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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
150 viewsIsenstadt - Contested Contexts in Site Matters
Isenstadt - Contested Contexts in Site Matters
Uploaded by
Neil SimpsonCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
/ 14
James String Statler Stage, German,
7
Contested Contexts
Sandy Iwasa
1 discovered content sx months ao.
[Context i one of the concen rings of eecumeance comprising ur
Indestanding of siz: fom lt 1m plot, fam neighborhood to rion
fiom locality to landscape to climate. Ie implies the whole xt of con
fkions fom which an architect will conseoct an ides of site suitable
to a specific scheme, and wil include the technologies used 10 shape
these, such as infastrceure ad earéh-moving machinery, a well
Technologis of scing that mediate any conesption of what is unique
and local ata site with images from other plas The concept of com
text is hard ro pin down because i always poms to suszounding ie
smstances; content i che crucible ia which buildings happen, Comm
plcating this, context i at once a general and a specialized, csiplinary
teem. The same word appears prominently in two disimlar realms: a
‘common, casual usage where i can sguy a set of immediate general
‘enuitions thar help suate meaning, and 2 narromer profesional ik
shee it evokes both cartent debate and history sil fresh fom the
1970s Bus, iasolae ab architecrare i part of evezyay fe these wseaes
Bled. Thus, asa factor in the understanding of ite, context emerees
from maliple perspectives, ne just diiplinary one, and is reordered
routinely by mos oninvesigted conceptual mechanisms? Sandy est
Important questions remain cven if contexts restricted 10 refer only
to physical fabri, How fa dos contest go? To adjacent buikings? To}
the monument down the ste? To forns common to the reion but
absent atthe site? Is the exiting context even worth consideration}
(Raising this question today in commercilstrip America ineokes
‘decade debates that have hardly een rewled,) Which aspecs of
‘omtext have elevance wien sale or materia ows of new bil
ing ave unprecedented at = particular location? Which aspects mat
mnost when she content conesved as an onifferentatd background
for anes fgual design? Also, context does not stand stil ie changs,
faom day t0 ay oF decade to decade, in cycles and catalysmcaly
Physical context a8 much 2 question of when as where, as Kev
ynch deuiled in his 1972 book, What Tone Is Tis Place? Further}
placing an emphasis on contest a new design i tantamount to mak
dng the background foreground; i reveses the customary view of the
Architects sale in the station of form. Altough made up of buldings
“intext represent the generation of form as diated by elements ou
‘le the process of design asi is ofen understood, having to do with
rither fonction aor spatial concept
Because context can refer jst a easily to suerounding fabric ast}
widespread atides, or evea to debates regarding physical abr, the
same term ranges in meaning from bait form 10 implied meaning cf
underlying ideology. Architect, exits, historians, presevationsts
fad catual observer all may ase the same word but to difering ends
theie common vocalization veling often opposed intentions. Like 3
‘sinle magaet with two poles, context invisibly sets up an idestionl
fal and so attracts antagonists. Howeves, grater precision in speech
will not improve communication since the Basi for dhe team’s disci
inary specialization is nots specify bt, rather, felt. As
‘often as tot, an architec’ description of an existing context wll son}
underpin a subsequent series of decisions to intervene i shat context
TA charctsization of context smnpgles ito the design process a se
‘of confirming vaies camoullaged as « description of exiting con
tions and observed fact; the details of any description of context wil
sully indicate whether the speaker aims eo cespect or reject it
| Dresed a an inventory of what is here ows the architect’, analysis
of context is ofen a preliminary step in he srugale for what wil
Leone next
While contes, the product of eounles uncoordinated decisions,
continues to metamorphose regardless of anyone intention oF ite.
‘reaton, the issue of context has taday become contentious. In the
summer of 2001, for example, architecrral jousnalist Herbert,
‘Muschamp bomoaned ia the New York Tomes he latest srsender to
context, the excuse given during the reviow of submissions to ree
‘welop the Con Edison stein Manhattan for lvoring coeporate achi-
tects over innovative, buted, designers. Contes, he wrote, “the
ides thar new buildings should fit in with thee seroundings rather
than add o them, has led our archiserre into the deadss of dead
ends." Too much, 0° too literal a resect for cantext has led to r=
sis im the creation of form? In Mischamps ese, context refers (0
‘contemporary consumer culture. The apartment building he ives i,
the explains, is eed hick, Hike the one it shadows, but he says, it
has nothing to do withthe context of New Yoek.nIt exists inthe
cemtexe of matched towels, bath mats and toilet bowl covecs.. It
‘exist in the content of suburb.” In response to Muschamp, Dot
sas Kelbaugh, Dean of che College of Architecture end Urban Pa
ring a the Univesity of Michigan, wrote The New York Times x
ing tha to0 mach emphasis is curently placed on innovation, which
‘might make for good individual buildings, be creates discord an
turban scl: "Don't make excitement for its own sake habitual,
mandatory of, worse yet, a syle. I realize it may make lssexciting
copy, but we need co bear about aesehetcally compelling buildings
that alo fonction well fit in ell nd age well” Kelbaagh under
stands that his postion may he critiized for consrining expeesion,
and so adds, “Comtestusism need not stile invention or erestiiy.”
He admis, however, that it often does
“Ths estay asks in particular how the very iden of contexte
‘cally existing baile fabric, eo kep the dscssion tracable—has come,
ven for its advocates, ro sand for what is responsible but dull, for
an architceare a once observant and obseqdions
CONTEXT COMES
Although clearly sobjec to varios interpretations, conte is» eri
‘concept for atchitcture. Despite its amorphousness, it must be
19 160
Sandy bert
xiressd as pare of the ery fabric of architecture. The word inten
fs the act of joining, with com meaning together, and text, fom the
Latin texere, meaning to join, oF weave. Te Indo-European zoot tts
also means fo weave a in Wicker, orto make wate, for watle-and
daub stractres, The petson who makes wate i called the tksom, of
tekton in Grock, from which we get tectonic and the master ofall
things tectonic isthe arc-tekion, 0 architect. In addon, context
takes its place in a spectrum of terms concerned with perception of
place andthe ceeation of placefsnes. Coriously expt beng cent
to the making of architecture, context has not been mich invoked in
archieetaral theory. Vicuvus hinted a iin regard to climate and ori
‘ennation, but his building types—villa and temples—were shee own
‘eaters of gravy while later theories of proportion related formal
‘ements within composition, razely ouside if. In te twentieth cen
tuey an outeight dismal of contest was preceded by nculy two ee
tures of Beaux-Arts design problems, which rately indicated acts
sites As a defining issue for achitecur, contest turns out appets
nly recendy—during the 1950s and 1960s. After being ireelovant at
an issue for most of architectural history, context came siden to
‘occupy a prominent place in architectural dncourse, becoming ahi
torial problem for archiectre in response tothe collapse of = more
‘or less coherent program of moderna. The iss of context arse
4 consequence of the crsgue of modern architeerare
Ts their rash toward « beter soci, existing bulk fabric often
ssood ia the way of modern architects. In its more poentc formula
tions, modernism scorned tidtional cites and contemporary arch
teceure for lagging behind advances in matral cult, For Le Cor
busieg, ancient architecture was admirable because it ad made the
most of the constructive means ofits tine. Practioner of his own
day, howeves, ignored the posbliis of new building techaigues ox
"worse, used them as an armature upon which to prink a building with
the ocnamental regalia of another era. In contrast, a modernise sich
2 Le Cosbase invite that architecture emenge from the tool of
‘own cme. Thus, some of modernism’ mose memorable moments ae
captured and appear in projects thar gain visionary thease in equal
ensue from at innovative formal proposal end a demolition psa
he Radiant City, for example, astonishes 2¢ mach for its eoress |
soveep across Pris s for its array of point cowers ia a park. The plan
onset Caters
‘was drawn on a tabula vasa: wot a clean sate but, more hell, a
slate chat has been erased. Not shaped by the irrelevant surrounding
fabric, modeenst wotks issued from internal matters such as structure
and progeam. They needed fe space around them, existing physical
context was sen a6 a kind of confnemeet. The belief that stodern
space was hemmed in by ueghors can he cracked from early mod
‘mists such as Le Corbuses, and his idea that form arses om the
Plan, to van Doesburg’s notion of modernists as “an allied devel
‘opment in space and time," through lave chaaccerizations made by
Istorans, like che foursided expansion of modernism that Lewis
‘Mumford contrasted with a Georgian “architctare of from” of i
accordance with what Colia Rowe called modemism’s “peripherc
principle” or what Vincent Seully taced as a "new sense of open
space." This i a partial view, to be sure. Many modern buildings
respecte heir surroundings: they might be hard-edged but they were
toc necessarily hostile, an arstade evident, for example, in projects by
Loos, Bedage, Asplund, and others. Futhey, disregard of existing ab
fice hardly unique to modarniam. Well beloce Haussmann ventlated
Paris, Renaissance architects attend districts forthe sake of ordee
and open space. Existing physical fabri, overflowing with happen
stance, has always coated wih del fous, Nonetheless, tent
‘enury architectural modernism conined this usualy hopeful always
rationalizing impulse with gusto—and industrial equipment
‘Modernism was no amune to thinking about context, of couse
Hiscoric city centers came up for dicursion at CIAM ia 1945 and
then again in 1951. In 1945, while Europeans quickly ser about
rebuilding districts demolished by wax Camillo Site's defense of
turban fabric was fist eranslted into English in 1950 Robert Venti
vas already exploring a wider eange of pesibilites for surounding
structures in his masters thesis, “Context im Architectural Compost
tion;" Paul Rudolph drew inspzation from the Gothic veting of
Wallesley College for his Jowett Center defenders of evo Saarinch’s
bulky Amercan Embassy in London, bule in 1956, argued tha it
repeated the scale and proportion of the Georgia architecture of
Grosvenor Square; while Ernesto Rogets, designer in 1958 of Milan's
Torre Velasca, began to speak about the importance of ambiente in
the mid-1950s, party in response to Frank Lloyd Weights proposed
Masieri Memorial in Venice. By 1961 Nikolaus Pevsner noted ao
ca Sod hema
fewer than cighten histoccist impulses in modern architecture, many
de to an archer’ response 10 contest. At that time, howevee, and
for a polemicist ike Pevsner, deference «© surrounding historical coo
text was “alanming” and “one ofthe lease atactve developments of
recent architectore.” Wheres for Presnermadernisin represented the
‘sium of functional thought, the new emphasis on a building's exte-
for, ts public fac, smothered inversion with the ple of precedent
He labeled she First hintonicint tendency "Nev- Accommodating” aad
efined it as friendly and Bising in. The Fongtem tend would be a
ead end, he wrote, because hstriism, whatever motivated,
required “heli in the power of history to such a degre a to choke
‘original action.>* When historical context becomes a builing’s con
tent, Pevsner argued, innovation dries up.
But after nearly wo decades of modernist urbanism, many writes
wondered whedber thee might noc bean alternative pola of view
lodged in the parcels of existing sutures that had yer 0 be bul
zed, In 1960, for instance, Kevin Lynch had turned from the mon
meatal blueprints of architects to the mental maps of and divers,
While Jae Jacobs made minute observations of her Hudsoa Stet and
the way socal relations were embedded in physical fabric. “The City
in Histor," conference sporsored in 1961 by the Joins Center for
Urban Seis ofthe Massachusets Intute of Technology and Har
vard Universi, attempted to redress the lack of histrialateacion vo
{Be forces of modernization in the growth of Wescrs cies The sane
year, Daedalus published a special sue on metopolitan sprawl and
the chances of downtown cevvas. The Joie Center also sponsored
Beenatd Frieden's advociey ofan incemestal approach to rebuldng
cities, described in his 1964 book, The Future of Od Neighborhoods
Asa consequence uran design was given anew sease of urgency, with
programs sich as those of Compl, Washington University, Columbia,
Sd Harvard fst established in the caty 1960s, tn aly Aldo Rost
and Vitoro Gregost had begun developing morphological approaches
fo the study of existing arban form while the maltiteritoral Chis
fan Norberg Schulz revived the Pcruesgue-ra rem genius loci 0
‘mphasve the character ofan existing lacs
“Most sigan, certainly in the American seing, was the preser
‘ation movernent, which quickly and foceuly drew atention to che
neglected condition of urban physical fabric. Sanne by the demolition
[done a preservationist agenda,
fof New York's Poa Station in 1963, and outraged at the will
Aserueton of civic treasures for shoreerm profits and machine-age
thetri, a conlcon of citizens banded together promot federal laws
to pret exiting cones. Passing the Hore Presreation Act three
year later, Congress was explicit about the need to sheer the nation’s
bile entage from postwar development, which was typically if
loosely, modernise. Advocates of modernism were, in fact, quick 10
the 1950s, James Marston Fish,
foe example, med his eator 2a for modernism to fervid support of
‘reservation; be became one of the movement galvanizing figures and
leading eductor ashe worked for year to estabinh the degree peo
fam in hisorie preservation at Columbia University. When, in 1966,
Rober: Venturi famously addressed the ambiguitics of context, citing T.
S. li’ esa, “iadtion and the Indvidal Taleng”on the problem
of mediating “the pastes of dhe past” alongside the presence ofthe
past che modernist remedy foe the urban ailment had, in the eyes of|
any rts, hacome more debilitating than the disease of tation it
ha set out to cure?
Physical context received ts most sustained engagement at this
point with the teaching and wsting of Cala Rowe. Immediately upon
arving a Cornell University in 1964, Rowe begaa teaching some of
the frst urban design studios in the nation. Syisialy open-minded,
hie seemed ls interested in the ress of sent project than in thet
method which for Rowe began wich the existing urban fabric.
Engagement with context produced new forms oy more presi, new
‘configurations of oder forms. His cheoves of chan design were later
Aesignatd contextual and summed up definitively in Collage Cy,
‘coauthored with Fred Koeter and published in 1978, though writ
ten years caer Modernism had it tue, the author wrote in Cl
lage City, bar ic was net “responsive fo cictmstanc,” it required @
slean slae upon which to write the etionalized forms of social utopia,
Modernism had managed in ts time to join scentism to humanist,
2 simultaneous concers both for empirical technique ad pon ns
ration, but ch collapse of modernise revealed how incompatible
these goals had bueafeom the start. Worse, moderism ha degraded
into its componeass, its empiricism having collapsed into romantic but
Aitectioniess affection forthe accidental, most evident in townscape
sides tcf Of ehose of Gordon Callen, while on the other hand, is Sandy bese
uopian pocry had evaporated into dealing schemes such as those
of Superstudio or Disneyworld. But, Rowe and Koeter affiemed,
“only the middlgeound of an argument is of use," and so prepared
fo lay out an “ale. and workable ditete" berween existing and new
“oa. Whereas Supereudio and Disney wote fragmentary urbanism
based on either prophecy or memory, theirs would be 2 complete
‘urbanism of prophecy and memory: visionary form embodied hernan
| hope but relied ypon the common heritage and sease of comm
‘iy that underpins communication. The new, they wrote ip alls
Power and promise, must relate "to the known, perhaps mondane
‘nd, cess, memory aden context from which emerges.” The
Authors proposed to mediate the repressive mechanisms of existing
Telatons of powes as embodied in physial fabri, with the asbion
‘of a vada vsiou, whose sedemptive power lay precisely int emai
ing poteaal. Cellage was the specific compositional technique they
proposed ro impart hoth aesthese authority and historical ineviab
ity tothe weaving of old and new.
‘The geaius of choir working method of fgure-ground studies was
is suitabilty eo both evaluate and intervene in context. Traditional
planning was characerizod by a pattern of figural space agaist back
round buildings, whores modern planing relied on figural buildings
(50 a spatiale. Since figure and grourd are reciprocal the trad
sional city ws on equal terme with the modern city The method
logical symmeery between analysis and design guaranteed conceptual
congruence even when ld and new were viuallydisimlar Contex:
‘wali did not repeat context so mich 38 ceister change in context
‘comtextualit project would become an index of accommodations
‘context, in contrast to modem insensitivity to circumstances soch 34
‘orientation oF entry, extemal vectors that were onerhelned by ee |
‘ourward expansion of modera space. In short, overtacing the coin of
‘modernist planing meant having two sides, not one or the other. Con-
textualism proposed » process 9 mediate hensen ineieable change
and existing condos,
Heterogensty was a broadly shared interest in the 1960s, extend
ing well beyond architectural and usban design czces. The Gr |
Rights Movement in the United Stats, along with sudes of urban
cehnicties that would not blend, such as Nathan Glazer and Danie
P. Moynihaa’s Beyond the Melting Pot, from 1963, called greater
omen Canes
attention to realiran: demographics that suburban idelizations had
‘managed to pave over inthe pevions decide? Siatcs-ea social move
‘ment showed that the nations instittions were anything but new
tml context for minority participation. Envionmentatsts argued that
the earth was no longer a pasive backdrop for modern science but
am active and increasingly disenchanted parenez Echoes of context
‘ting back can even be seen in Frank Herbert’ scence Sion clas:
se, Dune, from 1965, a harbinger ofthe elogy movement in which
sociey mst he reorganized ia response to an environment that has
‘ceased 10 be accommodating, and contest, to invert Pevsne, had
become “aco-hostit.” In ar, earthworks and site-specific projets
turned context into content, by drawing the setting int the ative cre
stion of aesthetic experience. Robert Smithson’ Spiral Jetty, for
fastanee, from 1970, created a striking Sigure by redefining existing
selasions berwcen land and water at the Great Salt Lake, His Partly
Buried Woodehed, in Ken State, Ohio, alo fom 1970, made the fr
erly neutral ground an active compositional elment, Conceptual
anist Hans Haack, in hie instalation Shapolity otal, Manbutan
Real Estate Holding, ftom 1971, showed how the very prodvction
‘of art led on an instutionalcomtex to nextalize all bu the acs:
thetic connotations of a work. Even within the academy, stuctral-
lim, for instance, and lave postserctralism, led to the recognition
that mening was never contained by a single term but emerged only
in elation co other terms, to a linguistic and behavioral contex.
‘Meaning could be gathered only in the lager eld of sigificcion,
ever from a single instanceof it. To whatever extent Venturi was
Inflenced by strcturaim, his model of stchitecaral communication
seas hase on a sender and a receiver, who might not get the message
fits terms were withowt precedent, The fact that meaning and com
‘munication were contingent om context was hard to avo For thee
part, Rowe and Kocrter concureed, suggesting tht acsewente 10 the
tape of te city, the Faturi celebration of the force majene, Was
longer inellectally viable or was it morally acceptable”
In short, by the 1970s ie was commonly agro that modernism had
callased under the weigh of ts own idealism and that context, en
imerable and specif, was one af the mast promising "new directions
In achiecre,” as the tite of the Beale series then had it" Brent —
Brolin 1976 The Failure of Modem Arctitecture is representative; it concludes is belted exposé of modernist myopia with the rediscovery
‘oF tradition and anew effort ro "nenforse rather han undermine tbe |
character of neighborhoods and ces.” Existing fabric, sat Beli, “is
‘ot historical sefase,” ot “an asset that should be used as bridget
the future." The past was no loager pass, as some of the staked
bout work of the late 1970s rendered tradition progressive. Indes,
context, rather than history, isthe more pervs, f more submerge,
term in debates regarding ch autonomy and sontined wily of arch
| che inegrity of existing urban fabric was wansmated into 3 notion of
eypologscal history, the deep geometric memory of culture to hic
{she architec has special access. Histoy thus refers to an itera coo
text, which the archtet brings toa project based on program and ye
sd smuggler in heres the lens nose under the name of prec
‘With hisory, precedent ecper existing context as the primiry pot
of reference, keping the problem within architectural eategoris and
reewablshing the modernist notion that an at should devs fons
© owe inner lope. History means the history of architecture, which
{ replaces a context given hy the ste witha contest hidden inthe prob-
| em, conte that is up to the architect uncove, for wpology i
| ciplaary keowledge. History, in shor, trades the constrains of at
Jmmadiate spatial context for the adaptive porabilitis of disciplinary
‘contents, making room for a architec individual expression aad
reasering the profession's autonomous knowledge of for. Context,
in contrast, devours autonomy
In retrospect, 1978 preseas a watershed fr the isso of context
“That yea in addon to Rove and Koes Collage City, Leoa Keit
and Maurice Cult published thar ay, “The Only Path for Arch
secture," declaring that modernism had been an hisorca mistep of
chocmout proportion; a delusion that, somehow took coot, Cutting
"through ditional tes, leeng Mood and space From the neo of
street and square, modernism nearly wiped out cilized society, and
the se had come to rekni in sympathetic forms what remained of
‘he traditional czy. Also thar yeas Rem Koolhaas published Delirious
New York, which argued that heroic figures of modernism neve zeal
understood what modern was. Koolhaas presented Le Corbusier at
tunable to sce duving his famous visit #9 New York Ciy that moder
Practice afer modernism, Fllosing from Alo Ross 1966
\ Architecture ofthe Cty, published in Engsh in 1972, recognition of
Cote Contes
p’s monuments were everywhere in Manhactan and only weak vision
trou! require a plinth 29 make them beter appeae Is deni sy
ini affemative context, a seting so hungry for invention it absorbed
thang like a sponge. Koolhaas called his book a “retroactive” mani
feo, writen not on 8 blank slate but discovered within an exiting
dec!” Even Peter Eaenman, whose eave projets concentated oo
the autonomous generation of form, to the excision of all es, in
1978 produced the Cannarepio peojst, his Fine work :o engage in a
sustained manner with an existing ste. Perhaps most important, 1978
ts the culminating year ofthe presersation movement inthe United
States, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision upholding
the New York Cigy Landmarks Law, established the decade before #0
protect “existing urban fabric" As unlike as thes instances ar fom
tne snother—cmerging from inimitble pesonaiies working i di
Tereot ations with distiace enedia on singular problems seen through
varying historical peespectses, and soon 10 lead in divergent dive
| ons—each endows an existing ueban fabric with unique and formally
penerative properis. Asi sred oxt, 1978 was bad yer for mo
frais but good year for context, as architets hogan to discover
how expedient and ductile context could be
Rome Interota, also from 1978, i paradignatic in his regard it
} ceva consensus regacding the isue of contest bu i also makes plain
tome of che fue internal fissures, aul lines that would soon split
‘ny confidence connected with context into stylistic factions, Art Sandy ead
hiscoran and conservator Guilio Angin, then mayor of Rome, invited
vel internationally recogni architects to imaginatively comple
‘that city, wich, he sad, had been “interrupted” in is development
Colin Rowe's contbution drew from his ow theories of context:
{sm which took Rome’ built context as seis of formal ues for the
ieneration of new form. His design was conceved a an intervention
Ino a specific comcext, which was then eedfiaed by his intervention.
Robert Venturi was alo invited, baths submnision included he mar
suis from a casino, implying thar present-day Rome had as much to
do with Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas as with Caesar himself, Vet
took a more clzural approach to context in contast with Rowe's con:
éenteason on physical context. At the sim time, however, less cor
spicuously and without mich explanation, Rowe had included fag
ments of Rockefeller Ceater in his scheme, Unparalleled in both the
temporal seope and continuity of piysical fabri fom atiguisy to
‘modernity, Rome was somehow aot sulfiest an impetus for new for
Without che leavening of ivention. Formal resonance was the low
thresbold tha, asic tars out, contextualsm required to lik Rome
with Rockefeller Center.
CONTEXT CONFOUNDED
‘Thomas Schumacher 36 ealy a6 1971, had already observed that cor
texcualsm tended toward 2 “eenal shorthand Ie was commied
to geomercy and so became, at points, 2 tefl but often rode
exercise. Although « sted engagement, comextuaism approached
cesting. context through its wn formal preoccupations aad thus
obscured the developmental dimensions of physical context, its ability
‘o compotealze social history. For the contextualst designer urban
form could become 2 treasure chest of geometric possiblities, all
‘sually within reach despite origins centuries apart. The formal
Drelections of aechiects can transform the ypc temporal verity
of urban coneat into a return to history that nonetheless shistort
cal. Although O. M, Ungers was often st odds with Rowe while they
taught at Cornel, thee work shares this interes in establishing a for
mally generative method. Both distill formal complenty to geometric
essence, viling a desktop set of operations and prototypes, kind of
shape grammar. The powes and the peril of such an approach reside
Comte Cones
precisely in is mechanical appea ke limiting design tothe predefined
commands in CAD [computeraided desig) programs shen under
evelopment. When ased in combination, geometric operations such
"mito," and “rotate” can generate any form, posing no
teal mis 20 formal invention; bat whether thet formiable genera
Sve power, coupled with thee seeming simplicy, tempt the designer
toward sel iting practice, emis open to gestion. Unges
dents have even joked that his “dogmatic application” of a square
[module i due to an ancient demon that snarls when ic ee a ine tare
‘o cave, with the resulting designs best suited for lle Lego men!
commitment to rationalized technique, in other words, rests on the
‘positional of foundations. Further such formalisms visk incuting
‘he charge leveled at modernism: that i feiitated an overly rations
Fiore 7.2. ws Stine Stal Str, Gem, egining 977 Sa
Fn. Sising worked ioral nd poli teres epee the
‘lie with he murda coment by incrementing eens (ie igo
fap elery> ming and sel gman Both of canal and hghech c
secure chal ln forte Aer Mer) tod opening hem woe
‘ig to Bend the eer with ech cher or with the hops ies the
ang ste poate tems dict reste butt oben
q
|
,
| 0
Sandy hema
ine andvechnocraticsoiery, exter than Falling is promise o lend
to a more autensc human experience
‘With the issue of physical context 50 conspicuously promiscuous
and, of course, ulate ineffectual in generating new form whea so:
lated fom other factors of desig, conulence in existing context as @
ouchstone for design began to erode, Bur it had become too impr:
‘ant an isue to ignore akogete By the sary 1980s, numberof archi
tees may be seen measuring bow far from an exiting context they |
might make thir stand. If one could no longes ignore context, neither
reed one Koweow to it Many maintsined an aeme-length telationship
to bat context, publely declaring commitment i wile renouncing
i to their mse. Indeed, at this point something about surrounding
Physical fabric scems ro hecome itiial to great architecture, Wing
Jn 1986 on the proposed Guggenheim addition by Gwathmey Sgr,
‘Michaol Sorkin suggested shat the former consensus om the val of
contest ad unwittingly fled an enprincipled pluralism. Thinking |
about context led arches to imagine they could ener the spitt of
somaone el’ dsian work encouraging what Sorkin called “the ethics
of ccasion,” an arhitectate withthe conscience of cameleon.”
Figure 7.3. Obseatry Hil Ding Hall Ais, Univers of Vanish
loeeile, VA, 1984, Raber AM Sem Archers Beng the eco,
‘nail fies wih the Coming cone of Jeon acest Roe
Ss Sagi sl diy wt song ote banding ae» one
inl spun. Aer lance simp a comfree comer he pst, th
fe lesed wall apd err bl fine suthed ue a ten lacked gh no
evel pyramids a macht « ari revisn of th pions lng ch
‘Sten’ main Ine aided Coen,
omen Contes
Posxmodemiss, for inane, were quick w point w their sens
fy to conrext a reasoa for ther tesetc innovations, and the best
postmodern work, of couse, did noe just eto ill with tokens of
Ssrrounding fabric but aimed to make memorable space. It word
aout crafsmanship and sting, no ase fring in. Bat much postmod
trmist work was no relly about a surounding physical context at all
Rather than a reworking of proximate for, it was more a compos
tion wich historical moc. Similarities were serendipitous rather than
studied. Without growing from steceure of Fanci, clas motifs
twftred ro a generalized cawciy an archiecure that represented
Architecture rather than related tothe spice of pascular place
As often as notin postmodernist work, echoes of existing content were
esons tothe peofsions internal history ata diipling rather than
stmempts to enrich and thicken the sense of sine embeded in eny par
‘cular coment. If modeeism was motivated by an idea of egos, an
architecture ofits tine, then postmoderaism was an architecture of is
pasts nether was an architecture “of Farthe, postmed
‘misn’s highest theoretical mode i ay, which inves deliberate
| istancing ofan apparea form icom an intended meaning
Postmodernist, in other words, rar 0 place with tongucia check,
as Venturis Roma Ineratta entry bears out. Evin when poston!
mism borrowed from surroundings, it cid not always poy back the
debt, Themeaszing comtext could lead to slbrefection and a shaep
ened awareness of contingency, the historical debt owed by the pres.
ent to the pas. But, bridging the gap with an older way of building
sometimes blurted iferencess ic hid discrepancies thas generat nae
of passing cme. If phsial context embodies 4 narrative or temporal
dimension, then postmodernism sks clipping context eo a sound bite
‘or rather a sit bite anything, postmodernsm's ates untenable
sch gave fel roa reactive seagch for aunty, equally untenable
but commonplace nonetheless.
‘Other aesthetic tends of the 1980s connected tthe issue of con-
text but, atthe same time, were careful to maintain their distance,
Deconstrucivism questioned longstanding achtecarl virtues Arm
ss for instance—aiming to show not merely that sractte is ov
sional despite is display of permanence, but thatthe very idee of strc
ture requites silencing the unstable. However unbalanced visuals
Deconstructivist work contributed to architectral knowledge by Ssady lade
dicove
show the fils foundarinal metaphors requzed 2 seis of
fothervise unspoken valve jeden. Contest, in a deconstuctivis
‘ode, affirms with fase forms commen and somesines invisibly
‘scious values contest foreges new knowlege in exchange for com
Foctable aumbaess, In is 1988 ety onthe Deconstactivis show at
the Museum of Modern Art, Mask Wigley argued thas the exhibited
work ws fully engaged with its various contexts not 10 reaffirm con-
Yenkion, but to disclose how architectural afrmarion operates, pre
ly by exposing wht was subtecragean and strange within the fami
{ar content. As Wigly pur i, sonextaliam hat been seed a6 an
texcuse for mediostisy for a dumb serviity tothe famiiag” “dumb”
suggesting here not “brainless” but “without voice” 10 iter clay
for ask quctions In Frank Gehry's house in Santa Monica daiog
from 1978 and exhibited in the Deconsrvedvse show, the existing
boiling is noe only nor erased ts thematized. Punctred and pune-
tated, the exiting house makes the new space, eather than being
made an appendage t it, The old actively crates the new. The di
‘upon looks at Rt ike darespet, but becomes instead a kind off
fon existing fabric, showing how much fe was lf in the old hows,
‘which not even the most adoring observer of context had noticed
belo, Rather than having the new stand against an old background,
Gehry gave the gap between the ewo a spacial igure Ina sense, dis
ance fom content & Gehry’ subje, measired and made preset ia
his desig,
“To summarize, since the late 1970s architests working in 3 wide
range of aathetic mons and focused on divergent mares repiered
‘Some concern for context, whether or not they respacted, ejected, oF
invered it inthe end. For exsis, a concer for context had Become
so naturalized in practice a5 to be almost invisible. In 1982, architec
tural historian and crite Will Cares described “an obsession with
sreescapes atthe expense of individual buildings,” clearly evident in
‘he mi 1970s erban morphologies of Leon and Robert Kets” A 1986
tile from Irland Arcbitec began, “To call onesalf a contextal
