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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   27727 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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What IQ would be necessary to understand the statement 'I am an architect. I build buildings that harm your mind.'?

I don't think someone would need a particularly high reading grade level to understand that statement, is this what one would expect someone with low reading grade would take way from Eisenman? Eisenman is saying that comfort and harmony do not constitute the totality of either aesthetic preference or human experience, and just like someone might listen to metal or prefer picasso to kinkade, buildings may accomodate and respond to a broader spectrum of experience. Eisenman's most famous work is the holocaust memorial in Berlin, and it's a good example of both a deconstructive minimalism (removal of ornament and complex form for simple geometry), and pursuit of typically discomfiting vibes: instability, envelopment, angularity. Stripping away detail raises the salience of other aspects of the way the memorial is experienced, e.g. the way the acoustics narrow and quiet, and how temperatures drop as you descend, and how your descent has no clean demarcation between inside and outside, over and under. How the relation to other visitors shifts from the communal ("I am one of visible dozens visiting the memorial") to the incidental ("I bumped into a specific other visitor, who then turned the other way and is again out of sight"). Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial achieves a similar minimalism that is well suited to these kind of structures, which accomodate what Etlin called a 'space of absence' -- visitors can interact with what isn't there, or against what they may have expected to be there. What is appropriate for recognition of tragedy is not necessarily what is appropriate for the home, but our lives have tragedy in them and one of the most difficult and essential functions of art is to articulate and reconcile us to that tragedy.

The first result I see for your 'brutalist high school' search is this Nikken Sekkei project. My own high school's gymnasium was a massive concrete aggregate structure repurposed from a 1917 abattoir, so I am open to arguments my aesthetic baseline is not standard here, but I'd expect kids to mostly regard the scarred-meteor interior there as incredibly cool.

Philosophical perspectives in architecture have also largely moved on from Eisenman's deconstructive minimalism in the (an) opposite direction somewhat towards Heidegger's object-relational ontology/phenomenology via Harman. See Mark Foster Gage's Killing Simplicity.

Eisenman is saying that comfort and harmony do not constitute the totality of either aesthetic preference or human experience, and just like someone might listen to metal or prefer picasso to kinkade, buildings may accommodate and respond to a broader spectrum of experience.

'Another way of knowing' is the primary rhetorical tool used in socialist and gnostic argument. Socialists have the nous and non-socialists do not. Their knowledge has gone through more dialectical aufheben. Its not that the views of others are wrong. Its just that there is another way of knowing. The thing you like is just one part of a spectrum of experience. Where as the socialists can view the whole spectrum. You like Motzart. He likes Metallica. But what if music had more? What if there was an entire other way of viewing and experiencing music? What if music challenged you? What if it made you uncomfortable with the injustices of the world? A view of music that is limited to the order of the notes is such a limited view. And really its harmful, because it excludes the people who view music as a way to do justice.

No thanks, and no thanks.

The new soviet man doesn't actually exist. Buildings meticulously designed to be discordant and harmful don't actually fill a portion of the populous with warmth. Eisenman doesn't feel comfort in his own buildings. He feels discomfort because he is good at what he does. Discomfort is the point. Take him at his word.

I think Marty Robbins has this one handled:

Your concern is not to help the people. And I'll say again, though it's been often said. Your concern is just to bring discomfort, my friend. And your policy is just a little red. Now, ain't I right?

You state a lot of mockery against an image of a socialist you have constructed in your head and do not make much of an actual case in favor of "there is correct art and wrongbrained communist art".

I don't particularly care for noise music or black metal, as its a bit abrasive to my ear, but it'd be something of a epistemological leap to assert that no one genuinely enjoys it. Perhaps there is or is not some socialist uberman that exists in perfect equanimity with the entire sonic universe made and unmade, but I don't think the observation that some people listen to Merzbow is somehow contingent on it.

What if music challenged you?

Great idea! You'd be missing out on a lot of brilliant music if you avoided everything that was challenging.

I'd not be willing to listen to more than 10 minutes of that without a substantial cash payment.

Killing Simplicity

Under the banner of OOO, architecture has the responsibility to emerge from the careful study of - absolutely nothing.

Great, we've gone from actively villainous architects to those who simply advance a kind of architectural nihilism (yes, I know he denies the charge of nihilism in the next sentence. No, I don't believe him). To the extent that I can glean a point from this, he seems to still be advocating for buildings that are in some way ugly or broken so that people notice them so that they don't merely "fade into the background." This is not so different from Eisenman's perspective of discomfiting people on purpose.

Architecture continues to suffer from "notice me!" syndrome. I don't care one iota about the self actualization of architects or about Heidegger. Architects should be seeking to make beautiful, harmonious buildings. Instead they are writing pomo nonsense and Ctrl+f beauty zero results. So it goes.

To the extent that I can glean a point from this, he seems to still be advocating for buildings that are in some way ugly or broken so that people notice them so that they don't merely "fade into the background."

Not really. OOO recognises that buildings-as-real-objects fade into the background in a Heideggerian sense when they become tools, i.e. the salience of their qualities is flattened to that which is relational (to the observer and the observer's use, to its constituent parts, and to the larger systems in which itself is a part). OOO questions whether it continues to be valuable for the practice of architecture to load potential buildings under a multiplicity of these relations (to zoning, environmental impact, situation within the street, ad infinitum), such that the reality of the building is obscured rather than elucidated. A building is not a 'machine for living' per corbu, it simply is in a way that is necessarily independent of the observer. The reality of the building is simply too dense to be fully described and taxonomised. Architects should become more comfortable with the vibes and ineffables, and the limited accessibility to underlying reality of objects. An invisible tool, per Harman, is a tool whose myriad qualities other than its specific utility--including and especially its aesthetic qualities--have receded from cognisance.

I have some sympathy for it, first because my time in architecture school was mostly spent within (more egological) phenomenological explorations. Second, because I think we're completely oversaturated with psychofauna in general in today's age (I recently became a parent, and it is here where this saturation is perhaps the worst of all). However, I don't much care for Harman's weird realism as a very practicable defense, and I think OOO has some unresolved boundary issues in its attempts to consider objects as real gestalten independent of their constituent parts.

This is more impenetrable pomo, but I guess I'll try to respond anyway.

Not really. OOO recognises that buildings-as-real-objects fade into the background in a Heideggerian sense when they become tools,

Yes really - the whole point of the article is how architects can prevent their buildings from fading into the background, i.e., horror of horrors, fitting in to their environments. That's why it literally ends with endorsing Lovecraftian architecture as the wave of the future. If architects can pull off building stuff that looks disturbing and maddening, it will surely not fade away.

OOO questions whether it continues to be valuable for the practice of architecture to load potential buildings under a multiplicity of these relations (to zoning, environmental impact, situation within the street, ad infinitum)... Architects should become more comfortable with the vibes and ineffables, and the limited accessibility to underlying reality of objects.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. Obviously buildings have to take into account the physical reality of the place they are built.

Reading this gives me vertigo. How did architecture become entirely centered around philosophical navel gazing? We'd all be better off if architects put down the continental philosophers and started again with firmitas, utilitas, venustas.

How did architecture become entirely centered around philosophical navel gazing? We'd all be better off if architects put down the continental philosophers and started again with firmitas, utilitas, venustas.

Again, don't you see the tension here in these two sentences?

What you've suggested here - architecture should be beautiful, architecture should serve a function - is itself a non-trivial philosophical program that must be argued for rather than assumed. Architects can't operate in the absence of philosophical commitments altogether, because this is impossible. Instead, you're asking that they adopt your own philosophical commitments without reflection. Phrased in this way, your recommendation no longer seems as manifestly self-evident.

That (important) buildings should be beautiful appears to be the consensus opinion throughout human history and across cultures wherever humans have been able to build anything more grandiose than a mud hut.

The burden is on the postmodernists to convince us that a five thousand year old architectural tradition is mistaken, not the other way around. They must prove to us that everyone had somehow missed the point until a few French and German intellectuals of the 20th century figured it all out.

So far I've found their arguments lacking.

Thoroughly endorsed, subscribing to your newsletter. Any discipline that begins to sound like graduate philosophy has a major problem.

I don't care one iota about the self actualization of architects or about Heidegger. Architects should be seeking to make beautiful, harmonious buildings.

Isn't there a certain tension here?

Why should architects care what you think if you don't care what they think?

Why should architects care what you think if you don't care what they think?

Because almost invariably the nonsense people object to is funded by the taxpayer. No one gives a shit some rich guy builds himself a shoe-box villa that has a garden that looks like a carton box.

People object to ugly public buildings, same reason as they object to shit on the street or buildings acting as mirrors and melting down the pavement. Yes, architects at times will build a concave sun-reflective glass facade that melts things.

They shouldn't.What they should do is flip the damn burger, and leave their artistic frustrations to 3D models no one cares to look at.

Because people have a responsibility not to shit up the urban commons. That's before we even get to questions about who is paying who's salary, which is a consideration I admit applies only to public buildings.

Whether I like it or not, I am forced to engage with the buildings that architects build. If architects build repulsive monstrosities, then I, along with however many thousands or millions of fellow poor souls live among the same buildings, have to be subjected to them daily. In contrast, even if I make mean comments about architects online, the architect will almost certainly not even be aware of my existence. Usually, when people’s actions greatly affect the lives of countless others, then we tend to think that they should take those others’ opinions into account.

Now, an architect might respond that he should be unconstrained by the ressentiment of the plebs when he is exerting his own will upon the built environment at massive scales. But if that’s how architects see themselves, then my relationship with them is most analogous to some Persian peasant massacred at the whims of Ghengis Khan’s ambitions. I won’t look fondly upon the Khan among the slaughter as Merv burns.

an architect might respond that he should be unconstrained by the ressentiment of the plebs when he is exerting his own will upon the built environment at massive scales.

This is roughly the position I would endorse, yes.

It's ironic that on the one hand Eisenman is being accused of being a socialist, and on the other hand we have multiple people arguing that Eisenman has a moral duty to uphold a certain traditional standard of beauty in the public commons, even if this runs contrary to the intentions of his private financial backers. Should we put all architectural decisions up to a public vote, to ensure that no buildings are ever constructed which the majority would find offensive? If I found the appeal to democracy to be persuasive, then perhaps I would be more likely to be a socialist! But I am not a socialist, and I have no particular fondness for democracy. I will celebrate any opportunity for an artist to carry on his work while unconstrained by the demands of mass taste.

As for Eisenman's work itself, it's maybe not perfectly aligned with my own taste, but it's also not nearly as grotesque as some of the people here are making it out to be. I think his House VI is quite lovely, although admittedly that's largely due to the juxtaposition of the structure with the environs rather than due to the intrinsic properties of the structure itself.

The building is meant to be a "record of design process," where the structure that results is the methodical manipulation of a grid. To start, Eisenman created a form from the intersection of four planes, subsequently manipulating the structures again and again, until coherent spaces began to emerge. In this way, the fragmented slabs and columns lack a traditional purpose, or even a conventional modernist one. The envelope and structure of the building are just a manifestation of the changed elements of the original four slabs, with some limited modifications. The purely conceptual design meant that the architecture is strictly plastic, bearing no relationship to construction techniques or purely ornamental form.

Consequently, the use of the building was intentionally ignored - not fought against. Eisenman grudgingly permitted a handful of compromises, such as a bathroom, but the staircase lacks a handrail, there is a column abutting the kitchen table, and a glass strip originally divided the bedroom, preventing the installation of a double bed.

"Quite lovely."

such as a bathroom

I absolutely love this delivery. My other same-energy example is the Russian Wikipedia page for the one-line poem "Oh, cover thy pale feet!" by Valery Bryusov inviting the reader to access the full text of the poem on Wikisource.

Why did you fail to quote the most important part?

The Franks, in Peter Eisenman's House VI: The Client's Response, claim that they nonetheless love living in such a poetic structure, which they inhabit with their children.

I think his House VI is quite lovely, although admittedly that's largely due to the juxtaposition of the structure with the environs rather than due to the intrinsic properties of the structure itself.

This is genuinely hideous.

There's no accounting for taste!

Something about man-made structures that appear to have been dropped in the middle of nowhere just really does it for me. I love the Viaduct Petrobras for similar reasons.

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