Architecture Oriented Otherwise

303 Pages·2008·4.9 MB·English

by  David Leatherbarrow

Architecture Oriented Otherwise

Archit ecture
Oriented
Otherwise
David Leatherbarrow
David Leatherbarrow
Princeton ArchitecturAl Press, new York
For Lauren

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© 2009 David Leatherbarrow
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Printed and bound in China
11 10 09 08 4 3 2 1 First edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner without written permission from the publisher,
except in the context of reviews.
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify own-
ers of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in
subsequent editions.
Editor: Jennifer Thompson
Designer: Deb Wood
Special thanks to: Nettie Aljian, Sara Bader, Dorothy Ball,
Nicola Bednarek, Janet Behning, Becca Casbon, Carina
Cha, Penny (Yuen Pik) Chu, Russell Fernandez, Pete
Fitzpatrick, Wendy Fuller, Jan Haux, Clare Jacobson, Aileen
Kwun, Nancy Eklund Later, Linda Lee, Aaron Lim, Laurie
Manfra, Katharine Myers, Ceara O’Leary, Lauren Nelson
Packard, Arnoud Verhaeghe, Paul Wagner and Joseph
Weston of Princeton Architectural Press
—Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leatherbarrow, David.
Architecture oriented otherwise / David Leatherbarrow.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56898-811-5 (alk. paper)
1. Architecture—Philosophy. I. Title.
NA2500.L434 2009
720.1—dc22
2008019134
IntroductIon Architecture Otherwise 10
Part 1 Performances 19
1. Breathing Walls 19
2. unscripted Performances 41
3. Materials Matter 67
4. roughness 95
Part 2 Situations 119
5. table talk 119
6. Sitting in the city 141
7. Practically Primitive 173
Part 3 Topographies 195
8. Skylines 195
9. Landings and crossings 271
10. Space in and out of Architecture 239
11. the Law of Meander 269
AcknoWLedgMentS 297
PhotogrAPhy credItS 299
Index 301

7
INTRODuCTION
Architecture Otherwise
Here it is a question of recognizing and
actualizing something which I consider to
be a presupposition of our being human,
namely that the other may not only have a
right but may actually be right...

—Hans Gadamer, The Enigma of Health
An orientation which goes freely from the
same to the other is a work.
—Emmanuel Levinas, “Meaning and Sense”
Forces beyond the architect’s control affect architecture’s con-
crete reality, regardless of what was intended in design. What
is more, unforeseen influences also bring about the end of the
building’s freestanding individuality. no tears should dampen
this realization, for the defeat of a work’s apparent singularity
often leads to a victory for the patterns of life it accommodates
and represents.
My aim in this book is to explain the ways that build-
ings sometimes allow themselves to be seen independently, as
images, and other times recede from prominence in order to
accommodate everyday life. this might be called the advance
8 Architecture Oriented Otherwise
and retreat of the architectural figure, a two-step performance,
alternately in front of and among others, like that of an actor
onstage. considering all the arts, the double task of showing and
serving seems to be architecture’s unique assignment, a cultural
role that is reduced when the building is viewed either as an
aesthetic object or a functional solution, or some compromise
between the two. I will introduce the lines of thought developed
in this book by reconsidering an underappreciated dimension
of architectural order, orientation. My hope is that this pream-
ble will provide some clarification of the ways that a building
can both adhere to and distinguish itself from its “context” and
“program,” performing in ways that acknowledge existing con-
ditions while enriching them.
orientation is a familiar term in architecture. Facing
eastward is generally assumed. A more basic sense of the word
implies movement across the work’s borders toward something
it holds in common with others.1 the word “facing” sometimes
substitutes for “orientation”: with its front facing the street, the
odéon theater in Paris has an urban orientation. For some his-
torical architectural types, this posture was particularly impor-
tant. temples, Vitruvius insisted, should be positioned on their
sites “so that those who approach with offerings and sacrifices
will look toward the image within the temple beneath the eastern
part of the heavens,”2 unless, of course, some preexisting part of
the terrain or town makes this impossible. etymologically, the
word “temple” indicates the separation required for orientation’s
reach, designating a place that is set apart from or cut off—as if
with a template, for purposes of contemplation. “Facing,” then,
means looking at or having a regard for some point or place that
stands opposite the building. the pan-de-verre and brise-soleil of
Le corbusier’s Maison curutchet in La Plata, Argentina, face
both northward and the park on the other side of the boulevard.
the strong sense of this stance is captured by the word “con-
intrOductiOn 9
fronting.” that the matter does not end there is clear when one
recalls the other meaning of the word “facing,” a meaning that is
equally common in architecture. When taken to signify looking
in a certain direction, the word is used as a verb. But it can also
be used as a noun: a facing is a veneer or cladding applied to a
building, a lining or surface that provides a protective or figu-
rative covering. the walls of the salon in Adolf Loos’s Müller
Villa in Prague are faced with cipolin marble; those in the bou-
doir, with lemonwood. Facing in the first case occurs within the
building’s site, in the second, on its surfaces. Prearchitectural
considerations—environment and use—are implied in each.
this means that the movement implied in orientation occurs in
two directions, at two distances, and within two kinds of depth:
of the location in the first case, of the enclosures in the second
case. neither is optional. Because buildings occupy sites, they
must “find their bearings” with respect to their environment.
Because they accommodate uses, they must cover their volumes
with suitable surfaces.3
Assuming that the development of urban, public, or
communicative space is impossible as long as architectural
methods and techniques remain dedicated to the production
of works that proclaim themselves to be internally defined and
self-sufficient, I believe that the most pressing task in our time
is the description of the ways that better buildings have been
oriented or inclined beyond themselves—which is to say, oth-
erwise.4 this movement could be called counterpositioning; its
result, counteracting. I realize that my use of these last two terms
is unfamiliar but want to risk it, because I think it may be helpful
in offering a productive response to some negative tendencies
that are dominant these days. the term “counterpositioning”
is best known in art historical scholarship, especially in stud-
ies of late-renaissance and baroque sculpture (contrapposto).5
Medical texts of the same periods and of classical antiquity6
10 Architecture Oriented Otherwise
elaborated an even more basic concept, that of equilibrium (kra-
sis) among the parts of a body and, more importantly, between
the body and its surrounding milieu, inasmuch as the vicinity
combined both attractive and displeasing aspects. the same sort
of engagement between an individual and its vicinity can exist in
architecture. What is more, the orientation that is apparent in the
best buildings of the past several decades shows how topography
can become genuinely communicative. contemporary ecologi-
cal theory may provide a parallel here. If the technical, practi-
cal, and representational conditions architecture is to sustain
take into account not only natural phenomena but also cultural
norms, as embodied in urban situations, my sense of “orienta-
tion” can be seen to parallel the mandate to think widely and
act locally.
Accepting the actuality of orientation amounts to a sac-
rifice of the individual building’s freestanding self-governance.
colin rowe and Fred koetter’s chapter in Collage City on “the
crisis of the object” is perhaps the best known of the many
arguments for an architecture of relationships.7 Leaving aside
the peculiarities of a “collage city” theory of the urban field,
stating the common view, the relationships the building is to
have with its surrounds are generally thought to exist between
designs, between one’s own project and those of other designers.
envisaged here is a reciprocity of professional intentions. this
understanding of the urban field is wrong, or at least deficient,
in two ways: it makes the wider milieu the outcome of design,
which is only part of the story; and it takes for granted precisely
what must be explained, the development and the limitations of
the building’s uniqueness. In this book I attempt to show that
the building’s exposure or subjection to the many and varied
dimensions of its ambient conditions amounts to a disavowal
of sovereignty—not just the building’s but the designer’s, too.
While difficult for professional reasons, it seems to me to be