RECAP: Davis+Virillio+Miessen+Colomina+Trüby

Often times I find myself working on something for long enough that when I realize how close I’ve gotten to it I need to pull my nose off the page. Sometimes a little perspective or retrospective is necessary. In my case this was literally accomplished during the installation of the GSAPP Year End Show exhibit. By being able to stand back and take it all in I was also able to critically examine some common threads of thought between the different authors I had been critiquing individually.

I want to begin with a connection made across Mike Davis and Paul Virillio. One of my favorite thoughts expressed by Davis was the need for us to adjust our perspective towards change and disaster. I like this because it’s not something that you commonly hear and because of the potential to view this as a slightly cynical position. You can just imagine a group of people whose homes were wiped off a mountainside in a mudslide reacting to someone saying “You should have seen it coming!” You never hear that because it’s insensitive, it’s insensitive but it’s true. Anyway, Virillio in his book “War and Cinema” makes a similar point in regards to military battle, “…the history of battle is primarily the history of radically changing fields of perception.” I’d like to bring these two thoughts on perspective and perception together by referencing Beatriz Colomina and her writing about the Underground Home. Colomina illustrates the conversion of the home to a battlefield through its use of technology pioneered by military use. If she argues that the home is now a battlefield then it too might be subject to radically changing fields of perception as Virillio states. Danger from disaster, war and even around the home all require regular reevaluation of perspective and contextual understanding.

In contrast to any kind of adaptive contextual understanding, all the authors at some point make comment about either boundaries, borders or definitions. Davis is especially critical in an urban planning sense about policing through architectural boundaries whether it’s through physically gated communities or by police controlled zoning laws. Stephan Trüby claims that its difficult to define the difference between what architecture is and what could be the world around it. Virillio speaks about war without war as the state acts with military power without defining it as war in a game of political semantics. I think this tendency towards the definition of terms, boundaries, edges, etc, relates to the larger concept of outside versus inside, or often times as us versus them. This language of division is essential in defining defense, fortification (which only exists with two sides of a wall) and conflict (which needs two sides). Inside versus Outside is the architectural representation of combat and conflict. Davis claims that by establishing hard boundaries or reversing the traditional roles of these spaces that they have become marginalized (he cites the new suburban streetscape as a sewer for cars devoid of human life). Colomina outlines the extreme interiorization and exclusion of the exterior in the home. These are signs of our attempt to tame the exterior and domesticate it. If using the Underground Home as an example then Trüby certainly has a point about the fuzzy definition of architecture.

Markus Miessen’s essay on the architecture of deprivation also demonstrates the language of inside and outside as he speaks about the detachment of the exterior and the introverted effects of space designed to deprive. In this case the fear is generated from within. According to Trüby’s explanation of fear the internal location of fear qualifies it as risk versus an external origin of fear which qualifies as danger. In all of these examples it becomes apparent that when looking at the role of architecture in relation to the effects of fear one of its primary roles is that of separation. This notion can have many different labels; defense, fortification, protection, zoning, interior, exterior, public, private, secured, unsecured, or opaque and transparent.

Finally I want to touch on two smaller themes I found interesting. Both the mention of Scale and the Culture of War intrigued me. I thought Colomina’s essay on the Underground Home was interesting because of it’s reduction of the scale to the home. The home was one of the first places where the military apparatus was introduced to the common man/woman through appliances and the scale of the individual. Trüby addresses the scale of the individual towards the end of his essay on 5 Codes with some thoughts on a pervasive protected space which he envisioned at a personal scale.

Both Trüby and Colomina also speak to the Culture of War, Trüby in his discussion of classical society and its seamless integration of the celebration of war into its architecture and Colomina in her observation of the home as engaged in combat. I’ve heard the argument that Culture and War do not mix and to that I’d quickly direct anyone towards these writings and authors. War is heavily engrained in our culture, whether it’s classical society or today; look at any classical triumphal architecture or the current pop-culture use of camouflage. These are obvious examples and the list goes on.

Postopolis! Update

So the schedule has been finalized. I'll be part of a panel discussion with bloggers Alec Appelbaum, Abe Burmeister, John Hill, Miss Representation, Aaron Plewke, Enrique Ramirez, Quilian Riano, Chad Smith, and others to be announced beginning around 5pm on Saturday June 2nd. Hope to see you there!

Postopolis and the Architecture of Fear

Many thanks to Geoff Manaugh and Jill Fehrenbacher for inviting me to participate in the Postopolis! event at the Storefront for Art & Architecture here in New York.

Its happening Tuesday, May 29, to Saturday, June 2, 2007 at the Storefront for Art & Architecture.

I've been tentatively scheduled to participate in a discussion on architecture and blogging on June 2nd, time has yet to be determined. Stay tuned for more details as they emerge.

For more info check out BLDG BLOG.

A description from the Storefront:

Postopolis! is a five-day event of near-continuous conversation about architecture, urbanism, landscape, and design. Four bloggers, from four different cities, will host a series of live discussions, interviews, slideshows, panels, talks, and other presentations, and fuse the informal energy and interdisciplinary approach of the architectural blogosphere with the immediacy of face to face interaction.

End of Year Show Wrap-Up

So the semester is over and the show has just wrapped up. Take a look below at images from the opening of the Year End Show and a little explanation about the exhibit:

The intention of the exhibit was to provide a glimpse at my thought process and to illustrate literally the connections I’ve made across the research conducted during the course of this past semester. As one can imagine, visually representing pages and pages of written notes and blog posts in an interesting way was a little bit of a challenge. Conveying the interactive nature of the blog as an outlet and forum for the topic of the Architecture of Fear could have also been problematic. As a response to both challenges the exhibit consisted of two layers.

The first layer illustrated information specific to the blog. In previous work I had come across a beautiful and informative world map put together by a crisis management company which showed levels of threat caused by terror and the groups which could be responsible. This image became the basis for plotting the locations of blog hits over the duration of the study which were surprisingly diverse (in as much as it can be expected being a blog in the English language). The overlapping of this info could also correlate the interest in the site with high risk areas. This could be true however strictly on the basis that developed nations (ie with reliable access to the internet) are for the most part the highest targets of potential terror attacks.

The second layer contained all the writing completed for the blog postings and the notes which preceded them. The goal was to make the summary of the reading (the notes) available to view and then the corresponding blog post. The connections between the notes were then literally connected visually with twine. One color (light green) was given for internal connections (between the notes and the corresponding post) another color (dark green) was given for external connections (ideas and concepts found in multiple posts). A third color (orange) was assigned for the viewers to make their own connections as they saw fit since they were provided the information to make their own decisions. This aspect of the exhibit was less successful and admittedly wasn’t anticipated as being the most popular (dozens of pages of tiny text still doesn’t lend itself to quick digestion by a full house of gallery patrons). Finally as a last ditch effort to draw in participants, pins were provided for them to locate their hometowns and places of origin to chart the crowd which viewed it. This was a little more widely used. Anyway as an exercise it proved valuable on my end since putting it together allowed me to see all of the work I’ve done as a connected body and not just as individual thoughts. I hope to get more on these connections and the digestion of the viewer input up in the near future.

Thanks to all those who attended and participated and to the school for providing me the space.

Exhibition

Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is having a Year End Exhibition of which this Independent Study will be a part of. Check back in the next week for images of the event or if you are in the neighborhood please feel free to come see for yourself. Details for the event:

GSAPP End of Year Exhibition
Opening Saturday May 12th 6pm - 8pm
Avery Hall, Columbia Univerisity
116th St and Broadway
New York City

The Architecture of Fear will feature an interactive exhibit and will be located in Avery Hall on the 4th Floor.

The exhibition will continue until the 25th of May.

Improvised Architectural Devices

As mentioned in a previous post, Archis magazine is hosting global RSVP events with calls for submission on subjects from Heritage to Paranoia. With the upcoming event in Kabul this summer focusing on Security the lure was irresistible. As an extension of my research this is a great opportunity to connect ideas to a tangible architectural product. As a combination of both written research and built research, each will contribute to the other by making links between them and thereby strengthening the work. Below is a synopsis of my proposal. Stay tuned for updates as the deadline is the end of April and decisions will be made shortly after.

Improvised Explosive Devices vs Improvised Architectural Devices

IED’s can be prepared almost anywhere and used anywhere.
They are quickly made and used
They use ready made and found material
They are low-tech
They are flexible in scale, application, and type
They are inexpensive
They create and define space in places without boundary or definition beforehand (through zones of destruction and trauma)
They affect emotion (through fear and destruction)
They create a lasting effect long after their original use (through trauma left behind)

What if we were to create Improvised Architectural Devices? (IADs)

IADs could be prepared almost anywhere and used everywhere
They could be quickly made and used
They could use ready made and found material
They could be low-tech
They could be flexible in scale, application and type
They could be inexpensive
They could create and define space in places without boundary or definition beforehand (through zones of construction and comfort)
They could affect emotion (through safety and shelter)
They could create a lasting effect long after their original use (through their utility)

Essential in this proposal is the understanding that IEDs while detestable objects, have redeeming architectural qualities which can be re-implemented in positive fashion. Their reasons for utility and effectiveness are what we wish to harness for our purposes. These qualities I have identified above. Beginning with the IED’s ability to be constructed and deployed anywhere, IADs must possess this property. Their construction should be as such that they can be built on site or off-site and easily transported to their final site.

This is facilitated by mimicking IED’s use of found and ready made material. The use of simple and economic materials allows for this and also allows for low or no economic cost. This is critical in making IADs accessible to any group regardless of their financial situation and resources. As a consequence of using found materials, the lack of complexity or need for specialized tools is also necessary.

In order for IADs to be architectural, they must acknowledge space in some way. They don’t necessarily need to create enclosed space but they must make reference to the definition of a space, separation of a space or absence of space. In engaging space they must also adapt to multiple scales. IEDs come in many sizes and are tailored to their specific tasks, IADs should be no different. They should also seek to create comfort in their resolutions. It is one thing to create a solution to a problem, but the interest of the IAD is also that it understands the human requirements and interactions of its users.

IADs must be substantial enough to make a lasting contribution or at least address the problem for the duration of its existence if it is a temporary condition. They do not necessarily need to be temporary constructions. IADs must address a problem even if at the smallest scale, they cannot be installations or art pieces. They should however seek where possible to achieve a contemplated and conscious aesthetic, they are architectural after all.

Potential Uses:
One can envision IADs deployed in the following examples including but not limited to:

-Creating shelter for children within the home from shrapnel or gunfire through weaving found and discarded clothing with found metal to create a homemade ballistic shield
-Creating insulation to line the home or apartment from found material
-Creating a locking enclosure to secure valuables
-Creating a privacy screen between living units providing visual, and audio separation

Since the implementation of IADs is predicated on the response to specific contextual parameters, each solution will be different and therefore it is difficult to speculate on the exact nature of each.


Extension of Concept:
The need for real and timely architectural solutions in crisis situations is not unique to developing nations but is a global condition. It is my hope that through the implementation of an IAD in Kabul the development of the concept through this trip will foster an interest in expanding this idea and implementing it in all conditions whether conflict stricken locations in a developing nation or in public housing in urban America. Every condition is unique but the underlying essence of the IAD is its adaptability it takes from the IED. Because of this it lends itself to be applied on a greater scale and in a diverse way.

Domesticating Fear

They say a man’s home is his castle, although it might better be argued that with the technological infiltration of domestic activities aimed specifically at women in the fifties and sixties, that a woman’s home is her castle. Gender roles aside, Beatriz Colomina in her essay titled “The Underground Home” examines a concrete moment at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, where as a response to fear and as we will examine later the “outside”, the internalized and militarized home was at its most extreme.

Colomina takes us in for a closer look at “The Underground Home” a self explanatory product available for commercial sale all the way up through the 1980’s and on proud display as a model of the future at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing New York. In her examination she brings to light two important things which I would like to discuss further. The first is the infiltration of technology and war into the home and the ability to convert militarized invention into domesticated necessity. The second is a theme found commonly in reference to security and that is interiority versus exteriority.

In the 1960’s during the cold war, with the looming fear of near instant nuclear annihilation resulting in the popularity of digging your own bunker in the backyard, the Underground Home made its debut. It was a house that was defined by the nuclear age. Designed to both protect from the nuclear threat but also to use the latest in nuclear powered technology it was an interesting paradox. It represented the integration of war into the home and was a laboratory for technology. For example, due to the inability to have windows in the home inhabitants were able to “dial-a-view” and select from an array of pleasing scenes and it had its own internalized HVAC system completely eliminating the effects of exterior weather as if it were on par with nuclear fallout. Colomina explains that over time the battlefield for which the house was designed for changed to match the social context. In the 60’s it was nuclear fallout, in the 70’s it was energy efficiency against the oil crisis and in the 80’s it was ecological concerns. In doing this it engaged the house in combat. The home was an apparatus in the war. This was demonstrated in the powerful images by Martha Mosler in 1967 and again in 2004 for her piece titles “Bringing the War Home”. She accurately notes that “the increasing dematerialization of the house and the displacement of its traditional functions by new technologies of information is exactly matched by an increasing rematerialization at its borders and the emergence of ever more enclosing security systems” p126.

The heavy importance of the home in day to day life is one of the major factors in why technology was so heavily concentrated there. It’s where we spent all our time, it’s where we raised our families and it’s where we returned to at the end of every day. I wonder now though with the increasing tendency to spend less time at home and the resulting reduction in significance and meaning as “home” if this is necessarily true anymore. More and more it seems our homes are just a place where we keep our “stuff”. Now I realize that this might not be universally true or even the case the majority of the time but it is changing and it begs the question, is the home where we should be concentrating our efforts to secure and fortify? Is there a new location or a new scale where we retreat to for safety and shelter? Is it now the personal space that travels with us?

You would assume that when your house exists entirely underground, you might as well forget about having a yard or any exterior space at all. Well this wasn’t the case for the Underground Home. Colomina points out a rather interesting and important feature of the house, it had an outdoor patio. This Inside/Outside space confuses the indoor and outdoor but at the same time solidifies the importance of the interior. If when you’re “outside” your underground house but underground and therefore still inside, it highlights an extreme example of the interiorization of the home. It’s this turn inwards, the tendency to shut out the exterior or to tame it through captivity within the interior or as Colomina describes it “domesticating fear by controlling the image of the exterior and replacing it with an idealized image.” Pg124 So there are two ways which we protect ourselves in our homes, through excluding the exterior or taming it and by replacing it with our own image.

Neither of these options sound particularly healthy. They both seem to be symptoms of an attitude which encourages the lack of information and flexibility. It’s the home as a bunker, an immovable, un-responding object. Perhaps there are two ways this can go. If there is indeed an increasing tendency for technology now to focus more attention to the personal scale, then we might do best to forget about the home, or treat it for what it has become, a vault, and continue to develop our own personal security. If we still want to give architecture another stab at it, we must develop our security away from the home at the scale of the city or building. The other possibility is that we stay at home and use this history of technological concentration and get hip real quick. Protection in this day and age no longer necessarily means the thickest skin it’s about the most information. The home can be a place of comfort and information. We see this to some extent already, bringing the world into the home through internet communication and digital satellite cable with 700 channels. If the Underground Home functioned by surrounding the exterior with the interior then I say the new home must do the exact opposite. It’s now about bringing the interior to the exterior. The world is your backyard now and you know everything that happens in it.