Preface
How to Construct a Space for Space
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There is something strange about space. Space is both a very real necessity for our bodies and a very fluent possibility for our minds – both full of constraint and full of potential. This doctoral project began with an almost childlike wondering – with a blunt curiosity of what was ‘going on’ with this space, which seemed to have a life of its own. It began with wondering, if the final built space was different from the obscured space of the design process – if the space in the architects mind was more than what could be reproduced in the final product.
It is clear to me now that something is in fact going on with space – something of which architects just have a vague understanding, even though they are in the midst of it all every day. It is also clear to me that, what is going on, can neither be found in the produced space, which have for long been analyzed by architects and art historians, nor in what concepts a particular architect advocates. Rather it is found in the way space is used in an architectural design process as an active medium between constraint and potential – as a space before it becomes a space. It is clear to me that the space we usually think of as passive and empty is in fact very active and full, no matter how we use it – as a medium, as a structure, as a model or as a metaphor. Space always comes with a warrant that should not be taken lightly – it always influences what we do with it. Space always matters.
In the summer of 1943, the architect Rudolph Michael Schindler was asked by The Museum of Modern Art in New York to send in materials that could present his work in an upcoming exhibition.(1) In his reply Schindler wrote: “I consider myself the first and still one of the few architects who consciously abandoned stylistic sculptural architecture in order to develop space as a medium of art.”(2) This bold response frames in one sentence a life long investigation into space. It lead Schindler to the construction of an inclusive space, which at the same time was an abstract idea and a real physical presence, an architectural critique and a manifestation of modernity, a unit system(3) and a geometric abstraction.(4) Schindler defined an entirely new approach to architecture through his inclusive space, which went beyond formalistic and stylistic concerns, and he stated repeatedly that it held the most essential characteristics of modern architecture:
Modern architecture cannot be developed by changing slogans. It is not in the hands of the engineer, the efficiency expert, the machinist or the economist. It is developing in the minds of the artists who can grasp ‘space’ and ‘space forms’ as a new medium for human expression ... It is not merely the birth of a new style, or a new version of the old play with sculptural forms, but the subjection of a new medium to serve as a vehicle for human expression.(5)
To position Schindler’s idea of Space Architecture in a historical and conceptual context, we may turn to the historian Stephen Kern’s account of the change in concepts of time and space between 1880 and 1918. Kern describes an attitude towards space that was similar to that of Schindler. Kern writes: “The traditional view that space was an inert void in which objects existed gave way to a new view of it as active and full.”(6) This new understanding of space – that Kern calls a ‘positive negative space’ – offers a conceptual lens to divide Schindler’s idea of space into three parts: a) the passive space of the neutral void, which to Schindler had no place in modern architecture, b) the active space that the architect gives form to and is his new raw material, and c) the active space that in return acts upon the architect to define the design process and upon the user in general to define the perception of the final product.(7) In this way, space is used as a medium that is effected by the architect and in return effects the architect and the user. This duality is analogue to the description of the landscape as a medium by the art historian W.J.T. Mitchell, who states: “Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum, both a package and the commodity inside the package.”(8) If we translate this historical and conceptual context to that of space, it may establish a context for space as a medium and for a concept of embedding. An activity that works in two directions at the same time.
The initial question of this dissertation derives from such a context and such a concept: How can space be used as a medium in an architectural design process? How can we construct a space for space?
In the course of the dissertation, this issue will be investigated through several catalysts. Besides the catalyst of Schindler as mentioned above, three others should be introduced here:
a) In 1991, the architect Michael Benedikt offered a first description of what the writer William Gibson had earlier coined ‘cyberspace’. Benedikt laid out four threads for the construction of such a space: language/myths, media technology, architecture and mathematics. He writes: “... space itself is something not necessarily physical: rather ... it is a ‘field of play’ for all information, only one of whose manifestations is the gravitational and electromagnetic field of play that we live in, and that we call the real world.”(9) The possibility to work with multiple manifestations of space, specifies and expands Schindler’s use of space, and offers, through a critical use of current media, new possibilities for the architectural design process.
b) At the 1999 AnyMore conference in Paris, the architect Bernard Tschumi called for such a critical position towards the way media influenced architecture. He argued: “... architects should not be involved with the media of construction but with the construction of the media.”(10) This critical position spans a century – from regarding space as a medium, in the early years of modern architecture, to the changes in the media chosen for current architectural design processes and the status of the final product.
c) In his book Constructions, the philosopher John Rajchman sets out to construct a new bridge between architecture and philosophy, one which questions the traditional – and still reigning – view on architecture as the least ‘beaux’ of the beaux-arts, forever bound to what is possible in the real world. Rajchman asks: “What if the architectonic in Kant were not an overarching system but something that has itself to be constructed anew, in each case, in relation to fresh problems – something looser, more flexible, less complete, more irregular, a free plan in which things hang together without yet being held in place?”(11)
In this way, Schindler, Mitchell, Benedikt, Tschumi and Rajchman all question what an architectural construction may be. Could it at the same time be physical and abstract, material and spatial? This lets us return to the inherent question of this dissertation – how to construct a space for space?
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(1) According to MOMA, the exhibition never took place (correspondence by email with assistant archivist Michelle Harvey, MOMA Archives, October 3, 2001).
(2) Schindler, R.M. (1943), “Letter to Elisabeth Mock, Museum of Modern Art, August 10 1943” (unpublished), Architectural Drawings Collection/University of California, Santa Barbara (ADC/UCSB), n. p.
(3) Schindler, R.M. (1944), “Reference frames in space,” in RM Schindler, ed. Lionel March & Judith Sheine (1995), New York, NY: Academy Editions, (First published in Architect and Engineer vol. 165, April 1946), p. 57-61.
(4) Smith, Kathryn (2001), Schindler House, New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, p. 33.
(5) Schindler, R.M. (1934), “Space Architecture,” in Gebhard, David (1971), Schindler, San Francisco, CA: William Stout Publishers, p. 150. The words ‘medium’ and ‘vehicle’ indicate the processual character of Schindler’s use of space.
(6) Kern, Stephen (1983), The Culture of Time and Space, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 153.
(7) Schindler, R.M. (1912), “Article ‘1’” (unpublished manuscript), ADC/UCSB. This is a manuscript for the first part of which later became “A Manifesto” or “Modern Architecture: A Program” (1912).
(8) Mitchell, W.J.T. (1994), “Imperial Landscape,” in Landscape and Power, ed. W.J.T. Mitchell (1994), Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, p. 5.
(9) Benedikt, Michael (1991), “Introduction,” in Cyberspace First Steps, ed. Michael Benedikt (1991), Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, p. 20.
(10) Tschumi, Bernard (1999), “Discussion 4,” in AnyMore, ed. Cynthia Davidson (2000), Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, p. 185.
(11) Rajchman, John (1998), Constructions, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, p. 1.
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