cannot expect every architect to read contemporary philosophy, but one should be able to expect this from those who have the ambition to develop architectural theory and to advance the general level of sophistication in architectural communication. The contributions of architectural theorists that are informed by philosophy are thereby not contributions to philosophy. They remain exclusively addressed to architects. Such communications are located within architecture, even if their sources lie outside.15 The theory of architectural autopoiesis also draws its crucial theoretical resources from outside the discipline, while its ambitions lie wholly within the discipline of architecture.16 When architectural theorists import new schemata and turns of argument that might become productive resources within architecture, they might very well reveal their sources and give some space to a condensed summary of the original source material. The theory of architectural autopoiesis draws on Second Order Systems Theory , and more specifically on the work of the philosopher and theoretical sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann’s social systems theory provides a comprehensive theory of modern society on the basis of a general theory of social systems conceived as systems of communications. Thus to conceive architecture as a system of communications allows for the development of a theory of architecture within a fertile theoretical context, rich in potential for comparison, and affording a conceptualization of architecture as disciplinary domain surviving and developing within an appropriately theorized societal environment. Throughout the history of architecture, the most ambitious architectural theory – for example, that of Alberti, Semper, Le Corbusier, or Koolhaas – has always understood that architecture has to theorize itself within a theory of society. Society has to be grasped in its broad historical trajectory in order to identify the architecturally relevant aspects of the societal tasks ahead. An architectural theory with the

ambition to guide the discipline must be able to assess the prospect of the emerging social forces that are knocking on the door of architecture. The Autopoiesis of Architecture uses Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory as guidance to construct this architectural theory as a theory of architectural communication within an autonomous, specialized communicative subsystem evolving within the overarching system of societal communications. Luhmann’s theory opens an impressive comparative horizon encompassing many specialized domains of communication. The theory of architectural autopoiesis uses this impressive panorama for strategic excursions beyond the horizon of architectural concerns. The purpose of these excursions is to receive clues about the potential conceptualization of architecture from Luhmann’s analysis of the communication structures of other, comparable discourses. These excursions do not leave architecture behind. Neither do they dissolve the disciplinary boundary of architecture. Rather, they teach architecture new ways of seeing itself. Luhmann’s starting point is his decision to analyze society in terms of differentiated systems of communication. He characterizes systems of communication as autopoietic systems: ‘A system of communication is . . . a fully closed system that generates the components of which it consists through communication itself. In this sense, a system of communication is an autopoietic system that produces and reproduces through the system everything that functions for the system as a unit . . . The system of communication itself specifies not only its own elements – what in each case is a unit of communication that cannot be further divided – but also its structures.’17 This self-production of both elemental units of communication and of the communication structures (lead-distinctions, codes, programmes, media etc) that frame, schematize and order the process of communication can also be observed and specified in the case of architecture. This is the primary task of this book. The theory of architectural autopoiesis – to give a few anticipatory hints – identifies the distinct elemental communications of architecture as design decisions, and identifies the distinction of form vs function as the lead-distinction of the discipline, while the interarticulation of the values of utility and beauty is understood to constitute the code that secures the discipline’s operational closure.18

17 Niklas Luhmann, Theories of Distinction, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002, Part II, Chapter 4, Deconstruction as Second-Order Observing, pp 160–1. 18 The code of utility and beauty provides the test (or badge of architectural membership) by which architectural communications recognize each other. Utility and beauty must be 10

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

presupposed in all architectural communications and only in architectural communications.

Communications that refuse to be concerned with both utility and beauty and concern

themselves with only one of the two, or with other issues such as economic viability or social

justice etc, slip outside the realm of architecture, into art, engineering, business or politics etc.

See section 3.5 The Codification of Architecture.

19 Foucault’s concept and theory of ‘discursive formations’ have been significant for recent architectural theory as they give insight into the crucial involvement and interlocking of material practices and physical artefacts – including buildings – in the formation of discourses such as psychiatry, medicine or science in general, the penal system, etc. 20 Historically, the concept of communication replaced the concept of action as foundational concept of sociology. Luhmann’s social systems theory started within the framework of action theory inherited from Weber via Parsons. Action theory tends to emphasize direct interaction between present participants. The concept of communication is more comprehensive than the concept of action. It covers written communications too. According to the theory of architectural autopoeisis the concept also covers designed artefacts and buildings.

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Instead of architecture as autopoietic system of communications one might speak of the discipline of architecture as an integrated discursive practice. One might then classify the work presented here as an elaborate discourse analysis . However, the conceptual framework adopted here throughout is the one of Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory , rather than the (perhaps more familiar) framework of Post-Structuralism. The concept autopoietic system of communications can take over from ‘discourse’, and can even absorb Foucault’s insights that are condensed in his concept of ‘discursive formation’.19 The base concept of communication20 also covers communication via physical artefacts and buildings. The concept also includes ‘regimes’, ‘practices’ and ‘quasi-objects’ etc. However, it unifies these components of discourse via the more abstract and universal concept of ‘communication’. Also, the concept of autopoietic system of communications adds one crucial moment that is not built into the concepts of discourse and discursive formation: the constitutive moment of self-observation, self-demarcation and, in the case of advanced systems, the moment of self-description. Although there is a considerable convergence between Luhmann’s theory and the insights of Post-Structuralism, each theoretical approach generates its own distinct perspective with its own peculiar emphases, turns of argument and ramifications. The theory of architectural autopoiesis follows (constructs) the ramifications that Luhmann’s system offers when applied to architecture. Niklas Luhmann describes himself as ‘sociologist’. However, on the basis of a system-theoretical interpretation of sociology, Luhmann’s writings unfold a comprehensive philosophical system, complete with its in-built epistemology, and critically assimilating virtually all major

philosophical currents of the 20th century.21 Niklas Luhmann raised the level of social theorizing by several orders of magnitude, combining theoretical scope with conceptual precision, detailed historical penetration and rigorous self-reflection. In comparison with Post-Structuralist philosophers, the great advantage which Luhmann offers as point of connection lies not only in his framework per se, but in the fact that this framework has been filled with a compellingly elaborated theory of contemporary society. The impressive theoretical edifice stretches across a systematically integrated series of books and has demonstrated its extraordinary power to absorb, connect and reorder the theoretical and empirical achievements of several vast bodies of knowledge from different disciplines. The central series of 10 books22 encompasses eight monographs, one on the modern phenomenon of organization and the other seven dedicated to what Luhmann calls the great function systems of society. These monographs are framed by two central works: an anticipatory exposition of his general theoretical framework concerning social systems23 at the beginning, and a recapitulation and culmination in a final theoretical exposition of modern society.24 In parallel to this integrated set of systematic works Luhmann produced a related history of ideas that unravels how the transformation of society is reflected and promoted through the evolution of its semantic layer.25 The series of closely related ‘sociological’ studies that treat what Luhmann calls the great function systems of modern society furnished models for The Autopoiesis of Architecture . Seven function systems

21 Luhmann’s ‘system theory’ uniquely competes with Marxism as a comprehensive philosophical system that might be used to orient contemporary architectural self-descriptions. 22 Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, 1988; Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, 1990; Das Recht der Gesellschaft, 1993; Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, 1995; Die Politik der Gesellschaft, 2000; Die Religion der Gesellschaft, 2000; Organisation und Entscheidung, 2000; Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft, 2002. 23 Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984. 24 Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Vols 1 & 2, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1998. 25 For Luhmann this semantic layer is an integral part of the evolution of society as it reflects, catalyzes and constrains the objective societal developments theorized in the central series. See: Niklas Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik, Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft, Vol 1, 1980, Vol 2, 1981, Vol 3, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt am Main), 1989 Luhmann also published influential monographs on religion, education, trust, power, love, risk, organization, the welfare state, procedural legitimation, the mass media etc. He also published ¨ six volumes of sociological papers. See: Soziologische Aufkl arung, ¨ VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH (Wiesbaden), 2009. In all, Luhmann’s oeuvre numbers over 700 publications. 12

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26 Luhmann never claimed that the series of function systems he treated constitutes a complete list. He hinted at further systems like medicine and the mass media. (The latter was addressed in a book length essay, but not treated to the same theoretical extent and depth as the other systems mentioned.) Luhmann considered the list to be more or less open-ended, ie, he expected the evolution of society to differentiate further function systems. 27 However, the ‘application’ of a general theory to a specific, hitherto unexplored domain is as much a creative design effort as it is a laborious effort of execution. In fact both terms – ‘creative design’ and ‘execution’ – are misleading to the extent that the emerging theoretical edifice acquires its own dynamic and inertia.

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received a monograph: The Economy of Society, The Science of Society, The Law of Society, The Political System of Society, The Art of Society, The Religion of Society and The Education of Society.26 The Autopoiesis of Architecture might therefore be read as continuing the series, as an extension of Luhmann’s work with respect to the domain of architecture. But this is only half of the story – the other half is the use of the system-theoretical analysis for an ideological intervention launched from within architecture, and aimed at the central self-conception and direction of the discipline. Luhmann never considered architecture to be one of the function systems of modern society that deserves monographic treatment. However, this is the result of Luhmann’s particular outline of interests rather than a logical consequence of his theoretical system. Architecture and design were simply not areas of familiarity or focus for Luhmann. Architecture is only touched on in passing within his treatment of the art system. In fact, Luhmann made the mistake of subsuming architecture within the art system. (That this was a mistake will be demonstrated in due course below.) This oversight on the part of Luhmann means that the effort to bring his insights to bear on architecture is thus far a solitary endeavour with no specific guidance and point of departure from Luhmann himself, nor from any of his disciples. The degree of intellectual dependence of the work presented here is nevertheless considerable.27 However, this does not imply that the book presupposes any prior knowledge of Luhmann’s extensive works. All references to Luhmann are sufficiently elaborated to make The Autopoiesis of Architecture a self-sufficient reading. During my extensive readings, over the last 10 years, I realized more and more that Luhmann’s peculiar conceptual framework, theory design and style of reasoning, would allow me to do a complementary job for the discipline of architecture. His categories started to absorb, connect and reorder my own architectural thinking. I started to read Luhmann’s work as an irresistible invitation to design/construct an extension to Luhmann’s

edifice that could unify and order my accumulated insights as architect and architectural theorist. Before discovering Luhmann it had been the Marxian method and edifice that provided the framework of my ambition to theorize architecture’s development as embedded within an encompassing theory of society. There are indeed important structural and methodological parallels between Marx’s and Luhmann’s social theory. Both Marx’s historical materialism and Luhmann’s social systems theory are comprehensive and thus self-encompassing theories, ie, these theories are able to theorize their own historical emergence and function within society. In both cases this self-encompassment is explicit. This implies that both systems are totalizing philosophical systems. At the same time their work is much more than abstract philosophy. Both absorb and examine the rich detail of historical, social reality. They are committed to the scientific world view that obliges them to seek a continuous engagement with the results of historical research on the one hand and with the empirical observation of new societal developments on the other hand. Both theoretical systems have assimilated the totality of historical experiences available to them, considering vast amounts of data, mediated by the critical reception of all prior social theory.

0.3 Functional vs Causal Explanations There is another important parallel between Marx’s and Luhmann’s system that has been easing my transition from the former to the latter. Both systems privilege functional over causal explanations. A functional inquiry asks why a certain entity exists before asking how it came to exist. Related to this is the interest in social structures or institutions ˆ rather than mere events. The primary interest is in the raison d’etre of structures rather than in antecedent factors of events . Structures and institutions are understood within the encompassing social system – here the social system of architecture. This mode of inquiry is more productive for the analysis of complex organized systems like organisms or societies and their various complex subsystems. To understand a subsystem means to understand its function and how its various parts contribute to this function which in turn is understood in its contribution to the ongoing survival (adaptation, propagation) of the organized whole (system) within its environment. The functional perspective is thus inseparably bound to the system perspective. This perspective views all individual features (recurrent events) that can be observed within the domain against the horizon of the totality of the domain which in turn is heuristically posited as a system. Every feature is queried with respect to its systemic 14

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

28 The final cause of a thing or feature is supposed to give an account for its existence in terms of the end or purpose that this thing or feature serves. The concept was introduced by Aristotle within his famous distinction of four types of causes: material, formal, efficient and final causes. The modern natural sciences – led by physics – are based on efficient causes (causal explanation) only. 29 Apparent purposefulness due to evolutionary adaptation. 30 Luhmann explicitly contrasts evolutionary theories with the older idea of development theories. See: Niklas Luhmann, Ideenevolution – Beitr a¨ ge zur Wissenssoziologie, Suhrkamp Verlag

(Frankfurt am Main), 2008.

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significance, its role (necessity) in the current achievements of the system and/or its capacity for the further advancement of the system. Rather than merely asking which event (or constellation of events) caused a particular historical event (or constellation of events), the theory ˆ asks for the raison d’etre of historical institutions within their societal context. Although the development of institutions is always caused by certain events, ie, their genealogy includes both antecedent institutions and various events as factors in their development, both Marx and Luhmann insist that the genealogy and development of institutions must be explicated on the basis of an understanding of the respective institution’s function, or the contribution to the prosperity of the social group and society it develops within. This does not mean that the question of how an institution came about is uninteresting. The evolution of institutions from antecedent institutions is of keen interest to both Marx and Luhmann. They understand that new potential functions arise from excess capacities of structures rather than assuming the pre-existence of ‘final causes’.28 They realize that the evolution progresses via pre-adaptive advances, by means of the functionalization of features that come initially into being as mere side effects of functionally selected effects, or via the re-functionalization of features that were initially selected and retained for other functions. Teleology has been transformed into teleonomy29 also in the social sciences. The profound significance of Darwin’s theory of evolution was not lost on Marx. On the premise of selection pressures within a competitive environment, functional explanations lose their air of mystique. ‘Final causes’ return in the scientifically sound guise of evolutionary attractors. With respect to social evolution, functional explanations need no longer rely on (unrealistic, unverified) assumptions of intentions armed with strategic foresight: historical selection and propagation of what turns out to work can take their place. For Luhmann the biological theory of evolution became a crucial model for a sophisticated evolutionary theory of social and societal development.30

We might call this privileging of functional over causal questions/ explanations methodological functionalism. The theory of architectural autopoiesis subscribes to this methodological functionalism as its preferred method of inquiry and analysis. For instance, instead of going into detail about the various precursors, influences and inspirations for a particular style, the theory first of all inquires into the functional raison ˆ d’etre of the style within the overall adaptive struggle of architecture’s ongoing autopoiesis within its contemporaneous societal environment. The point is that the understanding of the style’s features through an ˆ understanding of its social contribution and societal raison d’etre is more far-reaching than the mere understanding of the particular chain of events that led to the formation of the style. The causes (precursors, influences, creative personalities) that lie at the origin of a particular style say nothing about why this particular style was able to gain hegemony at a certain time in history. In contrast the functionalist method homes in on precisely this question. The transient existence of a phenomenon is accidental. Its persistence is what has to be explained. Such an explanation is functional rather than causal. The theory of evolution offers the crucial distinction of variation, selection and re-stabilization. Variations have causes. Much more interesting and critical are the selection criteria that are operating and that might lead to the reproduction of initially accidental variations. The concept of function refers to effects/capacities of structures that are being selected/ reproduced within a competitive process.31 The focus on function rather than causes has another advantage: while causal explanations allow us to reproduce events, functional inquiries open the view onto functional equivalences and thus potentially innovative functional substitutions. The question ‘which function does this social structure or institution fulfil in society?’ leads us to the appreciation of an underlying societal requirement or problem and thus suggests the further question: in which other way and by which other means might this underlying problem or requirement be addressed? Functional inquiry can thus become an engine of innovation for the further evolution of the object of interest. This is relevant in all those cases where the inquiry is launched from within the object of inquiry itself, ie, where the inquiry is a self-inquiry. This is the case with all comprehensive theories of society. However, this is indeed also the case here where a comprehensive theory of architecture is launched from within architecture. 31 For the selected effect concept of function see: Karen Neander, ‘Functions as Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst’s Defense’, in: Philosophy of Science 58, 1991a, pp 168–84. 16

0.4 The Quest for Comprehensiveness

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

32 Personally, these kinds of effects were the exhilarating treasures of my experience in writing this big book.

0.4 THE QUEST FOR COMPREHENSIVENESS

Why aim for comprehensiveness? The attempt to be comprehensive has the obvious drawback of spreading the discourse thin. This entails the danger of dealing in superficial and vague generalities. To overcome this problem, comprehensiveness should be pursued only after, or in parallel with, a multitude of in-depth analyses leading to special, detailed theories of particular subdomains. On the back of such a multitude of special theories a comprehensive theory should aim to establish a unifying theoretical apparatus with abstract concepts and general theses that are as precise as they are abstract and general. A general, comprehensive theory that coheres a complete series of detailed studies and/or special theories might claim the title of unified theory. In this sense a unified theory of a discipline can only be a mature and culminating effort. There are significant advantages that unified theories can offer over and above a cluster of independent special theories. One obvious advantage is mnemotechnical facilitation. A unified conceptual apparatus and terminology is a great mnemonic asset. More importantly, the attempt to construct a unified theory across a field of special theories is testing the field for consistency. Many real or apparent incompatibilities are bound to be detected. The detection of contradictions spurs further research and theoretical reformulation. The investigation of apparent incompatibilities leads to the establishment of unthought-of connections between subdomains.32 The hard won, precious result is the coherence of one’s views and positions across all the various topics and aspects of one’s architectural discourse and practice. An architect equipped with a unified theory is no longer so prone to contradicting himself, at least not without noticing it, and thus less prone to undo in one area what he/she has built up or defended in another area. A comprehensive and coherent perspective is what is required to offer effective leadership to a large firm working innovatively across the full spectrum of programmatic tasks. But a unified theory is not only necessary to give an individual career coherence across time and domains of intervention. Coherence is also an important value for the effective advancement of the discipline as a whole. A unified theory can help to prevent (or limit) the inevitable division of labour within the discipline leading to a fragmentation of efforts. Even assuming that each subdomain specific discourse achieves internal coherence via a hegemonic subdomain theory, without a unified theory, it is more likely than not that the different sub-discourses will pull the discipline in different directions.

17

There are many paths along which the discipline can advance. However, progression along any viable path must be thwarted if the different aspects of architecture are moving in incompatible directions. A unified theory can help to detect and resolve such inconsistencies. The following domains or partial discourses can be identified within the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture:

� discourse charting global societal developments to identify urgent societal tasks for architecture’s attention

� discourse concerned with the advancement of architecture’s expert functional performance

� discourse concerned with architecture’s ability to innovatively utilize the most advanced construction technologies

� discourse dedicated to the expansion of architecture’s formal (organizational and articulatory) repertoire

� discourse reflecting architecture’s aesthetic values � discourse exploring the ever-evolving digital design tools for the advancement of architecture’s productive capacity

� discourse dedicated to the explication and advancement of architecture’s design process rationality

� discourse reflecting architecture’s wider forms of professional practice � discourse charting architecture’s (popular) reception and utilization within society

� discourse reflecting architecture’s social and political impact and responsibility

� discourse recuperating architecture’s history (with respect to the aspects listed above) Although the above list of partial discourses is not directly reflected in the chapter structure of The Autopoiesis of Architecture, all the above aspects are considered and theorized.33 In this sense the theory of architectural autopoiesis is projecting itself as a unified theory of architecture. This unification did proceed slowly via the (inevitably creative) deployment and specific elaboration of Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical system, with respect to its methodology, conceptual apparatus and central theses. As intimated above, due to a prior Marxian approach to architecture the author had already been well versed in applying a totalizing (and functionalizing) line of inquiry before hitting on Luhmann’s oeuvre. However, it turned out that Luhmann’s system afforded even more ´ a` vu experiences and novel pertinent points of connection, exhilarating dej 33 The full list of issues is covered only if both volumes of The Autopoiesis of Architecture are taken into account. Volume 1 covers the first five issues on the list. 18

The Autopoiesis of Architecture is an attempt at an all-encompassing systematization of architecture, coherently embedded within Luhmann’s all-encompassing theory of social systems. It seems opportune at this point to go beyond the few hints scattered so far and introduce now some of Luhmann’s general conceptual arrangements and theoretical decisions that remain intact within the unified theory of architecture elaborated here. This rather abstract schema is perhaps best introduced unmotivated, like a system of axioms, because its meaning and fruitfulness can only transpire gradually as the scheme is elaborated and put to work in concrete analyses. The ‘axioms’ of social systems theory that are at the same time the axioms of the theory of architectural autopoiesis read as follows. Systems emerge through acts of distinction within an environment. The concept of system and the concept of environment are complementary. An environment is always an environment for a system. The systems considered within the theory are autopoietic systems. Autopoietic systems are self-referentially enclosed systems that produce all their units – elements and structures – within their own recursive network of reproduction. Elements are operations that produce information, ie, differences that make a difference within the system. Operational closure goes along with cognitive openness. By being differentiated and operationally closed off from its environment, a system can observe its environment. An observation is an operation that entails the moments of distinction and indication. A distinction slices the world and severs a point or domain of focus. This cut always produces a form with two sides, with a marked state on the one side and an unmarked state on the other side. The distinction is the primary operation while the indication signals which side of the form to connect to with further operations, ie, with further distinctions and indications. The unmarked state, as complementary other side of the form, is implicitly carried along. Therefore each 34 Ever since his discovery of Luhmann’s work the author has been ordering his thoughts, experiences and readings via Luhmann’s conceptual grid.

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

0.5 The Premises Imported from Social Systems Theory

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0.5 THE PREMISES IMPORTED FROM SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

insights than Marx’s.34 The comparisons and parallels that could be drawn between architecture and the various function systems analyzed within Luhmann’s oeuvre accumulated to the point where the possibility of a theoretical reconstruction of the discipline of architecture, set within this new encompassing theoretical system, seemed viable. This reconstruction is the core ambition of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. To orient the discipline’s forward thrust is its purpose.

observation implies a particular world as the unity of the difference of what is being distinguished. Any determinate distinction presupposes a certain conceptual field or horizon within which it is set. This presupposition is called the unity of the difference because it is what is shared by that which is distinguished. This unity of the difference is the inevitable blind spot of the observation that can only be revealed by another, new distinction that will have its own blind spot in turn. All observation is specific to an observer or observing system that is constituted by its own specific set of distinctions through which it observes its environment, and itself. Autopoietic systems observe their world (and thus construct their environment) on the basis of highly selective, narrow and specific points of contact, rooted in their internal constitution.35 There are at least three fundamentally distinct types of systems: living systems (cells, immune systems, nervous systems), psychic systems (individual human consciousness) and social systems. What is the relationship between these types of systems – given that they are each self-referentially closed and only recognize and connect to their own operations? The answer is that they exist within each other’s environment and might engage in relations of structural coupling with each other. Structural coupling refers to patterns of regular mutual irritation that allow for mutually adaptive evolution. Structural coupling is a very general concept within systems theory, a concept that pertains to all systems: all social systems, for instance, are structurally coupled with psychic systems, and all psychic systems are structurally coupled with nervous systems. Each type of system is characterized by a specific type of operation. A nervous system is a self-referentially enclosed, recursive network of neural signals, a psychic system is a self-referentially enclosed, recursive network of states of consciousness, a social system is a self-referentially enclosed, recursive network of communications. A communication entails three constitutive moments or selections: impartation, information and understanding. Understanding here does not imply correct understanding. It includes misunderstanding, as long as the chain of communications continues, as long as connectivity is maintained. All social systems are autopoietic systems of communications. Human beings are not components of social systems, neither as biological systems, nor as psychic systems. Within recursive networks of communications persons appear as important emergent structures 35 One might illustrate this point by thinking of a submarine that observes and navigates its environment by a very specific set of instruments that produce a very narrow and abstract form of information. 20

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

36 Luhmann himself did not explicitly address designed artefacts and spaces as instances of communications. 37 Social classes are social systems of communications only to the extent to which they constitute themselves through a self-demarcating, internal communicative nexus. Thus only the historical situation that Marx indicated with his notion of ‘the class for itself’ produces classes as social systems. The ‘class in itself’ is nothing but an external classification.

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0.5 THE PREMISES IMPORTED FROM SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

(constructs) that are used as points of reference and attribution. Social systems are composed of nothing but communications, ie, mostly fleeting events that connect to each other across time and space. The communications that are exchanged in direct social interaction perish right after they have been produced, to make room for follow-on communications. However, not all communications are so short-lived. Written communications, as well as communications that are preserved within artefacts and designed/constructed spaces,36 remain available and active for much longer. Most communications are language based, be it spoken, e-mails, or the publication of books. But communications are not confined to the use of language. One can also communicate with gestures, with money, by means of the ballot box, with drawings, or by means of carefully designed artefacts and spaces. Anything can be used as long as it is used selectively and achieves connectivity within the network of communications. The concept of a social system as autopoietic system of communications encompasses the totality of social phenomena. It covers temporary social events such as loose conversations, or lectures, as well as stable groups such as cliques, families or village communities, and formal organizations such as political parties or business firms etc. The concept of ‘social system’ also covers conflicts, subcultures, protest movements, social classes,37 as well as debates and discourses. Society is defined as the all-encompassing social system. All communications are thus communications within society. There can be no communication outside society. Today there exists only one single society: world society, as the all-encompassing autopoietic system of communications. All particular social systems are embedded within society. Society is therefore a part of the environment of every social system, but for each social system the relevant societal environment is different. In each case the complementary constitution of the environment for the system depends upon the particular system of distinctions and internal information processes through which the environment is observed. There is no ultimate point of observation, no privileged description of the world or of society. Within modern society there is no longer any hegemonic,

universally shared self-description of society. This spells the inescapable condition of polycontexturality of all social events and of all social systems. Each event is viewed and communicated differently, if at all, in the different social systems, and each system has its own peculiar conception of society according to the peculiar challenges it faces within its societal environment. The defining criterion for the constitution of a particular social system is that a particular network of communications starts to differentiate itself from the surrounding communications. A difference is established between those communications that take place inside the system versus those that take place outside the system. For the system to achieve a certain measure of stability and self-identity it is important that the system achieves a re-entry of the distinction between system and environment within the system, ie, the system observes itself as distinct from its environment and uses this distinction to discriminate and reject or ignore communications that do not fit into its ongoing autopoiesis. In the case of highly evolved, complex systems this self-distinction or self-demarcation is aided by elaborate (written) self-descriptions. In large, complex social systems only a minority of specialist communications is concerned with the direct observation of the environment.38 Most communications refer and connect to other internal communications, rather than directly registering the outside environment. Outside events, including communications within other social systems that become conspicuous, are theorized as irritations that cannot directly feed into the communication nexus of a social system. Such irritations are observed (absorbed and processed) differently by different social systems. (The concept of irritation is thus complementary to the concept of observation.) This implies that the original event – a communication in society – assumes multiple identities and triggers divergent chains of communications. In this sense different social systems overlap at many points. They might also overlap with respect to the participating individual persons who might feature in many different social communication networks at the same time. However, the same person, although identifiable by name across social systems within society, takes on a rather different appearance and social role in each of the social systems he or she participates in.

38 For instance, in large corporations special observational tools such as market statistics or stock-price graphs are deployed by dedicated peripheral subsystems. There are also special mechanisms of self-observation such as the mechanisms of accounting, the statistics of the HR department, or other routine internal reporting formats. 22

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

39 The phenomenon of philosophical Postmodernism is interpreted as a belated adaptation to modern social reality in the realm of semantics rather than indicating a further fundamental shift in the structure of society.

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0.5 THE PREMISES IMPORTED FROM SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

This condition of participation within multiple, largely independent, parallel social systems is particularly pervasive within modern society. In contrast, traditional societies were organized on the basis of segmentary differentiation into tribes, clans and families that located individuals once and for all, with respect to all aspects of their communications. Later, more complex societies emerged as an urban centre differentiated itself from a rural hinterland, and further when this kind of centre-periphery differentiation was augmented or replaced by stratification. Stratified societies usually allocate families (rather than individuals) into a rigid system of strata and substrata thus establishing a comprehensive and pervasive social ranking order. All aspects of a person’s communications within a stratified society are determined by his or her rank. Within stratified societies there still exists a privileged point – at the top of the social pyramid – from where a hegemonic self-description of society can be issued. Modern society – we can no longer use the plural form – is defined by the predominance of functional differentiation. Thus we can distinguish four principal modes of differentiation by which societies might differentiate into subsystems: segmentary, centre-periphery, stratified and functional differentiation. The mode of differentiation determines how the relationships between the subsystems within the overarching systems are ordered. The concept of the mode of differentiation not only provides a classification, it also indicates the form (distinction) by which the subsystems observe themselves within the overarching system, for example, as ‘our clan’ vs the other clans within segmentary societies, as noble vs common in stratified societies, and as the legal vs the political system within functionally differentiated society. The question of which of these forms of differentiation is dominant becomes the central criterion for the epochal categorization of societies. Modern society – according to this definition – persists today39 because functional differentiation remains the primary mode of differentiation. This does not imply that functional differentiation is the only mode of differentiation within modern society. All principal forms of differentiation continue to coexist in various contexts within modern society, but only as secondary operations within the framework set by functional differentiation. Functional differentiation operates on many levels within modern society – for instance in the departmental structures of business organizations – and incipient forms of functional differentiation did exist to a certain extent in all types of societies where a certain division of

labour emerged. However, the most striking and most important instance of functional differentiation is the emergence of the great function systems of modern society as self-referentially closed systems of communication. The function systems identified by Luhmann include the political system, the legal system, the economic system, the system of science, the education system, the medical system, the system of the mass media, the system of religion and the art system. The differentiation of these systems was a long historical process that intensified from the 16th century to the end of the 18th century while reaching full maturity only at the beginning of the 20th century. These function systems are the most important subsystems of modern society that stamp their ordering logic on all other societal differentiations. The function systems are differentiated on the basis of key functional aspects of social life that became more and more prevalent with the expansion and increasing complexity of society. The switch from stratified to functional differentiation allowed for a massive further expansion and increase of complexity. The establishment of functional differentiation as society’s primary form of differentiation thus constitutes an irreversible evolutionary gain. The different function systems of modern society – despite their self-referential autonomy – do not exist in a vacuum. They coevolve through mutual irritation, and specific forms of structural coupling from system to system. This helps to explain why the internal structural configuration of the various function systems displays many parallels. Another aspect of the explanation is that the various function systems can observe each other and thus learn from each other. These parallels have been distilled in the course of the various monographic studies on the great function systems of society, and led to the abstraction of general concepts within the theory of functionally differentiated modern society. The structural components that can be found across nearly all function systems include, among others, invariant codes, variable programmes and symbolically generalized media o f communication that are specific to each function system. The function systems of society acquire exclusive and universal competency with respect to their specific functional domain. These function systems are in principle open to all members of society. They know none of the restrictions of earlier societies such as family or tribal affiliation, or social rank. Each function system operates autonomously and maintains its own criteria of proper participation and success. Each function system observes its (mostly societal) environment with its own apparatus of distinctions, for example, the legal system observes all acts and communications according to the distinction legal vs illegal, the economic system observes all acts of communication according to the distinction profitable vs not profitable. Each function system also 24

How does Architecture fit into Society? The question posed here is thus specifically: how does architecture fit into Luhmann’s picture of society? How should architecture be theorized if one presupposes Niklas Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated society? The answer, ie, the opening theoretical decision or hypothesis proposed here is: architecture – together with the other design disciplines40 – constitutes another distinct autopoietic function system. Architecture/design is being theorized as one of the great function systems of modern society. We are used to talking about the discipline of architecture – understanding this to imply a more or less autonomous discursive domain and domain of competency. What is new about the introduction of the concept of autopoietic function system? One of the insights that is being transported by the introduction of this new concept is the correct appreciation of the absolute radicality of this autonomy. Talking of a discipline suggests a parallel with the different disciplines that exist within science. This is a highly misleading analogy.41 This false analogy is further reinforced by the fact that the

40 The complete function system is – strictly speaking – the function system of design which includes urban, architectural, interior and furniture design which are considered here as being encompassed within architecture. However, the complete function system of design also includes fashion and product design, as well as graphic design. Thus it encompasses the engagement with the totality of the world of artefacts to the extent that these artefacts enter the social arena. In what follows the phrases ‘architecture’ or ‘the function system of architecture’ can often be read as ‘architecture and the design disciplines’ or ‘the function system of architecture and the design disciplines’. The term architecture thus operates here sometimes as pars pro toto for the totality of the design disciplines. This is sometimes indicated by the phrase ‘architecture/design’. However, it would have been too cumbersome to use this composite term in all the instances where the extrapolation from architecture to the totality of the design disciplines is possible. 41 Despite the falsity of the suggested analogy, the notion of the discipline of architecture is so widespread and ingrained that it cannot be purged altogether. Therefore usage of this phrase is

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

0.6 Architecture’s Place within Society

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0.6 ARCHITECTURE’S PLACE WITHIN SOCIETY

observes and distinguishes its own operations from other types of communications and recognizes itself as a distinct system within societal environment. This reflection on the system-environment level includes reflection about the societal function of the system and therefore demands a representation of society within the system’s self-description. This introduction of key concepts and tenets should suffice as initial orientation. Further elaborations and specific references to Luhmann’s social systems theory – especially to his various detailed monographs about the various modern function systems – are woven into the main text, facilitating comparisons with architecture’s autopoiesis.

university system places architecture into such a parallel position.42 But architecture is not just one of several academic disciplines comparable to the different disciplines that segment the autopoietic function system of science. With respect to the different scientific disciplines a ‘negotiation’ or ‘redefinition’ of disciplinary boundaries is possible and indeed a regular process. The autonomy and demarcation of architecture are of a different order altogether. Architecture (together with the other design disciplines) is a separate autopoietic function system within functionally differentiated society, with its own universal and exclusive domain of competency set against the universal and exclusive domain of competency of the other autopoietic function systems. The unilateral ‘redefinition’ of such a boundary is not possible. Its boundary is ultra-stable, because it is tied into the very structure of society, a structure that evolved rather than having been ‘defined’ and implemented on the basis of theory. Over and above the implied radical autonomy and ultra-stable demarcation of the domain of architecture within society, this answer/ decision immediately opens up a huge panorama of comparison:43 the systematic comparison of the communication structures of architecture with those of all the other function systems that have so far been investigated within Luhmann’s framework. An overview of this panorama of comparison, and how architecture can be fitted into this panorama, is given in the comparative table that is included as Appendix 1: Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems . The heuristic value of this decision to treat architecture/design as one of the function systems of modern society becomes immediately evident through the systematic sequence of further questions that are suggested by comparison with Luhmann’s work on the other great function systems of society. Thus the following questions are now to be posed: 1. What is the specific type of elemental operation within the autopoiesis of architecture around which all further communications in architecture revolve and refer back to? This question is answered in section 3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture.

being maintained within The Autopoiesis of Architecture, without giving it a theoretical status within the theory of architectural autopoiesis. The phrase ‘the discipline of architecture’ is being used here as a convenient shorthand for ‘the self-referentially closed system of architectural communications’. 42 This parallel between the different disciplines of science and architecture, a parallelism that even includes medicine, economics, jurisprudence etc, exists only between the respective representations of these different function systems within the education system. 43 And an arena for future, more detailed comparative research. 26

44 A discussion of some of the considerations that led to the final decisions on these questions can be found in the epilogue (Volume 2).

0 INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM

The applicability of these questions was not immediately obvious, and the answers given are indeed theoretical decisions rather than prefigured solutions to a puzzle. In each case the question of applicability was raised and various possible answers were considered.44 Each answer opened up a new series of questions that needed to be settled in one way or another, but always with respect to the mutual constraints, leading towards the depiction of a tightly interlocking network of communication

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0.6 ARCHITECTURE’S PLACE WITHIN SOCIETY

2. What is the fundamental lead-distinction within architecture that

pre-structures all the further structures of communication within the

autopoiesis of architecture? This question is answered in section 3.4

The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design Disciplines .

3. What is the binary code of architecture that secures its internal

consistency and self-demarcation within its immediate societal

environment? This question is answered in Chapter 3.5.2 Utility and

Beauty as the Double Code of Architecture.

4. What takes the place of the historically variable programmes that

specify the criteria required to make the invariant code applicable in

each stage of architecture’s adaptive coevolution within society? This

question is answered in section 3.6 Architectural Styles .

5. What is the specific medium of architecture that serves to overcome

the inherent improbability of successful communication in the face

of increasing complexity and artificiality? This question is answered

in part 4 The Medium of Architecture.

6. What is the societal function of architecture that motivates its

differentiation and that constrains its evolutionary path? This

question is answered in part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture.

7. What is the task of architecture, ie, what are the concrete, specific

services that architecture renders to support social communication?

This question is answered in part 6 (Volume 2) The Task of

Architecture.

8. How is the autopoiesis of architecture shaped by other societal

institutions? This question is answered in part 8 (Volume 2)

Architecture and Society .

9. What is architecture’s relation to the political system of society? This

question is answered in part 9 (Volume 2) Architecture and Politics .

10. What have been the crucial self-descriptions of architecture throughout its historical evolution? This question is answered in part 10 (Volume 2) The Self-descriptions of Architecture.

structures that was finally to display a recognizable image of the autopoietic system of communications that refers to itself as architecture. In the end, when all the components mentioned above – as well as many other intermediate and additional components – were integrated, the sense of having successfully solved a puzzle did indeed arise. The ‘solution’ provides a well-structured mnemotechnic scaffold that allows anybody who makes the effort to work through it, to navigate the world of architecture without getting lost in contradictions and dead-ends. The complexities of architecture’s autopoiesis have been unravelled and coherently clarified in a way that sufficiently utilizes the familiar tracks of the discipline, while also offering new shortcuts, condensations and unexpected linkages that open up paths for the future extension of this network. The systematic explication of historical as well as ongoing practices within architecture opens a space of theoretical possibility within which new ambitions can be formulated, hopefully (re-)orienting the experimental as well as the critical branch of the discipline.

28

1.1 The Unity of Architecture THESIS 2 There exists a single, unified system of communications that calls itself architecture: World Architecture (the autopoiesis of architecture). The assumption that a term or title like ‘architecture’ denotes a cohesive unity is far from self-evident in an intellectual culture1 that has internalized the insights of Post-Structuralism. The theory of architectural autopoiesis is built upon the premise that ‘architecture’ indeed denotes a 1 For instance, this possibility has been negated by Reinhold Martin: ‘We cannot universalize any single, historically or culturally specific set of disciplinary practices under the heading “architecture”’, Reinhold Martin, ‘Moment of Truth’, in: Log 7, Winter/Spring 2006.

1 ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

Today a systematic theory that claims to encompass the totality of an extensive field like architecture might seem somewhat anachronistic. Such a claim certainly distinguishes the theory proposed here from all other theoretical efforts that circulate within and around the discipline. Obviously such a claim presupposes that there exists a phenomenon called architecture that is sufficiently cohesive to allow for a general, systematic treatment. The theory of architectural autopoiesis argues that it is not only possible to describe architecture as a cohesive entity from the outside, but that architecture as a system of communications has itself maintained and strengthened its cohesiveness by means of architectural theory, and can be expected to do so in the future. Architectural theory is an indispensable, inextricably involved dimension of the autopoiesis of architecture. Theory is an essential ingredient of all architecture. The architecture we practise – at the level that we practise it today – was only reached with the aid of theory. This does not imply that all architects must be architectural theoreticians. Most might never have read any theoretical book, and only a few write theory. But all have to argue and explain themselves in presentations and in explanatory texts that must accompany competition entries or the publication of their works. The theoretician’s theory succeeds when its guiding premises, conclusions and turns of argument diffuse into the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture.

1.1 THE UNITY OF ARCHITECTURE

1. Architectural Theory

cohesive entity. Architecture does exist. It is a phenomenon of recursive social communication with real internal unity. This is not only the a priori stipulation at the beginning of the theoretical edifice to be developed here, it is also the conclusion of the accumulated experience of an architect working for 20 years in many different countries across the world, collaborating with local architects, lecturing, discussing and meeting the local representatives of world architecture. The shared conceptual foundations and shared paradigmatic reference points allow us to connect to any architectural communication, to join any architectural debate, anywhere in the world, notwithstanding the existence of sharp differences concerning the current state and outlook of where architecture should be heading. Different styles and ‘ideological’ positions are expected and fought out within a single discourse and are not markers of discursive fragmentation. This sense of an integrated disciplinary platform of understanding – despite diverging stylistic and ideological trajectories – is further corroborated by teaching Master’s degree students with a prior architectural education from all over the world. Contemporary institutions like the Venice Architecture Biennale, and the enormous number of mostly non-partisan architecture magazines are as important indicators and active factors of this disciplinary unity as are universal reference points such as Mies, Corb, Gehry, Koolhaas and Hadid. Key writings also play a crucial role, such as Corb’s Towards a New Architecture, Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction, Koolhaas’s Delirious New York, Frampton’s Critical Regionalism, Peter Eisenman’s writings, as well as (more recently) Greg Lynn’s and Jeff Kipnis’s writings. The influence of such writings as key references does not rely on the assumption that every architect can claim full first-hand readings of these texts. It suffices that the key concepts and tenets formulated in these key texts filter through and are appropriated by the active players within the discipline. 1.1.1 ARCHITECTURAL SYSTEM-FORMATION AND SELF-REGULATION It is the total mass of architectural communications – to the extent that it forms a system – that constitutes the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. The stream of simultaneous as well as successive communications constitutes a system to the extent that these communicative events have the potential to refer to each other, either directly or indirectly, mediated by focal reference communications like paradigmatic architectural works and texts. A network emerges through the assemblage of chains, through 30

1 ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

2 See below: section 2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation.

3 This function implies a potentially universal interest in philosophy and explains the

extraordinary print volumes achieved by key philosophical texts.

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1.1 THE UNITY OF ARCHITECTURE

cross-referencing, and focal points that are recursively revisited and reinforced. Routine procedures, lead-distinctions, focal concepts and well-trodden paths of argumentation crystallize into stable conceptual structures that order and channel the further flow of communications. Architecture, like all the other subsystems of society, has developed its own reflective, regulative mechanism, namely architectural theory that filters, selects and refocuses architectural practice and thus facilitates the unity of architecture. Architectural discourse maintains the unity of architecture by continuously distinguishing architecture from neighbouring domains.2 The discourse thus protects the integrity of architecture by means of boundary management, denouncing incursions from neighbours such as engineers and artists who threaten to invade and blur the boundary and distinctiveness of architecture. The discourse also polices against unsustainable overextension of architects into alien territory. The construction of unity always demands both – the intensification of internal communications (via focal points) and external severance. The theory of architectural autopoiesis endeavours to describe architecture as unified system. Within an academic, intellectual climate where the presumption of irreducible multiplicity trumps the concept of unity, a theory that starts with assuming the cohesive unity of a system of communications might be viewed with suspicion. The same current climate that assumes multiplicity also clamours for the overthrow of the division of labour into specialisms. Specialization is indeed the only chance to achieve cohesion, ie, cohesion within the specialist domains. The alternative is an unstructured, continuous field of intertextuality and multiplicity. The impression (and programme) of open intertextuality is produced and promoted in a rather particular (and itself circumscribed) domain: philosophy. In the context of the proliferation of specialized discourses, philosophy has assumed the function of tracing, comparing and abstracting the most basic conceptual schemata and types of reasoning from the various specialized domains to facilitate their dissemination across those specialized domains. Philosophy has thus become a kind of circulation system for abstracted paradigms.3 This function explains the ideological overemphasis on intertextuality that originates within philosophy.

While open, freewheeling communicative patterns have been widely promoted, I argue that these ‘tendencies’ are an ideological myth rather than an effective reality. The fact is that the autonomization of discourses continues unabated. The theory presented here begins by grasping and appreciating the pervasive reality of the great, stable distinctions/unities that continue to structure societal communication, and emphasizes the virtues and proven achievements of differentiation and autonomization. Autonomization is a precondition of cohesion and unity within the various societal subsystems. Architecture is an autonomous subsystem of modern society and will be explicated as an autopoietic social system, ie, as a self-referential system of communications, differentiated with its own peculiar operative mechanisms, discursive structures and reflective self-descriptions. Every architectural theory is describing architecture in order to steer architecture. The theory of architectural autopoiesis starts with the thesis that this steering effort is not a supplement but rather an indispensable component of architecture. Architecture is neither simply given as a class of objects (buildings), nor simply given as certified profession. ‘Architecture’ is a value-laden term, it is deployed as an honorary title, and is as such contested. Architecture’s essential content is being fought over. The distinction and recognition of a class of artefacts as works of architecture is a contested field, laboured upon by architectural theory. The question at any time is: who can act in the name of architecture?4 Who is producing the most compelling statements concerning its direction? Architecture exists only in symbiosis with theory as its ‘steering mechanism’. Tschumi put it bluntly: ‘ . . . architecture does not exist without texts’.5 It is only in conjunction with anticipating and/or validating texts that original projects can hope to become communicative pivots that start to forge the styles through which the discipline progresses and regulates itself.

1.2 The Evolution of Architecture THESIS 3 Architectural theory effects an immense acceleration of architecture’s evolution. 4 The author owes this insight to Mark Cousins, who emphasized this point in one of his lectures at the AA in London in the late 1990s. 5 Bernard Tschumi, ‘Architecture and Limits’, in Artforum 19, no 4, December 1980, reprinted in: Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, Kate Nesbitt (Ed), Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 1996, p 52. 32

� Variation: Variation is triggered via the external environment through new, unusual client demands, new emerging urban contexts, newly available technologies etc. These phenomena constitute external perturbations and provocations. Internally the capacity for (responsive or wilful) variation is allowed for in the graphic design process where unexpected and strange markings are always possible. This possibility becomes fertile only at the dawn of Modernism when an avant-garde segment is differentiated that has the audacity to experiment and operate the graphic apparatus in analogy to (and inspired by) abstract art. The avant-gardist architect assumes the role of original creator or form-giver. Experimental avant-garde practice – stirred by external pressures and stimulations – is thus the differentiated mechanism of mutation that is the first precondition for an accelerated evolution. � Selection: The necessary mechanism of selection is provided by an architectural theory that closely tracks the avant-garde movement –

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1.2.1 ARCHITECTURAL THEORY AS MECHANISM OF SELECTION The evolution of the discipline might be theorized in analogy to biological evolution. This is what Niklas Luhmann proposes with respect to the development of social systems in general and with respect to the development of the functional subsystems of society in particular. Luhmann theorizes the historical development in close analogy to the theory of evolution and identifies a key condition for the take off of accelerated evolutionary processes: the differentiation of the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection and retention. The theory of architectural autopoiesis confirms this insight for the case of architectural development. Evolution presupposes that the key evolutionary mechanisms of variation (mutation), selection, and retention (reproduction) have been sufficiently separated. Only as the discipline differentiates these mechanisms can the evolution of the discipline of architecture really take off. Within the autopoiesis of architecture the evolutionary mechanisms are implemented as follows:

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Architectural theory unifies and stabilizes architectural practice. In its written, theoretical treatises an architectural practice fixes its premises, values, turns of argument and conclusions. In this explicit form – open to everybody’s inspection and reflection – architectural theory exposes itself to criticism and further dialectical evolution. As an invitation to criticism, theory thus becomes an engine for the progressive transformation of practice.

selecting and reinforcing the results of experimentation via manifestos and theoretical treatises. This relationship between avant-garde practice and theory is not necessarily always ordered in this way: first experimental practice and then theoretical confirmation. Theory might also stimulate new practice. The crucial point here is that any new, unusual practice tends to disappear quickly unless it is being selected and interpreted by architectural theory, and thus reinforced by being inscribed into the discourse. � Retention: As mechanisms of retention we can identify canonizing architectural histories of the recent past, ordinary schools of architecture6 and the inertia of institutionalized mainstream practice. Two exemplary retrospective canonizations that facilitated retention/reproduction were, for example, Hitchcock and Johnson’s The International Style and Jencks’ The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. Both works are insightful distillations that could look back upon a decade of accomplished avant-garde design and theory. Such works of contemporary architectural ‘history’ reconfirm the selections achieved by earlier theory and help to push the new achievements into the mainstream. Once certain innovations have entered the mainstream – with the initial help and continuous sustenance of canonizing histories and supported by educational curricula – they tend to stay there until pushed out by new innovations brought forward by new avant-garde design and new theory. Only when these innovations have reached the stage of reproduction should we speak of evolutionary achievements within the discipline of architecture. A subtle point to be grasped here is that the effective selection of certain formal deviations (stylistic mutations) requires anticipation with respect to the possibility of re-establishing a canon. 7 An architectural theory that is becoming involved in the formation of a new style would therefore be well advised to heed certain general conditions of later re-stabilization, for instance the necessity of general principles explicated in the following chapter. A style that cannot be effectively canonized cannot become a hegemonic style that takes control of mainstream communications.

6 There are also extraordinary schools of architecture that rather belong to the avant-garde. 7 Compare Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1990, p 581. 34

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8 The term Parametricism was first put forward by the author during the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. Its purpose is to name and highlight the contemporary convergence within avant-garde architecture. As protagonists of Parametricism all those are identified who have been contributing to this convergence during the last 15 years. Accordingly Greg Lynn is here counted among the (key) protagonists of Parametricism.

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Architecture as distinguished from mere building is inherently theoretical. Theoretical treatises are essential components of the autopoiesis of architecture. Architecture in contrast to mere building is marked by radical innovation and theoretical argument. Innovation questions the way things are done and requires an argument which transcends the mere concerns and competencies of building. Innovation requires theory. In contrast, vernacular building relies on tradition, on well proven solutions taken for granted. The status quo does not require theory. This affords a functional explanation of the emergence of theory as a necessary ingredient of a self-steering autopoietic function system: such theoretically reflective practice can considerably accelerate societal evolution. Every great work of architecture offers a radical innovation. That is an observation of the way the discipline evaluates itself. Most great architects are also important architectural theorists. This is another significant empirical fact. Virtually every architect who counts within architecture was both an innovator and a theorist or writer. The most striking examples are Alberti, Le Corbusier, Rem Koolhaas and Greg Lynn. This immediate link between ‘great architecture’ and significant theory is especially pronounced in the 20th and 21st centuries: nearly all Modernists, Postmodernists and Deconstructivists, as well as the most recent protagonists of Parametricism,8 are theoretically articulate. Innovation calls for theory to substitute for the assurances that were provided by adherence to tradition. Theory thus steps in to provide a necessary function that allows building to become architecture, thus contributing to society’s shift from conservation to accelerated transformation. That theory is required in order for building to become architecture can be asserted empirically, as a fact of communication within the autopoiesis

1.3 THE NECESSITY OF THEORY

THESIS 4 Architectural theory is integral to architecture in general and to all architectural styles in particular: there is no architecture without theory.

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of architecture. The same theory dependence has been observed within the art system, in relation to the identification of an object as art as distinct from an ordinary artefact. According to Arthur Danto, the terrain within which artefacts become works of art is: ‘constituted in virtue of artistic theories, so that one use of theories, in addition to helping us discriminate art from the rest, consists in making art possible’.9 In the same sense one might say that architecture is constituted by virtue of architectural theory. That is why the theory of architectural autopoiesis insists that architecture proper only begins with the Renaissance. The prior high point of achievement – the Gothic cathedral – is indeed very impressive. In fact, this earlier period develops two key ingredients of architecture proper: the practice of drawing starts to be differentiated together with the figure of the architect. However, although architects that had been leading the design and construction of the great cathedrals were recognized and respected, and often later buried within their cathedrals, no names were preserved within the ongoing architectural discourse. In contrast, Alberti, Bramante and Palladio are still alive within the recursively reproduced memory of architecture’s ongoing autopoiesis. There are no equivalent figures from the Gothic epoch. Most importantly, the essential ingredient that turns tradition based building into a self-conscious architecture – a public, critical discourse that emphasizes creative innovation and demands arguments for those innovations – is missing in Gothic building practice. There is indeed a big difference between secret guild knowledge and the public circulation of treatises. It is this difference that motivates and justifies the thesis that architecture starts with the Italian Renaissance. 1.3.1 THE FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY The differentiation of a dedicated theoretical strand within the autopoiesis of architecture is one of the defining factors that contribute to the differentiation of architecture as autonomous subsystem of societal communication. Only theoretically informed building design constitutes architecture. This is a reflection that can be confirmed by every practising architect who has gone through the rituals of architectural socialization at school or who has ever had a chance to have his work discussed on any of the institutionalized platforms that promote the advancement of architecture. This tight link between the existence of architecture as separate discipline/profession and architectural theory is also empirically 9 Arthur C Danto, ‘The Artworld’, in: The Journal of Philosophy, 61 (1964), pp 571–84. Reprinted in: Peter Lamarque & Stein Haugom Olsen(Eds), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Blackwell Publishing (Oxford), 2004. 36

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10 This component of the theory is elaborated in part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture.

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evidenced by the historical coincidence of the emergence of architecture as separate profession and the publication of dedicated architectural treatises. The theory of architectural autopoiesis adds a theoretical explanation to this evidence, an explanation that construes the necessity of architectural theory on the basis of a functional exigency that acts as evolutionary attractor for the differentiation of this function system. This functional exigency is the need to accelerate the innovation of the built environment to the extent that it contradicts the mode of evolution offered by the traditional system of guild based handicraft organization. In this context theory replaces tradition. The necessity of architectural theory is thus asserted by the identification of its primary function. The primary function of architectural theory is to compensate for the lost certainty of tradition, where the appropriateness and functionality of buildings were guaranteed by the fact that the new buildings consisted in nothing but the faithful repetition of long since evolved and surreptitiously corroborated models. The validity of traditional practice could be taken for granted and did not require a special communicative effort to solicit their acceptance. The moment when traditional practice falters is the moment when architecture takes off. Architecture is a discourse that is geared to permanent innovation, keeping up with and promoting a dynamic society. The societal need for a permanently updated built environment – inevitable in a society that expands and transforms relatively rapidly – is first the evolutionary attractor for architecture’s crystallization and then the selector for its further evolution. Thus the theory of architectural autopoiesis identifies the innovation of the built environment of society as a defining aspect of architecture’s societal function. This identification is a necessary theoretical component of explicating architecture – within the framework of social systems theory – as one of the great function systems of modern, functionally differentiated world society.10 The argument with respect to architectural theory is that this function cannot be fulfilled without architectural theory. Is this assertion too strong? Could it not be done by means of trial and error? Perhaps, trial and error is always involved. However, construction takes too long, and the material investment is too big to allow for an effective trial and error process unless the process is slowed down to the tempo of tradition by varying and improving in very small steps. The drawing can become the substitute plane for a much accelerated trial and error process. But we cannot only be concerned with the objective side of architecture’s performance.

The theory of architectural autopoiesis focuses on the fact that the creation of a new (public) building is a collective endeavour that requires communication. The evolutionary problem to be solved is therefore not only how to come up with new solutions – by trial and error on the plane of the drawing or by analysis and strategic problem solving – but the primary problem is how to communicate and solicit acceptance for conspicuous deviations from tradition. Architectural theory becomes a necessity because deviations from tradition need to be communicated convincingly. This implies that we do not have to assume that architectural theory is objectively correct and effective as a problem solving tool – although this possibility should not be excluded from consideration. All we need to assume to postulate the necessity of theory is that it functions as a means of communicating about potentially innovative deviations from traditional practice. It might do this by whatever means necessary, for example, by appeals to cosmic order, or even by arguing that the proposed deviations are in fact deeply rooted in tradition – both strategies succeeded with respect to the innovations of Renaissance architecture. Thus we can distinguish a communicative function and a problem solving function of architectural theory. The communicative function of architectural theory requires a rhetorical capacity to persuade. This communicative function of architectural theory overlaps with its operation as mechanism of selection. Obviously, a valid theory with an objective problem-solving capacity can at the same time be very persuasive. Although it is only its communicative function that provides for the absolute necessity of architectural theory, an objective problem solving capacity is obviously a significant advantage. To the extent to which aspects of problem solving are being successfully theorized, architectural theory becomes the effective, rational steering mechanism of architecture. With respect to this problem solving function of architectural theory we can in turn distinguish the following three aspects: problem formulation, generation of a solution space, and performance-based selection. With reference to these three aspects of architectural theory we can then distinguish problematizing theories, generative theories and analytic-predictive theories.11

11 This distinction has been inspired by Bill Hillier’s discussion of the generative and predictive phases of design and his arguments for an analytic theory of architecture. See: Bill Hillier, Space is the Machine – A Configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1996. In particular see Chapter 2: The Need for an Analytic Theory of Architecture, pp 54–87. 38

The three types of theories constitute necessary components of architecture’s theoretical self-regulation. A full-blown, comprehensive theory of architecture would have to integrate all three types of theory. There can be no comprehensive theory of architecture that refuses to address the question of how the promoted forms in turn promote functions, and finally how these functions address the problems posed by society. Most current architectural theorizing takes the form of partial (rather than comprehensive) theory. A partial theory, for example, purely generative theory of architectural form creation, does not have the 12 So far this reference to the design medium has mostly been implicit within architectural theories. However, the recent proliferation of advanced design media makes it necessary to incorporate a sustained theoretical reflection upon the design media that might be employed – both in their generative and analytic capacities. This necessary reflection upon the medium of architecture is extensive and has been elaborated in a dedicated section below, part 4 The Medium of Architecture.

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1. Problematizing theories provide the fundamental problem formulation from the perspective of the societal function of architecture. The architectural problem is here formulated on a rather general level, based on a historical understanding of the societal challenges that architecture faces at the time in question. This general problem formulation serves as a guiding reference point within the autopoiesis of architecture. The practising architect is invited to utilize the general problem formulation to interpret his concrete project brief in its terms. 2. Generative theories generate a range of candidate-solutions, ie, spatial and morphological possibilities. They provide for the general solution space by means of expanding the spatial and morphological repertoire available to the designing architect. Generative theories describe new formal-architectural characteristics and indicate generative techniques that allow designers to generate these characteristics within a given or proposed design medium. 3. Analytic-predictive theories analyze and predict performance. They guide the selection of solutions on the basis of a theoretically informed analysis of the proposal’s prospective performance. This requires a theory of the relationship between form and function. Analytic-predictive theories indicate how to predict this performance on the basis of an analysis that can be conducted within a given or proposed design medium.12

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1.3.2 TYPES OF THEORIES The following typology of architectural theories proposes a rational systematization of the empirical multitude of circulating architectural theories – past and present. Three types of theory are to be distinguished:

intellectual power to establish and defend a new style. Why then should there be such partial theories in the first place? Partial theories can also contribute to the innovation of the built environment. The three aspects of problem formulation, solution generation and performance analysis need not all be treated within the same theory. The rationality behind this distinction between problematizing, generative and analytic-predictive theories is that the overall task of architecture’s innovative adaptation to the demands of society’s ongoing development is too complex to be addressed within a single sweep. A collective process with an effective division of labour has a better chance of success. Such a division of labour is also able to utilize the differences in training, cognitive capacity, creative talent and interest within a population of architects and architectural theorists. Creative proliferation demands a different kind of mindset and communicative culture than selection based on rigorous functional micro-analysis, which again is different from gaining a historically informed overview about the most far-reaching societal challenges that architecture is confronted with. Obviously, the drawback of any intellectual division of labour is that the various insights and theoretical results that are produced in each theoretical strand have to be reintegrated, at least in their final influence on the designing architect. That these multiple influences on the designer become a productive confluence rather than an arena of conflict and contradiction is far from guaranteed. Thus attempts at comprehensive theoretical integration are also a recurrent (but rare) phenomenon within the history of architectural theory. (The theory of architectural autopoiesis is trying to provide the required integration for contemporary architecture.) That the integration of the three types of theory is necessary to deliver coherent and effective guidance to designers is clear. Ideally, a generative theory of architecture – while focusing on the formal characteristics and on the creative techniques that produce the described characteristics – should at least work from a general understanding of the fundamental problematic posed to architecture, so that a general direction is set for the expansion of the repertoire. For instance, it makes a difference for the direction of creative exploration whether potential new solutions need to be more complex, or more simple than what is currently available. Although generative theories are effectively providing the general solution space for the design problems architecture faces, most generative theories pay little explicit attention to the formulation of the problems faced. However, often it is enough for generative theorists to be aware of the overarching slogans provided by the leading problematizing theorists in order to roughly focus their searching 40

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13 Hannes Meyer, ‘Die Neue Welt’, in: Das Werk (Zurich), 13 (1926) 7, pp 205–24. 14 Colin Rowe & Robert Slutzky, ‘Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal’, in: Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1976, first published in Perspecta in 1963. 15 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Museum of Modern Art (New York), 1966. 16 Peter Eisenman, Diagram Diaries, Thames & Hudson (London), 1999. 17 Greg Lynn, Animate Form, Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 1999. 18 Reiser & Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics, Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 2006. 19 Lars Spuybroek, The Architecture of Continuity, NAi Publishers (Rotterdam), 2009. 20 Lionel March & Philip Steadman, The Geometry of Environment – An Introduction to Spatial Organization in Design, RIBA Publications (London), 1971. 21 Rem Koolhaas, ‘Bigness, or the Problem of Large’, in: Rem Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL, 010 Publishers (Rotterdam), 1995. 22 Rem Koolhaas, ‘Junkspace’, in: Rem Koolhaas (Ed), Content, Taschen (Cologne), 2004. 23 Colin Rowe & Fred Koetter, Collage City, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1978.

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exploration. Equally, there must be (direct or indirect) coordination between generative and analytic-predictive theories. The analytical arsenal must have the capacity to analyze the latest fomal structures provided by the generative protagonists. Finally, concerning the coordination between problematizing and analytic-predictive theories: the analytic-predictive apparatus should be measuring the design’s specific performance in terms of the general performance criteria set out within the (most relevant) problematizing theory. Most architectural theories primarily focus on one of the three aspects of architectural design. Many theories address two of the three aspects. Comprehensive theories that address all three aspects are rather rare. The examples below illustrate the proposed typology of theories. An example of a purely problematizing theory is Hannes Meyer’s ‘Die Neue Welt’.13 As examples of purely generative theories one might cite Rowe & Slutzky’s ‘Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal’,14 Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,15 Peter Eisenman’s Diagram Diaries,16 Greg Lynn’s Animate Form,17 Reiser & Umemoto’s Atlas of Novel Tectonics,18 or to mention a very recent work: Lars Spuybroek’s The Architecture of Continuity.19 Finally, as examples of a purely analytic-predictive theory one might cite March & Steadman’s The Geometry of Environment.20 Works that combine problematizing with generative ambitions include the writings of Archigram, the various writings of Koolhaas including Delirious New York, ‘Bigness’,21 and ‘Junkspace’;22 and for instance Rowe & Koetter’s Collage City.23 Theoretical works that combine generative with analytic-predictive aspects include the research and writings of Frei Otto and his research

team, as well as Hensel & Menges’ recent Morpho-Ecologies.24 Theories that combine problematizing with analytic-predictive agendas include Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form,25 as well as Bill Hillier’s theoretical elaborations in The Social Logic of Space26 and Space is the Machine.27 Comprehensive architectural theories that have the ambition to cover all of the three types of architectural theory distinguished here are quite rare. However, there is a series of central texts the authors of which grasped the necessity to address those three aspects. The historical series of comprehensive theoretical treatises includes the major theoretical works of Alberti, Durand and Le Corbusier. (One notices that the division of labour between the three aspects becomes more expressed during the 20th century – a general sign of the times and an indication of the increase in complexity of the overall challenge to the discipline.) These older theoretical accounts are no longer sufficient. From today’s perspective it is especially the analytic-predictive aspect of the theoretical task, ie, the assessment of the prospective (social) performance of designs that lacked sophistication in older attempts. Obviously, in earlier times this aspect was relatively trivial if compared with today’s diverse and complex demands. Therefore, an overly sophisticated theoretical effort was perhaps not required to assess the performative consequences of a design. The more original/unusual and the more complex a design is, the more difficult is the task of theorizing its prospective performance. Rigorous analytic-predictive theories are indeed a late and rare emergence within the autopoiesis of architecture. Architectural theory – with the profound exception of Alberti – was for a long time a predominantly normative system of rules affording a recipe for generating acceptable solutions. This acceptability was usually asserted dogmatically or rhetorically only, to a certain extent safeguarded by experience, without much (need for) sustained analytical argument. If there was performance oriented argument, it was often related to issues of construction rather than to the more fundamental questions of social performance. Palladio’s Four Books on Architecture is an example of this kind of primarily formal (generative) theory, backed up by references to technical performance. 24 Michael Hensel & Achim Menges (Eds), Morpho-Ecologies, Architectural Association (London), 2006. 25 Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1964. 26 Bill Hillier & Julienne Hanson, The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1984. 27 Bill Hillier, Space is the Machine – A Configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1996. 42

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28 See: Volume 2. 29 Bill Hillier, Space is the Machine – A Configurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1996, p 67. Hillier brought his research to the point of convincing practical application which allowed him to found a successful consultancy firm that offers its analytical intelligence and technical prowess to design firms engaged in urban masterplanning or the design of large building complexes. The space planning of large headquarters is a further field of successful application for the space syntax techniques.

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Examples of the most important full-blown theories, among others, ´ include Alberti’s Ten Books, Durand’s Precis and Corb’s Towards a New Architecture. However, the sophistication of their analytic-predictive theorizing is rather limited, marked by the lack of a precisely defined conceptual apparatus and a resultant vagueness and tendency towards over-generalizations. A comprehensive performance analysis would require covering the aspect of organization (grouping, adjacency, circulatory communication), the aspect of articulation including orientation (phenomenological legibility, way-finding), and meaning (signification, connotative associations, atmosphere). The theoretical resources that would be necessary to evaluate designs along these performative dimensions, on a level of sophistication appropriate to the complexity of contemporary social institutions and life-processes, are indicated in part 6 The Task of Architecture.28 The aspect of organization is the performance aspect that – starting in the 1960s – has so far received the most rigorous analytical treatment. Bill Hillier is one of those few architectural theorists who has focused on developing the analytic-predictive side of architectural theory, albeit exclusively with respect to the aspect of organization. He suggests that most architectural theories are too prescriptive and narrow on the generative side and in turn lack precision on the analytical side when it comes to guiding the designer in predicting the functional effect from the formal configuration.29 Bill Hillier’s own theory, the theory of space syntax, is perhaps the most advanced analytic-predictive theory – concerning the aspect of organization – that has so far been developed within architecture. It is most advanced in terms of the precision of its conceptual apparatus and the sophistication of its analytical techniques. He is the only theorist-researcher who has carried forward what began in the 1960s and 1970s and otherwise dwindled during the 1980s. This has been achieved via the establishment of a collective research effort led by Hillier at his Space Syntax Lab within London University. The main focus of Hillier’s research is the computational analysis of complex spatial configurations – both with respect to (the interior organization of) buildings and to (parts of) cities. Space syntax makes strong, empirically

corroborated claims about being able to predict social use and occupation patterns on the basis of configurational analysis only, ie, on the basis of analytical techniques that are able to take design drawings as input. The theory provides a powerful contribution to the necessary upgrading of contemporary architecture’s capacity to cope with the challenge to organize the increasing complexity of social institutions and communication processes. Space syntax contributes to architecture’s ability to meet this challenge on the side of organization. Its insights and techniques deserve to be integrated within the contemporary design research agenda that is being promoted within the theory of architectural autopoiesis under the label of Parametricism.30 A short introduction to space syntax is included below within part 6 The Task of Architecture, in particular section 6.4 Supplementing Architecture with a Science of Configuration. The task of organization today requires a more explicit and more elaborate repertoire of organizational patterns and more explicit, precise criteria for their evaluation than what can be reasonably expected from the tacit knowledge and accumulated wisdom of an experienced architect. Systematic theoretical work is called for. Attempts to give architectural theory a measure of scientific rigour started during the 1920s with protagonists like Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer. However, it was only during the 1960s that tangible progress was made via the reception of systems theory and the adoption of the methods of discrete mathematics. Christopher Alexander’s introduction of new mathematics into the field of architecture was closely tied to seeing social complexity as the key challenge for architectural and urban design. References in his Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964) included, among others, authors like Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Heinz von Foerster, John von Neumann, Herbert Simon and Marvin Minsky. Beyond these system-theoretical references we find references to symbolic logic, scientific methodology, evolutionary biology and cognitive science. The two areas in which Alexander broke new ground with respect to the upgrading of the analytic-predictive capacity of architecture were in analyzing patterns of organization and with respect to the logical structure of the design process. In an effort to overcome the opacity of intuitive design Alexander proposed an explicit, rational design methodology that uses ‘logical structures to represent the design problem’31 and attempts

30 See: Patrik Schumacher, ‘Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design’, in Neil Leach (Ed), AD Digital Cities, Vol 79, No 4, July/August 2009. 31 Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1964, p 8. 44

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32 Geoffrey Broadbent & Anthony Ward, Design Methods in Architecture, Architectural Association Paper Number 4, Lund Humphries (London), 1969. These theoretical threads – which were severed during the intervening years – are being picked up in Volume 2 of The Autopoiesis of Architecture. 33 Christopher Alexander, ‘The City is not a Tree’, in: Architectural Forum, Vol 122, No 1, April 1965, pp 58–62. 34 See: Lionel March and Philip Steadman, The Geometry of Environment – An Introduction to Spatial Organization in Design, RIBA Publications (London), 1971.

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to keep track of the multitude of performance requirements by ordering them within a hierarchical system of sets and subsets of requirements. Alexander identifies the complexity of dependencies and interactions between requirements as the primary problem that burdens modern design, where totally new solutions (compositions) are aimed for and thus all variables are opened up at the same time. Alexander thus proposes to proceed via a top down decomposition of the global design problem into a nested hierarchy of sub-problems. The solution process then starts at the bottom where sub-problems with a limited number of interdependent requirements give the designer a chance to grasp and solve the problem intuitively or via trial and error. These component solutions are then successively synthesized in a process that retraces the decomposition hierarchy upwards. In the wake of Alexander’s intervention, a whole movement of design process thinking ensued – hoping to give architectural design a methodology and thus tractability akin to science and engineering. An anthology with 18 pertinent papers was published at the Architectural Association in 1969.32 Christopher Alexander had used set theory (graph theory) to give a formal structure to the design problem and process. He soon proposed to use the same mathematical structures to diagram and analyze urban patterns.33 The research which was advanced by Lionel March and Philip Steadman during the 1970s34 found its current point of culmination in the work of Bill Hillier and his Space Syntax Lab as described above. This mathematical research into the problematic of spatial organization was one of the first occasions for the deployment of computational processes within the design disciplines. Architecture advances as a progression of styles. All styles, sooner or later, acquire a theoretical articulation, and all architectural theories, explicitly or implicitly, are aligned with particular styles. The theory of Functionalism was aligned with the style of Modernism. The bulk of the architectural theory of the 1970s was aligned with the style of Postmodernism. In general, it is the generative theories that strongly and conspicuously interlock with styles. As exemplars for generative theories one might cite Colin Rowe’s theory of bri-collage and Greg Lynn’s theory

of the blob, respectively aligned with Postmodernism and Parametricism. However, styles are not only characterized by their specific solution space (formal repertoire), but also by their specific mode of addressing functional requirements. Tschumi’s theory of cross-programming might be cited as an example of a generative theory concerned with function, aligned with Deconstructivism. Analytic-predictive theories also bear on the question of style. For instance, Bill Hillier used his space syntax theory to criticize Modernist urbanism. His analytic-predictive pursuit of urbanity was – at least partially – aligned with Postmodernism. But even explicitly aligned theories can also be appropriated by other styles. Hillier’s techniques, for instance, enable designers to keep track of the organizational ordering of their projects even if the overall size of the system and the density of its internal connections increase beyond the designer’s intuitive grasp. Thus these techniques might be aligned with the generative agenda of increasing spatial complexity that is the prevalent ambition of Parametricism. Beyond the techniques measuring the objective connection hierarchy and the circulatory permeability within a system of spaces or paths, space syntax offers analyses in terms of isovists, thus measuring the spatial configurations in terms of visual permeability. The measurement of visual permeability does not yet suffice to understand perception and orientation. Therefore a qualitative assessment of the legibility of space would be required. This implies that the concern of organization must be augmented by the concern of articulation. Theories that analyze and predict the legibility of a design via the perception of space and via the perception of morphological characteristics are bound to impact the formation of a style. In the final section of The Autopoiesis of Architecture the evolving style of Parametricism is theorized and augmented with proposals that generally emphasize the issue of the articulation of complexity. In particular, the concern with perceptual orientation leads to the stylistically pronounced insistence on accentuating correlations. A further aspect of articulation is being introduced under the heading of parametric figuration35 – inspired by the insights of Gestalt-psychology. The notion of parametric figuration assumes that complex configurations that are latent with multiple readings can be constructed as a parametric model. The parametric model might be set up so that the variables are extremely figuration-sensitive. Parametric variations trigger ‘Gestalt-catastrophes’, ie, the quantitative modification of these parameters triggers qualitative shifts in the perceived order of the configuration.

35 See: Volume 2, part 11 Parametricism, Chapter 11.2.2 Defining Heuristics and Pertinent Agendas. 46

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1.3.3 THE NECESSITY TO REFLECT ARCHITECTURE’S SOCIETAL ˆ RAISON D’ETRE The availability of generative and analytic-predictive theories does not tell us anything about the level of reflection an avant-garde style achieves. Both generative and analytic theories remain partial theories – not only in the sense that generative theories often lack analysis and analytic theories lack generative power – but in the sense that both lack the ambition and ability to relate their contributions to architecture’s broader societal responsibilities. A fully self-conscious style must also be aligned with a problematizing theory that addresses the style’s historical raison ˆ d’etre. Problematizing theories provide the historically specific problem formulation for architecture based on a broad historical understanding of the societal challenges that architecture faces at the time in question. Problematizing theories thus reflect and problematize the societal function of architecture within historically specific conditions. The existence of dedicated (generative and/or analytic) treatises on architectural design contributes to the set up and maintenance of a demarcated discursive domain. However, the stability and evolution of architecture require a problematizing theory, ie, an explicit reflection upon architecture’s position and role within society, to orient the development of the discipline’s internal strategies and values. Only the absorption and integration of all three types of theory can forge a sustainable avant-garde style that can credibly aspire to gain hegemony within the avant-garde segment of the autopoiesis of architecture, with the further aspiration to direct the mainstream of architecture. Only when this condition is given, ie, when a comprehensive theory of architecture reflects the style that is prevalent within the autopoiesis of architecture, does the architectural theory in question constitute the (prevalent) self-description of architecture. In order to effectively steer themselves in the absence of authoritative directives from outside, all function systems must reflect their own societal function. The scope and complexity of these necessary reflections demand book-length written form. Luhmann refers to reflections that take this form as self-descriptions. Self-descriptions

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Beyond the concern with Gestalt perception emerges the concern with semiotic operations. Architectural semiosis is a pervasive phenomenon that is inevitably – and more than ever – involved with the way spaces function within social communication. A powerful contemporary style would have to cover and reflect all performance aspects: organization, articulation and semiosis. Such a style should therefore aspire to develop in conjunction with a comprehensive analytic-predictive theory.

provide the comprehensive theoretical foundations for the respective function system from within that system. The theory of architectural autopoiesis adopts Luhmann’s concept. Within the theory of architectural autopoiesis self-descriptions are defined on the basis of the distinction between problematizing, generative and analytic-predictive theories. The aspect of problematizing and interpreting the societal function of architecture within each historical constellation is at the heart of the notion of self-description. Generative as well as analytic-predictive theories must ultimately follow the direction indicated by the identification of the epoch’s key problematic. Self-descriptions in this sense are a necessary ingredient for a successful autopoietic function system. This type of theory exists in nuce already in Alberti’s Ten Books from 1486.36 Although there can be no talk yet of a fully developed theory in the modern sense here, we might consider Alberti’s Ten Books as the first self-description within architecture. Alberti gives some confident statements with respect to the societal significance of architecture: To conclude, then let it be said that the security, dignity and honor of the republic depend greatly on the architect: it is he who is responsible for our delight, entertainment, and health while at leisure, and our profit and advantage while at work, and in short, that we live in a dignified manner, free from any danger . . . I wondered what human condition, what part of the state, what class of citizen owed more to the architect, since he is responsible for every comfort: was it prince or private citizen, religious or secular institution, business or leisure, or individuals as opposed to mankind as a whole?37

It seems as if Alberti, at the very beginning of the evolution of modern society, claims and testifies – with respect to architecture – already to the universal and exclusive competency that should become the claim and hallmark of all of the great function systems of modern society. Architectural theory, at the level of self-description, is an integral part of the autopoiesis of architecture. All function systems must reflect their own societal role in order to effectively steer themselves in the absence of authoritative directives from outside. Self-descriptions, like Alberti’s cited above, provide this necessary reflection.

36 Alberti’s work – De re aedificatoria – initially does not carry the word architecture in its title. However, the edition of 1546 does (and so do all further editions in various ways: I dieci libri dell’architettura di Leon Battista Alberti (Venice), 1564. 37 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988, p 5. 48

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38 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia – Design and Capitalist Development, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1976; original Italian, Progetto e Utopia, Laterza (Bari), 1973. 39 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction – Derrida’s Haunt, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1993. 40 However, Wigley’s book fulfils this notion of a comprehensive and autologically self-reflective reconceptualization of architecture only in terms of a well-formulated programme, without taking steps towards its execution.

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Since the second half of the 20th century theoretical reflection has been pushed further. Beyond the theoretical self-descriptions of architecture a meta-level of theorizing architectural theory within architectural theory has been established. This meta-level is utilizing a wider theoretical framework (for example, Marxism, Structuralism, or here social systems theory) to self-consciously position, legitimize and orient the theoretical steering effort. Examples include Manfredo Tafuri’s Architecture and Utopia – Design and Capitalist Development 38 and Mark Wigley’s The Architecture of Deconstruction – Derrida’s Haunt.39 The former work is taking Western Neo-Marxism and the latter is taking Jacques Derrida’s Post-Structuralist philosophy of Deconstruction as meta-theoretical framework for their effort to position and reconceptualize the role of architecture and architectural theory.40 Both Western Marxism and Post-Structuralism are sophisticated frameworks that allow the theoretical elaborations to become fully self-reflective by including themselves within their object domain. Theories that are able to theorize themselves are autological theories. Marxism theorizes theory – and thus itself – as ideology tied to class-consciousness that, in turn, is based on class interests within the conflict-laden socio-economic arena. Post-Structuralism theorizes theory – and thus itself – as partaking in discourse understood as an open-ended process of intertextual play, within institutional structures, and without controlling authors, goals or stable points of reference. The autological structure of these frameworks and their ability to tolerate the self-application of their principles is an achievement that architectural theory needs to hold on to. Tafuri equates architecture with ideology as a necessary dimension of societal development, but only until the historical moment when ideology was superseded by socio-political engineering. Across 180 pages he traces the process of adaptation of architecture’s ideological self-conceptions to societal conditions and thus explicates the underlying rationality of the various aesthetic or stylistic revolutions. Aesthetic revolutions are explained as sublimations of the inevitable adaptation to the demands of the socio-economic base process. The development of capitalism is being traced across various stages, each time requiring a

new revolution in the aesthetic values delivered by a new architectural ideology. The French Baroque (in city planning) is theorized as the aesthetic sublimation of the establishment of a national, mercantilist economy. The subsequent aesthetic of the Picturesque is understood as the sublimation of the need for unfettered city development, called for by early, laissez-faire industrialization. The Modernism of the 1920s represents the stage of organized capitalism. This was – according to Tafuri – the last moment of architecture. Then looms the end of ideology at the hands of economic planning: ‘Architecture as ideology of the plan is swept away by the reality of the plan’41 and Tafuri concludes that ‘the role of the discipline ceases to exist’.42 Tafuri characterizes his account of architecture as ideology as a version of the critique of ideology, however, without making the Marxist self-inclusion within the concept of ideology explicit. Tafuri thus tries to preserve a position of outside observer, but only to terminate his discourse in the recognition that his critical project of the criticism of ideology has to end with the end of ideology: ‘It is precisely here that my discourse must end, but certainly not by choice’.43 Tafuri ends his preface with another telling moment of self-irony (or perhaps self-doubt) that recognizes the radical contingency of all theorizing and applies this to his own theoretical offering: ‘It will be necessary to go beyond this, but in the meantime I feel not wholly useless to present this framework of a hypothesis, which if nothing else offers its own formal completeness’.44 Despite his opening question, how then to translate Deconstruction in architectural discourse? 45 Mark Wigley’s book is primarily a reading of Derrida’s work tracing the way Derrida deconstructs the use of architectural analogies in the constitution of philosophical discourse. Thus the bulk of the work is the exegesis of Derrida’s writings, and to this extent a contribution to philosophy rather than to architecture. However, at the end of the book, in the final chapter titled ‘In Conclusion’, Wigley maps out a rather ambitious programme for an architectural theory that would take on the lessons of Deconstruction to apply them to ‘a deconstructive reading of the sociopolitical institution of “architecture”’.46 Wigley maps out the tasks of a Deconstructive discourse analysis of architecture that is supposed to integrate with 41 Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia – Design and Capitalist Development, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1976, original Italian, Progetto e Utopia, Laterza (Bari), 1973, p 135. 42 Ibid, p ix. 43 Ibid, p x. 44 Ibid, p xi. 45 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction – Derrida’s Haunt, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA) 1993, p 1. 46 Ibid, p 211. 50

These were the very last sentences of The Architecture of Deconstruction. This is a clear case of autology or self-inclusion. An ambitious architectural theory that tries to offer its insights and directives as part of a comprehensive theory of architecture can no longer fail to recognize itself as part of its own object of investigation. A comprehensive theory of architecture must reflect the role of architectural theory within architecture. It must include and explicate itself, ie, it must follow the principle of an autological theory design. Such a comprehensive theory of architecture has therefore to reflect its own supposed functioning, explain the conditions of its own possibilities and estimate the prospects of its own relevancy and likely efficacy. This self-assessment has to be achieved with the same general terms, and must be coherent with the general theoretical framework set out to grasp architecture in general. The theory of architectural autopoiesis does precisely this and achieves this necessary self-inclusion, not via a final, merely suggestive twist of argument, but by building a coherent theory of the role of architectural theory (and philosophical metatheory) into its very genetic make-up, right from the start. That is why the first section of The Autopoiesis of Architecture has been dedicated to architectural theory. The emergence of architectural theory coincides with the emergence of architecture as separate profession. The theory of architectural autopoiesis insists that architectural theory enters into the definition of architecture. It is a necessary component of architecture as autopoietic 47 Ibid, pp 219–20.

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. . . this complication also necessarily affects the space of deconstructive

discourse . . . Those texts that appear to rigorously pursue the question of

spacing, whether they address architecture or not, are invariably haunted by

stable constructions of space that punctuate their arguments without being

called into question by them . . . The strength of that discourse depends on

the veiling of its systemic weakness for architecture, a traditional weakness

that structures the discourse as such and needs to be interrogated,

especially when the question of deconstruction and architecture is being

explicitly raised. Not only has such an interrogation hardly even begun here,

but this text must immediately be subjected to it.47

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various critical analyses of architecture’s entanglement within various socio-political arenas. (Below this programme will be used to contrast and thereby clarify the theoretical project of the theory of architectural autopoiesis.) The autological structure of Wigley’s thinking becomes evident in the poignantly emphasized self-inclusion of the theory at the very end of the book:

system of communications. The theory of autopoietic systems stipulates that the difference between system and environment should re-enter the differentiated systems as an explicit form of self-observation. Only on this basis does the system gain a sufficiently stable self-enclosure to avoid dissipation and distraction from all sorts of concerns and arguments. This is a requirement that is observed in all great function systems. The circulation of written treatises that carry the name of architecture in their title reinforces the required self-demarcation. Historically, architectural theory grew out of the written fixation of the rules of the trade, often no more than a list of precepts and recipes. The availability of the printing press became a massive accelerator for the take-off of architectural theory and architectural evolution. Once precepts and recipes are available as circulating references, detached from the immediate, imposing presence of the authority of the author, they invite careful rethinking and, sooner or later, are bound to attract criticism and reformulation. Thus the evolution of architectural theory takes off. The mere formulation of precepts and recipes is soon insufficient. The pertinence of the proposed precepts needs to be argued for. The formation of guiding principles needs to be embedded within an account of the societal function of architecture. A general theory of architecture that draws on the predominant understanding of society of its time is required to ascertain the societal function of architecture. From this point on, architectural theory proceeds with means-ends analyses and hypotheses about the efficacy of particular design strategies. The most convincing case of an architectural theory that is embedded within a pertinent understanding of society is the Modernist/Functionalist precepts and principles embedded within a theory of industrial modernization conceived within the context of a democratic welfare state. The situation was sufficiently clear, simple, and soon uncontested, so that the sophisticated construct of explicit autological self-inclusion was not yet required in the domain of architecture. The Modernist-Functionalist theory of modern architecture did not feel the need to theorize its own contingent status and function as theory.48 The theory of modern Functionalism poses as self-sufficient truth and considers the time-honoured concerns and distinctions of Classical architectural theory simply as falsities or outmoded remnants to be discarded. The stunning historical success of Modernism confirmed the 48 The exception is Sigfried Giedion’s reflection of the relativity of the historian’s perspective within his grand historical reconstruction of the genealogy of modern architecture: ‘The backward look transforms its object . . . every spectator at every period . . . inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature’, Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 5th Edn, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1967, p 5. 52

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49 The older theories that had in fact developed the conceptual resources that Modernism still relied on were discarded without further reflection. 50 Both within architecture, and beyond in literary and cultural theory, as well as in philosophy.

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historical validity of this assertiveness until the further development of society – not least on the back of the achievements of Modernism – ushered in the crisis of Modernism implying the need for more sophisticated strategies. Today forceful ideological self-assertion claiming to speak on the basis of incontrovertible facts and priorities can no longer convince. Further reflective loops are required and choices must be made transparent. Values and perspectives have been multiplying due to the increase of societal complexity and the diversification of social constituencies.Therefore a convincing theory must open up its contingent options, relativize its premises and include the theoretical explication of rival theories and the rationality of their choices. An inclusive discourse would now have to reflect and problematize the status of architectural theory, with respect to its function, resources and underlying interests. During Modernism’s tenure an explicit Constructivist epistemology was neither readily available, nor yet required. The tenets of Modernism were announced with a simple, forceful assertiveness.49 This is no occasion for criticism or regret, just a fact of history to be noted and accounted for here. Modernism ruled uncontested for nearly half a century. The implications of Modernist-Functionalist theory had been worked through with respect to all major building types and were applied as well with respect to urbanism, pursuing the ambition to realize an integrated Functionalist city. The achievements of modern architecture had been spread widely across the modern world, hand in hand with industrialization and the general spread of societal modernization. After a certain material level was established, the situation changed. Other concerns started to be voiced. The simultaneous integration and further differentiation of industrial world society led to the differentiation of aspirations and expectations. The shift from Fordism to post-Fordist patterns within central segments of the world economy meant that the assumption of a universal consumption standard that had been implicit with the Modernist theory was no longer appropriate. These developments challenged the certainties of Modernist Functionalism together with its basis in the theory of progress via industrial modernization. Since then, the essential function of architecture has been contested. When previous certainties can no longer be taken for granted, everything is potentially in question. Under such circumstances the discourse is led to reflect deeper. The experience of the debates within and around Postmodernism50 and then Deconstructivism has taught us that radical, deep reflection does

not lead to stable, uncontestable foundations upon which a new consensus might be built. The epoch of universal truths is over. Today assertive claims about the essence of architecture appal and repel rather than attract a following among the participants of contemporary discourses.51 Instead, other types of theoretical offerings might have a chance to succeed today, not so much by means of a dogmatic assertiveness, but by inspiring curiosity and engagement: theoretical offerings which set themselves up as contingent – as mere options among other possibilities – and which reveal their underlying sources without appealing to authority, which discuss their initial conceptual set up as the first in a series of theoretical decisions that could have been otherwise. Such theoretical offerings have a much greater chance of finding resonance today. What counts is not the headlines and initial claims. What counts is how far the theories go by way of systematically elaborating the consequences of their initial theoretical decisions, and whether they proceed to absorb many relevant recent experiences, and whether they demonstrate their willingness and ability to coherently include themselves – as well as their major predecessors, alternatives and opponents – within their contingent constructions. Such a theoretical offering might even be able to attract a sizeable ‘following’, and all the more so if such a theory – precisely by setting its theoretical decisions explicitly contingent – offers itself up towards its further collective discursive elaboration, extension and modification. This presupposes that the underlying paradigm and conceptual apparatus of such a theory are sufficiently robust and flexible to allow for the collective, creative co-production in its further elaboration and application. Whether a theory can withstand such probing engagement, or whether it quickly disintegrates, can only be a matter of experimentation. 1.3.4 SUPER-THEORIES The theory of architectural autopoiesis has good reason to hope that at least its underlying basis – Luhmann’s social systems theory – has the required flexibility and robustness. The extensive following this theory has attracted – in philosophy, sociology as well as in all of the domains Luhmann had himself engaged with: politics, law, economy, science, art, education, mass media etc – should give sufficient confidence in this respect. Luhmann never had any direct communications with architecture, and he did not explicitly recognize architecture as one of the 51 That such claims still have a social significance in other arenas indicates that the penetration of functionally differentiated society is not pervasive, but leaves many sizeable pockets of those who are excluded from effective, competent participation within the modern function systems. 54

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52 Luhmann consigned architecture to the art system.

53 According to Luhmann, impartation, information and understanding are three essential

constituents of any communication.

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great function systems of society. To treat architecture as such a function system is therefore an original decision that is for the first time pursued here.52 The ambition of the theory of architectural autopoiesis is to attract the kind of expert following that Luhmann has in the domains he addressed. ‘Following a theory’ can never consist in repeating theoretical theses. It can only mean the active integration of theoretical leads into once’s own practice. The type of followers that would best fulfil the ambitions of the theory of architectural autopoiesis are those who would use it to make sense of their own avant-garde practice, thereby contributing to the ongoing vitality of the autopoiesis of architecture, and thus to the further innovation of the built environment. This aspiration not only demands that the system of concepts is internally coherent, but that it also entails a substantial, practical orienting capacity. On the one hand, the theory has to speak to the specific challenges and opportunities that architecture faces within contemporary world society and, on the other hand, it has to offer a sufficient degree of redundancy with respect to contemporary avant-garde discourses in order to achieve full connectivity within these discourses. This is the reason why older and prevalent rival theories must be taken into account and sublated, rather than being obliterated, by a new theory aspiring to lead the autopoiesis of architecture. The theory of architectural autopoiesis offers itself as a rigorously elaborated, but explicitly contingent option for contemporary architecture to use to describe itself and proceed today. There are no claims of universal truth expounded here, merely the claim that the theory is designed to be general enough to be applicable to all architectural phenomena (communications). There is, however, a further, significant claim to be emphasized, namely that the generality of the theory stretches far enough to include itself, as one more communication within the autopoiesis of architecture. Among many other things elaborated below, this implies the cautionary recognition that the theory is, like all communications, vulnerable to rejection, misunderstanding, or worst of all but perhaps most likely: indifference. For the theory to become a communication the decisive moment of (mis)understanding must be added to the moments of impartation and information.53 The theory proposed here professes its awareness that there are still many possible ways to update and continue architecture. There are

humanist, pragmatist or formalist versions of the story of architecture,54 each with its own primary concerns and directives. Each of these potential self-descriptions of architecture requires us architects to reflect and decide upon the character and flavour of the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture we would wish to be a part of. But we also have to remember that we might be jumping on the wrong train. The autopoiesis of architecture might move elsewhere and leave some of us behind.55 Within architecture’s extensive past, all of the stories of architecture mentioned above can find points of connection that sponsor threads to continue. The theory of architectural autopoiesis is trying to think through the implications that follow when all the above mentioned options are rejected in order to embark upon a consistently anti-humanist, systemic and radically Constructivist redescription and forward projection of architecture. However, this new trajectory of architectural self-explication is not embarked upon without the attempt to assimilate and sublate the rational kernels of those prior theoretical efforts. Post-Structuralism – in particular via the reception of Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstruction as well as via Deleuze’s philosophy – had already introduced anti-humanist and radically Constructivist themes within architecture, and with those themes came a first dose of autological theorizing. Insofar as the theory promoted here can expect to find a certain preparedness and therefore level of connectivity within the contemporary avant-garde discourse. However, there can be no better model for an autological, Constructivist theory than Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. Luhmann’s explicit ambition has been to construct a general theory of

54 To give examples in terms of specific architect-theorists we might refer to Aldo Rossi as humanist, Rem Koolhaas as pragmatist and Peter Eisenman as Formalist. 55 The sense that an existential decision is at stake here, and the entailed danger of being left behind, was brought home to me in a recent informal seminar held at the AADRL in London. Jeff Kipnis surprised with a new phrase and point of reflection in his ongoing pursuit to promote his Formalist-aestheticist story of architecture. Jeff Kipnis is one of the most decisive theoretical protagonists within the architectural avant-garde discourse of the last 15 years, operating primarily on the level of generative theory. However, within this seminar I heard him, for the first time, reflect upon the social status that his story of architecture bestows upon architects. He insisted that, inasmuch as we architects buy into his story of architecture, we need to be prepared to live the existence of an inherently marginal bohemian demi-monde, whose distinct concerns and preoccupations would necessarily be looked upon as arcane, idiosyncratic, bizarre obsessions. I suspect Kipnis included the majority of the practising architects in this group of the non-initiated that would look upon us with a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment. I knew, despite all the brilliance and charisma of Kipnis, that the bohemian demi-monde was not for me, and neither should this be the destiny of avant-garde architecture. 56

Luhmann’s particular experiment in theoretical self-determination has been a resounding success that is not only evident in Luhmann’s own impressive oeuvre, but also in the large research community it has inspired. 56 This task was achieved in 1984 with the completion/publication of his Social Systems (Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main)). 57 This task was achieved in 1998 with the completion/publication of his The Society of Society (Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main)). 58 Niklas Luhmann, The Society of Society, extract translated by Hans-Georg Moeller, in: Hans-Georg Moeller, Luhmann Explained – From Souls to Systems, Carus Publishing (Peru, Illinois), 2006, pp 237–38.

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Given the present understanding of science, sociology can hardly refrain

from the claim to explain phenomena of social reality. This again requires

that the phenomena that are to be explained are distinguished, and that the

characteristics by which they are distinguished are pointed out as precisely

as possible. What-is-questions such as: what is a company?, what is a

social movement?, what is a city? already require, simply as questions, the

indication of essential characteristics, ie, essentialist concepts that today

are no longer grounded in nature but in the methodological demands of

scientific research. Therefore it has to be asked: how is society supposed to

formulate a theory of society if it cannot indicate what it is looking for with

such a concept? Note, however, that with this type of what-is-question

sociology is brought to a state of permanent restlessness, i.e. that it

establishes itself as autopoietic system. There can be no final answer to

such questions, no fixed point beyond the reach of further research, but

only the observation of which effects the various conceptual decisions have.

In the mode of second-order (self-)observation, ie, in the mode of

constructivist epistemology, all the provided characteristics are thus

dissolved again so that one can see both their necessity for the conduction

of research and their contingency. They are, so to speak,

self-determinations to experiment with; they are research programmes that

are indispensable but exchangeable . . .58

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social systems,56 and on this basis, to proceed towards a comprehensive theory of modern society.57 Luhmann insists that such a theory would have to include and account for itself. He calls theories that achieve this super-theories, and sets out to design his theory of modern society as super-theory. The central thesis concerning modern society is that it is set apart from all previous societies by making functional differentiation the dominant, constitutive mode of societal differentiation. His own theory is then located within sociology as a part of one of modern society’s differentiated function systems: science. Luhmann also gives explicit voice to his acute awareness of the contingency of all theory design:

1.3.5 THE THEORY OF ARCHITECTURAL AUTOPOIESIS AS DOMAIN-SPECIFIC SUPER-THEORY In the same way that Luhmann poses (and answers) his essential question What is society? as the opening question (and decision) in an experiment in self-determination, the theory of architectural autopoiesis poses (and answers) the question What is architecture? as the opening question (and decision) in a further theoretical experiment that continues and presupposes Luhmann’s elaborate experiment. The question posed here is thus specifically What is architecture within functionally differentiated modern society? 59 This leads to follow up questions that demand further decisions:

� What is the specific type of elemental operation of architecture? � What is the lead-distinction within architecture? � What acts as the code of architecture? � What are the programmes of architecture? � What is the medium of architecture? � What is the societal function of architecture? � What have been the central self-descriptions within architecture? The answers given are indeed theoretical decisions rather than discoveries of unambiguous facts. Although the plausibility and fruitfulness of the initial decision to treat architecture as an independent, autopoietic function system of modern society have become evident in its elaboration, and much more strikingly so than initially anticipated, this initial decision is indeed an original theoretical decision that cannot be automatically derived from Luhmann’s previous work. In fact he did not explicitly recognize architecture as one of the great function systems of society. Instead Luhmann buried architecture in the art system, simply falling prey to older, still lingering societal understandings of architecture, including anachronistic architectural self-descriptions. However, this indicates nothing other than Luhmann’s lack of occasion to familiarize himself more deeply with architecture and design. Thus Luhmann’s experiment in self-determination continues in a place not anticipated by Luhmann himself, and, once again, it continues on the premise of an autological theory design. The theory of architectural autopoiesis is thus a domain specific super-theory that locates itself within the autopoiesis of architecture. This continuation of Luhmann’s work in

59 Or to be more precise: how should architecture be theorized if one presupposes Niklas Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated society. 58

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60 Niklas Luhmann, Einf u¨ hrung in die Systemtheorie, extract translated by Hans-Georg Moeller,

in: Hans-Georg Moeller, Luhmann Explained – From Souls to Systems, Carus Publishing

(Peru, Illinois) 2006, p 174.

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the form of a full monograph of another function system is also the first of its kind. The theory of architectural autopoiesis explicates itself as general theory of architecture with the ambition to become available as self-description of architecture within architecture. The theory affords a self-sustaining theoretical orientation after the certainties of Modernism have disintegrated. The logic of this exposition is inevitably circular. ‘Every step must be fitted in . . . the arbitrariness of the beginning loses its arbitrariness . . . as the construction of the theory proceeds. Thus a self-supporting construction arises.’60 The theory can only lean upon itself and later gain plausibility by trying out the power of its specific set of distinctions, with their peculiar mode of probing observation and comparison. It transpired that results could indeed be harvested, both in terms of the plausible redefinition of many familiar architectural concepts, and the assimilation of recent avant-garde preoccupations. Since the suspicion must remain that the detailed data that put flesh on the bones of this theory have been specifically selected to feed the theoretical apparatus, the circularity of the theoretical offering cannot be overcome, it can only be unfolded and displayed: in the end this architectural theory is delivering an image of architecture with sufficient detail for architecture to recognize itself within this image. Such an edifice will always remain contingent. Architecture could – in principle – be dissected and put together in many different ways. But since there are not many serious contenders in the market, and none, so it seems, succeeded in reaching a satisfactory level of both comprehensiveness and resolution, an attempt that makes tangible steps in this direction might deserve attention. However, there is no way of predicting how such a work really fits into the ongoing autopoiesis of the discipline, whether it ever comes anywhere near its ambition to provide a coherent orientation and steering influence on the discipline or not. This last sentence, even if it tempers self-confidence with a note of caution, is meant to be different in mood from the ironic self-detractions that characterize the final sentences quoted from Tafuri and Wigley. In the case of Tafuri and Wigley the autological turn takes the form of a gesture towards self-criticism or self-deconstruction. Although the theory of architectural autopoiesis shares the moment of autological self-inclusion with both the critique of ideology and Deconstruction, it does not end in a gesture of ironic self-doubt. Instead a super-theory

responds to its self-confessed contingency by means of an elaborate theoretical self-location that leads to a confident self-confirmation. Such a super-theory shares with both Marxist critique and Deconstruction the reflection on its own contingency and its historical-discursive embeddedness. Neither the particular lessons of Tafuri’s Marxist critique of architectural ideology, nor of Wigley’s idea of Derridian Deconstruction of architectural discourse have been lost or cast aside in a new dogmatic self-assertion,61 and the general possibility of a Marxist or Derridian loop of self-reflection is held in latent readiness. The ability to find a new, enhanced self-confidence on the level of autological self-observation resides in the introduction of a new criterion of relative self-stabilization: the capacity of a theory to support itself increases with the build up of the complexity of the theoretical edifice. Its final success also depends on the extent to which this complexity can systematically expand both the scope and depth of its connectivity with the totality of the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. Deconstruction refuses this extensive system-building endeavour and can therefore never break the cycle of Deconstruction and counter-Deconstruction. The difference in the form of autological self-inclusion between The Architecture of Deconstruction and The Autopoiesis of Architecture mirrors the relation between Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstruction and Luhmann’s super-theory of society. Luhmann explicitly recognizes Deconstruction in his Theories of Distinction62 with a dedicated chapter entitled ‘Deconstruction as Second-Order Observing’. Luhmann starts by testing whether the ‘Deconstruction kit’ could grasp contemporary debates such as the question of whether the admission of homosexuals would weaken the army which coincided with Bill Clinton’s electoral campaign at the time Luhmann was writing. He starts with the Deconstruction of some of the key distinctions but soon has to move on to unfold his own theoretical resources to disentangle the intricacies of such a polycontextural debate. He acknowledges how Derrida’s Deconstruction goes beyond hermeneutics and Charles Peirce’s semiotics ‘to look at distinctions without the hope of regaining unity at a higher (or later) level’,63 but he also notes that ‘there are . . . other “postmetaphysical” theories that start and end with differences’ and mentions Gregory Bateson, George Spencer-Brown, Heinz von Foerster and Gotthard 61 A lot of Tafuri’s insights – although not his final conclusions – have long since been incorporated into the deep structure and the base reflexes of my thinking about architecture. An even deeper imprint has been left by internalizing Derrida’s philosophical reflexes – that had found a fertile ground prepared by the insights of the late Wittgenstein. 62 Niklas Luhmann, Theories of Distinction, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002. 63 Ibid, p 97. 60

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64 Ibid, p 97.

65 Ibid, p 100.

66 See: part 12 (Volume 2), Epilogue – The Design of a Theory. This final piece of self-interrogation

also offers some reflection on the process of theory design. These specific self-descriptions on

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¨ Gunther as key figures that contributed to the epistemological refinement of his own theoretical system. With respect to Deconstruction he asks whether there is ‘any hope for results in the deconstruction business.’ Luhmann observes Deconstruction as ‘an unstable concept subject to an ongoing difference of any difference it makes’ and goes on to observe: ‘It changes places and dances together with other unstable indicators such ´ ´ as differance, trace, ecriture, supplement, blanc, and marge . . . It may be sufficient for maintaining the dance to be aware of the trace de l’effacement de la trace (trace of the erasure of the trace).’64 There is no intention in Derrida to systematize his critical terms within a coherent theoretical system. In terms of the impact of Deconstruction, in particular in America, Luhmann observes ‘the narrowness of its span of attention’ and that it has ‘reached its stage of exhaustion’. The same has clearly happened with respect to the reception of Deconstruction within architecture. Derrida’s philosophical writings had to be self-deconstructive to show how it works. This fits his philosophical intentions. A general theory of architecture requires something else. In particular, a super-theory is able to achieve more – whether it is an encompassing super-theory of society, or a domain-specific super-theory that construes itself as being embedded within this all-encompassing super-theory. The theory of architectural autopoiesis insists with Luhmann that theoretical reflection should lead to more than the demonstration of the inevitability of tracing the trace of the erasure of the trace. Instead one can pursue the construction super-theories that – among many other things – are ‘making the architecture of theories as clear as possible so that an observer may decide whether to follow their suggestions or choose at certain points an alternative path’.65 With respect to the reflection on the architecture of theories in general, and with respect to the reflection on its own ‘architecture’, a general and comprehensive theory of architecture should perhaps be able to bring additional analogical and perhaps even additional analytical resources to this task of self-analysis. Architectural theory might be well placed to engage in such self-analysis. This was the suggestion of Mark Wigley, and the theory of architectural autopoiesis is trying to live up to this ambition. The attempt to do this by redeploying some of the conceptual and analytical arsenal unfolded within the main body of the theory has been placed at the end, in the epilogue.66

Derrida made no attempt to construct a comprehensive theoretical system that would provide a coherent account of philosophy. Equally, Wigley made no such attempt in relation to architecture. This is no accident. Both missing projects demand theoretical resources far beyond the reach of philosophical criticism. These missing projects can only be broached on the basis of a comprehensive theory of society. The reception of Derrida within architecture was prepared by the crisis of Modernism, and indeed further accelerated this crisis. Its primary contribution was the Deconstruction of the Modernist tropes and turns of argument that had become untenable (dysfunctional).67 1.3.6 FROM DECONSTRUCTION TO THE PROGRAMME OF CRITICAL THEORY The high point of the translation of Deconstruction within architecture coincided with the identification of a particular strand within the architectural avant-garde of the 1980s. This strand was christened ‘Deconstructivism’ on the occasion of the eponymous show at New York’s MOMA in 1988. The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes to theorize this strand of work – together with the preceding and equally shortlived Postmodernist movement – as a transitional phenomenon within the great progression from the Modernist style to the contemporary Parametricist style.

the basis of specific architectural concepts are treated as optional extras that are not entailed within the general concept of a super-theory. The theory of architectural autopoiesis defines the domain of architecture as a distinct autopoietic system of communications, and must therefore – in contrast to Deconstruction – distinguish the analogical deployment of this term from its literal deployment, retheorized as the difference between communication (literal deployment) and irritation (metaphorical and analogical deployment). This distinction holds at least until the application of those architectural tropes to theories as well as buildings has become a commonplace within architecture – and this is not likely. In this sense the epilogue – and perhaps most of the philosophical intricacies about super-theories vs Deconstruction expounded here – might never find a sufficiently robust level of connectivity within architecture. They might never become architectural communications. Good intentions are never enough. The experiment in theoretical self-determination cannot survive as a unilateral effort. 67 Postmodernism and Deconstructivism were the initial architectural responses to the crisis of Modernism. They were relatively short-lived, transitional phenomena, each lasting for about a decade, without leaving a lasting impact on the built environment. Since then, during the last 15 years, a new, more stable orientation has been maturing within the architectural avant-garde: Parametricism. Under the banner of Parametricism, architecture is gathering its creative forces in a bid to transform the structure and physiognomy of the built environment of the 21st century, like Modernism had done during most of the 20th century. The determination and coherence of purpose, that is required to succeed in this collective endeavour call for a constructive, theoretical guidance that can only be provided on the basis of a comprehensive theoretical system. 62

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68 Examples are Wigley’s own White Walls, Designer Dresses, Beatriz Colomina’s Privacy and Publicity, Keller Easterling’s Enduring Innocence – Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades, Felicity D Scott’s Architecture or Techno-Utopia. 69 This grey area exposes that theory of architectural autopoiesis can perhaps not achieve what it would like to: to treat the question whether something belongs within or without the discipline as a strict either-or question. 70 To understand the discursive import of such code-violations, see Chapter 3.1.3 Codes and Media, and section 3.5 The Codification of Architecture.

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While the heyday of the translation of Deconstruction within architecture has long since passed, and had indeed already passed when Mark Wigley finally published his Architecture of Deconstruction in 1993, the project of Deconstruction lives on in a robust but marginal strand within the autopoiesis of architecture.68 In fact, the extent to which this strand – which is sometimes referred to as ‘critical theory’ – exists within or runs alongside the autopoiesis of architecture is difficult to define.69 It belongs to the system of architectural communications, not so much by continuously claiming this title (this would not be enough), but by maintaining the lead-distinction of form vs function in all its discussions of the built environment. However, this kind of critical theory also continuously exceeds the system of architectural communications. It does so, not only by roaming so deeply into other disciplines that a lot of the points made from out there will not make it back into the tissue of the discipline, but by deploying codes (for instance the code of science, or the code of politics, or the codes of various protest movements) that are ultimately incommensurable with the code of architecture.70 But instead of allowing to blur the sharpness of the autopoietic demarcation line, one might rather cut these respective works down their middle and consider them to be oscillating texts with some of their communications connecting on the inside of architecture while others irritate architecture from the outside. The provisional theoretical solution to this question is therefore that the works of critical theory in question are half inside and half outside architecture. This transgressive relation to the established disciplinary boundary of architecture is explicitly reflected in most of the critical texts within this milieu. This transgression is not seen as a problem, but rather as a virtue to be pursued. It is often the explicit intention of these texts to break those disciplinary boundaries and conventions that are perceived to be far too narrow, or to overcome the whole institution of such boundaries altogether in favour of a free-roaming intertextual practice. For instance, in the case of Felicity Scott’s Architecture or Techno-Utopia, we find the formulation: ‘. . . it is precisely the critical negotiation of disciplinary conventions . . . (which) forms one of the keys to the discipline’s purchase both on contemporary

life and on the potentials for radical transformations . . .’.71 With respect to such ambitions, the theory of architectural autopoiesis insists that the demarcation of architecture is rooted much deeper than can be captured with the concept of disciplinary ‘conventions’. Architecture is not just one of several academic disciplines comparable to the different disciplines that segment the autopoietic function system of science. With respect to the different scientific disciplines such a ‘negotiation’ and ‘redefinition’ is indeed possible and a regular process. The demarcation of architecture is of a different order altogether. Architecture is a separate autopoietic function system within functionally differentiated society with its own universal and exclusive domain of competency set against the universal and exclusive domain of competency of the other autopoietic function systems. Its boundary is ultra-stable, because it is tied into the very structure of society, a structure that evolved rather than having been ‘defined’ in theoretical texts. The unilateral ‘redefinition’ of such a boundary is not possible. Its proclamation is proclaimed into a void. Any practice that is trying to heed this call is running up against a brick wall. The stark difference in the theoretical premises and practical conclusions between the theory of architectural autopoiesis and Deconstructive-critical theory can be further illustrated by looking more closely at the programme of Deconstruction as critical architectural theory as it has been articulated in the final chapter of Mark Wigley’s The Architecture of Deconstruction.Wigley maps out the programme in the following memorable paragraph: The institution of architecture is clearly more than buildings and the practices by which they are produced . . . there is no such thing as a building outside of a large number of overlapping mechanisms of representation: schools of architecture, professional codes of ethics, critical practices, historiographical methodologies, academic protocols, pedagogical techniques, curriculum structures, the strategic role of the author’s signature and project credits, legalization of the word “architect”, designated safety standards in structural calculations, standardized drawing techniques and conventions, building codes, aesthetic codes, zoning codes, clothing codes, school admission standards, faculty classifications, fee structures, hiring and firing practices, rhetorical conventions, examination structures, model-making techniques, various forms of etiquette, legal contracts, copyright law, the structure of the slide lecture, strategic control and dissemination of ideas through conferences and publications, ritualized master worship, theoretical and graphic commonplaces, copy-editing protocols, interview and presentation formats, photographic techniques, the

71 Felicity D Scott, Architecture or Techno-Utopia, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007, p 11. 64

Although the building is constructed by such systems of representation,

they precisely construct it as something that precedes them. Each of these

technologies needs to be carefully analyzed in its specificity and

interrelationships with other such mechanisms (both those of other

disciplines and those that orchestrate specific transactions in everyday

cultural life) to determine its strategic role in the construction of

architecture. Each has to be read deconstructively to determine what its

operations attempt to prohibit and the ways in which this prohibited other

returns to covertly orchestrate the very discourse that appears to exclude

it.73

It becomes even more serious when Wigley presents a second, much more ambitious list of issues . . . raise a series of specific questions that must be asked of the institution

of architecture, questions about their strategic role in the role of diverse

cultural transactions like the distinction between high and low culture, the

construction of gender and sexual orientation, the microstructures of

disciplinary control, the elusive form of the global economy, the twisted

space of psychoanalytic theory, the interwoven spaces of the emerging

technologies of communication, the ongoing performance of identity, digital

imagery, the waging of war, the reconstitution of public space, the perverse

geometry of power flows, and so on.74

This second list is as random as the first, but the distinction of the two lists at least gives some order: it follows the distinction between the determinants of architecture versus the impact of architecture on the rest 72 Mark Wigley, The Architecture of Deconstruction, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1993, p 212.

73 Ibid, p 213.

74 Ibid.

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The surreal randomness of this list is obviously intended and makes for all the more stimulating reading. It seems this refusal to somehow order these items is supposed to suggest that critical explorations should not be prejudiced by any prior ordering logic or hierarchy. Randomization might thus recommend itself as a post-metaphysical strategy. That Wigley is rather serious about this programme of institutional critique becomes evident here:

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institution of the architectural jury, portfolio construction and circulation

rituals, competition formats, official and unofficial club membership

control, multiple advertising strategies, the standardized framing of images,

the specific techniques of publication, editorial control, funding patterns,

the structure of the architectural monograph, the biography and so on, to

name only some of the most obvious ones.72

of society. In combination these two lists proclaim a comprehensive programme for the Deconstruction of both the social-discursive construction of the institution of architecture and of its strategic role within various societal arenas. Let us first consider in detail the first random list of items that might be termed determinants of architecture, and thus let us first deal with aspects that shape, constrain or contribute to the institution of architecture. The Architecture of Deconstruction itself does not take any steps towards the execution of this programme, but some of Wigley’s later works might be interpreted as attempts to address one or another of these questions with a historically specific, Deconstructive discourse-analysis. Wigley’s White Walls, Designer Dresses75 is a good example. Here he takes up some of the programme points outlined above. He is challenging the historiographical methodologies that architecture has used to construct its story, and the strategic control and dissemination of ideas through conferences and publications in a specific historical instance, that is as fascinating as it is surprising. Another cluster of points from the programme – photographic techniques, the standardized framing of images, the specific techniques of publication – is picked up by Beatriz Colomina’s Privacy and Publicity. There are many other items on Wigley’s itinerary that would make a worthwhile contribution to the ongoing self-reflective updating of architecture’s self-descriptions. The Autopoiesis of Architecture is able to systematically illuminate many of the items listed by Wigley, and has indeed picked up quite a number of them explicitly.76 Wigley’s random list of items (determinants of architecture) can be ordered into three categories: 1. Determinants that are subject to the autopoietic self-determination of architecture. 2. Determinants that are subject to structural couplings with other social systems. 3. Determinants that are subject to societal processes that are fully external to architecture. All three categories of determinants are relevant to architecture in the sense that they impact upon the formation of the institution of

75 Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1995. 76 It seems as if Wigley’s list was literally used as a checklist here. This is not the case – it became such a checklist only at the end, when the theory of architectural autopoiesis had already run its course. 66

The determinants in the second category involve at least one other social system and thus cannot be tackled unilaterally. However, in these cases architecture can at least try to intervene and perhaps try to make demands. A theoretical analysis and exposition can thus give direction in this respect. 2.1. Schools of architecture are located at architecture’s intersection with the education system. The education system operates as autonomous function system. Schools of architecture are involved in

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1.1. Aesthetic codes are treated in section 3.5 The Codification of

Architecture, and again in 3.8 The Rationality of Aesthetic Values.

1.2. Some theoretical commonplaces are treated for instance in section 3.9 The Double-nexus of Architectural Communications: Themes

vs Projects.

1.3. Graphic commonplaces, standardized drawing techniques and

conventions as well as model-making techniques are treated in part

4 The Medium of Architecture.

1.4. Competition formats and the institution of the architectural jury are

understood as evidence and important factor in establishing the

exclusive responsibility of architecture within its domain and are

discussed in section 3.2 The Autonomy of Architecture.

1.5. The strategic role of the author’s signature and project credits, and

the structure of the architectural monograph, as well as portfolio

construction rituals are linked and treated together in section 8.7

Authorship, Reputation, Career and Oeuvre (Volume 2).

1.6. Professional codes of ethics are treated in section 8.8 Architecture

as Profession (Volume 2).

1.7. Historiographical methodologies are treated in section 10.4

Architectural Historiography (Volume 2).

1.8. Ritualized master worship might be interpreted as the need for

exemplars, discussed in section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream.

1.9. The specific techniques of publication and the structure of the

slide lecture, as well as photographic techniques are touched upon

within section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream.

1.10. Strategic control and dissemination of ideas through conferences and publications also belongs in section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream.

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architecture, but they are sharply contrasting with respect to architecture’s capacity to deal with them. All of the determinants listed in category 1 are taken up within the Autopoiesis of Architecture:

2.2.

2.3.

2.4. 2.5.

the codification of architecture in view of the education and socialization of architects as professional experts. In this respect architectural schools are covered in section 8.3 Architecture as Profession. To the extent to which they are utilized as vehicle for avant-garde research they are covered in section 2.4 Architectural Research. School admission standards, faculty classifications, as well as pedagogical techniques, and also curriculum structures, and examination structures are also treated in section 8.3 Architecture as Profession. Legalization of the word ‘architect’ involves the legal system. The legal system operates as autonomous function system. The protection of the title ‘architect’ represents a service provided to architecture by the legal system, and is touched upon in 8.3 Architecture as Profession. Building codes involve architecture, the political system, various engineering disciplines, as well as the legal system. Interview and presentation formats are determined at the intersection of architecture and the economy, by the structural coupling of architecture and the economy.

The room for manipulation of the determinants listed under category 2 is constrained within narrow limits. The form (not the content) of all the aspects pertaining to architectural education is subject to the autopoiesis of the education system.77 The education system is in turn wedged in between the sciences, applied sciences (technologies), and the professions (legal, medical, architectural – all part of separate function systems) on the one side and the economy (supply for the job market) on the other side. The room for manoeuvre of architecture in this respect is therefore practically restricted to informal subversions while being required to maintain the official formal structures. This explains why all the libertarian political energies of critical theory (in architecture and elsewhere) have not even been able to induce the slightest tremor into the formal institutional structures of the education system, despite the fact that nearly all protagonists of critical theory hold (sometimes powerful) positions within the education system. Critical theory itself is confined within these structures and it is from within these structures that it continues to operate and proclaim its radical messages.

77 The critical point is here obviously that this form impacts back upon the selection and handling of the content. 68

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3.1. Academic protocols are subject to the autopoiesis of science and

the education system.

3.2. Copy-editing protocols and editorial control, as well as multiple

advertising strategies, belong to the societal function system of the

mass media.

3.3. Designated safety standards in structural calculations are resolved

in the exchanges (structural coupling) between engineering as

applied science, politics and the legal system. Architecture has to

face the results as external constraints.

3.4. Zoning codes are led by the political system, with a view towards

the economy, and intersect with the legal system.

3.5. Fee structures as well as hiring and firing practices are regulated

within the economy. The economy operates – more than ever – as

autonomous function system within contemporary society.

3.6. Funding patterns are also determined within the economic function

system.

3.7. Legal contracts and copyright law are determined within the legal

system. The legal system operates as autonomous function system.

3.8. Clothing codes are regulated in the fashion system. They can

hardly be thematized, ie, referred to in explicit communications

within architecture.

3.9. Rhetorical conventions are a matter of the spoken and written

language within societal communication in general.

3.10. Various forms of etiquette also pertain to societal communication in general. They circulate, reproduce and evolve across many diverse and variously clustered interaction systems within all the various function systems and between them, in organizations, and in structured events of all sorts.

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The items from Wigley’s list, placed within category 1 and category 2 respectively, are covered, or at least touched on, by The Autopoiesis of Architecture. These are the only items from his list that can be treated within architecture. All the other items – here placed into category 3 – transgress architecture. Their critical investigation – whatever the result of such investigations might be – cannot find any effective connectivity within the autopoiesis of architecture. They would – relative to architecture – be spoken into the void and met with a wall of silence. Within architecture no practical conclusions could be drawn from such an investigation. This statement can be explicated specifically with respect to all the items here categorized within category 3:

The autopoiesis of architecture is affected by all of these category 3 communication structures (‘mechanisms of representation’). The analysis of these impacts would surely be a fascinating and thoroughly educational intellectual feast for any architect, but no effective practical directives could follow should it be revealed that all sorts of wonderful ‘potentials’ for architecture are lost by the presence of these determinants of the institution of architecture. From within architecture nothing can be done to challenge any of these determinants. One also wonders what the enlistment of such an unordered panoply of ‘potentials’ could ever amount to in the absence of a rigorous, comprehensive theory of an alternative society. Neither Derrida nor Wigley can provide such a theory.78 How could all the various revealed ‘potentials’ come together to form a new viable social system that can compete within contemporary, functionally differentiated world society? 78 The only comprehensive theory of society that ever came close to offering a convincing sublation of modern society into another, radical alternative was the Marxist theory of ‘Scientific Socialism’.

70

The definition of architecture that underlies the theory of architectural autopoiesis emerges from the historical self-demarcation of architecture as distinct system of communications. This self-demarcation is woven into the ongoing process of architectural communication. Occasions for boundary definition and boundary maintenance are a regular occurrence. Straying communications must be reined in and alien intrusions warded off. This self-demarcation on the operational level is reflected, reinforced and supported by architectural theory. Following Luhmann, such written theoretical reflections – to the extent to which they reflect the unity and distinction of a social system – are referred to as self-descriptions. Our definition of architecture thus emerges from the operational self-demarcation of architecture in dialectical conjunction with the historical self-descriptions of architecture.1 In this sense the architecture we mean is the architecture of architecture.2 The core effort of the theory of architectural autopoiesis is to provide a comprehensive ‘discourse analysis’ of architecture. This already implies that architecture – for the theory of architectural autopoiesis – only begins at the point in history when it can be distinguished as a discourse or system of communications,3 rather than as a mere class of artefacts. Through Luhmann’s analyses we understand that systems of communications can only complete and maintain their differentiation within their societal environment if their operations are interwoven with self-observations and self-demarcations. For this to happen the respective social system must have a name: architecture, from Greek αρχιτ εκτ oνικη´ 1 See: part 9 The Self-descriptions of Architecture.

2 This formula was even considered as a candidate for the title for this book: The Architecture of

Architecture. 3 The concept system of communications can take over from ‘discourse’, and can even absorb Foucault’s insights transported in the concept of ‘discursive formations’. The concept of communication also covers ‘regimes’, ‘practices’ and ‘quasi-objects’. However, the concept of autopoietic system of communications adds one crucial moment that is not built into the concepts of discourse and discursive formation: the constitutive moment of self-observation, self-demarcation and, in the case of advanced systems, the moment of self-description.

2 THE HISTORICAL EMERGENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

2. The Historical Emergence of Architecture

(architektonike), via Latin architectura. Architecture starts with giving itself a name. Greek treatises on architecture are presumed to have existed, and Vitruvius gives us a comprehensive account of the ‘great discipline’ (disciplina) in his treatise De Architectura.

2.1 The Emergence of Architecture as Self-referential System THESIS 5 Architecture observes and constitutes itself as distinct domain within modern (functionally differentiated) society claiming exclusive and universal competency with respect to the built environment. This demarcation is ultra-stable. 2.1.1 INSIDE-DESCRIPTIONS VS OUTSIDE-DESCRIPTIONS The architecture of architecture is architecture as it appears in the ongoing self-observations and self-descriptions of architecture. Self-observations are references to architectural principles during design discussions. Self-descriptions are written reflections offered from inside the discipline, ie, the theoretical writings of architects and the contributions of partisan architectural theoreticians, critics and historians.4 Inside-descriptions (self-descriptions) build upon and feed self-observations. This is to be distinguished from outside-descriptions, ie, descriptions from outsiders that operate with frameworks of analysis that are alien to architecture’s self-awareness and are therefore likely to remain without impact within architecture, such as, for example, certain art-historical, psychoanalytical or sociological interpretations of architecture. Inside- and outside-descriptions are usually incommensurable. This implies that outside-descriptions cannot be imported without being transposed. An initially alien outside-description might be appropriated and re-written as a self-description from within architecture – thus initiating a transformation of the discipline. The assimilation of (Post)-Structuralism and Deconstructivism within architecture is an important example. Such importations of alien frameworks cannot be forced but require a fertile ground within the self-development of the discipline. Such self-development operates via hidden mutations that incorporate new experiences and slowly erode the 4 Luhmann’s concept of self-description demands that the respective system reflects its position and role within society as the penultimate environment of all social systems. Therefore, architectural writings constitute architecture’s self-description only insofar as they reflect architecture’s position and role within society. 72

2 THE HISTORICAL EMERGENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

5 But one would have to emphasize with Luhmann that the historical process has no predetermined destiny.

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current self-descriptions, on the back of accumulated experiences that are at odds with current self-descriptions. The alien-become-self-descriptions initiate a paradigm shift to the extent to which they are able to make explicit sense of the new realities and experiences. The new theory acts as catalyst of ‘latent’ possibilities by means of resolving the stored up contradictions between theory and practice. One might cite the break up of the Modernist paradigm during the 1970s. The new realities of the post-Fordist service economy, ie, new middle class, accelerating product cycles, lifestyle diversification, mixed use developments etc, had eroded the plausibility of the tenets of Modernism. The Modernist pursuit of the house of minimum existence was predicated on the Fordist tendency of equalizing all living standards to a single, universal consumption standard. The zoned city, with its strict separation of production, administration and habitation/recreation, was also predicated on the Fordist regime of reproduction. These Modernist ˆ pursuits lost their raison d’etre and became a hindrance to further socio-economic development. The Modernist principles had become dysfunctional dogmas. Urban reality was rebelling. At the same time intellectual currents from outside architecture were undermining the supposed certainties of a modernization theory that assumed that the Fordist model of development would continue across the globe. Ideological battles ensued. One might talk, with Marx, about the breaking of ideological fetters as a means towards the acceleration of the historical process.5 Architecture’s own ideological fetters had to be broken within architecture itself. Architectural theory could not go on without being irritated by the new realities, by the outside criticism of Modern architecture, and by the new, general intellectual climate. A polemical battle against Modernism was fought and won by Postmodernism. The Postmodernist celebration of ‘complexity and contradiction’ (Robert Venturi) and the notion of ‘bri-collage’ (Colin Rowe) reflect the crisis of Modernism and, to a certain extent, allowed for the assimilation of new experiences and for the accommodation of new requirements within an updated, expanded language of architecture. The look back to pre-Modern history was perhaps the first inevitable move in a situation where the Modern way ceased to be viable. But history was only a first crutch in the void left by disintegrating Modernism. This is what those who mutated from Postmodernists into Neo-Classicists did not grasp. (Neo-Classicism was a dead end.) The true heir to Postmodernism was

Deconstructivism. Deconstructivism radicalized the tropes Postmodernism had discovered in its new reading of architectural history. These tropes – collage, multiple contextual adaptation etc – were liberated from their historical references to be deployed without restraint. At the same time, Deconstructivism assimilated pertinent insights and generative concepts, for example, hybridity, intertextuality and re-contextualization etc, from French Post-Structuralist philosophy, ie, as intellectual ‘irritations’ from outside the discipline. These irritations, whether as initiating impetus, or as tools for a post-rationalizing legitimation, were soon absorbed and transmuted within the evolving architectural discourse. Social systems are always evolving systems. The theory of architectural autopoiesis follows Luhmann in locating agency within the evolving system of communications, rather than within individual or collective participants, and their objective conditions. The environment perturbs and constrains the self-determination of the system, but can never impose a solution. For example, the crisis of architectural Modernism in the late 1960s and 1970s was triggered by the crisis of the Fordist regime of economic reproduction. Neither this crisis, nor the attempted solutions within the economic and political domains, provided any direct points of departure for a new architecture. Instead the perturbation of the economic crisis created a fertile ground for the importation of new theoretical resources. A whole new layer of self-reflective discourse was emerging within the discipline. The self-renewal of the discipline was nourished from a creative reinvestigation of its own historical resources, in combination with the irritation received from Post-Structuralist theory. Only if a new theory can connect to the recent discourse of the discipline is it able to actively tilt and push the discipline into a new direction. This applies also to the theory of architectural autopoiesis. The Autopoiesis of Architecture is the attempt to propel architecture along one of many possible paths, by making new sense of many current phenomena within the ongoing restructuring of contemporary society, by means of assimilating Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. This involves confronting the discipline with yet further outside-descriptions and comparisons. The Autopoiesis of Architecture is the attempt to transform those outside-descriptions into pertinent inside-descriptions. 2.1.2 FUNCTION SYSTEMS It is a key insight of Niklas Luhmann that modern society – conceptualized as a system of communications – operates on the basis of a series of important autonomous subsystems, the great function systems of society: the political system, the legal system, science, art, the 74

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6 Luhmann also counts religion among the function systems. However, the author finds it difficult to accept that religion should be theorized as one more indispensable function system of modern, functionally differentiated society. Perhaps, religion should rather be theorized as a (tenacious) rudiment. The anachronistic persistence of this rudiment indicates that the logic of modern, functionally differentiated society has not (yet) succeeded in its drive towards pervasiveness. 7 Thus architecture/design deserves its own, independent ‘sociological’ treatment under the title of ‘The Architecture/Design of Society’. But this is not quite what I am doing here. I am perhaps making steps towards such a sociological, system-theoretical analysis, but I am really presupposing this unwritten book to jump right into its assimilation into architecture as a new self-description of architecture: the autopoiesis of architecture. This complicates my book as it has to do some of the work of the unwritten book.

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economy, the education system, the medical system and the mass media.6 Each of these systems received an elaborate monograph that theorizes the respective systems as subsystems of modern society. These monographs contribute to a comprehensive theory of modern society as functionally differentiated society, elaborated in Luhmann’s keystone publication Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (The Society of Society). Luhmann avoids giving a complete list of modern function systems. The list given above might be extended, either because a certain subsystem might have been neglected (overlooked), or because the historical process of differentiation crystallizes a further system. Architecture did not receive recognition within Luhmann’s system theory. Luhmann sporadically and unsystematically refers to architecture within his The Art of Society – his dedicated monograph on the art system. This treatment of architecture under the umbrella concept of art is an anachronism – at least since the refoundation of the discipline as Modern architecture during the 1920s. To the extent that architecture (and design) are still, at times, brought into proximity with the art system, this should be evaluated as an (ultimately ineffective) attempt to cling to a traditional formula. Architecture has clearly separated from art and constitutes an independent function system within modern society.7 Architecture – as self-critical, specialized discipline – exists only within modern, functionally differentiated society, as one of its indispensable, autopoietic function systems. Function systems are worldwide operating systems. This is also true of architecture, which today exists as a single world architecture, marked by worldwide communicative integration. Function systems claim exclusive competency and responsibility for the societal exigency they are catering for, they reign supreme within their domain. Collectively binding decisions can only be made within the political system. Truth claims about complex reality can only be assessed and verified within science.

The allocation of scarce resources is exclusively processed within the economic system. This functional division of labour in specialized systems of communication is very effective. However, the exclusive reliance of society on a single, unified autopoietic system for each of its vital functions implies vulnerability. Should any of the great function systems run into crisis, then there is no alternative route for the provision of the function in question. Society as a whole is threatened by a political crisis, by an economic crisis, or by a breakdown of the law. Although a disruption of the mass media, of science, art, education, or architecture would be less critical, these function systems are also the exclusive providers of vital functions, without any possibility of substitution. There is no redundancy in the provision of these functions. A disruption or clampdown of the mass media, a prolonged confusion or lack of resources in the sciences, a dysfunctional education system, or a stagnant architectural discourse would, in the long run, severely compromise society’s adaptive capacity, and thus its ability to evolve and maintain itself. At the attained scale and level of complexity of world society, all function systems are required for its ongoing development and maintenance. In this sense world society also depends upon the autopoiesis of architecture, and upon its continuous adaptive upgrading. Luhmann affirms that each functional subsystem of modern society operates on the level of second order observations. Thus the introductory claim about the integral function of architectural theory as self-observation/self-description is coherent with Luhmann’s generalization. Communication about the various immediate concerns within the function systems is continuously intercepted and reflected in communications about communications.8 The explicit self-steering of the various autonomous communication systems (discourses/practices) is a pervasive empirical fact.9 This autopoietic self-steering seems to be an indispensable prerequisite in order to build up a social formation on the attained level of complexity, artificiality and sophistication. Thus architecture – as we know it – is constituted on the basis of self-reference and self-description. The very term and concept of architecture cannot be taken for granted – as if it were describing a natural class of objects. Rather, the demarcation of architecture as an autonomous discipline and discourse is a complex historical 8 For instance, in court reference is made to various statutes, precedents, legal interpretations, as well as to the lawfulness of the proceedings themselves. 9 The legal system steers itself by means of legal theory (jurisprudence) on a rather general, principled level. However, the principles and lines of argument constructed here are rehearsed and utilized by (the specialized legal advisers to) the law-makers as well as within court as the operative application of the law. 76

10 The word ‘architecture’ comes from the Latin architectura and that from Greek αρχ ιτ ε´ κτ ων

(architecton), ‘master builder’, from the combination of αρχ ι- (archi-), ‘chief’ or ‘leader’ and

τ εκτ ´ ων (tekton), a ‘builder’ or ‘carpenter’.

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2.1.3 THE HISTORICAL CRYSTALLIZATION OF ARCHITECTURE There are many ways in which one might define the unity of architecture. Architecture itself starts to define its unity for the first time within classical Graeco-Roman culture and then again during the Italian Renaissance. A name is a conditio sine qua non of any self-steering social system. A name anchors self-reference. The word ‘architecture’ thus serves us as an indispensable historical marker that has condensed an extensive historical experience.10 In retrospect one might write a history of architecture that stretches back as far as the first prehistoric utilization of caves, or the first haphazard artificial shelters; or one might go back to the early urban cultures of Babylon, Egypt etc – the first human structures controlled by regular geometries. The question is a matter of choice and depends on the underlying concept of architecture that guarantees the unity of the respective history. The historian has the freedom to stipulate and define the domain of his investigation. Quite another question – and far more constrained – is the question of the historical emergence of the operative identity of architecture for itself . This question can no longer be settled at will by an outside observer or historian. Architecture as self-demarcating system starts only when certain artefacts as well as attendant activities and communications are differentiated and recognized as such by architects and others in their co-practice. Architecture in this sense exists as a unique, self-referential system of communications, and as such it has a definite moment of historical emergence. The architecture of classical antiquity in ancient Greece and Rome is the first discursively self-conscious architecture. Therefore – according to the theory of architectural autopoiesis – classical antiquity marks the first emergence of architecture. All prior building – for instance the ‘architecture’ of ancient Egypt – has been recognized as such only in retrospect, starting with the Greek and Roman accounts of Egyptian architecture. In Egyptian civilization, monumental building was fully submerged within the politico-religious complex. The pharaohs, as rulers and high priests, were at the same time recognized as the sole force

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sedimentation peculiar to the evolution of European culture and then modern world culture. Architecture as we know it exists only within modern, functionally differentiated society.

behind the pyramids and other sacred/stately structures. Classical Greek antiquity is the first culture to ascribe buildings to individual authors. Iktinos11 has been recognized as the architect of the Parthenon. Architecture thus starts fully equipped with architects, architectural history and architectural theory as evidenced in Vitruvius’s famous treatise dedicated to architecture.12 However, the first emergence of architecture remains closely tied to religion and to the political order. Classical Greek architecture is almost exclusively concerned with temples. Roman architecture encompassed a wider scope of building types, but architectural theory retained the focus on temples. During the Dark Ages the educated architects of Roman antiquity, whose status was clearly elevated above the workmen, dissolved into the collectivity of craftsmen. The title ‘architectus’ disappears. Romanesque churches were produced by travelling craftsmen headed by the master mason, who lived and worked among his co-workers. It was the patrons of the works – bishops, abbots of monasteries – who were the intellectual leaders of the endeavour. No project drawings have been preserved from this early medieval period, so some historians hypothesize that the layouts were staked out on the site directly, on the basis of experience, aided by a given modular order. Full scale details were engraved on stone. The graphic apparatus – in use during antiquity – re-appeared only in the 13th century. ‘The term “architectus”, which had been subsumed by Masonic designations, began a slow comeback, as the architect was more and more distinguished from the body of craftsmen.’13 During the late medieval period (Gothic), the names of architects began to be acknowledged next to those of the patrons. They were buried within the churches they designed, and their tombstones show them with the sign of their profession: compass and ruler. Despite this high standing of the architect, as is indicated by his grave, he stemmed from the ranks of the master masons. Although the Gothic architect drafted the various plans and detail templates (slim oak templates), his role was rather different from the role of the educated and detached architect of the Renaissance. He set up shop on the building site, set out the layout with stakes and 11 According to Plutarch, Iktinos was the architect of the Parthenon. He worked on several other temples throughout Greece, including the Telesterion at Eleusis and the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai. Pheidias was in charge of all sculptures and acted as general supervisor of all architectural and artistic works for the Acropolis. 12 Although there is no surviving Greek treatise on architecture, it has been surmised that Vitruvius’s work was building on earlier Greek examples. 13 Spiro Kostof, ‘The Architect in the Middle Ages, East and West’, in: Spiro Kostof (Ed), The Architect, Oxford University Press (NewYork/Oxford), 1977, p 76. 78

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14 Ibid, p 93. 15 However, the independent status of architecture and its location in the system of the arts and sciences remained somewhat ambiguous. 16 On 8 August 1793, the academy was suspended by the revolutionary Convention Nationale, when the latter decreed the abolition of all royal academies. Two years later, on 25 October 1795, the Convention Nationale created the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts which consolidated all the former academies in one institution. In 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte decided to organize the Institut into four classes corresponding to the academies suppressed by the Revolution, thus effectively restoring the former academies, in all but name, within the frame of the Institut. However, the primary emphasis during Napoleon’s reign was placed on the ´ ´

newly founded Ecole Centrale des Travaux Publics, later known as Ecole Polytechnique. In 1816, after Napoleon’s final defeat, Louis XVIII returned the designation Acad´emie (Acad´

emie

royale) to the constituent parts of the Institut. The Royal decree also settled the current location

´

for the Ecole Royale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts de Paris. See: Institut de France, Histoire des

Cinq Academies; ´ a` l’occasion du bicentenaire de l’Institut de France, Octobre 1995, Librairie

Acad´emique Perrin (Paris), 1995.

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cords and remained intimately involved with all the practicalities of construction. He might even have personally carved the difficult pieces of tracery or the important statues that were an integral part of his responsibility. ‘The actual separation of the architect-conceiver from the reality of the building process did not occur until the Italian Renaissance.’14 The emergence of the architectural treatise played a major part in re-establishing architecture. The establishment of academies was also ´ important in this respect.15 The Academie Royale d’Architecture (Royal Academy of Architecture) was a French learned society founded in 1671 (Louis XIV). Its first director was the architect and theorist Franc¸ois ´ Blondel (1618–86). Suppressed in 1793, this Academie was later, in ´ 1795, 1803 and in 1816,16 re-organized and merged into the Academie ´ des Beaux-Arts, together with the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, founded 1648) and ´ the Academie Royale de Musique (Academy of Music, founded in 1669). ´ Architecture was also taught in the Ecole Polytechnique, founded in Paris in 1794. In Europe, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, architecture was taught both within the context of art academies and within the context of technical universities. This ambiguity was also replicated in the USA. The first school of architecture was opened at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1868). At Yale University, for instance, the Department of Architecture was established in 1916, in the School of Fine Arts. This duality still persists today. Within the theory of architectural autopoiesis this uncertainty of institutional categorization becomes one more piece of evidence for architecture’s status as sui generis system of communications.

Architecture cannot be separated from its theoretical self-reflection. It had thrust itself into independence equipped with its own self-description from the start. The self-conscious establishment of architecture is a historical watershed, born of societal conditions that had irreversibly spelled the end of the unquestioned reign of tradition. Useful pointers concerning the social logic of this process can be found in the (ultimately distorted) account of Christopher Alexander. Christopher Alexander came to be known as professional architecture’s harshest critic who regards its autopoietic self-realization as the downfall of architecture. Instead of professional architecture Alexander promotes architectural design by the community of laymen, in his pattern language.17 The role of expert architect is being rejected. For Alexander, the fall from grace starts with the division of labour that established the architect’s ancestor: the master-carpenter or master-craftsman who took responsibility for construction from the inhabitants’ own prior efforts. ‘Sooner or later the phenomenon of the master-craftsman takes control of the form-making activities.’18 Alexander further elaborates the logic of the historical process: The development of architectural individualism is the clearest manifestation of the moment when architecture first turns into a self-conscious discipline . . . It is a natural consequence of a man’s decision to devote his life exclusively to one activity called architecture. Clearly it is at this stage too that the activity first becomes ripe for serious thought and theory. Then with architecture once established as a discipline, and the individual architect established, entire institutions are soon devoted exclusively to the study and development of design. The academies are formed. As the academies develop, the unformulated precepts of tradition give way to clearly formulated concepts whose very formulation invites criticism and debate. Question leads to unrest, architectural freedom to further selfconsciousness . . .19

Alexander’s description hints at the self-amplifying logic of this process: division of labour leads to competitive self-assertion, which in turn engenders debate, leading to theory, enabling bolder hypotheses which in turn sponsor more creative freedom and inspire more controversial debate leading to a further heightened self-consciousness.

17 Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press (New York), 1977. The cover-sleeve reads: ‘You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood . . .’ 18 Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1964, p 57. 19 Ibid, p 58. 80

THESIS 6 The emergence of architecture over and above building constitutes a significant evolutionary gain that elevates society’s self-transformative capacity to a new level. Resolute autonomy (self-referential closure) is a prerequisite for architecture’s effectiveness within an increasingly complex and dynamic societal environment.

2.2.1 AUTONOMIZATION: THE ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLINE IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE The Italian Renaissance is the historical moment that marks the true onset of the autopoiesis of architecture. The Renaissance identified architecture as a concern that could be discussed on its own inherent terms and then related to political, civic and religious life. Architecture was no longer simply submerged within these broader concerns. Renaissance architecture also achieved a previously unknown degree of differentiation from the building trade. This involved the differentiation of the activity of drawing vs building as well as the attendant recognition of the figure of the architect as creator (author). The architect’s designs/drawings now lead the process. Significantly, this is also the beginning of architectural theory – the self-description of architecture within architecture – starting with Alberti, and continuing with Serlio, Vignola, Palladio etc. It should be noted that the acknowledged first ‘theoretician’ of architecture – Vitruvius – describes and canonizes ancient Greek architecture while paying no attention to the significant advances of his contemporary Roman architecture. In contrast, Alberti talks about his contemporary architecture and goes on to ‘report things contrived through our own invention, by careful, painstaking

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2.2 Foundation and Refoundation of Architecture

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Thus far Alexander contributes to our analysis of the historical crystallization of architecture. However, for Alexander this emergence of architecture is dysfunctional, undermining the inherent well-adaptedness of the ways of an unselfconscious culture. In contrast to Alexander, who fails to see the functional prowess of these evolutionary achievements, the theory of architectural autopoiesis emphasizes them and their historical significance for the development of modern society. The emergence of architecture over and above building constitutes a significant evolutionary gain that elevates society’s self-transformative capacity to a new level, the take-off into modernity.

investigation’.20 Thus we can say that architecture’s self-referential autopoiesis re-commences with the Italian Renaissance, on a decisively deepened level of self-consciousness, and with a clear sense of its original creativity. Alberti’s explicit drive towards innovation is the pivotal moment in the constitution of architecture as a self-confident, discursive system of ˆ communications. Innovation is the raison d’etre of the formation of all modern function systems. All autopoietic function systems are constituted in symbiosis with a respective theoretical discourse as a self-critical steering mechanism with forward drive. All modern function systems operate on the level of second order observation. Writing and then the printing press are key material mechanisms that make such patterns of communication possible. Alberti’s De re aedificatoria – written in 1450 – was first circulated as a hand-copied manuscript and then published in 1485 as the first printed book on architecture. The printing press was a general historical accelerator and became a decisive factor that fuelled the autopoiesis of architecture. The same effect applied to the other emerging proto function systems such as science, the legal system and the self-reforming religion of the time. The printing press offered a powerful mechanism to simultaneously deepen and widen architecture’s self-constitution. The re-emerging autopoiesis of architecture soon surpassed architecture’s initial, tentative emergence in classical antiquity. In the Renaissance, architecture emerges and separates from the craft of construction on the basis of both drawing and theory. As a man of letters and learning the architect put himself ahead of the master builders and their craftsmen. Alberti is the archetypical case. An attendant effect is the systematic differentiation of the drawing as tool and domain of expertise outside (and in advance of) the material process of construction. The art of drawing (arti del disegno) becomes more and more sophisticated and important, in turn requiring special attention and concentrated practice. At the same time, a philosophical self-description emerges that uses Plato to give precedence to the designing/drawing architect as the one closest to the idea as origin (of the building). An elaborate theory of disegno21 establishes the line (outline) as the integral 20 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, original: De re aedificatoria, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988, p 7. 21 The most elaborate form of the theory of disegno was developed by Federico Zuccari (1607): L’idea de’ pittori, scultori e architetti (Turin), 1607. Federico Zuccari, Scritti d’Arte di Federico Zuccari, Olschki Editore (Florence), 1961. Reference in: Gerhard Wolf, ‘Gest¨orte Kreise. Zum Wahrheitsanspruch des Bildes im Zeitalter des Disegno’. In: Hans-J¨org Rheinberger (Ed), R¨aume des Wissens. Repr¨asentation, Codierung, Spur, Akademie Verlag (Berlin), 1997. 82

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22 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, original: De re aedificatoria, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988, p 7. 23 An Italian translation of Alberti’s books was only available in 1550, ie, 100 years after its original appearance, and after all of Serlio’s books had already been published. Serlio’s complete text was translated into English in 1611 while Alberti’s English translation had to wait until 1726. However, Alberti’s books had been translated into French in 1553. 24 Alberti’s original text had no illustrations. Some illustrations were later added for the 1550 Italian translation.

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medium that ascertains the metaphysical coherence of idea, imago and natura on the basis of Euclid’s geometry. Architecture is thus limited to outlining geometrical figures. This ‘limitation’ is first of all a powerful reduction of complexity, an abstraction with enormous potential for the build up of new specific complexity within this new artificial domain, affording the precise anticipation and simulation of complex spatial structures. Alberti’s On the Art of Building in Ten Books starts with Lineaments as the title of the first book. Alberti claims that ‘the whole matter of building is composed of lineaments and structure’ and defines lineaments as ‘the precise and correct outline, conceived in the mind, made up of lines and angles’. He asserts that ‘it is possible to project whole forms in the mind without any recourse to the material, by designating and determining a fixed orientation and conjunction for the various lines and angles’.22 Alberti’s distinction between form and material is constitutive for the emergence of architecture as intellectual discipline. However, a full theoretical reflection of this historical moment would have required Alberti to recognize the drawing, rather than the mind, as the proper medium within which to fix forms (lines and their angles) in advance of any material construction effort. Architectural treatises flourished the more they started to include drawings. In terms of architectural treatises Sebastiano Serlio’s sequence of five architectural books – collected together in 1585 under the title Tutte l’opere d’architettura – was much more effective than Alberti’s great treatise. Serlio’s Book IV , which treats the orders, was the first of the five books, published in 1537. It was published in Italian rather than Latin as Alberti’s De re aedificatoria.23 The primary reason for Serlio’s appeal, in comparison with Alberti, was most probably Serlio’s extensive use of drawings. Serlio’s book is indeed the first architectural treatise to use drawings. In Serlio’s book the drawings clearly dominate the comparatively sparse text.24 Serlio’s combination of text and drawing proved immensely effective. Ever since, architectural theory has operated via this combination of text and image. Serlio illustrated not only the standard classical orders but also presented new creative variants and

thus encouraged both imitation and further original creation. Since then creative inventions have been presented and disseminated via the print medium. Palladio’s 1570 Quattro libri d’architettura not only followed Serlio’s example and made an equally extensive use of drawings, but he was the first to publish his own designs alongside his theoretical teachings. Palladio’s books were even more widely disseminated and influential than Serlio’s. There is another important fact that is intimately bound up with the re-emergence of architecture in the Renaissance: the (re-)invention of perspective. The method was invented in Florence at the beginning of the 15th century, probably by Filippo Brunelleschi. It was documented in writing by Leon Battista Alberti in his Della pittura, 1435. Once invented the technique of perspective projection was enthusiastically taken up and became an immediate success. Serlio’s second book was wholly dedicated to it, offering an extensively illustrated, detailed instruction in the art of perspective. Serlio argued that good architecture required the use of perspective: Perspective Art is very necessary for a workeman: And no Perspective workeman can make any worke without Architecture, nor the Architecture without any perspective. To prove this, it appeareth by the Architectures in our days, wherein good Architecture hath begun to appeare and shew itself: For, was not Bramant an excellent Architector, and was he not first a Painter, and had great skill in Perspective Art, before he applied himself to the Art of Architecture? And Raphael Durbin, was not he a most cunning Paynter, and an excellent Perspective Artist, before he became an Architector?25

Perspective does indeed represent a very significant improvement in the medium of architecture. There is no doubt that this improvement played a role in architecture’s successful differentiation and self-assertion. The development of a specialized medium is a significant factor in the differentiation of any function system. The perfection of the system of design by drawing might be compared with the earlier perfection of the monetary system as the medium by means of which the economy was able to differentiate itself as autopoietic system. The autopoiesis of architecture relies on its specific medium – the drawing – as much as the economy relies on its specific medium money. The differentiation of architecture as discourse with a certain (increasing) degree of autonomy implies the ability to separate ‘architectural’ questions – for example, systems of proportion, symmetry 25 Sebastiano Serlio, The Five Books of Architecture, unabridged reprint of the English edition of 1611, Dover Publications (New York), 1982. 84

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26 Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (3rd edition), Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1999, p 22.

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etc – from the strictures of spiritual propriety, religious dogma or cosmological significance. This possibility is not to be taken for granted but an evolutionary achievement that requires and promotes a certain level of societal complexity and dynamic. The secularization of architecture, as well as the secularization of the arts in general, started in the early Renaissance. The Renaissance delivered the decisive step in the differentiation and autonomization of the arts against prior diffusion into religion and politics. This condition of an explicitly differentiated practice and discourse of architecture had never before been achieved to the same extent, and had only one single precursor: classical antiquity. What an architectural historian (or even an architect) might consider an important piece of architecture – for example, the pyramids of ancient Egypt – was inseparably immersed in meaning systems wholly incompatible with the isolation of aspects implied in its modern categorization as ‘architecture’. The same still holds for the Gothic cathedral. Architects today still identify with Alberti or Palladio – while the absence of any self-description (among other things) prevents us from recognizing earlier figures. But there is a certain measure of back-projection involved in our recognition of Alberti as architectural colleague. The Renaissance theorists/architects/artists theorized and practised architecture as one of the arts next to painting and sculpture.26 Figures like Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rafael and Bernini give ample evidence of the fact that the modern disciplinary definition and demarcation of architecture – against engineering on the one side and the visual arts on the other side – was not yet established at the time. Thus the identification of the beginning of architecture as self-conscious discourse in the Italian Renaissance does not imply a full-blown, finished crystallization, but rather marks the decisive point of departure for a new evolution. The evolution that commenced in the Italian Renaissance was indeed a fantastic take off. It achieved an unprecedented historical acceleration, and generated an unprecedented progression of styles: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classicism. Architecture crystallized via a series of differentiations that finally established the autonomous discipline we recognize today. This autonomization of architecture progressed via a series of successive stages. These stages are summarized in Figure 1 on page 88. This process of architecture’s autonomization proceeds together with the simultaneous and mutually enhancing autonomization of the other great

function systems of modern, functionally differentiated society. Architecture’s last, decisive moment of differentiation was between art and architecture/design. Until this moment, which coincides with architecture’s refoundation as modern architecture, architecture’s autonomization was embedded within the autonomization of art. Art had extricated itself from religion, politics and the crafts together with (pure) science – first in unison with science and then in parallel with science. Hegel draws this parallel between art and science in his 1823–9 Berlin lectures on aesthetics: But what we mean to consider, is the art which is free in its end as in its means. Science, in the shape of the subservient understanding, submits to be used for finite purposes, and as an accidental means, and in that case is not self-determined, but determined by alien objects and relations; but on the other hand, science liberates itself from this service to rise in free independence, it fulfils itself in conformity to its proper aims. Fine art is not real art till it is in this sense free, and only achieves its highest task when it has taken its place in the same sphere with religion and philosophy, and has become simply a mode of revealing to consciousness and bringing to utterance the Divine Nature.27

It is important to note that Hegel explicitly includes architecture within his concept of fine arts: The first of the particular arts with which, according to their fundamental principle we have to begin, is architecture considered as a fine art. Its task lies in so manipulating external inorganic nature that it becomes cognate to mind, as an artistic outer world . . . It is architecture that pioneers the way for the adequate realization of the God . . . It builds him his temple as a fit place for concentration of spirit . . . It raises an enclosure round the assembly of those gathered together . . . and reveals the will to assemble . . . in conformity with principles of art.28

Hegel was a keen witness of the process of autonomization of art and science. He refers to both science and art as ‘independent’, ‘self-determined’ and ‘free in its end as in its means’. This corresponds to our concept of autonomy as self-referential closure. This correspondence is also evidenced in the fact that, according to Hegel, art and architecture’s freedom with respect to its end and means does not imply a l’art pour l’art attitude of self-satisfied isolation from society. Just as science ‘fulfils itself in conformity to its proper aims’, likewise art has its 27 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, Penguin Books (London), 1993, p 9. 28 Ibid, pp 90–1. 86

29 Hegel’s definition of architecture’s task as ‘manipulating external inorganic nature that it becomes cognate to mind’ and ‘revealing the will to assemble’ might be interpreted as pinpointing architecture’s differentia specifica in terms of articulation. The phrase ‘in conformity with principles of art’ again indicates architecture’s distinction from vernacular building. 30 Paul Wallot (1841–1912) was the architect of the Imperial German Reichstag in Berlin.

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2.2.2 THE REFOUNDATION OF THE DISCIPLINE AS MODERN ARCHITECTURE If the Renaissance marks the beginning of our discipline, its maturity and current constitution have been achieved during the refoundation of the discipline in the 1920s. In this sense our discipline is Modern architecture. Indeed the advent of Modern architecture is the key watershed within the development of the discipline as we understand and practise it today. Today we still think and work very much like Le Corbusier and Gropius while a huge distance separates us from the likes of, for example, Paul Wallot,30 even though the careers of Gropius and Wallot overlapped in the period before the First World War. This does not only concern stylistic comparison, but the whole understanding of our tasks and methods. In theoretical terms the watershed and advent of Modern architectural thinking can be located around the turn of the century in key texts by Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Hermann Muthesius, Friedrich Naumann and Walter Gropius – on the basis of early precursors such as ` Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Gottfried Semper. Clear theoretical proclamations precede Modern practice. One of the conduits of this development was the German Werkbund founded in 1907. Within this hothouse of rethinking architecture and design in the face of the industrial revolution, the key discourse of Modern Functionalism/Formalism had already been fully elaborated over a decade before the full-blown practice of Modern architecture was set free in the social revolutions after the First World War. The key conceptual shift that best encapsulates the radicality of architecture’s refoundation as Modern architecture is perhaps the conceptual re-orientation from edifice to space. This switch has many

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very own task, and architecture plays its own particular role with respect to this task. This corresponds with our insistence that autonomy does not imply withdrawal from the world. There is a further point to be noted here: although the spiritual pathos of Hegel’s formulations is alien to us, his lofty aspirations clearly articulate the self-elevation of architecture over mere building – a distinction that goes hand in hand with architecture’s autonomization and which remains crucial within the autopoiesis of architecture.29

social system encompassing architecture

Figure 1

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separated system aspects

historical epoch

The Progressive Autonomization of Society: historical sequence of differentiation

31 The 19th century added a few further types of public institutions that were deemed worthy of architecture’s attention: state institutions such as parliament buildings, courthouses, town halls etc; and cultural institutions such as museums, opera houses and universities. The mass of residential buildings as well as all industrial buildings remained outside the domain of architecture.

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2.2.3 THE EXCLUSIVE COMPETENCY AND UNIVERSAL SCOPE OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE What were the significant shifts in the autopoiesis of architecture that justify speaking of a refoundation of the discipline? One of the distinguishing marks of Modern vs pre-Modern architecture is Modern architecture’s claim towards exclusive and universal responsibility and competency with respect to the totality of the built environment. Exclusivity implies that the organization and articulation of the built environment cannot proceed without architects and no other social power can determine its final shape. Universality implies that this competency encompasses all types of buildings without exception. In contrast, the profane/mundane did not enter into the pre-Modern conceptions of architecture. All previous architecture was primarily concerned with exceptional construction like palaces and churches.31 For Modern architecture every building type is potentially a concern for architectural discourse. The same goes for Modern design which makes claims with respect to any human artefact. Modern architecture’s universal scope concerning the built environment is not contradicted by the fact that the actual bulk of

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consequences and condenses many facets of the transformation. It implies a radical expansion of architecture’s design versatility in the face of a universalized functional scope. The switch has been prepared in theory, but was pushed in practice beyond anything anticipated in theory. This relationship of theory and practice is a Modern characteristic. Classical theory consolidates and canonizes traditional practice. Modern theory takes the form of manifestos. However, this Modern mode of theory neither implies the primacy of theory over practice, nor a linear historical progression from theory to practice. The Modern manifestos generalized and extrapolated from the preceding advances made in the construction of infrastructural and factory buildings that were traditionally not included within the domain of architecture. The dialectic oscillation between advances in theory and advances in practice cannot be ordered into a hierarchical relation. However, the Modern form of this dialectic gives more scope and radicality to the theoretical side of the dialectic than was possible in its pre-Modern, Classical forms.

construction does not actively participate in the discourse of architecture. The claim implies the complete usurpation of the total domain in terms of potentiality rather than actuality. Every construction is potentially relevant to the discourse of Modern architecture. One might cite the polemical role played by photographs of American grain silos within the discourse of Modernism via texts by Gropius and Le Corbusier – whereas most mundane structures were utterly alien and a priori irrelevant to pre-Modern architecture. Only Modern architecture covers all spatial articulations of society, without exception. If we consider the design disciplines as a whole we can assert that Modern design – considered as a single function system – covers the totality of the world’s artefacts. This does not imply that all artefacts in the world are designed by designers according to the rules and values laid down by the international design discourse. It does imply, however, that this design discourse has the universal (and exclusive) calling to evaluate any artefact. The universality and exclusivity of design’s claim corresponds to equivalent claims from the other great function systems. In modern society every conceivable behaviour is regulated by means of the legal system or at least can be addressed in legal terms. Nothing and nobody exists outside modern law. The legal system lays its claim upon all human actions. Every human action is either legal or illegal, and all human actions are therefore a potential concern for the legal system. The universal claim of modern science penetrates all pre-modern domains. There are no more sanctified secrets nor any domain of the essentially unknowable. Science covers all facts of nature and only science can be called upon with respect to establishing the facts of nature. The education system has total coverage via obligatory schooling and no job is allocated without the consultation of CVs featuring the certificates issued by the education system. The modern political system claims universal sovereignty over all territory and all people. The modern economy has the tendency to subject everything to its code of ownership – everything is owned by somebody – and everything is up for monetary exchange, including land and labour, which were not considered to be commodities within pre-modern societies. The totality of all human exchanges – to the extent that they involve payments – are feeding into one single system: the (world) economy. This tendency towards universality is a characteristic feature of all modern function systems. All these systems claim ‘total coverage’ of their domain. Also, each and every communication ‘covered’ feeds back into the system and might take effect upon the communication structures of the system. A price that is offered on one side of the world might affect 90

32 Such comparisons should be a critical component of any future self-description of architecture that lays claim to generality. 33 Antonio Sant’Elia & Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, ‘Futurist Architecture’, in: Ulrich Conrads (Ed), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971.

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2.2.4 THE LIBERATION FROM TRADITIONAL FORMAL CONSTRAINTS The second distinguishing mark that sets Modern architecture apart from the prior development of the discipline is its total liberation from all traditional formal constraints. The opening up of the aspect of function, through the full generalization of architecture’s scope into a universal competency, is thus matched by opening up the aspect of form, by rejecting any prejudice or a priori constraint on the design repertoire whatsoever. Although this liberation is ‘total’ only in theory, while in practice many redundancies still prevail, the consciousness of a total new beginning, and the demand to shake off all ties to historical precedent, is indeed an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of architecture. The radical transformation of architecture was preceded by the radical transformation of the art system. Expressionism, Cubism and then the abstract art of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian were trailblazing the consciousness of a radical new beginning that would shake off all traditional constraints. This spirit of breaking all moulds soon also arrived at the edges of architecture. In 1914 the Manifesto of Futurist Architecture proclaimed: ‘Architecture as the art of arranging the forms of buildings according to predetermined criteria is finished’.33 That statement clears the path for unfettered creative work. The radicality of this rejection of tradition is

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prices on the other side of the world. A legal case might set a precedent with far-reaching repercussions within the legal systems of many countries. In the same way the aesthetic power and appreciation of any artefact from any corner of the world might radiate through the entire world of design. Those parallels reveal the overarching societal tendencies which encompass architecture and which demand adaptation from all function systems. Such comparative excursions are a key component of the theoretical method pursued here. They establish parallels (as well as differences) between the various societal subsystems. The evolution of each autonomous subsystem of society is locked into a pattern of coevolution that constitutes the overall evolution of society as functionally differentiated society.32

based on an acute sense of the distinctness of modern civilization. ‘The tremendous antithesis between the modern and the ancient world is the outcome of all those things that exist now and did not exist then. Elements have entered into our life of whose very possibility the ancients did not even dream.’ The logical conclusion is that ‘We must invent and rebuild the Futurist City’, and that ‘The problem of Futurist architecture must be solved not by plagiarizing China, Persia, or Japan . . ., not by foolishly adhering to the rules of Vitruvius, but by strokes of genius.’34 And the programme of reinvention is total: ‘Everything must be revolutionary . . . Let us throw away monuments, sidewalks, arcades, steps’. The manifesto ends with the words: ‘we fight without pause against the cowardly worship of the past’.35 In the same year (1914) architect Paul Scheerbart dreams: ‘the surface of the earth is to be transformed . . . glass architecture . . . which must transform our whole life’.36 The political and social revolutions in Germany and Russia after the First World War gave a further sense that all old cultural moulds had been shattered and that a new beginning was called for. The De Stijl Manifesto I from 1918 states: ‘The war is destroying the old world with its content . . . The new consciousness of the age is prepared to realize itself in everything including external life. Tradition, dogmas . . . stand in the way of this realization. Therefore the founders of the new culture call upon all who believe in reform of art and culture to destroy these obstacles to development, just as the plastic arts – by doing away with natural form – have eliminated that which stood in the way of pure artistic expression’. De Stijl conceives architecture to be in total unison with the plastic arts. All art is to dissolve into constructing a new life. The same recognition of the revolution within the art system is expressed by the architect Peter Behrens in 1920: ‘Today we can see clearly that poetry, painting, sculpture, and also music have found a strong, decisive, ecstatic expression which explodes all conventions, all rules of beauty that were hitherto valid, eradicating all its laws’.37 The decisive refoundation of the discipline followed the radical example of abstract art. A few years later, during the second half of the 1920s, the decisive severing of architecture from art followed.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Paul Scheerbart, Glass Architecture, in: Ulrich Conrads (Ed), Programs and Manifestoes on

20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 33. ¨ 37 Peter Behrens, ‘Das Ethos und die Umlagerung der kunstlerischen Probleme’, in: Hermann Graf von Keyserling, Der Leuchter. ‘Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung’, Zeitschrift f ur ¨ Wissenschaft (Darmstadt), 1920, pp 315–38. 92

It is to be noted that the emphasis of the manifesto is wholly on the aspect of form. It thus contributes to a generative theory of architecture. However, the notion that endless variations can be welded into a balanced unity indicates that the new style – under the auspices of the concept of space – achieves a new level of versatility that can be

38 For an account of the functional role the concept of space has played in the history of architecture, see: section 5.4 Key Innovations: Place, Space, Field. 39 Naum Gabo & Antoine Pevsner, ‘Basic Principles of Constructivism’, in: Ulrich Conrads (Ed), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 56. 40 ‘De Stijl, Manifesto V’ (1925), in: Ulrich Conrads (Ed), Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 66.

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In close co-operation we have examined architecture as a plastic unity

made up of industry and technology and have established that a new style

has emerged as result. We have examined the laws of space and their

endless variations (ie, spatial contrasts, spatial dissonances, spatial

supplementations) and have established that all these variations can be

welded together into a balanced unity . . . We have examined the mutual

relationships between dimensions, proportion, space, time and material and

have discovered a final method of constructing a unity from them. By

breaking up enclosing elements (walls etc) we have eliminated the duality

of interior and exterior. We have given colour its rightful place in

architecture . . . The time of destruction is at an end. A new age is dawning:

the age of construction.40

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2.2.5 THE SWITCH FROM EDIFICE TO SPACE This radical opening of the creative space had to be structured by new concepts and new strategies. Ultimately a new style had to be forged, on a new level of versatility, with a new flexibility and capacity to organize and articulate a new degree of societal complexity. The concept of space38 played a crucial role here. In the very abstractness of this concept lies its capacity of responsiveness to the increased scope of architectural problems under conditions of universal competency. For Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, in 1920, space is already the key word. In their characterization we can sense the compositional openness and versatility of this concept: ‘We assert that space can only be modeled from within outward in its depth . . . a unique, coherent and unlimited depth’.39 In 1923 De Stijl Manifesto V announces that the time of destruction is over and that a new style has been arrived at. Space is the foundational concept, and the (generative) theory has been enriched by a series of further terms that indicate the formal registers and principles that structure this brand new style:

employed in the handling of functions and that it can cope with higher levels of functional complexity than all prior styles of architecture. This excursion into what architecture should recognize as its own origin, and the recognition of the watershed towards its full-blown features as modern architecture, serves to set the scene for a fundamental thesis and an attendant task. The thesis (THESIS 6) states the necessity of self-reference and rigorous self-demarcation for the constitution of architecture as effective practice within an increasingly complex and dynamic societal environment. Disciplinary autonomy provides flexibility, a space to manoeuvre, to adapt on one’s own terms. Autonomy implies the ability to avoid being forced into knee-jerk reactions and includes self-determination in terms of the timing of the adaptation. This allows the system to cope with a changing environment on the basis of an already elaborated level of complexity rather than being pushed to necessarily simple and uncertain new beginnings. The task is to provide an updated self-description for architecture that may guide its process of adaptive upgrading. The heuristics of this effort involves the attempt to draw the line as narrow and as strict as possible – explicitly going against the (more rhetorical than real) trend towards interdisciplinary fusion.41 Empirically there is little evidence of an effective blurring of the disciplinary boundaries, especially when we are talking about different function systems rather than different subsystems within a single function system (such as the disciplines of science). Interdisciplinary efforts are usually limited to projects and do not lead to research programmes. The blurring of disciplinary boundaries is an idea rather than a reality. Such dissolution of boundaries would be both unproductive and unsustainable. However, the question of the definition and demarcation of architecture is not to be treated in a stipulative manner. The intention is 41 This trend has been explicitly pursued by Assemblage and Grey Room. Here are the respective mission statements: ‘ Assemblage experiments with forms of exegesis, commentary, and analysis, cutting across disciplines to engage the best and most innovative work of leading and emerging scholars, theorists, and practitioners. Each extensively illustrated issue of Assemblage features essays and projects that draw from architectural and art history and theory, cultural criticism, literary theory, philosophy, and politics. Among the journal’s recurring sections “The Strictly Architectural”raises the question of what “properly”belongs to architecture.’ ‘ Grey Room has been situated at the intersection of architecture, art, and media in the conviction that these three areas are crucial to an understanding of modern and contemporary aesthetic practice, as well as to the larger characterization of modernity. The journal will thus promote and develop a rigorous, cross-disciplinary dialogue among the fields and forge a politically-informed, critical discourse uniquely relevant to the current historical situations.’ 94

THESIS 7 The distinction between avant-garde and mainstream is constitutive of architecture’s evolution (autopoiesis). Only by differentiating the avant-garde as specific subsystem can contemporary architecture actively participate in the evolution of society. The avant-garde is not at the margin, but at the heart of the discipline. It is the driving force of architecture’s ongoing autopoiesis. The avant-garde is the locus and motor of the necessary developmental process that allows the autopoiesis of architecture to adapt itself to the changes in the societal environment. While the mainstream provides state of the art professional practice to service the urgent needs of society, the avant-garde is set free to explore new paths that might enable the discipline to meet upcoming societal challenges in the future. The conscious recognition of inventiveness and innovation as a value in architecture starts with Alberti. However, during most of architecture’s 42 My experience as designer and teacher has obviously guided my selection of references and my overall interpretation of the discipline. 43 That’s why this business of radical questioning has been outsourced to the domain of philosophy which is called upon only in periods of epochal crisis, and even then, philosophy can only irritate, and never instruct architecture.

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2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream

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the selective distillation and reconstruction of an already operating demarcation that informs architectural discourse and practice. The conceptual results of this reconstructive effort might then be fed back into the discourse/practice to further focus and cohere it. Obviously any such a ‘reconstruction’ is selective, a necessary self-simplification and therefore prone to be considered ‘biased’.42 And if there is a bias here, then it is towards an architecture of radical innovation rather than towards an architecture that tries to hold on to eternal principles. However, innovation can only accelerate if the underlying institutional frame is relatively stable. This institutional stability is indeed given: the long-term stability of architecture’s demarcation and of its fundamental scheme of communication structures is one of the discoveries of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. It is important to understand the rationality of this dialectic of radical innovation within a stable, institutionalized system of communications that constitutes the discipline. The permanent questioning of the fundamental identity and demarcation of the discipline would block all innovation until a new frame could be stabilized. Continuous questioning would imply continuous blockage.43

subsequent history there was no institutionalized differentiation between avant-garde and mainstream. Innovators were scattered among the majority of conventionalists within an undivided autopoietic communication system. It was only with the refoundation of the discipline as Modern architecture in the 1920s that radical innovation became the hegemonic watchword among the group of architects that was transforming the discipline. Groups like De Stijl, the Constructivist International, and the ABC group, among others, are referred to as the ‘historical avant-gardes’. These groups, for the first time, established a radical bifurcation in the field. The new movement gained ground in Germany, Holland, Austria and Russia, while Classical architecture continued in many places (including in Great Britain and the USA). In its early, experimental stage, ie, in its avant-garde stage, Modernism used abstract art and the art system as a platform for radical formal (geometrical and material) experimentation. In the Bauhaus, art was initially conceived as a foundational sub-discipline of architecture and design. In the second half of the 1920s, after Modernism had matured, art was expelled as distraction. During the 1920s the segmentation between an avant-garde and a mainstream was not institutionalized because the Modernists had the undoubted consciousness of soon taking over the totality of architectural production. There was no notion of accepting the status of an avant-garde distinct from an ongoing mainstream. The 1950s proved that the Modernist expectation of undivided dominance was realistic: the ‘historical avant-garde’ was dissolved into the grand stream of the globally hegemonic ‘International Style’. Starting in the late 1950s with the Metabolists, and with people such as Constant and Yona Friedman,44 it was only during the 1960s with groups like Archigram, Archizoom and Superstudio that the distinction between avant-garde and mainstream became a reality in the sense it is being theorized in the following chapters, as a self-conscious, permanent structure of the discipline. These latter groups announced the imminent crisis of Modernism via the exaggerated and ironic overstretching of its trajectory. The crisis of Modernism – as symbolized by the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St Louis in 1972 only 17 years after its construction45 – required a radical rethinking of the values and methods of architecture. Evidently, radically new answers were required. At the same time construction had to go on. The ongoing 44 In 1980 Kenneth Frampton refers to Yona Friedman and Nicholas Habraken as the ‘anarchistic architectural avant-garde of the post Second World War period’, see: Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture – A Critical History, Thames & Hudson (London), 1980, p 181. 45 See: Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Academy Editions (London), 1977, p 9, ‘Part One – The Death of Modern Architecture’. 96

46 The theoretical explication of styles as design research programmes will be given below in section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes. The concept of design research is indeed beginning to be firmly institutionalized within the discipline. As evidence one might cite the growth and success of institutions such as the AA Design Research Lab, as well as the emergence of design research departments within some high profile architectural firms. Another piece of evidence in this respect is the emergence of ‘PhDs by design’ in architecture.

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2.3.1 A PREREQUISITE FOR EVOLUTION The global network between groups like the Metabolists, Archigram, Archizoom, Superstudio, Haus-Rucker, together with individuals like Cedric Price, Parent & Virilio, Domenig & Huth, Hans Hollein and countless others, for the first time, formed an architectural avant-garde that was conscious of the fact that a mainstream is going to coexist alongside their radically innovative architectural speculation and experimentation. Although the radicality and exuberance of this period were later muted, an avant-garde segment that coexists alongside a mainstream segment, in a relationship of mutual observation and functioning like a division of labour between research and application, has persisted ever since. Groups like the New York Five (Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk and Meier), and the early Postmodernists belong in this category, as well as the Italian ‘Architettura Razionale’. Starting during the 1960s, architecture schools such as the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, or Yale School of Architecture, among others, became hubs of the international avant-garde network. Alongside Postmodernism, during the 1970s, radical figures like Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi and the young Rem Koolhaas operated from within these schools. For the 1980s one might mention Zaha Hadid,

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development of the built environment cannot stand still and wait until radically new solutions have been theorized, developed, tested and evaluated. The radicality of the crisis – once more – implied a necessary bifurcation or segmentation of the discipline into avant-garde and mainstream. The radical Postmodernist and then Deconstructivist discourses and practices of people like Venturi, Rowe, Eisenman, Tschumi, Koolhaas, Gehry and Hadid are perhaps the most obvious examples of productive avant-gardism. Unlike in the case of Modernism, this time the avant-garde became a permanent institution. The differentiation into avant-garde and mainstream is now a permanent structural feature of the autopoiesis of architecture. The contemporary style of Parametricism is maturing within the avant-garde segment. It is on the way to penetrate the mainstream. Even when a style has gone mainstream, avant-garde design research continues within the research framework set by the now dominant, mainstream style.46

Coop Himmelb(l)au and Daniel Libeskind, leading to figures like Greg Lynn, Jeff Kipnis, Jesse Reiser and Asymptote among many others in the 1990s. These radical careers would not have been possible without an institutionalized avant-garde segment as incubation chamber that shields radical experimentation from the pressures of mainstream feasibility. To develop innovations that might finally be able to face these pressures in a new way requires this double articulation of the discipline into avant-garde and mainstream. The avant-garde segment thus emerged according to the logic and ˆ raison d’etre of functional differentiation. The differentiation between avant-garde and mainstream fulfils a vital function with respect to the enhancement of architecture’s innovative capacity. Therefore the theory of architectural autopoiesis not only predicts that this segmentation of the discipline will persist, but also emphasizes and promotes this segmentation. The ability to procure permanent innovation is a necessary prerequisite for the ongoing survival of the autopoiesis of architecture. Architecture usually proceeds via projects that need to deliver state of the art products on budget. There are no separate funds, neither public nor private, that are allocated to dedicated research institutes or declared research projects.47 However, innovation requires research, experimentation and risk-taking. In the absence of dedicated research funds, who is willing to invest the extra time required, and who can afford the risk (near-certainty) of failure? Answer: only the avant-garde which – in whatever way, for example, via special ‘art’ projects, exhibitions or academic teaching resources – receives funds and licence to take risks. The discipline could not evolve without this differentiation of two subsystems. Evolution requires that the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection and re-stabilization are differentiated. The avant-garde produces variation by mutation and recombination, theory and the early adopters select, and the mainstream re-stabilizes by reproducing and confirming the status of the original contributions of the avant-garde as real innovations. This implies that the connection to the mainstream cannot be fully severed. A feedback loop needs to be maintained. The mainstream appropriates, applies and thereby tests the innovations of the 47 This absence of architectural research was challenged in 1918 by Bruno Taut’s demand for public sites for experimental construction. The intention was both to test new ideas and to test the reaction of the public to such ideas. The demand was repeated a year later in the 1919 declaration of the so-called ‘Work Council for Art’ that was formed in Berlin after the revolution. The idea was never implemented. 98

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2.3.2 THE AUTONOMY OF THE AVANT-GARDE Architecture’s self-referential closure has been a precondition for architecture to become one of modern society’s dedicated and authoritative function systems. But, as discussed above, self-referential closure cannot mean hermetic isolation. The distinction between avant-garde and mainstream reproduces the distinction and relation between architecture and society within architecture, and thereby structures the process of adaptation and coevolution. The external boundary between architecture and its societal environment re-appears as internal boundary between the avant-garde and mainstream, with the avant-garde representing the system, and the mainstream representing the environment within the system. While the mainstream architect has to face investors, clients as well as users and authorities, and thus acts as interface of architecture with all the concerns and factors of the societal environment, the avant-garde remains largely isolated from immediate societal concerns. The avant-garde work is primarily addressed to an expert audience of other architects, with only a minimal and indirect engagement with a larger, non-expert audience. This is obvious for theoretical works and unbuilt design speculations published via the relevant, exclusive channels. Even those avant-garde architects who work on real (sometimes even grand) projects are often shielded from the most mundane concerns, precisely ˆ because the raison d’etre of these projects (to a large extent) resides in the fact that they constitute architectural spectacles and cultural icons through the signature of the respective famous avant-garde architect. Under such circumstances, where sufficient economic resource and sufficient freedom are granted to the ‘artist’s creative will’, even built architecture can radically innovate. A sufficient measure of unaccountable freedom is granted despite the fact that significant collective resources are involved. Accountability exists primarily with respect to the internal avant-garde expert audience that largely controls

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avant-garde. As will be argued below, this appropriation and application is an indispensable part of the autopoiesis of architecture. Although the avant-garde has its own mechanisms and organs of pre-selection – avant-garde exhibitions and avant-garde magazines – ultimately, without rearguard, without a mainstream that follows, the supposed avant-garde is no real avant-garde at all, but rather a dead end. Without mainstream success there would be no adaptive link back to the societal environment.

the system of architectural reputations.48 This kind of ‘star-architecture’ therefore fulfils two important functions: on the one hand such architecture presents itself to society at large and therefore initiates the societal promotion of the latest trends that are discussed within the discipline, while on the other hand advancing the internal disciplinary discourse through testing the construction of the latest spatial and tectonic concepts of the avant-garde on a significant scale. Both functions imply that such projects operate more as manifestos than as concrete service provisions. This relative isolation of the avant-garde segment of the discipline might be compared with the isolation of science from societal pressures. The distinction between the pure vs the applied sciences (science vs technology), might be described as the re-production of the distinction between system and environment within the system. Thomas Kuhn talks about the ‘unparalleled insulation of mature scientific communities from the demands of the laity and of everyday life’.49 This insulation has important consequences. It enhances the ability of a large, international community of colleagues to gather around a shared focus which in turn serves to accelerate progress. Kuhn argues: Just because he is working only for an audience of colleagues, an audience that shares his own values and beliefs, the scientist can take a single set of standards for granted. He need not worry about what some other group . . . will think and can therefore dispose of one problem and go on to the next more quickly than those that work for a more heterodox group. Even more important, the insulation of the scientific community from society permits the individual scientist to concentrate his attention upon problems he has good reason to believe he will be able to solve. Unlike the engineer, and many medical doctors . . . the scientist need not choose problems because they urgently need solution without regard for the tools available to solve them.50

Kuhn’s observation can be transposed to the case of architecture: this kind of tool driven work agenda is also a feature of a lot of architectural avant-garde work. These parallels are instructive, and we will have more occasions to elaborate this comparison between the communication 48 The transition from the avant-garde to the mainstream in the career of an individual architect is marked by the architect’s indifference to this internal expert audience and instead he orients himself towards an audience of actual and potential clients. 49 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 1962, second enlarged edition, 1970, p 164. 50 Ibid. 100

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51 See: section 2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation. In fact, all modern function systems value novelty/innovation: new laws, new policies, new markets, new therapies etc. 52 Instead of ‘variation’ one might say ‘recombination and/or mutation’. 53 Instead of ‘retention’ one might use the term ‘restabilization’ or ‘reproduction’.

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patterns of science and the architectural avant-garde. It seems therefore opportune to insert a note of clarification here: these parallels that are brought forth by the comparison between science and the architectural avant-garde do not lead us to theorize the architectural avant-garde as a form of science, as it were ‘the science of architecture’. As should be clear from the general theoretical layout of the theory of architectural autopoiesis, and as will be argued further below, the demarcation between science and architecture has been sharply drawn. Architecture and the design disciplines on the one hand and the sciences on the other hand are very different communication systems, differentiated by fundamentally different societal functions and specialized around fundamentally different codes: the code of truth (or perhaps the double code of truth-novelty, ie, demanding new truth) in the case of the sciences and the double code of utility-beauty (or the triple code of utility-beauty-novelty, demanding new, functional beauty, for the avant-garde segment) in the case of architecture/design. The fact that both science and architecture, and indeed the art system as well, share the code of novelty does not dissolve the sharp demarcation between these autopoietic function systems.51 The observed parallel between architecture and science is a parallel of structural pattern. It concerns a comparable, internal subsystem differentiation into two subsystems: the differentiation into avant-garde and mainstream in the case of architecture, and the differentiation into pure and applied science in the case of science. In each case the subsystem formation institutes the differentiation of the evolutionary mechanisms of variation52 (avant-garde architecture, pure science) versus retention53 (mainstream architecture, applied science/technology). The differentiation of these evolutionary mechanisms is a necessary, structural precondition of evolution in general and of social evolution in particular, including architectural evolution. In architecture, the mechanism of selection that is interposed between variation and retention is operated by the early adopters that bring avant-garde results into the mainstream. This role is also played by avant-garde firms that mature and grow as their success in the avant-garde arena opens up wider opportunities towards participation within the mainstream.

2.3.3 COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN AVANT-GARDE AND MAINSTREAM As stated above, there needs to be a feedback loop from avant-garde to mainstream and back. However, the mere recognition of a necessary feedback loop does not in itself tell us what goes on in the mainstream appropriation, application and execution of the repertoire of the avant-garde. The theory of architectural autopoiesis has to make a theoretical decision to clarify the distinction between avant-garde and mainstream. Can the mainstream be considered to exist outside the autopoiesis of architecture, as the most immediate environment irritating architecture proper? Can the autopoiesis of architecture be exclusively defined as avant-garde architecture? The answer is no. Such a theoretical decision would venture too far out of the normal usage of terms. The usage of the very term ‘architecture’ is after all a central and active part of the (self-referential) phenomenon to be theorized here. This narrow restriction would also be at odds with the way Niklas Luhmann explicates the other great function systems of society. For instance, the legal system includes not only the legislative process, the academic discipline of jurisprudence and important court proceedings. Luhmann includes all legal communications governed by legal concepts and the legal code, inclusive of all court proceedings, out of court settlements, legal (contract) negotiations, and even lawyer-client communications well in advance of any formal proceedings, even communications (disputes) between laymen to the extent that these communications employ legal concepts to analyze a particular case, conflict or situation. In a similar way the code and concepts of architecture also operate beyond the bounds of communication between certified experts. Although the narrow conception of architecture that would restrict it to the avant-garde is implicit in the patterns of communication of some protagonists like Peter Eisenman and Jeffrey Kipnis, it would be artificial, and in conflict with architecture’s prevailing self-conception, to exclude mainstream communications from the title of architecture.54 Can the distinction in question instead be described as the differentiation of two subsystems within the autopoiesis of architecture? This seems workable to the extent that both the avant-garde and the mainstream have a semi-independent, internal network of

54 Below, the theory of codes will confirm the theoretical decision to include mainstream practice within the autopoiesis of architecture. All communications that (explicitly or implicitly) refer to the double code of architecture – the code of utility and beauty – belong to architecture. See section 3.5 The Codification of Architecture. 102

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55 Contractors delivering vernacular buildings are excluded. Vernacular builders do not operate within the domain of architecture. In fact, buildings built without architects are a disappearing phenomenon in the developed world.

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communications. There are mainstream architectural publications that ignore most (if not all) radical avant-garde work. Examples include the RIBA Journal and The Architectural Review in Britain and perhaps Architectural Record in the USA. If such magazines do feature avant-garde work – from celebrated architects – then the manner of presenting and describing such projects is guided by well-rehearsed mainstream rationales. There is also a network of avant-garde organs whose audience is mostly limited to an extended inner circle of avant-garde architects and early adopters. The experiences and design communications of mainstream architects are integrated as a part of the unified culture of architecture through being continuously referenced back to the focal points provided by the avant-garde and its more widely circulating publications that feature avant-garde projects rather than theoretical texts. The two subsystems form an overall system as their discourses, references and publications overlap and cross-reference. The crises of the mainstream practice are registered within the avant-garde which in turn elaborates new approaches, discursive structures and recipes that (slowly) migrate into the mainstream. Before going further with the exploration of the theoretical ramifications of the decision to emphasize this distinction of mainstream and avant-garde, it is perhaps useful, first of all, to clarify which given architectural phenomena are supposed to be categorized by these terms. (For this purpose I need to temporarily increase the terms employed.) The distinction of avant-garde versus mainstream does in fact dissect a whole spectrum of phenomena, listed here in a personifying parlance: radical experimenters, reputed avant-garde designers, early adopters, representatives of high end established architectural culture and mainstream commercial architects. 55 The first two groups of the spectrum belong to the avant-garde and the last two belong to the mainstream. The early adopters straddle both domains and act as transmission belt. The players within the avant-garde segment of architecture do not only consist of architects/designers. It also enlists the efforts of avant-garde theorists and of certain architectural teachers together with some of their students. The avant-gardist students need to be included because much of their work, presentations and discussions clearly is part of the formation of the architectural avant-garde. However, the students – with very few exceptions – are unlikely to become recognized points of

reference beyond their local communication circles. Their contributions are mostly referenced via the names of their respective teachers. (In the same way the contributions of staff are registered via the figureheads of their respective design studios.) The group of academic design studio teachers overlaps with both the group of theorists and the group of avant-gardist designers. Most architectural theorists operate from an academic base and end up teaching design studios as well as theory seminars. Figures like Sanford Kwinter and Jeff Kipnis clearly had a significant impact on the direction of the current avant-garde. In turn no studio teacher can avoid theoretical engagement. Most avant-gardist designers either start off from an academic base or are later drawn into the best teaching institutions. They are therefore drawn deeper into the theoretical discourse, since academic design studios are usually more demanding and rigorous in their pursuit of a consistent theoretical agenda than avant-gardist design studios outside academia. The group of avant-garde designers who teach and theorize while trying to build their independent design studio is perhaps the hard core of what we understand to be the avant-garde segment of the discipline. This group currently comprises figures such as Greg Lynn, Lars Spuybroek, Jesse Reiser, Michael Hensel/Achim Menges, George Legendre and Ali Rahim56 among many others. The listing of names serves here merely to concretize the concept of the avant-garde. Ultimately, it is the pattern of communications that allows us to distinguish the avant-garde from the mainstream. The individual names/careers often move from the avant-garde to the mainstream segment. This is frequently due to the combination of the very success of the respective architect and a further paradigm shift within the avant-garde. Success in the market and the new responsibilities that come with it sometimes prevent avant-gardist challenges from being taken up once more. As typical examples of this career path we might cite the late Aldo Rossi, Michael Graves, Richard Meier and perhaps Richard Rogers. Foster and Partners straddle the divide of avant-garde and mainstream. While the bulk of the work is mainstream staple, the firm runs an internal research unit that focuses on the central contemporary avant-garde concern of parametric design which bears fruit in a number of exemplary projects. OMA, ZHA, FOA, UNStudio, MVRDV, SANAA and Toyo Ito, among others, provide examples of studios/firms that have become successful in the market, while their centre of communicative reference remains fully 56 These architects have all published theoretical articles and books that present their respective work with a strong theoretical focus. 104

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lodged within the avant-garde segment, resulting in continued research and self-transformation. This group is of particular relevance inasmuch as the respective names/works are recognized as ‘avant-garde’ beyond the confines of the avant-garde itself and therefore facilitate the transmission of the results of the avant-garde work into the mainstream. To the extent that avant-garde and mainstream are differentiated, this transmission of achievements from one to the other implies that the discursive embedding of the transmitted elements (concepts, techniques and formal repertoires) changes. This re-embedding implies a certain loss of meaning or ‘dumbing down’, ie, a loss of certain discursive connections. Although the recontextualized concepts, techniques and formal repertoires also gain specific new concerns and relevances, there is an overall net loss of meaning measured in terms both of the density of discursive connections and in terms of the thematic scope of contexts in which the respective innovations are embedded. This re-embedding also implies a reduction of complexity. This reduction of complexity should be no occasion for regret, ˆ but is rather an inevitable consequence – and indeed the raison d’etre – of the division of labour that is structured by the differentiation of avant-garde and mainstream. The innovations that have been achieved within the avant-garde can indeed be handed down by means of images and slogans without necessitating the full appreciation of the discursive field and the specific theoretical arguments that were involved in the original emergence and elaboration of these innovations. The new paradigm is most effectively disseminated via paradigmatic exemplars rather than via explicit rules and theoretical arguments. The avant-garde comprises radical experimenters and reputed avant-garde designers. The mainstream comprises the established (high end) culture of architecture as well as ‘commercial’ work. The commercial work and its attendant communications belong to the autopoiesis of architecture to the extent to which these communications employ the concepts, methods and values of the discipline, ie, the established concepts, methods and values that were developed by an earlier avant-garde. Architectural projects – across the whole spectrum from mainstream commercial work to radical avant-garde experimentation – always contain alien ingredients and engender alien (personal, economic, legal etc) communications that do not belong to architecture and therefore do not feed back into its autopoiesis. However, we might assume that the communications that surround the projects at the lower, more ‘commercial’ mainstream end of the spectrum are far more ‘polluted’ than at the high end, where the concepts, principles and values of the discipline remain in power. While the direction of communicative influence runs primarily from the avant-garde to the high end mainstream

and from there further down to the commercial end of the mainstream, there have been significant occasions where the direction of influence was reversed and the avant-garde took guidance from the unprincipled, pragmatic solutions of commercial architecture. For example, one might cite Rem Koolhaas’s study of commercial developments in Singapore, Atlanta and South China. Koolhaas’s research led – in each case – to the coining of fresh architectural concepts (among others, Bigness and Junkspace). The avant-garde segment of the discourse has the far higher density of published communications. There are specific organs of communication – conferences such as the ANY conferences or the Archilab exhibitions and conferences – and journals such as AD, AA Files, Arch+, Archithese, Quaderns and Volume among many others. AD (Architectural Design) has played an unrivalled role in concentrating and promoting avant-garde discourse for 30 years, starting with Postmodernism, moving on to Deconstructivism, then embracing ‘folding in architecture’, and most recently Parametricism.57 However, the mainstream is not devoid of publications, and many architectural magazines feature both avant-garde projects as well as projects that represent the well-established mainstream culture of architecture. El Croquis has been important as bridge between the avant-garde and mainstream, by publishing key avant-garde figures with attendant theoretical essays, but reaching large parts of the mainstream audience with a very large volume of circulation. Domus went mainstream together with the Postmodern protagonists it had championed. Recently, under the editorship of Stefano Boeri, this important organ has been recaptured by avant-garde discourse. This kind of migration of whole organs across the divide between avant-garde and mainstream also facilitates the process of communicative integration of these subsystems into the overarching communication system that is the autopoiesis of architecture. The discipline is bound to what is published and discussed as architecture. This opens up the possibility that even vernacular forms can be retrospectively introduced into the discipline, if they are discovered and published by insiders of the discipline. Books like Rudofsky’s

57 See: Patrik Schumacher, ‘Parametricism – A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design’, in: AD Architectural Design – Digital Cities, Vol 79, No 4, July/August 2009, guest editor: Neil Leach, general editor: Helen Castle. See also part 11 Parametricism – The Parametric Paradigm and the Formation of a New Style. 106

58 Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture, MOMA (New York), 1964. 59 Robert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1972.

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2.3.4 THE RECIPROCAL DEPENDENCY BETWEEN AVANT-GARDE AND MAINSTREAM The mainstream serves as the avant-garde’s channel of corroboration and dissemination. It also serves as scanning device that allows the avant-garde to register the degree of maladaptation of architecture relative to society. This maladaptation might surface via the increasing lack of acceptance or sense of inappropriateness of established architectural solutions. New societal processes confront the discipline and profession as programmatic challenges that have not been anticipated by the established canon. The attempt to address such new functional demands often leads to violations of the canon. For instance, the super-deep volumes desired by supermarkets (and made possible by mechanical air-conditioning systems) implied the violation of the established preferences and principles of high Modernism. Such programmes subvert the slender proportions of Classical Modernism as well as the Modernist principle of treating the facade as the articulation of the interior organization. This kind of maladaptation of principles and aesthetic values often becomes manifest in the form of client-driven, quasi-vernacular designs or even via ad hoc adaptations initiated by the direct users. Such phenomena emerge outside the discipline, and are registered by the mainstream segment of the profession that faces pressure from the clients and users. Established solutions start to lose

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Architecture without Architects 58 or Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas 59 are celebrated examples. The very act of publication implies the claim that the presented work is worthy of attention. The vernacular world loses its anonymity – it appropriates the name of its promoter as quasi-author acting as the necessary reference to circulate within the discourse. The published architecture is (or at least should be and claims to be) marked by innovation. This applies as much to Rudofsky and Venturi as it does to Tschumi and Eisenman. Published architecture always implies an ambition to act in the name of architecture, and always claims the mantle of contributing to the innovation of architecture. The territory of architecture is obviously contested ground, a battlefield of conflicting stakes. The most intense battles are fought within and around the avant-garde.

out against the competition from unorthodox outsiders. Orthodoxy can no longer survive in this segment of the market. In order for architecture to reclaim its position and to uphold its claim towards universal competency, it has to adapt by expanding its repertoire and modifying its principles, methods and values. There is a second kind of maladaptation that is initially being registered by the mainstream: the maladaptation of the established design repertoire relative to the technological means that the science and technology of society bring forth and that might potentially be made available to the discipline of architecture. Here the maladaptation consists in the inability of an established architectural canon to fully utilize new technological potentials: new building services, new construction technologies or new design technologies. These contradictions between the actual and the potential might be brought out via thought experiments, or via developments in neighbouring fields. The inability of Neo-Classical architecture to exploit the advances in glass, steel and reinforced concrete technologies at the end of the 19th century might serve as example here. The way forward was pointed to by engineering structures that had been created outside the domain of architecture. But these structures existed for half a century without impacting architecture. Thus a latent contradiction had been building up during the 19th century, a contradiction between the technological construction potentials of the industrial age and the academic architectural canon that had thus become a hindrance to the further development of industrial civilization. Only the conscious and radical challenge that was launched from within architecture – via the formation of a radical avant-garde movement – made this contradiction manifest and could effect the rapid transformation of the discipline. The transformation was rapid and radical because the potentials had been building up for half a century. A conscious transformation was necessary to allow the new technologies to be finally exploited towards new effects. This conscious break with the past also reset the discipline upon a path that afforded the adaptation to the progressive societal changes that marked the early decades of the 20th century. It was during this period that the latent distinction between avant-garde and mainstream became manifest in a series of radical manifestos. These manifestos proclaimed to adapt architecture to the new Zeitgeist by taking up both the technological and social/programmatic challenges of the new industrial society. The avant-garde is sometimes stirred by major societal events – like the breakdown and reconstruction of the social order after the First World 108

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War that set the scene for the 1920s’ avant-garde activity. The architectural polemic of its manifesto programmes related to the maladaptedness of the established canon of mainstream architecture relative to the contemporaneous societal and technological challenges. However, social upheavals are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to initiate a new cycle of intensified avant-garde activity. The end of the Second World War did not lead to a significant reformulation of architectural manifestos – the programme developed during the 1920s was still seen to be pertinent. On the other hand, the emergence of the Postmodernist avant-garde and the demise of the Modernist paradigm are not related to any obvious societal upheaval that would be comparable to the post-First World War social revolutions, although a significant societal transition can still be detected: the economic stagnation of the 1970s and the transition from the Fordist to a post-Fordist industrial system. This process is not marked by an obvious caesura, but many significant facets did interlock to produce a whole new pattern of socio-economic reproduction. The avant-garde is stirred to the extent to which the maladaptedness of the established ‘state of the art’ architectural responses becomes discernible. We can assume that mainstream practitioners try their best to address societal concerns as much as their ‘state of the art’ procedures afford this. To go beyond these confines requires to probe, question and ultimately challenge the prevailing paradigm. This is precisely what we denote as ‘avant-garde’: the bold, explorative attempt to go beyond the paradigmatic premises, methods and values that are the unquestioned bedrock of regular, established practice. The well-established practitioners are usually the last to give up their procedures. The mainstream responds to an impasse by unprincipled ad hoc deviations. The systematic, revolutionary work is instead carried out by a new generation. Established practices might in the end follow suit, after the first creative destruction and the explorative research have led to the formulation of new premises, new methods and new values that start to coalesce into a new paradigm for the discipline. However, the new paradigm convinces the mainstream only after the new paradigmatic solutions have been demonstrated by exemplary projects. And it is such exemplary projects that are the most powerful vehicles for the dissemination of the avant-garde achievements, first to the early adopters and later to the profession at large. This dissemination takes time, and the new paradigm is at first adopted in a superficial manner – and its fundamental incompatibility with the older paradigm is therefore not always fully appreciated.

2.3.5 THE TIME STRUCTURE OF THE AVANT-GARDE PROCESS: CUMULATIVE VS REVOLUTIONARY PERIODS The new paradigm emerges first within the dense communication network of the avant-garde and has to improve, convince and succeed in forging a relatively solid front here first before it can enter into open conflict with the stakeholders of the mainstream paradigm. The collective resources of the avant-garde segment have to be focused first on a collective research endeavour that allows the first radical intuitions to be developed and tested before there can be a chance to challenge the established solutions. Many competitions must be won and significant commissions secured by the avant-gardists and the early adopters before the transmission into the mainstream can gain ground and before the final reorientation of mainstream practice can be effected. This process follows a certain time-rhythm akin to cycles of innovation. The extended and structured process that can be observed bears witness to the difficulty of meeting and integrating many demanding conditions. The process is structured as follows: there is an internal, time-based differentiation of the avant-garde process into two distinct phases. This two-phased structure of the avant-garde can be understood in analogy to the typical pattern of progress in the sciences. The cycles of innovation we can observe within the architectural avant-garde are analogous to the logic of scientific progress, as analyzed by Thomas Kuhn.60 Kuhn offers a primary concept and a primary distinction, both well-suited to further our understanding of the way the work of the architectural avant-garde is structured. The primary concept that can be appropriated from Kuhn’s analysis is the concept of a scientific paradigm; the primary distinction is the distinction between ‘normal science’ and ‘revolutionary science’ as alternating periods of scientific discourse with rather distinct features. Kuhn rejects a cumulative conception of progress for the overall trajectory of a science. While allowing cumulative progress during periods of ‘normal science’, Kuhn insists that such periods of accumulation must be interrupted by revolutionary periods during which the system of the discipline’s knowledge is dismantled and reconstructed on radically new foundations, before a new period of incremental, cumulative innovations can take off. The seminal works of Copernicus, Newton and Einstein mark such revolutionary moments that radically break with what went before and that establish new lasting traditions on the basis of a new paradigm. The term ‘paradigm’ denotes a new and 60 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 1962, second enlarged edition, 1970. 110

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compelling scientific achievement that serves as prime model for a whole forthcoming period of scientific work. The term also denotes the more or less implicit framework in terms of basic categories, methods and standards that are encapsulated in the paradigmatic achievement. Paradigms set up both the problems posed and the legitimate means by which these problems might be solved. According to Kuhn, normal science is essentially a puzzle solving activity guided by the rules of the game set up by a well-established paradigm. In contrast, revolutionary science transgresses the given rules of the game, because the scientists have lost the confidence that there is a solution to the puzzles posed. The mounting crisis of the paradigm engenders a suspension of the normal problem solving activity. Instead scientists wonder if the problems the paradigm states can be solved at all, or whether the problems of the field in question have to be altogether restated. Normal science discontinues and is replaced by extraordinary, revolutionary science, with a rather different pattern of communication. Revolutionary science operates under the condition of paradigm crisis. The foundations of research have become uncertain. New candidate paradigms are emerging and compete with each other for hegemony. Normal science can be resumed after one of the candidate paradigms succeeds in winning the contest for hegemony. The whole episode is referred to as a paradigm shift. One might have presumed that Kuhn’s distinction of revolutionary vs normal science maps onto our distinction of architectural avant-garde vs mainstream. However, this would imply that the avant-garde is a temporary phenomenon that emerges only when the mainstream procedures experience a crisis. This is not the case. The avant-garde segment is a permanent subsystem within the overall autopoiesis of architecture. Also, there is the basic practical barrier that prevents the mapping of the time structure of science onto architecture as a whole: if the overall discipline were to move into the revolutionary mode, suspending normal, mainstream work, who would uphold the necessary level of architectural provision that is required to sustain the ongoing societal process? Avant-garde and mainstream must operate in parallel. As indicated above, the distinction of avant-garde vs mainstream might rather be mapped onto the distinction of science vs technology, whereby technology is understood as the application of the results of science. Here too we find a parallel effort. When science goes into crisis and revolution, technology continues to apply the science of the preceding paradigm, just as mainstream architecture must continue on the basis of the established best practice while the avant-garde proclaims its crisis and suspends the existing paradigm.

Once we map science vs technology onto avant-garde vs mainstream, the architectural analogy of the distinction internal to science – revolutionary vs normal science – can then be identified within the avant-garde segment, distinguishing periods of revolutionary avant-garde from periods of cumulative avant-garde work. During revolutionary periods we witness paradigm destruction and paradigm formation. These periods are marked by schisms and the flourishing of many ‘isms’. Only after a new paradigm succeeds in establishing the hegemony of a more or less uniform framework is the avant-garde work concerned with working through the innovative potential of the new paradigm, focusing – with attention to detail – on the specific problems posed by the new, hegemonic paradigm. The avant-garde goes through cycles of innovation that imply the periodic alternation between periods where avant-garde practice becomes revolutionary and periods where the work of innovation builds up in a cumulative manner. During such cumulative periods the avant-garde designers are eager to solve problem after problem posed by the new paradigm. For instance, after the current paradigm of Parametricism had been firmly established within the contemporary avant-garde in the late 1990s (long before the label was coined), the discourse shifted from paradigm formation to a series of specific problems such as the programmatic potential of the new formal repertoires, or their structural implications, as well as specific issues concerning envelope tessellation, the integration of apertures and more general issues of geometric control, and how fabrication methods could be addressed and fed back into the design process as generative constraints etc. Kuhn has characterized the ‘normal scientist’ as ‘puzzle-solver’. The same might be said of the cumulative avant-garde designer. Kuhn’s insightful account of the history of science offers another generalization that allows for the analogical transference to the case of avant-garde architecture. While periods of normal science are marked by a productive consensus around a hegemonic paradigm that coheres the individual endeavours into something that comes close to the concerted efforts of a single collective enterprise, extraordinary periods of crisis and revolution are marked by the disintegration of consensus and the proliferation of often incompatible, sometimes even incommensurable, schools of thought. Such periods where multiple proto-paradigms are competing until a compelling new paradigm gains supremacy can be recurrently observed during the last 100 years of architectural history. The most obvious case is the dissolution of the Historicist paradigm that led to a period of fluctuation and fragmentation – Art Nouveau, 112

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61 My proposal is to call this new paradigm the parametric paradigm, and the new style it sponsors Parametricism. 62 When this might happen – in 10, 20 or in 50 years – is impossible to predict. Paradigm shifts can be triggered by one of the following two types of event: a radical transformation in architecture’s problem space, ie, due to the socio-economic restructuring of society, or a radical transformation in architecture’s solution space, ie, a technological revolution affecting architecture’s means of design and/or construction.

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neo-Neo-Classicism, Expressionism, Neo-Vernacular, Proto-Modernism – before Modernism (‘Moderne Architektur’ or ‘Neues Bauen’) established a powerful new paradigm via theoretical manifestos and compelling paradigmatic examples. This new paradigm had gained hegemony in the early 1920s and laid the basis for a 40–50 year period of cumulative innovation. Critical questions started to be asked in the second half of the 1960s, intensifying towards the end of the ’60s, reaching crisis point in the early 1970s. This period saw the proliferation of diverse tendencies from Metabolism and Bowellism to Neo-Rationalism and Postmodernism. Postmodernism soon succeeded in reintegrating the majority of the avant-garde under its banner. However this integration of forces proved unstable. Postmodernism was soon challenged from two opposing directions: Deconstructivism and Minimalism. While Minimalism might be understood as undialectical backlash, Deconstructivism distilled and pushed the essential innovations that Postmodernism had introduced through the creative exploitation of historical sources. Deconstructivism stripped the historical guise from these innovations and radicalized them as explicit new principles of organization and articulation: fragmentation, collage, superposition, interpenetration and distortion. While Deconstructivism presented these innovations in a posture of radical, oppositional challenge, presenting itself as a kind of anti-architecture, the current avant-garde has been able to elaborate, systematize and augment the discoveries of Postmodernism and Deconstructivism into a fully fledged positive paradigm – gaining hegemony not least because of its creative and compelling utilization of advanced computing. This new paradigm61 has been advancing steadily for over 10 years and might very well afford a further substantial period of cumulative avant-garde work. It seems fertile and robust and could be rather long lasting. Eventually it will go into crisis like all prior paradigms.62 In architecture the main reason why periods of cumulative avant-garde work and its mainstream application can only be temporary is easily identified with the societal changes that ensure that premises, procedures and model solutions become maladaptive and thus dysfunctional. This kind of obsolescence is paralleled by the social

sciences that are forced to adapt to the changing societal environment in order to remain relevant and productive. But the distinction between normal and revolutionary science also exists in the natural sciences where the underlying object of research – nature – is immutable. Therefore there must be a more subtle logic at work that exhausts a paradigm even without the slippage of external relevance. This internal logic might also be a factor in the rhythm by which the avant-garde moves between periods of revolutionary vs cumulative work. In order to understand why any period of normal science can only be temporary – even in the case of the sciences exploring immutable nature – we have to grasp that any paradigmatic framework entails an enormous restriction of both agenda and toolbox. This restriction is necessary to gain sufficient focus to reach the level of detail and precision required to control nature in an effective way. This, however, also implies that under the condition of this kind of focused tunnel vision and with such a necessarily restricted toolbox of intervention, only small areas and specific aspects of the world can be controlled. As normal science accumulates results and probes deeper in this singular direction it sooner or later will have exhausted the paradigm’s perspective and toolbox. Then efforts towards further accumulation in this avenue are bound to falter. The same occurs with architectural paradigms with their conceptual framework, paradigmatic models, validated procedures and standards. As will be argued and elaborated below – in section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes – within architecture the succession of paradigms can be identified with the succession of architectural styles. Styles indeed display the tendency to develop and intensify their inherent logics and salient features to the point of exhaustion, the point when all the major problems of development and application that were posed at the beginning of the new style have been achieved and exhausted and further tasks for creative resolution within the style in question are becoming rare. Once this point of problem saturation has been reached, stylistic features tend to be pushed to unproductive extremes. With all obvious and straightforward tasks having been solved by cumulative avant-garde work, any further tasks that might be found might lead the style into crisis, even assuming that the societal environment has remained stable during the period. Within architecture the effect of shifts in the problem field imposed by the external societal environment and the effect of internal exhaustion of a style’s problem field are often superimposed in the emergence of a crisis that then initiates a period of revolutionary work. Avant-garde architecture shares this feature with the social sciences. 114

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2.3.6 CONCRETE EXEMPLARS VS ABSTRACT PRINCIPLES It is interesting to note another parallel between science and avant-garde architecture, namely that paradigms often emerge via individual breakthrough works. Paradigms are ushered in from periods of crisis. Normal science is unsettled by the competitive challenge from new approaches. The new (potential) paradigm emerges in the shape of a compelling achievement that clarifies the disputes and that draws more and more followers in its wake. Thus emerging paradigms are cohering a new tradition of research by means of (small sets of) model achievements to be emulated rather than via explicitly stated systems of categorical, methodological and evaluative premises. Both normal science and cumulative avant-garde architecture draw their lessons from such master-achievements and proceed via intuitive mimesis rather than full critical rationalization. As Kuhn stresses, a full explication of the paradigm in terms of explicit assumptions, rules and criteria might not even be possible in the case of scientific paradigms enshrined in key works like, for example, Newton’s Principia. If a comprehensive explication of a scientific paradigm seems an unrealistic expectation, even in the exact sciences, we should all the more abstain from demanding that the architectural paradigms that are enshrined in a set of seminal masterpieces are always fully translatable into a series of explicit rules and criteria that could be taught without pointing to the paradigmatic exemplars. For instance: the Modernist paradigm is enshrined in, among others, Corb’s Villa Savoye, Gropius’s design for the Dessau Bauhaus, and Mies’s Barcelona Pavilion. Later, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson’s ‘International Style’ provided a descriptive theory of the respective paradigm or style. Their attempt to abstract its primary features and qualities into a set of principles and criteria was helpful. Explicit canonization helps the discipline both to disseminate its achievements as well as to further advance its achievements. Explicit claims invite criticism and thus the potential for further progress. The white Modernism advanced within the ‘International Style’ was soon enriched by the subsidiary style of Brutalism. Theoretical explication is indeed as much a powerful tool of further progress as it is a powerful supplement for eager practitioners to gain full and coherent mastery over the style in question. Learning by imitation with an eye towards the exemplars is as necessary for the architectural novice as it is for the scientific novice. Both learn from the example in action. It is not possible to instruct the novice by abstracted principles only.

That is why architectural books rarely construct their discourse with words only, but nearly always forge close alliances between text and image. As evidence for this tendency we might stay with the example of Modernism. In both Le Corbusier’s seminal theoretical manifesto at the beginning of Modernism in 1923,63 and in Hitchcock and Johnson’s famous summary account of Modernism nearly a decade later,64 the number of images exceeds the number of pages. In both cases the reader is guided to read the images via instructive descriptions and theoretical notions that are embedded in the short texts that annotate the images. In the case of early manifestos that are formulated before an impressive body of exemplars can be displayed, analogies often stand in for exemplars. (Guiding analogies are also a fundamental ingredient in any scientific paradigm.) In the case of Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture, most images are dedicated to such analogical exemplars – such as ships, aeroplanes, limousines and turbines – although an initial set of compelling architectural designs is also included. But these examples are restricted to villas, and therefore leave a lot to be extrapolated to fulfil the universal claim of Modernist architecture. The architectural avant-garde structures its cumulative research periods by means of a combination of productive analogies, paradigmatic exemplars and abstract principles. These analogies, exemplars and principles mutually constrain each other as steering devices for further innovative work. As example for an abstract steering principle we might cite the Modernist approach of working from the inside out. In Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture, this abstract principle is augmented by a rather prescient analogy that opens many avenues for future interpretation: ‘A plan proceeds from within to without. A building is like a soap bubble . . . regulated from the inside. The exterior is the result of an interior.’65 We have to be careful to distinguish the abstract principles that guide contemporary avant-garde work from the kind of rules that had stabilized the traditional styles of architecture. In contrast to the rules of Classical architecture, both Modern and contemporary abstract principles are like heuristic guidelines, open to many as yet unexplored interpretations. 63 Le Corbusier, Towards A New Architecture, John Rodker Publisher (London ),1931, Dover Publications (New York), 1986, French original: Vers une Architecture, Editions Cr`es (Paris) 1923. 64 Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style, Museum of Modern Art (New York ),1932. 65 Le Corbusier, Towards A New Architecture, John Rodker Publisher (London), 1931, Dover Publications (New York), 1986, French original: Vers une Architecture, Editions Cr`es (Paris 1923), p 181. 116

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66 Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1932, p 63. 67 Claude Perrault, Ordonnance for Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients (French original: Ordonnance des cinq especes ` de colonnes selon la methode ´ des anciens, 1683), Getty Center

(Santa Monica, CA), 1993.

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Hitchcock and Johnson state this contrast explicitly: ‘Rigid rules of design are easily broken once and for all; elastic principles of architecture grow and flourish.’66 Formalized rules leave little room for creative interpretation, like the minutely described system of ‘the orders’ that characterizes Classical architecture. An example of the formalization of these rules is Claude Perrault’s painstakingly detailed Ordonnance 67 from 1683. At no time did these rules formalize more than partial aspects of architecture – they were never able to formalize the full range of possibilities that were encompassed within the architectural repertoire of the style (Classicism) in question. Similarily, specific scientific theories can sometimes reach a very high level of mathematical formalization. However, these formalized theories can never represent the whole paradigm, by which we mean to denote the total network of expert communication in which the specifically formalized theory is embedded and from which it gains its meaning. Full formalization of particular theories is useful, especially as it often facilitates technological application, but it does not extend to the principles and criteria that structure the path for further research. In the same way we might have to limit the scope of those who claim to give a full formalization of an architectural paradigm or style via so-called shape grammars. While these efforts are very instructive and can go a long way to operationalize a certain formal idiom, an idiom can never be more than one component within a style. We would like to reserve the notion of style for the encompassing paradigm or – as we will elaborate in Section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes – for the encompassing research programme in which the particular formalized idioms are deployed and interpreted. We might presume – although this is not very likely – that the universe of possibilities that is encoded within the shape grammar fully coincides with the sample set that is currently considered to instantiate the style. However, this is no justification for expecting that the grammar thereby encodes the future development of a style that is still active within the avant-garde segment. Formalization is inherently limited inasmuch as styles are principally open-ended research programmes that are set out to expand the range of successful instantiations of the style. Full formalization is only achieved if the totality of possible instantiations has

been captured. This is only possible with dead styles that no longer progress. In the hands of creative designers, however, shape grammars, understood as invitation to mutate (rather than to reconstruct) and to proliferate evolving series of such grammars by manipulating the underlying codes, are becoming a powerful design tool for avant-garde design research. Within a parametric set up, and in the context of working in expansive series, formalization transmutes from a conservative stabilizing force into an engine of invention. But even under these circumstances, such generative formalization is never more than one component in a network of discursive devices that also includes abstract principles, paradigmatic exemplars and productive analogies. With respect to the application into the mainstream, a closed set of exemplars and a fully formalized system of rules are only equivalent in theory. The direct imitation of key exemplars is the actual mechanism by which the mainstream translates the achievements of the avant-garde. The rather poor awareness of the relevant abstract principles implies that such imitations are often going wrong, overlooking aspects and values that are upheld within the avant-garde segment. In avant-garde work, the difference between cumulative and revolutionary periods is reflected in the relative importance of exemplars and abstract principles. During cumulative periods, paradigmatic exemplars and guiding analogies guide the innovative design work. During revolutionary periods, abstract principles become the focus of debate. When the paradigmatic exemplars have been guiding and inspiring innovative work for some time and are no longer giving sufficient clues for the next wave of innovation, the paradigmatic sample set might be expanded by more recent achievements, inviting the extrapolation of the new aspects discovered in the latest exemplars. This is still cumulative design research within an evolving, overarching style. This happened to Modernism during the 1950s when the repertoire was expanded by a richer material palette and a more complex geometry. The style was no longer constrained to orthogonality and admitted multiple angles and curvature. A new set of paradigmatic achievements was moved into the foreground. This development, however, was still covered by the same abstract principles of Modernism: among others, to be true to material and construction and to work from the inside out. In fact, Le Corbusier was still the leading figure and the new key protagonists such as Scharoun and Niemeyer had also been around since the 1920s and 1930s respectively. To a certain extent the work of the 1950s represents a radicalization of the Modernist tendency that was enshrined and formulated in abstract principles very early on. We might quote from Adolf Behne’s seminal book The Modern Functional Building which was 118

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68 Adolf Behne, The Modern Functional Building (German original Der Moderne Zweckbau, 1926), Getty Research Institute (Santa Monica, CA), 1996, p 121. 69 Ibid, p 120.

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written in 1923 (first published in 1926). Behne explicates the attitude and formal consequences of ‘pure functionalism’ as follows: ‘The flow of organic life knows no right angles and no straight lines . . . Straight lines will always resist the ultimate adaptation to functional mobility . . . Thus the consistent functionalist has to take curves rather than straight lines as his starting point, as Hans Scharoun does . . .’.68 Scharoun’s work in particular, and complex geometry in general, remained marginal during the 1920s and 1930s. The more abstract principle which Behne formulated in a paragraph preceding the above quote covers both the dominant version of Modernism during the 1920s and 1930s and the Modernism of Scharoun that would become dominant during the 1950s: ‘Architecture is no more than a fixed and visible structure of the final organization of every movement, every occupation, every purpose and use of the building.’69 However, at the moment when the Modernist paradigm went into crisis at the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s, it was precisely and explicitly this general principle that was questioned and – along with all the other principles that characterize Modernism – ultimately rejected. The 1970s were marked by controversial debates that cut to the very foundations of the discipline. Theoretical journals such as Oppositions bear witness to this. The discipline’s avant-garde segment that had been unified under the banner of ‘Modern Architecture’ was now fragmenting into competing avant-gardist camps. The Architectural Association School of Architecture of the late 1960s and early 1970s also bears witness to this: Archigram, Metabolists, Participationists (‘Architecture without Architects’), defenders of everyday vernacular (‘Mainstreet is Almost Alright’), Structuralists, the Neo-Rationalists, Neo-Corbusian Formalists, and early Neo-Classicists, all fought for the banner of architecture. Some of these groups were still defending the principles of Modernism, but in diverging and incompatible ways. Others violently attacked those principles as the fall from grace of architecture. Yet others undermined the very possibility of architecture as specialist discipline. The situation was structurally akin to the deep questioning of Classical architecture during the first two decades of the 20th century. This divergence of competing trends was seemingly halted temporarily by a decade of Postmodernist hegemony (1975–85). In the background the struggles kept brooding. Postmodernism soon split into two branches, a historically oriented branch that quickly moved into the mainstream and

an experimental branch that evolved to emerge under the banner of Deconstructivism. Deconstructivism was soon challenged by Minimalism. Thus the situation within the architectural avant-garde remained unresolved. It was only in the mid-1990s that a new convergence was starting to form within the architectural avant-garde: Parametricism.70 2.3.7 REVOLUTION AND PHILOSOPHY Deep debate and fragmentation into camps are the typical, recurring features that characterize the revolutionary avant-garde in contrast to the cumulative periods where the avant-garde is unified under a hegemonic paradigm and where work progresses on the basis of principles that do not need to be argued for over and over again. Both these features – deep debate about the foundations of the discipline and fragmentation into competing schools – are also observed during the revolutionary periods in the development of scientific disciplines. While both normal science and cumulative avant-garde work need only a minimum of stated principles that accompany the application of the paradigm – modelled on exemplary achievements – during revolutionary periods probing questions are voiced and a debate ensues in which many hitherto unquestioned premises are critically investigated. Hidden assumptions are teased out and made explicit to become reference points for radical attack. The debate becomes philosophical and professional philosophers are drawn into the debate. In architecture the reception of philosophy within the architectural avant-garde discourse has been an ongoing feature since the crisis of Modernism in the late 1960s. Authors who were influential during the 1970s (and 1980s) include, among others, Karl Marx, Friedrich ´ Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Georg Lukacs, Georg Simmel, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ´ Claude Levi-Strauss, Noam Chomsky, Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Bataille, Henri Lefebvre, Jean Baudrillard, ´ Guattari and Gilles Deleuze. Paul Virilio, Jacques Derrida, Pierre-Felix The intensified reception of philosophy can be regarded as a definite sign that the avant-garde has entered a revolutionary period. The revolution in question is an architectural revolution with its own internal themes that cannot simply be attributed to the 1968 student revolution. The student revolution certainly produced a strong perturbation and interruption of routine academic work, but it was itself a registration of underlying 70 What we now call Parametricism first emerged under the label of ‘Folding’ as a radical mutation in the Deconstructivist strand. 120

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71 Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Academy Editions (London), 1976. 72 This is not the place to discuss these radical ideas – here we are merely concerned to demonstrate how philosophical reflection periodically ascends and recedes in line with the rhythm of revolutionary and cumulative periods of avant-garde work.

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societal transformations that had to be worked through in each of the function systems in its own way. In the second half of the 1970s, the avant-garde started to cohere around a new paradigm that became dominant and sponsored a decade of cumulative work under the banner of Post-Modernity. Charles Jencks’ The Language of Post-Modern Architecture71 announced the final fall of Modernism and gave a name to the new tendency that was now assuming hegemony within the avant-garde and was soon conquering the mainstream too, managing to change the face of most Western cities during the 1980s. While the 1980s were dominated by Postmodernism, a significant counter-current was still operating within the avant-garde segment, refusing to shift to a cumulative mode of innovation and continuing the deep discussions of the 1970s, and driving them to rather different conclusions. Within these resistant discourses philosophy became even more prominent than it had been during the 1970s, not least because this discourse managed to draw Jacques Derrida – the decade’s most seminal philosopher – into its ambit and even into architectural collaborations. Derrida’s central notion ‘deconstruction’ inspired the label that served to cohere the voices that resisted the Postmodernist hegemony: Deconstructivism. Deconstructivism launched a radical critique of architecture’s most deeply held assumptions about its task of sponsoring order and offering efficient functionality.72 Deconstructivism burst on the scene via a show at New York’s MOMA in 1988, curated by the architect Philip Johnson who had already co-curated the seminal 1932 MOMA show ‘The International Style’ that launched Modernism in the USA. In 1932 Johnson had co-curated the show with the architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock. In 1988 he co-curated the Deconstructivism show with the architectural theorist Mark Wigley. The show managed to shift the centre of gravity within the avant-garde segment of architecture, and Deconstructivism soon became the new hegemonic avant-garde agenda after a short period of intensified philosophical debate. The exhibition presented exemplary projects from seven protagonists. Two of these had been in direct collaboration with Derrida. The selected set of projects served as paradigm achievements that showed the new approach, principles and repertoire at work, lifted up for imitation and cumulative extrapolation.

However, during the period of Deconstructivist hegemony another philosopher gained prominence within the avant-garde system of communications: Gilles Deleuze. His A Thousand Plateaus 73 – ´ Guattari – became the dominant philosophical co-authored with Felix reference point and a nearly inexhaustible source domain for conceptual transferences into the architectural avant-garde during most of the 1990s, directly involving philosophers like Brian Massumi and Manuel DeLanda. Another of Deleuze’s books – The Fold – lent its name to the most recent avant-garde movement that replaced Deconstructivism in the early 1990s. The decisive moment was the publication of ‘Folding in Architecture’ in the influential AD (Architectural Design) in 1993, guest-edited by Greg Lynn and containing theoretical manifesto statements by Lynn and Jeff Kipnis, as well as a new set of key projects that could serve as an initial set of paradigmatic exemplars. These exemplars were not completed buildings but rather abstract sketch designs that left a whole host of unanswered questions open for future exploration. During the next few years rather general theoretical reflections and statements flourished. But architecture cannot afford to remain engrossed in deep philosophical debate. Philosophy recedes after it has contributed to the formation of a new paradigm. Soon these theoretical debates and pronouncements started to wane and instead avant-garde work focused on the concrete implications and design problems posed by the new approach – namely how the new complex, folded surface geometries might be interpreted functionally and how they might be translated in terms of adequate structural and tectonic systems. The new tendency gained hegemony in the second half of the 1990s. The avant-garde had thus assured itself with respect to the overall direction in terms of general principles and values. Now the concentration upon details, and even esoteric technical issues started to dominate. The avant-garde had once more established a hegemonic tendency that allowed for the shift from revolutionary debate to the cumulative work on effective innovation. This period is still ongoing without any sign of losing momentum. In fact, we can now speak about the formation of a new style: Parametricism. It is important to appreciate the logic and rationality of this developmental rhythm. The progress of the architectural avant-garde alternates between revolutionary and cumulative periods. Understanding this developmental rhythm is important in order to moderate the temptation to criticize the ongoing discourse as being either too 73 Gilles Deleuze & F´elix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis), 1987, French original: Mille Plateaux, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1980. 122

74 See below: part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture.

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2.3.8 LATENT UTOPIAS VS THE UTOPIAN AMBITIONS OF THE HISTORICAL AVANT-GARDE Innovation has been the constitutive moment and defining task of architecture as discipline ever since its conscious inception in the Renaissance.74 Since then, all great architects have been radical innovators. Architecture observes itself historically. Effective architectural historiography, as inside communication and part of the autopoiesis of

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general/pretentious (during revolutionary periods) or too narrow/shallow (during cumulative periods). The avant-garde discourse must alternate between pretentious and shallow periods. The autopoiesis of architecture encompasses the full spectrum of communications that fly the banner of ‘architecture’ and that follow the lead-distinction, the codes, the methods and the values of the discipline. However, the theory of architectural autopoiesis emphasizes the distinction of avant-garde and mainstream understood as a productive polarization within an otherwise continuous spectrum of communications. This polarization facilitates an effective division of labour between the conception and the implementation of cycles of innovation. The distinction between avant-garde and mainstream – often in the guise of the distinction between the (high) art of architecture and (debased) commercial architecture – has long since been constitutive for the self-image of the architect. This logic cannot be overcome by fiat: the Dutch (OMA, MVRDV, NL-Architects) attempt to embrace banality from within the avant-garde discourse failed to collapse this distinction. This was to be expected. This distinction has to be maintained. It represents a division of labour that makes sense with respect to the promotion of the spatial aspects of the societal development: efforts at innovation require a different set up, procedures and values than do efforts at mere efficient reproduction. The theory of architectural autopoiesis theorizes this differentiation as the necessary differentiation of the evolutionary mechanisms: variation, selection and re-stabilization. The avant-garde provides the initiating moment of variation as well as a first cycle of selection. Thus the avant-garde is placed in a privileged position, and might be regarded as the active mainspring of the autopoiesis of architecture. This rather small segment of avant-garde production is taken to define the essential character of the discipline and its practitioners define the role model of the ‘creative architect’.

architecture, is the sequence of architectural innovations, observed, ordered and conceptualized by partisan architectural historians. What is recognized as architecture is marked by radical innovation and theoretical argument. Mere building (ie, the vernacular, and low-grade commercial architecture) relies on the repetition of well proven solutions taken for granted. Innovation questions the way things are done and requires an argument which transcends the mere concerns and competencies of building. Innovation requires theory. This ultimately involves conceptions of the good life and the good society. Great architecture and ambitious architectural theory relates architectural progress to social progress. Theory might thus offer an implicit utopia. Implicit as well as explicit utopian ambitions were on the agenda of the historical avant-garde during the first third of the 20th century. It was the ´ ´ so-called French Revolutionary Architecture75 of Etienne-Louis Boullee and Claude-Nicholas Ledoux at the end of the 18th century that first ´ injected a sense of utopian fervour into architecture. Boullee’s grand designs had the status of a utopian promise rather than presenting designs meant for imminent construction. The early 20th century brought another flourishing of utopian aspirations within architecture, starting with the exuberance of Futurism, and with the exalted, utopian ¨ Expressionism of ‘Alpine Architecture’, ‘Fruhlicht’, and the utopian ¨ correspondence of the ‘Glaserne Kette’ (Glass Chain) involving the Taut brothers, Hermann Finsterlin, Hans Scharoun, the Luckhardt brothers and Walter Gropius. The Modernism of the early 1920s settled for a more sober outlook. Architecture was aligning itself with the new democracies that had been established in the aftermath of the First World War. There was an enormous sense of optimism, of commencing a great new era. The utopian visions of this period had a more immediate sense of pushing into reality. As examples one might cite Le Corbusier’s 1922 theoretical project ‘Ville Contemporaine’. Le Corbusier continued with his ‘Plan Voisin’ for Paris in 1925, and his great urban schemes for Rio de Janeiro and Algiers in the early 1930s. The young Soviet Union inspired a veritable avalanche of avant-gardist utopian projects. With respect to the USA we can point to Frank Lloyd Wright’s concept ‘Broadacre City’.76 Today utopian speculation is rather dubious. In recent years the very notion of progress and the ambition to project a different future has come to be regarded as suspect. There is a justified scepticism with respect to 75 See: Emil Kaufmann, Three Revolutionary Architects – Boullee, ´ Ledoux and Lequeu, American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia), 1952, also: Emil Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier – Ursprung und Entwicklung der autonomen Architektur, Rolf Passer (Leipzig-Vienna), 1933. 76 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Disappearing City, WF Payson (New York), 1932. 124

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77 Horst WJ Rittel & Melvin M Webber, ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155–69. 78 Ibid, 155–69.

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our ability to outline a convincing blueprint for the future. Utopian thinking now seems naive, even dangerous hubris. Contemporary society is too heterogeneous and too complex and dynamic for a far-reaching single vision to be credible today. Architecture as a discipline and discourse is faced with a large number of shifting variables and conflicting interests. All future orientation and all long-term planning efforts, including urban and architectural blueprints, are facing an insurmountable complexity barrier. The complexity of the situation precludes straightforward goal orientation. Therefore politically utopian manifestos have lost their credibility and disappeared. Instead we might talk about latent utopias that are implicit in the potential of contemporary avant-garde design work. During the era of Fordist mass production a homogeneous mass society developed in which lifestyles, values, beliefs and aims were universally shared. This homogenizing tendency lasted all through the first half of the 20th century. By the late 1960s and early 1970s it was evident that the process had turned around. Since then most advanced societies are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. As planning theorist Horst Rittel observed at the time, society was becoming increasingly differentiated, ‘comprising thousands of minority groups, each joined around common interests, common value systems, and shared stylistic preferences that differ from those of other groups. As the sheer volume of information and knowledge increases, as technological developments further expand the range of options, and as awareness of the liberty to deviate and differentiate spreads, more variations are possible.’77 Rittel goes on to ask the pertinent question: ‘How are goals to be set, when the valuative bases are so diverse? Surely a unitary conception of a unitary “public welfare” is an anachronistic one . . . There is no aggregate measure for the welfare of a highly diversified society’.78 The difficulty in formulating a positive, unitary concept of social welfare undermines the credibility of all utopian speculation. Consequently, during the last 20–25 years the discourse of the architectural avant-garde has been driven by the principle of negativity. Concepts like de-construction, dis-location, de-coding and de-territorialization have dominated the scene. Apparently ‘positive’ key concepts like plurality, multiplicity, heterogeneity and virtuality are defined in opposition to the key concepts of modernity and signal the end of universality, of predictability and of any notion of a (future) ideal order.

Architectural experimentation had to leap into the dark, hoping that at least some segments of its multiplicitous audience might cross architecture’s browsing trajectory and eventually give social meaning to the formal experiments. Risks have to be taken. Obviously, architecture – armed with architectural theory – tries to aim in the right direction. Current experimental work focuses on issues of organizational complexity (layering, interpenetration of domains), the production of diversity (iteration vs repetition), the spatial recognition of fuzzy social logics (smooth vs striated space), ways of coping with uncertainty (virtuality vs actuality), and engagement with new production technologies (file to factory) etc. Thus architecture is trying to take aim at what seem like relevant targets in its societal environment. However, the resulting manifestos remain precarious, and are often based on retrospective discoveries rather than prospective visions. Utopia is latent within the roughly aimed stray trajectories of architectural speculation, but only to the extent to which they cross the path of the projectiles that come from the other domains of social communication. Classical modern rationality would demand that new form should be derived from new function. The limit of this procedure is given with the formal a priori of any question/solution, ie, the limits of the given/current space of formal possibilities within which the functional solution is searched and selected. This poses the question of expanding the formal universe. This might be done ‘strategically’ by means of transforming and recombining certain already well tested tropes and patterns. But ultimately the expansion of formal repertoires is a non-linear matter beyond calculation and narrow goal-orientation. There might be solution spaces, which can only be tapped into by resorting to the mechanism of ‘random’ mutations to open up possibilities upon which a goal-oriented search- or selection engine can then operate. That’s the mechanism of evolution: the cycle of mutation – selection – reproduction. Mutations are initially purely negative, creating mere deviations. The unpredictability of emergent socio-economic patterns spells the impossibility of straightforward goal orientation in planning and design. In the face of this predicament there is a necessary strategic retreat from the immediate programme of progress. The flipside of this impossibility of straightforward progress is the necessity (and the freedom) to experiment, providing the rationale for an unheard-of proliferation of new formal possibilities. What one is left with is the (nearly) random production of the new and ‘other’, without yet being able to make the claim to provide measurable improvements. A phase of pure mutation is introduced whereby the selection and reproduction of the new material point beyond the capacity of the individual author towards a collective process of 126

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appropriation. In various fields of research and professional work, the necessity to incorporate random mutations into strategies of innovation has been asserted in practice and starts to be reflected in theory. While the role of chance discoveries in the progress of science is long since proverbial, the notion of random pursuits still rings antithetical to notions of strategic conduct or rationality in design. But in the history of science as well as in recent design methodologies, a new notion of rationality crystallizes. Groping experimentation, the incorporation of random play and a margin of undetermined, uncontrolled investment, are now seen to be necessary ingredients of any strategy aimed at innovation. The radical architectural projects proliferating on today’s computer screens do not offer themselves as utopian proposals in the sense of elaborated proposals for a better life. They do not claim to have a meaning in this sense. They pose questions and elicit the familiar answers. They are open-ended mutations that at best might become catalysts in the coevolution of new life processes. (Of course, there is also the risk of remaining alien to everything and everybody. That risk has to be taken.) Experimentation is not necessarily to be confined to the design process, but might continue in the building itself. Who is to judge and deny a priori that a strange building will not attract and engender a strangely productive occupation. Such speculative investment might become accepted as intervention research. What to many yet appears as an assemblage of disjointed trials, might soon cohere into a worthwhile development. A decoded architecture – made strange – offers itself to inhabitation as an aleatoric field, anticipating and actively prefacing its ´ own ‘detournement’. We might want to raise the question of the new needs, demands and purposes that the new architecture could address with respect to contemporary society. The answers might well be discovered within the various formal experiments that are proliferating today. The latent social content of the new, strange, abstract spaces that are on the drawing boards of the current architectural avant-garde(s) may be teased out within an interpretative framework that forces the issue of playful ´ collective appropriation and detournement within mutated scenarios of another ‘everyday life’. These considerations suggest that – at least on the radical edge of the discipline – the relationship between architecture and social progress might be set up in analogy to the aleatoric method of invention (in painting) whereby the users of architecture play the part of the artist while the architect ‘merely’ provides the substratum of invention. This idea of architecture as aleatoric substratum does not mean that architecture is given over to random formal play (although randomization may be strategically employed in this context). Not every

spatial composition is equally fertile with respect to the innovative social interpretation and appropriation. The criterion of aleatoric power qualifies compositional strategies and implies certain formal tendencies. The substratum needs to provoke and invite users to experiment, allowing them to tease out determinate patterns from a rich, suggestive, but indeterminate spatial offering. This means that architecture has to serve up a sufficient surplus or excess of form, an abundance (redundancy) that is only reduced when some of the many latent forms are made manifest by usage. Is the avant-garde really stunted by a total loss of predictability of the future of society? As a point of comparison with the era of Fordist industrial modernization this is certainly the case. The shift from utopian manifestos and blueprints to the stratagems of latent utopias was a necessary, rational adaptation. However, the unpredictability of the future is only relative, not absolute. We are still able to chart general tendencies which in turn allows us to distinguish progressive from regressive lines of architectural research. We have reasons to promote Parametricism and to reject Minimalism. The experimental forward-exploration of the avant-garde is not totally blind or undirected. Assumptions about general societal tendencies can and must be made – even if they are as abstract as the tendency of increasing social diversity and societal complexity. The theory of architectural autopoiesis follows Luhmann’s assumption that functional differentiation remains society’s constitutive principle. With respect to the key function system of the economy we might assume that the restructuring from a national, Fordist to a global, post-Fordist form of economic organization is continuing, with all its consequences for diversifying markets, network patterns of corporate organization, fluid work and career patterns etc. Our ability to reconstruct the rationality of recent stylistic shifts within avant-garde architecture gives us a certain compass for a general direction forward: postmodern aesthetics – the (unheard-of) rejection of the aesthetic values of homogeneity, coherence and completeness – and the celebration of diversity, collage and fragmentation signal the departure from the Fordist regime of bureaucratically organized mass production and herald the beginnings of the new urban complexity of the post-Fordist pattern of economic development. Deconstructivism and ‘folding’ were extensions of this fundamental break with Modernism rather than signifying a further break. Here we find the further radicalization of pertinent conceptual and formal repertoires that might be able to organize and articulate the new spaces for the post-Fordist economy with respect to their complex network patterns, their 128

79 See: part 11 Parametricism – The Parametric Paradigm and the Formation of a New Style. 80 Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism – A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design, in: AD Architectural Design – Digital Cities, Vol 79, No 4, July/August 2009, guest editor: Neil Leach, general editor: Helen Castle.

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2.3.9 RETROACTIVE MANIFESTOS The responsibility of the avant-garde architect is to proliferate options. The responsibility of the mainstream architect is to adopt what can be adopted according to circumstance. However, the exchanges between the two segments are no one-way street. Innovations are more than just new and different. Not everything goes. New alternatives have to link up with the (new) realities. Innovation might also be hidden in the ‘ugly’ deviations of commercial developments. Koolhaas’s method of the retroactive manifesto builds on this insight. The very fact that the commercial end of the mainstream focuses on serving the concrete necessities in an unprincipled and opportunistic way implies that new

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organizational hybridity, their smooth transitions and multifaceted identities. There has thus been a significant convergence of ordering logics between new forms of corporate organization and avant-garde concepts of spatial organization. The systematic incorporation of layering, the articulation of gradients, the employment of morphing to produce morphological series etc are examples of such concepts that serve to facilitate the articulation of contemporary societal patterns. This work has been further refined under the auspices of contemporary parametric design techniques, leading to the announcement of a new style as viable design research programme for the contemporary condition. The general tendency of society’s development was ascertained within post-Fordism/globalization theory. A pertinent response within architecture and urbanism emerged under the banner of Parametricism. The theory of architectural autopoiesis claims that Parametricism is the great, new, viable style after Modernism.79 (Postmodernism and Deconstructivism are interpreted as transitional episodes.) Parametricism provides a pertinent spatio-morphological repertoire for architecture and urban design that is able to organize and articulate the complexities of contemporary (post-Fordist) society. However, beyond this shift in the spatio-morphological repertoire, there is a shift in the very logic of ‘planning’ that recognizes that the socio-economic and long-term physical planning of the Fordist era has irretrievably passed. Parametricist urbanism is able to combine the necessary openness to future contingencies with the need to establish and maintain a complex order within the evolving urban field.80

requirements might find their most immediate, albeit unreflected expression in this most detached stratum of the architectural communication system. In fact, to seek out clues from aspects of commercial developments that are not re-tracing established architectural values, but rather display enforced deviations, is a useful technique of seeking out new, potentially significant phenomena from which to extrapolate. This is the rationality of the celebration of the banal as a tendency within avant-garde discourse. Tendencies that have thus been discovered might be made conceptually explicit. Found tendencies might then be extrapolated, amplified and set as a new principled agenda, or reinterpreted, mutated and then reinscribed into the high end avant-garde discourse. Examples are Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas 81 taking clues from the semiotically charged architecture of the ‘strip’, and Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York celebrating Manhattan’s ‘culture of congestion’ and its ‘critical paranoid method’ of radical programmatic and stylistic juxtaposition. The phenomena that Koolhaas found in New York – congestion and random juxtaposition – were violating the prevailing Modernist principles. Yet, Manhattan was unrivalled as striking symbol of modernity, in Rem Koolhaas’s words: ‘A mountain range of evidence’. The evident vitality of New York’s reality meant that the functional and aesthetic principles of Modernist architecture had to be questioned. Another potent retroactive manifesto is found in Koolhaas’s 1994 essay ‘Bigness’: Of all possible categories, Bigness does not seem to deserve a manifesto; discredited as an intellectual problem, it is apparently on its way to extinction – like the dinosaur – through clumsiness, slowness, inflexibility, difficulty. But in fact, only Bigness instigates the regime of complexity that mobilizes the full intelligence of architecture and its related fields. One hundred years ago, a generation of conceptual breakthroughs and supporting technologies unleashed an architectural Big Bang . . . The elevator, electricity, air-conditioning, steel, and finally, the new infrastructures formed a cluster of mutations that induced another species of architecture. The combined effects of these inventions were structures taller and deeper – Bigger – than ever before conceived, with a parallel potential for the reorganization of the social world – a vastly richer programmation. Fuelled initially by the thoughtless energy of the purely

81 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown & Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1972. 130

quantitative, Bigness has been, for nearly a century, a condition almost

without thinkers, a revolution without program.82

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82 Rem Koolhaas, ‘Bigness, or the Problem of Large’, in: Rem Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL, 010 Publishers (Rotterdam), 1995, pp 496–9. 83 Ibid, p 510.

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It is noteworthy that this ‘architectural Big Bang’ that created a new ‘species of architecture’ has indeed never been worked through in architectural theory. Thus the most marked consequence of these outside innovations – the super deep interior – had never been taken up as problematic within avant-garde practice and thus had no effect on the development of architectural styles. The super deep interior has been showing up in building projects that have been largely ignored within the architectural avant-garde: department stores, shopping malls and airports. But it is precisely this long since ignored possibility that Koolhaas finally discovered and promoted as potential for avant-gardist architectural exploration. According to Koolhaas, ‘only through Bigness can architecture dissociate itself from the exhausted artistic/ideological movements of Modernism and Formalism to regain its instrumentality as vehicle of modernization’.83 Koolhaas explored the design potentials of these reflections himself in a series of striking competition entries during ` Grande Bibliotheque ` this period, most notably his 1989 entry for the Tres (Very Big Library) where the regime of complexity had been played out on a radically new level, involving a fully three-dimensionalized game of spatial interlocking. Another version of Bigness was put forward in 1992 in the competition entry for two libraries at Jussieu, a technical university in Paris. It is noteworthy that these radical design concepts clearly embodied the thesis of Bigness before the manifesto was even written. One general question here is how much of the raw reality, or alterity, can be digested at once, and sublimated into new functional and formal principles, without losing the ordering structure of a style. Another general question concerns the overall status of the avant-garde offerings. The theory of architectural autopoiesis utilizes the analogy to the theory of evolution. The avant-garde produces mutations, ie, offerings, opportunities, potentials, rather than solutions. The burden of responsibility for success can no longer be shouldered by the avant-garde architect alone. It is the mainstream architect who has been exposed to more reality-checks and pressures of the environment. However, he cannot take responsibility either. He relies on the soundness of the principles received from the avant-garde. While the whole professional (expert) design process is a monumental exercise in the absorption of uncertainty to allow clients to make their decisions, some risks need to

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be taken by the clients, by the economy etc. Some inevitable, residual risk is inevitably pushed onto the environment, while the architect tries to keep a straight expert face. Theory is necessary, but does architectural intelligence really provide the resources to elaborate a sufficiently robust theory that can predict the social functioning and success of a project? Can there be such a theory? The answer is that such theory must progress via pertinent abstractions that are tested and refined on the basis of mainstream practice. Koolhaas seems to bank on theory but admits that there is as yet no theory of Bigness: ‘Without a theory of Bigness, architects are in the position of Frankenstein’s creators: instigators of a partly successful experiment whose results are running amok and are therefore discredited. Because there is no theory of Bigness . . . big mistakes are our only connection to Bigness.’84 But that is also the privilege of the avant-garde, in particular of the ‘stars’ among the avant-garde architects – this category includes Rem Koolhaas – namely the privilege to make mistakes, and to let the autopoiesis of architecture learn the lessons.

2.4 Architectural Research THESIS 8 The avant-garde segment of architecture functions as the subsystem within the autopoiesis of architecture that takes on the necessary task of architectural research by converting both architectural commissions and educational institutions into substitute vehicles of research. What we are concerned with in this section is not so much academic theory, but a form of research that fits the unique function system of architecture and the design disciplines. Research in architecture and the design disciplines must involve experimental design and prototyping (including prototype testing). In graphic design and in fashion design there are no obstacles in enfolding experimentation and prototyping within the design process itself. In industrial design the design research is also enfolded within the design process, or it becomes part of a differentiated, dedicated R&D process that integrates design with engineering. However, research and design are nearly indistinguishable here. There is no immediate equivalent of these kinds of continuously enfolded research efforts – involving prototyping and testing – within architecture. The size of the architectural product, and its related scale of 84 Rem Koolhaas, ‘Bigness, or the Problem of Large’, in: Rem Koolhaas, S,M,L,XL, 010 Publishers (Rotterdam), 1995, p 509. 132

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2.4.1 ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH AS AVANT-GARDE DESIGN RESEARCH It is the avant-garde segment of architecture – comprising avant-garde designers, theoreticians and teachers/students at high profile architecture schools – that can take on the necessary task of architectural research. The commissions of avant-garde architects have to function as vehicles of architectural research. Such commissions must afford a playing field for formal research and spatial invention where both functional and economic performance criteria are less stringent than in the ‘commercial sector’ of mainstream architecture. This is possible within a special segment of the architectural market – high profile cultural buildings. In these special, mostly public landmark buildings, the discipline of architecture becomes conspicuous within society. Here society appreciates architecture as a contribution beyond the mere accommodation of the respective substantial function. Here society also recognizes the legitimacy of an extra investment over and above what technical necessity dictates. The design of landmark buildings demands a certain type of architectural firm and a mode of working that is not easily adapted to the mundane mass of projects. The division of the profession into avant-garde and mainstream is thus also reinforced from the architectural supply side: there are avant-garde firms and there are mainstream firms. It requires a world market of cultural project opportunities to feed a 100–200 people strong crew specialized in creative work. This, in turn, reinforces the globalization of architecture, the creation of a unified world architecture. Art centres and other ‘cultural’ buildings usually have only loosely defined briefs that allow for interpretation and experimentation. Architecture as a discipline and discourse revolves around such buildings. The public character and media attention attached to these

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investment in terms of money and time, prevents this possibility. At the same time, the size and complexity of the architectural product imply that the inherent uncertainty of architectural design, and thus the need of research in architecture, is arguably greater than in any other design discipline. One might therefore have expected that a dedicated, collective research effort would have been institutionalized within architecture, as a subsystem within the autopoiesis of architecture. However, neither as publicly funded university research nor in the form of research departments within the big architectural firms does there exist a clearly demarcated domain of architectural research distinct from design as application of such research. Instead the discipline relies on two substitutes for explicitly institutionalized research: high profile architecture schools and practising avant-garde architects.

experiments make them vehicles of experimental engagement with a wide array of audiences. This offers an opportunity to use such buildings as focal points for participatory processes of gathering feedback. The burden of argument and proof is – to this extent – lifted from the shoulders of the individual architect even if written statements that try to make sense of strange, experimental designs are an essential part of the avant-garde work. To a certain extent it is left to the audience of critics and users to make sense of radically new structures. Critics and users participate in the architectural experiment to the extent to which the critic’s interpretations and the users’ responses are observed and picked up within the architectural discourse. The next step – the translation of the new spatial and formal repertoires into the mainstream – is a matter that takes place largely outside the critical attention of the discipline or else is often denigrated by architectural critics. This evaluation of the mainstream in terms of a lack of originality, or a compromise of ˆ tectonic/aesthetic principles misses the point – the raison d’etre of the division of labour within the profession. The responsibilty of architecture is split according to the division of labour between avant-garde (high art) and mainstream (commercial). The sole responsibility of the avant-garde architect is to mutate and give innovation a chance. His/her work is a manifesto, its value transcends the immediate task of the building at hand. The avant-garde architect turns his/her commission into a vehicle of research, resulting in a built experiment or built manifesto. Architectural principles, values and criteria of architectural progress dominate over the idiosyncratic interests of the particular client. To this extent the avant-garde architect has to exploit the client’s resources for purposes that lie beyond the client’s narrow, private interest. The client’s immediate interests are served only inasmuch as they coincide with the new, generalizable interests of contemporary civilization that the avant-garde exploration tries to address. In the absence of this coincidence, the client might find some compensation by exploiting the innovative thrust of the project for the promotion of his reputation. This kind of indirect funding of architectural experimentation via (private or municipal) marketing investments has the advantage of allowing formal research to reach the stage of built experimentation before its full functional potential has been realized. However, it has the disadvantage of over-determining formal research in the direction of image production and sensationalism. This undeniable phenomenon has somehow obscured the profound importance of radical formal research. A playing field for experimentation is required to explore potential ˆ solutions for new problems. This is the raison d’etre of architecture’s 134

85 JG March & JP Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations, Universitetsforlaget (Bergen), 1976.

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It is fundamental to those theories that thinking should precede action; that

action should serve a purpose; that purpose should be defined in terms of a

consistent set of pre-existing goals; and that choice should be based on a

consistent theory of the relation between action and its consequences.

Every tool of management decision that is currently part of management

science, operations research or decision theory assumes the prior existence

of a set of consistent goals. Almost the entire structure of micro-economic

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relative autonomy. Experimentation requires a certain distancing from immediate performative pressures and the demand of best practice delivery. This situation demands that less stringently goal-oriented processes of exploration are accepted as legitimate contributions to research and development efforts. The potential purpose of an architectural experiment is often discovered in retrospect. Goals are the outcome rather than the starting point of the research. The acceptance of this logic is indeed implicit in the communicative practice of the architectural avant-garde of the last 20 years. The explicit recognition of such practices can be found in business organization and management literature. Here a remarkably insightful text by JG March and JP Olsen had its impact as long ago as the late 1970s when modern business models were challenged by a prolonged crisis. The text is pertinently titled ‘Technologies of Foolishness’85 and develops a sophisticated and devastating critique of engrained notions of choice, decision, goal, reason, rule, experience, history etc. The whole logos of Western rationality is challenged in a text with no direct philosophical ambitions. From within management discourse, brought forward in the form of a critique of formal decision analysis (the peak of modern rationality), the whole edifice of Western philosophy is brought down, involving formulations that could have been cut straight out of the major texts of Derrida; and may easily be read as a challenge to ingrained assumptions about architecture, architectural history, the plan, planning and the design process. Within most of the Western world individuals and organizations see themselves as making choices. March & Olsen start their argument by analyzing what is presupposed in the concept of choice and identify the following three underlying assumptions: the pre-existence of purpose, the necessity of consistency and the primacy of rationality. Those ideas, deeply embedded in modern society, are made the explicit axioms of decision theory.

theory builds on the assumption that there exists a well-defined stable, and consistent preference ordering.86

How could it be otherwise, how could one not start the building with the foundations? What decision theory and the ideology of choice can only ignore or conceive of as deficiency – the reality of ‘the fluidity and ambiguity of objectives’87 – needs to be ‘redeemed’ within a new and more complex understanding of rationality. The whole economy of rationality involving the concepts of freedom, coercion, identity and progress is being deconstructed/reconstructed. ‘Goals are thrust upon the intelligent man. We ask that he act in the name of goals. We ask that he keeps his goals consistent.’ Intentionality is seen to be the defining moment of human consciousness, in its individual as well as organized, collective existence. March & Olsen do not indulge in an abstract negation of goal-oriented rationality, they propose its sublation into ‘more complicated forms of consistency’, ie, a more complex rationality which temporarily allows for vagueness, while being able to offer procedures (‘plans’) for the discovery/construction of new goals and values. The reality of shifting goals seems to force us to ‘choose now in terms of the unknown set of values we will have at some future time . . . This violates severely our sense of temporal order.’88 Such a ‘choice’ is, according to the currently still predominant ‘ideology of choice’, utterly nonsensical. The thesis here is that, rather than exorcising the reality of fluid, retrospective goals, it is the ideology of rational choice that has to be questioned. Late 1980s’ design-process experiments in architectural education had precisely this warped time structure: ‘choose’ now, ‘motivate’ later. The aleatoric process was endemic in London architectural schools in the second half of the 1980s. This process or method involves the radical suspension of everything usually associated with ‘design’ as deliberate purpose-led activity. This was reflected in the reversal of the order of programme and form in the slogan ‘Form to Programme’. Freedom and progress are here mediated through coercion in the sense of the designer’s temporary submission to an arbitrary determination. ‘Coercion is not necessarily an assault on individual autonomy. It can be a device for stimulating individuality.’89 In the aleatoric design method the formal process is self-propelling and programme is read into it a posteriori, 86 JG March & JP Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations, Universitetsforlaget (Bergen), 1976. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 136

This is a real life example of the very phenomenon of Derrida’s central 93 ´ – the combination of difference and deference – notion of differance which points at the fact that, always (but only now accelerated into visibility), language (and thinking) is a system of differences that continuously defers its resolution via the permanent retroactive re-writing of all its terms. Derrida advised: ‘. . . all is not to be thought at one

90 With respect to business contexts one can say that this is the perfect strategy to create new markets instead of competing in old ones. 91 JG March & JP Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations, Universitetsforlaget (Bergen), 1976. 92 Ibid. 93 Jacques Derrida, ‘Diff´erance’, in Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 1982, original: French, Theorie ´ d’ensemble, Editions du Seuil (Paris), 1972.

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Experience can be changed retrospectively. By changing our interpretive

concepts now, we modify what we learned earlier. Thus we expose the

possibility of experimenting with alternative histories. . . . Personal histories,

and national histories, need to be rewritten continuously as a base for the

retrospective learning of new self-conceptions . . . Planning in organizations

has many virtues, but a plan can often be more effective as an

interpretation of past decisions than as a program for future ones . . . In an

organization that wants to continue to develop new objectives, a manager

needs to be relatively tolerant of the idea that he will discover the meaning

of yesterday’s action in the experiences and interpretations of today.92

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allowing for an innovative alignment of new form and new function. This seemingly irrational process is in fact the best way to push the expansion of the repertoire.90 The aleatoric ‘play’ is an instrument of intelligence, not its negation or substitute. March & Olsen come to the same conclusion in relation to business strategy: ‘Playfulness is the deliberate, temporary relaxation of rules in order to explore the possibilities of alternative rules. When we are playful we challenge the necessity of consistency. In effect, we announce – in advance – our rejection of usual objections to behavior that does not fit the standart model of intelligence. Playfulness allows experimentation. At the same time, it acknowledges reason. It accepts that at one point . . . it will be integrated into the structure of intelligence.’91 In further reversals and re-valuations March proposes to treat ‘goals as hypotheses’, ‘intuition as real’, ‘hypocrisy as transitional’ (somebody experimenting with new ideals), ‘memory as enemy’, and ‘experience as theory’ – hitting out at a fundamental Derridian insight:

go . . . ’94 and this has bewitching consequences – a thought might no longer speak the language of its own beginning. March and Olsen realize that ‘play’ is not necessarily restricted to the domain of the individual. ‘Organizations can be playful even when the participants in them are not.’95 We might expand this insight as follows: systems of communications can be playful even if individual contributions do not reflect themselves as such. These lessons have been learned in architecture too – architectural avant-garde practice testifies to this – even if it has never been as clearly articulated. 2.4.2 ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS AS LABORATORIES Design research via avant-garde design practice has a serious limitation: it must construct its research agenda on the basis of chance commissions. In the absence of properly instituted research organizations, postgraduate teaching offers the closest approximation to a coherently structured research effort. Thus schools become laboratories in two distinct but equally important ways: 1. One task is to scan society to find architectural problems and define briefs even if no client has yet articulated them. This updates the agenda of architecture and thus helps architecture to anticipate challenges rather than waiting to be pushed by a client. The anticipation of challenges and the considered elaboration of sustainable responses are important to avoid a crisis of competency with myopic, ad hoc reactions. 2. A second task is the proliferation of new formal repertoires in conjunction with the exploration of the new design media and modelling techniques. Such research leads to the expansion of the general solution space available to any architectural design effort. Initially such research should be independent of any stringent brief or strict criteria of instrumentalization. The task is to chart potentials that might inspire the search for problems on the basis of discovered ‘solutions’. This reversal of the usual means to ends logic is impossible within mainstream professional practice – and highly constrained within 94 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore), 1974, p 23, original: French, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1967. 95 JG March & JP Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations, Universitetsforlaget (Bergen), 1976. 138

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96 Master degree course founded in 1996 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. Founding directors were Brett Steele and Patrik Schumacher. The fact that high profile graduate schools are called upon to become vehicles for architectural research was made explicit by calling the AA Master design degree Design Research Lab.

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avant-garde practice. The freedom to post-rationalize is greatest where no specific problem is posed from the outside – the only requirement being that a form–function relationship is established at the end. This is only possible within academia. The function of this academic laboratory research is thus not primarily to criticize professional practice and directly lead the mainstream, but to irritate and inspire avant-garde practice and thus, indirectly, mainstream professional practice. The idea that academia itself could establish models of best practice is utterly misguided. Innovation is always suspended between the two tasks listed above: the investigation of a domain of problems and the expansion of the domain of potential solutions. Within the discipline of architecture this polarity of innovation has often been an occasion for a productive division of labour between the analysis of new societal/programmatic demands on the one side and the proliferation of new spatial repertoires on the other. Embodied by the Dutch avant-garde and the US avant-garde respectively, both aspects have been pursued independently of each other. In the field of postgraduate teaching/research this split of perspective between the Dutch and American avant-gardes was mirrored during the 1990s in the opposition between the programmatically oriented Berlage Institute and the form/technique-focused Columbia University. The independent elaboration of the two domains makes sense as a division of labour allowing for specialization. However, this divergence of orientation has led to two equally one-sided, opposing ideologies: the insistence on the priority of programme versus the insistence on the priority of form. This opposition poses the question of synthesis. Significant architectural innovations must involve both dimensions. The synthesis of new programme with new form requires the oscillation between the two domains and is itself an act of creative intelligence. There are no one-to-one correspondences between ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. Solutions can go in search of problems as well as problems in search of solutions. It was the mission statement of the AA Design Research Lab96 to establish design research agendas that would allow the ‘solutions’ that were evolving within an ongoing formal proliferation effort to find appropriately circumscribed programmatic problematics to demonstrate

their performative prowess. The AADRL set a series of three-year research agendas – each framing the formal research within a broad programmatic frame. Within those broad programmatic frames, the projects initially pursued a formal strategy. Therefore the later, more specific programmatic articulation was driven by the potential of the evolving formal strategy rather than by a preconceived brief. This form-to-programme drive of the projects is only possible within the academic context. It means that each project has sufficient freedom to allow the formal logics to flourish. The overarching programmatic agenda acts as a guiding horizon. Formal strategies are given the opportunity to specify programmatic particulars that suit them in their pursuit to discover convincing form-function alignments. The endgame of design research remains the establishment of new form–function relations. For instance, one particular design research agenda at the DRL investigated the theory and practice of corporate organization as a source realm for otherwise rather open design briefs. Our point of departure was the convergence of terms between new management theory and recent architectural theory. The ‘architecture’ of business-organization is indeed liquefying. The shared headline within both architecture and organization theory is: coping with dynamic complexity. More specifically, architectural notions such as ‘simultaneity’, ‘multiple affiliation’ and ‘smoothness’ correspond to organizational tropes such as ‘matrix’, ‘loosely coupled network’ and organizational ‘blur’.97 Such concepts demand a sophisticated discourse and nuanced repertoire of multiple spatial orderings, gradient territorial distinctions and rich morphological differentiations. Recent corporate headquarters point towards the need for ever higher levels of overall spatial and visual integration. The insatiable demand for internal connectivity is catered for by the concept of a continuous office landscape. Internal cuts across floors have become a persistent feature. One might therefore posit a tendency towards three-dimensional, multi-level field-spaces. The realm of business organization is thus a rather well prepared field in which to put the new formal repertoire of the contemporary avant-garde to the test. This repertoire, as hinted above, has been described by notions such as simultaneity, multiple affiliation and smoothness. These notions can be correlated with organizational ideas as follows:

97 Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer, BLUR – The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, Perseus Books (Cambridge, MA), 1998. 140

� simultaneity:98 spatial interpenetrations indicating the overlap of

98 The term has long since been an inspiring challenge for avant-garde architecture, starting with L´aszlo´ Moholy Nagy, Sigfried Giedion and Gy¨

orgy Kepes, and was most succinctly articulated in Colin Rowe’s notion of phenomenal transparency. See: Colin Rowe & Robert

Slutzky, ‘Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal’, Perspecta 8 (Yale Architectural Journal),

Yale University, 1963; for an informed historical account also see: Detlef Mertins, ‘Anything

but Literal – Sigfried Giedion and the Reception of Cubism in Germany’, in: Eve Blau and

Nancy J Troy (Eds), Architecture and Cubism, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

99 The term was first proposed by Greg Lynn, see: Greg Lynn, ‘Architectural Curvilinearity – The Folded, the Pliant and the Supple’, in: AD, Folding in Architecture, Architectural Design Profile No 102, 1993. 100 The term entered the avant-garde architectural discourse in the early 1990s, and was derived from Deleuze & Guattari’s distinction of smooth vs striated space, see: Gilles Deleuze & F´elix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis),1987, French original: Mille Plateaux, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1980. 101 The term was put forward by Peter Eisenman.

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The business discourse, together with selected corporate quasi-clients, furnished well formalized, programmatic material in the form of organizational charts, communication- and work-flow diagrams, team work scenarios etc for ‘translation’ into the cited formal and spatial tropes. Our method involved the admission of form-to-programme heuristics, ie, form-selects-function instead of function-selects-form. The project development was thus extensively relying on post-rationalization and programmatic adjustment to the initial briefs. But this procedural reversal is not a deficiency. It should not persuade against all claims to rationality. Within contexts aiming for a high level of innovation, such reversals of the normal course of ends-means rationality are acknowledged as a powerful form of rationality, not least within business organization and management theory itself. However, the relaxation of (premature) demands for precise purposes is certainly not meant as carte blanche. While our methodology and concept of rationality are in many important ways quite different from the linear and determinist

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domains of competency, for instance departmental organization overlaps with project organization � multiple affiliation:99 networks of morphological similitude articulating complex relations of belonging between loosely coupled teams � smoothness:100 gradient territoriality structured via continuous differentiation of field qualities articulating in-between transitions rather than hard segmented ordering of types of activity � space of becoming:101 strategy involving the kinetic and perceptual reconfiguration (Gestalt-switch) of spaces, here used to address time-based space-sharing scenarios or similar demands for flexibility

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conceptions of the early Functionalists,102 functional requirements are only expelled at the very beginning of the design work. Throughout, our projects are oscillating between play and analysis, aiming at the elaboration of new form–function relations. Within the design research of the AADRL ‘function’ is understood as capacity or affordance that opens itself up to an evolutionary formation of new purposes rather than fulfilling a fully predetermined purpose. The AADRL considers design work itself – under certain conditions – as a distinct form of research. Those conditions are not necessarily identifiable within each project. They pertain to the whole collection of projects, the total body of work taken together with the embedding discussions and comparisons etc. The research quality of each project thus depends on, or resides in, the specific academic, discursive context in which each project is developed, assessed and superseded. Rigorous research work is never separable from its attendant process of self-criticism. Neither can a design research project be understood and assessed outside its position in a (multi-generation) sequence of related projects. It is always the total communicative context/horizon that constitutes the meaning of any individual project. The particular AADRL research agenda (Corporate Fields – spatializing post-Fordist business practices) finally cohered the work of 64 architects teaming up around 26 projects.103 The following sequence of work stages has been guiding this particular body of works: 1. Precedent: design work is preceded by analysis of built (or unbuilt) projects that could serve as background field of competitors rather than as precedents to follow. At the same time the notion of analysis mutates into a ‘creative engagement’ that includes the speculative extension (or inversion) of identified logics. For this we instituted the Critical Projects Seminar. 2. Exploration: physical experiments in self-organizing morphogenesis, aimed at expanding the specific morphospatial repertoire under the 102 Modern Functionalism, in its purest form (Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Hilberseimer), tended to assume a linear determinism, proceeding from a coherent catalogue of needs, placed onto a clean slate (tabula rasa) and posing the calculated optimization of solutions on the basis of known techniques. The mechanical principle of linear decomposition which was the key to the productivity advances of the whole Fordist mode of production became also the key principle of the modern architectural rationality. See: Patrik Schumacher, ‘Produktive Ordnungen’ (English: ‘Productive Patterns’) in: Arch+ 136, April 1997 (Berlin), pp 28–33, pp 87–90. 103 See: Patrik Schumacher, ‘Research Agenda: Spatializing the Complexities of Contemporary Business Organization’, in: Brett Steele (Ed), Corporate Fields – New Office Environments by the AA D(R)L, AADRL Documents 1, AA Publications, Architectural Association School of Architecture (London), 2005. 142

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auspices of the overall paradigmatic headline – achieving complex

order. Key morpho-organizational aspects of the specific phenomena

discovered in the physical form-finding exercises were then

‘transferred’ into the domain of digital modelling, trying, as much as

possible, to produce equivalent spatial effects. For this we instituted

the Material Logics Seminar.

3. Briefs: at this stage four parallel briefs were introduced by the different tutors teaching in the lab under the umbrella of the shared agenda. The briefs, informed by the results of the morphogenetic explorations, narrowed down the morphospatial hypothesis (for instance, sponge-space, or swarm-formations) while at the same time specifying the corporate quasi-client and site, leaving, however, sufficient openness for form-to-function strategies to crystallize. The briefs were formulated manifesto-style: for example, ‘Dynamic Network Organization’, thus formulating a headline thesis within which multiple sub-theses might be formulated by the respective design research teams. 4. Thesis: the design research project is not a real design project. In a research project, a research hypothesis – the thesis – must be formulated. Within the AADRL this necessity (and the resultant ‘academic’ status of the respective projects) is made explicit. The thesis must be formulated in terms of making a claim for an innovative form–function correlation: ie, the innovative morphospatial system is to be investigated with respect to its functional-programmatic capacity and utilization. A thesis might, for example, read as follows: sponge-space organizes and articulates network organization. 5. Extremism: design-research teams are encouraged to formulate distinctive (extremizing) design research theses that would push the specific qualities and parameters of their spatial model, and their programmatic utilization, to a point of uncompromising radicality. 6. Totalization: the ‘final’ elaboration of design projects needed to be conceived (at least in outline and principle) as a totalizing effort, overcoming (at least tendentially) the initial, narrow thematic focus of the thesis. The point is to try to reality-check the initially thematically driven (one-sided) design research by introducing a series of technical concerns: including structural system, external envelope rationalization etc. The task is here to test how these additional (necessary) subsystems and constraints can be innovatively integrated/addressed to enhance (rather than compromise) the driving thesis (for example, network organization within sponge-space). The attempt was made to move from diagrammatic thesis to a project that would approach the resolution of a competition entry.

Besides the collectively shared programmatic agenda, and the shared set of a priori formal biases, a shared, and carefully sequenced work method is crucial to any work claiming the title of design research. If this particular research agenda is viewed in the context of the overall sequence of AADRL research – comprising four research agendas, over 10 years, with a total of 350 researchers, working on over 100 projects – an overarching research hypothesis that binds all these projects together evolves. This research hypothesis poses the contemporary societal relevance and innovative power of a set of a priori formal principles (as indicated above). These formal principles have since been formalized and promoted under the banner of Parametricism.

2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation THESIS 9 Any attempt to integrate architecture and art, or architecture and science/ engineering, in a unified discourse (autopoiesis) is reactionary and bound to fail. An initial account of architecture’s disciplinary autonomy might be gained by looking at its efforts to ascertain its domain of competency. Identity and autonomy are maintained by policing the boundaries with neighbouring domains. Self-demarcation is an essential part of self-definition. Following on from Saussure and Derrida we know that all definitions are manoeuvres of demarcation within the evolving structure of differences, rather than the identification of positive essences. All disciplinary identities are relative and precarious – emerging from the coevolution and competitive strife of various communicative systems operating within a historically drifting field. The problematic identity of architecture can be highlighted by visiting the various active fronts of territorial defence and polemic demarcation that engulf architecture. The definition of architecture resides in what it is not, ie, what it cannot be reduced to, what it cannot be consumed into or usurped by. Survival, ie, autonomy and sovereign rule over a legitimate domain, is always embattled. It seems the end of architecture is always near.104 In this 104 Manfredo Tafuri, for instance, testifies to this when he equates architecture with ideology and then pronounces the end of ideology at the hands of economic planning in his famous Architecture and Utopia: ‘Architecture as ideology of the plan is swept away by the reality of the plan’ (p 135), and ‘the role of a discipline ceases to exist’ (p ix) etc, Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia – Design and Capitalist Development, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1976, original Italian, Progetto e Utopia, Laterza (Bari), 1973. 144

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Another, much more recent statement comes from the first issue of Volume Magazine, co-produced by Archis, Amo and C-Lab: ‘The first issue of Volume is a tour d’horizon of the new possibilities of architecture beyond itself. There is a growing awareness of a potential that may ultimately challenge the very character of architecture as we know it. For some this means anxiety or even pessimism about a profession in deep trouble . . .’. Advertising headline for Volume #1, on web-site: archis.org/volume 105 The disciplines of science are subsystems of the unified function system of science.

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architecture does not differ from the other great modern function systems such as politics, science, art etc. It is important to observe that the conditions for demarcation of the function systems are different from those of the disciplines of science.105 Within science new disciplines spring up continuously and boundaries can be redrawn at will. Disciplines not only subdivide, but distinct disciplines might overlap or fuse to create new disciplines, for instance biology and chemistry fuse in the domain of molecular biology or biochemistry. In contrast, the historical tendency of the formation of function systems is much more unidirectional, ie, a trajectory of differentiation without any prospect of reintegration. The distinctness of the branches of the functional differentiation of society is thus rather stable. This distinctness, once established, is indeed ultra-stable, due to mutual incommensurability. This incommensurability spells the impossibility of reintegration. However, the exact boundary lines for the respective demarcation of competencies and responsibilities remain contested. Architecture, like all the other function systems, on the one hand defends its current autonomous territory while on the other hand trying to claim more ground. Architecture is not (just) art. Architecture is not (just) science. Architecture is not (just) engineering. Architecture can neither be reduced to art nor to science nor to engineering. But also: architecture is not (just) building. Architecture is not (just) planning. Architecture is not (just) organization. Architecture is not (just) politics. Architecture is not (just) psychology. Architecture is not (just) philosophy. Architecture is not (just) semiotics. Architecture is not (just) fashion or just another medium of lifestyling or branding. These are not my claims – these are architecture’s claims. We will have to come back to some of these battles of demarcation. The not just indicates that the protective demarcation of the discipline’s territory does not preclude architecture’s pursuit of its own predatory appetites. Architecture might at times claim the task of those other domains it insists it is not to be reduced to. The theoretical metadiscourse is furnished here by Niklas Luhmann’s general social systems theory and his theory of modern, functionally differentiated society.

Architecture, like all specialized function systems of modern society, is forced to continually reassert its relevance by providing its specialized services to the various other social systems it identifies within its societal environment, ie, its various clients and user groups. The question concerning the relevance of architecture is not whether more new buildings will be required, but whether the specialized discourse that unifies itself under the title of architecture, as distinct from art, engineering and science, can continue to make a valued contribution to the ongoing innovation of the built environment as part of the overall evolution of modern society. Architecture, like all the other function systems, faces an ongoing pressure/challenge to secure its domain of competency and to reaffirm the relevance of its specific contribution to the maintenance and development of society. 2.5.1 THE DIFFERENTIATION OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE Luhmann refers to architecture within his The Art of Society where he theorizes art as a self-referential social system. He subsumes architecture within the art system. This treatment of architecture has to be rejected today. It reflects the traditional classification of architecture among the arts. It is one of the central, historical theses of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that this treatment of architecture under the umbrella concept of ‘the arts’ is long since an anachronism – at least since the refoundation of the discipline as Modern architecture during the 1920s. A sure empirical indicator for the factual, operational separation of art and architecture is the total absence of double careers. While Michelangelo and Raphael, and even Schinkel, could still count and convince as both artists and architects this possibility seems to be excluded today. Examples such as Le Corbusier’s paintings and Hundertwasser’s buildings are no counterexamples but only confirm this impossibility. The communicative pattern of architecture’s autopoiesis is much closer to that of the other design disciplines. Urban and interior design are literally encompassed under the title of architecture. The other design disciplines such as industrial design, graphic/web design and fashion design seem106 to follow equivalent conceptual logics, governed by the same discursive structures, like the lead-distinction of form vs function, the double code of beauty and utility, the progression via styles etc. However, if architecture and design are today still brought into proximity with the art system, this does not necessarily indicate an adherence to a traditional formula. Rather this reassimilation of art and 106 This cautious formulation is called for inasmuch as the author cannot claim in depth familiarity with the discourse and design processes in these domains. 146

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architecture/design is due to the recent, quite significant fact that architecture, in its avant-gardist and experimental mode, uses the tactics and spaces of artistic communication. For instance, installations for exhibitions in the wider art context are often the first materialization of upcoming avant-garde architects. However, notwithstanding such moments of partial overlap, and notwithstanding the occasional referencing of certain artists within the architectural discourse, architecture and design have clearly separated from art and constitute an independent function system within modern society. The classification of architecture among the arts has a very long tradition. One might cite various ancient, medieval or modern authors. Even today architecture is often classified as an art form. Within certain classical philosophical systems (Kant, Hegel) architecture holds a varying position within the hierarchy of the arts. The ranking of the arts was taken to be the primary theoretical task within a philosophical outlook that corresponded to the reality of stratified society. Such anachronistic preoccupations still lingered on even after the primary mode of societal differentiation changed from stratification to functional differentiation. During the entire 19th century there was no doubt that architecture should be considered as one of the arts, although its place in the ranking order of the arts was never settled. As far as the architects were concerned, architecture ranked highest among the arts, as the master-discipline that supported and governed the other arts (painting and sculpture) as subsidiary aspects of the total art work (Gesamtkunstwerk), best exemplified in churches and palaces. The discipline of art history, which emerged in the 18th century and blossomed during the 19th century, also reinforced this unified concept of art and architecture. The writing of art history in terms of epochal syles (Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque) advanced the concept of a unifying ‘spirit of the age’ that synchronizes and conceptually fuses the various developments within the various arts (including architecture). This was not entirely unjustified, although the supposedly parallel and shared characteristics that were identified were often cloaked in a metaphysical/dogmatic form. Today similar attempts to encompass the discourses of art and architecture under labels such as ‘Postmodernism’ seem much more forced. The thesis here is that today such attempts must remain strained and superficial, and are as obsolete as the attempt to establish a ranking order. The contemporary discourses of architecture on the one side, and the visual arts on the other, follow two quite separate trajectories. The two discourses are no longer synchronized. They are indeed unable to communicate with each other. The respective cultures have grown

apart.107 Continuity of discourse has been replaced by incommensurability. If the unity of Baroque architecture, painting and sculpture was ¨ exaggerated in art-historical accounts like Wolfflin’s renowned Renaissance and Baroque,108 via interpretive constructs such as ‘sense of body’ or generalizing notions such as ‘the painterly’, a similar attempt at a general characterization across discursive domains would be utterly chimerical today. Anyhow, the ability or inability to construct a general characterization from the outside does not settle the question raised here concerning the degree of autonomy of the respective discourses. This is an empirical question concerning the level of mutual connectivity between the discourses/practices. While during the Renaissance and Baroque figures like Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini and Borromini simultaneously worked in the domains of architecture, sculpture and painting, no such unifying careers exist today. Techniques like the construction of perspective were shared by architecture and painting, while marble was the material of choice for both architecture and sculpture. The increase of dynamic plasticity from Renaissance to Baroque is simultaneously observable across the domains of architecture, painting and sculpture. Today the defining distinctions, themes and problematics of each discipline have become incommensurable. Contemporary innovations in architecture (for example, the introduction of parametric modelling and scripting – comparable to the discovery of perspective in the Renaissance) have no counterpart (and therefore mean nothing) in the visual arts. Architecture and the visual arts have to be described as independent autopoietic systems. This does not exclude the possibility of occasional irritation and inspiration. These, however, are usually not fed back to be registered in the system from which the irritation/inspiration originated. Instead there are two distinct, self-enclosed cycles of communications with occasional sparks flying across without expecting feedback. Throughout Art as a Social System109 Niklas Luhmann seems to imply (without making this an explicit topic) that he considers architecture to 107 The most sophisticated and elaborate discursive interaction between experts in architecture can be witnessed during crits at graduate design reviews. Jeff Kipnis is one of very few individuals who are regular participants in both architecture and art crits. In a conversation he confirmed that the discursive cultures of architecture and art are very different. Art crits are far more loose and freewheeling. 108 Heinrich W¨olfflin, Renaissance and Baroque, The Fontana Library (Glasgow), 1964. 109 Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1995, translated as: Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2000. 148

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110 See: part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture.

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be a part of the art system. Luhmann’s characterizations of contemporary conceptual art emphasize general features that are indeed paradigmatic for contemporary art but that do not encompass what goes on within architecture: the obsession of art with the negation of art and the obsession with tearing down the defining limits of art. These features clearly indicate that architecture should no longer be classified as art. Anyhow, architecture itself – in its incarnation as ‘modern functional design’ – has long since emphatically rejected its classification as a form of art. This self-demarcation happened during the 1920s. The differentiation of art and architecture was finally sealed with the refoundation of architecture as Modern architecture. The specific profile and extended mandate that the autopoiesis of architecture has since developed imply that this severance is irrevocable, and gestures in the direction of a reassimilation must be considered as pointless rearguard action. It seems as if art has no longer a universally recognized societal function while architecture’s societal function has been both universalized and clarified. The societal function of architecture is the continuous adaptive innovation of the built environment as society’s necessary spatial frame.110 It appears there is no equivalent statement that can be made with respect to art. In earlier periods, for example, the Baroque, the societal functions of art and architecture went hand in hand: together their function was to articulate the stratified social order by marking out, adorning and aggrandizing the top strata of society. During the 19th century the shift from stratification to functional differentiation accelerated. Both art and architecture lost their shared societal function. Each, in turn, picked up new challenges. While the statues on top of a triumphal arch function hand in hand with the arch itself (early 19th century), it is less clear what societal function the design of an Art Nouveau style department store shares with a Symbolist painting (late 19th century). There is clearly a gap opening up between art and architecture. The distance that finally separates the two communication systems becomes obvious if one juxtaposes the abstract Expressionism of the 1950s with the Functionalist city of the 1950s. Once the fundamental fact of the irreversible differentiation of architecture from the fine arts has been established we have to re-theorize the relationship and communicative exchanges between art and

architecture. The separation was initiated by the emancipation of art from ‘the arts’ in the traditional sense. This emancipation progressed with the establishment of the art market during the 19th century. Architecture, at first, seemed to fight off this emancipation of painting and sculpture from its domain, but finally acknowledged its own radical distinctness against all ‘arts’ during the course of the 1920s. There is a fascinating, complex story to be told, a story that constitutes a worthwhile topic for an in-depth piece of historical research. This research would trace the intricacies of a complex and surprising web of communications involving the avant-garde protagonists of Modern architecture, modern design, as well as the protagonists of various artistic experiments including Suprematism, Constructivism, De Stijl, Dada and Surrealism. Art, in the form of abstract art, was driving towards architecture and industrial design and, to a certain extent, was absorbed and instrumentalized as a preparatory, repertoire-building phase of design. This idea of art as a propaedeutic for architecture and design was prominent in the early Soviet Union. It was also implied in the curriculum at the Bauhaus. The differentiation of art and architecture and their final separation play out in the development of the Bauhaus. The early Modernist architects had been inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement that had looked backwards for inspiration: to the Middle Ages as the period before even the initially linked complex of art-science-architecture had separated from the crafts, a time when the great medieval cathedrals were created by the unified construction effort of all the arts. Within this seemingly reactionary look back we can detect a moment of progressive differentiation: the repudiation of academic art and the emphasis placed upon the crafts implied an alignment of architecture with (industrial) design and a separation from an art system that had already gained a distinct measure of autonomy as evidenced by the establishment of an independent art market. This thinking in terms of ‘arts and crafts’ was taken up by the German Werkbund at the beginning of the 20th century. The German Werkbund, founded in 1907, re-directed the Arts and Crafts values – unity of creation, and rootedness in function, material and craft – towards the design of industrial, machine-processed products, suggesting that high level creative efforts of ‘artists’ should turn towards the world of utilitarian artefacts and environments. In 1919, Walter Gropius, who was an early Werkbund protagonist before the First World War, proclaimed, once more, the quasi-medieval ideal of a unitary creative effort whereby architecture would synthesize all the ‘arts’ under its leadership. The declaration from the Work Council of Art demanded the ‘dissolution of the academy of arts’. Its headline thesis read: ‘The aim is the alliance of the arts under 150

Such statements need to be interpreted. It is important not to get stuck on terminology or the use of historical reference points. This was a fluid period of cultural redefinition, a Nietzschean period of the re-evaluation of all values where all terms were contested territory. The avant-garde of the art system, in the form of abstract art, was itself driving towards architecture and industrial design and, to an extent, was absorbed and instrumentalized as a preparatory, repertoire-building phase of design. The Bauhaus – founded explicitly as architecture and design school – employed artists for its foundational studies. The development of the Bauhaus during the 1920s was characterized by a progressive shift of focus away from artistic practice towards a functionalist focus on industrial design and architecture. Finally, at the end of the decade, the new director of the Bauhaus, Hannes Meyer, was calling for architecture to radically distance itself from art and artistic practice: ‘all things in this world are a product of the formula: (function times economy). All these things are, therefore, not works of art: all art is composition and, hence, is unsuited to achieve goals. All life is function and is therefore unartistic’.113 Anyhow, the survival of art did not rely on its accommodation in architecture and design schools. This new function of art as proto-design was only one facet of art as diversifying and proliferating system of communications. Art as potential proto-design is 111 ‘Work Council for Art, Under the Wing of a Great Architecture’, in: Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 44. 112 Walter Gropius, ‘Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar’, in: Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 49. 113 Hannes Meyer, ‘Building’, in: Bauhaus Year 2, No 4, 1928, reprinted in: Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 44.

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The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building! To embellish

buildings was once the noblest function of the fine arts; they were

indispensable components of great architecture. Today the arts exist in

isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious,

co-operative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must

recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building

both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be

imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as “salon art”.112

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the wing of a great architecture’.111 With ‘arts’ the declaration intended to refer to what we now call design, rather than to art, although ambiguity prevailed. The Bauhaus was founded on this principle of the arts under the wing of architecture. Gropius’s ‘Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar’ starts with the following paragraph:

now pursued within a separate function system: the art system. It is one of the various services that art delivers to society – in this case to architecture and the design disciplines. At the same time architecture and the design disciplines are engaged in their own abstract proto-design. Art is used as mere inspiration, as potentially productive irritation. Works of art are appropriated without concern for the categories and values of the art system. The conceptual set up that considers networks of communications to be primary can admit that versatile human beings occasionally cross the boundary between art and design and make contributions to both fields. There are those who produce some work in one field (art) to irritate their own (and others’) work in another field (architecture). Our conceptual set up even allows that one and the same object or individual communication exists and connects within two or more different systems – albeit differently identified, valued and connected. These overlap items do not compromise the strict boundary of the separate, autonomous, operationally self-enclosed systems of communications that are the different, incommensurable autopoietic systems of art and architecture/design. The differentiation of art and architecture does not exclude cross-fertilization – via irritation rather than communication. When art, at times, exerts inspirational influence within architecture, it functions in the service of architecture. This can proceed without blurring the discursive boundaries and distinct system references. In general the art system offers a playground for all sorts of design practices. Artists effectively conduct experiments not only in the fields of architecture and industrial design, but even more so in the fields of graphic communication design, film, the electronic media and Internet communication.114 In the 1920s avant-garde art had a special relationship with architecture and industrial design. Productivist art in the young Soviet Union re-defined art as a form of material-formal research, ie, as preparatory effort in the service of industrial design, graphic design and architecture. The same function was conferred on art by Theo van Doesburg’s Neo-Plasticism (De Stijl). Neo-Plasticist art, and more so Productivist art, rejected all individualistic, romantic connotations of art. 114 One might suggest that this is at least a part of art’s elusive societal function. However, this societal function of art is not always sufficiently reflected. One might suspect that the function of play must remain latent in order not to spoil the required playfulness. Perhaps it is here that the riddle of art’s elusive function is buried: its explicit statement would compromise its effectiveness. The reckless innocence of art – one of its systemic features – would thus have its very own paradoxical rationality. 152

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115 This interpretation of the societal function of the art system is conceived in the spirit of Luhmann’s work, but in this case does not at all adhere to the letter of Luhmann’s theory of art. However, there is neither room nor necessity here to spell out Luhmann’s (inconclusive) attempts to specify the societal function of art.

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However, these practices should be considered to be art practices rather than architectural practices, since they did not really collapse into design activities proper and instead inspired the flourishing of abstract art. Their instrumentalization in terms of design was left open, undecided. The formal-material experiments themselves were non-committal and unconstrained with respect to the specific functional types the design of which might benefit from these experiments. The work was often so abstract that it was not even determined which branch of design (architectural or industrial design) should be able to draw the lessons and reap the results of these experiments. Therefore one might argue that the powerful influence of abstract art upon the avant-garde of Modern architecture is best theorized as productive irritation that was worked through within a distinct, self-enclosing discourse. In turn modern art was not reduced to becoming the designer’s foundational study, as the Bauhaus suggested, but went on to live its independent life during the rest of the 20th century, and is still thriving in the 21st century. There was another (comparably faint) moment of cross-fertilization during the 1970s. Architecturally oriented Minimalists such as Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Richard Serra and Michael Heizer, among others, had been noticed in architecture, giving a formal impetus to architectural Minimalism. However, such mutual observations and superficial influences confirm rather than question the hardened demarcation between the autopoiesis of architecture/design and the art system: Minimalism in architecture is conceptually incommensurable with Minimalism in art. The concept of a brainstorming playground is perhaps our best bet to characterize the general function of art in modern, contemporary society. One might therefore propose the following thesis: the societal function of art is to provide a playground, brainstorming platform, or domain of free-wheeling experimentation for all the institutions and subsystems of society that develop a need for such an experimental playground.115 Art is the experimental playground for architecture, industrial design, graphic and communication design, for the mass media, film, for advertising, for science and technology, and even for the political system. Within the art system the latest technologies can be tried out without yet overburdening them with the demand of rigorous functionality or economic feasibility. New forms of political communication, as well as

political topics and opinions can be explored in a free-wheeling manner without really positing a serious political position. New formats of mass media communication can be first explored in the name of art, for example, Internet art, without the immediate responsibility of effective mass communication. This interpretation, which maintains a strict separation between the domain of art and the other domains of social communication, nevertheless allows us to understand the overlap and apparent similarities between the art system and the other autopoietic systems. Art can then be understood as one more function system within modern society that offers a rather specific provision to the other function systems and institutions of society: the provision of a communicative playground where the various codes and constraints that govern these other domains are temporarily suspended. What takes places within the art world is therefore never politics, never media work, never science, and never design work, but a productive irritation and stimulation of these types of work. The multi-faceted diversity of art-forms obscures the underlying consistency of their societal function. It mirrors the diversity of the clientele, while providing a functionally equivalent service with respect to each different domain.116 This broad relevance of the art system as everybody’s playground also explains the widespread attention art receives within the cultural elites.117 Art experiments in a space that is bracketed off from the immediate pragmatic concerns the other function systems have to face and cater for. In this sense all art is ‘abstract’. It is this abstractness that gives art its lightness. The functional relationship between art and architecture/design might be compared with the relationship between mathematics and physics: art and mathematics are abstract platforms of repertoire building. We can further detect a parallel with the relationship of philosophy and the sciences. Like art, philosophy provides not only for the sciences but for virtually all function systems of society. If art operates as an abstracted playground for creative innovations in many fields, philosophy functions as the interchange hub for conceptual innovations. Philosophy gathers

116 This primary function of art as proto-architecture, proto-design, proto-communication, proto-media, proto-politics, proto-film etc, is only one facet of art as diversifying and proliferating system of communications. Dada, Surrealism and a self-propelling conceptual art soon seemed to demonstrate that art could not be domesticated as anybody’s playground or brainstorming domain. The art system has also been flourishing on its own, highly self-referential terms. 117 This phenomenon finds its parallel in the widespread readership that is enjoyed by philosophy. Philosophy, in its own way, also caters for all the disciplines art is servicing. It further serves the legal system, the education system and, in particular, it serves all of the sciences. 154

During the second half of the eighteenth century, all these very immediate relations between architecture and science gradually weakened. Structural engineering split from architecture, and strength of materials was 118 Antoine Picon, ‘Architecture, Science, and Technology’, in: Peter Galison & Emily Thompson (Eds), The Architecture of Science, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1999. 119 Ibid, p 314.

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2.5.2 THE DIFFERENTIATION OF SCIENCE AND ARCHITECTURE As pointed out above, during the Renaissance and Baroque key figures like Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini and Borromini simultaneously worked in the domains of architecture, sculpture and painting. The sciences were also emerging during the Renaissance. Leonardo can be cited as an early example in whom art, architecture and science went hand in hand. Art, architecture and science were differentiated from the the crafts at the same time. In the following generation some of the key architects in Holland, France and England were at the same time scientists: Simon Stevin in Holland, Guarino Guarini in Italy, Franc¸ois Blondel and Claude Perrault in France, and Christopher Wren in England.118 These coincidences of engagement are an obvious indication of how close the relation between architecture and science was at least until the 18th centuries. Antoine Picon has pointed out that architecture and construction had been a source of stimulating questions for the early science of the 17th and 18th centuries. ‘Architecture was still considered a discipline embodying very essential natural principles.’119 This appreciation of architecture within science was based on the Classical belief in an architectonic world ruled by proportion. This Classical conception was soon challenged by the developing modern science:

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and abstracts conceptual innovations from all domains and disciplines and then disseminates them back to all domains and disciplines. This widespread relevance explains the large print volumes philosophical works are able to achieve. The philosophy that best exemplifies this function as conveyor belt for conceptual innovations is perhaps Deleuze & Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. Its influence, not only on architecture, has indeed been remarkable. Neither mathematics nor philosophy can be easily subsumed under the social system of science. Abstract art, pure mathematics and theoretical philosophy have been differentiated, bracketed off and set free to become powerful evolutionary accelerators. Architecture uses all three accelerators to push its own level of innovation.

transformed into a new science based on calculus rather than on geometrical figures. The study of living beings adopted models other than the mechanical ones that bore so many analogies to architecture. Above all, a new vision of nature seriously challenged the faith in an architectural world . . . Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, architecture and science have seemed to belong to two different worlds.120

Concerning the demarcation of architecture/design versus science: the designer is faced with the necessity to act while the scientist might wait, leave his statements tentative and admit that in many respects he does not yet know. The scientist might communicate a question, or a mere suggestion for a possible research programme. Even the articulation of doubt already counts as a contribution to science. In contrast, the practical necessity to act, to choose, to decide means that architectural design communications do not know pure negation as a key communicative operation. Drawing – the principal medium of design communication – does not allow for negation. Such an operator of rejection/inversion is smply not defined within the domain of the drawing. Deleting an element is not quite the same as this operation is rarely introduced as an explicit communication (as in red-lining) and, crucially, is not preserved within the further texture of the drawing. One might use this observation as a point of departure for thinking how one might indeed define a form of negation within graphic design communication. This would imply the inclusion of explicitly rejected alternatives within the drawing, and this might indeed be a feasible feature within a future CAD application. However, even the introduction of a critical/negative capacity, ie, of a certain argumentative structure, within the design medium of drawing would not collapse the difference between science and design on this count: the final outcome of the design process cannot be negative, cannot be a refutation as in science. The design has to be completed as positive proposal, despite all the uncertainty and the resultant doubts that these uncertainties might raise. Like all decision-making processes, design decisions121 absorb uncertainty. Follow on decisions can build on prior decisions. At a detailing stage the designer does not usually question the primary layout decisions made earlier. Uncertainty has been successfully absorbed. Quite the opposite occurs in science: a general hypothesis might be rejected on the basis of a later, detailed empirical experiment. Scientific propositions are not communicated as decisions. Design moves are communicated as decisions. They can be reversed at will by later 120 Ibid, p 314.

121 Concerning design decisions see: section 3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture.

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122 Concerning binary codes see: Chapter 3.5.1 Binary Codes.

123 Concerning the double code of architecture see: Chapter 3.5.4 The Double Code of Architecture.

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decisions, but this is not usually expected, and would imply that most work done in the meantime would have to be undone. Scientific claims are regulated by the binary code122 of true vs false (code of truth). Design decisions are regulated by architecture’s double code123 of beauty and utility: functional vs dysfunctional (code of beauty), and formally resolved vs formally unresolved (code of utility). Science and architecture/design are subject to two rather different systems of codes. The incommensurability of these codifications implies the incommensurability between scientific communications and design communications. There is no way that the beauty of a design solution can attain the status of a verifiable (or falsifiable) truth-claim. A scientific claim cannot be supported by appealing to beauty or utility – despite the attempt of philosophical pragmatism to ground truth in utility. In turn, no scientifically verified truth has any bearing upon aesthetic judgements that address the code of beauty. Things are different with respect to the code of utility. Although utility is distinct from truth, scientific observation can be utilized for the assessment of specific aspects of functionality. Analytic theories within architecture operate just like scientific theories, although they are rarely developed to the level of contemporary scientific rigour. Analytic theories within architecture are the mechanism via which science irritates architecture. Here lies an opportunity to establish mechanisms for structural coupling between science and architecture. Certain scientific specialisms, for instance empirical research and theory concerning space-dependent communication patterns in the workplace, might support certain specialized competencies of architecture like the spatial organization of workspaces. It is this possibility of enlisting science for the task of assessing (aspects of) architecture’s functionality that has led – at various times – to the attempt to assimilate the communication processes within architecture with the communication patterns of science. However, scientific research/theory can only be instructive with respect to certain abstracted aspects of the full design task. The concrete totality of the necessary design determination cannot be covered by the various inputs of science. Even if all aspects considered relevant were covered by a respective scientific analysis, the question of the synthesis and relative weighting of the various aspects remains outside the scope of scientific analysis. Science and scientific analysis encourage the isolation of factors. Architectural design – even if we only consider the code functional vs dysfunctional – encourages synthesis and holistic evaluation. The relative functionality of a design

ultimately concerns the overall utility of the total design. In fact, as will be elaborated below (section 3.5), the informational burden (and ultimate impossibility) of such a global evaluation, in conjunction with the necessity to decide, is one of the reasons why architecture/design requires a second code, the code of beauty that operates on the basis of aesthetic appreciation as a kind of fast-track evaluation. There is a further important point of comparison between architecture/design and science. Science and the avant-garde segment of architecture share the code of novelty: original (new) vs conventional (old). Only new science, ie, only new results and/or new theories, can be recognized as scientific communications.124 The same goes for the avant-garde segment of architecture/design. Does this imply that communication within the architectural avant-garde operates like scientific communication? No. The code of novelty was strengthened in both science and architecture only after the communication systems had already separated. During the 18th and 19th centuries, originality was emphasized neither in science nor in architecture. In both domains the code of novelty remains secondary to the respective ruling codes. Scientific novelty can never trump truth, and architectural novelty can never trump utility and/or beauty. In both function systems, science and architecture, novelty is necessary but insufficient to guarantee recognition within the respective system of communications. This partial coincidence of codes can therefore not challenge the sharp demarcation between the two systems. There were several moments during the 20th century when attempts were made to assimilate architecture to science. In none of them was originality the point of emphasis. All such attempts focused on the code of utility. All such attempts tried to either banish or ignore the code of beauty, or tried to collapse it into a subsidiary moment (or signal) of utility. The first attempt to treat architecture as a science was advanced at the Bauhaus, especially after 1925, when Gropius decided to concentrate on industrial design and architecture. He considered the Bauhaus work as research: ‘The Bauhaus is seeking – by systematic practical and theoretical research in the formal, technical and economic fields – to derive the design of an object from its natural functions and relationships . . . The Bauhaus workshops are essentially laboratories.’125

124 Textbooks operate within the education system rather than in the communication system of science. 125 Walter Gropius, ‘Principles of Bauhaus Production’, in: Ulrich Conrads, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971, p 44. 158

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126 Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath & Rudolf Carnap, Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener

Kreis, Ver¨offentlichung des Vereines Ernst Mach, Artur Wolf Verlag (Vienna), 1929.

¨ 127 Hannes Meyer, ‘Thesen uber marxistische Architektur’, published in: Francesco Dal Co,

Architettura e rivoluzione. Scritti 1921–1942, Marsilio Editori (Padua), 1969. 128 Like Rittel, Alexander had studied mathematics and logic, and brought the new tools of discrete mathematics to bear on his architectural design methodology.

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Hannes Meyer, who had taken over the directorship of the Bauhaus in 1928, was driving the idea of architecture as science further. In his inaugural speech to the students he announced that the budget of the school would not allow him to transform the Bauhaus into a ‘scientific school’. However, he did introduce a supplementary lecture series focusing on sociology, psychology and positivist philosophy. He was in close communication with key members of the Vienna Circle (Wiener Kreis), a group of philosophers and scientists dedicated to the universal promotion of ‘the scientific world view’.126 This meant taking the exact sciences as model for all rational human endeavours. Members of the Vienna Circle came to lecture at the Bauhaus, among them Rudolf Carnap, the most radical philosopher of logical positivism who pursued the project of dissolving philosophy into a science of logical analysis. Meyer’s promotion of the scientific world view and the attempt to reconstruct architecture as science was consistent with his Radical Functionalism and Marxist convictions. In a manuscript entitled ‘Theses for a Marxist Architecture’ Meyer stated as his central thesis: ‘Architecture has become a science’.127 Another, more sustained attempt to transform architecture into science was made during the 1960s, under the banner of the Design Methodology Movement. This movement started in the late 1950s at the ¨ Gestaltung in Ulm under the leadership of Tomas ´ Hochschule fur Maldonado. Maldonado had replaced Max Bill who was criticized for being too wedded to an artistic conception of architecture. The decisive factor was an irritation from outside architecture: the forceful emergence of the new disciplines of operations research and systems theory. The mathematician Horst Rittel was brought into the school as expert in these scientific methods of project planning. He soon gained intellectual dominance within the school. In the early 1960s Rittel transferred to Berkeley to join forces with Christopher Alexander128 who also championed the new scientific ethos within architecture. Rittel and Alexander were aiming to supplant the designer’s reliance on ‘intuition’ with explicit, analytical rigour. This scientific spirit was soon picked up by the ‘researchers’ of the newly founded architectural department at Cambridge University. The key figures here were Lionel March and Philip Steadman, among others. The movement spread throughout the 1960s

with conferences, journals and dedicated university institutes. It perished in the 1970s, when Modernism went into terminal crisis. 2.5.3 THE DIFFERENTIATION OF ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING The key difference between architecture and design on the one hand and the various engineering disciplines on the other is that the engineering disciplines lack the concern for articulation, ie, the concern for the artefact’s outward appearance (as communication). The various engineering disciplines ‘design’ their structural and mechanical systems, but they lack the phenomenological/semantic dimension of architecture and the design disciplines. Those engineering disciplines that support architecture or industrial design leave the aspect of the appearance of the respective artefact to the architect/designer. Those engineering disciplines that take on the full responsibility of design for certain artefact/systems are concerned with infrastructural systems that have no audience and require no human interface. Visual articulation is the differentia specifica that provides a clear and applicable criterion to distinguish architecture from engineering. This criterion holds empirically and rationally. It offers both a clear demarcation line and a convincing reason to keep the two disciplines apart. This focus on visual articulation is also evident in the field of product design and its theoretical reflections. The essence of design is understood to be interpretation rather than mere problem solving. ‘Designers are no longer the inventors of technical systems, but their interpreters.’129 Graphic design and interface design are the design disciplines in which this essential criterion is most clearly foregrounded. However, the task to ‘visualize processes and functions’130 is the task of design in general, including architectrural design. The task of visual articulation thus gives us the demarcation criterion that separates design from engineering. All this is true, and useful to reflect upon. However, the issue cannot be settled simply by coming up with a convincing demarcation criterion. There might be equally plausible categorizations that would rather unify architecture and engineering within a single encompassing category. This happens for instance in Herbert Simon’s acclaimed The Sciences of the Artificial.131 Simon’s concept of the sciences of the artificial comprises ¨ 129 Bernhard E Burdek, ‘Im Dickicht der Diskurse’, in: form – The Making of Design, form 221, July/August 2008, Birkh¨auser Verlag, p 90. 130 Ibid, p 90. 131 Herbert A Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1969. 160

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132 The author is no insider in the structural engineering discourse, and therefore can confirm this only for the case of architecture.

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engineering and design including architecture. Simon distinguishes the natural sciences from the sciences of the artificial which for him comprise not only engineering and design/architecture, but all the professions as distinguished from the sciences: engineering, industrial design, architecture, business consultancies (organizational design), education, law and medicine. According to Simon all these professions are centrally concerned with design – as distinct from analysis – whether the task is to design functional artefacts (designed by engineers and architects), therapies, business plans or social welfare policies. If we bracket the inclusion of business, medicine and law and instead focus on engineering and architecture, we might admit that Simon’s categorization is plausible and even productive: his generalized discussion about the problem and process of design (including ‘engineering design’ like structural and mechanical ‘design’) makes a useful contribution to both the engineering disciplines and to architecture. His teachings concerning the processes, logics and limitations of ‘design’ in terms of rational choice, solution searches, satisfying vs optimization, bounded rationality, representational systems, means-ends analysis, complexity and hierarchical systems etc are as insightful as they are pertinent to the problematic of architectural design. However, the question that concerns us here is not whether an outside observer can define a framework in which architecture and engineering can be fruitfully addressed together. The question is first of all one of historical fact concerning whether architecture and engineering join in one unified discourse or co-exist as two separate systems of communications. Then, on the basis of the established fact, the next ˆ question concerns the raison d’etre of this fact. The historical fact is that architecture and building engineering have progressively differentiated to result in two disparate systems of communications with only a few shared points of reference that are influential in both domains. Frei Otto’s powerful and original work seems to be a significant reference in both discourses.132 Herbert Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial might be another shared point of reference. These rather rare points of discursive intersection cannot unify discourses that have otherwise developed rather distinct concepts, methods and values. Each of these two systems of communications has to reckon with the other as a significant environment that poses challenges that can neither be fully understood nor controlled.

The fact is that, in terms of the pattern of the respective communication structures, and in terms of ease of mutual understanding, architecture is more unified with the other design disciplines (industrial design, fashion design, graphic design) than with building engineering; and building engineering is more in tune with the other engineering disciplines. Architecture is distinct from engineering and considers itself to be distinct. The demarcation of architecture that is emphasized by the theory of architectural autopoiesis is a demarcation that is practised, promoted and proclaimed by architecture itself. The continuous maintenance and reinforcement of this demarcation is an active moment of the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. Engineers are ‘consultants’, who answer questions and solve the problems put to them by the architect. Otherwise they are kept at bay with respect to the primary decision process. The engineering discipline that is closest to architectural concerns is structural engineering. The primary loadbearing structure is often a key factor in the basic constitution and phenomenology of any building. As far as structure has a phenomenological presence in the building, it enters the domain and prerogative of the architect. The extensive discourse around the concept of tectonic form/order, aiming at the legible articulation of the structural and constructive logic of a building, belongs to architecture and has no place in modern engineering. Tectonics is architecture’s approach to constructive detail. It is concerned with articulation rather than problem solving. Modern engineering is closely tied to science and follows a logic of demonstrable problem solving. The problems are posed by architecture. But architecture cannot be reduced to an engineering logic. The concern with visual articulation is the criterion of demarcation. ˆ What is the raison d’etre and functional justification for drawing this sharp demarcation line between tasks that inevitably have to feed into the unified product of the building? The rationality of this demarcation lies in the fact that within modern society architecture’s task requires much more than a simple problem solving logic applied to problems of physical organization and building execution. Architecture’s task encompasses reference to social institutions, and involves an audience via perception, orientation and comprehension. Architecture’s overarching task might then present subsidiary tasks to the engineering disciplines. However, these tasks are not fully formulated within architecture. They can receive their full, pertinent formulation only within the separate autopoiesis of engineering. In this sense architecture only irritates engineering, and is in turn irritated by the solutions provided by the engineer. All the architect 162

133 Peter Sloterdijk, Sph a¨ ren I – Blasen, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1998, p 345.

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2.5.4 THE RATIONALITY OF DEMARCATION Architectural communications are design communications. Although this has not been specifically investigated here, it seems that architecture and design share their most fundamental concepts, methods and values. This is obvious with respect to landscape design, as well as with respect to interior and furniture design. The thesis also seems to hold with respect to industrial design, and might very well extend to fashion design and graphic design. A lot of the analyses and reflections that make up The Autopoiesis of Architecture should thus apply to design in general. To the extent to which this is the case, we might speak about the autopoiesis of design. The relevant environment of this autopoietic system thus extends across all designed artefacts, ie, nearly the totality of society’s manmade physical environment. As long as artefacts and artificial environments are created for an audience of users – whether for individuals or for groups – they fall into design’s domain of competency. Architecture and the design disciplines together claim universal competency for all manmade environments that are subject to individual or social interfacing. All these artefacts and environments participate in social communication. It is the interface with individual or social users that is the primary and specific concern of all design. Only places where nobody ever goes – such as water-treatment plants etc – are outside design’s ambit. Neither are the internal mechanisms that operate the interfaces of much concern – except for what they are delivering to the interface. The recognition of the total design of the human environment has been mesmerizing Peter Sloterdijk in his ‘Spherology’, his recent philosophy understood as an extended extrapolation of Heidegger’s under-developed ‘Being and Space’.133 As Bruno Latour reports, Henk Oosterling coined Sloterdijk’s observation into the catchy slogan ‘Dasein ist Design’ (Being is Design). Latour is using Sloterdijk to sketch the core premises for a potential

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can do is perhaps choose between various solutions offered by the engineer, if more than one solution is indeed offered. The architect has no final control over the engineering solutions. He is posing its initial problems. There is mutual irritation, but no discursive integration. Any attempt to integrate architecture and engineering into a unified discourse, at this stage of the development of the respective discourses, is doomed. The site of synthesis can only be the individual project/problem, differently positioned and discussed in the diverging discourses of architecture and engineering.

‘philosophy of design’ that gives design anthropological significance. Latour paraphrases Sloterdijk’s reflection as follows: There is no outside: outside is another inside with another climate control, another thermostat, another air conditioning system. Are you in public? Public spaces are spaces too, for God’s sake, they are not different in that respect from private spaces, just organized differently, with different architectures, different entry points, different surveillance systems, different soundscapes. To try to philosophize about what it is to be “thrown in the world” without defining more precisely, more literally (Sloterdijk is first of all a literalist in his use of metaphors) the sort of envelopes in which humans are thrown, would be like trying to kick a cosmonaut in outer space without a spacesuit . . . To define humans is to define the envelopes, the life support systems . . . In the same way as a space suit or a space station is entirely artificially and carefully designed, so are all the envelopes (the spheres to use his term, “spherology” being the word he gives to his endeavour) that constitute the fragile life supports of humans . . . We are enveloped, entangled, surrounded; we are never outside without having recreated another more artificial, more fragile, more engineered envelope. We move from envelopes to envelopes, from folds to folds, never from one private sphere to the great Outside.134

The point is clear: modernization has long since eradicated the terra incognita that once surrounded traditional societies. Everything has long since been colonized and designed. And designing, according to the theory of architectural autopoiesis, means organizing and articulating for the sake of framing135 social communication. The distinction between design and engineering has slipped both Sloterdijk’s and Latour’s attention. It should, however, be an important distinction for the intellectual task Sloterdijk sketches as a ‘cultural science of the artificial respiration of meaning-dependent creatures via informative and imperative milieux’ that charts the ‘arranged, measured, and legalized environments’ that envelop us. The environments Sloterdijk has in mind are not only the literal physical envelope, but the total social environment. Sloterdijk recognizes the importance of architecture and design in its constitution. With respect to the constitution of this societal ‘space’, Sloterdijk distinguishes the following sub-spaces, the ‘scientific, technical, military, juridical, architectural and the artistic space’.136 Latour notes that we ‘cannot indulge anymore in the idea that there is, on 134 Bruno Latour, ‘A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with special attention to Peter Sloterdijk)’, keynote lecture for the Networks of Design meeting of the Design History Society (Falmouth, Cornwall), 3 September 2008. 135 See: Chapter 6.1.3 Framing as Societal Function of Architecture. 136 Peter Sloterdijk, Sph aren ¨ III – Sch aume, ¨ Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 2004, p 169. 164

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137 Bruno Latour, ‘A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with special attention to Peter Sloterdijk)’, keynote lecture for the Networks of Design meeting of the Design History Society (Falmouth, Cornwall), 3 September 2008. 138 Bruno Latour, Von der Realpolitik zur Dingpolitik, Merve Verlag (Berlin), 2005, p 29.

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the one hand, material objective constraints and, on the other, symbolic, human subjective ones’.137 This is indeed a false dichotomy. Nothing comes raw to us. With Luhmann we understand that most ‘material constraints’ are socially mediated, usually via autopoietic expert discourses. Symbols have the same hardness, inertia and ‘objectivity’ as material constraints. Matter and meaning are always entangled within the things that surround us. Meanings are always multiple, according to the multiple communication networks those things are referenced within. For instance, the gallery wall has a technical constitution, is a commercial asset, acts as a legal boundary, becomes the site of an artistic intervention etc. The various communication systems we distinguish with Luhmann, and which are also referenced in Sloterdijk’s list of constitutive aspects of the societal space, all overlap in the constitution of ‘Dasein’. Latour’s own conceptual shift from isolated objects to entangled things, or in another parallel parlance, from matters of fact to matters of concern, following on from Michel Serres’ notion of the quasi-object, talks about the same idea of complex co-construction that characterizes all the objects (and places) we use. And what is more: this co-construction, each time, involves virtually all the different function systems of society, plus all sorts of other, smaller social systems that might somehow intersect with and thus charge the object or place in question. How does this general insight equip us for the concrete understanding of these quasi-objects? Comprehensive and deep analytical penetration, if at all, could only be attempted by a philosopher. Bruno Latour, playing on the etymology of ‘thing’138 as point of tribal gathering, believes that these entangled things/matters of concern, now understood as objects of political conflict, can become the focal points of democratic gatherings. This kind of object/concern-specific democracy should evolve to substitute for a democracy operating via all-purpose parliaments. These arguments are referenced here not in order to shift the discussion into political theory, but to clarify, by contrast with Latour, the practical significance of the theory of modern, functional-autopoietic differentiation in general, and the series of demarcations that constitute the specific differentiation and self-referential closure of architecture in particular. According to the theory of modern functional differentiation it is precisely this hope of a holistic gathering of all concerned parties that is no longer realistic. The fact that all ‘comes together’ in the

quasi-object coincides with the incommensurability of the discursive formations that produce and reproduce the problematic object in question. The story of the wall will always be multiple: architectural, artistic, scientific and engineering-wise. It further has an economic, a legal, and potentially even a political story. That is the condition of irreducible polycontexturality in a society without control centre. Its political story is just one of its many stories and not its master-story; neither as conspiratorial plot, nor as happy ending. But should not the designer of this wall consider all these aspects? Yes, but he can do this only on his own terms, ie, on the terms prepared for him by the autopoietic discipline of architecture. The architect takes all these aspects into consideration, but only as non-negotiable, external constraints. The discipline of architecture has prepared him with concepts, techniques and values that allow him to handle these constraints in architectural design terms. This discourse is as limited and partial as all the other discourses that reference the object in question. There is no Archimedean point of leverage here. That we architects and designers ‘create’ the whole world is either trivial or an illusion: we can only create the visible world of objects, not the world of quasi-objects with all their invisible functions and connections. The illusion of omnipotence, that comes with the universality of the design competency in combination with the difficulty of seeing quasi-objects, underlies all those utopian fantasies and demands for a critical-transformative architecture that have haunted the discipline since its inception at the dawn of modernity. Architecture and design are not in a position to use the design of all things and places as an occasion to operate creatively on the technical, economic, legal and political aspects of the places and things in question. This usurpation is not only impossible because of the stubborn intransigence of the status quo. Where should architects find the necessary information processing capacity? This usurpation is ‘impossible’ in the sense that architects would only make themselves ‘impossible’ in such a vainglorious attempt. In this sense self-demarcation is both a self-enabling strategy and a mechanism of self-protection.

2.5.5 THE SPECIFICITY OF ARCHITECTURE WITHIN THE DESIGN DISCIPLINES The theory of architectural autopoiesis stipulates that architecture and the other design disciplines – product design, fashion design, graphic design – together constitute a single autopoietic function system within 166

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139 Thus this book might very well have been entitled The Autopoiesis of Design. The phrase ‘the autopoiesis of architecture’ is thus a pars pro toto that – in most contexts – can be expanded into ‘the autopoiesis of design’. The fact that the author is an architect accounts for the privileging of architecture among the design disciplines. 140 See the respective historical analyses in: Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1995.

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modern, functionally differentiated society.139 The different design disciplines are subsystems within this great, comprehensive function system that is design, analogous to the way the different disciplines of science are subsystems of the great function system that is science. It is important to take note of the distinction between two types of systemic differentiation: the primary differentiation of society into different autopoietic function systems and the secondary differentiations that emerge within each function system. The primary differentiation of the great function systems entails the differentiation of incompatible codes that spell the conceptual incommensurability of the different function systems thus distinguished. This mutual incommensurability ensures that the respective distinctions are ultra-stable. Neither this incommensurability, nor the attendant ultrastability holds for the distinctions of different disciplines within a function system, ie, neither the demarcations between the different sciences, nor the demarcations between the different design disciplines are ultra-stable. The boundaries between these different disciplines are subject to mutual incursions that create zones of overlap between the different domains of competency. In the case of the design disciplines one might point to the following zones of overlap: furniture design is a domain of overlap between architecture and product design. Accessories like handbags, wallets, briefcases and suitcases etc constitute a domain of overlap between product design and fashion design. Signage systems and colour codings within buildings constitute a domain of overlap between architecture and graphic design. Although the object domains of the various design disciplines – despite the identified zones of overlap – are quite distinct, there is no doubt that the various variants of the design discourse are fully commensurable. The Arts and Crafts Movement around Ruskin and Morris, Art Nouveau, as well as the Bauhaus bear witness to this discursive continuity between the different design disciplines. One might also cite the influence of the Dress Reform Movement on the theory and aesthetics of the Modern Movement in design and architecture,140 as well as the writings of Adolf Loos that ranged across all the design disciplines, or the design practice of Peter Behrens who designed both industrial products and buildings for the same client, the AEG. Although today the various design disciplines

seem more distinct – not least because they have been separated within the education system – there are still many careers that reach across these boundaries, for instance those of Ron Arad, Philippe Starck and Zaha Hadid Architects. The oeuvre of Zaha Hadid Architects moves from urban masterplanning, via buildings and interiors to furniture, and includes all sorts of products from cars to cutlery, as well as fashion items such as handbags, shoes and jewellery. This seamless move across the boundaries that separate the different design disciplines is possible because they all follow the same lead-distinction of form versus function.141 All the design disciplines – architecture/urban design, product design, fashion design and graphic design – are identified and regulated by the same code: the double code of utility and beauty. They also operate with the same design medium of the drawing/digital model – although with different degrees of dependency. Finally, all the design disciplines address – each in its own way – the same societal function: the framing of societal ˆ communication.142 The raison d’etre of design disciplines is the design of communicative frames for all domains of social life. Having established that all forms of design participate in a coherently structured system of communications, it is time to ask how the undeniable differences between the design disciplines are to be defined. In particular, the theory of architectural autopoiesis must ask: what is the distinguishing mark of architecture that can serve as a general criterion to distinguish architecture, ie, urban, architectural and interior design, from all the other forms of design, ie, from product design, fashion design and graphic design? This criterion can be found by identifying the special category of objects with which all architectural communication and architectural design work is concerned: the category of architectural territories .143 These are occupiable spaces generated via a framing enclosure. It is important to note that this specifically architectural operation of framing enclosure produces a significant difference, the difference between inside and outside. It is this distinction of inside vs outside that is constitutive of architecture as a very specific design discipline. There can be no architectural design that does not produce this difference. As Dirk Baecker notes, ‘one only knows that it is architecture if one can go inside and come out again and if the conditions

141 See section 3.4 The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design Disciplines. 142 See part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture, and in particular Chapter 5.1.3 Framing as Societal Function of Architecture. 143 The circularity of the initial presentation of the criterion is rather deliberate. 168

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144 Dirk Baecker, ‘Die Dekonstruktion der Schachtel: Innen und Aussen in der Architektur’, in: ¨ Kunst und Niklas Luhmann, Frederik D Bunsen & Dirk Baecker, Unbeobachtbare Welt – Uber Architektur, Verlag Cordula Haux (Bielefeld), 1990, p 83. 145 Volume 2 talks about spatial division as the base operation of architectural design that sets up the territorial distinctions that define the object of architectural design. However, the task of architectural design involves more than mere spatial division or spatial organization: architectural design also involves articulation. It is only the double act of organization and articulation that produces architectural spaces. The notion of framing enclosures involves this aspect of articulation. See Volume 2. 146 Bill Hillier & Julienne Hanson, The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press (London), 1984, p 1.

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change through this ability to go in and out, ie, if inside something else can be expected than outside’.144 It is necessary to clarify here that the talk of enclosure and of inside vs outside is not meant to imply that architecture is always concerned with enclosing an environmentally sealed interior against the outdoor elements. Enclosure as protection against the elements is just one of many forms of enclosure. The concept of enclosure must be defined in a very general way implying no more than that a certain occupiable zone or territory is somehow recognizably defined. Enclosure might be the articulation of a certain zone or space within the outdoor urban space, or the demarcation of one zone against another within an encompassing interior. Talk of enclosure and demarcation should also not imply the need for sharp boundaries. Modern architecture forces us to recognize ‘open space’ and ‘continuously flowing space’, and contemporary architecture further demands recognition of blurred boundaries, smooth versus striated space and the gradient transformation of field qualities as means of organizing and articulating space as a continuously differentiated field. The abstract and general concept of enclosure elaborated here is thus supposed to imply no more than some form of territorialization, and the architectural space an observer enters might be defined by no more than a certain perceived shift of ambient field quality. The key is that territories are distinguished and organized and that differences are articulated and perceived.145 Bill Hillier equally identifies the crucial difference between the artefacts that industrial designers deal with and the artefacts that architects are concerned with: ‘Buildings might be comparable to other artefacts in that they assemble elements into a physical object with a certain form; but they are incomparable in that they also create and order empty volumes of space resulting from that object into a pattern. It is this ordering of space that is the purpose of building . . . Buildings are not just objects, but transformations of space through objects.’146

The point Hillier makes is important: what is of significance for the task of architecture is not only the fact that an inside is distinguished from an outside, or that territories are distinguished from each other through partitioning, but that these territorializations form certain patterns. Beyond Hillier the theory of architectural autopoiesis further insists that articulation has to augment organization. Only articulated territories and articulated systems of territories fulfil the ambitious notion of framing enclosures. However, for the unmistakable identification of architecture as distinct from the other design disciplines, it suffices to say that architectural design is concerned with a category of artefacts that are marked out by the fact that they are somehow enclosing, that they can be entered into, and that they introduce the difference between inside and outside. This criterion or definition of architecture as distinct from product design can then also serve to structure the zone of overlap between the two domains: furniture gravitates into the domain of architecture to the extent to which it is enclosing and serves as a space-making or space-defining substance. The phenomenon that autopoietic function systems differentiate internally into more or less distinct subsystems is a general feature of modern, functionally differentiated society. For example, the legal system differentiates into the subsystems of criminal vs civil law. The sciences differentiate into the natural vs the human sciences and further into the different scientific disciplines. This distinction between the primary differentiation of different function systems within society versus the secondary differentiation between the different subsystems within each function system is crucial. The primary differentiation is marked by incommensurability and ultrastability. The boundaries established by the secondary differentiations are much more fluid and porous. Communications across those secondary boundaries are sustained by a shared lead-distinction, shared code and a shared medium. The distinction of inside vs outside constitutes architecture only on the level of a secondary differentiation as one of several disciplines of design. It is the lead-distinction of form vs function that constitutes architecture – together with all the other design disciplines – on the primary level of societal autopoiesis.

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This third part is the central and most extensive part of this book. It contains an account of the specific, communicative operations, the specific communication structures and the typical communication processes that together constitute the unique identity and capacity of architecture.

� Operations are the ongoing (individual) communications that carry the autopoiesis of architecture. We can distinguish types of communications – assertions, questions, instructions, commands, decisions etc – and we can identify the primary type of communicative operation that is one of the defining characteristics of architecture and the design disciplines: design decisions. Operations are always selected and sequenced according to the given communication structures and processes. � Processes: the characteristic and defining communication processes of architecture are its typical communication episodes like the sequences of graphically mediated design moves, and the collective design sessions that, strung together, form the design process of a project. The methods of architecture are institutionalized processes within architecture. All communication processes are structured according to regulating communication structures. � Communication structures are produced, reproduced and gradually modified (evolved) via the continuous processing of communicative operations. Communication structures crystallize from the recursive use of operations and, once formed, guide and order all further communicative operations. The characteristic and defining communication structures of architecture are its central concepts, its general guiding principles, its primary criteria of evaluation, as well as its characteristic medium of communication. The typification of operations and of processes, ie, the availability of types of operation, and of types of processes within the system, is itself a structure of the

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3. Architecture as Autopoietic System – Operations, Structures and Processes

system. The theory of architectural autopoiesis distinguishes permanent and variable communication structures. Operations, structures and processes interlock in relations of mutual constitution. This relation of mutual constitution, at the same time, also involves system and environment. The elemental units of the system, its operations, are constituted from above, ie, operations are always operations of a system. The operation of adding a line to a drawing (or the follow-on confirmation ‘this beautifully resolves the imbalance here’) is only a design decision (or a design critique) within the autopoietic system of architecture/design. The specific operations, structures and processes of an advanced and specialized system of communications such as architecture form within society and use the generally available communication structures of society – most importantly language – to forge more specific, more selective and more ‘technical’ structures and processes. The theory of architectural autopoiesis assumes that architecture is an integral system of communications, a cohesive unity that reproduces itself within the boundaries it maintains and polices. Internally this autopoietic process is stabilized via a series of key structures – types of operations, institutionalized processes (methods), media, concepts, principles, and criteria – which systematically interlock in relations of mutual reassurance. Therefore the attempt is made here to identify and present (reconstruct) these structures, as they currently exist, with an emphasis on their systematic interconnections. However, it should be clear from the beginning that this emphasis on systematicity does not exclude the recognition that this system continues to evolve. And since we cannot expect evolution to proceed in a neatly synchronized manner across all structures, we should, in some areas, also reckon with a certain level of internal discrepancy and conflict. As long as such conflict remains somehow isolated, in a temporarily differentiated conflict system, it does not threaten the ongoing autopoiesis. Moreover, it should be noted here, once again, that it is the final goal of the theory of architectural autopoiesis to accelerate this evolution and to contribute to it with quite specific suggestions. There are a number of moments when the presentation and analysis of architecture’s primary communication structures lead to the extrapolation of emerging tendencies and to the formulation of agendas that could lead to the establishment of new structures that would significantly upgrade the communicative capacity of the discipline. These potential upgrades are thought through with respect to their mutual compatibility and their ability to tie in with the overall evolving system of society. The theory sets 172

1 In particular privileged proportions (like the golden section) and systems of proportions in general, that once were considered essential, have totally disappeared notwithstanding the fact that the idea that proportions matter in architecture seems to linger on in the conceptions of the ‘general public’. The last attempt to revitalize this idea of a system of proportions in the context of modern architecture was Le Corbusier’s Modulor. This attempt failed despite the overpowering stature of its author. 2 This concept was – in terms of its discursive function – a precursor to the concept of style. It reined in the new creative freedom of any design work (and of any artistic work) that was a

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out to explicate the systematic rationality of the current discursive arrangements with a view to promoting ambitious agendas that project beyond those prevalent arrangements, with the potential to reintegrate the evolving autopoiesis on an enhanced level of performance. It is undeniable that this implies a selective filtering and highlighting of both the assumed systemic core of the discipline and of the currently emerging tendencies that are presumed to be most promising. The selection criterion here can, in the last analysis, only refer back to an overall conception and theory of society within which architecture is invited to construe and update its self-conception. The central features and tenets of this theory of society have been indicated and will be referred to over and over again in connection with the specific discursive structures at stake in the respective sections/chapters. The fact that the structured system of communications continues to evolve implies that not all concepts, criteria and methods presented here are equally well-established. Some key concepts, such as, for example, form and function, are ultra-stable, and have been at the heart of the discipline since its inception about 500 years ago, staying in charge without any sign of letting go. Other distinctions that ordered the communications of the discipline for a long time – such as the distinction between structure and ornament – have disappeared. Yet other key concepts such as, for example, composition, emerged somewhat later (about 200 years ago), and have been going strong until relatively recently. Still further concepts/methods/values, like the idea of harmony with its constitutive features – proportion, symmetry and completeness – were super-strong for the first 400 years, but have been declining to reach total insignificance over the course of the last 100 years.1 Very old concepts/criteria like beauty seem somewhat outmoded but live on in new guises. The theory of architectural autopoiesis can explain their persistence. The concept of style and the distinction of styles came into domineering prominence in the 19th century, then suffered a temporary setback, only to swing back into the position of an inescapable, if reluctant, point of reference. The concept of taste arose and disappeared within 100 years between 1700 and 1800.2 The concept of character

had a similar run. The self-conception of architecture as being concerned with the configuration of space emerged at the end of the 19th century and came into prominence with the advent of the Modern Movement during the 1920s. This concept, for many, still counts as the most essential definition of architecture, while for the current avant-garde the concept of space has been superseded by the concept of field.3 Against this historical panorama of shifting conceptual arrangements the attempt is made to reconstruct the currently active arrangements. However, incipient concepts, criteria and methods that seem to portend the future of the discipline are also being addressed. Emphasis will be placed on the integral role of each concept within the overall system. The analysis will demonstrate the ‘rationality’ or ‘necessity’ of every concept that currently functions within architecture. The explication of this necessity, or ‘rationale’, is the explication of its particular, indispensable contribution to the overall adaptive capacity of the autopoiesis of architecture. This explication of the rationale of the central, persistent concepts not only follows from the observation of prevalent patterns of architectural communication, but is guided by the example of Niklas Luhmann’s analysis of the other modern function systems. Luhmann’s comparative analyses led him to the abstraction of a set of general structural features that can be found in all (or most) function systems of modern society. These persistent structural features seem to reflect general exigencies of function systems that try to differentiate and maintain autonomous communicative domains within result of becoming an autonomous domain of social communication. The superiority of the discursive structure afforded by the concept of style offering coherent programmes to regulate the code should be evident when compared with the rather hermetic concept of taste that relies upon shared implicit criteria of the experienced connoisseurs thus giving far less scope for the elaboration of arguments. 3 At this point it is important to introduce a distinction that is required to navigate the historical evolution of architecture’s constitutive system of concepts: the distinction between the constitutive communication structures of a system and their semantic condensation. With respect to the concepts listed above – form, function, composition, harmony, style, taste, character, space, field – we would have to distinguish their operative meaning, together with the actual communication processes they guide, from their connotative and reflective meaning as explicated in theoretical definitions and self-descriptions. The distinction tries to cope with the fact that self-descriptions often display a certain inertia whereby concepts and their definitions are kept in place while their pattern of application evolves. This structural drift in the communication structures does not always register in the circulating theoretical formulae. On the other hand, new theoretical formulae might be anticipating later communicative practices. For example, the notion of space was first introduced as theoretical notion on the art-historical margins of architectural discourse, before space-making composition was a conscious architectural practice. Today space continues to be a primary category in architectural self-description although contemporary design operations bear hardly any resemblance any more to the game of modern spatial composition. 174

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modern society. These general structural features include defining lead-distinctions, exclusive binary codes forcing either-or evaluations, as well as programmes that furnish applicable criteria to regulate the disposition over the code values. Another general structural requirement is the differentiation of specialized media of communication. The theory of architectural autopoiesis distinguishes permanent communication structures from variable communication structures. This distinction is an important theoretical tool to order and assess the panoply of historical and contemporary concepts referred to above. Those structures that are identified as permanent can be expected to persist and be built upon. Variable structures can be updated within the skeleton of permanent structures. Those concepts that are identified as variable must be questioned with respect to their historical validity and have to be replaced or updated with every new epoch. The lead-distinction (form vs function) as well as the code (double code of utility and beauty) belong to the permanent structures of architecture that have been definitory since architecture’s inception. The development of architecture also brings forth new structures/concepts that might turn out to be permanent. An example is the differentiation of architecture into avant-garde and mainstream. The distinction of organization and articulation had its precursor in the traditional tripartite distinction of distribution, construction and decoration, as the three fundamental tasks of all architectural design. In the new form that this distinction (tentatively) received in the 20th century as the binary distinction of organization and articulation, the theory of architectural autopoiesis posits it as a permanent communication structure of the discipline. The concept of style is permanent only as a categorical dimension of architecture within which variable styles can be distinguished. All style-dependent structures are variable. This includes structures/concepts such as harmony, proportion, decoration, structure vs ornament, composition, space and field. Such concepts sometimes seem to indicate permanent, necessary conditions of all architecture. For instance, one might ask how there can be any architecture without composition? Or without space? The history of architectural theory and practice reveals that composition and space emerged relatively late – one after the other – with the ascendency of Neo-Classicism and then Modernism, and are now both on the way out. ‘Compositions’ typically comprise a small number of simple, rigid and hermetic geometric figures (cubes, cylinders etc) that are placed in relations of contiguity. ‘Space’ is conceived as an empty and neutral system of positions that allows for the arbitrary placement of points, lines, planes and volumes. Parametricism rejects and replaces both concepts as representative of limited and worn out design practices. Thus

by observing the autopoiesis of architecture through this fundamental distinction of permanent versus variable structures of communication, the theory of architectural autopoiesis provides decisive orientation within the otherwise perplexing, expanding conceptual universe of architectural discourse. The theory of architectural autopoiesis succeeded in the identification of the specific communication structures that instantiate the stable discursive core of architecture in line with the general systemic requirements of architecture as effective societal function system.4 How compelling these identifications are will transpire below. The following analyses (continued in depth in Volume 2) also engage with relatively ‘new’ agendas that have surfaced in the last 50 years without yet fully capturing the central core of the discipline. These agendas are pushed forward to upgrade the current expert discourse of architecture. These agendas are inspired by external sources and thus allow architecture to learn from other disciplines. For instance:

� The concern with mastering more elaborate patterns of organization (as pioneered by Christopher Alexander) is proposing to learn from certain branches of mathematics. � The concern with the conditions of perception (phenomenology) is learning from cognitive psychology (Gestalt-psychology). � The concern with the conditions of signification, ie, the attempt to reflect and instrumentalize architecture’s inevitable semiological dimension, is asking architecture to learn from semiology. The latter two concerns – perception and architectural signification – have been gathered into what is being proposed here as emerging keystone concept: articulation. This concept of articulation is systematically tied to the concept of organization, and the resultant concept of articulate organization is proposed as watchword that decisively states, on a very general level, the central task of architectural design expertise and virtuosity in the face of mounting social complexity. In summary, the theory of architectural autopoiesis sets out to explicate the systemic rationality of the current conceptual arrangements with a view to promoting ambitions and emerging agendas that project beyond those current arrangements. The motivating hypothesis here is that the new agendas and the attendant architectural intelligence have

4 The successful identification of architecture’s discursive keystones in accordance with Luhmann’s general schema in turn confirms once more the validity and generality of this schema. 176

THESIS 10 In a society without control centre, architecture has to regulate itself and maintain its own mechanisms of evolution that allow it to stay adapted (within the ecology of coevolving societal subsystems). The irreversible result of societal differentiation is a society without centre and therefore without unified, hegemonic self-description that could become a vehicle of utopian self-projection. This loss of a centre also affects architecture. Architecture has no external guidance. It is thrown back upon itself when it comes to the definition of its tasks and values. Vitruvius and Alberti could still think of themselves as participating in a unified civic discourse. Architecture and good design were inseparably bound up with the good life, just society and cosmological harmony (science). An educated man of Alberti’s stature was at ease in all domains of social communication. The integration – in persona – of those aspects of society, which later (starting with Alberti) differentiated into autonomous subsystems, was as yet unproblematic. Society still had an identifiable address, to which utopian speculation, with due deference, could be addressed. Political, judicial, economic and ideological power were still concentrated at the top of the stratified order. Therefore it is no empty politeness if Alberti’s De re aedificatoria is dedicated to the powerful patron Lorenzo de’ Medici, even if the autopoiesis this book inaugurated soon escaped the control of politics. Today society has no address, no centre and no opportunity to generate a binding representation of itself and its destiny. 3.1.1 NIKLAS LUHMANN’S THEORY OF MODERN SOCIETY With Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical oeuvre there finally is, for the first time, a comprehensive theory of modern society that can compete with Marx’s system in terms of scope and conceptual precision. This impressive edifice begins to fill the theoretical vacuum that has paralyzed social theory ever since the continued viability of the Marxist outlook became doubtful. In what follows, Luhmann’s extensive and well elaborated theoretical apparatus is used to re-describe and systematize the communication structures that constitute architecture as an autonomous discipline.

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the potential to be reintegrated into the evolving autopoiesis of architecture at an upgraded level of overall performance.

There are constant and variable communication structures. It is the continuous evolution of the variable structures – set within a stable frame of constant structures – that allows architecture to effectively operate and maintain its autonomy and relevance within society. This autonomy within society does not imply indifference to society. Rather, it is a necessary mode of contributing to society with sufficient flexibility and sophistication. This is one of Luhmann’s primary insights: contemporary society is far too complex and too dynamic to establish clear and fixed hierarchies of values/priorities that would in turn allow the societal division of labour to be conceived as chains of instruction whereby centrally/democratically set purposes are to be fulfilled by the various appointed function systems. Instead each function system appoints itself, defines its own purposes and rules supreme with respect to the appropriate selection of means. The various subsystems of society are doing this under the condition of mutual dependency. Each function system claims exclusive competency for a particular set of services. These services are required by most social systems such as families, organizations etc, as well as by all the great function systems themselves. For instance, most social systems rely on the provision of a reliable legal framework. Most social systems also rely on the provision of appropriately designed spaces. However, the mere claim of exclusive competency does not in itself guarantee the continued pertinence and relevance of the respective function systems and their provisions. The mainstream, state of the art solutions provided by a function system like architecture might become increasingly maladaptive and irrelevant with the progressive evolution of society. Luhmann’s theory is presupposed here as the conceptual framework within which architecture might be re-described. Architectural theory is thus able to draw on the resources of a sophisticated conceptual apparatus for the re-elaboration of its own self-description against the backdrop of the challenges of contemporary society. Architecture learns how its self-descriptions might be embedded within a coherent, general account of modern society. Most ambitious architectural self-descriptions operate with (explicit or implicit) conceptions of the (good) society. However, the up-to-dateness and theoretical sophistication of these ideological horizons have often been all too limited. In Luhmann’s terms one might say that Luhmann’s terms might be utilized to facilitate the further autopoiesis of architectural communication within a complex and turbulent societal environment. What complicates the effort is that Luhmann unfolds the paradox of an overarching discourse that describes a series of separate discourses that remain autonomous and can not be integrated, coordinated or in any way 178

5 Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997, Chapter 4, VIII, ‘Funktional differenzierte Gesellschaft’. 6 Niklas Luhmann, Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 2002, pp 115–16, translated here from German.

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Every function-system must presuppose that all other functions are

provided for elsewhere, at the necessary level of advancement; but it cannot

itself secure this provision, for instance through a negotiated exchange.

Every function-system re-enunciates the possibility of relying on ordering

premises coming from society . . . This uncoupling produces an excess of

communicative options within the system which can only be managed . . .

through self-organisation. Every function-system is burdened with autonomy

because no function-system can fulfill the function of another.6

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determined by his or any other meta-discourse. There is no longer any ‘address’ or central authority to which such an overarching discourse could appeal. Within modern, functionally differentiated society there is no longer any privileged position that could offer a binding representation of society within society. Neither science, nor philosophy, nor any democratically constituted central government is such a pivotal point in contemporary world society. Politics can no longer control any of the subsystems of society. The political system is but one of the subsystems which together produce society through their coevolution. Each societal subsystem develops its own perspective upon society (and upon itself within society), ie, each uses its own language and routines concerning what it thus identifies as the problems of society. In contrast, within traditional stratified societies, the top of the hierarchy was the unquestionable position of authority that issued or underwrote a binding self-description of society. This sketch of modern society as a communication process without centre and without binding self-representation is based on Niklas Luhmann’s theory of ‘functionally differentiated society’.5 According to Luhmann this internally differentiated system of communications works because the process of differentiation follows a functional logic, crystallizing self-referentially closed, but structurally coupled, function systems. Luhmann defines modern society – the post-modern being but its most expressed form – as a society in which functional differentiation has replaced stratification (feudal order) and segmentary differentiation (tribal societies) as primary mode of societal differentiation. Stratified society still contained a privileged position that could guarantee central control and a unified self-description with respect to social communication: the monarch, heading the internally stratified aristocracy at the peak of the social pyramid.

This autonomy does not alleviate the mutual dependency of the various function systems. This is always a two-way dependency. On the one hand, function systems depend on receiving provisions from other function systems, for instance the education system needs the political system to provide collectively binding decisions like obligatory schooling, or funds, either through political allocation or via fees gathered in the market economy. On the other hand, the vitality of function systems also depends on their ability to provide services to other social systems. These services have to be able to meet the evolving demands of society. Any prolonged lack of sensitivity with respect to what goes on elsewhere in society spells irrelevance, leading to the withdrawal of attention and resources which in turn throws the respective function system into crisis.7 Luhmann is suggesting that the development of all modern function systems followed a typical pattern that resulted from the regular ‘connection between differentiation, the dropping away of external determination, autonomy, and internal pressure to self-organize’.8 Luhmann goes on to emphasize that ‘in every specific case the connection between differentiation, autonomy, and self-organisation leads to very different forms . . . But their incommensurability is the result of comparable developmental processes which become inevitable to the extent to which more and more function systems are loosening their dependency on hierarchical stratification and concentrate on their specific functions.’9 We might add here that these comparable developmental processes – in reaction to the same overall structural conditions of society – allow Luhmann to succeed in producing a general analytical schema of types of communication structures that can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of all function systems. This schema, that captures the typical pattern of self-organization of the function systems, operates on a rather high level of abstraction, and from a rather specific perspective: the perspective of a function- or problem-oriented mode of systems-theoretical analysis.10 Within this abstract perspective rather surprising, and surprisingly compelling, comparisons become possible. The theory of architectural autopoiesis, for the first time, allows architecture to participate in this matrix of comparisons. 7 Such moments of crisis must – sooner or later – be resolved through a new sustainable beginning. Modern society depends on the mutually well-adapted functioning of all its great function systems. 8 Niklas Luhmann, Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 2002, p 116, translated here from German. 9 Ibid, p 117. 10 For those brought up within Marxism this functional form of social explanation should, in principle, be relatively familiar. 180

Luhmann did not specifically elaborate this parallelism, and he certainly did not include architecture in his deliberations. The theory of architectural autopoiesis poses the switch from edifice to space as the decisive transformation that can be set in parallel to the liberalization of the economy, the democratization of politics, the positive turn in the legal system and the Romantic awakening of art. Architecture’s re-foundation resulted in the following parallel transformation:

� the spatialization of architecture All these parallel transformations imply a decisive increase in the versatility and flexibility of the responsiveness of the respective system in the context of an increased societal complexity. In the legal system the shift from natural law to positive law gives total openness with respect to the content of law, and a decoupling from the premises of traditional, stratified society. Even on the basis of these hints we can already see how, in architecture, the switch from the iteration of fixed, traditional building types to the openness of configuring space achieves a parallel 11 See: Chapter 2.2.5 The Switch from Edifice to Space.

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� market-orientation in the economy � democratization in the political system � positivism in the legal system � Romanticism in art

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For example, in section 2.2 The Foundation and Refoundation of Architecture we observed a radical shift in both the functional scope (universalization) and the openness in the formal repertoire. On the conceptual level this expansion in the versatility of the repertoire was registered/facilitated by the idea that architecture is all about the configuration of space: architecture switched from edifice to space.11 The radicality of the transformation that is indicated and condensed in this conceptual switch cannot be overemphasized. Architectural design had become a totally new enterprise. All traditional formal and typological constraints were abandoned for the sake of a radical openness. Is there anything that this refoundation of the discipline could be compared to? Luhmann’s talk of typical patterns that result from differentiation, autonomy and self-organization indicates that the process of decoupling from external guidance has typical (comparable) internal consequences in each function system. To illustrate his point, Luhmann hints at the possibility of comparing the following decisive transformations in the following respective function systems:

advancement.12 In philosophical terms the specified, parallel shifts in the economy, politics, law and art imply a general shift from the God-given, to the natural, and finally to the artificial understood as fully contingent upon socially set purposes. In what follows, the comparison of architecture with the other function systems will be a recurrent device, within the detailed analysis of architecture’s communication structures. 3.1.2 THIRD ORDER OBSERVATION All function systems (architecture, science, law, politics etc) observe themselves. They do this not occasionally but constitutionally on the basis of integrated, system-specific, canonical literatures: they are communicating/operating in the mode of second order observation, another important metatheoretical concept. Therefore Luhmann posits his own theory as operating in the mode of third order observation.13 Thus, in what follows the theory of architectural autopoiesis is going to switch repeatedly between second and third order observations. All episodes of architectural communication oscillate between first order and second order observations.14 The character of the theoretical project elaborated here – to (re-)construct a self-referential theory of architecture within the context of an encompassing social theory – implies the need to oscillate between Luhmann’s philosophical (‘sociological’) perspective (metatheory) and the perspective (architectural theory) internal to the discipline of architecture. These remain distinct perspectives, operating with distinct schemata and objects of observation. The architectural theory observes architectural works, drawings and design arguments with its peculiar schemata and codes to be elaborated below (like form vs function etc). As it observes architectural arguments it also observes (part of) itself. It is self-referential. As architectural theory includes itself within the discipline of architecture, architecture as a whole is a self-referential communication system. All this happens in the mode of second order observation. However, the last two sentences (as well as this whole paragraph) belong to the metatheoretical level of

12 For the further elaboration of the role of ‘space’ in architecture see: section 5.4 Key Innovations: Place, Space, Field. 13 As Luhmann includes his own theory explicitly as an object of its own theoretical observation, using the same schemata of philosophy/sociology to place himself alongside his other social objects, a further level is not required. 14 Communications are put forward, then withdrawn, later clarified or qualified etc, for example: ‘you cannot generalize like this’, or ‘this argument exceeds our competency as architects’. 182

15 Niklas Luhmann is indeed trying to self-locate within sociology, as a subsystem of science. See: Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, and: Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997.

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3.1.3 CODES AND MEDIA While Luhmann himself has never addressed architecture directly, his analyses of other function systems such as the economic, legal, political, educational and scientific systems can serve as examples for an analogous account of architecture. The list of function systems is not conceived as a comprehensive or closed list. Art has also been treated as well as the

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Luhmann’s ‘sociology’.15 This philosophical (‘sociological’) theory observes, distinguishes and compares discourses/professional practices with its own peculiar schemata like ‘system vs environment’, ‘recursive network of communications’, ‘autopoiesis’, ‘functional differentiation’ etc. It remains to be seen how far architectural theory is able to take on key concepts and perspectives of the encompassing ‘sociological’ (philosophical) discourse. The ambition of the theory of architectural autopoiesis is that at least the rough skeleton of Luhmann’s reflection might be looped into architectural theory to become a part of a broader, more sophisticated self-awareness of architecture with respect to its place and function within the evolution of contemporary society, ie, the ambition and hope here is that some of the third order observations presented ‘stick’ to become second order observations within architecture. While a reflection and formulation of its societal tasks is an indispensable part of architecture’s ongoing autopoiesis, architecture certainly cannot produce its own, original theory of society. However, within today’s complex society it is no longer enough to rely on the general level of experience and education that can usually be expected from architects to guide the assessment of the societal demands and challenges posed to architecture’s evolution. The discipline has to develop specialized mediating subsystems – academic architectural theoreticians – that are able to tap into the analyses and results of the various social sciences to extract relevant guiding ideas that can then be injected into the architectural discourse. The present work sees itself as part of such a mediating subsystem: to the extent that its communicative offerings catch on, this third order observation becomes second order observation, ie, theoretical reflections about society and architecture’s role within it become routine within the autopoiesis of architecture. What can not be expected is the full incorporation of a comprehensive theory of society.

mass media. Architecture therefore might indeed be understood and analyzed in this vein and might in turn inform itself and its practice on the basis of such an analysis. According to Luhmann this cannot be a matter of simple importation since the perspective of sociological comparison is not the perspective of the functional subsystem itself. According to Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated society, each major function system is differentiated around a primary guiding distinction that operates in the form of a binary ‘code’: true vs false in the case of science, lawful vs illegal for the legal system, profit vs loss for the economic system etc. These codes are tied in with the differentiation of specialized media of communication, each with its own peculiar and incommensurable logic. For the economic system the medium is money – processing economic communications around the code of property (buyer/seller). For the political system the medium is legitimate power – processing (proposals for) collectively binding decisions, on the basis of the codes left vs right, progressive vs conservative and government vs opposition.16 The theory of architectural autopoiesis elaborates an analogous account of architecture as autopoietic function system of society. The media and codes of architecture (and the design disciplines) are identified as follows: the defining medium is the drawing, or now – the digital model. The medium of drawing/digital model is processing innovative design decisions on the basis of the following codes: functional vs dysfunctional (code of utility), formally resolved vs formally unresolved (code of beauty). Only those communications belong to the discipline of architecture that can be qualified – or respond to qualifications – along the lines of both codes. There is a third code that operates within the avant-garde segment of architecture: original vs conventional (code of novelty). All three codes are implied for all communications within the avant-garde segment of the discipline. 3.1.4 THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL AUTOPOIESIS The different social systems and their media are self-enclosed. The various codes cannot be translated into each other. They remain incommensurable. Political decisions can neither determine judicial outcomes, nor can they replace economic exchanges, scientific concepts or artistic paradigms. In turn scientific arguments cannot force political

16 This multiplicity of codes suggests that despite the attempt of Luhmann’s general theory to insist on a single code for each function system, function systems might indeed operate with more than one code. The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes a double code for the case of architecture in general, with a third code for the subsystem of avant-garde architecture. 184

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17 In fact such an influence is starting to be felt on the edges of German political discourse, within German legal theory, and is quite pronounced within the domain of management theory and consultancy. With respect to architecture one might consider the theory of architectural autopoiesis as a first intervention in this direction. 18 The famous long-term controversy between Luhmann and Habermas turned upon this question of the (im)possibility or necessity of an overarching moral self-regulation of modern society. 19 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, Gernan original: Soziale Systeme, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1987. Luhmann’s second and final magnum opus followed 10 years later, his general theory of society: Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997.

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decisions or solve aesthetic problems etc. An aesthetic value is indifferent with respect to scientific truth, justice or a monetary value. This strict differentiation is a highly improbable evolutionary achievement. In older societies the law (the lawful) coincided with power (the powerful) which was also aligned with truth, the good and the beautiful, all concentrated at the top of the social hierarchy. Today the attempt to reduce all value systems to one could only serve to blunt the operative complexity achieved by the coevolution of the self-enclosed function systems. Any such attempt at reduction would be regressive, and produce a form of totalitarianism. Thus Luhmann cannot locate his own discourse on top or in the centre of things (as Hegel still did), but he must locate himself in (and operate from) the more or less marginal position of a discipline (sociology) within the scientific subsystem of society. This does not exclude the possibility of his theory having an impact on the various self-descriptions that are elaborated within each of the autonomous subsystems.17 But as each subsystem uses its own self-description to manage its affairs, such an impact or influence would take the form of an ‘irritation’ to be worked through rather than an instruction to be followed. A legal discourse that would attempt to fully incorporate the critical spirit of philosophical sociology could no longer function as legal system. The same goes for architecture. Each system sustains its own incommensurable autopoiesis, each treating the others as constraining environment rather than a contribution to a common concern. This is the picture of modern society Niklas Luhmann gives us under the heading of a functionally differentiated society, a society without centre, address or overarching self-description.18 Luhmann’s specific theory of modern society as a functionally differentiated society is embedded in his general theory of social systems, elaborated in his first magnum opus Social Systems.19 This general theory is the attempt to construct a universal theory encompassing all social phenomena on the basis of a creative adaptation of modern

systems theory. The problem of systems theory – the constitution, maintenance and evolution of stable systems within changing environments – is also the problem of Luhmann’s sociology. In particular Luhmann appropriates Maturana & Varela’s theory of autopoiesis. Autopoiesis defines biological life-processes as the circular self-reproduction of recursive processes that constitute a unity of interaction (the system) within a domain of interaction (the environment). One important point here is that the environment is not assumed to be given as the same for all organisms, but each organism occupies a peculiar niche in accordance with its peculiar mode of life, sensitivity and responsiveness. Each system thus determines what counts as its relevant environment, ie, which differences make a difference versus those aspects that remain indifferent. The failure to give a coherent account of animal perception (vision in frogs), ie, the failure to produce a coherent mapping of the environmental features the researcher perceives or measures onto the frog’s nervous responses, led Maturana to give up the assumption of a shared world and instead to posit divergent ‘observers’, distinguished on the basis of different cognitive/metabolic mechanisms. The conceptual schema thus elaborated succeeds in assimilating the basic metabolism of the cell to cognitive processes. Certain cells recognize and respond to certain features in their environment. The recognition of such correlations by an external observer presupposes a different set of operative distinctions and mechanisms of cognition and thus should not be assumed to coincide with what the observed organism encounters and recognizes as its structured environment according to its own different mechanisms of cognition. Autopoiesis – the key concept of Maturana’s ‘biology of cognition’20 – is reminiscent of Kant’s transcendental subject of experience. But although Maturana talks about interactions, observers, distinctions, reference, self-reference and the constitution of the observed through the observer, he is not implying consciousness as the necessary medium with which such terms are traditionally associated. Luhmann’s transferral of Maturana’s conceptual schema to the domain of social systems maintains this (initially counterintuitive) refusal to imply consciousness as the agent and medium of ‘distinction’, ‘(self-)observation’, ‘(self-)reference’ etc. Social systems constitute a system type sui generis that is defined by their specific type of system-operations: communications. The bearer (quasi-subject) of these ‘operations’ is the social system itself, which in turn is nothing but the self-constraining recursive network of those very operations. 20 Humberto R Maturana & Francisco J Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition – The Realization of the Living, D Reidel Publishing (Dordrecht), 1980. 186

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3.1 ARCHITECTURAL AUTOPOIESIS WITHIN FUNCTIONALLY DIFFERENTIATED SOCIETY

A good example of a social system as system of communications that might help to grasp the potential of this conceptual manoeuvre is that of the corporate enterprise. The enterprise needs to survive in a particular market niche of its own definition. Its peculiar forms of information gathering (such as market research, accounting procedures etc), instituted as administrative functions and routines with their attendant limits of sensitivity and information processing capacity, might very well be analogically construed in terms of sense organs feeding a nervous system. These organizational cognitive capacities/limits cannot simply be identified with the various individual human cognitions that are involved. This organizational ‘cognitive apparatus’ is distributed across many individuals and includes machine/computer processes as well as elaborate paper filing systems, and many administrative routines organized into long chains and networks of reporting/instructing beyond the compass of any individual consciousness. With respect to the cognitive capacities of the organization one might reconstruct the ‘world’ (environment) as it exists for this enterprise, as its domain of interaction. In Luhmann’s theory social systems are defined as recursive networks of communications. Everything else is located in the environment of the system, even the human organisms and individual psychic systems. Humans are presupposed as the organic and psychic substratum of the communication process, but they are not elements or subsystems of the social communication system. Human beings, as living systems (biological organisms) and as psychic systems, are excluded from the scope of social systems theory. This is viable because the theory can instead work with ‘persons’ as communicative constructs. Luhmann’s concept of social system is thus tightly defined. At the same time it can claim universal applicability with respect to all social phenomena. Everything social is constituted within autopoietic communication systems. This is a rather elegant and efficient set up. The concept ‘autopoietic communication system’ covers friendships and families; time and space bound interaction systems like ephemeral gatherings, and conversations; distributed intellectual communities and discourses; organizations such as corporations, universities and charities; nation states; and the great modern function systems like the economy, the legal system, the political system, the education system, the system of the mass media, the scientific system with all its disciplinary subsystems, as well as the communication system that we call architecture. All of these social systems consist of nothing but an endless string of ephemeral events, ie, communications grafted upon communications. These elemental operations connect to each other such that each communication limits the domain of what might meaningfully

be connected as a follow-on element. Differential connectivity is a very general, fundamental characteristic of communications. Otherwise no order, no system emerges. One might picture a cocktail party as a loose framework within which equally loose, short-term social situations, like small talk conversations, glances recognized and returned etc, create a chaotic flutter of communications from which nevertheless certain longer encounters might lead to more stable interaction systems (conversations) that locally constrain possible connections, ie, a topic has been hit upon, which in turn constrain the possible selections of further utterances, gestures or acts that might be construed as appropriate communications within the evolving situation. This system formation involves boundary formation and self-referential closure, inasmuch as interceptions from the flutter around are no longer possible follow-ups, can no longer be attached here, are ignored or rebuked as alien interruptions. Thus a shared perspective of observation emerges and within the established boundary an ever more determinate pattern reinforces itself recursively. More and more is presupposed in each new contribution, so that entering from the sidelines becomes difficult and requires initiation. According to Luhmann’s framework adopted here, all social systems constitute and maintain themselves via such a self-referential closure within and against a thus constituted environment – an emergent, self-amplifying system, order out of chaos. Participation within this order requires socialization. Architecture is just such an advanced discourse that demands from every potential participant a rather long period of initiation. Like all social systems architecture is a ‘historical machine’ with a complex evolved/evolving discursive structure. Like all modern function systems architecture’s sophisticated communication patterns have developed far beyond the capacity of immediate oral communication. Like all modern function systems architecture has become dependent upon both its specific medium of communication – the graphic and digital systems of spatial representation – and its complex network of theoretical texts.21

3.2 The Autonomy of Architecture THESIS 11 There can be no external determination imposed upon architecture – neither by political bodies, nor by paying clients – except in the negative/trivial sense of disruption.

21 It is a specific feature of architecture that its theoretical discourse operates via the close connection between image and text. 188

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22 Michael Hays, Introduction to the chapter ‘Forms and Frames of Practice’, in: Reflections on Architectural Practices in the Nineties, William S Saunders (Ed), Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 1996, p 125. 23 Ibid, p 127. 24 Ibid.

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In the 20th century, architectural theory oscillated between the thesis of the autonomy of architecture and the opposite claim of its heteronomy. As this controversy continues, the position that claims both share in the truth has also been defended many times over. A sophisticated version of this position has been articulated by Michael Hays, arguing for ‘a practice at once self-conscious of its own conventions and mindful of architecture’s social and historical dimensions’.22 Hays offers a valuable lesson in philosophy: ‘If critical theory has taught us anything, it is that what used to be called the sociohistorical context of architectural production as well as the object produced are both themselves constructions, in the sense that we cannot approach them separately and directly, as distinct things-in-themselves, waiting to be discovered in their respective essences, but only through their prior differentiation and transmutation.’23 One might explicate this insight in terms of Luhmann’s understanding of the co-dependency of system and environment. Neither can be approached separately and directly, as distinct things-in-themselves. Below we shall further explicate this oscillation or middle ground between autonomy and heteronomy through the paradoxical formula of openness through closure. This formula is part of a general social theory and theory of modern society and allows us therefore to put this apparent peculiarity of architecture’s autonomy/heteronomy into a broad comparative perspective. Hays lacks such an overarching theoretical apparatus and therefore cannot offer much more than the mere rephrasing of this paradox of simultaneous autonomy and heteronomy: ‘Politics and economics do not make architecture, but architecture does not make itself alone. It is as important to maintain some degree of disciplinary and professional autonomy for architecture as it is to insist that architecture is never fully autonomous.’24 This is not to be disputed. However, this paradox needs to be unfolded through a series of theoretical distinctions. We shall have to explain why it is important to maintain some degree of disciplinary and professional autonomy, namely: precisely in order to take on the tasks posed by society, or rather co-posed by society and architecture, or better still – posed by an architecturally challenged society. (Remember: both are constructions, in the sense that we cannot approach them separately and directly, as distinct things-in-themselves.)

The dispute within architecture about its degree of autonomy can be clarified and assessed within the framework of Luhmann’s theory of society’s major subsystems as self-referentially closed function systems. The tendency towards architectural autonomy might be understood as a moment of an overall societal process of differentiation, whereby social communication fragments into a series of autonomous domains – the economy, the political system, the legal system, science, engineering, architecture, art, education, the health system, the mass media etc – establishing self-referentially closed subsystems within society. Each of these autonomous discourses contributes, in its specific way, to the overall social process. But this overall social communication process – society – no longer has any control centre over and above the various increasingly autonomous communication subsystems. The differentiated subsystems establish their own sovereign independence with respect to their underlying values, performance criteria, programmes and priorities. In this sense the various subsystems operate self-referentially. Scientific truth is constructed and validated within the scientific communication process. Positive law is continuously re-written, interpreted and applied on the basis of its own legally validated procedures. The establishment of economic rationality is long since internal to the economic process (market). The astonishing emancipation of art is perhaps the most familiar example of self-referentially enclosed autonomy. 3.2.1 OPENNESS THROUGH CLOSURE Architecture’s autonomy within society does not imply indifference to society. Rather it is a necessary mode of contributing to society with sufficient flexibility and sophistication. Contemporary society is far too complex and too dynamic to establish fixed hierarchies of values/priorities that would in turn allow the societal division of labour to be conceived as chains of instruction, whereby centrally/democratically set purposes are to be fulfilled by the various appointed function systems. Instead each function system is condemned to self-governance. Architecture too can only appoint itself, and define its own purposes, both with respect to the identification of the most urgent architecturally relevant social tasks and with respect to the appropriate selection of architectural means to tackle such tasks. Although each individual architect is confronted with little choice over his/her commissions, and his/her concrete tasks are thus set by his/her clients, the avant-garde discourse is autonomous in setting the themes of its defining debates, and in selecting which projects should exemplify the defining tasks, responding to the supposed key societal challenges. However, architecture, like all the other subsystems of society, is operating such self-determination within a challenging/ 190

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25 Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1969, 1980, Chapter 7, ‘The Architecture of Complexity’.

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demanding societal environment. The different function systems confront each other as aspects of each other’s environment, under risky conditions that combine mutual opacity with interdependence. Failure to self-organize effective responses leads to irrelevance and spells extinction. This is why Eisenman’s Formalist insistence upon architecture’s absolute autonomy can only be a subsidiary moment within the overall constitution of the discipline. Equally one-sided is the attempt to return to a Radical Functionalism that wishes to respond directly to socio-economic demands, without any discursive detour into the depth of an elaborated formal universe. The Formalist stance finds its partial rationality in the fact that the initial proliferation of spatial concepts and formal techniques flourishes best in the absence of overbearing ˆ functional and programmatic constraints. This is the raison d’etre of the oeuvre of Peter Eisenman and his followers. However, this stance cannot be generalized across the discipline. That would indeed be suicidal. Each subsystem follows its own logic and conceives of society in terms of its specific problematic, within its particular (and increasingly incommensurable) conceptual framework. Political decisions can neither determine judicial outcomes, nor can they replace economic exchanges, nor dictate scientific concepts or artistic paradigms. In turn scientific arguments do not force political decisions. The evolutionary advantage of separating these discourses, ie, of establishing ‘near-decomposability’25 of the societal subsystems, is enormous: a huge gain in the ability to experiment with adaptations to a turbulent environment on many local fronts simultaneously, without the need to synchronize all moves, and without running the risk that local failures rip too deep into the social fabric. This has to be paid for with a loss of control (and sense of vertigo) with respect to global questions. The society that reproduces itself via the coevolution of autonomous subsystems has been able to build up new levels of dynamic complexity that effectively exclude the reintegration of society into a single project governed by a single rationality. In this sense functional differentiation is irreversible: reintegration hits a complexity barrier. Legal rationality is neither political nor scientific rationality. Design rationality too can neither be reduced to, nor controlled by, any other than its own logic. Any attempt to reduce all value systems to one – a form of regressive totalitarianism – could only serve to blunt the operative complexity

achieved by the coevolution of the self-enclosed discursive systems, with catastrophic consequences. When we compare different stages in the evolution of system differentiation within a society we can observe an increase in the autonomy of the developing systems, ie, the systems increase the selectivity of their irritability, and sharpen their unique relevance criteria. This increased selectivity and exclusive concentration facilitates precision and promotes the ability to construct longer, more detailed chains of communications distributed across time and space. The different systems begin to establish their own independent temporal rhythms. One might illustrate this with an example from a familiar social domain outside architecture: we might compare the carefully planned/scheduled measurements of educational performance (examinations) and the attendant pedagogic decisions in a school (education system) with the rough and immediate gut reactions of a father to his son’s progress within a learning situation at home. The communications between father and son pertaining to the learning situation are diffused/embedded in their overall (undifferentiated) relation. They do not constitute an autonomous educational system since many communications could be attached and strung together here which would be considered inappropriate and irrelevant within an educational situation properly so differentiated. For instance, the father might use his power as provider to reinforce the persuasiveness of his teaching. In contrast, the respective autopoietic system – here the education system – separates itself from its societal environment, ie, from other specialized discourses as well as from the language of everyday life. However, this does not imply causal isolation. The school remains in many ways immediately dependent on the provisions of the other social systems, for example, the families that provide it with pupils and funds. But these provisions do not directly interfere with its educational policies. Rather the demand-based fluctuations in these provisions ‘irritate’, but do not determine, the school which in turn has to adapt by means of its own educational reforms. These reforms connect back to a discursively embedded history of educational reforms, rather than being ad hoc responses that target specific outside concerns directly.26 The formula posited is: openness through closure.27 This formula poses the task of continuous adaptation of the system to the relevant changes it distinguishes within its environment. This process of adaptation in turn 26 Ad hoc, individually targeted responses would most probably have questionable consequences elsewhere. 27 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, p 9. 192

28 Historical machines are non-trivial. The distinction between trivial and historical non-trivial machines was developed by Heinz von Foerster. Trivial machines always transform inputs to outputs in the same repetitive way. In non-trivial machines each operation (slightly) changes the state of the machine and so creates a new condition for the further operations. See: Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition, Springer Verlag (Vienna/NewYork), 2002.

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3.2.2 IRRITATIONS It is important to sharply distinguish two types of communication: communication within a given subsystem of society and communication between different subsystems. Within a given system communications are constituted recursively within a shared conceptual framework or horizon of understanding. Across system boundaries, communications do not share the same horizon and are therefore not understood in the same specific and elaborate way. Here communication can only rely on the rather simple, common denominator of colloquial understanding: a common language and commonsense assumptions that are shared society-wide. Each autopoietic social system actively distinguishes between its own and alien communications. Communications within a particular system have to be able (and mostly are able) to recognize each other as mutually relevant, and reject (as irrelevant) any foreign intrusion. This active boundary maintenance is a crucial part of any autopoiesis. Only within this bounded zone can a specific complexity of discursive structures be elaborated beyond the mundane level of everyday conversation. Within the autopoietic system, communications recursively

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implies independence/autonomy for the system with respect to the task of organizing its response. The impact of the environment does not pervade and directly determine the system. Unlike the billiard ball that is pushed around without options, the autopoietic (living or social) system is absorbing environmental impacts into its complex web of processes so that no ‘response’ can be regarded as immediate one-to-one effect of a singular cause. History plays a part here. One might think of the difference between kicking a dog versus kicking a ball to grasp the difference between a simple mechanical system and an autopoietic system that builds up and adapts its selective, mediated mode of responsiveness over time, on the basis of experience. Autopoietic systems are non-trivial, historical machines.28 Living systems (organisms) are a subspecies of autopoietic systems. Social systems – like architecture – are another sub-species of autopoietic systems. Like all other types of autopoietic systems they achieve their peculiar mode of responsiveness (openness) through self-referential closure.

refer to each other. Across the boundary lies the ‘environment’ which remains an unpredictable source of irritation, because the various specialized discourses are not mutually mastered and thus remain largely non-transparent with respect to each other. But this is not primarily a question of the lack of learning, or of the cognitive narrowness of the respectively specialized participants. It is first of all a question of the inherent difference in the types of communicative operations and in the regulating schemata, or structures of communication, that spells the incommensurability between different, specialized domains of communication. Specialized communication is thus contrasted with irritation. This formulation is reminiscent of Maturana’s notion of perturbation as the mode in which the autopoietic system engages with its environment. This notion of external perturbation or irritation is not only distinguished from internal communication, but is then sharply contrasted with any notion of external determination. This contrast focuses on the following aspect: what can or cannot become an irritation for a system depends first of all upon the historically elaborated structure of the system. ‘Living systems as units of interactions . . . can not enter into interactions that are not specified by their organisation.’29 The responsive behaviour of the autopoietic system is specified by its peculiar sensitivity (information processing apparatus) and its current historical state. Thus there can be no talk of external determination with respect to an autopoietic system, except in the purely negative and trivial sense of a crude physical disruption. (Hitler and Stalin had to resort to such crude, and ultimately self-defeating, means of control. This also included the political control of architecture which in effect obliterated their countries’ participation in the discourse of architecture.) The reverse is also true – as much as the system retains its sovereignty with respect to its adaptive response to external ‘irritations’, it in turn can only irritate, never control and positively determine the operations of the various other autopoietic systems it is able to locate within its environment. (Architecture as tool of social engineering is not feasible.) All the autopoietic system can do is absorb perturbations and intervene by counter-perturbation. The result of this imprecise type of exchange

29 Humberto R Maturana & Francisco J Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition – The Realization of the Living, D Reidel Publishing (Dordrecht), 1980, p 10. Further: ‘What is from one perspective a unit of interaction, from another may only be a component of a larger one, or may be several independent units’, p 31. 194

30 The theory of architectural autopoiesis makes use of this concept. For instance, it theorizes the institution of public architecture competitions as the specific mechanism of structural coupling between the autopoietic function systems of architecture and politics. 31 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995. 32 See: Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher (Eds), Latent Utopias – Experiments within Contemporary Architecture, Springer Verlag (Vienna/New York), 2002. 33 Concerning the opportunities, conditions and limitations for architecture to become such a productive irritant, see: Volume 2, part 9 Architecture and Politics.

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3.2.3 COMMUNICATION STRUCTURES The autopoietic system, as a complex historically evolving system, always uses time and involves whole series of events in its ‘responses’, so that simple, predictable one-to-one correlations between environmental impacts and system responses are out of the question. This is already true for Pavlov’s conditioned reflexes as well as for Skinner’s operant conditionings, which only emerge after a lengthy series of experiences. Each instance is worked through on the basis of the ongoing history of the system, ie, the cumulative and recursive self-determination of the system. With respect to architecture, any attempt to establish immediate and determinate correlations between architecture as a discipline, with its current analytic/synthetic procedures on the one hand, and its social environment on the other hand, is as futile as the related attempt to determine fixed one-to-one relations between functions and forms. Changes in the socio-economic environment (functions) do not

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(via recurrent mutual perturbation) is termed structural coupling.30 As a dynamic process this implies coevolution and structural drift.31 This set of related concepts replaces the idea of integration, implying a far more loose and unpredictable coupling of aspects of the overall social process. The shift from a single, integrated system of society to a condition where this tight integration is dissolved and substituted by a system of structurally coupled autopoietic systems leads to an enormous acceleration of evolution. But at the same time, paradoxically, such an autopoiesis in permanent flux, with the only prerogative of continued communication, by whatever means necessary, and in whatever mutant forms, can be far more robust and resilient than any supposedly stable or static social formation (Third Reich, Soviet Union). Autopoietic, functionally differentiated systems evolve. Totalitarian systems collapse. The ‘loss’ of a single, integrated social formation implies that we have to move from the pursuit of a single, a priori posited utopia to the playful and ‘opportunistic’ browsing across multiple latent utopias32 that circulate as ‘irritations’ between the coevolving subsystems of society. Architecture has to allow itself to be irritated by its societal environment and in turn should become a productive irritant.33

straightforwardly determine new architectural concepts and types (forms), although some kind of response(s) will sooner or later be elaborated. The impact is mediated and routed through the evolving internal complexity of the system. One important aspect of this mediation is the subordination of the response to the system’s own temporal regime, ie, the response is delayed and various impacts might be aggregated and dealt with en bloc, or an impact might be worked through piecemeal, via a long series of different partial responses stretched out across time. Such mediation might involve the internal processing of options before a response is established. This has enormous advantages, if compared with immediate action: a client might force the ‘straightforward’ adaptation of a design to his brief, or a crowd might simply overrun its allocated and articulated space to create an ad hoc ‘event architecture’ from the spatial features at hand. Compared with such myopic immediacy, the absorption of functional demands into architectural design processes (that are all about processing and selecting from options) allows the integration of the perceived, urgent concern with a whole number of other legitimate concerns through the application of procedures that represent the condensed experience of the discipline. We might refer to those procedures that have sedimented within the concepts (operating distinctions), principles (steering rules) and routines (typical processes) of the discipline/profession as the communication structures34 of architecture. But however delayed, roundabout, self-determined or structure-determined the response, some or another form of adaptation to the external pressures of the environment will (sooner or later) be required.35 It is important to understand that the communication structures of a societal function system are habitually reproduced via the ongoing communicative operations of the system. In fact, they consist in little more than the patterned regularity of these recurrent fleeting events that are the ongoing communicative operations. However, explicit concepts/distinctions have been formed to denote and track these regular patterns, for example, the distinction of function vs form, the concept of style, or the distinction of articulation vs organization. We will later see that both, the stabilization and the evolution of these patterns, require further reflective levels to steer the course of the ongoing communicative operations: the level of reflexive observation and the level of reflective self-description. 34 Sometimes the term discursive structures is used as synonym.

35 The communication structures are brought to bear on a new case. This in turn – even if ever so

slightly – leaves a trace on those structures. Thus the structures evolve through use. 196

THESIS 12 The self-determination (autopoiesis) of architecture must provide credible criteria and processes that can absorb the risk of communicating design decisions that project into an uncertain future. Architecture is a systematic communication process that communicates (about) design decisions. These design decisions risk determining aspects of an (otherwise) uncertain future. This uncertainty not only concerns the uncertain utility and beauty of the final building, it already concerns the more immediate uncertainty, internal to the design process itself of whether the current design decisions can be built upon and followed through in the further stages of the design process. While this internal uncertainty might be controllable and less problematic in the routine design processes of mainstream design projects, it is a real concern for avant-garde processes. Here design decisions are always risk-taking decisions, not only with respect to the future project, but already with respect to the problem of continuing (resolving) the design process. The autopoiesis of architecture must develop structures that allow this risk-taking for both the internal risks of the design process itself and for the risk concerning the utility and beauty of the final building.36

36 The risk concerning the unknown future conditions that relate to the economic feasibility of the project lies outside the domain of architecture. In this respect the results of the architectural design process need to be evaluated and interpreted by the respective clients as economic agents (investors).

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3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture

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The degree of autonomy that architectural discourse has established by differentiating itself from the immediacy of everyday talk about buildings, and thus the complexity of the discursive detour which mediates a particular impact/response, is a function of the overall complexity of society. The more complex the societal environment the more autonomous – the more selective and specific – must every social system be in order to cope with the various demands that challenge the respective social system. Architecture has to react to societal and technological changes. But the definition of functionality, ie, the reference to external social needs, remains an internal system operation subordinated to the proper procedures (structures) of the discipline: the communication structures of the discipline that form the core of this book.

With respect to systems of communications, Luhmann distinguishes operations and structures.37 Operations are the individual communicative events that are expected, anticipated and understood according to the structures of the respective social system. They instantiate, confirm and thus reproduce the structures. Structures emerge from the regularity that can be identified within the stream of operations. These regularities emerge and stabilize through recursive self-selection and then impact upon all further possible operations in the form of expectations, ie, they become ‘attractors’ for all further communications within the system. The communication structures of architecture comprise concepts, principles and routines. Architecture’s concepts provide key distinctions that frame the design process: form vs function, parti vs detail etc. Within this conceptual framework explicit (or implicit) principles orient the design work, for example, form follows function, detail harmonizes with parti and proportion establishes order etc. These principles are steering routine processes, for example, the proper design procedures like the progression through the typical sequence of design stages, each specifying a typical set of required drawings. If one follows the guidance of Luhmann’s conceptual system, the following question is to be raised here: if the concepts, principles and routines listed above are the communication structures of architecture how can one specify the elemental type of operation that instantiates, confirms and occasionally stretches or mutates these structures? According to the fundamental premise that architecture is to be understood as a system of communications, the elemental operation of architecture must be a certain type of communication. The ‘elemental operation’ of any autopoietic social system is its most primitive element that cannot be broken down further without losing its character as an element belonging to the respective system. As examples: the elementary communicative operation of science is the truth-claim (or the claim that something is not true). The elementary operation of the economy is the economic transaction: the sale/purchase, marked by the act of payment. The elementary communication of politics is the political exercise of power, inclusive of all communications that prepare or criticize such communications of power. Any fragment of such elementary communication, ie, an isolated sentence from a party manifesto, or from a ministerial directive, could belong to any discourse and therefore lacks the characteristic marker of the respective system. It might be impossible to recognize what system the sentence belongs to. This specific context-dependency is a feature of all elemental communications within 37 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995. 198

38 See Chapter 4 on The Medium of Architecture.

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3.3.1 DESIGN DECISIONS The elemental operation of architecture is the design decision. It is the basic type of communicative operation which characterizes the autopoiesis of architecture. One might also talk about design propositions or design choices. The term choice has the advantage of implying an explicit or implicit domain of selection. Nevertheless, the term decision is to be preferred because the design process proceeds sequentially, whereby one decision builds upon another, with only a limited capacity for the free combination of choices. The term decision denotes this self-constraining aspect. Furthermore, the term choice carries strong connotations of individualism, while architectural decisions always concern others (specialist consultants, clients, end users), they are ‘choices’ for others and therefore are better referred to as decisions. Decisions are treated as a special type of communication. They are communications since decisions are only really (effective) decisions, if they are communicated as decisions. The design process is a communication process that proceeds via design decisions, they are the quintessential type of architectural communication. The overall autopoiesis of architecture does not only consist of decisions, but includes other types of communication such as criticisms, evaluations and statements of principle etc. However, all these forms relate back to design decisions as the focal form of architectural communication. Critique criticizes design decisions, evaluations evaluate the results of design decisions with a view towards alternative design decisions that might have been taken instead. Statements of principle act as general premises for design decisions. The preferred medium in which design decisions are exercised and communicated is the medium of the drawing.38 The drawing is advanced via a sequence of design decisions. On the achieved level of architectural development, design has become dependent on the specialist medium of the drawing as

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functionally differentiated society. Each communication has a specific system reference as precondition of its operationality. So how can architectural communications be characterized? How do architectural communications recognize each other as one of a kind, as something to respond or connect to? (Such recognition is a crucial requirement of any autopoietic social communication system.) What are the most basic elements of architecture? What is architecture’s elementary communicative operation?

prerequisite for making the complex design decisions required. More recently, drawings on paper can no longer cope. Architectural communication has become – at least in some of its modes/stages – dependent on elaborate computer-aided design systems (CAD). Thus ‘drawing’ functions here as pars pro toto. The term stands for all the non-verbal components of the elaboration and communication of the design decisions. ‘Drawing’ thus encompasses sketches, diagrams, .dwg files, digital 3D models, scripts and renderings etc. Design decisions are fixed and communicated in architecture’s specialized medium of communication. However, such decisions might be prepared, compared, discussed, evaluated, accepted or rejected, generalized and theorized in the spoken and written language. The network of design communications stretches across many media and modes and might build up conceptual abstractions and long chains of argument. To stay with architecture such abstractions and arguments have to link back to architecture’s elementary type of communicative operation: the design decision. 3.3.2 NETWORK-DEPENDENCY OF ELEMENTAL OPERATIONS Design decisions – like all basic autopoietic operations – are recursive, ie, design decisions are built upon design decisions and require/provoke further design decisions. They are inherently relational and do not exist in isolation. The choice of a particular colour presupposes the previous selection/definition of the element to be coloured; a certain detail presupposes the element to be detailed; the proposition of a certain adjacency presupposes the prior definition of what is to be placed into adjacency etc. Design decisions exist only within networks of other design decisions. There might be complex design decisions that can be analyzed into a number of simple design decisions. Like all decisions, the design decisions that build up the drawing or digital model serve as premises for further design decisions. We can thus offer the circular definition: design decisions are premises for further design decisions. Thus at the core of the autopoiesis of architecture we find self-referentially enclosed systems of design decisions prompting and constraining further design decisions. These operationally enclosed sequences of design decisions constitute architectural design ‘projects’.39 All decisions have in common that they presume an unknown, not yet determined future. Decision is a peculiarly modern institution. The concept of decision entails that decisions are communicated as decisions. Thus they explicitly invite criticism, provoke alternative proposals. Thus, through their attempt to determine the future, they open 39 See Chapter 3.9.2 The Difference between Themes and Projects. 200

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40 Concerning the task of architecture see Volume 2, part 6 The Task of Architecture.

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up the future. This is quite different from the way traditional society operated and described itself. Making a decision absorbs uncertainty but then requires further decisions, recreating uncertainty on a more advanced (detailed) level. Architectural design projects far into the future. The designer must make assumptions about a future that has many unknown aspects, ie, he/she must decide under conditions of incomplete knowledge. This implies that he/she starts in an ocean of uncertainties. At each stage in the decision making chain uncertainty is absorbed. Later decisions are building on earlier decisions without looking back. Later decision makers are no longer worried about the questions that puzzled the earlier decision maker at the time of his/her decision. What was uncertain has been decided and thus transformed into a fixed, and supposedly reliable, premise for further decisions. Uncertainty has been absorbed and new uncertainties arise, albeit on a more circumscribed level. Each absorption of uncertainty produces an associated risk. It is the task of the architect/designer as expert decision maker to leap across the information gap, absorb uncertainty, and bear the risk by making this risk invisible, so that this risk is no operational obstacle to proceeding. In this process, the architect has to risk his/her reputation. As decision making procedure, the design process continuously transforms uncertainty into risk, until all uncertainty has been absorbed and replaced by risk: the complex, global risk that remains as the risk of the architectural project. In today’s highly differentiated society, the architect/designer is embedded in a multidisciplinary team of specialists who participate in the risk-taking process, each in their own specific domain of competency and responsibility. Technical risks and cost uncertainties are absorbed by the respective experts: engineers and cost consultants. The overall economic risk associated with the project as business venture is taken by the client operating within the economic system of communications that is structured by the code profit/loss. In the case of a public project, it is the political client that takes the political risks involved within the political system of communications that is structured by the code affirmation/opposition. The architect takes on his/her own specific type of risk that comes with his/her specific task40 of spatially organizing and morphologically articulating the social communication processes that are condensed in the project brief. The uncertainty associated with this particular task is processed under the guidance of architecture’s own specific codes: the code of utility (functional vs dysfunctional) and the

code of beauty (formally resolved vs formally unresolved).41 The risk for the architect is that of ending up with a building that is dysfunctional and/or ugly. The network of design decisions might take the form of a hierarchy of local design decisions nesting within global design decisions. This hierarchical nature of the typical design-decision process has been emphasized by Christopher Alexander. Indeed, he ordered his ‘pattern language’ in this way: The patterns are ordered, beginning with the very largest, for regions and towns, then working down through neighborhoods, clusters of buildings, buildings, rooms, and alcoves, ending finally with details of construction. This order, which is presented as a straight linear sequence, is essential to the way the language works . . . Each pattern is connected to certain “larger” patterns which come above it in the language; and to certain “smaller” patterns which come below it in the language. The pattern helps to complete those larger patterns which are “above” it, and is itself completed by those smaller patterns which are “below” it.42

A ‘pattern’ in Alexander’s Pattern Language is a certain generic (often itself quite complex) design decision offered in words and diagrams as a recipe for good design. Alexander is being quoted here at length not because this hierarchical nesting of design decisions is the only form in which the network of design communications can be ordered but because he brings out clearly the recursive nature of all design communications, ie, the network dependency and radical incompleteness of all individual design communications. The idea of a coherent pattern language for architecture highlights the self-referential closure of architecture. 3.3.3 DESIGN DECISIONS AND EXTERNAL DEMANDS A mark of the self-referential closure of architecture is that design decisions are tightly knit to their kind and only obliquely/indirectly, ie, en bloc, refer to external demands and circumstances. Design decisions have financial as well as legal, sometimes even political implications and they respond to such external concerns. However, they do so only indirectly, only en bloc and on the basis of the discursive structures (concepts, principles, routines) that guide all individual architectural operations. Political, legal or financial concerns are not immediately architectural concerns. No one-to-one correlations can be established here – however much a client in distress might like this to be the case. 41 Concerning the codes of architecture see Chapter 3.5.2 Utility and Beauty as the Double Code of Architecture. 42 Christopher Alexander et al, A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press (New York), 1977, p xii. 202

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43 Concerning the role of styles within the autopoiesis of architecture see section 3.6 Architectural Styles and section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes.

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The network of implications is too complex. That is why the discipline is justified in rejecting direct political interference within particular design decisions and with respect to the architectural principles that guide these decisions, while accepting the involvement of political authority in the global decisions that set the concrete projects. For instance, political authority establishes the project intentions and programmatic requirements, however, always in consultation with architects who then translate them into a formal brief. It is this brief that becomes the basis for the design. Political authority is further welcome to participate in the jury of public architectural competitions, thus contributing to the final decision about which of the shortlisted designs should be realized. However, the head of the jury is usually an architect guiding the deliberations. The competing architects produce their designs autonomously, on the basis of the architectural brief. The relevant autonomy here is not the designer’s individual autonomy but the autonomy of the discipline of architecture. The designing architects – their formal resources, their medium and their values/criteria – are subject to the autopoiesis of architecture. Any architectural response has to involve whole chains and networks of design decisions on the basis of architectural principles formulated, reflected and updated via architectural theory. This is a measure of the sophistication of architecture as advanced discourse. Architecture cannot ˆ be bullied into a knee-jerk response. This is the raison d’etre of autopoietic closure. Clients do not enter the autopoiesis of architecture. They constitute a part of the environment of the autopoietic system. A client might force his way nevertheless, but the result will have little chance of being recognized as architecture. Unprincipled, myopic, idiosyncratic solutions cannot be generalized into principles pertinent to the current societal tasks of architecture. Such ‘solutions’ remain outside architecture. Architecture is innovative architecture. Innovations have to be generalizable. They imply new principles. They combine variation and repetition (redundancy). Mere deviation is not enough. The progressive development of the discipline that tracks and coevolves with the development of total society cannot be explained as a random sequence of ad hoc adaptations. The progress of architecture proceeds as a procession of styles.43 Styles are principled systems of design. They involve both formal and functional design principles. New styles are new systems that re-order the way architecture handles the external societal demands that confront the discipline via the

commissions and project briefs posed. This re-ordering of architecture’s mode of handling projects involves the re-ordering of architecture’s organizational and articulatory design repertoire as well as the systematic upgrading of its analytic and generative design intelligence. It is the aim of the following sections and chapters to describe and explicate the general, constant, discursive order (conceptual schema) that pre-structures the successive reordering of the variable design systems that are the styles of architecture. It is this general, conceptual schema that marks the continuity of the autopoiesis of architecture across its evolutionary procession of styles. The concept of style itself is but one of these constant discursive structures within the autopoiesis of architecture.

3.4 The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design Disciplines THESIS 13 The lead-distinction of form vs function defines the discipline and has universal relevance with respect to all communications within architecture. As the difference between architectural self-reference and architectural world-reference, it represents the difference between system and environment within the system. The concept of lead-distinction replaces the notion of foundational concept. The idea that form and function are among the foundational concepts of architecture is hardly original. The implications of the concept lead-distinction go further, and suggest that the form-function distinction is the constitutive, defining distinction of the discipline, in the sense that this distinction concerns all the design communications and only design communications. However, even the widely recognized idea that form and function are among the indispensable foundational concepts of architecture has been eroded in recent years, and so has the general recognition of the primacy of form-function relations as the key topic of architectural theory. Peter Eisenman explicitly attacked this idea as long ago as 1976: ‘. . . the form/function opposition is not necessarily inherent to any architectural theory . . .’.44 Eisenman is wrong. There can be no full-blown theory of architecture that refuses to address the question of how the promoted forms promote functions. Any pure theory of architectural form can only be considered a partial theory without the power to establish and defend a new style. 44 Peter Eisenman, ‘Post-Functionalism’, Oppositions 6, Fall 1976. 204

The initially arbitrary act of distinction might or might not succeed in producing and reproducing order out of chaos. Luhmann interprets these acts of distinction as system operations uniquely constitutive for each autopoietic communication system. Each autopoietic, social system proceeds via its specific operating distinctions whereby distinctions are hooked upon distinctions. The resulting network of distinctions evolves and reproduces the conceptual structure of the respective autopoietic system. This conceptual structure is organized around primary distinctions which Luhmann calls guiding distinctions or lead-distinctions 48 that are always presupposed and recursively brought to bear within the ongoing process of communication. For example: the lead-distinction of the legal system is the distinction between norms and

45 46 47 48

Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, Open Court Publishing (Chicago), 1986. George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form, George Allen & Unwin (London), 1969, p xxix. Luhmann uses the German word ‘Leitunterscheidung’, for example in: Niklas Luhmann, Das Recht der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1993.

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A universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart . . . By

tracing the way we represent such a severance, we can begin to

reconstruct . . . the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical,

physical and biological science, and begin to see how the familiar laws of

our own experience follow inexorably from the original act of severance. The

act is itself already remembered, even if unconsciously, as our first attempt

to distinguish different things in a world where, in the first place, the

boundaries can be drawn anywhere we please. At this stage the universe

cannot be distinguished from how we act upon it, and the world might seem

like shifting sand beneath our feet.47

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3.4.1 THE PRIMACY OF DISTINCTIONS According to Luhmann45 every social system orders its environment (and itself) by means of a more or less coordinated network of distinctions. Each communication – word, gesture, action, drawing – actualizes and reinforces (and at times also mutates) a given structure of distinctions. Luhmann’s emphasis on distinction is reminiscent of Saussure’s46 insistence that meaning is constituted through a system of differences where terms mutually differentiate each other without prior positive substance. Luhmann explicitly builds upon George Spencer-Brown’s logic that places equal emphasis on distinction as the primary cognitive operation. Spencer-Brown’s logic of ‘forms’ manages to reconstruct formal logic and the foundations of mathematics on the basis of a calculus that builds up from a single command or operator: draw a distinction.

facts.49 The lead-distinction of science is the distinction between theory and evidence. The lead-distinction of the economy is the distinction between price and value. These systems can be identified by the use of their lead-distinctions because these distinctions are involved or presupposed in all communications that belong to the respective system. All communications within the legal system revolve around the question of whether a certain fact conforms to a certain norm. All communications in science revolve around the question of whether certain empirically given evidence corroborates a certain theory. All communications within the economic system revolve around the question whether a certain price represents a given value. Is there any equivalent lead-distinction that identifies and guides architectural communications?50 The theory of architectural autopoiesis recognizes the distinction between form and function as an equivalent distinction within architecture. In architecture all communications revolve around the question whether a certain form can fulfil a certain function. The comparison of architecture with the legal system and with science leads us to a further instructive parallel: in the legal system the lead-distinction between norms and facts goes hand in hand with a fundamental thesis that has been accepted as premise in all legal theory: norms cannot be deduced from facts. This thesis is firmly established despite many theoretical attempts to derive norms from facts. In science we can observe an equivalent thesis with respect to its lead-distinction between theory and evidence. The thesis that theories cannot be deduced from (reduced to) their evidence has been firmly established within the theory (philosophy) of science, despite various empiricist attempts to construct such reductions. In economics, values cannot be deduced from (reduced to, equated with) prices. In architecture, the equivalent thesis says that forms cannot be deduced from functions, nor can forms be reduced to their particular assigned functional role. This thesis has been firmly established within the discipline, despite various attempts to assert that form follows function. The rebuttal of these reductions asserts the impossibility of collapsing the respective distinctions. These distinctions are thus asserted as defining, indispensable and irreducible distinctions within the respective autopoietic systems. 49 Ibid, p 12. This book has been translated: Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System, Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2004, p 55. However, the English translation translates, ‘Leitunterscheidung’ as ‘main distinction’ and therefore fails to recognize the presence of a general theoretical concept. 50 Since Luhmann did not theorize architecture as a societal function system, the question is raised here for the first time. 206

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51 The lead-distinction concerns the conceptual constellation of form vs function and thus does not hinge on the utilization of the terms/words ‘form’ and ‘function’. The distinction within architecture is older than the establishment of this particular pair of terms as its primary verbal vehicle. Concerning the historical career of these two terms/words within the discourse of architecture see: Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings – A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Thames & Hudson (London), 2000. Adrian Forty delivers instructive historical accounts, one separate account (chapter) for each of the two words, about how these words became incorporated and evolved within architectural theory. Another instructive account concerning the introduction of the concept of function within architecture can be found in Christoph Feldtkeller, Der architektonische Raum: eine Fiktion – Ann¨aherung an eine funktionale Betrachtung, Bauwelt Fundamente 83, Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn (Braunschweig/Wiesbaden), 1989. See also: Philip Steadman, The Evolution of Designs – Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts, Routledge (London), 2008. 52 Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1996, p 4. 53 Ibid, p 3. 54 Ibid. 55 Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1995, originally published under the title: The International Style – Architecture since 1922, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1932, p 30. 56 Ibid.

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3.4.2 FORM VS FUNCTION AS THE LEAD-DISTINCTION WITHIN THE DESIGN DISCIPLINES Architectural discourse is organized around the lead-distinction of form versus function.51 Architecture, like all design disciplines, hinges upon this distinction. That architecture always has to address both terms of this distinction has been asserted over and over again by many architects and architectural theorists. Whenever one term of the distinction seems to be in danger of being neglected, vehement reminders are issued. Bernard Tschumi, for instance, defines architecture as the ‘confrontation of spaces and activities’,52 and insists against Postmodern Formalism that architecture is ‘never pure form’,53 that there is ‘no architecture without program, without action, without event’.54 Another example came more than half a century earlier: Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson asserted the integrity of architecture as concerning both form and function by insisting upon the dimension of form (in terms of aesthetic principles) against the ‘utility-and-nothing-more theory of design’55 of the ‘fanatical functionalist’56 Hannes Meyer. There are countless instances of this theoretical steering effort against the twin evils of a one-sided Formalism and a one-sided Functionalism. The perennial Formalism–Functionalism controversy is itself the clearest evidence for the thesis proposed here that the distinction between form and function is the lead-distinction of architecture/design and thus a fundamental, permanent communication structure of architecture’s autopoiesis. We might distinguish the implicit, operational use of this lead-distinction from its explicit, reflective use. The lead-distinction of

form vs function is always implied, always in operation (operational use), and it can be brought to explicit attention at any time (reflective use) during the ongoing design communications. All design decisions, and only design decisions, can be questioned and criticized with respect to their functional and formal consequences. This primary distinction establishes the genus of architecture as design. All design disciplines operate on the basis of this lead-distinction of form vs function. The reference to spaces as a specific domain of objects that concern architectural design is theoretically secondary. It establishes merely the differentia specifica of architecture as a species of design, ie, the design of spaces as opposed to the design of other types of artefacts.57 Form vs function is the primary distinction of architecture.58 If all architectural communications have to respond to both concerns of form and concerns of function, it should not surprise that these are very broad, general terms: ‘form’ has a wide domain of application; the term might refer to the overall layout (‘parti’) of a building, to its three-dimensional massing, to its stylistic articulation and manner of decoration, to a particular motif or to its overall expressive character etc. The term ‘function’ is equally wide and refers to the broad assignment of programmatic categories, to schedules of accommodation, accounts of the activities and communication processes to be accommodated (for example, in terms of their need for separation/connection etc), and finally performance specifications for the material building components. The term has also come to include the orienting and representational functions of architecture. Thus, the total domain of architecture – the totality of its issues – is dissected by the distinction of form and function. All architectural aspects of a space or building refer either to a functional or to a formal aspect of the space or building. The whole building has both a function and a form, and so has each space and each architectural component. Two questions are always legitimate with respect to any architectural element, space, or whole building: what should be the form/configuration of the element, space, or building? And: what should be the function/useful purpose of the element, space, or building? This distinction intercepts the straightforward determination of architecture by external pressure and instead poses the task of 57 This is – to a certain degree – confirmed in practice as architects are called upon to design all sorts of products. 58 The distinction of form and function is originally not unique to architecture and design. This distinction was also a primary distinction in biology. Indeed, the generalized concept of function did migrate from biology into architecture in the 17th century. 208

� references to the societal problems that confront architecture constitute the world-reference or external reference for the autopoiesis of architecture � references to the possible spatio-morphological solutions, considered within a spectrum of options, constitute the domain of self-reference or internal reference for the autopoiesis of architecture

59 Luhmann uses the terms Selbstreferenz (self-reference) and Fremdreferenz (which might be literally rendered as alien reference, and has sometimes been translated as external-reference, other-reference, or hetero-reference). See: Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System, Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2004, pp 87–8.

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3.4.3 THE DOUBLE REFERENCE OF THE DESIGN DISCIPLINES The distinction between form and function reflects the necessary double reference of architecture and the design disciplines. Above – in the chapter on Avant-garde vs Mainstream – we distinguished two complementary tasks that confront the autopoiesis in its trajectory of continuous adaptive upgrading: the task of identifying the upcoming societal problems and the task of discovering new spatial solutions. Using a fundamental distinction of Luhmann’s social systems theory, the distinction of self-reference (internal reference) and world-reference 59 (external reference), we might thus refer to these two different tasks as follows:

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responding to social requirements by means of formal propositions. The respective formal ‘solutions’ have traditionally been chosen from a given canon. In Modern times forms were ‘designed’ according to (more or less) well-established procedures and criteria. Under conditions of Postmodern complexity, the discipline was proceeding via selection from the stylistic/typological repertoire served up by all previous history of architecture, or more recently via the selection from the prolific results of machinic formal processes. This latter possibility represents an important evolutionary achievement which profoundly transforms the discipline’s mode of autopoiesis without disrupting this autopoiesis. In any case, architectural thinking delays the instant provision of ad hoc solutions by elaborating formal systems, systems of functions and, on this basis, systematic form-function relationships. This takes time. The collapse of this distinction would short-cut this laborious work and cut the discipline off from its elaborate evolutionary achievements.

This distinction of self/internal vs world/external reference60 depends on the most fundamental distinction of systems theory: the distinction of system and environment. Social systems theory observes all social systems by means of this distinction, and it observes that this distinction is – sooner or later and with more or less frequency – utilized by all social systems: ‘The system that has emerged by operational discrimination (and through this has become visible for observers) designates itself in contrast to its environment and so, through observation, catches up with what has already happened.’61 Further: A social system must run a parallel procedure of recognition while performing its autopoiesis, which determines which . . . events have to be counted as communication (and especially as communication within its own system) and which not. . . . the distinction between self-reference and other-reference (world-reference) is already a requirement of its autopoiesis. This means that the system operates with a sideways look at the simultaneously existing environment, and that it does not simply orient by the effects of its own operations in the system as a kind of cybernetic feedback loop.62

This distinction of self/internal vs world/external reference exists in all modern function systems as the re-entry of the distinction of system and environment within the system. In the case of architecture this re-entry takes the form of the distinction between form (space, composition etc) as indicating self-reference and function (programme, performance etc) as indicating world-reference.63 Architectural functions – the programme or brief as starting point and the final description of the performance of the completed building at the end – represent the specific, relevant environment within the autopoietic system of architectural communications. In this respect the distinction between form and function in architecture and design can be compared with the distinction between 60 Niklas Luhmann applies this distinction not only to social systems, but also to communications. According to Luhmann, each communication involves three necessary moments: information, impartation (Mitteilung, mostly translated as utterance) and understanding. With respect to communications, the distinction between self-reference and world-reference is represented via the distinction of impartation (self-reference) and information (world-reference). Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford CA), 2000, p 284. 61 Niklas Luhmann, Law as a Social System, Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2004, p 87.

62 Ibid, p 88.

63 Organizationally the distinction between system and environment re-enters via the distinction

between avant-garde and mainstream. The external boundary between architecture and its societal environment re-appears as internal boundary between the avant-garde (representing the system) and the mainstream (representing the environment within the system). 210

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64 Niklas Luhmann, Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, 2nd edition, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1996, p 55. 65 However, these compressed, ‘essential definitions’ of the respective function systems do not yet fully reveal the unique societal function of each function system. It is these societal functions that the theory of social systems, as metatheory of the theory of architectural autopoiesis, can explicate in terms of society’s various functional exigencies, that have acted as evolutionary attractors for the historical (and continuously confirmed and deepened) differentiation of the respective function systems. These societal functions are addressed in part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture. 66 With this rigorous conceptual line up we go beyond what we can find in Luhmann’s works. Luhmann’s own use of the concept lead-distinction is less clearly defined, and also not pursued throughout all his individual analyses. The same applies to his use of the concept of re-entry of

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price and value in the economy. ‘Values represent the societal relevance of economic events within the system. Prices represent the system-internal autopoiesis.’64 In science the lead-distinction between theory (explanation) and evidence (phenomenon) can also be seen as a re-entry of the distinction between system and environment, with references to theories constituting the domain of self-reference and references to evidence instituting world-reference within the sciences. In the legal system it is the distinction between norms (self-reference) and facts (world-reference). We can go on with such parallelism – beyond Luhmann’s own explicit guidance – and further include the following distinctions as respective re-entries of the distinction between system and environment: in politics political positions (self-reference) are distinguished from political issues (world-reference), in the education system it is the teaching vs the subjects (as well as the teaching vs the students), in the mass media it is reports vs events. That each of these distinctions is essential for its respective function system becomes clearer when we formulate as follows, demonstrating that we can use the respective distinctions to define the function system in question: architecture forms functions; the economy prices values; science explains phenomena; the legal system normalizes facts; politics formulates and gathers support for positions on issues; the education system teaches subjects; and the mass media report events. That these statements can count as the most compressed definitions65 of the respective function systems demonstrates that these distinctions touch their essence. Therefore, it is these distinctions that deserve – in each case – the title of the lead-distinction within the respective social system. It is thus the respective lead-distinction of the system that in each case constitutes the re-entry of the system-environment distinction within the respective systems, by distinguishing self-reference and world-reference.66

There can be only one lead-distinction in each function system. This is clear when we define the lead-distinction as the system-environment distinction within the system. Each system is uniquely constituted via its particular system-environment differentiation. The lead-distinction also indicates the unique competency of the respective function system. At the advanced stage of contemporary society, only architecture and the design disciplines can give form to functions; only the economy can price values; only science can explain phenomena etc. Lead-distinctions of society’s major function systems Autopoietic Function System

Self-reference

World-reference

architecture & design

form

function

economy

price

value

science legal system

theory (explanation) norms

evidence (phenomena) facts (of the case)

political system education system mass media

positions teaching report

issues students events

art (before 1900)

rendition

subject matter

Only in the art system is this double reference difficult to pin down. Here it sometimes seems as if self-referential communications dominate to the extent that world-reference has been abandoned. At least there seems to be no unitary form of world-reference that would be valid for all art. This dominance of self-reference in art started with the Romantic movement at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, and was radicalized with Modern art at the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to this, the defining lead-distinction that distinguishes self- and world-reference was the distinction of rendition vs subject. Now we are left with renditions without subjects.67 It is this example of a fully self-referential art that Peter Eisenman identifies as the truly ‘modernist sensibility’68 in painting (Malevich, Mondrian), music (Schoenberg, Weber), literature (Joyce, Apollinaire) and film (Richter, Eggeling). But is there really a total the system-environment distinction within the system. He has not clearly identified the point of re-entry in each function system. Also, he has never explicitly equated the concept of lead-distinction with this point of re-entry. However, the theory of architectural autopoiesis assumes that this conceptual alignment is robust and productive. 67 However, in this case the very possibility of this exception determines the character of the art system as a whole. 68 Peter Eisenman, ‘Post-Functionalism’, Oppositions 6 (Fall 1976), in: K Michael Hays (Ed), Architecture Theory since 1968, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998. 212

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69 Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2000, p 283.

70 Concerning societal function see part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture.

71 Insofar as the radically Formalist ideology of key contributors like Peter Eisenman and Jeff

Kipnis is a necessary factor in their repertoire enhancing fertility one might speak – in the parlance of Marxism (Luka´ cs) – of false consciousness.

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absence of world-reference here? This radical absence of world-reference is, in fact, still the exception. Most works have titles which at least hint at some world-reference. Some form of world-reference, however tenuous, might be found in most cases. Art critics are always there to help, although the idea that consensus can be reached here has been abandoned. One might thus agree with Luhmann69 that this world-reference is still there, although it has become ambiguous, and can no longer be pinned down. One might say that art is just pushing to extremes what can be noticed in all autopoietic function systems, namely that the increased complexity of the societal functions, in an increasingly uncertain environment, leads to an increase in self-referential communications: questioning, weighing up of options, double-checking, confirming, reflection upon premises and principles etc. However, the difference between art and the other function systems is that with art not only has its world-reference become tenuous, ambiguous and confused, but so has its societal function.70 This is not the case with the other great function systems. Committed Formalists such as Peter Eisenman and Jeff Kipnis think they can make architecture autonomous by redirecting architecture towards a state of pure self-reference. This fallacy is productive for the creative productivity of individual contributors but suicidal for the discipline if this attitude should succeed in being generalized.71 A misconstrued, ‘autonomous’ architecture, that would abandon function and thus world-reference, would either join the art system, or be a stillborn construct, as viable as an economy without products (values), a science without evidence, or a politics without issues, a teaching without subjects, or a reporting without news. The autonomy of architecture is a key thesis within the theory of architectural autopoiesis. However, the concept of autonomy promoted within the theory of architectural autopoiesis does not imply a withdrawal into the ivory tower of pure composition. Rather, the autonomy of architecture resides in the fact that architecture is autonomous in the way it presents the world to itself , and in the way it elaborates its ever more sophisticated responses. Our formula is: self-referential closure for the sake of a sophisticated self-organization of sensitive and effective responsiveness. This responsiveness can only be elaborated on the basis of distinguishing self-reference from world-reference within architecture as form vs

function. Each high calibre response, ie, each state-of-the-art project, must oscillate between self-reference and world-reference, all the way through the design process, as well as in its final presentation, evaluation and critique. There seems to be a curious paradox in the way self-references and world-references require each other. In all basic communication processes world-reference is the prevalent and immediate mode. Self-reference comes in as a secondary move to keep the communication process on track. For instance, during a debate the following instance of self-reference might become necessary: ‘Do not wander off with your arguments – stay with the topic’. Interaction systems that follow the institution of the debate, it seems, can rein themselves in and stay on target by re-entering the difference of system and environment as the difference between argument (internal reference) and topic (external reference). What can be observed here is that the topic is that which is immediately on one’s mind, while the language one uses seems transparent, requiring an additional reflective effort to be noticed. To make arguments is easier than to reflect upon them. Something similar can be observed in architecture. Architects continuously produce forms while talking about functions, and much more rarely describe the forms. The external reference is what is more immediate on one’s discursive mind while the forms are apparent without being analyzed in formal terms. This greater immediacy of the external reference might be taken to indicate a healthy orientation towards the world, life, the final purposes of the design activity. On the other hand, we might suspect that the lack of self-references, ie, in architectural design terms, the lack of discourse on form, indicates a lack of development. It is indicative of the fact that a rich and nuanced language to describe, analyze and compare architectural forms with respect to their morphological, geometric, tectonic and compositional characteristics is lacking. This lack indicates that the verbal communication that accompanies and guides the architectural design process has still not yet sufficiently progressed beyond the everyday, non-expert communication where the language of function dominates and where a language of formal description is virtually absent. With respect to avant-garde architecture as expert discourse for the creative advancement of form-function relationships, this relative muteness in questions of form is highly problematic. It is here that certain Formalists, or ‘Formal Conceptualists’, 72 such as Jeff Kipnis and 72 ‘Formalists’ like Jeff Kipnis might also be called ‘Conceptualists’ because, more than merely providing new forms, they provide a conceptual language for the description and distinction of forms. 214

THESIS 14 All design decisions are evaluated along two dimensions: utility and beauty.

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3.5 The Codification of Architecture

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Greg Lynn among others, are a necessary resource. Formal concepts focus the designer’s attention on the freedom (and obligation) to make formal decisions. As providers of a language for nuanced form-descriptions, the Formalists/Conceptualists serve an essential function with respect to the overall progress of architecture’s responsiveness, even if (or perhaps because) they take a myopic, and ultimately non-viable, perspective on ˆ the overall raison d’etre of architecture. (The inherent myopia of this perspective implies that Formalists only work in a productive direction if they are embedded within a collective research process that provides sufficient world-referential friction.) The relative lack of explicit formal discourse is less problematic in mainstream design practice. Here the application of an established style allows the design to proceed with ready-made forms with routinely associated functions. Such a way of working, depending on the requirements of the particular project, might indeed be sufficient to reasonably fulfil the given design task. However, even mainstream design work becomes more and more demanding regarding the creative handling of new situations. With respect to the avant-garde’s task of style formation (and repertoire development within a style), self-reference should gain ground and become, next to world-reference, the true second nature of the innovative architect. To a certain extent, Classical architecture, if compared with Modern or even contemporary architecture, had developed a rather rich vocabulary for the description of its formal repertoire. This was possible due to the long-term stability of its tradition, and due to its focus on preserving its formulae with nearly ritualistic insistence. Thus, at a time when a formal vocabulary would be most needed, its elaboration is most demanding and thus least likely, not least because of a lack of time to pin down the rapidly evolving formal repertoires. Also, contemporary concepts must be more descriptive, abstract and open than the simple designations of the Classical tradition. In addition, the discourse needs to move from an unordered cluster of terms to a systematic conceptual scheme. This goes for both a language elaborating conceptual resources to upgrade the side of internal reference (form) and a language elaborating conceptual resources to upgrade the side of external reference (function).

Functional differentiation implies that communication becomes highly selective and exclusive with respect to the aspects and concerns that matter within a particular system of communications. In the chapter on the elemental operation of architecture the question was raised of how communications recognize each other as appropriate points of reference and connection. For a social system to be formed and maintained, contributors need to identify which communications belong to the system and which can be ignored as irrelevant. The stability of such identifications is crucial if the communication system is to build up complexity. Rather than allowing communication to wander, strict criteria of demarcation are brought to bear to constrain and focus the possible connectivity from communication to communication. One cannot refute a legal argument with an economic payment, or win a scientific argument with an exercise of political power. These strictures are achievements of modern, functionally differentiated society. Today such phenomena, which violate the separation of autopoietic domains, are – in the examples cited – rejected as corruption. They have little chance of success.73 If one were to succeed with such boundary crossings, one would undermine the very constitution of contemporary society. In the same way architecture cannot be bought or controlled by command. Under conditions of modern, functionally differentiated social life, questions of architectural quality are as separate from questions of business profitability, as questions of scientific truth are separate from questions of political power. This ordering of communications with respect to exclusive domains of mutual relevance is an evolutionary achievement that depends on a decisive type of communication structure: binary codes. Such binary codes are therefore found in all modern function systems. Each function system is unified and identifiable by the exclusive use of a peculiar binary code that all and only the communications of the respective system respond to. The primary type of architectural communication is the design decision. But by what characteristic criterion can we recognize a design decision? Or more generally, by what characteristic criterion can we recognize a specifically architectural communication? The solution to this problem is provided by the emergence of a specific set of codes within architecture: the code of utility and the code of beauty. However, before elaborating on how these two codes operate and collaborate in the

73 In older societies such ‘violations’ were commonplace. The extent to which such transgressions of system-boundaries can still succeed might serve as a measure of societal backwardness. 216

74 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995, original: Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984, p 441. 75 Niklas Luhmann, ‘Der Politische Code’, in: Soziologische Aufkl¨arung 3, 4th edition, VS Verlag ¨ Sozialwissenschaften (Wiesbaden), 2005, p 306. fur

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3.5.1 BINARY CODES Within the framework of Luhmann’s theory of social systems as communication systems, the primary factor that differentiates and sets up a particular social system – against the background of all the other communications that together constitute society – is the particular system of distinctions that coheres each network of communications into a system. Each system’s unity hinges upon a primary binary opposition which Luhmann calls the code of the system. Luhmann also speaks of binary schematisms. Binary schematisms imply that everything within their domain of application must take on one or the other value, so that, for example, what is not true must therefore be false, what is not legal must therefore be illegal, and what is not making a profit is therefore making a loss etc. Luhmann asserts that binary codes provide a mechanism for the differentiation of specialized social systems. ‘They (binary schematisms) require function systems that are closed specifically with respect to them, function systems that scan the entire world for information according to their own schematism and that can afford indifference to all other schematisms.’ 74 The code of the system coheres the system around a fundamental question that is always relevant with respect to all communications within the system and this question is relevant only within this one particular system, while being irrelevant in all other systems. Codes are thus on the one hand unique to their respective specialized system and universal with respect to their applicability within the thus demarcated domain of the system. For instance, within the legal system it is always appropriate to question the legality of a communication forcing the application of the binary code legal/illegal. In science it is the code true/false (or scientifically probable/improbable). Every scientific statement has to respond to this code. But no scientific statement needs to respond to the code legal/illegal which is simply inapplicable here. The applicability/inapplicability of system-specific codes strictly separates the respective social systems into their mutually exclusive/autonomous domains. Politics revolves around the codes affirmative vs oppositional, and progressive vs conservative.75 Any political communication (and only

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demarcation of architecture’s autopoiesis, we should understand more about binary codes in general.

political communications) can be qualified as either progressive (left) or conservative (right). The binary code of the mass media is new vs old, ie, new, surprising, entertaining information as opposed to old news, boring, not newsworthy. The guiding distinction of the economy is of ownership titles (mine vs yours) and the quintessential economic communication is the economic transaction that transfers ownership titles. The guiding question here is: who owns a given object? Or: who wants to own and pay for a given object? All communications that surround the transfer of ownership titles (via payments) belong to the autopoietic communication system that constitutes the modern economy. The binary code of the economy that qualifies these transactions in terms of their economic significance is profitability: profitable vs unprofitable (loss making) transactions. Binary codes are operating in all modern function systems. However, there are many other types of social system that also utilize them. For instance, the institution of intimacy: the binary code of all intimate relationships is the code of love, ie, love vs no love.76 The key question which is always relevant, always on the agenda and that can be triggered in any case of intimate communication is: do you (still) love me? This question and the attendant binary code encapsulates an intimate relation in modern society. In all other contexts this question is absolutely out of place. Those who are unable to handle such distinctions, for example, the difference between marriage as a legal institution and marriage as a demonstration of love, are unfit to participate in modern society. Within an intimate relationship, every aspect of life can potentially become a touchstone of love. Nothing is out of bounds here. The code has universal reach with respect to the world of the lovers. The morality of society – a communication structure that operates via the binary code good vs bad – is also marked by its universal reach with respect to the potential moral qualification of behaviours.77 A similar universal reach can be observed with all codes, including the codes that demarcate the great function systems: virtually all communications within society can be qualified with respect to their legality. Virtually all artefacts (products), natural resources and activities (services) can be assessed in terms of their ownership and economic value. Virtually all events within society can be made into a political issue 76 See: Niklas Luhmann, Love as Passion – The Codification of Intimacy, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1998. 77 According to Luhmann the morality of society is codifying the general conditions of respect that structure social interaction. The moral discourse has not been elaborated into a modern function system. See: Niklas Luhmann, ‘Soziologie der Moral’, in: Niklas Luhmann & Stephan ¨ H Pfurtner (Eds), Theorietechnik und Moral, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1978. 218

78 This risk always ensues when non-architects (engineers, philosophers, artists etc) are invited to architectural crits. They are rarely competent participants in the debate. They lack the internal compass that comes with the academic socialization into architecture and thus tend to wander off into alien, irrelevant territory. This phenomenon is an indication of the incommensurability of the different autopoietic function systems.

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3.5.2 UTILITY AND BEAUTY AS THE DOUBLE CODE OF ARCHITECTURE All architects understand that questions of legal status, economic value, political success or newsworthiness of a building are architecturally irrelevant. Questions of truth, legality, ownership, or legitimacy are never architectural questions. Within a ‘colloquial’, ‘everyday’ conversation about a building all sorts of comments and arguments might be put forward, including personal remarks of appreciation or dislike, comments on the functionality of the building, arguments about its aesthetic value

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that then forces politicians to take a stance (position) of either affirmative alignment or opposition. The various distinct function systems might intersect in particular objects or events. However, in terms of the (further) communications about the respective object or event, the legal, political, economic or intimate aspects diverge and remain separate. These aspects are clearly distinguished. The emergence of this series of binary schematism achieves a strong ordering effect in the communication processes of society. The ability to rigorously maintain such distinctions – and the various modern function systems rigorously police such boundaries – is the peculiar achievement of modern society as functionally differentiated society. The historical experience of people from remote, traditional societies that are being thrust into modern conditions demonstrates that a radical re-adaptation is required here. This experience also shows that most people learn very quickly and totally transform themselves once the new system has taken root. The competent participation within modern function systems requires significant socialization. The same can be observed with respect to architecture. The participation within the discourse of architecture requires considerable sophistication with respect to the participant’s ability to distinguish and isolate architectural issues and judge architectural value independently from personal, economic, scientific, legal, political value etc. This ability requires both formal learning – as certified in a professional degree – and extensive informal socialization. The socialization into architecture ensures the instinctive understanding that architectural questions are those that revolve around architecture’s specific set of codes. Those who fail to grasp these demarcations make themselves ‘impossible’ and thus cannot participate.78

or appeal, economic assessments, legal and scientific arguments etc. This list of communications that might surround any building shows that the identification of specifically architectural communications is no trivial matter. What kind of questions are architectural (design) questions? If architectural questions are not questions of scientific, legal, economic or political ‘truth’, what are questions of architectural ‘truth’, ie, what is the key design question that is both universally and exclusively relevant, with respect to all (but also only with respect to) design communications? Another way to ask the same questions would be to ask: how is architecture codified? Which terms within the architectural discourse operate the decisive binary code that is required to unify and demarcate architecture as autopoietic function system within society? The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes that architecture is differentiated on the basis of two codes: the double code of utility and beauty . Architecture is demarcated and integrated around the interweaving of two questions, the question of beauty and the question of utility. These two questions or concerns are capable of probing all architectural/design communications and only architectural/design communications. This double coding is closely connected to architecture’s lead-distinction of form vs function. Beauty and utility are the evaluative terms that flow from the lead-distinction of form and function. Utility is good, useful function in contrast to bad function, ie, set against the useless, the dysfunctional; and beauty is good, resolved form set against the ugly, bad, unresolved form. This sets up two binary oppositions which force evaluation and facilitate the required design decisions. What do binary codes accomplish? The immediate accomplishment of binary codes is that they lead discussions into decision situations.79 Like all binary codes, the two codes of architecture are both asymmetric codes, or preference codes , ie, codes with an in-built preference. Constructive communicative connection is possible on the positive code value – useful, beautiful – while the selection of the negative value implies blockage or backtracking. Only if the interim result of the design process – the decisions taken so far – predicts or indicates a final result that is both useful and beautiful can the design decision process proceed to the next level of detail. One might talk about the code of utility as operating the distinction useful vs useless, and the code of beauty as operating the distinction 79 The further, far reaching achievement of binary codes is that their specificity and conspicuousness function as unmistakable marker of a function system’s identity. 220

The exact words used are not always stable and different words circulate in different languages. However, the basic distinction is always the same. Theoretically this code can be derived as the (necessary) evaluative doubling of architecture’s lead-distinction into two complementary binary codes. In turn, the lead-distinction of architecture – form (self-reference) vs function (world-reference) – is the necessary re-entry of the distinction between system (architecture) and environment (society) within the autopoietic system of architecture.80 The pedigree and unabated prominence of these two dimensions of evaluation are obvious throughout the history of architecture. They have been made explicit within the history of architecture’s self-descriptions, with unmistakable emphasis. Beginning with Vitruvius’s De Architectura81 proposing his famous triad of firmitas (stability), utilitas (utility) and venustas (beauty), this triad was taken up by Alberti (commoda, firmitatem, gratiam) as the most general set of criteria for the evaluation of architecture and has been followed by virtually all architectural theorists ever since, all the way to the refoundation of the discipline as Modern architecture.82 For instance, John Soane confirms: ‘Solidity, convenience and beauty are the three essentials of architecture’.83 Soane also states: ‘Architecture must be considered under two distinct heads, the Utile and the Dulce; these can never be separated.’84 Although one of the competing theoretical self-descriptions of early Modern architecture – the Radical Functionalism of Neues Bauen – tried 80 This scheme of third order theoretical reconstruction might also be applied to the other great function systems – as an attempt to further systematize Luhmann’s theoretical system. However, this ambition obviously transcends the scope of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. 81 Vitruvius’s treatise is the only surviving text on architecture dating from before the Renaissance. It served as origin of a self-conscious discipline only in retrospect. 82 The empirical fact that the written reflection upon this relationship of function (code: utility) to form (code: beauty) has been dominating architectural theory for a long time makes it inevitable that this relationship is taken as the defining concern of architecture (or at least as an inevitable point of departure for any theoretical/critical intervention). This theoretical necessity is a consequence of the crucial decision to avoid an ontological understanding of architecture as a certain eternal essence or a certain class of objects in the world and instead promote the explicit (self-)conception of architecture as an evolving system of communications. 83 John Soane, The Royal Academy Lectures, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 2000, p 165. 84 Ibid, p 177.

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� code of utility: functional vs dysfunctional � code of beauty: formally resolved vs formally unresolved

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beautiful vs ugly. However, the following terms seem to be more in tune with contemporary parlance:

to eliminate one half of the double code in favour of the unitary criterion of function, this elimination was only a theoretical gesture that was neither effective in practice, nor did it achieve theoretical hegemony. The paradigmatic formulation of the principles and values of Modernism, Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture, honours the double code of architecture, emphasizing both utility and beauty. It is easy to see that the traditional trinity can be collapsed into the double code of utility and beauty. Firmitas (stability, durability, material and technical performance) can be eliminated. Its concerns have been taken up by the building engineering disciplines. (Prior to the existence of separate building engineering disciplines these technical concerns could have been absorbed under a generalized heading of utility.) According to Luhmann, a single binary code suffices to integrate a function system. In the case of architecture we can identify two equally pertinent codes. These codes operate in parallel and the two questions– the question of beauty and the question of utility – can both be posed with respect to each and every communication that claims to belong to architecture. No architectural communication – a design decision or a communication related to design decisions – can afford to ward off or dismiss either question. Therefore we can say that the autopoiesis of architecture is organized around a double code: the double code of utility and beauty. This double code provides two binary oppositions: the opposition functional/dysfunctional and the opposition formally resolved/unresolved. This double code orders any sequence of architectural communications by continuously soliciting the double-evaluation of any design decision. The combination of the two codes produces four possible evaluative outcomes:

� functional and formally resolved (useful and beautiful) � functional but formally unresolved (useful but ugly) � formally resolved but dysfunctional (beautiful but useless) � dysfunctional and formally unresolved (useless and ugly) It is important to note that there exists no hierarchy of importance between these two codes. Should architecture rank the functional but formally unresolved (useful but ugly) above the formally resolved but dysfunctional (beautiful but useless)? Two types of persistent question seem to vie for the pivotal position as the defining question of the discipline. On the one hand the question concerning function (code of utility: functional/dysfunctional) imposes itself relentlessly upon every architectural contribution, on the other hand the question of form, structured by the binary code of beauty (formally resolved vs formally unresolved), persists with equal tenacity. Both 222

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85 See Chapter 3.5.5 The Double Code of Architecture and the Triple Code of Avant-garde Architecture.

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questions survive despite all the repeated attempts to simplify the architectural game by demoting or even eradicating one for the sake of the unrivalled pre-eminence of the other. It seems as if architecture is condemned to oscillate between two different codes. In the 500 year long history of architecture’s autopoiesis no stable hierarchy between these two codes has evolved – despite the fact that during at least 300 of those 500 years questions of rank have held supreme intellectual prominence. Instead of proselytizing on one or the other side of such a debate, one should rather wonder whether the very fact of the unresolved openness of this question might have a productive role in allowing the autopoiesis of architecture to succeed. This persistent oscillation between utility and beauty must achieve something. In Luhmann’s carefully constructed conceptual apparatus there is only a single constitutive code allocated to each function system. Such theoretical decisions/strictures – as far as they can be maintained – have a considerable ordering/simplifying effect upon a theory and promise considerable mnemotechnical economies in the build up of theoretical complexity. The power of this theoretical construction is immediately obvious: it neatly partitions society (= the totality of all communications) into strictly distinct subsystems, each identifiable by its single, unique code. However, one should follow this stricture only as long as it does not require too much compensatory contortion/complication elsewhere in the theoretical edifice to maintain empirical plausibility. The discovery that architecture is constituted around a double code – and within the avant-garde segment around a triple code85 – does not compromise the unity and recognizability of architecture. It just makes its theoretical description more complex. The insistence upon a single code for each function system is suspect and cannot be maintained. There is indeed another function system where the existence of a double code should be admitted, namely in the case of science. I would like to argue that science also operates on the basis of a double code – the code of truth (true vs false statements or theories) and the code of originality or newness (new vs old theories). Science is concerned with new discoveries and new theories leading to new knowledge. Old, well-established knowledge is communicated only as a premise for further original work, or else to be criticized and questioned. Also, Luhmann himself had difficulty in pinning down the unique code of the political system: he mentions progressive (left) vs conservative (right) and ruler vs ruled, which within democracy is replaced by government vs opposition (right). The code government vs

opposition exists also in the generalized form that marks the necessity of alignment within politics: affirmation vs opposition. Thus the theory of architectural autopoiesis is confident with respect to the theory of architecture’s double code.86 First, the presence of two indispensable codes seems to be a clear empirical fact. Second, the derivation of the codes from the lead-distinction as re-entry of the system-environment distinction implies a theoretical demand of a double code. If we apply this reasoning – which goes beyond Luhmann’s level of systematization – to other function systems we might also find double codes rather than single codes. For instance, the lead-distinction of theory and evidence might deliver the code of newness on the side of theory (self-reference) and the code of truth on the side of evidence (world-reference). Such suggestions, however, cannot be pursued further without transcending the scope of architectural theory. 3.5.3 POLYCONTEXTURALITY As indicated above, the strict, code-based differentiation of concerns that exists between different, incommensurable function systems does not preclude overlap in the following sense: certain communicative ‘events’ might feature in several social systems. For instance, a scientific discovery can be sensational news but this is scientifically irrelevant, or a trial can serve as a newsworthy and entertaining court drama but this aspect is legally irrelevant. The completion of the construction of a major public building might constitute an event/communication within architecture (as a milestone in the hegemony of a certain style), within the economy (as the establishment and transaction of a major economic value), with respect to the law (as the fulfilment of a contractual obligation), within politics (as a major political success or defeat of a certain politician/political party), within the mass media (as an attractive news item and headline), for the organization that is supposed to occupy and use the building (a crucial occasion for internal reorganization) etc. The theory of architectural autopoiesis explicitly reckons with such multiple identifications of ‘the same’ event. An ontological interpretation of our socially differentiated world is no longer viable. There can no longer be a single, simple ontological identification of ‘objective’ events or things. Luhmann speaks about the condition of polycontexturality.87

86 As will transpire below, a third code, the code of novelty, has to be added for the avant-garde segment of architecture. 87 Niklas Luhmann, Theories of Distinction, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002, Part II, Chapter 4, ‘Deconstruction as Second-Order Observing’, p 99. 224

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This implies that everything is relative to a system reference: events can only be identified with respect to a particular social system. Although the various system events listed above seem to overlap in the simple/obvious event of the completion of the building, this coincidence of identification is rather coarse and differentiates as soon as we look closer at how the different networks of communications identify and demarcate the event as a specific communication. The coincidence is only momentary; it dissolves as the various discourses bifurcate away from this event, each contextualizing the event with respect to a different history. Different codes apply in each case, different key questions are relevant. This relative isolation of concerns is a peculiar mark of modern society. The crystallization of demarcating/integrating binary codes sharpens this condition of differentiation. Binary codes are integral to the establishment of self-referentially enclosed systems, and self-referential closure is a precondition for the further build-up of complexity within each domain. Given the polycontexturality of communicative events, the placement of architectural value will be confronted with the allocation of the code values in the other function systems. Self-referential enclosure implies the autonomous interpretation of events in each system. This implies the liberty to bracket other concerns – the concerns of other function systems – but it does not grant the freedom to remain utterly indifferent to those other concerns. An example is the controversial award of the prestigious James Stirling Prize to the new Scottish Parliament building by EMBT in 2005. The award was given despite the fact that the project’s budget was overrun tenfold. The project was a media scandal and political disaster for those responsible. With respect to the award architectural criteria prevailed, and a project that was a failure in the economic and political domains was promoted in the domain of architecture. However, the legitimacy and merit of this blatant indifference to the societal environment was a point of controversy within the architectural domain. The debate was between the proud insistence upon the independence of architectural (self-)evaluation on one side and the sense that a discipline that promotes such a scandalous economic failure could undermine its credibility and endanger its very relevance and viability within society on the other side. Reckless indifference towards vital societal concerns constitutes a maladaptation that might lead to a backlash that in turn could question the continued survival of the autopoiesis of architecture. The theory of architectural autopoiesis insists that financial arguments cannot be integrated into the autopoiesis of architecture. Budgetary limitations constitute external barriers that might eventually lead to the

disruption of a particular architectural communication process if this process fails to respond in any way. Budgetary limitations are external irritations that should be absorbed, worked through and responded to by means of architectural arguments. There must be a sublimation process that transmutes external pressures into an internal logic. The architectural communication process must thus find a way to reflect budgetary limitations within its own conceptual universe, ie, on its own terms, without being railroaded into decisions by purely economic arguments. As the example of the Scottish Parliament shows, economic concerns might be temporarily ignored or battled against. But indifference and struggle are not sustainable in the long run. Economic constraints irritate architecture and architecture responds by introducing its own version of ‘economy of means’ understood as a dimension of aesthetic value, distinguished from the ‘excessive’. This distinction can be handled without requiring financial calculations. The qualification of a design as excessive continues the architectural debate while the disqualification of a design on the basis of cost would cut the debate short, and hand everything over to agents operating outside the architectural discourse, ignorant of architecture’s values. The result would be that such a project would be ejected from architecture: a loss for architecture, for society, and for the client in question. 3.5.4 THE UNIQUE DOUBLE CODE OF ARCHITECTURE AS DEMARCATION DEVICE Codes enable us to distinguish between what belongs to the system and what does not belong to the system. The system would not be able to maintain its boundary without a unique code, or unique combination of codes. Above we noted that the two codes – the code of utility and the code of beauty – persist with equal tenacity, despite many attempts at simplifying the architectural game by demoting (or eradicating) one for the sake of the other. It seems as if architecture is condemned to oscillate between two different codes. It is precisely this oscillation that seems to define architecture (design) as a unique discursive domain. The abandonment of this oscillation, ie, the restriction to one of the two codes, seems to imply an abandonment of the specific demarcation/identity of architecture (design) versus art on the one hand, and the specific demarcation of architecture (design) versus engineering on the other hand. The double code of architecture operates as demarcation mechanism on two fronts: against art and against engineering. Within the self-referential network of architectural communications the litmus test of 226

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88 Compare: Niklas Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1992, p 319.

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whether a communication wants to be part of architecture is whether it is willing to face issues of form and issues of function. Withdrawal from either functional or formal claims, or the rejection of this distinction, marks the withdrawal from architecture – for example, the withdrawal into art or into engineering. Even ad hoc sketches on site – which might be commented upon by other architects – can be criticized on the basis of both form and function. Formal issues are always involved – as far as architecture is concerned. Formal concerns may be raised even with respect to the most minute detail, if this detail is at all visible. For instance a plate/bolt connection detail to fix a handrail. Should the plate be square or circular? Both are Platonic forms! Such questions demand explicit or implicit ‘formal decisions’. For a design detail to be (a latent) part of architecture it suffices that such latent ‘decisions’ can be made an explicit issue at any time within architecture, while an engineer, contractor or construction worker might reject concern with such fancy, ‘intangible’ questions. As far as architecture is concerned formal decisions (or formal a prioris) are always in play. On the other hand: pure, wilful form, or pure adornment has been expelled from architecture and design. This rejection achieved absolute and final victory in the 1920s. At the same time the separation of architecture/design from art had been completed and sealed. Functional and formal questions can always be raised simultaneously. The relentless coding of architecture has to be paid for with the restriction of the audience of a thus constituted architectural discourse: the audience here always consists of other architects. In this respect architecture is just like science. Scientific communications (publications) are exclusively addressed to other scientists, ie, to other potential scientific authors.88 Each reader is a writer. The same goes for architecture: each drawing/design is for those who also draw/design. Any outside concern requires representation within the system through hiring an architect – just like any participation in the legal system requires legal representation through a lawyer. Thus we can pose the following thesis: the immediate audience for all architectural communications generated by architects (and architectural experts) is restricted to other architects (and architectural experts). Architecture, like science, or the legal system etc, is an exclusive expert discourse/practice, with one fundamental exception: the final, privileged communications that are the completed designs, spaces, buildings – launched into other communication systems that utilize them within their own communicative operations. These

designed spaces are launched just as the verdicts of the legal systems are launched, productively impacting other social systems. We will have occasion to discuss the status of these ‘final’ communications in the section on the societal function of architecture.89 Here it suffices to say that – whatever their role, after their launch, outside the autopoiesis of architecture – they also remain key communications within the autopoiesis of architecture, being referred and connected to by texts, drawings, photographs, or by words and gestures during architectural excursions. 3.5.5 THE DOUBLE CODE OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE TRIPLE CODE OF AVANT-GARDE ARCHITECTURE All architectural communications have to make (and respond to) both formal and functional claims. The thesis here states: all architectural communications are concerned with both utility and beauty. But do utility and beauty cover all the dimensions of all possible architectural evaluations? Does this universe have only two evaluative dimensions? Is the pursuit of functionality and formal resolution all? What about novelty/originality? The whole point of architecture’s self-referential closure was to build up sufficient internal complexity, and to gain sufficient flexibility and versatility, to be able to face the challenge of continuous, adaptive innovation. Innovation was identified as the differentia specifica and ˆ raison d’etre of architecture’s emergence as self-conscious, academic discipline as distinct from mere traditional, vernacular building. It is empirically undeniable that originality is a third value within architecture, and the emphasis on innovation implies that it makes sense that this should be so. However, this third evaluative code – original vs conventional – operates as code only within the avant-garde segment of architecture, and not in the mainstream. Within the avant-garde segment of the discipline the third code does indeed become prevalent. This extra code, in fact, facilitates the formation of the avant-garde as a recognizable subsystem within the autopoiesis of architecture. This code validates originality and imposes the relevance and recognition of the code values original (new) vs conventional (old) on all avant-garde communications. Mainstream architectural communications are not subject to this limitation. The code of novelty (originality) cannot impose itself here. Originality is – to a certain extent – valued within the mainstream but it does not function as code here, ie, it does not operate as indispensable logic gate here. This 89 See part 5 The Societal Function of Architecture. 228

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90 Indeed, mainstream architects should not venture into the new. The satisfying production of novelty requires special conditions, special processes and discursive patterns that are only provided within the intensive avant-garde discourse. 91 John Soane, The Royal Academy Lectures, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 2000, p 161. 92 Ibid.

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makes sense because the mainstream must guarantee state of the art results. The mainstream cannot afford to take risks. Also, the mainstream is ill prepared to venture into the new. Novelty requires special conditions for its successful production. Only in the avant-garde segment do these conditions apply, ie, the (academic) time and resources to experiment with and critically evaluate new ideas. Only in the avant-garde segment do communications need to pass this gate – the criterion of novelty – in order to count as contributions.90 With respect to the overall autopoiesis of architecture it remains the double code of utility and beauty only that constitutes the unity of architecture. Although innovation had been admitted and demanded, with varying degrees of emphasis, during the long history of architectural self-descriptions, this value never achieved the status of a universally accepted criterion of architectural quality. Indeed, there are many dispute, and many arguments that denigrate the pursuit of novelty within architecture. Architecture is often seen as a domain with immutable principles. Before Modernism, most innovations were masked as the return to the eternal principles of architecture. The ambiguity and tension with respect to the value of novelty can be observed throughout architecture’s 500 year history. This tension is expressed in John Soane’s Royal Academy Lectures (1810–36) where the praise for invention is balanced by warnings against unjustifiable innovation and false taste. It seems that Soane calls for invention in terms of plan layout but despises attempts to innovate on the level of elevational articulation and decoration. In lecture VII he reproaches Michelangelo, Vignola, Palladio, Borromini, Raphael and Bernini for ‘sacrificing at the shrine of false taste’ 91 by deviation from the simplicity of the ancient orders: ‘This deviation from the purity of ancient examples, this fashionable mania for mutilating the simple and natural outline of the column and pilaster became general’.92 In lecture VIII he reproaches Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren for ‘innovations of a still more dangerous tendency’. He accuses Jones and Wren of the mixture of different ages and styles, blending Roman and Gothic architecture in the same structure. The tense ambiguity in the handling of innovation becomes clear in the following quote where Soane both warns against unjustifiable innovation and acknowledges the architect’s fertility of invention: ‘Such ineffectual attempts at contrast and variety must be

fatal to every sound principle of good architecture. Without descending to unjustifiable innovation the artist will have sufficient opportunities to display the richness of his fancy, the fertility of his invention, and his classical taste in the exterior of his buildings, and the plan will furnish him with innumerable occasions of showing his knowledge of ingenious combination and convenient distribution.’93 In lecture VII Soane also emphasized the plan of the villa as occasion for invention: ‘By a judicious combination of the different geometrical figures and their compounds, our plans will exhibit much elegance and classical purity and with an endless variety and inexhaustible novelty.’94 But in lecture VIII he warned once more against going too far: ‘Wherever the experiment has been made to form a dwelling house whose general outline is a complete ellipse, circle, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, or any other figure, polygonal or mixed, the attempt has completely failed.’95 While allowing different geometrical figures to be combined inside, Soane recommends to keep the outer outline of the villa rectilinear. He reproaches Inigo Jones – who used circles and octagons for his houses – for having ‘shown more ingenuity and contrivance than sound judgement . . . more fancy than good sense, more ingenuity than correct taste’.96 This excursion into John Soane’s lectures reveals the difficult and delicate status of originality within Classical architecture. Original invention, ie, novelty, is clearly manifest as a factor within the autopoiesis of architecture. However, novelty is not yet recognized as a value per se. Novelty might be either innovation or deviation. Any novelty must measure up with respect to the codes of utility and beauty. Only a useful and beautiful novelty is an innovation. Even after the refoundation of architecture as Modern architecture, although often extremely vociferous about demanding revolutionary innovation (Futurism), novelty and originality were not unanimously accepted values. There was still ambiguity, and a lot of caution against novelty for the sake of novelty, or against originality for the sake of individual self-expression etc. The distinction between real innovation and mere novelty remains crucial throughout the autopoiesis of architecture. To set up novelty as sole value of the ‘creative disciplines’ would collapse the distinction between architecture/design and art. However, what happened during the 20th century, and especially within the last 40 years, is that the autopoiesis of architecture has bifurcated into an avant-garde and a

93 94 95 96 230

Ibid, p 187. Ibid, p 170. Ibid, p 189. Ibid, pp 190–1.

However, the force of this third code is indeed restricted to the avant-garde segment of architecture and does not structure the communications within the mainstream. Within the mainstream the

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� code of utility: functional vs dysfunctional � code of beauty: formally resolved vs formally unresolved � code of novelty: original (new) vs conventional (old, dated)

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mainstream branch allowing novelty to become dominant in one branch while being kept at bay in the second branch. Within the avant-garde the distinction between real innovation and mere novelty is not altogether abandoned but temporarily suspended in favour of a heuristics of curiosity, tolerance and the suspension of disbelief. This is possible to the extent to which the avant-garde’s domain of practical intervention remains circumscribed (despite its theoretical claim to universal relevance). The code of novelty is not a code for the overall autopoiesis of architecture. If we were to insist on enlisting the code of novelty (original vs conventional) among the primary codification of architecture we would be forced into the absurdity of saying that architecture started during the 1960s, when, for the first time, a system of architectural communications emerged within which novelty was a necessary condition. It was only around 1960 that a clear differentiation emerged between an avant-garde segment specializing in innovation in distinction to a mainstream segment. Only during the 1960s, with the Metabolists and Archigram, and then in the 1970s with the New York Five, and early Postmodernism, can we observe that novelty starts to be elevated to a code of equal significance next to utility and beauty. This was only possible to the extent to which the avant-garde was differentiated as a semi-autonomous subsystem that could assume that the mainstream would continue to provide functional and formally resolved solutions while the avant-garde itself could privilege novelty (originality). Genuine contributions to the avant-garde discourse must indeed involve a claim to a certain level of novelty (originality). This goes for designs as well as for theoretical contributions. It is thus only within the differentiated avant-garde sector of the discipline, ie, for the last 40–50 years, that the double code has been augmented by a third code, the code of novelty, to constitute a veritable triple code. Avant-garde communications are concerned with utility, beauty and novelty. Within the avant-garde segment we can observe that originality can, at times, trump both functionality and formal resolution. The triple code of avant-garde architecture thus comprises:

double code of utility and beauty suffices. Here architectural novelty is of little interest, and can certainly never trump either beauty or utility. The triple code of avant-garde architecture increases the options of evaluation within the discourse of architecture. The combinatorial game of code values, and thus continuous process of self-evaluation, become more complex. Where novelty is promoted allowances have to be made, at least initially, with respect to formal resolution and full functionality. Within the avant-garde segment novelty becomes the paramount code, in the sense that the lack of originality of a contribution, ie, mere conventionality, would imply utter disqualification. The absence of any reference to new possibilities spells irrelevance. The entry ticket into this discourse requires newness as sine qua non for avant-gardist work. Lack of formal resolution – the ugly – as well as dysfunctionality can survive much better. As long as a contribution injects a significant measure of newness, its ugliness and dysfunctionality might be accepted temporarily and are no major hindrance to move forward and spread within the network of avant-garde communications. After all, the prevailing notions of what is useful and/or beautiful might be transformed by the very avant-garde move that now seems to fall short of the prevailing standards. The codes of utility and beauty might thus be temporarily bracketed or suspended. The radical avant-garde architect might therefore refuse to answer challenges that are levelled on the basis of concerns of either beauty or utility. However, this stance is dangerous and can only be maintained provisionally – as a plea for gestation time. The prevalence of novelty does not mean that the avant-garde architect could altogether dispense with utility and beauty. A principled refusal to address these two core concerns/values is unsustainable within architecture. No degree of radical newness can overrule utility and beauty for too long. The culprit would be dismissed as ‘artist’. Utility and beauty must remain the proclaimed aim for any new architecture, even if the ugly and dysfunctional can be temporarily tolerated – in view of a promise of future formal and functional resolution. The avant-garde aims to engender the transformation of the programmes that concretize utility and/or beauty, and thus emphasizes novelty as its predominant code. The conventional is expelled. However, there exists, strictly speaking, no absolute hierarchy between the three codes. Each of the three dimensions admits degrees, and each dimension must be recognized at least to some degree. The three dimensions are incommensurable. Beyond the demand for a certain degree of novelty, a minimum hint towards functionality, and towards aesthetic concerns, remains a necessary condition for contributions to the avant-garde architectural discourse. The architectural avant-garde is thus subject to a triple code: of utility, beauty and novelty. All avant-garde 232

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3.5.6 DISCURSIVE OSCILLATION: COPING WITH AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITY The empirical fact that architecture is codified via the double code of utility and beauty has been established above. The problem the designer faces with each design task is how to link utility and beauty as the co-requirements of good architecture. One might wonder why architecture burdens itself with two codes and their negotiation. Would it not be much easier and clearer to operate with one code only? The empirical fact is that the insistence upon the sole relevance of form would dissolve architecture/design into art; and the insistence upon the sole relevance of function (utility) would dissolve architecture/design into engineering. Why can architecture not be coded on the basis of the code of utility only? Why can architecture (design in general) not fuse with building engineering (engineering in general)? (The history of architectural theory is indeed full of proposals to this effect.) Engineering might be defined here as a branch of applied science, ie, as the systematic application of scientifically established knowledge to well-defined purposes, susceptible to measurable performance criteria. This elaboration of the concept of engineering indicates what would be required for the proposed eradication of formal questions to succeed completely: a rather unrealistic concept of ‘engineering design’. For design to become applied science a comprehensive, knowledge-based optimization would need to be achievable. The attempts in this direction have been notorious: notably by the proponents of Radical Functionalism and Productivism during the 1920s. Further attempts in the 1960s uncovered the inherent dilemmas and limitations of this project. Design

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design communications must continuously oscillate between these three concerns. In summary: during the course of the 20th century, under the challenge of a tremendous acceleration of societal development, the autopoiesis of architecture differentiated a subsystem dedicated to radical innovation: the architectural avant-garde. The differentiation of the avant-garde proceeds on the basis of introducing a third code – the code of novelty – over and above the double code of utility and beauty. The double code of utility and beauty remains definitory for the discipline as a whole. Our theoretical formula here is therefore: the double code of architecture is augmented by a third code that is exclusive to architecture’s avant-garde segment.

problems turned out to be inherently ‘wicked problems’.97 Design problems are too open ended. They are inherently vague. Such ‘wicked’ problems must first be reduced via a priori constraints before they can be posed as clear cut technical problems that allow the communication structures of scientific engineering to be brought to bear. The solution space has to be reduced from a vast universe of possibilities to a measurable range of options. This reduction is partly achieved via the formal and functional a priori stipulations contained within the respective architectural style98 within which the design process is embedded. The engineers are never exposed to the wickedness of design problems because the architect/designer absorbs the inherent openness and uncertainty of design problems. All decisions that cannot be decided by scientific knowledge and calculation are shifted to the architect/designer who narrows them down typologically or transforms them into formal questions judged according to the criteria of beauty. The architectural discourse succeeds where the engineering discourse would be blocked by indeterminacy. The theoretical task here is to grasp the peculiar operation of architecture’s double code, to track the implications of this form of coding and to uncover its peculiar advantages: the double code achieves the absorption of mounting uncertainty, it can surmount what for engineering would be an insurmountable complexity barrier. Within the autopoiesis of architecture the lead-distinction of form vs function, with its attendant double code of utility and beauty, claims universal relevance. This implies that questions of form can connect to questions of function and vice versa. A formal argument may be countered by a functional argument etc. Any dilemma or impasse in the decision process can always be terminated by switching perspective: formal fiat terminates functional argument, and functional argument terminates formal indecision. It is precisely this unprincipled switching between codes that makes architectural discourse so agile. The redundancy of options to insert stop gaps (decisions) is at the same time the redundancy of paths to continue the communication, from decision to decision. There are always two options to terminate uncertainty. Each of them can be reasoned for. If the designer cannot decide on account of good functional reasons he/she can still decide in a non-arbitrary way on account of good formal reasons. If he/she cannot decide on account of

97 Horst WJ Rittel & Melvin M Webber, ‘Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning’, Policy Sciences 4 (1973), pp 155–69. 98 See section 3.6 Architectural Styles. 234

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99 As will be explicated within section 3.6 Architectural Styles, the currently hegemonic programme guiding the application of the code values can be identified with the currently hegemonic architectural style.

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good formal reasons he/she might still be able to decide in a non-arbitrary way on account of some functional reason. This virtuosity of switching between lines of argument and types of reasons has to be paid for by a certain ambiguity of the discourse, which might be unnerving for those brought up with the clarity and straightforwardness of thinking that is characteristic within the engineering disciplines. However, this clarity of engineering is only possible on the back of the prior absorption of uncertainty that can only be achieved by the mysteriously slippery architect/designer who is able to cope with the complexity of the task by reducing the initial openness of the task by imposing his/her formal and functional preconceptions. The engineering discourse is marked by the absence of any formal preconceptions. Within architecture the required preconceptions are not the unfounded prejudices of the individual architects. Within architecture the design decision process is prestructured by the current resources of the discipline, ie, by the currently hegemonic programme guiding the application of the code values.99 The designer’s preconceptions are not arbitrary but historically selected and validated within the evolving autopoiesis of architecture as well-structured system of communications. It is important to grasp the complex relationship of openness through closure that characterizes the autopoiesis of architecture. The related notions of brief/programme/function are notions that designate the relevant external references that are to be responded to. These notions represent the outside of the system inside the system. Architectural briefs/programmes/functions are re-defined within the discipline of architecture. Architects who participate in the development of the discipline always re-write and interpret their given briefs. This relationship of internal–external reference is analogous, for example, to the way the legal system establishes its legal judgments on the basis of ‘given facts’, facts legally recognized as relevant, legally re-established as admissible evidence within the courtroom according to proper legal procedures. Architects re-define the given brief as architectural brief in order to connect with architectural arguments, design moves, design critera etc. This is also analogous to the way a political party might transform a social requirement into a political issue to then attach political arguments, programmes, controversies, political moves etc. Each time the respective discourse has only been triggered (or in Luhmann’s terms irritated) by the external brief or social issue while the peculiar

pattern and dynamic of the discourse are guided by the structures that have been built up within (the histories of) the respective autopoietic systems. A given brief thus never determines an architecture. External events/communications cannot enter the system – they only ‘irritate’ the system. This does not mean that the external social environment, for example, the client as investor/economic agent, cannot form expectations with respect to the building he/she commissions. He/she certainly does have expectations, but is unable (and mostly unwilling) to articulate his/her expectations in the specific language of an architectural brief, and is even less able to foresee the organizational and articulatory options that are available within architecture in response to such a brief. The client’s expectations might sometimes touch upon the spatial configuration and stylistic articulation of the building, but he/she is usually willing to withdraw such specifically architectural expectations in favour of following the expert advice of the architect. The client is generally expecting a certain usability and, in the case of developers, marketability, and ultimately economic results. The architectural design process that receives the client’s brief and finally engenders pertinent results that satisfy the client’s requirements – this communication process remains largely a black box for the client. The client resides in architecture’s environment and his/her demands (irritations) provide the architect with concrete stimuli to elaborate the functional programme (brief) for the design.100 To the extent to which particular client demands are new, generalizable demands that represent salient social trends, they might give inspiration to an innovative, repertoire-building and concept-generating response within the discipline of architecture. To the extent to which such an adaptive process is engendered, the client’s demands become an external point of reference, updating the world-reference of architecture. Idiosyncratic demands that are either wilful or motivated by very exceptional circumstances are not generalizable, and are therefore of no interest to the avant-garde of architecture. Such demands therefore do not enter into the discursive world-reference of the discipline, even if the respective individual design effort has to cope with these demands somehow. The result can only be bad architecture, or at best a curiosity. We can therefore maintain that the world-reference of a self-reflective architecture does not simply contain the unfiltered concerns of the contingent reality that knocks on the door of architects. Architecture’s world-reference contains only the

100 Brief-writing is indeed typically done by the architect on behalf of the client. It is developing into a specialism within the discipline of architecture. 236

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typical aspects of this reality that can be addressed through general concepts and principles concerning architectural functionality. The avant-garde addresses only typical problems – with the further constraint that those problems portend the future, ie, are typical with respect to emerging societal trends that are in the ascendant and that are likely to represent the mainstream problems of the future. The presumed/anticipated mainstream challenges of the future that are entering the contemporary world as challenging avant-garde projects thus represent the most salient notion of architectural world-reference. How does the individual architect (or architectural team) mediate architectural world-reference and architectural self-reference within a concrete design project? The architect has to be able to transform the ‘irritation’ of the client into architecturally relevant information. The techniques (bubble diagrams, testing of known typologies) by which this might happen are varied, and options immediately proliferate. Patterns of constrained proliferation and selection have to be embarked upon. The excess – even explosion – of possibilities engendered here within the design process absolutely requires a structured selection. Selection can only be rationalized on the basis of a prior reduction of complexity/possibilities. ˆ This is the raison d’etre of the tenacious persistence of the double code in the face of recurrent attempts to simplify the discourse by proposing utility as the sole concern of architecture and design. The code of utility does not suffice here. A second code has to be brought to bear to reduce complexity. The code of beauty (elegance) does deliver this urgent need to reduce complexity. It stands in for what would otherwise be random fiat each time a decision has to be made. One of the crucial advantages of the double code of beauty/utility is thus its ability to always complete the task of design determination, without becoming either too arbitrary, or too predictable. Albeit, as will be explicated below, this unfailing design determination can only be guaranteed with the help of a style , ie, with the help of functional and formal principles, with attendant guidelines on how to relate them. As mentioned above, if the designer runs out of functional criteria, he can fill the gap by applying a formal principle. In contrast, engineering, a discipline without communications about formal issues, requires the guidance of designers/architects to eliminate the inherent indeterminacy of design problems. The reference to performance criteria simply cannot constrain the task sufficiently. The reverse also holds: should the designer lack formal criteria he can look out for functional arguments to complete the job. The oscillation between two semi-independent codes (with their attendant specified criteria) gives sufficient ammunition to reduce the

vast universe of choice that has been opened up with the breaking of the fetters of strict tradition, the admittance of innovation, and the unleashing of the autopoiesis of design. The oscillating use of the double code allows architects/designers to manage this universe of possibilities. In which way is the deployment of the code of beauty superior to random fiat? One might argue along four independent lines to explicate the underlying rationality of the code of beauty with its attendant formal values and formal a prioris: 1. Unregulated, random fiat is socially always suspect, contested and unstable. Thus one might argue that something like the code of beauty is an ideological necessity, a necessity to avoid the social impossibility of random fiat. 2. The availability of free, unregulated, random choices might lead to a disorienting vacillation, thus obstructing swift design progress. Random fiat might be a psychological impossibility. 3. The formal principles that – at any time – constitute the hegemonic programme of beauty usually have a hidden performative/economic rationale. They embody an implicit functionality on the basis of a sedimented historical experience.101 4. Formal principles are agents of standardization. They save design time as well as fabrication time within each individual project. Formal standardization is also beneficial if it extends across multiple projects and unifies a built environment, even the total built environment of a culture. This not only entails the benefit of production rationalization but also the potential benefits of social orientation within environments that adhere to a coherent set of form-function relations. 3.5.7 ABSTRACTION AND OPENNESS The problem of architectural design is to generate spatial forms that can fulfil desired functions and/or to propose appropriate functions to utilize any given spatial form. Form and function must be distinguished and then related. A full appreciation of this problem requires the appreciation of what Luhmann would call the unity of the difference of form and function, ie, the co-creation and mutual dependency of form and function as correlates. This requires us to gain a radical conceptual distance from this all too familiar distinction and to set it against other possibilities of distinguishing and assessing architecture. We would have to imagine an 101 However, these rationales are not manifest, not communicated. The formal principles remain independent from explicit functional criteria. 238

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102 According to Luhmann’s theory of society adopted here, contemporary society is the latest variant of modern society which began its historical evolution in the 15th century, ie, the historical period marked by the emergence of early capitalism, the Reformation and the Renaissance.

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appreciation of architecture that does not lead to questioning its function versus its form or its form versus its function, but which instead would always collapse the difference, perhaps into a dogmatic right or wrong, proper versus deviant. The loss of this difference points towards a much simpler society. Instead of the dogmatic right or wrong of archaic societies, current world society operates on the basis of rather abstract criteria that, in their dialectic, potentially open up an infinite universe of possibilities. This abstractness, together with the option of switching codes, gives the design process and design reasoning their agility. This agility (in contrast to older dogmas) is given by the ease of moving along options and opportunities within each code – from the consideration of one function to another, or from one formal concern to another – as well as between codes: from formal arguments/decisions to functional concerns and vice versa. The designer always operates under the spell of both the code of utility and the code of beauty. However, what is to be considered functional, and especially what is to be considered beautiful, is historically and culturally relative. The different styles that have existed throughout 500 years of architectural history have all operated with the same double code, but each with a different programme, ie, with a different, historically specific pattern of evaluation. Thus we can speak of the openness of the codes, facilitated by the high level of abstraction on which the codes operate. The most obvious in this respect is the code of novelty. It only excludes the repetition of the current conventions – everything else is left totally open. Beauty is also abstract, open and thus indeterminate. Utility is equally general, and leaves much to be further specified. Each historical era – as well as each architect’s oeuvre, and potentially even each individual design project – reinterprets these codes and thus structures and constrains the abstract openness of the codes according to its specific (historical) requirements of societal adaptation. This high degree of abstractness is rather typical for all the function systems of modern society.102 The double code does impose formal resolution (beauty) and functionality (utility) as inevitable concerns but it does not prescribe or determine which specific criterion of functionality is to be focused on, or which formal options are preferred, or even how a

potential conflict between the two values is to be resolved. Does this mean that anything goes? No, ‘anything goes’ would imply disorganization, and the termination of communication. The openness of the abstract code implies both the freedom and the necessity to specify the required criteria. The code as such is abstract, ie, a generic symbol that holds the two options of acceptance or rejection in permanent readiness as precondition to select the next step and to continue the design with further communications. The code also offers the opportunity to claim the name of good architecture. One of its effects and functions is to signify the unity of the discourse – everything that claims beauty and utility is signalling its participation in the discourse of architecture. This universality of demarcation is being achieved through abstraction, emptying out all substantial content, narrowing the terms to a binary schematism. How is architectural communication oriented within the openness of the code? How is this radical openness structured at any concrete moment? How is this under-determination determined when determination is required and decisions are to be made? Both formal principles and general functional criteria are orienting guidelines that facilitate decision making within the design process. They might be implicit within the instincts of the trained and socialized architect or they might be retrievable by conscious reflection as should be the case with the most competent and versatile contemporary architects. However, no explicit criteria and guidelines offer water-tight mechanisms that could guarantee strictly predictable procedures and results. There is no way to calculate solutions. The problematic of the design decision should rather be theorized as the dilemma of having to decide in the absence of sufficient information. A decision has to be made somehow.103 An orienting decision making programme is required to steer the design process between indecision and random wilfulness. Within architecture these necessary programmes are called styles. The next section will be treating styles as fundamental structures of the autopoiesis of architecture.

103 This is indicated by the observation that, in fact, often a single, more or less arbitrary argument decides, and, in the absence of obvious counter-reasons, the designer quickly moves on to the next decision. Herbert Simon made a related observation when he emphasized that decision makers (in the business world) proceed on the basis of satisfying rather than employing elaborate techniques of optimization. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1969. 240

3.6 Architectural Styles

3.6.1 THE CONCEPT OF STYLE(S) Styles as culturally constrained sets of practices, the products of which can be retrospectively subjected to stylistic taxonomies, have to be distinguished from styles as operative communication structures that actively structure the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. Accordingly, the theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes to distinguish active styles from passive styles. A style is active only when consciously chosen and promoted design principles guide the design effort and its evaluation. This distinction coincides with the distinction between architecture and building. The phenomenon of style as systemic communication structure began with the re-commencement of architecture’s autopoiesis in 15th-century Italy. The first active style, ie, the style that first operated as explicit design guidance programme, was the style that was later labelled

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The defining problem of architecture is the elaboration of designs that give architectural form to social functions. In addressing this problem architects are expected to satisfy both the code of utility and the code of beauty as the co-requirements of good architecture in each new, concrete design task. The generality and abstractness of these codes pose the problem of how to proceed in concrete cases, and how to evaluate specific design proposals. What is needed to give regularity here are guiding decision programmes or premises that steer the design and that contain integrated sets of criteria for the regulation of the code values. This regulation must be provided while maintaining flexibility with respect to the adaptation to historical changes. The theory of architectural autopoiesis identifies the pervasive phenomenon of architectural styles as the relevant communication structures that serve this necessary function. While the general demands of utility and beauty remain stable across historical eras, the styles – as the programmes that are guiding the concrete application of the code values – evolve together with the historical demands. Architecture’s adaptive evolution progresses via the historical succession of styles.

3.6 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES

THESIS 15 Architecture needs (new) styles to streamline the design decision process and to regulate (anew) the handling of its evaluative criteria (code values).

241

‘Renaissance’.104 The Renaissance is thus the first architectural style in the sense defined here. We further have to distinguish between style as operative communication structure on the one hand, and style as reflective concept on the other hand. The latter implies the explicit availability of the concept of style as a component of architecture’s self-description. Accordingly, the theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes to further distinguish active-reflective styles from merely active styles. An active-reflective style is a discursive phenomenon, a communication structure within the autopoiesis of architecture. Modernism, Postmodernism, Deconstructivism and Parametricism are clear examples of active-reflective styles. Active-reflective architectural styles first emerged during the 19th century facilitated by an emerging scholarly art history. This phenomenon arose on the back of the exploration of distant places, and the attendant increase in trade with artefacts from distant cultures. The ancient sites in Italy and Greece were explored. Collections of curiosities were built up and then systematized. Thus the concept of style became a tool for classifying historical works of art/applied art. The concept was then appropriated for current work, in order to discuss the direction in which current work was to be developed and to make claims about the historical significance of giving direction to the development of architecture. The term ‘style’ derives from the Latin word ‘stilus’ originally denoting the stylus used for writing on wax tablets. The concept upon which our contemporary notion still builds appeared first in ancient Greek and Roman writings on rhetoric. In the general sense the term is employed now, style seems to be an inevitable feature of all regular human artefacts. The term is used in architecture, design and in all the different arts: visual arts, music and literature. The term can be applied with different degrees or levels of aggregation: we might talk about the individual style of an individual architect, about national/regional styles, or finally about epochal styles. An epochal style is the dominant style of a particular civilization within a particular historical era. It is primarily in this last sense that the theory of architectural autopoiesis uses the concept of style. Under the condition of world architecture communicating within world society, national or regional styles have lost all significance.

104 The term ‘Renaissance’ was established with the 1860 publication of Jacob Burckhardt’s seminal book The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Modern Library (New York), 2002. German original: Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. 242

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

105 German original: Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, 1764.

¨ Baustile (1869), extracts reprinted in: Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft,

106 Gottfried Semper, Uber ¨

Industrie und Kunst, Neue Bauhausbucher, Florian Kupferberg Verlag (Mainz/Berlin), 1966, p 107.

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The notion of style was first given historical significance, in terms of being related to historical eras, in Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s seminal The History of Ancient Art among the Greeks,105 published in 1764. However, throughout most of the 19th century when the concept of style evolved into its current shape, national and regional differences were as salient as historical differences. In 1851 the ‘Great Exhibition of Industry of all Nations’ in London brought the phenomenon of styles into the clearest and most concentrated view – albeit primarily in terms of national and regional styles. The physiognomies of the built environments of these periods/regions are distinct and internally consistent. This is inevitable because each style is based on a particular set of conditions that include performance demands in terms of particular social institutions, as well as resisting particular climatic conditions. The respective architectural responses to these conditions are subject to historical and cultural constraints with respect to the material and technological conditions of construction. Together, the specificity and regularity of these conditions and constraints lay the basis, in each case, for the peculiarly coherent physiognomy that can be observed across the totality of the building production of the respective period/region. It is this coherent physiognomy that observers identify as a particular style. This much was already understood by 19th-century art history and architectural theory. However, the above mentioned conditions and constraints only produce a stable basis for the development of the style in question, but cannot in themselves offer a full account. Upon this basis play ‘cultural’ idiosyncrasies of ‘artistic’ production that are not functionally determined but that are genetically rooted in a cultural evolution which produces its own stability from its initial, semi-random beginnings. In 1869 the architect and architectural theorist Gottfried Semper defined style accordingly as ‘the conformity of an artistic phenomenon with its genealogy, with all the conditions and circumstances of its becoming’.106 This genetic component of any style is based on processes of self-selective amplification that are typical for any social system, leading to otherwise unaccountable and ultimately ineradicable idiosyncrasies. Within art history the concept was applied in retrospect, to the comparison of different, ancient traditions like the Classical Greek style

vs the Roman style vs the Gothic style as the great style of medieval Europe etc. Architectural styles were often seen as participating in what Hegel had termed the ‘spirit of the age’. The concept of style first entered architectural discourse in full force in 1828, with a pamphlet entitled In What Style Should We Build? 107 The concept was now used to pose the possibility of developing a new style for the present era. The author of the ¨ pamphlet was the architect Heinrich Hubsch who had just succeeded Friedrich Weinbrenner as the municipal architect of Karlsruhe. According ¨ to Hubsch, architecture had to be freed from ‘the chains of antiquity’. ¨ Hubsch regarded climate and building material to be the formative factors of styles: ‘In the first place the climate . . . gives a uniform character to the needs of one country as compared with another.’108 ¨ Hubsch is pointing to the different forms of roofs in different climates. The reference to needs is of interest for us here, and the fact that he emphasized progress in the development of architecture in relation to both the expansion of needs and the development of the means to satisfy them: ‘With the advance of civilization, the needs and demands for comfort expand, as do the tasks of architecture; and so people try to carry them out more efficiently and with less mechanical work.’109 His historical account of architectural progress from ancient Egypt via ancient Greece and Rome is primarily a process of structural progress in terms of ‘technostatic proportions’ whereby ‘lightness steadily increased ¨ called for a new style to reach its peak in the medieval style’.110 Hubsch (Rundbogenstil) whereby ‘all the qualities of the new style . . . are based on structural laws’.111 It is noteworthy that this demand for a new style was objected to on two significant counts.112 Both objections were raised ¨ in the review of Hubsch’s pamphlet by Rudolf Wiegmann in 1829:

� After defining style as the ‘signal character of a nation and an epoch’,113 citing the art of the age of Pericles and the art of the Middle ¨ 107 Heinrich Hubsch, In What Style Should We Build?, German original from 1828: In welchem Style sollen wir bauen?, excerpt in: Harry Francis Mallgrave (Ed), Architectural Theory, Blackwell Publishing (Oxford), 2006, p 407. 108 Ibid, p 408.

109 Ibid, p 409.

110 Ibid, p 410.

111 Ibid.

112 It is worth our while to address these objections here because the announcement of a new

contemporary style today – like the announcement of Parametricism as new style within the theory of architectural autopoiesis – might still be confronted with similar objections. 113 Rudolf Wiegmann, Remarks on the Book: In What Style Should We Build?, German original from 1829: Bemerkungen u¨ ber die Schrift: In welchem Style sollen wir bauen? von Heinrich H¨ubsch, excerpt in: Harry Francis Mallgrave (Ed), Architectural Theory, Blackwell (Oxford), 2006, p 411. 244

114 Rudolf Wiegmann, Remarks on the Book: In What Style Should We Build?, German original from 1829: Bemerkungen u¨ ber die Schrift: In welchem Style sollen wir bauen? von Heinrich

H¨

ubsch, excerpt in: Harry Francis Mallgrave (Ed), Architectural Theory, Blackwell (Oxford), 2006, p 411. 115 Ibid. 116 Rudolf Wiegmann, Thoughts on the Development of a Contemporary National Architectural Style for the Present, German original from 1841: Gedanken uber ¨ die Entwicklung eines zeitgen¨

ossischen nazionalen Baustyls, excerpt in: Harry Francis Mallgrave (Ed), Architectural Theory, Blackwell

(Oxford), 2006, p 416.

117 Eduard Metzger, ‘Beitrag zur Zeitfrage: In welchem Stil man bauen soll!’, in: Allgemeine Bauzeitung, Vol 10, 1845. 118 Karl B¨otticher, The Principle of Hellenic and Germanic Ways of Building, German original from

¨

1846: Das Prinzip der Hellenischen und Germanischen Bauweise hinsichtlich der Ubertragung in

die Bauweise unserer Tage, excerpt in: Harry Francis Mallgrave (Ed), Architectural Theory,

Blackwell (Oxford), 2006, p 422.

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Both arguments linger on today: the argument for styles as unconscious results and the argument against styles as stifling creativity. Both arguments are decisively rejected here: the theory of architectural autopoiesis both promotes the conscious forward projection and amplification of an emerging new style, and insists that sustained architectural innovation can only proceed within the framework of styles, or as a succession of styles, but never as a rejection of styles per se. The German debate about the possibility and the characteristics of a new, contemporary style continued. Wiegmann himself later followed the ¨ position originally advanced by Hubsch. In 1845 Wiegmann criticized the ‘eclecticism’ of his time stating that ‘architecture in its present practice stands in contradiction to its era’.116 The debate continued with contributions from the Munich professor Eduard Metzger117 and the ¨ Berlin professor Karl Botticher, both arguing for the emerging possibility of developing a new style on the basis of iron constructions. While Metzger seemed comforted by the potential stylistic similarity between ¨ cast iron constructions and the Gothic style, Botticher’s argument rested on the superior performance of iron and on its potential for a ‘change of principle’ resulting in a ‘new and hitherto unknown system”’.118 However, this audacity is somewhat tempered by his suggestion that the

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Ages, Wiegmann insists that ‘at those periods no conscious effort was

made to strive for a particular style. Instead, style crystallized

organically out of the time and the circumstances’.114

� ‘Precepts of this kind . . . clip the wings of genius . . . Only what is already known can be prescribed; an original work is born unassisted . . . The artist must create as a free man . . . All systems are based on the records and facts of past ages. For that reason, a living art has no system as such.”’115

‘Hellenistic style must be adopted in order to give artistic expression to ¨ the structural forces within the parts’.119 From Botticher we can pick up the thought that stylistic change involves a change of principle/system. We should also take note of his point that styles can exhaust the potential inherent within a certain technological means: From the earliest and roughest attempts to cover spaces by using stone, to the culmination represented by the Spitzbogen (Gothic) vault, and down to the present time, all the ways in which stone could possibly be used to span a space have been exploited, and they have completely exhausted the possible structural applications of this material . . . A new and so far unknown system of covering (which will of course bring in its train a new world of art-forms) can appear only with the adoption of an unknown material, or rather a material that so far has not been used as a guiding principle.120

The theory of architectural autopoiesis upholds the notion that styles manifest an internal developmental progression, even if the historical conditions within the societal environment are relatively stable. The particular design space that is opened up and delimited by the particular constraints, premises and evaluative criteria of the style is successively explored and exploited. Given the general mandate of continuous innovation, and thus given the internal restlessness121 of the autopoiesis of architecture, there is an internal logic of development that might exert a certain pressure towards stylistic renewal or even stylistic revolution, even in the absence of external adaptive pressures. This internal pressure against the prevailing style builds up when the initially wide open space of exploration of the style starts to be exhausted, loses its innovative dynamic and experiences a sense of stagnation. The theory of architectural autopoiesis recognizes this phenomenon with the concept of styles as cycles of innovation that follow a certain internal developmental dynamic. Usually, this internal development results in the development of subsidiary styles – for example, Brutalism within Modernism – rather than the creation of a radically new style. The internal developmental logic and pressure towards stylistic innovation are superimposed on the adaptive logic of stylistic innovation. The internal development of the solution space is superimposed on its adaptive development in response to the (perhaps more slowly) evolving problem space. (Both moments are 119 Ibid.

120 Ibid, p 423.

121 This restlessness is evident even before the discipline’s differentiation into avant-garde and

mainstream. Since the early 20th century this differentiation has escalated the pressure to innovate via the imposition of the code of novelty. 246

forms and the urgency for rapid and conscious development under modern conditions – a distinction we propose to capture in the distinction of active vs passive styles � the great demand on modern design in terms of the variety of new design tasks 122 Gottfried Semper, Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics, Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles), 2004, p 71, German original: Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen K¨unsten; oder, Praktische Aesthetik: Ein Handbuch f ur ¨ Techniker, K¨

unstler und ¨ Kunst & Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main), 1860; F Kunstfreunde, 2 vols, Verlag fur Bruckmann (Munich), 1863. 123 Ibid, p 75.

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

� the distinction between the slow, unconscious evolution of vernacular

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¨ alluded to in Botticher’s discussion quoted above.) However, the adaptive pull of stylistic development remains primary over its internal push. The direction of stylistic innovation is always channelled in terms of improving societal performance. In 1863 Gottfried Semper published his monumental magnum opus Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts. Semper’s book can serve here as an indication of the importance of the concept of style within architectural theory from the second half of the 19th century until the advent of Modernism in the early 20th century. It is noteworthy that the concept of style features in the title of the most expansive and perhaps most ambitious theory of architecture and design of its era. Semper addresses the question of the origin and the development of historical styles at a new deeper theoretical level, backed up by an unprecedented level of empirical breadth and scholarly rigour. At the same time, he continues the German style debate by once more posing the question of how to develop a new style that would be the appropriate expression of his own time. The grand work starts by announcing a state of crisis in architecture and design, alluding to ‘a world of art passing into the formless, while suggesting at the same time a new formation in the making’.122 Semper is alluding to an important fact that distinguishes the modern era from the traditional past. Today a style must be conjured ‘without a millennium of popular custom to cultivate a suitable style. It requires far greater artistic sensitivity . . . to hit upon (without the benefit of time) the right art-form for all the new things pressing themselves upon our attention. Such a form would be one in which free human work appears as a necessity of nature and becomes the generally understood and perceived formal expression of an idea.’123 In this quote we find condensed a whole series of important ideas that are preserved and unfolded within the theory of architectural autopoiesis:

� the ambition to give creative design work the sense of lawful necessity observed in nature

� the importance of perception and comprehension over and above mere mechanical function Semper hoped to facilitate such an advanced artistic sensibility through a theory that would reveal the principles and factors of style formation. He considered his theory to be an empirical theory of style in contrast to pure aesthetics, and he described the theoretical task of his work as follows: ‘to explore within individual cases the regularity and order that become apparent in artistic phenomena during the creative process of becoming and to deduce from that the general principles, the fundamentals of an empirical theory of art’.124 There are a number of heuristic intuitions active in Semper’s endeavour that should remain noteworthy to us today. He starts by returning to the simplest and most mundane utensils ‘to reveal the inner law governing the world of the art-form’.125 However, even with these simple artefacts he expects a complex, multifactorial determination ‘identifying in each the necessarily different values of a function composed of many variables’. His ‘style theory . . . looks for the constituent parts of forms that are not form itself but rather the idea, the force, the material, and the means – in other words the basic preconditions of form’.126 Semper is interested in the material morphogenesis, in his terms the ‘principles of formation’, that governs the forms of nature, as an analogical source domain for understanding the historical morphogenesis of artefacts. For instance he is interested in snowflakes, noting that here ‘the laws of molecular attraction are ruling undisturbed’.127 Even more specifically he observes that the radials and their branching follow a proportional progression that is striving towards separation. He then moves on to the geometric formation of plants in relation to both the ‘inner principle of plant growth’128 and gravity and then to the animal world ‘as far more developed organic forms’. Here movement comes into consideration in relation to gravity and the ‘resistance of the medium, be it air, water, earth, wood’. Semper also observes that in contrast to crystals, like snowflakes organic forms are ‘complying with the higher

124 125 126 127 128 248

Ibid, p 71. Ibid, p 72. Ibid. Ibid, p. 84. Ibid, p 91.

While Semper’s heuristics looks out for laws of formation in nature and art, he does not fall prey to any essentialism: ‘This never ending process . . . has no end and no design’.132 He also does not overstretch his determinism. He alludes to the complexity and unpredictability of the world and recognizes that ‘we encounter the accidental, the nonsensical, and the absurd at every step along our earthly path, and each flies contemptuously in the face of the law we thought we had discerned’.133 Although Semper tries to construct a productive analogy between the evolution of the natural world and the world of human artefacts, he is aware of the essential difference that limits the application of this analogy. In a lecture given in 1869 he states: ‘We can quite rightly describe the old monuments as the fossilized receptacles of extinct societal organizations, but these did not grow on the backs of society like shells on the back of snails, nor did they spring forth from blind natural processes, like coral reefs. They are the free creations of man, who put his understanding, observation of nature, genius, will, knowledge, and power into motion towards these creations.’134 The tension between determination and freedom remains unresolved in Semper’s theory. Semper’s merely formulaic insistence upon the ‘free creations of man’ stands feeble against the backdrop of his thoroughly researched and 129 130 131 132 133 134

Ibid, p 88.

Ibid, p 83.

Ibid, p 72.

Ibid, p 82.

Ibid.

¨ Baustile (On Architectural Styles), in: Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft,

Gottfried Semper, Uber ¨

Industrie und Kunst, Neue Bauhausbucher, Florian Kupferberg Verlag (Mainz/Berlin), 1966,

pp 105–06.

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

Nature in its infinite abundance is nevertheless very sparing with its motifs;

it constantly repeats its basic forms, modifying them a thousand times

according to the formative stage reached by living beings and the various

conditions of their existence. It shortens some elements and lengthens

others, develops some elements fully, then merely alludes to them

elsewhere. Nature has its own evolutionary history, within which old motifs

are discernible in every new form. In just the same way, art is based on a

few standard forms and types that derive from the most ancient traditions;

they reappear constantly yet offer infinite variety, and like nature’s types

they have their own history. Nothing is arbitrary; everything is conditioned

by circumstances and relations.131

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principle of working together as a unit’.129 Semper is assuming an ‘analogy between the general law of formation in nature and in art’.130 He indicates the direction in which he would like to follow this analogy:

documented materialist theory of style. Semper’s stance feels unconvincing. What is required here is the distinction between passive, active and active-reflective styles. Semper failed to make such a distinction explicit. He was therefore also insensitive to the great historical watershed that transformed the phenomenon of style from a passive into an active and then active-reflective force. Since then the material and social constraints and motive forces of stylistic formation are mediated by architectural theory. Thus the one-liner about the ‘free creations of man’ can be unfolded via the reflection upon the history of architectural theory, inclusive of the specific history of the style debates. Semper articulates this tension between determination and freedom, and the limitation of the analogy with the natural evolution in connection with the task of forging a new style for his own era. It is explicitly within this context that Semper locates the practical significance of his theoretical investigation into ‘the origin and development of architectural styles’. His investigation should lead to the ‘most important principles, and norms for new creations’ and to points of reference for ‘the better assessment of the contemporary state of affairs and tendencies in our modern artistic ambitions’. Semper insists that we are forced to investigate the past and origin of architectural styles, when we see a whole series of approaches towards so called new architectural styles grow up in front of our eyes, whose supposed inventors feel the mission to tackle this difficult problem, namely how new architectural styles emerge, by taking it into their own hands to solve it via a purely practical path . . . Against these practical solutions of the question of style another opinion gains ground, namely that architectural styles are not invented at all but evolve according to the laws of natural breeding, inheritance and adaptation . . . similar to the origin of species. To us this application . . . of Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species . . . seems rather questionable.135

Semper opts instead for a historically and theoretically informed creativity that recognizes constraints by utilizing them as opportunities: ‘Thus the free will of man’s creative spirit must be considered as the most important factor with respect to the question of the origin/development of architectural styles, whose creativity, however, must move within the frame of certain higher laws of the tradition, of the

¨ Baustile (On Architectural Styles), in: Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft, 135 Gottfried Semper, Uber ¨

Industrie und Kunst, Neue Bauhausbucher, Florian Kupferberg (Mainz/Berlin), 1966, pp 105–6. 250

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

136 Ibid.

137 Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture, 1902 edition, Getty Center for the History of Art and the

Humanities (Santa Monica, CA), 1988, p 74. 138 Ibid.

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required, and the necessary, but who appropriates these laws via his free, objective apprehension and utilization.’136 We are reminded of Marx’s famous dictum that men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing. Semper recognized that the phenomena of the history of art constitute but a subordinate part of general cultural history, but he emphasized that it is not only an integrated, but an ‘integrating part’ of general culture. Many 19th-century commentators and theorists – before and since Semper – had noted the absence of an original, unified style. The existence of a style was no longer guaranteed by tradition.The conditions and constraints that had laid the foundation of all previous styles were loosening too much. Demands for an original, contemporary style continued to be formulated. A uniform style was seen as an essential attribute of a vital national culture. This implies that the concept of style became a normative concept demanding for contemporary architecture a level of formal consistency that would be equal to the admired historical styles, in contrast to the confusion of the many borrowed styles that were competing throughout the century. This theme – the search for a genuine, original style that could give a new stylistic coherence to the new industrial civilization – remained prominent throughout the 19th century, and intensified at the beginning of the 20th century. Otto Wagner’s seminal Modern Architecture (1902) stated the case clearly: ‘Each new style gradually emerged from the earlier one when new methods of construction, new materials, new human tasks and viewpoints demanded a change or reconstitution of existing forms.’137 This lucid statement of the fundamental conditions and motive forces behind the development of architectural styles is as valid today as it was then. (With respect to our contemporary condition we only have to add the now crucial factor of the evolving design media.) Wagner applies his general insight to the specific condition of his time: ‘That our turbulent second half of the nineteenth century also sought the expression, the form, for its own view of art is obvious. But the events outpaced every development of art.’138 Wagner refers to Historicism and Eclecticism as failed attempts to cope with the initially overwhelming onset of the new tasks posed by the modern era, leading to the forceful demand that ‘modern art must offer us modern forms that are created by us and that represent our abilities and

actions’.139 Wagner is asserting that a new style must be created and will be created: ‘We find ourselves within the midst of this movement . . . breaking through with enormous power . . . a completely new birth, a naissance . . . This nascent style presenting us our time . . . needs, like all preceding styles, time to develop. Yet our century with its rapid pace of life also strives to achieve this goal more quickly than ever before, and for that reason the world, to its own surprise, will soon arrive there.’140 Five years after this statement, in 1907, the German Werkbund was founded as an organization that brought together architects and artists (product designers) with industrialists within a state-sponsored, concerted effort to forge an original, modern style for the advancement of German industry. The general historical mission fused with a national project. Soon enough, but only after the upheaval of the First World War and the social revolutions that came in its immediate wake, the collective search for a compelling modern style came to fruition, in the decisive emergence of the Modern Movement in the early 1920s. The Modern Movement – building on Wagner, and referring back to Semper among others – identified itself as the long searched for new style that would finally give an original and coherent physiognomy to the architectural/artefactual production of the industrial age. This confident self-assessment was borne out in the following years. During the establishment and dissemination of Modernism, the relevance and fruitfulness of the concept of style were contested by some Modern protagonists because it was seen to unduly focus attention on the formal and aesthetic characteristics of architecture. For the same reason the very term ‘architecture’ was questioned. Instead of Modern Architecture the term New Building (Neues Bauen) was proposed, and indeed gained substantial currency. However, ‘Modern architecture’, and then ‘Modernism’ and the ‘International Style’ earned recognition. The existence of a new epochal style was an established fact. Since the crisis of Modernism, beginning in the late 1960s and deepening during the 1970s, the discursive position of the concept of style has once more been deteriorating. It is one of the key theses of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that the concept of style deserves to be rehabilitated, not least since a new emerging style can now be identified that has already achieved hegemony within the avant-garde segment of the discipline and that has the potential to become the first epochal style after the demise of Modernism: Parametricism. Postmodernism and Deconstructivism 139 Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture, 1902 edition, Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities (Santa Monica, CA), 1988, Ibid, p 79. 140 Ibid. 252

STYLES

Epochal Style

Passive Style

Gothic

Active Style

Renaissance Baroque

Active-reflective

Neo-Classicism Historicism

Subsidiary Style

Transitional Style

Mannerism Rococo Neo-Gothic Neo-Renaissance Neo-Baroque Eclecticism Art Nouveau Expressionism

Modernism

Neue Sachlichkeit Organicism Rationalism Brutalism Metabolism High-Tech Postmodernism Deconstructivism

Parametricism

141 Some aspects of the superseded, transitional episodes might be taken up within the new paradigm. This was the case when some of the discoveries and advances of Deconstructivism were taken up within the emerging epochal style of Parametricism.

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

Classification of Styles

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turned out to be mere transitional episodes. Accordingly, the theory of architectural autopoiesis distinguishes epochal styles and transitional styles. Epochal styles are those (active or active-reflective) styles that demonstrate long-term viability because they offer a systematic solution to the essential problems and challenges of the respective epoch. Epochal styles should be expected to persist until dramatic societal transformations necessitate a fundamental re-adaptation of architecture’s formal and functional values. Dramatic societal transformations throw the hegemonic style into crisis. Shortlived, transitional styles might offer initial (often one-sided or extreme) responses. Eventually these initial responses should be superseded by a new viable paradigm leading to a new epochal style.141 Epochal styles give long-term stability to the development of the built environment. Their underlying principles remain intact during the whole epoch. This does not mean that stylistic development freezes. Within a single epochal style one might distinguish a series of subsidiary styles that advance the stylistic resources of architecture

without questioning the fundamental principles and values of the overarching epochal style. The above table proposes a classification of architectural styles utilizing the distinctions introduced.

3.6.2 THE RATIONALITY OF STYLE(S) The theory of architectural autopoiesis is trying to reassert the relevance and fruitfulness of the concept of style(s) within a new, comprehensive theoretical matrix that aims to reconstruct, systematize and advance architecture’s autopoiesis. The incorporation of the concept of style(s) within the proposed theoretical system builds on Semper’s insight that styles are essentially based on task-conditions and material-technological constraints. However, the theory of architectural autopoiesis goes further in a number of ways. It makes the distinction between the styles of tradition and the styles that have originated since architecture’s re-emergence as autonomous, self-reflective discipline. This is reflected in the proposed concept of active styles as operative communication structures that actively structure the ongoing autopoiesis of architecture. Since this re-emergence of architecture 500 years ago, the turnover of active styles has been continuously accelerating – in line with the accelerated development of society at large. This acceleration can be accounted for by the following two specific factors. First, the stylistic evolution, to a certain extent, moved its communicative substratum from the world of material construction to the design medium of the drawing. Since then the specific constitution of the architectural design medium has to be counted among the factors that constrain/advance the crystallization of a style. Second, since architecture has been constituted as autopoietic system of communications the relevant conditions and constraints are no longer simply given but must be specified and argued for within the system’s theoretical discourse. The architectural consequences no longer flow from these antecedents but have to be drawn out discursively. Since then styles have to be consciously cohered via architectural theory, via the formulation of both positive and negative design heuristics that sufficiently constrain the architectural repertoire in the face of otherwise proliferating formal and material choices. Why does architecture, at any stage of its development, require a dominant, unifying style? What was the rationale of the 19th and early 20th-century insistence that there should be a unified style for each epoch, and that the discipline should therefore strive to develop such a style? What was this notion based on? It seems as if this insistence was based on little more than the analogy with the most admired historical 254

142 Incidentally, it turns out that such a style does not need to be announced as a future possibility only, as something that would need to be created from scratch. There is indeed a maturing style that can be identified as currently taking off to claim hegemony within the avant-garde of contemporary world architecture. A label that could identify and promote this style has only recently been proposed: Parametricism. See: Volume 2, part 10 Parametricism – The Parametric Paradigm and the Formation of a New Style. See also: Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism as Style – Parametricist Manifesto (London), 2008, paper presented and discussed at the Dark Side Club, 11th Architecture Biennale (Venice), 2008.

3 ARCHITECTURE AS AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM – OPERATIONS, STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

1. Styles function as the necessary programmes that are needed to operationalize the double code of architecture that in turn constitutes architecture’s identity as autopoietic system. 2. In their initial phase as avant-garde styles, architectural styles cohere the required experimentation into a collective research programme that can finally deliver effective innovations. 3. Styles are conditioned and constrained by the stage of development within architecture’s specialized medium of design communication. The development of styles and media interlock in relations of mutual enhancement. Stylistic ambitions promote innovation in the medium and vice versa. Only a consolidation of stylistic ambitions within the avant-garde generates the critical pressure required to inspire the development of the medium internally (collective skill development),

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achievements of architecture, and on the intuitive, aesthetic preference for a unified artistic universe. Can the theory of architectural autopoiesis further motivate such a demand? The historical fact of styles remains undisputed. The art historians and architectural theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries explained its origins in terms of its underlying causes, ie, the various kinds of conditions and constraints discussed above, overdetermined by the respective genetic idiosyncrasies. However, in order to answer the above question, what is required over and above such causal explanation is a functional explanation, ie, an explication of the rationality of the phenomenon of styles in terms of its contribution to architecture’s ability to perform its societal function. This is precisely what the theory of architectural autopoiesis is setting out to provide. To the extent to which this can be achieved, the theory can once more call for a unified, contemporary style in architecture and design.142 The rationality and function of style(s) will be explicated in the chapters below. The key points might be touched upon in advance as follows:

and to irritate the software industry as external factor of media

development.143

4. A unified, hegemonic style short-circuits the need for each individual project to select among many competing styles. The existence of too many styles defeats the purpose of the code of beauty to reduce the complexity of the design decision situation. 5. Finally, while the above motivations pertain to the internal requirements of architecture’s capacity and progress, there is also a strong argument that can be made directly concerning the requirements of society with respect to its built environment. The existence of a unified, hegemonic style and thus the existence of a coherent language of architecture facilitates the overall legibility, and thus global navigability, of the built environment. The multiplicity of competing styles is in no way correlated with the multiplicity of substantial functions that need to be accommodated and articulated. Thus, stylistic multiplicity produces visual noise.144 A dominant style, with a consistent pattern of establishing form-function relations, facilitates effective semiosis.

3.6.3 STYLES AS THE NECESSARY PROGRAMMES OF ARCHITECTURE The long-term persistence, level of abstraction and universality of achitecture’s double code guarantee the long-term identity of the system. However, the generality/abstractness of the code poses the problem of how to decide, in concrete cases, which specific code values should be applied: is this particular design functional or dysfunctional? Is this design beautiful? Only if these questions can be answered can the design process proceed. What is required here are criteria that operationalize the choice of the code values in each concrete case. Following Luhmann, the

143 A good example are the preconditions and motivations of the introduction of animation and simulation software into architecture in the early 1990s. See: Patrik Schumacher, Digital Hadid – Landscapes in Motion, Birkh¨auser (Basel/Boston/Berlin), 2004. 144 It might be argued that a multiplicity of styles enriches the solution catalogue of architecture and thus increases architecture’s resourcefulness. In this sense temporary phases of stylistic multiplicity are productive in terms of pushing architecture’s versatility. However, the full catalogue is fragmented into competing styles and thus rarely brought to bear on individual projects. Individual architects usually work within one style only. Thus the combined solution space of all competing styles is never simultaneously available, except at the moment when the architect is being selected within the context of a competition. In principle, the questionable advantage of the availability of different styles in terms of the versatility of its combined solution space can be countered by a respective internal versatility of the hegemonic style. 256

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145 The term was coined in analogy to computer programs.

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communication structures that provide the necessary criteria for the codes’ application might be referred to as programmes. Architectural styles are those particular programmes that regulate the application of architecture’s code values. The handling of the code(s) must, at any particular historical period, be guided by a particular style as programme that allows the designers and critics to determine whether a given design is functional and formally resolved or not. Code and programme are important general levels of system formation that Luhmann identified in all the major modern function systems. Each autopoietic function system is marked by its own distinctive code. The binary code is the lynchpin of the function system’s differentiation and serves to maintain the system’s distinctiveness. All social systems that use binary codes need programmes145 to programme the use of their binary codes. Codes are permanent and programmes are historically variable, ie, while the system’s programming can be changed, the code remains the same all along. The current programme may be replaced by another programme in order for the system to adapt itself to important changes in its environment. The system can thus reprogramme itself while maintaining its identity and demarcation, which is guaranteed by the continuity of the underlying code. For example, within science the defining, binary code of truth (true vs false) is regulated by particular paradigms (fundamental theoretical and methodological premises) that serve as programmes formulating the rules and criteria for the application of the code values. These paradigms might change while the code persists: for example, the historical shift from a rationalist reliance on logical reasoning to the insistence on empirical evidence. Another instance: statutes are the programmes of the legal system. They are continuously adapted via the legislative process while the code legal vs illegal remains the stable lynchpin for the revolving statutes. Within architecture styles represent those necessary programmes that – at any instance – regulate the disposition over the two binary sets of values of the double code of architecture. They guide the assessment of concrete architectural designs and facilitate decisions by means of offering criteria and exemplars guiding the concrete ascription of the code values. Styles provide the guidelines and criteria that help us to identify the beautiful and the useful. Each style does this in its own particular way. The useful functions differently in each style, and the beautiful looks different in each style. Each style answers the questions what is useful? and what is beautiful? in its own way, with divergent results.

3.6.4 STYLES REGULATE FORM and FUNCTION Although styles are mostly recognized on the basis of their formal motifs, the notion of style cannot be reduced to the issue of formal characteristics. Styles, during their tenure, define and specify the aesthetic values of architecture. However, they are not only concerned with the appearance of buildings. Styles also programme the handling of form-function relations and thus the disposition over the code of utility. The formal aspects of any given style, ie, the particular formal vocabulary and syntax which give the style its characteristic, recognizable physiognomy, might be termed the idiom of the style – for example, the Renaissance idiom, the Baroque idiom, the Modernist idiom etc. The idiom that characterizes any given style is what aesthetic valuation responds to. Styles provide aesthetic values, ie, formal preferences that orient the application of the code of beauty. Again, a substantial style, according to the concept argued for here, cannot be reduced to the level of aesthetic values only. Aesthetic values programme the code of beauty. The code of utility is programmed by performance values. Substantial styles thus provide both aesthetic values and performance values. The major styles that have been identified within the history of European architecture, ie, the Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque, are substantial styles (rather than mere idioms) in this sense. The 18th and 19th centuries produced Rococo, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Gothic and Eclecticism – each promoting both aesthetic values and performance values, demonstrating a particular way of ordering, relating and expressing functions. The Neo-Gothic country house organizes the different functional parts of the house in an additive play of agglomerated masses, while the Neo-Classical style insists upon symmetry and proportion to order and relate the different functional areas of the villa. Each style observes a particular programme of functional propriety. As examples of styles in the 20th century one might list: Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Modernism (with its various subsidiary styles), as well as Postmodernism, Deconstructivism, Minimalism and finally Parametricism. Each of these styles does indeed involve a typical formal vocabulary that coincides and cooperates with a distinct way of conceiving functions. Long-term epochal styles like Modernism witnessed an extensive internal development via a series of subsidiary styles, each with a distinctly nuanced idiom and with a distinctly nuanced approach to functional issues. The early white Modernism of the 1920s, with its abstractness and sense of lightness, was characterized by a tendency towards dematerialization. By the 1950s and 1960s Modernism had expanded its repertoire and shifted its sensibility towards the expressive 258

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use of materiality and structure. The new variant of Modernism was recognized as Brutalism. Even during the 1920s several distinctly nuanced tendencies had been observed within Modernism. All of them were white, abstract and light, but they differed in the way they related form and function. There is no definitive way in which these different tendencies have been distinguished: Constructivism, Neue Sachlichkeit, Neues Bauen, Radical Functionalism, L’architecture moderne, Organic architecture etc. Most of these tendencies were self-demarcating, ie, active-reflective sub-styles. Adolf Behne in his seminal The Modern Functional Building from 1923 distinguished between Functionalism and Rationalism – as two distinct stylistic tendencies within the Modern Movement. While Rationalism – according to Behne – proceeds from the perspective of fabrication and foregrounds generic, standardized solutions, Functionalism proceeds from the peculiarities of a particular brief/purpose, seeking an individually well-fitted solution without explicit reference to standards and rationalized construction methods. Thus, on the basis of the same brief, different styles with different general performance values select different functional concerns as drivers for the project, each favouring different morphologies and resulting in distinct physiognomies. On the level of the formal repertoire, Rationalism leads to serial, homogeneous systems, while Functionalism leads to complex, ‘organic’ compositions. The protagonists who have been contrasted in this respect are Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer on the ¨ side of Rationalism versus Hugo Haring and Hans Scharoun on the side of Functionalism. This example shows how a style comprises and correlates both aesthetic values and performance values. Again, Deconstructivism cannot be reduced to a set of formal tropes. On the one hand Deconstructivism has its recognizable formal repertoire (aesthetic values), and on the other hand it has its own functional attitude (performance values): it incorporates the establishment of multiple contextual relations into its domain of architectural ‘problems’ to be solved. It is sensitive to the latent contradictions within any given brief and uses tropes like layering and interpenetration as a means to articulate complex, mixed-use briefs. There is a distinct emphasis on cross-programming and the interpenetration of functional domains instead of a strict functional zoning. Parametricism is looking for continuous programmatic variations rather than the repetition of strict function types. Instead of juxtaposing discrete functional domains this style prefers to offer all the in-between iterations that might be conceived between two function types, now considered as two extremes of a continuous spectrum of gradual functional modulation. Instead of accepting the need for separate programmatic zones the idea

is that social boundaries and categorizations must be blurred. The style is looking for a high density of connectivity and intense relatedness between programme components. The multiple internal and external (contextual) programmatic relations are taken as occasions for mutual ‘deformation’, or as opportunities for smooth interarticulation via radiating force fields, or by means of gradual morphing of the respective formal features. These examples sketch out how the communication pattern of a style embodies both aesthetic values and performance values, ie, formal and functional biases, and thus serves to give sufficient content and determination to the otherwise abstract/empty double code of utility and beauty. The elaboration of these examples also indicates that the two sets of values are meaningfully correlated so that the style is able to establish convincing form-function relations. Styles involve rules for both the selective (pre-)conception of form and for the selective treatment of function. Styles thus programme and regulate both sides of the double code of architecture. Regulation implies a degree of regularity, ie, a medium-term period of stabilization. The evolution of architecture is phased or stepped, as a progression of distinct styles that afford stable systems of values that constrain the variation of individual projects. Within each project the operating formal and functional biases are further tightened or fixed. Thus we can observe clearly differentiated levels of determination, each with its own degree of stability in time:

� Codes: the ultra-stable, defining codes establish the long-term unity/identity of the system within which innovative variation is opened up. � Styles: the styles provide medium-term programmes that frame whole clusters and series of works and forge them into a collective effort, where all advances are mutually relevant. � Themes: themes are project focused. The project theme coheres all the design decisions within a project. The full blown avant-garde project should work with both a functional and a formal thematic. The differentiation of these levels constitutes an evolutionary achievement that enhances the further evolution of the discipline. Traditional, pre-architectural buildings were subject to a very slow, undifferentiated, continuous evolution. Time was conceived as cyclical. There was neither any sense of ‘projects’ that could be themed, nor was there any consciousness of styles that could be superseded. There was indeed no sense of a separate domain of architecture. All art-historical or archaeological ascriptions of styles are thus passive styles, ie, external 260

146 The iconoclastic 1920s tried to throw off the very term of architecture too – trying to replace it with ‘building’ (‘bauen’) and again they failed. The ABC group (Radical Functionalism) objected to the notion of ‘Modern architecture’ because of the connotations of both fashion (modern) and art (architecture). Instead the name Neues Bauen (New Building) was to serve as appropriate self-description.

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3.6.5 RELUCTANT STYLES The concept of style proposed here involves more than the distinction of certain formal characteristics and includes ways of handling function, typological innovations and also biases in terms of building construction technologies. This was already the understanding of style in the 19th century, during Historicism and Eclecticism. Schinkel considered stylistic options in relation to functional requirements, in terms of types of institutions. The much higher resolution with which the Modernist architecture of the 1920s was able to address and recombine functional requirements led to the polemic that Historicism and Eclecticism were indulging in empty decoration. But this polemic – which was necessary as soon as it was possible, ie, as soon as a new solution to the problem of structuring (increased) flexibility was found – nevertheless obscures that Historicism and Eclecticism were trying to address the same problems which were later solved by Functionalism. Historicism and Eclecticism can be understood as attempts to cope with a new order of variety in the task-domain of architecture via the variety of new building solution-types (archetypes) that were to shape the new function-types that developed in line with the new social life processes and institutions. Modern Functionalism was/is one of the most important/persistent programmes within architecture and was/is itself a style in the substantial sense, despite its harsh polemic against the very notion of style. The Functionalist rejection of ‘style’ further obscures the crucial role the new formal systems – offered by abstract art – played in the achievements of Modern Functionalist architecture.146 Despite its denigration during the 1920s, a substantial notion of style was re-launched in Hitchcock and

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classifications or retrospective projections that had no registration within the respective communication system itself. Today’s highly evolved architectural autopoiesis understands each building as a potentially innovative project, and as an opportunity to introduce an innovative theme or thematic variation. There is also the clear consciousness of working within historically transient styles that might be challenged and superseded – although not every Monday morning, nor with each and every project. However, under contemporary conditions of accelerated evolution, stylistic revolutions are to be expected within an architect’s working life.

Johnson’s influential The International Style in 1932. One might consult their introduction ‘The Idea of Style’.147 Hitchcock and Johnson emphasize the presence of ‘interior principles’148 that are supposed to define a style, rather than its ‘decorative garment’: ‘The nineteenth century failed to create a style of architecture because it was unable to achieve a general discipline of structure and of design in the terms of the day.’149 Here structure and design stand for function and form as necessary ingredients (double code) of architecture. Hitchcock and Johnson go on to define the objective of their book: ‘. . . stating the general principles of the contemporary style, in analyzing their derivation from structure and their modification by function . . .’150 Hitchcock and Johnson are thus in line with the broad ideological outlines of the Modern Movement. However, the conscious positing of a contemporary ‘style’ in architecture – the ‘International Style’ – was running counter to the prevalent self-descriptions of the movement. Hitchcock and Johnson acknowledge and explain this fact: ‘The chaos of Eclecticism served to give the very idea of style a bad name.’ They go on to argue: ‘The individualistic revolt of the first modern architects destroyed the prestige of the “styles”, but it did not remove the implication that there was a possibility of choice between one aesthetic conception of design and another.’ Hitchcock and Johnson even concede that ‘the revolt from stylistic discipline to extreme individualism at the beginning of the twentieth century was justified as the surest issue from an impasse of imitation and sterility’, but they are rejecting the Functionalist assertion that ‘the very idea of style was an unhealthy delusion’, claiming instead that ‘the problem of establishing one dominant style . . . is coming to a solution’.151 A related line of argument recurs in the chapter on ‘Functionalism’. Now it involves the admittance/rejection of aesthetic categories as indispensable/dispensable ingredients of architecture: ‘Some modern critics and groups of architects . . . deny that the aesthetic element in architecture is important, or even that it exists. All aesthetic principles of style are to them meaningless and unreal. This new conception, that

147 Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1995, originally published under the title: The International Style – Architecture since 1922, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1932. 148 Ibid, p 18. 149 Ibid, p 18, italics added here for emphasis. 150 Ibid, p 21, italics added here for emphasis. 151 Ibid, p 19. The theory of architectural autopoiesis assumes that the problem of style has to be solved again and again, at each historical stage. Parametricism is today’s most compelling candidate. 262

152 Ibid, p 35.

153 Ibid, p 37, italics added here for emphasis.

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3.6.6 THE INESCAPABILITY OF THE FORMAL A PRIORI The formal a priori constrains and coheres the search for a solution and thus reduces the complexity of the design effort. This reduction of complexity is required to rein in the increase of complexity that is due to the fact that architecture has cut itself loose from tradition and opened up the game of innovative design. Styles, with their idioms and repertoires of prevalent forms, are providing and updating the necessary formal a priori. But the stylistic predetermination does not exhaust this notion. On the one hand, there are very general formal presuppositions that are assumed across many styles, such as the basic reliance on Euclidean geometry in the Renaissance, Neo-Classicism and Modernism.

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building is science and not art, developed as an exaggeration of the idea of functionalism.’152 The key argument that Hitchcock and Johnson put forward against this ‘exaggeration’ already hints at the thesis promoted here, namely that the formal side of the double code is required to reduce the complexity of the decision-situation the designer confronts: ‘It is, however, nearly impossible to organize and execute a complicated building without making some choices not wholly determined by technics and economics.’153 There can be no doubt about the pertinence of this statement. The insistence that Modern Functionalism, even the Radical Functionalism of the ABC group, participated in the formation of a style – Modernism – is coherent with the fundamental role the theory of architectural autopoiesis accords to the phenomenon and concept of style(s). Architecture progresses via the succession of styles. The effective refusal to participate within the formation and reproduction of a style spells marginality and irrelevance. The ideological rejection of the concept of style is ineffective. Those who did effectively advance the autopoiesis of architecture did – in effect – contribute to the formation of a style, whether they acknowledge this fact or not. Many of the protagonists of Deconstructivism, just like the protagonists of Modernism, polemicized against the proclamation of Deconstructivism as a style. This rejection was ultimately futile, just as had been the case with ‘Modern architecture’ (the International Style, Modernism). The label ‘Deconstructivism’ took hold within the autopoiesis of architecture. Thus an active style was – reluctantly – enhanced to become an active-reflective style. The same is now happening to Parametricism, once more in the face of the protests of many of its effective protagonists.

On the other hand, the design process is prestructured by tighter predispositions that are constraining the universe even further than the idiom of the utilized style, namely the particular idiom of each individual architect or design studio in question. This ‘individual’ idiom might be as much due to the particular software tool-set, and unconscious design routines, as to the conscious paradigmatic references that are upheld within the practice in question. Production and reduction of complexity together process and order complexity. The more complex the environment (society) the higher the demand upon architecture’s requisite variety. The requisite variety of architecture consists in its own internal complexity that is required to process the relevant complexity of its environment. The presupposed formal repertoire should have the requisite variety in the sense of confronting the variegated and complex challenges from the societal environment with a sufficiently versatile and complex formal apparatus. One might also talk about architecture’s capacity to decompose and recombine its experiences and resources. The advancement of this capacity goes hand in hand with the availability and advancement of certain design media.154 The necessary reduction of the task complexity that has to be achieved within each design project has to be distinguished from the undue obliteration of the task complexity. Only a formal a priori with sufficient internal complexity can reduce the task complexity without obliterating it. Looked at from the point of view of reducing complexity the formal a priori saves design time by offering a point of departure for the design work and limiting the horizon of alternative design moves at each decision junction. The end-result of ‘formal’ work also offers a certain economic advantage with respect to the morphological coherence of the design, making construction more efficient, and the building more comprehensible to its users. This advantage of the formal a priori, as mechanism of formal regulation, is always present, no matter which system of forms is chosen. The principle of Modern Rationalism captures this: as regular/repetitive as possible as long as this regulation does not over-constrain functionality. Whether the level of formal coherence is well-calibrated – neither too tight, nor too loose – can only be assessed comparatively. Thus it is possible to rationalize stylistic choices, but only on the general level of comparing the requisite variety of competing styles within the same societal environment. The question is whether the specific complexity processing capacity of a given style is appropriate to a given stage of civilization. However, it is not possible to fully rationalize 154 Concerning design media see part 4 The Medium of Architecture. 264

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155 Henry-Russel Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style, WW Norton & Company (New York), 1932, p 37. Italics my emphasis.

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an individual formal decision, or individual project. For the individual design process the category of formal decisions – conducted from within a given style – remains irreducible. Were one to attempt to rationalize each formal decision or rationalize the choice of formal idiom with respect to every individual building, one would quickly lose the very ˆ raison d’etre of style: its ability to reduce the complexity of the decision situation. Thus, an architect might be asking him/herself whether he/she is working in the right style. He/she can then go on to rationalize his/her choice of style in terms of the general societal function of architecture, or even in terms of the particular function types he/she is confronting within his/her project. However, he/she cannot ask him/herself whether he/she should work in a style at all, or more generally with presupposing a formal a priori. It is not possible to avoid stylistic or formal a priori guidance and instead try to consider and evaluate options from an unlimited universe of organizing and articulating devices. Hitchcock and Johnson are therefore correct in assuming that ‘Radical Functionalism’ is an ideology rather than a viable method: ‘One might therefore refuse to admit that the intentionally functionalist building is quite without a potential aesthetic element. Consciously or unconsciously the architect must make free choices before his design is completed. In these choices the European Functionalists follow, rather than go against, the principles of the general contemporary style. Whether they admit it or not is beside the point.’155 The theory of architectural autopoiesis concurs with Hitchcock and Johnson that it is ‘Radical Functionalism’ rather than the notion of ‘style’ that deserves to be called a ‘delusion’, and agrees with Hitchcock and Johnson about the pertinence of the concept of style and the assumption of aesthetic values. The theory of architectural autopoiesis is able to explain the inevitability of styles and of formal a prioris, and emphasizes the advantages of the conscious deployment of these concepts. Styles and aesthetic values are constructs of communication. Nobody can force the Functionalists to talk about aesthetic and stylistic questions. Their discourse and design process simply proceed without explicit formal programmes. They design/communicate differently. The emergence of formal coherence is not at all excluded thereby, but as it is not consciously addressed and regulated by the designer, it might, at times, slip. Or, what is rather more likely, formal biases that remain unacknowledged might end up unduly constraining the versatility of the design response. The agenda of functional optimization is indeed a delusional pretence if the optimization process is framed within a myopic

universe of possibilities. Making formal biases explicit as formal premises invites critical reflection and opens up the possibility of conscious repertoire expansion. This is why an active-reflective style is superior to a merely active style. That the Radical Functionalists were able to survive and proliferate for a while is in itself a significant fact, and so is the recent comeback of the Radical Functionalist outlook in the guise of so called ‘data-scapes’.156 One might hypothesize that this pattern of communication gains a certain competitive advantage in periods of breakneck socio-economic transformation. In such periods all old formal predispositions that have hitherto been guiding the design process need to be suspended, questioned, superseded. They become so many prejudices, fetters and barriers that need to be broken through. Radical Functionalism signals the phase of creative destruction/original construction in a learning cycle instigated by external irritation. Conscious canonization and the written formalization of new principles often follow consolidation in practice. The specific performance values of a well established style often become naturalized. The aesthetic values of a well established style assume a dogmatic character because the memory of the competitive demonstration of their superior adaptive capacity at the moment of ascending to hegemony has long since faded. Styles thus seem to become formulaic and formalistic. This, in turn, inspires the total rejection of all formulas and formalisms at historical moments of rapid societal changes. However, new formulas and formalisms, new formal a prioris and a new style should emerge to fully reap the potentials discovered in the period of intensified experimentation. Another general point might be added here to understand the raison ˆ d’etre of communication structures such as formal a prioris, styles, aesthetic values, performance values, as well as the preference for certain design media. These shared structures of communication have the great advantage – if compared with heroic individualism – of allowing for a complex division of labour within the discipline. No designer has to be a genius on all fronts of architectural evolution. Innovative functional interpretation, formal proliferation and innovation in terms of the design media can be pursued by different, parallel avant-gardes simultaneously. The respective partial innovations have a good chance of later taking effect across the whole domain of work within the discipline. The independently elaborated functional, formal and medial innovations can be employed across the discipline at large and the results can finally be 156 Data-driven design. See: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Richard Koek (Eds), Farmax, 010 Publishers (Rotterdam), 2006. 266

157 The general appropriation of these different innovations is possible, even without burdening the followers with the complete understanding of their underlying rationality. This relative lack of depth in understanding does not need to compromise the effectiveness of application in the resultant work. Application can become routine application without the need to rehearse the pros and cons each time. Thus one might praise routines and their quiet contribution to disseminating innovations.

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3.6.7 THE DOUBLE CONTINGENCY OF STYLE FORMATION The systemic set up according to which medium-term, competitive programmes (styles) are operating within the long-term, unified frame of a code (double code utility/beauty) constitutes a powerful evolutionary engine. The possibility and notion of various styles within art and architecture emerged during the Renaissance along with the distinction of the moderns versus the ancients. The accelerating, self-conscious chain of styles from Renaissance, via Mannerism to Baroque and Rococo is the historically unprecedented consequence of the inauguration of architecture as autonomous and self-referential system of communications. The explosion of styles within the 19th century – Neo-Classicism, Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Baroque, and Eclecticism – is notorious. The achievements of this system of styles, and especially the achievements of Eclecticism, with respect to the new levels of versatility and agility required for the architectural digestion of the new social and infrastructural demands, have yet to be recognized. The same goes for the versatility of individual architects (for example, Schinkel) who were working with various styles simultaneously – an ability misunderstood and reviled by Modernists such as Adolf Loos. Modernism broke free from the dogmatic fetters of the Classical canon and further accelerated the evolution of architectural diversity. But compared with our contemporary manoeuvrability, Modernism represented a narrow channelling of options and a clampdown on possibilities. Only the most recent discourses of Deconstructivism, Folding and Parametricism consciously exploit the double contingency that slumbers in the distinction between form and function. There is an inherent openness in every design decision situation. Each can be opened up by considering further formal options, or by calling for and considering further functional capacities or requirements. One might refer to this openness as the double contingency of the design situation. This double contingency is radically given in the situation of avant-garde

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habitualized by all segments of the avant-garde, as well as by the mainstream. The respective innovations are integrated either into architecture’s general communication structures, or within a specific style. In either case they become readily available to all architects/ designers.157

design research. All design innovation must lead to new form-function relations: new forms come to organize and articulate new functions. However, new form-function relations can be found either by way of searching functions for new forms or by way of searching forms for new functions. This is the double contingency of the design research situation. As elaborated above158 avant-garde design research can be either revolutionary or cumulative, ie, it is either engaged in the destruction/formation of a style or it is progressing within the framework of a style. The double contingency of the design research situation is most acute in revolutionary periods of initial style formation where neither the formal repertoire is given, nor have the functional priorities of the era yet been ascertained. This situation tends to lead to fundamental splits within the architectural avant-garde, not only with respect to the different tendencies that always characterize revolutionary periods, but with respect to two fundamental search orientations: orientation towards new formal solutions on the one hand, and orientation towards new functional challenges on the other hand. In line with this split there are two principal ways of controlling the double contingency of the design research situation leading to two principal formulae that might come to underlie an emerging new style and thus an emerging period of cumulative design research: the formula ‘form follows function’ and the formula ‘function follows form’. The first formula is the formula of Modernism and the second formula is the formula of Postmodernism, Deconstructivism and Folding. Both are self-simplifying formulae, because the underlying double contingency of the design situation is only tamed (structured), not eradicated. Another way to control the double contingency of the design research situation (within cumulative research) is to operate via an integrative oscillation between formal and functional advances. This leads to the circular/oscillating formula ‘form follows function follows form’. The theory of architectural autopoiesis identifies and promotes this formula with respect to the maturing design research programme of Parametricism. The Modernist formula of ‘form follows function’ was a necessary self-simplification, a necessary reduction of complexity that was viable then. It was a temporarily successful attempt to asymmetrize and terminate this double contingency through hierarchy: first fix the function and then, on this basis, select the form. This self-simplification denies the opportunity of finding new functions through the play of forms. The simple, Modernist solution – form follows function – is possible only as 158 See Chapter 2.3.5 The Time Structure of the Avant-garde Process: Cumulative vs Revolutionary Periods. 268

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long as the formal universe, ie, the solution space, is presupposed and clearly framed, and not put into question, for example, the solution of a layout is sought in the domain of aggregations of rectangles. Only if such a constraint is presupposed or taken for granted can a functional criterion or measure be brought to bear, for example, the ratio of the enclosing outline to the enclosed floor area etc. Once the formal frame is opened up, and the final delimitation of the formal universe is placed at the disposal of the designer, formal research and the expansion of formal repertoires gain irreducible independence and can no longer be subordinated to functional premises. This happened within the expanded limits of the new styles of Deconstructivism and Folding, leading to contemporary Parametricism. The presupposed formal register must be recognized as premise of any functional assessment and thus leaves any such functional argument contingent upon further formal research, and vulnerable to subversion via the discovery of unexpected functional possibilities that are thrown up by the functional interpretation of new formal material. The recognition that the results of formal research are latent with functional opportunity leads to the recognition of Formalist careers in architecture. Formalist careers, such as Peter Eisenman’s, are to be integrated into the overall rationality of the discipline, rather than being neutralized by the stigma of ‘irrational’ or ‘irresponsible’ Formalism. The recognition of the value of Formalism, as the necessary ideology of formal research, does not suspend or compromise the recognition of the ultimate centrality of form-function relationships for architecture. It only means that a certain division of labour in the overall process of architectural innovation/adaptation is emerging. This does not point to the possibility of an independent autopoiesis of architectural Formalism. Such an attempt would dissolve architecture into the visual arts (spatial art, land art). At best a certain bifurcation could become institutionalized within architecture, ie, a differentiation of subsystems within architecture along the fault-lines of the double code: a Formalist discipline that would engage in the proliferation of formal concepts/repertoires and a Functionalist discipline that would engage in the innovative analysis of functional requirements and the functionally oriented employment of the repertoires offered up by Formalism. This or other divisions of labour are conceivable. But these subdivisions within architecture would not constitute independent, indifferent systems, complete with their own independent codes and functions. The gravity of the special social function of design/architecture within modern functionally differentiated society pulls these two necessary components together. Any one-sided drifting away of the Formalist subdivision would result in its dissolution

into art, and this in turn would engender the re-emergence of form as an inevitable concern in the Functionalist division. Formal concerns would have to re-emerge to expand the formal repertoire for coping with social complexity and to order/reduce this complexity, and thus to complete the job of formal/functional determination, on the basis of new stylistic options made available. In any event, what is here to stay is the latent split into two types of communications, either by means of letting the design communication process oscillate between the two sides, or by creating two camps, ie, two separate strands of communication, each with its primary, explicit emphasis on one of the two fundamental concerns. In order to avoid this split degenerating into an ideological confrontation, communication has to shift from a mode of first order observation to the mode of second order observation. Second order observation implies that communicating observers are not just focusing on their subject matter, but are simultaneously observing how others observe and communicate about these subject matters. To observe and communicate in the mode of second order observation implies a heightened awareness of the presence of multiple perspectives, and a readiness to view one’s own communicative contributions through the prism of the perspective of others. This implies the ability and necessity to choose both a topic and a specific perspective, or theoretical frame of reference, when embarking upon an architectural communication. The further successful evolution of the autopoiesis of architecture requires that second order observation becomes pervasive within architecture. In this mode of communication the two research tendencies – the formal and the functional – can observe each other’s experiments, compare results and transmute each other’s discoveries. Collective regulating structures like styles have the advantage of funnelling the results of the division of labour within the discipline into a shared approach. Styles act as attractors of convergence. An ascending style draws everything into its ambit. Styles are an integrative force that draws diverse efforts together and turns them into the common property of the discipline. No designer has to be a genius on all fronts of architectural evolution. The proliferation of new formal repertoires on the one hand, and the ‘redemption’ of these new vocabularies in terms of new modes of functionality can be pursued independently, by different researchers, or by different segments of the architectural avant-garde. The formal proliferators and aesthetic revolutionaries might take the lead and the systematic pragmatist follow suit. Or, inversely, the creative analysts of new social, cultural and institutional trends initially pose the challenge of new functions that 270

159 The integration of formal and functional research is yet another design research project, a project that absorbs the results of both research strands within a project focused mode of creative oscillation. This task of integrative design research has been the core ambition of the AADRL since its inception in 1996.

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3.6.8 STYLISTIC AWARENESS AS SECOND ORDER OBSERVATION Luhmann’s social systems theory emphasizes that the autopoietic function systems of modern society communicate in the mode of second order observation. All social communication systems are observing systems. All observations operate via distinctions. Since each autopoietic system is differentiated on the basis of its system of distinctions the world and overall society look different for each system. Each subsystem of society thus establishes its own perspective on society and learns to understand that other systems use other, incommensurable perspectives. Also, within each subsystem arises the problematic of potentially divergent perspectives. This is a result of the overall increase in the complexity of social processes. This in turn implies the need to observe observers in order to coordinate observations. Luhmann states that ‘the observation of observers . . . has become the advanced way of perceiving

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expand the task horizon of architecture. The new tasks are then followed up by the most imaginative virtuoso Formalist. Indeed, these two indispensable dimensions of architectural evolution require quite different talents. They benefit from their temporary separation, allowing for intense focus in each dimension without being reined in prematurely by the current ‘state of the art’ and ‘best practice’ in the other dimension. However, the separation of these two dimensions of architectural evolution can only be temporary. Any substantial architectural innovation, in the last analysis, has to deliver and relate both: new form and new function.159 The succession of styles, understood as the succession of ways of handling the relation between form and function, is here to stay. The increasing autonomy of architecture as autopoietic system of communications does not imply its withdrawal into Formalism. The appropriate formula is: openness through closure. A sustainable autonomy of architecture must be based upon the elaboration of new form–function relationships. The discursive structure of the double code (utility and beauty) and its attendant programmes (styles) will continue to define architecture and design for the foreseeable future. It is not to be expected that such fundamental discursive structures can be disposed of. Such structures are evolutionary achievements which cannot be abandoned without danger of regression and self-annihilation.

the world. And this is the case in all important function areas, in science as well as in the economy, in art as well as in politics.’160 Contemporary architecture too operates on the level of second order observation. This implies that any competent participant has to master this level of communicative sophistication. Second order observation is a kind of observation that tries to grasp the different distinctions and conceptual schemata the other observer seems to be using in order to take those into account in the discussion about what is to be observed and evaluated. Especially when it comes to the application of the binary codes of architecture, straightforward first order observations soon lead the communication into a dead-end. Contrary observations or evaluations simply confront each other. In order to continue, the communication process must switch to the mode of second order observation. The evaluation of designs or design features as beautiful or ugly, or as useful or useless, leads to the reflection upon the programmes and the particular criteria that regulate the application of the code values. Styles are the architectural programmes that provide guiding principles for the concrete allocation of the code values beautiful/ugly and useful/useless. Each observer’s own schema of discriminating criteria needs to be thematized within the further communication. Those who cannot do this, but instead insist on their simple, first order assertions without being able to explicate their evaluation criteria, can no longer be regarded as competent participants, and will be disqualified and silenced within the ongoing communication. A design feature under discussion that is observed in the mode of second order observation is not simply beautiful and useful, but beautiful and useful only as observed by an observer that applies the particular discriminations of a particular style. An observer who is questioning what the supposed beauty and/or utility of a design feature consists in is observing in the mode of second order observation. Such a communication also communicates its awareness that its evaluations are contingent upon its system of distinctions and that other observers can be expected to judge differently on the basis of their distinct criteria of discrimination. Stylistic awareness is thus based on second order observation. What is beautiful for a Minimalist because of the achieved reduction to the utmost simplicity is likely to lack vitality according to the judgement of the Parametricist. According to Parametricism the complexity reduction achieved by Minimalism goes too far and entails the obliteration of vital programmatic and tectonic 160 Niklas Luhmann, Einf ¨uhrung in die Systemtheorie, Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag (Heidelberg), 2002, pp 140–1. 272

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3.6.9 PROGRESS AS PROGRESSION OF STYLES What matters in architecture are not great buildings but great styles. All architectural design follows and manifests particular sets of general principles. Those sets of principles constitute the (contested) styles

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differences. Such differences could have been taken up by an elegant system of modulation that would have set a rich order against the Minimalist monotony. In turn, the Minimalist considers the efforts of the Parametricist to be forced, unnecessary complications. However, both Parametricists and Minimalists should be able to recognize the respective underlying programmes of each other’s evaluations. That is what we should be able to expect from a competent participant within today’s architectural autopoiesis. Second order observation is thus required to the extent to which multiple frameworks are simultaneously available to structure the concrete design discussion at hand. This concerns the discourse internal to architecture. Second order observation, however, is also necessary with respect to the boundary management between different autopoietic function systems. It is, for instance, necessary for the competent contemporary architect to observe and understand that the collaborating engineering consultant argues from a rather different perspective, employing a rather different set of distinctions and priorities. First order pronouncements about the merit of a certain proposed building component need to be mediated by second order observations about the divergent codes of architecture and engineering. Similar precautions are required in the architect’s discussion with clients, or in the case of star architects in their dealings with the mass media. The successful architect has to be able to move simultaneously in several largely incommensurable discourses: he/she needs to stay on top of his/her own architectural expert discourse, find the right tone and language in addressing clients’ concerns, and give the mass media what they need – and all these incommensurable communications have to refer to the same underlying work. To succeed in this demands permanent, acute second order observation, with a high sensitivity to the crucial touchstones in each arena. This kind of virtuosity in second order observing is also typical of politicians, who always simultaneously observe and anticipate how their political communications are being observed within their own party, within the opposition party and within the mass media.

within architecture. Architectural progress proceeds via the progression of styles. Architectural theories are also aligned with particular styles.161 How can we measure architectural progress? The assessment of progress requires specific problems or goals. For instance, if the problem/goal of architecture is to achieve a sense of continuous free-flowing space, then Mies’s idea to allow floor slabs, walls and ceiling slabs to dissociate from each other represents progress. The Barcelona Pavilion was a celebrated demonstration of this new possibility. Never before did space flow so freely within and around a work of architecture. Such an assessment of progress is always relative to the specification of a general goal that is being set for the discipline. Such general goals are set by styles. Thus such assessments of architectural progress are always relative to a particular architectural style.162 To overcome this restriction we need to formulate a more general, more abstract problematic that can be applied across styles. If the formulation of such a general, abstract problematic for architecture succeeds, then we can distinguish progress within styles from progress between styles. Progress between styles implies that one style is being superseded by another, superior, more successful style. What does this superiority or success consist in? Shifts from one dominant style to another might be compared to paradigm shifts in science. Paradigm shifts are usually triggered by a state of crisis within the old paradigm. Such crises are usually brought about by new empirical evidence that overburdens the explanatory capacity of the old paradigm. In the case of styles it is the emergence of new societal tasks that overburdens the design resources of the old style. Thus in the case of architectural styles the sense of crisis indicates a state of maladaptation with respect to the societal environment. This occurs when society changes rapidly in ways that invalidate the recipes of the current style. A new style succeeds by affording new problem formulations and solutions that allow architecture to catch up with the new societal developments. Success therefore implies re-adaptation. Sometimes avant-garde architecture is preparing pre-adaptive advances that might even act as catalysts for advances elsewhere in society. The progression of styles is, in this sense, a series of re-adaptations and/or pre-adaptations. What turns such a succession of adaptations into progress? Such a series of changes might be called ‘progressive’ if it has an irreversible ‘direction’ or ‘tendency’ that can be identified by reference to an overarching dimension of comparison. 161 This also applies to the theory of architectural autopoiesis. It aligns itself with the contemporary avant-garde style of Parametricism. 162 In the case of Mies’s Barcelona Pavilion it is Modernism with its ambition to achieve a spatial continuity between inside and outside. 274

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163 Architecture’s capacity and task to organize and articulate societal order will be discussed in Volume 2, part 6 The Task of Architecture. There the contemporary registers of organization and articulation will be elaborated in detail. 164 A brief historical sketch which traces this trajectory in these terms can be found below in section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes.

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Such a general tendency can indeed be identified: for the last 500 years, one might point to the general tendency of increasing societal differentiation/complexity. The degree of differentiation/complexity can serve as comparative ‘measure’ of societal progress – a measure that is descriptive and that can be applied without reference to moral values. Increasing societal differentiation/complexity is admittedly a very general and abstract notion. However, this abstract notion can facilitate the formulation of an attendant overarching criterion of architectural progress: the general capacity of any architectural style/theory to organize and articulate increasing societal complexity.163 On a very general level one might say that the capacity of a system to handle complexity depends on its capacity to analyze, vary and recombine its ‘elements’. Thus architectural styles and their attendant theories progress with respect to the degree to which they enhance architecture’s capacity to analyze, vary and recombine the elements of architecture in an effort to accommodate, organize and articulate higher levels of societal complexity. One general hypothesis is therefore that the progression of historical styles indeed follows a trajectory of repertoire expansion that allows the discipline to increase its capacity to handle complexity.164 The Renaissance is the first period in which the analysis, variation and recombination of the Classical architectural elements were accelerated on the basis of an incipient disciplinary discourse. Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo mark further steps in this process. Neo-Classicism, Historicism and Eclecticism provide the next milestones. However, it is the advent of Modernism that is most decisive in this respect, making huge strides in the increase of architecture’s capacity to analyze, vary and recombine its elements in unprecedented ways. Modernism’s huge increase in design options implied the abandonment of the ‘dogmas’ of Classical architecture. The dogmas of Classical architecture are the result of a long period of evolutionary refinement under relatively stable societal conditions. Their abandonment was only possible by making new principles and criteria available that were able to structure this new domain of freedom. Without simultaneous containment, liberation descends into the arbitrariness of ‘anything goes’. No criteria would regulate design decisions, spelling the end of the

(discipline of the) discipline. The very notion of design decision165 would collapse, or else fall back upon the old rules. Indeed, in the absence of Modern (or Postmodern) principles of design there would be no other choice than to revert to the Classical canon. Old rules have to be replaced by new rules. If those rules are able to order more choices, then we might speak about progress in the sense defined above as the increased capacity to analyze, vary and recombine the elements of architecture. The historical account of progress from the sequence of Classical styles to Modernism is often described as the throwing off of the fetters and prejudices of traditional architecture. The elimination of ornament, the rejection of symmetry and proportion as undue constraints are obviously essential factors in the Modern achievement of a vastly increased repertoire of design options and manoeuvres. However, regulating principles cannot altogether be dispensed with – they have to be reinvented and rewritten. The expansion of the architectural repertoire cannot be solved by the directive: anything goes. The possibility of expanding the realm of possibilities for architectural design hinges on the ability to structure the expanded domain by means of a system of general principles/criteria. These general principles constitute a determinate style. (They are not universal principles that rule the whole discipline across all styles.) This necessity of principles is the necessity to control the proliferation of possibilities that is generated once the tradition is left behind. This ˆ necessity is the underlying raison d’etre of the compositional theories – which today seem to us to be bizarre dogmas and mystifications – that accompanied the huge expansion of the formal repertoire during the early 1920s. Compositional theorems like the attempt to correlate geometric forms with colours (triangle=yellow, square=red, circle=blue) are a striking example. Compositional concepts like ‘dynamic equilibrium’ have the same function: to somehow rein in the proliferation of options after symmetry and proportion have been abandoned as overly restrictive. The reinvigorated concept of the ‘organic’ plays a similar role. The key point here is that nothing in architecture is allowed to just happen haphazardly. This distinguishes architecture from mere (vernacular) building where more or less accidental occurrences, or individual idiosyncrasies of the users, or the peculiarities of the site might determine certain features of the building without reference to generalizable principles. In architecture, everything is supposed to

165 Above, design decisions have been identified as the specific type of communication which defines architecture at the operational level. See: chapter 3.3.1. Design Decisions. 276

THESIS 16 Avant-garde styles are design research programmes. They start as progressive research programmes, mature to become productive dogmas, and end as degenerate dogmas. As elaborated above, the theory of architectural autopoiesis theorizes styles as affording those variable programmes that are, at any time, necessary to regulate the disposition over the invariant codes of architecture. These programmes can in many ways be compared with scientific research programmes. Indeed, it is one of the key theses of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that architectural styles can be understood in analogy to scientific research programmes, as architectural design research programmes. (That this interpretation of styles only convinces with respect to the avant-garde phase of any style is coherent with the overall emphasis that the theory of architectural autopoiesis places upon the avant-garde segment of the discipline.) The reinterpretation of styles as research programmes tries to safeguard a contemporary role for the concept of style by reconstructing the fundamental rationality of the phenomenon of styles, and by injecting new connotations that might upgrade, rejuvenate and regulate the concept, in line with its continued contemporary relevance. This is a worthy and necessary effort because the abandonment of this embattled concept would constitute an irreplaceable loss for the self-reflective resources of the discipline. The relative disrepute of the notion of ‘style’ within contemporary architectural discourse already implies a certain impoverishment. A fully convincing alternative candidate concept that could credibly pick up its reflective function is not in sight. If 166 Everything is supposed to mean something. Everything is supposed to be due to a deliberate design decision, according to generalizable principIes and values, ie, everything is supposed to be regulated by a pervasive style. In reality, this ambition cannot be fully maintained. This, in turn, typically leads to the over-interpretation of architecture, especially in the case of canonic figures like Michelangelo or Le Corbusier. The presumption is that canonic buildings must embody a canon. Every detail is supposed to be accounted for.

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manifest a general concept or principle.166 This is a discursive a priori of the discipline. Concepts and principles, however, become operational only in the framework of a style. Innovations can only be effectively generalized if they enter into a style, ie, if they either contribute to the development of a given style, or engender a transition between styles.

‘architectural research programme’ was not so long and clumsy, one might have proposed it as a hopeful candidate here. The pedigree of historical connotations, probably more asset than encumbrance, is another reason to resist the abandonment of ‘style’. This historical pedigree also privileges ‘style’ over the only candidate concept that might perhaps have a chance to supersede it: ‘paradigm’. The notion of (rival) architectural paradigms already captures many of the aspects that the analogy with scientific research programmes tries to embed into an upgraded concept of style. To avoid confusion, it is important to distinguish between research programmes in the narrow, literal sense as institutionally delimited and explicitly organized research efforts from the meta-scientific conception of research programmes that has been introduced into the philosophy of science. Within the philosophy of science the concept denotes something much larger, namely whole (new) research traditions that are directed by a (new) fundamental theoretical framework. It is this latter concept that serves here as source domain for the analogical reinterpretation of the concept of style. With respect to research programmes in the literal sense we note their absence from the domain of architecture. This is in itself a significant, relevant fact, a fact to which we will return at the end of this chapter. The main theoretical work to be done first is the explication, elaboration and exploitation of the analogy between the (meta-scientific) concept of research programmes and the concept of architectural styles. New styles might be interpreted and evaluated in analogy to scientific research programmes that are launched by new scientific paradigms, affording a new conceptual framework and offering a new direction for further research work. The starting point of the analogy is the insight that the history of science progresses step-like, via distinct research programmes rather than via the continuous collection of ever more accurate facts. This can be compared with the fact that the history of architecture cannot be written as the record of a continuously improving series of buildings, but rather progresses via distinct styles. The elaboration of this analogy between architectural styles and scientific research programmes is based on a specific source: Imre Lakatos’s The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Lakatos’s rational reconstruction of scientific progress builds upon Karl Popper’s famous account of the logic of scientific discovery167 which emphasized

167 Karl R Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson (London), 1959. 278

168 According to Popper, facts are only noticed if they conflict with a prior (theoretical) expectation. 169 Correspondingly we are emphasizing the creative, outgoing thrust of stylistic presumptions. These presumptions are grafted, as further a priori constraints, onto the fundamental a prioris of the discipline’s medium. 170 Karl R Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London), 1963.

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3.7.1 THE CREATIVITY OF STYLES/RESEARCH PROGRAMMES The idea that scientific progress can be understood as a linear accumulation of knowledge through discoveries and evidence gathering, confirmed and explained by theory, has long been exposed as naive. The initial blow against this fairy tale was provided by Popper’s emphasis on the creative, outgoing side of knowledge production.169 Science thrives on formulating daring hypotheses that actively pose questions and extract evidence rather than receive and collect evidence passively. Science, according to Popper, proceeds via conjectures and refutations.170 Popper successfully challenged the older understanding of science as a process of inductive generalization whereby the tenets of science are somehow derived from the empirical data. Empirical data collection is blind without theoretical guidance. The theoretical edifice allows for the formulation of hypotheses, ie, for the deductive derivation of theoretically expected phenomena. Empirical work is then concerned with finding or constructing those phenomena. Successful findings might be interpreted as corroborations. However, they can never prove (verify) the theory. In contrast, according to Popper’s methodological falsificationism, negative empirical results can disprove (falsify) the theory. The theory of architectural autopoiesis understands avant-garde designs as experimental, speculative hypotheses, formulated within a certain style. The experimental design hypotheses cannot be derived from the requirements or functional challenges that burden the discipline. There is an irreducibly creative moment here, a creative, speculative leap. However, this creative leap does not only reside in the individual creative act that produces the individual design project. The creative leap largely resides in the novelty of the new style that guides the avant-garde research and that allows for the derivation of individual design hypotheses. The style serves as cohering research programme that allows

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the logical and heuristic priority of theoretical hypotheses over empirical observations in the growth of knowledge.168 To construe architectural styles in analogy with scientific research programmes thus, once more, underlines the thesis of the importance of theory as a necessary moment within the autopoiesis of architecture.

for the construction of a systematic series of design experiments. The individual design hypothesis, together with the style it is embedded within, is being empirically tested through its detailed elaboration, construction and social use. With respect to the critical evaluation of avant-garde work, it is important to emphasize that the status of the avant-garde project as original, speculative hypothesis is its very raison ˆ d’etre. The avant-garde is not aiming at the delivery of state of the art solutions, or corroborated improvements. Improvements that can compete with, or even supersede state of the art performance, cannot be immediately expected from those who set out to push the boundaries. Immediate improvements, although in principle possible, are rather unlikely. Eventually, however, avant-garde research must lead to a superior level of performance. Lakatos follows the general thrust of Popper’s emphasis on the crucial priority of theory and the creative, outgoing thrust of scientific knowledge production. However, he takes issue with Popper’s assumption that theories can easily be refuted by empirical evidence. The history of science shows that scientific theories are much more resilient than Popper’s falsificationist methodology suggests. They usually have a ‘thick skin’, stubbornly ignoring initial failures and criticisms on their way to eventual success. The same goes for emerging styles. They are not necessarily discouraged by the initial public rejection, nor by the initial failure to meet basic targets like functional, technical or economic efficiency. 3.7.2 THE TENACITY OF STYLES/RESEARCH PROGRAMMES Lakatos takes note of the tenacity with which scientific theories are developed against the odds of an initially reluctant reality. For example, ‘Newton’s gravitational theory . . . when it was first produced, it was submerged in an ocean of “anomalies” . . . But Newtonians turned, with brilliant tenacity and ingenuity, one counterinstance after another into corroborating instances.’171 This pattern of resilience in the face of supposed empirical refutations requires rational reconstruction as it has been part of the success story of most major theoretical breakthroughs in the history of science. A crucial step in this reconstruction is to shift the attention of the historical-critical analysis from individual hypotheses and theories to larger, more complex entities, namely ‘research programmes’ that have a peculiar internal structure – a structure that will be elaborated here and can be fruitfully exploited for the analogy with 171 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 48. 280

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architectural styles. The individual avant-garde building might fail on all sorts of concrete counts, but it might nevertheless succeed as pathbreaking manifesto representing a crucial step in the development of an emergent style (evolving research programme) that has the realistic prospect of succeeding to claim hegemony and eventually deliver an augmented mainstream performativity in the (not too distant) future. Lakatos considers research programmes to be the most salient unit of science by which scientific progress should be observed and assessed. In fact it is whole research programmes, ie, whole series of evolving theories, rather than isolated theories or hypotheses, that are put to the test by whole series of empirical experiments and ultimately by the totality of empirical data. An isolated theory, let alone an isolated statement, cannot be a reasonable unit of scientific evaluation. (This insight is the decisive step beyond Popper’s falsificationism.) Moreover, research programmes often start with idealized, knowingly unrealistic assumptions, without yet expecting empirical corroboration. The theoretical edifice that can eventually stand full empirical testing will be constructed via a series of interim stages that can only cover partial aspects of reality, remaining enveloped by preliminary assumptions. The research programme is a blueprint for a future comprehensive edifice. In strictly logical terms, individual hypotheses or theories can never be isolated as the target of a test, because the reliable production, reproduction and validation of data themselves exist only within a network of theoretical assumptions which are inextricably implicated and tested alongside the hypothesis in question. The failure of the experiment can therefore never be exclusively attributed with absolute certainty. Furthermore, in methodological and historical terms, Lakatos insists, individual experiments, even supposedly crucial experiments, by themselves mean very little in the advancement of science, except in the retrospective dramatizations of the story of science. The real protagonists of science are those theoreticians who can project and elaborate fertile research programmes. Theories are always evaluated in comparison with other theories that might be able to explain the same phenomenal domain. Researchers are only willing to let go of a theory if a modified, improved theoretical formulation is already at hand. A research programme is a systematic succession of related, successively elaborated and improved theories. However, there might, at any time, be several research programmes that are fiercely competing within a certain phenomenal domain. While the progress from one theory to the next within a research programme is usually a clear, smooth and uncontentious process, the transition from

one hegemonic research programme to another is always an embattled, ‘traumatic’ process.172 Something analogous can be observed with respect to architecture: the progressive succession of exemplary buildings within a maturing style is rather uncontentious, while the transition from one style to another is usually a bitter ideological battle for hegemony between the rival styles. The analogy of research programmes with architectural styles assumes that exemplary buildings take the place of individual hypotheses that appear to be put to the test. A contemporary cross section of projects within a given style constitutes the equivalent of the individual theories within the progressive series of theories that is the research programme. The respective style, with its particular fundamental approach and assumptions, is the equivalent of the research programme itself. Therefore, it is ultimately the style that is put to the test in each individual avant-garde project. But the style can never be falsified and rejected on the basis of the failure of a single, individual project. Lakatos’s concept of research programmes captures key features of Kuhn’s173 notorious concept of ‘paradigms’,174 but without succumbing to a Kuhnian relativism. Kuhn describes scientific changes as cataclysmic, metaphysical revolutions, whereby paradigms are incommensurably juxtaposed with no super-paradigmatic standards of adjudication, and science is seen as experiencing something like a language-switch that prevents rational decision. In comparing styles with research programmes (rather than paradigms), the theory of architectural autopoiesis follows Lakatos rather than Kuhn because the former’s analysis is geared towards pragmatic, methodological guidance rather than mere critical historiography. While each research programme (according to Lakatos) contains its own explicit or implicit evaluative standards, just like each paradigm (according to Kuhn), Lakatos – in contrast to Kuhn – is attempting to formulate convincing super-paradigmatic standards for the evaluation of rival research programmes. This poses the parallel task of formulating criteria for the comparative evaluation of rival architectural styles.

172 The Cartesian research programme of push-mechanics was replaced by Newton’s programme of gravitation as force acting at distance. 173 Thomas S Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 1962. 174 Paradigms are exemplary research efforts that afford fundamental conceptual frameworks and base-assumptions that become so influential that they become the basic reference for a whole scientific tradition. 282

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175 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 48. 176 Ibid, p 47.

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3.7.3 THE STRUCTURE OF STYLES/RESEARCH PROGRAMMES: AUTONOMY, HARD CORE, HEURISTICS Styles and scientific research programmes are complex evolving entities. A certain stability and self-identity is as much a necessary precondition of evolution as is the dynamic operation of the evolutionary mechanism of variation. Not everything can be varied at once. Styles and scientific research programmes are composed of stable and variable parts. They operate a distinctive problem-solving process that continuously adapts the variable parts to facilitate the survival of the stable parts in an uncertain, changing environment. Lakatos uses the terms ‘hard core’ and ‘protective belt’ to denote this structure of stable and variable parts: ‘All scientific research programmes may be characterized by their “hard core” . . . we must use our ingenuity to articulate or even invent “auxiliary hypotheses”, which form a protective belt around this core . . . It is this protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses which has to bear the brunt of tests and get adjusted and readjusted, or even completely replaced, to defend the thus hardened core.’175 Lakatos describes the essential structure of research programmes as a binary, hierarchical structure comprising a stable conceptual core and a fluid network of secondary hypotheses. The core of primary concepts and principles sponsors a network of auxiliary theories and hypotheses that mediate between the core and its empirical application. The core is considered to be irrefutable, and the research programme is essentially the programme for the design, construction and flexible elaboration of the mediating network of individual theories and hypotheses. In operational terms this core programme can be characterized by identifying its heuristic principles of hypothesis construction. Lakatos asserts: ‘The programme consists of methodological rules: some tell us what paths of research to avoid (negative heuristics), and others what paths to pursue (positive heuristics).’176 The negative heuristics formulates strictures that prevent the relapse into explanatory patterns that are not fully consistent with the core, and the positive heuristics offers guiding principles and techniques for the design of the mediating construct. The programme consists of the preconceived plan to apply the theoretical core to discover, explain and unify more and more phenomena and to find, solve or supersede more and more problems on the basis of the key intuitions, concepts and principles that constitute the hard core and identity of the programme. This plan outlines a long-term project that

cannot be expected to perform well during the early stages of its construction. ‘Newton’s theory of gravitation, Einstein’s relativity theory, quantum mechanics, Marxism, Freudianism, are all research programmes, each with a characteristic hard core stubbornly defended, each with its more flexible, protective belt and each with its elaborate problem solving machinery. Each of them, at any stage of its development, has unsolved problems and undigested anomalies. All theories, in this sense, are born refuted and die refuted.’177 The same can be said of styles: each style has its hard core of principles and a characteristic way of approaching and solving design problems/tasks. Equally, there can be neither verification, nor final refutation merely on the basis of its initial built results. Avant-garde architecture produces manifestos, ie, paradigmatic expositions of a new style’s potential. The final reckoning takes place in the arena of the mainstream adoption which only indirectly feeds back into the central, discursive arena of the discipline.178 We need to formulate more flexible criteria for the evaluation of styles, criteria that measure up results, but that understand styles dynamically as advancing research programmes. Heuristic fruitfulness, ie, the degree to which the style inspires new, interesting questions and research suggestions, is one such soft criterion. This, however, implies that the research programme or style is sufficiently specific in its guiding principles and preferred research/design techniques, ie, that it develops a sharp and distinct profile. Avant-garde styles have an inherent trend towards escalation and radicalization rather than amelioration – and therefore they remain inherently vulnerable to being ‘refuted’. To guard against this danger of refutation, ie, the danger of being prematurely attacked on the basis of questionable real world performance, the avant-garde research withdraws into its own discursive subsystem, and finds self-protective autonomy within academia. Here the radical, logical consequences of the style (design research programme) can be explored and drawn out in a progressive series of ‘theoretical’ designs, yet unfettered by the full force of real world pragmatics and mainstream criticism. Lakatos observes the same seclusion into theoretical autonomy within the sciences: ‘The positive heuristic sets out a programme which lists a chain of ever more complicated models simulating reality: the scientist’s attention is riveted on building his/her models following the instructions which are laid down in the positive part of his/her 177 Ibid, p 5.

178 This relation between (avant-garde) architecture and (mainstream) building is not unlike the

relationship between science and technology. 284

179 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 50. 180 Ibid, p 11.

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Newton must have been fully aware of the blatant falsity of his first variants. Nothing shows the existence of a positive heuristic . . . clearer than this fact; this is why one speaks of “models” in research programmes. A “model” is a set of initial conditions . . . which one knows is bound to be replaced during the further development of the programme, and one knows, more or less, how. This shows once more how irrelevant “refutations” of any specific variant are in a research programme: their existence is fully expected, the positive heuristic is there as a strategy both for predicting (producing) and

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programme. He/she ignores the actual counterexamples, the available “data”.’ 179 According to Lakatos, ‘It is primarily the positive heuristics of his programme, not the anomalies, which dictate the choice of his problems. Only when the driving force of the positive heuristics weakens, may more attention be given to anomalies. The methodology of research programmes can in this way explain the high degree of autonomy of theoretical science.’180 This emphasis on autonomy with respect to the theoretical sciences is reflected in the emphasis the theory of architectural autopoiesis places on the autonomy of avant-gardist research work in architecture. The fact of this autonomy (and its theoretical defence) is thus based on a sound methodological rationality (rather than being due to arrogance and self-indulgence as is often surmised by the opponents of Formalism). This relative autonomy, however, is only temporary. Eventually, more and more real world concerns must be addressed. At a more developed stage of the style one might expect a richer repertoire of hypotheses that can be put to the test and brought to bear on the real world problems. The eventual success of the style depends as much on its fertility – the richness of its proliferating repertoire – as on the adaptive soundness of its principal, hard-core intuitions. The fertility of a style is indicated by a kind of runaway design productivity, where the internal (formal) problems of the new design research programme are worked through autonomously, ie, initially without much empirical contact or concern, according to the style’s positive heuristics. This dialectic of initially pure, abstract formulations that strategically ignore detailed pragmatic concerns – in order to be able to address these concerns later, from a more advanced vantage point of a richly elaborated system – finds its analogy in Lakatos’s description of the logic of scientific progress within a given scientific research programme:

digesting them. Indeed, if the positive heuristic is clearly spelt out, the difficulties of the programme are mathematical rather than empirical.181

In the context of developing architectural research programmes/styles this prevalence of mathematical over empirical problems transposes into the prevalence of formal over functional problems, especially in the early productive surge of an emerging new style. This phenomenon of a Formalist emphasis can be observed in all emergent styles of the 20th century: Modernism, Postmodernism, Deconstructivism, Folding and Parametricism. Although formal issues are initially privileged, functional issues must be addressed sooner or later. In line with architecture’s lead-distinction of form vs function there are two sets of heuristic principles that define an architectural style: formal heuristics, ie, heuristic principles that programme the code of beauty and guide the formal elaboration of the design, and functional heuristics, ie, heuristic principles that programme the code of utility and guide the functional elaboration of the design. Each of those two sets of principles comprises both a positive and a negative heuristics, ie, the design is guided by dogmas (positive heuristics) and taboos (negative heuristics) with respect to both formal and functional aspects. For instance, the contemporary avant-garde style of Parametricism can be defined via the following set of heuristic principles: Negative formal heuristics (formal taboos): Positive formal heuristics

no rigid, hermetic forms, no simple repetition of elements, no collage of isolated, unrelated elements all forms must be parametrically malleable, all systems

(formal dogmas):

must be lawfully differentiated, all systems must be correlated with each other no typological reduction to generic or essentializing

Negative functional heuristics (functional taboos):

Positive functional heuristics (functional dogmas):

functional designations, no either/or definitions for function zones. Functions can no longer be represented by schedules of accommodation containing stereotyping designations with fixed purposes. functions must be understood as variegated fields of activity, as variable social scenarios – calibrated via multiple event parameters – that correlate actor to artefact interactions; functions might be understood as capacity or affordance that opens itself up for an evolutionary formation of new purposes.

181 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 51. 286

182 While theories are usually the product of individual researchers/authors, research programmes structure a collective effort.

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3.7.4 THE GREAT HISTORICAL STYLES: HARD CORE AND HEURISTICS The Renaissance style, as the first theory-led period of architectural design, represents the first architectural style that might be plausibly reinterpreted as design research programme, as a public, collective effort of recognized, individual author-architects.182 This assessment is consistent with the thesis that the Renaissance marks the onset of the independent autopoiesis of architecture, differentiated from the building crafts and emancipated from the immediate political and ideological control of its clients. The programme was, in a nutshell, to re-articulate all major building types of its time as harmonically proportioned, deeply symmetrical, geometrically consistent, integral edifices. The hard core of the Renaissance style has been explicitly formulated by Alberti: ‘All the power of invention, all the skill and experience in the art of buiding, are called upon in compartition (original: partitio);

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These principles offer an operational definition of the style. They flow from the hard core of the style – here the presumption that the primary task of design is to intensify communicative interaction via the intensification of spatial relations. In terms of programming the code of beauty, Parametricism validates the variable, the differentiated and the correlated as the beautiful and denigrates the rigid, the repetitive and the unrelated as the ugly. In terms of programming the code of utility, Parametricism validates variable social scenarios, actor-artefact networks and open affordances as the useful, and denigrates the strictly zoned, the stereotypical and preordained purposes as useless. These heuristic principles thus offer a crystal clear tool of criticism and self-criticism. They can be read as instructions for how to develop and improve any design within the Parametricist outlook. There is always room for further improvement along the lines prescribed: the architectural elements can always be made more malleable by making more parameters variable. The creative search for ways of lawfully differentiating elements within a system can always continue. The creative invention of laws of correlation (associative logics) between systems can go on ad infinitum. The intensification of relationships can always be pushed further. Whether the designed relationships turn out to be meaningful and effective is a question that concerns the protective belt of temporary hypotheses. Failures in this respect do not touch the hard core. They only spurn the next series of Parametricist experiments.

compartition alone divides up the whole building into the parts by which it is articulated, and integrates its every part by composing all the lines and angles into a single, harmonious work that respects utility, dignity, and delight.’183 Styles represent those necessary programmes that – at any instance – regulate the disposition over the two binary sets of values of the double code of architecture.184 The hard core of the Renaissance programme indeed offers a way of managing both sides of the double code of architecture, offering criteria and exemplars guiding the ascription of the code values formally resolved/unresolved and functional/dysfunctional. The principle of the building as ‘single, integral, and well-composed body’185 serves as principle and criterion for both beauty and utility, as becomes more explicit in the following extracts: ‘Just as with animals members relate to members, so too in buildings part ought to relate to part . . . Each member should therefore be in the correct zone and position; it should be no larger than utility requires, no smaller than dignity demands . . . The parts ought to be so composed that their overall harmony contributes to the honor and grace of the whole work.’186 This oscillation between concerns of utility and concerns of beauty (‘grace’) is consistent with the overall thesis that the form/function distinction is the guiding distinction of architecture and that the correlative handling of both beauty and utility is posed as the inescapable double code of architecture that defines, promotes and encloses the autopoiesis of architecture. It is significant to note that Alberti, in his most condensed formulations in Book One of his Ten Books, tries to fuse the double concern of utility and beauty into a single principle: the well-composed, harmonious, complete compartition producing an integral body, in analogy to the organic body. The negative heuristics of the Renaissance states the inadmissibility of agglomerative patterns of construction (typical of the medieval building), resulting in asymmetries and overall incoherence. And, indeed, if we consult Alberti once more, we have to take note of the fact that the negative heuristics, the formulation of strictures, goes hand in hand with

183 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988, p 23. Italics are added here for emphasis. 184 See Chapter 3.6.3 Styles as the Necessary Programmes of Architecture. 185 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988, p 24. 186 Ibid, p 23. 288

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187 Ibid, p 24. 188 Ibid. 189 Ibid.

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the most condensed formulation of the hard core of the programme: ‘The harmony is such that the building appears a single, integral, and well-composed body, rather than a collection of extraneous and unrelated parts.’187 The positive heuristics recommends the use of Classical typologies and the Classical orders, or new inventions derived from them. These typologies/orders are then to be fitted to site and purpose by scaling within the proportional system. It is significant to note that Alberti explicitly encourages variety in the composition; however, he couples this with an immediate stricture against discord. Once again, positive and negative heuristics cooperate: ‘The mistake is (to be) avoided of making the building appear like a monster with uneven shoulders and sides. Variety is always a most pleasing spice, where distant objects agree and conform with one another, but when it causes discord and difference between them, it is extremely disagreeable.’188 Thus the research programme becomes clearer: to cope with the building tasks by increasing variety, by using inventiveness in trying to bring this increased variety under the rule of harmonic order. This is an open-ended research programme, but clearly directed by the principles of a positive and negative heuristics. This combination of directedness and openness can be observed in Alberti’s promotion of inventiveness within the framework set by his heuristics: ‘Although other famous architects seem to recommend by their work either the Doric, or the Ionic, or the Corinthian, or the Tuscan division as being most convenient, there is no reason why we should follow their design in our work, as though legally obliged; but rather, inspired by their example, we should strive to produce our own inventions . . .’189 The suggested invention of new orders, that might even supersede the Classical Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders, or the invention of new harmonic proportions, are specific, workable guidelines for the construction of new auxiliary hypotheses (for example, a new system of proportions) that might allow for the adaptation of the hard core to ever richer empirical circumstances. It is an important criterion of a genuinely fertile style that the hard core offers sufficient flexibility on the one hand, and, on the other hand, has sufficient coherence to sponsor a new, continuous tradition of research. A style must provide enough internal coherence to allow the respective design experiments to cross-fertilize. Here we might quote Lakatos’s emphasis that ‘the auxiliary hypotheses

should be formed in accordance with the positive heuristics of a genuine research programme. This . . . requirement brings us to the problem of continuity in science.’ 190 This continuity exists only within a single research programme or style, and cannot always be maintained across research programmes or styles. If we interpret styles as design research programmes, our understanding of the respective styles under consideration cannot rest with a descriptive account of its external, morphological features. On the basis of such external surface reading, for instance, the move from the Baroque style to Neo-Classicism seems like a return to the style of the Renaissance. However, if we take styles as research programmes we need to look at the new way of handling form-function relations promoted by the new style and consult its respective theory, its way of conceiving its primary tasks, problems and postulated problem solving strategies, in short we need to penetrate to the programmatic agenda of the new style, its research programme. What was, for instance, the new problematic of Neo-Classicism, that set it against Baroque architecture and urbanism? We would have to consult the key theorists, in this case the theorists of Neo-Classicism, as elaborated in the next chapter. 3.7.5 PROBLEM DOMAIN AND SOLUTION SPACE AS SOURCES OF STYLISTIC INNOVATION New styles (research programmes) originate from the following two sources: a new functional problem domain, and/or an expanded solution space. They advance most rapidly if they originate from the conjunction of both. The history of the great architectural styles can provide evidence of this. Once more, the Renaissance provides the first case: here the ambitious, pre-capitalist principality produced a new problem domain and the rediscovery of antiquity delivered the new solution space. The trajectory of Renaissance architecture unfolds then according to its own programmatic agenda, as formulated by Alberti and sketched out above. The next style, the Baroque, was faced with a new level of scale and complexity in the institutions that had to be accommodated and articulated. The task was to give an integral organization and image to the large and complex administrative bureaucracies of the mercantilist state. Many parts had to be forged into a unified whole. At the same time, both projective geometry and calculus were offering curvature beyond the arc, 190 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 95. 290

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191 MA Laugier, Observations sur l’Architecture (The Hague), 1765, pp 312–13, cited in Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1976.

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ie, the progressively changing curvature of ellipse and parabola. As Venturi has observed, the Baroque composition builds up local asymmetries that require and receive resolution in overarching symmetries on the level of the global complex. Further, the game of concave and convex surfaces that complement each other adds to the strong sense of cohesiveness in Baroque compositions. Thus a stronger sense of unity can be constructed across a more extensive complex than was possible with the additive compositional strategies of the Renaissance. Neo-Classicism: Laugier’s theory articulates the challenge of maintaining a sense of architectural order in the face of the onslaught of early capitalist urban expansion. His solution is the reduction of complexity in the architectural component of the city, as complement of the increased complexity of the urban scene. As Manfredo Tafuri has pointed out, Laugier’s naturalizing architectural theory can be understood as aestheticization of the morphological results of the free-wheeling urban growth of early capitalism. Laugier’s concept of the Picturesque aestheticizes as vital ‘uproar and tumult’ the dynamism of urban growth that can no longer be contained within the formal system of Baroque planning: ‘There must be regularity and fantasy, relationships and oppositions, and casual, unexpected elements that vary the scene; great order in the details, confusion, uproar, and tumult in the whole.’191 While the Baroque style copes with a moderate increase of complexity by means of formal unification of complex buildings and whole urban complexes/cities, Neo-Classicism copes with a further jump in complexity by means of decoupling and opposing architectural order and urban (dis)order. Historicism: the 19th century opened up the totality of the historical repertoire for organized redeployment. Typical alignments emerged between function types and specific historical styles. Law courts, banks and central government buildings were biased towards the Neo-Grec style. Churches and town halls were biased towards the Neo-Gothic style. Private villas and town-houses were biased towards the Neo-Renaissance style. Thus a loose system emerged that had a larger capacity to articulate the institutional variety of society. At the end of the century, Historicism developed into Eclecticism offering more creative options via the free combination of motifs from the various historical styles. Modernism: Modernist architecture was faced with a veritable explosion of the problem domain as full blown industrialization was

followed by social revolutions which – for the first time – introduced the masses as new clients of architecture. This explosive expansion of design tasks was paralleled by new solution spaces: the ready availability of new construction methods (steel and reinforced concrete), as well as the emergence of the new design resources that were delivered by abstract art opening up a hitherto unimagined realm of creative formal invention. Parametricism: the emergence of Parametricism can also be related to the two fundamental sources of all stylistic innovation. Parametricism too is marked by a new functional problem domain, and by the availability of a fundamentally new formal solution space. Contemporary Parametricist architecture is building a new tradition as the vital heir of the avant-garde movements of Deconstructivism and Folding. These movements have been triggered by the confrontation with the demand for a massively increased diversity of audiences, complex programmatic agendas and diverse contextual relations. This new demand for diversity and complexity has been engendered by the momentous socio-economic restructuring that has been transforming the metropolitan centres over the last 25 years: post-Fordist network economy, globalization and the attendant, increased lifestyle diversification. This shift in the problem domain of architecture was initially addressed by Postmodernism via an eclectic reaching back into the accumulated repertoire of history. Within the accumulated historical material – rather than within historical theory – previously unobserved phenomena and design possibilities were uncovered.192 Deconstructivism distilled and extrapolated the new tropes, abstracting from the historical references. Folding further expanded and redirected the new, evolving repertoire. A genuine, new style was fermenting, a style that can now be defined in retrospect. However, the new style started to take off and flourish only due to a massively increased formal solution space engendered by experimenting with the brand new digital modelling techniques that were imported to architecture from the film/animation industry, from the domain of scientific simulation and from the aircraft industry. The availability of these new design technologies opened up a totally new solution space. They enhanced architecture’s capacity to construct complex, variegated order, thus enabling the formal integration of very complex spatial arrangements. The appropriation of the new technologies led to the elaboration of new design techniques and to the formulation of new, attendant concepts. The result is the design research programme of Parametricism. This programme can be summarized as the task of finding 192 See: Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Museum of Modern Art (New York), 1966. 292

193 Here only the formal heuristics of Parametricism are summarized (repeated). Concerning its functional heuristics see Chapter 3.7.3 The Structure of Styles/Research Programmes: Autonomy, Hard Core, Heuristics.

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3.7.6 PARADIGMATIC MAINLINE AND SPECULATIVE EXTRAPOLATION Lakatos distinguishes two trajectories of progression within scientific research programmes. The first trajectory moves along the paradigmatic mainline of the programme, from an initial simple model to successively more complex constructs that take in more and more factors. On this basis more and more initially ignored facts are covered by the model. Second, scientific research programmes often venture beyond their paradigmatic mainline to engage in a speculative, analogical extrapolation. The primary, paradigmatic domain of phenomena, as it were the heartland of the programme, is where the conceptual framework holds most firmly. From there the authors of the programme plan excursions, trying to expand outwards, invading neighbouring phenomenal domains. The classical example of the first type of trajectory is Newton’s research programme. Newton started with a planetary system with a fixed, point-like sun and one single point-like planet, then moving on to a system where sun and planet revolved around their common centre of gravity. Then he moved on to calculate a system with multiple planets, but initially without yet considering interplanetary forces. Then he went beyond the initial abstraction of working with dimensionless points, and started to treat both the sun and the planets as extended mass-spheres, then as spinning spheres, and so on. With each step of refinement certain additional empirical phenomena were captured. However, the Newtonian

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associative logics that allow for the formal inter-articulation of a rich array of functional scenarios. As noted above, the positive/negative heuristics can be further formulated in terms of the following instructions: instead of working with rigid forms, set up all architectural elements as parametrically malleable; instead of repeating elements, set up systems that continuously differentiate its elements; instead of leaving systems unrelated, always forge lawful correlations between the various systems that enter into a composition.193 This research programme is being pursued on all scales and across all functional domains. The fundamental advantage that its heuristic principles deliver is the intensification of relations, both internally, within the project, and externally, between the project and its context. This programme, and thus the advantages it can confer, is being validated by the style’s aesthetic values.

research programme was also pushing ahead on the second, expansive trajectory, venturing to conquer the domain of chemistry. Niels Bohr’s atomic model, starting with his celebrated first paper of 1913, opened up a whole new branch of Newton’s research programme based on the idea that atoms are analogous to planetary systems. Another programme that also witnessed the second type of trajectory was the programme of ¨ Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, de Broglie and Schrodinger, the research programme of conceiving the world in terms of continuous fields. Again, the field concept was explored in many different phenomenal arenas. The distinction between paradigmatic mainline and speculative extrapolation can also be applied with respect to the development of architectural styles. The paradigmatic mainline of the Gothic style was the great task of the cathedral. For the Renaissance and the Baroque it was both churches and palaces. For Neo-Classicism it was the great civic monuments of the emerging bourgeois nation states. Modernism started with factories and mass housing. From these core applications the styles moved on to approach further programmatic domains utilizing and extending the principles developed within their paradigmatic mainline research. Both the scientific research programme and the style as design research programme are marked by an inherently expansive tendency. Both try to extend their scope as far as possible, ultimately aiming for universality. 3.7.7 PROGRESSIVE VS DEGENERATE STYLES/RESEARCH PROGRAMMES How can one distinguish a scientific, progressive research programme from a pseudoscientific, degenerating one? When has a scientific research programme outlived its usefulness? The same question can be asked about styles as design research programmes: how can one distinguish fruitful from wrongheaded, or stagnating styles? How can we decide which of several competing styles is most progressive? There are no crucial experiments that would force a decision here. When has a style outlived its usefulness? Since unsolved problems and unexplained anomalies cannot be posed as strict refutations, the above question is no trivial matter. There are no hard criteria here. Lakatos offers the following soft criterion: ‘All research programmes I admire have one characteristic in common. They all predict novel facts, facts which had been either undreamt of, or have indeed been contradicted by previous or rival programmes.’194 194 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 5. 294

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195 Ibid, p 112.

196 Kevin Rhowbotham, Form to Programme, Black Dog Publishing (London), 1995.

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To achieve this – in science or in design – involves a certain willingness to take risks. The more original, outrageous and counterintuitive a speculation, the more chance might there be to engender either truly novel discoveries, or utterly dysfunctional monstrosities. Audacity has to be coupled with insightful analysis and intuition of salient tendencies and potentials of the present or near future. Lakatos gives a more precise indication of how to assess whether a research programme is progressive or degenerating: ‘A research programme is said to be progressing as long as its theoretical growth anticipates its empirical growth, that is as long as it keeps predicting novel facts with some success (“progressive problem shift”); it is stagnating if its theoretical growth lags behind its empirical growth, that is as long as it gives only post hoc explanations either of chance discoveries or of facts anticipated by, and discovered in, a rival programme (“degenerating problem shift”).’ 195 This might be transposed as follows: a style is progressive as long as the growth of its formal capacity anticipates the growth of its functional capacity. This suggests a ‘form to programme’196 path towards new form-function complexes. The attempt to solve empirically given design problems – rather than theoretically/stylistically posed problems – results in ad hoc pragmatism. Such a process rarely achieves elegant solutions. Rather, it usually breaks up the formal system of any envisioned style, resulting in haphazard conglomerates. Instead of trying to solve a random bag of given problems – with the risk of collapsing into myopic pragmatism – a progressive style defines its own inherent problematic and develops an expansive solution space that addresses certain selected, characteristic problems, problems that fit into the style’s core problematic. The crux here is to distinguish between problems and problematics. A problematic is not a given problem, it is an abstraction, a theoretically framed problem type. A problematic is thus theory dependent, based upon a theory that selectively structures a certain societal problem domain. For instance, the problematic of navigable field space addresses the general problem domain of large, potentially labyrinthine interiors like airports, malls, trade exhibitions etc, in view of their problematic navigability. The contemporary style – Parametricism – takes off with the concept that every form in architecture is susceptible to the formulation in terms of continuously varying parameters. This coincides with the move from

parts to particles,197 and with the move from conceiving space as empty container to space conceived as quasi-viscous medium in which biases, gradients and flows can be inscribed. Magnetic force fields and fluid dynamic modelling are investigated as productive analogies. The potential of swarm-formation is discovered and explored. Morphing is used to establish continuous vectors of morphological transformation. Each urban or architectural system is continuously differentiated and functions are scripted that correlate the different differentiations. In this way, deep resonances are established within the overall composition, and the sense of overall organic intregration is intensified. All this is coherent with the theoretical hard core and the design heuristics of a distinct style: Parametricism. The problem of organizing passenger flows in a large airport without engendering confusion is transposed into the problematic of field space navigability as it might be posed and solved within the specific theoretical framework of Parametricism. Since (crucial aspects of) this problem, as a typical problem of contemporary world society, has been anticipated by a general problematic of Parametricism, Parametricism has demonstrated its progressiveness. The progressiveness of a style implies a theoretical preparedness with respect to novel societal problems that might be thrown at architecture. The more of the emerging problems that architecture finds itself confronted with that are somehow anticipated and captured by the general problematic of a style, the more progressive is that style. To the extent to which such problems are alien to a style’s problematic, such problems expose the style’s degeneration. The style has to make ad hoc, adaptive manoeuvres that compromise its internal coherence and integrity. The style is thus degenerating. For instance, this is likely to happen to Minimalism when it is required to design an urban masterplan within a complex, multi-directional urban context. This problem will force Minimalism to admit diagonals into its formal system. Even if the project in question succeeds in absorbing the different directions of the context via an ordered set of diagonals, this ad hoc success – without systematic preparation in advance – represents a compromising, degenerating shift within the style of Minimalism. To the extent to which the extension of complex urban contexts is a typical problem posed by contemporary society, Minimalism must be considered a degenerating design research programme, a stagnant style. Some of the results provided by a particular, progressive style might be picked up and utilized by another, competing style. This late

197 Stan Allen, ‘From Object to Field’, in AD Profile 127 (Architecture after Geometry), Architectural Design Vol 67, No 5/6 May/June 1997 / pp 24–31. 296

198 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 116.

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3.7.8 METHODOLOGICAL TOLERANCE The avant-gardist exploration of new styles is a risky endeavour, prone to be reviled and ridiculed. While the new style that is being explored recommends itself for its potential advantage in key aspects of the evolving task domain posed to architecture by the development of society, many other given tasks that are trivial within the dominant, older style might present a challenge when being addressed within the constraints of the new style. For instance, the insertion of all the necessary apertures (windows and doors) within the research programme of Folding/Parametricism – privileging seamlessness and the integration of skin and skeleton within a single structural surface – represents a formidable challenge to the ingenuity of the avant-garde designer. Such problems might serve as engines of invention. However, initially – in the first round of exploration – such problems are perhaps best ignored and

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incorporation of results from another style is legitimate, and even necessary, but it imposes a ‘degenerating problem shift’ upon the style in question. For instance, the incorporation of gradient modulation (as, for example, afforded by scripted generative components) into the Late Modernist High-Tech style of Foster + Partners does indeed constitute a definite improvement in the repertoire and problem solving capacity of this style. However, it should be recognized that this innovation originated with the avant-garde style of Parametricism, and does not flow logically from the hard core principles of Late Modernism which rather privilege modular repetition wherever possible and accept variation only where it cannot be avoided. Parametricism by contrast presumes continuous variation as given and treats repetition as the limit case of zero variation. The correct attribution of original contributions is important for the assessment of a style’s vitality. Priority disputes are therefore not just matters of personal vanity, recognition and reward. They are crucial criteria in the contest of styles. Priority disputes become substantial issues in the domain of architecture and design in general – just as in science. Lakatos notes: ‘It becomes all-important for rational appraisal which programme was first in anticipating a novel fact and which fitted in the by now old fact only later . . . The Cartesians managed to explain everything that the Newtonians predicted – but only post hoc.’198 However, originality is not the only criterion of the vitality of a research programme. This criterion of fertility with respect to original results cannot be used too sharply against incipient research programmes/styles.

pushed aside until later, rather than allowing the style to be discredited by unconvincing ad hoc solutions. Both the absence of solutions and incoherent ad hoc solutions require tolerance to allow an otherwise promising research to continue. This protective quarantine is necessary; but it can only be provided temporarily. Sooner or later, apertures have to be addressed and solved.199 And the solution should remain consistent with the overall ambitions and principles of the new style. Consistency is the penultimate value that cannot be dispensed with when it comes to the appraisal of both styles and scientific research programmes. Both, styles and the paradigms underlying scientific research programmes, disintegrate when they lose their internal consistency, their conciseness, compactness, economy and elegance. The ˆ maintenance of consistency is the very essence and raison d’etre of both styles and research programmes. The task of styles and research programmes is to give direction to the search for innovations and their theoretical formulations give rhyme and reason and the most succinct summary of the related achievements encompassed under their direction. With respect to science, Lakatos is calling for methodological tolerance to allow budding research programmes to grow up and mature before being asked to compete with older, long-standing research programmes that have had sufficient time to work through many problems. ‘A new research programme which has just entered the competition may start by explaining “old facts” in a novel way but may take a very long time before it is seen to produce “genuinely novel” facts.’200 According to Lakatos we should ‘regard a newly interpreted fact, as a new fact, ignoring the insolent priority claims of amateur fact collectors’.201 That means for architecture that a new style deserves considerable tolerance: a window is an original achievement if achieved by new means within a new tectonic context. We need to measure here with double standards. New styles, just as new scientific research programmes, are exempt from the criteria of degeneracy expounded in the previous chapter. ‘As long as a budding research programme can be rationally reconstructed as a progressive problem shift, it should be sheltered for a while from a powerful established rival.’202 One might draw the analogy here to the emergence of the theory of architectural Modernism at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The 199 The seamless integration of apertures within continuously structured surfaces had indeed become a key problematic of Folding/Parametricism. 200 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 70. 201 Ibid, p 71. 202 Ibid. 298

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203 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1978, p 71.

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theory of Modern Functionalism was indeed fully formulated before the First World War – by architects/theorists like Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Hermann Muthesius and the young Walter Gropius, among others – and nothing new at all was added in the paradigmatic formulations of Le Corbusier in the 1920s. However, the 1920s produced radically new, paradigmatic designs that succeeded as compelling fulfilment of the Modernist theory and wiped away the relatively clumsy ‘pre-Modern’ designs of Wagner, Muthesius, Loos and their contemporaries, which in their time had been unable to seriously challenge Neo-Classicism by means of convincing design solutions. The so-called ‘pre-Modern’ architectural theorists of Modernism had indeed started with the theoretical reinterpretation and re-evaluation of ‘old’, known but neglected facts: the pervasive phenomenon of grand industrial structures, factories, railway sheds, grain silos, bridges, telegraph masts etc that were nothing but irritating ‘anomalies’ according to the canon of Neo-Classicism. For the emerging (pre-)Modernists these structures hailed a new, heroic Modern style. Their proclamations of transposing the principles of rigorous, functional design to conquer the domain of Classical architecture with new compelling architectural solutions to all traditional architectural problems manifested a clear architectural research programme. But this programmatic manifesto was not yet backed up by novel, compelling designs, perhaps because the new solution space was not yet in sight. The only stylistic results that were achieved contemporaneous to the pre-Modern theory of Modernism belonged to the transitional style of Art Nouveau. The theoretical research programme finally proved itself in the 1920s, and was conquering more and more domains of the built environment with convincing new solutions on the basis of the initial principles formulated by Muthesius and his contemporaries. The programme started with individual houses in the early ’20s, progressed to whole residential settlements in the mid-’20s, then succeeding with large institutional buildings at the end of the ’20s and throughout the 1930s, to finally take on the key representative and cultural buildings in the 1950s and 1960s. The famous design competition for the Geneva League of Nations was still won by the Historicists. This goes to show that ‘we must not discard a budding research programme, simply because it has so far failed to overtake a powerful rival’.203 Lakatos speaks of the ‘importance of methodological

tolerance’ and warns that ‘one must not demand progress at each single step’.204 The Postmodern style that started to challenge hegemonic Modernism during the 1970s won the game during the 1980s, but without a lasting ability to progress the discipline. Its main proponents degenerated rather quickly into an irrelevant Neo-Classicism, while its progressive moments lived on in Deconstructivism, which in turn was relatively quickly superseded by Folding in the early 1990s. This new style of Folding, as a budding research programme, could only slowly advance in the protected zone of academia and small scale experimental installations. From the beginning of the 21st century the style gathered pace, not only proving itself as a very fertile new research programme that could make original and compelling contributions to the advancement of architecture, but also beginning to launch significant interventions within the built environment. At the mature stage this style has now reached, it is time to raise the stakes and claim leadership under a unifying banner: the banner of Parametricism as a new global style for architecture, urbanism and design in general.205 Parametricism is ready to step out of the protective quarantine provided by methodological tolerance.

3.8 The Rationality of Aesthetic Values THESIS 17 Aesthetic values encapsulate condensed, collective experiences within useful dogmas. Their inherent inertia implies that they progress via revolution rather than evolution. Aesthetic responses – including the aesthetic responses to cities and buildings – are a form of instant, intuitive evaluation. As such they have specific advantages and disadvantages in comparison with evaluations based on careful examination and analysis. Aesthetic responses are less reliable but much faster than knowledge based responses. They are totalizing rather than differentiating, ie, they operate via global impressions rather than via the isolation of factors. Aesthetic judgements are rational inasmuch as they provide an intuitive appreciation of performativity, short-circuiting extended experience or analysis. Aesthetic judgement thus represents an economical substitute for judgement based on investigation. 204 Ibid, p 113.

205 Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design, in

Neil Leach (Ed), AD Digital Cities, Vol 79, No 4, July/August 2009. 300

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206 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction – A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Routledge (London), 1984. French original: La Distinction – Critique sociale du jugement, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1979, p 466. 207 Ibid.

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Aesthetic valuation has a deeply rooted biological function. Organisms are attracted to what sustains life and repulsed by what threatens life. The biological function of aesthetic appeal is thus to orient the organism towards what performs well for it. This basic function should still underlie the most artificial and culturally mediated forms of aesthetic evaluation. The correlation between the beautiful and the well performing is still obvious in the widespread aesthetic appreciation of young, healthy women or male athletic bodies. The biological basis of aesthetic values is thus a factor to be reckoned with. However, the fact that aesthetic values are socially overdetermined and thus culturally and historically relative is equally indisputable. Historically, ideals of beauty have been shifting dramatically, although always within certain limits, and today, within contemporary world society, ideals of beauty are differentiated according to subcultures. In many instances aesthetic valuation is tied to social stratification, motivated by the desire to maintain distinctions, as well as by the ambition of upward social mobility. There is no contradiction between these two facts, the fact of the biological function of aesthetic values and the fact of their cultural relativity. The capacity to respond aesthetically has been subjected to the adaptive rationality of the ongoing cultural evolution. The rationality of aesthetic values – the relationship of beauty to performativity – is in principle maintained, albeit continuously updated with regard to the evolving life processes of society. Aesthetic evaluations evolve historically but, at any stage, function quasi-instinctively. Aesthetic evaluations condense into what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to as ‘taste’. Bourdieu might be quoted to confirm some of the assertions that have been made so far: ‘Taste is an acquired disposition to “differentiate” and “appreciate”, as Kant says – in other words, to establish and mark differences by a process of distinction which is not (or not necessarily) a distinct knowledge, in Leibniz’s sense, since it ensures recognition (in the ordinary sense) of the object without implying knowledge of the distinctive features which define it.’206 According to Bourdieu, taste is an aspect of habitus; he elaborates: ‘The schemes of the habitus, the primary forms of classification, owe their specific efficacy to the fact that they function below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will.’207 What we can take from this is the idea that

aesthetic values, internalized as ‘tastes’, perform acts of discrimination or classification, without requiring explicit knowledge. The relationship between aesthetic values and knowledge is, however, more complex than a simple mutual absence or opposition. In this respect one has to be especially cautious to align the historical concept of taste with a lack of consciousness. Its historical role was precisely to make aesthetic evaluations conscious and thus more agile, and open to experimentation. 3.8.1 THE HISTORICAL TRANSFORMATION OF AESTHETIC VALUES The aesthetic values that operate within the advanced communication system of architecture are ultimately rooted in the visceral responses that are a basic characteristic of all cognate creatures. Aesthetic appreciation is a socially mediated sublimation of an organically rooted (pre-)cognitive mechanism: conditioning. Conditioning as a basic psychological mechanism is always involved when it comes to individual aesthetic responses, probably even in the case of aesthetic appreciation on a highly cultured level. Aesthetic responses are conditioned responses. In early societies such responses were socially selected and stabilized via rigid dogmas and taboos. We might speak of a deeply rooted mechanism of cultural or social conditioning. All archaic societies and cultures institutionalized ‘aesthetic’ values in the form of rigid distinctions between good and bad that were taken for granted and did not tolerate questioning. At that stage moral, aesthetic and cognitive aspects fused in the simple distinction of good or bad. We might call a value that is institutionalized in this way a fetishistic value, or fetish. Fetishistic values might be positive or negative, dogma or taboo, implying either appreciation or rejection. The stricture against pork in Judaism and Islam might serve as a convenient example here, because it also clearly displays the typical case of a functional-rational root that has since lost significance. In archaic societies, aesthetic and moral values were nearly indistinguishable, both being institutionalized as fetishes. With the further development and differentiation of society, moral, aesthetic and cognitive evaluations differentiated. This stage was reached in Greek philosophy, although the beautiful, the good and the true were still felt to be correlated. The rational kernel within the alignment of the beautiful with the truly beneficial lies in the unconscious, cognitive root of the aesthetic response. To the extent to which the genealogy of a particular aesthetic value implies the sedimentation of an accumulated (individual or collective) experience that is still valid today, the aesthetic value does indeed deliver valid informational content. However, the informational content delivered this way is implicit. It is not delivered as information but as dogmatic evaluation. The acquisition of aesthetic preferences is 302

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thus a particular kind of learning mechanism. This mechanism operates on both the individual and the social level. Aesthetic valuation is an archaic mechanism that evolved with the evolution of society. It continues to function within modern, functionally differentiated society. The code of beauty has been utilized as pivotal node for the differentiation of the societal function systems of art on the one hand, and for the differentiation of the societal function systems of architecture/design on the other hand. As binary code within the specialized, high-performance function systems of art and architecture, the discourse of beauty evolved to its modern form. Since the differentiation of art and architecture into separate function systems, the respective modes of aesthetic evaluation diverged. Within the autopoiesis of architecture, aesthetic evaluation is regulated via styles as the specific programmes that serve to concretize the application of the code values beautiful (formally resolved) versus ugly (formally unresolved). Aesthetic evaluation also continues to operate within society at large, ie, within non-specialized, everyday life communication. Both within society at large, as well as in architecture/design, the dogmatism of aesthetic values is the virtue as well as the limit of aesthetically condensed intelligence. Its virtue lies in the immediacy and sureness of the response. Its limitation lies in the risk that the implicit information is no longer valid and that the evaluation is misguided. For instance: the Vitruvian or Palladian regime of proportions represents a condensation of accumulated building experience, allowing for the ‘blind’ design of sound stone-structures. The Classical orders regulate the height-to-width ratios of columns, spans of beams in relation to their depth, minimum roof-angles for drainage etc. The Palladian rules concerning room proportions guarantee certain standards of day-lighting and air-volume. Any such rule-system embodies an economy of performance as well as an economy of design effort. Those regimes are a form of dogmatized wisdom. Over and above these technological principles the aesthetic rules concerning, for example, (Vitruvian) city-layout or the (Palladian) rules for the suburban villa enshrine and make easily reproducible specific social organizations. The condensation into aesthetic rules means that the respective social patterns become reproducible via the mechanical application of simple rules, and in turn are easily read off by the trained eye identifying the ‘right’ environment aesthetically. With the development of society and the availability of new building technologies (reinforced concrete, steel etc), the Classical aesthetic regime lost its rationality and became a hindrance to the further development of the built environment. What once was an accumulated

wisdom became an irrational prejudice that had to be battled on the ideological plane of aesthetic values. This necessary battle was waged and won by the heroes of Modernism. The technological and social revolutions called forth an aesthetic revolution, establishing and aestheticizing non-Classical proportions, new compositional (organizational) patterns and new tectonic features. An earlier but equally significant aesthetic revolution concerning the image of the good city was analyzed by Tafuri: the shift from strictly formalized and centrally controlled Baroque city-planning to the call for a Picturesque cityscape celebrating ‘chaos, uproar, and tumult’ (Laugier) as the fitting impression of a vital city. The Picturesque was dismantling the former aesthetic regime of the absolutist state that had become a hindrance to the development of early capitalist accumulation and privately driven urban growth. The new sensibility was able to identify with the emergent vital production- and life-processes rather than being repulsed by the new, vital phenomena. The ‘Radical Functionalism’ of the 1920s (for example, the ABC group) went beyond a mere post-rationalization and aesthetic codification of spontaneously emerging forms and posited the total suspension of any aesthetic regime and argument, projecting a scientific elaboration of architecture. This anti-aesthetic position was productive in this period of fundamental technological, socio-economic and political transformation. The subsequent codification of the results of a decade of work ­ canonized and promoted as International Style - should not be interpreted as a reactionary move, but has to be understood within the productive dialectic of material performance and aesthetic codification. After the new social and technological conditions have been allowed to formally crystallize, the codified aesthetic values of a style lubricate their dissemination. In the 25-year post-war boom this codification and the resulting economy of easy aesthetic appropriation was indeed a productive factor in the fast, worldwide proliferation of the achievements of Modernism. But any extended reliance on aesthetic judgement creates the idealist illusion that the well-designed can be identified and ascertained aesthetically beyond the limits of a specific historical period. This ‘illusion’ is a direct consequence of the function of aesthetic codification: to economize on functional analysis and performance testing. The performative vitality of any specific set of aesthetic values is historically limited. Aesthetic values should aestheticize those spatial patterns and architectural morphologies that perform well with respect to the vital life processes of contemporary society. Anachronistic sensibilities get in the way of progress. Outdated, reactionary aesthetic sensibilities need to be 304

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3.8.2 AESTHETIC VALUES AND THE CODE OF BEAUTY The idiom (vocabulary, syntax) that characterizes any given style is usually augmented with explicit formal rules that orient the application of the code of beauty. These rules are formulated as aesthetic values. Examples include the aesthetic values of International Style Modernism: seriality, asymmetry, plainness and lightness. For today’s avant-garde we might cite the presumed beauty of curvilinear fluidity and gradient variation. One might analyze each of these two sets of values in relation to their respective societal environments. Despite the contrast between these two sets of values, such an analysis would reveal the rationality of both sets of values. Each set makes performative sense within its respective societal environment. Such an analysis would allow us to appreciate both sets of values and the historical necessity of shifting from the first set to the second set: as architectural adaptation to the underlying shift from the Fordist era of mass production to the post-Fordist era of flexible specialization and mass customization. The respective aesthetic biases make sense within their respective historical periods. The dogmatic character of these biases does not compromise their validity – as long as the underlying environment they are adapted to does not change. The degree of dogmatic rigidity of aesthetic regimes has changed in the course of history. In pre-architectural times, ie, before the Renaissance, aesthetic traditions demanded strict adherence and tolerated no deviation. Since the Renaissance, aesthetic values are being consciously formulated. In principle, this opens them up for criticism. However, during the Renaissance, and during the following 300 years, the theoretical back up for the promoted aesthetic values was rather loaded and overbearing, posed in terms of the revered ancient tradition and the cosmic order etc. Also, until the refoundation of architecture as Modern architecture, the application of aesthetic values was rather formulaic. Aesthetic values were linked to a sense of propriety. The contemporary understanding of aesthetic rules is far less overbearing and their handling is much more nimble. This process of overcoming the strictness of aesthetic rules started in art and literature much earlier. The late 18th-century emergence of the notion of taste indicates this loosening of aesthetic strictures. This notion unleashed individual creativity and inventiveness. Since then it is a significant characteristic of the logic of beauty and aesthetic judgement that the guiding aesthetic rules – the formal dogmas (positive heuristics) and taboos (negative heuristics) of the hegemonic

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exorcised. Thus aesthetic revolutions are a necessary complement to societal evolution.

style in question – do not serve as strict criteria that could be applied mechanically. Any such strictly rule-based aesthetics has been superseded. Today aesthetic values serve rather as general guidelines that can be handled with a considerable degree of flexibility and sensitivity to circumstance. This avoidance, even hostility towards the mechanical application of strict rules, might be understood in connection with the need to give space to innovation within a dynamic societal environment. Instead of straightforward recipes there is a system of rather loose rules which give direction but do not allow for mechanical determination. Further guidance is afforded by a canon of paradigmatic achievements. Each style offers its own iconic landmark achievements as paradigmatic reference points, for example, Mies’s Barcelona Pavilion and Corb’s Villa Savoye for the International Style, and for today’s avant-garde style perhaps, among others, some of the works of Zaha Hadid Architects, such as MAXXI in Rome, the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, the Innsbruck train stations, or the Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion. However, true architectural value (beauty) cannot be achieved by literally copying these exemplary achievements. It is rather a matter of innovating further in the spirit of these masterpieces. 3.8.3 THE MYSTERY OF BEAUTY The concept of beauty is shrouded in mystery. Architectural theory should not only lift the veil of mystery but explain why this sense of mystery exists. The theory of architectural autopoiesis explains further why the mystery of beauty must persist. Beauty must be shrouded in mystery in order to fulfil its function in the design process, a function that truth cannot fulfil: to bring the design decision process to conclusion, move by move, decision by decision. The function of beauty has been explicated as (one half of) the code of architecture, operating as the pivot around which the self-referential closure of the architectural discourse is organized. Attention to beauty and aesthetic values demarcates architecture from science and engineering. Aesthetic values are thus not only significant in attracting and orienting the users of designed spaces, first of all they orient and direct the design process. Any formal rule which is supposed to produce or identify beauty might be called an aesthetic value. Aesthetic values are usually taken for granted as unquestioned criteria for judgement and decision. The role of beauty and of aesthetic values in the design process is to allow for the initiation and the termination of the design process. The code of beauty thus complements functional reasoning in order to begin and complete 306

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208 This is not to say that there is no such thing as a formal or aesthetic argument. This is only to say that at the beginning of such arguments and at the end of formal decisions lies a given aesthetic bias that is habitually embedded in the employed style and that asserts itself with the immediacy of a direct sensation. 209 The author of The Autopoiesis of Architecture had to go through this painful process, trying to overcome his Modernist/Minimalist predilections. He also knows the danger of relapses.

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the design decision process. The finalization of design decisions on the basis of aesthetic preferences seems to be an act of fiat, not susceptible to further argument.208 There is, however, a hidden rationality at work here. The underlying rationality of aesthetic evaluations is complex and indirect. Its informational content is hidden in unquestioned sensibilities. That is why beauty takes on an air of mystery. This mysteriousness of beauty is itself a necessary part of its functioning, precisely because beauty is required to constrain and complete the (otherwise open ended) process of design determination. That is why beauty’s underlying rationality needs to remain latent. Even if the gist of this rationality is made manifest here within a theoretical treatise – on a rather general level – this insight cannot really be utilized within the concrete design process without paralyzing it. The attempt to analyze and question specific aesthetic values would block their effective application within the given design situation. These theoretical reflections inspire a general appreciation of the institution of aesthetic values. The theory of architectural autopoiesis thus encourages the reliance on aesthetic values in any concrete design effort while at the same time encouraging a general reflection upon their underlying rationality, as well as a general alertness with respect to the possibility of aesthetic maladaptation, implying a principled readiness to throw off long loved aesthetic preferences when evolving societal conditions call for change. The situation of competing styles demands a choice from every designer. To make an informed choice about one’s general stylistic orientation rationalizing analysis is necessary. Only after reassurance that one’s aesthetic predilections are historically fit for purpose should the designer follow his/her aesthetic intuitions. Otherwise a re-conditioning of the designer’s aesthetic sensibility is necessary.209 Styles provide a set of more or less compatible aesthetic values. In a competitive situation, with several simultaneous styles competing for hegemony, the stylistic choice ends up being regarded as irrational (emotional) commitment. This notion suppresses the fact that stylistic choices can – in principle – be argued for in terms of their underlying rationality. Arguments to this effect, however, would need to transcend individual functional advantages of individual architectural features and

reflect the overall ‘economy’ of form-function relations within a project, explicated in terms of organization as well as in terms of articulation. However, the reflection upon the functional affordances of the overall formal composition for the overall project is still insufficient. The reflection has to transcend the considerations of the individual project, and assess the general societal affordances of the style in question. This reflection is too complex and far-reaching to be conducted within the context of an ongoing design work. Thus the stylistic/aesthetic choices cannot be argued for while the style is employed in action. The operative notion of beauty must remain the unquestioned, mysterious force that is always presupposed during any concrete design process. 3.8.4 FORMAL A PRIORI, IDIOM AND AESTHETIC VALUES Above, in the chapter on the inescapability of the formal a priori,210 the relationship between styles and the formal a prioris that underlie any design work has been explicated: the formal a priori encompasses all the unquestioned premises and presumptions about the form the design is supposed to take. It is opening and delimiting a certain formal universe of possibilities within which the creative search for the form takes place. There are some basic formal a prioris that are so deeply ingrained within the discipline of architecture that they are shared across many styles, ie, the use of the formal repertoire provided by Euclidian geometry. Each style further particularizes the formal a priori, ie, each style sets further constraints upon the formal universe of possibilities. We have termed this specific segment of the formal a priori that is particular to a specific style the idiom of this style.211 The general formal a priori and the idiom are taken for granted and underlie the design work as implicit presumptions. However, styles do not operate on auto-pilot. The design process moves through conscious evaluation and self-critique, both with regards to functional and formal issues. Aesthetic values are indispensable here. These aesthetic values might underlie ongoing decisions without being made explicit each time. However, in contrast to the formal a priori and the idiom, these aesthetic values can be made explicit concerns at any time during interim design evaluations. The design might be criticized within the design team, as being ‘insufficiently fluid’, or as ‘formally incoherent’, respectively alluding to the aesthetic values of fluidity and coherence. Aesthetic values are thus the explicitly evaluative steering mechanism of the formal dimension of styles, demanding the formal (formally satisfying) resolution 210 Chapter 3.6.6 The Inescapability of the Formal A Priori.

211 The concept of style encompasses more than just the idiom. It encompasses the typical

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212 It can, for instance, be argued that a design strategy without corners has a superior capacity to organize and articulate a spatially complex, multi-directional network than a design full of corners that would break the continuity and legibility of the desired spatial relations. An example is Zaha Hadid Architects’ design for the Central Building of the BMW plant in Leipzig.

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of a design problem. The style’s idiom embodies the presupposed formal tendency within which the formal design solution is sought. The style’s consciously expounded aesthetic values are brought to bear where the routine application of the idiom runs into obstacles and an explicit, considered decision is required. Aesthetic values in architecture thus represent the unquestioned, presupposed ideal of beauty inasmuch as it is utilized to explicitly criticize and direct the design process. They are unquestioned values that are used to question and settle design decisions. In the initial development of a style, ie, in its early avant-garde phase, the aesthetic values are formulated and fought over hand in hand with the emerging idiom of the style in question. The aesthetic values are brought into the controversial debate all the time during this phase, and these values are fought over, often attacked or defended by appeals to functional issues. At this stage in the formation of a new style the otherwise hidden rationality of aesthetic values surfaces. For instance, the fluidity and seamlessness of contemporary architecture can be argued for in terms of the visual articulation of complex compositions where a multitude of parts needs to be integrated without allowing the composition to descend into illegible visual chaos.212 However, as the respective style is disseminated from the avant-garde to the mainstream this critical, argumentative aspect of aesthetic evaluation recedes. Evaluation becomes more dogmatic, it might even become internalized within the design practice without much explicit reference, ie, aesthetic values receded into the style’s unspoken idiom. The formal a priori, the idiom of any style, prepares the formal domain within which specific methods of problem solving can be defined, both with respect to organizational as well as articulatory tasks. The formal a priori in general, and the idiom in particular, offers a handy, pre-constraint solution space. Obviously, this solution space needs to be updated in line with the development of the problems architecture is confronting. Whether a particular level of formal constraint is well calibrated – neither too tight, nor too loose – can only be assessed comparatively. There is no absolute measure. An anachronistic idiom might over-constrain or even contradict current functional requirements. That’s the moment when Radical Functionalism becomes a productive way of suspending the given idiom in favour of a search for new forms

that might fulfil the new functions, no matter what they look like. At this juncture the avant-garde experiment starts to browse across an expanded, perhaps open-ended field of formal possibilities. But where do these formal possibilities emerge from? Radical Functionalism cannot answer this question. At any time, a formal a priori is required as a starting point for specific formal compositions and as a condition for functional evaluation. If a new formal system is crystallizing (a rather rare event!) and is found to deliver on the side of function (compounded impropability!), then a new style might be emerging. A stylistic idiom, with its attendant formal a prioris, saves thinking and decision time, indeed makes decision at all possible, because no decidable performance criteria can be defined in the abstract. There is another reason why the existence of a sufficiently tight idiom needs to be presupposed: the result of working within an idiom is marked by a certain formal coherence in the artefact. This is a necessary condition for the task of articulation. Switching architectural language from one part of the building to the next makes the reading of the building rather difficult. Every semantic system has to operate with an economy of difference and repetition. Equivalent functional components should look the same. A unified style offers a unified language of morphological articulation as basis for a coherent semiosis. 3.8.5 THE NECESSITY OF AESTHETIC REVOLUTIONS The design decision process is structured as follows: the formal a priori of the ‘chosen’ style acts as premise that constrains the solution space within which concrete solutions are searched for and selected. The search unfolds as random browsing process. The selection oscillates between the application of functional criteria according to the performance values that coin the respective style’s programme of utility and the application of formal criteria according to the aesthetic values that coin the respective style’s programme of beauty. The thesis of the rationality of aesthetic values demands that the general formal characteristics of a style and its attendant aesthetic values have to be coherent with the performative demands of the societal environment of architecture. The performative demands of the societal environment should be condensed within the privileged performance values of the chosen style. On the basis of this general requirement it is possible to explain and criticize particular styles. Thus it is possible to rationalize aesthetic choices, but only on the overall level of style, never on the level of the individual design decisions. Were one to attempt to open up the big 310

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213 The other definitory component of a style is its programme of utility, and its specific way of relating form and function. Further, there are the following features that usually characterize styles without being definitory or unique with respect to the style in question: its preferred typological domain, its prevalent design process and its preferred design medium. Concerning design media see part 4 The Medium of Architecture.

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question of style and aesthetic values with respect to every new project, or even with respect to each part/phase of a project, one would spoil the ˆ raison d’etre of employing a style and its attendant aesthetic values: its power to pre-structure and reduce the complexity of the decision situation to a manageable format. Each step of the design decision process involves concrete, individual aesthetic evaluations, on the basis of aesthetic values/criteria provided by the respective style, taken for granted as the stable basis for all the individual decisions that have to be made in order to proceed with the design. This stable value basis facilitates decisions and imparts cohesion to the design. The reduction of complexity achieved is not just an arbitrary reduction for the sake of reduction. It is a reduction on the basis of an accumulated ‘experience’, sedimented and formalized, and brought to bear on all projects as a formal a priori and in the form of aesthetic ‘dogmas’ right from the start. Again, the style, at any time, needs to be ‘contemporary’, in the substantial sense of affording well-adapted values and resources to the designing architects. Architects pick up their preferred style during their education and training. It takes a rather long time to get fully socialized into handling the idiom and into applying the aesthetic values of a style with instinctive confidence. Thus styles are rarely subject to a conscious choice, although such a choice is possible. However, even in the case of a conscious choice, a certain period of training (self-training) is necessary for the architect to acquire and internalize the required aesthetic sensibility. Aesthetic sensibilities and the values they express and promote are thus marked by an inherent inertia. An even more tenacious inertia qualifies the aesthetic sensibilities of the users of architecture. Therefore, as societal conditions change, aesthetic values often persist, frequently despite the fact that the persistent aesthetic values result in dysfunctional design decisions. The inherent inertia in aesthetic judgements implies that the prevailing style is maintained until contradictions build up to reach a breaking point. Aesthetic development thus proceeds via revolution rather than via gradual reform. Since aesthetic values are only one component of styles,213 aesthetic values are able to be revolutionized even within an overarching style. This happened for instance in the aesthetic enrichment of Modernism beyond its initial preference for ubiquitous whiteness, and beyond its initial

preference for pure orthogonality. These aesthetic revolutions within a given style might produce subsidiary styles (sub-styles), for example, Brutalism within the overarching style of Modernism. The inherent inertia in internalized aesthetic sensibilities is only one reason why aesthetic values move via distinct stages. Another reason lies in the fact that the formal repertoire (idiom) and the cluster of aesthetic values that are prevalent within any style (or sub-style) form a system, ie, the set of idiomatic design moves and the set of aesthetic values/responses are both internally coherent sets, and they are coherent with each other. The embeddedness of aesthetic values within a system constrains the gradual augmentation of aesthetic values. Aesthetic evolution, together with stylistic morphing, is only possible to the extent to which practitioners abandon principled work, and operate via ad hoc moves. This does indeed happen when pragmatic pressures build up irresistibly. The new, necessary design moves simply lie outside the reach of the prevalent style and aesthetic system. The design practice changes despite the rigidity of aesthetic responses. The pragmatically driven aspects of the design violate aesthetic values. This means that the aesthetic responses are initially negative. The new designs are ‘ugly’. This contradiction might lead to the rejection of all aesthetic concerns. This is the phase of Radical Functionalism. During this phase, while aesthetic evaluation is (as much as possible) suspended, new morphologies can be experimented with. After the use of new, pragmatic morphologies stabilizes and the new forms become familiar, they tend to lose their sense of utter ugliness. But to see their ‘beauty’ usually requires a conscious recognition of their vitality and an attendant theoretical effort – a retroactive manifesto – promoting a radical re-evaluation of all aesthetic values. The result might be an aesthetic revolution promoting a new aesthetic ideal. The whole set of aesthetic values has to be replaced at once by a new set forming a new system with an updated design idiom. The necessary process of adaptation to societal conditions is the underlying rationality of the various aesthetic revolutions that can be traced throughout the history of architecture. Tafuri’s Architecture and Utopia contributes to this historiography. In the final analysis everything in architecture – as in society at large – comes down to societal progress.214 Aesthetic regimes have to be analyzed as sublimation of an underlying performativity. At the root of any style or typology (which goes beyond the drawing board and effectively shapes the built environment) lies a functional rationality.

214 In this respect Luhmann’s framework coincides with Marx’s. 312

215 See: section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes.

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3.8.6 AESTHETIC VALUES: DESIGNERS VS USERS Styles have been explicated here as design research programmes.215 The self-conscious subtleties of the competing style agendas, in particular with respect to the currently relevant avant-garde styles, largely escape the attention of the users of buildings and design artefacts – they are exclusive to the expert discourse of the designers where attention is focused via a specialized theoretical language. Aesthetic values, however, do cross the boundary of the expert discourse and are taken up by the users of architecture and design, ie, by all of society. The autopoiesis of architecture – with its final communications – does touch everyone in modern society. We are all users of architecture and design. Like all other modern function systems, architecture too is universally inclusive. Just as everybody can initiate a law suit and thus enter into the autopoiesis of the legal system, and just as everybody can vote within the political system, nobody is excluded from aesthetic evaluation. The aesthetic evaluation of the built environment is an everyday occurrence – whether it occurs with a silent smile or via the verbal expression of delight or discomfort. To a considerable extent, these everyday evaluations are guided by expert discourse. New aesthetic values usually originate within the expert discourse of architecture and the design disciplines and then are

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However, this does not mean that the code of beauty can be dispensed with by substituting it with rational argument. The rationalization of beauty – its explication in terms of societal function – can only be achieved on the level of a historical-theoretical account of styles. Arguments on this level of reflection enter the autopoiesis of architecture only in periods of stylistic crisis. Once a new style has demonstrated its superiority and gained hegemony, the process of aestheticization and anaesthetization (routinization) recommences. Then, once more, beauty must fulfil its latent, indispensable function as code set against the manifest code of utility. During periods that are governed by a hegemonic style with a stable aesthetic regime, individual applications of the methods, media and aesthetic values of the dominant style can be pursued habitually, without presupposing a historical understanding of the profound rationality of the innovations that have been cast into this style. The mainstream can follow its acquired aesthetic sense blindly, without necessitating a critical re-evaluation of the underlying rational premises on the occasion of each new project. The same convenient reliance on acquired aesthetic sensibilities applies to the users of architecture.

disseminated into society as a whole, usually with a delay of many years, and with a considerable loss of subtlety. The values must first gain ground within the avant-garde segment of architecture/design. They are disseminated into the ‘general public’ by a special breed of mediators: the architectural critics. This phenomenon of dissemination is not unlike the diffusion of scientific theories and concepts into the general societal communication process. This dissemination takes the form of general knowledge that can no longer be controlled by the specific rules of the expert discourse. With respect to aesthetic values this dissemination is retarded by the inherent inertia of aesthetic conditioning. It is eased by a general curiosity and desire for new aesthetic stimulation. The broadly disseminated aesthetic values help the users/occupants to evaluate the vitality of the phenomenologically given environment based on their (more or less) trained, refined or updated ‘gut-reactions’. The ability to appreciate a functionally complex environment by means of the immediate emotion of being attracted or repulsed offers considerable time- and thinking-economies, as long as the respective reactions correlate the attractive with the functional and the repulsive with the dysfunctional. The notorious subjectivity of aesthetic judgements can then be accounted for in two complementary ways: divergent individual aesthetic values either represent the respective individuals’ different functional requirements based on their different life-patterns, or they represent the individuals’ different degree of value-inertia and anachronistic (mal-)adaptation of their respective sensibilities and value-systems. The individual differences in inertia are often age related, and might be due to individual differences in the length/depth of the aesthetic conditioning. Group dynamic processes also play a significant role here. The more the development of the built environment depends on the acceptance of a broader population – mediated by the real-estate market – rather than on the direct conjunction of the expert discourse with a political or business elite that makes the relevant decisions, the more important becomes the fast and pervasive popular dissemination of the latest aesthetic value systems. For this purpose the autopoiesis of architecture has developed a specialized organ: the above mentioned role of the architectural critic, a figure who might be compared to the popularizers of science. The critic manages the boundary exchanges of the architectural autopoiesis with a very important part of its societal environment. Critics are specialized mediators. They operate as an interface at the boundary between the autopoiesis of architecture and the autopoiesis of the mass media. Their function is to facilitate the necessary dissemination of new, vital aesthetic values. 314

All architectural communications must contribute to both themes and projects. This indispensable double connectivity of architectural communications is a hallmark of architecture as a practice steered by theory. The theory of architectural autopoiesis theorizes architecture as an integrated network of communications. This network is not endless and undifferentiated but the overall network is partitioned in the sense that one can distinguish zones of high connectivity. Its communications come in identifiable clusters. The partitioning of autopoietic networks of communications is a very general phenomenon, not peculiar to architecture. These partitioned zones are never hermetic. For instance, texts are sharply delimited patches of communications that are embedded within wider intertextual networks. Such zones might lead to the establishment of identities which allow the distinction of connections internal to the identified zone vs external connections between such zones. Zones might be hierarchically nested: the articles in a particular issue of a magazine often constitute an interconnected zone of communications which in turn is embedded within the encompassing zone that is established across the various issues of the periodical. The autopoiesis of architecture connects its communications along two primary dimensions: themes and projects. Over the last 15 years the strongly curated sequence of thematic, manifesto-style issues of AD 216 served as a strong attractor that established a dense cluster of communications (references) within contemporary avant-garde discourse. The issues of AD have been focused by means of themes rather than projects. Projects featured as contributions to those thematically defined agendas: Folding, New Geometry, Hypersurface Architecture, Gaming, Morphogenetic Design, Collective Intelligence in Design, Elegance, Digital Cities, Patterns of Architecture etc. These themes are strongly related and overlap to feed into one unified avant-garde design research programme. The contributions form a closely knit network of cross-references within and across issues. The overall network of communications that was thus established lies at the heart of the contemporary avant-garde style of Parametricism. We can therefore assert that the research programmes are structured as much via themes as they 216 AD Architectural Design, Wiley-Academy, UK.

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THESIS 18

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3.9 The Double-nexus of Architectural Communications: Themes vs Projects

are constituted via projects. Styles crystallize where communications relate tightly by sharing a rather specific set of themes and a rather specific set of recurring terms. Styles select (accept or reject) and gather both themes and projects. 3.9.1 THE UNITY OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEMES AND PROJECTS Why themes vs projects? What do themes and projects have in common to place them under one heading? Any such juxtaposition/comparison requires the identification of a dimension of comparison, the underlying unity of the difference of the juxtaposed terms. An unusual level of abstraction is required to open up such unusual possibilities of comparison. Themes and projects might be compared as two ways of creating clusters of communications in architecture. These clusters are not necessarily clusters in time or space. Themes and projects are two different ways in which the connectivity between architectural communications is intensified, two ways of partitioning the network and then tightening the communications within the part isolated. Themes and projects are general ordering structures which the autopoiesis of architecture offers, and indeed imposes, on all architectural communications. Communications only resonate if they attach to either type of ordering system, or to both simultaneously. Isolated, unattached utterances or drawings are stillborn. All design decisions are project specific. All theoretical statements/arguments are thematically specific. But these alignments – design communications with projects and theoretical communications with themes – are not exclusive. Theoretical statements can focus on projects and design communications can concern themselves with themes.217 Two types of intensification of connectivity are privileged and recognized as identities within architecture: themes and projects. Each communication (statement or drawing) is part of either a theoretical theme or a design project, or indeed of both. Even though each communication has its primary and explicit location either within a particular theme or within a particular project, it ultimately has to be able to be linked up with both, a theme and a project. In principle, every architectural communication must be capable of contributing to a theme and to a project. 217 The following random list of typical themes within architecture might suffice as illustration: typology, part-to-whole relations, proportions, archetypes, context, simplicity, transparency, structural expression, ornament and so on. 316

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3.9.2 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEMES AND PROJECTS If one compares themes and projects as two characteristic forms of intensified connection between architectural communications, ie, as two forms of ordering architectural communications, one might ask whether/how their differences relate to different problems within the architectural autopoiesis. Themes and projects are peculiar modes of ordering and integrating architectural communications: one of the most striking aspects that distinguishes them is the different way in which their respective form of connective ordering uses time and organizes communications into a temporal order. Projects are rather clear cut episodes with a clear beginning and end. They are organized into well-defined stages. At any point it is possible to locate an architectural communication (design decision/comment) within the overall progress of the project. This is used as a criterion to evaluate the appropriateness of a communication and possibly reject communications that either imply a diversion (regression or jump ahead) with respect to the proper succession of project development. Projects develop in stages. Communications (design decisions/comments) might come too late or too early. Themes (and debates within themes) have a much more convoluted time-order, and might stretch across much longer time periods. They have a very long, principally unlimited time horizon. Debates are episodes within such ‘eternal’ themes. It is impossible to terminate or conclude a debate by means of final arguments. Any emphatic argument breeds further arguments. Finally, they die away quietly, unnoticed. A further significant difference between projects and themes: themes order/orient theoretical communications and projects order/orient practical communications. Theoretical discourse and design practice are different but equally indispensable components of the system of architectural communications. Related to this difference of theoretical versus practical focus is the following significant difference: within the avant-garde segment of architecture’s autopoiesis themes dominate projects: within the mainstream projects dominate themes. Themes are further partitioned into specific debates within a theme and debates are segmented into specific contributions/theses (essays as books or articles) to those debates which in turn consist of a series of arguments. A similar nested hierarchy orders all the documents that constitute the design of a project. On the most concrete level the project consists of an ordered series of levels of successive specification.

Themes in general – and thus also the selected themes of each style – are ordered along architecture’s lead-distinction of form vs function. We can thus distinguish formal themes and functional themes. It is interesting to observe that most of the themes around which the thematic issues of the magazine AD (Architectural Design) have been organized have been formally focused themes: Folding, Hypersurfaces, Elegance, Patterns, Exuberance etc. Other magazines, like Archis and Volume, have focused on functional themes privileging external over internal references: for example, Power, Content, Hope etc. Both themes and projects, sooner or later, will have to confront (or will be confronted with) their own historicization, ie, the reflection upon their place in the ongoing history of architecture, embedded within the ongoing development of society. No sustained debate can escape this historicization. Neither can it escape specifying the paradigmatic functional domain to which its terms and arguments are primarily geared. Obviously, every project is typologically located. Themes might cross typological domains. However, even if this is not made explicit in every case, every conceptual theme has a primary typological area of application. The contemporary demands of the built environment are too complex to be fully covered by universally applicable themes. This necessary typological bias of any architectural theme does not mean that a new theme, for example, the idea of space as gradient force field, has to delimit its domain of application in advance. However, it has to start its test-application somewhere along the typological spectrum. An underlying (explicit or implicit) conceptual framework that locates the themes and projects with respect to the two dimensions of historical periodization and typology is therefore always to be presupposed.

3.9.3 THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THEMES AND PROJECTS How do those different constituent components – themes and projects – connect to each other as wholes, or to each other’s elements? At times projects intervene within debates or, what amounts to the same thing, are taken up as such interventions by the protagonists of the debate. Certain design decisions are understood within the context of certain theoretical debates. My thesis here is that all architectural innovations have eventually to be connected on both dimensions of connectivity, projects and themes, otherwise they cannot contribute to the progress of the discipline, and are ultimately expelled from its domain. This necessary double-connectivity of architectural communications, both as concrete design decision within projects (or as 318

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218 A similar double requirement can be identified in other disciplines that are tied to professions: law and medicine. Both distinguish and continuously relate general theories and concrete cases.

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critical comments upon such decisions) and as demonstrations within thematically ordered debates, is a distinguishing mark of the discipline of architecture/design. This particular double-connectivity marks the domain of architecture. It defines acts of building as architecture and marks theoretical treatise as architectural theory. Neither buildings that do not enter the order of themes, nor theories that do not enter the order of projects, ie, that are not taken up by designers in the context of making design decisions, belong to the domain of architecture. Architectural theory has to make a difference with respect to the design decisions that process the development of projects. Otherwise such theory remains mere talk about architecture rather than operating within architecture. In turn, architectural projects have to make a difference with respect to the development of the theoretical discourse of architecture to qualify as architecture. This cannot be avoided, even if delays in these respects, on both sides of this interaction, have to be reckoned with.218 All genuinely architectural projects have a certain theoretical relevance, and respond to various debates concerning various themes. All architectural projects thus point beyond themselves as contributions to a general theme. This is true even with respect to the mainstream segment of architecture – although here thematic concerns are subordinated to the concerns of the specific project. All innovative architectural projects lay claim to a certain generality. Within the avant-garde segment of architecture the relation between themes and projects is reversed. Thematic concerns are intensified and dominate the concerns of the individual projects. All avant-garde projects have manifesto character. Therefore only a small fraction of the built environment participates in avant-garde architecture understood as a communication system geared towards the processing of original variations into innovations. The question about which theme a building relates to, which debate it engages in, which arguments it promotes and which manifesto it proclaims, is crucial for the identity of the avant-garde project. Whether there is or is not such a thematic thrust serves as criterion of participation in the discipline of architecture. But even mainstream projects have to answer queries concerning their main themes. Total muteness in this respect disqualifies a building. The total absence of thematic concerns would expel the building from the discipline of architecture, but only until another architect/theorist or perceptive critic pulls it into the discourse by relating it to an ongoing or new theme. Publication within

(often thematically focused) architectural publications is the inevitable precondition of participation within the discipline of architecture. If an architect is asked what he/she is working on, and his/her answer is ‘on my client’s house’, the relevance to the discipline of architecture is nil. A more promising answer would be: ‘on new principles of habitation for the 21st century’. Or he/she might be working on ‘notions of cross-programming, in conjunction with new formal techniques of hybridization’, or simply on ‘single surfaces’, ‘field conditions’, or some other new spatial/tectonic trope. This much can be demanded from both avant-garde and mainstream architects. With respect to avant-garde architects our expectations go further. We expect the avant-garde architect to test a theme across a whole series of diverse programmatic agendas. Avant-garde architects are not solving particular problems posed by particular projects. They work on a thematically conceived problematic.The significance of the avant-garde architect’s work is a function of the originality, generality and epochal pertinence of the themes his/her projects are tackling. This leads to the necessity to locate the thematic of architectural work within a historical trajectory, via manifesto projects. The full blown avant-garde project should work with both a functional and a formal thematic, historically located and argued. Themes tie communications together on the basis of abstracta. Projects constitute the concrete. They are unique historical individuals. Themes provide stable, general premises for the design communications that progress a design project. As design communications (design decisions) of a specific project, communications are constrained by its concrete antecedents. Thus all design decisions are subject to both abstract and concrete determinations. The abstract determinations are hierarchically located in the following ascending order of generality: argument, debate, theme, style, discipline. Styles involve rules for both the selective (pre-)conception of form and for the selective treatment of function. Styles thus programme and regulate both sides of the double code of architecture. Regulation implies a degree of regularity, ie, a medium-term period of stabilization. The evolution of architecture is phased or stepped, as a progression of distinct styles that – for significant periods – afford a stable system of values that frame the variation of individual projects. Within each project the operating formal and functional biases are further tightened or fixed by its chosen formal and functional themes. Themes are lodged within an encompassing style, but might collate a number of projects that contribute to vary and develop the theme. For instance, in an interim stock-taking at Zaha Hadid Architects – on the occasion of being invited 320

establishes the long-term unity/identity of the system within which innovative variation is framed. � Styles: the styles provide medium-term programmes that frame whole clusters and series of works and forge them into a collective effort, where all innovative advances are mutually relevant to each other. � Themes: although themes stretch acoss multiple projects, they are project focused in the following sense: the designer chooses a pertinent theme for his/her project that allows him/her to individuate the project within the overarching style, and that allows him/her to cohere all the design decisions within the project. � Projects: each project builds up its own uniqueness as antecedent for its further elaboration. It concretizes the themes under which it is projected. The resultant variations, recombinations and mutations of

219 Patrik Schumacher & Gordana Fontana-Guisti, Zaha Hadid Complete Works, Thames & Hudson (London), 2004.

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� Codes: on the level of the discipline, the ultra-stable, defining code

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to publish the Complete Works 219 – we used a thematic rather than chronological ordering for the projects. The themes are morphological concepts, sometimes analogy based, which have indeed been a crucial device in the conception of new projects. The list of themes reads as follows: explosions; beams, slabs, clusters, blades; lines, ribbons, bundles; swarms, aggregations, pixellations; continuous surfaces, carpets; carved spaces, excavations; compressions; warps, bends, twists, spirals; fields; calligraphy; complexes; liquid spaces. Beyond these abstract levels of (pre-)determination – discipline, style, theme – the individual configuration of factors and the individual trajectory of the project’s design progress produces a final, concrete layer of determination for the ongoing design moves that cannot be reduced to any of the three abstract levels. The consciousness of the project’s uniqueness as imposing the necessity and thus the opportunity to uniquely apply, recombine and mutate the thematic and stylistic resources of the discipline is inherent in the very notion of the contemporary ‘project’. Within contemporary architecture a project can never be reduced to the mere application of pre-established rules. Each (significant) project takes up and develops a given theme, a style and, perhaps, even the discipline. Thus we can observe clearly differentiated levels of determination, each with its own degree of stability in time, and each with its own significance for architecture’s (innovative) autopoiesis:

the themes might be emphasized and abstracted to circulate as new themes that in turn might impact on the prevalent, encompassing style. The differentiation of these levels of abstract and concrete determination constitutes an evolutionary achievement that enhances the further evolution of the discipline. Traditional, pre-architectural building was subject to a very slow, undifferentiated, continuous evolution. There was neither any sense of ‘projects’ that could be themed, nor was there any consciousness of styles that could be superseded. Nor was there any sense of a separate discipline of architecture. Time was conceived as cyclical. All art-historical or archaeological ascriptions of styles are thus external classifications (retrospective projections) with no equivalent in the respective communication system. Today’s fully evolved architectural autopoiesis understand each building as a potentially innovative project, and as an opportunity to introduce an innovative theme or thematic variation. There is also the clear consciousness of working within historically transient styles that might be challenged and superseded – although not every Monday morning, nor with each and every project. However, under contemporary conditions of accelerated evolution, stylistic revolutions are to be expected within an architect’s working life.

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The medium of architecture (and of the design disciplines) is undergoing momentous changes. With the advent of the digital revolution it entered an era of accelerated evolution. In retrospect this rapid evolution makes the prior, long-term stability of the medium – and the related ability to take its constitution for granted – a remarkable trait. Today the ongoing media evolution demands close attention and permanent learning from every ambitious designer. This evolution of the medium is also commanding the attention of reflective architectural discourse. Contemporary theoretical discourse is very much preoccupied with the potential of the ever expanding, computational resources of the design medium. The theory of architectural autopoiesis sets out to investigate the fundamental principles that persist throughout the long-term evolution of architecture’s medium. The continuities in question concern the fundamental presence of a special medium for architectural communication and the way this medium sustains the autopoiesis of architecture. Such continuities can indeed be identified, despite the fact that today the CAD file, and more and more the parametric 3D model, have substituted the practice of drawing on paper. While enhancing the drawing’s capabilities – and even adding whole new, unprecedented capacities – the digital design media continue to provide the same fundamental communication functions that the traditional medium of the drawing has been providing throughout the history of architecture. In the following exploration of these fundamental features of the medium, we can therefore use ‘the drawing’ as pars pro toto for the architectural medium as such: references to ‘the drawing’ are implied to include reference to CAD files and digital models, or any other medium of architectural design. The drawing is the defining medium of architecture and the design disciplines. Everything in architecture and design is processed through drawings, from the first sketch idea, throughout the whole design process, all the way to the final presentation to the client and to the detailed instructions issued to the contractor. During construction all further on-site instructions and modifications are firmed up and made manifest in the form of drawings or sketches. Each issue – mistake or

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4. The Medium of Architecture

modification – is documented, processed and solved through further drawings. The existence of a specialized medium of communication is a fundamental constant of the autopoiesis of architecture. Indeed, the establishment of such a specialized medium had been a precondition for the differentiation of architecture as autopoietic system of communications during the early Renaissance. Although it is a constant, constituent structure of architecture, it has to be noted that each new, major architectural style is associated with a decisive upgrading of the medium. The Renaissance took off with the first establishment of an effective system of drawing. Most spectacular in this respect is the invention of perspective. The Baroque was facilitated by the elaboration of a sophisticated projective geometry. Modernism’s new medium of choice was the axonometric projection that allowed for the extensive elaboration of spatial compositions in all directions. Parametricism depends on the new digital scripting tools that allow for the set up and elaboration of complex associative relations. Drawings, and now digital modelling tools, are the primary design and communication medium of architecture. That this medium has undergone a historical evolution seems equally obvious and non-contentious. That this evolution of the medium has had significant implications for the development of architecture is less evident. For routine architectural practice1 the enabling/constraining capacity of the medium is indeed invisible. However, for the development of recent avant-garde architecture, since the early 1980s, the reflection upon the medium, and its experimental expansion, have been crucial. This reflection was fuelled further by the advent of the new digital media, which offer an enormous potential for architectural innovation. The following theoretical reconstruction tries to recapture and extend this prior reflection on the basis of Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical apparatus.

4.1 Medium and Form THESIS 19 Architecture depends upon its medium – the drawing/digital model – in the same way that the economy depends on money and politics depends on

1 Even within the processes of avant-garde design there are large stretches of routine work. In order for some assumptions of the discipline to be effectively questioned, the others need to remain unquestioned. 324

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Within Luhmann’s general theory of media, a medium is abstractly defined as any ‘loosely coupled’ domain of elements from which a definite number of elements may be selected and aligned into a defined configuration through ‘strict coupling’. The medium provides an inexhaustible, persistent reservoir of elements within which definite but transient configurations can be inscribed through the temporary strict coupling of selected elements. Luhmann refers to such definite, transient configurations as ‘forms’. The concepts of medium and form are complementary: forms are always forms formed within a medium, and a medium is a medium for a certain type of forms only as long as it allows for the ongoing formation of these forms. A paradigmatic example: a sentence (=form) is a strict coupling of words selected from the loosely coupled set of words given by the vocabulary of the respective language (=medium). In this sense definite, individual drawings and digital models are ‘forms’, ie, strict couplings, selected from the loosely coupled elements (points, lines, graphic objects, CAD primitives) of the design medium of drawing/digital model. In general a medium affords a reservoir of indeterminate expressive possibilities that can be made determinate by being selected to form specific communications. The indeterminate possibilities persist as the constitutive horizon for the determination of the communication’s meaning. The concept of architecture’s design medium is unambiguous enough. It parallels the ordinary talk about the various media of artistic work within the context of the art system. However, within the theory of architectural autopoiesis the concept of architecture’s medium takes on a rather specific theoretical charge that entails far-reaching theoretical claims that are not covered by the ordinary concept of medium and require an additional terminological marker. The theory of architectural autopoiesis taps into Luhmann’s elaborate theory of media, in particular appropriating his concept of symbolically generalized media of communication. Luhmann initially distinguishes media of communication and media of dissemination. What we are most commonly used to referring to as media, ie, the print media and the broadcasting media – such as radio and television – are media of dissemination. Today virtually all media of communication, such as spoken language, writing, and also architectural drawing, can be widely and rapidly disseminated via appropriate dissemination media. However, this concept of media of dissemination is

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power. It sustains a new plane of communication that relies on the credibility of the medium and remains inherently vulnerable to inflationary tendencies.

not what we are focusing on here. There is another concept that defines a very special type of medium, namely the concept of symbolically generalized medium of communication. This is the specific theoretical concept that the theory of architectural autopoiesis employs in theorizing the design medium of architecture. It is this concept that guides the analyses and comparisons elaborated in the following chapters. The central thesis proposed here is that architecture’s design medium – the practice of drawing/digital modelling – constitutes a symbolically generalized medium of communication in the sense defined by Luhmann. 4.1.1 SYMBOLICALLY GENERALIZED MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION Symbolically generalized media of communication are something rather abstract and complex, with a quite specific function and location in Luhmann’s theoretical edifice. The point of departure for Luhmann’s theory of media is the fundamental contingency, artificiality and therefore inherent improbability of any specific social arrangement. It could always be otherwise. Implying fragility, ie, a high potential for instability, this improbability increases with the build up of social complexity. Any complex social system has to solve the problem of maintaining/ encouraging ever more unnatural, and unlikely, behaviours/ communications, for example, the disciplined postponement of gratification, or the discipline of working under the guidance of highly abstract and remote purposes, the continuous placement of existential trust in perfect strangers (for example, when we visit a doctor), or the discipline of monogamy within dense urban agglomerations etc. The special ‘media’ like money, power, love and the law make it possible to assume the probable acceptance of communications (like one-sided instructions at work, or promises of faithfulness) that would otherwise most likely meet with dismissal/refusal, with no chance of reproduction. Symbolically generalized media of communication are specific media that serve the function of increasing the likelihood of successful communication in such inherently improbable situations. Without these special media the respective patterns of communication and behaviour could not be sustained. To elaborate a few examples: institutionalized power, as distributed within a modern corporate or state bureaucracy, reliably supports a persistent asymmetry in the relationships between superior and inferior officials. This is a highly artificial and ‘improbable’ pattern of communication in comparison with the otherwise pervasive principle of reciprocity that is characteristic for all archaic societies, as well as for all social systems that continue to emerge spontaneously, like friendships, travel groups, social clubs etc. Power as universal medium distributes 326

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decision-making authority and facilitates the smooth communication of binding decisions. It thus allows for the build up of otherwise improbable, long, asymmetric chains of command. To grasp the level of abstraction and the comparative scope of this concept of ‘medium’ we should look at another example: money as a universal medium for the exchange of distributed ownership titles allows for the ‘shameless’, individual consumption of desired objects/comforts without much worry about envious onlookers. Whereas in primitive societies individuals inevitably have to share their bounty, the code of ownership and the medium of money pacify onlookers who themselves carry money as universal medium of exchange. On the basis of ownership/money, consumption can be desynchronized and take on complex, differentiated patterns that would otherwise be highly improbable. In both cases, power and money, the respective symbolically generalized medium of communication allows for the build up of social complexity in the time-dimension. The abstracted concept of ‘symbolically generalized medium of communication’ affords a productive comparison between power and money, which might also be extended to reveal unnoticed aspects of the architectural medium of drawing. Both money and power circulate within society, in the one case along chains of selling/buying, in the other case along chains of instruction/obedience. Both are media in as much as they can be utilized relatively freely across different object domains and across various social domains. A rich man might buy whatever he fancies. A powerful boss might instruct his/her inferiors to do (more or less) whatever is required. The range of legitimate demands is as much a measure of power as the number of people under command. Both media – power as well as money – are subject to inflation. Both are prone to stretch and exceed their underlying, substantiating guarantee: material labour values in the one case, and the control over means of physical coercion in the other case. Monetary inflation implies that money’s purchasing power wanes when its availability is eased. Increasing offerings of money command less and less substantial values. The currency collapses when too many claims on hard values are made simultaneously. Power is based on the threat of force or other harsh consequences in the case of non-compliance with instructions. A power-base experiences inflation or devaluation if threats of force proliferate without back-up by force and without the rigorous execution of the consequences of infringements. Increasing threats of force command less and less obedience. Power collapses if too many simultaneous challenges/threats visibly overstretch the power’s capacity to respond with force. Both power and money are scarce social resources that depend on credibility/trust and need to be spent carefully. Societal evolution is

bound up with these specific, symbolically generalized media of communication. Only on this basis can social complexity be built up and maintained. Is the medium of drawing within architecture/design a symbolically generalized medium in this sense? Does the medium of drawing possess the capacity to make the improbable probable? The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes that this general function of symbolically generalized media also applies to the specific medium of architecture/design. The theory starts by assuming that the ongoing, more or less successful architectural communication is a highly evolved and highly improbable achievement that is only possible on the basis of specific provisions. This improbable achievement cannot be taken for granted. We must therefore start by grasping this improbability and by asking how architectural communication is nevertheless possible. Thus we are investigating architectural communication as a problem that has been solved against the odds of many adverse factors. The first problem, then, is how to get and sustain attention for architectural communications. How to reach the intended recipients? Then, how to secure understanding? And finally: how to ensure the success of the architectural communication?2 In essence an architectural communication suggests to a potential investor, client, end-user, contractor, or consultant that a new, unseen and untested building or space, should be built. The success of such a communication is inherently improbable. Without a persuasive drawing such a suggestion has no chance of success. This inherent improbability constitutes a discouragement and thus barrier to even try to communicate in the first place. If these inherent improbabilities are not credibly conquered, architectural communication does not take off at all. The way these improbabilities are overcome thus regulates the constitution of the architectural social system. Evolution is then the expansion of the chances to communicate successfully on ever increasing levels of improbability. Can a parallel be drawn between the exchange of money and the exchange of drawings with respect to the problem of conquering inherent improbability? Again we have to jump ahead: the function of the discipline (function system) of architecture is the innovation (adaptation) of the built environment. Its peculiar type of communication is the communication of innovative design decisions – ie, the communication of 2 Success here means that the addressee of the communication uses its selection as a premise for its own further selections. 328

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3 In comparison, for example, the peculiar type of communication of political systems is the communication of (collectively binding) decisions.

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an innovative design specification as new, functional and beautiful.3 Compared with the primitive practice of building without drawings, the institution of drawing makes the production and acceptance of innovations much more probable. The deviation from habitual routines is – at a certain level of complexity – impossible without foreseeing the result of the deviation in the form of a drawing. Without drawings/models the acceptance of such deviations would be highly impropable. Without drawings the architect could not even convince himself of the viability of the innovation he might have vaguely in mind. Drawing – for the first time – opens up the domain of speculation about new possibilities and is able to communicate those possibilities. Drawing has been developed as a medium of speculation that is able to depict an uncertain future state with a very convincing degree of internal consistency and detail. A drawing can cohere a large number of people around a new complex endeavour requiring long chains of coordinated activity, the results of which lie in the relatively distant future. Like money and power, drawings can circulate along long chains of interchange. Like money and power, the medium of drawing/modelling is rather open in its domains of utilization: everything (to be designed) can be drawn/modelled. There are no taboos with respect to subject matter or social group. This expansive range of application is an important measure of the medium’s capacity. Drawing, like money and power, is prone to exceed its underlying, substantiating guarantees of credibility, ie, the trust that it depicts a possible reality. Like money and power, it is inherently subject to inflationary tendencies as it stretches the domain of the plausible. A digital model or photorealistic rendering can no longer command effective trust and bind commitment if these media have been abused by inflationary overuse for ultimately illusory promises. If too many speculative innovations are proposed simultaneously, the credibility and thus persuasive power of the medium collapses. Communication ceases. Drawing, again like power and money, is a currency that relies on trust and credibility in order to motivate the improbable acceptance of radical innovations within the built environment. As drawing is mounted upon drawing, the resultant, complex ‘house of cards’ requires a considerable suspension of disbelief. But without the elaborate set of architectural drawings, without this specific symbolically generalized medium of communication, architecture would have little chance to build up and communicate its innovation within its own autopoiesis, nor would there

be any chance of finding acceptance of its endeavours in its immediate environment comprising clients, authorities, engineers and contractors. The medium of architecture operates as symbolically generalized medium of communication. However, the discussion of the special social function of the medium of architectural drawing does not exhaust the discussion of architecture’s medium. As mentioned above, the drawing is also a communicative vehicle that is easily fed into powerful media of dissemination, like the print media or the Internet. The rapidity of visual communication implies that the evolution of the discipline – in terms of its continuous innovation and succession of styles – is greatly accelerated by the design media’s susceptibility to mass dissemination. A further, separate aspect of the architectural medium that needs to be discussed is the fact that – as a medium of representation and speculation – it both sets out and limits what can enter architectural speculation. The design and communication medium of architecture has constitutive power with respect to which aspects of the world enter into the autopoiesis of architecture. The medium of drawing/modelling simultaneously reveals and conceals the world within architecture. 4.1.2 THE MEDIUM AS REVEALING AND CONCEALING The general insight into the limiting power of the drawing can be understood in analogy to various philosophical insights about the constitutive power of media in general. This kind of insight found its first thoroughgoing and compelling articulation in Kant’s analysis of the a priori categories of human cognition in general and of the fundamental premises of the natural sciences in particular. In the 20th century equivalent insights can be found in the philosophy of language: in Saussure’s structural linguistics, in Wittgenstein’s notion of language games, or, finally, according to Heidegger’s notion of language as revealing and concealing. Translated into the domain of architecture and design the underlying insight might be summarized as follows: the limits of our design language are the limits of our design thinking. The medium of representation delimits the domain of architecture and implicitly defines what architecture is. How we represent architecture determines how we anticipate (design) architecture. The medium of representation abstracts the architecturally relevant aspects of any building and thus constitutes the realm of possible objects of any architectural speculation. Everything that exceeds this conventional mode of representation lies outside the reach of architectural consideration and speculation. Possible experiences and effects of buildings have nothing to do with architecture until the medium of design has been expanded to record and manipulate 330

4 This type of expansion of the medium of design was pioneered by Cedric Price. 5 Joe Rooney & Philip Steadman, Principles of Computer-Aided Design, Pitman (London), 1987.

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4.1.3 THE MEDIUM AS UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITIES The medium reveals and conceals aspects of reality. In terms of design output it opens and delimits a universe of possibilities. The size and shape of this universe depend on the particulars of the system of drawing or digital modelling chosen. The specific, detailed constitution of the medium, in terms of its specific primitive elements and its available modes of manipulation and combination of elements, can make quite a difference for the resulting architecture that is being designed. This point was relatively mute when drafting on paper dominated, because here the elements and operations could be taken for granted as (more or less) unchanging givens across considerable historical periods. The situation changed dramatically with the introduction of the computer. The question of the design of design software, and then the question of the designer’s choice of the design software, brought the revealing/concealing power, as well as the creative power of specific design media to an acute awareness. The design medium was now understood as a universe of possibilities. Architectural theorists such as Philip Steadman5 and

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those experiences and effects. For example, the conventional set of line drawings is blind with respect to the atmospheric ambience of architectural materiality. But the design tools might be expanded to include photorealistic renderings and sample-boards (‘mood-boards’) through which material selections and combinations can be simulated to orient the design process. The conventional set of line drawings is also mute with respect to anticipated patterns of occupation and circulation within the building. One might therefore expand the tool-set of representational devices to include certain statistical charts and computational simulations that measure, map or simulate various performative parameters like occupation over time as tools of design manipulation alongside the conventional set of drawings.4 Drawings and/or digital models are the constitutive medium of architecture and the design disciplines. However, the communication within architecture/design cannot be limited to drawings and/or digital models. In addition language – both the spoken and the written word – is indispensable. This necessity is due to the peculiar expressive power and lack of expressive power of drawings and/or digital models: there is no negation (except in the case of red-lining), there are no universals, no counter-factuals, no conditionals etc.

William Mitchell, among others, became interested in the question of how computational design systems might be designed. Mitchell’s The Logic of Architecture is an attempt to formulate a theory of architectural design with the help of the concepts and notational tools of modern logic. His most immediate practical aim is to develop a ‘theory of design that can provide an adequate basis for practical software development work’.6 Mitchell’s key concept that helps to focus and frame the issue of the design medium is his concept of ‘design world’. Mitchell uses the general term ‘model’ to frame the ontology of designs in contrast to buildings. A model might be mental model, a drawing, a physical scale model, or a structure of information in the computer. Design worlds are the spaces within which models can be constructed. Mitchell defines a model as ‘a collection of graphic tokens, such as points, lines, and polygons, forming a two-dimensional or three-dimensional arrangement’.7 He goes on to explain his concept of a design world as follows: ‘We can think of a space populated by these tokens, for example a drawing surface or a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, as a specialized, delimited micro-world – the design world. Tokens can be inserted into the design world, deleted from it, geometrically transformed, and otherwise manipulated.’8 Mitchell notes that designers establish their design worlds implicitly through their choices of instruments, and hints at the design world differences between modelling with cardboard and scissors, shaping clay with one’s fingers, or cutting polystyrene blocks with a hot wire. With respect to simple computer worlds, he distinguishes and explores the differences between point worlds, line worlds, surface worlds and volumetric worlds. All design worlds are defined via the following constituents: space, primitives, and operations manipulating and combining primitives into forms. Design worlds also define properties, functions and relations between forms. A design world might be axiomatized by stating necessary relationships between forms that prevail within the design world, for example, a design world might be governed by the axioms of Euclid’s geometry or might make further stipulations, for example, that all dimensions must be modular and that cuboids can only be arranged orthogonally. Mitchell notes that ‘when designers work with conventional graphic and physical modelling media, much of the axiomization of the design world is implicit in the physical properties of the materials and instruments that are

6 William J Mitchell, The Logic of Architecture – Design, Computation, and Cognition, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1990, p x. 7 Ibid, p 38. 8 Ibid. 332

9 10 11 12

Ibid, p 54.

Ibid.

Ibid, p 56.

The second level of the medium is constrained but not determined by the first level.

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4.1.4 MEDIUM AND MANNER The concept of the design medium as the universe of possibility the designer operates within might be elaborated via the distinction of two levels of medial constraint – medial substratum and manner – that compound to frame the design process. The first constraint is technical. The second constraint is institutional.12 The medium of architecture – whether implemented as drawing system or digital modelling system – delimits the universe of formal possibilities via the limits of its respective technical apparatus. We want to call this technical level the medial substratum. The evolution of technical media of drafting is relevant here. Before the introduction of CAD, the apparatus for geometric construction had been more or less stable since the times of Euclid’s Elements : paper, pencil, ruler and compass. This apparatus was technically augmented by T-squares, drafting machines with sliding/pivoting rulers, tracing paper and a set of pens with differential line-weights. The most momentous innovation here was the introduction of tracing paper allowing the fast, successive reworking of drawing upon drawing. The space of possibilities opened and closed by the substratum is further constrained by the conventional modes of utilizing the apparatus, ie, the conventions of the institutionalized ‘proper’ drawing. The pencil

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used’.9 The same goes for computer-aided design systems: ‘The axiomization is usually implicit in the organization of the data-structure and the definition of the procedures used to operate on the data structure.’10 A particular design, ie, a particular model, can be described as a particular state of the design world. The same goes for all partial models or interim design stages. Each design operation effects a design state transformation within the design world. Just as variables have ranges of states so too do complete design worlds. Although the ranges of states of a design world are prodigious – due to the combinatorial explosion that is due to the multiple degrees of freedom involved – comparisons across design worlds exhibit their respective constraints and limitations. Mitchell speaks of the ‘universe of possibilities’11 that is associated with each design world. With each design operation the designer traverses the design world’s universe of possibilities in search of a design solution.

might be used for outline definition only, or within another set of conventions is employed to produce graphic surfaces via hatching or gradient shadings. The compass might be used to produce a string of varying radii in order to produce something like ‘free-form’ curves rather than being restricted to simple arcs in concentric relations. The historical observation of the development of such medial conventions produces the distinctions of manners of drawing.13 The design medium with its constitutive layers of substratum and manner might be compared to the construction process with its constitutive layers of materials and methods. Manner relates to substratum as method relates to material. These four factors all impact on each other and together constrain (the innovation of) the built environment. The formal biases suggested by certain building materials, and by long-standing methods of fabrication, have often been noted. We might add here that the most longstanding construction methods produced deep biases in the institutionalized manner of drawing. For instance, the use of poche´ that allows the articulation of adjacent figurative spaces by absorbing incongruences within the amorphous depth of the black poche´ is predicated on the use of massive masonry construction. The manner of drawing, ie, the repertoire of conventions that defines a system of proper drawings, is in a close reciprocal relation with the formal repertoire that contributes to the architectural style at play within the work and across various works. This manner of drawing frames and channels the architectural design process. It is usually taken for granted without critical reflection, and often remains unconscious even when the question of style is raised and disputed. The manner of drawing remains suffused within the constitution of the medium of drawing. The term manner is not only close to the concept of style, it is in fact the historical precursor of this much more ambitious and involved concept. The concept of style occupies a more prominent place within our reconstructed theory of architecture: as elaborated above, styles are the programmes that constrain and steer the architectural communications by elaborating criteria for the application of the binary design-codes of utility and beauty. In contrast to manners, styles are promoted in manifestos and are openly contested. The manner of drawing operates on a much more subliminal, hidden level. Sociologists would talk about latent vs manifest social structures. 13 The term ‘manner’ captures what we intend to distinguish here. However, we must avoid thinking of personal manners here. Manners are shared patterns that are internalized and taken for granted. They are invisible, while personal manners are rather conspicuous. 334

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4.1.5 THE STANDARD MEDIUM OF ARCHITECTURE The core system of architectural drawings, even in the first era of CAD systems, remained the set of parallel projections: plans, sections and elevations, plus perspective projections for illustration. Vitruvius lists ichnographia (plan), orthographia (elevation) and scaenographia (perspective). The section was added in the Renaissance. There are a number of powerful formal a prioris embedded in this system, for example, the system is heavily biased towards orthogonal artefacts. The recognition of these a prioris as ‘limits’ should not necessarily lead to criticism and rejection. First of all one should recognize the powerful reduction of relevant complexity that has been achieved here, as well as the ease of geometric and dimensional coordination. On this basis one might consider (and experiment with) various ways of extending this core repertoire with other tools that can reduce and process even more complexity, for example, a ‘cinematic’ series of sections that can approximate complex, warped surfaces within the system of parallel projection. The development of computer modelling demonstrates that radically other systems of representation/mapping might be constructed. The door has been opened to invent ‘design

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With each new style the medium of architecture was challenged and stretched. The institutionalized system of drawing mutated. However, the relationship between the stylistic and the medial development was neither discussed, nor noticed. New ways of drawing were emerging and soon naturalized as manner and thus suffused in the invisible medium. Only at the beginning of a new phase of avant-garde style formation did the manner of drawing become conspicuous. Each historical style modified the medium of architecture by adding new types of drawings and by expanding the realm of admissible graphic moves. The Baroque expanded the repertoire of admissible curves. The Rococo further expanded this repertoire of curves. The Baroque also expanded the use of shading to render deep relief and started to use perspectives with more than one vanishing point thus allowing for corner views enhancing the three-dimensional effect of volumes and suggesting non-orthogonal compositions. Neo-Classicism introduced surface texturing depicting materiality and sometimes colour into its elaborate drawings. Modernism added the axonometric projection and further expanded the range of admissible curves and angles. However, at the centre of this expanding realm lies the core of the standard set of parallel projections that has been stable for 500 years: plans, sections and elevations.

worlds’. The key concern of design world invention is the phenomenological and conceptual domain of the designer. How can he/she conceive, construct and manipulate the evolving design? CAD suggests the assembly of designs from certain ‘primitives’ and their successive combination and transmutation by means of various ‘tools’. Those primitives, for example, splines or NURBS, might be set up with an inherent parametric complexity and attendant pliability. This does indeed make a difference compared with the build up of the drawing from lines, even if the output to clients and contractors still takes the form of the standard set of drawings and rendered perspectives. The institutionalization of a definite modelling language, with its attendant limits, is a precondition of communication, and a precondition of the practical coordination of such a complex social process as the design and construction of large buildings. The most general, ontological principle of the conventional architectural drawing is that it works on the basis of lines. These lines operate on various levels of abstraction and various related scales. They define territorial boundaries, the dividing lines between inside and outside, the demarcation lines between differentiated functional domains, and the outlines and material edges of the building components. The foundation of this ontology is the social logic of demarcation and categorization that characterizes human civilization, a civilization of the line14 that evolved together with a proto-architectural built environment. The construction process follows this logic of the line by inscribing the lines, outlines and edges into space by scribing, cutting and joining linear and planar elements. In turn the users of buildings are oriented along those lines. The line is the basic primitive within the ontology of architecture. On the basis of this radical and powerful reduction of the complexity of the built environment – the reduction to the distribution of lines in space – a huge build up of complexity was possible, all built from the recursive deployment of this simple operation ‘draw a line’. Very long, coordinated chains of communication and action can be constructed this way. The core practice of the architect consists of nothing but the production of drawings out of drawings, made from lines upon lines, translated into further drawings etc. The institutionalized system of architectural drawings is a rather stringently defined system of orthographic projections that presupposes the line as exclusive primary graphic element. 14 On the significance of the line see: Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, On the Line, Semiotext(e) (New York), 1983. 336

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The process of successive detailing is a process whereby single lines are split into double, triple or quadruple lines. In terms of detailing the main problem to be solved is how these lines might intersect or turn around corners. The collaborating engineering disciplines add further sets of drawings. These further drawings are coordinated on the basis of the set of architectural drawings. But while the structural engineers are required to move beyond the drawing into the calculation of forces, the architect remains within the domain of the drawing which allows him/her to conduct all necessary ‘calculations’ of functionality by means of the drawing itself: identifying routes, adjacencies, proportions, alignments, furnishings, coordination of geometry and measurements etc. The drawing thus engages in a particular form of information processing. The standard set of parallel projections has been stable for 500 years. This ultra-stable core of the medium of architecture was first attacked by Deconstructivism. Layered ‘X-ray’ drawings were produced like Cubist collages whereby the precise location and meaning of each line was initially suspended. Plans and sections were interpenetrating so that sections might be read as plans and vice versa. Such operations implied that the medium – in terms of manner rather than medial substratum – was radically expanded. The creative relevance of the medium was discovered, and its creative import was increased due to the fact that these kinds of complex graphic operations implied a loss of control on the part of the designer. This loss of control was cultivated as a means to escape the limitations of drawing as representation of preconceived figures and compositions. The design instead emerged through the selective filtering of the results of a semi-automatic graphic process. As such designs moved closer to realization, ‘proper’ plans, sections and elevations came back to prominence. But their descriptive power was stretched to the limits and often faltered in the face of the geometric complexity of the intended designs. Digital 3D modelling arrived just in time. A more profound (and perhaps final) challenge to the standard set of drawings is being mounted by the current avant-garde style of Parametricism. The design process is moving into the space of scripted geometry and 3D parametric modelling. Precise parametric modelling produces constructs that can be coordinated, rendered and eventually manufactured without ever moving through the needle’s eye of 2D projections. In this world, plans, sections and elevations have lost their position as design tools. They exist merely as derivatives of the parametric model and serve as tools of post-design explication and control. The concept of medium – with its attendant distinction of substratum and manner – remains fruitfully applicable with respect to CAD,

parametric models and scripted design processes. Technical constraints – in terms of computational power and software options – remain a prominent delimiting factor of architecture’s universe of possibilities at any time. However, these constraints are shifting with every generation of hardware and software released. This contrasts strongly with the former ultrastability of architecture’s medial substratum where the introduction of tracing paper 100 years ago was the last major advance before the introduction of the digital computer. The concept of manner equally remains a fruitful tool of reflection with respect to the design use of digital media. In this new and ever advancing digital design world we can observe the institutionalization – however fluid – of preferred scripting and modelling tropes, for instance the trope of populating a surface with a parametrically adaptive component. The shared, internalized preference for such tropes – against the backdrop of nearly infinite software and scripting options – clearly establishes manner as a constitutive constraint that structures the medium of architecture and channels the design creativity, also in the era of Parametricism. 4.1.6 RECURSIVE SELF-REFERENCE The system of orthographic projections (plans, sections and elevations) includes a whole series of stages of design approximation encoded in the various scales. This long process of design implies that each drawing, ie, each architectural communication, makes sense only within the total network of drawings that makes up any concerted design effort. This fact of the transitory and embedded nature of the individual drawing allows for the application of the theoretical apparatus of Luhmann’s theory of communication as theory of self-referentially enclosed systems connecting communications to communications. Each design project can be understood as a delimited subsystem within the overall autopoiesis of architecture. Within each design project we can observe the production of drawings out of drawings, referring back to other drawings of the same project, and triggering further drawings etc. The self-referential constitution of drawings as design communications becomes the more evident the more the total complexity of an architectural endeavour reduces the individual drawing to a fleeting event in the overall constitution of the project. The overall series of drawings, ie, the system of drawings that constitutes a particular design project, rules the meaning of each individual drawing, although the series has no existence other than by virtue of its individual elements. The emergent organization is circular. An architectural drawing makes sense only within the recursive networks of drawings, ie, in reference to other drawings. One might 338

thus constrain each other’s meaning. They constitute a description only in concert, as the coordinated set of drawings that constitutes the design project at any particular design stage. � Succession: the meaning of each current set of drawings during the design process depends upon its position in the overall succession of coordinated sets of drawings or project stages. It is co-defined on the basis of its position within the ongoing project and by its contribution to the succession of drawings that constitute the unfolding of the design development. Through this overall succession an informational complexity is processed that could never reside within a single drawing (or simultaneous set of drawings). This system of drawings is, for now, still indispensable. This is also true for avant-garde (Parametricist) projects, especially in the advanced stages of design. 2D drawings still exist as .dwg files that are printed on many communicative occasions. Geometric coordination between the various .dwg files is facilitated by 3D digital models. Sooner or later this system of 2D sections/projections will be succeeded by a fully integrated 3D parametric model, further augmented by the so-called Building Information Model (BIM). Revit15 and Digital Project16 offer such possibilities. The system of 2D drawings (.dwg files) is being replaced by a system of 3D models that all reference back to a single, integrated master-model (Revit) or to each other in an open-ended network of linked models (Digital Project). This way of working is still governed by the double networking of coordination and succession, whereby the meaning (function and application) of each sub-model at each stage resides in its position in the overall evolving network. The basic mode of self-referential communication – the backward/forward reference to other elements of the same communicative nexus – is the pre-condition of any world-reference. No individual communication (drawing, model) could achieve this in isolation. Its meaning is defined through its nexus and network position within an encompassing system of communications. World-reference is possible only via recursive self-reference, ie, via the recursive reference from communication to communication within the same autopoietic system. 15 Revit is a registered trademark of Autodesk.

16 Digital Project is a registered trademark of Gehry Technologies, developed on the basis of

CATIA, a registered trademark of Dassault Syst`emes.

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� Coordination: plans, sections and elevations refer to each other and

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distinguish two dimensions of reference – coordination and succession – as follows:

With the increasing complexity of the communication system the world-reference of each communication becomes ever more indirect, ever more mediated and dependent upon a whole network of other communications stretched out in time and space. Thus the external reference might on occasion become problematic. This induces the problematization of the forms articulated within the medium, and perhaps even the problematization of the medium itself. It also induces reflection on the basis of the distinction of internal versus external reference.17 This distinction of self/internal vs world/external reference exists in all modern function systems as the re-entry of the distinction of system and environment within the system. In the case of the medium of architecture this re-entry takes the form of the distinction between the design (form) on the one hand, denoting the moment of self-reference, and the project (function) on the other hand, denoting the moment of world-reference.18 One might assume the external reference of (the network of) drawings/digital-models to be the building. However, it is not quite that simple. First of all, the building does not yet exist. Second, any determinate reference and representation depends upon audience and purpose.19 The various parties involved – architects, critics, clients, consulting engineers, contractors and the various types of workers on site – all focus on different points and aspects of the overall network of drawings. They each ‘see’ (perceive, evaluate and handle) the design drawings rather differently, ie, each is oriented to a rather different project. The various graphic and digital media utilized within architecture have to cope with multiple concerns – each posing a different task – that deserve to be distinguished here. We might broadly classify these multiple tasks into four categories: 1. The task of facilitating the architectural design process – the architect’s project. 2. The task of illustrating the design to clients, potential users, or any other non-specialized interested parties – the client’s project. 3. The task of assessing the technical feasibility – the engineer’s project. 4. The task of facilitating construction – the contractor’s project.

17 In the sciences the distinction of internal versus external reference is given by the distinction of methods/methodological considerations (internal reference) and theories (external reference) with their problematic empirical validity (Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997, p 251). 18 Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997, p 487. 19 Any communication comprises the moments of information, impartation (utterance) and understanding ( Luhmann). 340

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Only the architect’s project is immediately relevant to the autopoiesis of architecture as a domain with its own exclusive medium, code and autonomous criteria of evaluation. It is with respect to the architect’s project that the medium has to prove its ability to allow for the high performance handling of architecture’s central task of innovative organization and articulation. The other tasks of the medium listed above are secondary and reside within the environment of the discipline of architecture, as inescapable constraints and stirring irritations, but they do not constitute the primary purpose of the medium. This assessment of the primary purpose of the medium might have surprised architects 30 years ago. Then it still seemed as if the illustration for the client and the instruction of the contractor were the most essential purposes of the architectural drawings. Now these two burdens are being increasingly lifted off the shoulders of the architect and his design manner. On the side of client illustration, specialist illustration/rendering firms transform the architect’s project into the client’s project. On the side of the instructions to build, it is the contractors and subcontractors themselves who transform the architect’s project into shop drawings that finally set out the required instructions. The freedom that was gained at the beginning of the 20th century, via a more abstract and open-ended design medium, had to be paid for with a certain risk concerning the feasibility of the design. The Classical form was always a safe bet. In modern design this lost safety has to be compensated for by the involvement of the various engineering disciplines. The engineers are called upon to replace the certainty of recurrent experience with calculations. The further formal freedom gained at the beginning of the 21st century, and the additional freedom gained by shaking off the burden of client illustration and contractor instruction, again, on both counts, implies an increase in risk concerning the plausibility and feasibility of ˆ the design. The very raison d’etre of any specialized medium of communication is to sustain communication in the face of risks that would make the respective communication highly improbable. The medium of contemporary architecture has indeed developed the capacity to absorb these new risks. The current routine availability of digital, quasi-three-dimensional modelling supports all those new freedoms: the increased design freedom is given a powerful new medium of exploration and control. The risk entailed in the release from final client illustration is compensated for by the permanent feedback via quick-renders during the design process. The risk entailed in the abandonment of the responsibility for final shop drawings is to a certain extent compensated for by the precision of 3D geometric coordination and by the integration

of engineering and fabrication constraint within the digital design medium itself.

4.2 The Medium and the Time Structure of the Design Process THESIS 20 The evolution of architecture’s autopoiesis involves the evolution of its specific medium. The introduction of the medium established the capacity to progress the architectural project while maintaining reversibility. Each further step in the development of the medium increased this crucial capacity to combine design progress with the preservation of adaptive malleability. ´ 4.2.1 DIFFERANCE: THE PRODUCTIVE VAGUENESS OF THE MEDIUM An architectural drawing makes sense only within the recursive networks of drawings, ie, the meaning of each drawing during the design process depends on its position in the overall succession of coordinated sets of drawings. The overall succession accumulates the information of the long-winded process of trial and error that moves through manifold alternatives. The process starts with open-ended sketching and ends with an ever more tightly integrated set of precisely coordinated drawings. The final result – especially in the case of avant-garde design processes – is often a new discovery even for the designer him/herself. It is important to remember that the way of designing by means of sketching as a browsing form-finding process was a radical innovation that broke with a long tradition of architecture. Classical architecture, in analogy to the idea of art as mimesis, was strictly ruled by the reproduction of fixed building types, complete with proportional and ornamental system. Design in the modern sense, taken for granted now, did not exist. Only on the basis of the path-breaking emancipation of art from its representational task, with the establishment of the autonomy of art as abstract formal creation, was architecture able to reinvent itself as Modern architecture. Modern architecture established itself by learning from abstract art while simultaneously distinguishing itself from art. It is only since the 1920s that design can be conceived as free composition in the sense of the free disposition of tectonic elements in space, ie, the free disposition of lines across the space of the drawing.20

20 This can be asserted despite the fact that compositio is one of the oldest terms within the theory of architecture. It is a general historical fact that words are much more stable than concepts. Old words are maintained and recycled to denote newly evolved phenomena and concepts. 342

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21 One might refer here to Jacques Derrida’s rejection of the ‘metaphysics of presence’ that bewitches our ordinary conceptions of meaning.

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The design procedure of opening up alternative options and choosing one of them to move on recurs with respect to new problems at successive levels of specification. The meaning of each stage of design development thus also depends on the alternatives that have been processed and rejected on the way. The meaning can thus never be fixed as simple presence within the drawing or digital model.21 Its further, more precise meaning is yet to be drawn out by the further process of translation and approximation. The evolving design retrospectively re-establishes the meaning of any previous drawing, with the proviso of further possibilities of reinterpretation as well as further elaboration/concretization. The meaning of any drawing is therefore – retrospectively as well as prospectively – stretched out in time, distributed across the overall chain of (sets of) drawings that evolves the design. With respect to the practice of writing, Jacques Derrida has analyzed this phenomenon of the non-presence of meaning. Any meaning is distributed across a space of co-determining, mutually differentiating meanings. Meanings are also drawn out in time – deferred – along the co-determining successive elaborations of a set of meanings. Derrida refers to these factors of difference and deference in his famous ´ ´ . This differance-effect operates within each design neologism differance process. Tracing paper has been a momentous technical accelerator in ´ this process. The differance-effect comes closest to the surface in the early stages of sketch design when lines are rapidly, sometimes nearly randomly, pushed across the paper and then selected through re-inscription and re-tracing on the next layer of tracing paper. Tentative scribbles come to mean something more determinate in the ongoing process of variation, selection and reproduction. In retrospect, only some of the infinite formal features one might identify and distinguish within a sketch turn out to have been significant . Only the topological relations but not the particular proportions of the elements might turn out to be ‘intended’. Perhaps a certain global directional thrust in the composition had been carried forward from overlay to overlay and is still evident in the final building, while the dynamic curvature of the initial sketches turned out to have been of no significance, being treated as unintended, mere accidental side-effect of the rapid movement of the free hand, discounted as soon as the first hard edge versions of the early sketches took over the design process. What is ‘meant’ at any stage is therefore determined later, in retrospect, through what is reproduced, and through what is eliminated, on the next level of translation. This productive vagueness of

intent that defers the discovery of the determinate meanings of the graphic elements can also be produced and maintained in 3D sketching environments like Maya. The same insight was articulated in the context of the process of composing music: ‘It is not the sketches that illuminate the finished compositions, but the compositions that illuminate the sketches. Without the finished work, it would, as a rule, be impossible to know how to interpret sketches.’22 The various mental acts and associations have no bearing on the meaning unless they have an impact on the ongoing production of drawings out of drawings, or of digital models out of digital models. The design process is a self-referential, autopoietic process that recursively defines itself and constitutes its elemental meaning components: the individual drawings as elements of the ongoing design process. What counts as an elemental architectural communication, ie, what is one versus another particular design decision, architectural idea, or feature, is not pre-given via an objective, external criterion. Anything that can be – by means of words and/or drawings – attributed to a design decision is an architectural element. But the decision that turns a latent, perhaps hitherto unobserved formal feature into an intended architectural feature or motif, this decision, is not only a mental act, but – and only this is relevant – a communication that explicitly underlines and reinforces the respective feature as intended and architecturally valuable. A certain feature of the design might be discovered and communicated later, in retrospect, perhaps only at the moment when a collaborating architect or consulting engineer proposes to eliminate the respective feature. At this point the feature might be defended as important and intended, and its presence is interpreted as the result of a design decision. Drawings and digital models always refer beyond themselves in two directions: to other drawings or digital models (internal reference) and to the building thus described and anticipated (external reference). But the external reference for each individual drawing or digital model is only given through the chain of internal references, via its position in the evolving network of drawings/models. Any given drawing raises questions and prompts a quest for further information. This quest is responded to by further drawings which are in turn explicated through more drawings. Sometimes further ‘drawings’ are ‘drawn’ in the air, by the finger tracing the drawing, selecting and re-emphasizing the relevant lines in the course of a critical design conversation. This elaboration of the meaning of the drawing by another drawing thus might also move in the direction of 22 Leonard B Meyer, ‘Toward a Theory of Style’, in The Concept of Style, ed Berel Lang, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY and London), 1979, p 69. 344

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23 Yet this complexity can only be fully experienced by using time, by letting one’s glance wander across the drawing or by moving through the thick pile of coordinated drawings. Neither the drawing or set of drawings, nor the complex digital model, reveals itself to a single glance. The same can be said of the completed building.

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further abstraction rather than concretization. Diagrams might explain and summarize more complex drawings while more complex drawings might elaborate diagrams – depending on the question at hand. There is hardly a communication about a design issue or architectural problem that does not run into the necessity to resort to pen and paper or their digital equivalents. A reliance on words soon becomes cumbersome and frustrating. You start to sketch. A question intercepts. You re-sketch. Now your interlocutor resorts to a counter-sketch. Do you mean this? Words might help, but many design questions cannot be settled by words alone. In turn: communication by means of sketches can benefit from words that summarize, distinguish and point to the level of abstraction implied in the drawing. Drawings and especially sketches have indeed sliding levels of abstraction that become determinate only retrospectively/prospectively in the network of proliferating sketches/words. Each concrete sketch contains more latent suggestions than are intended at any moment. Nobody (no communication) takes all the distinguishable formal features of a sketch as intended features that mean or represent something. Human consciousness (and the spoken word) can only attend to a small fraction at a time. That is why we have to resort to the technique of drawing in the first place. Only this way can we process sufficient complexity, by utilizing time on the basis of the temporal stability of the drawing , adding element upon element, hour upon hour, going over it again and again. It is in this drawn out, time-consuming process of drawing drawings out of drawings that architectural thinking and creativity resides. Drawing is a peculiar form of temporizing complexity. It is a way of temporizing and de-temporizing complexity by means of the production of successively more elaborate, complex spatial organizations. The result – at each stage as well as in its final stage as building – is a simultaneous complexity.23 In terms of the incremental build up of precise and intricate geometric complexity, the digital tools prove to be much more powerful than the practice of drawing on paper. The move from 2D files to 3D digital models is a massive leap in the capacity to build up complexity. The move from simple digital models to associative-parametric models affords another leap in productivity whereby a large part of the build up of complexity can be made pliable and adaptive and is thus preserved in the face of unforeseen future design options and decisions. The time

structure of parametric modelling is more complex, more powerful and more demanding than the time structure of drawing. Parametric designers have to anticipate more from the outset in order to preserve openness to the future while gaining detail and precision. The ability to combine detail resolution with openness to future transformations is the decisive hallmark of the parametric model.

4.2.2 THE DIAGRAM Diagrams are an increasingly important component within the panoply of communication techniques that makes up the specialized medium of architecture and the design disciplines. The significance of diagrams and diagrammatic processes for contemporary design has been widely discussed in recent architectural theory.24 The theory of architectural autopoiesis offers its own specific contribution to the explication of the importance of diagrams in architecture. Therefore, to set the scene for the discussion it might be opportune to offer a quick, general recapitulation that locates the specific theoretical point at which the diagram can be explicated within the theory of architectural autopoiesis. Architecture is one of the great autopoietic function systems of contemporary society. It operates in parallel and coevolves with the other great function systems such as the political system, the economic system etc. These function systems have achieved both universal and exclusive competency for a particular societal domain of communication necessary for the ongoing societal reproduction. The special efficacy of function systems is enhanced by the specialized media of communication that have respectively developed within these function systems: the medium of money in the economic system, the medium of power in the political system, and the medium of drawing/modelling in architecture and the design disciplines. The function of these specialized media – in very general terms – is to make otherwise highly improbable communications probable and indeed a daily occurrence that can be expected:

� Money makes the improbable probable, namely that we are able to be relaxed, non-envious onlookers with respect to the consumption of others, ie, without demanding our share whenever we see others enjoy a product. We can do this because we hold money – the universal equivalent – that allows us to satisfy our wants at the time of our own choosing.

24 See: Mark Garcia, The Diagrams of Architecture, AD Reader, John Wiley & Sons (London), 2010. 346

� Power makes the improbable probable, namely that we continuously

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Like money and power in their respective domains – economic exchange and political decision making/administration – the medium of drawing is universally applicable in its specific domain of operation, ie, with respect to all aspects of the built environment and indeed the totality of the world of designed artefacts. The specialized medium thus supports architecture’s exclusive and universal competency and control over the totality of the built environment and the world of artefacts. However, like money and power, the medium of architecture is also subject to inflation if the credibility gained through the medium is overstretched. In an evolving, increasingly complex and demanding societal environment each of the coevolving function systems is burdened with the requirement of continuous adaptive upgrading. This also includes the continuous adaptive upgrading of the respective specialized media: new forms of money and financial instruments, new mechanisms for social control and the administration of power, and new design tools and techniques within the medium of architecture. All of them are upgrading their capacity on the basis of the advancing technologies of computational information processing. In what follows, the discussion of diagrams is structured by two distinctions that are posed orthogonal to each other: the distinction of ordinary vs extraordinary diagrams, and the distinction of metric vs parametric diagrams. The first distinction is concerned with the external constitution of the diagram through its communicative context. The distinction distinguishes the ordinary case where abstract diagrams are embedded in routine practices of successive concretization from extraordinary diagrams that operate without such embeddedness. The second distinction is concerned with the internal constitution of the diagram through the ontology of its constitutive primitives and their capacity to constrain each other. Parametric diagrams are based on the

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follow both general constraining rules as well as the concrete instructions of our superiors against our natural instincts, desires and the immediate drive for organic comfort. Power thus allows for the organization of permanently asymmetric relations against the otherwise ‘natural’ law of reciprocity. � The medium of drawing/modelling makes the improbable probable, namely that we are able to convince ourselves as well as clients, stakeholders and the community at large that they should invest resources now and trust us with the creation of a complex, novel, unseen, long-term built environment that will not be available for inspection before it has been constructed a few years down the line.

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application of the techniques of scripting and parametric, associative modelling to the domain of abstract diagrams. The emergence of parametric diagrams recognizes the fact that the diagram as a central component within the arsenal of architecture’s specialized medium cannot be excluded from the burden and opportunity of adaptive upgrading via harnessing advanced computational information processing. The fact that the two proposed distinctions cut across each other leads to the following typological matrix:

Classification of Diagrams constitution

external constitution diagrams

internal constitution metric parametric

ordinary

extraordinary

metric-ordinary parametric ordinary

metric-extraordinary parametric-extraordinary

Diagrams and diagrammatic design processes constitute a special segment of architecture’s specialized medium of communication. Above we distinguished the architect’s project from the client’s project as well as from the consultant’s and contractor’s projects. Diagrams nearly exclusively operate with reference to the architect’s project. Their importance is due to their role at the very beginning of projects when the task is to come up with the basic configuration or parti of the project. A diagram is a special type of representation that is characterized by a high level of abstraction. The representation focuses on very specific aspects of the represented entity. These isolated aspects can then be grasped and manipulated with a high degree of efficiency. The high level of abstraction allows for a rapid search of the solution space. Diagrams are potential engines of invention that operate at the heart of the creative design process. As the pressure towards innovation increases so does the importance of diagrams within the overall medial arsenal of architecture. Usually, the high level of abstraction that is the defining mark of the diagrams is considered legitimate if what has been abstracted from can be taken for granted, ie, usually this high level of abstraction is granted on the basis of a clear understanding of what is omitted from the representation, and how the diagram can be completed in order to obtain a more fully mimetic representation. The theory of architectural autopoiesis refers to diagrams as ordinary diagrams if the relationship between the abstract diagram and the concrete entity represented is unproblematic because it is fixed through built-in routine assumptions that make the subsequent process of concretization predictable. 348

Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand was perhaps the first to introduce a diagrammatic process within architecture. He proposed a ‘mechanics of composition’25 made easy and efficient by using gridded paper upon which a series of basic elements such as walls and columns could be combined – following the rules of alignment, regularity and symmetry – to form standard building parts such as porches, vestibules and rooms which in turn could be combined into various whole buildings, again following the rules of alignment, regularity and symmetry. Both elements and parts were familiar. To further rein in the results of the compositional process, from the very start Durand proposed a procedure of decomposition or successive division starting from global geometric forms such as squares or rectangles. Even with these top down restrictions the introduction of diagrammatic composition implied an unheard of variety of results: ‘there is no telling how many different compositions this host of combinations can produce’.26 From the results of this diagrammatic process the rest of the design (including all the familiar Classical detail) followed automatically: ‘We have given a formula, in our discussion of the parts of the building, that will make it unnecessary even to look at the sections that we give of each ensemble. The elevations . . . must be nothing but the natural and necessary consequences of the plan and the section . . .’27 The advent of the 20th century saw a massive increase in building tasks. Architectural composition finally shook off the Classical restrictions of global geometric prefiguration, symmetry and proportion. The compositional process could now proceed from inside out, with nearly total openness with respect to the final configuration. This was the true moment of the ordinary diagram: isolating and freeing the aspect of layout configuration, but having a clear, new canon of translating diagrams into buildings that had even less variety in section, elevation

25 Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Pr´ecis des lec‚ons d’architecture donn´

ees a l’Ecole Royale Polytechnique, Paris 1802–5, English translation by David Britt, Pr´

ecis of the Lectures on Architecture, The Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA), 2000, p 196. 26 Ibid, p 126. 27 Ibid, p 196.

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Metric-ordinary diagrams

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Operationally this means that there exists a stable process of translation from the diagram to the architect’s design drawings and from there all the way to the final elaboration of the design into a final set of renderings for the client as well as a final set of construction documents for the contractor.

and detail than the Neo-Classical architecture of Durand: white walls, glass walls and flat roofs. Since the refoundation of the discipline in the early 1920s, the architect’s design world has thus been a singular and stable system of hierarchically scaled line drawings. From the scaleless (topological) sketch to the working drawings this world distributes nothing but outlines and boundaries. Everything is about the distribution of horizontal and vertical planes. The meaning of each drawing resides in its position and role in the chain of translation from one drawing to the next (more detailed) drawing and from there to the construction process and the building itself. Within this routinized practice of translation, from the abstract to the concrete, it is known by force of habit how each drawing constrains the next set of decisions, until the detailed lines finally translate into physical edges. (And we have all learned to perceive and inhabit space along those edges.) Only within such an order of repetition can one speak of a well defined notational system. Within such a system the design process can efficiently operate with diagrams, ie, with ordinary-metric diagrams. Once Modernist practice had been firmly established and the principles of the Modernist design rationality – separation, optimization and repetition – had been incorporated within the syntax of the Modernist mode of diagramming, a vast array of abstract configurations could be produced that embodied the principles of Modernist rationality. Thus equipped Le Corbusier and many others were exercising architecture’s exclusive and universal competency and radically transformed the global human habitat. The ordinary-metric diagram was the tool of their omnipotence. Any diagrammatic scribble could be launched, via a secure, predictable system of routine translation, into built reality on a vast scale. Whole new-towns could be rapidly plotted out in this way. The concept of an ordinary diagram that is firmly lodged in a routine practice is the model against which the extraordinary diagram is defined. The extraordinary diagram is a diagram in the sense that Deleuze distinguishes diagrams from representations. A Deleuzian (extraordinary) diagram is an abstract machine that is valued precisely because its downstream implications are totally open. The crucial difference between ordinary and extraordinary diagrams does not reside within the graphic or digital object itself, but in the patterns of its use. The question here is whether or not it functions within a stable social practice of translation. For the extraordinary (Deleuzian) diagram no defining routine practice has as yet crystallized. It is instead creatively engaged in the formation of such a (potentially reproducible) practice. It therefore is worked upon without stable interpretation, without predetermined consequences. We 350

At least from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s virtually all avant-garde design efforts were conducted through such Deleuzian diagrammatic processes. Such design processes are as open-ended as they are unpredictable. They might be compared to the aleatoric process of figuratively interpreting ‘random’ natural structures like the famous watermarks on the walls that inspired Leonardo (and later Max Ernst) to create fantastic landscapes. All that is initially given is the very basic premise that some kind of unusual spatial configuration should be discovered in the process. The architectural interpretation of the various graphic or digital primitives that are manipulated within the diagram remains open – lines might be walls, beams, shifts in materiality or merely trajectories of movement etc. This kind of open-ended formal experimentation is indicative of revolutionary transition periods between paradigms – specifically the transition from Modernism to the contemporary paradigm. Accordingly, the theory of architectural autopoiesis distinguishes revolutionary from cumulative periods of avant-garde design research. During revolutionary periods all premises and certainties of the previous paradigm are questioned. Philosophical debates rage unresolved and Deleuzian diagrams are the working tool of choice. This phenomenon was first observed during the transition from Classical to Modern architecture from about 1905 to 1925. During this time future architects and designers invented abstract art and utilized its non-figurative operations as abstract design machines. New viable formal repertoires were filtered out and fully routinized by 1925. Thereafter the extraordinary diagrams stabilized into ordinary diagrams. The second, and as yet most pronounced period in which the use of extraordinary diagrams proliferated was the period of Deconstructivism, dated roughly from 1983 to 1993. This decade was marked by the radical searching for a new architectural design paradigm. Daniel Libeskind’s Chamber Works from 1983, wholly abstract graphic explorations, might serve here as exemplification. All through the 1980s extraordinary diagrammatic processes dominated the design research in many architecture schools, most notably perhaps at the influential Architectural Association School

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Metric-extraordinary diagrams

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might thus say that extraordinary diagrams are proto-representations. The creative scope of extraordinary diagrams supersedes the creative scope of ordinary diagrams. Their future process of concretization is unpredictable. Their primary domain of employment is in the avant-garde segment of architecture’s autopoiesis, in particular during revolutionary rather than cumulative periods.

of Architecture in London, as well as in many avant-garde architectural practices, most notably perhaps Eisenman Architects as well as Zaha Hadid Architects. Eisenman’s transformational series and Zaha Hadid’s deployment of projective distortions and dynamic curvilinearity were extraordinary diagrammatic explorations that expanded and stretched the medium to the utmost. The successes and failures of these two practices during that decade (1983–93) indicate both the creative potential as well as the risk of the extraordinary diagrammatic design process. The involved risk is the risk of inflationary overreach: the process of extraordinary diagramming might not only fail to deliver a feasible building, it might indeed fail to gain credibility in the first place, it might fail to make the improbable convincing, and thus might not even reach the point where its feasibility can be put to the test. The work remains stuck in the early stages of the architect’s project without ever progressing to become a consultant’s or client’s project, and thus remains remote from the possibility of ever becoming a contractor’s project with a chance of realization. However, this temporary risk of media inflation was redeemed by the extraordinary creative power of the work. That the unleashed creativity had true innovative potential was finally demonstrated by the late 1990s.

Parametric diagrams The second distinction introduced here is the distinction between metric and parametric diagrams. Whereas the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary diagrams concerns the external embedding of the diagram within the rationality of an encompassing design process, the distinction between metric and parametric diagrams concerns the internal constitution of the diagram. While the attributes of the graphic/digital primitives that are manipulated within the metric diagram are fully determined and fixed at any time, within the parametric diagram they remain variable. This variability might be constrained within a defined range on the basis of associative functions that imbue the diagrammatic process with an in-built intelligence. Parametric diagrams might be compared to the way that evolution has produced the fantastic diversity of life based on a rather small number of fundamental body plans.28 A body plan is essentially the parametric diagram for the way the body of an organism is laid out: its symmetry, its number of body segments and 28 There are only 36 different basic animal body plans, corresponding to the different phyla that have been distinguished in biological taxonomy. A phylum is a taxonomic rank at the level below Kingdom (Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, . . .) and above Class. The list of 36 phyla includes, among others, chordates (including vertebrates) and arthropods (including insects). 352

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number of limbs etc. The same basic body plan underlies an enormous manifold comprising the most diverse species. But despite the large range of adaptive variation, a certain internal order and logic are maintained. The two distinctions – ordinary vs extraordinary and metric vs parametric – operate orthogonal to each other so that each side of each distinction can be combined with each side of the other distinction. Durand’s diagrams as well as the diagrams of Modernism since 1925 are ordinary metric diagrams . The abstract art of the 20th century, as well as the diagrams of Deconstructivism and the ‘abstract machines’ of early Folding were extraordinary metric diagrams . From the mid-1990s parametric diagrams started to emerge, first in the form of animations. These were extraordinary parametric diagrams within open-ended design research explorations. Today, the contemporary avant-garde is working more and more with ordinary parametric diagrams , ie, the designers know in advance what they are aiming for. This shift from extraordinary parametric diagrams to ordinary parametric diagrams goes hand in hand with the process of maturation in the design research programme of Parametricism. The period of revolutionary search has transformed into a period of cumulative research. The first generation of parametric diagrams entered architecture via the use of animation software allowing for versioning and intuitive form-finding by means of the continuous deformation of topologically defined surfaces or by means of inverse kinematic constructs. The animation of object transformations also led to the desire to maintain a certain degree of transformability within the final architectural construct. At the AADRL the author dedicated a whole three-year research cycle – Responsive Environments – to this potential of utilizing animation software to design kinetically active spaces. It was during this cycle of working with the action-reaction schema that the author first grasped the power of scripting and associative parametrics. The stability or recognizable self-identity of parametric diagrams against the backdrop of shifting parameter inputs rests on the powerful possibility to ‘link’ or ‘associate’ parameters by defining correlations (dependencies) between them. The internal self-consistency of the parametric primitives offered by animation software is established by internal functions that remain hidden to the intuitive user. In principle any conceivable network of relations between a given set of element attributes can be constructed. Scripting languages started to open up the software to designers, allowing them to be creative on the molecular and even atomic level. On the other hand, there is no principled limit (except computational limits) to take (or build) dynamic ‘primitives’, or complex components, and build up complexity by associating whole swarms of them, then correlate different swarms etc, affording the demiurge-like

freedom to link any parameter/property of any object with arbitrary parameters/properties of any or all other objects within the model. The realization of this ability to set up whole chains of dependencies and the creative challenge to conceive such functions as the quasi laws of nature of a new artificial universe was the moment at which the author was first struck by the enormous potential power of parametric design for the organization and articulation of social complexity – both as static and as dynamic condition. Since the contemporary avant-garde has moved from a revolutionary stage to a cumulative stage of design research – at least since 2000 – parametric diagramming is shifting more and more from extraordinary to ordinary parametric diagrams. This shift often goes hand in hand with a more rigorous employment of computationally advanced design techniques such as scripting in MEL Script or RhinoScript/Grasshopper, and parametric modelling with advanced tools like Generative Components (GC) or Digital Project (DP).29 Grasshopper seems to be winning out in the competitive struggle for domination as the preferred tool for scripting – at least in the avant-garde segment of the discipline – both on the diagrammatic level as well as on the level of concrete modelling. The great advantage of Grasshopper is that it transposes most of the scripting syntax into a graphic network language. The system of parametric dependencies that organizes the internal variability and differentiation of the model can now be configured and manipulated via a second order diagram that controls the first order diagram or model. The fact that this new, crucial domain of design decisions – the choice and elaboration of systematic correlations between the variable elements of the design – is now brought back into the ambit of architecture’s specialized medium of communication is perhaps the precondition for the full-blown proliferation of parametric scripting techniques within architecture and the design disciplines. Despite the ascendancy of ordinary-parametric diagrams as the crucial medium of design initiation, extraordinary parametric diagramming is not obsolete, and it might continue to take place on the highest level of technical sophistication. It is precisely the richness of this new world of computationally augmented design that still demands and rewards open-ended (extraordinary) diagrammatic design explorations into the 29 MEL Script is the scripting language of Maya (Autodesk) – a modelling/animation software that is increasingly popular in contemporary architecture. Grasshopper is a visual scripting language associated with the modelling tool Rhino. Generative Components (GC, Bentley Systems) is a parametric modelling tool developed specifically for architecture. Digital Projects (DP) of Gehry Technologies, developed on the basis of CATIA, of Dassault Syst`emes, originally developed for the design of aircraft. 354

30 Luhmann’s earlier theoretical work was formulated in terms of action systems rather than communication systems. The insights originally elaborated within the framework of action theory can be recuperated within the framework of the theory of autopoietic systems of communication. Thus we could replace the concept of action with the concept of communication in what follows. 31 Niklas Luhmann, ‘Temporalstrukturen des Handlungssystems’, in: Soziologische Aufkl¨arung 3, ¨ Sozialwissenschaften (Wiesbaden), 2005, pp 143–71. 4th edition, Verlag fur

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4.2.3 SPECIOUS VS POINT-LIKE TIME: THE TIME STRUCTURE OF THE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT In order to gain a more precise description of the temporal structure of the design process it is useful to look at Luhmann’s attempt to theorize the temporal structure of action systems in general.30 Actions are intentional behaviours that have meaning only within networks of actions. Actions are events. They mark time by making a difference and thus are pivots around which networks restructure. Processes are sequences of such actions. Although individual actions might have a certain individual duration, it is important to grasp that this duration is irrelevant inasmuch as the individual action operates as the pivot that separates past and future. Each action punctuates time and distinguishes the social world into the world before and after the action. Processes as sequences of actions are therefore characterized by the continuous shifting of event-bound time-perspectives. Luhmann starts his discussion of the constitution of time within social action systems with the distinction of reversibility and irreversibility.31 Irreversibility is that which turns the future into the past. An act, for example, a payment, accusation or decision, is irreversible to the extent that going back to undo it involves further effort and in any case does not lead back to exactly the same situation that existed before the act. The situation after a reversed decision is more complex. Action systems

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abstract world of relational logics without a preconceived path of translation into the design-world where parametric models offer concrete solutions to clearly stated design problems. At the academic end of the spectrum of the contemporary avant-garde, the recent engagement with agent-based modelling as a technique to initiate a design research project implies another round of open-ended experiments. This means that those agent-based set ups will at first operate as extraordinary diagrams. To the extent to which the provision of new computational tools – which keep flowing into architecture from other domains and disciplines – continues, we might witness and welcome an oscillation, and cross-fertilization between ordinary and extraordinary efforts in parametric diagramming.

permanently produce irreversibility. The ongoing action produces chains of irreversible events. Despite these self-enacted irreversibilities, action systems are also confronted with the irreversibilities that are produced by their environment. Opportunities to act continuously open up and perish irreversibly. However, the differentiation of a specific action system always opens a clearance within which irreversibilities can be postponed or held in suspension. In this sense an action system can build up reversibility, a space of manoeuvre where provisional, tentative action can be reversed and withdrawn and where options are held open. While action systems use processes to produce irreversibility, they use structures to build up reversibility. Action systems therefore operate within a temporal structure that commands two concepts of the present: 1. A point-like present that is measured with the clock and in which the future continuously and irreversibly becomes the past. 2. A specious present that has a prolonged continuance, which distances future and past, and in which one can linger to negotiate what should happen. The coexistence of these two types of time allows the action system to simultaneously handle both reversibility and irreversibility. It can mark point-like time with irreversible decisions while at the same time structuring its prolonged, specious present. This specious present allows for the sounding out of possibilities while maintaining poise and avoiding irreversible acts. While this specious time continues and, for the time being, maintains continuity, there always exists, at any point in time, the opportunity to place irreversible caesurae and thus establishing conspicuous discontinuities that mark time with irreversible events that draw a clear boundary between before and after, between past and future. This doubling of time and the doubling of the concept of the present renders the concept of simultaneous time ambiguous. With respect to specious time it makes sense to consider time-stretches during which nothing irreversible happens simultaneously, ie, at the same time. The distinction of point-like and specious present is not absolute, because the specious present is not simply empty. Rather, it is itself punctuated by minor events, minor advances and minor irreversibilities. These minor irreversibilities produce successions within a point-like micro-time that unfolds within the specious macro-time. However, these minor irreversibilities – hints, allusions, and all sorts of inconspicuous acts – leave the reversibility of the macro-time intact. The elaboration and timing of the minor irreversibilities that constitute the point-like micro-time are again able to utilize a corresponding specious 356

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micro-present which in turn might contain micro-micro events. Thus we can observe a nesting of macro to micro-times, at each level doubled with point-like and specious present respectively, available to action systems as required. The conceptual mechanisms of point-like versus specious time are thus always collaborative, leading us to define the concepts of point-like present and specious present as complementary concepts. These two concepts of the present – and the respective attendant conceptual mechanisms to take account of time – apply also to the architectural design process. The design process is indeed an action system in the sense implied in the above discussion. (More precisely: the architectural design process constitutes an autopoietic system of communications.) This particular kind of action or communication system is usually referred to as architectural project. Our topic, the temporal structure of the architectural design process, might therefore be restated as the temporal structure of the architectural project. Projects are indeed constituted through the ongoing design process that moves the project forward. But if, in our reflective thought, we were to emphasize solely the design process, we would tend to unduly privilege the point-like time that is conceived as a sequence of point events, namely the sequence of design decisions that irreversibly build up the complexity of the design. By thinking of design as a process, and thus by thinking of the architectural project as a process, we would neglect the importance of maintaining a specious present that holds many options in open suspense. The maintenance of such a specious present is important for the autonomous functioning of all autopoietic systems of communication. This is also the case with respect to the architectural project. After the design is complete and the final result of the design process is irreversibly established, it makes sense to retrace the steps that led to this, ie, the major bifurcation points in the decision tree that string together to become the final, remembered design decision sequence. The reflection focuses on the process as a sequence of design decisions, each as premise for further actions/decisions. This sequence functions as the most condensed retrospective description of the design process. Whenever a design decision is made and communicated, a space of possibilities is closed down. However, at the same time other such spaces are still open and continue to be explored without being much affected by this one specific closure. In this sense point-like and specious time are operating in parallel. Even the irreversible design decision itself opens up new spaces that now deserve exploration in the specious present. The importance of these time clearings, these prolonged presences, cannot be overestimated. This is where the creative, exploratory and inventive design mechanisms and communications unfold. Individual,

explorative sketching and diagramming, as well as collective brainstorming design sessions, both operate within a specious present without producing any irreversibility. Everything that happens in sketching and brainstorming remains fully reversible. A certain measure or zone of reversibility – the specious present – needs to be maintained throughout the entire design process. The design progresses by eroding this zone of reversibility. It needs to be replenished, on a new level of detail, each time the development of the architectural project is punctuated by yet another irreversible design decision. The reflection upon the temporal structure of the architectural project and design process is especially pertinent in the context of reflecting upon the medium of architecture. If we scan the history of the development of the architectural medium in this respect, we can observe that each step involved a substantial improvement of the medium’s capacity to facilitate the expansion of the specious present within the architectural project. One of the tasks of the medium of architectural design is to allow the designer or design team to progress the design without closing down the space of possibilities. The task is therefore to combine design progress with the preservation of reversibility . In a sense, the very introduction of a special medium of design, the very practice of drawing, set apart from the immediate site of actual construction, was the single most significant advance in the build-up of the capacity to combine progress with reversibility. Progress on site is always, irreversibly, the progressive closure of possibilities. The process of construction is a sequence of events in point-like time whereby every move transforms the present into the past. Every act of construction is an irreversible act that irrevocably forces us to recognize before and after in terms of what was possible before and what is still possible now. In comparison to the heavy and conspicuous acts on site, all events that take place on the drawing board are nothing but light-weight micro-events that preserve reversibility all the way through. In this sense, with respect to the public macro-time of conspicuous urban intervention, the elaboration of a design within the medium of the drawing sets no irreversibilities at all. In this sense the drawing exists within a prolonged, specious present, where nothing has happened at all that would enter the public macro-time of conspicuous urban intervention, and where from the point of view of this macro-time everything remains possible. With respect to this overarching macro-time the whole architectural project retains the single, immutable status of being ‘planned’, or being ‘under design’. Every practising architect is painfully aware of this ultimate reversibility of the irreversible results that have been built up within the design project: it is not rare for architectural projects – even after long 358

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32 However, as those who designed professionally before the introduction of CAD know, even hard-line documents on velum or mylar were subject to continuous revisions through scratching and redrafting. The ability to remove ink from thick velum/mylar offered a significant advance over the older practice of irreversibly inking on white card.

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and effortful design processes – to be simply cancelled, leaving things as if nothing had happened. If we take a closer look at the development of the medium of architecture we can observe that the two major technical improvements in the medial substratum – the introduction of tracing paper and the introduction of computing – both implied a significant improvement in the capacity of the medium to combine design progress with reversibilty. The critical task of the medium in this respect is it to allow the designer to use time to build up the complexity of the design while simultaneously suspending time’s irreversibility. The significance of tracing paper is threefold: first, it allows for the graphic coordination of a set of different drawings, ie, the various floor plans of a multi-storey building, the various staggered, vertical sections and elevations that describe the building, as well as the coordination across these two sets. Second, tracing paper allows for blueprinting multiple copies which facilitates the coordination of the various members of the design team. Third, and most relevant here, tracing paper – in the form of transparent sketching paper – allows the designer to engage the current state of the coordinated set of drawings in a provisional, trial and error fashion. The designer can provisionally override, add, modify, copy, shift, rotate and mirror elements, in rapid succession, without interfering with the precious accumulation of complex information already achieved. He/she can even layer multiple sketches and shift them across multiple underlying drawings. All these browsing manoeuvres unfold in the expanded specious present that this augmented medium affords to the designer. As this exploration comes to a conclusion and the design decision crystallizes, this prolonged reversibility is abandoned. Now the sketching paper is slipped under the elaborate base drawing in order to allow this latest design decision to be – more or less irreversibly – inscribed into the set of hard-line documents. This hard line inscription fixes the design decision, allows it to be distributed to all members of the design team, and makes it available as a premise for everybody’s further design work. At this specific point in time, the design process has been irreversibly notched forward. The irreversibility of this design step is now a precondition for the further progress of the design.32 The next major step in the development of architecture’s medium was the introduction of the electronic computer as the medial substratum.

While the required machinery initially increases, the drawing itself dematerializes. Electronic drawings are physically even more lightweight and ephemeral than drawings on paper with an attendant general increase in malleability. Initially, the use of the computer – computer aided design (CAD) – merely enhanced the efficiency and speed of the design medium on all counts listed above with respect to the use of transparent paper. CAD systems allow for the same types of manipulation of graphic components that are given with the use of transparent paper: graphic elements can be copied, shifted, rotated and mirrored. However, a whole further range of such manipulations is now available, like arraying, scaling, stretching etc. CAD systems such as AutoCAD also allow for the coordination of multiple plans, sections and elevations via the so called ‘X-ref’ cross-referencing tool that is an electronic realization of the mechanism of slipping one drawing underneath another. In this case the referenced drawing is a separate file that can only be referenced but not modified. There is another tool that translates the idea of layering transparent drawings, the layer tool. This tool might be used to build up the various plans of a multi-storey building whereby each level would be located on a different layer. However, this coincidence of two simultaneous forms of coordination – referencing and layering – invited a new form of ordering the build-up of a complex drawing that was not available before CAD. Single floor-plans are now typically built up across different layers whereby the different layers are utilized to distinguish the different subsystems of the intended building: cores, walls, openings, floor-tessellations etc. This move introduces a new way of combining design progress with the preservation of reversibility. Now certain layers of the drawing can be fixed (locked) while other layers are being manipulated. The next crucial step in the development of the medium is the move away from simulating graphic representations to the direct simulation of a virtual three-dimensional geometry. This step involves an enormous leap in the ability to handle geometric complexity without losing the ability to control and coordinate the various parts and subsystems of an increasingly complex construct. Certain advanced modelling programmes facilitate the manageability of complexity – and this crucially includes the maintenance of reversibility – by special tools that track the sequential build up of complexity as both a reversible historical sequence and as a sequence of dependency. This kind of tool allows the designer to perceive the model both as process (sequence of operations) and as resultant artefact. In terms of process the tool – for example, Maya’s hyper-graph – retains information about sequences of cumulative manipulation and presents 360

The build-up of this kind of parametric model – like any design – proceeds via a series of design decisions that punctuates time in terms of before and after. However, while these systems thus produce their own irreversibility they also produce a powerful zone of reversibility. They stretch the specious present and fill it with a previously unattainable expanse of simultaneously available choices on virtually arbitrary levels of complexity and detail. The impact of the micro-electronic revolution on the medium of architecture – and thus on the general progress and stylistic development of architecture – has been momentous. Further developments and advances are under way, without any final endpoint in sight, but with a clear direction, the direction mapped out by the ambitions of Parametricism.

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1. To simultaneously increase the complexity and unity of the artefact by means of the lawful differentiation of parametric components. One might refer to such a result as a fully modulated design. This also includes the set up of associative logics whereby the various layers or subsystems of the global model can be lawfully correlated and the differentiation of whole arrays of components can be driven by underlying data-sets. 2. To hold a design – even a complex, fully modulated design – open and flexible during the whole design process. Rather than designing a specific configuration, this involves the design of a geometric system or genotype that remains an open function. This open function can instantiate an open-ended series of particular designs or phenotypes depending on the particular values that are introduced to concretize the genotype. Variation of the underlying data-sets implies a total reconfiguration of the design – while fully preserving the achieved level of complexity.

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them in the form of network graphs that facilitate orientation and strategic intervention within the model. Earlier design decisions can be varied within a certain parametric range while preserving later cumulative steps of manipulation that are then all recalculated to produce a new outcome. Thus malleability is preserved deep into the history of the build-up of complexity. As the computer is building up all geometric elements as mathematical functions, all aspects of the model are always inherently ‘parametric’. However, it requires special provisions in terms of programming and interface to make the parametric constitution systematically available to the designer’s manipulation. The idea of parametric modelling is twofold:

A similarly momentous impact of the micro-electronic revolution has been witnessed in some of the other symbolically generalized media of communication. For instance, the medium of money – as the medium of the economy – has evolved decisively in its many digital disguises, leaving its mark on the world economy. The same can be established with respect to power as the general medium of formal organization, and as the special medium of the political system. Electronic tracking has massively expanded the efficiency of administrative and political power. Thus in all these domains – architecture, economy and politics, among others – the specialized medium advances and coevolves with the respective function system, and in turn with the evolution of society as a whole.

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Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory serves as general framework for the theory of architectural autopoiesis. His account of modern society as functionally differentiated society stipulates that the overall societal life-process – understood as communication process – is no longer integrated vertically via the unitary hierarchy of a stratified social order, but is instead horizontally differentiated into mutually exclusive, autonomous subsystems, each dedicated to one of the major functional exigencies of modern society. Luhmann distinguishes the following modes of social differentiation: segmentation, centre-periphery differentiation, stratification and functional differentiation. While all forms of social differentiation occur across all historical stages, Luhmann suggests that the major epochs of societal development can be identified by their respective primary mode of differentiation. The primary mode of differentiation within a society is thus Luhmann’s primary marker of epochal distinction and periodization. Archaic societies were marked by segmentation, the first city states embodied a centre-periphery differentiation, and for all further civilizations, until the advent of modernity, stratification was the primary mode of differentiation. According to Luhmann it is the general shift in the predominant mode of societal differentiation from stratified differentiation to functional differentiation that marks the epochal transition to modernity. However, the fact that functional differentiation is now society’s primary mode of differentiation does not spell the total disappearance of stratification or of the older modes of differentiation. Segmentation, centre-periphery differentiation and stratification still play a (subordinate) role in many domains of contemporary social life. Within modern society it is functional differentiation that becomes the pervasive and predominant mode of societal differentiation. The most striking manifestation of this general tendency is the emergence of the great function systems as the major autopoietic subsystems of modern society: the economy, the political system, the legal system, science, art, the education system, the mass media and architecture are distinct systems of communication that have differentiated according to the indispensable societal functions they perform. They assume exclusive

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5. The Societal Function of Architecture

responsibility for the fulfilment of the respective societal functions they have taken on. However, this functional responsibility has not been allocated to the respective function systems by rational societal decision. Rather, societal functions act as evolutionary attractors for system-differentiation.1 Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society thus poses a central question with respect to each of these major autopoietic subsystems of society: which important societal function lies at the heart of each respective societal ˆ subsystem? What is, in each case, the respective raison d’etre of its emergence as distinct subsystem and its continuous, autonomous existence?

5.1 Architecture as Societal Function System THESIS 21 All social communication requires institutions. All institutions require architectural frames. The societal function of architecture is to order/adapt society via the continuous provision and innovation of the built environment as a system of frames. The theory of architectural autopoiesis theorizes architecture in parallel to Luhmann’s account of the great function systems of modern society. The fundamental working hypothesis of this book is that architecture is a major autopoietic function system within modern world society, a function system with its own exclusive and universal responsibility for an important societal function that demands independent treatment and promotion by an autopoietic communication system that is specifically differentiated to focus on this function. In relation to architecture we are therefore prompted to ask: what is the societal function of architecture? ˆ What is the raison d’etre of architecture’s origin and continuing existence as autopoietic subsystem of society? The answer is that architecture’s unique function is the provision of spaces that frame communication. The societal function of architecture is thus to order and adapt society via the continuous provision and innovation of the built environment as a system of frames. Framing is a necessary precondition of all direct, interactive communication. Framing is itself a form of communication. It is an important type of communication. It determines a general set of constraining premises for all further communications that are to take place within the 1 See: Niklas Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft, 3rd edition, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1999, p 216. 364

The building/space lives a ‘double life’ as it participates both in the daily communications of its occupants/users and in the architectural discourse.The way the building/space functions as communication, ie, its meaning, is in each case very different. The same communication is embedded in two very different communicative networks. It is the first of the two cases distinguished here that is the focus of this section on the societal function of architecture. 5.1.1 FUNCTION VS SERVICE2 The distinction of the function of a system from the services a system performs follows from the distinction of two principal possibilities of observing the system as subsystem:3

2 The German word ‘Leistung’ which Luhmann uses might be translated as service, performance, achievement or task. 3 Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1997, p 757.

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1. The architectural space operates as framing communication within the social system that occupies and utilizes the space, for example, a particular public gathering, a certain business organization, or a certain family etc. 2. The architectural space circulates as communication within the autopoiesis of architecture, for example, when the respective building is visited, photographed, critiqued or otherwise referred to by architects within the expert discourse of architecture.

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communicated frame. Buildings, or, to be more precise, the spaces (territories) around and within buildings, thus constitute important communications. They are communications that are generated within the autopoiesis of architecture, but at the same time they cross architecture’s system boundary to enter other social communication systems as their framing devices. Architectural spaces are the final architectural communications delivered into society as architecture’s service to society. They are priming the participants of an ensuing communicative encounter by setting the scene, by pre-constraining the range of possible communicative scenarios and by conjuring up anticipations about what is likely to be expected from the participants. At the same time these buildings and spaces might continue to circulate as active communications within the autopoiesis of architecture. Each completed building or space is thus a communication in two rather distinct and incommensurable systems of communications:

1. The observation of a subsystem in relation to the encompassing, overall system identifies the function of the subsystem in question. In the case of the great function systems of modern society the encompassing system is modern society itself, ie, world society as the system of all communications. A function system has a unique function that relates to a fundamental societal exigency. 2. The observation of a subsystem in relation to other subsystems identifies the multiple services the system performs for the other systems. It is through the services which a function system performs for many (perhaps all) other social systems that a function system fulfils its societal function. But not all services a function system performs are equally central to addressing its unique societal function. The concept of function is conceived on a higher level of abstraction than the concept of service. Function systems fulfil their societal function via some of the various services they perform for the other great function systems, as well as for all sorts of other social systems, for example, for organizations, families, or temporary social gatherings. The concrete services each function system renders for (all) the other systems of society can be more or less readily identified, while the identification and definition of each system’s unique function can only be the result of theoretical reconstruction. While each function system produces multiple services there can only be one function for each function system, because it is the unity of this function that acts as evolutionary attractor for the differentiation of the respective system as unified, autopoietic system.4 Therefore the theory of architectural autopoiesis has to distil and abstract the critical societal function of architecture from all the concrete services architecture renders to all the different social systems that utilize architecture. The different function systems depend on each other’s provisions. Each relies on the services of all the other function systems and each faces the demand for adequate service provision from all the other function systems.5 For example, the services the system of the sciences offers to the various other social systems – including the other function systems – 4 It is a hallmark of modern society that each societal function is only addressed by a single, unique social system, ie, there is no redundancy or double safeguarding with respect to the provision of each crucial function. If a function system fails, its respective function cannot be provided and society’s ongoing autopoiesis is called into question. 5 Each system perceives both its service-dependencies and the service-demands it faces as irritations. The service-dependencies and service-demands appear as irritations rather than communications because the different subsystems of society cannot understand each other’s rather different, incommensurable, system-specific patterns of communication. 366

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5.1.2 FUNCTION SYSTEMS AND THE FUNCTIONAL EXIGENCIES OF SOCIETY Before considering in detail the question of architecture’s societal function, it seems opportune to investigate this question and Luhmann’s answers in relation to those great function systems which the theory of

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consist in the provision of respectively applicable knowledge. One of the services the legal system offers is the provision of conflict resolution in the domains of the economy, the family, political administration etc. However, as we shall see below, conflict resolution does not constitute the critical societal function of the legal system. Conflict resolution cannot be the societal function of the legal system because there are other, non-legal mechanisms of conflict resolution that can operate as functional equivalents for legal procedures, ie, non-legal arbitration, conflict termination through negotiation or decisive struggle etc. One of the services the education system performs is to provide widely applicable selection criteria for the allocation of jobs. Again, this does not constitute the societal function of the education system. Among the services architecture performs we might enlist the provision of shelter to all sorts of social activities. This has often been declared to be the primordial or archetypical purpose of architecture. A well-tempered, controlled environment is still a ubiquitously demanded service that is delivered via the work of architects. However, this provision of shelter is not the essential societal function of architecture that acts as evolutionary attractor for the differentiation of a specialized, autonomous system of architectural communications. Shelter cannot be architecture’s societal function, because shelter can equally well be provided by engineers, or by contractors directly, without any involvement of architects and architectural discourse. There are even natural functional equivalents for the shelter provided by architecture, such as caves or the canopy of trees providing shade and protection from rain. The provision of the same service through other systems and the availability of functional equivalents is a sure sign that the respective service is not the societal function of an autopoietic function system. It is the peculiarity of all modern function systems that they have evolved to become the exclusive providers of key societal functions, so that society must rely on the performance of its autopoietic function systems without the hope of finding any functional equivalents that could serve to cover for the respective exigencies. Thus the absence, or at least scarcity, of functional equivalents is one of the criteria by which the societal functions of society’s great subsystems can be identified.

architectural autopoiesis construes as both analogues and complements of architecture. The identification and condensed explication of the various societal functions that underlie the great autopoietic function systems such as the economy, the political system and the legal system etc are not straightforward. Each function system needs to be explicated with reference to a critical, societal problematic. All function systems relate directly to the totality of society, addressing a critical exigency of society. This implies that the respective functional problems must be solved for the autopoiesis of society to continue. This also implies that these problems are always already more or less effectively solved. However, with the growth of society and with its increasing complexity these problematics have to be re-addressed and resolved again and again, on ever higher levels of challenge and achievement. Such critical functions finally, during the advent of modernity, acted as ‘evolutionary attractors’ for the differentiation of the specific function systems.6 While sociology has often allowed the question of the function of systems such as the legal, political or economic system to be answered with a whole list of functions and thus has assumed these systems to be multifunctional systems, Luhmann starts with the hypothesis that the function systems of modern society have differentiated on the basis of a single, specific key function. ‘This presupposes that the systemic unity corresponds to a unified function.’7 The theory of architectural autopoiesis follows this assumption of functional unity and we can therefore ask about the societal function of the autopoiesis of architecture. Luhmann’s theoretical system postulates societal complexity as overarching problem that impacts on all the individual problematics. The differentiation of function systems allows a growing society to cope better with the self-generated complexities accumulated during this growth. Once a certain functional differentiation has taken hold of such a society another leap in societal complexity is possible, whereby new problems emerge that might be addressed by further functional differentiation.8 Thus the list of autopoietic function systems is not a final, closed list. 6 Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2000, p 138. However, the function of a function system is not institutionalized as conscious purpose directly orienting actors. This does not preclude that the function is reflected within the self-descriptions of the function system. 7 Niklas Luhmann, Die Religion der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 2000, p 120. 8 Niklas Luhmann, Das Recht der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1993, pp 131 –43. 368

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collective actions through collectively binding decisions, ie, all societies have to establish one or another form of leadership or government. The autopoietic political system within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the continuous, innovative provision of collectively binding decisions. The institution of the law is equally ubiquitous. Every society needs to stabilize expectations against the possibility of disappointment and uphold rules in the face of violations. Expectations that refuse to adapt to or ‘learn from’ the experience of disappointment, ie, that are not revised in the face of violations, are called normative expectations. Stable expectations are crucial to order social communication. The autopoietic legal system within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the continuous, innovative provision of normatively stabilized expectations. Every society must find a way to organize the procurement and ordered distribution of the future material means of life, under the condition of scarcity, and on the basis of the current patterns of distribution. Every society needs to solve the problem of establishing a relatively stable pattern of organizing production and ordering distribution. The autopoietic economic system within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the ongoing regulation of the procurement and distribution of the material means of life. Every society needs to order and stabilize social communication by establishing and maintaining a shared world view. Under the conditions of a world-spanning society this function of constructing a shared horizon for society-wide communication is taken up by the mass media. The autopoietic communication system of the mass media within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the continuous, innovative provision and dissemination of a shared world view. Every society needs to ensure that the new generations are being sufficiently socialized to maintain the achieved level of ordered social complexity. Under the condition of a complex modern world a specialist

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� All societies have to order and stabilize their communications and

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However, the key functional problematics around which the autopoietic function systems of modern world society have formed are the fundamental reference problems that societies of all ages and levels have to solve in order to constitute and stabilize themselves as encompassing social systems.

system is required to organize and universalize the socialization into a social world that places very high demands upon the formation of well-adapted individuals. The autopoietic education system within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the continuous, innovative organization of universal socialization. � Every society needs to secure new knowledge9 about the world. The autopoietic system of science within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to order and adapt society via the continuous provision of new knowledge. � The function of art was perhaps less stable across history. One of its older functions was to represent admired ideals. Within modern, functionally differentiated society the autopoietic art system has taken up the societal function of providing society with a freewheeling, explorative and provocative form of communication that reflects actual reality via the perceptually vivid presentation of other future potential realities.10 Thus far we can summarize the key societal functions of the great function systems of modern society as they have been analyzed and formulated within the theoretical oeuvre of Niklas Luhmann.11 The above listed formulae have been extrapolated from Luhmann’s various monographs. Luhmann himself never presented such a unified list. To condense the societal functions of the respective function systems into a single phrase or formula that is both plausible and contains a fresh insight rather than repeating a mere commonplace has been a challenge, not only for Luhmann, but also for the attempt here to track and summarize his insights. Luhmann provides the above formulae but they have not always been marked out with the explicitness presented in the list above. This is to suggest that these formulae need not be taken as final, authoritative pronouncements. However, the above list serves the 9 Niklas Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), p 355. 10 Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2000, p 147, p 148. 11 According to Luhmann, religion would have to be featured here as well, but no similar attempt to summarize the respective societal function succeeded for religion, although the corresponding monograph contains chapters entitled ‘The Function of Religion’. Luhmann did attempt to clarify the societal function of religion, but the result of this attempt is all too contorted, vague and abstract. See Niklas Luhmann, Die Religion der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt am Main), 2000. Even if Luhmann had provided a succinct formula, I would dispute his attempt to theorize religion as function system of modern society. In my view, religion must be theorized as an anachronism that is due to the unevenness in the global developmental process. 370

� Every society needs to utilize articulated spatial relations to frame, order and stabilize social communication. The autopoietic system of architecture within modern functionally differentiated society has taken up this societal function: to frame social communication, or, more precisely, to continuously adapt and re-order society via contributing to the continuous provision and innovation of the built environment as a framing system of organized and articulated spatial relations. The implementation of this societal function demands two tasks that must be distinguished and correlated in the design effort: organization and articulation.12 The concept of order proposed here – encompassing both social and architectural order – denotes the result of the combined effort of organization and articulation. Architectural order – symbiotic with social order – requires both spatial organization and spatio-morphological articulation. While organization establishes objective spatial relations by means of distancing (proximity relations) as well as by means of physically separating and connecting areas of space, 12 A detailed exposition of organization and articulation as the central tasks of architecture will be given in Volume 2, section 6 The Task of Architecture.

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5.1.3 FRAMING AS SOCIETAL FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURE A first hint that architecture addresses an indispensable function is the fact that there is no human society without a constructed spatial environment (architecture or proto-architecture), as there is no human society without political institutions, and as there is no human society without law, without an economic system, without a shared world view, without a system of socialization, without a knowledge base and without art. As is the case with all the other autopoietic function systems of modern society, the societal function of architecture, in the sense of addressing an underlying reference problem, is much older than the differentiated function system itself, which only emerged as differentiated, autopoietic system within the context of modernity. All function systems solve perennial exigencies in new, advanced ways within the new, advanced and increasingly complex context of modern society. Is there a plausible, comparative formula for the succinct identification and explication of the societal function of architecture that could be offered in parallel to the formulae that summarize the other great function systems listed above? The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes the following candidate for such a formula:

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important purpose here of providing the comparative matrix within which to identify and explicate the societal function of architecture.

articulation operates via the involvement of the user’s/participant’s perception and comprehension of their designed/built environment. Articulation reflects the phenomenological and the semiological dimensions of architecture. Thus, to the extent to which architecture operates through articulation (rather than mere organization), it also relies on engendering an effective semiosis within the designed/built environment. It is one of the fundamental claims of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that the semiological dimension of architecture is of central importance with respect to architecture’s capacity to successfully discharge its unique societal function. The semiological dimension of architecture has sometimes been downplayed or even denigrated under slogans such as performance versus representation, or organization versus signification etc.13 However, it is a fallacy to counterpose organization and signification as incompatible paradigms for architecture. Instead it should be recognized that both are inescapable dimensions of architecture. Inasmuch as architecture is inhabited by culturally socialized subjects, the ordering effects of architecture rely, to a large extent, on effective signification. The effective social utilization of complex institutional spaces cannot be achieved purely by means of the physical channelling of human bodies. The effectiveness of the spatial order relies upon the active orientation of the subjects on the basis of a ‘reading’ of the spatial territory. This in turn requires articulation over and above physical organization.14 The societal function of the other design disciplines – in particular product design and fashion design – can be defined in terms that are precisely parallel to the definition of architecture’s societal function. The framing of communicative interaction is the societal function of both architecture and design. In fact, the spatial frames of architecture collaborate with the system of designed artefacts in the framing of social communication. The sociological insight that underlies this identification of architecture’s/design’s societal function can be cast into the thesis that no society can be built up without articulated, spatial frames, and without 13 These false arguments can only be understood as overreaction to the one-sided emphasis on signification within the discourses of Postmodernism and Deconstructivism. The author has discussed these arguments in the following article: Patrik Schumacher, ‘Divergence or Confluence’, Afterword reviewing the symposium Sign as Surface: Meaning beyond the New Digital Aesthetic, in: Peter Zellner (Ed), Sign as Surface, Architecture & Design Projects Series, Catalogue, Artists Space (New York), Sept 2003. 14 Current forms of differentiated office landscapes may serve as example: the traditional physical demarcation of territory by means of solid walls is replaced by the subtle coding of zones and the articulation of legible thresholds. This means that the importance of the semiological dimension of architecture increases rather than decreases. 372

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15 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, The Free Press (New York), 1995, original French publication: Les Formes el ´ ementaires ´ de la vie religieuse: Le syst`eme tot´emique en Australie, Alcan (Paris), 1912. 16 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis – an Essay on the Organization of Experience, Harper & Row (New York), 1974.

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articulated artefacts and adornments. Even the most basic and precarious human societies ever observed – the Australian tribes – exist and stabilize themselves via pre-architectural and artefactual frames.15 The built environment – filled with an ever increasing multitude of artefacts – provides a new material substratum for long-term (cross-generational) social ‘memory’, as necessary substratum for the evolution of social order. This is the crucial point of bifurcation that engenders the socio-cultural evolution of mankind as new, sui generis type of evolution. Only via this new evolutionary substratum can a new, more complex, artificial order be built up that effectively allows the human species to escape the animal kingdom. It is this crucial, primordial substratum of socio-cultural evolution – the capacity of spatial and artefactual frames to order social communication on ever increasing levels of complexity – that has been usurped by architecture and the design disciplines as their unique societal function and exclusive domain of competency. Frames, in a more general sense, have long since been identified as an essential component of social communication.16 The need for frames and architecture’s contribution to the establishment and stabilization of frames is so basic and so much taken for granted in everyday communication that it takes some effort to see the functional exigency or problem that is addressed by frames. All communication is continuously guided by frames in Goffman’s sense as typified social situations that structure interaction via standard role expectations and scripts. Instead of frame we might speak of the social ‘setting’, ‘background’ or ‘context’. It is no accident that spatial metaphors abound here. All social interaction presupposes that a situation is being defined for everybody to relate to each other as participants within this situation. The crucial point to grasp here is that all social interaction presupposes a shared reference framework that puts all participants ‘on the same page’. It makes a difference whether people are gathering for a social chat, or for a formal business meeting. Even if the same group of people were to be concerned, their respective role differentiation and mutual expectations would be rather different, and the meaning and impact of individual remarks and gestures would be rather different too. That social interaction needs the guidance of frames comes into sharper relief at delicate moments when frames are fragile. The meaning of the slightest moves or words might become ambiguous. Goffman cites the

example of a gynaecological examination that is now routine but took a while to receive a stable frame: ‘It was only at the end of the eighteenth century in Britain that childbirth could benefit from obstetric examination, an undarkened operating room, and delivery – if a male physician was to do it – unencumbered by its having to be performed under covers. The gynecological examination is even today a matter of some concern, special effort being taken to infuse the procedure with terms and actions that keep sexual readings in check.’17 But even in the most mundane everyday occurrences, social meanings cannot be taken for granted. Each word, gesture or action is embedded within a framed situation. ‘Each event is but one element in a whole idiom of events, each idiom being part of a distinctive framework.’18 The anthropologist Edward T Hall also emphasized the importance of the physical context in the constitution of the meaning of any communicative interaction. He insists that the linguistic code and the context together constitute the meaning of a message. ‘Without context the code is incomplete since it encompasses only part of the message . . . The context is inextricably bound up with the meaning of the event.’19 The reference problem of Hall’s discussion is the problem of information-rich communication under modern conditions of communication between strangers and the permanent threat of communication overload. Hall recognizes ‘contexting’ as a way of complexity reduction via preprogramming and focusing the attention of the participants in a communicative interaction. The central question that needs to be answered before any meaningful communication can be launched is: ‘What is it that’s going on here?’20 We must assume with Goffman that before individuals can attend to a situation they have to face this question and interpret clues to answer it. ‘Whether asked explicitly, as in times of confusion and doubt, or tacitly, during occasions of usual certitude, the question is put and the answer to it is presumed by the way the individuals then proceed to get on with the

17 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis – an Essay on the Organization of Experience, Harper & Row (New York), 1974, Northeastern University Press edition (Boston), 1986, p 35. 18 Ibid, p 37. 19 Edward T Hall, Beyond Culture, Random House (New York), 1976, pp 86, 90; Hall famously distinguishes high-context versus low-context modes of communication: ‘A high-context communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A low-context communication is just the opposite, ie, the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code’ (Hall, 1976, p 91). 20 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis – an Essay on the Organization of Experience, Harper & Row (New York), 1974, Northeastern University Press edition (Boston), 1986, p 8. 374

It is a fundamental thesis of the theory of architectural autopoiesis that architecture is making a crucial contribution to enable and stabilize situational definitions. Typified social situations – social institutions in the most general sense – usually operate in appropriate architectural settings that offer familiar cues to narrow down the scope of potential situations that might be encountered. The particular, event-related pattern of occupying an architectural setting, ie, the arrangement and handling of its flexible components like furniture, together with the disposition of the bodies within the space, give further perceptually conspicuous cues that allow the situation to be interpreted in a sufficiently determinate way. Indeed, the individual occupation of the space and the attendant handling of the available props are already powerful communications that can serve to pose or clarify an emerging communicative situation; for instance, when the highest ranking officer in a business meeting closes the door and takes his seat at the head of the conference table. Goffman is a good point of departure to introduce the concept of framing. However, his work does not at all focus on the architectural dimension and contribution to situational framings. Although some scattered remarks about ‘spatial brackets’23 and the significance of artefacts can be found,24 his work largely abstracts from this crucial 21 Ibid.

22 Ibid, p 9.

23 ‘Spatial brackets will commonly indicate everywhere within which and nowhere outside of

which the keying applies’, Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis, Harper & Row (New York), 1974, Northeastern University Press edition (Boston), 1986, p 45. 24 Goffman considers that ‘stable meaning is built socially into artifacts’ and that ‘the meaning of an object (or act) is a product of a social definition’ and that ‘this definition emerges from the

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The amount of time covered by “current” (just as the amount of space

covered by “here”) obviously can vary greatly from one occasion to the next

and from one participant to another; and the fact that participants seem to

have no trouble in quickly coming to the same apparent understanding in

this matter does not deny the intellectual importance of our trying to find

out what this apparent consensus consists of and how it is established. To

speak of something happening before the eyes of observers is to be on

firmer ground than usual in the social science; but the ground is still shaky,

and the crucial question of how a seeming agreement was reached

concerning the identity of the “something” and the inclusiveness of “before

the eyes” still remains.22

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affairs at hand.’21 The crucial question that Goffman is asking is how, in any time and place, a stable, shared definition of the current situation is arrived at and maintained.

architectural component. Frames, or frameworks, for Goffman are ‘schemata of interpretation’ that render ‘what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful’.25 Instead of adhering to Goffman’s usage calling these schemata of interpretation ‘frames’, the theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes to call these encompassing schemata institutions and to reserve the notion of frame for the crucial architectural contribution to the readiness and stable functioning of social institutions.26 A generalized concept of social institution exactly captures what Goffman is intending with his notion of frame (framework): ‘a system of entities, postulates, and rules . . . that allows its user to locate, perceive, identify, and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its terms’.27 After this terminological substitution we can formulate the following thesis: all effective social communication requires and reproduces social institutions; and all institutions require and reproduce architectural frames. Even after this terminological substitution we can assert and give new significance to one of Goffman’s most sweeping statements: ‘Taken together, the primary frames of a particular social group constitute a central element of its culture.’28 5.1.4 THE DEFINITION OF THE SITUATION AS PRECONDITION OF SOCIAL INTERACTION All social interaction29 presupposes that a situation is being defined for everybody to relate to each other as participants within this situation. The situation needs to be ‘framed’ rather than fully determined. A series of potential courses of action is being preselected by the frame indicating the institution; but within this identified institution various alternatives are open. Insensitive or ignorant behaviour, or unexpected occurrences, can break or shift the situation. A new situation arises. But again, this new situation needs to be somehow defined before meaningful interaction can continue.

25 26 27 28 29 376

object’s role in the society at large, which role then becomes for smaller circles a given that can be modified but not totally recreated’. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis, Harper & Row (New York), 1974, Northeastern University Press edition (Boston), 1986, p 39. Ibid, p 21. This usage is closer to the literal, spatial meaning of the word ‘frame’ while Goffman uses the word in a metaphorical capacity. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis, Harper & Row (New York), 1974, Northeastern University Press (Boston), edition 1986, p 21. Ibid, p 27. Interactions are communications where the participants are in each other’s presence.

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30 Edmund H Volkart (Ed), Social Behavior and Personality – Contributions of WI Thomas to Theory and Social Research, Social Science Research Council (New York), 1951, Introduction, p 1. 31 WI Thomas & F Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, 2nd edition, Alfred A Knopf (New York), 1927, Vol 1, p 68. 32 WI Thomas, ‘The Persistence of Primary-group Norms in Present-day Society’ (1917), in: Edmund H Volkart (Ed), Social Behavior and Personality – Contributions of WI Thomas to Theory and Social Research, Social Science Research Council (New York), 1951, p 226. 33 Ibid, p 7.

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The ‘situational approach’30 with the complementary key concepts ‘situation’ and ‘definition of the situation’ was introduced into sociology in the 1920s by the American sociologist William I Thomas. The pair of concepts was introduced in relation to the insistence that human behaviour cannot be sufficiently understood without an adequate account of the situation within which the human actors find themselves. ‘Every concrete activity is the solution to a situation.’31 Thomas stressed that the situation – as the constellation of the factors determining the behaviour – is rather complex, involving objective, subjective and intersubjective factors. The objective situation within which the social scientist observes behaviour is not sufficient to understand and estimate behaviour. The subject’s own definition of the situation is the crucial link that connects the observed behaviour to the situation. In the context of studying immigrants coming to America, Thomas was keenly aware that the definition of the situation is often culturally relative, ie, relative to the ‘primary group’32 within which an individual is embedded. Indeed, in Thomas’s terms a culture is composed of definitions of the situations, defining institutionalized types of situations. ‘As a product of social life these definitions are embodied in codes, rules, precepts, policies, traditions, and standardized social relationships.’33 Thomas’s concept of situation is very broad stretching from the general, historical life predicament of an individual or group to the concrete situations of social encounter within which the individual finds him/herself at any point. Obviously, the general situation might be a factor for the behaviour in the concrete situation, ie, aspects of the general situation might enter the concrete situation as one of its moments. The latter, concrete, time and space bound understanding of the situation is the understanding that is relevant for architecture’s societal function. This latter understanding is indeed implied in the following explication: ‘An adjustive effort of any kind is preceded by a decision to act or not to act along a given line, and the decision is itself preceded by a definition of the situation, that is to say, an interpretation, or point of view, and eventually a policy and behavior pattern. In this way quick judgements and decisions are made at

every point in everyday life.’34 Elsewhere Thomas elaborates: ‘The most important content of situations is the attitudes and values of other persons with which his own come into conflict and cooperation.’35 Beyond the possibility of conflict within a given, shared situation there is the possibility of conflicting definitions of the situation. Thomas discusses the effect of conflicting definitions in the context of studies on delinquent youth within Chicago gang culture: ‘As long as the definitions of situations remain constant and common we may anticipate orderly behavior reactions. When rival definitions arise . . . we may anticipate social disorganization.’36 Thomas attributes rival definitions to an underlying disparity of social codes. However, he had not problematized the more basic case of how a congruent definition of the situation is arrived at within the standard situations of a shared culture, ie, how a particular standard situation is recognized and identified against an expansive horizon or universe of variegated and nuanced possible situations. It is here where the architectural and artefactual environment plays its part, subliminally, and often overlooked. Thomas also seems to have taken too much for granted to see the relevance of architecture and design: ‘The situation in which the person finds himself is taken as containing the configuration of the factors conditioning the behavior reaction. Of course, it is not the spatial material situation which is meant, but the situation of social relationships. It involves all the institutions and mores.’37 Although social communication is the primary issue of concern, the spatial material situation deserves theoretical recognition as framing communication that facilitates the inherently problematic definition of the situation as premise for all orderly communication. Thus in Thomas’s writings we can find the conceptual resources, but not yet the precise formulation of the fundamental social exigency which lies at the root of architecture’s societal function. 5.1.5 FRAMING DOUBLE CONTINGENCY To grasp the problem of communication and interaction on a deeper level one might go to Talcott Parsons and his attempt to formulate a general 34 WI Thomas, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, McGraw-Hill (New York), 1937, p 8, italic emphases in original. 35 WI Thomas, ‘The Behavior Pattern and the Situation’, Presidential address to the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society, in: Edmund H Volkart (Ed), Social Behavior and Personality – Contributions of WI Thomas to Theory and Social Research, Social Science Research Council (New York), 1951, p 60. 36 Ibid, p 11. 37 WI Thomas, ‘The Relation of Research to the Social Process’, in: WFG Swann et al, Essays on Research in the Social Sciences, The Brookings Institution (Washington), 1931, p 176. 378

Parsons concludes that double contingency requires the normative orientation of action and poses the norms of a shared symbolic system as the means by which the problem of double contingency in interaction is being solved. Parsons elaborates: A shared symbolic system is a system of “ways of orienting” plus those

“external symbols” which control these ways of orienting, the system being

so geared into the action systems of both ego and alter that the external

symbols bring forth the same complementary pattern of orientation in both

of them. Such a system, with its mutuality of normative orientation, is

38 Talcott Parsons & Edward A Shils, Toward a General Theory of Action, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1953, p 14. 39 Ibid, p 15. 40 Ibid, p 16.

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There is a double contingency inherent in interaction. On the one hand,

ego’s gratifications are contingent on his selection among available

alternatives. But in turn, alter’s reaction will be contingent on ego’s

selection and will result from a complementary selection on alter’s part.

Because of this double contingency, communication, which is the

precondition of cultural patterns, could not exist without generalizations

from the particularity of specific situations (which are never identical for

ego and alter) and stability of meaning which can only be assured by

“conventions” observed by both parties.40

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theory of action. When Parsons theorizes interaction, ie, when the object towards which an actor orients his action is another actor, a fundamental theoretical problem is encountered, a ‘problem’ which is nearly always already solved in everyday life. Parsons theorized the underlying problematic under the chapter heading ‘Interaction and the Complementarity of Expectations’.38 Parsons’ formulation just touches on a deeper underlying problem, a problem that Luhmann later accentuates and takes as one of his points of departure for a more open range of potential solutions. Parsons describes the basic constellation of interaction between ego and alter – the actors that are oriented to each other – as follows: ‘It is the fact that expectations operate on both sides of the relation between a given actor and the object of his orientation which distinguishes social interaction from orientation to nonsocial objects. This fundamental phenomenon might be called the complementarity of expectations . . . in the sense that the action of each is oriented to the expectations of the other.’39 Parsons goes on to elaborate:

logically the most elementary form of culture . . . Without culture neither

human personalities nor human social systems would be possible.41

The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes that architecture is a fundamental and indispensable part of a thus defined culture, and in particular that architecture operates and contributes to the coordination of ‘ways of orienting’ as a part of what Parsons refers to as ‘external symbols’. The designed built environment thus always acts as anchor or channel that facilitates determination, ie, the termination of the indeterminacy and volatility implied in the inherent double contingency of every encounter. Over and above his identification of the deep problematic of double contingency, it is Parsons’ reference to ‘shared symbolic systems’ that makes his work relevant for the attainment of a deep theoretical formula for architecture’s societal function. ¨ and Thomas Luckmann’s social phenomenology The Alfred Schutz Structures of the Life-world also builds on Thomas’s work. Like Thomas they emphasize: ‘In every moment of my conscious life I find myself in a situation.’ Life is characterized by the task of orienting and coping in ¨ and Luckmann these situations are social situations. According to Schutz structured along three ordering dimensions: a spatial, a temporal and a social dimension. Situations are ‘relatively open’,42 ie, they ‘can be defined and coped with variably on the basis of a respective knowledge ¨ and Luckmann are introducing the useful distinction reservoir’.43 Schutz between routine situations and problematic situations.44 However, according to them, all situations are ‘inevitably bounded through the embeddedness of the situation’s time within a transcending world-time and through the embeddedness of the body within the spatial structure of the life-world’.45 However, with respect to the spatial dimension the analysis remains rather abstract, focusing primarily on distance when analyzing the life-world’s structure as structure of accessibility, although a cursive hint alludes to the importance of spatial structuration for the organization of the social world.46 For the theory of architectural autopoiesis the main point of the distinction of a social and a spatial ordering dimension must be to formulate their relation of complementarity and mutual dependence. Georg Simmel, in his

41 Ibid, p 16. ¨ & Thomas Luckmann, Strukturen der Lebenswelt, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH 42 Alfred Schutz (Constance), 2003, p 150. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid, p 169. 45 Ibid, p 150. 46 Ibid, p 76. 380

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47 Georg Simmel, ‘Sociology of Space’, in: Georg Simmel, Aufs¨atze und Abhandlungen 1901 –1908, Gesamtausgabe Band 7, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1995, p 141. 48 Ibid, p 143. 49 Simmel did consider buildings as points of social stabilization – for instance the church building as point of reference and gathering for the religious community – but he never considered the articulatory, semiotic dimension of architecture, at least not within his sociology of space. ¨ & Thomas Luckmann, Strukturen der Lebenswelt, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH

50 Alfred Schutz (Constance), 2003, p 560.

51 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction – A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Routledge (London), 1984, French original: La Distinction – Critique sociale du jugement, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1979, p 471.

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‘Sociology of Space’ stated this complementarity/dependence between spatial and social order explicitly: ‘The boundary is not a spatial fact with sociological effects but a sociological fact which forms itself spatially.’47 Simmel defines the boundary as frame that gives form to the group. However, his sociology of space goes beyond architecture and focuses on the political territory and its nested structure of political/territorial subdomains. He emphasizes the ‘incomparable stability and comprehensibility’48 that the social boundaries receive through their spatialization. This insight can be generalized to the architectural scale.49 Our theoretical formula for this complementarity/dependence between the spatial and social dimension is: social order requires articulated spatial relations to frame, order and stabilize social communication. This involves both spatial organization (via distances, separations, connections etc) as well as expressive/symbolic articulation (via morphological motifs) of the built environment, including the world of designed artefacts, ¨ and together forming the totality of an expressive field.50 Schutz Luckmann develop a concept of the expressive field (‘Ausdrucksfeld’) only in relation to the (naked) body as expressive medium via posture, gesture and facial expression. The theory of architectural autopoiesis expands the concept to include the fashion system, the expressive (handling of) designed artefacts and the (occupation of) designed space within which all communicative action unfolds. There have been sociological works that did indeed focus on the participation and enlistment of the world of designed artefacts – as empire of signs – within the constitution of a complex social world. For instance, Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction – A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste refers to the ‘hierarchies and classifications inscribed in objects’.51 The work, although not without relevance here, is however a rather too particular study of taste as a means of social demarcation within a stratified social order. The contribution that the world of artefacts makes to the definition of social situations is focused on but only with respect to the definition of social rank and the attendant status roles and expectations, revealing a rather

one-sided – if not anachronistic – theory of society, characterized by the opposition of a dominant elite versus a dominated mass. Despite these drawbacks, Bourdieu’s notion of taste as marker of social status can be taken at least as one aspect that is perhaps still relevant within a theory of the societal function of architecture and design. Further, it is Bourdieu’s functionalist, theoretical approach, as well as his specific reference to the problematic of social orientation and anticipation/expectation, that can contribute here to the explication of the societal function of design: ‘Taste is the practical mastery of distributions which makes it possible to sense or intuit what is likely (or unlikely) to befall – and therefore to befit – an individual occupying a given position in social space. It functions as a sort of social orientation, a “sense of one’s place”, guiding the occupants of a given place in social space towards the social positions adjusted to their properties, and towards the practices or goods which befit the occupants of that position. It implies a practical anticipation of what the social meaning and value of the chosen practice or thing will probably be.’52

Like the conservative Talcott Parsons, Pierre Bourdieu the radical assumes that social order requires the normative orientation of action and poses the norms of a shared symbolic system as the means by which social order – here understood as stratification – is confirmed and stabilized. Bourdieu’s intention is critical, intending to expose the subtle mechanisms of social domination. However, whether motivated by critical intent or not, the theoretical analysis, by implication, allocates a conservative, preserving role to architecture and design. This conclusion would contradict the whole outlook and emphasis on innovation of the theory of architectural autopoiesis. The fundamental premise of the theory of architectural autopoiesis has been to theoretically reconstruct the rationality of the real as anchor for the formulation of architecture’s continuing innovative mission, without moving immediately on to the plane of radical critique, and demanding a new start. ¨ The theories of Thomas, Simmel, Parsons, Goffman, Schutz/Luckmann and Bourdieu certainly contain important sociological insights and build up a problematic within which architectural theory can start to analyze architecture’s contribution to the formation and maintenance of social order. But do their accounts really deliver the full and final sociological premises for a theoretical explication of architecture’s societal function within contemporary world society?

52 Ibid, p 466. 382

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53 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995 (original German: Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984), p 103. 54 Ibid, p 104. 55 Ibid, p 104. 56 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995 (original German: Soziale Systeme: Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am

Main), 1984), p 114.

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5.1.6 DOUBLE CONTINGENCY RADICALIZED It was Talcott Parsons who first coined the term ‘double contingency’ to denote a fundamental problematic that has to be addressed and solved in order for social action (communication) systems to take off. It is largely the same problematic Goffman later theorized under the label of ‘frames’ facilitating ‘the definition of situations’; and Parsons’ original solution – the availability of shared norms or conventions – is equivalent to Goffman’s assumption of primary frames. It was Niklas Luhmann, however, who radicalized the sociological reflection of the problem of double contingency and who gave this problematic a fundamental place in his social theory. Luhmann rejects Parsons’ all too quick move from double contingency to the supposed necessity of a shared symbolic system with shared values and normative institutions. Luhmann emphasizes that the situation of double contingency implies that the communicative situation is indeterminable, spelling the impossibility to act or communicate. When both ego and alter make their action dependent upon each other’s action then there is a pure circle that leaves action indeterminable. This is much more fundamental than disagreement, or the question of coordinating diverging intentions/ interests. ‘It concerns a basic condition for social action as such. No action can occur without first solving the problem of double contingency.’53 Luhmann thus agrees with Parsons that actions can only be constituted in systems that can solve the problem of double contingency but he criticizes Parsons for seeing only one avenue for solving this problem, namely by making ‘a normative orientation – with the assumption of consensus – an indispensable feature of action’.54 Instead Luhmann insists on making ‘the move from the problem of double contingency to ideas about its solution with care’.55 Luhmann first notes that the (theoretical and then practical) reliance on normative symbol/value systems shifts the real problem into the past, and transforms its actuality into the easier problem of socialization and control of deviance. Instead of Parsons’ problematic of explaining (and maintaining) the social stability of the current, normal social order, Luhmann’s approach seeks to ‘break through the illusion of normality’56

in order to explain the normal as an improbable solution to a general problem that could also have been solved in other ways, ‘for what is at stake here is precisely a reconstruction of this lifeworld against a background of other possibilities’.57 For this purpose Luhmann radicalizes the problem of double contingency and poses it in a way that remains a virtual force in every encounter. He emphasizes that social agents are open psychic systems that are constructed as persons only via communicative attributions. These systems, at first, must treat each other ‘as endlessly open possibilities of meaning determination that eludes access from the outside’.58 Two black boxes that are opaque and incalculable to one another come to have dealings with one another. Each determines its own behaviour by complex self-referential operations within its own boundaries. What can be seen of each other is therefore necessarily a reduction. Only one thing is certain: both experience each other’s independence, both experience double contingency. ‘They concentrate on what they can observe as input and output in the other as a system in an environment and learn self-referentially in their own observer perspective.’59 But any attempt to calculate the other will inevitably fail. This is the origin of the concept of free will as foundational component of the very concept of action. ‘Incalculability is absorbed – one could almost say “sublated” – by concessions of freedom.’60 Luhmann now tries to show how the the problem of double contingency ‘solves itself’, or ‘how the appearance of the problem comes to initiate a process of solving it’.61 The inherent situation of double contingency is theorized as catalytic agent for an autocatalytic system formation. The decisive point here is the self-referential circle: ‘I will do what you want if you do what I want. In a rudimentary form, this circle is a new unity.’62 Luhmann elaborates: ‘In this unity the determination of every element depends on that of another, and the unity consists precisely in this. One can characterize this basic fact as self-conditioning indeterminacy: I do not allow myself to be determined by you, if you do not allow yourself to be determined by me.’63 This is an extremely unstable, rudimentary structure. The encounter must be broken off at any moment if it does not find a way to structure its continuation. The indeterminacy of the situation is untenable for both participants. ‘In this experience the 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 384

Ibid, p 115. Ibid, p 106. Ibid, p 110. Ibid, p 109. Ibid, p 117. Ibid, p 117. Ibid, p 117.

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64 Ibid, p 122.

65 Heinz von Foerster, ‘On Self-Organizing Systems and their Environments’, in: Marshall C

Yovits & Scott Cameron (Eds), Self-Organizing Systems, Pergamon (Oxford), 1960, pp 31 –48. 66 Etsi non daretur Deus = even if God doesn’t exist. Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995 (original German: Soziale Systeme, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984), p 105. 67 Niklas Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1995 (original German: Soziale Systeme, Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt am Main), 1984), p 126. 68 Ibid, p 118. 69 Ibid, p 113. 70 Ibid.

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perspectives converge, and that makes it possible to suppose an interest in negating this negativity, an interest in determination . . . a suspended possibility of system formation that can use almost any chance situation to develop structures.’64 Luhmann’s theoretical account builds on the order from noise principle 65 of the theory of self-organization, as part of general systems theory. In this account no preordained value consensus is needed: ‘The problem of double contingency (ie, empty, closed, indeterminable self-reference) draws in chance straightaway, creates sensitivity to chance, and when no value consensus exists, one can thereby invent it. The system emerges etsi non daretur Deus.’ 66 Luhmann conceives of the problem of double contingency as ‘operating autocatalytically as an enduring problem (and not just as an impulse)’.67 He recognizes the importance of the environment that extends beyond the dyad of alter and ego. The emergent social system ‘is based on instability. It necessarily realizes itself as an autopoietic system. It works with a circularly closed basic structure that would collapse at any moment if this was not prevented. Formally this occurs by de-tautologization and, as far as energy and information are concerned, by utilizing the environment.’68 In the context of architectural theory this reference to the environment is a crucial hook to make the general theory of social systems relevant to architecture. Luhmann does indeed emphasize that an adequate theoretical description of the structure of double contingency must include reference to the environment: ‘Each side can distinguish between its environment (or the world as such) and systems with environments in its environment. Thereby experience related to the environment, in addition to action, becomes relevant – because one can act with regard to another only if one knows how one is oneself experienced in the other’s environment.’69 Luhmann talks about ‘a structure of opaque systems oriented to an environment containing systems oriented to an environment’.70 Although the environment Luhmann refers to here is not to be equated with the spatial/built

environment but is much more encompassing, and not to be reduced to immediate presences, the spatial/built environment is certainly a significant aspect of the environment of communicative interaction.71 However, the crucial point to be extracted from the above quote is not so much the acknowledgement of the importance of the environment – which must anyway be presupposed within any constructive architectural theory – but the hint that the self-identity of the environment, spatial/ built or otherwise, cannot be presumed. There is no unequivocally ‘shared’ environment, prior to the emergence of a social system of communications. The unfolding communication draws out some features for mutual attention, clings to them and builds itself upon them, while other features remain fallow, mute, overlooked, ignored. In a significant sense these ignored features are not there at all. (Although they might be there for the architect who designed them – but even this is not guaranteed.) It is only within social practices (constituting a social system of communications) that the spatial offerings assume a determinate configuration. The spatial setting can be read in many different ways, in various ordinary ways, and in as yet unimagined ways. The way the scene is to be decomposed into foreground and background, into zones, subzones, parts and elements, depends upon what the emerging social system of communications constitutes as points of reference and units of interaction. This also implies that if another social system appropriates the ‘same’ space, a different spatio-morphological environment will emerge, with potentially different zones and features. System and environment are reciprocal categories – they only exist with reference to each other. This insight produces interesting consequences and opportunities for designing spaces for multiple audiences and multiple event scenarios. Although this insight into the relativity of the built environment with respect to its social use complicates our theoretical account, it does not undermine our basic thesis: the designed/built environment not only always already frames social communication according to given social institutions but also affords a potential substratum – more or less fertile – for the autocatalysis of new social systems. As Luhmann points out, nothing forces the theory to seek the solution to the problem of double contingency in an already existing consensus, thus in the social dimension. There are functional equivalents. Luhmann proposes the possibility of using the temporal dimension, ie, the use of 71 The concept of interaction specifically refers to communication between actor participants that are in each other’s immediate presence, in distinction to, for example, communication via writing (letters, e-mail, books etc). 386

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72 This accords with the observation that the attempt to pin down and predict somebody else’s behaviour often stimulates its own refutation.

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time to slowly build shared references. After tentative, venturing, often chance induced beginnings, the selections of alter and ego start to bind themselves as they reciprocally adjust to one another to form a system. The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes the utilization of the spatial dimension, ie, the potentially perceptually shared and occupied structure of the built environment. This built environment supplies clues and occasions that are likely to have contingency-reducing, determining effects, even if (or indeed especially if) they initially lack familiarity and their social utilization is not pre-coded. There are thus two modes within which architecture and its service provision – the designed, built environment – can contribute to solving the always latent problem of double contingency, and thus fulfil its societal function of framing communication. The first way is by means of the continuing adaptation and expansion of a largely familiar built environment to facilitate the continuation of largely conventional patterns of social communication under gradually evolving societal premises. This is the service rendered by the mainstream segment of architecture’s autopoiesis, and perhaps by the avant-garde during cumulative periods. The second way is by means of supplying a richly articulated playing field with many spatial and morphological offerings, full of abstract, internal cross references, but as yet without determinate constitution or social interpretation. This is the service rendered by the avant-garde segment of architecture’s autopoiesis, especially during revolutionary periods. The invoked order from noise principle implies that such an environment that has fewer inbuilt stereotypes, but supplies all the more noise, might be more conducive to the autocatalysis of a new, autopoietic system of communications than an overbearingly conventional setting that might generate more resistance than anything else.72 Under such premises a rich environment, full of latencies, dense with spatial and morphological features or affordances, would be advantageous in comparison with an empty, neutral plane of box. The former would be a better ‘space of becoming’, a better spatio-morphological substratum for communicative system formation. Architecture’s intervention is thus not always only confirmative and stabilizing. The role of avant-garde architecture is to innovate the frames in line with – or perhaps ahead of – the transformation of social institutions and patterns of communication. Architecture has some capacity to irritate, to gently disrupt routines, and stir up problematic situations. Architectural design might allow double contingency to

(re-)emerge. This might happen inadvertently, or via strategic negations implying the refusal to deliver routine channels, ie, via making strange, implying the strategic withdrawal of familiar spatial patterns and morphological clues. This was architecture’s primary self-conception during the research programme of Deconstructivism. The radical mutation of the spatial order – frustrating expectations and blocking routine situations – was supposed to open up social communication. Complex but yet uncoded spatial arrangements were supposed to inspire creative, social appropriation in an aleatoric play that might eventually lead to the self-organization of new social institutions. These ambitions were inspired by analogous operations found in the domain of literature and Post-Structuralist philosophy. Derrida’s concept of Deconstruction, as well as Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, were used as theoretical guiding notions. These conceptual transfers worked, not least because both source domains were already inherently architectural/spatial with respect to their own metaphorical constitution. Another, perhaps more direct inspiration, was Situationism, the theory and practice of constructing situations, ie, provoking deliberately problematic situations, with revolutionary intent. All this made eminent sense during the revolutionary late 1960s and early 1970s.73 And it was also during this period that the most radical upheaval in the design of interior spaces, furniture and fashion unfolded. The playful, abstract softscapes of the late 1960s and early 1970s did indeed present a radical break with the all too familiar, ultra-stable furniture typology with its attendant distinctions of institutionalized, communicative situations. Forty years of prior modern furniture design had delivered no comparable typological innovation. Luhmann’s theory of social systems and theory of society, especially with a radicalized understanding of double contingency as catalytic agent for social self-organization placed at the root of the theory, provides theoretical premises and resources that seem to be much better geared towards capturing the challenges and opportunities of contemporary

73 It was the tragedy of Deconstructivism in architecture that it came about a decade too late. The revolutionary social dynamic within which the theoretically formulated ambitions of Deconstructivism would have made sense had receded. This anachronism of Deconstructivism’s (inevitably more theoretical than practical) political ambitions was perhaps a factor in its rather short-lived tenure. Nevertheless as revolutionary, transitional episode, Deconstructivism did leave its mark and made its contribution to the radical advancement of architecture’s conceptual and formal repertoire. Also, some aspects of the revolutionary times never fully receded. Ever since the breaking up of post-war conservatism, all new social forms have been able to proliferate more easily and more quickly. Society developed a strategic tolerance. 388

74 Exaptations – in Stephen Jay Gould’s theory of evolution – are pre-adaptive advances that deliver capacities or affordances that are only later utilized by the evolving organism. Exaptations are thus features that perform a function but that were not produced by natural selection for its current use. The feature was either just a side effect or was selected for a function other than the one it currently performs and was then co-opted for its current function. See Stephen J Gould ,‘The Exaptive Excellence of Spandrels as a Term and Prototype’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 94, 10750 –10755 (1997), as well as Stephen J Gould and Elisabeth S Vrba, ‘Exaptation – a Missing Term in the Science of Form’, Paleobiology 8 (1), 1982: 4 –15. 75 Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002, p 147.

76 Ibid, p 148.

77 As stated already in Chapter 5.1.2 Function Systems and the Functional Exigencies of Society.

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5.1.7 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN TERMS OF THEIR SOCIETAL FUNCTION Niklas Luhmann says that art renders ‘the possible as a realm capable of order . . . displaying alternate possibilities of order’.75 He then states explicitly: ‘The societal function of art . . . consists in demonstrating the compelling forces of order in the realm of the possible.’76 This is still a rather abstract formula. The theory of architectural autopoiesis therefore proposes a more tangible answer to the question of the societal function of the art system:77 the societal function of art consists in providing

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society than a theory based on the necessity of certain norms and the conditions of their stabilization. Contemporary society is marked by rapid and radical transformations in the global patterns of communication. The Web 2.0 is just one aspect among many. More relevant here, with respect to the new tasks put to architecture, are perhaps the radical changes in the organization of business firms and the new, attendant patterns of communication at work. Open network organization, distributed intelligence, individual self-determination, the resultant collective/ corporate self-organization and the attendant exponential increase in communicative density require new, variegated and intricately ordered spaces for the temporary stabilization of emergent social organizations, while always leaving sufficient playing space for new autocatalytic formations. In any event, the ongoing autopoiesis of world society cannot be sustained merely on the basis of the stabilization of established institutions. This general picture and its articulation in social theory provides the premises for allowing the theory of architectural autopoiesis to combine its insistence upon a determinate, general formula for architecture’s societal function – the framing of otherwise indeterminate social interaction – with its insistence that the relevant spatio-morphological frames must be subject to continuous adaptive, as well as exaptive,74 innovation.

society with a freewheeling, explorative and provocative form of communication that reflects actual reality via the presentation of other, future, potential realities. The societal function of architecture is to continuously adapt and reorder society via the continuous innovation of the built environment as system of spatial frames for communicative interaction. The first thing to note with respect to the juxtaposition of the two societal functions is the fact that the societal function of architecture is much more narrowly determined. But what kind of relationship exists between these two function systems? Luhmann seems to assume that architecture operates within the art system. In contrast, the theory of architectural autopoiesis maintains that architecture is an independent autopoietic system that irreversibly differentiated itself from art during the formation of Modern architecture in the early 1920s. The severance from art was the final act in a series of dissociations that included the prior dissociation of architecture from engineering, the crafts, religion and political power. (Art shifted – and indeed loosened – its societal function more than architecture and design.) Art, as the last dissociated, and thus architecture’s longest associated discourse, still bears a rather special, close relationship with architecture and the design disciplines. However, as a relationship between two distinct function systems, it is a specific instance of the general kind of relationship that holds between function systems, namely one that has to be differentiated into two distinct and independent relations that are best described as relations of service provision. Architecture serves the evolving system of contemporary art with the provision of innovative forms of spatial organization that allow for a pertinent demarcation, identification, (self-)organization and (self-)articulation of the various art events in question. Contemporary art centres are indeed instances where the exaptive built results of the architectural avant-garde might function as irritating, catalytic agents for the self-organization of new forms of social communication. However, what concerns us here is rather the service that the art system can provide for architecture. The art system serves architecture as a communication platform that provides avant-garde architecture with a restricted, temporary licence for a more freewheeling, explorative and provocative form of communication that goes beyond actual architectural reality towards the exploration of other potential architectural/urban built environments. Luhmann states that art no longer focuses on ideal forms, on the ‘concept’, in the sense of Hegel’s aesthetics. ‘To our contemporary sensibility, it makes no sense to show the bright side of the world . . . But it does make sense to broaden one’s understanding of the forms that are 390

THESIS 22 Everything in architecture’s communicative constitution is geared towards innovation: its elemental form of communicative operation, its elaborate communication structures and its specialized medium of communication. The framing provided by architecture is in need of continuous adaptive updating – just like the law is no longer marked by long-term fixity but instead has to be continuously revised. Architecture is the societal function system that takes responsibility for the continuous, progressive/adaptive development of the built environment of society as a system of frames that gives order and stability to social interaction. Innovation is a criterion of architectural self-evaluation. Originality is a conditio sine qua non of being recognized as important architect. All great architecture is marked out by its achievement of radical innovation. 78 Niklas Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002, p 150.

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possible in the world. Emphasizing such an understanding requires suppressing any hint of utility, for the world has no utility.’78 The ultimate rejection of utility is taboo within architecture and would disqualify and dispel any such communication from the domain of architecture. However, the temporary suspension of specific functional requirements is not only possible, but is often a very productive stance within the discourse of the architectural avant-garde. This temporary rejection of specific utility and the creative exploration of new, open-ended architectural potentials is then becoming the entrance ticket that indicates the eligibility of avant-garde architects to utilize the resources, display-facilities and dissemination machine of the art system for the advancement of architecture’s future capacity to fulfil its own societal function. The art system provides a similar service to many other domains of modern society: to the mass media, to science, technology, education etc. Original, provocative avant-garde architecture is very welcome within the art system. The respective communications then live a double-life and reconnect into two rather different networks: the art discourse and the architectural discourse. In order to reconnect within architecture, those communications that ventured into the art system have to demonstrate how these explorations contribute to potential solutions for the problems of architecture.

Generally, the value of innovation does not require an elaborate defence – except, curiously, in the case of architecture as evaluated outside architecture by society at large. Architecture is often associated with values of longevity, primordial desires, archetypes, eternal values etc. Occasionally these external pressures find their internal spokesmen. For instance, Prince Charles found support in architects such as Leon Krier and Quinlan Terry, using his ‘Academy’ as institutional vehicle. One might also refer to Roger Scruton’s theoretical regressions in his The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism.79 However, the material (rather than ideological) societal pressures demand continuous innovation.

5.2.1 THE BURDEN AND RISK OF PERMANENT INNOVATION Innovation is a tall order. Its achievement faces many pre-conditions. It implies more than mere change or newness. To avoid the problematic concept of progress one might talk about ‘adaptation’ or ‘participation’ within ongoing social developments – economic, political, scientific and technological. This cannot be reduced to mere fashion as change for the sake of change – although this also plays a part (and has its own function).80 Architecture’s role within the overall societal development is better described as active participation than as reactive adaptation. The adopted formula here reads: the various function systems are coevolving. They engage in mutual adaptation, on the basis of irritations that result from perturbations in their service relations. Architecture, like all autopoietic systems, develops its peculiar metabolism with society according to its own cognitive schemas, principles and values. Architecture also adapts its cognitive schemas, principles and values on the basis of its own cognitive schemas, principles and values. This circular formulation expresses once more the problem of the autopoiesis of architecture as the problem of its self-regulation as mutating continuation under continuously changing conditions. This is not a question of fulfilling an allotted service. Rather the quest is one of continuously re-conquering and re-asserting a relevant role within the overall development of society. Obviously, construction will go on but, as the steady shift towards ‘design & build’ contracts indicates, there is no guarantee that architects and the discourse of architecture have any influence and relevance with respect to the

79 Roger Scruton, The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism, St Martin’s Press (New York), 1994. 80 Fashion facilitates the quick identification of potentially compatible communication partners. 392

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formation of the built environment. The more the bulk of development and construction activity becomes oblivious to the discourse of architecture and urbanism, the more pressure builds up within the discourse to adjust its agenda by means of ‘retroactive manifestos’ that make sense of and reconnect to the realities of development. The death of architecture is always near – as is the death of art, the atrophy of democratic politics, the crisis of the economy, the erosion of the legal order etc. The age of autopoiesis is the age of permanent crisis. To better cope with this, those who want to continue the life of architecture might benefit from the analysis of the way great architecture, ie, radical breakthroughs and lasting innovations, has been achieved. Innovation benefits from history, written as the history of successful innovations. But this history is not going to be a history of great men and their heroic deeds – even if names remain an indispensable point of reference. The focus should be placed upon the history of architecture’s communication structures, on the development of its medium and the succession of its styles understood as design research programmes. The names of individual architects feature in this story primarily as indices of ruptures, and as conduits of new patterns within the communication processes of the discipline. Also, the story of architecture should not be mistaken for a traditional history of ideas – even if much attention is to be paid to self-descriptions/theories. The best model for the historiography pursued here is the theory of evolution. The conceptual apparatus of the theory of evolution – mutation, selection and reproduction – can be applied to the development of the discipline and should enter the self-descriptions of architecture. This concerns the evolution of practices and theories and their dialectical interplay. The societal tasks that architecture and urbanism might take on are not pre-given. Nobody invites the discipline to solve the problems posed by society. Who would be able to articulate these as architectural or urbanist problems? Only the discipline itself – through its design protagonists, teachers and theorists, as well as through its communication organs such as magazines, exhibitions and conferences – can pose and elaborate these tasks. Clients approach architects with their own particular agendas. These are potentially important irritations that might stir the discipline into a response but mostly – unless the hired architect happens to be a star-architect with the Midas touch – these potential irritations pass unnoticed by the discipline and the respective architect struggles with an ‘ugly’ building. After ugly buildings of a certain new type have accumulated to a certain critical mass – off the radar of the discipline – protagonists like Venturi or Koolhaas might ‘discover’ these architectural monsters in order

to confront the values of the discipline. They might provide a conceptualization of the new expansive reality as newly emerging typology. At this moment there arises the chance to effect a mutation in the system of values of the discipline. Not unlike what has been observed in relation to historical paradigm shifts in the development of the theoretical make-up of a science: a lot of accumulated ‘anomalies’ are suddenly recuperated, and new avenues of further research are opened up. The task of recognizing a general challenge in a particular commission, or the task of recognizing a generalizable and relevant innovation in a deviant solution, can only be taken on by the collective communication process that is the autopoiesis of architecture. Architecture cannot be instrumentalized by a single client. No one has command over it. Architecture has to instrumentalize itself with respect to the demands of society, and produce new solutions to new problems. 5.2.2 THE INNOVATIVE CAPACITY OF ARCHITECTURE’S OPERATIONS AND STRUCTURES Innovation is a crucial aspect of architecture’s societal function, as it is indeed a crucial aspect of the societal function of all great function systems of modern, functionally differentiated society. Without the requirement of continuous innovation there would be no need for highly specialized function systems. If the laws were an ancient heritage, unchanged since time immemorial, the need for legal specialists and a specialist legal discourse would not arise. The same goes for architecture: if the built environment was to be forever reproduced unaltered, there would be no need for creative architects or for a sophisticated architectural discourse. This fable of an eternal, undifferentiated, tradition-bound mode of societal reproduction was, in fact, the historical reality before the advent of modernity in the 15th century. Accelerating societal evolution and the functional differentiation of society go hand in hand. The shift from stratification to functional differentiation as dominant mode of social differentiation is at the same time the shift from an era of stable reproduction to an era of rapid transformations engendering and demanding continuous innovation in all domains of social communication. According to Marx, ‘constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones’.81 This was well put. The capitalist economy is but one of many coevolving autopoietic function systems that irritate each other and spurn 81 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London), 1848. 394

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each other’s innovations. While functionally differentiated, autopoietic systems are, in each domain, the only effective way to cope with the continuously required adaptations; they are, at the same time, set free as the autonomous drivers of continuous self-transformation. Functional differentiation as dominant principle of social differentiation might thus be considered as much the cause of the accelerated social transformations as it could be considered the consequence. In either case, the process is finally one of circular self-amplification rather than linear causation. This is typical for any evolutionary process. Anyhow, the most important theoretical task for the theory of architectural autopoiesis is not the clarification of questions of origin and causation. The important theoretical task here is rather to grasp that innovation is a crucial aspect of architecture’s societal function and to explicate how the autopoiesis of architecture is able to achieve innovation. This latter question is aiming at a functional (rather than causal) account, with respect to the communicative operations and structures of architecture and their fitness for the purpose of innovation. The central theoretical task here is thus to explicate architecture’s communicative operations and structures in terms of their functional contribution towards architecture’s required innovative prowess. We might start the investigation with architecture’s elemental communicative operations: the unique, elemental operation of the autopoiesis of architecture is the design decision. The demand for decisions already implies a degree of openness. A decision situation is something very different from a situation where action is prescribed by tradition. A decision process always entails a moment of novelty, both with respect to the situation that demands a decision and with respect to the outcome of the decision process. Thus the communication of a decision always communicates something potentially novel. The outcome of a genuine decision process is always newsworthy, never to be taken for granted. Thus the fact that the elemental communicative operations of architecture take the form of decisions implies that the operational level of the autopoiesis of architecture is capable of producing innovations. The elemental communicative operations – design decisions – sequence and cluster into design projects. Projects, as communicative points of reference, are higher order unities that give order and meaning to the operations that comprise them. The very concept of a project entails the expectation of projecting into an unknown future, a future that is unknown with respect to the context of the project as well as with respect to the shape the project itself takes. The possibility of a novel project outcome, in comparison with the individual design decisions that

comprise the progress of the project, is potentiated. Architectural projects are unique, with respect to place (site) and purpose (brief). As such they are always occasions for potential novelty and innovation. We might continue the investigation with one of architecture’s primary discursive structures, the articulation into code and programme. This structure of a permanent code and variable programmes is also geared towards innovation. In the case of architecture the double code of utility and beauty is being successively reprogrammed by the succession of styles. Styles, especially avant-garde styles in their contemporary understanding as design research programmes, are either vehicles of cumulative innovation, or are otherwise expected to be superseded by revolutionary innovations that forge a new style. Styles are collective, dynamic structures geared towards innovation. The differentiation of the discipline into avant-garde and mainstream is best understood as architecture’s structural response to the increasing societal pressures for adaptive self-transformation, especially since the second half of the 20th century.82 That the improvement of architecture’s capacity for an accelerated, and more radical innovation is ˆ the raison d’etre of the differentiation into avant-garde and mainstream, should be evident.83 Thus virtually everything in architecture’s communicative constitution is geared towards innovation. Quod erat demonstrandum. 5.2.3 VARIATION, REDUNDANCY AND ADAPTIVE PERTINENCE Innovation requires the active unlearning of the habitual schemata and design routines of the discipline. Substantial innovation is only possible if concepts and routines are radically altered. This might be best achieved by a heuristics of radical novelty that operates negatively, by refusing the 82 See section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream. 83 This is not to claim that this differentiation was caused by external pressures. Neither are we arguing for final causes, as if the end called forth the means to its fulfilment. Rather the theoretical framework here is a theory of cultural evolution. The avant-garde – whatever its origin – became part of a productive, communicative metabolism that delivered progress, and in turn distributed resources. Such a process of social formation is not masterminded. The theory of architectural autopoiesis takes the licence to posit functional explanations – as hypotheses on the macro-level – in advance of being able to deliver evidence for the underlying micro-mechanisms that must be assumed. The theory, in its capacity as engaged theory, considers such functional explanations to be more fruitful than causal explanations. For instance, instead of asking what caused the differentiation of architecture’s autopoiesis into avant-garde and mainstream, the theory asks what might be the systemic function of this differentiation that could account for its sustained maintenance, and that would call for and justify its further promotion. The answer here is simply: the increased capacity for rapid and radical innovation. How the differentiation into avant-garde and mainstream facilitates the demands of innovation has already been extensively elaborated above, in section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream. 396

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84 John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1963.

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expected norm and generating deviations instead. This is the crucial aspect of variation that establishes novelty. But innovation cannot proceed via total deviation. The requirement of redundancy here implies that within a system of communications not all structures can be replaced at the same time. Even the most radical transformation must leave the majority of communication structures intact; otherwise communication simply breaks down. Furthermore, innovations have to offer improvements according to pertinent performance criteria. Such improvements, in order to enter the discipline of architecture as lasting innovations, have to be generalizable. Innovations are thus more than ad hoc improvements to individual projects. They must contribute to a general problematic that thematizes new form-function relations with a view to the key societal challenges architecture must address. This is the crucial aspect of adaptive pertinence that marks the move from novelty to innovation. The autopoiesis of architecture is evolving within its evolving societal environment. The further theoretical task is thus to understand how experimental practice might be able to capture opportunities for new structural couplings with new, important developments within contemporary society. The relationship between variation and redundancy can be calibrated in different ways. Periods of cumulative research are marked by a high level of redundancy which is conducive to ensuring that all variations have a high degree of adaptive pertinence. Revolutionary periods are marked by a very high level of variation with a rather low level of redundancy, and with high volatility with respect to adaptive pertinence. The slow evolution of the Classical tradition was characterized by a very high level of redundancy, with only minor variations. Nevertheless, numerous small variations have been accumulated and incorporated into ‘the Classical language of architecture’ as may be studied in John Summerson’s famous exposition.84 However, even the most radical and drastic variations introduced since the ancient Roman high point of Classical architecture – like Michelangelo’s introduction of the ‘colossal order’, or the convex-concave curvature introduced in the Baroque style, are negligible if compared with the explosion of new possibilities engendered under the banner of the Modern Movement. The transition from Historicism to Modernism was a cataclysmic event. The transitional episodes of Art Nouveau and Expressionism were shortlived experiments with little adaptive pertinence. The emergence of Modernism in the early 1920s marked a radical break. Even during this revolutionary period a certain degree of redundancy was, of necessity,

maintained. This is also true for the various heroic deeds of Gropius, Corb and Mies. The requirement to combine variation and redundancy implies that all global transformations must proceed by gradual steps. This is also true for the great transformation from Classical to Modern architecture, except that those steps followed each other in rapid succession. After many small steps a striking transformation was achieved. After Modernism was established in the early 1920s, a whole new generation of architects contributed to its coherent design research programme. Rapid cumulative progress was made. For the first time in the history of architecture and design it was possible to combine high levels of variation (variations in programme, context, construction methods, organizational pattern, formal expression etc) with high levels of redundancy (redundancy in terms of guiding principles and values), while maintaining a high level of adaptive pertinence, in line with the rapidly spreading industrial mode of civilization.

5.3 Strategies and Techniques of Innovation THESIS 23 Radical innovation presupposes newness. Newness is otherness. The new is produced by blind mechanisms rather than creative thought. Strategic selection is required to secure communicative continuity and adaptive pertinence. Architecture’s societal function is to innovate the framing capacity of the built environment. Above, it was explicated how the fundamental and permanent communicative constitution of the autopoiesis of architecture supports architecture’s mission to innovate. A further theoretical task is to detect the specific mechanism by which radical innovations have been produced within the above described communicative constitution. These actual mechanisms of innovation are not always clearly understood. They often remain hidden in the mystification of creativity, outside explicit, deliberative communication. It is the task of architectural theory to bring these creative mechanisms out into the domain of conscious, strategic reflection in order to convert them into techniques of innovation. 5.3.1 THE POWER OF ABSTRACTION Above, the question was addressed how the communicative operations and structures of architecture are geared towards innovation. In addition, the question must be posed how the medium of architecture relates to architecture’s societal function of innovating the framing capacity of the built environment. 398

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85 For example, Malevich’s Tectoniks.

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To operate with (more or less abstract) representations (drawings or digital information structures) has been architecture’s predicament ever since its inception as a discipline distinguished from construction. As Robin Evans pointed out, architects do not build, they draw. Today Evans’ dictum might be rephrased as follows: architects do not build, they script digital models. The central message remains the same: architects do not build. They manipulate representational models within a particular design medium. Under conditions of innovation, the translation from model to building remains problematic. Architecture as a design discipline that is distinguished from the physical act of building constitutes itself on the basis of its medium. The discipline of architecture emerges and separates from the craft of construction through the systematic differentiation of the drawing as tool and domain of expertise outside (and in advance of) the material process of construction. The first effect of drawing (in ancient Greek architecture) seems to be an increased capacity of standardization, precision and regularized reproduction on a fairly high level of complexity and across a rather wide territory. Roman architecture could benefit from this but also shows the capacity of invention that the medium of drawing affords. Without drawing, the typological proliferation of Roman architecture would have been inconceivable. Since the Renaissance this speculative moment of the drawing has been gathering momentum. But only Modernism really discovered the full power and potential of the drawing as a highly economic trial-error mechanism and effortless plane of invention. This discovery coincided with the discovery of abstraction, first in the domain of abstract painting, then in sculpture and proto-architecture.85 When abstract, non-representational painting first emerged its very concept appeared like an absurd oxymoron. Was not representation the very ˆ essence and raison d’etre of painting? Abstraction was a precondition for the unleashing of the creative potential of the 20th century. In this respect Modern architecture depended on the revolution within the visual arts that finally shook off the burden of representation. Modern architecture was able to build on the legacy of abstract art as the conquest of a previously unimaginable realm of inventive/constructive freedom. Hitherto art had been understood as mimesis rather than creation. Architecture was the re-presentation of a fixed set of typologies and tectonic systems like the Classical orders. Against this backdrop, abstraction meant the possibility and challenge of free creation. The canvas became the site of an original creation. This was a monumental breakthrough with enormous consequences for the

Figure 2 El Lissitsky, Proun, 1919

whole of modern civilization. Through figures such as Malevich and El Lissitsky, this exhilarating historical moment was captured and exploited for architecture and design. The human world was to be recreated. The thesis here is that the withdrawal into the two-dimensional surface, ie, the refusal to interpret everything immediately as a spatial representation, is a condition for the full exploitation of the medium of drawing as a medium of invention. Only on this basis, as graphic manoeuvres, do the design manoeuvres gain enough fluidity and freedom to play. They have to be set loose, shake off the burden of always already meaning something determinate. In the case of contemporary Parametricism and the utilization of scripting, abstraction reaches a powerful new level. Parametricism discovers an enormous new potential for original invention that is afforded by scripting generative, geometric-parametric systems. Instead 400

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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Brick House

of abstract geometric shapes we can operate with abstract logics: generative logics, associative logics, logics of transformation, recursive iterations, chains of dependencies, or embedded constraints that might be scripted in abstraction from any particular geometric shape that might be subjected to these logics. These scripts might be developed on the abstract level of logical relations. They might be preserved as logical components that can be reutilized in the most diverse, concrete circumstances. Thus a whole new level of abstraction has been opened up as new plane of creative design thinking and invention. Abstraction implies under-determination, ie, openness to be explored. Obviously, this stage of play and proliferation has to be followed by interpretation, selection and translation into built form. At some stage architectural work leads to building. However, this might happen rather late in the creative process, and not in every ‘project’. Some architectural projects remain ‘paper projects’ which might be ‘translated’ much later, by other projects. The discipline of architecture has learned to allow for this. Whole reputations/careers are made on this basis.

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Figure 3

5.3.2 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL INNOVATIONS This historiographical sketch aims to present the history of architecture as theoretically guided history of architectural innovations. Its purpose is not academic. It tries to seek out and abstract generalizable mechanisms of radical innovation that might be reused within contemporary and/or future efforts at radical innovation, ie, the aim here is to unearth the operating mechanisms of innovation and to turn those semi-conscious mechanisms into systematically deployed methods. At this point a paradox has to be revealed: the paradox – long since observed within sociology – of latent functions whereby the latency (invisibility) of the function contributes to its effectiveness. The innovative mechanism often relies upon its lack of full consciousness. A certain level of invisibility has often been a precondition of radical innovation in architecture: the innovations of the ‘Renaissance’ had to masquerade as the re-discovery of ancient truths. Radical innovations have always been carried by a young, ‘innocent’ generation, ignorant of the magnitude of their task, and ignorant of the magnitude of their violation of tradition (since they had not absorbed this tradition). A spectacular case is the radical refoundation of the discipline by the Modern Movement. Here history used the ‘ruse’ of a total change of personnel. None of the great protagonists of Modern architecture was – according to the regime of the time – an architect in terms of academic training. Nevertheless, the new generation – drawn from among artists and autodidacts – claimed to represent the ‘essence of architecture’, brought in line with the ‘spirit of the age’. However, today it seems that the full consciousness of one’s radicality – coupled with an explorative spirit – might be able to trump innocence. The reason for this is twofold: first, the 20th century established the unfettered ideological dominance of the spirit of innovation over conservation in all function systems and their attendant professional fields. Second, the differentiation of architecture’s autopoiesis into avant-garde and mainstream since the early 1960s (or late 1950s), implies that novelty is a necessary value of avant-garde work and thinking in architecture, despite the fact that architecture’s mainstream audience has much more conservative expectations. (External audience expectations do not necessarily stand in the way when an autopoietic system excites itself.) The code of novelty counts, and ensures the self-awareness of creative radicality. The key advantage of this awareness is that it allows innovation to be systematic. A precondition for this is the ability to understand and re-live the great radical innovations of the past. The history of innovations

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should try to present the original innovations as if seen through the eyes of those old regimes that were first confronted with them, in order to gain a sense of their audacity, and initial improbability. For instance, contemporary designers should try to grasp the radical paradigm shift with respect to the conceptualization of architecture advanced by the German art historians of the late 19th century: the shift from architecture conceived as being concerned with buildings composed from tectonic elements to an understanding of architecture as being concerned with the creation and structuring of space. Another example: contemporary designers should try to appreciate the radical otherness that was implied when Bernard Tschumi’s design for the Parc de La Villette in 1983 imposed three utterly incongruent designs upon a single site, not just as a juxta position, one next to another, but as a super-position, whereby all three designs interpenetrate one another. After having imposed a first system of order – the point grid of pavilions – Tschumi does not move on to detail this order, neither does he move on to tackle the next plot. Rather, he takes the same site again to impose a second, utterly different order, the order of large Platonic figures (circle, square, triangle), and then a third order, the continuous winding path, is inscribed onto the same space. These different schemes are able to coincide on the site and offer competing spatial reference systems. These simultaneous ordering systems allow the site to facilitate quite different patterns of occupation, coinciding in simultaneity, each using one of the reference systems as its preferred and appropriate system of orientation. Tschumi’s seemingly absurd procedure turned out to be a powerful design strategy that effectively answers the social demand of a society differentiating into multiple audiences. His innovation was appropriated by a whole generation of avant-garde architects. Soon Tschumi’s procedure was taken for granted by any young architect or architecture student. This habitual appropriation obliterated the awareness of the stifling stricture against overlap and interpenetration that was implicit in the older practice. The older practice did not know what it was missing and the generation of Tschumi students no longer knew what was gained, nor how it was gained. The knowledge of what was gained fuels the awareness of further potential expansions of the repertoire. Recognizing and reliving the shock of the initial otherness is the first step. The next step is to reconstruct how this liberation/expansion was achieved. It turns out that Tschumi’s breakthrough was the culmination of a whole series of prior approximations (Giedion, Moholy-Nagy, Kepes, Venturi, Rowe, Eisenman), so that for those clued up at the time the project was far less

Figure 4

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Bernard Tschumi, Parc de La Villette Competition, axonometric, 1983

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86 It seems the path was already clearly in view. On the other hand, precursors fall in line only in retrospect after the principle has been isolated and made explicit in a striking and unmistakable way.

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path-breaking than it seemed to the profession at large.86 Those observant of the history of the innovation could see its cumulative build up and radicalization. The awareness that even radical innovations – within an emerging research programme – can (and as much as possible should) be cumulative, ie, dialectical, rather than pursuing the path of mere polemical replacement, serves as an important meta-heuristic principle for all avant-garde design research. Not long after Tschumi’s procedure had been successfully disseminated, this procedure of simple super-position was criticized and superseded by design manoeuvres that tried to establish relations of continuity rather than clashes and contradictions. The undialectical replacement of Tschumi’s procedure by a procedure of folding a single, continuous surface was losing out on the opportunity of dialectical-cumulative progress. However, at the same time as Folding took off, another design research experiment was working with the premise that Tschumi’s innovation must be sublated rather than replaced in the next move, to build up a yet higher level of organizational and articulatory complexity. The idea was to enhance Tschumi’s initial process of simple layering by the agenda of inflective layering. The mutual inflection between the super-posed layers was supposed to produce resonances and interarticulations between layers. The agenda to forge continuities and smooth transitions thus came as the next, cumulative step in the attempt to organize and articulate complexity as complex order. This was the agenda set within a design research studio – titled Ubiquitous Urbanism – that the author conducted with Zaha Hadid at Columbia University in 1993, exactly one decade after Tschumi’s seminal competition win in 1983, and Zaha Hadid’s own seminal 1983 competition win for the Hong Kong Peak. Zaha Hadid is certainly one of the most radical (and influential) innovators of the late 20th century (and early 21st century). It is worthwhile studying her breakthrough moves closely. One of Hadid’s most audacious moves was to translate the dynamism and fluidity of her calligraphic hand directly into equally fluid architectural geometries. Until then all lines had been finally tamed by ruler and compass, as in the case of the most ‘fluid’ of Modernists. The literal translation of the dynamic sketch retained the complex order (lawfulness) of the physical process of the rapid hand/pen movement. Another incredible series of

Figure 5

Ubiquitous Urbanism, Studio Hadid/Schumacher, Columbia University, 1993,

layering process: inflection/interarticulation

moves took aspects of the representational medium literally as design manipulations of objects in real space:

� the move from the exploded axonometric to the literal explosion of space into fragments

� the move from isometric projection to the literal isometric transformation of rectangles into trapezoids

� the move from the foreshortening and distortion of perspective projections, including perspectives with multiple vanishing points, and warped fish-eye perspectives, to the literal foreshortening, distortion and curvilinear warping of space, whereby whole swarms of elements were brought under the unifying spell of a global distortion All these moves initially appear rampantly illogical, akin to the operations of the Surrealists. And for a whole decade they only existed on paper. The level of experimentation reached a point where the distinction between form and content within these drawings and paintings was no longer fixed. The question of which features of the graphic manipulation pertain to the mode of representation rather than to the object of representation 406

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was often left unanswered. Was the architecture itself twisting, bending, fragmenting and interpenetrating or were these features just aspects of the multi-viewpoint fish-eye perspectives? The answer is that over an extended process and across a long chain of projects the graphic features slowly transfigured into realizable spatial features. The initial openness in this respect might have led some commentators to suspect ‘mere graphics’ here. Within Zaha Hadid’s studio this uncertainty was productively engaged through a slow process of interpretation via further drawings, projects and finally buildings. These strange moves which seemed so alien and ‘crazy’ – once taken seriously within the context of developing an architectural project – turned out to be powerful compositional options when faced with the task of articulating complex programmes. The dynamic streams of movements within a complex structure can now be made legible as the most fluid regions within the structure; trapezoidal distortions offer one more way to respond to non-orthogonal sites; perspective distortions allow the shared orientation of multiple elements to various functional focal points etc. What once was an outrageous violation of logic has become part of a strategically deployed repertoire of nuanced spatial organization and articulation. Painterly techniques such as colour modulations, gradients of dark to light, or Pointillist techniques of dissolving objects into their background assume significance in terms of the articulation of new design concepts such as smooth thresholds, ‘field-space’, ‘morphing’, and the ‘space of becoming’ (Eisenman). These concepts came to full fruition only with the digital modelling and animation software of the late 1990s. How can radical breakthroughs like Tschumi’s or Hadid’s be forced? One recipe might be: go to polemic extremes. But how to get the seed? What to take to extremes? The spirit of the story is: take nothing for granted. This is easier said than done, because only the proposal of the alternative reveals what has been taken for granted unnecessarily. Dogmas are only revealed as such in retrospect. Only the alternative way shows that the old way was only one way among others. There are techniques: try to describe the most obvious, banal, trivial, most general aspects of any architecture and then use those descriptions as levers of negation and substitution. This way you get the lever in at the foundations. The heuristics of a negative dialectic might demand: an urbanism without streets, or an architecture without buildings. Or challenge the medium taken for granted and posit an architectural drawing without lines which might lead to an architecture without walls, even without edges. Some of these creative negations have already come to fruition: for instance, single surface topographies try to differentiate space without walls or even sharp edges.

5.3.3 CONCEPTUAL MANOEUVRES Mechanisms of innovation that work via the abstract language of theory might be called conceptual manoeuvres. Such manoeuvres work with negation, inversion or ‘thirding’.87 These conceptual manoeuvres might result in potentially suggestive ‘notions’ that are not yet fully defined but perhaps open a semantic/associative space that can conjure or attract new feasible content. Conceptual manoeuvres might be straightforwardly negative, posing seeming non-sense such as ‘buildings without interiors’. Such purely negative, conceptual stunts might serve as a point of departure for a successful mutation. Obviously, there is no guarantee that something meaningful can be generated by such stunts, let alone something that succeeds in being selected and reproduced as lasting innovation. Generative theory can be as experimental as design. An avant-garde architectural theorist might use previous theory to unfold a productive algebra of terms without yet knowing what would fill and instantiate the concepts generated by this algebra. The technique of thirding is perhaps the most widespread theoretical manoeuvre. It involves the combination of opposites, posing a hybrid between hitherto distinguished concepts, or offering a third term as conceptual resolution of the apparent opposition. A form of thirding is given with the famous dialectical formula of thesis – anti-thesis – synthesis. The synthesis marks the moment of progressive sublation of the two prior, oppositional theses. The technique proceeds as follows: a binary opposition is described – each with its advantage and disadvantage – and then a third term is invented, and the claim is made that a third possibility exists that combines the advantages and avoids the disadvantages of both. As a productive example one might cite Greg Lynn/Jeffrey Kipnis’s conceptual reconfigurations of the early 1990s: Jeff Kipnis88 initially opposes homogeneous infinite space to hierarchical articulated space to claim a synthesis which he calls vastness. The concept is only defined by the two opposing brackets. What fills these brackets positively, ie, how one might go about achieving vastness, remains open. The technique does not give any operational definition, only a vague pointer, an invitation to invent ‘vastness’. In a related, generalizing move, Kipnis is opposing Modernism as non-hierarchical and homogeneous (thesis) to Postmodernism as hierarchical and 87 Thirding implies that two apparently oppositional terms that seem to exhaust all possibilities between them are combined, hybridized or otherwise sublated/resolved within a third conceptual term. See: Edward W Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Blackwell Publishers (Oxford), 1996. 88 Jeffrey Kipnis, ‘Towards a New Architecture’, in: AD Architectural Design Profile No 102 (London), 1993. 408

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89 Greg Lynn, ‘Architectural Curvilinearity: the Folded, the Pliant and the Supple’, in: AD Architectural Design Profile No 102 (London), 1993.

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heterogeneous (anti-thesis) in order to posit a New Architecture that would be non-hierarchical and heterogeneous (synthesis), vastness being one of its features. Further, Kipnis claims a synthesis of the opposing tendencies of maintenance and subversion under the title of incongruity. The opposition between exact and inexact leads to the neologism (borrowed from Edmund Husserl) of anexact. Greg Lynn89 operates the same technique of thirding, albeit with a new element: the fusion of concepts that were hitherto distinguished as antithetical. He collapses the difference between Postmodernism and Deconstructivism and identifies them both as arresting contradiction and opposes this to the collapsed difference/identity of Neo-Classicism/Neo-Modernism as repressing contradiction in order to derive a new term that neither arrests nor represses but both sustains and incorporates difference by means of the new technique of Folding. Kipnis, once more, in a related move, sets up two oppositions intensive/extensive and coherence/incoherence. Then he describes Modernism as extensive coherence and describes Postmodernism and Deconstructivism as extensive incoherence to generate – by means of the simple recombination of terms – his concept and programme of intensive coherence. The achievement here is that this algebra does not remain an empty play of words but does indeed describe and highlight the difference of a new and striking formal repertoire. The phrase ‘intensive coherence’ gained a certain currency at the time, as slogan to promote the new computer-generated morphology of continuously modulated surfaces. At the same time new distinctions such as information vs deformation (Kipnis) or part vs particle (Stan Allen) are introduced. Deformations were understood positively, as registering programmatic or contextual information. The slogan ‘from part to particle’ complemented the older slogan ‘field versus object’ that marked the shift from the time-honoured world of ‘composition’ which carefully relates a small number of distinct parts, to a world of swarm-like agglomerations of countless elements that can only be understood and manipulated via global field properties such as density, grain and directionality. It is worthwhile noting that these concepts of fields, particles and swarms became prevalent in architecture before modelling tools like particle animators were available to architects. The concepts remain important, general guiding notions that continue to be investigated in many projects with many different concretizations. Further concepts such as multiple affiliation (Greg Lynn): the simultaneous, morphological similitude with several disparate,

surrounding contexts; and incorporation: the enriching, smooth integration of obstacles into a pliable texture, are offered which further guide the expansion of design moves within the same paradigm of continuously differentiated fields. Another of Lynn’s conceptual techniques is to gain a newness-effect by means of the reversal of values, ie, to use derogatory/devalued terms with positive import: calling for an architecture that is weak, compliant, submissive and cunning, thus hinting at the possibility of adapting to contextual or typological conditions in a way that would turn out to be subversive. In all these cases the mechanisms of theoretical mutation serve up semantic associations without immediate guarantee of meaningful fulfilment in terms of a convincing three-dimensional architectural translation. The calibrated vagueness on this level of abstraction is a potential catalyst for formal innovation. These particular concepts touched upon here did operate in a fertile semantic field and helped to establish a shared language that was able to inspire and direct an emerging, collective design research programme. To come back to the older example in the history of architecture/ architectural theory that might, at first, have seemed as paradoxical and non-sensical as the notion of a building without interior: August Schmarsow’s proclamation that architecture is not about the design of buildings (churches, palaces, etc) but rather all about the ‘articulation of space’. This abstraction initially means nothing if you can’t distinguish types of space or types of ‘spatialities’ (as Edward Soja further pushes the abstraction). We can distinguish types of buildings, but can we list types of spatialities? This initial abstractness/vagueness is an important liberating force. What is the universe of possibilities opened up and constrained by the task: articulate space? A whole new series of distinctions is called for and indeed is called forth by this theoretical move, for instance, the distinction between open, free-flowing space vs closed, bounded space, or even the later distinction between smooth vs striated space.90 This fertile notion of space became the key category within the self-descriptions of Modern architecture. Sometimes such conceptual mutations are selected and catch fire quite quickly and thus become innovations that can be built upon. They strike a cord, and give expression to latent tendencies that grow with this opportunity and claim these new concepts for their development – often against the intentions of those who first introduced the new terms. New terms are rather fluid 90 Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis), 1987, French original: Mille Plateaux, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1980. 410

THESIS 24 The concept of space was the conceptual mainspring of Modernism. It is now being superseded by the concept of field as one of the conceptual mainsprings of Parametricism. The self-conception of architecture as concerned with the making of space emerged at the turn of the century, came into prominence with the advent of the Modern Movement during the 1920s, and for most architects still counts as the most essential definition of architecture. The conception of architecture as structuring space displaced the traditional idea of architecture and urban design as concerned with the delineation of places and buildings: squares, churches and palaces. For the current avant-garde the concept of space has lost its lustre. Contemporary avant-garde architecture is operating with new concepts, logics and methods that are no longer captured by the idea of space-making. The concept of field – with a whole new set of attendant methods and sensibilities – is usurping the role of key concept once held by the concept of space. This conceptual shift constitutes an innovation inasmuch as the field concept – the idea of the continuously differentiated field together with its attendant design processes – can handle contemporary processes of urbanization more proficiently than any modern ‘space-making’ operation. New key concepts are major innovations in the development of the discipline. They re-order the discourse and refocus the practice of the discipline. Key concepts of this kind are important discursive structures.

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and always ready for unexpected appropriation. They engage in creative coevolution with emerging practices. They might help to address issues suppressed by the previous paradigm. The Classical canon of building types ran up against the proliferating diversity of construction tasks which could not be subsumed under the Classical canon imposing a closed set of building types, each fixed with its tectonic order, symmetry, proportional system and details. A lot of construction remained outside architecture proper. ‘Space’ soon took all this despised non-architecture (engineering structures) under its wings. Space opened up a new domain of exploration. The liberated canvas of abstract art was enlisted in this exploration. Abstract art soon moved from painting to abstract sculpture and spatial constructions. Modernist architecture (e.g. Rietveld’s ¨ Schroder House) is a natural progression of these artistic explorations of ‘space’.

They define the essential goal of the discourse and practice for all participants, and therefore give a particular perspective and drift to all communications. This section takes the concept of space as an important example – perhaps the most important example – of a cycle of innovation in the conceptual apparatus of the discipline. The section tries to show how this cycle of conceptual innovation was stirred by external stimuli (perturbations) and drew on imported conceptual resources to respond to the external challenges. The attempt is made to trace how the new conceptual focal point enhanced the discipline’s handling of its new tasks within new societal conditions. In section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes the concept of style was interpreted in line with the overall conceptual framework offered by the theory of architectural autopoiesis. Styles were conceptualized as research programmes and key segments of architectural history have been rehearsed and reinterpreted to show how the progression of styles upgrades the concepts, repertoire and methods of the discipline in adaptation and anticipation of the development (increasing complexity) of society. In this progression of styles old concepts mutate or disappear and new concepts emerge that allow the discipline to cope with the new challenges. The emergence of new key concepts does not always fully coincide with the progression of styles. Within the history of architecture we can identify some powerful concepts that seem to cross over from one style to another. The concept of space is one such concept. However, its independence from the progression of styles is only relative, not absolute. The concept gained central importance only during the Modernist style, although it emerged earlier, at the time of Art Nouveau and Expressionism, and continued to remain active during Postmodernism,91 and even Deconstructivism. Art Nouveau and Expressionism on the one side of Modernism and Postmodernism and Deconstructivism on the other side of Modernism might be considered to be merely transitional phenomena in the progression of styles. If we only consider epochal styles, the historical alignment of the concept of space with the progression of styles can be maintained.

91 Charles Jencks speaks about ‘Post-Modern space’. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture dedicates a whole chapter to the characterization of Postmodern space. The features Jencks identifies under the chapter heading of ‘Post-Modern Space’ anticipate key features of Deconstructivism. See: Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1st edition 1977), 5th edition, Rizzoli (New York), 1987. 412

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92 These ideas were first formulated in August Schmarsow’s inaugural lecture as professor of art history at the University of Leipzig in 1893. See: August Schmarsow, Das Wesen der Architektonischen Sch¨opfung (The Essence of Architectural Creation) (Leipzig), 1894, reprinted in: Fritz Neumeyer (Ed), Quellentexte zur Architekturtheorie, Prestel Verlag (Munich), 2002. 93 Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), Towards a New Architecture, John Rodker Publisher (London), 1931, Dover Publications (New York), 1986, French original: Vers une architecture, Editions Cr`es (Paris), 1923. 94 August Schmarsow, Das Wesen der Architektonischen Sch¨opfung (The Essence of Architectural Creation) (Leipzig), 1894, reprinted in: Fritz Neumeyer (Ed), Quellentexte zur Architekturtheorie, Prestel Verlag (Munich), 2002, p 324.

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5.4.1 THE EMERGENCE OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACE Space seems to be the essential goal of the architect. His task is to configure space, to shape space, the formation of urban and architectural space. Architecture is regarded as the art of space-making. For most architects this appears to be the most compelling summary definition of architecture, the seemingly self-evident self-conception of the discipline. However, this was not always the case, and no longer holds with respect to the most advanced ideas within contemporary avant-garde architecture. The concept of space entered architectural discourse at the end of the 19th century, via art history and aesthetic theory,92 and indeed made a decisive contribution to the progressive advancement of architecture. Up until then architecture and urban design were concerned together with places and buildings. The idea of architecture as volume – as in Le Corbusier’s famous statement: ‘Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light’93 – is still tied to this older notion, even if it reached a first level of abstraction from building to volume, in the wake of Boullee’s abstract designs. The art historian August Schmarsow was perhaps the first to explicitly insist that space (‘Raum’) is the essence of architectural creation. He talked about ‘Raumgestaltung’94 – the design of space – and interpreted the history of architecture, in Hegelian fashion, as the progressive ¨ unfolding of man’s feeling for space (‘Raumgefuhl’). Prior to this ‘discovery’ of space, architecture was concerned with the design of definite buildings that followed a small set of strictly predefined stereotypes: churches, palaces and villas, each fixed with its normative function, form, tectonic order, symmetry, proportional system and detail motifs. In the world of Classical architecture there was no need for the discourse to descend to the level of abstraction that is implied in the concept of space. The initial intellectual impetus for the art historians of space was given by Immanuel Kant’s striking idea that the Euclidian logic of space – alongside a series of other fundamental principles such as time, substance, cause and effect which together seem to structure the

Figure 6

Le Corbusier, The Lesson of Rome, in: Vers une architecture, Paris, 1923

external world – can derive its inviolate universality only from the constitution of the perceiving/experiencing subject as ‘transcendental subject’ that is presupposed in every act of cognition. Therefore, Kant95 concluded, the spatial character of the object/world cannot be attributed to the object/world itself. Hegel followed to inquire into the origin of the transcendental subject and historicized its constitution via the notion of the ‘spirit of the age’. This in turn inspired the attempt by art historians to identify this unfolding spirit/subject in the various epochs of artistic expression, each manifesting/producing a different kind of space.96 This meant that architectural phenomena were to be understood in very general, abstract terms that could manifest the spirit on this broad level

95 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 1998, original German: Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (Riga), 1787. 96 Concerning the influence of Hegelian ideas on art history see: Ernst Gombrich, In Search of Cultural History, Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1969, or: Ernst Gombrich, ‘The Father of Art History: A Reading of the Lectures on Aesthetics of GWF Hegel (1770 –1831)’, in: Ernst Gombrich, Tributes: Interpreters of Our Cultural Tradition, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1984. 414

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97 In fact the whole idealistic enterprise to conceive history as the unfolding of the spirit has been long since discredited. However, the idea that the subject constitution evolves historically holds, albeit understood only as one of many interdependent factors within the overall (socio-economic) evolution of society.

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of abstraction. Each epoch could now be identified with a particular sense and understanding of space. As a principle of historical explanation this back-projection of the newly discovered abstract category of architectural space is rather implausible.97 As a principle of historical orientation with an eye towards future ambitions it was rather influential, and references to space rapidly took root within architectural thinking. But intellectual influences are never sufficient to account for radical transformations within the self-conceptions of a (practice-oriented) discipline like architecture. Besides this intellectual impetus there was also a strong practical impetus to push this new, deep level of abstraction into architectural thinking. The socio-economic development of the 19th century produced an explosion of diverse building tasks: office buildings, apartment blocks, department stores, hospitals, museums, railway stations, factories etc. The Classical repertoire and theory – oriented towards churches and palaces – were overstretched. More general, abstract notions and principles about how to compose volumes and arrange functions were required. The concept of space that became available from art history could facilitate these requirements of a generalized, abstract approach and discourse (without losing the elevated academic tone of a principled and idealizing mission). The traditional straitjacket of tightly predefined building types was torn off and replaced by a free game of composition – the open-ended disposition of planes and volumes in space – that was much more versatile and adaptive to the varied demands of the emerging industrial/metropolitan civilization. The diverse architectural results had at least one thing in common – they were shaping space. This abstraction initially implies very little and offers no foothold for architectural theory until different sensibilities and types of space can be distinguished. This initial abstractness/vagueness is an important liberating force. What is the universe of possibilities opened up and constrained by the new task: to configure space? A whole new series of distinctions is called for and indeed has been called forth by this theoretical move. For instance, the distinction between open, free-flowing space vs closed, bounded space, inviting architecture to take a stance. The emerging Modernism made its choice on the side of free-flowing space. Space can be compressed and expanded, articulated or smooth. The concept of space also gives the

opportunity to import distinctions like isotropic vs anisotropic space and to give them an architectural meaning. Space is thus not a mere abstraction, but opens a new conceptual field, a new perspective about how to think and design in architecture. The shift from bounded space to free-flowing space – so understood in retrospect after the discovery of space and after the development of Modern space – in turn liberated also the constitution of the architectural objects. They were no longer required to describe closed, symmetrical figures, understood as organic wholes, or complete, well-proportioned organisms that do not allow elements to be added or subtracted. Modern architectural constructs were asymmetrical, and in principle open ended, tolerating additions or subtractions. Thus these compositions had the character of assemblages98 – in Deleuze’s sense – in contradistinction to the concept of organism. Sometimes such conceptual mutations – like this introduction of space into architecture – catch on quite quickly and thus become innovations that can be built upon. They strike a cord, suddenly unblock and give expression to slumbering tendencies that leap at this opportunity and claim these new concepts for their development – often quite against the original intentions of those who first introduced the new concept/term. New terms are rather fluid. They engage in creative coevolution with emerging practices. They might help to solve a lot of stored up problems suppressed by the previous paradigm – that suddenly collapses like a house of cards. This was also the case with the introduction of space into architecture. The Historicist canon of building types ran up against the proliferating diversity of construction tasks which could not be subsumed under the canon imposing a closed set of building types. A lot of construction had gone ‘underground’ during the final years of Historicism’s rule over official architecture. A large part of the built environment simply remained outside architecture proper. ‘Space’ soon took all this hidden and despised non-architecture (engineering structures) under its wings and took off, charging forth with all this pent up energy. Space opened up a whole new domain and trajectory of exploration. To a certain extent we might also – in the terms of evolutionary theory – speak of a pre-adaptive advance here. The introduction of the concept of space in the late 19th century slumbered for about 20 years, before it was made really productive after the collapse of the old world. The uncontrollable, destructive force of the First World 98 However, the conceptual distinction – assemblage vs organism – was not available at the time. Ideologically, the Modernists were still caught in the organism analogy, although many of the Modernist projects – especially larger institutional complexes – might be described as assemblages rather than being organism-like. Gropius’s Dessau Bauhaus is one of many examples. 416

99 Although abstract art still meets pockets of resistance and dismissal within many societies.

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5.4.2 THE HEGEMONY OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACE This fertile notion of space became the key category within the self-descriptions of Modern architecture. The related design method of ‘free’ composition – the open-ended disposition of planes and volumes in space – became naturalized as the prerogative of the creative architect. To take such creative liberties would have seemed an unheard-of audacity for any Classical architect. Now this liberty was to be taken for granted. The liberated canvas of abstract art was enlisted in this exploration. Abstract art had been breaking through to the idea of free composition and free construction in space before architecture. In this respect Modern architecture also depended on the revolution within the visual arts – painting and sculpture – that finally shook off the burden of representation at the dawn of the new century. Modern architecture was able to build on the trailblazing of modern abstract art as the conquest of a previously unimaginable realm of constructive freedom. Hitherto art had been understood as mimesis and the reiteration of given subjects, ie, re-presentation rather than creation. Equally, architecture was the re-presentation of a fixed set of minutely determined typologies, complete with tectonic details. Against this backdrop abstraction meant the possibility and challenge of free creation. The canvas became the field of an original construction. To take this step – that now almost seems trivial99 – was indeed a monumental breakthrough with enormous consequences for the whole of modern civilization. Through figures such as Theo van Doesburg and vanguard groups such as the De Stijl movement this historical breakthrough was extrapolated to the world of experimental architecture. This new discourse and practice of space-making had reached its full-blown, innovative potential in the Modern Movement of the 1920s, pushed and aided as well by the new construction technologies of reinforced concrete and steel that allowed Classical proportions and symmetries of safe and balanced stone construction to be cast aside. The power of these new possibilities of conquering space had already been demonstrated outside architecture proper in the amazing engineering structures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as bridges and

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War had violently broken the fetters of tradition. The traditions were bankrupt. Those who had radical ideas about a new beginning were charging into the breach. This was the moment of the heroes of Modernism. ‘Space’ was their mantra.

railway halls etc. Now these possibilities were claimed for architecture and its space-making mission. The most striking and paradigmatic projects of this early Modernist architectural ‘space-age’ were manifesto projects that remained unbuilt: Leonidov’s Lenin Library and El Lissitzky’s Sky Hooks among others. There are also paradigmatic built projects that fully demonstrate the principle of dynamic equilibrium compositions: ¨ Rietveld’s Schroder House and Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, for example, give shape and rhythm to abstract, free-flowing space. The abstractness of space constitutes an invitation to unconstrained creativity. But we should also pay attention to the more specific thrust of this particular abstraction: space. It shifts the focus from the solid building that needs to be constructed to the void that can be filled with activities. It was no accident that the concept of space came hand in hand with Functionalism. Adolf Behne’s seminal 1923 book The Modern Functional Building displays the following progression of chapters: 1. No longer a Facade / but a House 2. No longer a House / but Shaped Space 3. No longer Shaped Space / but Designed Reality In the final chapter Behne calls for ‘the optimum functional articulation of the proposed living space’ and insists that ‘architecture is no more than a fixed and visible structure of the final organisation of every movement, every occupation, every purpose and use of the building’.100 The new technologies of steel and reinforced concrete also played their part in the shift of focus from the solid mass that needs to be constructed to the space of activities. These new technologies constitute a veritable dematerialization of architecture when compared with the massive masonry constructions of the Classical age. (Architectural drawings are no longer to be filled with the thick poche´ of masonry walls.) That the focus of attention should shift from the solid to the void makes sense in a situation where the question of what needs to be built can no longer be simply answered by reference to a fixed, predefined building type. This shift of focus from solids to voids implies the shift of attention from the particular tectonic elements that need to be constructed to the prior question about the activities that need to be organized and shaped. It also focuses attention on the experiencing subject. The subject of Modern architecture is a subject that has to navigate the dense urban environments of an industrial civilization. This subject is not just placed in front of a single, easily recognized monument. The concept of space 100 Behne, Adolf, The Modern Functional Building, Getty Research Institute (Santa Monica, CA), 1996, p 120, original German: Der Moderne Zweckbau, Drei Masken (Munich), 1926. 418

101 The hierarchy of levels (piano nobile) also gave further orientation clues about the navigation of the inside.

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5.4.3 THE TRANSCENDENCE OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACE Once the notion of space has been established it is possible to go back to describe traditional architecture in terms of space and recognize that traditional space is tightly bound space, at all scales, from the walled city to the segmentation of buildings into discrete rooms. Perhaps the most important aspect to consider in relation to different concepts of space is the primary ordering principle that is implied with each respective concept of space. This question of order directly connects to the vital issue of orientation. Apart from the simple orientation via monumental landmarks, traditional spatial orientation has been operating primarily on the basis of relations of containment – the Russian-doll-principle of nesting domains. Spatial position is defined as series of relations of containment: continent, country, region, city, district, neighbourhood, estate, building, floor, apartment, room. Each domain has a clear boundary and is fully contained within a larger domain with an equally crisp boundary. This is how you know where you are at any time. A change of position implies the crossing of a boundary, ie, as long as you are not crossing a boundary you are in the same place. Orientation is further supported if the domains can be identified with easily recognizable Platonic/geometric figures such as circles, squares or rectangles. In addition to relations of containment, Classical architecture could offer monuments as points of reference. The hierarchy of symmetry axes and the figural completeness/comprehensibility of the shape of Classical monuments facilitated orientation. It is easy to locate oneself in relation to such monuments, both within and around: in front (on axis), behind, left, right (secondary axis), in the centre etc.101 It should be clear that the scope of this system of ordering is limited. A sense of order could only be maintained by denying the realities of modern life.

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allows architecture to take the position of the modern subject that is thrown into a much more complex scene where multiple buildings are arranged into ever-changing constellations without any guarantee of forming easily recognized wholes. To avoid descent into visual chaos, new ordering principles have to be conceived that are able to absorb and structure more complexity with more versatility. Notions such as rhythm or dynamic equilibrium help to characterize such constellations and turn them into modern spatial compositions.

Modern architecture lost some of the orientation devices of Classicism but enhanced the capacity of spatial ordering via a number of new devices: the urban grid, the series, the principle of specializing separation,102 and the compositional trope of dynamic equilibrium (balanced asymmetry). Space is no longer tightly contained in buildings and rooms within buildings. The articulated volumes project into space and their interior becomes porous. Space flows continuously from inside to outside. Space is shaped by the composition of lines, planes and volumes. Compositions are constituted from no more than a handful of simple, discrete elements. No matter how free the relative size, the proportions and the relative disposition of those elements – compositions remain constrained by these two crucial limitations: each element is a discrete (usually cubic) volume, and the number of elements is very much restricted, usually there are three to five elements. Above this number the laws of human cognition demand chunking – like one does when trying to remember telephone numbers. In terms of modern architectural composition, chunking translates into the hierarchical build up of a larger composition from a small number of composed groups of elements or volumes (clusters). Individual volumes, in turn, contain a number of sub-volumes (zones). In contrast to Classical arrangements, these clusters are not fixed into strict relations of nesting, proportion and symmetry. However, the restriction to a largely orthogonal system of disposition remains. Modern architecture shapes space via composing volumes and planes in space. Space flows through and so does the modern subject. His/her trajectory has been ordered by the rules of composition outlined above. These rules offered sufficient scope to absorb and structure the exigencies of modern industrial society. But society did not stand still since 1920. For the first 50 years the construction of modern space proceeded on a massive scale without encountering the need for a qualitative shift. Since the late 1960s, however, the underlying socio-economic dynamic has changed.103 On the back of a strong material base secured by 20th-century industrial modernization, during

102 Here each function of the overall building/institution receives a dedicated volume with its own specialized depth, floor-to-floor height and facade expression. 103 Here is not the place to go into an analysis of the specific socio-economic forces and logics at play. For an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic transformations alluded to here, see: Patrik Schumacher & Christian Rogner, ‘After Ford’, in: Stalking Detroit, ed G Daskalakis, C Waldheim, J Young, Actar (Barcelona), 2001; Patrik Schumacher, ‘Business – Research – Architecture’, in: Daidalos 69/70, December 1998/January 1999; Patrik Schumacher, ‘Productive Patterns – Restructuring Architecture’, Part 1, in: architects’ bulletin, ‘Operativity’, Vol 135 –6, June 1997 (Slovenia). 420

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5.4.4 FROM SPACE TO FIELD A radically different, alternative mode of ordering and orientation is afforded by the concept of field, and the principles of the continuously differentiated field. The field we are thinking about is not the field of agriculture, although a corn-field might take on field qualities in our sense when a helicopter is approaching to land and the corn is animated by the air-turbulence. The concept of field in contemporary avant-garde architecture has the following two primary sources of inspiration: the field concept from modern physics, especially in reference to electro-magnetic fields on the one hand, and the concept of field from the psychology of perception, especially Gestalt-psychology, where field is juxtaposed with object as the diffuse background or substratum from which the process of perception extracts the object (figure) that focuses the subject’s attention at any time. Space is conceived as empty and isotropic, like an unstructured vacuum. Fields are full, as if filled with a fluid medium. We might think of liquids in motion, structured by radiating waves, laminal flows and

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the 1970s and 1980s a marked increase in lifestyle ambitions and diversifications implied a quest for rapid cycles of innovation, and attendant fluidity of work relations, which in turn implied a surge in the complexity of ordering required from both urbanism and architecture. The Modernist method of composed space started to show signs of being over burdened. The Modernist repertoire – geared towards the separation, specialization and mass reproduction of a handful of distinct life processes – was no longer able to organize and articulate the more variegated and complex patterns of social relations. The reactive Postmodern scavenging in the treasure house of historical motifs was short-lived. It allowed the expression of variety locally, but only at the expense of global order. The Postmodern tendency was soon driven out by Neo-Modernist and Minimalist counter-currents. The complexity-barrier remains. Once more, a sense of order is only maintained on the basis of a radical reductionism that is antithetical to the realities of contemporary life. Minimalism contradicts contemporary society. This contradiction can only be surmounted by an ordering system that can structure more complex arrangements. As long as there is only this one simple system of order this contradiction leads to one of two equally untenable reactions: on the one hand it leads to the fallacy of craving for an artificial simplicity, and on the other hand to the fetishistic embrace of disorder as in the celebration of Tokyo’s visual chaos. Space finally lost its progressive force after about 80 years of hegemony.

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Figure 7

Overlapping fuzzy domains generating emergent subdomains

Figure 8

Object crystallization from interpenetrating point-grids

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104 Jeff Kipnis promoted this analogy while he was lecturing at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in the mid-1990s. 105 This reading of space-frames in the terms of the field concept was first introduced by Jesse Reiser in the mid 1990s. See: Jesse Reiser & Nanako Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics, Princeton Architectural Press (New York), 2006. 106 Stan Allen, ‘From Part to Particle’, in Architecture After Geometry, AD Architectural Design, No 127 (London), 1997.

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spiralling eddies. Swarms of birds or shoals of fish104 have also served as paradigmatic analogies for the field-concept that the contemporary avant-garde is trying to bring into architecture. Dense, moving crowds of people constitute an example that directly engages with architecture, literally creating temporary architectural fields that are arguably more significant to the event in question than the shape of the framing space. The vocabulary and conceptual schemata we require to describe the dynamic order and formation of these kinds of crowds are precisely those we need to build the conceptual apparatus that will supersede the concept of space in architecture. But instead of only describing crowds moving through space we would like to think of swarms of buildings that drift across the landscape. Contemporary (Parametricist) architects start to conceive of urban fields as swarms of buildings, continuously differentiated, yet coordinated with respect to size, distance and orientation, creating fluid swarm formations. Instead of the Classical figure-ground separation, the contemporary notion assumes parametric figuration. This notion implies that figures tentatively crystallize from the continuous field conditions they remain embedded within by parametric manipulations, including the shifting of observer positions (observer parameters). Instead of figures being contrasted against a neutral background, the field allows for the formation of singularities. We might think of large continuous interiors such as open office landscapes, airport departure lounges or big exhibition halls of the kind used for trade fairs. Such interiors are visually infinitely deep and contain swarms of partitions, swarms of desks and swarms of light fixtures. The roof over such an interior might be held up by a forest of columns, or by the variegated thicket of a continuous space-frame.105 In each case the constitution and order of the territory are no longer composed of a small number of parts, but by an uncountable mass of particles. ‘From parts to particles’106 has been one of the key slogans of the mid-1990s. This is one of the key characteristics of working with fields. One has to handle so many elements that any attempt to track or pay attention to all elements is utterly hopeless. To single out and concentrate on individual elements would be utterly meaningless. Every quality is produced by many elements acting together. In contrast, in modern compositions and the

spaces that they shape every individual element matters, is noticed, and carefully placed into the overall balance. With fields only the global and regional field qualities matter. Elements become effective only as they amass, coalesce and accumulate to create emergent field effects: biases, drifts, gradients, and perhaps conspicuous singularities such as radiating centres. But any such feature is a result of a rule-based accumulation of much smaller features and therefore always subject to gradual emergence and disappearance. There are no discrete entities with sharp outlines. Here figures and domains do not sustain Platonic simplicity. Their deformation no longer spells the breakdown of order but the lawful inscription of information. Figures/domains do not have to remain neatly separated because there are lawful rules of mutual inflection, and lawful rules of gradual transformation. Orientation in a complex, lawfully differentiated field affords navigation along vectors of transformation – for instance a morphing trajectory – rather than snapping from position to position via boundary crossings. Field qualities usually co-exist with other reference systems – even in the case of the most ambitious avant-garde projects. In the extreme case of a territory based on pure field conditions named landmarks, bounded domains and shaped space would have disappeared and orientation would have to rely fully on the navigation of lawfully modulated field qualities such as urban density, directionality, agitation in the field, as well as gradual morphological transformations of the buildings etc. There would be no nameable locations to refer to, and no specific place could be named as destiny of the journey. Instead the lawfully changing vectors of transformation – such as increasing density – would afford orienting inferences and anticipations. The destination would be a desired field quality rather than a specific, geographically individualized place. The contemporary condition of arriving in a metropolis for the first time without prior hotel arrangements, without a map (and with meetings scheduled only for the following day) might instigate this kind of field-navigation. The gradual build up of the degree of urbanity will lead you to shops and restaurants. To allow oneself to be pulled by such vectors of transformation affords a very efficient form of navigation – as long as there is no need to find a specific address/place. To move through such a field would be akin to being thrown into a deep forest where trees have no name and where thickets and clearings emerge and fade gradually, and where topographic features are translated and accentuated by shifts in vegetation. This navigation on the basis of field qualities operates with the same navigational logic that guides nomads across the wilderness. Deleuze and 424

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Aldo van Eyck, Sculpture Pavilion, Arnhem, 1965

Guattari107 have described this logic in relation to their distinction between smooth space and striated space. Striated space is the space of architecture, plotted out between stable reference points and dissected by boundary lines. Smooth space is equivalent to the nomads’ field of exploration. Here everything is structured via intensities such as climatic gradients and shifts in vegetation. Here the lines or trajectories of movement – following the vectors of intensity/transformation – are prior to any points that might be encountered on these paths. This logic overturns the logic of space where lines (of movement) can only be defined on the basis of prior, fixed points. Early precursors of the field concept in architecture can be found in the matt-buildings of Dutch Structuralism in the 1960s. However, the proto-fields of 1960s’ Structuralism are disorienting due to their repetitive, and often isotropic, order. The whole point of contemporary fields is the introduction of gradient differentiations. There are many projects in the recent avant-garde that are pursuing this field thesis and that could be referred to here to demonstrate the prevalence of the field concept. In the early 1990s the field concept flourished at universities such as Columbia University in New York. The author was teaching a

107 Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis), 1987, French original: Mille Plateaux, Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), 1980.

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Figure 9

Figure 10

Joop van Stigt, University of Twente, Enschede, 1963

studio there with Zaha Hadid under the title of Ubiquitous Urbanism. The studio might also have been titled Field Urbanism. Further, the following two projects from the recent oeuvre of Zaha Hadid Architects serve as examples, in particular one urban and one architectural project might be used to illustrate the concept of field and its attendant methods and sensibilities: 1. The Masterplan for One North, an urban science and business park in Singapore, deploys an elastic grid that squeezes and stretches in adaptation to topographic conditions and in response to incisions that radiate and ripple through the net. The vertical extrusions that are developed from this grid further amplify the lawful and continuous differentiation of the field. The resulting urban fabric distributes intense field qualities: directionality, density, grain and light-intensity. This project also demonstrates the capacity of the field approach to integrate disparate external contexts via multiple affiliations.108 The different urban directions and urban fabric grains of the neighbouring 108 According to Greg Lynn’s definition. 426

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Ubiquitous Urbanism, Studio Hadid/Schumacher, Columbia University, 1993

districts are taken up and drawn into the new field and then morphed into each other. Thus integration emerges where there was disconnection. Rather than adding a fifth field to the four incongruent neighbouring fields, a new, monumental synthesis is achieved that combines variegated richness with continuity and coherence: intensive coherence.109 2. The Central Building for the new BMW factory in Leipzig operates as a field of flows. The constructed components – the walls, the roof trusses and roof beams – are strongly directed, in line with the primary orientation of the building. Everything is structured by lines of flow. The Central Building is the active nerve-centre of the whole factory complex. All threads of the building’s activities gather together and 109 According to Jeff Kipnis’s definition.

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Figure 11

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Figure 12

Zaha Hadid Architects, One North Masterplan, Singapore

Figure 13

Zaha Hadid Architects, One North Masterplan, Singapore

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Zaha Hadid Architects, BMW Central Building, Leipzig, site plan

Figure 15

Zaha Hadid Architects, BMW Central Building, Leipzig, interior rendering

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Figure 14

branch out again from here. This planning strategy applies to the trajectories of people – workers (arriving in the morning and returning for lunch) and visitors – as well as to the cycle and progress of the production line which traverses this central hub, departing and returning again. This dynamic focal point of the enterprise is made visually evident in the proposed field system that encompasses the whole northern front of the factory and articulates the central building as the point of confluence and culmination of the various converging flows. It seems as if the whole expanse of this side of the factory is oriented and animated by a force field emanating from the central building. All movement converging on the site is funnelled through this compression chamber, squeezed in between the three main segments of production: Body in White, Paint Shop and Assembly. The fertile and pliant formalism of flow lines has been pursued obsessively. Every system was forced to contribute to the intricate play of bundling, diverging and converging trajectories: structure, partitions, circulation, lighting, conveyors etc. The vast car park in front has also been drawn into the formalism of dynamic flow lines. All are treated as if they were under the spell of a powerful force field. The field displays correlations between structure, infrastructure, movement and natural light. Collectively they create architectural field effects that are crafted to accommodate and orient the movement and communication processes that represent the essential purpose of the building. This kind of deep, porous and differentiated interior was systematically explored during a three-year design research agenda – Corporate Fields110 – within the Design Research Lab at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AADRL) in London. The desired sponge-like, deep fields that extend and differentiate in all three dimensions were very much like the abyss-like, uncanny spaces that Piranesi conjured as images of horror. Now these characteristics have become images of vitality spelling out a desired richness and intensity of communicative opportunities. Within the contemporary avant-garde the field concept is now being pursued under the heading of parametric urbanism, with new, powerful digital design techniques: parametric modelling and scripting. To the extent that the deployment of these tools and techniques is radicalizing architecture’s potential for parametric malleability, differentiation and correlation – allowing for the intensification of both internal and external 110 Corporate Fields, see: Brett Steele (Ed), Corporate Fields – New Office Environments by the AADRL, AADRL Documents 1, AA Publications, Architectural Association School of Architecture (London), 2005. 430

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Carceri d’invenzione, plate 7: the drawbridge

relations – parametric architecture and urbanism participate in the formation and development of the new style of Parametricism. Parametricism founds its design research programme on a totally new ontology – an ontology that abandons the Classical/Modernist compositions of inert, rigid geometric figures and puts in their stead a world of malleable, adaptive elements (radicals) that engage with each

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Figure 16

Figure 17

Rok Oman and Spela Videcnik, AADRL, Corporate Fields, London, 2000

Figure 18

Form Informing Urbanism – Parametric Urbanism – Thames Gateway, Zaha Hadid

& Patrik Schumacher, London, 2006

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111 Within an urban project subsystems could, for example, include the urban fabric, the circulation system and the system of open spaces. Within a building project subsystems might include system of floors and other space dividing elements, structural skeleton, envelope, voids, circulation system etc. 112 A full discussion of Parametricism is provided in Volume 2 of The Autopoiesis of Architecture.

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other to form differentiated systems which in turn are associated with each other via scripted dependencies. Each system is a transcoded ‘representation’ of another, co-present system, and itself becomes the data-set for further correlated systems/subsystems.111 To the extent to which agent based modelling is involved in the formation of some subsystems one might talk about an artificial ecology. Frei Otto is the only true precursor of Parametricism. He used physical processes as simulations and design engines to ‘find’ form rather than to draw invented forms. The inherent lawfulness of the engaged physical processes produced a combination of complexity, rigour and elegance that was otherwise unattainable. The power and beauty of this approach were striking. However, the fact that this design process was bound to physical models limited its potential to be generalized across the full range of task domains. Contemporary, Parametricist design harnesses digital simulation and form-finding tools that are inherently open to artificial modulation. Not only can parameters be shifted out of natural ranges but wholly new, artificial forces and their defining laws and logics might be defined. Any parameter (property or relation) of any object (geometric, positional, colour, transparency value etc) might be associated with any parameter (property or relation) of any other object (or group of objects). An artificial, second nature can be conjured via scripted, quasi-natural laws, rich in internal resonances, as well as inter-articulations with external contexts. The theory of architectural autopoiesis proposes that it is the style of Parametricism112 that represents the most promising way forward for the global autopoiesis of architecture in its perennial, always precarious pursuit of societal relevance. It is within this design research programme that the challenges posed by contemporary society are being translated into viable briefs and design tasks that can serve to upgrade architecture’s capacity to fulfil its societal function: the effective framing (ordering and priming) of social communication in all societal domains.

With the identification of architecture’s societal function, the theory of architectural autopoiesis has completed its ambition to design a comprehensive theoretical framework that can orient contemporary architectural theory, as well as design research and practice. In its attempt to address current historical tasks, the autopoiesis of architecture cannot rely on instructions from outside. Neither clients, nor science, nor politics are able to lift architecture’s burden of self-determination. The discipline has to reflect and utilize its own communicative structures, experiences and theoretical resources, in the effort to maintain its societal relevance by upgrading the adaptive pertinence of its practice. However, architecture is not the only autopoietic function system in this predicament. Recognizing this, the theory of architectural autopoiesis has adopted Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory as overarching meta-theory that allows architecture to theorize itself within the comparative matrix of all the other major function systems within society: the art system, science, education, politics, the legal system, the economy, the mass media and the medical system. It is with the guidance of Luhmann’s analysis of these societal domains that the theoretical apparatus proposed here has been built up. The continuous comparison with these other function systems, in terms of their (permanent and variable) communication structures, was a central heuristics in the investigations that led to the identification of comparable structures within the domain of architecture. Volume 1 of The Autopoiesis of Architecture presents the first systematic record of this theoretical effort. Appendix 1 Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems is an attempt to condense the results of this effort into a synopsis where the major communication structures of architecture can be read in direct alignment with corresponding structures in the other function systems. This matrix is based on the author’s reading of Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical system. However, since Luhmann never compiled such a matrix, many gaps had to be filled, over and above the whole analysis of architecture which was never considered by Luhmann. Also, the compilation of the synopsis led the author to a number of systematizing adjustments. Faithfulness with respect to Luhmann’s work can thus no longer be claimed. While the columns of the matrix summarize the comparisons that might be drawn across systems, the lines can be utilized to construct succinct expositions for each of the systems. On the level of abstraction afforded by the matrix, the theory of architectural autopoiesis might thus be compressed into three or four sentences, in turn specifying and connecting architecture’s self-demarcation, basic

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Concluding Remarks

operation, lead-distinction, code, programme, medium, task, societal function and self-description: Architecture, as societal system, defines and demarcates itself in distinction to art, engineering and science. It communicates via its basic communicative operations – design decisions – that are oriented/ structured by the lead-distinction of form vs function, which in turn sponsors the system’s (self-referentially enclosing) binary codes – the double code of utility and beauty. The code is programmed and thus made concretely applicable, at any historical moment, by the prevailing/adopted style. The style in turn relies on the power of its unique medium of visual/ geometric representation (drawing, modelling) to overcome the inherent improbability of succeeding to communicate the far-reaching, complex and novel endeavours it has to engage in to execute the task of organizing and articulating innovative, pertinent built environments that address architecture’s unique societal function of framing social interaction, as reflected and promoted within architectural theories that rise to the ambition of serving as architecture’s comprehensive self-description. With two of its categories – architecture’s task and architecture’s self-description – the matrix and the summary it delivers point already to the second volume of The Autopoiesis of Architecture . Volume 2, A New Agenda for Architecture, addresses the specific challenges that confront architecture today. Architecture’s task is theorized as the creation of an architectural order that corresponds to and co-creates the new emerging social order of post-Fordist1 network society. The dimensions of this task are analyzed via the distinction of organization vs articulation. The latter concept is in turn unfolded into a phenomenological and a semiological dimension which (together with the organizational dimension) are the key dimensions of contemporary architecture’s agenda to upgrade its expertise. The theory of architecture’s task is followed by a theory of the design process that addresses the question of how architecture can upgrade its methodology in an increasingly demanding task environment characterized by both complexity and novelty. Then, architecture’s relation to politics is clarified. Finally, after having re-presented itself in the context of three prior, classic self-descriptions (from within the Renaissance, Neo-Classicism and Modernism respectively), the theory of architectural autopoiesis aligns itself with the emerging new style of Parametricism. Thus, in a final loop, an ongoing design research project is grounded in the general theoretical edifice, which in turn is corroborated by the vitality of the concrete project.

436

1 The concept of post-Fordism, although originally stemming from another theoretical paradigm, is here taken as subsidiary to the overarching epochal concept of modern, functionally differentiated society, as a convenient marker of its most current issues of restructuring.

APPENDIX 1 COMPARATIVE MATRIX OF SOCIETAL FUNCTION SYSTEMS

Appendix 1 Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems

438

claim

(politics), not

against indoctrination, (no religion, no politics)

not economy, not religion, not science

not power

(politics), not economy, not morality

Education

Politics

Legal

System

(art)

dogma (religion), not subjective

true vs false

truth-

design not ideology

Science evidence

judgment

legal

taking position

fact

norm vs

position vs issue

illegal

legal vs

progressive vs regressive

pass vs fail

improbable)

(probable vs

punishment

positivism)

regulation,

government, opposition

teaching, testing

prediction

plausible explanation,

another reality

making

making strange,

organization, articulation

Tasks3

conflict resolution,

rule of law

power

career, vita

truth (probability)

public event

representation (visual/geometric)

Medium

statutes (legal

constitution,

programmes

ideologies, party-

curricula

researchprogrammes

paradigms,

individual art-work

original vs conventional

intention

theory vs

of the

art vs no-art (kitsch),

selfprogramming

styles

Programmes

expression vs

instruction teaching vs subject

artistic decision

vs useless

beautiful vs ugly, useful

not life-world, not religion, not science, not craft, not

form vs function

Art System

design decision

not art, not engineering, not science

LeadBinary distinction2 Code(s)

Architecture

Basic Operation

Selfdemarcation

Societal System

Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems1

epistemology

art theory, aesthetics

architectural theory

Selfdescription4

tions

normative expecta­

decisions stabilizing

binding

make collectively

selection

jurisprudence

political theory

socialization, pedagogy career­

of new knowledge

mentation generation

reflection & experi­

social

frames) universal platform of

of spatial

framing (innovation

Societal Function

not politics,

Mass Media

judgement

not legality vs illegitimate)

(legitimate

good vs bad

healthy

diseased vs

vs no news

newsworthy

(values)

moral code

doctrines

medical

topicality

current

business plan

(ostracization)

respect

therapy

publicity

money (property)

conditions of respect

defining

prophylaxis

healing,

entertainment

information,

production, distribution

economic theory

social

cation

ing of communi­

control via condition­

ethics

science

shared world maintenance medical

of public reality,

current distribu­ tion construction media theory

on basis of

future provision

This matrix is based on the author’s reading of Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical system. Since Luhmann never published such a matrix, gaps had to be filled and

act

norm vs

symptom

disease vs

real event

profitable vs unprofitable

Luhmann did not distinguish the tangible tasks from the reflected societal function. The tasks of architecture are theorized in Volume 2, part 6, The Tasks of Architecture.

The concept of self-description is elaborated and historically exemplified in Volume 2, part 10, The Self-descriptions of Architecture.

Although moral discourse has not achieved the status of an institutionalized function system within modern (functionally differentiated) society, its inclusion in the table

3

4

5

APPENDIX 1 COMPARATIVE MATRIX OF SOCIETAL FUNCTION SYSTEMS



is instructive.

The lead-distinction is at the same time the re-entry of the system-environment distinction within the system.

2

was never considered or theorized by Luhmann.

systematizing adjustments have been made here, most saliently with respect to the concept of lead-distinction (but also on several other counts). Moreover, architecture

1

therapy)

moral

not politics

advice, (diagnosis,

Morality5

medical

not (pure)

science, not business

Medical

not economy

price vs value

information report vs

exchange (payment)

System

not economy, not morality

not power (politics), not morality

Economy

439

THESIS 1 (part 1 Introduction: Architecture as Autopoietic System) The phenomenon of architecture can be most adequately grasped if it is

analyzed as an autonomous network (autopoietic system) of communications.

THESIS 2 (section 1.1 The Unity of Architecture)

There exists a single, unified system of communications that calls itself

architecture: World Architecture (the autopoiesis of architecture).

THESIS 3 (section 1.2. The Evolution of Architecture)

Architectural theory effects an immense acceleration of architecture’s

evolution.

THESIS 4 (section 1. 3 The Necessity of Theory)

Architectural theory is integral to architecture in general and to all

architectural styles in particular: there is no architecture without theory.

THESIS 5 (section 2.1 The Emergence of Architecture as Self-referential System) Architecture observes and constitutes itself as a distinct domain within modern (functionally differentiated) society, claiming exclusive and universal competency with respect to the built environment. This demarcation is ultra-stable.

THESIS 6 (section 2.2 Foundation and Refoundation of Architecture) The emergence of architecture over and above building constitutes a significant evolutionary gain that elevates society’s self-transformative capacity to a new level. Resolute autonomy (self-referential closure) is a prerequisite for architecture’s effectiveness within an increasingly complex and dynamic societal environment.

THESIS 7 (section 2.3 Avant-garde vs Mainstream) The distinction between avant-garde and mainstream is constitutive of architecture’s evolution (autopoiesis). Only by differentiating the avant-garde

APPENDIX 2 THESES 1–24

Appendix 2

Theses 1–24

as specific subsystem can contemporary architecture actively participate in

the evolution of society.

THESIS 8 (section 2.4 Architectural Research)

The avant-garde segment of architecture functions as the subsystem within

the autopoiesis of architecture that takes on the necessary task of

architectural research by converting both architectural commissions and

educational institutions into substitute vehicles of research.

THESIS 9 (section 2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation)

Any attempt to integrate architecture and art, or architecture and

science/engineering, in a unified discourse (autopoiesis) is reactionary and

bound to fail.

THESIS 10 (section 3.1 Architectural Autopoiesis within Functionally Differentiated Society) In a society without control centre, architecture has to regulate itself and

maintain its own mechanisms of evolution that allow it to stay adapted (within

the ecology of coevolving societal subsystems).

THESIS 11 (section 3.2 The Autonomy of Architecture)

There can be no external determination imposed upon architecture – neither

by political bodies, nor by paying clients – except in the negative/trivial sense

of disruption.

THESIS 12 (section 3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture) The self-determination (autopoiesis) of architecture must provide credible criteria and processes that can absorb the risk of communicating design decisions that project into an uncertain future.

THESIS 13 (section 3.4 The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design Disciplines) The lead-distinction of form vs function defines the discipline and has

universal relevance with respect to all communications within architecture.

As the difference between architectural self-reference and architectural

world-reference, it represents the difference between system and environment

within the system.

THESIS 14 (section 3.5 The Codification of Architecture)

All design decisions are evaluated along two dimensions: utility and beauty.

442

THESIS 15 (section 3.6 Architectural Styles)

THESIS 16 (section 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes)

Avant-garde styles are design research programmes. They start as

progressive research programmes, mature to become productive dogmas, and

end as degenerate dogmas.

THESIS 17 (section 3.8 The Rationality of Aesthetic Values)

Aesthetic values encapsulate condensed, collective experiences within

useful dogmas. Their inherent inertia implies that they progress via revolution

rather than evolution.

THESIS 18 (section 3.9 The Double-nexus of Architectural Communications: Themes vs Projects) All architectural communications must contribute to both themes and projects. This indispensable double connectivity of architectural communications is a hallmark of architecture as a practice steered by theory.

THESIS 19 (section 4.1 Medium and Form) Architecture depends upon its medium – the drawing/digital model – in the same way that the economy depends on money and politics depends on power. It sustains a new plane of communication that relies on the credibility of the medium and remains inherently vulnerable to inflationary tendencies.

THESIS 20 (section 4.2 The Medium and the Time Structure of the Design Process) The evolution of architecture’s autopoiesis involves the evolution of its specific medium. The introduction of the medium established the capacity to progress the architectural project while maintaining reversibility. Each further step in the development of the medium increased this crucial capacity to combine design progress with the preservation of adaptive malleability.

THESIS 21 (section 5.1 Architecture as Societal Function System) All social communication requires institutions. All institutions require architectural frames. The societal function of architecture is to order/adapt society via the continuous provision and innovation of the built environment as a system of frames.

APPENDIX 2 THESES 1–24

Architecture needs (new) styles to streamline the design decision process

and to regulate (anew) the handling of its evaluative criteria (code values).

443

THESIS 22 (section 5.2 Innovation as Crucial Aspect of Architecture’s Societal Function) Everything in architecture’s communicative constitution is geared towards innovation: its elemental form of communicative operation, its elaborate communication structures and its specialized medium of communication.

THESIS 23 (section 5.3 Strategies and Techniques of Innovation) Radical innovation presupposes newness. Newness is otherness. The new is produced by blind mechanisms rather than creative thought. Strategic selection is required to secure communicative continuity and adaptive pertinence.

THESIS 24 (section 5.4 Key Innovations: Place, Space, Field) The concept of space was the conceptual mainspring of Modernism. It is now being superseded by the concept of field as one of the conceptual mainsprings of Parametricism.

444

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452

AADRL 140, 142, 143, 144, 353, 430 ABC group 96, 263 abstract art 154 abstract principles 115–20 abstraction 6, 8, 24, 238–40, 398–407 action 11, 355 action system 355–7, 379 active-reflective styles 242 active styles 242 adaptive pertinence 396–8 Adorno, Theodor 120 AEG 167 aesthetic values 7, 8, 18, 258, 300–14 aestheticization 313 Alberti, Leon Battista 9, 35, 36, 42, 43, 48, 81–2, 83, 94, 177, 221, 287, 288, 289, 290 aleatoric process 136–7 Alexander, Christopher 42, 44, 45, 80–1, 159, 176, 202 Allen, Stan 409 Alpine Architecture 124 analogy 25 analytic-predictive theories 38, 39, 40, 51, 157 Apollinaire 212 Arad, Ron 168 Archigram 41, 96, 119, 231 Archilab 106 architecture 1–28 Architettura Razionale 97 Archizoom 96 art 146–55, 389–91 Art Nouveau 167, 258, 299, 397 art system 13, 24, 370 artefact 335, 347, 360, 361

Index

Index

articulate organization 176 articulation 176 artificial ecology 433 Arts and Crafts Movement 150, 167 Ashby, Ross 44 assemblage 94 Asymptote 98 autological theories 49 autonomization 81–7 autonomy 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 24, 25–6, 99–101, 188–97, 283–7 autopoiesis 1, 94, 183, 186 autopoiesis of architecture 1, 2–3, 4–14, 16, 18–19, 25, 26, 27–8, 37–8, 51–2, 55–6 avant-garde 7, 33, 47, 59, 62, 94–132, 228–33 Bachelard, Gaston 120 Baecker, Dirk 168 Baroque 50, 85, 258, 290–1, 324, 335 Barthes, Roland 120 Bataille, Georges 120 Bateson, Gregory 60 Baudrillard, Jean 120 Bauhaus 96,150, 151, 158, 159, 167 beauty 10–11, 215–40, 305–8 Behne, Adolf 118–19, 259, 418 Behrens, Peter 92, 167 Benjamin, Walter 120 Bernini 85, 148, 155, 229 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 44 Bill, Max 159 binary code 27, 175, 216, 217–19 binary schematisms 217 Blondel, Franc¸ois 79, 155

body plan 352–3 Boeri, Stefano 106 Borromini 148, 155, 229 ¨ Botticher, Karl 246, 247 ´ Etienne-Louis 124 Boulle, boundary 10, 26 Bourdieu, Pierre 301, 381–2 Bowellism 113 Bramante, Donato 36 brief 196, 201, 203–4, 235–6, 259, 396, 433 Broadbent, Geoffrey 45 Brunelleschi, Filippo 84 Brutalism 115, 246, 259, 312 Building Information Model (BIM) 339 Burckhardt, Jacob 242 ¨ Burdek, Bernhard E. 160 career 3, 17 Carnap, Rudolf 159 causal explanation 14–16 character 173–4 Chomsky, Noam 120 circularity 59 Classicism 420 code 4, 10, 24, 63, 101, 183–4, 374, 378, 396 codification 215–41 cognition 330, 392, 414, 420 cognitive openness 19 collage 74, 113, 128, 337 communication 1–4 communication structure 2, 4, 7, 10, 26, 171–2, 195–7 communicative operation 391–6 complexity 24, 368–9, 373–4, 399, 405, 419, 421 complexity reduction 374 composition 173 comprehensive theory 4, 9, 14, 16, 17–19 comprehensiveness 17–19 454

computer-aided design (CAD) 3, 4, 200, 323, 360 conceptual manoeuvre 408–11 Conceptualists 215 conditioning 195, 302, 314 connectivity 6, 20–1 Constructivism 56, 150, 259 Constructivist epistemology 53, 57 Constructivist International 96 Coop Himmelb(l)au 98 coordination 339 Copernicus 110 Corb 30, 43, 90, 115, 306 correlation 430 critical architecture 64 critical theory 62–6 Cubism 91 cultural evolution 396 cumulative avant–garde 113–14 cumulative periods 110–14 Dada 150 Danto, Arthur C. 36 Darwin, Charles 15 data-scapes 266 De Stijl 92, 96, 150, 400, 417 decision theory 135–6 decomposition 349 Deconstruction 9, 49, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62–6, 388 Deconstructivism 9, 35, 46, 53, 62, 72, 74, 97, 106, 113, 120, 121–2, 252, 258, 259, 263, 292, 300, 337, 353, 388 deformation 409 DeLanda, Manuel 122 Deleuze, Gilles 56, 120, 122, 155, 388 demarcation 2, 7, 26, 144–70, 226–8 Derrida, Jacques 9, 49, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62, 70, 120, 121, 137, 144, 343, 388

Eclecticism 251, 258, 261, 262 economic system 369 education 67–8, 370 Eggeling 212 ego/alter 379, 385 Einstein, Albert 110, 284

Eisenman Architects 352 Eisenman, Peter 9, 30, 41, 56, 97, 102, 107, 191, 204, 212, 213, 269, 403, 407 elemental operation 197–204 emergence 413–17 enclosure 168–9 engineering 160–3, 233–4 environment 19 epochal styles 242, 253, 254 Ernst, Max 351 Euclid 83, 333, 413 Evans, Robin 399 evolution 15 evolution of architecture 32–4 evolutionary mechanisms 33 exclusivity 89–91 exemplars 115–20, 257, 288 Expressionism 91, 113, 258, 397 expressive field 381 external reference 209, 340 Eyck, Aldo van 425 facts 211 fashion 372, 381, 388, 392 Feldtkeller, Christoph 207 field 174, 411, 421–34 Field Urbanism 426 figure/ground separation 423 Finsterlin, Hermann 124 FOA 104 Foerster, Heinz von 44, 60, 193 Folding 292, 297, 409 Fordism 53, 74, 109, 125, 128 form 173, 207–9 formal a priori 263–7, 308–10 formal heuristics 286 formal repertoire 388, 409 Formalism 191, 207, 214, 215, 269 Forty, Adrian 207 Foster and Partners 104, 297 Foucault, Michael 11, 71, 120 framing 168, 170, 364–5, 371–6

455

Index

design decision 10, 156–7, 199–200, 202–4, 276 design disciplines 25, 26 design intelligence 2 design medium 399 Design Methodology Movement 159 design process 357–8 design research 393, 396, 398, 405, 410, 430–1, 433 design tools 18 design world 332–3, 336, 338, 350, 355 diagram 346–62 ´ differance 137, 342–6 differentiation 22, 146–55, 177–88, 363 digital model 143, 184, 200, 292, 323, 324 discourse 49 discourse analysis 11, 71 discursive formation 11, 71 discursive oscillation 233–8 discursive practice 11 disegno 82–3 distinction 19, 205–6 Doesburg, Theo van 152 dogma 275, 286, 407 Domenig & Huth 97 double code 175, 184, 219–24, 228–33 double-connectivity 318 double contingency 267–71, 378–92 drawing 323–4, 328–31 Durand, Jean-Nicolas–Louis 42, 43, 87, 349, 350 Durkheim, Emile 373

Frampton, Kenneth 30 French Revolutionary Architecture 124 Freudianism 284 Friedman, Constant 96 Friedman, Yona 96 ¨ Fruhlicht 124 function 173, 207–9 function systems 12–13, 24, 74–7 functional equivalence 367, 386 functional explanation 14–16 functional heuristics 286 Functionalism 45, 52, 207, 259, 262–3, 270 Futurism 92, 124 Gabo, Naum 93 Garcia, Mark 346 Gehry 30, 97 generative theories 38, 39, 40, 41, 93 Gestalt-psychology 46–7 Giedion, Sigfried 403 ¨ Glaserne Kette’ (Glass Chain) 124 Goffman 373, 374–5, 376, 383 Gombrich, Ernst 414 Gothic 78–9 Gould, Stephen Jay 389 Graves, Michael 97, 104 Gropius, Walter 87, 90, 115, 124, 150, 151, 158, 299 Guarini, Guarino 155 ´ 120, 122, 155, Guattari, Pierre–Felix 388, 425 ¨ Gunther, Gotthard 60–1 Gwathmey 97 Hadid, Zaha 30, 97, 405–7, 426 Hall, Edward T. 374 Hanson, Julienne 169 hard core 283–7, 287–90 ¨ Haring, Hugo 259 harmony 173 456

Haus-Rucker 97 Hays, Michael 189 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 7, 86–7, 147, 185, 244, 390, 414 Heidegger, Martin 9, 120, 163, 330 Heizer, Michael 153 Hejduk 97 Hensel, Michael 104 heuristics 283–7, 287–90 Hilberseimer, Ludwig 44, 142, 259 Hillier, Bill 42, 43, 45, 46, 169, 170 historical crystallization 77–81 Historicism 113, 251, 261, 291, 397 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell 115, 116, 117, 121, 207, 261–2, 263, 265 Hitler, Adolf 194 Hollein, Hans 97 Horkheimer, Max 120 ¨ Hubsch, Heinrich 244, 245 Husserl, Edmund 409 hypothesis 143–4, 280 ideology 49, 50, 59 idiom 258, 308–10 idiom of style 258 impartation 20 improbability 384 incommensurability 365 information 19, 20 innovation 98, 328–9, 391–8, 398–411 input/output 193 inside/outside 72–4, 168 institution 376 intensive coherence 409 internal reference 340 International Style 262 irritation 22, 74, 193–5, 235, 236 Italian Renaissance 81–7 Ito, Toyo 104 James Stirling Prize 225 Jencks, Charles 121

Kandinsky, Wassily 91 Kant, Immanuel 147, 186, 301, 413 Kaufmann, Emil 124 Kepes 403 Kipnis, Jeffrey 30, 56, 98, 102, 104, 122, 148, 213, 214, 408, 409 Kipnis, Lynn 122 Koetter, Fred 41 Koolhaas, Rem 9, 30, 35, 41, 56, 97, 106, 129, 130–1, 132, 393 Kostoff, Spiro Kreier, Leon 392 Kuhn, Thomas 100, 110, 111, 112, 115, 282 Kwinter, Sanford 104 Lakatos, Imre 278, 280–5, 289, 293, 294–5, 297, 298, 299 language 330–1, 353, 354 latent utopias 123–9, 195 Latour, Bruno 163, 164, 165 Laugier, Marc Antoine 291, 304 Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) 5–6, 9, 35, 42, 87, 116, 118, 124, 146, 222, 299, 414 lead-distinction 27, 175, 204–15, 234 Ledoux,Claude-Nicholas 124 Lefebvre, Henri 120 legal system 369 Legendre, George 104 Leibniz 301 Leonardo da Vinci 85, 155, 351 ´ Leonidov, Ivan Ilich 418 ´ Levi-Strauss, Claude 120

LeWitt, Sol 153 Libeskind, Daniel 98, 351 Lissitzky, Lazar Markovich (El Lissitzky) 400, 418 living systems 20 Loos, Adolf 87, 167, 267, 299 loose coupling 140, 325 Luckhardt brothers 124 Luckmann, Thomas 380, 381 Luhmann, Niklas 7, 9, 10, 11, 12–14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 33, 47–8, 54–8, 60, 61, 71–6, 102, 128, 145, 148–9, 165, 174, 177–82, 197, 205, 211, 213, 217, 222–4, 235, 238, 256, 257, 271, 324, 325, 338, 355, 363, 364, 368, 370, 379, 383, 384–90 ´ Lukacs, Georg 120 Lynn, Greg 30, 35, 41, 45, 98, 104, 122, 214, 408, 409, 410 Mainstream 95–132 ´ 159 Maldonado, Tomas Malevich, Kasimir 91, 212, 400 manifesto project 89 manner 333–5 Mannerism 85, 258 March, James G. 135, 136, 137, 138 March, Lionel 41, 45, 159 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 91 Martin, Reinhold 29 Marx, Karl 7, 14, 15, 19, 21, 73, 120, 177, 251, 394 Marxism 12, 18, 49, 60, 284 mass media 363, 369, 391 Massumi, Brian 122 Maturana, Humberto R. 186, 194 Maya 360 media of dissemination 325–6 medial substratum 333 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 177 medium 325

457

Index

Johnson, Philip 115, 116, 117, 121, 207, 262, 263, 265 Jones, Inigo 229 Joyce, James 212 Judd, Donald 153

Meier, Richard 97, 104 Menges, Achim 104 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 120 Mertins, Detlef 141 Metabolists 96, 113, 119, 231 meta-ordinary diagrams 349–51 methodological tolerance 297–300 metric diagrams 352 metric-extraordinary diagrams 351–5 Metzger, Eduard 245 Meyer, Hannes 41, 44, 142, 151, 159, 207 Meyer, Leonard B. 344 Michelangelo 85, 146, 148, 155, 229, 397 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 30, 115, 259, 274, 306, 401, 418 Minimalism 113, 120, 153, 258, 272–3, 296, 421 Minsky, Marvin 44 Mitchell, William J. 332 models, research 285 Modern Movement 252, 397 Modernism 33, 35, 45, 46, 50, 52–3, 59, 62, 73, 74, 113, 175, 246, 258–9, 275, 291–2, 312, 324, 397–8, 421 Modernist-Functionalist theory 52–3 modes of differentiation 23 Moholy-Nagy 403 Mondrian 91, 212 morphogenesis 248 morphology 39, 46, 129, 140, 141, 214, 259, 264 Morris, William 167 multiple affiliation 140, 141 mutation 126–7 Muthesius, Hermann 87, 299 MVRDV 104 Naumann, Friedrich 87 Neander, Karen 16 negative heuristics 288–9 458

Neo-Classicism 73, 85, 113, 119, 175, 258, 290, 291, 299, 300, 335 Neo-Corbusian Formalists 119 Neo-Gothic 258 Neo-Plasticism 152 Neo-Rationalism 113, 119 Neo-Vernacular 113 Neue Sachlichkeit 259 Neues Bauen 221, 259 Neumann, John von 44 New York Five 97 Newton, Isaac 110, 115, 280, 284, 293–4 Niemeyer 118 Nietzsche, Friedrich 120 Norberg-Schulz, Christian 9 norm 205, 211 normative expectation 369 novelty 184 observation 19 Olsen, J.P. 135, 136, 137, 138 OMA 104 Oman, Rok 432 ontology 332, 336, 347, 431 Oosterling, Henk 163–4 openness 238–40 openness through closure 189–93 operational closure 19 order 371 organization 176 otherness 398, 403 Otto, Frei 41, 433 Palladio 36, 42, 81, 84, 85, 229 paradigm 110–11, 282 paradigmatic mainline 293–4 parametric design 346, 354 parametric diagrams 352 parametric figuration 423 parametric model 46, 148, 354

Proto-Modernism 113 psychic systems 20 quasi-object 11, 71, 165–6 Radical Functionalism 191, 259, 265, 266, 304, 309–10, 312 Rahim, Ali 104 randomness 351 Raphael 85, 146, 148, 155, 229 Rationalism 259 rationality 174 recursive network 19 redundancy 396–8 re-entry 22, 210, 340 reflection 324, 338, 340, 357, 358 Reiser, Jesse 41, 98, 104 Renaissance 36, 78–9, 81–7, 123, 242, 258, 275, 290, 324, 335 repetition 350 representation 372, 399, 400, 433 reproduction 343, 393 requisite variety 264 research 132–44 research programme 277–300 retention 34 retroactive manifesto 129–32 revolutionary periods 110–14 Rhowbotham, Kevin xiv Richter 212 Rietfeld, Gerit 418 risk 341, 352, 392–4 Rittel, Horst W.J. 125, 159 Rococo 85, 258, 335 Rogers, Richard 104 Romantic movement 212 Rossi, Aldo 56, 104 Rowe, Colin 41, 45, 73, 97, 403 Rudofski, Bernard 106, 107 Ruskin, John 165 Saint’Elia, Antonio 91 SANAA 104

459

Index

Parametricism 35, 44, 46, 62, 97, 106, 112, 120, 122, 129, 175, 252, 258, 259–60, 272, 273, 286–7, 292, 295, 296, 297, 337, 338, 353, 361, 400, 431–3 Parent & Virilio 97 Parsons, Talcott 378–9, 380, 382, 383 part-to-whole relations 316 Participationists 119 particle 409, 423 partitioning 170 pattern language 80 Pavlov, Ivan 195 Peirce, Charles 60 perception 176 performance values 258 Perrault, Claude 117, 155 perturbation 194 Pevsner, Antoine 93 phenomenological dimension 160 philosophy 8–9, 120–3 Picton, Antoine 155 Picturesque 50, 291, 304 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 430, 431 place 411–21 political system 369 polycontexturality 22, 224–6 Popper, Karl R. 278–81 positive heuristics 289 Post-Structuralism 9, 11, 12, 29, 49, 53, 56, 72, 74 Postmodernism 23, 35, 45, 46, 62, 73–4, 97, 106, 113, 119–20, 121, 147, 231, 252, 258 Price, Cedric 97 problematizing theories 38, 39, 40 process 171 product design 372 programme 24, 257 project 318–22 protective belt 283

Saussure, Ferdinand de 144, 205, 330 Scharoun, Hans 118, 119, 124, 259 Scheerbart, Paul 92 Schinkel 146, 261, 267 Schmarsow, August 410, 413 Schoenberg 212 Schumacher, Patrik 139 ¨ Schutz, Alfred 380, 381 science 86–7, 111–12, 155–60, 370 Scott, Felicity D. 63 scripting 353, 354 Scruton, Roger 392 second order observation 76, 182, 270, 271–3 segmentation 363 selection 33–4 self-description 22, 25, 47, 48, 71, 72–3, 76 self-organization 385, 388–90 self-reference (internal reference) 72–81, 209, 210, 338–42 self-referential closure 19 self-regulation 30–2 semiological dimension 372 semiosis 47 semiotics 60 Semper, Gottfried 9, 87, 243, 247–51, 252, 254 Serlio, Sebastiano 81, 83–4 Serra, Richard 153 Serres, Michel 165 shape grammar 117–18 signification 176 Simmel, Georg 120, 380 Simon, Herbert 44, 240 simultaneity 140, 141 singularity 423 situation 376–8 Situationism 388 Skinner 195 Sloterdijk, Peter 163, 164, 165 Slutzky, Robert 41 460

smooth space 425 smoothness 140, 141 Soane, John 221, 229–30 social autopoiesis 184–8 social interaction 376–8 social system 12, 14, 20, 21 social systems theory 9, 10, 11, 19–25, 49, 54, 56–7, 84, 363 society 21 sociology 368, 377, 381 Soja, Edward W. 410 space 93–5, 169, 174, 411–34 space of becoming 140, 141 Space Syntax 43–4, 45 specious present 356 Spencer-Brown, George 60, 204, 205 Spuybroek, Lars 41, 104 Stalin, Josef 194 Starck, Philipp 168 Steadman, Philip 41, 45, 159, 331 Steele, Brett 139 Stevin, Simon 155 stratification 23, 179, 363, 382 striated space 425 strict coupliung 325 structual drift 195 structural coupling 20, 24, 195–6 Structuralism 49, 119 style 113, 173, 175, 240, 241–77, 320–1, 334, 412 subsidiary styles 253 subsystem 75, 76, 91, 95, 98, 101–3, 105, 111, 132–3, 363–4, 365, 366, 433 succession 339 Summerson, John 397 super-position 403, 405 super-theory 54–7, 58–62 Superstudio 96 Suprematism 150 Surrealism 150

Tafuri, Manfredo 49, 50, 59, 60, 144, 291, 312 taste 173, 305, 381–2 Taut, Bruno 98 Taut brothers 124 teleology 15 teleonomy 15 temporalization 345 tenacity 7 territorialization 169 Terry, Quinian 392 theme 315–22 theory 211 third order observation 182–3 Thomas, William I. 377–8 time, project 342–62 totalization 143 transitional styles 253 triple code 228–33 truth 175, 101, 57–8 Tschumi, Bernard 9, 46, 97, 107, 207, 403, 404, 405 ultra-stability 26, 64 Umemoto 41 uncertainty absorption 131 understanding 20 unity of difference 20 universality 89–91 universe of possibilities 331–3 UNStudio 104

urbanism 405–7, 421, 426, 430–3 utility 10–11, 215–40 Varela, Francesco J. 186 variation 33, 396–8 Venturi, Robert 30, 41, 73, 97, 107, 130, 393, 403 Videcnik, Spela 432 Vienna Circle 159 Vignola 81, 229 ` Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emmanuel 87 Virilio, Paul 120 Vitruvius 72, 78, 81, 92, 177, 221, 335 Wagner, Otto 87, 251–2, 299 Wallot, Paul 87 Webber, Melvin M Weber 212 Weinbrenner, Friedrich 244 Werkbund 87, 150, 252 Wiegmann, Rudolf 244–5 Wiener, Norbert 44 Wigley, Mark 49, 50–1, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66–8, 70, 121 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 243 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 8, 330 Wolf, Gerhard 82 ¨ Wolfflin, Heinrich 148 world society 21 world-reference (external reference) 209, 210, 213–14, 236–7 Wren, Christopher 155, 229 Wright, Frank Lloyd 124 Zara Hadid Architects (ZHA) 104, 168, 306, 320, 352, 428, 429

461

Index

swarm 406, 409, 423 symbiosis 82 symbolically generalized media 326–30 system reference 152

c Patrik Schumacher on behalf of Zaha Hadid Architects p 88, Fig. 1: � c Kunstmuseum/ The Bridgeman Art Library/ DACS 2010 p 400, Fig. 2: � c Digital image Mies van der Rohe/Gift of the p 401, Fig. 3: � Arch./MoMA/Scala c Bernard Tschumi p 404, Fig. 4: � c Columbia Univesity’s Graduate School of p 406, Fig. 5: PART 1 � Architecture, Planning, and Preservation c Columbia Univesity’s Graduate School of p 406, Fig 5: PART 2 � Architecture, Planning, and Preservation c FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2010 p 414, Fig. 6: � c Patrik Schumacher on behalf of Zaha Hadid Architects p 422, Fig. 7: � c Patrik Schumacher on behalf of Zaha Hadid Architects p 422, Fig. 8: � c Van Eyck Estate p 425, Fig. 9: � c J van Stigt p 426, Fig. 10: � c Patrik Schumacher on behalf of Zaha Hadid Architects p 427, Fig. 11: � p 428, Fig. 12: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects p 428, Fig. 13: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects p 429, Fig. 14: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects p 429, Fig. 15: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects c Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst, p 431, Fig. 16: � Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin c Ofis Architects, Rok Oman and Spela Videcnik p 432, Fig. 17: � p 432, Fig. 18: Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects

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