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Photo Credits
All material is courtesy of the architects unless otherwise stated.
p 8,12 & 13 (t) © Gehry Partners, LLP; p 9 © Armin Hess; p 10 & 13 (b) © Office dA; p 11 © Eisenman Architects
p 38-45 Dick Frank Studios; pp 54-55 Per Bak Jensen; pp 80-81 MJ Karweit; pp 82-89 Joshua White

Front Cover: Peter Eisenman, Center for the Arts, Emory University, Atlanta, Concept Model

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FOLDING IN ARCHITECTURE

()WILEY-ACADEMY
 FOLDING IN ARCHITECTURE

6 Helen Castle
PREFACE

8 Greg Lynn
INTRODUCTION

14 Mario Carpo
Contents TEN YEARS OF FOLDING

20 Kenneth Powell
UNFOLDING FOLDING

22 Greg Lynn
ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY
The Folded, the Pliant and the Supple

30 Gilles Deleuze
THE FOLD — LEIBNIZ AND THE BAROQUE
The Pleats of the Matter

38 Peter Einsenman
FOLDING IN TIME
The Singularity of Rebstock

42 Peter Einsenman
REBSTOCK PARK MASTERPLAN
Frankfurt, Germany

44 Peter Einsenman
ALTEKA OFFICE BUILDING
Tokyo, Japan

46 Peter Einsenman
CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Emory University, Atlanta

52 Frederik Stjernfelt
THE POINTS OF SPACE

54 Carsten Juel-Christiansen
THE ANHALTER FOLDING
56 Jeffrey Kipnis 98 Greg Lynn
TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE STRANDED SEARS TOWER

66 Bahram Shirdel 102 RAA Um

NARA CONVENTION HALL CROTON AQUEDUCT

70 Bahram Shirdel 106 Stephen Perella

SCOTTISH NATIONAL HERITAGE - COMPUTER IMAGING
A Living Museum Morphing and Architectural Representation

72 Chuck Hoberman 107 Stephen Perella

UNFOLDING ARCHITECTURE INTERVIEW WITH MARK DIPPE
Terminator 2
76 John Rajchman
OUT OF THE FOLD 110 Henry Cobb
FIRST INTERSTATE BANK TOWER
80 Claire Robinson A Note on the Architectonics of Folding
THE MATERIAL FOLD
Towards a Variable Narrative of Anomalous
Topologies

82 Frank Gehry
BENTWOOD FURNITURE

84 Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson

LEWIS RESIDENCE
Cleveland, Ohio

90 Thomas Leeser
IN VER(re*)T.GO

94 Shoei Yoh
PREFECTURA GYMNASIUM
 () WILEY-ACADEMY

Folding in Architecture led the way for a whole new gen-

eration of Architectural Design titles. These most noteably
include Contemporary Processes in Architecture (2000)
and Contemporary Techniques in Architecture (2002),
guest-edited by Ali Rahim, which brought the most current
generative processes and techniques under theoretical
consideration; Surface Consciousness, guest-edited by
Mark Taylor, that made surface the main focus of an inte-
grated architecture; and Emergence: Morphogenetic
Design Strategies (2004), guest-edited by Michael Hensel,
Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock, that is a full archi-
tectural exploration of the scientific model of Emergence.

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®
 PREFACE
HELEN CASTLE

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, AD appeared in a small white acknowledges the perceptual and conceptual changes that the
format. The front cover image was framed within a squared-up issue pioneered when he says: ‘For me, it is calculus that was the
box. Titles of issues reflected the most recent style machination subject of the issue and it is the discovery and implementation of
— whether it be Post-Modernism, classicism or Modernism. By calculus by architects that continues to drive the field in terms of
1993, when Folding in Architecture was published, the publica- formal and constructed complexity. The loss of the module in
tion’s dimensions had been expanded to optimise on the visual favour of the infinitesimal component and the displacement of the
drama of the shard, fragment and deconstructed image — black fragmentary collage by the intensive whole are the legacy of the
being the background colour of choice for Deconstruction. introduction of the calculus.’ With its generative, conceptual and
(Gloss and generous page layouts also being incited by the constructional effects, the application of calculus represents far
onset of desktop publishing.) more than a technological advancement, representing the same
Folding in Architecture is most often acknowledged for the for- sort of full-scale perceptual and tectonic shift that was experi-
mative role that it played in the ‘digital’ revolution of architecture. enced in the Renaissance when Brunelleschi applied perspec-
It is, however, important not to overlook the original context in tive in his drawing of the Florentine Baptistery and buildings start-
which this Architectural Design profile came out and the degree ed to be conceived in three-dimensional form on paper.
to which it was a catalyst for shifting more penetrating architec- Greg Lynn and Mario Carpo, with their new thought-provoking
tural preoccupations. For almost two decades, architecture had additions to this publication, have coherently laid out the rele-
been the subject of what Lynn describes in his original introduc- vance of Folding to current thinking in architecture. In the devel-
tion as ‘formal conflicts’, with endless debates over the ‘right’ or opment of this revised edition, Carpo, an architectural historian,
emergent style. It was a situation that had played itself out and was particularly mindful that this new book should be (bar some
was becoming increasingly tedious, with its constant inter- original typos he helped to eradicate) a historical document. With
nalising, for those both inside and outside architecture. its original cover and graphics, it is a strong reminder of what the
Deconstruction was the ultimate conclusion of all these musings contained ideas and work were responding to, as well as where
and discussions centred on form — as collaged form was artfully they were going.
exploded into shards. Interestingly enough, Lynn chose AD, the
publication that was most closely identified with the 1980s and Helen Castle is Editor of Architectural Design and Executive
Jencks’s Post-Modernism and stylistic jostlings, as well as Commissioning Editor of Wiley-Academy books.
Deconstruction, to expound ‘an alternative smoothness’ for archi-
tecture. Rather than identifying and highlighting the differences Folding in Architecture was originally published as part of
between formal systems, Lynn’s ‘architectural curvilinearity’ Academy's Architectural Design series. For further information
aspired to an intensive integration of differences in an architec- about forthcoming books in this series, or to find out how you can
ture of ‘the folded, the pliant and the supple’. In his new intro- subscribe please visit www.ArchDesignJournal.com or email
duction to this revised edition of Folding in Architecture, Lynn architecture@wiley.co.uk.
 INTRODUCTION
GREG LYNN

s | argued in the original Folding in Architecture essay, models of complexity, initially those derived from the work of
since Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's influential René Thom and later those of the Santa Fe Institute, among oth-
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), it ers. The combination of the discovery, for the first time by archi-
has been important for architecture to define compositional com- tects, of a 300-year-old mathematical and spatial invention, that
plexity. Ten years ago, the collected projects and essays in the is calculus, and the introduction of a new cosmological and sci-
first edition of this publication were an attempt to move beyond entific model of emergence, chaos and complexity, made for an
Venturi's pictorial collage aesthetics and the formal and spatial extremely provocative and incoherent moment in architectural
collage aesthetics that then constituted the vanguard of com- experimentation. Today, a decade later, these interests have
plexity in architecture, as epitomized by Johnson and Wigley's shaken out into more or less discrete schools of thought.
‘Deconstructivist Architecture’ exhibition at MoMA in 1988. The Intricacy connotes a new model of connectionism composed
desire for architectural complexity in both composition and con- of extremely small-scale and incredibly diverse elements
struction continues today and can be characterised by several Intricacy is the fusion of disparate elements into continuity, the
distinct Streams of thought, three of which have connections to becoming whole of components that retain their status as pieces
the projects and arguments first laid out in the Architectural in a larger composition. Unlike simple hierarchy, subdivision,
Design issue of Folding in Architecture: voluptuous form, compartmentalisation or modularity, intricacy involves a variation
stochastic and emergent processes, and intricate assemblages. of the parts that is not reducible to the structure of the whole. The
At the moment of the book's publication there were two distinct term intricacy is intended to move away from this understanding
tendencies among architectural theorists and designers. The first of the architectural detail as an isolated fetishised instance with-
was a shift from the linguistic and representational focus of both in an otherwise minimal framework. Detail need not be the reduc-
Post-Modernism and Derridean Deconstruction towards the spa- tion or concentration of architectural design into a discrete
tial, artistic and mathematical models of Deleuze, Foucault, moment. In an intricate network, there are no details per se.
Whitehead and even, to some degree, Lacan. Of these initial Detail is everywhere, ubiquitously distributed and continuously
experiments it was the Deleuzian focus on spatial models, most variegated in collaboration with formal and spatial effects.
of which were derived from Leibniz's monadology that took hold Instead of punctuating volumetric minimalism with discrete
in the field. The second tendency was an interest in scientific details, intricacy implies complexity all over without recourse to

Above Coop Himmelb(!)au, BMW Welt,

Munich, Germany (2001 - 2006)

Opposite Frank Gehry, Interactive Corp's

Headquarters, New York, USA (2003 - 2006)
 Opposite Peter Eisenman, Musée des
Arts et des Civilisations-Musée du Quai
Branly, Paris, France (1999)

Below Monica Ponce de Leon and

Nader Tehrani of Office dA, Tongxian Arts
Centre, Beijing, China (2001 - 2003)

compositional contrast. Intricacy occurs where macro- and of, or were asking for the assistance from, digital tools, but none
micro-scales of components are interwoven and intertwined. The of them could be simply reducible to digital design, visualisation
major connection of the term intricacy to the concepts present or manufacturing tools. It is significant that the architects includ-
in Folding in Architecture is that the term is a derivative of “pli”, ed in this publication, had all formed their ambitions for a new
much like the other terms — complex, complicated, pliant — all model of formal and spatial complexity before the advent of inex-
of which imply compositional practices of weaving, folding and pensive, ubiquitous, spline modelling software. Instead of being
joining. confronted with the possibilities for an expedient realisation of
What is probably most interesting about Folding in forms and spaces that would otherwise be too complicated,
Architecture is not the theoretical directions of the architects messy or convoluted to produce, these architects made a claim
showcased in the publication but the fact — or a more blunt fact towards new forms that would only later be facilitated digitally.
— that these practices were collected at the instant before they Because these architects were the first generation to adapt to
would be completely transformed by the computer. The focus, in the new digital medium, initially they were, by definition, the most
the issue, on compositional, organisational, visual and material amateur and inexperienced in their use. They were also the most
sensibilities, rather than on theories of digital design, was only experimental. At the time, none of these objects relied on digital
possible at that moment before the digital waves of software- process as a validation or explanation of their genesis. It would
sponsored discourse that soon swept over the field and which be inappropriate to make claims of expertise and refinement of
only now are beginning to recede. The projects in Folding were their mediumat the time, where now one can speculate on cal-
in some cases facilitated by, often were mimicking in anticipation culus based and digitally engendered qualities of the medium

10
such as new forms of expertise including elegance, rigour and, | of research into continuity, subdivision and a more generalised
dare say, beauty. mathematics of curvature. A multifaceted approach towards
Some used metaphors of folding, and even mechanical fold- detail, structure and form, relying on slippages between complex
ing operations, to explain their morphology but none took interconnectedness and singularity, between homogeneity at a
recourse to digital visualisation and mapping as an explanation distance and near formal incoherence in detail, between dis-
for their shape or form. Later, this would become a norm for some parate interacting systems and monolithic wholes, and finally
and this is the school of stochastic emergence and what some between mechanical components and voluptuous organic sur-
architects refer to as the digital gothic. Happy accidents and faces, is all part and parcel of the shift from whole number and
automatic processes are certainly the precursors to fine grain, fractional dimensions to formal and material sensibilities of the
detailed, continuous compositions as well as continuously varie- infinitesimal.
gated forms. The latter demands a fusion that is not possible The drift from monolithic objects to infinitesimally scaled com-
without a theory of synthesis and unity that maintains detail as a ponents explains the technical interest in the use of CNC con-
discrete moment that participates intensively in the construction trolled robotic technologies for construction. More important than
of a new kind of whole. In this way, a theory of intricate form is the fact of the CNC device is the idea of intricacy, for example.
derived from Leibniz's logic of monadology and Deleuze's sub- There is little more banal or uninteresting than a new machine
sequent theories of ‘/e pili’, or the fold. that is capable of producing mere variety, something with which
For me, it is calculus that was the subject of the issue and it is we are mindlessly inundated at a greater velocity by the day. So
the discovery and implementation of calculus by architects that to celebrate CNC for its ability to give us one-of-a-kind cus-
continues to drive the field in terms of formal and constructed tomised variety is to celebrate an aspect without much intellec-
complexity. The loss of the module in favour of the infinitesimal tual or creative merit. It is important to imbue digital technologies
component and the displacement of the fragmentary collage by with some creative and intellectual force that engages the histo-
the intensive whole are the legacy of the introduction of calculus. ry or architectural problems and ambitions. The architects
This is still being debated and explored. The works in Folding ten included in Folding in Architecture were laying out those prob-
years ago pointed to several directions along the calculus path lems and concerns in advance of the technology and it is they,

11
along with many other new practices, that are engaging with the repetition, an intricate reproduction machine is a wet machine
problems of form and construction critically and creatively charged with free energy, variation, and subtlety. Where the
because of their investment in the field of ideas and theory. The mechanical is characterised by rote, encoded, repetitive opera-
intricacy of a calculus defined collection of elements in space tions on a sequence of identical modular units, a different form of
evokes a particular kind of cohesion, continuity, wholism and reproduction characterises the biological. In a word, an intricate
even organicity. Intricate structures are continuously connected machine is a vital rather than mechanical construct. Intricacy
and intertwined through fine grain local linkages such that a total- evokes an eroticism for the machine and a desire to make it
ity or whole is operative. Intricate compositions are organic in the reproduce organically, both in the variation of subtly variegated
sense that each and every part and piece is interacting and com- brothers and sisters as well as a differentiated complex of dis-
municating simultaneously so that every instance is affected by crete organs that nonetheless coheres into a beautifully synthe-
every other instance. sised whole. These works move from the identical asexual repro-
Folding in Architecture captured a moment before the discov- duction of simple machines to the differential sexual reproduction
ery of anew kind of drafting machine, a much more vital machine of intricate machines. Not merely a theoretical difference, this
than the compasses, adjustable triangles and rubber spline gives these works their erotic dimension.
curves with which most of the projects were conceived. Much
has been made of mechanical reproduction in art and architec- Greg Lynn is Professor, Universitat fur angewanate Kunst Wien;
ture. Like mechanical reproduction and its modern vision of iden- Davenport Visiting Professor Yale University (2004); and Studio
tical glossy modules, intricate reproduction is still dependent on Professor, UCLA. He has professional practices in Los Angeles
a model of the machine. But instead of a mechanism of simple (Greg Lynn FORM) and New York (United Architects).

12
Above and Opposite Frank Gehry, Interactive
Corp's Headquarters, New York, USA

Left Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader

Tehrani of Office dA, Tongxian Arts Centre,
Beijing, China

13
 TEN YEARS OF FOLDING
MARIO CARPO

Prac in Architecture, first published in 1993 as a ‘Profile’ Heinrich Wo6llflin, have since brought this interpretive model to
of Architectural Design, ranks as a Classic of end-of-mil- bear in a number of circumstances.” Obviously, the nineties start-
lennium architectural theory.' It is frequently cited and ed angular and ended curvilinear.? By the end of the decade,
generally perceived as a crucial turning point. Some of the with few exceptions, curvilinearity was ubiquitous. It dominated
essays in the original publication have taken on lives of their own, industrial design, fashion, furniture, body culture, car design,
and have been reprinted and excerpted — out of context, howev- food, critical theory in the visual arts, sex appeal, the art of dis-
er, and often without reference to their first appearance in print. course, even architecture. Admittedly one of the most influential
This ahistoric approach is characteristic of all works in progress: architectural writers of the decade, Rem Koolhaas, kept design-
so long as a tradition is still active and alive, it tends to acquire a ing in an angular mode, but the most iconic building of the time,
timeless sort of internal consistency, where chronology does not Gehry's Bilbao, was emphatically curvilinear. In spite of the many
matter. In Antiquity and in the Middle Ages such phases could varieties and competing technologies of curves that followed,
last for centuries. But we have been living in times of faster curvilinear folds were and still are often seen as the archetypal
change for quite a while now — we even had to invent a new phi- and foundational figure of architecture in the age of digital plian-
losophy of history in the nineteenth century to take this into cy. Yet, even cursory scrutiny of the essays and projects pre-
account — and ten years are quite a stretch in Internet time. This sented in this volume shows that digital technologies were but a
is one reason why the editors of this volume decided that the marginal component of the critical discourse of the time.
original 1993 issue of Folding in Architecture should be reprinted Likewise, most of the illustrations in this book feature strikingly
in facsimile, verbatim and figuratim, complete and unabridged: angular, disjunctive forms. How can fractures, ridges and edges
only some typographical errors have been edited out. Indeed, represent formal continuity? Where are the folds?
Folding in Architecture is now a classic — not a timeless one, how-
ever, but time specific. 1. The formative years: philosophy, flaccidity, and infinity
More. than would be customary in other trades and profes- At the beginning of the last decade of the century, architectural
sions, many. architects and architectural historians still believe in theory was busily discussing deconstructivism, and its eminent-
historical progress and in the pursuit of innovation. Any reason- ly angular avatars in building. For reasons too long to explain,
able architectural thinker of our days, if asked, would disparage and perhaps inexplicable, American critical theory of the time
such a primitive theory of history, but theory and practice are was driving under the influence of some Parisian thinkers — some
here curiously at odds. Regardless of much discourse on long of them virtually ignored in their homeland. When Gilles
durations, the directionlessness of time, time warps, the end of Deleuze's impervious book on The Fold, Leibniz and the Baroque
time, and perhaps even the death of the author, it is a fact that was first published in France in 1988, it failed to excite critical
events and people are still banally and routinely singled out to acclaim in the immediate surroundings of Boulevard Raspail.4 Yet
acquire historical status in architecture when they are thought to the Deleuzian fold was granted a second lease on life when Peter
have started something. Folding in Architecture is no exception. Eisenman — starting with the first publications on his Rebstock
In the common lore, this publication is now seen as seminal project in 1991 — began to elaborate an architectural version of it.®
because it was the catalyst for a wave of change that marked the Deleuze's book was on Leibniz, on folds, on the baroque and
decade and climaxed towards the turn of the millennium, when, on many other things as well. Most of it can be read as a vast
for a short spell of time, the new avant-garde that evolved out of hermeneutic of continuity which Deleuze applied to Leibniz's the-
it came to be known as ‘topological’, and was regarded as the ory of ideas (including his notorious monadology), to Leibniz's .
quintessential architectural embodiment of the new digital tech- mathematics (differential calculus in particular) and to various
nologies that were booming at the time. expressions of the baroque in the arts: the fold, a unifying figure
Art historians, sociologists and psychologists will at some whereby different segments and planes are joined and merge in
point reconstruct the story of architectural folding in the nineties continuous lines and volumes, is both the emblem and the object
and, as art historians frequently do, they will not fail to identify a of Deleuze's discourse. Folds avoid fractures, overlay gaps,
trend towards curvilinearity that reversed a preceding trend interpolate. Eisenman's reading of Deleuze's fold, in this early
towards angularity of form. Indeed, forms have a tendency to stage, retained and emphasized this notion of forms that can
swing from the angular to the curvilinear, from parataxis to syn- change, morph and move: a new category of objects defined not
tax, and art historians, following a pattern inaugurated in 1915 by by what they are, but by the way they change and by the laws

14
that describe their continuous variations. Eisenman also related The list of suitable means to this end is also remarkably diverse:
this differential notion of objects to a new age of electronic tech- topological geometry, morphology, morphogenesis, Thom's cat-
nologies and digital images (with no reference, however, to com- astrophe theory, Deleuze's theory of the fold and the ‘computer
puter-aided design: Eisenman's writings of the time frequently technology of both the defense and Hollywood film industry.’
cite fax technology as the harbinger of a new paradigm of elec- Nonetheless, a survey of the essays and projects featured in
tronic reproducibility, alternative and opposed to all paradigms of Folding in Architecture reveals some puzzling anomalies. Ten
the mechanical age and destined to obliterate the Benjaminian years later, many of the issues and topics that were so obviously
distinction between original and reproduction).® prominent in 1993 seem to be accidental leftovers of a bygone
Eisenman's essays prior to 1993 also bear witness to a signif- era. Today, they simply don't register. In other cases, we can see
icant topical shift which evolved from a closer, often literal inter- why certain arguments were made — as we can see that from
pretation of Deleuze's arguments (in 1991 Eisenman even bor- there, they led nowhere. Yet this panoply of curiosities and
rowed Déleuze's notion of the ‘objectile’, on which more will be antiques also includes vivid anticipations of the future. That much
said later),’ to more architecturally inclined adaptations, includ- can be said without risk, as a significant part of that future has
ing the use of René Thom's diagrams as design devices for gen- already come to pass.
erating architectural folds — a short circuit of sorts, as Thom's Were Henry Cobb's lanky and somewhat philistine skyscrap-
topological diagrams are themselves folds, and Thom actually ers the predecessors of many folds and blobs to come? How
itemized several categories of folding surfaces.® In his perhaps does a philosophical and almost ontological quest for continuity
most accomplished essay on the matter, ‘Folding in Time’, in motion and form relate to Chuch Hobermans' humungous
Eisenman dropped Deleuze's conception of the “objectile”, mechanical contrivances: buildings that actually move with
which he replaced with the contiguous and also Deleuzian con- cranky hinges, sliding metal panels, pivoting bolts and rivets?
cept of ‘object-event’: the breaking up of the Cartesian and per- Jules Verne would have loved them. Why include the translation
spectival grids of the classical tradition, prompted and promoted of the first chapter of Deleuze's The Fo/d , an opaque and vague-
by the moving and morphing images of the digital age, requires ly misleading tirade on the organic and the mechanical in the
architectural forms capable of continuous variation — forms that seventeenth-century philosophy of nature, and not the second
move in time.? Several stratagems, such as Thom's folding dia- chapter, on Leibniz's law of continuity, differential calculus and
grams, may help to define them, but the ‘folding’ process the mathematical definition of the fold? What do Bahram Shirdel's
remains purely generative,'° and it does not relate to the actual ridges and creases (with explicit reference to Thom's diagrams)
form of the end product. Forms do not fold (actually, in all have in common with some of the earliest cucumiform epipha-
Eisenman's projects featured in Folding in Architecture in 1993 nies by Frank Gehry? The commentary blandly states that
they fracture and break), because most buildings do not move: Gehry's irregular geometries were made possible ‘by 3-D com-
when built, architectural forms can at best only represent, sym- puter modelling.’'® Digital technologies for design and manufac-
bolize or somehow evoke the continuity of change or motion. turing are mentioned by both Lynn and Kipnis as one tool among
This stance of Eisenman's would be extensively glossed over, others that can help create ‘smooth transformations,’'® but the
rephrased and reformulated in the years that followed," but in one essay entirely devoted to computing, Stephen Perrella's, is
the context it seems unequivocal: folding is a process, not a on morphing and computer animation in the making of the movie
product; it does not necessarily produce visible folds (although it Terminator 2 (the film's special effects director is quoted as say-
would later on); it is about creating built forms, necessarily ing ‘we also used a programme called Photoshop’).'’ Yet Lynn's
motionless, which can nevertheless induce the perception of presentation of Shoei Yoh's ‘topological’ roof for the Odawara
motion by suggesting the ‘continual variation’ and ‘perpetual Sports Complex includes a stunningly perceptive analysis of the
development’ of a ‘form “becoming”.’'? Again, art historians new tectonic, formal and economic potentials brought about by
might relate such forms to a long tradition of expressionist the merging of computerized design, construction and fabrica-
design. Eisenman himself, at this early stage in the history of fold- tion. To date, little more has been said on the topic, which
ing, defined folding as a ‘strategy for dislocating vision.’ remains a central issue of the now ubiquitous debate on non-
In 1993, Lynn's prefatory essay to Folding in Architecture elo- standard manufacturing.
quently argued for continuities of all types: visual, programmatic, The reason why some of the topics that emerged from the
formal, technical, environmental, socio-political and symbolic. architectural discourse on folding of the early 1990s now seem

15
so distant and outlandish, whereas others do not, is that some- virtually contains an infinite number of objects.22 Each different
thing happened to separate them from us: a catastrophic event and individual object eventualizes the mathematical algorithm, or
of sorts, a drastic environmental change followed by a typically objectile, common to all; in Aristotelian terms, as Leibniz might
Darwinian selection. As a result, many of those issues dropped have used, an objectile is one form in many events. Deleuze's
out of sight. But those that remained thrived, and some were fold is itself a figure of differential calculus: it can be described
hugely magnified. geometrically as a point of inflection (the point that separates
concavity and convexity in a curved line, or the point where the
2. Maturity: mathematics, and the digital turn tangent crosses the line).2? However, in good old calculus (as old
Most architects in the early 1990s knew that computers could as Leibniz, in fact), a point of inflection is in fact a maximum or a
easily join dots with segments. But as CAD software quickly minimum in the first derivative of the function of the original curve.
evolved, the graphic capabilities and processing speed of the Deleuze mentions Bernard Cache with regard to both the mathe-
machines grew, and the price of the new technologies declined, matical definition of the fold and the concept of the objectile
it soon appeared that computers could just as easily connect (which, however, he does not attribute to his gifted student).?4
dots with continuous lines, and sometimes even extrapolate Bernard Cache's essay, Earth Moves, where both notions are
mathematical functions from them. Conversely, given a mathe- developed, did not appear in print until 1995 — and in English.
matical function, computers can visualize an almost infinite fami- The original French manuscript is cited in the English version as
ly of curves that share the same algorithm, with parameters that having been drafted in 1983.7°
can be changed at will. Smoothness, first defined as a visual cat- So we see how an original quest for formal continuity in archi-
egory by theorists of the picturesque at the end of the eighteenth tecture, born in part as a reaction against the deconstructivist
century, turned out also to be a mathematical function derived cult of the fracture, ran into the computer revolution of the mid-
from standard differential calculus.'8 Topological surfaces and nineties and turned into a theory of mathematical continuity. By a
topological deformations are equally described by mathematical quirk of history, a philosophical text by Gilles Deleuze accompa-
functions — a bit unwieldy perhaps for manual operations, but nied, fertilized and at times catalysed each of the different stages
already in the mid-nineties well within the grasp of any moder- of this process. Without this preexisting pursuit of continuity in
ately priced desktop computer. architectural forms and processes, of which the causes must be
In this context, it stands to reason that the original quest for found in cultural and ‘societal desires, computers in the nineties
ontological continuity in architectural form should take a new would most likely not have inspired any new geometry of forms.
turn. Computers, mostly indifferent to queries on the nature of Likewise, without computers this cultural demand for continuity in
Being, can easily deliver tools for the manipulation of mathemat- the making of forms would soon have petered out and disap-
ical continuity. These could be directly applied to the conception, peared from our visual landscape. The story of folding, and in
the representation and the production of objects. And they were. particular of the way folding went digital at a time when comput-
In the late nineties, Bernard Cache could conclude that ‘mathe- ers were becoming such a pivotal component of architectural
matics has effectively become an object of manufacture’,'9 and design, once again suggests that only a dialectical interaction —
Greg Lynn remarked that computer-aided design had ‘allowed a feedback loop of sorts — between technology and society can
architects to explore calculus-based forms for the first time’.2° To bring about technical and societal change: including, in this
a large extent, our calculus is still Leibniz's: Lynn also added that case, change in architectural form.
Leibniz's monads contained integrals and equations.2! As The notion of a direct causal correspondence between digital
Leibniz's monads famously had no windows, this is hard to technologies and complex geometries (including the most gen-
prove. Yet at this point Lynn was getting significantly closer to eral of all, topology) was built on a truism, but generalised into a
Deleuzes's original reading of Leibniz. fallacy. True, without computers some of those complex forms
The mathematical component of Deleuze's work on Leibniz, could not have been conceived, designed, measured, or built.
prominent but previously ignored, now sprang to the forefront — However, computers per se do not impose shapes, nor do they
together with the realization that Leibniz's differential calculus articulate aesthetic preferences. One can use computers to
was for the most part the language still underlying the families of design boxes or folds, indifferently. In fact, the story that we have
continuous forms that computers could now so easily visualize been tracing indicates that the theory of folding created a cultur-
and manipulate. Indeed, as Deleuze had remarked, Leibniz's al demand for digital design, and an environment conducive to it.
mathematics of continuity introduced and expressed a new idea Consequently, when digital design tools became available, they
of the object: differential calculus does not describe objects, but were embraced and adopted — and immediately put to use to
their laws of change — their infinite, infinitesimal variations. process what many architects at the time most needed and want-
Deleuze even introduced a new terminology for his new two- ed: folds. If we look at Folding in Architecture now, we
tiered definition of the object: he called ‘objectile’ a function that cannot fail to notice that digital technologies were then the main

16
protagonist in absentia. Not surprisingly, they would not remain and adaptable forms will follow programs as never before. Better
absent for long: computers are much better at generating folds and cheaper objects and buildings will be made available to
than Thom's clumsy topological diagrams. In the process, fold- more people. And if this agenda may recall the moral ambitions
ing evolved towards a seconda maniera of fully digital, smooth of 20th Modernism, the architectural forms that will come out of it
curvilinearity. Folds became blobs.2& will most certainly not.
In a coda to his brief presentation of Shoei Yoh's topological
3 - Senility? Technologists and visionaries roofs, published in 1997 in an illustrated monograph of Yoh's
As suggested above, Folding in Architecture contains the seeds work, Lynn extended his interpretation of Yoh's continuity of form
of many developments that would mark the 1990s, and issues obtained through a multiplicity of minor variations.@® Yoh's struc-
that were prefigured there are still actively debated. As it now tures can endlessly change, morph and adapt as they are built
appears, mathematical continuity in design and in manufacturing by the assembly of non-standard parts. Let's compare with the
can be the springboard for different and, in some cases, diver- most eloquent example of the opposite: in any given structure,
gent endeavors. A continuous sequence of endless variations in whether horizontal or vertical, Mies's l-beams were all the same
time may be used to capture a still frame: a one-off, a synec- size, regardless of load; hence, as many engineers are keen to
doche of sorts, which can be made to stand for the rest of the point out, if one section fits the load, then all others are by neces-
sequence, and evoke the invisible. This was Eisenman's stance sity oversized. In contrast, each individual component in Yoh's 3-
ten years,ago and, if the forms may have changed, the principles D latticed trusses is only as big as it needs to be. At Mies's time,
underpinning them have not. Eisenman's frozen forms were the waste of building materials caused by oversizing might have
meant to suggest movement. Similar formal statements today — been compensated by the economies of scale obtained trough
regardless of some rudimentary qualities of motion and interac- the mass-production of identical parts: one doubts that this argu-
tivity that recent technologies can confer upon buildings — are ment might have ever been prominent in Mies’s mind, but Mies's
more frequently read as metaphors or figurative reminders of the aesthetics to some extent sublimated that technical condition.
new modes of making things: they may give visible form to the Today, digital file-to-factory production systems can generate the
mostly invisible logic at work, which in time will change our pro- same economies of scale with no need to mass-produce identi-
duction and manufacturing techniques. Architects often prefig- cal beams: beams can be all different — within some limits — and
ure technical change, and artistic invention may anticipate forth- still be mass-produced. Economies of scale can thus be com-
coming techno-social conventions. Such visionary anticipations pounded by a more economical use of materials.
of a future, digitally made environment were markedly smooth As Lynn points out, Yoh's use of advanced technologies and
and curvilinear in the late nineties; and they may remain so for off-site prefabrication is paralleled by his adaptation of tradition-
some time to come. Considering the technology for which they al building materials and artisanal modes of production. For
stand, this is not inappropriate: these technical objects should example, some of Yoh's buildings use wood or bamboo frames
been seen as presentations, not as prototypes. and match local building Know-how with computer-based design
Yet, alongside this metaphor of technological change, which technologies. Although Yoh himself never seems to have investi-
architectural invention may represent and even memorialize, real gated the theoretical implications of this practice, the alliance
technological change is happening, although perhaps not so fast between artisanal (pre-mechanical) and digital (post-mechani-
as the ‘irrational exuberance’ of the late 1990s may have led us cal) technologies is based on solid facts and figures. The arti-
to believe.2” The new technological paradigm is also predicated sanal mode of production is mostly foreign to economies of
upon continuous variations, but instead of producing one vari- scale: 2000 identical Doric capitals, or 2000 variations of the
ance out of many, it posits that many variants may be produced same Doric capital, come at the same unit price, as each capital
simultaneously or sequentially. Thus, the same tools for process- is hand-made. In the digital mode, industrial economies of scale
ing mathematical continuity can be used to mass-produce the are obtained regardless of product standardisation. In both
infinite variants of the same ‘objectile’ — at no additional cost. cases, the result is the same: identical reproduction has no tech-
Continuity in this case is not set in a chronological sequence, but nical rationale, nor any economic justification. When pursued
in a manufacturing series. At a small scale, some such technolo- manually or digitally, standardisation does not generate cheap-
gies already exist — they are in use and they produce things. How er products, nor better-built ones. Of course one may cherish
and when they might become relevant to the general process of identicality for a number of other reasons, unrelated to cost or
building remains to be seen. When this happens, for the first time functioning. But let's put it another way. There was a time when
in the history of the machine-made environment, forms of all identical reproduction, or standardization, was eminently justi-
types (within the limits of the objectile/object paradigm) may be fied: the more identical pieces one could make, the less their
mass-produced on demand, indifferently, and at the same unit unit cost would be. Standardisation was then an inescapable
price. New, non-standard, custom-made and infinitely variable moral and social imperative. This age of the industrial standard

7
began with the mechanical phase of the Industrial Revolution — mechanical age, he seems even more than a preacher — he
and ended with it. sounds prophetic.°° Around the same time, Frank Lloyd Wright —
However, as it happens, the end of the mechanical era has then almost on the same wavelength as Mumford, and probably
been proclaimed on many occasions. One of the most propitious inspired by him — presented his anti-European blueprint for a ‘dis-
times to proclaim the end of the first machine age was in the early appeared city’, and insisted that the industrialisation of building
1930s of the last century, and with some logic: in 1929 the need not result in the standardisation of form: all buildings should
machine age seemed to have imploded — spontaneously, so to be machine-made, but no two homes need be alike.?!
speak: a sudden but natural death. In Technics and Civilization, In 1932 and 1934, respectively, Wright and Mumford were
first published in 1934, Lewis Mumford disparaged all that had were probably running a little anead of the technology of their
gone wrong with the machine age that had just crashed, which time. Yet it is one of the most significant legacies of the publica-
he characterized as ‘paleotechnic’, and heralded an imminent tion of Folding in Architecture that, since 1993, we have no rea-
golden age of new machines, the ‘neotechnic’ age, where the son not to be aware that this time around, non-standard produc-
evil machines of old would be replaced by new and better ones, tion has opened for business and is here to stay.
not hard but soft machines - organic instruments of a new
biotechnic economy, where man would no longer be obliged to Mario Carpo, architectural historian and critic, is currently the Head
adapt itself to the mechanical rhythm of the machine, but of the Study Centre at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in
machines would learn to adapt themselves the dynamic flow of Montréal. His prize-winning Architecture in the Age of Printing, pub-
organic life.2? Mumford's discourse was tantalizingly self-contra- lished in English by the MIT Press in 2001, is translated into several
dictory and included streaks of viscerally anti-modern propagan- languages. Mario Carpo is the author of several books on the history
da, but in writing of an age of new machines, ‘smaller, faster, of architectural theories, and of essays and articles on early-modern
brainer [sic], and more adaptable’ than those of the earlier and contemporary topics.

Notes
1 Folding in Architecture, Greg Lynn (ed), Architectural Design, Profile the avoidance of radar detection —- would have been the same for both
102, 63, 3-4 (1993). of these fighter planes. As architectural curvilinearity has been
2\n his Principles of Art History, first published in 1915, the historian conspicuously ebbing and flowing in recent times, the rise of archi-
and philosopher of art Heinrich Wolfflin defended a cyclical view of tectural flaccidity in the digital environment of the late 1990s has
the evolution of man-made forms, which swing from classical sobriety prompted a critical reassessment of antecedents, including some that
to Baroque fancifulness, then back to reason and so on ad infinitum. had been overlooked until very recently. For a thorough survey of pre-
Wolfflin never characterised the Baroque, either the time specific or blob, space-age ovoids in the 1960s and their biomorphic and tech-
the timeless version of it, as an age of decline or degeneracy. Instead, nological underpinnings (mostly related to the development of plas-
he used sets of oppositions (linear and painterly, plane and recession, tics technology) see Georges Teyssot, ‘Le songe d'un environnement
closed and open form, etc) through which he defined classical and bioréaliste. Ovoides et sphéroides dans l'architecture des années
Baroque phases. Heinrich Wé6lfflin, | Kunstgeschichtliche soixante’ in Architectures expérimentales, 1950-2000, Collection du
Grundbegriffe (1915); English translation: Principles of Art History, FRAC Centre, Editions HYX (Orléans), 2003, pp 39-43.
trans MD Hottinger from seventh revised German edition (1929), G 4Gilles Deleuze, Le pli: Leibniz et le baroque, Editions de Minuit
Bell and Sons (London), 1932, pp 230-5. See also Michael Podro, (Paris), 1988; English translation: The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque,
The Critical Historians of Art, Yale University Press (New Haven and foreword and translation by Tom Conley, University of Minnesota
London), 1982, p 140. Press (Minneapolis), 1993.
3 Luis Fernandez-Galiano has compared the ‘sharp folds of the F-117 5Peter D Eisenman, ‘Unfolding Events: Frankfurt Rebstock and the
Nighthawk Lockheed's stealth fighter’ and the ‘undulating profile’ of Possibility of a New Urbanism’ in Eisenman Architects, Albert Speer
the later B-2 stealth fighter made by Northrop Grumman, considering and Partners and Hanna/Olin, Unfolding Frankfurt, Ernst and Sohn
the former as representative of the ‘fractured forms. of deconstruc- (Berlin), 1991, pp 8-18; ‘Oltre lo sguardo. L'architettura nell'epoca dei
tivism that initiated the nineties under the wings of Derrida’, and the media elettronici’ (Visions’ Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of
latter as representative ‘of the warped volumes of the formless current Electronic Media), Domus, no 734 (January 1992), pp 17-24 (fre-
that are wrapping up the decade, referring back to Deleuze or quently reprinted, most recently in Luca Galofaro, Digital Eisenman:
Bataille’. Luis Fernandez-Galiano, ‘Split-screen. La décennie An Office of the Electronic Era, Birkhauser (Basel), 1999, pp 84-9);
numérique’, Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, no 325 (December 1999), pp and ‘Folding in Time: The Singularity of Rebstock’, Folding in
28-31: 30. Oddly, the technical specifications — aerodynamics and Architecture (1993), pp 22-6.

18
 6See in particular Eisenman, ‘Unfolding Events’, p 9; ‘Visions’ ‘CAD software enables architects to draw and sketch using calculus’
Unfolding’ (1992), p 21; and ‘Folding in Time’ (1993), p 24. Greg Lynn, Animate Form, Princeton Architectural Press (New York),
7 Eisenman, ‘Unfolding Events’, p 14. 1999, pp 16-18.
8 Greg Lynn, ‘Architectural Curvilinearity: The Folded, the Pliant and the 21 Lynn, Animate Form, pp 15-16.
Supple’, Folding in Architecture (1993), pp 8-15. See in particular 22 Deleuze, Le pli, p 26.
p 13 on ‘the catastrophe diagram used by Eisenman in the Rebstock 23 Deleuze, Le pli, pp 20-5.
Park project ... by Kipnis in the Briey project, and Shirdel in the Nara 24 Deleuze, Le pli, pp 22, 26.
Convention Hall’. 25 Bernard Cache, Earth Moves. The Furnishing of Territories, transl. by
9 Deleuze ‘argues that in the mathematical studies of variation, the Anne Boyman, ed. by Michael Speaks, MIT Press (Cambridge MA
notion of object is change. This new object for Deleuze is no longer and London), 1995, p iii. 26. The official date of birth of architectural
concerned with the framing of space, but rather a temporal modula- blobs (of blobs defined as such) appears to be May 1996. See Greg
tion that implies a continual variation of matter. ... No longer is an Lynn, ‘Blobs (or Why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy)’,
object defined by an essential form. He calls this idea of an object, an ANY 14 (May 1996), pp 58-62. For a survey of blob developments in
“object event”. The idea of event is critical to the discussion of singu- the late 1990s see Peter Cachola Schmal (ed), Digital Real.
larity. Event proposes a different kind of time which is outside of narra- Blobmeister: erste gebaute Projecte, Birkhauser (Basel), 2001. On
tive time or dialectical time.’ Eisenman, ‘Folding in Time’ (1993), p 24. the early history of space-age ovoids in the1960s, and the epony-
10 ‘These typologies, introduced into the system of the Fold, allow the mous film that popularised the blob in 1958, see Georges Teyssot, ‘Le
Fold to reveal itself; the folding apparatus is invisible, purely a con- songe d'un environnement bioréaliste’, p 40.
ceptual drawing, until it is activated by something cast into it.’ 27 See Mario Carpo, ‘Post-Hype Digital Architecture. From Irrational
Eisenman, ‘Unfolding Events’, p 16. Exuberance to Irrational Despondency’, Grey Room 14 (forthcoming
11 For a recapitulation of this discussion in essays by Michael Speaks, in 2004).
Greg Lynn, Jeffrey Kipnis and Brian Massumi, see Giuseppa di 28 ‘In all of these [Shoei Yoh's] projects there is a response to the shift in
Cristina, ‘The Topological Tendency in Architecture’ in Architecture the economies and techniques of construction from one of assembly-
and Science, Wiley-Academy (London), 2001, pp 6-14, in particular line production of a standard to the assembly-like production of a
p 10 and footnotes 15-18; Michael Speaks, ‘It's Out There ... The series of singular units. These projects articulate an approach to stan-
Formal Limits of the American Avant-garde’, Hypersurface dardisation and repetition that combines a generic system of con-
Architecture, Stephen Perella (ed), Architectural Design, Profile 133, struction with slight variations of each member. This attribute is remi-
68, 5-6 (1998), pp 26-31, in particular p 29: ‘Why does [Lynn's] archi- niscent of historic methods of craftmanship where every element
tecture not move? ... Why does his architecture stop moving when it could be generic in some regard while given a distinct identity in each
is no longer design technique and becomes architecture?’ instance ... Through both manual construction and industrial fabrica-
12 Eisenman, ‘Alteka Office Building’, Folding in Architecture (1993), p 28. tion [these projects] exploit the economy of what is often referred to
13 ‘Folding is only one of perhaps many strategies for dislocating vision.’ as “custom assembly-line production”.’ Greg Lynn, ‘Classicism and
Eisenman, ‘Visions’ Unfolding’, (1992), p 24. Vitality’ in Anthony lannacci (ed) Shoei Yoh, L'Arca Edizioni (Milan),
14 Lynn, ‘Architectural Curvilinearity’, p 8. 1997, pp 13-16: 15. See also Lynn’s ‘Odawara Municipal Sports
15 Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson, ‘Lewis Residence, Cleveland, Ohio’, Complex’ in Shoei Yoh, pp 67-70; and ‘Shoei Yoh, Odawara Municipal
Folding in Architecture (1993), p 69. Sports Complex’, Folding in Architecture (1993), p 79.
16 Lynn, ‘Architectural Curvilinearity’, p 12; Jeffrey Kipnis, ‘Towards a 29 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, George Routledge and
New Architecture’, Folding in Architecture (1993), pp 40-9: 47. Sons (London) and Harcourt, Brace and Co (New York), 1934, espe-
17 Stephen Perrella, ‘Interview with Mark Dippe. Terminator 2’, Folding in cially Chapter VIII, sections 1 (‘The Dissolution of “The Machine””)
Architecture (1993), pp 90-93: 93. and 2 (‘Toward an Organic Ideology’), pp 364-72.
18See in particular Edmund Burke, Philosophical Enquiry (1757); 30 ‘In the very act of enlarging its dominion over human thought and
William Gilpin, Observations ... relative chiefly to picturesque beauty practice, the machine [Mumford here means the earlier, ‘paleotech-
(1782) and Three essays: On picturesque beauty; On picturesque nic' machine] has proved to a great degree self-eliminating ... This
travel; and On sketching landscape: to which is added a poem On fact is fortunate for the race. It will do away with the necessity, which
landscape painting (1792). In mathematical terms, the quality of Samuel Butler satirically pictured in Erewhon, for forcefully extirpat-
smoothness of a line or surface is defined by the function that desig- ing the dangerous troglodytes of the earlier mechanical age. The
nates the angular coefficients of the tangents to each point of it (that old machines will in part die out, as the great saurians died out, to
is, by the first derivative of the function that describes the original line be replaced by smaller, faster, brainer [sic], and more adaptable
or surface). organisms, adapted not to the mine, the battlefield and the factory,
19Bernard Cache, ‘Objectile. The Pursuit of Philosophy by Other but to the positive environment of life.’ Mumford, Technics and
Means’, Hypersurface Architecture II, Stephen Perella (ed), Civilization, p 428.
Architectural Design, Profile 141, 69, 9-10 (1999), pp 67-71: 67. 31 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Disappearing City, William Farquhar Payson
20 For centuries, architects had been drawing with algebra, but now, (New York), 1932, pp 34, 45.

19
 Architectural Design

FOLDING IN ARCHITECTURE

OPPOSITE: HENRY COBB, DETAIL OF THE FIRST INTERSTATE BANK TOWER; ABOVE: FRANK GEHRY & PHILIP JOHNSON, LEWIS
RESIDENCE, BIRD’S-EYE- VIEW OF MODEL

ACADEMY EDITIONS * LONDON

KENNETH POWELL
UNFOLDING FOLDING

During the last quarter of a century the none of those represented (with the excep- Frank Gehry. (In this respect, the Vitra
certainties which appeared to underlay the tion of Frank Gehry) had built on any scale. Museum was a harbinger of things to
hegemony of modernism in architecture Now all are building extensively. The new come.) There are no obvious historical
have been under constant attack, so that architecture of the end of the 20th century references to suggest a borrowing from the
what seemed beyond question — a set of faces the problem of reconciling (as Greg Baroque, yet there are uncanny links.
immutable ‘truths’ — is now largely discred- Lynn suggests) the opposing goals of In particular, as Baroque architects
ited. The Modern Movement was born at the conflict and contradiction and of unity and transformed Rome and Prague, while
CIAM Congress of 1928, when Corbusier reconstruction. In practice, architecture respecting the existing form of those cities,
and Gropius hammered out a persuasive, cannot be engaged in a process of perma- the new organic architects of the 1990s are
but essentially exclusive programme for nent revolution. It has practical and formal, passionate urbanists. Urban transformation
architectural revolution. as well as speculative and philosophical without violent upheaval is perhaps the
Revolutionaries often end up as tyrants. ends to pursue. central theme of their work. All these
What began as a liberating force became a The work reviewed here has significance architects question the relevance of post-
rigid orthodoxy. In arecent exposé of the as the product of a generation of architects modernist and classicist formulae for urban
failings of the ‘functionalist’ gospel (AA who had previously espoused survival/revival, while maintaining their
Files, Autumn, 1992) Colin St John Wilson Deconstruction but now seek to address defiance of the old modernism.
quotes Alvar Aalto to the effect that ‘one of issues (especially those related to the life of Seen in this light, the new architecture
the ways to arrive at amore and more the city) in which confrontation cannot be which has evolved out of the
humanely built environment is to expand all. They have taken up the challenge of Deconstructivist episode is vastly important
the concept of the ‘Rational’. Aalto is making their architecture a power on the for its celebration of diversity. Post-Modern-
identified — with Wright, Asplund, Scharoun streets, not just in the gallery and the pages ism rediscovered the city but its analysis of
and others — as part of ‘the other tradition’ of of the specialist journals. urban form and urban life, largely in the
modern architecture. Peter Eisenman is a key figure in all this. theory of collage, has proved inadequately
Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction His definition of ‘weak form’ paved the way retrograde. Gehry, Eisenman, Shirdel and
(1966) stands at the head of a series of key for a flexible and flowing, soft-edged others are seeking for nothing less than a
texts which undermined homogeneity and approach to architectural design. reinstatement of the expressive power of
orthodoxy in favour of an honest accept- Eisenman now seeks a new philosophical architecture which underlies its cultural and
ance of the discontinuity and disjunction basis for an architecture which, were it not social role. Lynn’s project for ‘reconfiguring’
which are part of all human life. More for the inescapable Wrightian overtones, the Sears Tower as part of the fabri¢ of
recently, Deconstruction has been seen as one might categorise as ‘organic’. Chicago reflects a desire for unity and
a basis for the revival of the humane art of On reflection, ‘organic’ is not so harmony through rich diversity.
architecture. With a strong philosophical inappropiate as an adjective where the This issue explores just one theme, one
base the Deconstructivist ‘movement (if projects included are concerned. Just as approach to a new pliant, flowing architec-
ever such) was libertarian, permissive, Baroque architecture grew out of an age of ture. It is an approach that has already
dynamic, but rooted in the conflict which its conflict and violence and yet was charac- produced rich rewards. Yet it is merely a
adherents have seen as the dominant terised by its richly decorative, highly start. Architects, confident in their role as
characteristic of modern urban life. As Mark expressive sense of conviction, the new social artists in the best sense, will increas-
Wigley put it, Deconstructivist architecture expressive architecture of today is moving ingly reject the old constraints in favour of
is ‘devious’ and ‘slippery’ — and disturbing. towards a sculptural drama which is an inclusive and organic way of designing
It had to disturb, to be subversive, in order powerfully present in projects such as that which is in tune with the man-made and
to break the hold of the old order. of Bahram Shirdel for the Nara Convention natural world. These projects are far from
Deconstruction has done its job. Its Center (‘a complex spatial unity guided by being a re-run of history: they could play a
jagged discordancies were shocking the theme of the symbiosis of history and part in making history.
enough. But five years ago, when the work the future’), Eisenman’s Wexner Center and
of seven allegedly Deconstructivist archi- Emory University Arts Center, and a number
tects was shown at MOMA in New York, of recent and forthcoming schemes by Carsten Juel-Christiansen, The Passage

23
GREG LYNN
ARCHITECTURAL CURVILINEARITY
The Folded, the Pliant and the Supple

For the last two decades, beginning with reconstructing a continuous architectural of form’.* Wigley’s critique of pure form and
Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradic- language through historical analyses (Neo- static geometry is inscribed within geomet-
tion in Architecture,’ and Colin Rowe and Classicism or Neo-Modernism) or by ric conflicts and discontinuities. For Wigley,
Fred Koetter’s Collage City,? and continuing identifying local consistencies resulting smoothness is equated with hierarchical
through Mark Wigley and Philip Johnson's from indigenous climates, materials, organisation: ‘the volumes have been
Deconstructivist Architecture, architects traditions or technologies (Regionalism). purified — they have become smooth,
have been primarily concerned with the The internal orders of Neo-Classicism, Neo- classical — and the wires all converge ina
production of heterogeneous, fragmented Modernism and Regionalism conventionally single, hierarchical, vertical movement.’°
and conflicting formal systems. These repress the cultural and contextual Rather than investing In arrested conflicts,
practices have attempted to embody the discontinuities that are necessary for a Wigley’s ‘slipperiness’ might be better
differences within and between diverse logic of contradiction. In architecture, both exploited by the alternative smoothness of
physical, cultural and social contexts in the reaction to and representation of heterogeneous mixture. For the first time
formal conflicts. When comparing Venturi’s heterogeneity have shared an origin in perhaps, complexity might be aligned with
Complexity and Contradiction or Learning contextual analysis. Both theoretical neither unity nor contradiction but with
from Las Vegas with Wigley and Johnson's models begin with a close analysis of smooth, pliant mixture.
Deconstruction Architecture it is necessary contextual conditions from which they Both pliancy and smoothness provide an
to overlook many significant and distin- proceed to evolve either a homogeneous or escape from the two camps which would
guishing differences in order to identify at heterogeneous urban fabric. Neither the either have architecture break under the
least one common theme. reactionary call for unity nor the avant- stress of difference or stand firm. Pliancy
Both Venturi and Wigley argue for the garde dismantling of it through the identifi- allows architecture to become involved in
deployment of discontinuous, fragmented, cation of internal contradictions seems complexity through flexibility. It may be
heterogeneous and diagonal formal adequate as a model for contemporary possible to neither repress the complex
strategies based on the incongrulties, architecture and urbanism. relations of differences with fixed points of
juxtapositions and oppositions within In response to architecture’s discovery of resolution nor arrest them in contradictions,
specific sites and programmes. These complex, disparate, differentiated and but sustain them through flexible,
disjunctions result from a logic which tends heterogeneous cultural and formal con- unpredicted, local connections. To arrest
to identify the potential contradictions texts, two options have been dominant; differences in conflicting forms often
between dissimilar elements. A diagonal either conflict and contradiction or unity precludes many of the more complex
dialogue between a building and its context and reconstruction. Presently, an alterna- possible connections of the forms of
has become an emblem for the contradic- tive smoothness is being formulated that architecture to larger cultural fields. A more
tions within contemporary culture. From the may escape these dialectically opposed pliant architectural sensibility values
scale of an urban plan to a building detail, strategies. Common to the diverse sources alliances, rather than conflicts, between
contexts have been mined for conflicting of this post-contradictory work — topological elements. Pliancy implies first an internal
geometries, materials, styles, histories and geometry, morphology, morphogenesis, flexibility and second a dependence on
programmes which are then represented in Catastrophe Theory or the computer external forces for self-definition.
architecture as internal contradictions. The technology of both the defence and lf there is a single effect produced in
most paradigmatic architecture of the last Hollywood film industry — are characteris- architecture by folding, it will be the ability
ten years, including Robert Venturi’s tics of smooth transformation involving the to integrate unrelated elements within a
Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, intensive integration of differences within a new continuous mixture. Culinary theory
Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center, Bernard continuous yet heterogeneous system. has developed both a practical and precise
Tschumi's La Villette park or the Gehry Smooth mixtures are made up of disparate definition for at least three types of mix-
House, invests in the architectural repre- elements which maintain their integrity tures. The first involves the manipulation of
sentation of contradictions. Through while being blended within a continuous homogeneous elements; beating, whisking
contradiction, architecture represents field of other free elements. and whipping change the volume but not
difference in violent formal conflicts. Smoothing does not eradicate differ- the nature of a liquid through agitation. The
Contradiction has also provoked a ences but incorporates? free intensities second method of incorporation mixes two
reactionary response to formal conflict. through fluid tactics of mixing and blend- or more disparate elements; chopping,
Such resistances attempt to recover unified ing. Smooth mixtures are not homogeneous dicing, grinding, grating, slicing, shredding
architectural languages that can stand and therefore cannot be reduced. Deleuze and mincing eviscerate elements into
against heterogeneity. Unity is constructed describes smoothness as ‘the continuous fragments. The first method agitates a
through one of two strategies: either by variation’ and the ‘continuous development single uniform ingredient, the second

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eviscerates disparate ingredients. Folding, Viscous Mixtures Viscous space would exhibit a related
creaming and blending mix smoothly Unlike an architecture of contradictions, cohesive stability in response to adjacent
multiple ingredients ‘through repeated superpositions and accidental collisions, pressures and a stickiness or adhesion to
gentle overturnings without stirring or pliant systems are capable of engendering adjacent elements. Viscous relations such
beating’ in such a way that their individual unpredicted connections with contextual, as these are not reducible to any single or
characteristics are maintained.® For cultural, programmatic, structural and holistic organisation. Forms of viscosity and
instance, an egg and chocolate are folded economic contingencies by vicissitude. pliability cannot be examined outside of the
together so that each is a distinct layer Vicissitude is often equated with vacillation, vicissitudinous connections and forces with
within a continuous mixture. weakness? and indecisiveness but more which their deformation is intensively
Folding employs neither agitation nor importantly these characteristics are involved. The nature of pliant forms is that
evisceration but a supple layering. Like- frequently in the service of a tactical they are sticky and flexible. Things tend to
wise, folding in geology involves the cunning.° Vicissitude is a quality of being adhere to them. As pliant forms are manipu-
sedimentation of mineral elements or mutable or changeable in response to both lated and deformed the things that stick to
deposits which become slowly bent and favourable and unfavourable situations that their surfaces become incorporated within
compacted into plateaus of strata. These occur by chance. Vicissitudinous events their interiors.
strata are compressed, by external forces, result from events that are neither arbitrary
into more or less continuous layers within nor predictable but seem to be accidental. Curving away from
which heterogeneous deposits are still These events are made possible by a Deconstructivism
intact in varying degrees of intensity. collision of internal motivations with external Along with a group of younger architects,
A folded mixture is neither homogene- forces. For instance, when an accident the projects that best represent pliancy, not
ous, like whipped cream, nor fragmented, occurs the victims immediately identify the coincidentally, are being produced by
like chopped nuts, but smooth and hetero- forces contributing to the accident and many of the same architects previously
geneous. In both cooking and geology, begin to assign blame. It is inevitable involved in the valorisation of contradic-
there isfo preliminary organisation which however, that no single element can be tions. Deconstructivism theorised the world
becomes folded but rather there are made responsible for any accident as these as a site of differences in order that archi-
unrelated elements or pure intensities that events occur by vicissitude; a confluence of tecture could represent these contradic-
are intricated through a joint manipulation. particular influences at a particular time tions in form. This contradictory logic is
Disparate elements can be incorporated makes the outcome of an accident possi- beginning to soften in order to exploit more
into smooth mixtures through various ble. If any element participating in sucha fully the particularities of urban and cultural
manipulations including fulling: confluence of local forces is altered the contexts. This is a reasonable transition, as
‘Felt is a supple solid product that nature of the event will change. In A Thou- the Deconstructivists originated their
proceeds altogether differently, as an anti- sand Plateaus, Spinoza’s concept of ‘a projects with the internal discontinuities
fabric. It implies no separation of threads, thousand vicissitudes’ is linked with they uncovered within buildings and sites.
no intertwining, only an entanglement of Gregory Bateson’s ‘continuing plateau of ° These same architects are beginning to
fibres obtained by fulling (for example, by intensity’ to describe events which incorpo- employ urban strategies which exploit
rolling the block of fibres back and forth). rate unpredictable events through intensity. discontinuities, not by representing them in
What becomes entangled are the These occurrences are difficult to localise, formal collisions, but by affiliating them with
microscales of the fibres. An aggregate of difficult to identify.'° Any logic of vicissitude one another through continuous
intrication of this kind is inno way homoge- is dependent on both an intrication of local flexible systems.
neous; nevertheless, it is smooth and intensities and the exegetic pressure Just as many of these architects have
contrasts point by point with the space of exerted on those elements by external already been inscribed within a
fabric (itis in principle infinite, open and contingencies. Neither the intrications nor Deconstructivist style of diagonal forms,
uninhibited in every direction; it has neither the forces which put them into relation are there will surely be those who would
top, nor bottom, nor centre; it does not predictable from within any single system. enclose their present work within a Neo-
assign fixed or mobile elements but distrib- Connections by vicissitude develop identity Baroque or even Expressionist style of
utes a continuous variation).’” through the exploitation of local curved forms. However, many of the formal
The two characteristics of smooth adjacencies and their affiliation with similitudes suggest a far richer ‘logic of
mixtures are that they are composed of external forces. In this sense, vicissitudi- curvilinearity’'' that can be characterised
disparate unrelated elements and that nous mixtures become cohesive through a by the involvement of outside forces in the
these free intensities become intricated by logic of viscosity. development of form. If internally motivated
an external force exerted upon them jointly. Viscous fluids develop internal stability in and homogeneous systems were to extend
Intrications are intricate connections. They direct proportion to the external pressures in straight lines, curvilinear developments
are intricate, they affiliate local surfaces of exerted upon them. These fluids behave would result from the incorporation of
elements with one another by negotiating with two types of viscidity. They exhibit both external influences. Curvilinearity can put
interstitial rather than internal connections. internal cohesion and adhesion to external into relation the collected projects in this
The heterogeneous elements within a elements as their viscosity increases. publication, Gilles Deleuze’s The Fold:
mixture have no proper relation with one Viscous fluids begin to behave less like Leibniz and the Baroque and René Thom’s
another. Likewise, the external force that liquids and more like sticky solids as the catastrophe diagrams. The smooth spaces
intricates these elements with one another pressures upon them intensify. Similarly, described by these continuous yet differen-
is outside of the individual elements control viscous solids are capable of yielding tiated systems result from curvilinear
or prediction. continually under stress so as not to shear. sensibilities that are capable of complex

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deformations in response to programmatic, masonry towers. Despite the disjunctions elements. Intensity describes the dynamic
structural, economic, aesthetic, political and discontinuities between these three internalisation and incorporation of external
and contextual influences. This is not to disparate systems, Eisenman’s project has influences into a pliant system. Distinct from
imply that intensive curvature is more suggested recessive readings of continu- a whole organism — to which nothing can be
politically correct than an uninvolved formal ous non-linear systems of connection. added or subtracted — intensive organisa-
logic, but rather, that a cunning pliability is Robert Somol'? identifies such a system of tions continually invite external influences
often more effective through smooth Deleuzian rhizomatous connections within their internal limits so that they might
incorporation than contradiction and between armoury and grid. The armoury extend their influence through the affilia-
conflict. Many cunning tactics are aggres- and diagonal grids are shown by Somol to tions they make. A two-fold
sive in nature. Whether insidious or amelio- participate in a hybrid L-movement that deterritorialisation, such as this, expands
rative these kinds of cunning connections organises the main gallery space. Somol’s by internalising external forces. This
discover new possibilities for organisation. schizophrenic analysis is made possible expansion through incorporation is an
A logic of curvilinearity argues for an active by, yet does not emanate from within, a urban alternative to either the infinite
involvement with external events in the Deconstructivist logic of contradiction and extension of International Modernism, the
folding, bending and curving of form. conflict. The force of this Deleuzian schizo- uniform fabric of Contextualism or the
Already in several Deconstructivist analytic model is its ability to maintain conflicts of Post-Modernism and
projects are latent suggestions of smooth multiple organisations simultaneously. In Deconstructivism. Folded, pliant and
mixture and curvature. For instance, the Eisenman’s project the tower and grid need supple architectural forms invite exigencies
Gehry House is typically portrayed as not be seen as mutually exclusive or in and contingencies in both their deformation
representing materials and forms already contradiction. Rather, these disparate and their reception.
present within, yet repressed by, the elements may be seen as distinct elements In both Learning from Las Vegas and
suburban neighbourhood: sheds, chain- co-present within a composite mixture. Deconstructivist Architecture, urban
link fences, exposed plywood, trailers, Pliancy does not result from and is not in contexts provided rich sites of difference.
boats and recreational vehicles. The house line with the previous architectural logic of These differences are presently being
is described as an ‘essay on the convoluted contradiction, yet it is capable of exploiting exploited for their ability to engender
relationship between the conflict within and many conflicting combinations for the multiple lines of local connections rather
between forms... which were not imported possible connections that are overlooked. than lines of conflict. These affiliations are
to but emerged from within the house.’ Where Deconstructivist Architecture was not predictable by any contextual orders
The house is seen to provoke conflict within seen to exploit external forces in the familiar but occur by vicissitude. Here, urban fabric
the neighbourhood due to its public name of contradiction and conflict, recent has no value or meaning beyond the
representation of hidden aspects of its pliant projects by many of these architects connections that are made within it. Distinct
context. The Gehry House violates the exhibit a more fluid logic of connectivity. from earlier urban sensibilities that general-
neighbourhood from within. Despite the ised broad formal codes, the collected
dominant appeal of the house to contradic- Immersed in Context projects develop local, fine grain, complex
tions, aless contradictory and more pliant The contradictory architecture of the last systems of intrication. There is no general
reading of the house is possible as a new two decades has evolved primarily from urban strategy common to these projects,
organisation emerges between the existing highly differentiated, heterogeneous only akind of tactical mutability. These
house and Gehry’s addition. A dynamic contexts within which conflicting, contra- folded, pliant and supple forms of urbanism
stability develops with the mixing of the dictory and discontinuous buildings were are neither in deference to nor in defiance
original and the addition. Despite the sited. An alternative involvement with of their contexts but exploit them by turning
contradictions between elements possible heterogeneous contexts could be affiliated, them within their own twisted and curvilin-
points of connection are exploited. Rather compliant and continuous. Where complex- ear logics.
than valorise the conflicts the house ity and contradiction arose previously from
engenders, as has been done in both inherent contextual conflicts, present The Supple and Curvilinear
academic and popular publications, amore attempts are being made to fold smoothly 1 supple\ adj [ME souple, fr OF, fr L supplic-, supplex submissive,
pliant logic would identify, not the degree of specific locations, materials and pro- suppliant, lit, bending under, fr sub + plic- (akin to plicare to fold) - more at
violation, but the degree to which new grammes into architecture while maintain- PLY] 1a: compliant often to the point of obsequiousness b: readily
connections were exploited. A new interme- ing their individual identity. adaptable or responsive to new situations 2a: capable of being bent or
diate organisation occurs In the Gehry This recent work may be described as folded without creases, cracks or breaks: PLIANT b: able to perform
House by vicissitude from the affiliation of being compliant; in a state of being plied by bending or twisting movements with ease and grace: LIMBER c: easy and
the existing house and its addition. Within forces beyond control. The projects are fluent without stiffness or awkwardness. 14
the discontinuities of Deconstructivism formally folded, pliant and supple in order
there are inevitable unforeseen to incorporate their contexts with minimal At an urban scale, many of these projects
moments of cohesion. resistance. Again, this characterisation seem to be somewhere between
Similarly, Peter Eisenman’s Wexner should not imply flaccidity but a cunning contexturalism and expressionism. Their
Center is conventionally portrayed as a submissiveness that is capable of bending supple forms are neither geometrically
collision of the conflicting geometries of the rather than breaking. Compliant tactics, exact nor arbitrarily figural. For example,
Campus, city and armoury which once such as these, assume neither an absolute the curvilinear figures of Shoei Yoh’s roof
stood adjacent to the site. These contradic- coherence nor cohesion between discrete structures are anything but decorative but
tions are represented by the diagonal elements but a system of provisional, also resist being reduced to a pure geomet-
collisions between the two grids and the intensive, local connections between free ric figure. Yoh’s supple roof structures

26
exhibit a logic of curvilinearity as they are Center, on the same street in the same city, use, economy and advertising through
continuously differentiated according to represents a monumental collision, the contradiction, compliancy involves these
contingencies. The exigencies of structural Convention Center attempts to disappear external forces by knotting, twisting,
span lengths, beam depths, lighting, lateral by connection between intervals within its bending and folding them within form.
loading, ceiling height and view angles context; where the Wexner Center de- Pliant systems are easily bent, inclined or
influence the form of the roof structure. stabilises through contradictions the influenced. An anatomical ‘plica’ is a single
Rather than averaging these requirements Convention Center does so by subterfuge. strand within multiple ‘plicae’. It is a multi-
within a mean or minimum dimension they In a similar fashion Frank Gehry’s plicity in that it is both one and many
are precisely maintained by an anexact yet Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain simultaneously. These elements are bent
rigorous geometry. Exact geometries are covers a series of orthogonal gallery along with other elements into a composite,
eidetic; they can be reproduced identically spaces with flexible tubes which respond to as in matted hair(s). Such a bending
at any time by anyone. In this regard, they the scales of the adjacent roadways, together of elements is an act of multiple
must be capable of being reduced to fixed bridges, the Bilbao River and the existing plication or multiplication rather than mere
mathematical quantities. Inexact medieval city. Akin to the Vitra Museum, the addition. Plicature involves disparate
geometries lack the precision and rigor curvilinear roof forms of the Bilbao elements with one another through various
necessary for measurement. Guggenheim integrate the large rectilinear manipulations of bending, twisting, pleat-
Anexact geometries, as described by masses of gallery and support space with ing, braiding and weaving through external
Edmund Husserl,"® are those geometries the scale of the pedestrian and force. In RAA Um’s Croton Aqueduct
which are irreducible yet rigorous. These automotive contexts. project a single line following the subterra-
geometries can be determined with preci- The unforeseen connections possible nean water supply for New York City is
sion yet cannot be reduced to average between differentiated sites and alien pulled through multiple disparate pro-
points or dimensions. Anexact geometries programmes require conciliatory, complicit, grammes which are adjacent to it and
often appear to be merely figural in this pliant, flexible and often cunning tactics. which cross it. These programmatic
regard/Unlike exact geometries, it is Presently, numerous architects are involv- elements are braided and bent within the
meaningless to repeat identically an ing the heterogeneities, discontinuities and continuous line of recovered public space
anexact geometric figure outside of the differences inherent within any cultural and which stretches nearly 20 miles into
specific context within which it is situated. physical context by aligning formal flexibil- Manhattan. In order to incorporate these
In this regard, anexact figures cannot be ity with economic, programmatic and elements the line itself is deflected and
easily translated. structural compliancy. A multitude of pli reoriented, continually changing its charac-
Jeffrey Kipnis has argued convincingly based words — folded, pliant, supple, ter along its length. The seemingly singular
that Peter Eisenman’s Columbus Conven- flexible, plaited, pleated, plicating, line becomes populated by finer program-
tion Center has become a canonical model complicitous, compliant, complaisant, matic elements. The implications of Le Pli
for the negotiation of differentiated urban complicated, complex and multiplicitous to for architecture involve the proliferation of
fringe sites through the use of near fig- name a few — can be invoked to describe possible connections between free entities
ures.'® Kipnis identifies the disparate this emerging urban sensibility of intensive such as these.
systems informing the Columbus Conven- connections. A plexus is a multi-linear network of
tion Center including: a single volume of interweavings, intertwinings and
inviolate programme of a uniform shape The Pliant and Bent intrications; for instance, of nerves or blood
and height larger than two city blocks, an pliable\ adj [ME fr plier to bend, fold-more at PLY] 1a: supple enough to
vessels. The complications of a plexus —
existing fine grain fabric of commercial bend freely or repeatedly without breaking b: yielding readily to others:
what could best be called complexity —
buildings and network of freeway inter- COMPLAISANT 2; adjustable to varying conditions: ADAPTABLE syn see
arise from its irreducibility to any single
changes that plug into the gridded streets PLASTIC antobstinate. W
organisation. A plexus describes a multi-
of the central business district. Eisenman’s plicity of local connections within a single
project drapes the large rectilinear volume John Rajchman, in reference to Gilles continuous system that remains open to
of the convention hall with a series of Deleuze’s book Le Pijhas already articu- new motions and fluctuations. Thus, a
supple vermiforms. These elements lated an affinity between complexity, or plexial event cannot occur at any discrete
become involved with the train tracks to the plex-words, and folding, or plic-words, in point. A multiply plexed system — a complex
north-east, the highway to the south-east the Deleuzian paradigm of ‘perplexing — cannot be reduced to mathematical
and the pedestrian scale of High Street to plications’ or ‘perplication’.'® The plexed exactitude, it must be described with
the west. The project incorporates the and the plied can be seen in a tight knot of rigorous probability. Geometric systems
multiple scales, programmes and pedes- complexity and pliancy. Plication involves have a distinct character once they have
trian and automotive circulation of a highly the folding in of external forces. Complica- been plied; they exchange fixed
differentiated urban context. Kipnis’ tion involves an intricate assembly of these co-ordinates for dynamic relations
canonisation of a form which is involved extrinsic particularities into a complex across surfaces.
with such specific contextual and program- network. In biology, complication is the act
matic contingencies seems to be frustrated of an embryo folding in upon itself as it Alternative types of trans-
from the beginning. The effects of a pliant becomes more complex. To become formation
urban mixture such as this can only be complicated is to be involved in multiple Discounting the potential of earlier geomet-
evaluated by the connections that it makes. complex, intricate connections. Where ric diagrams of probability, such as
Outside of specific contexts, curvature Post-Modernism and Deconstructivism Buffon’s Needle Problem, '? D'Arcy
ceases to be intensive. Where the Wexner resolve external influences of programme, Thompson provides perhaps the first

27
 .

geometric description of variable deforma- at any moment and therefore has the the actor to both become and disappear
tion as an instance of discontinuous capacity to describe both a general type into virtually any form. The horror of the film
morphological development. His cartesian and the particular events which influence its results not from ultra-violence, but from the
deformations, and their use of flexible development. Again, these events are not ability of the antagonist to pass through and
topological rubber sheet geometry, sug- predictable or reducible to any fixed point occupy the grids of floors, prison bars and
gest an alternative to the static morphologi- but rather begin to describe a probable other actors. Computer technology is
cal transformations of autonomous archi- zone of co-present forces; both internal and capable of constructing intermediate
tectural types. A comparison of the typo- external. Thompson presents an alternative images between any two fixed points
logical and transformational systems of type of inclusive stability, distinct from the resulting in a smooth transformation. These
Thompson and Rowe illustrates two radi- exclusive stasis of Rowe’s nine-square grid. smooth effects calculate with probability
cally different conceptions of continuity. The supple geometry of Thompson is the interstitial figures between fixed figures.
Rowe's is fixed, exact, striated, identical capable of both bending under external Furthermore, the morphing process is
and static, where Thompson's is dynamic, forces and folding those forces internally. flexible enough that multiple between
anexact, smooth, differentiated and stable. These transformations develop through states are possible. Gehry’s and Johnson's
Both Rudolf Wittkower — in his analysis of discontinuous involution rather than Peter Lewis House is formulated from
the Palladian villas of 1949°° — and Rowe — continuous evolution. multiple flexible forms. The geometry of
in his comparative analysis of Palladio and The morphing. effects used in the contem- these forms is supple and can accommo-
Le Corbusier of 19477'— uncover a consist- porary advertising and film industry may date smooth curvilinear deformation along
ent organisational type: the nine-square already have something in common with their length. Not only are these forms
grid. In Wittkower’s analysis of 12 Palladian recent developments in architecture. These capable of bending to programmatic,
villas the particularities of each villa accu- mere images have concrete influences on structural and environmental concerns, as
mulate (through what Edmund Husserl has space, form, politics and culture; for is the roof of Shoei Yoh’s roof structures, but
termed variations) to generate a fixed, example, the physical morphing of Michael they can deflect to the contours and context
identical spatial type (through what could Jackson’s body, including the transforma- of the site, similar to Peter Eisenman’s
best be described as phenomenological tion of his form through various surgeries Columbus Convention Center and RAA
reduction). The typology of this ‘Ideal Villa’ and his surface through skin bleaching and Um’s Croton Aqueduct project. Further-
is used to invent a consistent deep struc- lightening. These physical effects and their more, the Lewis House maintains a series of
ture underlying Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein at implications for the definition of gender and discrete figural fragments — such as boats
Garche and Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta. race were only later represented in his and familiar fish — within the diagrams of
Wittkower and Rowe discover the exact recent video Black & White. In this video D’Arcy Thompson, which are important to
geometric structure of this type in all villas multiple genders, ethnicities and races are both the morphing effects of Industrial Light
in particular. This fixed type becomes a mixed into a continuous sequence through and Magic and the morphogenetic dia-
constant point of reference within a series the digital morphing of video images. It is grams of René Thom. Gehry’s supple
of variations. significant that Jackson is not black or white geometry is capable of smooth, heteroge-
Like Rowe, Thompson is interested in but black and white, not male or female but neous continuous deformation. Deforma-
developing a mathematics of species male and female. His simultaneous differ- tion is made possible by the flexibility of
categories, yet his system depends ona ences are characteristic of a desire for topological geometry in response to
dynamic and fluid set of geometric rela- smoothness; to become heterogeneous yet external events, as smooth space is
tions. The deformations of a provisional continuous. Physical morphing, such as intensive and continuous. Thompson’s
type define a supple constellation of this, is monstrous because smoothness curvilinear logic suggests deformation in
geometric correpondences. Thompson eradicates the interval between what response to unpredictable events outside
uses the initial type as a mere provision for Thompson refers to as discriminant charac- of the object. Forms of bending, twisting or
a dynamic system of transformations that teristics without homogenising the mixture. folding are not superfluous but result from
occur in connection with larger environ- Such a continuous system is neither an an intensive curvilinear logic which seeks to
mental forces. Thompson’s method of assembly of discrete fragments nor a internalise cultural and contextural forces
discontinuous development intensively whole.*? With Michael Jackson, the flexible within form. In this manner events become
involves external forces in the deformation geometric mechanism with which his video intimately involved with particular rather
of morphological types. The flexible type is representation is constructed comes from than ideal forms. These flexible forms are
able to both indicate the general morpho- the same desire which aggressively not mere representations of differential
logical structure of a species while indicat- reconstructs his own physical form. Neither forces but are deformed by their environ-
ing its discontinuous development through the theory, the geometry or the body ment.
the internalisation of heretofore external proceed from one another; rather, they
forces within the system.*? For instance, the participate in a desire for smooth transfor- Folding and other catastrophes for
enlargement of a fish's eye is represented mation. Form, politics and self-identity are architecture
by the flexing of a grid. This fluctuation, intricately connected in this process 3 fold vb [ME folden, fr. OE foaldan; akin to OHG faldan to fold, Gk di
when compared to a previous position of of deformation. plasios twofold] vt 1: to lay one part over another part, 2: to reduce the
the transformational type, establishes a A similar comparison might be made length or bulk of by doubling over, 3: to clasp together: ENTWINE, 4: to
relation between water depth and light between the liquid mercury man in the film clasp or em-brace closely: EMBRACE, 5: to bend (as a rock) into folds 6: to
intensity as those conditions are involved in Terminator 2 and the Peter Lewis House by incorporate (a food ingredient) into a mixture by repeated gentle
the formal differences between fish. The Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson. The overturnings without stirring or beating, 7: to bring to an end 24
flexing grid of relations cannot be arrested Hollywood special effects sequences allow

28
Philosophy has already identified the conflicts, ironically, architects are finding geometries, in connection with the prob-
displacement presently occurring to the new forms of dynamic stability in these able events they model, present a flexible
Post-Modern paradigm of complexity and diagrams. The mutual interest in Thom’s system for the organisation of disparate
contradiction in architecture, evidenced by diagrams points to a desire to be involved elements within continuous spaces. Yet,
John Rajchman’s Out of the Fold and with events which they cannot predict. The these smooth systems are highly differenti-
Perplications. Rajchman’s text is nota primary innovation made by those dia- ated by cusps or zones of co-presence.
manifesto for the development of new grams is the geometric modelling of a The catastrophe diagram used by
architectural organisations, but responds to multiplicity of possible co-present events at Eisenman in the Rebstock Park project de-
the emergence of differing kinds of com- any moment. Thom’s morphogenesis stabilises the way that the buildings meet
plexity being developed by a specific engages seemingly random events with the ground. It smooths the landscape and
architect. His essays inscribe spatial mathematical probability. the building by turning both into one
innovations developed in architecture Thom’s nets were developed to describe another along cusps. The diagrams used
within larger intellectual and cultural fields. catastrophic events. What is common to by Kipnis in the Briey project, and Shirdel in
Rajchman both illuminates Peter these events is an inability to define exactly the Nara Convention Hall, develop an
Eisenman’s architectural practice through the moment at which a catastrophe occurs. interstitial space contained simultaneously
an explication of Le Piiand is forced to This loss of exactitude is replaced by a within two folded cusps. This geometrically
reconsider Deleuze’s original argument geometry of multiple probable relations. blushed surface exists within two systems
concerning Baroque space by the alterna- With relative precision, the diagrams define at the same moment and in this manner
tive spatialities of Eisenman’s Rebstock potential catastrophes through cusps presents a space of co-presence with
Park project. The dominant aspect of the rather than fixed co-ordinates. Like any multiple adjacent zones of proximity.
project which invited Rajchman’s attention simple graph, Thom’s diagrams deploy X Before the introduction of either Deleuze
to folding was the employment of one of and Y forces across two axes of a gridded or Thom to architecture, folding was
René Thom’s catastrophe diagrams in the plane. A uniform plane would provide the developed as a formal tactic in response to
design process. potential for only a single point of intersec- problems presented by the exigencies of
Despite potential protestations to the tion between any two X and Y co-ordinates. commercial development. Henry Cobb has
contrary, it is more than likely that Thom’s The supple topological surface of Thom’s argued in both the Charlottesville Tapes
catastrophe nets entered into the architec- diagrams is capable of enfolding in multiple and his Note on Folding for a necessity to
ture of Carsten Juel-Christiansen’s Die dimensions. Within these folds, or cusps, both dematerialise and differentiate the
Anhalter Faltung, Peter Eisenman’s zones of proximity are contained. As the massive homogeneous volumes dictated
Rebstock Park, Jeffrey Kipnis’ Unite de topological surface folds over and into itself by commercial development in order to
Habitation at Briey installation and Bahram multiple possible points of intersection are bring them into relation with finer grain
Shirdel’s Nara Convention Hall as a mere possible at any moment in the Z dimension. heterogeneous urban conditions. His first
formal technique. Inevitably, architects and These co-present Z-dimensional zones are principle for folding is a smoothing of
philosophers alike would find this initself a possible because the topological geometry elements across a shared surface. The
catastrophe for all concerned. Yet, their use captures space within its surface. Through facade of the John Hancock Tower is
illustrates that at least four architects proximity and adjacency various vectors of smoothed into a continuous surface so that
simultaneously found in Thom’s diagrams a force begin to imply these intensive event the building might disappear into its context
formal device for an alternative description zones. In catastrophic events there is not a through reflection rather than mimicry. Any
of spatial complexity. The kind of complex- single fixed point at which a catastrophe potential for replicating the existing context
ity engendered by this alliance with Thom is occurs but rather a zone of potential events was precluded by both the size of the
substantially different than the complexity that are described by these cusps. The contiguous floor plates required by the
provided by either Venturi’s decorated cusps are defined by multiple possible developer and the economic necessity to
shed or the more recent conflicting forms of interactions implying, with more or less construct the building’s skin from glass
Deconstructivism. Topological geometry in probability, multiple fluid thresholds. panels. Folding became the method by
general, and the catastrophe diagrams in Thom’s geometric plexus organises which the surface of a large homogeneous
particular, deploy disparate forces ona disparate forces in order to describe volume could be differentiated while
continuous surface within which more or possible types of connections. remaining continuous. This tactic acknowl-
less open systems of connection If there is a single dominant effect of the edges that the existing fabric and the
are possible. French word pi, itis its resistance to being developer tower are essentially of different
‘Topology considers superficial struc- translated into any single term. It is pre- species by placing their differences in
tures susceptible to continuous transforma- cisely the formal manipulations of folding mixture, rather than contradiction, through
tions which easily change their form, the that are capable of incorporating manifold the manipulation of a pliant skin.
most interesting geometric properties external forces and elements within form, Like the John Hancock Building, the
common to all modification being studied. yet Le Pliundoubtedly risks being trans- Allied Bank Tower begins with the incorpo-
Assumed is an abstract material of ideal lated into architecture as mere folded ration of glass panels and metal frames into
deformability which can be deformed, with figures. In architecture, folded forms risk a continuous folded surface. The differen-
the exception of disruption.’ quickly becoming a sign for catastrophe. tiation of the folded surface, through the
These geometries bend and stabilise The success of the architects who are simultaneous bending of the glass and
with viscosity under pressure. Where one folding should not be based on their ability metal, brings those elements together ona
would expect that an architect looking at to represent catastrophe theory in architec- continuous plane. The manipulations of the
catastrophes would be interested in tural form. Rather, the topological material surface proliferate folding and

29
bending effects in the massing of the tion of differences — derived from the the static shape of the stadium is capable of
building. The alien building becomes a morphology of the site — into the homogene- supporting new kinds of events. The
continuous surface of disappearance that ous typologies of the housing and office patented tiling patterns transform both the
both diffracts and reflects the context blocks. Both Eisenman’s local differentia- size and shape of surfaces, developing
through complex manipulations of folding. tion of the building types by global folding, local secondary pockets of space and
In the recent films Predator and Predator I, and Cobb's local folding across construc- enveloping larger primary volumes.
a similar alien is capable of disappearing tional elements which globally differentiates So far in architecture, Deleuze’s, Cobb's,
into both urban and jungle environments, each floor plate and the entire massing of Eisenman’s and Hoberman’s discourse
not through cubist camouflage*® but by the building are effective. Cobb and inherits dominant typologies of organisation
reflecting and diffracting its environment Eisenman ‘animate’ homogeneous organi- into which new elements are folded. Within
like an octopus or chameleon. The contours sations that were seemingly given to the these activities of folding it is perhaps more
between an object and its context are architect — office tower and sied/ung-— with important to identify those new forms of
obfuscated by forms which become the figure of a fold. The shared principle of local organisation and occupation which
translucent, reflective and diffracted. The folding identified by both Eisenman and inhabit the familiar types of the Latin cross
alien gains mobility by cloaking its volume Cobb, evident in their respective texts, is church, the s/ed/ung, the office tower and
in a folded surface of disappearance. the ability to differentiate the inherited the stadium, rather than the disturbances
Unlike the ‘decorated shed’ or ‘building homogeneous organisations of both visited on those old forms of organisation.
board’ which mimics its context with a Modernism (Eisenman’s se/d/ung) and Folding can occur in both the organisations
singular sign, folding diffuses an entire commercial development (Cobb’s tower). of old forms and the free intensities of
surface through a shimmering reflection of This differentiation of Known types of space unrelated elements, as is the case with
local adjacent and contiguous particulari- and organisation has something in common Shirdel’s project. Likewise, other than
ties. For instance, there is a significant with Deleuze’s delimitation of folding in folding, there are several manipulations of
difference between a small fish which architecture within the Baroque. Folding elements engendering smooth, neterogene-
represents itself as a fragment of a larger heterogeneity into known typologies ous and intensive organisation.
fish through the figure of a large eye on its renders those organisations more smooth - Despite the differences between these
tail, and a barracuda which becomes like and more intensive so that they are better practices, they share a sensibility that
the liquid in which it swims through a able to incorporate disparate elements resists cracking or breaking in response to
diffused reflection of its context. The first within a continuous system. Shirdel’s use of external pressures. These tactics and
strategy invites deceitful detection where Thom’s diagrams is quite interesting as the strategies are all compliant to, complicated
the second uses stealth to avoid detection. catastrophe sections do not animate an by, and complicit with external forces in
Similarly, the massive volume of the Allied existing organisation. Rather, they begin as manners which are: submissive, suppliant,
Bank Tower situates itself within a particular merely one system among three others. The adaptable, contingent, responsive, fluent,
discontinuous locale by cloaking itself ina convention halls float within the envelope of © and yielding through involvement and
folded reflected surface. Here, cunning the building as they are supported by a incorporation. The attitude which runs
stealth is used as a way of involving contex- series of transverse structural walls whose throughout this collection of projects and
tual forces through the manipulation of a figure is derived from Thom’s nets. This essays is the shared attempt to place
surface. The resemblance of folded mixture of systems, Supported by the seemingly disparate forces into relation
architecture to the stealth bomber results catastrophe sections, generates a massive through strategies which are externally
not from a similarity between military and residual public space at the ground floor of plied. Perhaps, in this regard only, there are
architectural technologies or intentions but the building. In Shirdel’s project the ma- many opportunities for architecture to be
rather from a tactical disappearance” of a nipulations of folding, in both the catastro- effected by Gilles Deleuze’s book Le Pii.
volume through the manipulation of a phe sections and the building envelope, The formal characteristics of pliancy —
surface. This disappearance into the fold is incorporate previously unrelated elements anexact forms and topological geometries
neither insidious nor innocent but merely a into a mixture. The space between the primarily — can be more viscous and fluid in
very effective tactic. theatres, the skin and the lateral structural response to exigencies. They maintain
Like Henry Cobb, Peter Eisenman walls is such a space of mixture formal integrity through deformations which
introduces a fold as a method of disappear- and intrication. do not internally cleave or shear but through
ing into a specific context. Unlike Cobb, With structure itself, Chuck Hoberman is which they connect, incorporate and
who began with a logic of construction, capable of transforming the size of domes affiliate productively. Cunning and viscous
Eisenman aligns the fold with the urban and roofs through a folding structural systems such as these gain strength
contours of the Rebstock Park. The repeti- mechanism. Hoberman develops adjust- through flexible connections that occur by
tive typologies of housing and office able structures whose differential move- vicissitude. If the collected projects within
buildings are initially deployed on the site in ments occurs through the dynamic transfor- this publication do have certain formal
amore or less functionalist fashion; then a mation of flexible continuous systems. The affinities, itis as a result of a folding out of
topological net derived from Thom’s movements of these mechanisms are formalism into a world of external influ-
Butterfly net is aligned to the perimeter of determined both by use and structure. ences. Rather than speak of the forms of
the site and pushed through the typological Hoberman’s structural mechanisms folding autonomously, it is important to
bars. This procedure differentiates the develop a system of smooth transformation maintain a logic rather than a style of
uniform bars in response to the global in two ways. The Iris dome and sphere curvilinearity. The formal affinities of these
morphology of the site. In this manner the projects transform their size while maintain- projects result from their pliancy and ability
manifestation of the fold is in the incorpora- ing their shape. This flexibility of size within to deform in response to particular contin-

30
gencies. What is being asked in different 9 Ann Bergren’s discussions of the metis in scan, X-Ray and PET technologies. For a
ways by the group of architects and architecture is an example of cunning more elaborate discussion of these ex-
theorists in this publication is: How can manipulations of form. For an alternative changes and the impact of related probable
architecture be configured as a complex reading of these tactics in Greek art also see and anexact geometries on architectural
system into which external particularities Jean-Pierre Vernant. space refer to my forthcoming article in NY
are already found to be plied? 10 Deleuze, Plateaus, p256. Magazine no 1 (New York: Rizzoli Interna-
11 This concept has been developed by Leibniz tional, 1993).
Notes and has many resonances with Sanford 20 Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural Principles in
1 Venturi, Robert Complexity and Contradic- Kwinter’s discussions of biological space the Age of Humanism (New York: WW Norton
tion in Architecture (New York: Museum of and epigenesis as they relate to architecture & Co 1971).
Modern Art Papers on Architecture, 1966). and Catherine Ingraham’s logic of the swerve 21 Rowe, Colin Mathematics of the Ideal Villa
2 Two ideas were introduced in this text that and the animal lines of beasts of burden. and Other Essays (Cambridge: MIT Press,
seem extremely relevant to contemporary 12 Wigley, Mark Deconstructivist Architecture, 1976).
architecture: typological deformation and the p22. 22 For an earlier instance of discontinuous
continuity between objects and contexts. 13 See ‘O-O’ by Robert Somol in the Wexner development based on environmental forces
Both of these concepts receded when Center for the Visual Arts special issue of and co-evolution, in reference to dynamic
compared with the dominant ideas of Architectural Design (London: Academy variation, see William Bateson, Materials for
collision cities and the dialectic of urban Editions, 1990). the Study of Variation: Treated with Especial
figure/ground relationships. Curiously, they 14 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of
illustrate typological deformations in both (Springfield, Mass: G&C Merriam Company, Species (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Baroque and early modern architecture: 1977), 91170. Press, 1894).
‘However, Asplund’s play with assumed 15 Husserl, Edmund ‘The Origin of Geometry 23 Erwin Panofsky has provided perhaps the
contingencies and assumed absolutes, Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry: An finest example of this kind of heterogeneous
brilliant though it may be, does seem to Introduction by Jacques Derrida (Lincoln: smoothness in his analyses of Egyptian
involve mostly strategies of response; and, in University of Nebraska Press, 1989). statuary and the Sphinx in particular: ‘three
considering problems of the object, it may be 16 See Fetish edited by Sarah Whiting, Edward different systems of proportion were em-
useful to consider the admittedly ancient Mitchell & Greg Lynn (New York: Princeton ployed — an anomaly easily explained by the
technique of deliberately distorting what is Architectural Press, 1992), pp 158-173. fact that the organism in question is not a
also presented as the idea/type. So the 17 Webster's, 0883. homogeneous but a heterogeneous one.’
reading of Saint Agnese continuously 18 Rajchman identifies an inability in 24 Webster's, p445.
fluctuates between an interpretation of the contexualism to ‘Index the complexifications 25 In Stan Allen’s introduction to the work of
building as object and the building as texture of urban space’. Rajchman, John, Douglas Garofalo forthcoming in assemblage
... Note this type of strategy combines local ‘Perplications: On the Space and Time of 19 (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1992) a
concessions with a declaration of independ- Rebstock Park,’ Unfolding Frankfurt (Berlin: strategy of camouflage is articulated which
ence from anything local. and specific.’ p77. Ernst & Sohn Verlag, 1991), p21. invests surfaces with alternatives to the forms
3 See Sanford Kwinter and Jonathan Crary 19 Asimilar exchange, across disciplines and volumes they delimit. The representation
‘Foreword’ Zone 6: Incorporations (New York: through geometry, occurred in France in the of other known figures is referred to as a logic
Urzone Books, 1992), pp12-15. mid-18th century with the development of of plumage. For instance, a butterfly wing
4 Deleuze, Gilles A Thousand Plateaus: probable geometries. Initially there was a representing the head of a bird invites a
Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: desire to describe chance events with deceitful detection. This differs from the
University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p478. mathematical precision. This led to the disappearance of a surface by stealth which
5 Wigley, Mark Deconstructivist Architecture, development of a geometric model that resists any recognition.
p15. subsequently opened new fields of study in 26 This suggests a reading of Michael Hays’ text
6 Cunningham, Marion The Fannie Farmer other disciplines. The mathematical interests on the early Mies van der Rohe
Cookbook, 13th edition (New York: Alfred A in probability of the professional gambler Friedrichstrasse Tower as a tactic of disap-
Knopf, 1990) pp41-47. Marquis de Chevalier influenced Comte de pearance by proliferating cacophonous
7 Deleuze, Gilles Plateaus, pp475-6. Buffon to develop the geometric description images of the city. Hays’ work on Hannes
8 Anapplication of vicissitude to Kipnis’ logic of the Needle Problem. This geometric model Meyer’s United Nations Competition Entry is
of undecidability and weak form might of probability was later elaborated in three- perhaps the most critical in the reinterpreta-
engender a cunning logic of non-linear dimensions by the geologist Dellese and tion of functional contingencies in the
affiliations. This seems apt given the became the foundation for nearly all of the intensely involved production of differenti-
reference to both undecidability and present day anatomical descriptions that ated, heterogeneous yet continuous space
weakness in the definition of vicissitudes. utilise serial transactions: including CAT through manipulations of a surface.

31
GILLES DELEUZE
THE FOLD - LEIBNIZ AND THE BAROQUE
The Pleats of Matter

The Baroque refers not to an essence but reasonable ones, who have ascended to renewed turbulence, which ends only in the
rather to an operative function, to a trait. It the other level (‘elevation’). It is the upper manner of a horse’s mane or the foam of a
endlessly produces folds. It does not invent floor that has no windows. It is a dark room wave; matter tends to spill over in space, to
things: there are all kinds of folds coming or chamber decorated only with a stretched be reconciled with fluidity at the same time
from the East, Greek, Roman, Roman- canvas ‘diversified by folds,’ as if it were a fluids themselves are divided into masses.®
esque, Gothic, Classical folds. .. Yet the living dermis. Placed on the opaque Huygens develops a Baroque math-
Baroque trait twists and turns Its folds, canvas, these folds, cords or springs ematical physics whose goal is
pushing them to infinity, fold over fold, one represent an innate form of knowledge, but curvilinearity. With Leibniz the curvature of
upon the other. The Baroque fold unfurls all solicited by matter they move into action. the universe is prolonged according to
the way to infinity. First, the Baroque Matter triggers ‘vibrations or oscillations’ at three other fundamental notions: the fluidity
differentiates its folds in two ways, by the lower extremity of the cords, through the of matter, the elasticity of bodies and the
moving along two infinities, as if infinity intermediary of ‘some little openings’ that motivating spirit as a mechanism. First,
were composed of two stages or floors: the exist on the lower level. Leibniz constructs a matter would clearly not be extended
pleats of matter, and the folds in the soul. great Baroque montage that moves be- following a twisted line. Rather, it would
Below, matter is amassed according to a tween the lower floor, pierced with win- follow a tangent.’ But the universe appears
first type of fold, and then organised dows, and the upper floor, blind and compressed by an active force that endows
according to a second type, to the extent its closed, but on the other hand resonating as matter with a curvilinear or spinning
part constitutes organs that are ‘differently if it were a musical salon translating the movement, following an arc that ultimately
folded and more or less developed’. ' visible movements below into sounds up has no tangent. And the infinite division of
Above, the soul sings of the glory of God above.° matter causes the compressive force to
inasmuch as it follows its own folds, but It could be argued that this text does not return all portions of matter to the surround-
without Succeeding in entirely developing ~ express Leibniz’s thought, but instead the ing areas, to the neighbouring parts that
them, since ‘this communication stretches maximum degree of its possible concilia- bathe and penetrate the given body, and
out indefinitely’. * A labyrinth is said, tion with Locke. The text also fashions a that determine its curvature. Dividing
etymologically, to be multiple because it way of representing what Leibniz will endlessly, the parts of matter form little
contains many folds. The multiple is not always affirm: a correspondence and even vortices ina maelstrom, and in these are
only what has many parts but also what is a communication between the two levels, found even more vortices, even smaller,
folded in many ways. A labyrinth corre- between the two labyrinths, between the and even more are spinning in the concave
sponds exactly to each level: the continu- pleats of matter and the folds in the soul. A intervals of the whirls that touch one
ous labyrinth in matter and its parts, the fold between the two folds? And the same another.
labyrinth of freedom in the soul and its image, that of veins in marble, is applied to Matter thus offers an infinitely porous,
predicates.° If Descartes did not know how the two under different conditions. Some- spongy or cavernous texture without
to get through the labyrinth, it was because times the veins are the pleats of matter that emptiness, caverns endlessly contained in
he sought its secret of continuity in rectilin- surround living beings held in the mass, other caverns: no matter how small, each
ear tracks, and the secret of liberty ina such that the marble tile resembles a body contains a world pierced with irregu-
rectitude of the soul. He knew the rippling lake that teems with fish. Some- lar passages, surrounded and penetrated
inclension of the soul as little as he did the times the veins are innate ideas in the soul, by an increasingly vaporous fluid, the
curvature of matter. A ‘cryptographer’ is like twisted figures or powerful statues totality of the universe resembling ‘a pond
needed, someone who can at once account caught in the block of marble. Matter is of matter in which there exist different flows
for nature and decipher the soul, who can marbled, of two different styles. and waves’.® From this, however, we could
peer into the crannies of matter and read Wolfflin noted that the Baroque is marked not conclude, in the second place, that
into the folds of the soul.* by acertain number of material traits: even the most refined matter is perfectly
Clearly the two levels are connected (this horizontal widening of the lower floor, - fluid and thus loses its texture (according to
being why continuity rises up into the soul). flattening of the pediment, low and curved a thesis that Leibniz imputes to Descartes).
There are souls down below, sensitive stairs that push into space; matter handled Descartes’ error probably concerns what is
animal: and there even exists a lower level in masses or aggregates, with the rounding to be found in different areas. He believed
in the souls. The pleats of matter surround of angles and avoidance of perpendiculars;- that the real distinction between parts
and envelop them. When we learn that the circular acanthus replacing the jagged entailed separability. What specifically
souls cannot be furnished with windows acanthus, use of limestone to produce defines an absolute fluid is the absence of
opening onto the outside, we must first, at spongy, cavernous shapes, or to constitute coherence or cohesion; that is, the separa-
the very least, include souls upstairs, a vortical form always put in motion by bility of parts, which in fact applies only toa

33
passive and abstract matter.° According to metal in mines resemble the curves of are always determined from without or by
Leibniz, two parts of really distinct matter conical forms, sometimes ending in a circle the surrounding environment. Thus, in the
can be inseparable, as shown not only by or an ellipse, sometimes stretching into a case of living beings, an inner formative
the action of surrounding forces that hyperbola or a parabola.'* The model for fold is transformed through evolution, with
determine the curvilinear movement of a the sciences of matter is the ‘origami’, as the organism’s development. Whence the
body, but also by the pressure of surround- the Japanese philosopher might say, or the necessity of a preformation. Organic matter
ing forces that determine its hardness art of folding paper. is not, however, different from inorganic
(coherence, cohesion) or the inseparability Two consequences result that provide a matter (here, the distinction of a first anda
of its parts. Thus it must be stated that a sense of the affinity of matter with life and second matter is irrelevant). Whether
body has a degree of hardness as well as a organisms. To be sure, organic folds have organic or inorganic, matter is all one; but
degree of fluidity, or that it is essentially their own specificity, as fossils demon- active forces are not the only ones exerted
elastic, the elastic force of bodies being the strate. But on the one hand, the division of upon it. To be sure, these are perfectly
expression of the active compressive force parts in matter does not go without a material or mechanical forces, where
exerted on matter. When a boat reaches a decomposition of bending movement or of indeed souls cannot be made to intervene:
certain speed a wave becomes as hard as flexions. We see this in the development of for the moment, vitalism is a strict organism.
a wall of marble. The atomistic hypothesis the egg, where numerical division is only Material forces, which account for the
of an absolute hardness and the Cartesian the condition of morphogenic movements, organic fold. have only to be distinguished
hypothesis of an absolute fluidity are joined and of invagination as a pleating. On the from the preceding forces, and be added to
all the more because they share the error other hand, the formation of the organism it; they must suffice, where they are ex-
that posits separable minima, either in the would remain an improbable mystery, ora erted, to transform raw matter into organic
form of finite bodies or in infinity in the form miracle, even if matter were to divide to matter. In contrast to compressive or elastic
of points (the Cartesian line as site of its infinity into independent points. But it forces, Leibniz calls them ‘plastic forces’.
points, the analytical punctual equation). becomes increasingly probable and natural They organise masses but, although the
This is what Leibniz explains in an when an infinity of indeterminate states is latter prepare organisms or make them
extraordinary piece of writing: a flexible or given (already folded over each other), possible by means of motivating drive, it is
an elastic body still has cohering parts that each of which includes a cohesion at its impossible to go from masses to organ-
form a fold, such that they are not sepa- level, Somewhat like the improbability of isms, since organs are always based on
rated into parts of parts but are rather forming a word by chance with separate these plastic forces that preform them, and
divided to infinity in smaller and smaller letters, but with far more likelihood with are distinguished from forces of mass, to
folds that always retain a certain cohesion. syllables or inflections.'° the point where every organ is born from a
Thus a continuous labyrinth is not a line In the third place, it is evident that pre-existing organ." Even fossils in matter
dissolving into independent points, as motivating force becomes the mechanism are not explained by our faculty of imagina-
flowing sand might dissolve into grains, but of matter. If the world is infinitely cavernous, _tion: when, for example, we see that the
resembles a sheet of paper divided into if worlds exist in the tiniest bodies, itis head of Christ we fancy in the spots ona
infinite folds or separated into bending because everywhere there can be found ‘a wall refers to plastic forces that wind
movements, each one determined by the spirit in matter,’ which attests not only to the through organisms that already exist.
consistent or conspiring surrounding. ‘The infinite division of parts but also to If plastic forces can be distinguished, it is
division of the continuous must not be taken progressivity in the gain and loss of move- not because living matter exceeds me-
as that of sand dividing into grains, but as ment all while the conservation of force is chanical processes, but because mecha-
that of a sheet of paper or of a tunic in folds, realised. The matter-fold is a matter-time; its nisms are not sufficient to be machines. A
in such a way that an infinite number of characteristics resemble the continuous mechanism is faulty not for being too
folds can be produced, some smaller than discharge of an ‘infinity of wind-muskets’.'* artificial to account for living matter, but for
others, but without the body ever dissolving And there still we can imagine the affinity of not being mechanical enough, for not being
into points or minima’.'°A fold is always matter for life insofar as a muscular concep- adequately machined. Our mechanisms
folded within a fold, like acavernina tion of matter inspires force in all things. By are in fact organised into parts that are not
cavern. The unit of matter, the smallest invoking the propagation of light and ‘the in themselves machines, while the organ-
element of the labyrinth, is the fold, not the explosion into luminosity’, by making an ism is infinitely machined, a machine whose
point which is never a part, but a simple elastic, inflammable, and explosive spirit every part or piece is amachine, but only
extremity of the line. That is why parts of from animal spirits, Leibniz turns his back ‘transformed by different folds that it
matter are masses or aggregates, asa on cartesianism. He renews the tradition of receives’.'’ Plastic forces are thus more
correlative to elastic compressive force. Van Helmont and is inspired by Boyle’s machinelike than they are mechanical, and
Unfolding is thus not the contrary of folding, experimentation.'® In short, to the extent they allow for the definition of Baroque
but follows the fold up to the following fold. that folding is not opposed to unfolding, machines. It might be claimed that mecha-
Particles are ‘turned into folds,’ that a such is also the case in the pairs tension- nisms of inorganic nature already stretch to
‘contrary effort changes over and again’."' release and contraction-dilation (but not infinity because the motivating force is of an
Folds of winds, of waters, of fire and earth, condensation-rarefaction, which would already infinite composition, or that the fold
and subterranean folds of veins of ore ina imply a void). always refers to other folds. But it requires
mine. In asystem of complex interactions, The lower level or floor is thus also that each time, an external determination,
the solid pleats of ‘natural geography’ refer composed of organic matter. An organism or the direct action of the surroundings, is
to the effect first of fire, and then of waters is defined by the endogenous folds, while needed in order to pass from one level to
and winds on the earth; and the veins of inorganic matter has exogenous folds that another; without this we would have to stop,

34
as with our mechanisms. The living organ- clothing, he means that his underwear is Leibniz, as for the Baroque, the principles
ism, on the contrary, by virtue of preforma- not the same as his outer garments. That is of reason are veritable cries: Not everything
tion has an internal destiny that makes it why metamorphosis or ‘metaschematism’ is fish, but fish are teeming everywhere...
move from fold to fold, or that makes pertains to more than mere change of Universality does not exist, but living things
machines from machines all the way to dimension: every animal is double — but as are ubiquitous.
infinity. We might say that between organic a heterogeneous or heteromorphic crea- It might be said that the theory of prefor-
and inorganic things there exists a differ- ture, just as the butterfly is folded into the mation and duplication, as observations
ence of vector, the latter going toward caterpillar that will soon unfold. The double made through the microscope confirm, has
increasingly greater masses in which will even be simultaneous to the degree that long been abandoned. The meaning of
statistical mechanisms are operating, the the ovule is not a mere envelope but development or evolution has turned topsy-
former toward increasingly smaller, polar- furnishes one part whose other is in the turvy since it now designates epigenesis —
ised masses in which the force of an male element.” In fact, it is the inorganic the appearance of organs and organisms
individuating machinery, an internal that repeats itself, with a difference of neither preformed nor closed one within the
individuation, is applied. Is this Leibniz’s proximate dimension, since it is always an other, but formed from something else that
premonition of several aspects that will exterior site which enters the body; the does not resemble them: the organ does
come true only much later?'® No doubt, for organism, in contrast, envelops an interior not arch back to a pre-existing organ, but to
Leibniz, internal individuation will only be site that contains necessarily other species amuch more general and less differenti-
explained at the level of souls: organic of organisms, those that envelop in their ated design.** Development does not go
interiority is only derivative, and has but one turn the interior sites containing yet other from smaller to greater things through
container of coherence or cohesion (not of organisms: ‘Each portion of matter may be growth or augmentation, but from the
inherence or ‘inhesion’). It is an interiority of conceived as a garden full of
space, and not yet of motion; also, an plants, and as a pond full of The Baroque House (an allegory)
internalisation of the outside, an fish. But every branch of
invagination of the outside that could not each plant, every member of en
occur all alone if no true interiorities did not each animal, and every drop
exist e/sewhere. It remains the case that the of their liquid parts is in itself Closed private room,
organic body thus confers an interior on likewise a similar garden or decorated with a ‘drapery
diversified by folds’
matter, by which the principle of individua- pond.’?' Thus the inorganic
tion is applied to it: whence the figure of the fold happens to be simple
leaves of a tree, two never being exactly and direct, while the organic
alike because of their veins or folds. fold is always composite,
Folding-unfolding no longer simply alternating and indirect
means tension-release, contraction- (mediated by an interior
dilation, but enveloping-developing, surrounding).
involution-evolution. The organism is Matter is folded twice,
defined by its ability to fold its own parts once under elastic forces, a
and to unfold them, not to infinity, but toa second time under plastic
degree of development assigned to each forces, but one is not able to Common rooms, with ‘several small
species. Thus an organism is enveloped by move from the first to the openings’ the five senses
organisms one within another (interlocking second. Thus the universe is
of germinal matter), like Russian dolls. The neither a great living being, nor is it in itself general to the special, through differentia-
first fly contains the seeds of all flies to an Animal: Leibniz rejects this hypothesis tions of an initially undifferentiated field
come, each being called in its turn to unfold as much as he rejects that of a universal either under the action of exterior Surround-
its own parts at the right time. And when an Spirit. Organisms retain an irreducible ings or under the influence of internal forces
organism dies, it does not really vanish, but individuality, and organic descendants that are directive, directional, but that
folds in upon itself, abruptly involuting into retain an irreducible plurality. It remains remain neither constituitive nor
the again newly dormant seed by skipping that the two kinds of force, the two kinds of preformative. However, insofar as
all intermediate stages. The simplest way of folds — masses and organisms — are strictly preformism exceeds simple metric varia-
stating the point is by saying that to unfold co-extensive. There are no fewerliving tions, it tends to be aligned with an
is to increase, to grow; whereas to fold is to beings than parts of inorganic matter.” epigenesis, to the extent that epigenesis is
diminish, to reduce, to ‘withdraw into the Clearly an exterior site is not a living being; forced to hold to a kind of virtual or potential
recesses of a world’."® Yet a simple metric rather, itis alake, a pond or a fish hatchery. preformation. The essential is elsewhere;
change would not account for the differ- Here the figure of the lake or pond acquires basically, two conceptions share the
ence between the organic and the inor- anew meaning, since the pond — and the common trait of conceiving the organism as
ganic, the machine and its motive force. It marble tile — no longer refer to elastic waves a fold, an orginary folding or creasing (and
would fail to show that movement does not that swim through them like inorganic folds, biology has never reflected this determina-
simply go from one greater or smaller part but to fish that inhabit them like organic tion of living matter, as shown nowadays
to another, but from fold to fold. When a part folds. And in life itself the inner sites with the fundamental pleating of globular
of amachine is still a machine, the smaller contained are even more hatcheries full of protein). Preformism is the form in which
unit is not the same as the whole. When other fish: a ‘swarm’. Inorganic folds of sites this truth of the 17-century is perceived
Leibniz invokes Harlequin’s layers of move between two organic folds. For through the first microscopes. It is hardly

35
surprising that from then on the same surviving in ashes, without the unity-souls the parts of matter). From this moment on
problems are found in the sense of from which they are inseparable, and which any localisation of the soul in an area of the
epigenesis and preformation. break away from Malebranche: not only Is body, no matter how tiny it may be, amounts
Thus can all types of folding be called there a preformation of bodies, but also a rather to a projection from the top to the
modifications or degrees of developments pre-existence of souls in fertile seeds. *° Life bottom, a projection of the soul focalising
of asame Animal in itself? Or are there is not only everywhere, but souls are on a ‘point’ of the body, in conformity with
types of irreducible foldings, as Leibniz everywhere in matter. Thus, when an Desargues’ geometry, that develops from a
believes in a preformist perspective and as organism is called to unfold its own parts, Baroque perspective. In short, the primary
Cuvier and Baér also contend from an its animal or sensitive soul is opened onto reason for an upper floor is the following:
epigenic standpoint? *° Certainly a great an entire theatre in which it perceives or there are souls on the lower floor, some of
opposition subsists between the two points feels according to its unity, independently whom are chosen to become reasonable,
of view. With epigenesis the organic fold is of its organism, yet inseparable from it. thus to change their levels.
produced, is unearthed, or is pushed up But— and here is the whole problem — Movement, then, cannot be stopped. The
from a relatively smooth and consistent what happens with bodies, from the time of reciprocation of the Leibnizian principle
surface. (How could a redoubling, an Adam’s seed that envelops them, that are holds not only for reasonable souls but also
invagination or an intubation be prefig- destined to become humans? Juridically, for animal or sensible souls themselves: if.
ured?) Now with preformism an organic fold one might say that they carry in a nutshell ‘a two really distinct things can be insepara-
always ensues from another fold, at least on sort of sealed act’ that marks their fate. And ble, two inseparable things can be really
the inside from a same type of organisation: when the hour comes for them to unfold distinct, and belong to two levels, the
every fold originates from a fold, plica ex their parts, to attain a degree of organic localisation of the one in the other amount-
plica. |\f Heideggerian terms can be used, development proper to man, or to form ing to a projection upon a point (‘| do not
we can Say that the fold of epigenesis is an cerebral folds, at the same time their animal think that we can consider souls as being in
Einfalt, or that it is the differentiation of an soul becomes reasonable by gaining a points, perhaps we might say . . . that they
undifferentiated, but that the fold from greater degree of unity (mind): ‘The organ- are ina place through a connection’). As
preformation is a Zweifalt, not a fold in two — ised body would receive at the same time degrees of unity, animal souls are already
since every fold can only be thus — buta the disposition of the human body, and its on the other floor, everything being accom-
‘fold-of-two’, an entre-deux, something soul would be raised to the stage of a plished mechanically in the animal itself at
‘between’ in the sense that a difference is reasonable soul, but | cannot decide here if the lower level. Plastic or machinic forces
being differentiated. From this point of view it occurs through an ordinary process or an are part of the ‘derivative forces’ defined
we cannot be sure if preformism does not extraordinary work of God.’ °° Then in every only in respect to the matter that they
have a future. event this becoming is an elevation, an organise. But souls, on the contrary, are
Masses and organisms, masses and exaltation: a change of theatre, of rule, of ‘primitive forces’ or immaterial principles of
living beings thus fill the lower level. Why level or of floors. The theatre of matter gives . life that are defined only in respect to the
then is another story needed, since sensi- way to that of spirits or of God. In the inside, in the self, and ‘through analogy with
tive or animal souls are already there, Baroque the soul entertains a complex the mind’. We can nonetheless remember
inseparable from organic bodies? Each relation with the body. Forever that these animal souls, with their Subju-
soul even seems apt to be localised in its indissociable from the body, it discovers a gated organism, exist everywhere in
body, this time as ‘point’ in a droplet, that vertiginous animality that gets it tangled in inorganic matter. Thus in its turn inorganic
subsists in a part of the droplet when the the pleats of matter, but also an organic or matter reverts to souls whose site is else-
latter is divided or diminished in volume: cerebral humanity (the degree of develop- where, higher up, and that is only projected
thus, in death the soul remains right where it ment) that allows it to rise up, and that will upon it. In all probability a body — however
was, in apart of the body, however reduced make It ascend over all other folds. small- follows a curvilinear trajectory only
it may be. Leibniz states that the point of The reasonable soul is free, like a under the impulsion of the second species
view is in the body.”’ Surely everything in Cartesian diver, to fall back down at death of derivative forces, compressive or elastic
the body works like a machine, in accord- and to climb up again at the last judgment. forces that determine the curve through the
ance with plastic forces that are material, As Leibniz notes, the tension is between the mechanical notion of the surrounding
but these forces explain everything except collapse and the elevation or ascension bodies on the outside: isolated, the body
for the variable degrees of unitytowhich that in different spots is breaching the would follow the straight tangent. But still,
they bring the masses they are organising organised masses. We move from funerary mechanical laws or extrinsic determinations
(a plant, aworm, a vertebrate. . .) Plastic figures of the Basilica of Saint Laurence to (collisions) explain everything except the
forces of matter act on masses, but they the figures on the ceiling of Saint Ignatius. It unity of a concrete movement, no matter
submit them to real unities that they take for might be claimed that physical gravity and how irregular or variable it may be. Unity of
granted. They make an organic synthesis, religious elevation are quite different and movement is an affair of the soul, and
but assume the soul as the unity of synthe- do not pertain to the same world. However, almost of a conscience, as Bergson will
sis, or as the ‘immaterial principle of life’. these are two vectors that are allotted as later discover. Just as the totality of matter
Only there does an animism find a connec- such in the distinction of the two levels or arches back to a curving that can no longer
tion with organicism, from the standpoint of floors of a single and same world, or of the be determined from the outside, the
pure unity or of union, independently of all single and same house. It is because the curvilinear course followed by a given body
causal action. “It remains that organisms body and the soul have no point in being under the impetus of the outside goes back
would not on their account have the causal inseparable, for they are not in the least to a ‘higher’, internal and individuating,
power to be folded to infinity, and of really distinct (we have already seen it for unity on the other floor, that contains the

36
‘law of curvilinearity’, the law of folds or Letter to Des Billettes, December 1696 (Gerhardt, variations of cutting.
changes of direction. *' The same move- Philosophy, V\|, p452). 21 Monadologie, §67-70.
ment is always determined from the out- Table of Definitions (C, p486) and New Essays, |, 22 Cf Serres, |, p371.
side, through collisions, insofar as it is ch 23, §23. 23 Letter to Arnauld, September 1687 (p118).
related to derivative force, but unified from Placidus Philalethi(C, pp614-615). 24 In the name of the epigenese, Dalcq may say: ‘A
the inside, to the degree it is related to Letter to Des Billettes, p453. caudal appendices could have obtained from a
primitive force. In the first relation, the curve Protogaea (Dutens ||; and tr... fr by Bertrand de system of action and of reaction .. . or nothing is
is accidental and derived from the straight Saint-Germain, 1850, Ed English). On the conical caudal a priori’(The Egg and its Dynamic
line, but in the second it is primary, such veins, ch 8. Organisation, Ed Albin Michel, p194).
that the motive force sometimes is me- 13 This theme will be developed by Willard Gibbs. 25 Geoffrey Saint-Hillaire, partisan of epigenese, is
chanically explained through the action of a Leibniz supposes that God does not trace ‘the first one of the greatest thinkers on organic folds. He
subtle surrounding, and sometimes is alignments of the tender earth’ without producing considered ditterent folds as modifications of a
understood from the inside as the interior of something ‘analogous to the structure of animal or sigle animal. One can go from one to the other to
the body, ‘the cause of movement that is of plants’ (Protogaea, ch 8). fold again (united by a plan of composition), if one
already in the body’, and that only awaits 14 Letter to Des Billettes; and Letter to Bayle, folds a vertebrae ‘in such a way that the two parts
the suppression of an obstacle from the December 1698 (GPh, III, p57) cf Gueroult, of its spine are brought together, the head near its
outside. Dynamic and Metaphysical Leibnizians, The feet, its pelvis near its nape, and its viscera inside
Hence the need for a second floor is Beautiful Letters, p32: ‘How is the spring con- the cephalopodes'’. This instigates the opposition
everywhere affirmed to be strictly meta- served if one does not suppose that the body is by Baér, in the name of the epigenese, and already
physical. The soul itself is what constitutes composed, such that it can contract in pursuit of its the anger of Cuvier who poses the diversity of axes
the other floor or the inside up above, where pores the particles of subtle manner which of development or of plans of organisation (cf
there are no windows to allow entry of penetrate it, and in return this more subtle matter Geoffrey, Principles of Zoological Philosophy).
influence from without. Even in a physical can expel from its pores an even more subtle Despite his monism, however, Geoffrey could call
sense we are moving across outer material matter etc to infinity?’ himself leibnizian in other respects: he explains the
pleats to inner animated, spontaneous 15 On elasticity and the detonation, which inspire the organism by a material force which does not
folds. These are what we must now exam- concept of reflex in Willis (1621-1675), on the change the nature of the body, but adds to it in new
ine, in their nature and in their development. differences of this model with that of Descartes, cf ways and new relations. It is an impulsive, electric
Everything moves as if the pleats of matter Georges Canguilhem, The Formation ofthe force, or tractive in the manner of Kepler, capable
possessed no reason in themselves. It is Concept of Reflex in the XVII and XVIII Century, of ‘re-folding’ the elastic fluids and operating at
because the Fold is always between two PUF, pp60-67. Malebranche attempts to reconcile three short distances in the ‘world of details’ or in
folds, and because the between-two folds the theme of the spring and of relaxation (loosen- the small infinity, no longer by summation of
seems to move about everywhere: is it ing) with Cartesianism, at the same time in the homogeneous parts, but affronted by homologous
between inorganic bodies and organisms, inorganic and in the organism: Search for Truth, V|, parts (Synthetic notions and histories of natural
between organisms and animal souls, ch 8 &9 (‘any stiff body which does nothing can philoSophy).
between animal souls and reasonable spring ... +). 26 Letter to Des Bosses, March 1706 (in Christiane
souls, between bodies and souls in 16 Letter to Lady Masham, July 1705 (GPh, III, p368) Fremont, The being and the relation, Ed Vrin) and in
general? and Considerations on the Principles of Life and on a letter to Arnauld, April 1687 (p 100): an insect
Plastic Nature (GPh, VI, pp544 & p553): the having been cut into a thousand pieces, its soul
Translation by Tom Conley principles of life are immaterial, but not the ‘plastic stays ‘in acertain living part, which will always be
faculty’. On fossils, cf Protogaea, ch 28. smaller than it made to be covered by the action of
Notes id New system of nature, §10. Monadologie, §64: ‘The that which tore him apart. . .’
1 New system of Nature and of the communication of tooth of a brass wheel has parts or fragments that 27 Letter to Lady Masham, June 1704 (p357).
substances, §7. to us are no more than something artificial, which 28 Principles of nature and of Grace, §4: ‘an infinity of
2 Monadologie, § 61 and Principles of Nature and of have no relation to the machine other than to the degrees’ in the souls and New System of Nature,
Grace founded in reason, §13. use of the destined wheel. But the machines of Silty
3 OnLiberty (Foucher de Careil, New letters and nature, that is to say living bodies, are again 29 Monadologie, §74.
opuscules). machines in their small parts until infinity’. Letter to 30 God's cause interceded by his justice, §§81-85
4 Oncryptography as art of inventing a key of Lady Masham, p374: ‘The plastic force in the and Theodicee, §91, 397.
something enveloped, fragment A book on machine’. 31 Clarifications of difficulties that Mr Bayle found in
combination... (Couturat, Opuscules). And New 18 On the technological conception of Leibniz, his the new system. ..(GPh, IV, pp544, 558). Gueroult
Essays on human understanding, |V, ch17, §8: the opposition to that of Descartes and his modernity, has shown how the external determinism and the

folds in Nature and the ‘summaries’. cf Michael Serres, The System of Leibniz, PUF, ll, internal spontaneity reconcile themselves

5 NewEssays, Il, ch12, §1. In this book, Leibniz ‘re- pp491-510, p621. perfectly, already by account to the physical

makes’ the Essays by Locke: the dark room is well 19 Letter to Arnauld, April 1687 (GPh, II, p99). bodies: pp203-207; and p163 (‘the elasticity is now

invoked by Locke, but not the folds. 20 New Essays, Ill, chap 6, §23. It is thus by mistake considered as an expression of the first spontane-

6 CfW6lfflin, Renaissance and Baroque, Ed Monfort. that Bonnet (Philosophic palingenesie) reproaches ity, of the primitive active force’.)
7 New Essays, preface. his teacher Leibniz for having refrained from

Page 32: Peter Eisenman, Rebstock Park,

Frankfurt, view of the model

37
 PETER EISENMAN
FOLDING IN TIME
The Singularity of Rebstock

Modern urbanism, which marked a radical direction. However, unlike the horizontal
change in urban form, was articulated in extrusions of Le Corbusier at Algiers and
three different building types: the high-rise Nemours, it eschewed pattern for its
or point block; the piloti or the horizontally autonomous condition of form. This au-
extruded slab and the sied/ung. While all tonomy brought a new principle to building
three played a dominant role in the devel- typology. The sied/ung, unlike any other
opment of the city in the 20th century it was previous building type had no back or front.
the sied/ung form which dominated German In asense it was all front since the apart-
urbanism in the first half of the century. ments were entered on both sides of what
Nowhere was this evocation more promi- was a conceptual line; a line which had no
nent than in the area in and around the city hierarchy and no regard for the traditional
of Frankfurt. ideas of place and the public and private
With the advent of the idea of mass realm. In one sense the s/ed/ung form with
production, multiplicity and repetition on its denial of former patterns of land owner-
the one hand and the need for health and ship and privilege was an ideal incarnation
hygiene on the other coupled with the for the social ideas of the time. In the world
emerging need for mass housing — a new of the siedlung, everyone and everywhere
housing industry and with it a new technol- was equal. Whether of spatial modulation or
ogy of standardisation was born. These individual identity, difference was homog-
new ideas of repetition and standardisation enised in favour of an implacable idea.
brought about a need to re-think urban form Quite naturally such a totalising idealisa-
~ typology and in particular the perimeter tion would be eventually problematised.
block which had been the staple of German This was the case in the immediate post-
housing in the previous centuries. The war years when the devastation of the
problem with the perimeter block was European city required an urgent solution.
twofold: on the one hand it conformed to an Now, while the problem of the mass re-
outdated urban pattern of streets which mained the same, the solution was of
made each repetition unique rather than necessity to be different. No longer was the
standard; and on the other hand the cool rationality and autonomy of the
perimeter block was enclosing and there- siedlung form thought to be sufficient to
fore not metaphorically open to the new provide for the possibility of a restored
concerns for health and hygiene. urban fabric. In fact, the desolation of the
The siedlung form brought a new attitude siediung was seen to be as much of a
to urban structure. In the 18th century, problem to the urban context as was the
urban building was considered traditionally bombing. In the flight from the grim reality
as ground with the void spaces as figure. of post-war Germany, the sied/ung was
This changed in the late 19th century when abandoned and the picturesque nostalgia
the grand boulevards and avenues cut of the perimeter block returned as an
through not only the existing fabric, but into evocation of the past, now projected into
the open land surrounding the cities where the future present.
no urban pattern existed. Now the thor- The argument proposed here is that the
oughfares became the ground to figural idea inherent in the sied/ung type was not
building which defined its edges. The wrong but was rather poorly or inad-
siedlung changed this again and the equately conceptualised, particularly in
ground became a neutral datum, while the relationship to the changing ideas of the
buildings which were still seen as figural individual and mechanical repetition.
had no relationship to any existing pattern. Therefore, it will be argued that itis nota
However, the sied/ung was not a true figure return to the structures of the past that is the
in the sense of a perimeter block or a solution to urban form today, but is perhaps
freestanding villa. It was a new linear type a reconsideration of the sied/ung type with
form that could be extended infinitely in one respect to ideas of the individual and

39
repetition which may provide a possible sense they are both original; the craft volumes of Cartesian space, these platonic
context for a solution. This reconsideration product being individual and the bentwood solids that contain the stylisms and images
of the sied/ung is the basis for the urban furniture multiple. Now there is a difference of not only classical but also modern and
strategy deployed in the Rebstock project. between the multiple or repetition in post-modern space, are really nothing
Basically, this reconsideration deals with mechanical reproduction and repetition in more than a condition of ideology taken for
two aspects of 20th-century urbanism: electronic reproduction: this is the differ- neutral or natural. Thus, it may be possible
space and time on the one hand and ence between a photograph and a telefax. to take the notion of the fold — the crossing
repetition and the individual on the other. The photograph is produced mechani- or an extension from a point — as an other
What the sied/ung did was to treat the idea cally. It is a product of repetition nota kind of neutrality. Deleuze goes on to argue
of the individual unit within a new idea of the unique handmade artifact — that is, itis not that Leibniz’s notion of this extension is the
multiple; that is the repetitive unit was an object of art as craft. The mechanical notion of the event: ‘Extension is the
treated as if it were the same as the indi- paradigm dealt with the shift in value from philosophical movement outward along a
vidual unit in the figuration of the perimeter the individual hand (the hand of a painter as plane rather than downward in depth.’ He
block. In doing so it caused the individual an original maker) to the value of the hand argues that in mathematical studies of
unit to lose its specific identity. Whereas the as intermediary (as in the developer of raw variation, the notion of object is change.
unit in the perimeter block retained its film); from the creation of an individual to This new object for Deleuze is no longer
individuality because of the overall specific the mediation of the multiple. The photo- concerned with the framing of space, but
character and figuration of the block, in the graph can be manipulated by an individual rather a temporal modulation that implies a
siedlung the block lost its identity and so to have more contrast, more texture, more continual variation of matter. The continual
did the individual unit. tone. Thus, within the mechanical repetition variation is characterised through the
This change in the idea of the individual of a photograph there remains a unique, agency of the fold: ‘No longer is an object
unit in the sied/ung can also be seen in the individual quality; it remains a particular defined by an essential form.’ He calls this
change in the role of individual expression. object, even within the idea of the multiple. idea of an object, an ‘object event.’
With the individual unit this change lies In electronic repetition, that is, the The idea of event is critical to the discus-
partly in the nature of the conception of its telefax, there is less human intervention, a sion of singularity. Event proposes a
repetition. In this context, repetition not only less value-added dimension by the indi- different kind of time which is outside of
involves space but also time. It will be vidual. Furthermore, the condition of the narrative time or dialectical time. This other
argued here that the idea of repetition has original is thrown into question. Whereas time, this outside of time begins to condition
been greatly altered by the shift from what one can agree that there is an original the idea of event as well as the idea of
can be called the mechanical paradigm to negative plate for a photograph and that singularity. The latter attempts to restore
the present era of the electronic paradigm. this plate can be reproduced, there is no that quality of individuality lost in the
The idea of repetition has changed be- negative plate in a telefax. The original that siedlung, without resorting to the static 19th
cause the idea of time has changed. may be on a disk in a computer is no longer - century idea of individuality. Singularity can
Formerly, time in the mechanical paradigm an object but rather a series of electronic be defined as different from either the
was narrative, linear and sequential. impulses stored in a matrix. Even the disk individual, the specific or the particular.
Now, because of media, time has lost its original is often modified by corrections and Whereas the particular can always be
immediacy. Time can be speeded up or thus a unique original is rarely kept. And in defined in relation to the general, singularity
slowed down, replayed or fast-forwarded. fact now, with telefax, the original may not can not. Singularity is always other, always
The consequence of this change of the even ever be sent so as to not confuse its different. Singularity is an individuality no
condition of time in the electronic media reception with the reception of the telefax. longer able to belong to the realm of
also clearly faces us with the loss of The question remains how does one multiple as formerly defined. For singularity
individual expression and response to an make an urbanism in this new media time, a does not mean that a thing is simply unique.
immediate or present action. This loss simultaneous time of narration and repeti- Singularity refers to the possibility ina
cannot be replaced by merely reinstating tion? For this answer it is possible to repetition or a multiple for one copy to be
the old forms of individual expression, introduce two interconnected concepts: the different from another copy. The difference
because media has brought about a idea of the fold and the idea of singularity — lies not so much in form, in size or in shape
permanent change in the nature of multi- concepts which are both active in the as in the distinction of a this thing from any
plicity and repetition. This difference Rebstock project. other like thing. Singularity resides in this
became important as early as the late 19th For Gilles Deleuze, the fold opens up a ‘otherness’ of the time of such a this thing;
century. The change is addressed by Walter new conception of space and time. He not so much in its form or space.
Benjamin in his essay Art in the Age of argues in Le Pi that, ‘Leibniz turned his Place and time when no longer defined
Mechanical Reproduction in which he back on Cartesian rationalism, on the notion by the grid but rather by the fold, will still
states that a photograph is clearly an of effective space and argued that in the exist, but not as place and time in its former
original, although a different kind of original labyrinth of the continuous the smallest context, that is, as static, figural space. This
from that which, let us say, is crafted by element is not the point but the fold.’ If this other definition of time and place will
hand. In one sense the art or the craft idea is taken into architecture it produces involve both the simulacrum of time and
product, such as a handmade piece of the following argument. Traditionally, place as well as the former reality of time
furniture or ahandmade book, is different architecture is conceptualised as Cartesian and place. Narrative time is consequently
from a book that is made on a mechanical space, as a series of point grids. Planning altered. From here to there in space
press or a piece of bentwood furniture envelopes are volumes of Cartesian space involves real time; only in mediated time,
which is reproduced many times. In another which seem to be neutral. Of course these that is, the time of film or video, can time be

40
speeded up or collapsed. Today the possibility of the fold. spatial condition. In the fold there is a
architecture of the event must deal with The folded ground of Rebstock inhabits a specificity of location but now as a singular-
both times: its former time and future time of nether world of a time between the organic ity not bound by traditional co-ordinates of
before and after and the media time, the and the crystal; between surface and space and time.
time of the present which must contain the depth. The mediating device between the The use of the fold in Rebstock might
before and the after. organism and the crystal is the idea of the reveal other conditions which may always
Events correspond to what Deleuze calls membrane, and in the case of Rebstock it is have been immanent or repressed in the
a heterogeneous series, which is organised the folded surface. The fold is an aspect of urban fabric of Frankfurt: conditions of
into a system which is neither stable nor singularity. The fold is never the same, singularity seen in terms of the ebb and flow
unstable; in other words, not in a dialectical either in space or time. It is a physical of time which could reframe existing
either/or relationship but rather endowed condition of difference, of a ‘thisness’ rather structures. The idea of the fold as a time
with what can be called a potential energy. than an ‘objectness’. A folded surface event is neither a call for a radical interven-
Potential energy is the energy of the event. maps relationships without recourse to size tion into the Rebstock area nor a return to
Potential energy lies in the pre-present. An or distance; it is conceptualised in the the nostalgia of context as a tabula rasa.
event is that which is previous to the difference between a topological anda Rather, it is to see something which extends
present and which also lingers after. It Euclidean surface. A topological surface is an existing context into time, producing in
includes the time of nothingness which is a condition of mapping without the neces- this extension the possibility of singularity.
prior to and after the present of the event. sary definition of distance. And without the Due to the omnipresent simulacra of the
These events can never realise the old definition of distance there is another kind electronic paradigm, a time-bound place
linear time of a stasis that inhabited those of time, one of anomadic relationship of has lost its placeness. It has moved to a
places, because today these very places points. These points are no longer fixed by kind of placeless, timeless condition. The
are overwhelmed with a new mediated time X, Y and Z co-ordinates; they may be called fold attempts not to return place and time
of repetition — with speeding up and X, Y and Z but they no longer have a fixed, as they were formerly, but to bring them into
slowing down; with ‘instant replays’ that do spatial place. In this sense they are without the fold.
not replicate narrative time. Therefore, any place, they are placeless on the topological
condition of place has to be more con- ground. Thus, Rebstock uses the fold as an
cerned with this ‘other’ notion of the particu- attempt to produce conditions of a singular-
lar and the specific which acknowledges ity of place and time using the sied/ung.
this time of repetition. Image must be Here the topological event, the dissolution
replaced by mapping, and individuality of figure and ground into a continuum,
reconceptualised in the idea of singularity. reside physically in the fold; no longer in the
This raises the possibility of reading the ‘point or the grid. The ground surface as a
siedliung in another frame of reference, one membrane which becomes a topological
different from the traditional figure-ground. event/structure is also simultaneously the
The sied/ung form assumed a ground building form. This topological event/
datum as both neutral and ideal. Itwas a structure which has a before and after as
ground that was infinitely extendable and well as its own present is distinguished from
repeatable — there was no specificity of pure media which has only a present. It is
context and thus no realisable edge or the time of art beyond media. If media time
boundary, because the ground was neutral. is concerned with time in the present — the
Singularity is not something that emerges time of the simulated event — then the time
from a ground or from a figure form. It is the of singularity contains the time before and
quality of unfolding in time that allows the after within the present of the event itself.
possibility of singularity. Thus the fold can The thought-to-be neutrality of the
never be aneutral datum; it will always be a Cartesian grid or the Platonic solid was
moment if not a specific object or place in seen as a value — a place where order and
time. As such, it can be an unstable or non- rationality could begin to create specificity.
static being in time as well as place. The The Cardos and Decumanus, the earliest
fald in this sense is neither a frame nor a articulation of gridded urban space, was if
figure as ground, but contains elements of nothing else a specific symbolic point. The
both. Thus the ground of the Rebstock fold is a different kind of symbol, it is no
project must be distinguished from a longer about image or iconic representa-
ground as origin, or a ground as in figure- tion, but rather about index and mapping its
ground. The ground of Rebstock is no own being; amapping of its thisness in time
longer a datum or a base condition but as an event or a spectacle. As the sublime
rather is, in fact, something which already was to the time of the classical, so too is the
contains a condition of singularity; that is a spectacle to the time of the fold. Thus,
groundlessness which can be said to be where the specificity of the grid referred to
inherent in the notion of ground. Itis a place, the singularity of the fold refers to
groundless ground. This groundless time. In the movement from grid to fold
ground as realised at Rebstock is in the place no longer remains the dominant Previous Page: Competition site plan; Above:
Views of site

41
 sddaseviagine) See

Above: Views and intersections; Right: Concept drawings

42
PETER EISENMAN |
REBSTOCK PARK MASTERPLAN
Frankfurt, Germany

In the late 18th and early 19th century the and similarly compressing the small scale
typical perimeter housing and commercial grid onto the close site, contingent read-
block of German cities defined both the ings emerge as the two site figures fold and
street space and the interior court space as unfold, each relative to its expanded
positive. These spaces seemed literally to position. The idea of the fold gives the
have been carved out of a solid block of the traditional idea of edge a dimension. Rather
urban condition. In the mid-19th century than being seen as an abrupt line, this
with the development of the grand boul- dimension provides both mediation anda
evards and allées a new kind of spatial reframing of conditions such as old and
structure appeared. The streets were still new, transport and arrival, commerce and
positive spaces but were lined with ribbon housing. Thus the idea of folding was used
buildings, so that the rear yards became on the site to initiate new social organisa-
left over space. This idea led to the devel- tions of urban space and to reframe
opment of the German sied/ung where, existing organisations.
since there were no streets adjacent to the Rebstock Park is a five million Square foot
buildings, the backs and fronts were now housing and commercial development
the same. Now all of the open space was in located on the perimeter ring of Frankfurt
a sense left over; the ‘ground’ became a between the international airport and
wasteland. The object buildings seemed historic city centre. The project is the
detached, floating on a ground that was no winning entry in an international competi-
longer active. tion. Work on the masterplan guidelines is
Nowhere was this siedlung urbanism - scheduled for completion in early 1992 with
more prevalent than in the developing ring building design slated to begin shortly
around the urban centre of Frankfurt. In the thereafter.
post war era, with the expansion of the
autobahn and air travel, anew, more
complex task faced urban development.
The Rebstock Park masterplan endeavours
to reassess the entire idea of a static
urbanism, one which deals only with
objects rather then events, by taking into
account the evolving reality of amedia age
where dimension of the present becomes
an important aspect of the past and the
future. This new reading might reveal other
conditions which may have always been
immanent in the urban fabric allowing for
the possibility of new urban structures and
for existing structures to be seen in sucha
way that they too become displaced.
One such displacement possibility can
be found in the very history of German
thought. Leibniz conceived of matter as
explosive and continuous; the smallest
element is not the point, but the fold.
Framed by a segment of the Mercator Grid,
the Rebstock Park masterplan floats within
a rectilinear container to obscure the
residual position it occupies along Frank-
furt’s third green belt. By compressing the
large grid segment onto the site perimeter Volumetric concept

43
PETER EISENMAN
ALTEKA OFFICE BUILDING
Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo, a paradigmatic city of accumulation,

juxtaposition and compression is an index Typological elevation
of contingent, tentative relations and new,
complex urban realities. A city enfolded
within the evolving reality of amediated
age, each site is a nexus of activity that
each building tries to stabilise and repress;
a series of discontinuous and ‘monumental’
episodes they are assumed to be essential
and unchangeable .
Our project suggests an-other relation-
ship to the city. For, situated within a
condition caught between the traditional
city fabric and the Jigamae-— a new, large
avenue (its angular shape the residue of the
superposition of many consequent decision
frames) — it suggests the notion that an Infolding
object is no longer defined by an essential
form where the idea of standard was one of
maintaining an appearance of essence and
of imposing a law of constancy, but of our

ia
actual situation where the fluctuation of the
norm replaces the permanence of law when
the object takes place in a continuum by
variation. Thus with this other status the
object doesn't correspond any more toa
spatial mould but to a temporal modulation
that implies a continual variation of the
matter as much as a perpetual develop-
ment of the form. This conception is not only

WAZ
temporal but quantitative of the object. The ll
fi
object becomes an event: it is ‘eventalised’,
opening-up, un-folding. It is becoming.
The building’s concept is related to this
perpetual state of becoming: this evolution/
involution. The typological ‘el’ frees its own Unfolding
folds from their usual subordination to the
finite body, emerging from the context to
fold/unfold, contract/dilate, envelope/
develop, envolve/involve, compress/
explode in a matter-fold participation that is
a matter-time in which phenomena are like
a continuous discharge. In the labyrinth of
the continuous, the smallest element is not
the point but the fold. The building evades
its cartesian definition: not representing an
essential form, but a form ‘becoming’.
The Alteka project, a mixed use commer-
cial venture in the Shibuya district, com-
bines 30,000 ft * of retail and office space.
Envelop(e) Above: Schematic drawings

44
 plan; third level plan; Centre: Section to
Above: Basement level pl.lan; second level
Below: Model views
North; south elevation; east elevation;

45
 Background: Wire frame axonometric
Above: Views of model; Below:
Elevations

46
 PETER EISENMAN
CENTER FOR THE ARTS
Emory University, Atlanta

wl
j-

During the next four years Atlanta will be a provision of a natural point of entry to the
unique center. Not only is it the media campus. A dual promenade crosses the
,hUOBRS
capital of America, but as host for the 1996 knoll and passes through the building
Olympics Atlanta will become the focus of lobby. It arrives at an open amphitheatre
world-wide media attention. Emory’s Center and sculpture garden passing over a main
for the Arts will be a primary focus of the ravine of the campus and leads to the
Cultural Olympiad, unlike any other pro- university art museum on the historic,
posed construction on campus. Hornbostel-designed quadrangle.
The Arts Center will serve two constituen- The historical quadrangle configuration
cies: the Emory campus and the larger is based on a grid system that is deformed
community. Its primary purpose will be to by the topography of the ravine when
teach and train students in the creative extended to the Center’s site. The initial
fields of theatre, film, and music. Hundreds deformation produced by the ravine
of Emory students already take advantage approximates a fundamental sine wave,
of what the courses offer and the opportuni- similar in amplitude and frequency to the
ties for performing in a variety of disciplines ravine topography. These fundamental
on campus. In the new Center, students will lines and their related harmonic run to the
be able to converge in a single, carefully Center, affecting the site and the four ‘bars’
articulated building devoted to the pursuit which constitute the building. The harmonic
of higher standards in the arts studied and lines compress and deform the continuous
practised at Emory. The Center’s fertile surfaces of the bars, folding themina
atmosphere will permit collaboration multiplicity of different configuration.
between different creative enterprises — The fields of force represented by the
particularly important at a time when the harmonic waves inflect the bars in a double
arts draw increasingly upon each other for way; evidenced by the small-scale and
inspiration as is the case with performance large-scale folds. The two different scales
art, contemporary music and video art. express the multiplicity of reaction to a
The Center is located on the edge of the similar system and compose an ever
campus, anchoring itself on an existing changing condition. The programme
multiple level garage structure on one side comes to inhabit the folded bars providing
and projecting its main spaces onto a a transition west to east from the parking or
natural knoll. The Center will accommodate academical spaces to the lobby, and the
four major performing spaces: a music hall, main performing spaces; while the perform-
arecital hall, a theatre and a cinema. ance spaces cross from north to south
However, the notion of the event is not along a multiple level and lobby.
confined to these interior spaces alone. Currently, the 120,000 square foot, $30
The architecture of the building is expres- million facility in the design development
sive of and relates to its different environ- phase contains a 700 seat Music Hall, a 150
ment — topographical, historical and seat Recital Hall, a 150 seat Studio Theatre,
programmatic — to produce a correspond- a 150 seat Cinema, performance space
ing space. The Center’s location at the support and academic space for the
edge of the campus allows it to serve as a department of Theatre and Film Studies and
connection between the community and the the Department of Music.
university through community-oriented
performances and through the physical Progressive Architecture Citation, 1993

47
 \
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48
——

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tom
Haeins
ie
| |
Previous Page Left: Transverse sections,
Centre: Longitudinal sections; Right: Roof
terrace plan level; mezzanine plan level;
ground floor plan level; Left: Concept line
drawings; Centre and Above: Views of concept
and site models

51
 FREDERIK STJERNFELT
THE POINTS OF SPACE

For Immanuel Kant, space was a pure design. But all other sciences, too, find immediate consciousness and its self-
intuition a reine Anschauung. This seems to their foundations in space - to use amore reflection.
be underlined by the fact that we can hardly than central metaphor of architecture: the A structure, a subject, a piece of archi-
imagine any human activity of thought foundation. Science, fantasy and.literature tecture — in each case it is evident that the
except in spatial concepts. Classical are full of foundations, thresholds, en- various kinds of borders in space are
physics is famous for proceeding to make trances, labyrinths and enlightening views. crucial to their definition. Perceived froma
even time a purely quantitative parameter, They articulate themselves immediately ‘as topological point of view, these borders,
a line, and hence nothing but yet another if their subject was an intricate building in walls, partitions-and linés drawnin space
spatial dimension; but also Quantum which the lover, the scientist, the philoso- are singularities; that is, they are sets of
mechanics is based on spatial representa- pher is wandering about seeing connec- points of less probability than the rest-of the
tions, even ifin a less straightforward tions and establishing distinctions. ‘As if’, space — singularities with. lower dimension
manner — the complementarity between we said, and the question is whether what than the space in which.they appear. The
wave and particle derives from the fact that is dealt with here is but a series of meta- plane, the line, the point being singularities
each of these two ways of representing a phors to be seen through, dismantled, in 3-D space with decreasing:dimension
phenomenon are determined by their own deconstructed and so on. Does science and hence probability. In this purely spatial
set of spatial pictures, of metaphors: the have to impose upon itself the task of self conception, a piece of architecture would
wave in the water and the grain of sand. It is liberation from metaphors of architecture? simply mean a structure of connected
evident that semiotics, the science of signs, If itis an essential condition of thought to singularities in space: a composition of
must be implementing spatial metaphors as make use of these pictures, then there is no walls parting the space and defining it into
well; in so far as by its very definition it way out (sic!) - one has to merely attempt segments, rooms, yards and so on; or; in
contains the various spatial imaginations as to control them in relation to the subject that the language of the topologists, a manifold,
objects: representations of mind and hence one is seeking to love, to comprehend, to which does not imply any kind of naive
conceivable as signs. It is hardly possible describe. A central ‘field’ that can hardly. be ‘pluralism but merely a complex object in
to treat meaning and signs outside a thought without these archi-architectural several.dimensions. In this respect, theless
structure which is in itself already an basic concepts is the subject itself. Al- probable singularities, the linéand-the
architectonic metaphor (structure, from ready, the body in which it most often finds point, almostbecome literally on the edge
Latin struere, to build) that separates an itself situated is naturally obeying central of space: they donot really exist in space -
abstract space into partial spaces which architectonic relations (up/down, outside/ only in so far as a subjectis positioned to
can then be invested with signification inside, laterality, the body as a building see, to construct them: when a subject
(content): black against white, culture [Kérperbau]) that seem indispensable experiences architecture, its body formsa
against nature etc, featuring characteristic when one thinks of the subject as such. The point moving along a line, a route through
zones of mediation between them in the opposition outside/inside can hardly be architectural space. This leads us to two
abstract space of imagination: grey, dispensed with if a soul, amind, should be possible notions of this‘abstract as well as
cultivated etc. All kinds of qualities are thought of as occupant of the building of architectural space. Is the space a given
probably conceived within such spaces. the body. One only has to cast a glance at continuum, of which the points, lines etc are
The possibility of change or development is the three-storey house of Freud (id/ego/ mere intersections of no real existence» or,
inscribed therein by means of the routes superego) or the Lacanian set of partitions is the space itself made up as a mass of
through space; forcing, for instance, the (the ‘split subject’) to see that these spatial singular points, and hence nothing but a
change between red and green to proceed archetypes do not necessarily imply any compilation of an infinitude of smaller
through yellow, blue or brown via a specific idealistic metaphysics on behalf of the elements? The second view is the one
voyage of nuances depending on the route subject but rather the contrary. The fact opted for by traditional geometry, but in fact
chosen. Thus it is no wonder that our that the subject might be a house does not the two points of view go back to two
imagination, working in its complicated imply that it should mistake itself for a different views of the fundamentals of
network of abstract spaces of quality transparent totality, self-controlling, well- mathematics. In contrast to the stance
imposed on everyday 3-D space, has to arranged. Think of ruins and enormous taken by ordinary geometry, the French
make intense use of metaphors fetched Piranesian interiors to be convinced that topologist and inventor of the’so-called
from the most concrete space of experi- the building does not in this way imply any Catastrophe Theory, René Thom, maintains
ence: architecture. necessarily organic or metaphysical that the only really ‘existing’ space is 3=D
Architecture is so obviously spatial ideology. On the contrary, if one first and henceforth the only phenomenology in
because its very task is to seek a certain conceives oneself exploring, like a build- a given field comprehensible by man is
control over the space of living and its ing, one is placed at a distance to the such a space inhabited by ‘balls’ — con-

52
 ¥r

nected beings with closed surface: ‘atoms’, which makes possible the articulation of a specific situations occur. Following a path
‘elements’, ‘bodies’ ‘objects’; in every case wall: that which is neither inside nor outside. is the most simple: one is simply forced by
small coherent parts of 3-D space. Thus, he In this way, the fold is an articulation of the architecture to choose the route as be-
posits continuity as superior to discontinu- indecision already present in architecture: tween two of the small buildings of the grid.
ity. On the other hand, geometry makes raised in concrete it becomes a monument Another situation is the dead-end: this is
discontinuity fundamental; thereby concili- of formal strength and indecision at the either the (partial) goal, with all the meta-
ating itself with arithmetic and its base, the same time; the room under the fold is physics of dwelling, function as well as
act of counting. Space is, in this concep- neither inside nor outside, or is both, religion, pouring forth; or on the contrary,
tion, aset of points emerging by virtue of a depending on the point of view. Here, the the fatal sign of having got lost. The third
generative procedure, proceeding from the subject becomes either spirit or nothing: a possibility is the crossroads where several
singular point to larger sets of points. From ghost. Thus, itis an articulation as well as a choices are possible and one has to
the latter point of view, the point is a kind of questioning of the inside/outside di- choose. These three archi-situations have a
prerequisite to and renunciation of space. chotomy:. it marks a field of spatial common narrative ratio. On his way through
From the former, space is the basic and the indecision to the subject making its line architecture, the subject follows the same
point only visible therein as a construction. through it. The fold folds a grid placed on eternal structure as the prince seeking his
The romantic philosophy of Hegel saw in the ground before folding. Now, thanks to princess. And if it is not the case that the
this antinomy between point and space a gravity, the same effect as contained in fold forms an architectural body giving
veritable dialectics: on the one hand, the Catastrophe Theory appears: it is possible ends to the subject (like the mega-body of
point was a negation of space, having in to walk on the fold as well as beneath it, but the church), then the fold is rather an
itself no extension; on the other the empty never on its underside.’ orifice, a mouth — one mighty, obscene
space was the truth of the points, lines and By this architecture of indecision, the line staring slit, an enormous version of the door
surfaces. This dialectics then found its is drawn back to the vicissitude of the old with its sensible lips of door frames around
Aufhebung inconcrete space, filled with Anhalter Bahnhofwhich, after being it; but like the door, no longer leading
objects defined by precise lines, points and bombed during the war, was left like a anywhere. The fold is a cavern; a simple
surfaces. Time was then nothing but this roofless building, a temple (from temp/um, marking of a place as being neither inside
very dialectics, this Werden working cut out) cutting a section of the sky and nor outside, making possible the primitive
between space and its elements of making a coincidentia oppositorum be- cult or dwelling — and thence it marks the
less dimensions. tween inside and outside, sacred and subject seeking its way within it and
This antinomy-between point and space, profane. This inherent sacrality of architec- between the various small buildings on the
in turn implies certain consequences for ture might seem to derive from its meta- grid folded up through it. Creeping inside
architecture. With regard:to deconstruction, physics, from its pretension of being a as far as possible and becoming the ghost
a possible approach lies in interposing structure endowed with sense, an aes- in the machine; or wandering onto the top of
several.systems on each other.so that the thetic, unambiguous orfunctional body. It is the fold and becoming a god lifted over the
resulting image does not depend on one quite the contrary: its holiness depends on indecision of the fold, the subject is left to
single system but.consists of entangled the fact that it always transcends these itself by being given all the narrative
fragments of several structures; for in- determinations. Hence it is in some sense possibilities. Here, no entrance or system of
stance, structures.deriving from points, superfluous to aim at architectural passages Is forcing or securing the roads,
lines, planes respectively. Within this deconstruction by emphasising the insist- only the pure and indecisive distinction
practice the fight waged in our spatial ence of points against space — the points between inside or outside. Grasped as a
intuition between several possible systems are already working within space. This totality the fold is easily imagined and
is sought formalised, thereby opening the ‘dialectics’ without Aufhebung is contained controlled. As an object for a diversity of
question of a play between decidability and within the fold; being an unfolding of one routes or being a mere punctiform orifice on
indecidability. But this question, in turn, single point, a singularity, the point on top the earth’s surface, it depends on the
throws light back on the very concept of of its curvature, the point where the fold infinitude of points in space — hence its
‘metaphysical’ architecture. If architecture, starts folding. This is the point that marks unheimlich character.
by making houses like bodies and thereby the locality as a place. The narrative that defines the subject by
giving them all the presuppositions of Now, how does the architectural subject leading it through space can never be
teleology, of meaning, of fundamentals and behave? Not only is he a point himself totally determined; the points being the
so on, is metaphysical — isn’t it then already (viewed from the scale of architecture) and ends as well as the beginnings of space
deconstructing itself by the a space (the body as a house) but he The interplay between point and space
doublesidedness of the singularities of mediates between point and space by never ceases to create effects of sacrality
which it consists? The necessary materiality drawing a line —or, as belonging to amass, and delusion because they are folded
of the singularities, eg, the bricks of a wall, covering a surface — in the construction. together in our Kantian imagination. The
makes possible a zone which is neither Attempting to make one’s way by construct- battle between point and space need not
inside nor outside, the prerequisite to the ing an inner map of the surroundings is be dramatised as a battle between sys-
uncanniness of houses and their traditional probably the primordial architectural tems. It is waged within every system due to
habitation by ghosts and geists which ‘experience’, primary to any Heideggerian the very character of a system: an ordered
transcend walls and somehow live within metaphysics of Wohnen (one dwells in a set of points in space. Thus the fold might
them? The simplest singularity of all is the place only in so far as one has already be the most simple and crude expression
point, dividing the line into two. The next constructed or been given a map thereof). because any architecture, from a topologi-
simplest is what René Thom calls a fold, In this walk, in the mind or in reality, several cal point of view, consists of many folds.

53
54
 CARSTEN JUEL- CHRISTIANSEN
THE ANHALTER FOLDING

‘The impression of fragmentation, of lost

totality, is created directly by the increased
splitting up of the city’s functions and
spaces. However, it is also caused by the
fact that the concepts’we have formed ~
about urban totalityare derived chiefly from
the historical city, We still regard the city
through these concepts, even though we
have become‘detached in many situations
from their societal background. On the
other hand, the new urban areas have been
influenced by the enormous development
in sogiety’s economic, technological and
organisational systems, and this level of
development constitutes an indispensable
Hasis for understanding the new city or
* imagining the city of the future.’

Christiansen believes that architects are not

in the business of building theories. He
identifies the-rise of theory.as a response to
the disappearance of the object, being an
attempt to establish itself as an object in its
place-Much of his work has been involved
with the city and with new forms of city
planning, reflecting the greater potential
responsiveness and spontaneity of contem-
porary life. Christiansen claims to have
discovered folding theory in architecture
before Peter Eisenman. = Clare Melhuish

55
JEFFREY KIPNIS
TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE

‘Well, | stand up next to a mountain, drafts of their work before publication in establish anew and more democratic,
and | chop it down with the edge of my order to replace the word ‘new’ as often as homogeneous space. However well-
hand. possible; | have done it myself. As a result, meaning this goal was, insofar as its search
Then | pick up all the pieces and make an PoMo, whose guiding first principle is its for the New was implicated in an Enlighten-
island, unabashed and accurate claim to offer ment-derived, progressivist project, it was
might even make a little sand.’ Jimi Hendrix nothing new, has become the only architec- also implicated in the tragedies that
ture to mature over the last 20 years. resulted. The instrumental logic of architec-
Over the last few years, a few projects by a ‘Nonsense!’ It will be argued. ‘During the tural Modernism’s project of the new
handful of architects have broached same period a flourishing revival of the necessarily calls for erasure and replace-
discussions of a New Architecture. The avant-garde has developed’ and fingers ment, of Old Paris by Le Corbusier, for
themes of this discussion are only now will point to MOMA’s Decon exhibition and example.
coming into sufficient focus to allow for the to the buildings of Eisenman, Gehry, In the name of heterogeneity, post-
preliminary efforts to articulate some of Libeskind, Tschumi, Koolhaas, Hadid and modern discourse has mounted a critique
them in this volume. Before we turn our others. Yet, upon closer examination, it is of the project of the new along several
attention to that specific task, however, let not more accurate to say that these works fronts. It has demonstrated both the
us consider for a moment what is at stake in have been executed under the auspices of impossibility of invention tabula rasa and
the endeavour. an implicit contract of disavowal. In other the necessity to celebrate the very differ-
‘A New Architecture’. Today one whis- words, Is It not the case that these designs ences Modernism sought to erase. Its own
pers this phrase with trepidation and are celebrated as auratic, signature version of the search for the New, a giddy
embarrassment, perhaps for good reason. buildings of interest only for their logic of play, of reiteration and recombina-
True enough, most New Architectures are irreproducible singularity, rather than as tion, of collage and montage, supplants
so ill-conceived that they are stillborn or die - sources of new principles for a general Modernism’s sober, self-serious search for
a merciful death early in infancy. But the architectural practice. In that sense, the the Brave New. In Post-Modernism’s play,
prognosis is poor even for those with the discipline of architecture has recognised history regains renewed respect, though on
strength to survive their hatching, for the them as exotic, precisely so as to Suppress different terms. Rejected as the linear,
majority of these are killed by a well co- their contribution to a New Architecture. teleological process that underwrites its
ordinated, two-pronged attack. Yet within these disparate works are own erasure and replacement, history is
There are several variations, but the insights that might well contribute to now understood as the shapeless well of
general schema of this attack is well- formulating a framework for a New Archi- recombinatorial material; always deep,
known: first, critics from the right decry the tecture: one that promises both formal always full, always open to the public.
destabilising anarchism of the New Archi- vitality and political relevance. Consider the In Post-Modernism’s most virulent
tecture and the empty egotism of its work of Daniel Libeskind, for example. From practices, those that use reiteration and
architects; then, critics from the left rail his Chamber Works to his recent projects in recombination to insinuate themselves into
against the architecture as irresponsible Germany and elsewhere, one finds a and undermine received systems of power,
and immoral and the architects as corrupt sustained, penetrating critique of the axis a relationship to the New is maintained that
collaborationists. Sapped by this on- and its constellation of linear organisations. is optimistic and even progressive, albeit
slaught, the eviscerated remainders are Considering the political, social and spatial not teleologically directed. In such post-
quickly mopped up by historians, with their history of the axis in architecture and modern practices as deconstruction, the
uncanny ability to convince us that the urbanism, this is no minor issue. Yet, very project of the new is rejected. New intellec-
supposed New Architecture is actually not little on this subject can be found in the tual, aesthetic and institutional forms, as
new at all and that it was in fact explored critical literature treating these projects. well as new forms of social arrangements,
with greater depth and authenticity in Instead, Libeskind is configured as an are generated not by proposition but by
Europe some time ago.' avatar of the esoteric and the status and constantly destabilising existing forms.
Today, historians and critics alike power of the axis in quotidian architectural New forms result as temporary
proselytise upon the creed that there is practice, so thoroughly re-thought in his restabilisations, which are then
nothing new that is worthwhile in architec- projects, is left unquestioned. destabilised. Accelerated evolution
ture, particularly no new form. Their doxol- On the surface, our retreat from the New replaces revolution, the mechanisms of
ogy is relentless, ‘praise the past, from seems both historically and theoretically empowerment are disseminated,
which all blessings flow.’ Thus, we retreat well-informed. Towards its utopian aspira- heterogeneous spaces that do not support
from the new and have become ashamed to tions, architectural Modernism sought to established categorical hierarchies are
look for it. |have colleagues who comb overthrow obsolete spatial hierarchies and sought, a respect for diversity and differ-

57
 ence is enesaaes: Far from being :
nihilistic, Post-Modernism in thisae ae
tion is. broadly affirmative. Rai
- Unfortunately, however, Post- ModernAcree
ism’s critique of the politics of erasure/
- replacementand emphasis on Loner: i Bee nowever muc
tion have also led to its greatest abuse, forit resources ofthe latter. -
has enabled a reactionary discourse that - Indicative ofes
re-establishes traditional hierarchies and 3
supports received systems of power, such: :
as the discourse of the nothing new em= =. 4
ployed by Ronald Reagan and Margaret ee
~ Thatcher for their politicalends andby -
Prince Charles, Roger Scruton: and even = Shat et
Charles Jencks to prop up PoMo.- shiftth
| believe, therefore, that itis not Post
a Derr
- Modernism itself, but another, more»
insidious pathology, akind of ee
progeria, thatuunderlies our current with-
drawal from the New. The symptoms ofthis”
disorder were first diagnosed: by Nietzsche
- and have been thoroughly analysed more
recently by Roberto Unger? ‘Briefly, it:
manifests itselfas a-tationale which holds
© < that the catalogue ‘ofpossible forms: (in
~ every sense of the word form: institutional,
“<social. political and, aesthetic) is virtually. 8 : AW. eee resourcesthese
complete and well-known. We may debate eatsstudies |in.philosophy or science are, it must
the relative merits of this form OF that,“but we be said that neither provide the impetus for
will no jonger discover nor invent any: new a New Architecture, nor the particulars of its
forms. This position. is far from the. BupOR terms: and conditions. Rather, these have
tions of post-modern combinatorics. ass: grown entirely out of architectural projects
femtay ss itPossible that ‘Westernity’ asa ae : and developments within the discipline of
“experiment |is finished and, put simply, that _ architecture itself.
- we are old? Only in that context could our © ~ = One contributing factor to the search for
Current, excessive veneration forthe a New Architecture is the exhaustion of
: received catalogue of forms be valid: collage as the prevailing paradigm of
Frankly, feannot believe thatin the short afchitectural heterogeneity. In order to
span of our history we have experimented oppose Modernism’s destituting proclivity
with and exhausted the possibilities of form: or erasure and replacement, Post-Modern-
it seems to me that every indication: today iis -ism emphasised grafting as the was
fo the contrary; whether one considers the Bfécombinatorial instrument of choice. The:
political transformations in Eastern Europe iSconstellation of collage, in all its variations,*
or the technological transformations that © offered the most effective model of grafting -
characterise today's society. The building: = trategies. From Rowe to Venturi to” —
of the catalogue of available forms; aes- - = isenman,° from PoMo to the
“ thetic:-forms, institutional forms and of forms © deconstructivists, collage has setved as —
of social arrangement, has only just begun: = the dominant mode of the architectu ae
-_thave already indicated some ofthe —.~ graft. There are indications, howev
broader criteria for a New Architecture. If it. suggest that collage is not able tosustain
is notto repeat the mistakes of Modernism, a the heterogeneity architecture aspires to
it must continue to avoid the logic of achieve. In lieu of the meticulous stt dy
erasure and replacement by.participatin necessary to support this claim, all
intecombinations. As far as possible, Lees suggestion of two of its themes, the first,
must seek to engender ahetsrogeneit: that — historical, and the second, theoreti
resists settling into fixed hieratchies. - : post-modern collage is ann extensive:
Furthermore, itmust be an.architectur x rid
a proposal of principles (though: not> =
prescriptions). for:design. Finally, itmust
experiment with and. project new forms
= the first two0 ofthese¢ iteriet
alread
 while theeventspacesofr
new
wtechnoogies
i eecopy ‘the. latter.
‘One of the pervasive chascersice of:
\aFormation is its:unapologetic use of the
orthegonal language: ‘of Modernism. When
ce post-modernist architecture first emerged,
_ the formal:language of Modernism was
“simply ¢condenined as oppressive and
monotonous =tecall Venturi’s ‘Less is a
aS pore’. ‘Subsequently, that critique was
_ deepened as architects and theorists
_- demonstrated that, far frombeing essential-
jst, the languageofModernism constituted
2 ‘a. sign-system. Once the demonstration that
S “architecture was irreducibly semiotic was
_ complete, the essentialist justification for
_ the austere language of Modernism
_- dissolved and the door opened to the use of
~~ any and all architectural signs in any and
fe every arrangement,
- InFormation posits: that the exhaustion of
Bee collage is tantamounttoa rendering that is
irrelevant of allaésthetic gestures. The
architectural contribution to the production
ae forms-and the inflection of political
= space therefore can no longer be accom-
== plished by. transformations of style. Further=
more, InFormation argues that the collec-
"tive architectural effect of the orthogonal
-formsofModernism is such that it persists
~ “in being Blank; often stressing that blank-
ae by using the forms as screens for
: projected.i images. Pointings accom-
point to the emergen 60 plished by transformations of institutional
ane and:-to- g _programmes and events. For, DeFormation,
monatin:The ee ~~. onthe other hand, architecture's most
residuab spaces are the - {mportant contribution to ‘the production of
visual a progralr “new forms and to the inflection of political
-* space continues ta be aesthetic. Far from
prveisers being Blank, DeFermation perceives the
ation’ modernist language of InFormation as
nothing less than historical reference and
_the use ofprojected images no more than
applied ornament. Instead, DeFormation
searches for Blankness by extending
Modernism’s exploration of monolithic form,
while rejecting essentialist appeal to
Platonic/Euclidean/Gartesian geometries.
= Pointing is accomplished |in the aesthetics;
~. the forms: ransform theircontext by enter-
~ing into. undisciplined and incongruous
formal telationships. InFormation sees the
gestu dgepmetries oFDeFormation as_

amie“thedesignconsequences of
theseissues, tetus took ata brief compati-
son of Tschumi’s InFormation-at Le Fresnoy
with Shirdel's DeFormation at Nara. The.
Natio a tor
leads Arts.atee
 scription of the problem, Tschumi was geometry has a similar effect on the major much from its lack of discipline as from its
specific in outlining the various possibili- structural piers that hold the three theatres obedience to policy. If there is a
ties, Since many of the existing structures (each one a box whose form is determined DeFormation, it has only just begun.
were in disrepair, a return to an erase-and- simply by exigent functional.requirements) Much has been written and no doubt
replace approach was perfectly plausible. suspended in section. more will be written that consigns the work
On the other hand, the quality of the The internal and externalgeometries of DeFormation (and InFormation) to this or
historical forms and spaces at Le Fresnoy connect in such a way that ‘major’ space of that.contemporary philosopher, particularly
also suggested a renovation/restoration the complex is entirely residual, an alley, so Gilles Deleuze. It cannot be denied that a
approach a la Collage. Tschumi eschews to speak, rived in the provisional links powerful consonance exists between the
both, however, and envelops the entire between two invaginated geometries. The field of effects sought by these
complex within a partially enclosed.mod- residual-space effect is reinforced by the architectures and various formulations of
ernist roof to create a cohesive graft. The fact that all of the explicit programme of the Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand
graft does not produce a collage; rather building is concentrated in the theatres and Plateaus or by Deleuze in Le Pli. The sheer
than creating compositionally resolved lobbies that float as objects above and number.of.terms.that the architectural
collection of fragments, the roof reorgan- away from the main space. In a’sense, literature has borrowed fromthe-Deleuzian
ises and redefines each of the elements Shirdel’s attitude towards programmes the discourse (affiliation, pliancy, smooth and
into a blank, monolithic unity whose incon- opposite of Tschumi’s. Although the striated space, etc) not to mention such
gruity is internalised. Tschumi sutures building functions according to its brief, fortuities as the shared thematisation of
together the broad array of resulting there is no architectural programme other folding; testify to the value of this corre-
spaces with a system of catwalks and than the function, no informing choreogra- spondence. However, for all of the profit-
stairs, visually interlacing them with cuts, phy nor any use of technology to activate ability of this dialogue there are costs to
partial enclosures, ribbon windows and spaces=Shirdel’s computer renderings of ~ which we should be attentive. In general;
broad transparencies. Wherever one is in Japanese dancers performing in eerie obligating any architecture to a philosophy
the complex, one sees partial, disjointed isolation in the emptiéd,.residual space or theory maintains a powerful but suspect :
views of several zones from inside to underline the point. The entireissue of _ tradition in which architecture is understood
outside at the same time. spatial heterogeneity rests in the aesthetics as an applied practice. In that tradition, the ~
Like the visual effects, the role of pro= of the form and in the opposition between measure of architectural design is the
gramming in this project concerns the unprogrammed event and function. In degree to which it exemplifiesatheory or”
production of space as much, if not more passing, it is worthnoting that the risk of philosophy, rather than the degree'to which -
than, the accommodation of function. As far proposing that the dominant (and-most it continuously produces newarchitectural.”
as possible, Tschumi programmes all the expensive) space of a building be nothing effects; as a consequence, the generative
resultant spaces, even treating the tile roofs other than residual space should not be force of design effects in their own right are
of the old building as a mezzanine. Where underestimated. subordinated to the limited capacity of
direct programming is not possible, he | pursue the development.of DeFormation architecture to produce philosophical(or-.
elaborates the differential activation in in greater detail below and will have . theoretical) effects. nates
material/events. In the structural trusses of occasion to return to the Shirdel Nara In his reading of Leibniz in Le Pili, Deleuze”
the new roof, he projects videos as an project. However, | believe that the brief stages his meditation on thefold'in parton’
architectural material in order to activate comparison above, is sufficient to indicate an interpretation-of the space of Baroque
those residual spaces with events. both the similarities and divergencés in the architecture, thus it might be assumed that
The result is a project which promises.a routes that are being mapped by Baroque architecture stands as a-paradigm
spatial heterogeneity that defies any simple InFormation and DeFormation towards a of the architectural effects of the fold. Such
hierarchy: a collection of differentiated New Architecture. an assumption, however careless, would
spaces capable of supporting a wide be fair and would underwrite the configura-
variety of social encounters without DeFormation'' tion of DeFormation as nothing more than a
privileging or subordinating any. As is always the casein architectural neo-Baroque.
Le Fresnoy undermines the classical design theory, Deformation is an artifact, a Now, though Deleuze’s reading of
architectural/political dialectic between construction of principles that have Baroque architecture is adequate to
hierarchical heterogeneity and homogene- emerged after the fact from projects by exemplify his thought’on the'fold, it is by no
ity and points to a potentially new institu- diverse architects that were originally means an adequate reading of the archi-
tional/architectural form. forged with different intentions‘and under tectural effects of the Baroque. Baroque
‘Like Tschumi at Le Fresnoy,Shirdel also different terms and conditions. Thus, strictly architectureis no more able to realise-the
uses a collecting-graft to unify an incongru- speaking, there aré no DeFormationist contemporary architectural effects of the
ous, box-in-box section in his project for the architects(yet), just as there were no fold than Leibniz’s philosophy is able to
Nara Convention Center. Unlike Tschumi, Mannerist or Baroque architects. Itis a realise the contemporary philosophical
however, he shapes the form and internal minor point, perhaps too obvious to belaé effects of Deleuze’s.thoughtMn other
structure of the graft by folding a three-bar bour; yet as we move towards a develop- words, Deleuze’s philosophy is no.more
parti with two complex regulating line ment of principles and a technical lan- (merely) neo-Leibnizian than DeFormation
geometries. The first geometry involutes the guage with which to articulate them, we is (merely) neo-Baroque.
exterior of the building into an abstract, must be cautious not to allow these prema- However much Deleuze's philosophy
non-referential monolith whose form flows turely to circumScribe and regulate a profits from the generative effects of
into the landscaping of the site. The second motion in-design whose fertility derives as Leibniz’s texts,.its payoff, ie, what it has new

60
 to say, does not rest onthe accuracy of its To generate these forms, Shirdel devel- from Shirdel’s black-stuff in one aspect that
scholarly recapitulation of Leibniz’s phi- oped a technique in which he would begin is of fundamental significance to the
losophy; rather, it rests primarily on the with one or more recognisable figure(s) principles of DeFormation. Eisenman also
differences between what Deleuze writes whose-underlying organisation possessed attempts to achieve an abstract monolith
and what Leibniz writes. On this point, | the desired internal complexity. Then, ina free of explicit reference. But while the
believe Deleuze (and Leibniz!) would series of steps, he mapped the architec- black-stuff projects were intended to be
agree. In the same way, the interest of tural geometry of these figures in meticu- radically other, Eisenman’s notion of
DeFormation does not rest on its recapitula- lous detail; Carefully abstracting or erasing weakness requires the form to retain a hint
tion. of Baroque themes, but primarily on the in each progressive step aspects of the of resemblance, so that it might enter into
differences it effects with the Baroque and original figure that caused it to be referential unexpected relationships, like the one that
its other predecessors. or recognisable — a process | termed connects the two diagrams.
But perhaps, the dearest cost to which disciplined relaxation at the time. Similar True enough, once alerted, one is quite
we must be attentive is the degree to which processes appear in the discussion of the able to read both the train-truck and fibre
formulating DeFormation in terms of a. _ Gehry. and Eisenman projects to follow. optic diagrams in the convention centre
Deleuzian language belies the independent The culmination of the black-stuff investi- form. However, the most surprising weak
development of the (consonant ideas gations was the Shirdel/Zago entry link occurs when the scheme is placed on
within) architecture:No doubt this develop- premiated in the Alexandria Library compe- the site. As is to be expected, the design
ment, more a genéalogy than a history, tition, a design that evolved from a disci- addressed many traditional architectural
lacks the grace and pedigree thatitwould plined relaxation of a painting of folded relationships to the site; such as reinforcing
~ obtain‘ffom architecture conceived as cloth by Michelangelo. In that figure of the the street edge and negotiating a severe
applied philosophy. Yet, the halting, fold, Shirdel found precisely the formal scale transition. On the other hand, almost
circuitous pathways of DeFormation’s qualities he sought. Although the final form as if it had been planned from the begin-
» evolution = here lighting on cloth folds shows no. obvious traces of the original ning, the braided forms of Eisenman’s
© © ‘depicted ina painting by. Michelangelo, painting, relationships among-surface, form project connected the mundane three-
_thereon train-tracks, here a desperate and space are captured in the architecture. storey commercial buildings across to
attempt to win a competition, there’a-last- Shortly after the Alexandria competition, street from centre to the complex highway
minute effort to’satisfy-a nervous client, and Peter Eisenman entered a limited competi- system interchange behind it. Though
-. _always'drawing-upon the previous work of tion against-Holt, Henshaw, Pfau and entirely unplanned, this connection has the
others — not only bears a dignity all its own, Jones, and Michael Graves’ to design a effect of transforming the prevailing
‘but also materially augments the substance convention centre for Columbus, Ohio. architectural logic of the site.
of the philosophy. Because the City of Columbus framed the Borrowing from Deleuze, DeFormation
Allow me.then, to retrace some of these opening. of the centre in terms of its refers to these tentative formal links with
paths, collecting my effects along the way. quintcentennial celebration of Christopher contingent influences as affiliations, and
‘Neither arbitrarily nor decisively,|.begin Columbus’ first voyage, Eisenman’s initial engendering affiliations is the foremost
_with three contemporaneous projects: strategy was to design acollage project mechanism by which DeFormation at-
“Shirdel and Zago’s Alexandria Library based on the nautical architecture of the tempts to Point. Affiliations are distinct from
Competition entry, Eisenman’s Columbus Santa Maria. With only three weeks remain- traditional site relations in that they are not
~ Convention Center and Gehry’s Vitra ” ing in the 12-week competition period, pre-determined relationships that are built
Museum,'* Eisenman learned that Graves, too, was into the design, but effects that flow from
Fora number of years beginning in the basing his design ona nautical theme. the intrinsic formal, topological or spatial
“early 1980s, Bahram Shirdel, in association Anxious to win the competition, (he had only character of the design.
with Andrew Zago, pursued an architecture just opened his own office) Eisenman took Typically, one identifies important site
which he termed black-stuff. Ironic as the the extreme risk of abandoning nine weeks influences such as manifest or latent
term may first appear, black-stuff is quite an of work and shifting to an entirely different typological/morphological diagrams,
accurate name for the effects Shirdel scheme, taking amoment to send Graves a prevailing architectural language, material,
sought to.achieve. Rejecting the postcard of a sinking ship en passant. detailing or the like, and incorporates some
deconstructivist themes of fragments, The new scheme was based on the or all of these influences into a design, often
signs, assemblages and accreted space, notion of ‘weak form’ Eisenman had only by collage. Such relationships are not
Shirdel pursued a new, abstract just begun to formulate. ''* Working from affiliations, but alignments and serve to
monolithicity that would broach neither two oddly similar diagrams, one of a fibre- reinforce the dominant architectural modes
reference nor resemblance. Shirdel was optics cable cross-section and the other of governing a context.
interested in-génerating disciplined the train-track switching system that once Affiliations, on the other hand, are
architéctural forms that were not easily occupied the site in Columbus, Eisenman provisional, ad hoc links that are made with
decomposable into the dynamics of point/ produced the winning design: a monolithic secondary contingencies that exist within
line/plane/volume of modern formalism. We box knitted out of vermiform tendrils. The the site or extended context. Rather than
will come to refer tothese forms in terms of likeness shared by the two diagrams is reinforcing the dominant modes of the site,
anexact geometries‘and non-developable important to note, for in that weak resem- therefore, affiliations amplify suppressed or
surfaces, but Shirdel’s black-stuff set the blance, Eisenman first saw the potential of minor organisations that also operate within
stage for the Deformationist principle of weak form. the site, thereby re-configuring the context
non-referential, monolithic abstraction we Although similar in many respects, the into anew coherence. Because they link
have already discussed. Eisenman weak-form projects are different disjoint, stratified organisations into a

61
 coherent heterogeneity, the effectofsuch the development of soonihingaftiiations were less interstitial than homogeneous®
affiliations is termed “smoothing. 7 “with minor ‘organisations operating within a Our subsequent design for the Scottish:
In order to complete our initial survey Of - “context that are engendered by the intrinsic National Museum competition produced=
affiliative effects, we must pick up-a few: a geometric, topological and/or spatial somewhat more interesting results. The
threads from Frank Gehry at Vitra, Gehry’s: Ss qualities. of the form, However, before we typical section of such museums partitions &
design process, not unrelated to Shitdel’s examine the: discussions that have devel- the space into well-defined compartments
disciplined relaxation and Eisenman’s A oped around these#ssues, the evolution of determined by the categories of the
weakening, involves incessant modelling one last principle must be traced. different collections. In order to counter this
and remodelling an initial figure or set of - AS Bahram Shirdel and lanalysed these alignment between form and programme, »
figures. Though he distorts and deforms the and related projects, we noticed that, forall we deviseda section and circulation
figures towards architectural abstraction, _. of their other movements, they tend to leave system in which elements of differing
Gehry is-even more concerned than ' _ the classical congruity between massing collections: would enter into various and
Eisenman-to preserve a Bee -- and section largely intact. As a result, the shifting associations as one moved through ©
heritage in the design. skin of the building continues to be parti:— =~ the museum. The effect of encouraging
Gehry's Vitra commission ‘called ae site ‘tioned into the familiar programme-driven provisional, weak-links among the items in. ~
masterplan, a chair assembly factory, and@ ae hierarchies af major, minor and service the collection was further augmented with a &
~ museum for the furniture: collection, In the "spaces implied |by:themassing. The issue, series of windows calculated to frame... as
preliminary design, Gehry simply aligned as we sawit, “was: 10 avoid both the continu- objects iin the urban setting as if they were
the new factory with the factory buildings~ 2 ous, homogenous space of the free plan -objects within the collection. Finally, ‘two of > Z
previously on the site, while his Museum, a and
— thefinite, hierarchical space of more _ the major lobes of the building itself stood ©
=-geometer’s Medusa, ‘stoodi in stark Con- : Ss traditional sectional strategies. as objects within the basement galleries.
- frast. Though Gehry reduced the difference — _ Several projects: suggested different ~The section/circulation system was.
to some extent ‘by surfacing the Museum. in ways. to approach the problem of section. - 3 embedded within a three- iobad, arnoulared: ts
white plaster, so as to relate to the ee SS Among the more influential of these were monolith. Though conspicuously alien to.
buildings; nevertheless, as a graft onthe: -Eisenman’s Carnegie Mellon research ~ the classical language and other cones: <
site, the form of the Museum installed the ee institute, the Nouvel/Starck entry for the: ‘architectural influences of the site, the: ®
familiar: disjunctive incoherence i have eS s Tokyo Opera House competition and - ~ geometry of the massing took good: nies: Seu
associated with collage. The client, fearful ‘Koolhaas’ Bibliotheque de France. In the tage of several subordinate organisations © as
eet employees’ ccomplaints that.all ofthe ae ‘Eisenman scheme, essentially a chain of within both Edinburgh and the larger.
-.design: attention was being invested in the pods, a large sculptural object whose form: context of Scotland to extend the produc - ae
- Museum and none inthe workplace, asked —z was congruent with the pod, floated tion of affiliative effects. A catalogue of over
~ Gehry as-an afterthought to énliven the new:ey within each pod: in.effect two-dozen of these relationships generated:
- factory building. Infesponse; Gehry = rendering the primary: space of the building by Doug Graf, an architectural theorist
=~ appended some circulation elements. that 2 jpessunal The striking Nouvel/Starck- = specialising in formal relations, was:
“yelterated the stretched and: twisted ~ Opera House was noteworthy. for the way its included with. the competition submission. esSE
tentacles of the museum to the two corners _theatre was embedded as in: incongruent “As we and others worked on similar prob-
= ofthe new. factory nearest the Museum. Object into the urban object massing. Inhis lems; the two major sectional themes of:
The: architectural effect was dramatic, for ee competition entry for the Bibliotheque de DeFormation began to emerge. First, as fare
like: the Eisenman: Convention Center, the — France, a seminal example: of Information, as possible, the section space ofthe
additions knitaffiliative links between the - building should not be congruent with the:
Koolhaas ‘achieved an extreme detachment
factory buildings and the museum, ‘emooth- : -@f sectional space fromthe massing. _. internal space implied by the monolith.”
ing the site intoa heterogeneous, Bue a Bahram Shirdel, Andrew Zago and | formed _ Secondly, wherever possible; residual,”
cohesive whole, However, unlike the _ @partnership in order. tocontinue to- interstitial and other artifactual SpacR
Convention Centre, the staircases entered develop methods for generating affiliative,- - should be emphasised over primary.”
- s “monolithic forms and; as well, to develop “spaces. Because the. box-within-box. -
the site as a field rather than.as. an object -
pointing to the possibilityof intensive — aS these: sectional ideas. Our Event-Structure -_ section is effective at producing both neers
coherence generating a smoothing effectat f entryfor the Place Jacques Cartier-Mon-- “these effects, it is often the tactic of choice; ~
anutbanscale. From this perspective, the- z treal competition, for example, called for a. _= though by no means the only one possible.
_ Circulation additions contribute as machto A Jarge DeFormed envelope within which The impetus to programmatic saturation so -
the architecture: of Deformation as De: = =three independently DeFormed theatres. -central to IinFormation plays a much fess
Museum itself: Beate ~. floated-as sectional objects. As in significant role in DeFormation.:
Because other genealogies eee {nFormation, -every surface, including the- With these sectional themes, thefastof
through other projects can-also be drawn, it: outside and inside of both the exterior — _ the preliminary. principles of Der onretantis
cannot be said that DeFormation is born == envelope and the floating theatreswas in-place. Yet, we ‘should not prematurely -
from these three projects, two ofthe key - a programmed, ‘Our goal was to-render all of - ~ draw the conclusion that DeFormation’ is:
principles of DeFormation-are in place. In the spaces in the building interstitial and/or complete: and that a prescription for its:
summary, these are: (i).an emphasis on " “residual.and to activate them into-a non- ~ architecture written. Indeed, though
abstract, monolithic architectural form that hierarchical differential structure. However, a s paradigmatic building projects such as-
broaches minimal direct references or the formal similarity between the two:- “<<: Eisenman’s Max Reinhardthaus * or
~ resemblance and that Is alien to the ae =e systems, ‘the envelope and the sectional — Shirdets Nara Convention Hall can be
nant architectural modes ofaoe site;ae 2 Si DRt ats. resutted in |Sees fet AGesiibied, the internat debates among
 hese.and other relatedsprojects assure us depend on the success of the project in Lacan or René Thom’s Catastrophe Theory.
that there: are principles and projects to embodying responses to those influences, Neither pure figure nor pure organisation,
follow. The most interesting of these but on the other contingent effects it foldstink the two; they are monolithic and
debates revolve around design techniques continuously generates. often non-representational, replete with
for producing smoothing affiliations.2" lf embodying effects into the design a interstitial and residual spaces, and
Because such affiliations require that loose prioriis problematic, then the central issue ~ intrinsic to non-developable surfaces,Asa
Jinksbemade among dominant and for DeFormation design technique be- process exercised in a matrix'such as
“contingent organisations operating within a comes the elucidation of methods that ’ urban site, folding holds out the possibility
‘context, some architects work by identify- generate monolithic, non-representational : of generating field organisations that
ng examples of both types of organisation forms that lend themselves well to affiliative negotiate between the infinite homogeneity
“and then drive the design towards their relationships a posteriori: If all that were of the grid and the hierarchical heterogene:
» connection, while others rely entirely on the required was gesture and articulation, then ity offinite geometric paiterns, an effect
intrinsic contextual affiliations engendered the problem would pose no particular. ~ which. Peter Eisenman employs in his
» by. the Eisenman Convention Center or the difficulty and could be saved by employing th housing and office park in Rebstock,
Shirdel, Zago, Kipnis Scottish National familiar expressionist techniques. Yet, the ~ Be Germany.” Finally, when exercised'as a
~ Museum are examples of the latter; in each DeFormationistDHE of sire repre-: process on two oF more organisations
case, most of the links were unplanned and : ‘simultaneously, folding i
is@ potential
occurred only after grafting the proieet ys
isssae smoothing strategy.
the site. “Altof these aspects of the fold are related
Shoei Yoh’s Odawara Sports Complex, idy to architectural effects. Although they may
on the other hand, is a conspicuous case ofi
om gS attracted to the underlying work. none of
theformer. Shoei Yoh designed the com: == the architects who make use of Thom’s fold
plex’ s roof by mapping a detailed: Study of a =diagrams, for:example, make any claim, as
_-variety of contingent. forces confronting the -_-far as |know, to inseribing the four-dimen-
“roof such as snow: loads into a. structural ‘sional event space: ‘thatthe diagrams depict
~ diagram. He fine-tuned the mapping, by © for mathematicians |
in the resultant architec-
‘abandoning the coarse, triangulated: Sete jure; any more-than any architect claims to
structural geometries that generalise fore ment oe non-wepiesentation: for be inseribing the. effects of Descartes’
‘example, ‘including: the study of camouflage philosophy: when they employ acartesian
methods, experimenting with computer grid: And, fortunately, there do not seem to
‘morphing’ programmes that smoothly. “be too.many persons suffering from a
- transform one figure into another, or. radical mind/body split walking around
~ employing topological meshing techniques = mid-town Manhattan. in both cases,
suchas splines, NURBS, etc, that join the ~ architects employ these diagrams for the
surfaces delimited by the perimeters Of architectural effects they engender.
disjoint two-dimensional figures intoa. ©Asis typical of Eisenman, both the
such approaches which smoothed solid. Because these methods -Rebstock Park and the Alteka: Tower are
is efficient use
L ofmaterial will no often yield anexact geometries and non- driven more by folding as @ process than by
enjoy favour. developable surfaces, other architects any particular fold:as a diagram-or spatial
Undoubtedly, re anpret to have turned their attention to these areas of organisation. In the former, Eisenman
contingency is attractive; yet, questions. study. Anexact geometry is the study of inscribes an initial parti derived from the
arise. At the very least, these processes = non- -analytic forms (ie, forms that are not modern housing schemes of Ernst May on-
threaten to turn DeFormation into.a singe --describable by an algebraic expression) the site. Then, , operating strictly inthe —
_ theme architecture based ona ‘search for ee that:show a high degree of internal self- representational fieldofdrawing, he
:
contingent influences, much as Arnold - consistency. Non--developable surfaces projects the both extended site and thes
Bs
: Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic theories of — cannot be flattened into aplane. - parti into the. respective: figures formed by
atonal music composition resulted ina As faras! am concerned, itis in the= the boundaries of these. twa sites. The:
decade during which serious music _ context of the development of architectural resulting drawings create the representa- ;
composers devoted all of their attention to technique rather than as applied philoso-- tional illusion that these two organisations —
_finding new tone rows. As Greg Lynn phy that the issue of the fold in DeFormation - “have been: folded This drawing, neither
= quipped, ‘soon we'll be designing form -is best understood. Clearly, the initial figure : axonometric, nor perspective or foldsis
a8 based on the air turbulence generated by and transforming process in BAY Ses “than massed as the project. Through this
~- pedestrians walking near the building.’ DeForming technique does notin:itself Sees “process, he ‘attempts to transform the
_ More significant, however, is the degree to guarantee the results, nevertheless, both ofaoe modern, axgnometric space characteristio
which such processes are actually aligning, these mainly contribute to the effective -sae ofthe original scheme into a visual space
rather than affiliative. It seems.to me that by properties of the results. It has occurred fon_ that hovers between an axonometric anda’
predetermining the contingent influences to many architects that the fold.as a figure and ~ perspectivals‘space with multiple vanishing
be addressed, the process simply rede- folding as a transformative process offered points: The figure of the fold, a quotation of:
fines the dominant architectural influences many advantages, long before any of th 36 ss“sections cut through: a fhomian diagram,
onthe site. The test of whether or not the ~ persons ever heard of Le Piorpaid any e appéars on the tops of the.-ouilding to effect:
results are DeFormative, therefore,
will not : attention to the. diagrammatic folds founs . theweak, TOSS-
¢ ealesiesy links ofwhich

63
Eisenman is Sofond.” Similarly, the Alteka the Buddha figures frontally; a classical This first conclusion is necessary to support the

arrangement that emphasises the subject/ second, namely that the similarities are far more
tower begins with the high-rise type and
folds it in a process reminiscent oforigamiin object relationship between the two. important than the differences. Thus, recalling

order to deform the type and to produce Shirdel, on the other hand, arranged his Marx, they will argue that the second instance is

three sectional objects axially. Visitors but a parody of the tragic profundity of the first; a
multiple residual spaces.
Many diagrams such as those depicting entering the Convention Hall confront tautological argument, since the first instance

Lacan’s ‘mirror state’ or parabolic umbilic nothing but empty space — the establishes the terms and conditions of similarity.

fold and the hyperbolic umbilic fold associ- enormous mass of the three theatres By coincidence, this argument also happens to

ated with Thom’'s Catastrophe Theory, have hovering off to the side. In order to design support the capitalisation of their professional act-

attracted architectural interest for several the envelope of the Hall and to configure ivities). However interesting and worthy of study

reasons. In order to avoid the pitfalls of the main entry as residual space, Shirdel the similarities are, greater stakes are found in the

expressionist processes, such diagrams uses two folds. First, he reconfigured the differences: historians will again miss the point.

offer a level of discipline to the work. Using massing of the original graft with a Thomian Cf, Unger, RM, Knowledge and Politics, Free

these diagrams as a source of regulating diagram of a hyperbolic umbilic fold, Press, New York, 1979; Unger, RM, Social Theory,

lines, so to speak, allows the architect to extending this fold into the surrounding Cambridge University Press, 1987.

design with greater rigour. As Le Corbusier landscape so as to smooth the connection Other post-structural architectural theorists,

writes, ‘The regulating line is a guarantee of the building with its immediate site. Then, notably Jennifer Bloomer and Robert Somol, have

against wilfulness.’ Moreover, as stated, he shaped the concrete piers holding up appealed to the writings of Deleuze and Guattari,

such diagrams are neither purely figural nor the three theatres and the lobby of the small though to different ends.

purely abstract. They therefore hold the music theatre according to the parabolic ‘Collage’ is used here as a convenient, if coarse

potential to generate weak, resemblance umbilic fold. As a result, the main space of umbrella term for an entire constellation of prac-

effects. Finally, the multiple and disjoint the Hall is the residual space between the tices, eg bricolage, assemblage and a history of

formal organisations that compose these topology of these two folds, an effect that collage with many important distinctions and

compound diagrams themselves have the constricted entry-way again reinforces. developments. This argument is strengthened by a

many of the desired spatial characteristics Shirdel’s scheme introduces into Nara an study of the architectural translations of the various

described previously on sections. entirely new form in both the architectural models of collage and its associated practices.

A more sophisticated use of these and institutional sense. More interestingly, it As we proceed further into the discussion of

diagrams as regulating lines can be found effects its affiliations spatially as well as affiliative effects below, one might be inclined to

in Shirdel’s Nara Convention Center. To formally. At the level of a building, it accom- argue that surrealist collage, with its emphasis on

better understand the role of the diagrams plishes the effects that the preliminary smoothing the seams of the graft, might provide an

in this project, itis necessary to examine its principles of DeFormation seek to engen- apt model. Though there is merit in this position, it

design process in greater detail. Rather der. | also believe that it meets the five seems to me that so-called seamlessness of

than beginning with a typological or formal criteria for a New Architecture, ie, that it surrealist collage, like all collages, acts actually to

parti, Shirdel initiated the design for the Hall Points, that it is Blank, Vast, Incongruent emphasise by irony the distinct nature of the

by grafting a carefully excerpted portion of and Intensively Coherent. elements of the collage and therefore the

the Scottish National Museum project to the Whether or not DeFormation and /or incoherent disjunctions at work.

site. He chose a portion of the museum InFormation mature into a New Architec- A better model might be Jasper John's cross-

where two independent lobes of the ture, remains to be seen. Certainly, the rate hatch paintings, prints and drawings. Though

museum joined obliquely and were sub- of realisation for DeFormation is not yet as these works certainly employ many techniques

tending a constricted, interstitial space. promising as it is for InFormation and not associated with collage, their effect is quite

Transferred to Nara, this graft had the sufficient for either to develop or evolve. different. In them non-ideal, grid-like organisations

advantage of already being incongruent Yet, | believe it can be said with some are materialised by grafting elements whose form

but coherent, an after-effect of excerpting confidence that at least these architectures is disjoint from the overall organisation. Moreover,

the connection between the two disjoint have broached the problem of the New and in some of these works, other cloud-like shapes

lobes. Shirdel reinforced this effect by thus offer a measure of optimism. But, the entirely outside of the dominant formal/tonal

using the resultant interstitial space as the critics and historians have not begun to language are built up of the medium itself and

main entry-way into the new building. circle them in earnest. Yet. camouflaged within the work. For me, these

Studying the famous Todai-ji temple in paintings are good examples of a cohesive

Nara, Shirdel found the temple space Notes heterogeneity engendered out of an intensive

dominated by three figures: a giant central 1 Historians may note similarities in the work coherence in the elements themselves.

Buddha and two smaller flanking attendant included in this volume to the spatial character of For example the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts

figures. Stimulated by this analysis, Shirdel Baroque architecture and/or to the formal and his ‘scaling’ projects eg, ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

decided to encase each of the Hall's three character of German Expressionism. | predict their Clearly, the economic and political difficulties that

theatres in objects that would float in the observations will conclude that none of the archi- result from a model of heterogeneity based on

section. The forms of these theatre-objects tects or theorists working in this area are aware of rostering definable species of difference | have

were determined simply by functional these similarities. Because the writings and associated with collage have broad implications

exigencies. Other than their patinated projects are not salted with analyses of Borromini, across many institutional frontiers. In the recent US

copper cladding, chosen to link the sec- Guarini and Bernini or references to Finsterlin, presidential election, for example, a key issue in

tional objects to the figures in the temple, the Tauts, Polzig, Haring, Mendelsohn, Scharoun, the election was the widely felt frustration over the

the theatres were entirely undesigned. Steiner, etc, it will be assumed the work is con- number of officially recognised special interest

Visitors to the Todai-ji temple encounter ducted in blissful ignorance of these similarities. groups (now numbering in the thousands) seeking

64
 to influence decisions byfederal government. key word or phrase happened upon in his reading the relationship is in its essence weak. It is the
However cynical one may be about this situation, it of criticism or philosophy. While not underestimat- affiliative character of the form/programme
is an inevitable consequence of a social arrange- ing the significance of this eventual arrival at some relationship that allows Rossi to produce his
ment that attempts to negotiate the classical understanding of the source of the term in typological grafts and Tschumi to theorise about
conflict between individual and community and to question, the fact of the matter is that Eisenman's dis-cross and trans-programming. After all, has the
achieve a democracy by offering the right to design inventions virtually always evolve from his design of any building significant to architectural
adequate voice and recognition of differences, ie, intial reaction to what he sees as the architectural history ever achieved its status due to how well it
democracy through extensive incoherence. implication of the term or phrase, loosened from its functioned? But the most glaring case of form/
Models of heterogeneity achieved through original discursive context. Whether it was programme affiliation is to be found in the house,
intensive coherence would need not only to rethink Chomsky'’s ‘deep structure’, Derrida’s ‘trace’, for no one ever lives in a house according to its
the individual/community conflict, but ultimately to Mandelbrot's ‘fractal scaling’, or Vattimo’s ‘weak’, architectural programme. Can a theory of strong
rethink the entire notion of a democracy achieved Eisenman's architectural derivations have much alignment between form and programme account
by systems of rights. more to do with his stimulated intuition of potential for reading in the bathroom or eating in the
Cf, Robert Somol, ‘Speciating Sites’, in Anywhere, architectural effects than with embodying the livingroom, or for the particular pleasures of having
Davidson, ed, Rizzoli, 1992. original philosophical effect in question. sex anywhere but the bedroom? No doubt it was
To be sure, we have already seen possibilities for Eisenman's ‘deep structure’, ‘trace’, ‘scaling’ and out of a frustration over the failure of affiliations to
such grafts, eg, in the work of Hejduck or Rossi. It is ‘weak form! therefore have little to do with the congeal into alignments that drove Mies van der
entirely unpersuasive to account with the logic of philosophy, but much to do with architecture. Rohe to nail down the furniture. The affiliative
collage for the effects of Aldo Rossi's incongruous This comment is by no means meant to disparage. nature of the relationship between form and
grafts of received institutions with his catalogue of Indeed, to the contrary — insofar as Eisenman's programme accounts in the large part for
autonomous architectural forms or for the effects of work has at one and the same time maintained a DeFormation's relative complacency vis a vis
Hejduk’s mytho-poetic, scenographic urban grafts. dialogue with philosophical discourse while InFormation on the issue of programme.
See Unger, ‘The Better Futures of Architecture’, in loosening the domain of architectural effects from 18 For additional discussion of the Shirdel, Zago,
Anyone Davidson, ed, Rizzoli, 1991. and exemplifying/embodying obligation to Kipnis Place Jacques Event Structure project, see
10 Rem Koolhaas stresses this point in his short philosophical effects may be its most important L’Arca, December 1991, no 55.
programme for the recent Shinkenchiku Housing contribution. The conspicuous absence of this 19 For additional discussion of the Shirdel, Zago
competition, entitled, ‘No Style’. cf JA 7. issue from the critical literature on Eisenman's work Kipnis project for the Scottish National Museum,
11 Many of the ideas introduced in the second part of — including my own - testifies to an institutional see ANYWHERE, Rizzoli, 1992.
this text grew out of discussions | have enjoyed need for critical literature to maintain a metaphysic 20 A mixed-use office tower in Berlin. Though
with Greg Lynn and Sanford Kwinter as well as from of embodiment at any cost, even at the cost of unavailable for publication at this time, the Max
their writings. That | do not cite these writings in paying attention to the architecture. Reinhardthaus project is scheduled to be
particular in this text is merely a testimony to how 16 Camouflage is often cited as a paradigm of published in ANYWHERE.
thoroughly it is suffused with their influence. Cf, affiliations that smooth. Effective camouflage such 21 To state that the most interesting discussions in
Greg Lynn, ‘Inorganic Bodies’, Assemblage 19, or as ‘dazzle painting’ is often entirely different from architecture revolve around design technique, is,
Sanford Kwinter in the Journal of Philosophy and the prevailing influences of the operative context to me, virtually a tautology. The most interesting
the Visual Arts, Vol 2, Benjamin, ed. For related and almost always outside of the dominant modes aspect of any and every study of architecture —
issues, see Incorporations, Crary and Kwinter, eds, of the primary discipline (ie, of clothing design or historical, theoretical or otherwise —is its conse-
UrZone Press, New York, 1992. the surface treatment of ships or planes). Yet the quence for current design technique.
12 In order to achieve some focus, in this account | effect of camouflage is to smooth the disjoint 22 For more on the Rebstock project see R Somol,
stress DeFormation primarily as a matter of relationship between site and interloper into ‘Accidents Will Happen’, A#+U September 1991 and
building design and touch on urban issues only as another context. John Rajchman, ‘Perplications’, the catalogue
they arise in that context. Several projects have 17 Though the discussion of affiliation to this point essay for the Unfolding Frankfurt exhibition, Aedis
attempted to extend the themes | here identify with emphasises form-to-form effects, a meditation on Gallery, Ernst & Sohn, Verlag, 1991. For Eisenman
DeFormation to urban design, such as Eisenman’s the weak-links of affiliative effects also undermines on folding see ‘Visions Unfolding’, Incorporations,
office and housing park in Rebstock and the the most pre-eminent of strongly aligned relations Crary and Kwinter, eds, UrZone Books, 1992. An
Shirdel, Zago, Kipnis project for the central in architecture: the correlation between form and earlier version is in Domus, June 1992.
business district of Montreal. There are also programme. ‘Form follows function’, is, of course, 23 In his studio at the Ohio State University, Eisenman
projects incorporating the themes of InFormation the declaration par excellence of an alignment and his students began to develop the implications
such as Koolhaas’ Lille and La Defense or between architectural design and programme. Yet, of the initial Rebstock folding for the building
Tshcumi's Chartres. | will attempt a treatment of does a close attention to the history of architecture sections and to study its capacity to interlace
these works in another setting. actually sustain that position? | believe a careful disjoint organisations. | intend to treat this work and
13 For a discussion of these three projects, see my reading of that history would require a negative further developments of the scheme in more detail
‘Freudian slippers, or what were we to make of the answer to the question. in my forthcoming treatment on InFormation and
Fetish’, in The Fetish, Lynn, Mitchell and Whiting, Throughout its history, the relationship between DeFormation urban design.
Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, 1992. form and programme has been far more affiliative The illustrations with this article are of the
14 For a discussion of Eisenman’s weak form projects, than aligned, a fact to which the endless numbers Briey Intervention, a project by Jeffrey Kipnis
see my ‘A Matter of Respect’, in the A+U special of reprogrammings more than testify (houses to in consultation with Philip Johnson.
edition on Eisenman, January, 1990. museums, fascist headquarters to state treasury Project Architect: Matt Geiser; Producers:
15 One of the most fascinating aspects of Peter facilities, fire stations to Ghostbuster’s offices ad Don Bates, Ken Rabin; Construction Super-
Eisenman’s design career is his uncanny ability to infinitum). This is not to say that there is no visor: Greg Skogland; Computer drawings:
derive an entire architectural design thesis from a relationship between form and function, but that Modelling on the Form Z

65
 BAHRAM SHIRDEL
NARA CONVENTION HALL

Our goal for the Nara Convention Centre is metric and the figurative collaborate have adapted the transverse section of the
to weave the three principal functions of a without dominating. Using the Fold Temple and floated the three great masses of
major civic building - the aesthetic/sym- enabled us to attempt to realise the the theatres within a single envelope. The
bolic relationship to cultural context, the difficult goal of a symbiosis of history and relationship of the theatres to the figures of
relationship to the immediate site, and the the future. the Todai-ji Temple is echoed further in the
programmatic experience — into a complex The City of Nara is a distinct, anomalous choice of material. While the Temple figures
spatial unity guided by the theme of the entity participating in a symbiotic relation- are alive in the spiritual sense, the theatres of
symbiosis of history and the future. To ship with the dominant cultural tradition of the Convention Centre are alive in the
accomplish this, we have employed the Japan. To capture the feeling in the programmatic sense. However, in a distinct
space and the geometry of the FOLD. The Convention Centre of one space operat- way from the frontal axis of the Daibutsu-den,
spatial structure of the Fold establishes the ing collaboratively within another, explicit we have oriented tangentially the relationship
architectural space of symbiosis; that is, a representational reference has been of the floating theatre forms to the visitor, to
collaborative relationship between two avoided. A more abstract language is create a modern, secular axis and a striking
distinct spaces. The geometry of the Fold employed to realise the spatial aspirations vista. The visitor is compressed between the
lies between the pure abstract geometry of of the project. While the form of the folded skin of the envelope and the presence
Modernism and the representational figure building suggests both the traditional and of the theatres. Hence, he at once feels both
of Historicism. However, the Fold is not the modern aesthetics-of context it is, on the the historical/spiritual memory of the space of
simple synthesis of geometry and figure; other hand, entirely unique and mimics the Daibutsu-den as well as the contempo-
rather, itis the situation in which the geo- neither. The form relates to Nara as Nara rary space of modernity. From the Space of
relates to Japan. the Fold, the visitor proceeds to the Geom-
ry In order to capture and experience the etry of the Fold. Having assembled in the
space of the Fold in the interior of the main space, he moves to the theatres by way
Convention Centre, the spatial structure of escalators located within the piers. The
echoes that of the Todai-ji Daibutsu-den organisation and form of the piers articulate
which is entered on a frontal axis with the the structural geometry of the Fold. The
great Buddha. The Daibutsu and the two visitor lands on a mezzanine/lobby from
accompanying figures hover in the space where the entire space and form of the
of the Temple enclosure, which is thus Centre can be viewed dramatically.
confiscated by scale, mass and spiritual The massing of the building symbolises
presence, creating a memorable spatial the transition from the permanence of ideal —

experience for resident and visitor alike. form to unpredictable changes of the earth.
The Convention Centre reveals how we Offices and auxiliary services are located ina
modern bar on the west side of the site. The
movement from ideal form to the articulated
form of the Fold can be discerned as the
building proceeds from west to east. This bi-
directional movement is symbolic of the
movements of History and Culture;
alternating between the Ideal and the Real,
the East and the West. The Fold continues
from the building into the Urban Park and
landscape, creating a unity of form and site.
In order to unify the spatial effects further,
the Y-diagram of the building is to be found in
both section (as the Fold) and in plan. In the
latter, the diagram frames the relationship
between the Centre and Rail Station; captur-
ing and unifying space of the main
processional. ©
 Opposite, From Above: Transverse section; ground floor plan;
second floor plan, first floor plan; Left: Axonometric massing;
Centre: Folded space griid; Below: Folded axonometric

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Left: Mode! views; Above: Section diagrams; Below: Axonometric of organisation of spatial and
circulation elements
BAHRAM SHIRDEL
SCOTTISH NATIONAL HERITAGE
A Living Museum

Our design concept for the Scottish given to integrating the museum into the The Microcosmic Gallery is conceived as
National Museum is directed towards a city’s urban fabric. A ‘breathing space’ has an environment that stages complex and
Living Museum. The traditional role of the been preserved on the street as an amenity changing interactions between viewers and
museum is enhanced as a place for for pedestrians; rather than confronting items in the collection. While respecting the
objective contemplation of the past by Lindsay Place with a massive wall. The traditional role of the collection, the space
expanding the presence of the museum in geometry of the building highlights notable encourages a questioning of the identity of
the intellectual, political and spiritual features local to the context such as the objects in a manner resonant with Hume’s
texture of everyday life. theatre and Greyfriars Church. Dramatically epistemology. This serves to elevate the
The presence of the Living Museum is framed views draw the city into the museum status of the collection beyond the chrono-
asserted through a careful consideration of as if it were part of the collection. logical and the categorical, in exploring its
the symbolic character of the building. An important innovation found in the transformative capabilities.
Topography and landscape are deeply Living Museum is the Microcosmic Gallery. Another innovation is the Rays of
rooted in the heritage of Scotland and we This occupies the circulation bridges Thought. Each ray is dedicated to a great
have drawn therefore both from Scotland's organising the amphitheatre-like Great Hall. thinker of Scotland such as Hume, Maxwell,
natural history and her architectural history Here, significant examples from the collec- Smith or Adam. The rays create a network
to achieve the appropriate image. While tion of each department are located and of form and light suffusing the museum.
the organisation of the plan alludes to that views into the main galleries can be seen, They interact with and transform the
of the existing museum, the footprint of the along with changing glimpses of the city. perception of the collection, rendering
building suggests the three regions of the Thus, the visitor progressing through the physical expression to the world-shaping
country. The general massing echoes gallery surveys a microcosm of the entire force of Scotland's intellectual heritage.
features such as the Great Glen, the heritage of Scotland in an ever-changing Project designed with Andrew Zago and
Grampian Mountains, the Caledonian trend matrix of relationships. Jeffrey Kipnis
and the ancient and mysterious Standing
Stones. The spatial organisation is derived
from a synthesis of the complex geometries
of the Broch with the vernacular architec-

mine
ture of Edinburgh, such as its bridges and
feus. Through such gestures we seek to
embody a unique component of Scottish

4i,
Heritage in form and in space. ie
As well as appealing to the urban history
of Edinburgh, close attention has been/

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ano UNFOLDING ARCHITECTURE Sag

A technology for objects.and structures that structures are made up of simple parts with manufacturing processes are well suited to
change their size and shape is being simple connections between them. A rich low production costs. Various products are
developed. Its potential lies in making new transformation arises from the accumula- currently under development, including
products, new spectacles and experi- tion of incremental movements between toys, tents and folding luggage.
ences, anew kinetic architecture. Transfor- adjacent parts. The resultis synergistic:the
mation is at the heart of this technology: a behaviour of the system unpredicted by its Unfolding Truss Structures
metamorphosis akin to natural processes of parts. Asystematic methodology has been Unfoldingarchitecture’s second basic
growth and change, it is complete, fully developed for designing and building category is that of the structural linkage or
three dimensional, fluid and-continuous. transforming structures based on these truss. These structures function as com-
Designs, prototypes and full-scale struc- principles. Given.a set of physical and plete and integrated shapes. They are
tures have been built which demonstrate functional requirements, designs may be examples of form-resistant structures,
the capabilities of unfolding architecture. synthesised on the basis ofan extensive where strengthderives from shape. Unfold-
Applications currently under development vocabulary of folding forms. ing truss.structures are.made up of rigid
range from consumer products to links connected by simple pivots. Expand-
architectural-scale projects. Unfolding Surface Structures ing structures of any form.may be built.
With the emphasis.placed directly on the A basic category of unfolding architecture Such structures will fluidly transform in size,
transformation process itself, anew typeof is formed by those structures comprised of while their overall shape remains constant.
objectis created. By the application of a single surface-or sheet: This surface may The largest.unfolding structure built to date
force at one or. more points, it transformsin beas simple as a sheet of paper. Pleats.are iS a geodesic dome spanning six m when
a fluid and controlled manner. Despite such inscribed along unique tiling patterns — open. It expands from a compact duster
ease of transformation, these structures are space-filling patterns that can fold or that is 1.5 min diameter. In all positions, the
stable, strong and durable. Thus, unfolding develop. When folded along these pleat structure is stable-and-rigid, maintaining its
architecture exhibits the seemingly contra- lines, such surface structures can transform shape and geodesic configuration. The
dictory qualities of strength and fluidity. smoothly between an extended structural dome rests on five roller supports. By
configuration.and a compact bundle. The simply pulling outwards on these points the
Underlying Principles sheet’s third dimension, its thickness, is dome fluidly expands The client is the
Unfolding architecture posits an object that incorporated into surface structure design. Liberty Science Center.
is identically astructure anda mechanism. By adjusting geometric parameters, thick A. second type of unfolding truss struc-
The pieces connect to forma working structural materials may be used. ture isa dome-with a-centre that retracts,
structural network that can.span distances, Thus, unfolding surface structures even while the perimeter remains stable
support loads.and provide:shelter. Yet they behave as rigid plates connected by hinges and fixed.In- this way, the smooth motion of
also function simultaneously as the links of rather than as simple coverings. The this:structureis like the iris of an eye. It has
amechanism, transferring forces and structure’s kinetic and fluid action arises been developed into a retractable roof for
motion in a controlled manner. The integra- because the surface functions as amecha- covering an arena or stadium. A working

All
N/a
INNA
tion of structural and mechanical functions nism—a matrix of interconnected linkages. scale model of this Iris Dome has been
ensures that these structures are able to When surface structures are supported built. In configuration it is-alamella dome
operate without secondary structural consistently around the perimeter they gain with a geometry of interlocking spirals.
supports or external mechanical devices a structural integrity similar to unitary shell When released, it retracts without resist-
for controlling motion. structures. This stability is enhanced by an ance to acompact ring, maintaining a
Underlying these unities of structure/ effective surface thickness that is related to constant and stable perimeter.
mechanism and fluidity/strength are unique the depth of the folds as well as the material Rigid panels may be attached directly to
mathematical principles. The elegance and thickness. the Iris Dome to provide a weather-tight
economy. exhibited by unfolding architec- — A structure made froma single sheet has covering in its extended position. The
ture dérive from this mathematical and inherent economies. Living hinge technol- panels slide over one another.and nest
geometric basis. The basis of each folding ogy, where a single sheet of material is compactly when the dome is retracted. The
structural system, is embodied ina mini- treated to form durable folding.units.is well oculus in the Iris Dome appears in dynamic
mum-number of representative connected established. Stamping cardboard and form. When the structure starts to retract, a
parts. When such a linkage is manipulated, melting hinges into plastics are simple and circular opening appears at the apex of the
its edge or border exhibits key properties effective techniques. For larger structures, dome. As the roof opens, the oculus
that allow it to maintain a mechanical a fabric and frame construction may be expands — transforming continuously the
connection to other similar units. Unfolding used. In general, materials; tooling and space from indoors to outdoors.
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contracted, drawings indicate covering panels

75
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JOHN RAJCHMAN
OUT OF THE FOLD

What might architecture and urbanism ‘orients’ itself within that space. He thereby vided by a work that for many marked a
make of the concept of the fold today — to offers a different image of conceptual turning-point in architecture and architec-
what new places might they still take it? space from Frege (a philosophical concept tural discourse: Complexity and Contradic-
The concept is a very old one. And yet, is nota function mapping a range onto a tion in Architecture of 1966. In this book,
one cannot say that it is a concept tradi- domain) and from the austere Wittgenstein, Robert Venturi drew on a vocabulary that
tional to philosophy, even though as an whose image of the purity and simplicity of had been elaborated by the Anglo-Ameri-
etymological matter it is parent, in Euro- elements Adolf Loos found so appealing. can New Critics, and was unaware that
pean languages, of many concepts that For Deleuze, conceptual space is not during the same years Deleuze was
are: ‘explication’ and ‘implication’, ‘perplex- divided up by sets of discrete elements, nor elaborating in France a different kind of
ity’ and ‘complexity’, for example, derive given through a Unity or Totality of parts; vocabulary, a logic of ‘difference and
from it. As such, ithas along history. The and its aim is not to ‘represent’ or ‘depict’ repetition’, on which he would later draw in
Greek root, to do with weaving, recurs in the the world by ordered combinations of such his own discussion of Mannerism and the
symploke or weaving-together of discourse elements, any more than it is to ‘express’ Baroque in Le Pili. This other logic would be
that Plato describes in the Sophist; but it is the unity of such parts. Indeed, the world taken up some years later in architecture:
through Latin that words like ‘implicate’, itself is not ‘all that is the case’ (as For example, in his Manhattan Transcripts
‘explicate’ and ‘replicate’ enter French, and Wittgenstein took it to be) for it includes an Bernard Tschumi would appropriate from
in aslightly different way, English. Already undepictable anterior element out of which Deleuze the notion of ‘disjunctive synthe-
we find Plotinus speaking of a great new kinds of things can happen, new sis’, that in turn would lead to Derrida’s
‘Complicatio’ of the One in all that is. Much concepts emerge — the space where reference to the fold in his essay on ‘Main-
later, rather independently, we find refer- unforeseen things ‘take place’. taining Architecture’. However;-out of the
ences to the foldinHeidegger and, of Conceptual space is thus neither time- fold there may yet arise other possibilities,
course, in Mallarmé. less nor time-bound, but implies a peculiar other ramifications; and some implications
Perhaps the most intricate and extensive type of temporality that Deleuze tries to and complications of the concept may be
contemporary treatment of the concept is to unfold from 19th-century thought: from traced along these four lines: multiplicity,
be found in Gilles Deleuze’s book, Le Pili Proust’s notion of a ‘complicated time’ (that chance, orientations and manners.
(The Fold) that advances a new perspective still is connected to the Cathedral); from
on Leibniz and the Baroque. But then, Bergson’s notion of ‘virtuality’ (in which we Multiplicity
Deleuze has a special view of what philo- can in retrospect see a relation to ‘motion The pli-word of which Deleuze is fond of
sophical concepts are: they are monsters. pictures’); and especially from Nietzsche's above all others, and through whose eyes
They show (montre) things which, since notion of the ‘untimely’ (which Deleuze sees he sees all others is the word ‘multiple’. On
they can’t yet be said, appear incongruous Foucault as introducing into the archival the first page of his book he declares: ‘The
or untimely. Deleuze wishes to restore to study of history). At the end of the century, multiple is not only what has many parts,
concepts in philosophy a dimension, not of Frege had focused on the problem of but what is folded in many ways’. In
logical possibility or necessity, but of numbers and sets. However, with the Deleuze’s philosophy, the multiple comes
logical force —the manner in which such concept of the fold, Deleuze’s philosophical first before the One. States of affairs are
concepts expose new ‘enfoldings’ or imagination is drawn rather to mathemati- never unities or totalities but are rather,
‘implications’ that are yet to be ‘unfolded’ or cians like René Thom and Benoit ‘multiplicities’ in which there have arisen
‘explicated’; the manner in which they Mandelbrot, whose topographies suggest foci of unification or centres of totalisation.
instigate new unanticipated possibilities in resonances with other domains, other In such ‘multiplicities’ what counts is not the
the midst of things, without predetermining spaces. elements or the terms but what is in be-
or prefiguring the outcome; the manner in Fold-words — words with plic- and plex- — tween them, their intervals or ‘disparities’.
which they thus take a given conceptual do of course also enjoy a prominent role in Multiplicity thus involves a peculiar sort of
space elsewhere, out from itself. the discourses of architecture and of complexity — a complexity in divergence —
In fact, one may read Deleuze as offering urbanism. Perhaps there is no word used where it is not a matter of finding the unity of
an original image of conceptual space itself more frequently than ‘complexity’; and for a manifold but, on the contrary, of seeing
as something ‘pliable’ or ever susceptible Wolf Prix of Coop Himmelblau, architecture unity as a holding-together of a prior virtual
of being folded, unfolded and refolded is a key art of the 90s because it must deal dispersion. This sort of complexity does not
anew. Thus he writes of the bifurcations, the at once with social, economic and formal consist in the One that is said in many ways,
openings and closings, the surfaces, complexities. But ‘complexity’ has not but rather in the fact that each thing may
intervals, heights and depths of conceptual always been so central a concept, and an always diverge onto others, as in the ever-
space, and of the manner in which thought important date for its emergence is pro- forking paths in Borges’ fabled garden. A

fi
‘multiple’ fabric is therefore one that can patterns of which, upon falling, would delving down into the formless bas beneath
never be completely unfolded or definitively assume a kind of necessity. For Peirce, as them, but of looking along the surfaces, in
explicated, since to unfold or explicate it is for Nietzsche, this new territory of chance their intervals and midsts for what yet may
only to fold or complicate it anew. Thus the opened up new sorts of philosophical happen, coming thus to see that ‘the most
multiple is not fragments or ruins of a lost or questions. For, as lan Hacking has argued, profound is the skin’. The Logic of Sense
absent Whole, but the potentiality for these two philosophers help to distinguish a offers many perspectives on this place
divergence within any given unity. In this ‘bifurcation’ in the new territory, dividing where sense and non-sense would meet
manner, the concept of complexity is freed along the lines of two concepts of chance; and where new, unforeseen things might
from the logic of contradiction or opposition one ‘tamed’, the other ‘untamed’. In this happen. And, for Deleuze, this ‘mid-place’,
and connected instead to a logic of inter- way, we see how statiticians and dadaists this ‘mi-lieu’, is precisely where folding
vals: it becomes a matter of a ‘free’ differen- came to populate the same conceptual and occurs: ‘Things and thoughts grow or grow
tiation (not subordinated to fixed analogies social world. up through the midst (milieu), and it is there
or categorical identities) and a ‘complex’ In Deleuze, we find a similar distinction that one has to be, it is always there that
repetition (not restricted to the imitation of a between ‘sedentary’ and ‘nomadic’ views of things are folded (que ¢a se plie).’
pre-given model, origin or end). chance. Pascal, in his wager, exemplifies Through his notion of the milieu, Deleuze
Such a notion of ‘complexity in diver- the first, since he plays the game of chance would deliver us from a ‘linear’ picture of
gence’ differs from Venturi’s notion of a according to pre-existent categorical rules time, proceeding from beginnings to
contradictory or ‘difficult’ whole, just as it that define probabilities which allow one to endings as ina story or histoire. The midst
involves a strange, invisible, groundless calculate gains and losses. But Nietzsche is rather where beginnings are recast and
depth; unlike the ‘ground’ in Colin Rowe's and Mallarmé play the game in another new endings opened up in our stories; a
picture of Cubist collage and Gestaltist way: the table itself bursts open and milieu always interrupts the calm narrative
perception. For, Venturi would reduce becomes part of a larger, more complex of things, exposing a prior complexity and
complexity to a given totality and simplicity game that always includes the possibility of complication in them. And conversely, in
of compositional elements, and Rowe new rules, so that in making each move one the intervals in the midst of things there
would reduce depth to the simultaneity of must affirm all of chance at once. And as always subsists the chance for the sort of
figure and ground. In this way they would the game of ‘nomadic’ distributions re- free self-complication of a space that
eliminate just that which makes complexity places the game of categorical ones, instigates without prefiguring.
multiple and divergent, and just what chance ceases to be tamed or hypothetical, For Deleuze, events never happen out of
makes depth intensive and ungrounded. and becomes free and imperative. a tabula rasa, but come out of complica-
For them, architectural or urban vision For Deleuze, the fold therefore involves tions, out of the fold; and time occupies a
remains fundamentally a matter of discov- the subsistence of a virtual space of ‘complicated’ rather than a linear or circular
ering an imperceptible unity in a percepti- chance in the organisation of design and of space: it lies at the intersection of multiple
ble diversity of elements. Deleuze suggests programme. And perhaps one might argue lines that can never be disentangled ina
another kind of vision: one that tries to find that this nomadic or untamed kind of ‘single transparent plane given to a fixed
the ‘signs’ of an imperceptible ‘disparation’ chance was something that a certain heroic external eye.
in what presents itself as a perceptual ambition in architecture and urbanism, and Thus Deleuze sees Leibniz as introduc-
totality — the vision of an intensive ‘multi- acertain image of the architect or the ing anew ‘regime of light’, different from the
plexity’ in the midst of things. planner as a sort of master-builder, tried Cartesian regime of the clear and the
unsuccessfully to eliminate: the spaces of distinct: a baroque regime where things
Chance ‘envelopment’ in development, the spaces can be continuous even though they are
For Deleuze, there is thus a folding of things of virtual ‘diagrammatisation’ in plans and distinct, and where what is clear or clarified
that is prior to design or principle and that plannings. The question then arises of how is only aregion within a larger obscurity, as
subsists as a potential complication in and where such spaces might be discov- when figures emerge from the ‘dark back-
them. As such, the fold is connected to a ered in another way than through the sense ground’ in the paintings of Tintoretto or El
notion of chance and necessity, which of omnipotence (and dejection) that comes Greco. For Leibniz’s ‘windowless monads'
Deleuze formulates in his study of from the desire to eliminate them. illuminate or clarify only singular districts in
Nietzsche by saying: ‘Nietzsche identifies the dark complexities of the world that is
chance with multiplicity... What Nietzsche Orientations expressed in them; and Leibniz becomes a
calls necessity (destiny) is thus never the Heights and depths, ups and downs — perspectivist philosopher where things
abolition but rather the combination of these belong to what Deleuze terms the themselves are points of view on the world
chance itself.’ ‘ascensional psychism’ that Plato helped they express. Yet Leibniz retains the meta-
Such views belong to a more general introduce into philosophy with his prover- principle that God selects this world as
‘erosion of determinism’ in which a bial stories of the soul con-verting, best, and that everything that happens is
Laplacian image of the universe as a sort of reorienting itself out of the cave towards the thus ‘compossible’ in that world. Deleuze
clock wound up by God opens onto a light. What Socrates’ suicide shows, he considers Nietzsche to take things further:
stochastic, unpredictable universe, where suggests, is the depressive side of such whereas for Leibniz, things are points of
the laws of complex forms are not deter- celestial orientation along a vertical axis. view on the same city, for Nietzsche, each
mined by those of simpler ones, but come Deleuze wants to propose a different way of point of view is a different city, resonating
into existence as those complex forms are orienting oneself in thought: it would not be through its divergences with others, such
created in the history of the universe: the a matter of turning or looking up to the that his principle was ‘always another city in
universe as a great casting of the dice, the heights above things, any more than of the city’.

78
Manners . conscious of: that is, using Spinoza’s word,
We ourselves are folded beings, for there is what Deleuze calls affects. Our enfoldings
a sense in which we never stop folding, and unfoldings ‘affect’ us before we re-
unfolding, refolding our lives; and we are collect them in the planned spaces of our
‘complicated’ beings before we are logical purposeful undertakings. And if we can
ones, following out our ‘life plans’ within the today re-read Spinoza and Leibniz as
spaces in which they can be expected to ‘expressionist’ philosophers, it is because,
occur. When Deleuze says we are each of unlike Descartes’ view of the mechanical or
us plural or multiple, he doesn’t mean that robotic body, they thought of body and soul
we are many things or have many egos, but as ‘expressions’ of the same thing: of
that we are ‘folded’ in many entangled, entangled, enfolded manners or modes of
irregular ways, none the same, and that this our being, themselves as splendidly
‘multiplicity’ goes beyond what we can impersonal as the ‘it’ in ‘it’s raining’. Thus
predict or be aware of: we are ‘folded’ in they thought that the soul is not ‘in’ the
body and soul in many ways and many body, any more than it is ‘above’ it, but that
times over, prior to our being as ‘subjects’, itis rather ‘with’ it, accompanying it along
as masters and possessors of what hap- the bifurcating paths of its distinctive
pens to us in our lives. Each of us is thus manners of being.
‘multiplicitous’; but not because we divide It is this ‘expressionist’ construal of the
into distinct persons or personalities philosophical theme of ‘manners’ or
looking for a unity, lost or supposed, and ‘modes’ of being that Deleuze connects, in
not because our brains are programmed by Le Pili, to ‘Mannerism’ and the Baroque, and
several helpfully interacting cognitive so reads the interior and exterior of Ba-
‘modules’, It is rather that our modes of roque architecture in terms of the
being are ‘complicated’ and ‘unfold’ in such Leibnizian theme of the windowless monad,
a way that we can never be sure just what and the harmonies of body and soul. And
manners our being will yet assume. yet, Deleuze thinks, our own moment of
Sartre saw the being of the other, of complication requires another kind of
autrui, as this ungraspable gaze that expression. For we no longer have use for a
captures and involves one in a violent principle of pre-established harmony; we
struggle for recognition. But Deleuze, who have passed from the notion of the best
admired Sartre, thought we should see compossible world to the possibility of a
autrui rather as the ‘expression’ of enfolded ‘chaosmotic’ one, in which our ‘manners’
or implicated possibilities that don’t yet ever diverge into new complications.
exist outside the expression, but that may For Deleuze, the fold thus involves an
be unfolded or explicated through those ‘affective’ space from which the diverging
‘encounters’ that release them; and it is thus manners of our being come and go, of
that they determine the points from which which one may ask whether it will discover
Axonometric view of the René Thom
one can ‘look’ and be ‘looked at’, or the an architectural expression. The modernist Catastrophe Section drawn by Jeffrey Kipnis
terrains in which struggles of gazes can ‘machines for living’ sought to express a
transpire. ‘The other’ is thus not a subject clean efficient space for the new mechani-
any more than it is an object for one; itis cal body; but who will invent a way to
rather the existence of multiple unrealised express the affective space for this other
possibilities that go beyond the subject and multiplicitous one?
that come to be expressed through what What then might architecture make of this
Deleuze called ‘signs’, in his study of contemporary philosophy of the fold?
Proust. In this book, Deleuze underscores Perhaps it is too soon to say, for itis a
that at least in the Proustian universe such matter of new connections and of the
involuntary ‘signs’ of enfolded possibilities creation of spaces in which such connec-
are far richer in love and jealousy than they tions might acquire their vitality. Itis a
are in the friendship and goodwill that matter of the force of the concept in its
attracted those ancient Greek philoso- encounter with architects.
phers, who tried to make ‘recognition
among subjects’ seem more important to
our manners of being than ‘encounters’
among different worlds of possible compli-
cation. Conversely, to put ‘encounters’
before ‘recognitions’ is to see that there is
something of which the body is yet capable,
just as there are always states of the soul or
mind that go beyond what one may be
 CLAIRE ROBINSON
THE MATERIAL FOLD
Towards a Variable Narrative
of Anomalous Topologies

The fold, the fringe, the dovetail, the outside the idea of the ‘flat’, outside of the
butterfly, the ombillic hyperbolic, the elliptic impetus of perfect horizontal and perfect
“ombillic, the parabolic umbillic: René vertical. Locally, seaweed’s ease of
Thom’s Catastrophe Theory invites the movement is rendered possible by a crucial
discontinuous, the topological into archi- absence of material, a series of perforations
tecture. Topology becomes a geometry of along crease lines. The holes throughout
reconciliation between building and the seaweed are not faults but necessary
ground, logos and noise. Inherent in his interruptions — perpetual thresholds for
work of identifying and naming mathemati- water's passage. A chora work, seaweed's
cally singular discontinuities is a concern global structure allows it to be malleable
for the phenomenological otherness and permeable to its surroundings. Un-
inherent in the resultant geometries.' This harmed by, ‘maritime turbulence,
otherness has a materiality. To take the fold turbantibus aequora ventis . . . in th(is)
as solely formal gesture is the same as theoretical text the reference to individual
allowing its materiality to be evacuated. bodies is again only related to fluids: imbris
If one is content to uphold the extrapo- utiguttae . . . certainly a question of weight,
lated image of Thom’s ‘remarkable section’ of gravity, but never of solids.’
as an invitation to create a ‘new form’; the René Thom, speaking of the constructive
fold’s spatial potential is suppressed in and the destructive aspects of the catastro-
favour of a reiterated platonism. Although phe, names the following archetypal
the mathematical impetus of the Catastro- morphologies: to finish, to begin, to unify, to
phe Theory may have been Platonic in separate, to become, to capture, to emit, to
origin, the age-old query of how to explain fault, to suicide, to agitate, to cross, to give,
the relation between a pyramid anda to take, to send, to link, to cut.4 With respect
dodecahedron, a tetrahedron and a cube, a to the fold’s topological properties, the act
cube and anicosahedron .. . seems to give of architecture is one of embodying the
way. Another potential cosmology emerges rupture which is also the link between
from Thom’s work; one with tremendous physically discontinuous realms of space.
ramifications for architects and other proto- Unable to resist, (s)he caught the sea-
workers of space. ‘The chosen model is a weed, pulled it out of the flow, and set it
fluid one, it is no longer a crystal, nor the upon the rock — glistening. The space
five regular polyhedrons that are the solids between the undersurface of the seaweed
of the Timaeus; it is flow.’2 and the surface of the rock fused to form an
Venus her(e) folds. admirable, if ephemeral, model for a
Chora, Her, Space: a continually folding, crenellated building envelope.
constantly evolving, perpetually holding The fold — this catastrophe V=x3, the
and loosing ephemeral place. Chora border, the end, the beginning, is not static
should not receive but allow itself to borrow, geometry but one of spatial, temporal,
or receive only in order to give away, to material flux.
possess nothing and to be in and of itself From fluid to solid, an architectural
nothing other than the process which interest in ‘the fold’ is commensurate with
inscribes itself on it. Chora is neither an obsession for cyclical processes. One
subject or support; is giving way and not may embrace the fold as a design choreog-
giving place, more situating than situated. raphy of discontinuity, a design process in
Chora is inaccessible, impassable, amor- which the ‘architecture’ is not primarily
phous? Chora is virginity resistant to upheld as an immutable object. One in
anthropomorphism. which the building is not thought of as
Seaweed. autonomous, as hermetically sealed without
Applying the lessons of the turbulent dance interstices or breaks; not idealised as a
of seaweed (a continually folding entity) to perfect uninterrupted connection of parts.
architecture, one is faced with that existing Around the graaf follicle, the swollen

80
 Z ,

4 —_
ovarian lining folds to form a pocket. Onthe male and female parts. You will now note Question 2— The Hesigdic Earth: Ifthe
verge of rupture and ready to*flow across whether thé’male or female remains hermaphrodite architect seeks a place of
the breach into the uterine oviduct, it is an™ attached to the uterus or not.’” “projection, how might the folds of the =
entity maintained in position by.eontinuity 2 Negininved is formed of a series of fesni's surface be assimilated into the 7
with the uterus. In ordinary eonditions, the ife)| ithin these pliant swells, are gently ‘deadly flat’ of the drafting table? ; 4
uterine tube is held betw@En leaves Of the nuggsiNterfering waves: the oe Aphrodite With every step on to the Blue Sea Bog, j
eV Qe ligament, however,during preg- architect. At thé place where the foot the earth bearssa. compressive collapse Fi
nancy, it becomes very mobile. a “touches the grdund, the movement is which is audibles This noise is associated —
Back on the rock, the water shed qui@kly § downward towar 3x00ts of building. The” “with the giddy th and with that which iis. Z
from the surface of the translucent seaz building becomes porousto chthonic folded into and hidden within the ground. Ee
weed; moisture steadily evaporating. In the “presences, to dreams to.oracles, tradition- Churning withingthe buoyant mass of peat ae ;
dazzling sunlight the glistening object did ally located beneath the earth’s Crust. are plants and s@ed which havé blown iin
not survive‘in immutable form but collapsed Within the fold, certain navigationak © from the outskirts of thé.bog fortho . i: ¥
suddenly onto the surface of the rock. After orizens are inscribed. The placentahwall— ~ of years. J ie, * is
this pointithe seaweed’s process of desic- a translucent barrier characterised by thes The topside, 1 evidence, in print, written y $
: cation continued quietly, introducingurther dynamics of the concave and’the convex = _(and built). [he other side, of an intimate yet ' ;
complicated folds. receptacle within a receptacle. Whatof ‘unrealised immediacy, whispers. She :
Leibniz’s law of continuity (germ of ot as a.culmination of a cycle anew understanding of'section’. ‘Immedé
catastrophe theory) sustains avg ‘where="=within cyclesythe incrédibig presence of ately Mrs Ramsay seemed to fold herself
there is continuity between data such that the red rooms, the utt phistication of the together, one petal closed in
in another, the
one case continually approaches and at utefine'wall, vill of the mysteries, delicate a
length loses itself inanother, there will be transiucemtyeil externalised in paintings of
- corresponding continuity in results or her? In placental logic, the:weather/whether it
properties.’ of atchitectural design emergés; within the ceases tobeafrthe rapture of succe ful u
“2 ‘What noise did the classical age muffle, elcoming, ver changing section of the creation.'? :
to which sounds
did It'close its ears in order wall.or: inds local conditions ghheteroge=——_ You hold the book, t r
“toifivent our-rationalism? It is necessary to. neoi i yvarieties. The walllocally = slesone pock of
have the audacity to uncover cnnegeene becomes anint
that which one alway®earries around with membrane with innaté ‘capacities to dj fasinglespace,
. oneself, in the dark and as ifsecret, inaset the flow of space; the separation dtransport. The —
“pack alcove, or under a veil.peak connection between discreet places. The y-possible dis-
j Venus her(e) folds. * Herme-Aphrodite is.working on both sidess
Her arciitecture would be thus ajocal - ._ Ofthefold: on one ‘side losing the clear
cose within a saturated He, - edges of plane geometry to find the femi- jing multi
estions situated deeply A within, ye 4 ik e inthe centre; on F morpholagies.. eo
~ extending to the exteriogsurf: th “grid
3 y , . i ‘ ss .
discipline. The folds of mons veneris. The 2
fringe of History. The dove(tail) whispers: oe De oiteth
‘butterfly goddess, -ombillic ee
concayity, elliptic hyperbolic pl acenta ; dust,-constantly shifting waves 1 Refer to Rene Thom,
i iif.te an
parabolic ombilli convexity. Psje architec- turbulence continue to ripple o
# ture ofthe fold fore of ial earth’s surface. Reverse thisf : Nicha
. specific gestational process. I thetak to has triumphed oye? Myth. Euglideanspace ~ "Hes op ai
define or theorise the:fold as a place IiheSs has repressed a barbar: topology. . 3 Ibids -
architecture, this rae be within se Myth.= 2
function, ine 7 "to Rer
¢Place(entation). If not. ..‘languagewill - new spies universal. As is reason of they i orphogenesis. €
tia ““teproduce with youn the folds of skin, this tatiothat sustains, - because within it Genese, — “Quelle
Sites of your body fom now on theré areaeafiore encou mters.’® t / classiquer stil 1
alterable’.® ses orelllaa ; ourd
€ thé earth’s crust
ErsloGt placental: for others,
the strata of He *S of seen as wg
ae
«architectural intervention as penetr we v
EPevithout possible unfolding): Violation, ig 5 ey
% transgression. ‘The three membranes f the respect to the Blue Sea, or the Mer Bleue
uterus tie haar pocne’ by. nsof Bog; if there is an Sea nee 8 hes
the cotyledons , « it does not emerge fromfsolid ground,
«
* hand are nieMV arily hard and dry. Thisf
the other . i

_. _~» “sarong each other. = have } * building systems\,

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 dels. When they think of
eo-modern. Then they
eck chair and they say,
decorative’. But |am not
19 ‘decorative’ things.
ves of my chairs are
they grow out of necessity. If
et chairs you see that all
re structural and that’s why
res work... even if some
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are formed of
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The material forms a sing|
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structure and material have 1
furniture from its former heavines:
rigidity. It really is possible to mak
wood furniture pliable, spring

Excerpt from a taped con

Frank Gehry and David A Hé
May 24, 1991
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FRANK GEHRY AND PHILIP JOHNSON
LEWIS RESIDENCE
Cleveland, Ohio

The Lewis Residence to be built on a hilltop

in Lyndhurst, a suburb of Cleveland is a
22,000 square foot house for Peter Lewis,
an insurance executive. Functioning as a
mix of semi-public areas for entertaining
and private areas for residents, the com-
plex includes a main house with living
room, dining room, two master bedroom
suites, hall/gallery, library, exercise area
and an enclosed lap pool. There are also
three guest houses and a six car garage.
The house is a collaborative effort
between Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson.
Gehry’s sweeping sail-like forms of the
main house are in contrast to the euclidean
geometries of the guest suites by Johnson.
The design of the house is conceived of
as a composition of complex curved
elements that will be constructed from a
variety of materials including stone, metal
and glass. The participation of trades and
artisans in the process is integral to the
form-making envisioned. 3-D computer
modelling can provide the means on this
project for reintegrating the architects with
the trades.
The residence is organised around a
main court that is cut into the hilltop. The
court can be tented for lavish affairs and
compliments the main hall and gallery. seas aa 9 a ) Y a

9
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85
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Previous Page: Models and elevations;

Above: Views of the model in detail; Right: Roof plan

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THOMAS LEESER\
IN VER(re"T.EGO

Medieval scholars of optical sciences,were * _‘\pe a corresponding point in the experience of the other. Suddenly, one is
aware that they could not anticipate the 8 Wirtual, the imaginary space. Lacan not only confronted with one’s own virtual
future applications of their most advanced ThuS, ‘aline is not perceived in the tradition reality but con-fused further with yet
principles and theories. Among the most ~ of Westermathinking as a linear continuum, another mirroring. ‘For each given point in
sophisticated of these theories was that of ‘\but rather as a constantlyechanging condi- virtual, imaginary space, there must be a
image-formation in a concave spherical tion of inversion. [feptics, this process of corresponding point in real space’ wrote
mirror, wherein an erect and virtual image translation is known as the circle of confu- Lacan. ‘Objects in some instances behave
appears behind the mirror while the image sion“through variations inthe polished like virtual images, and virtual images can
in front of the mirror appears inverted and surfaces ofa single lens, two,spatially and be made into real objects.’ This manifest
real. Lacan describes the diagram in his directional distinct focallines are produced heterotopia allows for a deliberate false
discussions of the mirror stage: simultaneously, by the same projection. Ih recognition between the doubles: the virtual
Virtual images in some instances psychoanalytical discourse this diagram is reality of one projection is Seen as the
behave like objects, and real images used to illustratethe splitting of the Ur-ich inverted reality of its double. But now, this
can bé made into virtual objects .. from the external world of differenee. structure has been turned upside down.
Here the imaginary spacejand thee The diagrams interest for this project lies Consequently, one can read simultane-
real space fuse, nonetheless, they in its potential to manifest spatially the ously two inverted images as well as one
have to be conceived of as different. liquidity of processé@s rather than the stases erect image on one side, and two erect
The very same principle of mirror isevident of iconic imagery.Fusing the con-fusion of images and onesnverted on the other. In
in what could be described as the most difference and the undetstanding of the reading B as,the invert of Aand A’ as its
powerful and promising eye of the 20th folding-in and onto itself of reality and double, omé finds that the relationship has
century: the Hubble Telescope floating in virtuality makes it possible to allude to suddefly switched over and a direct
outer space. Only now, through a flaw in the issues of gender, sexuality and desire, _.eOrrelation cannot be established: B is now
mirror’s curvature, the inverted and real electronic*and.television envitonments; found as the invert of A’ rather than A.
‘ image that is being produced is also biological and non- perspective space Misreading the virtual reality of one
distorted. We are blinded, disrupted in our without having to resort to a display of their projection as the inverted reality of the other
desire to make the real image coincide with respective images. Traditional politics and allows one to see the process only as a
the imaginary. This ‘loss of perceptual co- power relations are undercut by a complete complex folding back and forth and inside
ordinates in the post-modern world, its loss of hierarchy through an ever present out, rather than a single and linear event.
hallucinogenic hyperreality, an simultaneity. One thing is always also the The continuous process of ‘copying’
undifferentiated vision of the world in the other. This loss of traditional power is made introduces mutations, like a xerox machine,
present’, as Jaqueline Rose puts it, is that manifest through what could be described that open the door for further impurities.
‘which deprives the subject of the ability to as a ‘zero-space’: a space of no dimension Function, arbitrary and interchangeable —
locate her/himself in either space or time’. — precisely the point where the inversion or left in its traditional familiarity only to reveal
This project is based on inversion, translation takes place; @ space of no its alienated and estranged reality —
difference, ‘loss of perceptional coordi- depth; a line and two points. All parts of any radically seen as an impurity, a perfect
nates’ and immaterialisation in the post- image through which space is produced accident, contradicting traditional method-
modern world. The inversion diagram will eventually have to\pass through this ology of design. Another impurity is intro-
serves as areference; a structure set up as ‘zero-space’ of translation and will generate duced through shifting the focal line of each
a starting point. Each end of the structure a distorted and inverted reflection of projection out of its alignment: one up and
represents an inverse of the other. Any themselves: the virtualisation Of space. consequently the other one down. On top of
point of the two ends projected forms a line Through this progess the twin inhabitants the doubling, a blurring is produced that
and any line will eventually form two points occupying opposite ends of the'space, at further undermines the possibility of
which define the extent of the line de- any given time each standing on the same reference and enforces the
scribed previously. The images inverted in plane that forms the others ceiling, are immaterialisation of image.
this way, undergo a similar transition from a entwined irrevocably with one @nother even Misrecognition and total invisibility are
real to a virtual condition. What is upside- though they are physically apartethe significant to the war machinery this
down can be seen as the real; therefore, inhabitants’ twineness is thug insefibed century. Deception is a condition of
what is right-side-up becomes the image of spatially in the structure, ereating a condi- immaterialisation; whether present in
the virtual: tion of insepatability in.absentia:
i one is electronic noise or today's radar evading,
For there to be an optics, for each caught within the liquid mirror. stealth aeroplanes, or in the dazzle paint-
given point in real space, there must The voc ionfthe double twists the ings of battle ships in the First World War
,

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91

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this dislocation of images and their respec- ‘
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sign’ (Rose). Reconfiguration of image and
identity is enforced by the introduction of

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Previous Page and Above Centre: Plexing roof form of Prefectura Gymnasium;
Above: South, east, north and west elevations; Below: Dissected axonometrics;
Right: Site plan

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 GREG LYNN
STRANDED SEARS TOWER

This project is a response to an ideas The Sears Tower internalised its multiplica- reductive geometric system of description.
competition held for the city of Chicago: the tion by dividing differentially into the record Although the increments of the floor plates
American city which has the richest tradi- nine towers which Fazlur Kahn termed the are oriented perpendicularly to the surface
tion of competitions for architectural ‘bundled tube’. Where the identical Twin of the drawings in general, the particulari-
monumentality. Along with the airport, the Towers duplicate, the differentiated Sears ties to the river’s edge, roads and sidewalks
corporate office tower has been the primary Tower proliferates. ‘The basis of the Sears often deflect any single ideal orientation in
vehicle for innovations in urban monumen- Tower is the bundled tube. In the Tower, favour of multiple oblique orientations. The
tality in Chicago and the United States in nine contiguous tubes, in essence nine deformations of twisting result from the
general. This project attempts to reformu- towers 75 feet square, make up the 50 external forces within the context. These
late the image of the American monument storey base of the building. Their tubes are more supple systems are the techniques
bby reconfiguring the existing dominant icon interlocked; thus each tube helps to employed in the surveying of land forms, in
on the Chicago skyline and the tallest free- support its neighbour.’ fluid dynamics and other empirical sci-
E ~nding building in the world: the Sears The 225 foot square footprint is made up ences which cannot reduce matter to purely
Ifeyuer. The existing Sears Tower is disasso- of nine 75 foot square tubes; two of which geometric or ideal quantities. The nine
elFeltcreyirOom its Context in order that it can are 650 feet in length; two are 860 feet in initial strands untangle themselves further
Sielalepetsean icon. It establishes itselfas a length; three are 1,170 feet in length; and to align to finer grain local conditions by
olisxelgeqtemetacd Unified Object within a continu- the last two of arecord 1,450 feet in length. bifurcating along the lines of their structure
(e)Uiseelakl MOMOgeneous urban fabric. This Each tube is striated into five structural and fenestration. The context provides
priee attempts to affiliate the structure of bays yielding another 25 tubes per tower. these lines of bifurcation to the tubes and
e tower-with the heterogeneous particu- Each of these 225 independent structural these become potential lines for the
ities of its site while maintaining monu- bays is subdivided into three five-foot projects proliferation into the site. A single
Mal status. The monument must main- window bays yielding another nine-square body begins to become multiplicitous
dresence while remaining flexible tube within each structural bay for a total of because of these lines of development
1 t@ exploit possible involvements 2,025 tubes. The bundled tubes area imposed from the outside. The bundled
Jarticularities of context. By laying multiplicity; as a construction that is tube is a potential paradigm for a
lure into its context and entangling simultaneously one and many. The Sears multiplicitous monument. It is an assembly
mass with local contextual Tower is at once single and multiple as if it of micro-systems which constructs an icon
anew monumentality emerges were a strand: a collection of ‘fibres or which is provisional. Upon close examina-
d forms. filaments twisted, plaited or laid parallel to tion the unified image of the monument
fe no longer obelisks, but form a unit.’ This strand is both a system of unravels into heterogeneous local events.
he other, no longer suspi- interwoven filaments and a singularity Irreducibility to any single type and the
of the ot like a statistical graph. capable of further twisting or plaiting into a potential to participate with external
ae acleelali celles. inCarnates a system larger or more complex yarn, thread, rope systems are the characteristics of a
iat has ceased to be CWiggeletithvermelelars or cordage. stranded and supple urbanism. The
emp atible; where comp Widitelamarctsmelist-lers This project reformulates the vertical Stranded Sears Tower is neither discrete
peared forthe benefit of COMMENT claim bundle of tubes horizontally along a strand nor dispersed but rather defers any single
slp. The of Simulacra Sig of land between Wacker Drive and the organisational idea for a system of local
@rillard describesua new paeleltelmmie Chicago River’s edge adjacent to the affiliations outside itself. The strands exploit
theselele- -selele-ry Offic Seema Ne United existing Sears Tower. To engender affilia- possible connections with and between
tates. The previous p Yetelelmmeme ompeti- tions with particular local events, the rigid adjacent buildings, sidewalks, bridges,
j tive verticality was SUpseNa-eNTeRMuth a geometry that dictated the exact parallel tunnels and landforms. These connections
eleiccmareeormy tor excessive ge butifely relations between tubes was rejected for a are not accidental but unpredicted as they
Eeeessive numbaegs. The Twintifebmeramm oy more supple description. Through a result from the combination of the disparate
Yor. g-wlee ated t Titialeligicy toward geometry that is more supple, the nine systems of the 2,025 bundled tubes with the
contiguous tubes accommodate them- existing site. The resultant image is neither
lae.ces se =relgun of the 7¢ selves fluidly and flexibly to the multiple and monolithic nor pluralistic but is of the now
cal twins as they merge into a singulai often discontinuous borders of the site. The supple and flexible internal order of the
monumental structure. The respon relations between tubes are not exactly ‘pundled tube’ that is differentiated by the
Sears Tower to this new (York) paragigr parallel. These supple deflections allow external forces of the river's edge, the
lay not only in exceeding the height connection to take place which would have Chicago grid and the vectors of pedestrian
been repressed by a more rigid and and transportation movement.
Previous page: View of model: Above: Plans, sections
and views of model

100
101
RAA Um =
CROTON AQUEDUCT

Site detailed design work on specific sites, is are stars directing itineraries.
The site is located along the New York City referred to as the Area Rule: rather than Linking acts and footsteps, open-
water supply infra-structure: A branching follow the strict linearity of the given system ing meanings and directions, these
linear system of reservoirs, aqgueducts and and string together a series of isolated, words operate in the name of an
tunnels which stretches from rural upstate discrete architectural objects, we have emptying out and wearing away of
New York to the dense network of city water developed the interventions on the basis of their primary role. They become
mains. Our definition of site is both uncon- existing property lines, articulated surfaces liberated spaces that can be occu-
ventionally broad (encompassing over 250 and contiguous areas. Surfaces fold up and pied. A rich indetermination gives
linear miles) yet extremely precise -—a form structures, blurring the strict division them, by means of a semantic
vertical and regional cut tied together by a of architecture and landscape. The notion rarefaction, the function of articulat-
single purpose and administered by the of the public realm proposed here is thus ing asecond, poetic geography on
City. By taking the entire water supply not dependent upon monumental objects. top of the geography of the literal,
system as site, we are given a Regional Instead we propose anew condition of forbidden or permitted meaning.
Cross Section encompassing the rural surface; an open field for active participa- They insinuate other routes into the
areas of collection reservoirs; control tion; and a new network of public pro- functionalist and historical order of
chambers and holding reservoirs through- grammes. movement. Walking follows them: ‘I fill
out Westchester County (suburban and this great empty space with a beauti-
small town context); and distribution sites Programme ful name.’
within the city. The project proposes as its primary strat-
egy programmatic grafts: readings of the Cinematic Grafts
Process site and context developed through a The final steps in the design work consist in
We have chosen three sites which exem- mapping procedure, which seeks to going back to the map of tne overall site
plify distinct conditions: Croton Dam in uncover shifting site histories, patterns of and applying the area rule in a consistent
upper Westchester (rural); Tarrytown land use, and changing articulations of manner. Given the detailed vocabularies
interchange (suburban); and Highgate in public and private uses as encoded in developed in the design work for the
East Harlem (urban). Realising the neces- place names and street designations. Tarrytown Interchange, we were able to
sity to focus further in order to develop Michel de Certeau has noted the uncanny increase the realism of the proposal
credible architectural proposals, we have persistence of meaning in place names: through the use of aerial photographs (a
developed in detail Site 2: Tarrytown ‘,.. these names articulate a sen- ‘sampling’ process of typical terrain) and to
Interchange (where the New York State tence that his steps compose without expand the scope of the investigation to
Thruway interrupts the Aqueduct). knowing it. Numbered streets and encompass the full range of sites as
street numbers (112 St or 9 rue St originally proposed. Architectural models
Justification Charles) orient the magnetic field of are not seen as scalar reductions for
Any architect working on a site character- trajectories just as they can haunt individual projects, but as nomadic ‘props’
ised by the extreme dimensions, excep- dreams... to be used in multiple contexts and inter-
tional demands and high architectural What is it then that they spell out? changeable combinations. Working ina
quality of the water supply infrastructure, Disposed in constellations that very direct manner with the particularities of
must necessarily submit to the same criteria hierarchise and semantically order the site, a field of complex and unexpected
and seek to create an architecture ad- the surface of the city, operating exchanges develop as a result of these
equate to what is already in place. Hence chronological arrangements and grafts, suggesting in turn a further re-
the importance of giving visibility not only to historical justifications, these words programming of the architecture, and a re-
the public dimension of these works, but slowly lose, like worn coins, the value definition of the site itself. This ‘putting into
also to the associated issues of ecology engraved on them, but their ability to play’ of the multiple possibilities of the
and conservation. Everything associated signify outlives its first definitions. A elements has, we feel, enormous potential:
with the water supply system must respond strange toponymy that is detached a ‘structure’ as fluid and suggestive as the
first to the criterion of necessity, as manifest from actual places and flies high over water supply system itself.
in the double thematic of (functional) the city like a foggy geography of
imperative and (aesthetic) indifference. ‘meanings’ held in suspension,
directing the physical perambula-
Area Rule tions below . These constellations of -RAAUm: Jesse ‘Reiser, Stan Allen, Polly
The operation devised, as a result of names provide traffic patterns: they Apfelbaum, Nanako Umemoto

103
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Previous Page: Tarrytown Exchange; Left:

Croton Aqueduct

105
 STEPHEN PERRELLA
COMPUTER IMAGING
Morphing and Architectural Representation

The engineer-monteur is an architect who into two dimensional form then into three-
builds with images. Place is created out of dimensional form). A similar difficulty arises
ing the film Tecrtinatoe a itis conceivable to fragments distant in time and space: by - in the gaps between the‘systems of repre-
maintain that suey advances iTa)digital constructing ‘with intervals he recognises sentation. This br e suggests one
the gap, the lag, which must now 3@built
into the fabric of time and space. The —
suspend notde :sing an analysis metropolis produces a new su St: th porary morphi
1 montage eye capable of construccting anew tices. lt seems,
reality out of the barrage of fragmentary,
contradictory and obsolete information
which characterises the modern city.’
Between the spaced configuration of
modern cinema, a transitional technology
with along and perhaps marginalised —
significance involves cartoon animation. .
Brian Boigon, from the School of Architec- .
a advances ater rats ture, Toronto has argued for the inclusion, a ee Wee al :
industrial complex's research into architecture, of qualities of animism ‘Notes | ; go
such as those which may be found iine ns, croc
possib| by these new
n practices may cartooning. This is made ossiale Bit
tHe ave Building, Part ll: Four
pret an uaganty convergence cartoonist imparting an intuitive connectivity ing’. mek, ie
contingent with the violated laws ofrealism.
~~ ordinar magingpractices, Considering A further analysis of the geometries of
modern Culture"semphasis on visuality, cartoon animism would reveal glimpses of
ee itis used here is what is currently available to oe mutations
~ fairly inclusive.. of realism.
The context forthis cinema/computer/ The repressed phenomena excluded:
body interface analysis begins with the from each frame in the characterisation of
“cinematic fundament of 24-40 or more modern film include change, time and
frames per second! to create real time becoming. Philosopher Mark Taylor elo-
» illusion. innumerable theses exist surround- quently unfolds this struggle between
a
ing the technical circumstances that identity and difference in philosophy since ~
constitute cinematic temporal illusion but » Hegel (albeit in a critique of Structuralism)
for the purpose of this discussion it is explaining that, ‘since temporal change
consequential to examine such basic resists systemisation, systems Can be
technical facts and their impact on the constructed only by excluding time.” The 5
illusion of reality given their geometric breakthrough achieved in Terminator 2, is ;
a relations to time. Much theory has also an interframe, interstitial geometry-
“been spun around the possibilities of morphing. The importance of morphing lies 5
sUperposition and montage as a means to. inthe capabilities of mutation and the
surpass the limitation of the frame-gap- transplacing of one image into another. The
frame production sequence of film, avant- » meta complex encompassing the interstitial
garde film of the 30s, through to contempo-™ geometry/smooth space involves the
rary French new wave and new German film "derivation of geometry from the actor's

ac.
‘notwithstanding. These genres reveal body with that of a virtual actor in the
specific attempts to emphasise structural ., computer, his then mapped into the
transparency onthe superposition of one cinematic cae by4rame structure. This
, image over another, creating shocking or special effect construct has strong
abrupt juxtapostions. Architect Stanley resonances with the problematics facing
Allen recently described this condition architectural representation and realisation
paradigmatically as ‘The Cinematic Eye iw (in that the architect transforms thoughts “
A

STEPHEN PERRELLA
INTERVIEW WITH MARK DIPPE
Terminator 2

Stephen Perrella: To learn more about of a square, for example, to acircle, a grid difficult to represent in traditional computer
geometric complexity we are interested in of points is imposed over the picture animation because they are soft and have
the computer software that Industrial Light containing the square and a similar grid tissue that reacts and changes in very
and Magic (ILM) developed for the liquid over the picture containing the circle. That subtle ways. For instance, when we run, our
metal sequences in Terminator 2 and the gives you a correspondence between muscles shake each time our feet hit the
‘morphing’ effects in Michael Jackson’s points on each. ground and impact our thighs. These soft-
current video Black and White. We under- tissue, muscle and bone dynamics of living
stand morphing as the grafting or the SP: The grid is the controlling geometry for creatures in motion are very difficult to
superposition of faces/images with a the linkages? model because conventional computer
specified number of intermediate frames, graphics are essentially Euclidean; every-
but the Terminator 2sequences are MD: Exactly. But to continue, if |take a thing is rigid, polygonal and flat.
certainly complex. In the documentary The certain grid point in picture A and move it
Making of Terminator2, laser scanning and leave the corresponding grid point in SP: Current architectural researchers are
techniques and grids applied to the actor’s picture B alone, that will determine how interested in the middle ground between
face and body are the interface between picture A will be distorted as it turns into the organic and the Euclidean that is
‘reality’ and the computer. Could you picture B. That is a direct correspondence considered ‘supple.’
describe in detail these techniques and and becomes a unique mapping between °
focus on their implicit geometries? the two images. This is how the original MD: Organic forms don’t obey the
morph worked: a point-by-point grid Euclidean rules in which computers excel.
Mark Dippe: Morphing as you describe it correspondence with the freedom to move Computers can calculate perfectly straight
was developed at ILM for the film Willow, for any of the points in picture A or B with the lines but with human forms nothing is
the sequence in which the Willow character computer distorting them back to the ideal perfectly straight; there are only recognis-
tries with a magic wand to reconstitute a grid, which can then be cross-dissolved. able unique shapes. The other side of the
good witch who’s been turned into a goat. That correspondence and manipulation coin is that people can recognise a real
In the sequence she transforms from a goat give you the changing form. It’s mostly human face, even though they can’t
into an ostrich, a turtle, a tiger, a young moving the grids. The computer doesn't describe it. We might be able to draw it, but
woman and finally an older woman. know what the picture is, it has no knowl- we can’t quantify the shape easily.
Morphing involves a transformation be- edge of the image. It only knows grids, and
tween objects of completely different as the grid points move it takes the underly- SP: One might add that living organisms
shapes, sizes and forms. A traditional ing picture and distorts it as the grid is have a certain vitality over anything me-
technique like the typical wolf/man dissolve distorted. chanical that furthers the computer model-
isn’t enough. In the digital realm we now ling problematic.
have the freedom to change the shape of SP: How is the liquid metal effect more
the picture while simultaneously dissolving. complex than this? MD: One of the aesthetic dilemmas in
That's the essence of the morphing tech- computer animation is that an algorithmic
nique, taking two images that are shot MD: We now have a whole new generation process can be stiff and inorganic. In
separately and, while performing a cross- of morphing ability. The basic principle of ~ Terminator 2we were very aware of these
dissolve between them, changing the morphing as it was used in Willow around limitations and even the movement of the
shape of both to improve the illusion of 1988 has been used repeatedly and is now chromed liquid-metal man with a metallic
transformation. just one small tool in our spectrum of feeling had to be life-like. The principle
capabilities. We use the previously de- used here also relates to the grid. We knew
SP: Does one select particular control scribed morph all the time but now it’s that if we projected a perfect grid on our
points on the first face/image and then rarely the only thing used to accomplish an actor Robert Patrick's body and filmed him
determine their counterpart control points ILM effect, and in fact determines a rather moving with a painted grid on his body, the
on the next sequential image, with an small proportion of the total effect. Termina- grid would distort in the same way as his
interstitial range of 50 to 5,000 frames? tor 2is a good example of the next level of body tissues did when he walked, ran or
what some people call morphing; we don't performed. So he was made to stand still for
MD: Yes. We talked earlier about the role of call it morphing because it’s really more hours like a figure on a crucifix while we
a grid in the original morph technique, and distinct. T-2 involved creating a believable, projected grids on him and then make-up
although it has evolved over the years, it is life-like human form. One quality of human artists copied them meticulously around his
based on a grid of points. To take an image forms, of any living form, is that they are body; parts of which the projection didn't

107
cover, so the make-up artists interpolated MD: Lately, images are no longer pure —in
them. We then took Robert into daylight to cinema, photography or almost anywhere.
analyse his motion again. This became our The camera itself is of course an interpreta-
reference to study how his tissues moved in tion of reality, but images are being ma-
an organic, supple manner. Our digital nipulated further. There used to be a notion
actor would move the same way. We of the image as truthful, the veracity of
worked with an analogy between the real photographs. It’s a moot point now because
world and our virtual world. With a real set, they are always manipulated. The idea of
areal camera and areal actor on the one special effects seems anachronistic;
hand; and on the other a computer camera, eventually it may be accepted as natural.
a computer set and computer actor. Our This seems unusual because all images are
objective was to make them match per- ‘real’. They are always manipulated or
fectly. We can put a computer actor into a created, changed or altered, yet somehow
real set or a real actor into a computer set. real.
We're good at creating computer cameras
that match real cameras and computer sets SP: That is a condition that we might
that match real sets. Things that are man- consider as hyperreality .
made, like buildings and chairs, are easily
handled; but trees and flowing water are MD: In this hyperreality we built our virtual
more difficult. We had our actor perform man in a virtual set, with a set of references
many different movements — running, to make sure our digital actor behaved like
walking, dancing and fighting scenes: the real actor. Having completed his model
different dramatic actions that were to we had essentially created the character of
occur in the film. They were filmed with two our digital actor including his animation and
cameras simultaneously from two perpen- behaviour. We Knew what he would do in
dicular views, a front view and a side view. any situation, just as a writer would. We
The cameras were synchronised to photo- were able to anticipate how the T-1000
graph frames in unison. We then took the would sit, walk and get up and how his
two pieces of film and input them into the head would rise out of a floor. At that point
computer to produce perfect side and front we began working on the actual shots, and
views. We also had all the data on the the initial phase of creating the T-1000
cameras and the lenses and built an exact lasted at least two months.
duplicate on our computer of the real
filming situation. We had two computer SP: Did the research that you were doing in
cameras with exactly the same lenses etc, any way influence the script?
then we placed our computer actor the
same distance from the two cameras, made MD: No, but! would say we had a great
him walk and run at the same speed as the impact on the film’s look. In film-making the
real actor, and then finally compared the content must always come from the story.
two. The director, James Cameron, was and still
is the only major director who has any sort
SP: So you built an interstitial model in of sensitivity to, or compassion for, the new
virtual reality. aesthetic possibilities of digital film-making.

MD: We concentrated here on the mixture SP: The documentary on the film portrayed
of reality and virtual reality. For me that’s the director's vision of how to go further with
almost natural. We've always concentrated the man-machine relationship. Can you
on augmenting things or growing them. articulate the liquid-geometry sequences?
Greater percentages of an image are being
generated on a computer, but still there’s MD: We had created the T-1000 character
always a portion that is photographed or to go through a transformation that breaks
obtained by some other means. down into five stages, each with its own
model that could be transformed or
SP: Your work can be looked at in another morphed, from one to the other. This is
way, in that it problematises real perception different from the morph we talked about in
—what we see in the movies and in natural Willow because it’s a 3-D shape: it’s actual
perception is altered by virtuality. We might geometry, an architectural form in 3-D that
also consider the space between virtual can now transform or evolve through five
and real as one of displacement: where stages. First, was the blob stage: the
neither the virtual nor the natural remains amorphous, molten liquid blob-form.
intact but each problematises the other. Second, was the ‘silver surfer’ form: a very

108
soft, man-like form;smooth like a sand- work with are very dense and complex, so will be virtual reality thatchers, where each
blasted figure, like the silver surfer in the our systems are more high-end than most. audience member has virtual reality
comic books and like an Oscar award. The headsets and can walk around and experi-
third phase we called the soft T-1000: the SP: Did ILM develop this software, or do ence the movie as they like and perhaps be
image of the actor smoothed down but with you use standard authoring programmes? a part of the action. In the San Francisco
distinctly recognisable contours of clothing How deeply do you get involved with Bay area there are performances groups
and detail. The fourth step was completely programming? like Antenna Theatre where the audience
defined metal: he had all of the detail, members actually walk around with little FM
minus skin or clothing. The fifth stage was MD: It is a combination. At ILM we have a headsets and are part of the performance.
reality: the real, skin and flesh actor. software staff of about six people and we As time goes on the difference between
combine the best of everything. There is no what is real and what isn’t real is breaking
SP: How many interim frames were used necessity to invent new programmes, we down. For instance, we can extract some-
between phases? use whatever will give the best visual thing someone didn't like out of an existing
results. We have a combination of off-the- film or take an actor out of an old film and
MD: That depended on the action. The shelf software and custom software. The put him in anew one.
character might take at the most a couple of work we do could not be done without
seconds to transform from one stage to custom software. In some sense we are SP: Can you mention any of the software
another. Transforming from the stage-one forced to write software to create these that you used in the 7-2 movie?
blob to stage five, in the big, grandiose kinds of images. I’m an effects supervisor
scene where he’s a blob on the floor and and | sometimes get involved in the design MD: For the 3-D morphing or the 3-D
the camera pulls up and he’s slowly of our software in terms of the functionality transformations. we developed a technique
changed all the way to the man, took at needed to achieve the image. Tomea called ‘make sticky’ — similar to Disney-
least five seconds. It varied in the action central problem is the metamorphosing of land’s Haunted House effect where live-
scenesvand he rarely went all the way 3-D forms. That's the key. Like muscularity, action film is projected on a bust to simulate
between the two extremes. He typically it's transforming in shape and function; but the act of talking. We have the same idea in
went from stage two to stage five. That’s it's moving. It’s a living organic being, a 3-D computer graphics. We can make a
how we broke it down. After working with ita character. These things are very complex figure of aman walking and then project a
while, we noticed there were distinct and many other things also take place. The film of a walking man in the computer,
stages, even acertain logic to it. If he was surface quality changes: maybe from a very where it becomes a virtual projection. The
going to perform a certain action, he had to shiny metal to a dull, pitted, worn surface; film projection on our computer model
go through a certain stage. or to amore diffused or a matte, skin-like resembles the same man walking in the
surface; or even to clothing. The computer computer. ‘Make sticky’ entails sticking the
SP: What kind of geometry occurs in these can transform very easily between two picture onto an object. Another technique
five phases? states. Animating all parameters or all we developed was called ‘sock’ in order to
aspects is anatural computer function and create a flexible, supple tissue base for
MD: We reduce our models of the actor toa very difficult to do physically. In real life a muscular form. We thought of it as elastic
great interconnected web of points, and morph like equivalent requires a dissolve bandages vacuformed over a basic
those point meshes transform in shapes between two stages or a very complicated constructed rigid form. Workable elasticity
between the stages. and unique animatronic puppet. That was provided, hence the name ‘body sock’
puppet is only capable of a few things — —now developed into a system to create
SP: Are those alpha-numeric trajectories, or maybe its fingers can grow longer or supple, muscular forms for human bodies,
do you actually see these geometric something — but with a computer it’s very animals or anything. For modelling and
trajectories connected? easy to transform shapes, colours and animation we use off the shelf Alias soft-
everything else. ware, along with custom software; for
MD: On the computer you can see the rendering we use Renderman. Silicon
model at stage one, then at stage two; and SP: I’ve heard rumours that there is work on Graphics workstations we use exclusively —
then you can run the animation and watch a virtual reality theme park and also about the same company that makes Iris, Indigo.
the model transform and all the points move developing virtual space for audience When 7-2 came out the Indigo wasn't
in space from stage one to stage two. We interaction in movie theatres. When | saw around but we have a lot of their machines
have an interactive animation system for the T-2 video arcade in the theatre lobby, | which vary in price from $30,000 to
those views. realised that project was already underway. $250,000. Macintosh is used for paint
touch-up. We also use a programme called
SP: You have software that helps you see MD: They were working on the game when Photoshop.
the phase interfaces? we were working on the set. It was interest-
ing. They took some of our grid ideas as a
MD: Yes, we can bring up the point mesh clue. In fact, they had seen the two-camera
visually on the screen. The ability to bring shot and set-up and the grid on the actor, Mark Dippe was assistant effects director
up these point mesh models interactively and they worked with similar ideas for the on Terminator 2. Dennis Muren, who has
on the screen is becoming more common game designers. They were shooting from won many Academy Awards, was effects
and you can buy various computer model- two simultaneous cameras to give the game director and Steve Williams was principal
ling systems that do that. The models we designers references as well. Soon there animator

109
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 HENRY COBB
FIRST INTERSTATE BANK TOWER
as,
Pt
/—
ae”
——
A Note on the Architectonics of Folding

Aus
a)

Bending is a manipulative strategy of concerned that their project, which is to of commercial development. Here, the fold
objects. Folding is a manipulative property contain three million square feet of rental is considered from within a discipline of
of surfaces. For example, when we refer to office space, should not become lost in this materiality and does not begin with an
a sheet of paper as being folded we are crowd of nearly indistinguishable commer- ideology of folding
engaging in an elision. The full statement cial buildings. They requested a strong 1 An architecture of folding is by defini-
would be that the sheet of paper is being memorable image on the skyline; an image tion an architecture of surface. Therefore,
bent while each of its surfaces is being that would be intrinsic to the building’s form the first requirement is that the construc-
folded. It is important to understand that the without resorting to fancy hats or applied tional elements that make up the surface to
fold in one surface is distinctly separate ornament. The design strategy we adopted be folded must be assembled in such a way
from the fold in the other. We feel justified, to achieve this goal is governed by its own that they are manifested only on that
because paper is dimensionally thin, in internal logic: a subtractive procedure surface. This is more of a challenge than it
eliding these distinctions by compressing applied to a prismatic tower 190 square may seem, as the components of buildings
the statement ‘the paper is being bent and feet in plan and 720 feet high. This “pure by necessity have varying depths yet the
its two surfaces folded’ into ‘the paper is prism” is carved from the top down with fold can occur at only one surface. So, ifa
being folded’. However, when we increase incisions that adhere rigorously to the fold is to occur at the scale of a building
the material thickness from that of paper (+/ geometry of a double square in both plan rather than the scale of a piece of paper, it
-1/100") to that of building wall construction and section. The resultant twin skyscrapers has to be assembled out of pieces which
(6" minimum) we can no longer afford to are identical but appear to be different as have depth in themselves and are set into a
elide these distinctions: we must acknowl- one is rotated 90 degrees in plan with structure with depth also. When giving
edge explicitly that the wall as a con- respect to the other. Major incisions in the architectural form to these methods of
»
i
. structed object is being bent, and hence base of each tower reintroduce the diago- construction through a strategy of folding,
a that we will achieve an architectonic nal geometry and create a spatial rather all constructional elements have to be
a J
7
manifestation of folding only to the extent than volumetric presence at street level.’ reduced, in terms of their expressive
that we can locate the visible architecture of Although the conventional logic of capacity, to a single surface.
the wall on a single plane corresponding to commercial development prefers spatial 2 Buildings exist at a scale so large that
the wall’s outer surface. Why we might wish uniformity, especially with regard to office they cannot be monolithic like a single
to achieve an architectonic manifestation of towers, folding is useful in such buildings piece of paper which is folded or a single
folding is a matter that with reference to the because the fold introduces a figure toa stone that is carved. Buildings must be
skyscraper illustrated here, has already surface which animates both the totality of constructed out of pieces. Inevitably, there
been discussed in the Charlottesville Tapes the form and the individual units of which it are joints between these pieces. A funda-
(Rizzoli, 1985): ‘Although | have been is composed. An architectural manifesta- mental rule for an architectural manifesta-
designing tall buildings for 30 years, these tion of folding on the surface of the building tion of folding is that the folding must never
are, |suppose, my first real “skyscrapers”. | not only engenders the appearance of occur at a joint between the elements which
will acknowledge that | set out quite bending in the overall shape of the building, make up the surface to be folded. A joint is
deliberately in this project to find my own giving it a distinct urban identity, but also a void between two pieces and cannot be
way of making a skyscraper image: these introduces differentiation into the repetition folded. Any fold which coincides with a joint
are skyscrapers made by carving away of the typical office units. In the First is not a fold but the manipulation of two
rather than by building up. In this sense Interstate Bank Tower, every floor-plate has separate pieces. A fold does not exist in the
they remind me of Roland Barthes’ com- a different identity. Moreover, the interior interval between elements but describes
ment that skyscrapers of New York have spaces below sloping surfaces have been their shared surface. The pleasure of the
made it a deep city, not a high one — a city the most sought after by the occupants as fold is that it occurs on a shared surface
excavated rather than built. This is my they provide the greatest identity through that has the ability to unite elements
fourth building project in Dallas, and it their differentiation. through manipulation. The fold both flattens
reflects two concerns: a concern about The primary purpose of this note is not to and animates; it folds elements together on
imagery and aconcern about place. To my argue why we would desire the architec- a continuous plane while differentiating the
mind they are equally important. Let me first tural manifestation of folding, but to expli- same surface. °
speak about the issue of imagery. Down- cate how it can be achieved through a 3 The logic of construction suggests that
town Dallas is a city of box office towers rigorous architectural treatment of materials the building components which make up a
that, owing to the flight path of a nearby and space. In the First Interstate Bank surface are typically orthogonal; whether
airport, cannot exceed about 60 storeys in Tower the fold has been developed as an the glass panels that actually constitute the
height. Our clients are understandably architectural response to the contingencies surface or the metal frames that support the

111
 a
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

a
glass. If the building components are 3 9999 04820 622 9 |
indeed orthogonal in their organisation, one
way to dramatise vividly the act of folding is
to locate the fold on a diagonal. A diagonal
fold (in a direction oblique to the orthogonal
grid of construction) is inevitably more
eloquent than an orthogonal fold (ina
direction parallel to the orthogonal grid of
construction) which lacks the unpredictable
drama of uniting constructional elements
with a system oblique to their own order.
The three fundamental principles applied
to the design of this skyscraper are that the
disparate constructional elements are
given architectural expression on only a
single plane; that folds occur on the surface
of those elements and never in the joints
between elements; and that folding occurs
whenever possible in an oblique orientation
to the orthogonal order of construction.
To respect and accord with the above
procedures a rigorous Curtain wall system
was developed that was capable of being
folded. The key to the building lies in the
development of two types of mullion
systems: solid frame and joint frame. The
building's surface is organised into 6'x12’
panels mounted precisely flush with brig
aluminium frames. Between the frames a
constructional joints — the method of
assembling the facade. Within each 6x
frame are four panes of glass; each pan
framed by an aluminium extrusion pain
to match the glass. These frames have
joints in between. All folds occur on the
frames. This allows for folding within thé
panels rather than at the joints in betw¢
without literally having to bend the glag#™as
The fact that the folds occur on meta}is
less significant than the fact that they n&
occur at a major joint between element
folds occur within panels; either on greg
orthogonal mullions or on green diagona
mullions which are introduced for the 3
diagonal folds. This allows the curtain walls
manufacturer to prefabricate the major
panels and therefore all of the folded
peteiabit
conditions within the shop, rather than trey
rane
assembling them piece by piece on the EES awate cn a |!
building — assuring accuracy within the Bite | aN
geometry of the folded elements. Within ;
each large frame there are at least fofir an
=: nhs
as many as seven separate panes of lass. ey oe i
Spe
SYOOey
These large panels are then assembled in a. i q

the field in the same manner as the a@ja-

cent unfolded orthogonal panels. j |
if

First Interstate Bank Tower: Previous Pagé,flgar

plans and overall view; Above: Viewranranaet
highway; Right: Orthogonakfola; Glagonal tate;
one direction; diagonafitold, two directions 4 se te
 is

Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies —- Fs oa

Guest-edited by Michael Hensel, Achim ees and Michael Weinstock
cn
Vol 74, No 3, a 0470866888, Profile No 169

Emergence or evolutionary optimization is an important new concept, which. has in recent

years been applied to artificial intelligence, information theory, digital technology, economics,
climate studies, material science and biometric engineering, and now architecture.
In an architectural context, it involves harnessing evolutionary processes for not only
the design of buildings, but also the composition of new materials and structural design.
In so doing architecture is aspiring to the perfection of form found in nature.
a! This title is being compiled by Hensel, Menges and Weinstock, the directors of the
new Emergent Technologies programme at the Architectural Association, which is fast
becoming an influential international research unit. Highlights of the issue include inter-
ZA views with Frei Otto, an article by George Jeronimides of the Department of Biomimetics at i ne =
the University. of Reading and a review of the Advanced Geometry Group at Ove Arup & Partners. . ray me ie Ge ey

For an increasing number of people living in Western societies, suburbia is the primary lv:
i ; ing environment. In the us, for instance, more people hve in suburbia than in cities. |
; : : Yet it is the city that architects have been trained to regard as their main territory of
intervention. The architectural media have done their share in propelling the presumptian. =
that construction in suburbia could only be of mediocre quality. This issue challenges +
_that presumption. It also presents an opportunity for architects to rake back an important
sector of the housing industry, as 75% of all new construction in the us is in Suburbia
but less than 5% remains architect- designed. ;
s The-title Will feature ground-breaking projects by Zaha Hadid, Eyal Weizman, Lacaton & f ; Siege
Vassal, R&Sie (Francois Roche), Sadar & Vuga and Wes Jones. co

In the last.decade or so architectural schools have become truly international in their

intake, as students select from courses worldwide. This creates a bewildering choice
- for school leavers’ and undergraduates shopping for a degree. A situation that has
been exasperated in the uk by the professional institutions devalidating some of the
_most prestigious architectural schools. Reputation is no longer enough to go by. Different
institutions produce very different types of architects, whether it be an emphasis on build-
-ing techniques, digital techniques, business or pure design. .
This is to be a touchstone publication for anyone involved in architectural educati ion,
whether they be an entrenched academic or student. It provides four interviews with
the most influential educators/heads of schools: Peter Cook & Christine Hawley;
Elia Zenghelis & Eleni Gigantes; Anthony Vidler & Mark Wigley, and Lean van Schaik &
Tom Heneghan — and short self-biagraphies of eleven further prominent figures, including
Paul Virilio, Dalibor Vesely, Beatriz Colomina, Brett Steele and Kevin Rhowbotham, as
well as with educators from countries of recent change, such as China, Russia and South
__ Africa. The back section is dedicated to a listing of architectural schools and institutions.
a Le ae » ani Pi * 4 . “ «a
eo
 FOLDING IN ARCHITECTURE
A revised edition
Edited by Greg Lynn
With new introductions by Greg Lynn and Mario Carpo

The 1990s started angular and ended curvilinear. In architecture, they started
deconstructivist and ended topological. Seldom has a new trend in architecture
encountered such a meteoric rise and fall: it is now generally surmised that the
new, smooth and curving forms that characterized the end of the millennium
were driven by new computer technologies, and the appeal of digital architec-
ture has already declined alongside the declining fortunes of what was once
called the IT revolution.

ul Fl Folding in Architecture, edited by Greg Lynn and first published as an issue of

Architectural Design in 1993; is already a classic. A catalyst for the wave of
change that was already in the air at the beginning of the decade, it anticipated
and ushered in many distinctive features of architecture in the first digital age.
This is a facsimile of that seminal issue, reprinted identically and unabridged,
with the addition of new introductory essays by Greg Lynn and Mario Carpo,
Head of the Study Centre at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
\ \ \ \ |
| \Situlated\in what\can'now be aptly defined as its historical context, this reprint
offers to contemporary readers a privileged insight into the early steps of a
revolution in the making. It will also help to reconstruct the cultural environ-
ment that preceded and prompted the mass diffusion of digital technologies in
architectural design, and the ambitions and ferments that eventually shaped
and inspired the rise of computer-based design and manufacturing.
{

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