Architecture for Others.

an assignment piece i pulled out from my archive as i was clearing my table.

x-posted at Like A Conceit.
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Architecture for Others.

In feminist academic Mary McLeod’s Everyday and “Other” Spaces, it is pointed out that the efforts of recent celebrated star architects like Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Coop Himmelblau possess but a “marginal relation” (McLeod 11) to the production of architecture for the Other. Whilst McLeod credits them for “incredible aesthetic energy and invention of many designs”, she also argues that the “theoretical language” employed by this basket of architects often “violent and sharp […] like a boys’ club” (McLeod 11) and therefore it in no way begins to welcome the nuances of Others in the production of architecture. Whilst this paper does not disagree with McLeod’s assessment of this body of work, it will be argued—with the help of the writings of academic and practitioner Patrik Schumacher—that it is perhaps through such work that we may begin to develop some notion of architecture for Others.

To begin this argument, it is important that McLeod’s stance is sited in its context. McLeod’s main thrust in discounting the efforts produced by recent architects is that “contemporary theorists and deconstructivist architects have focused too exclusively on formal transgression and negation” (McLeod 12) that does not respond to the experiences of Others, insofar as the Others is “experienced differently, at different times, in different cultures, by different people” (McLeod 9). Instead of concepts of space—read as relevant to Others—proffered by Jacque Derrida, Michael Foucault and even Gilles Deleuze, McLeod suggests a look at theories by other personalities i.e. Amongst others, French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s “everyday life”, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’s Learning From Las Vegas, and Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She argues that these theorists hold more relevance to our understanding of the place of Others in our social space because of their acceptance and regard for the “everyday pleasure and its intensification” (McLeod 15). Mundane spaces thought traditionally oppressive such as “the home, the public park, and the department store”, McLeod furthers, actually also offer “some degree of comfort, security, autonomy, and even freedom” (McLeod 10). Insisting that the disempowered Others would rather carve a niche in these spaces rather than “pursue the thrills of transgression and ‘difference’” (McLeod 10), McLeod suggests that the problem with the architecture offered by the afore-mentioned architects lies in the fact that their works offer an over-generalised grandiose vision of Others that serves no social purpose beyond generating a different set of architectural aesthetics and forms

McLeod’s frame of argument hangs on a social pulse, and whilst her argument is felt intuitively by many, architecture academic and practitioner Reinhold Martin laments it best in On Theory. In fact, Martin almost explains the practice’s failure to address any social issues by highlighting the commonly held belief that the very nature of the architecture is “so thoroughly disempowered, so culturally marginal” (Martin 2) it cannot possibly do much to bring about social change. Even if it could, McLeod’s assertion that the fixation on “transgression and negation” does little to offer any opportunities for Others is echoed Schumacher. In The AA Design Research Lab – Premises, Agenda, Methods, Schumacher concurs that the “transmission through philosophy [of Derrida and Deleuze]” is not only “loose” but also “offers no a priori guarantee or justification”, specifically to the works of Eisenman and Greg Lynn. Although, unlike McLeod, Schumacher defends the works by these architects as “the expansion of formal repertoires is a non-linear matter beyond calculation and narrow goal-orientation” (Schumacher, “Premise”). Whilst he admits that these works have no “elaborated proposals for a better life”, they do however “pose questions and withdraw the familiar answers” (Schumacher, “Premise”). The tension between the belief of McLeod and Schumacher stems from an intrinsic disparity in the approach the two academics take in assessing the architectural works.

In the case of McLeod, these works have failed on two levels: Theoretically because the architecture of Others is borne from a myopic and uncritical reading of Derrida, et al; Architecturally because such architecture does not begin to address the social function and uses of Others. On the other hand, Schumacher is willing to appropriate this body of works as experiments that “possibilities upon which a goal-oriented search or selection engine can then operate” (Schumacher, “Premise”), suggesting that whilst the answers for the social processes of Others may not yet readily be found, only through continual experiments will any result fruition:

Who is to judge and deny a priori that a strange building will not attract and engender a strangely productive occupation. Such speculative investment might become accepted as intervention research. What right now appears as an assemblage of disjointed trials might soon cohere into a worthwhile development. A decoded architecture—made strange—offers itself to inhabitation as an aleatoric field, anticipating and actively prefacing its own detournment.

Schumacher, "Premise"

The truth is, McLeod alone does not have many ready answers to which architectural examples are real Other spaces. She remains tentative in her examples (i.e. Niki de saint-Phalle and Jean Tinguely’s Stravinsky Fountain, and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial), preferring to look at them as “places that might suggest other urban tactics”, although prescribing them as “architectural space beyond conformity or disruption, both everyday and other” (McLeod 27). Effectively, McLeod keeps her discourse open and unresolved, expectantly awaiting the same thing Schumacher does: That “these new patterns [be] liberated from their current architectural incarceration” (Schumacher). By whom, what and how, according to McLeod, remains a mystery.

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References:

01. Martin, Reinhold. “On Theory: Critical of What?.” Havard Design Magazine: Spring/ Summer 2005. P1-5.

02. McLeod, Mary. “Everyday and ‘Other’ Spaces.” Architecture and Feminism. Coleman, Debra, Elizabeth Danze and Carol Henderson, ed. Princeton Architectural Press: New York, 1996. P1-37.

03. Schumacher, Patrik. The AA Design Research Lab – Premises, Agenda, Methods. 26 April 2006.