[Nettime-bold] re:THINK architecture

[bc <human@electronetwork.org>]

re:THINK architecture

[...while waiting for former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani to weigh-in on the 
WTC decision, as he is one of the few people, (public official at that) 
who has intelligently addressed the issues surrounding the rebuilding 
effort....]

It has been a strange day, one with a great sense of loss and yet a 
groundedness in where things are at, in this space, place, and time. 
This, in regard to today's official WTC design study outcome, with 
Studio Daniel Libeskind being chosen by the Mayor of NYC and the 
Governor of New York, over that of the choice of the LMDC panel they 
appointed, who backed the THINK plan. It should be noted that I thought 
the THINK plan a more open, democratic, intriguing, and 21st century 
architecture. As architecture, it wins, hands-down. Though, on an 
emotional level, Studio Libeskind's design obviously resonates with 
many. Yet, if considering what the WTC event brought into question, it 
should be obvious that this is still an open-question, and will remain 
so, until things change. And what these things are, these are 
questions. Some are architectural...

THINKs architecture attempted to ask questions that may be unanswerable 
in the allotted time-frame. What is a World Cultural Center? Et cetera. 
Only today could I begin to grok what it might be- but it was after a 
deeper interrogation of the architecture, trying to understand what I 
saw and felt in the design, which was familiar yet enigmatic, dissonant 
yet consonant. Maybe it is the word 'world', and not 'global', that's 
my latest guess. Meaning, world culture has transformed into a type of 
global culture, and culture is, in itself, many many things, many 
programs, activities, and ideas. How to make that idea bounded and 
concrete is similar to modeling particle physics before all of the 
equations have come in. Yes, I thought today, feeling deflated for 
unknown reasons: there is global culture, it is in film, in music, in 
architecture, in writing, in art, in economics, in trade, in food, in 
language, in many events, in many ways. To see, then, THINKs 
scaffolding (not skeletal) towers with, say, a screen facade with a 
movie playing in it, having the reverse image illuminate the area, or 
some of these programs occupying this strange inverted space- it began 
making sense to me.

Whatever the case, Studio Libeskind has 'won' the 'competition', or 
rather, has succeeded in prevailing in the architectural design study 
of the WTC. Though, I would wager that architecturally, THINKs entry 
will be considered a winner also, for different reasons, and with 
different intents. This e-mail will attempt to convey why this is so, 
as something odd has happened. Nothing larger than 9/11 could come into 
an architect's focus, to cause one to requestion their basic 
assumptions about architecture and the world. From students to 
educators to professionals to organizations to lay people. And, there 
may be positives in the attention given to architecture, its loss, its 
aesthetic importance, its value both sacred and profane, its moment of 
glory, but also its absolute silence. At a time when there could be a 
major change in the field, in the profession, and in the discipline- in 
the mind's of people- about the basic architectural question- what has 
resulted is a type of complacency or some type of resolve that this is 
as good as it gets, as far as it goes, all that can be done. There is 
little talk of evolution, revolution, or change. Things are mostly the 
same, within architecture. Though, perceptions of architecture have 
changed, have the perceptions of today's and tomorrow's architects? Not 
yet.

In competition architectures of the past there have been glaringly 
obvious examples of where time shifts are occurring between the past 
and a different future- beaux art designs for early airports are one 
example, where an Italian or French classical garden and villa would 
become the template for the first aircraft hangers, air-'ports' and 
landing and take-off strips. A type, like most other architectures, was 
approximated over decades of refinement and experiment and continues to 
be refined today, based on those ideas. The question for the first 
airports must have been centered around dealing with the airplanes 
place in the environment and culture. But what is this now more 
traditional question compared with that of 9/11? Is it even the same 
type of questioning?

The destruction of the World Trade Center towers and complex, now known 
as 'ground zero' on the date of 9/11/2001 could be considered a type of 
discourse in which anti-architectural forces 'unbuilt' an idea, through 
force, fury, destruction, and catastrophic power. The event in which 
thousands of lives were lost, and tens of thousands more directly 
affected, was carried out by an architect named Atta, and a builder 
named bin Laden. For people in the realm of architecture, this could 
become a deeply personal attack, as the meaning of the events are ever 
more personalized through the subversion of architecture into an act of 
destruction and warfare and terrorism. Architecture is not benign, and 
architectural ethics, not assured. Yet, post 9/11, very little 
questioning in the field itself has occurred, outside of a popularly 
proscribed resolution of all the issues, all the questions, and to move 
on, as things were, vacation...

The architect, and architecture, has failed in its duty to take this 
moment and challenge the current methods prevailing in the discipline 
and industry, to open up questioning and to ask how things can be done 
better- not by refining and defending a mythical traditionalism but 
through engaging the present and what is left out of current theories, 
practices, agendas, actions, and abilities of people, in the realm of 
architecture, through architecture, and by architecture, to question 
and rearrange and re-engage and re-think the processes and programs and 
educational system upon which this event of 9/11 has met the 
institution. Education is about questioning, and learning from things 
that work and do not work, acknowledging different vantages that are 
valid, and trying to work thru the complexity to a greater 
understanding of events. The voices of educators, of students, of 
organizations, institutes, and architects though have been, in a sense, 
quite traditional about this spectacular architectural question. It is 
not another event, it is an epoch defining moment- and the 
architectural community has, thus far, been strangely silent and 
regressive in its ability to address even the most basic of today's 
issues. A well known educator has even stated that 9/11 is too much for 
architectural students to deal with. This is the past. Architecture is 
greater than architects. And education, greater than administrators, 
teachers, and programs which may help in limiting possibilities.

What is needed, now, and continuing, is to question and to experiment 
with the ideas of events such as those of 9/11 in lower Manhattan. To 
do this will require a change in the mind's of architects, and a change 
in institutions, as significant as that which was brought about by the 
Bauhaus and its educators.

Today, educational factories produce design form-makers and mediate 
experience in primarily aesthetic, and highly-subjective, judgments. 
Often, ideas can be translated in this language, and yet, like with 
language, a lot can be written which is unoriginal, uninspiring, or not 
fitting for its praise and grandeur. In contrast, so too, sometimes an 
idea of building can be written so clearly that it becomes invisible to 
the present tense, it works its way in the channels of memory and 
dreams, and needs time to be appreciated and understood. It is complex 
and yet self-evident, it is odd and yet has gravitas. As architecture.
As an idea communicated architecturally. In this way, the THINK 
proposal for 'ground-zero' (or, not 'ground zero' but whatever may 
indicate the following commonalty) questioned an event that is both 
unique and yet will likely be shared by more and more people, in more 
and more ways, and how to deal with this in terms of a people, and an 
architecture, with different ideas, working together, in an abstract 
realm where certainty is never-present yet certitude that something 
needs to be done is. Every architectural student should graduate being 
capable of addressing issues such as 9/11 through architectural skill 
and imagination. None should graduate, nor should any teach, who allow 
the discipline to turn its back on this most basic, complex, and vital 
of questions.

The proposal by Studio Libeskind answered the question of 9/11. The 
proposal by THINK questions 9/11 by questioning architecture, and goes 
beyond form-making, beyond simplistic understandings, and sheds 
false-complexities for actualities. All the while, dreaming, 
remembering, trying something new-- that is, changing. Challenging. 
Going beyond, to question, to requestion, and rethink the question.

This rethinking of architecture is what caught me. Enough so that the 
troubles of the architectural 'competition' could be put aside, and 
this questioning could be considered, and though vague, even after the 
decision is made I believe the future of the architectural discipline 
will be found in THINKs shared work, not as a specific object, but as a 
way to question architecture, events, and ideas - through a process and 
programming -- and importantly, an educational dimension, with 
cooperative efforts, for a common end (or, new beginning).

Okay, who's going to believe this? I wouldn't. Until the architectural 
ideas started to begin. Then, at least it could be a conversation, 
maybe this is all or partly wrong or misguided, trying to find meaning 
where none exists (counter to conjuring arbitrary meaning through 
false-finitudes). Yet, the architecture began to fascinate. I was never 
a fan of towers, but concessions aside, there is something very 
interesting going on in THINKs project, as I see it. So in an attempt 
to describe this, I drew an four-part image, temporarily located at:

rethinking architecture (215k)
http://www.electronetwork.org/temp5/rethinkarch.jpg

For awhile now I've been considering the THINK building in typological 
terms, not as a 'ground zero' replacement architecture, as much as an 
idea that has resulted from questioning, which may or may not relate to 
such future events, but which relates to present day city and urban 
issues in a unique and inventive way similar to a building system, a 
hybrid type (yes, maybe not a reinvention of the skyscraper, but a 
morphing of types or functions or something, what- I am still not 
sure...)... It has been a bit maddening as there is an 'atmospheric' 
sense that the THINK buildings have, that, if such a structural 
scaffolding were to replace an ordinary building on an ordinary city 
block, of ordinary or greater or lesser height, that the building would 
both 'be' there and 'not be' there, in that aspects of light, wind, 
air, sensation, all would be changed, so too would the inter- and 
intra-building densities, the relationship between how buildings relate 
to one another. Such that, a new building may cast shadows on an older 
neighbor, upon its construction. Whereas, the THINK building would not, 
in the same sense. It would create more light.

The THINK design has been compared to many things. Maybe there are 
specific architectures which this is reminiscent of. Yet, as a building 
system, a type of structural scaffolding with infrastructures of 
transportation, communication, and energy built in, and its programmed 
forms suspended or attached to this superstructure, floating or hanging 
or hovering - whatever these may be - they seem to me to question the 
relation- more specifically- the separation of the structure from the 
form of a building. I don't even know what this means, as in a way it 
is beyond my understanding. It may be something very common, and yet 
for me it goes beyond modernism and blob-architectures, as it is a 
building-system which is open, experimental, and can be used 
typologically to address many questions which are presently ripe for 
investigation. No, this is not another Pompidou Center or Eiffel Tower 
or Hayden Planetarium on gigantic stilts. Though it has similarities, 
it may be an architectural idea without a finite, or final form. As if 
it is lifed, through a challenge, and the THINK project has emerged out 
of these forces, and for the right reasons, and with the right 
questions, and now it is up for others to take it further, to go beyond 
where things reside, and to begin to reTHINK architecture through 
education.

The first drawing (1) is an Axon-Plan which attempts yet fails to 
demonstrate in a diagrammatic drawing an atmospheric effect of an 
open-building structure inside a dense city grid. And how public and 
private space and place could be transformed by this built experience.

Drawing two (2) is a Section-Elevation which places a THINK-like 
building system between two existing buildings. It could be one way 
that such a system could be integrated with surrounding buildings, 
horizontally and vertically, with different building programs, say a 
bank headquarters and a cultural building, at the same time as offering 
public and private areas between various networks.

The third (3) drawing is a City-Elevation of this new building 
typology, which is reminiscent of an oil refinery with its shapes and 
scaffolds. It is meant to demonstrate how the THINKbuilding system 
could transform a limited 4-dimensional understanding of architecture, 
perceived mostly in 2 dimensions, into a greater experiential and 
conceptual understanding of vertical and horizontal space, time, and 
place making. The THINK question that stays with me is as significant 
as that of relativity, in that gravity may make the ground plane 
primary, but its access and architectures relationship to it need not 
be so tied to it-- which conceptually is the closest thing I've come to 
considering the equivalent of the ISS (International Space Station) on 
Earth-- that is, a modular structure which is tied to a framework and 
yet has the ability to be modified, by design.
This is to say, solar panels could pop up on a scaffolding structure. 
Like in vertical construction, special elevators for this building 
system, and stairways, could be designed, experimented with, 
standardized, and replicated for use in similar building systems. The 
role of elevators, bridges, walkways, connectivity, revitalization, 
development, and other issues are requestioned through architectural 
form, but it is in-formation, and information is needed to better 
understand that the THINK proposal has brought with it something 
unusual, that may be evident years later, and inspirational in the same 
sense, if not practical in ways unforeseen.

The fourth (4) drawing is a closeup of what such a THINKbuilding may 
look like, in modified designs, mutations, by others. As a basic 
building system of structural scaffoldings holding forms, it may only 
need two sides and a third support for buildings/forms which span a 
traditional rectilinear footprint. External corners could be used for 
utilities and infrastructure, and forms within the scaffolding could be 
modular yet interdependent, designed at various phases, for different 
programs, self-contained and yet interconnected. Access, and security, 
may come from such buildings being 'near' other buildings, for both 
vertical and horizontal access (egress) and thus, issues such as 
'height' may not be detrimental to issues of safety should open, 
horizontal access become available. This inter-building and 
intra-building connectivity, at the level of programming of a building, 
its development, its feasibility, is interesting in that the building 
literally exists beyond itself as a piece of real-estate. Not as a 
specific work, but as a way to raise the value of the built environment 
around itself, through light, transformation of experiences, and 
connectivities that have previously been inaccessible to humans in 
their built environments.

In all, in my mind THINK has won the 'design study' by actually 
questioning, to a significant degree, architecture as it presently 
exists, and its most basic assumptions of space, place, and time. 
Whereas Studio Libeskind has done quite the opposite, and to 
significant effect. Maybe they are both 'right' in their own ways. And 
yet, for architecture, it is in its rethinking, and the rethinking of 
the education of architects, to address past, present, and future 
'ground zeros', be they razed communities or districts after dirty-bomb 
attacks- that our architects and our culture needs to be able to 
address, in all of its real everyday complexities, without turning its 
back. It is hoped that whatever comes of the WTC architectural events, 
the primary result is a questioning of the discipline of architecture, 
and its current system of education which has failed to embrace and 
engage and challenge the traditional mindset. If those architects who 
had their chance to change the questioning were now to open it further 
up to the profession, the organizations, institutions, and educators - 
to the core of the discipline, and for this realm to bring itself into 
greater question-- through democratic actions no less-- and to search 
for new and different ways of approaching recurring questions, to allow 
fuzziness and approximations, if they may lead to break-throughs, and 
to nurture the architectural imagination, again, to open it up to ideas 
beyond yesterday's conceptual limitations, individual limitations, and 
to bring it into the present-- then this opportunity will not have been 
wasted. By rethinking architecture, culture can be reimagined, and 
rebuilt. And peace can triumph over destruction, and the battle against 
entropy, of whatever cause, can be embraced by architects of this very 
present momentum.

bc

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