Farshid Moussavi's Harvard GSD lecture, "The Function of Style," explores the evolving role of style in architecture. Moussavi discusses how style should be seen as an agency in architecture rather than just a unifying visual feature. Through various examples, she explains how style impacts everyday experiences by influencing how buildings are perceived and interacted with. She advocates for architecture that challenges conventions to create new experiences, seeing buildings as assemblages of elements that offer creative responses. Moussavi's focus is on style as an active agent in daily life, bringing about engagement and participation from its users.
Highlights
Moussavi discusses shifting the narrative of style from mere aesthetics to an active component in architecture. 🏗️
She explains how style guides the perception of and interaction with buildings, influencing everyday life. 🏙️
Buildings are viewed as dynamic assemblages of elements, each with its own agency. 🌆
The lecture challenges the norm, pushing for architecture that invites active participation. 🚀
Moussavi uses examples to show how architecture can create new experiences by breaking conventions. 📚
Key Takeaways
Style is more than a unifying visual feature; it's an agency in architecture. 🏢
Architecture today is about creating experiences that engage and prompt interaction. 🎨
Buildings aren't static—they're assemblages that can influence everyday activities. 🚪
Moussavi advocates for disrupting conventional architectural norms to innovate. 💡
Style's role is to facilitate new daily interactions, not just aesthetics. 🔄
Overview
Farshid Moussavi's lecture dives into the intricate world of architectural style, redefining it as an agency rather than just a visual trait. At Harvard GSD, she argues for a dynamic interpretation of style that shapes the way buildings interact with people daily, influencing their experiences and participation.
Moussavi breaks down the traditional notion that style is merely about aesthetics, highlighting instead its role as a component that orchestrates the interaction between people and buildings. Through various examples, she demonstrates how style can change the perception and functionality of architecture, effectively engaging its users.
The lecture emphasizes the importance of challenging architectural norms to foster innovation. Moussavi encourages architects to look beyond conventional aesthetics, exploring how architectural elements can act as active participants in daily life. Her insights propose a future where style is seen as a catalyst for change and interaction.
Chapters
00:00 - 08:30: Introduction and Farshid Moussavi's Career Overview The chapter begins with a warm welcome to the audience for the first lecture of the semester, highlighting the presence of numerous well-rested attendees.
08:30 - 16:15: Discussing Style in Architecture The chapter begins with a reflection on the speaker's anticipation for Farshid Moussavi's lecture after seeing a poster advertising the event. The speaker notes Farshid's academic background, indicating she completed her Master's in Architecture in 1991. There is a personal anecdote recounting the year 1990 as the time of their first significant interaction, establishing a timeline and context for Farshid's influence and contributions in the field of architecture.
16:15 - 26:00: Changing Architectural Conventions The speaker recalls an event from 25 years ago, highlighting the presence of a strong and talented teaching assistant (TA). This individual stands out for their focus, tenacity, and talent during that time.
26:00 - 32:05: Montpellier Residential Complex The chapter discusses the Montpellier Residential Complex, highlighting the enduring quality and impact of the work over 25 years. It recounts the professional journey of Farshid, who, after completing her studies at GSD, worked at various firms before founding the architectural firm FOA with Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The success story of FOA is likened to a fairytale, illustrating the significant achievements and contributions of the founders in the field of architecture.
32:05 - 41:00: 130 Fenchurch Street: Office Building in London The chapter discusses the significance of 130 Fenchurch Street, an office building in London. It highlights the experience of participating in a significant international competition, winning it, and the rare opportunity to actually realize the project. The chapter emphasizes the importance of this project in the architectural field over the past 15 to 20 years, and how it has been recognized as a key project. Additionally, it mentions that the firm responsible for this project continued to take on many other successful projects.
41:00 - 52:15: Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland The chapter discusses the contributions of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland to the field of contemporary architecture. It emphasizes the success and recognition that the museum has received through various prestigious awards such as those from the Venice Biennale, RIBA, and Enric Miralles prizes. Furthermore, it highlights the museum's commitment to education and teaching as key components of its sustained success.
52:15 - 58:00: Victoria Beckham Flagship Store Design The chapter titled 'Victoria Beckham Flagship Store Design' discusses Farshid's journey and her contributions to various projects. It highlights her teaching experience across multiple institutions over the past 10 years, focusing on the effective use of studio format in teaching.
58:00 - 67:00: Final Thoughts on Style and Architecture This chapter discusses the importance of seminars as a fundamental aspect of developing architectural investigations and research projects. It highlights how these investigations are crucial to practicing architecture in the modern context. The narrative implies a reflective question on the impact and opportunity that such academic endeavors provide in contemporary architectural practice, further illustrated by the involvement of a group of students at the GSD (Graduate School of Design).
67:00 - 86:00: Q&A Session - Discussion on Architectural Styles and Principles The chapter focuses on a Q&A session that is centered around the discussion of architectural styles and principles. The discussion kicks off with a reference to previous works by a seminar participant, including 'The Function of Ornament' and 'The Functional Form', published in 2009. More recently, the participant has been concentrating on an extensive volume titled 'The Function of Style', which has just been published. The chapter sets the stage for an in-depth discussion on style, primarily anticipated to be led by Farshid.
Farshid Moussavi, "The Function of Style" Transcription
00:00 - 00:30 Good evening. Good evening, and welcome. It's my great pleasure
to welcome all of you to the very first
lecture of the semester. And it's great to see so many
wonderful, well-rested faces
00:30 - 01:00 before the beginning
of the semester. When I saw the poster, which
is for Farshid's lecture, and it says Farshid
Moussavi, MArch '91, I started calculating
the years-- '91-- and I remember that the
first proper encounter that Farshid and I had was
probably in the year 1990.
01:00 - 01:30 So it's exactly 25 years
ago that we were together on those trays upstairs,
and she was a great TA. I remember that she was very,
very focused, very tough, and very talented.
01:30 - 02:00 And I'm glad to
report that nothing has changed in 25 years. I think after Farshid finished
her studies here at the GSD, she worked for a
number of firms and I think it wasn't too long when
she and Alejandro Zaera-Polo set up their firm, FOA. And many of you know that it was
one of those fairytale stories
02:00 - 02:30 in a way, of participating in a
big, international competition; winning the competition; and
actually getting to build it. Because often, those things
don't happen in that order. And I think that
project also has gone on to be recognized as really
one of the key projects of the last 15 or 20 years ago. And that's been a
very important thing. The firm, they went on to
do many other projects.
02:30 - 03:00 But it's also
important to recognize that the success
and the recognition and the many awards of FOA--
with the Venice Biennale, with RIBA prizes, Enric
Miralles prizes, and so on-- have also been sustained
by an incredible commitment to education, to
teaching, and I think--
03:00 - 03:30 since Farshid has
been continuing to practice on her own--
with many, many projects, including some that are
actually on exhibition outside. She came to the
GSD, having taught at a variety of
different institutions, almost 10 years ago. And I think one of the key
factors about her teaching has been how to really
use the studio format
03:30 - 04:00 and to use the seminars as
a very crucial component of developing investigations,
research projects, that are really focusing on the
discipline of architecture. And I think that it's
been very important to see how those investigations produce
the possibility of practicing today. I mean, that as a
kind of question. She, with a group of
students here at the GSD--
04:00 - 04:30 not from the studio, but
from the seminar-- developed the book The
Function of Ornament, then the book The Functional
Form, which was done in 2009. And for the last few
years-- very long years, I think, probably--
she's been focusing on the book called
The Function of Style, which is this very large volume
that has been out recently. I think part of this
discussion of style-- that I assume that
Farshid will discuss,
04:30 - 05:00 so I don't want to
give a mini-preview-- but part of this
discussion of style is interesting and important
for us because all of us know that there's certain
moments in the history of architecture-- when you think
about Renaissance, or Baroque, or the Georgian
period in the UK, or things like that--
that there is really an identifiable character
to a body of work that's being produced in a
particular locality, that
05:00 - 05:30 has an extreme similarity. And those things come from that
particular moment-- the ideas, the cultural
conditions-- and that produces a kind of consistency. We can refer to that
moment or to those moments as being important, in
terms of the evolution of certain styles. But I think there's also
a certain period-- which we are the inheritors of that,
in the 19th century-- where there's also, you can
really talk about the idea
05:30 - 06:00 of the crisis of style. Where that notion of the kind
of consistency, the singularity, disappears and in a way, you
could say anything goes.h That there are multiple options. There is not really
the focus on something that's so deeply
rooted, that everything happens within that same
level of consistency. And this means that we
are all, in a way, left to our own devices to construct,
somehow, mini-tendencies,
06:00 - 06:30 localized-tendencies,
affiliations, unique identities, and so on. So that today, you can
say you recognize the work of [inaudible]. Patrik Schumacher
can write as much as he wants about parametricism,
but actually in the end, the work has that dimension
of recognized stability despite the
resistance, in a way, to the idea of the appearance,
of the look, and so on. So I think this book
is very interesting,
06:30 - 07:00 and Farshid will tell
us in her own way why there is-- for her-- the
possibility of another way of thinking about the
production of architecture, and the way that the
architectural project really performs its
functionality, its use, as more critical
parameters for the way in which the architectural
project is conceived. That discussion is not without
its own criticism, if you like,
07:00 - 07:30 or without its own discussions. And I think it would be
really wonderful to see how the formation of some
of Farshid's recent projects come together, in a way, with
her research and articulations of [inaudible] investigations. I couldn't think of anyone
better than Scott Cohen to also engage Farshid with a few
questions after her lecture,
07:30 - 08:00 and then to open it to all of
us for further conversation. So I'm sure we're
all looking forward to Farshid's presentation. Please welcome Professor
Farshid Moussavi. Thank you. Thank you very much to
all of you for being here. I will talk about how we should
define style before talking about the function of style.
08:00 - 08:30 But first, let me say
that by function, I mean agency, not utility. So the function of
ornament can also be read as the
agency of ornament. And the function
of form can also be read as the agency of form. Style relates to the way
we arrange buildings. But when discussing
the function of style, we are asking, what
is the agency of style as objects in every day life? The agency of human subjects
in every day experience has been discussed in the
field of phenomenology,
08:30 - 09:00 in terms of how humans gain
access to the being of objects. This being is assumed as
either already existing, such as matter, or being
governed by natural laws, or as having a metaphysical
reality, such as God and so forth. Although more recent
investigations in every day
experience-- for example, by speculative realism--
question the privileging of the human being
over other entities and propose the flattening of
human subjects and objects, they still investigate objects
as given, whether natural
09:00 - 09:30 or artificial. In architecture, the
object-subject relationship is unavoidable, as buildings are
part of every day experience. But buildings don't exist
as ready-made objects. They are arranged with
our architectural process. And because style relates to
the way we arrange buildings, it is central to the discussion
of agency of buildings in every day experience. Traditionally, style has
been the word employed to describe a narrative
around which architects unite buildings. However, three pivotal
changes in the way buildings
09:30 - 10:00 are designed and used
since the 1990s force us to define style differently. Firstly, unity
seems not to apply to contemporary architecture,
which is characterized by immense diversity. If this diversity is not the
product of mere eclecticism or the market, style must
account for the coherence that underlies it. Buildings today
face many challenges that are separate, distinct,
and irreconcilable. They have led to
different co-efficients for buildings-- such as
space planning, security,
10:00 - 10:30 rights of light, fire
engineering, sustainability, facade engineering,
or health and safety-- that are often beyond the
expertise of the architect, requiring specialist
consultants. The design process has therefore
changed from a solo activity to more of a team
sport, in which the different co-efficients
are the product of separate and concurrent
lines of development that unfold at different speeds
during the design process, and introduce much
unpredictability to it. Different building elements,
no matter how small or large,
10:30 - 11:00 are consequently vital
forces for the project, some crossing paths with
one another and others not. Therefore, style needs to
account not for how buildings can be unified, but how
they can be coherent and yet be composed of different
elements that are implicated with each other, to
simultaneously address different concerns. Secondly, with the
advent of the internet, the way architectural
ideas are made is different, since ideas
are now shared and circulated worldwide with
astonishing speed.
11:00 - 11:30 And architects are so
steeped in each other's ideas and theoretical anxieties,
that certainty of what belongs to one person and
what to another disintegrates. And thirdly, again
because of the internet, the way that
buildings are used has changed since many every day
activities and events that used to happen in buildings--
such as shopping, reading a book, or watching a match--
are now easily accessed online. But since these online
activities are all reduced to the uniform context
of a screen, independent
11:30 - 12:00 of time and space,
their experience has become very similar,
whether reading different books or buying an item of clothing
or watching a sports match. To complement the uniformity
and the ubiquity of engaging with every day
activities online, buildings must exploit their
unique spatial-temporal natures to generate the possibility
for diverse types of encounters between people and activities
which buildings house. For example, libraries
in the wake of e-books
12:00 - 12:30 have changed from inward-looking
book repositories-- solely for quietly taking
out and consuming books-- to open and
differentiated spaces that encourage people to
construct different reading and learning habits. While schools,
responding to the fact that information can be
accessed and searched online, have shifted from generic
to the focused classrooms that favor the transmission and
reception of standard knowledge to unique, differentiated
configurations that promote different kinds
of experience-based learning.
12:30 - 13:00 While department
stores, responding to the rise of
e-tailing, have shifted from hermetic environments
whose sole objective is the provision of goods,
to acting as places in which the physical experience
of shopping is site-specific, so that buying an
item in one store is unlike buying
it in any other. While offices,
rather than declining in the face of email
and conference calling, have shifted from the one
size fits all arrangement of [inaudible] to
create efficiency
13:00 - 13:30 to include different types
of interstitial spaces, that promote knowledge construction
through chance encounters and serendipitous
knowledge exchange. Therefore, the agency of
buildings-- or their ability to act-- resides in how
their actual presence informs people's experience
of their every day activities, and thereby makes a creative
contribution to every day life. To think of style in
relation to people's every day life encounters,
rather than their understanding
13:30 - 14:00 of the narrative
underlying it, is to deviate it from the
traditional uses of style to unite buildings to
represent the personality of its architectural author,
its geographical location, or the time it belongs to. For various reasons, these uses
of styles are now redundant. For a start, should
style strive for unity? No. Unity across a
group of buildings implies that the actual
presence of a building plays no unique part in people's
every day life encounter, but rather provides them
with the same experience
14:00 - 14:30 as all other buildings. Should style
represent authorship? No. Today, architectural ideas
exist as an open source. The over-zealous protection
of an architect's ideas as a signature or
autonomous domain inhibits the migration
and circulation of ideas, and the consequent
development of new ones, rethinking what is now labeled
as copying or imitation. And sharing from a
common pool-- as is often done in the field of
music or has been explored by the function
box-- will allow us
14:30 - 15:00 to detach style from
being fixed to an author and treated like an open
source, or a reason which has no beginning or end. It is always growing
from the middle, evolving in different directions
by different architects. Should style
represent nationality? No, because in today's world
of extensive free trade; increased mobility
of capital; the rise of transnational corporations;
and the increased mobility of technologies,
materials, and designers; strict boundaries between
nations have been eroded.
15:00 - 15:30 Like the style of the
modern bicycle that has evolved in the hands of
different nations ever seen since its inception, we need to
approach the style of buildings through the idea of singularity. That any style can be
adopted by any nation and changed to generate
new, unpredictable styles. Should style represent
a period of time? No, because time is not
divided into periods in which everything is fixed or frozen. Today, as I mentioned
earlier, buildings are subject to different
external and often conflictual
15:30 - 16:00 causes, which means
that they evolve through separate, equal, and
concurrent lines of development that unfold at different
speeds during the design process, which may take anywhere
between one to six years. Enhanced levels of security
may require imminent changes to the entry sequence of the
building early in the design process, whereas new
environmental regulations may necessitate changes to
the envelope design midway through the process. And the election of a new
mayor every four years
16:00 - 16:30 could imply change in the space
program, a budgetary change, or even the building location. Now the organicist model, in
which each element or part obediently serves the whole
in a vacuum, is clearly out. Like the M-16
rifle, the challenge for an architect today is
to conceive of buildings not as unified wholes, but as
a confederation of elements which we can call an
assemblage or manifold.
16:30 - 17:00 With a particular kind of
arrangement and grouping that introduces an
effectivity to them, without reducing the
independence of the elements, so that they can be changed
during the design process. Having discarded the
representational narratives that historically
defined style, what remains in people's
experience of buildings is the real presence
or business. Which the diversed individual
elements-- with their colors, textures, shapes,
and forms-- together produce severe limitations
indeed, but for the architect
17:00 - 17:30 they hold the secret to
a new way of working, which involves assembling
the larger and larger number of elements and things which
buildings are divided into, in new ways without the
constraints of representation. Each assemblage gives
a specific propensity to the building elements,
which manifests itself as a cluster of effects. A gate introduced in the
perimeter wall of a building may transmit closure
and traversability. The asymmetric location
of a window in a bedroom
17:30 - 18:00 may transmit invisibility
and openness. Full-height glassing
of hotel rooms may transmit transparency
and exposure. Handrails located
around museum exhibits may transmit visibility
and untouchability. Or skylights in a train station
may transmit transparency as well as protection. In order to investigate
buildings in relation to questions of
agency, we must then ask not what its
style stands for, but in what way is it
active in every day life?
18:00 - 18:30 Here, for instance, is
the Smithsonian East Wing by I.M. Pei, where unlike on
the inside of the museum-- where people are
discouraged from touching its precious artifacts--
the exterior of the museum is designed with
blade-like corners, whose effect of sharpness is so
inviting to touch that visitors have worn their edges away. Similarly, at the
Guggenheim Museum, the lowness of the handrail
invite people to recline on it. With the result that people who
might otherwise pass quickly
18:30 - 19:00 through its ramping galleries--
as if they were walking along the aisles
of a supermarket-- stop and lean on the handrail
while they look at the art. While in the case of
FOA's Leicester Cineplex, the reflectivity glare
and the formation transmitted by its mirrored
stainless steel rainscreen cladding means that rather
than ignoring the Cineplex-- as is often the case with such
inward-looking buildings-- at a couple of points
around the building, passers-by stop and
salute the building. Systematically. No matter what sex or
age, there is no reason
19:00 - 19:30 that people should
respect this building. This was certainly not part
of our brief as architects, nor was it a cultural response
that we hoped to evoke. Rather, like the
handrails which stop people falling into
the Guggenheim atrium, or the walls which
shield the Smithsonian galleries from the elements,
the envelope of the Cineplex is a consequence of
the practical demands for dark interiors,
as well as the desire to generate effects
that would disrupt
19:30 - 20:00 the conventional encounter
with this kind of building in the city. What is going on
here can be reduced to either the agency of the
object or the passers-bys' subjectivities. It is produced by
them together, it is caused through
their encounter. The traditional representational
approach to style is based on an anthropocentric
conception of agency that assumes that there's
a direct road from the act of looking at a building, and
the fact of understanding it, as well as a concordance
between the sensibility of one
20:00 - 20:30 person and another. Which we know doesn't exist. Recognizing that the aesthetic
experience or encounter between people and
buildings is a co-production brings us closer to a
non-anthropocentric conception of agency. That is, when people--
when different people, with their own unique, subject
positions-- come into contact with a building, they
encounter some or all of its effects, which result
from how its different elements have been styled or arranged. For example, a
residential building
20:30 - 21:00 may transmit effects of
flexibility, transparency, and differentiation
inside, and scalelessness and privacy outside. Some people may only experience
the building as a passers-by, and others who live in it may
encounter all of its effects. Through these encounters,
people construct their unique, experience-based
knowledge of the world. So we can define style
in the following way. Style is the agency
given to the elements of a building through
their specific arrangement.
21:00 - 21:30 It manifests itself as
a cluster of effects that spreads directly
from the building and influences the
kind of assemblage that people will
form with it as they take part in their
every day activities, like residing, working,
or watching movies. Consider the
interior of a cinema. When a certain way of
arranging one of its elements, such as its seats, is
repeated over and over again, a convention emerges. The seating
arrangement in cinemas then becomes a type--
or typical-- leading
21:30 - 22:00 to a typifying of perception
in those going to watch movies. The activity of watching
movies in this way this seating arrangement dictates
acquires a naturalness, so that people begin
to watch movies in this way unthinkingly. Whereas if the convention of
seating arrangement is changed, made different, and
a cinema no longer conforms to people's
expectations, it becomes conspicuous. And even if it is just
for a brief moment, they have to think about it
and work out how to use it.
22:00 - 22:30 In other words, the introduction
of a stylistic shift away from the typical
cinema creates an awareness or a
surprise about the cinema which people who would
otherwise not have noticed. When discussing
subjective experience, Heidegger and Levinas
refer to surprise as a rupture in the
experience of objects that helps humans decipher
the transcendent beyond. However, we know that the
source of change or surprise, in this instance, is the
result of the efficacy or the creative agency
of the architect.
22:30 - 23:00 Here is the Oklahoma
passenger port terminal, a project where we--
as the architects-- changed a number
of conventions that influenced how people typically
engaged with a ferry terminal. Instead of the conventional
or dominant way of arranging the terminal around
a linear circulation route to simply move
passengers as directly as possible to the
gates-- which reduces this experience to
a thoroughfare-- we designed it around a
looped circulation system, through bifurcating terminal
floors which seamlessly connect people to levels
above and below,
23:00 - 23:30 to freedom from the habit of
passively passing through it, so that they might choose
to use it as a place to sit down and paint. Therefore, by disrupting
the conventions associated with a building
for traveling, we generated the presence or
style for a ferry terminal that frees individuals both from
their previous preconceptions-- traveling preconceptions--
as well as so that they can creatively respond to it. The philosopher
Jacques Ranciere argues
23:30 - 24:00 that the significance of
aesthetics lies in the fact that what can be
apprehended by the census determines the possibilities
for the participation of individuals in daily life. For Ranciere, politics is
a disruption or descensus in conventionally-perceived
or prescribed spaces. To make that which did
not possess grounds to be seen, seen, so that
active encounters replaced passive participation. We could then say that by
making the conventions of how
24:00 - 24:30 every day activities
are arranged unfamiliar, architects disrupt or resist
the way bodies of individuals are supposed to fit those
every day activities. And in doing so, ground
style in the micropolitics of every day life. The efficacy of the
architect is not about telling
people the right way to use a terminal, or watch
movies, or to live in houses, or to work in offices. It doesn't have
definitive outcomes. It resides in creating a
disruption or descensus in how
24:30 - 25:00 buildings are conventionally
perceived and used, to generate the
kind of differences in buildings that
call for a response or active participation from
the people who use them, contradicting the idea that
only human subjects have agency. To adopt this
potential of buildings, it is necessary to address
style not as a representation, but a performance. So what is the effect
of this approach on the process of design? This is a residential
complex that we are designing for the city of Montpellier
in the south of France,
25:00 - 25:30 where we have based this
style on the arrangement of its elements and how they
would influence the experience of residing in it. The core, through its
layout and location, is the agent determining the
privacy or intrusion of people that they experience on their
way to their apartments. The floor plates,
owing to their size, are the agent determining
the size and number of units on any one floor and
the number of orientations afforded by each-- and
therefore, whether residents
25:30 - 26:00 experience natural
ventilation or stuffiness. The location of
the service rises core and structure is
the agent determining the level of flexibility
or inflexibility the residents
experience over time as the need to reconfigure
their interior layout arises. And the relationship between
the floor plates, the envelope, and the handrail is
the agent determining the privacy or
exposure residents experience in their balconies.
26:00 - 26:30 So you can see that the
building can neither be governed by a
single, unifying idea-- as in an organic whole--
nor can it be reduced to independent elements. The elements must be
arranged as an assemblage so that each one-- by
virtue of its location and grouping with
other elements-- develops an emergent
property whose effectivity is the possibility it provides
for people to reside in the building in a new way. The structure and
core and services form one group of elements,
the floor plate and envelope
26:30 - 27:00 form another group of
element, and the floor plates and handrail form
another group of elements. And here is how
the group performs. The core and service rises
are centrally located, and coupled with the structural
walls along the perimeter envelope. This generates an interior
that transmits flexibility as it is liberated of
any fixed elements. The external envelope is
inset to generate balconies. And the remainder
of the floor plate-- owing to its small size-- is
divided only to four corners--
27:00 - 27:30 eventual units-- that benefit
from cross ventilation. Since these outdoor spaces
would abut each other, it would be usual for dividing
screens to be introduced. Or since dividing screens
limit views laterally, their shape might be changed
from straight to curved, as in the Marina Towers or
Aqua Tower, which rectifies the problem of blocked views. But since the outdoor spaces
overlook each other laterally-- whether they are wrapped around
a circular plan or aligned linearally-- they compromise
privacy sideways, as well as
27:30 - 28:00 from above since
the balconies are stacked on top of one another. Discordance also exists
between the interior layout and the balcony, either
because the balconies are identical in size despite the
differently-sized apartments, or because the balcony's
curved whereas the interior is rectilinear. Given the increasing
invasion of privacy we experience in our
contemporary life, we chose to focus our
agency on shifting
28:00 - 28:30 this convention
of outdoor spaces which provide people
a lack of privacy. Firstly, the typical
floor plate is pinched to divide the
balcony of the four units, obviating the need
for a dividing screen. Then, the floor plate and
the perimeter envelope are made curvilinear, so
that balconies would flow more easily around the corner. The floor plate is then rotated
relative to the envelope, until it is no longer possible
to overlook the neighboring balcony, as seen in this
image, in the lateral views.
28:30 - 29:00 In order to reduce the
overlooking of the balconies vertically, the position
of the balconies are shifted from one
floor to another. This generates floor
plates that are not identical to each other, and
transmit effects of privacy, diversity, multidirectionality. It also doubles the vertical
distance between the balconies so that the overlooking
that conventionally occurs when balconies
are simply stacked is minimized, as
the balcony below is always two floors down.
29:00 - 29:30 To minimize views
down even further, the handrail is
mobilized as an agent relative to the balconies
that are visible two floors down--
a condition that is found along the red
lines of these plans. So plans of some handrails
of some balconies must generate a gradient of
privacy along their lengths. In a residential
building, the handrail must typically perform
two contradictory roles, to allow maximum views
out of each balcony, and minimal views in
from the exterior.
29:30 - 30:00 And in our case, the third
one of enabling minimum views down to the
balconies below. The profile chosen for
the handrail support and its distribution can
play a significant role in performing these roles. As indicated by these four
types of handrail supports-- and the different percentages
of using an out-of-date [inaudible]-- views in and views
out do not vary so much whether the handrail support
comprises one line of support, be it rectangular profiles,
or two lines of support with
30:00 - 30:30 circular profiles. But when the two lines
of support are offset, views in are reduced while
maintaining their transparency out. And if the spacing
of the support is densified in certain
areas, the handrail can minimize overlooking down. This assemblage of floor
plates, envelope, and handrail generates two types
of private balconies, a single-height balcony
with an exterior curtain for additional privacy, and
a double-height balcony,
30:30 - 31:00 which is found in
different orientations along the height of the
building due to the rotation of the floor. So therefore, providing many
options of outdoor space based on size, shape, type
of view, and sun exposure. Therefore, approaching the
building as an assemblage, we can see, can provide a
style of a different kind of agencies. The agency to shift people's
experience of their interiors from interior-exterior
discordance and possibly stuffiness, to
interior-exterior concordance
31:00 - 31:30 which encourages indoor-outdoor
living and cross-ventilation. And the agency to shift
the experience of balconies from exposure and homogeneity,
to extreme privacy and diversity. Now the building
isn't finished yet, so it is impossible to
know what impact these effects we have
on the people who will live in the apartments. But it is inevitable that
the encounter between people and a new kind of balcony
in the apartment-- an open, extremely
private space-- will prompt creative
responses from residents,
31:30 - 32:00 since there is no precedent
for this kind of outdoor space. The style of office
buildings can also call for active participation
from the people who use them. This is 130 Fenchurch Street,
a 19-story mid-rise office tower we are working on,
located within the Eastern Cluster of tall buildings
in the city of London-- an area which fosters
airborne synergy or knowledge spillover between financial
trading firms, formally and informally. This means that the public
ground between buildings
32:00 - 32:30 is in intense use as traders
move between headquarters. So the project raised
two questions for us. How should the building
articulate its presence as an object of
encounter for passers-by, for whom the practical
functions of the interior is not of concern? And given that work
is increasingly defined by digital
technology, how can the physical space of work
make a contribution to it? To address these
two questions, we had to identify the elements
that relate to each of these, and the co-efficients that
they together would produce.
32:30 - 33:00 The massing and the curtain
wall of an office building are the agents determining
its exterior presence by day. For example, the massing could
imply that the rays of sunlight are directed towards
people's cars parked nearby, as in the case of the
so-called "Walkie Talkie" at 120 Fenchurch
Street to the left. The massing could
benefit the rights of light of neighboring
streets and buildings, as in the case of the so-called
"Cheese Grater" at 122 Leadenhall Street to the right.
33:00 - 33:30 By night, the exterior
presence of an office building is defined by its structure
and the ceiling that becomes visible. Here, our office building's
near by our site, which during the day
are designed to be distinct from one another. But at night, it's hard to
tell one from the other, as they all use the
same ceiling system. The interior presence
of workspaces is defined through the
relationship between core structure, curtain wall,
and shading devices as well as services.
33:30 - 34:00 The relationship between
the core and the structure relates to the flexibility
of its occupancy pattern. The combination of the central
core and exoskeletal structure of 30 centimeters
[inaudible] at the top provides less flexibility
than the combination of external core and exoskeletal
structure at 122 Leadenhall. And the relationship between the
structure and the curtain wall relates to the transparency
of the workplace and the flexibility
of space planning. Just like a residential
project, the building
34:00 - 34:30 can neither be governed
by a single idea-- as in an organic whole--
nor can be reduced to independent or
discrete elements. It must be conceived as an
assemblage in which elements-- by virtue of their
location and grouping-- can develop different
emergent properties. The other advantage
of this approach is that certain
elements can continue to develop over a
long period of time-- longer period of
time-- as needed. For example, the
core of our building is still being
re-appraised and developed.
34:30 - 35:00 We began by addressing
the presence of the building in the city,
since this is first needed in order to obtain planning
approval from the City of London Corporation. Most mid-rise
buildings in the area have a stepped massing
to disguise their scale from the street level. But there is no need to disguise
the mass of the building on Fenchurch Street,
since Fenchurch Street is continuously bending and narrow. So the building mass
will always only be seen partially along
approaching streets anyway.
35:00 - 35:30 Since stepping would have
almost no effect on passers-by, our massing strategy is
based on pure extrusion, and therefore the
element that will have agency in shaping their
encounter of the building will be its curtain wall. Conventionally, curtain walls
are assembled independent of the load-bearing structure. In order to appear
transparent-- yet they are never transparent,
except perhaps at night, because the curtain
wall includes horizontal and vertical caps
or mullions, silicone joints, and expansion joints, as well
as differentiating devices which
35:30 - 36:00 appear darker than glass. Consequently, a grid appears
that transmits effects of efficiency, which perhaps
belongs more to the [inaudible] days than today. During the day, the
glass curtain wall is reflective, which
is meant to integrate the presence of the
building into its context by mirroring it, but
instead generates a sense of anonymity and
disappearance in the building. We wanted to shift the
presence of 130 Fenchurch Street in the city away
from these conventions of transmitting
efficiency, anonymity,
36:00 - 36:30 and disappearance, which are
not desirable any longer. Therefore, firstly, rather than
assembling its curtain wall with flat pieces of
glass, it is an assembled with concave ones, which are
varied in scale to accommodate the irregularities of
the site footprint, and generate variety
in people's experience as they move around
the building. Secondly, the glass-
curved glass panels-- are assembled with a
structurally glazed reveal, replacing the conventional
appearance of frames
36:30 - 37:00 with a shadow reveal. Instead of simply
mirroring its context, the fluted curtain wall
will compress reflections of the context into each
one of these segments, and new images will emerge. Thirdly, in order to simplify
the color and tonal range of reflections into a
subtle gradation of tones, the glass will be frit to appear
black, similar to black glass used by painters in the
18th and the 19th century, to turn from geometric
to physiological optics.
37:00 - 37:30 The black frit will
not only reduce the tonality of reflections
and the reflective qualities of the glass, it will also
absorb the dark shadow reveal between the glass
panels, turning the repeated images into a continuity. The tighter the
fluting, the finer will be the grain of the image. The variation of the
curtain wall, as well as the simplicity of
its extruded shape, will be at odds with
the stepped neighbors or sculptural nearby
high-rises, and will engage passers-by to
explore all of its edges
37:30 - 38:00 as they move past the building. While its serrated rooftop
will reinforce the building's presence and distinction
against the sky, here their focus will
be lifted upwards. Unlike a conventional
flat curtain wall that almost disappears
against the sky, the cluster of effects of
presence and multiplicity, verticality, and fluting,
serration, fluidity, are very different to effects
of rigidity, stepping, stacking, flatness, absence,
and uniformity that
38:00 - 38:30 are experienced in the
buildings immediately next door. This effective break will
surprise people and invite them to make sense of the building. On the interior, the curtain
wall of a mid-rise office building-- as seen in these
images-- remains present, but its agency resides
in the type of alliance it forms with the
building's structure, to define greater or lesser
flexibility for the workspace. The structural frame
of a mid-rise building is conventionally designed
at 9-meter spacing. At this span, the
columns are very large,
38:30 - 39:00 which is a challenge
for office partitioning. Instead, we have designed
the structural columns at 3-meter spacing, so
that they would appear as part of the curtain wall. At this span, the columns
are substantially smaller and fit within the depth of the
curvature of the curtain wall. This frees up area taken
otherwise by structure and optimizes the interior
for partitions, if required. In addition, the 3-meter
spacing of columns will perform like interior brise
soleil along the west facade by stopping the afternoon sun
from coming in at low-level,
39:00 - 39:30 and therefore avoiding
glaring the workspaces. On the south facade,
at midday, the sun will be shining straight
through to the space. In this case, it
will be the frit acting to filter the
light, mitigating glare. The alliance between the
structure and the curtain wall, however, has emergent
aesthetic implications, too. Inside, the conventional
9-meter spacing of columns places the emphasis
on structure, whereas the even distribution
of columns at 3-meter spacing
39:30 - 40:00 places the emphasis
on the space. And outside, along the
frontal views, instead of large columns at 9-meter
centers and the floor slabs, the presence of the
smaller vertical structure at 3-meter spacing dissolves
behind the recessed mullions. Along the oblique
views, however, the depth of the columns
inside will partially interrupt the views in. The center of each glass
panel, marked in red, are where there will be
clear views of the interior. With this in mind,
the black frit
40:00 - 40:30 is graduated, from
densest at both edges that sit in front of the structure,
to total transparency in the center of
each glass module. Here, we see half of one
of the glass modules. For the interior views out,
the black color of the frit has the advantage that,
physiologically, the human eye is trained to focus
on lighter colors. And therefore, the eye will
see straight through when it is viewing to the outside. On the exterior, the dense frit
along the edges of each glass panel will absorb the
shadow-- structural reveal,
40:30 - 41:00 as well as the presence of
the columns on oblique views. And it will also generate
dark vertical shadows in each glass flute,
transmitting verticality. In contrast, the
dark vertical shadow. The presence of the floor
spandrels recede and the tower will transmit scalelessness. By day, the space between the
passers-by and the curtain wall will therefore be
constantly active. The eye will become aware of
a seemingly-tireless movement within its apparent simplicity.
41:00 - 41:30 And from this, a sensory
paradox will begin to emerge. The passers-by eye
will be drawn to search across the surface
of the curtain wall for the source of its
dramatic, vertiginous effect, only to discover that there
is nowhere for it to rest on. And it is in this act
of assembling elements in a coherent way-- so
that they would co-function to generate emergent
effects without any attempt at communicating their
practical functions-- that this style of
the curtain wall will be free of any
representational, as well
41:30 - 42:00 as practical, functions
of the offices, to instead engage the actual
process of perception. At night, as I
mentioned earlier, the exterior presence
of the building is defined by its structure
and the ceilings that become visible. The fluted glass panel
will appear transparent, and the peripheral columns
will carry less visual weight, by virtue of their
slenderness and dark color. It is, therefore, the
interplay between the ceiling and the floor
spandrels which will have agency in
people's perception,
42:00 - 42:30 focusing on the
effectivity produced by the relationship between the
ceiling and the curtain wall at night. Instead of using
typical ceiling tiles, we are at present developing
a linear baffle system, which will easily address the
co-efficients of lighting and accessibility to services
integrated in the ceiling, whilst also providing
texture to the ceiling. Instead of an even
distribution of baffles, we are at present exploring an
uneven spacing between them, as a way to create an
illusion of pleating
42:30 - 43:00 in the ceiling at the
scale of the column grid. The ceiling would then
transmit rhythm and movement, rather than flatness. From the exterior, looking
up at the ceiling at night, the conjunction of the
horizontals of the floor slabs and the diagonals
of the ceiling will produce an entirely new form. This could not be predetermined. We had to find it
during the process. As I mentioned, the
project is ongoing, but I think it already
shows that what might seem a limited
beginning-- a curved glazing
43:00 - 43:30 profile-- can become a fertile
ground for many other effects. Because it is very neutral
and you can work into it, and work into it, and work into
it, to generate an assemblage that works simultaneously
on two levels. The physical identity
of each element, and how it conjoins
with other elements to perform certain
practical functions-- and at the same time,
the perceptual experience of that relationship
according to each element
43:30 - 44:00 of the building--
is simultaneously one thing and several things. It is neither subservient to
a single fundamental idea, nor is it seen by itself. It is always affected
by other elements. And the agency or
freedom of the architect consists in moving about
within this narrow frame to find opportunities
for shifting conventions, no matter how large or small. Next, let's briefly
discuss the Museum of Contemporary Art, as it
is a project that belongs to our discussion tonight.
44:00 - 44:30 Whereas the primary concern
for terminal buildings is getting people from A to
B as quickly as possible, the primary concern for
contemporary art museums is the flexibility
of the galleries to display changing exhibitions. The white cube gallery,
because of its total whiteness and separation from the
rest of the museum-- as well as the exterior-- is typically
considered the most flexible for changing exhibitions. However, by being
self-contained and freed from time and daily life,
it transmits a neutrality, a temporality, and
a contextuality.
44:30 - 45:00 And as the museum
exterior is disconnected from the experience
of the galleries, it can prompt critics to argue
for the style of the museum through external narrative--
such as sales or spinnakers-- rather than the agency
it might otherwise carry, vis-a-vis going to see art. Meanwhile, the rest
of the museum-- given that the galleries
are sealed away-- is devoid of any art. The Museum of Contemporary
Art in Cleveland
45:00 - 45:30 is designed to subvert this
convention of the museum as a decorative
shed, that represents external narratives
outside and provides a neutral white cube inside. However, this is not
done by designing the museum as an organic
whole, but as an assemblage of elements that--
in groups-- act as different agents in people's
experience of the art museum. The envelope and the main stair
are the main, primary agents, but these in themselves
are elements made up of smaller elements, or smaller
agencies, as Darwin would say.
45:30 - 46:00 The small elements
of the envelope include its shape, its
entrances, its rainscreen cladding, its fireproof paint
and structure, and its windows. Its shape generated through a
compact hexagonal entry floor, rising to a rectangular
roof, allowed us to locate the building
in the corner of the site, leaving space for
a plaza in front, into which museum events would
spill out during good weather. This shape-- which is
the second-best fit for the corner after
a circle-- also
46:00 - 46:30 provides five
different entrances on five sides of
the building, which embed all of the interior
and not just the main gallery with hyper-flexibility,
to be reconfigured in different ways over time
and accessed separately. At times, it can be used for
events, and at other times, for multiple,
simultaneous exhibitions. Such as this space on the
entry floor with an entrance of its own, that is assembled
with movable shelving so during the day it
hosts the museum store, and at night, it converts
to a performance art space.
46:30 - 47:00 The envelope's shape
is also designed to act together with
these construction layers, to generate unexpected
experiences. Its exterior, vented
rainscreen layer is assembled with black
mirrored stainless steel strips pressed in the middle
and arranged diagonally across the building's
faces, to provide a specific phenomenal
quality to be simultaneously reflective and absorptive. Therefore, rather than
being timeless and separated from every day life, it catches
the light and reflections
47:00 - 47:30 of the physical
context of the museum-- as well as changing
human relations-- and generates different,
unexpected effects. Close up, the cladding strips
transmit delay, compression, and transience. Further away, the rainscreen in
combination with the envelope's shape transmit other effects,
depending on the point of view which it is viewed from. From certain points, solidity
and blackness, and from others, hollowness or otherwise tenting. We could say ambiguity.
47:30 - 48:00 I've been told it was designed
to look like a crystal, but its agency lies
not in representing any external narratives,
but in appearing relational or more dialogic,
rather than detached from its context. Inside, the structural
steel decking is another small element of
the envelope whose agency has been activated. It's painted in blue
fire-resistant paint. Instead of a
narrative, the tension between the effect blue on the
inside and black on the outside
48:00 - 48:30 produces a sense of-- or the
way of-- entering the museum. Which is not like moving
between two disconnected states, because both the
black rainscreen and blue structural metal
decking follow the same shape. The building retains a
sense of surface tension between the inside
and the outside, which visitor's
experience upon entering. The blue fire-resistant paint
performs other functions, too. It wraps around all
of the museum spaces,
48:30 - 49:00 reinforcing continuity between
art and non-art spaces. When it wraps around
the main gallery, it subverts the neutrality of
the white cube gallery where art floats and has no weight. The contrast between
the dark blue ceiling of the main gallery and
the light floors and walls generates an inversion of the
gallery interior's exterior, in which the ceiling
transmits a sky-like effect of boundlessness
and the space below transmits an effect
of weight, due
49:00 - 49:30 to its contrasting brightness. Finally, MoCA's windows
form another small element, or agent, of its
envelope assemblage. They are arranged as
long strips-- respective of the location of
the floors inside-- and diagonally-orientated
following the orientation of the
exterior rainscreen cladding. In combination with
the envelope's shape, they transmit an effect of
movement and scalelessness. On the inside, the
windows are mobilized to create a different
effect, to disrupt
49:30 - 50:00 the assumed incremental ability
of the white cube interior and exterior,
typically celebrated by carefully-framed windows. The window reveals
at MoCa are clad in mirrored stainless
steel, to displace the depth of the gallery
walls with the lateral views of the exterior. The inside and
the outside create a new act that
shifts constantly, bringing a sense of
time constantly changing into the galleries, or
an effect of temporality. The stair is another
agent in changing
50:00 - 50:30 the conventional
museum experience. It is designed to both
provide access and subvert the typical separation between
art and non-art spaces. What appears as a single
staircase is, in fact, a double-decker stair. An open stair stacked on top
of one of the egress stairs to save space, but
also to provide not one route to climb
the museum floors, but 10 opened and closed ones
which are intertwined with art. The enclosed egress route is
designed as a sound gallery, subverting the idea that an
egress stair is only used
50:30 - 51:00 in the case of emergencies. It is painted in
yellow to dematerialize the sense of space and
focus attention on sound, while the upper route is
designed with wide landings to act both as a social space,
as well as a performance space. This stair is extended
above the top floor gallery, to enable visitors
to look inside when it is closed for setting
up exhibitions, thus expanding their perception of the museum
beyond the space of display to include the production
of exhibitions.
51:00 - 51:30 I think we can conclude that the
specific arrangement of MoCA's elements-- its stair and
envelope, entrances, rainscreen cladding, and
interior fireproofing define its style, trajectory,
or [inaudible] as a museum. A contemporary art
museum that transmits flexibility, temporality,
transience, boundlessness, scalelessness,
relationality, and dialogism. Just to finish with
a smaller project, the Victoria Beckham
flagship store in London,
51:30 - 52:00 where we were asked to
design the store on three floors of an existing building. Like most brands,
Victoria Beckham has an online shopping
platform, so this project raised the following question for us. How can the style
or arrangements of its shopfront, ceilings,
floors, stairs, and display systems generate a site-specific
shopping experience? The shopfront is
usually arranged as a display space separate
from the interior, which, as in a market, focuses
on transmitting choice
52:00 - 52:30 with display systems
that transmit permanence and predictability over time. To shift customer's
experience of shopping away from these conventions, we
focus on the various elements of this store as well
as people's perception as material to work with,
and how they might generate a variety of
experiential moments that invite different types of
encounters in time and space, like different propositions. They shopfront is designed as
a window, partially in glass
52:30 - 53:00 and partially in a
concrete sash window, with no merchandise on display. So it would function
with the space inside, and activate the sense of
the store from the exterior less like a market and
more like a gallery. When customers approach
the concrete window, they are presented
with the surprise that what happened-- what
appeared as a sash window, that usually slice
vertically up and down-- is a sliding door
which effortlessly slides to the left. The accessory wall for
handbags, immediately
53:00 - 53:30 behind the shopfront,
is designed to change the perception
of this space over time. Its long shelves are
retractable to allow the store to vary the amount of shelves
and handbag on display, or to completely remove
them to allow the space to be used for other events. The ceiling is clad in
mirrored stainless steel, so it would draw customers
to view the top of handbags that are reflected in it, which
is often the most interesting. And to create a virtual
double of the space,
53:30 - 54:00 people are engaged in a
process of working out where exactly is
actual ceiling line, or how tall is the
space in actuality? Two staircases connect
the entry level to floors above and below. Their opening is made
or arranged smaller than the stair, generating a
partial ceiling for them that shows everything up and
down-- or upside down-- and provides an uneven headroom. This alters people's
perception of the staircase as merely practical. The stair is a room
of its own, in which
54:00 - 54:30 accessories and clothing
and different artworks are displayed over time. Meanwhile, in order
to engage customers in a sense of upward
expansion, the ceiling of the floor above--
seen here to the right-- is designed as a lightweight,
concrete, coffered ceiling. This use of coffered
ceiling, incidentally, has a long history in
the modern art gallery, concealing the mechanical
and electrical systems. But here, it is used to support
a movable system of chains for hanging clothing, too,
subverting usual clothing
54:30 - 55:00 displays. Clothing can be moved
to different locations-- like movable walls
in a gallery-- or entirely removed to convert
the store into an event space. The alliance between the
hanging system and the ceiling has other implications in
the shopping experience. Typically, customers need
to put down their handbags to pull the hanger
off a rail, and use both hands to view a piece
of clothing front and back, or to hold it in one hand
and pull the price tag out with the other.
55:00 - 55:30 It soon becomes quite
an awkward exercise. The chain system allows
customers to pull out the chain and rotate the
clothing 360 degrees with one hand, while
they continue to carry their handbag with the other. It injects playfulness into
the shopping experience, challenging the
convention of a shop as simply a market
focused on choice. To further make the perception
and experience of shopping site-specific, the counters
for folded clothing
55:30 - 56:00 and small accessories
are designed in mirrored stainless steel to
turn them from floating objects to objects that are immersed
in their environment. Consequently, the
experience of shopping for knitwear or
small accessories is inseparable from the
space that surrounds them. And to further
liberate customers from the predictability
of the seating they find in the store
over time, the seating is designed as a system
of triangular benches that can be combined
in different ways, and be moved around the
store so they would encounter
56:00 - 56:30 the seating in different
ways over different visits to the store. So, when you come into
a store, something that you may have
taken for a given-- the usual displays and a focus
on choice of merchandise-- starts to lose its ground. You have to find what the shop
is, and how you behave in it. This example of how we
mobilize the different elements in a shop to create shifts
in the traditional encounters people form with
shopping, is an example of how style can
be given agency. So what is the consequence
of this approach
56:30 - 57:00 to style as agency? when it is adopted
by all architects? To answer this
question, the style book brings together projects from
the 1990s to the present, and some from earlier
in the 20th century. They are drawn in
a similar manner, and grouped according to
the activities they host. To identify their similarities
and highlight the differences, because it is in
these differences that moments of
descensus are located,
57:00 - 57:30 and where architects have
chosen to exercise their agency. The larger consequence of
this approach to style-- as I hope these slides show--
is not incoherent diversity, but a diversity underlying which
is a network of projects that are related to one
another, but discontinuous with each other
at the same time. Each project
appropriates conventions set by another project and
shifts it to make something new appear in the encounter
between people and their everyday
activities, and in doing so,
57:30 - 58:00 uses styles as an
agent of change. These processes
of appropriation, which is inevitable,
then becomes a disciplinary
tool for architects to engage the micropolitics
of the every day. We can leave these
slides now running while I answer any
questions you have. Thank you,
58:00 - 58:30 Well, [inaudible] asked that
I kick off the conversation and then open this to everyone. I was struck by the way in
which you articulate the field today as a collection of
conventions and systems of a certain consistency
versus what it seems
58:30 - 59:00 your commitment is, which
is to introduce disruptions, to actually produce exceptions
and unique occurrences, or unique types of
synthesis of those systems, so as to call attention
to them, as you said, to ask for active participation
by breaking the conventions. It reminded me a
little bit of-- it seems to have some parallels
to the interests that
59:00 - 59:30 were developed-- the kind
of interest developed in the Koolhaas Elements
exhibition in Venice. Though there is a difference. I mean his exhibition
seems, to me, was a function as a show
stopper, as it were, breaking the tradition
of the Biennale which was usually to exhibit new
and extraordinary works today. And instead, he wanted only
to introduce the elements
59:30 - 60:00 that we have
inherited, things that are given the intractable
aspects of architecture, things that were not to
do with any innovation or any synthesis--
in fact, taking architecture apart and
making it everything except for the synthesis. Of course, they
are not projects. They were just a collection
of examples of things. And you, of course, are bringing
them together and to work, so it's a very
different problem. But I'm curious to hear how
you reconcile-- I mean I think,
60:00 - 60:30 somehow, you are interested
in that kind of way of looking at things
that is somehow manifest in that exhibition. Well, I think-- Let me hear about that. --started being interested
in the kind of thing I've been doing
since a long time. I think it was very
refreshing to see Rem have face in architecture again. And obviously, I am-- I
respect him enormously.
60:30 - 61:00 I think that the Biennale is
always a challenging exercise. I welcome what it was taking on. I personally think
that its shortcomings is that it-- if I
can say it strongly-- failed to make the argument
architecturally because I think, from my experiences and
actually the elements today--
61:00 - 61:30 the architectural elements,
the actual individual elements, are very much a
collaborative investigation between the architect and
many, many other experts that inform them. Architecture is the way
you put them together. So I don't think
the corridor scene as towards that
space in the middle is what makes that
significant, but where you locate that corridor.
61:30 - 62:00 A corridor in an
office building means entirely different to a corridor
in a residential building and a corridor in a museum,
which you rarely find. And where you're
located, what size it is, I think that's when these
elements become architecture. Window frames or
windows, it's not really the inventory of
windows you have. I mean we are inundated
with that choice. And it will only grow. It's where you put the window. It's how many windows you have.
62:00 - 62:30 It's what size they are. It's what view they
enable through-- this is when the window becomes
a piece of architecture. And while I thought the
Biennale didn't even begin to deal with was the
assembly of the elements, which I think is architecture. But there was one--
there's one aspect of it, I think, I hear in what you're
saying some sympathy with, which I think I hear
in what you talk about, which is it seemed
to me that it was a critique of the
endless proliferation
62:30 - 63:00 of innovative disruptions. In a way, he is trying to
turn it into-- architecture into a field of particles in
which you can't understand it in any way relative--
the inflections that authors give to it. That is the voice of the
individual architect. Instead, it's just this field
of the elements as he put it. And-- But it's not true. --what I wonder is
due you concern-- I mean I would think you would--
the proliferation of difference
63:00 - 63:30 is the problem that you
may have been criticizing. You, for example,
have said you like to see these things going
against the normative office building or going against
many of the things that seem otherwise to just be
banal and undifferentiated, all at night, the offices with the
same ceilings, and so forth. You would like to break it. Are you concerned though that
with breakage after breakage, it collapses into a new
normativity in which nothing can be seen as different.
63:30 - 64:00 How do you handle this
question of building the field of-- building the field of the
conventional against which you break-- I mean first of all-- --and breakage? --just to clarify,
these conventions are not done by
some dirty person. They're done by us architects. We create conventions
all the time. Gund Hall, a building
I absolutely love, is a convention. It's already a convention, so
we can take it and change it. So when I say convention,
I don't mean bad buildings. None of the projects
in this [inaudible] would be there if I thought
they were bad buildings.
64:00 - 64:30 So they are buildings
we can learn from, and we can learn certain things. We can learn conventions of
putting elements together in a particular way. But what we also need
to be committed to is to contribute to
peoples experience of life and not turn conventions
into monotony. We create conventions every
time we make a building. It's a new convention, if you
are an experiment architecture, et cetera. And therefore, what
we also need to do
64:30 - 65:00 is to find a way in which we
both carry knowledge forward, but also find a way to innovate. And I think there has been a
lot of criticism of the '90s to present, not
looking at difference, but saying everything
looks similar. That's normally how
people talk about the work of the '90s to now. It's talked about,
oh, it's all similar. It's all similar. And I think the problem
is that those people who say that are not looking
at the right scale
65:00 - 65:30 and are not looking at
the work in the right way because I think there are
significant differences. You just have to look at them. It's a finer range-- You'd have to find them. And so rather than thinking
that-- since the '90s, the architectural profession
was inundated with commissions. There was a boom in
the building industry, and so architects
lost their stolen, and they didn't have a
big manifesto to sell. I think we need to look closely
and see that something really
65:30 - 66:00 important was happening there. And architecture, I
believe, completely changed. The way we work is
no longer the way it used to be before the 1990s. And so the way we
work is different. We need to react to this, and
in order to be, let's say, carry agency, we need
to work with the system, but to be able to
also change it. I mean I-- of course, I've
shown projects of the office
66:00 - 66:30 as a way to illustrate
how things work. But I think, ultimately, what
reads in these-- I hope-- is the fact that there
is something happening across these projects, which
is not just interest of mine. I'm interested in it because
it's not just my interest. I think you can-- this
is a particular reading. I'm sure there are other
readings of this period. But I think this reading exists. We can see it. Well, let me-- now,
let's open the discussion because I think there have been
so many provocative subjects
66:30 - 67:00 already brought to the floor. And I know many of
these are on many of the students
and faculty minds because they're
in the discussion. They're in the
culture of the school. The book is part of the
culture of the school given how many were engaged in it,
and the other books before it. I mean it really colors
the studio culture, and so I think so
many people here will have a number of thoughts
about what's happening in the work that you're doing.
67:00 - 67:30 Who would like to
ask a question? Oh, good. OK. Hi, Farshid. I'm Stephen. Earlier, you said the
buildings face challenges, and the architects are
faced with problems beyond their own
expertise at this point, both with environmental,
financial, legalistic. I was wondering if
you could comment on what you feel like the
expertise of the architect
67:30 - 68:00 is now in today's practice. Assembling them together. I sincerely believe that
that's the unique role of the architect, to
assemble them together, which I'm calling style. I think that's what we do. I think that's what
we've always done. It's just that perhaps
the number of fields that related to an
architectural project were less and we had less collaborators.
68:00 - 68:30 But ultimately, we've
remained as the experts who creates some kind of
transversal link between all these different parameters
that are thrown at a project. And I don't think that's a
skill that the other people in the team have. But wouldn't that
require us to learn about all the other extrinsic
forces and disciplines in order
68:30 - 69:00 to-- Yes, as an architect, you
need to know a little bit about all of it. You do. You do. You need to know a little bit. If you want to ask
the right questions and push these different
areas in a project, you need to know
enough about them. So we are a little
bit of a generalist. We don't know the
gasket of a window as much as a window
manufacturer.
69:00 - 69:30 Antoine? [inaudible] Yes, please. I'm not sure it's a question. It's more a perplexity
about the overall ambition because you started from the
traditional problem of style, which is, how do you articulate
an individual building or an architect
individual expression
69:30 - 70:00 with a more collective
set of production or way to do things, et cetera? So that was the initial thing. And that's the traditional
notion of style. But then when you
moved to your own work, it was more about being stylish. But let it me clear. It's because my
English is clumsy. It's not about making objects
which have a style of their own in which it's no longer
the problem of the relation of an individual building
or an individual practice
70:00 - 70:30 with a collective, a broader set
of the buildings or practices. It's about being
stylistically interesting. You know, just-- and then
when we go back there, we go back to the suggestion
that there are connections between individual
instances, so we're back to the traditional
notion of style. So I'm wondering, by the end,
what do you mean by style? Is it style as the relation
between an instance
70:30 - 71:00 and a broader set of buildings,
authors, or whatever? Or is it style as
doing something that is-- when I use
stylish, I mean which has an interesting appearance,
is stylistically interesting, but by itself. Yeah, I never-- And the way you-- [interposing voices] --presented your building. Just to finish. Just about the new
and the not new, what you said about
the architect today is exactly what Vitruvius said.
71:00 - 71:30 That's OK. That's OK. Just as a side note. We go through cycles. That's OK. I don't think I
meant to say that-- I think there is a shared approach
in this architectural style. But that's not a
formal shared approach. And it's about a way
to work-- an approach to the way of putting
together buildings and in what context you
see-- you direct it to.
71:30 - 72:00 So when I talk
about the projects, I explain them against
shifting conventions. So this is not about trying
to look like other architects. But however, there
is this conversation that, whether we like it
or not, ideas are shared. We are inundated with
the sharing of ideas, so similarities appear. Sometimes, they are conscious. We know, for example,
that the work
72:00 - 72:30 of OMA and
[inaudible], there has been a longstanding
dialogue formally. There has been a
longstanding dialogue. It's intentional, which
I think is interesting because it's about very,
very careful shifts. That has been happening
for a very, very long time. Sometimes, it's conscious, and
sometimes, it's not conscious. But the idea is that
you, in fact-- there is-- I don't mean to say
that projects are supposed to look similar intentionally.
72:30 - 73:00 The intentional act
is to actually make them look different because
the general tendency is for them to be similar. Other questions? Ariana? As you know, this year,
the Architecture Symposium focuses on the topic
of organization. And because I'm
so focused on it,
73:00 - 73:30 it was impossible for me
not to look at the material that you presented
through that lens. And one of the core
ideas behind it is that the question of how
architects put things together. And I think you talked
directly to that question. But one of the issues
that I'm wondering is that, in how we put things
together, for some people, this idea of
organization could be related to function,
how you distribute programs in the building. For other people, it could
be the material itself, the relationship
between the ceiling
73:30 - 74:00 and the windows and the walls. But I think it also is
related, for example, to how you organize the
material in your book, right? And if historically,
this idea of organization has enabled perhaps for the
discoveries of new paradigms in architecture
as they emerge, I wonder what are your
thoughts in the moment where all of these elements or all
of these comparative processes make the buildings become equal. Because I think
you're arguing not for the erasure of
difference, but that somehow
74:00 - 74:30 this newly identified
relationships become visible, and they produce something
beyond the time when the buildings were made or the
style that the architect was trying to produce. So I am-- the question
would be, what are your thoughts in terms
of how this idea of how you organize materials, how
you put things together, go beyond the issues
of style and what
74:30 - 75:00 if they can actually produce
new architectural paradigms or if, in effect, they're
actually going to erase them? Well, I think that this is--
there doesn't have to be one. There could be many
at different scales. But this is not something
that I think will be-- I would not advocate for a
shared, new, single paradigm. And that's why I'm not
interested in defining it. This process is about
an open-ended resource
75:00 - 75:30 for architects to
take it into zillions of different directions. And I think our job
is that creativity. It's to be experimental
and to be creative and to forever change
what people have already experienced. This is the
contribution we make. So is the ultimate paradigm the
one that is never going to end? Is never going to end? What do you mean by that? That if throughout
history we can identify different
historical periods of different paradigms,
this new paradigm that
75:30 - 76:00 advocates for this [interposing voices] I truly believe
that we will never go back to a single paradigm. I think architecture has
reached a point where you can't try to write
one, a manifesto, to say it's about this and that. But I think it's out of
control for the better.
76:00 - 76:30 One of the words you kept
saying today is agency. And I would like to pair
it with another word that we don't like
discussing too much, which is political agency. And I wonder if,
historically, we think of style-- at least
at certain periods-- as corresponding to a
certain type of politics or a certain type of
governance, and if today you're talking about a situation
where at least a symbolic, or the literally
visual aspect of style, is disappearing or already
gone, what kind of politics
76:30 - 77:00 do you think this sort
of plurality of styles or visual styles is
corresponding to, whether it's masking, let's say,
[inaudible] liberalism or it's actually
reflecting as very dominant, capitalist culture? Well, I tried to situate
the projects in daily life activities as a way
to argue that actually
77:00 - 77:30 the politics these play are
the scale of the everyday. And that architecture
with a big P-- well, maybe if you had a very
interested president or leader who was going to make it a
grand project, at some point, it becomes political
with a big P. But generally,
architectural practice works at the scale
of micropolitics, and that's the
power it has which
77:30 - 78:00 is regardless of who
is running the country or who is your client. It's the politics that
the architect plays. And I am really
interested in it. That's the politics--
that's the kind of politics that we architects play through
the way we arrange things and through the way we generate
platforms that condition how people have interfaces
with different moments of their everyday. Imagine you're an
architect, and you're
78:00 - 78:30 making one minute a
house, and you are deciding on their corridors. And these same people
then walk into a school, and you decide on
how they relate to their fellow students. And then they go to a
cinema, and you affect the way they watch a movie. I mean the amount that we
have agency, as architects, is enormous. We don't need to go to
external conversations and try to plant on architecture
other kinds of accountabilities
78:30 - 79:00 because I think it's ingrained. And this is not new. This is architecture
ever since Vitruvius. And we shouldn't
forget about that. And I think because we've been
since-- mainly since the '90s, the world events have thrown
so many different pressures on life, including
architects, et cetera. We've had to find
these-- well, we also have to focus on sustainability
and focus on certain this
79:00 - 79:30 and certain that. And It's fine. We need to develop
areas of expertise. But I think architecture
is not just those. Those other things continue
as well along the line. It just becomes richer, more
complex, more challenging, and more, also influential. But I think that architecture's
power and politics is at the scale of
its own instruments. [inaudible] Warner?
79:30 - 80:00 Hi, Farshid. Thanks for the talk. So in one hand, you
are somehow encouraging us to shift the conventions. And I think you have shown
a pretty good job on that, on shifting many things. But I've seen,
across the lecture, an underlying conventional
that you have not even attempt to modify. And I want to ask
you all about that. That is this question
of flexibility. I'm here by the way. Ah, yes. I'm trying to locate you.
80:00 - 80:30 OK. OK. So is this notion of
flexibility, all the praise you have shown that is
almost like a-- excuse me the word-- reduction to all
the intensity, to the facade, to this idea of a
skin architecture and liberating the floor plan
as [inaudible] very clear with the office example. The residential, I assume,
there is more be beyond that. But you focus, again, on the
balconies, the same example with the little [inaudible]
or the original [inaudible]
80:30 - 81:00 in London. So I'm just curious, over
precisely the last 30 years, if there has been one thing
that is remaining in terms of a structural
condition is this idea of the flexibilization
of markets and flexible [inaudible] of accumulation. That are pushing architects
to liberate the grounds. Say no because this
is going to change, and we need flexibility. And if the company fails and
you need to do another business, the better if it's clean and
something new could happen.
81:00 - 81:30 So I want to ask
you, why you have not shifted the flexibility
convention that we have had over the last 25, 30 years? What's your problem
with flexibility? Well, I don't have
any specific problem. I'm just afraid that it's
pushing us or reducing all our agency towards the facade. I actually-- No. No. No. I mean, first of
all, I think that you need to recognize that what
I'm trying to highlight
81:30 - 82:00 are the particular components
of each project that are making shifts. I have given a lecture
on MOCA before where I spent the entire lecture
talking about a project. Today, I wanted to speak to you
about some aspects of it that fitted in the conversation. So about the
housing project, you could talk about the
landscaping, the relationship to the ground. There are many-- how
the roof is used. But that's not the point
of the conversation today.
82:00 - 82:30 However, going back
to flexibility, I am surprised that you think
everybody wants flexibility because flexibility is
something you don't normally find in a residential building. Normally, in a residential
building, you buy an apartment, and you can change very
little of the inside. So actually, as an architect,
if you can locate this structure in a place so that the internal
partitions are non-structural, you've done a very good job.
82:30 - 83:00 We were not asked to
provide flexibility. This is something
that we are trying to give to people so that
when they have a child or they retire, they don't
have to move out and buy another apartment. They don't have to do that. It would be a choice
if they want to move. So I don't know why you say
flexibility is a problem. I also think that
you are giving me the impression that
you think flexibility has a single architecture. There are many, many different
ways of creating flexibility. This is not some kind
of a neutral thing
83:00 - 83:30 that comes to a project. Yeah? I mean if I-- OK. Can I go ahead? Carry on. One more. I mean [inaudible] had this
article a few years ago about skin architecture. And basically, it was
detecting this trend that because of that condition
of things don't last 20 years. They last five or two or less. I know the labor
market is so flexible
83:30 - 84:00 that people move from one
city to another so fast. This is starting to render
an architecture that is as flexible as possible
in terms of their function, in terms of the program, and
reducing all the intensity to the core and the scheme. I don't have a
particular problem. And I think most of the ways
you are talking flexibility is pretty nice. I mean is not a critique. I just-- No. No. No. No. But honestly-- It's just simply that-- I think you have the
wrong impression.
84:00 - 84:30 Maybe it is true that there
is a lot of, for example, speculative offices, et cetera. But actually,
because of pressures of the mobility of the work
force, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, there are
a lot of companies that are having to create
signature spaces in order to attract employees. Look at Google. Look at that. They are trying.
84:30 - 85:00 I mean I think it's
not done well at all. But they're trying attract
talented, young graduates by giving them cool interior. So I think this idea
that we are in a sea of generic, neutral, anonymous
thing is not my experience. And I don't-- the
Victoria Beckham Shop, you call that neutral? You said flexible. I'm talking about flexibility. I know. And our client didn't ask
for flexibility by the way. You also said
flexibility as if there
85:00 - 85:30 are people whipping the
architect asking them for flexibility. It's not true. We introduced
flexibility because we thought that it's a way to bring
surprise and change to people over time. Farshid, I just
want to thank you. I think this would be
a good time to close. Not because your at your pitch,
but well, maybe because this we'll mean we will continue. No doubt, we will be
able to talk with you
85:30 - 86:00 while you're here this semester. And I just want to thank you for
opening this semester with such a vibrant talk
that really pushed a series of issues for us. And I know it's going
to be provocative as we go on into the semester. So with that, everyone
thank Farshid.