Utopias and Architecture - School of Architecture

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Y Nathaniel Coleman
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IS,BN !9778-1I-58B3915-1I47-1
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Utopias and
Architecture
Utopias and Architecture is concerned with the enduring central question in
architecture of how buildings communicate. Post-modern architecture often fails to
create welcoming built environments, yet in this book Nathaniel Coleman shows
how a significant contemporary architecture persists as a real possibility. Utopia
is examined as fundamental to the invention of a meaningful architecture and
Nathaniel Coleman traces the role of utopias for social imagination through archi-
tectural theory and history, utopian literature, utopian studies, philosophy, sociology
and anthropology.
Comprising an investigation of architectural ideas and works of the 1950s and 1960s,
the author focuses on Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage, Louis I. Kahn’s Salk
Institute and Le Corbusier’s La Tourette. These exemplary works, constructed when
modernist orthodoxy was faltering, proposed an alternative modernity which revealed
pathways to recuperating architectural meaning. Nathaniel Coleman extends his
investigation into the present, examining Daniel Libeskind’s Berlin Jewish Museum,
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s Neurosciences Institute and Renzo Piano’s Tjibaou
Cultural Centre, buildings that continue to renew the tradition of modern architecture
in distinct ways.
Utopias and Architecturepresents an alternative to the predominant current modes
of theorizing and p ractising. No book available on architecture examines utopia with
equal depth, or so persuasively challenges conventional readings of the role of utopia
for architectural invention, making this work a unique contribution to architectural
design methodology, history and theory and utopian studies.
Nathaniel Colemanfirst studied architecture at the Institute for Architecture and
Urban Studies in New York, and continued his education at the Rhode Island School
of Design. He practiced in New York and Rome and completed his PhD at the
University of Pennsylvania, where Joseph Rykwert was his supervisor. Currently a
Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design and the Director of Architecture
and Landscape, Coleman is also a member of the Centre for Tectonic Cultures
Research Group at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He previously taught in
the US.

Utopias and
Architecture
Nathaniel Coleman
First published 2005
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2005 Nathaniel Coleman
Typeset in Univers by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Da ta
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0–415–70084–1 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–70085–x (pbk)
To the memory of my mother,
Corrine

Contents
Illustration credits viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: utopias and architectures? 1
Part 1: Conceptualizing utopias 7
1 Architecture and orientation 9
2 Situating utopias 24
3 Real fictions 46
4 Varieties of architectural utopias 63
5 Postwar possibilities 88
Part 2: Optimistic architectures 113
6 Le Corbusier’s monastic ideal 115

7 The life within 133
8 Fairy tales and golden dust 155
9 Kahn and Salk’s challenge to dualistic thinking 174
10 Aldo van Eyck’s utopian discipline 196
11 Story of another idea 214
12 The unthinkability of utopia 234
13 Into the present 257
Notes 297
Select bibliography 319
Index 327
vii
Illustration credits
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to
reproduce material in this book. Every effort has been made to contact copyright
holders for their permission. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any
copyright holder who is not acknowledged here and will undertake to rectify any
errors or omissions in future editions of the book.
Centre Culturel Tjibaou – ADCK/Renzo Piano Building Workshop Archietectes and
Nathaniel Coleman 13.20, 13.21–31.29
Nathaniel Coleman and FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2004 0.1, 6.1, 6.3–6.5,
6.7, 6.8, 7.10–7.19, 7.23, 7.24, 13.11
FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2004 1.2, 5.3, 5.7, 6.2, 7.3, 7.5–7.9
Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale (National Library) 3.2
Hannie van Eyck 5.8, 10.3, 11.3, 11.4, 11.9
Louis I. Kahn Collection. The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
5.4, 5.5, 8.1–8.3, 9.1, 9.2, 13.30
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection 3.1

Philadelphia Museum of Art 9.4–9.6
Photo SCALA, Florence – Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali, 1990 3.2,
3.3
The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations 1.1, 2.1, 4.1, 4.2,
5.1, 5.2, 12.1
Venice, Accademia, Photo SCALA, Florence – Courtesy of the Minestero Beni e Att.
Culturali, 1990 5.6
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. 5.9
All other photographs are copyright of the current author.
viii
Acknowledgments
My sincere appreciation goes to the individuals who shared their buildings with me.
In particular, Antoine Lion at La Tourette, who introduced me to his home and his
Order and who shared his interest in Le Corbusier, Thomas More and utopia with
me; Bob Lizarraga at the Salk for sharing his long experience with the day-to-day
operations of the Institute. Thanks go as well to Yuki Imai for making my visit to the
Neurosciences Institute so smooth, and to Einar Gall and Gerald Edelman for helping
me to understand their unique research centre, especially its correspondences with
and divergences from the Salk. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Alban Bensa who
generously met with me at his office in Paris to discuss some nagging questions I
had about the Tjibaou Cultural Centre. Acknowledgment is also due to staff at the
Amsterdam Orphanage, Jewish Museum Berlin and Tjibaou Cultural Centre for giving
me access to their places of work and for permitting me to take photographs. Thanks
are due also to Hannie van Eyck, Studio Libeskind, Renzo Piano Building Workshop
and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Associates for their expressions of support for the aims
of this project when approached for permission to use certain illustrative materials,
some of which are included herein.
Substantial early, and unwavering, encouragement for this project came
from Joseph Rykwert and David Leatherbarrow. I owe them both a great debt that I
hope this book, in some small way, honours. I am also grateful to Caroline Mallinder
at Routledge for h er ongoing faith in this project. Gratitude is also due to the many
students in the US and UK who provided me with innumerable opportunities (in
studios, seminars and lectures) to explore the ideas and conclusions developed
in this book. Alex Burry, who undertook a careful reading of the entire manuscript, is
owed a very special debt of gratitude for his generous effort and thoughtful com-
ments. My wife, Elizabeth, for her patience, love, support, generosity and faith that
I would actually complete this book, which of course I could not have done without
her. For all these reasons and more, especially her ongoing critical reading of the text
as it developed, I owe her the most.
A book of this sort could not have come to fruition without generous
institutional support. It is for this that I would like to call special attention to the British
Academy, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the
Research Committee of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape,
University of Newcastle, who have each offered partial support for this book.
ix