The paper describes a possible standpoint how sources and how related processes could be classified, evaluated and finally translated and used in design.
In addition the paper wants to attempt some contributions to the design and use of informational tools for a contemporary architectural design.
The paper attempts to evaluate a built example which seems to differ from traditional approaches remarkable; the paper wants to investigate if in this example some elements of new sources and new approaches can be traced. Euralille seems to offer itself for a review of one different approach to architecture which argues very much with the emergence of a new time and new tasks, and which could be seen as a product of many browsings through the agendas of possible new times and which incorporates many virtual forces within the society and many blueprints of solutions and values relating to the notion of the future.
importance of source
term source
place in design
The paper discusses aside of and in contrast to browsing and blueprint the following selection of three possible kinds of sources: tradition and typology, shape vocabularies and grammars, and functionalism/free association.
Typology analyzes existing structures, tries to define their underlying rules, and tries to find a method of applying them mostly by means of variation; the found rules are assumed to represent the adequate character of an area, a character which should be kept in future construction.
Althought the main stream in typological studies seems to have shifted from the demand that everything existing is the truth and has to be obeyed as a literal blueprint, unless the strong argument stands against it, to the notion of existing fabrics as libraries for future developments, it has not shifted the responsibility of proof for the right solution from the shoulders of the design to the shoulders of the past. Again the silly example: Why should a some maximum spans from a time when only restricted wooden elements were available be valid in a time when concrete structures are more feasible? The argument doesn't count anymore without some support from the blueprint side. sticks to one particular use? building-building enough typology in the majority of the houses (90% without architects)
built typology Disney Land?
abstraction necessary - underlying values and their translation into architecture=blueprint
"comfortable" systems of shapes, subconscious right and wrong arrangements of shapes=blueprint
Problem: what is a function, definition of functions. free association
association not as the necessary evil for the moment when accomodation of function doesn't produce a complete artifact, but as early tool to describe function (programming) and to catch what is in the air = blueprint
What I mean by blueprint would sound in a very casual language like this: blueprint is the combination of the first derivative of typology, shape grammar and functionalism plus an additional brise of what is in the air. Proof has to be given if this is a serious method at all, and if so if it is an effective one.
The paper articulates in particular the idea that architectural work builds very much on a source and research method which could be called "browsing"; a name for a somewhat unscientific but considerably effective method of collecting information and inspiration ahead and during the design work.
The paper tries to establish browsing as a honorable source and method with attached rules of right and wrong, effective and ineffective, good and bad.
Parallel to the establishment of browsing as the name for the "method" the paper wants to use Rem Koolhaas' term blueprint for the objects of browsing.
Support for the attempt to establish these terms as rules comes from the observation that the features browsing and blueprint seem to describe increasing parts of life and work. The most literal example for browsing is thereby the mosaic browser as the cutting edge instrument for the unlimited possibilities of the internet. The term blueprint could for example be used in relation to today's information overflow and the successive change in perception away from detail and precision and to selection and "catching what is in the air".
Thesis of the paper is that a source blueprint and a method browsing is not a bad habit or a trendy fashion but a very appropriate tool particularly for design in today's society. It is the transition from an industrial to a postindustrial and then to a information society that is particularly related to the expression of "today's society" and taken for truth.
The paper thereby wants to discuss the assumption that only browsing and blueprint are capable of producing results with any kind of credibility in today's society; in other words, that in a fast changing society only these methods create a credible result, which are able to consider the virtual forces in the society most effective.
The original idea of blueprint is an old one and borrowed from Rem Koolhaas. Blueprint thereby stands for a complex of reading the existing, deriving information and generating coherent solutions.
The most important force for the formulation of a blueprint is thereby assumed as the "virtual force", as the sum of the "not-yet-real", and the paper wants to connect this force with the term credibility in the form, that credibility can only emerge as a result of the implementation of the virtual force.
In the background will be running one example which seems to be a virtual force: reassembly as the tendency to find ways to put together the things fragmented and specialized in the last decades in a contemporary way.
A warning in advance: blueprint stands also for a culture of randomness and browsing and unscientific work. The paper conveys therefore no solutions, but only ideas; it in itself represents some sort of randomness.
John Rajchman says about Rem Koolhaas: Koolhaas thinks that architects do not only have a role of social responsibility or as administrators of the collective memory, but the task to uncover the "unnoticed future events" (John Rajchman).
"Virtual Reality" is the sum of the unnoticed future events, as "virtual" derives from the the Latin virtus in the sense of force; virtual reality is the reality of the forces, which are not yet noticed and not yet visible as rules and recognizeable patterns (Rajchman).
Subsequently any designer of long lasting artifacts would have to have the ability of reading the virtual forces, and would have to have the skill of "virtual design". Koolhaas' Euralille
Koolhaas uses "blueprint" in D.N.Y. in a Deleuzian sense as to express that every future is already embedded either in built structures or in peoples minds as "virtual reality". Althought every experience should show, that the most powerful blueprint is the mistake, the leak in eeach system, I don't want to emphasize the leaks to much; or in other words, each leak should express itself in a notion of quality as complaints are the worst thing that can occur in a design.
The term blueprint seems to be monopolized by the typological faction, this use of blueprint is different from a typological approach, althought they might have in common the search for features embedded in existing structures: where the latter derives directly from the properties of almost any existing physical structure proved by its age the rules for future physical structures in the same context, the former tries to read from properties of selected "important" existing structures either of pysical nature or in peoples' mind their underlying attitudes and to indirectly formulate these attitudes as rules.
The "blueprint" approach crosses the border from an objective to a subjective approach at all major points: first in the selection of important structures, second in the reading of attitudes instead of physical properties, and third in translating attitudes to physical rules. It is therefore open to interpretation, to pure subjectivity, and as a consequence to all sorts of mistakes.
At the same time only the freeing from physical ties allows for the accomplishment of any kind of progress or feature yet unknown at the time of the precedestors. This does not mean that a typological approach doesn't allow for any change or progress (which is the core of its process). What it means is that solely variation doesn't allow for fast and radical shifts of environment, tasks and attitudes.
The blueprint method allows for those radical changes through its at least three steps of interpretation and implementation.
On the other hand it might provide a method which allows for these change without leaving them to total randomness, a blueprint method. For the selection of objects and events serving as examples the characteristic may be the search for what is in the air; for the reading of them it might be the focus on only a few actual features, for the translation it might concentrate on the discovery of constant trends. Expressed in these more vague notions seems to be a move away from a scientific to a more emotional or even anonymous approach.
The rhythm of work associated with this notion of blueprint is the one of browsing; this is the technique of the information age, having huge ressources only useful when one has learned to browse, to associate, to select, and to find the point when browsing stops and the results and surprises begin to get poor, and then translate the accumulated bits into processable fractions with the potentiality of assembly to a whole. This is what "modern technology" should be about: to support associative processes in giving easy access to all kind of inspiring fragments, storing the essences of these fragments in the background and ready for immediate call, and finally providing control in the field of virtuality by imaging events and artifacts in a way which supports the capability of internal representation.
Proof for critical parts of designs comes from casual and most unorthodox detail searches, unscientific but intense, and occurring within a very short timeframe; again information technology provides these means of quick communication and affirmation, of data ready to be displayed in the very moment they enter the net, far away from traditional methods of research and connotated problems.
The first drawing of a skyscraper for new York shows five of 84 platforms, each reproducing the original site, each with a different building on it, all only connected by an elevator. "The fact that the 1909 "project" is published in the old Life, a popular magazine, and drawn by a cartoonist - while the architectural magazines of the time are still devoted to Beaux-Arts - suggests that early in the century "the people" intuit the promise of the skyscraper more profoundly than Manhattan's architects, that there exists a subterrenean collective dialogue about the new form from which the official architect is excluded." (D.N.Y.p85) The architects obviously lacked a means to discover the subterrenean consensus and failed in sensing what was in the air. Most probaly it would have been possible for them to observe the tendency in anonymous building to add floors, and so to increase the revenue of the site; but obviously it would have been more effective to get an insight in whats going on by asking people and by increasing the common sense. This leads to what programming should be.
The process of programming becomes an inevitable part of all attmpts to discover the virtual reality, the virtual forces. It again starts from the assumption that all knowledge and solutions are already embedded, in this case in peoples' minds, ready to be pulled out and immediately translated or abstracted to proposals. The big problem and the killing force for the discovery of a common sense is definitely huge amounts of detailed information; a phenomenon which is familiar from all participatory approaches and intense questionaires and workshops.
To avoid an information overflow one could try for instance programming and interaction with selfgenerating architectural and planning proposals to be influenced in all stages by all actors. The process seperates the creation of design from any of the involved persons to a neutral but not random instance, the machine, to be influenced by a group or a hierarchy with certain rights and means of intervention. Here information technology is again at its right place, providing not only the means for quick generation and interaction, but also avoiding the need of organizing infinite meetings with infinite numbers of people and infinite numbers of superfluous information.
I suspect that all of the outstanding and admired works in architecture are outstanding only for the reason that they catch elements which are in the air, either in their time or timeless, a distinction which does not too much matter in my opinion. Giedion writes about Corbusier's Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp: "In one single building all of the desire of contemporary architecture seems to be concentrated..."
It is not the functional approach that makes in my opinion for the importance of the Modern Movement. Functional approaches can be found at every time and in every "architecture", sometimes even more so than in "modern" buildings. The most important strength of the Modern Movement is in my opinion that its works are "constructions"; construction stands for the line of work from feeling idealism about the future, having "new" ideas about it, elaborating the ideas to thoughts and finally attempting to translate the thoughts into concepts and designs, risking to be condemmed as irrational, useless, even ridiculous or dangerous.
As an extreme the most important weakness of Post Modernism would be in these terms that it works with the technique of "collage"; collage standing for the putting together of well known and proved elements or even solely decorations out of the belief, that "the house" has already been invented and that its perception has after thousands of years reached a point of almost genetic information, the change of which causes much more disadvantages than possible advantages.
The term "blueprint" therefore turns out to be very ambiguous. From a modern viewpoint it would mean that new developments and ideas or criticism and possible reactions are already imbedded, blueprinted, in the existing city, and that by force of an act of abstraction and innovation the blueprint can be translated into adequate solutions. The existence of overcrowded, unhealthy speculation blocks or the unadequateness of their streets for modern traffic would stand for a blueprint, most probably ther would in addition be some accidental or very fortunate "right" solutions be found, both of them ready to be translated to the general solution in form of the ville contemporain.
From the Post Modern viewpoint blueprint could be seen as a litteral advice for a solution. The act of critical abstraction could be seen as superfluous since easy and widespread recognizeable good solutions are available, ready to be recollected and applied to particular needs.
Calvino, Italo, Die unsichtbaren Staedte (Invisible Cities), Muenchen, 61992(1985, 1972), dtv
55 city-portraits (of Venice) as a vision of a possible world.
Castaneda, Carlos, Books of Don Juan
Famous descriptions of halluzinative travels into the mind; "prove" that everyone knows already everything, also about the future, but unawakened and covered.
Deleuze, Gilles, Difference and Repetition, New York, 1994, Columbia University Press
Giedion, Sigfried, Raum, Zeit, Architektur, Die Entstehung einer neuen Tradition (Space, Time, Architecutre, The Evolution of a New Tradition), 51992(1976, 1941), Zuerich, Muenchen, London, Artemis Verlag Chronicle of the Modern Movement, in search of the "secret synthesis" announcing the evolution of a new tradition in building.
[Ibn Khaldun, The Muquaddimah, An Introduction to History, Princeton N.J., 91989(1967, 1958), Bollingen Series Princeton University Press "...treating in almost encyclopedic detail the general problems of the philosophy of history and sociology." On the general nature of human civilization, forms of sedentary civilization, various aspects of making a living, manŐs ability to think. Deals especially with the Koran and its influence on all espects from daily life until architecture - blueprint for the future?]
Koolhaas, Rem, Delirious New York, A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, New York, 1994[1978], The Monacelli Press.
"With Manhattan as example, this book is blueprint for a "Culture of Congestion"." Gives a brief interpretative history of the island, particularly focussing on its foundation, the Commissoners' Plan and the idea of the grid. Followed by articles on four blocks each dedicated to another quality, as The Fantastic, The Highrise, The Perfect,
Mitchell, William J., City of Bits, Space, Place and the Infobahn, Boston, 1995, MIT Press (WWW Version)
Morus, Thomas, Utopia, 1981(1947), diogenes
Philosophy of public life, materialized in an island like the paradise. A political pamphlet covered in the story of the island to avoid prosecution by the authorities. Example for a different reason why "blueprint" of the future cannot be expressed.
Norberg-Schulz, Christian, Intentions in Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 91992(1965), MIT Press
Setting up of a comprehensive theory of architecture as basis for defining the architectural task. "We do not...think of the technical difficulties which have to be surmounted in connection with any building task, but we rather have in mind the problem of defining the task, and of deciding whether a planned or completed solution is satisfactory." "While our practical problems have to a certain degree been analyzed, architecture also comprises important "environmental" problems which so far have by no means been adequately investigated."
Pirsig, Robert M., Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, An Inquiry into Values, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland, 1981(1975, 1974), Bamtam
Search for an underlying construction of values and truth for life and acting.
Rowe, Colin and Koetter, Fred, Collage City, Cambridge, MA and London, England, 1978[1983], MIT Press.
Ruskin, John, The Stones of Venice, New York, 1960, Hill and Wang
Schirmacher, Ernst, Stadtvorstellungen, Die Gestalt der mittelatlerlichen Staedte, Erhaltung und planendes Handeln (Internal Representations of Cities, The Shape of the Medieval Cities, Preservation and Planned Action), Zuerich und Muenchen, 1988, Artemis Verlag
Analysis of the medieval citiy in terms of their underlying principles: order and meaning - tradition, geometry, perception, rhythm - the holy, power, exclusion and inclusion, nature of the place. Emergence of the fabric shown as the result of the ideas for the city in peoples' minds and in the society.
Venturi, Robert, Learning from Las Vegas, the truth exists already, built and in peoples' mind.
Magazine articles about Euralille