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    649 views9 pages

    Architectureproduction Colomina Introduction Small

    Uploaded by

    tereAC85
    beatriz colomina.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 9
    Beatie Colomina ‘MTRODUCTION ON ARCHITECTURE, PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION Arladne’s house Greek legend insists that Daedalus was the fis architect, but his is handy the as? although he bull the Cretan labyrinth, he never un- derstood its structure. He could only escape, fact, by Aving out of its vortex Insead if may be argued thal Arad achieved the fist (work of architecture, since i was she who gave Theseus the ball ef thread by means of which he fount his way autof the labyrinth after having killed the Minotaur “huts while Ariadne didnot build the labyrinth, she was theone who interpreted and this architecture in the modern sense ofthe term. She achieved this feat through represenaton, that Is 10 sy, With te help ofa concepeua device, the bal of tread. Wecart ook IMthis gifts the first’ transmission ofapchitectare by means other ‘han itsellas architecture’s first re-praicton. Te thread of Ariane isnot merely a representation (among the infinite ones possible) of the labyrinth Iisa prota vertable production, a device that has the res of throwingat ret into ers, “The forgoing story implies ths architecture, as sinc fom building. san interpretive, critical act. thas linguistic condition diferent from the practical one of ualding, A buildings interpret ‘when its rhetorical mechanism and principles are revealed. This _nalysismay be performed ina numberof diferent way according to the forms of diferent types of discourse; among these are theory, extcism, history, and manifesto. AN act of interpretation i ais preset inthe ciferent maces of representational discourse: rae Ing, veiing, model making, and son. Inlerpretationsalso integral tothe act of prcjeetng. Feproduction ar the Bist ime in word history, mechanical reproduction ‘enaneipates the work of a from i parasitica dependencon, ‘lua To an evergreter degre the work of a reproduced be 7 comes the work of art designed for mepreduibilily, From a Photographic nogative for ample, ane can make any nu Derof prnts:toask forthe aithentic print makes no sense. Bl the instant the cnterion of authentckycevses to be applicable to artiste production, the total function of ar i ever. In- stead ofbeing based on stu begins to be based om another practiee—polte, "The word reproduction inthe tle ofthis publication is undoubie Iyambiguods, and iti not by chance that xy ts role he socal division of boris being discussed. The Pact Oxon! Dictionary of fers the followings ‘eprtuce vt 1 aibe). Prue copy a representation of ‘use fo be seen heard, et, again: paduce offspring of on Self Ise produce further members ofthe same species by patra means; ~duction reproducing of copy of pant ett. of Furniture ete) made in untaton of earlier sil This definition immediately manifests tension between organic and manual (or mechanical reproduction, between Natureand Cue ture, been the bolegcal and the historical reproiacton of soci ety. An obvious examplecf sucha division between Natureand Cub tue sagicalture. The pessant the produce) plans the see, and thetaskoratue ists reproduction. ‘A closer reading eveasthat ths definition coresponds toa stil precepts, preindustral view of the world. I ores technica) Feproxiucton, ot so much in not refering 0 it explicitly Iphoto- ‘graphic repredtuction, fr instance, isnot mentioned), but in depict Inga condition in which production and reproduction originalan ‘copy, stand apart. “Produce a copy or representation of” "ce to ‘beseen heard again” suggest the previous existenceofa legitimate, ‘origina, authentic aet aginst which any "eprodicton” fat esta replla at worst forgery. Today, ina stage af atecapitalism, prose tion and reproduction stad ax two terme within a contin yee [rls overtopping ‘The craftsman, the storyteller is dhe subject mpi i this {onary definition of reproduction ‘The cafsman universe i that ‘ofthe kdentication ofthe abject withthe worl. The abject cartes the races itsmaker: theclay vessel betrays the fingerprints othe pote, just as the story reveals the traces of the naratny. This cone Tinuity between man and objet belongs ta cosical notion of the artifact With industry, mass production and reproduction this ea te mn Te Wat he gta ec’ 2 The Poe Ox Ota, the 8 tiaship is reversed. The product (the “orgina”) and its reproduc ti he “copy are confused with eachother The ationsbtween maker and object, object and user (or viewer, are now Gwe of prosace produc and consumer oraudience), determined by their ‘espectiveposiio inthe continuous process of production. The im portance ofthe process increases atthe expense ofthe individual product and its “authority as thing” once the repsitry of al om Imuniative value), an ofthe author as tanscendent self and bearet ‘meaning ‘The rss ofthe classical art object that occurs with its insertion into the cycle of everyday fe, with tems reproduction, wasat the cater ofthe investigations af the historical avant gardes, and it is not by chance tat in this publieation four articles atv devote 0 ex periences tht fall within this trajectory (Meyer and Hence, Mics van der Rohe, Menikoy, and Le Corbusie). These cote ‘ions tend Tess tobe "hstorca” inthe acilemic sense ofthe term, even i they are grounded in historical and philological research, than to be reconsierations of the methods of architectural history More precisely they attempt to reise theunderstandingof “moder” nism” that has come down to us by way ofthe masters of modern ft citelsm and the operative eres of architecture I shall come back to this subject. “The enormous changes which printing. the mechanical repr ution of writing, has Proaght about in iterate area familiar story” writes Walter Benjamin.” Wecanhandly makea parallel lio ‘oacemngtheinttaduction of reproduction nto the processes ofa ‘htectare and the esis resin from it While many pages have ‘boon devoted to the impact ofthe new proviction materials ant techniques upon architecture, anda few stodies have ho dane on the history of specific architectural magazines, these accounts tend to overlook the transformations in the relationship between fro luce, product and adience which area the base the new Co ‘ition, Until the advent of photography, and earlier of lithography he adic of architecture was the use. With photography, thei lustrated magazine ac fourism, architecture's reception began to ‘xc also throughan additional social form: consumption. With the enormous amplification oF the atcence, the relation to the object changed radically. The aience (the tose n front of bulldin, the reader of a journal, the viewer of sn exhibition ora newspaper andvertsement. and even the cent who often iso all ofthe abs) 4, oer Bsn “Th Win he Ag Mesh Repeuen” i ee ‘nereasingly came the ser the one who) ln tur the work eal change Reinterproting modernism ‘Thereaityofproduction an ecology in which we findour sees has not et chin the goat probing eae “technical wproduciiy of heworkotas lo eee bet an the “al ofthe ara” What ewes ness ofthe inks bween instrament oman {olecive havin tht has come into beng tk oe Ska rapid renal and extenionar nese eae The concept of production and opructon toe ge in this sue ae ntl indebted o those pl forwards Wee de wvemeaning tothe work Benjamins analyses for areal sy of Meh Pe Staton we are indbled fo Mant tin By “architect as aniston” tar understand hat ar munication or the new briny opened oy Hee ease ableto architecture dearly ends toon evasvemtnen, Weies Benjamin sanaiyse one semantc operative melee Saviors conaguenss of modern ogy homer te Ine css in the history of ensempormy eee ta suspect tht it no by chan) The misundraarge ee havedoninatedachitecurl satu un oiseren ee in great prt fom the interuption of Beara eae rica analyse must sexs, beyond yp oe fashionable meaning ofthe term or the concept.” Thus ay e193 and in he very ldo echitectur his, swe enn thecal ora eosin ofcaicd nee ey ‘howe specially fora reinterpretation of molec ea evolved inthe years folowing WS the acount ah nce vote te Theor Adamo, Clement Grenier an! hc flonre at ‘eta Th Thon ryote Yr: Harpe and Ron Mast Tr, “Not oh acon nF hora sy (Nando nts Maral etn Anke p28, 10 is, we ind problematic parallel to that athe center of the more recent discourse which has developed in art apd ierary cians typified by contributions sich a Vicir Burgin’ Manders the Work of Art" Mary Kellys "Reviewing Modernist Clicsan Thre ras Crow's "Modernism and Mass Celture in the Vial Arter Frolic Jameson's "Recaion andl Utopia in Mass Culture” ad Andreas Huyssen's "Mapping the Postmodern," to name ony afoot ‘ofthese who, despitealltheirciferences,avehelped innocent youre ‘odismantle the stuctureof the discursive edifice of “munteno By “modernism,” it may be worth emphasizing rao than the actual art practices originating around the mid-nipetecth century, these authors understand the (e\onstrtion inthe eal le, outse prod in America inthe yeas follwing 1945 The cif icon of modernism took place in the years preceding at during the Cold War. As Andveas Huyssen has noted, Aesthetic categorios such as those of Greenbeng and Adorno ‘cannot be totally divorced from the prestures of at cane ‘Sa specific mage of modernism that has become the Done of czatention for the postmodems, and that image has to Be reconstructed If we want to understand postiodcrnsnts problematic relationship to tho modernist hadicon and ts aims diference also should be nosed that critical terms such as maori, tnoernity the mntgank, and postnderis are used ferent sliferent cultural milleus, nd also on opposite sides of he Allan, ‘Move as Alice fandine has writen, “traitionally refers Engl tothe chsically defined ‘modem period’; while in French, |x modem refers 0 radical conceptual process which while limited tn particular chronology most often certo certs kinds of teats wren snc the te nieoenth century since tse in Frenceas smnonymous with the American ‘postmen Moreover, while pestmosdenism in architecture i generally under= Sood in aesthetic and stylistic terme, as the css of confence in ‘modernist aesthetic, in cultural thory the project of poster. ‘ism as Victor Burgin writes, “has involved dismantling the piles Sophical apparatus which supports the terms in which ori cot calved insocety™ Anda sen,“ he ntredern” Nn Gr Cot al Ruwinad no tr Gt De: Mato, a alr, Para a Ingo nner nay rs, 6 Aan, “At he Trl eins al Moder 8 p18, $n Fie oft Phocians gland " Modkemistrtcism—ana tothe namesof Adorno and Greenberg formusc and the visulans we should perhapsadd Colin Rayna ober shizty for architecture om thi ate of the Antico focused onthe internal feo the autonomous sel reterential cpt ‘What recent critical disourse has in common rom Tatu to Hays, from Kelly to Bargin, rom Hluyssen to Birger, and despite ts die. ferences, sits attention toart and archtetore as insite, other than asa series of ndvidual protagonist or monuments As Burin Ios water lone Sees The question ofthe “politic” eet of art isa complex one, "ot confine tocrude cases ofsimpleinstumentality these, ice ofa preformed “message,” Consideration must be veh ‘0¢ only fo the internal attbutes of «work but ase fo ie production and cisemiation in and across the nations titin which meanings pradace, To the meen discourse en mocernism belongs Peter Birger’ polemical Try of the Aout are book frequently sled hs publatien Bier has taken as histaskthcocepal distin ‘ion between modernism and the histrical European averse, He angues tat unlike modemisn the goal ofthe avant gansta he limits hinwelf hereto Dads ely Sumelism, and hepsi onary Russian avant gard) was primarily an attack onthe Bowe seus “nsution art” and its ideology of autonomy rather than merely a change in artistic or literary modes of repcentaton By ‘insu ar Binger means toretertothe ways nowhattene ‘in society is perceived ae defined; to use his own words “to te prouctiveand distributive spparats and als to theidens stort that preyal ata given time and tha determine the recep of works" The avantgarde, Bingor concludes, was an allack om the fy orn 1B. teh Gahan SND, eh Tenor kin sso cetacean ine ag sorter nemesis Soop Candace etme ei le agate Goer cated acted {2 Peer Bin Thy of dh At Cake tem Univer of Mil 2 highness of high art and on the separateness of at fom everyday ‘ie that had evolved in nineteonthcentury aesthetics "uger’s account ofthe avant-garde is historically and theorti- cally ioreprecie than RenatoPoggpl’sealerbookofalmontiden- teal tle, The Tory of the Att Garde (968), where he sats he vant gate with medemism overa historical span going afar back {=the late eighteenth century and paralleling the development of ourgeois capitis society. Poggiol's theory is at esta theory of rmadernty and as sich insifcent to characterize the historical avant-gardes, as Schult Saste notes in his introduction to Burger's ook But there areaso certain limits to Bairger's critica engin. The conventional understanding of modems carries connotations of fn autonomous, inward, sel-seferetial, and selenite artiic practice and Birger remains somewhat locked inthis Adomian on {Expl The same conception alsa assumes the relationship between ‘mevirnist art and mas cultste to be one of continuous refs. A Few studies have recently shoven on the ther hand, the continuous savelvement between mecerist at and the materials ow culture ‘Mast notable among theses Crow's "Modernism and Macs Culture ‘the Visual Arts” where bo series, “Modemnsmn repeatedly makes subversive equations between high and love which dislocate the ap [pel fe terms ofthat hierarchy into new and persuasive om Figurtions, thuscallingitinto ustion from within” "Some of he studies hem published™Michael Hays on Hannes Meyer and Hil Ieseimer Jean-Louis Cohen on Miz, and my own on Le Cor- husierelaborate on this theme of thereat fwoen modernism sind mass cular, Ineo dichotomias such as mesleenism/avant- gar, high t/ sas culture, art/life become highly problematic when we tarn our attention to the specific conditions of architecture's production, ‘What does an “avant gardist” poition mea in the domain of at Chitecture? This sa problem cry distinct from that posed by the sal at The most radical architec ofthiscentry: Adolf Loos, devote hs lifeto demonstrating that between art and life there wos no possible bridge. Life wae necessarily "the Other” les Aner) of ant. But for Loos architecture, ke everything else which serves a purpose did notbeong to therealmofarttheenly exceptions werethe lomb and 1 pcten Se sone,Fancad:Trry of Maria vce Try a the 9 Giusy Tora, Cam del Fes, Como. Page leo fam Quadrant 35-38 1936) a dls of the enya se 1“ themonument thatstosay,those programs from which ifs neces: Lin excladed. Can Loos therefare be said to bean avont gard sun etre? ‘When Loos undertook to publish Dis Andere “Journal forthe nsroduston of Western Cultoe into Austria,” of which only feo fies appeared, i 19023, he didnot se ite pages to epresent (his fn oF other) architecture He delights us intend wilh stories {iow from his personal experience and in particular from fis my thal tip to America "My une sa watchmaherin Philadelphin, brethe opening words ofa oumal where Loos tlle al aout alt Syoonsand table manners, mews and women’s ashion, cle paper, tenure, cooking pholtery and abovesl anderlyingall ths) the [American Way of if. No photographs are publishes in his journal, i silusteated with advertisements fo the work of iene craft rnsn ith the excoption ofthe front ofa butchershop withthe corpse Gta oven the foreground for which no cue feed in the tex. ‘The profession of architecture, in Low's view, had tlt do with the “natitution ar” withthe high art world of museums, exh tions, and publiations. Loos was reacting against precisely such tearsormation of archtecuse into artistry in the Viena of his ie (Gloffmann and the architects ofthe Werkbund being his main fo get) For Loos architechize was produced to mest ned and exist Ina different context from art (namely theconstucton st). Further, architecture Was cultorally disseminated through publications, Fiheaomenoa, as Los was early to realize, that in tm affected the Sesign of architecture Hisritue was directed to that confusion of ahutecture with its image that was infecting architect infatuated wth the magazines, ‘The artstc evant gardesof th it decades ofthis century onthe other hand, saw in publishing, exhibitions, and public events an bother contest of prosiaction, Their work in thse media often pre tse thearistc preuct sell The Futurist manifesto published on the frontpage of as wide-eachng a newspaper as Le Far, before there was anything that had materialized as Futurist ars only one ‘of the most obvious examples. As Caroline ldall and Angelo Bor 2zolla have wten, “The beth of Futurism was intel a stroke of aadvertsing gents’ Le Corbusier, conventionally read as the epitome of “moder: nism” was perhaps the first architect fll to gras the nature of the media, He understood the press, the printed media, not ony 98 8 "medium forthe cultural diffusion of something previously existing, but ike some ofhis contemporaries inthe vison ats, a new context 6 production exiting in parallel with the constriction site LeCom busier the arcitet of his own Ceo compte the spectacle othe succession of his works, carflly conste! on eich page and fakenasa hole more significant hanany singlerepraduction could ever be as won Moos point out." Asin Lacan's famous analyses of the “mitror stage" of psychological development, the printed mecka provide fr Le Corbusier botha turning point anda moment cfcon stitution of his architectural “sl” Lacan’ text, “The Minor Stage as Formative ofthe Function of hel as Revealed in Peychoanalytical Experience isabout the for. ‘mation ofan of an identity as we experince tin psychoenalysie fn experience, Lacan goes om to sa that leads ts fo oppose any philosophy dtety issuing from theca. The clasical conception ‘ofthe minnr (ane of phtography for that matter) is that reflects se at pada asec more sath Hansson inition a translation ofan alteady constituted original sl But [Lacan posits thatthe mieror construe te sl, thatthe all a8 Or pnized entity isactuallyan imation ofthe cohesiveness a the mie For image In Jane Gallop’ words ‘nthe mirtr stage, the infant who has not yet mastered the "upright posture and who is supported by ether another poe ‘0m or some prosthatic device wil spo seeing hersel i the nino, bilantly assume” the upright postion She thus finds inthe mms image ard hte amaryl ‘wolly learn only ater... The mirror stage isa tr ‘fs i the subs ston to Mel always media thug aig image hata come othe ate wally, anybody actively involved with publishing is familiar with this experience The pune media are the mire her the Bits and pieces of one’s writings and work often uittealizes) vet iraclously to their author ina “complete” mage The exhiarat dng effect on one of thepressisnotatalluntike the pblaion of sie ‘month old bby in ont ofa mirror. The question how fo proceed from this vison this “mirage” through the snvtythat necessarily follows to the acceptance of castration, Inther word, ater than [remain naissstialy enamored of howe does ne establish with hemi imaxe a productive rather thin a reflective relationship? [B.Sansanom Mam Le Crs Ens Sts Cane Mas: ET Jaques Lanne Skin Lada 177g 1 oe Cale, agar tac: Cal Univer Psa 185 7p 7 6 tis eiiam? ‘ete tate hve eed itr he aban Sirdcal eo eometnesanindidalart se oon thecotrctom fener clr xtegores am ype Sort Iwrproton nt spy a ate fw cn be Stowe at henna oa compotion eenidernton Sf ene methods ued fone fakes acount of the

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