Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

‘Building in Empty Spaces’: is Architecture a ‘Degenerate Utopia’?

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602365.2013.783225

1466-4410

Nathaniel Coleman,

Urbanization and City Planning

Abstract The philosopher of Utopia Ernst Bloch observed that 'Architecture cannot at all flourish in the late capitalist hollow space' because 'it is, far more than the other fine arts, a social creation.' For him, 'Only the beginnings of a different society will make true architecture possible again.'1 E. Bloch, 'Building in Empty Spaces', in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, J. Zipes, F. Mecklenburg, trs (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1988), p. 187. So long as it remains captured within the world system of capitalism, architecture's utopian vocation will be obscured. Echoing Bloch's account of architecture's fatal constraint by the given, Manfredo Tafuri pessimistically asserted that 'hopes in design' are anachronistic myths.2 M. Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, (1973), B. Luigia La Penta, trsl. (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1976), p. 182. And yet, the right to just cities and amenable architecture persists. While Bloch identified the inextricable bond between Utopia and hope almost everywhere but in architecture, Tafuri sought to disabuse modern architecture of its naïve utopianism. But what if, as Fredric Jameson suggests, a non-hegemonic architecture is impossible without Utopia? Reconciling Bloch's doubts about architecture's utopian potential, Tafuri's pessimism and Jameson's ambivalence toward both architecture and Utopia, with a more hopeful outlook entails rethinking Utopia's banishment from architecture (because of the failures of the modern movement). In fact, imagining alternatives without Utopia is all but impossible. Louis Marin's ideas on 'Degenerate Utopias' and David Harvey's conception of a 'dialectical utopianism' of 'process' and 'form' are also considered to make the argument that remaining within the ambit of Utopia assures the prospect of a 'flourishing' and 'true' architecture, even today. Notes E. Bloch, 'Building in Empty Spaces', in The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, J. Zipes, F. Mecklenburg, trs (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1988), p. 187. M. Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, (1973), B. Luigia La Penta, trsl. (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1976), p. 182. B. Tschumi, 'The Architectural Paradox', (1975), Studio International (September-October, 1975); revised in Bernard Tschumi, Architecture and Disjunction (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1994) and in Architecture Theory Since 1968, K. M. Hays, ed., (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1998), p. 218. E. Bloch, 'Building in Empty Spaces', op. cit. Ibid., pp. 189–190. E. Bloch, 'Formative Education, Engineering Form, Ornament', J. Newman, J. Smith, trs, Oppositions, no. 17 (Summer, 1979), pp. 45–51 and in, N. Leach, ed., Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (London, Routledge, 1997), p. 46. Architecture for Humanity, ed., Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises (London, Thames & Hudson, 2006) and Architecture for Humanity, ed., Design Like You Give a Damn[2]: Building Change from the Ground Up (New York, Abrams, 2012). Ibid., 'High Line', Deborah Aaronson, ed., in Design Like you give a Damn 2: Building Change from the Ground Up, pp. 178–183. B. Bell, K. Wakeford, eds, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (New York, Metropolis Books, 2008). Ibid., J. L. S. Gámez, S. Rogers, 'Introduction: An Architecture of Change', pp. 18–25. A. O. Dean, T. Hursley, Rural Studio: Samule Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency (New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002). K. M. Hays, 'Fredric Jameson "Architecture and the Critique of Ideology"', In Architecture Theory Since 1968, K. M. Hays, ed. (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1998), p. 440. F. Jameson, 'Architecture and the Critique of Ideology', Paper presented at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, 1982; published in Architecture, Criticism, Ideology, Joan Ockman, et al., eds (Princeton, Princeton Architectural Press, 1985) and, with Hays's introductory comments, in Architecture Theory Since 1968, K. M. Hays, ed., op. cit., p. 442. Ibid., p. 443. Ibid., pp. 443–444; 443. Ibid., p. 444. Ibid. Ibid., p. 443. J. Zipes, 'Introduction: Toward a Realization of Anticipatory Illumination', in, E. Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, op. cit., p. xxxiii. See, for example, J. Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York, Random House, 1961) for an early and influential denunciation of Utopia in relation to modern architecture and planning, especially Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier. See also R. Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, Revised Edition (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1977). Although the book can be read in general as a repudiation of the ostensibly utopian aspirations of orthodox modern architecture, the position is most explicitly stated on page 129 of the edition indicated here. E. Bloch, The Principle of Hope, Volume Two, N. Plaice, S. Plaice, P. Knight, trs (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1986), p. 737. Van Eyck's conviction was that 'The job of the planner is to provide built homecoming for all, to sustain a feeling of belonging—hence, to evolve an architecture of place—a setting for each subsequent occasion, determined or spontaneous', A. van Eyck: 'The Medicine of Reciprocity Tentatively Illustrated', Forum, 6/7 (1961), reprinted in Aldo van Eyck Writings: Collected Articles and Other Writings, 1947–1998, V. Ligtelijn, F. Strauven, eds (Amsterdam, Sun, 2008), pp. 318–319. In van Eyck's terms, 'counterform' was meant to convey architecture and the city as the framework of renewed social life: A. van Eyck, 'The Fake Client and the Great Word "N"', Forum, 16, no. 3 (1962); reprinted in Aldo van Eyck, Writings, op. cit., p. 325. For discussion of Utopia as the tacit coefficient of architecture, see N. Coleman, Utopias and Architecture (Abingdon, Routledge, 2005), pp. 254–256. F. Jameson, 'Synthesis, Irony, Neutralization and the Moment of Truth', in Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London, Verso, 2005), pp. 170–171. H. Heynen, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press), p. 120. Ibid. ManfredoTafuri, Theories and History of Architecture, G. Verrecchia, trsl. (London, Granada, 1980), pp. 141–170. For a discussion of Tafuri's engagement with Utopia, see N. Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, op. cit., pp.71–73, 100–101, 239–242. Some examples of arguably architectural utopias are offered in N. Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, op. cit., and N. Coleman, ed., Imagining and Making the World: Reconsidering Architecture and Utopia, Ralahine Utopian Studies, Volume 8 (Bern, Peter Lang, 2011). Ernst Bloch, 'Formative Education, Engineering Form, Ornament', op. cit., p. 46. H. Heynen, op. cit., p. 125. Approaches to resolving the world financial crises, in which imagining an alternative to capitalism remains unthinkable, appear to bear this out. In this regard, as Jameson observed: 'Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.': F. Jameson, 'Future City', New Left Review, 21 (2003), p. 76. For a good overview of this trajectory, see M. McLeod, 'Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism', Assemblage, 8 (1989), pp. 22–59; see also, N. Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, op. cit., pp. 88–112. E. Bloch, 'Building in Empty Spaces', op. cit., p. 187. Ibid. J. Zipes, 'Introduction,' op. cit., p. xxxiii. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', in, C. C. Davidson, ed., Anyplace (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1995), pp. 192–205, reprinted in N. Leach, ed., Rethinking Architecture, op. cit., p. 260. 'MANFREDO TAFURI; The Historian Vs. the Critic', E. S. LEVIN, Letter to the Editor, New York Times, May 29th, 1994. Available online at: < http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/29/arts/l-manfredo-tafuri-the-historian-vs-the-critic-212873.html> [accessed 30/01/12]. M. Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, op. cit. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 259. For an extended discussion of the utopian dimension of Libeskind's Berlin Jewish Museum, see N. Coleman, Utopias and Architecture, op. cit., pp. 257–270. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 259–260. Eisenman's dystopian aspirations are confirmed in the following: 'there was a story which circulated concerning [Eisenman's Columbus, Ohio] convention centre [. . .; ] [i]t's walls are not quite vertical, and its floors not quite horizontal—by design—the intention being to put in suspension the sense of the pull of gravity. It has the unanticipated effect of making people vomit. [. . .]. When a journalist tried to track down someone who had actually been made sea-sick by the building, and persisted in his inquiries, the architect eventually cracked and admitted that he had invented the story. [. . .]. The curious thing here is that the architect was circulating an untrue story which one might have thought that he would be trying to suppress. By some scale of values he was actually enhancing the reputation of his building by letting it be known that it was hostile to humanity. [. . .] [Eisenman seeks] not to promote but to negate human values': A. Ballantyne, What is Architecture? (London, Routledge, 2002), pp. 13–14. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 260. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 259. Ibid., p. 265. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. For further discussion of this aspect of Lefebvre's project, see M. Gardiner, 'Everyday utopianism: Lefebvre and his critics', Cultural Studies, 18; 2–3 (2004), pp. 228–254. E. Bloch, 'Building in Empty Spaces', op. cit., p. 189. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 259. Ibid., p. 267. Ibid., p. 259. Ibid. F. Jameson, M. Speaks, 'Envelopes and Enclaves: The Space of Post-Civil Society (An Architectural Conversation)', Assemblage, 17 (1992), p. 37. K. M. Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, op. cit., p. 440. F. Jameson, 'Architecture and the Critique of Ideology', op. cit., p. 453. L. Marin, Utopics: The Semiological Play of Textual Spaces, R. A. Vollrath, trs. (Amherst, NY, Humanity Books), p. 239. Ibid. Ibid. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 259. Ibid., pp. 259–260. L. Marin, Utopics, op. cit., p. 196. D. Harvey, Spaces of Hope (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000), p. 234. Ibid. F. Jameson, 'Is Space Political?', op. cit., p. 267. Ibid. E. Bloch, The Principle of Hope, op. cit., p. 737.